This isn’t a Christmas tale, per se. It’s the story of a Mom and how the sense of fun she left her kids’ lives on in them and in her dentures.
My Mom, Marie, died far too young in 1998. I still tear up when I think about what my kids missed in having such a fun Grandma. She passed after heart surgery followed by six weeks in a Cardiac ICU in Colorado. Kept in an induced coma to give her heart a chance to heal, I wasn’t optimistic when I went to visit.
Moving along, a couple of things to know about Marie –
- Mom was a big believer in guardian angels. I’ll never forget sitting down to watch “Touched by an Angel” with her, having her look over at me and say in all seriousness, “I love this show. It’s not at all schmaltzy.”
- She cared about a lot of people, including and particularly 11 guys who suited up in Orange at MileHi Stadium, especially John Elway. This explains the guardian angel in a #7 Broncos’ jersey pinned to the pillow in Mom’s room in the ICU. He watched over her the entire 6 weeks.
- One more note about Mom, she’d worn a full set of dentures since she was 45 and hated every minute she had to have them in. Really, truly, hated them.
You already know the middle of this tale, my mother never walked out of the hospital. And here’s where it becomes a Bekuhrs story.
My sister lived about an hour away and had visited Mom in the hospital often, getting to know the ICU nurses pretty well. She called them the day after Mom died to thank them for everything they’d done for her and ask about the return of Mom’s guardian angel. The nurse said she hadn’t seen it, but Annie was stopped dead in her tracks when the nurse then said, “I’m so glad you called! The funeral director forgot to take your mother’s teeth. Someone needs to come pick them up.”
“Excuse me? Her teeth?”
“Yes, the funeral home didn’t take them; they’re going to need them.”
“No, they’re not. She’s being cremated, the teeth will just melt. Now, about that angel…”
“But, we can’t dispose of anything a patient brought in. Someone needs to pick them up.”
“I’ll tell you what, you find the angel and I’ll pick up the teeth when I come by for it.”
Annie and I don’t have a lot in common, but we’re both pretty solid negotiators. It all worked out, they found the angel and my sister said she’d be down the next day to pick them up. “And the teeth!” the nurse chirped. I can still hear her grumble…
Next morning, a sunny May Friday, my sister drove the hour to Greeley and made her way to the ICU. She had a good cry with the nurses who’d been so great to our parents and then saw the teeth sitting discreetly wrapped in tissue on the counter. The angel was nowhere in sight. Red flags started to fly. Had she been duped?
The nurse was apologetic, insisting they HAD found the angel the day before but it wasn’t there when her current shift started. Annie was pretty angry, but calmly said, “That’s too bad. Looks like you guys scored yourselves a set of dentures.”
“But, what are we supposed to do with them?”
“I don’t care. Put a little wind-up motor in them and let them clack on your desk through eternity. I’m not taking them without the angel.” (ß my hand to god, that quote is 100% true)
After a frantic call to housekeeping, the Orange Savior was found, bagged up with my mother’s 25-year old choppers and Annie was on her way.
The next morning was Saturday, and I was preparing for the drive to Colorado for Mom’s memorial service the following Wednesday. One of the most miserable packing experiences of my life – my kids didn’t have anything black. Not yet, anyway. I was thinking about a Target run and it hit me that Mom really didn’t care about that mourning stuff, and honestly, neither did I, when the doorbell rang. I looked out and saw a Post Office truck at the curb.
My letter carrier was delivering an overnight-before-10 a.m. package from an address I didn’t recognize in Colorado. Weird, I signed for it and, for once, could not put it aside. I had to open it immediately. (You see where this is going, don’t you?)
I pawed through a pile of wadded up tissue paper to find a Post-it note that said, ‘A little something Mom would have wanted you to have. Smile’ attached to – you guessed it, the dentures.
Bathos. Utter bathos. I could not stop laughing. At Annie. For Mom. For all of us. Silliest thing that’d ever happened to me, and it could not have come at a better time. I still grin ear to ear just thinking about it.
But wait, there’s more. We’ve always believed that revenge really IS a dish best served cold, so I waited seven months until putting together my sister’s holiday package.
Yup, I did it. I got out my hot glue gun, cemented the teeth into a perfect bite, and spray painted them 24KT Gold. I then attached them to a 2” wide red velvet ribbon with a hook at the top added some fake cranberries and cedar spray and called it an ornament. It actually looks kinda like a bell from a distance. I know this because it’s in the background of every photo that includes my sister’s Christmas tree. Every. Single. Year.
And every year Mom is somewhere giggling about it.
Moving is a blow to my self-image. I like to think I am reasonably clean and tidy. But comes that moment after all the furniture and possessions have been removed from my rooms, and I come back to see if I’ve left anything, and I look at the floor and there’s this STUFF all around. Behind where the desk was, and behind where the bookcase was, and behind where the bed was, and in the corner once occupied by the chest-of-drawers.
Stuff. Gray. Fuzzy. Hairy. Grotty. Stuff
Look at all that dirt, I think. I am not so very nice and clean after all, I think. What would the neighbors think? I think. What would my mother say? I think. What if THEY come to inspect? I think. I got to clean this up quick, I think. This Stuff. It’s ALWAYS there when I move. WHAT IS IT?
I read in a medical journal that a laboratory analyzed this Stuff. They were working on the problems of people with allergies, but their results apply here.
The findings: particles of wool, cotton, and paper, bug chunks, food, plants, tree leaves, ash, microscopic spores of fungi and single-celled animals, and a lot of unidentifiable odds and ends, mostly natural and organic.
