~Some Weeds Are Wild Flowers~

     I sprayed the weeds along my driveway with weed killer this afternoon, and while I was aiming for the heart of a dandelion I thought about all of the little kids who have brought me handfuls of dandelions.  Then I slashed the teensy tiny purple flowers with a dose of poison.  As I was killing that little purple weed, I thought about I like the smell of them, but my Uncle Roy thought they smelled like cat piss.

     During early spring in Idaho, the tiny purple flower weed blooms in waves--it is one of the first signs that spring is really going to arrive.  They bloom when the days get up to about 65-70, and the nights don't drop below thirty, and as soon as it gets warm enough, I through open the windows and doors to drive out the smell of a long winter--and that purple flower smell wafts through the house.

      Maybe Uncle Roy is right, and they do smell like cat piss--but to me they smell like early spring with a hint of a summertime promise full of roses and lavender. 

     As I was drowning the ones that had the audacity to grow in my gravel driveway, I considered that I don't think of those little purple flowers as weeds, and the only reason that I am killing them is that they will turn into thorns by mid-summer, and they are unsightly in the circle drive. 

     I am also allergic to those little purple flowers, which reminds me that the Russian Olive Tree that I planted outside my bedroom window will be blooming soon, and the smell of the tiny yellow blossoms make me swoon, they remind me of humid Missouri nights, cold beers and fireflies. The smell of the tree stimulates my early memories of Martin.

     When I bought the Russian Olive Tree, it was a twelve inch long stick--I got it for $5 because it didn't look like it would survive, in it's first year of life friend's suggested I need to pull the big weed.  Now it is a monster that I planted to close to the house (we will probably sustain eventual foundation damage) and I am allergic to it. 

      When the little yellow flowers bloom, I close my eyes and breath deep and practically swoon at how wonderful they smell, then my nose clogs up, my eyes slam shut and I become a snot factory.

      The thing about the Russian Olive, is that I love the smell of it so much, that it is worth the snot factory that it causes.  I am willing to suffer a few weeks of discomfort for the scent and because it is large enough now to offer some privacy in my backyard.

     The Russian Olive and the little purple are both essentially weeds, in that they are both filled with thorns, and they both damage the man made structures that are built around them--the have a similar shaped flower the difference is that the Russian Olive's is yellow.

      I thought of my Uncle Roy when I was killing the purple flowers in my driveway, and I figured that he would be proud of me for doing so--he would have asked why I hadn't gotten to it sooner.

     I have been eyeing the Russian Olive for signs of life, it is starting to swell with buds and I know it will be popping soon.  I both dread and anticipate the arrival of it's flowers, I know I will experience olfactory joy for awhile before the inevitable reality of my allergic reaction steps in.   The Russian Olive smells like humid Missouri nights with fireflies courting and kisses that taste like cold beer. 

         Hm.

     I am pretty sure there is a pretty deep meaning in the idea of the Russian Olive and the little purple weeds and how I relate them to men that have been important to me.  Maybe some correlation between my ease with the Roundup on the purple flowers and the ease with which I remember what my Uncle Roy would have told me--so that it like a message from heaven--

     And my certainty that there are a lot of aspects of the Russian Olive tree that pleasurable; those first few hours of the scent are divine, the privacy is great--but it is going to make my eyes water, and if I get to close to it the thorns will tear me up. 
    

~All I Wanted was my AP Book~

There I was, writing a freelance article and trying to prove that I understand AP Style, and I got hung up on the word "Illness's".  Spell checker told me it was alright, but I wasn't feeling sure about the hyphen, and so I reached to my shelf for the spot my AP style book has been for years--and it wasn't there.

     At that point, I should have googled the word, or trusted spellchecker--but no.  I thought it must be on the book shelf in my office closet, and I opened the doors that and holy shit.  There's a lot of stuff in there.  Boxes and envelopes and Christmas bags, and in each there is shoved some cool memorabilia--like the shirt we brought Jake home from the hospital in after he was born. 

    There's some pretty good stuff, and I figured my AP book was at the bottom of the pile and I should just move stuff around--and I found just heaps of stuff--like every single one of my college notebooks.  My algebra notebook--because you never know when I am going to need an equation to find out how to reduce 85% butter fat into 15% butter fat.

    As i sorted, I began to realize that I had precious stuff--like infant baby pictures, and hand paintings from preschool stuffed in paper bags and tossed like trash.

    I figured I might as well start sorting things into piles and organizing them so that the precious stuff got saved, and my dish receiver from 1999 finally got the heave-ho. 

     I had my daughter go to the store to buy storage containers, and she and I set on the floor organizing things, I used that time to talk to my daughter about what it means to be 18--my major thrust was that it took me until I was in my mid-twenties to realize my mom was my biggest ally, and that I hoped she was smarter than I was and she could realize it when she was seventeen--she is going to be an adult soon enough, and so things are switching up and she should know that I am her mom and she is an adult, and she should know that I have her back and a lot of information.

    During the conversation and picture shuffling, I found a picture of my aunt Marie curling my hair on the day of my second wedding.  It reminded me that today was her birthday, and that she has been gone for 13 years.  My middle name is Marie--she was some kind of a wonderful aunt and I still miss her.

     After finding the picture, I found a letter that I had written to her, October 1st, 1999.  It is obviously a rough draft as passages are crossed out and it ends abruptly--but the words that are there enumerate all of the things that I loved so much about her.

    While I was reading the letter, it felt like it was a letter from my Aunt Marie to Me, because it spoke so clearly of the things I admired in a woman--the things that I learned from Aunt Marie.

     I have watched enough psychic shows to entertain the idea that a letter from Aunt Marie is exactly what I got today.  The words in the letter would be words she and I said to one another.

    Furthermore, my closet was a pack rat mess with precious memories in paper sacks.  Aunt Marie was a very organized woman, and my rat's nest would have driven her crazy--she would most assuredly suggest that I put my important memorabilia in organized containers.

     I am not saying that Aunt Marie hid my AP book--even though I still haven't found it.  I am just saying that in my search for the proper AP spelling, I unearthed 23 years worth of memories, and some of them were related to my Aunt Marie.

   And now I have piles and boxes of crap on my office floor, and I am still not sure if illness's is spelled in AP style and I am finding some truly precious memories. 

~Scent Marking~

During our twenty years of relationship, Martin and I have spent many weeks apart.  In the beginning, I worked at the boys camp, eight days on, four days back at the stables.  After marriage and children, he has worked at places that kept him overnight for days or weeks at a time. 

