Contentment

How is it possible to never have a moment and still feel (on occasion) as if I haven’t got a life? Am I the only one that feels this way? What to do, what to do?

When I was a little kid I had the standard dreams… I wanted to be a teacher, a business woman, a mother, a writer, an actress, a singer, a chef. Little did I know that I would have all of these careers, many simultaneously, and none of them would be what I imagined. I had no way of knowing that they would all be fulfilling yet all leave me wanting… something more, something better, something else, something different than what I have. What is contentment? If I had it would I want it after five minutes, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime? How do I know this ISN’T it? Why do I feel like both Helen Hunt AND Jack Nicholson in ‘As Good As It Gets’? Should I be taking prescription (may cause stomach ache, headache, diarrhea, heart palpitations, coma, ennui or death) drugs for this or just getting a bit tipsy (may cause stomach ache, headache, diarrhea, heart palpitations, coma, ennui or death) once a month? So many questions and not one satisfactory answer…..

I loved to carry around important (in my mind) papers when I was a kid. I would whip them out with a broken crayon or stubby pencil in hand and either act like I was teaching my bears and dolls math and science or that the papers were essential documents for some vague sort of enterprise where I was a very important person, vice president in charge of something. My parent’s gave me junk mail or old papers from my dads brief case to use in these fantasies, fully encouraging me to be a professional person. Even though they were old school they never said nice girls do not order their dollies to fetch them coffee or smack them with the ruler when they do not learn their ABCs fast enough. I was given old handbags to use as brief cases and tromped around in my mom’s pumps and some wooden beads, wrapping a towel shawl-like over my shoulders,  heaving great sighs and yelling ‘You’re fired!’ at hapless naked baby dolls with ink scars on their faces. In hindsight they were probably just so happy that I was playing a recognizable game with dolls instead of talking to my dear imaginary friends (Jan and Trilly Trolly, they weren’t from around here, obviously) all day that I could have been pretending to be an over-adrenalized despot and they would have found a way to applaud it. They did seem to get a little concerned when my teacher game morphed into Jean Joins The Convent (Hey, I was attending Catholic School!) and the shawl turned into a habit but that was short lived because, in my mind, nuns lived too predictable an existence and even at six I wasn’t comfortable with the status quo. From the Virgin Jean to bride was the next logical step. Nun’s habit to wedding dress and veil was just a tiny hop for my imagination. My rosary went from being tucked into my sister’s belt to hanging around my neck, I wore my mom’s white sandals instead of her black pumps and voila, I was adorable! I promptly pulled a baby doll out from under my dress… I was number six after all. I didn’t know the details but wasn’t totally naïve either…. and settled in to life in my third of the room as a married woman.

As with most girls house was a game that lasted for years. I started with the obligatory tea parties, swerved to the outer limits and pretended to be a wife both welcoming her husband home from the wars and one getting news of his death in battle. I tried out different excited and happy waves and Yoo-hoos. Kissing the back of my hand with loud smacks and chattering about the dance at the officer’s club. I pretended to drink (Rob Roys. I don’t even know what they are but it was my imaginary poison), smoke and eat caviar on crackers. I practiced batting my eyes. I would usher the invisible swashbuckler out the door, crying, wailing about how I would miss him and be strong… ten minutes later I would get the imaginary knock, the telegram (More of those important papers from my dad’s case. Oh happy day when he gave me carbon paper too) and fall, swooning, to the floor with my baby and a wad of toilet paper substituting for a hankie clutched to my chest.

These weird games came to an end when I was nine and moved to a regular suburb and became part of a new group of people. Where I had been one of hundreds of kids with their father’s either gone to war or gone to prison I now was one of hundreds of kids whose father’s wore suits and ties and went to work in the city every day. Where I had attended a Catholic school and a smallish church I now went to a regular elementary school and a huge church too far away to walk to. I had lived in a small, regimented community and suddenly I felt like I had been thrust into the big bad world. Where I had always played alone or with imaginary or inanimate friends I had a real live girl who came to my house and hung out with me and me to hers after school. Suddenly, where I had easily imagined myself in the starring roles of my fantasies I found myself at odds. I was way behind…. I started baton twirling, desperately trying to make my fat fingers spin the stupid shiny stick but succeeding in only breaking things and hitting myself in the nose. I tried to learn how to do cartwheels and back bends, to jump and clap like a cheerleader with the result being heavy bottomed tumbles in the back yard adorning my backside with eggplant colored bruises and twisting my ankles. I wanted to be blasé about riding my bike with no sibling or parent watching over my every move with an eagle’s sharp eye and instead got shaky and queasy when I got more than two blocks away from home. In short I was not cut out to be a regular kid. A VP, a teacher, a mother or a nun, sure, but not a normal 9 year old in suburban Virginia.

The good thing about all of the hours, days, weeks, months and years of playing by my self was that I had learned how to act. I could hang with the kids at the playground and fool them most of the time. I learned how to cartwheel, once, perfectly. They never knew twice would make me dizzy and I would fall over on my face, eating dirt. I had one baton trick which I could smile through and appear nonchalant about, bored with. I was too cool for cheerleading (You like those girls? Are you kidding me?) turning to music and books instead. I would call my friend before leaving home so that 90 percent of the time, she could meet me half way to the drugstore where we hung out, alleviating the need to pedal several miles by myself. I was an Oscar caliber performer and a constant work in progress...

