Squeeze My Freckle. Musings of a Desperate Housewife.

I just got back from the gym. As I was approaching the front door and was

watching all the activity inside, I couldn't help but wonder
what our ancestors would think about all this. It used to be
that people toiled from sun up to sun down, constant physical
activity just to grow their food, tend their animals, just to
sustain their lives. The concept of going to a building to
climb on machines that will force us to get exercise for 45
minutes, was an alien concept. That it would be the ONLY significant exercise we might get all day, would be somewhat amusing to them, I would think. Nonetheless, there I am with my Ipod in hand.The Gym Show is always worth
watching. The cast of characters which I encounter every day
is worth the price of admission alone. There is never a lack
of Mr and Mrs. Olympia types there, of course, with their
oiled bodies, sculpted abs, energy drinks and workout clothes
designed to show off the lean, sinewy muscle that they work so
hard to attain. There are just as many fat people working
out, which is good because fat people are the ones who SHOULD
be at the gym, not the skinny ones. (Just like churches.
Shouldn't churches be a haven of sinners, rather than a
museum of saints? I digress.) There is one old lady who I
see there every morning. Cute, cute, cute, in a Betty White sort of way. She is in her early 80's for sure, and every morning she is there at 6 am. She comes dressed to
the nines in stretchy slacks, a cashmere sweater, a lovely
scarf with a jewelled brooch and pearls. I am not making this
up. GodLuv'Er, she works out in freakin' pearls. She needs help
climbing on to the treadmill, but once she is on it, she just
jams. Two machines over poses the Nike Godess. Tall,
beautiful and blond, tanned and toned, I just hate her
gorgeous guts. She has that cute ponytail that sticks out
of the back of her baseball hat and it swishes left and right,
and right and left, in rhythm to her run. Her sweat glows and
smells like strawberries 'n cream. Every woman in the place
hates her. Every man in the place is scared of her. Consequently,
there is always an empty machine on either side of her. Would
YOU want to be next to her, invading her aura, being compared
to her? " Not I," said the pig, "not I,"
said the cow, "not I," said the fat, red hen. Contrast that with Mr. High Cholesteral on the machine just in front of me. He scares the hell out of me because I know he is going to have a heart attack right in front of me and I'm going to have to do CPR on his slimy, gelatinous bulk and the thought of my
lips having to force life-saving oxygen into his sweaty, unshaven
face is more than I can bear. Maybe he'll puke up the 8 scrambled eggs and plate of
bacon that he had before working out. Maybe he'll puke it up into
my mouth as I try to save his sorry life. I think about that.

GASP. Somebody shoot me, but there he is, wearing what appears to be
a woolen sweat jacket and long sweat pants and he is walking with the
machine on a steep incline, but he keeps slipping on his own sweat and groaning with each step. I want to speak to him about gastric bypass or methamphetamines, both better alternatives to diet and exercise, if you want my honest opinion. (I'm
not fat enough for gastric bypass and too broke for a drug habit, or else I'd practice what I preach.) In any event, I'm certain that one of these mornings, he is going to die on that machine. I hate watching him, but he is directly in
front of me, so whattygonna do? He does provide some entertainment though because every now and then in true, Real Man fashion, he will pause his machine to rearrange his"package". Now you KNOW what package I'm talking about. He is so overweight that sometimes he really has to fish around for a time to find it, but when he does, herearranges "things" and seems to be so much happier for it. He always looks around to see if anyone is watching
him do it, and of course, EVERYONE is watching him do it. I think that makes his day complete, in a perverse way. There was a new guy at the gym today. I looked up and saw him across the crowded room walking between a row of machines. Fabio, Fabio.
My heart skipped a beat. He was like a Greek God. Time stood still and I watched him stride in slow motion towards me: shoulder length, blond, wavy hair, denim blue eyes, perfect cheekbones, a chisled square jaw. He belonged on the cover of a romance novel and every damsel in that gym was inhaling his testosterone, wanting to have his baby, and sending him with come hither looks . He was too perfect, even here in
Orange County, the land of physical perfection. But I knew as soon as he stepped
into full view, I knew. It was his footwear that gave him away. He
was wearing the latest in avant garde Prada workout shoes. HELLO? RED Prada workout shoes! He was gay as a handbag and I knew it. Gay as 18 red balloons. KAPOWIE, WHOOSH!!!!!!!!!! Did you hear that? The
sound of a dozen bubbles bursting as the other girls figured out what I had already discerned. Life lesson number one, learned at the gym:
if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't. Mr. High Cholesterol was the only person who contined to stare.: ) Yes, it takes all kinds to make

this world turn, doesn't it?

