Life After Kids . . .

So, this is what happens when you leave your parents to their own devices - they run off and become pirates.

Is this just about the greatest picture ever? Too bad you can't hear the "arrgghh" Dad was making as the shutter snapped.

Sometimes I worry that my parents will be lonely with three girls away from home, at college and beyond. I really shouldn't - it seems everytime I call they're dining with friends at new restaurants, taking in stray cats (whom they've now dubbed "The Kids"), and galavating around Hunterdon County in swashbuckling attire - and dont' think mom is innocent in this; she's the one who dressed him!

All this fun they're having makes it seem all the more vital that Jess and I expedite the retrieval of our case(s) of Finger Lakes wine we've been storing in Jersey, on the premise of waiting till we found a car with which to cart it back to Brooklyn.

What scallywags could resist such prize booty??!!

Circus Kitties

Tried to train the cats today - Oscar and Lucy, the ultimate odd couple.

To better aid in the telling of this story, a couple of mental kitty portraits may help: Oscar is a fluffy, tiger-striped, slightly pudgy boy cat; Lucy is an anxious, tiny girl cat, snow-bunny white from the tops of her ears to the constantly ticking tip of her tail. The two alternate between devastatingly adorable snugglege and tempestuous brawls always consisting of Oscar exerting just enough effort to maintain his dominance over itty bitty Lucy. Lucy-Bitch we call her a lot. But not because she's Oscar's bitch - because she's a bitch. Period.

Anyway, Oscar has this cute habit of balancing up onto his hind legs, circus bear-like, in order to push his head up underneath a tantalizingly dangling hand, the curl of fingers a cat-speak "allioop!" So I attempted this afternoon, rare sunlight streaming the windows of our dead-end street apartment, to train both Lucy and Oscar to perform this feat on command. Miserable failure sounds harsh, but, there it be.

Having no designated cat "treats," I decided to use their usual food as my training tool of choice. Unfortunately, the cats were so excited by the prospect of a possible previously unscheduled feeding, that they wouldn't leave their food dishes, swishing and swirling amongst our cast-off shoes, rubbing up against them and each other. When I'd finally lured them away from their still empty dishes, Lucy seemed to show a thinly-veiled disdain for my high-pitched yippings and jerky hand movements, trying to signal "up, up!" Oscar, who as I said has done the trick on his own before, seemed too stupid to understand what I was trying to do. He sat and stared, blankly, stooping to eat bits of food off the floor whenever my arms movements became enthusiastic enough to let escape any kernels of the fishy smelling stuff.

My circus-ring yips getting fainter, more exasperated, I gave up and threw a bit of food in both their bowls, if only to get their uncooperative behinds out of my sight. Lucy-Bitch indeed.

blogging out loud

Blogging is like talking out loud - something I've never been totally comfortable doing. I'd rather think, write, re-write, edit, mold, tinker, tuck, pinch, nip, plump, cajole, convince the words I'm using to say what I want. If it needs to be written in less than an hour, I won't bother. Or at least, not till now. This is a new goal of mine - to be comfortable with the quickly jotted down word, the true snippet, the casual thought. Not everything needs to be born of divine inspiration. I think that way I will play more, write more, breathe more, get back in the groove. Feel like I can use my tool again. Get excited about it again. Make it a viable, present, working part of my life - give it greater precidence in my life than, say, the slightly depressing, partially maddening, pays-the-bills-job that I am grateful, resentful of. On, that lovely prepositional ending, good night. Off to West Wing it is!

