Gorgons R Us

 Jen bought me a Medusa Lego figure. How awesome is that?! Also, who knew Lego made mythological figures? Do they make Christian, Muslim, Jewish god figures too?

Medusa, in Greek mythology, the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons. She was usually represented as a winged female creature having a head of hair consisting of snakes; unlike the Gorgons, she was sometimes represented as very beautiful. Medusa was the only Gorgon who was mortal; hence her slayer, Perseus, was able to kill her by cutting off her head. From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus, her two sons by Poseidon. (source)

I only mention it but the origin of Medusa’s snake tresses is this:
Though she was one of the three Gorgon sisters, Medusa was human. She was also a priestess of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, battle and crafts. Athena required all her faithful to be virgins (like nuns, I guess) but Poseidon didn’t give a good goddamn. He was violently smitten (not unlike that horrorshow human, Mr. I-just-grab-'em-by-the-pussy) with Medusa and raped her. Worse yet, the God of the Sea, abused and violated her on the steps of Athena’s temple. WHAT a vicious, vindictive shit-stain!

as if that wasn't heinous enough, Athena went all bitchy blame-the-victim on our sad, abused heroine. Poor Medusa’s hair was turned to snakes and she was banished to some odd island all by herself. I bet there wasn’t even a Starbucks or a diner nearby. Fucking cruel!

Here’s the thing about my Lego Medusa—she has a reptilian lower end! I knew she had the cool snake hairdo (which I’ve always envied). Has she always been a snake below the waist versus having legs? I can’t find any reference to this online but I did see that, back before that fucker Perseus sliced off her head, she had wings. Snakes for hair AND wings? I am SO jealous!

WHY did Perseus do such a vile, dastardly thing? He was trying to impress his daddy, Zeus. P-boy reeks of serious daddy-issues combined with tiny-dick energy. The original incel? Reminds me of Coke Junior and his pathetic, criminal attempts to gain Cheato’s love and respect.  Good fucking luck!

“I transformed Medusa,' Athena continued, 'so that she would have protection against all those who would try to harm her.’

'That's bullshit. You didn't give her a choice, did you?' Lore bit back. 'And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die.’

'No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales. They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle's assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?”
~ Alexandra Bracken, Lore

I'd never known a change that wasn't monstrous.
~ Jessie Burton, Medusa

You’re probably wondering: why were Medusa’s kids a golden warrior and a winged horse? And how had they been stuck in Medusa’s body all those years?Heck, I dunno. I’m just telling you how it was. You want stuff to make sense, you’re in the wrong universe”
~ Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes

Beginnings

Just got my genealogy report back (okay…not really. I already knew where my ancestors came from). My DNA can be traced back to:

1) Gioia del Colle (“Joy of the Hill”), a town in the Puglia region of Italy. It’s known for its mozzarella and red wine, Gioia del Colle Primitivo (also Fanellis, Gabrieles and Guzzos). Mmmmmmm, cheese and wine, mmmmm.

Specifically, the report absolutely pinpoints my origins to an espresso bar on Via Gottardo. Cats passed by in a near continuous stream on their way to Piazza Pinto. They stopped by the table, hoping for a nibble of my crostoli. Also, some red, red wine. Possibly cats originated in Italy too.

2) Killorglin, a town at the beginning of the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. Killorglin is known for it’s annual Puck Fair.

The origins of the Puck Fair are uncertain, but written records from the 17th century refer to the fair at that time and it has been suggested that the fair’s origins are even pre-Christian.

Each year, a wild male goat is captured locally and crowned King Puck in the town of Killorglin by a schoolgirl in her role as the Queen of Puck. The crowning signifies the beginning of the festivities. (source)

Possibly, Great Grandma Annie Dodd had a place on the River Laune, stopped for a pint at Falvey's Pub (or whatever it was known as in the early 20th century) and then off to the local bookshop for the latest novel from Mister Oscar Wilde. Maybe on the weekends she visited the beehive houses farther down the peninsula. Well, that's what I would've done (and did when I visited the area).

3) Somewhere in Schwandorf, Bavaria (91km from Nuremberg of WWII trial fame) Great Great Grandpa Johann and his wife Agnes were born. They lived there until emigrating to the U.S.sometime in the mid 19th century.

