rats in the toilet

Evidently there are rats coming into people's houses through their toilets. This is happening in the city where I live. We are being advised to keep our toilet seats down. This "epidemic" for lack of a better word, is ticking me off. The reason for my ire is rather personal, but I'm willing to share it in the hope that it will help someone.

For years I was nervous about using the toilet. You see, I had heard about giant snakes making their way up from the sewer system through the plumbing pipes into peoples' homes through their toilets. Snakes that had been flushed when they were smaller and the owners realized that they'd inadvertantly purchased an anaconda instead of a ... garter snake? (I don't know what they thought they'd be buying. I don't know the names of non-venomous small snakes.) So, when the urge would strike to use the facilities, I would always carefully peer into the toilet bowl and scan for reptilian intruders. And at night, I would have to turn on the light to see the toilet and floor clearly - in case the snake had already slithered out of the comode and was coiled in the shadows behind the tank. This fear was something I lived with. Not a huge deal. Not something I talked about.
Let me add here that it did not help my state of mind when I would have my snake dreams: dreams of snakes, warm heavy snakes with dry scales, chasing me or lurking in my bed (ok, dial back the Freudian analysis people - sometimes a snake is just a snake). Dreams so real that I would wake up and know that if I stretched my toes I would touch the snake underneath my duvet. So I'd carefully withdraw my feet and scooch up onto my pillow and turn on the light, before whipping off the covers to make sure I was alone.
When I began living with my soon to be husband, he questioned me about my pre-toilet precautions. So I told him. He assured me that toilets didn't work that way. He told me, with the authority of someone whose brother is a plumber, that there is a flap of some kind that prevents things from making their way up from the pipes. He said that the flap only flaps one way. And I believed him!
Slowly I let go of my snake invasion visions.
Many years passed.
I felt proud that I could relieve my bladder in the middle of the night without turning on the light, secure in the knowledge that the flap only flapped one way and there was no way a snake, a huge sewer snake with abandonment issues, would raise it's head from the coil of it's slumber in my toilet bowl.
Then, I hear from some people that rats are coming up through the toilets!!
How come rats can do it and snakes can't? Has it all been a lie? Have I just been supremely lucky to have avoided a reptilian standoff thus far?!

Can I trust my husband?

So, yeah. I'm pretty ticked off.

Oh well, I had hoped that this anecdote might help someone. But I honestly don't think it can. I think in order to help, you pretty much have to end on an optimistic note, a plan of action, or a lesson you've learned... OK. Here's the lesson: when discussing possible bathroom incursions, I've learned that it's best to get the blueprints directly from the plumber.

Fare well friends. Keep those seats down.

in recovery

I have a confession: I am a recovering drama whore.
Not you! You may say upon reading this. But yes, it's true.

It is I who appear seemingly out of nowhere at the scene of any disruption asking - as if I could help - what transpired. It is I who knows, or will shortly know, who was weilding what when and what the police had to say about it.

I drudge through my life which sometimes feels more like Cinderella before the ball than a happily ever after, until I hear a siren. And then a little thrill surges through the marrow of my bones and I think "At last! Something's happening! Something exciting is happening." And if, perchance, the siren stops near our building... what luck!

Now, I am trying to abstain from drama. Just today I heard a siren and it stopped nearby and when I was leaving our parking lot for a legitimate errand, it turns out that there was an ambulance. Just down the street. But I did not give in to temptation. I turned the steering wheel away from whatever issue was happening and went to where I was supposed to go.

Once I got there... well... it turns out that some guy with a lot of tatoos had lost his phone. He'd set it down on a table next to his bag of Cheetos and then it was gone. Obviously someone had jacked it. I took him aside and told him exactly who I thought did it. He had been thinking the same thing! He decided that he was going to prevent her from leaving the scene, and frankly I concurred. I was starting to feel kind of shakey. I wasn't sure how we were going to tackle the situation. I didn't think I should physically restrain this woman, even though we both knew she was the perp. Damn it! I needed to get my husband involved. Unfortunately, he was more concerned about the possibility of falsely accusing someone than stopping her from getting away with it. The tatooed victim was getting more and more agitated. So was I. Thank goodness another guy got involved too. The girl was getting antsy. I informed the guys that she was going to make a break for it. My spouse didn't seem upset about that. It was at that point that I made an announcement to all present that a phone had been lost and if we could all take a moment to check around us, that would be very helpful. Then the victim decided to confront the thief. She backed away from him nervously. I turned to another friend for support. "Something's about to go down." I said tersely. "I'm not involved in this." she replied.

What?!

Slowly, clarity began to filter into my adrenaline infused brain.

It dawned on me how close I had come to tackling an allegedly innocent young woman over an allegedly stolen phone which was not even mine. Which belonged to a man who I did not actually know before we started talking about his phone.

And as I watched the scene unfolding, I began to wonder if I'd backed the wrong horse. Because by now the guy's shirt was off. I don't know why he took off his shirt. My husband asked me if I knew why he took off his shirt and I really don't know.

Anywhoooo...
turns out the girl didn't have the phone on her. The police arrived. I quietly made my way to my car. And as I watched the shirtless man gesticulating ardently to a taciturn cop, I drove demurely out of the parking lot.

Oh well. Tomorrow's another day.
Tomorrow I won't get involved in a drama.
One day at a time, starting Tuesday.
(You have to take into account that it's Memorial Day weekend and I can't control the shit that goes down on a holiday weekend.)

meditations for women who meditate too much

chapt 1: listening to your monkey mind

chapt 2: make that list with a real paper and pen

chapt 3: taking shallow breaths and getting things done

chapt 4: STOP SITTING STILL!!

chapt 5: I SAID STOP IT!!!

