the hunt

AAAhhhhh! Spring. Everything looks good again and my lease on life is renewed. I'm slowly becoming convinced that it is, in fact, spring. Cautiously, I remove myself from beneath the rimy ice anvil that has been hanging above my head since moving to Illinois and stare at the blooms in disbelief. The calendar peeled from March to April, and suddenly it's time to file my tax extension again. It's official.

So often my perception of time is like this; my birthday is here, then christmas, suddenly it's three days after Jason's birthday and no one said anything, then Rainer turned 2, and it's going to blow my mind how fast July comes, bringing with it Fox's 6th birthday. Like a rock skimming the rippled surface of water, time careens onward. Oh wait; maybe it's me careening through time. No, then what would represent my experiences? Maybe my I am the rock, time is the pool, and the ripples are my experiences. But if that's the case shouldn't the pool be my life, the ripples my experiences, and the rock time? No. So what, I'm a rock skimming over my own life?

Anyway, the bottom line is this: Time flies in retrospect. Pausing and recollecting memories forces a person to not only abbreviate the extent of the situation, but to minimize "unremarkable" periods of time, which can account for the skimming sensation.

Spring makes me evaluate these ideas. It just seems to come so often, and each spring my family and I set out on search of morel mushrooms. It's something we all enjoy enough to have fun, and it gives us an imperative to spend lots of time outside in the emerging forest. Those of you with families know how tricky it is to find things to do that everyone enjoys. Spending time together can become another job if there aren't common interests and passions.

Morel mushroom hunting is an antidote to the cruel, skimming rock of life. Searching for morels involves lots of patience, attention, and stamina. Spending three hours in the woods just looking around you; silently searching and noticing, remembering a tree, a creek, following a bird, straining to hear voices whisper in the wind... These activities do not fly by, but command a level of experience that actually communes with time face to face; the unchanging changing, the things which remain constant, yet change,that aren't relative to age or dates, unparalleled with any human construct.

We began hunting very early, despite our assessment that Illinois would be at least three or four weeks behind what we were used to. There were five or six trips before we found the first mushroom. As an adult I am able to enjoy these fruitless searches, but as you can imagine the children didn't share my attitude. The second trip was the hardest for my 5 year old son. He remembers the gleamingly abundant times in our past hunting trips at the mention of the word 'morel', so he compares every trip with those embellished times. Looking for hours and finding nothing is a paradoxical torment for a child. We can only hope that these are exercises in patience and stick-to-itedness for the kids, otherwise I expect to have two future city dwellers on our hands.

Hunting in Illinois was such a change from Tennessee and North Carolina. Granted, we had patches in the southernmost states which we knew well; close in proximity to our homes so we could check them in a matter of minutes and know if it would be worthwhile to drag the kids out. As new residents we started looking in the only public forests we knew of. Homer Lake, Crystal Lake Park, Kickapoo state park, and other urban parks. We searched and found so many interesting things that weren't mushrooms. While searching the littered woods of Chief Shemauger park we came across the East Lawn Cemetery; a large garden which was evidently established in 1927. We found very old markers that had eroded to the lowest trenches of the yard and were being used as retaining walls in some sections. There were many gravestones that were overturned and smooth with age and abrasion. There were stones from the early 1800s. Much of the trash in the wooded area of Chief Shemauger park consisted of gravesite decor blown over from the cemetery. The wind makes a dump of any wooded or brushy area up here. People help, but it is amazing at the number of plastic bags and bud light boxes out in the middle of a prairie.

Since Homer Lake is the closest to our residence we checked it most. The most remarkable thing about this place was the number and variety of condom wrappers in the parking lot. I noticed one the first time I ever went there. The next visit just a few weeks later I noticed another, then yesterday when we went there was another, different condom wrapper. We ended up finding about 10 or 12 morels on the river bank above the lake, then another 10 in the meadowy forest above the banks. We were thrilled. The first place we found morels in Illinois was at the Kickapoo State park in Vermilion County. As we approached the park from the west we noticed a huge wind farm was being built on the prairie. The parking area was a small gravel lot set off of a county road, and the place really reminded me of East Tennessee. Especially this place on the corner of Hank and Bocephious:

The parking area was littered, as seems to be the norm, but this time with surgical gloves. An entire box of them had blown out and were all knotted up in the grasses. The area we explored was established as horse trails and the path lead through apple trees around a ridge, then went steeply into the river ravine. It was really lovely. We searched the area meticulously and found nothing. Rainer and I were heading towards the river since she was tired of being lugged around, and as I set her down on the clearing at the river's edge I saw the first crummy morel.

