Proof We Are Not Pretentious People

We really know how to make people feel welcome in our home. Friday night, janjanmom and her lovely youngin's came by to bring me a cake the eldest had made that day. Look! Isn't it cute?

Let's not talk about how fast it took me to eat it once I got over cutting into the lovely decorations. Thank goodness we got the TV hooked up in front of the treadmill. Otherwise, it would have been a weekend of staring at that Norman Rockwell print.

Anyway, I was giving janjanmom a tour of the new house, and I was all blah blah new lighting this and yak yak counter tops that. I walked into the dining room to show her the cute little Hula Girl napkins Teen Angel got me for Christmas when I stepped in the biggest dog turd ever. It appears the dog had NOT endured my marathon trip to the grocery store and the beauty shop Friday as well as I had thought and he had pooped in the dining room. To make matters worse, I accidentally sent some of it rolling underneath the hutch, where it now sits waiting for me to find the yardstick to fish it out from under there. Nice. I'm sure she failed to notice much of anything else on the tour because her head was probably screaming, "She had dog poop in her dining room!" the whole time.

Now, fortunately janjanmom is a down to earth, understanding person who has three children and a big dog, so she's dealt with a little poop in her time. However, that doesn't make me feel any less embarrassed about the whole thing. It will give us a good laugh in the coming years. When we're old, wearing gold shoes and playing Bingo, she can lean over to me and cackle, "Hey, remember that time the dog crapped in your dining room and you kicked that turd under the hutch?" We'll laugh and wheeze and wonder out loud why the kids don't come to see us more often.

In the meantime, please know dear readers that you are welcome in my home anytime and you definitely won't have to worry about using the right fork or a tea towel between dinner courses. You might however, want to watch where you step. Now, about that yardstick.......

Fun Monday-Pampering

After a few weeks away from the Fun Monday fun, I'm back in the saddle this week. Mariposa is our hostess and she wants to know how we pamper ourselves. Here is her assignment for us:

"We all need to learn to pamper ourselves and not just in times when we are stressed.So for next week, let us share each other's self pampering stories...may they be from little pleasures to guilty pleasures!"

Only recently have I learned the art of pampering myself without guilt. For years, I'd get a massage or squeeze out a little "me time" but wouldn't really enjoy it because I felt like I should spend every spare moment with my family. It's a neuroses of working women, I think. I finally figured out though, that the world didn't fall apart and no one at home was hopelessly lost without me if I took an hour or two for myself. And I've never looked back. I pamper myself guilt free these days, and there are a couple of things I do that I really enjoy.

First of all, I play Bunco once a month with some girlfriends. We get together for food, games, gossip and laughs. It's a great time and always a good reminder of how important it is to cultivate and maintain friendships. Play dates are important for grown ups, too. Once a year, the Bunco group does a slumber party, and because we'd all like to keep our jobs and our reputations I will not divulge all of the nonsense that goes on. Let's just say we like to "cut loose", and leave it at that.

The other thing I treat myself to is having my nails done. After years of biting my nails and wearing them down to horrible looking little nubs, I took the advice of a good friend and starting having acrylic put on my nails and getting them polished every couple of weeks. It keeps my hands looking nice, which is important in my job. I sit in a lot of meetings with community leaders and occasionally get interviewed by local media, so appearances are important in my position. Which is kind of a bummer, because I'd rather show up for work in my robe and flip flops, but that's not how the world spins. The funny thing about the nail appointments is that I get more pleasure out of the chats I have with my nail tech than I do out of the actual manicures.

I don't have a picture of Cindy to show you, but I wish I did. She is fascinating. She came to the U.S. from Vietnam seven years ago with the intention of making a better life for herself and eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. When I first started seeing her four years ago, she spoke very little English. I had to point to the color of polish I wanted. In those four years, her English has improved remarkably and includes a little slang like "honey" and "baby". She got her drivers license, earned an associate degree at the local college and earned her cosmetology license. She went from renting a booth in a beauty shop to owning her own shop.

