Author Archives: Tata

Just Like Starting Over

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Yes, that’s exactly right: a groundhog made short work of the delicate buffet that was our garden. At another moment, this discovery would have devastated me. After a week of uncertainty and outright fright over Sweetpea’s pancreatitis and the whopping bills that followed, I can barely work up a Well, sheeeeeit about the groundhog’s destruction. Today, I pulled up everything I could see for sure wouldn’t survive. Some plants may survive. I left those. Some will come back if the groundhog doesn’t. Next weekend, if I can see the groundhog has gone elsewhere to dine, I will replant the bed. In the meantime, we’ve placed new barriers where we believe the interloper was interloping.

You will be pleased to hear that today we observed Sweetpea is eating again and drinking water. Force-feeding her was taking a lot out of us, Pete in particular. We visited our favorite farmers today, who nodded sadly at our garden’s tale of woe and advised us to get a shotgun and a dog. Where we live, the houses are too close together for this, so we’re thinking about a pop gun and a Schnauzer. Pete feels that he’s missing out on some sort of manly hunting and trapping thing, but I’d prefer we toss some wilted lettuce on the neighbor’s open compost heap and stage whisper, “Look, no fence. However do they keep out sandwich-seeking groundhogs?” I think that could work.

The Answer That You Want

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This song is downright catchy, but everything about it makes me all wut-wut-wut?

Eons ago, I used to go to the tanning salon every day. If I am ever diagnosed with a fatal illness, I’ll be back there every day until I go tits-up. Anyway, when you’re lying in a tanning bed, you listen to music the salon pipes in and most of it is pure corporate crap, indistinguishable from anything you hear a zillion times in the checkout line at Target. Which you’re currently boycotting because they support anti-gay political candidates. But you know what I mean, so: emotionally frilly and melodically ostentatious nonsense with no artistic core. It’s not music, it’s money. You know it when you hear it and I heard a lot of it while I sizzled contentedly in the tanning bed. I simply couldn’t believe a person would subject him- or herself to that without feeling like he or she had eaten a bag of white sugar. This brings us to Coheed and Cambria’s Blood Red Summer. I found this tucked into a gritty and energetic playlist on Altrok Radio, and I was puzzled to hear what sounded like a tanning salon/beach music-like product. You know what I’m talking about: that song that plays on the radio at the beach you wouldn’t tolerate for a second once you’ve kicked off your flipflops in September, but you’re so goddamn happy in the sunshine you think, Ahhhh, what the hell. Once you’ve let that song into your consciousness it will always mean goddamn beach sunshine happiness to you and now you’re stuck feeling wistful about a shitty song. That sucks. I guard against it by plugging my ears whenever I hear Kelly Carlson’s overproduced warblings, lest I be stuck with that mental image. So imagine my surprise when not only aren’t Coheed and Cambria bikini-clad spokesmodels, but they’re not women and they’re not smiling.

Now that is interesting.

Stumble You Might Fall

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As diagrams go, this one provides bad guidance.

Today, we visited Sweetpea at the vet’s office. She appeared dazed, but looked much better than yesterday. Her fur was smooth and almost pink again. It took her a few minutes to trust us and accept me. When she purred again, finally, I felt hopeful. We forced her to eat tiny spoonfuls of baby food; afterward, she nestled into the crooks of my arms but did not purr. I asked the vet if she would survive this episode. He burst out enthusiastically: she’s doing very well, she’s a day or two from going home. I nearly collapsed with relief. We steeled ourselves and left her with the people who care for her in ways we can’t, but soon, we will bring her home to our happier house.

All With Hope, All With Hope

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To press up, one pushes down.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: I don’t feel like talking. Our household has taken a few hits over the past few days and we have yet to learn how serious they might be. The ground is shifting under my feet and I’m not sure if hanging on is possible or even a great idea. I may resort to Morse Code distress signals with castenets because if I’m uncertain how upset I should be that should be funny.

In fact, I don’t feel like talking to anyone. Even so, I keep answering the phone. Yesterday, my mother was surprised to hear I’d taken a jicama to the checkout line in her grocery store and chaos ensued.

Tata: The cashier was a large, happy man who asked what it was and couldn’t find jicama in the computer, so he called the line supervisor.

Cashier: Passion! What’s the code for a jicama?
Passion: How much is an enema?
Cashier: Jicama! Jicama?
Tata: J-I-C-A-M-A. It’s produce.

Mom: Did she find it?
Tata: Yeah, it was $1.49 a pound. You should go buy one of those.

Today, Mom called to tell me she’d gone to the grocery store and I once again answered the phone!

Mom: I got a jicama. What do I do with it?
Tata: Take a very sharp knife and peel it. Then cut off the top and bottom.
Mom: Mine doesn’t have a top or bottom. It looks kind of like a potato but it’s shaped like an heirloom tomato.
Tata: Peel it. You can shave it onto your salad or cut it into a small dice and saute it with onions.
Mom: Is it a fruit or a vegetable? What is it?
Tata: It’s crisp and light like an apple or a pear, with a delicate sweetness. You will like it.
Mom: I will like it. That sounds good!
Tata: This is so exciting!

I didn’t tell her Sweetpea is in the hospital and I was coping by preparing mountains of delicious food, but she didn’t have to tell me she’s coping with frustrations of her own. She’s getting over pneumonia and wants to get outside and do yardwork, which could put her in the hospital, so instead she prowled around the produce aisle. I don’t have to ask how she feels. She’s got castenets.

When One Day She Said To Me

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Someone small literally ate his way across my garden, after which I'm sure he was quite full.

