To start, the dog was all, “What the HELL are you doing?”

Livvie had her first, “campfire,” tonight.

She’s been lying in bed at night getting herself worked into a state before she sleeps, so we figured it was time to push her bedtime back to 8pm. She goes to bed at 730, usually. Jonas has been more of a person and more intrusive in her life, and the attention split has led to behavior issues with Livvie.

Tonight worked out well. Jonas was dog-tired from running around and climbing outside for hours this afternoon. He went to bed by 630. Livvie had asked if she could go see the stars tonight before bed, and I’d said yes. Once I got Jonas into bed I got Livvie suited up for going outdoors-

And I had an idea.

I’d pulled weeds today in the garden to prep for putting it to bed for the winter. Lots and lots of dead weeds, grasses, branches. The yard is full of dead branches and fallen logs that have been here for years anyway.

So I built a fire.

Some of the weeds were too wet at first to catch, so Rich helped out with a small amount of gas. Tiny bit dabbed on some cardboard. After tonight we’ll be buying some fat wood.

I built it near the top of the second “driveway” that we don’t use. Mostly sand and rock. Far from our house and the neighbor’s house. Close to the hose.

Livvie was beside herself. Once we got it going she stood or sat and stared at it. She’d go get more branches. The seed pods from mimosa trees make great kindling. She’d help me get the fire nice and bright, and then she’d park herself in her chair and tell us how wonderful a fire is at night. Rich and I would stand there and stare, too. The smoke was drifting northwest, and we’d use long branches and pieces of dead bamboo to poke some air under the blaze to jack it up again. The dog stayed away at first, thinking we were nuts, but then she moseyed over and hung out with her family as the wood popped and cracked, and the smell saturated our clothes and hair.

And we hung out. We hung out without anyone getting antsy or upset. We hung out without the television, which is the poorest excuse for a hearth ever, and without anyone doing anything but either enjoying the blaze or working to keep it going.

At one point I was tempted to leap over the flames, but Livvie is five and a mimic, and that’s not a good idea right now.

Mostly we just warmed ourselves, hypnotized ourselves, and stared at the stars and the waxing moon. But the stories poured out, too. Rich and I discussed old fires we’d been around, we talked with Livvie about the holidays, and Livvie told imaginary tales that she made up on the spot.

We’ve been on this earth in some form since fire for a floppity jillion years, and fire is still important. It inspires reflection, and it inspires closeness. It keeps us warm outdoors and gives us something to focus on as we slip into our memories. It’s beautiful, and it’s deadly, and knowing those two things inspires respect.

I’m so thankful we live somewhere we can burn in our yard.

We’re going to use our anniversary money to buy one of those fire table things, and those are beautiful, for sure. They’re not the same, though, as finding that patch of flat ground and monkeying around with everything almost frantically for the first five minutes before you get that camp blaze going. Safety first, though.

We have many more nights this fall and winter to light a blaze and sit with our daughter and talk. I’ll even buy marshmallows. Teach her the art of the perfectly singed S’More.

When it was time to go in to get Livvie ready for bed I showed her how to scoop up sand and dirt and pour it over the dying flames, and then we bundled her off to bed with no fussing. She fell right to sleep. Rich doused the coals with the hose.

I smell of wood smoke.

It’s soothing.

Do they still trade candy on the corners?

We did. We got to the end of a street and opened our sacks and divvied up the stuff we didn’t like for the stuff we did. I was a companion’s dream, as I freaking loved Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honey’s, Sugar Daddies…

Freaking Pixie Stix.

There was the moment on the way home when I’d stop and stuff a couple of Reese’s away, hidden, because I knew my mom would filch them. Most of the candy was no big deal. My mom, and I’m 40, still jokes that every Easter she’d throw away the rest of my Halloween candy.

Two days ago I threw away the rest of my kid’s Halloween candy from last year.

The Nerds, the Laffy Taffy. The junk that never gets eaten. Yeah, I like Nerds, but it easily slips from my radar after The Big Day.

