Forever, Erma
Page 14
As we hit the kitchen, the glasses are a little more current. There’s a flashy pair with fins going up the sides like an old Buick. I was talked into them by my husband, who got sick and tired of sitting at the table and telling me, “Your peas are at eleven o’clock, your steak at three o’clock, and the steak sauce at five-thirty.” They’re a bit stronger, but I can do without them any time I want.
My present glasses are also expendable. Really. I just use them to match up my shoes, put on lipstick, recognize my mother before she speaks, and tell time. But I got extra pairs for my handbags, the glove compartment of the car and my coat pockets just to keep everyone happy.
My family is always ragging me to get contact lenses. Hey, I’d be the first to get them if I felt they were crucial—but I don’t need them!
Weekends—March 15, 1990
At about seven o’clock every Friday night my world as I know it falls apart.
My perfectly healthy teeth start to hurt because they know my dentist’s office closes at six. They will not stop thumping until early Monday morning, at which time they will become perfectly healthy again.
The TV cable will go out. Count on it. Repeated phone calls will put me in touch with a recording giving me weekday office hours. By Monday it won’t matter. I won’t have time to watch it anyway.
Someone in the house will come down with a mysterious malady that I have come to call Friday Night Fever. It’s not high enough for the emergency room, but not normal enough to ignore. It’s only enough to make you crazy that if you don’t act, you may need an attorney.
With all the weekend services available to people, it’s incredible how some things sense when you can be brought to your knees.
If I run out of blank checks, it will be on the weekend. If our dog gets lost, it is always between Friday night and Sunday, when “Help” falls on deaf ears. Keys break off in doors only on weekends. And I have never had a prescription that needed a doctor’s OK expire on any other day except Saturday or Sunday.
At first glance, you might think cars are just inanimate hunks of metal that are incapable of thinking. Get real. Most of them figure you’re going to run their wheels off on the weekend, so they just refuse to go. If it is winter, the electric windows will go down and freeze there. They know you have to go the distance to find a mechanic on duty on the weekend.
Probably the worst part about weekends is the house. It dies. Toilets overflow, washers freeze, dishwashers overheat, dryers don’t and water heaters won’t, the septic tank smells, the sliding glass door won’t lock, water pressure is reduced to a trickle and something crawls into the woodwork and expires.
I try to rejoice with the TGIF crowd who cross off Monday through Thursday on their calendars as if they are serving time, but the truth is I live in dread of those two days when all the things I depend on are no longer there for me.
The ones who gather in a bar named for their favorite day of the week anticipate a glorious two days away from their desks. I have to be realistic and realize that synagogues are open on Saturdays and churches on Sundays. Given my weekends, there’s a reason for this.
Changing of the Closets—May 1, 1990
It’s an ancient ritual that makes the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace look like an impulse.
Every spring and fall, millions of women march into their bedrooms, fling wide their closet doors and stage the seasonal Changing of the Closets.
Generally, the shuffling of clothes from winter to summer and summer to winter is a feminine trait.
Most men can live with short-sleeved shirts jammed next to their wool sweaters, but women cannot.
With each item of clothing that is taken off the rod, questions are asked and decisions are made:
1. Can these pants be buttoned when they are around my waist? No. Are they attractive on me? No. Do they have a designer label in them? Yes. The aye has it. I save the pants.
2. Does this hat go with anything? No. Would anyone else wear it? No. Did it cost 40 bucks? Yes. The hat stays.
3. Did I wear this coat one day last year? No. Will I wear it next year? No. Is it still in style? Yes. I store the coat.
There are rules to abide by. Clothes have a statute of limitations. If I do not wear an item in five years, I must (a) have it altered, (b) go on a diet and meet it halfway, or (c) put it in the holding drawer for three years.
At the end of three years, these clothes are reviewed again and a decision is made to (a) reinstate them to active status by inserting elastic waistbands, (b) infiltrate them into the closet to make it look like I have more clothes than I do, or (c) rip off the buttons and use the clothes for dust cloths.
Like a drone, I make the trip back and forth from my closet to the one in the guest room. Every time I drop off a load of dark wools and leathers, I return with an armload of cottons and gauzes. The transition takes days—sometimes weeks. My husband understands none of it.
“If you are going to transfer all the clothes in the bedroom closet to the guest closet and put the ones in the guest closet in your bedroom closet, why don’t you just use the guest closet every other season?”
How can you reason with a man for whom pomp and tradition have no meaning?
Swinging Was Respectable on Front Porch—September 22, 1994
In a world where people fear who is hanging out in the shadows of automatic-teller machines to withdraw from you what you have just withdrawn and put signs in their car windows, “Don’t bother to break glass. Everything has been stolen,” I was cheered to read that the front porch is coming back.
After World War II, all activities moved to the back of the house. Owners put in barbecue grills, patios and pools; and then they built a fence around it so no one would see what a good time they were having.
