Hyperbole and a Half: Boyfriend Doesn't Have Ebola. Probably.

Hyperbole and a Half: Boyfriend Doesn't Have Ebola. Probably.

this. really. it makes sense!

Bike. Tired.

Riding today with my son through the flesh-melting heat of a Montana summer afternoon, I marveled at this beautiful new age he's entered into.
Semi-independent, on his own bike.
No more a passenger in the yellow Bob trailer my brother sent when he was born. ("Don't let Motherhood slow you down!" was the written admonition accompanying his gift.)
I felt proud and happy and a little cautious - as any good mom should - riding between him and traffic, skirting parked cars and encouraging him to stay to the sidewalks where there was a dappling of shade.
He did well.
A little off-balance, a little shy of the process, better the only way to go.
I am pleased.
En route home I told him how happy I was to be sharing this with him. Biking, I told him, was flying to me, was a manifestation of all the joy I hold inside transformed into pure motion.
I love to bike. I haven't for years. Circumstances and lack of a two-wheeled steed kept me grounded.
I am working, now, to get one going - a frame to fit my frame. Wheels to give me flight.
I am pleased to share this with my son.
River paths, mellow evenings, cool mornings in birthing sun - all can be goals of our summer's journey into mobility.
I am pleased.

A Mighty Fartress is Our Dog

It was the rabbit.
It had to be.
They'd been playing with it for three days now,
and, well, I guess it was just time.
It didn't stand a chance.
Chuck's steel jaws took one quick snap and -- .

So they decided to eat it, after a while,
Gidget and her big, blond companion.
She took a back leg, he a fore and the tug of war was on.
Two dogs, one bunny.
It was no contest.

Come evening, the dogs were sated. Run tired and played out,
they crashed like rocks.
Bedtime, and the small dog, Gidget, came inside.
Curled in her little ball of fur, looking like a scrap from a parka hood,
she snored softly.
And then it began.
Silent, but deadly.
The smell. The overwhelming smell of dog that has been into raw meat.
Like a barrel of garlic gone bad, this smell.
Worse than skunk.

She stank up the whole dang house, room by room
with that creeping vapor.
Even the kitchen was not immune.
And then I started laughing.
And humming. The old Christian hymn.
"A Mighty Fartress is Our Dog."
Snerk.

Thanks, Library!

Tonight, alone on one of the most people-oriented holidays there is, I went to my public library.
There, I found platters of cookies, bags of popcorn, spooky lighting and yes! ~ bloody hand punch. Welcome to the lonely hearts club on Halloween.

About a dozen of us watched "The Others," a spooky period piece (circa world war two) with Nicole Kidman as an opressive English mother, repressing the spunk of her tweenaged daughter in an old mansion in the moors. Yes, there's a shy younger brother and three creepy servants and the ever-loving fog.
It was a great pick for the mixed-age crowd (12 to about 70, I'd say).
And, as mentioned, I was proud to be in the company of others, who, like me, with nowhere of their own to go, could call the library ours, if only for the night, and share the revelry of the holiday, not alone.
Thanks, Iola Public Library! You're swell!

Another old gal lost

Another iron press, remnant of printing days gone by, will join her forebears in history at the end of the month. The Iola Register, heretofore printed in house, on that monstrous creature that devours half the length of the building, will jump on the bandwagon that most newspapers caught years ago, and begin having her printing outsourced, at the Lawrence Journal World. It was a somber meeting we were all called to. "It's like losing a family member," said Register Editor Susan Lynn. Lynn's family has owned The Register all but a few years of its existence. Printer Ron Helman had spent 33 years with "The Old Gal," and she was more than just a machine to him, he acknowledged. With just a year and a half to go until retirement, Helman will take on the duties of driver, hauling The Register from Lawrence back to her home town every day. It means a shift in hours, a shift from physical labor to seat-work, a shift from working with one crewman in a small crowd of comrades to being alone, on the road, every day. "Bless his heart," Lynn said of his decision to abide. For the rest of us, it has meant new deadlines, coming in earlier, trying to get our mental selves around a faster work pace. An afternoon paper, we had the luxury of coming to work in the morning, writing stories, designing pages and seeing them go to press. The metallic squawk of machinery squealed to a hault for press checks, and we could all glance at a copy of the news before it hit the newsstand. No longer. Now, that fresh-ink smell will belong to someone else. We'll get our papers when we get our papers, just like everyone else. Something of that feeling of belonging to a special club, of nurturing something and bringing it to fruition, will be gone. But, as the boss said, it is a good time, too. Color pictures for black and white. Extra pages and consistenty, day by day by day. A new look. More professionalism. Color. Still, it has been upheaval, and humans, by nature, avoid change. Goodbye Old Gal. I hope we throw you a heck of a wing-ding farewell.