Slipping filters while shopping, or continuing adventures in (un)awareness

All of my posts here are carefully edited to present my best self—or at least as good as it gets.  On the following occasion, I heard the jewels of my starry crown come crashing to the concrete floor of Costco.

I was rushing through the biggest box store on my own, with just a few items bouncing around in one of their monster carts. I maneuvered to a short check-out lane, pacing a woman pushing her overflowing cart to the same spot.  A photo replay could have told which of us had been first, but I was not feeling gracious. I had wedged this last errand into a too-short window before a long-delayed lunchtime. That was an unusual and bad choice for me as I eat like a toddler: a little bit at a time, but all of the time. I aligned my cart a little closer to the conveyor belt to indicate I had reached some invisible marker first. She gave me a sour shake of her head, so I gently nudged the end of her cart with mine to assert my right to precedence.  She bumped my cart back and we began snipping at each other. Her husband walked up with a few items to add to her cart—another point against her, by all the holy rules of grocery engagement—and I turned to glare at him. I thought uncharitably that he looked very much like Mr. Toad of Toad Hall and that he and his fishwife made a fine pair. He looked from her to me with a dog-like tilt of his head and raised both hands to pat the air before saying, “Ladies, ladies…”  We both glared at him in turn but he smiled gently at us both. She looked down and a warm wave of shame enveloped me.  After an uncomfortable moment I said, “I am sorry, this is not who I am, this took way longer than I expected and I am just so hungry. She said, “You know, I get that way, too, that’s why I carry almonds with me. Would you like some?”  I said yes and she drew a plastic baggie of nuts from her purse. I cupped my hands to receive them, but she reached over her cart to push six almonds into my mouth, one-by-one with a pause in between while I chewed and swallowed.

Soon after, another lane opened and we had an “After you, Alphonse” exchange before one of us took it.  My blood sugar up and my shame firmly pushed down,  I watched my adversary-turned-ally finish up first and walk away with her--as it happened--quite lovely husband.

Elemental Travail: Adventures in Chemistry Class

A friend asked if I could find an article she’d written long ago for our high school newspaper. That led to an evening of nostalgia spent leafing through creased and crumbling issues of “The Talon” and poking around online to track news from the past. It saddened me to find that one of Santa Rita’s superstars, chemistry teacher Mr. W. A. O’Donald, passed away almost a year ago. He was in all ways an excellent teacher and is a significant figure in my academic folklore.

Mr. O’Donald was tall and, in the early ‘70s, balding and filling out a little. He wore a white button-down shirt and a tie every day. Every day he reminded us to read the bulletin board by the door. On the last day of the second semester final he walked over to it and pulled from under a thumbtack the scoring key for the final we were about to take. It had been up there for a month. He would toss small sueded rubber erasers at the daydreamers. He never missed; each time they landed gently on the top of our heads. I would add mine to the line of them waiting on the edge of the demo table and return to my desk in the second row where I sat by alphabetical assignment.

One day I was thoroughly absent while sitting in class and sensed that I’d been asked a direct question.  Mr. O’Donald repeated, “What is delta T?”  Marc (yes, the same Marc often featured in this blog) saw my blank look and whispered across the aisle, “Change in temperature”. I looked equally vapidly at him. Marc leaned a little more over his desktop and whispered again, louder, “Change in temperature.” Confused and irritated, I turned to look at Marc full face, “WHAT?” Marc laid his forehead on his desk as Mr. O’Donald thanked him ever so insincerely for his help.

I am a wool-gatherer still, but Mr. O’Donald did cure me of one miserable study habit. After announcements one morning early in the year, he handed a beaker of clear, colorless liquid to the student in front of me and directed her to assess it without comment and pass it on. She held the beaker chest high, waved her hand over it and then turned to give it to me. I was always a little stuffy so I raised it close to my nose and took a hearty sniff.  I coughed, gasped, choked and teared up, barely managing to set down the ammonia-filled beaker. Mr. O’Donald asked the class, “Anyone else fail to do the homework on the preliminary identification of unknown substances?”

