Planter Boxes

Mac sat in the yard, with the hose in a bucket, soap on himself, Cheese, and a pile of Cheese’s most prized toys and other favorite things. Del rode up, slightly wobbily, on their roller skates. “Hey! What are you two doing today?” Mac waved a soapy arm. “Hey! I’m cleaning Cheese’s house, and his stuff, and him, and me too.” Mac said laughing, and pointed, to a damp, but scrubbed, Cheese house, now brighter, on the outside, the smell of damp dog and soap wafting over on the breeze. Del leaned on the fence where some of Cheese’s blankets, scrubbed and washed, hung in the sun to dry, and reached down to scratch behind Cheese’s ears. His head was damp, and he wagged his tail at the attention, flicking water with each wag. Del laughed. Mac shook some soapy water off of his arms and dumped out the bucket onto some wildflowers near the road, the dry ground soaking up the water quickly. He turned on the squeaky spigot to fill the bucket back up to rinse some toys off, and went to get a box of things off of the porch. “Want to help me touch up the paint on Cheese’s house?” he held a cardboard box with brushes and jars with paint, a hammer, nails, a saw, and some pieces of wood pulled off from some pallets they had found back on a trail behind the convenience store. “I’m also going to fix some of my aunt’s planter boxes. ” Del peaked inside the box. “Roe gave me some paint from his brother’s workshop that we’re allowed to use, he had some baby food jars from when he watches his cousins, so I didn’t have to take the whole paint cans.” There were a few colors in the box, and now that it was scrubbed off, Cheese’s house had some clean, but bare spots. Del sat on the porch step, and began to untie the doubleknotted, sparkly laces on their skates.

Blood Drive

Roe, Del, Mac and Cheese were walking back from the library where Mac had been putting up some fliers to try and get people interested in a new writing group he’d had an idea for after he went with his aunt to open mic a couple of times: “Comics and Comics!” the flier he put up had read. He had been interested in figuring out how to write jokes beforehand, like his aunt did for open mic, and put them in his comics. When he was making the fliers to put up he had told his aunt his idea. “That’s very cool!” I bet you’ll end up with the most fun comics around!” She had said, in between bites of a piece of fruit.

Roe and Del were discussing another flier they had seen there: “Volunteers wanted: Blood Drive! Help Hand out Cookies, and Blankets!” Roe took a stick offered by Cheese as they walked, and threw it off into a field for him to chase, watching him run excitedly through the grass. “The thing is,” Roe continued to Del after throwing the stick, “blood is super gross.” Del shrugged. “It’s not like you’re taking a bunch home, its for hospitals or whatever.” Roe shivered, “I guess.” and crinkled his nose looking at the flier. “Do we also get cookies, or do we only give them to the other people?” Del shrugged. “I dunno, we’ll have to ask.” Mac looked over at their flier. “Do you bring the blankets from home?” Del shrugged again. “I’m not sure. My brother went to a blood drive before and he said they give blood to hospitals for people who need it, but I didn’t know people could go and do stuff besides give blood, so I’m gonna ask.” Mac nodded. “If we don’t have to give our own actual blood, I might go.” Del nodded sagely, “I think you have to be a certain age and show your ID and stuff, and none us us have those yet.” Roe looked at the flier again. “Then maybe its ok. I don’t like getting shots either.” Mac pointed at Cheese, walking along dragging a bigger stick. “Cheese doesn’t like shots either, you guys are twins!” and they laughed.

They turned down the road towards all their homes. Del’s came up first. “You all want to come in and have some cocoa?” Del asked pulling open their screen door. “Yeah!” Roe said, jumping up the couple of steps to the porch. Cheese already knew the drill at Del’s house, and left his stick next to the porch, as Mac wiped his feet quickly on a rug outside and everyone went inside the kitchen. “The packets are in the cupboard right there.” Del said, pointing above Mac’s head, as Cheese rushed in to a comfy spot in the sun, next to a chair. Del got out a kettle and filled it with water, putting it on the stove, and Mac got out the packets of cocoa. “Can I use this mug?” Roe asked, getting them all cups down from another cupboard, “it’s my favorite color.” He held up a teal one that Del had made in a pottery class they took one summer. “Sure! Get me that Garfield one”, Del said, and Mac, stood on tiptoe looking around for the one he liked: a sunglasses wearing smiley face that read, ‘You’re Doing Awesome!’, which he took down and put on the table.

