Past Blogs

(This blog is dedicated to Judith, Nick Nick and Tin Tin)

I recently came across a small story I wrote for children many years ago. Here it is in its entirety.

This is a little story about two dodos, Lulu and Mimi, who lived in New York, New York. Lulu liked to dance the cha cha with her pom poms. Mimi would can can in her pink tutu for hours. Both Lulu and Mimi liked to yo-yo in time to tom-tom music. When the dodos weren’t dancing or yo-yoing, they would eat their favorite foods, bonbons and pawpaws. But all good things must end.

One day Lulu waved bye bye and boarded a choo choo for Baden Baden, Germany. The next day Mimi took a choo choo bound for Pago Pago, Samoa. These trips were two big boo-boos. Everybody knows you can’t take trains to Baden Baden and Pago Pago… you have to take boats. What dodos!

No one has seen Lulu or Mimi since. The end.

Rumor has it that Lulu has turned up in Walla Walla, Washington where she is now a go go dancer (a go go dodo). She dines on mahi-mahi.

Mimi, ever the artist, has been spotted in Lapu-Lapu in the Philippines where she is doing art in the Dada style. She listens to Lang Lang in her spare time and drives a Nano from Tata Motors.

If you hear news of these irrepressible dodos or their friends, send emails or postings chop chop.

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One of the newest words in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “locavore”. The word is defined as a person who only eats locally sourced food.

As lovely as this concept may be, I will never achieve locavore status. Those of you who know me realize that I can’t grow grass, let alone something as agriculturally challenging as a tomato.

If I ever did succeed in getting a foodstuff to sprout, I’m sure our animal friends in the Tooley Cafe, locavores all, would view the garden as a delightful annex to the Cafe.

Since gardening is ruled out, I would have to resort to gathering. This course is also problematic.

For example, we have a local cheese factory and creamery fifteen miles northwest of our house. It features 100 Wisconsin cheeses, butter made on the premises and 50 cent ice cream cones (in case you need a cholesterol fix before you get the cheese and butter home). Unfortunately, the store that supplies our house with toilet paper, laundry soap and cat food is fifteen miles in the opposite direction.

It gets worse. Our local farmers’ markets are 15 miles away at other compass points, and their hours of operation coincide perfectly with my work hours.

At this point you might be viewing me as the perfect subscriber to a weekly produce delivery (aka “a surprise box”) from a local farm.

Alas, I’m not that noble! The thought of coming home from work to an overflowing crate of turnips and kohlrabies or 75 zucchinis is completely unbearable. I foresee no “Animal, Vegetable, Miracles” for me.

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I have the perfect post office. Being a person who loves mail, this is a fortunate circumstance.

My post office is the size of a stamp. Not many of us postal patrons can fit in the lobby at one time; fortunately, there aren’t many people in Cleveland, WI 53015, and we just don’t choose to go to the post office all at the same time.

I’m sure the average New Yorker, or any big city dweller, would give a week’s wages to have a post office like mine. Even at Christmas, we never have to wait in long lines. Granted, we might encounter a neighbor or two, but standing forever in a queue of grumpy strangers just doesn’t happen here. The situation is akin to having your own personal post office.

One glitch did present itself when we first moved up here. I ran over to the post office around noon to mail a letter and found the doors locked. The postmaster had gone home for lunch. The postmaster goes home for lunch every day, a real anachronism in today’s America. I might apply for this job.

Naturally, blessings like an incredible post office don’t come without responsibilities. Little P.Os live or die based on the volume of mail they process. You will be getting snail mail from me frequently. I must do my part and keep the mail flowing at 53015. Hundreds and hundreds of Valentine, Easter, Halloween, Christmas and birthday cards are among my outgoing contributions. My twenty-three magazine subscriptions insure the incoming flow.

I can only think of one feature my post office lacks. (Anyone who has read Rita Mae Brown’s charming mysteries, ghost written by her brown tabby cat, Mrs. Murphy, will know what’s coming.) My post office doesn’t have a resident cat or dog.

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I was coming home from work last week, driving through Green Bay, when a van pulled in front of me. The back window of the van was covered with a film of dirt. Written in the dirt was the following message:

The plates on the van were from Washington state.

I’m sure that many of us have taken road trips that could have benefited from similar, large infusions of humor.

One of my more memorable trips started out calmly. I had just finished school in June, summer days lay ahead, and my husband and I were setting off on a road trip to NY City to visit our daughter and her husband.

I was happily driving through Pennsylvania, relaxed and carefree. My husband was napping. Then, as I paid another toll on the Pennsylvania turnpike, a small voice whispered in my head, “There are no tolls on the road to New York City.” I pulled over at the next rest stop, woke up my husband and announced that I had made a rather major navigational error. Apparently I thought I could get to NYC on automatic pilot. I was actually well on the way to Washington D.C.

Moments like these can be the beginning of the end to a marriage. But my husband had the best possible response – he started laughing. Soon we were both laughing so hard we could hardly read the road map. The map revealed I had gone 130 miles on the wrong road. To get back north again the route went through Hershey, Pennsylvania. Who can’t be happy in a town that smells of chocolate and has street lights shaped like Hershey Kisses? We even hit the Holland Tunnel by 6:30 that night.

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It’s not easy sleeping with a 26 pound cat. The space Gato takes up in our bed is exponential.

Why do we share our bed with this feline behemoth, when we have an array of less obese cats to choose from?

The answer lies in Gato’s new diet. Gato is one miserable cat. The least we can do is let him enjoy his favorite space, our bed.

His troubles began a few weeks ago when our vet gave Gato an ultimatum. Note, I did not say the vet gave us the ultimatum. The vet and we have been working hard for years to control this cat’s diet… to no avail. So Gato was told directly – lose pounds or be diabetic.

“You’re going to be eating in your own private room”, the vet told Gato, “and you’ll get one can of fat-be-gone cat food per day. Don’t plan on helping yourself to your friends’ food dishes, either, because there will be no more open dish feeding at your house.”

The trip back from the vets was uncharacteristically quiet. Gato got home and threw himself on the bed.

At this point I cannot report any dramatic diminishment of Gato’s girth. I can say though that we are having a bit of difficulty watching Netflix on our tiny PC after turning in for the night. Gato is slightly larger than the dimensions of the screen.

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