I read assignments after that and tried hard to focus on lectures, but lab-times remained trials to me, Mr. O’Donald and Marc, who for some inexplicable reason had volunteered to be my lab partner. I didn’t blow anything up, but nothing glass made it through the hour. Mr. O’Donald kept a slip with my name on it ready so I could go pay at the bookstore for the latest broken beaker or retort. I never wondered until today why my particular fines had to be settled that very period. Test tubes I got for free, although the time spent sweeping them up from the floor meant I was usually in detention for chronic tardiness to my next class.

The only time Mr. O’Donald edged toward overt frustration was the day I broke the piston burette mounted to the wall of our station. I had run a sponge over the countertop but there wasn’t quite enough room under the burette’s lower spout for both the sponge and the back of my hand. The whole apparatus exploded off the wall. Splinters of glass flew everywhere, fortunately without injuring me or my long-suffering lab partner.  My parents were used to the supplies and equipment fines but their reaction to one for $125.00 was fierce.  By common consent thereafter I was restricted to observing and writing up lab results.

Similar challenges awaited my U of A chemistry professor three years later, but sadly, he fell far short. This anonymous individual did not have Mr. O’Donald’s rapport, sardonic humor or endurance and so I do not have a bachelor’s of science degree.

A Truly Kinder and Gentler World (Cas)

 My six year old son wants a paper route. The kind my husband and I had when we were kids; getting up early every morning, picking up a delivery of local daily newspapers and rolling them all up individually with rubber bands, hopping on our bikes with our delivery tote bag and tossing newspapers up onto subscribers front porches.  There is no need to explain to you just how many of those details are total fantasy now a days. There are not a lot of real papers left to speak of, children go virtually nowhere unsupervised anymore and I am pretty sure OSHA would crack down on kids handling their bikes one-handed while they flung the papers with their other hand or some other thoroughly ridiculous detail of the operation. The world sure was safer and happier when we were kids, right?
        Not to be deterred by any of these insignificant details, my son set about writing his own paper and rolling it up into rings cut from repurposed toilet paper rolls and compiling them into a grocery tote bag so I could walk with him while he rides around the neighborhood delivering to people we know. Sure, why not? It will be a good writing exercise if nothing else. He can “pretend” to get some “real world” skills, I can support that experience. He decides on an afternoon delivery time of which I fully approve and he dives into his work. Paper (from the already used on one side box) and markers in hand he draws boxes around different stories, some have drawings or illustrations meant to represent photos of the news, some have wiggly lines that might represent the content other than the headlines, but most entries are just the headlines. He occasionally asks me to properly spell words for him, but for the most part is working hard and very independently for a long time.

        After several sessions of this style of working, my son sits down at the table where I am working and he has a notepad and a pencil.
“Are you going to interview me for your paper?” I ask.
“No,” he says, “Maybe later. Right now, I was hoping you could tell me some stories from the real news.”
“What do mean “real”?” I ask.
“Well, like the thing Saturday to stop Monsanto from making poisonous food, tell me about that again, for my paper.”
“Okay, GMO Free Project of Tucson is Hosting a March Against Monsanto at 10 am Saturday in Reid Park.”
“GMO’s are terrible poison and so people who don’t want to have to eat them will go to Reid Park on Saturday and rally with what? Like signs or something?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Do you know other news? Do you know what happened in Oklahoma?”
“I do. There was a huge tornado in Oklahoma and a lot of people lost their homes, got really hurt and a lot of people died.”
“So now they need what like, love and some new homes and stuff?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay.”