She is one of the hardest working people I know. She is not afraid of dirty work, long hours or studying for hours on end to earn good grades. She loves to learn and was a straight A student. Her drive comes from growing up dirt poor. As in didn't own a toothbrush until she was thirteen years old poor. As in worked in the rice fields as a child poor, and shared a dress with her sisters.

In the past four years Cindy has shared with me many stories about her childhood and the poverty she has known for most of her life. I find it fascinating to hear about the lack of quality health care in her home country, the conditions she used to live in and the promises she made to herself about finding a way out of the poverty. She's one of the bravest and strongest women I know. Not many of us would be willing to leave our home country forever and hop on a plane for a country we knew nothing about, didn't know the language spoken there and didn't know what kind of job prospects we would find. Every other week I sit across from her while she massages my cuticles, polishes my nails and warms my heart. I have learned so much from her.

She is very appreciative of the opportunities this country has afforded her and loves being here. At last week's appointment she was excited because the next day she was traveling to Nashville to register for the background check that will lead to her test for citizenship. Cindy practically sparkled as she talked about it. And get this. She has already studied for the test and knows the information backwards and forwards. She spouted all kinds of facts about our government and its history. Stuff that a lot of Americans have probably not taken the time to learn or simply aren't interested in. I'm proud for Cindy, and I know she'll do well on the test. After all, she's a straight A student. And I always feel good when I leave her shop, somewhat for the manicure, but mostly for the friendship.

Me and E

Friends drift in and out of your life as you age, and it is rare that you keep a particular friend for most of your life. People grow and change. Their interests and views split or they move. Because I live near the town in which I grew up, I have been fortunate to stay in contact with many friends from my childhood. Once in a while, you meet someone you manage to stay friends with forever, and for me that person is E.

We’ve been friends for nearly forty years. She and I met when we were five years old. You do the math. On another day, I’d fudge about my age, but today I’m in an oh what the hell mood. We rode the school bus together when I moved here from a Chicago suburb halfway through my kindergarten year. We were so small we shared a seat with two other girls. She was my first friend in a new school. Most of you can relate to how important that friend can be. We hit it off from the very beginning. We wuz like peas and carrots, as Forrest says. Me and E. shared the same interests. We both liked music and art. We both played the flute, we agreed on which boys were cute and which boys weren’t and we had similar tastes in clothing, books and music. For thirteen years of school, we were elbow to elbow, literally. In classes....

In marching band.

Pep band.

Concert band.

Cheerleading. (Hey, there’s M.! Everybody say hello to M.)

Graduations.

High school.

And beyond. We shared just about every milestone event a body can have during his growing up years. I was there for her wedding.

And she was there for mine. We encouraged each other through college, exchanging letters when she moved out of state. And we shared the joys of childbirth when she moved back. Careers and families have kept us from spending much time together in the last twenty years, but we’ve stayed in touch, and on those occasions we are together, we iz like peas and carrots again. Like during our high school reunion when we spent the evening huddled in the corner chatting ninety miles an hour and trying to decide if P. had had a boob job. (Oh, yes she did!) And our elementary school reunion last year where we laughed the night away at old memories and fell into our usual pose for the group picture. I love that our friendship is still comfortable. That we haven’t lost touch all these years later. And that we probably never will. I am a lucky gal, indeed. That’s why when April rolls around each year, I go hunting for a silly birthday card for E.. It’s her birthday month, and those birthday cards are our way of saying, “Hey, we’re still on this bus together.” Happy birthday, E.

Exhibit A

In the unlikely case you are harboring any notions that I used to be shy and quiet spoken and didn't become a bossy conversation hogging jabber box until I grew up and out of my shell, I share with you this photo that my buddy M. sent me this week. I'm the one on the left.Looks like Billy Carter wasn't the only one with a big mouth in 1976.

