It was a strange house. Oliver and Fran thought when they moved to this tiny desert town that had gone bust when the military base shut down, and then more bust when the railroad rerouted, they'd see old houses, remnants of the rich days. Maybe old Victorians that needed some new paint, some restoration. A slim brick three-story here and there. And the insides would be linoleum from the fifties or maybe even hardware floors. Old kitchens with pearl white appliances and two-way doors leading to the dining rooms.
But the house they just bought had been updated a while back in the 70s by someone who believed too much in a style Oliver could only refer to as lima-shag, and the previous owners had also knocked down two of the kitchen walls, and every night Oliver could see Fran cooking for him.
Oliver was a well-groomed man in button-down sweaters, and Fran visited the beauty shop once a week to keep up her short curled hairstyle, and shag just didn't match them.
But their neighbors' house, it was the strangest. The kitchen and the living room formed one big room, and as dinner guests he and Fran were seated with glasses of red wine at some sort of gargantuan kitchen island, with flecked brown and tan granite countertops that looked like they belonged in a rock quarry somewhere.
Jack and Kate, their neighbors, were nice enough. He was a truck driver and she managed the local laundromat, and their three kids were all grown and gone.
"I'm so glad you could join us for dinner," Kate said. "I know it's difficult making friends when you move to a new town."
Oliver would have preferred scotch or a Bud but he sipped his wine and Fran said, "Thanks for having us. I know Oliver has been looking forward to the move for a long time."
Jack took out a bowl and scooped ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses into it, and then expertly cracked two eggs into the middle. He stirred the mixture while Kate poured some spaghetti sauce into a glass dish. "So Oliver," Jack said, "What brings you all the way to Rio Seco from New York?"
"The people," Oliver said. "Or lack thereof. I've always wanted to retire where there's lots of land. Plus, Frannie likes the stars. Hey, what do you think of the Yankees this year?"
Jack said, "Oh, Angels all the way for me. I like Jeter and Posada though. Where do you think the Yanks'll be when they retire?"
"Girardi has to find a couple new good leaders," Oliver said, and leaned forward. "He's gotta lose guys like Swisher and build a new team, or no more post-season. You know if we got the Angels to give up-"
"Pass me that spatula, will you hon?" Jack said.
Fran asked Jane, "Dear, would you like me to help you with dinner?"
"Thanks, Fran, but you two just sit and relax," Kate said. "You're our guests." Jack and Kate layered the lasagne - sauce, pasta, meat, cheese, sauce - back and forth, passing spoons and bowls.
Though Oliver had eaten a lot of lasagne in his 71 years, he had never seen how it was made. Seeing it made by a truck driver who should be watching baseball with him in the living room bordered on the surreal. Next to him, Fran fidgeted in her flowered dress on the barstool.
Kate put the lasagne in the oven and then sat at the kitchen island across from them. Jack took out a glass and poured her some wine, then he started slicing french bread.
Fran asked again. "Dear, why don't we finish up dinner and let these boys catch the end of the baseball game?"
Oliver put one foot down on the travertine floor, ready to bolt for the TV. He looked at Jack. No man, even one held in such a strong domestic choke-hold, could ignore the free ticket dangling in front of them.
But Jack stirred the melting butter and garlic on the stovetop and waved his hand. "Kate's had a long day, and besides, I'm better with the garlic bread, right honey?"
Kate just raised her eyebrows and blew him a kiss, then turned to Fran. "There's a Friday night book club in town if you're interested. I'm leading next week's on Ahab's Wife and we would love it if you would join us."
Fran looked at Oliver. "I could put something in the oven for you on Friday. Do you mind if I go?"
"Um, sure, Frannie." Oliver drained the rest of his wine.
After dinner, to Oliver's horror, all four of them retired to the living room to talk. He had been looking forward to the baseball game when Fran and Kate would do the dishes, but Kate insisted that she and Jack would be rude if they cleaned up while their guests were there.
As they left the house, the stars glared in the sky as bright as Manhattan, and Fran looked up and sighed. "I'm going to like this town."
Oliver held her arm and led her down the stairs. "I'm going to start Monday on the remodeling. We need some more walls in that kitchen."
Frannie patted him on the arm.
"For cabinets," Oliver said.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
North Carolina Odyssey
My Grandmother is one of my favorite people in the whole world. I've always admired her willingness to say exactly what she thinks, consequences be damned. When she aims her criticisms at me, I usually laugh and tell her she's crazy. Usually it's over the phone because I'm in Colorado and she's in North Carolina. I discovered it's different in person though.
