In Baltimore, Maryland, we find a real-life mystery. Who has marked Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday every year for nearly 60 years by leaving flowers and a bottle of good cognac at his grave? This annual ritual has finally stopped, probably because the mysterious person has died, or is incapacitated. He/she took great care never to be identified, so the world will remain forever in the dark. It’s fitting, somehow…

Mr. Poe was an intriguing - some say mysterious - fellow, dogged by personal tragedies, which certainly flavored his tales of horror and death. I think that writing passionate poems and macabre stories helped him cope with the chaos that was his life. (For a little while he was in great demand as a lecturer and teacher, but fortune never smiled on Poe for long.)

Bad luck haunted him. Edgar’s mother died when he and his two siblings were very young, after which his father abandoned them. A wealthy couple, the Allans, adopted him. His kindly stepmother loved him, but his stepfather saw Edgar only as someone he could groom to run his thriving tobacco business. Poe would have none of it. His hero was Byron: he longed to pursue a literary life. He even wrote a book in high school, but his headmaster (what a toad!) advised Mr. Allan not to allow its publication, which infuriated young Edgar. Thus began a monumental battle of wills between stepfather and son.

Thanks to his wife’s entreaties, Allan finally agreed to send Edgar to the University of Virginia, where he excelled. The wretched man, though, slashed Edgar’s funding. He had to burn his furniture to keep warm. Debt piled up.

(Google Poe’s life, first listing, for three intriguing photos, and much more detail.) He went to West Point, but lasted only eight months; he married his very young cousin; she died of consumption. Mrs. Allan became ill, and begged her husband to contact Poe before she died, but his wicked stepfather refused, so she died calling for Edgar. When Poe found out what Allan had done, it nearly killed him.

Allan was an awful man.

I’m skipping over years of his life to pick up at the end of it. Poe, engaged again, traveled toward Philadelphia to see his fiancé, but left the train in Baltimore - (Why!) - and vanished. Friends found him five days later, incoherent, wearing someone else’s clothes. He was immediately hospitalized. In rare moments of consciousness he called out for someone named “Reynolds” over and over…

Edgar Allan Poe died, penniless, a few days later, on October 7, 1849. He was just 40 years old.

But oh, what he left behind is amazing!

Poe’s poems should be read aloud. I first heard Annabel Lee recited in college by a professor who possessed a rich, deep voice and a flawless delivery. When he finished, there was not one sound in that room. People had tears in their eyes, bowled over by the author’s ability to express such passionate, even pathological longing, for the beautiful Annabel Lee.

It’s powerful stuff.

Last evening, feeling a little sad that Poe’s mysterious visitor is no more, I decided to put Annabel Lee - the last thing he ever wrote - to music. (This is what I love to do during our long, cold winters.) Down in my little basement studio I read it aloud again and again, and suddenly, the melody formed. In another hour I’d chosen the accompaniment and, well, here it is.

Wait! To properly hear it, plug in earphones. The tinny speaker in your computer lacks depth. Their use will emphasize Poe’s brilliant, haunting narration of the agony of loss. (Most poetry conveys a sense of joy, hope and even humor. A few cleave comfortably to musical conversion: Annabel Lee, eerie, and mortally sad, is one of those.)

Requiescat In Pace, Mr. Poe.


All music © 2012 by Dee Blair.

Yesterday I strolled downtown in this weirdly warm January to meet a visiting English friend for lunch. “So,” she said, as she looked me up and down - “What on earth do you do in winter, with no garden to tend? Veg out?”

My eyes gleamed!

“Actually, I’m a musical mole, burrowing into my basement’s tiny recording studio at around 4 a.m. almost every morning. With messy hair and rumpled clothes I mutter lines and hum - the perfect picture of a slightly odd archeologist, except – I unearth marvelous poems that seem to beg for music! I have a ton of moldy old books down there that sometimes reveal gems, if I’m patient. Hunting them is like mining for gold - often a really tedious effort. Lately I’ve been scanning my much-thumbed 600-page Oxford Book of Classic Poetry. Some stuff in there makes me snore, but one, written by an English cavalier who lived from 1618 to 1657, stood out. Richard Lovelace word-painted a marvelous picture of a young woman whose long, pale hair flew every which way in the wind as she tried to re-braid it. He was completely smitten - unraveled - by the sight. (I loved her name - Amarantha!)

