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Thursday, May 19, 2005
Tooling Up For Memorial Day
Here we are, Porkee and I, in the middle of the largest military spread on Planet Earth. When you combine all of the bases and military airports and boat yards and ports in Hampton Roads, this little parcel of the USA houses an enormous array of military stuff.
Everything, everywhere is about militariness. Names of major roads; Battlefield Boulevard, Military Highway, Terminal Avenue... The fanciest shopping happens at MacArthur Mall, complete with statue of the man himself and built in his memory. Then there's Military Circle Mall, not so rich and snooty, but very big. Stores in every direction bear signs..."Automatic Credit For Military Personnel".
A woman whose family briefly vacationed here told me that she, her husband and kids took a tour of the main base in Norfolk and were told that it alone is the largest military base on Earth. She said that without making any stops except for one restroom visit, their bus tour took four hours and only hit the high spots, places of interest to non-military tourists. That one base is just part of vast expanses of military might crowded into this southeast corner of Virginia. There's every description of military installation from the monstrous Newport News shipyards, big enough to build and repair aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, to small, historic Fort Monroe, perpetually under threat of shut-down.
Now, consider that Memorial Day approaches. This morning I checked online listings of Memorial Day festivities and was amazed. Back in Detroit, Memorial Day meant, at most, a little, rag-tag parade down Gratiot, followed by family barbecues. Here, over the three-day weekend, there will be endless free concerts by big-name entertainers, military demonstrations, tributes, flyovers, parades, kids' events, re-enactments, family fun events, fireworks...no one could attend a fraction of it all.
I have no idea what Porkee and I will attend, if any of it. However, LaPork is getting tooling up appearance-wise. I've begun to "dress" her each day in a ribbon bouquet. Here's one I tried as a Memorial Day "outfit." :-) Taaa-Daaaa! The patriotic Pork Chop!!
Decrepitude
Once in a while one's mortality shuffles closer and rudely bumps one in passing. Yesterday was such an occasion.
Lydia wondered if I had any plans. I had no exciting ideas, just a couple of merchants whose businesses I wanted to visit in the near future. Lydia volunteered to chauffeur a shopping expedition, complete with stops of her own along the way and kids in tow. So around 9:30 A.M. we set off.
First stop: Comp USA. Their Sunday flyer detailed camera options both cheap and of a high quality. Once in the store,I waited out three customers who arrived after I did but who must have been more clearly visible to the help. At length a nice young lad assisted me with the purchase of a decent camera and a memory card for it. This took a long time. I went into the store planning to buy a 7.2megapixel unit, but changed my mind. That would only force me to shrink each image. Why not start with each image less massive? It's not as though I anticipate a career of making Benny/Sadie/Porkee posters and calendars...although why not? Good raw material there.
Second stop: Office Depot, where after extended internal debate, I chose a cross-cut shredder which claims to hunger for paper clips, staples, huge wads of paper, and other silly things. Like a teen-aged boy who says, "I could eat a cow and a calf, a hog and a half, and dessert after that." Well, all I expect of it is a decent appetite for what's left when I answer the mail.
Third stop: Lydia dropping off some cheery little gifts at the home of a friend whose kids are drearily sick. I stayed in the van with the children who turned out to be in entertain-Ahno mode. Sadie, particularly, ran through her repertoire of goofy behaviors. My favorite is that she has "security ears". You know how a small child will cherish a blanket or a soft toy, drag it everywhere and snuggle with it when tired? Well, for Sadie, that security item is her ears. When she starts to get sleepy, she grabs one of her ears in each hand and holds the tops of those ears out away from her head. I've never seen another child do this, and it's both cute and funny.
Fourth stop: McDonalds where we waited at the outdoor ordering box for nearly ten minutes without rousing a response from the inmates. I volunteered to just go inside to order, but Lydia said, "No." Finally even Lydia's patience exhausted, we pulled forward to the payment window and there, inside the store, stood a group of employees who appeared to resent our intrusion on their do-nothing idyll. When Lydia requested ice-cream...Benny's order...the girl who reluctantly approached the window after we all glared at her...she laughed as she announced that the ice cream machine was "down". Grrrr....! Oh, well, we all got something to eat after an inordinate delay. The wait was bad, but the fries were good.
