The Power of Gum

(Pre-script: I hope that as you read this you have just placed a fresh piece of gum in your mouth, or are in the middle of real good piece, just at that perfect sweet spot of gum chewing perfection. Chew that thing out, baby. Chew it out. Also, go down to the playlist and click on the song, " The Power of Love," #48,only when you sing along, change the lyrics to "The Power of Gum," then come back and resume reading. I'll wait.) (...still waiting...)

I don't know what kind of gum you chew, but mine comes with this warning:

"Not a low calorie food."

Sweet Potato Pie and Shut My Mouth, This just takes all of my preconceived notions about gum and throws them out the window. I have not ever thought of gum as a "food." Whenever I hear a person say:

"...blah blah blah, Eating Gum, blah blah blah,"

in a sentence, I feel as if I have been slapped the face by a weak girl.* One does not EAT gum. Gum is a delightfully mouthwatering, flavorful, chewing experience that helps in the practice and perfection of bubble blowing skills, and in clear thinking skills. My thoughts only go from "deep" to "super deep," for which I credit the gum chewing.

When gum has died, gone flat, lost it's flavor, gotten hard, gotten mushy, or you are just done with it already, you are expected to remove it from your mouth and throw it away in an appropriate trash receptacle. You do not put it under the chair upon which you are sitting, or under the table in front of you. If you are outdoors, you do not toss it outdoors, for surely some small woodland creature will try to swallow it, it will get stuck in his throat, and he will die. Apparently small woodland creatures also mistake gum for food. It is their fatal flaw.
I knew not to swallow my gum when I was a kid, and someone told me that it takes 7 years for a piece of gum to digest. No one wants a big ball of gum stuck in his or her stomach for 7 years, made up of all of the pieces of gum you have swallowed within that time period. No one...although now that I think about it, that will be a good excuse to use from now on, anytime someone says to you, "Are you bloated/retaining water/pregnant/or did you just have a baby," You can tell him or her,

"No, it's just a big ball of gum, I am still waiting for it to digest. Should be about 4 more years and 3 more months, by my estimations."

"DOH! I mistook it for a food again; I keep swallowing it."

But gum is not food; One is not expected to swallow it, which WOULD be eating gum, which is NOT LOW in calories, let's be honest. But apparently, the calories leak out, anyway, stealthily, while you are chewing it. The pack I just opened said "The calorie content for this size piece of gum has been changed from 7 to 4." Before I read that, it had never occurred to me about different sizes of gum pieces having different calorie amounts. Sometimes I chew two pieces of gum at once...so I guess I am now going to have to double up on my workouts. DOH! Dagnabbit Gumblasted Gum.

-XOXO,

*Not all girls are weak, there are many strong girls, there are also weak girls, and do you want to be slapped in the face by either? No, no you don't.

New Foundation, Old Grief

(Pre-script: The perfect note of nostalgia for this post is contained within the song,"Viva La Vida," by Coldplay, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, (#8) then come back and resume reading. I'll wait.) (...still waiting...)

"...And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away." -Ezra 3:11b-13.

If you would be willing to hear from within the reaches of your own heart, this is the sound you would hear from within mine; a loud shout that can be heard from a great distance, the joy and the grief indistinguishable. Tears of celebration and loss intertwine in the dirt below my feet. The dirt is important; my tears land upon it, my feet walk upon it. My feet get muddy. The tears wash off grime, then create more mud. I walk forward, through it. I do not transcend above the mud. I am walking it out, one step in front of me, even if I have to stop every now and then, and remember, and weep. But I cannot stay there. The new foundation that has been built is in front of me. I stop to acknowledge the hard work that went into it's creation. Before I put one stone upon it, I stop to acknowledge it. I will not be building some old glory, or something once beautiful that only still exists in my mind. I can only build with the materials I have at my disposal now, today. I do not know how the end result will exactly look, regardless of what once may have been. The next step is forward, even when my feet are unbearable muddy; even when I cannot see through the tears. I know that the only next step is still, and always, forward, so that is where I bravely step.

-XOXO,

Hello,Gorgeous!

Pre-Script: To be more baffled by this post than you normally would be, you must read it as the song," 100 Years," by Five for Fighting, #2 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait. ) (...still waiting.)

