Joe Paints his Rooster Red

 My husband Joe has had some high points in this life:  When he was described by the local paper as "adroit" for showing some dexterity during a Central High basketball game in Binghamton, NY.  When he completed his PHD at The University of Pittsburgh and his father cried.  When he married Mary and they became the proud parents of  Meghan and Bobby.  And when, after a loss so great he might not have ever had the courage or optimism to try again, he reconnected with me and we began a life together.

Things have been pretty good for Joe overall.  But nothing has been quite as good as when his fantasy football team won first place in a league of smart-ass whippersnappers that includes his son Bobby.  And with the win came the trophy, the Golden Cock, which, before it was spray-painted gold, graced one of the member's mother's kitchen when French Country was all the rage and ceramic chickens were everywhere.

When Bobby talked his father into joining the league a few years back, Joe wasn’t sure.  He didn’t want to get hung up on the details.  Plus he wasn’t all that into pro football.

But, because Bobby asked, Joe said yes, and before long he was all into it.  Joe works hard at things he’s interested in and he likes data and research, so he took on the Any Given Sunday (AGS) league with the same commitment to doing it right, just as he does with the New York Times Sunday crossword.

When I started seeing Joe, after living mostly man free for 23 years, he had to explain how it all works.  There's a "draft" some time in late summer and you pick players for your team.  This is done online, all at the same time, with members of your league. You pick your players from any of the NFL teams, taking turns, with last year's loser picking first.  Each league pretty much gets to decide how this part is done; however, according to Joe, in the AGS, Bobby makes all the decisions, based on what will serve him best.  

Your team players earn you points each week depending on how they do, even though they are, in reality, playing for their own teams and not yours and they don't know (or give a shit) if you win or lose. And they are not impressed by your Golden Cock.

One of the great things about fantasy football is that you get to make up the name of your team, and I would say that whatever you name your team says a whole lot about who you are.  For example, Joe's team name is Mojo Hand Cutters, which is some marriage of an old Grateful Dead song and a vague nod to those nasty cigars he smokes, and Bobby's team name is Lord Business, after a character in The Lego Movie.  

Another great thing is that they let girls (Joe's term) play.  

AGS has two "girls".  One is Heather, Bobby's wife and the other is Christine, who is married to Ryan, another member of the league and last year's winner.  Both Heather and Christine graduated from Georgia Tech, but they are still "girls" to Joe's way of thinking.  Now Heather and Christine, both being "girls" give their teams somewhat girly names.  Heather's, at one point, was Brady's Baby's Mama because of Tom Brady's lusciousness.  Christine, who birthed not one but two children during her years in the league, gave herself the moniker Baby's Breath. 

As I said before, Joe works hard where his interests lie and fantasy football is no exception.  So you can imagine his disappointment and consternation when Brady's Baby's Mama and Baby's Breath each won first place during a couple of seasons when he, himself, was languishing in both the bowels of despair and the standings.   Not only that.  Baby's Breath was known for "talking smack" to Joe when they met in public.

Then the worst thing happened.  Worse than having "girls" win.

Lord Business won.  Two years in a row.

At that point, Joe just wasn't sure he could take any more.  He was thinking about joining a knitting circle, a world where women know their place and sons don't try to outshine their fathers.

However, this year was different.  It was Joe's year.  He had an extra spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye as the season progressed.  One of the main reasons was that he'd included Odell Beckham in his line up in mid-season.  I've since learned (via what seems like hours of Joe droning on about it) that Mr. Beckham was, this past year, a rookie split-end who plays for the New York Giants, unwanted by anyone else in the AGS league, and Joe, being the generous soul that he is, decided to give him a chance.

Well, Beckham went crazy and had a great year, and by, osmosis, so did Joe, especially during the playoffs, when Odell offered up 36 points and  Mojo Hand Cutters beat Lord Business in an riveting final game.

The cock was Joe's! 

Getting the rooster from Ryan wasn't so easy.  Ryan kept "acting" like he was willing to give it up but appointments were cancelled and meeting places appeared clandestine.  Finally, he agreed to meet us at some backwoods BBQ joint in spitting distance of I-285 on a Sunday around noon.  We were worried that no one would ever see us or the cock again.

But justice prevailed and the foot-dragging chicken hoarder showed up with the rooster in a Whole Foods bag.  Although Ryan had a hard time letting go of his cock, we made the exchange and I lived to tell the story.

Joe and Ryan hand off the cock. 

You can tell by their attire that Joe was taking 

the exchange much more seriously than Ryan.

Joe firmly believes that the cock needs to be disguised and protected in some way as to keep it safe from theft or even annihilation by rabid league losers, especially that trash-talking Baby's Breath.  