Together Again-Part 2

Our grade school reunion was a blast. We spent four hours swapping memories, slapping our knees and having a rip roaring good time. It was waaay better than our high school reunion last year. Nobody was trying to impress anybody. Nobody was sucking in his gut, and everyone ordered steak instead of pretending that he preferred salad. I haven't laughed that much in years. And look, here's the picture to prove it. Remind me to get my teeth cleaned soon. And to wax my upper lip. The evening was rich with shared memories of childhood antics and classroom hi jinks. Spending year after year in the classroom with the same forty people built strong bonds that have stood the test of time. For me, it was if we had magically stepped back in time. Everybody looked a little older but seemed to be the same as they were thirty years ago. I feel fortunate to have grown up in the country with those folks. Those truly were the Wonder Years for me. My husband and some of my friends find that unique because they didn't have that kind of experience. They grew up in larger school districts where they were shuffled around each year and didn't get a chance to make more than just a few close friends. Only recently did I realize how unique our situation really was.

After dinner Friday night, we began telling stories on each other. Like the time our fourth grade teacher tied Madd Maxx to his chair with a jump rope because Maxx wouldn't stay in his seat. Or the time several of the boys got a spanking all at the same time. Or how about when L. was bragging about her monkey bar skills and E. and I laughed our butts off when she fell face forward in the sand and was knocked out cold..and then we thought she was dead and we'd get in trouble for laughing. Story after story rolled around the crowd, causing us to laugh uncontrollably (okay, some of us were in control. Not me.), hold our aching sides and wipe tears from our eyes. Eventually, we got around to asking where is SHE now or whatever happened to HIM, the folks who were a little odd, the folks who were on the lowest rung of the grade school social ladder, which in backwoods middle America was pretty low AND pretty ridiculous. While our group was unique in that we were so close, we weren't without a class system, and we didn't escape the urge to pick on the weakest members. I've always considered it to be normal teasing and probably pretty harmless. I mean, we all got ribbed or picked on about something every now and then, right? It just made us tougher, helped to shape us into stronger people who know the world isn't always fair. Right? But in the middle of all the ha ha ho ho hee heeing and giggling about the time F. stabbed me in the chest with a pencil and how weird F. always was, M. looked at me and said, "Do you remember what we called her?"

"No."

"Flea bag."

"Oh."

And suddenly I didn't feel like laughing because I remembered. Yes, we called her "flea bag", and for the first time ever I let myself think about how awful that must have been for her. Awful, because that's such a horrible thing to call someone. Awful, because in the immediate years after grade school I learned about her mother's suicidal tendencies, her poverty and her father's sexually abusive treatment of her. It's what made her behave so oddly when we were kids. It's why her clothes were often the wrong size or downright ratty. It's why she told scary stories in the restroom about whippings with belts that left marks. It's why she tried too hard to fit in. Somehow I had forgotten the nickname the class pinned on her. Hmm. Forgotten or suppressed? Did wiping out the memory of calling her "flea bag" make it easier for me to live with the knowledge of the abuse in her family and how badly I and three dozen other children treated her all those years ago?

Another funny story jarred me out of my somber moment Friday night, and I went on laughing at the next tale. I left the restaurant reminded of many old memories, but one in particular that I can't quite shake, the memory of F. No one seemed to know where she is now or what happened to her. The last thing I heard many years ago was that she was living in a nearby college town, prostituting herself. I don't know if that was true. I hope not. I hope somewhere along the way she found hope and peace and friends who treat her well. And wherever you are F. I'm sorry, really sorry for the way we all behaved. I'm sorry I ever called you..gulp..."flea bag". Very. Very. Sorry. And F. I won't let myself forget that again.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'm sorry L. for laughing when you fell off the monkey bars. And I'm especially sorry for laughing and pulling that bandanna off your head that morning on the school bus when you overslept and were trying to hide the fact that your hair was all matted up. Really, I am.