        Back to work he went. Incorporating his new “real news” items into his newspaper. All the while, I am still smugly thinking about the much more charmed and freedom filled life I had as a child and how it is so “nice” that my son gets to “practice” his real world skills in the safety of our own home. Then I got my copy of the paper. Sure enough, a story about the event at Reid Park, “NO GMO’S RALLY AT REID PARK” with a drawing of protestors holding signs, one sign says, “Real Food, thank you” with a smiley face. Another one about the tornado with a drawing of a tornado an upside down car and an upside down house, the headline “A Tornatoe was in Oklahoma, please send them your love, your money and some hope.” There were ads; “Listen to Alice Cooper on the Muppets or the radio” and “Buy Books at Bookman’s or Antigone (drawing of books)”. There were some factoids; “The Cheetah runs 75 miles per hour” and “Second graders at Montessori Schoolhouse are studying Mexico (drawing of a mariachi band)”.  There was lots of inspirational ideas and anecdotes; “Plant trees (drawing of trees)”, “Be KIND (drawing of hearts)”, “Learn at School, I did!”, “Adopt Today, Cuddly (drawing of a puppy)”, “Ride a Bike”, “Give Poor People Money, here or in Africa to buy food”, “Summer is coming (drawing of him in a pool)” and “Surprise your kids with popcorn and a DVD like Star Wars”. There was a trivia section querying whether chickens eat cows (they don’t) or if cats are vegetarians (they aren’t). Finally, there was a section on the bottom that said, “Please pay 300 pennies for this paper if you like or do 300 nice things or give even more money to someone who is doing nice things like the Center for Biological Diversity or the Food Bank thank you oh and be happy.”

        He handed me my copy and informed me that mine was free because I am helping him and because I already do lots of nice things. I read his paper and I started thinking about my paper route when I was a kid. I hated it really. Most days it was okay, if the weather wasn’t terrible, but it was Iowa so the weather was usually terrible. I never got to sleep in because even on weekends people wanted their papers before 6. I always got it right onto their porches and people would still complain it wasn’t good enough and short me when it was time to collect payment. People wouldn’t pay; seriously, they wouldn’t answer the door for an 8 year-old paper girl to give her the $3.50 they owed for 6 am porch delivery of the daily paper!! A lot of the people were just plain mean and most days I daydreamed about my nice warm bed and wished I was still in it. Worst of all, I always knew the news!! I started my day with it. Granted, the Sioux City Journal’s headlines in the 70’s were nowhere as bad as what is plastered all over news stations and the internet today, but bad news still got the front page and there was plenty of it. Maybe we weren’t reveling in our freedom and happiness back then, it just sounds more appealing when you retell it.

        Personally, I would much rather read a paper like my son’s everyday. His world really is a kinder and gentler world. He focuses on solutions and cooperation and really believes in kindness and beauty, that’s the kind of freedom I want!  

Clueless in the Canyon (Lynn)

The mosquitoes are back—early this year, it seems. I acknowledge their role in the ecosystem but I am not an eager advocate of their right to reproduce and am always sorry to see their return. At dusk tonight I tossed some ‘natural’ larvacide pellets into our backyard pond and ran back into the house, but not before suffering a retaliatory attack that left me madly scratching my arms and ankles. While dressing my wounds with lavender lotion, I remembered a spring evening about ten years ago when Marc and I had visited the Four Corners National Park. We had enjoyed our day wandering through pit-house ruins and cliff dwellings on the mesa and we looked forward to an evening tour of some thousand-year-old petrogylphs hidden in the Canyon de Chelly. These walks were held nightly in the spring months and were restricted to those in the company of a Navajo guide.

