Memorial Day 2013

The first of three Memorial Day reposts, this one from just last year.  Have a great weekend, Dear Readers!

Memorial Day.  I feel obliged.  Guilty.  I'm a military brat;  I'm grateful to the men and women who have done... duty.  

My dad was a career military man, in the Air Force for 29 years.  He loved it, believed in it, hated it, distrusted it, gave it his all.  Believed ridiculous things that had pure truth in his world of absolute values -- like his explanation for having to row the boat across the Delaware for General Washington... that was what he thought I needed to understand about Vietnam. 

Talk about a rift.

I am an ungrateful military brat, confused by the world, confused by the military, confused by random violence, confused by organized violence, by terrorism, by conventional and unconventional warfare, by the deaths of men in the name of women, by the abuse of women by men frustrated unto violence, but not conscious of where their resentment originates, by the hypocrisy of all of us. Confused by drones, torture, international law ignored, domestic law ignored, nature's laws ignored. Confused by myself, angered at being compartmentalized, angered that the compartments fit, so cozily.

I merge Memorial Day and Veteran's Day in my head.  I'd rather we just have Veteran's Day, as there are so many veterans who return to us dead, and alive, at the same time.  They gave their all, too.  We're too at ease with the beating of their hearts and the spikes and waves obtained from electroencephalograms as proof enough of their living.  

Eleven years ago today -- though not exactly -- so let me restate that.  On Memorial Day in 2002, I fell in the St. Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta Intensive Care Unit, and one of the results of that fall was CRPS, which showed up within two hours of the fall and the injuries sustained.  The story is told elsewhere on this blog, and if you've been a reader here for even a brief time, you know that my case of CRPS is one of the more severe sort -- a life-ender, in all the ways that matter.

So every Memorial Day since that one in 2002, I have a strange day.  All is odd, all is out of sync.  I wake with grand plans for celebration, odd, in that I don't celebrate most holidays. So, I wake with odd menus going round the brain, mostly fresh, spicy, creative food dishes, and time set aside to think of those who serve. My mouth moves, larynx and pharynx function, but sound is late or skewed. Thoughts jumble and I'm out of joint, and not just in the usual literal sense.  Until it hits me -- Oh yes, I've something else to commemorate.   

At least I know enough now to look at each person I see, write to, think of, and know that they, too, have their own private commemorations going on, that they allot time, heart, neurons, photons, and blank eyes to theirs, as I do to mine.  I imagine other people are better behaved.  You see, until I remember what's wrong, that I am having some kind of minor anniversary-driven PTSD bit of a tantrum, I just feel raw and mean.  While I was slaving away in the kitchen, Fred was collapsed under the weight of an undeniable nap attack, and that pissed me off.  I did not need him;  He wasn't neglecting to do a darned thing, in fact, he was likely worn out from a recent attack on vines.  Evil vines. 

I put hard-boiled eggs and pickles in the potato salad for him.  It's his fault that I am feeling raw, odd, out of sync, and joint, and whatever else I've complained of thus far.  No mention of pain, or how hard it was to cut a cooked potato. Definitely not a word about pouring boiling water on my thigh (the same thigh I marinated in salmonella just a few days ago, ginger and soy sauce, chopped chicken parts, a good massage, and spuh-lurt, salmonella lap!).  My thighs, recipients of incomplete dishes.  At least today's immersion was just hot pepper, highly salinated, starchy water, with some of my oldest brother's last green peppers artistically strewn about.  

Better than dropping something heavy and sharp, like a blade, some sort of chopping device, tip down on the second toe of an already amputation-envied right foot.  Just joshing!  I missed this time!  (I'm sorry, that was mean.)

A beautiful dressing was prepared -- of yogurt, fresh garlic, Thai chili and fish sauces, an unbelievable amount of pepper and dill, with oft-adjusted grains of kosher salt. Three mustards.  I know it sounds overwhelming, but it wasn't.  It was perfect.

