Mr. Rogers, Sex, Racism and Aliens from Outer Space

Here I am again staring at a blank computer screen and wondering what I’m going to write about. At times like this do I call on Stephen King or Fred Rogers for inspiration? Mr. King, when people ask him how to write, he answers, “One word at a time” which seems like he blowing them off but, really, he’s not. You can’t write if all you do is think about writing. He goes on to explain that the Great Wall of China was built one brick at a time and you can see it from space. So what’s a little blog post between friends? I can do this! The trick is to figure out the right words to use in the right order and Mr. King keeps that secret close to his vest. 

I mentioned Fred Rogers  as inspiration for blog fodder because too often since the pandemic started I’ve been thinking about of one of his songs, hoping it would conjure up a magical spell or fantasy that will set my world right again.

“What do you do with the mad that you feel

When you feel so mad you could bite?

When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong...

And nothing you do seems very right?

“What do you do? Do you punch a bag?

Do you pound some clay or some dough?

Do you round up friends for a game of tag?

Or see how fast you go?”

I’m obviously too old to bite or punch although some old people have been known to revert back to those childhood habits but I’m not going there if I can help it. “Pound some dough” though is thought-provoking considering that so many people have taken up baking during the pandemic that it’s caused a shortage of flour nation-wide. Did we learn that trick for coping with stress in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood so long ago that we’d forgotten why kneeing dough helps calm our minds? Or is it something more primal inside us? I always found baking bread to be meditative and it didn’t hurt that making artisan breads was one of the few things I was actually good at doing in a kitchen.

Speaking of kitchens I’ll tell you a secret; I kind of wish now that my husband and I tried sex in the kitchen. (It’s all those stupid romance books I’ve been reading that’s making me type this confession.) I’m not sure if it’s a generational thing that we never did it the kitchen or we just didn’t think of it but whatever the reason that ship has sailed without me. Even if I was still interested, there aren’t men in my peer age group who could lift me up to sit on the edge of countertop so we could---shall we say---line up our ‘baking equipment’ and that might be the least of an old dude’s problems. Egads, I need a Clorox Disinfecting Wipe to get that image out of my head! Funny thing about fantasies, though, I’m always young, fun and sassy in mine. And just in case you're wondering---and who doesn't---"wham-bam thank you ma’am" is literally defined as a sexual encounter conducted quickly. It's been around since the 1950s and it was made popular by Dean Martin.

Tip for the day: We can’t play tag with our friends during social distancing because being tagged “it” could cause us to get us sick and die, and if you’re black you also can’t run as fast as you can without chancing getting killed for #runningwhileblack. There’s a list of 100 Things Not to do While Black online with links back to stories of everyday things people of color have done that caused a white person to call the police---too many of which resulted in unjustified killings. Black kids as young as seven have been shot by the police for doing normal kid stuff. And it doesn’t matter what kind of neighborhood you’re in. A former White House aid under Obama was moving into an Upper West Side Manhattan apartment and someone called 911 to report he was burglarizing the place. Some people say that racism has gotten worse since Obama became president, that he somehow caused a wider divide and I used say, "No" his getting elected just brought the racism out in the open. Then I heard Will Smith squash both those ideas on the Stephen Colbert show when he said, “Racism Is Not Getting Worse. It's Getting Filmed." Yup, the popularly of cell phones is just documenting what’s been there all along.

I've gotta end this blog post someplace and if I was writing fiction I’d have a mass invasion of purple aliens coming to earth in peace with a Covid-19 vaccinate and a way to mindwipe bigotry out of existence. And while we wait for that to happen, let's all pledge to stay safe from the virus and to not rush to judgement regarding those who are protesting in the streets (before the White Supremacists and anarchists entered the fray and turn the protests into riots). Sure, it's bad, it's shocking, it's tragic, it's terrifying and the lawlessness needs to end, but try to remember that when activists like Colin Kaepernick took a silence knee at sporting events to draw attention to the types of things that sparked this recent violence, few people listened. Let's hope something or someone can find a middle ground in between these two extreme ways of reacting to the same social injustices so that more people will demand systemic changes. God help us if we can't.  #blacklivesmatter! ©

Wham Bam...one of the things I didn't know when I was a teenager

Wakeup ‘Calls’ and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

After sleeping a grand total of 3 hours and 4 minutes according to my Fitbit I got woke up by the dog having a hissy-fit while attacking the narrow glass panel that runs next to my front door. It was 5:30 in the morning with just enough hazy pre-dawn light coming in that he could see something out there. I know his that-dog-is-in-my-territory bark. This wasn’t it. I know how he enthusiastically greets expected guests and solicitors. This wasn’t it. This, as it turned out, is how he greets juvenile raccoons who do spread eagles on the window pane and act like Levi is the most interesting schnauzer they’ve ever seen. But let me tell you, before I found out what that dog was going pitbull-postal about, I was a tad worried someone was trying to break in.