Did I tell you about Miss Matchy Matchy? I swear to God, EVERYTHING about her matches or coordinates. I'm sorry, but matching is SO
very "80's". Today she had on a black adidas track suit with mauve satin stripes. Mauve SATIN. I know many people would say that satin, as a fabric, has no place in a sweaty gym environment, but there 'twas. Not that she actually had any intention of actually SWEATING, eewww, yuck, puke. Of course, a mauve t-shirt peeked out from beneath her matching, satin trimmed jacket, and matching black and mauve baseball hat. Did I tell you that she had on cutesy little socks with mauve balls on them, and coordinating NewBalance sneakers. Did I tell you that her bedazzled Ipod cover coordinated ever-so-nicely with her ensemble? Did I tell you that I just described me? I am Miss Matchy Matchy. I'm not proud of it and I swear I"m going to get help for that fashion failing. Soon. Maybe tomorrow, or next week or whatever. So what else is there to do while one is sweating to the oldies, at the gym. Even people watching gets old quickly. I can't stand to watch the girl on the stair stepper ahead of me for one more minute. Whose bright idea was it to put the stair steppers anywhere but in the very back row. Don't they KNOW that we don't want to see gym rats bent over with their stinky butts stuck up in the air as they lean forward climbing the stairs? I don't want to see the line of sweat that goes down the butt crack and shouldn't somebody tell them that you can completely see through spandex? Somebody shoot me, immediately, if not sooner. So I look up and watch tv for a bit. That is not as easy as the Nike Godess over there makes it look. I would have to do too many things at once. I would have to listen to my Ipod, walk with my arms swinging, (ARM singular, I"m a one-armed gimp these days,
remember?) I would have to read the words as they scroll across the screen, AND
let my eyes leave the words on the screen to see what is actually
happening on the tv, all the while trying to not walk off the
end of the treadmill and not bang my injured arm against
the rail. Whoa. All this before 7 am? Nope. So I concentrate on the poster on the wall. It is from a company called "OCsunscreens.com"
and it depicts a piece of mottled, cancerous skin with the phrase, "Squeeze My Freckle" HUH? Squeeze My Freckle? Sorry, I don't get it. I
think about it a while and decide that I should entertain
more worthwhile cerebral pursuits, like should my earrings match my purse or my shoes? WhatEVER. Later, Bitches. I'm off to Lady Foot Locker. They are having a sale on matching workout clothes.


> >

Life's a Bitch

Anybody who knows me well knows that I have a hard time relating to some other women. Without exception, the women I have in my life are strong, independent, smart and witty. There is no time for that sub-segment of the female caste that I refer to as "The Silly Bitches." You know the ones. They are the ones who never grew out of their high school personalities. They are weepy, dramatic, clingy, gossipy, and catty. The unvarnished truth is this though: I miss that sometimes. I don't know if it is my XX chromosomes rebelling, but I have found that there is a piece of me that secretly finds Silly Bitch behavior to be amusing. I often thought, "Too bad that there wasn't a hybrid personality of someone who can be all those silly things, but at the same time, I could enjoy them." Then I met my first Drag Queen....

Let me first of all say this: I only know 4 drag queens personally and I've hung out with them both in and out of drag. I realize that does not a scientific sample make, but it is good enough for me to want to announce to the world: I LOVE DRAG QUEENS!! I do, really. Like the female characteristics I am drawn to, they are strong, independent, smart and witty. You have to be strong to have the balls, literally and figuratively speaking, to go into a CVS Pharmacy looking for fingernail adhesive when you are dressed like a Philadelphia hooker. You have to be independent to go against society's norms about how men are SUPPOSED to dress in their spare time. You have to be smart to figure out how to "tuck" What God Gave Ya into a discreet n' neat little package, until it looks like He Didn't Give It To Ya. You don't have to be witty, but I'll be damned if I've ever met a drag queen that wasn't. You have to have a keen sense of humor to make up names like Lady Vajayjay, Jizzona Straynger, Mozie Pornwood. My Drag Queen friends make me laugh out loud, and my most frequent, "laugh till ya tinkle" moments have involved 6 ft tall men in frothy white and pink wigs and kitten heels. While catty, bitchy behavior in women infuriates me, I find it incredibly entertaining and hilarious when I see the same behavior in men, dressed like women. It's showmanship at its bitchy finest. Perhaps in my twisted little brain, I see drama queen bitch behavior coming out of women to be letting our gender down in some way. But these are not women, nor do they WANT to be, so it is ok. I don't know. I don't have to know. I'll just enjoy my hypocrisy for now.


I've learned a lot from my Drag friends. I'll never forget sitting down with a Queen and discussing the pros and cons of press on nails as opposed to acrylic nails. She learned that lesson the day she had to call in sick to her corporate job on a Monday because she couldn't figure out how to get her zebra striped nails off.

Another time, I got tips on where to shop for fashionable shoes in large & wide sizes, from a queen dressed in a pink and lime green pucci dress, and white patent leather, pointy toed high boots. (As a tragic side note: I've been cursed with large, wide feet, so I was thrilled. Perhaps I was a Queen in another life.)

Some of my favorite make up tips have been taught to me by a queen. These guys are masters of illusion because they have so much to compensate for: conspicuous crotch bulges, whiskers, uni-brow, the pronounced adam's apple. These are all things that must be dealt with if the illusion is to be successful. I've been instructed in the power of contour powder and a good push up bra. I now know how to sculpt cheekbones out of nothing, using the same contour powder. If I ever felt the need, I could even give Dolly Parton some competition, using nothing but a pair of rolled up tube socks and double sided adhesive tape.

Sidetracking a bit, I remember once on a trip to Australia, my husband and I went into a Thai restaurant in the Kings Cross district of Sydney. If you've never been, King's Cross is the heart of the gay district of Sydney, although we didn't know that at the time. We were met at the door by a beautiful Thai female hostess. She was tall and slender, wearing a white leather mini skirt, flashing toned legs that had no end. Not that anyone would notice her legs, as she had the most perfect, perky breasts that nature could afford. Long silky hair, almond eyes, perfect skin, perfect teeth, she was a stunningly beautiful woman and my husband was drooling and not hiding it so well. She was giving my man the "come hither" look and I wasn't real happy with that, but then she said, in the deepest of male voices: "You can just seat yourself anywhere you'd like..." Somewhere in the middle of dinner I was still laughing until my pina colada was coming out of my nose. My first clue SHOULD HAVE BEEN "her" pronounced adam's apple, because as my drag friends tell me, "If she has an apple, she has a banana."

