Ten years ago today, you were born. It was a steaming hot summer day. A record was set, I believe. You were born in the guest room down the hall.
And it was the happiest day of my life.
You were cute. I swear it. I know that I always say that all babies look like Milton Berle, but you were the exception. You looked...shell shocked, but cute. You truly had this expression on your face as if you could not believe that you were stuck in this room with all these strange people.
You cried on cue and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Ten years ago.
Nobody told me that it would go so fast. Well, to be honest, I think someone probably said something to me about enjoying you because "they grow up so fast!" or something like that. I think you were about three at the time and to be honest, I felt like we were stuck in slow motion. I felt like you would be three forever and I would never be able to go in the bathroom by myself to pee. Sometimes I would get obstinate and insist on urinating by myself. I would go into the bathroom and be just cheeky enough to close the door. You would sit next to the door, your little pink fingers sliding under it to wiggle at me. You would implore me to sing so that you knew I was still there. To this day, I hum Itsy Bitsy Spider or Oh My Darling Clementine when I am sitting on the toilet.
Old habits die hard.
I felt like your little toddler fingerprints were covered all over me ALL OF THE TIME.
I sometimes felt like I was drowning in Juicy Juice and sliced bananas. I would listen to the Count on Sesame Street singing about doing the batty bat and wonder if I was going batty myself. And then everything would right itself again as I would sit outside with you in my arms in the adirondack chair and feel you go slack with sleep, your little jack-o-lantern mouth curving into a drowsy smile, your thumb in your mouth with your index finger curved around your nose. I would lean down to smell your hair and kiss your cheek and feel almost drunk with love.
I never told you this, but a few months ago, I found one of your baby shoes in my closet on the floor, tucked behind an old shoebox and just the sight of it brought me to tears. I put the shoe up to my nose and smelled the soft leather and rubbed it against my mouth, remembering your little fat foot tucked inside of that shoe as you took your first wildly careening baby steps, fearless you were.
No one ever told me that I would cry over shoes.
I also never told you that I once hid your Sendak book about Where the Wild Things Are. I was so damn tired of reading over and over again about
"when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all...."
And guess what? I just typed that bit from MEMORY! You will be 30 years old and I will still be able to recite this kind of thing by heart. Because it is branded there.
But, yes. I hid the book. For two days. And then I felt the angel on my shoulder admonish me that I was being a bad mother, so I yanked it back down from the top of the fridge and then read the book about twenty times in a row for you to atone for my sins.
I have never in my life been as close to a human being as I am to you. Never. I have never really let anyone in like I let you in. It wasn't a choice, really. It just happened. Call it mother love. Whatever. All I know is that I am helpless with love for you on so many levels.
And strong as steel because of your existence. I have never been much of a brave person but I would die before I let anyone hurt you.
I have to laugh at myself a little bit, because if someone had told me at 25 or even at 30 that I would feel like this about my daughter, I would have snickered.
ME? Somebody's MOTHER? Give me a fucking break. Well, a freakin' break. Don't swear, Liv. It is unladylike. Never mind. Swear as much as you need to. But wait until you are 18, okay? Otherwise you just look like you are too big for your britches.
I never wanted to be a mother until I turned 40 and then suddenly it was as if I just knew you needed to be here. My life felt...strangely unrealized. I knew, I just knew that you were meant to be. And every cell in me pushed to have you. I knew you before I met you and that is the honest truth. Well, I didn't know if you were a boy or a girl, I just knew that you were coming and the change in my life would be....magnificent.
No one ever told me that. That one skinny ten year old would be the center of my world.
I'm not one of those people who think that a woman needs to have a child to be fulfilled or some such nonsense. I just know that for me, I knew you were coming and that I would never look back.
I have not always been a good mother, but I have tried, Livvy. I admit that during the first four months of your life when you had colic, I honestly thought that maybe I had made one bugger of a big mistake. I was so sleep deprived, so addled with fatigue, that I felt thick and obtuse. I would lean over your crib, watching you scream with rage and wearily lift you out to lay you over my knees, walk around the house with you, looking out the windows into the black night and imploring you to "look at the pretty moon" or "can you hear the trees whispering to us, Livvy?" It didn't work. You simply howled. I felt so defeated.
And then one day you just stopped.
The screaming was over. I think my ears rang for a few days in the sudden silence. I was so desperately tired that I toyed with the idea that someone had come in the dead of night and switched babies on me. But, no. That crooked jack-o-lantern smile was uniquely yours.
I did better after that. So did you. Everything you did fascinated me. I turned into one of those nauseating parents who want to stop strangers in the street to have a look at their beautiful baby. I never did, we just don't do that on the prairie. But, I wanted to.
It's always been me and you and you and me. I have tried to do right by you. Make you proud of me. Because I am so very proud of you.
I looked at you last week, standing next to your father, opening your presents and I tried to imagine that I didn't know you. What would I think if I had just met you for the first time?
Perfection. I would think you were perfection.
I see so much of your father in you and so little of me. That pains me. There. I said it. I want you to have more of me in you than your honey colored hair. (And really that isn't so much me as it is my family. I never had golden hair, my sister, Celia did. But I can think of NO ONE in your father's family who doesn't have jet black hair, so I am claiming it as a trait from me.)
I want you to love to read as I did. I want you to sit down and spin stories in your head as I did, do. I want you to have a weakness for white chocolate and cherry slurpees. You have none of that. You like to read, yes. But not fiction, really.
And where did you get that love of math? Even your father seems baffled by that. He swears that he always sucked at math too, just like I did.
I guess that can be your own trait. Your Liv trait.
I miss staring into your eyes like I did so often when you were a baby. You had such dark brown eyes that I sometimes was pressed to find your pupils. Now, if I stared into your eyes like that, like some besotted idiot, you would ask me what was wrong. Why was I staring?
When did you grow so tall that you didn't fit in my lap anymore? One day, you plopped down on my lap and we both laughed at how your legs were splayed out like a little frog. Instead of leaning down to scoop you up, I was reaching around to place my arm around your slim shoulders.
5th grade this year. When did THAT happen?
I feel like it was just a few days ago when you were carefully carrying your robin's nest to the car for show and tell. Now, you are swinging your Beatles satchel over your shoulder as you gallop out to the car, suddenly slapping your forehead as you realize that you have forgotten your lunch again and then bounding back into the house to retrieve it.
I watched you with your friends this summer on the sun porch, teaching them how to do the cajun two step. You were so graceful, so GOOD. So tall.
Wasn't it two weeks ago that I was on that sun porch, listening to Joni Mitchell singing that "I want to renew you, I want to shampoo you..." while I held you in my arms and we danced together, our heads tipped back to smile at each other? You were just shy of three and had a sticky orange section in your hand and I just knew that it was going to end up in my hair.
Liv, it has gone so fast.
And I wouldn't change a thing, not one minute.
Even the time last month when I yelled at you to clean your room and you actually looked at me and said, "MOTHER!! Can you just cut me a little slack?"
It was the first time you called me MOTHER. Until then, it was always Mama or sometimes Mom.
I suppose I need to get used to this growing up shit, I mean stuff.
But, I will always cry over your shoes, Liv. I can't help it.
And I will always adore your smile, your voice, your smell (vanilla, dog hair and some kind of lemony scent, not quite lemon verbena, but something else...) and your spirit.
You were meant to be with me and I was meant to be with you.
Happy birthday, dove. I love you.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Back in my own bed
And it feels so....luxurious. Home again, home again, jiggedy jig. Vacation time is over.
Hotel beds are nice in that you get to mess them up and not have to make them up again. The mints on the pillow are always a pleasant surprise.
So, I went to Oregon after a brief stay in Redding, California. Liv didn't know I was coming. Nirand and I met up in Redding and drove to Klamath Falls to surprise her for her birthday. Then Liv and her father headed back to South Dakota, Nirand back to California and me back home, with a brief stop in Salt Lake City.
I took a peek inside the tent that Liv and her father were staying in and frankly, you could not pay me enough to sleep on a cot. Especially one with an army blanket on it. They didn't seem to mind, though, and this made me realize over and over again that as Liv grows older, she is less like me and more like Tinton. She has his stance, his facial expressions, his love of the outdoors. Her honey blonde hair is from my side of the family, but that is about it. Everything else is....him. Her dark brown eyes and tawny skin. Her wide lipped mouth, my little crooked jack-o-lantern smiling girl. And tall. She is going to be so very tall. At ten years old, she is only about one inch shorter than I am. She is the tallest in her class every year and has been since first grade.
She is slim hipped and long legged. Not an ounce of baby fat on her. She is all elbows now when she sits in my lap.
She loves math, has mostly math games on her iphone. She thinks that she might like to be a mathematician when she grows up. The older she gets, the less she reads fiction and for some reason, I find this upsetting. She likes to read non fiction, likes to read about saving the earth, almanacs full of useful information like how to tell how old a tree is or what to do if you are caught up in a tornado. She has a book on mushrooms that she really loves, has already impressed her father with her knowledge of edible and non-edible mushrooms on their forest hikes.
You couldn't have paid me to read thisshit stuff when I was her age. I was into fairy books at age ten. She is into reading up on string theory. She is a....scientist. I was (and still am) all about fiction.
I looked at her at her birthday party and was nearly struck dumb watching her standing next to her father, their resemblance is striking. She is truly her father's daughter in many, many ways. She and I will always be close, we have an unbreakable bond, but the truth is that she is not much like me.
I tend to be a very emotional person on the inside, but I emit a calm, unflappable persona. Liv is the real deal. She is not particularly emotional and is very uncomfortable with any strong emotion. She has never been much of a crier, is not a drama queen at all. She is genuinely unflappable, is a practical thinker, pragmatic and calm. Which is exactly how I would describe her father. She rarely has tantrums. When she is mad, she clams up and goes into her room to be alone.
She didn't want a birthday cake, doesn't really like cake much at all. She likes...fruit salad. She's all about eating healthy.
This is so not me.
So, yes...we had fruit salad and green tea ice cream for her birthday sweets.
In a tent. Sitting on cots.
She was deliriously happy. Her father gave her a telescope and a compass. Bing and I gave her a gift certificate to a store that specializes in scientific toys. Nirand gave her a stuffed dog, which she immediately loved and decided to name....Nirand.
This is not a kid who asked for anything remotely Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers. (She thinks they are "boring".) No pretty clothes or twinkly necklaces, bracelets or rings. She allows me to pick out several outfits from Hanna Andersson for school each year, but otherwise lives in jeans and tee shirts. When she wants to look dressy, she will sometimes do something interesting like knot a paisley tie around her neck or wear a tam. No jewelry, though. No bright nail polish. No lip gloss.
There is not one speck of the girly girl in my little girl. But, she isn't a tomboy either. She is...well, picture Hermione Granger with golden hair and there you have it. She would make an excellent witch and she hates to lose or come in second. She is brainy and smooth spirited.
And she will be officially ten in 4 days. She, Socks and Harry Potter all share the same birthday.
We celebrated early since I had to get back to the prairies and go earn myself a living.
My vacation was not bad. The best part was seeing Liv, watching her face go slack with shock and sheer joy when she saw Nirand and I sitting on cots when her father held open the tent flap for her to go in.
I did decline the spelunking, although Liv, Nirand, and Tinton proclaimed that I was missing the time of my life.
Duck walking through a cave is just not my idea of fun. Going back to my hotel room and finding mints on my pillow, air conditioning and a color television was more up my alley.
I spent a few days in Salt Lake City after a tearful farewell (well, I was crying, Liv was patting my back and assuring me that she would be home soon.) I was able to re-discover my old friend, GI Jane, all over again. It was a real eye opener for me to see my old hell raising friend (the one who I went on a road trip with and spent one drunken night sitting on a hotel room bed singing "And Aubrey was her name...I never knew her but I loved her just the same...I loved her name...") now all settled down and raising a little child. Just watching her make macaroni and cheese and pbj sandwiches was very, very surprising. Who knew that a domestic mama lived inside that gallumping party hopping bar fly?
