Crazy Stable

There is no end of inspiration possible when one is eating a muffin and drinking coffee while overlooking Prospect Park on a winter afternoon. Fueled by sugar and hazelnut-scented caffiene, I awoke from my post-holiday stupor and realized: This is it! This is 2006, the year of our 20th anniversary in the Crazy Stable! Next September will mark two decades since we staggered into this overwhelming monstrosity, and they must and shall be celebrated! My vague, long-held dream has been to finally hold an exorcism--excuse me, a house-blessing--and have a reception for all and sundry, kicked off by playing the Talking Heads' Burning Down the House . (And to have the front hallway, including the broken stained glass and horrible busted-up painted-over parquet floor, done in time to cap this celebration.) So there's a goal for this year...one to prod me in the small of the back like a bayonet when my feet start to drag.  (And bayonet-in-small-of-back is not such a bad thing when you're on the downside of being a wee bit bipolar. At least you're moving and not lying by the side of the road in a ditch moaning! Empowering death-march metaphors! Who says I can't think positive?)

 And as for the year after that...the year in which, like SNL's Sally O'Malley, I turn 50...I may do this. Get a bike and raise my physical fitness level above its current road-kill status, and ride a "century" to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my father, Richard Q. Becker, who left us too soon because of that miserable condition, in 1985. (Here he is in December 1945, with the 240th MP Battalion in reconstruction Japan, stationed on the island of Honshu; he spent part of the year some 120 km from Hiroshima, suggesting a connection to his eventual fate that no amount of research will ever be able to confirm.)

So there we have it...party in '06, ride in '07, with book arts in between. Time to throw the galoshes out the window. 

I wander around the CrazyStable, kicking aside un-put-away Christmas boxes, loathing the proliferative piles of tax documents, gazing out at the mud, and grappling with the impossible realization that age 50 is just around the proverbial corner...and these two just won't shut up:

'What do you fear, lady?' he asked.

'A cage,' she said. 'To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.'

And then there's this, the holy writ of Roz Chast, which has hung on my office door for some 20 years (and not just mine, says Google; sorry it's not bigger or crisper repro): 

Call it a mid-life crisis, and I will cut you to pieces with the Sword that Once Was Broken, and then toss them (the pieces) out of the window. 

We spotted the trendlet in a loony bookstore in (where else?) Woodstock last summer, but now that the New York Times is on board, it's official: The "Indigo Children" have arrived. (No Times link without registering, but you can sample the lunacy here.) This hilarious conceit sounds like it was created to accessorize some fatuous ex-hippie Ivy League ninny in a Woody Allen screenplay, but I swear it's true: There's a network of New Age baby-boomer authors and gullible parent-followers who believe that today's "difficult" kids--whether clinically symptomatic for ADHD or simply spoiled and insufferable--are actually a new breed of more highly evolved beings, who will bring humanity to some (very vaguely specified) next level or post-Aquarian nirvana. (They're "indigo" based on the color of their aura, according to one of the founding scientific investigators, who made this discovery based on...her innate ability to see aura colors.) Indigos often have large, luminous eyes; they are "extremely bright, precocious children with an amazing memory and a strong desire to live instinctively...sensitive, gifted souls." It's the perfect apotheosis of Boomer parenting: Not only is my kid not a "problem"--my kid is here to save the world!

Yes, the next time little Granola or Dylan bites the cat or kicks in a pastry case at the local Starbucks, be prepared for a simpering parent to bite her lip, muster her patience, and share with you the Truth about the rampant offspring: Indigos are just like that, and maybe you're just not ready for the kind of mellow, non-authoritarian world they're trying to create!

Today's bonus revelation, however, is that there are also Indigo Cats. (Yes, folks, it's Friiiidaaaay!) These cats belong to a breed usually called "Ragdoll," but a quick investigation into their history and characteristics will reveal that the feline Indigos are among us. They were bred in the Sixties--in California-- by a woman who later claimed that the cats had space alien and human DNA. (The breeder was long thought to be delusional, but now we know better!) They are the subject of many myths, such as that they are impervious to pain (due to their ability to go "limp" when held) or that they are too lazy to catch mice. (They are too enlightened to do so.) They have gorgeous blue (ahem, blue) eyes. And they display a sort of benign narcissism that many might label "disruptive"--for instance, sitting squarely on the inane New York Times lifestyle article you were reading. (Your Indigo Raggie is actually trying to raise your consciousness to a higher plane, one nearer its food dish.) Indigo cats, like Indigo children, are also intuitive healers, identifying warm parts of your aura and settling their furry bulk on the neediest chakras.

