A Penny Saved

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

April was pretty sure family vacations were the worst part of being an only child. Sure, all her friends with siblings complained endlessly about being stuck with their brothers and sisters for a week, but then they came back from vacation with stories about how their older brother taught them how to do the pizza wedge on the bunny slope for the first time (whatever that was), or how they built an epic sandcastle with their little sister. Yeah, family vacations as on only child really sucked, which was why she wasn’t thrilled when her parents told her they would be taking one in a week.

By the time dinner came around, she had formulated a plan.

“Dad?” she asked as she pushed her mashed potatoes around the plate, “do they have wishing wells in Scotland?”

“Sure hone, I bet we can find a wishing-well.”

She smiled, but she didn’t dare tell her dad her secret plan.

After dinner snuck a hammer up to her room, and with the door securely closed, she pulled her piggy bank down from the top shelf. With a great thwack it broke open.

“Sorry piggy.” She whispered as she scooped up the coins and deposited them into her suitcase.

The flight was long, and the drive from the airport was boring, but as they approached town she grew excited, because out in the field in front of the bed and breakfast stood a well.

“Is that the wishing well?” she asked, pointing out the window.

“Why yes, honey, I think it is.”

After check-in, she ventured out to the well, her pockets filled with as many coins as they could hold. She held her breath and tossed them in one by one, making the same wish each time, but nothing happened.

It became her routine throughout the week-long vacation. Every day they would go out and look at lame churches, and statues, and museums; and each night she would run out to the well, but she was beginning to doubt her plan would work.

On the very last night of vacation, she made one more walk out to the garden, clutching the last coin she had left, a penny from the year she was born. She approached the well, closed her eyes, and wished as hard as she could as she tossed the penny in, but instead of the familiar plunk of water, she heard a different sound, a sort of cry.

She ran back inside, screaming “Dad, there’s someone in the well!”

Back out in the garden, she stood impatiently next to her father as he raised the bucket from the bottom of the well, but instead of a little brother or sister, a fuzzy head with a big wet nose appeared.

“It’s a puppy!” she exclaimed.

“So it is,” her dad replied, turning towards the Inn Keeper who had appeared in the garden, “is this your little guy.”

“Nope,” the Inn Keeper shrugged.

“Hmm,” her said, turning back towards April, “what do you think we should name him?”

“Does that mean I get to keep him?” she squealed.

“Well, I suppose so.”

“I think he should be called Penny.”

An Apple a Day

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I liked to consider myself a world traveler, saving up my precious two-weeks-of-vacation-a-year to bum about Europe, but this year we had a wedding to go to, and that wedding was in Toronto. So, I figured this was the perfect excuse to do some touristing closer to home. First stop? New York City!

New York City is many things, The Big Apple, The City So Nice They Named It Twice, The Empire City, and of course, The City That Never Sleeps. Now I don’t know about apples and empires, but that last one I learned all too well.

Our plane landed at La Guardia at 5:47 PM. We skipped baggage claim thanks to our awesome travel-light powers honed from our backpacking trips in Europe. We were in an impossibly long line for a taxi by 6:00 PM, which moved amazingly fast. By 7:30 we had checked into our hotel and were back out on the street to scrounge up some dinner. After dinner we made our way back to our hotel, but even though it was nearly 10 PM, we were still on West Coast time, so we decided to have a little night cap, or two, or three.

It was an Irish Pub. It was on the same block as our hotel. There was a group of guys dressed as super heroes sidled up to the long wooden bar. There was a second story balcony with a couple of awesome tables overlooking the street below. It was people watching paradise.

Do you know how late bars in New York City stay open? I’m not really sure either, but the bar was still going strong by the time we stumbled back to our hotel. I don’t know what we were thinking, but by the end of the night, I really wasn’t thinking anything at all.

My alarm went off at 7 AM. I wanted nothing more than to down an entire bottle of ice-cold water, turn the pillow to the cold side, and pull the duvet over my head. Unfortunately, we had to be on the 8:30 AM ferry to Liberty Island.  I was really starting to hate the me that planned this vacation.

Somehow, we made it into clothes and out the door. We rushed down the quite sidewalk and into the stairwell into the Subway. I saw the ticket machine across the platform and made a beeline for it, completely ignoring the neon pink pile of puke? Yup, it was puke, and I stepped right in it. This was the last thing my already angry tummy needed.