This sounds sad, in fact down right pitiful, but it had some great upsides to it. For one, I can still do the one baton trick because I practiced it for a million hours. For another, in finding ways to avoid all of the things I couldn’t do and to not embarrass myself in front of all of the people I wanted to be like I became a person who is not afraid to not be like everyone (hell, for that matter, anyone) else.  Music and books have served me well and provided such great heights of joy in my life it is hard to not see them as living, breathing things. I can’t do a cartwheel anymore but I can, and do, dance. Not a ballerina, not a Rockette, but I can shake my soul with the best of them. When you can’t talk teen idol because you just don’t care that much, but you can make the best damn fudge from scratch in Annandale you still fit with the giggling gaggle you want to be friends with.

To this day I enjoy being alone-- reading, listening to music, cooking, and dancing-- at the same time I want to have a wide and loving circle of friends made up of people who share my interest and my passions and are willing to let me try out theirs without abandoning me if I fail. I am a business woman with an important enough job, though I do have to fetch my own coffee and have never been in a position to axe anyone (though I could give you a list…). I have been a wife who lost a husband (NOTHING like I imagined at play) and a mother, a writer, a dancer a chef…. I have it all, but I want something, something different, something better, just more.

Apothegms

ap·o·thegm  [ap-uh-them]  –noun

a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism.

“Another day another dollar”, “six one way, half a dozen the other”, “in for a penny, in for a pound”, “slow and steady wins the race” These are the apothegms I grew up with and find myself repeating on a daily basis. They give me courage, help me stay on course (NOT stay the course, what a ridiculous tag line), help get me motivated in the morning and help me deal with the results of my actions at the end of the day.

Every morning before entering the monolith I work in I say “another day, another dollar”. It reminds me that that is the reason I come here, for a pay check. I do my job, they pay me, end of story. I like my co-workers for the most part, like what I do for the most part, but it is not my life, it is a means for obtaining and keeping the life I want. Life is what happens to me when I leave here, with my family, my friends, my interests. I simply do not understand people that feel that retirement is a loss. I yearn for the day I can retire, when I can spend my days in happy pursuit of the things that make me content. I want to write and get paid for it. I want to cook for people, to have them say ‘My gosh this is delicious’ and stand groaning and releasing buttons after a fantastic meal. I want to experience at will that moment when the batter I am stirring takes on the exactly right sheen and thickness and air bubbles pop leaving quarter size craters in the glossy slick surface. I want to read about a thousand books (for starters). I want to paint murals on the walls that surround me—trees and flowers, water and rocks, calming, lovely and wildly fertile murals so that the walls do not close in on me. I want to sleep until noon or not at all and spend the day in my pajamas watching trash TV or listening to beautiful music or dancing around my living room singing at the top of my lungs. In short, I want to be the one that everyone refers to as ‘that crazy lady’ while discussing my latest literary work or divine dish. Until then, I square my shoulders, mutter ’another day, another dollar’ and go on about my business.

‘Six one way, half a dozen the other’ is an apothegm that reminds me not to over analyze situations, people, conversations, directives and decisions. I find it so incredibly easy and self indulgent to get into my head and just spend the day there, playing around, messing with things that are better left alone. Imagine a child in a laboratory filled with chemicals and flame under beakers full of brightly colored smoking liquids and you will have an idea of what I mean. I am terribly introspective and could spend all of my time getting to know the ins and outs of me but frankly I am not all that interesting. I have to remind myself that since I don’t even have that good a handle on my motives and inspirations (Lets face it, every new day changes us. How can we ever understand it all?)  why the heck would I ever assume I had the power to determine what someone else was thinking or feeling or dealing with when they say or do something I find questionable. If I go six one way, questioning, theorizing, imagining and wondering, or half a dozen the other, accept at face value, the end result is the same. They said or did something I do not agree with or understand. Why stress over it?

One of my favorite apothegms, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’, means just go for it. If you are going to try a little bit then just throw your self into it head first and arms akimbo. I had a basketball coach in high school who told us if you are going to foul make them bleed. I thought it was horrible at the time but now, 35 years later I can see the wisdom in the advice (even if I would never, ever tell a child to hurt someone); In short, if you are going to do something that possibly carries a very high price you better give it everything you’ve got. Otherwise you will end up paying the maximum for surely minimal rewards. I am not saying I am courageous. Hell, I am not even close to bold most of the time, but if something is important enough for me to try then screw creeping down the steps in the shallow end! I head for the deep end right away.

The last apothegm in my list, ‘Slow and steady wins the race’, is one I think everyone knows, has heard since they were two and grandma read the ‘Tortoise And The Hare’ to them. I think this is an idea wasted on children, they just want to go, go fast, go faster, higher, longer than any other kid and possibly become Superman, you never know! But, if we hear it enough when we are tots,  ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ becomes meaningful when we need it most, brand new and shiny with purpose (imagine a tortoise with a big S—for slow—on his chest, rolling out of the phone booth of our imagination while a light bulb comes on over our heads). Slow and steady allows us to visualize and set long term goals (i.e. crazy lady status at retirement). Slow and steady allows us to endure the years of school, of work, of corporate climbing because we KNOW that these things pay off, that they will give us lasting peace and contentment (or at least a 401K so that we can fund our own peace and contentment). Slow and steady allows us to stay emotionally and/or physically afloat during the lean years, to stay with our spouse during the ‘Why did I ever marry YOU?’ times, to love our kids through the ‘I hate you! Gimme five dollars’ times, to tolerate our pets during the piss on the floor, chew the shoes and bite the preacher times. In short, slow and steady allows us to shudder through the not so great times so that we can revel in the wonderful times.