Livvie loves lollipops. Me? I could live without them. I’d take my pocket change, walk up to Parker’s, and I’d buy Swedish Fish. Sometimes root beer barrels. Most often wait until I had enough for Lik-em-Aid or Pixie Stix.

Effing Pixie Sticks.

Wax bottles with colored sugar water in them. Candy buttons. Candy cigarettes that we could blow powdered sugar into the faces of our best friends. Holy crap I blew money on candy.

Halloween. Carrying a pillowcase up and down street after street. That lady is giving out homemade popcorn balls. I always loved the thought, but they never tasted good. Apples the next street over. No razor blades. Just- what- CANDY APPLES? This person made CANDY APPLES for the entire town-full of kids?

Sucker for candy apples. The sheer, red shine on that globe on a stick. The sticky crack beneath my teeth. Examining the way the skin had turned brown when the heat of the syrup enveloped it. The plastic wrap around the apple itself. It would condense inside- take a finger and dab up the red water.

My mother gave out nickels. Mom- if you’re reading this- no one wanted to come to our house.

I did. Money meant more candy.

Odd that there was so much in the way of sugar that I spent money on, and yet the candy I collected each year would sit until stale.

We took our kids trick-or-treating tonight in the pouring rain. My daughter was gathering, not my son, and the first place she hit was a pottery shop downtown- the place that had given her her very first treat last year. Few kids were out tonight, and even fewer homes participated. It was a nasty night. The lady at the store loaded up Livvie’s bucket. “More. Take more. Nope, take more.” They wanted it gone.

She went for the lollipops. Dum-dums and Tootsie Pops. Chocolate everywhere, but she went for what she loves. The woman tossed in Butterfingers and Crunch Bars. Just about half-emptied her bowl into Livvie’s bucket.

All Livvie asked for when she got home was a lollipop.

Her companions will love her, if they trade at the corners. I only wish we still had small stores around that sell “penny” candy.

I also wish she’d gotten more than one box of DOTS tonight.

And someday she’ll hide the extra boxes from me.

Happy Halloween.

You’re singing now, aren’t you?

Yes you are. If you’re between like, 35 and 45 at least, you’re…

So one day in August of 2008 I peed on a stick, it Turned Blue, and after informing my husband I called my mother in hysterics. We had been one and done, right? And our one had been, “Difficult.” No sleep the first 12.5 months. No talking as of yet. Headstrong. Crabby. Pissy eater.

My mom? I cursed her yesterday. She had said, as did others, “Well, the second one is easier.”

No. The second one is NOT easier. Let me tell you why not.

Two days ago my son stuck his finger in the grounding hole of a three prong outlet. It did not fit in, so he did not fry, but what the EVER LIVING FUCK. He moved furniture to get to it.

TWICE in the past week he has upended his chest of drawers and somehow gotten out of the way of certain death. Drawers hit floor in a staggered pattern, he steps back, the crashing sound draws me (yelling, JONAS!!!! I might add) and he’s standing there all, “What?” After the first incident I shimmed the crap out of the dresser, wedged all tight, and still he turned it over.

Sometime over a month ago, I’ve blocked it out I think because I was so pissed, he removed three keys from Rich’s work laptop and I got two back in. The third one is missing the second component of the white thingy that holds the key thingy to the laptop itself. So my husband’s work laptop has no “W” key, and he works in IT. No “W.” He pushes REAL hard on that little rubber nubby that sticks up. But then-

This week he pried eleven keys off of Rich’s personal laptop. I was on the phone with my mother-in-law, realized Jonas was quiet, and walked into our room. Eleven keys gone. I found them. I got ten back in place before Rich returned from his camper/home office, put Jonas in bed, and then finally managed to get the SHIFT key back together and in once Livvie was in bed.

It’s not a boy thing. It’s not.

Yes, I know. Boys are this and boys are that.

There’s this chick at the library who has a 4? year old daughter and an infant son. Her daughter WAS Jonas.

We’re doomed.

