Normal Crime

A Facebook friend of mine just got her house broken into and her purse stolen. She’s dealing with all the feelings of anger, loss and violation. It’s an “everyday” crime that in many overtaxed police departments gets very little attention.

There’s often little chance that the stolen items will be recovered, little chance that they will catch the people who did it. It’s only property, they say. It’s more of course, but so often the thing you lose in a situation like that can’t be brought back, like your sense of safety and peace of mind or your faith in your fellow human beings.

Yes, the police are right of course. It could be worse. She could have been there, been hurt in a much more violent crime. It’s small consolation at the time. Part of the problem is that it’s hard to know where to direct your anger when you don’t know who did it.

Before I met him, the Hubs suffered a similar crime. While he was out, someone broke into the cottage where he lived, stole family heirlooms and, inexplicably, set fire to the cottage. His cats died in the fire. Why set the fire? Why kill the cats? Why not just take the stuff and go? I didn’t even know those cats and my heart aches at the thought of someone doing that in my home, to my little critters. I miss the Molly and Garfield I never knew.

Even after we met while the Hubs still had his cottage, we went out briefly to shop for our Football Pool Dinner and while we were at the grocery store, someone who wore athletic shoes with a distinctive pattern kicked in the door and stole what little was left of value. At least that time, the cats, the ones who replaced those who died, were left alive.

No one was hurt? Hardly true. My friend lost photographs she hadn’t downloaded. My husband lost his precious pets and family pieces that he would have liked giving to his nephews. I hope the people who did these things get prosecuted for something, even if it isn’t this specific crime.

My own brushes with senseless crimes were thankfully harmless to me physically. My first job out of college had me working in an attorney’s office. Our office specialized in wills, trust and real estate and the most unsavory characters in the office were often long-standing clients with big ideas about a real estate deal. While we didn’t handle many criminal cases, we did enthusiastically read the newspapers and occasionally listen to the radio. When something spectacularly silly happened in the crime section, we hooted with glee and with our honed, imaginative and some legal minds we Monday morning quarterbacked the latest stupid criminal antics.

My favorite stupid crime was The Bank Job. Two or three kids sought to rob one of the local banks in our smallish down in southern Illinois and made a dash for the county line. They never made it that far. They were apprehended with the loot and charged appropriately. It wasn’t that they didn’t drive a fast getaway car. It’s just that it was maroon, with large fins in the rear and had “Devils” painted on it.

If they wanted to be famous, they made it, at least for a week or two. They were famous for being unable to sneak across the county line with any subtlety. As I recall, no one was hurt. You can’t count the stitches in our sides as injuries.

By far the most remarkable stupid criminal encounter was the time I had my wallet stolen out of my car.

OK, I admit, there’s some element of the stupid victim here. So I confess that I left my purse wide open on the front seat of my car with the windows rolled down and the doors unlocked on a summer afternoon. I had run to the back of my landlord-boyfriend’s Victorian house, one last trip while we were finishing up a repair/restoration to ready the house for the coming fall semester and the new houseful of irresponsible and destructive college boys who would nearly gut the house by the end of the college year. While in the back, picking up keys or whatever, the criminals stole my wallet out of my purse.

This all seems normal. Except, of course, that this was Normal, Illinois. It’s a name that sets up false expectations at best.

Stuff happened in Normal that you didn’t expect. While I lived in southern Illinois, I grew used to college students abandoning their pedigreed dogs into packs of roving aristocrats of all shapes and sizes. I grew used to it but could never stomach it. But in Normal, the variation on that theme took a different flavor. The college boys in one of the landlord/boyfriend’s houses abandoned their pet who hid somewhere in the rambling house after escaping his usual quarters. The boys left for home, unable to find it until it showed up on the sofa one day. You just don’t expect a large boa constrictor on a sofa in an empty house.

Another time and at another landlord’s house, the kids having the party on the second floor got into boogying rhythm to Love Shack or whatever and danced the second floor right down on top of the first floor, collapsing the inside of the house. That was Normal.

So in the reddening sunset back at my car I realized my wallet had been lifted and I cursed the idiot who stole it and the idiot who left her purse in her open car. The good news is they caught the guys.

It seems that two traveling Bible salesmen from Texas (nope, you can’t make this stuff up) had fallen on bad times. The older black gentleman had convinced his younger and considerably dumber blond compadre to grab the wallet and while at the nearest gas station they gassed up where Dumbo the Blondie used my credit card and my driver’s license as identification and attempted to forge my name.

These two masterminds got as far as Peoria, due to the quick thinking of the gas station manager who had the cool to accept the transaction without confronting them or pointing out that Blondie sure didn’t look like a Marcia and to write down their license plate. Like the traditional “book meaning” of the 7 of Swords, they thought they got away with it.

After almost enjoying a sandwich and a beer at a motel coffee shop, they were arrested and charged. The older guy got off with time served once they had spent maybe 30 days in jail awaiting trial with no bail to post because he never actually signed anything, but the younger guy had made the error of signing my name to compound his petty theft with a felony, forgery.

