SLEEPS WITH THE FISHIES

Leaving Paradise

I became slightly depressed knowing that the holiday was about to end. The familiar yet mundane life I left behind called me home. The creeping acceptance of the inevitable. The bittersweet. The realization that I actually did leave all my cares behind. For seven blissful days not once did I think about work nor my daughters situation! And on the evening of the last day aboard ship, I sat on the deck on the 11th floor,  the weight of what I left behind settled on my shoulder and watched the sunset in the stormy sky leaning on me.

On a ship, you are never alone for long. Behind me I heard the shrill and bossy voice of an eight year old girl. That tone is known to mothers all over the world. This bossy woman-child sashayed to the rail and looked towards the setting sun. She turned and ignoring me, concentrated her remark behind me, "No! No! You stay right there!"

Around the corner of the laid out sun chairs, with a the canister of soda pressed to her tiny breast, came the two year old. She wore a simple pink empire line dress with a ruffle on the hem and around the sleeveless arm holes. Her hair was so short, and so wispy, the fairy hair of the very young. On the island , she must have had beads braided along the top. On her tiny feet were girly-girl pink sandals.

She stumbled and staggered in that run/walk normally associated with drunks and two year olds.

She stood along side her sister and got tippy toed.

She pointed!

"I see a dolphin", she cried out.

Her older and much more sophisticated sister rolled her eyes and informed her..."You can't see a dolphin! It's too dark"

Her mother appeared from the right and in a soft murmur told her youngest daughter that the dolphins were sleeping.

Little Pink handed her mom the soda container. Turning towards the sea and grabbing the rail she puffed out her chest and began calling loudly, at the top of her lungs.......

"DOLPHINS!! DOLPHINS WAKE UP!!"

It was my very favorite moment of the trip.

Sadness took a dive. He sleeps with the dolphins.

I HEAR THAT LONESOME WHISTLE BLOW

A Foggy Morning

I awoke yesterday morning to the most dense fog I have ever seen. It engulfed everything and did not lift until well after 11am!

It beckoned me to walk along the River Green Trail with my camera. And what wonderful pictures awaited me.

Jeweled Dew Dripping Spider Webs.

Spooky Abandoned Train Station

The Endless Trail in the beginning of her Fall glory

The the sun was able to climb over the all encompassing wet gray mist and all was right with the world again.

You can't always get what you want

The Stones are playing Churchill Downs in Louisville on September 29th.

Now I have seen the Stones plenty of times over the years. The last time being 1989. 17 years ago! It was outdoors, at the UofL football stadium...maybe.

I remember that it took a long time to realize what songs they were playing.

Unlike their SOME GIRLS tour, which was fabulous.

It is unfair to think that something has happened to the Stones.

Something has happened to me.

Steel Wheels was the last Stones album I purchased, if you don't count the SOME GIRLS album with the original cover  I  found (at the flea market, natch) and gave to my Brother-in-Law. Somewhere I read they printed only 100,000 of this particular cover before they were forced to stop because of the copywrite infringement laws.

I knew he would love it. Appreciate it.

(Why do I remember a different album cover for Beggars Banquet than I see now? Am I loosing it in my old age?)

In a moment of pure delusion, I checked out the prices for the show in Louisville.

Oh My God.

For a mere $150 I can get a ticket...but I'm not promised a view. How bizarre!!

For $2500 I can have it all. And Alice Cooper.

Naturally I went on a quick hunt for my 1981 ticket. Left hand stage. I could have spit and hit the stage.

Inflation is outrageous.

TELL IT TO THE JUDGE

When I headed downtown for my day in court, to plead my case as to why I was not guilty of running a red light,...I cut the time a little too close, very close and it was made even more hair raising when I realized I did not know where to go.

I virtually ran to the court house. Upon arrival I joined a large mass of people. All looking solemn, very concerned, and quite angry. My type of people.  I got at the back of a line, every one was so quiet and giving off incredible strained vibes, I couldn't help myself and blurted out, "Is this the line for traffic court?"  Those around me nodded yes and I held out my ticket, "Anyone get pulled over for that trap at Coldwater & Coliseum?". They erupted like a volcano!  Everyone had a story. A truck driver with a heavy load of recyclable, a lady with a grand baby in the back seat, crazy drivers who cut in too close, rear ending horrors. Non-sympathetic and heartless cops. Anger and frustration ruled this crowd.

Good! I'm glad I was not the only one offended that I was called a law breaker. Such  a lie!  I was pushed through that intersection! If I had braked, like everyone around me, I would have been rear ended.

The court room was a zoo. Albeit , a well behaved and respectful, very quiet zoo. The Zoo Keeper was a Super-sized bailiff. He was terrific. In a before life he must have been a traffic cop. The hand language was exquisite pantomime. The exaggerated wrist flick  meant "Get away from the door". The "bring it to me" finger fluttering could only mean, "Get your butts to the front". The explicit finger pointing interpreted as, "Stand behind the rail!"