Del took the flier, “I’m gonna call and ask about this while the kettle heats up.” Mac nodded, and got out some drawings he was working on from his bag. Roe looked over at them, “I like that one, is that a shark?”. “Yeah, it’s a shark that can fly though, it’s one that lives in the water in the clouds, but it’s not really a funny one.” Roe looked at the pictures. “Those are great clouds.” Del dialed the phone, with the long coiled cord hanging down to the floor. “Hello?” they said, “Is this the person who put up the flier about volunteers for the blood drive? I have some questions.” Some quiet chattering proceeded out of the other end of the phone and Del listened. “Umm-hm, ok, yeah, I would like to volunteer, but I wanted to know is it only for people who are certain ages?” More chattering. “Me and some friends were thinking about coming to hand out cookies and blankets and stuff, but we weren’t sure if we were old enough or had to bring those from home, or how that worked, we’ve never been to a blood drive.” The phone chattered again for a while and Del wrote some things down on a pad of paper next to the phone. “OK cool, thanks!” Del said, and hung up the phone. Roe looked up from the cloud drawings. “The person said that they have a permission slip at the community center we can come pick up to get signed since there’s going to be blood. Also, they have their own blankets and cookies, to hand out, so we don’t need to bring any from home.” “Mac sipped some more on his mug. “I kinda started to want to make some cookies anyway, we should make some after we go pick up those permission slips.”

Del’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! I forgot to show you!” They got down a recipe book they kept in a cupboard next to some other recipe books, with ideas, instructions, doodles, cut outs from packages, and lots of other recipes mixed up inside it. Del let it fall open, and turned a few pages, then stopped at a tab. “Here!” They said, slamming the book down in front of the other two, causing a sleeping Cheese to jump a little on the rug. “Check it out! My latest find!” Del pointed to a newspaper clipping detailing some very artfully cookie-cuttered homemade dog treats. “I have a whole section in here for Cheese snacks.” Del said. “It’s this green tab.” Mac pushed aside his shark momentarily, and read the recipe. “Wow, this is a lot of his favorites, he loves pumpkins and blueberries!” They all looked over at him, and he looked back, wagging at the attention. “Maybe we can make something like this when we go get the permission slip. We can stop by Gina’s and get some canned pumpkin. I have some quarters.” Del dug around in their pockets. “I have half a bowl of blueberries at home left from out back, we can grab when we come back.” Roe said. “I have cookie cutters, and we can see if there’s any of this other stuff in my cabinets in my kitchen.” Mac said.

They all finished up their cocoa, and wriggled back into their windbreakers, heading back out onto the porch, as Cheese darted outside between them. As Del stopped to tie their shoelace quickly before they headed back up to the community center, Mac took his notebook out of his pocket and wrote “get permission slips, get stuff to make Cheese snacks”, and slipped the notebook back in his jacket as they all jumped and ran down the road, racing eachother and the dog.

The Art Show

Del, Mac, Cheese, and Roe walked back from the recycling center in the soggy ditch next to the road. Each of them had a small pocket full of money from recycling cans. They had had an exciting trip, a new couple had moved into a trailer down the road from the recycling center, and were volunteering there when they arrived, their yard had been a source of fascination on the way, filled with bright recycled metal sculptures, and whirligigs, and murals and fences and boulders. When the man, Rye, told Mac and Roe that that was actually where he and Io lived, the Del jumped in with lots of questions about their art. Io smiled, “I’m sure you can make some just as wonderful. We taught ourselves how to make our art.”

As Del and Mac placed cans into the correct recycling containers, and Roe played with Cheese and a stick, the three discussed what kinds of things they could try making an art project with. “We should do something special for one of Mac’s zines, like a giant painting or something.” said Roe. Del nodded, maybe we could each make one of the pages something different and then bring them back together. Mac grinned happily, “I’ll choose one of my favorites! You all are great friends!”, and hugged Roe. “Lets surprise eachother and not show eachother the ones we work on until they’re finished!” Del said and they joined the hug with Cheese wiggling over too.

My Sharona

Scene opens in Portland, in the back alley of “Dexy’s” a hole in the wall cafe, where a group of regulars and staff are working on a float for the Rose Parade made of plant material and discussing their preparations for the nighttime race the night before the parade.

Margot, Eileen, Jason, Ross, Quince

Margot: Are you coming to the run? Some of the University’s partnered with the Mercury and the Willamette Weekly and they’re raising funds for Take Back the Night, to donate to shelters.

Quince: Come on! I know you’re not a big fan of running but it’s not to late to drop in at the last moment like I did and just have a fun time doing the run.

Jason: Also the Naked Bike ride is scheduled the same night on a different route, but raising money for the same cause so no matter what you do that night if you’re out, you’re likely to be safe, out with lots of people, there’s going to be a street fair too.