They had made phone calls to Alabama on my long distance card and they had tossed my nice wallet and my favorite photos out of the window somewhere between Normal and Peoria. I could never drive that road again without hoping for a glint of brightly colored oxblood leather and the photographs I would never see again.

Lock your car. Take your keys. And watch out for those Bible salesmen from Texas.

Best wishes.

Gone Cat

My husband just walked out the door with Eleanor. Eleanor is a cat, our black and white long-hair, histrionic, five-pound screamer who is the Omega Cat in the house. Whatever happens, she comes in last and she and all the other creatures of our little forest know this. Eleanor has had the sneezes for about a week but otherwise seems OK. Her eyes aren’t runny or half-closed the way sick cats can get.

Eleanor prefers to stay in the breakfast room which is my husband’s home office. I’m not sure what made him decide to take her to the vet now but I’m thinking it was just one little sneeze too many for him.

Since he didn’t warn me he was going to do this, I quietly had a panic attack.

As he walked out of the door with Eleanor squalling with every breath, he was on the telephone where he has been a great deal of the afternoon working on some work-related issue. And because he was on the telephone, I couldn’t talk to him.

He doesn’t realize what a nightmare this was for me, one that played out over and over again throughout my childhood. And because I was aware of it, I didn’t exactly freak out at him. I did dial his number frantically for about 15 minutes until I could talk to him. But I didn’t totally lose it. I feel good about this. This is progress for me. I’m coming back down from my panic now and my heart rate and breathing are closer to normal.

***

I mentioned recently that my first dog Clementine was my pet for only a brief time and then the dogs had to go away. That was a recurring pattern. We would have pets, cats, dogs, a rat, a snake, a mouse, fish, even the chickens. Then, without warning one day my father would take them all away. He did not do that with my parakeet. He did not do that with my mother’s dog Pierre. But, the losses were nearly unbearable for me.

I would come home to find my cat gone. My father would lie to me and tell me that my cat had been adopted by a family with a little girl. I am pretty sure they thought I would get over it.

But I didn’t, partly because it would happen again and again.

Sheba was such an unusual looking cat for the alley variety. She had “ticking” or tipped fur, no stripes except eyeliner and a butterscotch tummy. She looked like a fluffy mountain lion in a way. She liked hunting a bit and was fond of the small lizards common in our central Florida yard. She was patient with me in such a maternal fashion that I imagined she thought of me as a large homely kitten. In the 1960’s, it was rare for owners to do anything more for a housecat than feed it, so Sheba had at least one litter of kittens and stayed outside all the time no matter how much I begged to have her come indoors. Fleas were common. Ticks were occasional. Cat lives were shorter. I was convinced I was Sheba’s student in learning all things cat.

Then, one day, all the cats were gone. Daddy had taken them all to the pound which was not called a humane shelter because it was neither humane nor shelter. Daddy lied and said a family had adopted Sheba but I knew he had specified they all be killed. Daddy had a certain look when he lied that I knew.

I mourned the loss of my teacher, my friend, my cat for years. She represented my helplessness in the wake of adult power and responsibility.

This scene repeated itself. My little dog Mitzi who had made the “mistake” of trying to bite the man who brought the bottled water for our water cooler was taken away. Suzi who had too many puppies and who, in classic beagle fashion, liked to escape the confines of the fenced yard and run throughout the neighborhood was taken away.

When we moved to New Mexico, our dogs all caught distemper. Because everyone in the family had a favorite dog and the expense of saving them was too high, Daddy decided to save none of them and they all perished, Beau, Ajax, Bill, Jacques and Jem.

Oh, there were other losses, too, that weren’t at the hands of my parents. Cars hit Pierre, Dickens, Benji and Calico. Some budding psychopath stole Misty and tortured and killed her along with scores of other pets. But all of it grew and grew within me, the knowledge that there was a better way to treat these little creatures we brought into our lives. It wasn’t evil cars or junior serial killers that needed fixing.

Finally, one day while I was in high school, I came home to find that Daddy had taken Meph, my long-haired black cat who had a delightful personality, out far into the New Mexico countryside with her latest litter of kittens and dumped her. Daddy lied again: She’s going to be near a barn where there are lots of mice. She will be happy. I knew better. I cried and screamed in frustration for days. My father set his jaw the way he did when he didn’t want to say what he was thinking.

A few days later, Meph showed up, thin, worn, sans kittens. But she was home. My father was astounded. I picked her up and held her, wheeled around and blazed at my Dad, “You. Will. NEVER. Take. My. Pets. Away. Again.”

My ferocity scared him, I think. He understood, finally, that the way we treat these little ones is so often an echo of how we treat each other. I would have happily taken him out to the countryside and left him in a field that day, lying to myself and everyone else that he would find mice in a barn and live some false fairy tale.

