I may be broke, but I won't be poor.

So long. And thanks for all the fish.

The one thing you need to do today.

I'd forgotten

about a little rainy night of no importance in Eugene, OR, a few years back. No importance, until . . . well, it was Jack's idea. He had some extra dollars on his food stamps, so we bought a loaf of Wonderbread, peanut butter, and jelly and set to work making sandwiches on a sidewalk outside Safeway. Bikes to downtown, and soon street dwellers were set with a sticky treat. We left a few deliveries by sleeping grizzled heads. Anyway. Jack. Possibly one of the most badass persons alive. I feel unworthy and blessed to have been a plastic-knife weilding sandwich assistant.

A Gift Idea

While Bozeman doesn't have many beggars, we are still a frozen home to many unseen homeless. Numerous families in the valley live quietly from couch to couch, car to car, and I've seen them slipping with their children into the woods off Story Mill. To learn how Mercury is partnering with Family Promise of Gallatin Valley this holiday to enact a change, go to www.mercuryads.com and follow the cardboard house. A charitable, tax-deductible contribution could make a powerful and thoughtful gift this season.

everything that makes you rich will make you poor

it can be done

In honor of the unofficial Mercury bike-to-work team, the Livingston carpoolers, those who take the long road and walk it, and Suzanne, for braving the bus.

Dad

When you're a wee girl, there comes a crushing moment sometime before you hit 2 when you realize you can't marry your dad. Apparently, mom has dibs. By the time you're three you decide that's okay, you still have the coolest dude in the world for your DAD. And I still do. Now improved with (a little) age. (Ignore the genetically-mandated atrocious hat. It's a family thing.) Happy Birthday, Dad.

Miner

Fambly doggie...I only get custody on rare jaunts to Oregon.

the grammas are coming!

Some octigenarians wear purple. My gramma wears LEAPORD PRINT.

Whoa, sister...

My wee sister. Ousted from the skating team at an early age, she channeled her huff into an old Singer. Fringey numbers for me, lavish trimmed outfits for Warren, and soon our skating shows were renowned not for their graceful unity, but for outfits worthy of Blades of Glory. Realizing her talent was being wasted on a few cut-rate has-beens, Sneugorkaette intelligently packed up her needles and fled the family circus, opting instead to sew calmer fashions for the citizens of the South Hill, Spokane.

Genetics

The best thing is, we're at THE fanciest upscale chi-chi restaurant in Spokane. No, the best thing is Mom got hit on by some youngster my age. Don't tell Dad.

a sow and a cow

I actually never intended to be a graphic designer. Nay, my imagined future had me twirling as an ice dancer. Raised at the hefty knee of our Norwegian mother Sneugorka, my brother and I could skate before we could walk. Backwards. And forwards. We were naturals. Everyone on the ice gawked at our unprecedented glory. Yet, somehow, it all slipped away into salaries and phone calls. Was it Warren's horrible taste in headwear? Our profanely talented mother/manager, who we could never seem to outskate?

Either way, we got outta Ideeho. Yeehaw!

another day at the office

smoky treats and medicine sticks

I don't smoke. Not anymore. Nope. Gives the tummy a lurch. But, I'll always be fascinated by a box of foil-wrapped papery tobacco. It reminds me of being little, the blue haze always floating just over my little sister's head in the kitchen. Hugs from mom and dad and Aunt Sandy and Nana. Tom Robbins once hosted an entire novel inside a pack of Camels, the first cigarette I ever tried, in a little alley Milo swore was magical at a certain sideways-light time of the morning. (It was after school.) I could list past flames by names or just as readily their preferred cigarette brand.
Anyway, smoky bars are going cold turkey and the teeth of the American public just keep getting whiter. Cigarettes are a whisper away from being just another icon of the past, a quick authentic addition to a nostalgic Halloween costume, an ancient ritual for ol' times sake like drive ins: we will on some very special occasion present a pack at a serious party, explain its significance to the younger ones, and lean into twilight and porch railings, ashing like black-and-white grainy starlets onto the shadow of ourselves below.

toots of mercury

from my vantage point as under-stairs dweller, i identify my fellow mercurians by the falls of their feet. i don't even have to look to see who's coming to the underworld.
molly is the quietest - she skips down the stairs, was she a ballerina? Even in stilettos.
kendra descends like miss america - slow. graceful. even.
colter takes about 3 bambi-esque bounds to make it down. life at six foot four.
laura wins politest award - she never clomps or flip-flops.
jamie, our fearless leader, strides with the signature stomp of Davy Jones transversing the deck of the Flying Dutchman.

Your horoscope

Be you Piscean, of Aquarian age, misnomered Virgo or Scorpio...it is guaranteed (guarantee rendered null and void if you are among the roughly 150,000 fated to terminate today) that today
your heart will beat around 864,000 to 115,200 times.
(whether or not it does that flutter or sinking thing is somewhat dependent on your expectation and your willingness for it to do either.)
you will pass 1 to 3 pints of flatulence.
(at this office, you can blame up to half a pint on Bella, the office dog and master of the silent-but-deadly.)
you will speak between 7,000 and 28,000 words, regardless of your gender.
(in advertising, we conserve words, and repeat some only for effect. words heretoforth banned from this blog on grounds that they deserve a wee break: cute, awesome, beautiful. In the case of some object genuinely deserving specifically such a non-specific label, ban shall be momentarily suspended. Words that really need a rusty ride: cavalier, malevolent, serendipitous. Kind.)
As for you, Sagivirgaquario:
choose your own words.
but choose wisely.

(Sound never dies. It just reverberates around, getting slower and slower. At this point, police can make recordings at some crime scenes hours after the crime and play them back faster, thus catching snippets of past conversations. In the future, technology may allow futurites to hear any of those 7,000 to 28,000 chosen words. )