The Woman

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to be Michael Giaquinto’s sister.  He was actually my first boyfriend, but I would have given all that up to be his sister.  Because on “International Day,” when the teacher asked you to do a report on your family’s heritage, Michael knew just what he was going to write about.  He was Italian.  His mother and father, both Italians.  His grandparents came here from Italy.  It could write about Italy all day.

I specifically remember a school pageant when I was in the 5th grade, where we all chose a country based on our family heritage, and then got to trace the shape of the country out on oak tag paper, and paint it with the colors of that country’s flag.  Then, we had to write a four line poem about our country, and we would march out on to the stage and recite our 4-lined poem while proudly displaying the flag of our heritage.

They gave me Switzerland, because no one else wanted it (not a lot of Swiss living in New Jersey in 1969 I guess).  I didn’t immediately grab the country of my heritage…because I didn’t know what it was.

It’s hard to really pinpoint your lineage when your father is a bastard, and your mother was orphaned at the age of 3.  Dad would always say he was English.  And we had an common English last name, including the unusual spelling, so I bought it.  But Mom…well her story is tougher to confirm.

So this is a little ditty about Mom.  And I have to warn you, as I’m fleshing this out I am wondering what on earth I’m going to write about.  My mother was a woman without history - she honestly knew nothing about her family, and spoke very little about the life she’d led prior to becoming our mother.  The more I write about this, the more frustrated I become with their closed-mouth natures.

So according to the legend, she was the youngest of three children; my Uncle John, who I met once, Aunt Lulu, who I never met, and Mom.  Ida Mae.  Her mother died when she was 3.  She thought her name was Loretta (just like my Dad, weird huh?) and thought she knew where she was buried, although we never went and looked for her grave.  Her father gave the children up, and they were all sent to foster homes.  John and my mother stayed together.  Lulu was sent to a family elsewhere.

I’m going to stop here and tell you what I know to be fact and what is probably fiction.  If you asked my mother what nationality she was, she would respond that her mother was Irish, and her father was Indian.  Native American Indian.  And she would say he was a Mohican.  That’s the probably fiction part.  I don’t know if she knew any of this for sure, but she believed it to be true.  Someone must have told her this, possibly her brother John, who was a good 10 years older than she was.  She had spent some time with her father during her youth even though she didn’t live with him, so she had some access to him.

Now for the facts.  In the 1920s, in northern New Jersey, Native Americans were moving into the area to work in the mines that were popping up there.  The area my grandparents lived in was just becoming a burgeoning community at that time.  A mixed marriage wasn’t unheard of then, although certainly it would have been frowned upon.  When my grandmother died, leaving her Native American husband with three “half-breed” children on his hands, it is entirely possible that the government stepped in and removed the children from his care.  It was commonplace at that time to do so.  Move the children to white families.  Start teaching the children to be white.

For their part, they looked mostly white.  But I have to tell you that there is definitely something else in the way they, and we - those of us who resemble my mom -  look that isn’t white.  And it isn’t Hispanic, although people always ask me if that’s what I am.  I have a picture somewhere of my eldest brother, at about 1 1/2, and he looks Asian.  Not a little - a LOT Asian.  And my mother, in pictures of her as an old woman, looked more and more different as she aged…I guess Asian is as good a term as any.

It’s because of that…and the theory that a picture existed that a choice few had seen and attested to, of my grandfather looking every bit the Indian…that I believed Mom.  So, even though I had to do a report on Switzerland, I secretly knew I was Mohican.  Even if no one believed me.

Mom went to live on a farm in a town in New Jersey called Califon.  For years, when I would hear the stories about this place, I imagined palm trees, white sandy beaches and movie stars.  I was so psyched that MY MOM was from California!  And then one day, Mom and I were being driven around somewhere by Sister 1, who decided, “Let’s go try to find the farm you grew up on, Mom.”  And I sat in the back seat and sobbed because I already knew it would take days to get to California and who would feed the cats?  Imagine my surprise…

She and her brother went to live on the farm when Mom was just 3 or 4.  When we asked about the people who raised her, she said little.  She never claimed abuse, but it appeared she really just had no feelings about them.  I can only guess that she was offered little comfort, other than a warm bed, and meals to fill her belly.

