Holy Diver

I’m one of those people you have to literally shove into something. Think of it akin to a person being shoved out of an airplane and told to open their chute and survive on their own. You’ll find out very fast you can do something.

Okay, so maybe not as dramatic as that. But still. You have to shove me.

Let me take you back to when I was around 4. There is a local pool built on a lot adjacent to the high school. It is an indoor pool, of course (there are outdoor pools in Oregon but it’s a pretty weird sight) and mom signed me up for lessons.

I’m a rock solid Earth sign and happen to like my feet on terra firma thank you. But something about water has always fascinated me and any amount of time I can spend in water I love. (Which is usually in a sink. Mom used to have to go looking for me and she’d find me in the bathroom playing in the sink. I used to commandeer my grandmother’s kitchen sink for hours at a time with make-believe games in the sink. Freak.) Swimming was an excellent choice.

I can see flashes of this particular event in my mind’s eye very clearly. Some are rather hazy. What do you expect from a memory over 21 years old?

At the end of each lesson, the instructor would remove the large, low, flat metal stand that was sunk into the pool for us to stand on so we wouldn’t drown. Then we were to jump into the shallow end, dog paddle to the teacher, dog paddle to the wall and climb out. End of the lessons always went this way.

Even at the age of 4 I was a very… strong-willed person. I loved swimming (as you can guess) but I also loved going home.

One particular day, as we were lined up on the wet tile that surrounded the poolside, I encountered a roadblock to my plan of getting home a.s.a.p. I don’t remember his name, and barely remember that he was a scrawny blond boy who was wrapped around himself in a snivelling, shivering way.

He was next in line before me and refused to jump off the edge to end his lesson.

It probably wasn’t as long as I imagined it, being as a 4 year old really doens’t have much concept of time, but it was taking too damn long for him to get it over with. Didn’t he know he had nothing to fear? The teacher would catch him if need be! It wasn’t far! Besides, he’d just spent all the time in the water!

In a moment of frustration, I pushed him off the edge.

Yup. Four year old me had just pushed a child my age off the edge of a pool to get him going.

I stood there passively watching the kid flail in the water, freaking out and probably screaming, and wondering when the hell he’d get out so I could jump in and finish my lessons.

The teacher, a ever vigilant guy probably in his 20s, of course rescued my unwitting classmate and returned him to the safety of the poolside.

I, on the other hand, was escorted by the arm to the side of the pool near the office door and given a stern talk about water safety and how we ‘don’t push people into the pool, no matter what!’

My mother was sitting in the narrow catwalk-like balcony far above the pool. She had watched the whole scenario unfold. Pinned with the fearful realization that “oh my god my child just pushed another into the pool!?”

She eventually met me in the changing room, as I was dismissed without further ado, and escorted me home, praying the entire time that we would not run into the little boy’s mother. We didn’t.

…

Revenge came upon me many years later.

Around 7, again the summer swimming lessons were in full swing. Instead of being the impaitent, domineering child when it came to the pool, I was far more weary. We had moved into the middle of the pool, where my feet no longer touched bottom and it became quite apparent that you could drown in said water.

My teacher for these advanced lessons was Kurt. A typical 80’s college guy, who wore a Speedo and was never without his 1980’s style sunglasses. He had a different pair for every damn day. (We even bought him some with the American flag painted on them at a Fair later on, just because they were so Kurt.)

He was saddled with my fearful and wary ass every day for as many weeks as the class was. Constantly he would have to tell me “You can do that.” It probably would have been a lot easier to just hire him as a private tutor for swimming lessons, when I look back on it, because I was sorely hogging attention from the rest of the class.

Kurt got me to the point where I could jump off the edge of the pool, dive to the bottom to collect flimsy plastic rings, and generally not drown. Those foam kickboards were instantly glued in my grip and he’d have to pry them forcefully away to get me to do anything that required more then a dog paddle.

My mom begged the staff at the pool to let Kurt continue teaching me in the next level of classes, since he was apparently the only instructor who could get me to do anything other then grip the kickboard and float there. Eventually they relented and agreed to let me continue on to the next level in Kurt’s instruction.

