Monday, February 18, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Here you Go!!! Free Ebook* Enjoy!!!!
Click below to go to the Amazon kindle site for the book -- Free 2/15-2/20* - 100% of book proceeds go to Alex Lehr so he can choose and hire his own tutors and aides.
http://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Stories-Invisible-Friends-ebook/dp/B00BFM0OJY/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360928681&sr=1-2&keywords=prayer+of+the+laughing+yoga+frog
http://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Stories-Invisible-Friends-ebook/dp/B00BFM0OJY/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360928681&sr=1-2&keywords=prayer+of+the+laughing+yoga+frog
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Dear Alex, Keep the Frog!
Alex, when you asked me for the Yoga Frog statue I know I hesitated and then when I wrote about it, I made it look easier than it was.
This is what really happened.
First I said, yes you can have the frog, but on Thursday, I need a little more time with him.
Which sounded crazy. What grown up professor lady needs time alone with a frog statue???
So then I said, yes, you can take the frog, but you have to bring him back so I can have him at the end of the semester to take pictures with, again.
Then I sent the frog off with you.
Now I know I don't need the frog back.
In fact, I'm adamant about this.
Keep the frog.
I don't want to be a woman who has only one story to tell; I want to have new stories with new frogs or gorillas or duct tape or whatever inspires me. To do that, I have to let go and make space for the next wonderful thing.
So yes, keep the yoga frog, it's yours, and the more I think about it, it was never mine -- I was just hanging on it and helping you two find each other.
This is what really happened.
First I said, yes you can have the frog, but on Thursday, I need a little more time with him.
Which sounded crazy. What grown up professor lady needs time alone with a frog statue???
So then I said, yes, you can take the frog, but you have to bring him back so I can have him at the end of the semester to take pictures with, again.
Then I sent the frog off with you.
Now I know I don't need the frog back.
In fact, I'm adamant about this.
Keep the frog.
I don't want to be a woman who has only one story to tell; I want to have new stories with new frogs or gorillas or duct tape or whatever inspires me. To do that, I have to let go and make space for the next wonderful thing.
So yes, keep the yoga frog, it's yours, and the more I think about it, it was never mine -- I was just hanging on it and helping you two find each other.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
He Left Me. Happily.
Remember Alex and the frog from Prayer of the Laughing Yoga Frog?
Well today Alex came by my office to get a copy of the book for himself and his mom. No problem, I remembered to pack them this morning. I didn't remember to put my lunch in the car or bring the water bottles from the car to my office, and I certainly didn't remember a jacket on this winter day, but yes, I remembered his books and happily handed them over.
We talked for a few minutes. He told me he went with his church to Peru, on a mission trip, and said people work too hard there and don't laugh and play like we do in America. I shrugged. I've been out of the country for 4 days of my life, so I can't offer much.
Then we discuss his classes and other issues. I hate to hurry him out of my office but he's the fifth student in a row in the past two hours and I still have to fix up today's lecture and the Dean wants to see me and I have 18 emails to answer about essays due online.
Not one to be hurried, Alex stays put in my doorway and says he had a dream.
My eyebrows raise. Oh no.
He dreamed the frog wanted to live with him.
My eyebrows stay raised. I knew this was coming.
I knew deep down in my that someday I would give the frog away.
Anyway, I loved it too much to keep it to myself, right?
So I put the frog into a big bag and hung it on the back of Alex's chair.
His frogilicious yogarific head peeked out over Alex's shoulder as they rolled down the hallway.
They looked happy together, I thought for one moment before looking at the empty space on my desk.
My desk won't stay empty for long -- I'm sure the universe will send me something awesome, something I can't yet imagine.
Well today Alex came by my office to get a copy of the book for himself and his mom. No problem, I remembered to pack them this morning. I didn't remember to put my lunch in the car or bring the water bottles from the car to my office, and I certainly didn't remember a jacket on this winter day, but yes, I remembered his books and happily handed them over.
We talked for a few minutes. He told me he went with his church to Peru, on a mission trip, and said people work too hard there and don't laugh and play like we do in America. I shrugged. I've been out of the country for 4 days of my life, so I can't offer much.
Then we discuss his classes and other issues. I hate to hurry him out of my office but he's the fifth student in a row in the past two hours and I still have to fix up today's lecture and the Dean wants to see me and I have 18 emails to answer about essays due online.
Not one to be hurried, Alex stays put in my doorway and says he had a dream.
My eyebrows raise. Oh no.
He dreamed the frog wanted to live with him.
My eyebrows stay raised. I knew this was coming.
I knew deep down in my that someday I would give the frog away.
Anyway, I loved it too much to keep it to myself, right?
So I put the frog into a big bag and hung it on the back of Alex's chair.
His frogilicious yogarific head peeked out over Alex's shoulder as they rolled down the hallway.
They looked happy together, I thought for one moment before looking at the empty space on my desk.
My desk won't stay empty for long -- I'm sure the universe will send me something awesome, something I can't yet imagine.
Monday, January 14, 2013
We Broke Up. Please Delete Me*
Dear Pizza Chain,
I used to love you.
I used to look forward to your thin crispy crusts and your cheap child pleasing cheeses.
You were cheaper then, easier then, convenient and cheerful.
I used to look forward to your thin crispy crusts and your cheap child pleasing cheeses.
You were cheaper then, easier then, convenient and cheerful.
Then during last summer's gas crisis you raised your prices, and I said nothing, but I started exploring my options.
That same week -- you would not know this, but it's time I told you -- I joined Costco and I found dinners far cheaper and more interesting than you ever were. (Can you say "Tilapia?")
Also -- you would not know this either, but it's also time I told you -- I got this amazing sharp knife from my father this past Christmas, and I now I love cooking. Or at least, I love chopping. I'm looking for good pots and pans, maybe some glass bowls.
I don't know exactly what I'll buy, but I know I can't get what I want by turning to you anymore.
I can't say this any clearer; I've shown you with my actions by not ordering from you since before Christmas, and now I'm telling you with these words.
I don't want you to cook my food, I don't want you to bring me food, I don't want to eat what you cook. I want to cook my own food.
Please, please, stop texting me and emailing me and sending me mail bragging about your specials, promising me satisfaction, delivery, warmth.
Maybe you haven't changed, but now, to me, you seem greasy and actually kind of desperate.
I would be ashamed to place your box on my corner in the recycle bin.
If you have any dignity at all, please don't text me any more, don't email me anymore, and don't bother mailing me any more of your brightly colored flyers.
I am immune to your charms.
Delete me, Pizza Chain, forget we ever knew each other.
Our Lady of the Chocolate Finger
It is between classes on Friday and I'm weaving through and around my colleagues (but not taunting any of them, I swear) when the Dean calls my name.
"Soldani! Need you!"
I extricate myself from whomever I was not taunting at that moment and follow him and his voice into the inner sanctum room where textbooks and really important things worth locking up are kept.
"It's about religion, you know about all that stuff" he says as I join him and Debbie, both looking perplexed.
"Yay, right up my alley," I offer, knowing and follow their eyes to a trail of something leaking mysteriously from the file cabinet.
I rubbed my finger in the substance to see what it was -- not blood, not really sure if it was chocolate, but maybe old thick coffee?
"Well, it probably isn't Mary bleeding. She weeps. This has to be Jesus if it's blood and it seems more like chocolate syrup or dried coffee...."
I offer to taste my finger, I almost do it, but I can't.
For a minute I blame Tinsley, our colleague whose life we will be celebrating tomorrow. He wasn't much of a trickster, but he loved to laugh.
If he were here, he'd definitely put down his NYT crossword puzzle and offer some sort of advice.
But Tinsley's passing isn't funny and we are to sore to face it now, today, when we don't have to, so we don't.
Debbie closes the file cabinet and again the mysterious miraculous chocolatey oil cascades out again.
I run my hand under the drawer.
Nothing.
I get down on my back, on the floor (in my cute dress, a long one, very appropriate for all matters of religion, sushi eating and for also teaching about the Dawes Plan) and look up at the bottom of the cabinet behind the drawer.
There is more or that magical gook there and Debbie hands me a wipe to get it all away.
Satisfied our files and textbook closet have been properly sanctified, I go off back to my office reminding myself over and over to not lick my fingers and see if that stuff really was chocolate.
"Soldani! Need you!"
I extricate myself from whomever I was not taunting at that moment and follow him and his voice into the inner sanctum room where textbooks and really important things worth locking up are kept.
"It's about religion, you know about all that stuff" he says as I join him and Debbie, both looking perplexed.
"Yay, right up my alley," I offer, knowing and follow their eyes to a trail of something leaking mysteriously from the file cabinet.
I rubbed my finger in the substance to see what it was -- not blood, not really sure if it was chocolate, but maybe old thick coffee?
"Well, it probably isn't Mary bleeding. She weeps. This has to be Jesus if it's blood and it seems more like chocolate syrup or dried coffee...."
I offer to taste my finger, I almost do it, but I can't.