We found 15 or 20 there. That was our third trip to Kickapoo this season, and the first two visits we parked in other places; with 2,842 acres of reclaimed strip mines there is lots to explore and see there.All the pits have been filled with water by the river and springs and are now big recreation areas. One of our prior visits Fox found a near complete deer skeleton. He was entranced. We hiked down the hill and found a few more large bones and blades that had been dragged off by animals. Fox became obsessed with reconnecting the remains. He ran up and down the steep bank with his arms full of bones. Yelling directions to the rest of us, speculating on the animal's death... He is a little science nerd.We didn't find any morels that time. We did see some guys fishing with a radical homemade slayer decal made using electrical tape, though.

We didn't hit it big till we came home to Asheville for Easter. My husband (that's Dr. Jason Robinson PhD to you)had to be in Knoxville the week before to defend his dissertation at the University, so we decided to blur the appointment with the Easter holiday and go straight from Knoxville to Asheville. He had planned his defense according to last year's morel calendar, so we were expecting to hit our old spots just in time. After striking out in our "sure thing" patch, we proceeded to our neighborhood spot and looked there, also unsuccessfully. We went to another place and found some shitty remnants of morels that looked to be a couple of weeks old. Morels bloomed 2-3 weeks early this year almost everywhere. My typical gauge is to start looking when the dogwood flowers open, but with the early heat, all notions went out the window. One of our patches in Knoxville is in the woods beside the house our friends used to rent, so when we go we are trespassing. There is a close-knit community who rented the house to our friends, and they reside on down the gravel road beyond the rental. There are many children between the houses, and when we used to hunt we would run into their hideouts and secret, creek places. This is their newest instillation:

I was impressed not just with their resourcefulness, but their workmanship. As I recall there were two smallish girls, probably 8 and 10 years old now. They did some heavy lifting and over-head hammering to construct the roof on their shanty.

After striking out all over Knoxville, we were feeling defeated. During our brief spell in Knox we did, however, get to spend some quality time with our friend Lee, and his sidekick, Terry.

Had I realized how much I would miss Lee after our move I would have savored those last few weeks living next to the guy. As we pulled up, I saw Lee in his yard with his friend Terry, who has dialysis three times a week nearby and usually comes to Lee's house afterwards and sits on his porch swing. Lee looked up and recognized my truck, and he started laughing and tore the hat off his head. I hopped out, momentarily leaving the kids strapped in their safety seats, and met Lee in an embrace in his driveway. It was so great to see him.

The next day, after Jason's defense, he and I went to see Lee again and to talk to the guy renting our house. It was as if nothing had changed, and no time had passed. His cousin came over and visited with us for a while, another friend, Duncan came by. Lee had a fire and moonshine in the middle of the damn day. As we were standing around talking Jason (naturally) noticed a ton of bees in Lee's yard, and realized that there was a rogue queen bee in the grass. She was huge, and all the other bees were swarming around her, just 10 feet from where we were hanging out. Lee has everything, even a swarm of bees. Lee's bees. Lee's cousins keep bees, so he called them and told them to get them suits an come over here quick! They weren't able to come immediately, since it was in the middle of a workday, but they said they would come out after work if they were still swarming.

We went to Asheville and spent lots of time with our awesome family and ate ham and chocolate. After getting an Easter basket from my mom, Fox opened a hollow chocolate bunny and broke it in half. Inhaling deeply, he stuck his nose inside the hollow bunny head and said "Mmmmmm it smells so good in there".

Jason's Aunt hosted an easter egg hunt for all her sister's grandchildren in Burnsville at her home, and we went a little bit early so we could look around there. We went up in the woods on the mountain side where an old lumber road was cut, zig zagging across the steepest parts. Hunting for morels became just picking morels! We dragged the kids around for an hour or so till Jason's parents arrived and the egg hunt started. They took the kids back down to the house and Jason and I stayed on the mountain, raking in morels as fast as we could. As I would spot one and kneel to pick it, I would spot five more! Careful attention to footing was necessary not to step on them. In two and a half hours we picked 650 morels. Two Ingles bags full. We have never seen such an abundance, and I think it was the high point of the break for Jason, outranking hustling a Jamaican pool shark AND earning a PhD.

