ACM Life in the Fast Lane?

Camp Swampy Trailer Park

2011-10-28T04:25:00.000-07:00

Camp Swampy Trailer Park – Fort Polk, LA

October 2011

From late June to early September 2011, I lived in a trailer park at Tigerland, North Fort Polk, LA, aka Camp Swampy. Why the Army named it Tigerland is beyond me but I think it has something to do with the Viet Nam war days when soldiers trained at Polk before shipping out. Today, Tigerland is a base for military personnel going through Combat Advisor training prior to deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq; it is overseen by the 162^nd Infantry Brigade. Why the soldiers renamed it Camp Swampy is far easier to understand than the Tigerland name especially to those of us who trained there in July and August, the months with the most oppressive and swampy Louisiana weather. I never did see alligators at Camp Swampy but I can vouch for the snakes, black widow spiders, and some larger critters such as wild pigs and ponies so I’m willing to bet

the alligators actually were in the mix in some swamp or another; we just didn’t cross paths.

I arrived at Camp Swampy after completing 77 days of school house training and 2 weeks of pre-mobilization at The Landing, Fort Leavenworth, KS. Each member of our class was housed in their own hotel suite in near-by Kansas City, which incidentally, is a great town. Our rooms had kitchens with full sized refrigerators and dishwashers; housekeepers came in regularly to vacuum, dust, and change the linens. The hotel also served free breakfast and an evening “happy hour” snack bar. Additionally, each of us was given a rental car for which our gas payments were reimbursed, plus we received a daily per diem for meals. We lived close to many, many (chain) restaurants and bars, Zona Rosa Mall, every big box store you can think of, and several nice grocery stores. At the time, most of us thought we were sort of hard done by, being away from our families and our usual routines, but hell, in retrospect we were living large!

Of 29 people in the Human Terrain System (HTS) March class, I think 18 of us hung on until graduation. Along the way the other students either bailed or did not make the cut at some point or another when we had to reach a certain goal in order to stay in the program. At any rate, on the last weekend of June those of us who had successfully graduated and sworn in as Department of the Army Civilians (DACS) flew to Alexandria, LA about an hour from Fort Polk where we were picked up by our liaison officer and toted off to Camp Swampy.

We arrived mid Sunday afternoon and Tigerland was surprisingly quiet. We were assigned our barracks and had a quick look around after dumping off our heaps of luggage in our rooms. While we were not actually housed in trailers, Tigerland was highly reminiscent of a trailer park the way the barracks were laid out in rows on little gravel roads just wide enough for, say, a half ton truck with giant wheels and a shotgun rack in the back window to race through. The barracks were medium sized modular buildings with 8 bedrooms and two latrines at the end of the hall. Thank god they were air conditioned and we had plenty of hot water but we shared rooms and there were only 6 showers and 4 toilets for as many as 20+ people in each building. (Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m in charge of a situation like that where a bunch of women are sharing a bathroom, I am not giving them weapons … just saying.) This being the army, males and females lived in separate barracks although I have extremely reliable intel confirming there was some very shady and clandestine fraternizing going on behind the scenes in the laundry room, team rooms, and other shadowy places. As it turns out, Swamp People can be very creative…

Historically the Camp Swampy trailer park has a shifting dynamic that more or less reflects the character of each class. Still, the overall vibe is constant and some things don’t change much from class to class like damp uniforms hanging from improvised clothes lines strung between buildings, stinky army boots dangling from metal handrails of barracks steps in order to air them out before the next morning, people hanging-out smoking and (often) drinking late into the night, or playing poker on top of Styrofoam beer coolers while sitting on Wal-Mart camping chairs strategically stationed on what passes for the lawn in order to catch the best view of who was coming and going. I do, however, think that Class 128 – my class – was maybe more “lively” or “spirited” than some other classes that had come through Tigerland. We adopted the trailer park – hell, we embraced the trailer park and all of its funky red neck culture. Its attributes were our attributes and we were A-OK with that. After all, as it turns out, Combat Advisor training actually prepared us for life in a real deal trailer park, although somehow I don’t think that was the Army’s intention.

Moreover, the trailer park was the great equalizer in a lot of ways. Our class of 46 people was made up of the HTS DACs, an Ohio National Guard OMLT (Operations, Mentoring, and Liaison Team), a selection of Air Force reservists, plus one lone Navy helicopter pilot - all of differing ranks and ages. From the Puppies to the Mullah, and from the advocate of genocide to the small town paramedic, we covered a lot of bases. We were not one of those nicely coordinated classes all from the same service branch, sharing a similar culture, and wearing identical uniforms. Oh, not even close; we looked like a bunch of mutts in our various get-ups and man-oh-man, did we bring a range of cultures and experiences to the table. But right off the bat we had one thing in common - the trailer park – and we enthusiastically took it on and made it our own.

Our section of the trailer park was across the street from the DFAC (mess hall), gym, and MWR (sort of like the community center). Just down the street was a little Shopette that carried some essentials like mini shampoos and conditioner, soap, razors, magazines, and things like that but mostly it was where you went for snacks and booze. It didn’t have a huge stock of alcohol but it had a pretty good selection of beer and besides, if you were in need of a whole keg of beer, for example, you could always hitch a ride to the Class 6 Military Liquor Store at the PX. Next to the Shoppette was a small Pizza Hut. Bottom line: we had booze, chips, and pizza almost within spitting distance of home. You could walk to the Shopette, buy a Styrofoam cooler, fill it with Bud Light and ice, snag some Doritos and teriyaki beef jerky, then slap the whole kit and caboodle on your shoulder, pop in a plug of dip, and be home in 10 minutes. Not a bad set up. And just think, the army actually prepared us to handle this critical mission with finesse by making us run around in the sun for days on end wearing full battle rattle. Once you took all that army weight off of your body, throwing a cooler of beer on one shoulder seemed like a reward.

The lifecycle of the trailer park was ten weeks – the length of the Combat Advisor course – and I do believe that in our ten weeks Class 128 set some type of record for most “visits” to the Company or Battalion Commander’s office to discuss some allegation or another. Seriously though, most of it was made up bullshit started by crazy people with an axe to grind, but think about it – don’t you imagine that every trailer park needs a good gossip mill to keep the world turning? Some of the rumours that took flight actually were pretty damn inspired. I would have to say the winner was the one about a male officer regularly having 3-ways with two female class members in a team room located in a male barracks. It didn’t matter that no one ever saw this go down (bad pun!) or offered any proof of this ménage a trois, the idea was so off the wall that no one cared that it was in no way, shape, or form true. It was great theatre if nothing else and it helped to pass the time talking about how this could possibly be going on right under our noses and none of us had been lucky enough to have seen it!

There also were charges made that students were threatening other students, sexually harassing folks they had never even acknowledged, and this being a trailer park, there just had to be reports of fighting. “Allegedly” there were one or two end-of-the-night locals vs. military fights in Leeseville that “maybe” spiraled into a few punches later being thrown in the trailer park but who knew for sure. Then again, what else is a guy to do when he’s had the better part of a case of Bud chased with enough Jack and Coke to float a small navy and nothing better to do with himself than get all riled up? As one of my esteemed colleagues noted, “the only real way to end a trailer park party is with a fight.” So that is what might or might not have happened, maybe kinda sorta, once or twice …

Combat Advisor training – the real reason we were at Tigerland – is intense, especially for those of us without a military background. Our days started with formation and PT at 06:00, that is unless it was one of those days when we drew weapons at o’dark thirty, staged our vehicles, had breakfast at the DFAC, and were on the road with our convoy by 06:30 enroute to one of the many Tigerland ranges for weapons training. We worked hard six days a week often for 12-16 hours a day, but come Saturday night we were ready to play even harder. And that is exactly what happened. Surprisingly the local constabulary never made a house call (trailer park call?) in our entire ten weeks.

Saturday night parties in the trailer park were customary but we had a few that were real doozies. More often than not, there would be a group of folks who in the early evening would set up shop on the little gravel road between the female barracks and the first male barracks. They would hold down the fort until everyone else came home. People returned from Leeseville in waves – some right after dinner at the Wagon Wheel Steak House, Hana Japanese, or one of the many Mexican joints; others came back after a few post-dinner Monkey Wrenches or Octane 93s at the Daiquiri Station; and the rest would wander in all wound up after the Leeseville nite clubs closed. By 02:00 there would be critical mass on the trailer park road. 20 or 30+ lawn chairs would be scattered around with folks smoking, drinking, and even belly dancing (no, not kidding). Most times there was music - usually someone’s IPod shuffle - but towards the end of our stay there was a guy from one of the new classes who brought out his guitar and played while we sang old songs that we thought we knew all the words to but as it turned out really only knew the chorus and flubbed the rest.

