Old-Fashioned Halloween

A long time ago in southern Illinois, it was Halloween in a place that was known for tearing up the town, literally, in the celebration of the season. I lived in Carbondale, Illinois. It was generally known while I lived there that the store merchants downtown could not get insurance to replace their storefront plate glass windows because of a tendency for the celebrants to destroy said glass windows each year on this festive occasion.

Yes, my college made the Playboy list of the top party schools in the nation when I lived there. It was something of an embarrassment because I wanted a seriously good education. I was lucky and had been identified by the Dean of Liberal Arts as having had a good grade-school background in grammar, bend it though I might now, and because of that and her own personal pet peeves, I was granted not only a tuition scholarship through to graduation but also a job working in the English Department at SIU-Carbondale.

The only thing that seemed worse than attending the current Party Central of the nation was the fact that a footnote had been published in Playboy’s list stating that the university where I had spent my first two years of college, then known as the University of Missouri – Rolla, was not included in the top ten list because Playboy was considering only amateur partiers. Zeesh.

These designations made my fellow students proud of their ability to bash with the best of them. While I was not a stick-in-the-mud about parties, I never attended the Carbondale Halloween glass-breaking festival. Broken glass just never was my favorite medium. Neither was senseless destruction of other people’s property, even if in the spirit of the season. I know, I know…partypoop.

Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

Now, generally Carbondale was a pretty good place to live the other 364 days a year or so. Sure, the first day of snowfall, I swore it snowed LSD because people would inevitably drive the wrong way on one-way streets, disoriented by the winter wonderland and seemingly taken by surprise in spite of fairly accurate weather reports. It wasn’t a social agreement to do something counter-cultural the way Halloween glass-breaking was. It was just a mass confusion of senses that resulted in automotive chaos. Things would calm down by the second or third day of snow and people would resume their usual level of driving acumen, which wasn’t always worth the ride anyway. But at least they remembered after a while what “One Way” with an arrow meant and things were a little less treacherous.

Instead of joining the revels downtown, I always chose what my friends and I thought to be a safer Halloween, usually a party at one of our houses. The year I remember best, the party was at Melody and Monica’s house.

My beautiful and adorable friend Melody was a hippie who loved home arts and was in my earth science class. Science was not Melody’s strong subject so I had made it a point to get her through the class and actually understand it. I figured out the trick for the treat: Put the class principles in terms Melody already understood, and she would get the scary science part too. So, since Melody was perfectly comfortable in the kitchen, all of our earth science experiments took place there. I hooked a hose up to the kitchen faucet and told a story about the rain falling in the mountains and running underground (under dishes in the sink) and popping up as an artesian well farther down the mountain. Melody was also good at helping me clean up the kitchens, either hers or mine, after these lessons, but she made a decent grade in the class.

It was a wonderful example of how to bring a message to someone who is initially intimidated by the topic in the first place. Of course, we didn’t actually create a volcano, but discussed the pros and cons of lava cake and the different ways candy will cool, crunchy and crackly or smooth and gooey. It made earth science a tasty lab class for us.

Melody and her drop-dead gorgeous older sister Monica hosted the Halloween party this year and it was a fun success. People came in costume. I came dressed as my black cat, complete with her turquoise collar and bell and stayed in “cat character” the entire time, meowing instead of talking, hissing for no, purring for yes. Well after midnight, both Melody and I got our second wind when most of the crowd had thinned out and we retreated to her room with cups of tea and girl chatter, planning to talk well into the night.

The living room grew quieter and quieter and even Monica and her then boyfriend, an equally drop-dead gorgeous dark blond from Saudi Arabia named Sultan (it meant “lion” he said, and went with his fabulous Fabio-like mane), had retreated to sleep after the happy partiers had left or at least collapsed on the living room couches and chairs.

