Irene Peterson's Blog

So, my friend calls to wish us all a happy Thanksgiving and we of course have to chat because that's what phone calls are for, right?
I had been working on the pumpkin pies (which came out perfecto) and it was a nice break. Herb has been working on Thanksgiving for three days now, but he's retired and really loves to fuss in the kitchen. He made a chocolate pudding pie and after careful deliberation, a cherry pie. It isn't the usual for Thanksgiving, but I like cherry pie better than pumpkin, and my pumpkin pie is killer. I give full credit to the Darden sisters from Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine, the cookbook, as they sure know how to make a delicious pie.

Okay, so my friend (I will not name her as she might be embarrassed and you never know who reads this blog--I'm sure it has a national viewing--hahahahaha.) Well, anyway, it wasn't Sandy who is going to have fish in a restaurant for Thanksgiving as they eat turkey frequently. Phooey.

Anyway, this friend is going to have dinner with friends up the north end of the state and she tells me it won't be until nearly my bedtime before they actually eat, but here is the killer, they're having turkey with NO GRAVY and escalloped potatoes instead of mashed potatoes.

Now, I ask you all, whoever heard of turkey with NO GRAVY??? You have to have gravy in order to get the white meat to go down your throat. Gravy in our house is wonderful, thanks to Julia Child, and I could not dream of eating turkey, not matter how long is has been brined, without Julia's and Herb's gravy.

So I thought about this. She's bringing two pies, which should be sufficient as a hostess/dinner gift, but she really wants gravy and mashed potatoes. So I said, "you know, there is this stuff in the freezer section now that is cooked potatoes that you mash yourself if you're particularly busy. Why not get some of them and a jar of Heinz turkey gravy, put some wine in the gravy and some Gravy Master to darken it and cook it up and bring it along with the pies in case there are some other people who like gravy? I bet it will be a hit.
And you don't have to embarrass your hostess since you're bringing other stuff." I forgot, she's bringing some of her home made cole slaw as it is a favorite of the hostess and her family.
So, if she does this, she'll get what she particularly likes and other people will kiss her for bringing gravy and they'll love her cole slaw and the Costco pies which are gigantic (about 11 inches in diameter) and nobody will be without.
I also suggested she stop by here for some of Herb's chocolate pudding pie (remember last year?) and she can have some of his gravy stuff on white meat as he and I are the only ones who eat it and we're doing two birds just to have enough dark meat.

She said probably not as she has such a long way to travel in the dark.

Ah, but there is a bonus to this. The hostess has a brand new grandson and my friend is besotted with the child, gets a huge kick out of holding him and playing with him, so that's compensation for the lack of gravy.
Perhaps it is best to view the tyke as the missing gravy and just enjoy the day.

Whoever in their right mind would not make gravy for turkey? I really need to know if there is anybody else out there in the universe who would neglect to serve gravy, even if it is from a can, with the bounteous bird.

Far too strange for my taste. Taste, get it? Taste....

You have to listen carefully to the words...Irene dies in this song...she jumps off a riverboat and drowns. I never liked it when I was a kid and the only reason it is here now is because of who is singing it.
Thanks to Midnight Bones for the direction.

Today we are in a rush to clean this house of ours. Thanksgiving will bring family and this branch is exceedingly clean. I used to be clean, too. Everybody used to be clean. But somehow, during the DURESS, everything went to hell.
As I was picking stuff up from the floor in the master suite getting it ready for a quick runthrough with the vacuum, I wandered into our bathroom and realized it needed a good wipe out. So I did the bowl and the sink, bending just as far as I could. I picked up the carpets and shook them onto the floor so that I could vacuum up the toenails and lint and whatever else there was...dead bugs (we get these tiny beetles on the walls where they die and get brushed off onto the floor by the odd towel.) I noticed that the brackets that hold up the towels were dusty, so I gave them a quick swipe with a damp sponge.
Then as I went to get the vacuum out of its closet (the only thing in the house that has its own closet!) I looked into the girls' bath, the main bathroom of the house and realized it needed to be sand-blasted and disinfected.

All well and good. I set to work, clearing towels from the floor and miscellaneous washcloths and socks and papers that missed the overflowing wastebasket. Cleaned the toilet good and proper. Shook out the carpets and removed them, too. Set to work on the bathtub which, in case you didn't know, had been stained pink by Elyse's hair dye. I kept saying "get that SofScrub stuff and use it" but nobody seemed to hear it. Somebody bought the stuff, but it sat on the edge of the tub, unopened. So, I set to work, cleaning what looked like boogers and great wads of hair (pink and brown) from the sides of the walls. We have one of those tub surround things, made of fiberglass, so you can't use chlorine cleaners or steel wool. I used one of the super dooper sponges with a rough surface on one side and the boogers or what have you pried off easily enough.
Then came the fun part. I removed 10 bottles of shampoo and face cleanser and conditioner along with two soaking wet washcloths and set to work with the SofScrub. On my knees.
I got down all right, scrubbed my heart out, saw the pink removed almost completely and then~~
I couldn't get up.
I was stuck on my knees on the floor of the bathroom, unable to pick myself up.

I called for help.
Immediately Elyse came to my rescue, but I was in such a position that she alone was not enough to get to me. She called for her sister who came running and between the two of them, they got me on my feet.

I'm here in the bedroom now, trying to recuperate from my humiliation and my pain.

The floor still needs to be vacuumed and scrubbed, but I am not going to be the one to do it.

Far too many things have gone wrong this week to list.
I don't have that many fingers, there aren't enough letters in the alphabet and I don't want to sit and recall every single crapola thing that took place this week.

My computer decided to go screwy. I do not know how old it is, but it's probably about five. It totally crapped out once, right after I first got it (virus) and the updates cause more trouble than they are worth, but the computer seems to know they lurk and hunkers down, doing weird things, until they are installed, then they don't work anyway and my computer is compromised.

So, I'm getting a new desktop. I have the new monitor already, have two printers that may or may not work with the new computer. The Laser one has an old hook up and no I can't remember the name of it, but it isn't a USB port, so this fabulous printer that works like a champ is toast.

Herb bought something that will transfer all my stuff from here flawlessly.
He saved my butt with the crap out this week, but I can see things will go straight down hill from there. I am going to send some more stuff to my Google mail for safe keeping.
As for the pictures and other stuff, I can always find more pictures. Most are stuck in my camera anyway.

I have come to the conclusion that I am losing all my intelligence. I felt it draining from my brain when the chemicals burnt out fast growing cells and I don't see how I can possibly get it back.

Which is a pity since I used to be fairly smart.

Now, it's gone.
Worse yet, I can't sing or draw any more, either.

I'm left with the talent of taking up space. That is all.

Zara proved to be a warm and very entertaining woman. Slightly older, probably in her early thirties, she had a vivacity Silver admired, and a wealth of stories that could keep anybody fascinated. As to a valid explanation as to what had happened when they shook hands, her logic seemed to have flown out the door.
Silver kept the whole selkie/caul business to herself, but she knew, just knew that Zara would understand, even if she herself didn't.
What was with these Scots?

Anyway, as the sun began to set and the tea was gone and the scones (Zara called them skawns, how delightfully quaint!) consumed, Silver began to feel the need for real food.
"Is there any place around to get a quick meal? A McDonalds or Burger King, something like that?"
Zara gave her a blank stare for a few seconds, then it must have registered. She laughed politely.
"Och, no! There's nothing like that around here. Maybe in Inverness, possibly. Definitely in Edinburgh, but I sincerely doubt you want to be troubled to go that far. There's the pub next door. They serve a good dinner, now that the new owner has taken it over. I'll tell you what, let me take you there and introduce you around. The men will appreciate a new face. Maybe they'll leave me alone."

Silver pulled back. "Are they all... jerks? I've had enough trouble with men lately. I don't know...."
"They're no jerks, they're just...how can I say this? They're men without women of their own, more interested in sport than settling down. Most of them live with their mothers I do not doubt.
But they're harmless. You'll see. No one will bother you if you set them straight."