Turns out he was wealthy, well loved (especially by the ladies), and a legendary raconteur. I found an oil painting of him by somebody famous - William Dobson, I think, which portrays him as a doe-eyed, dashing fellow, with his shining armor and shoulder-length hair.




Fatally wounded at Dunkirk, he died without a farthing to his name, having given his all for King and country, but he left us his wonderful verses. Other of his poems are much more famous, but this one won my heart! He titled it:

Song (Is this an invitation, or what?!) to Amarantha, that she would Dishevel her Hair (‘Dishevel’- An almost lost word…)

     Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah, braid no more that shining hair!
    As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee- let it fly!

     Let it fly as unconfin’d
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
     Who hath left his darling th’East,
To wanton o’er that spicy nest.

     Ev’ry tress must be confest
But neatly tangled at the best;
     Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled. (Ra-vel-led.)

     Do not then wind up that light
In ribands, (ribbons) and o’er-cloud in night;
    Like the sun in’s early ray,
But shake your head and scatter day!

(Three other lusciously sensual verses follow, but I used just these.)

“I remember yelling ‘Richard! You caught her!’ In a blink the melody materialized, and then I tried dozens of instruments before settling down with my choice. When his words and my notes felt comfortable with each other I laid the song.

“I think he happened upon that slim lady just as her three-plus-feet of hair was being blown around in the warm summer wind. She’d stopped what she was doing for a minute and her hair accidentally came unbound - (women never chopped their hair off back then, you know) - and Richard Lovelace, clanking around in his armor, spotted her exactly then, wrapped in sunlight and tresses, and snatched a pen - (what did they write with back then?) and ka-bam!! Art happened. I’ll bet it fell out of him. I’ll bet he couldn’t scribble it fast enough!

“After recording it I needed to run around the block twice to siphon off excess energy and excitement.”

I paused for a breath and grinned, thinking what a peculiar sight I’d been - a rumpled, happy old lady dashing around outside in the waning hours of a warm January night...

“Oh,” my friend said, overrun by that avalanche of words.

Joe and I, in Vermont to visit family during the holiday, spent two afternoons exploring Burlington’s award-winning Church Street Marketplace, a charming, sophisticated four-block long pedestrian mall crammed with over 100 quaint shops, boutiques, cafes, cosmopolitan restaurants and bustling pubs.
This shopper’s delight also features a huge indoor mall. Only after entering is the layout (mostly below ground) revealed.

Tree-lined Church Street (with a classic, steepled New England church anchoring one end) is paved with brick. Aha! That’s why the Mall’s big trees, wearing white lights, are doing well; rainwater is available.

Three immense granite boulders up and down the street are climbing magnets for children; adults, taking advantage of their natural indentations, pause to sit awhile. Attractive streetlamps complete the picture. Side streets (akin to Union and Cass Streets here in Traverse City) allow motorists to bisect the Marketplace between blocks. Cars proceed slowly because pedestrians, crossing over as they please, always have the right-of-way.

Ohmygosh! Ben and Jerry’s original ice cream shop! Though it was 18 degrees outside the generously windowed store was packed with enthusiasts. Amazing!
Knowing they had created a really cool product the two friends opened exactly here in the late 70s: the rest is sweet success.
What’s the best scoop? For one special day every spring shoppers enjoy free cones!

Clever city planners have installed Plexiglas®-covered ‘roofs,’ which slant down from each shop’s regular roof to terminate at pillars. Shoppers are protected from weather; natural light still floods the shops’ entrances.

Oboyo! We found an Irish pub, complete with wooden floors. A lovely 100% genuine Irish lassie took our lunch orders.

