Befirrfin the Fierce

This is the second installment of  To all the pets I've loved before...Feline Friends

Leo, my Mama's best-loved cat, had the coveted position of fifth child in our family - all the love and attention with no real responsibility and no threat of discipline. We were a teeny bit jealous, we other four. He thought he was her true baby, a human being even, because from the day he was born she bottle-fed, held and comforted him. Like Dr. Seuss's Horton the Elephant, she was faithful 100%.

My mother nicknamed him Befirrfin the Fierce (though when she called him so, it sounded decidedly babyish). His fur was white and soft gray with tiny patches of black and tan, and his eyes were close in shade to my dad's - what my mom very jokingly referred to one time as "cow pie green". Large and muscular, much larger than the tiny creature who bore him, he was a hunter and a fighter. He got in a nasty fight with some stray tom once, and it cost him a chunk of his ear. And he used to come into my room just to mess with my black rabbit Freddy. Freddy, too, was a brave, adventure-seeking soul. My lop-eared friend blocked Leo from entering his domain, and they used to stare each other down, jumping and padding back and forth until Leo took a few swats and then swaggered away until another day. I swear he smiled; he just loved riling Freddy.

By far, though, the greatest battle Befirrfin ever fought, the one that won the gratitude and admiration of all our family, was against The Rat. It was a rodent of legendary proportions that lived beneath our stove in our little L-shaped kitchen. You could hear it shifting its weight around back there in the evening; shivers went down your spine and your toes curled. Sometimes you caught flashes of brown by the back. Leo spent many nights sitting with his pale eyes fixated on the space between the wall and the stove, creeping closer. An epic battle was bound to happen, but I, for one, always hoped I wouldn't be caught in the middle of it.

It occurred one night when I was in bed, thankfully. The noise of it, the hissing, thumping, running, clattering cacophony, roused my parents, because their room was adjacent to the kitchen. Mama got up, Dad said, ready to rush to her baby's aide. Dad made her lie back down. "Leo will take care of it."

It was about time for that hideous rodent to be gone.

When we got up in the morning, Leo was calm and collected, acting as if, despite some scrapes, nothing momentous had occurred. The large rat was lying dead and bloody on the kitchen floor, more hideous in that state than I had imagined it alive in all its glory. We could finally be rid of it - after a good deal of clean-up.

Though we were all so glad the wicked Rat was dead, it was not only undesirable rodents that Leo stalked. I can still see him sitting in the corner of our old living room, batting at a moth or butterfly that had come in. We kids tried in vain to pull him away from the pretty insect several times, but Leo was fascinated and the look in his eye savage as he decimated its wings. We tattled on him to Mama, and her sharp response was, "If Leo wants to catch a butterfly, let him catch a butterfly."

Still, the hunter/fighter was the only part of his nature Mama feared, because it pulled him away from her. Even with all our extensive yard and the field to roam, Leo's wanderlust got stronger as he got older. Due to a few extended absences, his forays into adventure had to be supervised in case he got ideas of vanishing. Mama was very upset any time we exclaimed, "Leo's loose!". Out into the yard she dashed, and if Leo was still around prowling the edge of the yard, her negotiations with him began. Poor wanderer, you could see the war of thoughts in his tense body, wide, intelligent eyes and constant ear twitch as he looked from Mama to the lane or field and back again. He paced and sat, paced and sat - wanting to race to freedom but unable to ignore the person he loved above everything. Many times we watched her approach him slowly, speaking softly and persuasively, and then she snatched him up into her arms when she was near enough. Our scolding for letting him out soon followed.

Though Leo was the bold and pugnacious Befirrfin the Fierce, with Mama he was just a big baby. She draped that large cat over her shoulder to pet him, and he melted into her gradually, his body going limp until he began to drool with happiness. When she turned away from you, you could see the moisture on her shirt. Until he died she held him that way, and it was his favorite way to be caressed and cuddled. If I held him as she did and by chance he drooled down my back, it was a great honor. At least I felt so.

