We Lost Mom & Dad!

You know how it's pretty easy to find someone in a 137 acre cemetary, especially when you stood right there and put them into the ground?

Yeah, well, apparently we didn't get that memo - - -

After this year's family reunion campout I parked up in The Sister's driveway for a few days, where I was kicked back minding my own business when somebody - I don't remember now which one of us it was - piped up with the great(?) idea of going to visit

The Matter & Patter's grave since it's been two years since we were last there for a one-sided chin-wag.

So we loaded one of the cars with a few essentials, some garden tools, and ourselves, and headed off like we knew what we were doing - straight into rush-hour traffic! (who's running this cluster-fudge?)

After carving through the traffic like gladiators on a mission we got to the grandly named Oakland Hills Memorial Gardens, but here's where things went a little Monty Pythonish.

We collectively knew knew we needed to park alonside one of the tracks at the base of a hill, climb just over the crest of said hill, and find Mom & Dad on the other side.

We cruised on in, found the hill, clamored out of our chariot, grabbed an array of landscaping weaponry, and confidently set off uphill like a merry band of - well I don't know which band it was, but it was a band.

We crested the hill with purpose, paused when that purpose abandoned us as we looked around and said 'this doesn't look right', turned around, and headed back downhill. Only slightly deflated, we loaded everything, including ourselves, back into the car to try again.

OK, just so you know, this place is divided into 28 distinct " memorial gardens" and everyone of those is on top of a hill!

By the time we went up our third hill it was less of noble knights with implements held high picking their way gently around the reposing residents, and more of weary pilgrams dragging their goods behind and not carring who's head they stepped on.

Defeated again, we clumped back down like three of the 7 dwarves at the end of a long day in the mines. I won't say who was which, but Grumpy was involved and Happy - well, wasn't.

Though I suspect Mom was having a right old time watching us fumble around.

To this point one of us, again not naming names, (it might have been me - I mean Doppey) had been insisting the parental units were on the east side of the property on an east-facing slope looking down on the remains of an old service road.

Fed up with this nonsense one of The Sisters said bullshit, took charge, and lead us off in the other direction where we found our AWOL family members on the first try.

This time on the west side of the central lake, on the east slope of a hill looking down on the remains of an old service road where, as boys, Dad and our uncle - at the time a boy that lived a few houses down the lakeshore from Dad's - rode horses on summer afternoons. 

We did a little cleanup, some contemplating, and shared a few reminisces,

then decided, with or without the parents' permision, that after all that farting around we had each earned a Culver's vanilla, with raspberries and chocolate syrup, sundae before heading back to the house and going through a few of Mom’s old photo albums.

Christmas in a Black Print Dress

Among my many - well, let's call them quirks - I collect words.

Well, not words exactly, in fact, I was terrible at spelling and hopeless at Scrabble, and really don't like word games at all, prefering math games such as Killer Suduco and Cross Math.

So, more accurately, I collect words strung together to create memorable phrases.

I keep them, at first handwritten in a notebook, now in a digital archive, safeguarded for future perusal.

I've done this ever since I was in elementry school and first realized, in my own unformed brain, the profound effect of words strung together in powerful, evocative ways.

Some of these I don't need the archive to remind me of, at least sometimes (the memory is not infallible - hence the archived collection).

Like this one, arguably one of the better opening lines of a book:

I opened the door and the muggy dark rushed in like a pet that's supposed to stay outside at night. (Ed Gorman)

There's the relatable:

For me it’s not over untill someone cries and I apologize (Mark Maron)

I especially like when a whole discriptive passage is skillfully distilled down to a single, efficient yet rich and powerful, line:

You left the bathroom looking like the end of a long bus ride (Rod McKuen)

Or

It was the kind of heat where families begin to eye each other's throats (Robert Parker)

And there's the snatch-you-out-of-your-chair-and-dump-you-right-in-the-middle-of-the-scene:

In the low darkness of the alley the sole delineation of blood from the blackness was a certain vibration of the line where animal movement ended and the uneven bricks began (G.M. Ford)

And the gut-punchingly evocative:

As lonely as a midnight cigarette (Unknown)

And, of course, there's the profound:

Forget your perfect harmony - There's a crack in everything - That’s how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen)

Usually I just collect these as reminders so I can continue to enjoy them, but in one case I couldn't resist doing a little more than that.

Apologies and credit to Rod McKuen who wrote The Christmas Cactus from which I stole the, within the context of the his poem, almost an incidental throwaway yet deliciously provocative, phrase that became the title of the following piece. (I missed the season with this one, but I thought I'd inflict release this rambling of mine from some time 30 - 35 years ago on y'all anyway)

Christmas in a Black Print Dress

You stand there
     between the apples and the pears
contemplating misted produce
     supple fingers selecting golden fruit
oblivious to what you really are

I stand here
     feeling the heat of sudden tears
the tugging of a crooked smile.
     My lonely quest for green salsa abandoned
I am transfixed, watching you from afar

You twist and move
     the line, the ripe swell, so sweet and smooth
Releasing dreams tangled in the dark
Those lush curves lighting lost possibilities
     awakening my dark heart with their sweet glow

You steal my breath, my knees,
     when your dress flirts in the breeze
Lifting in gentle silk caresses
      unveiling a tiny hint of truth beneath
Just hint enough to make my tainted blood flow.

Christmas in a black print dress
all wrapped up so neat and pretty.
A gift of promise in this tired ol’ city.
A beacon of hope to pierce this ol’ pity.
You are Christmas in a black print dress.