The gorgeous Green Mountains offer champion skiing, while Lake Champlain, two blocks away, might house a monster, Champ, a cousin, perhaps, to Scotland’s legendary Loch Ness monster, Nessie. Both lakes share another interesting feature, which the Paranormal Encyclopedia describes:

"Named for its discoverer, Samuel de Champlain, Lake Champlain is a spectacular hundred-mile-long lake that stretches down from Canada and runs north and south between Vermont and New York, forming a natural border between them. While in some spots the lake reaches a depth of 400 feet, extending 150 yards or more from the shore much of the lake is only 12 to 14 feet deep.

A characteristic trait of long, narrow lakes with deep channels is the seiche. Both Loch Ness and Lake Champlain are endowed with this peculiar feature. A seiche is a perpetual wave in an enclosed body of water, which lies in a geographic area that undergoes severe winters. Changes in spring and autumn temperatures affect the shallow areas of these long lakes more rapidly than they affect the deep channels, causing the deep water to slosh back and forth between the lake's boundaries, like a plucked guitar string. At the surface the seiche in Lake Champlain may be barely a ripple, while below the surface it is usually about 30 feet high, and at times may grow to a height of 300 feet.”

A family snapped a picture of Champ in the 70s that experts have declared genuine. Boat tours hunt this elusive monster (protected by law), whose existence has never been satisfactorily disproven, so bring a camera. It’s a funny old world; you never know… One lucky snap might make you rich.




Addendum:

I must say that, for me, Scotland’s Loch Ness is a decidedly spooky lake, which evokes feelings I still can’t articulate properly. Once, I spent a few days walking the edge, hoping to glimpse its most famous resident. The deep, opaque water was glass-smooth. A ruined castle nearby was partially obscured by mist. Perfect quiet, broken only by my footsteps, contributed to the ambience. (The area is surprisingly underdeveloped.)

One farmer - who’d encountered the monster twice in his long life - was quietly certain about

what

lies

beneath.

It was the day after Christmas.

Whizz! A tiny two-year-old boy flew past Joe and me as we sat in the Detroit Metro Airport boarding area, awaiting our flight to Burlington, Vermont to visit our daughter and son-in-law. His mother grabbed him.

Zip! Another toddler dashed by, giggling. His twin! He’d almost vanished around the corner of the tunnel that led out to the absent plane when dad, running flat out, snatched him up.

Whoosh! Fifty feet away, another big-as-a-minute boy (a triplet!) scampered up an indoor ramp that descended to the carpet again after 60 feet. Dad pounced! And lastly, a yearling girl, pulling a tiny pink suitcase, had managed to slip underneath the ticket taker’s booth. Mom, on her knees, pulled her daughter out. Heavens! This was like trying to herd cats!

The boys, dressed in striped, footed ‘convict’ pajamas, continued to rocket about in random directions. This would be a fascinating flight. How on earth could they be kept together and settled? Both parents were slim: they had no time to eat. But here’s the thing. They smiled tiredly as they repeatedly retrieved each child.

Fifty minutes passed. Riveted, everyone abandoned books, computers and newspapers to watch endless random pursuits. When boarding began, laughter, and even applause, rippled through the area as the father expertly snared another toddler moving away at warp speed.

Aha! Those clever parents had had a plan all along. The kids, who had simulated rockets for over an hour, slept soundly during the flight. Their exhausted parents dozed, too. The energy they’d expended would have powered a small village for a day. Whew!

Vermont looked naked from the jet’s window. Denuded trees and no snow made a forlorn landscape. Parents and children deplaned first and disappeared into the crowd. Everyone wished them well.

We gaped at our minute rental car: a brand-new, tiny, shiny white Fiat. Hmmm. 6’2” Joe squeeeezed himself into the driver’s seat, while I eased into the passenger side. Our carry-on bags just fit into the boot. It drove smoothly, though, and had a fascinating hybrid gearshift arrangement. Our trusty GPS guided us three miles into Winooski (just across the river from Burlington) to The Woolen Mill, a lovely old brick warehouse converted to large, airy apartments situated right at the edge of the vigorous Winooski River.