Hey, maybe we're not EXACTLY the same as we used to be.

Together...Again

Long, long ago, in a far away land, a very rural land, a group of villagers sent their children to this place for an education. For nine years those 40 children spent their days together, learning how to read, write and play dodge ball. Some of the children were short. Some were tall. Some were smart, and some rode the short bus. Most fell somewhere in between, but they were always together. Each year they moved to a new classroom, got a new teacher and learned new things, but they were always together. They played games like kickball and H-O-R-S-E.
They got spankings. They wrote sentences. They played on the basketball teams and made cheerleader….together. They kissed each other behind the bleachers, shared each other’s lunches and smoked two, count ‘em two Kool cigarettes on the playground…together. They did the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge, learned their multiplication tables and had an RC Cola and Moon Pie party…together. They rode school buses and took field trips to gather leaves and eat Dairy Queen treats together. From Kindergarten through eighth grade these 40 boys and girls were side by side not realizing how close they had grown.

In the year 1978 these boys and girls donned prairie dresses and blue tuxedos and graduated together from the little learning place in the country. They danced the night away to songs by the Jackson 5 and Leo Sayer and promised to always stay together. They scattered like the four winds to big dangerous places called high schools but came back together in 1981.
Alas, it would be the last time many of them would see each other for many years. Life in the village was hard. The children, now grown, had responsibilities. Time slipped away and before they knew it, thirty years had passed.

Then one day, one classmate who lived in the far away village called Louisiana, emailed another classmate and said, “I’m coming home during Labor Day weekend. Let’s get together.” And that classmate said, “Hey, I’ll call a few old classmates and see if they can meet us.” And she did. And they did…get together. Eleven of the classmates gathered again…after thirty years. These folks came.
And now they look like this.
They laughed. And laughed.
And laughed. And it was like time stood still. Like they had never parted. After four hours of stories and laughter and pictures they hugged and promised to get together again soon. Because they realized what a special bond they had, a bond that most people don’t have. They realized that they had grown up in a very special place during a very special time and had forged very special friendships that have a fairy tale like quality. They realized they will always..in some way….be together.

Where in The World is Ramona

I’ve been emailing back and forth this week with my old grade school chum, G., and we’ve been swapping memories about our childhood years. It’s fascinating to get each other’s perspective on that time and remind each other of different things that happened back then. Like the time the class mischief maker left his lunchbox at school all summer and it stank to high heaven when we came back in the fall. Or G. inviting all the neighborhood boys over to ogle his Farrah Fawcett swimsuit poster since he was the first boy in the region to order it from TV Guide. Growing up in a small town in the early and mid 70’s really was a great experience. We weren’t exposed to drugs, gangs or school violence. The only weapon at Franklin Elementary was Mr. E.’s paddle, and boy, could he swing it. Those really were the Wonder Years for us, but I realized today I can’t say they were perfect because it wasn’t a perfect time. The times they were a changin’, but not fast enough for some folks, like my friend Ramona. This week’s stroll down memory lane left me wondering where she is now.

