Granny Day at the grocery store.

Normally after a weekend of work, I spend Monday doing as little as humanly possible. After 2 back to back days of 12 hours on my feet, taking care of patients, I'm wiped, and about all I have the energy for is getting Wyatt dressed, fed, packing his lunch,and sending him out the door. After that I'm pretty much spent until about 3, just in time for him to get off the bus.

But today, for some inexplicable reason, I decided to be an overachiever.

After Wyatt's bus picked him up I toyed around with the idea of going back to bed, but because his bus was 20 min late due to the cold weather, I'd already had 3 cups of coffee, and if I went back to bed all I'd do is lay there and twitch.

So I went through the kitchen, figured out what I was low on, and decided to hit the grocery store. Since it's so cold today (in the 20's-30's, yeah, go ahead and laugh all my up north friends and family, I've been down here for 7 years now, my blood's thinned out!), I decided to make a pot of beef stew for dinner.

Since I was in a really overachieving mood, I figured I'd run by my office first, then the bank, and then the grocery store. I even took a shower and put on makeup. (Actually, I always put on makeup, since the site of me strolling through the aisles at Lowes, with my naked as the day I was born face is just frightening, and I'm sure, in violation of at least 3 of the Geneva Conventions statutes on torture and cruel and unusual punishment.)

I hit the office, hit the bank, and headed over to Lowes. At this point I was on auto pilot, because if I wasn't I'm sure I would have noticed the HUGE bus with the retirement village logo parked out front of the store.

And I would have ran.

But, I missed it completely.

Into the store I went, list in hand, cart at the ready, all set to run in, get what I needed and run home. Ahh, the best laid plans....

The store was packed to the rafters with septo and octogenarians, all moving at that incredibly slow rate that if you or I tried to move at would cause us to fall over from loss of balance. I think someone had hung a sign on my back saying "If you can't reach what you want, ask me to get it!", because I was stopped every 6 feet by little blue hairs who barely came to my shoulder asking me to get things for them. I'm not that tall, really, I'm 5'4", but in the land of the old apparently I'm an Amazon.

Between reaching for boxes of prunes and Wheatabix, and trying to sidestep people moving at a pace that would make snails honk their horns, my quick little trip turned into the better part of the morning.

By the time I got to the register it was after 11, and there were only 2 cashiers on duty to tend to this mass influx of the Depends Nation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a cashier waving to me, saying "I can help you down here" Great, I thought, I can at least check out quicly.

No, the bitch waved me to the "You Scan It" aisle.

I fucking HATE those things, they NEVER work right and it always ends up taking me twice as long to check out. I ended up having to call her over 3 times, because I had produce and beer, and the stupid thing wouldn't believe me when I screamed "I'm 44, just ring up the goddamned beer!!!" at it.

But, eventually, I managed to squeeze my way through the tangle of walkers and hover rounds at the exit door, got home, made the stew, and have spent the better part of the day recovering from the exercise in frustration that was my morning. The stew smells fantastic, probably in part to the addition of about a pint of Stout to the broth, Wyatt should be home soon (hopefully not too loaded down with homework), and I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing evening.

In Memory Of...

Those of you that know me through the Pagan community also know that yesterday Isaac Bonewits passed away.  Isaac was one of the most important figures in the modern Pagan community - teacher, leader, musician, general troublemaker (in the best possible way).

I'm not going to list Isaacs many accomplishments here, frankly his own webpage does a much better job of that than I ever could. For those of you that are interested, here's a link to his page http://www.neopagan.net/IB_Bio.html

What I AM going to do is write a little bit about the man I knew. I said it yesterday on FB, but it bears repeating, Isaac was a hell of a guy.

The first time I ever met him was at the first Wellspring Gathering in 1991. My girlfriend Kathleen had talked me into coming along with her and her boyfriend Bill, because she didn't want to be the only non-pagan girl there. It sounded like a fun time, and I'd always had an interest in paganism, so I went.

I don't remember who it was that introduced me to him, but I do remember that he reminded me of a slightly scruffy, mildly daft college professor - you know, the kind who's prone to going off on tangents that have nothing to do with the topic at hand but are actually far more interesting than the lesson itself. In some ways that first impression of him was dead on, but Isaac had a razor sharp intellect, and a wicked sense of humor. Wicked enough to forgive him his love of bad puns.


Somehow Kathleen and I got roped into tending one of the directional fires for the main ritual (I think I may have volunteered us). Turned out we were tending the fire in the North, directly behind where the alter and Isaac were. Being the urban chicks we were, we promptly piled too much fuel on it and nearly put it out in the middle of the ritual. I remember the 2 of us on our knees, blowing on the fire to try and get it to flare back up. We must have been making a little to much noise with all the huffing and puffing, because I heard someone going PSSST! PSST!. I looked up, and Isaac was looking over his shoulder, laughing at us, and holding out a bottle of oil. We got the fire stoked back up, and periodically Isaac would look back over at us and start laughing again.

The ritual itself, and the whole weekend would have a profound impact on my life that continues to this day. As I told Isaac at the time, I went away a nice Catholic girl from the suburbs and came back a Druid. After that weekend, I became an active member of ADF, a part of Green Man Grove, and eventually Bard for that grove.  Isaac and his family were living in NJ at the time, and since Green Man Grove was based in Jersey City, we were fortunate enough to have him come to grove functions. Isaac and Debs son Arthur and my son John were both toddlers at the time, and I remember enjoying watching them play together. Isaac took such pleasure from Arthur, it was really lovely to see.

Isaac asked me to take over running ADF's regalia department, which I did for 2 years. It's not as big a deal as it might sound, at that time ADF regalia consisted of some pins and pendants, copies of Isaacs book Real Magick, a few back issues of Druids Progress (ADF's Newsletter/magazine/journal), and for some unknown reason, 12 copies of a book on Day Lilies. But I was honored that he asked me.

One of the things that sticks out most in my memories of him is the way he would always make time for people who needed his help or support. When my first husband and I split up, Isaac was very supportive and caring, and checked on me by phone to make sure that I was doing OK. Everyone around me (with a few exceptions) assumed that I was doing fine, but Isaac took the time to make sure that I was ok, and there were more than a few times that he let me cry on his shoulder. When my last marriage fell apart and I was devestated, Isaac took the time to make contact through FB, and give me some emotional support. We hadn't seen each other in many years, but he still cared enough to let me know that he was there, and I'll never forget that.

His kindness wasn't limited to just people in his circle. I was part of a coven on Long Island, and one of our coven sisters was going through a nasty divorce and a VERY nasty custody battle over her son. Her husband, who was a practicing pagan and had been to ritual at my home on several occasions, had dragged the word "Witch" into the custody battle. His lawyer was accusing her of sacrificing animals, devil worship, orgies, all the usual slander that's associated with the accusation of being a witch. He was trying to have her declared an unfit mother and take sole custody of the baby. Isaac had never met my coven sister, but I asked him to contact her, and he got in touch with her and offered to come to court and give testimony as to what Wicca and Paganism are, and what they are NOT. The case ended with a joint custody decision, in large part because of Isaacs testimony, and his efforts to educate the court on Pagan spirituality.

Even though it's been a long time since I've seen Isaac, I'll miss him. I'll miss his songs, his jokes about dirgelike pagan chants, his occasional copping a feel (OK, his frequent copping a feel, this was Isaac after all), his bad puns, and the opportunity to tease him about his total lack of a backside. I'll miss the books he would have written, the rituals he would have led, the songs he would have sung.

I'll miss the man who inspired me to explore my spirituality, who encouraged my creativity and who never failed to show kindness and support when it was needed.

As I said, a hell of a guy.