After a trip like that it will be very difficult for Fox to simply enjoy the hunt in the future.

know it all

As we were sitting at the dining room table coloring yesterday afternoon my son, Fox looked at me and said "Mom, did you know that Jupiter has 63 moons and Earth has just one?"
"Doesn't Jupiter have 66 moons?" I asked.
"Nope. FALSE.", he replied, just as annoyingly poised as Donald Trump on Celebrity Apprentice.

"Where did you hear that?" I asked, referring to his Dwight Schrute-esque usage of the word FALSE, as that of an impartial critic.
"From my placemat you silly!" he chirped, wearing the proud smirk of condescension. I glanced at the placemat and noticed the publication date; MCMXCVII. Ah. Therein lies the answer to that problem.

Certainly you know that I didn't sign in tonight to dispute the alleged discoveries of Jupiter's moons, but to call attention to the phenomenon that is know-it-all-ism among 4-6 year olds.

Not too long ago, my son thought I was the end all of greatness. Every word that escaped my mouth was like the sound of breaking glass to him. He carefully considered conversation and remained silent. Only later would he recall and repeat the dialogue; questions emerging from the fertile soil of his mind, recently tilled with the induction of new ideas and concepts. Nestled within his wide eyes was a wonder so immense; so incredibly hungry for all things new. So pristine that notions of cynicism and pride would have arrived as cloaked strangers; unrecognizable as the child comprehends.

His desires were innocent; Learning, experiencing, loving, pleasing and helping. His expectations were surpassed by reality. Nothing was as wonderful and amazing as the process.

That being said, I am now grappling with the next phase in Fox's process which is much less endearing and sweet. My child behaves like a know-it-all 99% of the time. He asks a question, and 7 seconds into my response, he rolls his eyes and attempts to change the subject by way of a restroom visit or an outburst of noise. Righteousness is a constant motivator for him, but the method is lazy and he comes across as a turd.

Life has become a contest, all of the sudden. It's as if Fox woke up late one day and has been sprinting from one thing to the next ever since. The process has little meaning to him; the conquest and the domination seem to be at the forefront of his mind.

This weekend I tried to accomplish a few tasks I had been putting off, and Fox was climbing the walls. He came to me every five minutes with another crucial problem or desperate question to be addressed, completely indifferent of my activities. The last 30 minutes of my vacuuming the stairs was peppered with interruptions. Fox stood on the step I was vacuuming mouthing, "I NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING for an eternity. My expectation of impermeability by means of vacuum were squelched.

His eyes dramatically widened, he waited until I shut off the machine and addressed him.

"What's the problem?" I asked as impatiently as a woman vacuuming stairs would.
"Could you make a collage with me now?" Fox asked, sweetly.

"As soon as I'm done cleaning up I would love to make a collage with you." I honestly replied. (It's true! I would always rather be making a collage)

He shifted around on the step, clearly dissatisfied and I turned the machine off again and looked at him.

"I mean now now, Mommy. I want you to make a collage now.

This time I did the eye rolling and switched the vacuum machine back on and finished the horrible job at hand. An hour later I was finished, and I joined Fox at the dining room table.

"So what are we going to collage today?" I asked.

"I'm going to make question blocks and fire flowers and thwamps on this side, and you are going to make kupas on that side", he explained. I began cutting and hole-punching and gluing and before I knew it I had started a really awesome blue fish swimming over an earwig/eel.

"Mommy?" Fox warbled, "You aren't supposed to be making snakes right now. And don't put those on that side; I said to put them here" he said, pointing to a blank spot on his side of the page.

"Well what are you working on anyway? You haven't made any pictures since we sat down" I asked, genuinely miffed. Fox set down the hole punch he was stress testing with seven sheets of construction paper and sighed.

In his most "frustrated" voice he groaned; "Oh I don't know what to say! I'm done!", grabbed the pinking shears, then overly-gesturally crossed his arms.

I tried to engage him with another pinching bug, and he seemed excited momentarily. He made a few snips with the shears, then took a thumb loop in each hand and started manically snipping the scissors and making a machine gun noise.

"Please stop" I said firmly. "You are either going to hurt yourself or the scissors".

Fox tossed the scissors across the table, crossed his arms again and acted like I had just asked him to respirate without breathing. Time elapsed. I continued crafting. He continued sulking and complaining.

"What's wrong Fox? You were practically dragging me in here to craft with you and now you say you're finished and you haven't even made anything. What's up with that?"

