Good Fences...

Our neighbors throw their cigarette butts in our yard AND their cat poops in our flower beds?

If only I hadn't already written a neighbor-depositing-cigarette-butts-into-another's-yard story. I could've added a domesticated animal to the mix. The take-away is to not rush a story.

Dog Treats

It takes some sort of Herculean strength to go out of your way to be nice to others when you aren't in the best place emotionally.

When a new, middle-aged barista started at Starbucks at few months ago, he took an immediate interest in Louie. But Louie's kind of a shy guy, and when this barista would come at him, he'd do everything from cower to growl. The barista made it his mission to win Lou over. Their relationship started gradually, with a hand extended for a sniff, then a scratch behind the ears, and then the shoulders. They were getting pretty well, and then the barista stepped it up by bringing Greenies for Louie.

From my conversations with the barista, the Greenies seem to have started at the same time that he began having some personal problems, financial and familial. And he occasionally doesn’t charge Bryan or me for our purchases.

Recently, Bryan told me that the barista wouldn’t accept payment for his latte, saying, “You’re a good person.”

I don’t pretend to think that me and my husband and our little dog figure into this barista’s life in any significant way. But it seems like he’s going out of his way to be kind, when the world is being pretty unkind to him. Like he’s embarked on a caffeinated path back to a better place for himself.

Pasado es Pasado

All of a sudden, my Spanish class is on its final chapter of the semester. Las Presiones de la Vida Moderna (The Pressures of Modern Life). Kind of a heavy theme to end with.

The chapter's grammar points are a few different idioms that use preterite-tense verbs. We started learning the simple preterite a few chapters ago, and at that time mi profesora said that we needed to have a good grasp of it, because it’s the most used tense.

Her explanation was something like, “If you think about your daily life, most of what you say refers to the past.”

It’s true.

One more test, a final exam, and then mi profesora will retire and we students will be mostly on our own. I can’t fit one of those accelerated summer courses into my schedule, so I'll be waiting until fall to take 201. By that time, mi profesora will hopefully be on some beach with a margarita. I wonder what her past-tense thoughts will be about our class and her final semester. She is ending her teaching career when I am (hopefully) just beginning mine.

"A Relative Stranger" by Charles Baxter

The characters in these short stories say the weirdest things. Like this exchange in a barbershop, from "Scissors":

---

"I've seen you around town," he said. "Sometimes I wave, but you never seem to see me."

She smiled. "Oh," she said. "I see you. And I always think, 'Well, there's Harold, and he's waving at me,' and what I do is, I sort of wave back, but, you know, mentally. No so anyone would see."

---

I love it.

Perhaps my favorite scene in this collection come from "Westland," where a man helps another man, whom he barely knows, dismantle a child's playhouse in the man's backyard.

The final story, "Saul and Patsy are Pregnant" is the second story about this east-coast couple transplanted into the midwest and transplanted into unrest. This story, beautiful and heartbreaking and of course a little weird but ultimately redemptive, is the perfect ending to this collection.

One Hundred and Twelve

This guy makes my grandpa look like a greenhorn. Thank goodness Grandpa Joe doesn't have to use a scooter yet, and that he always puts on sunglasses when he goes outside.

Ninety-eight Plus One

(He ate every shrimp and candied walnut and left the weeds. Which was good, because it allowed him room for an ice cream sundae.)

At lunch today, my grandpa started talking about how he'd had to learn English upon coming to America. Though his stories have become a bit longer in recent years, with more frequent sidetracks and occasional lost trains of thought, I do enjoy them. And since I'm studying to teach English as a Second Language, I took a particular interest in this story.

He said he learned to read and write at school, but it was the really good words that he picked up on the street. Later, back at his apartment, Bryan noticed a misspelling on a family tree he'd created a couple decades ago. His spelling was never terrific, but he's always gotten along fine. It's the story of most American immigrants. You may never achieve native-like fluency--either in your language or your cultural lifestyle--but because we are a country of immigrants, you belong.

Ninety-eight

(My Grandpa, at the spring-chicken age of 94, looking at patent designs he'd mailed to himself fifty years ago to prove idea proprietorship.)

My family likes to brag that my grandpa put an addition on his ranch at age 80. That it wasn't until 92 that he gave up driving (and gave me his car). And that he's totally stuck it to The Man with his Lockheed and Chrysler pensions.

Bryan, Mark, and I are going to celebrate with him tomorrow. And it'll be nice. We'll take him out to lunch, and he'll insist that he isn't hungry, but will then clean his plate and whatever overgrown dessert we order for him against his protest, saying he only has to eat as much as he wants. Then we'll go back to his place, and try to tease the secret of longevity out of him. I'm hoping his answer will include:

A) good family and friends

B) hard work

C) love

D) charity

E) periodic moments to exhale

F) ice cream