The Wheels On The Bus

A comment on a popular social network site made me think about all of my hours spent on buses and trains and car pools and van. I have used mass transportation all over the world and I came to realize that people who use mass transport are always the same. It doesn't matter if you are in Europe, the South or in megalopolis areas like New York. We all fall into certain categories with very few, if any, exceptions.

First, and it wouldn't be a bus ride without this fine example, you have the Talker.

The Talker generally sits right behind the driver, leaning forward so that his mouth is in the closest possible proximity to the driver's ear. He rambles on and on about one of two things; Politics of which he knows nothing but thinks he knows everything, or sports, of which he knows just enough to be annoying and thinks he knows everything. The bus stops and starts, doors open and close, people talk to the driver yet none of this stops the Talker from droning on and on and on. On occasion, an Antagonist will have boarded the bus, sitting as far away from the Talker as possible and interjects a few statements that he knows will irritate the Talker no end and make sure that the ramble never ceases. At first the other passengers are always happy that the Antagonist irritates the Talker as badly as he is irritating them. If this goes on for more than a stop or two, however, the other passengers either put on headphones or yell "shut UP!" or get off 6 miles early because walking in the heat, rain, snow, chill has got to be less painful that the two annoying creatures going at each other in full voice.

Similar to the Talker is the Self Conversationalist. In the good old days people gave the Self Conversationalist wide berth because it could only mean one thing, i.e. CRAZY. A city bus is a confined space and being next to a verified lunatic is not pleasant for someone just tying to shlep their groceries home from the store. With the advent of cell phones and Blue Tooth devices the Self Conversationalist is now often confused with the Rude Asshole. I actually feel bad for the crazy people who now must wonder is the Rude Asshole hearing the same voices they are? Does everyone now hear voices? While the Self Conservationists voices are talking murder and mayhem the Rude Assholes voices seem to be saying nothing at all, just listening to the constant ramble about doctors visits and evil relatives, sort of like the bus driver. Are the voices simply passed away Talkers who feel they must leave their mouths close to someones ear and ramble on and on about sports and politics for eternity?

The Tired Mom is a fixture too. Aged looking women anywhere from 16 to 56 surrounded by wide eyed children who don't want to sit together take up several rows of seats. One is always crying, one is always sniffling and coughing, one is asking questions of the Somnolent Drunk (Another fixture. Could also be Jittery Addict, closely related and more and more common) next to them about why he isn't shaven, hey mister you smell funny, and why do your hands shake like that. Sometimes Tired Mom totally ignores her brood, glad to have them in an enclosed moving space and therefore confined giving her a short respite from constant vigilance. Sometimes Tired Mom looks on in pride as they terrorize the other passengers. Sometimes Tired Mom yells at the Self Conversationalist for terrifying her offspring but usually Tired Mom just dozes in and out and thinks about everything she has to do once she gets home and wishes, how she wishes, that she had a damn car.

What I like to call Thug Lite is next in this line of characters. Thug Lite would be really really scary except, well lets face it, he has to ride a bus. That means he isn't old enough to drive yet (Thug Lite Junior) or isn't a good enough drug dealer or burglar to afford a car. In other words he is often caught because while many people think public transportation brings a bad element to their neighborhood, it is a bad element who face thirty stops and starts on their omnibus getaway. Thug Lite is also often holding up their britches so they don't fall off in front of people they are trying to frighten. Seriously? How scary is someone who can't run without their pants sliding down and the whole world seeing their Mickey Mouse drawers? Thug Lite tend to travel in small herds and take up the back seat because even on mass transport the wanna be cool, bad kids sit in the back of the bus.

Thrill Seekers are an annoying fact for those of us that ride every day. Thrill Seekers ride a bus once, maybe twice in their life. They ride to say they have, they ride to give the kids a life lesson, they ride to prove that they are the same as Somnolent Drunk, Jittery Addict or Thug Lite, no better, no worse, all God's children after all. Thrill Seekers always look excited, sweaty palmed, red faced, benevolent shaky smiles as they clutch each other, sitting three to a bench seat and avoid eye contact with everyone except Tired Mom's kids. They ride a few stops and then hop off, relief coming off of them like a sickly sweet perfume as they hail a cab to finish their journey to wherever.

