Remains of the day... and the decaf

A wise little human being once, or rather quite recently, made a dour prediction; "Aunt Genny, you are weird, but I like you anyway." Of course, like any other oracle I was obliged to contemplate the subtle nuances of these gilded words; weird how? weird when? Did he perchance see my break dancing in the kitchen? Is this child truant? But no matter how much I beat him at Pokemon cards or at being on the earth longer, I still could not comprehend when these events had taken hold. However, the truth of the statement I accepted, what 35-down crossword puzzled me is, when I had become so comfortable in my little quirks that I could not even notice when my behavior would be observed and marked by others? Perhaps my time spent recently with various octogenarians have bred in me a devil may care attitude; fueled by the smell of Earl Grey and denture cream, and matured during a hot-button discussion about those darn neighborhood kids.

In any case, I relegated these contemplations to the back of my mind like Christmas fudge delicately stored in the back of your mother's underwear drawer and focused my contemplation on another facet of my adulthood so lately endeavored.... school. What had I expected? Books, no doubt. Desks. Formaldehyde. But what have I experienced? Naps. Lots of naps. Unashamedly taken and with great panache. Perhaps this is natures way of telling me, "Conserve your energy, young lady. You've got a lot more weirdness to come." Too true. Too true.

Cat on a Hot Tin Sidewalk... and other precocious recollections

As the old proverb says, "life is best contemplated while sitting next to a large hairy Turkish man in a towel in the heat of the mid-day sun."

I have often lived by this nugget of wisdom and choose to exercise this little gem on the most auspicious of days - the beginning of summer. What felicity and good fortuna could be contained in this newest season on the earth's top forty countdown with Ryan Seacrest?

Will I finally perfect my triple axle off the high dive at the local pool, much to the dismay of the ten year old critics who object to my use of my superior age and stature, in order to gain unlimited admittance to the diving board? Cretans!
Perhaps I will finally acheive recognition in the annual county pie-eating extravaganza; a highly sophisticated culinary discipline that so far has eluded my tired mandibular muscles, despite my motivated molars?

And occationally three piece suits?

Or dare I mention, "summer love"; not just my traditional go-to karaoke crowd pleaser, but an emotional indigestion that melts your little pitter-patter like a half-used cherry chap stick left in the pocket of your jeans during a high-heat dryer setting. Yet, while I have exchanged the occational flirtatious glance with the passing geriatric mall-walker, I still must contemplate; what could be more appropriate then a Joani loves Chachi moment with a member of the gender in pants (occasionally neckties)? Need I cite the famous romances that have occurred during the risen mercury; the Hatfields and the McCoys, a tender group of sentimental fools bound by the eternal bond of moonshine and hilbillyness? Wil E. Cyote and the Roadrunner; two crazy kids just seeking happiness with the aid of the Acme corporation? The cowboys and Indians; their eyes met across the steamy prairie and cupids arrows flew (although perhaps a few casualties suffered as cupids arrow/bullet more tragically and pointedly hit it mark). While these examples of domestic bliss may be too idyllic to be imagined, even by my well-oiled cerebral cortex; I'm sure that the coming months will contain life lessons in human attachment, even if the counterpart happens to be multiples of the feline persuasion.

While I would toss these ideas at Constance, like the cosmic pizza crust of fate in the hands of an Italian Dolly Parton, I can not. For alas, she is completing the final task in her Herculean prenatal class; snorkeling the English channel, in order to have the honor of meeting baby Norah in person. So I must go on into this tempestous, tenatious and sometimes just plain lazy inevitablity of the future alone... 

