Second Blooming

The Lie

FADE IN:

Texas, 1967. A little girl named Gretchen is playing in her room by herself. Like most only children, she often plays alone, creating a lively and complex fantasy life inside her bedroom. On this day, she is playing with her blanket, Nicey, using him as a lasso to catch an ornery troll doll, who has escaped his home, which has been elaborately constructed inside an old suitcase.

GRETCHEN

You come back here! I'm gonna get you!

She takes Nicey, and starts to swing him around and around, wildly making circles with her little arm, flinging that blanket around as hard as she can.

GRETCHEN

(continued)

You're not getting away, you naughty troll!

Suddenly, while being flung around, Nicey the blanket catches the corner of the glass ceiling light fixture, yanking it down, where it smashes into about a million shards of glass all over the room.

GRETCHEN

(continued)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!

Gretchen freezes amidst the rubble. Mama runs in from the kitchen

MAMA

Oh Lordy! Lordy! Lordy! STAND STILL! DON'T MOVE!

(she surveys the situation)

Are you cut?!! Let me see your face!! What happened?!!

GRETCHEN

(deer in headlights)

I was...playing...the light...just...mmm...it just.......

...........................................BOOM!

MAMA

It just exploded?! Oh my goodness!! It must have overheated!

GRETCHEN

(starting to cry)

Uh-huh.

MAMA

Oh my baby! I am SOOOO sorry! You poor thing!!!

Oh thank the Lord you are not cut! Oh my goodness,

oh my goodness!

Gretchen runs to Mama for hugs and kisses. Mama cleans up the horrible mess.

FADE OUT.

Thus began my mother's lifelong obsession with wattage. After examining the fated light fixture which had "exploded", Mama discovered that it had been fitted with two 100 watt light bulbs. Clearly, this had been a fateful error on her part, causing the fixture to overheat and shatter.

She was henceforth extremely careful about how much wattage she put in a fixture. We were not allowed to EVER put a 100 watt bulb into an overhead light, only in lamps. It could only ever be two 60 watt bulbs.

For twenty years, every time my mother discussed bulb wattage, I cringed with guilt.

CUT TO:

Texas, 1987. Gretchen, now 26, and Mama push a cart into the grocery store. Mama fishes her grocery list and reading glasses out of her Coach bag. She pulls on her glasses and reads the list.

MAMA

Okay, I'll go get the milk and the bread. Why don't

you go get the light bulbs.

GRETCHEN

Okay.

MAMA

Now don't get the 100 watt bulbs. Get the 60 watts ones.

NOT the 100 watts!

GRETCHEN

(starts to walk away, then stops and comes back)

Mama? Do you remember the time when I was little that

the light fixture in my room exploded?

MAMA

Oh heavens, I'll never forget that! It scared me silly!

GRETCHEN

Mama...I lied.

MAMA

What do you mean, you lied?

GRETCHEN

It didn't explode. It was me.

MAMA

Now don't be silly, of course it exploded.

GRETCHEN

No, it didn't. I was swinging Nicey around, being goofy,

and I broke it. I hit it and knocked it down.

MAMA

No, honey. I had two 100 watt bulbs in the fixture, and it

overheated and shattered. That's what happened.

GRETCHEN

No, Mama, it was me. I lied to you!

MAMA

That is just silly. It overheated! It scared me to death!

I have been very careful about this ever since then.  Very careful.

GRETCHEN

Uh-huh.

MAMA

Now you run along and get the bulbs, and I'll get the milk and

the bread.

GRETCHEN

Okay.

MAMA

But DON'T get the 100 watt bulbs! Get the 60 watt ones.

GRETCHEN

Yeah, okay.

Mama pushes her cart to the dairy case. Gretchen sighs, shakes her head and goes over to pick up the light bulbs. The 60 watt ones.

FADE OUT.

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This post was inspired by...

Prompt #3 - A lie you told. 

What Happens in Vegas...

This "Things I've Never Done" prompt from Mama Kat a couple of weeks ago is just the gift that keeps on giving. First, she suggested we write a "Thing's I've Done" followup, and now she's prompted that I choose one thing off my "Done" list and elaborate on it.

This has proven more difficult than I imagined. While all the things I did on the list are...legal, some of them are pretty compromising. Probably shouldn't have the details bouncing around the web world so my child can find them someday and be deeply traumatized. So I've settled on one that is a little naughty and fun without being too scandalous.

8. Gone on a drive-along with a Vegas cop.

My Cousin Teri has always been a bad influence on me. She's one of Mama's sister Aunt Joey's TEN children. TEN crazy children who grew up on a farm in Montana. We'd go visit them every couple of years, and those trips were some of my best childhood memories. A real adventure for a little only child!

Teri is a couple of years older than me, and I always used to follow her around like a puppy and do everything she told me to. Eat dog food. Eat shaving cream (she told me it tasted like mint). Blow up stuff with firecrackers. Lots of mischief. Teri's full of energy and fun and trouble, and I've just never been able to resist her.

About 10 or 12 years ago, Teri (who was living in So. Cal at the time) and I decided to take an overnight jaunt to Las Vegas. Our mutual Uncle Bobby and Aunt Jan lived there, and we could stay with them for the night.

When we flew into Vegas late in the afternoon, Teri's cousin Sean (her father's brother's son), who just happened to be a cop,  picked us up at the airport and drove us to Uncle Bobby's house in his SUV. Sean (who I'd never met) turned out to be a great guy, and a lot of fun. He drove us over to Uncle Bobby's and dropped us off, then left to go on duty as a cop.

Teri and I spent the evening eating dinner and visiting with our aging Aunt and Uncle. We'd thought we would maybe be able to sneak out and have some fun, but Uncle Bobby and Aunt Jan were so sweet (our mutual favorite Uncle and Aunt), and we just couldn't bring ourselves to bailing on them.