Fred "served" in the military, in war time, but drew a map-making mission in Africa. He left much behind but not his life, and gained much as well, and not just in beautiful love-making with beautiful Ethiopian women, not just in falling in love with baboons, and a certain aridity. He discovered aimless freedom.  Drank a lot, drove fast in the desert.

Last July, after the Father-Unit just laid down and died, I wrote this:

A scattering of his ashes is planned for Atlantic waters, and there don't seem to be a bunch of laws standing in the way.  Not like over at the western end of that state, where some weenies decided to regulate drifting cinders.  That was my first choice, somewhere (actually, "somewhere" very specific) along the Blue Ridge.  Then a California friend, a busy mother, ceramic artist, perpetual redesigner of kitchens -- but reportedly, by kin, even, a god-awful baker -- someone who eventually went to med school and, I'm willing to wager all my investment income -- income so piled high upon itself that it is seeping out of my Gringotts Wizarding Bank magical money jail cell -- solves more medical mysteries over coffee in her torn-to-pieces kitchen than in some speckled formica-ed San Franciscan examination cubicle... 

Anyway, Margaret, this California friend, began sending me a local artist's series of Point Reyes note cards, a national park, a "national seashore." A shore, headlands, grasslands, beaches, a forest, even.  [I am notoriously challenged directionally... A trip up the Pacific Coast Highway meant the Pacific was on the left, the forests on the right.  The return trip required the PCH to be on the right, the woods to my left.  The weeping driver asking for directions, thank God, was *always* to my left, as The Great American Writer Wannabe refused to allow me to drive his Mustang.

Margaret wasn't campaigning that I scatter my ashes anywhere in our nationally shared Point Reyes park.  It just came to bright me, it came as a longing, as a fulfillment.  And it turned out to be a pain in the caboose:

• A permit is required for all areas. • Remains to be scattered must have been cremated and pulverized. • Scattering by persons on the ground is to be performed at least 100 yards from any trail, road, developed facility or body of water, and 440 yards seaward from the shoreline on the Pacific Ocean. • Scattering from the air will not be performed over developed areas, facilities or bodies of water and will be performed at a minimum altitude of 2000 feet above the ground. 

Just at that point in your After-Existence when you're looking for the few people left who love you to have a freeing moment, a laugh in the wind?  Bullet points.  And I gotta say, "pulverized" kinda kills the good mood. Of course, I suppose that if my already cindered remains were not put through some huge spice grinder, I'd shift from a figurative to a literal portion of the Giant Floating Garbage Patch.

I do appreciate, though, the posting of allowable driving speeds.  It reads like a marvelous poem:

15 MPH: • The unpaved section of Mesa Road • Oyster Farm Access Road • Mount Vision Road • Estero Trail Access Road • Marshall Beach Road • Sacramento Landing Road • Chimney Rock Road  

The following sections of trails open for administrative vehicle use: • Sky Trail (from Limantour Road to Sky Camp) • Bear Valley Trail (Bear Valley Trailhead to Glen Junction) • Coast Trail (Limantour Road to Coast Camp) • Drivable sections of the Inverness Ridge Trail (Limantour Road to the Mt. Vision Road) • Marshall Beach Trail • Stewart Trail (including Glen Camp Spur Trail from Stewart Trail to Glen Camp)  • Lighthouse Road from the parking lot to the Lighthouse Visitor Center • Bolinas Ridge Trail • Randall Trail 

25 MPH: • Limantour Road (Sky Trail to Limantour Parking Lot, including the road to the southern parking lot) 

Yeah, so now?  Just put me in a cardboard box, mix with some perlite -- me and some Home Depot volcanic glass -- and plant something that you don't think I'd kill.

Ayer como hoy.

I remember, not just today, but every day -- too much memorializing, too much memory.  Not enough now, not enough sloughing it off, saying:  "Who knows? I sure don't."  Saying, yes, I know, a woman soldier has just been blown sky high by an IED;  a young man has lost his life in jihad.  A child has curled up like a sea shell, dead of simple starvation, food withheld by a brilliant blockade.  A shaman dies in the wilderness, or trips, and tumbles down a crevasse, smiling.  Cheney and other war mongers count their money, and regret getting a human heart.