When we moved to Boise, Idaho, life was harder for the few pets we had still. It was cramped. It was city life, and that is an abysmal change for anyone used to running around in the country (I cried alot). The smells are different, and sometimes they are more diverse and exciting because of the plethora of creatures cramped within a square mile. In Idaho, Leo felt the old urge to seek a fight, a brief escape, and Mama had the usual work of persuading him to come back.

It was in Idaho that Leo's habit of following Mama around grew worse. Wherever she went he was behind her. She wore nothing but heels, my mother, and so if while doing laundry or making dinner she had to turn and grab something, there was almost always a yelp of pain from her beloved cat-son. He never learned, and it didn't matter how many times she scolded, "Leo!" It didn't matter how many times my dad admonished, "Honey, you have to watch where you're stepping!" He remained at her feet, as close as he could get, and Mama always expected him to move in time or not be lying within danger. Sometimes after such accidents, she pressed him to her face in apology for a few moments and then carried him off to my dad. If that didn't work he spent time on her shoulder, drooling. Probably, that's what he wanted all along.

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I wasn't home the day Befirrfin the Fierce died. I was living in Virginia, as I recall, when Dad phoned to tell my sister and me the news. He had health problems for a while, so it wasn't a shock. Yet I regretted not seeing him again, felt like another strong tie to our life in Tennessee was gone, and I knew my mama was inconsolable. I remember Dad being jealous, saying half in jest that he wondered if she would cry as hard over him as she did over Leo.


Dad buried Leo at the roots of a potted tree, so my mother could carry him wherever she went, knowing he was enriching another life. Two years ago I watched my dad turn the earth and finally transplant that tree, for a sojourn, into my aunt and uncle's yard in a little town in Idaho. We were all quiet and respectful as Papa draped his arm over my mom's shoulders, a moment of silence for Leo. There Befirrfin will remain, and there the tree will flourish, until Mom and Dad come back to claim them.




Dedicated to Mama Darlin'. I hope she will forgive me if I didn't do justice to her Leo.

To all the pets I've loved before...Feline Friends

Right now in my life there are 6am walks in my pajamas, long stares at meal times, eager greetings after time spent away and little minefields in the backyard. A friend's pug, Buster, is staying with us for a couple of weeks. Last night I sat by this well-mannered dog (excepting the puppy eyes during meal times), and I rubbed his ears, his neck and belly for a contented long while as I spoke to him in a ridiculous cartoon voice. It felt familiar and comfortable and how life should be....which of course reminded me of how life was once upon a time.

I speak of Tennessee - I haven't done that for a while. We had more than a few animals over several years who were a big part of our lives at the rural home of my childhood. Recently, anticipating Buster's arrival, my kids allowed me to skip down memory lane of a morning, enthusiastically tugging them behind me as I told tales of four-legged, cherished companions.

Of course, there was Reuben, that great Lab who was my dad's beloved friend. There was his dear and simultaneously annoying friend Mandy, the half-blind, almost deaf mutt, who savaged a man's cowboy boot - while his foot was in it - and drew blood. I'm not ashamed to say I was glad of it. The man - cropped, mousy hair, thick glasses and constant leering grin - was not young, but he was hitting on my teenage sister. He deserved what he got, and I myself, a little girl warily watching this sleazy guy with my arms crossed tightly, was considering sinking my teeth into him if he didn't leave my sister alone. Mandy persuaded him to do that, and to leave our presence altogether and quickly.

There was Pepe Slugeater, a cat. He wasn't anyone's favorite pet, but he was memorable because, as his name implies, he was a devourer of slugs. He'd discover one in the evening and squat over it to have himself a lovely, slimy feast. As his fur became matted about the face, even gluing one eye shut, he only broke his repast to growl madly at every human and animal who ventured near, warning them to go find their own delicious slug and leave him alone.

Very early on in our life on those ninety-eight acres in the country, there were the cat brothers, Tommy and Sammy. We went to a neighbor's house to adopt them. They were half-feral kittens, so we had to chase and corner them before we could take them home. Dad did most of the running. Just as we had the brothers in hand, one would leap loose, and as that one was caught, the other would break free. Though Tommy was the quickest and most elusive, I remember my dad becoming completely exasperated when Sammy escaped my grasp, but after some exhausting exercise, we finally had them both in the car and headed home.

