In their quest for newsstand “pop,” many magazines design their covers in such a way that the logotype is almost an afterthought. Titles of magazines are often partly blotted out by celebrity heads, torsos, hair, and other body parts. This April 2005 cover of Parents magazine demonstrates the perils of this design technique. Fortunately this is a spoof on the trend. However, it still appealed to the juvenile in me and I must admit I was wondering momentarily if it was indeed real. Oh the fun we can have with Photoshop.

Somebody should really think before they design. I have heard some people describe their food as tasting like 'ass,' but this puts a new twist on it. Who really cares if their ass is open at 6 in the morning? It is far too early for ass.

Rumi's words danced in my mind over and over…

"Come, come, whoever you are.
This caravan knows no despair."

Caravans are so primitive. I would much rather fly.

"Come, come, whoever you are.
This caravan knows no despair."

My true despair comes at the thought
of being captive in such a place.
Stopping, going, staying the night in God knows where.

Bumping into strangers I don't understand.
Being forced to sit beside them and make idle chat.
Exposing my true self would be inevitable.

A very small part of this sounds appealing,
as I think of a caravan on its long journey.
I wouldn't have to face the road alone.

I could hear of other traveller's tales.
I may even find a friend on this pathway.
Multi-coloured people, dancing and singing.

Oh, the music of this pilgrimage.
It will intoxicate your soul and take you
where perhaps you dare not.

I am not a gypsy however.
Give me my aeroplane and let me go.
I will travel alone in peace.

"Even though you have broken your vows,
perhaps a thousand times…
Come, come again."

Rumi breaks again into my thoughts.
How did he know I would break my vows?
Who was this mysterious prophet?

Knowingly, the caravan passes my door.
I hear the melody and voices of the singers,
and their graceful turns and bows.

Finally I resign. I tire from the struggle.
In slow motion I turn to face centre.
Grabbing hold of one hand, I jump aboard.

Fuchsia lips press forcefully against my own.
Dear Aunty Pearl once again makes her mark.

What sin have I committed to deserve such affection?
Permanently stained on my collar,
                on my glasses,
                       on my face.
I stand with a stiff embrace,
waiting for the pagan ritual to end.

Escaping to the garden as she makes her tea,
twenty-three years have gone and,
I am still a victim of her wanting lips.

The purplish red tulips
my mother planted for me stand erect
beckoning her unwanted presence.
Were they not a gift, I would have pulled
them from their very roots.

I turn and am confronted with the hanging basket
my sister gave me -a joke, a fuchsia.
It blooms without my watering it.
Drooping so elegantly,
                       so ladylike –
some would consider it a beauty.
It’s smell, a pungent reminder
of the cheap perfume my dear
Aunty Pearl wears.

“Where are you? Where are you?”
she cries in a lilting melody.
I hide behind the shed in hopes she will forget me.

Suddenly I catch glimpse of my bright smeared reflection
frighteningly, peering at me in the window.

I am taken back to my visit in Amsterdam,
where the ladies line up in the windows
and sell their already used wares.

Like Aunty Pearl, their lips are covered
with cakes of bright purplish neon signs –
darkened around the edges
and smeared slightly.
They are different
from other ladies.

Not that dear Pearl is like these women at all.
How could I make such a comparison?
How could I think such things?

I never asked to be her favourite nephew.
There is enough colour in my life.

My white handkerchief now bleeds
with its fluorescent pinkish hue.

She finds me crouching behind the pale yellow shed.

“There you are, you cheeky boy –

Come here and give your ol’ Aunty Pearl a kiss.”

