Friday, December 31, 2010

Good Bye and Good Riddance, We’ll Miss You


Today is once again New Year’s Eve and, once again, I find myself wishing that midnight would hurry up and come on already. 2010 is pretty much used up and wrung dry in my opinion. Like every year that came before it by December 31st it is a shriveled, worn and de-juiced version of what it was on January 1st!

When I was much younger, I saw the celebration accompanying this date as a welcoming ceremony, a ritual devoted to ushering in all that was new and shiny and clean and full of promise. We were throwing open the doors on our hearts and minds and shouting ‘Come On In! Make yourself at home, stay a while!’ We would wake on the first and do everything possible to please our lovely new year. Just as with a new lover, we dieted, we colored our hair, we worked out and cooked fancy meals. We bought new towels for the guest room and new sheets for the beds. We vowed to give up smoking, at least in the house, for real this time. In general we were our best, most energetic, happy, intelligent and beautiful selves. January goes by in a blur of rapture and conviction.

February comes skipping up next, full of romance and emotion, ready to join the fun. Most of the grandiose plans made New Year’s Eve while gently buzzed are still in play. The hair cut still looks nice and the roots aren’t too obvious yet. While a few pounds came creeping back during those short cold days the gym is still on our GPS, the sheets still feel crisp and only one or two of the now not so new towels have been used to soak up spilled beer or dry snowy pets come in from the cold. Just when you think this winter is really rocking and you don’t know why you said you hated the season Valentine’s Day pops up right in the middle and slaps us back to reality. Like the new lover not wanting to have to buy you a present, Valentine’s Day drops you on your ass. If you are not alone and neglected you feel that way. Luckily, so does everyone else so you can generally prop yourself up enough to limp through to the end of the month. At least you weren’t dumped, even if your special someone didn’t get you anything, at least this stupid card is better than nothing, at least I got flowers and / or chocolate with my stupid card, at least I got some jewelry (even if it is costume) with these stupid flowers, at least I got a promise ring (too cheap to spring for an engagement ring or does he just not want to commit?) that’s not zirconium, my engagement ring might not be a carat but it is better than the one my friend got with a mere chip…

We eat the chocolates, relish the putrid odor of the dying flowers, throw darts at the card and let the dog chew on the stuffed animals. Screw the gym, screw the laundry and screw yo… WAIT! It’s March! While February may have disappointed us, shown us the cracks in the once shiny new façade of the year March takes our minds and just plain blows them. Tornados, blizzards, torrential rains and hard, hard freezes make March a month to reckon with. The weather is wild and it makes us feel a little wild too. We hate all our winter clothes and the sound of the heater cranking up drives us mad. There are no holidays, the ski slopes are slushy, ads for tax attorneys and accountants fill the television schedule. Just when we can’t stand it another minute April knocks gently on our door.

Thank God for April! Pretty pastels come out of storerooms, bunnies and little chicks and lambs decorate every surface. We see light in the morning when we go to work and light in the evening when we come home. We make plans for our tax refunds, dream of vacations and the possibility of romance once again right around the next corner. Skin that has been covered in ten layers of woolens for months comes creeping out bit by bit, exposing itself to the sun shine and temperate breezes, it sickly white hue shocking in its intensity. We work on our better selves, planting gardens to nourish the body and soul, sweeping out cobwebs and emptying closets in to bags marked Goodwill.

May brings a new intensity to the exercise of living. We rue the day we quit going to the gym and vow to go twice as often and work out twice as hard. We get pedicures and hair removal procedures and tummy tucks and Botox.  We spend a fortune on a too small swimsuit (it will motivate us to work out more) so that we can look like we are all natural, a goddess washed up from the sea. The entire purpose of the month of May is just to get ready for the month of June.

June is a wild rush to do everything that we couldn’t do in the previous five months. We parade around in next to nothing, sucking in bellies and artfully wrapping sarongs or adjusting our board shorts on our hips just so. The summer lies stretched out before us like a shiny sand littered path into the sea with nothing but hedonistic adventure to distract us. We offer ourselves up to the sun as if it will cleanse us, make us new again. We drink too much, bronze too much, and laugh too hard and too loud.

July comes in with a bang, quite literally. Right when we feel the best about ourselves we are encouraged to feel the best about where our bodies reside. Uncle Sam, apple pie and the American flag are everywhere. Patriotic hymns disguised as pop or country or rock and roll are played on the airwaves ad nauseum. Suddenly everyone looks great in red white and blue. Lakes are as busy as the interstate with speed boats and jet skis creating waves in the roped off swimming areas for the little children to bob in. The bigger the roller coaster, the steeper the water slides, the larger the crowd and the longer the fireworks display the better. We are indestructible, we are healthy and happy and we are American, dammit!

August comes in with a blast of heat decorated with school sale flyers drifting aimlessly in the stilted breezes. Pictures of children in incredibly hip and expensive jeans, sweaters and boots belie the 95 degree temperatures. We grind down the gears. Time to get serious, time to pay attention, time to start getting prepared like the little ant in the Aesop’s fable. We take a few moments to squeeze in one last swim, one last picnic, one last bonfire on the beach but we all know it is for naught.