Epilogue: Why it really does matter and and why it will matter to everyone
in 100 years.

a question of faith

Last week I saw a sign in front of a church that really intrigued me. It said, "Feed your Faith and your Friends will Starve".
What? I thought.
What do they mean? I wondered. I checked the denomination on the front of the building. No clue there. Just your typical Protestant place of subdued worship.
I thought, who do they have in charge of signs? Is it some newcomer upstart determined to overthrow the establishment and upset common social mores? But are they even supervising this person? Do the signs have to follow some biblical protocol? Does anyone actually look at them? Is this a test? Are we supposed to respond by going to the service in a "Hey now! This is new!" reaction?

Then I thought that maybe it's our friends who are in question. But what did Jesus say about friends? I try to remember...
Well, the story about the loaves and the fishes -- where he feeds the multitudes with only a few fish and a loaf -- would seem to go against the idea that friends were to be starved. Even if they're whores or work for the IRS.
At that point I had arrived home and forgot about it.

Until today.
When I drove by the same church and saw the sign.
"Feed your Faith and your FEARS will Starve".

Oh.

beautiful nightmare

This afternoon the sun was out, the breeze was cool and my daughter was running ahead of me and behind me and not hearing me as I yelled for her. The flowers were in the first fresh bloom of late spring as I trudged after my fleeing 5 year old, wearing my slip on clogs and my 2 year old on my back in a carrier. The delighted laughter of children playing met my ears as my eyes scanned the playground for my runaway and couldn't find her. I smelled the salty marine tang of the water in the air as I headed back down to the street and mentally rehearsed a defense to my spouse so he wouldn't kill me when I confessed I'd lost our first born.

"She took off! I swear! I went after her, calling, and she didn't listen. And then she was gone. I couldn't find her anywhere!" I pleaded as I looked into his bewildered grief. It's not my fault.
It's her fault. She's the one who's not coming. She's the one who's running off and not listening.
And she's five.
So it's my fault.
I catch a glimpse of her on the other side of the playground. I yell. Nothing. She runs down toward the school again. I think, 'She's not dead yet.' I head around to cut her off but she's gone again. I follow the circle around and back up to the playground - again - and there she is playing on the jungle gym.
Happily.
I'm calm, I think. Now I know that in the sun drenched spring afternoon, breathing in the soft warm air... I was numb.
I take her hand, and, in the gentle voice of the most evil villans, I tell her, "You are in soooooo much trouble."

Reflections upon Dora the Explorer as I drifted off to sleep:

It occured to me this afternoon as I was lying next to my 5 year old daughter at nap time, that reading Dora books is like looking into a mirror when there is also a mirror behind you. It's you, cascading backwards into smaller and smaller reflections of yourself, looking more and more perplexed...
My daughter was saying, "This is MY book, and that is HER book..." as she was reading her Dora adventure. And she was saying it in the same manner as a first year university student paraphrases Plato's analogy of the cave in order to "get" it. What is truth? she seemed to be saying to herself. Is it my book? Is it her book? And in Dora's book - here's where it get's interesting - the characters come out into Dora's world in order to request her "help." So Dora jumps into her book and into the fairytale land that she has been reading about... Now. Dora, from inside the book that is inside the book that my daughter is holding, calls upon her readers for "Help." My daughter

is asked to clap like the clapping spider or dance like the snake or flap her arms to help the snow fairy fly...

The issue is this: these books have within their reality the assumption that the characters in the books can see the reader, and that the reader in turn can "jump" into the book and "help." And that reality permeates our real reality and causes innocent 5 year olds to flap their arms and jump up and down and yell things like "ABRE!! ABRE!!!!"

No, I don't know what it means. But it sure brings up a lot of questions...
What are they training our children for?
Wake up people!!

It's a CALIPHATE!!!

a puppy named Po

The other morning, after I dropped my daughter off at school, I saw a little dog with a pushed in nose out on the sidewalk. As he had tags, and there was no person

in sight, I figured he had no business being out on his own. So I pulled over and spoke to him about it. At first, he just yelled at me, like it was my fault for interrupting his adventure, but eventually he came to see my point and let me take a look at his tags. The voice mail box for the phone number I called was full and so I took him to what I thought was his home. Turns out it was across the street from his home but these neighbors told me that he's out all the time and he's going to get run over. So I take Po - that's his name - down to the police department. They recognize him as a repeat offender and advise me to take him up to a bed and breakfast for puppies that holds onto them until their owners collect them. So I did. Oh Po!
I told them to call me if he didn't get collected. And I haven't heard from them.
Next puppy story: this morning I am getting out of the car at my place and there's tagless puppy scampering along the sidewalk outside my door! I said "Hey! Who're you?" He came on over. As it was raining, I scooped him up, resolving to keep him warm and dry until we figured out who he belonged to. Then some gardeners came along and said that he was a neighbor's dog who they'd accidently let out of the yard. By that time I'd put the puppy inside my home, to the delight of my 2 year old. "Puppy!" he shrieked happily. At that point my husband stepped in. "Give them back the puppy." he said. "They need to put him back." I sighed and said "OK."

My husband then asked me if I wanted another dog. I denied it. Intellectually I don't want another dog. But if someone were to, say, toss a puppy my way...
well...
I'd have to catch it. Wouldn't I?