Meph lived another ten years with my parents and then with me after I moved away from home. She had no more kittens because I paid to have her spayed. She had a heated, elevated, insulated house in my backyard and, when no one else was around, she got to come inside and stay with me. She brought me mice each day from her catch and laid them on the front steps of my little house. She hunted chipmunks. She came to my specific whistle. She didn’t mind the dog so much. She died peacefully in my arms when the cancer became too much for her to bear.

***

Eleanor is fine. Dr. C at the veterinary hospital sent her home with some kitty vitamins because she likely has a mild virus, the common cold in the feline variety. Ellie still has the sneezles but she was actually pleased with all the extra attention.

And I kissed and hugged my husband, who, after all, isn’t the monster who took my babies away but the Nicest Man in the World who made the appointment with the vet to make sure Ellie-Bellie would get well again.

My little 6 of Cups in Tarot, memories of childhood, had been set aright and what I vowed as a helpless child to be when I was a “powerful” adult was still intact. I will take care of my critters as if they were the most precious things in the Universe, mostly because they are.

Best wishes.

***

I will be reading Tarot on September 29, 2012 in Petaluma, CA at Halloween and Vine! Click on the link to get directions and take a peek at the other fabulous vendors who will be there like ... Sharon Bloom!

After Clouds Sunshine

My brother had a band in high school, guitars, keyboards, drums, vocals, the whole deal. It was not a “hair band” or a “metal band”. Those concepts weren’t part of the lexicon of youth yet. These were guys who wanted to play rock music with electric guitars.

Dust Bunny Lenormand
(c) Copyright 2012 Marcia McCord

They played at our high school dances and were rivals to the other band in town. It wasn’t a rivalry like New York and Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles; it was something of a sneering truce. Since our little town in New Mexico was blessed with two dance bands, we had dances nearly every weekend.

“Noise,” Daddy said.

We laughed at him. It was our noise. Daddy had played oboe in high school, maybe a million years earlier. Although later famous groups would incorporate more than the rock band basics with stunning success, oboe was a laughable instrument when considered with guitars, drums and keyboards during our high school dance years.

I think those may have been the years when my brother hated having a little sister more than any others. After all, what could be more fascinating than slightly-older high school boys who sky-rocketed to instant stardom, locally of course, to a spirited teen-aged sister? And what could be more distracting during a band practice than a flirtatious and devoted younger fan? So, a lot of band practices happened somewhere else.

My best friend had an eye for the sometimes-drummer in the band, a slow-talking, muscular blond with an easy grin and fabulously restored 50’s sedan with leopard-print upholstery and the latest in technology, an 8-track tape. Steve would take us and half a dozen other kids to lunch in his car, usually the A&W where we would order taquitas and sodas and listen to his 8-track.

My friend was a Scorpio and was perfecting the art of being the Mystery Woman. An Aries, I was hopelessly lost in the concept of mystery and the feminine mystique. For me, yes meant yes and no meant no and if you liked someone, you said so. I was as subtle as a sledge-hammer.

I was never sure the guys liked me because of my grades. No one asked me, but if they had, I would have told them I thought it was just plain stupid to be afraid of me because of my I.Q. Well, OK, in retrospect I can see they had a point. “Don’t-hold-back-Marcia” would be a nickname I gained even after I had learned subtlety. But, hey, what would be so scary about a little witty repartee or verbal jousting or mental gymnastics? I mean, what else was flirtation, anyway? I wasn’t trying to win, for goodness’ sake; I was trying to keep up. I’m not sure many of the guys I knew got that about me. It was probably for the best though, like most things that seem like disasters in dating in high school.

I didn’t have a height requirement. At 5’ 1” I considered myself one-size-fits-all. At least I did until I was asked to dance with one tall cowboy one time when my brother’s band was playing. It was a slow dance and the guy was polite and didn’t try anything ungentlemanly. It’s just that he was probably 6’ 6” and I spent the entire song unable to hear a word he said. I was tempted to quip, “How’s the air up there?” Otherwise, I stared at the guy’s belt buckle which, since he was a cowboy, was at least a little more interesting than usual. At that point, I realized I probably did have a height requirement for a guy that was an upper limit of maybe 6’ 1”. No offense to the really tall guys, but when you have Mercury as heavily aspected in your astrology chart as I do, good grief, I want you to talk to me.



Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



This led me to like two very different kinds of guys. I had a special affinity for the fast talkers, the Tarot’s Magician types. I loved to be entertained and some of my favorite guys were natural entertainers. I adored them, in spite of their weaknesses, which I would staunchly deny anyway. After all, the show must go on! Little did they know that it was actually the little slips, the betrayals of imperfections that made the performers dear to me.

The other kind of guy who caught my eye was the Cypher, the guys who said nearly nothing at all. It didn’t make sense, unless you realize that we pick our own Devil in the Tarot and life.



Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



See, as my husband so kindly points out on occasion in the gentlest possible way, I made the classic “girl mistake.” I figured the quiet ones were thinking. It was a challenge to get them to open up and talk as they had never done before. After all, they would feel so much better, right?