Another thing I've learned from having Drag Queen Fabulosity in my life is the ability to say "Fuck you if you don't like what I am." We should all wish to not care what other people think. I was doing a photo shoot last spring with Lady Vajayjay, for a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" campaign she was pushing. We had already started shooting when she decided she needed something in her car, which was parked out on the street. There is a pack of feral adolescent boys who roam our neighborhood on bicycles. My worst nightmare was realized when 6 of them flew around our corner on bicycles just as Lady Vajayjay was teeter tottering on 6 inch stilletos down my driveway, enroute to her car. "Whoa, guys! Is that a DUDE?", yelled the pack leader. They all jammed on their brakes and did a double take as Lady V gave them his biggest smile, and shook his leopard clad mini skirted booty at them. I had a camera in my hands, I don't know why I didn't take the shot. The kids just laughed and kept going, it was no big deal.

Not all of my drag life lessons involve the shallowness of the pursuit of physical perfection. I love to hear about life in the drag community. A Drag mother will take a drag daughter under her wing and teach her the ins and outs of the business. Many of the Queens I know are kind hearted, caring men, who do this to raise money for charity. Absolutely Fabulous, a local gift boutique that I am affiliated with is very generous with time and money and Absolutely FABULOUS sparkly things. The owner likes to do her bit to help local Drag Queens and their charities. I have volunteered my photography talent to my adopted Drag Queen, because as I've always said, "It takes a village to raise a Queen." It is just nice to see people, gay, straight, bi, transgendered WHATEVER, pull together to make this world a better place. I look forward to the day when we can all see our similarities more sharply then our differences.

Dearest ME.

I read a magazine article yesterday that urged us to "Get in touch with your inner self." That lead me to thinking less abstractly and more concretely about our "inner selves." I decided it was time for me to do just that. Here is what I came up with:

Dear Pancreas,

We've been together now for 52 years, and most of those years were wonderful. I remember when we first started out, young and in love. I would drink my formula and eat my Gerber's cereal, and you would do your part by delivering all the insulin a metabolic system would want. It was like we knew what each other needed and we lived only to serve each other. It was a beautiful thing. What happened to us? How did things go so wrong? I know diabetes is genetic, my father had it. Must biology be destiny? I swore I'd be nothing like him, but look how history repeats itself. I hate that it has to be this way, but sometimes you have to look out for yourself. You might not like it, but if sticking needles into myself daily or taking Metformin is what I need to do to hold this volatile, pancreatic relationship together, then you are just going to have to deal with it. You failed ME, remember. Not the other way around.


Dear Brain,

I'm taking time today to talk to my inner self, and you are top of mind, bad pun intended. I'd like to thank you for all the years of somewhat reliable service you've given me. It wasn't always smooth sailing with you, but we worked it out. Those seizures you sent my way in my 20's were problematic, but I only bit my tongue once and it was in my sleep, so I don't think my tongue even knew about it. I know the anti-seizure meds were hard on you, but you got through it. Never mind that Dilantin and Tegretol slowed you down to the point where people I met considered me a pleasant idiot. I'm better now, the quick wit is back, and if pushed, I can calculate Pi to the 33rd digit. Now that I think about it, you could have been a bit more forthcoming in high school also, I really could have used some scholarship money. However, you kicked into gear in university and I appreciate that. I never did mind altering drugs in my youth, but I'm not ruling it out for when I retire. Don't take that as a threat, I"m just sayin'.


Dearest Liver:

I don't deserve you, I know that. You are the best thing that ever happened to me and yet, I abuse you. Lemon drop martinis, bathtubs full of gin, American beer -- the abuse is endless. Still, despite this, you stay. "Love means never having to say you're sorry." I don't believe that, so I'm here to say, "Liver, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I know not what I've done." Don't miss my point here, it doesn't mean I'm going to change, I'm just apologizing for past and future behavior. When our days on earth are over, dearest liver, I plan to be cremated and then you will get your chance to really "shine" because I seriously doubt that frickin' flame will ever burn out.

Dear Bladder:

You are probably my favorite organ. You never complained when I drank till overflowing in the farmer's fields of Prince Edward Island. You never once leaked, as I traveled the world refusing to use airplane bathrooms because I'm a freak. 17-18 hour flights and not a peep out of you. Did I ever tell you how much I appreciated that you and my kidneys had such a great relationship. I may have not said the words, but I really did love that you worked so well together. All those years working in the photo studio where I refused to use their stinky bathroom, but waited until I got home. Did you ever once punish me for that? No, never. Now that I'm a snaggle toothed old hag, my friends tell me about their misbehaving bladders, and I feel so superior. I can sneeze and laugh all I want, and know that you are there for me. Thank you. Words are not enough.

Hey. Feet:

Fuck you. I never liked you. You were always way to big and wide and you disgust me still. My mother always said, "Oh Suzy, you'll grow into them, stop complaining." Well, she was WRONG. I tried putting on a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos once, and I looked like Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie." My drag queen friends look better in heels than I do, so go straight to hell, FEET, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200. By the way, that foot surgery I had two years ago? That was just a taste of what I can do to you if you make me. DARE to give me bunions and see what will happen. I'm not a vindictive person, but I can only be pushed so far. Don't say I haven't warned you.

Dear Butt:

You've always been my favorite body part, I don't know why. Perhaps it is because I love sitting on you, you are comfortable to be around, like a comfortable, fluffy pillow. As a young girl, I played hockey and skated and that is probably what turned you into such a well rounded butt, so to speak. My brother always said you were so hard that "you could crack an egg on it." I hope you don't mind that I call you a "butt" now. I know that growing up in Canada, you preferred to be called a "bum", but that means something different here, and "when in Rome" -- well. You know.

