The Yellow Chair

Seeing my yellow chair in my purple room made me think of this Van Gogh painting. Never mind that it was painted during one of his stays at an insane asylum.

My best friend, Allison, gave me a yellow chair for my 60th birthday. She found the chair in a thrift shop and painted it herself.

Allison has many gifts and interests, but crafting isn’t necessarily one of them. She’s really smart and funny. A great cook and a lover of games, she has exquisite taste when decorating her home, and she’s definitely the hostess with the mostest. However, unlike me, she doesn’t usually harbor the need to paint or glue or carve or stitch.

A couple of years ago, Allison talked me into taking a knitting class. I think she was excited about the opportunity to expand her social network as, many weeks, our Friday night early bird dinners are the only activities penciled in on our after-work and week-end agendas, or at least that’s true for me. Since I’m not much of a joiner, she had to twist my arm.

It took just one lesson for the both of us (and probably everyone else in the class) to realize knitting wasn’t for Allison. I wasn’t great at it, but she was just pitiful, or, as our friend Linda said, Allison was a “shitty knitter”. She left a quagmire of knotted (not knitted) yarn all the way from the knit shop in the Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta to her home in Decatur and back again, since she did have the courage, or perhaps the insanity, to complete the course. And to top it all off, our class was made up of Georgia Tech undergraduates and twenty-something prissy girls wanting to learn to knit tea cozies, not the interesting elderfolk we were expecting. Once again, we were the oldest people in any given group, even in a group of knitters, for God’s sake. So much for your grandma’s knitting klatch.

So the yellow chair was a wonderful surprise, not only because I love how it looks next to my white dressing table in my purple bedroom, but also because my non-crafting oldest living friend forgot her mortifying yarn imbroglio to dip into (probably literally) a pint of bright yellow paint to create a one-of-a-kind gift that fits incongruously next to a white dressing table in a purple room belonging to a friend who doesn’t have exquisite taste when decorating her home.

My very own asylum
My pictures are hanging just as crookedly as Vincent's.

Allison and I go way back. We met when her family returned to Savannah in the mid 1960’s, and we immediately bonded by learning that we came from two of the very few liberal families in our entire neighborhood, perhaps in all of Chatham County. Later, we were room-mates at the University of Georgia and remained close through marriages, births, divorces, good and bad times. Allison became a Methodist Minister and later a clinical therapist while I climbed up and slid down the ladder of success in the field of Education. Allison preached at the funeral of each of my parents, and when, at the edge of a gorgeous northern Arizona creek, she was helping me open the box that held my mother’s ashes, the wind picked up and part of Mama became one with Allison, yet another example of God’s surprisingly irreverent sense of humor.

In some kind of cosmic coincidence, Allison and I moved to Atlanta at about the same time five years ago. She’d been living in Savannah and I was in Middle Georgia and we’d see each other several times a year at most. But when I took a job with the Georgia Department of Education about the same time she decided to move her practice to Atlanta in order to be closer to her grown daughters, we picked up pretty much where we’d left off in college. I bought a condo in Midtown and she purchased a small house with a big yard in Decatur and our Friday afternoon early bird dinner and weekly debriefing tradition began.

One of the benefits of being on up there in years is having the long view. We watch our childhood friends grow up and then grow old, and see that they are the same human beings, the same little children they always were, inside what are now somewhat wrinkled and irascible exteriors. One old friend still has the gamboling lope he employed as a little boy, another is the same verbally-dexterous smart ass she was when we met at eighteen. Allison remains good and generous and quirky and ready to take on a world that doesn’t always share her sometimes complicated views. I, of course, am still the same sweet girl I always was, the perennial optimist who continues to think my latest creative venture will garner me fame and fortune, and I’m not really all that wrinkled either.

On the Friday after my birthday, Allison and I each splurged to celebrate at a restaurant more upscale than most of our usual Friday haunts. As we were finishing our meal, we started reminiscing about our childhoods and about how long we had been friends, at which point I exclaimed loudly enough for even the dishwashers to hear, “I can’t believe we’ve been married for forty-seven years!” We, of course, snickered and yes, snorted, at my gaffe, but later, as I was driving home with my re-purposed yellow chair in the backseat if my car, it hit me that our relationship had pretty much been a lifelong association, a partnership that had lasted longer than either of our spousal affiliations. I'd had forty-seven years of knowing Allison would be there if I needed her, pretty much taking for granted that she would hear me out, stand by me, have my back, and care about my future.

In thinking about my friendship with Allison, I realized that it sounds better than many marriages I know. However, for me personally, I don't think it was until I reached the age when my kids were grown, when I stopped looking for some poor man to keep me from feeling invisible, that I even began to know what it means to have a good female friend.

And so, with my yellow chair casting rays of sunshine onto my otherwise purple life, I'm optimistic that Allison and I will remain good friends into our twilight years, even if life and grandchildren coax us to different places. No matter what happens, I'm pretty sure we will continue to check up on each other and wonder in tandem how we got this old so quickly and what on earth happened to all those years.

Cybil the Cyber Lady

Last week, something happened to my television stations. Any channel above twenty-five had that fuzzy thing going, just like what used to occur in the olden nights after The Star Spangled Banner. As I was forlornly pushing the up button on my remote control without any positive results, I seemed to remember a couple of voicemails from Comcast promising something like this would happen if I didn’t call them.

I hate talking on the phone.

I hate talking on the phone, but, apparently I hate missing out on which house the HGTV House Hunters people are going to pick even more, so I looked online to find a number to call. This was after I looked at the same online and found an email address and emailed the help people and got back a response I couldn’t even begin to understand.

