Veronica Mixon's Blog - Posts Tagged "savannah"
Karma, Koi and Kindergarten
I’ve always loved the idea of karma. It seems fair and just that our future is determined by our past actions, good and bad. The nicer you are, the better your life. But what if someone inadvertently does something horrible? What then? Are they still destined for a terrible fate?
This conundrum awakened me at three AM last Thursday--that and a thunderstorm and one too many glasses of merlot that stretched my bladder to the size of the Goodyear blimp. As I pondered this baffling dilemma, one of my grandsons came to mind.
Early on we nicknamed this grandson Angler. The child had a fish-fetish. His favorite toy was his collection of plastic fish bait, and he'd spend hours separating and categorizing hundreds of slimy, squiggly worms into colors and sizes and place them in separate compartments in his fishing box that was roughly the diameter of my double-oven.
When Angler was five-years-old, his aunt gave him a beautiful cobalt blue Beta fish. Angler named his new friend Oscar, placed his fishbowl on his bedroom dresser, and told him all his five-year-old problems--his mom never made pizza anymore, his baby sister broke his favorite GI Joe action figure, Toy-R-Us filed for bankruptcy.
Angler loved Oscar. Loved to feed him, loved to help clean his bowl. One Saturday morning Angler's mom walked into his room and noticed Angler reading to his stuffed animals. He’d carefully placed each furry friend and his GI Joes in rows simulating his kindergarten class set up. Angler stood in front reading his favorite Dr. Seuss book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Mom smiled, turned to leave and noticed Oscar’s empty bowl. Just as mom was about to pop the obvious question, she saw Oscar, dead center, on the front row.
School ended early that day, Oscar received a proper shoebox funeral, and a broken-hearted little Angler learned the difference between lungs and gills and why fish lived in water.
Angler’s aunt replaced Oscar the next day with another shimmering blue and orange Beta fish. Angler named his new fish Oscar. A few days later, Angler asked to take a tub bath, and at some point, after his mother settled him in the water and left to check on his sister, Angler decided "Hey, Oscar ought to expand his horizons, swim in a more prominent bowl." After another shoebox funeral, sad little Angler understood that Beta fish, like Oscar, could only live in cool, fresh water and didn’t need bubble baths to stay clean.
Angler cried himself to sleep, and his dad, feeling somewhat responsible for his son’s misunderstanding, came home early from work the following day and carried Angler to the pet store to pick out another fish. Angler chose a glistening yellow and blue Beta fish with a long sweeping fin. Angler named him Oscar and begged to have Oscar in his room. After a stern reminder that fish only lived in cool fresh water, his dad relented.
On Saturday, dad cleaned the pool and Angler took the opportunity to go for a swim. Ten minutes into Angler's swim, dad noticed Oscar in the deep-end not doing so well. After the third shoebox funeral, mom and dad explained to a heartsick little Angler that he’d best wait a few years before getting another Oscar.
That same year my husband and I bought a house with a backyard pond that was home to five beautiful koi. I’m not sure who was more excited, Angler or I. I added three different types of water lilies to give my new fish more shade, added one additional pump for the waterfall for more water oxygenation, purchased the best color enhancing fish food, and added snails to control dreaded pond algae. Every morning I visited my new happy place, enjoyed my coffee and gave thanks for the serenity and beauty of my peaceful surroundings.
Several years later, my husband and I booked our dream vacation, a three-week European cruise. My next-door neighbor graciously offered to feed my koi in our absence. Upon our return, our pond resembled the home of the Lake Neck Monster on a Saturday afternoon Creature Feature. Long, slimy, strings of algae floated on top of the water, and I couldn’t even see the fish through the pea soup green water. I maxed-out my credit card and purchased a gallon of liquid gold disguised as a chemical safe for lilies and koi and strong enough to kill algae and carefully administered the solution into my skimmer. The next morning, I poured a cup of coffee, walked out to my pond and stared at five-bloated koi floating in green sludge.
After my engineering husband dug a hole large enough for five shoeboxes, he explained that I’d added a zero to my calculations for the amount of liquid I needed for a two thousand gallon pond.
I mourned my fish babies every day for six months. But a backyard pond needs more than water and lilies, so four months ago I ordered koi from a certified, disease-free farm in California. Five three-inch koi arrived the next day, via overnight FedEx delivery.
After carefully reading the proper instructions, I released my babies, one by one, into their new environment of waterfalls, rock ledges, and artificial caves designed to protect them from hungry predators. I diligently added pellets to the food ring every morning and searched for any evidence that the fish had acclimated to their new home.
