Momomama
Bill's mom, Emily, was married to her husband, Don, for twenty-seven years when he passed away. I spent this past weekend at Emily's. She and I were sitting at the kitchen table, engaged in a friendly New York Times magazine competition, when she told me the story of the day he died. "I wish you'd have known him, " she said. I wish I had, too. Bill always tells me stories about Don Halligan, the steam pipe fitter with the huge hands, the fisherman who kept his boat in pristine condition, the devoted husband who brought his wife coffee in bed everymorning for twenty-seven years. He died almost two years ago. Now Emily makes her own coffee. From time to time, when she's doing things around the house, she'll talk to him. She curses him for never having fixed the lock on the doors to the patio and she tells him she's sorry he's missing the way the sunset reflects on the water. She told me they became like one person together over the years. She's being reborn into a new woman now, nearly two years after Don's death, and he is part of her in a different way. She does things that he always did or would have done; she works in the garden, she puts out the birdseed, she lets her grandson ride an old bike off the end of the dock into the creek. When I was getting ready to leave yesterday, she came over and hugged me. "You know," she said. "I think it's because you are here, but I feel like Donnie has been right here all weekend." She gestured to her side. I wish I'd know him. But, slowly, I feel like I am meeting him in her.
Today I was thinking about what I really, really want for Christmas. I was trying to decide between a Kitchenaide Stand Mixer and a plasma screen t.v. when I got an instant message from Alana. "Dude," She said. "You need to update your blog and shit." I knew she was right, but I was stuck! How could I come up with a new post when I was so perturbed trying to decide if I wanted to be able to knead bread dough easily or watch the Amazing Race in full glory? So I asked her for a blog entry suggestion. She told me to "write about me and cheesecake." That's when it dawned on me. I don't need fancy appliances and electronic goods! I mean, consumerism sucks! What I really want is a cheesecake picture of Alana. She'd be all Betty Grabled-up, in an old-timey swimsuit and sailor's cap. She'd look over her shoulder with devilish wink. Maybe one of her feet would be raised. I would be so stuck by this picture that I would run out and buy a bomber, and then I would paint this image on her nose. I'd fly over the Pacific in this bomber. I'd hit a big storm over Fiji and go into a nose dive. As the plane spiralled out of control, I'd black out. When I come to, I would be slumped over in the cockpit, bleeding from a head wound. I would stumble out of the plane, falling to my knees in the sand. I'd make this dessert island my home, drinking from coconuts and sunbathing nude. Late at night, when the stars were shining and my fire flickered warmly on the beach, I'd lean up against the dented shell of my plane, my hand patting the battered nose. I would tell pin-up Alana all about my day and she'd wink at me, as if to say, "You'll win the war, soldier. And when you do, I'll be waiting here for you."
People Say the Strangest Things
Matt, my building manager got a new dog. Grace, one of my more ancient neighbors, tells me it is a Rhodesian Hatchback.
This morning I had to go to the gynecologist for my pinche pap smear. Dr. Lee, like all good doctors, is a fabulous narrator.
Dr. Lee: "This is my finger.....And here is the speculum...a little cold!"
Me: "Well, it's cold outside, anyway, so hey..."
Dr. Lee: "Just imagine it in the summer...it would be like 'aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.'"
Me: "How refreshing."
Giggles all round.
Dr. Lee: "Like a cold glass of water! Except not like that at all."
When I think of all I have to do in order to finish my Christmas presents, I break out into hives, my hands cramp and I get lightheaded.
Where's My Bootie?
Every Christmas (or should I say Holiday Season...) here at the office, we have a little Christmas tree. It was late in getting up this year, but yesterday afternoon an industrious student worker got busy with the decorating. When we came in this morning the tree was up, the lights were strung, and the stockings were hung over the doorway with care. But here's the thing. There's not a stocking for everyone, and there are stockings for people I have NEVER HEARD of! There's even one for Sarah, who I presume might be Sarah Lawrence. Apparently, one hangs a stocking for Sarah in the same way one sets a place for Elijah. Of course I have no stocking. I see the one I had last year, but my name is crossed out and a new employee's name is written in. Probably because the student worker does not know me at all. Christina came down from upstairs to look at the decorations. For the past two years she has been referring to the stockings as "booties". From my office I could hear her exclaiming over the "bootie" situation.
