The Invitation

The door to the sal de bains opened and she emerged like Venus rising from the sea. 

"Is it morning already?" I said. 

"It's afternoon," she said. "You were napping, remember?"

"Oh, yes, of course," I said. "But why is it so gray outside?"

"There was a brief shower," she said, "but it's hot outside and there's a heavy mist. Summertime at the coast is a season of sultry mistiness."

"A season of what?"

"Sultry mistiness," she said.

"Well, we are at the coast, of course," I said, "and I'm not yet attuned to the weather patterns, which are much different from that of the steppes of the Carolina Triangle. But I'll have to take your word for the sultry mistiness."

She shrugged but made not a peep.

"I'm moving slowly this afternoon, Poopsie. Sagi kept me up 'till all hours last night."

I referred to the cat; the caramel-colored tabby who is addicted to rolls of paper and sometimes finds dispensers of paper towels or toilet tissue to be so tempting as to overpower his will. He backslid last night. Not the first time.

"Let me get you one of my pick-me-ups," she said. "I have one prepared in the fridge."

After tossing the concoction down the hatch and recovering from the momentary feeling that the head was going to explode, I felt much better and ready for whatever the day might bring.

"Any recent developments to attend to?" I said.

"Lupe texted to say that you're needed in the Cove. She didn't offer any details as to why."

"They never do, Poopsie. They know I avoid the place due to my allergic reaction to it."

"You're allergic to Crystal Cove? she said.

"I am," I said. "The air there seems to be filled with some dark matter or other that clings to me until reaching critical mass when there's a loud pop and bits of the fabric of reality fill the air like confetti. And somehow, everyone points the finger at me."

The remark earned me another of her patented looks but I chose to ignore it. I felt a strong need for a seltzer to equalize the effect of that elixir of hers. These things lift one's spirits to the sticking point making an impression on the willpower that suggests anything is possible. But they also suggest that one has experienced the impossible. I prefer to dilute them as soon as they've worked their wonders.

When Reason was restored to her throne, I realized that as much as I wanted to ignore the summons, it came from my favorite denizen of Crystal Cove, Lupe, my god-niece. She sent the request and you know as well as I that I have no choice but to comply.

I'll leave tonight and contact you tomorrow when I learn the reason for the invitation. Something to set hell's foundations shaking I imagine.

Princess Amy's Sea Horse

"Have a nice morning?" she said to me as I entered the front door.

"Hardly," I said.

"Too bad," she said, "I thought you'd be cheered by a walk on this beautiful morning. Did something go wrong to spoil it?"

"Just Mabd up to her old tricks," I said.

"Mabd?" she said."

"One of the Morrigan sisters," I said. Immediately her twin eyebrows lifted and wrinkles appeared on her forehead. It was the look I'd expect if I'd told her I was giving up qigong. I thought it best to add some context. "Celtic goddess," I said. "A triune, in fact; Mabd, Macha, and Nemain. You probably haven't been introduced."

"No, I haven't," she said, and the way she said it didn't convince me that I'd clarified anything. But I thought it best to move on or risk losing control in the loose gravel and ending up a spoiler in the ditch.

"Perhaps an example will help," I said.

"Yes, let's have one," she said.

"Yesterday, as I drove down Ocean Highway to the post office listening to the radio station that plays 60's music..."

"You mean 60's on 6, the SiriusXM station."

"You're behind the times, Poopsie. It is, as you say, the SXM station, but it's Channel 73 now."

"Why did they change the channel?"

"Never mind," I said. "Let's stay on topic or I'll never get this story told. The problem is that after the recent change in the program schedule, the only song they play by Sonny and Cher is Baby Don't Go. I've heard it every day now for several days in a row and I can't over-stress that I don't like it."

"Oh, too bad," she said.

"You'd go that far, would you? No, that doesn't come close. Princess Amy was spot on when she said that with all the hit songs that fantastic duo had in the 60s, surely SXM could find room for some of the more popular hits."

"Princess Amy is in your head," she said.

"Right," I said, "she sits atop my medulla oblongata, next door to the hippocampus."

As I gave voice to those words, I couldn't help but wonder what that little glob of gray cells in my brain has in common with the hippo, which I'm told is a member of the horse family.

"My point is that we're talking about your limbic system, not some spoiled little princess, which is how you often refer to her," she said.

