Big Foot

I have an enormous capacity to suspend disbelief, especially while reading. As long as poor writing doesn’t jolt me out of my mesmerized state, I happily follow along. This allows me to enjoy a cozy mystery or a romance novel or fiction dipped in magical realism. But it is not useful when reading a newspaper article.

This morning’s Washington Post article “Why you should almost always wash your clothes on cold” had me nodding along, all in. Oh, yes! Cold water is good for everything. Powdered laundry detergent only! No dryer sheets!

Luckily, there’s a comment section below the article where other readers snap me back into the bigger picture. Thank you FishyBulb for reminding me that my carbon footprint is nothing compared to the 80-90% of CO2 emissions from energy production, industry/agribusiness, transportation, and building. “You could disappear every house in the country and we’d still have 90% of the problem,” FishyBulb writes.

Yes, I can slow the spinning dial on my electric meter, save wear and tear on my clothes, etc., following suggestions from the WaPo article, but, as the book The Big Fix explains, “the world will not be saved by conscientious green consumers.” The climate change problem is too big for that.

The Big Fix outlines the cause of the problem and instructions for green citizens. “We need to focus, together, on a relatively small number of public policies that can, over time, bring about sweeping change.”

Little changes—like hanging our laundry out to dry—are helpful, but the emphasis on our individual carbon footprints encourages us to feel smug about those sheets flapping in the breeze while distracting us from our primary responsibility to push for substantial changes. (FishyBulb says the carbon footprint concept is marketing from polluter BP to absolve themselves from responsibility.)

I hoped The Big Fix would provide an alternative to wallowing in despair. And it does. The authors explain our climate change problem and offer instructions for us citizens to meaningfully address that problem.

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One of my actions: A letter to our county officials that explains my husband’s plan for efficient operation of our trash collection behemoths. Adoption of this plan would mean less noise in the neighborhood, less maintenance on the trucks, and less air pollution. What he and I might do next depends on what response we get from the county.

And where did I learn of this helpful book?

From a newspaper, of course.

The wheels on the bus

Here in Richmond we have a convenient bus service from the Willow Lawn shopping district on West Broad Street to Rockett’s Landing on the James River on the east side of town. The Pulse line has its own dedicated lanes and preferential traffic lights. And the ride (for now) is free.

So — why don’t more people take advantage of this easy way to get into the center city and the arts district, the museums, the restaurants, and shops?

It only takes one person to ruin the ride for the rest of us.

On a recent Sunday, my partner and I encountered a small, rough-looking man with no front teeth at the Willow Lawn bus shelter. He chose us (we are open to this sort of thing, apparently) as his personal audience for a monologue on the blessings of God, the unfairness of his one son blaming him for the death of another son, his reflections on the Catholic faith, and his desire to “go home” right now. This disjointed stream followed us onto the bus, flowed for the whole ride and got off when we did. Other passengers, perhaps inured to this sort of thing, ignored him.

On our return trip, at the second stop, the doors opened and a woman in a tank top (not usual here in January)came toward the bus and abruptly tumbled off the curb. My husband and I and another passenger rushed off the bus to help. As they raised her from the concrete she cursed them loudly and shoved them away.

Inside the bus she began talking to no one and talking to them loudly. Her nose and knee were bruised and bloody. By the time the Pulse passed the Science Museum, the woman was shouting unintelligible phrases, threats, and curses.

The driver swung the bus to the curb and opened the doors. The woman fulminated as the rest of us sat quietly, some of us expecting the police. After a couple of minutes, she got up and walked out, still talking. The driver folded the doors closed and maneuvered the bus across traffic back into the designated lane.

So we endured an uncomfortable ride east and a tense ride west.

The lack of mental health services and housing for those living on the edge is one reason there are so few welcoming public spaces.

When public policy deliberately neglects care of “the least of these”, even a bus ride can seem threatening.

Mundane

Lakeside received some much needed rain of the most useful kind, at least in the eyes of those of us with gardens. In spite of my efforts with the hose, the pepper plants were droopy. After this rain they’ve perked right up.

“After this rain” may not be accurate. The sun shone briefly but now the clouds are back. “During this rain” might be more accurate.