Hence, the paint job.

Sunday Peas

 Mother love takes many forms.  One of the more common ones is cooking for the family.  Although it seems that, nowadays, as many dads as mothers serve as primary meal preparers, back when I was a child, that job, along with most others having to do with hearth and home, fell to the woman.  And that woman, at least in my neighborhood, proudly saw cooking as central to her identity and vocation.

Not so much my mother.

At Mama's funeral in 2003, my brother lovingly began his eulogy with “There wasn’t a can our mother wouldn’t open to feed her family.”

Mama was a modern woman, an Army lieutenant  who served as a physical therapist in Australia during WWII.  And, being a modern woman, Mama loved new technology, including those newfangled aluminum containers called cans.  If food could sit on a shelf for months or even years without going bad, it had to be good.

 Although Mama maintained that anyone who could read could cook, she was the living embodiment of that untruth. She was a smart and interesting woman but her genius didn't run to the culinary arts. 

Mama just wasn’t interested in cooking.  She was interested in fishing and crabbing and painting, and sewing and knitting and refinishing furniture, and whatever else took her fancy, like learning to play (badly) the small organ she set up in the breakfast room.  This alternative use of a space designed for enjoying meals  provides insight as to the place food held in her psyche.  Mama was one of those “eat to live” as opposed to “live to eat” people.

My mother was also an outsider.  After all, she wasn’t from Georgia.  She was from Arizona of all places.  Folks knew she wasn't a yankee but they couldn’t quite figure out what she was.  Because of her legacy, Mama wasn’t a southern cook.  She didn’t know about fatback or collards and she wasn’t going to waste any time finding out. She did blame Daddy for not telling her that grits should be salted during cooking to make them anywhere near palatable, but she couldn't blame him for her Sunday Peas.

Every Sunday, if I remember correctly, we gathered around our big oak table in the dining room, eating either oven fried chicken coated with Bisquick or chuck roast in aluminum foil.  And with those enticing entrees, we typically had Sunday Peas, which consisted of LeSueur peas heated up with a pat of margarine.

Other days of the week, we had supper in the kitchen at our red formica table, enjoying Salisbury Steak, which was, in our reality, one giant hamburger patty. Mama gave us each a wedge after she sliced it in the frying pan. We also had Chop Suey, which was made with pork chop pieces and canned bean sprouts.  We, of course, also enjoyed that 1950s staple, canned peaches, pears, or fruit cocktail with the requisite dollop of mayonnaise topped with a scattering of grated American cheese.

I remember that our mother always made my brother and me a Boston Cream Pie for our birthdays.  From a Betty Crocker mix.  We called it Boston Cream Pie Cake because it actually was a cake, and we loved it, especially that instant pudding part in the middle.   Mama’s sour cream pound cake, never much of a hit but something she continued to bake throughout her life, should have been called a three-pound cake.

A childhood friend recently reminded me of the time Mama baked  marbles in the oven.  This was a project for our Brownie troop.  The baking of the marbles caused them to crack in an attractive way and we Brownies were then to glue the marbles to fittings in order to make bracelets.  I can't imagine how she found that idea without Pinterest. 

Recalling Mama's bad cooking reminds me of what a wonderful mother she was.   She was kind and creative and loving and brave, and she was a great role model for a little girl (and a grown women).

I think about my mother when I sew or paint or write or think about taking piano lessons, grateful that I had her as a role model.  

