Jukebox Junction

It’s a crowded morning here in Jukebox City. That’d be my brain, my internal turntable, the home of, possiblly, total randomosity.

On first: Eagles – Hotel California

And she said: “We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave!"

Next up, one of my fave bands, War with Why Can’t We Be Friends 

I seen ya around for a long long time
I really remember you when you drank my wine

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

The color of your skin don't matter to me
As long as we can live in harmony

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

I'd kinda' like to be the president
So I could show you how your money's spent

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Sometimes I don't speak right
But yet I know what I'm talking about

Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends
Why can't we be friends

Followed by, Dionne Warwick – That’s What Friend’s Are For

Keep smiling and keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That's what friends are for
In good times and bad times
I'll be on your side forever more
That's what friends are for

And, naturalmente, the Beatles – With a Little Help From My Friends

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away?
Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel by the end of the day?
Are you sad because you're on your own?

I’m worried about Hillel’s mother. She’s in brilliant shape, is a fabulously active, social and sharply smart cookie. But she lives alone. Her children and grands all live a bazillion miles away. I think she should move up here…don’t you?

Wut?

Hillel’s response to my suggestion that, perhaps, I could talk with her and convince her to relocate was this:

“Italian motherliness versus Jewish grandmother…I’ll be, um, over here in the next county, sitting very quietly out of the way.”

Yep, our man Hillel has a highly developed sense of self-preservation.

To be clear, I totes grok that this is mostly a projection of my mega worries about Poppy. I couldn’t get him to move up here and, what with Plague45 and my own wretched health, I don’t know when I’ll see him again.

THIS SUCKS and I'M SUFFERING HERE! That last is what my friend Giovanni's mother screamed when we, on a brief, unannounced visit, wouldn't let her make us a meal. Denying her god-given right to cook and fuss was cruel of us. Yes, we gave in. OF COURSE we did!

I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Whoosh!

On the way to Pittsburgh (and running late...as uszh) and then to my father's little town north of there. Yeah, it's another wam bam thank you ma'am visit BUT we're doing things slightly different this time. Gonna stay one night in Pittsburgh (or in the local parlance "Pikksburgh"), to wander and chill.

Chill-age, I'm in BIG need of that!

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.
~ Anais Nin

The Stealth Trip

Pre-Nap Time Poppy and me

Jen and I made a spur of the moment, stealth visit to see Vati yesterday. Yes, amidst the crimson eyed hoopla.

Hey, why not? Life refuses to take smoke breaks while I panic over my sight. By the by, the orb’s still red, irritated BUT less so this morning. This’ll be another prosthetic cornea-free day. I’ll wait on popping it back in until I see the doc tomorrow morning.

In any case, relative to other visits from this past year, Daddy was in GREAT shape both mentally and physically. Jen and I walked in to find the old man and his roomie Joe, sitting in their lounge chairs, watching TV together. This was a first. Poppy didn’t like his last roommate AT ALL (the feeling, I suspect, was mutual) and wasn’t keen on sharing a room with anyone new. It was a lovely surprise to find the two of them, side by side, enjoying a bit of telly.

In fact, Daddy was up, outta bed and in his comfy chair for most of our visit. YEA!

This was also the first visit in years where he didn’t have a cranky litany of complaints about people, place, food, etc. Jen nailed it – “he seemed content.”

At the start of our long ass drive from Pittsburgh to Daddy’s town, we made an indulgent but necessary stop at Sheetz. That’s the gas station/convenience store chain down that way. I won’t ever find chemical-free baked goods there BUT they’ve a grand assortment of coffee and tea AND, most awesomely, soft serve ice cream. Yup, 9AM soft serve – can't beat that!

As we were pulling out of the parking lot we saw this horror show vehicle at the pump. A pickup with an elaborate jungle camo paint job, a brush/grille guard and some poor longhorn cattle's horns as hood ornament. Wonder if the driver dude knows that he lives in suburban Pittsburgh, not rural Texas or the rain forests of Venezuela.

On top of all this, the truck’s entire rear end consisted of a testament to the driver's blinding inability to put two and two together and get anything in the neighborhood of four. All Lives Matter was painted large, over a rippling stars and stripes with a small B&W christ on a cross below. Replacing INRI was the inscription “in god we trust.”

Yeah buddy, you’d have more truth in advertising if that read “in Fox "News"/Alex Jones/Gateway Pundit we trust.”