This time was six weeks--which is the longest run ever--and I was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing his handsome face and sniffing up that delicious clean man smell.  I wanted him to arrive at home and think it was the nicest cleanest place on earth filled with the most gorgeous (and intelligent and funny) wife in the world, and the most adorable children. 

As such, I began the preparations about a week in advance.  The cleaning was standard, where I went overboard was in the personal beautification.  I wanted to wash my gray roots out, instead my hair got turned purple.  Knowing that this would be a shock (and probably not a pleasant one) I decided to distract him from my hair with a new coat and a new pair of boots (Gray--ironic since I began the spending spree in an effort to cover gray.)

I was the toe twitching, lip stick applying, hair a-fluffin-pants a stuffin and fancy underwear sporting lady at the airport the day He arrived, and my first sight of him did swell my heart with love and adoration--I had forgotten he was so big and that his eyes were twinkly green.  I tried to keep myself dignified when I threw my arms around his neck, but sometimes the joy bubbles out and you just have to let it run it's course.

Which it did in about 30 minutes, the first time he mentioned, "WOW, when you said your hair was purple, you were telling the truth!"  As we waited for his luggage he mentioned the circus being in town and I told him that I was thinking about getting a nose ring and a bass guitar so I could join a Punk Rock Band--

It was in the first 30 minutes of him arriving that I realized he was sight marking me, and the radiant new hair color and sporty jacket were enough different that I was looking unfamiliar.  While he was telling me that I looked different, I was noticing that he wasn't smelling like the scent I had been dreaming of the night before.


In the first 30 minutes, my joy morphed into  a desire to scent mark him.  It began when I hugged him and realize that he didn't smell at all like home, instead he smelled vaguely of diesel fuel and out-of-state water and off brand laundry detergent. 

As soon as I got him home  I batted my eyes and suggest that I run him a nice hot jet bath, and he complied because who wouldn't comply to a sexy woman asking if she could draw you a bath?  I filled the tub and helped him out of his clothes (which went immediately into the washing machine) and then I brought him a beer and dumped bath salt into his water.  I grabbed him clothes out of the closet and unpacked the deodorant and toothbrush and I handed him a towel fresh and fluffy from the dryer.


In the Five Days that he was home, I remember all of the things that I love about having him home and I remember all of the things that are easier when he is gone.  In those five days I give up the remote control begrudgingly, but give up waking up in the middle of the night to fix something gloriously. 

I am thinking that after twenty years, it ain't bad that we spend time away from each other.  It DOES make the time together better, it is easier to deal with the little annoyances when I know that they will only be around for a limited time.

~Is That a Gun In Your Pocket, Or Are You Happy To See Me?~

The Gun Debate seems as easy to solve as to ask the people:

Will you sacrifice your guns?  No?  Okay.  Good enough.  Keep it. 

The second amendment guarantees you that right, it was good enough for my forefather, and it is good enough for me.

I personally don’t care if you want to keep your gun because you are a hunter, or because you shoot targets, or you have them for home protection. I can understand the argument that we need to be armed to keep our Government honest—I know that history repeats itself and various Governments’ have used the tricks of rounding up all of the weapons from the people, before the armies could march through and slaughter some of them.

 Maybe you have a gun for Zombies…okay…I think you watch too much TV if you really believe zombies are coming, but if that is the case—remember to aim for the brain stem. 

I grew up in Idaho amongst hunters.  By the time I was twelve, I could shoot an army guy off a stump at twenty paces with a .22 pistol.  Literally every single adult person that I knew had a gun—shotguns, rifles, pistols.  Every single kid that I knew had a bee-bee gun, getting a bee-bee gun is almost a rite of passage, for both boys and girls.  Everyone, from my grandpa to my baby sister had access to a firearm, and every one of us knows how to use them.

I have seen my fair share of fancy little single shooters pistols—I once trolled a gun show when I was looking for a boyfriend and I was too young to get into the bar. The things is, these gun owners that I know—some of which might be driving a truck that has been sporting a gun rack since 1975—

We aren’t going to give away all of our guns.  Sure, we might sacrifice some of them, but odds are damn good we have one hid somewhere so good that even we couldn’t find it. We have guns that have been passed down from our great grandfathers, and guns that use musket balls and gun powder and ting little six pistols that only shoot one bullet.  They are ours, and we aren’t giving them away.

Will you sacrifice your guns?  Yes?  Okay, Good for you! 

I assume that you are sacrificing them because you believe that a world without guns is a safer world.  I adore that attitude.  I think there should be a world full of people with just that attitude; I applaud you and your willingness to sacrifice for an ideal.  History repeats itself—Gandhi did alright for himself with the peaceful resistance. 

I recognize that you have an opinion on guns, and your opinion may be that people shouldn’t have guns.  I support your right to have that opinion.  But history repeats itself, and I think it was Freud that point out you can’t change other people’s behavior, only your own.

Or was that Oprah?  Either way—wherever you stand in the gun debate, you have made a decision and it is unlikely that you are going to change the mind of someone who is the opposite camp.  Maybe we can call a Truce—the gun owners won’t demand that everyone who doesn’t have a gun go buy one and non-gun owners can stop demanding the gun owners give away their guns.

The only thing the gun debate is good for is a subject to talk about at a social gathering when you can’t think of anything else to talk about:  What do you think of the gun ban?” is a great conversation opener and you can ask that question and then sit back and watch the debate.

~Life Isn't At All Like a Lifetime Movie~

     The problem with Christmas expectations, is that they will never equal the imagination that has been tainted by Hollywood.  The idea that you can wave your hands and make a wilted tree limb turn  into an Elegant Christmas Tree is simply ludicrous.  I have spent at least seven years trying that trick and do you know what?  I still end up with a kind of wilted tree stuffed with home made ornaments.  Sure, my tree is precious because all the homemade ornaments were made by the hands of my kids in years past--but it ain't exactly elegant.

     Furthermore, all of the Romantic crap that you see on the Lifetime channel--the ones where love is rekindled and there are diamonds and trips to the tropics for a surprise renewing of the wedding vows--are made up.  It doesn't really happen in real life, or at least not to 100% of the people that I know.

     Also, sometimes the holiday season is more like a comedy central version of Christmas--one of those shows where the food get burned and sewage backs up and squirrels jump out of trees and occasionally the cops get called--but unlike the Comedy Central show, it isn't some humorous mix-up and people really do end up going to jail.  Real jail with real fellow convicts and orange jump suits and cheap deodorant that smells like onions. 

