More Accepting

My, how I have become more accepting to the indiscretions of others.... especially if they are paying rent. When I moved to 229 in 1976 Cornbread Baca, the murderer, lived three doors down. He was followed in the 80's by the SkinHeads and their explosives, floating in a bathtub of water which the ATF guys said made them even more volatile. And, of course, throughout all this activity there are the drug dealers and shootings, houses filled with adolescents flexing their hormones, and a young boy who can't spend the night next door with his best friend because, "drug deals go bad and we wouldn't want you caught in any cross hairs". Part of the urban landscape.

About 12 years ago things started shifting. Slowly other people caught on to what the area was about and wanted to live here and lo and behold, it appears that we have ourselves a little gentrification going on. And these new people, they don't want their cars keyed or windows broken out or their mail getting stolen and before you know it, we kinda formed this little neighborhood 'we're-watching-you group' to keep an eye on indiscriminate behavior. We have picnics in the park, a 4th of July Block Party, and have met with Officer Heine from the PD instructing us on how to mitigate the crime. But we're easy .... Ralphie still squats in the back of the art yard and it's fine when people party in the ravine but ... head's up... we call the cops after 9:00 ... meaning we don't tolerate anyone anymore passing out and passing the night. We know where to draw the line around this neighborhood!

So, when a woman whom I have known since she was 13, asks me if I have any rentals available I say sure... just bought a new little house down the street. She's rented from me before so I know she is good for the rent and she tells me she is going to be living there with her boyfriend of two years and their three dogs. Great!

A family.

"Well... ya... but.. ummm... one thing you might want to know....he's on the SO List for something that happened 14 years ago when he was 23". Really? What kind of something?

Looking me straight in the eyes this girls says, "Attempted rape"....

Oooohhh well then, I better talk to him.... but immediately other concerns pop into my mind... do I tell the neighbors? my tenants? Is it their business? I am awash in confusion and indecision until I realize... this is a question for the NY Times Ethicist.

Haute Coiffure of the bush

Tomas and I took a ride down the eastern side of the Rocky Mountain range to Santa Fe and treated ourselves to an afternoon at the spa, 10,000 Waves. A little retreat specializing in the Japanese experience complete with hot pools, messages, and tatami mats for relaxation. I opted to spend my time soaking in the womens' pool rather than the communal pool. Bathing suits are optional and viewing an assortment of wet penises strolling past was not on my afternoon agenda.

But then, neither did I think soaking in a hot tub with a bunch of women and observing the hair-dos of their bush would be on my list of afternoon activities. Now, I know young women are into shaving their snatches but what I didn't know was the variety of haute coiffure that is taking place down there. I glimpsed a lightning strike, one with concentric circles radiating out. It was a crop circle extravaganza. One sported goatee, another a fu-man-chu, and quite a few were actually bald. Granted, I am from the bra burning era as the expression of women empowering themselves so I have to ask who is benefiting from this bush reduction? Is it a personal choice or a preferred one from the significant other? Delilah cut off Samson’s hair leaving him powerless. Is it now payback time? I mean... girls....historically, this is how the pheromones got broadcasted, announcing to the caveman down the cliff you are available.

So, in times of quandary, I ask my daughter, Rosa, why women shave their snatches and she tells me because it is sexy. ???!!! Oh yea ... I forgot ... the marvels of one generation looking at another... different aesthetics and perspectives... All those red bumps and raw skin is sexy... should have known.

jeanie

It is now the time for love

Stella Martinez and the sandwitch

Contemporary sociologists speak about the phenomena of the baby boomers being sandwiched between the generations. On the top slice we find the parents shuffling into their senior years, oblivious if they are rye, sourdough, or whole wheat. The bottom slice is the children of the boomers, often accompanied with their own children. These genetic reenactments, who still expect to be served their sandwich, play with their food, rolling it into balls to fling at one another or choke on. As a baby boomer sandwich, I think it is important to identify what kind of sandwich we are being likened to.

I have friends who are definitely in the club sandwich genera. They have so many layers of life crammed between the slices that they have to dismantle whole portions to get a satisfying bite. Those little toothpicks with the colorful frilly tops....they play an important role in keeping everything together while they turn their back for a moment. Then there are those who are the Rubens. Hearty pastrami folk smothered in sauerkraut and dressing, their lives oozing out with every bite, forever wiping the chins of their parents, children and grandchildren. Some friends I notice are more fortunate, they live a petit-forte sandwich life.... tidy, the edges trimmed uniformly, the parents respectfully dead and buried, children and grandchildren well mannered, dressed in white spotless dresses and shirt fronts.