For a minute I blame Tinsley, our colleague whose life we will be celebrating tomorrow. He wasn't much of a trickster, but he loved to laugh.
If he were here, he'd definitely put down his NYT crossword puzzle and offer some sort of advice.
But Tinsley's passing isn't funny and we are to sore to face it now, today, when we don't have to, so we don't.
Debbie closes the file cabinet and again the mysterious miraculous chocolatey oil cascades out again.
I run my hand under the drawer.
Nothing.
I get down on my back, on the floor (in my cute dress, a long one, very appropriate for all matters of religion, sushi eating and for also teaching about the Dawes Plan) and look up at the bottom of the cabinet behind the drawer.
There is more or that magical gook there and Debbie hands me a wipe to get it all away.
Satisfied our files and textbook closet have been properly sanctified, I go off back to my office reminding myself over and over to not lick my fingers and see if that stuff really was chocolate.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Godfather, Tigger, and Spiderman
It was just as I was getting the class into the 1990s that his phone went off. This never happens in my classes, most especially to the brave souls who sit close up to the action in the front row of the auditorium class.
It's a boring buzz buzz ring, and its clear whose phone it is because he's stretching his leg out to pull his phone out of his pocket.
I ask "Is it your mom?" and he nods his head.
I need to get the class back to domestic terrorism during the Clinton administration, but I can't let this moment go. I wait for him to give me $20 for interrupting lecture and compulsively lecture him on ringtones. "You can do better than that, I know you can. No one has to have boring ringtones. I have Usher singing YEAH YEAH. And one with cool bells from Harry Potter. Right now I'm using the Godfather."
He shakes his head. 70 people behind him giggle, and I'm off topic for just a minute, but it's the end of the semester and they KNOW I'm going to pivot right back to lecture. But this is important. He can do better as far as ring tones go.
I ask the class if they knew that now you can set any song on your iPhone to be a ringtone or alarm. Several people nod happily.
I feel like I've performed ample public service for the moment and get back to explaining history.
And just as I'm deeply into the religious philosophy of the Branch Davidians I hear something strange but I keep going because these students do NOT know about the events at Waco, Texas and they're on the edge of their seats and I want to keep going but twitches on faces tell me they hear it too.
Where's it coming from?
Finger, faces tell me it's coming from my bag at the front of the class.
It's playing the beginning tones from "Somebody that I used to know" (you know the song, just like you know Gangnam style, I'm not going to sing it here for you).
I fumble for my cracked iPhone and turn the sound off.
The sound button shows the sound should already be off, so I turn the phone all the way off and spin on my heels, back to lecture.
A student asks, "Wait, were there PEOPLE in the compound when the ABT attacked?"
The music continues. I'm so distracted. It's the same song and now the guy is starting to sing "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness..." but my phone is off so I must be losing my mind.
There's the culprit, hiding under papers.
It's the super cool Samsung Galaxy I stole from my son. I love this little tablet except it won't synch up to my Mac and download my iTunes. Every other device I've brought to the Mac has been different -- the Mac finds it, welcomes it, shares with it, and everyone is happy. Now, with the Galaxy the Mac is acting like an old tired dog who is annoyed by a perky kitten.
I can't get the music to stop without logging on to the tablet with the long complex password I invented to keep my son from unilaterally reclaiming the tablet (fair is fair in love and war) and I fumble through it while the song keeps playing "But you treat me like a stranger and it feels so rough" and I realize I'm not getting the tricky password here and now with the tiny keys and I power the tablet off.
The song dies, I fist pump, the class cheers, and we head back to Waco, then to Oklahoma City and through the USS Cole before the end of lecture.
As the students file out I realize and remember there are no songs on my tablet, no alarms, no ringtones. I have no idea where or how that song came from or why the tablet just turned itself on and spontaneously started playing like a bad bad kitten waking you up at the wrong time.
The next class meeting, before lecture while the students are copying down key terms and asking questions about upcoming exams I stand away from the screen so I don't block their view. I'm wearing a long swishy dress with wedge heels and as I'm standing still at the front of the classroom I suddenly lose my balance like someone kicked my knees out from behind me and hit the rail of the whiteboard hard on my to falling flat on my butt in front of the class.
They stare in silence. I'm FINE I say as a throb tells me I'm going to have a big bruise on my back. A nice guy whose family should be VERY proud of him springs up from the third row and climbs over chairs to offer his hand to help my up as I'm already getting. I shake off his offer and say "Help pregnant women up! I'm fine!" and off we go back into lecture.
After class I find myself holding my Tigger keychain and remembering I'm like him. Bouncy. I go on Twitter and admit to the fall. I have to laugh about it or become the professor who falls down and acts like that's normal so get used to it. A witty student writes back that she thinks maybe David Koresh did it. I agree a little but admit it felt kinda like Oklahoma City and rub the bruises on my butt and arm.
In another class, while they were taking their exam, I slide up onto the window sill for a minute -- it's so hard for me to sit still, and I have to look everywhere for cheating.
I know the students by name and quirk and handwriting by this point in the semester.
No one in here would cheat on me, not a single one of these these respectful hardworking awesome students, but still. I have to keep looking.
When I finish my surveillance from this angle and start to move to another one I lose my balance and fall awkwardly almost down on my ass again.
Instead of crashing I catch myself, spring up and whisper shout "I'm Spiderman!" to the four students who saw it happen.
They shake their heads, giggle a little, and go back to their job of taking an exam by explaining the the pieces of the puzzle of American history. And while they're writing I turn on my phone and tweet my triumphant Spiderman moment to the world.
After finishing the exam several students see the tweet and are annoyed they missed my fall.
I tell them it was fast and quiet and all that matters is I laughed and got back up again -- just like I want them to do.
It's a boring buzz buzz ring, and its clear whose phone it is because he's stretching his leg out to pull his phone out of his pocket.
I ask "Is it your mom?" and he nods his head.
I need to get the class back to domestic terrorism during the Clinton administration, but I can't let this moment go. I wait for him to give me $20 for interrupting lecture and compulsively lecture him on ringtones. "You can do better than that, I know you can. No one has to have boring ringtones. I have Usher singing YEAH YEAH. And one with cool bells from Harry Potter. Right now I'm using the Godfather."
He shakes his head. 70 people behind him giggle, and I'm off topic for just a minute, but it's the end of the semester and they KNOW I'm going to pivot right back to lecture. But this is important. He can do better as far as ring tones go.
I ask the class if they knew that now you can set any song on your iPhone to be a ringtone or alarm. Several people nod happily.
I feel like I've performed ample public service for the moment and get back to explaining history.
And just as I'm deeply into the religious philosophy of the Branch Davidians I hear something strange but I keep going because these students do NOT know about the events at Waco, Texas and they're on the edge of their seats and I want to keep going but twitches on faces tell me they hear it too.
Where's it coming from?
Finger, faces tell me it's coming from my bag at the front of the class.
It's playing the beginning tones from "Somebody that I used to know" (you know the song, just like you know Gangnam style, I'm not going to sing it here for you).
I fumble for my cracked iPhone and turn the sound off.
The sound button shows the sound should already be off, so I turn the phone all the way off and spin on my heels, back to lecture.
A student asks, "Wait, were there PEOPLE in the compound when the ABT attacked?"
The music continues. I'm so distracted. It's the same song and now the guy is starting to sing "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness..." but my phone is off so I must be losing my mind.
There's the culprit, hiding under papers.
It's the super cool Samsung Galaxy I stole from my son. I love this little tablet except it won't synch up to my Mac and download my iTunes. Every other device I've brought to the Mac has been different -- the Mac finds it, welcomes it, shares with it, and everyone is happy. Now, with the Galaxy the Mac is acting like an old tired dog who is annoyed by a perky kitten.
I can't get the music to stop without logging on to the tablet with the long complex password I invented to keep my son from unilaterally reclaiming the tablet (fair is fair in love and war) and I fumble through it while the song keeps playing "But you treat me like a stranger and it feels so rough" and I realize I'm not getting the tricky password here and now with the tiny keys and I power the tablet off.
The song dies, I fist pump, the class cheers, and we head back to Waco, then to Oklahoma City and through the USS Cole before the end of lecture.
As the students file out I realize and remember there are no songs on my tablet, no alarms, no ringtones. I have no idea where or how that song came from or why the tablet just turned itself on and spontaneously started playing like a bad bad kitten waking you up at the wrong time.
The next class meeting, before lecture while the students are copying down key terms and asking questions about upcoming exams I stand away from the screen so I don't block their view. I'm wearing a long swishy dress with wedge heels and as I'm standing still at the front of the classroom I suddenly lose my balance like someone kicked my knees out from behind me and hit the rail of the whiteboard hard on my to falling flat on my butt in front of the class.
They stare in silence. I'm FINE I say as a throb tells me I'm going to have a big bruise on my back. A nice guy whose family should be VERY proud of him springs up from the third row and climbs over chairs to offer his hand to help my up as I'm already getting. I shake off his offer and say "Help pregnant women up! I'm fine!" and off we go back into lecture.