As we gossiped quietly into the night, we realized we both heard the sound of running water. But it was from the wrong room. Melody’s room had a door to the living room and a door to the bathroom which then led to the kitchen in their rented bungalow. The running water was coming from the living room.

Like children afraid of monsters under the bed, we hesitated, then knew we had to investigate. Melody, more timid than I was, chose to eliminate the positive possibilities of the bathroom and kitchen. I headed straight out to the living room. We entered the living room about the same time in time to see the source of the sound.

A young man, someone neither of us knew, a friend of a friend of a friend, a casualty of the earlier celebrations, stood at the window in a moment of need, a call of nature. Unfortunately, he had hit both couches, the coffee table, the rug and the walls, in fact, everything but the open window he aimed for. He was, in short, terribly drunk and soon to be dead drunk meat.

The 7 of Cups in Tarot can represent self-delusion. Tell yourself that you’re OK when you’re not. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. You may be unclear about what your next choices should be. Confuse yourself about what you desire. Drink to oblivion, until not only your eyes and your brain are numb, but your heart as well. It’s one thing to dress in a costume; quite another to lose yourself in the character you have created. In the 7 of Cups, you can lose your way. But it doesn’t have to be permanent; the hangover may be painful but there is a way out.

“Out!” we screamed. He looked at us dully, attempting to zip up with partial success. “OUT!!!”

He was starting to get the message but it wasn’t clear to him yet. Monica and Sultan heard the fuss. Sultan was horrified on many different fronts. First, he was awakened from his romantic snooze with the woman he was not going to marry. Second, he was awakened from his own moderate drinking, but drinking nonetheless. Third, and most horrifying, he was presented with the most undignified example of his gender that he could imagine, a man who had made a dreadful, horrible, fool of himself as a guest in someone’s home. While our watery stranger outweighed Sultan, the power of indignation turned Monica’s sleepy sweetie into our Super Hero. Sultan frog-marched the unfortunate to his car and cursed him on his way home, to his wife and children as we found out, comparing notes.

As we set about in the small, dark hours of the morning cleaning up after the Bad Guest, we suddenly realized we had unleashed the outcast on the unsuspecting driving public. We started to imagine, as we scrubbed away to rid the house of the urine of a stranger, that we would see horrible photos of the automobile accident that must surely ensue from the impaired driver.

Dawn broke on November 1. I rode my bicycle home in the sunrise, my hands red and raw from cleaning the living room and then cleaning myself. Apparently, the Bad Guest had made it home or somewhere safely and we all wished a silent prayer for his wife and children, realizing this was not the first nor last episode and hoping they were all well-insured.

Please have a very safe and happy Halloween and may all your treats be treasures.

Best wishes.

Marriage Soup

I was working on a couple of things at the same time during working hours, testing some changes that should go live for my customers at the Day Job in July (yay! They work!), nervously checking data that got rearranged like an enormous bag of runes, stirred, shaken, tweaked, oops-ed and fixed from the weekend (holding my breath because that seems to have worked too), debating the pros and cons to adjusting that success, and—the phone rang.

It was my husband at the grocery story.

“What should I get for that Italian Wedding Soup you make?”

I don’t like to tell him to call me back when I’m not busy, especially since he’s seen fit to go grocery shopping. It’s just that he’s taken me by surprise, again. I thought he was going to help an elderly friend of ours understand some paperwork. In the back of my mind, I expected he would be home in time to watch the baseball game tonight, whenever that was. I didn’t have time to look.

“Italian Wedding Soup, huh?”

Lately in the late afternoons when nearly everyone at work leaves me alone, all those east coast people having gone home at a reasonable hour so I can concentrate on more tedious or analytical work, I’ve been listening to some of my CD’s. I have indulged in some purely selfish choices in that they are selections that the HUBS does not savor the way I do: country, folksongs, colonial “fiddle” tunes, Irish and Gipsy music, Alison Krauss, Garth Brooks, The Gipsy Kings and more obscure stuff. There was one very interesting meditation collection but that ended up being unsuitable for working on spreadsheets. The one thing I learned to do really well in my college Yoga class was how to make myself fall asleep; as it turns out, working on spreadsheets has the same effect accidentally. Adding meditation music makes the problem worse, so I’d rather hear howling blues or a lively tarantella to keep the eyeballs open.

