New Birds in the Yard

 If they gave out awards for trash picking, my daughter The Heir would garner the gold. But if you think about it, championship trash picking is intrinsically rewarding. You come home with better stuff than some stupid trophy.

Yesterday we had a little pre-Thanksgiving get-together here at Chateau Johnson, since the Heir is going to Harrisburg to have Thanksgiving with her significant other's family. When Heir and her s.o. arrived at our house yesterday, I head a little hubbub in the front yard. Then she came to the door and said, "Mom, there's someone here to see you!"

EXHIBIT A: Someone

It was a breezy afternoon. The birds were teeter-tottering back and forth, and their wings flap too. The unit still had its sale tag (although not the price).

Heir trash picked this from in front of a house in Germantown. It was in a plastic garbage bag at the curb. She lugged it all the way to West Philadelphia before she unwrapped it to see if it was damaged. That's a bus and a regional rail line and another bus.

It works perfectly.

EXHIBIT B: L'Oiseau en Up de Close

If I had stacks and stacks of cash, my whole yard would be covered with such wonderful things. But this is far sweeter than buying a dozen silly metal lawn ornaments. This one was free!

EXHIBIT C: L'autre Oiseau

This is the happy outcome of teaching your youngsters to sift through other people's discards. Both of my daughters learned trash picking at my knee, but living in the city they can elevate their achievements to new heights.

Never mind that they both have jobs they like, jobs that make a positive difference in their communities. Never mind that they both have amiable gentlemen as partners. My kids can trash pick. Say what you want, that's a skill.

The Heir Makes a Special Delivery

Hello and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," fearfully dodging World War III since 2016! I'm the hostess with the most-est, Anne Johnson. Ask me anything! I won't know the answer, but I'll nod thoughtfully.

Some of you who blog-hop will be tickled by what I am about to say.

As I write this, my daughter The Heir is having dinner in West (by Goddess) Texas with the fabulous Yellowdog Granny! I hope they love each other as much as I love both of them.

Yellowdog Granny and I go all the way back to the dawn of this blog. We found each other early and often. Two hearts that beat as one, you might say. If you have never visited her blog, you'll see why we mesh so well if you click on the link.

Of course, I have known my daughter The Heir even longer. She has flown from Philadelphia to Waco to help create a giant Snickers bar at a Mars candy factory there. Yes, you read that right. If you're willing to live in a drafty room and trash pick all your stuff, you get cool jobs like making giant candy sculptures. And puppets for Disney.

EXHIBIT A: HEIR HELPED MAKE THESE. IT WAS HARD.

So on my behalf, Heir is having supper with Yellowdog Granny, and delivering to her some Philadelphia Tastykakes. Oh to be a fly on the wall!

Heir says it's not so hard to get to West, Texas. I'm listening.

Another Milestone Birthday

Hard on the heels of Walt Whitman's birthday comes that of my daughter The Heir. This is a milestone for her as well, but she doesn't want to talk about the number, and neither do I.

The Heir has a style all her own. It's definitely out there somewhere in the ether.

EXHIBIT A: CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

My family is definitely "grab a costume and ride." The Heir has the most flair in this regard.

EXHIBIT B: THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR

I remember once, on Halloween, Heir went out dressed as a drag queen. That's a girl dressing up like a guy dressing up like a girl.

It's such a cliche, the idea that the moment you hold your baby in your arms, you become smitten and the Earth quakes. That certainly doesn't happen for everyone, and I would be the last to suggest it ought to be this way. Speaking only for me, it was. When the nurse handed me The Heir, the ground moved under me. I was never the same. Eventually the love I felt for her and her sister pushed me to the Goddesses, because for me, the mother/daughter bond was transcendent.

At a very low moment in my life, the Heir had occasion to read me the riot act. The fact that I had angered her altered my behavior completely. I changed overnight. That's the power a loving child can have over you: that you're willing to be your best self to make them happy, even if that takes a hell of a lot of work.

