God damn it! I was having a good day, sort of. Last night, I didn’t sleep much. I’d fall asleep, then wake up with that feeling like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. You can trust me on this. I got zapped in electrical school enough times to remember that feeling for decades to come – and by enough times I mean once. Anyway, while I did not enjoy lying on my couch waiting for the state-wide tornado warnings to pass, I did enjoy putting in a full day at the hair salon. In December, I told Rosana how much I despised January, the gray landscape, the dreariness.

Tata: I can’t take it. I want to leave the salon looking like a tropical fish.
Rosana: Atlantic or Pacific?
Tata: Pacific. Please!

Just after noon, I was running late for my appointment and stopped at a pay phone – my cell has little cartoon x’s over its eyes – on Livingston Avenue on my way up to the salon. The pharmacy was only open for two hours and I couldn’t get there.

Tata: This is Ta. Is Paulie there?
Aaron: Paulie’s sound asleep.
Tata: Would you ask him to go to the pharmacy and pick up medicine for Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul? It has to be around 1 this afternoon.
Aaron: At 1? Might as well get him up.
Tata: What?
Phone Thunk.

I’m standing on a corner in a raincoat that looks like nothing if not an especially festive flowered lawn chair pillow. I personally look like Cher’s Avon lady, and because I know exactly where I am, I am trying to keep my eye on the foot traffic in 360 degrees of broad daylight while Aaron shuffles into the living room I used to nap in and gives his son Paulie Gonzalez a shove. I already feel guilty.

Paulie: Hello? Are you alright?
Tata: I’m fine but I mismanaged my time. Can you pick up the cat’s medicine at the pharmacist?
Paulie: I was just on my way out. Sure.
Tata: What? Okay, thanks.

I sashay into the salon feeling pretty stupid. Rosana recalls clearly what we talked about right before that terrifying debacle that was the rapid series of non-stop holidays.

Rosana: Do you know what you’d like to do?
Tata: I’m interested in suggestions.
Rosana: Well! How about this base color and this pink highlight and black around the edges? And I have ideas about the cut.
Tata: Bring it!

I knew from the moment I walked into this salon and saw my former drinking buddy that eventually saying, “Darling, what do you think?” would produce big, and today it happened. It took four and a half hours, but it happened. Tonight, my cut is beautifully Thirties-retro, which I love, Around my my scalpline, there’s a ring of black hair, and the rest is two tones of utterly unnatural red. My eyes look much greener. I look like a silent film murderess. So of course, I came home happy, turned on the laptop and the TV, where I heard that fucking commercial for KFC. I’ve written about this before under other names, at other times. Listen to me carefully:

There is no excuse for playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama in a public place. Stop it. Don’t use it. And when someone else uses it, make it financially worth their while to stop it.

Let’s look at the lyrics, shall we?

Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the Southland
I miss Alabamy once again
And I think its a sin, yes

In Birmingham they love the gov’ nor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

See, this song is so-thirty-years-ago that you sing along as it pops up in rotation on your rock station and you don’t think about it anymore, if you ever did. It’s lost all its context. Its meaning is lost on the radio-karaoke/cover-band mentality, and as anthropologists and ad men know: meaning is easily lost, replaced by a commercial message and made into kitsch.

What were our long-dead and strangely career-comatose friends from Florida talking about? Neil Young lyrics are hard to get verbatim on the web. After a few tries, I found lyrics transcribed by fans. Allowing for nuance, we get:

Southern man better keep your head
Don’t forget what your good book said
Southern change gonna come at last
Now your crosses are burning fast
Southern man

I saw cotton and I saw black
Tall white mansions and little shacks.
Southern man when will you
pay them back?
I heard screamin’ and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

The funny thing is when I hear Mr. Van Zant sing, I hear the words: “Well I heard Mr. Young sing about us“. Maybe you hear it. Maybe you don’t. I’ve never had any doubt. This is unbelievable arrogance. This is: What the fuck does that hippie Canadian have to say about us Good Old Boys lynchin’ our niggers? And you’re singing along, with our catchy song.

