Monday night I returned to Tennessee from a 10-day stay in France, and while I had an amazing time (physical traveling including planes and trains – yikes!) I was very, very glad to be home. I was especially glad to return to Mt. Juliet: I missed my friends and co-workers, the people who surround and lift me daily, to whom I turn and confide.
I was startled and surprised to find that the people in France, especially in Paris, were very friendly and helpful: from the Delta employees at the Charles de Gaulle airport to waiters in Paris and people in Metro (subway) tunnels, almost everyone was willing to assist a fumbling American struggling with rushing crowds and a very tentative grasp on the French language. There is a stereotype, I think, that Americans have about the French: there were many “frog” and smelly Frenchmen jokes posted on Facebook and in emails to me, but the truth is (and thanks to the Eyewitness Travel France guidebook for the tip) if you smile, say “Bonjour!” and are friendly immediately when you approach someone, 90 percent of the time that person will smile and help. Or at least try. Because French doesn’t sound nearly so lovely (or coherent) when it’s tainted by a Tennessee twang.
One major thing I learned while in France is tolerance: not being able to communicate with everyone around you because you can’t speak their language (in their home country) is frustrating and at times quite scary. While I agree that if a person is going to move to a different country they should at least try to learn the native tongue, those visiting should be treated with patience and kindness. As a tired but persistent to see the sights, non-French speaking American who was treated almost consistently with patience and kindness, I now know that sort of karma can come back to you both ways.
Something else I learned while away is that it is self-indulgent and easy to take your friends and family for granted, especially those you see on a regular basis. I missed my family terribly, but I also missed my friends and coworkers. I was flung out into the world, away from my support system and comfort zone, and while it became less difficult every day I still struggled. I couldn’t think about my 4-year old son for more than a moment without my throat closing up, and I found myself constantly wanting to call or text my friends to describe the slant of light on the roses of Auvillar or the cute Parisian couple with no regards to the restraints of public displays of affection.
But most importantly, I learned that I am stronger than I thought. I traveled internationally (flying stand-by at that) by myself, and while it was definitely scary (the TGV European train system takes some study and swift feet) traipsing through airports and gasping at the Eiffel Tower sparkling like lit jewels in the black Parisian sky on my own was liberating and fulfilling. I am resilient and adaptable and calm in stressful situations. I learned a lot about travel and French culture (and wine and cheese and bread, oh my!), but I also learned a lot about myself. I learned to slow down, and listen, and breathe. I learned to linger with the sun in my hair instead of cursing that there aren’t enough hours in the day.
I learned to live, not just make it through each day.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
On Motherhood: SpongeBob & Burger King - full circle
Editor's Note: This is an old blog from my Myspace days. (Don't snicker, there was social media obsessive distraction before Facebook.) I was cruising through my old blogs, and I thought it'd be interesting to see what I was blogging about this at time two or three years ago.
In April of 2007 Draper was 18 months old and I was still working for the State of TN. I was miserable there by the end, and I started at The Chronicle just two months after I wrote this blog. This one doesn't talk much about how much I hated that job by the end - that subject is reserved for the blog before this one, and it is cratered with the blasts of F bombs. This one's better, I think, and funny and relevant because, lo and behold, SpongeBob is back at Burger King now, and Draper already has three of the watches. And his language and vocabulary skills are much, much better now (god help us all).
While at the beach just a few months after the blog below was written, in between the State job and starting at The Chronicle.
April 17, 2007
Burger King is corruptive
Current mood: amused
Category: Life
There's this new TV commerical that promotes a new line of Sponge Bob Square Pants toys at Burger King. My son, 18 months, is obsessed with Sponge Bob right now, even though, to my knowledge, he has never seen the show. Thinking it was bright and colorful (and cheap - I mean, why buy clothes for a toddler who doesn't know how badly pizza and mustard stain clothes?), my mother bought him a SB T-shirt which, given the chance, Draper will wear every day. Thus followed a SB doll and pillow case, which must be in his crib before he will enter it.
The commercial begins with two kids exclaiming the fact that SB is now at Burger King. A mother and father are in the bathroom when this announcement is made, and the dad is in the bathtub, fondling a large yellow (somewhat realistic) sea sponge. The dad stands up and asks, "Honey, who am I?"
Of course she stares at him, incredulous, wondering why the hell she married this goof who takes baths in the first place.
He puts the sponge on his head and stands up, covered, conveniently, in bubbles. "Sponge Bob no pants," he cries.
Draper turned from the TV and looked at me. "Mama."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Mama."
I shook my head. "No."
He walked toward me, palms up. "Mama. Bob-bob."
I sighed. "No, Drape."
He touched my knee. "Mama. Bob-bob no paz."
I put down my magazine. "Draper. It's an ad."
Draper cocked his head and gave me a look that mirrors my own when I'm dealing with someone who simply doesn't see things my way. "Mama. Bob-bob no paz."
Note to self: boycott Burger King.
In April of 2007 Draper was 18 months old and I was still working for the State of TN. I was miserable there by the end, and I started at The Chronicle just two months after I wrote this blog. This one doesn't talk much about how much I hated that job by the end - that subject is reserved for the blog before this one, and it is cratered with the blasts of F bombs. This one's better, I think, and funny and relevant because, lo and behold, SpongeBob is back at Burger King now, and Draper already has three of the watches. And his language and vocabulary skills are much, much better now (god help us all).
While at the beach just a few months after the blog below was written, in between the State job and starting at The Chronicle.
April 17, 2007
Burger King is corruptive
Current mood: amused
Category: Life
There's this new TV commerical that promotes a new line of Sponge Bob Square Pants toys at Burger King. My son, 18 months, is obsessed with Sponge Bob right now, even though, to my knowledge, he has never seen the show. Thinking it was bright and colorful (and cheap - I mean, why buy clothes for a toddler who doesn't know how badly pizza and mustard stain clothes?), my mother bought him a SB T-shirt which, given the chance, Draper will wear every day. Thus followed a SB doll and pillow case, which must be in his crib before he will enter it.