It took me a while to really realize that my mother wasn’t just in a very bad mood all the time; she was an introvert. But I had used her example as a template and mistakenly applied it to the quiet guys. After all, my quiet mother was always thinking something even though she didn’t say much; these guys must be doing the same thing. It took me many more years after high school to realize that one of the reasons boys are quiet in high school is that they don’t always have a lot going on that would be stunning conversation with a girl they liked, or might like or even didn’t like.

So, like a muddy puppy, I would occasionally pounce on an unsuspecting quiet guy and try to get him to talk to me. Depending on exactly what bait he took, I would go away sooner or later and try to talk to some other more pliable subject. Or someone who spoke at all.

The guys in the band were just the perfect tantalizing snack for me as a mini-man-eater. They weren’t allowed to talk, not while they were performing. Lots of them hold their mouths funny when they are concentrating on guitar riffs or whathaveyou. It was like my own personal arcade, these guys in the band. I tried to get them to talk, flirt, sharpen their minds, trade bon mots, and engage in conversational duels. Most of the time, I found out, they hadn’t heard a thing I said; they were too busy looking at my chest.

Cripes, guys, get over the chest thing, I thought. The real circus is in the mind!

The naming of a band can be a tender thing. My brother’s band’s name was “After Clouds Sunshine.” It was named for a needlepoint motto from the previous century we found in Mom's antique shop and was just nearly-nonsense enough to pass for a band name. As good as any Strawberry Alarm Clock, we figured.

A long gap after school and New Mexico and high school dances were just a memory, I chanced to marry one of the guys in that band. At the time he had been something of a blend, a performer who talked in bursts, who seemed to be a leader of his friends, and who didn’t seem to mind the muddy puppy/talking thing I did. But neither of us was the person we had known when we dated in high school and it was, alas, a mistake to marry.

And yet, like my Dust Bunny Lenormand cards of the Clouds and the Sun, while happiness was not something he and I found with each other, only the memory of ourselves when we were young and full of hope and little understanding, after the clouds of our failed relationship, I did, after all, find sunshine with my adorable Hubs who is both Magician and Cypher and just the right height, a man who brings me laughter every day. And he has the most boring belt buckles.

After clouds, then, finally, there was sunshine.

Best wishes.

Pizza Night

“Let’s treat the kids to pizza tonight,” John said. “They’ve been working so hard moving here.”

“They could use a break,” I agreed.

Aaron and his wife had just moved here from southern California with their adorable 18-month-old son. Aaron had called and asked if he could join the rugby team, a move that utterly melted The Hubs’ heart from the first moment. Aaron is a great blue-eyed freckled giant, a medical intern and former policeman, great rugby material and something of a Renaissance man. His wife is a spunky pixie, hardy and utterly devoted to their son who is a clever angel whose beginning language skills include sign language.

We had helped them find a cute little house to rent near our friend Mimi. John had described nearby shopping and we had offered them a spare refrigerator that wasn’t needed after all. We knew what it was like being young, starting a new adventure in a new place, moving and living out of boxes.

We wanted them to know that our town can be a welcoming place with nice people, support systems. We wanted them to feel they had people they can call on for help. We felt vaguely parental, of course, but want to introduce them to people their own age too. We plotted to have them come to a holiday picnic as our guests so they can meet more people and start to feel that this could be something like home, no matter how long they stay.

I had worked hard all week and the thought of a Napoli pizza was a treat, a reward for wrestling with software analysis and stubborn co-workers. My work Friday had ended on a quietly happy note. A last-minute request from someone I had met with a few weeks ago came in. Everyone else had gone home for the holiday weekend and we laughed at the thought that we were the only people at work so late. I was pleased she had taken my suggestion for an easy solution and it took just a matter of minutes to update the system so she could track the success of her workgroup’s efforts. It was satisfying to be able to help someone quickly and make her work life just a little easier. I was ready for the holiday weekend.

The Hubs has long declared Napoli pizza as “the best pizza in the world.” He accepts no arguments. His decision is final. Tony and his family run Napoli’s. The one closest to the rugby pitch is the mothership, but there are two other newer locations. We like the old place. We are always interested in who is making the pizza tonight. For instance, if it’s John (not The Hubs) we know we will get the thin-crust, extra-crispy we have in mind. We love Tony too, but typical of any owner, Tony has very specific ideas of what a pizza should be. He has a special mix of sausage that is celestial.

For 15 years we have ordered a “Tony’s Special, thin crust, extra crispy.” It was so predictable, when we called it in, they knew our voices and responded, “OK, one John Kelly Special!” Then last year we changed our order. Now we order pepperoni, mushrooms and double sausage, still thin crust, still extra crispy. You’ve got to keep your pizza people on their toes, right?

We met the kids at Napoli’s and even at 6:30 pm, ok, 6:45 pm it was crowded. We usually order take-out so I was surprised it was so busy so early. But we got a booth and started playing with the baby instead of looking at the menu. After all, we knew what we wanted. So did Aaron’s son, who clearly gestured towards the cup of ice water that he please wanted an ice cube right now.

