dear aunty rita, rest in peace

henry & rita orozco: combined IQ level,
250+; personality, off the charts

-mama had us meet her at san joaquin hospital in bakersfield once my doctor's appointment with the mysterious & kindly dr agha (a figure from a peter lorre film) was done. we could see on mama's face it was serious this time, & reality suddenly shuddered into a gray, weighted thing. aunty rita was not going to be leaving the hospital. it was the end.
-we went up to icu & she was a tiny figure in the bed, family all around bearing hushed faces of shock: this woman who had dominated all was going to be leaving us all very soon. aunty rita's face for the first time contained grandma's softness; even her mouth as i wiped it gently bore grandma's cupid's bow. the only thing legible she said was to yell aunty dodie's name; doubtless if she'd been more conscious she would have been calling for her sister in order to kick her a*s (their lifelong relationship has been love-hate). i think she smiled at me a bit; i know she did when she saw dad and james joking it up at the foot of her bed because aunty rita loved nothing much more than men. we all sat with her for a long time. i kissed her soft round cheek & told her i loved her & then it was time to leave.
-the next day james showed up at school unexpectedly. he sat with my class & me, sang a few songs, left the room for a bit (to cry, he later admitted), & when the kids were gone to their buses, he told me that aunty rita was gone, & that was it for me for a while til i came out of the fog hours later because it was time to call tushi, my dear cousin, aunty rita's daughter.
-aunty rita was petite, but she was larger-than-life: a foul-mouthed, fierce & fiercely funny figure. in her youth, she was dangerously glamorous, a femme fatale who lived on whisky, cigarettes, hamburgers, & diet pills. (she later stopped drinking & smoking cold turkey & never looked back, characteristic of her resolute nature.) her favorite color was "streetwalker red," she'd tell you; she could charm & disarm any male, 1st with her exotic hourglass looks & personality, later with personality, & with those flashing black eyes & white smile. she was quick with numbers, handling money for the grape growers in delano, ca. she hustled & did what she could to take care of our cousins, tushi & ray, her kids. sometimes that meant living back at home with grandma & grandpa, in the house on randolph across from the vineyards.
-later in life, she met uncle henry, who, 110 pounds soaking wet, had carried the torch for her since their  delano high school days (big, rawboned "uncle" danny later would remember her from those days, too, & he would be her last love). uncle henry had become a nuclear engineer with big bucks; he sent for her & she bolted. they traveled the world with his many jobs, amassing hundreds of friends & adventures.
-in those years, every word from aunty rita's mouth seemed to be some hilarious story or other, about meeting mean joe green or oj simpson or seeing willie or just about the family. she & uncle henry together would draw crowds w/their vicious, laugh-out-loud routines. she was merciless in her humorous attack: anyone could be chopped to bits by her tongue, but most would be left howling w/laughter as she hacked away. her temper was fierce, her love just as much so. she ran dear tushi in texas & mom & dad ragged taking care of her these last many years, demanding mama bring her soup or a hamburger or go do this or that errand for her, or that tushi get on the plane RIGHT NOW to get home to her mama. she controlled us all by phone from her couch or (in the last year) hospital bed. she had been sick 17 years, having to stop her travels with uncle henry when kidney failure brought her to bakersfield, where she stuck. she was so often sick, then always sick, but she persevered, she just kept going: we all thought she was gone many times, but she'd come back, defying odds. the family joked that she & james weren't human but mutant: they'd lived lives that would've killed mere mortals...
-many years ago, when i stepped in sh*t pretty deep due to my then-dangerous need for male attention, aunty rita helped me out of it. and she never told a soul how she had saved my reputation & first marriage -- now then, not ever. that was the true aunty rita, bearing a trait all ollivares-forqueras seem to have: that deep, undying loyalty. mama has it for all, abundantly, freely; aunty rita would tear you to bits if she were in the mood, but when the chips were down, she was there for you no matter what.
 -there will never be another aunty rita. we all will miss her huge presence so much. we are heartbroken she is gone, but grateful she no longer has to suffer. i hope i have conveyed even a bit of her here. i will, again, miss her so very, very much.

the great contrast that is life...

1. a picture of mom & dad at last saturday's civil rights march (for women, for humankind) -- mary frances posted it on facebook w/sweet caption, "my aunty monie and uncle gil." just look at this kindly, noble, hard-working, principled, accepting, sensible, lovely couple who still in their mid-and late-70s want to change the world....