The commercial begins with two kids exclaiming the fact that SB is now at Burger King. A mother and father are in the bathroom when this announcement is made, and the dad is in the bathtub, fondling a large yellow (somewhat realistic) sea sponge. The dad stands up and asks, "Honey, who am I?"
Of course she stares at him, incredulous, wondering why the hell she married this goof who takes baths in the first place.
He puts the sponge on his head and stands up, covered, conveniently, in bubbles. "Sponge Bob no pants," he cries.
Draper turned from the TV and looked at me. "Mama."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Mama."
I shook my head. "No."
He walked toward me, palms up. "Mama. Bob-bob."
I sighed. "No, Drape."
He touched my knee. "Mama. Bob-bob no paz."
I put down my magazine. "Draper. It's an ad."
Draper cocked his head and gave me a look that mirrors my own when I'm dealing with someone who simply doesn't see things my way. "Mama. Bob-bob no paz."
Note to self: boycott Burger King.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
On Mayhem: Getting Dumped
I was minding my own business: I was asleep, actually. Sound asleep. The kind of asleep that covers you more completely than your own blanket, that coaxes you deep down into a dark you weren't even aware you had in you.
But still, I dream. I almost always dream. And last night I was dreaming about glaciers cracking, huge great white/blue chunks of glowing ice floating, breaking apart with a resonating crack I could feel in my bones, crunch between my teeth.
Then I was sliding, having lost my footing atop the glacier, slipping, struggling to find a hold, anything, scrambling. I began to slip, to dangle, white rushing water filling the cracks of the splitting iceberg, rising as I slid, shaved ice shoved beneath my fingernails as I scrabbled for hold.
Just as sometimes we dream of falling and jerk awake just before we hit the ground (for me those dreams often involve someone's front porch, peeling white floorboards, and falling down the steps, I don't know the origin of that recurring image and am afraid to ask), I awoke to a startled cry, jerking myself awake just as I actually hit the floor. Blinking, I looked up to see Whitman, my chubby little Maltese puppy, blinking sleepily down at me from the narrow antique bed in our playroom.
I sat up, only to knock my head against the underside of the tanning bed we use to fold/store clean clothes and blankets. I realized that the startled cry had come from me, and that I had slipped out of the bed - but had I jerked so hard from a falling dream (what had I been dreaming about again? and why was I so cold?)that I had jerked myself right out of bed? Even for me, that's one hell of a dream.
Rubbing my forehead I struggled to my knees and turned to look at the bed. Through the dim I saw that a corner of the head of the bed had... fallen. The bed sank at one corner, inexplicably. I crawled forward and touched the underside of the bed frame - so old that even my mother doesn't know its true age, and I have no memories of my childhood home where this bed was not prominently displayed in what my mother called "the antique room."
Puzzled, I gingerly ran my hands along the frame, fearing splinters but feeling nothing. I patted around on the floor for my glasses (I don't know why, I always place them on the bedside table and they wouldn't be on the floor, but I was still half asleep and dazed and didn't think I would be on the floor, either). I am legally blind, meaning that without my glasses or contacts the world is a fuzzy mess of dull colors and shifting blobs. I have become familiar enough in the house to make very simple trips without ocular aid (from my bed to my attached bathroom in my bedroom, from my bed to the kitchen for the big white blob that is the constant gallon of milk in the fridge, an almost nightly pilgrimage for me) but with the scattered throw pillows, the tangle of blanket and Whitman whining, still aloft on the bed above me, I wasn't comfortable enough to access the situation without my glasses. They were nowhere to be found. (I found them in the morning light right on the table, where I had placed them, on top of one of my grandmother's Bibles.)
I gave up on the investigation of the broken bed (what had I been doing in my sleep?) and decided to try sleeping on the couch, near the bed. (Why doesn't she just go to her bedroom, you may be asking yourself, and that is a fair question. I didn't go to my bedroom, and my own bed, because there were no sheets on my bed. I had stripped them that morning to be washed and hadn't put any more on yet. I was distracted by supper and then American Idol. I'm easily distracted.)
The couch, while comfortable enough for sitting, is hell to sleep on. It is old, worn, sinks in the middle and has a sucking quality which, if you're not careful, will cause you to wake up with one arm tangled among the coiled springs of the ancient monster. After padding the couch with every available pillow and getting Whitman settled back into his sleeping spot behind my curled knees, I tossed and turned for approximately 1,400 hours. Agony. I chased sleep, scrambling on its heels, for what felt like forever. (It was most likely about 20 minutes.)
Finally I gave up on the couch and decided to try the bed - only this time I'd outsmart it. (Keep in mind, this is at around 3 a.m. No one is at their logical best at 3 a.m.) I would sleep with my head at the foot of the bed. HA! Take that, collapsing bed!
This, of course, was something like trying to sleep while sliding down an incline: I found myself holding on to the footboard in my dozy haze, trying to keep from sliding down to the foot of the bed, where half the mattress was now nearly on the floor. I woke up from a light doze once with my arms flung over the footboard, my elbows hooked, basically holding on in my sleep, with Whitman curled around the top of my head to keep from sliding onto the floor.
I raised up and looked at him, nose to nose.
"This isn't working," I told him. I could swear he rolled his eyes.
So I picked up my puppy, my pillow, my blanket and my phone and we trooped to the other end of the house (me feeling the way along walls and bumping into chairs and other random obstacles along the way) to my bedroom, where I flopped onto my bed, never more grateful for it, sheets or no sheets.
This morning I tried to explain what happened in the night to The Dude, who stood at the doorway to the playroom, looking down at the broken bed, which I had already made back up.
"It looks fine to me," he said skeptically, scratching at his thigh clad in Spiderman pajama pants. He glanced at me. "Are you all right?"
"No I'm not all right! I had to hang on for dear life, and it was cold!"
He shut the door, shaking his head.
"It's time for my breakfast, Mom."
I dropped the gallon of milk on the kitchen counter and looked at him. "I don't think you appreciate the gravity of the situation."
He frowned and sat on the edge of the little blue rocking recliner we keep in the kitchen. "The what?"
"The gravity of the situation."
He nodded. "Isn't that... what holds stuff down? Gravity?"
I blinked.