She had chores as soon as she was old enough.  It was her job to collect the eggs from the hens.  She hated the chickens.  She said they pecked at her the whole time, so it was a job best done as quickly as possible.  She also had to milk the cows.  She liked the cows better, but remembered more than once getting flicked by the end of a cow tail when it was no longer interested in being milked.  Imagine the wet towel flick, and I think you have something like it.  Any time we went for a drive in the country, my mother would roll down the windows in the car so that she could breathe in the scent of cow manure - or farm smell.  She declared it the best smell on earth.  So I guess her time there wasn’t completely horrible.

Why her sister was sent somewhere else remains a mystery.  I can only wager that the people who took them didn’t want three children.  The boy would have been a good get for them.  Talk about cheap manual labor, and at around 12 or 13, he would have been prime meat.  My mother was just a baby, only 3ish, and so was likely kept with her brother.  But the middle girl, then about 8 or 9, would have been of much less use, and one more mouth to feed.  Not quite as desirable.

My mom went to grammar school, at least through grade 8.  She didn’t go to High School.  That was for boys.  She had work to do.

And that, my friends, is about all I know of my mother’s young life.  And even of that, I don’t know what is true and what is not.  How much filling in of lines have we done over the years to make a complete history out of the memory of a child?

But my mother was a crazy, cooky, funny lady, and even though I don’t know everything about her, I do know some things.  That they lack context doesn’t make them less “her”:

• As a child on a farm, my mother never wore shoes.  Shoes were a commodity.  As a result, my mother had the worst feet you ever saw.  Hobbit feet.  She was impossible to buy shoes for.
• She was 4′11″, and when she was young she was drop dead gorgeous.  Every picture I have of her in those days, she’s smiling from ear to ear.
• She left the farm when she was 16.  I have no idea where she lived from then until she and my father got married about 2 years later.
• Her best friend’s name was Violet, and I have five or six cherished pictures of them both standing outside of buildings, or in parks, wearing the most beautiful flouncy dresses with matching hats and shoes.  They never left the house if they weren’t coordinated perfectly.  I’m lucky I can get out in matching socks.
• She used to sing with a swing band, before she was married.  She had a beautiful Soprano voice until cigarettes and childbirth destroyed it.
• When she and my father met, he was engaged to someone else.  He quickly ended that so that he could marry my mother.  Apple.  Tree.  Blah blah blah.
• She couldn’t print block letters.  For some reason, when she was taught to write it was only in cursive, and her cursive handwriting was almost illegible to strange eyes.  One time, she went to apply for a job and took me with her (because she had no one else to watch me…I was around 10).  She was filling out the application and got all flustered because they had actually put small blocks after each question for each letter of the answer to go into.  She couldn’t fill it out because she could only write in cursive.  She tried.  And the first set of blocks was an absolute unreadable mess.  So I finished the application for her.
• My mother had secrets.  You could see them in her eyes.  She would look away if you caught her, but you knew she knew something, and just wouldn’t say.  It used to drive me NUTS.
• Everyone loved my mother.  Admit it.  Even as you’re reading this, you’re totally loving on my mother.

I wish I could tell you more.  I wish I could give you her side of the story with Mimi, but I can’t.  Part of the problem is, no one thought to question her when she was young and remembered the stories.  She was easy to overlook.  So easy going, so sweet and lovable and funny, that you could almost forget she was there.  Slicing cake and making coffee in the background.  But she heard everything, and probably knew more than any of us put together.  As she got older, and so did we, we tried to ask her.  And by that time she claimed either a) not to know, or b) some things are better left unsaid.  Even after my father died, she kept his secrets for him.  And when she died, she took them with her.

More Effective than a Breathalizer

I finally made it to a Rock Band Party! If only it could have lived up to my expectations!! sigh…

It was inevitable that it was going to be a let down. I’d missed the previous three where people I haven’t seen in years crawled out from under their rocks to attend, so by this, the fourth, it was really just a lot of people I had never met before (and hope to never meet again), and a few die hards I see at every party. Still I had fun. If by fun, you mean making fun of others.

What is it about Rock Band/Guitar Hero and probably Wii Karaoke, that brings out every competitive bone in a middle-aged man’s body? I’m actually rather competitive myself, and there are people who won’t play things like Catchphrase with me, so I’m ok with a game that gets rough. What I wasn’t prepared for just how ridiculous the average man looks walking around ALL NIGHT with that itty bitty Rock Band guitar strung around his neck like he’s Eddie Van Halen.

