It's got MAILABILITY!

One Spring morning a long time ago when my mother was returning to the house after her daily walk to get the mail and the neighborhood gossip, the phone rang. It was the local Post Mistress. Her message was simple, barely audible over the shrieks of the other postal workers.

"Mrs. Mead, you must come here immediately. Your parcel has chewed its way out of the box and it's running around terrorizing our customers and staff." Then the line went dead. She tried calling back, but the phone rang busy.

A lesser woman would be intimidated by such a call, but not my mother. She'd have been the type to stand up during a bank robbery, cigarette in hand, and ask for a light.

She put on a nice dress and her red lipstick. She hopped into the Dodge Polaris and drove into town to see what all the fuss was about. When she got to the post office, there were a number of people standing out front trying to see through the plate glass window. She honked to move them out of the way and then backed into the parking space. She opened the trunk, just in case, then she lit a cigarette and headed in.

Pushing through the crowd, she took a peek through the glass before opening the door to find three postal employees and two customers standing on the counter. The phone was lying on the floor.

"It's over there." said the post mistress, gesturing to a spot behind the counter. There it was a 16 inch baby alligator. My mother walked over to it. It backed up a little and made a threatening noise. Then the she took a big drag of her Salem, leaned over and blew smoke into its face, disorienting it for a moment while she picked it up with both hands.

"Can you get the door?" she called to the folks just climbing down from the counter. "And bring the box, please."

She marched out and put the baby gator into the trunk of the car and closed it. The post mistress handed her the box. The return address was chewed away all except for the zip code 34747.

"Where is 34747?"she asked as she was getting into the car.

"Florida... Kissimmee, Florida." said the post mistress.

"Thank you." said my mother as she drove away.

She loved a good mystery and was determined to get to the bottom of this one. She used the smoke trick to get the baby gator back out of the trunk and into the bathtub. She spent the afternoon feeding him chunks of raw ground meat and planning her investigation.

===============

The U.S. Postal Requirements for Live Animal Mailability

http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_007.htm

Specific Requirements by Animal:
Baby Alligators Baby Caimans Chameleons Frogs Lizards Newts Reptiles and Amphibians Salamanders Tadpoles and Toads	Animals must not exceed 20 inches in length. No additional requirements, except the applicable standards in DMM 601.9. Packaging must comply with DMM 601.9.3.11.

Sprung!

Spring is here. I have it on good authority. Not the conventional good authority like groundhogs, daffodils or seeing the first robin that some folks like to follow. Real authority.

This morning as I walked with Eloise, I was delighted to see that the plastic snowman at the tree house is now sporting a pair of glittery bunny ears and the tree is covered with pastel eggs lights and fuzzy chicks. As I turned the corner on 9th Street, I spied a red pickup truck filled with giant snow snowflakes. It was leaving town.

You can't really argue with that kind of evidence.

Happy Spring!

Hangin' with my PEEPS!

I love Marshmallow PEEPS! And I am not ashamed to say it. That's the thing about PEEPS! You either love them or you hate them. I love them. Really love them. The sugary goodness--the exclamation point in the name--the sheer whimsy. What's not to love?

However, I am a purest. I like the yellow ones and preferably the chick-shaped yellow ones. They taste the best.

I don't need heart-shaped PEEPS! I don't go in for all that flavored business. Peppermint? Oh good grief. And frankly after the blue PEEPS! fiasco of 1998, I am a little hesitant to branch out into new colors.

Oh, I had such high hopes, when one day on my lunch break, I saw them on the shelf in the CVS. They called to mind an Easter morning many years before when I found a tiny bright blue peep huddled next to the chocolate bunny in my basket. A real one. Alfie. I know what you are thinking, but that was before it was discovered that injecting dye into an incubating egg was incredibly inhumane. And to his credit, he did grow up into a chicken, until the cat got him.

When I saw the pack of blue PEEPS! on the shelf in the CVS, I had to have them. I brought them back to my desk and ripped open the package. I bit into one. Bleeech! Not only did the taste wrong, but my lips were all blue during the afternoon staff meeting. I tossed the rest of the package in the trash, brokenhearted.

While I was living outside of the US for a few years, one of the things I missed most at this time of year was my marshmallow PEEPS! My niece, Danielle, horrified with the lack of proper American Easter treats, always good for a package or two. Once she made the mistake of writing PEEPS! on the customs declaration. She told me they were on the way and I waited and waited. They never made it to me. Can you imagine? Stealing a person's PEEPS right out of the post. However, the Irish customs officials assure me that they are very close to making an arrest.