"That's funny," he smiled up at me. "That's what holds stuff down and made you fall out of bed. Gravity." He chuckled.
"You're hilarious," I told him, turning so he coudln't see me smile. "Now what do you want for breakfast?"
But still, I dream. I almost always dream. And last night I was dreaming about glaciers cracking, huge great white/blue chunks of glowing ice floating, breaking apart with a resonating crack I could feel in my bones, crunch between my teeth.
Then I was sliding, having lost my footing atop the glacier, slipping, struggling to find a hold, anything, scrambling. I began to slip, to dangle, white rushing water filling the cracks of the splitting iceberg, rising as I slid, shaved ice shoved beneath my fingernails as I scrabbled for hold.
Just as sometimes we dream of falling and jerk awake just before we hit the ground (for me those dreams often involve someone's front porch, peeling white floorboards, and falling down the steps, I don't know the origin of that recurring image and am afraid to ask), I awoke to a startled cry, jerking myself awake just as I actually hit the floor. Blinking, I looked up to see Whitman, my chubby little Maltese puppy, blinking sleepily down at me from the narrow antique bed in our playroom.
I sat up, only to knock my head against the underside of the tanning bed we use to fold/store clean clothes and blankets. I realized that the startled cry had come from me, and that I had slipped out of the bed - but had I jerked so hard from a falling dream (what had I been dreaming about again? and why was I so cold?)that I had jerked myself right out of bed? Even for me, that's one hell of a dream.
Rubbing my forehead I struggled to my knees and turned to look at the bed. Through the dim I saw that a corner of the head of the bed had... fallen. The bed sank at one corner, inexplicably. I crawled forward and touched the underside of the bed frame - so old that even my mother doesn't know its true age, and I have no memories of my childhood home where this bed was not prominently displayed in what my mother called "the antique room."
Puzzled, I gingerly ran my hands along the frame, fearing splinters but feeling nothing. I patted around on the floor for my glasses (I don't know why, I always place them on the bedside table and they wouldn't be on the floor, but I was still half asleep and dazed and didn't think I would be on the floor, either). I am legally blind, meaning that without my glasses or contacts the world is a fuzzy mess of dull colors and shifting blobs. I have become familiar enough in the house to make very simple trips without ocular aid (from my bed to my attached bathroom in my bedroom, from my bed to the kitchen for the big white blob that is the constant gallon of milk in the fridge, an almost nightly pilgrimage for me) but with the scattered throw pillows, the tangle of blanket and Whitman whining, still aloft on the bed above me, I wasn't comfortable enough to access the situation without my glasses. They were nowhere to be found. (I found them in the morning light right on the table, where I had placed them, on top of one of my grandmother's Bibles.)
I gave up on the investigation of the broken bed (what had I been doing in my sleep?) and decided to try sleeping on the couch, near the bed. (Why doesn't she just go to her bedroom, you may be asking yourself, and that is a fair question. I didn't go to my bedroom, and my own bed, because there were no sheets on my bed. I had stripped them that morning to be washed and hadn't put any more on yet. I was distracted by supper and then American Idol. I'm easily distracted.)
The couch, while comfortable enough for sitting, is hell to sleep on. It is old, worn, sinks in the middle and has a sucking quality which, if you're not careful, will cause you to wake up with one arm tangled among the coiled springs of the ancient monster. After padding the couch with every available pillow and getting Whitman settled back into his sleeping spot behind my curled knees, I tossed and turned for approximately 1,400 hours. Agony. I chased sleep, scrambling on its heels, for what felt like forever. (It was most likely about 20 minutes.)
Finally I gave up on the couch and decided to try the bed - only this time I'd outsmart it. (Keep in mind, this is at around 3 a.m. No one is at their logical best at 3 a.m.) I would sleep with my head at the foot of the bed. HA! Take that, collapsing bed!
This, of course, was something like trying to sleep while sliding down an incline: I found myself holding on to the footboard in my dozy haze, trying to keep from sliding down to the foot of the bed, where half the mattress was now nearly on the floor. I woke up from a light doze once with my arms flung over the footboard, my elbows hooked, basically holding on in my sleep, with Whitman curled around the top of my head to keep from sliding onto the floor.
I raised up and looked at him, nose to nose.
"This isn't working," I told him. I could swear he rolled his eyes.
So I picked up my puppy, my pillow, my blanket and my phone and we trooped to the other end of the house (me feeling the way along walls and bumping into chairs and other random obstacles along the way) to my bedroom, where I flopped onto my bed, never more grateful for it, sheets or no sheets.
This morning I tried to explain what happened in the night to The Dude, who stood at the doorway to the playroom, looking down at the broken bed, which I had already made back up.
"It looks fine to me," he said skeptically, scratching at his thigh clad in Spiderman pajama pants. He glanced at me. "Are you all right?"
"No I'm not all right! I had to hang on for dear life, and it was cold!"
He shut the door, shaking his head.
"It's time for my breakfast, Mom."
I dropped the gallon of milk on the kitchen counter and looked at him. "I don't think you appreciate the gravity of the situation."
He frowned and sat on the edge of the little blue rocking recliner we keep in the kitchen. "The what?"
"The gravity of the situation."
He nodded. "Isn't that... what holds stuff down? Gravity?"
I blinked.
"That's funny," he smiled up at me. "That's what holds stuff down and made you fall out of bed. Gravity." He chuckled.
"You're hilarious," I told him, turning so he coudln't see me smile. "Now what do you want for breakfast?"
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
On Mayhem: WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
Don't get me wrong: I love Middle Tennessee. I love the gorgeous hills,
I love the people,
And, normally, I love the weather. Very temperate, and we have actual seasons, unlike when I lived in South Florida and it was just hot all the damn time.
But here's the thing about Middle Tennessee people and weather: we can't handle snow. Especially when you combine snow and ice. Snow and ice and schools. We close school if someone is overheard in a grocery store aisle saying that it was icy and there was light snow when they visited Aunt Marsha in Minnesota last week. BECAUSE IT MIGHT COME HERE! THE WEATHER MIGHT DRIFT HERE AND IT MIGHT SNOW AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!