My son has called long distance, dismantled the Wii, taken apart the kitchen table, sits and unplugs and re-plugs the appliances (Where am I you ask? PEEING. It happens. Screw you.), uses the remotes, in lack of remote uses the television buttons, pries buttons out of computer keyboards, and also flushes the toilet while I shower. On purpose. Because one time I said, “NO, JONAS!” after he busted in and put his hand there.

He sits and sits until he figures stuff out, and if he doesn’t he brings it to me, waits for me to fix it, and then later I watch him try to do the same.

And none of this is NEW. It’s just progressions based on his mobility and height and whatnot.

When my uncle was somewhere around three years old he dismantled an alarm clock and then put it back together. He then worked for Edmund Scientifics as a kid and then went on to Drexel to become a Mechanical Engineer.*

I’m looking for toys. That’s your assignment. I’ve ordered some K’Nex from my mom for Christmas, and also the Snap Circuits Jr. from Santa. Yeah, it says eight and up. The boy is sticking his finger in sockets. And shoving items in. An AA battery or two isn’t going to hurt.

I need engineer toys. I need things that someone who wants to know why, how, and what the hell OH COOL**, but not kill himself in the process can play with at essentially age three.

My daughter is going to Mars. My son is sending her there with his fuckwallery. BITCHIN’ fuckwallery what will get her team there faster than in thirty years. Especially if it like, beeps and flashes and shit.

Toy ideas. Please. If you’re mechanically inclined, what would YOU want that would keep you out of trouble and/or a casket?

*My mom’s testing in high school indicated she should also pursue an engineering program in college. She went to secretary school. She was a secretary for a total of like, 60 years, because my grandparents could only afford to send my uncle to college. This is NOT a boy thing. My uncle stayed the hell put when left alone. My mom did not.

**HELP

I’m forty years old. I’m nowhere near wisdom, but I have discovered that a person can be angry without acting like an asshole.

The Internet taught me that.

I’m angry. I’m angry a lot. Know what helps tip me into pissed? Reading people who act like assholes on the Internet just because they can.

I have learned not to act like an asshole in response. However-

Steve Jobs died today. I guarantee that my mom has never processed his name, and tomorrow when she opens the paper she’s going to ask me what the big deal is. You see- it is a big deal. Even if you’re a hater or too cool for school.

Tonight when the news hit Twitter I was following the news from the Wall Street protests, I was worrying about friends and family, I was worrying about my husband’s weight loss, small as it might be. I was worried about the fact that my son still won’t speak, although he will, “sing,” I was down from the attitude my daughter had given me earlier in the day. I was, for MANY reasons this week, just over the word CANCER. Sick of that motherfucker. Tired of its toll on those I love and those who love them.

Steve Jobs is dead, the AP reports.

Regardless of the fact that we knew it was coming, and we did, it set me into a peal of sobs.

People responded kindly. People will. Then the assholes started coming on, mocking people’s sadness, always bringing up how many other people die daily, and what’s one billionaire when kids are starving…

Here’s my take-

Fuck that.

If he didn’t touch your life in anyway shape or form- fine. Obviously he did, or you would have kept your mouth shut. He moved you enough to speak. The man might have been an asshole sometimes, but you know what? ALL of us can be assholes sometimes. And it’s usually over what matters most to us.

What I saw tonight was people grieving because the man had inspired them with his vision.

I saw people grieving because he’d died too young, regardless of his name or who he was.

I saw people grieving because cancer had taken him, and they’ve had loved ones stolen themselves.

I saw people caring about the man’s family, his children, the people who loved him.

Each and every day we get hammered by horror all over the globe, and we handle it, we feel, we have to stuff it away because if we don’t we’ll all walk around gibbering constantly. We take it and take it and then someone who has done something phenomenal passes away and we, as a group, FEEL DEEPLY. It pours out, and our sadness is for the passing and the details and the fact that goddamit ONE MORE FUCKING PERSON has been stolen, someone whose face we know, someone who has touched us at least tangentially…

I refuse to keep a tally of every horror I’ve wept over in my adulthood. I refuse to let assholes make me feel like I’m somehow less for making a statement about a single person when so many have suffered.