What was there to do in Schwandorf back in the early 1800s? Beats the fuck outta me. Now? You can tour the Felsenkeller-Labyrinth.

Dating to the 16th century, this maze of 60 connected caverns is a testament to both German ingenuity and the much-celebrated love of beer. Each of the chambers was once part of an underground network of storage rooms. For the most part, the labyrinth was used for beer storage, though it has served as a bomb shelter and even a Nazi headquarters. (source)

Beer, Nazis and a few pretty churches—woohoo. I don’t drink beer. We’ve got enough Nazis (AKA MAGAts) here in the U.S. and I don’t find churches at all interesting (except for that one in Siena). 60 connected caverns though? If I could get past my hostile, asshole claustrophobia, I'd def want to stroll around them.

So, that's me in three. Basically, I'm mostly a Coffee/Pastry/Book American.

Other Names

In 1282 Wales was taken as the first English colony. It wasn’t called that by the residents of course. They called their home Cymru (pronounced Kum-ree) and they were the Cymry—fellow countrymen.

The English name comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “Place of the Others" or “Place of the Romanized Foreigners” So, in their own land, the Cymry are called foreigners.

Britain in AD 500

This is similar to how the indigenous people of the Americas were renamed. Fer instance:

• Schitsu'umsh ("the people found here”) are now known as Coeur d'Alene. This is French for "awl heart.” It’s unclear why the Schitsu'umsh were called this. Easier for Frenchman to pronounce?
• Dine'e ("the people") were called Navajo, which is the Tewa word for “planted fields.”
• Lenape ("the people") became known as the Delaware after the English name for the Delaware (a Brit nobleman) River.
• Lakota ("the allies") were renamed Sioux. This comes from an Ojibwe word meaning “snakes." Huh. I guess the Ojibwe (AKA Anishinaabe ("original people”) weren’t too keen on the Lakota.
• Aniyunwiya ("principal people”) who’ve been dubbed Cherokee (Cherokee is from a Muskogee (the Muskogee came to be known as Creek), word for "speakers of another language.")
• Tsitsistas ("the people”) became the Cheyenne. This is from a Lakota word for the tribe, possibly meaning "relatives of the Cree.”
  

Back to the Cymry (AKA Welsh) though. I came across a really cool word—Hiraeth. It’s pronounced “here-eyeth” (roll the “r”) or, mebbe hir-ith.

A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, “hiraeth” is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost. 
A longing for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places in your past.

I cannot begin to put into words the hiraeth that I feel for music—going to shows, concerts and just hearing a trio doing ambient music in a pub.

And Now We Is Nine

I started this here blog on Thanksgiving Day, nine years ago – it was the 24th of November 2011. So damn much has happened since that day.

• Since Tell Me a Story's advent, I’ve lost a few more brain tumors and six spine suckers.
• My hunny-pie soulmate of 30 years opted outta this life but, astoundingly, I've landed another. Hooking up with just one fabulously kindred spirit, let alone two, was wholly unexpected. I must have been such a good doobie in my last incarnation to rate TAB and Ten.
• The tribe I call family has both increased and diminished. The losses have been due, in part, to the the unforgiving circle of life but also, on occasion, by deliberate choice. I’m at peace with that...and shit. The gains? Good doobie, last go 'round and shit.
  
• Somewhere in these past nine years, my gig changed radically and happily. Freelance graphic design? Yeah baby, that's the ticket!
  
• I’ve traveled, traveled and then traveled some more.
• There was that insane Snowmaggedon winter and other interesting environment events.
  

This weekend is also the anniversary of my arrival in Boston 40 years ago. I left my parents small Western Pennsylvania college town on Turkey Day evening on a Trailways bus. I was seen off by my father, little sister and, weirdly and uncomfortably, the previous evening’s one night stand (yep, I said goodbye to my little town with a bang).

Cringingly, I discovered that he was one of my father’s advisees (Daddy taught math at the local college). Dude had some odd drama needs – he either wanted to impress Pop or horrify him by giving the impression that we were a real going concern. One Night Stand Boy had his arm tight around me as we all waited for the bus to show up. He then attempted to engage me in a full blown R rated so-long smooch-a-thon. No! Icky-poo and NOT in front of the fam, PUH-LEEZE! I shook him off, boarded and sped off into the future.