I stepped out the back door between showers. It’s steamy out there and smells like a distillery. The rain felled the ripest figs and now they ferment on the patio and buzz with bees, beetles, and wasps. I saw a Red-spotted Purple butterfly sampling smooshed figs and a Red Admiral kneading fallen fig pulp with its thread-like feet. The potted lavender smelled soapy in the humid air.

The showers held off long enough for me to slip my own substantial feet into rubber boots (a barrier to chiggers) and cut basil for the marinated eggplant planned for dinner. Two brilliant red leaves hung from the spindly branches of the small maple. The season wears itself out.

Yesterday when we had our early morning coffee on the screen porch the rain fell steadily and we neither saw nor heard any birds but the caws of crows somewhere a street away. This morning’s rain was a fine mist. I set my phone app to give names to the birds we heard: blue jay, mockingbird, titmouse, red-bellied woodpecker, crow, cardinal, nuthatch, woodthrush and house sparrow. The doves didn’t register, but we watched them. A hummingbird supped from the rosemary blossoms on the other side of the screens.

Mollie dog slept on the porch all morning and into the afternoon, bored without the usual parade of people and other dogs walking past the yard. A quiet, boring day for her.

She’s outside now, after—or during—the rain.

Old People House

I carry an impression from my childhood that a house crowded by shrubs and trees is an Old People House. Normal People houses had neat, regimented landscaping. Old People planted too much and let things run wild.

This impression was, you might say, brought home to me while looking over junk mail from the Arbor Day Foundation. A survey enclosed in their big white envelope asked for my response to such questions as “Have you ever climbed a tree?” and “Have you ever enjoyed the shade of a tree?” It seems doubtful that anyone plans to tabulate the results. I assume the questions were only to remind me of the many ways I value trees so I’d send money. In exchange for a donation, they promise to send trees (seedlings, surely!)

The survey question that tossed me back into childhood was: “How many trees do you have on your property?” Mentally I counted twenty on less than one-third of an acre. “Oh!” some part of my brain said. “I must be living in an Old People House.”

My child self would know right away this was an Old People House. If she walked through the shade of the big oak in front of the house and then around the corner, she would see a dogwood, a small oak, two crepe myrtles, two pine trees, a black gum, and two maples. Ragged azaleas hug the foundation. An overgrown oakleaf hydrangea sprawls under the kitchen window and an out-of-control fig tree obscures a corner of the building. And there are bird feeders, of course. Old People always have bird feeders.

If that long-gone child had walked past in May, she would have also seen tall grass and weeds in the front yard. Grass so high us Old People merited a zoning citation. The high grass wasn’t entirely due to neglect. We had a thought or two for the lightning bugs during a vulnerable phase of their life cycle. Aggressive mowing in the spring means less of an evening show in the summer.

That long-gone child never gave a thought to where the lightening bugs came from or what they needed to keep coming back. (It goes without saying that us Old People abhor herbicides and insecticides.)

Our back yard provides a seasonal buffet for birds and insects.

Parsley and milkweed welcome caterpillars. A small apple tree struggles with bagworms but still drops apples. Mockingbirds chase each other in and out of the elderberry bushes screeching and squawking and pop the berries from beak to tongue. Sparrows peck tart persimmons before they ripen enough for us Old People to enjoy. Goldfinches pluck seeds from sunflowers and zinnias.

And oh, the figs! There are so many and they are so sweet. Hummingbirds poke holes in them. Starlings tear the figs apart, leaving fig skins hanging like rags from the stalks. Us Old People shake the branches to disturb the bees and wasps and big shiny green beetles before we pick figs for ourselves, and we watch where we step so we don’t get stung. Fallen figs attract hornets as well as butterflies.

As a child, the yard of an Old People House needed no explanation. It was just how Old People lived.

Now that I am one of those Old People, I will live this way as long as I can, until we get so feeble we can’t cut back the vines or bushes or prune the trees and the house, with us in it, disappears under it all.

Singing in the Pain

My uncle, who is eighty some years old, claims he can still do anything he could do when he was forty. I can, too—but I have to sing while I’m at it. The lyrics to the songs are Groan and Ugh! and Ouch! and other four letters.

