Category Archives: personal

The People’s Forum

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Stick a fork in it, my people!

Because I encourage it, I get a fair amount of feedback, grievances, and downright weird commentary about this humble column.  I devote today’s piece to my people and their rantings.  And away we go.

Mt. Kisco, NY: “How about someone gets a snake tattoo when young and then adds a few dozen pounds.  By the time they’re done, the snake looks like it swallowed a goat.” (Or the tramp stamp, located on a particularly spreadable area, the Saddlebag.)

Westport, CT:  “I am ruffled by the way corporate and utility bills that come in the mail keep urging us to Go Green—not because they give a flying burrito about the planet, but so they can save on payroll and postage, which is to say naked greed. Automate the heck out of everything.  And bury your customer service number deep within your website. Have just two employees with minimal benefits and no customer service beyond recorded loop nonsense. All in the name of Going Green. Yeah, okay.”

Randolph, VT:  From a friend in her 80s, “At my age, Honey,  a nose job means melanoma removal.”

New York, NY: “This from my 11-year old niece: ‘Boys are nothing but problems.’ Wise beyond her years.”

Washington, DC:  “As film studios  and advertising agencies throw bizarre apocalyptic movies and disturbing television commercials at us, we urge: ‘We’re banged-up creatures in a post-9.11 world suffering from global disaster burnout, not  heartless rocks impervious to your scenes of contagion, explosions, and angels crashing on city pavement.’  What the heck are they thinking? Were the people who cooked this violence up born after 9.11? Possible. Employers like to hire people who’ll work for nothing because they’re still living with their parents—even after college.”

 Hanover, NH:  A friend e-mailed and I saved, “My new mantra so I don’t crack: No one escapes.” I wrote her back to ask what word I had mistakenly cut off at the end. No one escapes what?  Her reply: “Nothing. That was it. ‘No one escapes.’”

 Somewhere in the Heartland:  “I, too, eschew the news.  It’s what drove me out of my parents’ house when they generously let us, our birds, and our rescue cat stay there.  The TV was always on, tuned in to bad news followed by court TV followed by more news!  Waaaaait a minnnnute….”

Los Angeles, CA:  “It’s weird is how, almost instantly, you can tell how old basketball footage is from the shorts. Long shorts have been in so long it’s time for them to go out. Which is bad for those of us entering the Long Shorts—and Big Jewelry—years.”  (Also the Big Glasses years. They were in a season ago and you can still find monster ones that cover half your face. As for the short shorts, well, giant hair from the 80s never came back. So there’s hope.)

New Chappaqua, New York:  “My harp teacher sent me the Top Ten Tips To Remember About Playing In Public” (thematically abridged by UVG):

1. It’s a harp. They’re gonna love it.

3. Even if you do make a mistake and do telegraph it, they won’t care. It’s a harp. They’re gonna love it.

6. Noodling in the middle is perfectly acceptable until you can find your way back to the tune. It’s called improvising. They’ll think you did it on purpose, and since it’s a harp, they’re gonna love it.

8. People aren’t as tired of the old standards as you are. Go on, play Greensleeves. On a harp, they’ll love it.

10. You are sharing yourself in a way few people do, and you have a right to be proud of that. And since you are doing it with a HARP…They’re gonna love it.

Westchester, PA:  “On an Islamic holy day, my teenage son’s friends were all hanging out in town and one kid’s mother called him to reprimand him about praying, so he went into the Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom and said his prayers.  I couldn’t help myself; I asked my son, ‘How did he know to face east in a room with no windows?’  The answer, ‘Duh, his cell phone, Mom.’”  (Try the Compass app, you’ll lerv it!)

My doctor’s favorite bumper sticker:  Reality Is Not What You Think.

My suggested bumper sticker:  Just a minute, Officer. I’m texting.

Vanity Plate Spotted on Route 4:  PUZZLES

My next Vanity Plate:  PUZZLED

Feel free to send your deepest thoughts. For inspiration, play Deepest Purple, Deep Purple’s best of album (think: Space Truckin’).  Good day.

Ann Aikens can be reached via Facebook (ann.aikens.7), e-mail at uppervalleygirl@gmail.com, and Twitter at @uvgvt (http://twitter.com/uvgvt)

I’m Your Venus – Not

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Another Sunny Day in Vermont

My dad laughs and laughs when he sees a solar panel in Vermont. No last-visible-Venus-transit-in-our-lifetime for Bonzo.

But that’s why Al Gore invented the Internet.  Here’s what we’re missing.

Living the Dream

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Who needs bread?

I don’t know who invented inserting pimientos and olives into loaves of meat (served best on…paper); obviously, it was an Italian, but that doesn’t really narrow it down. Point is, when I went to photograph this little beauty, I didn’t notice the maple syrup in the background. Probably because there’s so much syrup here that we don’t even see it. We use jugs of it as door stoppers, medicine balls, spare tires, home plate, nautical ballast, aeronautical ballast, emotional ballast, whatever.

Somebody’s going to see this and get an idea.  Vermonters will put maple syrup on anything.

