Good morning!

Above: Me and the bastard cat.

I woke up with a raging headache. The cat is gently preparing to throw up somewhere near my bed, and I hope,briefly and probably in vain, that I don't step in it on my way downstairs.

I've been lying in bed, planning a cartoon where a horse with my face is straining to pull a fully loaded wagon up a steep hill and the driver, who has the face of the night city editor, has decided to flog me to make me reach the top of the hill by X o'clock, which I know is not going to happen because I am working so furiously I don't even have time to glance at Big Ben.

Then the cat, apparently emptied of its last meal (pre-poop, in my parlance; in this case, pre-puke) jumps on my back and uses it for a springboard (oof!) to the half-wall's top, where he proceeds to sharpen his claws on a beam.

"Keep it up," I growl, "and I'll have you declawed."

I shuffle to the loo, sit down, and as I start to pee, realize the toilet paper that I tossed up here into the loft last night is still across the room where it landed.

So my day begins. The headache is still raging.

There's a Reason We Rarely Do Dishes

We bid farewell yesterday morning to our dear friend Mary, who had spent almost three whole days at the Stick Farm.

Whatever muscles I use for laughing are well exercised when Mary is around. She got me going immediately when I told her she would have to accompany me to a parent-teacher event at Katie's high school and she created the character "Aunty Pepper" on the spot. Aunty Pepper would not go alone, of course, so "Uncle Salt" was enlisted (see my Facebook profile pic). We then decided we'd introduce Aunty Pepper as a mute, so she wouldn't have to actually say anything to Katie's teachers Mary's miming of "I'm mute" was priceless and very nearly incapacitated me.

Mary's a very easy guest. She just parks her van in the yard and voila, there's her bedroom. We brought her a steaming gallon of coffee every morning, and that's pretty much all she required. Plus, she practically took over my kitchen, where, despite our best efforts and I'm sure to Mary's well-tempered disgust, at least one of our shih tzus has decided to relieve herself on an irregular albeit fairly frequent basis.

Feeding people has never been my strong point -- Rex has been my rock in that regard as we raised Katie, once breast-feeding ended. I was really good at breast-feeding, but good hostesses offer other options. Luckily, Rex was available to grill pork chops one evening, and the next night Mary tossed us a mean salad. Lunches at our little Limerick cafe and a riverside restaurant in Kennebunkport filled in the gaps,

Anyway, today, about 24 hours after Mary left, it occurs to me that she must be wondering why I didn't once turn on the dishwasher whilst she sojourned. To my credit, I did rinse dishes and put them in the dishwasher. But here, dear reader, is the reason I did not push the Start button:

Our $25 Craigslist dishwasher makes so much noise, we literally only start it when we are on our way out to somewhere. And I mean, one foot out the door. I actually made a recording of it on my phone, and if it's still on my phone, I will upload it soon. Stay tuned! 

It's Probably Something I Did

One of my very first jobs was sewing swatches of upholstery at a furniture factory. An older girl (she was 19, I was 18) named Debbie Wiley and I were hired for six weeks at the end of the summer. Our boss was named Irvin. Very nice guy. Old (40?) but nice.  We had to punch in and out of work, standing in line with our grown-up co-workers, who, we were to discover, behaved more like elementary school children most of the time. Here's one example: a couple of the women were giggling one day because one of them had given a jointly disliked co-worker a piece of candy that had, unbeknownst to her, been dropped on the floor! Ha ha! What a hoot!

A couple days into the six weeks, my sewing machine broke down. Irvin called in a repair guy, and I stood around waiting for it to be fixed. You may think it's boring to sew swatches, but it's much more boring to hang around a factory floor with nothing to do except watch juvenile-acting grown-ups. Soon, the machine was fixed, and I was back busily whipping up upholstery samples to be displayed in furniture retail stores across the Northeast.

My sewing machine broke down a bunch more times, and we went through the repair process each time. Irvin was scratching his head, concerned about how much it was costing the company.

Finally, all on my own, I figured out what was wrong with my machine. It was me. It was breaking down because I was using it incorrectly. Can't tell you now whether I was threading it wrong or replacing the bobbin incorrectly, but I did figure it out, and stopped doing whatever I was doing. The machine did not break down again.

 I let Irvin think the repairman had finally succeeded. I feared if he knew it was my fault, he'd dock my pay for the amount of the repairs.

This was not an isolated situation in my life. In the course of numerous jobs and execution of many tasks, I learned that if some piece of machinery malfunctioned, it was probably something I did. As my husband, Rex, would say, "Loose nut behind the wheel."