Who knew the future would routinely include views like this? Not I!

Place

Inevitably, when I meet new people, I’m asked where I’m from. I’ve never known how to best answer.

Depending on the asker, I’ll respond in degrees of specificness. Hough’s Neck (AKA Valhalla), Quincy, Boston, Massachusetts, New England, the U.S. (though that’s obvs from my accent).

Often what’s meant, though, is where did you grow up. That’s the question’s desired reply — it gives more info about who a person is. I just don’t have a simple response.

Like my friend Kevin, a military brat, I grew up sorta all over the place (though all US and mostly East Coast or Midwest). I’ve lived in the Boston area nearly all of my adult life though. For that matter, TAB, Jen, Oni and I’ve lived in Valhalla for 13 of my 57 years – that’s the longest I’ve lived in one place EVAH.

Can I just say Ich bin ein Bostonian and be done with it? Please?

My buddy Kathy grew up in the same small Western Pennsylvania town where I went to high school but has lived in Southern California, just south of L.A., for 30 years or more. Does that make her a California Girl now? (FYI, David Lee Roth’s version is my absolute fave) Can she reply “coal country and then The Big Orange” and all her bases are covered?

Cousin Della grew up in Yonkers but has lived in Europe, (Netherlands, now Germany) since achieving a adulthoodness. Will she always be considered an American abroad or can she answer the question "I'm a Berliner?"

My pal Joe grew up in Boston’s North End (lived there from the ‘50s through the ‘70s, while it was still, genuinely the Italian section of town) but has lived in Salem for the last 25 years or so.  Is he both a North Ender and a Salemite (if that’s the right term)?

How does where we grew up shape who we are in our present locales? Does it?

Would Luke Skywalker have turned out differently had he grown up the son of Chalmun's Cantina’s barkeep and not as a Tatooine farmboy?

Would Diana Prince still be Wonder Woman if she'd grown up in East Blueberry, Kansas rather than Paradise Island?

Would Lamont Cranston have become The Shadow (able to cloud men's {but not women's?} minds ) had he not been born to wealth?

Would I still be me if we'd never left Peapack, New Jersey?

Yeah, probably.

Glam ID

Who am I? Where do I come from? Who are my people? AND is any of my family history romantic, colorful or exotic in any way?

Romance and color -- VERY important.

Back when I volunteered at the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness, I knew a woman who felt she had none. No glam, no glitz. Sue's husband was part Lakota. By comparison her own heritage, to her mind, was devastatingly dull.

I was surprised. All of us, every last one of us, possess fascinating back stories. Truly. Think about it. At the very least our mothers and fathers, grandparents and great grands all lived through some amazing times. Moon landings, World Wars, hippie-dom, disco (!!!), the end of state sanctioned segregation and so much more. No, not all our parents were marching, zipping off to the moon, fighting in Normandy or the la Drang Valley. Still, we live/have lived in amazing times. Maybe ALL eras are amazing. Yup, I expect that’s the case.

My glam identity lacking acquaintance said ‘No, no. That’s not what I mean.’ Huh, what up then?

Grandma in nursing school

Aunt Mamie in nun garb

While her husband could lay claim to being of the idealized, glittering Sioux Nation, she was of mixed, western European descent. A mutt. This was a mega huge disappointment to her.

HEY! I’m a proud goddamn mutt! My mother was of mostly Italian descent (a wee town just north of Bari) but there was a bit of French in there too. Half my father’s family came over from Ireland (Belfast and Killorglin), the other half from southeastern Germany (Black Forest area possibly) but there’s a bunch more in the mix too (some Scots and Austrians, I think).

This isn’t all Dances With Wolves /Last of the Mohicans /Smoke Signals cinematic but it’s pretty damned cool.

I know, I know, where's the romance in the great grandfather accountant who worked for a farm equipment factory in upstate New York? What's so glamorous about a seamstress in early 20th century New Haven, Connecticut? A nun (my Aunt Mamie)? A nurse (Grandma!)?

None of them dressed in buckskins. Not a one of my ancestors sported long black braids. There wasn't a grass dancer in the bunch.

I'm still fascinated even though none of my forefathers would ever be romance novel cover material.

You know, if you can't find fairy tale wonderment, horror, magic and poetry in your family history, well DAMN, you're just not looking hard enough.