The pub stood nearly a football field's length from Thorne Cottage. There were no cars parked in the small lot. At first, Silver thought it might be empty, but when Zara pushed open the door, robust male voices greeted them with that half-blustering, half joking tone men get when they're discussing anything they deem worth discussing. In this case, once Zara and Silver were noticed, all talk stopped dead.

And several male jaws dropped.

They made their way to a table near the fireplace and sat. Still, no one spoke. Silver couldn't brush off her uneasiness. She looked to Zara who shrugged, then after apparently considering what to do, stood and announced, "Ye great louts, this is Silver McLaren from New Jersey in the States. She's staying at Thorne Cottage and you'd best behave like gentlemen. Go on, go with your football or whatever." She shooed them with her hand and sat, nonplussed.
Silver stifled a laugh. "Well, that's telling 'em."
"You have to be firm with these lads. They're thick sometimes."
The barman came over and handed each of them short plastic-covered menus while pointing out the fare on the chalkboard. He smiled broadly, favoring each woman in turn, but didn't leave. He must have been expecting them to make their decisions quickly.
While Silver studied the menu and he stood there, gawping, a most peculiar thing happened.
She hadn't noticed it when they entered the pub, but there were several large dogs sitting at their masters' feet. This wouldn't have been allowed in New Jersey, but evidently it was perfectly acceptable in Scotland. The dogs didn't stay where they were. Instead, they began slowly crawling in that odd-doggie way that seemed to show they were showing great obeisance, toward Silver's table.
When one wet nose touched her hand, she flinched it away until she realized what had touched her. Gently, she pet the dog's head and had her hand licked. Ew, slobber. The other dogs, seeing this acceptance, followed suit. Soon all the dogs in the pub were crowded around Silver and Zara, begging for attention.
It was strange, but, oh, well, what the heck. Zara laughed lightly, sounding like some sort of elf or fairy and after a quick look at her, Silver was forced to join her. The barman tried in vain to shoo the dogs back, cursing in some incomprehensible language and calling out to the dogs' owners to come and get them.
"Don't ye be botherin' these ladies, ye great louts!"
But Silver, putting up her hand, stopped him from going further.
She bent her head to look under the table and said quietly, "You're all so sweet, but babies, would you mind backing off just a little? I'll pet you all after I eat my dinner, if you will behave yourselves."
The dogs, tails wagging furiously, backed away to sit at their owners' feet.
Silver sighed.
The men at the bar and at other tables watched, their faces betraying their amazement.
Silver looked around to make sure no one was disturbed by her actions. All the men smiled back then whispered amongst themselves and went back to their pints.
All but one.
In the darkest corner of the pub sat a lone man who watched everything through lidded eyes.
Silver noticed him, the darkness not hindering her night vision ability in the least. He sat hunched over, definitely not part of the crowd, but listening to everything with little interest. She had the crazy idea of how the Hobbits first encountered Strider, sitting with his big hat covering his face, in that pub at the end of civilization. Wow, what a weird thought.
This guy wasn't wearing a hat, but he wore an air of "do not disturb" so Silver turned away.
Zara supplied an answer to her unspoken question.
"That's the pub's new landlord. He doesn't talk much."
"Oh. What's his story?"
"I'll tell you later. Now, let's eat." The barman placed their food before them, lingered until they thanked him and gave him a nod, then left rather reluctantly. What was with these people? Hadn't they ever seen an American before?

The food was good, substantial, with a flair she had not expected in a little out of the way place like this. After the dishes were removed, some sort of signal went through the men who began wandering over to their table in a non-aggressive shamble reminiscent of their pets.

The first introduced himself as one of the McGregor lads as if Silver should know the import of it all. Zara gently elbowed her and whispered in her ear, "There are eight of them, just so you know. Harmless, except on the dance floor."

"Hello."
He continued. "So, you're from New Jersey. Tell me, do you favor the football Giants or those Jets?"
Beside her, Zara tched. "Right away, you have to bother the lady?"
Duly chastised but not to be stopped, he hung his head.

Silver held in her chuckle. "The Giants. The Jets are okay, too, but I guess I favor the Giants."
The MacGregor perked up at this. All ears in the pub were on this conversation now.
"Yankees or Mets?"

Silver laughed this time. "Yankees. The Mets are good for a laugh every now and then, but I don't know about them any more. I've been a Yankees fan since I was a little girl."

The MacGregor boomed out to the crowd, "Did you hear that, lads? She's a Yankees fan!"
The ice broken, smashed to tiny shards by this declaration, Silver found herself surrounded by "the lads", introduced to them all, and pummeled with questions.

The huge television at the end of the room magically turned on and a baseball game, just starting, forced some of the men to divide their attention between Silver, who responded honestly but with her natural uncertainty since she wasn't really that big a fan of any sport, and the game, broadcast via satellite on delay.

She did enjoy her first night at the pub, however. Despite the constant questions about sports and the states--Have you never gone to a game? Ye have? How long ago? How are the new sports stadiums? Do ye think the Yankees have a chance a the World Series? How about the Mets?--she didn't feel put upon and eventually relaxed after explaining that she liked sports, but surely not as much as these men did. They told her all about their planned trip to New York to see at least one baseball game later in the summer and she told them it would be a great idea.
To which, every man jack of them took her approval as gospel.

Zara left the pub at about nine, making sure Silver knew how to get back to Thorne Cottage.
About ten thirty, the long drive and the time difference took its toll on Silver and she rose to leave. The game was going strong and the men bid her good night.
Whew! She sucked in a deep breath of the clean air, coughed out some of the smoke that had filled her lungs inside the pub and started on her way back to her room.
She walked without really thinking about where she was going, a long straight path between the pub and the B&B, listening to the sound of quiet broken only by the lapping of the lake waters against the shore. Then she heard footsteps coming behind her.
The hair on the back of her neck rippled alert as the steps came closer, followed by the click of doggie toenails against the stones in the path.
She stopped.
The footsteps didn't.
Silver spun around and saw first one of the old dogs who had vied for her attention in the pub, then noticed that the man who had been sitting alone in the shadows, old Strider, kept coming closer. She reacted in typical Jersey style.

"Are you following me, buddy?"
The man stopped in his tracks, scowled at her in the moonlight and shook his head once.
"I'm going to my bed, lady. I have no interest in you other than the fact that you happen to be going to the same place. This is not America. I'm not going to attack you. I just want to get home."
"Well," she felt just a little foolish, but then, she wasn't about to trust this stranger. "Well, you don't have to creep up on me."
By this time, Strider had come to mere feet away. He scowled down at her. "Then get out of the way and let me pass if you intend to stand there all night, jabbering."
With that, he brushed past her, called his dog away and continued on down the path.

Under her breath, Silver muttered to his back, "Jerk!"

Copyright 2009, Irene Peterson

For those interested, yesterday we saw our neighbor, Ken.
He's fine, he says!!! He did have a heart attack...all the typical arm pain symptoms and that, but the doctors told him he had evidently had a previous one, one he did not notice!

He got a stent put in to open up the internal tubing, and something else put in so they can get to him easily--I didn't quite get that part, but boy oh boy, his father passed from a heart attack at a young age. So this was close!

And the other good news is that his wife Michelle is going to be fine. Her fused neck vertabrae have healed and she is out of the heavy duty brace.

Let's just say that our two houses haven't had the best of years.
Onward and upward to a better 2010.

And to think the end of the world as we knew it was supposed to be the new milennium.
I can't remember how to spell it. Fingers crossed for 2012. Nostradamus was a bullshitter.
And the Mayans with their calendar? Where are they now?

Hah!

Thorne Cottage was...perfect!
Silver fell in love with the place as she pulled into the steep drive and stopped to let the beauty of the stone house enthrall her. There wasn't really a place to park the car so she left it head facing the house, careful to put on the emergency brake because, well, if she didn't, if it rolled down the drive and crossed the narrow lake road, it would end up in Loch Ness for sure. Just the thought of that made her laugh, but the laugh came easily because she felt so damned good.
Everything had gone quite smoothly, the plane ride, the train from London, the car from Edinburgh. The scenery could not be faulted. Even the sheep were perfect. And now, Thorne Cottage. Just what a B&B in Scotland ought to look like. Perfection.