The apartment’s huge windows looked out on its wide expanse. Directly below us mega-tons of water roared over the dam, and through open sluice gates! I rushed outside to view it more closely, and was stunned by the energy and power! An iron railing buried in granite just a few feet from the edge separated me from an ice-cold, pounding death. The ground shook: the sound was deafening!

Another kind of powerhouse zoomed through the apartment on velvet paws. Lightning-fast Junie Moon, their eight-month-old tortoise shell kitty, effortlessly demonstrated perfect balance as she leaped and bounded from here to there, and struck poses that yoga masters would envy. Though curious, she avoided our new hands.

But three days later, Junie, rocketing by, stopped suddenly. With sphinx-like deliberation she looked me over. Then, deciding, she hopped onto my lap, curled into a ball of black and Aztec gold, and slept, her nose in my palm, one claw-sheathed paw draped over my right arm. I felt honored.

She snoozed for 30 minutes before rising to languidly stretch. Onyx flecked golden eyes looked deeply into mine for a little stretch of time…. Then she shot off.

Here’s to hyperkinetic kids and kittens to jump-start the New Year!

My friends Les and Sarah invited Joe and me, along with ten other guests, to a Christmas party at their country home. Yay! I’d see Emma-dog again! Emma’s a rottweiler/shepherd mix whom they’d adopted as a skeletal, traumatized yearling. Her original family had packed up and moved away, abandoning her to die in their empty house. She’d barked for help for weeks, and starved nearly to death before being discovered. Now, two years later, she’s settled into a new life with her forever family.

Emma gently wound her big, trim body around arriving visitors, and greeted Joe and me with delight. (I’ve never heard her bark.)

Carrying her shredding tennis ball she mingled, happily accepting pats. Emma always keeps it close, in case someone might feel the urge to toss it for her.

During the evening’s festivities Les decided to add water to the big iron ‘humidifier’ kettle atop the blazing wood-burning stove, but in the candlelit room’s uncertain light he lavishly mis-poured. Excess water splashed onto the hot stove’s top, steaming and hissing loudly. He laughed ruefully and called out, “Uh-oh! I’ve made a small flood, here, folks; the floor will be wet for a minute.”

Emma, though, was horrified. She parked herself in front of Les, head down, and apologized for his mistake in the most abject way. Amazed by this unnecessary contrition, Les quietly reassured her. Emma listened, then raised her head and met his eyes. She didn’t tremble; this situation went deeper that that. Put simply, a memory of past trauma had overwhelmed her. Les rumpled her velvet ears, and Emma relaxed. Guests shook their heads. The dog’s awful history occasionally surfaced to haunt everyone.

Earlier that day Les was in the kitchen making repairs to a table, when his tool slipped, leaving a mark on the table’s surface. “Sh—t,” he muttered under his breath, disgusted with himself. Les rarely swears, so this was highly unusual. Emma, asleep in the adjacent room, heard it even so. With a low moan, she quietly fled upstairs. In a flash of insight Les realized her need to take refuge under the bed was ample evidence that that word had been part of verbal and physical abuse in her former life.

Shocked and chastened, he coaxed her down. Very slowly, she obeyed. When she sat before him he apologized. He’d try never to utter that word again. Emma sighed. She’d instinctively reacted, even though she knew people were very different here. Both felt a little foolish, and a lot wiser.

Males’ booted feet had once been used to brutalize; now, during the party, she lay on the living room floor half asleep. Guests stepped over and around her. Their boots were ignored. The men, especially, noted this with quiet satisfaction and pleasure.

There was one more little triumph.

Later in the evening one of the male guests, maneuvering toward the snacks in the crowded kitchen, trod firmly on her paw. Emma yelped and began a hasty exit, but then stopped abruptly and cocked her head, hearing the man’s “Sorry, Emma!” Wagging her tail once or twice she walked to him and gave his hand a quick lick. No worries, boss; accidents happen. He smoothed her paw, and conversation resumed. A year ago this little ‘oops’ would have been a major setback. Now she wandered over to her bowl to drink, the incident forgotten.