After class I find myself holding my Tigger keychain and remembering I'm like him. Bouncy. I go on Twitter and admit to the fall. I have to laugh about it or become the professor who falls down and acts like that's normal so get used to it. A witty student writes back that she thinks maybe David Koresh did it. I agree a little but admit it felt kinda like Oklahoma City and rub the bruises on my butt and arm.
In another class, while they were taking their exam, I slide up onto the window sill for a minute -- it's so hard for me to sit still, and I have to look everywhere for cheating.
I know the students by name and quirk and handwriting by this point in the semester.
No one in here would cheat on me, not a single one of these these respectful hardworking awesome students, but still. I have to keep looking.
When I finish my surveillance from this angle and start to move to another one I lose my balance and fall awkwardly almost down on my ass again.
Instead of crashing I catch myself, spring up and whisper shout "I'm Spiderman!" to the four students who saw it happen.
They shake their heads, giggle a little, and go back to their job of taking an exam by explaining the the pieces of the puzzle of American history. And while they're writing I turn on my phone and tweet my triumphant Spiderman moment to the world.
After finishing the exam several students see the tweet and are annoyed they missed my fall.
I tell them it was fast and quiet and all that matters is I laughed and got back up again -- just like I want them to do.
Desperate Times: Pirates, Communists, Roaches
More than 200 years ago, when the US was a new country and just making her way out in the world, she came across the Barbary Pirates of Tunis, Tripoli and Algers on the North African coast.
US merchant boats full of goods to trade were not able to trade freely on the Barbary Coast, and instead were forced to pay "tribute" money to the "Princes" just to keep the pirates from blowing up our ships and selling all the crew into slavery.
Between 1790 and 1800 the US authorized payments to the pirates of between 1/6 - 1/3 the total government budget. Anyway, European nations (ex: Denmark, the Two Sicilies and other World Leaders at the Time) had been long paying these "tribute fees" to trade along the Barbary Coast. Who were we to change this tradition, a new country with a flag that hardly anyone recognized yet?
All this money, for what? To not be killed? Yes.
The Barbary Pirates were running what we now call a "protection racket" (also known as "racketeering') -- translated: paying bad people to not be bad to you.
As soon as Thomas Jefferson became president he refused to continue to have US resources drained by racketeering thugs. Jefferson called on Congress to authorize "millions for defense... but not one (friggin) cent for tribute" and asked for the creation of a navy. A few years later the new US Marines stormed Tripoli and announced the whole racketeering thing was over.
I love that moment of US history, but I didn't love my week this week, and what happened that makes me keep thinking of racketeering pirates.
A few weeks ago I saw a roach in the dishwasher. Ew. That's not OK.
Then one under the coffeemaker. Then one -- was it the same one? he had that same sneaky look - on the floor by oven.
I don't want to kill them, actually I'd like for them to get jobs, buy their own food, bathe, and maybe pay me to hang out here, but I kill them anyway, quietly, surgically, followed always and every time by a burial at sea (flushing).
I mention this to my awesome landlord, and he sends over the Bug Guy who is not actually the Bug Guy who kills things but actually is the Bug Guy who takes your money and promises you there will be Other Bug Guys.
I dislike him from the beginning, I get the feeling he is talking to me but is spewing something he's memorized. He tells me all about German Cockroaches - their eating habits, nesting habits, shitting habits, and babyroach-making habits. I've lived in the South my whole life. I know enough about roaches, thanks.
He keeps talking. My awesome landlord interrupts after 30 minutes, asks how much it will be and writes a check for about $600.
At this point I want the Bug Guy to leave and take his bug stories with him. But apparently he can't. He tells me that for every roach I see, there are a thousand hiding behind my walls that I can't see.
"Like Communism?" I retort, admiring the juxtaposition of the two feared"pests" and laugh at myself but he doesn't stop talking for a second. Like he didn't hear me. Hello? I compared the roach scare with the red scare, hello? Funny? Anything? Nothing.
I'm pulling on my sweater, I have my keys jangling, every bit of body language that says it's time to leave but now he is set on trying to gross me out or get me to flinch or whatever sign he will know he's scared me enough into paying him his protection money.
He flashes his light at my counter where 30 minutes before I had made Cuban coffee. "See that? droppings, right there on your county" -- I don't correct him. I know the truth. The truth is that those are coffee grounds and I want him to leave and he won't leave.
He then goes on to explain to me the fact that I see any roaches at all is because the hive is so overcrowded a few have literally starved and are losing their minds. After pausing for about two beats, he adds "If you knew what was behind your walls, you wouldn't be able to sleep at night...."
My impatient body languages escalates my walking to the front door like I'm going to just leave him here with his communist plague roaches. Before he can go he explains I'll need to clean out - empty out - my kitchen. All the way empty. Bleach it all down, wipe it all down. His men would be coming to spray stuff into outlets and then find hives and suck the roaches out with these high powered bug sucking vacuums; I'd need to be out of the house from X to Y time, and then they would be back again for another treatment Z days later.
Finally he leaves. I empty the kitchen. I clean, I pack, I clean and clean. I find dead roaches and name them Trotsky and Lenin. I can't sleep that night as images of swarming roaches scratching behind the walls starts to really skeeve me out.
The Bug Guy with the poison and the vacuum arrives in the morning.
He does his work, then reports he found about 40 roaches. He'll be back in 2 weeks to make sure the invisible communist roach problem doesn't return.
I imagine that for $600 I could have bought some super cute shoes and danced all over those roaches and vacuumed them up myself.
For that same money I could have bought each roach a ticket to Halloween Horror Nights and then abandoned them there. But that would have been too swift and simple and answer, too Jeffersonian for our modern world.
For bi-monthly payment of about how much it costs to fill my SUV with gas, the Bug Guy Mafia will continue their oh so capitalistic invisible but horrifying roach destruction and protection racket.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is super clean and I have to eat every meal at a restaurant until the Bug Man returns. He didn't tell me I had to do this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
US merchant boats full of goods to trade were not able to trade freely on the Barbary Coast, and instead were forced to pay "tribute" money to the "Princes" just to keep the pirates from blowing up our ships and selling all the crew into slavery.
Between 1790 and 1800 the US authorized payments to the pirates of between 1/6 - 1/3 the total government budget. Anyway, European nations (ex: Denmark, the Two Sicilies and other World Leaders at the Time) had been long paying these "tribute fees" to trade along the Barbary Coast. Who were we to change this tradition, a new country with a flag that hardly anyone recognized yet?
All this money, for what? To not be killed? Yes.
The Barbary Pirates were running what we now call a "protection racket" (also known as "racketeering') -- translated: paying bad people to not be bad to you.
As soon as Thomas Jefferson became president he refused to continue to have US resources drained by racketeering thugs. Jefferson called on Congress to authorize "millions for defense... but not one (friggin) cent for tribute" and asked for the creation of a navy. A few years later the new US Marines stormed Tripoli and announced the whole racketeering thing was over.
I love that moment of US history, but I didn't love my week this week, and what happened that makes me keep thinking of racketeering pirates.
A few weeks ago I saw a roach in the dishwasher. Ew. That's not OK.
Then one under the coffeemaker. Then one -- was it the same one? he had that same sneaky look - on the floor by oven.
I don't want to kill them, actually I'd like for them to get jobs, buy their own food, bathe, and maybe pay me to hang out here, but I kill them anyway, quietly, surgically, followed always and every time by a burial at sea (flushing).
I mention this to my awesome landlord, and he sends over the Bug Guy who is not actually the Bug Guy who kills things but actually is the Bug Guy who takes your money and promises you there will be Other Bug Guys.
I dislike him from the beginning, I get the feeling he is talking to me but is spewing something he's memorized. He tells me all about German Cockroaches - their eating habits, nesting habits, shitting habits, and babyroach-making habits. I've lived in the South my whole life. I know enough about roaches, thanks.
He keeps talking. My awesome landlord interrupts after 30 minutes, asks how much it will be and writes a check for about $600.
At this point I want the Bug Guy to leave and take his bug stories with him. But apparently he can't. He tells me that for every roach I see, there are a thousand hiding behind my walls that I can't see.
"Like Communism?" I retort, admiring the juxtaposition of the two feared"pests" and laugh at myself but he doesn't stop talking for a second. Like he didn't hear me. Hello? I compared the roach scare with the red scare, hello? Funny? Anything? Nothing.
I'm pulling on my sweater, I have my keys jangling, every bit of body language that says it's time to leave but now he is set on trying to gross me out or get me to flinch or whatever sign he will know he's scared me enough into paying him his protection money.
He flashes his light at my counter where 30 minutes before I had made Cuban coffee. "See that? droppings, right there on your county" -- I don't correct him. I know the truth. The truth is that those are coffee grounds and I want him to leave and he won't leave.
He then goes on to explain to me the fact that I see any roaches at all is because the hive is so overcrowded a few have literally starved and are losing their minds. After pausing for about two beats, he adds "If you knew what was behind your walls, you wouldn't be able to sleep at night...."