Then, around 10 pm, Teri announced to me that I should maybe go in and change into something cuter and put on a little makeup. Turns out, Teri had paged Sean, who showed up about 10:30 in his squad car, picked us up, and dropped us off at the Golden Nugget on Freemont Street in downtown Vegas.

Our first stop? Tequila shots. Next stop? Roulette. We then proceeded to drink and gamble our way through two or three casinos, and most of our money. At one point, Teri was on a roll at the craps table. TWENTY-TWO!! And we were jumping around and screaming and making quite a spectacle of ourselves. Lots of fun.

At about 4 am, we decided that maybe we should head back to the old folks place, and Teri tracked down Sean. Turns out, he was in a coffee shop about a block away, eating "lunch" with his cop friends. We stumbled drunkenly into the place and made an even bigger spectacle of ourselves. Apparently, Sean's cute, crazy, drunk cousins were quite a hit with the other cops, though we didn't hear about this until later.

So Sean led us out to his squad car to drive us home, making us sit in the back. He was, after all, on duty, and I'm thinking wasn't supposed to have a couple of drunken civilian women in the car with him unless he was arresting them.

Teri and I, of course, immediately started goading him, wanting him to show us all his cool cop stuff. And Sean, being pretty flirtable, was easily swayed. He drove around all the bad parts of town and showed us where all the Vegas hookers hung out.

Eventually, we talked him into "making a bust". He started randomly running the license plates of cars we drove by, until he finally found somebody whose registration had run out, or some such other minor infraction. While Teri and I hid in the backseat giggling, Sean put on an elaborate show of "approaching the vehicle with caution" with his hand on his gun. After running the drivers license of this poor sod, he let him go with just a warning (Sean was, after all, a nice guy).

It was at about this time, when a freakish phenomenon hit Vegas. It started to snow. I swear to God. It was surreal.

As Sean drove us back to Uncle Bobby's in the snow, we talked him into turning on his siren and driving as fast as he could. Which he did, as we screamed and squealed in the backseat.

I am hereby NOT mentioning Cousin Sean's last name, as I fear that the leadership of the LVPD might frown upon this silly behavior, and I don't want to get him in trouble. Plus it was a long time ago. And there must be a statute of limitations on taking silly drunken women on an unofficial (and possibly illegal) drive-along. Maybe.

Anyway, there you go, there's your story. Please pop over to Mama Kat's for more follow ups to "Things I've Done" from other folks.

Sweetest. Thing. Ever.

I've mentioned that Jude's BFF A.J.'s mom, Ronda, is the assistant teacher in Jude's Third Grade class. She also teaches them religion - remember it's a Catholic school.

Well, the other day, they had an exercise in class where first they wrote a letter to God, using the primary hand they write with (Jude's your standard righty). They then wrote a letter back from God to them, using their other hand (Jude's left). Sweet, right? The idea being that the left-handed writing frees the creative side of their minds and releases...God, or whatever. Well...

A couple of days later, Ronda ran up to me and handed me the following. She had told the kids that their letters to God would be private, but she just couldn't resist showing it to me because it was so damned sweet. So PLEASE, if you happen to know my child, DON'T tell him that you saw this. I'm figuring that by the time he's figured out that I write this blog, and starts digging through it in horror, he won't care about this any more.

So here's his letter to God...

Couldn't you just DIE! I'm sorry that my child doesn't know how to spell my NAME. Sigh. I think God is incretible too! But is that the sweetest thing you've seen or what? No wait...here's the sweetest thing you've ever seen, his letter back from God (left-handed writing)...

 

Mama here may recover sometime in the next year or so. How much do I love this odd little boy of mine?!

These papers are going straight into the top drawer of my bedside table.

When I was a kid, both Mama and Daddy had top drawers on their bedside tables, into which they put their treasures. A place for safe keeping. A place for precious items that brought them joy and comfort to look at, and which they wanted to keep close by.

When Daddy died, I looked through his bedside table and found, along with his copy of the AA Big Book signed by Bill W. himself, this picture of Mama...

Yes, Mama...in a bikini. Which I used to think was the sweetest thing ever, but I now think is the second sweetest thing ever.

So there you have it...the sweetest thing ever AND the second sweetest thing ever both in one blog post. What more could you want?

Spin Cycle: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words - Part Two

This week's Spin Cycle topic is "Picture Essay".

Yesterday I showed you the picture...

 

And here's the essay...

That is...my Mama. Yep, the one with the bottle of bourbon and the mustache. The place was Chicago. The time: 1945. According to Mama, she and some friends were just having a little party in her apartment. When I asked her why it was all women, she reminded me that "the boys" were all off fighting in WWII, and the girls were left to have fun on their own. That, by the way, was one of her favorite party tricks - the mustache thing. She taught me how to do it when I was just a little girl. The bourbon thing she taught me much later.

Yes, back before my Mama reinvented herself as a church lady and bastion of Southern gentility, she had...a bit of a past. In fact, there were many bits that she never told me about, which I have now come to understand were somewhat nefarious. But out of respect for her privacy, I will only tell y'all the bits she chose to tell me about. She loved to tell a good story, but I'm not entirely sure about the veracity of her tales. There are many things that I have, since her death, come to know weren't exactly 100% true. So keep that in mind.

Mama was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1923, the 5th of 7 children. They lived in a big farm house and her daddy was an attorney, and member of the South Dakota House of Representatives. Her life changed drastically when she was 10. Her mother died (of pneumonia, I think) and her father died a year later (not sure why, but Mama claimed it was from a broken heart). Seven children, the Depression. A hard time. Mama's older sister, Gladys, and her oldest brother, Frank, raised all their younger siblings. Uncle Frank once said that "some days they ate potatoes and water, and other days they ate water and potatoes.)