But that’s just the miscellaneous list. The majority of Stuff comes from just two sources: PEOPLE – exfoliated skin and hair; and METEORITES – disintegrated as they hit the earth’s atmosphere. (NO KIDDING – IT’S TRUE – TONS OF IT FALL EVERY DAY.) In other words, what’s behind my bed and bookcase and dresser and chest is mostly me and stardust.
A botanist told me that if you gather up a bunch of Stuff in a jar and put some water in it and let it sit in the sunlight and then plant a seed in it, the seed will grow like crazy; or if you do the same thing but put it in a damp, dark place, mushrooms will grow in it. And then, if you eat the mushrooms, you may see stars.
Also, if you really want to see a lot of it, take the sheet off your bed, shake it hard in a dark room, and then turn on a beamed flashlight. There you are. Like the little snowmen in the round glass ball on the mantel at Grandma’s house. London Bridge is falling down and I am falling down and the stars are falling down. And everything else is falling down, to go around again, some say.
Scientists have pretty well established that we come from a stellar birthing room.
We are the stuff of stars.
It’s too easy to get sucked into the selfless behavior that comes with being a mom, regardless how much or how little you cared and shared before the magic event.
My generation was raised with teevee sitcoms featuring June Cleaver, Ruth Martin, Carol Brady, and others who sacrificed big chunks of themselves through the 60s and 70s on behalf of their families. Spinster Aunt Bee was the prototype mother/grandmother set up as the ideal. Even through the 90s moms who, despite working outside their homes, still bore the brunt of sitcom mom-hood with husbands that were too tired or too boorish, or were written by men who just decided they didn’t need to pitch in as partners.
Even at a pretty tender age, I remember watching these women and thinking, “well, this is bullshit.”
Some women of my generation bought into that. No one I hung out with, but some. Feminism was on the rise. Sitcom moms were doin’ it for themselves but still doin’ it for the family, too. They worked outside their homes, convinced that they could have it all. Of course, most didn’t think that to have it all they’d have to DO it all. Twenty-four hours in a day? No problem.
And that became the norm. Once the kids come along, Mom’s needs not only took a back seat, they were relegated to that third-row tailgunner seat in the family’s Country Squire wagon of life.
(One of the most annoying teevee spots I can remember from that era was for a godawful women’s fragrance called Enjoli. If you had a teevee in 1978, you know the one I’m talking about. If not, check youtube.)
Truthfully, I never bought it. Never aspired to be June Cleaver, nor Elyse Keaton, Angela Bower, Claire Huxtable or any of them who showed us an unbelievably fictional look at what we should aspire to.
I just wanted to be Peg Bundy, but with a 401(k).
There’s a lot to be said, really, for being utterly broke during Christmas. Not broke as in, “Gee, I guess we have to pass on Colorado this year and go see the grandparents in San Francisco instead,” but broke as in, “Gee, I guess a tree just isn’t in the budget this year.” Truth told, it’s kind of liberating in a way, coming that close to completely canceling Christmas.
For example:
- Aside from dropping off and picking up my daughter at work, I haven’t been within five blocks of a mall since September.
- Target, same thing. I go at 8 a.m. on weekdays for cat litter and toilet paper, missing the whoop-dee-doo and hickory dock entirely.
- As of Christmas Eve, there were still about a dozen boxes of decorations sitting unopened in a neat stack in the mud room. Normally they’d have been emptied and their contents decking every room in the house by December 1. I didn’t deck the halls, so my January 6th will be a lot easier than usual.
- I know for a fact that there is no more “stuff” in my house than there was the day after Thanksgiving, stuff designed to remind that it’s the thought that counts. Not that I dislike getting gifts, but the truth is I’ve gotten, and given, a lot of thoughtless gifts over time.
- Along those lines, my wrapping paper budget is zero this year.
- Finally, I’m reminded again of what amazing young women I’ve raised. We talked weeks ago about our situation and economic reality, leading to the fact that there’d be nothing under the tree this year; no tree for that matter. Both reacted with, “Meh, at least we have a roof over our heads and food in the fridge.”
I’d love to say that, through all this, I learned the True Meaning of Christmas, but that’s not the case. We did not live through a Hallmark Channel Movie, did not sit around by candle light telling each other what our family means to us, God forbid, we did not return to church! There was no midnight mass where a chorus of archangels came to my little family, illuminating our souls and opening our hearts to the infinite possibilities promised by the birth of a fictional baby 2015 years ago. It was just Friday, December 25th. Dinner at some friends’ house and lots and lots of beers.
We did experience a couple of flashes – don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go full Grinch this year.
As mentioned, shelling out $50 or 60 for a moderate tree was not reasonable, but I did have a small artificial one. It’s throwback to a smaller house and a time when we never stayed home for the holidays but wanted to have SOMETHING up. I finally caved about a week before Christmas and set the tree up, ghosts of past years’ tinsel clinging to the plasticized pine needles, but couldn’t bear to decorate it so it’d sat unlit and unadorned in the front window. On the 24th, my older daughter was bored and looking for something to do, so I halfheartedly suggested that she invite her posse over to trim the tree. She got an odd look on her face as though she couldn’t decided if the idea was ridiculously dull, ridiculously sublime, or just rodiculous. She made a couple of calls, asked, “Can we drink while we do it?” and before I knew it, we were overrun with 21-year olds giggling like cartoon mice at my family’s collected ornaments. Virtually all of the ones the girls had made in elementary school went up. The store-bought, shiny, perfect ones stayed in the box for another year and a different kind of tree. Maybe.
On top of that, friends who know our circumstances have been perfect friends about it. A Target gift card here, Trader Joe’s there, have meant so much more than a necklace I’d only wear on New Years’ Eve or an overpriced bottle of wine, regardless how tasty. I appreciate their effort that that takes- people thinking good thoughts, thereby giving good gifts.
