We don't blame them. Can our parents be faulted just because they took such horrific risks with their children's very lives? (Although clearly we should find ample opportunities to blame our parents for many things.)
It was a different era, raising children in the sixties and seventies. It was a time of innocence. And a time of ignorance.
Our parents didn't know better when they allowed us to run, shrieking and giggling, through the chemical fog spewing from the mosquito trucks that patrolled our neighborhood.
No seatbelt laws were in effect when they piled ten kids into a five-seater car, to haul us all to the county recreation center for a day of swimming.
They saw no need to stick around at the pool to supervise us. Nor did they accompany their children on our two-mile walk there for swim lessons, when the oldest was only ten and the youngest just seven. The news then didn't broadcast a stream of announcements about nationwide child abductions. No one could yet conceive of the necessity of something called an Amber Alert.
We roamed the neighborhood for hours with no declared destination and no cellphone for parental communication. We played in parks and in the middle of streets several blocks away until the streetlights came on. Or well after.
Not only did our parents trust society, they trusted us--even when we became teenagers. They never imagined what might transpire if we had friends over while they were gone. Likewise, they never thought to call and confirm that the party we were attending would be chaperoned. In many cases, they never knew at all where we were going when we headed out the door on Saturday night.
High school "After Prom" parties weren't school-sanctioned, lock-in events. They were hotel room keggers.
Some of us went on unchaperoned spring breaks our senior year in high school. We ventured to Fort Lauderdale or Daytona Beach, driving twenty-hour trips in our parents' own car. Only half of us were even eighteen, but our parents figured all of us were nearly adults. Legalities were only technicalities then.
Amidst all this reckless behavior, most of us managed to survive our youth.
But once we became parents ourselves? Oh, the difference a few decades make.
It's not that we're a generation of better parents. Perhaps, however, we're better informed, thanks to health and safety laws and the ubiquitous media. Maybe we're wiser, too, due to our recollection of what we did--and shouldn't have done.
With all that we 21st-century parents now know, we can hope our own children reach adulthood safely, and cause us no undue worries.
Just as long as they do as we say, and not as we did.
And we keep a few stories to ourselves.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Bet Your Ash on That
It's been twenty years since my dad's death, and yet the man still finds a way to get around.
After my father passed away in 1990, my mother honored his wishes to be cremated. She bought a mausoleum vault in a cemetery twenty minutes away, overlooking a riverside metropark. Only after his funeral did we notice the park sign directly across from the cemetery entrance, identifying that section of the park as the Indianola Area.
"Indianola" was the name of the obscure, tiny street where my parents bought their first home, raised their family and spent nearly thirty years of their lives.
Cue the Twilight Zone theme music.
An eerie coincidence or a comforting form of fate that such an unusual and aptly named location should be my father's final resting place? (We went with comforting fate.)
Yet the mausoleum wasn't to be his final resting place. My mother wouldn't hear of it. Just because the man was dead, she figured, didn't mean he should have to give up traveling. Or golfing. Or fishing.
So, she kept a portion of his remains in the mausoleum and retained a personal stash of ash in an urn in her bedroom. And over the years, we scattered some of his ashes in a few of his most beloved places: the fairways at Toledo Country Club, the shores of Lake Erie and at Manistique Lake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
We'd like to believe that some part of my dad will remain at those places forever. And he will enjoy his favorite haunts (no pun intended) through infinity.
What we didn't count on, however, was one particular place his ashes would unexpectedly wind up.
My mother became an impeccable housekeeper through the years. Living by herself in a two-bedroom condo resulted in little clutter or accumulated dirt or dust. Still, she had her carpets professionally cleaned annually because... well, that part of the story remains unclear.
What is certain though, is the horror she experienced when she entered her bedroom to observe the carpetcleaning serviceman desperately attempting to redo a wrong.
By vacuuming up the "dirt" he'd spilled on the carpet after he'd knocked over some ceramic container.