Eileen: Thanks for the invite, I’ll be there! I haven’t been able to get out as much as I like since I moved here and have been kind of slow getting to know the area, I really appreciate you letting me know about the Rose Festival!

Ross: We’ve been trying to think of cool names to put on the back of our running shirts. Since we’re meeting here at Dexy’s before and after I was thinking about “D&D” with a picture on back of Dexter from Dexter’s Lab and DeeDee holding shields and swords. I’m gonna bring some fabric paint tomorrow if you want to use some on your running shirt.

Quince: Thanks for thinking about picking up the fabric paint! I’m thinking about going with “Jadzai Dex”. I might use a stencil and spray paint and then use the fabric paint to accent it, really make it look nice so people don’t focus on how slow I run.

Jason: I was going to bring my boyfriend and we were thinking about “dextrose” and “sweet D”, kind of a photosynthesis joke.

Eileen: I’ll have to go by St Vincent’s after this and get a shirt to paint, I have a few dollars I didn’t use to get pizza earlier and I can get a shirt to go running with you all in. Are you doing any more practices before the parade?

Ross: We’ll have a couple more. You should make a good run playlist.

Eileen: oh, that’s a great idea, I love a good playlist!

Margot: Chariots of Fire, top of the list.

Quince: Going the Distance, next on the list.

Eileen: what’s the route of the run look like, do you have a map?

Margot: I have one inside I’ll get you in a minute after we finish gluing all the rose petals and get cleaned up. But off the top of my head, the route starts a few of blocks over, kind of by Lucky Lab towards Forest Park, we go northeast kind of towards the river, over by the Church of Elvis, unless they moved it again, over by that tattoo parlor your friend got that sleeve done for her graduation, then up past the bartending academy and the tea shop we like to go to, not the usual one but the one that Jason’s friend Kurt, his ex-girlfriend works at, then turn uphill kind of northeastern but it’s a 5 way stop, so it’s just the most uphill way, then kind of loop back down through that sort of industrial area that has the breweries and silkscreen shops and back here.

Eileen: it’ll be great! I just finished up my section of the float, does that side need more or should I start cleaning up?

Quince: our sections down here are almost finished with, I think you can start putting away the leaves and seeds and glue and chicken wire and everything.

Ross: I started cleaning glue brushes in the back workroom and also I opened a bag of candy to snack on while we do that if you want to come on.

Eileen: hey, I’m making that playlist for when we go running, I’m thinking of this one song, I can’t remember the name it’s I think it’s a Duran Duran song about running…

Margot: oh, come on! That’s by Flock of Seagulls, totally different genre!

Jason: Oh, hey Ross, remind me to give you back that book I borrowed, I read it.

Ross: Rabbit Run? What did you think of it?

Jason: nah dude, I borrowed a Vonnegut book.

Poly Meaning Many

I’ve been considering lately the different choices we each make in life; some choices we make exclude other from our lives, and some choices we think exclude others, but they don’t necessarily have to if we can be respectful. I’ve been having some great conversations with a friend lately about being respectful of other people, even if they have different ideas and opinions. Not opinions that are different like, genocide is good (because lets face it, we’re all better off losing people like that), but just a different way of experiencing the world and seeing things. Sometimes we get so caught up in being right, we lose people along the way.

Have you ever had a vegan friend? People can choose to be vegan for a lot of reasons: some do it for health reasons, some because it aligns with their values, some because it’s trendy and they like rubbing it in other people’s faces. There are awesome vegans and asshole vegans. So, let’s say you’re not vegan. You aren’t even vegetarian. You’re an omnivore. You love bacon, you love steak, you love cheese. But you also have a wonderful vegan friend you enjoy spending time with. When you call them up to get brunch, you do it because you care about and want to spend time with your friend, even though they aren’t just a carbon copy of you. When they ask where you want to meet up, you’re going to take the time to remember that your friend has a need that you don’t: they don’t eat meat or dairy, or eggs. It may not be your need, but because it’s your friend’s need, it matters to you. So you choose that one cafe that you remember has vegan options. You never choose those items off the menu, but it matters that your friend has something to eat, and really it matters that you show that you validate and support their choices even if they aren’t your choices. When you get to brunch, your vegan friend doesn’t shame you, or try to make you feel like a terrible person for getting cream with your coffee. You respect that you’re both adults, who can make your own choices, and even though you don’t make the same choices, you still care about, support, and respect each other.

Spoiler alert, I’m not really talking about veganism.