And the sweet gentle gesture of bringing one finger to his lips silenced us all. One look into the crowd would catch the eye of the offender and stop him dead with the of most menacing of glares. He could pick anyone out of the mass, catch their attention and control them with one glance. Every man who entered the back door with a hat on his head was immediately aware of the death ray glare thrown his way across the room. Hats were immediately swept off the head.

He was poetry in motion.

What is up with traffic court? Why did we have public intoxication convicts wearing those orange suits usually associated with the University of Tennessee? I'm here to tell you, one of those guys was HOT. Long wavy hair, a left over from the hippie days, Woodstock. Or maybe a biker. He was beautiful.

We also had in our presence the man who streaked the Bob Dylan concert. Which was held at the minor league ball park last night. I made up the streaking part. I was not there but I would like to think that people still streak to get attention...and to get arrested.

Cocaine possession with intent, persistent felons who did not appear in court and where finally apprehended and forced to appear, women inmates along with the men, not certain what they did, but was told where some of them worked, (strip club!) The judge and the prosecuting attorney had the annoying habit of referring to everything as case number XXXXXXXXXXX053 with a CDS secret code attached and house detention. Juicy stuff that we were only given a teaser.

Everything moved swiftly, if losing three hours of your life is swift. People came and went, entered and stood, found seats of those who were called, babies were banished, interpreters were found for those who did not speak English, husbands stood at the podium for their wives who were out in the lobby with the baby and could not speak the language anyway, only Arabic. Some only Spanish. And then there was the guy who told the judge that he slurred. "Maybe a stint with the CDS would help that slur" the judge told him. The inmates went first. Lawyers and clients went next. Unfinished business was resolved. Some remanded.

Then it was my turn.

Anticlimactical.

When I was asked what I wanted to state, well I stated...."I protest..."

Court Date (jury trial!!!!!????) (only a fool defends a fool????) this February.

Oh wow. Five months to draw diagram's, plan a defense, and .........

Search the internet to find out if that guy really did streak the concert last night.

LETTING GO

It has been long enough for the shock to have worn off. Not completely, but enough so I am not overcome with hopelessness and anger. I suppose letting go is a variation of realizing you have no power over someone. And actually, you really do not want that type of power after they reach the age of 18.

Then they are on their own. Even if this means you stand on the sidelines and are only allowed to cheerlead, pick up broken pieces, lend money, provide a safe house when needed, and a car, feeling as if you are going to have a heart attack or a seizure from frustration.

She did it right after I bought the wedding dress.

It could have been worse, she could have refused to enter the church. The scene could have been straight out of The Graduate...(hmmmmm maybe not).

Anyway, she decided he was not the one and some other guy she met interested her. I am still flabbergasted. So is S.

It has taken me quite awhile to accept it.

That one day in the dress shop is all I am going to get for the time being. That was a great day, and I will cherish that for a long time.

I have been so upset about everything that I have not seen her since that day in June! Fathers Day. We took her Dad out for dinner, there was a violent thunder storm and the computers got knocked out and I could not pay with a credit card so he paid the bill. More memories from that great day.

I will see her this Sunday. I do not want to meet the new boyfriend. I was very attached to S. (four years for God's sake) and he was part of the family. But there is no way around it, I think.

Life is a Bitch sometimes, isn't it?

MAGIC CARPET RIDE

Finding myself in the rare circumstance of having no one waiting for me and no particular place I needed to be, I was humming down I-64 with the window's open and the music loud when the next exit sign came into view, "Simpsonville".

Ah, Simpsonville. I do not know you well, but I do know that directly after the off ramp is the most funky and downtrodden of dark, dank, smelly, cornucopia of surprises lies the most magnificent Flea Market in the area! So full of people that it reaches the point of busting which necessitates a  spilling of the overflow into the bright sunny outdoors.

So, I exited and entered.

I went directly to his booth, as I always do when I arrive.

I use to head to the bread maker who had the most heavenly smelling cranberry bread in a mound....no longer, no longer there. A great loss.

So now I head right to back of the building, noting as I walk with purpose past the enticing booths of cowboy hats and boots, past Mexican rugs, (a young girl, not more than 14 or 15 on the cusp of developing into a woman, lounging against the mountain of carefully folded Mexican blankets, dressed in purple, one plump leg crossed carelessly and effortlessly over the other, feet clad in black well worn flats....how I wished for my camera....as her father shouted at her, "MARIA!!" she jumped to attention), discounted and most possibly out of date food and health products, past the pictures of velvet framed, the candles, the tapes and cd's, the knives and cigarette lighters, jewlery and shoes. I worked my way through the aisles thick with the  Mexican  emigrants, arrived in Kentucky to find a better life cutting the tobacco and working in the hundreds of Mexican kitchens that seem to be everywhere anymore, on the horse farms, cleaning the hotel rooms, and working all the hot and sweaty construction jobs they can find and snap up, doing all the labor intensive farm jobs that no one else wants to do because it is too hard, they mill about the Flea Market speaking to each other in their romantic language and eying you out of the corner of their eyes, seen below the lowered brims of their large cowboy hats.