So, if you read the post I linked to above, you can see there are rules. Feh, the rules. I don’t think I can adequately describe how much fun those rules can suck out of a room. Especially when your best friend/party host is literally screaming at people (me) to STOP HECKLING THE BANDS! in an effort to keep the “game” moving along on its wheels. I’ll just say this. There were clip boards.

I arrived at the party about half an hour early, because I live far away and had to account for traffic. I left two hours early because it was pouring. Apparently, I don’t live THAT FAR AWAY.

When I got there, there were two other people there. Guy upstairs, girlfriend downstairs, both practicing drums. Guy upstairs IS a drummer and did nothing but bitch and whine at the XBox because it “wasn’t working.” To which, B screamed (lots of screaming that night) “It’s because you refuse to play what it’s asking you to play. IT’S NOT A REAL DRUM!”

Yeah, he ended up in my band. He played bass. A female friend of mine played drums. And I was on guitar. We got “assigned” a woman, who walked in and said, “Whatever band I’m on, I want you to know I will only be the singer. I’m not playing anything.” When I managed to pull my left eyebrow out of my hairline, I realized she, too, was wearing a #4 wrist band and subsequently was in my band. I hated her on sight. Thus, I named our band Buns ‘n Hoses. (Please don’t make me explain, if it isn’t funny to you now, it won’t be after I explain it either.)

Then there was the one guy who I insisted on calling Barney all night, for reasons that were funny then and I can’t remember now. He was VERY GOOD at Rock Band, and everyone hated him. I suppose that’s a good enough reason as any to invite him. He made a point, every time his band played, to inform the “judges” that HE WAS PLAYING ON EXPERT!

Buns N Hoses came in second place, and I don’t know how. We didn’t “perform,” we weren’t perfect, but we did do an awesome rendition of the B-52s “Roam.” Barney’s band placed fourth. Out of 4. Muahaha.

I guess I’ve grown up a bunch since going back to work, because, although I did bring the double-bottle sized bottle of Chardonnay (because there’s always one bitch always brings beer and drinks my wine. WTF?) I had stopped drinking around 10pm, when the bands started performing. By 12:30 I was beat and ready to go home. One couple, very good friends, had left moments before, and my girlfriend Sara and I were just walking out the door when she looked out the back door.

From the back yard, you can see across a lake to the main road. On the main road, flashing red lights. Uhoh. B insists we all stay until sober, and then his phone rings. It was the couple who had just left, and yes, those flashing red lights were from the cop that had pulled them over. He doesn’t drink, so after a few questions, they let him go. But then we were all paranoid. Even though I kind of knew I was ok to drive, I was afraid to leave.

Fifteen minutes later, three cops are standing in B’s living room. Questioning everyone. But not about our loud rock band partaying or about our alcoholic consumption. The people across the street had called the cops because someone they knew had just beaten up their teenage daughter. So there was a manhunt for someone named Morgan.

The police left, and the lights continued flashing up and down the street.

Now…every time I think about the next thing I did, my own blood curdles. I decided my feet hurt, but I had comfortable shoes in my car. Unfortunately, the dome light in my car doesn’t work. So I walked outside, into the middle of a manhunt, and opened the unlocked door to my BLACK AS A WELL-DIGGERS ASSHOLE car and changed my shoes while sitting in the front seat of my car. In the dark. And have I mentioned there was a manhunt?

Yeah, so apparently I was just fine to drive.

Things That Keep Me Up At Night, Part Two.

1. Is there any known medical reason why I shouldn’t use baby powder MADE OF PURE CORNSTARCH to freshen myself up snatchurally?
2. Would you allow your 17 year old daughter and two of her 17 year old girlfriends to go to the Jersey shore to one of those 17 year old’s parents beach house for Prom Weekend, if you knew no parents would be there.  Keeping in mind, in 3 months you are driving her to college and LEAVING HER THERE.
3. Is it ok to shoot your husband when, upon hearing there was an electrical outage in your town yesterday, he accused you of not paying the bill?  Really, dear?  For the entire town?
4. If Part Three of a three-part story only got three comments, would you or would you not obsess that you finally did, in fact, bore your audience to tears, and simply move on to asking stupid questions?