Not so gratefully, I also think about her when I cook.

~~~

In case any of you would like my mother's recipe for Sunday Peas, please see below.

Sunday Peas

1 can LeSueur peas

pat of margarine

open can

pour peas in pan

turn on the burner

add margarine

serves 4

You might want to add a dash of salt, although Mama never did.

Road Warriors

  

View from the backseat.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy.  Sixteen hundred miles, a rehearsal dinner, and a wedding, all in three days.  Traveling in a rented minivan with two children, one six and one three.  Three drivers, one half-blindish.

But it was totally worth it.  We drove, we laughed, we argued, we cried, we danced, we celebrated, we remembered.  We sunned and swam and made sand castles.  We were late. Once we were somehow early.  We lost things and found them. We sang in the car.  We ate and drank and loved each other in spite of ourselves.

The wedding was beautiful as was the bride, my recently-lost brother’s youngest. Also beautiful was the officiant, his oldest, already vigorously pedigreed, just ordained online.  And, of course, their mother, who is always gorgeous and impeccable.

 I couldn’t help but wonder if the bride's choice not to walk down the aisle was an homage to her father, who would have given anything to be there. 

Now that the miles and the "Are we in Delaware yet?"s are behind us and the expenses are safely ensconsed on my credit card for future consideration, I'm so glad my daughter and her family and I were able to attend my niece's wedding in Bethany Beach, Delaware, especially now that my brother, who was the tether that attached me to this part of my family, is gone.  My nieces and I share DNA and they and their mother and I have memories in common, all of them involving a man we loved so deeply.  

We made some new memories this past weekend, and, as always, my brother was right there. 

 The Bride, the Groom, her Mother, and Sister

My Daughter and Me

Georgia and Miles letting off steam during a break.

Sugar Substitute

Several years ago, my daughter, Molly, and I lost our beloved dog, Sugar, to a wild dash from the side door that lead to a hit-and-run death.  In trying to get over the loss of Sugar, Molly adopted a very nice cat she named Brody, the name an homage to the actor Adrien Brody because of the cat’s rather long nose.  At some point, we cutely called Brody our Sugar substitute.

Fast forward to now.  Somehow, I woke up last Saturday morning with a brand new cat, whom I finally named Roxie because of, well I don’t really know why other than she likes to play cat hockey with errant rocks she finds on my window sill in the middle of the night.

My life was really simple.  Living alone, things stayed where I put them even if I couldn’t remember where that was.  I had the freedom, if not the money, to travel and stay a while.  Vacuuming could wait another six months or so.

And it wasn't that I was lonely.  I have children and grandchildren who love me and even like me most of the time, and friends who put up with me, and interests and pursuits and favorite TV shows.  All the things that make life worth living.

So why a new cat now?  Why the cost and the aggravation and the responsibility, not to mention cat hair everywhere and that catbox smell?  The only reason I can think of is that I’d recently lost my brother, Sandy, not to a quick death under the tires of a Toyota but to a long battle with cancer, a war the cancer won.

So, was it possible that Roxie could become a Sandy substitute?  At first glance, it was iffy.

Whereas Sandy was trim and well groomed, Roxie is fluffy and a bit disheveled. 

Sandy never ever walked over my computer keys while I was trying to type. 

Sandy was quiet and careful not to offend, whereas Roxie raucously meows her opinions about everything (mostly in the middle of the night).   

Roxie bites me; Sandy never did.  The worse thing Sandy ever did to me was to infiltrate my diary when I was fourteen to write in it that he needed a bra more than I did.  

 Sandy was independent, while I have to do EVERYTHING for Roxie.  I have to feed her and give her water and clean out her damned sandbox and lug up her 100 pound bag of litter while she tries to trip me.

But I guess somehow, in spite of all the trouble and probably for all the wrong reasons, I can feel this cat beginning to patch up that big hole in my heart.  She looks as happy as a cat can look when I come home, and she purrs when she feels like it, and I'm fairly certain her escapades will give me something new to write about.  And though there will never be a substitute for my only sibling, someone who knew me from when I was a tiny orange-haired baby and truly loved me in spite of myself, this new cat of mine makes me laugh and gives me someone to talk to in the morning and helps me forget that I am now a brotherless child.

I think Sandy would understand.

Wore Slap Out

wore slap out – a Southern colloquialism that describes, at least somewhat adequately, how grandmas feel when their precious progeny finally buckle up and head for home.

Don’t get me wrong; I love my grandkids.  It’s just that they are very, very busy and my home is very, very small.  

In an attempt to define grandkids' kind of busy, I’m going to try to quantify five-year-old Miles and three-year-old Georgia’s recent visit that ended, thank you God and Jesus, Thursday afternoon at 4:29 PM, despite daughter, Melissa’s worries that they might hit rush hour traffic. 

Number of:

• Grammy's knick-knacks rearranged by Georgia:  472
• knick-knacks moved by adults to get them out of Georgia's sight line:  327
• crumbs on the floor: infinity
• times Georgia hit Miles: 73
