Heaven/Hell

Quivering with the exuberant joy of lives only two days old, each one creating mini-ripples on the surface. How does it feel for a duck to float in water for the first time? To discover seemingly endless delights to eat, right beneath their furiously paddling palmate feet? All oblivious to the threats of the large Herons and voracious Wood Storks that would happily swallow the entire crew, 13 of them in a single all-you-can-eat buffet. Each duckling goes down whole with one upturned gulp, the Stork’s neck pulsing slightly with tiny feet pushing outward, mid-swallow.

The pull of my dogs on yesterday’s walk first alerted me to the new mother. She stood defiantly in the weeds next to the water’s edge with her wings outstretched, an umbrella protecting her hatchlings from stumbling alone out into what would be certain death.

Today was different. It was their celebration of life, the best of the best, their excitement almost palatable.

My hope is that they become the rare exception, that most of them live to be fat old Muscovy’s with broods of their own.

And then there were none.

It’s as if she’s almost expecting her brood to come swimming back up to her or to pop joyfully out of the weeds. But she stood in the exact same place yesterday when the dogs and I passed. Somewhat stoic, perhaps stunned from what was most likely a frantic encounter with a predator, probably several.

Yesterday there was still one left, running side to side at the top of the spillway, peeping frantically for mom or sibs. Apparently Mom didn’t hear or maybe had no way to rescue the chick. I told Carla that there would be no sign of that one by this morning, and there wasn’t.

So now she stands alone.

Five days and gone. Life is exhilaration and terror, black and white, with every conceivable shade in between.

This is heaven, this is hell.

Sign Language

I immediately began highlighting items I like to brag about on our “Standards” sheet when I saw them step out of their car in the parking lot, signing to each other as they did so. As soon as they entered the model home where I work, they told me that they were deaf. Of course, I already knew that.

Over the years I’ve met with quite a few hearing impaired clients, many with a close association to the much-acclaimed Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind here in town.

Normally there is a back and forth of awkwardly scrawled questions and answers. Not my favorite way to communicate. My own writing looks like Sanskrit and I can’t even read it myself. Plus, I want to add humor and ask them about themselves. Where do you live now? What kind of work do you do? How many in your household? Why do they want to move and what are they looking for? In a perfect world, what would you want your house to be like, and where?

The questions are routine enough but the answers spawn multiple opportunities to explore common ground and provide me with a peek into their world. Most people love to talk about themselves if they feel relaxed and unhurried. No one wants to be “sold” anything, me included.

But the barrier presented by cryptic notes and my inability to flesh out questions and responses has always been frustrating

Until yesterday.

That’s when they broke out their iPhone and wrote down questions for me to read, and I broke out mine too.

They had to type theirs in, but for the first time in 20 years, I was able to dictate whatever I wanted to convey from my end of things, into my “notes” field and hand it to this couple to read.

It was great. They needed the home buying help, and their laughter told me that they appreciated the humor as well.

Perhaps I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have no idea why I didn’t start communicating this way several years ago, but I’m doing it now, and it feels pretty good.

Will they buy a home from us? I can’t say. But I am sure that when they left, they knew a whole lot more about the entire home buying process than when they came in, and would be much less intimidated, going forward.

Nice people. We had a few sincere laughs along the way. We made a connection.

For me, that’s what it’s all about.

Torches

Ruby flames burn unchallenged. Torches wrapped in translucent green, warn Icarus clouds of the sunshine, sirens at her feet.

You Used to Have...What?

Friends know that I’m almost never serious, always going for a laugh. But my delivery is with a straight-face, so strangers are often unsure if I’m joking or need a serious check-up from the neck up.

So this morning at the gym, I finished up with an elliptical machine and left my black towel draped over the cup holder as I went to get a paper towel and spray cleaner. Everyone has to wipe down their machine when they finish.

Some new guy I don’t know, apparently didn’t see my black towel and got on the machine.

Walking back, I pointed to my own towel, held up the paper towel and spray and said: “You better let me wipe that down for you.” He was good with that and paused, leaning to one side to give me space.

I continued: “I had a bad case of California hot tub rectal gonorrhea last year. It’s a bitch to get rid of, very contagious in the early stages. I think it’s better now, though. My doctor says I’m OK, but I still have a lot of itching, you know? Best to wipe the machine down, just in case."

With a look like he was smelling poop, he started slowly backing away . “You go ahead.” he said as he headed toward another part of the gym.

Then I saw him leave the gym completely five minutes later.

I believe it was probably his first, and last, visit.