September once again inspires us with the thought of something new to look forward too. Cool weather in the evenings inspire husbandry in the daytime. Yards are fed and mulched and put to bed for the winter, roses are pruned and fall color planted. Everything apple is new again and in rural areas the sweet, sickly smell of them rotting on the ground is the perfume of the season to come. Into October, we nest, putting up storm windows and cleaning out gutters and painting shutters. Men winterize and women redecorate with russets and oranges and umbers. The days are shorter, the light is sharper, we all… slow….. down.

November calls us to start gearing up yet again but we just don’t have the energy we did the last three times. Thanksgiving seems to leap out of nowhere and threatens to launch us into the deep end of the year’s frivolity without a chance to take a deep breath first. While we attempt to gaily go about the business of celebrating for six weeks straight we do everything possible to sabotage ourselves. We find ourselves once again eating and drinking too much but this time without the benefit of sun and sea to keep us moving. Instead of long walks on the beach, or hours raking in the yard we find ourselves battling crowds in the mall and moving at a snails pace. While our circadian rhythms are telling us to go to sleep at 8 we are just putting on the final touches to race out the door to yet another gala. When we do have a chance to slow down we wonder why? Why aren’t we invited to more parties?  Why aren’t we getting everything done in time? Why are other, better, people out making the most of this glorious time while we are inside eating fruit cake and watching 12 straight hours of Christmas miracles on Lifetime TV? The only thing in the world that makes the stress and strain of the season on our bodies and minds worthwhile is the single day it is all designed around.

The week after Christmas is filled with work you can’t get done because everyone is still on holiday. It is filled with leftovers, carbs, carbs and more carbs. It is filled with half done house work and reruns and pants with elastic waists and retrospectives to remind you of every terrible thing that happened in the world in the last twelve months. The only bright light is New Year’s Eve. Next year you can do it better, you can work out more, and get the house fixed up and call that person you have had a crush on but weren’t going to call because you put on twelve pounds in two months.  This week is shot to hell, but come January first….

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A Rose By Any Other Name…

In writing these essays I find myself often wanting to mention my family members specifically. I am sure they dread this. What is a mother’s job but to embarrass her children after all? We apparently start when they turn eight or so and get steadily more embarrassing as time goes on until they are in their late teens and we cannot even be seen with them in public without eliciting groans, shrugs and elaborate methods of disguise on their part and murmurs of commiseration on that of their peers.

Usually this is not done deliberately. While my oldest daughter was enthralled at and the envy of her friends for being picked up in the dead of winter in a car with no windshield driven by her boyfriend (he was older and had a CAR, OH MY GOD) she was furious at me for embarrassing her by wearing my Sears Associate name tag to the high school for 9th grade orientation.

I am sure my son was mortified when we returned home from a shopping expedition to find him holding court in the basement with 20 of his closest friends. When we smelled cigarette smoke my husband tracked down the offenders and asked to see their IDs to verify they were of legal age. Why is it cool to entertain in your room, which is an unfinished space in the basement delineated by hanging blankets (the younger neighborhood kids called it the dungeon) but not cool for your parents to make sure they did not get any obnoxious, pissed off parent’s calls by checking rotten little smokers’ ages?

I will admit I am usually the first one to say or do something embarrassing, but luckily I can usually blame it on my vision and most of the time it is a valid excuse. I do love them though, and do not want them to be hurt or afraid to look at this so I have decided to give them pseudonyms. I realize that for those of you who know us this will do no good at all, but it may spare them future anguish and even if it doesn’t I have had fun figuring out which names suit them best.

For my oldest daughter, my first born and the one who keeps me humble… I like FiFi, which is short for fille fille which is a play on her name (not going to write her name, no way) and it is what we called her when she was just a tot because it means girl girl in French, which we spoke and which she was and still is. I don’t think she will like that though, or my second choice, EnemI (think about it, you will get it). I will call her Anna, which is a nod to my mother and a terrible pun when put with her maiden name, and a strong name for a strong woman.

For my son (who is the most embarrassing person I know when he puts his mind to it) I will use the name he gave himself, Peter. (AKA Petah Petahson) I apologize to anyone who actually has that name in advance if I ever use it in a way not kind or gentlemanly, but this is my son, one of my kids, and sometimes we are known to get a little… rambunctious and may not behave in a perfectly acceptable manner.

For my sweet baby girl who has a temper like nobodies business and a huge, huge heart I choose the name Polly. Why? Polly goes so well with Peter. They harmonize. My Polly and Peter go together like that, flashing quick wit or quick anger, harmonizing with each other in a lovely way that makes my heart sing along with joy. Also, just an aside, the lovely actress Jennifer Aniston was a looker and a charmer and a unique individual in ‘Along Came Polly’ and my daughter is all of those things. Plus, she would probably have a stupid ferret.

The grandkids are easy. For Anna’s (see how smooth that was?) I am going with Mario because he is a well known Wii addict and he would not like to be immortalized as boo-stinky, his current pet name. For her older daughter GiGi because it is her initials and a fancy name for a fancy girl and last but certainly not least comes Star, because that mighty might is a star and paratrooper-baby-girl just doesn’t sound right.

