The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me

Okay, so maybe I'm a day or two past his birthday, but I couldn't let the opportunity pass to pay my respects to one of the most influential people in my life--Jim Henson.  As I grow older, I come to better understand the quiet, unique and wonderful influence this man and his Muppets had and continue to have on my life.

I didn't know it at the time, but Miss Piggy was the first feminist I ever met.  I was in 2nd Grade and how I loved the way she owned her swinehood!  She didn't take flack from anyone--especially from the sexist pig captain of "Swine Trek" or the overrated doctor from "Vetrinary Hospital" who had "gone to the dogs."  Beautiful became synonymous with big and bold.  And who can forget the karate chops? "HI-YAH!"  In the end, there was NO problem that a well placed, sequined heel in a karate chop couldn't solve.  These are my feminist roots.  Perhaps the "male tools" were born from the hours I spent watching Miss Piggy keep the men around her in line.  (And if you don't know what the "male tools" are, be glad.  Be very, VERY glad.)

Even more endearing to me, was the sweet, soft spot Miss Piggy had for the altruistic, skinny legged frog named Kermit, who was born from Jim's mothers old coat and a ping pong ball.  Piggy simply wouldn't or couldn't be piggy without this funny, good-natured frog as her foil.  In spite of the differences of being a frog and a pig, theirs was a love that knew no bounds.  "Never Before" became the anthem love song of a new age that expressed that even perfect love, like that spontaneously witnessed at the Miss Bogen County Beauty Contest, had complications, misunderstandings and incompatibilities.  Nevertheless, they made each other happy.  That always was the bottom line.

Kermit was also my first love.  Who wouldn't love him?!   His valiant efforts to embrace the chaos of "The Muppet Show," were always heralded with complete failure and yet he persevered.  Gonzo continued to blast out of cannons into unfortunate places in the studio.   Animal could not be contained and ate through the chair cushions.  Fozzy couldn't tell a good joke to save his life.  Guests stars were harrassed and harangued.  And on top of all of this, he was constantly being heckled by two geriatric men, looming in the balcony above him.  His was the job of the impossible--trying to contain life.

But to me, that was the greatest message of "The Muppet Show."  It's that life always went on.  That the chaos was, at best, barely manageable.  And that anything, if met with good friends and a lot of humor, was do-able.  It may come out as some motley ruin of what you expected it to be, but it DID COME OUT.  Kermit still went out at the beginning of every show, yelling with enthusiasm, and came out at the end, yelling with relief that it was done.  Somehow, the show still went on.  And in midst of that swirling, maddening chaos, there were moments of complete magic.  The moments couldn't be captured or bottled.  But they sprang up spontaneously: beautiful, hysterical and unimaginably great.  What a great metaphor for life.

Sitting down each evening in front of the TV at 6:30 pm during the 70's when "it's time to put on makeup" or "light the lights" may seem like a small thing.  But to me, it's been everything.  Like being in Honeydews lab with Beaker, it was the crazy explosion that lit up my life.  It was the magic--or at least the beginning of understanding what the magic felt and looked like.  It was laughter.  It was love.  It was life.

I may never have the chance to thank you personally Jim, but there is honestly almost never a day that goes by that I don't think of you and smile.  The precious gift of yourself that you shared with so many of us WAS the Rainbow Connection.   And all I can say, from the bottom of my Muppet loving heart, is thank you! "Kissy-kissy," always.

12-Year-Old Female Hormones--"I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore!"

Preface: I know I'm prone to hyperbole. Just roll with it.

 I'll admit. We are beginners to this adolescence thing. We're just starting in fact. Our oldest child, a girl, turned 12 this April and I have to say I've really enjoyed it for the most part. There are a lot of GREAT things about having a 12 year old in the house. However, this post is not about those things. This post is about the ONE THING that has the ability to trump and destroy all of the great virtues of having a great, twelve-year-old girl in the house. I call it, "Twelve-year-old Hormonal Mayhem," (a.k.a. "TAKE COVER AND RUN!)"

Now don't get me wrong. I remember quite well how it felt to be a twelve-year-old girl. I remember feeling outrageously wronged by my parents, overly self-conscious and crying inexplicably--a lot. And I'm the first in line to give our daughter my greatest and grandest sympathy at having to pass through this fiery, physical gauntlet of adolescence to adulthood. The fact that ANY of us survive this is truly a modern miracle!

