Blindey died so we could eat chicken: two tales of one bird's demise

Tale 1: Simple And True 
Blindey is a chicken. She was born to produce eggs for us, and eventually, meat. Blindey died so we could eat chicken.  THE END

 Tale 2: Complicated And True

 Somewhere in India, roughly 45 years ago, a baby girl was born into a family belonging to one of the more privileged classes. Around the same time, a baby boy was born into a lower class family. The girl and the boy grew up and met each other, threw societal expectations to the wind, and married. Eventually they moved to Montana, where my family has had the honor of making their acquaintance.

Last Friday, we were invited to a dinner that our two Indian friends prepared at our cousin's home in Lakeside. We feasted on curried chicken, lemon chicken kabobs, coconut rice, Chai, cilantro-chili paste, and mango chutney. As happens when there is an open invitation to "invite friends and come eat Indian food," a crowd of 45 - 50 people wandered in as the night progressed. Dinner and visiting carried on late. Zoralee didn't get to sleep that night until 11:30 p.m.

Her napping schedule for the next two days was kiddywomped. On Sunday, I had just put her down, when I heard the neighbor dog barking outside near her bedroom window. Not wanting anything to even stir Zoralee, I threw open the window and gave a hushed holler, which startled the dog. He'd been on edge anyway, barking at a long, burnt orange coat that I'd received from my great Aunt. The coat is hanging ominously on the back porch to air out and hopefully stop having Old Clothing Smell. The dog ran home.

Which now, in hindsight, I regret, because the neighbor dog is a good dog. We like for him to be here whenever he gets the urge; he chases off a red fox that comes to our meadow eyeballing the chickens. He is a good protector. And maybe, if I hadn't chased him off on Saturday, he'd have been around on Monday, today, when another dog, rescued as a puppy from a terrible situation by a construction worker who is now working at a site near our home, came into our yard and tossed old Blindey around.

Blindey was in bad shape after the tossing. She laid there, back feathers all missing, her neck punctured beyond repair. I petted her and calmed her for awhile, before Dad came out with the chopping block to end it. And tomorrow we shall have chicken, because Blindey died. But Blindey also died so that we could eat another chicken or chickens - last Friday night, with our friends from India who are here in America together, in part because their love overcame the caste system.

THE END

stop bent back baby fingers (and other atrocities)!

When it comes to worrying about random crap, there's one tool that lets me get the job done right: a mental map of the world. You know those Verizon and AT&T commercials that show the United States all lit up with their service coverage? I imagine the whole world that way, except that each little light dot represents a place where some poor infant has his fingers bent back in a knit sweater sleeve that mom or dad is trying to get his arm through. This bothered me a lot more when Zoralee was tiny. Sometimes I'd find myself in a hot sweat over it.

Another common one is tags on children's clothing. Those things drive me, a full grown adult, absolutely bonkers, so imagine what tiny babies go through when their neck is irritated and they can't communicate about it! I laid in bed tonight thinking about the world filled with lights - all the places where tags are driving helpless babies insane.

And then I thought, I can do something about this. I have a blog. I am the only one with a blog just like mine. Someone else's might be similar - stillwalkingandtheorizing, or stillplayingwithLegosafteralltheseyears - but nobody else might be getting this message out there:

GO SLOWLY PUTTING BABY'S HANDS THROUGH SLEEVES (FEEL FOR 4 FINGERS AND A THUMB). ALSO, CUT OFF CLOTHING TAGS UNLESS THEY'RE EXCEPTIONALLY SOFT.

Good night.

OH, AND MAKE SURE THEIR LEG ISN'T BENT BACKWARDS IN THE CARSEAT, FOR PETE'S SAKE.


'night.

Z tearing it up to T.I. and Rihanna

laughs over Zoralee

Zoralee is beginning to understand intentional humor. I am overjoyed. At one point on our way to Portland last week for Rachel's baby showers (Mom, Heather, Z, and I), Zoralee got especially restless and whiny. We couldn't figure out what she wanted.

Me: Do you want a drink of water?

Z: No! Waaaaaaagh!

Me: Do you want to read a book?

Z: No! Waaaaaagh!

Me: Do you need to go potty?

Z: No! Waaaaaagh!

Me: Tell Mama what you want!!
Z: [long pause while she looked around at each of us, who were in turn watching her, waiting] Candy?

It was in the sweetest little voice, in question form. She says a lot of things with the last syllable raised. But the best part is that as soon as she said "candy," she burst out laughing. I think she knew it was funny, presumably because candy was not her original desire, so it surprised her too, this hesitant siezement of an opportunity. We all laughed, which got her going more. It was one of the better long bouts of laughter not associated with chasing or tickling.