"Exasperated and evidently fatigued, he shrugged and asked if we could get out the play-dough.

Looking around at the shreds and dots of paper, I expressed to Fox that I would rather he continued collaging since I had to start supper. He groaned and complained with reddened eyes saying "But I don't want to collage anymore! I'm through doing this!"

I said, "OK. Well let's just clean this mess up so we can start on another mess..." Before I even finished with my bullshit quip, he was out of his chair, emoting his utter powerlessness, his inability to help me (help him) clean up. It was distressing for him, obviously, but for me to see him so overwhelmed; so powerless in the face of challenge, it was devastating.

I tried convincing him that the hardest part was starting, and after a few minutes of tears and whining, he began picking up the paper.

After we were finished and the floor was "clean"* Fox remarked "It's true. Starting was harder than just picking all that stuff up. Picking it up was just kinda blah, blah, blah."

"Yeah", I agreed, "Not too many people love cleaning, but it's something that every single person is able to do. And the sooner you start the sooner you're finished".

He was quiet for the first time in hours.

* The floor wasn't technically clean, and it never is.

Hello Kitty's house on fire

This afternoon as my daughter was waking from her nap, my son pondered aloud; "I wonder what Rainer dreams about?".

We considered the possibilities; dreaming of flying, running, playing ball, climbing on rocks... Then it occurred to him; "I think Rainer was dreaming about Hello Kitty and her friend and they were playing at Hello Kitty's house and it caught on fire."

"Uh-oh" I replied, surprised at the sinister twist, imagining bubbling pink plastic and noxious, green flames engulfing Hello Kitty. Billowing black smoke. Melting sugar...Faces dripping in flaming globs... "Hopefully no one was hurt in her dream" I said, wrapping up my own daydream.

"Well Rainer and Hello Kitty were ok but their friend got a little bit hurt. She was running away and fell on the carpet and got a little burned. Hello Kitty fell down the stairs, but Rainer was ok." Fox assured.

"So Hello Kitty fell, but was ok?" I asked.

Fox shook his head and looked downward. and walked out of the room. Maybe the friend, but Hello Kitty? Essentially that's what an unnamed friend is for. Raw!

Having a hilarious child is truly one of life's blessings. Despite having zero non-relative friends here, I manage to laugh and have a good time.

Yes, it rates good on a completely different scale of good times, but currently, everything is relative to that same scale.

If I were using another good time scale, say, for instance, that from my college days, my present good times would rate much lower. Probably a 1.5 or 2 out of 10. According to the scale from pregnancy, my current state would rate very high if either A. I lived in Asheville, or B. I had friends here in Illinois, but still would score a solid 5, maybe 6. If I were contrasting my experience with the scale I used between the years of 2002 and 2005, my rating would automatically sound alarms and sirens. Strobe lights hardwired to the infer structure would illuminate, and emergency party patrol officials would deploy.

Honestly I am trying not to whine and complain too much. Everyday is busy and I'm able to go outside, exercise, eat decent food and sit down if I feel like it. To continue my path towards contentment, I have been working on a few paintings and drawings. Some are landscapes, and some are general expressions of positivity. According to me, of course, so I'm not sure if they will come off particularly "happy", but the themes therein are uplifting or somehow inspiring to me. I wonder what other people without friends do? Especially people without children to eat up all their otherwise idle time. My guess is computers.

We moved far away

Things are changing. It's springtime, it costs a bajillion dollars to fill up my gas tank, and we have moved to central Illinois. From the casual reader's end I guess this sounds sudden; brash maybe, but it was planned, sorta. And we weighed our options, briefly. It was in our favor to move and get on with the damn show, we decided during the course of the six weeks prior to the move. Opportunities like this one have been in short supply the past few years, and when a reasonable one presented itself to my husband, he had no trouble seizing it, punching it in the face repeatedly, then dragging it back to his cave where he feasted upon it's meaty carcass.

Other than the obvious inconveniences, our move has been bucolic. We found a picturesque rental property that's dignified without being overly imposing; nothing beyond the realm of what we could repair, erase, or otherwise reverse. Our children behave as if they had always lived in Illinois; discussions of Abraham Lincoln's superior leadership and the disappearing prairie landscape are as natural as the rising sun. Our son arrived into his new school and immediately had new friends, new mentors, and a new bus number. There were virtually no glitches.