2. james just read me this, a 4 a.m. verse he riffed to his army buddy james e.:

I wrote this tonight.

'm gonna eat a huge bowl of cabbage before I play.

My farts are deadly. My aim is true.

Pray to God they don't hit you. ....some are loud, some are soft, unseen across the room they loft.

The band can't get out of the way. All they can do is hope and pray.
They try to breathe, they cannot cough They pray and pray that mine will stop.

I fire them left, I fire them right, I fire them steady all through the night.

I'm on a roll, yet in control, the farting game, I've mastered, from here, to Taft, to Germany, they call me, STINKY BASTARD! I fart so hard, I fly through the air, and gas evil men unconcious (sic) With a spark they become a deadly flame, with a bottle, deadly bomb. My farts are a gift from a parent, not my father, they came from my mom!

I can, with my farts, toot out sweet melodies, a two - step, even a sonata, a jump, a boogie, an 8 - bar roomba, hell, I can fart UNDER WATER!

The sharks, the fear me, the whales understand, for they speak to each other with sound. When the water starts warming, they all stop with a warning, SWIM AWAY, BEFORE WE ALL DROWN!

For those who don't know, I'm not from your Earth, as any astro, or cosmo- naut could attest to...

blablablablablablabla

this was a pic from the last time i played w/james & band,... i think... it's hard to recall w/doggy barking away & i'm so tired. i love the $3 dress i'm wearing in the pic, which penny snagged the next day when i was jogging w/her on the way to santa cruz... we played music this eve, but i was very sluggish due to school/physical fatigue & i realized my right hand hurts from doing school yoga minus any mats on hard classroom floor, but we had fun playing... doggy has stopped barking & tail is beating a tattoo on the floor and now james is back from the store, so time to sign off! he's in the house now, announcing, "hey, honey, that was a lot of fun," & even tho my piano & singing blew chunks this eve, yes, it was fun. singing "love my baby," i had a manuel moment, clearly hearing my own voice aping my dear departed friend's w/o realizing it; i've been doing it all along. and james? when he wings it, he just soars.

this has been a good two days of fun w/kids at school, lots of running, meals at home, meetings, today seeing our rumpled blue-eyed gentleman of a counselor, then music... oh hell, i need to sign off, so bye for now.

hoka hooka hicka HIKE

yesterday i got to go w/my friend christy (my fellow teacher, the high school cross country coach, for her birthday!) on the fog run in bakersfield. we left the hill at ungodly dark-thirty to register, go potty, stretch. she even had me jog an extra mile to warm up. once we started, in a gigantic group of runners, we had a good clip going, were passing ppl, feeling pretty good. grabbed a cup of water @ the halfway point, dropped cup in trash box, hit a rock w/my extra-large super-fantastic hokas, did a swan dive onto the dirt: BAM! i hit chest-first, therefore saving my knees & wrists, but knocking the air out of myself. the last stretch was much harder w/less wind. i came in 7 seconds behind christy: a 10:20 mile. slow compared to the old days, tho i've never been fast!! ...now i have a bit of a resolution: to get back to a sub-10 minute mile.
i want to think the fall slowed me down, but just to be sure, i will work on developing speed... realistically. i'm old, but not yet old enough to be that slow!
today the dog-girl (outside yelling her head off right now) & i did 4.88 tough miles. turns out my knee IS a little injured. down the dirt path, out on the highway, down to the park, around, around, around (saw lisa & arestina, which was nice, as well as students at the skatepark, as usual), then back UP for the steep climb home.  i decided to explore coming back, so cut off the main road down into the riverbed. i mean DOWN: you really descend, & the hills climb steeply, ever more steeply in all directions. we got snarled in thick trees for quite some time, snapping dead branches off on the leash, meandering, branches & stickers tearing my shirt, my pants, my hair, my yushenka... i saw no way back up for quite some time, feeling quite isolated, staving the deliverance thoughts, bearing in mind what i read today about john muir and "sauntering" (see https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/palmer_sauntering.aspx. )... finally i spied an extremely steep way out & climbed, slid, & scrambled my way out (penny had a bit of a struggle as well) into... more thick scrub brush, no road, more bushwhacking. finally we came to a barbed wire fence, but no real way to approach except through more thicket. crap.
after much struggle, i located a semi-break in the fence that necessitated me lifting penny & gingerly threading her through, then doing the same with myself, careful not to touch hair or flesh to barbed wire. i felt some tearing in my pants & shirt, but they're both home garments, so no problem...
she is barking her head off again, so i'm gonna go. dang beast!!
tomorrow school resumes. i'm not ready, but i will be.
happy birthday tomorrow, elvis!!!!

