Dream a Little Dream for Me, Mister Z

I have been entertained by some wild and crazy dreams this week.

I blame the generic Z-pack I'm taking for my sinus infection. That's got to be it. I have been taking a pill around 8:00 p.m. They're all gone now, but the package says the antibiotic can keep working for up to ten days. So I figure I've got several more thrill rides from the Sandman in my subconscious future.

We'll only concentrate on the main dream that has stuck with me. Not the one from early this morning in which Hick took me to a casino that was a converted library. Seriously. Everybody had to be quiet, the games had no sound, and I was gambling on a microfiche machine. I did not win.

My standout dream was about my grandma, my dad's mother, who passed away two years ago. In this dream, I went to her house to pick up The Pony, who had spent the night. Grandma was puttering around in her muu-muu, happy as a clam. Her dream house, like her real house, was wall-to-wall books. Floor to ceiling. Every room. My mom had dropped in, and I followed her to the library. How I knew it was the library, with EVERY room being full of books, I don't know. But in my dream world I knew it was the library.

As mom walked by a set of four black-leather-bound hardbacks with no titles showing, a small black leather pouch popped out and onto the floor. Kind of like when a young Corey Feldman accidentally spilled a jar of paintbrush water on Gizmo in Gremlins, and balls of fur began popping out of his back. Gizmo's back. Not Corey's.

"Hey, what's that?" I called to dream Mom.

"How should I know?" she replied brusquely over her shoulder. So totally unlike her. I picked up the item. It had a zipper on one side. I opened it to find a rolled up note, like a tiny scroll with no wooden top and bottom thingies. And do you know what the scroll said? No, it was not like in A Christmas Story when Ralphie decoded the secret message to find out it was all one big commercial: Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

The very special dream scroll said: Wizards must maintain proper weight.

Ahem. It's okay, Grandma. I realize I'm not svelte. Of course, when I called my mom to relate this dream to her, I made sure to say, "No offense, Mom. But I'm sure the scroll was directed at you. It popped out right after you walked by, you know." Mom did not take offense.

From there, the dream led me back to Grandma, in the kitchen. She pulled a neither new nor old penny from the folds of her muu-muu, and handed it to me. It was bent in the middle, vertically, but not too much. I could tell that this was her prized possession, and that she was never without it. "See it there?" dream Grandma asked. "That's Walter. He buys all our tickets."

It was the profile of a man on the back of the penny where the Lincoln Memorial belonged. And in the upper right corner of that round penny was a set of numbers. They changed like when you tilt one of those faceted things that shows a different picture depending on the angle. I pointed it out to Grandma, who had no idea those numbers changed.

Now I need to find out who Walter is. And what kind of tickets he was buying. My mom says she only knows of one Walter, who was in a rock club with Grandma.

Maybe I don't want to know more.

The Gift for the Nag. I.

It's been almost a week now. And I've tried not to gloat. But I cannot hold it in any longer. HEY! I am NOT talking about my fudge-fed gut. I am talking about the gift I received from Hick. He certainly knows the way to this woman's heart.

I would rate this gift right up there at #3 of Hick's all-time Valcentric gifts. That's pretty high, since he seems compelled to spoil me with treats for Christmas, my birthday, and Mother's Day. Whether I deserve them or not. He's generous like that. Plus, he knows that Val without presents is like a kitchen table bereft of a towering bowl of soup. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, as well as who butters it, who drives to town to buy his bread and butter, and who tells him as she's serving it: "All that bread and butter is not really good for you." Hick is wise beyond his appearance.

"What was it?" you ask? The #3 Hick-to-Val gift of all time? Here's a clue: my gift was not wrapped. That's because it was kind of impossible to wrap. Oh, the parts could have been wrapped individually. But what kind of gift would THAT have been? Not a very good one, I assure you. It was a package deal, without a package! I'm sure Steven Wright could make a joke out of that.

My gift was not under the tree. I had other gifts, of course. Let's not forget Hick's affinity for bread and butter. But this was one that took me by surprise. Like that time my mom and dad bought Hick a used chainsaw, and put the package in their basement. After all the wrapping and bows were cleared away and people were oohing and ahhing over their gifts, with Hick trying to be a brave little chainsawless soldier, they told him to check the basement. He came up those steps carrying that box, looking like a toddler on Christmas morning. When in reality he was a grown man on Christmas day.