The Old Man and The Kid and I went to North Carolina last weekend to see my Grandmother, who I hadn't seen in four years. She's 81 and just broke her shoulder, and since I'm with child and will be unable to travel for a while, I figured now would be a good time to introduce her to The Kid.
When you visit North Carolina, you do two things: eat, and watch TV. In alternating, never-ending order.
So our first meal was ham and Velveeta sandwiches with tomatoes and chips. (Note: Vegetable #1 = tomato, although technically it's a fruit.)
The first thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid behaves better with his daddy than he does with me. She made sure to relay this fact to me, our relatives, her neighbors, and my mom on the phone. And that was just the first day.
The next thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid ate next to nothing. She told me I was letting him drink too much juice and milk. Apparently our kid had trouble wading through the meals of bacon, biscuits, and eggs, and then barbecued pork and cole slaw (Note: Vegetable #2 - Cole slaw, drenched in mayo), and then spaghetti, french fries, cole slaw, and ketchup (Note: Cole slaw is still Vegetable #2, and my mom says President Reagan called ketchup a vegetable, though I still think it's in the fruit/condiment family).
The third thing my Grandmother noticed was that I failed to pack enough footwear for The Kid. After a good drenching rain The Old Man and I took The Kid for a walk to splash in the puddles, and The Kid came home drenched and thoroughly happy after getting some exercise and burning some animal fat calories. His shoes were soaked and she berated me for not being able to whip out a dry pair of shoes for the kid. It's 70 degrees on a cold day in North Carolina, so I wasn't too worried that I had to send him out to play barefoot for a couple of times while his shoes dried.
The fourth thing my Grandmother noticed was that our three year old child had an annoying propensity of wanting to touch everything. Grandmother's knick-knacks are off-limits, so this left The Kid with approximately 10 square feet of space where he was allowed to exist the entire weekend. Apparently in Grandmother's day children were taught never to touch anything, and I had failed to convey this properly to my offspring.
This was after the biscuits, eggs, ham steaks, apple jelly, and hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans (Note: Vegetable #3 = baked beans with brown sugar) and cole slaw (Still Vegetable #2) and then leftovers of hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, and cole slaw (Still Veg #2).
Around this time, when we were sitting at the table eating up the leftovers with Grandmother and my Aunt D and Uncle K, we started talking about my dad. Grandmother said he was a fine young boy until he "went hippie" and The Old Man, my husband, laughed just about until he cried. Grandmother kept on about the moral disintegration of my father, and wondered just how it happened, and got to the conclusion that it must have been my mom who turned him that way, and then Uncle K said, "Yeah, and he was just living in a tipi eating soybeans before he met her." Which was true. My father was living in a tipi and eating very little protein before he ever had the good fortune to meet my mom.
Here's the scene at the dinner table:
Me to Uncle K: "Grandmother doesn't like my mom."
Uncle K: "I know! When your mom visited here, I asked her, 'What did you do?'"
Me to Grandmother: "You know, mom's mother didn't like your son when they first married."
Grandmother: "K married well. D has class."
Aunt D: Rolls her eyes.
The Old Man: Snort. Giggle.
Grandmother to me: "Your father used to dress so nice before he went hippie."
The Old Man: Full out gales of laughter.
After biscuits, eggs, Cocoa Krispies, sausage, and then roast beef, potato/cream cheese/sour cream/butter casserole, dinner rolls, cream corn (Note: Vegetable #4 = corn, swimming in sugared corn starch), chocolate cake and apple pie, Uncle K and Aunt D - really, two of the nicest people in the world - left, and The Kid took his nap.
Grandmother and The Old Man and I stepped out on the porch to watch K and D drive away.
Grandmother: "D is such a good girl. She cleaned up the whole house for me."
Actually, both D and I cleaned the house, is what I was thinking.
Grandmother: "You're a good girl too. Sometimes." And then, totally ignoring the fact that I'm 32, "Sometimes you need a good spanking."
Me: "And sometimes I'd like to smack you upside the head."
The Old Man: Nervous giggle.
Me: "Let me get this straight, and tell me if I'm missing anything. My son minds his daddy better than me..."
Grandmother: "Yes, honey."
Me: "I should have packed more shoes..."
Grandmother: "Yes."
Me: "I let my son drink too much liquid and he's wasting away from eating nothing because of that..."
Grandmother: "Sure you're right about that."
Me: "My son puts his hands all over things he shouldn't touch, and back in your day, children were taught to mind the adults."
Grandmother: "Well, I'm glad you are understanding what I'm trying to say."
Me to The Old Man: "Should we leave The Kid here so that Grandmother can raise him right?"