My impatient body languages escalates my walking to the front door like I'm going to just leave him here with his communist plague roaches. Before he can go he explains I'll need to clean out - empty out - my kitchen. All the way empty. Bleach it all down, wipe it all down. His men would be coming to spray stuff into outlets and then find hives and suck the roaches out with these high powered bug sucking vacuums; I'd need to be out of the house from X to Y time, and then they would be back again for another treatment Z days later.
Finally he leaves. I empty the kitchen. I clean, I pack, I clean and clean. I find dead roaches and name them Trotsky and Lenin. I can't sleep that night as images of swarming roaches scratching behind the walls starts to really skeeve me out.
The Bug Guy with the poison and the vacuum arrives in the morning.
He does his work, then reports he found about 40 roaches. He'll be back in 2 weeks to make sure the invisible communist roach problem doesn't return.
I imagine that for $600 I could have bought some super cute shoes and danced all over those roaches and vacuumed them up myself.
For that same money I could have bought each roach a ticket to Halloween Horror Nights and then abandoned them there. But that would have been too swift and simple and answer, too Jeffersonian for our modern world.
For bi-monthly payment of about how much it costs to fill my SUV with gas, the Bug Guy Mafia will continue their oh so capitalistic invisible but horrifying roach destruction and protection racket.
Meanwhile, my kitchen is super clean and I have to eat every meal at a restaurant until the Bug Man returns. He didn't tell me I had to do this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Drunk Gummy Bears and the Spread of Communism
The Cold War that has broken out in my house is my fault and I take full responsibility.
Until the day I walked by the spot my iPhone was charging and hit the cord and OH for a few seconds the phone was airborne and I thought I could dive and catch it but actually I winced because too quickly the flight crashed with a decisively loud smack-bam on the ground. I found it face down.
Still, no pulse, cold.
Pieces of glass were missing from its face.
Long cracks splayed themselves across the glass like instant age lines; it was the same phone but it looked like it had aged 100 years.
Despite all the physical appearance of disaster and mayhem, I clicked around and found all my icons were there. The camera still worked. The volume still worked. The phone still worked. Fantastic, crisis averted.
I kept using the arthritic iPhone these past weeks even after the one day I held it wrong, forgetting to guard myself against the 12 separate bayonettes of glass that jut from around the gaping holes, and tore a big gash in my finger splattering blood all over the faceplate of the phone. Since then I've dropped it a few more times, never intentionally (of course) but less apologetically. It still worked, we still needed each other, and a small truce was signed that held up well until Halloween night.
Last week I asked around about how to make vodka gummy bears (follow me here people) and was told all I had to do was pour vodka over gummy bears and viola there would be a new creation.
So the night before Halloween I poured a bunch of vodka over (very willing volunteering brave) gummy bears and left them alone to marinate and party. On Halloween, late in the afternoon, I checked on the mixture and it kinda seemed like the gummy bears had some crazy orgy and became one big jello shot of a gummy bear.
If you've ever taken Mardi Gras beads and melted them into cool projects, or if you've lined up crayons on paper and shot hot air from a blow dryer at them and watched the waxy colors blend and melt you'd recognized the same pattern in these melted drunk bears.
Not knowing what else to do I reached for my iPhone to take a picture of the drunk tank on my counter. It was hard to get at just the right angle to see both their transparency and their gelatinous drunkedness so I put the phone right over the bowl, very close and then it jumped right in.
I can't blame the phone for wanted to join the party but I really needed to take this picture so I fished it out and then mopped the sticky vodka melted gummy guts it off with 10 papertowels, then returned to the bowl to finish my mission.
There. Done. Posted on Facebook.
As I check to see if the post has gone through I see a darkness creeping across the screen from the cracked area of the phone, the part of the phone that probably convinced the rest of the phone to jump into the gummy bowl, the cranky troublemaking side.
An hour later the darkness has spread across the face of my iphone like communism across Europe.
I don't know who to call (Churchill? Truman? Stalin? Steve Jobs?) but I do see my awesome iPhone still works, so I still have it.
Halloween has passed and now we are into November and I have yet to make a move, continuing my Cold War against the phone. Maybe the phone will attack me. Maybe it will jump again. Perhaps it will do nothing and stay exactly the same and we will peacefully coexist separated by the Iron Curtain of the iPhone faceplate.
Meanwhile, don't tell my iPhone but the gummy bears are chilling in the refrigerator, perfectly happy and blissfully unaware of their (unphotographed) impending doom.
BEGINNING*
I took my beautiful iPhone out of the thick rubber bounce-house I'd encased it in for over a year. Without all the plastic it was half the size and so much prettier. The screen felt better, the phone fit in my wallet better, everything went well.Until the day I walked by the spot my iPhone was charging and hit the cord and OH for a few seconds the phone was airborne and I thought I could dive and catch it but actually I winced because too quickly the flight crashed with a decisively loud smack-bam on the ground. I found it face down.
Still, no pulse, cold.
Pieces of glass were missing from its face.
Long cracks splayed themselves across the glass like instant age lines; it was the same phone but it looked like it had aged 100 years.
Despite all the physical appearance of disaster and mayhem, I clicked around and found all my icons were there. The camera still worked. The volume still worked. The phone still worked. Fantastic, crisis averted.
MIDDLE**
I kept using the arthritic iPhone these past weeks even after the one day I held it wrong, forgetting to guard myself against the 12 separate bayonettes of glass that jut from around the gaping holes, and tore a big gash in my finger splattering blood all over the faceplate of the phone. Since then I've dropped it a few more times, never intentionally (of course) but less apologetically. It still worked, we still needed each other, and a small truce was signed that held up well until Halloween night.Last week I asked around about how to make vodka gummy bears (follow me here people) and was told all I had to do was pour vodka over gummy bears and viola there would be a new creation.
So the night before Halloween I poured a bunch of vodka over (very willing volunteering brave) gummy bears and left them alone to marinate and party. On Halloween, late in the afternoon, I checked on the mixture and it kinda seemed like the gummy bears had some crazy orgy and became one big jello shot of a gummy bear.
If you've ever taken Mardi Gras beads and melted them into cool projects, or if you've lined up crayons on paper and shot hot air from a blow dryer at them and watched the waxy colors blend and melt you'd recognized the same pattern in these melted drunk bears.
Not knowing what else to do I reached for my iPhone to take a picture of the drunk tank on my counter. It was hard to get at just the right angle to see both their transparency and their gelatinous drunkedness so I put the phone right over the bowl, very close and then it jumped right in.
I can't blame the phone for wanted to join the party but I really needed to take this picture so I fished it out and then mopped the sticky vodka melted gummy guts it off with 10 papertowels, then returned to the bowl to finish my mission.
There. Done. Posted on Facebook.
(I think)
ENDING*
As I check to see if the post has gone through I see a darkness creeping across the screen from the cracked area of the phone, the part of the phone that probably convinced the rest of the phone to jump into the gummy bowl, the cranky troublemaking side.
An hour later the darkness has spread across the face of my iphone like communism across Europe.
I don't know who to call (Churchill? Truman? Stalin? Steve Jobs?) but I do see my awesome iPhone still works, so I still have it.
Halloween has passed and now we are into November and I have yet to make a move, continuing my Cold War against the phone. Maybe the phone will attack me. Maybe it will jump again. Perhaps it will do nothing and stay exactly the same and we will peacefully coexist separated by the Iron Curtain of the iPhone faceplate.
Meanwhile, don't tell my iPhone but the gummy bears are chilling in the refrigerator, perfectly happy and blissfully unaware of their (unphotographed) impending doom.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
Bugger: A Frog's Tale in 3 Parts
My new book,
***************************
Part 1: 2 Books, Or None, Depends on How You See it.
I didn't buy the windchimes, the gift books, the Sharpie markers, the lotto tickets; I didn't print out and frame pictures of the kids.
Instead I was going to send them a BOOK for Christmas about this Praying Laughing Frog in my office who brought a beautiful moment into the world.
Bringing a story to life is 1% inspiration and the rest is just damn hard tedious heart wrenching mind challenging work. I wrote and I wrote and I ignored my family (sorry!) and didn't cook (oops!) or do laundry (maybe Santa will bring clean clothes?) and sometimes I had a big tumbler of an adult beverage by me to cement myself in the chair - lemonade and tequila; cranberry juice and vodka; Bailey's in coffee.
It worked. I finished on 12/23 and send the file electronically to a print store by my parents.
Compulsed with the buzz comes when creativity transforms itself into productivity, I then decided to login to Walgreens.com and create a photobook for Abuelo with pictures from Cuba.
That took a few hours and then I hit submit. Fine. It would be ready by 9pm that same night.
At that point I deputized my father - the man whose birthday is on Christmas - to round up the books.
He called after 9pm that night from Walgreens. There was a frustration in his voice.
What name is it under? I give him the order number, one name, another, his name, mine, my email.
He ends it with a tight statement of OK, they have no record of your book, handle this.