This is why I am so relieved I had nothing to do with the "State Trooper was a Heroin Addict" story in the newspaper I work at that turned out to be a lie.

Lying to the press

The top editor at the newspaper where I work told me that one of my headlines was his "second-least-favorite in the paper last week."

Admittedly, the headline sucked. It was: "Avian flu flies the coop, but industry still lays an egg."

Bad. I laid an egg.

The poorness of my performance paled, however, when the newspaper suffered an even bigger embarrassment. We ran a huge front page story Sunday about a former state trooper (22 years, he said) who came forward to share his shocking tale of being a heroin addict. Turned out he wasn't a former state trooper. He was barely even a former cop: Eight months on the South Paris police force. Part time.

My suggested headline:

'Trooper' lies
to reporter;
newspaper
lays big egg

The good news about the story, and I am positively giddy about this, is that I had absolutely NOTHING to do with it! Usually when something goes wrong, my fingerprints turn up somewhere in the history. Not this time.

(I remain, of course, intensely curious about what his first-least-favorite headline was.)

 

    Petition by iPetitions

Birthday Invite!

Introducing the ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME BIRTHDAY POTLUCK/CONTRADANCE and, most importantly, “ROAST DEBBI” event, and (drum roll, please)
YOU’RE INVITED!
Bring your best stories about Debbi (who, we presume, will still be among the living, and what’s more, actually AT the party) and share them at a podium clearly marked “Roost” er …  “Roast.” Or, if you have something nice to say (and it has happened, though rarely) you may choose to speak from the “Testimonial” podium.

There’ll be exciting fun throughout the evening. For example:

* Drawings for fabulous door prizes!
* Hobnobbing with fun people, or even those you brought with you
* Music by people who can play and anyone else who feels like joining in
* For the courageous, a blindfold contradance (spectators really love this one!)

And wait! THERE‘S MORE!

Everyone who attends will receive an embossed, entirely valid certificate EXCUSING you from attending Debbi’s REAL funeral (far in the future, we hope)! Just think, you will suffer no guilt upon hearing of Debbi’s eventual demise and completely ignoring it! Stay home and watch the Super Bowl!


THE PARTICULARS:

WHEN: Friday, March 15, 2013, 5 p.m. to whenever

WHERE: The Brick Town Hall, Limerick, Maine

HOW MUCH: Free! Except for the potluck food you’re bringing to share

WHY: Because we like you; also, I’m in my manic stage

PLUS: Kids are welcome!

FMI: Call 207-272-6574 or email stick farmer@myfairpoint.net; operators are standing by

Remember, you wouldn’t be getting this invite if you weren’t someone pretty special in Debbi’s life.

RSVP to tel. number above, email address above, or 36 Whiteley Road, Limerick, ME 04048, or all three if it floats your boat:

/ /  Yes! I want to come to the party and be excused from Debbi’s funeral

/ /  Yes! This sounds like SUCH a fiasco I simply have to witness it

/ / Yes! I will be there, but don’t expect me to contradance

/ / Can I “pull a Midge” and say “yes” now, and back out later?

I intend to   / / “roast” Debbi        / / give a testimonial

I feel it is a measure of my success in this life to have to assure you:

THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

Laughs at Work

I was throwing pens away right and left as I copied down my schedule from what we at the Press Herald call "the wailing wall" because none of the pens seemed to have any ink in them.

"Jeezum," I'd snap in disgust. "This one doesn't work either!" Toss into wastebasket.

 Then my boss said, "Stop throwing away pens. They don't work because you're writing up against a wall."

He added, unhelpfully, "It's called gravity!"

That made my night. God knows I need good laughs!

Then I read a story about how all Maine's candidates for U.S. Senate are "from away," as we say of non-Maine-born people. In the final paragraphs, we get an anecdote about Angus King, who was our governor for awhile and is now seeking the Senate seat.

King was talking to some old-timer, saying how good he felt that even though he's not a native Mainer, all his kids were born in Maine and so THEY are native Mainers!

The old-timer remarked, "Well, not so fast there, Angus. Just because a cat has her kittens in the oven it don't make them biscuits."

What a great night I was having! Two fabulous laughs!

Tonight as I drove home, I was thinking what a great spoof could be made out of pretending that the leaders of the world are all visiting each other's Facebook pages and leaving comments. And that's how the big decisions are made, and how international relations are defined.

They've all friended each other and on their home page, they can all read what they've written to everyone else. And most of it has to be really shallow, Facebook-y kind of stupid stuff, like pictures of grandkids and updating status (as if anyone cares!) and sharing silly pictures they've taken of themselves with their phones!

Must send this idea on to Neil, my columnist friend at the NYT.