Tour de lisalil

After 22 years I was finally back in New Orleans, and, visiting my best friend, and teen travel partner.

I had decided to try an airline that uses open seating for the first time, and nearly missed the plane despite arriving 2 hours early and sitting right next to the departure gate. The airline was running 2 hours late, they told me the plane was delayed, and wouldn't be leaving until 4:20, but of course, something changed and it arrived on time and I missed the call, but was lucky enough to ask...  I was the last one on the plane, but because I was alone I ended up sitting in the front (3rd row aisle... perfect).

I rarely check my bag, but once again changing my normal patterns I did because I didn't want to schlep it around.   I was off the plane early, and hit the baggage claim. It wasn't too long before I saw my bag and felt pretty good about how it was all coming together so easily. We drove out to Donovan and Mimi's new home. I opened up my suitcase to get the gifts I had bought and found out... I HAD THE WRONG BAG!!  Luckily Dono found some id with a phone number I recognized as East Bay (510!!), and we called the owner who had not yet noticed, because, SHE was in BATON ROUGE, (about an hour away, and had only just arrived for a family reunion,  (she was from Oakland).  We jumped in the car and headed off, arrived at our destination, and when we pulled up I saw the girl I had ridden next to from SFO in a car in the parking lot. I was really surprised so I knocked on her window thinking that she was the person that had my suitcase, and scared the living bediddle out of her (a caterer who was ROCKING the catering world. She had just spent two weeks doing NY, Oakland, and Vegas, and was in Baton Rouge for a family reunion too!).  Anyway, they thought Dono was a cop (he was wearing a fireman tshirt from his hall and it had a badge on it..),and they were smoking some stanky bud .... it was hilarious.  After they got over the fright of thinking Dono was a cop, and they might be headed to a Southern jail we all had a great laugh ... they WERE stoned!  However, she did NOT have my suitcase it was just a weird thing that she was in the parking lot.... the girl that did have it, met us, and we exchanged bags, a few laughs and addresses.  She had not even opened my bag. 

Saturday we strolled the Quarter, traded memories, and that night we had an incredible meal at Donovan's friend Issac Toups new bistro Toup's Meatery.  

Sunday, the 15th we headed to the cruise ship and boarded without incident. While waiting for the luggage I fell asleep & Lil went to find the rest of the family and check out their rooms.  I woke to the PA and went out on the balcony to view the river. While standing there I saw a dead body floating, of course no one else in our party had seen it, and after the luggage incident  everyone was convinced I had lost, or was quickly losing, my mind! 

In Freeport we joined a big group and headed to the beach for swimming fun and drinking games in the saltiest water I have ever encountered.  I became aware of this as a young man on a surf board paddled by and casually asked if we were from the cruise ship, and, had anyone seen a body in the river just before we departed, because he had.... I nearly drowned trying to say I did!  The disbelief was still apparent in my friend's faces and (maybe a bit of concern that what was wrong with my brain might be contagious).  Mimi made a big deal about me being a singer and,  encouraged, I sang 3 songs to the ever increasing approval of a drunk and salty crowd.  

We became quite popular on the ship as the laughing lady and the martini lady... the lisalil had landed. 

Returning to NOLA at dawn I watched as the city lit the way along the curves of the Mississippi.  We googled the news for the 15th of June, 2014 and there had indeed been the body of a young man that had jumped from the Cresent City Bridge pulled from the river. 

Animal Instincts

Salty streaming streaks 

Blood, sweat and tears attract more

hungry predators.

Perspective

As a little girl I grew up in a tiny farming community, 2 bars, 5 churches, a grocery store, more cattle than people, bad reception on the 2 channels we felt lucky to get, and unpaved streets.  We learned to entertain ourselves, or clean, Grandma liked things tidy, so it should come as no surprise that I found myself in the back of my closet

I spent hours there, my secret room, I'd never read CS Lewis, we were fed a heavy dose of Psalms and the new testament, often quoted carefully verbatim by memory from my sainted Grandmother.  Quiet, cool, safe from all my handlers, I entertained myself for hours in my secret fortress, occasionally coming out long enough to draw on the walls tormented scenes of cemetaries that my mother treated as art leaving it there years after I had left.  Many a great adventure happened there, the world never knew how many times I saved it, because according to Grandma a good deed should never be discussed it should be carried out.  Indeed, we should beware of anyone who felt the need to declare who they were. 