Today I opened our bedroom door to check on Zoralee, as she'd shut herself in a few minutes before. There she stood with a small dark object at the corner of her mouth, barely grasped between her lips. She's in a habit of sucking on beads these days. I found one in the toilet recently amongst her poo. Not that bead-sucking is the end of the world, but there's the whole choking thing. Anyway, it's not every small object, just a certain style of bead I was using for an art project and haven't yet managed to round up from all corners of the house, to where she'd spread them while I worked.

"What do you have in your mouth, Zoralee?" I asked sternly. Not twitching a muscle, she ever so deftly let that bead drop from her lips to the ground, staring at me. I quickly closed the door so that I could laugh without her seeing. I opened it again within a few seconds, and she had brought another bead to the front of her mouth, this one bigger and orange. "Zoralee!" I said, "What do you have in your mouth?" Seeing that the trick had worked on dumb old Ma last time, she again she let the bead escape unobtrusively. Gosh, it was funny. What can you do? I just swooped them up and turned away. I think those were some of the last beads to be found and gathered.

Zoralee's even getting to be funny in my dreams. I woke up last night laughing over something she'd done. I thought, "I have GOT to remember this in the morning." Then she did something else funny, then a third thing! I was chuckling as quietly as could be, to not wake her, all the while thinking, "These are three great things. Should I get up and write this down? No. I'll remember them. They're THAT funny." Now I have no clue.

Final anecdote, and it's more of a "smile over Zoralee" than a laugh. A couple days ago, she was standing in front of the full length mirror, pursing her lips then opening her mouth, experimenting with shapes. She walked over to me and kissed me on the mouth. Back to the mirror she went, keeping her mouth in a pucker, to see how it looked. Then, back to me for another kiss, still puckered up, and back to the mirror.

When unexpected stuff like that happens, you think, man, if somebody invented a laughter pill with no negative side effects, they'd be a millionaire overnight. But that'd be so Western. Instant everything, and now we don't even have to exert effort to find or think up humor?! Ironically, it'll be a sad day when somebody invents a laughing pill. Who needs em, if you have a toddler, I guess. They are life's laughing pills. They are also life's tear-your-hair-out pills when they won't sleep well through the night, as well as germ-gathering-and-distributing pills and make-you-second-guess-yourself pills. It's weird; they're all-in-one pills that pull out of you the widest range of emotions ever.

springing into summer

our spring trip, post 7: clamming

This was my favorite day in a long time. I now love clamming! Never had done it before. Rejuvenating. With the simplest of tools, a bucket and a shovel and possibly a rake, you walk out at low tide and dig into the sand to see if it's the right consistency for clams. Various clam types prefer different sand/mud mixtures, if you can believe that. Picky little critters, but then, what other choices do they get to make in life? This is the height of their self-actualization. Pretty soon, if it's the right environment, you'll start finding clams, their shells already shut tight or maybe just shutting, a stream of water squirting out. It's great. Easter egg hunting on an adult, hunter/gatherer, survivor level.

What you're seeing in the background of this next shot are the legs of a man in his 70's who'd just placed second at the senior Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. Pole vault, I believe. Rad, ain't it?

Z didn't feel well, so she didn't take to clamming like I'd hoped. She stayed close to me and didn't give a fig about the wriggly crabs and worms we unearthed. She wanted to nurse. So there we were, me at a squat, she latched onto my breast, standing in tiny shoes on the ocean bed floor, where hours before there had been enough water to cover us over and would soon be again. That's the kind of timeless, grounding, spiritual experience I like to see around here.

After a few hours of digging up clams, we took them home and made linguine. One of the boys played guitar while my aunt and uncle cooked. I baked bread. We all feasted. It was deeply satisfying to eat those clams in the warm light of a coastal town kitchen, with windblown hair and faces, and to talk about the best way to get the sand out of the clams beforehand, and how to prepare them. It reminded me again of how far removed from our food sources we are most of the time and of how much simple contentment we miss out on because of it. And of how easy it is to get back in touch!

our spring trip, post 6: Sequim

Z and I took Highway 101 from Portland to Sequim, to spend our final week there with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Zoralee slept nearly the whole time, which was road trip bliss for me. It was sunny, and we glided through forests of thick pine trees. Ahhh, the northwest; nothing like her. We slowed for each tiny town, both to obey the speed laws and to delight in the make-shift structures so indicative of places without zoning codes.

It was stormier in Sequim than usual. One night, the wind was so fierce it blew the sleep right out of us. I love being part of the weather - being affected by it, I mean. It's important.

