Work came into being when Eve plucked the apple from Tree, and God showed Adam and Eve where to find the time clock. Of course, each tradition tells a different version of that ground-breaking event, however some kind of tree be it ash, banyon, or tamarind usually figures into the recitation. But as human beings rarely agree on anything, every tradition would like to believe that their version is the absolute right one. As far as I'm concerned this makes as much sense as arguing over operating systems because when you come right down to it, all systems are buggy. It's just that some systems are more venerable to hackers.
So the question is—do I expect to be lounging around in my flannel pagodas sipping Bloody Marys on a deck in 10 years? You bet your red socks I do. It's called Retirement, a subject on which I've been known to religiously expound especially on the way up the elevator on any Monday morning. So after Adam and Eve got expelled from the garden, there was no more low-hanging fruit to pick from the Tree. Anyhow, there was no need to pick because they'd already figured out that they weren't going to live in a perfect world.
In this imperfect world as soon as they touched a branch, berries no longer grew from a bush, and when they picked an orange and placed it on the ground inside a leaf, they could no longer count upon the naranjo to spontaneously peel and dissolve into juice with pulp like from the finest Maui resort. The fact is they were hungry and unless they could figure out a way to fill their stomachs, hunger would come knocking upon their door. Work was no longer a concept. It had suddenly become all but too real. Fast forward past Cain and Abel, which for Adam and Eve meant more work.
Did they have a great role model here? It's not that I'm trying to be critical. Just look at the facts. You might disagree with me, but the Bible isn't exactly a handbook for new parents. God got ticked off about the whole Tree thing and told A & E where to go. There was nothing pretty about it. Abel keeps sheep, Cain tills the soil until he goes East of Eden, and A & E earn their daily bread with a lot of ritual sacrifice to fill up the down time.
So finally one day Eve sits down on a rock near their 3-bedroom, no bath house and looks at her reflection in a pool of sweet water. "Uggh!" She traces her finger across the wrinkles of her brow, cups her breasts with her hands and lets them parachute back down again. She looks a mess, plus there's that pain in her right finger joint that might be arthritis and there's no Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. "Adam," she says. "Where are you? We need to talk."
Adam comes hobbling out of the house and hitches up his pants. He was taking a nice snooze on the bedroom mat and isn't pleased that Eve has awakened him. Adam has reached the ripe age where he understands that not everything needs to be done immediately. He wishes it hadn't taken him so long to come to that fragile realization, but nonetheless, is glad that he finally gets it. Maybe he wouldn't have been so quick to eat the apple, at least told Eve that he needed to sleep on it before making a decision. But after 30 years, that's all water under the big rock, which is where Eve is standing motioning to him. Does he love her? Of course he does.
”What took you so long?"
He bends down and splashes water in his face from the pool. "I was sleeping. What did you want to talk about?"
She motions for him to sit down on the rock. "I'm tired, Adam. Look at me. Once my face was smooth like polished marble. Now it's filled with so many wrinkles, I could plant seeds inside its furrows."
"You will always be beautiful to me, Eve."
"Don't be a fool," she says, brushing away his hand from her shoulder. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm tired and I can't keep going like this. And look at you." She motions to the body that could once hold its own on Muscle Beach without steroids. "You cough more during the night than you sleep. And you're always falling asleep during the day."
"So what are you saying?"
"I think we should stop working."
"Stop working?" Adam looks around and lowers his voice. "But you know we can't."
"Give me one good reason why not."
He looks at her dumbfounded. "Surely you remember the Apple thing. We'd be putting our lives in jeopardy."
But Eve is the materialist. With three babies and no help, she's had to be. "I say we should stop working. My fingers hurt all the time from weaving and baking. We've saved enough all these years."
"I'm not so sure," says Adam, who is suddenly warming up to Eve's idea, but is trying to not let it show. After all, he's not able to run to the next mountain anymore, and certainly not to where the pomegranate trees grow. He used to be able to do that in a half day and now it takes him several. He's tired also.
"I can't keep living like this." Eve is excited now, splashing her foot in the water. "After Cain and Abel and then Seth, I need a break." And then she says something truly amazing. "Adam, we both deserve it."
A sense of entitlement had never occurred to him. He thought they'd both lost any privilege they once enjoyed. What a novel idea. Adam pulls himself up from his seat and once again hitches up his pants. "Let's talk about this in the morning," he says. "I need to sleep on it."
Adam is pleased that he’s figured out a way to finish his nap.
