A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM THAN FLIES

Gentle Readers,

Since it has become ridiculously hot and humid of late, I have noticed something occurring on my deck after dark: Gigantic cockroaches holding gigantic cockroach races on the deck rails.

The first time I saw one of these monsters I thought it had to be an anomaly. There couldn't possibly be more than one of these creatures in existence.

But then I saw another and another and another.

And then the unthinkable happened.

Twice during the past week I have opened the door at about 10 p.m. to let the dogs in and a major cockroach has trotted in with them.

These
mofos
are
bigger
than
the
chi
hua
huas.

In fact, I'm surprised they haven't carried the chihuahuas away.

These things are so big I'm too afraid to try to smash them with a napkin or paper towel because if I missed and the man-eater got away and ran up my arm or even worse, down my nightie, I would scream so loud that the neighbors would think I was being attacked. Then when they found out I was screaming because of a bug they wouldn't bother to come over when I really am attacked.

So both times, squealing like a pig, I have managed to plug in the vacuum cleaner and suck them up, where they can build their roach cities in the bag until it's so full of collie hair that I throw it out.

Thank God I don't have the kind of bag that has to be emptied.

If this is going to become a regular problem, then I have to have a better way to kill roaches.

Bazooka?

Sawed-off shotgun?

I avoid Wal-Mart like the plague, but perhaps I will have to go there and check out the fire arms section.

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Por que no tiene, por que le falta
Marijuana que fumar

Learned that from my Spanish teacher in eighth grade. Now I'm the one who needs the marijuana que fumar.

By the way, that squeal like a pig thing is in the movie Deliverance, but it is not in the novel Deliverance by James Dickey, which is beautifully written and indicative of Dickey's skill as a poet, for which he was primarily known.

Love,

Lola

I'D GIVE MY QUEENDOM

for a fly swatter, Gentle Readers.

Here I am in the middle of summer and every time someone opens a door, the flies come buzzing in, circling my head, landing on any food left uncovered for longer than a nanosecond, and making my dogs crazy as they chase and snap at the flies, which they never catch, because flies are wily bastards.

Why don't I have a fly swatter?

I can't freaking find one!

I have searched every store in my tiny hamlet to no avail. I even done went to the big city and checked out national chains like Lowe's and Home Depot. Everybody is out of fly swatters. Or at least they claim to be.

I strongly suspect that someone was killed in a freak fly swatting incident and that all fly swatters have been recalled but some fly swatter magnate has managed to cover it up, hoping he can get his instruments of torture back out on the shelves in time for . . . winter?

It seems to me that there used to be commercials for some kind of strip that you were supposed to hang from your ceiling and flies would get stuck to it. Wasn't the slogan that it would kill flies dead?

I never knew anybody who had one of those fly strip thingies, but wouldn't it be gross to gradually watch them fill up with the bodies of nasty little flies?

And when it was full, I guess you would leave it where it was as a warning to other flies that if they came in your house they, too, would be killed dead, because, otherwise, you would actually have to touch the damn thing to take it down and you'd need to wear a bio-hazard suit and multiple pairs of gloves and you'd need one of those nasty decontamination showers afterwards like they make Meryl Streep take in Silkwood when they strip her naked at work and scrub her really hard in the shower and she's screaming and crying.

Just another day at the office for me when that happens.

My flies are in two places: the kitchen, which makes sense, and the master bathroom. Getting to the kitchen is a straight pass from the back door, but how do they find the bathroom? And why do they go in the bathroom? Are the kitchen and the bathroom the two dirtiest places in the house?

I guess so. Food and shit, they go together like flies and . . . butter?

O.K. Now I want to know why something so pretty that is never annoying has fly in its name.

Love,

Lola

I'M A WIENER

Oops, sorry Gentle Readers, that should be WINNER!

I entered a contest during which I had to heroically struggle literally for seconds to come up with the best compliment for a blog I follow called WorkForced. And I actually won. I get a gift certificate worth literally less that $61.00 to spend at an online store not of my choosing that has really expensive stuff and not much of it is less than $61.00.

Golly - it's just like Christmas.

Oh my, I've just remembered a joke I must insert here. A dad has two sons and one of them is always the optimist. The other kid is just a regular kid, but no matter what goes wrong, the first kid always looks on the bright side. So the dad decides to test the optimist on Christmas Day. Daddy gives his son a great big pile of horse poop. The other kid gets a nice gift and is enjoying it and Dad thinks the optimist will finally get upset. But he looks over and there the dip stick is, digging through the manure with a happy grin on his face. Dad says, What are you doing? Kid says, Well, there has to be a pony down here somewhere.

But, ah, I digress.

What did I write for the contest? I have no idea. I can't remember, but since I wrote it, it must have been really clever.