But we don't die. No, we cancel school three days before the "winter event" gets here, we go to the grocery and buy ALL of the milk and ALL of the bread. And maybe some shrimp cocktail and batteries, just in case.
And this happens every time. Every single time. And trust me, I like snow. A lot. I like how everything looks so clean and stark on a snowy morning. And we don't get enough snow here to take it for granted. But the weather people on TV start predicting it days in advance, and so we have to wait and see. And it's all anybody can talk about: the SNOW, when is the SNOW coming, how much will it SNOW, will they cancel school (yes), how many days will we be SNOWED IN? Stranded! Trapped in our homes! Thank God for the shrimp and batteries!
So here's what I propose: calm down, people of Middle Tennessee. Even if it does snow (and we all know that when you discuss it to death, and when the weathermen actually predict it, it rarely happens, we know this) then just don't get out and drive in it unless you have to, because if there's anything worse than Middle Tennesseans freaking out about snow it's them attempting to drive in it. Stay home, curl up with your kids or loved ones or pets, and relax. Spend some time together. Talk to each other. Play games, cook a meal together, watch a movie.
Snow days, I think, are the perfect excuse to do nothing but chill. Seems appropriate, don't you think?
I love the people,
And, normally, I love the weather. Very temperate, and we have actual seasons, unlike when I lived in South Florida and it was just hot all the damn time.
But here's the thing about Middle Tennessee people and weather: we can't handle snow. Especially when you combine snow and ice. Snow and ice and schools. We close school if someone is overheard in a grocery store aisle saying that it was icy and there was light snow when they visited Aunt Marsha in Minnesota last week. BECAUSE IT MIGHT COME HERE! THE WEATHER MIGHT DRIFT HERE AND IT MIGHT SNOW AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!
But we don't die. No, we cancel school three days before the "winter event" gets here, we go to the grocery and buy ALL of the milk and ALL of the bread. And maybe some shrimp cocktail and batteries, just in case.
And this happens every time. Every single time. And trust me, I like snow. A lot. I like how everything looks so clean and stark on a snowy morning. And we don't get enough snow here to take it for granted. But the weather people on TV start predicting it days in advance, and so we have to wait and see. And it's all anybody can talk about: the SNOW, when is the SNOW coming, how much will it SNOW, will they cancel school (yes), how many days will we be SNOWED IN? Stranded! Trapped in our homes! Thank God for the shrimp and batteries!
So here's what I propose: calm down, people of Middle Tennessee. Even if it does snow (and we all know that when you discuss it to death, and when the weathermen actually predict it, it rarely happens, we know this) then just don't get out and drive in it unless you have to, because if there's anything worse than Middle Tennesseans freaking out about snow it's them attempting to drive in it. Stay home, curl up with your kids or loved ones or pets, and relax. Spend some time together. Talk to each other. Play games, cook a meal together, watch a movie.
Snow days, I think, are the perfect excuse to do nothing but chill. Seems appropriate, don't you think?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
On Motherhood: Sometimes getting fired is the best thing that could happen
So, there goes a New Year Goal (I refuse to call them resolutions, that sounds so... FINAL - "You MUST do this, you made a resolution!") to blog at least a few times a week. Oh well, there's always another chance - that's what I like about days: they just keep coming, and with each morning you have a new chance to start over. Who needs a new year for that? (Hint: I do.)
I have made good on a few of my New Year goals, namely this one: to start writing down some of the stuff The Dude says, because 1. people keep telling me to do it, and 2. he's really, really funny and says surprisingly smart things. He also tells these long, drawn out stories with the greatest facial expressions and hand gestures.
A week or so ago I was talking about someone I know who is about to get fired from her job. I can't remember if I was telling Mom or The Dude about it, but it must have stuck in his head, because this weekend, in one of our marathon movie-watching-and-Connect-4-and-or-Operation-SpongeBob-game sessions, he launched into the following story (and if you know The Dude you can hear his pipey little high-pitched voice, which, consequentially, sounds a lot like mine, with my cadence and lilt):
"So last week when I got fired from my office job I set up an office in my closet. And that's where I write the SpongeBob episodes. Did you know that I write SpongeBob episodes now?"
"I didn't know that. What is an episode?"
"It's one TV show."
I shrugged, dropped a red disk into the Connect 4 grid. "Okay."
"So I set up my office, and that's where I'm writing them. I'm pretty good at it. I've found my talent, and it's writing SpongeBob episodes."
"I'm sure it is." (The talent question came up also during last night's American Idol premiere. Apparently his talent is telling stories, but only until he "really" learns how to write, and then he'll write stories, just like me.) "You've certainly seen enough SpongeBob episodes to be able to have the tone down pat."
On a SpongeBob blanket, wearing SpongeBob shoes, most likely watching SpongeBob with his friend Kendall.
"I do. And sometimes Goose
would come into my office in my closet. He would come down from the ceiling, on ropes, and he would swing down into my closet office and he would write the SpongeBob episodes with me."
"Wow. I had no idea Goose was so athletic and talented."
"He's not. I had to fire him."
From the floor of my bedroom, where Goose himself has slept since Middle Tennessee weather decided to take on the characteristics of Minnesota, Goose grumbled and shifted, stretched.
"I had to fire him because, well, he wasn't that good of a writer."
I leaned over and looked at the dog, who has been known to run, full-speed, into the side of the house. "I can't imagine he has much of an imagination."
"He doesn't. And all he wanted to do was eat all the time. He was always sneaking off into Dah's bathroom to eat Blair's food." The Dude shook his head. "I couldn't trust him."
"Yes, I can see how that would be difficult to deal with and grounds for termination."
"But I think me firing Goose was probably the best thing that could have happened to him," The Dude continued, almost wistfully.
I dropped my final red disk into the Connect 4 grid. He hadn't been paying attention, and four red disks marched proudly in a diagonal line. The Dude glared at me before turning his back on me.
"Well, look at him."
Both of us leaned over the side of the bed and looked at the large copper-colored dog, stretched out over two of the six rugs I'd laid out to try and protect my new carpet from his outside-dog invisible dirt and germs. He snored softly.
"He's just so happy."