A petite, red-haired woman came out to greet her. Her warm smile added to Silver's delight.
"Hallo, I'm Zara Frazier. You must be Silver McLaren. Welcome to Thorne Cottage!"

Silver put down her camera bag and extended her hand to the woman. The instant their fingers touched, Silver's brain flooded with pictures, zipping through her mind like a movie on speed, showing this Zara Frazier with impossible clarity, allowing her emotions to flow into Silver. Happiness, great sorrow, and something else, something Silver found disturbing, but in an empathetic way. She pulled her hand back, shocked.
Zara Frazier did the same.
Eyes round, she asked, "What was that?"
Silver shook her head. "I don't know, but it sure saves a lot of talk." Recovering a bit, she smiled. "Does that happen to you all the time? Did you...see me in your head?"

Zara nodded. "Oh, good. You're sensitive, too. Now that this stuff is out of the way, let's get you inside and settled, shall we? And we can have a cup of tea. I've got some scones if you're hungry."
She rattled on as they made their way into the house, Silver noting the furnishings, old but decent, the smell of fresh paint barely noticeable, and the vases full of spring flowers everywhere. The house welcomed her, though it seemed a bit small for a person her size. The narrow staircase made her want to turn sideways, though Zara had no trouble going up straight, even carrying the camera bag. Silver struggled with her suitcase, finally turning it directly in front of her, letting it bang against her legs while avoiding hitting her new landlady. Barely.

At the top of the stairs on a small landing and hall, four doors stood in each direction of a compass. Zara led Silver into a bright, cheerful yellow room, setting her burden on the flowery bedspread gently.
"I gave you the front bedroom so you have a good view of the loch," she said. "Most Americans like to look at it, I suppose."
Silver shrugged. "I grew up with a small lake in my back yard. My summers were spent fishing and wading in the lake, catching polliwogs and sunfish. But I haven't done that in quite some time. I guess I outgrew it."
"Well, you can't really wade in Loch Ness. There's not much bank and they say it drops off suddenly. Besides, it's very cold."
Silver noted that "very" came out "verra", but that just made it all the better--she really was in Scotland!
"I was thinking of taking photos of the loch, going to places you don't see...not the castle...everybody has that in their books about the loch. Or Scotland in general. I just thought there might be real beauty that nobody has photographed here."
"You're absolutely right. Everybody comes to see our poor Nessie," this came out 'pooer' and was music to Silver's ears, "but hardly anybody notices there's so much more to the loch than some beastie."
Beastie! Straight out of Robbie Burns or something. Oh, Silver was in heaven!

"Well, I don't know about Nessie. I've done some reading on the area and my folks come from the Highlands, so I'm really excited to take a long look around through the lens of my camera."

Zara looked at Silver, a long, assessing look, then smiled. "Come down when you're ready. I'll put the kettle on." With that, she left the room.

While she put away her things in an ancient dresser and hung up her jacket on a hook behind the door, she tried to make sense of what had happened when she shook Zara's hand. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before and she wasn't sure whether she liked it.
Had she really seen, no, experienced, all that about Zara's life? Was she just imagining her joy and sorrow...there was some real pain there, lingering long and deep. Death of a lover. Emptiness and longing. And happier things, but the most concrete impression was of the sorrow. Losing a love like that, well, Silver had never known that in her lifetime and didn't care to, thank you very much.

Perhaps Zara knew what had happened and could offer an explanation.

Silver hoped, as she carefully made her way down the steep, narrow staircase, it wasn't part of this bloody, weirdo, spooky selkie business.

copyright 2009, Irene Peterson (thoughtus interruptus)

Liberty States Fiction Writers.
Wow, what a fabulous group of people.

When I was feeling slightly better, two weeks after my last chemo session, I attended a meeting and felt welcomed and soaked up the information of the guest speaker like a sponge...what else soaks up stuff? Bounty paper towels?
Sorry, but that's all I can manage now.

Anyway, shortly after that meeting, still feeling better and all, the second disaster happened and I missed meetings all summer and early autumn. So today my fantastic friend The Gilroy drives me to Edison and we enter the meeting room and a wave of love washed over me.
It was so great to be back.
Even people I didn't know said hello. Perhaps they've read my stuff online, I don't know, but it was so very good to be with like minds...all different, but all focused on the exact same thing.

This is what writers need. They need to be with other writers. Nobody else in the universe understands us but our fellows. Believe me, we're not the usual sort of person, we're highly imaginative and creative as all hell and often difficult to understand when we're in the throes of visualizing and writing a whole new world, time and place, people who could never exist and their pets.
But other writers understand this.
They also understand the need we have to be appreciated.

Well, Liberty States writers, I do so appreciate you!

(And my dear friend The Gilroy, you are the best.)

To all our military, wherever they are, wherever they were, I salute you.

Travel agents are wonderful.  They know so much.  Some of them must be psychic, Silver mused as she drove to her grandmother's house.  The agent had found her a lovely B&B to stay in...Thorne  Cottage.  Now, didn't that sound divine?  According to the brochure, it was rather isolated alongside one of the beautiful lochs scattered throughout Scotland.  It was in the Highlands and looked absolutely cozy.  Recently renovated, but still maintaining Old World charm.
Yeah.  Old world charm.  No wifi.  Nobody bugging her.  Peace and quiet and a chance to calm down, get hold of herself, get back on the right path.  Focus.
The paper can run itself for two weeks.
The only problem she could foresee was her grandmother.
Gram might not like the idea of being alone.

"Nonsense, dear.  You go.  Galena and I can cope just fine.  I'm on the way up from the chemo and she knows what to do for me.  Now that she has her driver's license, why, everything is great."
As she voiced this, Silver noted something in her eyes, just for an instant, something that showed the tiniest bit of concern or worry or fear, but it vanished in a flash.  Maybe she didn't really see it after all.  But it bothered her.
"Look, Gram, I can cancel the reservations.  No problem.  If you feel you need me in any way, I will stay here.  Probably a stupid thing for me to do anyway.  Running off on a whim, what with you here in bed and Mom and Pop on the other side of the world.  I...I think I'd better stay."

The old lady elbowed her way up the pillows.  "You'll do no such thing, Silver McLaren.  You have to follow this impulse.  You have to get away."
"No, I'd better stay here.  I can just...."
"Don't you dare cancel those plans, Silver!  Something made you make them.  Something pushed you.  I don't care whether the insurance man is coming, I can handle him.  Prove I'm alive!  Hah.  All he has to do is walk through that door and I'll prove to him I'm alive, all right.
But," she took a deep breath and pointed her finger at her granddaughter, "something told you to take that trip.  To take that chance.  Things have a strange way of working out.  Something put Scotland in your mind and you owe it to yourself to find out what."

Silver smiled at her grandmother's vehemence.  And whimsy.  "Gram, there is no great universal plan sending me to  Scotland.  I was pissed at that insurance guy and had to come up with some excuse not to be here when he showed up.  The guy was hitting on me, Gram.  I don't need that in my life right now."

"When will you need it, Silver?" 
The innocence of the question was totally unlike Gram.  Silver knew there was something more to it.  The old "you should be married or at least have someone special in your life" lecture was long overdue.  It had been at least four months since she'd heard it.  Damn.
"Oh, Gram.  Please."

"Oh, Silver, PLEASE!  Go to Scotland.  Visit castles.  Throw rocks in a loch.  Eat some haggis.
No, don't eat any haggis, eat some good shortbread and drink some fine malt whisky.  Buy yourself some nice plaid.  Do something, girl.  Find out what it is that sent you there and work with it."

That was a pretty long speech without once mentioning a man in her life or babies.  Silver shuddered.  Okay, she got the point.  She'd go.

"You never know what's just around the bend, Silver.  Something is calling to you in Scotland.
Find out what it is and embrace it."

"Oh, Gram!"  With a hug for the old lady, Silver resigned herself to her supposed fate.  "I'll go.
And I'll find out whatever it is that has called me to the land of my ancestors."
"They're not all selkies," Gram added.
"Now, that's comforting to know."