I am much better suited to the city life. Where I lived in Uzbekistan wasn’t exactly rural, but certainly in comparison to London – definitely. For a start I hear you aren’t supposed to name your chickens as they aren’t meant to be your pets, but how else could I tell them apart? Sheryl, named after my sister who growing up was nicknamed by family members as ‘mother hen’ seemed a natural choice. Evidently when I was very small she felt like I was her baby and therefore coddled to me like a mother hen would her offspring. That changed. Karen, named after my other sister, was rather quiet and kept to herself a lot. I named her incorrectly, as this doesn’t describe this sister at all. Then there was Yoko, the Japanese hen. By far the prettiest of them all and very petite, as you would expect a Japanese hen to be. There were others, but we’ll leave it at that. They all had one thing in common– an unfortunate lack of food.

Our home had a ready-built chicken coop to the left of the main entry and being the good citizens we were, we decided to do the ‘cultural’ thing in order to fit in with the locals by becoming chicken owners. I cleaned up the coop before their arrival and apart from setting out a nice bouquet of flowers to welcome them I felt I had gone far and above my first duties as chicken dad.

I grabbed a neighbour on “chicken day,” which happened once a month at our local market, and off we went to make our purchases. I had no idea what I was doing and was going for the cutest. This is how we got Yoko, much to my neighbour’s disapproval. “It’s a waste of money,” he said in a stern correcting voice, as I kept pointing to her. He peered in the other chicken’s eyes, lifted their wings, opened their beaks, tapped on their bellies, and overall impressed me with his chicken knowledge. How could I argue with such wisdom or experience? However, I stuck to my guns and bought Yoko anyway. He reminded me their purpose was for laying eggs, which evidently I had lost sight of in the excitement of the market. Hanging them upside down by the legs, with a couple in each hand, we carried them home. Several passersby stopped and commented on our fine chickens, to which I smiled and nodded as a proud new father would. Yes indeed, I am a full-fledged chicken owner now.

The first thing I realised when I returned home was that I would have to find them some food. They were looking a little peckish, but perhaps this was from being carried upside down and all the blood had rushed to their little heads. Nevertheless, I had to feed them. But what? I raided the kitchen and found a few table scraps, which I am told chickens love, and some stale bread. It was possible to buy an entire aviary of chickens on chicken day, but never could you buy food. This was up to your own ingenuity.

Once the new arrivals had eaten and were ‘fat and sassy,’ as my father might have said, I tried to usher them into their new home. A larger white, quite ordinary upon appearance, chicken went straight into the coop and showed definite signs of leadership. Clucking away she went in with no problem and staked out her territory. She was definitely setting herself up to be head hen. Yep, her name must be Sheryl. She was full of life and seemed like she was going to enjoy the coop to its maximum. As long as she could be boss, she was happy. Karen followed on her heels and one by one the rest of the chickens reluctantly followed them into the coop with their heads hanging down. However, I might have misinterpreted their movements. They may have still been looking for food on the ground. Being inexperienced I had a lot to learn about chicken psychology and how to interpret their movements.

It didn’t take long to realise that I needed to further mend some of the holes in the coop. I had no idea they could get through such tiny holes in the wire, especially Yoko. We soon got into a routine and apart from the ongoing drama with food, or perhaps more accurately lack of food, we became a nice happy family. Some say the lack of eggs was a result of poor nutrition. I ,however, think it was because they were embarrassed to lay in front of everybody else. It was a rather open floor plan inside the coop. It didn’t matter. I was a real chicken owner, even if my neighbours weren’t really impressed. Who cared if they gave us many eggs?

One afternoon, as I was checking under their butts to see if they had a hidden egg, I noticed Sheryl was looking a little melancholy. True, she hadn’t laid many eggs and I surmised she was a little down about it all. I gave her a little pep talk which she mostly ignored. Upon closer inspection though, I noticed it was more than depression and thought perhaps I needed to take her to my neighbour, the self-proclaimed chicken expert.

