Whose got the Golden Arm? REVISITED because Skinny reached out and POKED ME with her long, sentimental, and dirty little fingers!

I drug this out of the archives because SKNNY POKED ME! And reminded me, not just of the story, but of the way we all remember. A little bit different. A little bit tainted "our way". Same place. Same times. Same story. And how sometimes spooky little stories, do finally get to you. This Golden Arm was my gift to Kimbies a couple of Christmas's ago. Just another sibling POKE! Because she hated it so. Hated the story. Hated the punch line. Hated having to scooch in closer for the punch line, and 40 years later I can still remember her face, her eyes the size of mudpuddles WIDE OPEN yelping "Not me, Not me" She kept this tacky, but sentimental gift in the corner of her den CLOSED and hated it. And the fact that every time she walked by it, the damn latch was undone and it was open just so drove her mad. So finally Skinny toted it home in March. Ask her how she feels about it!


ORIGINAL POST FROM WAY BACK WHEN

It wasn’t the story so much, as the hot salty air and the night sounds from the ocean, lapping at the open windows. And the candles, of course. Their luminescence creating yellow eyed spirits that crawled our skin and danced amongst us with the breeze. The setting was just too perfect. It always was. And it was tradition. The telling of the spooky summer story….over and over again…

We did it for years. A circle of barefoot youngin’s. Madden always the oldest. Me next. For years, and years, Kimilee the youngest. We’d pile into the terrazzo floored bedroom, dust off a spot to sit on ( Ahhhh, the gritty dry sand from days of tracking in could give your swim suited bottom a rash and a half if you just plopped down on it and then did all the carrying on a spook story required : crouching on your knees in anticipation, flailing arms to fight off the fright, spinning on your rump to hide your eyes completely from the storyteller’s gaze!) We’d light the coveted (taken without permission) hurricane candles and the circle would scooch in closer. But not before Kimilee would do her little Indian princess dance, tiptoeing high, arms fanning at the nighttime ceiling….. “Not me! Not me! Not me! Don’t make it me!” She’d plead, and beg, brown saucer eyes wide open and imploring us to just this once, leave her out of it. “SShhhhhhh” “It won’t be you, sit down and be quiet. Sit right here. It won’t be you.”

So little. So trusting. So scared.

And then Madden would start. And we would just fall into it. The so very familiar story that grew with each passing summer. He would braid a thousand scary stories together in a fragmented slide show, but this would always be “our” story….we’d lean in for certain parts, sweaty little sunburnt faces tightly knotted together. We’d wriggle back through other parts. With each passing summer, Madden grew taller, his voice deepened, and so did the story. While we had heard it a hundred times, each time was the first time. He never ever failed us on that.

“Whoooooooose got the golden aaaarrrrrrmmmmmm? Whoooooose got the golden arrrrrrrmmmmmm? Whose GOT the golden ARRRRRRMMMMM?” The words vibrated through the room, had an ethereal quality to them, that convinced you, all of us, it wasn’t Madden speaking at all. But her. The words were coming from some place deep, and damp, and were being whisked in by the night tides, a dirty little mist settling on top of us, a blanket, wet from the beach. Kimilee would sit with her knees up, holding her toes, burying her tiny little face, whispering “not me. Not me”. In perfect Catholic choir harmony, we would echo “Sssshhhhhhhhhhhh” .

And then, WALLOP! Madden would spring into the air and come booming down with a thunderous crash; his arm probing madly at the circle, obscenely pointing…… at the bearer of his punch line: “YOU DO!”

And poor little Kimilee would cry.

Over and over again.

Why are kids so cruel?
I don’t know. But today… this day… I can tell you that Kimilee, “not me, not me”, is one tough cookie. And she knows the punch line. And scary story, you don’t spook her. She’s hitting back. And we’re all scooching in closer. May the circle be unbroken.

For info on KIMBIES FIGHT BACK please visit our links to Kimbies hand me down levis, otherwise known as love letters to Kimbies and join the fight!