The Old Man: Giggle.
Grandmother: "Honey, you couldn't pay me to do that."
I did have a good time. Grandmother says all the hyper-critical things about people that I, for the most part, keep in my head. And we had it out on the porch, and said our piece, and we're cool.
Her biggest fear is getting too sick to live alone. She does not want to depend on anyone else for help. I can completely identify with the need to be independent. With the crankiness. With the don't mess with me attitude. With making snap judgments about people, and holding grudges for way too long. I am my Grandmother's grand daughter for sure.
The Old Man and The Kid and I went to North Carolina last weekend to see my Grandmother, who I hadn't seen in four years. She's 81 and just broke her shoulder, and since I'm with child and will be unable to travel for a while, I figured now would be a good time to introduce her to The Kid.
When you visit North Carolina, you do two things: eat, and watch TV. In alternating, never-ending order.
So our first meal was ham and Velveeta sandwiches with tomatoes and chips. (Note: Vegetable #1 = tomato, although technically it's a fruit.)
The first thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid behaves better with his daddy than he does with me. She made sure to relay this fact to me, our relatives, her neighbors, and my mom on the phone. And that was just the first day.
The next thing my Grandmother noticed was that The Kid ate next to nothing. She told me I was letting him drink too much juice and milk. Apparently our kid had trouble wading through the meals of bacon, biscuits, and eggs, and then barbecued pork and cole slaw (Note: Vegetable #2 - Cole slaw, drenched in mayo), and then spaghetti, french fries, cole slaw, and ketchup (Note: Cole slaw is still Vegetable #2, and my mom says President Reagan called ketchup a vegetable, though I still think it's in the fruit/condiment family).
The third thing my Grandmother noticed was that I failed to pack enough footwear for The Kid. After a good drenching rain The Old Man and I took The Kid for a walk to splash in the puddles, and The Kid came home drenched and thoroughly happy after getting some exercise and burning some animal fat calories. His shoes were soaked and she berated me for not being able to whip out a dry pair of shoes for the kid. It's 70 degrees on a cold day in North Carolina, so I wasn't too worried that I had to send him out to play barefoot for a couple of times while his shoes dried.
The fourth thing my Grandmother noticed was that our three year old child had an annoying propensity of wanting to touch everything. Grandmother's knick-knacks are off-limits, so this left The Kid with approximately 10 square feet of space where he was allowed to exist the entire weekend. Apparently in Grandmother's day children were taught never to touch anything, and I had failed to convey this properly to my offspring.
This was after the biscuits, eggs, ham steaks, apple jelly, and hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans (Note: Vegetable #3 = baked beans with brown sugar) and cole slaw (Still Vegetable #2) and then leftovers of hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, and cole slaw (Still Veg #2).
Around this time, when we were sitting at the table eating up the leftovers with Grandmother and my Aunt D and Uncle K, we started talking about my dad. Grandmother said he was a fine young boy until he "went hippie" and The Old Man, my husband, laughed just about until he cried. Grandmother kept on about the moral disintegration of my father, and wondered just how it happened, and got to the conclusion that it must have been my mom who turned him that way, and then Uncle K said, "Yeah, and he was just living in a tipi eating soybeans before he met her." Which was true. My father was living in a tipi and eating very little protein before he ever had the good fortune to meet my mom.
Here's the scene at the dinner table:
Me to Uncle K: "Grandmother doesn't like my mom."
Uncle K: "I know! When your mom visited here, I asked her, 'What did you do?'"
Me to Grandmother: "You know, mom's mother didn't like your son when they first married."
Grandmother: "K married well. D has class."
Aunt D: Rolls her eyes.
The Old Man: Snort. Giggle.
Grandmother to me: "Your father used to dress so nice before he went hippie."
The Old Man: Full out gales of laughter.
After biscuits, eggs, Cocoa Krispies, sausage, and then roast beef, potato/cream cheese/sour cream/butter casserole, dinner rolls, cream corn (Note: Vegetable #4 = corn, swimming in sugared corn starch), chocolate cake and apple pie, Uncle K and Aunt D - really, two of the nicest people in the world - left, and The Kid took his nap.
Grandmother and The Old Man and I stepped out on the porch to watch K and D drive away.
Grandmother: "D is such a good girl. She cleaned up the whole house for me."
Actually, both D and I cleaned the house, is what I was thinking.
Grandmother: "You're a good girl too. Sometimes." And then, totally ignoring the fact that I'm 32, "Sometimes you need a good spanking."
Me: "And sometimes I'd like to smack you upside the head."
The Old Man: Nervous giggle.
