Author Archives: cloverhays

LOLZ

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I’m here to talk about my handicap.  I was recently chastised so thoroughly for it that I am still hanging my head in shame.  I’ve tried to control it, tried to reel it in, tried desperately to hide it, but it keeps surfacing at the most inopportune times.  

 It’s my daughter, Cricket, who has the biggest problem with it. Several years ago, it overturned the very nature of our relationship and she fully took over the role as adult. When Cricket was 16 and went to get her driver’s license, I dressed accordingly and went along to cheer.  While she was testing, I prayed, crossed my fingers, stroked voodoo dolls and sacrificed mental chickens so she would pass.  Upon passing, we were ushered into a smaller area where she would have her picture taken.  All was going swimmingly until…  until… we walked into this small quiet room.  Therein lies the problem.  Usually a quiet area can pull the chain on my problem.  Also solemn circumstances. Or the need to keep still.  The woman awaiting us caused such a visual surprise to me that it caused Cricket to whip her head around and glare at me seconds after we walked in.  She knows my disability well. It would not be nice to describe this lady, but circus sideshow should give you some kind of hint.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the circus, well, except the shameless torture and exhibition of animals, but I digress. This is why Cricket is partly to blame because it signaled the stupid part of my brain to start the code red “do not laugh, do not laugh, do not laugh”.  Now, I wouldn’t laugh at somebody normally.  I am a super empathetic person to both people and animals.  But, if there is something slightly off kilter, say an incongruous wig sitting crookedly upon a head, size 24 women in tank tops made for tweens, toupees of any type, grills on teeth, I start thinking “well, what if I were the type of person who would laugh?  How inappropriate would it be?  How horrible would it be if I just lost it? “.  Then I do.  

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I came unglued at the DMV in such a spectacular way that I just stood there, unable to speak, tears pouring from my eyes, shoulders shaking, my face beet red, while Cricket pursed her lips and explained to the exasperated woman that I was emotionally and mentally damaged.  She then grabbed my arm in a strangling grip, ushered me outside the building and gave me a stern talking to. Strangely, I had a repeat performance at the DMV again with Shep.  Maybe they pipe something into the AC unit there. 

Last Sunday night, the family went to a Japanese restaurant.  Let me say at this time that hearing impairment and speech impediments are not funny.  My dad was almost completely deaf.  I cannot hear from my right ear due to an injury inflicted upon me by the Goose pulling me behind the boat on a tube.  I wore a headgear in kindergarten, now that’s harsh.  I’m saying, I’m sympathetic.  However, a deaf man, with a lisp and a sibilant “S” should not be the one informing Shep and me about the glories of his sliced seared salmon.  I caught Shep’s eye and had to put my head on the table.  This elicited such distain and fury from Cricket (who was born a 53 year old woman) that it just got funnier.  Apparently, I am impossible to take in public.  

Church?  Forget about it.  Everything is funnier in church.  Small things become hilarious.  I once took Cricket to a small Southern Baptist church in hopes of hearing some great music.  The preacher was unintelligible.  There was some floor flopping and some garbled blabbering and anyone should have seen the humor.  Not the woman sitting beside me, apparently.  Another venue we had to leave, another lecture for me. Church proves to be an especially bad problem because the Goose like to whisper something inappropriate to me and then glare at me when I laugh.  I was spanked almost every Sunday after church by my mother for my giggling conduct until my dad realized he could remove me during the sermon under the pretense of my bad behavior but really sneak out for a smoke. 

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What I’d like to know is how others have conquered the voices in their heads that say things like “oooh, guuurll, don’t dare laugh now!  Better not crack that smile!  Is that your lips starting to grin like an idiot? What’s the worst thing you could do right now?”  Just thinking about it, I am grinning.  It has happened in parent teacher conferences (which gives them insight into Sheps issues), it happened yesterday at the doctor’s office when the girl had an impossibly squeaky voice and a walk that would have made Mrs. Wiggins jealous, it happens, horribly, at funerals.  Just the sniffles of grief cause my face to crack into an idiotic grin.  I laughed so hard once when I got pulled over that I had to take a breathalyzer. 

What’s wrong with me?  I have no idea.  I’m sure there are others with this affliction that has caused me to sit in halls outside classrooms my entire life.  I am labeled hopelessly immature by my family and I know they no longer have any respect.  My children have inherited my problem by breaking into laughter, along with me, anytime I try to discipline them or tell a serious tale.  The Goose no longer trusts me to go to dinner with clients and I spent weeks in disgrace for giggling at his Mother’s funeral. (Those of you who know me…well, better let that one go.) 