We ordered our pizzas, a pitcher of beer and I threw caution to the wind and ordered a diet Pepsi. We clinked our glasses together in toast to welcome them to Vallejo and continued talking about their move, the house they rented, what to do with the floors, the old Wedgewood stove, how to repair the space in the fence where the dogs can get out.

Then Aaron’s eyes riveted past my shoulder and an uproar, a hubbub started. Someone yelled, “Get out! Get out!” Someone said, “Gun.”

I turned around and uniformed and padded officers came through the glass doorway with assault rifles and turned through the second dining room towards the restaurant’s rest rooms.

“Get out! Get out!”

I grabbed my purse and turned out of the booth. There was pizza splattered on the floor between me and the doorway. Someone dropped their pizza, I thought. It’s funny what occurs to you in an emergency. I dropped to the floor, thinking if there’s gunfire, it will be about waist-high. I felt The Hubs drop on top of me.

That’s so sweet, I thought. He’s protecting me. But he’s likely to get himself killed doing it.

He pushed me up. I dodged the spilled pizza slices, not wanting to tear my knee up again and slipped out the front door to the sidewalk. I pulled my Pashmina shawl around me and kept walking. There were police cars everywhere. Down the sidewalk, a uniformed policeman beckoned me.

“Come on,” he said urgently, gently. “Keep going.”

Where was my husband? Where were Aaron, his wife and the baby? I couldn’t look back, sure a bullet would find me in the bright twilight if I did. I walked past the barbershop to the fence that bordered the vacant lot next to the barber. I put my arms on the fence and sobbed. A young woman, someone I do not know, came up behind me and said, “Breathe with me.”

“Yes,” I said. Inhale, one, two, three, exhale. And again. She was no longer there. I turned to see she had run across the usually busy street to be with a friend. And John was there suddenly, talking to the men from the barbershop. He hugged me. They asked me if I wanted to sit down. I did. They asked me if I wanted some water. I did. I choked back more sobs.

A thin, tousle-haired young man with his arms behind him lurched in front of the barbershop windows, shouting over his shoulder, another uniformed policeman holding his cuffed wrists. He wore a baseball jersey. Not the Giants, I thought. No, he’s not on my team. He looked at me, agitated but without the wild-eyes of insanity. I was curious, stunned. This was the face of Death, so ordinary, so impersonal.

“He’s gone now,” an officer said. I walked out of the barbershop where John was talking. I thanked them and hugged the big guy who had brought me water. Aaron, his wife and baby were there and Aaron hugged me.

We went back to Napoli’s, sat down in our booth. Our waitress brought our pizzas. One of the officers came around to each of the tables and apologized for disturbing our dinner. I held his hand for a moment. We ate. I tried to be normal again. We joked about the picnic on Sunday being a lot less exciting than this. No one was hurt but I don’t think I will be the same.

On our way home I told John, “I think that was the best pizza I ever had.”

Best wishes.

Working Vacation

I’m back to work after a “working vacation.” I volunteered to be a minion at SF BATS this year and it was fabulous. If you are a tarot-enthusiast, it may help to know that BATS stands for the Bay Area Tarot Symposium, celebrating 21 years of bringing tarot goodness to tarot lovers. The star of the show is Thalassa, the talented, funny and formidable organizer of the bee-zillion things that need to be done behind the scenes and on stage to make it all come together.

My BATS weekend actually had started almost a week earlier. Not only had I received a box of goodies from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince for the Millard Fillmore Memorial Spiritualist Temple Garage Sale, but also few precious decks of the Cirque de Whimsy Tarot from Carol Hartman DeVall, plus an enormous box of “mystery costumes” from Nancy Antenucci. I treated it all as “do not open until…” well; at least we didn’t have to wait until Christmas. SF BATS is scheduled for the last weekend in August.

Not only was I the shipping destination for a few BATS buddies, but I had my own stuff to prepare. I had just received the second printing of the Dust Bunny Lenormand and was busy making the colorful cases for them. People had been asking for more so I figured it would be good timing, especially since Thalassa had scheduled two BATS classes on Lenormand, one with Melissa Hill and one with Mary Greer. Both sounded interesting to me and I hoped I could fit them in with my volunteer duties.

Not only did I have my own decks to get ready, but I had also been inspired to make a little treat for my BATS buddies who were also members of a Facebook Group called Squeelandia. The group was created by none other than Thalassa, a critter-fancier with a soft spot for bats (of course!), baby sloths and other wiggly-nosed young un’s.

In Squeelandia, there are commonly posts sharing photos of baby animals, the kind that make us all say, “SQUEE!” and fall over from “teh kewt.” And with all of them, we “Squeelanders” are tempted to reach out and touch their little nosies and say, “Boop!”

