Sleeping With Salmon

Our bedroom is on the 2nd floor of a fifty year old house.  As soon as you’re halfway up the stairs you can feel the heat.

A few years ago we got a new air conditioner and I talked to the installer about our hot 2nd floor.  “This new AC will make it a little better but you don’t have enough ducts up here.  That’s your problem,” he said.  I inquired if correcting that problem was costly and he laughed too long and that was the end of that.

We also don’t have an overhead light fixture to accomodate a ceiling fan and even if we did the bed is too high.  We have investigated room air conditioners but that droning noise all night would make me crazy and then looking at that ugly thing hanging from the window all winter would make me crazier.

We were sweating it out (and offering it up for the poor souls in pergatory as my mother always said until the Catholics decided pergatory was over) when The Big Daddy came up with a solution.  He has access to lots of ice packs (that’s what the Ebola/Mad Cow/Legionaires/Cholera/Influenza/Typhoid virus is packed in when it arrives in the lab) and so he brings them home all the time.  Behind our neck, on our foreheads, lower back………….we lay on an ice pack and cool off enough to sleep.  Most nights it does the trick except for the chronic cough, fever and fatigue we seem to have lately.

For our anniversary we decided to spend the night in a ridiculously expensive hotel room.  A bottle of champagne was waiting when we arrived.  We went out to dinner and when we came back to our room on the 8th floor it was chilly.  We slept like babies with the covers on.

We had the covers on.

Ever since then we’ve been talking about that room, that bed, that air conditioning.

Are there people who really live like this?  They sleep all night in comfort without a lost, sweaty ice pack swimming in their sheets?    

That’s absurd.

The Big Daddy summed it up best.

“For the first time all summer I didn’t go to sleep feeling like a salmon in the butcher case.”
   Pike Place Fish Co, Pike Place Market, Seattle - home of the "flying fish" & the best fresh king crab around!

Theresa

When I worked in Chicago my job was in the HR department for Peoples Gas Light & Coke Company – the Gas Company for short.  I processed employee health claims along with two other women.  In our office were four desks lined one behind the other.

The new girl always started at the back of the line which is where I sat for a long time.  Ahead of me sat Theresa.  She processed retirements and pensions.  She was full-blooded Irish, a redhead, not married and lived with her widowed father and sister in a walk-up near Wrigley Field.

Theresa turned me into a tea drinker.  Every afternoon she would make herself a cup, and after repeatedly asking me to join her I finally did.  After awhile I became the brewer and at 3:00 each day I’d get up and go to the back of the office to make our tea.  I turned her into a black tea drinker because I always forgot to add her milk and sugar like the Irish like it.

When the other girls were making us crazy………..Darlene with her constant bitching or Andrea with her on-again, off-again relationship with her 3rd husband……….Theresa would turn around, look at me and roll her eyes.  We were partners in work and inside jokes.

After six years of employment with the company, I was leaving steady, secure employment (on beautiful Michigan Avenue of all places), to marry a graduate student and move to a farm town in central Illinois with no job prospects.   If one of my own kids were about to do that I’d be shrieking in a corner, but I was sure it would all work out and my coworkers were genuinely happy for me.

Except for one person.

Beverly was Theresa’s boss.  A few days before my wedding she called me into her office and said, “I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life and it’s okay if you back out.  I know your job here has been filled but the company will find something new for you.  Champaign, Illinois with a graduate student?  This can’t be what you really want.”  I stammered some declaration of love for this man I was marrying in a few days that sounded pathetic even to me and went back to my desk.

When Beverly left for lunch I told Theresa what happened.  She was no fan of hers and it was clear that she thought this conversation crossed the line.  She looked at me and said, “You’re going to marry Mark on Saturday and you are not going to give this another thought.  She said all that to you because she’s miserable and don’t you forget it.  If she calls you into her office again you are not to go, do you understand?  Don’t you dare go in there and I’ll take care of the rest.”