In the course of one particularly active Saturday night some of the guys got tattoos (with interesting artwork – “titties and a moustache” on one guy’s butt, a happy face on another’s toe where the nail was missing) and one of the gals took off her shirt on the dance floor at a Foam Party at a Leeseville nite club and traded it with a local guy for his shirt because she liked it better than hers. (She later explained that at the time she thought it was OK to take off her shirt in a bar because she was wearing a fancy bra...) Belly dancing lessons were given in the trailer park after much beer and Jack Daniels was consumed, and of course, clandestine romance simmered. Later that night, or rather early the next morning, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 04:00, one of the gals decided she needed a shower after the party wound down. Needless to say she was more than a little toasted. After showering and wrapping herself in a towel, she walked back to her room only to discover the door was locked. Now here’s the thing: we were not given keys for our rooms so we put duct tape over the latch to keep our doors from locking. Well, maybe not all of us did it because this gal was definitely locked out of her room, in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a short towel. As she described it the next day, she decided the solution was to try and break in through her bedroom window. She pulled a chair outside and put it under her window, climbed up, and attempted to reach the pane but oops ... the window was too high. Back inside she went and stood in the hallway for quite some time staring at the wall trying to make herself focus so she could figure out what to do. After a bit, it registered that she was looking directly at a phone so she picked up the receiver and dialed the number for emergency services. Some guy with a master key came over and let her back into her room. Apparently he was not prepared for her to be standing there in just a little towel because that seemed to make his job all the more difficult for him. Bottom line is she got into her room without losing her towel and the next day it made for an excellent story. Sadly there was no

photographic evidence …

As romance blossomed in the trailer park, one couple actually took the plunge and legally were married. We joked that it was our trailer park shot gun wedding – the one thing that was missing from our portfolio – but in fact there was no shotgun needed. Colleagues of mine from the HTS program had been dating quietly while we were in Kansas and by the time we got to Polk they were crazy in love. It didn’t take long for the rest of us to spot this and once the cat was out of the bag we began lobbying for a wedding. As it turned out they were thinking the same thing and on the weekend before we graduated, they were married in the little wooden chapel at South Polk. The chaplain was a laid back dude in cowboy boots who performed a very touching ceremony. He told us there had been many weddings in that chapel over the years but this would be the last one because the army in all of its wisdom was tearing down the little wooden chapels and replacing them with modern structures. What a shame. The reception was held, of course, back at the trailer park. We had a big BBQ with two kegs of beer, loads of hamburgers and hotdogs, and cupcakes with Care Bears on them (it was what the Wallyworld bakery had fresh that morning). After the bride and groom left for their 36 hour honeymoon in beautiful downtown Leeseville, the party continued way into the night as we shared our kegs with just about anyone who walked by. That was the night I got my tattoo but that is a whole other story.

Our final week at Polk was crazy as we wrapped up our training with the three day capstone exercise in “the field.” Thursday afternoon was graduation and immediately after people began to split for vacation. We’d been together for ten weeks, night and day, and had become like family with all of the same drama, bickering, and jealousy you would expect of the Louisiana Swamp People we’d become. However, we also had a lot of great times, forged a lot of bonds that will last lifetimes, and shared some truly remarkable experiences that no one outside of our trailer park and Class 128 will ever understand. And that is the real reason the trailer park worked for us. We had our own little universe, inside the Tigerland universe, inside the wider Army universe. It was our Camp Swampy trailer park/Combat Advisor bubble and it worked. And as ridiculous and frustrating as it was, some days I really miss it.

The Daiquiri Station - Leesville, LA

2011-07-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Week 1 at Camp Swampy was over and it definitely was time to blow off a little steam -- OK a lot of steam -- because god knows it had been a crazy week. And since it also was the Thursday night before a 4 day weekend, we were primed for action and a little strategic investigation of the cultural overlays in Leesville, the town just outside of the Fort Polk main gate.

Our primary mission, aligning with the Commander’s CCIRs and PIRs was to check out the local wildlife and observe them in their native habitat. Our secondary mission was to get stupid, something we knew we could handle. A warno was issued and the mission restated and defined as a recon detail to The Daiquiri Station in booming downtown Leesville. Transport was secured, GPS locked in, and a designated driver in place along with Navy helo support for backup in case we needed immediate air evac (assuming we just happened upon a helicopter…) Contingency plans were formulated and relevant personnel were alerted and standing by. We were confident that our mission was solid and on track.

The Daiquiri Station is one of several places in Leesville that features a wide selection of flavoured daiquiris. It is located on the main road that goes through town where most of the “action” takes place: Burger King, McDonalds, the Wagon Wheel Steak House, and numerous nail salons, gas stations, night clubs, strip joints, and sundry other shops and service centers. The Daiquiri Station is at the far end of town from Fort Polk which really doesn’t say much because Leesville isn’t that big so a few more blocks in any direction really doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.
It was not early/not yet late when 4 of us rolled into The Daiquiri Station. Truly, it is one of the coolest places you will ever visit. Once upon a time it was a gas station so there is a fairly large parking lot surrounding the building with designated parking spots for motorcycles and a special lane marked out with stanchions and chains that leads to the drive-through pick-up window. Honest to god, you can get take-out daiquiris and yes, it is fully legal. The only trick is that you can’t have an unwrapped straw sticking out of the plastic lid that covers the Styrofoam cup containing your daiquiri. Apparently no one is concerned that people might take the lid off and drink straight from the cup while driving but they are concerned that people will put the straw in the daiquiri and somehow end up with a DUI. Logically this seems senseless to most folks but here in the depths of Louisiana it makes perfect sense: who in their right mind would drink a daiquiri without a straw? No straw = no daiquiri. It is just that simple. Life does not need to be so complicated, as it turns out.

We parked the car at the back of the lot by the swampy little pond and looked for alligator eyes peering back at us. Nothing seemed to be moving so we determined that the car was safe and unlikely to be pulled into the swamp by an overzealous alligator looking for a new set of wheels to park in his alligator garage. We walked around to the entrance at the front and crossed the deck that extends out from the building where the big service bay door used to be. Actually the garage door is more or less still there because it can be opened exposing the whole inside of the bar or closed as it was on a subsequent visit when we saw a bunch of serious looking old guys sitting inside at a substantial round table playing cards. The Daiquiri Station is not a big place; it’s really only the dimensions of the former gas station’s shop/office area. There are a few high-tops, a couple of regular tables, two TV screens (one was playing a polo match, of all things), an old jukebox, and behind the bar, a wall of daiquiri-slushies with cool names like monkey wrench (banana), lemonator, and 93 octane (orange). Robin was tending bar. We like Robin. She is 40ish, friendly yet reserved, and attractive in a home-grown sort of way. While I was waiting for her to prep my drink (the el grando monkey wrench), I started talking to a local guy who was nursing a beer at bar. I asked him if he’d had a good day and he proceeded to tell me he’d been at the DMV trying to get his driver’s license back. He did not offer an explanation of why he’d lost it in the first place so I decided it was not good form for me to inquire. Apparently, he got into a “discussion” with the DMV clerk and instead of letting the clerk have his way in order for our guy to collect his driver’s license and escape without incident, our guy decided he needed to take a stand against the injustice of it all (I know. I wasn’t following either.) He said something of consequence to the clerk and then stormed out … without his driver’s license. He and I pondered this situation for a moment because he was going to have to go back at some point to try again to get his license. In the end, however, he didn’t think it would be a problem and we left it at that. All of this led to me asking what I thought was the obvious question of “so how did you get here tonight if you aren’t driving?” and him responding with the not quite so obvious reply of “through the woods.” I might have known.

Robin gave me my daiquiri and I joined my fellow warriors/recon scouts at the table. We noted that as a field research project there were few places in this world as culturally rich as The Daiquiri Bar. Just then, another guy – a short, skinny dude about 50 years old with long hair pulled back in a ponytail wearing a black T shirt, and jeans-- came over and asked us if we would like to buy raffle tickets on a gun which was a fundraiser for some local family. I’d seen him pull in to the parking lot a while earlier on a motorcycle as big as he was. He only had three tickets left at $1 each so I said I would buy them because this was all so highly amusing to me. I said I didn’t want the gun if I won and told him to put his name or the bartender’s name on the tickets instead. This caused no end of consternation; here’s dude yelling across the bar to his girlfriend about how to handle this, whose name to use, how to spell it correctly. It was a riot! In the end I believe he wrote his girlfriend’s name on the tickets and everyone was happy.

The Daiquiri Station not only has slushies with cool names, there’s also a menu of shots with exotic names that one needs to try. The list is posted on a blackboard that hangs beside the wall of slushie machines. First up for us was the Chicken Fucker. Yup. That is the name. It is a lemony sort of thing if I remember correctly (but I would not swear to that). Next time we will test the Alien Secretions. A couple of those shots and a daiquiri or two and I guarantee you are going to appreciate Louisiana like you never did before.

A few hours later we wrapped up our field research. We’d “interviewed” several locals, did a little participant observation, and tested some of the local customs and foodways. We’d also had a lot of weird liquor, admired acres of body art (aka tattoos), and talked to guys with odd teeth and interesting hair, and women with really tight shirts and jeans. All in all, even though we had gathered loads of data to analyze, we decided that some follow up research was going to be necessary and it was highly likely we would need a return mission to The Daiquiri Station. Soon. Very soon.

On the way back to mission headquarters we made a brief provisioning stop at a gas station. We needed beer and Doritos to bring as an offering to our KLE meeting with the Ohio National Guard OMLT. One last piece of data was collected at the gas station that we found useful and encouraging: as you enter the door to the convenience store, right where the register is located, there was a big tub of single beers on ice. Yes, on ice. We determined this was damn fine planning on the gas station owner’s part. Not only can you get your take-out daiquiri in this state, you also can get an ice cold single beer as a chaser without having to buy a whole 6 pack. If that isn’t strategic planning, I don’t know what is. Throw in a bag of Doritos and some salt and pepper kettle chips and suddenly life is looking pretty darned civilized in the backwoods of Louisiana!