The air thick with the aroma of grease. It smells like the vast amounts of fried chicken which is being gobbled up as quickly as the it can be drained from the hot oil baskets.

I round the corner of Building D and there it is. As always and I dread the day it is not there and waiting for me. The Record Booth. The last of the great record collectors who sets up every week-end with his weekly catch of magic.

He stand over the crates that house his immense collection with a cigarette bobbing out of the corner of his mouth. His sandy dirty blonde hair looking as if the gray does not have the heart of take possession, laying in an untidy flop of bangs brushing across the top of his thick black horn rim glasses. His face is thin and lined. The beginnings of a melt down into that place that separates middle age from old age.

He looks up as I enter the "restricted" area behind the initial tables honoring the beloved albums. I am heading towards the "good" stuff on a special rack in the back. The $10 stuff. I pick up "Layla" and smile. I put it back. I pick up "Exile on Main Street" and open the album and slip out the record to check for damage.

"Their best ever album" I murmur, maybe to him.

"I have a better copy at the store."

"The store?" I thought this was his store.

"In Louisville. On Bardstown and Bonnycastle".

I struggle to see it. I see Leatherhead, I see the old Rexall Drug store, which I know is long gone now. My mind walks up to the Doo-Wop Shop. I blurt out, like a fool, "Ear-X-Tasy"

"That's on the next block, mines called "Better Days." He flicked the ashes from the cigarette. "Been in the business for 30 years."

I ask him, knowing 30 years is legend, "Remember the shop on the corner, they would paint different artists on the building wall. One year it was Hendrix."

"Phoenix Records." He answers.

"Yes" I could close my eyes and go straight back as if on a magic carpet to that time, that era of the 12 inch disc.

"My collection was stolen years ago in the late 70's. I sold what little I had left at a yard sale. Now I am determined to collect them all back."

In my hand I held Cat Stevens and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

He smiled knowingly as he took my $10.

"Good Luck"

DANCING UNDER THE DIAMOND SKY

With one hand waving free...

(Because the other was clutching a beer can)

Due to unavoidable  life issues interfering with well laid out plans, it  appeared that I would be attending the Dublin Irish Festival (DIF) all by my  lonesome this year.  Not that I gave it much thought, I knew I would just do it and enjoy it even though I would just be with Me.

Imagine my delight Saturday morning when my husband came roaring into the hotel parking lot, straddling his Honda and looking exactly like the Hero come to save the day. Only then did I realize I was inwardly holding my breath and longing for a companion.

He looked pretty hot too on that motorcycle.

Brilliant. That was the word. Brilliant performers, brilliant new Celtic Rock Stage and area, brilliant sky, brilliant white heat, brilliant crowd, brilliant time. Just brilliant!!

The crowds seemed larger than before, perhaps because we were now cut off from the main pedestrian area and had our Celtic Rock world on the West Side of the Festival. Brilliant move!!

Other than that, everything else was the same. Lots of festival food Celtic style. The melt in your mouth Fish and Chips from the Old Bag of Nails. The same icy cold cans of Killian beer drawn from gigantic chests of ice. Sneaky Pete had a new location directly on the path to the Rock Tent. The Irish Canines also had new digs, under the cover of a canopy of trees. The Capital City Pipe and Drums still made my eyes tear up and bring a lump to my throat. The Irish thunder stage was still a hell like pit that could toast you to a crisp. The baby buggies and strollers seemed to be everywhere. As did Red hair. Tattoos were shown off by many, the real kind and the henna kind. Young girls still strolled around with their hair twisted up in those torturous looking rollers awaiting their big moment to dance the Irish jig. It was still very risky to enter the port-a-john trailers after a certain time...The buses rolled from 8am till 130 am Saturday carrying back to their vehicles the intoxicated revelers and their dedicated drivers. We still sang on the five minute trip. This year it was Hang On Sloopy. We continued to wander around the parking lots, walking in the wrong direction to the hotel. I awoke with a headache on Sunday morning...again.

The Saw Doctors blew everyone away as was expected. Only this year they played before their largestOhio crowd ever! This was Joes first time seeing them on stage. I believe he came away impressed.

A year came and went so quickly. Now I look forward to next year, the 20th anniversary of the DIF!