I hate talking on the phone to almost everybody, but I really hate talking on the phone to conduct any kind of business. Here’s why. First of all, a recorded message has me pushing number combinations on my cell phone, so many that my display screen becomes filled with what looks like some kind of secret code. I’m so afraid I’m going to make a mistake with my sweaty fingers and bad memory, which will, in turn, cause me to have to start over, that I begin to hyperventilate and blaspheme all at the same time. Then, after I’ve put in all those numbers and sometimes the pound sign and sometimes not, I either get another recorded message asking for more numbers or I get a person who mumbles or talks too fast, someone making whatever the poor pitiful minimum wage is who doesn’t want to hear my problems with my channels, and who doesn’t really care that I don’t understand how all this digital stuff works.

But this time, this particular Comcast time, I was lucky enough to get a very nice, bubbly lady who seemed genuinely happy to talk to me. She didn’t mumble; she didn’t sound like she was reading from a script; she was certainly congenial. As I responded to her well-articulated questions, I made sure to enunciate my answers in a friendly way to make her life easier, to help this particular workday be a good one, because a lady this nice was sure to be heading home to a handsome husband, along with a couple of attractive and well-rounded children, for whom she would most likely need to remain energized and sunny, not beat down by irate phone customers. As you can tell, I really, really liked this woman.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it took me several questions and answers, more than a few minutes of affable repartee, to realize that this person I was talking to, this really nice upbeat person, wasn’t really a person at all. Leave it to Comcast to figure out a way to create a fake person who sounds so real she can make you believe she really cares about you, something actual humans have a hard time doing.

I named her Cybil, although, for all I know, her name was Mavis or Shirley, or, considering her perkiness, probably something like Kelly or Jennifer. She was so good at being human she would even say things like “hmmm” when she was pondering my response to a particular question and then “it sounds like you need a digital converter and I’ve got great news because we can send one at no cost to you.” She even knew my home address even though I hadn’t shared that information with her, which helped me continue to believe we were soul-mates and our relationship was meant to be. At the end of our conversation, I was so happy she had solved my problem so easily and cheaply that I actually thanked her and told her good-bye.

I wish this could be the end of my story, the happy ending we all desire with any story, but, alas, it is not. It took seven days for my converter to arrive by UPS, not the three to five days Cybil had promised, and, when I tried to set it up and have it activated, it didn’t work. At that point, I was without not only HGTV but also the boring channels like the ones with news and sports. I sat, bereft and feeling sorry for myself, in my old easy chair with my early bird dinner and absolutely no entertainment at all other than thinking of the obscenities I was going to hurl out my window along with my handy-dandy easy-to-activate digital converter.

After eating dinner and giving myself a good talking to, asking why I needed all those channels anyway and why I couldn’t live with basic cable like those minimalistic, granola eating, composting people I so admire and would like to emulate (if I have the time after watching the Top Chef Marathon), I steeled myself to call Comcast again. I have to say, this time, Cybil wasn’t nearly as friendly or helpful as she quickly transferred me to someone else, perhaps because of the shrieking I was doing into her fake ear. Over the next two hours, I talked to no fewer than eight real people who ran the gamut from disdainful to overly solicitous, some mumblers, some over-enunciators, all people who, I have to admit, were trying to help me get my channels back.

A low point was when one poor girl (real, not fake) had to tell me that there just might be a $49.00 charge for Comcast to come to my home to activate my converter. After I hung up on her, I sat and thought again (as I didn’t have anything else to do) and realized that I was going to have to do whatever was necessary to get the Food Network back on my TV. So, I called yet again and groveled a bit and got a perfectly nice real person (I think) who helped me set a time and a date for a real (I think) geeky electronics guy to come to my house and convert my converter, which he did today. By the way, he didn't charge me or at least I don’t think he did. I’m pretty confused at this point.

So now I have all my channels back; therefore, I must go.

The End. Happy Ending.

Kittens in the Morning (under a bush)

Last Friday, my work day began like this:

Dr. Mayo, guess what?
Good Morning, James. What?
This morning one of my cats had kittens.
You’re kidding! Which one?
Mocha.
James, that’s great! I know you’re so excited. Where were they born?
Under a bush out front of my building. And you know what else?
What?
We thought that Mocha and Pepper were brother and sister but it turns out they were husband and wife.

James is one of my second graders. He’s a scrappy kid who hasn’t had an easy life in all his eight years. He and his mama and his big brother are Katrina survivors who were relocated to Atlanta after enduring one of those shelter stays we all watched, in horror, on television. His mother works full time and also goes to school, trying to make a good life for her family of three.

Because my public school is in a well-to-do part of Atlanta and is a feeder school for some of the more elite private schools, most of my students come from families that can provide material items and experiences James and his family don’t have the means to attain or access. For children like James, attending my school means dragging around a big old double-edged sword along with their book bags. While they have the great opportunity to learn and play with kids who have many advantages, they are also constantly reminded of their inability to compete with, or even understand, ski-vacation and electronic-game-acquisition stories at recess and Show and Tell.

Still, James manages well. He’s quick and funny and plenty hard working when he isn’t busy being overwhelmed. He struggles with math and those pesky rules that accompany reading and writing, but he’s a master communicator and he has the biggest heart of any little kid I’ve ever known, a heart that gets broken whenever we more flawed humans fail to live up to his standards for how people should act. I’ve told his mother I think he’ll either end up a preacher or a comedian, probably a bit of both within whatever future that comes his way. I’ve told him he’ll need to hire a good accountant to take care of his first million.

And James loves his cats, a luxury his mama must have mixed feelings about as they live (and breed) in and around his apartment home. The days before the feline births were difficult for him. His mother had been out of town, flying on a buddy pass that worked beautifully to get her to but not from her destination. Her well-articulated weekend stay-over plans for James had to be extended, via frantic phone calls, into the middle of the next week, with him spending additional nights away from home while his mother waited, exhausted and worried, in various airports as she inched closer and closer to her home and children, in what had to be a universal, cross-cultural, every mother’s worst nightmare.