• times Miles hit back: 6
• times Georgia told on Miles for hitting her: 6
• bath salts poured into bath: all
• Grammy’s bran muffins eaten by grandkids:  just 1 as the rest were hidden
•  cups of milk poured: hundreds
• pictures colored by Miles for Grammy: 3
• times Georgia lost her bear, Beary Manilow : 326 
• Nick Jr. shows ordered On Demand: 8 (well worth the cost no matter what it was)
• parks visited: 2
• swing pushes: infinity
• times I went down a slide: 4 
• times kids were told to stay with us: 500
  times they listened: 0
• times we mistakenly thought we could go to a restaurant as long as we dined al fresco: too many
• escalator rides to nowhere: 2
• Pumpkin Patches we visited: 2
• times Georgia dropped her pumpkin: 15
• times we got lost going to and returning from the zoo: 5
• animals we saw at the zoo: 35 (1000 counting the naked mole rats)
• times we had to pick up a kid so he/she could see: 72
• animals we got to feed:  just 1 but it was a GIRAFFE!!!!
• things climbed on in spite of our admonitions not to do so: 85
• animals brushed at the petting zoo: I don't know.  I was sitting on a bench at that point.
• times we rode the train despite telling the kids we were all out of money: 1
• times Georgia and I rode the Merry-Go-Round despite telling the kids we were all out of money: 1
• times Miles climbed the very tall climbing wall: 2
• minutes Miles waited patiently to climb the climbing wall: at least 30
• times we lost the children: only 1.  We were sitting and resting while they played on the playground at the zoo, patting ourselves on the back about how careful we are with them at all times.  While we were talking and resting and watching so carefully,  they somehow managed to see the little kid door into the naked mole rats building, which they visited unchaperoned until they gleefully exited via the tunnel at the other end of the building while we were dutifully watching the playground where we were sure they were. 

To tell the truth, the visit was a great one and the kids were pretty good, considering their ages and my small Atlanta home. I would have liked for them to stay longer, but when they finally, thank you God and Jesus, left, I was wore slap out.
 

Number of lies I just told about wanting them to stay longer: 1

Number of sweet memories of the trip: infinity

 

 

 

Birthday Girl

 Dear Molly,

If I were with you this morning, I’d make blueberry muffins from a mix and I’d put a birthday candle in yours, worrying as always that the melting candle just might be carcinogenic, one of many reasons why there wouldn’t be twenty-eight of them. 

People told me a late-in-life child would keep me young.  I’m not sure if that was true for me with you, but you have certainly kept me going, sometimes from worry, sometimes from necessity, often from your sheer Mollyness, your quirkiness, your dark and dorky humor, your carnsarned cussedness.

Through your more than a modicum of spills and struggles, you’ve managed to come to an understanding of yourself and others that I think is unusual for someone as young as you.  Although you don’t always trust enough to share this quiet discernment, at just the right moment, under the right circumstances, you offer up something so deep and insightful it leaves me slack jawed in wonderment.

People love you because you’ve been there, because you ask so little and offer so much: a sturdy shoulder, a big heart, a from-the-gut laugh, and a thoughtful answer to afraid-to-ask questions.   Your sense of irony comes from your sincere belief that, if it fell apart, it was because you didn't screw it on tight enough.  And, while that may not be all that healthy for you, it sure makes the rest of us relax a bit.  There’s such a comfort in world-worn you.

You worry that, at twenty-eight, you should be further ensconced in your adult life, more firmly rooted in knowing where you’re going and when.  I’m afraid I feel the same way at sixty-two, so I won’t be much help in figuring that out.  I do believe there’s a road map for your journey and an itinerary, both of which will come into your sight-line as you travel your life.  What a surprise that your heart’s own true love turned out to be with kids in high school, the very place that almost did you in.  Talk about courage, and perhaps a perverse form of payback.

You, my youngest child, share with me a love of reading.  In fact, you’re so pitiful and geeky that you profess the home-made Harry Potter coasters to be the best present you’ve ever received, and I’m pitiful and geeky enough to believe you.  We also now share a profession and a desire to pass on what little knowledge we have to anyone who will sit long enough to listen (and especially to those who won’t).  I’ll never forget that your first full-time teaching job came to you at the same moment I was leaving my final one.

The baton has been passed and the circle is unbroken.

Love always,

Mama

PS:  Some photos of times you may or may not remember

 And we didn't realize you needed glasses?

 Easter at Houston Lake

 Remember the naked years?

 The first of the "Maw" cruises

With your big brother

 With your big sister.

Reading most likely

 This must have been the Melissa and Billy booze cruise 

before they found the free liquor behind the closed bar.

The Cast Iron Skillet and some Thoughts about Family

I come from a long line of bad cooks.  My mama preferred fishing or shrimping or knitting or painting or playing that god-awful little organ of hers to cooking.  Me, I’d rather be reading or writing or watching House Hunters International than doing anything in the kitchen.  But Mama was a good mama, a post WWII mama, who believed the key to a happy family was dinner on the table, eating all together, and that’s why she gave me the cast iron skillet for a wedding present.

