Phoebe Kate

True to His scriptural word — “I will never leave you or forsake you” — the Son of God has made another surprise appearance this year…and in a venue you’d never expect to find Him.

In an Indian restaurant.

A couple in Surrey, England were about to chow down on some curry when they found something funny in their food.

No, not a hair from the chef’s head.

It was the face of the King of Kings staring up at them from a piece of naan bread that they were about to rip apart and devour.  Said the lucky recipient of the divine visitation, “My wife and I were about to tuck into our curry when I spotted Jesus looking right back at me.”

This is definitely a departure from the usual food scenes that the Savior has historically favored.  Both He and His Mother have shown a decided preference for South of the Border specialties for their manifestations, such as tortillas, tacos and nachos.  

However, this new sighting in naan reiterates the importance of grain-based products as a vehicle for many of His appearances – hardly surprising for someone who metaphorically referred to Himself as “The Bread of Life.”

So, you may be asking, what’s a nice Jewish boy doing in an Indian restaurant?  Shouldn’t He be popping up in a matzoh ball in Netanyahu’s soup?  As the founder of Christianity, oughtn’t He pay Benedict XVI a visit in a plate of antipasto?

Well, the good news is the peripatetic Prince of Peace is ecumenical.  He doesn’t read the sign on a house of worship or on a restaurant either — He’s more interested in reading men’s hearts.  

And He’s no respecter of persons, as it says in the Bible, which means a truly divine dinner entree just might be coming to a table near you. 

~ phoebe kate              

It seems like a lofty aspiration, to work at making the country or your state or city a better place for its citizens.  It sounds exciting — the cameras, the press conferences, the speeches, the events where everybody wants to shake your hand and hear what you have to say, being a newsmaker and a headliner and (you hope) a household name.

I think it sounds like the career from hell and a quick detour to a nervous breakdown. 

Politicians are probably the only people who never can escape the public eye and the scrutiny of the news media.  Even the most famous Hollywood celebs get a break between movies and disappear for a few months to enjoy something resembling a private life.  Johnny Depp hangs out in France where nobody bothers him, Sarah Jessica Parker and her family slip into the Irish countryside and numerous Red Carpet strutters seclude themselves in remote parts of Latin America that daunt even the most rabid of the paparazzi. 

But politicians — well, the old saying “out of sight, out of mind” is very true when it comes to voters.  The next election is always just around the corner and too much time away from your constituents means you may shortly be out of a job (and reduced to paying a ghostwriter to pen your memoirs about a life in politics.)

With hectic 18-hour days of meetings, breakfasts with one group, lunches with another, some afternoon public appearances, three dinners where your presence is required and the ever-present opinion polls that determine your personal future, public servants can’t do the really important things in life.

Like sleep late and stay in their pajamas all day.

Attend everyone one of your kids’ school plays, music recitals and Christmas programs.

Take long naps on rainy afternoons.

Decide to study flower-arranging, cake decorating, haiku writing or martial arts at your local community college.

Go window-shopping at the mall.

Devote your evenings to re-reading The Complete Works of Charles Dickens or all seven volumes of Remembrance of Things Past or playing board games and cards with the family.

Spend a hour throwing catnip mice for the cat to chase or tossing a Frisbee for the dog or enjoying a leisurely walk in the park.

Watch the big game at a sports bar, drink beer and pitch peanut shells at anybody who cheers for the other team.

Only hang out with people you really, really like.

Do something spontaneous.

Wear something silly.

Have a bad hair day.

Say a bad word.

Express what you truly think and believe.

Be yourself — and if somebody doesn’t like the Real You, well, the hell with him. 

Tell the truth, regardless of the consequences.

Do I feel sorry for politicians?  Yes and no. 

Yes — for those who have truly dedicated their lives to doing the best they can for their constituents.  There are some — and nowhere near as many as there should be — who have interpreted “public service” as being a servant of the people they represent.  And they have my admiration — and my sympathy for doing a thankless job.

No, because they chose their career path — for whatever reasons.  They were obviously willing to give up a “normal” life and their freedom of choice for something.

Unfortunately, it seems that many have made the sacrifice not for the betterment of society, but for ego and personal aggrandizement.  Power is a heady aphrodesiac and a highly addictive substance.