The Spring of our Discontent... in Technicolor

Heretofore, my recollections of previous events, I believe, have been somewhat misrepresented by the overshadowing of that most heinous of seasons....winter. True, we have had some good times; like the blizzard that successfully hid my scrap-metal b-list celebrity sculpture collection from prying eyes. However, on the whole, I find it hard to believe that winter and myself were such close companions. Need it ever have dared to censor me for placing my tongue against a multitude of metal objects; hygienic or otherwise? I say not!
Yet, let me not dwell on the injustice of winter's disapproval of my poor decision making process, but rather move on to the latest edition on my celestial best-seller list; Spring. In jubilation of this new season and the liberation that it offered from the communal bacteria of the indoors, I took to the streets for the annual exercise in coordination and humiliation; running. Happily, I pounded the pavement in my cross-trainers, like a meat mallet against the delicate organically grown fillet of the earth's crust. Joyfully, I increased my pace, like a broken racehorse, laboring under a Quixotically delusional and rather rotund jockey. But alas, tragically, I halted. Having just been passed by a geriatric speed walker, newly released from the BABKA outpatient clinic. My spirit died within me; could this be a fulfillment of the prophesy spoken to me as a young peep that I would find my downfall in my unusually lively, and completely unnecessary, propensity to engage in competition with the elderly? I propped my marshmallow cheek up from the dusky pavement for one last gaze at the victorious orthopedic shoes, zig-zagging away from my fallen countenance.
While I would pour out the carafe of my heart in shallow-felt emotion to Constance, alas she is unavailable while she and baby Norah complete their Mommy & Me correspondence course, in order to learn the harmonious indigenous language of the whale colonies of a lake in New Mexico. I fear baby Norah is excelling at this, just as I fear the day when the uprising of all whales will make this skill much more then the proclivities of the perennial Tiger-mother. Until then, I will continue in friendly acquaintance with Spring, as I do with all creatures... until it asks to crash on my couch, and never buys milk. But so is the changing of all life's seasons.

A dreary November in the soul and other tasty treats

It may seem as carelessness to lose ones job however the alternative of keeping it was quite as irksome for myself; so, in deference to my inner monologue I cast off my ignoble profession and  began a new form of industriousness. Namely, I greet life in the form of a university student. Since it has been a short time since my last educational foray, I decide it advantageous to demure to the culture of college life and integrate myself as best as possible. To this end, I dust off my fur coat and rumble seat, eager to be accepted in this strange wilderness of neonates. Questions riddle my already porous frontal lobe, like a delicate french yogurt being squeezed through an elderly man's intestinal wall: would my accumulation of knowledge in this new field bring professional satisfaction? Will my unusually vast supply of popcorn in any way endear me to a fickle collegiate population? How will I find myself cohorting with an appurtenant secret society? Alas, while I would pellet Constance with these queries, like a water bottle of inquisition to the proverbial cat of fate on the forbidden counter of subsistence,  she has returned to her pre-modern life of a couture model whisperer in the illustrious and venerate order of the Tennessee William look-a-likes. So, I alone slink and occasionally saunter down this path of ineffability...

Birthday... beginning.

