Gadabout girl, take two.

I failed to register my glee a few weeks back when the crocuses popped up, right on cue. So thank you, Dear God, for bringing them back one more time. It's the same show year after year, but it never gets old. And here are those yellow tulips I was dreaming of back in December. Huzzah!




Also in springy blisses: magnolias, wisteria, forsythia. And who says xeriscaped gardens have to look drab and weedy? This one made me very happy.




At the top of the Avenues there is a house covered in gargoyles (it is a well known fact that the eccentricity level of Avenues dwellers increases as you go up the hill). You would think that five fearsome gargoyles would be sufficient to keep the house safe from all manner of imps and demons but it appears that this paranoid home owner is covering his bases, just in case his dragons are more bark than bite....







Also at the top of the Avenues on Eccentric Street, an owl-faced ostrich planter beast constructed with scrap metal. He is sporting a lovely pair of sparkly earrings. As a rule I loathe yard art, but he was a very charming monster.




Someone forgot to take the Christmas baubles out of their tree and now they're nestled in snowy pear blossoms. I loved the reflections of the flowers in the silver balls. Winter mirroring spring?







This here is where there used to be a stone observatory tower overlooking the Salt Lake Valley. Are you miffed that I just wasted your time showing you a nonexistent tower? Yeah, so was Sharon. Moving on...







Note the very tiny window by the front door of this house, covered by a very tiny iron grating. The window of a dungeon? Built by the master of the house to hold the lusty mailmen whose love children now run in the yard? A cautionary tale for other promiscuous postmen who might darken his doorstep?





To be continued....

The movie inspired by the blog.

What?! You don't enjoy reading long posts about my underarm hygiene? What kind of friends ARE you? I'm so hurt. You'd better watch out, or I might start writing about real issues, like Dick Cheney speaking at the BYU Commencement. Heaven save us.

No! I shall not abandon trivia just because of this peer pressure! I shall continue sifting and re-sifting my Jane Doe existence for pithy observations! (And if not pithy, then funny; and if not funny, then well phrased; and if not well phrased, then...I'll just find a really snazzy picture to distract you.)

In the meantime, here's a little video for you -- I'm hoping you will find it much less taxing to watch a short narcissistic movie than read a long narcissistic blog. I care about you, faithful reader, even when you refuse to gaze into my navel.

NOTE: If the video gets stuck, click on the progress bar just after the marker.

The pits.

You smell that? That alluring scent of sweaty lavender? That would be me.

When I hit age twelve and my body started betraying me, I had lots of gripes. Itchy bras, bloody razored ankles, bloody other things. And then there was evil antiperspirant. First applied to my tender armpits one fateful morning in 1988, it has maintained a liquidproof seal day and night since. It seemed that no matter how many times I scrubbed and lathered, I could never completely penetrate that anti-sweat forcefield. You might ask, "Why would you wish to tear down that blessed dam -- that space-age triumph over glandular tyranny??! It's all that stands between us and the French!"

These are intelligent questions, and I have no sane answers. I'm no rabid evangelizing granola. I lose no sleep over the longterm effects of the bazillion carcinogens lurking in my non-organic lima beans. I can't shop often at Wild Oats because the orthodox shoppers there are too funny and I get a tummy ache trying to suppress my laughter. But somehow it made me vaguely nervous to shut down a normal body process for decades at a time.

Of course I still used the stuff -- how could I not? I'm a hardcore sweat-er (maybe YOU ladies glow, but this girl PERSPIRES). And while I believe that my body is a temple, it can't be allowed to blow my chances at snagging a man. I figured once this sweet-smelling she-temple had achieved its temple wedding, perhaps it could test the limits of love with a sweaty revolution. But not before.

Then recently a friend told me that she was an Anti-antiperspirant. She explained that her mother wouldn't allow the stuff in the house because some believed it increased the risk of breast cancer. I had never heard this before. My ordinary response to such non-traditional health advice would be, "you only live once -- why sweat the details?" (har) But my longtime unease with antiperspirant was fed by her dark tales. I did some online research: The Man insisted that there were no proven ill effects of using the stuff, and The New Age Holistic Cabin Dwellers insisted that it was the single greatest threat to womankind. Being a reasonable, levelheaded sort, I decided to shrug off science and obey my fear.

That is how I found myself in the Wild Oats, staring at their remarkable collection of not-tested-on-bunnyrabbits deodorants. (Poor stinky bunnyrabbits!) You had your funky Swedish miracle crystal deodorant, but I'd read it can give you a rash. You had your delicate Burt's Bees deodorant mist, but I knew that my man-sized perspiration problem called for something stronger. Soon I was overwhelmed and decided to abandon reason and go with my gut. My gut said, "Lavender smells great. Get one that smells like lavender." So I did. Tom's of Maine lavender deodorant.

How could I go wrong, choosing that lovely, "natural" lavender for my new signature scent? See the first line of this post.

