This is not Going to Help

No one spared

RIP John Banks, dear friend and dear friend of my late Uncle Jack.  I'm so grateful y'all had each other in high school.

The past two weeks have been open season on people dear to me.  George was taken shockingly, John has been ill for a long time.  Both, heartbreaking.

Among many other things, I will never forget going to visit John when he was laid up with a bullet in his gut.  He'd been at an antique store (he was an antique dealer himself) when it was held up.  He chased the robber out the door and got shot in return.  Not quite sure what he thought he was going to do if he caught this guy, but he wasn't one for sitting around watching folks get robbed.

 I was in law school in Fayetteville at the time and so got to go sit with him while he was recovering. 

He had a gorgeous old-ish house on a street.  I coveted the house, its contents and its location.  So unbelievably cool.  And he was so cool in it.  He was a bit of a hermit, on his best day.  Couldn't be bothered to fuck with most folks.  He consented, likely due to my association with his friend, my  late uncle, Jackson Reeves, and to his lifelong best friend, Shellie Wilson Bailey, to let me come visit and dote on him. 

I knocked on the door, it was answered by some completely insane neighbor who directed me upstairs.  I got up there by navigating a series of bizarre gates designed to contain his blind dog upstairs.  You see, she was accustomed to the arrangement downstairs but not up. And he needed to recover in bed and they couldn't be apart.  So the whole time we were visiting, the dog was running headlong into things and every time she hit the metal bed frame, it sounded like a gong. 

The room was heavy with the scent of slowly decaying flowers and there were nearly empty whiskey bottles around. 

At one point, John asked if I could get him a glass of milk.  I started downstairs to the kitchen, and he said no and gestured toward his closet.  In his closet was a fridge filled with nothing but gallons of milk and a collection of glasses.  I poured him one and he downed it.

Then some other neighbors came over.  They looked straight out of central casting aging country club couple in kelly green terry cloth and madras.  Probably 70 years old.  They came to show John photos of their son who had recently won some sort of drag queen pageant.  They were so proud, and I was so proud of them for being proud.

I loved him dearly.  He was good to me.

 

Franecdote

We inadvertantly gave Frances a vegetable rather than a pork dumpling at dinner tonight.  She flung herself onto the floor underneath the dinner table, had to be ordered back upright and then said:  "I don't mean to be rude, but that tasted like someone farted in my mouth."

Rage

 

My cousin George died unexpectedly last week. 

I was caught off guard by his death, and, frankly, I was caught off guard by how crushed I am.

I realize things like this happen to good people all the time, but that doesn't make it easier.  It makes it harder.

George was a riotously funny, kind, smart guy.  I think it's rare to be all three at the same time all the time, but he was.  He was a state trooper in Oklahoma for 31 years.  He was retiring in May. He just had his first grandchild. On October 24, we traded barbs about his impending retirement.  On October 25, he was t-boned at a high rate of speed by a dump truck.  After a stint on life support, he died on October 26, Adam's birthday.

When my sister called me to tell me about the wreck, I literally lost my footing.  I had just walked in my front door and I clutched the back of the sofa to keep upright. 

His voice is one that I have always heard in my head when trying to decide how to behave, what course of action to take.  He helped me more often than he had any way of knowing.  I wish I had told him.  I loved him probably more than he knew, though I hope he had some inkling.

I've been alternately sad and enraged, and I haven't been myself.

Here are a few anecdotes about George, and though none of them really captures him exactly, they all make me laugh:

When he was about 6 years old, he got so passionately involved in whatever western he was watching on television, he grabbed his BB gun and shot the screen.

When he was a little older, his dad Calvin (an engineer) was driving George and my mother around and showing them a dam project he'd been working on.  As they drove past some guys sitting around and smoking, Calvin said:  "Look at those lazy bastards, they're supposed to be doing X."  Then they drove past another group of men, and Calvin said:  "Look at those poor bastards, they've been working all day in this heat."  As they were driving away, George asked his father:  "Dad, what kind of bastards are we?"