So, here I sit. Christmas is two days past and 364 days away (leap year, people). I have no idea where we’ll be a year from now – hopefully in this same house with a little more to celebrate than 2015 brought – but regardless, I know we can handle it.
And get a load of those faces! 
If I’d known that a 1971 Plymouth Duster would sell today for 50X what I got for 30 years ago, I just might have hung onto it a little longer. Probably not.
I believe that everyone should walk into a new car dealership and sign away their soul for 0% down and low monthly payments at least once, but certainly no more than once in their life. I did, and still have a SWEET ’94 Saturn SL-1 sitting in the driveway to show for it.
I’d traded in a VW Rabbit Convertible with a quarter of a million miles on it that I’d bought used seven years before. Would’ve kept the ragtop, too, if I hadn’t gotten pregnant in my mid-30s. The idea of an infant car seat altered the statement that I wanted the car to make, and the notion of picking bugs out of my child’s hair was vaguely repugnant.
Of course I named the convertible. Her name was Betty, because my old roommate and subsequent fairy godmother to my daughter had named his car Barney. It worked. Barney & Betty. If we’d gotten new cars at the time they would have been Pebbles & BammBamm, but we parted company long before that happened. Betty was in four major accidents in the time I owned her, but by gosh, never managed to total herself. Whatever the mean streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles threw at her, she continued to run. (I convinced myself that number of mishaps was all because the car was silver-grey, and with the top down she was hard to see against the pavement. It had nothing to do with my driving.) (Seriously. I’m convinced.)
My mechanic once had to rewire the whole car due to an error made in installing an alternator – and VW electrical systems are fussy on a good day – but she continued to run. When I was pulling off the freeway for the very last time on my way to trade her in, I had to stop at a Shell station and borrow a Phillips head screwdriver to adjust the throttle so she wouldn’t stall out on the dealer’s lot and scotch the deal, but she continued to run and run and run.
The very best run was always down Highway 1 from San Francisco through Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz to Monterey. Highway 1 runs the distance of the state, from Eureka to San Diego in one form or another, but for some ungodly reason, Angelenos refer to it at “The PCH,” short for The Pacific Coast Highway. Joan Baez would never dream of thumbing a ride on The PCH. Green Day couldn’t get up to 100 mph on The PCH. It may have the same highway signs, but at no point is The PCH the same road as Highway 1.
Highway 1. Betty loved it almost as much as I – you could just tell. Top down, radio blaring with my posse along for the ride. This was a good four or five years before Arsenio Hall told us that we were a posse. Many of us were East Coast natives, so they were my girlfriends. We were, all of us, pushing 30, but still very much girls. All wearing babushkas and big sunglasses, playing at being Annette, Sandra, and Shelley heading off to the beach and not so much singing as bellowing along with The Go-Gos or Exene or Chrissie. Girl Power with a great tan and magenta lipstick.
I’ve tried repeatedly to recreate that magic and it’s come close, but never quite the same. Probably because I’ve flown it solo a number of times, and that part of California is best-loved with someone you love.
Maybe if I reserve a ragtop next time..
Oh, dear Lord – it’s 6:00 a.m. and I have to put on makeup AND a bra for a job interview. Life was so much easier when a telephone interview didn’t involve a webcam and good lighting. Curse you, Skype!
Criminey!
I find myself in the very uncomfortable position of jumping through a series of higher and higher-held hoops – some of them flaming – to get my little family some breathing room from the state. Uncomfortable, because it REALLY wasn’t supposed to be like this, but justified because, dammit, because I’ve paid into the system for decades.
Just wish they had that swell language assistance for their English forms…
I’d never set a goal to be The Cool Mom – shoot, never set a goal to be a Mom, but stuff happens – so I kind of surprised myself when I realized that I missed my kid, but also missed her friends when they all took off for college. They’re quite a collection of characters, and I’ll always be happy to know that their friends have felt comfortable enough in our home to raid the fridge without asking, that they could name and loved all of our pets, and that counted on our family as an extension of their own.
It goes back to their elementary school days. Sure, I always had a full-time job, but found time to volunteer in the kids’ classrooms. And, sure, the girls were mortified when I showed up for their Hallowe’en parties, tricked out in crinolines and a Marge Simpson wig – what else would the Tooth Fairy wear – with little toothbrushes for earrings and a necklace made of floss, handing out sample-sized tubes of Crest instead of candy. And sure, it was fun the time we made Rice Krispie treats in the shape of giant Hershey Kisses, wrapped them in foil and turned the little paper tab into the girls’ Valentine messages.
Fun until I heard another parent as I crossed the playground snark, “What’s Martha-freaking-Stewart come up with THIS time?” as she carried in a box of chocolate-chip cookies, made holiday special with red sprinkles.
Wait a minute! You’re threatened by ME? As a Mom? Can’t be, I’m no role model. I was a cocktail waitress, for Chrissakes. I swear like a longshoreman when I stub a toe and don’t care who hears it! I have a full time job – I’m no kind of Mom.
My kids sometimes thought it was weird as we were working on those classroom projects, but they always were “we” efforts. If one of the kids came up with an idea for a treat or a party or some craft item just for the hell of it, we’d give it a shot together. Witches’ hands made of popcorn for your Hallowe’en party? You betcha! Let’s go buy a box of clear plastic gloves and see how they turn out. But you’re going to help.
Soft sculpture fairy wands for party favors for your birthday? Why not? Home Depot has a sale on 1/4” dowel rods, and I’ve got a bucket of glitter and nowhere else to use it!
Set up a craft table out back just for days your friends want to come over after school? I’m in! I’d never set out to be a Mom’s-mom but, by cracky, once I had the job I was going to take my best shot at it. Other parents may have been snarky about it, but the ones who mattered – my daughters and their friends – loved it.