 Obvs, to this midget dicked, low watt imbecile ALL lives do NOT matter. The blameless children being abused and dying in his dear leader’s concentration camps, their parents, whose only crime/NOT A CRIME was seeking asylum, caged in different horrifically cruel camps, the young girls being trafficked by the Fascist in Chief's buds, the black and brown men and women accused of crimes based solely on their skin color – somehow, I just know, Camo Boy wasn’t including these folks in his All Lives proclamation.

There are idiots everywhere, even in Feel the Bern, Vermont. I’m just glad there are fewer loud, proud, gun-toting, fecal brained bozos here in Valhalla.

So yeah, I'm happy to be home. I was mega happy to fall asleep next to Ten and happy to wake to Coco staring down at me from her perch on my chest (isn't it time for you to wakey-wakey and get me some damn brekkie, you lazy slag!).

Rapidamente

KEE-rist, it's good to be home! These molto rapido trips to see the old man just wear me clean out. You’ve undoubtedly heard me kvetch about this before – sorry.

I fly down to see him as often as I can which always feels like not enough. I miss being able to dial him up. Back in my hearing days, we’d schmooze on the blower endlessly. We'd listen to each other's woe-tales and then make ourselves laugh and feel better. Those days are 15 years gone now. Yup, another stupid reminder that my ears are crapped out! *grumble, piss, moan*

In any case, this visit was generally good. He tires quickly though so each individual visit needs to be limited to about an hour. I believe what I’ll do next time is this – bring my laptop in and, at the end of each hour, head down to the lovely lobby lounge. I can work, write and/or doodle for an hour and then return for another round of hobnobberie, jibber jabber-dom and general chewing of the fat.

I know I’ve kvetched about rural Western Pennsylvania but, christ almighty, it’s beautiful at this time of year (other times too!.) It’s bountifully bucolic. SO MANY glorious trees!

Now then, I really, truly need everything to run smoothly on these all-too-brief sojourns. I gotta be upbeat, not show my stratospheric anxiety over Poppy’s rapidly declining health AND I wanna bring the humor – be funny, make him laugh or at least smile. Who knows how much time he has left – I wanna make our remaining time fun.

Suppressing my fears, my radical Weltschmerziness and rocking my most charming self (shut up, I am SO charming!) takes a shit-ton of energy. Bullshit like the Dollar debacle AND the fact that I purchased Extra Speed (i.e. TSA Precheck) but didn’t get it (on either flight) throws me off stride.

Did I calmly do/say all the right things in my attempt to get the drones at Dollar to help me. Or was I I a human shaped crazed-outrage machine? Why am I stuck in these obscenely long security lines? Didn’t I splurge on the TSA Precheck option? What did I do wrong?

Rage turns inward.

There are loads of things that piss me off (yeah, I know DUH!). Right up at the tippy top of the anger-making heap is being ripped off. Don’t give me what I paid for, stiff me on a bill, swindle me (or attempt to) and I’m through the rage roof. That fury needs to be worked off – laps of the Y pool, time on the elliptical or a wickedly long walk are good schemes but NOT possible when I’m in the car for a long-ass drive from airport to Pop’s rural burgh.

What can I do for next time (mid July) to create an easier, less stressful path to My Best Me-ness™?  For starters, I’m not holding onto this past trip’s anger inducers. I’ve emailed jetBlue asking for a refund on the unprovided Extra Speed. And I’ve done as much as I can about Dollar’s little scam – learned a lesson AND written about.

Two NICE customer service bits from the weekend:

1. The hotel. The desk clerk was wonderfully warm (AND learning ASL and eager to try it out), there were FREE cuppycakes and coffee in the lobby and, at six AM on Saturday, the pool was blissfully, cannonballing kid-free.
2. We went to lunch at this low-ambience, unposh Italian restaurant downtown. I always go there – the food's good, there's Chianti on tap and the waiter's cute. And, despite only dining there every few months, the dude recognized and acknowledged me. *BEAM*

If I spend all my time fuming and fussing about tits-up shit I'll, in my rage state, miss an awful lot of good stuff.

Take Off

Ten and I are about to leave for the airport. I hear you wondering (neat trick for a deafie, no?), is this someplace exotic, fun, exciting replete with art, cats, cannoli and hot tubs? Well sorta, kinda, it depends on your imagination, I suppose.