Let's just say that I did not have to go down to the basement. My gift was revealed on Christmas Eve, as I buckled up my seatbelt, preparing to ride shotgun in the Tahoe over the creeks and through the woods, as to my sister's house we went. Being Hick, he could not hold the secret one second longer. Could not allow me to discover it for myself.

"Can you see the road?"

"The driveway? Yes. Hey. I can see farther than ten feet! Do you have the lights on bright?"

"Nope." That was a smug nope. Hick was practically polishing his fingernails on his chest pocket, exhaling on them, polishing them some more, then holding them out to admire. "I put in new headlights for you. AND I got rid of that milky white fog inside the light cover."

"This is GREAT! I can see where I'm going! Without using the brights! Now I can drive at night. Without risking death by running into a cow that I can't see until too late."

"Anything else?"

"Well...now that you mention it, I can see through the windshield. Is the defogger not blowing yet? Because it's not all fogged up. I don't even think my finger would leave a mark if I tried it." Which I did. No mark.

"I cleaned your windshield, too!"

"With that bottle of stuff I got last month?"

"Uh huh. Inside AND out!"

"This is, like, the best present ever! After my office chair. I really like my office chair."

"See? I know what to get you. Even though you never tell me anything good that I can understand and get for you."

"Thank you! This is great!"

That Hick. Sometimes it takes a while for him to get the hint. But he played this one just right.

That office chair, Hick's #1 gift of all time, was a stroke of genius. I had not even asked for it. He went all the way to Office Max and picked it out and put it together and kept it in the BARn until after I went to bed in the wee hours of Christmas morning, when he snuck it into my office and put it in place of my old uncomfortable squeaky chair.

Gift #2 was another Christmas effort. Hick had a little help from my sister for that one. He scored us two tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Fabulous Fox. I KNOW! The perfect gift for Val. Sis was getting tickets for her husband, as big a fan as Val, and called Hick to see if he wanted in on the action. Anybody who was following the event at the time might recall that it was not easy to get these tickets. Hick had to ask me for cash, because he had to pay off Sis for the use of her credit card. Thankfully, she did not charge a commission. She could not get us seats together, but at least Hick and I had a pair, and she and my brother-in-law the former mayor had a pair.

Yes, it was a joyous gift-receiving holiday for Val Thevictorian. And to ward off the Even Steven curse, I will round out this proclamation by enumerating the three all-time worst gifts from Hick to Val.

#1...The Pink $3.00 Change Purse/Two Boxes of Sno*Caps Combo. A Mother's Day gift hardly befitting the mother of two sons and the stepmother of two more from the tender age of five to adulthood.

#2...The Disappearing Red Devil Hand-Held Mini-Vac. Presented to Val from Hick on December 25th, 1994, as she sat rocking Baby Genius, born December 12th, 1994, whisked away after gift-opening ceremonies, never to be seen again, revealed to reside in Hick's workshop two years later. The Red Devil. Not Baby Genius.

#3...There is no number three. Hick's good deeds outweigh the bad. They just aren't as funny to write about.

So there you have it. A tale of Val's prized tangible riches that she was showered with this holiday season. Even though I'm a giver, I was happy to receive.

The Backroads Intermittent Gazette: Weekend Edition

Backroads Sheriff's Department Investigates Creekside Shenanigans

Sheriff Deput E. Dawg has formed a task force to investigate the mysterious appearance of a large frosted donut in the waters of Backroads Creek. Sheriff Dawg wants the citizens to know that, "I will not rest until I find out who has been dunking their donut in Backroads Creek. I take it as a personal affront that a criminal element has invaded our tidy community, and taken it upon themselves to thumb their noses at authority. The fact that a donut was chosen as the implement of shenaniganning does not set well with me. What's next, a pig parked in my reserved space? The perpetrators shall be brought to justice." The next meeting of the task force is set for 10:00 a.m. Monday in the back room of Top o' the Hole to You.