OK, I will I tell him sweetly and he goes home.
The next morning my Dad calls me. He is at the print shop. They have no record of your book here. What name is it under? He tries few things. Then he mutters under his breath "I don't like your Christmas gifts this year!" and I lighten it up suggesting this can be our new "holiday tradition" but he answers bullshit and gets off the phone.
I call Walgreens and stay on the line long enough for the woman there -- the one with an accent who understood what a big deal it was to send my Abuelo pictures I took in Cuba of HIS house, hard evidence I was there, it is there -- to figure out the book had been filed under a random letter. Yep, there it was, ready for my Dad.
Then I checked my email. There it was, a notice my print job was ready. Prayer of the Laughing Yoga Frog, 3 copies, ready for pickup. I call my dad. He has already printed out the file I sent him, but OK. Good, he begrudges that I didn't send him on fool's errands and we move on with our long-distance Christmas.
Part 2: The Big Wince
We are opening presents on Christmas; fast forward to me unwrapping a box that had a statue and three cool rocks. One rock tries to run and almost crashes on my foot. I decide to keep an eye on that agate and put it back in the box. Then I unwrap the statue from from its tissue paper.
It is silver and space aged looking.
I wince.
Don't you like it? It's a FROG!
I look at it again. It looks like the 6 Million Dollar Frog, like what a frog who worked for the Air Force would look like.
It looks tough and cold and hard and I can't even look it in the eye.
It isn't green. It isn't funny.
It isnt' very froggy and nothing at all like my beloved silent yoga-tastic frog and less frogilicious than my sideways swimming windchime frog.
This frog was all business, which makes me by my very nature wince.
Zoe explains it's a powerful frog that will help me "jump into the next part of my life" whatever that meant to her. I shake my head and try to be thankful but I don't want to jump into the next part of my life, I love it where I am, I think unconvincingly and I wrap the frog back up and keep Christmas moving.
Part 3: Bugger
The day after Christmas I open the frog again and read its tag - the frog has a name? - "Bugger".
Bugger: a slang word used to refer to anal intercourse; a curse word to express dissatisfaction.
Bugger the Lucky Frog who is going to make me JUMP alrighty.
I put him up on the mantle and walk away quietly hoping he wasn't checking me out in my yoga pants.
Part 4: 1 Book Down, 51 More to Go
The next day the sun is extra bright and life is happy around here. In the middle of a conversation I ask Zack if he thinks I'll write 5 more books and he answers "I think you'll write 52!! This year!!" which makes me want to hug him and kick him.
52 books in a year is crazy talk but thanks, I tell him, swelling up with some invisible optimism that carries me to find a way to publish my book, the one I wrote before Christmas.
I go online and feel my way around, successfully clicking here, then there.
There's the cover page; the ISBN; now the template. The formatting kicks back errors 9 times; over and over I upload the manuscript until its approved.
There, done.
I go online and announce I've published my second book.
People comment they didn't know I was writing this book and I add that I didn't know either, but now that I've started moving I'm halfway done with the next book, too, so stay tuned.
The frog, that bugger, gleams from the corner.
He's growing on me.
*************************
My new book,
Sunday, December 30, 2012
What would Jefferson Madison or Monroe do?
There is a moment in my life seared across my memory like an invisible START line no one else can see.
I was warming myself up for writing leadership curriculum at Leadership Broward in the summer of 2005 and I came across an article that had the word "blog."
Blog? Sounds like a booger, I thought, but it couldn't be because the article was about an insider in the "beauty industry" writing under a psyuedonym; I searched the blog and read it for a second.
My eyes were pulled to the top corner.
An icon proclaimed "Create your own blog" and I clicked on it to see what this was all about.
It took me a few seconds to realize that the service was free. And easy.
I had in front of me something that Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and James Monroe (not Jackson, he wasn't much of a "writer") would have drooled over -- a truly free and democratic arena to write and be read.
No stamp tax, no editors, and best of all, no one in the whole world telling me what to write, when to write, or who I was even writing for.
I had no deadline, no target audience, nothing but space and freedom to write nothing or write something, the American way.
In the 8 years since I started blogging the world has made a humongous jump forward in connectivity. Now we have more places to meet freely - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and whatever new media just popped up and my daughter wisely hiding from me.
There is now another step forward; people can publish a book for free, all on their own, without the need for agents, editors (well, um, don't skip that one) and any limitations of money. I can on
I was warming myself up for writing leadership curriculum at Leadership Broward in the summer of 2005 and I came across an article that had the word "blog."
Blog? Sounds like a booger, I thought, but it couldn't be because the article was about an insider in the "beauty industry" writing under a psyuedonym; I searched the blog and read it for a second.
My eyes were pulled to the top corner.
An icon proclaimed "Create your own blog" and I clicked on it to see what this was all about.
It took me a few seconds to realize that the service was free. And easy.
I had in front of me something that Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and James Monroe (not Jackson, he wasn't much of a "writer") would have drooled over -- a truly free and democratic arena to write and be read.
No stamp tax, no editors, and best of all, no one in the whole world telling me what to write, when to write, or who I was even writing for.
I had no deadline, no target audience, nothing but space and freedom to write nothing or write something, the American way.
In the 8 years since I started blogging the world has made a humongous jump forward in connectivity. Now we have more places to meet freely - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and whatever new media just popped up and my daughter wisely hiding from me.
There is now another step forward; people can publish a book for free, all on their own, without the need for agents, editors (well, um, don't skip that one) and any limitations of money. I can on
What Would Colin Powell Do? (Fisheyes and etc)
Early Sunday morning Zack wakes me up this morning standing over me with a bright smile - "We're hungry, please can you make breakfast?"
He has a friend sleeping over, it's after 8, so yes, I get up quickly and happily and start making bacon and pancakes and coffee.
While I'm doing all this my son come up and hugs me and asks where his iPad is.
I give him a one arm hug and shrug him off and pour a pancake on my pan as he walks away.
My dad taught me to watch for fish eyes popping up in the pancake batter as it cooks.
After a few seconds one appears as a bubble.
Then another, then a group of them.
Fish eyes, time to flip the pancake. There, it's just brown enough, just perfect.
I finish it and take the pan off the stove so I can look for that iPad.
Is it on Zack's desk? (no) Is it on Zoe's bed? (yes).
I pick it up and hand it to my son who is bunkered down on the big sofa with his friend, both playing minecraft. One of them, I'm not sure who, mutters thanks, and I go off back to the kitchen and bacon and fisheyes.
After filling their plates with pancakes and bacon, I carry butter, syrup, cups and orange juice to the table I announce in my most "don't embarrass me Moooommmm!" voice, "Hey hungry boys who woke me up to cook for them! Breakfast is ready!"
They say nothing.
I'm up and getting things done so I keep moving and decide to gather a load of laundry.
I used to toss my laundry in my huge bathtub (the one with hot bubbling jets that I use a lot less in reality than I do in my imagination) but I stopped that on Thanksgiving day after I came back from a fantastic workout running up and down the hill near my house. I was hot and sweaty and decided to take a pre-Holiday Madness long hot bath.
This meant clearing about 6 big towels out of the tub, so while turning on the right songs on Pandora I mindlessly reached in and pulled a few towels out with one hand.
I dropped them on the floor (note to self, get bathmats for Christmas; Zoe puked on all the old ones) and reached in to pull out more towels.
As I'm tossing these towels on the ground I realize there is something in my hand that is not a towel and I drop it right back into the bathtub.
It looks kinda familiar, like a toy Zack would make with Legos, all spindly but collapsed into itself like the skeleton of umbrella folded down. Sometimes Zack takes baths in this huge tub, floating and playing and just being a boy. Yes, it must be one of Zack's toys of course, so I reach down and start to pick it up out of the bathtub but then it moves so I don't touch it at all.
One leg straights out.
Then another.
It's a spider. It's a big black skinny spider bigger than my palm and I don't know what to do so I keep extra quiet and still.
This is a mortal and moral dilemma. I just ran up and down hills under the stars, embracing life. I can't just kill something now.
I ask myself what Colin Powell would do.
I know. I know. He kicked Saddam out of Kuwait in Desert Storm.
Limited objective, success.
I decide the spider must go down the drain and try to find something to chase it down with (or poison it -- now that I named it Saddam Hussein I'm thinking of using my WMD on it).
The bathroom offers a variety spider chasing (killing?) tools - hairspray, sharp heeled shoes, magazines -- but my heart is set on spraying some cleanser with bleach at this spider and also sanitizing the bathtub. Under the cabinet, where the bleach spray belongs, I only find two things - toilet paper and tooth whitening mouthwash.
So I pour a capful of mouthwash and pour it at Saddam Hussein the spider in my bathtub. He shakes one arm at the wetness (or was it a leg?) and moves a little. I pour more, he moves a little more deliberately away from the dental WMD.
The cap is empty. I grab the bottle and pour it towards the spider and chase him towards the drain.