We both leaned back, and I released the Connect 4 grid so that the disks fell out of the bottom. The Dude swept them together, began separating out the colors for the next game.
"Of course he is," I said. "He's a dog. What's he got to be worried about?"
"Squirrels."
"Well yeah, besides that."
"Getting fired."
"Well. Doesn't look like he's losing much sleep over that one."
"Mommy?"
"Yeah babe."
"Do you worry about getting fired?"
"Not really, no."
"If you did, I'd let you work in my office and write SpongeBob with me. I bet you're better than at than I am."
"I'm sure I would be."
"Mom."
"What?"
"I might be better. Just let me win every once in a while."
I frowned. "Win at what? At writing or Connect 4?"
"Connect 4."
"We've had this conversation. I will not let you win. You will learn how to play and then you'll win on your own and it'll feel so much better when you do."
He dropped a yellow disk into the grid, a bit dejectedly.
"It was a lot easier working with Goose."
I have made good on a few of my New Year goals, namely this one: to start writing down some of the stuff The Dude says, because 1. people keep telling me to do it, and 2. he's really, really funny and says surprisingly smart things. He also tells these long, drawn out stories with the greatest facial expressions and hand gestures.
A week or so ago I was talking about someone I know who is about to get fired from her job. I can't remember if I was telling Mom or The Dude about it, but it must have stuck in his head, because this weekend, in one of our marathon movie-watching-and-Connect-4-and-or-Operation-SpongeBob-game sessions, he launched into the following story (and if you know The Dude you can hear his pipey little high-pitched voice, which, consequentially, sounds a lot like mine, with my cadence and lilt):
"So last week when I got fired from my office job I set up an office in my closet. And that's where I write the SpongeBob episodes. Did you know that I write SpongeBob episodes now?"
"I didn't know that. What is an episode?"
"It's one TV show."
I shrugged, dropped a red disk into the Connect 4 grid. "Okay."
"So I set up my office, and that's where I'm writing them. I'm pretty good at it. I've found my talent, and it's writing SpongeBob episodes."
"I'm sure it is." (The talent question came up also during last night's American Idol premiere. Apparently his talent is telling stories, but only until he "really" learns how to write, and then he'll write stories, just like me.) "You've certainly seen enough SpongeBob episodes to be able to have the tone down pat."
On a SpongeBob blanket, wearing SpongeBob shoes, most likely watching SpongeBob with his friend Kendall.
"I do. And sometimes Goose
would come into my office in my closet. He would come down from the ceiling, on ropes, and he would swing down into my closet office and he would write the SpongeBob episodes with me."
"Wow. I had no idea Goose was so athletic and talented."
"He's not. I had to fire him."
From the floor of my bedroom, where Goose himself has slept since Middle Tennessee weather decided to take on the characteristics of Minnesota, Goose grumbled and shifted, stretched.
"I had to fire him because, well, he wasn't that good of a writer."
I leaned over and looked at the dog, who has been known to run, full-speed, into the side of the house. "I can't imagine he has much of an imagination."
"He doesn't. And all he wanted to do was eat all the time. He was always sneaking off into Dah's bathroom to eat Blair's food." The Dude shook his head. "I couldn't trust him."
"Yes, I can see how that would be difficult to deal with and grounds for termination."
"But I think me firing Goose was probably the best thing that could have happened to him," The Dude continued, almost wistfully.
I dropped my final red disk into the Connect 4 grid. He hadn't been paying attention, and four red disks marched proudly in a diagonal line. The Dude glared at me before turning his back on me.
"Well, look at him."
Both of us leaned over the side of the bed and looked at the large copper-colored dog, stretched out over two of the six rugs I'd laid out to try and protect my new carpet from his outside-dog invisible dirt and germs. He snored softly.
"He's just so happy."
We both leaned back, and I released the Connect 4 grid so that the disks fell out of the bottom. The Dude swept them together, began separating out the colors for the next game.
"Of course he is," I said. "He's a dog. What's he got to be worried about?"
"Squirrels."
"Well yeah, besides that."
"Getting fired."
"Well. Doesn't look like he's losing much sleep over that one."
"Mommy?"
"Yeah babe."
"Do you worry about getting fired?"
"Not really, no."
"If you did, I'd let you work in my office and write SpongeBob with me. I bet you're better than at than I am."
"I'm sure I would be."
"Mom."
"What?"
"I might be better. Just let me win every once in a while."
I frowned. "Win at what? At writing or Connect 4?"
"Connect 4."
"We've had this conversation. I will not let you win. You will learn how to play and then you'll win on your own and it'll feel so much better when you do."
He dropped a yellow disk into the grid, a bit dejectedly.
"It was a lot easier working with Goose."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
On Mayhem: Surviving Christmas alone
(Disclaimer: I will use Christmas here as an overall reference to the late December holidays. If you celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza or anything else, that's fantastic, please do apply the thoughts and points in this blog to yourself. It's just that I celebrate - in a very loose sense of the word - Christmas, so that's the holiday I'm going with. No discrimination meant here whatsoever.)
Okay, quick: when you think of Christmas, what comes to mind?
Admit it - immediately, just for a split second, you thought of gifts, didn't you? It's okay, most all of us do, it's natural, I think, in such a materialistic society (especially if you're an American, we can't help it).
But for most people, Christmas means time with family and friends - and for lots of people (myself included, during my stint living in Florida) friends are considered family.
But there are those traditional people, millions of them, who want to be surrounded by family at Christmas: whether that is blood-related family, those belonging to your spouse, or step-families, which is prevalent in the case of myself and The Dude: my step-mother's family is vast, far-flung, and yet near and dear and has treated us (and me, in particular) just as they do the rest of the family, despite the lack of actual blood relation. That's not always the case, and I am thankful for that.
So, what do you do if you no longer have any close family - blood, non-blood or otherwise? Is Christmas a time when, if you have no one else with whom you can celebrate, you can go to the home of a friend to visit on Christmas Day, and if so, should you be there during "Santa" time, or wait until later, after lunch maybe, and if so, what do you do with yourself until the point that you think it might be comfortable enough to visit with your friends?