ON auld lang syne

our favorite people on fun eve in smellay

this is a week late, but it's interesting! especially this part (given the photo i post here): "The song begins by posing a rhetorical question: Is it right that old times be forgotten? The answer is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships." here's the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne... now please watch & listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42_ilQc_sxc ... it reminds me of studying chaucer moons & moons ago. or, i should say, NOT studying chaucer. i was a very poor undergrad student.
our dog-girl is whistling & whining outside, entreating to be gained house-entrance... in, dog-girl!
she & i had a few nice runs on james's & my vacation. she & i ran in monterey, we ran in santa cruz (well, i mostly went alone in santa cruz). i put in about 10 miles in two days, so that was the best thing i could say about THAT trip! we agreed afterward we should have visited the gias, where mama had made a beautiful, delicious, lovely new year's day meal & we had a loving, kindly visit... & then we should have turned around & gone back home!
yes, we had a crap of a time, but all is well again now. like i wrote years back in a heartbroken rag (when we were separated), "after the storm, the sun is gonna rise." rise it has, & we is fine. now i'm just waiting for him to split so i can do major cleaning in his Quarter of the Hoarder. this house is gonna be soooo clean by the time he gets back! haHA!!!
then i have to prep to get back to work. and teach choir. oh heck, i conveniently had forgotten!! i'm supposed to teach music for 8 weeks! ... this all is good. creative immersion is a real good when your coconut is prone to upsettings... ok, off for now. :D happy happy day!! happy happy year!! that's it.

i had a jowl

removed it using www/pixlr.com/editor, which is a free photoshop kind of site. sue me! this is my blog! why should i be bejowled on my own blog??
this is the last night of 2017. this year hasn't been  bad at all. i have a great family & a great job. i am sober & have a challenging but rewarding marriage w/the most talented & unusual human i've ever met. he is my best friend! i get to sponsor people & have many kindly acquaintances, even friendships. this year i got back into running. yay! we got our dog girl, penny. we love her! i started seeing a patient, compassionate counselor, & now we both see him, with already much positive outcome!
our lives are really, really good, all things considered.
the other day i went & played w/james's band in north long beach. the gig went really well! we were powerful, powerful, & i was  really satisfied & grateful to be a part, using my "new" keyboard, which i haven't in over a yr on assumption it wouldn't power up. it powered up! w/that & my new amp, which i've not really used cause i haven't been playing many shows, my gear worked w/o failure for four sets. i could hear! and i got to be a part of & contribute to the blues express. the crowd was big throughout the afternoon, & really into it! james ruled, as usual. little anthony, blake, & steve were great fun to play with (preposition dangling there; oh well).
angie & doug showed up. wonderful, wonderful!! afterward, we all drove to grand central market in downtown LA & ate & visited & laughed a whole lot. james & doug had mexican food & orange bang; angie & i had delicious, delicious thai chicken, sticky rice, & papaya salad. after, we waited for OVER 20 MINUTES in the mcconnell's ice cream line, but it was worth it: cardamom & ginger snap ice cream w/sweet cream & cookie ice cream: WOW!
feeling tremendous love for my talented, industrious, smart, hard-working, kind, funny, brave little sister, i took this pic, feeling like mama as i held her little arm. i love my sister so so much!! james & doug were both on sleep deprivation status & yelled & bellowed & carried on through the bustling food place, two mugs out of a '40s noir crime comedy. we parted & i so wished we all could continue to hang out. we're so lucky to have such entertaining, delightful, hilarious, loving kin.
we drove home & i passed out on a bed of blankets we'd made on the floor while james watched boxing videos & played w/his new drone, one of my christmas gifts to him..
feliz anyo nuevo!!

my pie and i

here is a pic of me and the lucky penny on christmas day. she is a funny-looking, cute little girl, not the darling heart-breaking loving beauty that gusgus was. i say "was" because i believe my dear gusgus may have passed away. that is what family suggested when i asked if they'd seen pix of him lately from my ex-husband, brian. :( i cried & cried, but there's nothing i can do. going to change topic now because just thinking of it makes me so very sad. :( we still have our funny little penny petunia page as well as peewee the beautiful malcontent feline.