I liked that skillet for several reasons.  One, it was from my mother whom I loved dearly and respected more than just about anyone.  Two, it felt historical, knowing that people had used iron skillets for eons.  Three, it didn’t have to be cleaned all that well.  In fact, it wasn’t supposed to be cleaned at all.  For someone who enjoys cleaning even less than cooking, there it was gaving me personal permission not to clean it.

That’s because iron skillets need to be seasoned.  True to form, Mama gave me more detailed instruction on seasoning the skillet than she did on cooking with it.  Seasoning involved lathering it with lard or, in Mama’s modern case, Crisco from the can, and then putting it in the oven for a while.  When it came out, you were supposed to cool it down, wipe it out, put it in the cabinet, and never wash it again.  Just wipe it out.

I used that skillet most days for the twenty years of my married life.   However, when I divorced, and in spite of my still needing to feed my kids, I left that skillet along with the house Gary (aka The Big Kat) and I had built in our younger and more optimistic days.

Twenty-one years later, my oldest child, Melissa, moved back to Georgia with her husband, Trevor. In less than two months' time, Kat had had enough of three generations living together and decided to purchase a new home, one close by but far enough away.

Trevor is a cook, a good cook, one who likes the old ways.  And while all my kids inherited my lack of culinary skills, and my grandkids, Miles and Cami, inherited my left handedness, my last grandchild, Georgia, inherited her father’s interest in cooking.  So these days, my son-in-law and my granddaughter stand in the same kitchen where I stood so many years back, sautéing in the cast-iron skillet my mother gave me over forty years ago.

That’s family for you, inheriting some things you hope for and expect, and others you couldn't even begin to imagine.

Grammys Can’t Cry Over Spilt (Poured) Milk

 TV:  The perfect Grammy!

I was excited they were going to stay with me. Their mama, my daughter, was having a birthday and she and her husband hadn’t had an evening off in quite a while. Miles is four and Georgia is two and they are my grandkids and I love them. They can be a handful, but hey, I have three degrees in Early Childhood Education, so what could be the problem?  Plus, it was just for 24 hours. How hard could it be?

We had a nice birthday party for Melissa, cupcakes with sprinkles. So, a few sprinkles landed on the floor. I’m not that clean anyway, plus I was also going to keep Lou, the bulldog, and he was already on KP duty, snorting up the tiny candies with his inverted nose and then sneezing. I did notice that Melissa and Trevor, the celebrating parents, seemed to be a little too eager to leave and they left no forwarding address, only a vague reference as to where they might or might not be if I needed them.

For the first hour or so, everything appeared to be going fine. Miles is just a tad addicted to TV and his mom and dad try to limit his time in front of the screen, but, since Georgia was so busy with so many things, I decided it would be okay for him to have a Disney marathon for a couple of minutes (hours) to comfort him while his parents were away. Georgia and I cooked and read and drew pictures and put her bear, Beary Manilow, to bed several (a ridiculous number of) times, while Miles watched what I was certain (assuming) was educational viewing. At some point, Georgia’s science experiment having to do with pouring her milk from one cup to another got a little out of hand when I saw her conducting it all over my living room floor, but I took care of that by taking it away from her.

The day was chilly and windy, so I thought we would just snuggle at home and have a quiet afternoon watching the Disney marathon and reading several (about 10,000) books. At some point around 23.13 minutes after their parents had left, Georgia was in my lap helping me type on my computer when Miles emerged from his educational (stupefying) reverie with, “Grammy, the TV won’t work.” I put Georgia down and went to the television and saw that, indeed, the screen was black. As an electronics genius, I went into my normal fix-it mode by turning the set off and then back on, sure that all would be well.

It wasn’t. The screen was still black. I checked to make sure everything was plugged in. It was. My next (and last) step was to look at the cable box. I noticed that its little light wasn’t shining, so I turned it over to see if there was a power button. There wasn't. However, what there was was milk pouring out of the slats on the top the cable box.

I'd like to say it got better.  It didn't.  I decided that, without TV and even though it was really, really cold, we might as well go to the park, which would also give Lou the chance to do his business.  

Lou did his business all right, scratching up sweetly-budded blooms just outside my door in the newly planted garden paid for and overseen by our condo association.  Good neighbor that I am, I had my Publix bag with me, along with my keys and my phone and Miles and Georgia and don't forget good old pooping Lou himself.  Because I didn't want to walk them all around to the back of my building to throw the bag of poop away, I decided to take it with me to the park, confident I would find a trash can along the way.

I didn't.  I ended up carrying that bag of poop with me every step of the way to the park, at the park, and home from the park.  "Swing me, Grammy!" Georgia would say and I would swing her, bag of poop in my hand.  "Help me with this, Grammy" Miles would say, and I would help him, bag of poop in my hand. Lou would chase another dog through the park, his leash dragging in the mud.  I would chase him, bag of poop in my hand.