"Kind of like you are now, too," she reminded me. Who would have figured on all those martini soaked nights we spent together that we would end up in a kitchen in Salt Lake City eating pbj sandwiches and cucumber slices? Oh, and KOOL-AID. The cherry is not bad at all. And playing croquette in her back yard with her Mormon family?
Well now.
Life is funny.
What was so not funny was the airplane ride home.
As God as my witness, I will never sit in back of teenagers again.
I ended up sitting behind two teenage girls who I swear were Bruno's sisters.
They had deep German accents, pouting mouths and faces that looked so devoid of human emotion that they could have been femme bots.
They were coming from California and boy howdy, they were not happy. They had not had nearly enough time to go shopping and now their mean parents had not even sprung for first class, so they were stuck with us peasants in business class.
I do have to admit, though, that watching them try to (very unsuccessfully) flirt with the gay flight attendant was pretty humorous.
("Vat is vrong wit dat man? He von't even luke far kivi juice far me!!!")
When one of them tilted her seat back so far that she was nearly laying in my lap, I had a sudden desire to let my gum slip out of my mouth and fall into the pouf nest that was her hair.
It is good to be home. Good to be in my own bed.
Socks is sticking closer to me than velcro. He wants to know where Liv is because he can smell her on me faintly.
I had to break it to him that she won't be home until mid August.
Yeah, it made us both feel a little weepish.
But, we took a long walk and now we are ready for bed. Tomorrow I go back to work after a long ten days vacation.
No rest for thewicked weary.
Thanks for leaving the light on for me, folks.
Hotel beds are nice in that you get to mess them up and not have to make them up again. The mints on the pillow are always a pleasant surprise.
So, I went to Oregon after a brief stay in Redding, California. Liv didn't know I was coming. Nirand and I met up in Redding and drove to Klamath Falls to surprise her for her birthday. Then Liv and her father headed back to South Dakota, Nirand back to California and me back home, with a brief stop in Salt Lake City.
I took a peek inside the tent that Liv and her father were staying in and frankly, you could not pay me enough to sleep on a cot. Especially one with an army blanket on it. They didn't seem to mind, though, and this made me realize over and over again that as Liv grows older, she is less like me and more like Tinton. She has his stance, his facial expressions, his love of the outdoors. Her honey blonde hair is from my side of the family, but that is about it. Everything else is....him. Her dark brown eyes and tawny skin. Her wide lipped mouth, my little crooked jack-o-lantern smiling girl. And tall. She is going to be so very tall. At ten years old, she is only about one inch shorter than I am. She is the tallest in her class every year and has been since first grade.
She is slim hipped and long legged. Not an ounce of baby fat on her. She is all elbows now when she sits in my lap.
She loves math, has mostly math games on her iphone. She thinks that she might like to be a mathematician when she grows up. The older she gets, the less she reads fiction and for some reason, I find this upsetting. She likes to read non fiction, likes to read about saving the earth, almanacs full of useful information like how to tell how old a tree is or what to do if you are caught up in a tornado. She has a book on mushrooms that she really loves, has already impressed her father with her knowledge of edible and non-edible mushrooms on their forest hikes.
You couldn't have paid me to read this
I looked at her at her birthday party and was nearly struck dumb watching her standing next to her father, their resemblance is striking. She is truly her father's daughter in many, many ways. She and I will always be close, we have an unbreakable bond, but the truth is that she is not much like me.
I tend to be a very emotional person on the inside, but I emit a calm, unflappable persona. Liv is the real deal. She is not particularly emotional and is very uncomfortable with any strong emotion. She has never been much of a crier, is not a drama queen at all. She is genuinely unflappable, is a practical thinker, pragmatic and calm. Which is exactly how I would describe her father. She rarely has tantrums. When she is mad, she clams up and goes into her room to be alone.
She didn't want a birthday cake, doesn't really like cake much at all. She likes...fruit salad. She's all about eating healthy.
This is so not me.
So, yes...we had fruit salad and green tea ice cream for her birthday sweets.
In a tent. Sitting on cots.
She was deliriously happy. Her father gave her a telescope and a compass. Bing and I gave her a gift certificate to a store that specializes in scientific toys. Nirand gave her a stuffed dog, which she immediately loved and decided to name....Nirand.
This is not a kid who asked for anything remotely Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers. (She thinks they are "boring".) No pretty clothes or twinkly necklaces, bracelets or rings. She allows me to pick out several outfits from Hanna Andersson for school each year, but otherwise lives in jeans and tee shirts. When she wants to look dressy, she will sometimes do something interesting like knot a paisley tie around her neck or wear a tam. No jewelry, though. No bright nail polish. No lip gloss.
There is not one speck of the girly girl in my little girl. But, she isn't a tomboy either. She is...well, picture Hermione Granger with golden hair and there you have it. She would make an excellent witch and she hates to lose or come in second. She is brainy and smooth spirited.
And she will be officially ten in 4 days. She, Socks and Harry Potter all share the same birthday.
We celebrated early since I had to get back to the prairies and go earn myself a living.
My vacation was not bad. The best part was seeing Liv, watching her face go slack with shock and sheer joy when she saw Nirand and I sitting on cots when her father held open the tent flap for her to go in.
I did decline the spelunking, although Liv, Nirand, and Tinton proclaimed that I was missing the time of my life.
Duck walking through a cave is just not my idea of fun. Going back to my hotel room and finding mints on my pillow, air conditioning and a color television was more up my alley.
I spent a few days in Salt Lake City after a tearful farewell (well, I was crying, Liv was patting my back and assuring me that she would be home soon.) I was able to re-discover my old friend, GI Jane, all over again. It was a real eye opener for me to see my old hell raising friend (the one who I went on a road trip with and spent one drunken night sitting on a hotel room bed singing "And Aubrey was her name...I never knew her but I loved her just the same...I loved her name...") now all settled down and raising a little child. Just watching her make macaroni and cheese and pbj sandwiches was very, very surprising. Who knew that a domestic mama lived inside that gallumping party hopping bar fly?
"Kind of like you are now, too," she reminded me. Who would have figured on all those martini soaked nights we spent together that we would end up in a kitchen in Salt Lake City eating pbj sandwiches and cucumber slices? Oh, and KOOL-AID. The cherry is not bad at all. And playing croquette in her back yard with her Mormon family?
Well now.
Life is funny.
What was so not funny was the airplane ride home.
As God as my witness, I will never sit in back of teenagers again.
I ended up sitting behind two teenage girls who I swear were Bruno's sisters.
They had deep German accents, pouting mouths and faces that looked so devoid of human emotion that they could have been femme bots.
They were coming from California and boy howdy, they were not happy. They had not had nearly enough time to go shopping and now their mean parents had not even sprung for first class, so they were stuck with us peasants in business class.
I do have to admit, though, that watching them try to (very unsuccessfully) flirt with the gay flight attendant was pretty humorous.
("Vat is vrong wit dat man? He von't even luke far kivi juice far me!!!")
When one of them tilted her seat back so far that she was nearly laying in my lap, I had a sudden desire to let my gum slip out of my mouth and fall into the pouf nest that was her hair.
It is good to be home. Good to be in my own bed.
Socks is sticking closer to me than velcro. He wants to know where Liv is because he can smell her on me faintly.
I had to break it to him that she won't be home until mid August.
Yeah, it made us both feel a little weepish.
But, we took a long walk and now we are ready for bed. Tomorrow I go back to work after a long ten days vacation.
No rest for the
Thanks for leaving the light on for me, folks.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time out
I'm leaving for vacation in a few days and not feeling so great, so I think I need to take a little break and rest up for the big journey.
I'll be back soon so keep the light on for me, yes?
I'll be back soon so keep the light on for me, yes?
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Slow squash love
All couples have their own private jokes, words, music, phrases that belong exclusively to them.
Bing and I have several. We refer to making love as making eggs. If we accuse the other of acting like an Annie, this means that someone is being a whiner.
One of our favorite phrases is slow squash love, which refers to a Carter Burwell piece of music from the movie Doc Hollywood. It started when Bing told me that whenever I wear my wide brimmed sun hat, she gets to feeling all slow squash lovey.
I think she kind of likes that hat. At any rate, we both loved that movie.
So, anyway...
A voice message from Bing on the answering machine:
Hey??? Hellooooo? Anyone there? Hmm. Guess not. Well, I'm just getting ready for bed here in sunny orange juice land (she is on a business trip to Florida)and I thought I would call and see how Livvy's swim meet went. I know you did fine, honey. And Maria, I bet you wore that big sunhat of yours, didn't you? You know the one. The one where no one can sit behind you because they can't see a thing....So, anyway, give me a call. I miss you guys. Hello, Tinton. Thanks for taking care of Liv while Maria works. I know she is really glad you are there. And Maria, sweetie? I have some slow squash love going on for you in my heart right now. I miss you. So much. Talk soon. Um...well. Yeah, bye.
We missed her call because Liv, Tinton and I were all outside star gazing and singing to the vegetable garden.
So...
Dear Bing,
Hello sweetheart. Sorry we missed your call. We were all outside on the lawn singing to the vegetables. Even Tinton. He brought his guitar out and talked us into singing inappropriate songs to the vegetables and herbs. Don't Fear The Reaper. Songs like that. Somehow, it sounded almost hauntingly beautiful under those stars. Anyway, I think the beans really like Blue Oyster Cult. They were actually snapping. We swore that we heard them. You should see the garden. It is just...gorgeous. It has been such a perfect summer for growing things. It rains every two days, half day soft rains that soak into the soil so sweetly and gently. And then the sun comes out and good hell, the plants are in heaven. We shut the a/c off today. It is just beautiful outside and supposed to stay that way into next week. I come home in the evenings and can't wait to get out and get my hands in the dirt. And you know how much I love sleeping with all the windows open. Liv and I are getting kind of clingy with each other. She and Tinton leave on Sunday for their month long vacation.
It was quite a hard swim meet. The Cherry Lane swimmers are good this year, much better than last year. They whipped our asses but good. Liv was in 5 races. She did breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly and then two relays. In the personal races, she did....not so great. She placed third in the breast stroke, but 4th in back stroke and butterfly. And she was so upset. You know how competitive she is. Wonder where she gets that??? :) At any rate, she came out of the water and looked immediately at the score board and saw her place and time and just...paled. She went and sat wrapped up in her towel after each race, glowering and not talking to anyone, upset with herself. Her relays were better. They placed 2nd in both, so that might be good enough to have her go into the finals. We won't know until tomorrow.
On the way home, she sat brooding, looking out of the window. Her eyes kept filling with tears and she would blink them back. It was the first time that Tinton saw her swim and I know she wanted to knock his socks off. She did knock his socks off, but you know Liv. She wanted to be first. When we got home, Tinton told me he was going to have a talk with her about being a good sport, so they walked Socks and when they came back, Liv was back to her old self. It was such a relief to me to have someone else do the parenting for a change. I get tired of always being the one who is responsible for her being a good citizen. I don't enjoy being a role model either. So, we all had a bowl of ice cream and then went out to sing to the vegetables. She's fine now. I do hope that she makes the finals, though. It means a lot to her to have Tinton see her compete in them.
And yes, I wore the sunhat.
I wore that pink suit to work today, the one that you say reminds you of Jackie Kennedy. As I was leaving, Tinton called after me that wasn't I forgetting my pill box hat? So, I suppose I did look pretty 60's.