The Dunes

The dunes. Giant sugar covered bellies that we wallowed over like tiny pups with our eyes closed. From the time we could toddle, we were rolling in them, crawling up their shifting sides, sliding down their salty shins. From our house to the roaring ocean, the only fence standing was the dunes. The sun would rise and spray paint their peaks the color of mirrors. And so, we would climb them blindfolded. Chubby little hands folded over squinting eyes. And then swoosh….down the other side to the Gulf. The giant body of endless water that called our names out loud.

We played pirates there. Built Geronimo’s fort out of cardboard boxes and terry cloth towels. Pretended we were movie star cast-aways . We dug for buried treasures and found plenty of them….rusty beer cans, abandoned crab nets, Tiparillos. Mottled oyster shells were sudden jewelry boxes, and we filled them to the brim with colored periwinkles, fishing hooks, and adolescent shark teeth. Summer’s in my memories are measured by how we climbed the dunes. Eventually the cardboard walls of our forts were transformed into cardboard surfboards. We would drag the flattened A & P boxes up one side of the sandy mountain, and go flying, bottoms up, face first, clinging to the makeshift sea sleds down the other. We hauled the entire length of the clothesline up and over the Mother of all dunes, and played Man-of-war-tug-of-war. Which team would be pulled up the dune, heels digging in the scorching sand? Fingers sliced with instant paper cuts from the nylon cord? And which team, would be the winners, sent flying fannies backward by their victory ? We would all eat dirt eventually. Crashing headfirst into the salty earth.

And then there was the jeep. We were not allowed this carnival ride. Not by Mama , anyway. We stole it. Not the jeep, but the memory. Our Daddy and Mr. Bruce, daddy-sitting on a Friday night, piled us in the back, like sardines ourselves, and we were suddenly bobbing, leaping, lurching up the white hillside. The headlights flickered up and down, sideways, making fun of the stars as we struggled to climb the daring dune. At the top, with the tires spinning frantically in place, I was sure we would just topple off the earth. Instead we dove into the black night and landed, promptly, poooooossssssshhhhh , into the forest colored ocean: angry waves swatting at the windows like a drooling, rolling monster. “Sshhhhhhhhhh. Listen for the motor.” I watched peanut butter and jelly sandwiches floating by….Listened for my own motor. My heartbeat. Anyone’s heartbeat. I dug my fingers into Kimcam’s thighs and she never made a sound. We held onto Paiger and the boys like priceless Madame Alexander dolls. The Monster pounded at our doors. Slithered his rheumy arms over the canvas rooftop. His breathing was rhythmic. Splish. Splash. Gurgle. The jeep rocked slowly, the ocean was luring us with his lullaby. And then bam! Mr. Bruce shoved it into gear, and an upside down waterfall was spewing from the jeep, spitting at the stars…..and we were off again! Fishtailing it down the coquina sprinkled shoreline.

Last summer we dunerolled down the wet hills into the nighttime sea . Strangers stood on the crumbling seawall and hooped as we made our wreckless descent. Went face first to the ocean. To the kissing, glorious, arms of the ocean, calling our names.....

Feel the love....
Ride the wave....

There's magic in that old umbrella....

She wouldn’t let me do it. Post it to her blog. Copy the words and share them on the pages of Hand-me-down Levi’s where she is the biggest contributor, and has only ever typed thank-you's and love you's in the comment boxes. Where the walls are painted with love. She only let me listen. And in the quiet Sunday morning after, I sighed and tried to take it all in, one big whoosh of love….tried to save it in my mind, freeze dry the words in a forever state of limbo….

Love letter to my oldest child from Kimbies…..
Shared moments before she sealed the envelope and sent it sailing, a paper kite…..

It won’t be the same here, because I’m not the author and the words were fairytale perfect, captured just as they happened, as they were felt, as they became magic in the making, but the story is so beautiful and if the world, for just a tiny second, could capture life in their hands, the way Kimbies does in her heart, we would all know……peace and love…..

Dear Sweetest Child,

How could I have ever known that day, in the sandy gritty parking lot, when you lugged that old umbrella, stuffed into it’s sack, and plopped it into the back of my mini van, the gifts it would bear? But you knew, didn’t you? Keys in your hand, checking out, counting heads, pulling away from the beach…..your babies faces smashed up against the windows blowing kisses as you drove away, you knew……

And there it lay, on the carpeted floor of my van, waiting….

Thank you , sweet child…..