What grandma failed to read to us as kids was the epilogue to that story, when the tortoise goes home, has a nice hot soak in a well appointed bath, dresses in a natty new shell, aerodynamically designed with the racing tortoise in mind, pours himself an ice cold beer in a tall chilled glass, looks at a picture of the hare and goes ‘nanny nanny boo boo sucker’ under his breath as he sinks into his comfy furniture in that wonderful log he calls home.

Faded Pictures

Road trips rule! I can barely see so, sadly, I am not allowed to drive. Not even a little teeny weeny bit. This is very depressing for someone who likes to go see things because those things exist in her world. I like everything about road trips, including the miles and miles of lush forests lining the sides of highways. I like little towns and big cities and farms and hills and trees and woods. I like the act of getting where I am going as much as I like the actual arrival at my destination. In short, road trips rule. This I find to be highly ironic and slightly sadistic on the part of God or science or nature’s whimsy and the theory of chaos

I cannot remember a time when a road trip was not a wonderful thing. As children, my brothers and sisters and I were routinely packed into a giant station wagon or van with dogs, books, coolers and pillows and toted hither and yon by my parents. My first road trip happened before my memory came to life, leaving the state of my birth (Arizona) to go to Europe. Before we left our homeland we visited my mother and father’s families in Louisiana and Georgia. There are a few pictures from this trip that made me wish I could remember it. A shoe box holds a picture of me sitting under an inverted wooden playpen, surrounded by toys and looking for all the world like a two foot tall, curly headed, sticky faced, bottle toting prisoner of some crazy war. Pictures of my parents with their parents, everyone looking young and fit and headstrong and vibrant sit in the same box. My parents were beautiful people and when I look at these faded pictures I see that facet of them before wars, world travel, eight kids, marital and money problems, time and illness reduced their vibrant youth to the softly weathered visage- loving, echoing sadness -that I know best, their true selves shadowed by old age.

My sisters in too short hand me down dresses with sashes tied in crooked bows or flapping by their sides like calico flags rollick with my brothers and cousins in rolled up dungarees, striped Ts and tennis shoes. They are caught always moving; running, jumping, climbing, twirling, cart wheeling, skipping, diving, fighting, hiking, hugging, skating, holding hands. I want to run with those children now in the twilight. I want to catch lightening bugs while I listen to my happy parents talk softly on the screen porch with a sound track of katydids, baseball quietly on the radio and ice clinking in highball glasses.

I have wonderful, frightening pictures from Louisiana, huge snakes, lizards, spiders, evil warty toads lumbering across my grandparent’s small yard. My grandmother with a basket of eggs in one hand and blissfully ignorant chickens around her feet, pecking away at what would be their last meal before they were turned into one of our finest. My siblings are across the road, having disobeyed every adult around and braved the Mouton’s bull to cross the pasture and get to the barn where they leap and swing from the rafters into the hay mounded below. They walk into town with their young aunts and uncles and cousins galore, to buy Cokes in iced glass bottles and candy and Picayune cigarettes to smoke in the haunting, eerie privacy of the bayou. My grandfather sits in his chair by the fireplace, winter or summer, talking to my parents and my grandmother in a Cajun accent almost impossible to understand. He sits ramrod straight and strong, face weathered, his sweat salt stained grey Stetson hanging from his knee or the back of his chair, gravelly voiced from a lifetime of eating hot sauce and red pepper, somber and stern until he releases the most beatific smile ever seen on a human being. He lets me touch his soft face, he lets me slide up on his knee and lean against his farmers work worn body and I feel safe, lulled into a nap by the smells of chicken gumbo and chicory coffee and happy sounds of my father’s huge family’s loving and fighting.

We went to crawfish farms, and fishing on the gulf, eating huge pots of boiled crawfish and steamed clams and oyster sandwiches, waving cobs of corn dripping with butter as we raced around the beach. As night fell we became frightening, ragged apparitions in the exploding embers of a bonfire, dancing like little savages and whooping as the thunderheads gathered and billowed and put on a magnificent blue light show out at sea. A race homeward, the storms chasing us from our place as usurpers on the beach, lightening striking the road just feet behind the car while evil looking reptilian forms crawled out of the flooding ditches which lined the two lane shell topped road and made a rhythmic, percussive sound as they were flattened by the tires of our boat sized car. We fell exhausted into beds with corn husk mattresses, just two, girls in one, boys in the other, falling asleep looking at the water marks left by old floods during famous hurricanes on the ceiling above us. We dreamed of snakes falling out of the once inundated attic space and fait-do-dos and our (possibly imaginary) cousin the witch, Fawna Lee, whom we had never met but knew all about and could picture mixing potions in her crooked candle lit house on stilts among the cypress.

We took trips to Kansas City Missouri (more cousins!!) and West Point in New York state (and even more cousins!!), to Rock Creek Park and Lansing Michigan and Harper’s Ferry and the Erie Canal and New York City and Wichita Kansas and strip mines in Pennsylvania and Washington DC and Virginia Beach and Cape Hatteras.  My parents showed us family and history and beauty and joy.