As we discussed, I am still planning on leaving to fly to California late next week. I'll visit Lana in Redding and then Nirand will come pick me up (he is working near there...forget the town, but there is a cave or something) and we will drive to Klamath Falls to meet Liv and Tinton for her birthday. She still doesn't suspect that I am coming, so I think it will be a nice surprise. We'll find a nice bakery and get her a big chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. I think I will skip touring Klamath Falls caves. Tinton told me (so excited he was) that there is a place called the catacombs that he and Nirand want to show Liv. I guess part of the cave is so small that one has to duck walk or crawl through it. So, yeah. I will be skipping THAT but staying for the cake. We had thought about waiting to see Harry Potter until then and all go together, but I think we will go this Saturday instead before they leave, and maybe they can take her spelunking in Klamath Falls during the day while I sleep and be a lie abed slug. And then that night, we will have her party, maybe go out for dinner and then bowling or something. The next day, Tinton and Liv will leave to go to South Dakota, Nirand will drive me back to California and I will fly home, stopping in Salt Lake City to see how GI Jane and her babies are doing. And then home, to that big house...that you aren't in.
Sven said that he would dog/house sit. He has sure been quiet this summer. He often sits outside with us in the evenings and has joined us for dinner many times. His mom says that he is quiet with her too. She thinks it is probably about some girl, but you know we prairie people, we just don't barge in on someone's feelings. If he wants to talk, he will. Until then, we tenderly wait and give him his space. But, yeah. Inside we worry. He seems happiest when he is taking Liv out for ice cream or swinging her by her arm pits in the back yard with Socks barking and acting like he needs to protect Liv. And Socks? Well. He will be mad as hell at ALL OF US for leaving him home. Remember last year when Liv went with Tinton for a month? He refused to sleep on her bed for almost two weeks after she came home, finally allowed himself to be coaxed into it, but only after he had tortured her with indifference first.
Ah well, I'm much the same myself. Socks and I have a lot in common. We don't much like others to know how fragile we are emotionally, so we just pretend that we don't care that deeply. But, inside, we ache for those we love. I guess this is my way of saying that I am, indeed, aching for you. I miss you, too. But, don't worry. I won't be indifferent when you come back home. I will greet you with open arms and then try to talk you into making some eggs with me.....
Sometimes, late at night, before bed, I go outside and sit on the top step of the back steps and just eat a piece of peanut butter toast and listen to the meadowlarks. You know how they sound at night, so melancholy, so sad. They sound like I feel. Like I am glad that you are enjoying your time in Florida, but I miss the sound of your voice, the smell of your hair and that spot just beneath your left ear that is mine alone to kiss.
Sometimes it is good to be apart to feel the strength of the bond pulling at us, yes?
So, goodnight, honey. I am tired and tomorrow is another busy day at work. Tinton is keeping us all fed in a very green, nutritious way. You would approve. Tonight I came home to homemade vegetable soup simmering in the crock pot (who would have thought it would be cool enough in July to use the crock pot!!) Liv informed me that ALL of the vegetable came from the garden and they picked herbs from the herb garden too. And they had gone to the bakery and bought a loaf of Jewish rye bread, so we slathered our bread thickly with good goat milk butter and then dunked it into that good soup. I was in heaven, but there was more. Liv was nearly wiggling out of her chair with excitement, so finally Tinton nodded to her to bring it out. It was a homemade mango cake. And it was just mouth watering...with half the cake left! So, wow. No Cap'n Crunch for us.
Now, I will roll off to bed. I have just one more question for you, honey:
Did you steal that pig?
Love you right back,
Maria....
Bing and I have several. We refer to making love as making eggs. If we accuse the other of acting like an Annie, this means that someone is being a whiner.
One of our favorite phrases is slow squash love, which refers to a Carter Burwell piece of music from the movie Doc Hollywood. It started when Bing told me that whenever I wear my wide brimmed sun hat, she gets to feeling all slow squash lovey.
I think she kind of likes that hat. At any rate, we both loved that movie.
So, anyway...
A voice message from Bing on the answering machine:
Hey??? Hellooooo? Anyone there? Hmm. Guess not. Well, I'm just getting ready for bed here in sunny orange juice land (she is on a business trip to Florida)and I thought I would call and see how Livvy's swim meet went. I know you did fine, honey. And Maria, I bet you wore that big sunhat of yours, didn't you? You know the one. The one where no one can sit behind you because they can't see a thing....So, anyway, give me a call. I miss you guys. Hello, Tinton. Thanks for taking care of Liv while Maria works. I know she is really glad you are there. And Maria, sweetie? I have some slow squash love going on for you in my heart right now. I miss you. So much. Talk soon. Um...well. Yeah, bye.
We missed her call because Liv, Tinton and I were all outside star gazing and singing to the vegetable garden.
So...
Dear Bing,
Hello sweetheart. Sorry we missed your call. We were all outside on the lawn singing to the vegetables. Even Tinton. He brought his guitar out and talked us into singing inappropriate songs to the vegetables and herbs. Don't Fear The Reaper. Songs like that. Somehow, it sounded almost hauntingly beautiful under those stars. Anyway, I think the beans really like Blue Oyster Cult. They were actually snapping. We swore that we heard them. You should see the garden. It is just...gorgeous. It has been such a perfect summer for growing things. It rains every two days, half day soft rains that soak into the soil so sweetly and gently. And then the sun comes out and good hell, the plants are in heaven. We shut the a/c off today. It is just beautiful outside and supposed to stay that way into next week. I come home in the evenings and can't wait to get out and get my hands in the dirt. And you know how much I love sleeping with all the windows open. Liv and I are getting kind of clingy with each other. She and Tinton leave on Sunday for their month long vacation.
It was quite a hard swim meet. The Cherry Lane swimmers are good this year, much better than last year. They whipped our asses but good. Liv was in 5 races. She did breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly and then two relays. In the personal races, she did....not so great. She placed third in the breast stroke, but 4th in back stroke and butterfly. And she was so upset. You know how competitive she is. Wonder where she gets that??? :) At any rate, she came out of the water and looked immediately at the score board and saw her place and time and just...paled. She went and sat wrapped up in her towel after each race, glowering and not talking to anyone, upset with herself. Her relays were better. They placed 2nd in both, so that might be good enough to have her go into the finals. We won't know until tomorrow.
On the way home, she sat brooding, looking out of the window. Her eyes kept filling with tears and she would blink them back. It was the first time that Tinton saw her swim and I know she wanted to knock his socks off. She did knock his socks off, but you know Liv. She wanted to be first. When we got home, Tinton told me he was going to have a talk with her about being a good sport, so they walked Socks and when they came back, Liv was back to her old self. It was such a relief to me to have someone else do the parenting for a change. I get tired of always being the one who is responsible for her being a good citizen. I don't enjoy being a role model either. So, we all had a bowl of ice cream and then went out to sing to the vegetables. She's fine now. I do hope that she makes the finals, though. It means a lot to her to have Tinton see her compete in them.
And yes, I wore the sunhat.
I wore that pink suit to work today, the one that you say reminds you of Jackie Kennedy. As I was leaving, Tinton called after me that wasn't I forgetting my pill box hat? So, I suppose I did look pretty 60's.
As we discussed, I am still planning on leaving to fly to California late next week. I'll visit Lana in Redding and then Nirand will come pick me up (he is working near there...forget the town, but there is a cave or something) and we will drive to Klamath Falls to meet Liv and Tinton for her birthday. She still doesn't suspect that I am coming, so I think it will be a nice surprise. We'll find a nice bakery and get her a big chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. I think I will skip touring Klamath Falls caves. Tinton told me (so excited he was) that there is a place called the catacombs that he and Nirand want to show Liv. I guess part of the cave is so small that one has to duck walk or crawl through it. So, yeah. I will be skipping THAT but staying for the cake. We had thought about waiting to see Harry Potter until then and all go together, but I think we will go this Saturday instead before they leave, and maybe they can take her spelunking in Klamath Falls during the day while I sleep and be a lie abed slug. And then that night, we will have her party, maybe go out for dinner and then bowling or something. The next day, Tinton and Liv will leave to go to South Dakota, Nirand will drive me back to California and I will fly home, stopping in Salt Lake City to see how GI Jane and her babies are doing. And then home, to that big house...that you aren't in.
Sven said that he would dog/house sit. He has sure been quiet this summer. He often sits outside with us in the evenings and has joined us for dinner many times. His mom says that he is quiet with her too. She thinks it is probably about some girl, but you know we prairie people, we just don't barge in on someone's feelings. If he wants to talk, he will. Until then, we tenderly wait and give him his space. But, yeah. Inside we worry. He seems happiest when he is taking Liv out for ice cream or swinging her by her arm pits in the back yard with Socks barking and acting like he needs to protect Liv. And Socks? Well. He will be mad as hell at ALL OF US for leaving him home. Remember last year when Liv went with Tinton for a month? He refused to sleep on her bed for almost two weeks after she came home, finally allowed himself to be coaxed into it, but only after he had tortured her with indifference first.
Ah well, I'm much the same myself. Socks and I have a lot in common. We don't much like others to know how fragile we are emotionally, so we just pretend that we don't care that deeply. But, inside, we ache for those we love. I guess this is my way of saying that I am, indeed, aching for you. I miss you, too. But, don't worry. I won't be indifferent when you come back home. I will greet you with open arms and then try to talk you into making some eggs with me.....
Sometimes, late at night, before bed, I go outside and sit on the top step of the back steps and just eat a piece of peanut butter toast and listen to the meadowlarks. You know how they sound at night, so melancholy, so sad. They sound like I feel. Like I am glad that you are enjoying your time in Florida, but I miss the sound of your voice, the smell of your hair and that spot just beneath your left ear that is mine alone to kiss.
Sometimes it is good to be apart to feel the strength of the bond pulling at us, yes?
So, goodnight, honey. I am tired and tomorrow is another busy day at work. Tinton is keeping us all fed in a very green, nutritious way. You would approve. Tonight I came home to homemade vegetable soup simmering in the crock pot (who would have thought it would be cool enough in July to use the crock pot!!) Liv informed me that ALL of the vegetable came from the garden and they picked herbs from the herb garden too. And they had gone to the bakery and bought a loaf of Jewish rye bread, so we slathered our bread thickly with good goat milk butter and then dunked it into that good soup. I was in heaven, but there was more. Liv was nearly wiggling out of her chair with excitement, so finally Tinton nodded to her to bring it out. It was a homemade mango cake. And it was just mouth watering...with half the cake left! So, wow. No Cap'n Crunch for us.
Now, I will roll off to bed. I have just one more question for you, honey:
Did you steal that pig?
Love you right back,
Maria....
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Comfort Food
I just got back from the grocery store.
Bing would not be happy with the contents of my cart. When she is here, good luck finding any processed food in the house. It is ALL homemade and fresh.
When I am in charge of meals, we tend to go out a lot, order in a lot and if I must cook, well....let's just say that I didn't buy that giant box of Cap'n Crunch for nothin'.
As I was putting the groceries away, it occurred to me that I must be depressed because there are a hell of a lot of my comfort foods in those bags. Since Liv's father is here, I have a few of his favorites too, but he is not that different than me. We have many of the the same food likes. Plus, he is used to eating in tents a lot, so he could live on slim jims, cold cereal, granola bars and berries. Liv's favorite foods all involve going to a restaurant because I have no idea how to make oysters on the half shell (her birthday dinner request, I am serious..) She also likes sushi, salmon and pomegranates.
How did I get this child? I mean, she is like a high maintenance girl when it comes to food. I almost feel like throwing up when I watch her slurp up those oysters.
So, yeah, she suffers when dinner is left to me. Except when we have tomato soup and grilled cheese, which we both love. She also likes the way I cook eggs (not too goopy, not too hard) and I do make a pineapple smoothie that she particularly enjoys.
So. There in my cart. Comfort food.
MY TOP TEN COMFORT FOODS.
1) Mashers. This involves a wee bit of cooking, but it is so easy that Socks could make it. You just peel four Idaho potatoes, slice them into rounds and boil them in salt water for about twenty minutes. Then you smash them with an implement that I call "the potato smasher" but probably has a nicer name. Put in some butter and salt and keep smashing and there you go. It is wonderful. I love a bowl of nice mashers when I am feeling blue.
