You Can't Escape the Atelier

I need to write and run today.  Littleb has big plans for me. The other day, as we were leaving his after school enrichment program, we noticed a book fair going on in the Atelier. Littleb has been enrolled in this school since he was 6-months-old and during that entire time, I've intended to look up the word "atelier" but I still haven't done it.  As far as I know, an atelier is a room where educational institutions trap unsuspecting parents and make them buy things to raise money for said institution with the remaining two bucks they have in their wallet after paying tuition each month; the two bucks they were saving towards a weekend macchiato.   An atelier is a lot like a spider's web-you can't easily extract yourself from it and before you know what's happening, you've been sucked dry.  And what's especially heartbreaking about the atelier is its location right next to the one exit in the building that's not alarmed.

No, there's no escaping the atelier.  Just try it sometime.  Here you come, swooping around the corner, nearly homefree, when you see the brightly colored posters and all the books, and you curse to yourself because you were so close you could nearly smell the flame-broiled burgers from the Burger King across the street.  But not close enough, because now your kid is in the atelier eating free crackers and looking for the Captain Underpants section.  Free crackers.  That's how they they entice the kids who aren't moved by piles of things that need purchasing, like Littleb.  

Every once in a while, you'll see a parent trying to wrestle their kid past the atelier.  It's always the rookies.  You have to have a little sympathy for the rookies.  They'll soon realize that it's easier to wrestle a salmon from the teeth of a rabid grizzly than it is to maneuver an over-tired 3-year-old past the atelier during book fair week.  I know you really wanted that macchiato, friend, but get in here and fork over all your money like the rest of us.  Welcome to the Atelier.  Here's the list of books that the toddler class needs.  That's right.  Not only are you buying books for your kid, you're also buying books for the school.  It's quite a racket they're running in the atelier.  Entirely voluntary, though.  Here.  Have another free cracker.  

Littleb couldn't find any Captain Underpants books but he did find a kid's cook book which fired every creative neuron in his twitching, over active little boy body.  And that's what he has in mind for me today.  He's got a grocery list a mile long and plans to recreate such juvenile delicacies as ice cream bon bons and cheesy bacon popovers.  I'm no rookie.  You can bet your sweet patootie that I tried to buy that book for the class so that they'd have to cook with my kid and buy the 600 necessary ingredients, but they were too clever for me.  It wasn't on the list.  

So, if you need me, I'll be spending my 401K at the grocery store and spending the rest of the day explaining the difference between folding and mixing.  As if I know.  I don't even know what an atelier is. 

Chicken out

Vi Chronicles: I Found This Bunny For You

Vi lived in the moment, and in all those moments she lived, her goal was to have a good time as often as possible.  On Fridays, this generally involved an evening at the local Amvets, feeding quarters into the slot machines and sipping sombreros made of Allen's Coffee Brandy and milk.  When the bar closed, whichever family member had delivered her to the Amvets would drive Vi home.  On the way, she would keep her eyes peeled for stray animals.  If she found one she would bring it home and give it to me.

Thankfully, after an oil burner tank's worth of Allen's Coffee Brandy and milk, it wasn't all that easy to spot stray animals on the side of the road in the middle of the night.  Still, twice, she succeeded.

The first time, she gave me a baby bunny.  It was adorable.  I must have been around 8-years-old. When I recount my childhood, age is often determined by which house my mother lived in at the time.  This house was not the one by the lake.  It was the ranch, surrounded by woods, on a lonely stretch of road.  They must not have lived there long because I couldn't drive you there if I wanted to, but it is the house where a lot of my Vi memories took place.  Maybe it was a particularly good year for remembering things, or maybe it's just that a lot of memorable things happened there.  I don't remember.  At any rate, a bunny was a delightful gift to receive in the wee hours of the morning.  Vi didn't believe in waiting 'til the sun came up.  Surprises were best delivered, warm and cuddly, with much hilarity, in the middle of the night.

The bunny slept in a box next to my bed for the rest of that night.  The next day, my Step Dad, Tony, built a hutch  in the backyard where the bunny lived happily ever after, until the great bunny massacre, which happened a couple days later.  I wasn't there at the time-I only lived with my mom on weekends-but when I came back the next weekend the bunny was history.  My family didn't sugar coat things.  There was no farm with other baby bunnies in an idyllic bunny environment, nothing like that, just the stark reality of the situation, which was that some fucking raccoon ate my rabbit.