Fifth stop: Target where I bought a dog carrier purse and a t-shirt for Porkee. The shirt had on the back the words Bling-Bling spelled out in tiny rhinestones. Also I got a pedometer for use during Porkee's obligatory neighborhood surveilance each day. Lydia bought a timer to use while Dan does sprints on his racing bike. He wants to prep for a race coming soon in June. Benny tried out a bicycle which looks like a little red motorcycle...complete with training wheels. He adored it and found that he needed extreme time on task with that try-out. It will be a reward for completing his 50-day challenge...if he makes it through tomorrow still faithfully practicing the violin. Both Dan and Benny did the challenge...Benny on the violin, Dan on his bicycle. Dan has promised himself a fancy new kind of cell phone if he completes the challenge. Ha. As if Dan would ever not finish what he began.
Sixth stop: the sewing machine parts store. Once more the children and I waited in the van while Lydia tried for a part she needs...her zigzag capability seems to have gone wrong. This time quiet prevailed as the children watched a movie on their overhead screen...wonderful invention.
Seventh stop: home. Benny asked and was promised a cooking visit with me. I was ready to help him make brownies, his favorite. He and I climbed out of the van. Lydia carried in my new shredder. Then she said, "I think Sadie and I will stay, too. I want to see how Porkee looks in her new shirt and carrier." So, Benny played video games and baked brownies. Sadie redistributed the contents of the kleenex box and the toy box. Lydia figured out my new camera and showed me how to use it. Porkee barked indignantly at Benny for daring to displace her on my lap and then on Lydia's lap.
Earlier I arranged to meet the teacher of dog training classes in the Virginia Beach Petsmart at 5:30 P.M. So around 4:30 Lydia and the kids went home. They had to feed Dan and then go on to Lydia's and Benny's karate lessons. I sat down for a minute.
Suddenly I realized that I was going nowhere. My chest hurt so much I could scarcely breathe. I gripped the arms of my chair and clenched my teeth. Very painful. After a bit it subsided. I got up and headed for the stairs. Oops. Mistake. Pain came back worse than ever. I waited. The pain subsided again. Carefully I hauled myself out of the chair and walked slowly toward the stairs. Worst pain of all. That did it. I slumped on the sofa and prepared to sit as long as necessary. When at least fifteen minutes without pain elapsed, I walked to the phone, called Petsmart and rescheduled my appointment. Then I very slowly worked my way upstairs, into my nightgown, and into bed. For once, lifting Porkee seemed at the edge of impossible. Although it was a warm day, and although the bed was covered with a sheet, blanket and two quilts, I was so cold my teeth chattered. I got up and put on a heavy sweatshirt over my nightgown, then re-crawled into the sack. There I laid until nearly 9:00 P.M. when I woke up feeling somewhat better. Very slowly I maneuvered my way downstairs, wangled Porkee into her harness, took her out for a bedtime pitstop, came back indoors and fed her, and then went back to bed until I woke again at 6:00 this A.M. Here I sit with the feeling that a hand is around my heart and once in a while that hand gives the heart a hard, painful squeeze. In the dictionary beside the word decrepitude, the only definition necessary would be a little picture of me.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Top Three
Takes some effort to move Benny from Ahno's house out into his mother's waiting van. He always cries. This, I suspect, is a habit of no more significance than sneezing after distantly sighting an allergen. Once or twice he probably was really reluctant to leave, but EVERY TIME? I don't think so. Anyway, at his going home time, I start to work up transition strategies designed to move him out with a minimum of boo-hooing. Lydia calls to say that she's on her way, and I think fast.
On Saturday I knew that the Netzer dinner menu would be delivered pizza. Benny loves pizza. Well, I thought he did. Lydia called. I said to Benny, "Oh, boy! Let's hurry up and get your shoes on. Mommy's coming so you can go home and eat your favorite dinner." He end-ran the hype and went into his sniffles and moans routine.
I brightly chirped, "Benny, your favorite? Tell me, what's your favorite? That's what you're having for dinner."
He ventured, "Cheesy noodles?"
I said, "No, this is your other favorite. What's that?"
Benny, "Eggy pie (quiche)?"
Me, "Another favorite."
Benny, "Trees and cheese (broccoli with cheese sauce)?"
Me, exasperated, "Benny. PIZZA!"
He was not impressed.
What about that? He expects mac/cheese...quiche...broccoli when promised his favorite food. Obviously Lydia does a far better job with kiddy nutrition than I realized. Broccoli. Well, I never! As a child I might have mentioned every food on the planet before resorting to Benny's big three.
