cheesy yard art and dali lama(s)

My husband brought home some more cheesy yard art. This one is a six foot tall windmill, metal, john deere green and yellow. It was in about a thousand pieces and it took him all evening and the entire slang dictionary to complete. The really pathetic thing is that I've always liked them. Always, in fact, wanted one. I am white trash. I give up. Pink flamingos and now a windmill. I don't think its a windmill, actually. It isn't like the Don Quixote ones with crossed arms and tulips. Its more industrial, with a pinwheel and a tail on top. LIke a shooting star only not. The flamingos are still in the yard. It was my bold idea to place them there and wait for them to walk off in the drunken night. But maybe drunks have changed. Maybe their taste in stealable, or moveable objects, has changed. I know when I was drunk, I stole anything that wasn't nailed down. One time I robbed Joyce Martin's house drunk on Yukon Jack. I didn't know it was Joyce's house. I'd never liked her that much, but wouldn't have robbed her on purpose. But there I was, robbing this house and the phone rang. I answered it. This is not usually done during robberies in case you didn't know. I answered the phone and identified myself. "what are you doing there?" she asked. A fair question. I told her, in my Yukon blur, that I was robbing her, but I justified my actions by assuring her I didn't know it was her place and I promised to put everything back. And I did, everything but a brass rooster. I don't know why. It seemed so valuable. Like the flamingos. I'd steal them in a minute.

There is a place I go, a place of like minded people sitting around talking about their commom malady, and it seems to me that wherever I end up (new town), there is a lama among them. I do not aspire to the position. Rather am content to sit at their feet and soak up the off-handed wisdom. Where I used to be, the lama's name was Don. Then Don died and Jack showed up. Simple men, utterly unaware of their lama-hood. They are usually men although I'm not certain this is a requirement. This one's name is Martin. He's a monk. A storyteller. He said, "If I was God, I'd like us.I'd want to sit with us." He didn't say, "I think God likes us." Big difference. He wasn't speaking for God as so many do. -- It was my husband's first anniversary last night, and Martin gave us a loaf of homemade raisin bread. Made by the monks. It is heavy, a good five pounds. I'm sure it is wonderful, although I don't eat carbs and I think any lama worth his salt would know that. But then again it wasn't my birthday. In fact it had nothing to do with me. At any rate, after the meeting Martin said, "come with me." So I followed him out to his car. Now, most of the time at these meetings, you wouldn't just do that. If some guy said "come with me" a respectable married lady like myself would nicely say "fuck off buddy" but I just followed the lama out there like a puppy.

It is good to begin to know faces and names, to be one of many. I am less a stranger in a strange land every day.