They were polar opposites. Tommy wanted nothing to do with anybody. He'd sit his fluffy black and white body on the windowsill, aching to desert the house for the greater outdoors. And he did leave often for days at a time until we found him and brought him home. That is until the day he left for good and never came back. Months later my sister Vinca, who loved him dearly, thought she saw him on the far side of a pond in Mr. Spann's field. She called Tommy's name, and the cat sat for several minutes and watched at her as she crept nearer, but then he bolted. We never saw him again.

Sammy's fur was not a stark contrast of colors like Tommy's but a smattering of soft shades on white, and he was a complete love bug. He ached not for adventure but for attention. We could put doll dresses on him, and he'd let us shift his head, legs and arms this way and that while doing so without ever extending a claw or baring a tooth. We'd play house, and he was our baby and an easy one, too. I'm afraid we teased Sammy quite alot, something Tommy wouldn't allow without a sharp, in claws, rebuttal. I don't remember what happened to sweet Sammy, though I believe feline leukemia claimed him.


There was our much-loved but crazy Pookie who came to us after, a birthday gift for my sis I think, and she was truly out of her mind, poor creature. Once, she stalked me across my own bedroom with such a sinister look in her eye that I was honestly afraid as I jumped from one piece of furniture to the next until I reached the door and escaped, breathing hard. I locked her in my room until she could regain her senses, what remained of them.

Pookie was a small cat, my sister Vinca's cat, and she lived a hard life. She spent several long evenings when she was a youngster in heat "yowling for mates" as we called it. That was a terrible ruckus, and it happened each night outside our bedroom windows. It seemed that there wasn't a single desperate tomcat within five miles who would court her. We made jokes about it, but it was also a little sad. Finally, there was a big unfamiliar tom loitering about the house, and he must have been a lover; Pookie was soon pregnant.

When she had her first and only litter of kittens, we all watched with proper fascination the machinations of life, but Vinca was especially solicitous of Pookie's comfort. It was soon clear things would not go smoothly. After the first kitten came, tiny Lizzy, Pookie delivered her uterus along with Lizzy's much bigger brother, Leo. A third kitten we could see was dead in the womb. My parents rushed Pookie off to the nearest vet who stitched her up, but when the kittens tried to nurse from their Mama late one night, the stitches popped open. Everything and more was exposed, all purple and rose and moist, and my parents had to make another run to a vet to save her. Unfortunately, the only vet they could find at that late hour was a specialist in large animals, particularly horses. He gave her far too many meds, an overdose really. We were told to keep her on a bed beneath a lamp; I'm not sure why. She lay for at least a couple days beneath the light, her eyes wide but her body unresponsive. We kids came to stare at this strange zombiefied cat every hour or so.

Meanwhile, my mother carefully fed the babies with an eyedropper, and they slept in a tiny cardboard box lined with soft material. On a chilly morning we woke up and went to check the kittens. Leo was snuggled on top of his little sister. Mom lifted him aside quickly, afraid, and found that Lizzy, precious and tiny, was dead. My mother cried for some time, but once we buried little Lizzy, her mothering instincts exerted themselves powerfully for lonely Leo.

When Pookie woke up from those meds, she was not the same. We were told to keep her in a mesh cage for a while, so she couldn't exert herself, but to let the kitten go in to suckle. Pookie wouldn't have anything to do with that. We did try to get her interested in her Leo, but she only hissed violently at him every time he appeared.

A strange enmity had developed between them. He no longer believed she was nor desired her to be his mother, and she no longer believed that she was a mom at all - and certainly not to this obnoxious young cat. That peculiar distrust and dislike continued their whole lives together. Leo used to lay in wait to pounce on her, and not in a playful way. She shrieked and swatted at him. It was odd and sad that they could hate each other so much.

But almost from the moment of his birth, my mom had become Leo's beloved adoptive mother, and he my mother's beloved pet. I'm certain he thought he was human, her fifth and most loved child.