We're headed to Pennsylvania to see Vati. It's another wham/bam/thank you ma'am visit and, sadly, Coco has refused join us.

Me: But, but, but Daddy really wants to meet you!
That rotten cat: GET real! You know that I've got a hot date with Umlaut tonight. We're gonna hiss at each other through the window for an hour. FUN! Can't wait! So... no can do, chicky. 

*sigh* Next time I'll remember to check her calendar before I buy the tickets.

Don't Take It

The phrase “don’t take it personally.” What does that even mean?

I’ve always heard this/received this as you shouldn’t feel hurt by this because:
           A) he’s/she’s just a dick
           B) he/she treats everyone like that
           C) he/she doesn’t understand why this behavior is bad

OK sure BUT I’m the one being insulted and/or taken advantage of here. I’m the one being treated as sub-human – a rodent, not worthy. Personal or not – it hurts and it's wrong, baby, WRONG-O.

There are wounds which, despite my best efforts to understand, self-heal and purge, burn on. I'm not actively on fire, no. The hurts hide under psychic boulders, jumping out at the most inconvenient moments, triggered by some similar-ish fresh event. The new assault on civilized social intelligence (and MOI) mayn’t be exactly the same as before BUT there’s a whiff of that old smelly-ass rhino shit about them.

At first, I find myself wondering ‘‘the fuck? WHY am I still thinking about that filthy, geedheaded and clueless, ratfucking asshole and the shit he pulled/tried to pull on me?” Then I realize there’s a shadow lurking nearby.

I’m working on this, on myself so that I don’t continue to replay/relive past shit. I don’t wanna carry this shit forever. (Song cue!) Be here now and shit.

Rabid rodentia rarely get a second chance at me. I’ve made exceptions but that’s, now, PAST tense. I’m on the back side of life – I got no time to waste on callous cretinous schmucks.

Getting back to people saying “don’t take it personally” – this has always felt dismissive. As though I’m being told that my feelings are pointless, superfluous. Ya know, because of A, B and/or C (above) there’s no validity to my hurt. OR this means nothing to the advice-giving “friend” – they’ve not been insulted, slammed or taken advantage by my miscreantic ratshit du jour so they’ve no time/interest in my pain. OR this is shorthand for “I’m so sorry this has happened. You did nothing to deserve this.”

Here’s when the phrase is AOK to use – with Vati when he’s having a very bad day. Daddy has lots of bad days. Of course he does.

He’s in a nursing home now, having flunked out of home health aids, assisted living and a quasi-nursing facility. He’s in a wheelchair, his hands are crabbed, movement is limited. On top of that, there’s his ongoing struggles with depression – those went through the roof when the love of his life, mia madre, checked out of La Vida Loca Hotel six years ago. He always figured she’d let him croak first. NO FAIRS!

 Life is motherfucking hard and shit.

Sometimes the Old Man’s gonna be mega cranky and even assholic. I fucking well would be to if I couldn’t get outta bed or even eat without assistance; if I couldn’t live at home, surrounded by art and cats; if I had no privacy, no ocean, no mobility.

So, some visits are gonna be mondo hard cheese, some will be generally upbeat with just an air of melancholia and some will be ALMOST like old times where we schmooze, tease, go all DaDa-esque in our joking and make weird, fun faces at each other.

That was this past visit. The one before was difficult+.

I saw this sign posted at the nursing home. It was clearly meant for the staff BUT it’s great advice for family too.

10 Tips for Response to Behaviors

•         DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY
•         Be flexible, patient and calm
•         Respond to the emotion, not the behavior
•         Don’t argue or try to convince
•         Use memory aids
•         Acknowledge requests, respond to them
•         Look for reasons behind each behavior
•         Explore various solutions
•         Consult MD to identify any causes related to meds/illness
•         Share experiences with co-workers

Unlike the nursing staff, I have an additional option – if Pop’s over the top, aggressively cantankerous, if he’s taking out his frustrations and anger at the world on me – and he can’t chill the fuck out – I can cut my visit short and come back later. That’s what I did last time.

Here’s another helpful hint – come bearing Tiramisu. Nothing soothes the savage beast quite like coffee soaked ladyfingers with plenty ‘o’ mascarpone cheese and cocoa. Ya know?

My Own Private Idaho

OK, OK, it's NOT my personal Idaho (Pennsylvania) but its Michal's and I'm her guest. So...close enough. Right?