Here’s my confession- I cry when people die. I cry especially hard when young people die, and if you don’t think Jobs was young then you might want to live a bit longer. My first real boyfriend was born a year after Jobs. Fifty-six is still a baby. I will continue to cry for people I don’t know because I am moved, I will continue to roll my eyes over people thinking I suck for it, and I will continue to think that my ability to be moved keeps me human.

Tonight I cried because a young father died. I cried because I’ve watched a vital man waste away over the past few years and yet still hoped he’d kick cancer’s ass. I cried because that man’s vision helped me teach my late-speaking daughter how to talk when I introduced her to Internet toddler games on my eMac, and her interactions with that machine led her to memorize colors, shapes, and the alphabet when my personal efforts got nowhere. I cried because my daughter is five now and still uses that eMac and bitches when the Rainbow Wheel of Death spins incessantly, and that tickles me. I cried because another freaking human being who blazed trails was taken too soon.

I cried because I’m human. And I feel.

I don’t want to be cooler than thou. I don’t want to be an asshole.

And-

Fuck you, cancer. Fuck you sideways.

Almost everyone who watches my two-year-old son study everything and manipulate objects says to me- “He’s going to be an engineer when he grows up.”

My new answer is going to be, “Maybe. If he is, I hope he helps design the spaceship my daughter pilots to Mars.”

Because she wants to go to Mars. She’s talked about it for years. She wants to go to, “outer space,” and as Jonas has no goals yet, well, I concern myself with hers.

People tell me she’s going to be a lawyer or an actress because of her flair for dramatics. No one comments on her love of space. No one mentions anything to me,really, in person except her flair for being a girl.

Livvie- you are five years old today. One year from today I will finally let you watch Star Wars and also Star Trek. We will stay up late each night of the Star Wars Trilogy, the good ones, and we’ll eat popcorn and you can see how a Princess really behaves. You will see what people imagine other galaxies to be, and I will finally give you the better lenses for your telescope.

And if your dreams of space keep you tethered to the ground instead of flying to Mars, even if you lose those dreams and find something else- your desires and talents and wonder are just as important as your brother’s.

You’re not an engineer. Who cares? You’re freaking awesome. You’re my nerd-girl wonderchild rainbow-unicorn pink and purple Princess who wants to know even when she doesn’t understand. You thirst.

And you’re the best daughter I could have had.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Livvie Bean. I’ve got your back.

This weekend, the weekend and beyond of Hurricane Irene, has been, well, shit. Doesn’t matter what most of the media is saying. Doesn’t matter what a lot of wankers on the Internet are wanking. Doesn’t matter that this disaster doesn’t, “measure up” to others. Just doesn’t matter.

This weekend has been shit. The storm? Shit. She shat on people’s lives, and she killed. Doesn’t really matter that she hasn’t killed multiple thousands. She killed. The Outer Banks were slammed hard, parts of the Philadelphia and New Jersey areas were slammed hard, and NY State and Vermont and Connecticut… Massachusetts…

A long time ago, almost eighty-one years ago, my mother was born in the city of Schenectady, NY. Swear it exists. You might have heard about it by now this weekend for proof. It’s not just Vaudeville.

No. Go Google Schenectady and Vaudeville. Then come back.

So when my mom was born there it was because The Depression was going on, and my grandmother needed to be near her family while my grandfather tried to find work. My family is from Upstate NY. Grandmom- Schenectady by way of Germany. Grandpop- Mineville by way of Canada. France etc prior. She spent summer after summer up there during The War, and as a kid I spent a great deal of time up visiting my relatives. I spent a lot of time in the next town over- Rotterdam Junction. My cousin, the one who had her heart attack a couple of weeks ago? Her sons were two of my best friends as a kid. Her son Scott taught me how to skip a stone for the first time on the stream in the woods behind their house. Her son Jason was my nerd-in-arms.