As I grew older we traveled to Paris and Rome, to Venice and Amsterdam, to London and Bruges. We sailed around Europe in our big boat sized car, eight, ten twelve people on occasion rocketing along the tulip lined alleys or cobble stoned-trolley track cut streets, entertaining the locals who thought we were slightly crazy while we flitted through what amounted to pages in a child’s story book, Alps? I looked for Heidi and Hansel and Gretel. Venice? I searched for princesses hanging out tower windows and Marco Polo. Paris? Bonn? Amsterdam? I knew spies were around every corner, every mail box a dead drop, evil fascists held poor Jewish children captive in every attic we passed. The catacombs evoked chanting monks in grey sackcloth with incense and rope sandals, the coliseum was terrifying, lions and Christians still battled in my mind, rending flesh, slashing brute muscle, blood in the sand. Even though I was a kid, in fact, for most of these European trips I was a hormone obsessed teenager, I could not help but revel in the new-ness, the different-ness of what was around me. The flowers in their gardens, the look of their socks, the cut of their coats and the smell of their food all fascinated me. Although I was always very ready to be home, I waited anxiously for the next announcement of a vacation, a road trip, and adventure!!

We take trips now, as time and money permit, and I still feel myself getting worked up no matter if it is a trip to Stone Mountain an hour away of a trip across the country. Going places is always exciting, you always see something new, you learn something, and you change, even if just a tiny bit and hopefully you improve. I yearn to feel myself once again surrounded by sleeping humanity in a warm powerful car, snoring dogs and sleep talking babes curled into each other, crammed into the available square footage like grimy sardines as we cross thousands of miles through the star heavy skies of warm summer nights.

Never Ever Not In A Million Years

Two of my granddaughters, both turning two this month, are celebrating their birthdays together tomorrow. The excitement runs high, furious cleaning, moving, painting, arranging and decorating is going on at my daughter’s who is hosting the fete. Elmo invitations are sent, a jump house is rented, multiple highchairs and booster seats are gathered and cloroxed to within and inch of their (if they had them) lives. Balloons, bunting and banners proclaim and adorn the day in bright primary colors, colors of joy.

My daughters are wonderful mothers, perfectionists with unbelievably high standards in all areas they feel are important to the health, happiness and well being of their children. I am sure that this will be a total joy to attend, that the toddlers will end the day happy and exhausted and everyone will go home saying what a wonderful job they did.

Watching them gear up for this important day I can only remember the various parties planned and hosted by me for my children….

Most of their parties were small simple family affairs. My first child’s first birthday went totally unmarked except by my saying Happy birthday Sugarbear to her and promptly bursting into tears. Her father was somewhere on the island of Crete shooting missiles from tanks, her Grandparents were literally in other countries. I was six weeks away from giving birth to my second child and that was about all I could muster. I was sad and lonely and clung to her much more than she clung to me that day. Her second was more exciting, having her uncles there to teach her how to say “Wassup?” and giving her change from their pockets. She had presents from her father and I, from her grandparents, her great-grandmother. We all moved outside after cake and ice cream to watch the uncles, one 12 and one 14, blow up model cars with firecrackers and whoop like wild things as they played with my baby girl in the Indian Summer twilight.

For my children born in the heat of summer parties were more elaborate even if still almost criminally simplistic. The heat in June and August in Georgia made it possible for us to celebrate out of doors. We played water balloon volley ball, and smear the queer (don’t be angry, please, that was the name of the game 30 years ago) with the water balloon, and went swimming. We had potato races and danced in sprinklers and went to the park and cooked out, eating second and third slices of cake while we watched adult relatives row lazily around the lake as their offspring threw hamburger buns to the ducks, skipped rocks and told secrets on the benches under the pines. On a rare occasion a friend was invited but there were just so MANY of us, of the family, that 30 was a normal number so who needed anyone else?

As my kids got bigger the parties began to take on more importance to them. They realized that they should be events of a caliber worthy enough to mark their birth. Luckily for my oldest, unluckily for the rest, she had 6 years on the next in line so she got to try everything first. The end results were so often irritating (on the up side) or down right disastrous (on the down side) that the others rarely got but a watered down version of the event if they got any version at all.

When Anna was turning 12 she wanted a slumber party. This is a normal request for a 12 year old girl. I had had many myself. Long nights filled with too many sweets, giggles and tearful arguments. Many a best friendship had gone up in flames and many a new, tentative friendship rose up in it’s place. What could be the harm? I knew the girls, knew their parents. We lived in a complex which had townhouses (called condominiums) and no one had more than a five minute walk there or home if need be. My husband had gone home to Belgium for a visit so it was just me and the kids. I thought it would be a blast.

Getting ready for the party was a hoot. We went and rented movies fit for tweens, “Princess Bride” being the group favorite, and bought potato chips, brownie mix and soda pop. Lugging these treasures home from the store my daughter started worrying that the three movies we had chosen would not be the RIGHT movies, and if they were, would not be ENOUGH movies for the party.