 She sat in the narrow seat, wedged between a short, sweaty businessman who groused about not flying first class and a semi-pro footballer whose shoulders crowded into her space.  Within seconds, both men were vying for her attention and Silver decided to feign sleep until the cabin lights went down and the men, out of courtesy or boredom, shut up.  The businessman fiddled with his laptop for awhile while the athlete plugged in his headphones and fell asleep listening to Michael Bolton.
Both men snored lightly, but enough to keep Silver awake for half the long flight.  She  managed to catch a couple of hours' sleep, but when the cabin lights flickered on and the steward hustled up the aisle, she was awake and raring to go. 
The sun was up but not out when the cab left Silver at the train station.  Idle thoughts led her to think that Harry Potter might have gone on this same platform.  Everything looked old and different and chilly and slightly foggy inside the huge building, lending it an air of mystery and unreality.  The travel agent had done her job well.  Ticket in hand, Silver boarded the train for Edinburgh.  This time her traveling companions were a trendily dressed mother with her two little boys who were enchanted to be traveling with an American and bombarded her with questions about cowboys and Red Indians.
"Don't mind them, miss," the trendy mother insisted  "They've been staying with their grandparents and Grandfather is mad keen on cowboys.  I guess that's all they talked about while they were there.  He even promised to take them to Texas when they got a little older."
Then, in an aside, she whispered, "I think they'd enjoy Disney World much more."
Silver smiled.  "I know I would."

Upon arrival in Edinburgh, Silver spent eight hours in the comfy bed at her modest and ancient hotel. In the morning, her rented car was waiting for her at the hotel door. 
"Remember to drive on the left hand side of the road, Miss," rang in her ears when she rolled away from the kerb. 
Thank GOD she'd rented an automatic!  Thought it was less than a hundred miles to Inverness, the traveling distance would be longer because of the rugged terrain.  Going up and down hills, skirting mountains...if she'd had to shift gears with her left hand while remembering which side of the road to stay on...well, she'd never make it.
The highlight of her trip consisted of being stopped four times while shaggy sheep crossed the narrow roads.  She ate a quick lunch while pulled over at a rest stop but continued on her way, determined to reach Inverness as soon as possible.  According to her schedule, she still had an hour's drive to the B&B.
She had to admit, though, that the Scottish countryside, with its hills and lush valleys and rugged terrain was everything she'd ever thought it was.  And old.  Everything looked old and slightly worn but natural, as if every cottage and kirk and fence and stone wall had been there for ages and would stay that way forever.   And that made her happy.  In the mists clinging to the valleys below, she felt oddly at home.  Not really home home, but perhaps some sort of racial memory or something from the stories her grandmother told her from the time she was a child.
If a Highlander wearing a kilt and kirtling on pipes leapt from the bushes and started playing, she'd not be surprised.  In fact, at one roadside pullover, she found just that.  An older gentleman stood in full Highland regalia, pipes askirl, entertaining a group of tourists who snapped away with their cameras.  They were a long way from home. 
But then, so was she.

As she drove, she marked places she wanted to visit during her two week stay.  Museums and shops and restaurants and galleries, maybe take a day to--oh, who knows?  Maybe just take photographs of the natural beauty of the country.  Maybe put it in a book.  Yeah, now that was a terrific idea!  A book about Scotland in springtime.  A travelogue.  Something to show her grandmother.  Maybe even try to get it published.  Sure, why not?  She could write and she could take good photographs.  She had two of her best cameras with her and her netbook.

Wow.  Excitement rose in her, filling her with a sense of purpose. 
Hey, maybe this was what she was supposed to do, what her odd whim had pushed her to do.  Something she'd never have thought of in Middlebrook, sitting at her desk at the Chronicle.
For the first time in a long time, Silver was buzzed.  
The excitement of this new twist to her life made it easy for her not to register the fact that she now took the low road along the shore of Scotland's largest, deepest lake.
Loch Ness.
 

copyright 2009, Irene Peterson

"Old age isn't all it's cracked up to be." I'd say them to my 90 year old daughters.

You all know about Silver and probably where this is leading, but in case you didn't, here's a clue:






This was found in an article about some brand new old footage found recently, dating back from the mid 1930s. Of course, it didn't show the footage, but I thought this picture was nifty.

Now, this goes along with my recent post about Godzilla. If it were proven that there was something magnificently unique in Loch Ness, can you imagine how the world would respond?

The other day on the Science Channel or NatGeo I heard that strange whale noises were detected in Lake Champlain, upper New York state, bordering on Vermont. They claim to have "Champ" up there. Out in BC, Canada, there is a lake monster named Ogopogo, all monsters easily reference on the Internet.
Noises in a frozen lake? Noises like a Beluga whale makes?
Were these people smoking something or were they serious?

Why can't I ever find the answers to these simple questions?

Maybe I'll work on Silver later. It's too cold to work on it now.

Okay, I've had all my shots, pneumonia, regular flu and H1N1.
Today for the very first time in over one year, I'm going out in public with Karyn, alone.  No Herb to hold me up.  We're going shopping for clothes for her because it has been about two years since the two of us have been shopping together and she desperately needs blue jeans.

For the first time in my life, I have about five pairs, but most of them are too big.  I have one good pair.

I was wearing them when I broke my legs.
In the emergency room, I had to beg the people to remove them without cutting them.  It caused quite a stir, me begging, them being so used to just ripping away at pants' legs, but, by golly, the nurses helped lift my leg and my butt and I helped, too, despite the floppy foot and all, and the pants were removed successfully.

You never think of things like that.
I had clean underwear on...always have decent undergarments when leaving the house.  I guess it is okay to wear holey underwear, pinned bras or something, when hanging around your own abode, but--wait!  What if you were to fall and need the rescue squad to get you to the hospital?  Then everybody would see your crummy underwear!!!
And I mean everybody.

When I was in the emergency room, getting the foot put back in place, there were 12 people in the little room.  One was a dentist.  He showed me a picture of his little girl.  Distracted me.  I don't know why he was there as the foot is furthest away from the mouth you can get without blowing off the top of your head, but he was there.  Nice guy.
So...as a rule, I haven't worn holey underwear or pins in my bra since I was a kid and had the bad car accident that landed me in the emergency room, back in June, 1971.  Luckily I had good underwear on at the time, but as they were hauling me into the ambulance, all I kept thinking about was the state of my underwear.

I grew up, undergarment wise, that day, and never ever had less than perfect, clean undies since then.

{By the bye, our neighbor next door was taken to the hospital last night.  LIghts flashing, the hospital EMTs and the rescue squad all there, flashing and sirening.  Ken is a really sweet, nice guy.  He and I shared the hawks in the back yard.  I hope everything is all right.  I prayed for him and the rest of his family last night and hope all prayers regarding him are answered by the Big Guy.}

Note the new hair. I had no idea it was going to be so dark....

Now, this is my husband. He makes up for my lack of hair. Yes, this is his own.

It has become exceedingly clear to me that, most things considered, it would be better to have to fight off Godzilla than face the scattered terrorists that are crawling throughout the world.

Yes.

Consider this:  Sorry Tokyo, but you manage to rebuild quickly enough, and the monster has destroyed you countless times.  Okay, it's not just Godzilla, there are all the other monsters, but frankly, concentrating on Tokyo takes a load off the collective minds of the rest of the world.

If we had just one monster to fight, we could vanquish it rather quickly (yes, we'd avoid the tank thing as it never works, and we'd have to avoid the atomic weapons thing as we never get around to using them anyway.)  One monster!  Located in one place!  How hard could it be?

As any monster watchers can swear, the first and second methods of killing off Godzilla don't work, no matter what the scientists and military geniuses (I use that term loosely) come up with.  Often, they must come up with incredibly inventive ways to kill off the lizard...such as anesthetizing him and carrying him away to the Arctic with super strong wire invented by some college professor or kid.  That was one of my favorites. Then there was the dissolve all the creatures in the ocean with some chemical invented by yet another poor college chemistry professor. That was from the first movie.  Poor Godzilla, it supposedly did him in, but since he came back a few years later, well, evidently either the lizard regenerated somehow or it never killed him.