2) Tomato soup and grilled cheese. This is another easy dish, but something about the way the grilled cheese tastes so exquisite when you dunk it into the hot tomato soup...ahhh. So smooth and crunchy all at once and this meal is perfect on a rainy day.
3) Oatmeal. I am picky about my oatmeal. I like Mother's Oatbran. Made not with water or milk, but CREAM. And then I like to top it with brown sugar and raisins. Sometimes when I have had a hard day at work, even if it is 100 freakin' degrees outside, I just crave a bowl of oatmeal. I eat it slowly, with a good book propped up in front of my bowl and no interruptions from children, dogs or spouses, please. Let me eat my damn oatmeal and then ask me.
4) Black licorice. I adore those nice long strings of black licorice. I like the way you have to chew a lot to get it all soft and mushy. And then, you swallow, and it is like someone giving you a hug or listening to you rant or letting you get in their driving lane when yours is cutting off.
5) Dill pickles. Again, I'm picky. I only like Claussen's pickles (they are in a fridge case at the supermarket) and I only like the nice big slurpy ones. Once in a while, I will be okay with one of those really big pickles that you get in pickle barrels in old stores, but I find that Claussen's work just fine. One of my favorite things to do is eat pickles and read. I think I have more pickle juice stains on my books than is a good idea, but at least this way no one wants to borrow them.
6) Lay's BBQ potato chips. Again, picky, picky. They have to be Lays. I like them crunchy and thin. And if I find one that is slightly burned, GOD. SO GOOD. I like the way they crunch so sharply and leave your mouth feeling just a little bit tingly with hickory taste. I never buy the big bags because Bing detests potato chips because they are processed and very, very bad for you and Liv just isn't interested in junk food. She likes fruit for a treat, is crazy about frozen green grapes. Again, how did this wonderful eater come from my side of the family? We all revel in junk food.
7) Long johns with caramel icing. Our grocery store just opened a Krispy Kreme bakery. Every time Bing and I shop together, I allow myself to buy just one. Again. Bing would rather die than put that trash into her body and you guessed it, Liv doesn't really like doughnuts. She thinks they are too sweet and says they make her feel "throw-uppy." I think they are both nuts. I ADORE biting into a nice warm long john and feeling that creamy filling squirt into my mouth. I don't even mind when I bite down and some falls on my shirt. That's fine. I'll just bring the shirt right up to my mouth and lick it off. Socks really likes licking my fingers when I have finished a long john and I suspect that he would like them just as much as I do, but I don't dare give him one for fear that he would start running around like a crazy dog on a sugar high. Because that is EXACTLY what I feel like when I finish one. And I only eat a half long john at a time because if I don't, my blood sugar would go through the roof and I would go into a diabetic coma.
8) Thanksgiving dinner. There is nothing on our Thanksgiving dinner table that I don't like. And it is my choice for a birthday dinner. Hot roast turkey with stuffin' with raisins and oysters. Mashers. Turkey gravy with those little giblets chopped up in it. Hot rolls dripping with butter. Corn on the cob. Sweet potato pie. Black olives. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Green beans with that crunchy onion topping. And then the next day, you get to make a turkey pot pie with the leftover turkey, stuffin', mashers and olives. God, just roll me away from the dinner table.
9) Fried chicken. Preferably from KFC. Extra crunchy. I also like the Shake and Bake coated chicken. ("It's Shake and Bake, and I helped!!") My mother used to make chicken that she put in a big bowl full of buttermilk in the fridge for a couple of hours and then she dunked it in flour, pepper and smashed corn flakes. I still love that, although I bet I haven't had it in ten years since I don't cook much and Bing would not approve of the dunking in corn flakes business. And I only get Shake and Bake chicken when my sister makes it because Bing once took a look at the ingredients on the Shake and Bake box and asked me point blank if I had a death wish. She also told me that as far as she was concerned it was child abuse to feed it to Liv, so well...nope. We don't have Shake and Bake in our house. Well....um....we do now. I plan to make it for dinner tomorrow night. Or...well...I have Tinton (Liv's father) talked into making it. Hopefully, it won't linger on my breath for days or anything, because I swear if Bing smelled it on me, she might consider leaving me for a nice healthy girl who doesn't poison her body.
10) And last, but not least, Peanut butter toast. I feel like peanut butter just makes any bad day better. I like mine extra crunchy and I am partial to Peter Pan, although I will eat any kind of peanut butter, any time. And Bing has no qualms with buying all natural peanut butter, so I don't have to sneak it. I have been known to take a table spoon and load it with peanut butter and then take it outside to savor while star gazing on the back steps. But, I like it best on slightly burned toast. With a big cup of chai tea.
Of course, there are many, many other foods that I find very comforting:
Apple martinis
Vanilla malts
Velveeta cheese on a Ritz cracker.
Chocolate covered cherries.
White chocolate chip cookies.
Cream of chicken soup.
Blueberry muffins smothered with honey butter.
A big bowl of vanilla bean ice cream with butterscotch topping and nuts.
Chicken fried steak.
Hamburger and black olive pizza.
You may have noticed that there were very few vegetables or fruits on my list. And considering that I grew up on a farm, you would think that I should know better. I actually LIKE a lot of fruits and vegetables and my garden is fairly bursting with them, but well...no...they aren't my comfort foods. Well, maybe corn on the cob. But, only in August. Only from Nebraska and Iowa, fresh off the cob and bought from a farmer who grew it him or herself. Smear that sucker with butter and salt and lots of pepper and boy howdy, we are talking weepingly good.
I like strawberries a great deal too. Most fruits. Not melons so much, but the rest of the fruits are fine with me.
So, I'm curious. What are your comfort foods?
Bing would not be happy with the contents of my cart. When she is here, good luck finding any processed food in the house. It is ALL homemade and fresh.
When I am in charge of meals, we tend to go out a lot, order in a lot and if I must cook, well....let's just say that I didn't buy that giant box of Cap'n Crunch for nothin'.
As I was putting the groceries away, it occurred to me that I must be depressed because there are a hell of a lot of my comfort foods in those bags. Since Liv's father is here, I have a few of his favorites too, but he is not that different than me. We have many of the the same food likes. Plus, he is used to eating in tents a lot, so he could live on slim jims, cold cereal, granola bars and berries. Liv's favorite foods all involve going to a restaurant because I have no idea how to make oysters on the half shell (her birthday dinner request, I am serious..) She also likes sushi, salmon and pomegranates.
How did I get this child? I mean, she is like a high maintenance girl when it comes to food. I almost feel like throwing up when I watch her slurp up those oysters.
So, yeah, she suffers when dinner is left to me. Except when we have tomato soup and grilled cheese, which we both love. She also likes the way I cook eggs (not too goopy, not too hard) and I do make a pineapple smoothie that she particularly enjoys.
So. There in my cart. Comfort food.
MY TOP TEN COMFORT FOODS.
1) Mashers. This involves a wee bit of cooking, but it is so easy that Socks could make it. You just peel four Idaho potatoes, slice them into rounds and boil them in salt water for about twenty minutes. Then you smash them with an implement that I call "the potato smasher" but probably has a nicer name. Put in some butter and salt and keep smashing and there you go. It is wonderful. I love a bowl of nice mashers when I am feeling blue.
2) Tomato soup and grilled cheese. This is another easy dish, but something about the way the grilled cheese tastes so exquisite when you dunk it into the hot tomato soup...ahhh. So smooth and crunchy all at once and this meal is perfect on a rainy day.
3) Oatmeal. I am picky about my oatmeal. I like Mother's Oatbran. Made not with water or milk, but CREAM. And then I like to top it with brown sugar and raisins. Sometimes when I have had a hard day at work, even if it is 100 freakin' degrees outside, I just crave a bowl of oatmeal. I eat it slowly, with a good book propped up in front of my bowl and no interruptions from children, dogs or spouses, please. Let me eat my damn oatmeal and then ask me.
4) Black licorice. I adore those nice long strings of black licorice. I like the way you have to chew a lot to get it all soft and mushy. And then, you swallow, and it is like someone giving you a hug or listening to you rant or letting you get in their driving lane when yours is cutting off.
5) Dill pickles. Again, I'm picky. I only like Claussen's pickles (they are in a fridge case at the supermarket) and I only like the nice big slurpy ones. Once in a while, I will be okay with one of those really big pickles that you get in pickle barrels in old stores, but I find that Claussen's work just fine. One of my favorite things to do is eat pickles and read. I think I have more pickle juice stains on my books than is a good idea, but at least this way no one wants to borrow them.
6) Lay's BBQ potato chips. Again, picky, picky. They have to be Lays. I like them crunchy and thin. And if I find one that is slightly burned, GOD. SO GOOD. I like the way they crunch so sharply and leave your mouth feeling just a little bit tingly with hickory taste. I never buy the big bags because Bing detests potato chips because they are processed and very, very bad for you and Liv just isn't interested in junk food. She likes fruit for a treat, is crazy about frozen green grapes. Again, how did this wonderful eater come from my side of the family? We all revel in junk food.
7) Long johns with caramel icing. Our grocery store just opened a Krispy Kreme bakery. Every time Bing and I shop together, I allow myself to buy just one. Again. Bing would rather die than put that trash into her body and you guessed it, Liv doesn't really like doughnuts. She thinks they are too sweet and says they make her feel "throw-uppy." I think they are both nuts. I ADORE biting into a nice warm long john and feeling that creamy filling squirt into my mouth. I don't even mind when I bite down and some falls on my shirt. That's fine. I'll just bring the shirt right up to my mouth and lick it off. Socks really likes licking my fingers when I have finished a long john and I suspect that he would like them just as much as I do, but I don't dare give him one for fear that he would start running around like a crazy dog on a sugar high. Because that is EXACTLY what I feel like when I finish one. And I only eat a half long john at a time because if I don't, my blood sugar would go through the roof and I would go into a diabetic coma.
8) Thanksgiving dinner. There is nothing on our Thanksgiving dinner table that I don't like. And it is my choice for a birthday dinner. Hot roast turkey with stuffin' with raisins and oysters. Mashers. Turkey gravy with those little giblets chopped up in it. Hot rolls dripping with butter. Corn on the cob. Sweet potato pie. Black olives. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Green beans with that crunchy onion topping. And then the next day, you get to make a turkey pot pie with the leftover turkey, stuffin', mashers and olives. God, just roll me away from the dinner table.
9) Fried chicken. Preferably from KFC. Extra crunchy. I also like the Shake and Bake coated chicken. ("It's Shake and Bake, and I helped!!") My mother used to make chicken that she put in a big bowl full of buttermilk in the fridge for a couple of hours and then she dunked it in flour, pepper and smashed corn flakes. I still love that, although I bet I haven't had it in ten years since I don't cook much and Bing would not approve of the dunking in corn flakes business. And I only get Shake and Bake chicken when my sister makes it because Bing once took a look at the ingredients on the Shake and Bake box and asked me point blank if I had a death wish. She also told me that as far as she was concerned it was child abuse to feed it to Liv, so well...nope. We don't have Shake and Bake in our house. Well....um....we do now. I plan to make it for dinner tomorrow night. Or...well...I have Tinton (Liv's father) talked into making it. Hopefully, it won't linger on my breath for days or anything, because I swear if Bing smelled it on me, she might consider leaving me for a nice healthy girl who doesn't poison her body.
10) And last, but not least, Peanut butter toast. I feel like peanut butter just makes any bad day better. I like mine extra crunchy and I am partial to Peter Pan, although I will eat any kind of peanut butter, any time. And Bing has no qualms with buying all natural peanut butter, so I don't have to sneak it. I have been known to take a table spoon and load it with peanut butter and then take it outside to savor while star gazing on the back steps. But, I like it best on slightly burned toast. With a big cup of chai tea.
Of course, there are many, many other foods that I find very comforting:
Apple martinis
Vanilla malts
Velveeta cheese on a Ritz cracker.