For Peter’s kids we have Olive, like the Oyl, tall thin, beautiful, smart (smart-alecky on occasion), and Guru because he will be a computer guru if he keeps going at the current rate. The twins were much harder. They both could be called Dimples, but Dimples-one and Dimples-two lack panache. Mary Kate and Ashley are so obvious, and blonde, they would never work. I decided on Lorna and Liza, as they have gorgeous huge dark eyes and, as mentioned, those huge dimples.

For Polly’s lovely girls we will go with Zoey, but only because Elmo is definitely a boy and I do want to pay homage to her love for all things red and fuzzy, and Smiley, because gosh darn it she just is.

It isn’t often a mother gets to name her children twice. I hope they like the names I have chosen for them. This gives them plausible deniability (wow, I never thought I would be able to use that in a sentence!) and worst case scenario, something new, from me, to be embarrassed about.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Exhilarating And Exhausting Celebration That Is Christmas


The kids are all gone home, tucked into their own warm beds with their children entrapped in the fatigue and sugar induced coma of the perfectly innocent at the end of the exhilarating and exhausting celebration that is Christmas. My house is trashed, my dishwasher is working over time and the cat will be terrified for the next month and a half. Bits of colored paper and ribbon, silver candy wrappings and toy packaging twist ties litter every corner, debris from the tornado of gaiety and abandon which tore through these rooms several hours ago.  I am sitting alone with a hot cup of coffee, sweet and thick with cream and sugar, surveying the mess, bone tired but not wanting to let this day go.

Just as every year I can remember before it, it was the best Christmas ever and the worst Christmas ever all rolled into one and stuck together with curling ribbon and cake crumbs. I am happy with the gifts we had for the family because they all seemed to go over so well. One of my granddaughters put on her new pajamas at two in the afternoon because she loved them that much, marching around playing her pink guitar for us all, secure in the knowledge, as she put it, that Santa comes even if you are bad. The babies both sat in the floor and played with their little people putting them in and out and in and out and in and out of their house and barn. My husband, AKA Grandpa, and my grandson both played with their helicopters, buzzing the cat and exciting the little ones who were as enthralled by an airplane in the house as they were by the gifts and the tree.

The food was abundant and delicious and even the children, full of treats from their stockings and bowls of chocolate on every counter, ate a bit too much, groaning but not leaving the room or saying No Thank You when the birthday cake for Jesus came out.  Swollen with good food and better company people sprawled about the living room watching the toddlers in action and feeling the dinner settle firmly on their hips. Snow fell in the Deep South, blanketing our state with a beauty and a quiet calm not seen on Christmas here in over one hundred years. These are the things that made it the best Christmas ever.

I look over at a picture of my youngest son with his arm around my mother, both gone from my life and oh so terribly missed. I say a little prayer to God on this, His son’s birthday, and ask him to watch over them for me, to remind them that I love them. I look at presents still under the tree, waiting for the grandchildren that couldn’t come and ask God to keep them safe and warm, to help them stay balanced and happy until I see them again. I think of their father having Christmas without them and ask the same for him. The one gift I would love to give him is the one I absolutely can’t and it infuriates me even after all these years to know mothers do not have the power to stop their child from hurting. These are the things that make it the worst Christmas ever.

The more people you have around you that allow you to love them, to pour your energy and affection freely upon their heads and hearts, the more keenly one feels the holes, the great yawning chasms where absent loved ones should be. The more keenly these losses are felt the more abundant the amount of love available to pour into those that are there waiting for it, asking for it. You cannot truly love until you have lost and yet, you cannot truly lose something that is not loved to distraction.. All of this is so clear on this one day, this one moment when we celebrate a life given with pure love. God has blessed us, every one.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Borrowers

The Borrowers were popular children’s books when I was little. The books were about little people that made their homes in the floorboards or walls of houses and lived right along side us, literally beneath our very feet without ever being caught. They had thimble stools and spool tables. They slept in match boxes. It was Thumbelina meets Gulliver’s Travels meets the Smurfs all in one. When I was a kid I was sure it was make believe. Now that I am an adult I am just not that sure.

We have had several things disappear in the last couple of days. A gingerbread man cookie cutter apparently saw a chance to escape and fled when one of the kids left the door open. My grandson’s magnets took a hike as soon as he was force marched to the shower before bed. My coffee cups vanish as soon as I turn my back on them and the spare car keys are nowhere to be found.

This seems excessive for one week, but since we are gearing up for the holidays I feel that the Borrowers are doing so as well.

My sister once lost her car keys at my house. She walked in and we went straight to the kitchen, sat down to have some coffee and visit. When she got up to leave the keys were gone. We hunted high and low, lifting cushions, searching pockets, giving toddlers the third degree and terrifying the pets into cowering in the corners. We opened cabinets and drawers, went through the trash in the can, even looked in the refrigerator and freezer because sometimes we all have those kinds of days.

