Oh, Just Shut Up and Lie Down Somewhere

I’ve been sitting here for, oh, three days or so, breathing through my mouth and contemplating a future in voice-over.

Surely everyone would be as amused as I with my voice?  Somewhere between the croak of a hungover amphibian and the creak of a rusty hinge, I amuse myself intermittently with “Ave Maria” and my impersonation of me, with a cold.

“What’s that, Pearl?  You’d like some cough syrup?  Ha ha ha!  You don’t have any!”

Apparently Prior Pearl has failed Present Pearl in this.

She will be spoken to. 

Through the advances of technology, of course, I am no longer just sick, but I am now Sick and Working From Home, or as we in the business like to say, “Swiffing”.  Working in this state leads directly to emails that begin “Come in, Tokyo!” and end “Hugs and Kisses, Pearl”.

I may be exaggerating.  Or maybe not.  I worked until 10:00 last night, and who knows what those last few emails said?  Sure, I could check; but what’s the fun in that?  Better I wait for a response – or some sort of communique from Human Resources.

In the meantime, Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers) is confused.  She crawls in and out of the backpack in which I brought the laptop home, mews piteously at her food bowl (which is only three quarters of the way full), walks from the couch to the dining room table back to the couch in hopes that I will join her.

Cats.  What do they know, huh?

Look at That!; or Would You Believe Me if I Said I Had Some Infrared Footage of a Mermaid? How About a Coupla Big Foots?

There are shows on cable, shows poorly shot, shows with dramatic pauses and whispered hisses of “Did you see that?!” and “Shhhh!  I think I just heard something!”, shows where one “goes green” for night vision and androgynously unwrinkled people just this side of fetus-dom  -- and all, mysteriously, named “Devon” -- stare wide-eyed into the camera while whispering “Oh Em Gee, you guys, this is amazing!”

These shows are about “phenomenon”.

The first thing to know is that nothing that they “discover” rightfully evokes wide-eyed gazes.

None of it is amazing.

“No!  No no no no.  It’ll be fun.”  Kurt grabs a legal pad from the Administrative Alcove.  He is a planner by profession, and there, in reaching distance – near the Spice Alcove but not as far as the Emergency Candle Alcove – are the legal pads, pens, scissors, and binder clips necessary for everyday administration.

He writes furiously, slides the pad to me. “Every time someone says these things, you drink.”

Go Green/Went Green

Side by Side Comparison

Shh!

Look at that!

Nighttime Investigation

I narrow my eyes. “Whattaya, trying to kill me?”

This is a half-hour show with two “investigations”.  In the first one – a 15-minute segment dedicated to footage of a mist rising out of a swamp – there are six repetitions of “Look at that!” and four of “nighttime investigation”.

I was sipping water after the first four.  “Seriously, Kurt, let’s just walk out of the kitchen and into the night.  First one to lose a finger to frostbite wins.”

Kurt chooses to misunderstand.  “That’s my girl!”

The TV glows, and one of the Devons is almost dangerously excited.  “OMG!  OMG!  You guys ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!  You gotta see this!  It’s just a common trick of the light!  See?  OMG you guys, it all lines up: the tree, the phone line, the weight of an unladen swallow – see? In a side by side comparison – after we went green? During the nighttime investigation? – it’s identical to the original footage!  You guys!  This is fantastic!”

The other three hosts bounce up and down in excitement, high-five each other in delight.

Kurt shakes his head, bemusedly.  “Right, Pearl?”  He grins at me.  “Look at that.”

Bath Tub Surprises

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I do like a bath.

And that’s where I was, Sunday night, when I had the strangest experience. 

Aside from what you may have heard, I’m not accustomed to strange experiences in tubs.  True, I once bathed in oatmeal – not sure I did it right, as I needed a brisk shower afterwards.  I also once took a quivering, ice-cold bath after a quivering, ice-cold motorcycle run.  Didn’t warm up until morning.

Outside of that, the tub and I have a good relationship. 