Continued in the next post, Befirrfin the Fierce


Until then, you might enjoy A Dad and His Dog...and Mandy

Nature, good and Technology, bad

I love my backyard. The grass, I know, is getting too tall, and the one shade tree is shedding bark that it will never grow again because it's slowly dying of some viral or fungal infection. Yet, the grass is green and the tree is too, mostly. There is a healthy pomegranate in its pot and a few other hardy plants in the border, and between the branches of the African Sumac tree, the sun rises each morning as we sit outside a little after 6 am.

In the desert that is when you want to be outside - very early morning. By 7:30 or 8 am I gather up my paper and the remnants of my breakfast from the patio table, call my children, and retreat inside. Shortly after, I close the blinds and curtains against the heat to save on the air conditioning bill. But until then, I enjoy the newspaper, real paper in my hands, spread out before me at my white patio table. I eat homemade bread and tea or toast with cocoa, dipping the golden wheat bread into the milky brown of the hot drink that I have, fair weather or foul. My children steal some toast and dip it too long in the communal cocoa, and then they run off to play, shedding shoes in defiance of the army ants when I'm not looking.

This most honored summer morning ritual has been marred this year, however, by my intelligent eldest son who sits and sulks in one of the patio chairs at my side. Worse than the silent sulking, he eventually launches a speech about how there's nothing to do outside, his sisters won't play the games he wants, and he should just be allowed to go inside and play video games (at 7 in the morning) while his siblings get their exercise.

I tried suggesting things he could play, even offering to pitch him some baseballs. I tried telling him to kick a soccer ball with his little brother, run from fence end to fence end. I even hinted that he could just sit and read a book. My suggestions were all discarded, and he wore me down with pleas for video games and whines about our backyard until, sadly, I let him go inside to turn on the TV to amuse himself nearly every morning.

Last summer was different. I played energetic games with my kids, took them for bike rides out front, and pitched balls to them in the yard. This year, I had outpatient surgery and couldn't do any of that. I still enjoyed going outside with them; I just couldn't participate in the games. My three youngest barely missed my involvement, but my eldest found an excuse for boredom in my sedentary preoccupation with the newspaper.

Eventually, it was going to come to a head, because I believe in nature, in the health-giving, calming...well, nature of it. Technology, on the other hand, is getting on my nerves more and more, eating up people's time and money and robbing them of real interaction with their fellow human beings, God and Mother Nature. (Ironic that I have a blog.)

Of course, there are people like me in every age. Technology is evil! It'll ruin our lives, take over our existence. Destroy the health and minds of our children! It should be no shock that we are still around. After all we spend a good deal of time outside; we're a healthy stock.

A few mornings ago the storm came. My daughters chose to do a puzzle instead of begging for TV upon their arrival indoors, and when I told my impatient son he should come help them, he came only to pester everyone to hurry up so they could watch something. My tirade came like water rushing through sand bags, and it flooded the plain of discontent with fearsome force. It blindsided my son.

It went something like this: If you are already so addicted to technology (ie video games, television) at nine, just imagine how you'll be when you can have your own smartphone or iPad someday or whatever crazy device is invented in the future that can read your mind and suck your energy! There are people who can't look up at those talking to them because they have to stare at their phones. Do you know how many older people I've heard complain that their niece or grandson won't even look them in the eye during a conversation because they're texting? It's rude. Parents ignore their kids or let them play on their phones when they're barely three-years-old! People don't just interact anymore. If they hear their friend make a joke, they say, "haha...that's great! Let me post it on Facebook." They go to dinner or a movie or have a thought, and they have to update their status. They can't go camping without their cellphones. They don't go outside and enjoy nature because it stretches their technological umbilical cord too far! They can't even sit quietly in a dark room and talk to God without the light from their phone providing its addictive glow! And they watch TV while playing games on their phones - ridiculous!