School started, and I made a friend that lived nearby.  I invited her over, excited to share my secret fortress.  I guided her into the house, steering her carefully into my secret room, excited that she would find it as entertaining as I had.  She saw was the back of a closet.

Years later, I bought a home in Alaska, built a lovely deck around it and began encouraging the birds and squirrels to entertain me with seeds and kernels.  Excited, I pointed out to my friend how many things were enjoying the fruits of my bounty from the yard and on the deck.  He saw was the bird poop.

The moral to this story:   Share your secrets at your own risk. 

Good Friday (the Reality of Id)

Your over active mind can't take the time
to separate fact from fiction.
You use diction to blur,
the slur of your imagination.
God didn't mean for creation
to be tearing itself apart,
broken hearts, minds, and lives in pieces.
All is lost, nothing found
when we refuse to recognize
our reflection in the mirror and fear to see the bigotry
in our preconceived ideas of reality.

Is it Hell or is it Heaven?
when the self righteous finds himself
soul to soul
christian, buddhist, muslim, pagan, non believer,
and all God faces laughing
echoing through the ages
Sages stare in wonder
as his voice thunders,

"Did no man understand?
Judge not!  Judge not!
Have Faith!
No man shall know the time,
the place, the very face of God
All is mine and made in my image
the human race of God
The faith of God
The joke of God
Can you hear the laughter?"

Ever after, laughter,
ever after....

Amen

The things you'd rather not discuss but should

Well, how do you start something like this but to say I am a hypocrite.  After years of pontificating on the dangers of drinking and driving I was charged and convicted of a DUI.  I am sharing this information NOT because I am proud of what has happened at the most stressful point of my life, but so that if it happens to you you will be AWARE.

First and for most KNOW that if you have been drinking that IF you are charged with a BAC, (blood alcohol content), of .08 or more that you will most likely be charged with a DUI, (Driving Under the Influence).  There is NO negotiation on a first time DUI offense in California, so save yourself the $2500 (or more) charge of hiring a lawyer and plan on attending all your court appearances on time and expecting to stay most of the day.  If you are lucky enough that YOUR time is more than the expense of the lawyer make your own choice.

Note that at some point you will have to appear in front of the judge and be sentenced.

Here are my notes from the experience:

1. You have ten days to apply to the DMV for the right to obtain a restricted license during your   education process if you fail to apply for this privilege you will be denied the right to drive for a minimum of 4 months.    EVEN with this privilege  you will be denied the right to drive for a minimum of 30 days. 
2. If you fail to appear at any of your mandated court appearances you will have a warrant issued for your arrest
3. You will have to attend traffic school and it will cost you in time and money in accordance to your BAC.  
4. Embrace the experience of traffic school.  You have to go, you have no choice,  IT IS A PROCESS and your restricted license only lasts so long.  Most of the things you'll learn won't kill you to know and may enlighten even the most cosmopolitan types.  KNOW that any missed activities will add to your cost.  Just go, get it done, and don't let it happen again because the cost and the hours increase significantly.  There were plenty of folk that did not get the point the first time and were in class as repeat offenders.  It appeared to me that the longer you went the more bitter you became. 

Rumi

“Sit, be still, and listen, because you're drunk
and we're at the edge of the roof.” ― Rumi

Strands

The soul of my father compels me
to wander forgotten streets,
enchanted castles, to live within myself.

My shell reveals my mother
Who taught me to smile
At passing strangers, to open my heart.

The laughter is my own.

Haiku for baby brothers

Once upon a time
You followed me, everywhere.
Now, I'll follow you.