One MO' Time
Shortly after that last post, the noise happened once more. I hopped up to look. This time it was two carloads of people out in the street, a car full of men vs. a carload of women. After a while the situation resolved itself as follows, one man stood toward the back of the women's car surrounded by screaming females. Hard to tell who was doing what because it all took place beyond the myrtle tree on my curb. However, he did something to their car, something that made a loud sound...like metal breaking. Oh, boy. The screaming THAT inspired. Those girls may have been drunk or stoned, but nothing they had recently ingested impaired their ability to rant and rave. Then after another little while, all but one of the girls got into the girl car and only one man was still out of the guy car. Those two did a bit of megadecibel mutual accusation, then he got into his car and she was the last one standing. Instead of receding into her ride, she walked over into the construction zone around the house being built across the street. She appeared to search around on the ground and finally picked up something. She ran toward the carload of men, still waiting on the curb. She heaved something back over her shoulder and threw it into the windshield which promptly shattered with quite an effective crash. Then she turned and ran like a rabbit as the driver of the men's car gave chase. The girl could run for sure. As she ran, she screamed that he'd better not kill her, because she'd tell the police if he did. Not pausing to consider whether this made sense, he taunted, "Oh, yeah, you CALL the police," but he did stop running and turned back toward his car. When he got into his car, she, too, returned down the sidewalk and climbed into her car which immediately scratched off. It all happened before the police arrived for the third time in one night. Bad night for anyone on 38th Street hoping to sleep.
They're Ba-a-a-a-a-ack
Noise exploded again all over the street. I got up to look. Yep. They're back. Bad people from someplace else. So far this is not a generalized melee like before. The one who had the bottle the last time, well now he's trying to lure a local yokel into fisticuffs with him and balcony observers take sides, hollering their thoughts into the past-midnight air. When the two men get close enough to reach one another, a monstrously fat woman inserts her good sense between them and shouts, "I TOLE you, fo'GIT it."
And here come the police again. This time they'd better take prisoners.
Trucked- In Trouble
I keep on thinking I've seen it all, and then I see something new. We just had another war in the street. Been there, saw it all before. However, this time it was the yellow apartments vs. an alien tribe.
A big old ghetto banger of a car from the 70's, loaded with so many men that it crunched along on the rims. There it sat exactly across the street from me. Throughout the altercation, combatants advanced and retreated from the safety of their ride. And what combatants. These were scarey dudes. Either they belong to a gym and take liberal advantage of it, or they recently did time in the penitentiary and made frequent use of the weight-lifting equipment there. None of these men wore shirts so I could see that they were muscled like NFL linebackers.
Also they had an awful time keeping their pants on.
You know, most of these rapper wannabe's have too-big pants on, but they also wear too-big shirts so no one can see their underwear. Well, the fighters out there in the street just now had no shirts, but their pants were too big so the public was freely treated to a view of their underwear. The worst warrior of them all had underpants on display from his waist to his knees where the waistband of his jeans rested. How did he keep the pants on at all? I don't know, but it looked to me as if the jeans were of such stiff material that they pretty much would have held their position whether the man was inside or not.
What concerned me was that the fight brought those men within spitting distance of my front door. Pork Chop and I watched through the blinds and it was so frightening that Porkee didn't bark a woof. Usually when there's any kind of disturbance, she's up on the back of the sofa cussing her little chuckle head off. Not this time. Her nose pressed up against the glass and she had nothing to say. One guy waved around a square bottle bigger than a two-liter pop. When he got close enough to my door, I read the word 'vodka'. Aha. Another boozefest. Wow. Who knew that liquor came in bottles tht big?
In all, I suppose those exchanging blows amounted to more than twenty and less than thirty. It was a fair-sized war for 38th Street. As usual the loudest party out there was a woman. Ay yi yi, what a mouth. She punched and wrestled and struggled. One fellow seemed determined to carry her. He'd get his arms around her waist and hoist her off her feet and begin to stagger toward the apartments, then somehow she'd free herself and run back into the fray. Another de riguer feature of these events, the balconies crowded to capacity with screaming, fist-shaking would-be participants. It all went on and on and on and on.
Somehow one of the fighters kicked the overflowing recycle tub into the street. The mess there is now as high as the window of a car parked at curbside.
Eventually, police showed up. Five carloads of them. I needed to take Porkee out for her bedtime potty trip, but delayed out of fear for my safety. Seeing all those police cars, I figured Pork and I would be OK, so we went out. The old wreck full of weight lifters departed, urged on its way by the police. Screamers on the porches started to mute their noise. Peace was coming back.