End result: it was a successful and well executed mission. Several follow-ons subsequently were completed and additional data was gathered. We expect to brief the Battalion Commander in the near future but are secretly hoping he will ask for a more in-depth study …

2011-06-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

Kansas City, MO June 17, 2011

I have been in class with a guy from South Carolina for the past 10 or so weeks who has the perfect response to almost any situation that goes haywire, is totally ridiculous, or completely unnecessary. It also perfectly describes the idiots of the world who, for example clearly just do not get “it” (whatever “it” may be), steal your parking spot while you are waiting right there with your signal lite on, or simply are taking up valuable real estate on this earth for no good god damn reason. And that phrase is... Clown Shoes. I have no idea where this came from or for how long he has been using it, but I am adopting it. I think it is succinct and has great clarity; it is expressive and visual all in one phrase. It is the English language at its best.

Let me explain: currently we are sitting in a classroom in Leavenworth, KS with not a frigging thing to do. We have completed all of our paperwork, handed in our packets, and finished any and all assignments. We are bored out of our skulls. People are killing zombies, crushing castles, and shopping online. One of our classmates is reading out loud from the benefits manual; that is how bad this situation is. Another one of our classmates walked down to the bakery down the block and bought a huge box of cookies with piles of really rich icing on top of them. So now we are not only bored to tears, we also are all strung out on sugar. It the same as being all dressed up with nowhere to go.

This is Clown Shoes. For sure, totally Clown Shoes.

And all of this cuz we are waiting for some Clown to come and give us a briefing about something we don't give a hoot about.

Oh, and by the way, it is Friday afternoon and this has been going on all week.

Clown Shoes. You get it.

Grade 7 Class Trip

2011-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2011

I live in the city that is the primo destination for almost every class trip in America. Each spring and fall thousands upon thousands of students, teachers, and parent chaperones descend on Washington, DC from Middle America. All of the kids look insanely bored as they trudge from museum to historic site to yet another monument. I’m sure every single one of them is thinking, “I could Google all of this stuff in two minutes on my I Phone so why not just do that so we can go to the Hard Rock Café already?” A handful of adults with clipboards and whistles shepherd the students around the sites while trying to maintain some semblance of control. They too are deep in their own thoughts but their internal conversation trends more towards, “Why in hell did I let my wife/husband volunteer me for this gig?” and “there isn’t nearly enough booze in this whole city to make this right.”

Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid in Saskatoon, the class trip was to the provincial capital of Regina. We went in Grade 7 which would have made us about 13 years old. I remember 13 well, and trust me, visiting Regina was not at the top of my “To Do” list. In fact I vividly remember thinking Regina was a dump. Now whether that was true or not is not relevant; it was just one of those city rivalries that are deeply rooted in the past. In this case it went back to the formation of the province in 1905 when Regina was made the provincial capital and Saskatoon was awarded the province’s university. From that time on, the two cities competed for everything and residents bickered constantly over the worth and value of their fair city as compared to the other which clearly was substandard. Moreover, a big chunk of Regina started out life as a slough, and masses of mosquitoes and god knows what other critters populated the city, so people in Saskatoon easily wrote off Regina as a Nowhereville dive. After all, Saskatoon had the university so clearly we had the intellectual wherewithal to articulate such a well thought out yet concise analysis of the Regina landscape…

At any rate, Regina was the destination for the Grade 7 class trip for all kids in the province. Our class, Miss Mills’ Grade 7 students from Hugh Cairns VC School, took our grand tour on March 31, 1970. There were 25 kids in our class – 14 boys and 11 girls and most had been in the same class since Grade 1. You can well imagine that by Grade 7 we pretty much knew everything about everyone which made school and school activities – even field trips --exceedingly boring from a social point of view. We were 13 and restless although we really didn’t know why. Energy ran high but our interests were firmly grounded in the present. No one was dying to see the provincial Legislature or visit historic sites except maybe Walter Orr, our class nerd. The past was, well … past and the future was incomprehensible. Still, going to Regina was better that sitting in Miss Mills’ class doing math or social studies so I do remember looking forward to the trip. The real hook though, was that we were going on the train!

I’m willing to bet that at that point very few kids in my class had been on a train so most of us were a lot more interested in the trip once we learned we would ride the rails. This gave the whole exercise a bit of glam or even drama that was appealing. BUT THEN WE GOT TOTALLY SCREWED. Every Grade 7 class in our school that had gone on this trip before us had taken the train to Regina but at the last minute there was a change of plans we got stuck on a bus. Not kidding. It was a regular old everyday bus with no redeeming qualities. What a come down. We were some kind of pissed.

But here’s the thing, in my diary that day I wrote across the top of the page in capital letters: MY LUCKY, LUCKY DAY!!! Obviously it had not been a total write off, so what happened? It’s elementary: we met boys from another Saskatoon school who also were on the Grade 7 Regina class tour. And they were cute. Me and my group of friends immediately were in love. I mean seriously, boys we did not know from another school who were really cute looked in our direction and smiled. We were hooked.

Here’s how it all went down: between Saskatoon and Regina is Davidson, a small town that is more or less the half way point between the two cities. Most people stop there to get gas, have a snack, and use the facilities. The trip to Regina was unremarkable other than we got off the bus in Davidson for a few minutes and then kept right on driving to Regina. The whole trip would have taken about two and a half hours. In my mind I remember it as a typical grey, wintery Saskatchewan March day. I don’t recall any sunshine or blue sky which often means it is goddamn cold, so lets assume it was cold but not more than about 10 below, snow all over the ground, and we were all bundled up in parkas, boots, and gloves, kind of like we were every other day but our “outfits” under our jackets would have been a little nicer than on a regular school day because we were going on a “TRIP.”

We arrived at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (was it called that in 1970? I think it had a different name) and began our tour. There was a lot of archeological history, plants, stuffed animals etc. and I found it all rather unnecessary. Until, as I noted in my diary, “we saw some cute boys” from Greystone Heights School. Now this was interesting. We didn’t know any of these boys; Greystone was just far enough away from where we lived that we would not have interacted with them. Forget the dioramas, teepees, and stuffed buffalo; we were hunting cute boys from Greystone.

The Greystone kids were on tour behind our class so if we hung back just long enough from our group, we could watch them and “flirt” in our giggly 13 year old girl fashion. One of the Greystone boys had a camera and started taking pictures of us. WE LOVED it! I mean WE REALLY LOVED it! We each picked out the boy we liked and began to spin stories in our head (“I bet he is probably my soul mate for life!”) and then assured each other we were definitely perfect for the boy we had targeted. We were just on the front end of puberty and were entirely clueless as to what romance and love was all about, but we knew for sure that it was what we wanted. This trip occurred at the height of my major crush on the Monkees and the Cowsills so I was looking for a boy who fit that mold –cute, great hair, big smile, nice teeth, and by definition was sweet, fun, and very popular. Hey, I read 16 Magazine all the time and was very familiar with how sweet and nice all the boy stars were in real life! I wanted someone just like that. And on that day, in that moment, it was Dean Houston of Greystone Heights School.

At any rate, as the day went on we crossed paths with them several more times: at the RCMP Barracks, the Legislature, and finally in Davidson when the bus made the requisite half way home stop. No one exchanged phone numbers or suggested plans to meet again – we never did get that close --but it was clear as a bell to the girls from Hugh Cairns that the world was way bigger than we’d thought and there were cute boys at Greystone who thought we were cute too. There was life outside of South Nutana where we lived and we were now determined to find out how to make that work for us.

And so the games began. As it turned out, Kim Davidson’s grandparents lived in Greystone and Kim frequently stayed with them while her troubled parents did whatever they were doing. We visited Kim’s grandparents and had sleepovers in their basement and snuck out at night to walk past the homes of the Greystone boys in case they would suddenly come out. But that’s a whole other story.

Bowling: Frame 1 - 1969

2010-08-12T14:22:00.001-07:00

August 12, 2010

Somehow in the fall of 1969 we got involved in a bowling league that ran concurrent with the school year. I haven’t the faintest idea anymore how this all came to pass but I remember all of my friends were involved at one time or another. I wrote in my diary on September 12, “Today we started bowling. Rolland is in bowling too.” Rolland Gillies was in our class at school and I had an on again, off again crush on him, but mostly on that fall.

We were in a Saturday morning kid’s league at the King George Bowling Alley downtown. Once upon a time the King George was a nice hotel with a fancy lounge and restaurant but as the years passed, it became somewhat shabby. When we were older, but still underage, we would go to the bar there and drink draft beer. Sadly, it had become that sort of place.

The bowling alley which was on the basement level of the hotel was typical bowling alley-esque. You came down the stairs and entered a sort of foyer situation that had soda and candy machines. We were crazy for cherry Coke back then and that was the only machine I remember that had it. Just past the vending machines was the desk where you checked in, got your shoes, found your lane assignment, and talked to dreamy Jerry Phillips. Jerry worked at the bowling alley part time and played football for the Hilltops, Saskatoon’s Junior Football team. I noted in my diary the first week that his number was 55. I also wrote down his phone number which I must have looked up in the phone book. I had a real habit of recording phone numbers, for some now unknown reason. Two weeks after the start of bowling we went to the Hilltop’s game and I wrote in my diary, “After supper we went to Jerry’s game. They won 32-0. YAY!”

I am guessing that when we first met him, Jerry was about 18-20 years old – and we were 12. He was tall and athletic and had dark wavy hair. Moreover, he was the sweetest guy any of us had ever met. He teased us and flirted with us all of the time, but not in a weird older guy - little girl way. I suspect it was as much fun for him as it was for us because we were wild about him and I’ve never met a 20 year old guy who wasn’t completely flattered when a whole herd of little girls think he is the best thing since pizza. As you can imagine, this let loose the perfect storm of prepubescent raging girl hormones culminating in lots of excuses to go the front counter. We wanted to keep tabs on our Jerry.

