“Ma, Frank still has his soul. He’s not dead yet.”
“I know that,” she said, irritably. “They share the same soul.”
“Ma, that’s crazy.”
“Sorry, but I know, I can tell. Remember the earthquake?”
This shuts me up, temporarily. It’s matter of public record that Mother Mary was the only person in Miami to feel an earthquake that took place in Tampa, and the South Florida newspapers even dubbed her Earthquake Mary. Ever since then, she thinks she’s Al Roker, but supernatural.
She said, “It’s the same soul. Absolutely.”
“Ma, just because they have the same birthday doesn’t mean they have the same soul.”
“Hmph. What do you know about birthdays?”
She was referring to something I’ll never live down, which happened to me over twenty years ago, when Daughter Francesca was three years old. I had taken her in a stroller into an optician’s shop in town, and a man walked through the door, pointed directly at Francesca, and said: “Her birthday is February 6.”
I was astounded. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
I went home that day and called my mother. “Ma, some guy just guessed that Francesca’s birthday is February 6! Isn’t that amazing?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because her birthday is February 7.”
I blinked. “It is?”
“Yes, dummy.”
Look, I have no idea how it happened, but for the first three years of Francesca’s life, I celebrated her birthday on the wrong day.
Sue me.
Maybe it’s because I was in labor for 349,484 hours, so the exact day she was born seemed like a technicality. And since then, it was just she and I celebrating a day earlier, with nobody around to know better.
So now I can never say anything about birthdays, ever.
But at least I know where everybody’s soul should be.
And their washer-dryers, too.
Focused
I’m trying to understand why I have six different pairs of eyeglasses. I’m only one woman, with two nearsighted eyes.
I realized this odd state of affairs when I decided that I would finally replace my glasses, which were crooked because I had put them on the bedside table one night and didn’t reach far enough, so they fell to the floor. I was too tired to pick them up and figured I’d get them in the morning, which I did.
With my foot.
I specialize in ruining glasses. I sit on them, drop them face-down, set thick books on them, and put them in the case wrong, snapping off a stem. Freud would say I don’t like wearing glasses.
Guy’s a genius.
Anyway I wore my broken glasses for a week, but I got tired of looking drunk, so I bought a new pair. We won’t talk about how much they cost, because now you need a second mortgage to buy glasses, which is why I never throw any away, but that’s not my point.
My point is that now I own a new pair of normal glasses, a pair of ancient prescription sunglasses I use for the beach and yard work, a pair of semi-ancient prescription sunglasses I use for driving and everything else, a pair of non-prescription sunglasses, and a pair of wacky zany kooky reading glasses, which is either the mark of a true eccentric or a middle-aged woman.
Or both.
My wacky zany kooky readers look like spin art on the board-walk, in fuchsia and turquoise with weird swirls of gold. I’ve found that even the most conservative woman will wear wacky zany kooky readers. In fact, the more conservative the woman, the wackier the readers. Secretly, I think we’re all sending the same message, which is:
I’m not dead yet.
I’m letting my freak flag fly.
Also you’re not the boss of me.
Yay, us!
Anyway, to stay on point, how can I have so many glasses? Every time I go anywhere, my purse is full of glasses cases. And the craziest part?
I also have contacts.
I got contacts in the sixth grade, after somebody told me, “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
Ouch.
Back then, contact lenses were made of actual glass, so you had to get used to them by wearing them for a month, blinking and tearing, in continuous eye pain. I never really got used to them, so you could tell I was wearing contacts by the tentative backward tilt to my head as I walked, like someone crossing a rickety rope bridge in the Amazon.
Plus the glass contacts were always popping out of my eyes, and everybody in the vicinity would end up on all fours, picking through the rug. The only good part was that I learned to shoot them out of my eyes for fun, by pressing down on the side of the lens, playing corneal tiddlywinks.
Sorry, only people old enough to remember glass contacts will get the tiddlywinks reference. All others, please humor me.
Anyway, it was a lot of trouble to go through for men to make passes, and then Thing One and Thing Two happened, so what does that tell you?
But now it turns out that contacts and glasses aren’t good enough, because there’s a new goop that women can put on their eyelids if they have “inadequate lashes.”
Wha?
The ads say, “It’s your own eyelashes—only better.”
Thank God my eyelashes can be better. I had no idea they were underachieving. I have slacker eyelashes.
The ad also says you can “grow your own lashes!”
This is a novel idea. I grow my own tomatoes. I grow my own basil. I never thought of growing my own body parts, for limbs and appendages that weren’t up to snuff.
Given my druthers, I’d bypass the lashes and grow more boobs.
I bet men would make passes at me, then. Even if I wore glasses.
I smell Thing Three.
But if you ask me, this eye business has gotten out of hand.
First glasses weren’t good enough, so I got contacts. Now my eyes aren’t good enough.
So will I buy this eyelash goop?
No. I’m older and wiser, and I draw the line.
And I don’t mean eyeliner.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice?