Hearing my mother scream, he jumped and gaped wide-eyed at her, even as he continued pushing the industrial-sized vacuum over the debris. When he finally turned off the sweeper, she explained in frantic sobs exactly what he'd been sucking through that undiscerning hose.
If it had ended there, it's a good guess the serviceman would have been scarred for life. Enduring sleepless nights or perhaps nightmares of a vengeful and dusty ghost.
But after my mom realized the gallows humor of the situation, her sobs turned to laughter.
Sometimes, in moments of horror or fear, there's nothing like a bit of dark humor to lighten things up.
Not only did she end up reassuring the carpetcleaner that no real harm was done, she actually rehired the man a year later. And why not? Surely no mistake he might make on the second visit could match the monstrosity of his first.
Knowing my dad's sense of humor, I'm sure he's still laughing about the whole incident too. In between his fishing and golfing and admiring the scenery of the places he's busy visiting.
Life is funny. And even afterward, one can still find something worth laughing at.
Yep, you can bet your ash on that.
After my father passed away in 1990, my mother honored his wishes to be cremated. She bought a mausoleum vault in a cemetery twenty minutes away, overlooking a riverside metropark. Only after his funeral did we notice the park sign directly across from the cemetery entrance, identifying that section of the park as the Indianola Area.
"Indianola" was the name of the obscure, tiny street where my parents bought their first home, raised their family and spent nearly thirty years of their lives.
Cue the Twilight Zone theme music.
An eerie coincidence or a comforting form of fate that such an unusual and aptly named location should be my father's final resting place? (We went with comforting fate.)
Yet the mausoleum wasn't to be his final resting place. My mother wouldn't hear of it. Just because the man was dead, she figured, didn't mean he should have to give up traveling. Or golfing. Or fishing.
So, she kept a portion of his remains in the mausoleum and retained a personal stash of ash in an urn in her bedroom. And over the years, we scattered some of his ashes in a few of his most beloved places: the fairways at Toledo Country Club, the shores of Lake Erie and at Manistique Lake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
We'd like to believe that some part of my dad will remain at those places forever. And he will enjoy his favorite haunts (no pun intended) through infinity.
What we didn't count on, however, was one particular place his ashes would unexpectedly wind up.
My mother became an impeccable housekeeper through the years. Living by herself in a two-bedroom condo resulted in little clutter or accumulated dirt or dust. Still, she had her carpets professionally cleaned annually because... well, that part of the story remains unclear.
What is certain though, is the horror she experienced when she entered her bedroom to observe the carpetcleaning serviceman desperately attempting to redo a wrong.
By vacuuming up the "dirt" he'd spilled on the carpet after he'd knocked over some ceramic container.
Hearing my mother scream, he jumped and gaped wide-eyed at her, even as he continued pushing the industrial-sized vacuum over the debris. When he finally turned off the sweeper, she explained in frantic sobs exactly what he'd been sucking through that undiscerning hose.
If it had ended there, it's a good guess the serviceman would have been scarred for life. Enduring sleepless nights or perhaps nightmares of a vengeful and dusty ghost.
But after my mom realized the gallows humor of the situation, her sobs turned to laughter.
Sometimes, in moments of horror or fear, there's nothing like a bit of dark humor to lighten things up.
Not only did she end up reassuring the carpetcleaner that no real harm was done, she actually rehired the man a year later. And why not? Surely no mistake he might make on the second visit could match the monstrosity of his first.
Knowing my dad's sense of humor, I'm sure he's still laughing about the whole incident too. In between his fishing and golfing and admiring the scenery of the places he's busy visiting.
Life is funny. And even afterward, one can still find something worth laughing at.
Yep, you can bet your ash on that.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Oh, How She Made Us Laugh
When we recall the loved ones in our life who have died, we generally do so with a tear at their loss, or perhaps a smile at some warm image. Yet there's a rare individual whose memory, even a decade after their death, still prompts us to burst out in laughter.