It’s Not a Memorial Day Party without…

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Ball of Floam®

– McKenzie Franks

– Someone making a bad drink out of desperation (today, a Red Wine Spritzer)

– Mischievous children pulling a fast one on the adults (the kids were playing Floamball, in which the ball breaks apart upon impact with the bat, and an ungovernable free-for-all ensues. Between innings, the kids secretly  made “cookies” out of the Floam and placed them on the buffet until, yes, an adult tried one.  Her gastronomic report?  “Tastes like plastic.” In fairness, they looked delectable and the Floamball “diamond” was far enough away that we didn’t know what Floam* looks like up  close.)

“Cookies”

BYO rodent.

*a mixture of borax, glue, dyes, and polystyrene beads that resemble nonpareils sprinkles.

Remember, if it exists in the world, it exists in nail polish.

More Garbage

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REAL KEY OF PLASTIC + METAL

So let’s forget about how every recipient of this mailing has definitely won something (a 2012 wallet calendar? A pickup truck?) Point is:  I’ve never been to this place,  I live nowhere near it, and that means a whole mess of people received by mail the glued-on, totally useless, piece-of-garbage key that will go straight to landfill.  Shame on you, Capitol City, for your eco-costly gimmick! The Footprint Warriors are on your tail.

Waste: The Final Frontier

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THE ROCK PEOPLE WAS HERE

We had a foreign exchange student in high school who, for unknown reasons, exclaimed occasionally, “Baby garbage!”   He found this hilarious.  Something was clearly lost in translation, possibly involving what is known as the diminutive. The idea of a little baby garbage, or female or beloved garbage, must have been comical from his culture’s perspective.

A L’IL GREEN MTN. GIRL MADE THIS FAIRY HOUSE

In May, we in Vermont practice Green Up Day, when volunteers pick up garbage, baby and otherwise, from roadside, riverside, and public spaces.  I’d never done Green Up Day, so this Earth Day I got myself assigned to a remote stretch of dirt road.  Sometimes you can have an excellent time alone. I did, filling two bags with all manner of Vermonty refuse—shell casings, beer and wine bottles, 175 cig butts, condom, saw blade—presumably tossed from cars by the Party People. But I came across lovelier man-made items as well: a fairy house, Royal Larocque’s farm, a stack of rocks.  There are people who stack rocks, some sort of Skull and Bones-y secret order, I imagine. Perhaps you know their work. The Rock People.

Garbage has troubled me since the Mobro 4000 (a.k.a the Gar-barge) cruised around aimlessly and unwanted for seven months in 1987 with 3,000 tons of trash and no port from Brooklyn to Belize willing to take it.  It was darkly comic to readers of the tabloids, but it probably wasn’t funny at all to the poor slobs piloting the thing, who no doubt needed gas masks by week two. The Gar-barge People also happened to be Mob People. No surprise there.

Years later, I became similarly dismayed at a resort in Jamaica. No one seemed to know where the thousands of plastic cups the bartenders chucked daily were going. And this was just one of a dozen such resorts. The waste was ruining my good time. Why couldn’t they use real glasses? Why’d I have to beg bartenders to re-use my plastic cup? Not that I ever had a second drink.

ROYAL LAROCQUE’S FARM

When questioned by my nieces about worldly horrors, I am often at a loss for words. They once asked me why I got angry when they ran out of sight in a park. I stammered, “There are beings… who… steal… children!” making it sound like some crazy troll in a fairytale out to get them. The author of Garbology, interviewed on the radio recently, revealed terrible facts about garbage that I could never explain to my nieces. The information was too disturbing for a family newspaper. Let’s just say we have a major problem on our hands, particularly in the oceans.

So I’m at the dump, where we recycle for free. I ask the attendant exactly what kind of machine can separate paper, plastic, and metal. He said, “It doesn’t. This goes into a trash compactor.” Oh. We don’t have that magic zero-sort machine other towns have?  I ask him who wants our compacted garbage. China.” China?! What are they doing with it?! He answers by tugging on his shirt and letting it snap back while tilting his chin in the air.  “We’re wearin’ it.”

I’m not really opposed to wearing garbage, but what else are they doing it with it? What do they need it for, what with many garbage-producing citizens of their own? I’m sure Garbology holds the answers. I’ll read it to my newborn nephew. He’s the only one who can handle the truth. Because he won’t understand it. He’ll just squawk and coo.

When confronted with distressing realities we can do little about, we look to scientists. In the future, whole planets may

NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED HERE.

be used as garbage dumps. Surely scientists can come up with something better. Look at all the solutions they’ve already delivered! Problem is, in a fame-obsessed culture fanned by reality TV, the Young People don’t want to become scientists any more. I propose a reality show where the YP compete for a fat cash prize (and, yes, celebrity) to solve Earth’s problems. Friend Harry suggests “Footprint Warriors”.

Do it up, Young People. We oldsters made a mess. It’s yours to fix. Maybe your hot young musicians can start  by singing songs about garbage. Then, as some oldsters would argue, and have for generations, they already do. Good luck…and good day.