And then, just days after his mother finally returned home, the cats arrived, baby ones, and James’ entire Friday was spent on an up-note, an optimistic day of believing that good things can happen on any morning, a day with no worrying about the spelling lists or math facts that, at times, elude him, but instead a day of celebration and making plans for our class to vote on kitten names, even for kittens whose futures would be iffy at best.

And there was a lesson for me too. As I've just recently begun thinking seriously about retirement, I've had the tendency to bemoan the drudgery of full-time work, the hours spent at the beck and call of others, the documentation, the fatigue, the not necessarily following my bliss. And then, just as I was succumbing to the notion that I was biding my time, overworked and under-appreciated, until the economy or my pension smiled on me, in walked James, with his not so easy life and his few material possessions, but with new kittens.

At that point, I realized that a child can still surprise and delight me with a story and a belly laugh, and that life is what we live day by day, not something that comes from perfect 401k planning. With that, I understood that I, too, could find an unexpected gift on any given Friday, at a time when it's least expected, my version of kittens in the morning, although I might have to look under a bush, or in a little boy's face, to find it.

The Change

The change I’m talking about isn’t what happens to women in mid life, the flashes and flares of hormonal depletion. It's about is the change that’s cast upon all of us in every US state, except Hawaii, Arizona, and parts of Indiana, every spring. It’s the change known as Daylight Savings Time.

I know I can’t fight this institution, and I really don’t want to, because, once I get used to it, I kind of like it. Therefore, I’ve decided, instead, to make a proclamation having to do with the havoc inflicted by the change itself.

Here goes: I hereby proclaim the Monday after Spring Forward to Daylight Savings Time to be a National Day of Mourning for our Lost Hour.

I’m serious about this. What do you have to do to proclaim a proclamation? I get that the conversion is made on a Sunday morning to give us a few hours to acclimate ourselves and perhaps say a prayer before the work week begins, but it’s the next day, that terrible Monday, when the fatigue hits the fan. We all drag in to work and school, bummed out, done in, and *^!*off. And no wonder. Not only are we navigating in the dark, we’re also adapting to losing an entire hour we won’t see again for months and months and our bodies are in a state of temporal confusion.

By the way, just who made that first decision to fall back and spring forward? Can you imagine what people must have thought the first time this notion was offered up? "We’re gonna do what because of why? And just how do those smart alecks in Washington expect to make that happen?"

I have to say I became so caught up in the history of how this crazy thing started, I got sidetracked from my original purpose and forgot about my proposed commemoration for a while. But the good news is, based on my continuing commitment to doing whatever it takes to conduct extensive research on a topic, I googled “history of daylight savings time” and found the answer. The decision was made by Congress to add an hour of afternoon daylight in the spring of 1918 in order to save electric power during World War I and because other countries were already doing it all over Europe. I also learned that the number of days spent in Daylight Savings Time was extended by The Energy Policy Act of 2005, and a state can opt out via the state-law-passing process, which it looks like only Hawaii, Arizona, and parts of Indiana decided to do.

Furthermore, during my short-attention-span research frenzy, I also passed by Wickipedia, my other quality source for information, from which I discerned the origin of "smart aleck". It turns out the term was coined in the mid 1850's in reference to a nefarious trick that Alec Hoag, a famous pickpocket and, yes, pimp, used to purloin the purses of his otherwise-occupied "Johns". I refuse to look up the derivation of the term "John".

All of the above taken care of, we can now return to my very important proclamation and how we can make the best of that poor pitiful mournful Monday. We can’t make it a holiday because then the Tuesday after Spring Forward to Daylight Savings Time would have to be the National Day of Mourning. That’s because we humans will put off getting used to anything until we absolutely have no choice. So our day would have to be celebrated in spite of itself, sort of like Groundhog Day or April Fools' Day.

After much thought and even more Google research, I've come up with an anthem which could be played surreptitiously on work computers, IPods, or small desk radios during the day, or, for those of us who are teachers, sung by our school choruses. That song would, of course, have to be If I Could Turn Back Time by none other than Cher. Our motto would obviously have to be Tempus Fugit, which doesn't mean “time flies” as I'd thought, but "time flees”, which is even better. We could also wear clothing that fit us in the past but not now, or outfits that were in style when we were younger but not any more.

After work, we could meet up with friends for Two for One Happy Hours and then get a free hour of overnight parking so we could call a taxi to get our inebriated selves safely home in time for our massive two-Tylenols two-times-each-hour hangover. We could also get two-for-one deals for our hour sessions with therapists and masseuses, or call up old love interests and tell them we've thought about them every hour since the big breakup. (This last one would work best if we were to choose the Two for One Happy Hours celebratory approach as opposed to the therapy route.) Later, at home, we could play the Minute Waltz sixty times on our piano or harmonica and eat bowl after bowl of Minute Rice before falling into bed in what would still be pure daylight.

All this thinking about the origins of and issues pertaining to Daylight Savings Time has got me worrying about what I’m going to do when our clocks are set back in the fall, the burden of how to fill my extra hour. Should I exercise or meditate? Should I do charity work, something good for my fellow man or woman, or for the earth itself?

I'm pretty sure it will all be too much for me. It'll certainly overwhelm me and make me tired enough to need an hour of rest and reclining. Therefore, I hereby proclaim the Monday after Fall Back from Daylight Savings Time to be set aside as National Afternoon Nap Day. We could wear our pajamas to work and rest on or under our desks after a lunch of milk and cookies. I'll ask Google for some anthem ideas.

Hangin’ with my Homies

First of all, I need to say that I’m not entirely sure what hangin’ with my homies means, but it just feels right for my title here. If I’m translating correctly, I think it means something like “telling my mom I'm going to Shoney’s with my friends after Sunday night church,” in the jargon of my youth. If I’m wrong, I’ve undoubtedly offended several different groups of people I would never want to offend, and, for that, I apologize.