"But what's it have to do with horses?" I said.

"Spoiled little princess, my ass," said Amy. "I'll make her think spoiled princess."

"Calm down, Amy," I said.

"I am calm," said the Wonder, "and don't call me Amy and what the hell do you mean when you say horses? You're getting distracted."

Well, now I was distracted. I hadn't meant to speak to Amy aloud and I didn't want Wonder to know that I carry on conversations with the defendent, especially since it seems important to her, meaning Ms. Wonder not Amy, that I disavow any knowledge of the princess. It was clear that my next remarks should be carefully choosen. But Ms. Wonder spoke before I could get the words out.

"Amy is nothing more than a cute name for your limbic system," Wonder said. "It's fun, just like your lagoon creatures are fun, but they're pure fiction." 

"Drivel!," Amy said." I may be obliged to listen to drivel now and again but I'll be damned if I'm going to listen to pure bilge. Tell her to put a sock in it!"

I bit my tongue because the urge to calm Amy down combined with the urge to correct Ms. Wonder on the subject of lagoon creatures was great. I'm sure you understand. And yet, I knew that if I allowed myself to speak, I couldn't be sure who I'd address first and, well, read the paragraphs above one more time.

"Don't have anything to say? Does that mean that we're in agreement?"

Well, this was a fine kettle of fish, as Stan Lorell said. The Wonder was waiting for me to speak and had even gone so far as to prod a response from me. The problem with that, as I saw it, was that no matter what I might say, one of three different outcomes could result and two of those three outcomes were bad outcomes. Not good odds as outcomes go.

"Back to the subject," I said, "it's a sad song and I don't want to listen to sad songs. When I get a little sad, Amy...I mean my limbic system finds more sad stuff to pile on until my cup overfloweth."

"Oh, I know," she said, and I'm sorry you have to deal with that."

Did you notice that the atmosphere changed with her last remark? Sympathetic it seemed to me. This was my opportunity to get out of the ditch and back on the asphalt. I decided to press ahead.

"Yeah," I said, "and to get back to the subject at hand, this morning as I drove down Ocean Highway to the post office listening to the 60's station, guess what happened?

Sonny and Cher singing Baby Don't Go?

No, I said. It was Sonny and Cher singing Baby Come Back.

You see? Not only does the Universe mess with me, but she rubs my face in it. Baby Don't Go and then Baby Come Back. That's not a coincidence, Wonder, that's a cruel joke.

And you think it's proof that the Universe...

That's Mabd at work. She knows my whangee is warped and she wants to exploit it.

And Mabd is one of the Morgan Sisters?

Not Morgan Sisters, Poopsie. The Morgan Sisters are gospel singers and I'm told devote themselves solely to doing good in the world. No, it's not Morgan, it's The Morrigan Sisters, Nemain, Macha, and Mabd; sewer harpies, the lot of them!

What are sewer harpies?

Wonder! I said. Sewer harpies are loathsome, predatory women that dwell in the darkest, vilest depths of the human mind. At least that's my definition. You'll find something a little bit different in Greek mythology.

"Wait," she said, "are we discussing creatures of Greek mythology or Celtic? You're confusing me, but it doesn't matter because it's all nonsense. Mabd, or whoever, isn't actually hanging out in sewers waiting to mess up your day."

She took a deep breath and I hardly breathed. What happened next, I realized, would set the course for the rest of the day. Eventually, she began speaking again.

"There's a much better explanation for all this," she said. "Would you like to hear my thoughts?"

"Absolutely," I said, "but before you speak let me make you aware of the last bit of my story. Just so you have all the facts."

"By all means," she said. "Let's hear it."

"When I left the post office, I entered the turning lane on Ocean Highway and there was a small sign at the side of the road. That sign read...and you aren't going to believe it, but the sign read, Crawl Space Ninja. How can you argue with that?"

She gave me a look that wasn't one of her familiar patented looks. It might have been the look she would reserve for me if I'd told her that I was a crawl space ninja. It might have been one that I'd see if I told her I'd decided to raise cocker spaniels.

I waited for her to speak and I waited what surely was no more than a few seconds but seemed like several embarrassing minutes.

"Well," she said, "I suppose there's no arguing with that."

Without any further argument, she went upstairs and began her day's work listening to her personal playlist on Spotify. Amy and I continued our discussion of the SiriusXM program schedule. 

