If a woman said she received a lawn mower as a gift and it made her cry, most people would assume the tears were because she felt it was impersonal or she loathed practical gifts.

The thing is, this particular woman (me) happens to love practical gifts, and she knew the people who gave it (my parents) did so out of a simple desire to help.

The baffling part was my tears. Especially since I could’ve sworn I’d installed waterproof seals on my tear ducts.

I mean, I could understand a new mower bringing tears (of relief) to that poor realtor trying to sell the house next door to our overgrown corner lot. But I couldn’t figure out what it was about the gift that made my throat tighten, time and again.

It didn’t make sense until I was driving home from work, alone in my car, half-listening to a talk radio conversation about Mother’s Day between two or three men. None of the men still had a mom, and when one man referred to himself as an orphan, it clicked. I understood the reason for my lawnmower tears.

Not long after Papap Frankwich—my Mom’s dad—died back in 1990, I remember walking into my parent’s kitchen and finding Mom staring at her telephone, deep in thought. She and Papap used to talk on the phone all the time, with him starting most every call by rattling off something in Polish, his gunshot at the start of the race–“And we’re off!”

That day, I remember Mom looking up at me and saying, “I’m an orphan.”

What occurred so suddenly to her that day clicked differently for me as I drove in my car. For her it was the realization that, regardless of her age, she was an orphan. For me, it was that, regardless of my age, I was still someone’s child.

My parents knew I’d been down, that my run of bad luck had been going on so long it qualified as a marathon. They knew I had trouble asking for help. That I wouldn’t ask. That even if they offered, I might not accept.

So they did the only thing they could think of–they chose a problem and solved it for me.

We needed a mower. They got us a mower.

Because I have a daughter of my own, I recognize how difficult it can be to watch her struggle with something painful, or even mildly uncomfortable. There’s this impulse, as a parent, to want to take it from her, to endure those bad things on her behalf so she’s spared.

For the past 13 years, I’ve been so caught up on the parenting side of that equation that I’ve forgotten how wonderful it can be on the child half. To be on the side that’s loved so much someone feels a desperation to take the bad things away. Even if the bad thing is nothing more than replacing a mower their child managed to burn to a crisp.

It doesn’t matter that the kid has more gray hair than her mom.

Or that her joints crack and pop as loud as her dad’s.

They did it because they wanted to take care of their kid.

I’m still their kid.

And I’m grateful beyond words that I am.

I’ve found some cool things on Craigslist before, but this latest has had me laughing for hours. And it didn’t cost me a cent.

Since we’ve been in the market for a used lawn mower, I went online to craigslist and clicked on the heading for “farm+garden.”

And there it was. A personal ad for a pig.

“Big Beautiful Hereford Sow seeks Boar of same interests.”

According to the ad, Belle is a one-year-old hog who enjoys long walks in the pasture, eating roots, chasing chickens, and rolling in mud. She’s on the lookout for a meaningless overnight relationship with a true boar.

Her place.

She’s even offering dinner and drinks.

Her only request from prospective suitors was for a “photo, please.”

Belle might be easy, but the girl still has some standards.

Photos show she’s a beauty. Red hair. Blue eyes. True, she has a bit of a pudge, but at last she’s honest about it. Admits right there in print that she might be “a bit larger than the picture shows.”

Before I’d even finished reading the ad, my mind was already building a list of potential pig puns, should I be able to persuade Belle’s owners to let me insinuate myself into the romantic endeavors. This was so totally my kind of story. I was on it like a pig on lipstick.

Belle lives just outside of Charleston with the Figgatts (and a multitude of critters). I wasn’t but few words into talking with Aimee when I realized I’d stumbled on a gold mine.

Aimee is hilarious. Her ways with a phrase had me rolling, and she did so effortlessly. I mean—she described her hog as “having flair.” While there may rightly be a good number of pigs blessed with flair, I doubt there are many people capable of recognizing or appreciating such things.                 

Belle’s desperation for finding love likely intensified after some recent drama at the Figgatt Farm. Flower, one of the family’s potbelly pigs, gave birth to seven piglets even though the only boar on the farm, Henry (of local Kiss A Pig fame), had been neutered.

