Prattle Inc.

Like Sand Through the Hourglass

Holy smokes, Batman! The woman who went directly from child to "with child" is almost child-free. Almost.

On Friday, the great milestone of my youngest son's HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION (gulp!) culminated in cocktails on the lanai with assorted members of the family, one straggler and an internally weepy mother. At the young, young, young dammit! age of 37 I now seriously have two adult children. Whoa.

Tee left his mark on the ceremony by being mentioned in the valedictorian's address to the class and also by his impeccable sense of style. He is a strange man-child, adores wearing the suit that we bought him last year and would wear it and the shiny, black shoes daily if he could. Funerals? He'll be there just so that he can sport the suit. Celebrations? "Say it's formal, Mom, say it. I love those shoes." My son was easily spotted in the crowd of graduates. He was wearing an oxford shirt and shorts but only his bare legs, black socks and shiny, black, square-toed dress shoes could be seen under the cap and gown.

Back to the weepy Mom part...so I have only one child in school, and technically at home now. Have I mentioned, whoa? Just yesterday I was a single mom working, working, working, scrambling to get dinner on, homework done and wrestling dirty kids into bath then schlepping laundry and signing papers at midnight to turn right around and bribe, cajole, threaten three little ones out of bed and into their school clothes at o'dark thirty. Then I would haul them all to school with strict orders for "Everyone sit on your hands, right now, do it!" to alleviate the inevitable "He's touching me." "Am not." part of the morning. For a few years they rode the bus. I was always the youngest mom at the bus stop and ALWAYS mistaken for the older sister (that is still delicious when it happens, though it is rarer these days. Now I occasionally get "girlfriend". Whee! 37 ain't so bad, no sir.) on the first day. After a mere six hours, they'd come home in the afternoon or have the bus drop them off at my work and our little clan would be all up in each other's faces for the next eleventy-million hours. Every single day.

Since I gave birth to Jobie at sixteen and then grew two more children within the next seven years, I have sometimes felt that I would never, ever, ever be alone. There were always children, their friends, the neighbors, and/or relative's kids hanging on or around the porch, the house, me.

Now Jobie lives elsewhere. At 21 he comes by to visit a few times a week poking through the fridge and hauling laundry to do. Tee, rarely at home anymore anyway, is currently at the beach (faithfully calling me once daily to report that no one got busted the night prior) and next week will start working full time for the Company during the summer. He hopes to earn enough money to place deposits on an apartment by the end of the month with a couple of buddies who will also be attending community college in the fall.  Bratface and her menagerie of eight Besties have decided  that each of them will only come home this summer if she is allowed to have at least 6 of the others in tow. Needless to say they are touring the city. None of us parents are willing to take on seven to nine girls each and every day, and if you do the Math each girl has actually only spent a couple of nights in their own bed so far.

Thus far, summer has been great. Jefferson and I are in kind of a honeymoon phase, the first time in our lives that we are child-free. I have looked forward to this moment for 22 years. The house is clean! I am actually looking for clothes to wash to make up a full load! Making dinner for two is a dream. Without any kids in the house we run around naked all night and dance and sing and spill tequila on the pot plants.

Yesterday I called Bratface at her friend Em's house to ask when she would be coming home.

I was bored.

A Fly In My Soup

My father is a baby boomer. His childhood in the 50's and early 60's was just like what we all picture in our minds. He was the child of blue-collar factory workers who had lived through the Great Depression. He had a paper route, collected stamps, and gathered soda bottles for the deposit money. My dad tells stories of saving box-tops for prizes, listening to radio shows and jotting off essays and letters to every contest that was announced. 

And bygod, if you were sold a defective or inferior product! Back in the day brand loyalty and production of  quality services and goods was the norm. There was no throwing out a defective or damaged item, or just accepting the fact that the product that you had spent hard-earned money on would last for only a short time, like we do now. Times were different, money was harder to come by and consumers had high expectations of manufacturers/producers. If something was amiss you returned the product or wrote a letter of complaint. No matter if nothing came of it, in my father's family and many others during the 1950's and 60's, it was considered your civic duty to notify the company/store/manufacturer of the transgression.

The day I was 8 years old and opened a can of chicken noodle soup to find not one, but two flies floating on top of the congealed fat that rises to the top was my first induction into the familial belief system as described above. Dad laid out a pen and paper on the table and carefully tore off the label to inspect for a company address. I was encouraged to compose a letter politely and respectfully describing the problem as I saw it. He advised that I should use the letter as a means of informing the company of the insects in my soup, rather than as a reason to rant or complain. He also made me look up and learn the proper name for the common housefly to incorporate in the letter. (Musca domestica. I still remember.) I mailed it off immediately.

A few weeks later I received an apology letter from the Campbell Soup company accompanied by a case of chicken noodle soup and enough "Free" coupons for another.