Freaking Liberal comes next. He boards jauntily after taking five minutes to hook his 2,000 dollar bike to the front of the bus. He is wearing all wrinkled cotton shorts and a defunct bands' t-shirt and shoes that are buy one, give a pair to some stranger in Africa. He has a reusable bottle of water which he clutches like a sword, waving it about as he gets into a discussion with the Talker about bicycles and the economy of road repair and the flat tax. Freaking Liberals all have facial hair, just enough to make Tired Mom want to yell at them to get a damn razor, were you raised by wolves? Freaking Liberals are doused with cologne from Abercrombie or Gap, mixing it with the sweat pouring off of them after biking through the city in the heat and the residual aroma of Starbucks. This effectively creates an envelope of odor that surrounds them, blocking out Somnolent Drunk or Thug Lite and their strange and quite uncomfortable scents compo;ed of malt liquor and cheap cigarettes  lack of soap or an abundance of cheap cologne and weed.

The Rider is another common figure. He is on when you get on and on when you get off. He is on day after day after day. He is quiet, looking out the window of nodding off, never seeming to notice anything going on inside the bus unless the Self Conservationist, Tired Mom and the Talker start going head to head. He hums on occasion, he smiles or makes faces at Tired Mom's children. He will on a rare occasion give up his well worn seat to an elderly man or woman and always to a pregnant woman, sliding quietly back into it when they depart. His description is that he is nondescript, white, brown, black or yellow he is always dressed innocuously and never interacts unless he has too. He could be a serial killer, a modern day hobo, an international spy or someone riding the bus for warmth and a few hours of protection. He is boring and intriguing at once.

Last but not least there are people like me, The Havetas. I haveta ride because I can't see well, I have friends that haveta ride because they have lost their license  they crashed their car or don't own one, sociology experiments, college students haveta ride to get to and from class because their taxi money went to beer and books. We get on, smile, wrinkle our nose at the smell, greet the Rider expecting and getting no acknowledgement, chuckle at Thug Lite, ask Tired Mom to move one of her kids and slide into our regular seat as we make our way back home.

Grace Is My Name

The house we bought has a pool… at least it will be a pool after we clean it up and have it repaired. That is our goal for March and April

I can already envision coming home and sliding into it at the end of a long frustrating day. I imagine cook-outs with grandchildren jumping and screaming and laughing out loud as they play like seals. I imagine moonlight swims with the man I love as the deer walk through the yard softly snuffling their greetings at us and the night birds sing. 

I love to swim, my husband loves to swim, the grandchildren love to swim, and their parents love to swim. It was inevitable that eventually, if I ever had the money and the time we would have a pool. I am planning on many, many glorious days spent sunning (yes I know it is bad for you and have the scars to prove it) with my SPF 1000 on, lazily floating around like bit of flotsam, dipping and diving and frolicking about. Heaven is a backyard pool.

As far back as I can remember the act of going to the swimming pool has been synonymous with good times. My sisters used to take us to the swimming pool in Fort Leavenworth. We had patches sewn on our swimsuits that said FLOOM which allowed us entry, a magical pass that let us into summer and youth whenever we wanted to go. The pool was huge; the water was deep and was always full of handsome young men showing off for the teenaged daughters of the commanding officers. I didn’t understand nor care about the clumsy rituals of pubescent mating. I just got to be by myself in a blue and white world with the sounds of laughter coming to me, distorted by the water as I swum about until I was starved and sun drunk.

When we lived in Belgium we would go the pool in Zaventem. It had both an outdoor and indoor pool. Most of the young people sat outside around the water, more flirting and sunning and diving. For this reason I always swam inside, alone, floating in the quiet, the echo of small children crying and mothers shushing and old women murmuring as they stood in the water not moving but enjoying the company just the same. There were always one or two old men, scrawny, chicken necked, serious, doing the breast stroke up and down and up and down the pool, taking up a center lane and wrecking any cross pool swimming I chose to try to do.

I learned how to do a perfect dive here, I learned to back dive here. I learned how to stand on my hands in the moving water and do somersaults front and back, strings of them over and over until I was dizzy and out of breath.  I certified for a life guard’s badge here, for the fun of it. I had no intention of ever actually being one. Too much drama, too much exposure to the crowds of people I was so uncomfortable with. 

The one time I was convinced to go with friends I didn’t know what to do. I listened to their prattle, followed them outside as they strutted their newly formed stuff and felt utterly uncomfortable and more alone than I ever had. I did my share of flirting, strutting and ogling, just not here, not at the water covered by next to nothing, not in my quiet wavy place. My body was perfect in the water, I was free and limber and graceful. Outside the water I was awkward, had huge heavy embarrassing breasts and couldn't see where I was going. No contest, I always went alone after that.