Although Henry and Flower had been pen-mates and inseparable friends, and Henry was terribly proud of those piglets, he lacked the essential elements necessary for fatherhood. Aimee was baffled over who might’ve deflowered her Flower, but eventually learned the pig had been “exposed” to a male not long before coming to live on their farm.

“Henry was devastated when he learned the piglets weren’t his,” said Aimee. “But the couple is working on their relationship. Henry loves the piglets as his own, and seems willing to help raise them.”

Watching the couple and the little ones must’ve been painful for Belle, who became so desperate she tried to woo Henry away, in spite of their 350-ish pound weight difference.

When that didn’t work, she aggressively flirted with a rooster and tried to accost a neighboring farmer.

(Does anyone out there appreciate how difficult it is not to succumb to the lure of a line about a pig and a poke?)

The original plans for Belle were vastly different from what they’ve become, but the pig’s charms have won her a place on the farm, as a pet, from here out.

“I received a few emails immediately from the ad,” said Aimee. “One from a woman offering her husband, who she claimed was a pig.”

While telling a friend about the romance-seeking pig, she suggested it would make good show material for Jerry Sprenger.

Seems to me it might better suit HBO.

They could call it, “Pig Love.”

###

To see photos and read more about the Figgatt farm, log into Facebook and then like, “Little Patch on the Lane.”

Some apologies are in order.

The house next door to us is for sale.

While ours looks like we’re content providers for Better Junkyards & Gardens.

The article about us would be titled, “Effects of having survived another winter with an escape-artist dog.”

Our daughter’s dog, Chewie, appears determined to leave us. I’m not sure what causes his apparently extreme discontent. While indoors, he seems happy as he struts cockily from room to room, making certain no cat gets too comfy and no dog receives something not first offered to him.

Somewhere under that sweet, shaggy exterior beats the heart of a dog who dreams bigger dreams. A dog not limited by chain link and the junk piled against it by weak-minded human’s attempting to keep him confined.

Yes. I admit. We hold Chewie back. We’ve been open with him about our reasons, explaining it’s our duty to keep him grounded and that we do so out of love (and a desire not to be sued).

In Chewie’s mind, though, he must believe we do so out of fear he’ll succeed and leave us behind once he manages to breach our sloppily reinforced borders.

Is it fame he seeks? Stardom? A re-attachment of those dangly appendages so cruelly removed when he was but a wee pup?

Regardless of Chewie’s true motive, his dogged determination once again forced us to spend the winter months plugging holes under the fence with whatever material we found handy while flailing about in the dark and the cold. And now that it’s warm—and the house next door is for sale—we must disassemble our miss-mashed mess in favor of a more attractive, yet equally effectual, solution.

Unfortunately, our homeowners insurance has this little codicil against spikes, electricity, and razor wire, and our vet isn’t willing to go along with removing his legs. Not even just the front two. So we’re forced with having to skip those obvious ways and look for a more creative solution.

We considered invisible fencing until we discovered that along with the many other secrets Chewie keeps, one apparently involves masochism.

So clever has he become with his digging that one time, right after making his escape, we observed him backtracking a few steps to tamp down the leaves, thus hiding his hole.

Short of digging a trench around the fence base and filling it with a combination of cement and land mines, I’m not sure we’ll ever manage to effectively keep him confined for more than a few weeks at a time. And I have little doubt that once we manage to secure the base of the fence, he’ll simply start stacking lawn furniture and go over the top.

Much as I love him, I must admit there are times I’ve considered attaching some pre-addressed postcards to his collar, giving him a $20 and a firm handshake, and setting him free.

But now that it’s spring, I find myself recharged and renewed, filled with optimism and ready to tackle the challenge of reinforcing our fence in a manner not offensive to our potential new neighbors.

I hope they like dogs.

“What did you say?” my husband asks.

“Just talking to the dog,” I say, since talking to the dog—or one of our other animals—is less crazy than talking to myself.

The thing is, I don’t just talk to myself, I answer. I insult. I complement.

I correspond.

