Petty Politics

I've walked 8 miles in the past two days, both to get a decent cup of coffee and to get out into the warmer air and reassure myself that I am ambulatory.

Walking is great for pondering. Today I pondered what questions I would pose to town candidates at the election forum next week. I came up with two:

1) For the incumbents: Have you ever lied to your constituents in the course of your official duties; and for everybody: Do you think there are circumstances under which lying to your constituents is justified?

2) For the incumbents: Have you ever used your position as a town officer to try to force a wrong decision (by, say, the Planning Board of Appeals) on behalf of yourself, or your family, friends or neighbors? and for everyone: Do you consider such use of power to be ethical under any circumstances, and if not, will you take a pledge to avoid such conduct if you are elected?

My husband just snorted when I shared these with him. "You think anyone's going to answer those questions truthfully?"

I said, "Well, if I can follow up with another question, like, 'Did you pressure the Code Enforcement Officer to ignore so-and-so's noncompliance?' Only, of course, if I know the answer to that question is 'yes.' "

He rolled his eyes.

I doubt if I'd have the nerve to stand up and ask these questions myself, for the simple reason that this is a small town and I'm afraid of a backlash. My taxes would probably go up, the Code Enforcement Officer would probably be sent to inspect my house and told to not come back with fewer than 135 violations, and the town snowplowers would likely be ordered to bury the end of my driveway -- preferably, with me under the snow.

It's too bad, but that's small-town politics for you. One hand washes the other; it doesn't stand back and say, "Wow, are you dirty."

Hate at First Slight

I knew I shouldn't have played a game of Scrabble (actually, Lexulous) before heading off to my job this morning. But normally, a game of Lexulous relaxes me.

Here's the bizarre exchange during this morning's game with someone whose user name is "pazienza":

Pazienza played some short word to start off.

I bingoed off that word, spelling "basenji."

Pazienza countered with another bingo, which I was able to turn to my advantage by playing "zoa" on a triple word score.

I noticed pazienza had written something in the chat box. It said, "An obvious Scrabble bot."

I had no idea what pazienza was talking about, so I wrote, "?"

Pazienza responded, "you."

Well, I was flummoxed! My knee-jerk reaction was to write, "Basenji is SUCH a common word." But I paused to cool down, refused to let myself sink to pazienza's level, and wrote instead, "Yup, I guess I am."

That could have been the end of it, but THEN pazienza wrote, "Last time well play," which it took me a minute to figure out meant "It's the last time we'll play."

I should have adjourned right then! Players hate it when their opponent adjourns, as opposed to resigning, because nobody gets the rating points. Unfortunately, I didn't think of it. Suppressing an intense urge to use a very bad epithet, I wrote, "If that's what you want," hoping that pazienza could nonetheless infer the word I'd left off the end of the sentence.

What a jerk! The kicker is that when we were down to the last tiles, I was ahead by 50 points but ran out of time!

If anyone out there has any ideas how I can make pazienza's life absolutely miserable from now on, please let me know. I'm looking for something clever and untraceable.

The Horse Who Would Be Dog

Thanks to the horse pictured here, I almost would, instead of sitting here writing this, be lying unconscious and possibly dead out on the muddy ground.

I let him out and was treating him like a dog, running around and calling, "Here, Sox! Here boy!" He would thunder my way, wheel and thunder back. Sometimes he would kick up his heels.

It was one of the heel-kicks that nearly got me in the head. I could hear the wind from it, it was that close. Whew! Scary!

My analytics seem to be up and running, since I installed the updated code. It's very satisfying to see that my readership has jumped -- are you ready? -- 2,475%! There was nowhere to go but up, since the program hadn't been working so it looked like I hadn't had a visitor for a month. Average time on-site is currently 1.46 minutes, which, sadly, does not mean people are spending more time on my blog. It just means that ONE person spent 43 minutes! Thanks, whoever you were!

Rex and Kayti have been in Florida since last Tuesday. It hardly seems like they've been gone at all, because they call me at least four or five times a day. They won't leave me alone.