And that carried on through their High School and beyond. Their friends know us and seem to like spending time with our family.
Strange to think it, but my daughter and I have grown closer in the months since she left for the dorm life; the responsibilities of looming adulthood now on her shoulders, and the day-to-day cares now hers, not mine. We’re somehow freer to talk (OK, text) about things that matter and – better still – things that don’t. She’s never been one much for small talk, which is one way in which we differ. Both kids have always found it embarrassing that Mom can chat up anyone, anywhere, and <shudder> enjoys doing it. Especially when the chattees were their friends. “Mom, do you think you could dial it back this time when Jessica comes over?” Sorry, Kitten, but it’s my house, and my rules. People will feel welcome. Always.
And so, it’s come to this. Our first Christmas break from university, and my daughter is home for the month. We’ve seen the parade of her lifelong pals, all back in town from their far-flung academic adventures. All laughing in the living room or crowded around the fire pit in the back yard, swapping stories that are so different from one another’s but with a common thread of shared lifetimes. It makes me very, very happy. As a bonus, though, there are new friends! My daughter’s college roommate is here for the weekend. Even though she grew up in Orange County, less than an hour away, she’d never been to L.A. I’m not judging, but… REALLY?
Anyway, Savannah’s showing her “her L.A.,” and hoping not to scare the girl. She seems pretty sweet, and they went out with some of my daughter’s high school pals this evening – Venice, I think – hoping she didn’t scare the girl. Time to forge new familiarities, and I’m glad to be a part of it again.
As a bonus, though, since this was a “new friend” rather than one of the usual old ones, my daughter went on a cleaning binge before her roomie got here. Top to bottom, cleaning products used, surfaces dusted, floors swept and vacuumed. Wow. I took care of the kitchen – I’m fussy about my kitchen – but when the kids were done with their room and the rest of the house, it was like a little Christmas miracle.
I wonder if I can invite more of her college pals into the fold…
I receive mailers from my daughter’s school occasionally, reminding me that my teen will feel loved and missed if she gets care packages from home. Naturally, they have a service where all you need is a credit card and they’ll take care of it for you. They even have holiday themes!
I really wanted Savannah’s first care package to be MUCH more meaningful than that, so I sent her all of the crap she’d left in my car.
OK, so it’s established pretty clearly that I’m nobody’s nominee for Mother of the Year.
I love my kids, no doubt, and would do almost anything for them. At the same time, when so many women rhapsodize about everything that motherhood has done FOR them – fulfilled them, given them purpose, completed them as a person, I’m reminded of everything the role has done TO me – exhausted me, stretched my emotional and financial resources to the breaking point, and given me an ass that can block out the sun.
Regardless your commitment to the role, there’s really nothing to compare to the day that the first one to move out finally does. My oldest daughter, I’m thrilled to say, has moved to San Francisco for college. I’m envious. I love The City and everything about it, so see this as an opportunity to visit more often. I just have to remember to let her know when I’m there.
She’s been gone for six weeks, but it sounds like Savannah’s experienced more in that month and a half than she did during her last year in our sleepy little suburb of Los Angeles. Getting her there, though, was no walk in the park.
Procrastination is genetic, and she IS my daughter. We’d been planning all along to load up a rental SUV and drive her up there on the third Friday in August, as that’s what she’d told me to plan for. Packing was delayed because so many friends were leaving for so many colleges that there were just far too many parties and sad goodbyes. What I’d hoped would be some family time the days before launch turned into just another summer week, except I think I saw my car – and my kid – a total of twice.
Then, on Tuesday afternoon I heard, “Oh, BALLS!” from the kids’ room, but chose to pretend I hadn’t. Parenting 101: If you ignore a swear word, it likely won’t be repeated. Make a big deal out of it, and that’s all that’ll come out of their mouths for a week. Of course, that works when the kids are eight, not so much when they’re 18. Within the next few minutes, I heard every swear word my own mother had taught me in Hungarian because she didn’t want me to offend strangers; some three or four times. Then a frantic teen was standing in my doorway, biting her lower lip, “Uh, Mommy?” Mommy. Must be major if she’s calling me Mommy. Did she not send her transcripts? Had she misread the acceptance letter? Was there no room at the inn – would she be sleeping of Grandpa’s couch first semester?
Me: “Yes, Dear?”
Teen: “Umm, remember when I told you that dorm check-in was this Friday?”
Me: “Of course, been looking forward to it for weeks. I’m picking up the rental car on Thursday.” All the while, thinking to myself, “Szar. Bassza. Húgy.” (It’s all Hungarian. Look it up.)
Teen: “Umm, yeah. It’s really Thursday. And Friday they have all the student/parent welcome activities.”
Me: “Hmm. That’s quite a conundrum. What shall we do?”
Teen: “Pack?”
Me: “EXCELLENT idea! Need any help?”
Teen: “I’ll let you know. Thanks. You’re being pretty calm, by the way.”
Me: “I started drinking on Monday, Honey.”
Luckily, all of the crap-crap that she needed to take had been purchased and was piled up in the dining room, so all Savannah really needed to pack yet was her clothes and sundries. Lovely word, sundries. I let her take that at her own pace, but had to jump in and suggest that she pack fewer tank tops and more sweaters and fleeces. “You grew up in LA, Sweetie. It will likely not get any warmer than the coolest fall day here.” She almost believed me, too.
Most mothers I know have a really difficult time seeing their firstborn off on this adventure, but for me the biggest challenge of moving day was packing the car. I’d reserved a mid-sized SUV, but all they had were a KIA sport something-or-other that looked like it’d barely hold our suitcases and some mini-van-looking thing that has already slipped from memory. Thank goodness I’ve never lost a game of Tetris, every cubic inch of that car was spoken for.