I am singing these songs while I roll paint over the living room walls and cut in the edges with a brush. Climbing the ladder makes me sort of hum a bit, but getting up and down off the floor can inspire arias coloring the air blue. And the baseboard needs three coats of semi-gloss. That’s a lot of getting up and down. Painting isn’t the problem. It’s changing positions. I’ll be hoarse before I finish.

The living room is the biggest room in the house. I may have bitten off more than I can chew in one sitting, but if it takes me longer to finish the meal than it would have ten or twenty years ago, I also have more patience. And my friends don’t stick their noses in the air and back out at the sight of paint cans and drop cloths. The loveseat and chairs are still comfortable.

I just hope they won’t look overhead. The ceiling wants painting but I don’t want to paint the ceiling. You could say I’m not UP to it.

Recovery

A friend underwent the same surgery I did but a week before. Recovery requires, she said, “sitting quietly in a chair.” During my own time of “sitting quietly in a chair,” friends and family brought in meals and books, each sustaining in vital ways.

My daughter shared Drag Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones). She suggested it might be a cozy mystery. The book incorporates elements of that genre—picturesque setting, quirky characters, amatuer investigators—but it veers from this well-trodden path into deep territory. This who-dunnit conceals ethical and moral questions like spring loaded snares.

I acquired Boys Weekend (Mattie Lubchansky) myself, after reading a review. The idea of a newly out trans artist attending an old friend’s bachelor weekend as “best man”? How would that work out? But when the book arrived, I was a bit startled to find I’d ordered a graphic novel. How did I miss that key fact?

Obviously I am not the target audience for Boys Weekend. AARP is not reviewing graphic novels. I had to think hard about this book. I was not prepared the gore or the depictions of rapacious capitalism. Reading the reviews posted on GoodReads helped me see how these layers worked together and reinforced the personal side of the story.

The friend who brought We Have Always Lived in the Castle (by Shirley Jackson of The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House) had been trying to convince me to read it for a long time. And there I was, “sitting quietly in my chair,” ready for another book. This edition is wrapped in a dramatic cover by Thomas Ott that might be scratchboard. Every one of the one hundred forty-six pages was a bit unsettling or creepy or even made my skin crawl. Perhaps a portrait of folie a deux?

From Dr. Linwood “Little Bear” Custalow and Angela L. Daniel “Silver Star” we now have The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History . This slender book also made my skin crawl. This is a first hand account from the sacred oral history of the Mattaponi. Who are you going to believe? John Smith, who wrote his version to sell to his countrymen all too willing to swallow sensationalized tales that glorified one of them? Or Pocahontas’ own people?

My disgust with the long dead John Smith may be partially responsible for my rejection of Spare by Prince Harry. Harry’s bearded face dominates the cover. This stunning jacket design by Christopher Brand is as far as I got with this book. My friend brought it to me because she enjoyed it but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s something unsavory about it. Is Harry a reliable narrator? What’s his agenda in publishing this book? Why should I care?

Though I haven’t cracked the book, don’t feel bad for Harry. His handsome volume will not stay long in our LIttle Free Library. Another reader will be happy to find it.

I started reading Deja Noir (by Robert Bailey*) in my chair, moved to my bed to keep reading, and closed the book at 1 a.m. when my eyes started to itch. In the morning, again “sitting quietly in my chair,” I continued reading until I ran out of pages.

Though Hard-nosed PI with a Big Heart is not my usual genre, the slew of distinct characters, colorful descriptions, and a tangled plot that comes together in the end. It kept me guessing until the next-to-the-last chapter. Lots of fireworks and surprises but was the ending a little trite? Come to think of it, so was the opening. Deliberate irony? Definitely amusing, and, after all, this IS a Hard-nosed PI with a Big Heart. I should have seen it coming.

So I’ve had good company while “sitting in a chair quietly” (and if you are tired of the phrase you can imagine how tired I got of sitting in that chair). These books saved me from having to start every conversation with “According to an article in the Washington Post . . . “

*(Years ago, when I showed up, at the Rich Writers critique group, Robert Bailey welcomed and encouraged me, as he had done for other newbies. Bob is much missed.)