Yeah, revolting, I know. Like a cup of tea with half a cup of sugar. But, look! A baby hippo! It’s that kind of thing that the Squeelanders go for. For Squeelanders, nothing is too sweet. So I made Boop! buttons with cute animals. I made too many, of course. Sometimes you just can’t get enough Boop!

All this took almost all week, except of course we did go to the Bay Model in Sausalito (by the way, that’s free admission and free parking, great for kids and groups), then to Book Passage in Corte Madera where I snagged a couple of delights like Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness and Lev Grossman’s sequel to The Magicians, The Magician King. Hey, a girl’s gotta read, right?

People have asked me, “What’s the difference between Reader’s Studio and BATS?” Certainly BATS is less expensive for me because I can sleep at home. Travel expenses are a huge consideration. Seriously, when you are face-to-face with all the goodies from Tarot Garden, which would you rather buy, airfare or #43 of 300 of a limited edition woodcut Marseilles-style Italian tarot? Just in case you wondered, yes, the tarot deck is cheaper than the airfare. Really.

I do love Readers Studio but there are differences between it and BATS. At RS, the main event is three half-day classes. If, for instance, one of the half-day sessions is not something you are interested in or is aimed at a different level from your own, you’re unhappy with approximately one-third of the experience. There are unofficial activities that are organized around RS; the best ones cost extra. Airfare, plus hotel, plus the conference, plus the early bird class, plus the field trip to the museum and it adds up. And you haven’t even bought that limited edition deck yet. That said, I’ve learned how to manage a little here, a little there on the RS easy payment plan to pay for things along the way and I LOVE seeing everyone. RS is well-attended and generally has a larger vendor room.

BATS, on the other hand, offers three separate classes for each class session. If you aren’t interested in something in the main room, there’s every chance you’re going to be excited about what’s going on in one of the other classrooms. There are classes suited for beginners and for more advanced students.

Readers Studio’s conference charge includes some meals, water and coffee. BATS provides coffee, tea and water throughout the day, a cocktail party at night. This year’s cocktail goodies were easy to make a meal of or just pick at as a snack before adventure dining in San Francisco.

Readers Studio has a unifying theme with an emphasis on education and audience participation, an exercise at the beginning, the three large classes and an exercise at the end, with some entertainment and some special short programs included. For instance, this year I hosted one of the breakfast round table wake-up sessions and had people playing Tarot Bingo.

BATS presents information but the participants are free just to soak it up. Those who have classroom performance anxiety exchanging readings with their new friends are relieved of obligation to prove to themselves they have learned something. At BATS, you soak it up. And of course there are lots of informal activities!

Because I was working behind the counter at the Garage Sale, I attended most of the presentations in the main room where the vendor tables were. But, I tag-teamed with other Core Daughters of Divination and caught both of Mary Greer’s classes, one each afternoon. I’m drawn to the historical talks and Mary’s got the goods. One day she talked about her historical tarot tour of Northern Italy. OK, skip what I said about airfare and lodging; I want to go on a tarot tour of Northern Italy. The second afternoon she talked about the history of the Lenormand. And how cool! Apparently “tarot bingo” is actually an historical tradition. I blushed when Mary gave my Dust Bunny Lenormand a plug and sent people from her class back to buy a deck. Wow! Thanks, Mary!!

The days were long and fun and yet, when it was time to pack up and steal into the night, I was sad it was over. Nancy Antenucci and I helped Dan Pelletier push the cart of boxes of Tarot Garden decks, significantly fewer than at the start of the weekend, up the hotel parking garage ramp and laughed again over the skits they performed with Rhonda Lund and Thalassa at the breaks. I still am not sure how Dan got out of that straightjacket; practice, I expect.

I am so grateful to Thalassa, her husband, her daughter, and all the DOD’s who worked so hard to make the 21^st SF BATS so full of tarot goodness. And for Thalassa herself who weathered this year's personal tragedies, job search woes and behind-the-scenes snafus resolved without a hair out of place, BOOP! The Show Must Go On!

Best wishes.

Attack of Conscience

I talked to anything when I was little. Mom got me a parakeet. Jill, a male parakeet as it turns out, seldom got a word in edgewise. He could say, “Drink,” especially when he heard water running in the kitchen sink. Jill and I were adoring friends, though. He liked to sit on top of my head and play with my long blonde hair.

We had dogs when I was very little, springer spaniels, I think. Clementine, named for my very favorite song that she and I would sing together, encouraged to stay outdoors, shared a dog biscuit one day when I was in need of deep doggy comfort. Of course, I talked to Clementine, certain she understood my every word.

Clementine and her brother Rocky had to go away though. I don’t remember why. It was some grown up reason of course. Having had and lost a dog all in one year, a year when my parents were in full bloom of their years-long, most bitter and violent fighting, I switched roles in what now seems like a perfectly understandable way from a psychological point of view. I became protective of all animals who needed someone to hug them and love them and talk softly to them. I became detached from people who were angry and sad and loud and frightening. I built fortresses of stuffed animals to buffer me from the screaming and tears when I wasn’t trying to actively intervene to make it better.