We finally made it back home, cold but maybe a bit tired, Publix bag happily ensconced in one of the trash bins out back.  Being the good Grammy, I made them supper. Miles ate about seven croissants and two boxes of raisins; Georgia ate a leftover bag of bar-be-cued potato chips.  I got them bathed and ready for night-night (thank God), blowing up the blow-up mattress and placing it at the end of my bed, happy to know they would feel safe and loved, near, but not on top of, me.

It didn't work out that way.  Georgia ended up in bed with me, sleeping sideways with her feet in my face.  Miles, at some point, rolled off the blow-up bed and slept on the floor.  Lou, however, enjoyed the squishiness of the air mattress, sleeping in the middle of it all night, his toenails tearing at the plastic casing, snoring loudly enough for my downstairs neighbor to hear him.

The next morning was better as we ate blueberry muffins and two more boxes of raisins and Miles found Nick Jr. on my computer and I brought 700 new books in from my car to read to Georgia.  That's until Miles pulled himself out of his reverie to say, "Grammy, the computer isn't working."

It wasn't.

 

Before and After

It’s Not Dust. It’s History!

No one has ever accused me of being a good housekeeper. Although I can’t stand an unmade bed and dirty dishes bug me to the point of keeping them hidden in the dishwasher (usually unrinsed), dust doesn’t bother me all that much, especially now that my eyesight is on the decline.

Add to that how averse I am to entertaining. I like people well enough, usually in one or two hour segments, either in a public location or in their own homes, places I can leave when I’ve had enough. Having visitors in my home just opens up all sorts of scenarios in which they are having so much fun because of my warm and vivacious personality, they don’t remember that I like to be in bed and snoring by around 7:30.

But then my daughter and her husband and their two kids and their bulldog moved back to Georgia and started visiting. The good news is that the kids (my grandchildren) and especially Lou, the bulldog, do a good job of waxing the floor, mostly with their behinds. But the bad news is that my daughter, Melissa, no great housekeeper herself, makes rude comments about the dust that settles on my tables and chairs and perhaps a couple of the dishes I just may have used to feed the kids.

In pondering this problem of what to do about my slovenly ways without actually having to do any manual labor, I suddenly realized that it’s not dust that’s covering everything in my home, it’s history!

I live in an historic building, one designed and built by famous Atlanta architect, Neel Reid, in 1917, thank God too late to be burned by Sherman, and Margaret Mitchell lived here until her death in 1949. More recently, Vern Yip of Trading Spaces and HGTV fame and some of the cast of Drop Dead Diva have also inhabited areas of my building. I know about Vern from a friend who attended a party he hosted in the 90’s, and the DDD people evoked my ire by letting friends park in my space one Saturday afternoon in the midst of the Atlanta Jazz Festival.

I bet if I could have DNA testing done on some of the stuff that decorates the top of my teapot or the bottom of my bed, there'd be
an atom or two of the  original manuscript of Gone with the Wind, which was supposedly burned in our boiler in the basement, or maybe a whisker bit of Clark Gable's mustache.

And although Vern and the DDDs apparently had no qualms about Swiffering history away in order to open their homes to others, I’m made of better stuff (some of which is sloughing off as I type). If these walls could talk, they would tell me about the people who inhabited the rooms where I now live; a glimpse into their lives, their voices, the smell of dinner on their tables. 

But I’ve got none of that. I have only the dust.

I mean the history.

Waiting for Dinner

I’m glad my daughter, Melissa, married her husband, Trevor, for quite a few reasons. First and foremost, he's taken her off my hands and generally puts up with her. Second and secondmost, he’s a great father to Miles and Georgia, who, by the way, look alarmingly like him.

But another important reason I’m happy to have Trevor as a son-in-law is that, of everyone in our immediate family, he is the only one, and I do mean only one, who can cook.

The Big Kat, my ex and the father of my children, has vegetable soup as his signature dish. Said soup is made by pouring canned vegetables in a pot with one chicken bouillon cube and boiling it.

Although my son, Billy, purports to excel in All Things Poultry (i.e. an egg or a boneless breast of chicken) using the melting-butter-and-then-putting-the-poultry-item-in-a-pan-and-covering-it method, the only recipe of his I’ve personally experienced is his Flaming Fart Dip. No need to say any more about that.

Molly, my youngest, is a master at Hamburger Helper and frozen dinners. However, during a recent foray into better eating, she called to ask about fresh vegetables. When I inquired as to if she knew how to peel a carrot, she said in a somewhat sad and tremulous, not to mention a tad accusatory, voice that she didn’t know how to peel anything.