There is actual home video of me during these swimming lessons. I am a chubby, blonde seven year old in a blue suit, drapped in an over-sized beach towel that belong to my dad at one point. Rubbing the water from my eyes and generally screaming “NO I DON’T WANT TO!” at various points until Kurt wheedled me to the point where I had to.

No, this is not the revenge of which I speak. But it’s coming up.

You see, Kurt only taught beginning swimming. At the end of those classes, there would be no more he could do. He knew this and had the foresight to find another teacher in the intermmediate classes that could handle me.

I believe her name was Karen. Honestly, I’d have to watch the home video to find out. She was also the typical college student, teaching bratty kids to swim for money on summer break. Her hair was short, kept that way probably for competitive swimming and she wore the tank suits that most swimmers wear.

She didn’t have the finesse that Kurt did when she wanted me to do something, but still, she got me to do it.

I was given empty Clorox bottles to use as floats and my beloved kickboard was taken away. We moved onto advanced swimming, like the “Dead Man’s Float”. I did remarkably well, as long as she pushed me.

To graduate this level of classes you had to do one thing: you had to jump off the high diving board.

I don’t like heights. Well, when you can see what’s below you and you’re about to jump off something, that I don’t like.

Karen was determined and matched me head on in stubborness. If I wanted to pass I had to jump. I tried to get her to let me jump from the side of the pool, because I could certainly handle that.

“The high dive or nothing,” was her reply.

The day came. The rest of the class jumped one by one off the diving board. Kurt watched with my parents as Karen climbed up behind me to the diving board and inched us out to its end.

Arms around me, she jumped us off into the waiting water.

I passed her class.

…

I would like to thank Kurt and Karen for putting up with me. In subsequent years I went on to be a decent swimmer, unafraid of the deep end. I frequently jumped from the diving boards (even the really high one once in the olympic-sized pool in town. My god what was I thinking?!) and could dive properly from the side of the pool. I could relatively pass any swimming test that was required for someone to swim in the deep end (I can’t swim a straight line doing the side stroke to save my life but I can do it!) and I even entertained going into synconized diving at one point.

I have not been in a pool since my teenage years, though. The fact that I was horrified at how I look in a swimming suit coupled with the fact that I have tattoos my parents do not know of have pretty much killed any chance of me being in a swimming pool. That and chlorine destroys my hair to straw.

Maybe one day I will return to the blessed water-filled adventures of my childhood.

For now, the kitchen sink is my playground once more.

Father Christmas

At 16, I spent 10 days in London, England. It was a “last gift”, if you will, from my beloved grandfather. Before he died that year, he had told me he would send me on a trip, somewhere outside the United States.

I think his intention had been to send me alone with some group, like People-to-People. Which is not my cup of tea. If I’m going some place I’ve never been I tend to want to explore on my own and not keep a demanding and rigid schedule.

So, instead of that, the immediate family went. Mom, dad, and grandma. Plus me. A 16 year old, blood-red-haired me. Stuck right in the middle of my hardcore “I wear only black clothing.” phase.

Good times.

We did a lot in those ten days. One of the most interesting bits was the fact that we decided to visit the world famous department store, Harrod’s. Being the first week in December, the Christmas decor and celebrations were in full-swing around London. And Harrod’s didn’t disappoint.

As a kid I had visited many a mall Santa. You know the drill: stand in line for what seems like forever, finally get to sit on Santa’s lap, tell him maybe three things you want, pose for an extremely over-priced photo, get a tiny candy cane in a cellophane wrapped, NEXT!

With its rich traditions and decidedly different history compared to America, England’s version of Santa is similar but different.

And when it comes to Harrod’s everything’s A-list and over the top.

…

I took it into my head that I was going to stand in line and see Father Christmas at Harrod’s.

“Okay… good luck.” My mom departed, leaving me standing in a line that was remeniscient of a ride line at Disneyland. Complete with markers hanging over head that read “X hours til front of the line from this point”. I think the one I started at was 1.5 hours.