I’m still not sure how I made it through the subway ride, but the fresh sea air and morning sun on the top deck of the ferry started to clear my head. It was only 8:41 am, and that evil vacation planner (me) had packed the day full of activities, but right at that moment the view of that iconic skyline put a pause on the imminent upheaval brewing in my stomach.   

A Bad Workman

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the lights in the house were still blazing. I’d left in such a hurry yesterday I didn’t even turn them off. They were so bright in the misty morning, they must have been quite the site, lighting up the neighborhood all night, what with the lack of blinds on the windows and all. Oh well, hopefully it didn’t bother the neighbors too much, goodness knows I was already making quite the impression, screaming, squealing tires, burning lights, and such.

I’d ended up at my parent’s place after my rather hasty retreat from my brand new (to me) house the night before. I told them I just wanted to drop in and see how they were, I didn’t need to provide much more of an excuse than that, they were always happy to have a visit from their only child. They wanted me to stay for dinner, of course, and I happily accepted, of course. Then I had a few too many glasses of wine and had to stay the night. I may or may not have done that on purpose.

But now here I was, back at my extremely well-lit place, red wine hangover in tow (oh tannins, why do you hate me so?). I dragged my pounding head to the front door, unlocked it, and stood in the Pepto Bismol pink foyer (I could really have used some Pepto Bismol right at that very moment). Everything was quiet, just as it should be. Slowly I made my way into the house and down the hallway. The floorboards creaked with every other step. Stupid old house.

Finally, I made it into the kitchen. I picked up the sledgehammer I had discarded on the floor the night before, and with my heart starting to race and peered around the corner. Staring back at me from the other side of the dingy grey plaster wall I had been demoing just 24 hours before, was the creepy ragdoll, still holding a rusty knife. I almost turned and ran right back out of the house (I could just live in my parent’s house forever, right?), but then I saw it, a yellowed slip of paper tucked into the doll’s other hand. I was frozen with indecision. One the one hand, I could run right out the front door and never come back to the house with the creepy knife wielding doll (never mind I had just spent every cent I had saved for the last ten years to buy the place), on the other hand, I did have a sledgehammer, and there was a mysterious note.

Slowly I crept across the floor, sledgehammer poised ready behind me, and snatched the note from the doll’s creepy little hand. I ran back into the foyer and carefully unfolded the note. Inside, in red ink (or at least I hope it was ink), the note read:

“Hi, I’m Billy, I killed the last family that lived here. Good luck!”

Many Hands

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

It was a hot day, and a big climb, but we were promised glistening pools of water, fed by sparkling waterfalls that tumbled into fern lined canyons. It would be worth it, the guides said, the most beautiful place on the whole river, just make sure you take plenty of water to drink.

I took it slow, brining up the rear with the guide assigned to follow the stragglers (which was me, it was always me). She was nice though. Kira was her name, she couldn’t have been more than 25, tall and lanky like an elk, with feet like a mountain goat, it was as if she had been raised scaling these red rocks in the desert heat. And yet here she was, poking slowly up with me, pulling my ass up the trickier parts, and all the while making pleasant small talk. It was what made a good wilderness guide, I supposed.

I tried not to feel badly about slowing the group down as we summited yet another ledge. I stood there for a moment, hiding in a sliver of shade provided by the outcropping of the next rock shelf hanging above us.

“Only a few more left before we enter the slot canyon,” Kira said chirpily

I unscrewed the cap from my Nalgene and took a swig of my desert warmed water.

“Okay,” I replied, “let’s do this.”

Sure enough, after a few more scrambles up what felt like sheer rock faces, we turned the corner into a mercifully shaded canyon. The space was narrow, with just enough room for a trail  that was perched over a creek flowing down the slot far below. I walked slowly on, conscious of the consequences of a missed step, though I was also savoring the relative cool of the canyon.

“Hey Jenny!” Kira bubbled up behind me.

“Yeah?” I replied, turning carefully to face her.

“Check out the wall of the canyon on the other side of the creek.”

I looked over, to the sheer red wall of rock across the dizzying depths of the niche carved by the bubbling creek far below us. I studied the wall, but couldn’t figure out what I was missing. Was this another geology lesson? Did she want me to appreciate the difference in the layers of rock (that frankly all looked the same to me, but apparently were slowly built up over eons).

“The hands,” she said, apparently picking up on my confusion, “do you see them?”

And then I did, outlines of hands, hundreds of them, decorated the wall.

“But how?” I replied.

“The Anasazi Indians. We think it was some kind of ritual, or perhaps just showing off for their friends, they would leap over the slot, their hands covered in paint, and leave the prints before bouncing off the wall safely back to the trail.”