Okay, that happens.
But three times?
Never.
I have plenty of glasses, contacts, and eyelashes, thank you.
I can see clearly now.
My vision is, finally, perfect.
Breezy
The great thing about summer is that we all take the time to slow down, which is especially necessary in a world buzzing with laptops and BlackBerrys. Today I am marveling at the most perfect low-tech invention of all time:
The fan.
How great is a fan? No bells, whistles, or BTUs. It’s plastic, and it costs only fifteen dollars. You can’t even buy gum for fifteen dollars. I am in love with my fan, even though I have bad childhood memories of same.
Let me back up.
Growing up, we had no air-conditioning, and I remember going to my friends’ houses, where they did. My best friend Rachel had something mysterious and great called Central Air, and we loved it so much that we would leave her house only for the movies, where they had air-conditioning and a blue banner that advertised as much, in letters so cold that they formed icicles.
Remember that sign?
Please say yes.
Anyway at home, we had window fans, which were the source of much discord. The big debate was whether to turn them out or in. To me, even at age twelve, this was a no-brainer. One side blows air at you, and one side doesn’t. So which side should face you, as you sweat your butt off?
Of course.
Stick the fan in the window, so that it blows air on you. My father, brother, and I were aligned on this opinion, but we did not prevail, as we lived with a meteorologist.
Mother Mary.
You may not have known she was a meteorologist, but she was, when it came to interior weather. By the way, she was also a doctor, when it came to swimming after eating. And an electrician, when it came to
toasters near water. Mothers are women of invisible degrees, and she was no exception.
Mother Mary held that the fan should be in the window turned out, so that it did not blow on you. Her theory was that if it was turned out, it would suck all the hot air from the room and blow it outside, thus cooling the room. Sadly, the fan came with no instructions to settle the argument, and in the end, you know who prevailed, so we turned our window fans out and sweated in our living room.
Yes, it sucked.
Mother Mary also believed in cross-ventilation. In fact, if you ever meet her, don’t get her started on cross-ventilation. She can talk about cross-ventilation like some people talk about politics. According to her, you should throw open two windows opposite from each other, and the air from one window will be sucked in, whoosh magically across the room, and blow out the other window, thus cooling all the Scottolines sweating inside.
This sucked, too.
We waited and waited for a breeze to cross-ventilate us, yet it never happened. So we whined and whined for an air conditioner, and one day, they relented, albeit with a compromise. We would use fans and cross-ventilation in the living room, and in the dining room, we installed a window air conditioner, which supposedly had enough BTUs to cool the entire first floor.
It didn’t.
It cooled the dining room, but we never used the dining room except for Christmas, Easter, or another day when something really good happened to Jesus Christ.
And the TV was in the living room, so we were always in the living room, sweating amid the inside-out fans and nonex is tent cross-ventilation, while the dining room remained empty, if frosty.
When I grew up, I got to be the mother, so my house has central air, window air conditioners, and fans.
Overcompensate, much?
But this summer has been so cool that I’m using only the fan. It sits in the window next to my bed and whirrs pleasantly all night, cooling dogs, cats, and one middle-aged woman.
And it blows inside, the way God and General Electric intended.
Be Home By Ten, Mom
By Francesca Scottoline Serritella
For a little girl, watching her mother get ready for a night out is an education. I remember being mesmerized as my mother would line her eyes to a feline contour, or wrap her curly hair around a round brush and, with a wave of her magic hair-dryer, pull it into straight, spun gold. I would eagerly slip my feet into whichever pairs of heels did not make the cut for that evening’s outfit, and by the time I was four, I could lipstick my lips without a smudge.
Today, I can balance in stilettos of my own, and I graduated from regular eyeliner and went on to get my master’s in liquid liner.
So when my mom called me last week asking what she should wear on her date that Saturday, I thought, can I possibly teach my mother, the master, anything about getting ready for a date?
Five minutes into the conversation I realized, yes, God yes, I could help my mother. In fact, I must.
Girlfriend wanted to wear a suit on the date. Blazer and all, the same uniform she wears to meet with her editor. “I feel comfortable in that,” she said.
Yeah, because a date is the most fun when you treat it like a professional interview. But hey, if he gets to asking about “benefits,” you should throw a drink in his face.
No, Mom, you cannot wear a suit.
“But I look dumpy in my jeans.” Truth: my mom does not look dumpy. She and I wear the same size jeans. She is a tiny rocket ship that runs on love and worry. But I can’t convince her of this, so we compromise on black pants.
“My friend told me men like boots. But I think boots are workin’ it too much, right?”
I was immediately reminded of when I was eleven and my best friend told me that boys like it when you drink from a straw at the far corner of your mouth. For years, any visit to the mall food court was a chance for my soda-straw act. I don’t know what look I was going for—maybe “sexy dental patient”—or who my target audience was—Dr Pepper?—but it failed.
Trying to be seductive with a cheap plastic straw is workin’ it too much.
