Bigfoot's Cousin

Once upon a time Cavemen roamed the Earth. The first known human was the Neanderthal. But as the story goes, one day he evolved into the newer slicker model of human, Cro Magnon, and supposedly the Neanderthals all just…*poof*… disappeared. Or did they?

Now mentally, the Neanderthal was one enchilada short of a combo plate, if you know what I mean, and operated solely out of fear. When he encountered something he couldn’t understand with his little lizard brain (which was most everything), he feared it. Then he usually clubbed it to death.

But Cro Magnum- well he seemed to be capable of rational thought and problem solving. He learned how to use fire, and make tools. He learned how to build a peaceful society. Why you might even have called him a “Community Organizer”.

Some say the Neanderthal died out when ‘ole Cro Magnon came along, but….I’m not so sure. I have a personal belief that descendants of both still walk the earth. And I’m not talking about Bigfoot, I’m talking about everyday people who walk among us. Recently Science Journal revealed that many of us still carry traces of the Neanderthal in our DNA. Proof that my theory is correct, thank you very much!

You may be wondering - how can you tell when you’ve been in contact with a descendant of the Neanderthal tribe? Ask yourself, is this a person who operates solely out of fear, and then tries to destroy what he fears? If so, congratulations – you’ve just met Bigfoot’s cousin!

So keep your eyes open folks! Exciting discoveries are to be made everywhere you look. You don’t even need to carry binoculars or travel to far away places. Just look where fear and hate abide.

**Here are a few places sightings might take place, so have your camera ready!

Congress

Tea Party Rallies

E Entertainment

FOX

Wall Street

The Dr. Laura Radio Show

Religious organizations who profess hate (especially those run by oppressed homosexual men!)

Be sure to let me know if there are other places you’ve seen Bigfoot’s cousin!

My Life As A Sitcom

Remember that I Love Lucy episode where she’s working in the chocolate factory with Ethyl….and just when they’re getting the hang of the assembly line, it starts speeding up like crazy and all hell breaks loose? That’s what my life has been like this year, but instead of chocolates, it’s been challenges.

It’s crazy how the things we laugh at in sitcoms are stressful situations that we’d never want in real life. Yet writers are always looking for the rub, the conflict. A good example is that movie “Meet the Fockers”. I felt like I needed to take a Xanax after watching that movie.

I’ve got some good plot ideas mined from my real live life in the past six months. Here’s my pitch:

The main characters are a typical sitcom family, nice couple in their forties, middle class everyday folks with three kids. The husband is a great stable guy, and the wife is this zany writer trying to finish an impossible book, but every time she tries to write, something happens to trip her up. 

The season kicks off with their college-age son getting his Japanese girlfriend pregnant. Take “teen pregnancy” add “not an American Citizen” and “no health insurance” to the mix, then let’s say the parents have to throw a wedding together in twenty days, while their daughter is going through a terrible break-up, their four-year-old regresses in his potty training, and top it off with their oldest son getting into a fender bender they have to pay for…hilarity ensues! 

Let’s say the main character is estranged from her mother, you know, you gotta have those pesky bad-parent relationships, like in Everyone Loves Raymond. So her mother comes to the son’s wedding and it’s really awkward, because….awkward is funny!

Or how about this one, they rescue a cute little abandoned dog and suddenly, some loony guy pops up who claims to be the previous owner (but has no documentation to prove it- even funnier!), decides to sue them for over $25,000, and they have to pay thousands to defend themselves. Hilarious!

And then, speaking of dogs, cause everyone loves a cute dog in a sitcom, let’s say there’s a kooky neighbor with a violent streak, who has some really aggressive pitbulls with a zany penchant for attacking neighborhood dogs (think the "Bumpus Hounds" from A Christmas Story), and then…you could ramp it up a notch by making the neighbor start attacking too! Restraining orders are just plain hysterical, no matter how you look at it.