I don't think that Mama ever got along with her sister, Gladys. Poor Gladys was a young woman of 21 when their parents died, and she was forced to put her life on hold while she took care of all these little kids. And I think Mama was a bit of a handful. While she never really told me this directly, I am in possession of Mama's old high school yearbooks, which are FILLED with inscriptions telling her how much "fun" she was, and how much "personality and pep" she exhibited. She was a yell leader. Her senior yearbook has THREE references to a certain Prom Night, all illustrated by little drawings of bottles with "XXX" written on them, and something about "fun" in the backseat that time they all drove to Sioux Falls. Mama did tell me that Aunt Gladys refused to let her wear lipstick, so she secretly bought some and hid it in her purse, then would stop and put it on while walking to school, using a shop window as a mirror.

According to Mama, after graduating high school in Spring of 1941, she went away to college at the University of Washington, in Seattle. I am not at all sure if this is true, but she does seem to have been in Seattle at this time. I can't imagine how her family was paying for college for her, I don't think she was much of a scholar - pretty busy having all that "fun". Anyway, she claimed that Aunt Gladys had insisted on giving her a home perm before she left for Seattle, but it turned out horribly. In a fit of hysteria, she pulled out her fingernail clippers in the bathroom on her train to Seattle, and cut all her hair off into a short, but stylish bob. I like to believe this was true.

Then, on December 7, 1941, she was snow skiing with some friends, and when she got to the bottom of the mountain for lunch, everybody was screaming and crying and when she got the the lodge, they were all clustered around a radio. Pearl Harbor had been bombed. As all her brothers joined the military, she was forced to leave college.

She said that she then got a job in a factory at a shipyard in Seattle. Rosie the Riveter stuff. I asked her once what she had done exactly, and she said something vague about sorting bolts on a conveyor belt. As you can imagine, a girl with all that "personality and pep" didn't last long in such a tedious job, and she soon headed off for the big city.

Eventually, she made her way to Chicago. By herself, which I think was pretty bold and adventurous at the time. She said that she talked her way into a job as a telephone operator for a big sporting goods company in Chicago. She lied and told them she knew how to run a switchboard. Apparently, on the first day, she created a complete disaster and got all the lines switched. But instead of firing her, they promoted her to Receptionist. I told you she had "personality and pep"! She loved working there because all the young men were away fighting in the war, and the place was populated by older, "fatherly" men who looked after her. Yeah, right.

She had quite a few stories from that time. She claimed that she modeled for Marshall-Fields...

 

She claimed that she was hit on in nightclubs by both Danny Thomas and Mel Torme, but succumbed to neither of them. Danny Thomas was a married man, and Mel Torme was...short. She also claimed that she had several male friends who were gay, and she liked to go out with them because they'd take her out to a nice dinner and a movie, but didn't try to get any S-E-X.

My favorite Mama-brush-with-greatness story was about a night when she was out with her friends. According to Mama, in those days all the girls wanted to look like they could hold their liquor. So they'd drink and drink, then go into the bathroom and make themselves throw up, then go back out and drink more. Sort of alcoholic bulimia. "All the girls did it!" she claimed. So this one night, she was in a nightclub bathroom vomiting up her Mai Tais and heard the girl in the next stall doing the same. When they both came out to clean up and rinse their mouths, the girl in the next stall turned out to be...Veronica Lake.

Another of her weirder stories was about a time when she and a roommate were painting their apartment. She said she was trying to paint the ceiling, so she balanced a chair on top of the radiator, and stood on it. Of course she took a tumble, and the back of the chair rammed her between the legs. Unfortunately, she had in a tampon, and she got so swollen up that she had to go to the emergency room to have the tampon removed. I have fact checked this crazy story, and tampons were, in fact, being sold by the late 1940s - but most women still used Kotex. Maybe she was a pioneer.

Now I need to explain that these tasty little stories came out of her in drips and drabs. Most of the time, she pretended to be terribly upright and straightlaced, and then suddenly one of these tidbits would come tumbling out. Mama was a puzzle.

Interestingly, it was during this period of her life when she converted to Catholicism. Which in my mind, must have involved some serious thought and a certain amount of spiritual curiosity. But all she really said about it was that she liked being Catholic, because there was a cathedral in Chicago that held masses every hour on the hour all night Saturday night, and she could just leave the nightclubs, hit a mass at 2:00 in the morning, then go home and crash and she had fulfilled her Sunday church obligation and could sleep in.

Her life during the entire second half of the 1940s is a mystery to me. I know her sister, my Aunt Joey moved to Chicago to go to nursing school, and they lived together. But that's about it.

The last Chicago story that Mama shared was that she had been engaged to be married. To a rich boy from Long Island (ha!) named Lawrence Vincent Snyder, III. She claimed that they had even gone so far as to send out the wedding invitations, when she chickened out and ran away. She said she had a good girlfriend, Mary Jane, who had gotten married and moved to Austin, Texas, of all places, and when she ran away from Lawrence Vincent Snyder, III, she got on a train and hightailed it to Austin, because she didn't think anybody would think to look for her in such a place.

The rest, of course, is history. She met my Daddy and became upright and ladylike and a wonderful wife, homemaker and mother.

So there you go, the story of the picture. Myyearwiththemouse blew me away by guessing Chicago! And very close to the right date. But I have to give the prize to Michele, who wrote and entire, brilliant story about these partying ladies. Tell you what, Michele, when you come out to LA for that conference, I'll take you out for a drink.

Please drop by Sprite's Keeper for more spins on "Picture Essay".

Mommy Survives the Disasters

Part One: The Earthquake

Gretchen, having heard about the VA earthquake on CNN, calls Mommy to monitor the level of hysteria.

MOMMY

(almost certainly having had

a medicinal Scotch)

Hello!!

GRETCHEN

Hey Mommy, how are things?

MOMMY

Oh my God! Did you hear about the excitement? We had...

(dramatic pause)

...a EARTHQUAKE.

GRETCHEN

I know, Mommy, I saw it on CNN.

MOMMY

It's on ALL the channels. Every single one.

GRETCHEN

Did you feel it?

MOMMY

Oh YES. I was standing in the kitchen and I felt something kinda

shove me. You know what I thought?

GRETCHEN

No, Mommy, what?