As it slips into the hole, I forget the Powell Doctrine go a little more Bush (Cheney?) Doctrine and smash the drain on the spider, leaving half his legs (arms?) dangling on the outside of the drain.
Maybe he lived, maybe he died. Either way, I cleaned the bathtub and had a long hot bath that morning.
Now that I've gathered laundry (which I no longer keep in my tub) and started a big load of school clothes for next week I notice something.
The boys haven't touched the food.
They aren't even at the table yet.
I repeat myself. "Hello? Boys? Breakfast?"
Zack says "Later, we're not hungry!"
I come closer to him, because I'm sure I didn't hear him right, and you know maybe all that loud music in my youth and in my car is catching up to me.
He repeats himself, "We're really not hungry yet, mom, but it smells good."
I kiss him on the forehead. "So basically you woke me up to find the iPad?"
He nods and adds, "I knew better than to wake you up just for that."
I kiss him again and go eat his bacon.
He has a friend sleeping over, it's after 8, so yes, I get up quickly and happily and start making bacon and pancakes and coffee.
While I'm doing all this my son come up and hugs me and asks where his iPad is.
I give him a one arm hug and shrug him off and pour a pancake on my pan as he walks away.
My dad taught me to watch for fish eyes popping up in the pancake batter as it cooks.
After a few seconds one appears as a bubble.
Then another, then a group of them.
Fish eyes, time to flip the pancake. There, it's just brown enough, just perfect.
I finish it and take the pan off the stove so I can look for that iPad.
Is it on Zack's desk? (no) Is it on Zoe's bed? (yes).
I pick it up and hand it to my son who is bunkered down on the big sofa with his friend, both playing minecraft. One of them, I'm not sure who, mutters thanks, and I go off back to the kitchen and bacon and fisheyes.
After filling their plates with pancakes and bacon, I carry butter, syrup, cups and orange juice to the table I announce in my most "don't embarrass me Moooommmm!" voice, "Hey hungry boys who woke me up to cook for them! Breakfast is ready!"
They say nothing.
I'm up and getting things done so I keep moving and decide to gather a load of laundry.
I used to toss my laundry in my huge bathtub (the one with hot bubbling jets that I use a lot less in reality than I do in my imagination) but I stopped that on Thanksgiving day after I came back from a fantastic workout running up and down the hill near my house. I was hot and sweaty and decided to take a pre-Holiday Madness long hot bath.
This meant clearing about 6 big towels out of the tub, so while turning on the right songs on Pandora I mindlessly reached in and pulled a few towels out with one hand.
I dropped them on the floor (note to self, get bathmats for Christmas; Zoe puked on all the old ones) and reached in to pull out more towels.
As I'm tossing these towels on the ground I realize there is something in my hand that is not a towel and I drop it right back into the bathtub.
It looks kinda familiar, like a toy Zack would make with Legos, all spindly but collapsed into itself like the skeleton of umbrella folded down. Sometimes Zack takes baths in this huge tub, floating and playing and just being a boy. Yes, it must be one of Zack's toys of course, so I reach down and start to pick it up out of the bathtub but then it moves so I don't touch it at all.
One leg straights out.
Then another.
It's a spider. It's a big black skinny spider bigger than my palm and I don't know what to do so I keep extra quiet and still.
This is a mortal and moral dilemma. I just ran up and down hills under the stars, embracing life. I can't just kill something now.
I ask myself what Colin Powell would do.
I know. I know. He kicked Saddam out of Kuwait in Desert Storm.
Limited objective, success.
I decide the spider must go down the drain and try to find something to chase it down with (or poison it -- now that I named it Saddam Hussein I'm thinking of using my WMD on it).
The bathroom offers a variety spider chasing (killing?) tools - hairspray, sharp heeled shoes, magazines -- but my heart is set on spraying some cleanser with bleach at this spider and also sanitizing the bathtub. Under the cabinet, where the bleach spray belongs, I only find two things - toilet paper and tooth whitening mouthwash.
So I pour a capful of mouthwash and pour it at Saddam Hussein the spider in my bathtub. He shakes one arm at the wetness (or was it a leg?) and moves a little. I pour more, he moves a little more deliberately away from the dental WMD.
The cap is empty. I grab the bottle and pour it towards the spider and chase him towards the drain.
As it slips into the hole, I forget the Powell Doctrine go a little more Bush (Cheney?) Doctrine and smash the drain on the spider, leaving half his legs (arms?) dangling on the outside of the drain.
Maybe he lived, maybe he died. Either way, I cleaned the bathtub and had a long hot bath that morning.
Now that I've gathered laundry (which I no longer keep in my tub) and started a big load of school clothes for next week I notice something.
The boys haven't touched the food.
They aren't even at the table yet.
I repeat myself. "Hello? Boys? Breakfast?"
Zack says "Later, we're not hungry!"
I come closer to him, because I'm sure I didn't hear him right, and you know maybe all that loud music in my youth and in my car is catching up to me.
He repeats himself, "We're really not hungry yet, mom, but it smells good."
I kiss him on the forehead. "So basically you woke me up to find the iPad?"
He nods and adds, "I knew better than to wake you up just for that."
I kiss him again and go eat his bacon.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Merry Xmas! Marvin's Book is Free on Kindle*
Marvin's Book: The Story of a Professor and a Promise is a free download in Kindle for Xmas.
Don't have a kindle? Download the kindle app on your iPhone, iPad, Android or laptod.
Enjoy!!
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/marvins-book-professor-promise-ebook/B0074J8WZ0/B0074B088W
Don't have a kindle? Download the kindle app on your iPhone, iPad, Android or laptod.
Enjoy!!
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/marvins-book-professor-promise-ebook/B0074J8WZ0/B0074B088W
Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 10: Culito de Rana
Later that same week the professor returned to her office to give the last set of exams for the semester. Again she collected her exams and again she readied the lucky rocks. But it was too early to go to class on this particular day so she stood still for a minute and looked out the window.
There he was, arriving in his special limousine.
The professor decided to down just for once and meet him as the elevator lowed him to the ground. Hey Alex, ready for your exam?
He nodded as best as he could but actually last week his old chair broke and now he was in this sportscar of a chair that he was still figuring out and that was taking ALL of his concentration so she didn’t ask him any more questions until he hit the green button once, then once again then pushed the circle forward and his chair moved him away from his limousine and through the glass doors into the building.
I like this one better she babbles at him. Before you were leaned back more, now you’re right up and down like you’re in a tight sports car. He pushed the red button twice, stopped his car and smiled his agreement.
The professor meant to walk Alex to their classroom to make sure that he was there to take pictures but he shrugged her off.
I have to wait here, he said slowly, carefully chosen word forming itself in him and then bursting out of his otherwise rigid silence. She asked if he was warm enough, if he needed anything. He turned his eyebrows down and said no.
I want you to be part of this, she told him and then left him in the warm hallway surrounded by hushed packs of whispering students quizzing each other and cursing under their breath.
She went back upstairs to her office and fetched exams, the rocks and the frog.
Again the professor paraded with frog down the hall past exhausted looking exam-worn students strewn here and there like remnants of party that died hours ago. A waif like girl with a cuddly animal face knit hat looked up and smiled from her spot surrounded by piles of notecards pink green blue white. Other students looked down and away staring at graphs and highlighted passages and printed out power point slides.
At five minutes before the time the Final Exam was supposed to begin the professor walked into the room. Several students were sitting on top of their desks in an informal circle quizzing each other. The professor hid her pleasure at their intensity and walked silently to the front where she dropped the box of empty final exams and the laughing yoga frog on a small table.
At exactly the time the final exam was supposed to begin the professor held up the frog statue and launched into an impromptu graduation speech. Congratulations you’ve made it to the end! Look at the empty chairs. That guy stopped coming. That girl, the one who never had a pen, she disappeared, but you guys made it to the end in one piece, and that’s something to celebrate.
The class broke up into cheers as though someone were tossing candy and free tshirts at them.
I’m giving you a speech, I’m not cancelling your final, I need to talk to you about my frog, the professor announced and several fallen faces dropped their gazes back down into notebooks and notecards. A few faces looked interested. . One girl with particularly tight headband winced a little.
I like frogs because they start out completely different from what they are intended to become.
They have tails, right? Then they lose them and grow up. That must be traumatic.
When my mom tells me “Sana, sana, culita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana”(heal heal little frog’s tail, if you don’t heal today you’ll heal tomorrow) I imagine this poor baby froggy looking for its tail, what it’s lost, and not at all noticing that it has arms and legs and now it can leap.
But once the frog realized it’s a new creature, strong and whole, it can do so much more and leap into a bigger world. And that’s what I wish your education will help you do.
I fell in love with this particular praying laughing yoga frog the moment I saw it.
Just look at it, doesn’t it look like something I would love?
Well I left it. But then the next week I went back to Cracker Barrel and it visited it and I had the money and I had no reason to not buy it but I just ran away from it.
And a week later I went back to Cracker Barrel again and I can’t believe I’m publicly admitting I went to Cracker Barrel three times in two weeks and I thought the frog was gone but it was THERE and it was 80% off.
