What Is Wrong With Excess?

I have 30 pairs of black shoes.

I know some people think I have too many shoes.  I'm here to tell you, there's no such thing.

At last count, I think I had about 120 pairs, but then I gave away some of them to Goodwill.  (Yes, women who shop at Goodwill like stilettos too.)  (Sometimes the men like stilettos as well, don't they Michael?)

In any case, I've always said if a little bit is good, more's better.  I think I have curbed some of my natural impulses toward surplus.  I don't pile on the jewelry any more.  I still wear earrings, bracelets, my watch, my two rings and my ankle bracelet every day.  But I stopped wearing toe rings, 4 or five rings on both hands, 10 gold chains at the same time and so on.  It's not that I don't like those excessive things.  I do.  But they tend to look a little tacky on me now.

When I was young and Mexican, I wore it all.  Now that I am older and Mexican.  I tone it down.  No more rhinestones for this girl!  Not even on my bras!  Okay, I still have that one pair of black panties with the rhinestones, but hardly anyone ever sees those.  Okay, maybe just a few people see those.

Way I figure it, if you have on something really cool, make sure somebody (a few people) gets to see it.

Pressure - Day 6

At noon on Saturday, she listened to the voice mail message on her cell phone .

"Room 204", the caller said before hanging up.

She got up from the sofa, stretched, and looked out the window.  Her husband was outside working on the car.  She wondered why she just felt tired of it all.

It had been such fun at first.  It had been exciting and even thrilling, but the thrill was gone.  Now she just felt empty.

She freshened up her make up and thought about excuses.  Should she say she was going shopping?  Maybe she would say she was meeting a friend for lunch.  Oh hell, it really didn't matter what she said.

She grabbed the car keys and with a last look in the mirror, she walked outside.  She called out to her husband, "I'm going out to the beach for a while."  He waved at her rolling out from under the car  and said "Have fun!"  She drove down to the beach and turned onto the Great Highway going South along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean.  A few miles from the City, she turned off and pulled into the motel parking lot.  She parked, checked her lipstick and walked in.  Room 204 would be on the 2nd  floor.   Good!  It would have a view.

She knocked quietly and the door was thrown open immediately.  He pulled her into the room and pushed on the safety lock.  She looked at him and saw his hazel green eyes and his dark brown wavy hair.  He was smiling at her like she was his Christmas present.  He was dressed as usual in his jeans and a flannel shirt and she thought how young and handsome he looked.  "I've opened some wine, Honey.  Should I pour you a glass?"  She nodded her assent and walked to the window.

He walked over to her as she was gazing out at the ocean and put the two glasses of Cabernet on the table.  He tried to pull her close for a kiss and she slightly turned her head to avoid his lips.  "We have to talk", she murmured.  He looked confused for a moment and then with an artificial little laugh, he said,  "Do I need to sit down for this."  She gave him a small weary smile.  They sat down in front of the picture window and picked up their wine glasses.  They clinked glasses and took a sip.

"What's the matter, Honey?", he asked.  Without looking at him, she said "This has got to stop."  He got up from his chair and walked over to her.  "Why?" he asked.  "I love you.".  She shook her head and said "No you don't.  You love the excitement and the danger of what we are doing.  You don't even know me."  He sat back down in his chair, looking at her without saying a word.  "I do care about you," she said gently.  "But it's over now."  He asked her, "Can you tell me why?" and she responded, "Because it is."

She picked up her bag and walked out of the room, walked down the stairs, and through the lobby.  She went out to her car and put the key in the ignition.  For just a moment, she put her head down on her arms and felt sadness.  He was a lovely man and he had been very kind to her.  It had been fun for a while.  She had felt very alive for a while.

But now,  mainly, she felt a great relief from the pressure.

Spiders

I was traumatized by a spider when I was about eight years old.

My mother left me home alone for about ten minutes while she picked my little sister up from school.  I spent over a year in bed after I was diagnosed with Rheumatic Fever when I that age.  I was not supposed to walk and I very seldom left my bed. 

Before you think "oh that was so sad", it really wasn't.  I got to read to my heart's content.  I had a home teacher.  And I was seriously catered to because I was sick.  My parents carried me to the bathroom, gave me bed baths and brought all my meals to me on trays.  It was not a bad way to spend a year and a half.  It even gave me an idea that I might like to become an invalid wife one day, but that's another story.