I quickly learned to read and became a fan of children’s mysteries, usually stories where the adults who were supposed to help didn’t or couldn’t. The children rose to the occasion, most often with their animal companions who understood and supported them. Often the children, the animals or something interesting they found was magical in nature. Sometimes a kindly older person would give them a hint or let them in on a secret most adults had forgotten.

Half Magic by Edward Eager was one of my favorites. Four children, left to the latch-key because their father was gone and their mother was forced to work, stumble across a nickel that wasn’t exactly a nickel. It was, of course, magic. Each of the children had an adventure, first by accident with one of them musing that she wished kitty could talk. The cat started sputtering in nearly-English epithets and the children worked out that the nickel was, well, half magic. They got half their wishes with unpredictable results.

One of the children, Kay, wanted to be part of King Arthur’s Round Table and found herself seated on a horse in full armor, a knight, “Sir” Kay. After knightly bravery and feats of derring-do, she takes off her helmet to reveal that she is, after all, just a little girl. I loved this part.

How could I be strong, brave, noble, effective, triumphant, rescuing, able, protected and protective? How could I be all those things and still a little girl? I liked being a girl. I just wanted to be all those other things too. Kay got her chance to wear her armor and was assumed to be knightly until she revealed herself to be herself, someone who was underestimated.

It should not be a surprise, then, that all my pets are rescues. Maybe it is because I wanted to be rescued from my family’s unhappiness and turned it around so I would not cast myself in the role of victim without hope.

In the transition from talking to stuffed-toys to adult stray critter collector, I had some bumps along the way.

It was 7^th grade, a year of bitter disappointments, social disasters and dashed fantasies. It was winter in wind-bitten New Mexico and lunch-time. We huddled in groups, near doorways, behind trees, anywhere on the junior high campus to shield us from the relentless blast that went through all the layers of clothing, sometimes laced with “dry” snow, little ice balls with a grain of dust at the center of each. We waited for the teachers to let us back into the building.

A commotion on the east wall of the main building drew my attention. It was one of the teachers, Mr. Burke, a bull of a man, history teacher and football coach. A shivering puppy had wandered onto the campus and sought shelter in a winter-dormant flower patch. Mr. Burke was kicking the puppy, kicking its head against the wall, the rough brick wall. The puppy was squealing in pain. Mr. Burke was yelling. The kids were yelling. I snapped.

I had no armor but I charged. I landed on the teacher’s back like a creature from a gothic horror, screaming, trying to strangle him. I had never tried to kill anyone or anything besides cockroaches before. I was only partially successful. The puppy got away. Mr. Burke lived.

For the next two years, I called him “Fatty” to his face, daring him to hit me even as he punched my cafeteria lunch ticket each day in line. I learned he beat his children. I saw his daughter bear the bruises of his brutality. My loathing grew. This abuser of the weak had power over us. He learned I played football in the summers with the boys, one of only two girls the guys allowed to play. Mr. Burke said it was too bad I couldn’t play varsity junior high football since I wiped up the sandlot with his team off season. I smirked but hated him still.

Finally, junior high was nearly over. I had a hall pass, a valid reason to be in the hallway during class for some errand. And Mr. Burke stopped me.

“I have a hall pass,” I glared defiantly, all 5’1” of pure resentment. Oh, this teacher inspired me, all right. I determined to be a teacher. One more of me meant one fewer of his kind. I couldn’t kill him even though I tried that one day long ago but I could be what he never could.

“See here, McCord,” he sputtered. “I have to ask you a question.” I waited, feet planted.

Tea Tarot
(c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord

“All this time I thought you were just some ordinary ornery kid, calling me names. Now I find out you’re one of the smartest kids in school. Why don’t you treat me with respect?”

I was astonished. He didn’t know. His depravity was so complete that it never occurred to him what he was. My chin started to crawl up my face, about to crumple into tears. But Mom had taught me if you’re going to talk, say something intelligent. I spoke distinctly, knowing I would not be able to repeat myself.

“I cannot respect a man who kicks dogs,” I spat out word by word, suddenly 6 feet tall in full armor, my hall pass a sword in my hand. I had risen to become not the Knight but the Queen of Swords finally able use the truth as a weapon in defense against tyranny. And I ran for the girls’ bathroom and stayed, sobbing until the bell rang. I was half magic too.

Best wishes.

Live! On Stage!

Going to the outdoor theatre and seeing Blithe Spirit last week brought back memories of the stage. It’s true: not all of them were happy memories.



Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


I think I mentioned once that I didn’t enjoy being a model. Even still in ruffled baby pants, I was pretty sure that boop-boop-ee-doo bending over to show that big appliqued valentine was funny for everyone except me. I didn’t like the attention. How could a three-year-old conclude that they were not giving me attention, they just liked the cute clothes on the little blonde girl. It was nothing personal.

I greeted my modeling days with the same joy I did sitting on “Santa’s” lap, that guy in the red suit who smelled like booze and tobacco. I didn’t like the Easter Bunny in the department store either.