The political arena is chock-a-block with individuals who emphasize the “public” aspect — the meticulously manufactured ”image,” familiar and cliche-riddled rhetoric, empty promises and impossible dreams that woo the masses and turn campaigns into a popularity contest rather than a rational decision between two well-defined, clearly stated and carefully thought-out platforms.             

As someone once observed, “Politicians think of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.” 

~ phoebe kate    

So on Friday, TV programming was interrupted to let us watch the spectacle of a pro golfer apologizing to the world that he cheated on his wife.

As I write the sentence, I’m shaking my head in disbelief and digust.  This is news important enough on a national scale to bring regular broadcasting to a halt?  Even more appalling, is this  what our country has become — a nation of idiots who actually believe that Woods’ marital infidelities affect us personally in some way?

Tiger Woods doesn’t owe an apology to me or you or America for what he did.  I don’t care how he spends his time off the golf course and neither should anybody who’s outside his family.  It’s simply not our business — nor the media’s business, either.

If we expect celebrities to be paragons of virtue and poster kids for purity, then we’re losing touch with reality.  Peformers are around to entertain us with their talents, sports figures to wow us with their athletic feats.  That’s all, folks.  The only thing they owe the public is to do their best with their professional abilities and expertise.

The Tiger Woods brouhaha is important only because it clearly shows the depth of our societal hypocrisy.  Statistics indicate that affairs affect 1 in every 2.7 couples.  That’s a lot of people fooling around behind their partner’s back.  Why should Woods have to apologize publicly for something almost half (if not more) of us are doing, too? 

We like to think we take our marriage vows seriously, but it’s clear that ”keeping ourselves only to him/her” makes little, if any, impact on our post-wedding behavior.  And neither does that “’til death do us part” bit.  Half of all marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, usually within the first seven years.  Let’s face it — we’re just not all that into monogamy.

And why should we be?  Since the so-called Sexual Revolution in the 60s and 70s, it has become the norm to have one-night stands, multiple partners and serial relationships.  We’re the Hook-up Culture, and our casual couplings begin at younger and younger ages.   Is it any wonder, after a veritable cornucopia of sexual encounters with all different types of people for years, that sleeping with only one individual for the rest of your life seems not only tiresome and boring, but unrealistic and abnormal too?

Also blatantly obvious in the Woods media circus is the deterioration of our national TV news and its growing preoccupation with muck-raking, gossip-mongering and scandal-pandering.  People used to buy tabloids to read dirt about celebrities; now we just have to tune into our major networks to get the lurid details hashed and rehashed by “respected journalists.”

Tiger Woods is the victim of a culture that has, for the last 40 years, aggressively promoted sexual freedom and marketed sexuality as an opiate for the masses.  I just wish he’d possessed the guts to call a 30-second press conference and said to everyone, “I’m a golfer, not a morals coach.  Stay out of my family’s and my private business, and let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Now that, folks, would truly be news.

~ phoebe kate           

Southerners are a peculiar breed.  I should know — I am one.  We’re fond of our peculiarities and we proudly keep them alive from generation to generation. 

Shoot, we were on the wrong side in Mr. Lincoln’s War and yet, to this day, many a Southerner still displays the Confederate flag outside his trailer or on the bumper sticker of his truck or on his tee shirt or tattooed on his chest, close to his heart.  I don’t know any losers in any other war so determined to commemorate (read: deny) their defeat.

Southerners also insist that where you come from in the South makes you unique.  I allow as how there are some variations in accent and cuisine from region to region.  If your people were coal miners from the mountains, it’s not the same as descending from flatland farmers or coastal fisherman. 

But by and large, the South is pretty darn homogenous — whether we like to admit it or not.

Until recently, I lived in Eastern North Carolina.  Now there’s a crowd who are convinced they’re totally different from the folks living two miles away in the next county — even if some of those folks are their own blood kin.