When you are 3 years old and your baby sister dies, you spend a lot of childhood time in the cemetery. I have always loved the cemetery, especially the old parts. I am a curious and imaginative person by nature, who is archaeological, sociological, and sometimes anthropologically minded. I love that at "my" cemetery, there are still headstones standing, the really old ones leaning with age. I am aware that some cemeteries, for the sake of practicality, have knocked all of the headstones over for the ease of lawn mowing. I like seeing them all standing there, though, old and leaning. I like to read the dates, the names, the words someone else left behind that give only the minutest clues of the life contained in the body buried below. I often wonder, "What was that person's life like?" "How did Mary Anne Smith live, from July 7, 1782-May 4, 1840?"
Basically, I just think it's fascinating that when you go to a cemetery, there are bodies and bodies and bodies buried just below the grass upon which you are standing. I wish that someone would hand me a shovel and say "Go for it, with our blessing." I would want to dig up the graves. I am curious as all get out to see what people were buried in, at a particular time period, and how it has kept up underground over the years. I want to see what state the bodies are in, too, and what kind of "stuff" the grieving loved ones left behind had thought significant to place inside the casket at the time of burial. I bet that some of the most interesting antique jewelry is just below you, when you are standing in the cemetery.
I hope (HOPE HOPE!!) to someday find out.

-XOXO,

Chasing peacocks

(Pre-script: To get your money's worth out of this post, you must fully engage in it. In order to so, I recommend strapping on your running shoes before reading, regardless of whatever else you are wearing, and also, turn on the song, "Blackbird," #15 on the playlist below, before you resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

When your baby sister dies and you are 3 years old, you spend a lot of your childhood in the cemetery. I have always loved the cemetery where my sister's body was buried. There are large over shadowing old trees, statues, fountains, old graves, and peacocks who strut around. My siblings and cousins and I used to chase the peacocks in an attempt to pluck a tail feather. My cousin Kelly used to barely pinch my hand and say, "It doesn't hurt them, it just feels like this." Kelly was 6 years older than me, so I believed her, and never once thought to question how she understood the nerve endings of a peacock; instead I just passed along the knowledge she had given to me to anyone who would listen. Not a lot of people listened to me, probably because I had a tendency to just mouth the words I meant to say, and not actually say them, after my sister died. We never gave up chasing the peacocks, even though we never got a feather. As long as we could see and chase the peacock, there was a chance that we would one day catch a feather, a large gaudy gloriously colorful feather. And then we would have it to hold and to keep, for we would have acquired it, ta da, and who's to tell you what to do with the peacock feathers you acquire over a childhood, no one can, although certain grown ups will tell you to wash your hands, scrub them good with soap and hot water, there are scummy feather germs that could affect you somehow. Too late to protect you from the emotional germs that had already affected you, that had brought you to this makeshift garden where the peacock's roam, in the first place. But I never caught a feather, I just always chased, chased, and chased, red faced and puffing hard, even in my once neat and unscuffed Mary Janes and ribbon tied dresses.

Fast forward a couple decades to a time when I had 2 babies of my own. I lived less than half a mile away from the cemetery, "my" cemetery, and when I got restless, I would pack those babies in the double stroller and jog to the cemetery. Right near my sister's plot there is a very steep hill that climbs for a quarter of a mile. I would push that double stroller up that hill, and down, up that hill, and down, 10 times in a row. I would also point out statues of Jesus, and the disciples, and fountains, and peacocks, and hens, and roosters who roamed the grounds. On the top of that hill, we could look down and see our little house in the distance, half a mile away. I would tell them stories, and they would make requests; "Take us to the fountain over there" "Show us Jesus over there" "Show us Mary kneeling at Jesus' feet." or sometimes, Let's go looking for peacocks" so we would, all together, the babies securely strapped in their seats with snacks and sippy cups, and me, secure in my running shoes, my steady feet the power behind the pursuit of the hope of a feather. I have yet to obtain one.
-XOXO,

Burn and flow

(Pre-Script: This post best pairs best with the song, " Mysterious Ways," by U2, #24 on the playlist, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, and let it play in the background as you read this poem. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

The fire burning does not stand still
as it kills
as it clears

my oldest fields now turned to straw

and weed

(the dry brittle things burn first and fastest)
as it purifies and draws things out of themselves

charring
until there is nothing left to burn
no one knows what shapes will emerge from the flames
but the fire does not maintain a single form
always restlessly reaching
uncontainedly fierce
the river is that way too,
never still always pushing

at the banks
and I
am that way too
changing
screaming
burning and flowing
shape shifting shapes til
I look like what I am.