A Hint of Green

This time of year in the west of Ireland, there appears a shade of green that is present at no other time and, I'd like to think, at no other no other place in the world. It shows up at the moment when the winds are high and the sea grows wild and fierce, fighting with the land for the control of the season.

It appears, not so much as a colour but as the intention of a colour, overlaying all the trees and hedge rows. The hint of green. Pale green. Transparent, opalescent, tender, baby green. It is barely discernible in the last long gray of Winter but it is there if you look. It holds the promise of things to come.

This morning as I was walking the dog past the tree house, I saw that the Christmas tree was now decorated with shamrock bulbs as I had hoped. The plastic snowman's little red beret was gone and his white bulb was replaced with a green one. Bright green, Kelly green. A green that I'd like to think appears at no other place and time. It is there if you look, cutting through the daylight savings time darkness and offering the promise of things to come.

BRIGADOON-ish

I look up toward the onion domes of All Souls up on the hill, but they are missing. I peek down the street at the impressive wall of fog. It reveals, at most, 20 feet in front of us as the pup and I begin our walk. The town materializes slowly as we go. The dog doesn't seem to notice. I find it a little disconcerting.

This place is no Brigadoon, appearing out of the fog once every 100 years. It is stuck in the past, but more recent. It stopped marching forward when the mills started closing in the Mon Valley in the early 1980s.

The truth is that I haven't really bonded with this place. It's not the town's fault. I am sure it's doing its best. It is a way station, the place where I live while I am planning for the next part of my life.

We pass the senior citizen's apartment building, conveniently located across the street from one of four funeral homes in the town. Each window of the funeral home holds a single electric candle, They beckon like the old Motel 6 ads. We'll leave a light on for you!

Eloise picks up the scent of her arch-nemesis, Big White Cat. She pokes her head onto the porch of his house and he dives onto the railing and over the fence. She sniffs the vacant air for a moment before moving on to something else.

On the right is the tree house. I call it that because there is an artificial Christmas tree on the porch. It's been there since the week before Thanksgiving. I keep waiting for it to disappear into storage until next year, but instead it keeps evolving.

The original Christmas ornaments gave way some time around the third week of January to a flurry of black and gold football-themed ornaments honoring the Steelers Super Bowl bid. This morning it has erupted into a vision of romance with miniature paper cupids and a shiny heart garland. I am hoping shamrocks will be next. There is a certain consistency to it that I find comforting.

The columns in front of the public library appear through the mist. Originally the town's post office, this grand structure was erected by people who thought very highly of this place and its prospects for the future.

Further down, an elaborately carved stone porch curves around the corner. An aluminum siding covered addition sits on top at if it were dropped there by a big wind.

We continue down the street past several empty shop fronts. Some have Steeler posters and terrible towels in the windows. We may be down, but we still have the greatest football team on the planet, they announce.

We pass the men's coffee shop and the owner waves. I see him every morning, but we have never spoken. He waves. I wave. That's the whole transaction.

We round the corner past the art shop and head down Fifth Street street. As we pass under the eagle on the First National Bank building, bits of the fog break apart and turn to snow flakes and land on our faces.

The aroma of wedding soup from the old Italian restaurant swirls around us as we pass. Lovely. Nothing like wedding soup. I am famished.

We head for home and breakfast.

It's La Dolce Vita, Santonio!

As I pull up, there are dozens people in the street in front of my house. I high-fived a few fellow fans on the way to my front door. The crowd is cheering, cars are honking and there is an occasional firecracker off in the distance.

Here in the Mon Valley, we don't have a lot. The economy is bad, jobs are scarce and frankly, the water tastes funny.

But one thing we do have is the Steelers. We have the Steelers and giant inflatable lawn ornaments.

Life is Sweet!

BROKEN OPEN

My friend, Mary, is fond of saying 'sometimes your heart gets broken and sometimes it gets broken open.'

This morning, my dog and I were walking in the park along the Monongahela River. The snow was falling in big fluffy flakes that stick on your nose and linger a moment before melting. Ours were the first footprints in the snow. I always love that.

Normally, we play a little frisbee in the mornings, the pup and I. Frisbee is her favorite, but today she was not having it. There were other distractions.

There was no wind and the still, cool air held a web of invisible trails too good to pass up. She led, I followed. She picked up one that took us in a loop-de-loop through the Pony League field and off under the fence where we picked up another more interesting trail that took us over to the giant pile of bird seed barely visible under the snow. Leaving that, we moved in a zigzag up through the parking lot to the pavilion perched on the bank of the river. One of my favorite spots for breakfast.

