Counting Sheep with Names I Know.

My wife and I are collectors of a sort. We are by no means fully vested in our collections, but we do it more as a hobby. I don’t think either one of us sat down and decided we were going to start collecting Kaleidoscopes or Circa 1920 glass oil lanterns. But that is what we did.
What began with having one or two items eventually grew into a hobby. We might have seen something else that we liked or a friend might have given us a gift and soon we had another.
My wife has a kaleidoscope collection that is just beautiful. They range from .75 cent pieces bought at the towns fair, to significant higher works of art that produce an array of images and colors that are spectacular. They sit in a curio cabinet and every so often we drag them out to remind us of the beauty contained within them.
In another cabinet in another room she has a salt and pepper shaker collection that was handed down to her by her mother. I’m not very certain, but I think most of them date from a 1900-1940 range. While they are never used, they are equally aesthetic.
Years ago when I lived in the middle of the woods with no electricity, I started gathering a collection of oil lanterns. I found out later that I had developed a surprising liking for the older ones. Not the ones that are made in a production factory that are boxed and sold in Target stores and the like, but the ones you would have found in a Sears and Roebuck catalog 50 years ago that you would have had to order. I prefer the old hand blown glass antiques that carry the residue of yesteryear. That collection started when a friend of mine from church gave me a lantern and told me it belonged to her family back before electricity was in full running service. “We used to use it all the time,” she said.
I have treasured it ever since.
I also have a collection of marbles. I am guessing thousands. And while most of them are not nearly as old as I would like them to be, I still keep on collecting them. That started not long after I was helping a friend of mine do some yard work with a backhoe and I pulled out a spiral hand-painted Chinese marble that was quite possibly a century or two old. I know this because the town I lived in was an old mining town and the Chinese had flocked there back in the early 1860s. Anyway, I got to keep the marble. Regrettably, I later sold that marble for around $75. It was a big mistake. I don’t know how long that marble lay buried in the ground, but when I unearthed it, it was in pristine condition. I kick myself whenever I think about it and mutter, “Doh!” every time.
It bothered me so much that one year while my wife and children were on vacation driving south from Eaglesville, Mo., to Utah we stopped at every farm house, hen house and antique store along the way to buy every glass jar full of marbles we could find. Surprisingly we found quite a few and I was lucky enough (if you’re into that sort of thing) to even hear stories about said marbles being unearthed at old farm houses back in the day. In the end though, I never did find the likes to the Chinese marble I sold all those years ago and I learned a valuable lesson about what I’ve come to hold in high regard. I learned it wasn’t money, but the value of what money can or can’t buy. That marble was priceless.
Which leads me to another point about collectibles. Do you know any of these names? Chocolate, Cubbie, Flash, Legs, Patti, Pincher, Splash, Spot or Squealer?
In 1993 they first appeared at a gift show. They debuted in stores in 1994 and for the most part were unknowns. They were the first nine. Later there would be more names. Bronty, Bumble, Caw and Flutter. And still later there would come Billy and Curly and Erin. And hot on their tales were the crowds. Women and children for the most part, and then there was my wife. And my mom.
Do you remember these names?
Well…My wife was a Beany Baby collector. And for a couple of years we hit every store front known to man that might house such a collectible. Which was pretty much every store front known to man.
I remember these names because while in tow I would be scouting for those names, hence making my life that much easier so that we might get out of these stores in a timely fashion.
For some odd reason while I lay in bed last night trying to fall asleep, I was plagued by the Beany Babies. Their names danced in my head as if I was counting sheep. Fortune, Glory, Peace and Princess. I don’t know why I was thinking of them but, there it was. Soon I began to wonder what ever happened to Ty Warner. Did he indeed back himself into a corner and force himself into retirement or did he go willingly? Is he still out there? Or is he back on that beach in Miami where he first got his idea that brought him so much success? Maybe he’s on an island now? Whatever happened to the Beany Kingdom?
And then I started thinking about all the Beany Babies my wife had stored away in the 50 gallon Tupperware totes out in the garage. How many of them were there?
When Ty started retiring the Beany names each year millions of people scrambled to buy them. He would later announce the new line of names and again millions of people would scramble to buy them. And then in '99 he announced he was done. Over, kaput, finesse. The ‘End Bear’ would be the end. Millions of people scrambled. My wife joined them. They were all searching for The End Bear.