I don’t know how she took care of the Beverly problem nor will I understand what happened that day, but I remember everything about it.  Beverly with her self-righteous bun and severe suit, the punch to my heart that her words felt like while I gazed at Lake Michigan from her office window, and the look on Theresa’s face  when I told her what happened.

Over all these years Theresa and I remained in touch with notes and cards, but for the last three years nothing I have sent has come back with a response.  The last she’d written is that she’d been traveling in her retirement and working summers as an Andy Frain usher in Wrigley Field.  Wrigley Field, Theresa?  Really?  Every home game?  Lucky you……..was my note back.

Since that wedding day in 1983 and three different states, Theresa never forgot our anniversary.  Every year like clockwork a card from her with a handwritten note would arrive in the mail.

Every afternoon I have a cup of tea.

Jumpers & Purse Holders

When all of us siblings got to be older we would go with our spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends to Great America in Gurnee, Illinois.  It was one of the first big amusement parks somewhat close to us and all day we could ride the roller coasters, ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl…………..

You could get wet from rides that dropped into the water and drenched you or because you peed yourself.

I was a pee pants.

I don’t like heights, speed or falling from heights at great speed.

Truth be told a fair amount of my siblings are Fellow Pee Pants and so we would be put in charge of holding purses for anyone braver than ourselves who wanted to go on the rides.

Sometimes the bench would be full of Purse Holders.

One time my brother convinced me to go on a roller coaster with The Brave Ones and I was so woozy and nauseous after I got off that I had to sit down in the grass until I felt better.

And stopped crying.

 “Wasn’t that great, Kath?  Didn’t you love it?  The pukiness is just excitement.  That’s what that is.  Excitement.”

No Friar Ter, I thought I was going to die on that thing and I’m never going to do it again.

“Sure you are.  You’re just overly excited right now.  You’ll do it again.  Mark my words.”

This summer my brother-in-law crossed something off his bucket list and parachuted out of an airplane.  What a thrill!  What an adrenaline rush!  He couldn’t stop talking about how awesome it was.

The next day he showed us the video.  Him getting training, in the plane talking and laughing, at the door with his instructor getting last minute tips.

The open door of an airplane.

“You guys should think about doing it,” he said.  “It’s kind of expensive but if we register online we’ll get a discount.  If we get a group together another discount.”

A group?  

You mean us?

No, sorry brother-in-law.  Wrong family.  We’d all be crammed onto a bench on terra firma fighting over the purse holding for someone who doesn’t even carry one, and collectively peeing ourselves at the thought of that airplane door opening.

                 skydive

An Imperfect Union

I met The Big Daddy on a blind date thirty five years ago.  He was roofing his way through college and would stop and eat at Sambo’s Restaurant where my friend worked as a waitress.  She got to know him and thought he was perfect for me.  After getting my phone number from her he called and asked me out.  I agreed because I had nothing else to do that night.

We went to Denny’s.

When he dropped me off and we said goodnight, I closed the door and knew I had just met my husband.

After a five year courtship we tied the knot and the knot has stayed tied for thirty years this week.

The other day I was talking to a friend who has been on vacation and she was wondering if the four of us could get together on Saturday night.  “We can’t,” I said.  “Mark’s boss is having his annual summer party that night.”

Mark, who was in the room during this conversation said, “No, it’s Owen’s party.  He’s having a party for Owen’s promotion.”

“Right.  The Annual Summer Party for promotions.”

“Yeah, but it’s for Owen.”

“Sheesh, Mark, these people don’t even know Owen.  They just wanted to know if we could get together over a bottle of wine.”

The BD sighed loudly and went back to the paper.

An hour later, I was calling a neighbor to get the number of a plumber for our situation downstairs…….the pipe under the laundry sink that has had a bucket under it all week – not to catch a slow leak but a significant, steady gush especially when the washing machine is running.

