La Belette Rouge Holds An Open House

And she's asked me to guest post. Some of you might have read the post before, but there' s a new video to go with it.

Have a great weekend, my friends.......

Work Travel in Leopard Panties

Now that title is what you call an "attention grabber," don't ya think?

Yes, I'm cheating. I've put a few reruns together from the old blogs (politits and unglued). Long time readers will remember some of these goofy stories. New readers may be surprised to know that I really do float through this life with the grace of a hippo in a tutu....

Here's one from April 2007. It's inspired by this post by La Belette Rouge. Thanks, LBR, for the inspiration!

P.S. The process of going through my old work is part of trying to pull together something to submit to possible agents, so shut up with that ha ha, you can't stop blogging pointing and laughing stuff. I mean it. Don't make me hold you down and dangle drool over your face........


I was digging through old employment information last night and came across some papers that reminded of my job with AARP. I worked for them for five years in the Midwest Regional Office and later, when they decentralized, in the Illinois State Office.

One of my projects was to help volunteers build local coalitions so that they could do community development in several targeted areas of Illinois. It required a lot of travel around the state. During a trip to Springfield, the key volunteer in charge of community development went along with me. I'll call him Mr. Lipschultz. Mr. Lipschultz and I got along really well and enjoyed working together. Before retirement, which was anything but the put your feet up and hang around style of retirement, he was the regional administrator for a federal agency in Minnesota. He was incredibly interesting and knowledgeable about so many things. He actively volunteered for one or two other organizations and served on the Boards of a couple more. He swam everyday. This guy was impressive.

When we started working together, my boss pulled me into her office to wish me well on the new project and to warn me that this was not a man with which to trifle. He was very well respected and had the ear of influential people in Chicago. She would appreciate it if I hid my off-beat light under a bushel a bit, if I got her meaning.

Since I've had children, I've battled my weight. The summer I worked closely with Mr. Lipschultz was a skinny summer. After I really ballooned up after The Boy was born, my doctor kindly prescribed phentermine and I lost fifty pounds. I was wearing a size eight (not to be believed in many years!). I was feeling pretty good about the way I looked and I noticed the Mr. Lipschultz didn't mind hanging around with a reasonably attractive younger woman. He liked to joke about what people would think when they saw us traveling or dining out together. Shameless flirt that I am, I encouraged him.

The Springfield trip started off well enough. We had our meeting with a working lunch then headed back to Chicago. I was driving. Shortly after we got onto the interstate I started to feel ill. The feeling built up quickly. I told Mr. Lipschultz that I was feeling a little off. He suggested that we get off at the next exit. He told me that I was looking pale. I took the next exit and drove to the nearest gas station.

I was really feeling sick now and pulled into the parking lot as fast as I could. I brought the car to a stop, flung open my car door and vomited out the driver's side. All I could think was "poor Mr. Lipschultz! What must he think?"

When I was finally through unloading my lunch onto the pavement, I sat back up and gripped the wheel. I couldn't look at Mr. Lipschultz.

"Are you okay now?" he asked sweetly.

I paused. "Well, yes. But I just shit my pants, too" I said and looked at him. We both burst out laughing.

After we were done with that bit of hilarity, I had to get inside and get cleaned up. Naturally, I'd selected a lovely pair of light khaki Liz Claiborne trousers and green sweater as my business casual attire that morning. Not knowing how my backside looked, I moved as fast as I could to get inside the station and to the bathroom.

Once inside, I did the best I could to clean myself up and put myself back together. My khaki pants were horribly stained. Once I got my panties clean, I dried them as best I could with paper towels. I had to hide in a stall while I did it. I put the very damp leopard spotted panties back on and peeked outside. No one was there so I took my trousers to the sink and started rinsing them out. The sound of the water must have been very loud because I didn't hear when the door opened.

There I stood wearing nothing but my bright green sweater and leopard panties, furiously scrubbing my khakis in the sink. I looked up and saw two young girls staring open-mouthed at me. I did the only thing I could think of. I smiled at them. They turned and ran out the door.

I finished with the khakis and attempted to dry them under the air dryer. I stood there mashing the big, silver button hoping that no one else would walk in. Afraid to wait too long, I gave up and slipped the wet khaki trousers on over my damp panties. I slunk out the bathroom door and scurried as fast as I could out the door and toward the car.

Mr. Lipschultz was waiting patiently for me. I could tell that he'd cleaned the front seat of the car. Of course it was fabric, not leather. I wanted to sink into the ground. Instead I got back into the car and thanked him for being so wonderful.

Don't you worry about it," he said. "I just want to know that you're okay. I'm sorry I can't drive for you because I don't know how to drive a stick shift. Are you going to be able to drive?"

"Yes. I think I 'm okay now. It must have been something I ate."

"Well, just go nice and slow and we'll take lots of breaks on the way," he said in his darling, commanding way. He was used to being in charge.

Damp, cold, still queasy and I'd just hurled and crapped myself in front of a very impressive man. It was the longest three hour drive of my life.

Merci, La Belette Rouge

A couple of weeks ago, La Belette Rouge bestowed upon me the honor of being a proud bookworm. Besides being far superior to being recognized as the hungry tapeworm I normally am, this honor is a kick to me because there was a time when I actually was a bookworm. Lately, though, the only time I can be seen with a book in my hand is when I least want anyone to see me. Let's just say that even though I close the door, some cat or other will force its way through to investigate, looking at me reproachfully before swishing its tail in disgust and leaving in haste. For my part, I remind them that the door was shut for a reason.

That's usually when I notice that my feet have gone numb from sitting on the throne too long. The lengths I will take for a moment alone in quiet.

So the point of this bookworm honor is to do the following: pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 46. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences.

So here's the thing. I'm going to grab the book nearest me and write the fifth sentence plus a couple more from page 46. The book is Pete Hamill's Forever.

There were no signs of obvious grief; no tears, no sniffles, no choking sounds. He took two more rush mats from the old woman and floated them down over Rebecca Carson's body. With spade, he began to cover her. He threw down seven loads of black earth and then handed the shovel to the boy. "Seven," he said. "Only seven." The soaked dirt was very heavy, and Robert didn't want to do this, but his mother was already covered, and so he added earth to earth.

A friend had recommended a while ago that I read the Pete Hamill novels and I'm glad that I'm finally getting around to it. Somehow it seems fitting that I would begin reading Hamill with this particular novel. When you open it up to Chapter One, you find this passage:

And what a people loves it will defend. We took their temples from them and forbade them, for many years, to worship their strange idols. They gathered in secret, deep in the dripping glens, Chanting their prayers before a lichened rock.
- John Hewitt, "The Colony," 1950

I didn't know anything about Irish poet John Hewitt who wrote The Colony, but John Hewitt is the name of my paternal great-grandfather. I like the symmetry of that.

This honor has made the rounds. I am feeling lazy and a bit emotionally wrung out. The last couple of days, my mothering skills have been called upon in complicated ways that stretched my patience and tempted me to abdicate the role altogether, so let's do this...if you have not received this award and you are sitting within three feet of a book, consider yourself tagged.

Thank you, Belette, for thinking of me when you were handing out this tres sexy honor. Je t'aime comme une soeur.