And I sincerely thank Don Joe, the writer of WorkForced, which is literally LOL funny. Currently Don Joe is writing a Jargonary - a dictionary of work place jargon. I urge you to check it out by clicking on the link in my second paragraph, or go to View My Complete Profile to see the complete list of blogs I follow.

My favorite thing about winning, actually, is that Don Joe referred to me as that naughty school girl, Lola. What a thrill. I imagined myself ala Brit Spears in the good old days.

I know a lovely young lady who dressed up as B.S. once upon a time for Halloween, and no, she didn't shave her head and take so many pills she had to be hospitalized. This was quite some time ago, so my favorite young lady dressed in a short plaid skirt, put her long tresses in pig tails, and tied a white blouse in the front over two well-padded black bras because she didn't have B.S.'s natural attributes.

I wish I could dress up like that for Halloween, but I might make someone sick. I have the natural attributes, but I also have a belly to go with them.

But anyway, thanks again to Don Joe and WorkForced. Become a follower. It's easier than being the leader.

Love,

Lola

YOU CAN'T TOP PIGS WITH PIGS

Gentle Readers,

I read The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, and I pronounce it worthy.

I saw some rather disparaging reviews of this book that said it's not as good as Sebold's amazing first novel, The Lovely Bones. Well, The Lovely Bones is amazing, and I don't think it's fair to expect any writer to produce The Lovely Bones every time she sits down at the computer. Maybe that's what kept Harper Lee from writing (or maybe she wrote and didn't publish) another book after To Kill A Mockingbird.

I read an interview (which she rarely grants) with Nelle Harper Lee some years back in which she said she didn't write another book because how could she ever do anything better than Mockingbird? When the country fell in love with Walt Disney's cartoon of The Three Little Pigs (depression-era folks took Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf to heart), many people wanted Disney to make a sequel.

He adamantly refused.

Disney said, You can't top pigs with pigs.

So let's not expect Alice Sebold to write The Lovely Bones every time. Let's appreciate The Almost Moon for what it is, and what it is is a novel that's hard to put down.

First sentence: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."

Well, you just have to keep reading after that. My only negative comment about the book is that I found the conclusion a bit anticlimactic.

I also recommend Alice Sebold's memoir Lucky, and the movie of The Lovely Bones is . . . lovely.

Happy Reading, Gentle Readers.

Love,

Lola

THE BLACK BRA

Gentle Readers,

I hope this little story makes you chuckle:

I had lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends.

One is engaged, one is a mistress, and I have been married for 20+ years.

We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by greeting them at the door wearing a black bra, stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes. We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes.

Here's how it all went:

My engaged friend: The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams. I love you.' Then we made passionate love all night long.


The mistress: Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing a raincoat, under it only the black bra, heels and mask over my eyes. When I opened the raincoat he didn't say a word, but he started to tremble and we had wild sex all night.

Then I had to share my story: When my husband came home I was wearing the black bra,black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes. When he came in the door and saw me he said,





"What's for dinner, Zorro?"

ONE DAY, ALL CHILDREN

Recently, Gentle Readers, I read One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way.

The author, Wendy Kopp, somehow managed to start Teach For America on a dream and a shoestring budget. Here is a young woman who overcame all sorts of obstacles -- naysayers and dream stealers chief among them -- to create a remarkably successful program to get well-qualified potential teachers (without education degrees) into the public schools.

Kopp's writing style is not exactly "Rah Rah Let's take one for the team," but I couldn't help feeling inspired by the program itself. It's such a work of genius that I just might apply myself. Unfortunately, but of course fortunately, all the teaching positions for the coming school year are filled.

One drawback to Teach For America for somebody like me is that you have to be willing to go where ever you are needed. I have my little house here in my little city, and I can't give it up and move at my age. I'm ensconced here with my dogs.

But I happen to know that my city has a Teach For America Corps, and I just might take my chances and go ahead and apply for the 2011-12 school year.

Wendy Kopp, you are way cool.

Love,

Lola

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

In my most recent message, Gentle Readers, I lauded Toni Morrison's latest, a mercy.

I also mentioned a female writer who came out of the Harlem Renaissance but never had the success she deserved. Zora Neale Hurston ended her life working as a maid in Florida, her home state.

Before she succumbed to domesticity of just about the worst kind -- you're in charge of the house but it ain't your house and you get paid about diddly squat for gettin' down on your knees and scrubbin' the floor -- Hurston wrote a book I truly love, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

If you haven't read this amazing book, I hope you will, and if you have, I hope you will re-read and perhaps take into consideration my comments on it.

Here's what Lola has to say about Janie's Quest:

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie Crawford longs for freedom, but as an African American woman, she is doubly oppressed. However, Janie is courageous enough to make her dreams a reality. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses the symbolism of Janie's marriages along with biblical allusions to develop the theme of a black woman's quest for love and for identity as an individual.

