The Perfect Dinner Party

What’s on my mind? Gave a dinner party in the garden, last night. Weather? Perfect. Food? Perfect. Company? Perfect.

Moving in synch, Himself and I were the perfect hosts. PERFECT.

Some small or large detail usually goes wrong at my dinner parties: “Ooops! Left the buns in the freezer!” or “Ooops! Forgot the cutlery!” That sort of thing. Not this time. Last night, everything was perfect. Almost.

(Never mind my past dinner party disasters - the worst of which was the Baked Alaska that - hard as it is to imagine or believe - EXPLODED INTO FLAMES, upon which I SCREAMED so loudly that everyone RAN from the dining room INTO THE KITCHEN as the Baked Alaska HURTLED TO THE GROUND like a RED-HOT METEOR on a COLLISION COURSE with their feet. Oh, well. Having gone through all the effort of making such a fancy dessert, I slopped it onto their plates DIRECTLY FROM THE FLOOR. True story.)

Relaxing in the garden, we spoke of many things. It wasn’t long before the conversation between two female guests turned to laundry (“Laundry???” I thought). One said: “It would be nice to hang the laundry out in this weather, but our neighborhood’s bylaws don’t allow it.” 

Another said: “Fred built me a laundry line high enough for our king-sized sheets to blow in the breeze! You can do anything you like with your laundry when you live in a rural area.” 

Laundry not being the highlight of my life, I pretended to be fascinated by their conversation while actually zoning out. I gazed over our familiar garden - trees, bushes, flowers, planters, lawn swing, brassiere draped over a chair, side tables … brassiere draped over a chair??? 

Bursting from the table, I sprinted into the garden to grab and hide the freshly washed bra drying in the sun. 

The woman who’d initiated the laundry conversation was sitting at the table with her back to the garden. Ever so casually, she asked: “Was that your black bra? Don’t worry … I didn’t see it.”

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Problem with Peeing

What’s on my mind? Dreams. The sleeping kind - not the “If only I had a million bucks” kind.

My dreams tend to have … Dialogue! Action! Color! 

The post immediately below discusses (in a scientifically anatomical way, with diagrams ... Don’t all stampede to read it at once) the complications of peeing while camping. I find the very idea of peeing + camping unnatural. Hell, anything could come along in the wilderness of a campsite - like pee-loving bears or skunks or a whole mess of slugs.

So traumatized was I by the Pee Problem (the communal bathroom being a 984-mile hike from our tent) that we agreed our camping days were over. We’d blown our entire vacation budget on a six-night, no-refund campground reservation where we stayed just one night. Such is life. 

Home again, we snuggled into our comfy bed and fell asleep. Which was when the horror of my latest dream began unspooling. Himself wasn’t in the dream, perhaps because I feared he might propose: “Let’s go camping again, for old times’ sake.” If he’d done that (even in a dream), he’d be in traction.

In my dream, I decided to buy a fly-speck of a unit on the top floor of a 31-storey Big City apartment complex: I must have won the lottery in some previous dream I’ve forgotten.

To my shock, on the day I moved in, I discovered that a realtor was sitting at a desk where the bathroom had been when I signed the purchase agreement.

“Where’s the bathroom???” I shrieked.

“Didn’t you read the contract?” he asked. “It clearly said that as a condition of sale, we’d be removing the bathroom and replacing it with our sales office.” 

“But how can I go to the toilet?” I mewled.

“Just take the elevator to the basement. Unlock the room where we keep the dumpsters (appropriate term). You’ll find a toilet there. Here’s the key.”

“B-b-but that’s 31 storeys down!” Technically, it was 32, but who’s counting?

He shrugged. 

“Where can I shower?” 

“You agreed to the contract!” he said, airily. “Surely you have friends …”

At 3 am, when I usually rise to pee, I donned my dressing gown, rode the elevator to the basement, unlocked the dumpster room door, relieved myself, and attempted to unlock the door to return to the elevator. That’s when I learned the key to let me IN wasn’t the key to let me OUT. The realtor had neglected to give me that particular key. 