i was surfing facebook & was shocked to discover the handsome co-creator of big book awakening passed away last year from cancer. he was a sturdy-looking man who resembled a stocky clark gable; he saved many, many lives with his approach. christmas has made me think a lot of manuel, dear big manny, who also passed on last year, his joyous rockin music, his boyish smile, his sweet, light, kissed-by-god spirit... this life & all of us are so very fragile. must remember this when next i have a resentment...

christmas nice except that i decided to go running on a stomach filled w/coffee & ended up not just barfing, but snapping back into action my old stomach hernia. it didn't hit til i'd hobbled back to mom & dad's; i laid on the floor in agony & mama rushed in w/big alarmed eyes. "i'm ok, i'm ok!" i moaned, trying to make it so... did i tell you two weeks ago i found out i have hypertension, too? my dear friend donna & i caught up on the phone today & laughed about my continuing bad health. if i hadn't gotten sober & didn't live in rather healthy fashion these past two-plus decades, i'm CERTAIN i would have perished long ago. many people have complimented me heartily on my rather ferocious performing style... but at heart, i'm a delicate flower!!

well, mister james & i are gonna watch roku for a bit. then i hope to return to a book sister angie recommended. i thought the writing kinda pedestrian at first, but it's just what i've needed: an engaging, entertaining, spooky romp w/plot twists -- a real break from the non-fic i'm always reading. the book is much like reading a movie! (ok, now... it's called... night film... and it's for sale at the dollar tree right now!!)

thursday james & i play shenanigans & mike malone's gonna lend me his keyboard because mine STILL ISN'T FIXED and my small one i lent to young cousin josh (the songbird! on christmas he sang "white christmas" in two octaves, scatting at the end, and i just whooped with joy! it truly was the best, coolest singing performance i've heard in a long while!!! from sadsack young josh, a young man changing in a positive way due to our loving family. now i know why mama's so taken with him: what talent!)... so thank you, malone, for lending me your keys!

saturday james plays in north long beach; you can find it on www.whiteboyjames.com .. and then we get to go on a little vacation... and in spring, a BIG vacation!!

i'd better get to the tv w/my honey... happy new year!!

my new shirt!!!!!

(the saturday night ensemble pictured here matched til i removed my fluffy brown coat...) ordered this fabulous t-shirt online based on image james's acolyte & friend tommy eliff (big son of mighty mojo prophets) sent me. it was supposed to be sherbet-colored, but arrived more orangey. i haven't worn an orange shirt to a gig since lux interior died & i made a memorial t-shirt & wore it to rock & roll pizza for a dusk devils gig. at that time i still was child-sized; no longer be i that, but certainly am thankful for the pic. (thanks, anthony!) at the time tommy made me the image, i had been bummed out & had posted on social media, "everything would be ok if i just had a piano red shirt." many searches at that time had revealed no existing shirts.
now i have one!! thank you, big son!!
i really looked fwd to playing last night w/james! it was a good night. he was beyond-exhausted, as happens to him, but put on a gangbuster dirty-blues show. the audience was happy!! all my running's paying off  bc i got through the eve like it was nothing, w/little fatigue. bonus!!
woke up that a.m. & started playing piano here at home. we went "to town," always a treat on a saturday morn: the post office, our two wonderful thrift stores, dollar general. so much fun. made enchiladas, rice & beans. took penny for a nice hilly run. checked my gear; everything seemed to work. got cleaned up, put on my new t-shirt. james said i looked like a superhero, some of his highest praise. :) got to redwood room & my low C 5th song started blatting out at 10x the volume of the other keys. drummer ron felton (who took the band photo), there for the show, gave me an empty gum packet & i duck-taped the key so it wouldn't play. but when i started into prof longhair's "gone so long," i was shocked to realize another problem:  suddenly, not three, but at least 6 keys were dead! as i played, more & more keys seemed to fail. the length of the keyboard was serially dying off: oh no!!
fortunately scott lambert was there on bass that night & he is giving me the number for a music repair shop in long beach. over break i FINALLY will get my keyboards fixed!!! so grateful!!!!!
time for more coffee, then to work on school. in a few hrs, teacher comrade christy & i will adventure jog up the steep, beautiful fire road by the elementary school. yaaaaay!!
life is sure good right now. :)
happy birthday, niece madeline!!!!!!!!!!!