I looped back through those critical indictments about three more times with subtle variations. My son got more and more upset, but you must believe that I proceeded because I'm worried. I want my boy to enjoy exercise, find joy in fresh air, actually speak face-to-face with family and friends, be thrilled by new scenery - and not the new scenery in his friend's Facebook pictures from that beach vacation or some weird simulation that takes you on a walking tour through the French countryside without ever leaving your armchair. Real natural scenery. Smartphones are not Man's best friend despite what people may have bought. Trees are. And blue skies, clear water, rolling hills, grassy fields, the scent of fresh flowers or hay, animals.....and people.

My son retorted that I should yell at him after he starts doing all those things I categorically condemned. I protested that by then it would be too late; he would be an adult and stuck in his ways. I told him I am worried for him. I believe in the Green Hour. I believe in and dearly love my son and want him to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. There is no app for that.

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Since that conversation a couple weeks ago when I high-dived off the deep end, my eldest boy has been playing outside in the mornings - playing tennis and tag with his siblings and trying to catch lizards on the fence before asking for TV and video games at a more reasonable hour. Yesterday, he critiqued and condemned his sisters' carefully gathered bouquet of cicada skins and ran in the long grass despite the biting ants and played with his little brother.

Looking back, I realize perhaps I went overboard with my deluge of obsessive worry, but I will do a great deal to get my son outside, make him look around, entice him to run and play like a child, and convince him that his own thoughts and reflections in a quiet room are more enlightening than a flashlight app.

And I say to you whom I may have offended, to you who adore and anticipate every technological advance, that I do realize it is all about balance and order. Technology is not evil.

But nature is prettier.

Plum Good

"If you love me, come kiss me and tell me I make the best plum sauce ever."

He came, kissed and pronounced with great care, "You make the best plum sauce I've ever had...yet."

"Better than the bottled stuff from the store we had at that party?"

"Sure, uh-huh."

This all transpired after our kids had gone to bed, because that is when all our very deep conversations do transpire. But it all sprang from cold stares at the dinner table and from my return to my good ole' southern roots (for purely selfish reasons).

At dinner I debuted my plum sauce for meatballs. The recipe called for plum jam. I'm not sure that actually exists, but I had plums, plums that my toddler had thrown around the floor and the fruit bowl, and I figured if I cooked them, it might kill off all the germs they'd collected from such disrespectful treatment. So along with some cornstarch, crushed red pepper, sherry, vinegar and soy sauce, I threw skinned, chopped plum into the pot. Then I added some chunks of onion that were pitifully lying around wondering if they would ever find their true purpose in life. And voila! Plum sauce.

Of course I had to make a few adjustments as it simmered for taste - a little more crushed pepper for a bite, a splash more of soy sauce, and a shower of sherry that my son accidentally dumped in - but when I tasted it that last time before bringing it to the table, I was sure I had something blue ribbon.

But my husband, before even sitting down, grabbed a bottle of spicy barbecue sauce from the fridge and set it by his plate.

"Why do you need that?" I demanded. "Did you try the sauce?"

"No, just in case I don't like it."

"Why do you need the barbecue when you haven't even tried the plum sauce yet?"

"Because I don't want to have to get up again."

"But you haven't tried it! You should just eat the plum sauce - all of you - because that's what I worked hard on. You always eat what the cook prepares first."

"I'm going to," Matthew responded calmly. "But if I don't like it, I don't want to get up again."

I ate the plum sauce. I even went to fetch the onion and plum chunks that I'd strained out and threw those on top of my meat and rice, and while I ate I made various noises of gastrointestinal satisfaction to encourage my fellow diners. The sauce was sweet and savory and had a bit of bite at the end. However, my son said it was o-kaaay, but not without the meat to take it down. My daughter said it was too spicy, my youngest two wouldn't eat it, and Matthew claimed he couldn't find the bite in it at all.

"Just eat it," I growled, pointing my finger menacingly around the table. And you can trust that I kept an eye on that barbecue sauce.

I was raised in the rural South where you always eat what the cook prepares, and you thank her profusely for it. If you are offered second helpings, you accept whether you are still hungry or not. And you never, ever, opt for something store-bought over something homemade. Barbecue sauce - hmph!

