Werewolves

Before I left for the party, I put a heap of Kit-Kat bars on my screen porch table, just in case we get some trick-or-treaters. We never get trick-or-treaters. Our dirt road is unlit, our trees are craggy and make squeaking noises in the wind, and my husband is known as a scary man in the neighborhood; a kid once told me, "I hear he belongs to the Michigan Militia." The husband, in reality, is a birdwatcher and no kind of militia man, and since he had to work tonight, I went to Julie and Bill's party alone. I dressed as Bill, who was dressed as the big bad wolf in granny nightgown. Julie was little red riding hood, carrying a basket with a dead rat in it. The snacks were great---the spinach artichoke dip and pumpkin bread were, well, to die for (insert scary sounds here), and when you bit into one of the coconut eyeballs or finger cookies (with almond fingernails) shivers ran up your spine. The best part of the party was playing "Werewolf," where innocent villagers are being harassed by murderous werewolves. Here are the rules http://www.eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html#rules. I got to be a werewolf twice and so got to kill people. I had to learn a tough lesson, though, about who to kill. You don't kill the people who are annoying or even the people against whom you might have a grudge from a previous game; you kill the people who are smart and who might figure you out. Talked a lot to Carla during lulls in the game. She is always working on some interesting theory. This evening she advocated killing nine of every ten males at birth. "They're cute when they're little," she says, "but then you just have to remind yourself what they're like when they grow up." She says that men want to be kings over women, and it's too much to be some woman with some man wanting to be king over just her. It would be easier, she thinks, if one man was king over (or husband of) ten women; a woman can put up with a guy one day a week or so, she said, without much trouble. Carla was dressed as a dead woman, and her husband Wayne, my kobudo instructor, wore a smiling Casper the friendly ghost mask and patiently sipped his Marguerita through a straw. After a while, Wayne, as one of the innocent villagers in the werewolf game, got everyone's attention by pointing at the guy dressed as a Detroit Tiger. Wayne said that guy was the werewolf for sure. Most of the rest of us concurred, grateful not to be singled out this time, and together we killed the fellow.

Sudden relaxation

I've been skipping my yoga class lately to learn a little tai chi from Mike M. who runs the auto paint store. Yoga has lots of great stuff, with the stretching and relaxing, the strength and Catherine, our teacher, who is a very peaceful person and who gives us foot rubs. My twice a week exercise is kobudo weapons training, in which our teacher (Shihan) Wayne has taught us to focus all our strength and energy for the strike, making every single blow of the bo, nunchaku, sai, tinaka, tonqua, or ieku a potentially killing blow. Tai chi is something else altogether; in tai chi there is the tool of sudden, explosive relaxation. One moment you're doing a thing, walking or rising or lifting, and the next second, boom, you have to relax completely, some portion of your body or even your entire body. I'm not sure how this will help me in a fight, but perhaps I could surprise my opponent by suddenly falling upon him. I can see how it would help to employ this skill just when I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. The only danger then is in becoming too relaxed to mix a martini.