I am hoping that I just slip gracefully into my dotage, giggling and smiling, surrounded by dogs, friends who laugh and bring wine, and wearing great shoes.  I mean, it could be worse, right? LOLZ!

 

 

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Frat House Summer

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This summer I lived in a frat house.  It sounds like more fun than it actually was.  

My son  goes through life in a giant traveling circus of chaos.  Early on, I made the decision to be “the house” where kids hung out.  My house was “the house” when I was growing up and I always enjoyed it.  The thing I didn’t take into consideration was that I was a girl.  I was an only child.  Also, my parents just, well, cared more?

I have given up, somewhat, it’s true.  This is strictly because of my selfishness and because multiple children just wear one down.  People used to tell my mother that having an only child just didn’t really count and it would make her furious.  I have news, it’s just too easy, especially if your child is a girl, and those of you with singles really should be more put together and help out the rest of us by vacuuming for us or bringing us meals. 

I have several friends with six, yes, six kids.  My son Shep’s best friend is one of six.  This allowed him to spend over 75 nights with us during the summer without his mother knowing he was gone.  

Shep is a social creature. His circus consists daily of a band of about 6 boys, over 20 pairs of their shoes, all over size 12, that take up the space of a Buick in my mudroom, a wardrobe of preppy clothes that would make a Kennedy jealous (all needing dry cleaning), an ever changing cast of “hot girls” and about 41 gallons of milk.  You know how, in those old Bible movies, a swarm of locust would arrive and decimate a town in about seven minutes?  Uh huh.  That.  

Boys are hungry.  My oldest, a girl, lives on air and french fries.  The Goose and I eat out mostly but we are left with the problem of the boys.  They are ravenous.  They want to eat every single day.  Creating a meal would be a mystery that I have no wish to solve.  I don’t know how other moms do it, but I am living for the day that some smart girl with kitchen skills finds Shep and begins cooking for him.  Maybe he can bring something home for us?

The fantasy I had of just hanging out at the lake all summer with the boys, like something out of a Hardy Boy’s book, just didn’t pan out exactly that way.  I pictured snapshot moments of bonding and wholesome marshmallow roasting. It went more like an 80s rock video. 

This summer I chaperoned, chauffeured, pulled kids on wake boards, ordered pizza, washed clothes, washed towels, washed towels, washed towels (did I mention that I washed towels?) and then did it all over again the next day.  The boys had a rotating wheel of girls so beautiful and, um, well, mature looking, that I felt like Mrs. Doubtfire in their proximity. Since Shep will start driving on his own next week, this was probably the last summer I’ll be needed as an integral house mother at the frat house.  He won’t need me for the hour and a half transport.  I won’t be driving when they forget I’m in the car and blurt out everything going through their boy minds.  Since I now know what’s in their minds, I feel this is a good thing for all of us.  As for me, I am trying to forget the lyrics to every rap song ever played. 

I hope, though, when the boys look back through the lens of time, they’ll remember this summer as the best one ever.  I hope it’s the jewel at the end of their childhood and I certainly hope they forget the language I used when asking them, over and over, to please clean up their $^!(!Image

Insanity of the Four Legged Kiind

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My daughter, Cricket, is a psychology major.  She feels this qualifies her to diagnose everyone and everything around.  It seems like all things heretofore considered “quirky” now come with a monogram.  By this, I mean initials, ADD, OCD, PTSD, ED and other letters joined together in unholy unions I cannot hope to decipher.  I see that look in her eyes sometimes and have to shut her down quickly before she pops some lettered identification on the multi-colored floral bubble I’ve created around myself.  I KNOW I have, well, let’s call them whimsies, eccentricities, foibles, but I’m comfortable that way.

I’m not the only oddball around our house, though.  Working with animals I’ve discovered that they all have their little idiosyncrasies as well.  My Jack Russells are freaks extraordinaire.  Perhaps it’s because they’re small dogs.  I’ve never had small dogs before these and I don’t remember my labs having neurotic fears and crazies.  They didn’t come preprogrammed with these neurosis, though, and I guess there is only our environment to blame.