For those of a generation who can’t imagine the function of the front porch, allow me to fill you in. It was a place that had a swing that squeaked. There was a roof over it so that when it rained you could swing back and forth and listen to the sound of it falling and smell the fresh earth. Kids left their bicycles and wagons on it so people wouldn’t trip over them on the sidewalk in the darkness.
After dinner, parents had their coffee on the porch to watch the parade of people taking walks. Sometimes they stopped to get caught up on the news of the neighborhood.
For daters, the front porch was the place where you kissed, shook hands and promised to call. (I swear to you that’s the truth.)
We lived in a different world back then. We could never have imagined a time when you pulled the blinds and hid behind them at dusk. We could never have imagined forgoing all that drama going on outside with kids and neighbors to sit in a dark room and watch Kukla, Fran and Ollie on a 10-inch screen.
The porch was another room. I can remember my mother on a stepladder washing it down with a sponge every spring. There were flower boxes and a table to hold the lemonade. There was a welcome mat.
The four of us—my mom, dad, sister and I—talked about everything. We talked about Dad’s job, our school, Mom’s day, when we were going to get a dog. We watched stars. Sometimes we argued. A newsboy ran through the neighborhood one night shouting “Extra!” Wiley Post and Will Rogers had been killed in a plane crash.
More than any other topic of conversation these days is the state of the world and its people. What’s happened to us? Our cars have alarms and clubs on the steering wheel. Our doors have deadbolts and are lighted up like nuclear sites. We’re afraid of other adults and their children. We all want our old world back, but we don’t know how to get there.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s a path that leads to a front porch. It was more than just a place; it was an arena for learning how to act and how to trust and how we belonged to a group of people more important to us than ourselves.
Martha Stewart—September 27, 1995
My mom was visiting recently, and we sat stunned as we watched TV’s Martha Stewart getting ready for Christmas. In 20 minutes she made an elabo
rate gingerbread house that looked better than the one I am living in. She followed this with baking 300 cookies the size of whoopee cushions, which she decorated and hung from the Christmas tree.
Two grown women watching a homemaking god prepare for a holiday that is three months away is what is so incredible about the Martha Stewart phenomenon.
I find myself unable to turn off her program.
What does this mean? Are there other women out there who are returning to putting creativity back into their homemaking, to join those who never left?
That’s what those of us who had Martha Stewarts for neighbors tried to get away from. You all remember her. She was the woman who hand-painted her garbage cans with sunflowers while we didn’t attempt anything that didn’t have connect-the-dots. She maintained an organic garden, knew how to change fuses and made elaborate Halloween costumes for her children while the rest of us cut holes in garbage bags and shoved the kids out the door.
She entertained with theme parties (Low-Fat Fertility Foods Nite). She baked every day and ate nothing.
It’s been 20 years since I’ve thought about a windowsill garden, but the other night as I watched Martha stake her tomatoes with rings cut from her pantyhose, I said, “I can do that.”
I have started going to flea markets looking for mismatched bargain dishes to bring interest to my table. I think I bought back most of the dishes I got rid of in 1958, but I’m not sure.
My husband can’t figure out what has happened to me. The other night I watched Martha plan a lobster bake by the seashore. He watched with me as she poured half a cup of gin into the boiling water before she dropped in the lobsters.
“Why doesn’t she just drink the gin and forget dinner?” he asked.
“Shhh.”
Martha said, “The gin relaxes the lobster. If you were going to be dropped into boiling water and steamed, wouldn’t you want a drink first?”
When she was ready to take it all to the seashore, she had little brushes handmade from rosemary and dill, butter with chili and limes in it, and fresh corn.
My husband said dryly, “But will it play in a carport?”
Martha is not married.
Dear Old Dad
When God Created Fathers—June 17, 1973
WHEN THE GOOD LORD was creating fathers, He started with a tall frame.
A female angel nearby said, “What kind of father is that? If you’re going to make children so close to the ground, why have you put fathers up so high? He won’t be able to shoot marbles without kneeling, tuck a child in bed without bending or even kiss a child without a lot of stooping.”
...And God smiled and said, “Yes, but if I make him child-size, who would children have to look up to?”
And when God made a father’s hands, they were large and sinewy.
The angel shook her head sadly and said, “Do you know what you’re doing? Large hands are clumsy. They can’t manage diaper pins, small buttons, rubber bands on ponytails or even remove splinters caused by baseball bats.”
And God smiled and said, “I know, but they’re large enough to hold everything a small boy empties from his pockets at the end of a day, yet small enough to cup a child’s face.”
And then God molded long, slim legs and broad shoulders.
The angel nearly had a heart attack. “Boy, this is the end of the week, all right,” she clucked. “Do you realize you just made a father without a lap? How is he going to pull a child close to him without the kid falling between his legs?”