And that, dear friends, was when claustrophobia entered my dream like a bear and a skunk and a whole mess of slugs, and I began to scream. The storage room for the dumpsters, you see, looked precisely like our tent.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Unhappy Campers

What’s on my mind? Camping. In a dog tent. Which is about a million times bigger than a pup tent. Himself and I have made a pact. We have a six-night reservation at a campsite. Although it’s less than seven miles from our house, we’ve pinky-sworn that no way, no-siree, are we going home for any reason whatsoever. 

Day 1, June 2: 

10 am: “Take a warm jacket,” Himself says. “I’m perfectly fine,” I say. “You’ll freeze,” he says. “I won’t,” I say.

10:05 am: I apply my makeup as Himself packs the wine, the beer, the vodka, the food, the cooler, the ax, the rope, the tarps, the collapsible chairs, the propane, the bird book, the binoculars, the pots, the plastic plates, the plastic cups, the metal cups, the three-way cutlery, the block of ice, the garlic press, the knife, the vegetable peeler, the air mattress, the pump for the air mattress, the sleeping bags, the bug spray, the giant orange water cooler that holds about 10,000 gallons, the firewood, the propane stove, the fire starters, the towels, the tent, the tent pegs, and lots of other stuff. I’m hot (Yeah, baby ... Yeah!). I deliberately leave my warm jacket at home.

12 pm: We arrive at the campground. Himself starts setting up camp. 

2 pm: Himself finishes setting up camp.

2:05 pm: “I’m freezing!” I say. “Put on your warm jacket,” says Himself. I Velcro my lips shut. 

2:10 pm: Clouds roll in like bowling balls, heavy and black. Rain threatens. “I’m freezing!” I repeat. 

2:45 pm: “I’m freezing!” We’ve been in camp 2-3/4 hours. We drive home to get my triple-insulated hoodie jacket, my thermal underwear, and the fixings for hot buttered rum. Our neighbor, Mr. Harris, asks: “Home so soon?”

3:00 pm: “Why do you need an ax, Himself? ” “The better to chop things with, my dear.” 

4:00 pm: “I’m roasting!” Himself says nothing (What pearly white teeth you have, my dear).

6:00 pm: Who knew dish detergent and cooking oil look exactly the same in unlabeled jars?

9:30 pm: We sit around the campfire, trying to read The New Yorker with our flashlights. Himself says I’ll melt the sole of my shoe if I prop it against the firepit. I melt the sole of my shoe.

9:45 pm: The communal camp bathrooms are about 10,000 miles from our tent, so we use them before bed. We enter the tent, bounce around on the air mattress, zip the tent flap, wriggle into our PJs, and cocoon ourselves in our sleeping bags. Himself immediately falls asleep. 

Two minutes later, I urgently need to pee again, so - with no idea how to find the communal bathrooms - un-cocoon, bounce around on the air mattress, unzip the tent flap, fall out of the tent (!), creep into the woods, relieve myself, do it again in reverse (including now falling into the tent), and start sawing logs.

Day 2, June 3:

2:30 am: “Vake up! You must go on ze klo.” It’s my long-dead Austrian mother, urging me to get up and pee. My Belgian father stands beside her - same message, French accent. I repeat my vaudevillian routine.

5:30 am: Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

6:00 am: People really do know when they’re being stared at. Himself snaps awake, my face three inches from his. I tell him about the air-mattress-bouncing and the tent-falling-out-of and the tent-falling-into and my voice begins to quaver. 

“Let’s start the day with a good breakfast!” he says. 

7:00 am: Two Denver omelets, coming right up! We’ve started this particular day at the local diner.

8:00 am: We break camp.  As we do, I see two kids and their parents struggling to carry bowls of water to their campsite. “Would you like to have a giant orange water cooler that holds about 10,000 gallons?” I didn't need to ask twice.

8:53 am: We’re outta here.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Trickle-Down Effect

What’s on my mind? I’ve always wanted a pond. This week, I got my wish. It took one long day for not-me to dig out the deep-rooted shrubbery and big rocks where the pond is now; another long day to build the pond and its waterfall; one day to landscape it; and another day to stand back and admire it. 

A pond! At last! All we need now is for the ground cover not-me planted to take hold and spread. 