Perhaps the best way to get rid of Godzilla is to bring in Mothra.  Old Mothra, the best human-controlled of all the monsters thanks to the little fairy princesses, always managed to defeat or chase away Godzilla.  Thank goodness for those little fairy princesses!
There were far too many other monsters to name that challenged Godzilla and Japan.  Some were human controlled, some were controlled by aliens bent on, once again, controlling the earth and Japan in particular.  Ghidorah, that perennial favorite, came back at least three, maybe four times in different guises and with different names.  Monster Zero comes to mind.
Whoever gave King Ghidorah such a low number?  Three headed dragon, sometimes live, sometimes mechanical, why, that in itself deserves a number one.  But a zero?  Nah.

Giant lobsters.  Giant spiders.  Giant whirling turtles.  After huge fights, Godzilla and the army managed to clean things up.  Mostly the monsters went back into the ocean and left us alone.
Or germs killed off the aliens or their ships crashed into mountains or blew up somehow.
But the point is, Godzilla and the other monsters were always defeated.  One solid monster, many attempts to kill it off, wiping out Tokyo and fishing villages and ultimate triumph!

Wipe out the big bugaboo in one fell swoop!

Would that we could kill off the bugaboos of the world today with one or two lashings out with kindly monsters who like us.

Sorry, Japan, for all your troubles so far, but you've managed to recover quite nicely.  Constantly.
What we really need is only one monster to fight, not all these piddlin' little ones with dynamite strapped to their chests.

Or, let's not only consider terrorists from foreign countries.  We have a shitload of evil little monsters roaming the streets of the US every single day.  Some walk what we consider the high road, others dwell in the gutters and alleyways.  Maybe we could gather them all up in one place, like Tokyo (sorry again) and beg Godzilla to come and sweep them away.
Oh, would I be happy to watch that movie.

"Thank you for calling Bezoar Medical Insurance.  All our representatives are busy right now, but your call is very important to us, so please hold on the line for the next available rep.  Approximate wait time is fifteen minutes."

Silver fought the urge to slam the phone against the wall.  Fifteen minutes?  She'd already been holding on for twenty.  Carefully, she weighed the prospects...hang up and call again, thus making it more than fifteen minutes or hang up and never call again and bugger them all?  Or, should she take a plane to wherever and find the representatives in person? 
It might be faster.

But the music was interesting...better than elevator music, not quite funeral parlor music, sort of classical though not quite.
Unfortunately, it gave her time to remember her awful dreams.

She shuddered as the memory slipped through her brain of falling into icy black water, feeling trapped until her wetsuit pulled off and freed her to swim.  Ink.  The water smelled of print ink but not quite.  After awhile, it wasn't chilly any more and she reveled in the freedom of being able to swim at ease though she couldn't see anything.  Dark surrounded her without a speck of light, reminding her of a cave she'd been in once.  Her parents had taken her to see some cavern in Virginia.  The guide wanted all the visitors to experience complete darkness, as it would be in the cave if he turned out the lights, so he did, plunging her into the void. 
She had wanted to scream, to flail her arms to reach something real, a parent, the wall, anything to anchor her.  When some other kid with sneakers that lit up when he moved flashed a tiny light at floor level, at least she knew she wasn't alone and her heart stopped thudding and her fears slowly dissipated.  When the guide turned the lights back on, she heard every adult sigh with relief, but she never forgot that experience.
This dream was probably just reliving that.
Of course it was.
The past few days, and that idiot Evans--he'd really frightened her--well, she probably just remembered that feeling of panic in the cave and the utter blackness of it all.
Maybe her mind needed to slow down, stop worrying, stop obsessing about everything and she'd never have that nightmare again.

But, some of it hadn't been so bad.  The freedom, the slipperiness of the water, the ease of moving, the total lack of restrictions.  There, that was it!  She hadn't been restricted in the dark water.  All the crap she'd been living through since her parents shipped off to Uzbekistan, running the paper, taking care of her grandmother, the pressure from the syndicate plus the pressure to put out the Chronicle. 
Yep, that was it.
That explained it all.
No need to worry about a stupid dream.

The telephone clicked, a representative spoke.  "Thenkyou for calling Bezoar. This is Tiffany speeging, howmay I helb you?"
Oh, no.  English is not this babe's native language.  Bezoar had outsourced their twentyfour hour service reps to someplace halfway across the world.
"Tiffany, I'm calling on behalf of my grandmother, Mary McLaren.  Her policy number is -------.  It seems that you have stopped paying her medical bills and I have receipts in my hand that show we are up to date with all payments."
"One moment, plees."
Five minutes passed before the rep came back.
"Oh, according to our records, Mary McLaren, policy number ------- is dead."

Silver screamed into the phone.  "What?"
The rep quickly responded, "Yez, I am very much afraid Mary McLaren is deceased."
Silver shook, nearly dropping the phone, torn between outrage and out and out hatred for whomever was on the line, spouting such utter nonsense.
"My grandmother, Mary McLaren, is very much alive.  How can you say that?  How can your records show that she's dead?  I spoke to her not half an hour ago and she is very, very much alive.  Of course, this news might kill her," Silver paused, trying to tamp down her fury, "and you certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for that, now, would you, Tiffany?"

Loud pause as the rep regrouped.  "Now, miz, please, dere is no need to get violent."
"I'm not getting violent.  That doesn't mean what I am right now, though I could consider getting violent if I don't talk with your supervisor immediately."

"Yez, miz.  I will get the supervisor right away."
Another ten minutes.  Thank goodness this was an 800 number.

"This is Harry Badjawani, Tiffany's supervisor. I understand you are quite beside yourself in grief, miz.  I totally understand in this hour how upset you must be, and let me offer this word of comfort...."
"Oh, no, buster!  I am not grieving, but I am angry.  My grandmother has paid for this supplemental health insurance for the past twenty years and never once had to use it.  Now she needs it to the tune of some twenty thousand dollars and you people tell me she's dead?  What the heck is going on here?  She is alive, I tell you.  Very much alive, though suffering from the effects of chemotherapy that your company refuses to pay for."

"Oh, miz, I am very glad to hear that you think your grandmother is alive, but according to our records, she passed on."

Silver sucked in a deep breath.  "Oh, and when was that?"
The deep sing-song voice came back after a few seconds.  "According to the records, she died on March seventh of this year."
Silver watched her hand turn white as it gripped the phone tighter.  "That is her birthday.  And we all celebrated with a big party and cake and candles and everything. She was alive enough to blow out all the candles and she's alive now."

"Oh?"
She'd had enough.  Had this guy not been halfway around the world in a third world country where English was not necessarily spoken every day, she'd gladly have strangled him with her bare hands.
"My grandmother is alive.  Did you receive a copy of her death certificate?  Did you not notice that there were more current bills?  How could she have gone for treatments over the past month if she died over four weeks ago?  Huh?  Can you tell me that?"

"I am veddy sorry, miz, but I cannot answer that."
"Well, take it from me.  She's not dead, she needs her chemotherapy and you're going to pay for it."
"But our records...."
"Hang your records.  The woman is alive and your company has to pony up right away. I will not tolerate her being dunned for these bills that should be covered completely by Bezoar."
"But...."
"No buts, mister.  If I have to drive all the way to Indianapolis to the company headquarters and tell them you made a mistake with my grandmother's payments, I most certainly will.  And, I will be sure to let them know that you, Harry Badjawani, refused to fix this little problem.  I am an angry woman, Mr. Badjawani, and I mean what I say."

In the background, she heard a female voice interrupt the supervisor.  He must have cupped his hand over the receiver to block out what was being said, but the female voice was frantic and speaking in a stage whisper, urgent as all get out.

Silence, then Mr. Badjawani resumed speaking.  "Ah, miz, my representative has just explained to me that these expenses occurred when another representative, one who was fired for incompetence, was handling the claims.  That explainz everyting, for sure."

Somehow, this didn't ease Silver's pique.  "So, somebody else, someone who no longer works for Bezoar wherever you are, messed up my grandmother's claim and pronounced her dead.  That makes everything all right, I suppose.  So, delete her death date and pay the bills."