-5/20/09

-XOXO,

So there I was wielding salad tongs and sharp knives when suddenly I became a Waitress.

(Pre-Script: Before you take my hand and skip down memory lane with me, please go down to the playlist, click on the song, "The Story," #42, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait, and reminisce...) (...still waiting, and reminiscing...)

The world of feta cheese and goat cheese opened up to me like a gate into a secret magic garden, and my taste buds were never the same. Please do not stop and tell me that feta and goat cheese are the same, they may come from the same goat, but the 2 cheeses are different, in texture and taste. Both are magical. I learned of such goodness when I began working at a little 16 table cafe called 29 East Main Cafe, because that was the address of the restaurant. All of the food was made from scratch, including the salad dressing and croutons, including the pizza dough and marinated tomatoes. I started off as a salad girl, working the salad station, chopping the vegetables, stocking the dressings, and my station was right behind the counter, so I could see everyone as I created each individual salad order. Man, I made a pretty salad, too, and I did not skimp on the ingredients. I also rocked the cash register like nobody's business, and my till USUALLY zeroed out at the end of each night. (I have always enjoyed working a cash register, and would do it again in a heartbeat.)

At this time, I had one very obvious admirer, a man who used to come in and stare at me. The staring is what gave him away. It was unnatural. It was creepy. Yes, He used to sit at his table and stare at me the entire visit. Sometimes he would write furiously in a notebook. When he left, he would walk out backwards while still staring at me. The cafe front was all glass, so he would walk past outside slowly while still staring at me. One night he left a present for me. It was a gift bag that contained a glass jar of pistachios, and a card with a kitten on the front, inside the card, he had written "I look forward to seeing you soon, Love, Arthur." I had no idea what to make of that. I still don't. I have a theory that maybe he was writing a book, and basing a character on me. He needed to observe a person building custom salad's so that he could accurately develop the character in his award winning novel. I hope it worked out for him. So far I have not seen any such characters in any of the library books I have checked out, but I have not discounted the possibility completely yet.

Eventually, after much begging and prodding and campaigning for myself to Joe, the greatest boss ever invented,, I was promoted to my all time dream job, waitress. The politically correct term is "food server" but there is nothing intriguing about that gender neutral term, and I am intriguing, and I am decidedly not gender neutral. I was a "Waitress."

And so I became a Waitress, and that's when the fun really began.

What a waitress does not want to hear: "Wow, this place is expensive." as she is standing there, at the table, waiting to take your order.

SPECIAL NOTE, PEEPS: the WAITRESS does NOT fix the prices...Hello??

Yet I cannot count the times people would say that to me while I was standing there waiting to take their order.

Me, blink blink, okay.

Customer, looking back at me with disdain.

It's like, if you don't think it's worth it, then leave already. I did not chain you to the table when you sat down. Believe me, this is not that kind of restaurant.
Ahem.

As a waitress, you work the charm. You chit and chat and smile, and you try not to say "How is everything?" To people who have just stuffed food into their faces, or who have yet to take a bite. You also try to be hyper aware of the beverage levels of everyone in the restaurant, and stealthily refill the cups while customers eat and chat, as if you are a ghost, seamless, without interrupting the flow.

Sometimes you might also get caught up in the crazy antics of your fellow employees. You might, say, have a fellow waiter, let's call him "Dave, " who stands at the wait station with you folding boxes and tells you the entire plot to every movie he has ever seen that you have not seen. I remember very specific details of "The Game," starring Michael Douglas, for instance, and I have never seen that movie.

I will never forget the man who used to sit in the front right window seat with his wife; He ordered the same pizza every time, very specifically, extra cheddar cheese, salami, both all the way to the edges of the thin sourdough crust. He wanted his Chianti filled to just the right line on the glass. He wanted actual anchovies on his Caesar salad. He wanted mango sorbetto for dessert with 2 cookies sticking out. His wife just smiled sweetly and ate along. The man was worth it though, I think he routinely left 10-15 dollar tips. If that does not sound like much to you, remember, this was 12 years ago, when 10-15 dollars meant something anymore. Gosh, people.