The poor results have been a bit discouraging, as I have to reapply the stuff two or three times a day. But I can't say I'm ready to abandon this little experiment just yet, though I expect that if it's already beginning to fail in the early spring, I'll be unfit for polite society by mid-June. My friends, tired of the Pavlovian retching they experience whenever they pass a lavender bush, will cut all ties with me. I will never marry, but will be fondly labeled The Sweaty Lavender Cat Lady by the neighborhood tikes. My perfect, cancer-free breasts will go to the grave unappreciated by any man.

Who knew hygiene could be such a drama?

Knowing my sheepish qualities, I expect I'll rejoin the herd very soon. But in the meantime I will try to live by the pheromonic philosophy of my beloved Geggy Tah:

Ha hot honeymoon
Cupid had a harpoon
Cupid's not a cartoon
Cupid really works and sweats.
Sweat is the perfume of lovers
Sweat is the best perfume
Sweat is the perfume of love...

Come to me, my stinky White Night, and we shall ride together into the sulfurous sunset!

Collateral lines???!

If you're not LDS, don't bother reading this posting -- it's written in Mormonese.

Most of you know that I'm big into family history and that my job is in genealogy. So when the new issue of the Ensign appeared, I turned right to the cover story on family history. I figured it would be another faith-promoting story about miraculously finding needed information about a direct-line ancestor when all traditional genealogical avenues had been searched in vain. But no -- it's an article encouraging us to research collateral lines!!! This is huge. This changes everything. Finally all those long-ago spinsters will rejoin the human family!

Apparently Elder Packer mentioned researching collateral lines several years ago, but I don't remember hearing anything about it in mainstream LDS family history circles since then. I thought if you left your direct line ancestors and went off on a collateral line (i.e. going any further out than the children of a direct ancestor) you weren't fulfilling your responsibilities. But the article suggests that if you've come to a time or place for which there are no surviving records for direct ancestors, it's perfectly fine to branch out to grandchildren and great-grandchildren of direct ancestors, and not just for the purpose of trying to find new information on your direct ancestors.

The Seventy in charge of the Family and Church History department came to speak at our stake FHE this last Monday and he hinted that the Church has decided that doing temple work for extracted names is creating too many problems (baptisms and endowments get done, but families don't get assembled properly so they can be sealed). So my guess is that this new Ensign article represents their solution. If they open up collateral lines for members' personal research, it will provide the quantity of names required to keep all these new temples supplied with names for those temple patrons who come without a family name, and at the same time will ensure that people are not baptized and endowed and then left floating out there in space, unattached to spouses, parents, and children.

This is great stuff. One of the most meaningful family history experiences I ever had was researching a collateral relative -- a great-great-great-great-great aunt who died unmarried and childless. She was the caretaker of both of my great-great-great-great-great grandparents at the end of their lives. In her last years she was cared for by her nephew. Now I can add him to the family!

Oh, one last thing. I'm going to the Family History Library at least once every two weeks. If you live outside the SLC area and would like me to look up anything in the Library for you, let me know. And if you live in my area and need help with your family history (or just want a genealogy buddy), contact me and we can coordinate times. I'm looking at Wednesday nights or Saturday mornings.

Gotta stop blogging and start researching. I smell dead people -- let the hunt begin! Goodiegoodiegoodie!

One more reason to shop D.I.

An Antiques Roadshow fairytale tonight. Guy driving to the Roadshow spots a yard sale, and like most antiques junkies can't (doesn't) resist. Stops for a few minutes to browse and buys a chair for $2 that "looks old" and is in pretty good condition. Takes it into the Roadshow with no idea of its value and one of the furniture-appraising Bobsey twins starts a-drooling. Turns out his "old-looking" $2 chair is a Chippendale from the 1700s and is worth $1,500.

I shop D.I. primarily because I'm cheap, but I confess there's also the lure of one day finding the original copy of the Mayflower Compact hibernating beneath the heap of Captain & Tenille vinyls.

Don't laugh. I believe in flea market fairytales.

She chortled in her joy.

I love your limericks, ye loony laddies and lassies!

Nice rhyme sets: John, Don Juan, pants on; donators, taters, tomaters; Sandy, dandy, randy; Spoke, joke, choke; stole them, molemen; Louise, seas, buoys; Marvin, carvin', starvin'.

Great themes, too -- vain men who forget their pants and busty babes demonstrating their natural flotation devices (nice little dashes o' bawdy, there!); a squeaky-clean limerick ABOUT writing naughty limericks; the comic violence of Wabbit v. Martian, pirate v. telephone pole, and leprechaun v. lawnmower; my little brother's lice problem as reported by one of his students; and a lovely jab at our Idiot-in-Chief.

Oh, man. This is hard. Why did I set this up as a contest? I knew I had clever friends and family, and how accurately did I think I was going to be able to measure my laughter? This is like being a judge in the Limerick Olympics, with measurements down to the milligiggles.

I know what you're saying. "Don't flatter yourself we're that into your silly contest, Marie -- especially with such a lame prize." I know, I know -- I'm just projecting myself onto you. The only thing I think I'm very good at is writing, so I get competitive in writing contests.