Chocolate covered cherries.
White chocolate chip cookies.
Cream of chicken soup.
Blueberry muffins smothered with honey butter.
A big bowl of vanilla bean ice cream with butterscotch topping and nuts.
Chicken fried steak.
Hamburger and black olive pizza.
You may have noticed that there were very few vegetables or fruits on my list. And considering that I grew up on a farm, you would think that I should know better. I actually LIKE a lot of fruits and vegetables and my garden is fairly bursting with them, but well...no...they aren't my comfort foods. Well, maybe corn on the cob. But, only in August. Only from Nebraska and Iowa, fresh off the cob and bought from a farmer who grew it him or herself. Smear that sucker with butter and salt and lots of pepper and boy howdy, we are talking weepingly good.
I like strawberries a great deal too. Most fruits. Not melons so much, but the rest of the fruits are fine with me.
So, I'm curious. What are your comfort foods?
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Time to tell the story of Ondine.
Well, I'm all out of sorts. Bing is out of town for three weeks, going to some Apple thing in Miami. She left this morning at 5 a.m. to catch her 6:30 flight. She's already called twice and sent me a photo from her i-phone. We are both all soupy with love and missing each other, for some reason. Neither one of us is inclined to behave in this lovesick way, so I am surprised at the longing in our voices over the phone.
We had agreed that she wouldn't wake me this morning before she left. I am notorious for being a true crab in the early morning hours and I didn't want our goodbye memorable because I was all haggy haired and bitchy. I sort of woke up when she got up at 4:30 but fell back asleep almost at once and then didn't stir until I was awakened by the garage door closing at 5 as she backed down the driveway. I jumped up and watched her from the master bath's window, tears stinging my eyes like we were fifteen year olds in love or something.
Not much time to miss her, though, as Liv's father is coming tomorrow to stay for a few days and watch the prelims and finals of her swim team and then they will be leaving to go spelunking together in North Dakota next week and won't be returning until the weekend before she starts 5th grade.
I always daydream about having the house to myself but now with the prospect of two weeks on my own, I am not so sure. Well, Socks will be here. I have always been a solitary person, so I don't know why I am not excited about the prospect of being on my own. And I will have several visits from sisters and cousins passing through, so the days that I am truly on my own will not add up to much.
But, still.
Who would have figured that me, the ultimate loner, has finally succumbed to being a pot with a lid? And not only liking that lid, but needing it?
I am trying to shake my blues at missing Bing now, though. She sent me a u-tube video with the words I miss you so much already. I sat there watching the video and feeling half bewildered by the lyrics and wondering where the hell I heard that song before and finally noticed the movie title.
So, I will lose myself in telling you about my new friend, Ondine.
I met her a few months ago. There is a small cafe a few blocks from my workplace and we sometimes go for lunch in groups, but mostly I like to go alone and bring my book to read. I like this time, alone with my book and the blue plate special. Janet is the lunch waitress and she is my favorite kind of server. She is friendly but not nosy, she takes your order, gets it perfectly right and then doesn't insist on coming over all the time to check up on you, but if you gesture to her, she comes over right away and helps.
I noticed after several weeks that there was another woman who ate lunch at the cafe. She was an older woman (I thought) with iron gray hair cut exactly the way Ramona's hair is cut in the Beezus and Ramona books that Liv used to love so much. Crooked bangs and all. She was always dressed in dress pants and a plain top and wore Harry Potter glasses. She moved in that jerky, I-know-exactly-where-I-am-going way that you see in old Katharine Hepburn movies.
She was always reading too but once or twice, she caught my eye and nodded and I would nod back.
One day, as I was walking out, I passed her booth and she suddenly held up her book to show me what she was reading.
It was Stephen King. And then she nodded at my book, so I showed it to her. At the time I was reading a Marge Piercy book and held it up for her to see. She nodded in an aahhhh way and smiled and then went back to her book.
This went on for weeks. Whenever one of us started a new book (and it was frequent as we are both fast readers), we would signal to each other by holding it up for the other to see. We never spoke. Just nodded and smiled. Finally, she held up Elizabeth Berg's book True to Form and I couldn't stand the silence between us any more. I plopped down across from her and said, "I LOVE Elizabeth Berg. I think she might be my favorite author."
This led to a small discussion about authors we liked and it was discovered that we both like many of the same ones. The next time I went to lunch, she invited me to sit with her and said in what I would come to know as her absolute frankness about everything, "How about we share lunch once a week and then the other days leave each other alone so we can read?"
Perfect. It was like she had read my mind.
So, that is what we did. Now, we meet every Monday for lunch. Not surprisingly, we like the same lunches too. Ondine is her name and she is not one of those ladies lunch types who likes to eat a salad or a small cup of soup for lunch. Nope. She likes a nice juicy burger or the blue plate special of a chili dog or meatloaf or (our favorite) tuna salad and tomato soup with lots and lots of crackers mushed up in it.
At first, we just talked books and then little by little, we told each other about our lives. I found out that Ondine had been a widow for 13 months, and that she worked in a nearby library now. She told me about her husband, his name had been Garrett and she showed me a photo of the two of them standing together in a garden of sunflowers. He was a tall, thin, black man with eyes that seemed piercing in the way that pictures of Jesus sometimes do.
Ondine and Garrett had met at a bar. She had been with a girlfriend who was trying to get over a recent breakup and he was with a friend who was also getting over a break up. Instead of the story being about their friends getting together, it became about Ondine and Garrett getting together. That had been 30 years ago when she was just 20. (So much for me thinking she was an older woman, she is actually 4 days younger than I am!)
So, she and Garrett began dating and soon realized that they wanted to marry. This was in 1979 and a marriage between a black man and a white woman were still not looked on with ease by many, although they had been legal for over a decade. Ondine's family could not accept her marriage and she was subsequently disowned by literally all of her family. Garrett's family was more tolerant, she never became close to his family but she felt that they all liked her.
Ondine and Garrett decided from the beginning that they did not want children.
"It wasn't because we worried about a half black, half white child," she said. "It was because, frankly, neither one of us really liked children all that much and we decided to leave parenting to those that did." (God, don't you wish MORE people thought like that?)
Neither one them went to college, they both worked for a garden store for their entire marriage. They lived in the top of an old house, where Ondine still lives, right down the block from the library that she works at. The garden store was 8 blocks away and they bought two bicycles and when the weather was nice, they rode to work. When the weather wasn't so nice, they took a bus. They never owned a car and to this day, Ondine doesn't own one or want one. "If I can't walk there, I take my bike. If the weather is bad, I take the bus," she told me.
She has the toned body to prove that.
Ondine and Garrett loved the garden store. She was a cashier and he was a stocker. They worked there for their entire marriage and she still buys all her plants from that same garden store.
A few years ago, Garrett was suddenly tired all the time. He went to the doctor (it was only the SECOND time he had ever gone to a doctor, he was THAT healthy) and after some tests, they found out that he had lung cancer. He had never smoked a cigarette in his life, but had worked at a restaurant as a busboy back when smoking was not banned and he said he probably inhaled a pack of cigarettes a night. Second hand.
He didn't die quickly. He was able to work for another year and finally, one day, he admitted to Ondine that he just couldn't lift those plants anymore, couldn't even carry a sapling to a customer's car anymore without getting winded. It was his last day at work.
Ondine kept her cashier job. She had to, they needed the money. She arranged for members of Garrett's family to come sit with him during the day while she worked and then she took care of him when she came home. She had promised him that she would not let anyone put him in a hospital and she kept her word. He died in his brother's arms one day when she was at work.
Her employer gave her a month's leave but she found that she just couldn't go back to that store without Garrett being there anymore. It hurt too much. So, she stayed at home, in her bed, only getting up to pee and eat and maybe bathe once in awhile for a few months. Finally, she had gone through their small savings account and she knew she had to go back to work. Garrett's family had been kind at first, but little by little, they were fading away from her too.
She found a job as a book stacker at the library down the street from her home. The library that was just two blocks away from the cafe where we meet every Monday. It is the opposite direction from my workplace. She walks to work every day and gets first crack at all the best books, so she feels that she is about as happy as she can be without her Garrett. She likes helping people find books that they are looking for and has become so educated about books that the librarians direct their patrons to ask Ondine if they have questions or need recommendations.
I asked Ondine what she does for fun. She smiled faintly.
"Fun?" she said. "I don't know if I am capable of really having fun yet. I go to the movies now and then, I read, I keep a garden in the back of the house that I live in. I know a lot about gardening after working so long at the gardening store," she admitted.
She has a cat. Her name is Buffy, after her and Garrett's favorite television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy is 14 and Ondine worries that she will have another goodbye to say soon. Buffy misses Garrett too and since he died, she hasn't been eating well and her coat is not as shiny anymore.
Ondine and I sit across from each other in our booth. We each are happily tucking into our rare hamburgers and sharing a hot, salty dish of fries. We are contemplating if we have room to share a key lime pie, it is good here. Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe not.
She knows my story too. She says that my marriage to Bing is very close to what her marriage to Garrett was like. A union that many have problems with. I've shown her photos of Bing, of Liv, of Socks. She has just heard me tell her the story about how this horrid obese woman came late to Liv's swim meet last night and then insisted on squeezing next to me on the bleachers, although there was clearly not enough room for even someone who wasn't fat. And she smelled. She smelled like a...a...well, I just said it. She smelled like a smelly pussy.
I have just said this and Ondine has snorted after taking a huge drink of her iced tea and now she is choking with laughter and trying not to spit it out.
"And that's not all," I go on. "She kept cheering for her son, who was only a mediocre swimmer. He seemed more interested in going to the snack bar in between his heats than swimming. And every damn time she stood up, the smell would just get stronger. The people behind me MOVED it was so pungent."
Ondine has finally caught her breath and she asks me why I didn't tell this woman to take a hike.
I think about this.
"Well," I finally say. "I kept thinking that it was nice that she wanted to cheer for her son and maybe she was late because she had to work or something and she could not KNOW she smelled that way because I mean, who would intentionally push that smell on others?"
Ondine smiles at me. "You talk tough, Maria. But, you are a softie inside," she says. "And you over analyze people. Probably comes with your profession..."
We decide not to get the key lime pie. I have an appointment in fifteen minutes and really don't have time and Ondine is full from hogging all the fries.
We pay the bill and leave a generous tip and then start gathering our things up to leave. I know that I will probably see her again this week. She comes here for lunch daily and I come in at least twice a week. But, we won't sit together. We will sit alone and enjoy our books. I am reading Victoria Lustbader's Stone Creek and she is reading a book called Bread Alone.
Our friendship will keep on growing and one day, when Bing and Liv are back and life is back to normal, I will invite her over for dinner and ask her to bring her rhubarb pie, which she brags is delicious.
Funny how life works, isn't it? You go to a cafe for lunch in one of the worst areas of the city and you meet one of the best people in the city.
We wave as we leave, she goes to her left and I go to my right. I'll go home tonight to my home without Bing and she will go to her home without Garrett. I will pet Socks and she will pet Buffy.
Bing will back in three weeks but Garrett will never come back.
Maybe that is why I am missing my wife so much today.
We had agreed that she wouldn't wake me this morning before she left. I am notorious for being a true crab in the early morning hours and I didn't want our goodbye memorable because I was all haggy haired and bitchy. I sort of woke up when she got up at 4:30 but fell back asleep almost at once and then didn't stir until I was awakened by the garage door closing at 5 as she backed down the driveway. I jumped up and watched her from the master bath's window, tears stinging my eyes like we were fifteen year olds in love or something.
Not much time to miss her, though, as Liv's father is coming tomorrow to stay for a few days and watch the prelims and finals of her swim team and then they will be leaving to go spelunking together in North Dakota next week and won't be returning until the weekend before she starts 5th grade.