You just can't know people outside of their homes the way you can from inside, huh? I already know these people well; we'd lived with or near each other in various configurations through the years. But it's been awhile. During this visit, this one week visit, I got a nice long peek into my cousins' lives. I witnessed prom preparations, including the developing plan for asking a particular girl (and the ensuing news that, after the poem had been read and flower received, she'd said yes), college letters of acceptance arriving in the mail, excitement over a motorcycle safety course passed, a summer job offer from Alaska, a fender bender in the old Suburban, working on a video project for Spanish class, and getting ready for an all-state business competition the night before it started. I met or visited with a current or former girlfriend of each cousin. :) True story.

Here's Dalton on his mom's bike. He's bad to the bone (Z following suite), but what's really awesome is his usual ride in the background.

wrestling with Cousin Connor

glow in the dark paint, designed to match Dalton's date's dress

This is Z with P, a little guy my aunt babysits. Playmates are awesome. I cannot WAIT for Zoralee to have a sibling. She needs one like crazy. I need for her to have one like crazy.

The following scenario was not set up. We were out for a day of errand-running, and I peeked back to see how P and Z were doing. They were tired, a bit out of it. But through the brain haze, P reached over and placed his hand near Zoralee. She lifted her hand to his, and they sat this way for several minutes of the drive, not unlike a happy old couple who'd seen a lifetime of loss and gain and still found comfort in togetherness.

Zoralee enjoyed the dogs too, Sophie and Cinch. Here she's trying to rope them. I especially like the shot where she's coincidentally in her leopard pajama top. A real animal trainer.

our spring trip, post 7: Easter

a foggy dawn meeting at the ocean shore to commemorate the Resurrection

later in the day...

Zoralee took her sweet time hunting eggs. 40 minutes to find 12, actually.

She carefully opened an egg, chewed on several of the candies within, and moved on. This pic knocks me out; it's exactly what my sister, Rachel, looked like at this age.

Zoralee and the Chicken Train

I shall try another day to upload a better version. This one's of questionable quality. But, enjoy as you're able!

our spring trip, post 6: Portland friends

Here are the friends we got to visit in Portland.

First up was the Kurtz family. I hadn't seen Jeff and Christi since college, where Christi and I quickly found we had a mutual appreciation of spastic and cornball humor, and where Jeff and Jason (along with Steve W.) lived together for a semester in a haunted house. It was good to recall those days. J&K are certainly passing the baton of old-fashioned silliness on to their three energetic and hilarious boys. We met at the Spaghetti Factory for lunch, where Max, Caden, and Milo engaged Zoralee in a balloon-swapping game of undeciphered rules. Little Milo evidently takes balloons everywhere he goes. Presch. Then we took some form of public transportation (a trolley on wires?) deeper into town for coffee and to sit a spell in Powell's Books. Portland all the way, baby.

Boo hiss that I didn't get more pics of Cam and Jeff. Tell you what; just look at the little boys and minus out their mother's face. Now combine them into one person and add 25-30 years. Tuh duh - it's Jeff.

(last pic by Jeff)

We then got to spend a couple of hours with Autumn, Rhett, and Mezmur. I went to school with Autumn and Dan too, though we've gotten to know each other much better through blogging than we did sitting a couple rows apart in choir. Mez and Zoralee were just as happy to be in their own individual play worlds, so I didn't catch any good pictures together. But you can see Mez and Rhett in all of their cuteness over at Autumn's blog. Here was one fleeting moment of affection.

Later that evening, we had delicious tortilla soup with Steve, Darla, and baby Annie, along with Dayn, Mandi, and Daylan. Again, not many pictures, but here is Steve showing Z the decorative birds, and Darla being fuzzy because she's managing two wigglers at once.

One of the evening highlights was Steve and Daylan talking about which Wendel Berry books they've read and what they thought of them. Steve got a gleamy dreamy face and went about the house plucking books from shelves, opening them for a few seconds to fully illustrate that in this book, in this exact book, are some amazing words about U.S. involvement in the middle east wars or about plant growing being a holy endeavor, or in this collection of stories, we are invited to imagine what true forgiveness might look like. That'll inspire a gal like me to put a Wendel Berry book or two on hold over at the library.

* * * *

This trip was for Z and me a tour of sickness - we literally caught a new cold, with symptom variations, at each of the three towns we visited - so we didn't get to see as many of our Portland pals as we'd planned. Huge bummer. There are baby thighs I've yet to squeeze, and papa and mama necks I haven't hugged in so long.

But we hope to be back soon!