Melissa, who doesn’t cook much at all since she snagged Trevor with her womanly charms, still likes to call my Coca Cola ham recipe her own, although she has to phone me on the Wednesday before every Thanksgiving, asking me what the ingredients are. Since there are only four: ham, brown sugar, honey mustard, and yes, a can of Coca Cola, I’m able to help her no matter where I am or what I’m doing. The only problem with my rendition of Coca Cola ham is that its ultimate level of success depends on how long I sleep the night before, as it is meant to be cooked all night. If I undersleep, it’s underdone. If I oversleep, well, you get it.

So, we are left to Trevor and he with us.

Trevor is a very good cook, a gourmet cook.  He loves good food, fine wines, and craft beers (whatever they are).  He actually flips his dough while making the best pizzas in the world. The bad news for Trevor is that we, his adopted family, are, at best, an inadequate group of appreciators.   Remember, we are the Hamburger Helper, Flaming Fart people.

However, a dearth of understanding of the culinary arts and a lack of palate don't stop us from sitting around and waiting for dinner to come to us.  In the summer, we gather in the back yard, eyeing the grill.  In the winter, we decorate the couch, sniffing the air for food-like aromas. At Christmas, we sit under the tree like a biggie-sized nativity scene, looking like we are expecting our entree to arrive with Baby Jesus.

Waiting for dinner, that's what we do.  That's all we contribute.  And, overall, we are pretty good at waiting.  In fact, it seems we will wait forever.

And that's because Trevor, being the artiste he is, can't be hurried.  Dinner, for him, is a journey, not a destination.  Off to Salmon Dan's house across the street for fish so fresh it's straight from Dan's beer cooler still in the back of Dan's boat sitting in Dan's driveway.  Then down the block to Sharon's coop for eggs so new the hens are still checking under their feathered asses. Finally, he comes through the front door as our mouths begin their serious optimistic waterings, but no, out the back door he goes to the garden for salad greens, reds, and yellows.

Back in the kitchen, he opens a bottle of wine, letting it breathe, and then mixes up an exquisite dressing for the salad.  We, on the other hand, share the couch and a mint from the bottom of my purse.

When dinner finally arrives, it's to die for and we are spent, all of our work done.

Trevor thinks one day he'd like to open a small restaurant, a breakfast or lunch place, farm to table, only the freshest ingredients.

But, in case his patrons get tired of waiting for fresh, good, and real food, or if they run out of bottom-of-the-bag mints, maybe he'll want to offer Billy's dip as an appetizer to keep them entertained while they wait.

Shut Up, Katie!

A few evenings ago, I attended a cookout hosted by a good friend. As we were finishing our meal, my friend's two darling daughters were amiably chatting with us all when Katie suddenly made fun of something Emily had said. Emily, who is three years younger than Katie, then retorted with a heated, vehement, and seemingly long-withheld “Shut up, Katie!!”

Now, this type of thing isn’t that uncommon. Siblings do bicker and bash at each other as they traverse the family terrain, trying to find a place for themselves. What makes this incidence a bit more unusual (and a lot funnier) is that Katie is 34 and a married mother of one, and Emily is 31 and in graduate school.

I wasn’t surprised though, as similar flare-ups happen any time my family is together, and my own kids are 36, 34, and 26. Although I continually assure each of them that I love them best and remind them not to tell the others, they still act like, well, like children, when we are all together. They tell me they are fine with neither their father nor I in the room, so it’s obviously the parents and not the kids who are the problem.

I remember my mother telling me that the optimal age difference in siblings is three years. That's probably because that's the rate at which she birthed my brother and me. According to my mother's rule, Melissa and Billy, my first two, were born too close together and poor Molly was so far behind, some people forget that there ever was a third Talbert kid.

There's been all sorts of research on siblings and birth order, but I have my own theory. I believe if everyone were first born, we would certainly accomplish a lot, but we'd also have an exponential increase in wars, along with a veritable pandemic of hostile buyouts and acquisitions. The problem with birthing only first borns might explain the issues the rest of the world has with China, situations solely caused by its one-child policy.

If the world were made up of only last borns, nothing would ever get done, other than an increased proliferation of stand-up comedy, minimalist art, and blogging. Last borns tend to be sidewinders who would perfect the notion of doing their own thing if it wasn't just too much trouble. I am a good example of a last born.

Middle children? These peacemakers just might save us all if they could possibly extricate themselves from the center of their own family's issues.

I guess it's a good thing that accidents happen to all families (except in China) and that we can't always predict which offspring will arrive when. As science gets closer and closer to allowing people to perfectly engineer the genetic make up of their children, I hope we remember this.

But then again, maybe it's the learning to deal with a sibling, or a cousin or perhaps a second-grade classmate, even if the little pain in the ass was created from carefully-selected egg and sperm donors, that prepares us all to have the skills, wherewithal, and stamina to survive in the adult world.

So, a "Shut up, Katie!!" from a 31-year-old little sister probably isn't such a bad thing after all.

Introduction to Looking for Junanto

 

 Mama in Arizona, Summer of 1941