    Now that I think about how horribly wrong Christmas can go, I am starting to feel a little more thankful for mine.  The above scenario with the sewage and the squirrels and cops and  the orange jump suits will not happen to me. 
I can say that with almost 98% certainty.  The jail thing won't happen, but I have a history of sewage problems, so I am fully confident that shit can go wrong super fast, so it is best not to get cocky.

I am just a little touchy because Martin is in North Dakota hauling oil and he may not make it home for Christmas, and I am feeling a little put out by that.

Obviously, I am thinking of a Christmas special about me (played by Dolly Parton) as a hard working woman missing her truck driving man and singing songs to orphan children while holding a stray kitten.  In the middle of the show, there would be a snow storm and my truck driving man would be out of communication I (still played by Dolly Parton) would sing a Christmas hymn guaranteed to make the audience cry their  eyes out--and Martin (played by Matthew McCoughney) would pull in with his big rig all lit up with Christmas lights.  I don't want to completely spoil the surprise--but there would be a fat man in a red suit in the passenger seat and perhaps a herd of 'livestock' in the bed of the truck.  And diamonds, and a puppy dog named Little Andy.
Alas--I am probably not going to have that Christmas either, primarily because I look more like Angelina Jolie than Dolly Parton but also because Martin couldn't actually high jack an oil tanker and drive it home.
But if he did, the addition of  jolly fat man in a red suit wouldn't be so much of a Happy Surprise, but more of the surprise along the lines of, "No....I understand why you brought him, he is interesting...but how do we get rid of him?"

I can say this with 100% certainty though:  my expectations run the gambit and I am bound to be both disappointed and delighted by the final outcome. 
I will be disappointed that there are no diamonds or vacations..
but I will be absolutely delighted with the fact that I have three kids that aren't orphans  that will sing Christmas hymns with me.

~When I Was Her~

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I do so in a tone that makes me appear as though I were wise, or loving, or kind, or cunning. It has been 18 years since I left the place and I have had plenty of practice telling Boys Camp stories in a tone that fits the mood.

I tell the story of the ghost "Mary" that I made up to scare the boys, and when I tell that story I want people to appreciate my ability to improvise in emergency situations.

I tell stories that are religious in nature, in which I used some verse of the bible to explain a truth to a boy, and when I do that I want the listener to believe that I was once a twenty-two year old girl on a mission to share the word of the lord with young boys who might never ever hear it otherwise.

I tell alot of stories, and most of them are true to the best of my recollection--but I don't often tell the truth about who I was when I was working at the Boys Camp.

It is 100% fair to say that I went into the job believing that I could make a difference in the lives of boys. It is also 100% fair to say that I had no idea what it was that those boys needed. I pretended to be what I felt I should be for the eight days that I was a housemother.

The picture that I have posted was taken six months before I went to the camp, and that is the look that I tried to emulate on those nights when I was not a house mother for twelve boys. When I was at the Boy's Camp, I braided my hair and didn't wear a smidge of make-up. I did this for two reasons:
1. I had to wake 12 boys up at 6:00 am, and I didn't give a rat's ass what I looked like.
2. I recognized that at the age of 22 I was only five years older than some of my 'kids'. I didn't want them to think I was cute. I wanted them to think of me as a guardian.

But there were nights when I took the braids out of my hair and got out the aqua net.

When I was the girl in that picture, I requested an evening off so that I could go to a wedding with Martin. My request was granted, with the stipulation that I leave after the boys had been tucked into their beds for the evening and that I would be home before midnight so that I could preform my House mother duties at 6:00am the next morning.

I completed my hair and make-up while still at the camp and left wearing pants that were to big and a gray t-shirt. I drove my red Trans Am the hour and a half that it took to get to the local JCPenny where I purchased a green dress with pearl buttons from the collar bone to the hem,a pair of white pumps and thigh high nylons that I attached to a white garter belt.

I dived into the gas station next to the church to change into my wedding reception finery, and I met Martin just as the keg was getting tapped at the reception.

When he met eyes with me in the doorway, he walked across the room and wrapped his arms around waist, he sniffed into my hair and then whispered that he was so happy to see me that he would open all of my buttons with his lips.

The reception was grand, we danced and we ate and he introduced me to everyone I had not yet met as "Miss Idaho".

Because I am telling a story about When I Was Her, and She was me an entire lifetime ago, it seems only fitting to admit that we left the wedding reception inside of a Catholic church, and we went to a basement with a bed covered in animal hides and while we were there we partook of illegal substances and we listened to Ac/Dc at full volume and Martin proved his promise to open my buttons with his mouth.

Many hours later I was covered in sweat and panting on a cowhide, and I realized that I had missed my midnight curfew.

By many hours.

Many many.

I fact, I had been fornicating for so long that I had less than an hour to get back to the Boys Camp before my job began for the day.

When I was the girl in that picture, it felt like a challenge and I believed that my red Trans Am could take corners like it was on rails and I was just young enough and immortal enough to get out of town and then stomp on the gas pedal like it was a cockroach.

There is/was a spot along the road in which it was a Missouri double letter road that had hair pin turns and little hills. There is a special sweet spot that has three humps in a row, and I had always taken them a bit fast so that I could get the roller coaster butterflies--but on that particular day when I was racing the clock and listening to "back in black" at full volume--I hit first one so fast that I sailed over the hump and landed on the top of the second hump. I goosed it at the top and sailed to the third hump and I did a fist pump out of the absent T-top when I didn't crash.

When I reached the turn-off to the camp I squealed to a stop and reversed to the trail through the trees. This was when I remembered who I was supposed to be, and so I turned off the music and crept through the woods to the driveway. There I turned off my motor and coasted to a stop, just as the sun was creeping through the trees and I knew the wake-up call would be issued soon.

I snuck into the front door and made a bee-line for my room where I stripped off the dress and put on my pajama pants and size XXL t-shirt. I had to piss like a Russian racehorse, but I thought that if I went to the bathroom it would alert my partners that I had just gotten home and so I chose to pee in a coffee can in the corner rather than leave my room.

That day went from there--I pretended to have just awoken and herded boys to their various school activities while I was still feeling the after-glow mind blowing orgasms and drugs and booze. As soon as they were gone, I went to bed and slept the afternoon away.

When I talk about the Boys Camp, I usually do so in a way that makes me look like I was being selfless and doing things for others.

But ahhhh.....when I was her, I also did things because I wanted to know what freedom felt like.