We lived in a condo complex when my children were babies. I would load up the playpen and cooler and floaties and towels and bottles and toys and, making two or three trips cart the whole kit and caboodle to the pool every day it wasn't raining. I put the brightest ugliest floaties on my kids so I would be able to see them and they wouldn't drown. I splished and splashed with them, teaching them to dog paddle, to not be afraid to jump in, to go under, to hold their breath. Remembering my concave gut after hours of swimming when I was a kid I always had apples and Kool-Aid and crackers which they would scarf down and head right back into the water. They were nut brown, strong, thin, and oh so social. 

They played with their friends by the hour. Other kids came and went but we stayed, all day, every day. On mornings when we woke up and it was raining we all were grumpy, nothing was better than those free hours together yet separate and happy. Sometimes cousins would come and I had a few minutes of peace while my brother threw them all up in the air and chased them through the water like a shark.,

One time I jumped in and saved a little boy from drowning. He was autistic, hated being touched and easily frightened. A neighbor had decided that taking him into the deep end was all he needed to see what fun it could be. Unfortunately, she had passed the point of no return, her feet no longer anywhere near the bottom when she let go of his legs and touched his face in a loving gesture. He screamed and started swinging at her. She was completely taken by surprise and they both were going under and quickly. I had been talking to a friend and we heard a strange noise, weird hollering that made no sense. We both realized at once what had happened and jumped in, me going for the kid and her for the poor drowning lady. As I scooped him up he thrashed and screamed, clawing at my face until he finally latched onto my hair, a safe hold with no skin to skin contact. His trunks fell off in the struggle and this terrified him even more. We had the attention of the entire pool community now. I finally got him to release me from his death grip, latched his little stiff arms onto the ladder and swam into the deep to get his trunks back for him. As we struggled in the water to get them on he wouldn’t look at me, his legs stiff as boards, realizing that I was helping I guess, but not being able to deal with the nearness. I heaved myself out and took the next thirty minutes convincing him to let go of the ladder and touch me so I could help him out. His mother finally appeared out of nowhere, yelled at me, yelled at him and took her cranky bib-butted self back home where, it turned out, she had stolen a half hour to be with her boyfriend who had a slight problem with her kid not being a perfect normal little boy.

Other than those few times the days of summer run together for me in a haze of Coppertone and Kool-Aid until a tornado took away my roof, my clothes and sadly my lazy hazy summer days.

I went years without a pool before finally buying a house in a neighborhood that had one. I loved it, my husband hated it because there were rules and regulations and he has an issue with them in general. The kids had little children and somehow all of those years of letting them be children didn’t transfer and they were terrified of letting the kids get near the water or out of their sight for a second. I reminded them of our good times but still they balked. 

Except for the few times I managed to go by myself and be sun glutted I did not enjoy it. I was back out in the open, exposed in my swimsuit, now with an awkward body and big heavy breasts and not being able to see anything. If others were there I avoided it. It was not all in all a pleasant experience. In a few years as the grandchildren got a bit older and their paranoid parents let them go a little bit some fun times were had but we were already on the hunt for a new place

.

In the end we found this house, surrounded by nothing with a pool of our own.  I look out at the board covered hole in the ground now and I can’t wait to be deep in the wavy blue and white world where grace is my name.

Loose In The Kitchen Again...

I have had a great weekend, surrounded by my kids and grand kids, sons-in-law and darling husband o' mine. The weather has been perfect, the laughs roll freely, the kids run and shout and play and fight and whisper and hug and have a wondrous cousin time together. I went on a cooking binge, which is good for all of us. I tried a bunch of new stuff but had one unmitigated total success. (Okay, more than one but I am not one to brag... seriously) My grand daughter told me she liked this dessert better than birthday cake. How could that absolutely not make a granny who bakes happier than a pig in....  stuff that is gross and slimy and might be unmentionable.

Anyway. With such rave reviews I thought I would share this one. This is really rich, almost brownie like so don't make it and have no one around to help lighten the calorie load.  I mixed up several recipes. This wasn't done on purpose, I had the recipe up on a computer in the other room and had to keep interrupting the kids and their games to check it. About halfway through I realized I had three recipes going. Sigh. The only thing I would do differently is maybe add a bit of baking powder to lighten it up. Oh, and maybe add a cup or so of chopped walnuts or pecans if the kids weren't here, too. What is it with kids and chunks? Other than that it is perfect.