Another New Year

I’ve fulfilled the most important of my New Year obligations. I’ve eaten all the holiday chocolates so we can start 2023 eating healthy. Sure, it made me a little speedy for a few days, but that helped me complete another first-of-the-year task—making Happy New Year cards to send to friends/family. This task wouldn’t have existed here in January if I’d gotten around to making Christmas/Solstice cards in December, but I didn’t. And I really needed all the chocolate I could get my hands on because my design for this year required multiple steps.

First I had to write a greeting with passable calligraphy. Luckily, my standards for my own calligraphy are not high or I’d still be working at it. I had to carve and print multiple linoleum blocks and slice construction paper into one inch strips with the paper cutter. There was some surprisingly tricky paper folding, and I had to squeeze out blobs of rubbery glue to hold miniscule googly eyes. And after several days of this, there was still the signing and addressing of envelopes. The chocolate ran out before the project, but I made it.

But I felt a little flat after I slid all the stamped cards through the mail slot at the post office.

Then a friend saved me. He sent a video of a Jesse Jackson speech from 1988. Hopeful, uplifting, inspiring words! and so welcome in this cynical political climate.

So, my top New Year’s resolution is to maintain hope and encourage some smiles. Maybe my silly cards do both.

UnFriending God

Facebook is a disappointment.

I thought it would be a good site to see faces of friends and family and their friends and families and photos from their vacations or their new haircuts or hair colors or pets or gardens. A place to read updates on the Doings of friends and acquaintances and favorite authors. A great source of inspiration from artists of all kinds.

But – alas! – politics.

And religios jingoism.

Were I more tolerant and less impulsive, I would ignore fact-challenged political memes. But sometimes I don’t. I am guilty of posting links to point out fallacies and offering explanations with context and background. And what thanks do I get? Abuse and insults. Probably what I deserve since no one has ever replied “OMG! You are SO right!” and I’ve never replied that way either so what did I expect? No one’s mind is changed by Facebook comments. Facebook is set up to elicit reactions, not thoughtful discussions. (Apparently, so am I.)

So when I see a meme such as: “When you kneel down to God, he stands up for you. And when he stands up for you, no one can stand against you.” and my better angel prompts me to ignore it and scroll on down the page, I find myself further roused by “Heaven has strict immigration laws. Hell has open borders.”

My eyes skim over these sentences and my brain leaps into arguments. This simplistic stuff can drive me nuts.

One of the entities generating these memes calls itself God, as if it is the sole manifestation of the category. So when I blocked that particular Producer of Memes, I blocked God.

Why can’t we all stick to personal news on Facebook? That would bring us all closer together.

But don’t expect me to stick to it. The political stuff I post is spot-on and everyone is grateful when I share it. And MY religious views are not offensive.

Right? Right?

Memorial Day

Driving to the veterinarian’s office to pick up pain meds for our elderly arthritic Lab, I saw something I had never seen before — a front yard full of patriotic inflatables.

Super-size blow-up Christmas decorations are a common sight around here, rising from the ground even before Thanksgiving. There are more Halloween inflatables every year, and even Easter inflatables are not an uncommon sight. But patriotic inflatables? That’s a new one, for me anyway.

Plus, it’s May and isn’t Memorial Day supposed to more somber than celebratory? The 4th of July is weeks away. Assuming no incidents involving sharp objects, will plastic Uncle Sam still salute passing traffic through July?

Back at home, trying to describe this display to my husband and a son and his wife, I remember there were six or seven figures but can only remember two of them — the above-mentioned Uncle Sam and a giant red-white-and-blue top hat.

“What else was there?” I say. “What else could there be?”

Gleeful suggestions of “Mt. Rushmore!” “George Washington!” and “Abraham Lincoln!” are rejected as not quite hitting the mark.

“A plastic blow-up American flag!” Hilarious, we all agree.

“A tank!” is not found specifically patriotic.

“Fireworks!” is an inspired suggestion and sets us off in all directions (pun intended) with “exploding fireworks” pronounced the funniest and Uncle Sam riding a rocket that literally explodes as it zips into the sky as the most outrageous.