The other day, I attended the wedding of one of my teacher friends. It was gorgeous, a small affair in a romantic location about an hour north of Atlanta. Although it was colder than expected with a light mist, the weather made the old ruins, which were the setting for the ceremony, seem almost ethereal. I felt like I was in Scotland or Wales instead of north Georgia.

But this story isn’t about a beautiful wedding; it’s about how much fun I can have with people half my age. Two of my other young teacher friends were in attendance also, and because they aren’t old and cheap like me, they decided to get a room in one of the quaint cottages on the grounds so they could enjoy themselves and not have to worry about driving back to Atlanta afterwards. I finally elected to go up early so they could help me decide what to wear since the weather was much colder than I had expected when I bought my new spring dress from the Old Ladies’ Macy’s at North Dekalb Mall. When I arrived, Abby and Katie were having pre-wedding cocktails and, of course, I joined in since I’d brought my bottle of Windsor Canadian (the drink of choice for old ladies everywhere). We talked as they prettied themselves up. I was already pretty.

It’s interesting to note all the things girls have to beautify themselves these days: sprays, straighteners, gels, fat brushes, skinny brushes, pinks, purples, green, and ochre. The only Maybelline on the premises was demurely tucked away in my cosmetic bag. As my friends were spraying and straightening, the CD player one of them had brought was belting out a kind of sound formed from a crazy concoction of syncopated cacophony that made me want to ask, “You call this music?” but I didn’t because I was having too much fun.


As we three got prettier and prettier, one thing led to another, and before we could stop ourselves, we were sitting in the claw-footed tub, taking our own pictures, asking the question people all over the world ask when they are taking photos of themselves fully clothed in a bathtub, that question being, “Where’s my drink?”


Nuptial time was nearing so Katie and Abby began dolling themselves up in tiny dresses and ridiculously tall shoes. I ended up wearing an over-the-top ensemble, replete with a voluminous skirt, that would have made me a good candidate for mother of the bride had the bride not already had a perfectly-good, gorgeously-dressed mother. Still, my friends said that I looked beautiful and I believed them. We finished up by standing in front of the rock fireplace that was the centerpiece to their room, pretending to take prom pictures as we vamped while holding a potted plant. I seem to remember that the plant was in lieu of a wrist corsage.



As we hurried from the cottage, the new millennium version of a horse and carriage awaited to deliver us to the site of the wedding. Of course, it was I who ended up plopping my overly-dressed self into the back seat of the golf cart, the seat usually saved for the beer cooler, so I just pretended that we were in a parade and I was the final float, sort of like Santa Claus.

Erin was just about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen as she walked down the rose-strewn aisle. But she was still our Erin as she nervously answered “I do” before the question had even been asked. As soon as the ceremony was over, we ran back to our horseless carriage to escape the cold and to partake of yet another beverage, and then the bounteous buffet, in the reception hall.

Again, one thing led to another until the three of us, along with much of the wedding party, were on the floor doing that time-honored and universal reception dance which consists of a lot of unisex and multi-age flailing and shimmying and shaking of one’s booty. I hung in there until my feet, my back, and my courage gave out and it was time for me to remember just how old I am. I felt like Cinderella, only with really cute, nice, and much younger, stepsisters, as I left the party and got in my Corolla to head back home to my real life. So far, Prince Charming hasn’t arrived with the sensible shoe I just might have left behind.

Am I glad I went? Absolutely. It’s good, at my age, to get out of my early-bird-special comfort zone every once in a while and spend some quality time with my peeps. I’m just glad my young friends seem to like me in spite of my age, my often embarrassing wardrobe choices, and now my dance moves. What this experience has helped me to remember is, no matter how old we are, girls just like to have fun. And fun is what we had.

This One's for You, Billy

I couldn’t possibly be pregnant. I already had a perfectly good baby.

We were living in your grandfather’s house, sleeping in the guest room that shared a wall with Doc’s giant Magnavox TV, which he kept ratcheted up to about 1000 decibels because he was mostly deaf. On the other side of the other wall was Melissa’s crib, and outside our window was Henry, howling out his confusion and exasperation at being banned from the house. There was many a night I could be seen climbing out the window to throw something at the dog to hush him up without having to walk my nightgown-clad body past your grandfather in the den watching Johnnie Carson. Through it all, your father just continued to saw logs. To this day, I can’t for the life of me figure out how I could have possibly gotten pregnant, but pregnant I got.

Born on the thirteenth of March, exactly two years and ten days after Melissa, you were a sweet baby, cute though rather odd looking with your cone shaped head from being so big and perhaps stuck in the birth canal for a bit too long. You were also an easy baby. After just one night of sleeping in Melissa’s room (“Mama, the baby’s crying!”), we moved you into the living room of our tiny house, where you stayed until we finally enclosed the carport to accommodate Daddy’s office.

By the time we moved into the big house, you and Melissa were pretty much inseparable, going to Children’s Friend each weekday, playing outside in the afternoon and watching C.H.I.P.S. and Night Rider in the evening. I was your kindergarten teacher and it was during that time you buddied up with Chris (like a lawn) Moore and a couple more little scalawags with whom you remained friends throughout high school. I loved being your teacher and your mama at the same time. I thought you were just about the cleverest kindergartener ever to build a block tower and then knock it over.

I still remember the drawings you did as a little boy, airplanes with prodigious amounts of cloud-like smoke spewing from their innards, and little round cars, often with one flat tire, which I think had typically been shot out. I now look back and wonder if those gimpy automobiles offered a glimpse into your personality and view of life, as if you expected good things seldom to be perfect. That probably came from having Melissa as your big sister. Remember the time when you watched that scary movie and she materialized and startled you at the top of the stairs? You were so horrified that you refused to go upstairs by yourself for the longest time. Putting my picture in that locket and that locket around your grimy little neck was most likely my finest moment as a parent. No boogie people could have survived a gander at that face and you knew it.