Not that I didn’t try my hand at performing now and again. Dancing lessons were a flop, but, oh, that chicky costume! Mrs. T’s piano lessons were much better for the costumes than the music. I thought so at the time. Having learned grace under pressure as a runway—should that be toddleway?—model I was able to gut it out through bad fingering and crashing chords, curtsey, retreat to backstage. Only then did I faint. What a trouper!

I don’t know why I kept trying the stage when I hated it. I think in some ways it was a sense of altruism, volunteering to save some other child from the mortification and terror of being under public scrutiny for their entertainment, not one’s own. This form of self-sacrifice was mistaken for a craving for attention of the thespian variety.

It didn’t take me long to convince myself that I was not leading lady material. But funny girls can be sidekicks, supporting actresses, comic relief, “wing chicks.” And there I found my comfort zone.

Pressing still on my urge for creative expression was my consideration for my older brother. He played the part of the husband in the 9^th grade’s production of Wait Until Dark. In spite of the fact that he was my brother, the one I had known all my life, through squirt guns, sandbox squabbles, he, the one who lost his pet mouse in his room, in spite of all that, he was pretty good, I had to admit.  He played guitar in a band. We had been so competitive all our lives but in junior high I became embarrassed about competing with him academically. We had both made difficult transitions moving from Florida to New Mexico. We found out quickly that our new school chums were critical of kids who made good grades. My brother ditched his grades purposefully to make friends; I would not, preferring to be hated for the truth than liked for a lie. Or, that’s how I saw it at the time. Junior high kids can be so…dramatic.

When he showed his flair for theatre and music, I postponed those activities until after he graduated from high school. In my senior year, I went hog wild. Literally.

I remember cringing once at a customer in the antique shop who was trying to be kind and chirped, “Oh, to be sixteen and beautiful again! This is the best time of your life.” I thought glumly, If it’s downhill from here, someone please just park me in the sand dunes and let me dry up. Then, the only consolation about having boys talk to my chest was that they weren’t inspecting my unreliable complexion.

In my senior year, I suddenly relaxed, no longer in fear of outshining my brother. He had gone on to college, even though the university was closer to the house than the high school. I had come into my own. I was the editor of the yearbook, something I had aspired to since 7^th grade. I sang in choir and madrigals. Our high school went to All-State and I passed the audition to be in the All-State Choir. I tried out for the school play and won a part as The Maid; my hair, dress and make-up so “good” that I could hear kids in the audience asking, “Who is that?” Perfect, I thought, perfect.

I would later go on to be a newscaster for a radio station, citing my lack of nervousness as being my point of view. I wasn’t talking to 30,000 listeners. I was talking to a hunk of metal on a stand, a microphone, safe from stage fright by speaking earnestly to an inanimate object. I sang tenor with Sweet Adelines and was a member of a quartet, finding my safe zone to be the barrier that was the edge of the stage. After the performance, in hands of my octogenarian adoring fans I was once again terrified.

One performance, though, filled me with perfect ease. It was my senior year of high school, that moment when I was sure that I was bright with a brilliant future ahead of me. It was the All-School Program and there was a Show to put on. Super Bill, our choir director had some ideas about a few light-hearted acts to put on in between the sincere performances of folk song and ballet. There were costumes. There were microphones. We were going to sing and dance.

We were The Three Little Pigs.

Super Bill rightly assessed his performers. Kathy, Earlene and I actually did have the brass to dress up in pig costumes and sing and dance on stage. Brian, handsome, glib, dangerous, a wolf in real life with an endless string of attempted conquests in his reputation, was The Big Bad Wolf.

It was dress rehearsal night. We ran through the entire show in costume, with the band, the props, the sets, the whole enchilada. It was Pig Time and we were on. And suddenly I noticed that my microphone wasn’t there, no stand, no mike, no cord.

“Super Bill!” I wailed through my pink pig persona, “my microphone!”

“Aw, go ahead and sing,” Bill cajoled me back to pig performance. “We’ll get another one for you tomorrow night.”

So, in my best deep-breathing projection, I tried to compensate for the lack of electric amplification, belted out my Number Two Pig solo, sang and danced with my pretend-porcines and screamed and ran, perhaps with all too real horror, from Brian the Big Bad Wolf.

At the end of the Pig Performance, we awaited the assessment. Was it OK or do we need to do it again? A call came from the darkened back row of the theatre. Who it was I will never know, but he proclaimed what my brother had suggested for years.

The Queen of Wands is the life of the party. She is in her element not necessarily as the Star of the Show but in the thick of the energy. She encourages those around her to join in. She loves a crowd. She need not be the prettiest girl in the room. She’s on fire. She might be one of the most interesting people you’ll ever talk to, Dos Equis or not. She might wear you out.

“Marcia doesn’t need a microphone.”

Well. The show was a success. My microphone made a mysterious reappearance on the night of the performance. But I have since retired from the stage.

Best wishes.