When we reached home she promptly went next door to her friend’s (twins!) house and after much secret deliberation the girls decided to raid their (at work) parent's stash of movies. I heard the trio come in, making big plans for a fun filled night. I heard them turn on the TV and the VCR opening. I asked them what they were going to watch, wanting to save the movies (a truly rare treat for me and my kids) for the actual party. They had borrowed a movie they said, called “Brown Eye” from the neighbors. “Uhm, girls, don’t turn that on!”

“Why not?” they asked in unison as the door slid shut.

I tried racing to the player but felt my feet go exponentially slower as the tape went fast forward through the opening credits. I felt like a cartoon, heard my voice in low slow mo crying “Noooooooo” as I tried in vain to reach the off button before they could see what I had only guessed at. As a woman’s quite large, curvaceous and gelatinously jiggling bare butt filled the screen (thankfully obscuring the split second but definitely THERE shot of a large male member) all three girls shrieked in horrified glee and my hand slammed into the TV control panel, sending the unit sliding across the table, my heart into my mouth and brain into shock. OH. MY. GOD. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. Shit!

In my head I cursed the neighbors, cursed the kids, cursed the VCR, cursed the damn slumber party. Out loud I heard myself say “Well, I don’t think that looks like a good movie” as I slapped at the buttons, wrenched the tape out, put it in an envelope, wrapped around the entire package 50 times with duct tape and marched outside to leave it like a foul smelling dead thing on the neighbors front stoop.

At this point the party was a success as far as the girls were concerned. For me, it was a portent of the evil that was to follow. Sitting in my room about midnight I heard the house go ominously still below me. The sound of the Princess Bride floated up quite clearly in the silence. Not even my other kids, banished to the upstairs in various states of mutinous anger (This sucks! Why does she get everything she wants? I HATE YOU) were silent. As every mother knows, silence is not golden, silence is freaking scary. I crept downstairs to find them all out on the patio, standing on folding chairs and tables and motorcycle seats (their dad would KILL them) peering over the fence at the OTHER neighbor’s house. Sounds of great revelry permeated the night air, loud music, glassware tinkling, ice cubes jingling against each other muffled by the slightly viscous  sound and smell of cheap bourbon. I slid in amongst them, they were too engrossed to notice me, and got an eyeful of the spectacle they were so enjoying. A woman who could very well have been the star of “Brown Eye” was dancing, sort of, on the kitchen table. Clothes half off, eyes half closed, glass half full, the 3 men who shared the unit looked on in slightly sickly silent greedy lust. “OH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!” My outburst startled every single one of us in the tableau, the kids stumbled back trying to keep their footing on their various shaky perches, the men turned their heads with snaps slowed by inebriation, the woman fell off the table backwards into the wall with a whoop, a hiccup and a giggle.

The babes were marched back upstairs and I could hear them trying to define what they had witnessed… “I don’t think that was dancing, you don’t dance on a table!” “You do if you are a grown up” “Mom and dad never do!” “That’s cuz our tables too shaky” “I don’t know…”… the big girls returned to the tale of princesses and honor and love, definitely pale in comparison to what they had just witnessed and tried to NOT talk about it. I spent the rest of the night on the couch smack in the middle of the gaggle eating potato chips out of the bag and thinking of how I would never, ever not in a million years host a slumber party again.

I did, of course, but that's another story.

Them Bucks Will Gut You

I love to catch little snatches of other people’s (men’s) conversations. This gives me an insight into their (men’s) lives, an idea of what they are going through, what is important to them, their dreams and ambitions and, on occasion, reminds me of just how stupid we all sound sometimes.

My favorites bits are snagged in bars…. Picture this: Two men and a beautiful woman sitting at a local bar, waiting for their food order to be delivered to their table. Quite a few beer bottles sit empty if front of both men and the lovely lady, evidently the designated driver is on her second sweet tea. Both men are 35 and just a bit pudgy, both in uniforms of some type, both with sturdy steel toed boots and multiple phone and tool pouches on their belts. One’s hair is a tad too long, a mullet slicked back with something a little too shiny and is clean shaven and one has the redneck-hip bald head and goatee. One’s shirt is white button-up (with one too many buttons loosened at the collar), one’s shirt is uniform blue. Both are wearing too much cologne, splashed on hastily in the car to make up for the fact that they couldn’t shower before coming out to play. Pool cues lean against the edge of the table and the wall and a tumbled pile of quarters sits next to the cardboard centerpiece advertising Texas ‘Rita Tuesday. There isn’t much about them that grabs my attention; the place is full of tables exactly like this enjoying the requisite Redneck Top 40 playing on the jukebox. Then I catch one line, one small phrase that makes me wish I had listened to more of their conversation… White button-up slick mullet dude—“If I could do anything I would be an international arms dealer, now they have it made”

God, sometimes I wish I were a guy.