"Barbara! Where'syour bootie? Martha! Where's your bootie?" "I don't know," I cried, "Where IS my bootie?" "I'll fix your bootie, Martha!" And she will, too. She's the bootie queen.
Yesterday Momo and Bill and I took a little hike down at the partk. It was a little warmer out, but the snow in the woods had not yet stared to melt. I had an impromptu bird watching lesson. I learned that those are squirrel nests in the trees. I learned the difference between squirrel tracks and rabbit tracks. I learned how to do the call of an Old Squaw (
errrrrrr.....errrrrrr......errrr-de-leet!). I learned that everything smells better to a dog when it is covered in snow (the everything, not the dog.)
Momo loves the snow as much as he loves his glow-in-the-dark kitty, food, rawhide, and getting his ears rubbed. Last night I took him for a walk just as the snow was stopping. He immediately started to do his snow thing, which is basically to find the snowiest spot and rip around it for five minutes. When that snow is all tramped down and kiched about, he moves to another, snowier, area. He also likes to sniff along the surface of the snow until he has froast goatee. He can do this for hours. We were out playing for half an hour at 10pm. When we came inside he had little snow balls between his paws and my cheeks were red. I think it tooks us about two minute to fall asleep after that.
Perhaps I was wrong about the snow day decision maker! We get to leave at 12:30. If you need us, Momo and I will be making snow angels.
I miss the old fashioned snow day. School would close. I'd build a snow man, make some cookies, watch some soaps. Then, in the afternoon, my neighbor Paula and I would walk across the street to the brand new multiplex and watch a movie. I didn't worry about icy roads and dangerous driving because, well, I couldn't drive yet. And then something changed. I got my license and immediately dreaded snow and ice, even though I took my (second) driving test in freezing rain and passed with flying colors. I never have had a problem, but I worry about all the other drivers, you know the ones - they speed down the curvy parkway, they ride your ass when you slow to make a turn, they freak when they go into a skid. This morning one of my coworkers went into a skid and hit a stop sign. When she got out of her car to check the damage another woman went into a skid and hit her. Not her car. Her body. My coworker is okay, but it's gonna hurt like a sumbitch tomorrow, I bet. The worst part of it is, if we had had a snow day it never would have happened. Every school and college in Westchester County is closed today, yet here we are. And I bet if the guy who makes that decision lived across the street from a movie theatre and had a best friend named Paula, we would all be at home watching soaps and making cookies.
There's No Crying in the House
Look out, parents! There are naughty bits in here!
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my ex-boyfriend, C. C. was the kind of guy who refuses to meet your parents. C. was the kind of guy who leaves you sitting alone at a table while he spends ten minutes flirting with a girl at the bar. C. was the kind of guy who calls you up at three in the morning, drunk, falls asleep while he is on the phone with you, and yet somehow still manages to convince you to drive over to his house. C. was the kind of guy who races motorcycles and sulks when you are out on a date with him. You can see why I was crazy about C.
I met C. at a party. I was in the backyard, smoking a cigarette, when he burst through the bushes. He offered me a light and leaned up against the empty rabbit hutch. I told him he looked like a poet I knew in college. He admitted to being a poet. I told him my friend the poet had tattoos on his back. C. told me that he, too, had tattoos on his back. C. held my hand. When I went back inside to announce the winners of the party’s silent auction, C. stood in the corner, his eyes focused on me with an intensity that was hard to ignore. C. offered to bring me home on his motorcycle. My roommate told him I was coming with her. My roommate was wise, C. was drunk. But I still regret not taking him up on it, once I was C.’s girlfriend he never offered again.
I became C.’s girlfriend after I stopped by the place where he worked and left him a note asking him to call me. He did. In the background I could hear gunfire. Where are you, I asked. He was at the rifle range. When I was waiting for him to pick me up for our first date, I told my other roommate that if I liked him, I wasn’t going to have sex with him. I was nervous. My roommate's boyfriend offered me a Xanax. I didn’t take it. Our date ended with me sprawled half-naked on the conference table in his 23rd floor office, the lights of Austin glittering below us. The next morning we ate greasy burgers and fries at a bar, and watched a football game on the widescreen TV.