Later on I Googled hippocampus and learned that the original comes from Greek mythology and is described as the upper body of a horse with a lower body of a fish. Someone given the job of naming parts of the brain thought that that little globule was shaped like the mythological "sea horse."

That's right, sea horse. All of us have a sea horse in our brains. And I get sideways glances just because I have Princess Amy riding mine.

Are You Happy?

Ms. Wonder came downstairs for coffee after her early morning workout, as is her usual weekday practice. She gave me a look as she moved gracefully toward the aroma of espresso. I've seen that look before. It told me that she was aware of my need for human interaction but it would have to wait until she was caffeinated enough to endure it.

When she was finally seated at the table she took a deep relaxing breath and spoke. "You don't look very happy," she said. Not exactly the kind of remark I was hoping for but we take life as it comes.

"Why should I look happy?" I said. "It's early and I haven't yet walked under the pines of Brunswick."

"I know," she said, "but you'll be there very soon and that's something to look forward to, right?"

"Wonder," I said, "weekday mornings, I Walk. It's capitalized because it's a ritual. It's not a spiritual practice because my spirit deflated a long time ago and it lies in a heap on the floor of a closet at the back of my mind. But let's don't go there."

"Please," she said, and when she saw the look on my map in response to her 'please', she tried to correct her course, "Yes, let's don't," she said.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that," I said.

It was a lie, of course. You know as much as I, that the little whangee in my brain is bent and I often ramble on about anything and nothing. I'm sure this better half of mine considers it to be, less than the idle wind, which she respects not, to quote the Bard if it was the Bard. 

You probably share the feeling with her. Perfectly understandable, of course, and let me tell you that I appreciate you taking the time to visit this blog more than you can possibly imagine. I realize that you expect to hear a lot of rambling bilge and yet you visit anyway. I probably don't tell you often enough that I appreciate you being here with me.

"Around 9:00 am each morning," I realized that I'd gotten the advantage in the conversation and decided to capitalize on it, "I head to Brunswick Forest for my walk in the pines."

"Shinrin-yoku," she said and I was profoundly impressed!

"Poopsie!" I said, reverting to her pet name because I was so taken aback that she remembered the Japanese meditation technique that I teach in my classes at Straw Valley.

"Poopsie, I'm profoundly impressed! Is that the right word? I mean the adverb, 'profoundly.' Does it mean deeply, greatly impressed because that's what I am? And possibly a little bit flattered that you remembered."

"Well," she said and I knew right away, don't ask me how I knew, it's a gift possibly or a curse probably, but I knew that she was going to respond in the negative, and I felt that in the present situation, I sorely needed fewer and better negatives.

"Well," she said just as I mentioned above, "impressed is used as a present participle and that means..."

"Wup," I said, "thank you Poopsie for offering me the very best participle, whatever that is, in answer to my question but we're getting dangerously close to sentence conjugation, something that I got my fill of in Mr. Kier's advanced English class back in the day. What I should have said was, 'very impressed.'

She didn't say anything but performed a cute little shrug and a moue. Look it up. Those who know me best are aware that when faced with silence the Genome begins repeating whatever it is that Princess Amy is saying in his head. I did so now.

"My morning outing is more than a stroll, of course. Anytime I find myself underneath a leafy canopy, I qigong, and I qigong like the dickens if you want my opinion."

"I know," she said. "You do Fierce Qigong, the style you developed at the Qigong Wellness studio in Raleigh."

"Wonder!" I said, and I'm sure that I approached hypo-mania when I said, "I'm profoundly impressed!"

"Again?" she said.

I nodded vigorously and said, "I sometimes refer to my early morning practice as 'lost in let's remember' because I'm usually thinking about the good ole days--the way things used to be. 

Actually, it isn't so much the way things used to be as the people that used to be. I miss so many of the people I knew here on the planet who now sleep with the stars--and when I say people, I mean dogs and cats too." 

She chose not to reply once more and sipped her cappuccino instead. I interpreted this to mean that she'd granted me clearance for take0ff. 

"When the weather is clement my regalia includes my kung fu fighting cane, Qigong Wellness t-shirt, my taiji competition shoes, and a golf glove to keep the cane from slipping out of my hand and beaning someone who is in the park simply to air out the dog."

"Mmmm," she said. 