During the thirty-five years I spent with Alma Stoll, no one made me laugh as frequently or as heartily. My grandmother possessed the kind of good nature that naturally made people smile. It was her collection of antics, however, that induced our out-and-out laughter.
Malapropisms were her legend. No one could turn a phrase or switch around words quite like Alma. The minor ones elicited a simple grin. As long as she lived, for example, she referred to the Christmas nativity scene as an "activity scene." We stopped correcting her. It was more fun that way.
And occasionally she offered a doozy. Like the time she called my childhood home, announcing to my father that the news just reported a possible UFO. "Someone's spotted an Obscene Flying Object!" she told him. "Be sure to tell Gloria," she added in an excited rush of words. "I know she's really interested in that kind of thing!" Alma never lived that one down. Nor did my mother, whose apparent preoccupation with flying penises proved to be amusing news to all of us (including my mother Glo.)
Even in her mid-years, Alma showed an enthusiasm for life. This, along with her German bullheadness, led her to take on pursuits for which she wasn't quite capable. An avid fisherman, she once took the rowboat out by herself while we were vacationing. Later, our repeated attempts to call her back for dinner--through our yelling and motioning from the dock to the boat hundreds of yards from shore--proved fruitless. She seemed to have lost all control of the heavy wooden boat. She rowed in perpetual circles for nearly half-an-hour. Only after my father headed out in someone's motorboat to rescue her did we discover the cause of her problem: she had the anchor out the entire time.
With her typical good humor, she managed to laugh at herself that day. Just as she laughed at herself the time she called our house and, with growing frustration, kept asking my mother to repeat herself. "I can't hear you! Speak up! Honestly, Gloria, something must be wrong with this phone." Finally she paused. "Oh, wait a minute. I forgot," she said. "I have cotton in my ear."
That was the thing with Alma. We never felt we were laughing at her. We were always laughing with her.
The comical stories eventually slowed, as did Alma's body and mind, in her later years. The grandmother I knew became weakened by congestive heart failure and by dementia. The broken neck she suffered in a car accident, although thankfully not paralyzing, took its toll on her too.
The older, frail woman she was in the last years of her life tended to overshadow our view of her. At times, we had to remind ourselves of her former physical strength: how she cleaned piles of freshly caught perch and pounded rugs clean on her back porch.
We had to nudge our memories to recall her former mental strength: this woman who spent much of her youth in an orphanage, and declined an offer of adoption when it finally came, because she wouldn't leave her five younger siblings behind.
Yes, Alma was once vibrant and determined and inspirational. And oh, how she once brought us laughter.
I'd like to think she's smiling, remembering it all, right now.
I hope she's fishing tonight. And that someone else offered to row the boat.
During the thirty-five years I spent with Alma Stoll, no one made me laugh as frequently or as heartily. My grandmother possessed the kind of good nature that naturally made people smile. It was her collection of antics, however, that induced our out-and-out laughter.
Malapropisms were her legend. No one could turn a phrase or switch around words quite like Alma. The minor ones elicited a simple grin. As long as she lived, for example, she referred to the Christmas nativity scene as an "activity scene." We stopped correcting her. It was more fun that way.
And occasionally she offered a doozy. Like the time she called my childhood home, announcing to my father that the news just reported a possible UFO. "Someone's spotted an Obscene Flying Object!" she told him. "Be sure to tell Gloria," she added in an excited rush of words. "I know she's really interested in that kind of thing!" Alma never lived that one down. Nor did my mother, whose apparent preoccupation with flying penises proved to be amusing news to all of us (including my mother Glo.)