Unlike the standard mall Santa where you stand in a line on public display to the hoardes of mall shoppers, at Harrod’s this year you entered a strange and wonderful tunnel-like room. On either side were windows with various scenes from the “story” they were presenting that year; I think it had to do with teddy bears and woodland creatures trying to find Father Christmas or something. Some of the scenes had moving figures and I guess there was a backstory you could read.

What intrigued me the most was the fact there were several girls, around my age and older, wandering up and down this snaking line of mothers and their children. They were dressed in costumes similar to something like Bo-Peep or Litttle Miss Muffet. You know, the tightly laced bodice with the short and immensely poofy skirt with all the crinolines underneath.

They were carrying large box-like trays. Like the ones the cigarette girls used to carry. But instead of cigarettes they were filled with gingerbread men, candy canes, other types of cookies and candy. And they were passing the goodies out! Just handing huge gingerbread men and candy canes out by the handful to the waiting children and mothers to eat while they stood in this line!

Not to mention another girl wandered up and down the line handing out half-sized bottles of Evian water! EVIAN!

Okay so I was more then a little impressed with this setup. Compared to the cheap tiny candy canes you get from American Santas, this was lavish!

At some point I began to notice mothers were looking at me in that funny “what the hell are you doing here?” way. I was alone in the line, sans children of any sort, and I’ve always looked older then my age. And I’m sure when I spoke to the magical girls handing out loads of free food the American accent was a dead giveaway.

I guess I should point out what I looked like: The as-forementioned blood-red hair, which reached my just past my shoulders at this point. I was dressed head-to-toe in black. Black shirt, black hooded sweatshirt. A pair of Indian velvet pants that were semi-reminiscent of something a harem girl would wear (that I had recently purchased in a boot-sale outside St. Martin-in-the-Fields) and a pair of laced-to-the-knee 3.5 inch heel leather boots I had bought at Shelley’s outside Oxford Circus. My major find at a shop in Covent Gardens had been a necklace probably made in India of of silver set with large half circle black stones that draped my neck.

Probably a bit ostentatious when seeing Father Christmas for the first time.

It’s really no wonder why the mothers were giving me strange looks now, isn’t it.

So, after what seemed forever (but was greatly eased by all the candy and cookies and Evian) I reached the front of the line.

“How old are you?” the girl in the Bo-Peep-like costume who guarded the curtained door asked me. I told her. “And you’re waiting to see Father Christmas?” She gave me an incredulous look. “You know, you can smoke and drink over here at 16.”

Yeah, with my parents with me? Not likely going to happen.

We chatted a bit more before she was informed that Father Christmas was ready to see me. (When entering the darkened hallway, I realized there were two doors. Two Father Christmases. Figures.)

I entered a tiny room that was swelteringly hot, after the frigid area the line was qued in, and found not only a jolly Father Christmas sitting on a golden bench, but two or three other people.

Father Christmas’ handlers.

Father Christmas greeted me and immediately noticed my hands. “Black nail polish? Are you a vampire?”

I don’t remember quite how I answered that one.

He bade me sit beside him on the bench and asked if I’d been good, what I wanted for Christmas, how I liked London. I’m pretty sure I answered as best I could; I think I was still rather dumbstuck by the vampire question.

The handlers brought out a digital camera on a tripod, posed me with Father Christmas and took our picture. They were all merry people, more then obviously amused at the 16 year old girl in black clothes from America who was sitting with Father Christmas.

I guess it wasn’t a common occurance. At least I gave them something to talk about?

It was all over in a matter of minutes. They run a tight ship at Harrod’s. Father Christmas bade me farewell, thanked me for visiting him and England altogether, and started handing me things.

He handed me a small hardback book about the story that was displayed outside in the line, a regular-sized candy cane, a button that I believe said I had visited Father Christmas at Harrod’s (“and all I got was this lousy button”.) and sent me on my way back to the real world. A handler told me the picture would be ready for purchase in a few minutes.

I was ushered though a door and it was over.

Mom found me standing there slightly bewildered looking, holding all the goodies from Father Christmas, three mini bottles of Evian, a gingerbread man, and a look of “what the hell just happened?” plasted on my face.