After that, C. and I started to fall into our pattern quickly. We went out, we fought, I cried, we drank more, I smiled, we went back to his place. Even if C. went out with his friends, he would call me when he came home, to see what I was doing. I would go to his house. At first I liked it. I was free to do what I wanted, and he was free to do the same, but we would always begin weekend mornings together. Sometimes C. would come to my house. Late one night he called me, and asked if he could come over. When I met him at the door his eyes were red. We went to bed and he started crying. He would not let me see his face. He rolled over and faced away from me, but still he held my hand so tight that I thought it would break. He would not let go, even when he needed to wipe his tears. He rubbed the back of my hand against his cheek, and then rubbed the back of my hand until it was dry again.
I didn’t say to him what he said to me when I cried in his bed. I did not say to him what his parents did when he was little. There’s no crying in this house.
Once, C. took me fishing. We hiked down to the Pedernales River and I saw my first armadillo. We drank beer in the sun, lazing on the beach in the warmth, even though it was February. He smoothed lotion of my back and called it low-chon. I made him say poodle, over and over again, laughing at how he dragged out the poo and clipped the dle short. He said things in a funny way. Once, when he was helping me make a fire, he said, first you put you your paper down, then put you your kindling. I think I loved him most because when he opened his mouth, I knew he was Texan. I also loved that he was passionate about architecture and would lean in and squeeze my knee when he talked about his dream house.
C. invited me over to house one night. When I got there, he was swaying gently on the top step. He held my head in his hands when he kissed me. We went inside and he got me a beer. When he snorted a line of crank off of the cover of a yo lo tengo cd I wanted to leave, but didn’t. When we went outside to smoke, he offered to let me practice my punch on him. I hit him over and over again, waiting while he tensed his stomach muscles or flexed his arm before I made contact.
When we were falling asleep he would put on Medeski Martin and Wood. Sometimes he would hold me so tight I could breathe. Sometimes, he would turn his back to me. C. told me he loved me once or twice. I told him more. He would always say, please, don’t.
It ended when I started dating the filmmaker. C. and I would still talk on the phone once in a while. When C. started to date A., he told me he could never see me again in person. We both knew why. He and A. didn’t have sex he told me, she wanted to wait. She was Southern Baptist, and not the wild kind. After I moved to New York I got an email from C., saying he and A. were getting married.
That was two years ago. A few months ago I searched for him on the internet and found a quote from him and A. on a wedding planner’s website. Thank you for making our day even more perfect. Now whenever I cry in the house, B. wipes the tears with his own hand, and lets it stay wet. I wonder if A. tells C. that there is no crying in the house.
On Sunday, my mom and I went to the holiday party at my the place where my grandmother lives. Village Gate is billed as a retirement community, but it’s not like the first retirement community she lived in, in Florida, where the residents sunbathed poolside and went hot tubbing - the women in skirted suits and jazzy hats and the husbands tanned and proud of their golf muscles. Young retired people lived there. At Village Gate, the average age of the residents is 85. Most are single women. They eat their meals in a large dining room, with wait staff and weak coffee. Some of the residents live in the assisted living wing, and others, like my grandmother, are more independent but still use walkers and canes to cruise the halls.
So we went to the holiday party, which was billed as the Annual HOLIDAY DESSERT EXTRAVAGANZA. The festivities started with a raffle. Every time a resident won a gift certificate to a nearby restaurant or a basket full of bath and body products, the others would sigh audibly. Some of them looked genuinely hurt, as if they had counted on the loofah and body wash and it was ripped from their hands. We didn’t win anything, but I got into the spirit of things - slamming my losing ticket down on the table after each number was called, muttering things like “That should have been mine! and “I’ve been robbed.”
I was still reeling from the disappointment, which was bitter, so bitter, in my mouth, when the musical entertainment was introduced. “The Sounds of New England, an affiliate of the Sweet Adelines International. And out they came, 18 middle aged women in black pants and spangled sweaters, triumphant masters of four part harmony. And what masters they were! They jazz handed their way through the standards, rocked out to the Hannukah medley, and how the company jumped, when they played revelie, I could feel the presence of that boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B. A quartet stepped forward and, one voice too many, sang the Chipmunks Christmas song. They hammed it up like crazy but it was the kind of hamming that suggested hours of memorizing lines and rehearsals. I wanted to hate them, I really did. But when they sang “Home for the Holidays,” I felt the prickle of tears in my nose. Shut up.
Go away! I am thinking! I mean it!
I am blogger with nothing to say.
I am now officially a blogger. So there.