For shelter from the sun I love so much, for the little tent we’ve camped under over and over again. Alana and I. Sandy peanut butter sandwiches squished between her fingers, sippy cups melting in the heat. Our toes buried under treasure sand. For the rooftop over our heads, Grand-C in her long sleeves, shadowed from the very light we love, protected. We drag the umbrella closer to the water’s edge. A squiggly trail of where we’ve been left in the wet sand. And dig to China. The ocean sees us there. And comes to greet us. Three generations of girls. She knows I can’t come to her and so she plays birthday party at our feet. Dropping trinkets, a thousand years old or older, just within Alana’s reach….And Alana names them all….. “Umbwella chells, buttafwy chells, fingahnail chells” and drops them in her tiny plastic bucket. “Twehsures”…… she chases the frothy bubbles of the mermaid’s breath at the oceans edge, catching them with her butterfly net…..and we splash, and laugh, and precious, precious memories are made…..

When it’s time to go, when the tide reminds us by climbing a little higher, talking a little louder, pushing us a little harder, we follow the squiggly trail of the umbrella’s footsteps, back to the car…..and turn around, amazed at the vastness, the bigness behind us.
Alana raises her little fingers to her lips and blows….softly, butterfly kisses to the sea…..
“Tank you, ocean, Tank you……”

I thank you sweet child, for the gift you’ve always been….


In April of 2006 Kimbies was diagnosed with breast cancer, Stage IV, and the last year and a half has changed all of our lives forever, the sun became taboo and the race to live began. We are celebrating remission now, in all it’s hugeness, but the treatments continue, the mountain climbing an always present task. Kimbies is going to the beach again. Hand in hand with her tiny grand~daughter and in the sand, right behind her, our Mom. Love grows.

And we all fall down......

We really did go to the beach, I swear. We just spent a lot of time at the Tiki Bar. I mean, they put it right there. We had to trip over it to get to the ocean! So as soon as we emptied the cars, hurling stuff through the motel room doors, we trapsed our little fannies down to the bar and parked it there. "Woo, hoo! We're at the beach"!

The deck teeters over the edge of a steep dune, haphazardly reconstructed by the hurricanes, and the wind howls through the railings at night, making the tarps billow, the ceiling fans sway, and the bartender's tips, if not scooped up right away, blow to the next lucky recipient. Dollar bills scurry across the splintered planks like tiny runaway rodents and float like lost kites in the sky. Little kids, whose parents, hours ago trusted them to the sandbox, chase them in the neon night.

And so we danced. In the sprinkler mist piped in like Musac from the Tiki Bar roof. Barefooted with beers in our hands. Over and over again. We danced with each other, with strangers, with lovers, and hubbies. We danced with other peoples hubbie's, bikers, and the boys from The Brotherhood of Death (you know who you are.....precious skin headed just-turned-21 friends) We danced til one of us had splinters in her toes and one landed on her rump, feet to the sky. We danced until I fell off of a perfectly good chair, cracking a rib, and got up to do it again. (Kind of like when the music stops, the safety bar rises and you have to exit the Tilt-a-Twirl and walk on perfectly flat earth again....Just another day at The Fair!)

We danced until we were silly......

Enough to do other silly things... To roll down the dunes, into high tide, biting the sand straight from the ocean's lips. To give out our email addresses to people we wouldn't give our names to.

Sometimes you have to runaway.
To do what you really want to do.
To heal.
To find the reason.

June 18th, 2007.....
Report from the "he's so handsome" Doctor......

What have you been doing, Kim?
You went to the beach?"

yeah, I did.
And oh, yeah, I drank beer.....

Come here and give me a hug.

and then go do it again....

You're in remission!


Feel the Love......

Take my hand.....

We're doing it....



Bailing.....
Throwing it all in the back of the car and driving off...



May seven sunsets and seven sunrises.... be blessed....

With perfect strangers we fall in love with...
Ice cold bar beers...
Spicy chicken wings...
Periwinkle soup ,
Barefoot sandals,
Bloody Marys,
Grafitti in the sand.....
Band-aid tattoos,
Found treasures...
Moonlit nights and the cat that jumped over them,
Coolers full of melting ice,
Salty white sheets covered in sand,
A margarita now and then,
Frosty window units dripping through the night,
Sunburns that feel good....
Rock and roll laughter....
Slow dancing to fast songs...
Spooky seawall stories...
And the yellow butterfly.......