The picture ended up being something like 15 pounds, but was a nice 8×10 digital print. In a little cardboard folder. With the Harrod’s logo on it. Not a cheap little Polaroid taped onto a piece of paper.

That’s how I met Father Christmas and he asked if I was a vampire.

An Abnormal Pirate

Considering this blog is less the five hours old, there’s no way you could know I had surgery on my arm less then three weeks ago.

Being a child of the 80’s, I grew up on Nintendo and Sega and video games at arcades. When we finally got a home computer when I was 10 or so (Funny, I used to be a Mac girl, but somewhere I ended up with a godforsaken PC. Please pity me.) I moved into computer games. Mostly things involving “Sim___”, not really anything that required a controller or involved much violence… but still computer games.

My computer addiction grew worse when my parents finally allowed the internet to grace us around 96/97. I think one of the longest times I spent on the internet was 17 hours straight, not counting when I actually got up to get a drink or something. I did my share of IRC chats, RPGs on IRC, teaching myself to code basic HTML pages by picking apart already coded sites…

I should have known I’d pay for it down the road.

Last year, my left pinkie started going numb at random intervals, and only a fair amount of shaking and yelling at it would revive the circulation to normal standards.

At my most-steady temp job, I do a lot of computer work. Like, 8 hours solid of data entry, if there’s enough for me. Which sucks, but then I like my job because I’m not bothered, I’m left alone, and I’m appreciated for my efforts.

During this last temp session, something went horribly wrong.

In September I started having trouble. My pinkie would stay numb far longer then normal, no matter how much I yelled, threatened, or begged it. It spread to my ring finger. My forearm ached like no tomorrow and I found myself physically forced to slow down on the computer work.

Which frustrates me.

A break to take a week-long cruise through the inside passage of Alaska gave me temporary reprieve. My arm felt better, back to normal by the time we returned. A computer-less week had done wonders.

The second week in October my pinkie went numb and stayed that way. A few days later, my ring finger followed suit. I began to panic.

X-rays revealed nothing more then the already known fact that my bone is shorter then normal, due to the fact I broke my wrist and busted the growth plate when I was 2. Makes for a lovely bunch of arthritis on top of carpal tunnel and the most sick cracking noise when it really gets over-worked but certainly not the cause of the scary numbness.

I spent a week in misery, in so much pain my arm felt like it was burning underneath my skin. Which made me itch my skin, when my skin was not causing it, leading to more pain. Celebrex was found to give me that “ut oh, bad side affect! Immediately stop taking it!” reaction (which, honestly, is the truth with almost 98% of any medication I am given) and I suffered. Lo, did I suffer.

My pain tolerance level is actually insane. So much so that a former pediatrician of mine told my mother to force pain killers into me because I was literally one of those people who can sit around in levels of pain that would make grown men cry. I’m still very bad about it.

But, at this point, the level was so high I wanted to cry. That’s when everyone around me knows I’m very very bad off. A cortisone shot into my wrist relieved my problem but only temporarily. Nerve conduction tests were scheduled. Apparently I had had the same test in 1999; I guess I blacked them out.

For those who have never had the joy of having a nerve conduction study done, it is basically this: they shock you. Repeatedly. In the effected area. Stupidly or bravely, I requested both arms be put to the test. The shocks are recorded via a computer to see how much of a delay there is in the nerve.

After repeatedly shocking my left arm, the doctor did the same set of tests on my right. There was an extremely noticeable difference. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to do the needle test.”

Words you never want to hear.

Basically, they stick a straight little needle into the muscle, make you attempt to move your arm, and record the eletrical signals that naturally course through your nerves. Attempting to move your arm in a resistive type way while a goddamn needle is stuck IN said muscle is a lot harder then you might imagine.

I have to say, the eletrical signals your body produces on its own make the most fascinating sounds. I almost begged for a copy of the recordings. God knows what the hell I’d do with said noise, but then I’m the kid that keeps begging for copies of all the x-rays I’ve had during my short lifetime to frame and hang on my walls as art.