To make my job easier, I ruled out all limericks that strayed from the standard meter. Of the three that remained, the one that I thought had the cleverest rhyme was the one by Patrushka:

How happy the Kiva donators
As they lend to the man selling taters!
Now he can expand -
With our helping hand
He can purchase a box of tomaters!

So contact me, Patrushka, [adazzle (dot) dim (at) gmail (dot) com] so I can send you the book!

Should Patrushka fail to perform his/her duties as Lord-High Limerick Writer, his/her little green hat will pass to the two runners-up:

Sharon:

There once were a martian named Marvin,
Who always was fixin' on carvin'
A Rabbit so sweet
And with humor, to beat,
But we all knows he'll be long a starvin'

Anonymous (Steve? Kelly? write and let me know who you are):

There once was a blogger from Sandy
Who thought writing lim'ricks was dandy
She stewed and she stewed
But it all came out lewd
And her friends ran off, yelling, "Too randy!"

For more laughs, here are the winners of this year's Deseret News Limerick Contest. My dad shamelessly tried to pass them off as his own:

Oh, look, it's a sad orange cone,
It looks lost, and afraid, and alone.
No wait, there's its brother,
And another, and another,
I'm surrounded, they're starting to clone!

I was cookin' ribs back on the deck,
When I stumbled, and near broke my neck.
Since I've vowed ne'er to curse,
I said nothing worse
Than, "Flip! What the scrud! Oh, my heck!"

Thanks again for participating, everyone (even you, Dad). Laughter is no small gift, and I thank'ee kindly from the bottom of my funny bone. May there be a pot of gold and/or a handsome Irish sailor at the end of your rainbow.

Cloudy, with a chance of apocalypse.

One September day about twelve years ago I walked into my high school seminary class and who did I see but....

...the Channel 2 weather man.

Yep -- the broad-grinning stormtrooper from our local CBS-affiliate had sacrificed fame and fortune for this humble vocation so that he could spend more time with his kids. We all went "awww!" He was a hoot -- he'd draw a map of the Middle East on the board and then sweep his arm across it to indicate the Children of Israel descending upon the Land of Canaan like an incoming cold front. We all though he was a really great guy with a smile as blinding as God's justice.

So imagine my horror a few nights ago when I turn on the TV and what do I see but....

..my old seminary teacher on Fox News at Nine, doing the weather. FOX NEWS! Lord, give me strength -- he's gone to the Dark Side! His kids no doubt sit home fatherless, weeping as they watch their dear old dad play puppet to the darkest force of our time.

Revelation 13:1-3 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads, and those heads were seven shames, yea, namely Cops, American Idol, Judge Judy, Bones, 'Til Death, Fox News, and that stupid new gameshow with Jeff Foxworthy. And I, John, saw that House M.D. was repeatedly canceled by the anti-Christ and his minions. And I wept, yea, verily, even as our fathers did weep for Arrested Development. And so ended the world.

Knowhatimean?

The other day I was giggling at the music video of "LDN" as Lily Allen struggles to describe the sort of music she's looking for:

"I was wondering if you have any kinda like sort of punky, electronica.... kinda grime.... kinda like new wave grime.... kind of maybe like more broken beats.... like kinda dub-y broken beats, but a little bit kinda soulful? Like kinda drum & bass-y but kinda more broken drum & bass.... kinda broken beats but break-beat kinda broken drum & bass kinda....y'know what I mean?"

The record store employee stares at her blankly. Poor Lily.

This week the word galumph was one of Google's Words of the Day and seeing it there on display before the whole world reawakened my lifelong vanity quest to 1) find a naked idea in need of a word, 2) tailor the perfect word for it, 3) sit back enjoy the fame when my Perfect Word is canonized in the Oxford English Dictionary.

As you may know, Lewis Carroll coined two such words that now appear in every pocket dictionary: galumph, from "gallop" and "triumph," which means to lumber along in a joyful but clumsy way, and chortle, from "chuckle" and "snort," which means a snorting sort of laugh. I know what you're thinking: "However did we cope before we had words for these things??" It is indeed hard to imagine such a dark time. Of course, Lewis Carroll is nothing to Shakespeare, who is the first written source for a bazillion words we use today, but I'm excluding Shakespeare from the present discussion because it's way too easy to launch new words when the greatest ruler of the Western World is one of your groupies.

Elizabeth R: "Dispatch a Proclamation: all Christian gentlemen shall employ the word 'kickie-wickie' when insulting their wives. This on pain of death."

Royal Proclaimer: "Yes, Your Majesty. Pray, how dost thou spell 'kickie-wickie'?"

Unfortunately, I'm not chummy with any monarchs and my invented words have fallen flat. For instance, a cousin was trying to describe the mix of infatuation and caring she felt for a guy she was dating. I suggested she was feeling smitterpated (smitten and twitterpated at the same time). I got a courtesy laugh, but the word never made another appearance in her love stories.