And to what governor does the song refer? George Wallace. Later in his career, after the song, Governor Wallace changed his mind about race issues, but not that much. One of the single most nauseating images I’ve ever seen was a photograph of Tammy Wynette singing Stand By Your Man to the wheelchair-bound Wallace. Also, my conscience may prick at me now and then, but in an age when my government is the greatest threat to my freedom and the people of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans will be abandoned yet again when they’re kicked out of their hotels soon, Watergate as an insult to us Northerners looks like the arrow on the “I’m with stupid” t-shirt is pointed straight up.

Jesus Christ! KFC: no matter who your demographic might be, stop using commercials with African-American actors, selling heart-cloggingly bad fucking fried chicken to African-Americans, using as your anthem a song that is basically a want ad for a lynch mob. And don’t get me started about that Reese Witherspoon movie, because the whole premise was in such poor taste I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the posters in a mall, and being in a mall didn’t put me in a great mood to begin with.

There’s no excuse for this. No words can make this right, and yet this campaign goes on and on. Every time I see and/or hear one of these commercials it wrecks my mood for a while. I can’t believe someone hasn’t cleaned KFC’s clock over this.

Shit. I was having a pretty good day.

P.S. Via Professor Kim: We can’t ignore it and say it’s ancient history.

Can you believe it? Siobhan, who picks up the trash around here, sometimes including me, is so busy having her own life she’s not fixing up PIC photos. How rude!

For one of those December holidays, Daddy and Darla gave me a lamb pelt. Daria later stared at it and said, “It’s a black sheep.” For those of you in the cheap seats: that’s symbolic.

Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, loves this thing. It smells like an animal. It feels like wool. It’s draped over the zebra-striped futon I seldom sit on. I kind of wait quietly until he prod-prod-prod-prod-prod-prods, circles and settles on the furry thing. Then I race over and take his picture with the disposable camera. I’m sure it’ll look totally natural. Coming to a Poor Impulse Control post soon: photos of a black cat on a black lambskin on a black website. A challenge to common sense, if there ever was one.

I get this a lot.

Tata: Hi, my name is Tata.
Person Not Me: Tata? What is that short for?
Tata: Domenica. Why do you ask?
Person Not Me: Domenica, I’d like you to meet…
Tata: Tata.
Person Not Me: Your name’s Domenica.
Tata: When people tell you you’re not a good listener they’re not joking.
Person Not Me: Well, if you’re going to be that way about it –
Tata: Please kiss my fabulous patootie, won’t you?

I’ve stopped telling people my real name. It’s not up to them to decide who I am. It’s up to me. This idea threatens the fragile and vulnerable.

Tata: You don’t really hear anything I say.
John: Of course I do. We’re friends. I care what you think.
Tata: You introduced me to your girlfriend as Domenica.
John: I did not.
Tata: Ask her. You didn’t even notice resorting to the conventional. Watch it or you’ll quit sculpting and have a thirty-year mortgage in no time.

Wake up and smell the baby wipes! The dominant culture wants you to go to sleep and Macy’s; it wants me to go quietly into pink-sneakered middle age, where I can grow old and invisible in a timely fashion, hopefully before I retire and cost Social Security the money I pay into it. It’s the polite thing ladies should do.

I love lipstick. I love everything about it. I love the sensation of moisture a good lipstick leaves on the lips. I love the powdery feel of matte lipsticks. I love them bright and sexy and sultry and outrageous. I love lipstick that smolders and insinuates. I love lipstick that says, “I know exactly what to do with my lips to make you crazy, no matter who you are.” I love lipstick that whispers in the ear of the beholder. I carry five or six shades of dark reds and wine-colored lipsticks. Acolytes to feminism may be tsk-tsking, but that’s the first-year student balking. Judy Grahn wrote an essay years ago about symbolic pigmentation and the appearance of sin and desire. I took my cue from her and wore only red nail polish for years. Since then, I’ve broadened my horizons and color palettes, but nothing says bite me! like red lipstick on a woman over 35.