Not surprisingly at the same bar (but at a different table) sit what is sure to be the same threesome 30 years hence. 65 year old slick back (waaayyyyy back, damn hairline) mullet dude in white button up with one too many buttons undone, cracker-no-longer-hip, just-bald-dude with scraggly chin hair, blowsy lounge lizard with smeared lip stick, no longer the designated driver so drinking Long Island Ice Teas sit on a Sunday afternoon discussing the liqueur they seem to have just discovered. Same dude, still wishing to be more macho exclaims—“Seriously, they put buck blood in it, makes you a love stud, but you cain’t drink it during hunting season, them bucks will gut you”

I worked in a cafeteria for a while, baking all day, which was fabulous. There was a man of Hispanic origin, I have no idea from whence he hailed, who was the master baker. He was contemplating proposing to his current girlfriend so the kitchen conversation revolved repeatedly around that subject. Through bits and pieces I gleaned some interesting facts. He had been married four times, yes I meant 4 times, before and had over a dozen children. He could not have been more than 35. He came in on a Friday and whipped out a jewelry box with a very lovely, though teeny diamond in it. With a flourish and a bow he exclaimed he was going to do it, he was taking the plunge, but—“5 times is enough, man, if this doesn’t work out that’s it! No more commitment for me”

I was the only woman who worked in the kitchen and therefore, not surprisingly, the only one who found that statement horribly ironic and funny. I wasn’t included in the conversation but burst out laughing only to have the other staff look at me like I had flown off my rocker, laughing to myself like a ninny, and was given a wide berth all day.

At one point in time, I had a co-worker in the cube-farm I currently inhabit 8 hours or more a day who seemed to believe that 5 foot high walls that only surround you on three sides made him both invisible and silent. Most of what was overheard was just gross: nail clipping, nose snuffling and loogie hocking, farts of amazing volume and velocity, but some of it was an intriguing look into the mind of a man. One morning he had a woman I will choose to assume was his wife on the phone and kept trying to steer the conversation around to how magnificent he had been in the bedroom the night before. Finally, after being shot down repeatedly he wailed—“I know you don’t like to do it, or watch it, but can’t we at least TALK about it? I mean, Jesus! I rocked”  Wow.

Another co-worker gave me food for thought when the economy took a nose dive and making promises of slashing government payrolls became the popular way to garner votes. This co-worker seemed immune to the tension flooding through the floors of our high-rise, going on about his merry way without a care in the world. Standing out smoking one day a fellow civil servant asked him how in the world he could stay so calm about it all when the rest of us were updating our resumes and calling in old favors. His reply?—“They can’t fire me, I mean, they can, but they won’t, I’m gay”

I totally get the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus idea. In these instances a women might be overheard saying “If I could do anything I wanted I would be Angelina Jolie, now she has it made” but more likely you would hear “I would so do Brad Pitt” We would have talked about how the liquor made us warm and toasty, the thought of being gutted by lusting-for-revenge horned animals never entering our minds. “That bastards been married four times and asked you what?” would have been our response to the disclosure of the proposal, “run me a bath, pour me wine and light candles and I might rock you again” would have been our side of the conversation on the telephone in the cube farm. As far as not worrying about losing one’s job…… with a husband, 3 children producing 9 grandchildren I don’t think the gay thing will fly but I am working on other options……

Whooozat Baby?

Being in the Bible Belt, the argument arises often for Evolution Vs. Creationism. When you consider that the entire human being, body, mind and soul, develops from two cells how can the existence of some higher power be questioned? When you see them develop and grow, trying and failing and trying again until success brings them to a new level of achievement, how can one doubt that evolution is an absolute truth?

In their nascent (Definition: beginning to exist or develop) stage, they  are pretty much useless. Cute as can be but with no direction, no desire to grow, to learn, to change. They do not even know these things are a possibility yet. They have two modes of operation, on and off, and three activities, eating, passing water, and the seemingly endless pooping. This is the only time in a life when base human desire is not at war with society This stage lasts, in my experience about six weeks. This coincides roughly with the amount of time it takes a mother to recover mentally from the shock of actually having the cherub (for the most part) and start looking at her darling little lump of fuzzy headed, sweet smelling, pink cheeked goodness and expecting more of it.

We get in it’s face, grinning like madmen and say stupid things like “whooozat baby? “ in a high falsetto guaranteed to get their attention. We shake their little feet, we rub their heads, we tickle their ribs. We swing them up over our heads, tuck them under our arms like footballs, sit them up, roll them over, shake toys in their face that rattle, hum, vibrate, play single notes and simple melodies. We maneuver their bodies into several different outfits a day, introduce them to confining shoes and wipe their butts in public places. The first time a child smiles, or laughs, or squeals, if you look at it’s little face immediately after, you will see it get a horrified, terrified, what the hell was that? Expression on it’s face. Once a baby figures out that that noise or gesture  has an immediate return the first step of evolution is complete. They have figured out tit-for-tat, only they want way more than they give.

I have always been amazed that it takes a kid a solid month to learn to smile at you when expected, which is seemingly simple, and the same month to develop at least three separate cries…tired cry, hungry cry, wet cry…and for some really bright children a fourth, the ‘I do not want to be alone so I will annoy the hell out of you until you  bow down to me and pick me up wench’ cry.

Progress is slow in the first few months, because while learning, they are also learning how to learn which slows them down. I find that once they have that part figured out, the ability to concentrate and to try things pick up speed at an alarming rate. The first major change in a baby is rolling over… usually as parents we discover they have this one down when they use it to roll OFF of something and scare the bejeezus out of us. This is a necessary occurrence. We learn at that point in time that we are not perfect parents (a lesson we seemingly need to learn again and again) and they learn that a boo-boo generates an effluvium of love, snuggles, nurturing and guilt, all useful tools in an older child’s arsenal, tucked away to be turned back on their parents at a later date.