Your earliest birthday parties were in tandem with Melissa’s, mainly because I was cheap and tired. I particularly remember those at Dry Lake Park and Burger King. However, your most memorable party, not counting those as a teenager I don’t even want to think about, had to have been the spend-the-night one when the partiers tried to turn over Dianne’s mini van just after dark and then flew the balsa wood airplanes in the front yard at four in the morning. Was that the same one where Molly sat naked on the dining table during the birthday-candle-blowing-out?

On the Molly topic, it was when Molly came along that your life changed and I began to catch a glimpse of the man (and father) you would become. After getting over your disappointment about not having a little brother, you and she developed a bond that remains to this day. Just as Melissa helped form you, you did the same for Molly.

Notice your hand here. You
are making sure Molly doesn't
fall off the porch.

Despite that good old Warner Robins tradition, you were never much interested in sports. You played Little League and were pretty good; however, soccer drove you nuts as those other little boys just ran all over everywhere and didn’t stay in their assigned positions. The idea of random shenanigans seldom got in the way of your logical thinking and that hasn’t changed.

In middle school, when you halfheartedly joined the football team, I remember going to a game and complaining to your coach that he wasn’t letting you play. He told me every time you got to the front of the line and it looked like you might actually have to go onto the field, you’d disappear to the back. Again, to your way of thinking, being on the team was enough, especially since you got to wear that great green uniform. Actually playing, on the other hand, could have lead to injury.

Speaking of uniforms and perhaps a different type of machismo, you didn't fare particularly well in the one ROTC class you took in high school either, the one you failed, partially because, on the one day you deigned to wear that uniform, you sported a t-shirt which offered the notion that one should Play Naked Lacrosse in bold letters under it.

To this day, you are one of the few heterosexual men I know who isn’t interested in sports, and, in fact, you appear to consider this to be a badge of honor. When you moved to Portland, you did join a kickball team, which you continue to enjoy, at least the beer drinking part of it. It did turn out, however, that playing in a co-ed league was mostly just a ruse for meeting women, and we have kickball (at least in part) to thank for Mary and Cami.

I recall once, when you were around fourteen, you told me that I needed to make you tougher. We were standing in the kitchen; I remember it well. I felt so sad, so insufficient, so unable to do what you'd asked of me. I couldn’t play golf or throw a ball or even pee standing up. But, you know, like most things, it turned out just the way it should. Even though neither of us had what it took to make you into the Incredible Hulk, you turned out to be tough in all the ways that are important. You are steadfast and kind and loving and funny, ready to make a joke when you sister is being wheeled into surgery, determined to be at her bedside when she returns. You are a partner to Mary and a wonderful father to Cami. You are your own person, content to be the basement guy, happy with your wires and connections, caretaker of drunks and fools. You were definitely born into the right family.

Finally, since I do usually think of you in one of those t-shirts you still wear (and wear and wear), my final word on the Billy-factor will have to be that you are like one of your shirts: typically unconventional, occasionally tacky, and often spouting something outlandish. But, oh, what a comfort you are.

Dust to Dust

This story isn't going to be about death, only dust. Well maybe some death at the end when I get all sappy and philosophical.

The other evening on the six 'clock news, I happened upon a report about a local civic leader who'd been placed on a paid leave of absence while the Feds figured out if he was involved in some sort of white collar crime I can't even begin to understand. As I watched the film clip of agents searching the man's house and confiscating his computer hard drives, I wasn't thinking about what kind of dastardly deeds he'd most likely done, or if he'd be sent to the big house or the little house to pay his debt to society, or even what his wife must be thinking as the big black Suburbans tore out massive chunks of turf from her front lawn. What I was pondering (and I'm really serious here) was how people are able to keep their things so clean and dust free. As the police were carefully placing the evidence in the back of their vans, I could see that all surfaces of each item of computer equipment were just absolutely shiny bright: no dust bunnies, no cat hair, no peanut butter, nothing but spic and span spotless wonder. If that felon has a cleaning service, I want the contact information.

Dust has always been a problem for me. For years, I had pets, mainly cats with a few dogs thrown in here and there for equity's sake. I also had children who certainly added to the coating of debris that could be found on my coffee table on any given Saturday. Because of my lifestyle, I always blamed my problems with dirt and grime on pets and kids.

Until now. My children finally all left home for the "real world" and my old cat, Chloe, the ugliest, longest-lasting-without-any-medical-care-at-all-after-some-basic-spaying cat died last year. Actually, I helped her into her feline afterlife with a trip to the vet and some euthanasia. Okay, I cried a bit (maybe a lot) when it happened, but that's another story. Bottom line, I continue to smell the cat pee when I walk into my kitchen, and the dust is still with me.

I really, truly don't know how to get rid of those pesky particles of whatever the stuff is that covers each surface of every place I go, including my car and my classroom. Every once in a while, I wipe at it with a wash cloth or a wet paper towel. Other times I blow on it, which, believe it or not, doesn't work all that well. On occasion, I've gotten into some semblance of dusting mode, purchasing spray stuff and, once, even a feather duster. However, when I do that type of crazy thing, I inevitably end up knocking over and breaking one of the about twelve thousand knickknacks I've accumulated through the years, and Pavlov and Skinner (if they were still alive) would be the first (and second) to point out that's not a great way to reinforce good clean behavior.

