They play well together, our children. Where do they get all that energy? Look at them run! Your girls love that swing set, don't they? My boys beeline right to the jungle gym. David is fearless; he climbs right to the top, lickety-split. Donnie is the tentative one. He goes up a bit, stops to consider things a moment, and climbs a little higher …but rarely all the way up. They're identical in appearance only, my boys. Donnie loves grilled cheese and tomato, but David pulls out the tomatoes and leaves them on his plate. David: Plain milk. Donnie: Chocolate only, please. A million little differences offset all that physical sameness. But they both love this park, and they both love to climb. At least they won't fall very far if they take a tumble. Not like with trees: you can fall a long way out of a tree. Believe me, I know. And it's not a matter of if they fall off the jungle gym one day, is it? It's a matter of when. But they'll probably just dust themselves off and start climbing again, no harm done.

Now there's nothing wrong with a little tree climbing, I suppose. It's safer these days, too. They make all kinds of fancy tree-climbing gear now: Harnesses. Helmets. Climbing boots. It's practically a science. But if a child wants to climb, they're going to climb, with or without all the paraphernalia. If you can't afford the hardware, just stick to the jungle gyms and keep your kids out of the trees.

That's actually odd advice, coming from me. I climbed more than my share of trees growing up. There was no hi-tech gear: just hands and sneakers. I was full-blooded tom-boy, and as I saw it trees were fated to be climbed. It was part of their job description, like giving shade or providing a good home for birds. And oh, did I climb! I was fearless, like my David. I could go higher than most of the boys in the neighborhood, too. I was really quite good; I only had one bad fall.

My Uncle Gio once had a good climbing tree in his backyard. It was a honey locust, and each autumn reddish-brown pods …a half-foot or more in length, some of them …would fall all around the tree. Uncle gathered them up to make a homemade beer from the soft pulp found within those seed pods. He said the Indians did that, long ago. We would eat the pulp sometimes, as a treat after school. I remember it was sweet, a kind of honey-molasses taste. I think he even made a sort of sugar from it. Sometimes Uncle would let me climb up the tree a little ways and sit on the lower branches. I couldn't have easily done that on a wild honey locust. They have long, nasty thorns all around their trunks that would make you think twice or six times about trying to conquer them. Uncle said you could use the thorns of a wild honey locust for nails, they were that hard. He knew a lot about trees, my Uncle Gio. While the honey locust in his backyard was of the thornless variety, there were still a few stray thorns here and there to keep me on my toes. I learned quickly to be careful about where I reached when I worked my way up the trunk, and also to wear jeans instead of slacks, which snagged easily and weren't much protection from that occasional thorn.

Welcome Aboard...

They would find me on the windowsill, asleep.

I was probably four or five years old, and sometimes I'd leave my bed in the middle of the night to lie on the windowsill and watch the moon. We were living on 62nd Avenue in Riverdale, Maryland. Our place was half a red brick double block. Bedrooms upstairs. Living room downstairs. Kitchen in the rear, and a back yard with a fruit tree of some sort. I can't recall the fruit…might have been peaches, or pears. Whatever fruit the tree bore, when it fell from the branches to the thick green grass, the bees swarmed around it. I learned quickly not to trot around the back yard barefoot.

My days were the days of any small boy: playing hard, getting dirty, kicking a ball around, and, of course, doing a lot of pretending. Imagination ruled.

On hot summer days, the sidewalk in front of the house became a submarine. Each section of concrete a different compartment: here, the torpedo room, there the conning tower, behind that the engine room. We didn't need a crews quarters or a galley; we had the house for that. The sidewalk submarine was all about the business of imaginary combat. Sunk by a depth charge? No problem…we'd just escape from the murky depths and swim up onto the front lawn, an imaginary tropical island inhabited by cannibals and dinosaurs.

Waterboarding America...

There's a lot of talk these days about Gitmo and waterboarding.

The President wants Gitmo closed. Fast. Without any plan in place to deal with Gitmo's inmates. (That seems to be a hallmark of this Administration...act now, sweat the details later. The "Trust us" strategy. Why should that work any better with this Administration than the last? Umm...this is the Government we're talking about, right?)

And then there's waterboarding ...a form of torture that simulates drowning. That, too, must cease and desist. Immediately, if not sooner.