This night’s escort was a frail-seeming, elderly man who met our small group of tourists (all strangers to Marc and me) at the trailhead as the sun set and a full moon rose. He was dressed in a loose, long-sleeved, high-buttoned shirt he’d tucked into his wrinkled, worn jeans that were in turn tucked into loosely tied sneakers. Our guide leaned on a tall wooden walking stick as he introduced himself as “Norman”, gave us a little background about the petroglyphs we were all anxious to see and then quietly assessed our general fitness for the three-mile walk. Almost everyone had suitable footwear, but since the day had been clear, hot and dry, we were all in shorts and most of the women wore tank tops. He mentioned matter-of-factly that although at this elevation there was only an occasional scrub oak and sage bush, the canyon floor was heavily vegetated and that meant mosquitoes would be plentiful and aggressive. Although we were redolent of coconut sunscreen, no one had any insect repellant.

Norman was too self-contained for any overt exasperation. He offered us what he said (with a sideways smile) was an ancient Indian preventative for insect bites. He clipped a few leafy branches from a sage bush with the blade of a jack-knife he’d taken from his pocket. Since I was standing nearest to him, he handed the first, strongly scented branch to me. I rubbed it furiously over my bare arms and legs, thinking the plant’s efficacy must be in its essential oils. Norman watched me in silence for a very… long… time, and then turned to the next person and handed her a branch. She wafted it elegantly about her face and shoulders. Everyone else followed her example. I drifted to the back of the group as we walked down the hillside, deeply grateful for the increasing darkness.

As it happened, I remained bite-free through the tour--if not from the aromatic sage, then no doubt because any mosquito alighting on me would surely have been incinerated from the heat of my flaming embarrassment.

Not Entirely Clueless with a Cellphone: Adventures in Stereotypes (Lynn)

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It is a truth generally acknowledged that a woman gives directions based on landmarks, but there are many of my sex who give directions in the manly manner. Not for us is the feminine discursive, “It’s just a skosh beyond the big chicken statue by the garage with blue roof.”  The figurative approach may be a regional rather than sex-linked trait given the friendly loquacity of rural Midwesterners and Southerners as opposed to laconic New Englanders. Women and men in those locales commonly offer such help as  “It is aways yonder just by ol’ Dalton’s place, you’ll see the turn right there by the barn he was always gonna pull down before it fell down.” In either case, I belong to the clan that trusts cardinal directions and reasonably estimated distances will indeed get you there from here. You could plan an invasion with the specificity I provide. Pinpointing our location for the AAA service for a minor roadside emergency last week after my parents' customary survivalist stock-up at Costco and a long morning of doctor’s appointments should have been easy-peasey.

“Was I in a safe location?” AAA rep Nadia asked after two dropped connections on my rudimentary flip phone. Yes, at least the car was. I had left it parked in a roadside pullout at the bottom of the cactus-studded, no doubt rattlesnake-crawling, scrubby, shrubby desert hill that stood between me and a steady cell signal.  I was confident that my parents were sitting on the shady side of the car enjoying ice cream from the cooler on the back seat. I was reasonably sure that my 82-year-old father would not wheel his walker to back of his Honda CRV and unload two hundred pounds of dog food, kitty litter and potting soil to access a spare tire none of the three of us could mount.

In years past, the AAA dispatchers knew me immediately by voice because I was frequently on the outside with my keys on the inside of a prudently but prematurely locked car. Since cars have long come with clickers, Nadia and I had to run though the name and number protocol. She assured me help would soon be on its way, just as soon she could tell the tow trucker where we were. Pinpointing our exact location became a Pythonesque contest for points scored as Nadia and I strove toward our common goal.

I opened with “The car is one third of a mile inside the east entrance to Saguaro National Park West. It is on the north side of the road at the first marked pullout in the park.” Nadia responded. “So, you are just east of Old Soldier’s Trail?”

I explained that Saguaro National Park is bisected by the City of Tucson. One half is at the foot of the Rincon Mountains on the east side of the valley. The other half is on the west side of the valley, on the far side of the Tucson Mountains. “We are closer to Picture Rocks, which is a community on the other side of town just west of the west boundary of the westside park.” That was far too many ‘wests’—“Oh! You are just outside of the entrance, near Kinney and Sandario?” “No, that’s on the (inward wince) west side of the park. I’m just inside the east boundary.”  There was nothing I could add, there were no distinctive features beside the road dipping and curving below me. There wasn’t much traffic, either, although the few cars passing below me were zipping through the desert as though it were an amusement park. Again I hoped my parents were staying off the road.