The Heir got a bachelor's degree from a 4-year liberal arts college, where the deans assured her she would be employable once she clutched the sheepskin to her bosom. Well, she does work ... and five days (sometimes six) a week, too. The jobs she has require that sheepskin. But they don't pay well, and they don't provide benefits. Her college loans hang over her, not enough to color her world, but enough to feel the flecks of pigment when she wants to be part of the purchasing economy,

I've got to hand it to her, though. She had a good season at Penn Christmas this year, snagging (among other goodies) a lifetime supply of freezer bags.

EXHIBIT C: HEART OF BRIGHTNESS

In so many ways she has surpassed me. Almost every Sunday she goes into Kensington, which is the worst drug neighborhood in the Mid-Atlantic, and she hands out clean needles, first aid supplies, and food to the addicts living there. She is part of a group. I worry for her, but I'm also proud of her. She cares about her world and the people in it.

So, here's to The Heir! May she rock on and on and on! I love her beyond words.

A "Weird New Jersey" Hike To Remember

Nothing fills me with gratitude and joie de vivre quite like hiking.

You see, I gave up hiking for years -- actually decades -- and then re-discovered it because the government of Atlantic City put up a sea wall that blocked all the sea glass from coming ashore.

Before the sea wall, I was content to spend a sunny day in winter looking for sea glass in Atlantic City. Who can blame me? Look at this view.

EXHIBIT A: THIS BEACH IS GONE

EXHIBIT B: THIS VIEW IS GONE TOO

I could have met the loss of the beaches with a sad, old lady sigh. Instead I shook my fist at the fickle finger of Fate and decided to collect waterfalls. This requires hiking.

EXHIBIT C: A VALUED PIECE IN MY NEW COLLECTION

In the process of hiking to waterfalls, I made a discovery that made me shake my fist at myself. Within a 2-3 hour drive of my home in Haterfield are miles and miles and miles of amazing hiking trails! Me, with my "I'm from Appalachia, I don't have time for the Poconos" attitude ... I almost blew it. I could have gone to my grave without ever bonding with my own back yard.

A few days ago, my daughter The Heir and I went on a hike to a rock formation that was once featured in Weird New Jersey magazine. Even though we got lost on the way to the park, we still got there in two hours. In other words, we could do a hike as a day trip ... a hike in the mountains.

EXHIBIT D: TRIPOD ROCK

Heir and I hiked to this rock. It's called Tripod Rock because it's a glacial anomaly. As in, you can't believe the sight of this freakin rock.

EXHIBIT E: OTHER SIDE OF TRIPOD ROCK

Yes, you're seeing that right. One big rock, balancing on three little rocks. This actually could be the work of some bored deity. Hard to imagine a glacier being that precise.

The hike to and from Tripod Rock was not even strenuous, and I only fell two times. Heir and I had a swell afternoon together, and we got to the rock before the steady stream of hikers who came in our wake. You see, Tripod Rock is only 30 miles outside New York City.

How did I get to be a woman of a certain age without knowing about all the hiking trails in the New Jersey Highlands? Why did I sneer like a snob at the Poconos? Alas, some time has been wasted.

On the other hand, I'm still fairly hale and hearty, and there's nothing like a bracing hike to make you feel hale and hearty. There is still time. I have found new mountains to climb.

EXHIBIT F: LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH

The bored gods uprooted me from the mountains of my birth and dropped me in a state that is the punch line in a million jokes. It has been up to me to make the best of this fact. It's getting easier all the time. All the time.

A Lesson in Resilience

Every winter, the town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania holds a festival based on -- big "duh" here -- the Phoenix. The Heir and I make a pilgrimage to Phoenixville to participate in this event because it has a sacred application to life.

The festival occurred yesterday, in a deluge of rain. I told Heir we would go anyway, so long as the precipitation was water and not something frozen. Phoenixville is a pretty long way from where I live.

What happens in Phoenixville is this: After drumming and dancing by people clad in Firebird costumes, a giant bird sculpture made of wood gets set on fire. How does this happen in a pelting rain storm? Well, the thing is chock a block with accelerant.

Artists and builders work on the phoenix sculpture for months before the event. This year's bird was over 30 feet tall.

Until someone courting a maximum smite of Bored God karma burned it down at 3:00 a.m., the morning before the festival.