Prolonged silence, then, "Oh, miz, I am sorry, but this will have to go to the main office.  I cannot just delete someone's death.  It is not in my power."

Silver actually slapped her forehead with her empty palm.
"Okay, tell me what I have to do to prove that my grandmother is not dead.  We don't give out 'life certificates' in this country."

"That I do not know, miz."
"Well, tell me who does know and I'll get on it right away."

"I don't know that, either."

Something snapped.  Silver's brain couldn't take any more of this bullshit, so she lowered her voice and spoke very slowly and softly.  "Harry Badjawani, supervisor of customer representatives, somewhere halfway around the world from me and my very much alive grandmother, do you like your job?"
"Oh, yes, very much, miz."
"Tell me, Harry, may I call you Harry?  Do you want to keep your job?"
His voice came back with just a touch of unease in it. "Oh, yes.  I have a wife and seven children to support."
"Do you want them to go hungry because their father couldn't delete an old lady's death and fix this whole mess with the home office right away?"
"Oh, nooo, miz.  That would not be good."
"Well, then, Mr. Harry Badjawani, I suggest you get on this right away because my next phone call will be to the head office in Indianapolis, USA, and I will speak to your direct boss about this matter.  What do you think I will say to him, Mr. Badjawani, if you cannot fix this little matter right now?"

"I think it will not go veddy well for me, miz."
"For the first time in our conversation, Harry, you've got that right.  Now, please attend to this matter immediately.  I will be calling the head office in Indianapolis in one half hour.  If they have not heard from you by then, I will be forced to tell them of our conversation, which I have recorded, by the way."

She hated doing things like this. She did have this recorded on her answering machine, but it would bother her forever if she had to use it against this poor man and his seven children.
But she would, if it meant getting her grandmother's bills paid.
"I will do what I can, miz."
"Harry Badjawani, you'd better.  My grandmother is depending on you.  Your children are depending on you.  I have every confidence that you will be able to clear this up."
She slapped her phone shut and felt the hostility drain from her, along with the tension.  She would give him his half hour then phone Indianapolis if she could find some number for them.  It had to be somewhere in her grandmother's papers. 
Somewhere.

The Chronicle office thumped and hummed around her while human voices responded to telephone calls and jokes and something broadcast on the ubiquitous CNN droning in the background.
Silver waited, checked out the insurance company head office online and got a phone number.
Forty five minutes passed.
Her telephone rang and she picked it up.
"This is Frank Marshall of Bezoar Insurance.  Is this the granddaughter of Mary McLaren?"
"Yes."
"We have received a call from our overseas representative, Mr. Badjawani, regarding the death of Mrs. Mclaren.  I personally wish to extend condolences at your loss."
She did scream, this time.  Long and loud, directly into the phone.
"Mary McLaren is NOT DEAD!"

"Oh, well.  Oh, dear.  There's been some mistake then."
Silver's entire body shook as the anger and tension returned worse than before.
"Oh, I'll say there's been a mistake.  A big mistake.  And you had better fix it, Mr. Marshall, immediately."
Long pause, dead silence on the other end.
"Can you prove that Mrs. McLaren is alive?"

"What do you want me to do, have her breathe into the phone?  Tell me, just what do you need for me to do to prove that she is not dead?"
"Er, I don't know."

"She's got cancer.  She's undergoing chemotherapy and not fit to travel to Indianapolis.  Maybe you could come here,  Mr. Marshall, to see for yourself.  Whaddya say?  It's lovely in New Jersey in the spring.  You'd like it.  And you'll like my grandmother.  She's quite a woman, done some astounding things."

His voice took on a different, mellow tone, all too familiar to Silver.  "I'd like that.  Say, will I get to meet you?"    He couldn't be after her, not over the phone.  Oh, hell.

"I'm sorry, but I'm leaving for..." she looked at her desk, saw the tiny flag of Scotland in her pencil holder, and blurted out, "Scotland.  I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow.  But my lawyer will be there, at Gram's house, when you arrive.  Let's set the date and time, Mr. Marshall.  Right now."

"Is this necessary?"
"I don't know, Frank.  Is this necessary?  She will expect you this Friday after one.  She has a health care provider who will be with her, along with her lawyer.  If you are not there, our lawyer will know what to do.  Thank you for your cooperation.  Good-bye."

She slumped in her desk chair, exhausted.  They did have a lawyer, a good one.  She made a call, poured out the story to the small town lawyer who agreed to handle everything.  It was good having a lawyer whose wife was on the Chronicle staff.  He assured Silver that he would handle everything.

"I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow.  I'll let you know where I can be reached."

She got off the phone with him, called her travel agent and booked a flight.
Simple as that.

She could always cancel it as soon as she cooled down.
If she cooled down.

copyright 2009, Irene Peterson

Seems as if I have to update my current state of being every once in awhile so that people can tell that I'm getting better.
So, here it goes.

I've been using the ultrasound device on my right leg breaks.  I haven't a clue whether it is working or not, but I can put some weight on my right foot and the pain is not excruciating.  I've been sort of walking around up here without the brace, the big one or the new one, but it's only a few feet or so. 
The problem with all this is that I keep hearing that bone snap that I heard when I fell at the sausage store and I get scared.  What if it happens again?  One misstep and I go down and that snap happens again.  Sometimes when I am trying to sleep, I think my foot is going to fall off.
The vision of what it looked like as they rolled me into the x-ray room, the first sight I had of my detached foot, haunts me.  Fitting for Halloween, but think about it.  How could I possibly recover from a foot falling off?  It would have to be cut away or something.  I'd have NO FOOT.

Something to haunt, no?

The bottom of my feet still feel as if they are tattered flesh.  Sometimes I can feel fairly well, sometimes they're numb, sometimes I get almost that pins and needles feeling.  Never are they just right.  Last night, I thought I'd cut my big toe, but it was just this odd sensation that happened when I touched the right toe with the left big toe.  See?  It's just odd and hard to adjust to. 
It should be natural to feel the bottom of your feet.

Let's go to the hands.  I think the sensation is about right in the thumbs and index fingers on both hands.  Yay!  Sometimes the side and other fingers go completely numb.  Sometimes, when I first wake up, they're almost okay.

Stomach works just fine.  Unfortunately, I can eat again and I have to watch very closely as I know I have gained back some of the weight I lost with the chemo.  My blood sugar is weird, too.  Yesterday it shot up to 139!   This morning it is 118 or less.  I didn't write it down.  Without the meds, I gotta be careful.  Trust me, I do not need diabetes to take over where the cancer left off.

I've been trying to exercise.  It's hard without being able to stand up, ya know?  So I do crunches, I think they're called.  And the wheelchair is taking care of the upper body stuff.  I even have calluses (sp) on the sides of my hands from wheeling.  As soon as I can walk right, well, don't stop me.

My eyesight is okay, I guess.  Need to strengthen the right eye lens, though.  When I compare the left to the right, squinting and such, the right one isn't good but the left seems okay.  But I guess I gotta get to the eye doc to straighten that out.

Physcially, that may be it that I care to mention here.  What isn't right wasn't right before, so it doesn't need mentioning.  Mentally, well, that's always questionable, now, isn't it?

Mentally, I'm afraid of my foot falling off. I'm afraid to walk in case my bones snap.  I'm afraid of the cancer coming back.  I'm afraid the feeling won't come back in my feet and hands so that it was like it was before the cancer.  It has been a year since I felt good.  A whole year!

That's like serving time in prison.
That's like being held hostage by creepy foreign weirdos, waiting for the US to ransom me.
It ain't comin', folks.

But most of all, I'm afraid of what's going to happen when we have to switch medical insurance in two weeks or so.  Finding different doctors who don't know me and don't understand what I've been through, strangers to start all over again with...this stinks.  All these little things I'm going to have to remember to tell. 
Crap.

Maybe I need to tell this to a shrink.