The second time Vi found a wild animal after a night at the bars and brought it home at 2 am, I was 20.  The house was in Portland and my college roommate, Jeannie, and I were living with Vi and Tony for the summer, spending our days at the beach, hitting the clubs at night, and waiting impatiently on Sunday mornings for Tony's mom to deliver her regular spaghetti and meatballs special.  It had been a splendid summer and a wild animal arriving at two a.m. only made it better.  This time, the animal was a baby skunk whose mother had been run over.

I know it doesn't seem like a good gift, but baby skunks are adorable.  They haven't developed their sprayers yet, so they are a lot like kittens.  We kept our skunk in the bathtub and named him Pepe.

It wasn't long before we realized that we were not well equipped for skunk care. We set about finding a new home for Pepe, and when I say "we", I mean Jeannie and me, as Vi had already forgotten we had a pet skunk.  Eventually, we found a nice farm in the country that adopted wildlife found on the roadside and we sent Pepe there to play in green pastures with other orphaned animals.

At least that's the story I tell myself.

Chicken out

See?  Like a cute little kitten

A Tail

He'd had the tail for years.  If you think it's easy to hide a tail that size, you are mistaken.  One does not simply fold a tail flat and tuck it in one's pants like a shirt tail.  It couldn't be looped, like a lasso, for the tendons, cartilage and scar tissue were stubborn with age.  He finally took to wearing a longish coat and, in summer, loose Hawaiian shirts and baggy pants.  During the winter he felt relatively free. People keep to themselves in the winter, don't they?  They scurry out as needed, carry out the least required, and scurry back home again to their nests and warm fires.  In winter, he didn't worry about the tail being spotted. Summers were different. People become more curious when the weather is warm. They sit on benches in the park, gather on porches, or stroll on the sidewalk, enjoying the sun, watching each other, and waiting for something interesting to happen; something like, perhaps, the sudden appearance of a tail-wielding man  

Tails make sleep difficult, as well.   It's hard to find a comfortable position. The best way was face down, of course, but he wasn't a natural stomach sleeper.  Occasionally, he thought back to the days before his tail had grown in; days when he slept eight or nine glorious hours at a time. He had awoken feeling fully rested, clear-headed and ready to tackle the world with all the vigor of the youthful and tail-less.  Now, most days, he operated within a buzzing, foggy bubble. Some days it sapped his energy just to dress and feed himself.  

I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking what anyone normal would think when considering the misery a tail that size must  cause its host.  Why keep it?  Why not dispatch that tail tout de suite?  Isn't that what you would do?  Find yourself a good doctor, a highly recommended tail specialist, and say to him, "Doc, this tail has to go!"?  But the man wasn't really normal like you, was he?  And he was afraid.

He thought about getting rid of the tail, of course he did.  He thought about it all the time.  When he awoke in the middle of the night, for the third or fourth time, and shifted his weight once again, to counter the weight of the tail, he often vowed that, come morning, he would call the doctor first thing.  Then morning would come and he would somehow forget.  The day would draw on and, at some point, he would remember, but he still wouldn't make the call.  There were too many unknowns.  

For one thing, it had become a part of him, like an arm or a leg.  Who in their right mind cuts off their arm? And what if the tail was meant to be?  God, in all his wisdom, surely would not have given him a tail without a reason.  Wouldn't it be wrong to remove a tail when he hadn't yet discovered its true purpose?  And, finally, as perverse as it might sound, the tail was his only friend.  Yes, it's true, he thought of the tail as a comrade. His fear of discovery had alienated him from any close friendships.  His tail was all he had.  Once it was gone who would he talk to?

Maybe he could grow a new tail-probably, he could-but going through the trouble to rid himself of the current tail, physically and emotionally, only to grow a new one...well, that was just insane. No, if he was going to cut off his tail, he would be done with it once and for all.  It was a deliberate and thoughtful process.  Excising a tail was not an endeavor one undertook as nonchalantly as cutting one's fingernails.  

He wasn't sure yet.

Chicken out