Phoenixville held the festival anyway. In a day's work, in pelting rain, its residents built a smaller but still inspiring substitute bird. With the dark ashes of the prematurely immolated bird still on the field, the new bird smoked, caught, and sent bright flames into the night sky.

How inspiring! What a lesson in resilience ... one I needed after a soul-sucking week at my workplace.

One of the traditions of the Firebird festival is that you can pay a small fee to have an Intention for the new year put into a box and sent Heavenward as the sculpture burns. This ritual had to be scrapped when the vandals struck.

But Heir and I are ourselves resilient. Heir made two origami birds while we ate dinner (the iconic Speck's Chicken in Collegeville, PA). We wrote our intentions on our paper birds and committed them, with prayers, to one of the smaller bonfires on the festival site. I brought a stick from that fire home to burn at Yuletide.

There we stood, Heir and I, dripping but unbent while the flames crested a sea of umbrellas. We knew the original bird had burned down before we left for Phoenixville. Like the other people there, we stubbornly proved that all which falls will rise again.

Blessed be the mighty Phoenix, the Sacred Firebird! All hail!

Fun in King Triton's Playground

Well well! If it's April, 2004, "The Gods Are Bored" has turned nine! Closing in on a decade of praise and worship suggestions for those longing for the Rapture! Don't you wish Armageddon would happen? A whole bunch of people would suddenly disappear, leaving more room for the rest of us. And it would be easy enough to convince the remaining Christians to switch praise and worship teams. After all, being Left Behind means you're plump pickings for the Great Beast. I'm quite sure gentle Queen Brighid the Bright would be an appealing alternative. She already is, and the Horsemen haven't even left the gate.

Easter Sunday used to be one of those rush-rush days. Rush to church. Rush to Sunday School. Rush to make dinner. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. And not once did I hear a sermon that didn't mention the fact that the re-greening of the Earth mirrors Jesus' return from the grave. Never in the other order, though. But if you think about it, it's really all about Spring. No real pressing need to throw Jesus into the mix. The revealed religion of Demeter and Persephone makes far more sense, and it invites bored Goddesses into our lives. All hail!

But I digress.

It's kind of wonderful to see the sunrise on Easter morning, so my daughter The Heir and I got up in the wee hours and drove to Atlantic City for a 6:00 a.m. low tide. This was no ordinary Easter egg hunt. We were jonesing the trove of sea glass that King Triton and mighty Oshun can occasionally heave up on the beach. We figured that nobody would be out looking for sea glass at daybreak on Easter morning, especially with 30-mph sustained winds and temperatures in the 40s.

Wrong, of course. The same old chap with the yappy dachshund we see every time we go was out there ahead of us, and he of course had pulled the super treasure from the beach: an antique bottle stopper, beautifully frosted from a century at sea.

But this local geezer and his sifter are no match for the sharp-eyed Heir, who found a fistful of gorgeous stuff, jewelry grade and in vivid colors. We nearly froze, but it was worth it. Then, hot breakfast at a classic South Jersey diner, and then a side trip to the thrift store!

As Walt Whitman said, "To me, the sea is a continual miracle." No wonder so many bored deities make Their homes within! How sad it is that humankind has so little respect for this precious part of the planet. When I stand at water's edge on the beach, I feel how puny our landmasses are, set aside its flowing grandeur.

Long story short, this was the happiest Easter I can ever remember. All glory, laud, and honor to Triton and Oshun for allowing Heir and I to grace Their world with our presence! The land springs anew, but the sea is alive always. So mote it be.

"War Is Hell"

On "trash night" in my neighborhood, I always see people driving around in vans and trucks, doing their trash-picking. And in a place like Snobville, let me tell you, I do my share as well. I've never bought porch furniture -- picked it all. I've gotten a couple of nice book cases that way too.

My daughter The Heir is an avid trash-picker. She'll root through anything that isn't clearly garbage.

Last week, Heir found herself in Chestnut Hill (a part of Philadelphia). She saw a sign for an estate sale at a house. And there were boxes at the curb.

Heir spied a box with a photo album on top. When she opened it up, she found it to be full of photographs ... of the Vietnam War. She looked around to see if there was anyone to talk to about it, but no one was about. So she brought it home. She's sure it wasn't overlooked and thrown out by mistake, because it was right on the top of the stuff in the box.