As an award-winning science writer, however, I felt the need to test my Indigo cat/Ragdoll hypothesis with some objective criteria, namely this diagnostic instrument compiled by some of the founding parents of Indigo theory. (Just replace the word "child" with "cat" throughout.) Statistical sample: N = 1 (Lexi, shown above). P ("preposterous") value: Highly significant. Here are highlights of this landmark research establishing that Ragdolls are Indigo:

1. Did your child come into the world acting like royalty? Totally--even in a pet-shop crate.
2. Does your child have a feeling of deserving to be here? Totally--even after she leaves the litter pan without covering over.
3. Does your child have an obvious sense of self? To an amazing degree, enhanced by vast amounts of fur and adipose tissue.
4. Does your child have difficulty with discipline and authority? Only when we foolishly try to curb her performance art on the kitchen table.
5. Does your child refuse to do certain things they [sic] are told to do? Yes--because we fail to see that by tearing off the kitchen cabinet veneer, she is remaking our world.
6. Is waiting in lines torture for your child? She looked definitely stressed in the vet's waiting room, but it might have been the Rottweiler.
7. Is your child frustrated by ritual-oriented systems that require little creativity? Raggies spurn all rituals except those involving turkey breast and body rubs. 
8. Does your child see better ways of doing thing at home and at school? Oh, yes. She rearranges my desktop accessories and writing implements by carrying them around the house, singing to them, and depositing them at mystically determined locations.
9. Is your child a nonconformist? Definitely--she will not conform to the cat carrier that easily held our less-ample felines, because the world needs to evolve to accomodate 15-lb. cats.
10. Does your child refuse to respond to guilt trips? Her big blue eyes always carry the same message: I'm the one who needs to lighten up.
11. Does your child get bored rather easily with assigned tasks? Again the diagnosis fits! Even eating is too uncreative for Lexi; she must toss her bits of chow all over the floor in delightful patterns!
12. Does your child display symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder? What was that again?
13. Is your child particularly creative? Ragdoll cats create good karma. That counts.
14. Does your child display intuition? Whoa, yeah. Reads my mind when I'm thinking "Hm, time for a can of Fancy Feast?"
15. Does your child have strong empathy for others? To a touching degree. She knows, for instance, that at 6 a.m. on a weekend, I am tragically wasting time in bed that could be spent, oh, doing something involving turkey breast and a body rub.
16. Did your child develop abstract thinking very early? We suspect so; her eyes track back and forth in her head while her gaze is fixed on "nothing." Indigo children, say their advocates, see angels. Lexi may see cosmic turkeys, big-breasted ones, or dancing salamis. 
17. Is your child very intelligent? While the IQ of our Ragdoll is a subject of intense academic debate, she has shown extraordinary gifts for pressing us into her domestic service.
18. Is your child very talented (may be identified as gifted)? We identify everyone in the CrazyStable as "gifted." It's a perk of living here.
19. Does your child seem be a daydreamer? See "eyes track back and forth," above.
20. Does your child have very old, deep, wise looking eyes? Well, they are very very blue...
21. Does your child have spiritual intelligence? I'm thinking yes, based on my reading of her aura and her whisker energy fields.

So there you have it: More than 10 answers and your cat--or kid--is an Indigo. More than 15, and it's definite. Crystal blue persuasion, baby!

Unlikely day for finding a path to light...the sort of morning of which Gandalf would announce mournfully, "There will be no dawn." No orcs attacking from Mordor, but mountains of backlogged housework, hormonal brain scrambling, tenant packing up, Christmas decorations sorrowfully reminding one that Epiphany, the Final Frontier, is just around the corner...and then, in a brief burst of energy when the sun broke through, I attempted to boil eggs. I am a pretty competent cook and have a good reputation as a baker, but I am constitutionally incapable of making hard-boiled eggs. Either I follow someone's idiotic instructions and leave them on too briefly (producing Jelly Eggs, yuck) or--more often--I walk out of the kitchen and the pot boils dry and I have India Rubber Eggs and a ghastly black pot.

So I'm upstairs and I smell it...the unmistakable whiff of charred shell. Done it again. Otto, these are mistakes.

Rubber eggs in the garbage can. Back upstairs, I return to the loathsome task at hand--deciding what to do with bags of mixed-up old strings of extra Christmas lights. Test them. (Most still work. Damn.) Untangle them, or start to, and then give up. Put them in a new bag; the old one is full of dust and ancient pine needles and busted spare bulbs. Start thinking serotonin-impaired thoughts about how life is exactly like this crappy bag of lights.

