Found: One Set of Wings and a 160, Free

Now here’s a strange true story, mostly, proved by a photograph:

Angel Wings

I know it means something, this moment
of surprise
,
when I’ve hurled myself out of the car
late as always for an obligation
in that grim world of a parking garage
too far from where I have to be to be there on time
and at my feet
on the yellow paint between gray spaces
rests a pair of white feathered wings
child size
.
Immediately I see they’re too small for me
but I’m staggered
,
caught in the open door
between the woman who is late and another
who can stop, bend down, take the gift
slip them on, lift my arms and fly
.
In that moment, the clocks stop too
the whole world shrinks
as the white wings spread
and stroke
and stroke
against the sky

And for no extra charge,  

a Sunday 160 version in exactly 160 characters

a sort of angel rap piece for my favorite character, Monkey Man,
He Who Hosts the Microest of Micro Fiction:

Angel stop

Angel drop

Angel rock’n’roll

What da weather

Chicken feather

Angel do a poll

Weather fair

Angel hair

Angel wear a stole

Angel wing

Angel fling

Angel save a soul

Strange, the things you might stumble across while doing the humdrum stuff of daily living, if you keep your eyes open. May you be surprised today.

News of the Weird

There are days when I open the newspaper and feel like Alice after tumbling down the rabbit hole.

"We're all mad here."
~ Cheshire Cat

First up today is the news that circumcision of male children could be banned in San Francisco this coming fall. The proposal put forth by a group of “intactivists” got enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, and if the initiative passes, it will prohibit circumcision in all males under age 18, with no exceptions. If you’re wondering, as did I, why on earth anyone would want to dictate such a thing, the Wall Street Journal reports that the measure’s supporters believe it is mutilation without the permission of the child and has no health benefits. Hm.

Next, astronomers think we may have a whole mess of rogue planets floating around the Milky Way galaxy without a star to steer them by. They’ve identified 10 big gaseous balls, similar to Jupiter, wandering around unsupervised, apparently not orbiting any star. This news astonishes astronomers. How did the gas balls get there? Why are they homeless? Are they in fact homeless? Were they thrown out of orbit for insubordination? Are they gas bubbles burped by a baby universe? Hm.

Finally, we might not have time to ponder either of these news stories if this Saturday unfolds as predicted by Harold Camping, who expects believers in Jesus Christ to vanish from the earth in a phenomenon known as the rapture. Mr. Camping’s calculations of the Biblical timeline leave no room for doubt, he says: On May 21, Jesus Christ will gather all his faithful followers into heaven in the twinkling of an eye, and the last days of Earth will begin. Hm.

According to the Associated Press reporter who submitted this news story, “most Christians don’t believe in [the rapture]” and “the Christian mainstream isn’t buying it.” He doesn’t cite sources substantiating those declarations, so I assume he’s confusing his opinion with something called “facts.” I’ll just point out that “most Christians” I personally know do believe something similar will happen one day, at a time unknown by anyone.

But I think it wise to keep my ignorant nose out of things that might or might not happen in the future. There’s work to do here and now, so I’ll just keep my feet right here in the present. Actually, at this hour of the evening, my feet will carry me off to bed.

Cheers!

Black Friday, the Sabbath Day

Here is a Flash Black Friday 55, the G-Man Mr. Knowitall’s challenge to write a tale in exactly 55 words. He's taking Thanksgiving off, though, so visit next Friday.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor Black Friday, therefore, as the sacred day of our savior, the credit card. Fix these words in your hearts; teach them to your children when you sit at home or walk along the road. Write them above your doorframes: Go forth and multiply your sacred debt.

My daughter, for a lark, went to Target at 3:45 a.m. this Black Friday morning, and the lines of people stretched 20-deep for a half-mile. The store opened at 4 a.m., and she says it took 20 minutes for all those people to file in the door. What did she buy? I asked. DVDs and shampoo, she said. Flannel pants and flannel shirts. She doesn’t have a credit card, just a debit card, so she can’t spend what she doesn’t have.