So there I was, Sunday night, fingers slowly pruning, my toes pushing up through bubble kingdoms.  Hot, steamy, relaxing – and the thought bursts forth: “Oh, no!  My watch!”

My watch?

That’s sobering. The last time I wore a wristwatch it was 1992.  It disappeared during a vacation, after a friend decided that I had checked it one too many times. 

She asked to see it, I handed it over, and she threw it into the ocean.

That Cheryl. 

And now, many years later, the ghost of this watch appears in my bathroom.

Holy Hannah.  What is it time for?

Welcome? To the Meeting? or What Really Goes on During a Conference Call

Beep!  Beep-beep-beep-boo-beep-beep-beep.

“… and so I told him? that with the significant amount of scope-creep we were experiencing?  that we’d just have to throw it over the fence at some point?  Hello!  Who just joined us?”

“Hi, everyone.  It’s Pearl.  So sorry I'm late.”

“There she is!  Welcome, Pearl.  Let’s go ahead and start, shall we?

“I just want to thank everyone for calling in today?  We have so much to do? And so little time to do it?”

And just like that, I’ve stopped listening.  Because if there’s one thing that bothers me?  Is the upward inflection?  When none is called for?  It's her voice?  Causing me to reflect upon possible personal symptoms?  That would lead me to believe that I might have a need for high blood pressure medication?

WHAT DOES SHE WANT FROM ME?

The short, squat man in my head, the one prone to belching the alphabet in quiet spaces and waggling his eyebrows at passersby, perks up.

“Is that a question?  Pearl!  Psst!  Pearl!"

I sigh silently, distractedly.

"Pearl!  Is she, like, asking us, you know, a question?”

I try to tune him out, of course, as all right-thinking people should.  But he will not be denied.  "Her name?" he hisses.  "Is it, like, Psienna?  With a silent P at the front?"

I smirk, then stifle said smirk.  "Shut up,"

The phone crackles.  "... as you can see on Slide 17?  The blarf-hinged heinie-swaddler? is currently at..."

Hi giggles, digs into an ear with a hopeful and ultimately disappointed forefinger.  "Maybe it's Gnatalie."

I smile, picturing the silent G.  "Shut up."

"Can we make a grocery list?" he says.  "We're out of cat treats."

"... thus clearly indicating a need? for benchmarking?..."

I frown.  "I thought you said that cats didn't deserve treats."

The short, squat man in my head leans against the inside of my skull, wiping out third grade.  "They don't," he whispers.  "They're for me."

The phone makes a noise, something akin to a marble rolling around the inside of mayonnaise jar.  "So that is pretty much what we have time for?  Pearl?  Go ahead and set some time up and we'll go over this?  My calendar is open."

The short, squat man in my head howls with laughter.  "What?" I whisper to him.  "What the?"

He backs away, wiggling his blunt, pudgy fingers at me.  "Gotta run," he says.  "But your confusion?  Has made my day?"

"Shut up," I hiss.

I clear my throat.  "Sure thing," I say into the phone.  "If you could send me a quick e-mail, let me know any agenda or how you'd like the subject line to read..."

"Of course," she says.  "I'll send the materials as well."

Whew!

Good ol' Psienna.

On Keeping My Eyes Open

I was very small.

“You have to keep your eyes open,” she said.

I assured my grandma that I would. 

“Not everything is what it appears to be, but His eyes are always open.”

I smile.  “Agates look just like regular rocks,” I said.  “And remember those flies that look like bees?”

And in my mind’s eye, I can see her hand come toward me.  I close my eyes as she slips a work-worn hand under my chin, open them to smile at her as she bends down to give me a kiss…

I went to two funerals on Saturday.

I grew up on funerals:  The elderly, the young, babies and children.  The smell of flowers and Lutheran potluck, red-rimmed eyes and black clothing.  