In any case, Jen and I are sitting in her kitchen having a motherfucking golden brekkie. I'm now indulging in a second piece of the amazing spinach/mushroom quiche that she whipped up for us. GODDAMN, I'm one contented broad!

Jen and I landed in Pittsburgh yesterday morning thinking we were past rush hour and would sail away to my father's rural town. NOPE! For someone who doesn't work in the city anymore, I spend a stupid-ass amount of time stuck in traffic. I must have a stern word with the gods of transport!

Once past the city heinousosity though, we were out in heavily wooded farmlands. Being mid May, it was mondo GORGEOUS! Raining too BUT this is western Pennsylvania after all – it always rains here on Fridays. It's an odd fact of life that can be absolutely counted on.

The trees are fully, fatly leaved. Everything is GREEN. I fucking love this! Even the "Adult" stores and the giant bullshit, evangelical christianist churches are diminished/less obnoxiously and unavoidably noticeable by the beautiful surrounding woods.

 Yesterday's visits with Daddy went wonderfully. I believe he's finally adjusting to his new digs – he's calmer and less all-fired cranky. In fact, he was his old, hilarious self. We were surreally joking, poking fun and making faces at each other like old times. Such a GIANT relief! Jen and I'll stop in again this morning for a coupla hours before heading back to the airport.

I really wish Daddy lived a shit-ton closer to Valhalla BUT, if he did, I'd miss spring in the land of awesome trees and rolling hills AND I'd not be able to overindulge in Michal's brill cooking. This would be tragic.

Ya know?

Wakey-Wakey

Logan squid

Pittsburgh dino

Yesterday, Jen and I needed to be at the airport at 4AM. Before the bloody dawn, yes.  You see we had an 6AM flight to Pittsburgh – we ‘re visiting my father in the, now, not so small hamlet of Indiana.

So then, I had to be up at 3AM to get ready and travel to Logan airport. 3AM – that’s just painful in’nt? (Hint: yes, yes it is)

Now that my sound systems kaput and The Amazing Bob’s permanently AWOL, I don’t have a reliable way to ensure time sensitive wakey-wakeyness. One consciousness scheme, drink extra water before hitting the sack – my kidneys will nudge me up and outta bed AND they don't have a snooze button. Great plan, right? Yeah, works a treat ‘cept for when the old alarm beans decide that midnight’s the best time to go off. DOH!

Misty morning at Michal's in Idaho, PA.

I was nervous. I could NOT miss this flight – haven’t seen the old man in months! The plan was, if Jen didn’t see my porch-light on at 3:30, she’d come upstairs and boot me out of Slumber Land. As it turns out, that was unnecessary since I woke at 11 and could NOT get back to Nod. I figured – no prob, I got two hours racktime, I should be fine. Yeah. Mostly. Sort of. Not so much, really. We made our flight, sped through rental car land (Avis – they were so MUCH smoother, faster and efficient than all the others I’ve used. None of the customer service units had a smile to spare BUT they were very good at their gigs and that made us smile).

We passed a Sheetz on the long drive from the Pittsburgh airport to Indiana and it occurred to me that sugar, SUGAR, will – all abracadabra-like – relieve my exhaustion. I got a hot chocolate AND an apple fritter. My diet groaned, saying You’ll regret this! But, GODDAMN, they were good and effective. While I wasn’t buoyantly perky, I was no longer in danger of sleeping through our visit. 

Yes, I know – I totes look like I haven't slept in six decades. Truth!

Though I was less effervescently chatterboxy than uszh, Pop, Jen and I had a fab time. We’ll see him again this morning before we head back to Pittsburgh. Christ, I wish he lived closer!

After seeing Daddy, Jen and I met Michal in town for dinner. We went to her fave place – Spaghetti Benders. Michal asked the owner to make his special mushroom lasagna for us. He did and it was flat out mind-blowing. Fabulous. Once again, my diet grumbled and moaned at me. Once again, I ignored it. I’m getting good at that – too good.

This morning, before we hit Pop’s place, Michal, Jen and I will go to the Newman Center Book Sale. This is a giant used book sale put on by the university’s Catholic church.

The proceeds from this sale help to support the programs and services provided by the parish.

One of those services is (was?) ASL classes. Back in the day, my mother taught some of them.

I must be good at the book sale – I’ve only got so much space in my wee rucksack. *sigh*

I'm a Travelin' Man

OK, I'm a travelin' woman.