She was in and out in half an hour, she said, even though there was a line of people halfway around the store’s main aisles waiting to check out. People just stopped and stood behind the last person they saw standing in a line, even though all the check stands beyond that first one were open and empty. So she just kept walking, past the humongous line, past empty registers, until she came to the last register and bought her things. Say Amen, somebody.

Today's Peculiar News

Thanks to my garden for a bouquet in November.

So between breathing treatments for pneumonia, I found these snapshots of life on our planet in today’s newspaper:

Two gargantuan bubbles have been discovered erupting in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, NASA scientists say. With the energy of 100,000 supernova explosions, the bubbles might be a “belch” from the black hole known to be at the center of the Milky Way. “Wow,” said one astrophysicist.

The world’s whales seem to be suffering from severe sunburn, indicates a study out of the Gulf of California, and the thinning ozone layer might be the cause. Whales spend lots of time on the ocean’s surface, said a study author, and they can’t put on clothes or sunglasses to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation.

A little more of Pompeii crumbled on Saturday with the collapse of the gladiator barracks. Surviving the explosion of Vesuvius 2,000 years ago, the ancient city struggles with modern life. Said an Italian spokesman, “We’re tired of commenting on the continual collapses and damage to the archaeological heritage of our country.”

Regarding the worst oil spill in U.S. history, former BP chief Tony Hayward told the BBC this week, “What was going on was some extraordinary engineering. But when it was played out in the full glare of the media, of course, it looked like a lot of fumbling and incompetence.”

Creative cuisine: On today’s menu for the powerless Carnival cruise ship adrift off Mexico following an engine fire, a head-to-head chef cook-off might make something fabulous of the U.S. Navy food supplies ferried to the ship’s 4,500 passengers: Pop Tarts, crab meat, croissants, and Spam.

Finally, today’s quote: “It is a stupidity second to none, to busy oneself with the correction of the world.” (Moliere)

It's a Thrilling Day

I live in California, where citizens like being governed by movie actors. Today is Election Day, and we’re stretching our wings a little. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes the Terminator of his own term in office today, and voters will replace him with one of two thrilling choices:

1) an aging former governor famous for being the boyfriend of an aging pop star, OR
2) the lady head honcho of eBay who has bid $120 bazillion dollars from her piggy bank to buy the governorship and who has never been inspired to cast a vote in her whole life.

It’s going to be an interesting day, and not just because of the duel between the old boyfriend of singer Linda Ronstadt and the voting virgin who wants to put California on eBay.

California voters also decide today whether or not to create a boatload of new tax revenue—money our impoverished state could really use—by legalizing marijuana “for personal use.” Pot would be legal just like alcohol. People older than 21 could grow it, possess it, and sell it in individual quantities (however much that might be), and the state would tax the transactions.

That would be a remarkable move by the state of California, because growing, smoking, and selling dope still would be illegal in United States of America. The local cops wouldn’t bust Uncle Bobby or Grandma G, but the FBI could raid the house, haul everyone off to jail, and give poor Grandma an icky room in Sing-Sing prison.

So today is one of those wonderful days when something surprising might happen. I must toddle off now to the voting booths. Tune in later for the much-anticipated results.

Dumb Habits That Drive Me Nuts

Last weekend I tore out the dried sweet peas, a pod of which you see in this photo. It was dusty, itchy work. I heard myself humming. I don’t know why I wasn’t aware of it before. Now that I notice it, this compulsive humming, of the same bars of the same song all day long, is making me nuts.
Since I took note of it, I’ve tried to stop myself. As soon as I stop thinking about the humming, it starts again. And my repertoire, since I noticed it last weekend, is not large or even interesting. So far this week, I’ve hummed:
It’s a Grand Ole Flag
Camptown Ladies
Hark Now Hear the Angels Sing
And this timeless classic: The Muffin Man

Sunday I went around and dead-headed the roses, trying not to hum. When did this habit begin? I used to talk to myself while gardening. So I tried talking to myself. It was ridiculous. It was not a stimulating conversation. I said the same crap over and over again. And as soon as my mind drifted from the boring self-talk, there I was, humming It’s a Grand Ole Flag.