AZ and Bust

Part Three, Part Two, Part One

How desperate does a man have to be to sell most of his worldly possession, pack 6 of his 7 children into a van, and move across country where no home and no job awaits him?  I’ve often wondered what it was that drove him to make that choice, but I’ll never know.  It was just one of those situations where Dad said we’re going, so we’re going, and in 1964, few questions were asked.

Brother #1 stayed behind.  By this time he was 19 and gainfully employed.  And wanting less and less to do with the rest of his family.

I remember very little about this trip, except that I threw up a lot.  I spent the days/weeks (I have no idea how long it took to get there…never thought to ask) in travel on my mother’s lap and the rest of the kids literally sat on the floor in the back of the van.  Wherever they could find room.  The van has two seats, in the front, and the rest of it was empty and meant to be used commercially.  I am trying not to get sidetracked, but must tell you that we make many trips in that (or similar) vans that I DO remember.  One time my father strung two folding chairs with rope and tired them to the spot in the back of the van where a backseat would be.  That worked well until he tried to stop and my sister and I went flying.

So…cross country from New Jersey to Arizona.  I have tried to do some research about what Arizona was like in 1964, but I got bored quickly.  Blah blah history.  They don’t pay me to do that anymore.  Oh wait, they never did!  HA!  Anyway, if questioned, I would say it was a burgeoning economy based on the military which found its way there after WWII, and at the height of the Cold War, there were probably plenty of jobs for people who knew how to do stuff.  Dad was always handy, but he didn’t know anything about anything other than groceries (from years of working in a grocery store) and pianos (which is a whole other story).  I think he was rather optimistic about his chances, looking back.

Somewhere along the way to Arizona, Dad got sick.  He caught some sort of fungal infection on his hands and forearms which caused them to swell to the point of cracking.  Then they oozed some fun things, and bled a lot, and scabbed up and cracked again.  Repeat steps 1 - 5.  I don’t know how he drove the last legs of the trip, but my mother didn’t know how to operate a moving vehicle and even though my oldest sister would have been 17, she wasn’t given a shot at the wheel to my knowledge.  So we oozed our way slowly into Arizona, where Dad checked us all into a hotel.

From what I understand, we were there, in that hotel, for a few weeks.  Dad’s hands did not improve, so he spent what little money we had on a doctor and some ointment.  (Great word, second only to unguent.)  And while he healed, he looked for work.  Imagine people being a little off-put by the guy with the monster hands.  Need I say that he was less than hire-able?

If I ever questioned my father about this trip, I don’t recall his response.  Based on that, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I never questioned my father about this trip.  He wasn’t easy to talk to, anyway, and didn’t think it was necessary to reveal deep, dark family secrets, even to family.  And to have to say something as daring as “I made a mistake in taking my entire family to Arizona before procuring shelter and a job” would have been unthinkable.  I don’t remember him ever admitting a mistake, let alone something quite as large as that one.

When the money ran out, and the jobs weren’t banging on the hotel door, he packed us all back up in the van and moved us back out.  Back to the same town he had left.  Only this time, there was no house waiting for us there either.

I know where we ended up after we got back, because that was the apartment I grew up in.  But I don’t know how we ended up there.  I think he had no choice but to rely on his family to find us something and they did.  It was supposed to be temporary.  It was a three room - no, not three bedroom - apartment and there were eight of us living in it.  Brother 1 lived with our great aunt.  Sisters 1, 2, 3 and 4 shared the bedroom.  My parents put their bed in a small alcove in the living room, and I slept in a roll-away cot.  Brother 2 slept in the attic, which was the creepiest place I ever knew.  It wasn’t your typical crawl space attic.  This house was built at the turn of the century and was really a three story Victorian that had been renovated into four apartments.  But above our apartment were identical rooms and floor space that had never been made into living quarters.  And he slept up there.  (Before you pity him, let me just tell you that he was one boy living with 5 sisters and he LOVED it up there.  He could close the door, go upstairs and forget we all existed.  And he did.)

We lived in this temporary apartment for 20+ years.  It was cheap.  And better yet, it was just far enough away from his meddling sisters that they couldn’t just drop in whenever they felt like it.  (It was in the same town, but for some strange reason, women didn’t drive as much then.  My mother never got her license, and Mimi didn’t have one either!)