Matilda has been leery of brooms and mops since babyhood.  Just walking by the pantry causes her to pick up speed and the whites of her eyes to show.  The vacuum causes a full panic.  She can hear the noise of the wheels coming out of the closet from two miles away. Once, she got into the barn and ate up 13 chickens and a peacock.  My anger was such that I put her in her basket and surrounded her with brooms, mops and the vacuum for 20 minutes.  I feel bad about this because I know it has caused some permanent damage.  She fears moths, puppets and band-aids.  Band-aids?  Once, someone lost a band-aid in our house and upon spotting it, she began to moan and cry with the intensity of a tornado alarm.  I have no comment on the fact that there was a band-aid laying on my floor.  I can’t think about that.

A while back I attended something that necessitated having a “my name is _____” sticker.  When I got home, I popped it on Matilda’s head. This caused her to stay frozen for the entire time she wore the sticker.  She neither sat nor turned her head.  One can only imagine the fun this has caused around my house.

The strangest problem, though, is the straw.  The sight of a straw emerging from a drink will cause her to run like she’s being chased by Satan.  If a straw is produced in the car, she will crawl as far into the 2” space under the seat as she can thrust her stiff and portly little body.  She has spent a lot of time in the car with teenaged boys and I feel this is what’s sent her into full on doggy insanity.  She takes to the bed like Scarlet O’Hara now at the slightest provocation, flopping down in mental exhaustion.

In talking to friends, I hear all their weird dog stories with interest. Dog lovers can talk about their doggie loves and their quirks for hours.  We adore our dog children.  They never talk back like our human ones, they never grow up, never move away and never miss a chance to snuggle behind our knees under the covers.  I will sooner drop big money on a fancy collar than give lunch money to my son.  It seems this companion species that shares our lives and our beds is as weird as we are.  Can it only be a matter of time until someone’s daughter is attending college for dog psychology and our pups become as medicated and as diagnosed as the rest of us?

Middle Aged Lunacy (or, Don’t Poke the Bear!)

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I think there’s an army of middle aged women out there set to pop. Perhaps it’s middle age that’s causing this.  Perhaps a change in hormones.  Maybe it’s when a well meaning hair dresser thinks you’ll be happy to learn that instead of the full on bimbo bleach she’s been using on your hair for 19 years she now thinks she should “weave in a little natural color since it’s mostly gray under there anyway”. 

Women who are late 40s, early 50s just don’t seem to have the same goals as our mother’s generation. None of my friends play bridge or own panty hose.  I may have missed it, but I feel certain I have never heard one of them answer “yes, dear” to any question posed by their husbands. 

I believe, my friends, that most of us spent our 20s and 30s in mostly the same way.  We got married, got cute little houses, got BMWs, got bigger houses.  We got kids, got them into preschool, went to Gymboree.  We spent Wednesday nights volunteering at church programs that caused us to scream at our children all the way there because they hadn’t learned their Bible verses.  We got bobs, boob jobs, facials, SUVs, yellow labs, made Superbowl food and had polite holidays with our in-laws that caused us to gobble leftover pain pills in the bathroom. We got our son’s baseball pants their whitest, their brightest. I was a cutout for a perfect wife and mother. 

I’m not sure when the rebellion set in.  I mean, I should have gotten this out of the way in high school.  Lord knows I partied hard enough.  Still, around 40, something uncoiled deep inside me, caused me to gain about 10 lbs and asked me to please uncork some tequila.  It has motivated me to swear like a sailor.  I recently called my son a name which was so foul, so obscene that it sent shock waves throughout the universe causing  my daughter and husband to have trouble getting enough oxygen.  

Recently an online newspaper asked a question about marijuana.  Before the minute was out 435 middle aged women had responded asking that it be legalized, taxed and sold in coordinating Lilly Pulitzer cases. 

Thankfully, the Goose never even suggested that I should drive a mini-van.  I believe this is responsible for the wrath of lots of women.  It’s too much to ask.  I think they should carry a warning that driving a minivan will cause you to lose your soul.  Also sensible shoes, rooms painted taupe, children’s programming on tv, and wall to wall cut pile carpet in a color that hides dirt.

Authority?  Can’t do it, can we?  I find myself mentally flipping off policemen, store clerks, school administrators and neighbors alike. I heard myself actually tell my husband he wasn’t the boss of me.  I said those exact words. I have my theme music all picked out for my police chase the next time someone attempts to give me a ticket. 

If I call a friend and want to rant, I can’t even get the first sentence out without them jumping on the bandwagon and asking if they can lock and load.  All they’re waiting for is a super hero costume and really, who among us isn’t? I just want it to come in Spanx material. 