I also invented a word for a friend spending a semester in Taiwan. In her letters she described the discomfort of sleeping on the unadorned board that was her bed. In my reply I proudly unveiled the word mattresslessness to describe her sad state, but again, no go. I grant that it's not a very useful word unless you go camping a lot. But maybe people could use it figuratively? As in "I'm tossing and turning on the mattresslessness of solitude?" C'mon -- someone throw me a bone.

Of course, according to Humpty Dumpty, "real" meaning is irrelevant. He recommends you find a word you like and use it to mean anything and everything. However, if you go this route you should bear in mind that there are strings attached:

'I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice 'what that means?'

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

So if you're independently wealthy, just pick a word and go with it. I recommend something impressive-sounding, like lugubrious.

My crazy aunts and uncle invented an elaborate childhood language that didn't die as they grew up -- rather they added new words over the years to give a goofy sparkle to the yicky bits of adulthood. For example, you had your gibs which were little bits of unidentified nastiness and your aquagrogans which were the gifts small children add to the bathwater (but only if they float).

My uncle was especially good at coming up with just the right word for things. He disappeared a couple years ago and I was fortunate that fate gave us one last evening together just a few days before he was last seen. That night I was moaning to him about a situation at work. I was assigned to work with a particular coworker known for her attack-the-bleeding business techniques. Working with her had sent me spiraling into week after week of teeth-grinding, tummy-aching nightmares, and I felt I was going to snap under the pressure of trying to appease her. My uncle listened sympathetically to my tales of woe and then said, "You ever watch those National Geographic shows? She sounds like the big nasty head gorilla in a gorilla tribe. The one they call the alpha-male, y'know? So I guess that would make her the alpha-b****?"

The Perfect Word. In the weeks that followed it floated me, silently giggling, through many a three-alarm showdown at work. It was his last gift to me, and what a beaut. Wherever you are, Uncle Greg, this post's for you. God bless your lugubrious* soul.


*Here, lugubrious means "uniquely witty, with a twist of lime."

There once was a battle o' limericks...

I am not Irish, but like every good American, I wish I were. I want it all -- the red hair, the pipes and fiddles, the little green men, the famine and despair and civil war.... okay, not everything. But definitely the playful, lilting language.

So I hereby kick off the first annual St. Patrick's Day Limerick Contest. The entry that makes me laugh the hardest will win a copy of the complete limericks and nonsense poems of the King of Limericks, Edward Lear. You don't think you want it, I know. But I promise you -- you do!

Rules:

--Contest ends Friday, March 16 at 5:00 pm, Pacific time (the day before St. Patrick's Day).
--Your limerick can be a bit naughty, but not too naughty. Use your own judgment in defining that line.
--Finding clever rhymes for difficult words will win you extra points.
--Enter as many limericks as you want.
--Feel free to enter as "Anonymous." However, if an anonymous participant wins and more than one of you claims to be that person, we'll have to do the old King Solomon cutting-the-prize-in-half trick.
--No matter how funny, a limerick will probably not win if it doesn't follow the traditional limerick meter and rhyme pretty closely. Can't remember what that is? Click here for a refresher course.

For example, here's one I wrote to cheer a friend who was going crazy at his job:

There once was a swell guy named Stephen
Whose toils did cause him much grievin'
He cursed at the sky
And hollered "Why I?"
Then promptly took up basketweavin'.

So knock back a pint and let rip a limerick for old Eire. And if not for old Eire, do it for lil' ol' me. I love to laugh, and so does my inner leprechaun.

Yea, verily, the astroturf is white, already to harvest.

Last Sunday after church I chatted with the supervisor of the Missionary Committee, of which I am a member:

"Hi! When's our next meeting?" I ask.

"A week from Monday," he replies. "We need to choose a theme for our miniature golf hole."

"Huh?"

"The Activities Committee wants us to be in charge of one hole of the miniature golf course they're building. That's why we need to meet next week."

"Ooookay. Kinda gimmicky. So what're they after? 'The Windmill of Faith' or something like that?"

[Uncomfortable silence, entirely devoid of bemusement.]

"Well all righty, then. Count me in!"

[Exit Marie, stage right.]

I want to be loyal. And I love that my church is staffed entirely by ordinary folk. And I know it's not easy being in charge. And I'd rather take orders any day than have to run the game and get mocked on other people's blogs. But someone really should raise the This-Is-a-Big-Fat-Waste-of-Time alarm. Or else the Enough-With-All-the-Elaborate-Activities-Already-and-Let's- Have-a-Good-Old-Fashioned-Service-Project alarm. Will you please do it for me? I'm too yella.

However, granted all the time and papier mache in the world, I would sculpt a lifesized Mormon missionary to stand astride our assigned golf hole. He would look a wee bit grumpy and his name tag would say Elder Ihavebetterthingstodoandsodoyou.