1 cup (2 sticks)  butter or combination of margarine and butter
1 1/2 cup sugar (2 cups if you use tart apples)

Cream these two together

1 tsp vanilla extract
a good shake of cinnamon if desired (hay I am winging it here, I forget some things on occasion and I am terrible at measuring stuff too.)
3 eggs

Beat until blended. Don't over beat as this causes an emulsion between the eggs and butter.

2 heaping tablespoons Hershey's cocoa powder. I was cooking in a  perfect storm of kids, football, and walk by tasters so honestly I may have added a bit more. I am not sure so we will stick with two.
2 cups +-  of grated apples. 

I used red delicious. The original recipe had chunks of green apples and 2 cups of sugar but A). I had red delicious in abundance and B.) I was serving this to kids and chunks would have freaked them out and C). I like having the apple all through the cake and it was my kitchen so I could do what I wanted (insert stomping foot and protruding tongue here followed by nanny nanny boo boo).

1/2 cup water
1 tsp Baking soda
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Beat until well blended, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl 

roughly 3/4  cup chocolate chips. I used store brand semi sweet.

Mix well.

This goes in a well greased and floured Bundt pan at 325 for 60 to 70 minutes. I have a dark pan and a teeny electric oven, and it took 70.

It is super rich, freaking delicious and has fiber so you can sort of justify it. :) Enjoy!

Poetry of Public Transportation

My work week inspires me (insert maniacal laughter of civil servant after Holiday break) and I prove once again poesy in not my forte!

Seven tired people, riding on a van. Six of them are ladies, one of them a man. Ages vary widely as do race and creed. We are all brought together by our transportation need.

One has lost their license, one can’t see for shit. One has to share with wifey because his own car was hit. One’s afraid of traffic, one can’t drive at night, one is only interested in  the latest octagon ring fight

We doze, we nod, we snore and fart, we read, we chat all in our cart. There is anger, prattle, happy talk. Phone calls, messages, long necks like stalks.

Coffee, soda, water too, tea and red bull and orange juice splash, most are wearing breakfasts masks. Eggs and biscuits, beans and grits, butter, jelly, chicken bits, poptarts, croissants, strudel too, all the frozen stuff they make for you.

We sigh we heave we move our butts…. Work again work again -- oh shut up

Romanticizing...

My house is old. It is not Victorian old, or 1920’s old, which may have lent it some class, it is just old. Built in 1978 it clings valiantly to a steep hill, facing upwards as if looking where it had been and hanging on by sheer will power.

I love so much about it. It is surrounded by tall trees. Oaks, poplars and maples surround the property creating a cozy green hued nest. Flowering bushes have been strategically placed over the years to try to create some kind of permanent screen between me and the closest neighbors under the canopy. In the spring a riot of fuchsia and violet ring the back while white dogwoods and stunning pink Japanese magnolia blossoms adorn the front. In the summer hundreds of lilies and iris and Asiatics flower along the borders inviting hummingbirds and butterflies to stop and stay awhile. 

The ivy and honeysuckle wage war against my trees and I fight them every year. Ripping out their tenacious vines, pulling them off of my trees and away from my house, cursing them at the same time I breathe deeply of their scents and marvel at their beauty.  The fall is heady with roses and gardenias, the Indian summer days of a Georgian autumn making their aromas heavy and permeating. Birds and squirrels fight for the best nesting spots, both of them crowded in due to the disappearing forest in this now busy corridor. I have an overabundance of both, the racket they make is ridiculous sometimes, the squirrels pelting my house with acorns and the birds singing on the porch rails.

The house has huge windows in every room, a lovely fireplace and is cozy and welcoming…to a point…

My kitchen is hideous, smaller than the walk in closet of most new houses being built. Counter top and cabinets seem to have been forgotten entirely during the design and construction and just tossed into a dark corner as an afterthought. When I first moved in it had the original green and gold linoleum and blue and gold wallpaper. I shudder at the thought. When I move an appliance now and see the linoleum I stifle a scream at the reminder of what it once was.

The bathrooms are ridiculously small and all three bedrooms are the same size. The closets are tiny, 2x6, and had lost their doors long before I claimed them as my own. The living and dining room combo (how easily being here allows me to slip into the 70’s vernacular!) does not have a single wall without doors or windows or fireplace and so arranging furniture is always will it fit, not will it look nice.

All of these things worked for me for years because it was close enough to walk to stores and banks and bus stops. My children walked to school which allowed them to participate in activities that this car-less mother could never say yes to before moving here. They hated the walk, hated the schools, hated the neighborhoods because they were contrary children who did not realize that while far from perfect this house allowed us to live a much more normal life. As they grew up and out and made their own way the house did not become too big and empty, it became Mom’s House. I babysat when I could, I entertained in my beautiful backyard, I joined a gym I could walk to and visited the newly built library and settled into a lovely existence. I laughed when I heard the term empty-nester, wondering what in the world did we do all of this for if it isn't to see the children fly away?  