The home we own in Knoxville was successfully rented to a professional couple. A couple who had hosted a departmental party a number of years ago at their previous residence, which my family and I attended. The home was tidy and their furnishings were thoughtful. We were thrilled to have them in our home and hoped they would be comfortable there, comfortable even after they inevitably met their new neighbor, Lee. We weren't close friends with the pair; Jason was acquainted with them through the university, so we don't communicate with them outside of rental details and queries. We are both consumed with curiosity regarding their unavoidable relationship with Lee.

Life in the midwest is contrastive by function. Living in a town of 1200 people 15 miles from the metropolis dictates much of our daily activity. Our village has the absolute bottom line of commercial enterprise, including an insurance sales office, a local bank branch, a hair salon, a saloon which serves bar fare, a tanning salon, a furniture refinishing place that doesn't have store hours, a store that sells random items that doesn't have regular hours, a local post office, a small library*, a gas/ convenience station, and finally, during the months of April through September, a homemade ice cream stand. Each day I walk to the post office to check my mail, go to the park, then go on a long walk from one end of the town to the other. Generally I walk south and cross the railroad track, then turn left until I get to the next county road, then turn left again to Main street as it turns back in to a county road at the east end of town. This is where the corn fields begin to the east. My daughter in a stroller, I then walk west on Main a mile till the sidewalk ends at more cornfields. Sometimes we then walk north to a stream where there are trees and reeds, sometimes we walk south past the corn processing place and water processing plant. The water tower bearing the town's name overhead, we watch the trains fly by.

Having neither friends nor options to recreate in a social, non-church environment has created a strange and unfamiliar dynamic in my life. The acquaintances I have made have been through these few establishments; the postmistress, the librarian, the young woman who owns the tanning salon... We are all somehow busy in this trace of a town. Even if I actively took the opportunity to make friends out of these casual encounters, I'm not sure it would be possible to contrive. The librarian has three children ranging in age from 2 to 19. The postmistress is retired, then gone back to work. The neighbor immediately next to me has 9 children with another on the way AND she home schools, AND they are bible translators. Across the street is a lady who has a home day care and her house is crammed with children of all ages, and cars come in and out so much her lawn looks like a parking lot. Anyone can see that these people are busy, and none of them want any more kids around, I speculate. All of this makes me think of my old neighbor, Lee, and I remember how annoying he was. Annoying, but friendly, and almost always available to chat. When we left Knoxville and said goodbye to Lee, I cried like an exhausted baby. Here is his goodbye letter.

Anyway. I'm certain this place will eventually feel like home. Sometimes I'll see a fat man in overalls cruise by on a moped, or a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of garbage and I think I wonder if there is another "Lee" in this town?.

*Library Hours Monday, 9:00 a.m. - 12 noon, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, 9:00 a.m. - 12 noon, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Thursday, 9:00 a.m. - 12 noon, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 12 noon, 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Saturday, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon

Displaced at the YMCA

I am a devoted Y patron and am usually there everyday during the week. Child watch is between 10am and 1pm, so I fall in with the lunch break crowd; those bad asses who choose to work out instead of eating. Most faces are familiar, but occasionally I see someone new who impresses me in such a way that I have to wonder;
What the hell brought you to the Y today?

The first encounter I had with the "twins" was early last spring. The two women looked somewhere between 40 and 50 years old and they were identical twins. The same round figure, moon face palmed by thin, dark hair, sloped shoulders, arms hanging by their sides. Both women seemed to have dressed with neither regard to their appearance nor their activity for the day. Polyester slacks, panty hoes, grasshopper type shoes, one in a Travis Tritt shirt with a lacy cardigan on top, the other with a large, spotty sweatshirt. The two of them were on tread mills side by side. Neither of them were going more than 2 mph, and the slow pace seemed to match up with their natural gaits. One disappeared and returned with a bag of Fritos and a Mountain Dew. She returned to the tread mill, snacking through the remaining quarter mile. It had never occurred to me to eat on a tread mill, but there are television sets everywhere and I completely understand the merit of snacking while watching TV.

The twins didn't return for some time. The next time was in August during a really hot week. They found their places a couple rows in front of me and set their bags down beside the tread mills. One had a fountain drink in a Pilot Travel center cup. Once I saw a woman drinking a huge frappuccino-looking drink from Starbucks while using the elliptical machine, complete with whipped cream, so the fountain drink didn't strike me as too strange. Her sister was wearing a pair of cut off sweat pants that seemed to flair out from the hip, and a white v neck undershirt. They were both well into their snail's pace walks when I noticed the one wearing sweat pants was holding an unlit cigarette.