A post-post post: Okay, I get it. No comments = I'm a big jerk. As it turns out, this golf activity was concieved by the Family Home Evening Committee (not the Activities Committee) and their requested contribution from our committee was not as big as I'd imagined -- a few empty tuna cans ("fishers of men," lest you wonder) and we're off the hook. I still do worry a bit about the culture that develops in these LDS singles' wards, though. There are so many ablebodied helpers in proportion to the number of Official Tasks that we just start adding details and embellishments in order to keep everyone occupied and soon we're living in Neverland. Maybe they should invent a special singles' ward calling: "all-purpose on-call do-gooder," and send them forth to find damsels in distress and old ladies that need help across the road.

Life is like a paper snowflake. No, not really.

I think I've made it abundantly clear that February is not my favorite month. I was getting pretty jazzed that March was almost here (all hail March, month of wild winds and thawing earthworms!) and then, with just two days to go, we get dumped on -- heavy, wet snow, and lots of it. My "oh, how I love the lacy naked trees etched on the gray sky" winter coping mantra isn't cutting it at the moment. It is during these dark days that I turn to one of my wintertime obsessions: paper snowflakes.

I am no artist. But the beauty of the paper snowflake is that you can create something exquisite almost by accident (sorta like procreation, but without the swollen ankles and excruciating labor pains). With my Basic Principles of Snowflakery, you cannot go wrong. Added benefit: snowflake cutting makes you feel mildly productive while indulging in your third episode of Arrested Development.

Tips:

-- Always fold your square of paper into sixths -- never fourths or eighths.
-- Use small scissors with a sharp point so that you can cut spaces out of the center of your wedge of paper, rather than just the edges.
-- Never, EVER recut your snowflake after opening it. (That's like giving your infant a nose job.)
-- Do pay attention to patterns that turn out well so that you can incorporate them into later snowflakes. (That's like eugenics, I guess, but they're only paper snowflakes, for Pete's sake. Yeesh. Quit taking this so seriously.)
-- Cut lots and lots -- one of them is bound to be accidentally gorgeous. (But of course you'll love them all equally, won't you?)

As an avid (i.e. rabid) snowflaker of several years, I have had many hours to ponder how Life is like cutting a paper snowflake. After awhile, you get a sense of what will probably work, but you never know for sure if you have a winner until you open it. You're not entirely responsible for either your successes or your failures -- it's just too complex for that kind of control. Sometimes the Cosmic Scissors intervene and lend you inspiration. Other times, you're alone, and you have to choose: should you cut yet another *%!?#! snowflake, or plunge those embroidery scissors into your chest and end it all? But you must remember that the darkest moment comes just before the.....

Oh, jeez. Deep breaths. Spring is almost here.

Ode to a nameless cat, take two.

A couple weeks back I picked up the novel A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Guy's been on the short list for the Nobel Prize in Literature the past couple years, but the real draw was the descriptors used most often by reviewers: "verbal anarchy," "screwball," "wicked and loopy." I thought I should at least give him a try. I just finished the book and it seems to be an off-the-wall allegory for post-WWII Japan and its relationship with the West. Mighty odd, as advertised. I'm not sure I'll read more by him, but I really bonded with the author during the scene in which the hero heads out on his quest and is arranging for someone to take care of his nameless cat:

He'd been a fine young tom the day my wife found him under a park bench and brought him home, but in the last few years he'd rapidly gone downhill. Like a bowling ball rolling toward the gutter. Also, he didn't have a name. I had no idea whether not having a name reduced or contributed to the cat's tragedy.

"Nice kitty-kitty," said the chauffeur, hand not outstretched. "What's his name?"

"He doesn't have a name."

"So what do you call the fella?"

"I don't call it," I said. "It's just there."

"But he's not a lump just sitting there. He moves about by this own will, no? Seems mighty strange that something that moves by its own will doesn't have a name."

"Herring swim around of their own will, but nobody gives them names."

"Well, first of all, there's no emotional bond between herring and people, and besides, they wouldn't know their name if they heard it."

"Which is to say that animals that not only move by their own will and share feelings with people but also possess sight and hearing qualify as deserving of names then?"

"There, you got it." The chauffeur nodded repeatedly, satisfied. "How about it? What say I go ahead and give the little guy a name?"

"Don't mind in the least. But what name?"

"How about 'Kipper'? I mean you were treating him like a herring after all."

"Not bad, " I said.

"You see?" said the chauffeur.

"What do you think?" I asked my girlfriend.

"Not bad," she said. "It's like being witness to the creation of heaven and earth."

"Let there be Kipper," I said.

"C'mere, Kipper," said the chauffeur, picking up the cat. The cat got frightened, bit the chauffeur's thumb, then farted.

This Nobel-caliber author has said what I could not on the topic of nameless pets, and I hope that the world will cease persecuting me. I love my cat more than a whole barrel of herring, but she doesn't care whether I call her "kitty" or "Kipper" or "Tarzan." She just wants a full food dish and some ankles to chase. Plus, if I give her a real name, it would be so much harder to eat her.

"Maybe if I wasn't so busy all the time, everyone in the world would be a friend of mine..."