And God smiled and said, “A mother needs a lap. A father needs strong shoulders to pull a sled, balance a boy on a bicycle or hold a sleepy head on the way home from the circus.”
God was in the middle of creating two of the largest feet anyone had ever seen when the angel could contain herself no longer. “That’s not fair. Do you honestly think those large boats are going to dig out of bed early in the morning when the baby cries? Or walk through a small birthday party without crushing at least three of the guests?”
And God smiled and said, “They’ll work. You’ll see. They’ll support a small child who wants to ride a horse to Banbury Cross or scare off mice at the summer cabin or display shoes that will be a challenge to fill.”
God worked throughout the night, giving the father few words but a firm, authoritative voice and eyes that saw everything but remained calm and tolerant.
Finally, almost as an afterthought, He added tears. Then He turned to the angel and said, “Now, are you satisfied that he can love as much as a mother?”
The angel shutteth up.
Consolidating Cereal, Ice Cream, Cookies, etc.—December 8, 1974
I poured myself a bowl of cereal this morning, and out dropped the weirdest array of raisins, flakes, oats, puffs and squares I have ever seen.
“Whatya call this?” I asked one of the kids.
“Frosted, fortified, cracked Cranbran flakes.”
I dropped my spoon and slumped. “Don’t tell me. Your father is on his annual crusade to consolidate all the empty boxes cluttering up the cupboards into one box!”
“Right,” said my son. “If you think the cereal tastes rotten, you should dip into the ice cream. He found six cartons, each with a different flavor, with a spoonful left in each box, and put them into one bucket. It looks like someone spit up at Howard Johnson.”
“Please,” I cautioned. “No more.”
“Not only that, he mixed all the cookies left lying around into one bag, and every time you reach in it’s like trick or treat. You don’t know if you’re getting one baked this year or not.”
“I’ll speak to him,” I said. I found their father in the bathroom trying to siphon a cap of toothpaste into another tube. “I want to talk with you,” I said.
“If it’s about the jellies being mixed together into one jar, I think you’ll find the flavor rather interesting.”
“It’s not just the jellies,” I said. “You’re becoming paranoid about empty boxes.”
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.
“You’re making skeptics out of the children. They don’t believe in anything anymore. They grabbed a box marked pretzels off the shelf the other night and sank their teeth into banana-flavored corn chips.”
“The banana corn chips weren’t moving in their box,” he said.
“That’s not the point. You do it with everything. Mother asked for an aspirin. I gave her one of the pills that you mixed together into one bottle. I didn’t know if it would cure her headache, sweeten her breath, dry up her cold, put her to sleep, make her regular again or control birth. I can’t go on living with a man who grafts soaps together in the soap dish and puts cake coloring in old shampoo and pours it into herbal shampoo bottles.”
“Go on out and have your cereal,” he said softly. “You’ll feel better after breakfast.”
I checked the dog’s food supply. The box was full. I felt better already.
Stepfather—January 6, 1980
In addition to imitation mayonnaise, fake fur, sugar substitutes and plastic that wears like iron, the nuclear family has added another synthetic to its life: step-people.
There are stepmothers, stepfathers, stepsons and stepdaughters. The reception they get is varied.
Some are looked upon as relief pitchers who are brought in late but are optimistic enough to try to win the game.
Some are regarded as double agents, who in the end will pay for their crimes.
There are few generalizations you can make about step-people, except they’re all locked into an awkward family unit none of them are too crazy about.
I know. I’ve been there. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I became a hyphenated child a few years after my “real” father died. I was the only stepchild in North America to have a stepfather who had the gall to make me go to bed when I was sleepy, do homework before I went to school, and who yelled at me for wearing bedroom slippers in the snow.
My real father wouldn’t have said that.
My real father wouldn’t have done that.
My stepfather remained silent when I slammed doors in his face, patient when I insisted my mother take “my side” and emotionless when I informed him he had no rights.
My real father wouldn’t have taken that.
My stepfather paid for my needs and my whims, was there through all my pain of growing up...and checked himself out of the VA hospital to give me away at my wedding.
My real father...was there all the time, and I didn’t know it.
What is a “real” mother, father, son or daughter? “Real” translates to something authentic, genuine, permanent. Something that exists.
It has nothing to do with labor pains, history, memories or beginnings. All love begins with one day and builds.
“Step” in the dictionary translates to “a short distance.” It’s shorter than you think.
Daddy Doll Under the Bed—June 21, 1981
When I was a little kid, a father was like the light in the refrigerator. Every house had one, but no one really knew what either of them did once the door was shut.
My dad left the house every morning and always seemed glad to see everyone at night.
He opened the jar of pickles when no one else could.
He was the only one in the house who wasn’t afraid to go in the basement by himself.
He cut himself shaving, but no one kissed it or got excited about it. It was understood whenever it rained, he got the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription filled.