My mother had no sooner left the house until I put down my book and thought about taking a little nap.  I closed my eyes and fell asleep for about 5 minutes and I felt something on my face.  I opened my eyes and there was a spider hanging from a long skinny thread of silk almost touching my nose.  I screamed bloody murder and covered my head with the sheet.  By the time my mom got back with my sister, I was in hysterics.  To make matters worse, the big black spider had completely disappeared.  I knew he or she was someplace hiding and would come out after the lights were off and "get" me. 

Mom letting me read "Charlottes's Web" did nothing to reduce my horror of those eight-legged freaks.  In fact, over the years, my phobia increased.  Numerous times I telephoned my husband at work and told him he had to come home because there was a spider in the bedroom.  I could not walk into a room with a spider no matter what.  I would have left my baby in his crib crying hour after hour if I had seen a spider in the room.  If my husband was not able to come home, I would call a neighbor to come and help me.  (Help me?  No, actually, I just wanted that spider dead but I could not get close enough to one to kill it.)  When nobody was available at all, I would resort to hair spray, perfume, spray starch, furniture polish and anything else I could spray across the room at the damn thing.   I found that none of those things actually killed spiders, but they did smell pretty good after being sprayed and they even looked shiny.  You see,while couldn't walk into a room with a spider, I couldn't walk away from a room with a spider either.  (I knew they would just hide and then bite me later.)  (Thank God for long telephone cords.)

This irrational terror of mine continued until after my marriage to Alex.  We were in Arizona visiting his parents when I saw a huge "wolf spider" on the wall in the hallway outside of the guest bedroom.  I shrieked bloody murder and Alex came running to see if I was hurt.  I pointed to the spider and he said "Oh.  What do you want me to do?".  I replied through clenched teeth that I wanted that spider dead.  He left me while he went to look for execution materials.  He was gone about a half an hour.  When he came back with a magazine, a sponge, a bottle of cleanser, he asked me if I was sure I wanted it dead.  Of course I was sure..  With a loud slam, the spider was smeared all over the hallway wall.  Alex shook his head as he sadly cleaned up the spider's remains.

Alex's parents were horrified when I told them what had happened.  That spider (name of Humphrey) had been with them for about 15 years.  It even moved with them when they bought a new house.  All three sets (Alex, his mom, and his dad) of black eyes gazed mournfully at me as they asked for a description of the spider.  We had indeed killed their spider friend Humphrey.  I felt terrible.

Native Americans don't kill spiders.  But I learned something that day.  I had forced Alex to take a life and he was very upset over it.  Hell, by this time, I was upset over it and feeling really bad about poor Humphrey.  Shoot, he may have even had a family.  And he did have kind of nice gentle eyes actually.

That was the last spider that ever died because of me.  Now I use a clear plastic cup, slide a postcard across to trap the critter and escort it gently out into the garden.  Spiders love it there.  Lots of food, water, and a safe haven to live out their little spider lives.  I even got to see a spider "hatch" when about 300 gorgeous little golden babies tossed out their silk ropes and  flew off to do whatever it is that spiders do.  They were about the size the head of a pin.

It's good to not be terrified of them any more.  But I'm still not inviting them in for a sleep over even if it's raining.

Behind The Wheel

This is my husband Alex.

Before we go someplace, there are a lot of things that have to be done.  Alex has his walkie talkies, his GPS, his Blue Tooth, his compass, his cell phone, and his emergency medical kit.  We also carry blankets, detailed maps of Northern California and Southern California, 2 gallons of water, a knife, road flares, his clean underwear, a flashlight, power bars, batteries, water-proof matches, a solar powered radio, and a small propane stove with a pan.  This is for a trip to go five blocks to the market.

The GPS tells us where to turn.  It's five blocks away, Alex.  We could have walked it very safely and easily.  The only reason we are taking the car is so we don't have to carry 10 bags of groceries home from the store. 

I know how to go five blocks and not get lost, not get cold enough to need a blanket, and not to die of thirst.  It's not likely Alex is going to change underwear either.    We carry this junk in all three cars so that we are always prepared.

Alex does not like to leave things to chance.  One wrong turn can really be a problem.  Perhaps we'll get lost somewhere and have to kill a bear and cook it in that little pan on the propane stove.  Alameda has no bears.  We do have raccoons, turtles, rats, wild turkeys, and squirrels though.  I guess Alex could kill one of those little animals with his knife and then we could cook that.  (Actually, I'd rather just nibble on the fruit hanging from the trees, but that's me.)