Little by little, my father went about breaking ties with Mimi and, in fact, the rest of his family.  He forbade my mother to talk to her, and for the most part she obeyed.  Occasionally, Mimi would call and my mother would chat with her.  She liked Mimi, I think, or she just liked talking to an adult.  Aunt Shirley married and had kids of her own, and was less a threat to our family.  She really didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in us.

By the time I was old enough to know it was odd, my aunt was completely a non-entity in my life.  She had never made any show of affection towards me anyway, but as my sisters married and moved away, she transferred her interests away from my father and on to their new families.  Much to their dismay, lemme tell ya.  Because Mimi’s good at giving gifts, and slipping the bill for services in somewhere so that you didn’t see it for a few days.  But there was always a price.  They learned to deal with her (or in some cases, not to deal with her) on their own.

For myself, I can remember - really remember - seeing Mimi three times in my life.  Once, Sister 4’s boyfriend drove us to her house after school (Sister 4 was in High School, I was in grammar school - so let’s say 9).  I remember this succinctly because I didn’t really know who she was, but she spent the entire time we were there yelling at Sister 4 for her choice in boyfriends.

The second time involved Mr. Salty pretzel sticks and soda.  I don’t remember anything more than that.  Just that I was at her house eating Mr. Salty pretzel sticks and drinking soda.  No idea how old I was.

As I mentioned before, Mimi was a nurse, and she worked in a hospital that was about 1/2 a mile from our house.  Mimi didn’t drive, so every day she walked from her house to this hospital.  And the only route available to her would have taken her past our house twice a day.  I emphasize that because in all the years we lived there, Mimi never dropped in, despite walking past us every day.  I will never know for sure what was said to sever the relationship between my father and her, and my sisters and brothers don’t know either.  Whatever sort of disowning had been done, it had stuck.

Anyway, this leads me to the third and last time I saw her.  I was probably 14.  I was walking on my street, a few 100 yards from my house, heading in the direction Mimi was coming from, and passed her on the street.  I realized who she was from a distance, and held my breath all the way to the point where we would actually have to either acknowledge each other or cross the street to avoid each other.

I remember being so nervous, and secretly, wanted her to look up and smile at me, and say something like “Candy, I’ve been waiting all these years to see you.  Would you like to come over for Mr. Salty’s?  Maybe we’ll see a movie this weekend.  Get some new shoes.”

The moment came, where she had no choice but to look up and make eye contact with me or she would have bumped into me.  Her head raised, and her eyes met mine.  Flickered in recognition.  And flicked away.

And I never saw her again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So that’s the beginning.  And some of the middle.  And part of the end, for some.  I’m not sure where to go with this, now.  So many people to talk about, so many points where my own memories mingle with what others have told me to shade the truth.  We’ll see where it goes from here.

The Elimination of Mimi

Part Two,  You Can Catch Up Here

I should start out by admitting I was a mistake.  The child that was never supposed to happen.  Sister #2 loves to recall the day she came home from middle school to find my mother face down on her bed, sobbing.  She would learn later that it was due to an unplanned pregnancy.  At the time, Mom had six children aged 15 - 7.  And she thought she was done having kids.

I have to chuckle a little when I say that, because the method of birth control my Mother and Father used was called parenting.  Basically, if he touched her, she got pregnant.  In fact, I remember a conversation when I was around 13, that my mother was having with Sister 2.  Sister 2 asked why they were sleeping in separate rooms, and my mother answered, very succinctly, “Period.”  I was puzzled by her brevity, but assumed it to mean they were finished!  Finito!  No more sex!  Period!

What she meant was, at age 50, she was still having her period regularly and my father was afraid to go near her.  So, yeah.  Period.

My mother is a story for another day.  This is supposed to be about Dad.  And Mimi.

In order to understand the whole process, which remains elusive to me even now, you have to paint Mimi with the many brushes that have opinions about this story.

First, my brothers and sisters adored her.  She was the aunt who dropped by with candy, who took them places and bought them things.  She paid attention to them at a time when, at our house, they only had each other.

On the other hand, her love came at a price.  She expected to be allowed to voice her opinion in exchange for a trip to the movies, and she expected her opinion to be followed as the gospel.  And when it wasn’t, she was vindictive.

After the death of their mother, my aunt moved into the role of matriarch of the family like a zealot.