We’re angry, we’re ready to party and we have the shoes and the wardrobe to do it with gusto.  We have the education and verbal skills to decimate the fool who attempts to argue with us.  We have American Express cards, AAA and, some of us, friends in AA who can drive us home.  It’s our time for fun.  We see the light at the end of our mommy tunnel and I, for one,  feel it’s now my children’s turn to take care of me.  Before I even conceive of the thought, I want someone to pour me a wine, put it with a box of Triscuits and send them to me on a Roomba, which is doing my vacuuming for me. 

I have no idea what kind of grandmothers we will become.  It’s safe to say this isn’t going to be the generation that takes kindly to someone spilling a juice box on our Seven jeans and 6” Betsy Johnsons!

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Rear up a Child Correctly and She May Still Embarrass You in Front of Your Bridge Club

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Last Sunday our sermon was about child rearing.  Since I am almost done with this, I used this time to doodle, play with the charms on my bracelet and admire my shoes.  One thing he said, though, slipped through.  How important a good mother is in making a great child.  Gosh, I started out to be a swell mom.  We sang Bible songs, we did crafts, I swore by using phrases like “gee whiz” and “heck”.  All went well until I purchased an Offspring CD when my daughter was in 4th grade.  She swears this is when we went to hell in a handbag.

Well, I felt the guilt slipping in so I changed thoughts and considered my own mother.  She was a True Southern Lady.  By this I mean she was perfect.  I never heard my mother swear, never saw her perspire, never heard her raise her voice to my dad, who believed she was an angel personified.  There was never a moment when there wasn’t a warm pound cake on our counter.  She made hospital visits, casseroles and never had a disagreement with anyone that I can think of.  As an only child, I benefited so greatly from her undivided attention that my best friend used to nudge me in church and say “look, your mother is watching you breathe from the choir loft”.  I also frequently got “the look” from the choir loft that told me to stop wiggling, drawing and making designs on the velvet pew cushion with my fingernails.

That’s not to say she wasn’t without her quirks.  Growing up in the Bible belt, my mother was so pure that the weirdest things bothered her.  Who knows where she got these ideas? For instance, I was not allowed to play the game Operation as a child because the man was nude. I don’t believe she even said the word “nude”.  I’m sure it just involved another “look”. There was no word for breasts at our house, it was just chest.  There were no words for boy parts or ladytown,  just  “the bottom” whether front of back.  One did not refer to things that went on in the bathroom unless one needed to see a doctor and the bedroom was not even considered.  Perrier water was out as well because the bottle was suggestive of beer.  The one that, I believe, catapulted me into the middle aged lush that I am, however, was that I was not allowed to sing “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” because, of course, he drank his wine.

I did pick up lots of good knowledge from the True Southern Lady, though.  My mother fully believed that if one kept moving while eating, the calories would never find you.  Our housekeeper, Sassy, claimed that she had once seen Mother eat three entire bags of Hersey’s Kisses while circling the dining room table and talking on the phone.

Although I was a terrible teen, my mom kept up with a smile.  When I informed her that I was going to a concert at the dark and enjoyable Agora Ballroom, my mom and her best friend went down, during the day, to check it out for safety and propriety.  My mother fell and sprained her ankle never knowing that I had already changed my weekend plans.  I just keep imaging the guys in those dark depths picking up my mom as she smoothed down her skirt and straightened her pearls, oh gosh and oh geeing all the time.

Probably the only thing I can think of that she ever did wrong was wear a fur coat.  There is nothing more evil in the world than fur and I couldn’t bear (no pun) to look at her in it, but like so many others of her generation, she adored it and popped it on anytime the temperature dipped below 65.  When she died, I was left with the dilemma of what to do with it. I couldn’t sell it because I don’t want anyone to wear fur.  I couldn’t throw it away because so many little mink lives would be wasted.  So, I keep it in the back of my closet and sometimes when I miss her, I bury my face it it and it still smells of the Oscar that she wore.  Besides, it made a great addition to Cricket’s boyfriend’s pimp outfit last Halloween.

I know that my style of mothering has been entirely deficient when compared to my mom.  Life is so much faster now and I have certainly not lived up to her standards.  I know my kids will never hear the theme music to Days of our Lives and conjure up images of sitting at the table with sweet tea and little sandwiches while Sassy irons to the clean smell of Niagara spray starch and discusses “their story” with my mom.  I haven’t worn many respectable length skirts and they’ve never seen me in a one piece swim suit. They probably won’t use me as a role model in which to judge what’s right and what’s wrong.  They’ve seen too much and really, it’s hard to fully respect a mother wearing a tiara and prom dress on horseback.