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Woman's Head Explodes, No Casualties Reported

A resident of Backroads had the unpleasant experience of cranial combustion last weekend, when her head exploded with pain upon biting into a cheeseburger topped with hot caramelized onions. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, described the sensation as that of molten iron being poured into a mold formed by her upper left bicuspid and the nerve that serves it. "In retrospect," she declared, "the caramelized onions were, perhaps, not the best choice of toppings." Service in the restaurant was restored after a two-hour respite in which emergency personnel treated three customers for dangerous levels of decibel exposure. When reached for comment, all three victims responded, "WHAT?"

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Backroads Couple Narrowly Avoids Arrest for Foal Endangerment

A Backroads boy reported his parents for what he termed cruel and unusual punishment last Saturday. The young fellow, who goes by the name of "The Pony" stated that his father is, "...pretty much not guilty because he never knows what's going on." The issue that brought matters to a head was the state of the lad's footwear. "Mom always lets me wear my Adidas slides when I'm not going in a store to be her beast of burden," he said. "But Saturday, I was only going to get into my grandma's car, and she made me go back and put on shoes AND socks before leaving the house. I already had on pants instead of shorts. I think she was trying to smother me. If the temperature outside hadn't been thirteen degrees with the wind chill, I might have spontaneously combusted like that onion lady's head." The Division of Equine Well-Being has cleared the family of all charges. This time.

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Local Man Lost in Maze, Rescued by Good Samaritan

A local man found himself out of his element last weekend when he narrowly avoided freezing to death in a maze of plywood dividers at River City Casino. The kindhearted gent had driven his wife around the end of a virtual Tierra del Fuego of Keep Out/Men Working/Construction Zone barriers in order to access the second level of the new parking garage. "Here you go, Honey. Nobody is even here yet. We can park right next to the door." The ancient lovebirds hopped out of their large sport-utility vehicle and entered the building. A bank of elevators greeted them. One quick push, and a door opened as if by magic. They rode down to the ground floor of the parking garage, only to be directed outside, into a channel of wooden walls, around the side of the building, through a door, down a hallway, outside across another construction area, in a service door, and down a carpeted hallway to the casino lobby.

Knowing that there would be no host around with a tank of oxygen after the return trip, Upright Q. Citizen told his missus to wait at the entrance. He selflessly hiked the trail of veers back to the vehicle, hampered by what seemed to the little woman like a twenty-minute fuge during which he rattled around the makeshift enclosure like a rat bereft of nasal cheese sensors. Mr. Citizens admits to a brief period of disorientation, during which he miraculously dialed a random number on his cell phone. The number turned out to belong to an internet acquaintance of Mrs. Citizen, who lives a mere five minutes away, on a barge down in the river. She skillfully directed Mr. Citizen to the parking garage, second level, an event which she refers to as a Happy accident, being a firm believer in no coincidences.

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Area Couple Featured in New Reality Show

Mark your calendar. You don't want to miss next week's premiere of Little World, Big People. The new reality show features longtime Backroads residents Pa and Ma Cauldron. In the first episode, follow Pa and Ma on an outing to a "den of thieves," as Pa terms it. Watch Pa forget that he received a restaurant coupon in honor of his birthday that week, and upon remembrance, get in line for a second half-pound cheeseburger. Let's hope he doesn't order caramelized onions on it! Tune in and find out, Friday evening at 9:00.

Hookers Hick Has Known

And now, by popular demand, to stifle the clamoring of the lone reader who wanted to hear the REST of the story...I present: Hookers Hick Has Known.

Okay. Hick has not really known any hookers. THAT I KNOW OF. But he sometimes professes to be an authority on subjects that he thinks others are not well-versed in. I could see him as Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom, telling his wife's boss that he's re-wiring the house. "Two-twenty, two-twenty-one, whatever it takes." Except that Hick DOES know a lot about electricity. On other subjects, he merely fancies that he is knowledgeable. Women, for instance.

I once overheard Hick telling The Pony, at the tender age of six, about the quality of women in the various countries where he's traveled. And where he hasn't.

"There are some pretty girls in Sweden."