We found a silver pen I had been missing for three months, my glasses, HER glasses, 11 single socks, chewed on erasers, partially masticated cheerios in various stages of staleness and decomposition, my son’s winter jacket from three years before, $1.53 in change, a pickle mummified so that I at first thought it was a shriveled finger and had a heart stopping moment of panic, eggshells, a pair of underwear (who had the accident and didn’t tell me?) some murdered roly-polys and a breath mint, peppermint, with the center blue dot expertly sucked out. There were bits and scraps of paper, a library book from four moves ago and a new math text book with a hole punched straight through the middle (What the hell?  SOMEONE was getting a whipping today.). A detention slip from school I had never seen, earned due to the damage to text book I assumed, a winter cap, a tennis shoe with the laces gone and papers from at least a bags’ worth of miniature candy bars lay behind my couch.  A pile of shriveled green beans and other, now unrecognizable vegetables lay in the corner of the wash room squashed under the trash can and a small pile of penicillin pills obviously spit out after a kid had pretended to swallow them lay just under the edge of the dryer gathering lint at an amazing rate. My meager supply of make up was under the sink in the kids bathroom along with a Playboy (are you freaking kidding me???), a ruler (boys will be boys), shaving cream and seventy two disposable razors. We dove in to the kids’ rooms next. Besides the usual store of toys and dirty clothing we found sixteen cups with milk solidified in the bottom, bread crusts, crickets in a jar, dried, sticks, movies on videotape from a Blockbuster store in another state, s kitten, seven nude Barbie with ink on their faces and hair in a snarled mess, model cars blown to dust in a box with remnants of cherry bombs included. Screwdrivers, 2 Bic lighters, 5 bent rusty nails and a broken hammer next to the full-of-holes wooden bed frame, WAIT A MINUTE, a kitten? Really, guys? A kitten? Four diaries covered with read this and die phrased in various levels of frightening verbiage and a $50 dollar year book with all of the boys’ faces scribbled out except one which had hearts all around it.

We hunted high and low, filled a thirty gallon trash bag, spanked two kids and made the dog howl before we finally gave up and called a locksmith. That cup of coffee and a nice chat turned into a clean house for me and an $80 bill from the smith for her.

Why am I thinking about the Borrowers today you might ask? (Even if you are not I am going to tell you so you may as well play along) I was pushing stuff around, five moves after that particular apartment, looking for either the gingerbread man cookie cutter or the magnets, and my sister’s keys fell out of a chair. A chair just bought two years ago, after we moved into this house.


Friday, December 17, 2010

Ghosts of Christmas Past

According to wordIQ.com a ritual is ”a formalized, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval. … The general purpose of rituals is to express some fundamental truth or meaning, evoke spiritual, numinous emotional responses from participants, and/or engage a group of people in unified action to strengthen their communal bonds”.  That is the definition of Christmas pageantry as well.

When I was growing up Christmas was always so grand! Not Hollywood grand, not Riches great tree grand, not best toys on the block grand, but truly the most wonderful day of the year grand.

The first act of our holiday celebration always began with the setting up of the tree. My father and mother made the decision on which tree was just right for whatever space we were living in that year. With much fanfare and saying of turn it this way, no that way it was settled into the old green stand with red legs.  It was always perfectly straight from the less full side and very crooked on the lush side. Inevitably a debate ensued about which side should face the room and why.  Six of one or half a dozen the other. They always looked scraggly before we dolled them up.

The lights were put on next. This was also my father’s job. He would strategically place one or two kids behind the tree so he didn’t have to walk around and around as he wove in the strings of bulbs. There was often cussing and muttering under his breath as some of the bulbs would inevitably be burned out or broken. When we finally got to the point of plugging it in we all stood back and oohed and aahed appreciatively. At this point the ceremony was turned over to my mother who orchestrated the intricate art of ornament hanging. We had ancient glass balls and bells and pretty homemade ornaments or ribbon and pinecone and cloves. We had years worth of baubles made by our precocious selves which were all lovingly unwrapped and placed in desirable locations in the front of the tree. Every trinket and bauble and bell came with its own story or a ‘remember when’.

After the ornaments were all in their final setting (much moving of ornaments occurred during the hanging process.), each of us having vied for the best location, or the branch in front of the green or red or blue bulb or the one closest to the ground or the door or the window, the tinsel was brought forth reverently. The packages were slit and the shiny strands pulled carefully from the plastic and cardboard that nested them. We were divided into two camps. We had the lay each strand carefully and at the correct angle so that it perfectly reflects the multitude of lights without hiding any of the better (translated as MINE) ornaments  camp and the toss it gently in the air and let the wash of our breath and the warmth from the fire carry it lovingly down to drape over the branches as chance and, alright, I’ll say it, God would have it camp. Fights always ensued (think Dr. Seuss’ Butter Battle book) but in the end the smell, the soft glow reflecting equally as beautifully on straight tinsel as tossed, the hush that is inherent in the very ‘IT’ of Christmas took over and we stood and stared and fell in love with the rite all over again. It was a lavish and opulent tribute to all of our Christmases gone by and a prayer of hope for all those to come.

Act 2 of the Christmas play will forever be associated with the citrusy smell and woody thunk of tangerines and walnuts to me. These were in our stockings nestled in among bright foil wrapped chocolate coins and sticky, vaguely fuzzy ribbon candy. While I wasn’t a huge nut fan I knew I could trade them for someone else’s tangerine or an extra bit of Hershey bar. There would be plates of peanut brittle and the little spritzer cookies shaped like camels and spades. There would be homemade fruitcakes and apple and pumpkin pies. When my sisters were teenagers they made ginger bread and lace cookies and sugar cookies and fudge. A turkey rested in the fridge, getting ready to roast. Cranberries rolled around in a bowl, potatoes, yams and apples all jostled about on the countertops, threatening to tumble just to be snatched up and placed in a heap in the middle again.