I especially like the pond’s waterfall, which trickles over flat shale stones as a soothing sound. I like soothing sounds. I find them so ... soothing. A few days ago, not-me added a small lily pad (which will grow into a large lily pad and flower), a water hyacinth (which will also flower) and some “green dots.”  

These aren’t your everyday green dots. These are lah-di-dah green dots with some Latinate green-dot name known only to stout ladies in large hats who chair small-town garden society meetings (No offence intended, Florence). 

(None taken, bitch -  F.)

While lily pads, pond hyacinths and green dots are technically considered weeds, they look beautiful and aren’t hard for not-me to control in a small pond. What is hard to control is the three-year-old who toddles over to that same pond to eat lily pads, hyacinths and green dots. Two words: Induce vomiting. One word: HELP!

Do not let an untended three-year-old near your pond. Do not let an untended blankety-blank-year-old near your pond. She won’t lift a finger, but is very good at pointing to tell you where and how to dig, install, and landscape said pond.

Even simple, low-maintenance ground cover needs weeding, so not-me added slate flagstones around the pond, to help access whatever Latinate weeds not-me may find. However …! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7Op86ox9g

Rising early this morning, I stepped out the door to admire the pond. Our lily pad was gone! Our pond was filthy! Raccoons had been doing the back stroke and having a mud bath in our beautiful pond!

There’s trouble in River City! Oh, we got trouble! And it starts with T and it rhymes with P for ... pond.

Tonight, Himself shook most of a big bottle of Mexican hot sauce on the stones encircling the pond. “That’ll get rid of those raccoons,” he said. “They’re no match for hot sauce!”

“B-b-but …”

“Trust me.” 

Which I do, but if we see them wearing sombreros and joining a mariachi band, we’ll know there really is trouble in River City. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Paper Hearts for Small Towns

What’s on my mind? Our small-town newspaper. I love this paper! Honest, I do. Stuffed with as many flyers as Big City papers once had, this nugget of news arrives on the step twice a week, free of charge. Small-town newspapers are the glue that binds small communities.

Page 1 of yesterday’s paper features a photo of a 69-year-old skydiver at the local airport (a common sight, here), a neighboring town’s approval of four non-medical cannabis shops (the phrase “hell in a hand basket” comes to mind), and a link to the sad demise of three sheep-killing cougars.

As usual, the paper's stuffed with ads.

We read these ads because we want to support local merchants. So! I’ve just read an ad for one of these bathtub-refit places in which a new tub is placed over the old one.

Well! The ad has the usual BEFORE and AFTER shots. The BEFORE photo shows a sleek, pristine, beautiful tub. The AFTER shot is of an indistinct, fuzzy, dirty, and possibly cracked tub. Reread that. Yep ... That’s what the photos and their captions show.

The ad also says: “Your Bathroom Will Be the Envy of the Neighborhood.” Uh-huh ...

I’m not poking fun at the newspaper, or at the bathtub company (“locally and independently owned and operated”), or at our beautiful little community. Stuff happens, and it can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The newspaper is my morning smile. I wouldn’t trade this charming place for city living under any circumstances. Oh, how I love small towns!

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Wonderment in the Sky

What’s on my mind? A couple of days ago, the story below appeared in The New York Times. Scroll past its many annoying ads: The final sentence starts with “Incidents tapered off...” 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wow-what-is-that-navy-pilots-report-unexplained-flying-objects/ar-AABXltD

Many of you will have variations of stories not unlike my own true experience. Until I spoke to my children and to Himself earlier today, I’ve never told anyone what I saw. I don’t know why. I just never have.

On a clear summer’s day in the late 1960s, my former husband and I saw an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). Alan Strickland and I were driving along a quiet road in central British Columbia, Canada, when we encountered the classic flat-bottomed dome in space movies of the day. Alan has since died or he’d verify my words.

We immediately pulled to the shoulder of the road to watch it hang, motionless, in the sky. We didn’t leave the car. We were too astonished to move.

With no reference points such as buildings or trees, it was impossible to tell how near or far the UFO was. I can’t estimate its size, but it was close enough that I can say with certainty we saw no openings one might consider windows or doors. It appeared to be metal … I can’t remember if it was shiny or dull, but its surface was clean and undimpled. 