Not once in the next six weeks did I spot a fish swimming in my pond, and the pellets remained untouched in the food ring. Beyond sad, I attributed the disappearance of my koi to the raccoons who often visited my bird feeders at night and vowed a moratorium on raising fish.
Last Thursday, while cutting back a bed of dead Agapanthus planted near the pond, I caught a flash of shimmering white and orange. I stood mesmerized as a six-inch koi darted in and out of the two caves. My heart zoomed with joy, then a stab of guilt seized and squeezed. The little guy must be starving.
I ran to the storeroom, measured out pellets and poured them into the food ring. How had he survived for two and half months with no food? Maybe the snails? I didn’t know, but he looked happy and healthy zipping around.
I called Angler to tell him the good news. We decided to name him Oscar.
Now about that karma thing…
This conundrum awakened me at three AM last Thursday--that and a thunderstorm and one too many glasses of merlot that stretched my bladder to the size of the Goodyear blimp. As I pondered this baffling dilemma, one of my grandsons came to mind.
Early on we nicknamed this grandson Angler. The child had a fish-fetish. His favorite toy was his collection of plastic fish bait, and he'd spend hours separating and categorizing hundreds of slimy, squiggly worms into colors and sizes and place them in separate compartments in his fishing box that was roughly the diameter of my double-oven.
When Angler was five-years-old, his aunt gave him a beautiful cobalt blue Beta fish. Angler named his new friend Oscar, placed his fishbowl on his bedroom dresser, and told him all his five-year-old problems--his mom never made pizza anymore, his baby sister broke his favorite GI Joe action figure, Toy-R-Us filed for bankruptcy.
Angler loved Oscar. Loved to feed him, loved to help clean his bowl. One Saturday morning Angler's mom walked into his room and noticed Angler reading to his stuffed animals. He’d carefully placed each furry friend and his GI Joes in rows simulating his kindergarten class set up. Angler stood in front reading his favorite Dr. Seuss book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Mom smiled, turned to leave and noticed Oscar’s empty bowl. Just as mom was about to pop the obvious question, she saw Oscar, dead center, on the front row.
School ended early that day, Oscar received a proper shoebox funeral, and a broken-hearted little Angler learned the difference between lungs and gills and why fish lived in water.
Angler’s aunt replaced Oscar the next day with another shimmering blue and orange Beta fish. Angler named his new fish Oscar. A few days later, Angler asked to take a tub bath, and at some point, after his mother settled him in the water and left to check on his sister, Angler decided "Hey, Oscar ought to expand his horizons, swim in a more prominent bowl." After another shoebox funeral, sad little Angler understood that Beta fish, like Oscar, could only live in cool, fresh water and didn’t need bubble baths to stay clean.
Angler cried himself to sleep, and his dad, feeling somewhat responsible for his son’s misunderstanding, came home early from work the following day and carried Angler to the pet store to pick out another fish. Angler chose a glistening yellow and blue Beta fish with a long sweeping fin. Angler named him Oscar and begged to have Oscar in his room. After a stern reminder that fish only lived in cool fresh water, his dad relented.
On Saturday, dad cleaned the pool and Angler took the opportunity to go for a swim. Ten minutes into Angler's swim, dad noticed Oscar in the deep-end not doing so well. After the third shoebox funeral, mom and dad explained to a heartsick little Angler that he’d best wait a few years before getting another Oscar.
That same year my husband and I bought a house with a backyard pond that was home to five beautiful koi. I’m not sure who was more excited, Angler or I. I added three different types of water lilies to give my new fish more shade, added one additional pump for the waterfall for more water oxygenation, purchased the best color enhancing fish food, and added snails to control dreaded pond algae. Every morning I visited my new happy place, enjoyed my coffee and gave thanks for the serenity and beauty of my peaceful surroundings.
Several years later, my husband and I booked our dream vacation, a three-week European cruise. My next-door neighbor graciously offered to feed my koi in our absence. Upon our return, our pond resembled the home of the Lake Neck Monster on a Saturday afternoon Creature Feature. Long, slimy, strings of algae floated on top of the water, and I couldn’t even see the fish through the pea soup green water. I maxed-out my credit card and purchased a gallon of liquid gold disguised as a chemical safe for lilies and koi and strong enough to kill algae and carefully administered the solution into my skimmer. The next morning, I poured a cup of coffee, walked out to my pond and stared at five-bloated koi floating in green sludge.
After my engineering husband dug a hole large enough for five shoeboxes, he explained that I’d added a zero to my calculations for the amount of liquid I needed for a two thousand gallon pond.
I mourned my fish babies every day for six months. But a backyard pond needs more than water and lilies, so four months ago I ordered koi from a certified, disease-free farm in California. Five three-inch koi arrived the next day, via overnight FedEx delivery.