If you have a mom handy, call her up and lie about how good you’ve been and tell her how much you love her because without these True Southern Ladies, the world is a darker and less sparkly place.

Hey Y’all!

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A word on men.  Southern men.  I have really known nothing in my life BUT southern men so it’s possible this observation might extend beyond the Mason Dixon line, or as my dad used to say, the edge of civilized living.  I do realize, when recounting these stories that are everyday life to me that my friends who didn’t grow up here sometimes react with more enthusiasm than necessary.  Take for instance my friend the Trophy Wife.  Although she is a transplant, she has taken to southern bellism with gusto.  She can banter back with a “bless your heart” or a “y’all come down for dinner” with the best of them.  Her friend, we’ll call him the “Sales Manager” was recently over for dinner.  Now the Trophy Wife’s dog has a terrible time staying in their fence.  He has had every electric collar known to mankind and now has one touted by the salesman as “strong enough to put down an elephant”.  The Sales Manager had had a few cocktails the other night and started that good ol’ boy “aw, how strong could it be” stuff.  Though he was begged, pleaded with even, not to try it and was at least dissuaded from putting it around his neck, the Sales Manager strapped the electric collar to his thigh.  Upon walking into range, his right leg shot up at an angle perpendicular to his body and his face began to take on the look of a wax candle.  His lip sneered in a grotesque Elvis impersonation. Thrown to the ground, the SM couldn’t stop the bucking and wiggling long enough to get to his feet and get out of range of the fence.  He tried worming, snaking and eventually rolling his way out of range, causing such injury to his wrist that he needed an emergency room.  All this was done surrounded by friends laughing too hard to render aid.  Hey y’all, watch this!

My son and our neighbor, Cheese, aren’t immune to the southern man’s need for danger either.  Several years ago they fashioned wings from bamboo and a tarp.  Now, these are educated kids.  They were in advanced science classes.  Cheese’s dad is from a northern state and all these facts combined should have meant someone could have foreseen the problem. They really should have known better.  After I weakly suggested that it was NOT a good idea to jump from the roof, I poured a glass of wine and went out to sit in a chair and watch.  I mean, I’m not one to miss a good show.  What saddens me is not only the loss of good bamboo tomato stakes but the fact that, after seeing Cheese plummet to the ground at a high rate of speed, they climbed up and tried it a few more times.  Also, I had to learn the emergency room is surprisingly strict on rules about bringing in wine, even white wine.

One of the best “hey y’all” stories I’ve ever heard is from my brother-in-law, Kippy.  He was at the county fair with some friends.  One of them was wearing a Marine red satin boxing cape.  I still have not gotten to the bottom of this and, hearing him tell it, it’s not important.  As I adore dressing up in old prom dresses, I’m not the one to cast stones.  This friend was not a Marine nor a boxer, though.  They come upon a bear in a cage.  Now, I’ll have to stop right here and say that this makes me so angry and sad and causes me to wag my head back and forth in such a way that I look like Weezy from the Jeffersons.  A bear, in a cage, at a fair is wrong on any level.  Still, the story is funny and I am hoping the bear has mauled it’s keeper and run away to join wild bears picnicking in a woodland paradise. Anyway, the friend starts bragging that he can whoop the bear.  I believe his actual words might have been “I’m gonna whoop that bear’s ass”. He becomes so unruly that the keeper says, well, come on, son.  What happened in the next 22 seconds or so is that the bear grabbed him in a giant bear hug and breathed such rancid breath on him that the friend fainted dead away in his cape. This so entertained his inebriated friends and makes a good story, that they will tell it at any opportunity.

I love southern men.  I love the way they say ma’am, I love the way they open doors, stop to change people’s flat tires and appreciate a woman in a flowery dress.  A good southern man will never turn down a chance for bourbon, cold beer or anything that gets them dirty, and causes loud bafoonery.  Now that’s just good fun.