In the two or three days preceding Christmas my parents would hole up in their room. We would gather out side their door hopping from foot to foot trying not to make a sound so we could hear them whispering. The door would open a crack and my mom would hand out a package to the first set of waiting hands and shut it fast again. We would read the tag and whomever’s name was on it would flash a million watt grin and scurry to the tree, shaking and twisting and listening to the contents for some magical sign of what treasure might be inside. As long as I can remember we always had three each. That was 24 wrapped presents and Santa hadn’t even made an appearance yet! We had greenery around the house. The crèche stood in its place of honor in the living room. All of the animals and figures were from three different sets so they were disproportioned with the baby half again as big as Joseph and Mary looking a Disney-esque giantess in the middle. Candles of red and green twinkled merrily from a homemade centerpiece while a fire roared in the hearth... Lights in the windows welcomed all to our home. At the appointed hour (Hurry! Hurry! He won’t come till you are asleep) we rushed off to bed, choosing where to sleep, all piled in one or each to his own? The agony of waiting a life time for the next six hours or so ensued.

Act 3 was the routine but thrilling drama of Christmas morning. Awakening to a silent, dark and cold house you hold back a shiver. The tightening of your chest as you realize the moment of truth has come. Is there a Santa? If so, have I been good enough? Were my brothers and sisters bad enough to ruin it for me even if I had been? If there was a Santa I would find that bike, pony, ball glove, race track, baby doll… WHATEVER, waiting for me. Creeping slowly, turn a corner… the Christmas tree lights are on. Excitement begins to build because you know your parents ALWAYS turn them off at bedtime. You pass the table and glance down to see that nothing but a few crumbs remain on the cookie plate. You left three dozen, Santa must have entertained. The shivers recommence then, full force. You pass glorious stacks of stuff for your brothers and your sisters… and then…. HOLY COW!! Not a pony but a beautiful model of a horse, and books on horses, and a book on how to draw horses, and drawing paper and colored crayons and pencils and Oh My Gosh, it is exactly what you wanted. Your hearts true desire, laid out in a pretty pile with your stocking on top. You relish your treasures, you  root through all of your siblings presents and then you go wake up the whole damn house, because you can, because it is Christmas and because the happiness, the love, the aliveness is more than you can handle on your own.

I don’t remember having lean years when it came to Christmas. Each one was glorious, neither for the quality of gifts nor the size of the piles, but for the romance and color and flavor, sound and smell of it. for the beeswax and hot apples and full bellies. for the thrill of hearing that little rustle, that little rattle which was always enough to entice but never enough to give it away, for the ice cold floor on bare feet under a perfect tree with cheeks full of chocolate and the scent of the exotic citrus in the air.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Home Is Where The Heart Is

I grew up in a large (8 children) and vibrant (Definition:  throbbing 
Synonyms:  aquiver, consonant, oscillating, palpitating, pulsating, pulsing, quaking, quivering, resonant, resounding, reverberant, ringing, sonorant, sonorous, trembling )   family.

My father was in the Army. My mother did what women of her era did, she devoted her life to protecting us from the big bad world while refraining from killing us herself.

Because my father was in the Army my earliest years were spent in various military housing with a lot of other families with part time fathers and too many kids. Harried mother’s allowed plenty of freedom because anybody else’s mother would take you to task in a heartbeat. Add that to the realization that your behavior would be reflected in the speed with which your parent rose through the ranks and you ended up with some pretty good “Dick and Jane” style children. I loved this time of my life. The built in playmates, the chance to re-invent your self every few years when your father was reassigned and the intense nuclear family connection brought on by your inability to keep other family members or friends in your life for long added up to a great lifestyle for someone with my slightly skewed view of the world.  Even when our family got too large and we had to rent a house off post, my life didn’t change that much. We lived near a penitentiary so we were still surrounded by families with too many children, missing fathers and harried mothers. The only difference between us and the residents of Leavenworth’s inmate’s families was that all of them knew when their dads would come home.

My parents only owned one house while I lived with them. It was in a decent suburb of Washington DC, Annandale Virginia, with a huge yard on a dead end street. This was where I had my first encounter with people not of my lifestyle. I had a boy in my 4th grade class with hair to his shoulders. TO HIS SHOULDERS. Un-freaking-believable!  My sister and her friend smoked grass and snuck out at night leaving me tossing and turning and worrying until they came giggling back through the window. There was not the same sense of community as in the tightly knit military neighborhoods I was used too. Add to that the fact that it was 1968 and the entire country was in turmoil and you have a recipe for disenchantment. I would spend the next 22 years trying to feel at home somewhere again.

I loved my father’s next posting, Brussels Belgium. We rented two houses while we were there. They were odd little houses, being foreign (to me) with tiny rooms and dormer windows and a lawn so small we could cut it with a mower we plugged into the wall. I fell in love with a boy, married him, and promptly moved into Belgian military housing. Two years and two apartments later we moved to the States.