When a child learns to crawl, we learn just how deadly our environment is. After reading the books and talking to other parents, doctors, experts of some kind in the field of childrearing we usually feel like we have a handle on it. We have plastic guards stuck in our plugs, cabinets that it now takes an engineering degree to open, locks on the toilets that they won’t even be able to reach or have any interest in whatsoever for months. We have baby gates, crib bumpers, safety seats and soft toys. We go to all this trouble just to have them pull themselves across the floor using one foot and one finger to find the penny you dropped in your 8^th month of pregnancy and were too fat to pick up. It has since been kicked under the couch, and , while you would need a broom handle to reach it, this 24 inch long creature with no coordination can snag it and pop it in their mouth before you can say “whooozat baby?” Never owned a paper clip? They will find one. Dog food, beach sand, ancient Fruity Pebbles, pop tops, tortilla chip corners coated in dust, mints, toothpicks, bottle tops will all turn up. Usually already in their mouth, and usually when there is someone visiting that you want to impress with either your clean home, your excellent mothering or both.

At this point in time, mothers begin to wish for the little lump of fuzziness that the child had been. This is genetically programmed into us, supposedly so that we continue the species, but is also born out of a nostalgia for that time, so shortly gone, when being a mother was all love and fatigue and very, very little drama.

Once the child starts walking, which we foolishly push them and push them to do, we are done for. Three things happen at this point. They beat us for one. They have legs six inches long but can run like the wind, with a silent stealth they vanish into seemingly thin air in the mall, up steep flights of stairs, towards roads, rivers and pools. Every time they do this our reactions tell them they can make us crazy.  They have won the game already, neither parent nor child realizing the immensity of this discovery, that this is an epiphany, but understanding that this is true all the same. They love that. The second thing that happens at this time is that we realize we are not perfect parents (again) and thank God, or the heavens or our own good sense for giving us the speed, the strength, the stamina to catch them before they run into or stumble into or fall into tragedy. The third thing that happens is that children develop a love affair with the Band-Aid. Kids can never get enough Band-aids. This is true until they reach the age when grossing other kids out is more valuable to them than having a cool Band-Aid hiding a mystery boo-boo and the curiosity and envy in other children that it generates.

Parents love to moan when their children start talking because they never are quiet again. We grouse about it to each other, but always with a smile, a shrug, a who knew sort of gesture which is hiding our pride in this phenomenal accomplishment. Secretly we are entranced by conversations about puppets and cookies and how to use a potty (YAY!!). We think they have finally learned something that can only help us. They can tell us when they are sick or tired or hungry. They no longer grunt or cry in frustration when they want or need something but can convey these things to us accompanied by a cute little baby accent and a sweet smile. Fools that we are we welcome this, read to them, teach them how to rhyme, to recite the alphabet, to count, to sing. We chatter endlessly about fanciful things like fairies and transformers and dragons and gnomes. These are the halcyon days. The full impact of children having the ability to converse is hidden from us until the dreaded all out assault of puberty.

An internal alarm goes off in a child on the day they turn 15 telling them their time as a child is finished. Their bodies wake up with a jolt, changing daily, shooting up, clothes busting at the very seams. Their faces explode, their hair goes nuts, their bodies changing so quickly and dramatically that it causes physical pain.  Your child goes to bed a child and wakes up the next day as some pod person/zombie/Godzilla/3 month old/seer mutation of what you knew before. The exact same sequence of events brings screaming rages one day, desperate tears the next followed by total nonchalance  the third. A child’s body becomes the physical equivalent of a tempest in an ungainly, pimpled teapot and life as you knew it is over. No warning, no time outs. Once again, we are forced to realize we are not perfect parents but this time it is because they TELL us. Daily we are informed of our shortcomings… materially and emotionally we have failed them. All parents fail all children, it is the way of the world, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Just when the fatigue, guilt, anxiety and anger threaten to overwhelm them and us a moment will happen that allows that former bond to re-exert itself. A shared moment, a glance, a joke and a glimpse of what has been and what will be again emerges. The only reason anyone survives this phase is because of the 15 years of mutual need, care and affection that came before allow us to hope and pray that this too, shall pass.

It is hard to watch this process, to see someone you love so desperately turning away from you, striking out alone or in the company of a few good friends and a lot of losers, making their own, often poor decisions. It is also, however, the mark of being a good parent, of raising strong children who are not afraid to try and fail and try again until they reach that level of achievement that allows them to try something new.

Ode To Buckwheat

We have a cool memorial not far from here, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park . My husband and I, trying to find something to do that the kids would enjoy that cost nothing but time chose to spend a lovely day there ‘en famille.’

My husband and I had gotten the kids all pumped up about it, telling them of the cannons, the old houses, the wonderful hiking trail (which turned out to go straight up) and assured them it would be a great adventure followed by a nice picnic lunch. It was during Memorial Day weekend so the park was gussied up, flags aflutter everywhere, waving as if ushering us in. Literally thousands of people were milling about, taking pictures, throwing balls, picnicking on the grass, perfect!! One of my sons, upon seeing a dog race across a field and with a mighty leap catch a Frisbee, shouted “Oh mom, I want a dog like that!” My answer, as always, was ‘No’ (Aside: No one has ever accused me of being not practical. A bitch, sure, but never not practical) My son, refusing to be thwarted, burst into tears and yelled “Well, can’t we just rent one then?” I went into my usual litany of we haven’t got the room, the time, nor the money. Who would walk him, brush him and feed him? He stuck out his lip, turned his back to me and said in a very quiet but very mutinous tone “A boy needs a dog mom!”