Brother Ray

I'm sitting with my younger brother as he makes his journey from this world into the next. I watch as his friends stop by and view what remains of my 6'7" mountain man. My "little" brother who towered over me by nearly a foot and a half, ravaged by cancer, flesh hanging from his once robust frame. Strong and powerful he once hung a boyfriend upside down by his ankles off a two story balcony over the Rogue River in order to explain to him that he didn't like the way the boyfriend was talking to his sister. Traumatic for the boyfriend, and stupid if he had dropped him; it might have been manslaughter, but one of those things that can make a sister feel a bit warm and fuzzy (at least after I broke up with the boyfriend). He was always doing over the top things in order to make his point, so prone to unbelievable tall tales that it was occasionally hard to believe him, but even I was surprised by the story his friend Peter shared with me.

Peter, sat down quietly by me and watched as Ray labored to breathe. He told me about a fly fishing trip they took together with friends on one of local rivers. The current was swift, so they would cast up stream and allow their lines to drift with the current past them and start the process again.
A stranger, from a neighboring town, joined them and proceeded to cast straight out crossing three lines, creating havoc with their technique. tangling lines and stealing the tranquility of the day. My brother, Ray, his friend Peter, and the rest of the fishing expedition tried to explain to the stranger about the current, and how he should cast upstream and allow his line to drift past them, so that he would quit crossing the other lines, tangling them, and ruining the experience for everyone. Fishing, Peter explained, is meant to be fun and relaxing. Peter relaxed, smiling as he described the events, they had just wanted the stranger to listen, but he continued to cast straight out from the bank creating a tangled mess of line for no apparent reason other than he did not want to be told how to cast. Quietly, according to Peter, my brother pulled his line, set his pole, slowly walked up the bank to his truck, and started to rummage around. His friends continued to try to fish and paid little attention to what he was doing until a gun shot echoed over their head's and the stranger's bobbin exploded in tiny pieces; shot out of the water by my brother standing on the upper bank.

The startled stranger grabbed his pole, what was left of his fishing tackle, and quickly departed as my brother quietly strolled back to the bank picked up his pole, and cast his line upstream to gently bob past him on the current while his friends sat stunned. Finally, Peter exclaimed, "I can't believe you did that".
My brother's reply was, " I came to fish and relax and I got tired of talking about it. Now, let's fish."

Morning Haiku

Familiar comfort
dark, soft, worn around the edges,
warm, morning memories

Change

This morning I am reminded that any club that has to vote to let me in I will continue to avoid. I hate that kind of thing for some reason. Clicks should belong to my fingers tapping on the keys, woodpeckers on poles, maybe even a bit of percussion, but should not be for human socializing. People tend to change in big groups, and as long as the finger isn't pointed at them they don't mind pointing at you. The thought has crossed my mind that this could be a past life memory or maybe stamped in my DNA from ancestors who were persecuted from using their intelligence to stand up to the masses.
I was a Bluebird once for three days before I quit to ride my horse, Taffy Dawn, alone. I didn't hate the people there, or gluing popsicle sticks together into squares and rectangles. I just loved my horse more and she was waiting, and I was impatient, and the day had begun. Maybe I just knew I would never have enough of those days. . . .
I do love people, but for some reason large groups of anything I like better from a stage with a 10' elevation. Especially, if they are looking at me. It's even better if the lights are so bright I can't see them and I can shake, spin, sing, and laugh madly while I lift myself, (and anyone willing to travel), out of the fog.
Still, even at this age, I find myself terrified in large groups as I ready my weapon of choice. Machine gun laughter, quick, resonant, and piercing enough to be heard across a football field. Amazed and embarassed that I can still scare all but the very hardy with but one quick burst I use it to fend off those who would get too close without invitation, or a brave heart. ~;)
Some things change very little.

Spring Haiku

New buds, butterflies,
and birds follow warm wild wind
I rise to greet them

Plain Crash

Cecil liked to wear stilleto heels, and skirts that flowed.
She kept her greying hair that pert shade of port,
her nails exactly 1/2" long, squared at the tips,
curved slightly downward like her mouth.
She'd take advantage of her stilleto heels
and push her grocery cart with long strides
and perfectly manicured nails past the fruits and vegetables,
past the dairy case, past the grains and dry goods,
to finally take her stand firmly between the diet coke
and the front of her cart and proceed to load it
heaven bound. . .her only offering.