Ramona was the first black person I ever got to know really well. The minority population in my little hometown in the mid 70’s was pretty small. There were few faces of color in my school photos. Since the Civil Rights Act was signed the year I was born, and the Watts riots and Alabama voting clashes occurred when I was a baby, as a grade school student I was ignorantly unaware of the race struggles that had occurred in the first decade of my youth. I was conscious of color back then because adults talked about it, but I didn’t really care or think about it, until I became buddies with Ramona. I remember her in kindergarten with her pigtails and colorful barrettes. I can see her now riding a tricycle during recess. This picture is from 7th grade when she and I played on the basketball team. Well, she played. I warmed the bench.
It’s ironic that she isn’t smiling in the only photo I have of her, because she always smiled. She had a giggle box that worked overtime and an infectious laugh. She made me laugh from the very beginning. We often sat beside each other in class, but didn’t become really good friends until 7th grade. Because we got along so well, I assumed she was just like me, and she was except for the fact that she faced issues I didn’t have to worry about. I didn’t know it then, though. We passed notes, shared jokes and talked on the phone for hours. She laughed at me because I was so naïve and taught me things about her culture I’d never heard of like Soul Train, Jeri Curl and hair food. She opened up a musical world outside top 40 pop radio when she introduced me to Teddy Pendergrass and Barry White. We had many good times at school and over the phone, but we didn’t visit each other’s homes. We would have needed transportation, but we didn’t ask our parents. It was like we had some kind of unspoken deal that we wouldn’t cross certain societal boundaries. We never discussed it, and I didn’t think about it much until one day when she showed up at my house. Her older sister had driven her there on their way home, and she stopped to show off her new baby nephew. It was the only time she ever came to my house. I grabbed her nephew and took him inside to show my parents. They welcomed her inside, but I could tell she felt really awkward, like she just didn’t belong. I never understood why, but I could see it in her eyes. She didn’t stay long that day, and we never spoke about it. It was my first clue that things were different for her in a way that they weren’t for me.

After 8th grade graduation she and I went to separate high schools. We drifted apart, but I never forgot her. Occasionally, I would run into her mom in town, and we would chat for a little. Over time, I lost track of her. During my high school and college years my little world expanded, and I learned much more about the racial divide in this country. Many times I have wondered what it was like to be in Ramona’s shoes back then. I can only imagine how tough it might have been to be one of those few faces of color in a very pale community. I wonder how many times she had her feelings hurt by unkind words or felt like a second class citizen because someone told her she was. I will probably never know. I am ashamed I didn’t ask her those questions back then. I feel like I let her down by not looking farther into her heart and mind. I wish I had been smart enough to look beyond my Wonder Years bubble. I sometimes wonder where she is now. I wish we could sit down and chat for a very long time over a drink and a piece of pie. I wish we could belly laugh and giggle together again. I would tell her I’m sorry I didn’t ask THOSE questions. I wonder if she ever thinks of me.

Name That Tune

We were rolling through the Rockies

We were up above the clouds

When a station out of Jackson played that song

And it seemed to fit the moment

And the moment seemed to freeze

When we turned the music up and sang along

The Song Remembers When/Trisha Yearwood

Have you ever had a moment when you were having such a great time or something important was happening to you and the music on the radio fit the moment so well that you knew you would always remember that blip in time? And now every time you hear that song, you automatically think of that moment, no matter how long ago it was? I love this Trisha Yearwood song because it captures those times so well. I have a handful of landmark songs from my younger days. I purposefully keep them out of my iPod, because I don’t want them at my fingertips. I’m afraid if I play them too often they won’t seem so special. I like stumbling across them on the radio when I least expect it. I hadn’t stumbled across one in a long time until this past Saturday. I was channeling through the stations on my way to the grocery store when I happened upon the Turtles and suddenly I was seventeen again and Happy Together with my friends.

May, 1982. A week after prom and two weeks before graduation. The die was cast, our grades were totaled, and we were all racing towards the finish line of our high school education. I, along with all of my buds, was suffering from senior-itis. We were done with the big tests. We had ordered our caps and gowns, and we were giddy with the anticipation of our last summer together before college scattered us to different corners of the country. We were bent on having a good time, and I was certainly having a good time on that particular Sunday afternoon. It was sunny and warm, perfect convertible weather. My friends, J. and G., had picked me up in a green Carmen Gia convertible, and we were cruising through the streets of my little hometown with the top down and the radio turned up. J. and G. were the kind of friends you have a good time with no matter what you’re doing. The kind of friends who never make you mad and always make you belly laugh when you’re together. The kind of friends who embrace your flaws and defend you even if you’re wrong. The kind of friends who are hard to find when you’re an adult. The three of us were in rare form that day, laughing and singing and soaking up the sun. Happy Together came on the radio and we automatically started singing it…together…loudly. We sang the whole song, and when it was over we were silent for a minute or two. All of us were deep in thought, no doubt reflecting on how perfect the moment was. I knew then that I would always remember that moment.