A short pause ensued before Nadia said, “Aha! Then you are at Gates Pass on the southeast side entrance.” Oh, damn, I’d forgotten that existed, I hadn’t been there since high school.  I said, “We’re on—I mean the car itself is on—Picture Rocks Road, I’m not, I can’t get a signal in the valley, I myself am about 400 yards up a hillside. But Picture Rocks the road is the only one through the monument that goes to Picture Rocks the town. That’s the road we’re on.”

Another silence on the line made me fearful that Nadia was offended by an emphasis misinterpreted as snottiness, but no, the call had been dropped, again. As I walked gingerly around prickly pears casting for a signal, I tried to see through the brush that obscured both the car and the road below.  If I didn’t speed things up a bit, my father would inevitably go for the buried spare.

The third call connected and I rushed through the protocol. “Can you get me to Nadia?” A new female voice, Sandra, said, “Ma’am, I have computer captioning of your previous service ticket. I see a tow truck has been dispatched to the Sandario and Kinney intersection. Which quadrant are you on?”

“None of them, we’re not there. We’re on the other side of the park.”

 “Are you on Old Soldiers’ Trail?”

“No, no, no, not Saguaro Park East, the east side of Saguaro—wait, wait, forget that, and forget the whole park part.” I took a calming breath. “We are on Picture Rocks Road, about a mile southwest from the Picture Rocks and Ina Road intersection.”

“I see Picture Rocks intersects with Kinney Road.”

“Yes, yes, it does, but we’re about fifteen miles (heaven help me) EAST of that intersection. I'm sorry, I don’t have GPS. Maybe we could just ping my cell phone?”
Sandra said, “Ma’am, that is for serious emergencies only, I’m sure a flat tire does not rise to that level of need. The service rep will certainly find you on Picture Rocks Road. The driver will call you when he is—.” The call dropped for a fourth time.

It was indeed up to him (or her) now. I couldn’t be sure I’d get any call up on the hill any more than down at the road level and my parents had been alone far too long.

As I scudded down the rock channel I’d scurried up, I thought about the limits of language and technology, or just maybe of my ability to use either.  I was inclined to blame the technology. I loved my car clicker but had decidedly diminished affection for my flip phone. As I neared the pullout, I saw the CostCo contents neatly stacked by the open tailgate of the CRV. The spare had been changed by a rancher who had pulled off the road because her huge battered pickup had radiator trouble.

The Good Samaritan and I reloaded the boxes and bags and we were soon rolling down Picture Rocks Road. A call from the AAA tow truck driver came in as we exited the park boundary. He had been delayed, but was now approaching the Kinney and Sandario intersection.  I thanked him and said all was now well and goodbye.  Modern technology eases our lives in myriad ways, but a little mechanical tech in the form of a jack, a four-way tire iron and an old-fashioned neighborly chat had saved this day.

Clueless in the Clinic: Basic English Vocabulary (Lynn)

After a few sessions in the cancer clinic, friends-and-family become accustomed to the dynamic of the treatment area. It’s like being in any waiting room, except that it is hyper-clean and there are really decent snacks for everyone. Strangers show each other small courtesies, and soon everyone has a sense of community. You know almost instantly who wants to be left alone, who wants to chat, or who truly needs a listener.

But you don’t learn everything all at once. 