When at home, the pack of animals that travel about the house with me provide cover for the conversing I do. Though my comments aren’t generally directed at the animals, they’re considerate enough to look my direction, making it appear to anyone watching as if I’m cognizant of my crowd.

The predisposition toward talking to myself might’ve started a dozen or so years ago, after someone suggested reading my stories out loud to find where I stumble. I felt strange reading out loud to myself, so I read to our cat, who appeared pleased with the opportunity to share his opinion.

Somewhere along the line, speaking aloud about most anything I wasn’t certain about became automatic. This resulted in our cats becoming convinced their presence was essential for matters involving fashion, paint colors, and hair styles, while the dogs weighed in on tools, gardening matters, and appropriate times for a nap. They probably fear my undoing should I face making a decision without them.

Fearing my behavior was not normal, I decided to research the matter and quickly found studies indicating that talking to oneself is a sign of intelligence.

Hmmm, I said to myself. If talking to oneself is a sign of intelligence, I’ll go back to the beginning of that article and read it out loud to myself, since by default, it seems that reading to oneself about talking to oneself would be a sign of pure genius.

(Note:  Upon reading the above to our cats, they concurred.)

When I ran across a Wall Street Journal article by Jared Sandberg that quoted researchers estimating that as many as 96% of people talk out loud to themselves, I let out a sigh of relief.

Not only is talking to yourself extraordinarily common and a sign of intelligence, research shows that positive self-talk (the more socially acceptable term for this quirk) is also considered an excellent way to make good decisions and build self-esteem.

I must’ve subconsciously understood this concept ages ago, when learning how to use my computer’s calendar feature. To get the hang of the program’s updated method for entering information, I randomly inserted compliments to myself on random dates chosen months and years in advance.

So I was at my desk, just typing away, when a pre-programmed reminder flashed on my screen.

“Hey—are you losing weight?” it asked. “You look like you are.”

A while later, it suggested I wear that color more often because “it makes you look young.”

The dogs had no opinion. But the cats—they agreed.

READER ADVISORY: The following may not be suitable for reading while dining. Discretion is advised.

Dinner with friends. Five women, one man. On his way to our dinner, the lone man stopped by a local shop that specializes in organic health remedies and products. What follows is an attempt to recreate, sans names (as promised) our conversation.

“How do people know what to do with that stuff?” said the man after hearing an explanation of what Nettie Pots are about. “For instance, what’s an ear candle? Is it made from an ear?”

Although familiar with this alternative medicine practice that claims to draw debris from the ear canal, instead of explaining, I said: “Don’t be silly. It’s for removing ear hair.”

That’s when I learned my lady friends are as wicked as me.

“I thought they made those illegal,” said one. “You know, after all the ear canal fires.”

“No,” said another. “But they now have pages of warnings to make sure users know to remove ear wax before using.”

“Hard to believe anyone wouldn’t know to do that. I mean—granted they’re ears, but it’s still wax we’re talking about here. Once wax lights, it can burn for hours.”

“Like tires.”

“I’ve heard it smells like sandalwood, actually. Isn’t that odd?”

“Maybe that’s where sandalwood-scented candles come from. It’s not like anyone would fork over cash for a candle labeled earwax scented!”

Our lone man had remained silent through this, his expression resembling that of one who’s just discovered his house contained rooms everyone knew existed but him.

“Can you use them for nose hair?” he asked cautiously.

“Why waste the money for something special when you can use regular taper candles?”

“Y’all ever noticed my husband’s nose? He has to use pillar candles.”

“I bought Allen one of those rotary trimmers.”

“How do those work?”

“He claims it shortens and sharpens the hairs. Not a problem with his ears, but with his nose—when he sneezes, he bleeds.”

“My husband has one of those things. Says it works fine when it’s new and sharp, but soon as it starts going dull, it’ll tangle. If you don’t react fast enough, it’ll twist your nose like a pretzel.”

“I’ve seen guys with pretzel noses. Is that how it happens?”

“I’ve heard there are plastic surgeons who specialize in untangling knotted noses. Must be pretty horrific.”

