He gets it

"Aliens wake as early as my mom..."

(The first line of the narrative ditty Li'l A composed with his friends to accompany their viewing of the trailer to Skyline last week. So stuck in my head! Now that I've written it, I'm not entirely sure if that line is meant as a compliment--or a complaint.)

"Amma, if I get all A's on my report card this year, will you become a U.S. citizen?"

(Li'l A after witnessing the over-prepped folder of documents I--an alien resident--took to the DMV this morning. He gets a little mutinous when border/airport/transport security quiz me a little too ardently. And I don't think he's forgiven me for reneging on the promise I made Big A in 2008 about applying for U.S. citizenship if Obama were elected.)

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Surprise Package

Enthusiastic
at the end
of March
is this snow
landing as plastic
and separate

as styrofoam pellets

strewn through
our disbelief
in sheafs
as though grit
from a package
damaged in transit.

Didn't we order Spring?
-

Object blaming

People--or at least my own family--know me as the type to have crushes on older professors. Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of this is that I probably give off dangerously high levels of "I crush on professors" pheromones? Is this why older professors like me?

May be?

Am I blaming myself too much?

Not enough?

The thing is, when an older elderly colleague can't seem to stop stroking my back for a good 20 seconds longer than is collegial, I feel like the dirty one for wondering if it's inappropriate.

And because I find it difficult to draw attention to their inappropriate attention and because I didn't say anything, it then makes them think it's ok to give me photocopies of Mary Mackey's "The Kamasutra of Kindness" poems. Not that there is anything particularly objectionable about the poems themselves. My feeling--that both the poet and my personal donor of these poems are guilty of coasting on referential (orientalist) titillation--are just feelings.

_

Just two girls and an inter-species conversation

Baby A toddles in as I'm prepping for class.

NuNu: My very own husband is making tea for me.

Me: Um. 

Me: Um. What?!?

NuNu: My very own husband. He is waiting for me to finish teaching. He's in my very own house across the street [bedroom across the hallway] with all our animal children.

Me: He sounds nice.

NuNu: He is. He's much nicer than yours. He is an elephant. Your husband is not an elephant. You like elephants, right?

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Cop... out

It's still cold. But not as cold. There are snowdrops and crocuses and early daffodils all over. The green arrows that will turn into ditches full of tiger lillies are already bolting out of the cold earth in front of the house as a signpost of spring. Boing, boing, boing.

I feel so hopeful.

In any other season, after being pulled over by the sheriff for doing 75 in a 55 zone, I would never have hoped to get away with just a warning. But as I sat there waiting for the cop to come back with my docs, I just knew he wasn't going to give me a ticket. It's spring, suckas. Boing it.


_

Later...

This afternoon, I left my sleeping children and slipped out behind the house.

Through the woods, past the pond, and I am at the nursing home where several women in the community sing every other week to the elderly residents, voices rising and milling like tides. I join them, after more than a year away, and find that the simple melodies wind their way back to me. And I notice that there are several new residents.

One woman is perfect in lipstick, pearls, and shiny ballet flats. She sings along, holds court. I didn't realize she was in a wheelchair until the very end when she asked the ex drummer sitting next to her if he would like to push her. Being the slow-wit that I am, I offered to push her and she laughed and said, "No dearie" and shuffled off by herself.

Like my mom, I don't think I'll ever stop loving jewelery and soft, shiny, fancy clothes. But although I never played with dolls much while I was growing up, I think I might become the woman who had a doll in her lap. The doll was large enough to reach all the way up to the woman's collar bone, sitting snuggled against her human perch, being posed, having her hands clapped, and being told to listen up.

I may already kind of miss my children. Especially my children in their compacter--and more portable--forms.

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Snap

Once upon a time, earlier today, I taught my family to play Snap. Except in my version, which I remembered from my childhood books, you had to both yell Snap! and grab the cards before the other players did.

It's very grabby. It made me think that all the English children who'd played it in the 1800s were being groomed for something.


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