OtterSummer 8.45-Coda
The last supper proved satisfying. The Muse declared the mystery resolved, that she finally understands who showed up forty nights ago and who has slept through the almost forty days since. The Otter ate more than she usually does before excusing herself to continue her epic packing, certain that she’d need another bag to hold all of her stuff. I volunteered The Muse as an advisor, since she knows how break the space continuum and squeeze anything into a single rollaway bag, though she gave up when The Otter couldn’t decide what she’d need left out for the morning. “I’ll help you in the morning,” The Muse muttered as she walked away. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.44-Fine
The Grand Otter won’t leave us until early tomorrow morning, but The Otter Summer’s done today. Tomorrow’s departure will never resolve into anything more finely focused than a blur, and today will fail to find a cohering emotional center. The edges of any adventure are comprised of finely-chopped, conflicting glimpses of excitement, sadness, weariness, disorientation, gratitude, confusion, regret, hopefulness, even tears. Anyone should be overwhelmed by the experience. We are. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.43-macNplease
We’re down to the final few hours of this OtterSummer, and her wish might as well be my command. My earlier aspirations to be a good example, perhaps even a wise teacher, have dispursed, leaving a willing and loving slave. So I set the pot on to boil and eat a peach to stave off certain starvation. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.42-ExtraversionOliveOil
The cats, formally named Crash and Rose, each have about a thousand names, and they answer to any of ‘em. I usually call Crash The Hairball, and that’s pretty much replaced his formal name around the house. Rose answers to Dweeb, because she gets called little else except, occasionally, Dweebhead. However demeaning these nicknames might sound, we always smother them with sweet molasses, no insult implied or intended. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.40-Ex-Use
My excuses and I have experienced a few falling outs since; in and out of love, like any other aging couple. Every significant crisis of my life (so far) has been accompanied by me catching myself doing what I’d previously believed myself incapable of doing. Watching myself commit what my story insisted I could never do left more than my story in shambles. What excuses those obsolete excuses when they clearly don’t work anymore? Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.39-Unspokens
Nobody offers a nickel for my thoughts and who would pay a dime? I mumble to myself and recognize some brilliance, but not the same as someone else might. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.38-Food
The few excursions to eat out have yielded spotty results while almost every meal at home has proven memorable. I have somewhat muted our usual menu in deference to The Grand Otter’s developing palate. I doubt that she’ll ever even try lamb kidneys. She’ll always accept mac and cheese, and though she begged for some inferior boxed stuff, I insist upon making up the real stuff from scratch. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.37-Chip
I’m pretty certain that the world doesn’t owe The Grand Otter a living, and the vast majority of the slights she’s experienced have been inadvertent ones, but she can be quite the powder keg when riled, and her fuse seems short. Perhaps, as my big sister demonstrated so well, it just comes with adolescence. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.36-Numb-ers
Some days, The Grand Otter’s radiant energy seems unable to escape from her internal gravitational pull. She embodies dark matter, invisible to my naked eyes; perhaps to her’s, too. I find her still up at three am, complaining about how she just can’t get to sleep these days. I invite her to figure out a way to get up by nine for sourdough pancakes, but she won’t commit. I understand that she can’t commit, and a sharp twinge pokes somewhere near my heart. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.35-Nurchure
The older I get, though, the more skeptical I’ve become. This might qualify as beneficial. I used to swallow just any old thing as eternal truth. Now, even eternal truth wants some choking to slip down.
Somewhere in there, the old nature versus nurture debate simmers. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.34-PixEase
I remember from my own youth just how unlikely it seemed that those ancestors in those pictures ever inhabited the four dimensional, technicolor world I knew. I imagined their world having been grey or sepia, their lives at most two-dimensional; narrower. But now, of course, I’m old enough to remember long-ago times and recall them in sparkly hues, with more dimensions than seem existent now. No mere photograph does any of ‘em justice. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.33-EMC
The following summer, he having completed his exile and we ensconced in better surroundings, he was an infrequent guest, always bringing a brick of extra-sharp Tillamook cheddar and a bag of chocolate. He was there the night The Otter melted down during one of The Muse’s work get-togethers. She only rarely sees him these days, but she warmly anticipates every encounter. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.32-OtterLess
I returned well before noon and grabbed an early lunch. Still no sign of our slumbering ward. The drive gave me plenty of time to reflect: two weeks from this morning will be the morning after the end of this Otter Summer. My would-be side kick will have disappeared back into a temperate climate and some intemperate circumstances, and my influence, meager though it seems today, will shrink to much less than any arm’s length trying to stretch across a sizeable continent. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.31- ComePlain
Of course, this being a car ride, she plugged right in to deflect any possibility of conversation, so The Muse and I were able to cover several weighty topics of no interest to The Otter; worse, topics she seems to find consistently irksome. Once we’d deposited The Muse across the street from the belly of the beast, The Otter moved to the front seat where I asked her if she was interested in breakfast. She was. Pancakes? Sure. We drove to the one reliable breakfast joint on The Hill, and she ordered a full stack of blueberry babies, complaining about the smell wafting across the aisle from the fish monger’s place. “I hate the smell of fish.” she proclaimed. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.30-SideKick
”I was kind of interested until you described how it smells, David,” she sneers. “No!”
