My wife and I set up our first fake Christmas Tree last year. It was a marital bickering display at its finest and funniest.  According to friends and relatives, I was convinced fake trees were the easy way to go.  After five hours of finding the correct tree, I didn’t know it would take an addition five hours to make it stand without falling.  Collectively, after successfully accomplishing our goal of respecting Jesus,  we decided to not break it down after New Years to save our marriage.  Unless our dogs, cats, or raccoons decide to rip it down, it will remain in our living room until next Christmas, happy new year, or perhaps, forever.

Smiling with Etta, the only Grandchild I’ve produced for her.

My mother is old.  Just ask her; she’s ok with it.  Don’t ask her how old she is; just ask, “Are you old?”  She will respond with a simple, “Yes.” Although she doesn’t act it, I would guess she is somewhere between ninety to one hundred and three.  My range of age theory is only supported by the fact that I know I was born when she was somewhere between the age of forty five and fifty three.  Despite her diminished hearing, poor eyesight, lack of mobility, inability to drive a car and rigid eating schedule, you wouldn’t say she was a day over eighty.   What keeps her alive and snoring?  It’s simple.  She has a terrific sense of humor.  Someone will read this drivel to her and she will chuckle, charge up her hearing aid battery, and call me.  Her call won’t be to reprimand me for making light of her age, but rather to invite me over to my sister’s house (currently my mother’s squatting residence),  so we can laugh together while she provides a misinformed yet detailed update regarding what her other twelve children are up to these days.

Quite recently, I visited my mother, and I left my fossilized quips in the freezer at home.  Thankfully, I knew my sister, Anne, could fill in the gaps when nonagenarian and centenarian jests may apply.  (They only live about forty minutes to four hours away, depending on Seattle traffic, so it’s quite convenient.) We had a wonderful day, and I was prepared for receding hairline observations, and comments that I may be sponsored by Old Navy and Target given my attire.  However, my mother preferred to say kind things such as, “My, you look nice” and  “Your hair seems to be getting darker.”  (I guess that’s not a compliment, but at least the adjective wasn’t thinner.) She even made a remark about my height.  “You look tall…….how tall are you?”  I told her I was six foot two.  Of course, my sister quickly snorted laughter at my response, and I corrected my height to six two and a half, creating more sisterly laughter.  (I’m only five foot nine, but many doctors would say five foot eight and a half.)  I finally let her know that I was stretching the truth regarding my height and that it is my attitude which makes me look tall.  More laughter from my sister, whose age I won’t disclose.  (She fights fire with hand grenades.)   As always, when mom chooses to hear, she and I converse with smiles on our faces and I thoroughly enjoy her company.  Hopefully, the feeling is mutual.

Before leaving, I informed my mother she had to wait four full days until the World Series would begin. I wandered into the kitchen, allowing her time to ponder what television show could supplement baseball.   Turning around to ask her if  the “Dancing With the Stars” season had ended, I noticed her chin was collapsed upon her chest, her eyes closed and her glasses had fallen to the floor.  Looking to my brother in-law, Minh, who was cooking in the kitchen, I asked, “Hey Minh, is she dead?”  With a deadpan look on his face, Minh replied, “Oh yeah; she does that two or three times a day.”  Anne and I awakened mom with our laughter, and mother quickly asked, “Did I just fall asleep!?”  I replied with a sharp, “Heavens no, mother, you just died.  Minh says you do it two or three time a day. But, sooner or later, you always return.”  She laughed with me, we hugged, I picked up her glasses saving my sister from finding them in rubble, handed them to her and bid my adieu.  When closing the door, I heard her bellow from the living and, evidently, dying room, “SEE YA LATER!”  I thought to myself…….. hopefully, sooner.  She always makes me smile.

My mother requested I write a blog today.  She is the only person, other than my wife, who can request a blog and receive it.  (That’s not completely accurate.)

With my wife on vacation, and me being the most boring bachelor of the next millennium, mom called wondering how I was doing.  I said I was doing fine.  Fine is a natural synonym for “miserable”, “terrible”, “dreadful” or “dead”.  I was feeling all but the latter.  It was quite clear, when answering her phone call, I wasn’t dead.  That made her laugh. It is my genuine belief she wishes me to be alive.

She knew I was missing my wife and asked about our family.

Our family consists of two large dogs and an inherited cat I was hoping not to love when she strolled into our house.  Well, for some odd reason, now I love her.

After our cat was catting around outside last night, I was pacing around as if one of my children may be dead or working at an ice plant or teaching middle school for the rest of his or her life.  It was that stressful.  Eventually, she showed up, and since I am currently a bachelor, I attempted to give her the ninth degree without someone shaking me and telling me, “Ben, cats don’t speak your language!”

All being written, she was safe, and because of the sweltering weather conditions, we all slept on the downstair’s couch.  Lucy, our cat, hunkered in on my lap.  It was very cute until she puked on my chest.  Instead of getting angry, I thought of my mother who dealt with thirteen children doing the same thing for sixty years.  Mom was probably just happy when we made it home.  And, we all did.  Amen.

(Written with respect to the television show, “In Search Of”, narrated by Leonard Nimoy)

Some of us earthlings reach a certain time in our lives when we must be given the formidable task of searching for the chair which is most comfortable in the living and dying room.  Some wonder when the Early Bird Special price and time will drop, instead of rise, with inflation.  Some just wonder when.   Others search for an owl.  Now, that’s living.