Flash forward, several years; our family found itself adopted by a Golden Retriever named Buckwheat (oddly enough, because he was the color of buckwheat) who had been usurped as lord and master of his previous domain by a new baby. Suddenly, and to my children’s great joy we had a dog we could take to the park. He was too fat and too old to catch Frisbees but entertained us for hours on end with his near ridiculous behavior.

It was once again Memorial Day and we putt-putted off to the same park, 6 people and a hundred pound dog in a tin can car made for 5. We poured out like clowns at the circus, stretching and groaning, trying to get our blood flowing before we struck off across the field for the trail. My son, after watching several Frisbee tosses bounce off the dog’s head had given up on that and had decided instead to use him as an engine, a tow truck of sorts to help him get up the mountain. This trick worked great for the first three hundred feet.  Buckwheat lunged up the first few cutbacks, tail wagging, children dragging behind,  Barks and whoops and hollers proclaimed everyone’s joy at being out and about and together on this perfectly gorgeous day.

By the time he rounded the third cutback, Buckwheat was starting to slow down perceptibly. By the fourth he was chugging like a train while the kids urged him on, cajoling with promises of pets and treats. At the 5^th cutback he sat. I am here to tell you that one hundred pounds of retriever flesh is not easy to move once it has decided it is done moving. When the kids snapped the leash and shouted “Come on dog!” he lay down. When they shouted “You can do it” he put his head on his paws and closed his eyes. When they pointed out much smaller and (quite frankly) less majestic dogs leaping over him as they gaily trotted next to their well scrubbed masters, he yawned and rolled over onto his back. To a stranger looking on it might have looked like a family taking a break from the climb, in reality it was a battlefield anew, fat dog on one side, six people in various degrees of frustrated confusion on the other. Needless to say the dog won.

My husband walked back down the mountain, carrying the mutt cradled in his arms like a baby, while the children and I fought to enjoy the rest of the steep, steep hike. The kids were worried that their innocent game had hurt the dog, would he be okay, would he live? I didn’t know how to answer their questions, instead snapping “This is why I never wanted a damn dog!” When we finally reached the summit we stood at the lookout and gazed down at that “damn dog” far below, running, leaping, barking and chasing another dog like a wild thing while my husband huffed and puffed and tried to get sensation back in his arms and legs, face red as a beet. This was just the first of many times that Buckwheat used his considerable bulk as a weapon in the war of wills that is man vs. beast.

Buckwheat liked nothing better than having everyone around him. When the entire family was together in the little living room he was in dog heaven. The happier he was, the more relaxed he got, The more relaxed he got, the more gaseous he became. He would be just aquiver on a Saturday morning when he spotted the mound of kid limbs sprawled across the couch and floor. Fats rolls vibrating and tail wagging he would crawl up on the couch, squashing the kids into the cushions and letting out such vile clouds of noxious gas that we worried about the kids surviving it. Since he weighed more than three of them combined they were stuck, wedged into the nylon cushions unable to rise or even turn their heads away. I would like to think this was uncontrollable but seeing his face when they all yelled “Buckwheeeeaaaatttttttt” I have my doubts

One Christmas, after having eaten half of the goodies in the kid’s stockings and gassing them all good once or twice, he appeared to nap while we made preparations to spend the rest of the day at my parent’s house. Now, you have to understand how much Buckwheat loved riding in the car. The enforced closeness set his little heart to pounding so that we had to always ride with the windows all the way down while we joked about igniting fireballs with cigarettes, air pollution indexes rising and birds dropping from their perches in the trees. As we got the last of the loot loaded and instructed the troops to load up Buckwheat lit out of the house and jumped heavily into the back seat as soon as the door was opened. We told him to get out, he stared out the windshield. We told him to get the HELL out, he stared out the windshield. We tugged, he glanced at us, we pushed, he snorted at us. We did both together and he lifted his hind end just enough to let out another chocolate laced poot. After 20 minutes of pushing, pulling, yelling, cursing, wheedling, bribing, coaxing, we just gave up. My husband got in the car and slowly, in a very stately manner, drove Buckwheat around the block. When he pulled back in the drive, he opened the back door in the manner of a chauffer and nodded to the dog as he stiffly and with great aplomb stepped out of the car and, looking neither left nor right, walked into the house.

That dog was proud of his girth, he adored his barrel chest and his heavy haunches, you could just tell he knew what he had and he loved to flaunt it. However, tell that dog it was bath time and, in his head anyway, he could shrink to next to nothing and stay silent, stealthy like a ninja retriever. He would hide behind whatever was closest, stock still, head down, tail tucked, cutting his eyes barely in your direction to see if his mind meld trick was working on you. Not only did he strive to become like a monk in a bad kung fu theater movie, to become one with nature, he tried to do it outside. Inside he could have at least hidden behind the couch, but no, he chose to test his mettle by hiding behind a pine tree with a 3 inch diameter trunk  Giant ass hanging out one side, giant head hanging out the other he dug in, daring us to find him, let alone try to bathe him.

Buckwheat was a good dog. Not necessarily a good dog for the park, or for kids, or for company, but a good dog none the less. Funny and smart and ludicrous and entertaining and an integral piece of our family and it’s history.