Born in the USA

I hate Americans.

The other night I was sprawled in the recliner on the third floor, my dog at my feet in front of the open window, catching a blissful breeze off The Lake after a sticky, 90-degree day. It was midnight. Stars spangled the sky, a lone cricket sang its plaintive song, the ceiling fan ticked steadily.

Suddenly the stillness was shattered by a series of loud explosions. My dog leapt backward, ears flat, tail between her legs, and began shaking uncontrollably. I knocked over my drink and willed my heart to start beating again. Just then a bouquet of bright fireworks blossomed in the darkness over the neighborhood, and I began swearing uncontrollably.

"Fucking Americans, I fucking hate fucking Americans."

We were treated to several more ear-splitting displays before silence was again restored, but by then it was too late. The tranquility of a summer's night had been destroyed, my dog was in a full-blown anxiety attack, and I had to Pause the DVD, peel myself out of the chair and go down to the kitchen for more wine. I stumbled back upstairs and, remote in one hand, goblet in the other, resumed watching Season Four, Episode Five of "The Sopranos."

I swore I would never fucking watch the fucking Sopranos. A handful of people whose opinions I respect tried to convince me of the quality of the series, but I remained stalwart in my resistance. Smug, even. Notwithstanding some of my favorite relatives are from New Jersey. And I've always had a thing for Italian men. And I fucking love the fucking Godfather movies. At any rate, the issue became moot because, the Gentle Reader may recall, in an effort to save our souls, we cancelled Satellite television awhile back.

Then Vanity Fair came out with that Sopranos issue, and on a lark I picked up the Season One videotape at the library. I popped home, popped open a beer, popped the tape into the VCR, and pressed Play. Ten minutes later, I was fucking hooked. It was the fucking ducks that did it. Now I'm fucking watching the whole fucking thing, as fast as Netflix can fucking turn it around.

I fucking love "The Sopranos." I love the fucking writing. I love the fucking soundtrack. I love the fucking hairdos. What the fuck. I fucking love everyfuckingthing about it. And if anybody out there thinks it would be fucking cute to reveal the fucking ending, you'd better think twice. Let's get this straight: I. WOULD. NOT. THINK. IT. WAS. FUCKING. CUTE.

But back to the fucking fireworks. There's a time and a place for everything. Except the unbearable fucking arrogance of your Average American Asshole trumps respect for the rights of others every fucking time. From pissing on the environment to Hummers and ATVs to conceal-and-carry, the AAA standing next to you in the checkout line wants what he wants when he wants it as loud as he wants it for as long as he wants it so go fuck yourself.

Which isn't a bad idea. Except I've gotta finish Season Four, Episodes Six and Seven before getting the fuck outta Dodge and hightailing it up to The Cabin, where I'll be spending our nation's birthday far far from the madding crowd. The madding fucking crowd of firecracking fucking Americans.

I fucking hate Americans.

Bittersweet

I just got an email from George Bush, thanking me for my latest correspondence. I assume he's referring to the one asking that he not pardon Scooter Libby. Actually it was more of a demand. But let's not get semantical.

W. didn't mention either of my other recent requests, namely, that he withdraw all US troops from Iraq by next Saturday; and, in the interests of national security, that he contact someone in the State Department to hightail it over to the White House with ten gallons of Bertoli Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and help him pull his head out of his ass. You'd have thought Laura would've been working on this last thing, but she's fairly debilitated herself these days given her ongoing struggle to pry open her eyes.

In keeping with this winsome patriotic breeze wafting through our lives, my daughter got a letter from W. He congratulated her on having received the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence (an oxymoronic phrase if ever there was one, on second thought, omit the "oxy"), given to students with a GPA of 3.6 or above. My daughter wanted to tear the letter up. It didn't help that I spit coffee on my flip-flops in a convulsion of laughter when I started reading the thing. But I assured her that the letter came from the Office of the Presidency, not from this particular President himself, who everyone knows is as dumb as a box of rocks.

Last Thursday was my daughter's last day of school. A Very Big Deal. Not only was it her last day of Fifth Grade, it was her last day of Elementary School, and her last day at the school she's attended since Kindergarten. With the exception of her Second Grade teacher, a possible reincarnated Nazi, she's had a good run of it thus far. While her classmates have been the usual mix of nerds, jocks, terrorist cheerleaders and serial-rapists-in-training, she's managed to navigate these lily-white, middle-class, 97%-original-nuclear-family-of-origin waters in relative calm, canoe unswamped, paddle still in hand. Though there were a few dicey portages, and at least one unanticipated rapids I can think of.

Now here we are, stranded on the deserted island of Summer. And if Climate Change can stop its advance long enough to allow this 40-days-and-40-nights of rain to cease, I can step back from the ark-building detail and enjoy these next several months of sun and mosquito repellent. Before the inevitable typhoon of Middle School (I've already got my name on the list for the portable morphine drip). When all bets are off. When you're USCWAP. Or a canoe. Or a map.