Festum Thursday

The lovely, kind but not long term Red.

Thanksgiving weekend is a big multi anniversary for me — not only was Tell Me A Story born on the Do Nothing and Definitely Don’t Go Shopping day after Festum Thursday, Thanksgiving day is when I left home for Boston. 34 years ago. (YES, this means I’m old as fuck!)

This was the big move into the future, my adulthood — I’d been kicked outta Texas after a few seasons with a traveling carnival, decided rural-ish Louisiana and being the moll of an offshore oil rig working dude (sweet as he was) just wasn’t my bag and could def NOT see living in my parents small town a second longer (mia madre wanted me to stay -- get my Masters degree, meet a nice Catholic boy and start pooping out bambinos — NO THANK YOU!).

This was sorta, kinda, in a hyperbole-ish but still very true way, the weekend of my genesis.

Why Boston? It's where the dart landed, more or less. Yes, that was a huge part of my Where To Now Saint Peter decision process.

I've written of my stop over in Western Pennsylvania in last year's anniversary post

I managed to find a drunken debauch or three and, what I thought would be, a farewell to western Pennsylvania fling. In post-sheet shaking kibbitz with my flingee, Sam, it somehow came up that my father was a math professor. 'What's your last name,' he asked. What a surprise — he’d just thumped thighs WITH HIS ADVISOR’S DAUGHTER.

Yes, uncomfortable hilarity kinda ensued.

Before boarding the northbound Greyhound on Thanksgiving evening, I’d rung up a high school pal who was attending MIT and asked:

‘Hey, remember you said that if I was ever in Boston, I was welcome to crash at your place? You gonna be around the day after Thanksgiving? Yes...tomorrow. My bus gets in at eight AM.’

Craig picked me up at the Station and toted me back to his old Independent Living Group — Epsilon Theta where we chilled and tucked into the leftovers from the previous day’s big spread.

Not only did Craig VERY graciously let me stay with him (at his off campus apartment) until I found a job and my own crib (two weeks and done!), he introduced me to all his buds. I remember nights where a bunch of us would be playing with Legos — the Thetans would invariably be building fully functioning helicopters, computers and wind turbines. Me? I was recreating Mondian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie  and Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman (yeah, that one was rough).

We found each other fascinating, fun and strange.

So, 34 years ago, I had a starter group of exotic buds, a job and my first wee flat. I’m still good friends with a few of my Lego chums.

How cool is that?!

Now We Are One

With apologies to A. A. Milne

When Bob and I go out for a walk,
We hold each other's hand and talk
Of all the things we mean to do
When  Bob and I are ninety-two.

Today is this blog’s birthday. Tell Me A Story is one year old today. Naturally we had to dash out to buy cuppycakes in order to commemorate this special day.

I began writing primarily because Jen would NOT stop nagging me. ‘You should write these stories down,’ ‘you could start a blog,’ ‘have you started writing any of this down yet?’

Nag, nag, nag!

Here's the thing though -- I want to hear/read other people’s sagas and old saws too. My own yarns, burlesques and dramas are pretty damned familiar to me.

I want to read about yours.

Cousin Della has contributed, as have my pals Heike and Brian. Jen (AKA Jen The Pirate Blogger) kicked in some fabola drawings (and will proffer more, dammit!). My buddy Brenda shared her entrée to the yoga life. The Amazing Bob has ponied up poetry and memories. Hillel shared a note he wrote on the eve of his eldest son's departure for college.

More please!

Got a tale to tell? Email me at donna.maderer at gmail dot com. Let’s tawk.

The Ring

Not to be confused with Der Ring des Nibelungen, The Lord of the Rings, The Ring of Brodgar, The Ring Nebula or Single Ladies Putting a Ring on It. Nope, this ring was my Grandmother Ruby’s -- my father’s mother, my much loved and missed Aunt Mary Ann’s mother.

She had it made from a gold nugget she picked up on her late 1920s Alaskan adventure -- the one where she hopped in her car (yeah, she owned a car of her own in the 1920s. She was Head Nurse at Toledo General Hospital in Ohio and most certainly her very own incredibly awesome woman) and drove North and then some more North to see Alaska before it was ruined, while it was still mostly wilderness and gold mines. Grandma was a tremendously strong babe and brooked no horseshit. She was formidable with a long side of scary and I loved her madly.