My cousin knows how to butter me up by seeking my Literary Opinions -- most recently she asked me for a friendship-themed poem appropriate for inscribing on a farewell card for a dear departing roommate. I racked my brain and found that nearly all my memorized poems were about 1) unrequited love, 2) regret, 3) death. No good. My internet research on happy friendship poems turned up a heap of trite crap as well as a delightful piece about a friendly catfish, but realizing that catfish sentiments probably weren't what she had in mind, I decided to consult the index of my Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Now, Emily D. was obsessed with death, as you may know -- over and over you think you're reading a love poem, but nearly always it turns out she's actually dating the Grim Reaper in disguise. However, I managed to dig up a few beauties about friendship that appear to be entirely death-free. One of these was almost giddy by Emily standards --->

Meeting by Accident,
We hovered by design --
As often as a Century
An error so divine
Is ratified by Destiny,
But Destiny is old
And economical of Bliss
As Midas is of Gold --

and it reminded me of the topic I've been meaning to blog about since the day Meadowbright, Fairy of the Sun, first flitted into my life. Here's how it happened: while sorting through a pile of junk mail one night, I first beheld her....and laughed out loud. My first thought was, "I have to keep this -- Sharon will DIE." I set her aside on the kitchen counter as a special handpicked treasure for my friend. Later that week, Sharon was at my place and noticed little Meadowbright gazing up at her. "Oh my word!" exclaims Sharon. "I saved that for you, too -- I knew it would make you laugh!" Cue the strings -- we have a bosom buddy moment! Some days I wonder sadly if my friends are only my friends by virtue of our proximity, or matching marital status, or other merely circumstantial factors, and then a little sprite called Destiny blesses us with Magic and everything gets all sparkly.

Another friend recently despaired of ever convincing her fiancé to sit through our beloved Anne of Green Gables miniseries because he just couldn't buy into Anne's whole "kindred spirit" schtick. Now, I have my reservations about this concept as it's often applied to romantic relationships -- as much as I'd like to believe that there is a single pre-selected One out there, perfectly and solely suited for me, it doesn't ring true. However, I do believe that there are people you're more akin to -- people you somehow know effortlessly.

This same friend, for example: I'd observed her throughout high school as we were in most of the same classes. She was smart, friendly, and unpretentious and I often flattered myself that if we just had occasion to interact, we would hit it off. But she was on a higher social plane, so I opted to play the coward and leave the matter to fate. Fate dragged his feet, but finally presented us with neighboring front-row seats in European History. Before you know it, we're blowing off studying (gasp!) for a stack of old movies -- two brainiac chicks gone wild. We knew each other just over a year before she shipped off to Boston for college, but it was a friendship that's stuck in spite of diverging paths. Yaknowwhati'msayin'?

The spookiest bosom buddy story I've saved for last. My final year of college I moved into a new place and had an unpleasant run-in with one of my new roommates. She had staked out the house months before and had her eye on my side of the room; however, I moved in first, and in an uncharacteristically stubborn display, refused to let her have the spot she had so desired. We eventually reached a point of chatty civility, but it was tinged with a lingering mistrust. When I realized how much we had in common I regretted my decision to stay put, but the fact remained that I was sleeping in her bed and had no intention of moving. Grrr! Then one day I was going through my files and came across an old letter to the editor that I'd cut out of the university newspaper a couple years before. I NEVER bother to cut things out of the newspaper, let alone actually file them away for future reference, but this letter was so deliciously funny that I had preserved it in my "Nifty Random Stuff" file. I took it out to have another chuckle, and whose name is printed at the top, but my bed-coveting roommate's. I run downstairs to inform her that, unbeknownst to me, I'm her biggest fan. She freaks out because she'd forgotten to save a copy of the letter when it ran in the paper, and here I had a copy all along. Instant friends. Post-college roomies for three years. Like an old married couple.

I could go on and on. Heck -- one friend even mailed me a bag of fairy dust when I was going through a rough time -- doesn't get much more magical than that. Are these meetings coincidence, or Meant To Be? Are they decreed from on high, or created by us? Hard to say for sure, but as Ms. Dickinson points out, they're pretty rare, and even if they start out as accidents they can end up Destiny. A couple weeks ago when a new friend was moving away to an exotic land she said that if she'd stuck around we would have been good friends. Who can say? It's such a mysterious mix of fate and circumstance. Perhaps with just a pinch of that pixie dust, a few happy thoughts (and two easy payments of $19.99), you, too, can have your very own Diana Barry kindred spirit buddy. Could be around the next corner, or in tomorrow's mail.

I'll tell you my zinger if you tell me yours.

Woo hoo! Lookie at me! I won a contest! A very battle of wit(tiness)! I'm bigger than the Beatles and Tickle Me Elmo, put together!

Now that I'm all gloated out, confession time: my struggle with humor hubris has devolved into a neverending game of Whack-a-Mole. Just when I have sworn off the cheap laughs once and for all, up pops another fat little rodent with "mock me" taped to his backside. Just when I have meekly donned the gray habit of the Unfunny Nunnery and committed myself to a life of abstinence from sarcasm, someone (usually President Bush) sets himself up for a snarky comment and off I go again, humor whoring.