~Forgetting The Swimsuit~

Martin called last night and accused me of purposefully forgetting to pack his swim trunks.

"How was I to know you would need a swimsuit? You are forty five years old, if you don't like what I pack--pack for yourself."

Then I changed the subject and we talked about kids and what the new job was like and how many days it would be before he was back. He brought up the trunks again, and again I deflected by asking him if he thought I was clairvoyant and just knew he would be in a position to get into a swimming pool.

Between you and me: I knew there was a pool, and I did purposefully leave out the swim trunks. I am not clairvoyant, but I did google the hotel in Montana and I know there is a hot tub and a swimming pool.

I left out the trunks for the simple reason that I am not interested in my husband walking around in his trunks because he looks damn sexy in those trunks. He is 45, but his mid section hasn't gone to flab and his upper body is finely sculpted--pecs, shoulders, biceps--don't even get me started on the muscles of his back. He is a fine look specimen and his trunks ride his hips just enough so that there is a peek of where his side muscles attach to his hips and it looks like a prime piece to nibble.

There a a couple of other things I "forgot" to pack for him: toothpaste. deodorant. a razor.

What can I say, when he is far away from me, I have ideas about how I would like him to appear to the general populace. I assume he will get toiletries from the hotel vending machine, but I am banking on the fact that he won't bother to shave and when he is far far away from me, I prefer for him to appear woolly.

And not particularly well dressed.

I packed all of his favorite hoodies and long sleeved shirts, and threw in all of his favorite t-shirts. I picked the work pants that weren't full of holes, and forgot to put in the pair of pants that are stain free and craddle his ass perfectly, and I passed right over the shirts that he wears on date night. I have been packing for him for 18 years, I didn't forget to fill it with clean socks and underwear--but not the underwear with the perfect ball cup.

I like to think that I pack for him out of love, so that he will be comfortable when he is far away from home. But it is fair to say that I also pack for him so that he isn't looking like eye candy all alone in a hotel hot tub.

~Christmas Carol's Weeper~

For the seventeenth Christmas in a row, we took the family to Crown of Life Lutheran Church for the Christmas Eve service. I ironed clothes for every member of my family with an element of red, and I spent an hour applying Christmas Party make-up. I wore my favorite outfit--tight black sweater, a-line grey skirt and nylons that look like tattoo's of coy fish.

I cried off the first layer of sparkles during the opening song. My daughter was sitting next to me, and at first she was amazed and perhaps compassionate, but as the songs wore on and snot started dribbling out of my nose she lost her compassion and began to started to mock me. She made her dad trade her seats after I used her hood to clean the snot/tears off my cheeks (she spent years using me as a napkin, she owes me.)

I was completely fine during the sermon and the speaking parts, but as soon as the music team started singing, my eyes started weeping.

For many years, my family was the music team--my mother, my aunts, my uncles--beloved friends I have known my whole life. When I was a kid, we sang Christmas Carols and I was overjoyed, when I reached my teens I was so cool that I was bored with the sounds of my family. And now I am an adult and the people singing the Christmas Carol's have been replaced.

The primary crying problem is that Dave and Rudy and Ken playing together harmonize so well that it sounds like my Uncle Roy is in there singing. Which of course he isn't. And recognizing the abscences of his voice, I begin to recognize the absence of all of the voices that sang to me when I was a little girl who still believed in Santa Claus.

The voice that I miss the most is the voice of my mother.

My mother is very much alive and kicking, but she gave up the singing when Roy died. She doesn't sing with the church choir anymore, and she doesn't sing at home and she didn't set down to the organ to play demanding that my sisters and I sing along with her.

My eye's weep during Christmas carol's because they have been very much absent this year--I didn't even fill my cd player with the collection of cd's that my mother made for me back in the days when she was still making music. I have a collection with over 50 Christmas cd's--music of every genre and all of the classic's sang with every composer that you might suspect had a Christmas album.

The music was absent this Christmas, and I am not the only person who has noticed it.

There are a whole lot of new things present:

Jacob has been making paper cranes for the last two Christmas' and the tree is covered with them. They are made out of envelopes, and newspaper and Kid's homework papers and colored paper.

It is the sixth year that we have had Christmas dinner in this house, and the Christmas table is decorated exactly as my mother would have it be made. I know this is true because the Christmas china, sivlerware and candleabra's are all from the gifts that she has given me. The tablecloth is the linen one that she purchased, and the silk damask napkins go into the silver napkin rings that she picked out.

I can't make the music come back, because I can't sing the music without crying--but what I can do is create the picture of the Christmas meal cooked to perfection and placed about a table set for twelve.

The gift my mother gave me when I was a child was the music and the imagery of a beautifully made Christmas table.

The gift that I give my mother is that imagery set up exactly as she had imagined it might be.

~The Answer Isn't in a Bottle~

Yesterday, the sheriff came to my house with a Writ of Execution, he needed me to give him $2218.94 or he would have to take some of my stuff.

He reminded me of my first husband, with his sandy hair and the fact that his face was flushing. He stood on the door step with papers in his hands, looking official and a little embarrassed at the same time. I told him I had $20 in my wallet, and then I invited him into my house.

My boys were obviously curious and I allowed them to stay in the living room, Jake stood next to me--I think he was manning up by standing next to his mother. Ike was watching from the couch, I read the papers and realized that this was because of that credit card that I had oh so many years ago and I never paid it off.

The officer was explaining the paperwork to me--he asked me to give him the $20 that I had in my wallet and he said that if I didn't file a claim of exemption they would be back to get some of my stuff--he told me that they could take just about everything, even the couch.

I invited him to come into my home because having a sheriff at your house does cause the neighbors to wonder. We have had plenty of sheriff's in the last couple months--some kids broke into the Durango in July and the police got them, I have been getting subpoena's to testify.

And I, the woman who walks at night so that no one can see her invited him in to get him off my doorstep, and into my home.

When I left the living room to get my purse, I thought about that me that didn't want the meter man to ask to come inside her home, she had an officer of the law standing inside her home...her home that had clean floors and dinner cooking and two clean health boys. I left my bedroom door open so that he could see that my bed was made and I wished he would notice that there were not shoes and backpacks all over the floor.

I wanted to prove to myself that it really was okay to have a stranger inside your house, because their judgement of you would be good, even though he was coming to collect money for a debt that I had not paid.