After carefully reading the proper instructions, I released my babies, one by one, into their new environment of waterfalls, rock ledges, and artificial caves designed to protect them from hungry predators. I diligently added pellets to the food ring every morning and searched for any evidence that the fish had acclimated to their new home.
Not once in the next six weeks did I spot a fish swimming in my pond, and the pellets remained untouched in the food ring. Beyond sad, I attributed the disappearance of my koi to the raccoons who often visited my bird feeders at night and vowed a moratorium on raising fish.
Last Thursday, while cutting back a bed of dead Agapanthus planted near the pond, I caught a flash of shimmering white and orange. I stood mesmerized as a six-inch koi darted in and out of the two caves. My heart zoomed with joy, then a stab of guilt seized and squeezed. The little guy must be starving.
I ran to the storeroom, measured out pellets and poured them into the food ring. How had he survived for two and half months with no food? Maybe the snails? I didn’t know, but he looked happy and healthy zipping around.
I called Angler to tell him the good news. We decided to name him Oscar.
Now about that karma thing…
There's Cool and Then There's Circus Cool
My husband and I live squarely in the world of blended families. He had four sons when we married, and we have a daughter. Add in eleven grandkids and when our gang gets together we have twenty-one unique personalities in the same house. And we're an animal-loving group, so we also have the nine dogs, a couple of cats and one rabbit, each with their own sweet little ADD and OCD personalities. Oh, yeah, that’s fun!
But we have a lot of “cool” in our family. Each family member has some level of cool, something exceptional and unique, something beyond their DNA that makes him or her spectacular.
But most people would say the highest-ranking cool member in our gang of twenty-one is our Brooklyn son. I mean just living in Brooklyn is cool, right? And Brooklyn has the whole Johnny-Depp-bad-boy-vibe-thing going on.
He works hard to give the impression he’s oblivious to the level of cool that swirls around him like Zorro’s cape. But I’m not buying it.
Once, he and I were standing in line at an airport Starbucks behind an attractive middle-aged woman. She casually turned, took one look at Brooklyn with his shoulder-length black hair, riveting dark eyes, and reared back. The blood drained from the poor woman’s face, and a second later her eyes morphed into hungry-predator. She licked her lips and whispered, “Oh, my God.” Yeah, that happened.
Even though Brooklyn is six-foot-two, lean and muscular, I wanted to throw my one-hundred-thirty-pound flabby self in front of him and use my body as a human shield against the hussy-cougar. But instead, Brooklyn flashed his box-office Oscar-worthy smile, and the pouncing cougar turned tomato red and went mute. I took pity on her, laughed, and said, “He is pretty, isn’t he.”
I used to refer to Brooklyn as my little vagabond because he loved to ramble. And just so you know, you’re not a true vagabond if you stoop so low as to make a hotel reservation, use a map, or heck, even have a rough idea of where you’ll be three days from now.
Brooklyn is one of those guys who’ll decide to go clubbing at midnight and end up dancing the night away with Gwen Stefani. Yes, that also happened. He’s just that cool.
Our therapist daughter and Brooklyn not only love each other, they like each other, and they often go out when she visits him in NYC.
She complains that clubbing with her brother Brooklyn is exhausting. Evidently, all the single females in the club experience the pouncing-Tigger-syndrome and vie to become her bestie. But The Therapist isn’t fooled.
What these women really want is to make eye contact with Brooklyn. They want an introduction, they want a phone number, they want to fall in love and have his baby. The Therapist says it’s worse if the club has a decent band because Brooklyn-boy can dance.
Next on the list of the coolest family members is our granddaughter, Dancing-Beauty, who dreams of flying in the circus. In my opinion, circus cool ranks at the very top of the family cool meter. I mean really who doesn’t love the idea of walking a tightrope, or swinging on one of those trapeze bars in those cute little outfits?
Our little Dancing-Beauty is content to navigate the lanes of life on her own, and frankly, you're not invited on her trip. After all, she knows where she’s headed and if you don’t see it, well, that’s your short-sightedness. As a three-year-old, she walked into my kitchen after sleeping until eleven o’clock one morning announcing she was aware the early bird captured the worm, but, she asked, who likes worms anyway? Yep, she views our universe with a different set of rose-colored glasses. Her lens is more of a kaleidoscope.
And our Dancing-Beauty not only dreams of being in the circus, she works her butt off training. She’s in her last year of college, and I have no doubt next year I’ll be in Vegas, popping Xanax, watching her fly, swing, and balance on razor-thin bars thousands of feet in the air.
