OK, enough about Sarah Palin already. I'll save that for other blogs like The Magpie, and other political forums, and stick to the theme of this blog which is...a pinata of themes and topics sure to satisfy every palate, at least some of the time. But before I get totally off the Palin thing, I will say that I am itching to write about Mary Matlin's comment that Palin's decision to walk out of office abruptly was "BRILLIANT." More on that to come. For now, on to the neighborhood gossip...
Last year I wrote about my neighbor Sprocket, who is a throw-back to the '60s when life was, as we have been told over and over again (until we wish we'd died before that generation ever came to be), about sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
Sprocket had her time with much of that and, over the years, I have had the "privilege" of learning increasingly more about her wild exploits, whether I want to or not. My neighbor is a free spirit, one who says whatever comes to mind, keeping nothing of the Id, Ego or Super Ego to herself, and frequently leaves people agitated, frightened and walking away with a huge purple question mark floating over their heads.
While Sprocket can irritate the hell out of someone (see link above), she provides at least weekly fodder for over-the-fence neighborly conversation or teenage boys' vengeful plottings of lawn jobs and a place to drop ignited firecrackers. But, because she is my neighbor and because I tend to gravitate toward eccentric, strange, "interesting" people, I try to embrace her diversity and smile when I see her flyaway hair, always out of place, bobbing across the lawn toward me. This and the fact that, behind my smile lies a secret society of nerves waiting, wondering and yanking on my mitochondria to enact the flight response. Too often, I am simply afraid to move.
A few Saturdays ago, I was doing my regular morning housecleaning when I glanced out my kitchen window to see Sprocket just beneath that window, laying on my chaise lounge, book open and a smile on her face. I paused. I looked around, checking to be sure this was, indeed, my home, and glanced back out the window. She was still there. On my chaise lounge. And the cushion wasn't even in place. It was inside in the back closet. So there she sat, butt hanging through one of the slats, while her own patio which is landscaped to the nines and is redone every year by one of her "master gardener" friends was empty.
I went back to what I was doing and it wasn't until later when I walked outside and found her still there that I asked her why she was in our backyard, by our wood pile, without a cushion. Were there bees at her place? Looking confused, she looked around, got up and said, "Whoa. I have no idea why I'm here. Did I tell you about the flashback I had yesterday?" No, she hadn't. "It was huge. Took me all the way back to 1935." Really, I replied. What happened in '35? "I have no idea," she said, heading back to her own yard. "I wasn't even born until '47."