Loaded, eyes glazed, saliva flaking
at the corners of her down turned mouth.
Her four inch heels would carry her
step after step through puddles of rain forest leftovers,
like a float plane landing one pontoon at a time.
on schedule she'd drift toward the checkout docking
long enough to purchase one last carton of cigarettes
She always said she planned to quit before it killed her, but
"You get such nice things with the mileage."

Fire trucks struggled to contain the flame
that was Cecelia, couch and carton,
temporarily appearing to be the hottest spot in the universe.
As the first long cough of winter
rattled upward through the smoke,
dry leaves raced through the gutter adding percussion
to the hometown blues on NPR.
Prelude for the unheard funeral dirge
that followed the smoldered carnage south.

No Retreat

The things we're not suppose to discuss: politics, religion, and our personal lives. Just in case we reveal too much, and someone finds out that we don't think exactly the way they do, or even worse that we actually think. Everyone pretends to appreciate the eccentric opinion, the quirky purple hats, the off beat song or movie, but we really just want to enjoy the things that our peers have already deemed worthy. We roll in self congratulation on what we consider original as it's embraced by the masses, and suffer the recriminations of our associates by not freely wrapping ourselves around the ever popular opinion.

I've never worried much about the popular opinion, or current happening trend. I spend too much time alone to dwell on anyone's negative thoughts but my own, and I try to avoid those. Maybe the voices in my head are enough company? The legions drifting through over the years have helped me draft a plan for world domination. After all, I've raised three fine sons to be well adjusted slackers why not help the rest of the world?

My first objective would be to ensure that everyone would be sterilized at birth. I hate hearing children called "accidents". Science is such that we now have a choice to control our population, and the damage we do to unwanted children. There should never be an unwanted birth, or an unloved child. It is our moral duty to protect the children, allow them health, education, and unconditional love, and it takes more than two people to do it right.

Everything should be legal and taxed. You can't control anyone but yourself, so we should quit trying and quit allowing excuses for people's chosen behavior. At some point people will quit passing the buck and choose life. I personally think people choose alcohol, drugs, vandalism, and possibly violence because they're bored. Children should be taught accountability and responsibility. Make their first school field trip to the 'new world order's adult entertainment center.' Where the children could watch junkies through a one way glass as they indulge in their need, dispensed by a pro in a safe environment. When they have reached capacity, turn their heads and retch, the children would see their bald heads, bad teeth, and nasty stomach acids and the whole thought of being a junkie like "Jimi, Janis, Billie, or John"* will be less romantic. (*Hendrix, Joplin, Holiday, and Coltrane).

I don't believe in prison; violent criminals should be blinded and encouraged to live on the same amount of disability as any other disabled American. My husband insists my hatred for what I consider to be an obsolete waste of tax money was developed because I grew up near Washington State Penitentiary, angry that the prisoners had color television ten years before we had it at the farm. The truth is blind people rarely commit violent crime. No armed robberies, no DUI's, they don't participate in drive by shootings, or blame their sexual deviation on the look of a prepubescent child. I don't want to cut off anyone's body parts, or put offenders in a prison where they can watch television, learn the law, tie up the courts, or have conjugal visits with women they didn't know prior to incarceration. If I had a dog that continued to bite people I would put it to sleep not put it in an air conditioned cage and serve it three meals a day. Everything is done by choice, and the innocent should not have to suffer repeatedly by people who choose to live outside the limits of civilization.

The borders should be open so that the people who are willing to pick fruit, do your laundry, or get an education can easily come, do those jobs, return to their friends and families and enjoy the fruit of their labor. Hopefully, this will prevent contrived marriages, dangerous illegal container shipments of people, and the separation of families, and enable small farmers, cafe owners, to get the help they need, and people of all walks of life to interact on a positive level without fear.

Teachers should be required to go to comedy school, so that they can at least pretend to maintain a sense of humor. High school graduates should receive an "all american road trip" via Amtrack. As they travel around they can help Habitat for Humanity to create live able space for those in need, and meet their neighbors. This will enable them to see the countryside, learn skills they will need to maintain their own homes, and get to know people on a personal level. When they graduate from college they should receive the same opportunity to help the world. Hopefully this would teach people that there are lot's of wonderful places in the world and that people are basically the same everywhere.