On one of my cleaning and organizing visits with Aunt Mary Ann in Hoosick Falls, New York (yeah, that’s honest and true the name of the town. Get all the Frostbite Falls jokes outta your system now. OK?), she showed me the ring, told me the story and then gave me this amazingly potent talisman.

tal·is·man
[tal-is-muhn, -iz-]
noun, plural -mans.
1. any amulet or charm.
3. anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions.
Origin:
Ultimately from Greek telesma or from the Greek word "telein" which means "to initiate into the mysteries")

From a random on line dictionary -- looks like it certainly applies to my ring on, maybe/baby, a couple of levels. That’s cool.

I wear it on a chain, as a necklace. Why? Because, in addition to being a marvelous story and inspiration, while it instills me with trust in my own strength and sense,  it is definitively, seriously most ugly. I'm telling you now, this ring will never win prizes for style and grace.

Not all talismans are going to be objects of radiant, majestic beauty. That’d be way too boring mon ami.

My Retro Days

This post is by Della Marinis*

My mother named me after Della Street, the name of the secretary on the Perry Mason show, which isn’t fascinating in itself, but might hint at the general era of my birth. If you don’t know the T.V. program, I was born to a world in fast transition from black and white to technicolor, or as another worn cliché goes, when JFK was still alive but not for much longer.

Of course that wasn’t really ‘my time’ because I was just a baby and had as much chance of remembering it as I would have of WWII – when I was in split cell form amongst two people or possibly, walking around as somebody else that had only a decade of life left to go.

‘My time’ began nine years or so after this vague birth-moment, on a day in my third grade class when I suddenly became self-aware – as if I hadn’t been fully cognizant before that. As though I’d only just stepped out onto the planet and been introduced to its random, awkward ways. And my ways too, which beforehand, I didn’t even know I had.

I had just finished writing 1970 1971 at the top of a piece of loose-leaf paper. My handwriting was curly and unpractised and I made a mental note to change it. A good idea, I thought – and a new idea that was occurring to me for the first time. Then I made a second, more pressing mental note to remember to write 1971 and not 1970 anymore, which I had been doing for a long time previously. So I wouldn’t have to cross it out. This was also a good idea, as well as somehow, a brand new concept.

Maybe life is just too fast from zero to eight or nine, or we’re preoccupied with other life-gripping moments of interest besides ourselves – too young to formulate those mental footnotes on life, the kind of musings and schemings known as contemplation.

What interests me now is how and when those first cognizant moments come back to me. They’re always happy, random images – wispy in thin sun streams or dappled on orange wallpaper. Maybe they have that aura because they’re out of the 70s. Or maybe that’s just the color and flavor of my own personal dawn.

What I know is that they’re triggered by music, though not the music I knew at the time, but what I’ve come to discover in the recent past (i.e., the last 10-15+ years, owing to my more distant birth-moment c. Perry Mason show). Groups like Air
and Boards of Canada, whether because of their synthesizers or analog equipment or I-don’t-know-what-I’m-actually-hearing mix-up – all go down with me like a capsule of 70s retrograde. They bring back images that don’t support a proper sentence, but make a winsome collage, anyway –

A picnic table with friends eating hot dogs

in powdery afternoon light

while my brother washes his Gremlin in the drive

and tunes Battle of Evermore in on FM

lemon yellow is lathering into blue

as the day turns many hours to dusk

and I’m out catching fireflies in a mayonnaise jar

having pulled on my white, patent-leather boots

with zippers, and taking

a deep breath of the never-been-as-fresh-before

nor-will-ever-be-again,

Summer air


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Della Marinis is my fabulous, Berlin dwelling cousin. She writes young adult fiction, has been a teacher, a toiler in the HR fields, has two amazing kids, a tremendous husband (Martin), is fluent in Dutch and German and she's 9 kinds of wise and funny besides. I'll be posting some of her short fiction here soon.

Scared Poopless

So I’m 5 years old and starting kindergarten. I am SO fucking psyched, though I don’t think I worded it just that way at 5 in 1963; “I’ll be just like my older sister, just like our neighbor Lydia -- I’ll be a BIG kid now!” is more what I was thinking maybe.

