Dog Days of Summer

I'm going through blog post drafts and came across this unfinished bit.   The date stamp shows late August of last year. I have no idea where I was headed with it, but I like it.

 I was writing about late summer and fall, the lead in to end of days.  Know my sense of humor, I think I was going to write the entire post about NOT our then brand new puppy.  Perhaps I was going to lead in to my personal struggles with the shortening days and loss of sunlight.

Spring makes me feel alive, but those last days of summer and fall, they remind me why I should be alive, even as I dread the inevitable falling darkness and now. I'm going to hold on to these words below.

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It's becoming apparent, on a minute by minute basis, that summer is waning.  The wind has started to shift, and with it the first drying breezes of fall.  Bright orange flickers in the eye's corner and a second glance reveals a maple starting to dress for the autumn festival.  The air is different, summer's oppressive humidity is replaced with hot, but dryer air.  An evening walk must be scheduled a little bit earlier.  Staying out past sunset leaves one with a welcome chill.  Extra blankets are queued up at the end of the bed in anticipation of chilly overnight temperatures.  Unlike the month past when the overnights were to be dreaded as slightly less hot, but more humid sleep preventatives, the changing weather tempts the tired to deep sleep trundled into blankets, burrito like, with only finger- and nose-tips exposed to the cool, dry air.

The air feels like the cicadas' drone.  Spring is full of the frogs - wet sounds full of potential. Summer is full of the buzz of insects - the slap at mosquitoes, the creak of crickets, the flashes of lightening bugs.  These August days are filled with the cicada - a dry rustling sound that is both warning of the pending frost and reminiscent of crunching leaves.

My apologies . . .

Once upon a job a long time ago I had a coworker who scheduled her whole week around episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While episodes could always be taped, my coworker wasn't guaranteed to be successful.  Then when the show switched networks, it became even more difficult for my coworker to watch the show.  In the absence of cable, her TV couldn't be reliably expected to get a good signal without much finagling of bunny ear antennas and aluminum foil.

And I found all this amusing.  While I was still a regular watcher of primetime television, I didn't live or die by the broadcast schedule.  I certainly didn't understand how a twenty-something scientist could be obsessed with some hokey show about teenagers and vampires.  Really, I mean, really? So, I tended to tease her about it.  Not maliciously, but certainly with a note of incredulity.  Clearly, her need to watch such a show represented some sort of mild, but comical weakness.

Then, several years ago I was introduced to Firefly and to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and all that was wise and wonderful about Joss Whedon.  Shows were funny, clever, and there were no simpering lady characters.  By this time I had also watched every single episode of The Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars and could see the appeal of watching shows with teenaged leads who were smart and funny. However, I still was leery of Buffy.  I was still mocking those who spoke fondly of Buffy.  One day I had posted about Nathan Fillion dressing as Malcolm Reynolds in Castle.  Something that tickled the very core of my funny bone. A Facebook friend mentioned I should also be looking for Buffy references in Castle.  "Meh" was my thoughtful and unwritten response.

So, after rewatching all the recent episodes of Doctor Who (Doctors 9, 10, and 11), for the umpteenth time, my husband and I started to watch Buffy.  After all, it was from Joss Whedon. There were likely things that would explode satisfying Jon's primary criteria for show-choosing.  One episode.  We wouldn't like it and it wouldn't be a big issue.  

That, of course, was 130 episodes ago.  I'm completely hooked.  I absolutely understand why my coworker of all those years aga HAD to watch every week.  Why she was heartbroken at the end of season five. Why women and men all over are so fond of the show. It's filled with smart, strong, funny characters - just the sort of people I would want in my world.

So, I just want to say: N, I'm sorry.  I had no idea what I was missing. I sorry I forfeited a the potential for bonding and friendship. My bad,

Wish You Didn't Have to Go

December 2012 Reverb Broads

Prompt 2 - What is your strongest memory tied to music?  

Suggested by Sarah

The first time I realized that music could speak lyrics was while learning "Octopus's Garden" in elementary school.  Standing in the music room, staring into the back of the upright piano, I heard the words coming forth from chords Mrs. S. was playing. I was relieved, I had forgotten some of the lyrics, but the piano knew what they were and was able to tell me.

Do you remember the first time you realized you were (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) attracted to someone?  When you realized what thinking someone was "hot" really meant? For me, I can't tell you what he looked like, but I can tell you that I still get a little warm under the collar every time I hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge" because that was the song that was playing when I was hit with that realization.

But the strongest memories I have of music involve my dad.  Growing up I spent a lot of time with him in the barn and he shared with me some of his favorite songs.  To this day, I can't hear a Roy Orbison song without hearing his shout of, "It's Roy." I'm not sure why that was one of his quirks, but it was.  This past summer, to help him recuperate from his open-heart surgery, I put together a play list of some of his favorites and a couple of mine.  The lead off song was "A Summer Song" by Chad and Jeremy.


Perhaps it wasn't every time the song came on the radio, but certainly when it was the least bit convenient, the barn radio would be turned up so we could listen to the sentimental song. When I hear the song now my nose fills with the smell of whitewash, dried hay, and a barn floor freshly spread with lime. And my heart hears my dad telling me to listen.

December 2012 Reverb Broads

Prompt 1 - What is your favorite place in the world? What makes it so special?  