And while the Administration tries to rush-rush the closing of Gitmo ...and while the talking heads debate waterboarding ...our Congress is about to pass legislation ...legislation our President will surely sign... to "reign in" those bloodsucking credit card companies who are crushing so many American taxpayers.

Great! Terrific! Finally, the Government goes to bat for the little guy!

So when will Americans get relief?

Not immediately. Not tomorrow. Not even next week or next month.

Try next year, starting in February of 2010.

Which means from now until then, banks and credit card companies can and will waterboard America with higher rates, fees, fees, fees, and arbitrarily reduced credit lines.

Break Out the Weed Killer...

Each spring, I watch my sleeping lawn, waiting for the first sign of fresh growth and the imminent promise of grass to be cut. A month or so back, I looked out from my porch and saw a blotch of color. Green shoots! I ambled over for a closer look, thinking ahead to hot summer afternoons mowing and the cool adult refreshment after a hard day's work.

I bent down for a look at my green shoots, and frowned. My "green shoots" were just weeds.

Weeds, weeds, weeds...

Just like our economy.

Weeds, weeds, weeds...

I am frankly sick to death of hearing about "green shoots" whenever a beleagured company posts either a small profit or a smaller than expected loss.

Why?

Because all too often the profits have been boosted by "cost-cutting" measures. Companies cut back on capital spending. They freeze hiring. They freeze or cut wages. They kick people to the curb, leaving those left on the job with more to do (a torturous process called "increasing employee efficiency").

Sure...this most certainly cuts expenses. In the short run, it may boost profits. And from a distance, this improved bottom line looks like a "green shoot."

T'aint so. Those "green shoots" growing around those corporate profits are just weeds ...a quickly growing army of unemployed Americans.

Weeds, weeds, weeds... and they will eventually overwhelm all those corporate profits.

Has it really been a week since the last time we talked? Well, since I talked…and you listened. I still find it hard to believe that anything I say would interest you. Of course, it's not me you want to hear about, is it? Don't shake your head, it's true. We both know it. It's the story I'm telling that has your attention. I do have something juicy to share with you, though, if you'll indulge me.

I was nearly arrested a few days ago!

Can you believe that? Nearly slapped in cuffs and hauled away in full view of the neighbors!

Remember Mr. Franco? The old bastard? I had a run-in with his son. I was cutting the grass on Sunday and the two of them were sitting on the old bastard's porch ogling me. Swilling lemonade, the both of them, and I'm sure they were drooling back into their glasses as they watched me cut. I was about halfway done when the mower conked out. It was running fine, and then it just stopped. There were no gouts of smoke or sudden shimmies and shakes. It just died, and no amount of pulling the starter cord would get it going again.

Joe would have been in his glory, fetching his toolkit and spreading the guts of the mower out on the lawn so he could "troubleshoot" the engine. Troubleshooting involves several cold beers and the better part of a day tinkering and cussing, but he always fixes it, and the grass gets cut.

Joe wasn't home. He was at his brother's house watching a ball game, so it was up to me and the screwdriver I found on the workbench to try and resuscitate the Craftsman. I gave it a good looking-over. Nothing seemed amiss. I've learned a little bit about the mower since Joe got hurt. I know where the air filter is and how to replace it. I can make sure the spark plug wire is firmly seated. I check sporadically that the blade isn't getting jammed up with wet grass. I can even change the oil. I couldn't find a thing wrong.

She sat on the couch for half an hour, trying not to worry, telling herself that any second now she'd hear the porch door open and Wilson shouting from the kitchen: "Anita! Help me escape from this parka!"

The only sound she heard, other than the wind rushing around the house, was the occasional crack of firewood popping in the fireplace.

Another intense chill swept through her, the third in just ten minutes. She was probably running a fever. Her hands and feet felt like blocks of ice.

Something bubbled up from her memory …something her doctor said last year, during a post-transplant follow-up …something about raw vegetables. Food poisoning. Salmonella. She'd said she was going on a vegan diet and showed him the research she'd cobbled together: A copy of a colorful vegan food pyramid, with a small cap of fats at the top, all the veggies in the center, and a broad base of grains at the bottom. She handed over an article on nutritional supplements, as well as the first week's diet she'd carefully planned. Her doctor gave everything a quick look.