These questions had never even been an issue for me until last year, when my mother's father died. It was heartbreaking after her mother died, but then her death was followed by my grandfather's and then my young cousin, just months after, in 2008. Now, as far as close family is concerned, my mother is left with her sister, whom... well, I won't get into that, but suffice it to say that my aunt has her own "family" that is a priority. I'm trying hard to be a good Southern girl, and you know what they say to do if you can't say something nice... Bless Her Heart.
I've told my mother, over and over, and my stepmother has told her, over and over, that she's more than welcome to spend Christmas morning with us, at my dad's, but understandably she's not quite comfortable with that. She and and my father had a less than amicable divorce, and although they now get along okay - they speak to each other, which was a feat thought insurmountable until we saw an ultrasound with The Dude's sharp profile - they are not exactly to that point of blending families. This, as I said, is understandable.
(Okay, so it's not really like that, but I've been waiting forever for an excuse to post that picture, and this was ideal.)
In an ideal world, Mom would whisk The Dude and myself away with her to Florida for Christmas and just skip the whole she-bang, but neither she nor I would do that to my son or my family. Which leaves me in the sticky spot of what to do, how to feel, and how tall of a wall to build around myself in order to not go completely insane worrying about her.
Which leads me to another point of worry, something that weighs on me like a stone in my pocket, something I return to nearly every day and rub, anxious, achy: the man I will call John, who lives in his van in the parking lot of the Burger King next door.
We've all come in contact with homeless people, and if you haven't you should consider yourself very, very lucky. I've encountered them all over the world - from London to San Francisco - and it never gets any easier. They're all different, of course, just as all people are different: some are quiet and almost dignified, some are so aggressive and persistent you could swear they were agents or ad salesmen in their previous lives. But they all have one thing in common: at night they are cold and almost always hungry - for one thing or another - and have no stable, loving environment in which to call home.
John has lived in the parking lot next door as long as I've worked here - well over two years now, and I know he's been here longer that that. He hangs out in Burger King, and the crew over there is nice enough to let him, give him coffee and, I suspect, food in exchange for odd jobs and "security" in the parking lot.
A long time ago the company I work for owned another newspaper that covered the Madison area, and it ran a weekly coupon for McDonalds, for a free something or other - a breakfast sandwich in the morning and a Big Mac in the afternoon. John would come over every day and get seven papers - one for each day, so he was at least guaranteed two meals a day, and take them to the McDonalds just down the street. We sold that paper four months after I started here, and he was devastated. I rummaged through our old papers and clipped out a folder full of the coupons for him, and the local McDonalds honored them. It fed him for almost a year.
Christmas is about family, and friends, and honoring what we are blessed with, not weighing what we have against what we don't, or what we need, or what we want.
I want a netbook, the surprised and delighted smile on my son's face, and happiness for my family.
My mother wants her parents back, serenity, and to be surrounded with love at all times.
John wants warmth, and food, and security.
What do you want for Christmas?
Okay, quick: when you think of Christmas, what comes to mind?
Admit it - immediately, just for a split second, you thought of gifts, didn't you? It's okay, most all of us do, it's natural, I think, in such a materialistic society (especially if you're an American, we can't help it).
But for most people, Christmas means time with family and friends - and for lots of people (myself included, during my stint living in Florida) friends are considered family.
But there are those traditional people, millions of them, who want to be surrounded by family at Christmas: whether that is blood-related family, those belonging to your spouse, or step-families, which is prevalent in the case of myself and The Dude: my step-mother's family is vast, far-flung, and yet near and dear and has treated us (and me, in particular) just as they do the rest of the family, despite the lack of actual blood relation. That's not always the case, and I am thankful for that.
So, what do you do if you no longer have any close family - blood, non-blood or otherwise? Is Christmas a time when, if you have no one else with whom you can celebrate, you can go to the home of a friend to visit on Christmas Day, and if so, should you be there during "Santa" time, or wait until later, after lunch maybe, and if so, what do you do with yourself until the point that you think it might be comfortable enough to visit with your friends?
These questions had never even been an issue for me until last year, when my mother's father died. It was heartbreaking after her mother died, but then her death was followed by my grandfather's and then my young cousin, just months after, in 2008. Now, as far as close family is concerned, my mother is left with her sister, whom... well, I won't get into that, but suffice it to say that my aunt has her own "family" that is a priority. I'm trying hard to be a good Southern girl, and you know what they say to do if you can't say something nice... Bless Her Heart.
I've told my mother, over and over, and my stepmother has told her, over and over, that she's more than welcome to spend Christmas morning with us, at my dad's, but understandably she's not quite comfortable with that. She and and my father had a less than amicable divorce, and although they now get along okay - they speak to each other, which was a feat thought insurmountable until we saw an ultrasound with The Dude's sharp profile - they are not exactly to that point of blending families. This, as I said, is understandable.
(Okay, so it's not really like that, but I've been waiting forever for an excuse to post that picture, and this was ideal.)
In an ideal world, Mom would whisk The Dude and myself away with her to Florida for Christmas and just skip the whole she-bang, but neither she nor I would do that to my son or my family. Which leaves me in the sticky spot of what to do, how to feel, and how tall of a wall to build around myself in order to not go completely insane worrying about her.
Which leads me to another point of worry, something that weighs on me like a stone in my pocket, something I return to nearly every day and rub, anxious, achy: the man I will call John, who lives in his van in the parking lot of the Burger King next door.
We've all come in contact with homeless people, and if you haven't you should consider yourself very, very lucky. I've encountered them all over the world - from London to San Francisco - and it never gets any easier. They're all different, of course, just as all people are different: some are quiet and almost dignified, some are so aggressive and persistent you could swear they were agents or ad salesmen in their previous lives. But they all have one thing in common: at night they are cold and almost always hungry - for one thing or another - and have no stable, loving environment in which to call home.
John has lived in the parking lot next door as long as I've worked here - well over two years now, and I know he's been here longer that that. He hangs out in Burger King, and the crew over there is nice enough to let him, give him coffee and, I suspect, food in exchange for odd jobs and "security" in the parking lot.