Last night, Pete discovered wet carpet in our bedroom, puzzling because he could determine no source of moisture. We cleaned it up and scratched our heads. At 7 this morning, we heard a ruckus and found Sweetpea horking up a storm. I cleaned it up and frowned a bit. This afternoon, we returned home to find Sweetpea cooling off under the sideboard. I was talking to Mom when I heard the unmistakable sounds of impending cat yakkitude, but I turned around and found a disturbingly large puddle of existing yak. “Mom,” I said slowly, “I gotta go.” As I cleaned it up, I discovered the goo was clear and bright yellow. I got out the book I turn to first: The Natural Cat. I read every description of puke and called the vet. He did not seem alarmed and asked me to give her 1/2 teaspoon Pepto Bismal.

Sweetpea wore at least as much pink bismuth as she swallowed, but then she and I sunned ourselves on the porch and she let me brush her smooth. Later, she quit hiding and curled up on our bed. That cheered us up a little, though we could see Sweetpea felt like crap and wouldn’t drink water. We never saw her pad upstairs to the litter box either. An hour ago, we gave her water flavored with the cat gravy Georg recommended keeping on hand for kitty emergencies. I wore as much watery gravy as Sweetpea drank, but she’s lounging on a window sill now. We’ll give her some more water before we go to bed and hope for a quiet night. I’m trying to stay calm and think clearly. In her role as Narrator, Topaz keeps trying to tell me something.

And Crazy For Loving You

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Yesterday’s Star-Ledger, which apparently does not screen for crazy, contained this letter to the editor that made my brain feel like it was full of soda.

More divining

So the world didn’t end on Saturday. As a card-carrying member of American Mensa, allow me to try again.

If you assign a number to each letter of the names Barack and Obama, such that A equals 1 and B equals 2, etc., Barack sums to 36 and Obama sums to 32. These two numbers share something in common; they are both even submultiples of the number 576. For example, the Obama number, 32, will sum to 576 in exactly 18 steps. If we now introduce Obama’s “essence number,” which is 5, the number numerologists have identified as the number of “change,” and multiply Barack’s 18 steps by the number 5, we get the number 90. If we then add this 90 to the single number that links his first and last names, the number 576, then we get 666.

So there it is. Barack Obama is the Antichrist and America is headed straight for hell.

– Thomas Clough, Maplewood

Yes, I transcribed that. No, I didn’t change – numerologists say 5! – even a single comma. The only important newspaper in New Jersey printed that as you see it. I couldn’t find a link or I’d absolutely demand you go have a look. Absolutely. It’s the kind of thing you should see for yourself and slap me if I’m lying.

Speaking of crazy, which I can because I play for Team Crazy, have a look at this picture from General Hospital.

This is even dumber than it looks.

Here we have actress Brianna Brown standing in front of a locked door in a scene where the actress on the other side of this door is acting out pretending to be locked in this basement – and not because I’ve phrased that incorrectly and union regs prevents anyone from actually being locked in anything. No, the other character in this scene knows she’s about to be rescued by the character who plays her husband. That makes six people – three of them actors and three figments of our imagination – who haven’t noticed what I notice every time I see someone locked into something on a soap opera. Look at this picture again. Know what you don’t see? Hinges. That’s right. The hinges are on the side where the tiny, helpless woman being held captive is. That means the door isn’t actually locked in a way that would prevent her escape. It is rather securely fastened on a temporary basis, especially since it’s a basement door and a basement is where most people would keep tools.

The crazy part is you’re not supposed to know that because you’re a woman, you soap opera viewer you.

We’ll Dress Like Minnie Pearl

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To my abiding shame, I’ve found Saturday Night Live funny recently, so long as I was looking at one Lindsey Buckingham at a time.

Oy.

I think we can agree: two Lindseys are too much of a good thing. Or a thing. Or if I have to watch this bit again, I’m taking a hostage. After this weekend’s SNL, Pete and I dragged our aging carcasses up to our glaaaaaaamous boudoir, where the sound of the next door neighbor kids’ party was inescapable. Personally, I don’t care and considered taking pictures I could later use for lucrative blackmail purposes but our housemate/tenant drags his more youthful carcass to work at 5 on Sunday mornings. Yes, you read that right. Even the birdies are like, “Dude, no way, I had a hot night with a sweet Minah” and roll over in the nest when he leaves for work. So just after 1:30, I rolled out of bed, which was vibrating for the wrong reasons, and marched next door, where I announced that they’d be taking the party inside the house – and they DID.

Two more miracles and I’m set for eternity.

Fourteen hours later, Pete and I return from our weekly golf clapping at the health food store where the produce is so beautiful it looks like Vermeer painted it during one of those periods when he didn’t doubt his own existence, and found a car parked with its bumper blocking our driveway. Pete started swearing.

Pete: Rassin frassin pix atuny hibbity bapf!
Tata: Do you know whose car that is?
Pete: It’s the rassin frassin kids’ next door.

Still swearing, Pete got out of the car, walked to the end of the driveway, looked at the bumper and marched across the lawn.

Pete: Pakka bibblix quobboparep bu bu bu flibbit!

I gathered grocery bags, let myself into the house and from the living room, heard him standing on the neighbor’s porch, swearing.

Pete: Kekka woo bob wrokkup pibbiloque!

I threw the bags on the floor and realized the reason I couldn’t breathe was that I was laughing hysterically. Pete threw open the front door, found me draped over the kitchen island, gasping for air. Still swearing, he stomped up the stairs, where I could hear him marching from room to room, swearing.

Pete: Dappa vitchiy gik pooder mos libberdiffy poodicles!

My knees buckled. He stomped down the stairs again to the spot on the floor where I lay, howling.

Pete: Whatcha doin’, sweetie?

I finally took a breath.

Tata: Nothing!

And howled for another ten minutes.