MOMMY

I thought it was the spooks!

GRETCHEN

Spooks?

MOMMY

I thought it was the ghosts fooling with me!

GRETCHEN

Ah.

MOMMY

But then I went into the den and there it was on the tv. A earthquake!

It's on ALL the channels. I tell ya, I'm so shook up I don't know what to do.

GRETCHEN

Well Mommy, I know it must have been kind of freaky,

but it wasn't really too severe of an earthquake. I don't think there

were any injuries, or any damage in the New York area, was there?

MOMMY

Oh YES! Some bricks fell off a building. In Brooklyn!

GRETCHEN

Bricks. Uh huh.

MOMMY

And they say there's gonna be aftershocks! It's on ALL the channels!

GRETCHEN

Yeah. But Mommy, you have to remember that there are always

aftershocks to an earthquake, and you are very far away from the

epicenter of the quake, so I doubt very much that you'll feel them at all.

MOMMY

(doubtful)

Oh, well, maybe so.

GRETCHEN

And all those tv channels...you have to remember that it's their job

to scare you. To report the news, but then repeat the same thing over and

over again. It's what they do.

MOMMY

Oh, well maybe so...

GRETCHEN

I really think that the danger is past.

MOMMY

Mmmm. Well maybe I should just move everything off

all the shelves. Just in case.

GRETCHEN

(sigh...)

Maybe so. Just to be safe.

MOMMY

Okay, I'll do that right now!

GRETCHEN

Good thinking. Because, you know, it's on all the channels.

MOMMY

Yes! ALL of them!

 

Part Two: The Hurricane

The lead up to Hurricane Irene was very involved, and entailed many preparatory phone calls. She was busy for several days, getting everything in order for the big blow.

MOMMY

I need to get Steve to take me to the Waldbaums. So we can stock

up on food. They say we could lose the lights for up to FIVE days!

GRETCHEN

Well that's a good idea, Mommy. Make sure you have batteries

and maybe some bottled water, just to be safe.

MOMMY

I want to stock up on milk.

GRETCHEN

(sigh...)

Well Mommy, don't you think it would be better to stock

up on foods that aren't...perishable? If the electricity's gonna go out?

MOMMY

Well, I need milk. How else am I gonna eat my Honey Nut Cheerios?!

She was also very adamant that Pop haul in the ice chests from the garage.

MOMMY

They say that if we don't touch nothing in the fridge, things will

stay good without the electricity for several days.

GRETCHEN

I think that's true.

MOMMY

But I want to have the ice chests so if the fridge starts to warm

up, I can move all the meat into the ice chests and keep it cold with ice.

GRETCHEN

But Mommy, if the refrigerator's been out for several days...

where are you going to get the ice?

MOMMY

(stumped)

Huh?

GRETCHEN

If you haven't had electricity for several days, where are you

going to get the ice?

MOMMY

(fumbling)

We'll...get it...at the...Waldbaums!

GRETCHEN

Well don't you think that if you don't have electricity

at your house, they won't have electricity at the Waldbaums?

[Author's Note: Waldbaums Supermarket is 1 block from Mommy's house]

MOMMY

(undaunted)

Then we'll get the ice from...the ice store.

GRETCHEN

(damn, she's good)

Good idea, Mommy.

Arguments evolved between Mommy and...well, everyone.

Aunt Grace was determined to stick it out in her apartment in Manhattan. Mommy, of course, thought Grace had completely lost her mind, and was beside herself with worry and anger. I understood some of what Mommy was saying - Grace was on the 26th floor, which would probably get blown pretty seriously if the hurricane stayed strong enough, and, more importantly, it's a whole lotta stairs to walk down if they lost electricity, and the elevators stopped working. And she is, you know, almost 80. And she's extremely stubborn, pretty much thick as a brick.

But when I spoke with Grace, it became clear that she was preparing herself very well. She had been to the D'Agostino's and stocked up on pasta, cheddar Goldfish, and red wine. She also bought a new flashlight, water and candles. She was good to go.

Mommy's argument with Pop was about the car. Pop has a brand new car, a Mazda, which they both consider very modern and youthful, having only ever owned American-made cars. Mommy was very worried about the car, and wanted Pop to pull it into the garage. Unfortunately, they haven't used the garage to house a car since 1977, and it's pretty full of boxes and lawn furniture and stuff. Pop refused to move everything just to put the car in there for one night.

Again, in some ways Mommy was right. Pop parks the car directly under a huge, old-growth tree, and in past hurricanes, they've ended up with the yard full of branches. It probably would have been a good idea to pull the thing inside, just in case.

But I'm afraid that we all tend to react to Mommy's hysteria in the same way - we become uber relaxed and Zen. The more nuts she gets, the more cavalier we become about impending danger.

When I spoke with her Sunday morning, after Hurricane Irene blew through, bless her heart, she wouldn't give an inch.

Grace had completely redeemed her decision to stay in her apartment by getting up at 5 o'clock on Sunday morning and finding rain leaking in from the terrace door onto her hardwoods. She was able to mop it up with "old towels" before any damage was done. She was very careful to note that they were the "old towels".  Remember that Grace is the tidiest woman on the planet, and the only thing worse than damaged hardwoods would be mopping up rainwater with the good towels.

And of course, Pop's car was just fine. But Mommy kept trying...

MOMMY

Steve's car is just COVERED with leaves. It's terrible!

GRETCHEN

Leaves. Goodness gracious.

MOMMY

And they say that there may still be more wind. A branch

could STILL come down and hit the car!

GRETCHEN

You just never know.

MOMMY

And the yard is FULL of branches. I'm telling ya, it's gonna

take a LOT of work to get it cleaned up!

GRETCHEN

Don't you have a yardman who will do that kind of thing for you?

MOMMY

Well, yes, but it's gonna be a LOT of work for him!

GRETCHEN

Mmm. You're probably right about that.

MOMMY

And the puddles! Ah, the puddles are EVERYWHERE!

