The Wormlips Scrapbook

Look who’s home from her year in the jungles of Central America.

I’m so glad you’re back, Jill. Cheryl just got back from Nepal, too. I get to see her later this week.

T’is also the season for parents to welcome home prodigal daughters from college. When prodigal daughters don’t drive, welcoming is an active process entailing several hours of travel time. I arrived in her town a night early so I could go to Monday night Irish dance class nearby. It’s been several years since I’ve done my solo steps in front of P, our beloved and brutally exacting teacher, and I was nervous. But afterwards P made of special point of telling me that I’d danced well. Since she does not dole out praise lightly — I’ve gotten it a handful of times in more than a decade — I’ve been cradling those words in my mind like brittle petals ever since.

I spent the night at Shirley’s and Scott’s. Meet their hounds, Bailey and Buddy.

They had a another overnight guest, a guy from North Carolina who sipped iced whiskey, played a shiny guitar and sang — in what was clearly the voice of experience — original songs about mighty hangovers. He had accompaniment during the choruses.

The following noon, upon my arrival on campus, my prodigal daughter was working frantically on a final essay about something linguistic. Her third-floor dorm room looked disturbingly lived-in, though she did have a stack of six packed boxes. Luckily I’d brought my laptop so I got to finish a two-hour work task (forgetting to unplug and bring home my computer’s power supply: an $85 error, it turned out). Then I wandered around the hallway, sightseeing. I was intrigued by the signs, particularly the one that begged its readers not to throw food in the stairwells, nor to spit on the walls or in the water fountains. There was a notice about a workshop on interracial dating and another poster asking students not to put objects bigger than the trash chute into the trash chute.

How much can one college student have accumulated in a mere nine months, you may ask? Let me answer the best way I can: five hours, a thousand stairs and one parking ticket’s worth. I was barely able to jam the final wee item — a bike — into my huge old station wagon.

We used the last credits on Lulu’s meal ticket to buy fifteen bags of M&Ms, two Pepsis and some Junior Mints. Before heading home we dropped some of her stuff at the house she’ll be sharing next year, only blocks from where we lived in 2000.

Bookmark this post to...

Saturday I decided to drive to Grass Valley to see Teej & Richard at the Rancho. The three of us got to yacking and stayed up way past our bedtimes—till about 3:00. Even so, we got up relatively early on Sunday (well, it was still morning) and I was impressed at how age has not diminished our ability to keep strange hours. Or so I thought.

While Richard weed-whacked his acres, Teej and I went exploring north of Nevada City. We parked my tank on a dirt road and walked until we spotted some light-dappled trails through the pines, hiking along the softest earth I’ve ever tromped. At Teej’s suggestion I sampled the tender, new shoots of a cypress bough. She said they’re high in vitamin C. They tasted like it.

Driving home a few hours later, we got lost because of all the confusing new roads across the ridge where there used to be only woods. We found ourselves on my old road which I didn’t even recognize at first. It’s now graded, with nary a pothole. And to get to the top, where there’s a lovely view of the Sierra, it used to require four-wheel drive. No more.

We snuck a peak at my old house. The current owners have torn down the chicken coop/playhouse that Dad and I cobbled together in the early 90s. In its place are high-end swing sets and climbing structures.

Arriving back at the Rancho around 7:00 pm, we found Richard stretched out on his reclining chair covered by a blankie. I stole the prime spot nearby on the sofa, leaving Teej to seek a horizontal surface upstairs. We decided to postpone dinner so we could take a wee rest first.

Fourteen hours later, we woke up. So much for thinking we were young enough to handle sleep-deprivation with finesse. I have seen the future, and it is embarrassing.

The only bad thing is I slept so long I didn’t get to see Syd before I left on Monday, bound for Sacramento. Hearing that Lulu was sick, I bought her a ton of fruit and other goodies. When I arrived at the dorm, she was playing on her computer so what was I to do but curl up in a relatively tiny ball on her bed and take a nap? Then it was on to dance class where I got assigned an official spot on the Trip to the Cottage team. Man, is that a complicated dance. I hope I can learn to do those twirly, spinny parts without getting beheaded by my partners’ armpits.

In conclusion, here’s another picture of my great-nephew’s lips, which, I must remind you, are even cooler than a guinea pig’s.

Bookmark this post to...

Poor Mamma Ginna. She’s had another stroke. She can no longer walk and can barely talk, she’s frail and confused, and she hurts. I asked her daughter-in-law, who visits her each day in the hospital in West Virginia, to send her my love. All Mamma Ginna could do was smile. Looks like she may not make it till August when we’re flying back to visit her. She’s always saying to me, “I wish you lived closer.” Me too. She’s had a long life. Still, my heart hurts badly again at the idea of never seeing her again.

Speaking of heartbreak, at Spanish class last night a fellow estudiante, Yumi, did a report on a song called La Copa Rota. It’s the most wonderfully tortured song ever. Here’s my abbreviation of her excellent translation:

Drowning in jealousy
a Bohemian sits in the cantina,
hopeless and sad,
his nerves wrecked,
crying without relief
like a tormented crazy man
because that ungrateful woman left him.

One night, like a madman,
he bit the wineglass
and made a sharp edge that destroyed his lip.
And the blood that dripped
mixed in with the wine
and this cry shuddered
to all those in the bar:

Don’t worry, campañeros,
if I destroy my mouth.
Don’t worry that with the edge of this glass
I want to erase
the mark of the kiss
that the traitor gave me.

Waiter, serve me the broken glass.
Serve me so it destroys
this obsessive fever.
Waiter, serve me the broken glass.
I want to bleed drop by drop
the venom of her love.

It doesn’t get better than that. It made me want to run right home and start composing my own songs, full of despair and longing and blood. I think my first canción will ponder the eternal question: why have I never found my own true love, even though I’ve been sitting here in my living room for years just waiting for him?

Ayyiyi!
Mi corazon está congelado
en este enfierno de solitud sepulcral.
Mi sangre como pecina escarchada
No puede correr por mis venas estrangulares.
AY-yi-yiii…

Oooh, I’m liking it. “My heart is frozen in this hell of tomblike solitude. My blood like frosted sludge can’t run through my strangled veins.” Hey, I rock at this.

Bookmark this post to...