This past August, his younger son, John, got married.  During the ceremony, George reached into his pocket to get his sister a Kleenex, and a pair of blunt-nosed kindergarten scissors fell out.  His sister asked why he was carrying those in his tuxedo pocket.  He said he'd come across them in a drawer that morning and that they'd been John's scissors in kindergarten. 

He really got it. 

Nablopomo

It has been a long time.  Facebook killed blogging for me.  I know this speaks volumes about the depth of my character, but I'm not sure I care.  I mean, I do care, but I don't care to elaborate on the extent to which I care.

It is Nablopomo again, and I failed for the past two years.  As fun as it is to be surrounded by type A folks and shrug one's shoulders at failure, I would like to succeed this time. 

 

I am still here

For one thing, and another

I'm having a sort of secret love affair with Henry.  He has gotten to be such a nice, happy boy.  It feels a bit like a relief after the frustration of his not talking, which was followed suddenly by his inability to stop talking.  He still talks.  A great deal.  But so much of what he says is adorable now, in its content and not just in its articulation.  He wants to be nice, to do what is right.  It pains him when he causes a problem, and he is very quick to offer a heartfelt apology and attempt to make it right.  Adam and I are not like this, really, so it is surprising and delightful, and I imagine that it comes from some sunny, kind, smart, sincere ancestor of ours.  It is a gift; Henry is a gift.

He now tries not to cry, which is a hallmark of impending grownupishness I remember Franny navigating briefly, you know before she moved on to melodrama and fake crying.

I watched him walk down the hall away from me today, and he's looking longer and leaner.  His toddler belly is nearly gone.  He wears these little boxer briefs and, oh, I don't know.  He's just a dish.

Robin and the cousins left today.  Everyone knew it was coming, and, sure, in some ways it will be a relief for all concerned.  Mostly, though, it just sucks.  Those kids never seemed to get tired of each other -- I never felt that testy sleepover vibe.  My sister's just the easiest houseguest ever, and I think we're going to have plenty of fun living together in the nursing home.  She just isn't annoying at all.   

Really, this is still about Henry.  Today when the car service got here to take them to the airport, I noticed Henry stopped running through the leaves with Franny and Annie.  As he came into focus from across the front yard, I could see he was making his trying-not-to-cry face.  I stopped.  When he saw me looking at him, he walked quickly over to me and buried his head in my shoulder and then cried a big wet spot on my shirt.  He looked me right in the eye and said "I just love them so much." 

Phoning it in

My dear friends are taking me out to dinner for my birthday, which was in August.  They are nice like that.  I'm afraid that I'll be too, uh, out of sorts to post later, so I'm posting now.  Even though the kids seem to be multiplying like bunnies downstairs. 

Last time we tried to go out for my birthday, Henry flung himself down the stairs and broke his arm while I was putting on mascara.

For the love of Pete

Some quotes from today:

Robin:  I'm sorry!  But you are wearing navy blue and I thought your armpit was much deeper than that!

Henry:  The bigger they are, the harder they fall and the more they cost.

Annie (to me):  You not talking to me, CaCa?

My dad

My hometown school district recently honored my dad, and I got to say a few words.  Here they are.

Wow.  How lucky I am to be his daughter, to get to stand up here and say a few words.  Thanks, Kim, for giving me the opportunity to do this, and thanks to all of you for honoring my dad like this.  I can hardly think of anyone who deserves an evening of being harassed and praised and just generally looked at as much as he does – I mean, look at him.  He’s so handsome, right?!  He’s like a cross between Atticus Finch and Davey Crockett – and he looks like Paul Newman!