I always daydream about having the house to myself but now with the prospect of two weeks on my own, I am not so sure. Well, Socks will be here. I have always been a solitary person, so I don't know why I am not excited about the prospect of being on my own. And I will have several visits from sisters and cousins passing through, so the days that I am truly on my own will not add up to much.
But, still.
Who would have figured that me, the ultimate loner, has finally succumbed to being a pot with a lid? And not only liking that lid, but needing it?
I am trying to shake my blues at missing Bing now, though. She sent me a u-tube video with the words I miss you so much already. I sat there watching the video and feeling half bewildered by the lyrics and wondering where the hell I heard that song before and finally noticed the movie title.
So, I will lose myself in telling you about my new friend, Ondine.
I met her a few months ago. There is a small cafe a few blocks from my workplace and we sometimes go for lunch in groups, but mostly I like to go alone and bring my book to read. I like this time, alone with my book and the blue plate special. Janet is the lunch waitress and she is my favorite kind of server. She is friendly but not nosy, she takes your order, gets it perfectly right and then doesn't insist on coming over all the time to check up on you, but if you gesture to her, she comes over right away and helps.
I noticed after several weeks that there was another woman who ate lunch at the cafe. She was an older woman (I thought) with iron gray hair cut exactly the way Ramona's hair is cut in the Beezus and Ramona books that Liv used to love so much. Crooked bangs and all. She was always dressed in dress pants and a plain top and wore Harry Potter glasses. She moved in that jerky, I-know-exactly-where-I-am-going way that you see in old Katharine Hepburn movies.
She was always reading too but once or twice, she caught my eye and nodded and I would nod back.
One day, as I was walking out, I passed her booth and she suddenly held up her book to show me what she was reading.
It was Stephen King. And then she nodded at my book, so I showed it to her. At the time I was reading a Marge Piercy book and held it up for her to see. She nodded in an aahhhh way and smiled and then went back to her book.
This went on for weeks. Whenever one of us started a new book (and it was frequent as we are both fast readers), we would signal to each other by holding it up for the other to see. We never spoke. Just nodded and smiled. Finally, she held up Elizabeth Berg's book True to Form and I couldn't stand the silence between us any more. I plopped down across from her and said, "I LOVE Elizabeth Berg. I think she might be my favorite author."
This led to a small discussion about authors we liked and it was discovered that we both like many of the same ones. The next time I went to lunch, she invited me to sit with her and said in what I would come to know as her absolute frankness about everything, "How about we share lunch once a week and then the other days leave each other alone so we can read?"
Perfect. It was like she had read my mind.
So, that is what we did. Now, we meet every Monday for lunch. Not surprisingly, we like the same lunches too. Ondine is her name and she is not one of those ladies lunch types who likes to eat a salad or a small cup of soup for lunch. Nope. She likes a nice juicy burger or the blue plate special of a chili dog or meatloaf or (our favorite) tuna salad and tomato soup with lots and lots of crackers mushed up in it.
At first, we just talked books and then little by little, we told each other about our lives. I found out that Ondine had been a widow for 13 months, and that she worked in a nearby library now. She told me about her husband, his name had been Garrett and she showed me a photo of the two of them standing together in a garden of sunflowers. He was a tall, thin, black man with eyes that seemed piercing in the way that pictures of Jesus sometimes do.
Ondine and Garrett had met at a bar. She had been with a girlfriend who was trying to get over a recent breakup and he was with a friend who was also getting over a break up. Instead of the story being about their friends getting together, it became about Ondine and Garrett getting together. That had been 30 years ago when she was just 20. (So much for me thinking she was an older woman, she is actually 4 days younger than I am!)
So, she and Garrett began dating and soon realized that they wanted to marry. This was in 1979 and a marriage between a black man and a white woman were still not looked on with ease by many, although they had been legal for over a decade. Ondine's family could not accept her marriage and she was subsequently disowned by literally all of her family. Garrett's family was more tolerant, she never became close to his family but she felt that they all liked her.
Ondine and Garrett decided from the beginning that they did not want children.
"It wasn't because we worried about a half black, half white child," she said. "It was because, frankly, neither one of us really liked children all that much and we decided to leave parenting to those that did." (God, don't you wish MORE people thought like that?)
Neither one them went to college, they both worked for a garden store for their entire marriage. They lived in the top of an old house, where Ondine still lives, right down the block from the library that she works at. The garden store was 8 blocks away and they bought two bicycles and when the weather was nice, they rode to work. When the weather wasn't so nice, they took a bus. They never owned a car and to this day, Ondine doesn't own one or want one. "If I can't walk there, I take my bike. If the weather is bad, I take the bus," she told me.
She has the toned body to prove that.
Ondine and Garrett loved the garden store. She was a cashier and he was a stocker. They worked there for their entire marriage and she still buys all her plants from that same garden store.
A few years ago, Garrett was suddenly tired all the time. He went to the doctor (it was only the SECOND time he had ever gone to a doctor, he was THAT healthy) and after some tests, they found out that he had lung cancer. He had never smoked a cigarette in his life, but had worked at a restaurant as a busboy back when smoking was not banned and he said he probably inhaled a pack of cigarettes a night. Second hand.
He didn't die quickly. He was able to work for another year and finally, one day, he admitted to Ondine that he just couldn't lift those plants anymore, couldn't even carry a sapling to a customer's car anymore without getting winded. It was his last day at work.
Ondine kept her cashier job. She had to, they needed the money. She arranged for members of Garrett's family to come sit with him during the day while she worked and then she took care of him when she came home. She had promised him that she would not let anyone put him in a hospital and she kept her word. He died in his brother's arms one day when she was at work.
Her employer gave her a month's leave but she found that she just couldn't go back to that store without Garrett being there anymore. It hurt too much. So, she stayed at home, in her bed, only getting up to pee and eat and maybe bathe once in awhile for a few months. Finally, she had gone through their small savings account and she knew she had to go back to work. Garrett's family had been kind at first, but little by little, they were fading away from her too.
She found a job as a book stacker at the library down the street from her home. The library that was just two blocks away from the cafe where we meet every Monday. It is the opposite direction from my workplace. She walks to work every day and gets first crack at all the best books, so she feels that she is about as happy as she can be without her Garrett. She likes helping people find books that they are looking for and has become so educated about books that the librarians direct their patrons to ask Ondine if they have questions or need recommendations.
I asked Ondine what she does for fun. She smiled faintly.
"Fun?" she said. "I don't know if I am capable of really having fun yet. I go to the movies now and then, I read, I keep a garden in the back of the house that I live in. I know a lot about gardening after working so long at the gardening store," she admitted.
She has a cat. Her name is Buffy, after her and Garrett's favorite television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy is 14 and Ondine worries that she will have another goodbye to say soon. Buffy misses Garrett too and since he died, she hasn't been eating well and her coat is not as shiny anymore.
Ondine and I sit across from each other in our booth. We each are happily tucking into our rare hamburgers and sharing a hot, salty dish of fries. We are contemplating if we have room to share a key lime pie, it is good here. Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe not.
She knows my story too. She says that my marriage to Bing is very close to what her marriage to Garrett was like. A union that many have problems with. I've shown her photos of Bing, of Liv, of Socks. She has just heard me tell her the story about how this horrid obese woman came late to Liv's swim meet last night and then insisted on squeezing next to me on the bleachers, although there was clearly not enough room for even someone who wasn't fat. And she smelled. She smelled like a...a...well, I just said it. She smelled like a smelly pussy.
I have just said this and Ondine has snorted after taking a huge drink of her iced tea and now she is choking with laughter and trying not to spit it out.
"And that's not all," I go on. "She kept cheering for her son, who was only a mediocre swimmer. He seemed more interested in going to the snack bar in between his heats than swimming. And every damn time she stood up, the smell would just get stronger. The people behind me MOVED it was so pungent."
Ondine has finally caught her breath and she asks me why I didn't tell this woman to take a hike.
I think about this.
"Well," I finally say. "I kept thinking that it was nice that she wanted to cheer for her son and maybe she was late because she had to work or something and she could not KNOW she smelled that way because I mean, who would intentionally push that smell on others?"
Ondine smiles at me. "You talk tough, Maria. But, you are a softie inside," she says. "And you over analyze people. Probably comes with your profession..."
We decide not to get the key lime pie. I have an appointment in fifteen minutes and really don't have time and Ondine is full from hogging all the fries.
We pay the bill and leave a generous tip and then start gathering our things up to leave. I know that I will probably see her again this week. She comes here for lunch daily and I come in at least twice a week. But, we won't sit together. We will sit alone and enjoy our books. I am reading Victoria Lustbader's Stone Creek and she is reading a book called Bread Alone.
Our friendship will keep on growing and one day, when Bing and Liv are back and life is back to normal, I will invite her over for dinner and ask her to bring her rhubarb pie, which she brags is delicious.
Funny how life works, isn't it? You go to a cafe for lunch in one of the worst areas of the city and you meet one of the best people in the city.
We wave as we leave, she goes to her left and I go to my right. I'll go home tonight to my home without Bing and she will go to her home without Garrett. I will pet Socks and she will pet Buffy.
Bing will back in three weeks but Garrett will never come back.
Maybe that is why I am missing my wife so much today.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Not usually gushy
But...well...you have to go see this movie:
I wasn't sure that I wanted to see it. Iwant to have my way with like Johnny Depp. But, the only gangster/bad guys movie I have really liked was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
And to be quite honest...I am a little embarrassed at my obvious attraction to bad boys. I am never the woman who sits in the cafe after the movie who says, "I could NEVER fall for a gangster. God, how stupid can one be???"
That would be me. Stupid. Because something in me just....yearns...to be a bad boy/girl's girlfriend. Drive the getaway car. As long as we're just robbing banks, I'm fine. No killing anyone. Can't do that shit. But, something in me just aches to live a life on a knife's edge. I could see me doing the Billie Frechette thing. Running off with John Dillinger because he wanted to know if I wanted to take that ride with him.
Bing says that she doesn't believe it for a moment. That I am too much of a do gooder to ever really settle for a bad boy or girl. And I hope she is right, but I sort of fear that she may be wrong. The thing is...I have never had the chance.
I've known a few bad boys (but no bad girls, yet) and I always had deep lust for them but never fell in love. I wonder what would happen if I did?
And now, of course, I am properly married and have a child to consider, so I would never let myself get into that situation in the first place.
Again, Bing tries to reason with me: "So, you would let yourself be a wanted woman, live a life of having to hide all the time, never be able to see your family because they would be watched, it isn't glamorous, Maria. They never show the awful side of that sort of life."
She's right. I know it. So, why didn't I get the goose bumps for Christian Bale playing the good guy? Nope. I never thought Orlando Bloom was hot, it was Jack Sparrow. I don't lust for that limpid eyed Jack in Lost. No sirree bob. I want Sawyer. I would even like Kate over Juliet.
I don't pine for the house with a white fence. I have one of those. I pine for the wild ride down the highway.
Although, really....how a 51 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a deep dislike of camping would fit into that scenario? Go figure. I just know that in my head, in my dreams...it's a truer fit.
And, hey, the movie is boss for so many other reasons. There is one segment where they combine old footage into the movie that is truly breathtaking. And the sound track will break your heart into a million pieces.
To be honest, my real life is more like this:
Away We Go.
And I did LOVE this movie. The stroller scene alone is enough to make you laugh so hard you want to pee your pants. And like everyone, I felt like I knew these people, had people exactly like this in my life. I also went out and got the soundtrack the next day...
So, yes, my life is beautiful and don't get me wrong, I LOVE Bing, I love my child. I love my dog. I even love my old fixer upper house.
It isn't even that I didn't sow my wild oats when I was younger. I did. Just ask Bing. I was a fucking wild woman for years. In fact, at one point, I was just two steps away from rehab. But, then, I pulled my shit together and grew up.