My husband attempts to change the subject to a baseball game he watched from the stands earlier in the day, a young pitcher who hit a ball high into the air where it wavered in the wind and —

“Apple pie!” our son says.

“Yes! An inflatable apple pie!”

“With a baseball smooshed right in the center,” son adds.

Three of us laugh and laugh. Husband/father is not amused. Baseball is serious stuff.

But so is everything else. This has been hammered home during these months of the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and the January 6th coup attempt. These are serious times.

The next morning, my husband points out what an appropriate metaphor red-white-and-blue patriotic inflatables are. Plastic. Full of air. Basically empty and likely to deflate with a sharp poke. Like so much of what passes for patriotism these days.

For months, it’s been too hard to write, too impossible to believe I have anything worth saying. Am I just virtue signaling? pontificating out of blind ignorance? I can question myself into immobility.

In the meantime, I stubbornly hang our flag on clear days, even though I refuse to pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth. I cling to the ideals the flag represents with the hope the collective We will yet carry that standard into a state of liberty and justice for all.

(P.S An exercise, if you wish. Can you identify examples of privilege folded into this text?)

More Books

I devour historical romances. The historical details and events may be carefully researched, but the plots are not moored to reality. This is perfect because I am not looking for reality when I read historical romance.

One of my favorite authors is Georgette Heyer. Heyer wrote for an earlier generation so her books never impose 21st century norms on the heedlessly rich of the past. Her fictional lords and ladies reveal their character through their treatment of lesser beings — like servants or shopkeepers. However, none of them apologizes for obscene wealth acquired from cotton, indigo, or sugar plantations or extracted, with the help of the British military, from China or India. In real life, these are ill gotten gains. In Heyer’s books, the wealth just IS and the source is never examined. The plots are light-hearted with clever banter and amusing characters. No mental exertion required.

I like a romance that glosses right over such concerns so, as the reader, I am as untroubled as the heroine is when accepting a glass of champagne from a liveried footman. When I want challenging reading, I know where to look.

Some contemporary authors feel compelled to create heroines who found orphanages, schools, or hospitals for the indigent. Or heroes who are exemplary landlords and lawmakers on the right side of history, right along with their wise investments. Often, this kind of main character, one who could stand up under modern scrutiny, will pull me right out of a story. It’s a tricky goal for a writer: a main character with access to unlimited wealth who is one of the good guys. (It is nice when anyone recognizes injustice, but it ruins escapist fiction when the reader can’t escape.)

Lately, I’ve set aside my historical romance. I now read with ulterior motives. Submissions to literary agents often require a list of “comp” titles, published books whose readers might also buy the manuscript under consideration. So I’m reading lots of cozy mysteries to find comp titles for my unpublished novel, Thrift Store Daze,  which is also a cozy mystery.

Mostly, I am not entertained.

The ones I toss aside after ten pages or three chapters, resemble Mad Libs — just fill in the blank for your plot and start writing your scenes.

Example: (Obnoxiously nosy but thoroughly lovable main character) and her (quirky animal companion) move to (picturesque town) where she opens (cute shop or trendy service). She meets (Gay or POC friend) and (hunky neighbor) who is a (cop or carpenter etc.). She eats (tasty sweet thing: recipe included) and stumbles onto a murder scene. Body is of (person nobody liked). Incredible coincidences allow her to untangle the motive and nail the killer.

Historical romance novels are also predictable and trite. I think fantasy is easier for me to swallow when it’s set in the past. I get annoyed with the main characters in contemporary cozy mysteries who are too much like people who annoy me in real life.

Do I even like cozies? Oh, yes.  I like the Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth series by M. C. Beaton. But I would never claim my book could sell like Beaton’s books do. Arthur Nersesian’s Mesopotamia is a ride you don’t want to miss, though it starts out a bit dark. Food of Love: A Comedy About Friendship, Chocolate and a Small Nuclear Bomb by Anne R. Allen is not exactly a cozy mystery but it’s close and it’s funny.

The right books are out there somewhere. I am still on the hunt.

Please! Point me toward a cozy mystery that I will happily read all the way through — if you can.