But we have a lot of “cool” in our family. Each family member has some level of cool, something exceptional and unique, something beyond their DNA that makes him or her spectacular.
But most people would say the highest-ranking cool member in our gang of twenty-one is our Brooklyn son. I mean just living in Brooklyn is cool, right? And Brooklyn has the whole Johnny-Depp-bad-boy-vibe-thing going on.
He works hard to give the impression he’s oblivious to the level of cool that swirls around him like Zorro’s cape. But I’m not buying it.
Once, he and I were standing in line at an airport Starbucks behind an attractive middle-aged woman. She casually turned, took one look at Brooklyn with his shoulder-length black hair, riveting dark eyes, and reared back. The blood drained from the poor woman’s face, and a second later her eyes morphed into hungry-predator. She licked her lips and whispered, “Oh, my God.” Yeah, that happened.
Even though Brooklyn is six-foot-two, lean and muscular, I wanted to throw my one-hundred-thirty-pound flabby self in front of him and use my body as a human shield against the hussy-cougar. But instead, Brooklyn flashed his box-office Oscar-worthy smile, and the pouncing cougar turned tomato red and went mute. I took pity on her, laughed, and said, “He is pretty, isn’t he.”
I used to refer to Brooklyn as my little vagabond because he loved to ramble. And just so you know, you’re not a true vagabond if you stoop so low as to make a hotel reservation, use a map, or heck, even have a rough idea of where you’ll be three days from now.
Brooklyn is one of those guys who’ll decide to go clubbing at midnight and end up dancing the night away with Gwen Stefani. Yes, that also happened. He’s just that cool.
Our therapist daughter and Brooklyn not only love each other, they like each other, and they often go out when she visits him in NYC.
She complains that clubbing with her brother Brooklyn is exhausting. Evidently, all the single females in the club experience the pouncing-Tigger-syndrome and vie to become her bestie. But The Therapist isn’t fooled.
What these women really want is to make eye contact with Brooklyn. They want an introduction, they want a phone number, they want to fall in love and have his baby. The Therapist says it’s worse if the club has a decent band because Brooklyn-boy can dance.
Next on the list of the coolest family members is our granddaughter, Dancing-Beauty, who dreams of flying in the circus. In my opinion, circus cool ranks at the very top of the family cool meter. I mean really who doesn’t love the idea of walking a tightrope, or swinging on one of those trapeze bars in those cute little outfits?
Our little Dancing-Beauty is content to navigate the lanes of life on her own, and frankly, you're not invited on her trip. After all, she knows where she’s headed and if you don’t see it, well, that’s your short-sightedness. As a three-year-old, she walked into my kitchen after sleeping until eleven o’clock one morning announcing she was aware the early bird captured the worm, but, she asked, who likes worms anyway? Yep, she views our universe with a different set of rose-colored glasses. Her lens is more of a kaleidoscope.
And our Dancing-Beauty not only dreams of being in the circus, she works her butt off training. She’s in her last year of college, and I have no doubt next year I’ll be in Vegas, popping Xanax, watching her fly, swing, and balance on razor-thin bars thousands of feet in the air.
A Case for Reincarnation
When I think of reincarnation, defined as the rebirth of a soul in a new body, one of my granddaughters is my personal case study. While DNA, our inherited characteristics such as blood groups, or hair color, or eye color, might be interesting, it's not mystifying.
Mystifying is the granddaughter my husband calls Precious. Her emotional bond with my husband, her grandfather, is so complete that I figure they must’ve been married in a past life. I started noticing her infatuation with her papa when she was three years old and we picked her up from preschool. She climbed into the car, and I asked if she’d had a nice day.
“We colored,” Precious said.
“What’d you color,” I asked
She opened her backpack, pulled out a purple cat’s head. “This is for you, Papa.”
I waited.
Precious pulled out another multi-colored cat picture. Her eyes rounded to roughly the size of a bread plate. “Wait.” She snatched the first picture out of my husband’s hand and handed it to me. “That’s yours, Nana.” She handed her papa the second cat picture. “Papa, yours is a picture of the whole cat.”
Precious tilted her head, smiled, came close to batting her baby blues.
After that incident, I began to take notice of the little things. Precious would arrive at our house with a present for her papa, but not one for me. A wrapped rock or a chipped cat's eye marble, once a picture of her and her papa she thought he might want for his desk. She insisted on sitting by her papa at dinner, sitting in his lap when we watched TV, sleeping between us when she spent the night. Actually, she suggested I might be more comfortable sleeping down the hall. Precious was relentless.