Junk Cars fading like Autumn Colors

In one week, two junk cars left our property. One was David's old Cadillac, which ran fine until he parked it, then, after a couple of years, just didn't start. Juan came over with an air tank, which Chris filled repeatedly and got some air in the tires. To our surprise, Juan got it started, and Chris hauled it next door to Juan's brother's house. We later noticed Juan left his air tank at our house. This must be a small town, because later that day when we ran into D., the junkyard guy, he was telling us about this and that, and he told us a couple of Mexicans came over and borrowed his air tank and never brought it back. We said we'd bring it back. The second car was the old Mercedes 300 series car that Christopher sold as a "parts car" on ebay to a Canadian. The Canadian said he was coming right away, then we didn't hear from him for 2 or 3 months. Then he said he was coming Weds. I said great. The guy and his nephew got here late in their big vegetable-oil-burning cube van, pulling a two-wheeled trailer thing for the car. The trailer was missing a big pin, so I took out out of Christopher's tractor and handed it to them, and then that was a problem because we had to use Christopher's tractor to push the car up on the trailer (good thing my brother Geo was here). All this time it's raining and the Canadian and his nephew were tired from the road. Finally they get the car up there, and I offer them some dinner, and so while I think we're just going to be making a nice quick meal and saying good-bye, the Canadian decides that it's not okay that the title was not in Christopher's name. Many of you probably know it's standard practice not to get a car title put in your name unless you're actually going to drive the car, because of the fees involved. So there was some stress, with the Canadian getting a little mad that Christopher hadn't told him (though afterwards Chris looked up on the ebay email and found that, yes, in fact, he had informed him of this). I didn't tell the Canadian that this car could possibly be a soul-sucking car, that it had defeated several strong men who had attempted to fix it, while it steadily declined in value. Anyway, the Canadian and his nephew finally drove off in the rain at 9:00 and there are two new empty spaces in our yard. Now we can burn our burning barrel. And we have lots of stuff to burn. I can't wait! Okay, the third vehicle is mine, my '84 Chevy truck with the '72 Camaro engine; the truck runs good but the frame is rusted away. The price is $300--let me know if you're interested.

Gifts of fruit

At library, with bad computer, so I'll be brief. First my ma gave me pawpaws she gathered. Oh, caramely fruit, midwestern mango-banana-pear shaped like big peanut. Then David brings me a big serving of mixed melon, blueberries, etc. from Meijers. Then Gilbert and Juan, my neighbors, bring me a huge flowerpot full of apples from their father's farm in Dowagiac. Delicious, golden delicious, and Red Romes. Juan says Gerber makes babyfood from Red Romes. Juan was there to buy David's old Cadillac, which hasn't started for a year. He and Christopher got it started and Chris towed it to Gilbert's house with the tractor.

My Brussels sprouts

Okay, so there's this guy at the prison, which is down by my garden---it's a minimum security prison, so the guys are always out and about when I'm gardening. This guy is not a prisoner, not a worker, but some kind of person who helps. He's always driving in or out of there with three or four prisoners, and everybody's always cheerful when they're with him, and they call him the coach. So I first met him when I was putting in my garden and he was telling me I wasn't putting enough water in the hole when I was setting my tomato plants, or something like that. Later on, when my Brussels sprouts were growing, he told me those were collard greens. I said no, my brother gave them to me and he told me they were Brussels sprouts and in fact they already smelled a little cabbagey. He said, no, they were collard greens. He had a big garden over on 26th street in Comstock, which is a pretty good coincidence because that's where I grew up and my mom has a big garden there too. So he and I were friendly. One day at the end of August, I came home and found that all the lower leaves were off of my Brussels sprouts and laying on the ground, and I wondered if some infestation of bugs occurred or if the guys were string trimming too near my garden plants. Then today the coach was there again with three guys, and he said I had some good things in my garden, he said he thought I wouldn't be able to grow anything with the way I was planting and not watering enough, but he admired my squashes, said my tomatoes were okay, and he was interested in those collard greens, which didn't behave like any collard greens he'd ever seen. Now I know about greens---I have four beautiful mustard green plants that I've eaten from all summer. I told him once and for all that they were Brussels sprouts and they wouldn't mature until November. He said, well, you probably noticed I pruned them a while back. I saw I noticed that the leaves were lying on the ground. He said, you ought to try to eat those leaves, because they look like collard greens. He said that where he cut off the leaves they'd grow back, probably, and probably be better than they were before, though it was getting kind of late in the year, and in fact maybe I'd planted them too late to get anything from them. I said, see you later, and he drove off in a car with three guys who looked happy to be driving off with him. The truth about Brussels sprouts is that they are slow to grow, slow to develop, and they only get their leaves once, and each leaf protects a little sprout growing in its armpit, and now I've got a whole row of thirty Brussels sprouts whose parts are unprotected. I'm trying not to be too sad; I'll just wait and see what happens. One of the happiest things at Thanksgiving time is tromping out through the snow to a garden with a machete and hacking off a three-foot-tall Brussels sprout stalk (something that looks stiff and dead) and finding, beneath the yellowed leaves, tender green fruits, little bitty cabbages.