“Well fuck that shit,” I replied. And we both stood there in silence, marveling about the people who were here before us, and this canyon they called home.

 

Early to Bed

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

The wobble of the steering wheel and the distinctive thump thump coming from the passenger side rear wheel alerted me to the unfortunate fact that I had a flat tire. I urged the car over to the shoulder, in front of a weathered old manor house that was covered in a thicket of thorny bushes, and got out to surveil the damage. Sure enough, the tire was flat. At least I didn’t have to be in Paris until the morning, but I had been hoping to get in a few hours early to do a bit of the tourist thing.

I opened the trunk of the car and located the spare, thank goodness. With rentals you never could be too sure about these things. Lugged the tire out of the trunk, then went back for the jack, which was mostly there, except one key component, the little metal rod that both unscrewed the nuts and helped raise the jack. Crap.

Fifteen minutes had passed and still not another vehicle had passed. At least it was a beautiful spring day. The sky was a deep blue, the fields were green and the flowers were just starting to bloom. I was marveling at a couple of blue tits dancing in the sky when I was startled from my trance by a small voice. I turned to see a young girl in a blue dress standing next to me.

“Monsieur” she said again, holding out a small bouquet of wild flowers.

“Oh,” I replied, “I’m sorry, you startled me.”

“Monsieur” she said again, extending the bouquet even more insistently towards me.

“Oh, is this for me?”

“Oui Monsieur, it is May 1^st,” she said, bowing her head, “faire la grasse matinée”

“Oh, well thank you. Are you from around here?”

“Oui monsieur,” she replied, and then she turned and skipped off through the spring flowers.

As I watched her disappear in the woods at the edge of the field, a car approached, and pulled over beside me. Thankfully the driver had a jack with all the requisite parts. As we worked to change the tire, I asked the man if he knew the area well. He said he was from the little town just around the bend in the road, born and raised, and, except for a few years during the war, he had lived there all his life. Naturally I told him about the little girl I had met, and as I finished my tale, I noticed he had stopped removing the nuts, and was now staring at me, slack-jawed.

“What is it sir, have I offened?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, and then after a long pause he continued, “do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Yes, well, what you probably don’t know is it’s based on a folk tale set right here, at this old manor house, and the child who lived here, who would awaken after a long sleep on May 1^st , roused by the blooming flowers of spring.”

“Huh”, I replied, “it seems I've seen a ghost.”

A Stitch In Time

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

“I can do this myself,” I whispered under my breath as I stood in the kitchen of my brand-new house, holding a sledgehammer in my right hand.

The truth was I had to do it myself. I had spent every last cent I had saved from the last 10 years, and even though the house was new to me, it was, in fact, very old, and it needed so much work. I surveyed the cracked linoleum, crumbling plaster, broken stove, and giant hole where the fridge would have been, and took a deep breath. I raised the sledgehammer high above my head and brought it down with a mighty crack against the dingy yellow tiled counter.

“There,” I said, “no turning back now.”

The counter demo took all morning. My arms ached and my back throbbed, but it was so satisfying to toss the last broken tile on the debris pile.

After lunch I found myself back in the kitchen, sledgehammer in hand, trying to decide where to land the first blow on the dingy grey plaster wall when a voice behind me caused me to jump. The sledgehammer fell from my hand with a thump.

“Sorry neighbor,” the voice said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.

I turned towards the back door to find an older man wearing a ratty fedora, chinos, and a half-full grin.

“Oh hi,” I replied, “I’m Frankie, I just…”

“Moved in here, yes, I figured. I’m Saul, your next-door neighbor. I heard you making a racket in hear all morning and thought I better welcome you to the neighborhood. Thought it might be the polite thing to do.”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I am so sorry about the noise. I should have come over and introduced myself and let you know I was starting to remodel. I hope it wasn’t too annoying.”

“Oh no, that’s fine, I can just turn the volume up on my tv. Though I say, if you get any louder, I’m gonna have to get surround sound or somethin’ cause the knob on my old set won’t turn any farther.

“No, no louder, I promise, I am just going to demo this plaster.”

“What, why would you do that?” the old man sneered. “That plaster just needs a little patching is all.”

“Hmm,” I replied, as I looked at the dingy crumbling wall again.

“Anyway,” the old man replied, “I’m going back to my shows now, you take care.”