Even in her mid-years, Alma showed an enthusiasm for life. This, along with her German bullheadness, led her to take on pursuits for which she wasn't quite capable. An avid fisherman, she once took the rowboat out by herself while we were vacationing. Later, our repeated attempts to call her back for dinner--through our yelling and motioning from the dock to the boat hundreds of yards from shore--proved fruitless. She seemed to have lost all control of the heavy wooden boat. She rowed in perpetual circles for nearly half-an-hour. Only after my father headed out in someone's motorboat to rescue her did we discover the cause of her problem: she had the anchor out the entire time.
With her typical good humor, she managed to laugh at herself that day. Just as she laughed at herself the time she called our house and, with growing frustration, kept asking my mother to repeat herself. "I can't hear you! Speak up! Honestly, Gloria, something must be wrong with this phone." Finally she paused. "Oh, wait a minute. I forgot," she said. "I have cotton in my ear."
That was the thing with Alma. We never felt we were laughing at her. We were always laughing with her.
The comical stories eventually slowed, as did Alma's body and mind, in her later years. The grandmother I knew became weakened by congestive heart failure and by dementia. The broken neck she suffered in a car accident, although thankfully not paralyzing, took its toll on her too.
The older, frail woman she was in the last years of her life tended to overshadow our view of her. At times, we had to remind ourselves of her former physical strength: how she cleaned piles of freshly caught perch and pounded rugs clean on her back porch.
We had to nudge our memories to recall her former mental strength: this woman who spent much of her youth in an orphanage, and declined an offer of adoption when it finally came, because she wouldn't leave her five younger siblings behind.
Yes, Alma was once vibrant and determined and inspirational. And oh, how she once brought us laughter.
I'd like to think she's smiling, remembering it all, right now.
I hope she's fishing tonight. And that someone else offered to row the boat.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Follow Me Over to "So Wonderful, So Marvelous"
Guest-posted this weekend on a terrific blog, "So Wonderful, So Marvelous." Read it here.
Be sure to check out the rest of Michelle's blog, where she posts on parenting, cooking and crafty activities, and makes the rest of us wish we were half as inspired and talented.
See you there?
Be sure to check out the rest of Michelle's blog, where she posts on parenting, cooking and crafty activities, and makes the rest of us wish we were half as inspired and talented.
See you there?
Monday, July 26, 2010
Stories You Keep from Your Parents
If there's a statute of limitations for our youthful misconduct, it must expire about the time we turn thirty. That appears to be roughly the age most of us finally 'fess up to our parents about the bad behavior we entertained between junior high and college.
By the time we've morphed into full adulthood--perhaps married or college graduates--we figure we've turned out decently enough that our parents might finally laugh at our misdeeds. Or maybe they'll at least determine it's much too late in the game to ground us.
So, late in the evening at a holiday family gathering, we'll pour a third glass of wine, push back from the dining room table, and tell a story or two. We don't spout them all during one setting; we don't wish to be the cause of our mother's cardiac arrest. No, we dole them out gradually, eventually, over a matter of years.
Oh yes, the most interesting stories of our lives are those we choose to keep from our parents for more than a decade.
(The following true stories may or may not be fully autobiographical. One or more stories have been relayed by siblings or friends. No names are given, to protect the guilty.)
We finger the rim of our wine glass, and divulge the school escapades: "So Dad, remember how you caught me skipping school in freshman year and you grounded me, and because I never got caught again, you figured I'd learned my lesson? Well, here's the funny thing. I worked in the school office for the first semester of my sophomore year, stole a few pads of excused absence slips, and used carbon paper to trace the principal's signature for the next three years! Haha! You have to admit, it was somewhat genius!"
We wink at our mother, and share the tales that involved teenage lies. "Oh, that's right, you never knew I saw the Rolling Stones in concert. Yeah, you wouldn't let me go to that concert, so I told you I was sleeping over at a friend's house that night. Instead, we caught a ride to Cleveland with a couple older guys we barely knew. After the concert, their car broke down in this horrific storm, and we hitchhiked to a nearby house of one of their friends, but he wasn't home. So we took shelter under his back porch, until the neighbors thought we were trying to break in and they called the police, who showed up and questioned us and asked us all for identification, but all I had to show--since I wasn't old enough to drive--was my library card and my school bus pass. But boy, it was a great concert."