And you know what?! Yesterday the priest said that all the

masses for this morning were CANCELLED. Can you imagine?

You know it must have been very serious if they cancelled all

the masses!

 

I'm thinking that the priest and all the channels must be working together. 

 

 

RTT: The Mommy Edition

I have survived my first week with the in-laws!!! Hurray for me!!

Here are some Random Tuesday Thoughts about life with Mommy, my beloved mother-in-law...

 Here she is at the beach the other day...

 

Notice that she's wearing one of the slutty tank tops she prefers. I feel I must clarify that she is not actually a jogger, like her top says. Not bad for an 82 year old, right? No, I shouldn't prematurely age her, she doesn't turn 82 until Thursday. So...Happy Almost Birthday Mommy!

_________________________________

Yesterday, Jude turned to Mommy and asked "Grandma, what year was it when you were born?" Mommy answered "I don't remember." I intervened "Jude, it's not polite to ask a lady her age." To which Jude answered, and I quote, "But Grandma, you are really looking great for your age. Look at that face! Those arms!" I swear to God, that's what the child said. Mommy was thrilled.

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This is the trashcan in Mommy's kitchen...

 
 

"But, Gretchen" you say "That looks like a bathroom trashcan, not a kitchen trashcan." Yes, that is because it IS a bathroom trashcan. It holds about 6 cups of garbage, maximum. As you can imagine, this is EXTREMELY inconvenient. The other night, I was cooking dinner for everyone, and during the hour it took me to cook dinner, someone had to take out the trash THREE times. Why is this so? I don't know. I've asked about 100 times, and she won't give me a straight answer.

__________________________________

This is Mommy's favorite appliance. She calls it "The Turbo"...

 

Please forgive the terrible picture, I was taking it on the sly while everybody was eating dessert. The Turbo is a convection oven, and Mommy cooks everything in it. In fact, she doesn't even know how to turn on her actual oven, but uses it to store her skillets and plastic placemats. About a year ago, The Turbo conked out. Mommy looked EVERYWHERE, but they just don't make The Turbo any more. We even searched "the internets" for her. Nothing. Mommy was in an absolute tizzy. How was she going to make the crumb chicken?! How was she going to make the roasted chicken with the Catalina dressing?! Poor Mommy tried hard to adapt. She attempted cooking in the real oven, but alas, she just couldn't get the hang of it. Things just didn't "come out nice". Luckily, Mommy's best friend, Chris, died a few months ago (okay, it was in no way lucky that Chris died, but...well just go with me here), and when Chris's sons were cleaning out their moms house Mommy suddenly remembered that Chris had a Turbo! So they gave the old Turbo to Mommy, and all is right with the world yet again.

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One of the most puzzling examples of "Mommy Logic" involves the towels in Mommy and Pop's house. Mommy owns probably...35 to 40 bath towels. And only one bathroom. Really. But strangely, the towels are all TINY. Maybe 3 feet long and about a foot and a half wide. They are, in fact, too small to dry the body of an adult human. I always have to use two. You know how people usually wrap a towel around their body and can then walk around wearing a towel? Not here, because the towels are too small to wrap around. Jude can barely wrap one around his scrawny little waist. I asked her once where she found such tiny bath towels, and she said it was hard, but she managed to track them down. It has taken me some time to figure out what I think the reason is for these minute towels. You see, Mommy doesn't believe that a towel can be used more than once. Every time a towel is used, she rushes in and hustles it off to the laundry. Therefore, she must have many, many towels. Unfortunately, her closet space is minimal. So she takes the towels and folds them in a very peculiar and particular way in order to make them all fit on the shelves in the closet, and the only way she can fit all those towels is if they are very, very small. Makes perfect sense, right?

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Last night, I got Mommy talking about what she wistfully refers to as "the past...", and she told me about when she and Pop first started dating. First of all, you need to understand that Mommy and Pop are second cousins. Yes. I know. But they weren't close at all, and after her grandmother died, their families didn't see each other for years. Then, when they were both 16, they saw each other at a family wedding Apparently, he made quite the dashing figure. "I thought he was very good lookin'" And Mommy was very snazzy and lovely, and she said he walked right across the room and asked her to dance. Then at every family wedding for years, he did the same thing. She'd never see him in between events, but as soon as they saw each other at a wedding, he'd ask her to dance right away. This was during WWII, so you can imagine the clothes, and the music the band played - very romantic. Then, when she was about 19, he called her on the phone and asked her out. But something was going on, a relative was in town or something, and she couldn't go, so she told him no. He didn't call again for a year, but then they finally went out on a real date. Soon after that, Pop joined the Army, and went off to fight in the Korean War. And they sent romantic letters back and forth - she'd send him hotsy pictures of herself, and he'd write flowery poems and such.

I loved hearing all this, and today, Mommy is going to pull out a huge bag of old pictures she found in the basement, and we're going to sort through them all. I'm really looking forward to showing Jude pictures of Grandma and Grandpa and Grace when they were young. I sincerely hope he is old enough to appreciate them.

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Back in the early '80s, Mommy was at a bit of a loss. Pop had left for his hiatus (For those of you who don't know the tale, Pop left Mommy for 20 years, and then returned. I tell the story here. You should read it, it's really, really nuts.), the boys had grown up and moved out, and she was alone and lonely. Her life changed when a neighbor needed to find someone to take care of her two little girls while she went back to work. The girls were 2 years old, and 2 months. Mommy decided to give it a try, and started a new adventure in her life, continuing to take care of kids in her home for the next 15 years. Through this time, she took care of probably 8 kids altogether, usually one at a time, and she'd keep them from infancy until they started school. These kids all absolutely adored her. She was Mommy Mary to all of them. And since it didn't look likely that either Jimmy or Tony would provide her with a grandchild (this was, of course, before Jude the miracle), she loved and doted on each of them as if they were her own.