I weep openly at funerals, not for the departed, but for those left behind, for the bewildered woman seated at the front who will wander into the living room next week with an unopened jar of pickles, forgetting for just a moment…

The next day, I go grocery shopping.  I pull into the parking lot, park nose-to-nose with another car.  Her grocery cart sticks out, just a little, and she smiles at me as she moves it closer to her own car, ensuring that I won’t accidentally hit it.  Overhead is a bright blue sky; and while the uncharacteristic 47 degrees is a treat, the warmest it’s been for perhaps six months, it is a somber day, a funeral-hangover of a day.

The woman in front of me is loading the last of her bags as I exit my car. 

“I hope I’m not in your way,” she says, smiling.

I smile back.  “No, no, you’re fine.”

I see the box in her back seat, and the words are out before I can stop them.  “Is that a peacock feather?”

She turns to look, then looks at me oddly.  “Yes,” she says.  “I’m not sure why I have it.  A friend gave it to me along with the rest of the junk in that box, and I just loaded it into my car today thinking I’d drop it off at a thrift store or something.”

The wind lifts, and I push the hair out of my face.

“Hey,” she says.  “Would you like it?  I think it’s for you.”

And I hear my grandma’s reminder.  And I know this woman is right. 

“Yes,” I say.  And then I laugh.  “I don’t know why, but yes.”

I approach her, and she reaches into her car.  She holds the feather out to me.  "Looks like an eye, doesn't it?"  She puts a hand on my shoulder, and I do the same.

Her dark brown eyes look into mine.  “Have a blessed day,” she says.

And for a moment, I feel my grandmother’s hand under my chin. 

You There! With the Shiny Eyes!

We here at Acme Napkins and Grommets believe in keeping in touch, whether you like it or not.

Got something to say? NOT got something to say? It’s all the same to us, because here at Acme Napkins and Grommets, it’s not about getting things done so much as it is cultivating the appearance of getting things done.

Except for you, of course. Or me. You and I, we have things to do.

You know where your big mistake was, don’t you?

Yep. It was the day you did your work and asked for more. It was in the way you said, “I don’t know, but let me find out”. It was when you consistently met your goals and did so while maintaining that gleam in your eye and that smile on your lips. Yes, as drunk as you appeared to be, you with your shiny eyes and your attention to the smallest detail, your performance was top rate, causing you to be handed larger and more complex projects.

You’d think you’d have learned by now, wouldn’t you?

That’s the problem right there. You continue to work at a respectable speed, continue to be held responsible for outcomes, continue to put your best foot forward while stifling the urge to test the tensile strength of the 44th floor windows with your ergonomic chair.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Why do you make us punish you?

Facilities, of course, is against the hurling of office furniture. Trust me on this one. And frankly, who wants to be the “scary” one at work?

Well, actually, you might. You’ll have to trust me on this one as well. There’s nothing like a well flung in/out basket to get someone’s attention. Like the subtle pounding of a forehead on a paper-strewn surface – which no doubt prefaced the flinging of the in/out basket – it says “I’m quite stressed out, yet I remain relatively harmless. Please get me a margarita.”

Well, that’s what I think it says, anyway.

And I always reflect upon this at my next job.

Bruised forehead and scattered in/out box aside, the weekend is almost here; and just in time. There are floors to vacuum, glasses to rim with salt, kitties accompanying one to the bathroom for reasons known only to them.

Just remember:  we've done it to ourselves.  

When I'm Not Doing Something Incredibly Useful...

“The walk to the bus may have looked like any other, but Monday was the day that changed everything.”

I’ve been known to narrate my life. Not aloud, of course, because that would be unseemly. No use in frightening my fellow citizens.

Honestly, the commentary in my head is usually more entertaining than what’s going on around me.

I don’t limit my narrations to my life, though. I’m willing to narrate yours as well.

“Little did the woman pinching the tomatoes know, but the person next to her at the Farmer’s Market, the person inspecting the turnips, then the rutabagas, was her brother Frank, the man who had left for the Navy 15 years ago only to be struck by lightning and left wandering, witless all these years, in his pursuit of the perfect root vegetable.”