"Although I pretend to have some other purpose for being there, I'm actually there to spend a few minutes in meditation and to watch the dogs that are out for airing with their humans. The dogs always make me smile; the humans rarely."

"Are you happy when you're there, surrounded by the natural world and meditating on dogs?'

"I do not meditate on dogs, Poopsie. Meditation is not contemplation or rumination. Meditation is about nothing. But, the answer to your question is, Yes, watching the dogs cheers me up." 

"So you're happy there?" she said.

"That's a difficult question to answer," I said.

"No, it isn't," she said. "You're either happy or you're not."

I mused for a moment while contemplating her question. I was aware of a feeling of bright contentment as I thought about those dogs.

"Poopsie," I said. "My friend Doyle was there this morning walking his two dogs, Jake and Lily.  Lily found a stick somewhere on their outing and she carried it in her mouth as she moved with a step that was high, wide, and handsome if you get my meaning."

I paused once more in deep contemplation. It wasn't a planned pause. I suppose it's best described as being 'lost in let's remember.'

"Yes?" she said bringing me back to the surface.

"Lily looked so happy carrying that stick around. Poopsie, I don't think I've ever been that happy in my life."

"Maybe we should strive to be more like dogs," she said.

"Yes," I said, "I think we probably should. We could do much worse than being like dogs. And cats, of course. We mustn't forget the cats. Most of what I know I've learned from dogs and cats."

"Dogs and cats to be sure," she said.

The White Chip

No premonitions of impending doom cast clouds on my serenity as I gazed from the bedroom window out onto the grounds behind Chadsford Hall. The last of the blossoms brought color to the cheeks of the gardens. Yesterday afternoon, as I removed the dead heads of rudbeckia, I saw butterflies flitting about.

I know! Butterflies!

As I say, nothing to warn of disaster to come. Just the honeyed sunshine oozing over the gardens and the terraced hillsides. Just goes to show that Auntie Mabd, the youngest of the Fate Sisters, has a nasty sense of humor. A practical joker with no restrictions and no sense of decency.

You're probably thinking that it's a good thing I was paying attention so as to not be caught off guard. Forewarned is forearmed--is that the term? You are right, as far as it goes, but when Ms. Wonder entered the salon with a sheaf of travel brochures in her hand, I naturally expected the ongoing discussion of the Caribbean cruise to be the source of danger.

I'm amazed at the persistence of this Ms. Wonder in pressing the matter of cruises. You will remember from past postings our discussions of Viking river cruises through Europe. Now her fascination is with excursions to Belize, Honduras, and resorts on the coast of Mexico.

The problem is that once you get started on these cruises, you find that you can't stop. You think you can quit any time you like but then the next thing you know, you're throwing a toothbrush and passport into a plastic bag and heading for the sea. First, it's a ship to Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, then it's a river barge down the Rhein, and the next thing you know, you're on a ferry down the Yangtze from Nanjing to Shangai.

In the matter of cruises, I should be firm, I thought. If I wobble, she will be encouraged and continue to drag in these brightly colored tracts, much like Lucy, the cat brings dead mice to the doorstep even though I make it clear in word and deed that the market for dead mice is sluggish if any.

"Poopsie," I said, assuming the home-field advantage, "do you know what today is?"

"Friday," she said.

"Today is the day Sagi gets his 90-day chip."

"Wow," she said and with this one exclamation, I knew that I had sidestepped the talk of ships and ports-of-call. "Has he been clean for three months?"

"That's right," I said, "our top-ranked caramel-colored tabby has not shredded a single roll of toilet paper since July 18th."

"Oh, that boy!" she said. "Where is he? I'm going to give him a big hug."

It was with her, the work of an instant to be down the stairs and looking for the cat, probably on his favorite cushion in the living room window. He was not there, although I didn't realize it at the time. Not that it would have made a difference. I was bubbling over with joie de vivre resulting from my nimble avoidance of you know what.

I didn't actually utter the words, "Tra-la-la!", but I came about as close as ever. I did a little dance and when I noticed the new roll of the aforementioned paper left on the dresser by Ms. Wonder in her hasty departure, I grabbed the end tissue and gave it a professional yank, like one of those magicians you see in a Myrtle Beach dinner theatre. The sheet should have torn along the perforations and left the roll sitting unmoved on the dresser. But it didn't.