Kayti even sent me on a Valentine's mission last night. She wanted me to anonymously deliver a rose to a classmate. So I bought a Dove chocolate rose, got into my cat-burglar outfit (black pants, black cape, black boots, black gloves, goofy feather mask and goofy red hat), drove to said classmate's house, and walked up to the door. I was going to knock if the dog barked, but no one seemed to know I was there -- the shades were all drawn -- so I left the rose on the porch railing and scurried away.

Can you imagine? I do the most bizarre things. I really liked being in disguise and sneaking up to someone's house. I wish stalking weren't a crime!

Nothin' Could be Finah

I'm just back from four days in North Carolina, visiting my 88-year-old widowed Aunt Louise. She doesn't have a computer, and even if she did, she wouldn't be online, so I had little opportunity to add to my blog. I apologize to those who made the trip to mylittlefarm in vain.

My aunt had a wonderful marriage to my Uncle Carlton. They absolutely adored each other for the whole 54 years they were together. He was six years younger than her. They met at a dance in ... I want to say Bangor, but I'm not sure. It was one of those deals where he spotted her and decided then and there that she was the woman for him. She says she was in her thirties when that happened.

With that in mind, I made an impulse buy at Target yesterday, Saturday -- "When Harry Met Sally." The previous night we'd watched "Narnia" and she fiddled with the volume all through it, driving me almost insane, and she didn't follow the plot very well, either. I thought we'd have greater success with "Harry/Sally." I thought she would really relate to those aging happy couples interspersed throughout the movie.

Alas, the show had barely begun when she fell asleep. She only woke up if a telephone rang in the movie; she thought it was her own phone. Then she'd watch for a couple of minutes, the volume zooming up and back down like a little boat on ocean swells (and I'm not exaggerating when I say it made me slightly seasick). The next thing I'd know, she'd be fast asleep again.

It wasn't the most exciting four days of my life, but we both got a lot of rest and we enjoyed comparing pills (hers are mostly medications; mine are mostly vitamins). I made a cool birthday cake for her son, my cousin Kevin, who turned 48, and he never even came over to pick it up. I told her she should call up a few of her friends and invite them to share it with us. The hell with Kevin! But she said Kevin told her to box it and freeze it and he'd come over next week. Hmmmm. I'll believe it when I see it. But I helped her stow it for the day hell freezes over.

I wish I had a picture of that cake to put on here. It was shaped like a fish and had M&Ms for scales. It was supposed to have NECCO wafers, but who sells those any more? Nobody in Wake Forest, N.C., I can tell you that!

Aunt Louise jokes a lot about having CRS -- "can't remember s---" -- but it clearly frustrates her. She's a pretty smart lady, and has a great sense of humor, but she is bummed that her mind doesn't work so well now. It was hard for me, too, for example, when she'd try to remember where her doctor's office is -- all I can say is, it's a good thing we left the house 45 minutes early!

And the Dog Barks at Dawn

Rex and I are sleep-deprived today. It's all because the hay is making the horse cough. I can't sleep when the horse coughs. Every hack and wheeze reverberates all through my body. It doesn't help to turn on the radio or wear earplugs or clap a pillow over my head. I can still feel him coughing.

Meanwhile, Zoe, the 16-year-old border collie cross, is doing her usual 2 a.m. pacing around the downstairs, toenails clicking on the wood floor, around and around the living room. Rex has taken to sleeping in the Barc-0-lounger so he can let her out when necessary without having to climb down the ladder from the loft. This happens at least three times between midnight and 5 a.m.

In addition, every time a snowflake flutters to the ground, or the horse coughs, the shih tzus wake up, race through the doggie door and begin barking in stereo. This sometimes wakes up the roosters, who crow enthusiastically even in the dead of night. Rex calls the shih tzus in, blocks the doggie door, goes back to the b-o-lounger. The shih tzus then start slamming themselves rhythmically against the gate that keeps them in the kitchen.