There are 40 snapshots, a couple of them in black and white and a couple of old-time polaroids. Most of them are the kind of color snapshot you see from that era. Some are dated. Some have names on the back, making them traceable through the National Archives.

Most of them are in country. Chinook helicopters, platoon on the march, base camp, soldier holding a machine gun. Others are from the city -- a tall man with a pretty Asian woman half his height. A few of little kids and signs.

There were two postcards in the album. The first was a picture of Boathouse Row in Philadelphia. On the back it said, "Remember this place? We're thinking about you."

The other one is a picture of the Sydney opera house in Australia. On the back it said, "I'm losing my mind, but at least the beer is good. War is hell." Postage was waived.

War is certainly hell. But I find myself wondering how much hell awaited this man when he returned. Did he have anyone who loved him, any family to whom he might give these historic photos? I guess not. Then again, someone organized the estate sale. Did that person just not care about the photos? Heir is a very cautious person. She would not pinch something she thought someone put out by mistake.

In any case, Heir now has a small cache of primary source documents on a much-maligned conflict. We might be able to find the commander whose name is on the back of the one photo, but I'm almost afraid to research it. I already know two people on The Wall.

Last year Heir found a stack of photographs that were mostly habit-clad nuns smiling in little clusters. Scattered amongst the nun photos were shots of naked women in erotic poses.

It boggles the mind to think of the photograph collection Heir might amass by the time she's in her prime. Makes you think. Who will want your photos when you're gone?

The Opportunity I Didn't Have

What was life like for you when you graduated from college? Did you float effortlessly into the job of your dreams? Really? Then here, for you, are my friends Milk and Cheese, to act upon my jealousy.

HEY YOU WITH THE DREAM JOB! KISS MY DAIRY PRODUCTS GONE BAD!

I had to go right to work in a job I hated, because the economy sucked, I majored in creative writing, and going home to my bipolar mother was not an option.

It's not that I have had a bad life, but sometimes I can't help but wonder about the roads not taken. I was not adventurous. I'm neither an astronaut or a Type A. So I settled. Moved with caution.

This spring my daughter The Heir graduated from college with a double major in media and fine arts. Talk about employment potential! She's a painter, for the love of fruit flies! Where can a person like that get work in this economy?

Back in June, The Heir met a lady who said there are full-time jobs at the IRS Call Center in Philly. Heir looked me in the eye and said, "Mom, I just can't do that. It will ruin me."

I agreed.

Heir embarked upon a quest to live out her dream. Within a few weeks she had helped two artists with major projects, and then she got an internship with a married couple who are highly sought after sculptors in these parts. The internship started out free, but when they saw Heir's bustle and her ability to organize (unparalleled in people her age), they hired her part time, minimum wage.

Heir has also rented a studio in a large arts collective, where she has resumed painting. She says she is learning a great deal about sculpture (and home renovation, another useful skill) by working with the sculptors. In fact, she tells me she has learned more in three months than she did in four years of expensive college. She is in the early stages of living her dream.

But dreams do not come to us in real life without dangers. Do they?

The sculpture studio is in Germantown. I took Heir there the other day in the car. (She otherwise rides mass transportation.) The neighborhood is just the next tick up from a slum. The sculptors bought an old silver polishing factory for a song and are fixing it up. My heart almost stood still when I saw the area outside ... and then the cavernous interior of the building, which ... kid you not ... reminded me of Frankenstein's experiment room. But there were beautiful sculptures everywhere, in various stages of completion. Heir showed me the ones she helped with. She showed me the tool room that she had completely organized. She showed me the places where her advice had been taken. She was so proud.

Heir is actively discouraging any parental visits to her painting studio. It is in Kensington, a neighborhood that is beginning to gentrify but still has a large and active criminal element. The studio is in a huge factory that has been slightly renovated to give artists spaces where they can work. Heir is happy that her space has a ... ready? A space heater.

When I drove Heir to Germantown, she brought her bike in the back seat, so she can avoid the mass transportation that is scary and costly. But the street she's on in Germantown consists of trolley tracks and cobblestone. Little tiny patch of pavement between the two.