Clink!
Here's to getting the days and nights mixed up...



For seven days and seven nights!



Feel the love.......

On Borrowed wings....

On a borrowed computer, on swiped internet...from the porch....
I miss you guys! Miss Vicci, can't wait to see Kim's beautiful smile when she is gifted with your treasures...Anne, I can't begin to tell you....SLB, can't wait to see you, I mean CAN'T WAIT!.....C, Hope you and family have a beautiful Christmas blessed with peace, love you girls!... Orhan...God, i miss your posts....Everybody, wishing you peace, love, and a blessed New Year!


RESOLUTIONS....

I've tried it everyway. New Year's, that is. As a child, we hooped and hollered, twirled Nana's noisemakers in the air! "It's New Years!" Along the way, we started sneaking down to the basement, having James whip us up Suicides....coke and rum and vodke, pepsi and OJ swirled in iced tea glasses....gag me with a spoon! But it left us breathless, and sitting in circles, watching midnight grab the sky, singing...."Sha Na Na Na...Hey...Hey...Hey...Good-bye... holding hands, and sometimes upchucking heads. I ache now. We are not all here now. Those were the New Years we should have hugged each other harder and left the toilets to their own.

And then we were legally "grow-up". And we hung from balconies and french kissed at midnight. It was still good. Even the year Gary Fishowitz overdosed and sentenced himself to a life pacing in an antiseptic aquarium plugged into IVs for eternity. It was still going to be a good year. That was the year Christian came out of the closet, called off his engagement to Juliet, and rocked his parent's world. We applauded him. The year that Kimbies got suspended for smoking in the bathroom and the year that my boyfriend, in a a death defying act, flipped the camaro upside down and I LIVED! It's all good.

And then we were on our own. and dateless, and all piled up in a "too expensive" "too cramped for comfort" apartment and "What the hell?" they were having a Champagne and Caviar Party at the clubhouse...So we tooled our size six fannies over and swallowed fish eggs and pink bubbles and left with the first three cars that fled the scene...

And we married our rides....(Some of us for better, some for worse, and one just for the ride)

Time flies when you're having a really good time, and we must have because it's a blue that I really don't remember....and suddenly....

It's another life and

I'm at the airport and I'm watching as my soldier lumbers down the ramp and it's late, far too late to bring in the New Year, and I'm thrilled...
He's alive and He's home and I'm in loe and jet lag is an urban myth...

We set the clocks back four and a half hours and embrace the New Year just before the sun comes up....on our own make-believe time.

Years pass.
they bring their blessings and their curses.

I've cheered New Years and blessed it out. I've welcomed the New and buried, literally, the old...dug mammoth holes in the flower beds, and put the crap to rest. I've burned it. And run out into the street and tossed it's ugly karma to the sky...ashes floating aimlessly, landing on the curbs. i've kissed the sky and wished on stars...I've given up and gone to bed....

Last year, we started this "Resolution" thing again...The time had come. A million things to resolve to, to amend to, to agree to, to give in to. But we picked only three. kimbies and Butch and I. We must have known then. WE CHOSE PEACE. WE WANTED PEACE. And oh yeah, they would get a dog and I would get a boyfriend, We just sort of threw that in. We just wanted peace.

"Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes if you try, you get what you need" MJ and the Rolling Stones.

So we buried our friends, and Kimbies has cancer, and the first boyfriend in 14 years didn't work out.

On New Years Eve, we have reservations. Resolutions. Dresses. And a limo. Kimbies will be mannequin beautiful in her hippie bandana with her priceless husband at her side. We'll leave little Nay-Nay, the Chihuahua, in her pink tutu at home. We'll cheer. Probably cry. We'll dance. We'll have exactly one too many drinks. We'll hug. We'll all hold hands at some point and maybe fall on our knees on the dirty litle floor and thank God for the noise of rock and roll, and the healing, and the Angels that brought us here. And at midnight, we'll turn and kiss...

I'm so glad even resolutions give us second chances. This one is a keeper.