It was a poignant moment - a Christmas gift, really, for everyone. Unconditional love has redeemed her trust in people, while steadily dimming the awful sins her first family had committed.

We raised our glasses in a toast:

        God bless us, every one.

Time for something different. Joe and I crossed Sixth Street to enter the former Traverse City Library, now the History Center, which is currently hosting the annual Train Festival. Two tickets transported us to another time. Generous rooms featured outstanding displays of yesteryear’s metal monsters steaming through miniature towns laid out on expansive tables. Along their perimeters were lots of labeled red buttons begging to be pressed. Giggling, I happily complied. Planes and Santa flew, signs lit up, welders welded, and giant wind turbines turned. My favorite? Cows dashed about inside corrals at my command. Cool!

Oh, wait! We paused at a tiny zoo – to witness high drama! A careless guy had fallen into the lion’s cage: the beast was crouching... And, who should be on scene with camera-on-shoulder to capture it all, but a 9 and 10 News guy, along with his familiar TV truck! Wonderful!

There was, of course, one special button that triggered a train’s movement. Ohboy! I pushed it, and gleefully watched as my chosen mini-behemoth chugged along, puffing smoke and woo-wooing its whistle. It roared into a big, dark tunnel and emerged out the other end, cow-catching a memory…

When I was six my mother took my fellow classmates and me to Saginaw’s Potter Street Station to ride the train to Bay City, a 30-minute journey. I still remember being gobsmacked by the enormous machine. I wasn’t brave enough to touch the giant cab, but other schoolboys were patting the engine’s powerful iron wheels and begging the engineer to let them climb up to his aerie. They hadn’t a hope, and knew it, but won a wave from the Main Man, properly outfitted in overalls and a train hat. When the conductor yelled “All aboard!!” I had to be lifted up to the first stair: that was how huge it was. When the monster huffed and puffed and began to move, every child was saucer-eyed with delight…

As I dreamed, Joe nudged me and pointed to a curly-haired two-year-old boy who’d caught his attention. The little guy planted a toddler-sized plastic stool (thoughtfully provided by staff) firmly on the floor next to the vast train table above his head. Then he climbed up and drank in the park, the city, teeny tikes on bikes, and the splendid train moving heavily through it all. When it chugged past, he climbed back down, moved his stool two feet further, and rose again, trembling with anticipation, to view the amazing sight from the slightly different perspective. He did this again and again!
The child was transported! His eyes shone; he spoke not one word, but simply stared, not missing one detail. This was heaven. His family enjoyed watching him even more than the trains.

The second floor held more wonder: the circus was in town! A huge Big Top tent was cut away to reveal the show. A long line of giant elephants moved ponderously through the town toward the entrance, Wow! A great show was about to unfold! And, of course, roaring along the perimeter of the room-sized table was the big circus train, pulling gorgeous, colorfully painted cars specially designed to transport the various exotic circus animals.

A beautiful Christmas tree twinkled; laughter and choo-choo sounds rang through the building. Even the walls displayed huge old posters of trains moving toward exotic locations. Their artful presentations tempted town-bound families to chuck their routines and have an adventure. All they needed was a ticket to ride!

To rekindle old-fashioned delight, simply snatch up a youngster – or ‘out’ your own inner child — and come here!

All aboard!!

It was 4 a.m. on a rainy, cool November morning. Yawning, I put the kettle on. A cup of delicious freshly ground coffee would soon follow.

I yawned again, then paused. Hmmm. My face felt weird. Trotting into the bathroom I looked in the mirror — and reeled back, horrified. My left eyelid was massively swollen! The eye underneath had vanished. Sleep-mussed hair poked in every direction, adding to the awful picture.

What on earth had happened?!

I paced the floor, hyperventilating, and nearly witless with worry. That left lid looked as though a jokester had inserted a steroid-pumped purple grape into it. My heart pounded. I felt panicky. Was Urgent Care open at this hour? Joe was in Saginaw, so I was alone… Whoa! I was skittering into ‘the sky is falling’ mode. I forced myself to stop flapping around and think about what I did know. Assemble facts, then build solutions.