Me? I believe I am of the grilled cheese variety.... not the all American Cheese pasteurized ersatz kind...think Tillamook Cheddar.... My bread gets buttered on both sides, I melt easily but must be tended for fear of burning. The top side is my mother, heated to a toasty golden amber. Delightful and eye catching...savory. The bottom side is a different flavor. Depending on my resiliency at the moment, it can represent my frustration with children, Tomas, the upstairs toilet, the tire collection out back...then this side of my life sandwich smolders on the griddle to the point of near combustion and the smoke alarm screams. Regardless of the situation, though, presentation is key to being any sandwich... thus Teflon and parsley are staples. Scrape off the carbon, place it face down on the plate, add the parsley sprig and no will ever know the difference until the first bite. And by then, we're on to a new recipe.

stella Martinez contemplates

Elizabetta tells Juanita that I haven't posted a blog in two months because there is no trauma in my life to relate. Disparaging thought to think that my writing is a vent ... a cathartic act that purges the hemorraged heart so I can live to weep and record another day.... she's probably right in her assessment....but what better place to process the upheavels of one's life ... preferable to taking up residency on the couch of some shrink spending countless hours unwinding the spool of my malcontented thoughts. So, in keeping with Elizabetta's theory the headwinds are slamming at my trap door once again and I huddle in the cellar, holding tight so as not to become a sail, flying helter skelter into the eye of the storm. But amidst all the banging and white knuckle grip I keep wondering that maybe it is time to let go ... let it all fly and see where my wind whipped ass lands. A kid gets dragged to jail, another carries so much self doubt to fill Noah's ark six times over, one
child finds solace in oblivion, I live on a diet of finger nails and coffee, and Tomas keeps looking older. Yea, I think it's time.

stella returns to the boarding school of her youth

Took a road trip last week to the north woods of Wisconsin to drop Osa off at her summer camp job. On the return trip back to the suburbs of Chicago my mother and I make a side trip to the boarding school where I spent two of my highschool years, Wayland Academy. Finding our way to Beaver Dam was no issue but once we got into the town, locating the school proved to be the challenge. This, I realized, was because they seldom permitted us to leave the school grounds and the sanctioned bi-weekly trip into the town took place on a well established route. Any modification to this route meant town priviledges were revoked for the following week. Consequently, any side streets or outlaying areas were as totally foreign to me on this trip as they were the years I resided there.

Following the directions provided by a 'towny' we drove up to the school. With the exception of an extensive athletic field house and a new face on the gymnasium, the place had not changed in forty years. Glancing at the expansive football field, Coonie and I flashed a knowing look at one another, recalling the day Headmaster Patterson had not-so-tactfully suggested one way to keep me in the school would be a substantial contribution to this athletic dream they were spinning....thankfully, my parents didn't bite and true to their word, I was "not invited" back the following year. It spared me additional trauma.

There was the drab, looming boys dorm with the stoic pillars upholding the false facade of education. The three story dilapidated girls dorm with rusted fire escapes that scream rat hole fire trap to the weary students and oblivious parents. I noticed new trees, now twenty years old, in the quadrangle where we could go for ten minutes on Friday and Saturday nights to make out with the current boy of choice. Because our activities were strictly limited and the main ingredients in our diet consisted of potatoes and white bread, three meals a day, I weighed in at about 155 pounds. This could explain why I rarely dated. Once I hauled a guy out to the quadrangle on the pretense of showing him my bedroom window but really in the hopes that he would try and kiss me.

They insisted I take Latin. For a girl who could barely concentrate on the English language, Latin was as alien to me as Martian is to a Malaysian stowaway. Due to the weight problem I didn't make the cheerleading team... was the only girl cut... dispite a summer of practice where I demanded my brother assist me with the lifts... which really required a small hoist. "Up in the air (lift), over the rim (leg kick), come on Wayland sink it in" only succeeded in giving Dick a hernia.

I was doomed to fail... blond, straight hair was the vogue and I was possessed by an unruly curly mop that turned FedEx orange when the dye job, SunIn, went terribly awry. Forever attempting to straignten it, ironing was a morning ritual which turned my hair into the consistency of uncooked spaghetti. Not my best look. I was required to take a sport and the coach wanted to change the rules to allow me to be on the wrestling team. The only time I had the support of the other students was when I was the chief contender in the pie eating contest.... blueberry, no less. Alienation became the norm and as is typical in such scenarios, I became louder and uncontrollable. Packages of Jello poured down the hallways, in the toilets, even the swimming pool but I seriously lacked the amount needed to create the ultimate effect of frozen swimmers, stuck motionless during morning practice.