In deference to my upcoming birthday, I have decided to compose a tribute to the day that my life really started. Not as a pink baby freshly formed but as a dead soul made new.This is a second birth, but in all regards the more important. For while the laborious process that my mother submitted to is kindly regarded; the real day of life that I reference began with a death.
Sitting center... in the last row of a march of old wooden pews, a little girl counted the ceiling tiles. One hundred and twenty-seven. Maybe more, counting them always produced a hypnotic effect that led to a confusion of where one left off, or began for that matter. Every Sunday of my youth was spent in this ritual; among various other forms of entertainment. Such as, ascertaining the exact number of gum pieces that frequented the underside of the pew in front of me; gum that surely came from the boys who whispered and squirmed on my right and left sides. The reason for distraction came in the form of a preacher, speaking from the front pulpet, often yelling more then speaking. Telling of sin and hell and the opportunity of forgiveness.. a disconcerting thought for a youth; that I could possibly be a sinner, that I could be held responsible for the actions of two people in the distant past. It seemed absurd, even to a child... however there was always the internal suspicion that it might be true; a mutinous suspicion that I was just as deceiving, self-justifying, and duplicitious as anyone else could be... as so, just as responsible.
In a few years a milestone, brought this idea to life once again in my mind. It began in a less-than-spiritual environment...an eight hour bus ride with a group of sweaty, barely behaved teenagers. We were headed to Michigan, to a youth camp, and I had just turned twelve, eager to be accepted and prove myself as an individual. At these times, this related into jokes about gas station doritos and a preoccupation with each outfit and hairstyle that I could employ from my limited experience. Once arriving, however, we were surrounded by a caring group of councillers that wanted to attempt to sublimate my thoughts of hairspray and shoes and address matters of more importance. The nerve. On the week went; each day the speakers concentrating on the sacrifice that Jesus made and the salvation that could be had through repentence and belief... and quelling that familiar feeling that what was said was, maybe, applicable to myself.
On the last night of the meeting in the forth row of folding chairs, in the stifiling summer air, the question had turned to conviction, and conviction had turned into a mental battle. Eternal questions; "what if I can't be forgiven? "What would by friends say?" "Can I really trust someone I can't see?", sputtered, each a brief flame of doubt in my mind, only to be quelled an eye-blink later by the internal voice that assured me a rightous, loving God wanted me. Repentance was there, I knew just what I was. Sin was in my blood, inherit, like my green eyes and brown hair; clearly evidenced too often by my thoughts and actions. Left was faith... While examples and definitions for belief are many; in my minds eye, I likened it to jumping off a cliff into the dark, where uncertainty and fear conflict with little else but the belief and strong hope, that what you've heard is true and someone will be there in the dark to catch you. I jumped. and I instantly found myself free; in all sense of the word. Free from the shame of sin, free from uncertainty, and free to know this previously unknowable savior whom I had been separate from all my life.
On August 18, 1999 by birth was announced from my own lips. My soul had life, due to another's death.
This story is true. As real as my first birthday, but much more lasting. I hope that you share a similar biography.. and can celebrate a similar date on then calendar... if so, happy birthday right back at you.

A Stake of Holly through the Heart...and Other Tender Memories

Once again, in my foolish neglect of the mercurial thoughts that often imbibe the masses at this fair season, has led me to display an inordinate amount of Christmas cheer. Constance, too, has been drunk with the festivities of this winter wonderland, dually shown in her presentation to me of the long-awaited Christmas card....at first I held it aloft, like a tepid crane of insolence.. but once I realized the significance of her proffered gift, I embraced the limp paper card with holiday fervor. Likewise we formed hollow men of snow, however the only snow we could find was old, rendering them a color inconsistent with our merriment.

Yet, amid these pleasant airings, my thoughts could not but journey to the uncertainty of the future... Will these good times of friendship with Constance last? (at least until the knowledge of my candy cane theft of last Thursday is brought to light), will my foray into the workforce end in bitter derision and mental anguish?

While I would query Constance about these innermost musings, alas, I cannot, for she has again chose to pursue her obligated year living among the platypus of upper Wisconsin, in order to teach them life skills and more courtly manners. Yet, while I applaud her unusually poor life choice; I still feel bereaved of Holiday Company.... The joys of the season can fulfill even this temporary loss.

portrait of a lady... around the water cooler.

I, Genevieve, in a sole moment of inspiration and mental conductivity have decided to indulge in the nativity of a new adventure... the workforce. While I have been warned continuously about steaming off into the amorous embrace of the fickle suiter of careerdom, nevertheless, giving the general population's propencity for it, I decided that it was time to rendezous with this tall, dark and salaried stranger. Like any good meetcute, your first day on the job should leave you feeling hopeful, and ready to buy shoes. So too, the industriousness of my day filled me with pride and the appropriate thoughts of footwear... but the eternal conflict rose in my mind, could my recent 'his girl friday' phase truely keep me from my carefree youthful days? Constance is no help with my internal quandry, having returned to her former, former life as a lumber-jack in the philosophical order of the caramel nuget. Perhaps in this, like in a bathtub full of hummus, acceptance is the door to contentment. So having began on this journey, I slash into the next step of possibilities, much like a early explorer slashing their way past an andoluvian jungle, hoping that a mad doctor somewhere in a tree-top laboritory has not resurrected a pre-historic beast and trained it to detect the smell of my new leather pumps.... presently, I go into the murky and possibly delicious, chai latte of the future...