Yup, Lynard Skynard's playing on the internal turntable this morning. Warum?

Jen and I have just made another our our whiz bang, wham bam thank you ma'am visits to Daddy in the always oddly intriguing Western Pennsylvanian small town where he lives.

SUCH a great visit. He looked and seemed better than ever. More energetic, healthy and engaged and I'm totes bloody exhausted now. Chat with him is a non-stop, speeding locomotive of Magritte-esque, Ornette Coleman-esque conversational riffs. We are two speed talking, free associating beasts and woe betide any poor souls who dare leap into the middle of our maelstrom of talk. There, be dragons.

So, now Jen will pour me onto the plane home. Home to The Amazing Bob, Coco, Rocco, Gaston, Gus, Red Sox action and the sea. Home.

The Hill

Fairy tale-like house on the flat of the Hill

A wee magical house for elves

Between my doc visits on Tuesday I took a stroll around Beacon Hill and Back Bay -- concentrations of great wealth and beauty.

Did you know that there used to be a bad side to the Hill? The MGH side versus the Common and Public Garden side was nothing but tiny, junk, sleazoid apartments and rooming houses.

My cousin Carmel lived in one when she was going to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts back in the '60s. All little eight year old me saw, on our one visit to her there, was the grand romance, the glamor and enchantment of being an artist, living in the big city on a tree lined street. Yeah, her room was small and dark with just a single bed/cot and wooden chair but MEIN GOTT the joint fired my imagination up something wild.

I so wanted to be her.

And then I grew up, moved to Boston and found that:

a)  while the apartments on the bad side of the Hill were still miniscule, broke-down, decrepit and dark, the rents for these roach closets were completely unaffordable.


b) I no longer wanted to be Carm.

Converted carriage house

By the time I was 22, she was in her mid 30s -- married with kiddle, living in a big house in a fancy, posh suburb. She counseled me, me who'd just come off the carnival road, to fit into the tiny socially conservative and acceptable box allotted to women in the '50s.

Yeah, sorry. No. Desperately unglaubwürdig.

Hamlet refers to Polonius as a 'tedious old fool' BUT he totally nailed it when he advised Laertes:

carriage houses on the flat of the Hill

'This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Daddy gave me the same bit of advice when I was in high school, hopelessly out of step with the norm, trying to hard to fit in. I didn't get it then but, thank the theoretical gods, it finally sunk in.

Fathers

Bob’s father was in his early 70s when he shot his brains out in the basement of their Great American Dream home -- the Fairhaven, Massachusetts house that they'd, Bob's mother and father both, scrimped and saved years for.

Just prior to this, his father, a lifelong, pro level alky, had been in the hospital awaiting artery reaming type surgery. Before the docs could operate they needed to detox him. This turned out to be the larger shock to his system.

At some point, while freshly, shockingly sober, he remarked to Bob, in all seriousness, ‘I’ve been depressed all my life. Who knew?’

When he came home from hospital he began a three day bender. During that drunken, sodden time he went out and bought gun.....while stunningly soused. Some dimwitted, fucktarded, shitheeled, greedheaded, tiny brained, motherfucker sold him a gun while the man was clearly, roilingly, word slurringly drunk!

He came home, went down to the cellar, and coated the walls with his brain-matter.

Bob’s brothers were both home at the time. Kenny, the younger, went down to investigate the loud pop from below -- he never fully emerged.

Dead in a Basement -- Bob Grant

He died in his basement, surrounded by shitkicker tapes and rusted tools. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; if the liquor don’t get you, then the pistol must. His laugh atrophied with disuse, his soul squeezed with abuse by the silence he carried like a black hole which sucked the sound from around him and froze it. His was the silence at the bottom of the bottle; silence which shattered in explosive red splatter. He had never learned to trust. He slammed the final door and I wandered around like a man with a broken flashlight in the heart of disaster.

-- Nov 1985 Boston

How to Kill a Tender Moment

Pop!

So Pop/Daddy/The Old Man, was driving me to Pittsburgh after my final college class had ended. I was now a graduate with a fine arts degree and could look forward to a promising career in ...waitressing. Pop was taking me to the Greyhound station where I’d hop a bus to Chicago and another season with the carnival (staving off the inevitable waitressing for a few months longer). After that I would be off on my own, a free bird, never to live at my parent’s house again.