No doggedly perfecting my Art alone in some cave and burying well-crafted, tasteful jokes to be unearthed by future generations -- I crave your approval, folks. I'm just an overgrown class clown (blame it on the adult acne!), so if you laughed, then it was funny -- simple as that. On the bright side, if you ignore me, I will definitely go away. But don't ignore me! Please! Oh, oh -- I know! Have you heard the one about the squid and the rabbi who walked into a bar...?

When divas go down.

Tonight Sharon and I attended an encore broadcast performance of the Met's I Puritani with the new darling of the opera world, Anna Netrebko, in the role of Elvira. She is gorgeous, with a charming sense of humor and a voice that is both exquisite and expressive, even when she's singing upside down with her head in the orchestra pit.

Yep -- God loves Anna Netrebko better than He loves you and me and Maria Callas, combined. I kept saying to myself, "She probably has some dark secret. Maybe a superfluous third nipple." But it didn't work. She just glowed with loveliness and grace and that glow threw my pettiness up on the wall in twisted shadows.

After beating back my envy somewhat I was able to surrender to her moving performance, but it was still fun to watch some of her sister divas act out my inner cattiness. During intermissions they cut to Renée Fleming interviewing Anna in her dressing room backstage. Renée was doing her best to grit her teeth and let the new girl shine, but she kept pulling the mike away from Anna mid-sentence so she could make another sage observation about the Art of Opera. I've got one for you, Renée: divas should never interview divas.

They also interviewed the 77-year-old Beverly Sills during intermissions, asking for her reactions to each act:

"Ms. Sills, what do you think of this production?"

"Oh, it's always a bit ridiculous when they mix costumes and styles from different eras, but who am I to complain? Every production is different."

"Ms. Sills, wasn't Anna's mad scene remarkable? Such a difficult bel canto passage!"

"Well, when I sang the lead in Lucia di Lammermoor, now that was a real mad scene. It wasn't like a teenager disappointed in love -- it was profound madness. As for those bel canto lines, they are difficult, but they are nothing to Wagner. The lines are much more natural for the human voice. And you don't have to sing over such a big orchestra with bel canto."

"But isn't it true that the thinner orchestration leaves no room for mistakes? Anna can't hide behind the orchestra in this bel canto style like you sometimes can in Wagner."

"Pshaw. An opera singer can't hide behind a large orchestra. Wagner is much more difficult to sing, without question."

Ladies, this opera house ain't big enough for the three of us: showdown in the greenroom at high noon. Sharpen your Viking horns, and may the best diva win.

Crisis.

A disturbing story this weekend on NPR. The number of American millionaires and billionaires has dramatically increased in recent years and the result is a tragic butler shortage. That's right -- many of America's best and sparkliest are being forced to interact face to face with the groundskeeper, and they don't even speak Mexican.

As I see it, there are three possible solutions.



1) Drop whatever you're doing and enroll in butler school. You and all your friends. Grad school be d***ned -- the richies need you.

2) Vote Democrat.

3) Madame la Guillotine.

Blessed with magic and firm upper arms.

I will have more to say in the near future about Meadowbright, Fairy of the Sun -- about how fate (and the U.S. Postal Service) brought us together. But for now let us all just sit and admire her. Be tanned and enlightened in her presence. For she is all things: she is Barbie, she is Xena; cocks her head shyly as a Tinkerbell, positions her scepter lustily as a Puck.

She is truly blessed with magic.

We're all mad here.

Everyone knows that many of the greatest artists have been certifiable. Most of these people spend more time reimagining the world on canvas or celluloid or CD than they do eating paint or cutting off their own ears, but sometimes the border between creative and insane is hard to define.

In recent months I've had occasion to think about and read about autism a lot, and it's interesting to learn that what in many cases manifests as extreme rigidity and adherence to routine (think Rainman) is just a coping strategy for the autistic, who notice the bazillion things that the rest of us automatically filter and sort. The fact that they notice every last fleck of light and shadow gives them creative possibilities that others lack, but the problem is learning to sort thorough all they see and express it to others.

My brother (lightly loopy, a formidable scriptorian, and one of the hottest XYs on the market) teaches kids who have been committed to the State Mental Hospital in Provo. He sees the whole array, from those who are truly crippled by their illnesses to those who walk a line between madness and mad genius. I got a real kick out of this poem that an autistic student turned out for a writing assignment:

The Mountain

Oh, up on the mountain the sun shines down like a lance,

The spiders prance, the fish growl, and the dragons dance,

And of course all two hundred dwarves run askance.

The squirrels all look around,

At the pizza to be found,

In the sky, but mostly on the ground.

All the varmints hop, to get away from the angry housewives mop

And the Martians hiding in the corn crop,

Waiting to abduct

People that get too close to their hiding spots,

Should know that the mountain is the life for them.

The mountain is big, as in large, as in big,

and the old monkey woman wears a wig,

as she bakes pie, made of pig.