My Darling Clementine

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ImageWhen I finally moved to the country 15 years ago, we built a barn.  Not having anything to put in it, I set about changing that.  During my years as a designer, I sold many English paintings with sheep.  I had come to love anything with sheep in it, paintings, prints, etchings, lamps with porcelain sheep, sweaters with sheep (yes, you know the one, 24 white sheep, one black one, a fashion embarrassment if there ever was one) and sheep “doodads and geegaws”, including sheep soap.  One day, I saw an add for sheep in the paper.  The Golden Goose and I loaded up our small children and took off to claim our sweet, wooly little lamb.  When I got there, there were no lambs to be had, but a field of muddy, hairy, smelly sheep, crying and running from the farmer like he was Satan.  (Turns out he was.) We had driven 92 miles with a daughter who had gotten carsick and thrown up in her brother’s hat.  This caused her brother to cry because it was his favorite hat and he wanted it back, barf or not.  Also, I have to stop a lot to go to the bathroom.  I don’t know what it is about getting into the car with the Goose that makes me have to pee, but he says it is to counteract the skill with which he passes every car and a deep seated need to undermine his dominancy on the road.  Whatever it was, we weren’t leaving without a sheep. 

The farmer told me I could “pick me out one” and I chose one that looked exactly like every other sheep in the pasture.  He then told me she would probably not like me for a while and that sheep weren’t all that smart or friendly.  When I asked when and how she should be sheared, he just laughed and said “lady, these ain’t wool sheep, these is EATIN sheep”.  As a vegetarian with veg kids, I almost passed out.  Suddenly, all these sheep in the pasture needed to be saved.  I cried, the kids cried, but the Goose steadfastly refused to buy all 300.  So, we folded our large sheep into a dog crate made for a small dog.  She none too happy about this.  We put her in the back of the Goose’s truck for men who want to seem manly but really want a luxury car inside and she baaaahhed and cried all the way home.  Upon stopping at a Dairy Queen to use the loo, she startled the entire ice cream eating crowd.  After she was unloaded, though, she defied the evil sheep eating farmer by looking at me with love and commencing to follow me everywhere.  She was lovely! That was 12 years ago.  Clementine is still with me and is, by far, the most intelligent animal I’ve ever come across.  This includes labs, all other dogs, small children, and my in-laws. 

Many know my problem with animals wanting to come into the house.  I’ve been described as the lady with animals in her house.  This is not true!  As a designer, I must say I have a great house.  It’s clean and normal and really pretty.  Things do get in from time to time though and one night when chaos was happening with my kids, kids’ friends, and adults with  cocktails, Clementine got in.  She doesn’t really look for me but goes straight to the pantry for cookies.  She has a terrible sweet tooth.  The Goose’s way of dealing with her is to herd her by standing behind her and bumping her towards the door, muttering and swearing (both of them).  On this particular evening, the pizza delivery man arrived at our glass door just as the Goose, bent over Clementine, bumping her on the behind to move was trying to exit through our mud room.  The man gaped while the Goose stammered an explanation for why he had a sheep in a scandalous rear chokehold, but the man didn’t want to know.  He just took the cash and left in haste.  

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Last Valentine’s Day the Goose was forced to give me real little lamb.  (Forced because we saw one gamboling on the side of the road on the way home from dinner and a man who has FORGOTTEN all the accouterment of Valentine’s Day really can’t argue with a seething wife.)  Clarence is not intelligent.  He is needy.  This is because I allowed him to stay inside (it was cold!) for a few days provided he wear a diaper which I firmly affixed with damask duct tape.  Yes, I know, it’s wrong, but he, like every other animal, is affronted that he cannot come in and lie by the bed.  

I don’t really have a zingy wrap up here, only to say that sheep are individuals, just like people.  The fact that people eat lamb, one of the cruelest things I’ve ever heard (what they do to those babies before they hit your plate is unthinkable) makes me sad.  Imagine your yellow lab cut into bits and covered in mint sauce and order a salad next time!

 

The Noms

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A word about food.  It plagues us women.  I used to be a girl who forgot to eat.  I was so slim I would whip off my clothes at any opportunity.  My pantry contained paint cans, twist ties and car keys.  All that changes with kids.  First, they cause you to get fat and then they cause you to carry food with you everywhere.  Sitting at a playground can cause any woman to nip into the Goldfish while wishing for vodka.  I hate Goldfish and have eaten at least a semi-truck load out of desperation. 

My daughter, Cricket, was a fabulous eater in the beginning.  I raised two vegetarian kids, no milk, no meat, but she ate everything else with gusto.  People would stop and pat her golden curls in restaurants to see her bearing down on her plate like a lumberjack.  All that changed, though.  Now, she is unable to have her food touch other bits of food.  Food must be white or light in color, no sauce or “green things” (parsley) decorating it.  Many would say, “ah, toddlers are notoriously picky eaters”.  Cricket is a sophomore in college. 