I’m pretty sure he didn’t start off exactly perfect.  I’ve heard some stories, and a few of them I’ve heard often enough to assume that there’s at least some truth to them – like the time he accidentally knocked his mother out.  Thanks, Mema, for molding him into the kind, industrious, impatient, funny father he is.  And, Mom.  It would be difficult to overestimate your influence on this wild animal.  Your love for and enjoyment of each other has been the foundation for every single day, every single interaction of my life.  If it hadn’t been for this exceptional example, I never would have found Adam V_______, and for that alone, I owe you forever.

So, I was lucky enough to be raised by this man, this lawyer, who, even though he was in the business of giving out advice all day every day for a living, hardly ever gave me any that wasn’t specifically solicited.  He just lived his life every day like he wanted me to live it, teaching my sister and me by example.  I’m not saying he was or is perfect, but even when he lost his temper or made mistakes, he was never too vain to admit to them, to correct wrongs, to take a long walk, calm down and to offer a heartfelt apology.  Thanks, Dad, for teaching me how to be wrong.  It came in handy once.  In 1986.

Dad never just sat back and told me that I should always be generous, he showed me.  My entire life I’ve watched him quietly help people in so many ways.  He’s generous with his time, and he’s generous with his heart.  He’s very quick to tell a story, he’s not afraid to admit to his flaws, he is terrific about putting folks at ease no matter who they are or from whence they came.   He doesn’t do this  because it is the polite thing to do.  He does this because he loves people.  He loves people in an open and genuine way, and this is probably the greatest gift that he got from his father, Jack.  Oh my God how big Jack would have loved to have been here tonight, listening to all the kind words and sharing a few of his own.  And oh how his brother, Jackson, would have loved to be here skewering him as no one else could.

I’ve been fortunate enough to observe my dad’s generosity not only on the home front from my position as one of his daughters but also professionally when we practiced law together – both at the firm and at FedEx.  At R___Law Firm, I watched so many folks walk in nervous and upset and confused and then walk out so much more relieved and confident.  One couple came in particular came in one day, I could tell they were upset, and I showed them into his office which, as many of you know, is full of all sorts of taxidermied game animals – bobcats, a snarling bear rug, deer, elk, turkeys, ducks, countless fish and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.  Anyway, the man looked open-mouthed at the carnage all around him and then whispered to his wife:  “I think this guy can win our case.”

But the thing I admire the most about my dad professionally (even more than his intelligence, talent, hard, hard work, and seeming inability to procrastinate) is his modesty, if that’s even the right word.  I’ve never met a successful person who was so quick to give credit to the people who help him.  If he gets a compliment  on something he’s accomplished, he very quickly tells you about all the help he had from June or Denise or Brad or Christy or Jim, and how proud he is of them and how smart they are and how lucky he is to get to work with them.  And, let me be perfectly clear:  This is not false modesty.  It is fairness and love and he just really wants to acknowledge the good in people.

I don’t know very many people who would like to start their lives over, not to go back and do things differently, but just to experience it all again, good and bad, but I do.  I wish I could relive every moment of my childhood .  I’d like to go back and spend every night all over again in that little house on Choctaw that you and Mom built in the summer of 1973 while she was 9 months pregnant with me and you were taking the bar exam.  Man, you were an optimist.  You’d go to work before dawn so you could make it home for dinner nearly every single night.  You’d do work at home and let us crawl all over you, drawing on those giant abstract tablets. 

And I’d like to go back and spend every day all over again in the Tamarind Street house.   Even days like my first date, on which you verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry reluctantly permitted me to go and made me wait at the top of the stairs while you answered the door, took one look at the boy, shook your head and then yelled up the stairs to me:  Well, Jessica!  He is NOT ugly! 

And I even loved our days all crammed into the little yellow house on Cherry Street with naked grandchildren running around  wondering when DooDad will be home to take them to the lake or the farm or bring them a snake or turtle or a luna moth to love and torment for a  few hours.  And I look forward to all the days to come on Robin Hill, because I’m the daughter of an optimist and I have every reason to believe that it is going to be charmed.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that we have some hard times ahead of us, but I also know that they will be infused with love and hope and that we will laugh inappropriately and all the time.  I know it is going to be good, Dad, because you are going to be there.