We were so innocent then. We had no idea how quickly our worlds would change. Within two years J. would be having her first baby and abandoning her basketball scholarship and college plans. Within eight years G. would be dead of AIDS. He was gay when it wasn’t cool to be gay in a small rural town. He suffered a lot of ridicule as he struggled with his sexuality. In fact, a year after our rendition of Happy Together he was beaten up by a group of rednecks as we left a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They didn’t like his Frank N. Furter costume.

The three of us drifted apart while J. and I were at different colleges and G. was trying to find his way. I haven’t seen J. in 23 years. I miss her. I miss G.. But I could hear them with me in the car last Saturday, singing with The Turtles as I sat in the parking lot of the Food Giant. The song really does remember when, doesn’t it?

A Smile for Miss Kay

It’s raining here again today….a steady drip, drip, drip for the second day in a row. I figure those raindrops are tears from heaven for my friend Miss Kay. She died this morning after an ugly struggle with cancer. I’m so very sorry she’s gone, but I’m glad her pain is over. She didn’t deserve the suffering she endured during the last few months. How do you say goodbye to such a fine lady? With some tears, sure, but mostly, I want to say goodbye with laughter. That’s because she brought so much light into my life. She always made me smile.

I met Miss Kay seventeen years ago. She and her husband owned a duplex that Hubby and I rented when we were starry eyed newlyweds. She was never really a landlord, always a friend. I liked her immediately. Her laugh was infectious, and she was plain spoken, but never with a sharp tongue. She was able to tell me how crappy my nails looked and how badly I needed a manicure without hurting my feelings. “They’re your jewels, honey, not tools”, she said. I rarely mailed our rent to her in the two years we lived there because a stop by her house was better. It always yielded some lively conversation. I was always amazed at her positive attitude, given the heartache she’d suffered over the years; a failed first marriage, the deaths of her parents and the birth of a severely retarded child that was eventually institutionalized. She rebounded with a second marriage to a wonderful man and the birth of three children. They built a good life together and had many good years. She busted through life’s ups and downs with a high spirit and a hearty laugh..or two..or three. For years she laughed at Hubby’s run-in with her mother’s remains. Actually, it was a prosthetic leg that went tumbling down into Hubby’s arms as he was digging through some shelves in a garage behind the duplex. He didn’t realize it was fake until he had screamed like a girl, tossed it on the floor and nearly wet his pants. It scared the bejesus out of him, and left us rolling on the floor. You didn’t mind that she laughed at you because she was always laughing at herself.

Even when we bought our own home (two blocks away) and moved out, we stayed in touch. Hubby became a caretaker of the duplex, mowing the yard and keeping an eye on the place for the last fifteen years in exchange for some storage space in that garage. Mostly though, he did it for Miss Kay and her husband. Miss Kay was always grateful for his help, and each year showered him with some kind of overly generous gift at Christmas. We ran into each other at the grocery store, Sam’s and other places around town, always spending a while in the middle of an aisle catching up on kids and work. Each time I saw her, she had a smile, even when the world wasn’t turning her way. Each…and…every…time.

We knew in recent weeks she was not in good shape but didn’t know until last Tuesday that she was near the end. The family didn’t know if she would make it through Thanksgiving. In typical fashion, she hung on and pushed through, probably for her family’s sake. That’s Miss Kay, generous to the end. She let go early this morning, and I hope she went peacefully. I’m sorry she’s gone, but I’m glad I knew her. She was a fine example of how to live life. I will shed a tear or two for Miss Kay over the next few days, but I know I will find many smiles among the memories. Thanks for the laughs Miss Kay, and say hello to Jesus for me, will you?