Rex puts the shih tzus in their crate and latches the door. Everything seems peaceful and calm, and I almost dare to try to go back to sleep. Then, in the stillness, Zoe gives a short, sharp bark from the porch, signaling she wants to come back in. She'll bark like this at measured intervals until Rex gets up and lets her in.

He'll settle down again, and then a cat starts scratching in the litter box. Our cats really get into this activity, sometimes for a half-hour straight. It drives Rex insane.

By now I'm about to line up every animal we have here and mow them down with an AK-47. I'm sure Rex is, too.

I think if we can just find some hay that doesn't make the horse cough (we've changed his name, btw, to Mr. Coughee), I can sleep though all this other stuff. If not, at least you'll now know why I'm looking hung over all the time these days.

No, We're Not Eating Our Shoes -- Yet

We had the great pleasure of meeting up with our Seattle friends Sean and Finn the other day (while my chickens were getting murdered, it turns out) in Portland at the Children's Museum.

We were supposed to bring a bag lunch, but the only bag I had in my hand when we arrived was a plastic bag with Kayti's and my shoes in it.

Spotting the bag, Sean said, "You can put your lunch in the refrigerator downstairs."

I said, "That's not our lunch! That's our shoes!"

"Oh," he said, grinning evilly. "Now you're eating your shoes? I smell another NPR essay coming -- 'First, we moved into the cellar to save on heat. Now we're eating our shoes!' "

Sean has always been the person I count on to make me laugh. Within 3 minutes of getting to the museum, I was already weak with laughter. I had to hold onto a pole to keep from falling on the floor.


Later on, after lunch (Sean's sister Cherie generously shared her chicken salad-with-walnuts-and-cranberries sandwiches, since I hadn't had time to stop to get lunch for myself and Kayti), we followed Kayti and Finn into the little theater. People were standing around, but no one was on stage. Sean and I cannot resist an empty stage. We hopped up and announced we were doing a "Robin Hood" sketch.

I said, "I'm Maid Marian." I turned to Sean. "Robin Hood! You must flee! The Sheriff of Nottingham is coming to capture you!"

Sean said, "Here, get on my horse. He's very strong." A not-so-subtle reference to my weight. "Let's go!" People were laughing, of course.

I said, "No, no -- I have to ride sidesaddle!"

So we galloped around the stage, Sean facing forward, I facing sideways, scooching and doing a kind of two-footed hopping.

Can you believe it? We're both over 50!!!!!!

Some things never change. We get together, and we're both 15 again. This friendship is the only reason I'm glad I moved to Dover-Foxcroft. Can't imagine life without Sean!

Photos: Top, a clown shoe that might make a good entree. Inset: Finn prepares for a lifetime of probably goofy performance.

Black Day at the Stick Farm

Sure, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As my daughter exclaimed, "Martin Luther King was black!"

But that's not the black we're talking about here. We're talking about death -- the death of nine fine chickens at the teeth of a scruffy, mangy, fox.

The roll: Sophie, Cupid, Vanilla, Comet, Glen, Little Pumpkin, Fudge (or daughter of Fudge, depending who you talk to), and two young cochin roosters who never even had names.

The good news is that the fox did not survive to kill again. He was in the henhouse when Rex came home. Rex shut him in, borrowed a pistol, and shot him -- twice, for good measure.

The irony is that I had seen the fox earlier in the day. He was no bigger than a large cat, and he had almost no fur on his tail. I chased him under the cabin, then, because we were not going to be home, I shut the chickens in the henhouse -- so they would be SAFE! Instead, the fox ripped through the roof of the side pen, went in the little side-pen entrance to the coop, and the chickens were there for the picking. Sitting ducks, so to speak.

There is a kind of funny side to this. A neighbor kid visiting Kayti, upon hearing of the massacre, said, "Our dog killed a couple of your chickens." Upon closer questioning, he said his father "buried one of them." This must have happened back when the ground was soft. Thanks, neighbor, for letting us know!

We now have two roosters and six hens. And plans to create a bigger, stronger, safer environment for them!