I answer to the name by which I introduce myself. And don’t fuck with me. I’m wearing lipstick.

A few weeks ago, I took Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, to the vet because to my nose the scent of his breath had changed. He’s got the feline leukemia. The vet told me awhile ago: all bets are off; feed Senor whatever Senor will eat. When Senor’s breath smells more cabbagy and less fishy, we go to the office. It’s traumatic for us both but he gets clipped toenails.

Since I am the pussycat pedestal and jungle gym, that’s really more for me, isn’t it? Yeah.

Usually stuffing the cat into the cat carrier results in scratching, contusions and crying but I eventually get over it, too. In the car, truly pathetic mewing causes me to wheedle.

Tata: It’s okay. We’re almost there. And then…well, don’t think about that part – but we’re going home soon!
Cat carrier: Mew!
Tata: We’re almost there, and then you can see the nice doctor. Okay, you hate the doctor but he likes you a bunch. Yes! Yes, he does!
Cat carrier: Mew!
Tata: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

For his part, the cat’s not happy either. Some people are good at crying; I look and feel like my face is having some sort of watery techtonic episode. The office is not like any other veterinarian I’ve been to: on the counter, cats sleep. There’s a little dog standing guard on the files. A gerbil sits on a shelf. When I arrive at the desk, a cat sniffs me before the staff gets a chance to look up. You know these people and this doctor genuinely care about their patients. The woman at the desk is new and hasn’t met us. Her hair is vibrant electric blue. She escorts us to an examination room and weighs Senor, who growls by force of habit.

The doctor holds the feline jaw firmly and exposes teeth. The feline expresses his displeasure verbally but does not actively resist. The doctor asks the blue-haired assistant to step in and assist him. They take turns fending off kitty self-defense efforts and clipping his nails – the cat’s. An astounding thing happens. Something she does gently – something I don’t see, though I can see both her hands – causes Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, to sit peacefully even after the vet and his assistant leave. I stare. I encourage him to climb back into the cat carrier. By “encourage” I mean “shove him inside with the flats of my hands.” He is calm and utterly unimpressed.

Tata: What’s the matter with you, huh?
Cat carrier: Mew!
Tata: That’s…better?

I struggle for a week and a half to medicate the pussycat twice a day with antibiotics and his normal daily Pediapred, which smells like a disgusting cherry pastiche to real fruit and real medicine. He gets medicine in moist cat food gravy, on sliced ham, in the water keeping boiled shrimp wet. Twice a day, I anxiously put out a little bowl of something and coo at Senor.

Tata: It’s a treat! A delicious treat! For you!
Kittyface: What, you were out of prime rib?
Tata: Cats don’t eat cows! Cats like cows.
Kittyface: In gravy. I love ’em.

About a week ago, I saw a sign in the Highland Park Drug Fair advertising pediatric medicine flavors. I march right to the counter and asked the burning question.

Tata: Can you make concoctions taste like meat?
Pharmacist: Ask your vet.
Tata: Ask my vet what?
Pharmacist: To prescribe it.

I love my vet to the bottoms of his comfy shoes. I love him for his devotion to his patients and their people. I love him him for all the extra care he’s given to my pet friends since Miss Sasha had mysteriously addled guinea pigs in the eighties. I love him. In this moment, I sincerely wanted to roll up some newspaper and bonk him on the nose. I’ve been tricking my cat into taking kiddie steroids for years and the vet knows this because he’s prescribed them and he knows I’ve fretted over every dose I couldn’t get into our sick friend and it never occurred to the doctor he might prescribe the steroids in yummy fish flavors?

Arrrrrrgh. The good news: maybe next week I won’t have to hover over Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul while he turns up his nose at life-giving snacks of tasty joy. It’s progress, no matter how long it took. Let’s hope meaty medicine is the kind of yucky stuff cats love.

To make yogurt, you heat milk or cream or some combination thereof to a boil. You let it cool to between 120-115 degrees. All the time, you stir constantly. You add a certain amount of live bacteria to your liquid and put it someplace warm and clean overnight. There are a few details of proportion and storage but no mysteries involved in the making of yogurt. It’s as natural as blinking an eye.

