Ethel Manibo
She spits on summers and smiles to the night.
She collects crowns made of black roses.
But her heart is made of bubble gum.
Posts
The Red Door On The Second Floor Leads To Somewhere Magical #everyhouseshouldhaveamagicdoor (Taken with instagram)
Caturday The Cat Is Missing!!! #wearsties #lovesbasements&mouses #iwanttobehisfriend (Taken with instagram)
I’ve always believed this since I was a little girl. #inapastlifemymothertoldmewewerecatsandibelievewestillare (Taken with instagram)
Bearded Cat-icorn #unicorn #cat #catsneedfacialhairtoo #thiscreatureexists (Taken with instagram)
Ikki Likes To Laptop #cat #ESC #yeahiknowmytongueishangingout (Taken with instagram)
Another one of the many reasons why my daughter Devyn is the coolest. Ever.
I wasn’t there in person, but I was here on the west coast cheering her on and being the proudest Madre. Congratulations, Bubbula!
Sooooooooo, here’s a preview of my setup for the photo show I’m a part of, which opens this Friday at Fort Useless at 6pm!
Grey Gardens, 1972. The dining room – with all the accumulated cans of cat food.
But look how happy she is with the cats!
If you can’t write clearly, you probably don’t think nearly as well as you think you do.
I woke up this morning, with these two dreams still fresh in my head:
1) My mother was playing chess with a stranger (My mother does NOT even know how to play chess!) and I was trying to get her attention so I could tell her good-bye. There was some song from the 80’s, probably The Cure or The Smiths, quietly playing in the background. “Mom, I’m leaving.” But she would’t even look up at me. I turned to lower the music. “Mommy!!!” And even with the music quiet, and the using name I used to call her as a child, I was just as invisible to her.
2) I was in Chinatown pushing a stroller—who was in my care was not to my knowledge in this dream, it was simply my goal to navigate our way as safely and quickly out of these crowded streets. But it seemed as though everywhere I turned, an elderly lanky Chinese man appeared and kept trying to touch my face. I had never seen him in real life and I worried for the child as well, so I screamed each time, though no one ever come to our aid so I sped away from this mystifying creature.
All I can hear is an incessant tapping noise. A stealth glance reveals the source originates diagonally from us—an older gentleman with a gray scraggly beard has fixed his even grayer eyes upon us while rapping his cane upon the floor of the bus. I don’t want to appear afraid nor do I want to make eye contact with him, so I choose to look straight ahead. The rapping stops and out of the corner of my eye, I realize he’s digging in his pockets and pulls out a hardy candy and hands it to the woman sitting across from him.
“Here sweetheart, take one of these. Save it for later.”
Almost giddy, she shoves it into her sweatshirt pocket. I am so confused yet charmed by this exchange.
I feel his eyes fall upon us again, scrutinizing us, and he offers an appraisal, “You look real good together. I mean that in the nicest way possible.”
We smile, our hands squeezing one another’s and we say, “Thank you!”
He says, “Love makes the world go ‘round. It’s true!”
We nod in agreement, our smiles growing and our hands squeezing one another’s even harder.
Then he digs in his pocket and offers us some hard candies. “You guys want some?”
We say, “Oh that’s sweet! But no thank you.”
At the next stop, an older couple dragging a rolling piece of luggage get on.
The older gentleman with the suitcase reaches inside his jacket and pulls out an handful of peppermint hard candies and hands them to the bearded gentleman “Take this please, Sir.”
And then turning to us, he hands us one, and says, “This one is for you to share.”
I put it in my coat pocket.
The bearded gentleman says, “Thank you! Thank you!.,” quickly stashes them away in his pocket, eagerly opens one, pops it in his mouth and unabashedly exclaims while sucking away, “These are good! You can really taste the peppermint. It’s so refreshing!”
The wife says, “Oh, they’re our favorite! They just melt in your mouth. We get them at the dollar store.”
The bearded gentleman wanting to return the kindness says, “Here let me get you back.” and hands them some butterscotch hard candies.
Upon receiving the handful of candies, the man next to us turns to us and says, “I have to share!,’ and pretends to hand us two candies, then mischievously takes away one away. “You share that one, too.”
I put it in my coat pocket with the other piece of candy.
The bearded gentleman says to the couple, as if sharing a secret, “The ones I gave you are the closest to the true flavor of butterscotch.”
Meanwhile, he takes a Hershey’s Kiss and pops that in his mouth. ”Mmmmmm… this one is good, too. It’s a Hershey’s Kiss but it’s filled with caramel! It’s a nice surprise.”
I begin to wonder just how much candy he carries in his pocket and if he must go around exchanging candy with people on the bus.
The three affable characters chat for several minutes extolling the virtues of various candies as I sit in awe at these adults who love candy just as much as children do.
As we exit the bus, we say good-bye to everyone, I clutch the two pieces of candy from strangers and I am reminded:
1. Old people REALLY LOVE hard candy
2. The fun happens at the front of the bus
3. It’s okay to take candy from strangers
4. Love makes the world go ‘round
You Put Your Arms Around Me, Jens Lekman
What’s broken can always be fixed; what’s fixed will always be broken