It was crazy. I came in the house and told Joe, “I can’t stop humming.” He told me, “You always do that.” I pondered this news. How could I forget that I hum a lot? Or did I just never notice this essential, tedious, daily thing about myself? Why do I hum? To break the silence in my head? To keep myself company? Yet I hum in the presence of others. What does it look like to them, this woman of a certain age walking around randomly humming the same lame tunes? I must have thought no one else could hear me.

That got me thinking about habits of other people that also drive me nuts. (I don’t want to be alone in my weirdness.) I know someone who always sticks his finger in his mouth after a meal to wipe around his molars. Yuck! How about guys who turn and spit on the ground while you’re talking to them? Double yuck! Someone in my household who shall remain unnamed always leaves tiny bits of veggie matter in the sink strainers. Gross!

There’s the lady who inserts “And, uh…” into every other sentence. The young women whose spandex tank tops cling to the rolls of fat around their midsections. The drivers who don’t know what their turn signals are for. People who say, “Irregardless”…

Does anyone else out there have humming issues? Habits that drive you nuts?

Camptown ladies sing this song: Do dah! Do dah!...

An Earful on Narcissism

It’s not everyday the Doc looks inside your left ear and says, “Wow!”
Wow? Wow what, Doc? I’m here for my RIGHT ear.
Your ear drum is really inflamed! says Doc. It’s really red!
And that’s exciting news…. why? I know: It’s exciting because I’m feeling the pain in my RIGHT ear, right? You’ve never seen that happen, right, Doc?
He hardly glanced in my right ear. It must be dull in there.

So, after learning the new diagnostic terminology of “Wow!” I received antibiotics to treat the phenomenon of pain zooming through my brain to be felt in the opposite ear. Maybe Doc will write me up for a medical journal. I will become the famous Patient C, studied by medical students for decades to come.

And I spent the night ooing and ahing over my amazing ear. No, I guess I really spent the night groaning and moaning, wishing there were an opium den next door. Alas, there is not, which is a good thing for an alcoholic like moi.

To self-treat the annoying situation of deafness in my left ear and pain in my right ear, I opened my email. I found a curious missive there, from a psychology researcher. She’s doing a project on the phenomenon of pain transferred through the brain from one ear to the other!

Not really. Her name is Katy, and she addressed me as “Dear Blogger.” I’m a random contact for a research project about the personality of bloggers.
Katy says, “I am a doctoral student in the psychology department at the University of Texas at Arlington. I am completing my dissertation research on the topic of the personality characteristics of bloggers. One of my goals for this study is to contact actual bloggers and record their self-reported personality traits, and view information posted to their blogs.”

Well, I figure if I can’t be the famous Patient C, I might as well be the famous Blogger A. As a lifelong journalist, I love to research topics, and I thought, why not do a favor for a fellow researcher? So I checked out Katy’s credentials and then participated in her study questionnaire.

It consisted of the expected stuff like “Do you agree or disagree with the following statements: I feel more alive online than I do in real life. I like to look at myself in the mirror. People view me as the It Girl of blogging.” And so on. It was easy to choose my answers (nope, nope, nope).

Then I came to this one: I am more capable than others. Wow! as my Doc would say. In certain useless situations, like knowing what’s what with English grammar, I am more capable than the average bear. But in other situations, like diagnosing my ear trouble, I am a complete dolt. After much back and forthing, I said I agree, but I thought: This one is going to mess up my whole personality profile.

And at the end of the questionnaire, I learned my qualms were justified. One of the things the study was going to discover was whether or not I have “Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a condition in which there is an inflated sense of self-importance and an extreme preoccupation with one's self.” Uh-oh.

