A House in the Road and Mara’s Pants
Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. ~ Dr Seuss
“Look, there’s a house turning the corner,” Kathleen announced. We all leaned towards the café window, some of us stood up to get a better look as a truck hauling a mobile-home made a wide turn from Rt. 8 onto 221 at Floyd’s one traffic light. At one point it looked like the white and black shuttered home was sitting smack dab in the middle of the street.
We were there to play Scrabble. It was Mara’s birthday. She wrote us all tankas and read a sestina in which the word cereal figured prominently. We collectively decided that “cereal” was not as poetic as the word “cherrios.” Mara took notes, and so did I because I always do. I wrote down “Is that a double peace sign or a quote?” referring to a four fingered gesture that someone made. 
I crooked my neck and tried to read Mara’s pants. They were light blue dungaree and covered with handwritten marker scrawl, reminding me of the collection of bumper stickers she has spread out all over her silver Forrester. Kathleen spelled out rhymes on her Scrabble tile while Rosemary schemed for the high score of the day. There was soup and tuna salad and steamy hot tea. Kathleen, a former Bostonian like me, knew what a bulkie roll was (a Boston version of a Kaiser roll).
We tried to get Sally, the café owner, to play but she was working the lunch hour. She did agree to be our designated Scrabble life-line and visited our table now and then to offer Scrabble consultation. We bantered with some of the Floyd Figures Art Group artists who were having lunch at a table nearby.
Somebody mentioned Kalamazoo. I think they were planning a trip there. “It sounds like a place in a Doctor Seuss book,” Mara said. “Or a musical instrument,” I added. We allowed Mara to play one free phony word, PERVE, because it was her birthday. The sun streamed in the large paneled window, Rosemary kept score to a Dar William’s soundtrack coming through the café speakers.
Rosemary gifted Mara with a miniature wooden dragon whose head wiggled and bobbed. Another dragon she had only shook his head back and forth, so he was replaced. “Naysayer,” Rosemary explained. This one repeatedly nodded in the affirmative, so we set him at the edge of the board for moral support.
There were no birthday cards, but when the game was over, Mara stood on a chair and asked everyone to sign her pants. Some people wrote slogans, others expressed birthday wishes. Curious café customers got pulled into the live art performance. “Take our picture,” Mara suggested to blogger David St. Lawrence who was sitting with his laptop at a nearby table. David deferred at first, noticing that I also had a camera in my hand, but Mara insisted, confessing that she wanted to be on David’s blog.
Post Notes: That’s Sally in the first pant-signing photo and Kim from next door at the Winter Sun in the second. You can scroll down HERE for a photo of all of us at last year’s Birthday Scrabble game. All Scrabble posts can be found HERE. Special thanks to David who, after the Scrabble Party broke up, gave me some blogging tech help. Jeanne from Out and Back has the interview questions I asked her posted today.
May 4th, 2007 10:11 am
lol. “It’s my birthday. Sign my pants” That could be the seed of a whole new social trend. Love it.
May 4th, 2007 11:09 am
I remember when my kids were in school….the last day of school everyone would sign there shirts. It is fun….I wonder where those shirts are now??
May 4th, 2007 12:43 pm
This looks like it was GREAT fun! And I love that you allowed Mara “perve”…LOL! Before you know it, it will be in the dictionary…
What a great idea to have pants that one can sign….like a cast on one’s leg, or something…! LOL! A belated Happy Birthday Mara!
May 4th, 2007 1:18 pm
It’s true about nature, you know. Thanks for your comment!
And that pic of the Scrabble board – terrific. You are really a stellar photographer.
May 4th, 2007 1:21 pm
A happy birthday to your friend Mara.
It sounds like a very relaxing day… always good for a birthday.
May 4th, 2007 1:23 pm
I’m guessing she is never going to wash those pants again and save them forever?
It still amazes me to see a house behind a tractor trailer!
May 4th, 2007 6:32 pm
What is a sestina and what are bulkie rolls? Sounds like a good relaxing hang out with cool friends time!
I love the sound of “Curious cafe customers”!
Timbuktu sounds like a fictional Suessy place too! Always loved those humazoos!
May 4th, 2007 7:07 pm
Sestina is a poetry form that sounds too much like algebra to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina
Bulkie roll is the Boston version of a Kaiser roll. I guess I should add that in the text.
May 4th, 2007 8:31 pm
Oh Yea Happy Birthday Mara……..a Taurus like you!
May 4th, 2007 9:10 pm
Michele sent me back to see you again, my dear…And as always, it is a true pleasure to visit your blog! Hope you have a lovely weekend, dear Colleen.
May 5th, 2007 8:45 am
Hi Colleen, Happy birthday to your friend Mara. looks like you all had a lovely relaxing day playing scrabble.
May 5th, 2007 8:46 am
Happy Birthday Mara! What a great way to celebrate.
May 5th, 2007 11:47 am
villanelle is a form that’s too prescriptive and restructive for me too.
May 5th, 2007 8:11 pm
A belated Happy Birthday, Mara! Love the pants.
Now my cogwheels are turning on how to do an algebra-themed sestina…
May 7th, 2007 12:39 pm
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I love Elissa’s sestina. Colleen–I played scrabble with my dad and Arden on Friday. Two games in a week! What’s the world coming to? Now I am studying for final exams.
Happy almost birthday to you.
March 14th, 2010 10:44 pm
[…] I have other good memories of time spent at the café: like the time my friend Mara made everyone write on her pants or the time she put a Scrabble box on our friend Bruce’s head. Once we played Scrabble with two […]
September 11th, 2010 12:06 pm
[…] ever tasted (washed down with an excellent Brooklyn Ale on tap). The pie was baked by my friend Mara with apples from her own orchard for our friend Jamie’s party at the Dogtown […]