At their house I got drunk and so mosquito-bitten that I used Apple Riunite as a remedy because it had alcohol. Another time, sober at 3am, I drove back to the Stardust Motor Inn with two friends passed out in my back seat, and the road was so empty I pushed my Beretta to 110mph for about 5 seconds before letting off the gas. Just to see if the speedometer went that high. I got back to about 60mph right before a curve. I was 18.

Scott and Jason’s mom was a superb person to take care of a random kid and teenager staying. She was strict. She was sweet. She’s still a pistol, at 65, and when I hear her smoke-heavy voice on the phone my heart trips.

The sign entering The Junction used to read, “Rotterdam Junction- A Nice Place to Live.” It’s been too many years now since I’ve been there. “Up home.”

She and her immediate family are pretty much the last family we have up there, now.

We last heard from Kathy on Saturday I think, while I had no power for 22 hours due to Irene, and my mom was waiting for her arrival. My mom started trying to reach her on Sunday morning. She’d had a heart attack, right? Things were looking bad for the area. I worried yesterday. Went to bed. Woke up at 319am and barely got back to sleep. Checked for news on the region overnight. Things were getting worse.

You watch stuff on the news, I know this from other matters, and you feel horror and sadness, but when it’s your family that you have no contact with, no idea what’s going on, and you watch waters (or anything) close in on them from hundreds of miles away it makes you physically sick. Good people, nice people, homes, livelihoods, all of it getting swamped. Nothing to do but either stare at the photos and fret, avoid it altogether, or do something.

I put out a call to Twitter asking for information. A few people chimed in, but two people, Nickie and Jessica, specifically helped me so much I will never forget it.

They either had homes under threat or family under threat, and they still took a moment to reach out to a worried person down in North Carolina and keep feeding up-to-the-moment information. I kept my mother up-to-date via phone. One of the women lives in the hard-hit area, and I’m hoping now she’s okay. The other grew up there, and her dad volunteers in the fire department.

And I thought, “Wait. Jason was in the FD.”

And he knew him. She asked. And I passed a message along. And he said he’d deliver it.

And then as the flood rose and people were being evacuated from their roofs via boats I was informed that everyone had been evacuated, no one was missing-

A stranger told me that. Another stranger pretty much held my hand today while her home was threatened, just because MY family was in danger.

I haven’t heard from Jason yet, but he now has my cell phone number thanks to a stranger. I hope the damage is minimal, I fear not, but right now my mother and I only care about their lives. And the lives of all of the other strangers who were hurt badly this weekend in whatever fashion.

It takes just a moment to turn a stranger into a friend. No one is actually faceless. We’re all here.

And this is A Nice Place to Live.

Good luck to all in the aftermath and rebuilding. People will help.

Or- why does EVERY damn thing have to be black and white?

Hurricane Irene seems to be on her way here.

Hurricane Fran at Landfall 9/5/1996

Hurricane Season officially starts June 1st for the Atlantic, and our governor gave the traditional, “Hey, we’re here, get your ducks in a row,” speech.

People in the comments section under the news story were hideous.

The first thing that struck me was that it seemed most of them hadn’t been in this state very long, or they just hadn’t lived in an area that was ever really hit. Although- if you look to the left there? Hurricane Fran was larger than the entire state when she made landfall that day in 1996. Only the far western portion of our state seemed to escape some shit.

It was some shit.

I got pissed reading those comments. Seems a lot of people these days seem to be so freaking self-centered that only THEIR lives matter. Their locations. I am an ISLAND goddammit.

It doesn’t work that way, sorry to say.

No matter where your piece of real estate is in the Great North State, there is a gigantic state full of towns and people around you who share your abbreviation on an envelope. So the governor told people to get ready just in case. Just do it and shut up. So what if there hasn’t been a major hurricane that made landfall on the continental US in years. It doesn’t mean that Baby Jesus cried them away.

Just shut the fuck up, get over your damn argumentative selves, and lay in some freaking supplies. Just in case. What does it hurt?

And if these folks are just trolls? Move on to something not having to do with life and death, potentially.