"Pretty girls? Like here?"

 "There are pretty girls in Norway, too. But in England, they're not so pretty. England is like here, and some are pretty, and some are not. Now, Germany has some pretty girls..."

But that's not the hooker story. Merely a character sketch of Hick and his self-appointed authority. The hooker story began with an innocent evening of America's Most Wanted. Hick was on the case, eager to solve a crime rather than assist the boys and me in dyeing Easter eggs. We finished up and joined him in front of the TV. He filled us in on what we had missed.

A serial killer had left a trail of victims across the southwest. Their pictures flashed across the screen. Not gory pictures. Candid shots. Driver's license photos. Senior pictures. They were all young women, with long, dark hair, parted in the middle. I glanced at them and exclaimed, "They all look alike!" Meaning that the killer had a certain type that he liked to murder. The narrator mentioned that most of the victims were prostitutes. Again, the killer had a type. Just like Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs had a type, his being full-figured gals with enough skin to make himself a woman-suit.

Hick snorted at my proclamation that all of the victims looked alike. "Of course they looked alike! They all had the same profession. Streetwalker." Along with being rooted in Mayberry in 1960 and using a Sheriff Andy Taylor euphemism for prostitutes, woefully misguided Hick seemed to think that working girls had a uniform. Like the white pants of a union painter, the ladies of the evening had their long, dark hair parted in the middle.

Genius tried to explain that there were blond and redheaded prostitutes, too, with a variety of coiffures. Where my fifteen-year-old learned so much about prostitutes, I did not know. It was obviously not from his father.

Hick grew downright surly upon our questioning of his call-girl knowledge. "Fine. Make fun all you want. But the next time you want to earn forty dollars, have somebody else drive you to town to mow Grandma's lawn."

"Or," I said, "grow your hair long, part it in the middle, and stand on the street corner."

The Valrus and the Carpenter

Let's see...who am I in a mood to plagiarize tonight? Could it be...perhaps...um...Lewis Carroll? Yes! That's the ticket. Lewis Carroll it is!

Did I ever tell you about the time Linda O'Connell made me kill dead hookers?

A while back, I consulted the inimitable Linda about a submission for one of the Not Your Mother's Book titles. It was a cute little piece concerning Hick's obsession with hair styles, haircuts, and what he claimed was the indisputable fact that all prostitutes have dark hair parted in the middle. Hick reached this conclusion after watching a show about a serial killer in Arizona.

Linda is hereafter referred to as The Carpenter. That's because she is adept at constructing submissions, and not one to shy away from hammering them or cutting them until they can stand on their own. The Carpenter. Not to be confused with A Carpenter's Dream, which is flat as a board and easy to nail. Got it?

THE VALRUS AND THE CARPENTER

The Valrus and the Carpenter

Were talking close at hand;

They read like anything, you see,

E-mails across the land:

"If this were only edited..."

They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven pens

Would slash for half a year,

Do you suppose," the Valrus said,

"That they could make it clear?"

"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,

And chugged another beer.

  

"O Linda, help me submit this!"

The Valrus did beseech.

"A pleasant tale of hooker hair,

A killer, and his niche.

My husband has some weird ideas;

Help me? You're a peach!"

So Linda read Val's piece again,

For she had made this bed.

Killers? Hookers? What the hell…

And shook her heavy head--

Meaning to say she did not wish

To be down this path led.

"The time has come," the Valrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of hoes--and snips--and killing facts--

Of comedy--and zings--

And why my tale is funny--NOT

And whether my prose sings."

"You cut a bit," sage Linda cried,

"Let's have a little chat;

Nobody wants to read about

Dead working girls like that."

"No hoes, you say?" a-sputtered Val,

There goes my tagline, RAT!"

"All right. I thank you for your help.

You are so very nice."

The Carpenter said nothing but

"Let's cut that worthless slice;

I wish you were not quite so deaf--

I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Valrus said,

"To play them such a trick,

To bring my readers out so far,

Then cut it to the quick!"

The Carpenter said nothing but

"You've piled it on too thick!"

"I weep for me," the Valrus said:

"I'm deeply traumatized."