A long time ago the company I work for owned another newspaper that covered the Madison area, and it ran a weekly coupon for McDonalds, for a free something or other - a breakfast sandwich in the morning and a Big Mac in the afternoon. John would come over every day and get seven papers - one for each day, so he was at least guaranteed two meals a day, and take them to the McDonalds just down the street. We sold that paper four months after I started here, and he was devastated. I rummaged through our old papers and clipped out a folder full of the coupons for him, and the local McDonalds honored them. It fed him for almost a year.
Christmas is about family, and friends, and honoring what we are blessed with, not weighing what we have against what we don't, or what we need, or what we want.
I want a netbook, the surprised and delighted smile on my son's face, and happiness for my family.
My mother wants her parents back, serenity, and to be surrounded with love at all times.
John wants warmth, and food, and security.
What do you want for Christmas?
Thursday, December 3, 2009
On Motherhood: Remembering Unk
My father and his older brother were raised by their mother, uncle, and aunt on a farm in Hartsville, Tennessee. The farm was off of Walnut Grove Road, which meanders along rising hills of green, dotted with yellow and purple flowers, sunsplashed, in the summertime. The small house sat at the end of a gravel drive, and there was a low rock fence, with a gap in the middle beside the mailbox, down by the road made of white slabs of stone most likely pulled from one of the many quarries our part of Tennessee. My father's mother, uncle, and aunt were all teachers, all unmarried: the ladies widowed and my uncle a lifelong bachelor.
My father's father died of a brain aneurysm when my father was six years old. The family, at that time, lived in Oak Ridge, where my grandfather worked at the nuclear plant. I don't know what he did there exactly, but I've always dreamed he was a top engineer or scientist with the Manhattan project, or designed bombs or made fusion more efficient. I do know that he, like my father, was exceptionally smart. My father's brother, Joe Pat, a few years older, died the same way before he was 50 years old.
My grandmother did not drive. This was in the mid 1940s, and she was a lovely lady of the flapper generation: gorgeous and sassy and spoiled.
I'm not sure who did it, but I think it was my uncle and his nephew, my great aunt's son, Doodle, (Yes, Doodle. I don't even recall his real name.)who packed up my grandmother and her little boys and moved them back home to the farm, where she lived until she passed away on February 2, 1997.
The Dude was named after my great uncle, who was legally Benjamin Brown Draper, but who I always called Unk. All my cousins - all eight of them, Joe Pat's children - called him Unk as well, and I have rarely known of a man more adored by family, friends and colleagues alike than Unk, also known as Mr. Draper.
(I wish I had a photo of him with me now to include, but they are all at home, or burned with my father's home in 2005.)
All three of them, as I mentioned, were teachers: my grandmother, or Gran (Robbie James Draper Wiley), and my great aunt (Vyda Mae Draper Thompson, and the most saintly woman who has ever graced this earth) at a tiny one-room schoolhouse just down Walnut Grove Road from the house, and Unk at the Trousdale County High School, where he was regionally renowned for his farming education and FFA leadership. Hell, even in high school I knew people involved in FFA who knew him, or at least of him, and he passed away when I was in the 6th grade.
But for me, what was special about Unk wasn't who knew him or what a superb teacher he was, but how he made me feel, which was as if I were the most special little girl in the world. Beautiful, smart, and important: and he was a man of few words.
I was lucky: my Alaska cousins as I call them - Joe Pat's children, who all grew up in Anchorage - only got to visit him sporadically, although the older ones, especially Kathy, were good about coming in the summers to visit. But I got to see "the trio," as I call my Gran, Unk, and Aunt Vyda Mae now, much more often, especially since they were much older: my father was 40 when I was born, so they were already in their late 60s and 70s when I was young - Unk especially.
I remember him leaning over, bending his tall frame almost in half, to pick buttercups along the crumbling rock sidewalk in front of the house with me, because buttercups were always my favorite when I was little. We had them at my house, at their house, and it seems now my little girl life was filled with buttercups, our first sign of spring and warmer, better things to come. I remember him making a swing for me and hanging it in the branches of a tree with no top, no matter how I stood and turned, I could never see the topmost branches of that tree, or the sky beyond it. I remember his laughter as he pushed me, skinny legs and white patent-leather shoed feet kicking, as high as he could before leaning against the tree, smiling, telling me I looked just like my daddy, whom he loved so much.
My father, mother and me at the farm
But as I get older the one aspect of that farm that keeps resurfacing for me is the tiny cabin out behind the house which, when I was little, was always locked. They told me it was a cabin for farmhands, for helpers, for storage. It wasn't until I was in high school and either broke in (most likely) or someone finally let me in (not probable) that I saw the narrow cot against one wall, the doll-sized kitchen, the homey touches like curtains, a hand-knotted rug, and cushions on the seat of the rocking chair in one corner, flattened with time and use. I wandered around the tiny cabin, the raw wood ceiling just inches over my head, touching books, notebooks, old newspapers and magazines, sneezing every now and then, wiping my eyes, awed.
Unk never married: he promised his mother on her deathbed that he would take care of his two sisters until he died, and that's exactly what he did.
For years, until I was a grown woman out of college, I held fast to his sacrifice, his unwavering selflessness, his principles and his morals. That is, until someone - and God help me, I can't remember who - let me in on the little secret: that little cabin was no farmhand retreat, no storeroom.
It was his bachelor pad.
"His what?" I recall breathing. There could be no such thing - Unk was asexual. Unk was practically a saint. He didn't have physical urges or need women like that. Selfless! Moral! Principles!
"Cathouse," I believe the term was.
And then it struck me like a slap on the ass: that book. That book on the shelf in his simple bedroom of pine and warm wood. The book with the naked people in it. I never saw it until I was tall enough to be on eye level with the bookshelf over his desk, but there it was: a book about nudists in America. "Naturalists," I believe they were called.
Turns out Unk was human. In a little girl's eyes he was a looming, smiling figure who said "Gimmie a bus" when he wanted a kiss on the cheek, who had an impressive collection of bolo ties he gave to my maternal grandfather and which I rarely saw him without. Who's sharp chin, impressive eyebrows and warm eyes I see more and more in my own father's face each time I see him.
For whom I named my son: Draper.