Looking for Junanto is the story my mother’s life from December 7, 1941, the day Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, to February 12, 1946, the day she married my father. I’m going to tell it in parts, so as not to overwhelm you with too much to read at one time, or me with too much to think about and organize. Some of it will be in her words, from a taped interview I did with her on New Year's Day, 2000.   The rest will be my interpretation of what her life was like, based on family lore and photographs I’ve inherited. The title comes from the word Junanto, which was written on the back of several of the more interesting photographs. It's a word my mother never used in describing that time and it's a word for which Google was of no help.

Below is from Mama directly:

Well, Pearl Harbor happened. Like everybody, I was shocked to death. I was in Jerome (living at home with her parents in Arizona) and teaching school. We heard it early Sunday morning on the radio. I think I was sewing. And, of course, I had no idea of anything that I was going to do. I was anxious to do something, anything, besides live at home.  Going back to Jerome had probably been s stupid thing to do.

Some time in the early spring, they began talking about training people for different things, and one of them was Physical Therapy. You see, I was teaching physical education and the requirement to take the physical therapy program was that you had a degree in physical education or you were a degree nurse. I read about it first in my professional magazine, and so I think I wired, you didn't telephone then. I sent a telegram asking for further information. They told me I could go to a school in Michigan, Ann Arbor. It wasn't the University. It was a school that was run by Sister Kenny; she was a physical therapist who went from England to Australia, and then she came to the United States. She was the originator of physical therapy in the United States. She had a training program. Anyway, I considered going there, and about that time I heard about the Army program, which was free. And we were to be paid - a pittance - while we were in training. 

The first time that I applied, they told me that I couldn't see well enough, and with almost return mail, they sent me a wire and said that it didn't matter whether I could see or not. They told me to report to Washington, DC, a hospital there, almost immediately. Then the next telegram said that they were starting a school in Texas and for me to go to Texas, so I did. But I didn't go until about the middle of the summer. That's when I ended up in Texas at Fort Sam Houston. There were five of us; we were the first class.

So, it seems that my mother joined the Army and began a journey that took her to places I've certainly never been because she was living at home after college and was bored. That, in turn, led to the life she lived for the next five years and ultimately to her marriage to my father and the births of my brother and me.

What if my mother had loved living with her parents after college?  What if she'd done her training in Washington instead of Texas?  What if her eyesight had, in fact, been her undoing when it came to joining the Army?

Our very existence, it seems, is based so precariously on some things falling apart and other things coming together. 

And most likely, in many cases, boredom.

Marcia’s Marvelous Spring Break Adventure: Part 5 - What I'll remember

 

Kutzville Nancy and her home

Greetings from Wytheville, VA. I just had dinner at the Sagebrush Steakhouse and Saloon. I had the Sagebrush Salad.  

If you think you somehow happened upon my post from Monday again, you didn't.  I'm staying at the same motel and I ate at the same restaurant and I ordered exact same meal.

Someone pointed out earlier this week that I might not be the most spontaneous of people.  I can't imagine where she got that idea.  After all, on Monday, I stayed in Room 112.  Tonight I'm across the hall in Room 111 and everything is backwards!  Not that I noticed.

Anyway, since part of the purpose of my trip was to get out of my rut (and I think I've proved that), and to create memories, below are some of the things I'll remember:

• my brother looking healthy and happy and anticipating his future with his family and his retirement (which I'll believe when I see it) and spending time with my sister-in-law, Katherine, and my all-grown-up niece, Taylor,
• visiting with my friend, Nancy, and talking about writing and teaching and learning and being who we are no matter how crazy we may look to others and staying at the beautiful and oh-so-Nancy home she has created for herself,
• talking to Molly each day at noon as she was on her way to teach her English classes for her internship and hearing the excitement in her voice as she takes the plunge into what will most likely be her life,
• wishing my grandson, Miles, a happy 4th birthday and talking to his mother, my daughter, on the phone, and hearing that Mile's sister, Georgia (my granddaughter), had yogurt up her nose and that Miles' birthday is being held at a bowling alley, and being happy I'm too old to raise kids;
• participating in a virtual high five with my son, Billy, as he broke the news of his raise at work and shared a picture of his daughter (my granddaughter), Cami, eating sushi with real chopsticks,
• the freedom of a long drive and having the time to think and plan and look at this beautiful country of ours,
• and the realization that I can still find my way - even if I do need the help of a friend like Tom.

Tomorrow is the last day of my trip and it's a good thing because I'm almost out of my new spring extra large underwear.  

So bare with me.  Just one more report from the road.