Okay, you remember yesterday's story about Mommy and Grace's conversation about Carol and Carol? Well, that very first little girl she took care of, the 2 year old, was...Carol! And if you go back and scroll through yesterdays comments, you'll see a comment from...the very same Carol! A testament to Mommy's nurturing.

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I will leave you with my favorite Mommy quote of the trip thus far..."You know, I'm a nut job altogether!"

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Okay, those are my Random Mommy Thoughts for today. Please visit Stacy Uncorked for more Random Tuesday Thoughts!

 

Camp Mama 2011 Week Nine: The News From the East

First of all, I just say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who continued to put up with my constant nagging and pathetic and shameless self-promotion because I made the top 10 in Circle of Moms Top 25 So Cal Mom Blogs!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Aren't you glad that's over with?!

That said...

Jude and I have now been with the in-laws in New York for 4 days, and here is the news thusfar:

• I lost Mommy at the Waldbaums. It was only for about 20 minutes, but it sort of freaked me out. The Waldbaums is the grocery store that Mommy frequents. It's not the grocery store I prefer, as it never has any of the "gourmet" foods that I am looking for, and is full of very old Italian ladies hunting for the best deals on chopped meat and tomato sauce. I drove Mommy there for a quick shop since Mommy doesn't drive. Have I ever mentioned that? Mommy has lived in the suburbs of Long Island for 45 years, but has never learned how to drive a car. It's stunning. And it makes me a little sad for her, as she's always dependent on her friends to take her places, and I'm afraid all her friends are...dying. Yikes. Anyway, we went to the Waldbaums because she wanted me to make dinner for everybody (NOTE: Yes, on the second day of my "vacation" I was asked to do the cooking. Sigh...), and she likes the way I make "the fish" so we went to buy tilapia ("It's a good fish.") and capers. We each got our own carts, because we always bicker over who's going to pay (she always wins) and at some point, I followed a store employee off in search of the hard to locate Arborio rice (I wanted to make risotto - and Arborio is one of those hard to find items) and when I turned around, she was gone. I started wandering around in search of her, and I swear I circled the entire circumference of the Waldbaums at least 3 times. At one point, a store employee asked me if I needed help (I must have been looking a little frantic) and I told her I'd lost my mother-in-law. When she asked what she looked like I said "She's a little old lady wearing a slutty, hot pink tank top." She stared mouth agape. I finally found Mommy, deep in thought in the fish department, and all was well.
• Pop loves his music. He's got a huge CD collection, and he listens to it at airplane decibels. The first time this week that I borrowed Pop's car, I got in and the sterio blasted...  

and the next time, it was...

 

I mean, if some Hollywood music director had been paid a fortune to select music for the soundtrack of Pop's life, he couldn't have done better than this!

• Jude told Pop what we've all been thinking for 40 years. We all loaded into the car to go to the Oconee Diner (a family favorite for a big hearty breakfast). I was driving, as usual, and suddenly from the backseat Jude piped up "Grandpa,  your cologne smells bad." "Jude!" I said "That's not a nice thing to say to Grandpa." To this Jude replied "I know, but really, it's too much." Mommy, Aunt Grace and I couldn't stop giggling. Pop was not pleased. For an entire post I devoted to the Eau de Pop, please click here.
• Another day, another waterpark. This time we went to Splish Splash Waterpark, here on Long Island. I am happy to report that this week, we didn't end up in the emergency room. Though Jude did manage to get in trouble in the giant wave pool, or what I like to call Urinetown. Hmmm...who was it who crossed the floating barrier into the deepest end, where no one is supposed to go? Was it the large gang of frightening young men, who were certainly on some kind of recreational outing from their wayward youth facility? No. Was it the group of snot-nosed teenagers who were spitting water at each other? No. It was my 8-year old child. Sigh. As it was a rather crowded day at Splish Splash, we spent a great deal of time waiting in lines. Which means that I spent another day reading strangers scantily clad bodies for entertainment. Some stand-out tattoos - 1. One young man had chosen to write the words "Fuck your life" in bold, florid writing across his chest. I kept trying to think of some possible situation in which the words "Fuck your life" could be a touching and meaningful phrase to emblazon across ones chest. The last words of a beloved grandmother? 2. One middle-aged man with a GINORMOUS beer gut, had "Michelle" tattood across his stomach. Or I should say, that apparently, when the name was tattooed on his stomach, it said "Michelle". Now it says "Mmmmmiiiiiiccccchhhheeeelllllllllleee". Sad. 3. Note to the (maximum) 14-year old girl with one arm tattooed with a full sleeve of a leopard skin print: WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR MOTHER? 4. One young fellow had "Obey the Bitch" printed across his chest, and when I first looked at it I thought "Oh dear God" then I thought about it a second and I thought "Well...good advice to self." 5. No middle-aged woman should EVER allow the world to know that she has either a tattoo of a 6-inch Precious Moments doll on her calf, OR a tramp stamp spelling out the words "Brown Passion".
• Jude has finally rebelled about the state of the beds at Mommy's. I've mentioned (repeatedly) the dire sleeping situation around here. I've been forcing him to sleep on "The Slab" because...well...he's EIGHT for God's sake. (Read more about the beds and their nicknames here.) But last night, he couldn't fall asleep, and I swear the poor kid was practically in tears. "It's just the most uncomfortable bed I've ever slept in Mom!" So tonight, I dragged the mattress off the trundle bed, and put it...oh you don't want to hear the details, suffice it to say that I made it more comfortable. I haven't shown Mommy yet, I fear she'll have her feelings hurt. But it's time somebody told her the truth!

Okay, that's the weekly update. I'll leave you with a cute picture of Jude and (his New York girlfriend, but he gets mad when I say that) Mia. More updates to come...

 

Conversations With Mommy and Pop Part 1

FADE IN:

The family is gathered around the dining room table eating dinner. Mommy has made pasta. Jude, who Mommy thinks isn’t fat enough, has already eaten one enormous bowl of pasta and about 4 slices of Italian bread soaked in sauce.

Jude

I’m done.