What, me worry? Can you hear my teeth gnashing from where you're reading this?

Here's the bottom line, friends. And I may very well have to re-visit this post from time to time, or even in a dire emergency.

I would rather my beautiful young daughter be taking risks in marginal neighborhoods, biking badly-paved streets, making little or no money, than to see her slip into a 9-to-5 that she hates. I'd rather her take chances than sit in her room here at Chateau Johnson, fearing the outside world.

Go forth boldly, Heir. Seize the opportunity I never had. I'm not bipolar. I love you. Bunk here as long as you wish. Better sorry than safe.

The Heir's Day in Oslo

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" My three readers will remember that I commended my daughter The Heir to the not-very-bored Goddess Freya a few weeks ago. The Heir decided to spend her summer abroad, studying architecture in Norway. She is residing at the University of Oslo.

This morning, The Heir went to the National Museum in Oslo to view Edvard Munch's paintings. Having done that, she went downtown to shop at a thrift store she found. While she was in the store, she heard a very loud explosion. She noticed that the people working in the shop looked scared. But most people went on shopping. Heir bought something and went outside.

The thrift store's door had been open when the explosion occurred. Heir noticed that other stores had shattered glass lying in the street. She saw many people talking frantically on their cell phones, people running toward something on fire in the distance -- and then she heard something she hadn't heard since arriving in Norway: police sirens. Lots of them.

Heir began to panic, because all the people around her were panicking too. But she got herself to an elevated train and headed back to the university. It was there that she discovered that Oslo's government buildings had been bombed. She was hunkered down in the dorm with her fellow students when a crazy gunman started shooting down kids at a summer camp on an offshore island.

The worst violence on Norwegian soil since WWII.

I had my tongue firmly planted in my cheek when I asked Freya to look out for The Heir. And for her first four weeks in Oslo, Heir pretty much ran the city by herself. She said she never even saw a policeman, and she never felt endangered in any neighborhood.

Freya, Your people are baffled. Not that Norwegians aren't tough ... they are. But until now they haven't exactly been consumed with anxiety about terrorist attacks. This will change now. Heir might have seen an end of an era in her previous four weeks in Oslo.

Prayers of good will to the praise and worship team of Odin, Freya, Thor, and Loki. And thank goodness my Heir is all right!

Good News from a Goddess

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" No time to tarry today -- just want to pass along some good news!

I've been declined an interview by a Goddess.

Well, not exactly declined, but postponed. Postponed because She is too busy with Her praise and worship team!

The Goddess in question is Freya, and I wanted to draw her attention to the fact that my daughter The Heir is summering in Her domain. When I called Freya for an interview, she said she will pencil me in for Monday (maybe), but she's especially busy just now.

I'm pretty doggone clueless about Freya's praise and worship, although I once drank a toast to her from a horn of mead. It's great to know that there are modern humans out there who not only love her but are treating her like a Goddess and not just a "myth."

I must fly now. Hopefully Freya and I will get together shortly. In the meantime, I had better get down the spelling of her following. I never do get it right without looking it up. Here's a cold read: Asratu. Goddess, I know that isn't correct, and she'll be offended if I mess up. So help me out here! Tell me what you know.

Happy Birthday to the Heir!

My daughter The Heir doesn't like to be featured on "The Gods Are Bored," so I don't say much about her. One thing I will say is this: If it's weird, and it's on YouTube, she will find it. The snippet below is priceless ... thanks, Heir!

How I Spent Judgment Day: A Message of Hope for Harold Campling and His Flock

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are a depressed follower of Harold Camping, having wandered here bleary-eyed and disappointed, well ... I'm disappointed too! However, it's time to move on.

Here's a little parable about organized religion. I'll call it "The Parable of the Busy Zoo."

My daughter The Heir and I agreed to meet some cosplay folks at the Philadelphia Zoo on Saturday. The arrangements were all made over Facebook.

It rained all week long here in the Delaware Valley, but on Saturday morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky (or a zombie in the backyard). When I say "beautiful day," I feel this is scant praise for the weather. If you weren't standing directly in the bright sunshine, the temperatures were perfect. And everything was moist and verdant from all that rain.