As I was leaving a message for her, (i.e. talking) he said “I’m taking somebody out to lunch today.  Just a heads up in the finance department.”

“Really, Mark, do you mind?  I’m trying to talk here and the neighbor probably doesn’t care about your lunch plans today or our dicey finances.”

“Well, you don’t have to get so snippy about it,” The BD said as he headed off for work.

What’s the secret to a long, happy marriage?

I have no idea.  We have been making it up as we go since we started. 

What I do know is that the communication part that everybody talks about only happens when I pick up the phone or as soon as I put my mouthguard in when I’m going to bed.

And the arguing over little stuff that I’m so good at?  Usually much ado about nothing.

Larry The Affordable Repair Man never showed up for his scheduled appointment and so my pretend plumber kept his head under the sink until the problem was fixed.

I’m smitten with my husband once again and doing a load of towels sans the bucket.

Thirty years and one day……………..

                              

One Black Sweater

Years ago when I first heard of estate sales and the incredible things you could find at them, I was a little creeped out.  Digging through the remains of someone’s life seemed disrespectful to me and something I wasn’t sure I wanted to participate in until a friend said to me, “If you died and your family took what they wanted, wouldn’t you want the rest to go to somebody who would appreciate it?”

Yes, I would like that and so I started going to estate sales.

One summer afternoon I set foot in a charming cape cod and made my way through the house.  I am a methodical estate shopper.  I like the basement and garage first.  I am not after fine antiques or name-brand furniture.  I am attracted to the rusty-what-the-heck-is-this kind of castoffs that live in the dark.

I made my way upstairs into a bedroom full of linens.  I have never been a linen shopper at estate sales.  I remember the days of my childhood when my mother ironed everything………my dad’s white shirts five days a week, six kids in uniforms with white shirts and the pillowcases for eight heads.  She would sweat over that ironing board every day and the hangers would fill the clothes rack.  When I see a stack of linens it makes me think of the thankless job my mom did for all those years, and so I take a pass on the embroidered penance.

Amongst all those folded linens on a make-me-an-offer bed was a small vintage, black sweater with pearl buttons.  It looked like it would fit but was a little pricey for an estate sale – $12.00.  It was also cashmere.  I had never bought clothing at an estate sale before and a lengthy argument ensued within regions of my brain as to whether this was a good idea.  The Catholic guilt side was telling me that buying a dead woman’s sweater was some kind of sin.  The other side wondered where that sweater had been.  Did you go over a fancy party dress and dance the night away?  A luncheon with lady friends?   Perhaps packed into a suitcase for a vacation in Europe?  Were you worn in mourning?  Was your price tag so expensive that kids had to pool their money together to buy it for their mom?   Were you amongst many things of beauty in the closet of this woman who had great taste?

I told the Catholic guilt side to hush up and laid my money down.

That was more than ten years ago.  Since then I have worn it over a party dress, to a luncheon, in Spain, at funerals and everywhere in between.  It is showing its age now and so I wear it over my nightgown in the winter in place of a bathrobe.  It stays on a hook right inside the closet door – at the ready on those first cold mornings

That one black sweater I brought home so long ago is the only article of clothing I’ve ever purchased at an estate sale.  It is the guardian of a thousand stories…………and what a treasure it’s been to be the caretaker of a few of them.

Men Behaving Badly

Well, haven’t we had a nice full week of lewd comments, lewd texts, lewd pics, lewd behavior, lewd men?  Although, in the case of Anthony Weiner who is running for NY mayor and Bob Filner, the mayor of San Diego, lewd is a rather tame word for their blatant, offensive crimes against women and civility.

They’re not the only ones.  I would recommend staying off of Huffington Post during your lunch hour seeing as how they had a story this week about employees of Subway putting their penises on the bread of the sandwiches they were making.

I know.  I didn’t even read it and still it caused my to lose my appetite.