staycation

used to be i'd have to be someplace else to have a good time5trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (that was kitten on the keys... peewee, that is; hardly a kitten, but had to reference the song!) like paris or austin or LA or wherever, but not HOME, for pete's sake!! we were talking about this as we drove thru the mountains on one of our "big" trips during this staycation (we went to santa clarita 2x, bakersfield once, each about 40 mins from home). we just have had such a nice time this time not going no place. i ran... a LOT! and dad insisted on early-gifting me some HOKAS!! i've wanted hokas for years!! they were supposed to be my christmas gift. so i've been running every day since i got them. the pie run was fantastic fun: looked like at least 1500 people there, sad the fellow that started the run was hit by a car while bicycle riding; i believe many were there to commemorate him. mr toad's wild run at the end of the pie run is SO SO FUN!!! i dream about it even now. i wish i were bounding & careening down it all the time. then back at the gias, we ate like hogs. we'd gone to the movies the night before, what a treat (no movies up on the mountain), the latest blockbuster, we hadn't been in forever, so we munched popcorn & craned our necks to watch from the front row. the movies! hogging out! running! just being home, doing yardwork, walking the dog, doing lovely yoga outside in the park cause the library was closed, yoga looking up at the dark & lovely oaks, birdsong, clean air, wow, taking short day trips to shop & eat some more: staycations are the way to go now, i think, or at least a way to go i'd never thought would appeal to me. just resting in our bed with the windows looking out on beautiful mountain view, james gently snoring or playing words w/friends, penny the dog warm between us: that is my favorite place in the world to be, i think. what a gigantic change! this is something about getting old i definitely love.
this is sloppily written bc we are making dinner & the room is cozy w/sizzling food smells. tonight i prep to return to school tomorrow, & tonight we'll do something wild like watch "chopped," or something. i couldn't be more grateful. this life w/james, this life on the mountain, w/clean air, w/runs getting longer always, w/sobriety & love: wow. i'm so glad to have been changed so i can appreciate & love this life.
may you also love your life, life ever-changing
bye for now

died & went to heaven!!!!

...james tells me not to go out after dark running. sometimes i use his warning as excuse to be lazy, like when it's an especially cold or dark eve, but sometimes it's a bummer bc i need some exercise!! he asks me not to do semi-dangerous stuff i used to enjoy --  even when that frisson of warning would chill my neck -- specifically pulling off lonely roads to explore abandoned buildings when by myself... aaaarrrghh...i know his concern is for my safety... ... this time of yr, it's rough to get in runs some eves cause of having become so absorbed in my job (my calling? work's definitely increasingly absorbing!). i stay too late, too often, & w/the time change, it gets dark so early...
partial solution here!!! check this out!!! you may love this, too!!!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq5O2ZfzRQChMdahnpKpGVg/videos
also... in case you don't know about it, THIS IS AN AWESOME WEBSITE!! you can log your every single workout!!!
https://www.mapmyrun.com
thursday is the pie run... won't be a fog run this yr, no way. dad says it's predicted to be 85 degrees in bakingfield on thanksgiving day!! that is quite scary, in a way, harbinger of global doom, maybe, but i selfishly know due to the warm morn i'll easily be able to hop out of bed & therefore run.  james will help brother doug & sister angie distribute food to those in need, so it'll be a great start to thanksgiving for us all!!
i feel so little conflict right now about turkey day. i still care about the holiday's conflicted history, yes, quite a bit, but outweighing my liberal guilt this time are happy thoughts of james, pets, cooking (we're making the baked yams/sweet potaters as well as a cherpumple!!), running, rest, fun, & family.
happy holidays!!!

happy howwwwwwwwwwwwlo... you know....

we went to see the mike tyson's undisputed truth round 2 stage show in las vegas the other night... it was really cool to sit in a little club in the ridiculously opulent mgm grand, to sit that close to the champ & hear his funny lithping tale, this version much more anecdotal than the first, containing so many fun, lively stories told by our favorite boxer (except for ali, of course), a real likeable mug. i have strong memory now of his bashful, earnest voice & big brown drugstore indian head, grinning, shuffling (probably hard for a life-long pugilist to stand still when on a stage), story-telling, flashing between shy & tough as nails... on the way home, we stopped at calico ghost town in the mojave & sat there on the hilltop greasy spoon's large covered terrace looking out over wide cool spectacular desert view... then it was home sweet home.
today was a wild one at school as always is halloween at school. i was frankenpage with black clothes, green shirt, & green face; we somehow managed to have a socratic circle on topic of animal abuse before party time, which i tricked them all by planning in its entirety: caption contest; spooky story contest; dance contest; limbo contest; costume contest. at recess, the teachers & i got pelted w/pies for a school fundraiser, so it was a smelly sticky day after that. my halloween makeup had been smudged by whipped cream, so our sweet secretary gave me her witchy liquid makeup, much greener than my original, after which a few kids from other classes asked if i was the hulk, which was inspired & cool on their part, i thought.
james is heating food, then we're back to watching stranger things sequel on netflix, a real fun show, but don't think there'll be many more seasons since the kid actors are already by season two in the awkward stage!
happy halloween