Infrequent streetlights did little to illuminate the alley behind the Chronicle office and most of the northern side of downtown.  Silver lifted her ever-present sunglasses, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness.  When her night vision clicked in, she eased the Mini onto the pavement and slowly drove to her parking space behind the old brick building.  The loading dock was empty.  That meant the paper had been put to bed.  The crew had gone home.  All was quiet.
She should have felt fine.  The long day was over, she was ready to eat her frozen dinner and maybe watch some television.  Everything should have been peaceful and okay and it would have been, except for the tingling of the hair on the back of her neck.
Easing the Mini close to the back door of her building, she grabbed her camera bag and tote, carefully opened her door and swung her feet to the ground.  As she hefted herself to a standing position, the dark vanished in headlights.  Another vehicle pulled alongside hers.
Every nerve tingled.
She quickly pushed her keys between her fingers and let the weapon hand dangle at her side.
Oh, hell.
This was supposed to be a quiet evening.

"It's about time you got back."
Who the heck was that?  The car door opened and out came that obnoxious syndicate man, Evans.  What was his first name?  She'd never even bothered to look at the card.
"What are you doing here?"  Silver struggled to keep her voice even as her heart raced in her chest.  "I've said all I'm going to say to you."

He came round the front of his Lexus, holding up a large bag.  Chinese food.  Silver thought of sesame chicken and shrimp toast.  He'd been to Golden Dragon.  
"A peace offering.  I know you haven't eaten anything all day, Silver.  Mr. Lee told me this is what you usually order, so I took a chance."  He grinned, showing his perfect teeth in his rehearsed smile.
Mr. Lee's advertising rates just went up.

"Go away."  

Evans drew closer.  He'd taken off his suit jacket and undone his tie, rolled up the sleeves on his impeccable white shirt and tried to look casual.  Could snakes look casual?  Not in Silver's light sensitive eyes.

"Look, Silver, just because we had a little run in this afternoon doesn't mean we can't have a bite to eat and get to know each other."  He stepped closer, held up the bag of food.  "I even have chopsticks."  He tilted his head to the side, trying to look appealing or something, but Silver wasn't buying the act.

"Go back to where you came from.  Crawl back under the rock.  I'm tired and I want to go inside.  Alone.  Good night."

Evans set the bag on the hood of his car.  Silver edged toward the back of the building, her building, nearly at the back door.  Evans kept walking toward her, the smile still in place but his eyebrows downturned in question.
"What's the matter?  I'm beginning to get the impression you don't like me."

A laugh burst from her.  "Bingo!  Give the man a cigar.  Then go away."

He leaned his butt against the front of the Lexus.  "Now, Silver, if you don't want to talk to me in the office, you don't want to eat this delicious food I've brought, and this may be the only time I get to talk to you ever again, I'll have to say it all out here."
Interrupting, Silver raised her left hand.  "We have nothing to say to each other.  I am not selling the Chronicle.  Good night."  She made to open the back door.
Then he was right in front of her, caging her between his open arms and his large body.
"You're going to listen to me now."
Silver panicked, the fear rippling through her, her mind streaking toward oblivion but going nowhere at all.  She froze.

"Look.  I've figured you out.  You've got a degree from Columbia journalism. You interned at the Washington Post, for crying out loud.  You're here in this podunk town running a piffling little rag because you know you can't make it in the real world.  Journalism requires balls, and you, my sweet  Silver, don't have 'em.  So, why not sell this rag to my syndicate, get yourself a couple of kids and leave the news world to the big boys?"

Rage screamed through her brain.  When she opened her mouth to let it out, he dipped his head and planted his lips on hers.  His body pressed against hers.  Despite her rage and her fear, Silver realized he was completely aroused and mauling her.
Instinctively, she stopped struggling.
Her attacker, emboldened by her seeming acquiescence, moved to a more comfortable position, spreading his legs to encompass her more fully.
Silver rammed her knee into his nether parts then watched his eyeballs bulge as he dropped to the asphalt.

She flung open the door, got herself inside, relocked it and called 911 on her cell phone.

The Middlebrook police deserved a laudatory editorial in this week's paper, she decided, as she spoke with the responding officer. 
No, she didn't think an ambulance was necessary, but she did want her attacker to spend the night in jail, at the very least.  Yes, she had seen him earlier in the day, but there was no reason for him to think she wanted any further contact with him.  Yes, he had attacked her.  Yes, she had fought him off.  Yes, it must have been a good shot because he was still on the ground. Yes, please just take him away and let me go upstairs.  No, I don't want to call anyone.  No, he didn't get very far, thank you very much.  Send a tow truck for the Lexus and throw that bag of food away, please.  If that's all, thanks, Jim.  Good night.

Upstairs in her apartment, Silver fought tears as she undressed and stood in the hot shower, trying to wipe away the feel of his hands and lips and body with every scrub of the washcloth.
While her body reacted with disgust, her brain reeled with all he had said.  The anger rushed back in,  overtaking the humiliation and fear.
The tears came then, hot and washed away by the cooling shower water.
But somewhere in her head niggled a little voice that wondered whether he had spoken the truth.
Was she hiding from the world in Middlebrook, afraid to try her hand at the real world?

"NO!"  Her anger ripped away that stupid question.  It wasn't true.  The Chronicle was a good thing.  Everybody loved it.  Everybody needed it.  They had the world beyond Middlebrook on television and in the New York papers if they wanted it.  She provided them with the news that counted to them.  The Chronicle was home town news and as long as they lived in the town, even after they moved away, they needed to know what was going on in the place they called home.

"Oh, God!   Please let me forget this."  Silver prayed out loud as she pulled on her sweats, heated up her defrosted dinner, threw it in the trash then scooped out a huge bowl of Dutch chocolate almond ice cream for herself and brought it to the sofa.  When she was comfortably curled up with the clicker in hand, she found something on her favorite science channel and set to work on the ice cream.
The geology of Loch Ness seemed a safe enough choice.  A few mentions of the fabled monster, then rocks and continental drift and the interesting idea that Scotland had once been attached to New York had her calmed down in no time.
But it would be hours before she drifted into sleep.
And the dreams started.

copyright 2009, Irene Peterson

Herb left to go to his "club".  Nobody is in the house.  Sandy just got off the phone with me, but suddenly I feel all alone.
Had I slept better last night, I think I'd be in a better frame of mind.
But I'm not.

Yesterday was fabulous.  We went for a long drive, looking for pumpkins and apple cider amidst the Autumn foliage.  Karyn was with us.  She informed me that the German word for Autumn was Herbst.  All things considered, I think Autumn sounds nicer, but that is probably just some sort of racial prejudice...American English sounds prettier to my ear.
I wonder where they got that sound from...is there some root word in there that would make sense?  Come to think of it, Autumn is an odd sounding word.  Is it from Latin or Olde English or Anglo-Saxon?  I should look it up.
But I won't, not now.

We saw a terrible accident directly in front of the farm stand we wanted to go to, so we had to pass it by.  Two ambulances had passed us as we waited in a very long line of cars, so somebody was hurt badly.  When we got to move, we did indeed pass a van with the entire back end totaled.  It was pretty ugly and I'm sure whoever was in the front was hurt.  I just hope nobody was in the back, no little kids riding in the last seat.  I'll never know.  That's a pity, ruining somebody's Sunday in New Jersey. 
And it was glorious.  The sun shone with some warmth, not too much.  The trees, though probably a week too late for full color, were brilliant in some places.  The hills of Western Jersey were yellows and golds, with grey mists formed by the already bare trees.  We'd had terrific rain and wind this past week, so I imagine that did in those leaves all right.  In fact, a tornado alert reigned for a few hours yesterday coming from that direction.  Perhaps strong wind tore the reluctant leaves from their stems.

There were lots of cars on the road when we got near huge farm stands.  I guess it is now the thing to take your kid to pick a pumpkin at a huge farm stand and participate in the hay rides and hay bale mountain climbing.  One place had one of those jumping castles.
Hell, I would have liked to have tried that, had I been able to stand.