Suggested by Kate 

Right now, my favorite place in the world is the second-hand futon we bought from a yarn store classmate over the summer.  It's a great place to sit, read, drink coffee, knit, and hang out with the dog.

I'm a homebody.  I love the fact that the futon is in our living room, a room with two walls of two-story windows. It's sunny, bright, and with the right turn of the head looks out over a house-less wetland surrounded by trees. It's simple and comfortable. It's one of those places that makes my body relax as soon as I get a chance to enjoy it.

Let's not let fiction become reality

December 2012  Reverb Broads
Prompt 5

What is your all-time favorite work of art/film/musician/book and why? 

Suggested by Dana

For me, without a doubt, it is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

It is beautifully written and frightens me in so many ways. There are certain books I read and read and then read again because they evoke specific emotional responses and this is one of them. I read it when I want to be frightened and when I need to remind myself what a tenuous hold we have, not only on women's rights, but on human rights as a whole.

The book was originally published in 1985, before the daily use of debit cards to buy everyday items, few jobs included hours spent in front of computers, and where the idea that CFCs could destroy the atmosphere seemed just as unlikely as the society Atwood describes in her book. Twenty-seven years later, when I find myself destitute when I don't have my credit card, and find it hard to function (shop, get directions, find any sort of information) without some sort of computing device readily available, and weather extremes caused by global warming are becoming common place, it seems that Atwood's Gilead, a world where a damaged environment and religious zeal in combination with a declining birth rate to legitimizes a totalitarian society.

We Americans are taught to fear Sharia law, but Atwood's Biblically-derived dystopia is more frightening to me. Using the Genesis example of Jacob and Rachel using the slave Bilhah as a carrier of their child, the government of Gilead has created a gender- and social-stratified society where "immoral," but fertile women are trained (brainwashed, drugged, and/or threatened?) and then dispensed to powerful men for the purpose of gestating and delivering their offspring. The government took from these women their bodies, their bodies that they thought of as ". . . as an instrument, of pleasure, or of a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my (their) will." It is not only the immoral women who have been forced into a limited role, but also the wives of powerful men, "orphaned" offspring, and members of the working poor.

The truly frightening thing is how complicit I fear I would be in the development of Gilead. "We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." If, like the book's narrator, I was fired from my job and prevented from using my own money, would I chose to ignore what was happening around me? Maybe willing to jump on someone else's wagon, but not brave enough to hitch up the horses and take the reins myself? Would I allow my husband, my father, or my brother to now be my guardian, my patron, my only connection to society? Would I be strong enough to fight against this? Would the men in my life? Or would they sit back, perhaps even slightly delighted that once again, they get to be the ones who make the choices, fulfill the decisions? Would I give my consent to the activities around me? Would "I've leaned forward to touch the rope in front of me, in time with the others, both hands on it, the rope hairy, sticky with tar in the hot sun, then placed my hand on my heart to show my unity with the Salvagers and my consent, and my complicity in the death of this woman." Would I yield to the new world order?

The fact is, I'm usual. I ignore. Oh, I'm outraged at being called a slut because I feel my health insurance should cover the costs of my reproductive stability. Or that I should have to prove I need birth control pills, not to prevent pregnancy, but to prevent the chronic pain that comes with my endometriosis*.  Rape is rape, it is not legitimate, or forcible, and no benevolent god would wish it on any person. Yet, there are men and women in our current world who believe that a woman's place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant as many times as possible. It makes me scream to hear the beliefs spouted by so-called moral zealots.

But what do I do about it? Write some words for my handful of readers to ponder? I may be protesting, but my audience is small. "Dear You, I'll say. Just you, without a name. Attaching a name attaches you to the world of fact, which is riskier, more hazardous: who knows what the chances are out there, of survival, yours? I will say you, you, like an old love song. You can mean more than one." And in writing my words I'll allow you to remain anonymous. Other than the tick mark on my blog counter, I'll never know you were here. Will these words, these questions be enough to disturb the forces around me? "There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with."

I'm scared that I wouldn't be able to do anything. I'm scared the words I write here will disappear. I fear that religious bigots, those who feel they are in the right, will take the rights and freedoms of some, and continue to take and take until Gilead is a reality.

So, The Handmaid's Tale is my favorite book because it forces me to evaluate my own role in society.



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All text in quotes is from the book.

*Or even, now that I've checked the spelling of "endometriosis" that Google's dictionary doesn't recognize it as a word.

Yes, I know, I lead a rough life

Here's the thing.  I hate doing laundry.  And let me tell you, it's not like I have it rough.  We don't have kids dirtying outfit after outfit or declaring a piece of clothing dirty because it hit the ground. My husband does his own laundry. We live in a house with a washer and dryer on the main floor.  It's a nice set and even includes a second rinse cycle for those things that just require that sort of TLC.  But I hate it.  I love having a closet full of clean and color-sorted clothing.  I even sort of like laundry.  But the act of sorting, switching, folding, hanging, and tromping up and down the stairs.  I just really despise it.  I just thought you should know.

June 21 - Reverb Broads

List 5 reasons you shouldn't bathe for a week. 

Suggested by Katrina 

1. Taking showers, instead (assuming this means in a tub)
2. Guaranteed some sort of prize commensurate with feeling grimy for the week
3. Camping and swimming daily
4. Ill or incapacitated some way so as to make bathing impossible
5. Traveling in space