The downtown YMCA is great for a number of reasons. My favorite reason is that the workout room overlooks the major intersection of Henley Street and Clinch Ave, right across the street form the Sunsphere and World's Fair Park. A steady stream of foot and vehicle traffic files through the concrete corridor and there's always something interesting to witness. Yesterday I was using one of the resistance machines close to the window so I could see the parking area and sidewalk. A man crossed the south intersection of clinch, then continued traveling north on the Henley Street sidewalk, stopping periodically to examine the ground. As he approached the area immediately in front of the resistance machines I saw him stop and stoop to his knee. He picked up a few cigarette buts from the ground, pulled a plastic sandwich baggie from his breast pocket, put two inside the baggie, and after rolling the other between his fingers a few times he lit it and continued on his way. I was on the phone with my mom the entire time and gave her a play by play. I had been there the Saturday prior and that parking area was being used for tailgating purposes, so I suppose it would be a good scavenging spot.

There's plenty of other amazing things to see at the downtown Y. A large, musclebound man putting a dip of tobacco in before lifting 400 pounds, a pre-teen walking into the cardio room in short shorts and a string bikini top, a farmer in overalls and muddy boots doing curls with three pound weights, a downtown lawyer cussing her daughter out on the phone after hearing of her latest speeding ticket, two businessmen playing a heated game of ping pong that ended with an injury, a woman with the sweetest helper dog I've ever seen that sits patently beside her elliptical machine till she's done, an 87 year old man who can outlast most of the 20 year olds... It is an amazing place full of wonderful and interesting people. I hope the YMCA in Champaign Illinois is half as awesome as the downtown Knoxville location.

I'm venting

Lee has been 100% reflective of these trying times. A few weeks ago his buddy, T for short, came by and told Lee that his wife was in the hospital for a chronic breathing problem and she had to quit smoking. T is an undaunted, life smoker, and at anytime he has a cigarette in his hand and at least one unopened pack in his breast pocket. He carries a pistol, uses only cash, and went to jail for his involvement in a cock fighting ring. A tough type of man who I was shocked to discover was married.

Lee was upset by the news and vowed to T that he was going to quit smoking. When he was recounting this tale to me he explained that she wasn't going to make it if she couldn't quit smoking, and that the doctors wouldn't even treat her if she continued. I asked if the doc had prescribed patches to help her quit, and Lee said; "Oh yeah, T said he give'er th' reel strong wuns an put 'em all over her back" He motioned helplessly towards the sky, then put his hand to his forehead, shaking his head. Lamenting about how though he had only met her once, she seemed like a nice person and she had a really nice car that she made payments on "ever'month on time" and was real good to T. Then in a defeated kind of voice he said, "so Jill since I'm quittin an'all lemme get a few uh them Camels" I said "But you are quitting, right?" Angrily he boomed back in a condescending draw, "Yeah that's what I'm a'sayin! I'm tryin' t'quit but I've been smoking since I was a kid probably forty years so's I can't just stop! Ya can't just stop when you been smokin that long Jill!"

I reluctantly gave him one cigarette and told him he could get some patches. He tried to be appreciative of the single I had given him and chuckling said "I figure I can get me one [cigarette] here er there an use 'at cigarette money tuh get an extra bag uh gange an uh pint more uh t'at moo moo ever'month!"

The next evening he came over while we were eating dinner. We were having spaghetti and meatballs and I was having a glass of wine. Lee entered carrying a paper package like a pizza and he had a huge knife in his back pocket. The first thing that he said (yelled) was "Oh hell! Jill's already on the alcohol! DAYYAM!" Laughing loudly as his eyes darted around the kitchen, I told him that he could have a glass of it if he wanted and aimed him toward the box that it came in. "naw thanks you know I can't drink 'at red wine. I gotta have my moo moo! (laughter) At'stuff gives me heartburnacid'n'digestion. Caint drink it. What I'gotta have is that good, clean moonshine my cussins make" Lee then brought the paper bag carefully up to face level and said "All right now guess what I've brought chall! Don't chall never say I don't bring yuh nuthin cuz I do. You know I've been helpin' feed them kids" With a Vanna White-esque motion he waved his hand over the package, then inserted it into the bag. With a shaky hand he removed a frozen key lime pie and honked a noise alerting us of a prize being won. Fox immediately asked if it was chocolate, and after learning it wasn't he said; "you can have that icy pie cause I like chocolate pie".