I've always wanted to understand, as a Jew must understand, the meaning of mitzvah/mitzvot

Literally: commandment. Any of the 613 commandments that Jews are obligated to observe. It can also refer to any Jewish religious obligation, or more generally to any good deed.

Not having anything left to accomplish on my Memorial Day 2013 list, I thought I would actually read the 613 commandments, as sorted out for my lame brain by a website called Judaism 101.  Numbers 598 through the end of the list, at 613, deal with... war.  I knew the random firings of my neurons would come through once again, that being all that I am at the moment.

Wars

598.  That those engaged in warfare shall not fear their enemies nor be panic-stricken by them during battle (Deut. 3:22, 7:21, 20:3)
599:  To anoint a special kohein (to speak to the soldiers) in a war (Deut. 20:2)
600:  In a permissive war (as distinguished from obligatory ones), to observe the procedure prescribed in the Torah (Deut. 20:10)
601:  Not to keep alive any individual of the seven Canaanite nations (Deut. 20:16)
602:  To exterminate the seven Canaanite nations from the land of Israel (Deut. 20:17)
603:  Not to destroy fruit trees (wantonly or in warfare) (Deut. 20:19-20)
604.  To deal with a beautiful woman taken captive in war in the manner prescribed in the Torah (Deut. 21:10-14)
605:  Not to sell a beautiful woman, (taken captive in war) (Deut. 21:14)
606:  Not to degrade a beautiful woman (taken captive in war) to the condition of a bondwoman (Deut. 21:14)
607:  Not to offer peace to the Ammonites and the Moabites before waging war on them, as should be done to other nations (Deut. 23:7)
608:  That anyone who is unclean shall not enter the Camp of the Levites (Deut. 23:11)
609:  To have a place outside the camp for sanitary purposes (Deut. 23:13)
610:  To keep that place sanitary (Deut. 23:14-15)
611:  Always to remember what Amalek did (Deut. 25:17)
612:  That the evil done to us by Amalek shall not be forgotten (Deut. 25:19)
613.  To destroy the seed of Amalek (Deut. 25:19)

There.

That clears everything up.

I guess this is another post you will have to forgive me.

It doesn't fit tightly with my theme, nor follow the narrow limits of my text, but I discovered that my favorite of the 613 mitzvot is #578:

That the procedure of cleansing leprosy, whether of a man or of a house, takes place with cedar-wood, hyssop, scarlet thread, two birds, and running water (Lev. 14:1-7) 

Let's just think on that for a year, shall we?

Memorial Day

This is a repost of my Memorial Day 2009 publication. It resonates, as Grader Boob faces great struggles, and could give a hoot about tennis this year. I miss our annual Brother-Sister exchanges over the various Opens and Wimbledon, etc. But I look forward, as well, to renewing that old tradition next year, and starting some new ones this year.  

Turn, turn, my wheel!  All things must change
To something new, to something strange;
  Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,

  To-morrow be to-day.
-- Longfellow, excerpted from "Kéramos"

*********************************************************



[do you recognize the racket to the right? my first, my favorite!]

It's that time of year again, hooray!

Men's Singles Draw

Women's Singles Draw

The greatest joy, though, comes in the form of communication with the Brother-Unit known as Grader Boob. Some siblings talk every Thanksgiving Day, or on birthdays -- The Grader Boob and I arrange our lives around tennis Grand Slam events.

Of course, it is also Memorial Day. (Please to ignore the grinding sound of my shifting gears.) A day of remembrance "of those who died in their country's service."

There are so many ways of dying, but I won't belabor the obvious -- nor mention the scrambled grey matter of the walking brain-injured, the stress-disordered, the illusionless.

When I was in high school, the adults around me thought I was a phenomenal writer. No, I was a phenomenal people-pleaser, terribly hyphenated.