She didn’t waste her opinion on merely the children, but was more than generous in sharing it with her older brother.  In her mind, John had ruined not only his life, and my mothers, but was slowly ruining the children.  And the way they kept pumping out babies, in their mid-30s, was shocking.  What was to stop them from having 8, 9, an even dozen?  Frankly?  Nothing, except for abstinence.

My father was constantly infuriated by her meddling and was always quick to remind everyone she was only a “half” and she didn’t have the right to interfere in his life.  She saw it differently, almost as a civic duty.  And a way to really stick it tothe older half-brother who had never  accepted her in his life.

So, the way I understand it (heresay, don’t forget, and not admissable in court), shortly after I was born, Mimi devised a plan.  The way she saw my parents situation was without prospects.  They were raising seven children, with almost no money.  They moved a lot.  There was no stability.  The older children ran wild, and needed a firm hand.  My father tried to turn a deaf ear, but some things you can’t help but here.

After I was born, Brother 1 had already moved out to go live with our Great-Aunt Lillian (Dad’s real aunt, his mother’s sister).  That left six of us.  Mimi’s Great Plan was that she would adopt Sisters 1, 2, and 3, (her favorites) and leave Brother 4 and Sister 5 to be raised by our parents, along with me.  There is some credence to her decision.  Today we would probably call is Social Service.

To say that my father was distressed at her suggestion - ok at her unmitigated gall - would be putting it mildly.  He threw her out of his house and his life, and forbid the children and my mother to see her.  Now, bear in mind, we lived four houses away.  And Dad worked a lot.  Mimi continued to be a presence in our family’s life, even as she learned to stop talking about taking their children away from them.  She turned to influencing the children’s mind against him, told them the stories about his childhood he would have preferred they not know, and wedged a wall between everyone.

Then, one day, in 1964 when I was three, my father made a Great Announcement.  We were leaving New Jersey.  And moving to Arizona.

More to follow, unless I bore myself with this

The Man

Part One

Once upon a time, a girl child was born to a family that turned out to be really fucked up. She spent her younger years graciously uninformed, but by high school, she knew the truth. And later went on to blog about it.

The fountain of our fucked-upidness poured directly from my father. My memories of him are such a jangled mess that I’m not sure how to untangle them and make sense of them. And indeed, since my siblings are so much older than I, many of my memories aren’t really mine at all. They’re fables passed down by another generation, but I have incorporated them into my psyche as mine.

As the story goes, my father was illegitimate. He was born in the 1920s, and his status as a bastard was a stigma that his family did the best they could to hide. His grandmother raised him, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t know his older “sister” Loretta was actually his mother until the truth was just big enough to crush him. Just one of the many similarities my dad shares with Tom Cruise.

My father had a middle name that is supposed to be a “family” name, only we can find no proof of anyone with that last name. We’ve always sort of assumed it was the last name of his father. Said father is refuted to either be a sailor, with the Navy, or a local priest. How awesome is that?

My father spoke often and well of my grandmother (who I never met) but seldom of his mother. My guess is he held the situation of his birth against her. So typical of a man, don’t you think? It wasn’t enough that she carried him for nine months, went through labor that I’m guessing didn’t include drugs, and then worked her ass off to provide for him until she died. Nope, he wanted her to tie that priest down, dammit!

At some point in his childhood, and I know not when, his mother remarried and Dad had a stepfather and eventually two half-sisters. Who he spent the majority of his life hating.

I don’t really remember them, nor any of the residual “family” that sprouted from them. They weren’t really “our” family, my Dad would say, since they weren’t wholly his sisters. This was very important to him, although I don’t know who he was expecting to pop up and say, “Hey, DUDE! I’m a bastard by the local priest and your mother, TOO!”

I was born the youngest of seven, and my parents rented a series of houses for us to live in. I’m told we moved a lot. I have memories, although it is hard for me to believe they are real, of us living in a small house with an adorable store on the corner (which, when I visited it in my 20s was much less than adorable) and my aunt, Mimi (who wouldn’t let us call her aunt) lived up the block. In order for this to be my memory, and not my sisters’, I would have been 3. So I’m not sure if I can be trusted.