I love it and it was meant for me and I bought it and what I want to tell you all is that the universe is always growing and ever expanding and it is full of joyful things – big and small - like this frog and I’m sure that what is meant to bring joy to you will find you.
After you each finish exam I’m going to give a lucky rock and you’re going to take a picture with me and the frog. I’d give you your lucky rocks now but some of them are so strong that they bring an unfair advantage so you’ll have to wait.
Ready for your exam?
The professor hands out empty exams full of spaces for students to explain things like The Treaty of Versailles, The Manhattan Project and The Powell Doctrine. After finishing her walk up and down and between the rows she turns her attention to Alex who will leave her and take his test in a lab.
Ready for your lucky rock?
He nods.
She holds up the rock-laden tray that obscured the word “Believe” etched across it right under Alex’s hand. His rock picks him quickly but he can’t hold it in his hand. She asks if she can put it in his slipper and he laughs.
The professor turned her laptop and held her frog up to take a picture with the three of them. It came out well. They took another, then another and because Alex was just hanging out in the room until his aid met him, the professor kept taking pictures with Alex and the frog.
Put me on your head the frog whispered to the professor.
She put the frog on her head so that its lilypad looked like a 1920s hat.
Alex threw his head back and laughed the happiest laugh anyone had ever heard.
Before the moment could pass, the professor took a picture of the three of them, Alex laughing, the frog praying, her just peeking in from the side of frame.
A minute later Alex’s aid entered the room apologizing for being late. That’s fine Reggie, the professor said, eliciting giggles from testtakers who remembered the day she stopped lecture and asked him his name.
He told her. It was something like Eric. She shook her head and told him she was going to call him Reggie and after that she just did and everytime she did everyone giggled.
Hold the my frog and take a picture Reggie, don’t ask any questions, act like this is normal the professor commanded as she thrust the frog at Reggie.
Reggie did exactly what she asked, which only made Alex laugh harder.
After that the two of them left for the lab, leaving the professor and her frog to finish the exam and take pictures with the rest of that class.
In the after-exam quiet the professor took her time stacking exams up and clearing off odds and ends from her desk before retreating to a long weekend of grading.
She wiped down her desk, watered her plants and placed the Laughing Yoga Frog on the windowsill right under the crystal that spun rainbows of joy across the office walls and floor for a few minute at just the right time each day.
Looking around one last time the professor went back to reposition the frog. Something had changed, just a little.
Your silent prayer was answered today, wasn’t it, the professor asked the praying laughing yoga frog.
So that’s what you’ve been waiting for, she asked again into the silence, answered only by a tiny rainbow that shot through the prism and onto the floor.
And so, while the professor was indeed intended to be grading answers regarding the Potsdam Declaration and the Platt Amendment, instead she thought about what a wonderful universe this was that she could play even a little part in answering the prayers of the laughing yoga frog.
The world is a perfect place, created by a perfect creator whose imagination is still unfolding.
Each bit of creation from the perfect creator is also perfect, both a piece in itself and also part of a whole.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Laughing Yoga Frog; Chapter 9: Pulitzer Frog
And then at the end of one particular semester just as the professor was packing up her lucky rocks and her laptop to take pictures and a box of empty final exams full of spaces for students to explain "Marshall Plan" and "Buck vs Bell" she noticed the frog and wondered "Would you like to come?"
Yes? The frog didn't protest so the professor tucked the frog under one arm, slung the box of exams and such under the other arm, and marched down the halls full of college students huddled in study groups surrounded by puddles of notes.
She acted as if it were totally normal to be walking down the hall with a statue of a laughing yoga frog, like this is just how things are supposed to be today.
Upon entering her large class the professor put her frog down, set up for the exam and when it was time to start the exam - but not a minute before - she asked the students for their attention to tell them one last story for the semester.
She holds the frog up.
I brought the Laughing Yoga Frog for you today to help during exams. Sometimes I hold it and pretend its the Pulitzer Prize for comedy and practice my acceptance speech.
The class laughed the professor continued with a short tale of falling in love with the frog, leaving it, visiting it, leaving it, again, then finally retrieving it.
The class stares at her for a moment, the word "so?" hanging over their heads collectively, silently, heavily.
This was their final exam; they were not expecting to hear about the Cracker Barrel gift shop.
The professor puts the frog down and tells her students that the frog has taught her a great deal. What the universe intends for you, you will receive. This frog waited for me, she tells them, and adds, this frog is to remind you that what is intended for you will be something joyful, something that you will find and will find you.
Smiles of relief cross the room.
The professor picks up a heavy stack of exams and asks who's ready to take an exam and even though no one said yes please she decided to give them their final exams anyway.
One by one as the students finished their exams the professor let them pick their stone -- or rather, let their stone find them -- and took a picture with each student, their stone and the laughing yoga frog.
When the last student finishes her exam she begs for mercy and the professor promises to read the exam carefully. They take a picture together and the student carries her lucky rock -- amber -- out of history class and off into the rest of her life.
The professor packed the exams neatly and again tucked the frog under her arm and walked through the hallway stepping over the twisted tangled study groups of students that lined the wall.
When she got back to her office the professor put the frog back in her spot below the crystal and next to the windchimes. She stacked the exams up neatly, turned her office light off and went home to thing about things big and small.
The next day the professor gave another exam.
Again she brought the frog.
Again she told them the story of Cracker Barrel and pointed out that what was meant for them they will most definitely get.
Again she told them it was her pretend Pulitzer.
Again she told them to marvel at the tree pose, that finding balance and strength and joy takes practice and intention.
This time she added that the universe was always growing and expanding and many of the wonderful things intending for them are still only being imagined.
Have patience, and expect wonderful things she tells them and then tells them to put everything away and take their history exam.
One by one students pose with the frog, with their rocks. When the last student leaves the room the professor stacks the exams neatly and carries the papers and the laughing yoga frog back to her office.
That night the laughing yoga frog looked up into the moonbeams and broke her silence with small words crammed in one joyful prayerful thought bubble proclaiming "I'm almost there."
Yes? The frog didn't protest so the professor tucked the frog under one arm, slung the box of exams and such under the other arm, and marched down the halls full of college students huddled in study groups surrounded by puddles of notes.
She acted as if it were totally normal to be walking down the hall with a statue of a laughing yoga frog, like this is just how things are supposed to be today.
Upon entering her large class the professor put her frog down, set up for the exam and when it was time to start the exam - but not a minute before - she asked the students for their attention to tell them one last story for the semester.
She holds the frog up.
I brought the Laughing Yoga Frog for you today to help during exams. Sometimes I hold it and pretend its the Pulitzer Prize for comedy and practice my acceptance speech.
The class laughed the professor continued with a short tale of falling in love with the frog, leaving it, visiting it, leaving it, again, then finally retrieving it.
The class stares at her for a moment, the word "so?" hanging over their heads collectively, silently, heavily.
This was their final exam; they were not expecting to hear about the Cracker Barrel gift shop.
The professor puts the frog down and tells her students that the frog has taught her a great deal. What the universe intends for you, you will receive. This frog waited for me, she tells them, and adds, this frog is to remind you that what is intended for you will be something joyful, something that you will find and will find you.
Smiles of relief cross the room.
The professor picks up a heavy stack of exams and asks who's ready to take an exam and even though no one said yes please she decided to give them their final exams anyway.
One by one as the students finished their exams the professor let them pick their stone -- or rather, let their stone find them -- and took a picture with each student, their stone and the laughing yoga frog.
When the last student finishes her exam she begs for mercy and the professor promises to read the exam carefully. They take a picture together and the student carries her lucky rock -- amber -- out of history class and off into the rest of her life.
The professor packed the exams neatly and again tucked the frog under her arm and walked through the hallway stepping over the twisted tangled study groups of students that lined the wall.
When she got back to her office the professor put the frog back in her spot below the crystal and next to the windchimes. She stacked the exams up neatly, turned her office light off and went home to thing about things big and small.
The next day the professor gave another exam.
Again she brought the frog.
Again she told them the story of Cracker Barrel and pointed out that what was meant for them they will most definitely get.
Again she told them it was her pretend Pulitzer.
Again she told them to marvel at the tree pose, that finding balance and strength and joy takes practice and intention.
This time she added that the universe was always growing and expanding and many of the wonderful things intending for them are still only being imagined.
Have patience, and expect wonderful things she tells them and then tells them to put everything away and take their history exam.
One by one students pose with the frog, with their rocks. When the last student leaves the room the professor stacks the exams neatly and carries the papers and the laughing yoga frog back to her office.
That night the laughing yoga frog looked up into the moonbeams and broke her silence with small words crammed in one joyful prayerful thought bubble proclaiming "I'm almost there."
Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 8: Silent. Strong, Balanced
Semester after semester the professor and her students and the rocks and the laughing yoga frog continued their dance.
Students went through her class and off into their lives to become mothers and warriors and dentists and engineers and artists and philanthropists and musicians and whatever else seed that was planted in their soul and watered by experience and nurtured by hope.