“Believe I’ll just stick to my tweezers,” said our man. “Though the last time I did, I’d swear one of the hairs was attached to my brain stem.”

“When I use tweezers, it makes my eyes water, then I sneeze.”

“You mean women have nose hair, too?” he asked.

“After a certain age, yeah. But never as bad as what happens to men.”

“My dad refuses to deal with his ears. Says he can’t see the hair, so it isn’t his problem. Claims he’s growing an earfro.”

“Some men look like they’re growing a shrub.”

“Dad’s been threatening to let his grow and comb it into a goatee, down and over. Meet in the center. Mom’s probably talking to divorce lawyers now.”

It was about that time our lone man excused himself to run to the restroom.

Where I’d bet my last dollar he spent some time at the mirror.

by Jane-Ann Heitmueller
 
 
That need of a woman to scrub, gather, pitch
Is guided by hormones, or springtime or which?
The strong, dormant urge that strikes us in the spring,
Just must find an outlet…what joy it can bring!
 
With frenzied abandonment we clear a path.
Not one thing is sacred to our “Woman’s Wrath”.
The drawers and the closets, the baseboards and walls;
From grooves in the tile, to  rugs in the halls.
 
We drag down the curtains. We Windex each pane.
Light fixtures and carpets feel our annual bane.
The aura of cleanser and frothy soapsuds are signs of
The springtime…as sure as tree buds.
 
With each task completed all sparkles and gleams.
 The weight of the winter has lightened, it seems.
We stand back, admire, our work is complete,
So pleased with the outcome we’ve had with this feat!
 
Perhaps God endowed us with one lovely trait He found
In His wisdom to eliminate,
For part of our brain never dreams of the fear that nothing’s forever…
There’s always NEXT year!

“Company coming?” asked Celeste, lifting her feet from the coffee table long enough for me to dust underneath.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

She pointed to my can of furniture polish.

“Bet that’s older than me.”

“Geoff won’t let me use the leaf blower indoors anymore,” I said. “Says it’s too loud for everyday use, no matter how efficient it is for dusting.”

“If there were power tools for cleaning,” she said. “Our house would be spotless.”

My affinity for boy toys generally makes me better suited for Popular Mechanics than Better Homes & Gardens, but come spring, the compulsion to clean overtakes even me.

“Can’t we just blame the dust on your grandma?” Celeste said. “Tell people she was agoraphobic and never left the house, so we spread her ashes indoors.”

I dropped a few empty trash bags on Celeste’s lap.

“Just the other day at work, my friend Penny Pryor was telling me how her husband once had this nasty old pair of shoes he absolutely refused to get rid of,” I said. “The smell from those shoes was horrific, but he wouldn’t’ part with them, so Penny quietly rubbed bacon grease all over those shoes, and his dog chewed them to pieces. Problem solved.”

“You’re sharing this—why?”

“I’ve been saving bacon grease,” I said. “You might want to spend some time cleaning your room before the dogs and I do.”

My husband, the least messy member of our household, was cleaning the refrigerator. The kitchen is his domain. I relinquished control after Celeste claimed my cooking was causing her jaw muscles to overdevelop.

“Any idea what this is?” Geoff asked, lifting the lid of a container just enough for me to see the furry rainbow growing inside and catch a whiff reminiscent of my childhood in Nitro.

“If you can’t identify it, you can’t eat it,” I said. “Throw it out.”

“But the container’s still good,” he said.

“It’s glowing.”

“It’ll probably wash out okay,” he said. He held up another container. “How about this? You recognize this?”

“Are those roots growing through the bottom?” I asked.

Geoff:  “Cool.”

I returned to my dusting, trying hard to ignore the distracting squeals of delight as Geoff discovered new life forms in our refrigerator. He was singing loudly as he worked, altering the lyrics in that oh-so-adorable-except-to-teenagers way that he does. It wasn’t until I heard a “Hey!” and a “Stop that!” that I grew concerned and decided to investigate.

Celeste, looking guilty, fled the room as I entered.

Standing before the open refrigerator, Geoff looked confused.

“Any idea why she was trying to rub bacon grease on me?” he asked. “The dogs won’t leave me alone.”