The lesson I learned from this might have sparked my inner geek as well as my interest in writing, because after that I became the Queen of letter writing. I saved cereal box tops and sent away for free toys. On behalf of my dark-haired friend Nicole who was never able to find a doll that looked like her when we played together, I wrote my suggestion to Mattel Corporation for Barbie dolls to be produced with jet-black hair and hazel eyes. (Yes, at the age of 9 I personally started the Barbie Realism Revolution. Now you know.) At Dad's urging I wrote to a local tv station about their program scheduling and the reply letter contained free tickets for our entire family to the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus.

A few weeks ago I hastily dashed off an email to a publishing house suggesting that they republish an out of print book that I consider timeless. The (oh so poorly written) email was redirected to the actual editor of the very well known author. Gulp! She personally replied and we've had a few small exchanges. As of today there are two newly released books being sent to my daughter free of charge and I have direct contact with an editor of a major publishing house in the event that I ever consider querying any of my own writing. {Edited: The exchanges were quite friendly. We talked about our mutual love of the book. She said that some of this author's books are being brought out of the closet soon and she'd already wanted to recommend this one for reprint. She was grateful for the timing of my unsolicited email.}

Quick - I need teen novel ideas to pitch while the lines of communication are still open!

The Egg Mobile

Everyone remembers their first car. Mine was a slightly used 1986 Ford Escort, little, round and white. A stripped to the bones, basic with no options get-arounder.

I was almost 17 years old with a baby son and my father had had just about enough of my borrowing his car all the time with all of the hauling the car-seat into the car and back out into a corner of the walkway from living room to kitchen after every trip. He decided that the car-seat needed a permanent place of residence so that his toes could properly heal once and for all. I was sitting at the kitchen table reading while Jobie played on the floor around me. My dad walked in the front door and dropped a set of keys and a bunch of paperwork on the Sunday paper spread out before me. "Here are your car keys, here is the note. I've made the first two payments, but you should be able to afford the rest." It was $78 a month. I was ecstatic!

Immediately running out to see it, I bumped into my step-sister entering the house. "I got a car!" I beamed. "I know," she said, "I had to drive it home. It's a stick-shift." (My FATHER has never learned to drive a manual transmission. To this day.) My super sunny disposition took an immediate downward plunge. Crap! I wouldn't even get to drive it for a while because I didn't know how to drive a stick-shift, either.

But I went out to inspect and tried to start it. Success - it started. Feeling so impressed with myself to even manage that, I turned on the radio and looked around, then I let off the clutch to let it idle...without knowing that it should be in neutral. The herky-jerk that I would soon become so familiar with threw me forward and the car conked out just as the mailbox pole bent to the ground.

I won't remind you of your first stick-shift experience any further than to say that mine was just like your's. Start, lurch, jerk, stop. Trying to perform all of those functions with the gears and the pedals at the same time that my new-driver status insured deep concentration on just staying on the right side of the road was pretty hilarious. My driving instructor/step-sis and I started, lurched, jerked and stopped for about an hour that Sunday morning. I think we made it around it the block. Once.

Shash, my very best friend, was beside herself with the news. She didn't have a car yet either but that was irrelevant, we were always together. Freedom for both of us! She badgered and cajoled me. Of course, she said, I was going to drive us to school the next morning, no more sucky bus riding for us. I hemmed and hawed and explained that I didn't really know how to drive it yet, that I needed more practice. If there's anything worse to a teen's self image than to be seen by all of the older, more seasoned license holders (of maybe a whole year) driving a car but not doing it well, like taking 15 minutes to park in the school lot, or god forbid, crashing into things, I sure couldn't fathom what that would be. Shash begged and pleaded, told me I'd do fine, that riding the bus even one more day was seriously damaging our coolness standings. She finally convinced me that if I could just get the car over to pick her up in the morning we'd be gold. She'd teach me to drive the stick-shift on the way to school.

I somehow  managed to lurch and stall my way to her house about a mile away in the next subdivision but by the time I showed up we were already running late. She plunked down into the passenger seat and proceeded to start spewing out directions on how to reverse. It was a complete fiasco. Her driveway was steep and the ditch was deep. Since only a portion of the car went down, we got it out without having to resort to assistance from her parents inside.

She was supportive of my efforts and provided much needed tips on how to manage this car, just like a seasoned pro. It didn't take very long for me to get the hang of it, as long as there were no stops/starts involved, and before we knew it, we were almost at the then rural, single stoplight, four way intersection that brought classmates from every corner of the county to the road that the school was on. It was the only way in and I dreaded it, before and after school every car was full of teens beeping and waving to each other like long-lost relatives. Since we were running late we arrived at the stoplight at prime time, every car full of teens laughing and yelling out the windows to each other. With Shash's coaching, I managed to slow and stop at a very safe distance behind the car in front of me at the light, busting only a single blood vessel in my anxiety ridden head. But then the light turned green.