Thinking of Pavlov and Skinner made me consider taking the scientific approach to solving my filth purging problem, so I googled "dust" and found that it's made up of three primary components. First are the tiny fibers shed by fabric. That doesn't sound so bad. Perhaps I need to wear fewer clothes. The second component isn't as easy to accept as it is the dried feces and corpses of dust mites. You mean I have tiny corpses laid out like King Tut on my easy chair, surrounded by their poop? Back on with the clothes. The third component is quite possibly the most hideous to consider but it just might be the one to cast some light on my quandary as it is the one constant for all the places I go. That component is dead skin cells with the common factor being me. As I've said before, "no matter where I go, there I am". Now I can add "dragging my dead skin cells behind me" to the axiom.

So, since my plethora of diligent research strategies hasn't produced a good solution to my dust problem, I've decided to just sit back and enjoy it, keeping in mind that a fine powder of settled motes can come in handy when you need to write down a phone number or an address. In addition, if my home ever becomes a crime scene, fingerprints will be much easier to find and identify because of my poor housekeeping.

Nevertheless, if I ever go missing, don't look for evidence flirtatiously peeking up from my dusty book shelves. Just keep an eye out for a rather large pile of dead skin cells, most likely surrounded by tiny corpses and microscopic poop. That will be me.

See, I told you there'd be a chance I'd get around to death at the end of this thing.

To Melissa

On the occasion of your thirty-fifth birthday,

You were my first big hope, a miracle I couldn't engineer all by myself. After months of trying and failing, the planets aligned, the perfect swimmer met the ready egg, and you were conceived. I still have the little piece of paper that says "gravindex positive, " a folded memento your grandfather's nurse handed me the day I knew it was true. Back then, there were no magic sticks to wet on in the privacy of your own bathroom; people had to make an appointment to find out. Daddy and I were lucky your grandfather was a doctor and we could get in quickly for a test. We were living in Greenville at the time so we must have traveled back to Warner Robins, with you as our secret, to keep the process all in the family.

I still remember the peppermint flavor of that summer as peppermints were what I used to stave off the nausea. I also recall looking at myself in the full-length mirror you took to Oregon years later. I stood sideways and sucked in my stomach and saw and felt the hard knot that was you. I wonder now at not being able to foresee that the mirror which afforded me my first look at you would one day accompany you to the place that would steal you away from me.

We called you Boogie as we watched you, already a member of the Allman Brothers Fan Club, grow in my belly. We named you after the song that was a reminder of the music your daddy loved so much, and something I, in turn, loved about him .

From the very beginning, you were your own little person, often inwardly focused, occasionally cranky (if you can imagine that). Your need to create happened early on as we all recall your waking us up in the middle of the night asking where the scissors were. You accepted your siblings with resolve and some affection, taking on the mantle of oldest while still maintaining an air of being above it all, as if the promise had been that you would be the only one.

As a child, I remember your best friends as being boys, but what I'm recalling is most likely just that one summer, the summer of Greg and Sonny. You three were like a cyclone pulsating through the neighborhood, all grime and no homework. Some days, I couldn't tell you apart. You looked and smelled exactly the same.

When you became a teenager, with the height of your cock-a-doodle bangs signifying your mood, social endeavors dictated your days and nights but you still managed to do well in school and stay out of trouble (mostly). We had some issues with the car, the curfew, and that big party, but I could still count on you to snuggle up and ask me to scratch your back, and to put your big old feet in my lap when we watched television. Because you were my first teenager, I had to try to figure out how to continue to mother you after you thought it was no longer necessary. I still remember the times you were late enough for me to be scanning the driveway, mentally writing your very sad obituary, and I certainly haven't forgotten the rope and rubber gloves you used for climbing in and out of your second-story bedroom window.

It was while you were in college I began to realize how like my mother you are: intelligent, intense, and ready to travel to places I'd be afraid to go. The summer you and Molly Mitchell spent working in Yellowstone must have been a mighty one as it ended up changing your life. When you later told me you wanted to move to Oregon, I thought of it as a great adventure, never dreaming it would become your future (and to a great extent, mine).

Now you are a wife, a mother, a worker, a driver, a sewer, a maker, a coaxer, a car-seat buckler, and a cinematographer, but, thanks to Trevor, not a cook. You are also still a daughter to your daddy and me, and a sister to Billy and Molly, and a friend to those who are worthy of the relationship. I realized a couple of Christmases ago that you'd already bypassed me to become the family matriarch, making sure events happen with all the necessary ingredients, while the rest of us stumble around mouthing exhortations about what we would have done if we'd just had the time, the money, or if you had simply reminded us.

Being a mother yourself, I know you now understand what you mean to me. I can't imagine my life without you, and Miles and Georgia would tell you the same if they just had the words. We are talking one big deal, reciprocal, co-dependent relationship here.

And so, one heart supports new hearts, life goes on, and the family endures in spite of itself.

Middle Cotton

Just recently, I was wandering around my beautiful neighborhood, which happens to sit right smack dab in the middle of the gorgeous city of Atlanta Georgia. The day was perfect, one of those warm February afternoons we Southerners complain about if they don't come around at least by Valentine's Day. Ansley Park is an historic community, filled with wide tree-sheltered boulevards showcasing stately old mansions along with some modern masterpieces, all surrounded by lovely cultivated lawns. You might say I live in high cotton.

But only around the somewhat seedy edges. My home is a one bedroom condo situated on the border of the neighborhood, a place purchased for a fraction of what the big houses cost. I'm just lucky they let me stumble by those mighty domiciles with my eyes wide in wonder and my mouth unattractively agape. So far, no one has called the Atlanta police on me or even that nice security guard the neighborhood association keeps on its payroll.

Despite my gawking, I have to say I'm not jealous at all. I now have enough life experience to know that a big house takes a lot of time and money, not to mention commitment to and talent for keeping it safe, sound, and fabulous. It's great to be at a point where I can be happy looking at how the rich folks live without wanting to be them.

Like most little girls of my generation, at least those lucky enough to have been born into the luxury of big dreams, I envisioned growing up, getting married, and living in a big house. That was, of course, after fulfilling my dream of being a Pan Am stewardess.

