Thursday, April 24, 2008

Bears!

Bears on the loose! The #1 threat to America! Where is Stephen Colbert?

Today the scene from the couch includes black bears prowling through Paramus, NJ. For a lot of people, NJ is a maze of concrete, and Paramus, if they've heard of it at all, is the birthplace of shopping malls. For me, it's where my parents are buried and where I planned to rest my bones one day. Maybe not.

Now we see Jack Hanna of zoo fame telling us about bear behavior: "You'd be hungry too if you hadn't eaten in four months." I feel as though my whole life is coming together in this story. Before I fled to the Lowcountry, I was exiled in Columbus, OH, which is where Hanna drew attention as the director of its zoo. I could digress into a tale about a woman I know who fostered a chimpanzee from the zoo nursery and how she and I went to a psychic together, but I guess I'll save that and try to get back to today's drama, which I'm taking personally because before I was dragged to Columbus, I spent thirty years in towns near Paramus.

I KNEW that area. There were no bears there then. WTH has happened? I can hear my father saying now, "The whole world has gone ape-shit." When he really said that was years and years ago. What would he say now about the fact that I live where an alligator might invade my kitchen? Maybe "Lass, at least you escaped the bears."

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ahem!

So I've been in touch with our friend MadHatter and he seems to think the world needs another observer/commenter and thus my existence is justified. The fact is that I have worn out the middle cushion on my couch as I watch the world go by. My recent guest blog on "There Goes The Neighborhood" is a clue as to how I spend a lot of Saturday nights, and you know what? It's OK. I've participated in life a lot, and now I'm happy just to read about it or to see it on tv or to watch it roll by my house in a golf cart. Then again, I may change my mind if I hear of an interesting journey on a ship, my favorite way to travel. But right now, I'm feeling kind of lazy.

I'm not going to bore people with tales of where I've been. That's what the Travel Channel is for. Actually one of the trips I love to take is back in time, and that's what the History Channel is for. We live in a wonderful time where we can learn about life anywhere that interests us, and that would include the bedrooms of the famous-for-being-famous. With YouTube we can go everywhere.

The sign of a true vicarious voyager is that she (or he) can be transported off her couch and into another reality. Today I believe that I was present at last night's victory celebration for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'm thinking that I was seated right next to one of the sourpuss media people who can hardly stand that her presidential candidacy is still alive. I'm there with those men and women, and I can smell their anxiety that THEY MIGHT BE WRONG...AGAIN. This morning I notice that they are thanking God for the New York Times editorial that blames everything negative and vapid and whatever on Senator Clinton and the bonus column by the oh-so-delightful Maureen Dowd, who goes off on President Clinton...again.

I believe I will lift my sights and watch the squirrels.