That roll of paper came to life as though I were a switch-throwing Dr. Frankenstein and it was a slab of something dug up the night before. It rose into the air before my eyes, arched over my head, waffled through the doorway, and fell to the floor where it careened off the walls and raced rapidly to the other end of the hallway. It didn't stop until it touched the front paws of Sagi who had been sitting quietly, basking in the morning sun.

Auntie Mabd! The younger of the Fate Sisters. Look at the trouble she causes. Benevolent universe, my left foot. And you can quote me! Not all aunts are bad, of course. My Aunt Mary Magdalene and Aunt Arvazine come to mind as the good deserving type. Still, behind every poor schmuck going down for the third time is an aunt who shoved him into it and it's amazing how often the aunt in question is one of the big three--Mabd, Nemain, or Macha.

It's the same for cats.

There was Sagi, spirit floating gayly along, 90 days clean and sober. Sitting in the hallway, minding his own business. Not a care in the world. Then, out of the blue, blanketing the hallway like a freak snowstorm in hell, and rolling up in his face all cocky and whatnot, comes this tube of maniacal paper.

Sagi looked at it in disbelief, then raised his countenance to me. The look in his eyes seemed to say. You promised me no more than I could bear. But this!

The situation strongly resembled some great moment in Greek tragedy. Not like the thorn in the lion's paw but more like, well, you know those plays where the hero is stepping high, wide and handsome--as I believe the saying goes--completely unaware that Nemesis is following close behind looking for an opportunity to drop a banana peel. This was that.

I could clearly see, looking into Sagi's eyes, that he would be picking up another white chip soon.

You Talking To Me?

"Do you have a moment? I'd like to run something by you."

"You mean now? I'm pretty busy."

This was not the kind of response I expected from a thick-or-thin team member, of which Ms. Wonder was decidedly the number 1 member, and I told her so.

"Lucy," I said.

"Don't call me Lucy."

"I'm not talking about you, I'm talking to you and if you think she would prefer it, I'll say Lupe then."

"Don't call me Lupe either," she said with a grin that told me she didn't pay attention to my opening remarks.

I was beginning to feel abandoned in my time of need and I didn't like it. Here I was, calling for the old rally-round-the-flag spirit and all I was getting was that patented look of hers. 

"Ms. Wonder, I said, "here I am over my head in the soup, in need of sane and sober council, with no one else to turn to..."

"Ok, ok, I'm listening," she said.

Still not the attitude to give aid and comfort but sometimes we must settle for what's at hand, and this seemed to be one of those times. So I got down to it.

"You're aware that I've been struggling with the writing."

"Oh no," she said, not the writing thing again. Can't you just start writing any old thing to get beyond the block? I'm sure I've heard that somewhere."

"Ah, you mean to follow the Shakespeare method? Let me answer that question by saying, just take a look at what it got him."

"Well, yes," she said. "Just take a look."

"My point exactly," I said. 

"No it isn't," she said but I decided to ignore that too. We'd been over this subject repeatedly and I wasn't going to allow her to divert me. I forged ahead (it is 'forged' isn't it?).

"Wonder," I said, "when one is up to the neck in quicksand, struggling seems indicated but, as we've seen in all those jungle movies, struggling never ends well. No, what one needs is a new tactic."

"You have one?"

"Yes," I said, "I'm going to finish those reminiscences of mine." 

"That's not a new tactic," she said. "I thought you were working on that now."

"Yes, but this time, I'm going to write them in the form of blog posts. You see? I enjoy blogging. Especially when I'm writing about myself. Napoleon used to..."

"Wait," she said. "If I'm going to listen to this when I should be upstairs doing what I'm paid to do, then I don't want to hear about Napoleon."

"But, Wonder, it paints and adorns..."

"And nothing about Catherine the Great and nothing about Cocker Spaniels. Somehow you always find a way to include one or more of those three things and I've had enough of them."

"But, Poopsie, consider for just one moment that your carefully laid plans seem to have worked perfectly and you're patting yourself on the back for excellent work. Then consider that you suddenly discover that all your hard work has been scuttled by a surprise act of catastrophic proportions. Naturally, you can't continue with the normal routine. You call the camel drivers and..."

"You're talking about Napoleon in Cairo," she said.

"Well," I said, "he had to have taken it big. Don't you think?"

"I'm going back to work," she said.