1. Only the left eyelid was distorted. It was a vivid purple-red, and getting bigger by the minute.

2. Was this a tumor? They can grow fast, but this would make the record books! Gulp! How far could the lid stretch before it split?

3. I’d been hit by a three-quarter-ton pickup truck nine years ago. The optic nerve fried from the heat of subsequent swelling, leaving my left eye blind. Bugs always sniff out my injured side, even years after the incident. (One good thing: this horror didn’t hurt, because that part of me is partially numb.)

4. Wait! Go back to number 2. No tumor could grow this fast, dummy. I relaxed slightly.

5. Review number 3 - the part about bugs. Something similar had happened before, about seven years ago. But it was my tear duct that a no-see-um or mosquito had attacked. The left side of my face ballooned into an enormous, slit-eyed Miss Piggy countenance: that awful, asymmetrical nightmare had had to be endured for over two weeks. (Even my doctor had recoiled. I wore a bag over my head that time.)

6. A closer examination now revealed two puncture wounds. Conclusion: a spider had speared me while I’d slept. She must have dumped her whole poison sac in there. (This is one disadvantage to living in a venerable old house.)

7. The rest of me was OK. I wasn’t dying, except for a cup of coffee. (More good news: though poked, I’d joked.)

And so, having sorted the situation, I settled down to wait it out.

The first day passed. I applied hot compresses and OTC cortisone cream to the balloon, and stayed indoors.

Three more days passed. The best news: the massive swelling stayed put. The rest of me remained normal. I had to laugh: it looked as though Rudolf’s red nose had taken up residence in/on my eyelid. I looked ridiculous.

A week trundled by. Wearing a pair of enormous extra-dark sunglasses I managed to shop for groceries, but slipped up: I took them off to write the check. The clerk’s horrified reaction required a lengthy explanation. I didn’t forget again.

It’s much improved after nearly three weeks. Only a fat, pea-sized red ball remains. I wouldn’t frighten anyone now. Much. Another week should do it.

Some final thoughts:

- That eyelid, when in full bloom, eerily resembled spider orbs.
- Why did she inject herself into my life? Why there?
- Wayward spiders are always escorted outside, but, clearly, those countless rescues hadn’t earned me points. Spidey had attacked me anyway.

It won’t happen again. I’ve thoroughly sprayed my bedroom with spider-killer, not forgetting the vents.

Even bug-eyed, I can bite back!

Thirty three years ago my husband and I bought a two-story 1870s brick farmhouse on three acres of land near Saginaw Valley State University, and raised our two children there. For part of each week Joe still stays on to manage his thriving Saginaw cardiology practice.

Deer sometimes graze just outside the front door. Opossums and raccoons wander by the generously sized music room windows. It’s always been a peaceful place.

But recently the house had developed an interesting quirk. Just before falling sleep, Joe would hear faint rustling noises in the bedroom walls. Birds, probably. Occasionally he’d discover a frantic, sooty sparrow whizzing around the library, so that conclusion seemed reasonable. Screens installed over the two chimney tops solved the problem.

In late July, just after twilight, as he read in the library, a faint flapping sound ruffled the air in the adjacent darkened music room. Another bird had gotten in! It was always an exasperating experience to shoo them out. Confused, they often turn away from the open door, and freedom, at the last second.
But wait! It was late! Decent birds would have roosted by now, surely. So, what…?

Another soft flutter. He switched off the lamp and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. One minute later, a curtain stirred. There! A tiny bat lighted briefly, then frantically flew from one side of the room to the other, almost soundlessly.
When the creature lighted again, he dropped a small wastebasket over it, slid an old-fashioned record album over the opening, and released the terrified animal outside. Hmmm. That accounted for those nighttime wall noises! Now, some computer-assisted research would be fun.

His uninvited guest was a little brown bat, Myotis lucifigus: Michigan hosts a huge population. This youngster hadn’t learned yet where to exit; instead, he’d stumbled through a seam somewhere, and ended up in our home.