Dear Hair:

I don't know what to say about you. We've always had such a conflicted love/hate thing going on. I curled up and dyed for you. I permed you, I straightened you, I bobbed you. I've given you highlights, lowlights, gloss treatments, deep oil conditioners. All I ever wanted was to grow enough hair to make a ponytail. I would have felt like a real girl then, like the ones in high school who could just pull their hair back and stick a ribbon on it. Or the ones I see jogging on the beach with their ponytail sticking out of the hole in the back of the baseball cap. The kind of ponytail that would swish as you move. I wanted that but you never gave it to me. I tried. I tried so hard to grow you, but you wouldn't let me. I always ended up so frustrated and looking like I tried to fix the toaster or had stuck my finger in a light socket. I could never get you started in the morning, so I cut you short. Damn you. I hope you feel good about that. I'll never be a "real girl" now. Oh I try to compensate. I buy clothing with sparkly crystals all over it, but that is a facade. I wear adorable shoes, hoping people will overlook the fact that I have man feet. I drink Girl Drinks with cutesy umbrellas and sugar on the rim (sorry pancreas, my bad), but still, I have short hair because YOU won't grow fast enough. At 52 years old, I have come to grips with the fact that the only way I will ever truly be a girly girl with a pony tail is if I get hair extensions. I live in Orange County, fercryin'outloud, the hair extension capital of the world, what am I waiting for? I have this conversation with myself way too often, there has to be some resolution here. For now, I guess I'll just choose to be grateful to have hair at all. Oh, and by the way, hair? It could be much worse. You could belong to Lady Gaga or Britney Spears.

Sue

Climb Every Mountain

This is a story I wrote for a wedding photo book I made for our friends, Jill and Grant. They were married in a mountaintop resort in Washington and the story is allegorical of how a married life together is like climbing a mountain. It is long, but worth a read! Sue.

Marriage is like climbing a mountain. You think about it for a long time, you decide you really want to do it if you can find the right climbing partner. You assemble all the gear you will need for your climb and with a kiss for good luck, the pair of mountaineers are on their way. At first the climb is easy, the slope gentle and the weather is perfect. All your equipment is new and shiny and you love the novelty of seeing the sunrise from your brand new sleeping bags. After a while, you notice that the incline is a bit steeper, but still manageable, and the zipper on your sleeping bag is sticking a bit, but if you rub soap on it, it works better. Life is good and there is no doubt that you will make it to the top of the summit.

After climbing for a while, you and your climbing partner realize that however fun it is to climb together, wouldn't it be nice to have some companionship along the way? So you adopt a pair of bear cubs, and the climb becomes way more difficult, but at the same time, WAY more fun. Now you not only have to worry about getting yourself to the top of the mountain, but you have the responsibility of two other little lives. Years pass, you climb and climb and climb, and your cubs grow and grow and grow. At some point, you may even wonder, is this all there is? It seems that all you do is walk and sweat and climb and you wake up in the morning in a now dirty sleeping bag and do it all over again. But then you think about your climbing partner and your cubs and how much joy they bring to your journey, and you bounce out of the sleeping bag a bit quicker because you remember there is another gorgeous sunrise outside the tent waiting for you.

Once you've been climbing long enough and you get into a routine, things get a bit easier. You plant flowers along the path, hoping to make the climb nicer for the generations of climbers that might come after you on their own life quest to the top. You meet up with other climbers along the way and you share your evening campfire with some of them, even your food. A few special climbers become like family as you realize that sharing DNA with someone is no guarantee of closeness in a relationship. Those special climbers you meet and "adopt" would drop their gear in a second to help you if you needed help, and you would do the same to them. You realize that you can never have enough people to love you, and the climb is too long (or too short?) to waste your energy on high maintenance relationships that only bring negativity to the journey, Your years of climbing experience has taught you that and surrounding yourself with the good people in your life will sustain you and support you when the climbing gets really tough, as all mountain climbs eventually do.

You will learn many things on your ascent to the top. You will learn that NO journey is without peril and bad luck. EVERY climber thinks that the others have smoother trips than they, but you'll learn that is an illusion. Their base camp may look more organized than yours, and they have flowers growing near their outhouse, but if you look closer, you'll see that there are holes in their tents too, and while you may have a mosquito problem, they are covered with black fly bites the size of M&M's. And those flowers? They are plastic! Totally fake. They just have DIFFERENT climbing challenges than yours, but they don't have a clean slate, no matter HOW MUCH IT APPEARS TO BE SO. Remember that.

You will learn that when bad things happen to your fellow climbers and you learn about it, you won't just ask "what can I do?" You will just FIND SOMETHING to do and just do it. It may only be that you will carry their backpacks for the next mile, or clean out their campsite when they are too sick with Traveller's Revenge to do it themselves. Your new maturity will help you to realize that even when you "don't know what to say to them...." you will just "shut up and show up" and that simple gesture will mean everything to them. You will understand that if you wait to be able to do some huge thing for them, you will never do anything, because there rarely is anything big that you CAN do. You will never be able to build a helicopter from tree branches that will bring your unfortunate friends to safety. You will never be able to Just a bunch of little things that will make them feel cared about and not forgotten. Your mountain climb will teach you that lesson if you are astute enough to learn it.

A painful lesson that many climbers learn too late is what a wonderful instrument God has blessed you with in giving you a healthy body. Often people learn too late that they should have taken better care of it. A mountain climb will tax your body like no other and if you haven't looked after it, every step can be painful. Your knees will hurt, your back will creak, your neck will be stiff when you climb out of your sleeping bag in the morning. You would still enjoy the sunrise if you could just see it better, but you neglected your eyes by refusing to wear sunglasses. Hopefully it won't be too late by the time you learn that lesson and you can begin to treat your body better by only putting good fuel into it and by listening to your knees when you can clearly "hear" them shouting, 'Enough climbing for today. Build a fire and relax now...."