We pat our mother's hand and ease into the clearly illegal stuff. "Glad you like the silk flower arrangement I bought you. So, remember that beautiful terrarium I brought home to you as a Mother's Day gift when I was thirteen? You oohed and aahed about how beautiful it was and how I shouldn't have spent that kind of money? Well... I didn't spend a cent. But it was the thought that counted, right?"
We cringe a bit and tread ever so carefully into the area of really dangerous items. "OK, so speaking of trains (of course you've waited until a relevant and appropriate discussion for this particular segue so as to soften the jolt), I guess I could tell you now about the time I was at a party on the golf course one night during high school, and we thought it would be fun to walk out on the train trestle to admire the view over the river. But then a train came, ROARING toward us, and we only made it safely back to ground by a matter of seconds, and it was just like that scene in the movie Stand By Me, except we were 15 not 12, and most of us didn't comprehend the true terror of our near-death experience until the next morning when we were sober."
A few of these long ago stories elicit the hoped-for smile, a snort of laughter from our parents. Others are met with a sigh or perhaps a silent Sign of the Cross.
They're comforted, of course, that we lived through it all. And likely relieved that they weren't privy to the details until many years later.
We tell our parents these tales and, as we reminisce, we shake our own heads at our bad youthful decisions and smile at our good fortune at reaching adulthood, alive, nearly responsible and respectable.
And we vow that if we ever hear similar stories from our own adult children, we will somehow find a way to ground them.
By the time we've morphed into full adulthood--perhaps married or college graduates--we figure we've turned out decently enough that our parents might finally laugh at our misdeeds. Or maybe they'll at least determine it's much too late in the game to ground us.
So, late in the evening at a holiday family gathering, we'll pour a third glass of wine, push back from the dining room table, and tell a story or two. We don't spout them all during one setting; we don't wish to be the cause of our mother's cardiac arrest. No, we dole them out gradually, eventually, over a matter of years.
Oh yes, the most interesting stories of our lives are those we choose to keep from our parents for more than a decade.
(The following true stories may or may not be fully autobiographical. One or more stories have been relayed by siblings or friends. No names are given, to protect the guilty.)
We finger the rim of our wine glass, and divulge the school escapades: "So Dad, remember how you caught me skipping school in freshman year and you grounded me, and because I never got caught again, you figured I'd learned my lesson? Well, here's the funny thing. I worked in the school office for the first semester of my sophomore year, stole a few pads of excused absence slips, and used carbon paper to trace the principal's signature for the next three years! Haha! You have to admit, it was somewhat genius!"
We wink at our mother, and share the tales that involved teenage lies. "Oh, that's right, you never knew I saw the Rolling Stones in concert. Yeah, you wouldn't let me go to that concert, so I told you I was sleeping over at a friend's house that night. Instead, we caught a ride to Cleveland with a couple older guys we barely knew. After the concert, their car broke down in this horrific storm, and we hitchhiked to a nearby house of one of their friends, but he wasn't home. So we took shelter under his back porch, until the neighbors thought we were trying to break in and they called the police, who showed up and questioned us and asked us all for identification, but all I had to show--since I wasn't old enough to drive--was my library card and my school bus pass. But boy, it was a great concert."
We pat our mother's hand and ease into the clearly illegal stuff. "Glad you like the silk flower arrangement I bought you. So, remember that beautiful terrarium I brought home to you as a Mother's Day gift when I was thirteen? You oohed and aahed about how beautiful it was and how I shouldn't have spent that kind of money? Well... I didn't spend a cent. But it was the thought that counted, right?"
