Burnt Toast

October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 / roughwighting / 5 Comments

True, we were rushing.

“Hurry up!” I exclaimed to my man as he jumped into the shower. We’d told our friends we’d pick them up at 8:15 a.m. this past Sunday morning to get an early start to our 2-day hiking trip. We had all been getting to the point of feeling burnt out. A perfect time to get away, clear the cobwebs in our heads, and enjoy some fresh air in God’s country.

I pulled the lever down on my super-duper one-year-old stainless steel toaster in the kitchen, then dashed back to the bedroom where my suitcase was half packed. But I also cleaned up the dog’s hair on the chair (that he never sits on, oh no, never), closed the windows, made the bed, and jotted down notes for the dogsitter.

That’s when I smelled it. Burnt…toast? Then I saw the smoke swirling toward me, like a monster sneaking out of a blue lagoon. Only in this case, creeping throughout the condo.

Running back to the kitchen like a mad woman, I cringed at the smoke belching out of that newfangled toaster – and, did I see some flames too? I unplugged it, but then swore not so softly. An alarm was screeching so loudly that it could wake up our neighbors.

Wait. The screaming alarm didn’t come from our place, but from the outside hallway, connected to each of the six condo units. Shit, Shit, Shit.

I knocked on the bathroom door and walked in. “Um,” I said sweetly through the shower door, “we have a little problem.”

I quickly opened all the windows in every room of the condo on my way to our front door. Wait, I realized my attire was not appropriate for anyone other than the dog and the husband. Hurried to the closet, buttoned up a long winter coat, and opened the door to discover two neighbors, men who lived in two different units, standing in front of the offending alarm: one in his velour bathrobe, the other in tennis shorts so tiny they had to be from the 1970s. You know, Jimmy Connor-style.

I gulped, then apologized, “All my fault. Bad toaster.”

They couldn’t have been nicer. Or more understanding. Even when the fire truck roared up the driveway and three burly yellow-slickered, yellow rubber-booted firemen bounced out of the truck over to the alarm, where my shirtless, red-shorted husband now also stood, looking at the large clanging button as if wondering if a sledgehammer would shut it up.

Within minutes, the siren was killed and all six men stomped through our condo to check up on the smoke. Did you know that you should NOT open all the windows when smoke is inhaling every inch of the place? Now you do.

“Just open up one window, then it doesn’t go into every room,” the cute muscled younger-than-my-son fireman explained to me.” Then he stared at my winter coat.

It was 70 degrees outside.

I shrugged, they left, and our friends were still waiting for their pick up. I texted: “Burnt toast,” and they texted back. “Better than burnt out. Breathe. Smile. Relax!”

And thus, the weekend began.

Love Letters

October 13, 2011 / roughwighting / 9 Comments

The rain fell softly as I curled up in front of my brother’s bedroom dresser and slowly opened the bottom drawer.

I was alone. My mom was down the street playing bridge with Mrs. Abbot, Mrs. Demmel, and Mrs. Poling. I could hear brother Chuck and his friend Ricky shouting at each other in the backyard as they enacted their own version of cops and robbers. Even at just 10 years old, I held onto these rare times of privacy like a drowning girl holding onto a life raft. I couldn’t articulate the need for time alone yet, but I certainly could relish it.

My skin prickled with anticipation and satisfaction. I stopped suddenly. A noise – something banging on the floor.

Oh, just the dog scratching an itch.

After opening the drawer as far as I could without its heavy weight falling on my legs, I pushed aside some winter sweaters and crawled my hands into the nest of wool, eyes unseeing, feeling for my secret pleasure. Yes, they were still there! A few weeks ago I had first discovered them, the old letters, hidden in a place my mom must have believed was safe from prying eyes.

Well, she was wrong.

I chuckled as I slipped out one packet of thin envelopes grouped together with a rubber band. This packet contained all the letters postmarked August, 1944. I opened the first one, an entire unknown world – released.

My dad’s love letters to my mother when he was in the war.

“The war” in my childhood household was WWII. My father had been barely 18 when he was shipped overseas. My mom lived with her parents, commuted to New York City for her job as a secretary, living for the time when she could race back home on the early evening train to see if another letter had arrived.

Most of these letters were from France, some from Germany. They said little about the war or my father’s life as a paratrooper, which was the boring stuff in my 10-year-old mind anyway. What I was most interested in, most astonished at, was the way my dad wrote about his love.

He described the times he and my mom kissed on the couch after my grandparents went to bed. About how he longed for her. How he missed her. How he couldn’t wait to get home to her. Almost every letter said the same thing. Sometimes he’d mention the atrocious food he and his ‘buddies’ ate from a can. Sometimes he complained that he had KP duty again, because he’d come back past the curfew, drunk. Those things surprised me, but I raced right past them, most interested in his romantic words of sexual love and longing.

Later that day, when the whole family sat down for dinner, I’d look across the dining room table at my dad and try to imagine him, writing those love letters.

But I never could.

My Dog Is a Zen Master

October 6, 2011October 6, 2011 / roughwighting / 10 Comments

I arrive home at lunchtime with a 30-minute break from work. I am hassled and frazzled and tired. I dump some leftovers in a saucepan while washing the breakfast dishes, starting a load of laundry, and cleaning up the newspapers scattered on the dining room table.

That’s when I see the patch of sunlight, and the yogi.

He can’t cross his legs as human meditators do, but instead sits like a Sphinx, front legs straight ahead, beautiful gold and white furry chest held straight and proud. His neck rises a bit as he faces me and holds my green eyes into his chocolate brown ones. The expression is wise and all-knowing, and I can hear his thoughts immediately:

Why don’t you calm down, for heaven’s sake?

The sun is basking his body in heat and light, and his mouth opens to pant. But actually he is trying to say something to me, like:

Stop. Look. Listen. Life is only this. Stop. Look. Listen.

The timer buzzes, but I ignore it and sit down next to my dog, stroking the warm fur. I feel the sun melt my tense muscles, my frayed nerves, and my buzzing brain. I breathe deeply and . . .

Stop

Look

Listen

Slowly, I also become one with the day.

At least for a few minutes.

Dancing Our Age?

September 29, 2011September 29, 2011 / roughwighting / 7 Comments

The song comes on the radio and I feel a hip twitch. I run from the home office to the living room to be closer to the music, and the other hip twitches. My right foot hits the oriental carpet with a stomp, and then both feet hit the carpet hard – toe foot, toe foot. My heart lifts with the beat, and I scoot to the stereo and turn up the volume.

Rock and roll, baby.

Suddenly, I’m 20 again. College dances. I close my eyes and smell the spilled beer, the sweaty college boys, the perfumed girls. Ode to Joy. Old Spice. I see us, moving our hips back and forth, jumping up and down to the beat.

Laughing. Shouting. Wild and Free.

I open my eyes, dancing with a huge grin on my face. The dog hops up from his place in the sun to see what his crazy mistress is doing. He looks astonished, then runs over to me, jumping up as if he, also, wants to dance.

Then I glance toward the far wall. The mirror shows the scene. Middle-aged woman with doggy dancing in the middle of living room on a Wednesday afternoon. The college scene fades, my smile disappears. Where’s the cute 20-year-old? Who the hell is this freaky lady?

I turn my back on the mirror, order the dog to ‘Sit! and “Stay!” and I dance like crazy until the song ends.