We had to write an essay for English class, and "the best" was to be submitted in the local VFW lodge's Memorial Day Essay Contest.

I wrote something that was very good, that was quite facile, as all discussions of war and death ought to be. It's not the most subtle of things.

Not Crispus Attucks, killed during the Boston Massacre -- not anyone whose name we know and parrot -- just someone -- that's who figured in my essay. SumDood. Killed -- and Killer -- in the Revolutionary War.

He's not "just a boy." He's not a white-haired geezer. He is intelligent and understands the theories and desires behind the idea of revolution (but not the red coats and ramrod-straight lines of his purported enemies).

Reality is a lot like a very bad movie.

He faces off, squares his body to the face and the body mirrored back at him -- though he has no bayonet, he is just as well-equipped for this ridiculous point-and-shoot exercise -- fish in a barrel.

There was a lot of lyrical writing at that point, ephemeral and awful.

I brought the boys, the men, to the moment of firing their guns. Muskets. Weapons.
Water Balloons. Slingshots. Whatever.

Not bullets, but balls.

The average soldier armed with a smoothbore flintlock musket was expected to fire off a shot every 20 seconds.

What was he doing in those 20 seconds? A lot.

According to the Continental army training manual, there were 13 steps to firing a musket. In short, a soldier had to get a cartridge, tear it open with his teeth, put a little bit of powder in the firing mechanism, put the rest of the powder and a gun ball down the barrel, ram the ball and powder home, cock the musket and fire.

The musket was not an accurate weapon, so even after all that work, the soldier didn’t have the greatest chance of shooting his intended target.

I've always loved the mathematical notion of The Limit, and felt it could find no better bastardized application than that of an ever-approaching, never-arriving bullet. Ball. Buckshot.

Whatever.

Death by some projectile or other, tossed about by generally nice young men, scared, but not scared enough. Those wise enough to not be found in front of a gun were safely closeted somewhere, designing the raids, envisioning the massacres, ordering the taking of a hill, a lane, a town, signing treaties, drawing up important documents, sometimes weeping and proud. Yes, but.

Yes, but probably more mindful than your average war-mongers, the cause being just and all.

We certainly are thankful for the sacrifice.

My essay did not so much end as fizzle, extinguish, tire of the wait. In it, the two shooters actually manage to see one another, to wonder -- a bit -- at the other's world. In my essay, one shot was enough to kill -- but the moment managed to stay an eternity.

In that same moment are men and women dying today -- and I am forever out of high school, undefeated on the tennis team, voted most improved at almost everything, french-kissing that enlisted boy with the cystic acne (in the park across from school, remember the smell of autumn leaves, a smokey sky, the unfiltered Camel), making out with the pitcher on the baseball team the very first night of Junior/Senior weekend (sloe gin fizz), happy as a clam, they tell me later, running running running into the surf, screaming because I always knew The Limit was just a construct for snotty kids hiding behind an education.

Please God, don't let it be my "way of life" or "freedoms" for which they fall.

Please don't allow that Crap Thought, that neat turn of phrase, to gain more of a hold.

I so look forward to speaking with The Grader Boob, to laughing, to bolstering my picks for the semis, for the championship. To forgetting the shrunken men at the VFW lodge, long dead now, who called me "honey," and gave me a $500 U. S. Savings Bond.

Repost: War and Peace: I Have the Power When I'm in the Shower

originally posted 11/15/2009

Good morning, Fearless and Beloved Readers! I've missed you, I really have. Give yourselves a hug.

Have a seat on the red horsehair loveseat over yonder. It's one of the few Victorian Pieces in The Manor. {guffawandsnicker} Go figure, huh? Captain Haddock's more recent ancestors were a wily people, a sang froid of common sense running in their blue, blue veins.

The space that we are in today served them as Reception Hall during the American Civil War, and for roughly 60 years afterward. Back then, it was worth their Snooty While to allow a more plebian sort of individual to attend the legendary Marlinspike Hall Afternoon Teas.

But a few changes were necessary, so as to honor their actual intent.