Although I never met the weight standards or understood the pre-flight-safety protocol well enough to be a flight attendant, I did grow up, I did get married and I did live in a big house, sort of. It was nothing like the houses here in mid-town Atlanta, but it was nice enough. It did take me a while to realize I didn't have the aptitude or interest to keep my house up to the standards of others, even those who were friends in my small town. They knew things I didn't know, like how to clean baseboards and have the sofa recovered every ten years or so. My idea of home decorating was partially painting a wall and deciding I liked the abstract impressionistic look of it, or finding a pretty bird feather and scotch-taping it to my china cabinet. My poor used-to-be husband must've often thought he'd won the wrong interior designer at the Marriage Fair, but, to his credit, he didn't complain (much).

But what I'm trying to say here has little to do with my lack of homemaking skills or decorating taste, it's about finally being at a time in my life where I know who I am, know where I've been, and know where I "ain't gonna go", which would be into one of those big houses on Peachtree Circle, at least not for long enough to unpack my beaded evening cardigan. Furthermore, with my skill set, I'm not going to show up in a Merry Maid's uniform either.

After living six decades, I'm beginning to see I'm pretty much the same person I was at seven, twenty-three, and forty-two, a person never destined to be a big shot in high cotton, more a medium-sized shot in middle cotton. Then and now, I'd rather be smart than pretty, clever than deep, and anything other than conventional. I remember my daddy describing himself by saying he was built for comfort, not speed. I now realize the same applies to me, which means I'll never be really focused or particularly well dressed, but I'll try to pick you up when you're down and I'll almost always endeavor to say something funny to make you laugh.

So, as I contemplate my elegant surroundings and count my many blessings, those blessings will certainly include being within easy walking distance to absolutely incredible beauty, beauty paid for and maintained by others, all of the benefits, none of the worry. Now, that's living!

Park n' Cry in the ATL

People talk about how scary it is to drive in Atlanta, but what about parking? I plan every outing around where I can park, how much it will cost me, and if I can possibly live through the experience. In fact, I quit a perfectly good job because of bad parking.

I moved to Atlanta in 2005 to work for the Georgia Department of Education. The people were great, the job okay, but the parking was a word worse than ghastly, something like supercalifragilisticexpialighastlydocious. For that first year in Atlanta, I worked on the sixteenth floor of the Sloppy Floyd Building. Speaking of Sloppy Floyd, wouldn't you think, if you were the type of person who would some day, perhaps, have a building named for you, you might have, at some point, re-thought that nickname? Anyway, Sloppy's building wasn't so bad, it was the parking garage attached to it that caused me to hyperventilate on any given morning as I entered that cavernous yawn of an underground opening with key-card portals and arrows pointing every way but my way. Not only could I never find the same space, I couldn't even locate the same level, not that I really wanted to. I kept thinking there might be a place to park where I wouldn't have to walk up a set of stairs, over a bridge, and then down another set of stairs, all the while dragging my government-issued computer, just to get into the building. I did have the additional option of two elevators (one up and one down), elevators so scary the nasty stairwells seemed a better choice. And to make it even more insulting, each month, $58.42 was deducted from my pay for the honor. There was one good thing about that parking lot. If I had to go somewhere after work, somewhere requiring a somewhat different outfit, I could totally change clothes in or near my car without being seen as it was just that dark.

By the time I left Sloppy Floyd for my new love, Morris Brandon, I had access to a convenient outdoor school parking lot where I can now leave my car for free as long as I don't get to work after 6:45 am. Later arrivals at my school still get free parking but in a much less convenient lot down past the playground. Really late arrivers are known to squeal into the front drive, run in to sign in before the tardy time of 7:31, and then run back out to move their cars to that far away lot, a process still better than the one old Sloppy provided.

When I bought my Atlanta condo, I made sure it had a deeded parking space, an expensive addition to an already expensive piece of property, but absolutely worth it to keep my car from being stolen on a daily basis. Speaking of stolen, I did once have a car break in, even in my somewhat safe and secluded parking lot. I was happy the thief left my teacher identification card but was appropriately insulted that my Shania Twain CD was excluded from the taker's stash.

As I said, my deeded space is certainly worth the money, but it's still problematic. Our lot is tight with each privately-owned sliver of real estate serving as a perfectly-placed piece in an intricate jigsaw puzzle of a parking lot. Because I have to leave so early to stake out my work parking spot, I'm usually the first person shimmying out of my space in a sort of automotive equivalent to those dance moves televised way back when on American Bandstand: wiggle to the right, lean to the left, back up, go forward, turn and dip, all to the easy-to-dance-to tunes of NPR's World of Opera at 5:58 in the morning.

One of my favorite things to do, now that I'm old, is to go to the movies, but parking for what should be a safe and sedate outing can be as menacing as some of the clips my friend, Allison, and I are forced to look at before our romantic comedy starts. We especially like to watch our movie at the Tara Theater, which should be named The People Who Actually Lived at Tara Theater. The median age of the typical Tara viewer is somewhere around 76, which is the reason we like it so much. Early on, I noticed, at that particular theater, they keep aluminum walkers next to the popcorn machine, something I considered unusual at the time. Now I realize how useful a good steady walker could be when trekking the three miles back to my car after a Saturday matinee.

But parking within that three mile radius surrounding the Tara Theater is still better than trying to catch a movie at Phipp's Plaza in Buckhead, as one wrong turn out of the parking lot can send you careening up Georgia 400, The Hospitality Highway, where, for a mere fifty-cent toll, you can have most thrilling ride of your life.

Nowadays, even parking situations which shouldn't be problematic are. I'm more than happy to turn over my keys to the cute valet parking boy at one of my favorite restaurants, but, when I'm ready to leave, I panic because I have no clue what I did with them. Parking at the mall causes me pain and confusion when I can't remember which Macy's door I came in, and I wander around the parking lot like, well, like an old lady, asking if anyone has seen my car.