I sat on the picnic table and pulled a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my pocket.

A tug and eight barges filled with coal passed out of the lock and into a small lane cleared by traffic on the opposite side of the river. Our side was frozen. One solid sheet as far as I could see in either direction.

Twelve Canada geese marched back and forth on the ice honking taunts at the dog who was busy ignoring them. The canvasbacks sat quietly watching in parties of three or four. Two stark white domestic ducks wandered up furtively like out-of-towners looking for directions.

The coal-laden barges made small waves as they passed. I sat admiring the scene, a snapshot of my life. Frozen in place while the world passes by on the other side.

The small waves built momentum and slapped against the edge of the ice slab, sending a tiny spray up at the edge. The ice appeared to be holding its ground, or its water. Then a crack, like a gun shot, sped diagonally to the shore. The dog moved in under my feet. Another split a party of ducks in two. One quacked as he fell into the water, forgetting for a moment that he could swim. The little white ones flew off to the safety of the shore.

The ducks and geese flew in all directions while the waves hit the smaller slabs of ice into each other. They cracked and popped until the once solid sheet was in small pieces which slowly merged into the flow of the river and floated away.

So much for feeling sorry for myself. Time to get on with it.

REPATRIATION

A few months ago, I was sitting in the Monongahela Aquatorium with my family. It was my first real American 4th of July after living out of the country for six years. The threatening rain had passed us by and the skies cleared.

We had funnel cakes and frosty cold Coca Cola as we waited for the fireworks to start. The bleechers filled up.

The DJ called a limbo contest to entertain the waiting crowd. Kids were foisted by their parents onto the stage to compete. Others played in the mud by the river.

When the fireworks started, my young niece climbed onto my lap to get a better view. The DJ played a mixed collection of patriotic music. John Phillip Souza, et al. Not my style really, but the fireworks were spectacular.

Then the music changed to Ray Charles singing "America, the Beautiful" as the finale began. As I sat watching the fireworks and the perfectly perfect small town America crowd, I tried my best to conceal my tears.

"Why are you crying, Auntie?" asked my niece.

"Because this is so beautiful and I am so happy to be here." I answered.

***

All I can say is this, today, even when watched on TV from my living room instead of from the Mall as originally planned--this is a million times better. I am crying my lips off and truly grateful to be watching from this side of the ocean. It's good to be home!

This Explains Everything...

I believe with reasonable certainty that I read an article on the National Geographic website this morning announcing that excess consumption of coffee can cause hallucinations.

The link, according to the little red bird hovering over my desk, is http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090114-caffeine-hallucinations.html

Holy Cow. This explains everything.

PRIDE OF PLACE

Since returning to America a little over a year ago, I have been spending quite a bit of time thinking about home.

Yesterday, the anniversary of my mother's death, had a spark of realization, something I had never seen before.

With her final heartbeat, my sense of home was changed forever. For the first 19 years of my life, I never questioned what or where home was. Once she was gone, home was no longer home. The house in the Mon Valley was still there, but the home was gone.

I left the Mon Valley as if someone was chasing me and headed out into the world.

The place where I receive my mail has changed with my changing fortunes over the years, from college dorms to city row houses to a brief stint in a dark squat in a very, very scary neighborhood to a posh fifth floor apartment in Washington, DC to a little cottage by the sea in the west of Ireland. All of these places felt like home for a while.

I lived with roommates, housemates, a boyfriend. Mostly, I have lived on my own. Presently, I live on my own in an orange shag-carpeted apartment back in the Mon Valley with my border collie, Eloise.

I know that this isn't the last stop on my journey. Honestly, I have been thinking lately that if Eloise and I could arrange to spend six months or so living in a second floor flat with an iron balcony overlooking a lesser canal in the Cannareggio in Venice, I would be the happiest person in the world.

But still it might not feel like home.

When I left the Mon Valley many years ago, the Steelers were winning. This place is joyous when they are winning and it permeates everything.

Yesterday, as I drove to work, the Steelers Polka played on the radio. I recalled an image of my mother--hair in curlers, sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette in one hand, cup of coffee in the other bopping along to the song on KDKA radio. My feet moved in time with the music. I know the words. I didn't know I knew the words. I smiled in spite of myself.

I don't know where home is yet, but somewhere in the deep recesses of my soul I have the urge to polka.