When I came out with my wallet, I discovered I actually had $23, and asked him if I had to give him my extra three bucks. He blushed and hung his head and said, "Yeah, I am sorry I have to take all the money that you have."

Jake stood next to me and asked what was going on, and I reached out and brushed his hair: "this is from a credit card that I didn't pay many years ago and they are here to get their money. It is my fault--I am responsible for the money."

When I said it, I really meant and I--the woman who is afraid to talk to people in the grocery store because she might say the wrong thing--realized that I was telling the absolute truth, and accepting responsibility relieved me of the burden of shame.

The officer wrote me a receipt for my $23 and told us that he hated this part of the job--taking people's money--and that he was having to do it more and more because many people were defaulting on credit cards. He had also defaulted on a credit card, and he gave me paperwork to file for exemptions--I can keep $750 worth of furniture, and $1000 of jewelery and my tools.

He left on a friendly note, letting me know that there were ways around having my personal stuff taken and as he left I shut the door and understood that the woman who had panic attacks at the thought of answering the phone because it might be a bill collector was perfectly calm and collected when the sheriff came to my house to get some of what I owe.

My boys, of course, were a little bit shaken up. I suppose that having the cops inside of your home is disturbing for a youngster, probably one of those memories that get so permanently embedded that not even Alzheimer will shake them free.

"What are YOU going to DO?" my daughter asked when we set down to dinner using that voice of panic that I recognize so well because it uses the same tone as the thoughts inside my own head.

I think it is telling that she didn't ask me if I had called her dad to see what plan her parents had devised. She wanted to know specifically what I was going to do, because she holds me personally responsible for all of the big problems in life. She holds her dad responsible for acquiescing to her desires, and she holds me accountable for making sure that home and hearth are secured.

The woman who could barely make herself walk into a parent teacher conference set at the dinner table with the sum of her daughter's worry and she realized that her daughter was looking to her for a path. She is learning how to be a woman from me, and her disappointment in me stems from the fact that she believes that it is possible for her mother to take care of everything because SHE will be able to take care of everything in the future.

I told my daughter that I was going to fill out the exemption paperwork so we wouldn't lose our furniture or our computer and I told her I would let them have the four TV's that were in the garage.

"They are all broken" she said.

"I know. They can also have the refrigerator and the stove in the garage."

"Neither works"

Jake chimed in, "They can also have the hide-a-bed and the two recliners!"

I looked out the window at the stuff piled in the backyard and began naming things that were in less than perfect condition--"They can take the red transAm, that must be worth something, and the trailer and those two lawnmowers."

She brooded as only a sixteen year old girl can, her disappointment stinging my nostrils and making my eyes water.I have felt the weight of her panic and disappointment in me for losing my job, she was most thrilled when I was earning enough money to support this family. She liked to take me for drivers so that I could tell her about the insurance, the 401k savings plan and the commissions that were automatically added to America Express cards. Many times during my physical illness, she asked me why I wasn't back to work yet and many times she asked me what we were going to do if I lost my job.

The fact is, the sheriff would have shown up last night even if I had not gotten sick and lost my job--but I wouldn't have been there to greet him, I would have been at work and the children would have been here alone. The truth is that even if I had stayed my course that I set on Independence Day, Pay Up day was still coming.

Last night, after feeding my kids brownies and washing the dinner dishes the woman who has been hiding inside house lying to herself when she believes that she needs to start taking pills to balance her endomorphines so that she can function in society.

I am not panicky and anxious and despondent and sleepy because of something that is imbalanced inside of my body--

It isn't something that I need to start taking to make me the woman I want my daughter to someday be--it is the things that I need to stop taking.

~I Prefer Hermit~

After my youngest son was born, I went through a phase where I didn't want to leave the house because I didn't want people to see me. I remember having logical conversations with myself and trying to figure out WHY I didn't want people to see me.

I told myself that I didn't have any disgusting deformities that would make people gasp and point, I did't have a speech impediment that would cause me to say foul things to people, I did't smell bad. In a nutshell, there was nothing wrong with me that would make me a sideshow if I were to buy groceries.

I went to great lengths to stay in the house for an entire fall and winter, and I did so in very devious ways. One more than one occasion, I let air out of my car tire so that I couldn't go to the grocery store, I made up grating sounds on the car that made it impossible for me to stick my babies in the car.

I was very good at never stepping out of my door, and the more days I stayed inside, the more panic I felt at the idea of going anywhere. Even to the mail box at the end of the driveway. The pinnacle of my avoidance of people was the day that the meter reader came to read the meter, and I hid in my bedroom closet.

It was in that closet that I realized my cheese wasn't even close to my cracker and I reminded myself that I had no reason to be afraid of the meter reader--I didn't have a meth lab that he would discover, my children were not being abused, there weren't stolen goods in my house.

Looking back, I have always assumed I was suffering from Post Partum Depression and that time of the crazies was done and gone. In fact, I have spent most of the last eight years very much in public, where anyone driving by could see me. I went to school, I found a job in a cubicle, I made friends, I went places, I went to the grocery store everyday!

The creepies snuck up on me this time, and it started with the telephone attached by a three foot long cord that tethered me to a computer. Talking on the phone has never been one of my things, but I did it for nine hours a day and I was pretty damn good at my job.

It started slowly, with just a jolt of panic when the calls were piled up back to back. There were days and days when I could answer the same question, offer the route excuse, sell the mandatory product. But then, one day, the jolt of panic happened with each beep of every call.

In my cubicle, with my headset and my earnest attempt to sell a product to a person who was trying to cancel their service, I was acutely aware that all of my calls were recorded and that there were people walking around with headsets listening to me at anytime--all the time.

I did talk to that panic and explain it didn't matter because I was great at my job, and they were probably recording me specifically to use as a training aid.

Then came the viral infection that landed me in bed for a couple weeks and by day ten the idea of leaving the house caused my heart to pound, my brow to sweat and my chest to heave.

And now I am Unemployee of the Month and once again I have no desire to leave my house and I make up ingenious excuse why I can not: "I am painting the basement. I am looking for a job. I am cleaning the house. I am babysitting someone's kid. I am Writing. I don't have enough gas to go anywhere."

I recognize where I am right now, even though I haven't hid in the close from the meter man. I know the panic that wiggles in when I must go somewhere.

Yesterday was my children's Parent teacher Conference, and I told them all that I couldn't go--to busy painting and writing and not enough gas and it would be just fine if I didn't go because they are all doing great.