Today, I had put on a CD of Virginia work songs, taken from chain gangs and slave traditions. Something about that seemed right for the afternoon. I was at least accomplishing something, or was until the HUBS called. I turned off the music.

I probably don’t take enough breaks, really. Most people at least get up and get their lunch out of the coffee room refrigerator or look with irrational hope at the snack bar at the office to see if something inspiring has graced the menu. Get up, stretch, take care of what’s necessary, focus your eyes on something more than 17” to 20” away or whatever that measurement is from your nose to your computer screen. I don’t usually. I get on a roll and lose track of time, writing what I’ve done down in a notebook in case I need to remember later that my friend Jill is on vacation this week so I can’t show her the changes until next week or whatever.

I’m not sure if this is just a quirk or a symptom of something, but I get flustered when I hear too many things at the same time. There’s no way I can listen to talk radio, for instance, and work. Even Binket bringing me her beanie-baby toy stuffed kitten for my expert care and leaving “Puff Baby” outside my office door throws me for a loop. I’ve marveled at a former boss who could actually keep track of at least three spoken conversations at once. I can’t. I can multi-task just fine with visual stuff, multiple Instant Messages at the same time, plus editing a document, but while I have two ears, I have just one channel for sound. I can listen to music, especially instrumental music and work. That's it for the sound channel for me.

I found this out when I had my second “real” job working for a major telephone company in the Midwest. I had a data entry job that consisted of typing all numbers and the letter F. And I happened to be the fastest one in the state at this particular mind-numbing task. The keyboard and transmission set up I had were so noisy that they disturbed the customer service representatives, so they put me in the closest thing to my own office: They stacked up soft-sided, high-walled dividers in a corner and plugged me in there. It was stark and ugly and a weird job, but I was, after all, the fastest in the state. One of the secrets to the speed of that job was that I could type the numbers from eyeballs to fingertips and somehow seemingly bypass my conscious mind; after all, the numbers and letter F were nonsense for the most part. So I sang to myself while I typed. And I went like the wind. I was in the zone.

That was a long time ago. What I found over the years is that I reach zero-to-60 in about 2 seconds of shrieking flake-out if someone tries to talk to me in the room while I’m trying to talk on the phone. I don’t know what that is, but audible input must take a number for me, one at a time.

A little interruption from my Sweetums is greeted with just enough choochie-coo to let him know I don’t hate him but also with clear instructions about what I can handle at the moment.

“Just a second, slow down now, I have to write this down to be able to tell if I have everything,” I snarl, well, is it snarling really, just to be clear?

The dog howls, deaf as he is and believing we must all be deaf also, to alert me that he must come into the house right NOW.

“I am setting the phone down, Darling,” I say through my teeth. “Your dog,” for Quincy becomes his dog when I’m at my wits’ end, “must come inside now.”

Dog happily sacked out on the living room rug, I return to the phone. We finish the ingredients list. The HUBS assures me we have half a bag of frozen meatballs. We end the grocery list and phone call and I try to reassemble my focus.

The 7 of Cups is about as foggy a card as I can find in the Tarot. All of the choices swirling around the character that represents you or someone else, depending on context of the reading, make the ability to choose confusing at best. Oh, sure, the cups are different but how do you know that the part below the rim isn’t something you definitely do not want? Everything seems like the same priority. What to choose? What to choose?

Thank goodness my 7 of Cups moment was brief and allowed me to move on so I wasn’t stuck in a swirl of confusion, anxiety, or even a “spoiled for choice” moment. I finished work, ran my own errands, and made soup, which is pretty good, I have to say. So here’s my soup recipe, good for what ails you, especially if you’re spoiled for choice!