On December 31, 1999 the beany babies were going into retirement. My wife shrugged her shoulders and moved on. And then began the rumors in early December. Ty wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, there was talk about the NEW Beanies and Baby Ty and the New Ty Classic. There was a list of them! Millions of people were frustrated. My wife included. Then she got mad.
Make up your mind Ty. Are you coming or going?
I watched as my wife slowly began to remove the Beanies from their resting places around the house. Some of them even became chew toys for the dogs. Dozens upon dozens of Beany Babies disappeared. Eventually they were stored in plastic baggies and then loaded into two very large containers that I eventually had the honor of storing away out in our garage -- their final resting place -- until last night. Last night they came back to haunt me.

There were two things I learned last night.
1. Remember to take you sleeping pills on a work night or you will have a restless sleep.
2. If you are a collector of things, know where your sense of loyalty lies. Else those things might end up in a box. They may even crawl out in the middle of the night and wake up your spouse.

Something Happened Somewhere Turning

When I left home I was eleven years old; almost twelve.
There were a great many things happening in my life at the time. Painful and hurtful things come to mind.
My sister had just run away from home the year before. I was struggling with the fact that I was adopted. We had moved two or three times within a couple of years. I had just been molested by a stranger in our own home. And my dad had a tendency to punish me with a belt and a pair of sandals that had a half inch of rubber tread on the bottom of them. He used to joke about the mileage he would get out of them.
I don't remember what happened to me back then. The human mind has a way with dealing with things like that. Maybe we're wired with a built in switch that turns off like a breaker switch in case there's an overload. Whatever it was...things went dark. It has only been recently now that the lights have started to come back on. My memory is still a bit hazy. Time has gotten away from me. Instead of isolating incidents with dates I narrow things down to vicinities.
There are times still now when I wake up in a pool of sweat and I whisper to myself I remember.

Nobody should have to live this way.

Later I would write things down, sad poetry and prose.
Some of my best writing came from this. It was my way of letting things out.
Years later my friends would tell me that I needed to write. Not my memories or my thoughts of them, but to really write.
Write a book they said. And so I began. But I could never do it. All I could come up with were strings of words. But soon I had lines of sentences. I started journals with nothing but sentences. After a while I had written paragraphs that I had eventually named the 'The Sentences'.
And then one day a title came to me. It was called 'Something Happened Somewhere Turning'. I was working on a story about a man who had no memory. It was a science fiction. It was about a man who was going through life constantly fighting a ghost from his past. This man was leading men into battle to fight a war that had been predicted thousands of years ago. But he didn't know why and as the story unfolds he slowly discovers who he is and why he's doing this.
It wasn't very original, but for a twenty year old it was something. It took me a long time to realize that I had been writing about myself.

Somewhere in my basement there is a box full of faded ink on scraps of paper. I don’t pull it out very often. Other than a bunch of unfinished stories there is a mix of bad memories in it.
Something Happened Somewhere Turning was my metaphor for thinking. Gears were turning. Wheels were spinning. I’s were falling into place.
My wife asked me the other day where I came up with my blog name. The truth be told, it’s been lying in my basement.

I am writing something new now and for a long time my focus has been lost. I spend too much time writing between my blogs and reading others. I know now that I will never move forward as long as I continue to do this. So I am going to take a break from posting here. I still plan to write in The Paradox Syndrome from time to time, but I will never finish what I was working on if I don’t do this.
Over the past few months I have made a lot of new friends and I hope to stay in contact with you. I still plan on reading blogs and I thank you all for being friends and hopefully I will finish what I started. Thank you all for making me feel so welcome.

--Bx

Twenty Items or Less

When my wife and I went to the grocery store the other day, I found something I wasn't looking for. It wasn't on the shelves or in the aisle and it wasn't a promotional display taunting me to buy something for 20% off. Oddly enough, it was a sense of humility dressed as a lady in line in front of me.