Fumes from the trash clouded my brain.

“I don’t know why she did it,” I heard myself say, “But you should leave it alone. It’s good for your skin.”

It was late evening on February 15 when Felisha Coyner and her 13-year-old daughter, Morgan, stopped by the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Teays Valley and saw what appeared to be a homeless man standing at the counter.

He was middle-aged and dirty, weighed down with bags and backpacks. A young female employee–Francesca Chambers–was waiting on him. As mother and daughter approached, they could hear bits of the conversation.

“It’s okay,” Francesca was telling the man. “Keep your money. I’m getting this. What kind of chicken do you like?”

The man was shaking his head no, but the attractive, young KFC employee was insistent.

“It seemed as if they had been talking for a while,” Coyner wrote in her email. “She was telling the man that everyone goes through tough times, but he shouldn’t give up. He should keep on fighting.”

The man was kind of mumbling, his head held low.

“Do you need help getting a roof over your head? Maybe a job?” Francesca asked him. “If you come back tomorrow, I’ll help you get in touch with a shelter. And if you need money, I can probably come up with $20.”

The man was trying to get her to take his two dollars, but she put the money back in his hand.

“Look,” said the girl. “I’m in school full time, and trust me, there are times I don’t feel like going to class or coming to work, but I make myself do it, and so can you.”

The man realized someone was standing behind him, and when he turned to look at the Coyners, there were tears running down his cheeks.

“I don’t even know this girl,” the man told them. “And yet, she’s trying to help someone like me.”

The man was trembling hard as he told them how he hadn’t known his father had died until he was already buried. He said his dad had been trying for years to get him off the streets.

“Then let’s honor your dad by doing it now,” Francesca told him. “You come back tomorrow and I’ll do what I can to help you get back on your feet.”

After the man left with his food, Coyner and her daughter stepped up to the counter.

“If your parents knew what you just did,” Coyner told Francesca. “They’d be so proud of you right now.”

That’s when Francesca started crying.

“She told us her mother had died not even a year ago,” Coyner wrote. “She told me I’d just made her day by saying that.”

When I called Francesca to talk about what happened at KFC that day, she told me her mother had installed in her a desire to help others. It had been important to her.

Francesca, an only child, was still in high school when she found her mom’s body the day before Mother’s Day in 2010. The death was ruled accidental. Francesca lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the time, but is now a student at West Virginia State University majoring in Elementary Education.

Although the man never returned to the restaurant, Francesca had been prepared to do what she could to help him.

“You never know what someone has gone through,” she said. “Everyone has a story. We all have something we’re trying to survive.”

Just because the man wasn’t ready to be helped doesn’t lessen what Francesca attempted to do that night.

“The example she set for my daughter—and for me—that day changed us,” wrote Coyner. “It brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. As long as I live, I will never forget that night. It wasn’t about the food she gave him, or the money she offered him. It was her compassion for a total stranger, the decency she showed another human being, regardless of how dirty he was.”

Charity sees the need, not the cause.

Far too often, we underestimate the power of a kind word or a small act of caring.

Both of which have the potential to change a life.

I’m a speed reader wanna-be – someone who accumulates reading material at most every turn, yet seldom finds time to get through a fraction of what’s been collected. I’m handicapped by a love of words that prompts me to dawdle. There’s so much I want to have read, yet that trip to past tense seldom goes fast.

Even magazines and newspapers aren’t quick reads for me. I’m a sucker for headlines, lured by those brief, well-chosen word combinations that have been cleverly cast to summarize and attract.

But many also deceive. Especially the headlines in women’s magazines.

The current issue of Good Housekeeping has an article titled “How to Fake a Clean House.” It’s a good thing pages can’t catch fire from being flipped fast. Our household includes three dogs, two cats, two rabbits and three pigs (the latter being of the bacon-consuming, not producing, variety), so keeping our place tidy enough for guests to drop by with less than three weeks’ notice isn’t something we’ve mastered.

But get this. The article’s methods for faking a clean house involved actual cleaning.

Seems a bit deceiving, don’t you think?