But... and yet... I was in the running for Most Fearful Child EVAH! If I could have hidden behind our stray cat Minnie’s skirts (if, you know, a cat had skirts) I would have. Hell, I could have seriously medaled in the Most Afraid of Her Own Shadow competition.

Kindergarten was way intimidating. For starters, it’s not home. You may have noticed that. Second. mein gott, there are other people there! OK third, and I think you can understand the horror movie aspect, (Fay Wray, Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis are all in the wings waiting for their cues), the levels of fear this would instill -- NUNS! Not just nuns but nuns in big black habits with those weird, and clearly razor sharp, wimple wings.

Now, so you won’t think that what transpired was all out of the blue, I never got stars on my kindergarten essays, compositions or monographs -- only moons. Only moons. You can well imagine how upsetting, devastating even, this was for a delicate, artistic 5 year old.

So one day, early on, I very much needed to go to the can, man. We were to raise our hands in a certain way, (like cattle I tell ya or was that chattel? I forget now), signaling our need. I was so stunningly afraid of being yelled at that I did not signal. Nope, instead I pooped my pants. Of course.

OK, I pooped my very nice, new white tights, And if a 5 year old could roll her eyes, that is just what I did. My fear and it’s smelly results had an effect on little me. “Christ, it’s just some old broad in a penguin suit -- what can she possibly do? Get a grip!” Yup, my thoughts, more or less, exactly!

Being scared poopless never happened again though there was one or two times where she, yeah I’m takin’ about Sister Heinous Evilness Christina, freaked me out so bad that I went full metal Exorcist and spewed all over my 5 table mates.

They were, naturally, charmed. Of course.

I'm Looking At Ghosts and Empties

What does the term “hometown” mean? Is it always “the town where you spent your childhood years? For folks who grew up as military brats or, in my case, an academic brat (my father after his MA, Ph.D and then the almost elusive quest for a tenure track gig) maybe hometown is something that hits later. Maybe it’s something you make for yourself.

When I was 14 my family moved to Elm Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Indiana is a college town 70 miles, more or less, north east of Pittsburgh (or Pikksburgh in the native tongue). This is the 9th and final place I lived with them and without question the unhappiest of places.  A good bit of this dearth of happy probably had to do with all those fun teenage hormone fireworks. You know, I do believe that being angsty and ennui laden, with a soupçon of drama queeny sadness is de rigueur at that age.

Of course, the band of teenaged, bit brained, malicious, ninnyhammered, insipid, conform-or-else twatwaffles who harassed and bullied me throughout all my high school years might have had something to do with my low enjoyment levels too. Quite possibly.

Despite the mountain of time that’s passed, despite being a full fledged card carrying wicked (that’s Boston speak, thank you so much) mature adult, visiting Indiana always lights a little Bic of insecurity in me. So many ghosts and vile memories fill the town -- street by street.

OK, now I have this tremendous song playing on the internal juke box. Yea!

On Saturday early morning, Jen and I were heading to this town of punk ass ghosts to visit my decidedly non-robust folks. While they took their afternoon nap Jen and I had a walk around town. I showed her where my first job was (candy girl at the now gone Manus Theater -- a big old Vaudeville joint), where the big department store, Brody’s, (filled with fabulous and unaffordable treasure), used to be and finally, the art and music buildings on the campus of the college -- places where I finally found friendship and serenity as well as some amazing teachers.

I was happy and relieved to find that, while the ghosts still lurk, they’ve been defanged (yeah, ghosts can have fangs -- they’re not all Casper don’t ya know).

About damn time, I’d say.

About That Cat Magnet Thing

This phenomenon started with Bob -- this would be Bob the-most-amazing-husband-in-the-universe Bob. You know, versus any other old Bob.

When I was small we didn’t really have pets -- a brief episode with a tiny turtle (which we set free in the nearby creek -- I suspect it had died and my father didn’t want to reveal this) and, for a short time, a family of stray cats who received our leftovers but that was it. My mother would not tolerate pets of any kind and my father is deathly allergic to cats. So, no pets.

Bob taught me how to care for cats.  He showed me how to hold them (always cradle their feet -- they need their feet securely planted), how to approach them (rather, how to be patient and allow them to approach you -- most definitely not my strong suit), how to pat them (do unto cats as you would have them do unto you, essentially) and, perhaps of most importance, like humans, cats like to get high on occasion. Organic catnip seems to be the most popular -- cats being all hippy/groovy, back-to-the-earth types, of course.

