A story

A woman was taking a much-needed vacation to Florida, after enduring the break-up of her marriage, the loss of her job – since her ex had been a friend of the boss – and a number of other miseries.

Strolling alone on the beach one morning, barefoot in the sand, comforting herself with a Capri Menthol and contemplations of better days, she spied a brass lamp ahead of her, half buried above the surf line.

Not being a woman who passed up opportunity, she scooped it up and gave it a rub. A rather odd-looking genie appeared. He appeared forlorn rather than feisty. Much like herself.

“This is a non-smoking beach,” the genie said, jerking his purplish thumb towards the woman’s cigarette.

“Your lamp might make a nice ashtray,” she warned, not in the mood to take guff from another man, especially a purple one.

He thrust his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, keep the smoke. But I can’t wish away the fine if the warden catches you.”

“Warden?” she snickered. “You are one confused little genie. Wardens hunt for poachers, not smokers.”

The genie threw up his hands again. “So sue me. I’m a foreigner.”

“Ah, you don’t look as foreign as some of the university freaks I’ve seen around here,” the woman said, taking another drag of her Capri.

“I will take that as a compliment,” said the genie.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” said the woman.

“Look, I ain’t no ordinary genie,” the apparition said.

“Is there such a thing?” the woman asked, exhaling a stream of smoke purposefully at him.

The genie coughed and said:“Yes, there is. Most of us grant three wishes. You know the drill.”

“You can give the coughing routine a rest,” she said, “since you are made of smoke anyway. You men are all alike. Playing your head games.”

“I could say something about you dames, too,” the genie grumbled.

“’Dames’ hasn’t been in the lingo since the ‘40s, genie,” the woman said. “Who taught you English, Al Capone? Just run the wishes routine and get lost. I’m in no mood for men right now, of any kind.”

“Sheesh, what ingratitude,” the genie said. “Like I tried to tell you, I ain’t no ordinary genie.”

“Ain’t isn’t proper English,” said the woman. “So what makes you special, Archie Bunker Genie Boy?”

“I don’t grant wishes, I grant curses,” the spirit said. “Just one, please.”
The woman sighed and sat down upon the sand. “Figures. Men and curses, a natural pair.”

“You don’t get it, lady. I grant you a curse on someone else, anyone. The ether of the universe has sensed the injustice that you have suffered and wishes to balance the cosmic scales.

“You may wish upon your enemy death, poverty or a debilitating disease. You may curse him to be the victim of identity theft. Or to hear Muzak constantly in his head. Or to have chronically irritated bowels, incurable flatulence, bad breath, insomnia or a lazy eye. Or to be impotent, unemployable, itchy, annoying to all who meet him. I assume, since I have been sent here, that you DO have an enemy.”

The woman took a long, thoughtful drag on her cigarette, staring off into the distance across the waves.

“Yeah, I do,” she said, finally.

“Well, what shall it be then?” he asked. “I could give him horrendous heartburn. I could make a harpy fall in love with him and drag him through hell. The real one. Not the metaphor.”

“Care for a drag?” said the woman, extending her cigarette.

“Don’t tell no one,” said the genie, gingerly taking the Capri from the woman. “But thanks.”

He blew a perfect ring that danced away over the ocean and wiggled itself into the shape of a fish, ducking down into the waves and disappearing.

“Nice trick,” he said to himself, since the woman said nothing.

The woman sighed deeply.

“For my enemy, a man who once claimed to love me but broke all his vows, I wish …” she said.

The genie rubbed his purple hands together.

“… I wish him no evil but one,” she said. “I wish for him to have a conscience.”

###

Intelligence beneath your feet

How do you define intelligence?

Is it the ability to make tools? To reason out the solution to a problem?

I have been alerted today to the publication of a fascinating book, which almost sounds Star Trek-y in its depiction of the vast and mysterious intelligence living beneath our feet: fungi.

Fungi can colonize bare rock or thrive in a rich forest, or even the walls of your home. A fungal organism can live for thousands of years, be the size of a pinpoint or cover entire acres. They create partnerships with plants and even with viruses, and according to this author, they can possess a sentient awareness of their environment.

The linked article below certainly will get you to rethink these mysterious, ancient and essential "beings" -- neither plant nor animal.

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/_media/article/pdf/386_Stamets.pdf

Sunday morning

I am in my favorite place, one of them at least.

I am sitting in my little wooden chair, at my study room desk, looking out over the freshly mowed lawn into the woods beyond. The dandelions are daunted for a day and I can pretend that I have a real lawn, not a tapestry of weeds.

The apple trees have leafed out but a few clumps of white blossoms linger like leftover snow. The smooth bark of the big beech in the corner is now veiled behind the season's new growth.

Some bird is perched in the fig tree. A wasp is giving himself a concussion against the window pane. No sign of the resident chipmunk or ravenous, garden-ravaging rabbit yet today.

I almost wish I wasn't committed to go to church this morning but I owe a debt to the sacred.

The Chocolate Fruit

In the tropical parts of the world, the local folk enjoy a fruit called Black Sapote or the Chocolate Fruit.

The fruit flesh is "rich, dark brown colored and custard like ... with a sweet, nut-like mild flavor... when the pulp is blended with milk or ice cream, it tastes like mild chocolate ..."

I want me some sapote!

http://www.thefruitpages.com/chocolatefruit.shtml

Cranial Pilot

All that we experience, all that we do, depends wholly upon a blind, deaf, mute glob of cells lodged between our ears.

I am fascinated by that marvel of nature, the brain.

Every murder and every war, every kiss and every cuddle, had its origin up there. We have our cranial pilot to thank for every book ever written, every building ever built, every fire lit and every song sung.

Despite its bony helmet,the brain is terribly vulnerable. Any number of chemicals, from caffeine to nitrous oxide, to a slew of natural hormones, can knock it around like a wimp on a football field. We still don't know why some brains go haywire and drive their associated bodies to do horrible things -- and how much of an effect that pyschological trauma, such as a childhood $exual assault, can have on how the brain will behave later in life.

My own brain has a minor peculiarity, a sort of logjam for which I have no explanation. I will be faced with some complex project, unable to wrap my thoughts around it, daunted by the conundrum, sometimes for days -- and then all of a sudden, the logjam breaks, the answer flows free and all I can do is wonder what took so long and why I couldn't figure it out before.

Keys to Success

As I chewed through three years worth of newsclips, columns and Internet printouts this week, I came across two columns that I had saved. Both were written by men with much experience in working with children.

The first, by David Brooks with the New York Times, can be found at http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/opinion/07brooks.html?_r=1 .

The second, by Leonard Pitts with the Miami Herald, can be found here:
http://m.reporternews.com/news/2007/Aug/27/always-keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize/

Each writer discussed a certain, critical skill that every child must possess if he or She is to grow up to be a successful, happy member of society. One is the ability to delay gratification. The other is the ability to focus, to keep "one's eye on the prize."

Perhaps they are more or less the same thing.

Both columns discussed how children who were not taught or did not develop these skills, had a much higher rate of later failure in life, including incarceration.

Something to think about. Parenting is more than providing food, clothing and shelter.