The day went off without a hitch, and with remarkably few tears. We’re too much alike in that regard, my Savannah and me.
I was a little worried that she’d been too sheltered in our sleepy little suburb of Eagle Rock, which sounds more bucolic than it is, but it turns out that my daughter is far and away the most urban and street-smart of the four roommates in her suite. They’re from other suburbs in California, but all three seem to have grown up wrapped in cotton batting and sleeping in egg cartons. On their first weekend at State, they had the chance to take a tour of a neighborhood or area of The City of their choice, and the three roomies wanted to go to Golden Gate Park to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Two of them grew up in the Bay Area, FFS, but it was up to my little LA Hipster Princess to point out that the bridge was nowhere near the park.
Instead, she talked them into visiting the Haight. They were all frightened. In the Haight. In the middle of the afternoon.
Since then, Savannah’s found more people outside of her dorm room with whom she has more in common, and has been exploring The City in her free time. We talk about once a week, but she texts me every day with little comments and questions, and sometimes those conversations go on well past dinnertime. It’s odd, but this shared experience across 35 years has brought us closer than when we lived under the same roof. We had always agreed that texting from room-to-room was ridiculous, but it’s become our best communication medium across 384.8 miles!
She’s fitting in nicely in The City, and that makes me very, very happy. It was a freakishly wonderful place for me to spend my 20s, and I’m hoping the same for her – freakish wonder.
Just some days wish she didn’t have to move out to do it.
No, I don’t like how that sounds either. NATURALLY people who are not related by blood are trustworthy. Most of the time. We’ve all had friends who covered for us when Mom called to check in, not so much lying but stretching the truth more carefully than a Wallenda stretches steel cable across a canyon. “No, Mrs. B, she’s not here. She just walked my little sister down to 7-11 for a Slurpee. Uh huh, cherry cola.” Sometimes the embellishments bit us in the ass, sometimes not.
Blood relatives are virtually always reliable, with some exceptions. Your siblings and, to an extent, first cousins, should always have your back. For example, they wouldn’t tell Mom & Dad just how loaded you were the other night when they got you safely home after stopping at the 24 hour self-serve car wash when it was 7°F to hose off the frozen red wine vomit from the side of Mom’s Honda. Heck no. Just don’t try that one a second time, or lips may loosen.
With relatives by marriage – steps and in-laws – the trust factor starts to get a little dicey. Since you weren’t raised with these people, there’s sometimes no telling how they’ll react to confidences. Had an uncle by marriage who, because he and my Dad didn’t like each other, was a very useful ally in keeping the old man on his toes. Once, when the whole family was at my brother’s house for Christmas Eve, Uncle X was bored, probably hammered, and decided to fuck with the Christmas lights – kept turning up the speed on the flashers by degrees until they were set at “seizure inducing.” Pop was already out of his element in someone else’s house, therefore out of control, and he lived for control, and getting more and more agitated. He kept turning the lights back down to “normal people’s levels.” Finally he blew up, scaring the toddlers by shouting at the top of his lungs to “knock it the fuck OFF.” Too bad he directed his rage at my sister’s boyfriend, who happily took the blame by grinning at the old man and not saying a word.
Uncle X was a hoot, but really not trustworthy. He ended up leaving my aunt one morning while she was in the shower by clearing out his closet and sticking a Post-It note on her computer that read, “Sorry, I have to go.” After 35 years of wedded bliss. Up to that point, I trusted him.
Financial Trusts are another story entirely.
Whatever happened to straight-up wills? Last Wills and Testaments? They were pretty straightforward, and if written correctly, with not a lot of wiggle room. When my Mom died in 1998, there were provisions made for all of her personal property that was of any real value, and everyone behaved in a civilized manner. I got her piano, which was a family albatross whose story is for another day, and nobody’s grief was exacerbated by haggling. I think we all assumed that the same would happen when Pop passed, and the rest of the estate would be divided evenly among the siblings; easy-peasy.
Nobody counted on Pop’s remarriage a year later to a woman he’d dated 50 years before and miraculously found on the internet. About two years after that happy event – happy for all involved, truth told, because my Dad was so at sea when Mom died, we feared for his long-term survival – Pop and his bride made a driving tour to visit all of us and, it turns out, to lay out what they’d put together as a Living Trust. There’s that word again. Trust.
It seemed pretty simple. Pop and his wife were Trustees, and when one of them passed the mantle of responsibility would be mine in conjunction with the survivor. Pop said the Living Trust was created specifically for his grandkids’ college educations, and that any of us could request money for that purpose at any time. For whatever reasons he had, my Dad trusted me to take care of things, and being a bit of a control freak myself, I welcomed the duty.
Then he had to go and fuck it up by dying before any of the grandkids started college.
Fast forward to January of 2011. My Dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer after years of respiratory problems and was being treated with radiation. We never talked about his prognosis, and he got decidedly grouchy when pressed with questions about his treatment. In addition to the cancer, Pop had been living with Type II Diabetes for a couple of years and was shooting up insulin twice a day. On top of all that, his harridan wife had a whole laundry list of ails, and the Lazy Susan on their dining room table was a pharmacopeia of geriatric bottles and boxes and tubes. The daily schedule of their meds taxed even an MBA in its administration. Trust me.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Over the first six months of 2011, three trips made to Tucson to help the folks with things like lawyers and doctors and bankers and caregivers and financial planners and more bankers and more doctors and, finally, home hospice. The day after the old man died, back to Tucson for round four – more bankers and lawyers and doctors and financial planners and, finally, funeral director. Many miles logged, many decisions made, much accomplished on my Dad’s behalf. Just me and my pal. Seven to ten hours a day. The one errand that drew a balk from me, though, was when the ungrateful hag his wife said, “Stop by the Chinese restaurant that your father loved and have the owner come out to the car. I want to tell her what happened.” She didn’t ask, she ordered. That was it.