My dad used to help out on one of our neighbor's farms in Tennessee. For the farmhands' lunch Mr. W's wife made tons of food: all manner of vegetable, a big vat of gravy, at least two kinds of bread and meat and dessert. You had to stuff yourself. Why? Because the lovely woman went to all that trouble to fix a full southern meal for you. You just thanked heaven that there were several other farmhands to help eat it and that you would be going back to the field later to work it off, sweating lard from your pours....or else collapsing in a grits and gravy stupor behind the tractor.

I still feel angst about an incident several years back that really riled my southern sensibilities. I was at my sister's house, and I became very offended on her behalf as I was helping her serve her blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream on the side. When I asked a couple of guests if they wanted dessert they said, "We'll have some ice cream but not the cobbler."

What?! Excuse me? A. It's blackberry cobbler, and God Himself probably enjoys that. B. My sister handmade the crust and filling - everything except the blackberries - and it's delicious. And C. You NEVER take the store-bought side without the homemade dish. If you do, some ancient southern-cook-voodoo-doctor will stick a bunch of pins in your doll's gut and give you a righteous stomachache. And she'll dance around and cackle while you suffer.

It still makes me bristle.

So, given my genteel upbringing, is it too much to ask of my own family to eat what I've labored over? Yeah, I don't always have all the ingredients. Sure, I throw things in on a whim to spice things up. And, okay, sometimes my curiosity leads me to make interesting choices (a pint of orange juice in ham and bean soup), but it's my labor of experimental love for my family. Sometimes it's great (and a once-in-a-lifetime meal, because you can bet I won't remember what I did), and sometimes it's not so good. But I expect them to eat it regardless, praise me grandly for my efforts, and extend their plates for seconds. That's the southern way, and until somebody else does most of the cooking in this house, it's my way, too.

Odd

Last night I was comparing Luke Skywalker to George Washington, and I caught the look in my Man's eye. That look, dammit! I'd know it anywhere, because I've seen it in the eyes of my fellow humans a few thousand times in my life. I'd seen it in his family's eyes and the eyes of my own kin - what on earth? Where'd that come from? Did she just say that? In public? Before us? Before strangers? Why is she still talking? The look said, to be brief, She's weird.

Did your siblings ever tattle on you for being weird when you were a kid? No? Mine did. "Mom! Dad! She's acting strange again!" To be fair, it was warranted. I was the one talking aloud to herself with accompanying hand gestures. The kid pretending a tiny vial of sample perfume was my secret agent communication device, and I'd run around the corner to have a classified conversation with my handler - when I was 12. I was the girl who sang to the boy she liked while he was standing in line for recess with all his friends in sixth grade. Good thing I was odd AND confident.

My best friend in grade school got me a birthday present, a key chain that proclaimed, "I'm not Weird! I'm Gifted." Well, I'd like to say that that is true, but so far there's been no evidence to support the gifted assertion. And I've gotten used to the periodic looks of weird from my family, friends and strangers. I can even shrug them off, explain to myself that they don't understand my special point of view, but the one person who can never give me the look or say the words is my Man. It hurts. He promised to love and adore me the way I am - forever and ever, I Do. Weird, warts, and all.

So last night when the kids had gone to bed, I gave him a talking to. He denied the look (probably remembering my tirade when he had actually said, "You're Weird," to my face a few years ago), wearily claimed he didn't remember thinking what must have inspired it. In my turn I told him that if he's irritated by what I have to say, he should come up with his own contributions to the conversation.

He responded rather disdainfully, "Star Wars is not my thing."

"Well, don't give me the look then."

He looked away.

I let him off with just the warning.

I remember a conversation he and I had a week or so ago inspired by some television show. I said, "If we had known each other as kids, you wouldn't have had anything to do with me. I was too strange. You wouldn't have liked me."

"No, you wouldn't have liked me."

"Sure, I would. I would have tried to be your friend, but I would have scared you off."

"You would have found me too boring," he asserted.