He lies back down on the mat and falls asleep. Then he dreams of Eve proffering the Apple and his thinking, “Why the heck not?” But everything caves in and God starts to hurl thunderbolts and chase them away saying a bunch of mean things just because they were covered up with that year’s pick of banana leaves. Sure, it was a long time ago, but here was Adam having a flashback.
Still, he had to admit her idea did have some merit. Stop working. Get up every morning and listen to the birds singing without digging in the potato patch. He remembered how Eve had figured out a way to dry their food by leaving it in the sun for a few days on the big rock. And he had stored away strips of meat in the smokehouse on several threads of sinew. He thought about it some more. They’d eat through their provisions within six months flat.
But Eve had a good idea. She wasn’t the only one who was tired of doing the same thing every day, and he longed to travel before his hide permanently dried up like one of the hairy oxen around the place. God had never actually put a ban on broadening horizons, at least He hadn’t said anything about visiting rights. Just the messy stuff about sweat and toil and pain. He woke up refreshed from his nap, again threw water on his face, said a few ritual prayers, and sought out Eve’s whereabouts.
She was sitting outside the kitchen running her fingers through her hair. It used to be long and black, but now was speckled white like his. “I need a comb,” she said. “Since I lost my old fish bone, it's always knotty.”
He sits down on the ground next to her and takes her hand. “You’re right.”
“After 40 years, now you're agreeing with me?”
“Not about your hair,” he says realizing his faux pas. We need a break. Maybe we can’t stop working because it’s been decreed by you-know-who, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us slowing down. Maybe for three or four months,” he calculated, thinking they had just about enough food stored up for that amount of time. "Then let's take it from there."
Adam was glad he had slept on it. Eve was pleased she’d suggested the idea to him.
Little did they know what they were contributing to future generations of human beings.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Midnight at the Oasis
I spend 75 percent of my time on the phone with two 15 minute breaks when I fly to New York to meet a guy who doesn't know me from Madame Tussuad's.
"Where the hell did you come from?" He's walking in the theater district around 47th Street pulling a shopping cart that's filled with a bunch of stuffed plastic bags. "I'm in a hurry," he says.
"I have as much right to the street as you do," I tell him. He's grinding the wheels into my ankle. What an idiot. I give the cart a kick. There's plenty of room to go around.
"Ill show you who has to slow down." He hooks his leg behind my knee. But before he can, I spin away and land on the other side of him, near the curb.
"Stupid motherfucker," he says in an accent that could be Eastern European, maybe Romanian, and keeps pulling the cart along the pavement, waiting at the crosswalk. It's around 5pm and the temperature is a dropping fist. I don't have gloves and my hands are cold.
Now we're both there waiting for the light to turn green. All the yellow taxis are speeding by. After all, it is New Years Eve. "What you got in that cart?" I'm half hoping for gloves. Mine are in the car.
He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and stares at me with brown eyes, not too sure if he wants to answer. His hair is also brown. His olive complexion is overgrown with stubble.
"You stupid, man."
"Henry," I say and offer my hand. At that moment, the light turns green and he barrels across the street, a few taxis are still trying to edge their way over the white line to make a photo finish. I have no idea why I'm following him, except that I have nothing better to do. Shoving my hands deep inside my windbreaker are not keeping them warm. Waves of people are hurrying by, women in high heels with cleavage and rhinestones, men in suits, perfume and cologne mix and freeze into slush. There are enough kids on skateboards and people in jeans and t-shirts to fill up a baseball stadium.
He parts the crowd behind his wheels. I'm the first one there following behind him.
"Julio," I say. "Wait up!"
"My name's not Julio," he turns around and looks at me over his shoulder. "Scum bag."
Whatever did I do to deserve such endearment? Cars are honking and there's the general din of people shouting with cell phones ringing from a hundred different top ten lists. We pass a few Greek restaurants and I smell gyros and grilled onions. I'm beginning to lose him, but now I have to keep up, just to see if I can. "Wait up! Hey, shopping cart! You! Me Henry! It's New Years, man. Bad luck to start off with bad vibes." And just like that he turns around and grabs me by my wrist and pulls me along side him with a few people jumping away like they don't want to be contaminated.
"Danila!" This time he extends his hand. "Hurry your feet."
"Where we going?"
"To the restaurant," he says. "I cook tonight. It's a big party." Danila thumps the side of the shopping cart. "This way. We're almost there." And he turns the corner on two wheels to a rundown looking restaurant called the Oasis on 8th Avenue with a striped white and green awning. "In here?"
"You got gloves? My hands are freezing"
He pulls me inside. "It's warm."