“No problem,” he said confidently, “your chicken has chicken flu.” He refused to call her by her name and only referred to her as "your chicken." I ignored the rudeness and followed him into his kitchen with Sheryl in tow. Behind a dingy piece of green fabric that acted as a cabinet door, he began pulling out his secret family recipe that was meant to cure all chickens in such events. I had no choice but to trust him and consequently took the seat of a learner in chicken healing. On the table lay several items which would be made into a thickish sort of paste:

• 1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper
• 1 clove of freshly pressed garlic
• a pinch of black pepper
• a pinch of bread crumbs (to add thickness)
• 2 tablespoons of normal variety Vodka

I was instructed that upon every hour, or two at the most, I was to feed Sheryl this miracle cure and by morning all would be well. It had been used for generations of proud chicken owners everywhere, of which I was now one. “Oh,” he said as Sheryl and I walked through his front gate, “Make sure you keep your chicken separated from the rest of the chickens. You don’t want them to be ill as well.”

“Her name is Sheryl,” I spoke in her defense. As it was good advice I decided to forget his unwillingness to call her by her proper name and headed home.

If I’d had a chicken owner’s manual, I could have learned how to feed miracle paste to an ill chicken. An eyedropper would have been the most sensible solution, but you have to remember, we were not living in the most sophisticated of places with a chemist shop on every corner. I could have probably found a chicken eyedropper on the black market, but considering Sheryl’s poor state of health I didn’t feel I had the time to devote to such a hunt.

I grabbed a teaspoon and held her gently between my legs. Opening her beak was not so easy, as I had seen the expert do in the market, but I was determined to do this on my own. I already suspected my neighbour was mimicking me behind my back, so I refused to seek further help. Trying to get a teaspoon in a chicken’s mouth isn’t easy. Using a combination of the spoon and putting the formulae between my fingertips and stuffing it down her beak, I finally succeeded with the first dose. Massaging her neck and singing softly to her was probably the best trick I learned. She loved ‘Old MacDonald.’ I was afraid I would never have enough paste to outlast her illness as most of it was now on me. However, I had the recipe and apart from the vodka could make more with little trouble. Even though this was considered a Muslim country, Uzbekistan still had a lot of Russian influence– vodka was one of the most noticeable things that carried over. I let Sheryl loose in my kitchen and made her a little bed in the corner by the water heater for relaxation and recuperation. I couldn’t help but feel quite proud of my achievement and now began to realise what owning chickens was all about. It felt good to be a chicken dad.

As night came around I was determined to keep on schedule and set my alarm so I could nurse her back to health. One o’clock came and by now I was getting the hang of it. She fought me a little, but I think she realised it was for her own good. Three o’clock, all was well. It may have been that I was half asleep, but I seem to recall her readily opening her mouth when the spoon came near. She was such a good patient. Next time I set the alarm for 4:30 and stumbled from my stupor to give medicine to her. Being a chicken dad was not as easy as one might think. It was then that I discovered Sheryl was feeling fine. I mean f-i-n-e!

I opened the door to the kitchen and found her flapping her wings, dancing on the kitchen table. With her feathers all fluffed out, she looked twice her size. WOW! This really was a cure. Sheryl was fully restored. I was half expecting her to pop out an egg or two any moment. I think it might have had something to do with the vodka. Either way, she was happy. Her beak was glistening and I was sleepy as hell.

We skipped the 4:30 dose as I was now convinced Sheryl was a new girl. I turned out the lights and left her clucking around the kitchen. I would take her back to her friends later. I couldn’t wait to tell my neighbour.

As I had a broken sleep and was no longer concerned about Sheryl I didn’t rise as early as normal. When I finally awoke I entered the kitchen, expecting to see her making breakfast. Sadly I found her in her bed in the corner. Sheryl had died sometime between her tango on the kitchen table and my arrival at her bedside. It was a very short-lived miracle. I considered trying mouth-to-beak resuscitation, but when I picked her up rigormortis was setting in. As I held her close in my arms, with tears in my eyes, I noticed a little smile on her face. At least she died happy… thanks to the vodka.