Mommy

But you barely ate any of your second bowl of pasta.

Jude

But I don’t want any more. I want ice cream.

Mommy

Oh no, you can’t have ice cream if you don’t eat more of your pasta. It’s not balanced.

Tell you what, if you eat half of the bowl, you can have a nice big bowl of ice cream.

And if you eat the whole entire bowl of pasta, then you can eat ALL the ice cream you want.

Jude

I can?

Mommy

   Yes.

Jude

All the ice cream I want?!

Mommy

Yes. Because then it’ll be balanced. It’s all about balance.

Balance is very important.

Jude

Balance?

Mommy

Oh yes. You have to balance the food with the dessert. However much food you eat,

then that’s how much dessert you can eat. It’s very important to balance or your

tummy gets very angry.

Jude

It get’s angry? What does your tummy do if it gets angry?

Mommy

Oh you don’t wanna know. It’s very bad.

Jude

(ponders this for a moment, then turns to Gretchen) 

Mom? Is that true?

Gretchen

Yeah.

Jude thinks a moment more, then eats all his pasta and Mommy gives him two huge bowls of chocolate ice cream.

It's all about the balance.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN.

Jude and Gretchen sit in the den with Pop. Pop stands up and begins.

Pop

(acting it out as he goes)

Jude, let me tell you a story about your old Grampa. It was back in 1944 when

I was with the Brooklyn Braves. I was only 17, but I was a player AND the manager.

All the guys on our team was just kids, cause you know, all the older men was off fighting

in the war. But most of the other teams had grown men on ‘em. Nobody could believe that

we were just kids and we had a winning season. So this one game, we got to the park

to play, and the other team says to me “Where’s your manager, kid?” and I says

 “I’m the manager.” And they says “But you’re just a kid!” and I says “I’ve been the

manager for 3 years now!” So they said “Well, we usually like to make a little bet

on the side, how’s $50?” cause you see they figured it’s a bunch of kids, we’ve got this

one sewn up. So I says "$50 is a little rich for our blood. How’s about $25?"

So they says “you’re on kid.” Cut to, we’re in the bottom of the 9^th, and they are

 slaying us. It’s pathetic - 11 to 1. Two outs. I come up to bat. I crack one and

it’s a home run. Okay, so now it’s 11 to 2. Then our next 5 guys get up to bat and

each of them gets a base hit. 11 to 4. Then I’m up to bat again. AGAIN I hit a home run!

It’s 11 to 8! The next 3 guys get base hits. The bases are loaded again. And Bennie 

gets up to bat. Did you ever meet Bennie, Gretch? No? Bennie was a great guy,

and the best hitter we had. I was a good hitter, but Bennie was the best. What

does he do? He hits a home run out of the park and we win 12 to 11! And we won the

$25, which would be about like $500 nowadays. It was a great night. So you

remember that about your old Grampa.

Pop sits down in his chair and eats his ice cream. Jude ponders a moment, then turns to Gretchen.

Jude

Mom? Is that true?

Gretchen

Yeah.

FADE OUT.

Because grandparents and the truth are a relative thing.

Rerun Beauty Tips From Mommy

We've arrived in New York for two weeks with the in-laws, and I'm trying my best to get my internet connection up. To tide you over, I thought I'd serve you up a favorite rerun from last summer. Keep praying for my sanity.

And for the LAST TIME, PLEASE vote for me for Circle of Moms Top 25 Mom Blogs! This is it!  Remember, you can vote EVERY DAY. Thank you SO much for your repeated support!

Beauty Tips From Mommy

Last week I posted this picture of my MIL, Mommy...

...and nobody would believe that she was 80.

Well you're right. Yesterday was her birthday, and now she's 81!!

Here's the cake we had for her before we left for CA...

Yes, Mommy looks damned good.

And while I do believe that she is something of a freak of nature, and has some pretty amazing genes and that gorgeous Italian olive skin, she also works hard at keeping herself young-looking.

When I told Mommy that my readers thought she looked fabulous, she was terribly excited and flattered and maybe a little frightened "People from the internets? Ohhhhh." But she agreed to share with you her top beauty secrets.

"You have to be consistent. Mommy believes that consistency is very important. And believe me, the woman is consistent. Dare I say...obsessive? Yes I do dare. She is obsessive about her daily routines. But...they pay off.

Daily Fitness Routine - Despite the fact that poor Mommy is riddled with both osteo AND rheumatoid arthritis, and has serious trouble walking, she manages to stay sort of fit. Every morning, before she even gets out of bed, she lifts weights. Yes, that's right. She keeps a set of 2 pounders next to the bed, and she does a couple of sets of bicep curls and tricep extensions. Hence her sort of buffish arms.

Daily Facial - Twice a day, Mommy performs this beauty ritual. It takes her a full 45 minutes each time. Which makes life extremely difficult for anybody else in the house who may want to use the bathroom. There is a mad rush every night to get into the bathroom before Mommy, or you'll be stuck waiting for her to do her thing. I once described Mommy's facial to my esthetician friend Tessa, who gasped and shuddered. But again...it clearly works for Mommy. She learned this rather lengthy facial routine when she went to beautician school in Brooklyn, back in the '40s. It goes like this...

• Vaseline. Cover your entire face and neck with a thick layer of petroleum jelly. At night, you would also use the Vaseline to remove your makeup.
• Dove Soap - Wash your face with Dove soap "the white kind, NEVER the pink." I'm not sure what the difference is, but Mommy thinks this is very important. Because the white has "got cream". Okay.
• Rinse.
• Dove Soap Repeat - Mommy says you must do this second wash "fast, fast, fast". I don't know why.
• Witch Hazel and Toilet Paper - Mommy then folds toilet paper into a little square, soaks it in witch Hazel, and scrubs her face with it. "Scrub hard." she says "It's like you're...what's the word? The word for the thing you're doing? Exmultiating? No...Exultifimilating?" "Exfoliating?" "YES! It's like you're exfoliating."
• Cold Water Splash - "I just splash, splash, splash. And it's gotta be nice and cold."
• Vaseline Redux - Mommy now applies another healthy coat of petroleum jelly.
• Ponds Cold Cream - The final step is a thick layer of Ponds Cold Cream. "You gotta get the kind with 'extra moisture'"

Facial Exercises - During her nighttime beauty routine, Mommy follows her "facial" with a regimen of facial exercises. This takes another 15 minutes or so. I desperately want to video her performing her exercises, but alas, can't talk her into it. The routine involves slapping her face repeatedly, extending her jaw and exercising her neck and stretching her eyes with her hands until you "look like an Oriental" then moving her eyes rapidly up and down and side to side. The whole thing is followed by rapidly slapping herself under her chin.