Anyway, I recently came across an article in a local publication that enumerated ways you could be positively ID’ed as an Eastern Carolinian.  Some of them are (with some inclusions by yours truly):

• You’ve heard someone describe a female’s dress as “flourdy.”
• You’ve cropped tobacco and it was hauled to the barn by a mule.
• You had to be careful where you stepped in the yard because there were chickens.
• Your daddy didn’t get along with your grade school teacher because her great-granddaddy called his great-granddaddy a scalawag.
• Your Yankee cousins say that they know they’re in the South because your house smells like wood smoke.
• Your swimming pool was a mud hole.
• And that there “swimming pool” of yours gave you a special gift for taking a dip in it — namely, some friendly local leeches.
• Your truck is used for driving, fishing, hunting, mud-running competitions, going out to dinner, going to church and having sex — and you’re damn proud to declare it’s never once gone through the “wishy-washy” (car wash.)
• When you tell visiting city folks that you’re cooking crappie, they give you a funny smile and makes excuses to not stay for dinner (which you, of course, call supper.)    
• Your friends call you a Holy Roller Bible Thumper and it’s a compliment.
• All the children in your family are named after people in the Bible, preferably Old Testament characters only the truly saved-and-sanctified have ever heard tell of.

~ phoebe kate

I’ve known a lot of men.  A whole lot. 

Ahhh, I bet that got your attention and fast, didn’t it? 

However, I must confess that this post isn’t about my carnal cavortings, such as they may or may not be – or about me at all.  It’s about the men with whom I’ve been (or currently am) friends.

I’ve always had more guy buddies than gal pals.  The reason why is still unclear to me.  Maybe because I’m not the kind of woman who needs or even wants flattery, fawning and flirtation from all the males of the species.  Or I’m a person who treats everybody pretty much the same, regardless of gender or ethnicity or socio-economic status.    

Maybe it’s because I’m a good listener?

Oh hell, it’s probably because I enjoy a good brew, love sports bars and am not above throwing bar nuts in the air and catching them in my mouth.

Okay, forget the catching part.  The airborne bar nuts invariably land on the heads of the guys with me.  Which they find very amusing…even more so if one of them has curly hair.  Then it becomes a search-and-rescue mission for the missing legume lost in their corkscrew locks.

Anyway, what I want to talk about today is a familiar scenario in relationships – namely, The Big Breakup.  It’s never neat and tidy.  We seldom, if ever, behave like Mature Adults, even though we swear that this time around we will — that we’ll respect what we had together as a couple and not trash-talk the ex to anyone who’ll listen.  That we’ll say our last goodbyes graciously and gather up our belongings with dignity and head off into the horizon with our head held high.

Well, maybe next time.

I’ve walked quite a few guys through their Big Breakups with partners.  They’ve asked me to be present as the Official Peacekeeping Force when the lady in question comes to clear her stuff out of the apartment.  Or to come in afterward and comb the place for anything she might forgotten.

It’s not surprising what women remember to pack — their jewelry, their 15 pairs of almost-identical skinny jeans, the little Naked Dresses they wear to the clubs, their countless pairs of Sex and The City-style shoes, the handbags and hats and scarves and belts with designer logos.  And of course, the beauty products.  You won’t find a single tube of lip gloss or shaker of shimmer body powder or hair scrunchie or eyelash curler left in the place after they’ve gone.

What’s fascinating, however, is what they leave behind – not just one particular woman in question, but all of them so far, in my experience.

Underwear.   

I’m not talking about a random piece of lingerie under the bed or behind the sofa.  I mean bureaus and closets and hampers and laundry bags stuffed with thongs and push-up bras and peekaboo teddies in all colors of the rainbow and sleep pants with Hello Kitty or martini glasses on them. 

And there’s so much of it – residing in such obvious places – that it can’t possibly have been accidentally overlooked regardless of how hasty the packing job.  It’s been deliberately abandoned.

But why?  These wee scraps of silk and lace and satin represent a sizable investment at Victoria’s Secret.       

Is the message to the ex, “I may be gone but I refuse to be forgotten”?  Is it a sexual tease — “I was the best you ever had and you know you want me back”?  Or is it a passive aggressive bit of acting-out that says, “Okay, you’ve made my life a mess and so I’m going to leave a mess for you to clean up, too”?

I’m beginning to think that there’s a new unwritten Law of Modern Relationships dictating that with each new romantic liaison, you must buy new lingerie.

An odd custom, it seems, and quite pricey, if you ask me. 

And the next time my presence is requested by a newly single guy to do the mop-up operations after The Big Breakup and I’m confronted with a laundry basket full of feminine unmentionables (ewww!), you better believe I’m going to have a pair of latex gloves handy.

For sure.

~ phoebe kate