It seems like this would be a very safe way to travel.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.  Alex perhaps has the worst sense of direction of anyone I know.  Or, he's just so caught up in the gadgetry that he gets lost all the time.  He frequently tells me we are taking a "Navajo shortcut".  These Navajo shortcuts without fail tack on an extra 90 minutes to any trip we take.

People give Alex detailed directions to places and he acts like he's paying attention, but he's not.  He just makes the appropriate noises and tunes the people out.

I sometimes suggest that pulling in at a service station and asking directions might be a grand idea.  Alex treats this suggestion with exasperation.  It's not going to happen.  We are going to use the GPS, the maps, the compass, and drink some of that damn water until we figure it out.  We will park and take deep breaths to get our bearings before continuing on.

I never get lost.  I hate gadgets. 

"The Message" - They Played My Song

Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder  
How I keep from going under  
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder  
How I keep from going under

Grandmaster Flash
Courtesy: Getty Images

(That's how I feel most days.  Just don't push me and I'll be fine.  And so will you.)

Roadblocks

Yes.  That is our green recycle trash can.

Wednesdays are garbage eve.  Alex takes all three of our trash cans out to the street.  We have a blue can for paper and plastic. metal and glass, a grey can for "garbage/garbage", and the green can for clippings, food, etc.

Alex carefully arranges the cans at the curb in front of our house.  He puts them in a row, not too close to each other so that the garbage truck can use the mechanical arm to grab the cans.

Thursdays are garbage days in our neighborhood.  I watch out my window from behind the lace curtain as my neighbor does his weekly thing of going through our garbage and moving the trash cans into totally different locations.  He finds a piece of paper in the green can and he quickly re-assigns it to the blue can.  He decides that a piece of cloth does not belong in the blue can so he relegates it to the grey (garbage/garbage) can.

I watch him for 15 or 20 minutes in total amazement as he goes through his ritual.  In every other way, this is a normal acting man.  Sometimes I call Alex at the office and say "Guess what he's doing?" and Alex will laugh because he knows exactly who "he" is, and exactly "what" he is doing.

Part of me enjoys watching this ridiculous activity, but part of me is annoyed.  What if I threw something "unmentionable" into the trash?  What if there were broken sex toys in there?  What if I threw naked pictures of us in the trash?  What if I threw the prescription bottle for the anti-psychotics in the trash?  See my point?

You may know, but once you move your trash to the street for pick up, you have no legal "expectation of privacy".  For any of you criminals who may be reading this, that means the cops, the DEA, the CIA, and the FBI do not need a search warrant.  You might want to keep this in mind if you throw out trash that links you to nefarious deeds.

The worst part is, my neighbor leaves for work after Alex, and he gets home before Alex.  After the trash is emptied, my neighbor lines up all three of our cans right in front of our driveway so that we can't get a car in or out of the driveway without moving the cans.

I don't like handling trash cans.  I don't like looking at trash either.  We've been here for over ten years.  I expect my neighbor knows us a lot better than we know him by now.

My daughter thinks our neighbor man is a spy.  I think he's more of a recycle OCD type.

Fried Cheese Balls

When I think of cheese, I think of a lovely Stilton, British Blue from England.  Or perhaps a ripe triple creme Brie from France.  Or perhaps a Molitaire Tartuffo like shown in the photo.

The Molitaire Tartuffo, a sheep milk cheese, is veined with truffles.  

I dream of Holland's Boerenkaas, nutty and sharp!  I love the Basque Petit Agour from France.  Good old American Cheddar is fine too.  Stanser Sahaffase is a fine Swiss cheese and very delicious!

What I have never considered is fried cheese balls.  Just the name 'Fried Cheese Balls" makes me gag.  We recently went to dinner with some close friends and they both went into rapture at "Pimento Cheese Croquettes" on the menu.  My mother used to make Salmon Croquettes using corn flakes to hold together the canned salmon.  These balls were then fried in Crisco to a golden brown with warm canned salmon inside them.  Come to think of it, Mom also made a tuna casserole with corn flakes on top too.

Mom used to buy jars of pimento cheese too and use it to spread on crackers.  I'm not really sure what the orange stuff was, but I doubt it was cheese.  Perhaps it was a cheese flavored product.  She also spread the pimento cheese on celery for a healthy snack.  No wonder I was a skinny kid.

My friends indeed ordered the "Pimento Cheese Croquettes" and I had trouble looking at them when they arrived at the table.  The croquettes sat in a pool of red jelly and they were topped with a little circle of green pepper.  They pronounced them "delicious" and devoured them while I carefully averted my eyes.

Those were bloody brown fried cheese balls.  You can't fool me.