Baby Girl insisted because she wanted the extra credit, and she cried and begged so that I shut down the panic voice and put on clean clothes and brushed my hair and reminded myself that there was nothing odious about me, the crazy was all inside and no one would notice.

When we arrived at the High School, the parking lot was packed and I suggested we just go home, since there was no place to park. Kate explained she was doing so good at school and she wanted me to hear it from her teachers, and she wanted them to see me so they would know where she got all of her good looks.

We found a spot and before getting out of the car I said, "I am currently experiencing a Social Anxiety Disorder and being around people makes me feel panicky."

"Get Over It" she replied.

Which is great advice, that I shall work on.

But between now and then, if you see me in public and I don't acknowledge you, it isn't because I am ignoring you. It is because I didn't notice you, I am concentrating on what it is that I need so that I can get back to my house.

If you can't get ahold of me on the phone--it isn't personal, I am avoiding everyone. To be honest, I have turned off my ringer because when the phone rings I get the jolt of panic and I would prefer not to feel that.

The root of this problem is obvious: I don't want to talk about how I am doing. I don't want to admit that my degree is in an envelope in my closet and I am not doing anything with it. I don't want to have a conversation about my habit of staying inside of my house until I gets dark, I don't want you to know that the job hunt is not going well because not many people are looking to hire people who would prefer to be invisible.

~Twelve Boys~

I have three favorite things about this blog:

Before you can access it, you are warned about adult content and you have to acknowledge that you understand you are about to trip into some adult language. This means my kids can't access it from their account, or from their school.

When I was a compulsive blogger years ago, I ran into some flack because of the things that I was writing about the people in my lives. It isn't that I was writing anything particularly salacious, just that they were being mentioned at all, especially not in a less than favorable light.

My girl wasn't thrilled when her teacher read the blog and laughed about something that I had written about her. my husband was adamant that I not write about him ever--EVER--and my outer family gave me suggestions to write about them and began prefacing every conversation with the words, "before I tell you this, you have to promise not to put it on your blog."

Towards the end of my blogging 'career', I removed content per request of people that I love and I began to think about privacy. Afteral, the people in my life do have the right to privacy, and I can understand that some of the stories that I shared were pretty personal and I didn't expressly get permission to write them. I agreed with my kids when they said it wasn't cool for me to write about their tantrum or growing pain in a public forum where their classmates could access it.

I stopped blogging when I realized that I could really only write about myself, and what is of interest about me if I omit talking about the people with whom I interact?

My second favorite thing about this blog is that it has been dead and gone for so long that nobody is reading it, it gives me the freedom to write without believing I am offending someone that I am close to.

And now I can commence with writing a blog that has adult content and thus, it is banned from all school computers, most work computers and certainly my home computer. I can write about anything I want...

and I want to write about those twelve boys at the boys camp. I spent an afternoon driving in the mountains with my dad, and he asked about the boys camp experience and I realized that I had never really talked about those twelve boys with my father. I always planned to write that story--because it is a good one about a twenty-one year old girl who goes to work at a camp for abused and neglected children believing she is going to make a difference.

I spent two summers and a winter with those boys, and I always meant to write about them, but I was reluctant because telling my story meant revealing their story--and I didn't feel as though I had the right to violate their privacy. Now that twenty years have passed, it seems okay to talk about them--wherever they are, they are far removed from who they were at the ages of 12-17.



My third favorite thing about writing this blog is that I am writing at all and that I can legitimately say to my kids, "Give me a moment of Privacy, I am WRITING!"

~Twelve Words~

When my Uncle Roy died, I said that I could write the eulogy and the obituary and make the music video. He had cancer and I had plenty of time to prepare.

When it came time to write the obituary, I went to Aunt Carols house with my lap top to meet with the family to get the words--and I simply could not do it. I handed the project to my cousin Kim who is brilliant and she did a great job of capturing him in words.

I set down to write the eulogy and I came up with twelve words.

Twelve words for the man who rode in on a motorcycles with a guitar when I was four years old and my father had left.

Twelve words for the man who taught me to fish and cook eggs and row a boat and sing songs and feed pigs and love unconditionally.

Twelve
Words
for the man who built a closet in the middle of my living room and saved my house from foreclosure and sang me songs when the wind was howling and the wolves were at my doorstep

My brother was the guy to read the eulogy and the night before the funeral I sent him a text to let him know I had twelve words and the obituary that Kim wrote and he could ad lib from there.

Long Story short: I let that twelve word failure define me.

I gave up on the writing and decided to just do something else: something corporate that paid the bills and didn't require a whole lot of creativity.

I went for rules and regulations and a job where every second was accounted for. I tied myself to a machine that gave me 667 seconds to deal with a customers problems and a written warning if I spent 2 minutes extra in the bathroom.

I got sick.

I got my walking papers from the job

And now I realize that I have Twelve Words for many different people:

I admire you and your ability to create beauty on a budget.

Stick with me kid, and I will have you farting through silk.

He is twenty years younger and you are doing a public service.

I am not avoiding your phone call, I am avoiding everyone's call.

If you make a break for it, I will pay for gas.

Don't pretend that your past didn't happen. Your story includes dumpster cookies.

If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a monkey.

If you decide you don't want your kid, I have first dibs.

I remember you in the blue princess dress crying in the corner.

Come snuggle on my lap, I will tell you a musical story.

I am overwhelmed to have a woman like you in my life

When we were kids you stated your dream and you achieved it.

He is a cocksore, but I understand why you can't leave him.

Get a haircut, get a job, chest up to your responsibilities mister.

I am not crazy, I am just chafing up against your hide.

You are a good mother, your baby smells likes Johnson's Downey heaven.

I miss you so much that I am afraid to write it.

I know the Heimlich Maneuver

I graduated from college on December 17th 2010 with a degree in Mass Communications and minor in Women's Studies. When I first picked those classes it was because I was going to be a writer who wrote about women's issues.

Now that I have the degree, I realize it makes me look like I am a gossipy lesbian. Had I been wise I would have gone to school for something like nursing or maybe business management--but NO! I was following my dream.

And that has led me where I am today, unemployed and counting the minutes til nap time or beer thirty, whichever comes first.

I should probably have a better attitude, I have only been unemployed for two months and in this current economy that isn't a terribly long time. However, I expected my dream job to arrive the same day I got my degree and so all this 'applying for jobs' crap is getting me down.

I spend the first part of my day reading want ads and applying for jobs. I made a professional resume and a cover letter using all of my college expertise so that all of my accomplishments were spit shined and highlighted in a Times New Roman Font. I have sent out more than 50 of these resume and cover letters and have received three computer generated replies thanking me for my interest.