There was a pause as we looked at each other with something like mutual admiration and embarrassment, and then we burst out laughing. Because it was true, of course. We wouldn't have gotten on together then, oil and water personalities. But somehow as adults it works out, A strange girl and her quiet, steady guy.

As long as he never, ever says I'm weird.

Anakin No More

As I had promised him, I got around to watching the Star Wars films with my son, Berto. And I cried more than I should probably confess. 

Yes, I'm a dork, but in the Star Wars Saga as in any truly great tale, I see the truths about human experience and about incremental choices made in everyday life to work toward good or evil. This drives my husband crazy sometimes, how I must delve into films, books or songs instead of purely escaping through them, extracting and dissecting their emotional, intellectual and spiritual assets in my examination of their merit. Then, heaven forbid! I must talk about it.

But I did learn a couple superficial things, too. I learned I grew up, because though I may have found him fascinating as a kid, I now find Jabba the Hut to be one of the most universally revolting characters ever created. I could barely bear to look at his vulgar, slimy, slug-like hideousness on the screen. I discovered that men's fantasies about Princess Leia in her bikini are valid, because, boy, that is some bikini. It looks like a beast to wear (what is that top - metal?), but it's an iconic image of female beauty even though it happens in far off fantasy land and with impossibly coiffed hair, fortunately without the ear braids.

I understood while watching these films, however, that this was also a teaching moment. My son had been telling me for some time his perspective on the tale. He sympathized with the unfortunate Anakin who becomes the hyper-cool and vicious Darth Vader, but I'll be damned if I don't take the opportunity to point out everything Anakin forfeited in his restless, self-seeking path of anger, revenge, hate and death.

"Berto, shame on Anakin. Shame on him," I kept saying, shaking my head at each new development in Anakin's journey to the dark side.

"But, but..." Berto kept saying. There's always buts.

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The Revenge of the Sith is quite stressful to watch when you have a two-and-a-half-year-old awake from his nap, but you're inexorably sucked into the epic battle between good and evil in one crazy, complex and fascinating character. Your mama judgement is affected.

"Berto, quick! Get up here and help me block out the screen," I said over and over again when disturbing scenes - just guess how many there were - played out on the TV. It didn't work too well; Berto and I had to shuffle around hip to hip as my Danny boy kept trying to see around us.

Plus, Danny just wanted Mama to play. I wasn't in too light a mood, you understand, because my emotions are easily manipulated by what I'm observing around me, and I was observing a whole lot of chaos, fear, and anguish diced up for my...amusement? Several times I just turned the screen off, especially when the Emperor appeared in all his...uh...glory or during moments of the horrific but impressively choreographed battle scene between Obi-Wan and Vader.

I did try. I bounced the ball back and forth with my little son to distract him while trying to twist one eye ever to the hypnotic screen. But when my little guy bounced the ball into the netherworld beneath the couch or entertainment center and couldn't find it, he threw an enormous tantrum; I think all the tension in the room was wiring his emotions, too.

"Bawl! Bawl," he whined.

"I don't know where your ball is!" I shouted back repeatedly. "Find it yourself!"

Yes, that's ugly. I think I'd taken a step or two toward the dark side at that point, but I was sick of all the getting up and sitting down, migration between real life and fantasy, bouncing balls and light saber combat. I was up to my neck in conflicting interests. I should have just turned off the movie, of course.

Finally, the end at last. Anakin and Padme's babies are orphaned, essentially, and separated.

"Oh, Berto..." I began, but then my voice broke. "Anakin lost...everything..."

Initially small, selfish steps easily led the volatile Anakin to take broad strides toward the corruption of his whole being, and he, through his vice, lost not only the one he bartered everything for, but he gave up knowing their children as well. I sobbed because I am a parent, and I understand what was lost. Obi-Wan's grief over the loss of his Jedi brother even as he combats him, his cry, "Anakin! You were supposed to bring balance to the Force, not plunge it into darkness!", overwhelmed me, too.

Yes, I know it's fiction.

"I'm going to make a list of all the movies you've cried at," said my son, but gently as I raised my wet face from my hands.