Many things are just as simple, though they may give the appearance of complexity on their faces. Over the past month, I put on a few pounds and can hardly bear to be near me. My clothing has become even more strangely ill-fitting than usual. The waistbands of two pair of pants in particular now fall across my stomach in a spot most women who’ve given birth will recognize as that spot I’d rather chew off my foot than think about. I find myself walking, leaning backward like Mr. Natural and trying to hold up my pants by sticking my stomach out. Keep on truckin’!

I fully expect to feel a breeze and find myself half-naked.

Currently, I feel fat because periodically I forget a basic truth of my Self: Exercise is always the answer. Am I restless and bored at work? Running a lap of the stairs will fix that. Am I not sleeping? More exercise, earlier in the day and mild stretching at night will make a dent in the problem. If I am stiff with arthritis, more exercise is the answer. If I have to wait for something and my mind is wandering, exercising is what I should be doing. Other than the occasional thing my internal organs do all on their own that tend to make all those gurgling, whoooshing and glug glug glugging sounds, I have the body I earn. It’s really too bad we all grew up and can’t resort to drugs with a straight face anymore. Personally, I can’t think about diet supplements after 1990 without a mental image of that poor guy on a beach and Oh. My. God! He’s got Anna Nicole Smith all over him! It’s not rational.

It’s not mysterious, either. I’m speaking for myself and no one else – because other people have problems we wouldn’t trade ours for in a million years – when I say if I’m heavy, I earned it and if I’m thin I earned that. It’s not as much fun as gulping Hollandaise out of a sippy cup, but it’s as natural as blinking an eye. Sometimes, I forget. Well, now I’ve remembered.

I’m sick of the moving boxes, gift boxes, ornament boxes, financial papers, wrapping paper, tissue paper, paper wadding, gift tags, store tags, jade leaves, recycling, regular garbage and presents Miss Sasha sent for the whole family. A chicken is roasting in the oven. Clean laundry hangs from every door, knob and curtain rod. Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, was disturbed from his cozy afternoon nap long enough for me to vacuum up dust bunnies and grit. The floor from the living room, through the hallway and into the kitchen no longer feels like a sandy stretch of boardwalk. Siobhan called me too early.

Siobhan: Did I wake you?
Tata: Yes. It’s 9:40.
Siobhan: 9:50.
Tata: Buh-bye!

Left to my own devices, I sleep better after the sun comes up. On weekends, insomnia’s less annoying if I manage little naps before 11. Ugh. I lie down on the couch and drift off a bit. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. I’m running through a castle filled with small red and white pompoms or maybe they’re Mini Baby Bell cheeses and I’m late for the fondue but the laundry is still dry and and I think three people were there with long dark hair and damn it, I’m mostly awake and those are the Supremes. You can’t hurry love! No, you just have to wait! I get up and wheel the washing machine to the sink.

Last week, Grandpa called to thank me for sending him cookies, and to ask where I’d bought his calendar last year. I wasn’t sure but promised to find him another. Wednesday, I shopped online, not paying the closest attention, and I bought a calendar refill, rather than the actual calendar. I realized my mistake immediately and wrote back to the vendor. Four hours later, customer service responded that the order had already gone out, and my only hope was to get the package refused. The prospect of getting someone at his apartment building to refuse a package sent to a nearly blind, nearly deaf, 93-year-old war veteran was…well, that ain’t gonna happen.

Of course, yesterday I got an email that my order had shipped, so fuck them. I’ll never do business with them again. Meanwhile, my grandpa still needs a calendar. In other shipping news, Miss Sasha and Mr. Sasha sent out two large packages filled with Christmas presents for the family. One large box came to me. The other took an exciting tour of warehouses in Edison before returning to Florida, where it was repackaged and…no one knows. Friday, I returned home to find a box so large I wasn’t sure it’d fit through my door. After lots of Seuss-like shoving, pushing and pulling, the box ended up in the hallway, where it stayed until this morning, when I couldn’t stand its hulking presence another minute. I hacked it open and found another box. When I hacked that open and pulled out the contents my apartment looked like it’d snowed packing paper and styrofoam bits and the poor little village was engulfed by the avalache, help, help, let loose those dogs with booze drums! And me, without my lederhosen!