We stayed first with my parents while he found a job and we found an apartment. 6 months later we were back at the folks for a month. His pay was erratic as a mechanic and we were still just kids, 20 and 23 years old, with limited experience on managing money. For the last two years we had the exact same dollar amount a month and paid no rent or utilities. We did better the second time around. Another apartment lasted 2 1/2 years. I liked living there even if I couldn’t do anything to make it more homey. There were many young mothers with too many kids and absent fathers. Even if I didn’t feel at home I felt comfortable. This is what I thought adult life was supposed to be like. I had had no other example.

We moved from there to a ‘condo”. AKA, a townhouse with a teeny patio that was private and a communal yard. We lasted there 7+ years. Our family expanded rapidly but so did those of the people around us. We became a fixture. The crazy blind lady with too many kids and the little foreign guy that could fix anything. Someone told me they thought we looked like Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. I loved the comparison, my husband not so much. We fed the neighborhood kids and let them sleep on our floor and watched them in the evenings when they played. We took children to the emergency room when they were hurt, to school when they missed the bus, to the park when they were neglected. To everyone under 17 we were surrogate parents, to the rest a convenience. I loved and hated that place equally. The entire time I lived there I thought at least I can go some where else. The decision was taken out of our hands. A tornado took off our roof and swept away our clothing and bedding and security. We had been evicted by the big cheese in charge. It was time to move on.

We moved from there to a duplex. This was almost a house, much nicer than anywhere I had lived before. By this time though my husband was ill and no longer working so when we had the opportunity to move out and live cheaper we took it.  Next up, my grandmother’s (now owned by my parent’s) house for 11 months, until my husband passed.  We sold almost everything, packed up the rest and moved to Delaware.  All I can say about that is that it is proof that no one suffering from the loss of a loved one should be allowed to make any decisions of any kind whatsoever! From Delaware we high tailed it back to Georgia and a new apartment in an old complex after just ten months

I started going to college after we returned. I was learning how to do something that would support my family. I was also learning how to be alone, how to be an individual. I was discovering things about me I didn’t know, and most of them I liked. The rent was raised after one year and I started looking for someplace I could afford until I finished school. By this time my kids had attended four schools in four years, beating even most military kid’s records and were sick and tired of being pulled from pillar to post. While none of us were crazy about staying where we were we weren’t to keen on moving yet again either. We might have a crazy lady living downstairs and had my son mugged by the pool, but at least this was somewhere with an address they could remember and friends they went to school with.

Through sheer luck and knowing the right people at the right time I was able to think about buying a house. Owning a home, the American dream, certainly was in my case. I was 37, had moved 18 times in my life, I had lived in three countries extensively and three states for long periods of time. I had lived in both American and Belgian military housing, apartments, rented houses, condos and duplexes. I didn’t throw moving boxes out, I stored them. I had never bought a can of pain that wasn’t flat white or planted flower beds. I didn’t buy window treatments when I would have to change them in a week or a month or a year. We hadn’t owned any pets or hosted a cookout, built tree houses or played on jungle gyms in the back yard… the normal things in most people’s lives were unknown to me. I had tried desperately not to get my hopes up but when word came through my agent that I could get the house, that I would be able to stay somewhere as long as I chose and make it mine, I went into the bathroom, locked the door, sat in the tub and cried for an hour.

After the closing we loaded up the munchkins and set out for the house. It was empty and the electric wouldn’t be turned on until the next day. It was old and falling apart but as we walked in, treading gingerly so as not to disturb our no longer downstairs neighbor it became the lovliest, the most comfortable, the  most perfect place on earth. We looked at each other and I whooped, I whooped again, I whooped a third time and the gang all chorused in. No downstairs neighbors? They jumped up and down and yelled and ran up and down the basement stairs. They wrestled and rustled and ran from echo-ey room to echo-ey room. We pulled in our pillows and blankets from the car and made a giant giggling pile of love on the floor, my family and I, and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. I had finally come home.

Friday, December 10, 2010

There’s One In Every Family

I like all sorts of humor. My favorite kind, it turns out, is the humor found in every day life. This may be because I grew up reading Readers Digests. Not all of the magazine caught my attention, just the quirky little zingers delimited by scrolls or lines that filled up the empty space at the end of a story, the pages dedicated to the humor abundant in the people and animals around us. . I loved Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry. I scoured the cartoons in the New Yorker, read the funnies faithfully every day, savoring Sunday’s colored editions. While other children my age were swooning over the Partridge Family or the Jackson 5, Andy Williams and Carol Burnett were my idols.

Now that I am an adult I find myself still drawn to the same things. I love the waiting room of any doctors office because Reader’s Digest will surely be there. Many magazines have a pages at the end dedicated to stories from readers, little vignettes that show we are a lovable and funny kind of species.  My mother was a perfect example of a good life lived humorously. While she did not always see the humor in her life and didn’t always appreciate the fact that we did it keeps her close to me, and gives me something to smile about on those dark days of mental winter.