A week ago, walking my daughter to the bus for the last time, I mentioned the word bittersweet. A word I've always loved, logophile that I am. She'd never heard of it. How can something be both? she wondered, and I tried to explain. But to her it was a taste thing, and as usual I was mixing too many metaphors, and then a crow started in with its two cents, and then the bus pulled up. I watched the door fold open and my throat filled, with all the words I hadn't spoken, and never could. I was remembering the first time I put her on this bus. I was remembering her little legs negotiating the steps, her little face in the window, her brave wave. It was her first day of Kindergarten, a beautiful, silent Wednesday in September. September 12th, 2001, to be exact.

The Tie That Binds

My daughter and I are hanging by a thread. She's on the second floor, I'm up on the third. We came home from dinner-and-a-movie and decided to tie opposite ends of a length of blue yarn around our respective wrists, so we could periodically signal one another as we went about our ablutions. One of those It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time moments. She's getting ready for bed, I'm lying on mine practicing breathing. So far we've signaled a half dozen times.

My daughter picked up this particular skein of yarn at a garage sale last fall, along with ten Beanie Babies and a brown coffee mug. She uses the mug for a stick-and-rock holder. The Beanies joined the herd on her bed, which must number close to four score and seven. Nor are they all Beanies, ranging in size from near microscopic to bigger than a microwave. Several approach the dimensions of small armored vehicles, necessitating their removal to the TV room, where they stand corralled in a corner like a drunkard's nightmare. There's a pink gorilla, a lavender rabbit, a larger-than-life Russian wolfhound in a turquoise vest, and a few assorted others of unknown species. My husband managed to win them over the years shooting baskets at the State Fair. The mighty hunter-gathererer, they're his trophies. He can't bear to part with a single one. I figure it's a step up from the coconut heads (not to mention real animals) and let him have at it.

When I first met my husband, the heads were hanging from the mahogany ceiling beams in the living room of his apartment, formerly the front parlor of the subdivided turn-of-the-century mansion where we both lived. He'd placed his bed on the polished oak floor in the center of this room, positioned beneath the heads and facing the floor-to-ceiling marble fireplace, and proceeded to eat all his meals standing upright in the formal entranceway while gazing about in self-congratulatory appreciation at his unique vision of feng shui. He calls it fun shit. I overlooked these cumbersome details due to his ass, which I hadn't overlooked. Now the heads are stacked in boxes on the top shelf of the closet in his office, although he periodically threatens to exhume them.

I've had myriad collections in my life, all of them more or less ongoing...books, buttons, bottles, dolls, vintage clothes, Occupied-Japan, license plates, lighted houses, china cups, figurines, comic books. Not to mention a detritus of found objects from nature...bones, cones, stones, shells, bark, antlers, feathers, nests. So that while certain corners of my house resemble the anteroom of a flea market, others appear to be the habitat of an enormous gerbil. You might say my addictive personality lends itself to the collecting gestalt.

Apparently my daughter has similar leanings. Aside from the menagerie which threatens to fill all available space on her bed, she collects journals, pens, thank-you cards, coins or currency dated the year of her birth, money in general, large bills in particular, Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, gymnastics ribbons, Nadia Comaneci memorabilia (they look alike), Elvis memorabilia (they share the same birthday), yarn (she doesn't knit), along with the usual rocks-sticks-pinecones flotsam. I never know what I'll encounter when I reach into the pockets of her backpack. And when she rolls over in bed, it's Noah's ark riding out a rogue wave. She hasn't yet discovered the treasure trove on her father's top closet shelf. Or my vintage La Palina cigarbox of Seventies era pot pipes.

All this...this stuff we surround ourselves with. Sometimes I feel like Alice fending off that pack of cards. Whoa! Incoming license plate! antler! gabardine suit jacket circa 1940! How did this happen? I used to move from one apartment to another in a couple of carloads. And most of it was plants. And most of them were legal. Come to think of it, I still have some of those plants. Add that to the list.

So here I am, lying on my bed reminiscing over the collection of running T-shirts my mother-in-law made into the quilt which hangs on the wall across from me, when my hand is yanked to the side again. The signal. I give an answering yank. No resistance. The yarn is limp in my grasp. I begin reeling it in, like a fisherman. A fisherman who's lost the big one. Which would suit me just fine, I wouldn't be caught dead fishing. Except for compliments.

The yarn accumulates beside me in a blue pool, and then something catches on the top stair. I give a pull, and there it is. Attached with a blue bow to the other end, a tiny Beanie. A tiny turtle Beanie with its eyes closed, thumb in mouth. Come to think of it, do turtles have thumbs? But never mind that. I gather the yarn, collect my thoughts (gather my thoughts, collect the yarn), and head for the second story.