 

 

Nablopomo 2009

I tried and failed at Nablopomo last year.  I don't know why I think I can do it now when I couldn't then, especially now that I'm working from home.  Selling encyclopedias door to door.  Want some?  Ha!  There's nothing like delusion, denial and a nice little SSRI cocktail to get one through the day.

The sun has continued to rise and set since I last posted, so lots of really fascinating info (about sleep cycles, 1st grade homework, Henry's progress as a professional talker) has sort of drifted under the bridge.  I hope to exploit it all to get through this month of daily posting. 

Robin and her kids are here for Halloween again.  It has become sort of a tradition, which is obviously nice for us, and I think it is pretty good for them, too.  New England, while always beautiful and robust, seems somehow to be at its most authentic, or at least true-to-type in the fall. We dress up as cats and poodles and power rangers and tromp through leaves in beautiful crisp weather.  Annie and Abe bring out the best in Franny and Henry.  Robin brings out the best in me.  And I'm sorry to say that my best is still an asshole. 

Crisp

All evidence (here) to the contrary, we are back home in Connecticut.  It is nice to be back, just as it was sad to leave Arkansas.  The kids literally cry for their cousins, but they have been having loads of fun getting back to school (Franny) and reconnecting with friends here.

Henry doesn't go back to school for about ten million years -- on Sept. 14 -- but Clothilde is coming tomorrow for a visit, so that will distract us from our current attempts to overdose on togetherness.

It is a beautiful, perfect New England Labor Day.  And, like an asshole, I've been indoors all day.  I will rue this behavior come February, when I start typing post after post about the never-ending string of 45 degree rainy days.  Look!  I'm already bitching about it! 

I'm going to take these kids (the very same kids who kicked me all night and slept sideways in my bed and started begging me for breakfast at 6.30) to the beach or the playground or the playground at the beach!

These kids:

 

Spoke too soon

For my second steamy evening run, I took Scout, my parents' dog.  She loved running through the wildflowers and was particularly interested in this dense thicket along the roadside about halfway home.  She disappeared into it and I heard this strange clucking sound from within.  She emerged covered in skunk spray.  Yee-haw, Arkansaw.

Arkansaw

We're back in Arkansas for our annual summer trip.  It is beautiful in every way.

On my steamy run the first night we were here, I saw wildflowers all along the road.  Some, like Queen Anne's lace and sweet William and Indian paintbrush and milkweed and black-eyed Susans and ox-eye Daisies, I grew up seeing in the field behind our old house.  I finally saw a passion flower, which I had seen in wildflower books before but never really believed I'd see in person -- just looks too exotic -- but there it was on the side of the road with the rest of them.

I got forty red white and blue shoestrings and a thousand telephones that won't ring

So, I have neglected to write anything for a month, really. I blame Facebook.  I'm always looking for ways to do as little as possible and still squeak by (pointing fingers and casting blame along the way) and it appears even my self-referential hobby here isn't safe from being put off and/or done poorly.  For the past few months, maybe longer, each time there's a flicker of an idea or an anecdote to report, I just fire it off in a Facebook status update.  And then it is gone.

The kids are still cute.  And they are downright pleasant right now.  Today we watched a video of Henry that was shot almost exactly a year ago.  A lot happens between 2 and 3.  Henry sat next to me and said "listen to my voice on dat day."  I knew just what he meant. 

In April, when Robin was having Abe and the kids were aware of cows calving across the road from Mom and Dad's house, Henry had some questions about how all that happens, namely:  how does the baby get out of the belly.  My answers to those questions prompted Henry to say the following thing to our babysitter Erin this evening:  "Hi Erin.  Mommy and I are out here watching this big bunny in the yard.  Mommy says the bunny might be a Mommy bunny who has babies, but it is not a Mommy bunny, because it does not talk.  Bunnys do not lay eggs.  They have babies like people do, out their babyhole.  My Mommy has a babyhole, but you can't see it, because it is part of her private parts.  Where are you going?"