Yet, now...okay. I can't help it. I realize that at the ripe old age of 51, there are going to be no more bad boys/girls to ask me to take that ride with them. And good lord, I have so much freakin' gear that I could never go. I mean, my presciption bottles alone have their own suitcase. And I can't leave without my special soaps and what about my chanel suits?
I'm not a good candidate for that kind of life. I know it.
But, I can dream. And in my dreams, well...I sort of want to take that ride, you know?
I wasn't sure that I wanted to see it. I
And to be quite honest...I am a little embarrassed at my obvious attraction to bad boys. I am never the woman who sits in the cafe after the movie who says, "I could NEVER fall for a gangster. God, how stupid can one be???"
That would be me. Stupid. Because something in me just....yearns...to be a bad boy/girl's girlfriend. Drive the getaway car. As long as we're just robbing banks, I'm fine. No killing anyone. Can't do that shit. But, something in me just aches to live a life on a knife's edge. I could see me doing the Billie Frechette thing. Running off with John Dillinger because he wanted to know if I wanted to take that ride with him.
Bing says that she doesn't believe it for a moment. That I am too much of a do gooder to ever really settle for a bad boy or girl. And I hope she is right, but I sort of fear that she may be wrong. The thing is...I have never had the chance.
I've known a few bad boys (but no bad girls, yet) and I always had deep lust for them but never fell in love. I wonder what would happen if I did?
And now, of course, I am properly married and have a child to consider, so I would never let myself get into that situation in the first place.
Again, Bing tries to reason with me: "So, you would let yourself be a wanted woman, live a life of having to hide all the time, never be able to see your family because they would be watched, it isn't glamorous, Maria. They never show the awful side of that sort of life."
She's right. I know it. So, why didn't I get the goose bumps for Christian Bale playing the good guy? Nope. I never thought Orlando Bloom was hot, it was Jack Sparrow. I don't lust for that limpid eyed Jack in Lost. No sirree bob. I want Sawyer. I would even like Kate over Juliet.
I don't pine for the house with a white fence. I have one of those. I pine for the wild ride down the highway.
Although, really....how a 51 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a deep dislike of camping would fit into that scenario? Go figure. I just know that in my head, in my dreams...it's a truer fit.
And, hey, the movie is boss for so many other reasons. There is one segment where they combine old footage into the movie that is truly breathtaking. And the sound track will break your heart into a million pieces.
To be honest, my real life is more like this:
Away We Go.
And I did LOVE this movie. The stroller scene alone is enough to make you laugh so hard you want to pee your pants. And like everyone, I felt like I knew these people, had people exactly like this in my life. I also went out and got the soundtrack the next day...
So, yes, my life is beautiful and don't get me wrong, I LOVE Bing, I love my child. I love my dog. I even love my old fixer upper house.
It isn't even that I didn't sow my wild oats when I was younger. I did. Just ask Bing. I was a fucking wild woman for years. In fact, at one point, I was just two steps away from rehab. But, then, I pulled my shit together and grew up.
Yet, now...okay. I can't help it. I realize that at the ripe old age of 51, there are going to be no more bad boys/girls to ask me to take that ride with them. And good lord, I have so much freakin' gear that I could never go. I mean, my presciption bottles alone have their own suitcase. And I can't leave without my special soaps and what about my chanel suits?
I'm not a good candidate for that kind of life. I know it.
But, I can dream. And in my dreams, well...I sort of want to take that ride, you know?
Friday, July 03, 2009
The bad day by Socks
It started out okay, this day.
I always wake up first in this house. I wander around in the early morning hours, waiting for the Omega woman to wake up. She gets up early to take our morning run. I love this part of the day. The world is just waking up and everything is all misty and dewy. The grass is wet and smells all spicy and pungent. I wait by the back door while Omega does her leg stretches. I lift my nose to take nice long smells. Hmmm. Cat. I become instantly alert. I smell that cat. The one who sits in the back yard, switching her tail and teasing me.
Before I can check it out, Omega woman says "Ready, boy?" and we are off. We start out slowly, just walking quickly and then we can't stand it anymore and we both take off running. I feel the wind making my ears flop back and I like it. Omega woman is smiling when she runs. I think she likes the way the air makes her ears feel too. We run and run until we get to the park with the pond with the frogs and then we stop to rest on a big rock. Sometimes frogs jump into the pond and I go crazy for a second and try to jump in after them but Omega won't let the leash go so I end up yanking my neck a bit and I don't really like that.
"You stop that now, Socks," she says. I sit next to her while she puts her fingers on her wrist and looks at her watch. If another frog jumps, I can't help it, the craziness comes over me again and I try to run, but Omega tugs on the leash and tells me to quit it so I do. Sometimes a squirrel sees this and comes halfway down the tree to taunt me.
"What's the matta, ugly mutt?" the squirrel says, smiling wickedly at me. "What is that thing around your neck? OOOHHH. A collar and a leash"! And then that pesky squirrel tsk tsks me and climbs up to a branch where I can see him laughing at me. If there is more than one squirrel, they point at me and laugh. They know I can't get them. But, they aren't stupid, squirrels aren't. They know that if I wasn't on the leash, their days would be numbered.
That's why they laugh. Because they can.
Omega gets up then and we take off running again. This time we have to run up the hill and it is harder for her than for me because she slows down when I really, really want to run. I try to encourage her by pulling on the leash, but she gets annoyed when I do that.
When we get home, we are both pooped. She pours some nice cold water into my dish and I lap it up. I am a sloppy lapper, I know this. I end up with water on my face and I am old enough not to go jump into bed with Alpha woman because she will say, "EWWW. Socks GET DOWN! YOUR FACE IS ALL WET!" So, I go in and put my paws up on the kid's bed and she smiles and pets me, tells me that I have a funny beard.
I hear the shower start and I am careful not to go near it. Once in a while, Omega decides that I should get in the shower with her so that she can give me a rinse. It is not fun. I don't like water drops hitting me all over. So, I go and sit under the dining room table until the water shuts off. Better safe than sorry.
By that time, Alpha woman is up and I pretty much leave her alone. She is not a morning person. But, if I wait until the good smell of the brown liquid fills the room and until she has had a few drinks of the stuff, then she is friendlier. Today, she says, "Socks, would you like to go for a car ride today?"
Well, I don't know.
Car rides are dicey. Sometimes they are fun. Like that one time when went to the park to have a picnic and I got to be on a very long leash. Other times it is not fun. It is not fun to go to the place where they wear white jackets. You know it is a bad place because when you walk into the room, there are lots of other dogs and sometimes a cat or even a rabbit there and everyone is very sad or very nervous or both. Once in awhile, there is some pup who is all bouncy and happy, jumping around licking everyone, but once he gets taken in the back, well, his good mood is gone licketty split.
Sometimes, Alpha woman takes me to the man with the hose to get my hair cut. I do not like the hose. Water comes out of it and I am put on a short leash in a big white sink while I get sudsied up with this junk that smells like lilacs. After I am rinsed off, I want to shake, shake, shake, so I do, do, do. And then another hose blows hot fast air over me. I don't like that either but some dogs do. Some dogs sit there and look all dreamy, like they are thinking about sunny fields full of rabbits, but not me. I try to get away. Once I jumped out the the sink and nearly hung myself by the leash.
So, car rides? I have mixed feelings on the subject.
Today, Alpha makes eggs and long meat strips for breakfast. Alpha and the kid sit quietly at the table and eat their food. We are tricky. Omega woman does not like it when I am fed people food, so we all sit quietlike until Omega woman gets up to get the paper or goes down the basement to start the laundry and then bing, bang, boom, either Alpha woman or the kid slips me a long meat strip. When Omega is away, though, I get people food put right in my bowl for me to enjoy in a leisurely way, I don't have to gulp it down and hope that Omega doesn't lean down to pet me and smell the evidence on my breath.
After breakfast, Alpha woman and the kid come into the kitchen with big fakey smiles on their faces. Time to go for a ride in the car, Socks! they say. I am nervous, but I can't help it, I wag my tail. I just like car rides and maybe this one will be fun.
It isn't. As soon as we pull into the parking lot, I recognize that this is the white coat place. I whimper and try to hide under the cloth shopping bags that smell really good. It is no use, Alpha snaps on my leash and tugs me out of the car. The kid scoops me up and I play possum until we get to the door and then I claw her just enough that she drops me and I make a run for it. I think that I might actually make it until I suddenly I am yanked back and I realize that Alpha woman is standing on my leash. Rats.
We go inside. Two other dogs are there and we don't even smell each other, we are that depressed. One dog keeps lifting up his leg and itching himself and Alpha woman makes sure that we don't sit anywhere near him. The other dog is a sad eyed poodle who is so old that she doesn't even try to run when they come to take her back. She just sighs and lets her person carry her.
When it is my turn, I try to be brave. I am not speaking to Alpha or the kid. I put my nose in the air and ignore them and instead, I let the girl who smells like graham crackers take my leash and we all go into a room to wait. The kid tries to suck up to me, keeps petting me and telling me that it will be okay. I don't look at her.
When the door opens and the white coat man comes in, I can't help it, I pee all over the floor.
"OOPSIE DAISY," the white coat man says and he calls in the girl to clean up the pee. He lifts me up on the counter and Alpha woman holds tightly to my leash while he tortures me by looking in my ears and forcing me to open my mouth. I don't like this and I growl at him and wish to bite him just a little bit, but this man is smart and is holding my mouth in such a way that well, forget that bright idea.
And then, the girl comes back and another girl and they hold me down while he puts something wet and cold in my ear. It stings and I do not like this. DO NOT MAKE ME BITE YOU! I say in my best growl to the girls, but one of them has my nose clamped shut.
And then before I know how to react, the white coat man sticks a needle in my leg. It stings and I whimper and I look over and there is the kid crying in the corner, with her fingers in her ears. Good, I think. I hope you're happy. I am being hurt and you are the one crying.
After it is over, I do not let Alpha and the kid make up to me as we walk out to the car. I keep my back straight and my tail down. I don't give them the time of day. The kid sits in the back seat with me and makes me sit next to her.
"I'm sorrrrryyyy, Soxie," she says, "But, we had to get that gunk out of your ears and you needed the shot so you don't get worms and die."
Bullshit. I think. Just bullshitty shit. I let her scratch me behind the ears but I will not smile at her, I think.
I change my mind when Alpha woman lets me have a slim jim. I love slim jims.
The rest of the day is blurry because the stuff in my ears is making me sleepy. I lay on the rug in front of the window that overlooks the back yard. The kid lays with me for awhile, petting me and sucking up to me. We both fall asleep and then I wake up and I am alone. I look outside the window and I see it.
That cat.
She is sitting next to the bird bath and is cleaning her coat, pretending not to notice me watching her. At last, she lazily looks up at me and blinks. She is goading me, I know this. She carefully licks at her paw, watching me out of the corner of her eye, her tail switching back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
She looks mouthwatering. I want to chase her all around the back yard and pounce on her and take a little nip of her twitchy tail.
The crazy comes over me and without thinking carefully, I jump up and leap right up against the window.
BAM! My nose smashes hard against the glass and I do a very stupid looking back flip and land on my back. I jump up as fast as lightning, but it is too late. I hear laughter and there are Omega and Alpha woman standing there laughing at me. The cat is staring at me with incredulity on her face and then she nonchalantly goes back to cleaning her paw. But, she is laughing silently, I can tell. I hear chittering and look to see the squirrels looking down at me from their tree branch. They are laughing so hard that their bushy tails are bouncing.
I get up and with all the dignity I can muster, I go sit under the dining room table. I will not mention this again.
I am quiet for the rest of the day until it is dinner time and Omega woman takes me outside with her while she fires up the grill. She is making sausages and they look so good but I know that I will probably not get one taste. So, I run around the yard and go and smell where the cat was sitting. It still smells like cat and I look around to make sure that she isn't around. Because if she is, her ass is grass.
Instead, I see one of the squirrels balancing on the chain link fence. He is wondering if he can make it to the tree without me catching him. I stand in his path.