The old man was creepy, that was probably why I didn’t take his advice. Well, that and I didn’t want to cut any corners. So I picked up my sledgehammer, and I swung it as hard as my sore arms could handle, and the wall crumbled away under the blow.

“Whew,” I said, wiping the sweaty dust from my brow, and then a saw it, sitting on the other side of the wall. A hand made ragdoll, holding a rusty knife.

“Oh hell no,” I shouted, as I dropped the sledgehammer and ran out of the house.

"I told you not to tear out the wall" Saul yelled over the fence.

 

 

A Bird In The Hand

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

“I can grant you one wish” the genie said with a wink.

“Perfect” I replied.

I had been experimenting with lucid dreaming, and here I was, finally aware I was in a dream. This was going to be fun.

“OK,” I said, “I want to go back in time to the day I graduated from college, so instead of starting on that shitty career path in that shitty town I can save up some money and actually travel the world like I always wanted.”

“Done” the genie said with a bow of the head, and in a flash of smoke he disappeared with a bang, and I woke up with a start.

“Damn,” I whispered into the darkness of my bedroom. With a sigh I rolled over to try and fall back asleep. Only something was wrong, it was the sheets, I didn’t recognize them.

I sprung out of the bed and felt around the wall for the lights witch, only it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Finally, I found it, but when I flipped it on it became apparent that this was not my bedroom. The bed was too small, and the walls were the wrong color, and the pictures on the walls were not my pictures. I stood there in the corner of the room, trying to figure out where the fuck I was, when the door swung open and in walked Joel, my high school sweetheart. Joel who I hadn’t seen since I broke up with him ten years ago, just before college. Joel, who was now standing in front of me wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

“Are you okay?” he asked, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Joel, what’s going on? Where are we? What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean where are we? We’re in Paris… our honeymoon.”

“Our what?!” I replied as I edged around the bed and peered out the window. Sure enough, there was the Eifel Tower, all lit up in the distance. And then I realized what was going on, I was still dreaming!

“Ha ha, yeah, our honeymoon. You know how it is when you travel and sometimes wake up confused about where you are”, I giggled, “anyway, I am tired, lets go back to sleep.”

I climbed back in the bed, Joel flipped off the light, and I tried my hardest to fall back asleep.

I woke up with the sun streaming in my face.

“Good morning beautiful,” whispered a familiar voice in my ear, “you look just as beautiful as you did the day you came back into my life six years ago.”

I rolled over and locked eyes with Joel, and that was when I realized, this wasn’t a dream. As I lay there staring at the man I had broken up with ten years earlier, I tried not to cry thinking of the other man, the one I should have married and the life we should have had together, before I made that horrible wish.

 

 

 

If the Shoe Fits

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

 It's been a while since I had to do this, but also not nearly long enough. Do I still remember how to do this? Did I ever really know how to do this?

The first time it happened I was 10. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning; I was reading the comics section of the newspaper in my parents bed when the phone call came in. A dark cloud descended over the morning. My cousin’s wife, complications from childbirth. When my parents told me I felt the panic wash over me, what should I say, what should I do, what happens now? I had no idea how to be with this information.

The second time it happened I was 18, well, 19, well, it was my birthday. Another phone call. My grandfather. And those feelings descended again. Am I doing this right? What is my role in all of this? What do I do now?

The third time was my mother-in-law. A steady decline over two years, and yet when that phone call came at 6 in the morning. The grief set in immediately, and also that same old uncertainty. Was I doing this right? Is this what is expected of me? Am I letting everyone else down? Am I totally fucking this up?

Last week I was riding my bike along the shoreline of Alameda. Summer was well over and the sun was rising later and later, the sky was just starting to pink at the horizon, as I was rounding the little bend around the park on the Bayfarm shoreline, when my phone began to ring. It was my mom. I knew what it was immediately. My grandmother was 94 and had been dealing with lung cancer for the past couple of years, but in the last week she had started to decline.

I sat there for a moment, watching the oily reflection of the stars in the sky on the lapping waters of the brightening bay, and then I pressed accept on the phone call from my mother.

My grandmother had passed away at 3:43 am.

I don’t remember what I said to my mom.

And then I was riding away, all by myself again. Well, me and my thoughts and the misty morning air, and the shore birds just starting to wake in the breaking dawn. And I realized, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I should do or how I should feel or what I should be in this moment, because this was death. And as I started to feel my throat close from the emotions seeping in, I pulled my bike over and sat on a little wooden bench and watched the sun creep over the horizon, and I slipped into the grief like an old shoe that I was finally understanding how to wear.