We've had lots of fun lately. 

Carnival rides

 

Franny and Pearce went out for sushi without their wee brothers.

 

Visits from the Garstens, including new little Max

 

 

Marshie and Papi, suburban gothic

 

Old friends-to-be

 

 

Henry turns 4

Paralyzed yet buoyant

Paradox

I write the least when I have the most to say.

I tend to be both depressive and optimistic.

We had a fantastic trip to Arkansas to "help" Aunt Robin with her new baby.  Here she is with her torpedo belly:

 

And here's what shot out of that torpedo belly. 

Fuh-fuh-fuh-freezing

OK, even I cannot write three posts in a row about the weather, but the weather has completely taken over my personality.  I am freezing people out.  I'm giving them the cold shoulder.  I'm the ice queen.  I'm frigid? 

Seems like it has been ages since I've posted gratuitous photos of the children.  You know why?  Because it is too damned cold to take pictures!  AAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrgh.

Here we are making our way from the car to the house after school today.

 

 

In the mud

I know I've been complaining about the weather, and it is still too damn cold for my taste.  It has, however, gotten warm enough that Franny is back to digging in the dirt beside our garage for critters.  She finds these little salamanders I never knew existed.  I finally got around to looking them up online for her, while she was standing at my knee.  They are called red-backed salamanders, and they don't seem to live as far south as where I grew up digging in the dirt.

Anyway, we clicked through a few results and found one that showed a young woman who was literally armpit deep in sludge.  I don't know where exactly she was, but it looked like a small river of mud.  She was covered, hair, shoulders, everything in this mud.  She was looking for something.  Just as I was about to shudder and recoil, Franny says breathlessly:  "Oh!  I wish I could do that!"

Bless her little heart.  Or something.

So, apparently, at some point I need to send her to some sort of summer camp where she can be surrounded with like-minded folk who want to swim in mud looking for slimy creatures to coddle, adore and release.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of getting dirty or of letting her get dirty.  And I'm not squeamish in general, but I do have my limits.  And our yard only has so much to offer. 

Deafened by adorableness

Can we puh-leeze just break 50 degrees fahrenheit for one motherfucking day?  Shit!

Welcome to my blog, where I shake my fist at mother nature and the universe and am rewarded with four separate rounds of the stomach virus since October.

It was about a week ago when I saw the first signs of a forsythia budding, and I let myself smile.  I shouldn't have let my guard down.  When the weatherman claimed that it was going to be 52 today, I wore only an insulated vest instead of my down coat.  It never got above 43.

This was the winter I coughed from Christmas until nearly St. Patrick's day.  The worst, most gagging, strangling, body-contorting cough.  A cough that made me wet my pants and throw my back out and that improved in only infinitesimal increments over the course of, oh, ten thousand days.  I experienced one of these coughs today, in fact.  But one per day is a vast improvement.  And, in fact, I think there wasn't a single one yesterday.

I've been listening to children all day long.  Happy, lovely children whom I adore.  And it has made me so, so tired.  I'm going to take a shower, finish my book, count my many blessings.  And tomorrow, or very soon, I'm going to write something less whiny.

Block

Each time I sit down to say something to you people, I stop, because I feel like I should be writing to you about our trip to the inauguration and not about how Henry told me last night that I was going to get older and older and taller and taller and that I would get witch hands and then went to get a book to show me what witch hands looked like, and then gestured to my hands and looked at me apologetically. 

I don't have anything important enough to say about the very important event I witnessed.  But, in the interest of giving the kids some record of what I witnessed, I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

Just after Obama was nominated, Adam booked our hotel room.  He's a planner, that guy. Then, after the election, when everyone was scrambling for rooms, there was nearly some sort of snafu where the hotel attempted not to honor our reservation. Adam was able to persuade them that this was not the ideal course of action.  I was reminded anew that I'm glad to be on the right side of Adam.