As I stood behind her at the cash register I realized that this must be a transaction gone bad. I thought perhaps at first we were waiting for a cashier to come clear an error or a locked-up register. But as things played out I watched as the lady and the now two cashiers discussed what items she wanted to put back.
At first the lady removed three things from her cart. A bonus buy on packaged chicken, a small thing of juice and a bag of tomatoes. The (scowl-faced woman) cashier re-rang everything and swiped a card that the lady had and asked her to type in her PIN number again. The other cashier (scowl-faced man) told the lady she still didn't have enough money and that she was going to have to put something else back.
For ease of the tale, let's call the clerks Sunshine and Joy Boy.


Standing there, I could not help but feel for this woman who had already removed her dinner from her cart and was now in the process of returning a box of diapers she was obviously in need of. Her bonus buy on chicken was returned to her cart while the small six-pack of juice stayed out. In the meantime, the bag of tomatoes had already been sent back to the produce section and the diapers remained at the register waiting to be returned to the infant section. Again the columns were totaled and the card was swiped. Joy Boy and Sunshine still told the Lady she didn't have enough.
Realizing that this was going to happen one more time, I asked Joy Boy how much the diapers were. I'd already decided this woman was going to have dinner tonight and she was definitely going to have diapers. I quietly turned to her and asked her if that was all right. She nodded and whispered thank you and smiled just slightly. I wished I had caught the bag of tomatoes and the six pack of juice before they were sent back.
As I went to pay for the Valentine's Day cards I held in my hand and the box of diapers (I would thankfully never have to use), I noticed the sign above my head said Twenty Items or Less. Life shouldn't be that hard, I thought to myself.

My wife asked me what had taken me so long and I told her about the Lady and the food and the diapers and the scowl-faced cashiers and she took in a breath and sighed.

"We're going to be seeing a lot more of this," she said, "It's everywhere."

*************

Today when I went to work I found out a co-worker had been laid off -- one of my best friends -- along with ten others.

I was reminded of this woman.

And I could hear my wife saying, "It's everywhere."

And I was thinking about the thousands of others who were probably sent home today.

Exfoliating and Manicures (Or Buttface and the Nail Filer)

Tonight we stopped for a bite to eat before we went home and my wife was talking to one of the girls about something that I wasn't really paying attention to. I was only half listening until I heard my wife say something like, "I don't think your Dad heard about that. Shh."
Naturally it was too late, they had caught my attention. My wife and my two daughters looked at each other, deciding if they were going to share. The girls screamed, "No!" My wife disagreed.

Last night Lois and the girls were organizing the 'Girls Only Bathroom'. They had emptied out all the drawers and cabinets and they had spread everything out so they could sort it and put it back away. (Hmm?)

At some point Lois looked over at one of the girls who was standing there filing her nails and yelled out in a surprised voice, "Unnamed Child No. 1, stop that. What are you doing?"

"Filing my nails," my daughter said.

"Do you know what that is? Put that down!" my wife said.

"What?" my daughter asked. "What is it?"

"That's the pumice stone I use to clean the toilets."

My daughter started smiling. Big grin across her face.

"What's so funny?" my wife asked.

"Ask Unnamed Child No. 2 what she does with it," she grinned.

Unnamed Child No. 2 was practically speechless at that point, eyes wild as she pawed at her face.

It turns out that she thought it was for making skin soft and she had been running it over her face gently very nearly every day for God knows how long. "It makes my skin soft," she said. "Sometimes I use it on my feet, too."

Now I don't know whether to kiss them or throw them away.

Precious Moments

The other day when I came home from work I asked one of my daughters if they had checked the mail.

“Yes.” She replied.

I then asked her where it was and she gave me an odd inquisitive look and then said, “Wait. What did you say?”

“The mail,” I said, reminding her.

“What about it?”

“Did. You. Check. The. Mail?”

“Uh, no.” she said.

“So when I asked you the first time if you checked the mail you told me yes because…why?”

Another odd inquisitive look crossed over her face and she furled her brow and looked me straight in the eye and said, “What?”