I remember in 1991 walking on the white cliffs of Dover
and thinking how fortunate I was to be there.
It was a place of great hope for the men of the 1940s
and became a popular war tune sung by Vera Lynn, and many others.

The wind began to lick at my face and run playfully down my back.
I thought I heard in the clouds above me, the most lovely of melodies.
The lilted song splashed back and forth against the ivory crag.
I now realise it was the spanking breeze whirring about my head.

Looking out over the frothy waves, I gathered those memories tightly in my hand,
put them in my coin pocket and agreed to save them for a rainy day.

As the bus jolted and jiggled on windy roads the only thought that came to mind was one of the classic Lucille Ball sketches where she is eating chocolate on a conveyer belt as it speeds up; getting more and more frantic in trying to get things under control, without success.

My wife, two Greek friends, and I were heading to Halkidiki in northern Greece for a long weekend of relaxation. The sun was warm, but not too warm. It had been a busy week and when a friend’s invitation came to go to a bungalow for the weekend, it was too much of a temptation to resist. Just the perfect getaway from the hustle of Thessaloniki where we lived. With our food for the weekend packed, swimming costumes and other basics, we headed out from the bus station. The journey was only a couple of hours, if that, but it seemed eternity. This is because we had nobody to watch Baba. There was no choice. She had to come with us.

Entering the bus, it was filled with mostly elderly passengers, most of whom were women. As was the custom, no matter what the temperature outside, they were dressed in the traditional black garb. Black dresses, black scarves, black shawls, black shoes and black stockings– all to show they were widows. Once dressed in black, always dressed in black. Finding empty seats in the rear of the bus, the doors rattled closed. We were off on our ‘hollies’ (short for holidays) and nothing could keep us now from pure unadulterated self-absorption. What was about to happen wouldn’t have been so traumatic had Baba been black. She would have blended in with nobody the wiser. However, Baba was a beautiful grey and white cat who we had rescued from an eccentric lady in the city.

This is not to say she wouldn’t have been well cared for. Her previous owner was definitely a cat lover; perhaps an understatement. She had 19 cats and one of those had just produced a litter when we found our little bundle of joy. Baba was one of the newest arrivals and irresistible upon sight. Entering the home there was an overpowering smell of cats and urine. Excusing myself to the loo, while my wife checked out the new litter, I was greeted by not only cats, but noticed the bathtub was used as a litter box. Our host said she washed it all down the drain every night, but evidently had missed the last fortnight. I couldn’t help but wonder where she bathed. It was not a pretty vision and I will leave it at that! Choosing Baba was fairly straightforward and as newlyweds, she made our home complete. Baba, Afrikaans for ‘baby,’ was indeed our little girl.

Everything remained relatively quiet on the bus apart from the occasional howling noise from the box between my feet. As we veered and bumped along the uneven roads the noise became increasingly loud. Trying to console Baba and prevent people from staring at us I innocently reached my hand through the opening in the box and started to pet her. This was my first mistake. Actually, this was my second mistake. The first was believing the silly notion that we could travel with a cat without incident.

As the meowing and growling escalated, Baba’s fine grey and white hair began to rise from the box. Like the Great Ascension itself we suddenly found ourselves caught up in the rapture. Carrying animals on buses wasn’t uncommon nor a problem in itself. I had seen chickens and goats on buses, so carrying a cat wasn’t really the issue. The very serious and mournful widows were held in quite high honour within Greek culture and we were about to desecrate this reverence with fluffy handfuls of white and grey.

The now heightened anxiety in Baba produced more hair that I figured she had on her body. Where it was coming from I still can’t imagine. Trying to remain inconspicuous my wife and two friends began an unsuccessful attempt to grab the fine hair with their hands. Baba was trying to escape from the box and the only way to keep her inside now was to move the box from the floor to my lap and push her back inside. With one hand on her, my other hand joined the futility in capturing the hair floating around the bus. For each hair that was caught ten more escaped our clutches.