Compared to today's antics of girls snorting cocaine in the back stairwell, my pranks seem docile, almost funny, but they caged me as "a girl of trouble in serious need of psychiatric treatment who is definitely not suitable to the Wayland Academy standards". As I wandered through the dorm, seeing the rooms where I bounced off the walls and watched the old movie replay itself in my mind.... I whispered to the ghosts of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Kramer.... yooooohoooo warped bastards it's psycho girl morphed into hormonally deranged mad mama... therapy didn't work so well with me ....in fact ... it fueled a love of fire ... I have a new concept of the hot flash and you got all these mattresses here....then in the distance I hear Coonie calling, return the imaginary matches to my pocket and with a final fuck you, march out to the car and speed away from the hellhole memory knowing I never never never need to go back there, ever.

stella in the chicken coop

As a girl, we would devote one Sunday a month driving down to the State Hospital to see my insane grandmother and my severely retarded sister. Neither knew we were there but that was irrelevant. These long treks took us through hours of rich Illinois farmland. My imagination was planted with the seeds that one day I would live in a white house with chickens in the yard, adjacent to a large red barn and drive a tractor across acres of bottomland. That was my going to be my life but like many roads that turn into cul-de-sacs, that one didn't exactly pan out as planned. And yet, I did manage to score a half acre in the middle of a city and set about making it a farm of sorts with gardens, a dog and... chickens.

Chickens... or the girls as I affectionate refer to them... are the perfect urban can't-be-in-the-country pet. They don't require much room, eat the garbage, give eggs of all colors and sizes, and produce this wonderful compost. I run a very humane operation and when their laying days are over, export them down to the country where they live out their final days unsuccessfully dodging coyotes and wild cats. Roosters are avoided because I can't tolerate the gang bang treatment they dish out to the hens... over and over and over. I feel like I'm running a whore house for those cocky son's of bitches.

Anway, last week I splurge and order the rare and unusual laying collection from McMurry Hatcheries. They guarantee a minimum of eight varieties, all girls, that include Cochins, Campines, Red Caps, Blue lace Wyandotte and other a few other exotic breeds. True exicitement. I have always raised chickens but they have always come to me as chickens, never chicks but I was ready to take the plunge and try my hand with little peepers. The weather is warm, the coop is secure, the starter feed is in the bin... what could go wrong? Everything.

The post office called at the crack of dawn informing me my chick order had arrived. Driving home I feel I am in a car with a hundred screen doors that desperately need their hinges oiled. I carefully unpack the box and pour them into the brooding house watching as they strut around, discovering their new home. They find the water bowls and being thirsty a number of the girls take the plunge. "How cute, they're swimming. They think they're ducks."

I return fifteen minutes later to find five of them dead and another six shaking uncontrollably and falling on their heads. Whaaaat is going on? Being an urban farmer, my first reaction is to send them back. I notice that the dead are thoroughly wet, as if they drowned so I grab their little carcasses, put them in a plastic bag to deposit in the trash and scoop the remaining chicks into their travel case. Running around like a chicken with it's head cut off I yell for Tomas, "They're all dead. We need a heat light... we need the extension cords.... we need helllllp."

Quickly assessing the situation he gets the hair dryer and one by one we start blow drying their little feathers. It's a slow process but the technique is proving successful. The circulation returns to their feet, they stand alone, no bobbing head routine. I suggest that perhaps we should get the ones out of the trash and see if we can have any luck with them. It's a 'what have we got to loose' scenario until we pull them from the plastic bag. Any coroner in the land would take one look at the closed eyes, the legs straight as a road heading east and sadly shake their head while pulling the sheet over the corpse. But not Tomas. His mother died when he was four and giving up on any life is not written into his script. He dries and prods them, interprets the drooping head as a sign of fatigue. He insists all they need is a round of physical therapy to be like new. I keep muttering 'give it up big boy...' Yet he perseveres and I realize this is one of his strongest attributes... he never gives up. It's one of the obvious secrets to our 32 years of marriage. The guy doesn't know when to throw in the towel.

Returning a half hour later I am witness to a miracle. All five corpses are strutting around the table, chirping, bumping into one another. We give them another hour in the rehab ward before returning them to the brooding house where they are happily greeted by the other girls. Huddled around the feeding tray I am curious if they relate their near death experience to the others.... Yes yes, definitely saw the light and there was this warm wind blowing....but it just wasn't my time....

McMurry Hatcheries has hundreds of breeds of poultry but they may want to consider the new Lazarus line. I envision the ad: Guaranteed to bring you pleasure and an abundance of eggs; will survive subzero temperatures, scorching heat and a short trip to the other side. Money back guarantee not necessary.