Keep the coop clean and carry on

Marilyn, far right, as a groovy, young chick, with gal pals. Photo: Robert Schley 

I just learned that Marilyn was mauled last week and didn’t survive. Having just spent the weekend with her room mates, I’m shocked. I am sitting shiva, albeit belatedly, to honor my friend.  God accepts all petitions, I believe, even those for fine, feathered friends from fallen away Catholic girls like me.

Marilyn was an Ameraucana chicken - a lusty, busty hen who lived a cozy little life in the Town of Matthews with her pen-mates until a raccoon invaded their home and, well – that’s that.

Nature is an evil bitch, at times. But we remain calm and carry on. What choice do we have?

Part of my newly-crafted career as a Middle-Aged-Woman-Without-A-Steady-Job includes chicken sitting duties. My friend Jane hired me to handle her menagerie while she and her hubby Brian travel. Our grown sons have been buddies since elementary school.  Jane was a rabid fan of my family’s now-defunct community newspaper, for which I will always be grateful. She’s always had a thing for such newspapers, having grown up with a father – Neal Friedman - who wrote a wildly popular column in the Baltimore Jewish Times.

So, now I feed her animals, where she used to feed me story ideas. It is a fine arrangement, as she pays well, and I get all the chicken poop I can handle for my garden. My finned and furry charges also include a skittish but painfully lovely rescue dog named Delilah; a tank full of fish;  and the coolest cat on the planet, Mr. Kitty, who thinks he’s a dog and has a face not unlike the actor Elijah Wood of Frodo Baggins fame.

Stock photo: Mr. Wood

Family photo: Mr. Kitty

Rest in peace, Miss Marilyn! We’ll keep the coop clean and carry on!

God shots to the gut: Confessions of a woman who's quickly losing faith

Taylor Swift concert, Charlotte, NC

First – my daughter scores primo seats, at a deeply discounted rate, to her first-ever concert.

Then - my husband gets a real live, old-fashioned job-with-benefits following a dry spell.

And this just in!

Welcome back, frogman

The Hula Painted Frog, declared extinct, rears its slimy little head in an Israeli swamp for the first time in 50 years, according to AP reports.

My God, my God. You really do have faith in us lowly creatures. These are small things, I realize, in the big scheme of things. But, little-by-little, perhaps we'll get to know each other again. 

Thank you from the bottom of my cynical little heart.

Grateful on Labor Day 2011

Logo courtesty of http://www.madeindetroit.com

I gladly labored in the 90-degree heat in order to earn a small wage this past weekend - volunteered with the “Women’s Club” at a small, southern town festival; babysat two yuppie larvae a couple of nights before; cleaned out a chicken coop and planned a business trip for a new part-time job.

Whose life is this anyway?

I made more money and had greater job security as a copy boy in a northern, big city newspaper in the 80s-90s than I did as the publisher of my own newspaper a decade later.

When I was a toddler in the late-1950s/early-60s at the height of union participation in the U.S., more than a third of all American workers belonged to unions. Last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the union-membership rate was less than 12%.  

Am I anti-union? Heck, no. But I’m searching for the happy medium. Is there such a thing? The pendulum swings, so I hear.

Some argue that over the years unions had become too powerful and in many cases harmed the very businesses that employed its members. 

But, as Time Magazine recently pointed out and many still strive for, unions also helped bring about a minimum wage, a reasonable workweek and rights for employees within the workplace. 

It was tough celebrating “labor” this weekend, with the sickening lack of work in this country, but I’m grateful for the pennies I collect.