My nephew had been coerced into saying the Thanksgiving Day dinner prayer a couple of years before she died. He was seventeen and a mumbler (they all are, teens speak there own weird language). When he finished up and said God Bless Us, my mom, who hadn’t understood a single word he had said asked “Did he say school bus?” in a loud and rather cranky voice. The room was dead silent for a second, but then the thought of a prayer that could have ended with the words school bus took hold and we all lost it, chiming in our own versions. It is now a staple in our family lore, the phrase she uttered being trotted out anytime someone is speaking actual or metaphorical gibberish.

Another story involves her standing in a Churches Fried Chicken. She and my youngest brother, a diminutive older white woman and a teenager, were sandwiched in among a sea of black, brown and tan faces.  While my mother was a liberal she was born and raised in the Deep South and a Catholic to boot. In other words she had a triple whopping dose of guilt. She was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, of the people surrounding her thinking poorly of her, or thinking her a racist redneck in blue Keds, that she sweated and fretted and practiced her order in her head. The rather young and well built and deep ebony man behind the counter asked her what she would be having with the same bored look as every other fast food cashier in the entire free world and probably China as well. My mother, trying to avoid an incident that might set race relations in Atlanta back 50 years and cause riots in the streets,  took a deep breath and said “I’ll take the black meat.” The man stoically entered the order, my mother exploded in a flaming flush of crimson and groaned, doing her best imitation of the witch in Oz, melting, melting into a puddle of shame on the floor. My brother broke out in laughter so loud and raucous that the rest of the restaurant joined in.

My favorite story though, the one which exemplifies my mother in my opinion, is about the day we went on a high speed car chase in a mall parking lot. My brother and his wife were visiting from out of state and wanted to go to a new mall which had just opened. After swinging by to pick me (an almost blind woman, keep that in mind, important story element) up, my mom and, also in town and out of her element, sister and I followed them to the mall. There was lots of talking and joking going on, not much paying attention (in our car at least). We turned into the parking lot and realized that their car was no where to be seen. What the hell my mom wondered aloud as she started to circle looking for them. We spotted them several rows away looking like they were heading for an exit already. Gunning the engine of her Mustang (my mom was no slacker) she raced across just to have them speed away as we got nearer. Looking confused and irritated she sped up after them. They sped up more, she started blinking her lights furiously and honking, they started evasive maneuvers. Tires squealing, horn blaring, mother cursing, we almost didn’t notice the little white car trying to catch up with US. My brother and his wife raced along beside us with “what the fuck?!” looks on their faces…. We had been chasing the wrong car.

There is one in every family, and I thank God for that small favor.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Now This Is Fine Technology

Years ago I had an old (read: cast iron) typewriter with big round keys that it took a mallet to push. It used ribbons which smeared and saved all of your errors for posterity. My grandmother had given it to me. She worked at the CDC in Atlanta her entire adult life. When she first started this had been her typewriter and it was a good one. 50 years later it was good for nothing much more than a door stop or transcribing the thoughts of an overtired hausfrau who got cramps from long hand.

Now this is fine technology I told myself when I first sat down in front of it. I couldn’t type but how hard could it be? Kids learned it in school for heavens sake. I had finished school so I was smart enough to do it. Of course, I hadn’t been smart enough to take any business classes in school, which should have told me this would be a challenge, but no, I am a plow-ahead kind of gal. 20 reams of paper, two ribbons and a quart of BIC Wite-Out later I had my own way of typing (lousy) and blistered but coordinated fingers.

I would sit up at night in a house finally gone quiet and pound out stories, bitch lists, dreams and desires. I would usually re-read them in the morning and mutter “oh my GOD, I can’t show this to anyone, they will think I am certifiable” but I continued to do it. I could say I was honing my craft. In fact, I will, because it sounds good even if not quite true. I was maintaining a little piece of self, flotsam in a giant sea of confusion and fatigue.

I inherited a word processor next. The thing about a word processor is that they should only be owned by people who can type. And people who can see. And people with tiny boobs. Why you ask? Because when you can’t see shit and you lean forward to read something on the tiny screen you press the x and the dot with your giant boobs, instantly getting x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x. in the middle of your work. ‘Nuff said about the word processor. We parted ways at a yard sale and I was NOT sorry to see it go.

Next was a 486 IBM clone with WordPerfect. I was in heaven. I still couldn’t type well, still mashed buttons on occasion with my always-in-the-damn-way bosom but with the large (12 inch) monitor it happened much less often and it was so much easier to get rid of any x.’s which appeared. And fonts!! Who knew fonts could be so much fun?! There were issues for sure. I have several stories with the editing marks printed out on them because I couldn’t figure out how to hide them again for a month. I still didn’t understand how spell check worked so let it make corrections willy-nilly without reviewing them (Their, they’re, there… need I say more?), but all in all what I produced actually LOOKED like something someone might want to read.

Fast forward 15 years. I have five computers on line at any given time. I am married to a total computer geek and have children and grandchildren born into the digital age. They tweet, they blog, they buzz, they interface and network socially. They message more than they speak and have a bazillion electronic toys for their tots. I work on computers every day. We are a family exemplifying the new millennium. My writing has improved to the point that A. It is legible and B. Good enough to show people I don’t know and almost good enough to show those I do so I tweet, buzz, network, link and share. Wish me luck!