We cringe a bit and tread ever so carefully into the area of really dangerous items. "OK, so speaking of trains (of course you've waited until a relevant and appropriate discussion for this particular segue so as to soften the jolt), I guess I could tell you now about the time I was at a party on the golf course one night during high school, and we thought it would be fun to walk out on the train trestle to admire the view over the river. But then a train came, ROARING toward us, and we only made it safely back to ground by a matter of seconds, and it was just like that scene in the movie Stand By Me, except we were 15 not 12, and most of us didn't comprehend the true terror of our near-death experience until the next morning when we were sober."
A few of these long ago stories elicit the hoped-for smile, a snort of laughter from our parents. Others are met with a sigh or perhaps a silent Sign of the Cross.
They're comforted, of course, that we lived through it all. And likely relieved that they weren't privy to the details until many years later.
We tell our parents these tales and, as we reminisce, we shake our own heads at our bad youthful decisions and smile at our good fortune at reaching adulthood, alive, nearly responsible and respectable.
And we vow that if we ever hear similar stories from our own adult children, we will somehow find a way to ground them.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
When Understanding Eludes Us
When understanding eludes us, we struggle to accept.
When mere acceptance seems unacceptable, we seek change.
When change appears formidable, we strive for strength.
When our strength is insufficient, we turn to others.
When others can't aid or comfort us, we lean on faith.
When we question faith, we're compelled to search for more.
When we truly search, within and without, we discover hope.
Because sometimes hope is all that remains.
And when we find hope, perhaps, we finally possess all we ever needed.
When mere acceptance seems unacceptable, we seek change.
When change appears formidable, we strive for strength.
When our strength is insufficient, we turn to others.
When others can't aid or comfort us, we lean on faith.
When we question faith, we're compelled to search for more.
When we truly search, within and without, we discover hope.
Because sometimes hope is all that remains.
And when we find hope, perhaps, we finally possess all we ever needed.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
In Which She Redecorates the House
The house was beautiful when it was built back in 1992. But after eighteen years as the backdrop for the escapades of two boys, two dogs, five cats and two free-ranging guinea pigs? It resembled a biker bar after a particularly ugly night of spilled drinks, bar room brawls and piss-poor bathroom aim.
She'd like to fully blame the menagerie of pets and human boy animals for the home's slow demise. Yet she is forced to admit her own bad judgment might, just possibly, have played some small part.
Like that time when she was overserved on a night out with the girls. The next morning, she stayed curled semi-comatose in a fetal position, pillow over her head, even as she heard the then two-year-old leave his bedroom and descend the stairs. When she finally climbed out of bed, she was greeted not only with the hangover from hell but with a trio of other treats: Silk flower arrangements plucked, their petals strewn from the back deck into the breeze. Eggs cracked and dropped into translucent goop on the hardwood kitchen floor. And every one of the carpeted stairs marked painstakingly, with a black Sharpie.
All that red Kool-Aid her children loved, but which never seemed to find a straight path from cup to mouth? Clearly bad judgment. Banishing it from the house was such a wise choice! She learned her lesson indeed after, say, the seventeenth spill on the light gray carpet. The decision to switch to orange Kool-Aid, however, might only qualify her for the short bus.
And maybe it wasn't the best judgment, a couple years back, to leave her college age son home to "house-sit" for a weekend. In retrospect, perhaps she should have realized her mahogany dining room table was the perfect size for 48 straight hours of beer pong.
But eighteen years after moving in, she deduced it was finally time to repair and redecorate. The kids were grown and gone, and the newest dog house-trained. And her own judgment at this mature age?
Sadly, still questionable.
Why else would she believe the painter who told her the entire job (painting every interior wall and piece of trim) would take only two weeks? Why would she plan a week-long vacation--eight hours and two states away--for the very next week?
Why would she assume the aforementioned painter would be sure to close all the windows before he left each day? Why would she not surmise a curious, badly behaved cat (yes, badly behaved cat=oxymoron) would end up on the roof?