Somewhere in the middle of the climb, somewhere around the second base camp, you will notice something about your baby cubs. You will notice that they are not so little any more. Hopefully, you will have stopped to play with them when they were little and wanted nothing more from you than to splash in the stream, or to go fishing with you. You notice that they now tower over you and weigh about 700 lbs. They could EAT YOU ALIVE if they wanted to, and you have to have patience during those times of adolescence when they threaten to do just that. They don't need your help any more to fish. One swipe of that big paw and they have a 20 pound salmon to munch on for a snack. If you've done your job correctly, the saddest thing in the world will inevitably happen -- the day will come when they tell you that they are leaving. If you haven't done your job correctly, however well meaning you are, they will be living in your tent forever, taking up ALL the free space and you will be catching salmon for them forever because you didn't teach them how to sharpen their claws so they could catch their own. As sad as it will be to watch them venture off and start their own climb, be happy that you taught them how to be self sufficient and know that you will reap the benefits some day when they have cubs of their own and you watch them teach THEM the lessons that you worked so hard to teach.

It will seem strange at first, after the cubs have left, to have just you and your climbing partner to share a tent once more. It many even be scary. You may even be susceptible to the many traps that befall climbers who are trying to adjust to a new routine of "empty nesters." Perhaps you will spend all your time polishing your camping equipment. Checking and rechecking your cllimbing lines. Collecting firewood and mapping routes and having no time with your climbing partner to just be together. You will need to find a new routine TOGETHER, because if you don't, another climber might come along and sensing your emptiness say "Come climb with me for a while...." While the illusion of a nicer base camp may be a tempting thought, it is just an illusion. You have a whole journal full of life stories of snow storms on the trip, raging waters and rivers you've crossed, predators you've slain together....as flattering as it is to have another camper tempt you to join his/her climb, you don't have a HISTORY and a journal with them. It just isn't worth it. It's an illusion. Remember that. No matter how good it appears, it is just an illusion.

As you approach the summit, you need to look back periodically and see how far you have come. Why, it just seemed like yesterday and you and your climbing partner were just starting out with a shiny coffee pot and new hiking boots. Now your boots have the tread worn off and your sleeping bag is held together with duct tape. Your tent had to be patched with your worn out long johns and the tent pegs have long been replaced by pegs made out of trees you've encountered on your journey. At this point, you don't have to tell your partner where to set up camp. You know EXACTLY what each other is thinking and you work in sync together. There are times when you still feel like either signaling a distress call to a passing aircraft with the shiny part of a soup can, but that too shall pass, and you know that your life partner is your soul mate, no matter what.

Finally the big day arrives. As you approach the spot where you are ready to plant your Life Flag and claim victory over the mountain, you look to your left and see your cubs approaching. What is that walking behind them? They have cubs of their own, rolling around and wrestling with each other. You look down below and you see the path you have climbed together. It is full of flowers that you have planted along the way. On your right are all your "people", the climbers that you have adopted as family and they are cheering and clapping, reveling in your success in completing your life journey. Tears are shed for the climbers who didn't make it, through climbing errors, or dysentry, or who just plain 'ole gave up the climb. You look back into your mind's eye and you remembered the day that you stood on the top of the mountain on your wedding day with your people surrounding you , vowing to make the climb to the top together again one day. You've made it. You look up and thank God for all the lessons and blessings. You have completed the journey. Life is good.

SURPRISE!!!

Anybody who knows me well, knows that I hate surprises. When my kids were born, I didn't know the gender of any of them, which drove me nuts. Consequently, they had to wear green or yellow clothing until the supply of neutral colored baby shower gift clothing was used up, while visions of pink or blue danced in my Mommy head. How FUN it would have been to be able to paint the nursery pink or to KNOW that splurging on the BLUE Dior diaper bag was ok, because I was having a boy. Expectant parents have the option of knowing the gender now, and that makes so much more sense.

Then there is the issue of surprise parties. DON'T EVEN GO THERE WITH ME ON THAT ONE. Here's typically how it goes: They plan a surprise party for you. They have the date booked weeks in advance, they sneak around and tell you lies, and go to great lengths to hide all the pending fun from you. For WHAT PURPOSE? So you'll be pissed off that the plans YOU made are cancelled, and they get to surprise you for 5 seconds? Doesn't make any sense to me. You are the only one who didn't get to anticipate the event, maybe buy a new outfit, get a great haircut, take time to do your make up just right.

A bunch of girls threw me a surprise party years ago. Since I didn't KNOW about the party, I had made a dentist appointment for the time and didn't mention it to anyone. When the friend, Martha, showed up to pick me up "for coffee", she had to track me down at the dentist's office. I was flat on my back, wearing a paper bib with spit on it, drooling like a hyena over a sheep's corpse, and she comes rolling into the dentist office. The dentist was a mutual friend, so he didn't mind. "Hey, Sue, do you want to go for coffee??" HUH? It was 6:30 pm and I would normally be going home to feed my husband and kids after my appointment. I said, "arrggh. msfft ung froo." (She probably took that to mean, "sure, when I'm finished here." What I was really saying with my mouth full of spit and dental instruments was "Are you fucking crazy? What are you doing here?" Whatever. When I was finished getting my tooth filled, I told her that I'd have to call Mike and tell him I'd be home later and I went off with her to a Mexican restaurant. That should have been my first clue right there. We have Starbucks, Gloria Jean's, Daily Grind, Natalie's, Seattle's Best....trust me, there is NO SHORTAGE of coffee joints in Orange County and she was bringing me to a Mexican Restaurant??? My so stupid. I remember thinking, "that's ok. At least nobody will know me here." I don't know what YOU wear to get a tooth filled, but I was wearing dirty sweat pants that I"d probably slept in, a well worn Root's tee shirt with dental spit and filling shavings all over the front of it. I had no make up on, and my mouth was still so frozen that I could only mumble my words, and I was drooling all over myself without even realizing it. My hair looked like I'd tried to fix the toaster, and failed, so I grabbed a baseball hat from under the seat of my car and stuck it on my head in an effort to at least hide the bed head. The hat said, "Beer Bitch" on the front of it and unbeknownst to me, had a hunk of hair-filled bubble gum stuck to the back of it, but I figured I wouldn't know anyone there, so whatever. I'd was as exhausted as the mom of three young kids would be and caffeine was looking pretty tempting right then.