I panicked. And proceeded to lurch, jerk, stop right into the middle of the intersection where the car completely stalled. I could not get it moving. I could barely keep it running. We lurched and jerked about 5 times and proceeded forward a mere 3 feet, ending with the car dead again, but this time completely blocking the middle of the small intersection. Since the inevitable beeping and heckling from all of the upperclassmen had begun, I tried a few more times, with Shash bellowing directions over my loud cussing, to make the car just. move. forward. to no avail. Five minutes later, with two thirds of my high school watching and jeering, I jumped out of the driver's seat in the middle of the road and ran around to the passenger side. Near tears, I yanked open the passenger side door and demanded to Shash that she take over and get us the hell out of that intersection.

My oldest friend in the entire world, the one dearest to my heart even as I write this, that bitch, looked at me and said "I don't know how to drive a stick-shift. I've just seen my dad do it."

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Tomorrow Tee will probably own a car. We have been looking at two.

Every kid should learn to drive a manual transmission. Don't you think?

 

Ode to Christina E.

"Everybody's got their shit."

That's what a friend in high school once said to me when I was complaining about something or other small and petty and stupid and high-schooly.

She was justified, too. Because her "shit" was far more complex and important than my petty little woes.

A 15 year old, the wealthy Old Money girl who had two happily (?) married parents, the family, the house, the cars, the vacations, the best boyfriend, the most talent, the grades and the looks taught me that no matter how perfect anyone's life seems on the outside we've all got ghosts in our attics - trials, internal struggle, family problems, personal eccentricities. 

We're not so different.

Only the details are.

Hits and Tits and Mom's Birthday

Do you guys look at your stats? I do, but I don't really know how to read them. I mean, I can see the basics but I don't know how to delve further and pinpoint exactly which IP address belongs to who or what geographical plane they come from. (But I know people, so don't get any ideas.)

I've had a bunch of hits from Neilochka's site. And I know why. It's because of my comment on his post today. So...who's the perv? His readers? Neilochka, himself? Who, I ask?

Well, anyway it's true. I go braless. Often. Never to the kids' sporting events, though. I would prefer that they live, and if I'm going to embarrass them to death I hope that I do it in a way that is more fun for me than by simply omitting an extra layer of clothing. And I don't go around skanky-braless, I go braless when there is already a built-in bra in the tank top, or under layers of teeshirts under sweaters in the winter. Or when I'm in the comfort of my own home. Ok, and sometimes in said tank tops to run errands, but whatever.

The bad news is that it's really not that exciting. I believe that it is true that only small-chested women can get away with this.

I blame my mother. She was young and cool and hip, a child of the 60's and a rebel of 70's {Edited to do the proper math. Mom was a boomer.} a lesbian, but not the butchy kind, she was feminine, sold Mary Kay and wore perfume. She frosted and curled her hair and acted like and raised her daughters to be "a lady".

The God of Fat Placement did not see fit to overly enhance that particular part of her anatomy and she was on the smaller side, as well. Even after giving birth to three children, she wasn't saggy or maladjusted so she didn't wear bras all that often. When I was Bratface's age, it mortified me and we had endless conversations about it. "Breasts are natural," she would say, and "Honey, you've got to learn to be comfortable in your own body."

Well, I guess that she is chuckling about it right about now, because that scene and the same discussions are being relived over and over again with my own mortified, almost 14 year old daughter who goes on high alert, warning me of impending visitors and reminding me that she will die a quick, yet painful death if any of her friends so much as notices the outline of a nipple.

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Mom died of cervical cancer one month shy of her 36th birthday. She would have been 55 today. I'm so glad that she was secure enough with herself, her body and her choices that even though her life was short, it would not be an overstatement to say that she had a damn fine one.

Dad Called from Gram's House in Buffalo Tonight

Windows of the Duster all the way down, hot summer air.
Black vinyl bench seats, front and back,
that pull the skin off of legs
when the sheet slips.

Three little girls.
Dad with long sideburns and Jesus sandals.
Plums and potato chips    - every year.
Store brand flavored soda, especially black cherry, it stains the best.

Eva the clown and Patty Patch
take up too much room,
are hot,
in the way,
have gunk on them.

In trouble for whacking the sister who brought them.

We practice spelling Susquehanna, for 200 miles
Look for Amish buggies
and Amish kids.

Do Miss Mary Mack exactly 332 times.

Badger cheapo Dad to buy us each our own drink and fries.
Sing along to the Doors and the Beatles.

Win the prize for being the first to recognize Hertel Avenue.

*These memories put no Gram in harm's way.
Hertel Avenue is a main street, a landmark for us.