Bob’s son Miles taught me how to get a finicky cat to eat. We had a giant orange tabby who, for a cat rescued from a dumpster, was tremendously fussy. Miles would sprinkle Ralf’s (named for the children’s book character Rotten Ralf and YES this Ralf could be rotten -- just not to me or Miles) tinned meat with grated cheese. If that didn’t work he would spritz on a little whipped cream. C’mon! Ralfie came out of a garbage can -- someone threw this poor being out. Of course he deserved whipped cream and Parmesan!

Ralf considered the best food of all to be any that could be stolen off your plate though. He’d bound, somewhat less than delicately, onto the dinner table, play it like he was just there to say hello and then make his bold, yet sly, grab for the salmon or pizza (no, seriously). This annoyed Bob, scared Jen (best pal and, despite this,  frequent dinner guest) and delighted me. What a resourceful beast!

Ralf died 20 years after his garbage can rescue as a kitten. I was heartbroken and wanted another cat right away. Bob pronounced “wait, one will come to us.” Now, this sounded awfully Zen and the Art of Cat Attraction/Obi Wan of Cat World to me but I said, with reluctance, “OK.” Sure enough, shortly after we moved down to the Neck (Hough’s Neck AKA Heaven) 3 cats showed up on our porch each one quite sure that we were precisely the pigeons they were looking for.

Eventually the big orange tabby won out. We fell in love, named him B.O.P. (Big Orange Pumpkin) and gave him the run of our kingdom. B.O.P was a bruiser, wonderful to us but always up for a good fight the minute he stepped out the door and woe-betide the dog who crossed him. He loved nasty weather best. The more Nor’Eastery the better. Maybe he was the reincarnation of Jack London or Hemingway except, you know, cute and cuddly.

So, you see, this cat magnet thing is really all about Bob. For that matter, I feel certain the area cats sing folk songs about the, hopefully NOT, mythical porch where a tall, white haired gentleman appears with bowls of Fancy Feast, treats and endless pats.

Who I Am In 500 Words or Less

My name is Donna (not to be confused with My Name is Asher Lev or My Name is Khan or My name is Inigo Montoya) though I always wanted the name Ruby. This was my father’s mother’s name and I’ve, happily, been compared to her.

When Grandpa was fading out of this life, years after Grandma had moved on, we’d sit together telling stories -- he’d forget it was me and call me Ruby. My Aunt Mary Ann, Ruby’s daughter, would grin wildly when I would get on a rant about this or that (religion and politics usually, though fashion choices of passersby could spark me up too) and say “oh, you sound just like Mother.” And that was a very good thing. My father has had his Ruby Moments with me too.

Grandma didn’t like her name -- it wasn’t fashionable or spiffy way back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I guess that might be like having the name Edna or Agnes now.

My favorite story about Grandma -- she was head nurse at Toledo General Hospital and owned her own car. This was in the late 1920s. She got it in her head that she wanted to see Alaska before it was overrun by tourists (sort of like going to Prague in the early ‘90s?) so she jumped in her car and drove there -- alone. This was before the ALCAN Highway, before World War II and well before it was common for a woman to make this kind of solo trip.

“Ruby,” for me, means strong, adventurous, unafraid and bold -- all the things I want to be.

I never knew my other grandmother, Angelina, and know very little about her beyond this --  she was a seamstress, a recent immigrant from a small town near Bari in Italy and died when my mother was 16. She had Neurofibromatosis Type 2 which she passed on to my mother and, in turn, to me. But that’s a whole other story.

So, if I was to choose my own name, it would be Ruby Angelina Maderer. Or Circe Oceanus Nyx. Why? Hey, it sounds awesomely cool and you can dance to it.

After college, a friend of mine, Kevin Alexander Scott (R.I.P.) became a translator (Arabic and Hebrew) for the Navy. They wanted him to start doing undercover type stuff so they gave him an alias. He bombed out of this quickly and spectacularly when it became clear he’d never be able to remember to answer to his fake name and identity. I suspect I’d be the same way.

Besides, though the name Maderer is decidedly unmelodic and lacks even the faintest whiff of poetry, it is my father’s name and I am, without question, a chip or 3 off the old block.