The bowling alley was a total zoo on Saturday mornings – filled with rangy kids. I think there were 20 or more lanes and all were in use. There were both girls and boys teams which led to a certain amount of additional tearing around but I really don’t remember any of us actually being interested in any of the boys from bowling. Officially there were 5 of us on the team but the rest of the girls bowled with us sometimes when we needed a sub if someone wasn’t able to show up for one reason or another. We struggled at first to agree on a team name, but in the end we settled on the Godly Goons. No, I am not kidding. Eventually it was shortened to the Goons and we came to really identify with the name. It made us feel funny and silly and somehow it gave us license to act goofy – as if we needed any more encouragement for that. And because we had a wacky name and were always laughing and carrying on, not a lot of teams took us seriously. Big mistake. As it turns out, we were pretty good AND we had our secret weapon – Barb Olson who was a spectacular bowler and won all kinds of tournaments. Plus she had long blonde hair and was really cute, definitely a team advantage!

Barb was one of the original Grade 1 crew at Hugh Cairns, our local public school, but later her family moved to a bigger house just far enough away that she attended a different school than us for a few years. Still, she came to bowling with us. And let me tell you, that girl had a great eye and superb aim. There rest of us were not bad and could usually hold up our end of the game reasonably well, but without a doubt, Barb was the star of the show. In October I wrote in my diary, “Today at bowling our team went to watch Rolland’s team. They are lousy. We are a lot better.” Always the modest one …

This is how it generally played out: we either took the number 4 bus going downtown or someone’s parents dropped us off at the King George. We would be there for about 2 hours bowling, messing around, eating junk food, and visiting with other friends who came down to watch and hang out with us. After bowling we would always go across the street to The Bay for chips and gravy in their third floor cafeteria. Oh, and chocolate milk. I went through a big chocolate milk phase then and liked it best at The Bay. Plus if you got a straw, or used a Twizzler as a straw, you could blow mega chocolate milk bubbles and make a huge mess. The cafeteria was usually busy with lots of Saturday shoppers so it seemed lively and filled with energy to us. Once in a while you would run into your Mum at The Bay which was good if she bought lunch but bad if she crimped your style or got mad at you for “bothering” the other shoppers.

Anyway, these were the days before the Midtown Plaza opened a few blocks away where the old railroad station used to be so The Bay was almost the only game in downtown. Eaton’s also was downtown but it was just far enough away that we didn’t usually want to walk those 3 or 4 blocks in cold Saskatchewan weather. We would come straight over from bowling, head up to The Bay’s top floor, have our lunch, and then “run away” on each other. Essentially this meant two or three girls on a sort of team would go hide somewhere in the store and the other team would have to find them. We did that for hours and hours. It is a total wonder we were never thrown out of the store. Occasionally we would steal a Crunchie from the candy department, especially when it was on the main floor near the Second Avenue entrance. We were such hardened criminals. The only thing I ever stole was chocolate bars because I was too scared to go big time. I had a big fuzzy gold parka then with a hood that had fake white fur trim around it and I would mosey past the Crunchies and slide one up my sleeve. Then I would panic because I was absolutely positive I was going to get caught and be sent to reform school. (I didn’t actually know anyone who ever was sent to reform school, or for that matter what reform school was, and honestly I can’t actually be certain there was such a thing in Saskatoon, but the notion that it might exist was enough to scare me silly.) One or two of the other girls would periodically steal cheap makeup, but that was not common. Well, unless we are talking about Kim because I think at one point she had a nice little stash of Mary Quant lip pots going on and I seem to remember she got caught at least once shoplifting at the Bay.

Sometimes we would go to a matinee after bowling at either the Capital or the Odeon. The Capital Theatre was spectacular. It was an old fashioned movie house with a long red carpeted entry that had an incline ending on what would have been the equivalent of the second floor. The candy counter was just past where you handed off your ticket. From there you could go straight in to the lower level or up to the balcony. I LOVED the balcony. Inside the theatre was painted gold with stars and clouds and lots of ornate design. This was also in the days before cup holders became standard in theatres so you would stick your drink under your seat and hope you remembered not to kick it over. I also remember there was a fairly big stage with velvet curtains because before the Centennial Auditorium was built, we used to go to the Capital to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet or the National Ballet when they were on tour.

At any rate, bowling was a major social event for us. Sure we actually bowled and really cared about how we placed, but we loved bowling mostly because it was a way to hang out downtown without being supervised, meet other kids, and just generally pretend we were older and more sophisticated than we were. And in Saskatoon in 1969, it was about the biggest adventure available to us. It was the next year when we were in Grade 8 that everything changed and our universe expanded. Of course, that was after we met the boys from Grosvenor at Murray Livergant’s bar mitzvah …

Fireworks!

2010-07-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

July 28, 2010

I may be a day late and a dollar short on this but I am still shaken up by the recent Fourth of July fireworks spectacle on my block. It was insane. I’ve lived in this house for four years so this is not my first rodeo but goddamn, this was one for the ages.

Frankly, I don’t think of myself as a total pussy but I have to say that the Fourth of July in DC scares the bejesus out of me. I don’t know if this is a Canadian vs. American cultural kinda thing, but maybe there is something to that. At least for now, that is my cover.

In all of the years I’ve been in DC I’ve never lived in a ‘hood where fireworks were as integral to every July 4th party as they are where I live now. The first year I closed on the house June 30 but didn’t move in until the middle of July so I missed the whole Fourth gig. When the next July 4th rolled around, I COULD NOT BELIEVE what was going on out in front of my house on the sidewalk and in the little park across the street, as well as in the alley out back. (Necessary random factiod: the park was built by Steven Spielberg for Minority Report and my house has a cameo early in the movie!) As soon as the sun started to set, it was as if Caesar announced “let the games begin” because all hell broke lose at the same time. I think my neighbour George and his relatives from Maryland were largely responsible for the whole fireworks setup that year. Despite me being afraid, I could see that George (who is fairly imposing at 6‘ 8”) was in control and making sure nothing weird happened so I tried to go with the flow … for a while at least. Moreover, they were lighting little rockets that really just fizzed up a ways and made a high pitched whistley sort of sound before they popped. There wasn’t much colour or big spectacle, all things considered. I was actually in bed when it all came down. I’d NEVER experienced anything like this before so I went outside and sat on the porch for a few minutes to survey the situation. I was scared but not terrified. George’s wife Regina saw me hiding on the porch so she came over and insisted I come out to the street so I could see better. Oh yeah. Just what I wanted.

I didn’t know what was worse – letting my neighbours know I was a ‘fraidy cat or possibly getting burnt to a crisp by a rogue rocket thingy. I had no intention of becoming a crispy critter. I ended up sitting on the steps with Regina at the end of my front walk and watching for about 10 or 15 minutes until I was over it and went back into the house. I finally fell asleep a while later when the hoopla began to peter out but the artillery-like sound didn’t completely stop until the wee hours.

The following year, I was all ready. I expected the light show and all of the noise. I had a dinner party that night and sent my friends off to watch the “official” Mall fireworks from the roof deck of a nearby apartment building one of them owned. Now those are fireworks! Big booms, colours splashing and dripping all over the sky, and giant sparklers that whizz all the way to heaven then explode into teeny white diamonds that are so bright it seems like daytime. Very cool. Produced by professional fireworks guys and backed up by big burly firemen with shiny fire trucks and high pressure water in hoses that can reach a hundred miles if should there be “a fireworks malfunction” which there never is because the professionals are in charge. Did I mention that these are designed and staged by professionals – people whose career it is to do this safely? Yes. Professional firework guys. Love ‘em.

Anyway, back on my block I was armed and ready for chaos but there was just a fraction of the activity of the previous year. You see, George and family had moved and there was no one really coordinating the “show” so it was pretty haphazard and relatively tame, thank god. Sure there was stuff popping all over the ‘hood, but nothing like the year before. I was immensely relieved.

July 4, 2010 rolled around and while I was worried, I was not in a panic. BIG mistake. Michael and I were at home because I had insisted we needed to secure the premises and make sure no 13 year old pyros burned my (brick!) house down. Right at dusk, the entire neighbourhood went nuts. Seriously. This made George’s production look like candles in paper cups at a protest march. And LOUD. My god it was unbelievably LOUD. In the Spielberg Park across the street and in the back alley there must have been a million rockets shooting in every damn direction. And here’s the other thing: these were really big fireworks that sped into the sky and exploded into a million different colours just like the “real” fireworks on the Mall.

Never in my life have I heard so much noise. Understand that this was not just popping of little firecrackers or half-assed bottle rockets that kids sometimes set off to scare one another. NOOOOO. This was serious business and I was TERRIFIED!!

One of people down the block was having a party on her deck that sits on top of the garage behind her house. It has a charming view of the back alley which has no appeal to me, but on that nite, it sure was the center of attention. That crew and others were setting off endless strings of fireworks in the alley and on occasion throwing them into a metal garbage can for maximum sound effect. I asked Michael if we were in 1970s Beirut. It was incredible.

At first I was pacing from back door to front door trying to determine where the first giant fire would start because I just KNEW there was going to be a raging inferno soon. I have two fire extinguishers in my house (I know, a bit extreme but my Dad would be so proud!) so I was relatively confident that I could control a fire while Michael called 911. Then a huge crew of fire trucks and lots of really good looking firemen would descend and save us. (Well, a girl can have a little imagination, yes?)