Joe learned that mother bats have one baby in spring, and that a single animal eats nearly its weight in insects every night. The mosquito population did seem down this year!

These furry mammals, weighing only about 6-10 grams, can, through echolocation, distinguish a moth on tree bark in pitch darkness. Only about 5% may have rabies, and they never get tangled in human hair. So many myths were dispelled!

The next four nights more panicked youngsters were rescued. Finally, weary of snaring and releasing them, he decided to bring a chair outside at dusk and simply wait. It would be easy to determine just where the colony was living. Sure enough, right on time, a respectable cloud of bats rose from the highest part of our two-story home. He dashed around the back to pinpoint where they were emerging.
The next morning the Yellow Pages yielded Batman, who was delighted by the call. “I’m rarely contacted; people just ring their exterminator! I’ll be right out!”

The sixty-something guy clearly loved his job. He scrambled happily up his extra-high extension ladder, found the bricky-breach, and deftly installed a special exit-only door. The bats were snoozing just inside, he called down, but every one would fly away at twilight. When they returned, re-entry wouldn’t be possible. The odd youngster might still appear inside the house, but only once. This slick, inexpensive gadget had prevented many deaths.

Lastly, he installed three bat houses high in our trees to encourage the little creatures to remain. Then this cheerful man, cracking bat jokes, drove off. (A month later he quietly returned, removed his one-way door, and sealed the hole. No bats have entered since.)

A funny thing: Joe reminded him twice to send a bill, but Batman, having saved hundreds of innocents, declined. It seems his clever rescue was reward enough.

The holiday season is always a dangerous time for yours truly.

I love dining on succulent turkey, cranberry sauce, and pie. And it’s such fun to try new cookie recipes concocted by friends and relatives. There are yummy temptations displayed on countertops, or lurking in refrigerators...

Truth is, I find it too easy to abandon caution during winter holidays and happily pig out on wonderful food.

But soon my jeans won’t slide on easily: blouse buttons will strain. I’ll ring in the New Year looking as puffy as the pastries I’ve pounced on.

It ‘s so incredibly frustrating. (Those annoying folks who can eat anything and never gain an ounce drive me nuts.)

My ever-vigilant fat cells are consummate experts at snaring and efficiently storing every stray calorie or carbohydrate I consume. My body is incredibly good at this. So, as I age, I require much less food to maintain my normal weight. Finally, some years ago, I realized that just one meal a day suited me fine. It’s obvious that I’m not wasting away. Once on a roll, I have no trouble keeping to this regimen.

When I was a teen, three hearty meals daily were important as I dashed around the vast University of Michigan campus. I could eat anything and remain slim. Today, decades later, I’ve cut my intake to a small fraction of what it normally was. Everything is snicker-snack- until the holiday season, when my personal battle of the bulge begins. By Christmas my clothes shrink alarmingly.

Uh-huh.

So every November I renew my resolve. I won’t fight depression in January because I’ve evolved into a blimp. When one is vertically challenged, aging, and not nearly as active, eating three meals a day (and snacks) is a recipe for disaster. A veterinarian friend pointed out that dogs fed more than once daily get fat. Hip joints, especially, are compromised. They’re much more prone to other ailments, too. And so it is with humans. Dragging around fifty-pound ‘sacks of potatoes’ 24/7 wreaks backs and knees, not to mention the heart and pancreas. Diabetes is rampant, due to obesity.

In 1996, overweight, uncomfortable, and needing reasonable guidelines, I had a revelation. A person’s waist measurement should not exceed his or her inseam length. It’s the only reference I use, and it works beautifully.

Over-eating will always be a difficult addiction for me to conquer. Each meal is named to make it important. Everyone I know looks shocked that I skip breakfast (vital for a healthy start, trumpet the ads) and don’t eat dinner. The pressure is constant. But if I give in, I get fat. Simple as that.