My lips don’t move when I do this, so it’s perfectly normal.

Now if my lips moved…

I sometimes see people’s lips moving. They’re walking down the street, fully engaged in something or other. Before Bluetooth and teeny-tiny headphones, this was more amusing than it is now. Like the 'rahr, rahr, rahr' of a dog with a mouthful of peanut butter, one could envision any monologue one liked. Now, however, rather than imagining someone reciting the “My-mother-was-right-and-I’m-leaving-you-you-cheap-SOB” speech as they push their grocery cart through the dairy section, the odds are actually much better that the words they are speaking into the world’s smallest phone are more along the lines of “I’ll be home soon! Do we need milk?”

Boring!

So I’m going to continue to create little fantasy lives around them, what they’re saying, where they’re going, why they’re meeting.

Oh, if only they knew how happy they make me, these lip-moving people, or how much I love them.

Every Season is Special; or, I’m – Sob! – Cold!

I stood at the bus stop this morning, a chill in the air and a suspiciously autumnal look to the sky and thought to myself, ‘Now where’s my mittens?’

Wait.   Mittens?

It’s a full 30 degrees colder this morning than it was just two weeks ago.

Oh, September, you sly little thing you.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I stand before you, a woman covered fore to aft in layers upon layers of thick, weather-defiant clothing. 

In September.

The Farmer’s Almanac, always disturbingly accurate, predicts another dreadful winter, much like last year’s dreadful winter, only with more snow.

I have cousins online comparing SAD light boxes. 

“This is the first year,” my son says, “that I’m not looking forward to winter.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“There just wasn’t enough summer,” he says.  “I’m not sick of it yet.”

And ain’t that the truth.

Of course, it goes against the code, living in Minnesota, to face an upcoming season in this manner.  We’re a hardy people, dammit, and buck up, won’t you?  Why, our great-grandmothers hung wash that froze on the line!  They subsisted on animals they butchered themselves and root vegetables they kept in a root cellar!

They wrested a living out of the land – frozen and unfrozen – with nothing but steely determination; large, well-muscled sons; and the knowledge that there was nothing they could do about it!

It was 42 degrees at the bus stop this morning. 

If you need me, I shall be in a hot bath until spring. 

Hold My Calls; or I'll Be In the Tub

I love a hot bubble bath.

The bubbles?  They don't have to be the  Cucumber Mandarin Monkey Lips from Bath and Bodyworks. The bubbles can be from a squirt of dish detergent and an egg beater.

My love of the hot bubble bath is not about the bubbles.

Forget about the bubbles. The bubbles are periphery.

It’s not even the bath. It’s not the bathroom or the tub or the towels or even, so help me, the hot water. 

It is the combination of those things. The holy braid of hot water, bubbles, and a clean tub. The bath tub requires nothing of me but my presence. It’s not hard work, taking a bath; and I can do it like nobody’s business.

But mention “bath” to some people and they look at you as if you’ve suggested that they sit in a tepid tub of chicken broth.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the shower. It has its place. When you’ve got dirty feet, when you’ve been sweating all day, when you’ve been at a particularly smoky bonfire, when you actually stink, then a shower is your best friend.

Trust me. I enjoy a good stink now and then – I mean, who doesn’t – and when I stink, I shower. But my lifestyle just doesn’t put me in the direct line of sight of a good funky stink very often.

But this isn’t about the shower, dagnab it! Forget the shower!

The bath. It’s about the bath. No one worries in a bathtub. No one gets bad news in a tub. Turn off the phone! Bring a book! Sit in the hot water, legs stretched out in front of you. Encourage a cat to balance on the edge of the tub, if only for the looks of suspicion that she’ll give your toes through the bubbles…

Scratch that. The cat is not the point.

The cat is periphery.

It’s the bubble bath. The bubble bath is the point.

And I feel the need to defend it.

Dial M for Random

Ring-ring!  Ring-Ring!

“Good morning, this is Pearl.”

“Who is this?  Where are you?”

