We had had several other Psychic Nights in the past few weeks. One had been called Organizing Your Orgasms, another had been called Dedicating Your Desires. Tonight’s Psychic Night was titled Your Hormones and You: Taking Over, Taking Cover, Taking Charge.

I thought it sounded splendid.

“Hormones have ruled us forever!” Aunt Lydia scolded me as we worked that morning, the early morning sun cutting through the slats of the chicken house. I glanced at the chicken she held in her hands. She shook the poor bird in her exuberance, and I saw the chicken’s eyes pop in fright. “Isn’t that right, Hilga?” Aunt Lydia yelled at the chicken. She is usually so gentle with her ladies.

“Too much estrogen has robbed us of our inner souls. Hormones flow and fluctuate and dive and soar and make us go damn, damn crazy. I can hardly stand looking at Stash when I’m having a hormone rush. He walks in the door and I feel the need to throw my jam at his head.”

I followed Aunt Lydia through the barn. She let the lady go, and we heard a very grateful sounding cluck cluck. Hilga’s chicken friends gathered around her and cluck clucked sympathetically. “Lydia’s off her hormonal rocker! Hormonal rocker! Hormonal rocker!” I could almost hear them say.

Aunt Lydia loves her chickens, her "ladies." "Take these ladies, for example. If I don't keep a few roosters around here, they get so uppity, so feisty. Every now and then they need to get laid."

“Hormones take over our thoughts and actions. We must learn to control them!” Lydia jabbed a pitchfork into a bale of hay. I was surrounded by chickens, all clucking contentedly now that Aunt Lydia had released their comrade.

“Hormones are a nuisance,” Aunt Lydia announced, picking up eggs from underneath squawking, resting, clucking chickens. “But with yoga, lots of walking, good sex and a little pot, we can be in control. Of course, there’s other ways to be in control of your hormones, but I’ll save my womanly secrets for tonight!”

“…Women need to vent their problems and trials and tribulations and hormone fluctuation levels with other women. Men are hampered by the fact that they have thingies which make them naturally selfish and self centered and boorish and unthoughtful. Women, however, can do it all. Run companies, raise children, volunteer, and tickle men’s teensies at night. Our work is NEVER done!”

“So what time is Psychic Night?” I asked.

Aunt Lydia had five foot tall ceramic pigs in her front yard. She named each of them the name of a man she hated, including her boyfriend, Stash, who had the audacity to beat her at poker. (My sister used to take care of this pig. He was a very nice pig. Polite and well mannered.)

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