And then, right as they’re bringing the new baby home from the hospital and the Mother in Law comes from Japan to live with them for the month, the septic tank explodes, sending sewage everywhere, thousands of flies (ha ha ha ha!) and it costs thousands of dollars to rebuild it, oh-- and the four year old gets the stomach flu right in the middle of all that…..ooooh my sides ache from laughing.

On second thought, sitcoms are too freekin’ stressful.

I say we rewrite this as a cheesy Lifetime movie where the bad guys get what they deserve in the end, and the couple lives happily ever after. I don’t care if its unrealistic. People love that shit.

Fumbling with Faith

Lately I’ve been troubled by my loss of faith. It’s not that I don’t have any, I just don’t know what it is I have faith in. Is it God, nature, the cosmos, chaos, people, love? Recently I saw a bumper sticker What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about? I contemplated that. I mean, who knows. I’ve put my left foot in, my left foot out, shook it all about. Still no closer to the truth. Or am I?

So when I recently said a half-assed prayer and sent it hurling out to an unknown source somewhere in the Universe…I didn’t really expect a response. The “prayer” went something like this:

Uh….to whom it may concern….If you’re out there, I mean, if you exist…I guess it would be nice to be able to believe in something again like I once did, before life became so full of contradiction and pain and betrayal, and before I learned that the law of karma is about as accurate as an umpire at a Detroit Tigers game. I’d like to believe again…in something.

(Could I be any more vague?)

So of course what happens next is all hell breaks loose in my life, the good the bad the ugly, all at once. And I’m sitting here scratching my head going….wait…is this what I asked for? Let me clarify:

Uh, sorry to bother you again, I mean, if there even is a “you”. No offense. Well, anyway…When I asked for my faith to be strengthened, I was thinking more along the lines of… a dove of peace landing on my shoulder, or a burning bush (and believe me, be VERY specific if you ask for a burning bush – that’s all I’m saying), or maybe a golden angel could descend upon me and whisper in my ear. But what I got was a crazy lawsuit, violent neighbors with pitbulls, an exploding septic system, and a gorgeous healthy baby. Maybe I’m a little slow. Trying to make sense of all this…Testing…one, two, three…is this thing on? And if it is, could you send me a CLEAR sign?

But no dove. No golden tablets with all the instructions hammered out. Zip. Nada. Nothin’.

Man. Praying feels like when you’re calling AOL tech help, and your call is being transferred to India, and you’re on hold forever, and then you finally get an answer but it’s one you can’t understand at all, and the accent is so thick and the connection is terrible. I’m so jealous of people who seem to have that direct hotline.

But in the midst of all this lamenting and self-pity, my horrible week was capped by an incredible weekend where I was surrounded by my dearest friends, from old to new, every one of them making me believe in goodness again. I felt my spirit lifted as I witnessed my best friend Erin holding my newborn grandson, as I shared stories of the past with Dennis and Dani, as I laughed, hugged, cried, and drank wine with Amy, Maxee, Linda and met new wonderful friends… and tonight will be spent with my adopted family- the Doyles and Eisenbergs. My cup runneth over, my spirit renewed. As I sat here basking in the warm fuzzies, the epiphany hit. You know, all those bible stories -they are poetry and metaphor. Angels don’t descend from the sky, bushes don’t talk. The answers come to you in the form of friends, strangers, a little French bulldog, and even enemies. The message is there if you’re paying attention.

So okay, I’m paying attention, and I think I finally get it. Faith is not something you’re born with. It doesn’t float down and fall on your shoulder like an angel's feather. Faith is hard freekin’ work. It is a muscle that has to be pumped like crazy before it’s useful at all. And the only thing I can figure is I’ve gotten faithfully flabby, and my creator is putting me through boot camp. But thank God I’m not going it alone.

As I was writing this, my daughter in law came in and placed the baby in my arms. He stared up at me, looking deep into my eyes, focused, unblinking. His gaze was so deep it was almost unsettling. And then, out of the blue, at only twelve days old, he smiled at me.

He smiled at me!

Now that’s what I call a clear sign.

Thank you.