You might also think it's cute that every Monday at 5, a blond family of 4 comes in for dinner, and you might think it's cute and sweet that their little son likes to take the bill right up to the register every week all by himself, so you keep letting him do it. You might then experience his mother, who you have always thought sort of resembles Helen Hunt, but with monster gymnast on steroids calves, who sweetly and casually says to you one day, "I used to wait tables for years, and you are the worst waitress I have ever experienced." gulp. Oh...(pregnant mental pause...) Um,

is that how you got those monster calves?

(-Monster calves tipped 5.oo every week.)

If you are a waitress, you might gain a running partner when it comes up in conversation with a couple of regular customers that you run, and so does the one guy, so his buddy goes, 'why don't you run together," and you say "I am always looking for a running partner, I feel safer that way, running up in the hills of Los Gatos where the snakes and mountain lions and tarantulas and rapists hide out," and the guy says "I would love to run with you" because he regularly runs that route, anyway, so you start running together, and on these runs, you talk, and he tells you all about a girl he loves who has a boyfriend, and you advise him every time just to talk to her, just talk to her, just tell her, and he says "no, I can't she has a boyfriend." every time, and it never occurs to you until like 5 years later that, duh, maybe he was talking about YOU...and you kept telling him to tell the girl, and maybe he was TRYING TO. Oh. Well, Sweet Potato Pie and shut my mouth, that's what he gets for being subtle. I wonder what happened to that guy though; He was a good tipper. I think he and his buddy always tipped at least 7.00.

There was also the night, a very busy Friday, when your physics lab partner, at the end of the semester, stood outside the restaurant, pacing, and the other wait staff told you that he was there, very nervous, afraid to come in. Finally in the middle of the mad rush, he walked right up to you and handed you a single red rose and said he was going to call you...and then he did call and ask you out, and it caught you so off guard, because in lab class, all you had ever talked about was the task at hand. usually you were in class in your 29 E. Main Cafe waitressing clothes though, because you were headed to work after class, so he did know you worked there, but he had never been there before.

There was also the time when a couple of screaming preteen girls started screaming about some of your customers, and you were like, "What?" and so you went up and asked them, "what was that about?" and found out it was the lead singer of Smash Mouth, another band member, and a body guard. You had enjoyed their songs, but did not recognize the face. The body guard said something like, "do you want his autograph?" and you said, "No," because you're just not an autograph kind of person, even if you DID appreciate the lyrics of their most recent single. He seemed insulted. You did leave them your autograph, though, at the bottom of the bill, and they left you a halfway decent tip, but not a great one. I think they left 5.00 and change.

SPECIAL NOTE: When the body guards of famous people ask if you want the famous person's autograph, just say "yes," espescially when the celebrity in question is sitting right there...HELLO, THIS ONE should also be obvious.)

There are other customers, like the family who regularly comes and sits in your station. You know their order like your mother's maiden name, they are a little shy, but kind, maybe from the Milwaukee or Idaho, probably; you do everything you can for them, yet they still only leave a 4.oo tip every week. They think this is a good tip. This is not a good tip because there are 4 of them, and they order too much for this to be a good tip. But they ask for you, because they like you, they really, really like you. So you take them, and you treat them as if they were the $15.oo tipper, even though you know that you are only getting $4.00 out of them.

-XOXO,

Light 'er up

(Pre-Script: To increase the entertainment quotient of this post by 74%, it must be read as the song, "32 Flavors," #22 on the playlist, plays, so go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I can be very patient...I will wait...) (...still waiting...)