To save time, they recommend you “Skip the oven.” Who cleans the oven before company comes? The Witch from Hansel & Gretel might have reason to keep hers spic and span, but as a guest in other homes, I’ve not once felt compelled to poke my head in the oven. I trust my company will also refrain, tempting though it may be.

While in a waiting room, I was flipping through Redbook magazine when I saw an article promising advice on “How to Match Your Makeup to Your Mood.” I was intrigued, as I’ve always believed the general rule was simple.

Makeup = approachable.

No makeup = approach with great care (and/or chocolate).

If there’s ever a time when my actions, facial expressions, body language or tone of voice fail to express whether I’m feeling flirty, romantic, professional or homicidal, the color of eyeliner I’ve chosen isn’t going to provide much of a clue.

These magazines would be providing more of a service by featuring tips on how to cover one’s mood, as there are likely more women wanting to know how to conceal feeling exhausted, hormonal, unappreciated or stern.

Another article promised to reveal “43 Ways to Look Younger.”

I expected tip number one to be “Get much older friends.” Instead, it suggested you should “Plump up your lips.”

I’m not sure how plump lips make a person look younger, unless perhaps they’ve been plumped to the point where the weight of the lips pulls the face down until the wrinkles are tight.

The article also suggested keeping your “eye cream in the refrigerator for a quick under-eye depuffing.” Using that kind of thinking, just imagine how bright-eyed and alert you could look by storing suppositories in the freezer.

Although I doubt the cure to my woes can be found under a clever headline between the pages of some magazine, until I master reading faster, I guess I’ll never know.

I like it when people use Facebook for more than reconnecting with classmates and spying on exes.

I have a friend, Candace Jordan, of Morgantown, who uses Facebook to find homes for animals, organize social and citizen action events, and play accidental matchmaker, among other things. My favorite, though, is how she uses Facebook to make her friends think.

Candace’s “Question of the Day” is the kind of thing that will get my wheels turning, and the answers posted in response are often so well considered that I find myself wanting to get to know these friends of a friend.

Occasionally, her questions might make her sound like a bit of a hippie, but mostly, she’s philosophical, unpredictable and quirky. And one of my favorite people ever.

Last Sunday, Candace’s question was, “Of all the things that have happened to you personally and that you have observed personally, what thing has made you fall most in love with the human race?”

Some answers were simple, yet sweet.

Cynthia Maddox wrote that for her, it was having her 5-year-old grandson notice she’d spilled a little of her coffee, and racing to the sink for a sponge to clean up her mess. The child’s desire to help, paired with his willingness to do the task for her, made her recognize her love for people.

Tom Wilkinson wrote about the time he was hospitalized in Pittsburgh with a broken back. “Many people sent me cards,” wrote Tom.

“Get-well cards and cards of encouragement. They came from people I knew and people I didn’t know. Those cards were pinned up on a bulletin board on the wall of that room. There was not enough space on that cork board. I spent hours gazing at that collection of good will and encouragement.”

Denise Warren wrote about the time her family was driving back to Utah from California with four kids after most of their belongings had been stolen from a campsite in California, and they had nearly no money left.

When they were too tired to drive any farther, they stopped at a cheap motel in Reno, Nev., but were told they weren’t allowed to let six people stay in one room.

“But hey,” said the clerk. “There’s a two-rooms-for-one special going on right now for, let’s say, $30?”

Next door to the motel was a pizza place. “The kids were jumping around naming toppings, and Gary and I were searching our pockets. We said we had to agree on one pizza and one topping,” wrote Denise.

When the pizza was delivered to their room, a second pizza was with it. The driver made up some story about how a mistake was made on another order and they were just going to throw it away, and he asked if we wanted it. It just happened to have all the toppings the kids had been asking for.

“We saw the best and the worst of human nature on that trip,” wrote Warren. “But it’s Reno I remember.”

I’ve had so many times over the years when I’ve fallen in love with the human race, and it’s those times that I cling to when I find myself being picked on by life.

Since I doubt I’m alone in craving positive news every once in a while, I’d like to share reader experiences that might help balance out the bad. If you have a story to share, please e-mail it to me by clicking here.