I won’t look pregnant when I’m not. I don’t want my cardiac pump and arterial lines to fail too soon. A few seconds of pleasure for my delighted taste buds, repeated too often, is simply not worth the consequences. Fact is, it’s just too easy to grow roots on my soles and exercise just my feeding arm and jaw muscles. I’ve also noticed with dismay that extra weight has become harder to shed with every passing year. Thankfully, the garden, and the work it entails, motivates me to Keep To The Plan.

This year I have no excuse. There’s no snow, and it’s not too cold. So I rake, walk, and generally maintain a distant friendship with kitchens. I do look forward to preparing and eating my one meal- anything I want, guilt-free. And, yeah, I confess to lapses; Lisa’s gluten-free cornbread topped with honey, and her custards, are so special. Sometimes, by golly, one dessert just isn’t enough.

Mainly, though, I’m in control.

Until the next temptation….

My daughter and I were chatting in our newly renovated kitchen when my friend Les, who was working outside, climbed the porch stairs, opened the screen door and said, quietly, “We’ve got a serious situation developing.” He glanced toward the North Gate’s high fence. We rushed to the window. There, sitting under the three-inch overhang on the twelve-foot-long plank that ran between each fence pillar, a chipmunk was munching a pumpkin seed in the warm sun. His snug home and its larder were just inside a gnawed opening in that high corner.

Just above him, gazing down from the pillar’s narrow, flat shelf, Cat sat.
Not a whisker moved. His long, fluffy tail hung down, but did not twitch. He was stone.
The oblivious chipmunk was six inches lower than Death.

It was stunning to watch the little guy happily nipping away the edges of his seed while savoring the last of autumn’s warmth. He was so close, so close to perpetual winter.

“What should we do?” I gasped. Lisa rocked and watched, then said, quietly, “Oh, nothing, I think. My money’s on the chippie, Mom.”

I stared at the tableau. Chipmunks are incredibly quick. They always have a Plan. This one was dining right next to his door. One chipmunk-sized stride away from it would mean oblivion.
He finished, wiped his whiskers, fluffed his fur, and closed his eyes. And somehow, perhaps from delicate shifts in the air, Cat’s ears and nose knew precisely what was happening.

Chippie sighed, savoring the seed’s lingering taste. He sunbathed for perhaps three awful minutes. Cat sat, yellow eyes locked onto where he knew the chipmunk was - so near, so incredibly near. Nobody breathed.

Teeny brown eyes popped open. Thoughtfully, Chippie looked around. Something - something didn’t feel quite right… (“Look UP!” I whispered.) Hmmm. Should he move away from the overhang and onto the broad boardwalk for even more warmth? It might be nice. His eyes searched for danger. His fur prickled slightly…
A careful survey…Nothing. He closed his eyes again.

We tensed as Cat inched forward one millimeter. This was an astounding demonstration of the animal’s ability to ‘read’ his prey, without actually seeing him.
It was a curiously intimate moment.

Chippie’s eyes opened. Zip! He vanished into his house. Cat, still unable to actually see this, knew instantly. He rose slightly, but waited…waited… Pop! Out came the chipmunk again. Under his porch roof, in precisely the same place, he sunbathed while holding a seed in his cheek pouch to soften it.

Cat moved not one muscle. His control and concentration were absolute.
One minute later Chippie leisurely brought the softened seed forward toward his incisors, trimmed the edges, and ate it.
Death’s laser-eyes bored into the wood, measuring. The Pounce had to be precise. One misstep and he’d forfeit the last of his nine lives.

Suddenly, Chippie skipped away from his sheltered porch. We gasped! But in that millisecond, his well-placed eyes saw the monster, and - too quickly for us to register - he reversed course and skittered into his home.

Cat sagged. Rats! He’d been made! On the faint chance he might be wrong he remained immobile a bit longer, hoping, but eventually conceded. Blinking eyes and twitching tail betrayed his frustration and disappointment. The exultant chip-chip of the triumphant, ‘munk,’ who’d exited his home from a ground-level door, mocked him.

Humiliated, Cat slowly turned his head to glare down at the laughing rodent in the Fairy Garden before carefully descending, his old body trembling with rage. Next time, munk-dung. Next time.

We mopped our brows and cheered: No showdown today…