Being 21, and never terribly intuitive anyway, I didn’t get that this trip to the bus station had big meaning for my father. His little girl was taking wing. Nope, I did NOT get that. I’m slow like that.

Daddy seemed more serious than usual—normally we joked and bantered. Instead he, with some gravity, began telling me the story of his freshman roommate in college. His roomie and he shared a great friendship—better than one could expect with someone you’d just met. They became quite close, inseparable even. At the end of that freshman year Joe came out to him. He was gay (did people even phrase it that way in 1954?) and he was warm for my father’s form (though that’s most certainly NOT how Daddy relayed this—Pop being a total big romantic and all).

That my father, an 18 year old, het football player from a very small upstate NY town, reacted calmly, maturely, warmly and wonderfully even, is and was amazing to me. How many football jocks in the mid 50s, or now for that matter, would react like this? He told his roommate that he valued their friendship greatly but he wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship with him.

mia madre

Remember, this was 1954—15 years before Stonewall, 6 years before Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to decriminalize homosexuality and 49 years before Massachusetts established marriage equality.

My father rocked. Big time. He still does.

So he’s telling me all this—believe me I did NOT get it until he spelled it out in 72 point Arial Black—so that I would understand that he and mia madre both loved me and wanted me to be happy. That and they wanted me to bring home the girlfriend so mother could feed her (what Italian mothers do. of course).

At this point I got what a big horking deal this was and truly wished that I was gay because, well, how many gay folk get such awesome understanding parents? I hated to waste such an incredible, enlightened, mature parental act.

How did I respond though? Keeping in mind that I went to college in the mid/late ‘70s. Studio 54 wasn’t just a club in NYC, it was a mindset. Keep in mind that I was a music and then a fine arts major. You know, we artsy types just couldn’t keep our duds on, even in a January Maine snowstorm at dawn.

You just didn’t bring one night stands home to meet the folks. Bad form. And One Night Stand-ism was the religion of the day.

I don’t recall how I elided the issue but, knowing me and my utter lack of civilized, delicate people skills, I probably said “oh, thanks Pop but I don’t swing that way.”  (And then patted myself on the back,  thinking “hey, at least I didn’t tell him about all the notches on my belt”)

Yet...and yet, they still love me. Go figure.

Slouching Towards Veganhood

Here’s why, a lot of why at least, I’ll have both feet in the green world soon.

My father. Nope, he wasn’t a vegetarian. Pop, of the killer fabulous fried bologna and Swiss cheese sandwich (damn, I loved it when he made dinner!), was the patron saint , the protector of all beasties who somehow made it into our house. I’m talking about the creepy crawlies mostly since the old man’s overriding philosophy on pets would make Joy Adamson and Bob Barker look like big game hunters, toting AK 47s to off a lone and lame gazelle.

On more than one occasion when I was a small child, you know -- back when the earth was still cooling, spiders freaked me to the moon and back. We're talking major freakage. A glimpse of a small common house spider was enough to make me leap onto chairs or hide under my bed covers in fear.  The real deal spiders, the daddy long legs, inspired deafening, Maria Callas level shrieking, begging  “Daddy, come kill it, kill the spider dead, now, now, NOW!” 

Pop would have none of this, of course, saying ultra calmly “he’s just as afraid of you as you are of him.” Picture eight year old me there, arms crossed, eyes rolling back — thinking, but not saying — “yeah right, Chuck. Not bloody likely” or sentiments just like that anyway.

 Daddy would coax the spider into a jar, make us gaze upon the poor beast so that we could know  it was  nothing to be so afraid of (oh sure). Then he would have my sisters and I parade out to the yard with him where he would set “George” free. Sometimes he named them “Fred.”

In the early ‘70s we moved to a small western Pennsylvania town where school closed on the first day of hunting season -- everyone was out bagging Bambi’s mother. Driving home late one October night, Daddy accidentally hit and killed a deer. He was devastated and spent the next two days sitting in the car in our driveway overcome with grief and guilt. He couldn't even speak -- unusual for him to be sure. This made a huge impression on 13 year old me.

I didn’t give up four legged entrees right then and there but that’s when it all started. As time went on I felt increasingly queasy -- this being the cute and fuzzy bunny versus the environmentally pragmatic path to veganism.

Now, the prospect of eating anything with eyes, anything I can imagine staring back at me, squicks me into the next dimension.  I’m wicked bummed that Octopi have eyes -- I’m really gonna miss calamari.