Preliminary findings were confirmed: I suffered a pinched nerve somewhere around my elbow. I would require surgery, the procedure termed as a “cubital tunnel release”. The date was scheduled and I was left to sit around and wait.

Well, not really. I ended up spending the week and a half before surgery moving my grandmother from her home of 30 years to a condo up here. And by moving I mean me sitting around in agony, trying to find a place to sit while the movers stripped the house of its furnishings. Fun times!

—

Monday dawned dank and grey, as it normally is mid-December here in Oregon. I was due for surgery at 9am, so that meant I had to be in person at the hospital at 7:30am. I am not a morning person contrary to what anyone may believe. Coupled with the fact that I barely slept (which is normal when I’m about to embark on something possibly life-changing) and already dealing with the repercussions of a stressful situation (the move) I was a wreck.

My mother and grandmother accompanied me. Since I have a nice latex allergy, I got to be the first paitent of the day. Joy. I was sent to the day surgery unit and stuck in a paper hospital gown. We sat around watching Sponge Bob Squarepants and early morning news until around 8:30 I was called for. Leaving behind my mother and grandma, I was wheeled into the pre-surgery ward and prepped with the IV.

I had been told they could do what is termed an “IV block” and basically numb my arm and sedate me. This changed, as soon as the anesthesiologist realized where my incision was to be made. I was going to have to have a general and be completely unconscious.

The pre-surgery ward was festively decorated with cut-out snowflakes that resembled the kind you make in kindergarten. My surgeron was discovered to have not yet participated in this activity. He was handed a pair of scissors and a folded piece of paper.

“Do you know how to cut snowflakes?” He asked me, standing there in the doorway.

There’s something extremely surreal about sitting in the pre-surgery ward with a pair of rusty scissors in your hands, cutting wedges and slits and half circles out of the folded lump of paper to produce a one-of-a-kind snowflake for your surgeon just before he slices into your elbow. Maybe that’s just me.

He was impressed with my work. Then promptly signed his name to it and told the head nurse he had participated.

Final preps were made and I was wheeled into the OR. I remember the large overhead lights had orange plastic casings. My doctor was attempting to remove one of the pieces attached to the operating table that would hold my arm pinned to it, and the anesthesiologist stuck the mask over my face to put me out.

…

I woke up in the middle of a manic giggle fit. I hate those. I apolgized profusely to the nurses in the midst of my giggling for being such an utter moron and unable to control it. This always happens after being knocked out cold; I lose any ability to shut the hell up and talk myself and everyone around me to death. The giggling is relatively new but just as bad.

The man in the bed next to me, apparently having a much worse operation then I, kept setting off his breathing moniter. His name was the same as a character in a beloved children’s book of mine. The character is basically annoying and selfish and keeps demanding a bell-shaped chocolate from the box that technically belongs to Santa Claus.

Of course this resulted in more giggling.

Because I recovered so nicely, and quickly, I was released back to the day surgery to begin my recovery before being discharged. This time I was wise and made myself stay down. The woman sharing my room pushed herself too hard and ended up puking repeatedly (to my dismay) and kept extending her stay.

I slept. My left arm was now pinned inside a plaster and bandage cocoon that would become the bane of my exsistence for the next week. My hand was bright golden yellow from the betadine, so much so that I kept singing the theme from Goldfinger. Stupid anesthesia.

Proving myself fuctional and capable (for the most part) I was eventually released around 2pm. I will not regale you with the whiny drama that was the week I spent frustrated by being trapped in the “splint” that encased my arm. (I had to hide the scissors several times, especially when I would wake from a sound sleep in an anxiety attack because I couldn’t bend my left arm in any way, shape or form.)

The following Monday I was released from my cruel but nessecary prison. The six neat stitches were removed (painful) and I was cleaned up and sent on my merry way to physical therapy.

I am pleased to say that upon waking in the recoery room I found that feeling had returned to my fingers. This greatly elated me that I had made the right choice.

But you’re wondering why I titled this entry the way I did. You see, while in recovery, my doctor came in. His hand on my forehead he pronounced me a success and that there had been an “anomaly” inside my arm, one that in the entirety of his practice he had only ever see in text books. It had been very exciting to him to see one, let alone operate on one.