Swear to god, I didn’t snap, didn’t go off on her (not then), just said “No, Fritzi. Beth can take you over later this week. I’m exhausted.” She reacted as if I’d slapped her across her rubbery jowls with a hockey stick. This was a huge violation of trust to someone who was an only child and had lived with her parents until they died, and had been spoiled by everyone in her life. Clearly not used to hearing ‘no,’ the mask fell and exposed the base resentment that 50 wasted years had imprinted on her soul.
In other words, it got real ugly, real fast. My last words to her were “Have a nice life.” Trite, but it worked.
Time’s passed, and I haven’t spoken to the woman since the day after my father’s memorial service. Nor do I think I ever will again.
Just this week, I got a letter from Pop’s widow’s attorney spelling out the changes that she has made to the Living Trust. Those changes basically throw my father’s wishes out the window, but are kind of liberating in the process.
I never did trust the old crone.
It was two days before Christmas at around 10:00 am, and I was sitting in the best parking spot at the Glendale Galleria, ready to leave and wondering what I could get for the space. I had dropped the teen off at 6:30 for work at JC Penney and had decided to up the ante on gift-giving at the last minute. Why waste the best parking spot at the mall after all? So, three hours and a couple of last-minute-sale items later, here we are. The sharks have been circling, following slowly to see when I’d make that dodge between cars, keys akimbo, ready to deliver them to retail heaven. Cue Handel’s Messiah.
Here’s a fun game, if you’ve won the parking lotto and have a great space at the mall at Christmastime: Put some Christmas music on your iPod, earbuds in, (apparently) oblivious to what’s going on around you. As you stroll back to your car, you’ll notice them. The desperate. The needy. The ones who could not get out the door before 10:00, and are dreading being forced to park on the top level, ¾ of a mile from the Apple store where gift-giving salvation waits. I don’t know about you, but I can smell their fear, along with their hopes, aspirations, and a little of the maple bacon they had for breakfast.
One way to play it is to appear to wander, confused, wondering where on earth you’d parked that blasted car. A key fob is a good prop in this one, as you point it in different directions as though hoping to set off the car’s alarm. Hell, people will smile sheepishly, as if to say, “We’ve all done that,” and move on. When you can see yourself in their rear-view mirror, and know they’re looking, do a little happy dance as you discover that the red Chevy that’s right next to you is, indeed, YOUR CAR!
Another option is stride purposefully straight to your car, hit the key fob so the lights come up and doors unlock so they know the space is about to open up. You unload your packages as quickly and efficiently as you can. You know that that guy in the silver 750i is on a tight schedule, and dammit, you’re going to help get him on his way to retail Nirvana and back home again to his loving family post-haste. You slide behind the wheel, bucking up and settling the key in the ignition in one fluid movement when, RATS! You SMACK your forehead, unbuckle and heave yourself out the driver’s door, apparently irritated with yourself for forgetting that Chia Pet for Uncle Steve. At first, your fellow shoppers are pretty cheesed off but ultimately they understand. Some will even smile and wave, although less likely if it is the most awesome spot in the entire mall complex. If you have the time, this one can be played out over and over and over.
Any of these scenarios works better if you can fake a limp.
I realize that this all sounds pretty bitchy, but truth told, you’d be doing last-minute shoppers a great service. The holidays are an extraordinarily stressful time, and people tend to take their tension out on those closest to them. Why not give them a total stranger as an outlet to vent their holiday frustration, leaving all the sugarplums and snow angels for their loved ones?
What can I say? I’m a giver.
Note to self: If you’re running into Whole Foods for just one thing, do not grab a cart, and under no circumstances go any deeper into the store than needed.
Whole Foods Markets have a well-earned reputation for catering to over-paid and under-motivated cooks. You want that ribeye steak that’s been dry aged by hanging on a rack in ‘specially climate-controlled coolers? Only $23.99/lb., but now that your friendly “butcher” has removed the crust (read, mold), it’s ready for a quick sear over an open applewood fire and to be washed down with a spunky $50 old vine Zin. Maybe pick up some nice marinated purple potatoes to throw on the grill and you have the perfectly pretentious meat & potato meal. (Be sure to top it off with a bowl of Blue Mountain Cashew Creamery Organic-Fair-Trade Ice Cream at $11/pint.)
Or you can play the home version of that game and grow your own beef-based penicillin by leaving a $6.99/lb T-bone in the fridge for an extra week, roast up some russets with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, and stop at BevMo for a couple of bottles of your favorite hearty red (Buy one, get the second for 5¢). If you’re feeling flush, grab an It’s-It for dessert.
Not to single out Whole Foods, but the chain really is at the forefront of feeding the hipster masses. Trader Joe’s and Sprouts are not far behind. And it’s not always true that you get what you pay for. As the queen of our little single-income family of four, I learned years ago that a good cook doesn’t need WF in their life, and that hipsters in grocery stores are like llamas in bicycle shops. They just get in your way, and usually end up knocking shit over.
Having recently joined the 9% of Californians who’re suckling the public teat, my smirk is a little smirkier as I drive past Bristol Farms on my way to my neighborhood produce market, my neighborhood butcher, or my neighborhood bakery. Being one of those girls who’s good at math, I can calculate the cost per load of groceries that I can bring home in any one of several American or import cars. If you’re paying more than $2.35 per cubic foot of food, you need to re-think your shopping list.
It has a lot to do with being my mother’s daughter. She taught me to understand what was being prepared at mealtimes, and how to stretch it to feed six.