These are some symptoms (which I googled to find): Has feelings of self-importance; Exaggerates achievements and talents; Is preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, beauty, intelligence, or ideal love; Has obsessive self-interest; Pursues mainly selfish goals…

Now, not only do I have a weird ear thing going on, but I am also doomed to being Blogger A who suffers an acute case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and I’m going to skew Katy’s research study and make a bad name for bloggers everywhere.
As my Doc would say, “Wow!”

If you’d like to do your part for bloggers everywhere, you can take part in Katy’s questionnaire here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L7M59GV or contact her here: Katy Rollings at rollings.research@gmail.com.

But you have to forget everything I just said, and please eat this post, because we don't want it to get out to the general public. Or to the specific public either. I promised Katy we wouldn't cheat, okay?

*****

Poetic Justice

With a flash as if by divine inspiration, Poetikat has set forth the command for this week’s TFE’s Poetry Bus. We are to comment on these photos below.

A 62 foot tall statue of Jesus at an Ohio church burned to the ground after being struck by lightning on June 15. All that remained of the statue, which had been made of plastic foam and fiberglass, was its steel frame.

*

All idols fail
to do justice
to the Real Thing,
Which (or maybe Who)
never fails
to do justice.

The great Elijah
called down fire
that showed the idol
Who was Who.
And the people
cried out, as they do
when fearful, saying
The LORD
He is the God!
That fire ate everything
right down to the last
drop of water.

The Real Deal
answers by fire.
Raise your arms
in prayer.

Justice burns.

~~~~~

Check out what other bus travelers have done with this.

~~~~~

Thingamabobs Save Lives (Flash 55)

The Whosy Whatsy


Sometimes words disappear
and we grunt sounds from our distant
past, when a thing’s name was less
vital than its function.
The whachamacallit worked as well
as the thingamajig when a life
wanted saving or an evening meal
and the doohickey did
what the doodad does
perhaps even better than a thingy.

~~~~~~

Can you tell a story in exactly 55 words? That's the G-Man's Flash Friday challenge. Check out the challengers here.

Strange Ideas

This was the sky yesterday before dawn.
Why are there so many contrails? I have watched the sunrise for months now, and I’ve never seen this many in the east.

During the day, numerous jets fly overhead on their way to San Francisco and Los Angeles, I think. One day last week, the atmosphere up where they fly was so still that every contrail lasted for a long time, and contrails upon contrails crisscrossed the sky until they actually merged and became high clouds, lowering the temperature here on my part of the earth.

A reader of a weekly newspaper I used to edit here in my small town once sent me an interesting letter to the editor. She believed that contrails were part of a chemical conspiracy to sedate the masses. She asked me to send a reporter to investigate this. That would have made an intriguing story. But my staff was busy on other stories and I had to put that idea in the slush pile to be considered on a slow news day that never came.


There are curious tales wherever you look. I once sent a reporter out to interview the wastewater manager of the city. He’s like the chief of the sewer. My reporter was terrific and came back with a wonderful story about what happens to the water that goes down the drain in your house. My reporter asked the guy, What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found in the big trap the wastewater flows through on the way to the pond? He said the strangest thing he found was a set of false teeth (they went unclaimed).

Today I’m taking a mental health day. Yesterday I spent all afternoon in an ophthalmologist’s office waiting to consult about my mother’s cataracts. It’s very hard to wait with a person who has dementia. Mom can’t read magazines or hold conversations. She has a very short attention span. At one point, she said lucidly, I’ve had enough of this shit; I want to go home. Cracked me up. I felt exactly the same way.

At any rate, I’m going to get out in the garden today and turn some soil. I’m not going to think about loved ones with Alzheimer’s or brain damage (see my Wednesday post). I’m going to praise God for my working mind and for the advent of Spring.


Spring Has Sprung


Winter cracked
and it broke wide open

out sprang a nectarine tree
in a hot pink tutu

it did a little pirouette
pink petals shivered

then out sprang a plum tree
in a white bridal gown

it did a little shimmy
a snowfall of white petals

drifted down on
the breathless congregation
*****

What strange tales have you heard recently?