It was warm alright. Two other men and woman were standing behind a chopping block and looking up at us holding steel knives. "Danila," says the woman, wiping her hands on an apron. "We thought you'd never get here."
"The streets are like subways. No room to move." He points at me. "Henry will help us. Right?" He looks at me while he removes several slabs of beef from the shopping cart and throws them on the chopping block.
Now I have a lot of experience in customer service but none in cooking. I think what the hell. I know how to make scrambled eggs, but I can see that eggs are not on the menu. The men are mixing a yellowish sauce and drizzling some over a long rectangular tray. One of them gives a few twists of a pepper mill and shoves the dish into the largest oven I've ever seen in my life.
"You!" One of them points to me. "Wash up back there. Put on this jacket and then you can work the desk." He throws a cranberry jacket at me and goes back to his cooking. Danila opens a door to the outside of the restaurant. There are several crystal chandeliers and a mosaic tile floor. I quickly count about 30 tables and a 150 seats. This is a big place.
"Where did the accident occur?" I ask in my cranberry jacket. "At the corner of MacArthur and Broadway?" I see it on my screen. I press the phone and dial for someone from the sheriff's office to arrive and make an accident report. Insurance has its demands. The dispatch desk says that they're sending out someone right now. It's probably helping to add a little spice to their evening. Mine too. Plus every accident is different. Sometimes it's the driver, sometimes something else. You never know.
We can't ask the police to do things like that because they have enough homicides in this downer to fill the front page of a newspaper. The City Manager says that they need 40 news officers just to keep current with retirements. Anyhow, the county Sheriff's Office knows how to fill out paper work as good as the next person. If I was starting out all over again, I might consider a job with the police. They get great pensions. But then I don't think I'd like the work.
"Where the hell did you come from?" He's walking in the theater district around 47th Street pulling a shopping cart that's filled with a bunch of stuffed plastic bags. "I'm in a hurry," he says.
"I have as much right to the street as you do," I tell him. He's grinding the wheels into my ankle. What an idiot. I give the cart a kick. There's plenty of room to go around.
"Ill show you who has to slow down." He hooks his leg behind my knee. But before he can, I spin away and land on the other side of him, near the curb.
"Stupid motherfucker," he says in an accent that could be Eastern European, maybe Romanian, and keeps pulling the cart along the pavement, waiting at the crosswalk. It's around 5pm and the temperature is a dropping fist. I don't have gloves and my hands are cold.
Now we're both there waiting for the light to turn green. All the yellow taxis are speeding by. After all, it is New Years Eve. "What you got in that cart?" I'm half hoping for gloves. Mine are in the car.
He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and stares at me with brown eyes, not too sure if he wants to answer. His hair is also brown. His olive complexion is overgrown with stubble.
"You stupid, man."
"Henry," I say and offer my hand. At that moment, the light turns green and he barrels across the street, a few taxis are still trying to edge their way over the white line to make a photo finish. I have no idea why I'm following him, except that I have nothing better to do. Shoving my hands deep inside my windbreaker are not keeping them warm. Waves of people are hurrying by, women in high heels with cleavage and rhinestones, men in suits, perfume and cologne mix and freeze into slush. There are enough kids on skateboards and people in jeans and t-shirts to fill up a baseball stadium.
He parts the crowd behind his wheels. I'm the first one there following behind him.
"Julio," I say. "Wait up!"
"My name's not Julio," he turns around and looks at me over his shoulder. "Scum bag."
Whatever did I do to deserve such endearment? Cars are honking and there's the general din of people shouting with cell phones ringing from a hundred different top ten lists. We pass a few Greek restaurants and I smell gyros and grilled onions. I'm beginning to lose him, but now I have to keep up, just to see if I can. "Wait up! Hey, shopping cart! You! Me Henry! It's New Years, man. Bad luck to start off with bad vibes." And just like that he turns around and grabs me by my wrist and pulls me along side him with a few people jumping away like they don't want to be contaminated.
"Danila!" This time he extends his hand. "Hurry your feet."
"Where we going?"
"To the restaurant," he says. "I cook tonight. It's a big party." Danila thumps the side of the shopping cart. "This way. We're almost there." And he turns the corner on two wheels to a rundown looking restaurant called the Oasis on 8th Avenue with a striped white and green awning. "In here?"
"You got gloves? My hands are freezing"
He pulls me inside. "It's warm."
It was warm alright. Two other men and woman were standing behind a chopping block and looking up at us holding steel knives. "Danila," says the woman, wiping her hands on an apron. "We thought you'd never get here."