Adam went down a couple of days earlier than I did, which means that he got to spend two nights alone in a hotel room.  Bastard!  My train got in on Monday, but not quite in time to go to the Illinois State Society ball with him.  He took his childhood friend, the gorgeous Danielle.  See?

 

Yes, I took that photo.  You see, I got in late, and then I took a bath and put on my pajamas.  Just as I was climbing into bed, Adam called and asked me to come down to the lounge.  I attempted to demur, referring to my attire.  He told me just to put my coat on over my pajamas and just come down for a minute.  I said OK, forgetting for the moment that the only coat I had was my grandmother's mink, which is so conspicuous and looks so ridiculous on someone my age.  So, I met my husband and his beautiful date looking like this. 

 

I'm not proud.  And I realize I'm at great risk for sounding like oh-look-at-me-I'm-so-eccentric-and-adorable-in-spite-of-myself.  I just wanted my kids to know that you cannot go unnoticed in a mink and that it only draws attention to the fact that you're wearing pajamas in a bar.  If you do this, you are certain to run into both Jim Lehrer and Bob Bennett, and if you then sit down at a table where your husband is wearing a tuxedo and sitting with a similarly-attired female friend and your husband stands up and kisses you on the lips?  People will stare at you and then take your photo with their iphone. 

I forgot to mention that Adam's aunt Christina and uncle Fran stayed in the room with us on Monday night, and it was so much fun.  Poor uncle Fran had to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but I was consoled by his snoring that he wasn't faring too poorly down there.  Hi, Fran!

So, the next morning was the big event.  The inauguration.  It is true.  Everyone was in a good mood.  Even on the crowded metro, even in the freezing cold.  And, most impressively, even when standing, squeezed tightly, shoulder-to-shoulder in a throng of people that stretched for blocks and blocks, through a dark, cold tunnel in a line that did not move one foot for hours and hours.

If you haven't heard of this, it is because the mainstream media didn't want to blemish what was a great day that went off nearly without a hitch.  Nearly.  The hitch was called Purplegate.  We had purple tickets.  We were crushed together with some other merry souls, and I was afraid.  Seriously, if folks hadn't been so damned joyous, it could have been dangerous.  We were squeezed so tightly together that when an ambulance came down the street, I had to brace the girl in front of me slightly so that she could lift her feet up and back so that they wouldn't be run over.  The side of the ambulance was just a few inches from my face, and, obviously, even closer to that poor girl's.

After standing there for a couple of hours, Jesse Jackon squeezed past us.

 

We decided if Rev. Jackson was having that much trouble getting around that there wasn't much hope for us, so we started trying to squeeze our way out of the "line" to find another place to watch it -- you know, like on television.  But about a block after we emerged from the crowd, there was a little sign saying "purple gate" with an arrow.  We shrugged and took the turn, and we were through the gate within an hour.  It was another large crowd, but it was moving and orderly.  We learned later that none of the literally thousands of the folks in that first line got in.  Again, I felt guilty.  It was blind luck that we managed to get in. 

Of course, our view was pretty funny once we were in position.  So close -- yet behind a giant bush.

 

We had the good sense to hightail it back to the room after the swearing-in and watch the parade from bed, with a giant room service cheeseburger.

That night we went to the health care ball, which was not one of the official balls.  So, while we didn't get to watch the Obamas dance, we also didn't have to endure all the security and crowds that would have been involved.  And, the best part?  Jackson Browne.  Seriously.  Do you know how much I love Jackson Browne?  Some of you do.  And I got to see him play an intimate and surprisingly lengthy set in the National Museum of Natural History.  I would have made the trip just for this.

 

You see my crazily shining yellow head up there?  That picture looks just how I felt.  It was just dreamy.  And, speaking of dreamy?