As the sounds intensified and even more people were shooting off even more fireworks, I finally came unglued and hightailed it upstairs to my bed and crawled under the covers and stuffed my fingers into my ears. In the past I have found that when all else fails, hiding under the covers is a reliable survival strategy. It is sort of like when wee little kids cover their eyes and can’t see anyone so they assume you can’t see them either. I can hide in bed and if I don’t know what is going on, it can’t hurt me. Trust me; there really is some sense in there.

Meanwhile, Michael, the American, was having a grand ole time. He was out back, then out front, then out back again watching the spectacle which he thought was quite marvelous. He loved the sparklies and the bright colours and the trails of smoke. Even the noise didn’t faze him. While he was busy chatting up the neighbours and being totally delighted by the whole thing, I was making a cave in my bed and burrowing down as far as I could go.

It took a while but eventually he realized I was MIA. Of course I couldn’t hear him calling my name over all of the noise. Plus my fingers were in my ears and I was humming (I forget what) to block out the machine gun fire I was sure was right outside of my second story bedroom window. (I never claimed any of this was rational!) When he found me, I think his first instinct was to laugh out loud at my lunacy but being a polite Southern boy, he restrained himself nicely. He assured me we were not in Beirut or even Afghanistan and that the world most certainly was not coming to an end. He put on the bedroom TV and we watched some of the “real” fireworks from the Mall which were SO beautiful. Then we watched the production from New York which too was SO lovely. Around midnite most of the racket from outside began to poop out and I drifted off to sleep.

In the end maybe I am a big pussy but I don’t see it that way. I really think this is an “us vs. them” cultural thing. As Canadians we are not prone to setting off fireworks on our front lawns (nor do we often burn down our houses while deep frying frozen turkey on the wooden deck, but that is a whole other thing) and since we are mostly good doobies and don’t want to get on the wrong side of Officer Dudley Do-Right, we tend not to walk on the wild side very often. All I know is that I am already making plans to be far away from DC next Fourth of July so I don’t have to do this again. Oh, and as a risk- adverse Canadian, I will remember to increase the house insurance so if some little pyromaniac does torch the place, I’m made in the shade.

God Save the Queen and God Bless America. Just leave the fireworks out of the mix!

Michael's Birthday Story

2010-07-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

July 7, 2010

The Animals were restless. Obviously something was changing but they didn’t know what exactly, so it made them nervous. Plush Animals have very vivid imaginations and left to their own devices, well they can get themselves into quite a tizzy in a very short time. You see, they are used to being confidants, having secrets whispered into their ears. They are the keepers of the secrets – secrets are not kept from them. I swear they would go to Plush Animal Heaven before they would ever give up a secret, Bunny in particular because she has been in this family for 46 years and she has been there, done that, got the T-shirt (well, actually a pink and green checkered dress that was rather worse for wear these days) but you get the point.

For a few months now it seemed like there was more company in their house. That big guy with the glasses and soft fuzzy looking face was on the loose frequently. For heaven’s sakes, he actually was in the house unsupervised sometimes! It was all so hard to understand. Was he up to no good? Would he create problems for the Animals? No one knew for sure so in typical Plush Animal fashion, they started spinning tales among themselves that became wilder and wilder until the Animals were making themselves sick.

Donald, the Mink Bear from Emma Lake who had always been a fuss budget, decided to take control. He could not bear (!) the idea of the other Animals becoming hysterical and doing some crazy assed thing. He decided he would appoint himself Grand Poobah of the Animals and show them he was indeed a leader and not just a recycled fur coat.

Donald called a late night family meeting in the dining room which was sort of tricky because Sophia and Edward, who live on the big bed during the day, are set on the floor right beside the bed at night so they had to be extra quiet as they tiptoed out of the room. They met up with the rest of the Animal Family at the top of the stairs and began the elaborate process of shuttling all of the Bears, Bunnies, Sheep, Cows, and a few miscellaneous others to the first floor.

It was quite a sight. Plush Animals may have fuzzy brains, but they can be really ingenious when they are motivated and that night they were a highly motivated bunch. The Serta fence-jumping sheep were used to jumping and landing so they had no problem getting down. They were the first to the bottom of the stairs but sheep being sheep, they stood quietly at the edge of the banister post because they needed someone to follow, god bless them. The Sunshine Bunny was worried that if she tripped her music would start playing and the house would be rocked with “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine …” That would be disastrous. Buckatt Dawg came to the rescue and told Sunshine Bunny to get on his back. He then very nimbly pranced down the stairs like he had done a million times before. He held his head high because he knew that without him, the little Animals would never be able to attend this all-important meeting. Buckatt bounded back up the steps, loaded up the Mountie Bear and the Aussie Bear then continued to shuttle the smaller Animals on his back until they were all gathered in the dining room. On his last trip he helped Bunny who was the senior citizen of the family and only had one eye so she needed help getting around. The Udder One (Clitoris Cow’s sister) was big enough to waddle downstairs all on her own but the tassel on her mortar board kept getting in her eyes. To make it all worse, she is a cross-eyed cow so dangly things swooping back and forth in front of her face make her nauseous. Edward and Sophia were worried that The Udder One would vomit on the stairs and then what would they do? Who was going to clean up that mess? Cows are notorious for leaving behind surprise packages and between them all, there was not one Animal with opposable thumbs who could hold cleaning supplies. Jeez! There was just so MUCH to think about!

Finally, they were all assembled, a little discombobulated because last time they’d had a family meeting in the dining room it was in the back of the house and here they were up front near the door to OUTSIDE. For some of the Animals this just proved their point that changes were already in the works and trouble definitely was brewing.

Since most of the Animals couldn’t get up to the table, they usually had their family meetings on the floor beside the table. It was proximity to a “conference” table that mattered. As noted earlier, Plush Animals have first class imaginations and loads of experience in pretending this or that thing so it was not a stretch for them to visualize a fancy set up with tea cups and little plates of pretend cookies all set out beautifully on a table with virtual starched white linens. As house Animals they really didn’t know that a tea party wasn’t a business meeting, but they plowed on, more than a little excited that they were sharing a covert operation, and who knew, they may would get tea and cookies into the bargain!

Donald snapped on the little pen light he’d found earlier in the week and called the meeting to order: “Thank you all for coming. I know it is challenging to get to family meetings, but it was time we talked face to face. We all know something is changing in our house. We need to share our information and develop a plan.”

“You all know I am the only downstairs Animal when there are people at home, so I have access to more intel than all of you upstairs Animals. And I’m telling you, what I’ve seen and heard will make the hair on your tummy go in 42 different directions. I’m the first to admit that I can’t always understand what they are saying but just yesterday a small black and white cow moved in downstairs and NO ONE CONSULTED US! Not even so much as a ‘how’d ya do’ or ‘meet Cow Pie’ or what ever her name is. Now I know I am a late-comer to this family but damn it, I am a Mink Bear and I deserve more respect than that. Oh and yes, the rest of you do too.” (He added that for good measure, not wanting the troops to lose their focus. Plush Animals can get off track easily if you let them.)

He paused a moment and Sophia and Edward stood up -- at the same time. They did everything together and commanded a certain level of respect because they were resort bears and they had real clothes which most of the other Animals did not. Plus they lived on the big bed and could watch TV all day so it was generally thought by the rest of the family that they were worldly. Sophia was wearing her white spa robe with matching headband with her name on it and coordinating fluffy slippers. Edward had on his brown silk Fairmont pajamas. They looked so spiffy. The Animals listed intently.

Sophia spoke first. (She always spoke before Edward could get a word in ahead of her.) “Donald is right.” She smiled sweetly at him. After all he was a Mink Bear and was sort of cute in a furry, masculine kind of way. “We have been here a long time and quite frankly, I like my situation,” she said. This time she smiled oh so sweetly at Edward because she knew in the long run that was where her bread was buttered. “I like having command of the big bed and the remote for the television. I like to watch my stories in the afternoon when no one is home. I like lounging with Edward, playing games, and doing cartwheels.” She blushed and wondered if the other Animals knew she was buck naked under her spa robe because cartwheels might be a little risqué for this group.

Edward nodded and continued where Sophia left off. “But here’s the thing,” he said. “The big fuzzy guy with the glasses has taken over our side of the bed. And I’m not going to even tell you about the cartwheels that happen sometimes when he is there!” He heard Baby Bear let out a small yelp and immediately Edward realized his blunder. “Oh, Baby Bear, don’t worry. You are safe from all of this where you live in the office.” Edward glanced at Sophia who was giving him the evil eye. Some things you just did not need to share with the kids.

Donald leaned in and said in a low but very serious voice, “We need to think this through. We know Aileen loves us – even though she hardly speaks to us any more – but this man, this tall guy is a whole other story. We know so little about him and I am worried.”

The Mountie Bear was next to speak. He was popular among family members because he was always fair and just. Or at least they thought he would be if he ever had to arrest someone. He too had real clothes, a bright red jacket with lots of shiny gold buttons and brown straps that criss-crossed in front and back. Plus he had a brown wide brimmed hat, one that suggested authority. The Animals couldn’t help but pay attention to anything he said, well except for Sophia who was thinking to herself, “too bad he is so short.”

“Now hold on here, eh,” said Mountie Bear. “My extensive professional training leads me to think we need to have more information before we draw a conclusion that this man is trouble. We have only circumstantial evidence and fitful stories that may or may not be true at this point. I say we look at the facts and then see if we have a case.”

Sophia swooned. Sunshine Bunny almost broke into song. And the Olympic mascots (also recent additions to the family) were choked up. They hadn’t seen a Mountie since they left Vancouver so they were feeling rather nostalgic.