I am brave. I know this because a nurse at the Red Cross told me that I was brave about 12 years ago, and I believed her then, and I still believe her now. I used to donate blood every 6 weeks, and from that, I moved on to donating platelets every 2 weeks. The process of donating platelets is called "Pheresis," where the blood is drawn out of one arm, spun in a machine to separate the platelets from the rest of the blood, then the platelet-less blood is put back into your other arm, so you are not losing very much blood, mostly just platelets. It takes 2 hours, so you watch a movie while you sit there with needles sticking out of your arms. I wanted a chance to sit in the really comfortable looking recliners that only the pheresis donors got to sit in, wanted access to the part of the room that only the pheresis donors had access to, and because why get one arm pricked when you can get both arms pricked at the same time? I was also motivated by the idea of getting a pin for every gallon that I donated. I have never ever gotten used to needle pricks though, and do not ever plan to, for as long as I both shall live. Every time someone is getting ready to stick a needle into me, I say, "Be careful, do it as gently as you can, I am the most squeamish person ever," and I over emphasize this, because then they take me seriously, and do not just jam that needle any which way they can. I was going through my bi-weekly ritual of "be careful I am so scared and such a wimp" when the nurse who was about to poke my arm said "You are not a wimp, you are very brave, because you are scared, but you choose to keep coming back and doing it, anyway."

Well, Sweet Potato Pie and Shut My Mouth, she was RIGHT!

There are many other things I have done in life that I thought were brave, but looking back I now realize were just stupid. I will not detail the list here, I do not have the time or the energy for such a task. Just assume that I probably did the last one of those things 2 minutes before I started typing this, and will probably do the next as soon as I stand up.

My knowledge of my own lack of natural talent and skills has not always kept me from doing the thing for which I am in no way gifted anyway. For example, I learned how to breathe correctly from my diaphragm when singing when I was a young child, and can carry a tune in a choir type of situation, and have in fact been a member of many a choir, but I am by no means a good singer outside of the shower. This did not stop me from trying out at a local theater when I was 18 for the lead female role in a play, even though I could not sing or dance, and the part required both. I tried out on a whim, because some boy was also trying out for this particular show. I was totally unprepared, yet out of many talented ladies, I got the lead female part. Did you hear me say that it was the LEAD role?? The director was probably on drugs that day, because I got the part.

The first half of the show was a melodrama, like an old western play, and I was the heroine, the picture of rosy cheeked sweet innocent damsel in distress. We had lines and a script, but we could also add lib. The audience was allowed and encouraged to both throw popcorn and to talk to us, and we could talk back...as long we stayed in character. No two nights were exactly the same. Sometimes there would be troops of Girl Scouts who were dragged there by their scout masters, and as a cast, these were not our favorite nights; the kids would loudly talk to each other and not pay attention to the play. Sometimes I would yell down to them, "HEY! Isn't it past your bedtime???" Then backstage, the cast would make up songs to sing to the girl scouts that went something like, "Don't you have cookies to bake?" "Thin mints, samoas, peanut butter blossoms" I remember that at "peanut butter blossoms," the tune would pick up, and there were also awesome Broadway show type moves to accompany this fun little backstage ditty.

As much as I loved the melodrama half of the show, the director would not take my word for it that I could not sing, and assigned me a solo to sing during the vaudeville half of the show. During practice, he made me stand on the stage and sing as loud as I could while he stood in the back of the theater and listened. This is about as embarrassing as if he had asked me to give birth on stage. He then told me that I was not opening my mouth when I sang, and that I needed to OPEN MY MOUTH AS WIDE AS I COULD EVEN IF I FELT STUPID DOING IT, JUST DO IT AND SING...so I did. He was right, I felt stupid. Then he told me that my tone was better when I actually opened my mouth all the way when I sang. It was a good tip, but the solo was eventually taken out of the vaudevillian half...because no one should ever, ever have to pay money to hear that. The little people who's address was once my uterus get to hear it for free, and they are NOT happy about that, but I have the power to lock their doors so that they cannot escape the vehicle in which we are driving, nor do I give them control of the car c.d. player or radio. However, I do take requests, and I always make sure that they never get elbow smacked or kicked during the interpretive dance portion of my fantastic car performances. (Whoever decided it was safest for kids to sit in the backseat was more right than he or she knew.)

Ahem.

The director eventually gave up on me, and I was only included in the vaudeville numbers that required the entire cast. There were two ending dance numbers, and the finale where we all sang together. It went something like this:

"Gaslighter's lightin' up,

and evening is through,

we do it with dancing, and singing,

it's (clap) all for you!

Time for us to leave you now,

it's sadly drawing near,

we hope you had lots of fun,

with everyone, that's (stomp) why we're HERE!"

Then some cool ending pose, which I am forgetting now. It doesn't mean I couldn't make up something right now, though.

I performed that show every Friday and Saturday night for 6 months.

My singing and dancing never improved.

-XOXO,