It has a lot to do with Mom growing up during the Great Depression. She was raised eating cuts of meat that are now known as ‘offal’ to the trendy because that’s what they could afford, and growing their own vegetables in New York City on the half-lot next door that my grandfather was smart enough to buy with the house. I really miss that garden.
It has a lot to do with an up-and-down employment history that’s taught this gal the rare beauty of a club deal/markdown/coupon trifecta. “You mean, because it’s the second Tuesday after the Vernal Equinox, I can get that three-pound tri-tip for $4.25? SOLD!”
It has everything to do with understanding the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want.’
A difference, in short, that today’s cats & kittens trolling through Whole Foods on a Wednesday afternoon, pushing their Oliver Peoples retro-chic sunglasses up on their $125 Chop-Chop Salon so-messy-is-has-to-be-intentional pixie-bob-shag know nothing about.
For example, Chia Seeds (salvia hispanica) – unheard of in the US until the smartest man since the inventor of the Pet Rock introduced Ch-ch-ch-Chia Pets in the early 80s – have been eaten in Central America for centuries. Nutrient-rich, low in fat, they carry many health benefits so, naturally, became uber-trendy. Every overpaid, bearded chucklehead wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a $75 vintage cowboy shirt could not stop paying ten bucks for a four-ounce bag. Until, of course, they went mainstream sometime last April, so the hipsters have moved on. But, the chia seeds have remained, adding texture to your Kombucha tea and causing moderate flatulence for the next wave of adopters, teenaged girls – my older daughter among them.
Not that it’s all obscenely expensive. Because of the nature of their clientele, Whole Foods is actually more competitively priced than the traditional supermarkets in one area; anything soy-based. Fake meats, fake cheeses, fake eggs, and fake dairy products are usually best bought there. (Although, reading that last sentence, fake meats, fake cheeses, fake eggs and fake dairy products are best left along the side of the road somewhere.)
I have one daughter who hasn’t eaten meat since she was 10, so am always on the lookout for a bargain on those products. Which leads me on those rare occasions to Whole Foods Market. And, dammit, to the most beautiful deli case in all of retail.
No, I don’t need those kale & carrot latkes, but they do take Food Stamps, don’t they?
A friend visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library on opening day, and be DAMNED if he could find books about WMDs.
The kids are in the other room, giggling like cartoon mice and trying to figure out what new weirdness they can extend to the younger one’s hair. She was a towheaded toddler and it’s gone dirty blonde over the last dozen years or so, but my daughters have made a project of it this evening, and I’ve promised myself that I won’t interfere. Last I saw, her bangs have been bleached blonde along with her undercoat. From the muttering coming from under the bathroom door, I’d guess that those newly blonde sections are about to turn turquoise. Manic Panic Atomic Turquoise, to be exact.
Time to shake my head and sigh. Again.
We went through this with the older teen at about this age, 15 or 16 – hell I did it FOR her, but we started out more slowly. I’d taken her chestnut hair and given her blond wings at the temples. Think Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein or JoBeth Williams toward the end of the first (and only good) Poltergeist, but with a bone structure that could carry it off. Ultimately this proved to be a slippery slope to platinum blonde hair with purple ends – Manic Panic Electric Amethyst ends – when she stood in the kitchen in front of the Gustav Klimt orange cupboards, your eyes would start to pulse. She’s settled in as a redhead for now. And now it’s her sister’s turn.
This is different. This is two-toned turquoise. (It’s not THAT different; turquoise or purple, neither is a natural hair color).
This is different. It’s her bangs, and it’ll look weird. (It’s not THAT different; bangs or wings, they both frame faces).
This is different. This is Ivy. This is my baby.
NOW we’re down to it. The baby of the family is asserting herself in making adult-ish decisions, and Mom’s reserve in letting her make those decisions is being put to the test. Granted, hair color is one of those fun, transitory things that won’t matter in the long run, and will make for some great pictures to send the relatives at Christmastime. (“Oh, CHRIST! Did you see what she let the kid do to her hair?” “Pffft. Californians!”) On the other hand, it’s a harbinger of her adulthood, and I’ve just gotten used to having one adult offspring.
That’s one of the things no one warns you about when discharging from the maternity ward. Sure, the books and courses cover What to Expect the First Year, What to Expect the Toddler Years, Questions Your Preschooler Will Ask, When Someone in the Family Drinks Too Much, and Keeping Your Kid Off Smack Without Smacking Them, but nothing for this situation. No So Your Kid Thinks They’re All Grown Up, no What to Expect When Their Hormones Hit, no The Moment They Know More Than You Do: A Primer. I suppose I could have checked out the Abnormal Psychology section at my local library, but all anyone really needs to do is look at their own past.
When you’re in unfamiliar territory it’s easy to assume that you’re the first parent to whom this has ever happened. No one has ever had a kid come to them with, “Hey, Mom, when can I get a tattoo?” (“When you join the Navy, Honey.”)
Or, “Hey, Mom, you grew up in the 70s, right? How much weed did you smoke?” (“None, Honey. Mom never had a tolerance for THC.”) (All the while silently praying, “Don’t ask me about the 80s. Don’t ask me about the 80s.”)
Or, worst yet, “Hey, Mom, how old were you when YOU first had sex?” (“Oh, Sweetie, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”)
I like to think we’re all more comfortable with those kinds of questions than were the women of our mothers’ generation.
I’ve always tried really, really, hard to be absolutely open with my daughters – fostering the kind of relationship that most women of my Mom’s generation weren’t comfortable with. Every opinion or feeling is valid. Every request is worth discussion. Every hope, dream, or aspiration has merit. Grades are not nearly as important as an education. I think they’re better young women for it, and look forward to seeing how it shapes their adulthood. Just not quite yet.