After I could find the floor again and vacuumed it, I turned my attention to the ceiling and hung up more ornamental balls in the kitchen. Then I re-potted the plants Paulie gave me and played with mud. And cleaned up water. And made more mud. Nothing could be sillier than believing my housework might interest another human being, so I don’t. Yet here we are. It’s not the housework. I’m slowly making the modest, little apartment look like the whole magical world looks in my head. Sort of. Without livestock, I may resort to Chia Pets.

I’m in the store again: Indigo Girls is playing. The memorial service for Anya’s and Corinne’s grandfather is in half an hour. My sisters have been red-eyed for days. My brother-in-law, leading candidate for this week’s Most Valuable Player, called a little while ago to find out if I lay dead by the fused glass sculptures or if the store had burned to glowing cinders – but really tasteful ones you’d display proudly. In any case, I am not lying dead – I’m almost certain. If I were dead, would I be scanning my new exercise DVDs? If there’s an afterlife in which I’m still short and round it’s a vision that needs a little adjustment on the horizontal hold.

I’m just saying.

Other than Gilad, whom I love, I do better with virtual exercise instructors I despise for their fluffiness or inane comments. Denise Austin’s video workouts used to make me spit with rage and taut like stretched rubber bands. This became very confusing when my perky young shrink reminded me of Denise Austin. If things were going well in therapy, I fattened up; when things went badly, my friends named my clearly visible abs for French philosophers: Jean Paul, Jean Claude… I was with the brain doctor so long discontinuing our business relationship was like a traumatic break up for both of us. Unfortunately, Denise Austin’s Shrink Your Female Fat Zones uses a stability ball, which I learned to loathe in physical therapy, and I wonder if there’s hidden meaning in her pink outfit.

Crunch Workout’s Cardio Dance Blast! looks like fun. Instructor Marie Forleo annoys me with her faintly racist comments; the dance steps look simple enough that when I get up before 6 a.m. I might keep up before a first cup of coffee. The downside is the workout is 38 minutes. I’d have to pry myself out of bed ten minutes earlier than I already do. This seems like an afternoon regimen. Note: the support dancers are in several sizes and shapes. Unfortunately, the heavy girl is wearing ill-fitting low rise two-tone jeans, which means all of my pet peeves manifest in one pair of pants. I don’t know how long I can keep from shouting about the wardrobe department. Upside: shouting is aerobic exercise.

The store has been very busy, by the way. Watching the 38 minute workout took three hours. Also: watching lovely young women in tight garments samba is hungry work. You would think I was underfed the way I am scarfing down the snacks. I just counted my fingers and yes, I still have ten.

My last recent acquisition is Crunch Workout’s Cardio Salsa with Giselle Roque de Escobar. The program starts with pert Giselle shouting at – you know – you that you’re going to have a great time and burn tons of calories with these salsa moves. We take a sudden turn toward the Telemundo when Giselle introduces the young, fit and strangely stoned-looking Latin drummer and the camera zooms at his delts. Zooms, I say! Zooms back! After that, the director gives you a moment to recover from your motion sickness before you start moving. I can’t wait to try it. This is a 40 minute workout, so either I’d have to get up earlier or wait until I’m having one of those Carmen Miranda afternoons we don’t discuss in front of the children.

What the hell, those are fun, too.

Note: dancers are once again wearing outfits that make no sense for their body types. There’s a woman dancing directly behind Giselle in cropped low-rise jeans in a dingy blue-gray. Her belly is pale and though about three-quarters of the way through the workout it becomes apparent she’s strong and toned, she’s large and looks like a jiggly white backdrop. It’s very distracting. I want to assault the person who insisted on the exercise pants with the droopy crotches. Please! If a group of women should look less dumpy and more caliente, this is that group.