I blink at my phone. 

It doesn’t help, but it doesn’t hurt.

“This is Pearl,” I say.  “And where are you?”

“Well I’m – I’m Barbara,” she says crossly.  “And I’m not going to tell you where I am.”

I blink again.  There is a short silence before Barbara continues. 

“Why did you call me?”

I sigh, quietly.  Perhaps this is a test of some kind…

“I believe you called me,” I say.

“Not now,” she snaps.  “This morning.”

Barbara appears to be a bit peevish.

A light bulb goes off.  “Oh,” I say.  “I think I know what you’re talking about.  Is your number similar to –“  and here I rattle off the number I had mis-dialed earlier in the morning.

There is a silence, long enough that I begin to worry about ol’ Babs.

“Barbara?”

“Yes,” she cranks.  “Yes, it is, and you called me at 7:04.  Who calls anyone at 7:04?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say.  “I start work at 7:00.  I’m sorry if I woke you.”

She sniffs.  “I was up at 5:00.”  I am certain that this woman is frowning.  “I saw that you called but I was out in my garden, and then you didn’t leave a number, and I’ve been worried about it all day!”

“Oh,” I say. 

There is another silence.

“It’s so nice in the morning,” she says.

I close my eyes, then shrug.  Why not.  “Yes,” I say, “but I rarely get a chance to be out in it.”

Barbara cannot contain herself.  “What?!” she says.  “Well, you should!  You should get out.  Today is going to be nice at 4:00!”

This Barbara!  She’s a bit crabby, but she seems okay.  I laugh.  “Why at 4:00?  I don’t get off until –“

And just like that, there is a click and I am listening to the dial tone.

Barbara has hung up on me.

It haunts me, that conversation.

What made her think it was going to be nice at 4:00?

You Never Can Tell with Those City Critters

Having been a part of my Northeast Minneapolis neighborhood for over a dozen years, I can tell you – and you can believe me:  Logan Park has many enviable features.  

There’s the guy with the boom box at the tennis court – the one with the knee-high gym socks and fanny pack? – offering admission-free studies in interpretive dance.  

There are the many fine food trucks parked outside our many fine brew pubs. 

Hic!

And there is the recent flurry of online activity regarding a rogue chicken.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a feral chicken in our midst.

The interwebs is alive with speculation as to whom it could belong.  Whole Facebook groups have weighed in:  Does that guy on Adams, over by Denny, keep that breed of chicken?  Or maybe it’s that guy on Washington?  Maybe the chicken is branching out.  

Maybe the chicken will move from house to house and then head south with the Snow Birds once winter comes. 

Who can tell?

And who knew so many people in the city keep chickens?

Frankly, I know very little about chickens or their role on the urban landscape.  Perhaps this sort of thing happens in all communities.  Perhaps there are people in Chicago right now talking about the chicken in the alley, wondering where it came from, what it’s doing there, how it would taste after a little time in a light brine and followed with a cornbread stuffing.

No, no, no.  That’s ridiculous. 

I would never suggest a cornbread stuffing with a metropolitan chicken.

Now a orange/cranberry glaze might be tasty...

Don’t Think of It as Censorship. Think of It as Feedback.

I used to have 617 friends.

“Surely, Pearl,” you say. “You are exaggerating.  No one has 617 friends.”

 “I used to have 617 friends,” I respond.  “Now I have 616.  And stop calling me Shirley.”

The truth is that Pearl – good ol’ Pearl! – has jumped the greased  -- nay, lubed – tracks of what passes for social discourse and become, in one fell swoop, out of touch. 

“Don’t look now,” writes #616, “but I had boudoir pics taken!”  But she doesn’t give me time to not look now, and suddenly I am thrust – if that’s not too loaded a word – into the soft-focus snapshots of her fantasy life.

Which apparently includes wearing the equivalent of a spool of thread. 

While posing upside down.

And peering from between her naughty, naughty fingers.

There she is, her own centerfold appearance.

On Facebook. 