Bunny stood up and slowly faced her family. As the eldest and longest survivor of the group, she truly commanded respect from the rest of the Plush Animals. No matter that her fluffy yellow fur had been scalded in a hot coffee accident many years ago, her ears hadn’t stood up straight since who knew when, and her vision was certainly impaired, she was Bunny and she had been told more secrets and stories than all of the rest of the other Animals put together. Once, she was the “IT” bear. She had travelled Europe and watched the world swoosh past as they zipped down the autobahn in the green and white VW bus. She had been to more tea parties, played school more often, and slept cozied up to a real person so many more times than any of the rest of the Animals could even imagine. Everyone wanted to hear what Bunny had to say.

“I have seen a lot of change in this house and other houses I’ve lived in. Some of it was good; some of it not so good but it was always interesting for me. I like meeting new Animals and learning where they are from. And most of the humans I’ve met I’ve liked too. I like the way this human man looks. He has a big smile and laughs out loud. He has an accent unlike any of us for sure, but it is pleasant and sometimes sounds like music. That can’t be signs of trouble.”

Bunny paused a moment then added, “I am looking around the circle here and I think someone is missing. Didn’t Donald say there was a new cow in the house? Did anyone think to invite her? Perhaps we should introduce ourselves and hear her story. She might be able to shine a little light on our situation.”

Well, you would have thought Bunny had just shown them the Holy Grail or the even the Stanley Cup because the Animals were all a-twitter. Bunny was right. They needed to talk to the new cow. It was quickly decided that The Udder One, also being a cow, should collect the new kid and bring her to the family meeting. Donald gave Udder directions to the coffee table, 3 times no less, because despite wearing the accoutrements of graduation from an institute of higher learning she wasn’t exactly an Einstein cow. Sophia secretly thought the mortar board was just to keep the sun off of The Udder One’s face.

While The Udder One lumbered off to the kitchen in her cross-eyed way trying not to walk into the cabinets in the dark, the others began pouring pretend tea, slicing make-believe date and walnut bread, and catching up on gossip. Rudyard P. Bear, A Panda Bear in Formal Wear was instead mixing himself a very dry vodka martini. He had his eye on that Sophia gal. What exactly did she mean she liked to do cartwheels, he wondered. He would make a point of visiting the bedroom more often.

After collecting a rather hesitant little cow from the coffee table and crossing the spotted cow rug in the middle of the room (which made both big and little cow queasy), The Udder One returned to the dining room. “Her name is Gala Cow, “she announced. “And I think she is adorable!”

Gala Cow was very excited. She had always been a socially active cow, attending conferences and the like, until her last move when she landed in a bag in a basement. She was certain no one would ever love her again. But never say never, she remembered, because the big guy had rescued her and delivered her to this grand new home. And now, she hoped, she would even have a family! She had never had a family before. She danced and bopped up and down. The Udder One became dizzy trying to focus on Gala and had to sit down before she fell over. The other Animals began laughing and dancing too even though at that point they didn’t know why. Plush Animals just love to party!

“Quiet!” Donald growled. “If we wake up Aileen it is all over. We need to be quick now as we have been down here for a while and she is likely to get up soon. Gala, please tell us what you know about the big man. We are worried about him.”

So Gala told the Animals her story and assured them that it was the big man who had saved her and wanted her to have a better home. She convinced them that he would never hurt any of them. Yes, even in her short time on the coffee table she too had heard talk about upcoming changes and new situations but she was sure it was all good. She was so convincing, the rest of the Bears, Bunnies, Cows, Sheep, and random others believed her. Life was good.

Donald adjourned the family meeting and the upstairs Animals began making their way to the steps. Buckatt Dawg was enlisted again to ferry the small Animals up the stairs on his back. The bigger Animals helped where they could until everyone was back in their appointed place. As the sun began rising, the very tired Animals dozed off and began to dream about having two humans to play with instead of one.

The Decorative Arts?

2010-06-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

An earlier version of this story appeared in Voice of the Hill, November 2004

You know … when it comes to Holiday décor, lots and lots of people simply lose control and give in to their basest impulses. We’re talking people who usually have impeccable taste, beautifully appointed homes, manicured lawns, and colour coordinated flower beds, who will after Thanksgiving chuck all of their fine living decorum for a chance to have the biggest honkin’ festival of lights in all of Christendom right in their own front yard. Why? I haven’t the faintest idea but I will tell you that neither money, social position, nor proximity to power guarantees good taste at the Holidays. No matter what area you cruise through, whether it is majestic East Capitol, quaint Park Street, or funky H Street, you will see what I mean.

Like many Hill dwellers, I am not a native Washingtonian or even a Southerner so I don’t always “get” the local cultural folkways. I grew up in Saskatoon, a small mid-western city in the middle of nowhere, north of the 49th parallel, where 40 below zero on Christmas Day is not unknown and people buck up with the fact that “at least it is a dry cold.” (Second favourite local tag line: “at least the sun is shining.” Yeah, well it is so cold that your car battery is completely dead, the dog refuses to go outside, and everyone – male & female – looks like the Michelin man when they do go out, but at least the sun is shining…) When people decorated their houses for Christmas, it was pretty subdued. (And let’s be honest here, in my neighbourhood there were no menorahs and Kwanza was unheard of.) We thought it rather fancy when our parents put coloured lights along the roof line of our houses. Occasionally in a neighbour’s front yard you would see a plywood Santa that Dad made and the kids painted. You could only see this objet d’art in daylight or when the outside light at the front door was on. Some blocks were slightly more dramatic putting on a thematic display – Candy Cane Lane, Bell Crescent – but again these were uniform home-made cutouts, a little cheesy but definitely cute. Granted this was in the Stone Age but I’m willing to bet that many of you would agree that the ghosts of Christmas past were a lot less fussy than they are today.

Now, right after Halloween the stores start rolling out as much holiday kitsch as they have space for. Sure we complain to one another that it is way too early to be thinking about Christmas but then fall all over ourselves at the big box retailers to get the best “stuff” before anyone else can get it. Rational, sensible, conservative professionals we Washingtonians are, but when it comes to our Christmas décor rituals, it’s a slam dunk that good taste loses out to raw emotional sentiment every time.

Check this: $149 will get you a “4-pc. grapevine-style sleigh-set with motion” that is covered in little lights. You won’t want to forget the accompanying “grapevine-style buck and doe with motion” that has even more teeny lights for an additional $49. Throw in the “4-pc holographic indoor/outdoor train set with chasing lights” for a mere $29 and you are well on your way to having your own personal winter wonderland. But wait! You still need Old St. Nick or at least a snowman to complete your diorama. For a measly $49 you can have a “42-inch twinkling snowman” with a red bow, top hat, and scraggly arms that if you squint might look like real sticks that fell from your “6-foot downswept twig tree” (with more lights, of course), that too was just $49. Now you are all set having enough wattage in front of your house to light the entire Capitol dome, to say nothing of the dizzying array of perpetual motion animals that could, if harnessed, run an artificial snow machine if you could just get your hands on one!

I’m just asking, but what is the deal with Santa these days? I mean when I was little, Santa rocked; I loved going to the Bay with my Mum (that’s the Hudson’s Bay Co. for those of you not from God’s country), dressed up in a red velvet dress with lace around the collar to get my picture taken with the Big Guy. The Bay was the best place to visit Santa because you also got a little white ceramic bell to tie onto the zipper of your jacket that made little tinkling sounds when you moved just so. Now that I am a teeny bit older & hopefully wiser (although there are those who may dispute that) I think Santa is a very existential dude. However, I really could live without seeing him in every retail outlet from Baby Gap to Midas Muffler, and certainly I would die happy if I never again saw him bobbing up and down in all of his 25 foot tall glory in the parking lot of just about any mall, grocery store, or car dealership you can name.

Not to be overly critical of the sacred, but I need to know: what’s with the over-the-top Vegas inspired manger scenes you see in front yards and some churches? Is it necessary to have quite so many multi-coloured spotlights poised on the crèche? Did the angels really wear tinsel on their heads? I know there were animals in the stable, but reindeer? In Bethlehem? And honestly! Do you really think it is appropriate for Bing Crosby to be crooning White Christmas to the Baby Jesus? I’m just sayin’ …

In all seriousness though, no one loves the holiday season and a festive décor more than I do. I adore sparkly twinkle lights on a real fir tree placed strategically in the front window so passers-by can admire it from the street (giving you an indoor-outdoor decorative action -- a nice two-fer as it were); underneath should be beautifully wrapped parcels (done by the nice church ladies at the mall) evoking memories of the 15 different unsolicited Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma catalogues received since Halloween; hand stitched, monogrammed stockings (at only $50 each) hanging from the fireplace mantle; and best of all, billions of cookies and gooey squares you couldn’t possibly eat but spent the last 4 weeks baking.

Any of this sounding familiar? I knew it! Santa told me you would understand. I saw him picking up a few things at Frager’s last week …

DOG*matic

2010-06-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

An earlier version of this story appeared in Voice of the Hill, April 2005.

You know, a few years ago I realized I was probably the only person on the Hill without a dog. Everywhere I looked there were pooches frolicking, wagging, slobbering, barking, meeting friends for lunch on Tunnicliffe’s patio. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs and really wished I had one myself until I discovered that owning a dog is a whole lot different now from when I was a kid. (You remember, back when dogs slept right on the floor and the pooper-scooper was your Dad’s lawnmower?) Today you need a diploma from the “right” obedience school, regular trips to the grooming salon (because god forbid your pup has guck in its teeth), hypo-allergenic doggie beds, and of course, low carb, vegetarian, or even kosher pet food. The same brand of Dr Ballard’s in a can every night just ain’t gonna cut it any more for today’s “well socialized” dog.