I grabbed my emergency dialer off its charging cradle on my nightstand and cautiously approached the front door. A short press of the dialer button brings an emergency operator, a long hold calls the police. Or is it the other way around? I couldn’t remember but I approached the door window with my finger paused over the button. With Levi’s barking and a large human figure trying to hold him back, that curious raccoon wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Her small face was adorably sweet looking up at me and I got a wonderful view of her paws on the window pane. Even taping the glass didn’t scare her off. I’ve lived here for almost two decades and I’ve never seen a raccoon, not even road kill. But a couple of blocks away they’re cutting down a lot of trees to put a brand new street through wooded acreage, so I suppose I’ll start seeing more critters looking to relocate. I just hope little Miss. Raccoon doesn’t make a habit of visiting Levi in the night. 

It was Monday morning and there was no way I was going to fall back to sleep after that “wakeup call” so I put the coffee pot on and started my morning routine which doesn’t usually include watching the sun come up. If I had an ocean or lake view I would have been impressed but through the white pines all I got was an hour when I had to pull my venetian blind back down because the glare on my computer screen made it impossible to read. Sipping coffee with Italian sweet creamer I surveyed the week ahead on my day planner: Later that morning I had a brunch date with the Gathering Girls lined up and Tuesday it was an ice cream social at the senior hall. Wednesday a breakfast garden party with the Red Hat Society was on the agenda and Thursday I’ll be taking the dog in for his annual teeth cleaning before the crack of dawn. And Friday I’ll be up early again, waiting for the plumber who will probably show up closer to 9:00 than 8:00 of his arrival window. 

It frustrates me to no end that I have weeks like this where all the fun (and not so fun) stuff is bunched together and other weeks where I sit at home with only the dog and the wildlife to talk to. Even the vet and plumbing appointments weren’t as flexible as you might think. Unless it’s an emergency, the plumbing company only schedules calls to my neighborhood on certain days and I get a $100 discount at the doggie dentist, by getting Levi in within a certain time frame. I call this my Goldilocks Effect: One bowl/week of the month is always too cold, one bowl/week is too hot and one bowl/week of the month is just right. And while I’m bitching about something, who on earth decided to make socks right and left foot specific? I bought them, saw the L and R but didn’t believe they were made differently. They are and they do feel weird if you put them on the wrong foot. Now I’m trying to remember if the seven pair panties sets we had as kids with the names of the days embroidered on them, felt differently if we wore Sunday’s undies on Saturday.  But I digress. 

Have you seen the movie/documentary Won't you be my Neighbor? that's been on PBS and in select theaters? I haven't but from what I hear about it, I wish with all my heart that we could kidnap Mr. Trump, tie him down to a chair, gag him and make him watch all the episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the 1960s TV series produced for kids. Learning about kindness and empathy are obviously things he missed in his early childhood development. According to the New York Times movie review, Fred Rogers tried to teach children “how to navigate ‘some of the more difficult modulations’ in everyday life — might now be classified as emotional literacy. He acknowledged that anger, fear and other kinds of hurt are part of the human repertoire and that children need to learn to speak honestly about those feelings, and to trust the people they share them with.” Fred Rogers was a seminary graduate, a trained composer and contrary to what alt-right forum posters are claiming about him “ruining society with all that ‘touchy, feely’ crap” Mr. Rogers was the kind of person I would have liked for a neighbor. I could have called him early in the morning and he would have understood why that raccoon episode scared the crap out of me. ©

"Most of us, I believe, admire strength. It's something we tend to respect in others, desire for ourselves, and wish for our children. Sometimes, though, I wonder if we confuse strength and other words--like aggression and even violence. Real strength is neither male nor female; but is, quite simply, one of the finest characteristics that any human being can possess." 

From The World According to Mister Rogers (Kindle Location 161).

"Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it." 

From The World According to Mister Rogers (Kindle Locations 111-114).