Mimi and Aunt Shirley (who didn’t mind being called aunt) were very active in my siblings’ lives. Mimi was a spinster, and worked as a nurse, so she always had cash, it seemed. Compared to us, she was loaded. Raising a family of seven in the 50s and 60s on a grocery store manager’s salary couldn’t have been easy. So Mimi stepped in and took the “kids,” as they have always been called to my exclusion, to the circus, or to the store for new shoes, or on special occasions, she would take one child only to New York City for the day. My sisters remember these trips as the highlight of their lives.

Then one day, they stopped hearing from Mimi. Dad told them they were not to have anything further to do with her. He disowned all of his “family.” I think that happened about a week after I was born.

To be continued, so as not to bore you too terribly in one day.

What to do when you don’t know what to do

Anyone else notice that this blog is currently full up on whine and devoid of all substance? Right?! So it’s not just me.

Frankly, I have nothing to say. Nothing that I think you want to hear, anyway. Nothing interesting is happening to me, no weird people are accosting me in malls, no strangers doing things blogworthy in my universe. Or, it could be these things are still happening, and my brain is too loud with my own brand of static to actually hear it.

Kristin and I were having a conversation last night about what is blogworthy. Does it always have to be funny? Does it always have to be something that happened to you yesterday? Is it ok to just tell a story. Open a window and let you peep through? I dunno, frankly.

When I wrote my very first blog post (holy crap, I’ve been blogging for almost three years), it was because I had just read the entire archive of She Who Shall Not Be Named. I was quite certain that I could do what she did, and it was just a matter of time before the masses would flock to my dotcom and I, too, would have a verb named after me. To say I overestimated my appeal is an understatement.

Humor is sometimes hard to find. I’m going through some moderate to heavy shit right now, and while it is primarily financial, and thus easier to ignore than, say, a sick child or a dying parent, it leads me straight back to the static. I can’t see anything that isn’t colored by it. And it makes me less than funny…and WAY less than fun. Just ask my husband.

So Kristin convinced me that maybe it’s ok sometimes to not be so funny, and maybe tell people about your dead mother. Maybe they’ll be interested. Problem is, what if you’re not? I mean, Mom was a hoot, but you weren’t there when she laughed so hard she peed herself at the kitchen table and the piss was literally pouring straight through the chair onto the floor and the only way we knew was because we heard it the stream hit the linoleum. I’m not sure I can do those kinds of moments justice.

So what do you think? Everyone has an opinion or an attitude that they bring forth to their blog. Because I think I’m going to try. I’m going to tell you some stories. At least until this noise goes away. Bring a blankie. And probably a laptop so you can access some really good blogs while I’m talking.

This City Never Sleeps

Well, it appears that Sunday nights are Insomnia Nights at Chez Bonbon.  I dunno what the heck it is, but I cannot get to sleep.  Coupled with the fact that Bill has become a snorer over the last few years, there’s a lot of staring at the ceiling going on.  And not in a good way, if you catch my drift, hint hint….

Anwyay…

I did better this Sunday with a whopping 3 hours of sleep (3 1/2 if you count the three times I fell asleep for 10 minutes and Bill woke me up with his sweet little serenade.)  But damn, I’m tired today.

I always find a little grease and protein helps when I’m exhausted like this, so I stopped on my way in for a Sausage McMuffin with Egg.  Hey if it’s good enough for Bossy, it’s good enough for me!  But I’m still tired, despite all the churning and activity in my gut.  So I asked Dr. Google for some assistance, and these are the recommendations:

1. Get more sleep.  It appears Dr. Google is the master of the obvious.
2. Eat some fruit. I’d try that, but he called in sick today.
3. Listen to lively classical music. Snort.  Yes, because tubas are so very invigorating.
4. Increased trips to the bathroom. I tried that, but the receptionist is getting suspicious.  Of course, that could be because of the toilet paper I had stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
5. Do more filing. That’s just cruel, and was probably posted by my boss in an vain attempt to get me to be more compliant in this area.
6. Splash your face with cold water. Clearly Dr. Google doesn’t have any idea how long it takes to put this face on.  Nor how attractive I would be mascara running down my cheeks.
7. Go for a walk around the building. This is a pretty big building.  I would need to take a personal day to complete the journey.
8. See a doctor to rule out diabetes. WHAT??????????  Where did Dr. Google go to medical school, anyway, Malaysia?

Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and get through this day without Google’s help.  Excuse me, I’m going to go downstairs and see if there are bananas in the vending machine.