My friend and running partner, Peaches, is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  I have never seen such a small person put away such copious amounts of food. She dreams of food, fantasizes about it.  Her eyes widen and shine at the thought of it. She recently volunteered at a food pantry and shoved food they deemed too disgusting for hobos  into her pockets for later.  Several incidences with Peaches have concerned me lately.  A while back we were on our street coming home from a long run when she spots something shiny on the road and makes a beeline towards it like a chicken on a slug.  It turned out to be a Snickers.  A Snickers that has been crushed by a car.  “No, Peaches”, I begin but she is already listing reasons why it’s okay.  It’s in our neighborhood, the wrapper is still on, etc.  Peaches consumed that Snickers in front of me.  Two weeks ago we saw a plastic Easter egg on the side of the road.  Now, this was NOT in our ‘hood and, indeed, was near a house where there are cars jacked up on blocks protected by pitt bulls. I don’t care about your argument for pitt bulls, you pair them with a transmission hanging from a tree and the result is not good.  Opening the egg, she discovered candy.  Can I mention that Easter was almost six months ago?  Where has this egg been?  Who packed it to begin with?  I have long wanted to do a coffee table book about things I see on the side of the road when running.  I never thought Peaches would EAT one of them. 

It all goes to the grip food has on us beleaguered women. I can be going along fine, fitting into my jeans with room for a friend and, BAM, a chip will whisper to me as I pass through the kitchen.  It will beg for me to release it’s friend cheese dip from the cold prison of the fridge and reunite them with their mother, margarita.  It’s a vicious cycle, food.  As we get older we have to budget our calories, nutrition and fiber and give up chewing altogether. I am thinking that my rise to fame is going to occur with the invention of the metastolifruiti, a combination of metamusil, vodka and grapefruit juice, for antioxidants to keep our skin fresh.  It’s a well-balanced diet all around.    

 

My Deep and Serious Post

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I’m not a brilliant person.  I think really smart people have a lot of headaches so I try to enjoy each and every day, laugh a lot and let the big things go.  Really, I laugh a LOT and consider myself mildly funny, married to the Golden Goose, who is really funny and avoid serious stuff like the plague. Like changing oil in the car or rotating tires, it’s just not fun and I avoid it.  Thankfully, I have the Goose or I’d be in a pickle.

I am deeply lodged inside my Lilly Pulitzer colored world and probably needed what I got a while back. I got  a good lesson in not judging a book by it’s cover.  Or not judging a man by his looks.  I could continue this thread on down by not judging a woman by her shoes, but let’s not get crazy here.

I get a lot of calls from people who have found injured or orphaned animals.  I must admit that when I started 10 years ago, I loved these calls.  I would talk and talk to the nice folks who were calling and by the time they left after dropping the critter off, I’d know everything about them, would have walked them around the barnyard, introducing them to each and every one of my animals and they would know the most minute and intimate details of my life from my childhood to my recent botox injection.  Now, when they call and begin the sentence, “hello? I got your number from …” and they start to fumble for where they found me I am already sighing and interrupting with “what do you have?”. I guess the shine wears off anything after a while but I must say that middle-age has made me, well, snippy sometimes. This has caused an uptick in wine consumption, which, in turn, has caused more wrinkles and more calories.

Anyhoooo,  a while back, I was in the middle of a particularly crazy day.  I do have a real life, as a designer, and sometimes still manage to get dressed up and work with people.  This day, I was clean, had had coffee (those who know me are nodding and saying “nuff said” here) and was running out of the house when I got a call from a man who proceeded to stammer through his problem while I twisted and fidgeted thought his long explanation.  I agreed to wait.  It seems he had found a baby opossum and had driven it all the way up to Amicolola, about 40 miles from me.  They then told him to take it to Gainesville, another 40, at least.  They gave him my name and he headed back my way. This man called me at least 3 times on the way, shouting at me over the phone while I, again, gave him directions, articulating and snapping like an angry governess.

When this man finally arrived I was shocked.  He drove through my lovely gates in the biggest beater of a car I’ve ever seen.  The doors were not the same color as the rest of the car.  There was no back window.  The man who emerged was dirty.  Filthy.  Encrusted in dirt.  His hair stood out at all angles and, when he smiled, there were a good many teeth missing and the ones remaining were, well, dark.  In his shirt, against his body, he had a tiny opossum curled up snug and warm.  When the man spoke, he was slow and quiet and I realized that when he had called all those times, it must have been from pay phones.  He trembled a bit as he handed over the baby and explained that he was so sorry it had taken so long, he had had to go by his sister’s to get some gas money.  He then tried to give me four crumpled up bills to help pay for food.

