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I draw the line at CPR

He makes a good point.

A Denver man named Jeff Peckman wants the city to create a panel, whose purpose will be to create plans to deal with space alien crashes within city limits. Peckman is in the process of collecting signatures to get the issue on the November ballot. He notes:

“It is important because if you’re driving down the highway and you saw a crash of a small spaceship and a car or a bus full of kids, you really wouldn’t know what to do,” Peckman said Thursday. “Do you wait for the hazardous materials experts to show up because of potential contaminants from another solar system? What do you do? People really don’t know.”

I wouldn’t know what to do if I happened upon a crashed or disabled spacecraft. If the alien was thrown from the craft, I suppose I’d hold noddley appendages in a comforting manner while trying not to make much eye contact, simply because my eyes could be outnumbered and that is intimidating. Maybe I’d get our picnic blanket out of the back of the car to cover the alien so it won’t go into shock as we wait for the ambulance. I’d let the alien keep the blanket, because I am nice that way. I could dab some bottled water on the less viscous areas of it’s “skin” while I whisper calming thoughts into what appears to be an ear. I hope it’s an ear.

The story is here.

May 2nd, 2008 | Category: Life | 15 comments

The robe

The flowing robe was aqua blue, trimmed in white lace. White buttons held it closed as I posed for a photo. It was my fourth birthday, and I loved my gift.

I used my blue robe more for playing dress-up than for warmth. When friends from houses across and down the street came over to play, I shared all my other dress up clothes—but never the blue robe. I do not remember who I pretended to be. Was I Marcia Brady? Barbie? Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club re-runs on channel 2? My aunt Anna? They were the pretty girls in my early-70s preschooler eyes.

One day, my robe was gone. I looked all over my room. Under my bed, in my closet, in my drawers, down in the basement. It vanished, and I was heartbroken.

I can’t discern how much time passed between my sad discovery and the betrayal. It could have been the next day, it could have been a month later.

Sometime after my robe went missing, I played at a neighborhood girl’s house. As we pawed through the toys in her closet, I caught a glimpse of blue fabric in a wooden hinged box. I pulled the fabric out. It was my robe.

I was very surprised and too young to realize a crime had been committed. I was just happy to see it again. The girl said it was hers. I said no, it was mine—I could tell. It was worn and dirty in familiar spots. I told her I was going to tell her mom. She grabbed the robe and held it tight in her arms.

I found her mother in the kitchen.

“She has my robe!” I told her.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“I saw my robe in her room!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She called her daughter into the kitchen.

The girl said she didn’t have my robe.

The mother turned to me, “See, she doesn’t have your robe. You should probably go home now.”

So I did.

I remember walking across the street, by myself, contemplating how the mother lied to me and how that was very, very strange. Grown-ups don’t lie. Grown-ups like when things are fair. Why didn’t she tell her daughter to give my robe back to me?

Here I am, more than 30 years later, thinking about that robe and that girl and that mother. It was never found.

It was lost, twice.

May 1st, 2008 | Category: Life | 13 comments

Round-up

I’ve been back from Chicago for several days and haven’t written why I went or what I did.

An online community I’ve belonged to since 2001 organized the trip to Chicago. Picture sixteen mothers taking over a hall in a downtown hotel. We talked, ate, drank, shopped, saw the sights, slept for a few hours, threw a baby shower, and bonded.

I arrived home thoroughly exhausted, but somehow refreshed.

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Today is May 1st and we woke to cold and snow, after nearing 80 degrees yesterday. Snow on plum blossoms is really beautiful, though. I had to go outside and shake the trees because they were bending under the pressure of the wet and very heavy snow.

mayday_1.jpg

mayday_2.jpg

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Aidan had a wonderful time in Albuquerque with the grandparents. Her flight home went well. I was in Chicago the day she flew home. While she was there, she baked cookies and homemade pizza, played with their Wii, went swimming, to the zoo, the aquarium, the botanic gardens, on a train ride, bowling, shopping, to the park, on walks with the dog, to see Nim’s Island, and—best of all—spent time with her grandparents.

On Sunday night, all eight of us were under the same roof again. As I tucked her in bed, she told me she wanted to go back to Albuquerque. Immediately.

I totally understood.

May 1st, 2008 | Category: Life | 5 comments
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