When I was 19, my friend and I used to go biking a couple of times a week out to the forest preserve and back.  While stopped at a traffic light some guy hung out the passenger side window and smacked me on the backside so hard I nearly fell off my bike.  The car full of boys drove off laughing.  Since my friend was ahead of me she didn’t know what had happened to me until we stopped.

I still remember the sting – physically and emotionally. 

I have never been on the receiving end of anything so physically blatant since then, but there have been comments and touches that have made me uncomfortable and that I have passed off as “you know how he is”………

………..the message being that it is okay even when it is not.

Ever.

Nobody said it better this week than Helen Mirren.

“If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been “f*** off” because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we? And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, “No, f*** off, leave me alone, thank you very much.” You see, I couldn’t help saying “Thank you very much,” I just couldn’t help myself.”

I used to work with this darling, young girl who waited on a customer once and who became so enamored with her that he frequently came in asking for her.  The manager devised a plan to get her off the floor when he came in the door because she was so freaked out by him.   Obviously, we weren’t able to tell him to f*** off, but in hindsight I have to wonder why any business has to be polite to a predator and why we women are so hesitant to say the two words that will change the game.

Purses & Dresses

My Grandma Dora lived to be 97 years old.  As she got older she split her living arrangements between her daughters.  Mom and Dad’s house from spring to fall in Chicago and the winter months at my Aunt Dood’s house in Arizona.

She tended to make my mom nuts.

Every time she came to town she’d complain about her pocketbook.  “It’s got all these pockets and compartments,” she said.  “Look at this darn thing.  Everything gets lost in here.”

Mom would let out a heavy, deliberate sigh about this ongoing pocketbook saga, but before long we’d pile in the car to go to Sears for Grandma to look for a new one.  Mom would wander off and my sisters and I would help Gram in the handbag department.  She’d look at all of them, open them up, try them out and say, “No, not this one.”  Sometimes she’d poke her cane at one of the bottom ones and say, “Honey, grab that one.  I think we might have a winner there.”

But we never had a winner.

After looking at every single one we would leave Sears empty-handed and then go to Kresge’s for an ice cream cone before heading home.

Another few weeks would go by and Gram would say at dinner, “Why don’t we go to Sears tonight and look at pocketbooks?  I need a new one.”

“For crying out loud, Mom, you’ve been looking for a purse for twenty years,” is what her daughter had to say about that.

Recently, I told Mallory that I was going to the mall to look for a t-shirt dress.  “They’re on sale at the Loft and look pretty cute online.  Maybe this time I’ll find what I want.”

To which my daughter replied, “Geez, Mom, I think you spend every summer looking for the perfect tshirt dress.”

I have. 

I do. 

All this time I’ve been channeling Gram.

For crying out loud………….

A Bee’s Bday

When Mallie Bee was a toddler and would get upset, I’d pick her up and tell her to lay her head on my shoulder.  Every single time she’d do just that while she stuck her thumb in her mouth.

I had no idea it was that easy.

As she grew up she wasn’t prone to tantrums, meltdowns or fits.  She has always been an observer of life and as my friend Carla recently said, “She is like a little sponge.  She notices everything and then soaks it all in.”

Yes she does.

Besides being the loveliest dancer, she is a great writer.  I keep nudging her in that direction but she does things her way on her time.  She has never been one to succumb to peer pressure or mom and dad pressure.

She was recently telling me that she realizes that she is an introvert which in this very loud world isn’t always so easy.  An introvert when you’re in your teens must be especially hard, but she was swaddled in grace from the day she was born.

Rodney & Trayvon

When we lived in Maryland, Maggie had a best friend named Nina.  Either Nina was at our house or Maggie was at her house.  Up and down the street those two ran – the best of friends.

Her parents became friends of ours as well.  Woody was in the Army.  I can’t remember what Stephanie did but she worked while Nina was in school.