Poem for a Saturday in Spring

walk through the park
see the magnolia trees in bloom?
walk to the gardens
6/15 community gardens
walk to 9th street station
you bought me a chocolate-filled croissant
(even though you thought it wasn't healthy)
walk down seventh ave to johnny's bar
it's early - i'm the first customer
i have no money
so johnny pours me glassfuls of ice cold water
from behind the bar
he prepares for the day
especially for margaritas
lime juice to wet the glass
big kosher salt to coat the rim
squeezer at the ready
he chops lemon and lime wedges while he talks
hair swinging about his chin and cheeks
slice off one end, then the other
stand the lemon/lime on one juicy cut end
slice it down the middle
notch the two halves in their center
where the seeds would be
lay the lemon/limes cut face down
slice them crosswise
into happy lemon/lime smiles
that will grin down onto salty coated rims
i pay for my water with a wave
get down off my stool, coat on
linger in the doorway
walk out into the sunshine
it's time to get a haircut
do my taxes
go to the gym
dig up the garden
clean up my room
sweep the house
(it is my turn on the schedule)
mail some magnets
do the dishes
go to the movies
crawl up to bed
my head two feet from the ceiling
close my eyes
bathed in the moonlight that is the
back alley street light
that soon will be broken
by us
with rocks

A Whale Bone in the Moonlight

I dreamed I came upon a whale bone in the moonlight, massive, glistening. Thrust up on shore by moon-tide forces, this fierce-white relic arced from sand to starry sky, throwing salty whisperings, deep blue watery thoughts. The speckled black above took in this glowing, silent sight, and, commencing whisperings of its own, let fall like gentle dust the secrets of the night. And the whale bone, now so delicately entombed, seemed to heave a tender sigh before dissolving into sand and quiet sea and sky.

our christmas tree

our christmas tree is old and dry
the white cat sleeps under it
on top of a dark old towel
now fur-covered white

our christmas tree is old and dry
and smells so so sweet

Saturdays in The City

Saturdays in The City
I burrow into bed
light, warm
you've lingered in sleep an extra hour
and that's an accomplishment
coffee beckons
potatoes crisp
rosemary, garlic slips under the doorframe
the Boys are on the futon
one large X and a little curled up O
(George doesn't cuddle)
I hear boy-man voices and
creep down our loftbed ladder
clothing pressed to my front
morning light bare on my back
baggy boy clothes feel good
my hair is bedroom hair
it looks good
video games roar against the boys faces
controllers bucking under their skilled fingers
i like to watch
coffee in hand
toes tucked under your knees
rooting for the other guy to win

breakfast (prev posted at "Optimism from the Hills)

I found a quail in my peanuts this morning. Or rather, a quail-shaped peanut. It was so cute and little, with a fat little bottom and an itty bitty sloping head. I haven't eaten it yet. It's resting amongst the peanut shell graveyard that's spilling over my plate. I'll probably eat it soon. Peanuts--even quail-shaped ones--are meant to be eaten. Apparently there are lots of things you can do with peanuts, but I still think their most important use is to be eaten. How many peanuts are too many? 15? 30? The whole bag? Someone told me that eating the papery skins is good for you--fiber? I don't like to eat the skins. When I eat a peanut, I like to squeeze one end of the shell so it splits, then I pull the two halves apart and dump the (hopefully) two little nuts into my hand. The big ones are the most satisfying to crack open, but sometimes the little ones are extra tasty--I don't know why. So anyway, I like to pop the nuts out of their skins, sometimes shooting them across the table so they have to be retrieved prior to ingestion. What remains just adds to the little peanut shell graveyard. I have to dig amongst the bones and whispery skins to find more nuts, find the live ones. Peanut shells don't seem like regular garbage to me. I imagine them all getting together somewhere---peanut Heaven??--piles and piles of the stuff. Dry and light and skittering over blacktop, pooling in potholes. The saddest sight in the world is a wet, soggy peanut shell.

The Apartment

I can feel the Q train’s groaning vibrations as I struggle with the strings on our window shades. It is officially Fall, and I like to let the daylight brighten the apartment. We put down the shades at night so the crack-heads don’t feel tempted to peak into our living room, but between the hours of 8am and 7pm I like seeing the stoops across the way, our landlady’s motorcycle covered and chained to the black metal gate out front, her flowers and green things climbing, cascading over the building’s limestone.