I have to say I’m glad I moved here in 1995 so I could see the aftermath of Fran and eventually Floyd. Especially Fran. I don’t know where these high-horse people come from (yeah, read North) who live in the Wake County area and think that just because it won’t affect them it has no affect at all…

They should do some reading.

On the other hand-

Brilliantbugger on Photobucket

The media is going to try to get people to panic. And they do. They fill up the airwaves with non-stop coverage of drizzle and wind gusts, and poor shmucks stand out near the increasing storm surge while dramatic music and graphics play on-screen.

There are always dramatic music and graphics.

They will use hyperbolic language (as they are on the TV behind my head, already) and at the same time hedge their bets over where landfall will be and when.

They will hype and hype and then hype some more, and you know, depending on the year, it’s not such a bad thing.

Thing is- many people won’t listen to anything other than panic-mongering. I think they know this at the old news stations for this stuff. They just managed to dramatically detail the worst storms to hit the state in an effort to get people to freaking prepare.

People get complacent. People go with what’s normal. For many years now North Carolina has escaped major storms, so there’s a shit-ton of people who have never experienced one. The hype might cause them to mock more, but in the end- someone told them so.

It takes almost no time at all to prepare if you’re in city-limits, and if not, it takes a bit more time. Then you go about your business.

I’m out of batteries.

I had to refill the water bottles for flushing. Thirty-eight gallon jugs should give us a little over 12 toilet flushes.

We have 3/4 of a tank of propane for the grill.

Out of candles.

Will not buy new food this week.

How hard is this?

We don’t panic, but we sure as hell make preparations. When did even that become a bone of contention for people on the Internet?

What the hell is up with people nowadays?

On Friday my almost 65-year-old cousin had a “massive” heart attack.

Massive is in quotes because we still don’t have the info on how much damage was done to the muscle. I do know, though, that the problem artery was 100% blocked. A stent was placed. She’s been a pistol in the hospital, which, if you knew her, well…

It’s not abnormal.

Thing is, my mom drove up there Friday morning. Cousin lives outside of Schenectady (yes it does exist), NY, so it takes my mom about 5 hours to get there. Sometimes less. She has a lead foot. Sometime after 10am Friday our cousin called me and asked if my mom had left yet. We chatted. We chatted for quite awhile. She sounded fine.

Then that night my mom called with the news that said cousin was in ICU.

After establishing that she was in fact among the living and should be for awhile my first thought was, “How much is this going to cost?”

Because, you see, they’re working poor.

Or, well, she is. Her husband has had terrible heart issues for over three decades now. He’s not employed. She works for a bank taking calls. The house is paid off, thank the gods, but-

How much is this going to cost?

Charity begins at home. Sure. Absofuckinglutely. Her insurance will cover some, but she’ll have to scrabble, at age 65, to come up with the rest. Take out a second mortgage on their home? Maybe. What. The. Fuck.

When my inheritance from my father came through when I was young I sent my cousin a few thousand dollars to get by so she wouldn’t have her house foreclosed. She paid off every last cent. It took years. I didn’t even care. It was a gift. Charity begins at home. But she sent me a check every month with a current tally, and I appreciated it, but not as much as I do now.

THESE are the people whom this government is failing. They don’t want free rides. They work their asses off past the retirement age that used to be, and the people who think that handouts are for losers infect the whole process.

It’s not a goddamn handout. It’s a help up. It’s a help out. It’s extending your hand and doing a favor for your goddamn neighbor or someone who might even be related to you.

These people work, and they work hard. They work themselves so sick that one day they can be on the phone giggling and then collapse on the floor and end up in an ambulance.

Sure, she smokes. She doesn’t drink. She takes care of herself other than the smokes. I’ll be damned if I’ll judge her for that, because I know what she’s self-medicating against.

She’s paid into her life since she started working decades ago. She supported others. Our family has supported her when we can. I know, as sure as I’m sitting here, that with this my mother will be sending her money every month to make sure that they survive these medical bills.

My husband told me a co-worker’s recent heart attack and stent cost $36k.