T(hanksgiving) Minus 2, 2012

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving dawns cloudy and dim. The leaves take forever to drift from the top of the trees, landing with a ridiculously soft thud on the leaf-brother covered ground. Sometimes they don't even make it, being caught half ways down by a log jam on a forked branch and making drifts of fall colors form a canopy lower than the natural arc of limb against sky. The birds are somnolent, no rustling, no joyous song of rebirth on this new day, just an occasional muted peep from some low slung russet and golden leaf shrouded bush.

My house is quiet as a tomb and almost as dark. Broad porches block the first and last sun of the day, which is fine when it is so bright ones eyes pour water like Niagara Falls, not so good on a dark and somber November morn when one is trying to track down their motivation.

Where the hell did I leave it? It took me so long to develop it in the first place. Having grown up in a family of tradition I was happy to just ride along and eat my mom's turkey and cornbread stuffing. We would arrive 'en masse' around noon or one, Pyrex casserole dishes in hand, dressed nicely though not formally. The cousins would collide and explode out of the house into the yard with footballs and pets and bicycles. Their meeting, their seeing each other was like a nuclear reaction, 4 kids sounding like 8 and moving about so that they seemed to be number much higher. Parents sighed in relief, watched them run for a minute and then nestled into the kitchen or living room, drink in hand and relaxed for the first time probably in weeks. For the next few hours the kids were entertained, we were surrounded by people we didn't have to prove a damn thing to and life was good and as it should be.

Conversation went from the kids to work, from funny books and movies to politics (people weren't so rabid then and rational discussions were still possible). From gossip (bless his/ her heart), to the food and back to the kids again.

Being a Holiday we often had brothers and sisters from out of state with their wives and husbands and children in tow. Random cousins of my parents and once or twice semi-strangers that had no place to go for the day. Everyone seemed to be welcome and sometimes the characters were a great source of entertainment, not just the year they were there but for years after. 'Remember when' was the favorite way to start conversation once we moved to the table and more than once we all fell out into laughter so deep our ribs hurt after.

My dad took it on it on himself that day to clear the table and do the dishes. He is a depression era baby and cannot leave anything on his plate or anyone else's for that matter. We would hoot and holler and tease him about being the human garbage disposal while he scowled and said it was just to be nice, to help my mother, which, regardless of the reasoning behind it, it did.

Swollen with food and warmed by wine or whiskey we would retire to the living room to watch a new movie with the kids or to play games, Trivial Pursuit being a favorite. The laughter continued, the love flowed and the night wore on into its deepest hour.

We would straggle out, kids filthy and exhausted, parents sated and sleepy and wend our way home, another year in the books. They were all perfect Thanksgivings.

My mother passed in 2004 and with her went those magical Holidays, the love and warmth and bonhomie we all cherished. I have tried and tried to re-create it but it is impossible. I don't know what magic she wielded that allowed us all to forget feuds and heartache and poverty and loneliness and envy and greed and fear and sadness that day.  I know I for one felt safe with her, always, she was the one that took care of business, took care of me and slayed my bogey-men, at least in my mind, but what was she to the others? Why can't we retrieve that special feeling she seemed to endow without meaning too. without any effort apparently at all?

I love my family to death, all of them even when I want to slap the bejeezes out of them. That may not be a politically correct expression of love but it is a true one. I want them to surround me, to let go and relax and forget all of the petty things that haunt us everyday. To let me help them carry the burdens of love and hate and fear and sadness at least for that short while so they can know again the feeling that comes only from family loving family, together.

Just thinking about those days restores me, sitting at the right hand of my mother on that day for years and years and years while she smiled and laughed and blushed and basked in the lives she had created and maintained and nurtured to adulthood out of sheer force of will. I am ready to roll up my sleeves, to bake, to roast and broil and boil and frost. I am ready to wipe down walls and sweep walkways and get out the kids movies and games for the adults, to uncork a bottle and toast the good Lord for all the bounty in my life. I will do so for myself, for my children and for anyone else that wants to grace my table.

My blast from the (hardly) past! "Thanksgiving" My favorite Holiday!

Seed Pearls, Swine's Ears: Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving is one holiday that is uniquely American. It is so ingrained in our culture that, even though the story of pilgrims and Indians...