Being whacked out of my goddamn mind, all I could answer was “Merry Christmas?” as though I had just given him a present.

Turns out, not only was the sheath that encased the nerve doing the pinching, but fibroid-like muscles had also being pinning my nerve and causing more damage. How rare a case of those is I haven’t any clue. My mother is convinced that if I had prolonged surgery, that these would have caused extreme damage and I would have been in far worse trouble then I aleady was.

I wasn’t surprised. It’s not the first time I’ve been “abnormal”.

To date, I have a very itchy but healing nicely incision on the underside/outside of my left elbow. I commented to my physical therapst that I finally had achieved my pirate scar.

“Pirate scars are usually on your face,” he informed me.

“But I am an abnormal pirate.” I countered.

Human Porcupine

Since I’m apparently revisiting third grade memories tonight…

It was in the late fall/early winter that our class took a field trip downtown Portland. (In Oregon, if you must know.) We were to take a walking tour of the city, see various historical (or hysterical) sites, and generally learn about the largest city in our native state.

Since it was a private school, and at most there was 25 kids in my class, brave parents volunteered to chaperone us and off we went.

We got to ride Tri-Met, the local bus system, down to the West side of town. We met up with our tour guide at the Historical Society building, who promptly launched into long-winded stories and histories of our fair city.

The parts that stick out most in my mind:

+ We got to walk through some of the oldest church buildings in the city, one of which I believe was St. Stephen’s. Nothing as old compared to, say, Westminster Abbey or St. George’s (which I visited in 1997) but still really old to a child of nine.

+ We went backstage and onstage where the Oregon ballet is housed. I was most impressed that the stage is slanted. Having been there when the building was opened to the public (another interesting memory of mine) it was impressive to me to finally be in said building and see the stage up close.

+ Touring one of the oldest concert venues in the city, the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, and seeing it not only from the floor, the balcony, and the outside, but from backstage as well. It is lavish and beautiful inside, with grand architectural features. (Oddly, roughly a decade later I would see Marilyn Manson play the Schnitz and cringe through most of their performance at the thought that such a very hard rock band would be allowed to play in such a beautiful place. Let alone the thought of damages that could happen to it, being that it was Marilyn Manson…)

+ Riding up in elevators in a building across the street from the city’s iconic statue, Portlandia and being told that a yo-yo had been hung from her outstretched fingers during April Fool’s one year.

The most important part of the trip was the fact that we were going to eat lunch at one of the oldest McDonald’s in the city. I don’t know why we were that excited; chalk it up to being to a bunch of eight/nine year olds excited to be eating fast food for lunch instead of the stanard lunches from home or the small school cafeteria.

My mom happened to be one of the parental chaperones on the trip. She put me, my soon-to-be-best friend Jason, and several of the other boys who were in her charge at a table and told us to stay put while she ordered. Honestly, we tried to be on our best behaviours. Miss Pomerenk kept reminding us that we were representing our school and should have manners at all times.

That was when the punk kid with the blue mohawk sat down at a table not far from ours.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Short Circuit 2, you will remember Johnny 5 describing a punk guy walking down the street, complete with mohawk, as a ‘human porcupine’.

Jason was the more ‘worldly’ of the two of us at the time. He immediately started staring and pronouncing how “cool” the mohawked punk was and how he wanted to shave his hair into ‘hawk as well. Staring to the point where said punk noticed us. Noticed us staring at him.

Thankfully my mother came back and distracted us and said punk. I do wonder what would have happened if she didn’t. I wonder if he’d have come over with his dining companions, who were similarly fashioned in torn denim, leather, and chains. And safety pins.

All the way home, we discussed at length the mohawk. I dug up the bit of trivia about the ‘human porcupine’ and we enjoyed our bus ride home.

Jason never did shave his head. As long as I knew him it never happened. I think his grandmother would have killed him. There was the time I attempted to “bleach” bits of his hair with Clorox, but that is another story.

The First Twiggy

In third grade, I experienced my first class “pet”.