That means 47 of the people I have applied for haven't even bothered to program their computer to send out automatically generated letters!

In the last two days I have applied for a vast array of jobs; it is amazing how a month of unemployment can make you reasses your job needs. I have applied for administrative assistant jobs, telephone answering jobs, receptionist jobs, health nutritionist/yoga instructor jobs, marketing, advertising and nuclear energy jobs.

With my new list of possible jobs comes a new series of cover letters. I figured that since no one was responidng to my anyway, I might as well vary from the professional/serious cover letter and mix things up a bit, thus pulling away from the pack.

On all of the administrative assistant jobs I have said, "I know the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, if someone in the office should choke on a bagel I can save their life. Now I ask you, what could be a better than an administrative assistant with life saving capabilities?"

For the yoga instructor/nurtionist job I said, "I have taken many yoga classes and I can lock my ankles behind my head. As a forty year old woman, I know about the struggle life can be when you have a fat jiggly buttocks. I would be a valuable addition to your team as I can feel the pain of others with pudgy mid sections."

I'm thinking on my next administrative assistant cover letter I will add the words, "As a professional member of your team, my first order of business will be to draft a cover letter that you can send to potential candidates that let's them know they are not the right person for the job because of that one thing they did that one time and perhaps they should get right with the lord before applying again."

I doubt if any of my new cover letters will land me a job, but at least I got to brag about my gossipy lesbian degree.

~Sort of Like Moses Wandering Through The Desert, But Not~

It is finally happened: I have a domain name. I have my last new site: outtabodymommy.com It gives me a little thrill to have a dot com, it makes me believe that I could have t-shirts. I don't know what they would say or if I could get my mother to wear one--but with the dot com title the door has opened to a whole new world.

A new world that is actually the old world all bundled into one place. Outtabodymommy has all of my archives from all my years of blogging in one neat and tidy space. My first blog is there! It is organized and tidy and wide open for anything I wish to do with it.

So come on over there and help me make the new spot nifty--I get to take photography this semester! Do you think I might be a budding Ansel Adams?

~Softly Into The Dull Night~

School begins next Monday, and this means I got my bi-annual hair-do. My hair had reached the length I like to call, "Polygamy hair". Because I am going to the Big Campus this Spring, I needed a something a little more sophisticated and a little more in my age group. (I read that after the age of 19 women should not have hair that brushes the top of their ass.)

What I have now is hip-hop hair, and this is the perfect time to be sporting a jouncy pony-tail because I am taking a hip-hop class this Spring. At the Big Campus. (Which is different from the little campus by about 800 buildings and parking so far away one must catch a shuttle to get to a building.)

If you have ever seen me dance, you are probably laughing right now--go ahead. I can take it. I am fully aware that my feet can't hear the rhythm and that my arms aren't even listening to the same song and that I move my lips when I am counting steps.



I am taking the hip-hop class for two reasons:

1. I have an hour after my last class and the bus ride home. I can use that hour studying (which really means, "drinking coffee and having a nosh in the sub") or I can take a hip-hop class and get ready for bathing suit season.

2. I grew up watching teenager movies like 'flash dance" and "grease". I believe that there comes a moment in every persons life when they will have to dance down either a gang fight or the authorities or to save someones life. I am getting up there in years so it only seems obvious that my West-side dance down will coming soon. And if I can't dance, my gang will be the losers (or someone could die, or the authorities could take us down) and I can't have that on my conscious now can I?

I am looking forward to this semester, I am taking most excellent classes like: Photography (and lab) the art of the Book, Women in Art, Hip-hop (effing algebra). It should be an interesting semester full of wonderful things for me to do that advance my college career in the direction I wish for it to go .

It should also be fun because my list of classes has caused my spouse to say, "Your taking WHAT? That isn't even a real class!!"

~Movie Monday~

One time? I was this close to a moose:



The day I got video of the moose is the same day I made this video:



Jen and I were sitting on a boat launch when the moose appeared. We set quietly and watched the moose--each of us thingking that if worse came to worse we could out run the other--until a truck pulled in and scared the moose away.

In other animal news: I wrote a post about dead deer that got tucked into my archives, so I thought I should give it a little bit of attention.

~Answering Unasked Questions~

One question that no one has ever asked me is: "Deborah, how do you get such sweet and candid shots of your children?"

Since no one has ever asked, I am willing to share the magic of my photographic moments.

When photographing children I have found that it is best to click shots while they are unaware. It is my goal to catch them as they play and when I discover them blissfully playing, I sneak in with my camera and capture them unaware. You could compare it to wild-life photography, though I believe that what I do with my children is much more spontaneous and natural.

This summer I took pictures of my children, my plan was for the shot to be a Christmas card photo. When I snuck up on my children I accidentally turned the camera on the video function, and thus I accidentally made a video that shows exactly how I get spontaneous shots:

~2008 New Years Resolutions~

I have been making "the list" since I was fourteen years old, so it only seemed right that I would make one for 2008. I did a little personal searching and reflecting over my twenty-something years of resolutions and what I have discovered is that I am a very shallow girl.

All of my resolutions seem to revolve around my personal attractiveness--I will lose weight or get braces or tint my hair or cut my hair or get a tan or wear a size four. My resolutions have a lot to do with losing weight, eating better, quiting a bad habit or doing something so fucking phenomenal that it runs on the CNN banner.

In other words, I have been making resolutions that never had a snowballs chance of being realized.

I read my resolutions for 2007 and I realized that there was not one single worth-while thing on that list. It seems to be written by a flippant woman who has no idea what her priorities should be; It seems to be penned by a person who hasn't taken a second to consider that really god-awful things can happen and surviving them is more important than the size of the muffin top.

I'm afraid that 2007 destroyed my annual resolution list. This year has kicked me in the teeth just enough times that I realize my paltry little yearly wish list doesn't even come close to giving me what I ultimately require.

Instead of a resolutions list I am going to write a prayer:

For 2008 I wish the yin to 2007's yang.

I desire to spend an hour of unmitigated joy for every 2007 hour
that was spent in abject desire.

I wish to spend an equal portion of 2008 laughing
for every moment of 2007 that was spent sobbing.

I wish that 2008 would enjoy a double portion of carefree hours
for every 30 minutes of anxiety in 2007.

I wish for the mundane to become common again
and for the horrible to become fantasy again.