Math isn’t my strong suit: I’m confident I could still draw the angle it was at, but have no idea how to state the number of degrees that angle was. The craft was soundless. We felt no fear. 

My best guess is that the UFO hung there seven-to-10 seconds after we spotted it. It suddenly took off faster than anything I’ve ever seen - without a sound and on an angle, rather than vertically. It disappeared in (I’m guessing) two seconds. There was no slow start, as with a car. It instantly moved from zero to zip. I’ve seen US Airforce jets; This was faster. My memory of most of this is clear and distinct.

In 1967, Alan saw another UFO in the sky above the prairie in Manitoba, Canada. If he described it at the time, I don’t remember what he said. I, too, saw a second UFO, also in the late 1960s. Oddly, especially for something so unusual and presumably memorable, I have no idea where, when, or with whom I saw it, or what it looked like. Zero. All I know is that I saw a second UFO, and wasn’t dreaming. Once again, I felt no fear. 

I’m a rational, science-based person. I have no idea what UFOs are, or from where they originate, but I firmly believe in their existence. For reasons unknown to me, I’ve never told anyone - not even (while they were alive) my parents, or (until today) my children, or my close friends. 

Nor did Alan ever say one word about what he’d seen. He and I didn’t even discuss it between ourselves, other than his report to me that he’d seen a UFO in rural Manitoba. 

I haven’t thought about what we saw for more than 50 years. My son directed me to the NYT story only after I thought to tell my children about this experience earlier today.

Two days ago, I had a minor medical procedure in a Canadian hospital. I always marvel that a patient can be compos mentis one minute, unconscious the next, and - unaware of pain and the passage of time - then fully awake, with no memory of a procedure that may have taken several hours. Question: Could something similar be at work with UFO sightings?

My son suspects the question has shifted from “Are they there?” to “Who and what are they?” Rationalism aside, I suspect he’s right.

© Nicole Parton, 2019 

Cupboard Love

Cupboard love is a popular learning theory of the 1950s and 1960s based on the research of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Mary Ainsworth. Rooted in psychoanalysis, the theory speculates that attachment develops in the early stages of infancy. 

This process involves the mother satisfying her infant’s instinctual needs, exclusively. Cupboard love theorists conclude that during infancy, our primary drive is food, which leads to a secondary drive for attachment.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupboard_love

What’s on my mind? My firstborn arrived as the snow bucketed down in January, 1971. His twin sisters were born as more snow bucketed down in December of the same year. I was, as the joke often went, a slow learner about cause and effect.

Mother’s Day has come and gone, but I’m still thinking about the four-year-old who went missing from a school playground March 24, 1991. With his parents and others nearby, no one saw him drop from sight.

As though an invisible portal opened and quickly closed, he just ... vanished. His May birthday came and went. This year, his birthday fell on Mother’s Day, as it has several times in the 28 years since he walked into the ether without a trace. 

There were cruel rumors the child had been found ... The parents had divorced ... Untrue.

I met his mother, once. Her pain pierced my heart like a spear. Thinking of her lost child made me want to hold my own closer.

While there’s no comparison between that gut-wrenching story and my then-14-month-old son’s brief disappearance, having three children born in the same calendar year made it difficult to keep an eye on them.  

Parents and caregivers are often tested. My test came as a line of volunteers and police officers searched for my son in the high yellow grasses of an autumn field. 

I didn’t know how long he’d been missing. Ten minutes? Twenty? As he sat and played with his cars and blocks, his three-month-old sisters screamed for the food and diaper changes that kept me running in circles. When I looked up, their brother was gone.

The police came almost immediately after my hysterical call. As they and volunteers beat the high grass, another officer tried every door in the townhouse complex where we lived. 

The front door of an unlocked suite opened directly onto a kitchen. Although no one was home, a trail of cereal lead to a closed cupboard. In that cupboard sat my son, calmly and silently eating in the dark, one hand in a box of Cheerios. 

Kisses and tears met his triumphant return. There are many ways to lose a child, some of them tragic. We were fortunate.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Giving Illogic the Cold Shoulder

I Googled the words “Antarctic Dating Sites,” this morning. When you’ve exhausted all the dating possibilities in Toronto, New York, London, and Paris, well … Doesn’t every single look further afield? In this case, the snowfields of the South Pole?