Look.  I’m all for fantasy.  And I like a good come-hither look as much as the next gal.  But when you’ve posted pics of yourself in a two-piece take-out container holding a pair of chopsticks – is that what that was? – it’s going to take all the reserve I have not to comment with the first thing that comes to my mind:  What?  Leftovers again?!

There were several of these photos, posted, one after another:  different outfits, different positions, but all with the same moist-eyed, lips-parted expression.

Aren’t I pretty?  Don’t you want me?

Sure you are; and no, I don’t.

I was sorry to see #616 go.  We never shared a meal, laughed ourselves off the furniture, never even had a conversation.

But we will always have the fact that I know what she looks like in braided dental floss.  And I guess that’s something.  

We Sometimes Went Days Without Taking Our Own Picture

We are unable to access the internet.

Acme Grommets and Gravel is beside itself.

The intern with whom I currently share a double-wide cubicle – a newly hired soul three quarters of a way through his Masters – looks at me with something akin to fear in his eyes.

“Does this happen a lot?”

I nod.  “More often than you’d think,” I say.

He frowns, then turns back to his screen.    

I want to console him, of course, but I also want to tweak his soft, wrinkly mind. 

“My first job,” I say, taking on the role of Office Crone, “was data entry.  The computer’s mainframe was housed in the biggest room in the building, probably 20 years before the internet.  I didn’t even have a phone at my desk.”

He turns in his chair, blinks at me.

“I used to go out to my car at lunch time,” I say, “and find notes on my car.”

He takes his hand from the mouse, scratches the back of his head.  “Notes?”

“Boyfriends, friends.  People would stop by, leave invitations to places, addresses, jokes.”

He stares at me.

“Sometimes they would leave pictures of cats doing funny things,” I say.

He brightens.  “Really?”

“No,” I say.

He frowns.  “But what did you do?  I mean, how did you get together with friends without calling?”

Somewhere in the ambient noise of a busy office, I imagine the sound of a crackling fire, my rocker creaking back and forth as I light a corncob pipe.  “That was called ‘cruising’, young man,” I say, “and it was part of the fun.  Would you run into friends?  Would you make new friends?  Who knew?”

“That would be weird,” he says slowly.

“It was weird,” I say.  “We sometimes had to go back to the Dairy Queen a dozen times before we ran into people we knew.”

He blinks at me.  “Dairy Queen?”

I nod sagely.  “Biggest parking lot,” I say.

He turns back to face his screen, clicks the Google Chrome icon dejectedly. “Weird,” he says. 

I stare at the back of his head.  “Yep,” I say.  “It was a weird time to be alive.”

It’s OK – He Wants Us to Stare

The man at the front of the bus is listening to music.

Look at him up there, all funkified.  Why, that young man is positively alive with rhythm.

Or so he would have us believe.  We have, after all, no idea what’s being piped from his iPod to his head, but whatever it is, he feels it strongly.

And he wants us to know it.

He’s like a metronome, this guy! 

I turn off my own iPod, the better to watch him.

Frankly, one rarely sees this kind of dedication to continual movement outside of toddlerhood, but there he is, head bobbing, lips moving, eyes narrowed in a righteous groove.  In no time, it seems he’s reached the chorus; and I watch as his lips form the same shapes, over and over, picking up speed and, to be honest, a certain fervor.

This chorus, in the right hands, will inspire nations.

As it is, however, it’s inspiring an all-over body twitch.

Grand Master Lip Synch points to the left, points to the right.  Ticking rhythmically, he points to the sky, nodding significantly. 

There’s spiritual involvement here.  He’s sure of that. 

And GMLS wants to give thanks.

Of course, all semi-amusing things must come to an end; and my stop comes before I’ve had my fill of the visual cadence of the man at the front of the bus.

It’s all for the best, really.

There’s been a man dancing to Foreigner on a boom box at the tennis courts near where I normally de-bus, as we in the bus-riding class like to say, and I don’t want to burn out on the local color too quickly.