Me: "Let me get this straight, and tell me if I'm missing anything. My son minds his daddy better than me..."
Grandmother: "Yes, honey."
Me: "I should have packed more shoes..."
Grandmother: "Yes."
Me: "I let my son drink too much liquid and he's wasting away from eating nothing because of that..."
Grandmother: "Sure you're right about that."
Me: "My son puts his hands all over things he shouldn't touch, and back in your day, children were taught to mind the adults."
Grandmother: "Well, I'm glad you are understanding what I'm trying to say."
Me to The Old Man: "Should we leave The Kid here so that Grandmother can raise him right?"
The Old Man: Giggle.
Grandmother: "Honey, you couldn't pay me to do that."
I did have a good time. Grandmother says all the hyper-critical things about people that I, for the most part, keep in my head. And we had it out on the porch, and said our piece, and we're cool.
Her biggest fear is getting too sick to live alone. She does not want to depend on anyone else for help. I can completely identify with the need to be independent. With the crankiness. With the don't mess with me attitude. With making snap judgments about people, and holding grudges for way too long. I am my Grandmother's grand daughter for sure.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Pop Culture wisdom
Last night The Old Man cut me loose at 6:00 pm, probably because I was horizontal and half-lidded on the couch. While he and The Kid played and continued the potty training downstairs, I went upstairs to read and write and sleep. I did sleep, starting at 7:00 pm, but during that hour of reading/writing time, I discovered something.
I had been thinking about Shelly from Northern Exposure because reruns are playing on PBS. Season 5, Episode 11: Baby Blues. Shelly has a baby shower which reminded me of mine. Incredibly awkward and horrible. When people try to guess how big around you are, it's never a good thing. Shelly takes off from her baby shower and meets a circle of women in the woods, including Regina King as Mom Nature. Mom Nature gives her a dose of reality. She's not going to tell her it's all rosy, but it's not all bad either, being a mom. It's real talk - no horror stories, but no denial either that it's an incredibly difficult time in a woman's life. Acknowledgement that if it weren't for the cuteness of kids, parents would likely throw them out a window.
(And yes, I do get my wisdom from pop culture. You should see my dog-eared copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy).
Shelly got me thinking about my aversion to advice. She was navigating two different kinds of advice. One kind was poison and was making her baby blues worse, and the other kind was a group of women sharing the reality of momhood.
I know the advice to discount off-hand:
You should quit your job. Oh yeah, genius? And then where will we live? In a trailer home in Dacono?
You should give up your officer's commission. I would want my wife to stop doing law enforcement. It's just too dangerous. Well, old white guy, I've got some news for you. Husbands don't run the world or makes decisions for their wives. Now get out of my face.
Children in daycare are raised with substandard values. Only a man whose wife stopped working when they had kids could sit there and smugly say this. (I happen to like The Kid's daycare. The teachers are awesome and The Kid learns and plays and is exposed to a healthy routine every day.)
I'm worse at listening to the good advice. I think I should be super-woman, and not need to hear guidance from anybody. Since when in the history of the world have women raised kids on their own? Only in this current, rich, developed society (particularly white culture) are women isolated and expected to do it all - although in our household it translates to two parents expected to do it all, because my husband is a full-time dad as well as a full-time game warden.
So, thinking all these things, I cracked open Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and she set me straight:
p. 179 "The older women were the arks of instinctual knowing and behavior who could invest the young mothers with the same. Women give this knowing to each other through words, but also by other means....The instinctual self always blesses and helps those who come after. It is this way among healthy creatures and among healthy humans. In this way the child-mother is swept across the threshold into the circle of mature mothers, who welcome her with jokes, gifts, and stories."
And mature mothers can be of any age, and don't even have to have kids. Annie's a mature mother, because she has this uncanny ability to read people and understand their particular psychic/spiritual predicaments.
p. 181 "Even if you had the most wonderful mother in the world, you may eventually have more than one. As I have often told my own daughters, "You are born to one mother, but if you are lucky, you will have more than one. And among them all you will find most of what you need." Your relationships with las todas madres, the many mothers, will most likely be ongoing ones, for the need for guidance and advisement is never outgrown, nor, from the point of view of women's deep creative life, should it ever be."
I have mastered the ability to sift out the negative, judgmental advice. But I am a novice when it comes to opening myself to wisdom from the people around me, especially the women.
Crazy how when Shelly or Buffy tell me something from the television, I internalize it, but when women I know and trust try to do the same, I reject it.
Hey baby in my belly. You have no idea how much you're shaking up your ma's head.