I just hope those characters in the old car don't come back. I suppose I should be afraid of the gun-toting weasels who live across the street all the time. I am afraid of them in a way. But it's not the same kind of fear as that induced by those bulked-up troublemakers from somewhere else.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Going To The Dogs
On Saturday Benny and his little violin-playing peers did a concert in a park, their contribution to an event designed to raise money to transform that 'people' park into a dog park. It was a juried art show and sale with food concessions and music by a series of jazz groups...and little kids from the Academy of Music.
I decided to attend by myself in order to be able to leave early should I so incline. On the way, I stopped at Walgreens and bought a lightweight lawn chair to carry along.
The first problem was that way too many people attended this thing. Not one parking place remained for a good quarter mile in any direction. Mobs and mobs of people. Hoards of people. I gave up trying to find a parking place and went to the Academy of Music, parked near Lydia's van, and went inside to wait with her for the final rehearsal to conclude. Then I walked to the park with Lydia and Benny. Dan and Sadie, I heard, cased-out the art for an hour while Benny rehearsed.
Well, we eventually struggled our way through other attendees, found the performance site, and I roosted on the grass in front of their little stage. Sooner or later the tunes began and went on to their scheduled end. After each song, I shrieked things like, "BRAVISSIMO!!!!" Others restricted their rapture to discreet applause sparingly applied.
Between bouts of acting up, I noticed the eccentricities of my environment. The only time I saw this place previously was a Sunday morning. It's right beside Christ and St. Luke's Episcopal Church. On a normal Sunday, quiet and empty, yesterday the park rocked to the beat of a loud crowd and a jazz group somewhere down by the church. At times, I barely heard the children's music. Hoards of people milled through and around us, talking, eating, dragging overly-excited dogs, showing one another their purchases.
Dogs, everything from a tiny chihuahua to a matched set of enormous great Danes walking on either side of their handler...winning the ugly contest, a large pit bull whose owner had almost no control over her ghastly mutt.
Food, not a hot dog or hamburger in sight. Aside from Ben and Jerry's, every concession stand purveyed some kind of fish thing; crab cakes, clam cakes, fish cakes.
What about the art? Dan, who saw it all, declared it not of interest. I would like to have been given a chance to judge that for myself, but the crowds discouraged me.
I wondered what needed to happen to qualify Stockley Gardens as a dog park. Already each segment of the place is fenced except for gates. Someone contributed the knowledge that dog parks have watering devices right down on the ground which activate as a dog's mouth moves into drinking position. Maybe Saturday's show will provide funds for this plumbing and then the park will go entirely to the dogs.
Hail And Farewell To My Plants
Somehow I've managed to plant a lot of stuff; lettuce, tomatoes, pansies, zinnias, phlox, some kind of little orange flower, colorful Indian corn, squash, watermelon, pumpkins. I gave each planted item a little drink and thought, "Ridiculous! Why struggle with a great big water bucket? This is a job for rain," which is true, but there has been no rain.
Yesterday the weatherman predicted rain and the weather seemed propitious, hot and windy. Benny spent several hours with me and helped to water everything egain. My neighbor commented that rain was on the way overnight.
This A.M. I saw that no rain fell while I slept. However, it sure was cloudy. All day the sky grew darker and darker. Finally, about 6:00 P,M. with the sky nearly as dark as midnight, I decided I'd better take Pork Chop out for a potty trip before the storm hit.
As we came back into the house, big drops plopped around us. Suddenly the rain changed to hail. My porch was covered with chunks of ice the size of pingpong balls. Listening to the impact of this stuff, I wondered if windows were breaking behind the blinds. Lightning cracked, thunder boomed, and Pork Chop went to pieces. I was on the sofa as, shivering violently, she tried to burrow underneath me. We surely did need rain, but this was not it. All this will accomplish is to break down my new little plants!
Surviving The Art Virus
The other day, Lydia said she was taking the children to the art museum because it was time to start the process of interesting them in art. I said, "Count me in." Lydia decided that on this trip we'd prepare a sort of art hunt for Benny and his little friends to do at some later date. I was assigned to write down things that might naturally attract a child, which is comical in view of the effect the place had on Benny.
We easily found the museum with ample parking. The entrance is quite beautiful, on the water. We just beat a large school group to the entrance and I fished in my purse for money when Lydia pointed out a sign by the desk which said that Wednesday was free day, but visitors were encouraged to make a contribution. I put $5.00 in the box commenting that if I liked what I saw, I'd add some more on the way out. Lydia was disgusted, "What is the point of free day if you just go ahead and give them money anyway?" Oh, well.