Save the Children

I was flipping through my reader when I came across this post from CookieBitch.  And it reminded me of an incident that happened earlier this week, which I choose to share with you.  Because I’m giving and kind.  it will appear to have nothing in common with Cookie’s story, but trust me.  I can make it work.

I was in the grocery store one night after work this week.  I just have to stop here, and confess to you that I go to the grocery store EVERY FRIGGING DAY after work, to buy the materials to make dinner that particular night.  I have absolutely no excuse, beyond laziness and stupidity, to explain why I would waste half an hour of every night of my work week at the grocery store, instead of going home and slipping off my $12.95 Payless shoes and sipping Chardonnay on my couch.  Even knowing it’s wrong, I guess I don’t want to be right.

Back to the story.

I was at a foreign store.  The soup wasn’t where it is in my local grocery store, nor were the snacks.  I quickly realized they had three separate aisles of frozen food and now I was going to have to go up and down every goddamned aisle in search of a) puff pastry, b) chicken broth and c) Cajun seasoning.  This put me in foul spirits.

I turned the corner on the cereal aisle and almost rammed my cart into  a set of 5ish-year old twins girls, who had linked arms so that their backs were together and were twirling like dervishes at the turn.  I avoided killing them by a narrow margin, but did knock three boxes of Stove-Top Stuffing to the ground.  I glared at their mother and picked up the boxes.  Their mother, who also had a 2 year old in the cart, ignored both me and the dervishes as she compared labels on two different boxes of macaroni and cheese.

The girls continued to block the aisle and cause mayhem.  I quickly got around them and moved on, but not before sighing deeply and audibly.  Unfortunately, the mother knew the store better than I and we bumped into each other, literally, three aisles later.  This time, the girls were jumping and punching at one another right next to the mother, who had her arm raised to pull something down off the top shelf.  I knew it was going to happen and could only stand back and watch as the mother lowered her arm and punched one dervish in the nose with her elbow.  There was screaming, there was crying, there was deep and quivering-voiced apologies.  Oh the drama.

Two aisles later, the dervishes were once again arm linked and causing mayhem.

I got everything I needed and headed to an incredibly long line at the checkouts.  It was inevitable.  Mother and dervishes ended up right behind me, where they proceeded to bump into me and ram their cart into my ankles (I hate that almost more than the dentist).

Finally one of them started begging for candy, and the mother snapped.  Snapped like a toothpick.  Here is the dialog I overheard:

Mother:  That’s it, you just lost the puppy.  (Causing me to turn around and see if they really had a puppy they’d misplaced or if this was some veiled threat about a future privilege)

Dervishes (in unison):  Nooooo.  Nooooo.  Noooooo.   Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Mother:  I’m sorry, girls.

Dervish One:  I want a puppy!

Dervish Two:  I want a puppy two!

Dervish One:  Can we earn the puppy back?

Mother:  Perhaps.  Although at the moment, I don’t see any opportunity for you to do so.  If such an opportunity arises, I will let you know.  Now please help mommy unload the cart.  You’re such good girls, well done.

The dervishes continued to complain that the puppy was being withheld, and the mother continued to attempt to reason with two five year olds in an effort to get them to behave themselves for 10 minutes in the grocery store.

Those girls are so lucky I wasn’t their mother, because I would have rewarded both of them with a well-timed thwap to the back of the head somewhere around the dried pasta aisle.

You know what happens to children who live their lives with a vote?  They eventually grow up to work for CookieBitch, where she is forced to allow them to negotiate their performance reviews.  Don’t let this happen to your child!  Bring back the head thwap before it is too late!

Sum Edjumacashun

I am feeling all informative today, and thus offer you this tidbit.  I cannot find the link to the page proving it, so you’re going to have to take my word for it, but, if you used TurboTax (and probably a similar computer package) to prepare your taxes, and then had the charge for software or e-filing deducted from your return, the IRS did not direct deposit your funds into YOUR bank.  They direct deposited it into TurboTax’s bank, so that they could deduct said funds, and then in turn deposit the balance in your account.

So for all intents and purposes, if you did the above like me, you did not direct deposit your tax refund this year (according to IRS records) and are getting a paper Economic Stimulus Rebate Check this year.  Sometime in July, I presume.

Is Bush running in this election?  No?  Ok.  Good.