Dear Wally 111
Dear Wally:
There are ladybugs flying around in February. Do something.
-TJ
Dear TJ:
I know! I know!
So, I woke up this warm February morning to an inchoate,
unsettling dream probably due to eating dinner too late. (Stay with me here,
this ramble actually does have something to do with ladybugs). There are consequences to eating too late,
and sometimes eating the wrong thing too, depending on your karmic
disposition--My sister’s husband, for example, is a conscripted and mostly unwilling
foot soldier in the vega-organitarian militia. He is allowed? (that sounds too
harsh—is encouraged? though that sounds disingenuous, too. Gets a hall pass? Yes, maybe that…from my
earth-muffin sister who will kill me (humanely, at least, one hopes) when she
reads this…) Anyway, he gets a hall
pass, let us say, to eat, without
judgment, spare ribs with high fructose sauce from a bpa-leeching plastic
container in revolting quantities once a
year on his birthday, which he promptly does with fervor and the sunken eyes of
a gaunt, sallow-skinned castaway. I’m
talking heavy hunks of system-shocking sanguine meat, wolfed down fast. Grrrrrrr-rufffff! Then it’s back to peeling off tree bark and
rooting around for ground nuts, legumes and fermented lawn clippings for the
next 364 days. (Yes, I will be killed
after this goes public).
After his birthday meal, my sister sets her watch and waits. The price he pays is that he wakes up at 3am
that next morning with what his ‘told ya so’ wife properly calls ‘meat dreams.’ Meat dreams are the horrific, out-of-body
nocturnal spasms of the manifested bad karma clunking its way through the
turbid, ill-prepared and under-resourced GI system.
Poor guy sits bolt upright arms out like Frankenstein. He babbles, drools, sweats hot Buffalo wing
sauce from his upper lip and moans like he’s been run over by an ice cream
truck and left for dead. He does this
all in an incoherent, zombie state. (In
addition to lunch, there’s no free dinner either, apparently). Morbidly curious, and ever happy to bust on
him, I will usually call the day AFTER
his birthday to , yes, ostensibly bid him happy belated birthday wishes (and
all), but really to hear how the night
went.
My bad dream this morning wasn’t fueled by spiritually unprocessed
meat in the least, even if I did eat too late.
(I had humanely raised , thoughtfully butchered, hand-holding teriyaki
tofu last night and thus am solidly clutching both handles of what I
believed to be a card –carrying –clean, karmic conscience). In addition to a square wheeled dream, I also
woke to the surprisingly loud flutter of a ladybug’s wing right by my daintily
pillowed ear. (Oh yes, now I remember,
we were talking about ladybugs…)
The insect world is supposed to be dormant for months to come, yet
these mild winter days have the disarming ability to rouse the rabble (punch-drunk
wasps and dazed stinkbugs inclusive).
This one particular ladybug cruised right by my head and in so doing
sounding like a C-30 military transport from the Stewart Air Nat. Guard
base. She landed on the pillow, inches
from my own embarrassing rivulet of drool.
I carefully poked this little thing with my index finger, smiled, and
sleepily said, “Hey there. Nice timing.”
The ladybug has assumed near mythic proportions around here (as
well as in 4 other households from Boulder to Boston to Rhode Island) as the
re-incarnate embodiment of my mother.
Sounds all new agey, I know, but when she abruptly died 16 years ago and
we four children and one father/ husband were left scratching our heads, and
really sad, we immediately started seeing ladybugs (which she really loved)
everywhere in places they shouldn’t be, and in stubborn, disagreeable
temperatures that do not generally support ladybug life (and barely human life,
if I may toss in a seasonal upstate NY area complaint).
As we kids each started having kids, and the heavy question of
grandma’s whereabouts invariably came up, we all sort of rolled with the idea
of regular visits from ‘Grandma Ladybug’ who might flit in at any time without
warning or invitation and park herself on a curtain, a spoon, or a window. Or maybe even a pillow. The idea is that 'Grandma Ladybug,' such as
she is, is almost faerie-like and certainly omniscient. She knows and likes the players, and she is
there to pay regular visits, to check in on, and look out for even the wee-ist
of the grandkids (and their parents, too, apparently). And also, we couldn’t really keep her away,
despite the repellant snake oil tonics and nards available.
Yes, well, in this extended family, and as a result, we have
fallen prey to the pervasive ladybug merchandising machine that hobbles gift
shops everywhere by consuming all available shelf space and then some. For our kids, the theme runs pillar to
post; blankets, slippers, socks, toothbrushes.
You name it. Almost every package
from Grandpa has a ladybug thing on it or in it. What should be rare or strangely timed
ladybug sightings are de rigueur for us.
Living in the country, especially on balmy late winter or early
spring days, there’s never a shortage of real ladybugs swarming and pacing the
window panes. Indeed, if you buy the
re-incarnation swap I’m peddling, any
old farm house of your choosing is teeming with well-intentioned,
dream-soothing, grandmotherly types.
To suffer the final ladybug coda in the dubious company of lint, dog
hair, dust, and dried crusties must be as prosaic as it is inevitable. What can we do other than clear them for
landing, let them do their ladybug (or grandmotherly/ faerie) bidding, and then
kick the ‘on’ switch on the vacuum and waste ‘em! Muwahahahaha!
Sorry, mom.
Hey TJ, I hope you get lots and lots of ladybug visits,
actually. Me too!
-Wally
Want to write a letter to our advice columnist or just send his brother in law a freshly
butchered steer in late August in exchange for a stealthy cellphone quality,
'meat dream' youtube video? Email
him at cwn4@aol.com
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