I wish to spend a month of 2008 feeling competent, self-reliant and accomplished,
for every month of 2007 in which I felt inadequate, ill-prepared and illiterate.

Amen.

~And A Happy New Year~

I gave my daughter the perfect shopping trip for Christmas: I took her and her best most favoritest most awesome friend to the mall. Kate had cash in hand, a watch on her wrist and a cellphone in her friend's pocket. Baby girl was beaming with joy when we left, and she happens to be a first rate shopper. She had fifty bucks and she brought home six shirts, a fleece vest and a pair of earrings.

This is a far cry from the Marilyn Monroe Fiasco and I am so glad that my daughter and I finally had a shopping trip that didn't end with one of us crying.

It could have begun with one of us crying because you see, tis the season for my driving phobia to check in. It has been snowing and blowing and the Idaho roads are exactly as bad as you would think Idaho roads would be. I ran off the road last week, but I did it ever-so-gracefully. And by ever-so-gracefully I would like for you to understand that I gave another driver a parade wave to let him know I was cool while I was sliding off the road.

My ever-so-graceful slide-off was just enough to remind me that driving is not my gig and death by highway is 100% possible.


Today when I jumped into the drivers seat with six kids I was {this} close to tears. I turned to the children and suggested that if they were smart they would hop out of the Durango and ride with the other parents. They chose to ride with me and I had no choice but to suck it up and drive to town.

When I was driving on the broken ice road I turned the radio up almost as loud as it would go--I did that because the shaking of the vehicle was causing me to hyperventilate and my eyes were starting to burn with tears. I kept checking my rear-view mirror to see the other parents behind me. The father is a professional driver and I considered that if he knew that I was white knuckled and red faced he would want me to pull over so that the children could get out of the vehicle and the proper people in white jackets could come for me.

And the Brina coughed. Gently. She coughed again. Ever so softly.

"Brina puked!" Ike screamed.

And then five other kids chimed in, "eww...argh...ooh..roll down the window, roll down the window...arghhh!"
And Brina apologized with a voice that sounded exactly like a twelve year old girl who has puked, "I'm sorry...I didn't know...I thought I could hold it..."

And the kids chimed up, "Ohhh! It's chunky...arghhh roll down the windows roll down the windows!"
And I replied, "It's okay Brina, we needed to hose the Durango anyway, did you know Martin brought home a dead deer in here? This truck smells like dirty socks, dead animal and Blue farts already."

The smell wasn't pleasant but my driving phobia was cured and this causes me to believe that I am a mentally unbalanced woman.

I used to love to drive. I used to drive just for the joy of driving--I drove with no destination in mind--just gas and cash and hours to kill. I went on road trips with my favorite people in which we filled the tank, drove til it was half full, and then turned around. I liked driving at night the best. I would turn up the radio and roll down the windows--before I was a mother driving was my most favorite thing to do.

I used to stand on the gas pedal of my TransAm when I was traveling from Boise to my parents house. I drove that car as if it were on rails. I climbed mountains and made hair-pins turns at the maximum speed I could generate. I didn't slow down for rain, or snow, or sleet, or ice. I liked whipping cookies and sliding sideways into parking spots and most of all I liked standing on the gas pedal when I was traveling through the Arco desert. I would bury the speedometer and watch the RPM gauge crawl higher and higher and I would wonder--how fast am I going if I am past 120 but the RPM gauge is still climbing?

And here I am thirteen years later; a woman who practically bursts into tears if I have to merge into traffic. I used to be cool and now I am a woman who views driving as a plague--unless someone pukes.

Because if someone pukes, then the anxiety is gone.

Dude, I need a pill that will turn me into the woman I was before I had kids. Do you know what that is called?

~Why Don't You Just Roll In It?~

***I wrote this the day after Christmas but did not publish it out of respect for my sister-in-law Mary. The subject matter is dead animal carcass and I thought she might be offended. I am sticking it up now with this disclaimer::: Mary! Turn Away. The rest of this post is about dead swinging animals.***

Did you know that deer at the most dangerous animals (to man) in North America? True fact. When my husband suggests that he is practicing home land security by hunting he is telling a big fat lie, but a lie with a solid a basis in fact.


My beloved got his buck on the last day of deer season. He shot it with an arrow and brought the mighty man killer down. I appreciate the skill that it takes to get close enough to a big buck to kill it with an arrow. I understand that in the world of manly man type of things, poking something to death with a sharp stick has been a skill that people have applauded since the first time it happened.

The thing I hate about hunting season is the week in which the dead deer has to hang so that the blood can drip out and the meat does what ever it does when it hangs for a week. (Would that be, 'rot'?) I do not like to look at the face of my next meal--yes, the mighty buck is a man-killer and the man who can bring one down with an arrow is a stud--but I am not down with seeing the dead eyes of twenty meals for my family.

Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite. I eat meat so the logic seems to be that I should be able to look at a hanging carcass and think, "ummm...jerky!"

But is doesn't work that way for me. What I see is a dead animal and I feel sorry for it and then I get nauseated because it's tongue is hanging out of it's mouth and it's rib cage is flared open.

It doesn't bother the rest of my family. The children think it is cool to see what the inside of an animal looks like, they would like to have their picture taken by it, they want to hear the story that begins with, "I snuck up on him..." They are all pissed at me that I wouldn't cook the heart or the liver and they all think that it is hysterical that looking it at gives me the drive heaves.

I would be the only member of this family to have a bad reaction to the big Buck, except for Blue:

Blue looks like a dog that would like to get ahold of a giant piece of dead flesh doesn't he? He looks like the shifty type. At first glance at his half black, half white face you might think he was a prime candidate for the animal carcasses found in yards.

But nope.

Blue is much like me: he eats the meat but he prefers for it to arrive in a nice package. The sight of dead animal causes him to lose his shit. He barks, growls, howls and backs away. He will not approach the dangling dinner. He will not look at it, walk past it or sniff at it. In fact, when he catches sight on the carcass he gets the dry heaves.

Me and Blue, the two hypocrites who like a tasty steak, but don't want to see that steak wearing its face. We are the two people most happy on this day after Christmas--the carcass is now on it's way to the butcher shop and we no longer have to walk past the proof that Martin is the man.

Last years deer was delicious, when I cooked it the meat flew off the plates. I even enjoyed it and said things like, "Umm--this is a good one Martin, I am so glad you went hunting!" It is very possible that the reason I thought that deer tasted so good was that I never had to look at it's face, it showed up at my house just the way I like it; wrapped in white paper.