The professor came and went day and day into her office life and back into her mother life.
Every day she was thankful to the universe and her creator that she had an office, this office with crystals and rainbows and frogs and stones and students.
And through it all, day after day, semester after semester, year into year, the laughing yoga frog stayed planted in tree pose, silent, strong, balanced.
Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 7: Faithful Expectation
The professor often met students who were in college but not really.
They would come to class once and sit off from the rest of the class, take a week off, then wander in lost and confused and then take another week off to recover.
If and when the professor could get such students to her office she would remind them of a Buddhist proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" and offer to them that they really weren't meant to be learning this from her, here and now. Sometimes she would continue in her explanation, saying perhaps they weren't coming to class thirsty for knowledge but surely they were learning alot somewhere else in their life, that something was really compelling them with passion and growth.
Students often looked down and sad to hear the truth and graciously be allowed to admit that they didn't really want to be in college not now, not here.
The professor would remind them they were free, and then wished them well on their path, arming them with a lucky stone.
As the 21st century college world would have it, most students didn't ever come to the professor's office.
They came to class, asked questions in class or on email, and went on with their life without ever meeting the laughing yoga frog.
Because the professor spent so many hours in her offices she had plenty of time to grade exams, write lectures, answer email, compile learning outcomes, waterher plants, rearrange her stones and stare out the window at the planes going by.
Sometimes the professor got up from her chair and stood in the tree pose with her frog, falling out of the pose, laughing. Sometimes she forgot to laugh and instead sat hunched in her chair staring at Dr. Suess WW2 cartoons, trying to pick exactly the right four that together could tell a good story.
On an especially quiet day when the professor had no one to meet with, nothing to grade and nothing to write she stared and stared at the laughing yoga frog and then finally asked of it what she always wanted know.
What are you laughing at?
What are you praying for?
Are you praying thank you for something delightful that you received?
Or are you praying thank you for something delightful you know you'll get?
Something told her it was the last thing, that the frog was smiling, waiting silently and tree-like, immobile in its faithful expectation of joy.
They would come to class once and sit off from the rest of the class, take a week off, then wander in lost and confused and then take another week off to recover.
If and when the professor could get such students to her office she would remind them of a Buddhist proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" and offer to them that they really weren't meant to be learning this from her, here and now. Sometimes she would continue in her explanation, saying perhaps they weren't coming to class thirsty for knowledge but surely they were learning alot somewhere else in their life, that something was really compelling them with passion and growth.
Students often looked down and sad to hear the truth and graciously be allowed to admit that they didn't really want to be in college not now, not here.
The professor would remind them they were free, and then wished them well on their path, arming them with a lucky stone.
As the 21st century college world would have it, most students didn't ever come to the professor's office.
They came to class, asked questions in class or on email, and went on with their life without ever meeting the laughing yoga frog.
Because the professor spent so many hours in her offices she had plenty of time to grade exams, write lectures, answer email, compile learning outcomes, waterher plants, rearrange her stones and stare out the window at the planes going by.
Sometimes the professor got up from her chair and stood in the tree pose with her frog, falling out of the pose, laughing. Sometimes she forgot to laugh and instead sat hunched in her chair staring at Dr. Suess WW2 cartoons, trying to pick exactly the right four that together could tell a good story.
On an especially quiet day when the professor had no one to meet with, nothing to grade and nothing to write she stared and stared at the laughing yoga frog and then finally asked of it what she always wanted know.
What are you laughing at?
What are you praying for?
Are you praying thank you for something delightful that you received?
Or are you praying thank you for something delightful you know you'll get?
Something told her it was the last thing, that the frog was smiling, waiting silently and tree-like, immobile in its faithful expectation of joy.
The Laughing Yoga Frog: Chapter 6: Statue of Liberty
When the professor brought the Laughing Yoga Frog home she thought she would put it outside by the rose bushes, jasmine and fish pond. Right there it would be a glorious center to a meditation area.
She put it down, surrounded it with rocks and stepped back.
The otherwise jubilant frog disappeared into the foliage small and lost, a point of joy dimmed into nothing.
No, no this is all wrong the professor muttered then put the frog on her mantle.
There, you will inspire me every day to be quiet, to be prayerful, to be happy and balanced like you. Perfect.
The frog looked a little bit better there next to the flatscreen TV, but because it was up so high no one could really see it's prayer and appreciate its balance.
One day as the professor was packing her laptop into her shiny red faux-leather sack on the way to work she looked up at the frog and thought to the frog Hey! Are you happy there are do you want to come with me?
The laughing yoga frog didn't protest so the professor carefully picked her up and brought her to the car where -- just in case, you can't be to sure, you know -- she placed it in the passenger seat and strapped the seatbelt carefully around it's delicately strong pose.
Once she arrived in her office the professor put the yoga frog down on the corner of her desk, unpacked her computer and turned it on.
She sat back in her chair and looked around for a suitable place for the frog to pose.
Over there was a line of frogs the professor had rescued from her mother's house, frogs who were being evicted in a purgative house cleaning. The yoga frog was larger than the other frogs - the Puerto Rican surfer frog, the bank frog, the frog with the safire eyes, the two frogs melted together in a tango - like the Statue of Liberty placed among kindergarten playdough creations (no offense to the other frogs she thought quickly then laughed at herself).
The laughing yoga frog wanted to stay on the professor's desk, right there by the pile of lucky rocks that sprung from the center of the earth and although they couldn't walk, couldn't talk, had no free will, here they were offering themselves up to the endless line of students who came to talk to the professor -- and now her frog -- about Andrew Jackson, the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such professor stuff.
Over the next semesters the ever changing pile of rocks that visited the professor's desk and watched the frog do her yoga before leaping into the hands of students included blue lace agate for healing, crazy lace agate for balance and laughing; rose quartz for harmony and love; Amber for luck and success and to remember that sap was once running and then slowed down, so slow it transformed into art.
One day the professor received an email that a student died. She wanted to turn her computer off and walk away from her office, her rocks and the laughing yoga frog but instead she brought her laptop to exams and took pictures with each and every student as they handed in their exams and received their lucky rocks. This one is for freedom, this one is for insight, this one helps you let go of beliefs that no longer serve you and don't help you become who you are intended to be.
No matter how carefully the professor counted rocks when she went to buy them the professor always ended the semester with twenty or thirty rocks that refused to let themselves be picked, and instead insisted on being returned to her office where they could stay with the laughing yoga frog.
She put it down, surrounded it with rocks and stepped back.
The otherwise jubilant frog disappeared into the foliage small and lost, a point of joy dimmed into nothing.
No, no this is all wrong the professor muttered then put the frog on her mantle.
There, you will inspire me every day to be quiet, to be prayerful, to be happy and balanced like you. Perfect.
The frog looked a little bit better there next to the flatscreen TV, but because it was up so high no one could really see it's prayer and appreciate its balance.
One day as the professor was packing her laptop into her shiny red faux-leather sack on the way to work she looked up at the frog and thought to the frog Hey! Are you happy there are do you want to come with me?
The laughing yoga frog didn't protest so the professor carefully picked her up and brought her to the car where -- just in case, you can't be to sure, you know -- she placed it in the passenger seat and strapped the seatbelt carefully around it's delicately strong pose.
Once she arrived in her office the professor put the yoga frog down on the corner of her desk, unpacked her computer and turned it on.
She sat back in her chair and looked around for a suitable place for the frog to pose.
Over there was a line of frogs the professor had rescued from her mother's house, frogs who were being evicted in a purgative house cleaning. The yoga frog was larger than the other frogs - the Puerto Rican surfer frog, the bank frog, the frog with the safire eyes, the two frogs melted together in a tango - like the Statue of Liberty placed among kindergarten playdough creations (no offense to the other frogs she thought quickly then laughed at herself).
The laughing yoga frog wanted to stay on the professor's desk, right there by the pile of lucky rocks that sprung from the center of the earth and although they couldn't walk, couldn't talk, had no free will, here they were offering themselves up to the endless line of students who came to talk to the professor -- and now her frog -- about Andrew Jackson, the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such professor stuff.
Over the next semesters the ever changing pile of rocks that visited the professor's desk and watched the frog do her yoga before leaping into the hands of students included blue lace agate for healing, crazy lace agate for balance and laughing; rose quartz for harmony and love; Amber for luck and success and to remember that sap was once running and then slowed down, so slow it transformed into art.
One day the professor received an email that a student died. She wanted to turn her computer off and walk away from her office, her rocks and the laughing yoga frog but instead she brought her laptop to exams and took pictures with each and every student as they handed in their exams and received their lucky rocks. This one is for freedom, this one is for insight, this one helps you let go of beliefs that no longer serve you and don't help you become who you are intended to be.
No matter how carefully the professor counted rocks when she went to buy them the professor always ended the semester with twenty or thirty rocks that refused to let themselves be picked, and instead insisted on being returned to her office where they could stay with the laughing yoga frog.
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