I’m not single, and have no-o-o interest in looking beyond our happy home, so please consider this post “research.” If you’re single, you’ll be sure to find the person of your dreams in Antarctica! At least, that’s what the Antarctic dating sites suggest. 

Antarctica isn’t my end game in this literary jaunt, but you’ll have to wait a bit to find out what is. I recommend you Google “Antarctica” to find the answers to the questions that have plagued your troubled dreams for years, weeks, or the last few seconds, whichever comes first. 

Questions such as: Has anyone ever been murdered in Antarctica? Has anyone ever been born in Antarctica? Are there spiders in Antarctica (Yes, yes, and yes). Plenty of other non-Antarctic questions plague my troubled dreams. Asking them has generally served me well: It never hurts to ask questions and seek objective answers.

Right now, I’m curious about dating sites - especially those that purport to feature “Antarctic singles” eager to connect with you and me. 

Take this Antarctica dating site, for example: “Join our site and meet single Antarctica men and single Antarctica women looking to meet quality singles for fun and dating in Antarctica … Sign up now to begin using one of the largest online dating sites in the world!”

Or this one, headed: “Antarctic Dating Site/The Irish Civil War.” Wondering what the connection between Antarctica and The Irish Civil War might be, I clicked. What popped up was the name of a town not far from where I live. 

As you likely know, geolocators can easily pinpoint where your computer is. The photo supposedly taken in the town not far from me showed the many half-naked people who allegedly live there (not with highrises towering in the background, they don’t).

The half-naked people who allegedly live in the alleged place allegedly near me look so … cool! Maybe that’s because their second home is in Antarctica and they’ve just returned from fighting the Irish Civil War. 

Curiously, the dating site makes no reference to Antarctica. Zippo. Could this be a (gasp!) scam?

It’s winter in Antarctica right now. Antarctica has 24 hours of darkness in winter - as I learned from doing a little basic research. Here’s a photo of some of those happy, good-looking singles just waiting to meet you and me today. 

Too bad Antarctica’s Internet and communications service is limited, with most of it dedicated to its research stations, making it unlikely for one of these gorgeous singles to have meaningful online dating-site chats. Learning this took only basic sleuthing - asking Google questions; receiving answers ... asking Google more questions; receiving more answers. 

. 

Fun facts: Antarctica has an area of 5,500,00 square miles, or 14,200,000 square kilometers. Its population density is 0.0002 per square mile, or 0.00008 per square kilometer. Its terrain comprises glaciers, ice shelves and icebergs. 

That, too, speaks to the difficulty of a meaningful connection. Anything’s possible, of course, but the odds don’t look good. A little open-ended research strongly suggests that.

Ahhh. but here’s yet another dating site: 

Antarctica’s best FREE dating site! … Start meeting singles in Antarctica today with our free online personals and free Antarctica chat! Antarctica is full of single men and women like you looking for dates, lovers, friendship, and fun. 

Finding them is easy with our totally FREE Antarctica dating service. Sign up today to browse the FREE personal ads of available Enderby Land singles, and hook up online using our completely free Antarctica online dating service! Start dating in Antarctica today!

All of this doesn’t mean there are no singles in Antarctica. I suspect there are plenty. But Googling Antarctic dating sites may not be the best way to a meaningful relationship with someone who actually lives and works in Antarctica, rather than a half-naked poseur. 

Googling Antarctic dating sites is obviously a ridiculous exercise, but it’s not a waste of time. 

It’s important to ask questions - and plenty of  ’em. Some people rarely do. They want to believe that even if something looks and sounds too good to be true, it must be true because they want it to be true. That can lead to a whole mess of trouble, usually financial. 

Do your homework. Pay attention to information that may conflict with your beliefs, particularly when it comes from credible sources such as government agencies. Check for lawsuits and their outcomes. Check reviews. If they’re relevant and available, look at balance sheets. 

The Internet can be the Wild West of sales pitches, but it’s a good, basic research tool. Be careful out there. Use your noodle. THINK.

© Nicole Parton, 2019