"The streets are like subways. No room to move." He points at me. "Henry will help us. Right?" He looks at me while he removes several slabs of beef from the shopping cart and throws them on the chopping block.
Now I have a lot of experience in customer service but none in cooking. I think what the hell. I know how to make scrambled eggs, but I can see that eggs are not on the menu. The men are mixing a yellowish sauce and drizzling some over a long rectangular tray. One of them gives a few twists of a pepper mill and shoves the dish into the largest oven I've ever seen in my life.
"You!" One of them points to me. "Wash up back there. Put on this jacket and then you can work the desk." He throws a cranberry jacket at me and goes back to his cooking. Danila opens a door to the outside of the restaurant. There are several crystal chandeliers and a mosaic tile floor. I quickly count about 30 tables and a 150 seats. This is a big place.
"Where did the accident occur?" I ask in my cranberry jacket. "At the corner of MacArthur and Broadway?" I see it on my screen. I press the phone and dial for someone from the sheriff's office to arrive and make an accident report. Insurance has its demands. The dispatch desk says that they're sending out someone right now. It's probably helping to add a little spice to their evening. Mine too. Plus every accident is different. Sometimes it's the driver, sometimes something else. You never know.
We can't ask the police to do things like that because they have enough homicides in this downer to fill the front page of a newspaper. The City Manager says that they need 40 news officers just to keep current with retirements. Anyhow, the county Sheriff's Office knows how to fill out paper work as good as the next person. If I was starting out all over again, I might consider a job with the police. They get great pensions. But then I don't think I'd like the work.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Background on the Leftover Chef
I used to think that my worse nightmare was being assigned to cleaning up Times Square after the ball had dropped on New Years Eve. No one there but me with piles of shit. But then again when I thought about all that overtime, maybe it wasn't such a nightmare. First I'd round up a homeless crew. I'd have to do that before everyone started drinking, scope out some of the older kids on skateboards. They'd know how to maneuver. I figure I'd need about tops, 80 people. I'd hand out a bunch of freebies to restaurants and leftover crap from marketing promotions. Then we'd go at it, sweeping up tons of confetti, plastic cups, gold streamers, and water bottles.
Sure, we'd have to work through the night but what do I have to do on New Years anyway? So when it got to be share time about "Hey, what'cha doing on New Years Eve?" I'd know exactly. It might make recruiting easier too. How many New Yorkers get to say they've been part of a Times Square cleanup? I'm not talking here about the Sanitation Department. More like regular subway stiffs. Now I'm thinking it might be real easy for me to put together a group of people as long as they weren't half drunk, which would be the real stumbling clock. Maybe I'd recruit people a few weeks in advance from Craigslist. Sure, I think people would want to sign up. It would be a lot cheaper than throwing away a couple of hundred dollars on booze. Anyhow, think about all those those AA members roaming around, a goldmine of people. I'd print up about 100 stickers saying something like, "I Swept the Square." When anyone on the street saw you wearing a sticker they'd pull you aside and ask, "What year, man? I was there in 2008." It would be a conversation piece like having a dog. I could even win a MacArthur for doing community service. Then I'd be able to take off from work for a year and do anything I wanted.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not even a New Yorker. I don't even work in New York. The whole idea started as a nightmare that got me my own television program. It only happened because I was bored. Working all day in Central Dispatch with the phone constantly ringing? I may as well call up the Neptune Society and tell them to come and get me. No, I'm not naturally a morbid person. At least I didn't start out to be. Anyhow, my mother always used to say that "If you're bored, you've only got yourself to blame." What she didn't know, bless her soul, was that sometimes it can be middle management, upper management and everyone in between.
So here's the thing. Take one middle-aged, slightly balding 6 foot 2, white guy who buys his pants at Wal-Mart and eats at Chevy's, and tell me what've you've got? A demographic, right? Wrong. I don't want people to actually know who I am because I've gotten into deep shit playing in that sandtrap. I could tell you stories. Like the time I wrote my boss a helpful little note, I mean it was polite and everything, explaining that she didn't need to bless every freaking thing moving out of our department. It took months to get a single letter to the customer about why a bus didn't show up on time, and there's a stack like this piling up on my desk. And what do I get? A written reprimand "for overstepping my authority." Someone please draw a chalk circle around me now. Plus the usual crap about not respecting a woman's authority. Which is about when I can trace my first glimmering as the Leftover Chef, except I didn't know it then.