Anyway we waded right in and found ourselves instantly transported to ancient Mesopotamia, then Greece, then Egypt. Benny hated it. He positively detested it. He literally abhored it, all of it. I guess he perked up a bit when we came upon an ancient Samurai's fighting gear and I told him it was very old karate clothes. Then there was the sarcophagus that looked like an insanely overdecorated stone bathtub and I thought it was a bathtub because it had a hole in the bottom and I tried to interest Benny who viewed it with suspicion, justified suspicion as it turned out when I finally read the accompanying sign saying that the lousy thing was really a stone coffin without it's lid. I turned from the sign to find Lydia holding a baggie just under Benny's mouth. She said, "He says he's sick but he's just doing this because he doesn't like the museum and he wants to go home, but I shall soldier on, darn it."
Well, Benny did look sick, but Lydia assured me that he has pulled this strategy before in order to get himself out of a situation not of his choice. She said, "This miserable Phillistine mentality shall not prevail. All this tells me is that I should have begun Benny's cultural immersion before now. No one likes an art museum on first sight. It all takes years of education in appreciation. He's just faking sick, but I am not fooled. We march on."
Personally, I thought she had it wrong. Benny tottered about looking weak and pale. Every few minutes he had to have the baggie again. He didn't actually throw up, but he certainly tried. Finally Lydia turned Sadie in the stroller over to me and picked Benny up. She said, "Benny why are you sick?" and he in ringing tones declaimed, "BECAUSE WE'RE HERE!!!!" I thought I'd have a stroke laughing. What a performance. Oh, the drama. Oh, the honesty. I have never heard a more brutally honest assessment of the impact of an art museum on the uneducated person.
After getting over the big laugh, Lydia relented re. the ancient artifacts and said, "Let's hurry and find some modern art; he'll like that more." No could do. The museum is a big place and we were unfamiliar with the layout. What happened was that beginning at the door of the museum, we toiled our way toward the present as we went up through the galleries ending with modern art in 'the booth in the corner in the back in the dark'. Modern art is what one sees last, tucked into the back of the top floor.
It's been a while since I visited one of those places and I forgot about the sort of thing one is likely to see. Oy! What did I like? The glass collection, a gigantic painting of Christmas night over Bethlehem, a couple of paintings of flowers, some of Sargeant's portraits of children and dogs, an enormous statue of a man made of burlap and wire.
Sure enough, when we reached modern art, Benny felt better. In tones of, "Hey, at last, here's some ART," Benny yelled, "Look at this nice picture with stripes!" He and a crazy-looking little old lady peered long and deeply at each of the vertical stripes on the wall-height canvas. I don't know what she was thinking; Benny shouted out the name of every single color and since that was a lot of colors, it took quite a while. In fact Benny spent so long inspecting a couple of paintings, that I wished the gallery came supplied with chairs. We practically had to drag him away.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Fashion
Funny how things change. Where was I when poodles and their spiritual brethren, the chihuahuas of the world, stopped liking to strut around with painted toenails? Shocked? You might fairly say that I am flabbergasted. No painted toenails for the haughty little dogs of privilege? This must not be, but it is.
Today was Pork Chop's day at the doggie spa and I said that I wanted her to come home with bright pink toenails. Girl at reception smiled pityingly and said, "Oh, no. That's so nineties. Now little doggies want the perfect but natural look just like their mommies."
I coughed out a laugh and retorted, "Whoever those dogs are, and whoever the poor souls are who wish to be known as the "mommies" of dogs, they are neither me nor Pork Chop who really, really wants bright pink toenails."
The girl sighed and got real. "You know, I like to see tiny dogs with pink toenails, too, but most people don't, now. It's all about fashion. Dog fashions follow people fashion and the natural look is in. You don't want obvious makeup. You don't want really 'constructed' tailored clothes. You don't want shocking finger and toenails. So that's the way it is for dogs, too."
Once again I let in some fresh air. "Crazy, completely crazy. I most certainly DO want constructed clothes. I do not want to look like the wrinkly, fat, old person I naturally am, and I do love pink finger and toenails. Forget all those other crazy people. What do they know?"
Girl achieved an even heightened state of good sense, "Hey, what the heck. It's not like I'm a super model either. Tell you what. You go out and get the toenail polish and we'll do Pork Chop's nails. At least we'll try. Some dogs can't stand the process."
Me, "I get regular people polish?"
Girl, "No, go to Petsmart or order online. Dog nail polish is no longer popular but it does exist and it's tougher than the stuff used on people. Doesn't chip and crack as soon. You bring in the dog and the polish, and we'll give it a serious try."
Deal.
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