**************************

A blank screen where all that energy had been. With my emotions still unbalanced, I picked up the Sunday paper, discombobulated, and read a terrible story about some woman's boyfriend abusing and allegedly murdering her young child. This mother was selfishly willing to leave her child for her own convenience in the care of someone whom she knew had harmed her child before. She herself had even reported the abuse. How many times have I read just that same story in the paper? Human folly, in all its subtle variations, is without end, but the themes are always there - selfishness, pride, stupidity, lust, greed....power.

I stared into space, watching my thoughts dance around the bonfire of my rage, and perhaps my eyes took on a red tinge, because Berto said in concern, "Mama, what are you thinking about?"

So I told him without giving him the specific details. I told him about my anger against these wicked people in the world who disrupt the natural order. Especially against those who hurt children. How I knew it was wrong to want revenge against others, but how the things that people do to each other distress and infuriate me.

Then I pulled him onto my lap, this tall nine-year-old son of mine who loves Star Wars, and I hugged him tight and buried my face in his chest while I wept for fictional tragedy and real life evil.

Don't Try to Force Your Man Out of Doors, Nakey

On Sunday my Man refused to sit on the back patio with the magic combo of our children, me, the newspaper, and breakfast. Just awake, he peeked out the sliding glass door to alert us to his presence. As he examined all the green, blue and brown of the outdoor realm with supreme disinterest, I became desperate for his company just this once. It was surprisingly nice out at that early hour, but my pleas and tricks were to no avail; he even tried to switch my allegiance by telling me CBS Sunday Morning was on. Really! I knew I didn't marry a nature-seeker, but sometimes it drives me wild all the song and dance I have to do just to lure him outside.

When I defected to the inside for coffee, I threatened. "If you don't learn to come sit outside on the patio with me by the time we're an old married couple, I'm going to put a cardboard cutout of you out there...or, better yet, I'll stuff an old man doll and stick it in a rocker on the front porch for company."

"Sounds like a plan."

Rotten old man.

The war of natures escalated when he discovered while grilling our lunch that the children and I had scattered bird seed all over the yard while he slept.

"I don't want all those stupid birds in my yard!" he cried. "They're going to poop all over everything and perch on the roof waiting for the next big seed party."

Other than the risk that our backyard could turn into a bad Hitchcock movie, I didn't see his point.

"So? They're part of nature."

"So, I even found some seed on my white table that I cleaned off."

"Your table? Yeah, right! When do you ever sit at that table?"

"Fine then. I'll leave them to poop all over your table and won't bother to clean it up next time."

"No...well...thank you," I amended. "But I'm the one who cleans those tables most of the time anyway," I added, still nettled. "And you're just scared of nature! Ha!"

That did not go over well, especially when our eldest son cried, "Yeah!" Matthew does not tolerate insubordination from offspring. We backpedaled and tried to mumble how we just wanted his company outside sometimes to sit and play, but it was too late.

Matthew and I finally made up that afternoon the way all exhausted parents do: over a nap. When we woke up, the kids, robbed of more television, had nothing better to do than look out the windows. Soon afterward they started telling us excitedly about all the birds in the backyard (the little rats even counted them for accurate reporting). I giggled nervously as my husband turned his smug gaze on me.

"Ix-nay on the ird-bays," I growled at the kids. "Nobody needs to know."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cooking french toast and bacon for dinner that night, I passed by my husband and made smooching noises instead of actually kissing his lips. I didn't want to get too close to the frying pan.

"So that's how you two kiss when you're cooking," said Berto, our eldest. "It sounds like what you do when you're nakey."

Instantly, I went on the defensive.

"Listen, Berto," I said, waving my spatula and trying to keep it matter-of-fact. "If you walk in on Papa and Mama when we're like that, it's your fault. That'll teach you that you should always knock."

"I think he said, 'what you do with Nike'," corrected my Man, enunciating slowly and giving me a look as he referred to our pet hamster.

"Yeah," said Berto, confused. "That's what I said - Nike. The kissy noises you make at Nike."

"Oh." I went back to minding my french toast. "Well, then, just scratch that and...uh...ignore it."