Horsehair furniture. Horsehair as stuffing, horsehair as "fabric." *Small* furniture of unwieldy proportion, shape, and style. American furniture! To provide the necessary Provenance of Snoot, most of it was purchased from a small dealer specializing in the paraphernalia and artefacts of Abraham Lincoln.

We're talking austere. And sturdy.

But mostly? We're talking un-freaking-comfortable! Somehow, some way, the earthier visitors to The Manor found that the rich folks' furniture variously pinched their derrières, squeezed their oversized working class thighs, and often made them break out in an itchy rash. Slowly but surely, word spread, and the afternoon receptions thinned out, freeing up The Haddocks for their beloved Tea Time Mahjongg Tournaments.

Oh, yeah. They also switched from what most people in this region of Tête de Hergé (Très Décédée, D'ailleurs) prefer to drink, a strong polyvalant coffee, to thinly brewed and overly sweetened English teas.

That's the succinct version of why there is such a massive collection of Bone China Coffee Cups, Mugs, and Saucers -- and of why it is hidden from Common View. It must be said, doggone it, that must also be the reason for the chintzy, stained tea cups and the dented, tarnished silver tea sets.

It's not that Haddock Stock disapproved of tea, per se. There are over three dozen delightful tea pots in the working kitchens in the East Wing, alone.

But today, we chose to greet you here in La Recepción! Yes, we are planning a surprise renovation for this space -- from Lincolnesque austerity to teeming, busy Spanish Colonial. Coffee reigns supreme again! I know, it will be a striking change, yes? From itty-bitty loveseats to massive, in-your-face stuff!

My! I do go on. The words seems to have built up over the past few weeks. Explosive posting.

Anyway, please pour yourself a cup of this fine, winey yirgacheffe. It is Fred's favorite from the years he lived in Ethiopia. And why not, let's use the Imported Fine English Bone China Coffee Accoutrements!

Here, look in the bottom of the china cabinet -- note the paw foot, the curved glass -- no, the bottom, there you go! Smart Reader!

If you're a strict, unyielding traditionalist, use one of those Royal Crown Derby Posies-patterned coffee cups and saucers -- a very fine bone china, with both gilded rims and handle bands! Stop! Right there! Very good, Sweet Reader.

It's part of Captain Haddock's extensive Imported Post War Bone China Collection.

Now that everyone is seated, all comfy (how is that horsehair treating your various tushes?),

the inmates here at Marlinspike Hall would also like to extend a Warm Welcome to My Two Cyber Stalkers. I think I spotted them sprinting between haystacks earlier this morning, as dew lay on the Manor Holdings. I'm unclear as to how the Second Cyber Stalker came to be on scene, but I surmise that she is basically an unbalanced woman fallen under The Spell of The Primary Cyber Stalker. Maybe, if I am good, one of them will leave a comment explaining the exponential growth of my fan base. But until such time as the two of you begin to focus on each other -- the absolutely predictable ending to your saga -- please, make yourselves at home.

Just don't touch anything.

This morning, for the first time in about two months, I woke up feeling pretty darned okay (I don't want to jinx it with excessive exuberance).

The cows are giving sweet frothy warm milk again, sparing us another morning of nasty "non-dairy creamer," and providing The Castafiore and Her Denizens with the raw material for yogurts, various creams, and cheeses. We are thinking of reopening The Manor Dairy.

Marmy and her Fluffy Butt has made peace with Sam-I-Am, thereby helping Uncle Kitty Big Balls to de-escalate his frenetic efforts at a military-style feline coup d'état. Sammy is finally able to doze with both eyes shut. In other Cat ChitChat News, Dobby has learned how to wink when prompted. As we tell him with great frequency, Dobby is a very good boy.

La Bonne et Belle Bianca and Fred have had several run-on and amorphous spats, but today? Both have tweeted at me asking for my version of how and why their internescine battle began. I pretended to have a broken tweeter, thereby encouraging them to give up their fruitless efforts to justify the Recent Unpleasantness. Last I saw? They were off to town in Ruby the Honda CRV, laughing and carefree.