Every evening I had to listen to the neighbors' television and music turned up to mega disciples. Now it wouldn't have been so bad if we actually liked the same thing.
"Can you please turn it down a little?" I'd ask them in my best groveling voice whenever I saw them in the laundry room, roommates going to community college or something. I think one of them was taking business classes, and the other was dealing outside the apartment building. And they'd say, "No problem, man. Sorry about that." Nice kids. Then they'd go back to their place and turn up the volume even louder.
By then I was in my early thirties and had already served in the military and worked as a nurse. I knew I had to keep the job. But how do you stay in one place long enough to qualify and then pay for a mortgage? I pondered that question nightly until I arrived at a solution. I just had to find a way to make it interesting.
Sure, we'd have to work through the night but what do I have to do on New Years anyway? So when it got to be share time about "Hey, what'cha doing on New Years Eve?" I'd know exactly. It might make recruiting easier too. How many New Yorkers get to say they've been part of a Times Square cleanup? I'm not talking here about the Sanitation Department. More like regular subway stiffs. Now I'm thinking it might be real easy for me to put together a group of people as long as they weren't half drunk, which would be the real stumbling clock. Maybe I'd recruit people a few weeks in advance from Craigslist. Sure, I think people would want to sign up. It would be a lot cheaper than throwing away a couple of hundred dollars on booze. Anyhow, think about all those those AA members roaming around, a goldmine of people. I'd print up about 100 stickers saying something like, "I Swept the Square." When anyone on the street saw you wearing a sticker they'd pull you aside and ask, "What year, man? I was there in 2008." It would be a conversation piece like having a dog. I could even win a MacArthur for doing community service. Then I'd be able to take off from work for a year and do anything I wanted.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not even a New Yorker. I don't even work in New York. The whole idea started as a nightmare that got me my own television program. It only happened because I was bored. Working all day in Central Dispatch with the phone constantly ringing? I may as well call up the Neptune Society and tell them to come and get me. No, I'm not naturally a morbid person. At least I didn't start out to be. Anyhow, my mother always used to say that "If you're bored, you've only got yourself to blame." What she didn't know, bless her soul, was that sometimes it can be middle management, upper management and everyone in between.
So here's the thing. Take one middle-aged, slightly balding 6 foot 2, white guy who buys his pants at Wal-Mart and eats at Chevy's, and tell me what've you've got? A demographic, right? Wrong. I don't want people to actually know who I am because I've gotten into deep shit playing in that sandtrap. I could tell you stories. Like the time I wrote my boss a helpful little note, I mean it was polite and everything, explaining that she didn't need to bless every freaking thing moving out of our department. It took months to get a single letter to the customer about why a bus didn't show up on time, and there's a stack like this piling up on my desk. And what do I get? A written reprimand "for overstepping my authority." Someone please draw a chalk circle around me now. Plus the usual crap about not respecting a woman's authority. Which is about when I can trace my first glimmering as the Leftover Chef, except I didn't know it then.
Every evening I had to listen to the neighbors' television and music turned up to mega disciples. Now it wouldn't have been so bad if we actually liked the same thing.
"Can you please turn it down a little?" I'd ask them in my best groveling voice whenever I saw them in the laundry room, roommates going to community college or something. I think one of them was taking business classes, and the other was dealing outside the apartment building. And they'd say, "No problem, man. Sorry about that." Nice kids. Then they'd go back to their place and turn up the volume even louder.
By then I was in my early thirties and had already served in the military and worked as a nurse. I knew I had to keep the job. But how do you stay in one place long enough to qualify and then pay for a mortgage? I pondered that question nightly until I arrived at a solution. I just had to find a way to make it interesting.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Missing You
I look over my shoulder to see if you're sitting next to me.
I smell my pillow hoping to catch your scent.
I draw the covers close hoping for your arms.
I walk in the back remembering what we said to each other.
I sit down to dinner tasting what we ate.
I turn on the radio listening to your station.
Pictures from our last trip are inside my camera still waiting to be downloaded.
I'm brushing my hair.
I smell my pillow hoping to catch your scent.
I draw the covers close hoping for your arms.
I walk in the back remembering what we said to each other.
I sit down to dinner tasting what we ate.
I turn on the radio listening to your station.
Pictures from our last trip are inside my camera still waiting to be downloaded.
I'm brushing my hair.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Tkhine in Sivan
1.
All I had to do was reach, a candle
found in a bin filled with a hundred identical things.
Now it stands enshrined on my coffee table
overseeing books, my glasses, and remote controls,
part of a stilled life.
All the better for me to listen.