Peace

It's good, It's all good

OK. My hair is falling out. Those spaghetti straight golden tendrils that I used to twirl between my fingers when in thought, that I used to plop up on top of my head, held securely by a pencil, when it was hot. It’s all falling out! Breaking off in obscene places and just leaving my head. “Must be the stress” my girlfriend Sheila said. “It looks like you were ironing it and fell asleep” she added. Thanks, girlfriend! I do not iron my hair and when was the last time I "fell" asleep? I fight it, baby!

I first noticed it in July. Woke up one morning with this tuft of crimped hair just sort of static-like at the back of my crown. Damn! Did someone CUT a chunk of my hair while I was sleeping? And then, uggggh, it kind of spread. Like I was going for the bangs look all the way around my head . Check the chemicals in the pool. I must be baking out here in the lazy round river. No, no, it’s good.

Geez….what’s a girl to do?

In August I noticed that the blow dryer was spitting little electric flames out at my face, burning my earlobes.... and was overcome with relief….. Shhhhhwwwweewwww…. Close one! I’ve been frying it every morning and just didn’t realize it. Pitched the blow dryer and replaced it with a new “better” version….only blows cool air. Heal me, please.

Uh, no. It’s still falling out. Skinny fetched me hot oil treatments, ummm, to no avail. OK, it’s good. It’s sympathy pains. I’m sure that’s it. Our beautiful sib, Kimmilee is going through chemo and losing her hair in chunks. Like every thing else in our lives, we’re just doing it together. It’s good. I can do this. But, somehow, I know….. No…this isn’t it.

I wake up one night tossing and turning and there is Deja, my blue eyed wild child Siamese dancing in my bedhead hair, swatting up a storm! That’s it! She’s been thinning it all along and I’ve slept through it! But, no….I stayed awake for 7 nights in a row, and she never once again, offered to come and pull out my hair in my sleep. I even tried to bribe her.

So now it’s November. I’ve changed shampoos, pillowcases, chlorine, blow-dryers, brushes, and boyfriends.

I woke up this morning and it was fixed.

Must have been the boyfriend thing.

I know who you are and saw what you did....

There were five of us. Kids. And a natural order of Age. Me, four years, Kimbies, 4 more years, Curty Boy, 2 years, Skinny 2 more years and then Chanty Boy.

For the most part we were passive, a wandering tribe of gypsy souls. Rarely did we scrap. By our teen years, Kimbies and I were given lots of freedom as long as we toted a little one with us. Thus, Curty, Skinny and Chance were introduced to Rock and Roll, fast cars, and secrets early on.

And that would be how the natural order of things would change.

Skinny, when not digging in the dirt, was the first to bop up with "Take me, Take me", often elbowing her way into the front of the line. Which wasn't really hard to do. Curty was passive and frankly,not really interested in cruising with the big kids on Friday night. Happy to just stay home, perched indian legged in front of the big old console TV, watching reruns. And Chanty, with no words to make his wishes known was often at our "take em or leave em" mercy. While I love Skinny dearly, being the oldest, I often opted to take Chanty. We'd plop him on the center console of Million's van, and venture into the week-end, Deep Purple blasting from the 8-track, windows rattling. See, Chanty, dumplin' of a sweetie, is down syndrome...born with a forever smile and dancing eyes. And in those little eyes you have to read the world, because he doesn't speak The Kings English. His tiny voice box was just born jumbled up and the sounds and noises he makes are endless streams of babbling, sound effects, noise....but never words. He early on, became the keeper of secrets. Never one to tattle tell.

Not the case for Skinny.

Her endless arms and legs piling into the week-end, also meant her wishing well eyes were there. Soaking in every word, every sight, every secret. She would be elbow deep in a bag of Lay's BBQ chips, singing, WATCHING. Gathering. Later, on occassion, trading sssssshhhhhhhssssshhhhhhs for candy bars. A business agreement. A lucrative and viable business agreement. "Don't tell Mom and Dad"

As the years grew and her legs grew, we settled into sisterhood. Trading secrets for secrets. Trading the spoken for the unspoken. Trading the order.

Sometimes now she leads.

And I quietly follow.

Oh.....the secrets Chance could tell.