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.

my summer, or summerlee

Thinking back over the past few months is a sweet, hot, quick blur of a memory. My gorgeous daughter was born in March, and that's when everything got crazy. It was actually crazy before that, but having a newborn baby makes every little thing seem like a scene from a movie; a movie you have a major, non-acting role in. Like "Key Grip" or "Best Boy" or "Director" or some crap like that.


After my little girl was born it took forever for me to get back on my feet. Following her surgical birth, I got mastitis in both breasts. TMI, I know, but mastitis is no joke! I was on serious pain meds, plus 800mg of motrin every 6 hours, so the fever and pain didn't appear until the middle of the night when I would wake up in a cold sweat. I chalked it up to the healing process and didn't get treated till a month after the horrid bacteria had set up shop in my junk. It was awful. Luckily the antibiotics worked their moldy magic and it cleared up within 10 days. When I began feeling better it was like having a new lease on life. Everything was fun and exciting after looking at the inside of my house for a month. We collected morels and went to gigs; Rainer went on her first camping trip when she was just 2 months old. I was up for anything.


Fox had his 4th birthday in July and we had a last minute party for him. Little kid birthdays are great because you can do whatever you want, invite whomsoever you want, and prepare whatever you want. Later birthdays will likely be full of the weird parents of children your kid happens to know. No kegs. No BB guns. No carnitas with lime and cilantro. We set up the baby pool and let the kids run wild. Lee showed up and decided to take a dip.



Jason's band "CATFISH MERCURY LOAD" played tons: Ijams Fest, Amp Fest, First Friday at Oodles, Bethfest, Kemmer's Annual BBQ Bluegrass Jam... It was great! Every weekend was busy. Amp Fest was a benefit for Mountain Justice in downtown Knoxville. The festival was in the parking lot of a block of bars, nothing but pavement and broken beer bottles. We told Lee about it and he promised that he would come. After a few hours he showed up on his bike with a crumpled paper bag shoved in his pants-pockets. From my face painting table I watched him arrive, take the bag out, open it and start eating M and Ms by the handful. I was relieved that it was chocolate and not pot.

In no time Fox had sensed the presence of candy and found Lee. Fox had been playing in a dusty parking lot at 90 degrees for hours and was filthy. When Lee saw Fox the look on his face was priceless. Pure disgust mixed with disappointment. He wouldn't give Fox any candy and wrapped it back up in the paper bag and put it back in his shorts, scolding him all the way. He forced Fox over to the outdoor bar and removed his bandanna. He flooded it with ice water from the cooler on the bar and proceeded to give Fox a whores bath right there in front of the crowd. I didn't get a picture of the bathing, but I did get this one of Lee's arrival which I thought was artful, what with the satellite dish on the side.





The entire summer was smattered with events like this one. Parties, gigs, weddings, visits; very little work got done, but it was too hot to work outside anyway. The only real work that went on occurred after each of the appliance disasters we experienced. First the TV went, then the heat pump, then the washing machine, then the ice maker, then the hot water heater.. It was a remarkable chronology of bad luck. We fixed the A/C, replaced the heat pump and the washer, and shit-canned the ice maker and the TV. No one got sick or arrested, so we were able to chalk our bad fortune up to poor quality consumer products.





I did manage to do a little sewing last month. Before then I hadn't sewn since early in my pregnancy; probably last October. Except for a little project I did for Lee. He came over one day with his favorite Superman T-shirt, and his "over-hauls". As he walked in the house was filled with the warm aroma of a smoldering cigarette butt.

Lee explained his idea for modifying his garments and asked if I could do it for him. This entailed cutting the "S" Superman emblem from the T-shirt and sewing it onto the bib of his "over-hauls". I told him that I would do it.

He said "Thanks a lot Jill, you know I'll make it up to you somehow. I just need tuh get it done b'fore tonight. I'm gonna ride my bike downtown an go see 'at show"

I wasn't sure what show he was referring to, but I figured an outfit like that is appropriate for any event or occasion.





Fox thought it was the coolest thing he had ever seen and immediately wanted to change his overalls to match Lee's. I said no. Not till he fully outgrew his Superman tank.