As Janie moves from one marriage to the next, Hurston charts the course of blacks in the United States. Janie's first marriage is to Logan Killicks. Janie's grandmother, Nanny, tells Janie:

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah ben able tuh find out. Maybe it's someplace way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin' fuh it tuh be different wid you.

Nanny believes that Janie's life can be different if she will "marry off decent like" to "Brother Logan Killicks." Janie resists marriage, for "the vision of Logan Killicks . . . desecrat[es]" Janie's dreams of love and a full life, but Nanny "slaps[s]" Janie's "face violently, and force[s] her head back so that their eyes [meet] in struggle." Then, Nanny begs Janie to "have some sympathy fuh" her and marry so she can "die easy." Nanny "twist[s]" Janie "in the name of love." Thus, she marries Killicks.

Janie hopes to find love and relief from loneliness in marriage, but she is disappointed. Killicks lives up to his name by killing Janie's "first dream" that marriage would "make love." Killicks has "de onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks" and "a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road," but Janie would "ruther be shot wid tacks than tuh turn over in de bed and stir up de air whilst he is in dere." Although for a time he "chops all de wood" and "keeps both water buckets full," after Nanny's death, Killicks expects Janie to become his mule: "'Janie!' Logan called harshly. 'Come help me move dis manure pile befo' de sun gits hot. You don't take a bit of interest in dis place. 'Tain't no use in foolin' round in dat kitchen all day long.'" Nanny had "set" Janie "in the market-place to sell," had "whipped [her] like a cur dog, and run [her] off down a back road after things." Symbolically, Nanny has sold Janie into slavery by giving her in marriage to Killicks. Therefore, Janie does not own herself; she has no identity.

Janie escapes slavery by leaving Logan Killicks for another marriage that leads to more disappointment. Her second husband, Joe Starks, is a "cityfied, stylish dressed man" with "three hundred dollars, yes indeed, right here in his pocket." Starks wants "to be a big voice" in "dis place dat colored folks was buildin' theirselves." He promises to "be a big ruler of things with her reaping the benefits," but a ruler, however benevolent, is still a ruler. Starks opens a store in the new town and becomes the mayor. He is "kind of portly like rich white folks," and no one in town has "the temerity to challenge him." When "the other women ha[ve] on percale and calico," Starks insists that Janie wear "silken ruffles." Also, "the wife of the Mayor [is] not just another woman"; she cannot "get but so close" to others in the town "in spirit." This period in Janie's life represents the attempt by some black Americans to emulate white behavior.

Although Starks loves his postion in the town, Janie is uncomfortable with her role as "Mrs. Mayor." She is not even a black woman with Starks. She is lonely and unhappy. She tells Starks: "You'se always off talkin' and fixin' things, and Ah feels lak Ah'm jus' markin' time." Starks tells Janie she should appreciate her position as his wife; he is unable to see her as an individual: "He wanted her submission and he'd keep on fighting until he felt he had it." Starks also insists that Janie work in the store although it "kept her with a sick headache." With Starks, Janie may be a higher class of mule, but she is still a mule. Moreover, she still has no identity as a mere appendage to Starks.

When Joe Starks dies, Janie makes considerable progress in her quest. She decides: "Ah done lived Grandma's way, now Ah means tuh live mine." Janie can finally begin to enjoy life, and she does so with Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. Janie is no mule to Tea Cake: "He wouldn't let her get him any breakfast at all. He wanted her to get her rest." Significantly, Janie has economic independence, so she does not need a man to support her, but Tea Cake insists upon providing for Janie anyway. Tea Cake takes Janie "down in de Everglades" where "folks don't do nothin' down dere but make money and fun and foolishness." She finds that "the men h[o]ld big arguments here like they used to do on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to. She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest." With Tea Cake, Janie has an identity. They work together, play together, and love together. Their marriage represents a celebration of black culture and traditions--especially those concerned with language and storytelling--similar to that of the Harlem Renaissance.

Additionally, Janie's relationship with Tea Cake is a celebration of selflessness filled with biblical allusions. When Janie has Tea Cake's love, and she has an identity, she finds that her love for Tea Cake is so great, she no longer needs to worry about herself: "He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place." When Janie "gain[s] the whole world" through possessions with Killicks and Starks, she has no soul (Matthew 16:26). But when she loses herself in complete love for another, she gains her soul: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). Of course, the sacrifice of Tea Cake's life for Janie is the culmination of their unrestricted love.

Janie's celebration does not end with Tea Cake's death, although her grief is tremendous. No man tells the story of Janie's life; Janie can tell it herself. She tells her close fiend, Phoeby, who "done growed ten feet higher from jus' listenin' tuh" Janie, and she urges Phoeby to teach others about love: "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowhip with us" (1 John 1:3). As for Janie, she is alone but at "peace. The light in her hand was like a spark of sun-stuff washing her face in fire."

"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)

Janie knows Tea Cake can "never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking": "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life . . . . And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1 John 1:2, 4).