The saints in our lives are still people. They make mistakes and they have urges and needs and are human. It's how we choose to remember them, how they made - or if we're lucky, still make - us feel about ourselves and the world that matters.
I don't remember Unk for that cabin now, although it amuses me to think about it. I remember him as a shadow against the sun, leaning over me, tucking a snipped buttercup behind my ear, his warm, papery hand lingering on my jawline. I remember him as strong hands against my back, pushing me in a swing, my laughter and squeals rising into the leafy tops of a tree I could not see past. He is low raspy laughter and a cheek turned for a kiss. And he is leaning against a tree, arms crossed, bolo tie cords askew, smiling, saying: "Aren't you just the loveliest little girl."
My father's father died of a brain aneurysm when my father was six years old. The family, at that time, lived in Oak Ridge, where my grandfather worked at the nuclear plant. I don't know what he did there exactly, but I've always dreamed he was a top engineer or scientist with the Manhattan project, or designed bombs or made fusion more efficient. I do know that he, like my father, was exceptionally smart. My father's brother, Joe Pat, a few years older, died the same way before he was 50 years old.
My grandmother did not drive. This was in the mid 1940s, and she was a lovely lady of the flapper generation: gorgeous and sassy and spoiled.
I'm not sure who did it, but I think it was my uncle and his nephew, my great aunt's son, Doodle, (Yes, Doodle. I don't even recall his real name.)who packed up my grandmother and her little boys and moved them back home to the farm, where she lived until she passed away on February 2, 1997.
The Dude was named after my great uncle, who was legally Benjamin Brown Draper, but who I always called Unk. All my cousins - all eight of them, Joe Pat's children - called him Unk as well, and I have rarely known of a man more adored by family, friends and colleagues alike than Unk, also known as Mr. Draper.
(I wish I had a photo of him with me now to include, but they are all at home, or burned with my father's home in 2005.)
All three of them, as I mentioned, were teachers: my grandmother, or Gran (Robbie James Draper Wiley), and my great aunt (Vyda Mae Draper Thompson, and the most saintly woman who has ever graced this earth) at a tiny one-room schoolhouse just down Walnut Grove Road from the house, and Unk at the Trousdale County High School, where he was regionally renowned for his farming education and FFA leadership. Hell, even in high school I knew people involved in FFA who knew him, or at least of him, and he passed away when I was in the 6th grade.
But for me, what was special about Unk wasn't who knew him or what a superb teacher he was, but how he made me feel, which was as if I were the most special little girl in the world. Beautiful, smart, and important: and he was a man of few words.
I was lucky: my Alaska cousins as I call them - Joe Pat's children, who all grew up in Anchorage - only got to visit him sporadically, although the older ones, especially Kathy, were good about coming in the summers to visit. But I got to see "the trio," as I call my Gran, Unk, and Aunt Vyda Mae now, much more often, especially since they were much older: my father was 40 when I was born, so they were already in their late 60s and 70s when I was young - Unk especially.
I remember him leaning over, bending his tall frame almost in half, to pick buttercups along the crumbling rock sidewalk in front of the house with me, because buttercups were always my favorite when I was little. We had them at my house, at their house, and it seems now my little girl life was filled with buttercups, our first sign of spring and warmer, better things to come. I remember him making a swing for me and hanging it in the branches of a tree with no top, no matter how I stood and turned, I could never see the topmost branches of that tree, or the sky beyond it. I remember his laughter as he pushed me, skinny legs and white patent-leather shoed feet kicking, as high as he could before leaning against the tree, smiling, telling me I looked just like my daddy, whom he loved so much.
My father, mother and me at the farmBut as I get older the one aspect of that farm that keeps resurfacing for me is the tiny cabin out behind the house which, when I was little, was always locked. They told me it was a cabin for farmhands, for helpers, for storage. It wasn't until I was in high school and either broke in (most likely) or someone finally let me in (not probable) that I saw the narrow cot against one wall, the doll-sized kitchen, the homey touches like curtains, a hand-knotted rug, and cushions on the seat of the rocking chair in one corner, flattened with time and use. I wandered around the tiny cabin, the raw wood ceiling just inches over my head, touching books, notebooks, old newspapers and magazines, sneezing every now and then, wiping my eyes, awed.
Unk never married: he promised his mother on her deathbed that he would take care of his two sisters until he died, and that's exactly what he did.
For years, until I was a grown woman out of college, I held fast to his sacrifice, his unwavering selflessness, his principles and his morals. That is, until someone - and God help me, I can't remember who - let me in on the little secret: that little cabin was no farmhand retreat, no storeroom.
It was his bachelor pad.
"His what?" I recall breathing. There could be no such thing - Unk was asexual. Unk was practically a saint. He didn't have physical urges or need women like that. Selfless! Moral! Principles!
"Cathouse," I believe the term was.
And then it struck me like a slap on the ass: that book. That book on the shelf in his simple bedroom of pine and warm wood. The book with the naked people in it. I never saw it until I was tall enough to be on eye level with the bookshelf over his desk, but there it was: a book about nudists in America. "Naturalists," I believe they were called.
Turns out Unk was human. In a little girl's eyes he was a looming, smiling figure who said "Gimmie a bus" when he wanted a kiss on the cheek, who had an impressive collection of bolo ties he gave to my maternal grandfather and which I rarely saw him without. Who's sharp chin, impressive eyebrows and warm eyes I see more and more in my own father's face each time I see him.
For whom I named my son: Draper.
The saints in our lives are still people. They make mistakes and they have urges and needs and are human. It's how we choose to remember them, how they made - or if we're lucky, still make - us feel about ourselves and the world that matters.
I don't remember Unk for that cabin now, although it amuses me to think about it. I remember him as a shadow against the sun, leaning over me, tucking a snipped buttercup behind my ear, his warm, papery hand lingering on my jawline. I remember him as strong hands against my back, pushing me in a swing, my laughter and squeals rising into the leafy tops of a tree I could not see past. He is low raspy laughter and a cheek turned for a kiss. And he is leaning against a tree, arms crossed, bolo tie cords askew, smiling, saying: "Aren't you just the loveliest little girl."
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