Imagine my surprise when we walked in to the restaurant and 10 of the women from our church were sitting there like the cats who ate the canary, "SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!" Now you have to understand women in the OC. Public outings are a time to pull out all the Girl Stops. Their hair was perfect, Dior and Gucci and Chanel sunglasses perched effortlessly on the tops of their uber coiffed heads. Their make up was impeccable, everyone was wearing their favorite Tiffany jewellry and designer purses matched their Jimmy Choo shoes. "Surprise!" said Jenna, with freshly done manicure. "Surprise!" said Denise, with her fabulous sundress with the sweet heart neckline encrusted with Swarovski magic. "Surprise!", said Lorena, just back from her vacation home in Hawaii and looking refreshed and youthful and perfect -- everything that I wasn't. I thought to myself, "Surprise? SURPRISE????????????? Fucking right I"m surprised...." I was horrified. Here's the rub though: you aren't supposed to get mad when that sort of thing happens. You are supposed to be grateful to your friends for being so thoughtful as to throw a surprise party for your birthday. Well, I wrote the book on passive-aggressive behavior, so I'm not sure if I recognize it when I see it, OR, if I recognize it when it really isn't there, but I was ready to choke the bunch of them. I didn't have the option of picking out what to wear, doing my hair, looking forward to a dinner I didn''t have to cook myself. The reality was that I had eaten already, in anticipation of having a frozen mouth, and since I wasn't in any shape to be actually talking with swollen lips incapable of forming sensible words, I could only sit at the head of the table, feeling like a skunk at a fucking garden party, listening to all these beautiful people talking about how "they almost let it slip -- remember when I said...." To add insult to injury, Martha told everyone at the table how stupid I must be to not have realized what was going on when she showed up in the dentist's office. Right? Not only am I sitting there swollen, frozen, and ugly -- a pimple on the face of Orange County's most fabulous female humanity, I was stupid too! Needless to say, that was the event that solidified my feelings about surprise parties and my refusal to ever throw one for anybody. Ever. No matter what.

I said all of that to say this: Just say "no" to suprise parties. The next time you have to urge to "surprise" someone, at least consider the words of a fellow suprise hater who said this: I"m not much for surprises. Anticipation is more my thing. Anticipation lets you stretch things, build them up, shower properly in advance. Anticipation is a turkey in the oven, long pregnancies, the 12 days of Christmas, spring training. A surprise is one juicy bite, anticipation is a long, splendid feast.

Voodoo for Dummies, an introduction.

Like much of the rest of the world, I have been horrified at the recent events that have taken place after the Haitian earthquake. It is amazing to me that this devastated culture hasn't completely broken down and rioted full force, in an effort to get help after so long. Clearly, the world has responded to their pleas for help, but it has been slow coming, and the number of preventable deaths that are occurring every day now, is staggering. I did a bit of research into the culture to try and understand a bit of the mindset of the people of Haiti, and found some fascinating things, most of which relate to the dominant religion there, Voodoo, and how it manifests itself in the behavior of the people.

When most people think of Voodoo, they think of sticking pins into people to cause harm to them. This is such a fallacy about the religion, which, in Haiti, is now intertwined with the Catholic church, which actually combines elements of voodoo rituals into the mass. There is an element of "cursing" people in Voodoo, but that represents only about 5 per cent of the religion. 95% of voodooism involves healing, not cursing people. (New Orlean's voodoo is a bit different, and tries to capitalize monetarily on the Western Worlds misconceptions about spells and voodoo dolls.)

We think of people who practice voodoo as poor, uneducated, lower class people. This may be true only because that class of people constitutes the vast majority of Haitians, but very intelligent, well educated and well to do people in Haiti also embrace this religion, so don't judge a book by its cover.

Attached here is an excellent article that I've found that is an easy read and explains modern voodoo in a way that will give you great insight into the people of modern Haiti. The "Reader's Digest Condensed Version, a-la-Sue-Cassidy, is this:

Treatment of the dead is such an important concept of voodoo. As we watch tractors pushing dead bodies into mass graves, we think how horrible that is, but to a Haitian, it goes MUCH deeper than that. Families that don't bury their dead properly, believe that their restless souls will wander the earth unhappy and will cause very bad things to happen. Conversely, a proper burial will please the dead and ease the transition to the other side, and good things will happen. They TRULY believe this, so it is bad enough that they have to watch their families suffer from the earthquake damage, but knowing that they can't bury their dead properly is emotionally just as bad. Before all this devastation, it was not uncommon for poor families to go without food in order to buy a casket for a family death. With that in mind, it leads me once again to wonder why they aren't rioting in the streets en masse, over this ultimate tragedy as they see bodies piled up in ditches.

Well, there is a reason for that too, and it involves one of the basic tenets of their religion: fatalism. They believe that Lwa, the earthly god, is ultimately in control of everything that happens in their lives, and they can't do anything about what will happen, so why bother trying? You can see this attitude manifested in generations of Haitians who have lived lives of abject poverty. Why don't they try to rise above it? Get an education, leave for a better life? Some do, of course, I'm not saying that all Haitians subscribe to that fatalistic mindset, but just look at the numbers who DO. Like those on the lowest caste in India, they believe that this is their lot in life and there is no point in trying to do anything about it, it is in control of the Lwa, who they will TRY to gain favor with through animal sacrifice and pleasing ritual, but...Que sera, sera. What will be, will be.

I urge you to take the time to read the attached article and hope you find it as fascinating as I have, and you can draw your own conclusions from it. Before you go judging people who deeply believe in a religion that is different from your own, think about Christianity and its own beliefs. A virgin birth? Rising from the dead? To each his own. Have a read and tell me what you think....