Marcia’s Italian Wedding Soup

Frozen meatballs (or make your own if you have time)

2-3 Large carrots or a handful of baby carrots

Half a big red onion or one whole smaller red onion

Fresh baby spinach

Fresh parsley (I like the regular curly kind)

6 oz. dry tiny shell pasta

4 boxes of chicken broth or 2 big cans of chicken broth

Olive oil

Shredded Romano or Parmesan cheese (powdered is OK too, but fresh is better)

Dried basil if you don’t have fresh, 5 or so leaves of chopped fresh if you have it

Dried Italian Seasoning or fresh oregano is better

1 tsp. Powdered ginger (this is the SECRET INGREDIENT)

1 tsp. Pepper

In your favorite soup pot on medium heat, sauté the onions and carrots in the olive oil (1-2 tablespoons should do it). If you bought the big bag of frozen meatballs, just use half the bag which should be 25-30 little meatballs or so. Who counts? Pour those into the sauté (yep, frozen and no, don’t get the kind with sauce…that would be weird). Just swish them around for a little with your wooden spoon. (I mean, you have to have a wooden spoon, right?)

Pour in the chicken broth (seriously the low sodium no MSG kind is better but you do what you can do, right), all 4 boxes or 2 cans or whatever. Turn up the heat so the broth will boil and before it’s gotten to the boil, add the pepper, ginger and basil and most, not all of the chopped parsley. Save some for topping the soup.

When your soup is boiling, add the shell pasta and some of the cheese (save some of that for topping, too). When the pasta is cooked, add two big fistfuls (I cook like this, what can I say?) of the fresh baby spinach and the Italian Seasoning or fresh oregano. Set your timer for 5-8 minutes and have a Mike’s Hard Lemonade; check to see what time the ballgame is on. Sit down a minute.

When the timer goes off, don’t spill the Mike’s but get the bowls out and that soup ladle you thought you lost and dish it out. Sprinkle some of the chopped fresh parsley and cheese on top. Turn the heat down in case he wants a second bowl. When he gets up for that second bowl, have him turn the heat off so it doesn’t scorch. Makes enough for tonight and probably tomorrow, too.

Good with bread. The Mike’s wasn’t half bad either.

Best wishes!

Choices, Choices

The helicopter has stopped circling my neighborhood so I’m assuming that whatever or whoever it was, they weren’t in my yard and it wasn’t my fault. After twenty-some years of living in California in a moderately densely populated area, I still have trouble getting used to the fact that there might be crime against person or property that would come anywhere near me. I’m like a lot of people that way.

I’m convinced some towns here promote their own reputation for being a scary place to live, if only to keep the housing prices low enough to be entry level for people from the Middle. My town has a bit of a reputation. I happen to live in the most racially diverse county around and in my town no one ethnic population is actually the majority. I know there are some people who would be horrified by that. I like it. I’ve lived in other places. I liked them too, truth be told, but they had their pluses and minuses.

We’ve had a bit of the “ick” factor in the news lately from places where people aren’t expecting people to dance on the tables and shoot out the lights like they expect in my town. Seriously, the economy has been down here for a while that if you can find a bar with tables and lights and the table is sturdy enough for you to dance on it, I say go for it. Most everyone here is trying to get by.

But the news does make you ask yourself the same question you might ask of junior high kids when you already know the answer, “What were they thinking?” What made it seem like a good idea to take photos like that and send them to, well, to anyone? There was a funny Facebook video I ran across yesterday where a score of attractive women had created a sort of public service announcement making it clear, if it weren’t already, that we’ve seen enough photos like that. I am aware there’s a certain market for things like that. Most women I know would actually be more impressed by men who pick up their discarded underwear, don’t splash, know where things are in a refrigerator and who have the good grace to say that you look lovely in that outfit and that your gorgeous friend would not. My husband fulfills most of these and has never sent me a photo that I wouldn’t show my mom. I’m talking my mom here. Your mom may be different but mine had a pretty narrow definition of what was acceptable behavior in public and in private, actually a little too narrow for my taste, but it’s a pretty good rule.