Because of where we lived and it’s proximity to North Carolina, we sometimes had trucks come through our neighborhood loaded with furniture.  The driver would park and swing open the back end, go door to door knocking and you could shop from a semi at a deeply discounted price.  His goal was to return an empty truck back to the manufacturer in High Point.

One afternoon Stephanie stepped inside the semi and bought a white sofa.  She had been stashing some cash away and the perfect opportunity came to spend some of it, and within minutes the deal was done and she had a new couch in her townhouse.

I was in awe.

Who does that sort of thing?  Squirreling cash from the household budget?  I thought it was brilliant, but would Woody like the surprise of a new white sofa?   Would Maggie and Nina ever be able to sit on it?

It was during those years that the beating of Rodney King and subsequent trial of the Los Angeles cops who were videotaped doing it was taking place. 

I had the t.v. on when the verdict was announced and all those cops were found not guilty.  I couldn’t believe it.  The whole world saw this guy being beaten over and over by five policeman.  Five against one.  How could they be found not guilty?

After awhile I headed down the street to Woody and Stephanie’s house.  I could see inside that Stephanie and her sister were sitting on the white sofa and deep in conversation while the same news I was watching played in the background.  I decided not to interrupt them and walked back home.

Life got busy again and the opportunity passed to say to Woody and Stephanie “I’m sorry this happened.”  Does a white woman who can shop wherever she wants and not be watched the entire time for suspicion of shoplifting even have the right to say that?  Does her husband who can drive wherever he wants without being followed by the police have the right to say that?

I still don’t know the answer to those questions but to this day it feels like unfinished business to me, and I regret not knocking on the door of those dear people and having an honest conversation about what it feels like to be in their shoes on a daily basis. 

Now, in addition to the brutality of some cops, there is the brutality of pretend cops.  Forty five years after Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, the injustice piles up day after day after day, the not guiltys are delivered, we’re all supposed to move on……….

……..and beyond a reasonable doubt I am sorry for all of it.

The Dog Walkers

Since last Tuesday, we’ve been boarding Butters – the ADHD dog of Maggie and Nathan.  She’s cute, I’ll give her that.  You couldn’t ask for a friendlier dog.  She doesn’t eat much, that’s for sure.  

And there was one other thing about her.  Now what was it?

Oh yeah……….she barks.

At.  Every.  Little.  Thing.

Three times in the last week she has started barking at 2:00 in the morning for no reason.  Henry, alerted to the possibility that Timmy fell in the well or there’s trouble down by the railroad tracks, joins in and starts howling.

Awakened from a sound sleep, The Big Daddy goes stumbling down the stairs in his boxers to tell them to SHUT THE EF UP…….

……….which they do because even they don’t know what the commotion is about.

After dinner we walk the two of them.  Henry lagging behind with his gimpy legs and Butters yanking my shoulder out of the socket because she’s excited to be out.  Or in.  Or smelling.  Or looking out the window.  Or chasing the cats.  Or because the UPS truck went by twenty minutes ago.

Before long, The Big Daddy and I are each carrying a plastic bag of crap like it’s some sort of accessory.  These days Henry doesn’t even stop to go, laying turds as he walks like they’re depth charges from a destroyer deep into the ocean floor.  Killing the dolphins or a decent pair of shoes.

We pass other dogs which gets You-Know-Who-And-Who all excited, and Mark pretends he’s The Dog Whisperer and starts CH-CH-CH-CHing these mongrels as if he knows what he’s doing and they know they’re behaving badly.

On this night, Butters did her business for the second time and while I was cleaning it up she spotted a rabbit.  The one finger of mine that was at the end of her leash just about got amputated from my hand when the hunt was on.

I bypassed the CH-CH-CH-CHing and went straight to, “Calm down, you little asshole.” 

Yet again another failed attempt by me and the mister at trying to walk two dogs at once and not completely lose our shit.

But we swung theirs like we owned it so we got that going for us……………

She’s just looking to start something.