You're in a place where I dream
and then fall back to myself without a safety.
2.
A cross-hatching embroiders our love.
June-bug, you remind me of my own mom who died
when I didn't even eat salad,
the way you hugged me
when I first stepped inside your kitchen.
3.
People I've loved I'll meet
somewhere in a casino, not just sitting around
taking bets on when the new coals will die down,
house lights turned up and burning Siberian tigers
melting into bling.
I have no reason to believe differently.
Bless You, my candle, for hills around my house
and trees outside my window shimmering,
for the Golden Poppy and its torch
running up and down the fields,
the horizon across my brow,
and Your words allowing this woman to give thanks.
All I had to do was reach, a candle
found in a bin filled with a hundred identical things.
Now it stands enshrined on my coffee table
overseeing books, my glasses, and remote controls,
part of a stilled life.
All the better for me to listen.
You're in a place where I dream
and then fall back to myself without a safety.
2.
A cross-hatching embroiders our love.
June-bug, you remind me of my own mom who died
when I didn't even eat salad,
the way you hugged me
when I first stepped inside your kitchen.
3.
People I've loved I'll meet
somewhere in a casino, not just sitting around
taking bets on when the new coals will die down,
house lights turned up and burning Siberian tigers
melting into bling.
I have no reason to believe differently.
Bless You, my candle, for hills around my house
and trees outside my window shimmering,
for the Golden Poppy and its torch
running up and down the fields,
the horizon across my brow,
and Your words allowing this woman to give thanks.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Tkhine in Iyar
Hear me out in less time than it takes to boil water,
You who created the People with your wisdom
and commanded us not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge,
which is not why I came
to this coffee-spilled table,
near a parking lot filled with hybrid cars.
God loves the ones who speak out,
which is what I'm trying to do
talking with You while my boyfriend's
in Louisiana, and I hope you'll bless him
so he may journey back to me safely
without sitting on the tarmac for a half day
so that we might see each other
before we return to work,
and bless my step-daughter counting the days
for her below market rate housing unit,
my son who is beginning to understand
the past does not need to dictate who he is,
and my daughter whose strength shines from her eyes
as she drives between her college dorm and Santa Rita prison.
For so many years I felt like an oxe
pulling the cart of my family
along a thirsty road
making sure to avoid ruts,
and now You have breathed back
into my dry bones
so that I am a young girl sitting here
in a coffee shop near the airport
awaiting my love.
You who created the People with your wisdom
and commanded us not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge,
which is not why I came
to this coffee-spilled table,
near a parking lot filled with hybrid cars.
God loves the ones who speak out,
which is what I'm trying to do
talking with You while my boyfriend's
in Louisiana, and I hope you'll bless him
so he may journey back to me safely
without sitting on the tarmac for a half day
so that we might see each other
before we return to work,
and bless my step-daughter counting the days
for her below market rate housing unit,
my son who is beginning to understand
the past does not need to dictate who he is,
and my daughter whose strength shines from her eyes
as she drives between her college dorm and Santa Rita prison.
For so many years I felt like an oxe
pulling the cart of my family
along a thirsty road
making sure to avoid ruts,
and now You have breathed back
into my dry bones
so that I am a young girl sitting here
in a coffee shop near the airport
awaiting my love.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Data Hublet
It was one of those relaxing Saturday mornings where I had a chance to look at my loveable geek sitting behind something other than his souped-up laptop computer. Actually, he was slumped behind the kitchen table and was sipping tea, not his usual double-strength French roast.
“What’s wrong?” I asked the geek.
He placed the porcelain cup that I’d bought at a local garage sale on the bridge table. Despite all stereotypes, not all geeks make a lot of money, at least not this one.
“What do you mean?” he crinkled his one brow at me that the boys on “Gay Eye for the Straight Guy” would’ve just loved to wax.
I stepped up to the plate. “Well, I said, two things,” having learned to enumerate things clearly enough so that my geek could go right to the source with a minimum of distraction. “Number one, you’re sitting here instead of your office. And number two,” I said, stirring the half-and-half into my own coffee cup, you’re drinking tea. Tea!”
I hated when he did that, rolling something out there to tease me, and then leaving it alone again। He knew I’d bite. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“Say you’re in the supermarket and you have a bunch of stuff in your shopping cart.” I’d heard enough about shopping carts to last a lifetime. “I mean a real shopping cart,” he interjected, recognizing my blank stare. “Say that each item in your shopping cart has a memory about the exact place it had come from on each aisle, and from any section of the shelf.”
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