Fight Night USA: Maverick vs The Orange Emperor

I’m no tough guy, and at age 70, way past any thoughts of getting into an actual physical fight. Verbal is OK, but physical? No way. If I’m hit in the head, I get an instant headache that lasts the rest of the day.

But I really, really would like to have an octagon or ring fight with Donald Trump.

Seriously.

Supposedly he’s 6’ 3” to my 5’ 11”and certainly he outweighs me. But I’m a year younger so I’ll take it. Of course if those height and weight stats came from him, subtract a few inches and add more than a few pounds.

It’s just that I’ve been so damn frustrated for the last year and a half. The constant lying from this cancer of a human and the approval of his lemming hordes leave me with this one shining fantasy.

Fight night USA.

Even though he has the best words, talk doesn’t work. Logic is out the window. I can no longer go through my days being amazed by his latest tweets, his reprehensible behavior and the ensuing applause.

Let’s fight, you bloated fuck wad.

You’re bigger and tougher, right?

The whole world will be watching. The emperor vs everyman. 

There will be zero excuses when I decisively kick your ass, you fat fuck. No one to save you or take the fall you seem to always escape when you throw someone else under the bus.

Just you and me, pal.

Hell, it can’t be that bad. Neither of us can even go three rounds. I won't need that much time anyway. Fight fans know that fighters do their best when they keep anger out of it and stay cool. So you’ll have that advantage too, because I’m pissed and that’s not going to change. I’ll be fighting mad.

That’s not like me at all, but you’ve pulled me into your gutter and I have dreams of breaking your nose.

I’ll be fighting for a majority crowd, you know, like in the popular vote that you lost. Except there are more of us now, thanks to you. You’re great alright, as a fight promoter. The entire world will tune in to watch me kick your balding, follicle challenged, cottage cheese ass. You’ll tap and whimper after the first time I hit you. 

Your bowling and tennis days can’t save you from a few rare minutes of frightening reality. With no goons or fall guys to protect you, my bet is that you’ll fold before we even get started. No surprise there, given your serious problems with bone spurs and all.

It will make me immensely happy to say: “My work here is done.”

A hammock with a view and a perpetual shit-eating grin will follow my Immediate retirement from the ring, 

Who’s up for helping with our fight camp? I’ve already got a trainer. Now I’ll need some gym space and maybe a nutrition guy. A six-week camp, and we’re ready.

How about it Little Donnie, you have the balls to step up, or are you going to have to admit that you really are all hot air and bullshit?

A Tape Worm Teaching Moment...

In 1956, when I was 8 years old, I found myself sitting in one of my favorite places on earth, the front room of my distant great cousin, Alice Clark. A tough old Southern,Virginia, can-do kind of woman, who had buried multiple husbands and survived cancer’s best efforts to kill her. She smoked unfiltered Camels, end to end, and was wrinkled way beyond what would be expected of her 50 plus years.

Alice looked like a dark brown apple doll from Stuckey's. Ninety-eight pounds of sinew and bone, Iggy Pop in a fading house-dress.  Her voice deep, gargled in nicotine and framed by brown stained teeth interspersed with white porcelain caps.

Our mutual attention turned to the dachshund sleeping soundly to my left. Alice raised them, pups from her pups, Conversation stopped as we both focused on a glistening tapeworm segment undulating its way out of the anus of that particular dog as he lay pressed into the cushions next to me.

Bright sunshine cut like a laser through the wooden slats of her front window, slicing cleanly through drifting clouds of cigarette smoke, spotlighting our knees and that anus escapee, moist from crawling through the bowels of prison as he made his move for freedom.  

Alice got impatient, she wasn’t good at waiting for anything. Holding a smoking Camel in her left hand, she reached across my lap with her right and grabbed that tapeworm with her thumb and forefinger, pulling it free of the puckered sphincter and carrying it swiftly to the ashtray on the crowded coffee table at our knees.

There, she promptly smashed it into goo with her bare thumb. Mushed into the cigarette ashes, one small glob still moving in slow motion, winding down.

Wiping her hand clean on the dog blanket that covered the whole couch, she said: “Damn worms!” as she once again took a long draw on her cigarette.

In that moment, my world became instantly wider and more interesting. I knew with greater certainty than ever before, that if one tough old Virginia woman could throw out the rule book of what I had been raised to believe ladies were capable of, and unflinchingly pull a worm out of the ass of her dog, squashing it into finality with her bare fingers like that, for me and my life, the possibilities were suddenly endless.

I knew I could face, and do anything.