Someone has knotted up the string ends in an effort to keep them out of the cats’ reach, but it looks horrible, and now Oscar is lusting after the tangled mess in my hands, eyes darting and tail flicking as the loops and snarls flash and jump between my fingers.

The stoop from the next apartment building over blocks a bit of our view to the left, but you can see quite a lot from these three front windows. In good weather, the Carribeans down the street play dominoes at all hours of the day. I haven’t played dominoes since the third grade, but they have it down to an art, dramatically suspending each tile in the air for a quivering moment before slamming it down to the table with a loud defiant hah! The men gathered round shout in triumph or defeat, hands in the air, clapping the stone-faced players on the back, egging on the next challenge.

I hear the squeaks of wheels on pot-holed pavement and know that John is back from the laundry mat. Through the window I can see him tottering down our dead-end street, balancing a pile of bulging, straining duffel bags his little metal cart. His tall, wiry frame is hunched over, somehow pushing the cart, talking on his cell, and smoking a cigarette at the same time and I laugh, waving between the window bars. He is probably the window shade culprit.

Jersey Girl in the Big City

So Jersey Girl has finally moved to The Big City, and she has got it made: affordable apartment (a mere hacky-sack’s “hack” away from Prospect Park), nice landlady, two cats, the Beautiful Boy to rub her belly after too much sushi (is there such a thing? Tatsu Sushi’s spicy tuna rolls—at Flatbush and 7^th—make me think: never!), a fun-filled year of wedding plans—what else could she need?

Well…perhaps…for one thing—a JOB. Yes, you know, that tiny little detail that makes the money flow INTO the wallet instead of OUT of it. It’s the thing that pays the rent…and the monthly metro card…and the gym…the afore-mentioned sushi addiction…tuition…the recently opened (as well as thoroughly thought-out, entirely responsibility-building) Roth IRA account.

The search thus far has been fruitless, and Jersey Girl is about two breaths away from becoming an egg donor—either that or hosting foot fetish parties. True, it has only been three weeks since Jersey Girl officially moved in with the Beautiful Boy, but it has been three weeks of swiftly dwindling funds and an ever-increasing number of unanswered resume submissions. Do Jersey Girl’s cover letters reek too much of desperation? Is Lady Luck lost in Limbo? Maybe Jersey Girl’s most recent ventures into The Big City will be indicative of her dealings thus far with THE JOB MARKET…

Jersey Girl, three things to remember upon returning from Brooklyn job hunt: (1) 100% Polyester does NOT “breathe. (2) September should not be called September. It should be called “Haha, We Got You to Wear Pants and a Jacket and Now You are Drowning in Your Own Sweat.” (3) It doesn’t matter what three is. The point is, the “dress up for chance meeting with possible future boss” expedition was not a huge success. However, I now know the layout of DUMBO pretty well! (Who knew it would be so difficult to find one silly street between two huge bridges?)

55 Washington Street is home to many offices/places of business, the home of a Brooklyn newspaper being of particular interest to Jersey Girl, lover of all things smelling of literature (ink, lined paper, old-fashioned type-setters, etc.). If this particular newspaper lived on the 6^th floor, and Jersey Girl entered an ascending elevator from the Lobby, how in the world did she end up on the Maintenance level, seven floors below her intended destination, with overall-clad maintenance men (though similarly perplexed) ogling her sweaty, non-breathable polyester shirt and inappropriately long khaki pants? It remains, to this day, an unsolved mystery. Chalk it up to one of those un-asked-for but ultimately probably necessary lessons in humility. The Beautiful Boy himself laughed, “See? Kind of sucks not having a job?”

Yes, Beautiful Boy, it does, indeed, suck.

Will Jersey Girl be working at her beloved Brooklyn newspaper? Will Fall ever truly arrive? Find out next time in JERSEY GIRL IN THE BIG CITY.