Potty Training insanity

My two and a half year old son has been potty training for months. I began the process without a dogmatic approach in mind. I decided to approach the process rationally by talking him through it! That made perfect sense to me since Fox (son) listens and comprehends what I say, and although I don't remember myself, I imagine a diaper feels god-awful. After the first suggestion of using a toilet instead his pants Fox would certainly be converted, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. I have make that suggestion every six minutes of waking hours since the beginning of January and Fox continues to whine about the potty.
Last Christmas Fox was dazzled by the gift of a plastic potty chair and it instantly became his favorite toy. It functioned as a Hot Wheels car holder, a water toy and a step stool. He was still too young to comprehend complexities such as urination and zipper-fly pants, so we held off on our encouragements till his second birthday. At this point in time Fox was obsessed with the bathroom and insisted on taking his dirty diapers to the diaper bin himself. The toilet was like a mysterious gateway to another land which made things disappear with it's magical waterfall. Hours would elapse as Fox transfered water from the bath tub into the toilet with the care and determination of a nuclear chemist. We talked about the toilet extensively, and I'm pretty confident that Fox could explain our modern metro sewer system better than most adults.
This seemed like the perfect time to reintroduce the potty chair as a functioning fixture of daily life.
I removed his diaper and set him on the plastic seat, explaining that he should try to pee-pee and poop in the potty instead of his diaper, and the pay-off was that he could carry the urine and crap into the bathroom and dump it into the big toilet. As soon as I had said it I realized how ridiculous it sounded; "Pee and poop in this bowl so we can go dump it into another bowl??" Great!
Fox looked at me like I was crazy, then focused on trying to go. He managed to leave a tablespoon or so of pee in the bowl which he promptly took to the bathroom to dump.
The allure wore off too soon, and Fox became complacent about the diaper situation. I needed a better bribe!
My sister in law came to visit us and brought a bag of candies to distribute. Instead of sharing with Fox we decided to put the bag of Gummi Bears into a mason jar and leave them on the mantle where he could see them. I told Fox that he could have one every time he used the potty, and that they were so delicious that a cartoon was created in their celebration. Before having a child I would have thought that bribery with candy was a horrible notion, both nutritionally and psychologically unhealthy. Now however, I realize that the entire parenting process can potentially be hazardous to your health and it is all about balance. Sometimes children remember the entire alphabet and count to ten, and sometimes they break a dozen eggs inside the fridge so they run down underneath the crisper drawers. Sometimes I reward my child with a trip to the bird sanctuary and a bag of stale bread to toss, and sometimes I give him sugary treats.
Seeing those Gummi Bears on the mantle is a constant reminder to Fox. The first day he mostly screamed and pointed at it, crying, but after using the potty chair and being rewarded with their tart, gummi-goodness, the jar became a thrilling part of his day.
After becoming more involved with the potty chair I realized that there was a battery compartment we hadn't noticed before. I found some batteries and now there are flashing lights and silly jingles to accompany this whole process. I know the entire dammed toilet paper song by heart.

8/4/2008 Very Bad Smell

Something died outside my house and I don't know what to do about it. The stink is awful, but finding it might be even worse than the stench. Quite frankly I haven't any idea where I would begin looking; the creature could be anywhere in my immediate vicinity. Not inside my house or anything, but anywhere on the .88 acre surrounding my home.

I thought about replacing the roundup Jason uses with febreeze, but gawd only knows what crazy reaction may occur. Febreeze is bad news anyway and I don't think anyone is fooled by it's chemical aroma. I have never been one for air fresheners anyway. Somehow I think that the only corrective measure would involve fire and a respirator mask.

I keep hoping that I will wake up and find the air as fresh as it normally is (which is 'not-so-fresh' here in the East Tennessee, coal-fired valley) but as biology would dictate it will only continue to get worse and worse until one day, probably in the refrigerator temperatures of December.

Why am I surrounded by awful smells of late? If a skunk isn't waging war on the feral cat community, it's a shittious diaper. And if it isn't a diaper it's the compost I forgot about before I left town for a week. Not the compost? Then it's my husband's New Balance tennis shoes that he has never worn socks with, then left under a pile of damp socks (which he wears without shoes in the out-of-doors). The noxious paint thinner fumes coming from my work space suddenly seem pleasant and evoke memories of past jobs in churches and theaters. Even my husband's truck has a nostalgic odor about it. Normally I refuse to ride in it because of the acetone/mildew scent, but lately it burns my eyes with familiarity, not with chemistry. Exhaust doesn't bother me. My cat's litter box really isn't that bad. I could very likely use it as an air freshener if I could just figure out where that dead thing is, and hang it above it.

Without an end in sight I have given up hope of opening my windows to a fresh cut, perfumey smell. Now I would settle for the vapid scent of rotting wood, or an otherwise disagreeable whiff of burning hair and TNT. There isn't enough arm and hammer in the world to erase what is happening in the woods behind my house, but if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it.

And fire, unfortunately isn't an option.

I don't like posting blogs without pictures, so here's something that doesn't stink


It may leave you wondering how I got arnold schwarzenegger's left arm, though.