Keeping Up Her Hair - Mommy has had her hair the same shade of brass since about 1978. This involves a certain amount of upkeep, and once every two weeks, she "does her roots". She also periodically goes to the beauty parlor for a cut and perm. I asked her once what color her hair really was, and she said she didn't know for sure, but she thought it was probably sort of salt and pepper.

Mommy's Style - Mommy readily and enthusiastically admits that she likes what she describes as "that slutty look". Flashy, glitzy, low-cut, backless, sleeveless, tight, animal print, bedazzled - Mommy loves it all. I regularly shop for her at Forever 21. A few years ago, I ordered her something from the Victoria's Secret Catalogue. It was a HUGE hit. She wore this top to every event for a year. She loves VERY large, VERY flashy earrings. I once gave her a pair of small earrings, and she wore them attached to the bottom of a huge pair of hoops "so you can see them".

Chocolate - Mommy eats a tremendous amount of chocolate. It's her favorite food, and biggest vice. She's always in the kitchen rooting around, nibbling on a little piece of something. The house is always stocked with a variety of chocolate treats - Hershey bars, brownies, cakes, cookies, ice cream, bon bons. And since everyone knows that she's a chocolate fiend, she receives boxes and boxes of chocolates for every holiday. And she eats her way through all of them. Every time I visit, I bake her a chocolate pecan pie, her favorite dessert. She then eats the entire thing herself, one tiny piece at a time. In fact, she may obsess and eat nothing much but pie until it's all gone.

So there you have it. Mommy's secrets to lifelong youthfulness. These are very valuable and useful tips, so consider them with care.

And when you're 81 and looking hot? You'll know who to thank.

Gift From the Past

My Cousin Keith (who is a woman, Keith being her mother's maiden name - it's a Southern thing) is my only cousin on my Daddy's side. And I'm her only cousin in the world. Her Daddy, my Uncle Paul, was Daddy's baby brother.

For many years, Keith was the only child in the family. Neither our Uncle Francis or our Aunt Verna ever had children. And it wasn't looking like parenthood would ever happen for Daddy either. Remember, though Mama was 14 years younger than him, I didn't come along until he was 54. So I think my Grandmother was pretty much assuming that Keith was her only Grandchild.

Keith was already 15 when I was born (ooh, I hope that's right, I'd hate to be aging her), and she was THRILLED to have a new baby cousin. All my life, I have looked up to Keith, and tried hard to be like her. She was always gorgeous and stylish and smart and clever.

When I was little, I completely idolized her. She had this fabulous 60's bouffant 'do and wore the most stylish clothes. I remember when I was just little, going to visit her in her sorority house at the University of Texas.  She was the president of the Tri Delts (Farrah Fawcett was a sorority sister). She drove the coolest Ford Mustang that you can imagine.

When I was 7, Keith got married to Johnny, and I got to be her Flower Girl! I had the most amazing pink satin, empire-waist mini dress, with a huge pink velvet bow in front, and a matching bow in my hair. I got to go to the hair dresser and get my own bouffant flip hairdo. It was like a dream! And Keith wore the most gorgeous dress, which they had bought at Sakowitz department store in Houston (sort of a big and extravagent deal, as I remember it) with a HUGE butterfly headdress mounted on the top of her bouffant. Very mod. Fabulous.

Keith is an amazing cook and decorator. She's one of those people who can simply walk into a room, rearrange a few things and make the whole room come together in a fabulous way - a gift I have NEVER had. Her home in Bryan, Texas, is like a page out of Southern Living magazine.

For the first 9 childless years of my parents marriage, Mama absolutely doted on Keith. Keith claims that she learned far more about cooking and homemaking from Mama than she did from her own mother. Aunt Mary Frances was more of an intellectual than a homemaker. And they remained close all of Mama's life.

I don't get to see Keith and her family NEARLY as much as I would like. I haven't managed to get to Texas in years, and it's really tearing at me. Keith's grandson Garrett is the SAME age as Jude, and the last time we got them together they were instantly two peas in a pod. It breaks my heart that his cousins are so far away.

So this morning, I got an email from Keith. She had been digging around in a "memory box" and unearthed a few things she wanted to share.

First, is this amazing letter, send to her by Mama (me) while her family was on vacation in Colorado...

 
 

Mama was pregnant with me!! Isn't that the sweetest thing? And Keith kept it all these years!

Next, was a letter written by her Grandma Mus (Aunt Mary Frances' mother)...

 

I just love that Keith's grandma (who wasn't my grandma) wrote the letter for me. It makes it clear how excited the whole family was to have a new arrival. Don't you love it?! And the sweet part about Daddy being nervous?! Makes my heart break!

Finally, she sent this beautiful shot of our family. Left to right - Daddy, Mama, Uncle Francis, Aunt Verna, Me (in front), Uncle Paul, Aunt Mary Frances and the fabulous Keith.

 
Don't you love Keith's hair? And her dress? She looks like a model. And the outrageous Aunt Verna (6 feet tall, lawyer, lived in Hawaii! Definitely a story in herself) with the cat-eye glasses!

And here we are with our precious mutual grandma. She died just a few months later.

 

Okay, these made my day, and I thought I'd share.

I just love having family, even though I don't get to see them nearly enough!

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