Voodoo for Dummies, an introduction.

Bob Corbett
March 1988

(Important Note)

First and foremost Voodoo is a religion. It is the dominant religion of Haiti. Many of the practices and descriptions of Voodoo belief may sound to us like rank superstition, but then, imagine the beliefs of Christianity to people who know nothing about it. Tell them about the trinity or the resurrection, or the presence of Jesus in the eucharist. Any of these practices which very intelligent Christians believe in the fullest would seem no less superstitious to someone unfamiliar with Christianity.

Thus I urge you to recognize that Voodoo is Haiti's religion, it is taken very seriously not merely by unlettered peasants, but many intelligent and learned members of the Haitian society believe as sincerely in Voodoo as do German theology professors in their Christianity. In no way do I expect you to believe in Voodoo; no more than I would expect you to convert to Islam if I taught a course on that religion. But, please do recognize that it is every bit as real a religion as the major religions of the world.

The most basic concepts of Voodoo.
There is one God, Bondye. This God is very similar to the God of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There is only one God.
There are three important categories of other spiritual beings:
lwa. These are the various spirits of family members; the spirits of the major forces of the universe--good, evil, reproduction, health, all aspects of daily life.
lwa interact with the people of earth.
They "mount" people now and again during religious ceremonies and they give messages, and even cause various good and bad things to happen to people.
The twins. A curious and rather mysterious set of forces of contradictories: good and evil, happy and sad etc. If honored now and again in religious services they will tend to help you have the better side of life.
The dead. Mainly the souls of one's own family members who have died but have not yet been "reclaimed" by the family. Ignored family dead are dangerous. Honored and cared for family dead are helpful.
The central and key aspect of Voodoo is healing people from illness. Such healing activities probably constitute 60% of all Voodoo activity. Healers heal with herbs, faith healing (with the help of lwa and other spirits) and, today, even with western medicine!
The priesthood of Voodoo contains both men (houngan) and women (mambo). Their functions are:
healing.
perform religious ceremonies to call or pacify the spirits.
to hold initiations for new priests(tesses) (kanzo service and taking the ason).
Telling the future and reading dreams.
casting spells and creating protections.
creating potions for various purposes. (From love spells to death spells.)
For any of these they may receive fees. But, they may not too. This differs from one houngan and mambo to another. (Note his is similar to fees paid to rabbis, mullahs, priests and ministers.)

Another central feature of Voodoo is the "service," the religious rites of the religion.
These are usually held outside, under a rough roof and around the "poto mitan," the center pole. A houngan or mambo almost always directs these.
Drums are used extensively to provide music and dancing is absolutely essential to the whole service.
Services are fully participatory. Not only the houngan and mambo participate but nearly everyone present.
A master of ceremonies (La Place) is often present.
A hounganikon directs the music and motion.
Hounsi (women only) are serving ladies, usually dressed in white.
Those in attendance are nearly all participants and most can be "mounted" by lwa.
In most services the lwa "mount" people. That is, they come and take over a person's body for a time. When the lwa come the person is gone. (It's not clear where the person goes.) The body is the body of the person, but it is really the lwa. If a male lwa mounts a female person, he is referred to as "he," not she, during the mounting.
Nearly every Voodoo service has animal sacrifice. By killing the animal one releases life. The lwa are exhausted by the taxing task of running the universe. Thus they can receive this life sacrificed to them and are re-juvenated. They are usually quite happy about this.
There are two primary sorts of Voodoo.
Rada. This is a family spirit Voodoo and the Voodoo of the relatively peaceful and happy lwa.
Petro. (In some areas called Congo.) This is a black magic Voodoo and the Voodoo of angry, mean and nasty lwa. Dangerous things happen in Petro including death curses, the making of zombi and wild sexual orgies SPECIAL NOTE By virtually all scholarly estimates one can find, Rada accounts for about 95% of Voodoo, if not more. Thus the spectacular tales of black magic, while very real, are extremely limited. Petro is not the typical Voodoo, but it does exist.
The analysis of humans. Humans have two spirits and a body.
ti-bon-ange (little good angel). This is similar to the conscience in the Western understanding of people.
gros-bon-ange (big good angel). This is similar to the soul in Western theories of person, except the soul is much more separate from the person than is a western soul. For example, when the person goes before God for judgment it is the gros-bon-ange which presents "the person" to God and makes the person's case.
Key terms in Voodoo
hounfo--the parish or region of a houngan or mambo's influence.
govi--a small earthen bottle into which the gros-bon-ange of dead ancestors can "rescued." After a person dies the gros-bon-ange goes to the underwater place. A year and a day after he or she goes their the relatives can recall the gros-bon-ange. Unfortunately this is a very expensive service, requiring a significant animal sacrifice, often an ox. Thus it is often considerable time before the service can be done. If too much time passes the ancestor may get a bit restless and cause trouble-- illness etc.
serviteurs--serious practitioners of Voodoo.
ason--the magic rattle of the houngan or mambo.
lave tet--(washing of the head) an initiation ceremony held for serviteurs after they have been mounted for the first time.
kanzo--the initiation ceremonies for those moving into a very serious level of Voodoo practice.
taking of the ason--the final initiation into being a houngan or mambo. NOTE: Both kanzo and the taking of the ason are very secret services. However, in Alfred Metraux's book (VOODOO IN HAITI), through observation and talking with people who were not too careful about the secrecy of kanzo, he has pieced together a detailed account of the ceremony.
verve--ceremonial drawings done in flour, of the various lwa.
peristyle--the Voodoo temple. A tiny tiny place.
poto mitan--the center pole in a Voodoo peristyle. It represents the center of the universe and all dancing revolves around the poto mitan.
Les Invisibles--all spirits.
Les Mysteries--
the lwa themselves.
sacred knowledge. Also called "konesans."
The crossroads. A central image in Voodoo. This is the place where the two worlds (earth and spirit world) meet. Virtually all Voodoo acts, even healing, begin with the acknowledgment of the crossroads.
Some of the central lwa in the Voodoo pantheon.
Legba. An old man who is the gatekeeper between the two worlds, world of earth and the world of the Invisibles. He is the origin of life. The sun is one of his symbols, but he is also the source of regeneration and uses the symbol of the phallus.
Kalfu (crossroads) is the Petro counterpart to Legba. He is the spirit of the night, the origins of darkness. The moon is his symbol. He can be placated, but is a dangerous lwa.
Papa Ghede. lwa of death and resurrection. A total clown. Very erotic and comic. He is the lord of eroticism.
Dumballah. The father figure. He is the good snake. The source of peace and tranquillity. The egg is offered to him when he comes to mount a person. He is much loved and sought after. His wife Aida-wedo attends him.
Agwe. The sovereign of the seas. Especially honored, as one might well expect, by people who live near the sea.
Ogoun. The warrior. Today, too, the force of politics. Violent.
Erzulie. The earth mother. Spirit of the goddess of love. The muse of beauty. (Strongly identified with the Virgin Mary.) Her appearance (when she mounts someone) is one of cleansing, dressing, delicate foods daintily eaten. She can read the future in dreams. A much loved lwa.
The FATALISM of Voodoo.
Voodoo is much criticized by foreigners in Haiti. Sometimes it is simply because they profess a competing religion and don't want the people to stay with Voodoo. At other times they charge that it is devil worship. This claim is sheer nonsense when speaking of Rada Voodoo, the numerically primary form. It is less clear how to describe Petro. There are no "devils" in Voodoo, but Petro cultivates the evil or at least angry spirits.