This whole thing started for me in March 2005 when I spent a weekend in New York celebrating my birthday with some urgently needed retail therapy. To my surprise, almost everywhere I went there were dogs – on the street, in coffee shops and hotel lobbies, and even in the Barney’s mother ship where some crazed woman was dragging around the teeniest dog-like critter (and that is being overly generous) as a fashion accessory. It was on a long pink leash and was trying to scurry around the very crowded aisle near the concierge desk, just like it was at home (and in hindsight, I think Barney’s may have been its second home.) I was horrified that someone was going to accidentally squash it with their $1,800 four- inch heeled, suede designer winter boots and no one would even notice. This got me wondering: did that go on in DC too? Had Capitol Hill become over-run with designer pets and child surrogates of the four legged kind and I hadn’t even noticed? On my return to DC, I decided to set up an independent, non-partisan research study to check out a dog’s life on the Hill.

My research officially began at Lincoln Park, the former 24 hour-a-day full service drug market. I lived in that ‘hood for five years in the late 1990s and let me tell you that back in the day, the local wildlife trended more to closer to the ground hungry little critters with long tails, if you catch my drift, than to frisky chocolate labs bounding after tennis balls. In spring 2005, the Park was already Dog Central, the place where many locals went to exercise Fido while making plans for Friday nite.

Dogs definitely were all over the Hill and in big numbers, but anyone who lives on the Hill today surely will testify to the shift in demographics both human and animal in and around Lincoln Park. On any given day now, you will find mostly mommies, daddies, or nannies pushing kids in baby strollers, and laughing at their happy waggy-tailed dogs. Frisbees are flying, dogs are rolling in the grass, and kids are squealing with total delight at the spectacle (well, the playground with the cool monkey bars and sandbox doesn’t hurt either.) It is the picture of the American Dream sans white picket fence. In the early evening the crowd changes slightly as the single working people come out to walk their dogs and catch up with the local gossip. Not so many toddlers at this time of day but plenty of joggers and pets jumping up and down as they greet their long lost pals they haven’t seen since at least the day before. There’s a very high energy level which ramps up as more dogs and people join the mix until near dusk when even the dogs want to go home and chill.

There are several of these so-called dog-friendly parks on the Hill now and people seem to be making good use of them. I talked to one woman who flat out told me that she got a dog to meet men. I’m willing to bet the farm (the kennel?) that she is not alone on that front.

As for the dogs, well you’ve just got to see these puppies yourself to believe it. I mean, some of them are better dressed than the human at the other end of the leash. There’s the fluffy little white dog with the Burberry sweater, and the shiny black lab with the matching Coach leash and collar, and once in a while, some really foofoo dog wearing teeny rubber boots. There are far more pit bull looking dogs than there used to be, but the labs and the shaggy tailed dogs definitely are in the majority.

As part of the original research study, I visited Doolittle’s Chateau Animaux at Eastern Market. Ashley and Judy were holding down the fort when I arrived one sunny, warm Saturday afternoon. The store was a tad over stuffed with giant bags of food, vitamins, toys, kennels, breath and gas relief tablets (!), and other unexpected things. Ashley quickly explained that demand for their services (retail and pet grooming) had grown so much over the past few years, they were about to move to their new space on Barracks Row which they have been in now for several years. I looked around and was particularly taken by the mini-couches for pets. Ashley told me they were a hot new item that was about to sell out. Now this was a nice couch. Looked rather plush to me. Immediately I could picture some nattily groomed dog curled up on it in front of a flat-screen TV watching Animal Planet and munching on “Grandma Lucy’s Freeze Dried Meatball Treats” or “Daisy Delight’s Baco Bit Bears.”

On to Pawticulars on 8th Street where I met Jennifer, the Top Dog (it says so on her business card.) This is when things really started to come together for me as I realized that the phrase “it’s a dog’s life” is based in truth. While visiting with Jennifer, I don’t know how many pooches and people came through the store. Not one of them left without buying a treat. On the counter were elaborately decorated doggie cookies shaped like baseballs, donuts, bon-bons, and of course, bones among other shapes. Pawticulars also seemed to do a good business in the doggie birthday field; there was a large cooler with cakes (carob-banana chip, for example) that you can order for Rover’s birthday party. Then again, for the more casual celebration, like for Allie who dropped in on her 5th birthday with “Mom” and “Dad”, there was the giant cookie bone with Happy Birthday written on it. I also met Coffee who came in to get a halter and Bessie who was in the market for a new T-shirt. Jennifer explained that some dogs come in every day for a treat. She suspects that Barney Bush (the former First Dog) had either been in the store or received a gift from there as one day out of the blue in the mail Jennifer received an autographed photo of Barney from the White House. Even in DC’s pet care market, it’s all about the political connections!

I wound up my research at Dog-Ma, DC’s first daycare for dogs. Honestly, I felt like I was in doggie paradise with Dog-Ma’s two huge yards, loads of toys, playhouse, and “swimming” pool. Years before, owner Rebecca was working 14 hour days and traveling often for work. She felt guilty about leaving her dog alone and frankly, was more than a little fed up with her job. In a total shifting of gears, she opened Dog-Ma on Virginia Avenue just past the Marine Barracks. Today this very busy doggie day-care caters to well-behaved, socialized (don’t you love that term?), healthy dogs. Some come every day, some once in a while, and some even vacation at Dog-Ma while their family hits the slopes or lounges at the beach. Since opening Dog-Ma, Rebecca and her staff have cared for thousands of dogs; only one decided that the grass really was greener on the other side of the freeway. That little pup was retrieved unharmed much to everyone’s relief.

While I agree that this is far from a comprehensive study (a moderate government grant or appropriation would have helped, I’m telling you), it does give a glimpse into some of the services and products available to Hill dwellers and their pampered pooches.

On a personal note, I’ve decided that the good news is that I want to come back in my next lifetime as a household pet of a senior Hill staffer whose spouse works at a non-profit, and they have one, maybe two young kids. The bad news is that they probably couldn’t afford a dog by then because pet care costs and expectations are rising rapidly. I’d likely end up in some West Virginia farm chasing cows all day. Charming. Let it be known that I am definitely not a cow pattie kinda gal, even if I were a dog.

Greetings ... again

2010-06-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

A version of this story originally appeared in the Voice of the Hill, January 2005

You know, when you meet people these days, and I don’t only mean total strangers but also those near and dear to your heart (like your family, the next door neighbour’s athletic looking pool boy [sigh], or your favourite bartender at your favourite watering hole), there is an instinctual moment of panic that ensues. Just how do you know what you are supposed to do next now that you are face to face with this person? Should you shake hands? Hug? Kiss one cheek? Kiss both cheeks? Double back on the first cheek for a total of three kisses? Hug and kiss? Run in the other direction? What is the proper greeting these days? And just who is deciding anyway?

This is one of those universal dilemmas that I hear people discuss with great regularity. Meeting people has become so messy and touchy-feely that it almost makes me want to stay home for fear of insulting someone because I am either: A) too gregarious, or B) not gregarious enough with my greeting. Sometimes I just want cross the street or hide behind my menu to avoid contact because I’m not sure of the protocol of the situation. For example, how do you greet someone from your office when you surprisingly run into them at Eastern Market on the weekend? This is a particularly tough case because at work you wouldn’t dream of getting close enough to hug or kiss a colleague. Yet, this is definitely an informal encounter so is it expected you would be more familiar? A no-brainer you would think, but in reality this common situation has the potential to derail your entire career if you are not careful. I know it feels like a casual social situation because it is Saturday morning, you are puttering around the Hill wearing your favourite jeans and old runners, the dog is in tow, and you may or may not have showered or brushed your teeth. But honestly. Do you want to be known as the guy who groped the woman three cubes down? In public? In front of her daughter?

Now, I’m all for a little self expression and it can be rather flattering when someone actually wants to buss you on the cheek, but I am telling you life was a lot simpler when we followed rules and more or less kept our hands (and lips) to ourselves. For example, time was that no matter what you needed to know about meeting and greeting (among other potential social landmines) you could find it out by skimming Etiquette; the Blue Book of Social Usage by Emily Post. Oh yeah baby, it was all there in black and white. Pages and pages and pages of how to greet anyone on the planet in any situation at any time of year. OK so maybe there was a lot of memory work involved but I promise you that no where in the entire 917 pages of my volume (published in 1942 by Funk & Wagnall’s – yes of the dictionary fame) is there mention of kissing or hugging when greeting anyone. Mrs. Post would have fainted dead away at the suggestion of such intimacy. The basic rules, I surmise, were that when gentlemen met they always shook hands. When a lady met a gentleman it was her option to offer her hand or not. There was no lip locking, no slobbering on someone’s cheek any number of times, certainly no bear hugs, and positively no “Hey babe. What up?” Mrs. Post recommended a simple “How do you do?”

Well, I’m thinking that this kind of formality and crystal clear clarity might be a good thing. I get so darned confused – no make that intimidated -- by all of this loosey goosey kissing thing that I’m almost paralyzed, and I like kissing! I guess it is more that I really don’t know who expects what, how often, and how close. Does anyone know anymore?

DC folks have become pretty amorous in their greetings as I am sure you have noticed. We’ve all seen it: women kissing men, women kissing women, men kissing men, weirdoes kissing pets, everyone kissing babies and small children. Jeez. It’s one big rambunctious group hug out there. No wonder there are so many baby strollers in Lincoln Park these days!