That being said, being on the other side of the coin, as a parent, is like realizing that I just took up residence in Tornado Alley! Sudden, dramatic shifts in temperature and wind velocity are as common as house flies. Seemingly quiet, blue prairie skies can instantly turn into crashing, raging thunderstorms. At least with the weather, there are SOME indicators of a change. Not here. An innocuous dinner conversation can suddenly turn into a violent hailstorm that rips heads off and leaves body parts dangling by only a few tendons. When the sudden storm leaves the table, those of us left there stare incredulously at each other surveying the carnage and the aftermath. As the dust clears, we blink and wonder, "WHAT IN THE WORLD INSPIRED SUCH AN OUTPOURING OF WRATH!?" And that's just one dinner conversation! The litany of tempests continues at a breakneck pace! A simple comment about the encroaching time to depart for the bus will be met with a blast of wind that knocks everyone to the ground. Any type of discussion about trying to understand the "weather" will usually result in a punishing hurricane of wind, waves and water. A LOT of water! I hate to say it, but the weather pattern we are now in, if measured by emotional intensity, could rival Hurricane Katrina.

The even crazier thing is that after each storm and the resulting ruin, the atmosphere quiets and the true girl returns. The warm and sunny disposition shines, the melodic singing and dancing returns and the easy laughter is back. One wonders how something so sweet and beautiful could have been the cause of so much devastation! Jekyll and Hyde hardly seems to even capture the scope of it. We are DEFINITELY out of Kansas, and perhaps even OZ for that matter.

 I KNOW it gets better; the weather pattern quiets after a few years and becomes a little more manageable. But manageable is the key, operative word in that sentence. Let's face it. We'll never go back. The long, stretching, summer days of sunshine are gone. We will be subject to all four seasons now, and not in any particular order. Being a woman myself, I know there are times when I am still taken over by weather patterns that I don't understand. I've personally never made it back to Kansas since I was 12 years old. I'm not sure I ever will. (At this point, aren't you so JEALOUS of the fortunate men who get to live in this house?!)

So in the meantime, we'll just have to hunker down, buy a bunch of umbrellas, down coats and steel-toed shoes (probably at flipping Costco!) and try to weather the storms as best we can.  It's that, or I'm going to be relegated to writing the second part to Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Long Winter." Of course, the title of my book would have to be more like "The Very Long and Apocalyptically Cold and Devastating Winter." And for all our sakes, lets just pray it doesn't come to that.

"I Owe My Soul to the Company Store."

I can't help but replay this old Johnny Cash tune in my mind as I make my way to Costco for the third time in six days. My mental state is such that I can't go anywhere else to get goods, simply because my mind will berate me for making such a foolish choice when Costco is clearly the better consumer option. Selection, price and quality make it a hands-down favorite. What kills me is the quantity. I RARELY get out of Costco without dropping a hundred bucks. More often than not, its over double that.

Which leads me to my moral dilemma: as someone with religious conviction, I donate 10% of my income to charity; however, when I add up the total of all the money I spend at flipping Costco, the amount spent at Costco trumps my charitable contributions. Can a man, or a woman for that matter, serve God and mammon? The answer is no. So it begs the question, "who am I serving?" It seems that my need for massive amounts of Hebrew National Franks, muffins and no-pulp Tropicana Orange juice is trumping my need to administer to the needs of those around me. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness nearly as much as I do for giant, ruby grapes, Greek yogurt or the huge box of single-serving Pringles.

What is a sinner like me to do? Perhaps Costco would be kind enough to set up a small shrine at the entrance of the warehouse for those of us who worship there to burn incense or cross ourselves at an icon. Perhaps prayer mats could be sold at the front of the warehouse. At the very least, we're allowed put our name on a shamrock denoting our good deeds for the Childrens' Miracle Network once a year and call it good. But somehow, I still don't feel good. It doesn't assuage my guilt. St. Peter still can't call on me. Because, in spite of my most concerted efforts, I continue to worship the Warehouse God of fresh strawberries, giant stacks of paper products and irresistible chocolate-dunked, almond-covered, ice cream bars. There is little hope for me. I am a lost soul. Or rather, I sold it...to the company store.