However, many of the non-religious aspects of Voodoo which people often criticize really seem to me to be more the result of Voodoo's overwhelming fatalism. The view is that to an astonishing degree the lwa determine out lives. The Haitian serviteur has little use for anything like the Western idea of free will and personal responsibility. Rather, whatever has happened it is the lwa who have caused it.

If one would like to change anything in one's life, from a current illness to the fundaments of the social system, one must ask the lwa. One does not ACT on one's own. This would be counter-productive since it is the lwa who decide these things anyway.

Further, the lwa are not very changeable. Things are the way they are because the lwa have decided it. This fatalism contributes significantly to the peasants' unwillingness to struggle for liberation.

However, one can must the hard question: Is it Voodoo that has caused Haitian fatalism, or is it the history of the African/Haitian experience that has created Voodoo's fatalism?

Voodoo's relationship to Christianity.
The Catholic experience.
Under the French slaves were forbidden from practicing Voodoo. Nonetheless Voodoo survived. The colonists did allow occasional dances on the weekends. These dances were actually Voodoo services!
After the liberation of 1804 all white people were kicked out of Haiti and many were killed. This included Roman Catholic priests. Thus in 1804 the Vatican broke with Haiti and did not establish relations with her again until 1860.
During this 56 year period houngans and mambos built up the public religion of Haiti, Voodoo, in a weird amalgamation of African spirit religion and Catholicism. Virtually all lwa became associated with Catholic saints (Dumballah the snake lwa is St. Patrick; Erzulie, the earth mother is the Virgin Mary). The most important consequence of this is that Haitians see nothing odd at all with practicing Voodoo and Catholicism side by side and are often very devout about each of them.
I can't explain this, I only describe it.

From time to time from 1860 until the late 1940s the Catholic Church waged campaigns against Voodoo. They never came to anything.
In 1941-42 some elements of the Catholic Church waged an all out physical, holy war against Voodoo. They burned peristyle, Voodoo shrines, beat (some say even killed) houngans and mambo, demanded their ostracism from society and shot things up. But, they lost. Voodoo went under-ground to some extent, but it grew in popularity, in large measure because of the oppression.
By the early 1950s the Catholic hierarchy halted this war, got rid of these priest warriors and made their peace with Voodoo. Voodoo drums and melodies were incorporated into Catholic church services. The Catholics took the position, if you can't defeat them, co-opt them. Relative peace has held between the Catholics and serviteurs ever since.
The Protestants.
Until the 1970s Haiti was nearly 100% Catholic.
In the 1970s evangelical Protestantism came to Haiti. After Reagan came to power evangelization mushroomed.
Evangelical Protestants are bitter enemies of Voodoo and denounce it all the time as devil worship. Many of these people claim that Haiti's misery is because she is being punished by God for the sins of her Voodoo serviteurs.
Protestantism has come to Haiti as a serious business. Evangelical Protestants groups own 7 of Haiti's 11 radio stations and have made significant gains in conversions.
Today most observers believe that at least 15% of the Christians in Haiti are Protestant evangelicals.

Later, Old Dog.

She waited until the hustle and bustle of the holidays were over, but on January 1, 2010, our old dog, High Tea, decided that her time had come. We arrived home from the New Year festivities to find that her back end was paralysed and she had stopped eating and drinking. Being a holiday, we couldn't get a vet to come out and see her, so the next day, we scooped her up and brought her in and stayed with her as she passed.

Born Melita High Tea of Simi, bred by Jean Richland, she was a beautiful show dog, and became a champion Bearded Collie before she was two years old. She came to live with us when she turned two and bore two litters of 10 puppies each during the next few years. Many of her puppies became AKC Champions as well, which earned her the title of ROMX.

She was a great dog, and had a long, great life. She tolerated my taking embarassing pictures of her, like the Schnooze photo above. The other one is her and Pepper getting ready for a bath. She would have been 13 years old in March. Cheers, High Tea. You will be missed by your partner in crime, Pepper, and the rest of your family!