It’s been a busy afternoon but light for me. This is proof that I am merely fortunate. On a more serious note, Jazz and Georg lost gentle cat-friend Colin today. He was a sweet fellow with a patient nature, and his complex care would have been too much for lesser lights. Jazz and Georg gave him a good life, better than he would have had anywhere else, with anyone else.

I’m fine. Still, it seems like it was a tough day for the surviving.

Just outside my apartment there’s another door. It is my favorite door in all the world, surpassing even that door the Pope opens every century so guilt-ridden people can spend a week trampling millions of their closest friends and saying, “Excuse me,” in every language on earth. There’s no vaginal symbolism gooping up that picture, no way. I enjoy that mental image but this door outside my door is better. It opens onto a bad sheetrocking job nobody bothered to tape and mud-up.

This is nothing short of a golden opportunity.

When Dad and Darla visited, I pointed them to this door and told them I had a plan involving larceny and one of those drugstore cardboard figures, preferably holding a beer. They liked that plan.

I had another, but it’s kind of generation-specific. Swinging gals about my age – now the first group of grandmas to join the KISS ARMY – might recall a game foisted on us in 1970 by Hasbro: Mystery Date. I never played this game myself but I was emotionally scarred enough by the commercials to remember it. Anyway, girls and girly-guys try to figure out where the dreamboat’s concealed behind a door. Plan B is a life-size cardboard cutout of a teenage boy in an ill-fitting suit. Dad and Darla felt that had too many comic limitations.

I had a third plan: Superman in 2-D. As in: Closet superhero. I would however settle for pretending I’d hung Aquaman out to dry. They liked the idea but felt not even epoxy would adhere a seven-foot cardboard Christopher Reeves in blue tights to bare sheetrock for longer than a few minutes once anyone under 50 opened that door. Plus, I couldn’t find one on EBay. Dad had an economical plan.

Dad: That wall needs a map and a sign: “You are HERE.”
Tata: Map of what?
Dad: Doesn’t matter!

My co-workers are accustommed to my behavior. This morning, one stood at the edge of my cubicle and offered me a gift from that place of apparent safety. The present was even better than he knew: it’s the book jacket from On Drink by Kingsley Amis. The cover photo is priceless. Amis is holding a glass of dark liquid at approximately Windsor knot-height. The expression on his face dares you to say, “No, sir, that’s no beverage,” so he can tell you you are indeed full of excrescence and this is certainly a beverage. I like this photograph and will hang it up on my cubicle wall. When I am introduced to strangers I will pretend he was my grandfather and that photograph of that other guy holding up a glass of dark liquid in my cubicle was his Evil Twin, Alessandro, also my grandfather. I like the blurb:

Kingsley Amis, one of literature’s most versatile craftsmen, here shows another side of his talent, as portrayed on the front of this jacket – his mastery of the art of drinking. Calling on his many years of experience, and with an eye toward both economics and enjoyment, he presents this witty, informative handbook for the drinker, both amateur and professional.

From a brief dip into alcoholic literature, our bibulous guide moves to a selection of prime drink recipes – the fruit of untold diligent years of research into the field.

I had to share – though few jargon innovations irritate like the puke-inducing caring and sharing twist on interpersonal relationships of the mid-nineties. One night, a superhot bartender and I walked all over New Brunswick in search of a condom we never actually found. He said, “That’s okay. We had a nice evening of caring and sharing.” I laughed. I love him dearly but I thought, ‘When you want to throw your clothes at the ceiling fan and play Ride ‘Em, Cowgirl, a beer and a conversation about throwing your clothes at the ceiling fan and playing Ride ‘Em, Cowgirl doesn’t cut it.’ So I’m sorry I shared, but it had to be done.

This morning, I printed a Google map of my street. It’s small, which I will think of as understated. My co-workers paid no attention as I walked around the office, cackling and stealing Post-Its to compare contrasting colors to find which amused me most. I settled on orange. I wrote “You are HERE.” I drew an arrow, in case the explorer who finds this map is as confused as predecessors like Stanley and Livingston, who couldn’t get away from that damned six-sided lake. The Raritan River is about 200 yards to the left and straight down, like a giant, filthy hint. The fun lies in taping the thing to the sheetrock, closing the door and never looking back. Maybe. If I find a life-size cutout of John Ashcroft and the Venus de Milo all bets are off.