Why would she trust this same painter to move the two fishbowls, from a to-be-painted high shelf, into another safe location? Why was she shocked when one of her college age sons, stopping home during the day for a free lunch, called her as she vacationed, screaming, "The cats knocked over the fishbowls! They're spilled all over the carpet! The fish are dead!" *
Why was she dumbfounded to come home, expecting to admire a brick red foyer, only to shield her eyes from the glare of bright fuschia walls?
And why would she choose now to adopt a stray cat who's never used a litterbox in his life and expect him to comprehend that her new $7,500-khaki colored carpet is not one great, glorious toilet?
Perhaps--just a guess here--it was due to bad judgment.
Her new counter tops went in this week. They tell her quartz is quite durable, although not exactly stain-proof.
Ha! This one, she has covered. Not a single ounce of red or orange-colored drink remains in the house. Oh no.
After everything she's experienced, she's existing solely on margaritas.
* Happy aside here: Her next-door neighbor Annette proved to be the Fish Whisperer.
She'd like to fully blame the menagerie of pets and human boy animals for the home's slow demise. Yet she is forced to admit her own bad judgment might, just possibly, have played some small part.
Like that time when she was overserved on a night out with the girls. The next morning, she stayed curled semi-comatose in a fetal position, pillow over her head, even as she heard the then two-year-old leave his bedroom and descend the stairs. When she finally climbed out of bed, she was greeted not only with the hangover from hell but with a trio of other treats: Silk flower arrangements plucked, their petals strewn from the back deck into the breeze. Eggs cracked and dropped into translucent goop on the hardwood kitchen floor. And every one of the carpeted stairs marked painstakingly, with a black Sharpie.
All that red Kool-Aid her children loved, but which never seemed to find a straight path from cup to mouth? Clearly bad judgment. Banishing it from the house was such a wise choice! She learned her lesson indeed after, say, the seventeenth spill on the light gray carpet. The decision to switch to orange Kool-Aid, however, might only qualify her for the short bus.
And maybe it wasn't the best judgment, a couple years back, to leave her college age son home to "house-sit" for a weekend. In retrospect, perhaps she should have realized her mahogany dining room table was the perfect size for 48 straight hours of beer pong.
But eighteen years after moving in, she deduced it was finally time to repair and redecorate. The kids were grown and gone, and the newest dog house-trained. And her own judgment at this mature age?
Sadly, still questionable.
Why else would she believe the painter who told her the entire job (painting every interior wall and piece of trim) would take only two weeks? Why would she plan a week-long vacation--eight hours and two states away--for the very next week?
Why would she assume the aforementioned painter would be sure to close all the windows before he left each day? Why would she not surmise a curious, badly behaved cat (yes, badly behaved cat=oxymoron) would end up on the roof?
Why would she trust this same painter to move the two fishbowls, from a to-be-painted high shelf, into another safe location? Why was she shocked when one of her college age sons, stopping home during the day for a free lunch, called her as she vacationed, screaming, "The cats knocked over the fishbowls! They're spilled all over the carpet! The fish are dead!" *
Why was she dumbfounded to come home, expecting to admire a brick red foyer, only to shield her eyes from the glare of bright fuschia walls?
And why would she choose now to adopt a stray cat who's never used a litterbox in his life and expect him to comprehend that her new $7,500-khaki colored carpet is not one great, glorious toilet?
Perhaps--just a guess here--it was due to bad judgment.
Her new counter tops went in this week. They tell her quartz is quite durable, although not exactly stain-proof.
Ha! This one, she has covered. Not a single ounce of red or orange-colored drink remains in the house. Oh no.
After everything she's experienced, she's existing solely on margaritas.
* Happy aside here: Her next-door neighbor Annette proved to be the Fish Whisperer.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Ghosts of Vacations Past and Future
We leave for our extended family vacation in a few weeks. It's become an every-three-years tradition for my two sisters and me, our families and our mother. Every three years works well for the Stanfa clan. It's frequent enough to maintain those warm and fuzzy family ties, yet far enough distanced to forget how close we came the last time to committing family genocide.