Personally, I’ve given up the hope of finding a Sasquatch on T.V..  It’s not that I have little faith in seeing one on our color set.  Rather, it’s just that I have no faith whatsoever.  I believe that provides me the right to simply give up and search for something more fathomable, like a bigger t.v. set.  All I have to do is wait for the next tax refund to do so.

My sister, Anne, has asked not to be named in this simple story of exploration, perspiration, gallantry, mockery and photography.  She only wishes for me to send a truthful message to those doubting her for those six expensive, time consuming, and wet years of her life, searching for the elusive and alien like barred owl.

Catch me if you can, B@#%h.

The barred owl is as intimidating as any winged and eerily taloned bird of prey.  Unlike the Sasquatch which is considered a “cryptid” (animals  believed to exist by those using narcotics, but never proven to exist in the sober world of science) the barred owl has been accepted by the scientific community, even if most of those scientists never actually observe them in the wild.  They are wildly difficult to spot, especially, like anything else, when one is specifically searching for it.  Armed with a kayak, paddle and a camera, my sister was determined to capture a picture of this shrewd marvel of aviation.

Kayaking, for my sister, began as exercise and continued to blossom, along with her well toned arms, into a blessing.  It was a blessing of outdoor beauty, a beauty some imagine only while watching the Discovery Channel, Jurassic Park, or Gilligan’s Island.  Waterfalls, sinister trees, hidden caverns, and birds……..yes…..those majestic birds.  Many of these birds she would witness on a daily basis, but there was one she heard too many times just before dawn and dusk.  The sound she heard became a dream for her and a nightmare for others.  Much to her husband’s dismay, she would hum the notes in her sleep.  Leaving her cabin each morning and evening in search of the barred owl, she was determined to find one sooner or much later.  The search was on.

Six years of building your muscles on a kayak, while failing to capture a picture of your bird of prey, can drive anyone insane.  For her, it became her Winged Whale.  My sister became a woman of prey.  It was enough to create skeptics amongst her Lake Cushman community.  She tried to ignore the naysayers when they’d whisper, “Poor Cao.  (Cao is her last name.) People have wasted their whole lives trying to find that bird only to spend their last remaining years in a nest eating mice and mimicking the notorious warning cries of the barred owl.”  Others were less discreet.  “Poor Cao, my talon!  She’s got Owl fever and she needs to get over it.  The whole lake is making fun of her.”  Each member of her family would look at her with concern.  Had this obsession gone too far?  Six long years of waking up at five in the morning to the hooting of this owl.  Six years of paddling away in her kayak while her family waved goodbye, wondering if she’d ever return.  Six years.

(Years in a bird’s nest):

Year one:  HoohooHOOaaw!  She hears it each morning, and most evenings, but no physical evidence.  Family and friends support her quest and commonly ask her if she has found it.  Encouraged by their interest, she explains how difficult it is to find one in the wild.  She looks forward to finding it by year two.

Year two: HoohooHOOaww!  No physical evidence.  Friends and family members continue to ask, enthusiastically, if she has finally captured a picture of her puffy headed woodland friend with large brown eyes.  Still, she only hears it.

Year three:  HoohooHOOaww!  The cry remains, but no physical evidence.  Because of its unique war cry, some people call it the “Al Pachino Owl” when it only can stammer a “Hooahh” stolen from the critically acclaimed movie, Scent of a Woman.  Some scientists interpret this cry by documenting the sound as reminding them of a question. “Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for you all?”  My sister takes this literally and responds while entering her kayak, “I cook for me!  I cook for them ALL!”   Her husband starts to believe she is crazy and begins taking longer shifts at his place of employment to avoid questions from neighbors.

Year four:  Still no physical evidence.  Quietly, she presses on.  People stop asking questions.  Even her own mother, living with her for support, begins to doubt her daughter’s quest.  But, as long as mother is fed and put to bed at the proper times,  mother simply resorts to prayer.  “Dear Heavenly Father, if you give a hoot, please allow my daughter to catch just one photo of this bird for crying out loud!  I’ll say AMEN when this happens.”

Year five:  Mom’s prayers have not been answered, yet her prayers are as consistent as her daughter’s daily voyage. The incessant hooting continues.  People in the community avoid the subject of wildlife all together when she is present.  This motivates her further.  She feels as if  she is catching a fifth and sixth wind beneath her paddles.

Photo by Anne Cao

Year six:)  HOOHOOHOOAWW! HALLELUJAH!  Darkness was falling in late May 2014.  Her husband, fishing from a distance, calls for her to come back to the cabin.  She tells him to go to Hell.  (She didn’t, but wanted to.)  Although her heart was dancing, her body, every last bit but her hands, remained still.  Her dazzling blue eyes stared directly into those of the elusive barred owl.  One snap away from physical evidence.  One click away from completing her journey.  One iconic forefinger depression from proving her sanity to all those skeptics.  This was her purpose.  It was only a matter of when.

I’d like to tell you she tipped her kayak over while succumbing to shock and ruined her three thousand dollar camera in the process.  Her husband would like me to write that he saved her from the lake’s frigid waters while she shouted above his outstretched hands, “Look, he’s flying away,…….forget me…….get the camera!!!!”  But, I can’t.  She got her shot, and she took it.

When my sister gets an itch, she scratches it, even if it takes six years to relieve it.