I had been thinking about Shelly from Northern Exposure because reruns are playing on PBS. Season 5, Episode 11: Baby Blues. Shelly has a baby shower which reminded me of mine. Incredibly awkward and horrible. When people try to guess how big around you are, it's never a good thing. Shelly takes off from her baby shower and meets a circle of women in the woods, including Regina King as Mom Nature. Mom Nature gives her a dose of reality. She's not going to tell her it's all rosy, but it's not all bad either, being a mom. It's real talk - no horror stories, but no denial either that it's an incredibly difficult time in a woman's life. Acknowledgement that if it weren't for the cuteness of kids, parents would likely throw them out a window.
(And yes, I do get my wisdom from pop culture. You should see my dog-eared copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy).
Shelly got me thinking about my aversion to advice. She was navigating two different kinds of advice. One kind was poison and was making her baby blues worse, and the other kind was a group of women sharing the reality of momhood.
I know the advice to discount off-hand:
You should quit your job. Oh yeah, genius? And then where will we live? In a trailer home in Dacono?
You should give up your officer's commission. I would want my wife to stop doing law enforcement. It's just too dangerous. Well, old white guy, I've got some news for you. Husbands don't run the world or makes decisions for their wives. Now get out of my face.
Children in daycare are raised with substandard values. Only a man whose wife stopped working when they had kids could sit there and smugly say this. (I happen to like The Kid's daycare. The teachers are awesome and The Kid learns and plays and is exposed to a healthy routine every day.)
I'm worse at listening to the good advice. I think I should be super-woman, and not need to hear guidance from anybody. Since when in the history of the world have women raised kids on their own? Only in this current, rich, developed society (particularly white culture) are women isolated and expected to do it all - although in our household it translates to two parents expected to do it all, because my husband is a full-time dad as well as a full-time game warden.
So, thinking all these things, I cracked open Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and she set me straight:
p. 179 "The older women were the arks of instinctual knowing and behavior who could invest the young mothers with the same. Women give this knowing to each other through words, but also by other means....The instinctual self always blesses and helps those who come after. It is this way among healthy creatures and among healthy humans. In this way the child-mother is swept across the threshold into the circle of mature mothers, who welcome her with jokes, gifts, and stories."
And mature mothers can be of any age, and don't even have to have kids. Annie's a mature mother, because she has this uncanny ability to read people and understand their particular psychic/spiritual predicaments.
p. 181 "Even if you had the most wonderful mother in the world, you may eventually have more than one. As I have often told my own daughters, "You are born to one mother, but if you are lucky, you will have more than one. And among them all you will find most of what you need." Your relationships with las todas madres, the many mothers, will most likely be ongoing ones, for the need for guidance and advisement is never outgrown, nor, from the point of view of women's deep creative life, should it ever be."
I have mastered the ability to sift out the negative, judgmental advice. But I am a novice when it comes to opening myself to wisdom from the people around me, especially the women.
Crazy how when Shelly or Buffy tell me something from the television, I internalize it, but when women I know and trust try to do the same, I reject it.
Hey baby in my belly. You have no idea how much you're shaking up your ma's head.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Cliches
Knocked up.
Bun in the oven.
Up the duff.
Glowing.
Expecting.
With child.
Prenatal ____________. Depression, anxiety, fatigue, vitamins, yoga.
Did you know that prenatal depression is more common than postpartum depression?
I have nothing else to say except I'm in that time where fatigue is like
a ton of bricks
and it hits about 3:00 pm and I can't concentrate on anything anymore.
One bright spot for you people who think that there should always be bright spots in life (another cliche):
I stay awake until 8:00 pm just so I can ask The Kid what bedtime story he wants to hear, and just so that I can hold him while I tell it, and I get my high from this nightly interaction.
Here's something I've discovered:
Advice for a pregnant lady is about as useful as size 6 jeans, yet people still give it as if my brain has become addled and I've lost the ability to think for myself.
Bun in the oven.
Up the duff.
Glowing.
Expecting.
With child.
Prenatal ____________. Depression, anxiety, fatigue, vitamins, yoga.
Did you know that prenatal depression is more common than postpartum depression?
I have nothing else to say except I'm in that time where fatigue is like
a ton of bricks
and it hits about 3:00 pm and I can't concentrate on anything anymore.
One bright spot for you people who think that there should always be bright spots in life (another cliche):
I stay awake until 8:00 pm just so I can ask The Kid what bedtime story he wants to hear, and just so that I can hold him while I tell it, and I get my high from this nightly interaction.
Here's something I've discovered:
Advice for a pregnant lady is about as useful as size 6 jeans, yet people still give it as if my brain has become addled and I've lost the ability to think for myself.
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