At first, the mini-love affair was cute; then it started to hurt my heart. I was the one who took her shopping, cooked her favorites for dinner, baked her birthday cakes and braided her hair. But in Precious's opinion, I teetered somewhere between babysitter and domestic help. Her heart was all Papa's.
Back then, my husband and our oldest three sons worked together in our family business. I’d arrive at the office and find a drawing on my desk that Precious had sent in with her dad. My pictures were usually painted with one crayon and half-finished. Precious's paintings for her papa were more in line with the Monet garden series.
When Precious turned five she discovered email. She’d send me a short five-word message. “hi nana write me back.” My husband would get a rambling love letter spouting her devotion. And just to stick that serrated Bowie knife a little deeper in my heart, she'd attach special effects to her papa's email worthy of New York City’s 4th of July fireworks display.
When she was six, my husband and I retired, sold the business to our three oldest sons, and moved three hundred miles away. One day, the phone rang and I recognized Precious’s voice.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m so glad you called,” I said. “Nana misses you so much. Do you miss Nana?”
“Well,” she said. “I really miss Papa.”
“Okay, then.” I thrust the phone into my husband's chest. I'm not proud of this, but I actually stalked out of the kitchen, went to our bedroom and polished off his Godiva Valentine candy.
Our Precious is in college now, but her long-term boyfriend understands he comes in a distant second to her papa.
A couple of months back, my husband took out the trash and came face-to-snout with an eight-foot alligator snoozing in our courtyard. I stood on our porch and snapped a photo, then posted it on Facebook. Precious's response, “Don’t let that vile reptile near my Papa.”
You think she was kidding, but I know this girl. She expected me to launch my body like a human grenade at that gator and protect her papa.
Now that I think about it, maybe she wasn't his wife in another life. Maybe she was his mother!
Mystifying is the granddaughter my husband calls Precious. Her emotional bond with my husband, her grandfather, is so complete that I figure they must’ve been married in a past life. I started noticing her infatuation with her papa when she was three years old and we picked her up from preschool. She climbed into the car, and I asked if she’d had a nice day.
“We colored,” Precious said.
“What’d you color,” I asked
She opened her backpack, pulled out a purple cat’s head. “This is for you, Papa.”
I waited.
Precious pulled out another multi-colored cat picture. Her eyes rounded to roughly the size of a bread plate. “Wait.” She snatched the first picture out of my husband’s hand and handed it to me. “That’s yours, Nana.” She handed her papa the second cat picture. “Papa, yours is a picture of the whole cat.”
Precious tilted her head, smiled, came close to batting her baby blues.
After that incident, I began to take notice of the little things. Precious would arrive at our house with a present for her papa, but not one for me. A wrapped rock or a chipped cat's eye marble, once a picture of her and her papa she thought he might want for his desk. She insisted on sitting by her papa at dinner, sitting in his lap when we watched TV, sleeping between us when she spent the night. Actually, she suggested I might be more comfortable sleeping down the hall. Precious was relentless.
At first, the mini-love affair was cute; then it started to hurt my heart. I was the one who took her shopping, cooked her favorites for dinner, baked her birthday cakes and braided her hair. But in Precious's opinion, I teetered somewhere between babysitter and domestic help. Her heart was all Papa's.
Back then, my husband and our oldest three sons worked together in our family business. I’d arrive at the office and find a drawing on my desk that Precious had sent in with her dad. My pictures were usually painted with one crayon and half-finished. Precious's paintings for her papa were more in line with the Monet garden series.
When Precious turned five she discovered email. She’d send me a short five-word message. “hi nana write me back.” My husband would get a rambling love letter spouting her devotion. And just to stick that serrated Bowie knife a little deeper in my heart, she'd attach special effects to her papa's email worthy of New York City’s 4th of July fireworks display.
When she was six, my husband and I retired, sold the business to our three oldest sons, and moved three hundred miles away. One day, the phone rang and I recognized Precious’s voice.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m so glad you called,” I said. “Nana misses you so much. Do you miss Nana?”
“Well,” she said. “I really miss Papa.”
“Okay, then.” I thrust the phone into my husband's chest. I'm not proud of this, but I actually stalked out of the kitchen, went to our bedroom and polished off his Godiva Valentine candy.
Our Precious is in college now, but her long-term boyfriend understands he comes in a distant second to her papa.
A couple of months back, my husband took out the trash and came face-to-snout with an eight-foot alligator snoozing in our courtyard. I stood on our porch and snapped a photo, then posted it on Facebook. Precious's response, “Don’t let that vile reptile near my Papa.”
You think she was kidding, but I know this girl. She expected me to launch my body like a human grenade at that gator and protect her papa.
Now that I think about it, maybe she wasn't his wife in another life. Maybe she was his mother!
