Cleaning Up

Here's to Belle Star.
Do you remember her?
This is what she told me.

She told me once about her dog. Her dog had eaten a battery. Her dog was going to die. She was so upset with her dog for eating the battery she threatened it with her foot. She screamed things at her dog she wouldn't scream at a person, but out of love, despair. Sometimes, this can happen. And well, Belle Star was (is) a firecracker. Do you remember? She said, That f**king dog had me going f**king nuts! Then she poured peroxide down its throat and the battery came out steaming and the dog never looked so ashamed. Her dog, the dog that did this, had long ears. Its ears were so long that when it shook water from its coat, it hurt itself with its ears, Belle Star said. The way Belle Star kept butter bothered me. But I was too scared to say that butter should be served fresh, not stowed away in boxes in the freezer. Think of the insults she would have hurled my way. I think of her today because time does funny things to memories. I wonder what she's up to, but only a little bit, because if I knew too much more than that, I'm sure it would make me sad. Everyone has a little sadness in a side of them. Mine is in the past, and the past is in my face, I like to think. You can see it.

One summer, Mom took me and sis to a high school carnival and the woman running the fortune telling booth was my future gym teacher. But I didn't know then. I wouldn't know until a few years later when she blew a whistle in the high school gymnasium and introduced herself as Ms. Hill. She didn't look into my palms or a crystal ball, but at Mom's face, and it was enough for her to stop cracking pistachios on the table and really look. She told Mom that things were going to happen, some good and some bad and that there would be some luck involved. It was eerie, how spot on she was.

That summer, a boy I knew drowned in a pool because his heart had suddenly given out. The news upset everyone I knew and there was a jump rope marathon in his honor. We jumped and jumped and I thought about him, and I knew then that death was something that could happen to the old and the young. That's when I came to truly fear death.

Belle Star, that might have been your son, the boy who died in the swimming pool that summer. But it wasn't. But what if there was something like that that made you the way you are.

What were you thinking when the battery came back out? How long did it take you to clean up?

Oh!

Well. This is something. I wonder if this fellow would ship if I reached out to him.Now I am really curious.




















03.

Yakkety Yak

I wonder what butter made from Yak's milk would taste like. I don't know if I'll ever get my hands on Yaks milk though--they live in the Himalayan region. Carl Linnaeus called the yak a grunting ox. He was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, and I'm not sure if he liked butter or not. But if I had to guess, I would say yes, he enjoyed butter more than most people in the 18th century. He grew up in Rashult, and a photograph of his home looks like it was in the country. In his home, he learned Latin before Swedish, and in his home, he probably had fresh butter, the freshest. He never wrote about butter I'm sure, in Latin or Swedish, but if he did, I think he would write about butter fondly. Swedish butter must be delicious. There is less sunlight in Sweden than here in the winter and more sunlight in Sweden than here in the summer. Light can transform the palate. Light can transform so many things.

I want to make clarified butter. I want to make ghee. Gee, I've made ghee, I would say, probably to myself.

Where am I going? What is the point?

I say where are you going? What's your point!

Missing It

It's not that I don't love Dad. It's just hard to see him sometimes. In the dark, his face looks young because I can't see it. But in the light, it is old. When it's in the light, it is hard to see him because I know that there will be a time in my life when Dad won't be around. Does this happen to you?

Someone told me today at the Doggie Daycare that if you broke bags of water on a horse's back, it would calm down because it would think for a minute or two that it was its own blood. This was brought up because a dog named Bully was being wild. They wanted Bully to calm down. Someone suggested they toss water balloons at him, but someone else said that it probably wasn't a good idea. Monica wasn't at the Doggie Daycare. Someone else said it was because her car broke down and she lives in the city. I thought about her in her car with Loving Hand and Burning Sand in the backseat.

When I rode my bike, I needed gloves and a scarf. My face was entirely covered. I must have looked like a different person. The dogs barked and barked. I thought, I could ride on forever and they would still bark and bark.

In the house, Dad is watching TV. He turns the volume up, up, up! When it gets dark out, his face will glow like the TV. They are dissecting a cow's eye on TV. What is he watching? They cut away the fat from the cow's eye and dad takes a big bite out of a sandwich. He is thrilled. Inside the cow's eye, there is thick fluid. It is what I imagine silicone to look like. But it probably isn't like silicone at all.

I am low energy today. I am missing something I don't know. I must have know it once. That is how I know I am missing it.

Loving Hand, Burning Sand

Oh glory! Awake, awake, said someone in my ear. Then the voice disappeared and it was a warmer day out. This was not this morning, just to let you know. It was yesterday when it all happened, and it was a warmer day out.

I know. I said my resolution was to return to this blog with more vigor. But it is hard to be vigorous when you can't feel your arms or legs! That's how cold it's been. The arctic has a hand. The hand usually covers the arctic's head. But the hand has come down, down, down, has reached for places it hasn't reached for in a long time. The door handles are so cold. Our neighbor's pipes burst. Dad says it's so cold he can feel the grain of his heart. He can be so poetic sometimes. But I wonder if this is something serious. Something I should be worried about. I think of a heart being sanded. Sanded down and down.

I got on my bike and I started to ride and I never felt so good I couldn't believe it was real. There I went, around town, because I could without gloves and without a scarf. It was a small miracle. Well, the miracle got better as miracles often do. Praise be. The Doggie Daycare was giving a class outside and the dogs, all sorts--all shapes and sizes--were outside with their owners. I rode by and a man said, "Wait!" I stopped and waited.

These dogs had behavioral issues. They were troublemakers. Each one of them had done something bad to someone's hand in the past. One had even done something bad to someone's rear end. He asked me what I did. I said, "I make butter," even though it wasn't what I really do, do as in making a living, but it is something I love to do, to make butter makes my heart sing. The grain of my heart sings. The particles come flying off, sanded, and they sing. So he asked if I'd like to make some "fast cash." I said, "Yes, fast cash." He asked if I'd ride by the dogs on my bike. "Sure," I said. "I'd love."

That's what I did. I rode by like I was in a parade. Back and forth. I could have gone on like that forever. The dogs lunged. Their owner's arms grew straight and frenzied like swatting baseball bats. The dogs barked and dug their claws into the sidewalk. Doggie Daycare was alive and I was its pulse! "Curt," I thought. "You are a pulse! You are a winner!" And I was. I imagined I was in a bike race. I won each time I passed by the dogs.

Afterwards, I was given Gatorade. When I got off my bike, the dogs must have thought I was an angel. How well behaved they were. A woman introduced herself as "Monica." I liked that name very much and told her. "It has three syllables, and I don't meet many people with three syllable names." She thought about it for a long time and then she introduced her dogs. "This is Loving Hand and this is Burning Sand." What great names!

Fast cash is what I made. I must have rode my bike past those dogs at least ten times. And I made 20 dollars. "Come back," the man said. His name was John. When I rode away, I thought I could hear everyone say, "Come back, come back, Curt." But when I turned around, the Doggie Daycare was there without anyone outside it.

Da-thump da-thump.  

Bean Burgers and Resolution

Good evening! I just had some bean burgers. They were very delicious. While I was eating my bean burger, Dad asked me what my New Year's Resolution was. I told him. Well, I didn't know what to tell him. So I didn't tell him anything then. But now, I know what my resolution is! It is to try and write more entries for the Better Butter Blog! I do love butter!

Butter out,
Curt