Finalmente

I got a Chromebook so I could do schoolwork at home (James's iMac is too distracting) & I've been loving bringing work home, continuing to build my educating knowledge & etc... But I can't log on to blogger on the cb, so it's been a spell since I blaaahged. We had a lovely early 5th anniversary attending music fest in riverside, a town that made me think of abq NM, tho I don't know why... Boy, we had a swell time, what a happy surprise, with great music (esp watching honey piazza on piano & the fabulous, funny, smooth, weird,  deep & cool rick estrin), great food at tio's tacos (surrounded by its wacky funhouse of junk art) & Marisa's Italian deli & nice Thunderbird lodge... Lots of beautiful deserty scapes on our drives w our sweet little Penny dog accompanying us... I'm pecking w 1 digit here on fire tablet, so gonna sign off. At this sec, all is well.

Junior Parker - Cryin' for my Baby

james has had this in his  repertoire for some time. phil alvin also has it in his repertoire. james's version is powerful & tortured, phil alvin's tortured-theatrical, which means highly cool & entertaining, but less heartfelt. james really feels it. it's painful almost to watch him sing some songs of heartbreak.

i can't sing songs like that. i explode in sobs. so i don't.

i was surprised to hear this light & swingy version.

in other news, i'm still not pushing up daisies.

good night.

imprinted

sebastian cabot as mister french. i loved mr french. our family
doctor was similarly large, rotund, with gigantic blue eyes
& friendly, comforting manner. despite that, he also scared me!

i was 20 yrs old on a train in europe when this good-looking white guy, older & square-looking,  started making eyes at me, so i walked with him to the back car (i had no boundaries) (i remember being at the very end of the train, outside the back door with the track rattling beneath & the cool air blowing, with this stranger!). turns out it wasn't hanky-panky he wanted, but for me to become a scientologist...

mister green jeans & captain kangaroo: round, silly comfort.
you could know you were safe with these people.

it made me think about the idea of engrams -- not jungian, but scientologian -- which unlike jung's are  negative & only removable via auditing or whatever those wingnuts call it. i might not have this right; i was talking with angie sister yesterday about her MA program in which she's currently reading jung.
i just was mooning & dreaming over pix of capybaras & wondering why animals like them or wombats or bears (the fatter the better) are so appealing to me & always have been, like, inherently.
why do we like what we like?
sick two weeks now; overdid it yesterday in the yard. building a dog run. so i'm stalling, on the blog...  these are images that i saw between infancy & age six that stuck inside me, that may have been uncanny due to their power upon me, or that maybe imprinted upon me... (for james, it was raquel welch in fantastic voyage as well as some other, more eccentric celebrity crushes...)

when depressed, i go dumb watching videos of innocent, round,
adorable caveys, which we  had as pets when i was a kid. capy-
baras, wombats, round-nosed, soft-gazed: who can't love them?

the gia family saw oliver! when angie & i were tiny,
say 3-5 years old. i wanted to be jack wild, who played
the wily, confident artful dodger, but oliver
reed as bill sykes has remained in my psyche
always: his handsome bulk & sinister glower
were so scary, but also troublingly exciting...

after this i gotta go to ace & get fencing. tomorrow's a class i anticipate, in bakersland: socratic circles. i'm just all over the place in this post.

we walked into bakersfield's tejon theatre & there was
john amos without a shirt1  i was six, but the broad 
muscularity of his chest stretched across the big screen has
been cemented in my mind ever since!

... so to blablabla a bit more, have you heard of a book called the old ways? it's a lunatic-fringe publication i read about in mother earth news, but w/some most-excellent & useful info, like how to make pain meds from backyard weeds... and last night i saw an odd, stunning movie called buster's mal heart featuring a pint-sized heartthrob version of michael shannon, a charming-creepy egyptian cutey named rami malek... i really liked the film, tho it disturbed me... so that's enough stalling... happy sunday.