In the meantime, I’m looking at a 15 year-old in a CCR t-shirt with turquoise bangs.
I wonder if I should show them pictures of my Flock of Numbskulls 80s ‘do with the Manic Panic Peacock Blue braid…
April 15th is the highest of the High Holy Days for those of us who belong to Our Lady of Perpetual Procrastination. Rejoice and be glad!
Sometimes it a good idea not to burn any bridges. Other times it’s critical that you blow the sucker up and sink the rubble to the bottom of the river.
There were hundreds of LPs out in the garage, waiting for someone to rediscover every pop, hiss, and crackle they had to offer. They were sitting on the loft shelf, just to the left of the component system bought in 1985 when Mom was single and making far too much money, and the rule of thumb was that speakers were supposed to account for half of the total cost of a system. There was now a pair of $500 end tables in the family room; oddly enough wired to nothing, but the perfect height for a reading lamp beside the couch. The Fisher tuner, equalizer, turntable, dubbing cassette deck, and single-CD player lost their places to the digital cable box, wireless router, and Wii game system. At this point even the DVD player is on its way out, thanks to Netflix and Hulu.
They were perfectly content, those hundreds of licorice pizzas, to sit out there in the garage. An eclectic pile of treats, waiting to be rediscovered. Waylon Jennings’s first album was there, alongside Sarah Vaughn, The Boomtown Rats, and the very well-represented Bruce, Elvis the C, and The Who. Rediscovered they were by a 15 year-old in my ancient Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt and a pair of Vans. She emerged from the storage area – who are we kidding, really, it hasn’t had room for a car since we moved the piano and all the Christmas stuff in there back in the 90s – with a gleam in her eye and the entire side two of Who’s Next on her lips. Relentless, she wouldn’t give up until I’d given over an entire corner of the dining room to the collection, and she got a turntable for her birthday. She finds the names of some of the bands silly – The Flying Burrito Brothers comes to mind – but she knows the difference between Airplane and Starship and has an unnatural penchant for a girl her age for Morrison, Joplin, and Hendrix.
She’s like that, my Ivy. What most kids her age would find annoying, or worse yet, quaint, about outdated technology, my daughter thinks is fun. Give her a car without automatic windows and she’ll work that crank until her arm falls off, kind of like a kitten with a balled up piece of cellophane. True story; we’d had a rental car for a day or two that had only the most basic accessories. Think crank windows, manual locks, “power-assisted” steering, and a trunk you could only open from the outside. The kid asked if we could keep an eye out for one like it when she’s ready to learn to drive.
She’s got the last VCR in her room. Not the last in our house, but the last VCR in America. Can’t even remember the last time I saw one in a thrift store, but Ivy keeps one because you never know when she’s going to want to watch North by Northwest or Sesame Street’s Silly Songs, and DVD has no soul. (I have to admit, I’ll stop and watch that amazing All-Star cast doing Put Down the Duckie any time.) (If you don’t know it, check it out on youtube.) (Trust me.)
One of the biggest hoots we shared was with a bunch of Ivy’s classmates one day after school. She was probably in 4th grade, so nine years old, and I was picking her up at our local branch library. Ivy’d walked over with her pack of pals as they all had a research paper assigned, and luckily one of the kids thought to get started before the night before it was due. (Trust me, the little freak was not MY kid.) When I walked in the five or six nine-year-olds were standing around, looking either puzzled or vexed. It seems the library’s internet connection was down, and the bank of half a dozen PCs, normally used for research, email, job hunting, or soft-core porn by the locals was staring blankly at the hushed room.
“Well, I guess we can just leave. We can’t start researching anything without the computers.”
I looked slowly from side to side at the hundreds and thousands of bound piles of information waiting to be explored. My daughter sidled away, pretending to read the notice board – she knew what was coming. “Really?” I asked, “You guys don’t know any other way to find the information you need to get started?” I got five little trout faces looking up at me, “What do you mean, Ivy’s Mom?”
“Any of you familiar with reference books? You know, places to look up information when you don’t know where to start?”
Gaping trout faces.
“OK, what do you do when you need to look up a word that you don’t know?”
“dictionary.com” They weren’t making this easy. “Let’s go ask the librarians for some help,” I suggested.
I was surprised that there was no card catalog in the place so we couldn’t search on their subject, which was China. Everything was online, it seems, except the computers themselves. We found our way to the Reference section and I asked the kids what they would do next. They looked at each other with annoyance plainly written on their faces. My own darling daughter said, “Go outside to the ice cream truck and walk home?” Back of the line with you, Missy.
On a low shelf, off to one side and pretty unused looking, I saw my answer. “What if I told you that you are within arm’s reach of a book that has SO much information, it’ll probably write your paper for you?” (Clearly I had no idea that in the 4th grade Gifted & Talented program, the expectation for the quality their research papers was only slightly less than what was expected of me in Grad School.) (Or light years ahead of the average Masters Thesis in the Cal State system) Disbelief was written all over their smug little mugs, so I grabbed a volume of the Brittanica and popped to the page I wanted in less than 20 seconds.
I started in, “China Demographics: Population (2005): 1.27 Billion. Area: 3.8 million square miles. Primary ethic group: 90% Han….”
“Your Mom’s making that up, isn’t she, Ivy?”
“Probably not,” she sighed, “She does like to make a point.”
It was a little disheartening to know that they’d not been introduced to an encyclopedia before this, but great fun to bring them around. We played a little game that I used to at their age, and pulled random volumes off the shelf, opened to random pages and started reading aloud. It got real silly, real fast, and I was having a ball until I heard one of them whisper to her friend, “Do you think Wikipedia knows that these guys stole their name?”
It wasn't supposed to be like this. 