But seriously, Dude, what were you thinking? Like the junior high kids, nothing at all? Without investigating further because, well, because I may not really want to know, I prefer to accept the “nothing at all” answer and move on, kind of like that helicopter did.

Certainly I’m not above making stupid choices myself. Flashing back to my first wedding, if some small voice had whispered, “Run,” while I was walking up the steps to the church that summer day, I would have. I should have, as it turns out. I did get a really great best friend out of the deal, so it wasn’t a total loss.

And then there was a particular drive from one well-known spot in a Middle State to a lesser known spot in that Middle State where, on a dare, I drove without benefit of wardrobe. I didn’t get caught. Or at least I didn’t actually suffer any consequences other than feeling like an idiot and enjoying it a little. I am thrilled, however, that telephones were not mobile then and did not have cameras and that videos were never viral in that decade. Some decades have their advantages over others. And I have no political aspirations either. I’m glad to have survived most of my own foolishness; not everyone does. And remember, that was pre-California.

Also pre-California, however, was the time I had my wallet stolen by two traveling Bible salesmen from Texas. Nope, that’s just stuff you can’t make up. Yup, they caught them, just one town over about to enjoy a sandwich at a local motel restaurant. Yup, the younger man was convicted of using my credit card to buy gas and my driver’s license as identification. He was blond but seriously the resemblance ended there. They couldn’t arrest or convict his “mentor,” the older Bible salesman who talked him into it. Apparently the really big mistake was the forgery part. Law is funny that way. I just wish they hadn’t thrown out my photos.

But also pre-California were the two muggings I endured, a few assaults on dates that the times would have chalked up to “missed signals” as in what-part-of-no-do-you-not-understand and sadly child abuse at the hands of a family friend. These incidents resulted in no more dire consequences than my sliding scale of irritated-to-horrified. These were all in the “safe” places where people live and send stupid photos on their cell phones.

It boils down to no matter where you are, what neighborhood, how safe you think you are, how secure, how trusting or vigilant, how amused or disgusted, you have choices. If you’re having trouble deciding whether drugging yourself or your friend is a good idea, if you’re having trouble deciding whether you should take care of your child or get high, if you’re having trouble figuring out whether to go to college or join a gang, if you are having trouble figuring out whether the wallet you just found in a theater seat should be returned to its owner empty or full, these are all 7 of Cups things. You have choices. You may not realize it, but you have lots of choices. Even if you are the victim of a bad situation or a crime, you have choices and sometimes the outcomes are not going to be clear.

For instance, say your department at work has a structural reorganization and you are unhappy with the way things turned out. You still have a job, but it’s not the job you used to have or hoped you would have. Something about it feels wrong. Maybe you don’t know your new boss. Maybe worse, you do. Maybe nothing looks clear to you and when you talk to the new regime, they don’t seem very clear either. You have choices.

Oh, sure, you can bail out. That’s an obvious one. But in these “Be happy you have a job,” days that might not be the best approach unless you like living in a culvert or an old car. You can deny that anything at all happened, but that’s not going to serve you either. Something did change after all.

If you are presented with what looks like chaotic circumstances, you can choose to be angry, sad, depressed. You can broadcast your unhappiness to the world or share it with just a few. You can decide to be overwhelmed by chaos and wait for someone to rescue you or you can view chaos as an opportunity to start over, redefine everything and make things work better than before.

Sure, not all of our choices are even that easy. Sometimes we have to pick between two awful situations. And maybe that’s the most important time to choose what’s positive, even if it’s just the acknowledgement that you had a choice at all. At least you’ll know what you were thinking.

Best wishes!