Now, it takes a lot to get to me.  I see a lot of sweet things die, I see horrible injuries and have learned to grit my teeth and  just move on.  My eyes filled with tears and I looked down at my fabulous shoes, in my pretty yard, by my nice car and in the shadow of my comfortable home.  Here was a man that people probably look away from in public out of fear or disgust.  He had nothing and had had to borrow the money as he drove about 150 miles in the hopes of saving what most people consider a disgusting rodent (do I really have to add here, again, that opossums are marsupials, just like kangaroos?).  He then offered to help pay for his care, something that most people that drop off animals in Mercedes and BMWs never even consider.  He said he had worried all morning about keeping him warm and making sure he had a good chance.  How many men would take the time to do this? This isn’t the funniest of stories and about as deep as I go, but I think about him all the time. How ironic that he had brought an opossum, the least attractive of animals but among the sweetest, who just go along their way, eating everything and cleaning up the world.  Sometimes I think we get in our own ruts and form opinions that build fences that keep out the good things.  Just like the little ‘possum, this man was a shining jewel inside a worn out box. Love lives inside the most unattractive of God’s creatures.  That man was certainly my lesson for the day and shame, shame, shame on me for needing it!

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FAME

So I guess I’ve had my 15 minutes of fame.  I was really hoping it would come in a big lottery win or something more ladylike like a pageant title.  I have been sure, all my life, that I’d be sitting across from Oprah, Barbara Walters, or Matt Laurer discussing how I discovered that lip gloss cured cancer or perhaps I’d designed a space that was so beautiful that it caused world peace or even that I’d written a book that stayed on the best seller list for years.  I never envisioned I’d be outed as the animal weirdo I am on USA Today.

Sometimes I get calls for non-indigenous wildlife.  I like to bandy that word about because it makes me sound smart.  Actually, in pure southern redneck, it just means they’re not from around here, y’all.

One afternoon about 10 years ago I got a call from Chattahoochee Nature Center about a big turtle.  Now, I’m a caring individual but it was rush hour, I was on my way to a baseball game, I was dressed really cute and just didn’t want to go.  I put on my “smart” voice with the man and told him just to leave the big turtle alone and he’d be fine.  “Lady” he kept repeating, “you just ain’t getting it”.  So I drove the angry aggressive 20 miles to see this terrible turtle disturbance.  When I drove into the apartment complex, there were about 25 little international children all huddled in a circle along with several adults. I got out, still puffed up and grouchy, and they all moved back with their eyes wide and their mouths agape.  What reposed on the ground between them all was a tortoise of such epic proportions that it boggles the mind.  He was almost 4 feet long, his shell came up to the average man’s knees and he outweighed most women.  After belting out something inappropriate in front of minors, I apologized to the caller for being what my mother would have called “a toothead”.  Three of us squeezed him, huffing and puffing, into the back of my giant SUV and I called home to tell them I had something BIG to show.

Tortellini became such a part of our family that I described him as a sweet, dotty uncle who devours my hosta and poos in the yard.  Already an old man, he had charm and charisma out the wazoo.  If I sat down on the sidewalk, he would spy me with his beady little black eye and motor towards me, trying to climb into my lap.  Upon seeing the horses grazing or the dogs playing, he’d make a beeline towards them to join in the social free-for-all.  When he became lost, the entire county turned out to help.  Signs went up, local papers jumped in and the Atlanta news ran stories of his disappearance.

A brief word on how he “escaped”.  The Golden Goose left the gate open.  There, I’ve said it.  I also received a new car the next week, not that I believe this has anything to do with it, but needless to say, the Goose was sweating. Once Tortellini was found, other channels wanted in on the story.  We were interviewed, photographed, measured and quoted.  I was pictured after I had flung myself on him in the driveway, my uncolored roots exposed to the entire world.  I was memed and reposted. USA Today picked up the story.  I have reason to believe that once this hit the satellites, Tortellini Hays was broadcast to alien life forms across the universe.  He has his own Facebook page with more friends than my husband and me combined.

This is not how I planned to become famous. Now, while I lurk, middle aged and tarnished in the shadow of his glory, my only hope is that he’ll allow me to stay around to shine his shell once he hits Hollywood! 

And, no, animal rights people (of which I’m one) DO NOT get up in arms about a tortoise drinking beer.  Of COURSE he wasn’t really drinking beer!  He’s a martini man, through and through, shaken, not stirred.