Oh the mountain is big.

We've got a new Lewis Carroll here -- someone bust that kid out and let him loose upon this drab world! I'm a bit jealous. My family culture glorified craziness, so I was miffed when a series of high school personality/career tests repeatedly placed me smack in the middle of the left-right brain continuum. Vaguely creative, vaguely analytical, remarkably nothing. I dreamed of making a name for myself as a lunatic guru with a profoundly wacked comeback for all things banal. I wanted to be a Feste, a Python, a Blackadder, a Starkadder, a Tweedle Brother, a Coen Brother. But alas.

Normally I content myself with devouring the work of those who are true originals and pray that God will see fit to remove my left brain in the next life. But I have noticed that when I'm really excited-slash-distressed, it shuts off on its own and odd things happen. For instance, several years ago I stumbled on the first band I'd ever found that tapped into my preferred brand of warm-hearted nutsiness, and for a week or more I was up late listening to their music. Eventually my sleep-deprived self began writing a really wacky poem (more doggerel verse, really) that I eventually attached to the first and only fan letter I've ever written. This goofy poem then led to a friendship with the loony lyricist himself and one of his Pynchon-reading buddies. Almost a dream come true, but....

I was a fraud, and that became apparent when my addled brain returned to normal. I was asked to contribute some edgy copy to the press kit for their new record. My heart pitter-pattered, but my right brain called in sick. In retrospect, the solution was likely some LSD and an all-nighter or two, but with smoke pouring out my ears I begged them to let me off the hook. They knew how much I wanted to contribute and kindly threw me a consolation prize -- I could copyedit their liner notes. I still cringe when I think of it. My big chance to flaunt my inner kook, and I ended up EDITING LINER NOTES.

Maybe I should check myself in and see what I can learn from my brother's students. I know life with a mental illness must be hellish, but life as a terminal derivative is no walk in the park either. Who wants to die of boredom?

Gadabout girl.

All the dire warnings about greenhouse gases have made me think a lot about what I can do to curb my car use. I don't expect I'll start taking the bus to work anytime soon -- that would require getting up a lot earlier -- but I can walk a lot more places, and it would help me keep my girlish figure. After all, that's one of the reasons I wanted to live downtown -- to be within walking distance of everything. So Saturday I decided I was going to walk on most of my errands. I took my regular walk around the neighborhood with Sharon, then walked to my massage appointment (a.k.a. walking machine tune-up), and then to the library, and then home. Besides getting exercise and feeling a tiny bit better about my pollution generation levels, I spotted some fun junk. For starters: the Wicked Witch of the East has crash-landed into a yard in my neighborhood. A pair of pink flamingos look on, unfazed. Call the Munchkins for a cleanup on Aisle 7!

Nothing says "the landlord's got a camera hidden in your bathroom" like an apartment building named "Spyglass." Yikes!

Apparently I'm not the only lonely heart in the Avenues. Or maybe this message isn't "I have no one to love" but rather "I love everything"? "I love this sidewalk and the people on it and the earthworms under it and the pigeons above it and..."

I've collected a lot of fun Dickensian names the last few years in my walks through the Salt Lake City Cemetery (the Umpleby family, Fairy Gentry, and Virgil Groo, for starters), but Saturday was the first day I'd noticed this one. Sharon has a friend named Linwood, so we decided a Linwood is a country Lin and a Linville is a city Lin.

My former Young Women's leader, Ruth Menlove, sculpted this bronze a few years ago for the Peter Prier violin-making school in Salt Lake. I've driven by it a billion times in the years I've lived in Salt Lake and each time I've thought "gotta get out and see Ruth's statue up close...but some other day." Turns out "some other day" was Saturday, as I walked to the library. Great job, Ruthie!

Digression: Everyone tries to deny it when I speak of my crazy-huge head. Here's Ruth's caricature of the 14-year-old me in a sea of girls' camp comrades. Mooniest face in the bunch -- the artist lieth not. The one behind me with the halo is Ruth, of course.

This synagogue, built in 1903, is now a Greek Orthodox church. I loved the Hebrew script below the Orthodox onion domes and Islamic arches. Made me think....in this age of interfaith marriages they should have religion malls -- all your religion needs in one stop, then meet up in the food court after services for Starbucks.

There are six separate apartment units pictured in this photo. Apparently the residents of #1, #7, #9, and #11 were involved in some sort of secret love rectangle and didn't want #3 and #5 in on it. Or maybe that's a fire escape and you get a special discount on your rent if you choose one of the firetrap apartments with no access to the staircase.

This church has a new clever tagline each week. I want to go in and ask them if they have some wisenheimer pastor who comes up with them or if they consult a fat book of cheesy religious jokes. My favorite in recent memory was "If Jesus is your co-pilot, switch places."

This little Christmas mouse was sitting on the sidewalk in front of a house that was still fully decked out for the holidays. I can only assume that he had gorged himself on one fruitcake too many and was heading off in search of a nice Easter salad.





To be continued....