Seriously though, it really is a dilemma. I have a very good Persian friend who is a two cheek kisser. I am a one cheek kisser. Both of us are huggers too. On more than one occasion when we are together and have come upon a mutual acquaintance, we have set in motion a cosmic collision of huggy/kissy affection versus head-spinning mayhem. Witness: she approaches our mutual friend and greets them warmly with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks. A standard has been set for this encounter. But I am only a one cheek kisser so when I plant my one and only, the recipient more often than not has already turned their head in expectation of a second buss that doesn’t materialize. Yikes! Noses are bonked, lipstick is smeared, and invariably someone begins to blush and feel awkward. Imaging this scene if a French three cheek kisser entered the picture. We’re talking major chaos here. Sure, it’s all fun until someone loses an eye.

And just when does all of this hugging business cross the line to groping? Is the hug you give your grandma the same as the hug you give someone for whom you have lust in your heart (understanding that lust isn’t necessarily always a bad thing even if you are Jimmy Carter)? Is your partner justified in reading you the riot act when you’ve never been one for any kind of public show of affection and suddenly you become a two cheek kisser and close hugger when introduced to the Perfect Ten who just moved in next door? Talk about the potential for the mother of all relationship dramas.

So what is the answer? Or in a city as cosmopolitan and eclectic as DC can there be a solution? I think that we should take a cue from our friends to the far north and throw a little Eskimo kissing into the mix, just for shits and giggles. You know, the rubbing of noses thing. If you think we have confusion now, just wait until that catches on. Too bad we didn’t start this sooner cuz we sure had loads of time to practice Eskimo kisses last winter during the ongoing Snowpocalypse.

Observing BAG*GAGE a la 2010

2010-06-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

The original story appeared in the Voice of the Hill, October 2004.

You know … almost everyone in DC carries a bag. Lots of people carry two or more. Look around and you will see what I mean, particularly on Metro in the morning, my favourite people watching venue.

Young professional women carry the most bags. An early twenty-something woman leaves her apartment Monday morning with a handbag draped on one shoulder (it may or may not coordinate with today’s outfit because she can’t yet afford a fleet of different coloured bags), a slightly beat up gym bag also hung over one shoulder and looped across her chest (because she is determined to hit the gym today since she needs to lose 5 pounds by Saturday evening when she wants to wear her tight jeans when she goes out for drinks with the girls), a mini pink Victoria’s Secret shopping bag with her lunch tucked inside is clutched in one hand. On the menu is either leftover pizza from Sunday evening’s card game, or a salad made with the intention that “this week for sure I will stick to my diet.” More likely lunch is a power bar, an interchangeable banana/apple depending on what was left from the grocery run last week, and a fat free yoghurt. An umbrella might be poking out of one of the bags. There’s a good possibility she also is carrying the free Express handed to her as she entered the Metro at Tenley, and maybe a novel.

This is a lot of baggage to maneuver especially when searching for the illusive Metro card that inevitably has wormed its way to the bottom of one of her bags. By the way, is there anyone out there who hasn’t crashed into the back of some woman as she stops cold right in front of the exit turnstile because she can’t locate her Metro card in all of her bags? You know what I am talking about ...

Finally exiting the Metro, she stuffs the newspaper and novel into one of the open bags because god knows there are only so many hands and she still needs to run through Starbucks on the way to the office for coffee and yes, another little bag with a scone.

Even on weekends young women seem to cart around a lot of bags. Check out the scene at Eastern Market any Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The typical young woman will have a shoulder bag (a purse or maybe a faux designer backpack or heaven forbid, a Hello Kitty backpack!). In one hand she has a cotton grocery-type bag with tomatoes, peaches, and salsa, or perhaps yet another newly purchased handbag from one of the Market vendors (a bag within a bag). Throw a curious dog on a leash into the mix and this truly is an impressive juggling act.

Young Washington-area men too carry a lot of bags but theirs are very different from those of their female counterparts. Men in their twenties seem to carry more college-looking paraphernalia such as backpacks with alma mater logos, long-strapped book bags (again with school logo), and occasionally plastic grocery bags stuffed with dress shoes or runners (the opposite of what he currently has on his feet). Bags are not coordinated with his outfit; in fact, they aggressively bear no relationship to what he is wearing. Whether he is a graduate student, works at one of the gazillions of non-profits in the region, or is a freshly minted law associate, this is a Washington truism. You know I’m right.

Thirty-something DC women and men are more stylish in their choice of bags. This is a function of age, earning power, or the desire to portray a polished professional image. (“I have Arrived!”) As Washingtonians stride confidently into their thirties, their bags take on more cosmic meanings. The right bag becomes a public marker of one’s place in the all-important DC food chain. Indeed, who doesn’t look twice at the Louis Vuitton handbag on the arm of the attractive woman in the black suit and matching pumps preparing to get off at Farragut North to see if she is carrying a “real” Louis? Chances are that this status savvy gal-about-town also has with her a trim leather briefcase, shut up as tight as Homeland Security. Her coordinated and self assured public persona is rounded out with a tidy looking workout bag supposedly containing her athletic gear. Indeed this bag is a far cry from the gym bag she carried just a few years ago. The current incarnation has a designer label or trendy pattern that implies she is serious about her fitness commitment, whether this is true or not. Her bag may simply contain the Washington Post or Financial Times, her Burberry umbrella, her niece’s artwork to be hung in her cubicle, and oh, quite incidentally, her yoga clothes and mat. What difference does it make? Right now, at this moment in her life it’s all about the bag itself more than the baggage in it.

Even men at this stage are noticeably more aware of their bags. Gone are the sloppy backpacks and crinkly grocery bags, replaced with a medium sized briefcase. Please note that a male owned briefcase often is larger than one carried by a female. Why? Because it holds more “stuff.” Women tend to compartmentalize their bags into specific functions. Men will pitch everything into one bag and hope like hell they can get away with it. Furthermore, it is important that the male owned bag be innocuous. No man in DC wants to be known as “the guy with the really great bag.” I don’t care if he is straight or gay. In DC, most men are religiously conservative in how they present themselves. You will not see a lot of European man-bags around this town.

There will always be folks out there who carry bags from last year’s conference on global warming and energy policy with the long list of sponsor logos plastered all over the front, or use the freebie canvas bag they got when they contributed to WETA four years ago (because “damn it, it’s still a good bag. My wife just needs to wash it”). But especially in the Capitol Hill and Downtown sectors of DC, people tend to be slightly more polished. Or think they are more polished.

As Washingtonians age, the bags they carry often are more expensive and industry specific than what they sported earlier in their career. For example, lawyers of a certain stature use large leather, briefing bags with locks and buckles; junior associates generally schlep these bags for their mentors. These lawyerly bags are curious looking and can give the owner an air of importance. You will, however, wait a long time to see any of these bags on Metro. Workout bags virtually disappear on most of the over forties crowd. Those people who do maintain a gym membership use the facilities at their Club where their workout gear is laundered daily on-site thus negating the need for a bag. Rarely do you see anyone from this set carrying their things in a grocery or shopping bag! That said, however, I have a friend who owns several quite nice bags in which to transport his papers between office and home, but uses a plastic bag or no bag at all. I don’t get it but it makes him happy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I know. What about the many bags parents carry, especially mothers of toddlers? Colourful diaper bags, bags of toys and/or snacks, maybe even a bag for covering the stroller are all de rigueur. And, what’s the deal with the hierarchy of shopping bags we all use from time to time? How come we are OK being seen holding a bag from Neiman Marcus or Brooks Brothers but a bag from Walmart or Target can cause heart palpitations? Talk about bag*gage.

I’m not sure but I think that’s an entrée to another story …

Life in the South - The Late Nite Bug Episode

2010-06-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

June 17, 2010; 4:15 am

Jesus H. Christ on a Popscicle stick! My heart is still pounding. There was just a HUGE bug in my bathroom! Ginormous! With antennae as long as my fingers! I, of course, was half asleep (all this at 3:45 am) and not wearing my glasses but as I was turning out the light, I spotted him on the white shower curtain. Couldn't miss him on that bright background. Panic ensued. I dashed downstairs and put on rubber boots and ski gloves, got bug spray and the Swifter (it has a long handle like a broom most usually used for dusting floors as opposed to combat maneuvres) expecting to knock him off the curtain into the tub and PRESTO! he would be history when I washed him down the drain. Only by the time I got back upstairs the bastard had relocated and was half way up the bathroom door. I NUKED him with bug spray and let me tell you, he certainly didn't go down without a fight. Sucker struggled all the way to the middle of the rug in the guest bedroom, me in tow spraying him with bug junk before he finally slowed down and I began whacking him with the Swifter. Now that had to be a sight-- me in blue and green cotton jammies, tall black rubber boots, beige ski gloves beating the hell out of this damn bug, covered in half a bottle of silvery-white bug spray, with my Swifter. There's a whole new marketing strategy for Swifter! Finally when I was sure he was a goner, I lifted the Swifter to peek and damn, if he didn't move so I pounded the crap out of him some more. When the carnage was over, I stomped downstairs to get paper towel (at least 10 sheets), stomped back up the stairs in case he was resurrected and was on the move again, scooped him up, and stomped back downstairs again to flush him in the powder room cuz no way in hell he was going to come floating back upstream into my toilet bowl. I was already traumatized enough to have that thought bounce around in my head for the next week. I cleaned up the river of bug spray cascading all over the floor in the hall (why do they make that stuff smell like flowers?), wiped off the bottom of the Swifter, and got myself a Popscicle to calm myself down. I may never sleep again. And so how was your nite?