With sobs and tears she snorted out;

"I'll do it--'cause you're wise."

She slashed her tainted darlings then

Amidst dramatic sighs.

"O Val," typed out the Carpenter,

"This ain't the only one!

All of your stories need some cuts!"

But answer there came none--

For Val was plotting on and on…

Lest Linda think she won.

Why Val Can Never Seem to Send in Those Submissions She's Been Meaning to Write

Such grand plans I had for today.

HAD.

A package for The Pony awaited us at the dead-mouse-smelling post office, which had come in Monday afternoon, but was not available until today.

I broke my bifocals Christmas Eve. Contrary to popular opinion, it was NOT due to wearing a lampshade on my head at my sister's annual party. But close. While waiting for Hick to turn around the Tahoe so I did not have to walk the tightrope of the driveway curb to avoid the ditch, as I had done upon arrival, I stood in the teen-degree wind chill. Waiting. My bifocals jauntily perched upon my head. Chilling. I climbed into my personal cab, buckled my seatbelt, leaned forward to watch Hick narrowly miss the yard and a resident tree...and heard a crunch on top of my head. A piece fell onto my ample bosom. The oval thingy that keeps the metal from digging into the side of my nose.

First of all, I refuse to take responsibility. I was in the PASSENGER seat, by cracky! It is not adjusted to my liking. I feel like a trucker on a hoisted-up bucket seat. I set my driver's seat lower. But the passenger seat must accommodate the legs and feet of Genius riding rear shotgun. Which puts my noggin perilously close to the ceiling. I groped myself until I had the missing link. I put it in my shirt pocket for safekeeping. Hick found it later with his foot, on the tile floor of the bathroom. Who knew he had such princess-and-the-pea manhooves? Not I. The good news is that the optometrist's office was fairly bereft of patients this morning, and my ocular issue was remedied forthwith.

Oh, and that painful tooth/sinus issue of mine? Still not resolved. The confounded Convenient Care was not open Friday afternoon. Nor Monday. Nor today. I tried their main facility twenty miles south, and it was open, but with only a receptionist. Since I did not especially want a clerical worker diagnosing me, she recommended that I go next door, to the doctor used by Genius and The Pony. NOT a pediatrician, I assure you. But an osteopath. That's a long story for...never. Let's just say that my own doctor takes off the week after Christmas, and his office is in a hospital-adjacent clinic, and the parking lot is far away and crowded, and they frown upon work-ins. So I went to my kids' doc. To while away two hours and twenty minutes, but emerge triumphant with a Z-pack prescription thirteen miles away. Somewhat convenient, because I had to go there anyway to pick up a Nasonex prescription for Genius.

Perhaps I neglected to mention that we received three inches of snow last night. Which turned to a glaze of ice as it landed on the salted roadways. So the going was slow and treacherous. The Pony and I left home at 10:15 this morning, after I had called around to determine where I could haul my sinus cavities for inspection. We returned at 4:00. At which time I heated up a delicious smorgasbord of Christmas day leftovers for my lupper.

Hick is on his own tonight. Poor dear. Who had to work. But most certainly did not have grand plans.

Pillow Luminescence

Said Ms Val to the readers of her blog
Do you see that I see?
Way up near the top of my blog?
A pillow, a pillow, glowing in the night,
While a Pony beams with delight.

While a Pony beams with delight.

I had no idea this gift would please The Pony so much. It's a square, white, silky pillow that lights up when you squeeze it, and goes through several color changes. The neon green is the prettiest, but purple is good, too. It is officially called a BrightLight Pillow.

Upon unwrapping this item, and taking it out of the box, before any batteries were even installed, The Pony shouted with pride, "I'm taking THIS gift to Grandma's!" That's a yearly thing. Each boy takes along a present which especially pleased him.

The Pony has always been a tactile fellow. Squeezing and poking and touching and stroking. He petted that pretty pillow all the way to and from his grandma's house. He also received a Bug Out Bob thingie whose eyeballs pop out when you squeeze it, and a stress cupcake.

Despite his penchant for feeling objects, The Pony is not half the manipulator as his brother, Genius.