No matter what you call it ...a nasty lil' bug!

The Egyptian government has ordered the slaughter of 300,000 pigs to ward off swine flu.

In a related story, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bowing to pressure from the pork industry, will no longer call the disease sweeping the globe "swine flu."

Instead, they will refer to the virus as influenza A/H1N1.

There is no evidence that pigs have caused a single flu infection in any humans.

"Oh, the ignorance! What a shame!" lamented a WHO spokesperson. "Every pig in Egypt will die just because this disease was called 'swine flu!'"

A proposal to change the name a second time from A/H1N1 to "Attorney Flu" was narrowly defeated after the American Bar Association threatened to sue.

Unemployed...or just doing their part to boost profits?

"Job Cuts Avert Catastrophic Quarter as Profits Excel" screamed a headline I read today at the Bloomberg website. In a nutshell, because companies across the world are eliminating jobs in bucket loads, they are lowering their labor costs. That's boosting their profits. Of course, the disaster these companies have averted isn't averted at all. It becomes a blizzard of catastrophes, one for each household which loses a wage earner to job cuts. That's 5.1 million catastrophes in the United States alone since 2007.

I suppose it is a matter of perspective...one person's catastrophe is another's windfall.

Here was another great Bloomberg headline: "Smallest U.S. Wage Gain on Record Is ‘Upside for Profits." It's in the same vein...for those folks who still have jobs, wages went up at the lowest rate on record. Wages are a big part of the operating expense of any business, so keeping the lid on wages helps the bottom line.

The quick and ugly recap: Companies are beating profit expectations by beating up their employees. It's a curious act of self-cannibalism, as the very people losing their jobs or having their wages cut or frozen are the single most important piece of the modern American economy: The Consumer.

No...I haven't been on any sort of vacation. (The annual pilgrimage to State College not withstanding).

In what free time I've had, I've been trying to finish up the current "Act" of No Cognitive Defect. Two "Acts" have been completed so far...my introduction of some of the major characters and setting the scene was the first. Next came a trip to the past to establish some history. The current "Act" will leave most of the characters in peril while I recharge my batteries. (I don't think I'll be "recharging" for very long...I really want to keep this moving).

In the course of doing this project ...of writing the first draft of a novel online, warts and all ...I've begun to discover a bit about how my process works. Many writers work like sculptors...they throw a big mess of clay in front of them and carve away to release the sculpture that was "...already there, waiting for them."

That doesn't work for me.

I've discovered I write a novel much like I built balsa wood model airplanes when I was a kid. I lay down the underpinnings of the story much like I would lay down the bare balsa ribs of a model's wings and fuselage. When I built the airplanes, a finished frame was clearly recognizable as an aircraft ...and it was not only ugly but utterly incapable of flight. It's the same thing with No Cognitive Defect. I am laying down the framework. There are pieces that read well, and pieces that read (to me at least) as clumsy and forced.

But, again, I'm building the "airframe" of the novel. When my model airplanes had their major components framed out, it was time to cover them with tissue paper, add the cockpit detail, begin the careful process of applying layers of paint, decals, etc. From all that detail work, the airplane emerged.

Wilson swung his crutch hard at the workshop door, shattering both window panes simultaneously and sending glass fragments into the workshop.

Erica would murder him if she saw him doing this.

They'd installed the door years earlier, and Erica had cut the glass for the window panes herself. She wouldn't be at all fond of his smashing up her handiwork. They'd lucked into the door while out for a long, fall country drive on the winding roads along the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. It was propped up against a sickly Black Tupelo, a tree which was stubbornly refusing to die, with decaying, withered branches on its northern half and blazing, red, scarlet-purple and yellow-orange foliage on its southern face. There was a large hand-scrawled "FREE" sign hanging from the doorknob. An old man in a rocking chair watched from his porch, smoking a pipe and rocking gently as they pulled over and got out to inspect the door. For months they'd been looking for something to replace the dented, heavily-rusted metal door to the workshop. Erica didn't want something store-bought; that simply wouldn't do. She wanted something with character.

"I'll know it when I see it," she'd said, and the moment she spotted the door reposing against the Black Tupelo it was clear they'd found it at last.