Opinions, the internet, health, (including vision and dental), and education should be free for all who wish to participate. It can only make us stronger as a country and people.

Pop

My father died of cancer when I was 2 1/2, my brother was 3 months old, mom, 24. It was a surprise, no notice, and over within 2 weeks. You move on. Sometimes, with the help of well meaning people, who think they know what's best for you, but have no time or patience of their own. That is how my poor Uncle Aubry became my mentor and my Pop in the fall of 1961.
The girls, Mom and her sister Vonalee, thought that I needed a father figure that fall. I had been devastated at leaving my asphalt jungle with the monkey bars that I hung from for hours while I watched and waited. I hated the heat, the dust and the fact their was no asphalt anywhere. I stood at the end of our sidewalk looking out at the dust, tears leaving tracks on my dirty face wailing, "No, not here," for hours.
It was decided that Aunt Vona's husband, Aubry, should watch me. After all Mom and Aunt Vona were both watching 2 & 3 year olds, and Pop's time had been freed to "just the farming" because school had started and the rest of the "cousins" were all old enough to attend. According to Aunt Vona there was no reason Pop couldn't step up to the plate and entertain me.
He started by leading me down the hill towards the barn with the cautionary advice, "It'd be best if you step where I step Missy." Missy, because he hated the name my mother had given me declaring that it was pretentious, and much too long for such a little girl. So it was that I became his "Missy" and he became my "Pop" as I trailed him down the hill, over the 4" X 6" plank that spanned the irrigation ditch, and across the cow pie covered field.
Having much shorter legs it wasn't long before I had stepped ankle deep in a fresh pile of steaming cow dung. "Oh no, nasty Poppa," I cried as the cow poop slid over my shoe soaking my pretty white anklets. Pop picked me up and dug my shoe out of the quick sand like muck, rinsing it in the ditch. and laughing as he answered, "Hush now Missy, that's not nasty that's manure. That's money you smell." I knew money was a good thing because my mother was constantly lamenting her lack of it, and, as my tears dried, I took into account this new bit of information.
I followed Pop step for step occasionally running into a bit more "money", and it was without a worry in my mind that I proudly entered Aunt Vona's pristine kitchen for lunch. Mouth salivating, ready for the huge bowl of steaming country gravy and fresh biscuits already on the table, I looked up to see her eyes turning into the back of her head like a horse tied to a fence during a lightning storm as she hissed, "Get those nasty shoes out of my clean kitchen Elisia!"
Startled I replied, "That's not nasty; that's manure. That's money," confident in my innocence. Her wild eyes turned focusing on my now emerging Pop as she tried to catch her breath, "Aubry did you teach that little girl such a word?" as she grabbed the broom and chased him out the door, and Pop ran laughing down the hill exclaiming, "What'd you want me to tell her it was, Honey?'
The next day dawned the same with the ladies declaring that they had their hands full, and he would just have to keep an eye on me again. Poor Pop, like he didn't have enough to do milking 200 head twice a day of prime cattle. Jersey, Guernsey, and Holstein mixed together to create the finest milk Mayflower could buy, the richest ice cream Aunt Vona could make and the best butter Grandma could churn.
Pop, was of Dutch descent. stoic most of the time, hard working, but with a clear direction of where the butt end of his jokes were intended to land. That day when we were alone he leaned in and lowered his voice, "Missy, next time some one asks your name I want you to say 'Poontang, ask me again and I'll tell you the same'." I listened intently and caught the fun of the quirky rhyme as we echoed back and forth across the barn like a cheer at a football game,
"Hey, what's your name"
"Poontang ask me again and I'll tell you the same!"
Eagerly I ran to the kitchen door pulling off my shoes as I pulled open the door. Greeted the smell of a farmer's lunch as I cried, "Aunt Vona, Aunt Vona, ask me my name."
"Good Lord Honey, I know you're name."
"But you have to ask me Aunt Vona! You have to ask me my name!"
"Ok. What's your name?" she asked.
"Poontang! Ask me again I'll tell you the same!" I proudly yelled back, big grin on my face, I watched her eyes turn in her head, as she reached for the broom all the while chasing Pop's laugh out the door, and down the hill.