Never being a big fan of non-chocolate desserts myself either, I said "hmm. Thanks Lee" Very animatedly Lee pulled the butcher knife from his back pocket, put the pie on the table in the middle of our supper, and hacked it in two, returning part into the mystical paper bag. Glancing down at my children Lee asked "Hey Jill where you keeping those things?" He then started feeling around above the hutch to the secret place I stash my smokes. I shot him a dirty look as he took a handful of cigarettes and stuffed them into his pocket. Fox said "what was that Lee??? What did you take??" Lee laughed and acted like he was some sort of magician and said something like "Oh hell Foxy you can't get by old Lee, hehehe!! You ain't seen nothin did'ge? You'll NEVER get one by me son!"

I didn't try to hide my annoyance with him; Lee is well aware that I hide my smoking from my children, and that I usually have a pack for a month, smoking only if they're not around. He smokes the shittiest, dirtiest, hand-rolling tobacco available, and he smokes constantly. He has zero tact about taking other people's cigarettes and I've watched him smoke twelve out of a woman's pack while she wasn't paying attention, then take the remaining one when he left. Jason admitted that he had given Lee cigarettes a few times over the past week. He said that the first few times he offered him one which he immediately smoked as he and Jason were talking, then asked for "one more for th'road", which Jason obliged, for some reason. Then later when Lee outright insisted on his giving him 2 Jason refused and tried to explaining that he was smoking more of my stash than I was. Jason said Lee was indignant and insinuated that we were being stingy then tried to recount all of the blessings he had bestowed upon us. Jason stopped him and told him that he had bought that pack two weeks prior for almost six bucks and that I had only smoked three of the whole pack. He then held the pack to show Lee that there were four or five left and clarified that Lee had smoked them all. Then reminded him that he was supposed to be quitting. In honor of T's wife.

A few days ago Lee walked across the street and threw a filthy laundry basket into my yard. "Here ye go Jill! I thought you cud'use a basket for warshin' all them clothes. I had sum bike motor parts in'thar an that's what that is. Oil. Jus needs tuh be warshed out"

I told him that I owned four (non-oily) laundry baskets and I didn't need that one. He ignored me and walked off so I put it into my recycling bin so the kids didn't touch it and get even oilier. A few days later I noticed Lee had removed the basket from the recycling bin, fashioned it into a basketball goal and attached it to a tree in his yard. He had also taken a few loads of gravel from our parking area and leveled the area beneath the goal, and taken a few loads of mulch from our mulch pile for the surrounding area. When I returned from the YMCA he had dragged an old piece of linoleum to cover the mulch and gravel, and was standing there bouncing a ball, proud as hell.

We got out of the car and Lee said "Look'et whut I done! This is whar' th'NBAs is gonna be yall!" The kids looked at Lee bouncing the ball and shooting for a while. Fox retrieved the ball for Lee a couple of times before it rolled down our road, then said "Look Lee! The ball will roll all the way down the road when you miss"

Later that day Lee had gathered some cable left in the ditch by the telephone company and made a zig-zagged barrier just behind the goal post. When Fox saw it he was thrilled. "Nice halloween decoration Lee!! It needs a big black spider in the middle of it and a mummy!", Fox yelled. By this time Lee had begun to think he was being made fun of by a child and started for the ball. Fox was singing "spider man, spi-der man" to the tune of the A-Team song, and climbing on the cord mesh, tight rope style. "Foxy git'off thare! Aat's all th'wire I could find down thar an if you break it AIT'S IT" At that moment the volleyball sized knot Lee had tied slipped and Fox tumbled onto the cushy linoleum pad. The tension in the web was lost, shitty cords draped lifelessly around the trees.

Lee had began yelling and continued through the course of the spectacle; total devastation crusted on his face, and seemed ruined as Fox pulled his shoe off to free himself of the cable. "Say you're sorry Fox" I ordered. "Sorry Lee. I can help you fix it cause I've got seven bungee cords and some of mom's yarn", Fox offered, then sprinted away. Lee couldn't remain angry.

Here's a super spooky picture:

Creepiest ever

It seemed like a normal estate sale on paper. A "Years of collecting...H&H items....depression glass...vintage hats" type of affair, but upon arrival I knew it was different than all the others.