Heir and I got a late start for our noon meet-up at the zoo. At 11:45 we were stuck in traffic on the Schuykill Expressway -- all of it what they call "zoo traffic," meaning that the backup was all created by folks trying to get off the highway at the zoo exit.

Eventually we did get off the highway and into the realms of the zoo. The whole area was packed with people. All the parking lots for the zoo were filled. A pedestrian quite kindly told us that our best bet was to park in Fairmount Park, which is across the Schuykill River from the zoo.

Heir and I were lucky to find a spot for my sweet little economy car, deep inside the park. We set out on a long trek toward the zoo, in our semi-cosplay outfits. This trek included practically having to scale a cliff to get up to the bridge that would take us back across the river to our destination.

It was while we were crossing the bridge that Heir informed me she didn't have a cell phone number for the people we were supposed to meet.

When we finally got to the gates of the zoo, about 60 minutes late, there was a huge, long line for tickets. The place was packed.

Now, I never have a bad time at the zoo, because the Philadelphia Zoo has a pair of Andean condors, and I just sit by their flight cage for two hours. But Heir likes the small mammals. I said to her, "You know what? If you try to see the pygmy marmosets in this crowd, the only thing you'll see is other people also trying to see the pygmy marmosets."

Heir readily agreed to turn back, especially since we didn't see any of the cosplayers.

As we made our way back across the bridge, we did run into some of the cosplay people. They (also late) were headed for the zoo. And they were lavishly attired. Spare and I made our apologies and continued on our way. We weren't in their league when it came to costumes, and I was still thinking about the crowd in the zoo and the cost of getting inside.

Heir was a little angry at me for more or less calling the shots and giving up so easily, especially when we quite serendipitously ran into the very people we would have been looking for. (Trust me, they would have been easy to find, by sight, no matter how crowded the zoo was!) But by that time I didn't care what she thought, because I was heeding the call of the bored gods.

We re-traversed the cliff, crossed busy Kelly Drive, and found ourselves along the banks of the river. It was not a Regatta day, but plenty of people were plying crew boats in the water, and there were joggers, bikers, walkers, and nature-lovers everywhere. Heir and I found a bench in the shade of a secluded garden that overlooked the river. We talked and talked as the pretty boats slid by and all sorts of people passed us in their own pursuits.

After awhile I remembered that it was Judgment Day. And by golly, there was something I'd never done that I always wanted to do, and by golly, I was right there ready to do it!

I'd never walked along Boathouse Row.

So Heir and I did it.

Boathouse Row is pretty famous. It's a serious of a dozen or so boat-storage houses, dating to the mid-1800s, that sit along the river and serve as host destinations for Regatta teams. You can see Boathouse Row from the freeway, and I'd often looked at it with longing as I inched by on the other side of the river.

Wow, those houses are gorgeous up close! It's like France or something. Each one has a personality, and the whole avenue where they sit is tree-lined and shady, with plenty of space for strolling. At the end of the row there's a little sandwich shop where Heir and I used our zoo money to get lunch and water.

As we ate, I said to Heir, "Hey, we're right by the Waterworks! I've always wanted to see that too!"

So we walked on. We explored the Waterworks, watched the river spill over a dam, and then ... right above us on the cliff ... Philadelphia's Museum of Art!

It was way too late to go into the museum, but we scaled the cliff and stood at a gazebo, staring out at the vast distance we had walked, the Schuykill River, the beginnings of a wedding at the Waterworks, the racing boats ... and off on the horizon, the hot air balloon marking the environs of the zoo. Behind us the modern skyscrapers of Philadelphia rose shining in the sun.

I said, "It doesn't get better than this." It felt so good to be out in the air, uncrowded and unfettered.

Then we walked back to the car, passing yet another wedding-in-progress. Happy the brides that the sun shines on!

The moral of this parable: Follow not your prescribed plans, but your heart instead. Don't be led by people. Take the hands of the gods and ramble the less-trodden path.

For those who live by the book and by the charismatic exhortations of fellow mortals are often led astray. But those who stand in the presence of the bored gods, with nothing between themselves and the Divine, will find peace in the apparent world -- and peace beyond the veil.

Busy god letting you down? Listen: there are other singers in other rooms. How sweet they sound.