BAH!

that is all.

bleghgh

this phony i dislike just posted about james's band on fb, an arrogant "humble brag," i think it's called, so rather than write something stupid to Phony, i will complain here.
i just don't like some people. especially ones who have been two-faced; who have bad-mouthed james while pretending to be a friend; who have gossiped about him; who's pretended to be a clean-living, kindly person while snorting drugs & talking sh*t while not having cajones to be honest; who's  been disloyal. people who are arrogant, phony, & inherently dishonest really hack me, as cousin tushi would say. in my young (& not-so-young) life, i was dishonest & arrogant (tho not inherently, thank Goodness), so maybe that's why i'm intolerant; oh well.
bleghghgh! good riddance!
there; that's more than enough on that topic.
on another note, i just mixed apple cider vinegar WITH baking soda, having thought the other day, if it cleans out a clogged drain, can it do the same for a sick body? (been ill for a week now; it's going around the school.) just now, i took the concoction with some emergenC or whatever it's called and wa! la! instantly i feel a modicum improved!
today as i returned an item to ace hardware, one of the checkers recommended oregano oil... hmmm... the other day i read that baking soda, that is, sodium bicarbonate, is one of the main ingredients in dialysis treatments: baking soda cleans the kidneys. wow! i had a friend years ago who healed from pancreatic cancer by using the gerson (all greens) diet, which of course is outlawed in the u.s because how is BigPharma gonna make trillions on kale & spinach??? ... my friend healed & was healthy for a few yrs til she succumbed to road food & lifestyle (she was a beloved blues musician); the cancer came back & she perished, a wisp of a woman where once she'd been round & stuffed w/Life. it was so very, very sad...
i'm thinking the more direct from the Earth a thing ingested be, the more restorative it is... yes,  the older i get, the more natural remedies seem not just more appealing, but evidentially, they increasingly are proving superior to western medicine...
going to rest now. when james left (with the words, "take it easy; don't make yourself sick again!") i went & did six hours of housework/projects & even worked outside. (is that a humble brag? so be it.) last, i took penny for a mile (only a mile; i be sick) in my vibram five fingers. those hideous shoes feel so good on a jog... if you have some & haven't tried jogging in them, give it a go.
if you, too, are sick, get well soon. if you are well, be grateful!!!! :D

neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... and my hero!!!!