My father was one of the patients in the recliners this afternoon who were variously reading, resting with eyes closed or outright snoring. The nurses and support staff spoke softly with those who were awake, addressing everyone by name and all the while setting IVs, reading orders, and running through checklists. When a woman two chairs down the row of recliners awoke and said she was cold, the nurse nearest to her--busy with another patient--said she’d be right there, in just a little bit. There were all kinds of wraps everywhere, so I picked up a printed fleece lap-blanket that was hanging over the pony wall to tuck around the chilled patient. An older woman sitting in the corner chair beside her companion who was half-way through her treatment said, “Get her a warm one.” I looked at the target of my intended assistance. She in turn looked sleepily back at me, and then we both silently considered the fleecie in my hands.  I thought surely it would be warm enough, the room wasn’t generally chilly, but of course I could have no idea how the drip was affecting her. I put the fleecie back on the wall in search of a better blanket. There was a heavy, crocheted afghan folded on an empty chair so I reached to fluff it up and over her.  Mid-stretch, I heard my advisor repeat, this time with just a touch of asperity, “Get her a warm one.”  I let the afghan fall short between my hands, looking at it, thinking, “But this would be good, it’s heavy and dense and, well, a little scratchy maybe, but it’d be plenty warm”.  Now wishing I’d just attended to my knitting, I heard  once again the short, sharp command from the corner, “Get her a warm one! A warm one!”

Fifty-five going on six, I stood in that aisle clutching a heap of unworthy afghan and teared up like a scolded child.  My father laughed, saying, “Lynnie, go get one from the cabinet over there”.  As I turned to see the gray metal cabinet with top vents and a black electrical cord coiled on its side, the glorious light of comprehension dawned at last. “OH, you mean a WARM one!”

Now I know where they keep the toasty, HEATED blankets.

A Poem for the Ayni Despacho Ceremony (Cas)

Ayni Despacho Ceremony for 
the Healing of the Winds of the Four Directions

During a recent ceremony hosted by the amazing Shaman Women Healers at the Harmony Hut, I extracted statements and intentions about each of the elements included in the gift mandalas the group was creating and I commemorated the event in this poem. 

Ayni Despacho Ceremony for the Healing of the Winds of the Four Directions

This pulsing vein of creation

that began as only a vision of our Ancestors

and now is strong enough,

palpable enough

to root us solidly to the core of the Earth,

to make us whole and substantial,

vital

anchored equally to the tangible and the intangible

inviting us to become authentic

by realizing our imagination

and the pure intention we invest into it

will one day be our Descendants 

and all the parameters of their world.

Honoring the power and potential

of that divine vision and hopefulness

Hope becoming source and sustenance,

the seed of transformation, 

Transmutation from energy forms

from luminous beings

to pure Love and Light.

Mountains of Joy, Prosperity, Abundance.

Mountains of Beauty, Inspiration, and Balance

abounding elevating purifying

and blessing our existence as

this momentary indulgence

the Universe playing a human game

being Sun fed, warm Earth cradled, loved.

Recognizing the equality of all beings

as sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers,

blessed children and sacred grandparents,

teachers, lovers, angelic guardians.

Blessed by all the sweetness

by the mere essences that are truly all sustaining

by sharing and generosity

we gratefully experience excess

gratitude creating

healing and health

by giving love

creating belovedness

feeding the Earth that feeds us.

The path up the majestic Mountains

an Invitation

ascending to the peaks of wisdom

to our highest selves and our highest good.

Honoring rhythm and change

we are movement, we are the dance and

we are the chaos

in pure beauty and

intoxication with divine Earthly bounty,

benevolence and Love, Love, Love.

In wild abandon and gyration

into Energy, expanding and multiplying.

By honoring source, by gratefully accepting

the unlimited variety offered to earth’s children

dwelling on the nurturing belly

of the valley basin encircled by Guardian Mountains,

shaded, watered, fed and washed

by sacred voices in the clouds,

warmed and energized by Father Sun,

dreamt and foretold by Goddess Moon,

here now, breathing, thankful

accepting responsibility

Inspiring our own Words into Dreams,

Ideas into Reality,

Imagination into Blessed Wholeness,

This Gift for our Descendants