Riding the rails.........with Paulette Goddard

Once, in an attempt to follow a train of thought, I asked my husband how he’d gotten from the subject we had been discussing to the new subject he’d just introduced. He thought about the question for a moment, then explained how the original subject had made him think of something else and that took him to somewhere else and on and on until he’d brought up the new subject. The train of thought made sense even though the beginning and ending seemed as though they had nothing in common.

Every once in a while, we’ll ask one another to describe another train of thought, to ride the rails through the mind’s hairpin curves and fast straight-a-ways to the next station. It’s almost an experiment when we do this now, an examination of the odd links our minds make.

Sometimes you can outline a successful attempt through the maze to recall the name of an actor or actresses not by linking them to the film about which you’re talking, but by making a deliberate series of links through other films or other actors or other whatever until you reach the place where your mind has stored their name. For example, my husband asked me which actress had played the showgirl part in the original version of the film, “The Women.” I like this movie, I have the DVD which I’ve watched many times. I know the names of the principle actresses. On this occasion I could picture the actress, but I could not recall her name. I said, “She was the one who was married to Charlie Chaplin.” Nothing. “She was married to Burgess Meredith.” Nothing. “She was married to that French writer who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front.” Nothing. “Oh, wait, she was in a movie with Bob Hope, The Ghost Breakers,” and then I had it. Paulette Goddard. For reasons unknown to me, my mind hid her behind a Bob Hope movie I’ve only seen once. My mind is a bit twisted.

Maybe this explains why, so often, my train of thought goes off the tracks.

Farewell to the Court of St. James

Merde!

I cannot speak French and it is extremely unlikely that I will ever learn to do so. There are a few words I know, but I can neither speak nor understand French well enough to carry on a conversation with even a first semester student who is taking the language. Yesterday, it occurred to me that this means I will never be appointed to the Court of St. James. The American Ambassador to England isn’t called the Ambassador to England, he or she is the Ambassador to the Court of St. James (Bless the English) and the Court language is French. It isn’t that this was ever on my to-do list, but I’d like to think I’d be ready for most things if asked. Alas. Please accept this post as my preemptive attempt to strike my name off the list of possible ambassadorial candidates.

Mercy boo coo

Riding the wave

I occasionally read CityMama’s blog. Today she wrote about the “subversive acts” that mothers do after they’ve had children that remind them of their lives before children. The stuff that, usually, no one would ever realize if they hadn’t spilled the beans in the blog. Some of the responses were what the women actually do and some of them were wish lists of subversive acts. Most responses involved post-children tattoos. My favorite was about the almost painfully shy mother who “is a kick-ass, chain-metal, silver micro mini-wearing mama on an all-woman’s roller derby team.” I may have found another hero here.

With or without children, all I can ponder now is what subversive acts are going on in the lives of the women I know? Do I, perhaps, know a woman who performs in a circus high wire act? Do I know someone who is a vegetarian, but who goes out of their way to stand downwind of the local eatery and catch a whiff of grilled meat? How about someone who bakes solely to lick the beaters?

So, the question to be answered in regard to subversive acts is, what would I do (WWID). Okay, here it is. If I could overcome my fear of imminent death, I would take up surfing. I’d be a surfer dudette. And I’d wear waterproof SPF 415 so I be as pale as a Sicilian widow and no one would ever know I spent my days in the sun.

Unless I spill the beans in a blog.

Old Songs

I usually listen to old radio programs on XM radio while I’m driving the long drive to and from work. Occasionally, while a show I don’t like is playing, I’ll twirl the dial (so to speak) and check out the 60's, 70's or 80's stations. The Old Songs, the songs that bring back memories, the songs to which I danced so badly, but enjoyed so much. Songs with which I now sing along at the top of my lungs. Not to worry, I am, of course, on back roads when I do my singing though if the sunroof is open and the wind is just right you might hear a dreadful drawn out screeching sound. That’s me!

Occasionally, however, there are ghosts in Old Songs. Those songs that recall times of heartache. Songs that recall growing up. Songs that make me reach out to change to a different station, then hesitate long enough to acknowledge that remembered ache. Songs that allow me to accept that the sorrows and the joys and how I handled both have brought me to the person I am now. And so I sing along with this Old Song as well, softly.

April Fool's

Right now I’m thinking there is no April fool with quite as good a sense of humor as Mother Nature showed yesterday.

The "day” itself, a day when my husband found a rubber ducky floating in the toilet bowl first thing in the morning and had the nerve to say, “Oh, is it April Fool’s Day already,” Mother Nature managed a day that began with brutal wind gusts and temps in the upper 50's, then falling temps and snow flying in the afternoon. Ah, bless her, she’s never boring.

And in order not to be boring myself, I have a year less a day to come up with something in addition to the rubber ducky. There’s no fool like an April fool.