Go for it, pee butt. Make my day.
He does and I almost catch him, but don't. He is too scared to laugh when he finally gets up the tree and I stand and bark at him long and hard.
YEAH. You better run, you little varmint....
This makes me feel a little better, so I go up to Omega and stand by her leg until she reaches down to pet me.
And sneaks me a bite of sausage!!!
Well, boy howdy. Miracles happen.
After dinner, Alpha woman and I head out for our walk, but she is no fun tonight. She is tired and we only go around the block. Not a real walk. Just enough for me to smell some flowers.
When it gets dark, all my people go outside to sit in lawn chairs. I go too. I am sitting quietly in the yard when suddenly there is a big BOOM!!! BOOM!! . I am so scared that my tail goes between my legs as I run to Alpha woman's chair and dive under it. The booming doesn't stop and the sky lights up with huge sparks of light.
Oh lordy, it is the end of my sweet dog life, I think. I am whimpering and shaking and can't relax even when the kid shimmies under the chair to lay with me. Finally, I hear Alpha tell her to take me inside and I am at the door before she can say, "Run, Forrest, Run!"
The kid opens the door and I run upstairs and go to my safe place: under Alpha woman's bed. I will stay there until everyone comes up for bed and then I will only let myself be coaxed by the kid when she comes up and offers me a doggie biscuit and doesn't let me have it until we are both in her bed. She holds me close, tells me that it is just something called fireworks.
I don't care what it was, I am just glad it is done. Because today was not a good day in my sweet dog life.
I shut my eyes and let out a long sigh, glad to let go of this day.
But, hey...Omega gave me a sausage! And maybe tomorrow she will give me a slim jim....
I always wake up first in this house. I wander around in the early morning hours, waiting for the Omega woman to wake up. She gets up early to take our morning run. I love this part of the day. The world is just waking up and everything is all misty and dewy. The grass is wet and smells all spicy and pungent. I wait by the back door while Omega does her leg stretches. I lift my nose to take nice long smells. Hmmm. Cat. I become instantly alert. I smell that cat. The one who sits in the back yard, switching her tail and teasing me.
Before I can check it out, Omega woman says "Ready, boy?" and we are off. We start out slowly, just walking quickly and then we can't stand it anymore and we both take off running. I feel the wind making my ears flop back and I like it. Omega woman is smiling when she runs. I think she likes the way the air makes her ears feel too. We run and run until we get to the park with the pond with the frogs and then we stop to rest on a big rock. Sometimes frogs jump into the pond and I go crazy for a second and try to jump in after them but Omega won't let the leash go so I end up yanking my neck a bit and I don't really like that.
"You stop that now, Socks," she says. I sit next to her while she puts her fingers on her wrist and looks at her watch. If another frog jumps, I can't help it, the craziness comes over me again and I try to run, but Omega tugs on the leash and tells me to quit it so I do. Sometimes a squirrel sees this and comes halfway down the tree to taunt me.
"What's the matta, ugly mutt?" the squirrel says, smiling wickedly at me. "What is that thing around your neck? OOOHHH. A collar and a leash"! And then that pesky squirrel tsk tsks me and climbs up to a branch where I can see him laughing at me. If there is more than one squirrel, they point at me and laugh. They know I can't get them. But, they aren't stupid, squirrels aren't. They know that if I wasn't on the leash, their days would be numbered.
That's why they laugh. Because they can.
Omega gets up then and we take off running again. This time we have to run up the hill and it is harder for her than for me because she slows down when I really, really want to run. I try to encourage her by pulling on the leash, but she gets annoyed when I do that.
When we get home, we are both pooped. She pours some nice cold water into my dish and I lap it up. I am a sloppy lapper, I know this. I end up with water on my face and I am old enough not to go jump into bed with Alpha woman because she will say, "EWWW. Socks GET DOWN! YOUR FACE IS ALL WET!" So, I go in and put my paws up on the kid's bed and she smiles and pets me, tells me that I have a funny beard.
I hear the shower start and I am careful not to go near it. Once in a while, Omega decides that I should get in the shower with her so that she can give me a rinse. It is not fun. I don't like water drops hitting me all over. So, I go and sit under the dining room table until the water shuts off. Better safe than sorry.
By that time, Alpha woman is up and I pretty much leave her alone. She is not a morning person. But, if I wait until the good smell of the brown liquid fills the room and until she has had a few drinks of the stuff, then she is friendlier. Today, she says, "Socks, would you like to go for a car ride today?"
Well, I don't know.
Car rides are dicey. Sometimes they are fun. Like that one time when went to the park to have a picnic and I got to be on a very long leash. Other times it is not fun. It is not fun to go to the place where they wear white jackets. You know it is a bad place because when you walk into the room, there are lots of other dogs and sometimes a cat or even a rabbit there and everyone is very sad or very nervous or both. Once in awhile, there is some pup who is all bouncy and happy, jumping around licking everyone, but once he gets taken in the back, well, his good mood is gone licketty split.
Sometimes, Alpha woman takes me to the man with the hose to get my hair cut. I do not like the hose. Water comes out of it and I am put on a short leash in a big white sink while I get sudsied up with this junk that smells like lilacs. After I am rinsed off, I want to shake, shake, shake, so I do, do, do. And then another hose blows hot fast air over me. I don't like that either but some dogs do. Some dogs sit there and look all dreamy, like they are thinking about sunny fields full of rabbits, but not me. I try to get away. Once I jumped out the the sink and nearly hung myself by the leash.
So, car rides? I have mixed feelings on the subject.
Today, Alpha makes eggs and long meat strips for breakfast. Alpha and the kid sit quietly at the table and eat their food. We are tricky. Omega woman does not like it when I am fed people food, so we all sit quietlike until Omega woman gets up to get the paper or goes down the basement to start the laundry and then bing, bang, boom, either Alpha woman or the kid slips me a long meat strip. When Omega is away, though, I get people food put right in my bowl for me to enjoy in a leisurely way, I don't have to gulp it down and hope that Omega doesn't lean down to pet me and smell the evidence on my breath.
After breakfast, Alpha woman and the kid come into the kitchen with big fakey smiles on their faces. Time to go for a ride in the car, Socks! they say. I am nervous, but I can't help it, I wag my tail. I just like car rides and maybe this one will be fun.
It isn't. As soon as we pull into the parking lot, I recognize that this is the white coat place. I whimper and try to hide under the cloth shopping bags that smell really good. It is no use, Alpha snaps on my leash and tugs me out of the car. The kid scoops me up and I play possum until we get to the door and then I claw her just enough that she drops me and I make a run for it. I think that I might actually make it until I suddenly I am yanked back and I realize that Alpha woman is standing on my leash. Rats.
We go inside. Two other dogs are there and we don't even smell each other, we are that depressed. One dog keeps lifting up his leg and itching himself and Alpha woman makes sure that we don't sit anywhere near him. The other dog is a sad eyed poodle who is so old that she doesn't even try to run when they come to take her back. She just sighs and lets her person carry her.
When it is my turn, I try to be brave. I am not speaking to Alpha or the kid. I put my nose in the air and ignore them and instead, I let the girl who smells like graham crackers take my leash and we all go into a room to wait. The kid tries to suck up to me, keeps petting me and telling me that it will be okay. I don't look at her.
When the door opens and the white coat man comes in, I can't help it, I pee all over the floor.
"OOPSIE DAISY," the white coat man says and he calls in the girl to clean up the pee. He lifts me up on the counter and Alpha woman holds tightly to my leash while he tortures me by looking in my ears and forcing me to open my mouth. I don't like this and I growl at him and wish to bite him just a little bit, but this man is smart and is holding my mouth in such a way that well, forget that bright idea.
And then, the girl comes back and another girl and they hold me down while he puts something wet and cold in my ear. It stings and I do not like this. DO NOT MAKE ME BITE YOU! I say in my best growl to the girls, but one of them has my nose clamped shut.
And then before I know how to react, the white coat man sticks a needle in my leg. It stings and I whimper and I look over and there is the kid crying in the corner, with her fingers in her ears. Good, I think. I hope you're happy. I am being hurt and you are the one crying.
After it is over, I do not let Alpha and the kid make up to me as we walk out to the car. I keep my back straight and my tail down. I don't give them the time of day. The kid sits in the back seat with me and makes me sit next to her.
"I'm sorrrrryyyy, Soxie," she says, "But, we had to get that gunk out of your ears and you needed the shot so you don't get worms and die."
Bullshit. I think. Just bullshitty shit. I let her scratch me behind the ears but I will not smile at her, I think.
I change my mind when Alpha woman lets me have a slim jim. I love slim jims.
The rest of the day is blurry because the stuff in my ears is making me sleepy. I lay on the rug in front of the window that overlooks the back yard. The kid lays with me for awhile, petting me and sucking up to me. We both fall asleep and then I wake up and I am alone. I look outside the window and I see it.
That cat.
She is sitting next to the bird bath and is cleaning her coat, pretending not to notice me watching her. At last, she lazily looks up at me and blinks. She is goading me, I know this. She carefully licks at her paw, watching me out of the corner of her eye, her tail switching back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
She looks mouthwatering. I want to chase her all around the back yard and pounce on her and take a little nip of her twitchy tail.
The crazy comes over me and without thinking carefully, I jump up and leap right up against the window.
BAM! My nose smashes hard against the glass and I do a very stupid looking back flip and land on my back. I jump up as fast as lightning, but it is too late. I hear laughter and there are Omega and Alpha woman standing there laughing at me. The cat is staring at me with incredulity on her face and then she nonchalantly goes back to cleaning her paw. But, she is laughing silently, I can tell. I hear chittering and look to see the squirrels looking down at me from their tree branch. They are laughing so hard that their bushy tails are bouncing.
I get up and with all the dignity I can muster, I go sit under the dining room table. I will not mention this again.
I am quiet for the rest of the day until it is dinner time and Omega woman takes me outside with her while she fires up the grill. She is making sausages and they look so good but I know that I will probably not get one taste. So, I run around the yard and go and smell where the cat was sitting. It still smells like cat and I look around to make sure that she isn't around. Because if she is, her ass is grass.
Instead, I see one of the squirrels balancing on the chain link fence. He is wondering if he can make it to the tree without me catching him. I stand in his path.
Go for it, pee butt. Make my day.
He does and I almost catch him, but don't. He is too scared to laugh when he finally gets up the tree and I stand and bark at him long and hard.
YEAH. You better run, you little varmint....
This makes me feel a little better, so I go up to Omega and stand by her leg until she reaches down to pet me.
And sneaks me a bite of sausage!!!
Well, boy howdy. Miracles happen.
After dinner, Alpha woman and I head out for our walk, but she is no fun tonight. She is tired and we only go around the block. Not a real walk. Just enough for me to smell some flowers.
When it gets dark, all my people go outside to sit in lawn chairs. I go too. I am sitting quietly in the yard when suddenly there is a big BOOM!!! BOOM!! . I am so scared that my tail goes between my legs as I run to Alpha woman's chair and dive under it. The booming doesn't stop and the sky lights up with huge sparks of light.
Oh lordy, it is the end of my sweet dog life, I think. I am whimpering and shaking and can't relax even when the kid shimmies under the chair to lay with me. Finally, I hear Alpha tell her to take me inside and I am at the door before she can say, "Run, Forrest, Run!"
The kid opens the door and I run upstairs and go to my safe place: under Alpha woman's bed. I will stay there until everyone comes up for bed and then I will only let myself be coaxed by the kid when she comes up and offers me a doggie biscuit and doesn't let me have it until we are both in her bed. She holds me close, tells me that it is just something called fireworks.
I don't care what it was, I am just glad it is done. Because today was not a good day in my sweet dog life.
I shut my eyes and let out a long sigh, glad to let go of this day.
But, hey...Omega gave me a sausage! And maybe tomorrow she will give me a slim jim....
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