Never before had any of my classes had a “class pet”. I’m not exactly sure why that was; maybe there was budget contraints or something. I wasn’t lacking in the pet department. At home I had Max, my faithful mutt I’d gotten for my 3rd birthday.

As it so happened, I transfered schools shortly after school had started. Roughly the beginning of October. Third grade is still rather a blur. I started at a private Catholic school, had my first mental breakdown and first episode of clinical depression (all at the age of eight!) and ended up being withdrawn and placed into the third grade class of a local Lutheran school. (We’re not Catholic or Lutheran, go figure.)

Miss Pomerenk’s class had a pet hamster. Named Twiggy. It (since I have no idea what gender it was and how you sex a hamster isn’t something I know) was mainly compsed of white fluffy fur with light brown patches and beedy little black eyes. By default we all refered to it as a ‘her’. I have my suspicions that the poor thing suffered gender confusion.

(Funny how things recycle along the path of life…)

Anyway, at the time, said Lutheran school was small. It was mainly housed in the building adjacent/attached to the main building that was the sanctuary. Somehow, the third grade class was big enough that it could not be crammed into any avalible room and we ended up in a portable in a side-yard.

I ended up spending two years of classes in that portable, but that’s another story.

Twiggy’s small square cage took up residence on the back counter of the one-room portable. Whether this was to keep us from spending all day staring at Twiggy, waiting for it to do something or to keep the smell at bay, who knows. Twiggy’s cage wasn’t interesting at all; no brightly coloured plastic tubes for it to climb through, no exotic looking sleeping box, nothing. I don’t even remember if it had a exercise wheel.

I do remember it had one of those self-dispensing waterbottle things, which I found rather interesting. God only knows why.

One day, probably after the first couple of morning lessons, it was noticed that Twiggy was M.I.A.

This was a one-room portable. We did have a coat closet, that had a storage closet adjoined to it but that was it. Twiggy had to be here or escaped into the wild unknowns of the courtyard. A frantic search ensued. Fellow students were interrogated as to who had last seen the damn hamster and had someone forgotten to lock the cage?

The search was fruitless. No one could turn up a tiny ball of fluff in what was a relatively small space. Worried, and fearing the worst, we returned to our lessons.

…

After lunch, someone noticed something on the floor. Something small, white/brown, and fluffy. Time has passed and I have forgotten exactly who noticed Twiggy’s triumphant return to our awareness, but it was loudly announced and everyone dove for the stupid hamster.

Twiggy retreated into its hiding place.

The counter where Twiggy’s cage was kept was built-in to the wall, complete with a floor-to-ceiling cabinet where we kept art supplies and paper. On the floor, at the base of said cabinet, was a hole.

A hole in the trim where someone hadn’t put moulding. A perfect hamster-sized hidey-hole.

If I remember correctly, Adam ended up luring Twiggy back out with food. It took some time, because every kid in the class had their attention focused on that little hole, waiting for the fuzzball to appear. Eventually the food was tempting enough and Twiggy returned, scooped up and returned to the safety of its proper cage.

The next year, when I was in the same portable for fourth grade, we didn’t have Twiggy. (I think we had little finches but my mind’s a little hazy on that.) As I understood it, Twiggy died.

Only, come to find out much later, that Adam had ended up with Twiggy. I found it living out its days in a brightly coloured plastic hamster enclosure in his room when I was over there. Twiggy had become extremely grouchy and tended to bite. I had no interest in attempting to hold it, like I had in third grade.

I’m sure Twiggy passed on shortly after that. I do have to thank it for making me realize that small rodents are not a pet I am interested in ever keeping. I would later find out that the same applied to rabbits, goldfish, rats, birds of any kind, turtles, and other small furry rodents/mammals.

Ironically, though, Twiggy the hamster was just the first “Twiggy” in my life. Little did I know what would be around the corner just six short years away…

Testing…

Hrm, setting this up is slightly more complicated then I had hoped. Oh well. Years of being spoiled on LiveJournal has made me complacent, since most of it is done for me. I’m sure with time this will get slightly easier.

For the time being I will continue to work on this and wonder why there is a chip out of my front tooth. Stupid weak enamel!