That's another nifty thing.  I wore the new brace yesterday.  I can't bend my foot forward.  I had to balance the foot on the heel and the rest didn't have anyplace to touch.  It hurt after awhile, but I said nothing because I was out and I didn't want to spoil the fun.
It was fun.
We stopped at a place in Tewksbury that had "farm fresh cheese".  I had to know what that was.  The guy stomps over to the tiny building with Wellies covered in cowshit.  Yes, the milk for the cheese comes from his cows (one mooed so I heard it, bless it's heart) but some guy in Pennsy makes the cheese.
We bought a pumpkin that Herb intends to use to make a pie from.  It takes forever to soften pumpkin.  We did it once in North Plainfield when we were first married.  It took about six hours to get a mushy consistency.  Good luck on that.
Karyn got her father's penknife and cut some chunks of cheese.
Guess what?
It was so new, it had no real taste.
What it was was nice, but fairly tasteless.
I hope if it stays in the fridge for awhile, it will mellow into something other than hard cream.

The highlight of the day was stopping at a new diner.  The food was extraordinary.  I hope we go back there again.  It isn't too far away,  but there are three diners closer, for sure.

We went west.  We don't usually go in that direction unless we're going to Pennsylvania.
There is something to be said for old Horace Greeley's advice.

I was so wound up, I didn't get to sleep until after 3 am.  But I got the next episode of Silver straight in my head.  Later.

The throbbing just above her right temple promised to deliver a real wonker headache if she didn't get some relief soon.
As she stood in the check out line with her plastic container of watermelon chunks for her Gram and the tv dinner for herself, Silver rubbed her fingertips over the site of the pain.  There were two people in front of her but the line had stopped moving because--oh, no--they were changing cashiers and--oh, crap--this one looked like a trainee with one of the other girls standing behind her as she gingerly placed the cash drawer into the machine and fiddled with something.
Silver groaned, but she wasn't the only one.
The woman in front of her reached over and grabbed one of the tabloid papers and made a big show of opening it to the center.
Normally, Silver chided herself, she wouldn't dare look over someone's shoulder.  She wouldn't dream of reading one of the tabloids and she certainly wouldn't put it back on the rack.
But-- hold on.
The headline across the double page caught her eye.
"UFO kills Nessie"
The throbbing moved over to the other side of her head.  How ridiculous!  How could anybody write such crap.   Worse yet, if there really could be anything worse than this crap, how could anybody read it?
Yet the woman in front seemed absorbed in the story, enough for Silver to get a look at the photo, a trick one for sure, showing a huge glowing saucer shooting some sort of light beam into the body of a huge dinosaur type monster half submerged in water.  Wow.  Photoshop in the hands of a tabloid technician could surely change the perception of the world.  The line moved and the woman casually folded the paper and shoved it into the rack behind Silver with a quirk of a smile then tended to her business.  Silver counted 11 items on the counter, but oh, well.  It didn't take the trainee more than fifteen minutes to move the woman out and get Silver's two measly items accounted for and bagged.
She delivered the watermelon to her grandmother's helper then poked her head into Gram's room to find the old lady in a dither.
"Silver, thank GOD you're here.  We just got the mail and there's some sort of screw up with Medicare and the other insurance company and they say we owe the hospital and oncologist--oh, dear, Silver darling, they say we owe twenty thousand dollars for my treatments so far."
Then the tears flowed freely down the old woman's sallow cheeks, running down the rivulets of wrinkles and breaking Silver's heart.
"Gram, Gram, let me see these things.  I'm sure there's nothing to really worry about.  You have one of those catastrophic illnesses that are always covered.  I'm sure there's just some kind of mistake.  Let me handle it.  Oh, please," Silver sat gently on the edge of the bed, "please don't be so upset.  I'm absolutely positive there has been some sort of mistake.  Just let me handle it, I'll call everybody in the morning and get it all straightened out.  Positively nothing to worry about."
Her grandmother didn't seem quite so convinced.  "I've heard about this. Once you get old, they try to either forget you exist, that you've paid taxes and insurances and social security and all that other stuff and they just want you to die so they can take care of more important folks."
This was too much.  Silver picked up her grandmother's hand and squeezed it gently.

"Nobody wants you to die, but this does make healthcare reform hit home, now, doesn't it?  Oh, how I wish Mom and Dad were here and not working halfway around the world. I mean, I love the president and all, and it was such an honor for them to be chosen to work at the embassy and all, but really, really...oh, I don't know what they could do that I can't.  Don't worry, Gram, I will take care of it.  Somehow."
Gram's voice wavered with tears as she sought to pull herself together.  "I'm sure you will, dear.  It was just such a shock to get these letters.  I know it's a mistake.  Right.  A mistake, but why do  they have to make a mistake to this old lady who has been through hell already?  No, don't answer that.  It's just me feeling sorry for myself.  I'll get over it when it is all straightened out tomorrow."  
A huge sigh escaped the old lady and Silver thought she really deflated.  Another pang rammed through her heart at the sight.
"Hey, cheer up, okay?  I brought you some watermelon.  Are you up for that?"
The old lady perked up just a bit.  "I could go for some."
As if by magic, Galina appeared at the door with a small bowl full of pink fruit.  "Here, Mrs. Mary.  I knew you'd want some."
With a few pieces downed, Gram seemed calmer.   Silver decided it was okay to bring up the selkie thing again. 
"Gram, how come my mother never mentioned the selkie business to me?"
Around a juicy chunk of melon, her grandmother twinkled.  "Your mother denies family history, I think.  Why, when you were born with webbed feet and a caul, she refused to touch you until they were taken care of.  The doctor took care of the feet and you didn't even cry, and thank heavens, the nurse was one of those English imports they had back then.  She knew what to do with the caul."
"Caul?  What's a caul?  And I had webbed feet?"  Silver tried to keep the horror out of her voice.
Gram pushed the empty fruit dish away.  "Lots of babies are born with webbed feet.  Happens all the time."
"Labrador retrievers and Newfies are born with webbed feet, too, Gram."
Galina plumped Gram's pillows then quietly left the room.
"That's not the same thing and you know it."
"Okay, okay, yeah, all right.  But what is a caul?  I never heard of that.  Is it some sort of deformity?  Sheesh, am I a freak?"
Gram grabbed for Silver's hand.  "Dear, you are not a freak, nor were you born freakishly.  A caul is a thin layer of skin that covers a newborn's face.  I don't think it happens very often, and back in the old days, I think they killed babies born with one if it didn't suffocate them first. I'm not real good with the story behind that, all I know is what the nurse told us as she handed it to us, stuck to a clean sheet of paper.  She said you were a lucky child, that as long as you had your caul, you could never drown."
Silver tried to digest this but failed.  "I don't have it."
"Oh, yes, it's here, in the bottom drawer of my bureau.  I was keeping it becasue I knew your mother would have thrown it away and I couldn't allow that to happen.  You can have it if you want.  There, tucked in the back of the bottom drawer."
Silver forced herself to retrieve the yellowed paper.  Cautiously, she unfolded it to reveal a shriveled little mask, the size of a baby's face with tears at the eyes and along the top.  It was ghastly and fascinating at the same time.  It was her baby face, but not, but she felt possessive of it and knew at that moment she would never destroy it.  How odd!

She stood and examined it for a long time, her grandmother silently studying her, not saying a word.
It folded back along the lines the nurse had made twenty five years ago and Silver looked around then stuffed the paper with its precious and frightening caul inside, into her bra.

"So, I can't drown?"

"Evidently."
"Anything else you want to tell me?"

"Not that I can think of at the moment.  Isn't this enough, Silver?"

"Yes, I guess so."  She bent to hug her grandmother, so frail and papery, so near the end, but still kicking and fighting.  That's the way she had to be, and the way Silver knew she had to be, too.

"I'll get on home then.  You have some of your favorite shows on tonight, so I won't call and disturb you.  I'll get on that insurance thing first thing in the morning and hopefully be able to report it's all taken care of when I see you tomorrow.  Bye, Gram."  With one last hug, she left, went out to her car and sat in the driveway for five whole minutes before starting it up and heading on home.

Nobody in the world actually believed in this stuff, did they?  Seals that turn human, babies born with webbed feet, and this caul business, what the hell was that all about?

Silver grunted. 

She sure as hell didn't believe any of it.  It was right up there with flying saucers and...and the Loch Ness Monster.
Ridiculous.

copyright 2009, Irene Peterson