that's the sound in my brain right now. i've been sick since saturday. saturday night, thanks to mom & dad, we went to a stage production of (asking james; can't remember) priscilla queen of the desert. it started rather tepid but by conclusion, was quite heartfelt, ribald, colorful, & really well-sung. parts were better than some broadway shows i've gotten to see, even... bakersfield's got some  talent!
we snapped family pix & dad took this one. "you should see your husband," he grinned, & i just knew james was making "that face," that big cheesy whiteboy james oversized smile, & i giggled, resulting in what you see... he is cooking dinner & just dropped all the vegetables. if james had grown up with me, he would've been raised on the words "slow down," & "be careful!", dad's constant, stern admonitions to clumsy, impulsive me... i think we're gonna have pasta casserole, tho all i want to eat lately is ice cream bc of sore throat & fatigue & general sloth...
sick. bleh. this is a rare time in my life, when i have dragged myself to school BECAUSE I HAVE WANTED TO BE THERE. usually i flake out around this time of school year. ironically, bc i dragged my sick carcass in for 3 too many days, i now will be out two bc i made myself so sick instead of resting.
wanted to recount last week, a story about my hero.
at the end-of-day school bell, my friend christy said, "wanna go help me rescue a trapped raccoon?" no,  i thought, but bounded off w/her to a far edge of campus, where we saw a blue recyling lid crashing & banging through the weeds. we cornered a beautiful mama raccoon, scared, feral, & exhausted. she'd gotten trapped in the trash can lid & now wore it "like a tutu," christy kept saying.  the pe teacher had seen it earlier in the day, taken its pic (see here), posted it on social media, but what? not made sure someone would free the poor creature?
snarling & screaming & thrashing whenever we approached her w/brooms, the raccoon certainly would die over the weekend if we didn't somehow save her. she ran herself up against a tree & stuck, helpless, butt out & feet dangling. she shrieked & gnashed & lunged at us from her stuck position as we tried & tried to kick her loose from the plastic, or at least turn her over, but she as just too heavy for "us girls."
christy called many agencies, but no one would help. what crap, said one of the female custodians who later came over w/tuna can of water for the coon. no one cares about wild animals... i learned that the custodial crew had heard strange screams that morning; they had thought it was one of the school cats, but it didn't sound quite right. the mama raccoon had been trapped all day. her babies hadn't eaten or had water all day, that meant; neither had she.
christy finally had to leave for cross country practice, so there i was, alone w/the mother raccoon, who by this time we'd enclosed behind a large piece of iron fencing. i kept looking and looking into her primitive, pretty black eyes, wondering what was there... i got really blue.
too down to work, i retrieved teacher's editions from my room, put them in my car, then came back & sat vigil with the raccoon, hypnotized by her innocent, mysterious little masked face. she finally trusted me enough to rest her head tentatively against tree & dirt. she panted heavily, her teated girth expanding over & corseted painfully by the plastic lid.
we have a coon at our house that eats the cat's food, makes a mess outside our house, scares the dogs & cats, petulantly kills mouse families under the house in great terrifying night raids. it's an ugly guy, james has said. the cats attacked it one night; they could've been killed, but they wanted it gone, too. james seeks to take this ugly ruffian out.
this raccoon, by contrast, was so pretty, so helpless. she'd no doubt tear my face off if i got too close, but for those moments i sat there by her, between huge oak trees in quiet afternoon's dappling  sunlight, with the mountain breeze blowing through, i felt sad for her & thought i bonded with her some. it's such a hard world at times for girls.
i heard the male bus drivers would be there in about 45 minutes, after their routes were complete. they would help. i called james. then i sat.
kevin & jose finally arrived with welder's gloves & snow shovel. kevin dove in trying to free the animal; jose was more reticent. a guy from fort tejon who'd been called to help showed up, took one look, snickered, & said, "i'd put her down." i ignored him the whole time he was there after that. a**hole.
then a door slammed in the distance: james sauntered up, a determined gleam in his eye, his arms full of shears, clothing, gloves. he decisively tossed a trench coat over the raccoon. she freaked out & crashed against the iron railing. he grabbed the coat & tried again. covered, the animal calmed a bit. james grabbed the gardening shears he'd brought & started cutting off the recycling lid. this was difficult work bc the terrified, heavy, unwieldy animal kept moving & jerking, her fangs always close; the plastic also was very thick.
at one point, three men worked on freeing the raccoon, james in charge. jose held the snow shovel between james & the raccoon while kevin held her relatively still with a large piece of cardboard christy & i had brought. james kept cutting.
kevin handed james the shears he had brought, shorter but sharper. james had to remove his gloves & get right next to the raccoon to cut w/those. she could've bitten him at any time; he was careful but quick. finally he said, "get ready, she'd coming loose!" everyone lept back as w/one final cut, the plastic broke & the raccoon flopped free, rolling around a bit, disoriented. she then scampered up into the yoke of one of the oak trees.
we all cheered. we all hugged. the men hugged, high-fived, & shook hands. everyone left except kevin, james & i. the raccoon just sat there in the tree, her eyes now seeming soft, peering at us all. i like to think she was staying back to say thank you, but likely she was waiting til we all left so she could call her babies to eat.
james & i went to subway & had sandwiches. i couldn't stop smiling at him. a mama raccoon and her babies live today because of him. innocent lives go on today because of james. james, protector of the innocent. james...
my hero.

i don't think i want to write after all.
maybe later.

wednesday night!

zzzzzzzzzzzz

i really need to hit the sack! been up working on school for a few hours. excited about school! nervous, too, i won't do a good job... tho i know i'm "into this" much more than i used to be, the pedagogical part, that is, not just the kids part (always have liked the kids, been good w/the kids, like dad was, tho didn't inherit mama's "super teacher 200%" gene... angie got that!)
posting a few pix from last night. my new roland amp sounded cool! then i hit it hard and it took a crap!
it's not the amp... it's my keyboard.
arrrrrrrgggghhhhghggh!!!
i have one more gig wed at shenanigan's, the last for the combo there (for a while? forever? i dunno...)... so if i don't pound the piano, my rig should be ok.... then i gotta get it fixed.
man, i gotta go to bed! hope james's show at redwood room went great. :) my prediction is that it was packed... but i had to stay home for school.
excited about school! such a duty, to teach the young... saw one of my quite dutiful students at the dollar general as i went there, stalling so i wouldn't have to plan... so nice, such a warm, fuzzy feeling to see students and their parents while out and about. i'm not drunk! i'm a good person! i have no secrets. i am a good role model now. :)
i cautiously say, life is good. i know speed bumps are coming, they always are, but right now... smooth sailing.
time for mimis. may you be well. or to quote james, who quotes -- unbeknownst to him (tho probably not; his knowledge base is deep & startling to me always) -- kinky friedman, "may the god of your choice bless you."