And then, at the bottom of the bag, I found this.  It's a 3X5 card in my late father's hand, a diagram of some particularly pleasing arrangement of Christmas lights he had hung across a room-divider screen, oh, 40 years or so ago.  It is so absolutely classic Daddy--he delighted, not only in meticulous organization, but in making things easier for himself and others in clever little ways. The Crazy Stable is enhanced by a number of his creations and inventions, from skillfully joined bookcases to customized paint-can openers and hand-routed cutting boards. He taught me to strip paint, plant tulip bulbs, make compost, and spackle, and showed Spouse how to install electric fixtures. We inherited his entire (often baffling) collection of tools, from toilet snakes and pliers to dental picks and jeweler's loops. And we inherited the family Christmas lights, one string being the "retro" big-colored-bulb kind; this particular electronic antique was also Daddy-customized, the expanse of cord between each bulb folded in half and secured with electrical tape to produce a better spacing. (It still works just fine, and bedecks the kitchen window every year.) It may sound maddeningly fussy, but it was really the sort of thing he did for fun...and it's sometimes a heavy legacy to bear as I look around a house (parts falling down around our ears, most simply drifting in entropy) that he would have spent his retirement bringing tirelessly back to life with those beloved tools and boundless ingenuity.

This was impossible, however; my dad never got to see the Crazy Stable, and had he lived beyond 69 (a premature death in a family of nonagenarians) the Crazy Stable never would have been ours. His life insurance settlement bestowed on us our only shot at a down payment and home ownership (a dream he himself never fulfilled). When I realized last month that it had been 20 years since the bleak December day of his death, the anniversary seemed impossible for two reasons: one, it was patently absurd that I could ever get through 20 years without him, and two, he seems so very present here.

And often present through light, or things related to light. His motto was "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness," and looking back he seems to have taken this literally as well as spiritually. He was forever providing hapless souls with flashlights (loaded with fresh batteries, of course); badgering me about "good task lighting" for close work and trying out new high-intensity lamps; rigging up "Gro-Lites" for seedlings and houseplants. He always carried safety flares in the trunk of our car, and would Samaritanize any stranded motorist we passed with a flare and a spare "for next time." Again, he did all this, as near as I could figure, for fun.

And so today, as I groveled despondently in my dusty bag of tangled Christmas lights, I came upon this note, with its goofy little chart of "steady burning" versus "blinking" bulbs and its assessment of "total needs," bulb-wise. It has been a long time--20 years?--since anyone took such meticulous care to anticipate any of my total needs, and I just sat on the floor and pressed the note to my chest and smiled. Then I noticed that my radio, which I'd flicked to QXR some time ago, was playing, not just any old classical, but Bach's Prelude and Fugue for Organ--one of the pieces he and I loved listening to together. (He would sometimes laugh and point to the goosebumps on his arms after a particularly good part, and was a shameless fan of E. Power Biggs.)  It's easier to process this sort of thing if you take a Navajo-like approach: ancestor spirits, hanging around, clearly pleased, way good thing.

I think I will leave some of the Christmas lights up past Epiphany this year.

Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
       Tell me, if you know all this.

 What is the way to the abode of light?
       And where does darkness reside?

 Can you take them to their places?
       Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

                                                            Job 38:18-20

According to today's Daily News, the clown prince of Brooklyn, Borough President Marty Markowitz, has proposed not one new slogan for Brooklyn but several, because "Brooklyn is too broad and diverse for one slogan." Now, I thought we already had a plethora of dippy, Rat-Pack-era slogans festooning our boundaries thanks to Marty's inexhaustible zest for promotion, but we would seem to need more, or more official, ones. So far, these incredibly lame efforts include "Brooklyn: Bridge to the World" (gosh how did they think of that one?) and "Brooklyn: The 10th Planet" (brilliantly implying that we are more distant from the center of the solar system than Uranus, a view already held by 87% of Manhattanites).

Well, possums, as Dame Edna might exhort, we can do better! Let's start with just a few possibilities from the latest treasure I have posted for your edification to the right, under "Why Brooklyn?": the full text of a ravishing short essay by Mark Helprin (yes, the mystical Winter's Tale novelist turned odd political animal), back in 1985--a year when loveliness could seem elusive here. It is, quite simply, one of the best things ever written about Brooklyn, and to my knowledge is out of print.

Helprin's luminous prose contains at least three cracking good slogan possibilities for those willing to rise above Martyisms:

Brooklyn: Virtually Infinite

Brooklyn: Paradise, Purgatory and Hell

Of course, many of us who love this place--or our place within its "infinitude"--have developed or spotted our own slogans, or at least our most evocative fragments, the words that best say why we don't live somewhere else. I suspect few are boosterish in the Marty sense, and some may be deeply ambivalent. Mine is, but it's mine and I'm sticking with it. Here it is, the Crazy Stable Brooklyn Slogan:

Brooklyn: Never Easy, Never Dull

All my readers, whoever on earth you are, dears, are invited to contribute your better-than-Marty's Brooklyn slogans with a comment below. The Christmas cookies are all eaten, the eggnog is all drunk, Spouse and Child are back at their respective labors, and I haven't even gotten a seed catalog yet. Etonne-moi!