All kinds of people come into the store, stare at the beautiful merchandise and blurt something delightful.

Customer 1: What do I get a goth kid for Christmas?

Customer 2: I bought a pair of earrings here last week and lost one. Do you have a match?

Customer 3: Where can I find a shaman?

These are problems. I can solve them.

1: We have stained glass dragons. Your budding goth boy will want a matched set, possibly as many as five. For no reason. That I’ll tell you.

2: If you get a third piercing you can wear all your shinyshiny unmatched earrings.

3: Phone book. Sheesh!

It’s a warm night for January. People say the same thing: “I walk by here all he time. Tonight, I thought I’d come inside.” Sun-60 is on the CD player because I felt like hearing Should Have Seen the Moon. An hour ago, I looked around for snacks I heard calling me (“Ta! Ta, darling! We’re French fruit cookies!” “Ta, we’re cheesy crackers you wouldn’t buy on a dare – and you’re bored!”) so I put on lipstick and vacuumed the store in self-defense. On Tuesday, I picked out some beautiful sparkly ornaments on after-holiday special, boxed them up and promptly forgot what they were. In about an hour, I can go home, sip pinot grigio and watch the two-hour CSI. My terrible memory makes whatever’s in the box a present and a surprise.

Some people say today is Joan of Arc’s birthday. Happy Joan of Arc’s birthday to me. When Joan of Arc was my age, she’d been dead for 22 years. I am still learning how to decorate.

Sometimes Siobhan and I go out to dinner. Historically, we’d pick different items off the menu, then I’d want whatever she’d order. I adapted to Entree Envy by ordering whatever she ordered, which proved unsatisfying as well, when there were other yummy flavors we could not then sample. Recently, I’ve taken a different tack.

Tata: Siobhan, what do I want for dinner?
Siobhan: You want the crabmeat-stuffed flounder and steamed broccoli.
Tata: I do! I want that!
Siobhan: I’ll have the scallops…
Tata: Damn it!

Fortunately, my memory is like Gerald Ford’s trick knee – for Chevy Chase. Most restaurants serve slowly enough that by the time my plate arrives my order is a surprise.

Tata: Crabmeat stuffing! I love broccoli!
Siobhan: Couple of scallops?
Tata: Scallops, too?! I could drop dead of happiness!
Siobhan: Your funeral will have a two-drink minimum, won’t it?
Tata: And lox. I wish to be mourned with delicious canapes and a zydeco band.
Siobhan: We talk about your funeral a lot.
Tata: Can’t leave everything to the last minute. Who’ll hire the jugglers?

On second thought, maybe I should have eaten the cookies.

Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, is staring at me intently. He wants me to assume the Scratch Mr. Cat position, which I will – in a minute or two, or so. This week started out as the last few days of my vacation before preparations for the next semester. Two days ago, Daria called me mid-morning.

Daria: You know how you like to be needed in a drama?
Tata: I…what?
Daria: Anya’s and Corinne’s grandfather is dead. Their mom just found him. They need you at the store.
Tata: They need me and you’re calling?
Daria: Shouldn’t you hang up on me and go shower?

Daria trusts me to leave the house smelling like an expensive dessert, which I do. I tucked a few errands into the drive but made a bad beeline to the family store and spent the day fielding phone calls from family members so distressed they couldn’t form sentences. In between, I shopped for home accessories.

Today, I went back to my day job at the university. Tomorrow, I’ll sit at my desk, then go mind the family store. I expect to run hither and yon until after the memorial service Saturday, and Daria’s planning food, baskets and condolence cards. I’ll blog intermittently, since my new assistant is in training and my attention span’s even briefer than usual – but don’t despair. I’m not turning into a nice person or abandoning you or behaving myself. Nope.

I’ve just aimed my broomstick at the express lanes.