In families like ours, the key to vacationing together is learning survival tactics. I don't mean knowing how to make a shelter, how to signal for help or how to ration a water supply. In our extended family, roughing-it survival means knowing ahead to rent three separate cottages with multiple bedrooms, ensuring we find week-long entertainment suitable for replacing Facebook and reliable cellphone coverage, and having access to plenty of liquor.
We were not, clearly, destined to stay with John Boy and Grandma on Walton's Mountain.
Stanfa Family Vacations weren't always this way. For the first 14 years of my life, our yearly family vacation consisted of spending not one but two weeks every summer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. No bathtub or shower. No hot water. No TV. No playground or organized activities for the kids.
We bathed in the frigid lake. Our primary entertainment was playing pinochle or fishing from a rented rowboat. We slept--all six in our extended family--in a tiny two-bedroom cabin.
Yet somehow, for all of us, this cramped, self-entertaining trip was the highlight of the summer.
So what's changed? Why do we require so much more from a family getaway now than we did then?
Could it be that we're all more tightly wound than we were a few decades ago? That we've all become accustomed to living in 2,500-foot homes and staying in four-star hotels? That the entertainment value of card games and casting for perch have made way for wireless internet and weekend parties with everyone but our own families?
Maybe those of us old enough to remember the Ghosts of Vacations Past have simply forgotten their magic. And those too young to have experienced them simply need an introduction.
I started packing this week. I gathered together a deck of cards and a couple board games. A bag of marshmallows and some Jiffy-Pop to burn over the bonfire. A couple of dusty fishing poles.
I decided, with a lingering and forlorn glance, to leave my laptop behind.
But I am sure as hell not giving up having a bed to myself. Or a bathtub, with running hot water. And while I will gladly partake of a fresh lake perch dinner, there will be no cleaning of fish guts in my future.
Nostalgic memories aside, some ghosts just make you shiver.
In families like ours, the key to vacationing together is learning survival tactics. I don't mean knowing how to make a shelter, how to signal for help or how to ration a water supply. In our extended family, roughing-it survival means knowing ahead to rent three separate cottages with multiple bedrooms, ensuring we find week-long entertainment suitable for replacing Facebook and reliable cellphone coverage, and having access to plenty of liquor.
We were not, clearly, destined to stay with John Boy and Grandma on Walton's Mountain.
Stanfa Family Vacations weren't always this way. For the first 14 years of my life, our yearly family vacation consisted of spending not one but two weeks every summer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. No bathtub or shower. No hot water. No TV. No playground or organized activities for the kids.
We bathed in the frigid lake. Our primary entertainment was playing pinochle or fishing from a rented rowboat. We slept--all six in our extended family--in a tiny two-bedroom cabin.
Yet somehow, for all of us, this cramped, self-entertaining trip was the highlight of the summer.
So what's changed? Why do we require so much more from a family getaway now than we did then?
Could it be that we're all more tightly wound than we were a few decades ago? That we've all become accustomed to living in 2,500-foot homes and staying in four-star hotels? That the entertainment value of card games and casting for perch have made way for wireless internet and weekend parties with everyone but our own families?
Maybe those of us old enough to remember the Ghosts of Vacations Past have simply forgotten their magic. And those too young to have experienced them simply need an introduction.
I started packing this week. I gathered together a deck of cards and a couple board games. A bag of marshmallows and some Jiffy-Pop to burn over the bonfire. A couple of dusty fishing poles.
I decided, with a lingering and forlorn glance, to leave my laptop behind.
But I am sure as hell not giving up having a bed to myself. Or a bathtub, with running hot water. And while I will gladly partake of a fresh lake perch dinner, there will be no cleaning of fish guts in my future.
Nostalgic memories aside, some ghosts just make you shiver.
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