”But, but, but, you could gross out all your friends when you head back home,” I entice. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.29-AtlasSnubbed
Your attitude must remain solidly encompassed with contrary-ness. Whatever grandma suggests, find fault. Should she grant your heart’s desire, switch desires. If you really want that proffered gelato, make sure and complain about the size or the amount, even the weather.
Never miss any opportunity to project pure misery. Hugs should always be accompanied with a heart-felt ewwww.
Attempts to engage you in conversation should be blunted before the conversation begins. Earphones were invented to prevent meaningful conversation. Deploy them strategically; default to ‘already more happily occupied.’ Make sure you miss the beginning of every exchange, forcing them to wave their hands and restate whatever it was. This frustrates ‘em and puts you at a distinct advantage. Properly deployed, this approach should get you a welcome invitation to just plug back in, which is what you wanted, anyway. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.28-Opportunity
The Otter had been counting chickens for a couple of days, figuring herself on the edge of prosperity by the end of the week. Friday came and she agreed to help vacuum out the place so the toddler wouldn’t just become a dust mop as she tottled around.
The parents were running late and the baby fussy. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.27-Lost
I looked up vacuum repair shops online, found one reasonably close, and called. Explaining my difficulty, the fellow on the other end of the call said, “Sure, just get it in by five.” I told The Otter to find her shoes, we were heading out. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.26-Mute
Her rich inner life stays contained beneath that crimson hair. She mentioned that she’d lost twenty-some pages of fresh writing yesterday when she closed her vintage laptop before saving. She probably won’t be doing that again right away. “It probably wasn’t that good, anyway,” she moaned. I was hoping she’d share that writing with me. Her few mutterings center around true mutters, spoken in a voice neither confident nor particularly audible. Our conversations involve a lot of me asking, “What?” Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.25-The Chair
For me, The Wall always appears shortly after I feel creativity’s fire in my belly. Following that first moment of sublime inspiration, I go splat. And that splat can convincingly argue that I am not the writer I imagined myself to be, encouraging me to shuffle back to some complacent corner and withdraw from the dance. I figure The Wall might inhibit everyone’s creative spark, so I asked. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.24-Show-Her
”What?”
”Time to get out of the shower,” I yell through the door, “You’re gonna run out of hot water!”
”What? I can’t hear you.”
Later, The Muse comes home and the water’s still running. I ask her to please go in there and tell The Otter to get out of the freaking shower. “I already tried,” she replied, “The door’s locked. We’ll talk with her when she gets out.”
Even later, The Otter shows up at the supper table smelling of perfume. I suggest that five minutes should be plenty of time for a shower. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.23-Reading
Today, I tried again to rouse The Otter at a decent hour, receiving a decent screech in response; enough of a screech that I was fairly certain she’d gained consciousness. An hour later, trying again yielded a similar response. Much later, after spending a rather lonely morning fussing over some draft ordinance our city council seems determined to foist on the citizenry, I finally managed to make contact. It was afternoon by then and the day was slipping by. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.22-ToeJam
This event usually occurs after a couple of chilly days and soggy nights, after The Otter’s experienced some upset or another, and communication’s been bouncing off steel-reinforced brick walls. A flurry of seedy Facebook posts the night before had prompted The Muse to post a complaint on The Grand Otter’s “Wall,” and I found that familiar, unwanted knot growing in my gut. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.21-Brittle
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brittle_v_ductile_stress-strain_behaviour.png
The Muse crawls into bed, reporting that The Grand Otter seems brittle. Her brittle couldn’t be more unlike the sweet, nutty kind; it’s plenty real enough. It has nothing to do with how strong or beautiful she might be: she’s both strong and beautiful. Her ability to absorb energy and strain seems low right now, though she’s surrounded by an extraordinarily positive energy field and far, far away from her usual stressors. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.20-ShyTown
While we hovered along the periphery of the neighborhood potluck last night, she showed me that she was editing pictures of clouds she’d captured from the stands at the baseball game last week. She hadn’t been sure she was hungry, and a little angry that we’d insisted she tag along to the place down the street where this whole neighborhood was gathering. After we’d been through the food line, she changed her mind, returning with a few choice selections, which she ate head down, a great excuse to further avoid eye contact and small talk. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.19-Pancakery
I’d rushed out to score some eggs, since The Muse had claimed the entire stock to hardboil for potato salad last night. I’d poked the stick through The Otter’s door to wake her, and she came pounding down mere moments later. Today’s the famous Takoma Park parade and we’d promised our guest a pancake breakfast, so pancakery must occur. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.18-Mourning