I gotta say, if you will permit me to wander just a little from my tight prose, that this household tweeting has become a real thorn in my imaginary side. How much trouble is it to get off one's lazy arse, leave one's quarters, cross over to the Central Ballroom, and take the Checkered Spiral Staircase to the Former Cloak Room, recently converted into My Reference Room Slash Office?

Exercise your stubby legs, get some bloodflow to that congested brain, enjoy some energizing endorphins!

Fill your lungs with bracing fresh air! [We have ongoing draft issues in that Manor Sector... but that is a Tale of Frustration better suited to another time.] If you absolutely cannot make the trip and the message is of real import? Go low tech and give Dobby a note (on letterhead, of course, for verification of authenticity). He always knows where I am. He is a very good boy.

Well, darn. I seem to be the only Responsible Adult left in The Manor at the moment and some children from a neighboring village have asked to tour The Petting Zoo. Now I've no time to edit, to spellcheck, to render the dull, lackluster phrase more witty.

I had planned for this clear but slightly chatty introduction to lead into a wickedly clever, oh-so-subtle excoriation of right wing conservative assholes. Remember, please, that that is just a stream of adjectives so as to particularize "assholes." In and of themselves, those who are "right wing" or "conservative," let's even add "republican" and the slightly deceptive "libertarian" -- those good folk are not necessarily also nominative assholes.

Now I've only time for a rough esquisse and pompous use of easily translated foreign words.

It seems that some of the less able assholes referenced above have chosen to claim a certain photo of President Obama, his family, and some military officials -- situated on a dais -- to be a snap taken on Veterans Day, reflective of the President's lack of respect for the military, even for the war dead. This, because while everyone else in the photo has either hand to heart or arm raised in salute, the President is just standing there, presumably like an ignorant, superior, snotty dolt.

Something, praise Heaven, made me go to Snopes.com in hopes of a thorough debunking of this obviously manipulated photograph -- I thought perhaps it had been PhotoShopped.

It turns out to be something more insidious. In a way, I am glad to not have time to reproduce the hateful email and blog posts written as illustrative introductions to the photo, which turns out to be an unretouched one, taken not on Veterans Day or at the recent Fort Hood memorial, but considerably earlier, on Memorial Day, at Arlington's Memorial Amphitheatre. It was a ceremony held as adjunct to one held at the Tomb of the Unknowns -- this one honoring blacks who fought in the Civil War.

So President Obama had to travel from one honored site to another. He was slipping into the amphitheatre... Well, I guess presidents don't really get to "slip in" -- quiet and unnoticed -- anywhere. No, they are introduced by that pesky toe-tapper, Hail to the Chief.

The deference being displayed was intended to honor him, as required by Department of Defense bylaws, which dictate that the same gesticulations and do-da shown during The Star-Spangled Banner, another American masterpiece, are to be gesticulated and do-da-ed during Hail to the Chief. Therefore, I am a little glad he is not sticking out his tongue, jumping up and down, beating his chest, and acting the insolent fool that the aforementioned assholes apparently envisioned.

He looks, to me, a mite embarrassed and shy.

No. That's not right.

I just momentarily forgot, is all, in the midst of renewing my relationship with my Beloved Readers, wallowing like a happy pig in the squishy mud of what looks to be a great day.

I know that look. So do you.

That's the look of sad. A weary-to-the-bone sadness that, at one time or another, can be seen on all leaders of good heart. Clearer than a precision-tooled 140-charactered tweet. More expressive than the best of mots justes.

It's nice to be back with you, Reader. Thank you for waiting for me to catch back up.

Shit. Now I can't get that "alternate" version of Hail to the Chief from the movie Dave out of my pointy head.

"Hail to the chief, he's the one we all say hail to! I have the power when I am in the shower!"

I gotta get down to the zoo. Y'all feel free to roam around. Someone keep an eye on the two reprobates, would you?