Man Auction

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Tonight’s Man Auction, a fundraiser for an elementary school, included such items as a Pig Roast (he raises the pig and then he…),  fishing, excavating, carpentry, paving with hardpack by the famously hot Johnson Brothers (“We’ll make it smooth!”),  personal training from a Chippendale’s-caliber (yet straight) Adonis, and other manful offerings—with plenty of  references to  “buffing”, “Googling”, “my package”, and “crevice tool” to crank those bids in a roomful of uncharacteristically dressy and vocal rural women.

When I won a door prize, I admitted to the chick next to me that I win things, but that I’m unlucky in love.  She said she also wins stuff and encouraged, “Maybe he’s here!”  Ever unhopeful, I switched topics to the awful Chippendale’s show I took a bride-to-be to in L.A. for her bachelorette party, where one dancer rubbed his greased, sweating body pretty much all over her. My new friend said, “Oh no, are they gonna have that?” I suggested this was unlikely at the Barnard Town Hall.

The Pig Roast was for maximum 50 people. My new friend said, “I don’t think I know 50 people. ” And that’s exactly why I live here.

MANLY MAN OFFERING CONVERSION OF  LP’S TO CD’S AT MAN AUCTION.

If There’s One Thing You Can Count On

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AYE, ‘TIS SPRING!

Except for a portion in the middle, our entire lifetime is about nonstop change. When you’re growing up, it’s all change always; in the middle, while others around you change, things can stay the same for you for a long stretch (enter career burnout); then, without warning, you’re over the crest and there’s a mess of other changes. Some are okay. Most are no good at all.

Some folks are flexible with change. I’m not one of them. I’m accepting in minor ways (flight delays), but not in major ones (wanting children to stay the same age forever). I recently visited my hometown library. It was exactly the same (good) except for more computers (okay) and people gabbing at top volume (bad).  The librarian was loud. A tutor was yelling. A woman pitched a fit with her belongings, unpacking and repacking them noisily. I was frothing and dying to bray at the lot of them, “That’s why God invented Starbucks, you crazy ruders. This is a library!” but I didn’t. New Yorkers blast each other but I’ve been Vermontized (good), so now I can’t (bad).

I couldn’t stand it when The River and WEBK went country years ago; I’m still angry.  WEBK had this stoner-sounding DJ who’d play the Hot Breakfast—a slamming live version of a song—while we non-farmers drove to work.  One day it was Van Halen’s “Feel Your Love Tonight”, a song I’ve never thought about twice. The content is fratty, but oh, the live harmonies!

The River was a truly great radio station and KCRW, fun. I like how country music shuts my brain down but not how it takes over other stations. Country didn’t change for decades (good), but it’s changed a lot in recent years (bad), as have its award shows (sooper bad). Between that, our loss of privacy via creepy surveillance, technological advances we can’t keep pace with, and now—get this—brides-to-be dieting via nasal feeding tubes, the seventh sign of the apocalypse cannot be far off. The seventh sign is reportedly silence, so you’re safe at my hometown library.

Yes, you’ve definitely topped the hill and are skidding down the descending side when (1) noise gets to you and (2) you’re in Shaw’s asking “Who is this ‘Katy Perry’?” with the teen checkers eyeballing you like a squawking, wing-flapping pterodactyl. I can deal with that. What’s vexing is celebrities getting younger. Is he shaving yet? Is kissing legal at her age? Who are these people?

I like Adele, because she cusses and sports her luscious heft without apology. But geez, can’t anyone have a last name any more? Is it a sign of unimportance? There’s someone named, simply, Fantasia? Isn’t that like being called Song of the South? I’m naming my kid Dumbo.  Dumbo’s gonna be huge. I hope it’s a boy.

We went to a multiplex near Manhattan and no one was there (bad). No one’s going to movies! Easy to miss this new development in Vermont, where sparsely-attended movies are common. But in Westchester County, the cultured pearl of NYC suburbia?! Where are her ill-mannered youth threatening to sue each other in the parking lot? Gone to the screening rooms in their McMansions?  (Good!)

As for the McAutomization of Planet Earth, with billers urging us to Go Green because they care deeply [about cutting costs], let’s just automate the crap out of everything.  Have one employee doing it all, with endless recorded “customer service” loops (“Press 666 for a Horseman of the Apocalypse to ride to your house and finish you off.”)

The Olympics are coming. Brace yourself: the athletes are different. Who are these children? Forget the former Olympians (washed up at…25?) pastured out to commentary and well-wishing; where’s Peggy Fleming? That’s who’s supposed to be at the podium, people. Help me out. Switch the channel to Lawrence Welk. I mean Dick Clark. I mean Don Cornelius. I mean that show with the host. The young guy.

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s change. Terrible, terrible change.  It’s smart to save yourself a ton of grousing and just adapt. After Hurricane Irene pounded my garden last August, I’m white flaggin’ it for a more surefire hobby. A hammock-based activity, perhaps. Like any bad habit, I’ll have to nurture it to make it grow. But that, dear Reader, is a topic for another—and good—day.