The neighborhood was a typical suburban microcosm with winding, ranch house lined avenues. There were a number of vehicles in the shady driveway and even more parked along the sides of the road. We stopped the car and pulled our children from their child restraints, then walked toward the house.

My initial impression of the house was the same as the others in that neighborhood. They all appeared to have been built between the late 40s and early 60s and had a minimalist tidiness about them with sparsely landscaped lawns. As I approached the teetering, doorless mailbox I glanced at the ground and stepped over a large, dead blacksnake. The snake was in the level area of the edge of the yard where people were trailing in; smack in the middle of the walkway. I momentarily considered it odd that neither the owners nor the estate liquidation company bothered moving the carcass before customers arrived.
Jason and I figured the snake was hibernating in the house and then got unpacked, and then got dead.
It was freezing cold so we hurried up the slick, moss covered and railing-less front steps and into the house.
Every surface was covered with relics and dust. The floor was spongy beneath my feet and the olive colored carpet was emitting the musty odor of moist decay. Old people were sitting in filthy wingback chairs eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and wiping their finger tips on the threadbare damask. Discussions of blood sugar and cholesterol levels weighed heavily in the cramped livingroom. For fear of something in that environment mingling into my person I was scarcely breathing through mouth; How the hell were these people eating in that place?
The contents of most estate sales I go to are "mid-century vintage" heavy; probably people who married in the 1960s, started families in the 70s. Lot's of Herb Alpert albums, melamine and golden amber tones. This sale could best be described as "post war". Everything was a wavering hue of brown, and there wasn't a single plastic item anywhere. Crocks, churns, enameled pots, dippers, wooden pipes, a ventriloquist's dummy, an art deco cash register that must of weighed two hundred pounds, four fire place bellows, two cases of flatware, dishes, furniture..
The house was was absolutely packed before any customers showed up, so the scene was a crammed spectrum of all sorts of uncomfortable people.

It was soon obvious that there was nothing we needed in this house. Fox and I were looking at the oldest vacuum cleaner I had ever seen when Jason and Rainer popped into the back bedroom. We were crammed in there with a dozen other people and when they arrived Fox and I were attempting to exit the room. I picked Fox up to facilitate our retreat and as I glanced over at my husband he exclaimed,

"NO SHIT! Look at that!! Crows picking a dead deer carcass RIGHT THERE in this creepy-ass place!! This place is TOO WEIRD!!"

His expression was one of rejoice and pure satisfaction; as if he had won a long sought contest of wits. Just outside the picture window of that bedroom was, in fact a large buck, collapsed in the initial stages of decomposition, covered in crows. A murder of crows, tugging, jerking, slinging, and flapping in the frenzy of feeding.




People tend to behave as if they were in a library while at estate sales. Whispering and tip-toeing, careful foot wiping upon entry, and appreciative courtesies when leaving are not uncommon. When Jason saw the biology in action outside, he forgot these conditions and his words were j-u-s-t short of yelling. Every person in the room stopped perusing and focused on Jason, then looked to the subject of his declaration outside, then looked back at him in utter disgust.

"THAT IS AWESOME! Let's go look at it! Come on Fox!!"
Jason exclaimed as he hustled our 10 month old daughter through the crowd and gestured at my son and I by tossing his head. Eyes rolled. Heads shook. Old ladies sent disapproving looks of pity towards my little family as we rushed out.
As we burst out the front door, Fox reeled as he stumbled towards the edge of the landing and yelled something about there not being a "handle slide thing", and I pulled him to safety before he fell into a murky mound of leaf litter.

Slipping between a moldy mini van and a holly bush we found our way around the side of the house. Passing an open cellar door we continued through a thicket, and climbed up a small bank to the back yard.
We approached the broken carcass and the black birds reluctantly relocated. Fox was quiet (for once) while Jason and I pondered the scenario.

Perhaps the deer had been hit on the busy highway on the other side of the subdivision then finally collapsed here. Or maybe it starved in this thinning, once wooded area. One thing is certain, and that is that something had eaten the deer's hind quarters, and someone had sawed off it's antlers.
Fox made a circle around the body and quietly asked where the deer was. We asked him why he didn't think the deer was lying in front of us, and he mumbled something about the hunter and the deer's eyes. Jason asked Fox if he was ready to go deer hunting, shoot, kill then clean a deer, and Fox smiled and shook his head. We turned to check out the Saw-esque basement and Fox sang a farewell over his shoulder.