Now, I can track her overnight Facebook posts to derive a rough estimate of her crash time. She reliably sleeps until the crack of noon, and would sleep through even that were it not for a pesky G-pa and the opportunity to engage in something more alluring than sleep. Few alternatives qualify. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.17-Hair
I fought a series of running skirmishes over my hair length from the time I was The Otter’s age until I was about twenty five. I spent a few years in there with a Samson complex, unwilling, perhaps unable to cut a single hair. Control over my hair length felt like the only part of my life I had any control over, and I would have been damned to forfeit that one toehold. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.16-TheLifeOfPie
The Muse makes pie the old fashioned way, and she wants The Otter to learn this tradition, but she can’t raise the growing bugger to join her in the pie dome she’s turned our kitchen into. All her specialized pie making tools, including her sideways-handled spatula, litter every available inch of counter space. I’d deflowered the gooseberries and pitted the sour pie cherries, leaving The Muse plenty of open ground to focus upon her particular mastery: crust. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.15-App-Propriate
Psychologists say adolescents engage in an activity they label Propriate Striving, the search for a plan for their future which might guide their actions. Not so much who am I?, but who must I become? This involves a lot of trying on, checking out, and no small amount of what anyone not so actively striving might easily classify as acting out. Now, of course, we have apps for all of this work which enable—even encourage— all-too public Propriate Striving. Most thoughtfully include an archive, too. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.14-Pshaw-Ping
The Muse took the rest of the week off, so she’d announced that she wanted to accompany me. The Otter, though she’s a champion shopper, opted to nap through the sultry afternoon instead. Fine. Alone time’s one of the prominent themes of every Otter Summer. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.13-Late-Her
She agrees to try the salad with the sour cherry dressing while her pasta, leftover from the supper, reheats in the oven. The conversation might seem pedestrian without understanding what came before.
Young women run through a wringer these days. Sometime between twelve and fifteen, they lose themselves and start trying on alternative identities. The Otter had vacillated between tough and defeated, smart and stupid, beautiful and revolting, checking the view from each. The Muse and I often feared the choices she’d default into making while she lined up the choices she might make. It’s been a roller coaster ride for us all. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.12-Centipede Salsa
We didn’t exactly rush to her rescue, but once we’d moseyed, we found the source of her alarm. The boarder, who’d left the day before for a quick trip to Asia, had reported on the phone a few millipedes in his basement room. I’d seen a small colony of them on the back porch and thought nothing of them. I suggested he vacuum them up, thinking them anomalous. But The Otter had found the floor crawling with the buggers. I valiantly started sucking ‘em up with the vacuum, though replacement troops appeared as soon as the initial ranks started disappearing.
I’m no ninny, but I’m nobody’s fan of the creepy and the crawly. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.11-Torchy-Feely
The naive might conclude that she’s refusing to associate with her loving, caring grandparents, and I admit that her conversational style can feel damned off-putting. I point out Kansas City’s lovely suspension bridge over the Missouri, and receive the usual mumble along with a brief tirade opposing high bridges over wide water. I’d like to hold forth on the historical significance of KC’s lovely downtown, but The Otter might as well be elsewhere. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.10-FamilyGathering
Donna slow roasts a brisket and broils green-lipped mussels. Food’s never in short supply. The little ones use the wrong door to enter and exit, tracking in pea gravel. The girls head for the corner where the farm cat protects her three tiny offspring. The boys ride bikes down the hill in back. Adults wander in and out, continuing a conversation that started before they were born and will certainly continue long after they’re gone from here. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.09-MoonRise
A short time later I excused myself a second time to find that full moon, escaped from the clouds, hanging over the grain silos on the edge of this tiny prairie town. I ducked back inside, asking The Muse to slip outside for a moment. She came, trailing two classmates, and we stood on the sidewalk marveling at that moon. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer8.08-RoughPassage
Their passage from The Cities had been a rough one. Slip over here for more ...
OtterSummer 8.07-HiHoe
My nephew John accepted my hoeing lessons while his dad and siblings performed a Keystone Cops rendition of find the hose. Nick was in charge of turning on the faucet once it was connected. Christopher was sent to ferret around in the garage to find a spray head while Carl and two year old Lilli buzzed off in the mule to find a sprinkler out in the shop. Three year old Andrew supervised. Slip over here for more ...
Otter Summer 8.06-CloudShow
I took to the front porch to watch the celestial performance. Back east, the horizon hangs close to ground. Clouds seem one or at most two dimensional. Here over the prairie, clouds display great textural depth, four full dimensions, unbounded by any barrier to the edge of imagination along far-distant horizons. The Muse joined me as the lightening began carving bas relief detail into the boiling cloud sculptures. Slip over here for more ...
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