Much to my horror, it looked like Christmas in July. Handfuls of white fell silently on the unsuspecting blackness. Like Lucy’s chocolate escapade, we lost the battle but wouldn’t dare acknowledge it. We kept on fighting, hoping the highly revered widows wouldn’t notice.

“Me-o-o-ow.”
“There it is.”
“Missed it.”
“Me-o-o-o-o-ow.”
“Quick, grab it - Shh.”
“Missed again.”
“Why? They don’t understand English…”
“Gr-rr-oo-owl.”
“I don’t care. Hurry. You missed again.”
"Uh-oh."

On and on it went, mile after mile….bend after bend.

The trip took 8 days. My wristwatch declared only an hour and a half. I’m convinced the battery had stopped. Either way, we were finally let off the bus, thanked our driver and wished our fellow passengers a good rest of the trip. The only thing I can imagine is that because we were foreigners they failed to say much. There is absolutely no possibility they couldn’t have seen or heard the unsuspecting drama that we had just experienced, even though the ride was otherwise noisy. As the last one off the bus, I looked backwards and saw a few of Baba’s hairs still whirling around in the air. The ladies normally dressed in total black had been unsuspectingly updated to a fashionable salt and pepper style. I quickly stepped onto the ground and was relieved when the squeaky door flapped shut.

In comparison the rest of the weekend was uneventful. We managed to temporarily forget the event. I was very surprised when we let Baba out of her box she had any fur left. I was expecting to now own a Sphynx. I did have a greater suspicion about how these hairless cats came about. It was surely a bus ride.

For a couple days we had bliss. The sun was great. Relaxation came. We rented some scooters. We explored the area. We grilled out. We laughed. We sang. We swam. And then we stopped. Realisation that we had to now get home with Baba invaded our fun.

Our Greek friends would know what to do. Trying several places we were unable to find a veterinarian so resorted to a local chemist for help. They prescribed a little yellow tranquilizer that was normally used to sedate people. With instructions in hand we returned to our bungalow and proceeded to shove the magic pill down the cat’s throat. Spitting, scratching and more howling evolved. We were uncertain it all went down her as yellow mingled with cat slobber and our blood. As a preventative we took the second yellow pill (not to be given at the same time) and continued the wrestling match. There was not going to be a repeat performance on our ride home. I massaged Baba’s throat with determination. We finally won!

However, still reluctant, we hesitantly mounted the bus and found our seats. There was no escaping the black dresses. Déja vu was knocking at our door. I nervously looked around and hoped these weren’t the same ladies from our previous journey. They all looked the same to me. I gave a half-smile as I sat down and prayed like I had seldom done before.

In less than 90 minutes we were dropped off in the city centre and breathed a sigh of relief. No drama. No hair. Hallelujah– there is a God.

Returning home we let Baba out of her box and much to our dismay she fell over on her right side. Standing her up again, she fell over –plop. Down she went. “Let’s try that again,” I said non-chalantly, trying to console my new wife as tears formed in her eyes. PLOP. This time she fell on her left side, legs straight as iron. We had overdosed poor Baba but were afraid to tell anybody. She lay there for quite a while, only able to let out a weak ‘meow.’ Thankfully after some hours with us by her side, overcome with Catholic guilt (though we weren’t Catholic), she began to come around. First her front left paw moved. Later it was the swish of the tail. Little by little her actions became more fluid. Her voice started to return to normal and in those moments I was glad I didn’t speak cat language. I’m sure curse words were escaping from her mouth, which still drooped slightly on the right. Finally, her right ear twitched and she drunkenly was able to lift her head. Maybe I wouldn’t have that divorce after all. (That came later, but that’s a different story!)

I knew the next morning all was well. At 7:00, exactly on schedule, Baba was seen flying from the clothes armoire beside our bed to nose-dive us and wake us up. Unfortunately I was the one closest to the wardrobe. I am convinced her claws were extended significantly further than normal that morning as she landed on my head.