I imagine it can. I also imagine that if we’re so goddamned concerned with USA-USA-USA! and keeping the flag alive we can take care of our goddamn own somehow.

Social Security is not the Devil. Federal assistance for health problems and care is not the Devil.It just needs to be handled right. Charity begins at home, goddamn it, and that doesn’t necessarily mean your own place of worship or your own family.

Let’s take care of our own. Please. Be human.

USA

Etc…

Today.

Gosh.

Our next-door neighbor seems like a nice enough person when she’s alone and dealing with us. She’s in her 50s? Maybe? She looks older.

When she’s involved with her daughter and grandsons things change.

For almost two years now we’ve been listening to cussing and tirades whenever her daughter’s car pulls into the drive with the kids and our neighbor. I’ve heard her tell the boys (Maybe 8 and 10) to shut the fuck up and get inside. I’ve heard the boys throw the F-Word around. Yelling at her. I’d decided that if ever I caught them again using that language with their grandmother they’d have to deal with me.

The daughter, in her 30s? Not a prize. I don’t know their issues. I don’t know their diagnoses, if any. I don’t care. What I care about is the kids. Mine. Hers. All of them.

I’d been told that the boys were mean to animals. One day our dog Ginny ran to the fence because one of the grandsons was there, and he asked me if he could pet her. I told him yes. I weeded the garden with one eye on the fence, and that boy’s face was shining. Ginny can do that to a person. She loves. She’s super-heavy-duty dog love, and it cracks me up when cable guys and whatnot ask me to lock her in a room when they come in. That dog found a kid that day who just wanted to love something, and she loved him back.

My heart. That boy.

Today she tried to protect him through our fence.

I was on our deck with Livvie while Jonas napped, and I had just cleaned and filled the kiddie pool for her. She was on the deck splashing around, and I’d gone down the steps and into the garden to weed. The dog took off for the fence when she heard the car pull in next door. Then I heard the yelling.

By yelling, I mean psychotic screaming of cuss words. At her own mother. With her son standing right there.

I heard a door slam, and it was quiet for a moment. I looked up at Livvie. She was off. She doesn’t know the words, but she can tell when someone is angry, and she was making like a deer in the headlights. As I started back to the steps I heard the woman slam out of her mother’s house and the tirade started again. Calling her a motherfucking bitch. Screaming that she wasn’t the fucking bitch, her mother was the fucking bitch. Screaming that she’s not a goddamn nigg*r lover.

I had enough. My kid was staring at the deck floor and I said, “Don’t worry about it.”

She said, “You’re sorry?”

I said, “I’m sorry you had to hear that. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back.”

And then I walked my never-ever-ever-have-fought-a-single-person-self to the fence and stood three feet from the chain link while she screeched. Her son, all 10 years old of him, lover of my dog, turned and watched me as I said,

“My five year old is out here. You need to stop.”

I did not yell. I raised my voice only enough for her to hear me over her hysterics.

The boy stared at me.

She, bent into her car and not looking at me, shut her mouth.

Her boy still stared.

I walked away. Called the dog into the house. Stayed on the deck with my kid.

It bugged the shit out of me doing that in front of her son, really, but it had to be done. If he comes back to the yard and wants to pet my dog he can. He needs sanity. Even the four-legged, lick your face off kind. But I am done with that woman.

I could have screamed at her. I could have caused a scene. But kids were outside. And I needed to be a voice of reason. Even with few words. Those few words worked.

Who’da thunk it?

We’re leaving here, though, as soon as we can. My daughter had never heard most of those words before today. She’d heard, “Goddamn” a couple of times but never repeated it.

I’m not looking forward to explaining the N-Word to her. Because if it’s not something I’ve said, she retains EVERYTHING.

I’m also not looking forward to possible retaliation. Maybe? Maybe not.

The maybe is enough for me. I embarrassed her in front of her son. In her eyes.

To me? She did that long, long ago.

Do me a favor, okay? Think before you freak. Take a look around. Imagine what it sounds like to others.

And then- STOP.