Funny Names: What’s the Wackiest You’ve Ever Heard? – Baby Name Blog - Nameberry

Funny Names: What’s the Wackiest You’ve Ever Heard? – Baby Name Blog - Nameberry

Friday, December 3, 2010

The Good Old Days

When times are tough I think it is just human nature to look back. We scroll through the movies in our minds, scanning mentally edited little reviews of past events. Teasing us with times gone soft and fuzzy around the edges, we are thinner, taller, smarter, happier and in charge. We know it all (of course, we are younger) and rule the world or at least our minute portion of it.

Right now, my kids are all going through hard, hard times. With jobs and kids and spouses making their lives complicated and worrisome they talk to me as a release. I’m not saying they come for advice; they are all remarkably self assured. They come for an ear, a sounding board. It keeps me up at night. I can’t fix their problems, can’t be the protector a mom should be. I toss and turn and wish for the good old days when the most serious of issues could be fixed with a Band-Aid® and a kiss. I reach in deep and select a sweet looking memory, shake it out and let it roll…


1987, Marietta Georgia. Early morning in the tornado house… STOP! Do not remember the tornado!! Crap, I hate it when that happens. A good memory almost derailed by a stressful one. They are there; waiting, poised on their toes and ready to run, just around the corners in our subconscious, trying to steal our reveries like they are second base and a monetary prize is at stake. I reel it in, tucking it way back in a dark recess, mentally shaking my finger at it and saying “no no no you don’t”. I go back to my original intent, remembering a sunny, balmy spring morning. The birds are singing, the crickets are bedding down for the day and I am savoring my first cup of coffee. I am in cozy, sloppy clothes (hell, I haven’t been out of the house without trailing four tots in five years, why not?). I am enjoying a moment of peace before the day begins.

I am in a terrific mood because I am going to be MAKING MONEY this week. When your husband is a blue collar worker and you are as fertile as the Garden of Eden, Making Money deserves a lot of capital letters. I am watching three kids for five days and making one crisp new never been touched by children’s hands hundred dollar bill. At that time I could feed the six of us for an entire week on that amount so I was pretty darn happy to be getting it. I already had four of my own, what were three more in the grand scheme of things? I had pictured myself as sort of Madonna (Jesus’ mother, not the singer) mixed with Martha Stewart with just a dollop of chipper camp counselor thrown in. I had this! It was mine and I was going to rock it.

The darlings arrived at 7 and my hopes were dashed by 7:10. Picture this: Two 11 year old girls, boys 8, 6 and four, a 2 year old and one more not quite walking. This was long before On Demand Disney, I had PBS showing educational (interpreted as boring by children) shows until 10 AM, a box of generic apple jack type cereal, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and one of jelly, five pounds of apples and 5000 packs of Kool Ade.

My babies hopped up when the doorbell rang and rocketed down the steps, slamming into the visitors and becoming one rollicking, swarming, chattering being. The horde descended on the kitchen, complaining of course, making notes, comparing breakfast at our house (cereal) to breakfast at their house, always home made something with a mom who wore clothes suitable for viewing with loving touches like syrup smiley faces on the pancakes or loving notes tucked under the plate. Notes? For real? I can’t even find anything to write with except a green crayon with a worn down tip and peeling wrapper. And paper? Forget about it. The back of a bill collector’s envelope was my normal fallback, with paper towels and grocery store receipts coming in 2nd and third respectively. They blew out of the kitchen as one, leaving the empty box of cereal, the decimated loaf of bread, 7 apple cores and smudges of pb and j all over the now empty, upended pitcher of Kool Ade. I would have worried then, but they didn’t give me a chance.

I heard a loud bang, a baby cry, whispers of “Shhhhhhh” coming from the living room. Turning on my well worn slippers, I tried to get my footing as I slid in spilt milk and ran for the sound. 6 children sitting like little vacuous angels and a baby screaming greeted me, all of them studiously ignoring the broken lamp in the middle of the room. A child, not my own, said “my mommy’s lamp is better than that one was”. The line was drawn. Four days and seven hours and 49 minutes of heroic battle would follow. What they didn’t know was that I was up for the challenge.

We rode bikes, we went swimming, we read every book in the house ten times. We played house, and put on a musical (skinny little bottoms wiggling and singing to “Stray Cat Strut”). We played office and wedding and school. We stopped at doctor; I was not an idiot, just tired. We built Lego cars and block towers and made Playdoh dinners for penned on baby dolls. We went on forced marches when I couldn’t stand being locked up with the little boogers one more minute, traipsing through the woods behind our house playing Tarzan and soldier and little lost lambs. We wore down a 96 count box of Crayons on every envelope in the house, the dining room walls and some baseboards as well. We plowed through an entire carton of Chinese noodles, the rest of the apples, 4,452 packs of Kool Ade, three gallons of milk and a pack of M&Ms I thought I had hidden well enough in the linen closet. When the door closed behind them I was so exhausted, sticky, colored and pasted I looked like a cartoon. My sweats had a rip in the knee, I had lost ten pounds and my hair was tied in terrible knots. BUT, I had done it, I succeeded. I did not let the little bast…whippersnappers get to me. I had WON.

And Tuesday would be even better.