Anyway, I said, “Boots are fine. You’re supposed to work it a little, it’s a date!”
“And so a long sweater, maybe that blue one?” She went on to describe a sweater she owns that is the size and shape of a bathrobe. I borrowed it once, but I thought it was a dress.
“With the pants? It’s way too long.”
“But I have to cover my butt!” According to my mother, a burka would be flattering as long as it was black.
And then, I don’t know why I said it, because it’s creepy and dorky at the same time, but I said, “Mom, you have to show the wares!”
I actually said wares. I know, it was weird.
A few days later, she called me again. “Wanna hear something funny?” She went on to tell me about how her date selected a restaurant that just so happens to be where her ex-husband (not my dad) proposed to her. We laughed at the irony.
“But you didn’t mention that to him, right?”
Silence.
“You did?”
“It’s a funny story!”
I bet he thought it was a laugh riot.
Soon, a neutral location was agreed upon, wardrobe decisions were finalized, and the big day was upon us. Well, upon her.
One supportive daughter.
But I was nervous for her! All day, I worried—what if she resorts to the bathrobe sweater at the last minute? What if she gets something in her teeth and doesn’t notice? What if this guy doesn’t see how totally adorable she is? What if he hurts her feelings?
Saturday night, I went to a movie with a friend, but the whole night I was checking my phone to see if my mother had called or texted. When she finally called at midnight, I picked up the phone on the first ring.
“How was it?”
“Aw, it didn’t go so well.”
My heart sank. I was already hatching revenge plots against the cad when she continued, “He was nice, but I’m not sure I’m interested.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Not everyone is lucky enough to hang out with my fashionable, smooth, totally cool mom.
Just me.
Prince Charles
I’ve decided that refrigerator doors are bulletin boards for moms.
Not like the bulletin boards you remember from school, covered with construction paper cut-outs of hearts on Valentine’s Day. Or the bulletin boards at the supermarket, showing phone numbers for hungry painters. I’m talking about that bulletin board you had in middle school. The one that hung in your bedroom. The one that conveyed no information, but was all about things that mattered to you.
Your very identity, under thumbtacks.
I had one, as you can tell.
I still remember it, and it had school photos of my friends, with identical smiles and fake-sky backgrounds. It had my choir pin and a felt letter from the JV tennis team. It had, embarrassingly, a picture of Prince Charles from the cover of Time magazine. I always thought he’d make a good husband.
He could have been Thing Three.
Or King Thing Three.
Well, the other day, I went to the refrigerator to get some milk, and something fell off the door. I bent over and picked it up, which was when I realized that it was Daughter Francesca’s report card.
From seventh grade.
As you may recall, she’s 24 years old.
It made me take a look at my refrigerator door, and I’m betting it’s not all that different from yours. Its double doors are completely covered by layers of stuff, with the oldest on the bottom, like the sentimental strata of the earth.
The top layer is all of Francesca’s report cards, and they date from middle school to her college graduation. I can’t explain why I posted her report cards on the refrigerator when she no longer lived here, but I was so proud of her, even in absentia. Another clue is provided by the other stuff in the top layer, namely, a photo of a mother polar bear and her cub, a photo of
a mother horse and her colt, and a photo of a mother elephant and her—
You know where this is going.
The only other stuff in the top layer is birth announcements with baby pictures and Christmas cards with baby pictures. Half of these kids are driving now, but I can’t bring myself to take down their pictures.
How can you throw a baby in the trash?
I found most of the top layer in magazines and newspapers, and when I see something dorky but adorable, I clip it out and hang it on the fridge. I have to tape it up because my refrigerator is stainless steel, so by the second layer, even the tape is old. I think of that layer as the hokey layer, which is closely related to the top layer, in terms of emotionality. It contains photos that inspire, like one of a prima ballerina performing a soaring split in midair, and another of Olympian Shaun White flying upside-down on a snowboard.
Can you tell I’m afraid of heights?
The third layer is evidently the funny layer, plastered with cartoons.
You want it when?
My favorite cartoon is by Robert Mankoff of The New Yorker, and it shows a man on the phone at his desk, with a caption that reads, “No, Thursday’s out. How about never—is never good for you?”
God bless Robert Mankoff.
He could be Thing Four.
The other cartoons, all about work deadlines and nasty book critics, make me look more beleaguered than I actually feel. Whoever is doing all this clipping and taping needs to stay away from the refrigerator.
My Sub-Zero suggests that I’m subpar.
The fourth layer is the throwback layer, and part of me is relieved it’s so hard to find, underneath the inspirational kittens. There lie photos of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and a young Michael Jackson.
Also Eleanor Roosevelt, but she didn’t have a band.
Finally, the last layer on the refrigerator door contains all manner of diet information, like lists of calories, a chart of South Beach Diet foods, and an index of Weight Watcher points. This layer hasn’t been seen in a decade, and I suspect it came with the refrigerator.
My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space Page 4