Then there's parallel parking. I'm just not able.

I have had one good parking experience in the five years I've lived in Atlanta. A while back, after an especially exhilarating pot-throwing lesson in Decatur, I stopped by my personal Publix at Ansley Mall to find something for dinner. My shopping visit lasted longer than expected when I couldn't decide, while in the Deli Department, whether to get the honey-glazed or the Cajun wings, the mashed potatoes or the green bean casserole. After another fifteen minutes or so whisking up and down the aisles in my clay-spattered jeans, I finally returned to my car to find that, not only had I not locked it, I'd also left the keys in the ignition with the engine running. To my great surprise, no one had stolen my car, no one had taken my very attractive work shoes from my back seat, no one was even standing around the parking lot making fun of the fool who'd left her car running and unattended in an urban setting in the new millennium.

Since then, I haven't been able to decide if my good parking karma that day was because Midtown Atlanta really is safer than people say, or if it's because I drive a Corolla, or maybe it was that Shania Twain CD languishing in my passenger seat. Just to be safe, I left it there.

Nuts to Rats and Back Again

I thought maybe I was having Ambien sleepwalking occurrences, even though I don't take Ambien. Then there was the fear all of us over fifty-nine and three quarters have, which would be lapsing into Alzheimer's or dementia-like behaviors. Or was I simply going nuts?

Candy had been disappearing from my living room candy dishes. Okay, I know candy dishes are such Aunt Grandma Over the Hill pitiful tacky things, but I live by myself and enjoy a Hersey's Kiss or two or three while watching House Hunters after my early bird dinner.

Oh God, how did I turn into this person?

Anyway, it took a while for me to realize the candies were vanishing at a greater frequency than I was eating them. I even accused my daughter, Molly, of hiding them in her clean laundry when she left for home after Thanksgiving dinner, to which she said, "Mom, after eating your cooking, it's difficult to think about ingesting just about anything else." I chose to take that as a compliment.

Next, there was that bag of mini Butterfingers I decided I must have thrown away because I didn't particularly like them, their mini-ness somehow diminishing that Butterfingerish delectability. Then I remembered that I don't throw ANYTHING away, much less something at least somewhat Butterfinger-like. Other culprits, besides me, could have been the very nice man who cleans the common areas of my building, or a homeless person with a sweet tooth and a key to my unit, or a serial killer who was entering and exiting through my duct work and absconding with my candy just to toy with me.

It was my friend Abby who first brought up the notion of varmints as her grandmother had recently found a possum slumbering (or was he just playing possum?) on a book shelf in her home office. I had considered either a squirrel or a rat since exterminators had recently been called in by my association because of icky scratching sounds in our communal attic space. However, I'd discounted that thought because there was no evidence of vermin at all. No tiny footprints, no nugget-sized poopish things, no Kiss paper remnants. Nothing turned over, nothing there but my empty, although somewhat dusty, candy dishes. Nothing.

As Molly and I were leaving for Christmas with the rest of the family in Portland, Oregon, I told told her about the strange happenings as we counted the wrapped chocolates one of my students had given me as a gift, candies now sweetly snuggled into my favorite dish. Twenty one, that's how many chocolates I was leaving behind. Just before we walked out the door, Molly picked one up and ate it, telling me the minus one would undoubtedly send me over the edge when I returned in the new year.

It wasn't the minus one that sent me over that craze-o-meter precipice, it was the minus twenty one. When I returned home, dragging my baggage behind me, there the dish sat, empty as my wallet, nothing turned over, no footprints, not even a thank you note. I immediately called Molly since she could corroborate the fact that the candy had been there when we left and that I might not be bonkers. She was genuinely concerned, suggesting an alternate universe or black hole as I checked around, trying to find some semblance of an answer. Since I'd already looked in the obvious locations for evidence of foul play, including all areas of my not-so-clean kitchen, I decided to move my big old sofa away from the wall in an effort to prove or disprove my sanity.

Bingo!

Behind and under my couch, I found a veritable plethora of candy-wrapper detritus and poop nuggets. I also found that the rear dust (and I do mean dust) ruffle had been chewed but not swallowed. I immediately went into panic mode, calling my downstairs neighbor, Susan, to come in and hold the broom in case something scary and terrible (the serial killer perhaps?) ran out as I opened the uncomfortable fold-out bed attached to my sofa. It seems that the uncomfortable fold-out bed attached to my sofa was too unaccommodating for even my uninvited rodent guest since no living thing jumped out at me, demanding, "Where's the chocolate?".

Now, here comes the most important part of the story, the part that may lead you from nuts to rats and then back to nuts. Okay, I stopped putting candy in my dishes and I cleaned up my kitchen. I even looked online for free, easy, and cheap deterrents to vermin visitors, and, under the tutelage of the World Wide Web, put out moth balls and peppermint extract. I even bought some rat poison and stopped up any holes that looked to be rodent-sized.

The most important part of the story isn't that I was sane enough to try to get rid of my rat, it is that I had grown fond of the little bugger. I actually admired him and identified with his little chocolate habit. I considered him to be quite intelligent and discerning. While I didn't anthropomorphize him to the point of calling him Ratatouille or expecting him to whip up a piquant souffle, I thought he had substance and, most definitely, taste. He was what you might call A Good Rat.

There's no ending to this story other than my work friends telling me they were going to have me committed if I mentioned the rat and how I'd grown to like him one more time. I never actually met him in person (or in rat) and I'm just as glad about that. I did hear movements in my bedroom walls for a few days after his last thievery, the cessation of which I hoped indicated he had packed his teeny tiny bags with chocolate morsels and moved on to better digs.

I think I really do need a pet.