C.A. Haddad's Blog, page 9

Really?

It’s raining it’s pouring

The old man is snoring

Got into bed and

Bumped his head and

Couldn’t get up in the morning

At least this was the police conjecture.  But we know better.  Don’t we?

Scrooge was a miser.  Donnelley was a miser plus.  You’ve probably wandered through one of his furniture stores and never wondered about the people behind it.  He wasn’t the kind to put his family up front, making all sorts of cutesy ads.  With Donnelley it was always value for money.

You’d think with this philosophy he would have invested more in his children instead of making them work their way through college, “So you’ll know what the value of your education really is,” he justified.  His wife’s Easter outfit?  He bought her a sewing machine.  She explained that a dress and hat would have been cheaper.  But he said, “This way you can make all your clothes.”

The salespeople in his stores worked on commission.  If they didn’t make a certain amount a month, he fired them.  If they made extra, he gave them no bonuses to keep them.  So the best of them moved on.

Due to his being too cheap to use contraceptives, the Donnelleys had four children, two sons, two daughters.  All were in therapy.  And after their mother died, they rarely saw the old man.

Then one day he summoned them.  They came, mainly to see one another, as they were spread out over the country and kept in touch mainly by text and FaceTime.  Donnelley told them he was retiring and had sold his stores to a larger chain than his, a national chain.  Then he smiled that grim smile of his and said, “You know, my lawyer has advised me, now that I’m out of the business, to finally make a will.  He said you have four children, you don’t want to leave them in the lawyerly lurch.  And I said to him, what have my children ever done for me?  None of them joined the business.  None of them came to live with me after their mother died.  So I’m going to leave all my wealth to my charity.”

“Dad, you don’t have a charity,” his eldest David informed him.

“Not yet.  But I will.”

“Do what you wish,” his elder daughter Jill said dismissively.  “You’ve never helped us before.  Why should we expect anything now?  And by the way, we’ve all done pretty well for ourselves without your help.”

“So what I’m telling you now that you’re all here,” the father continued as if no one had spoken, “this is your last chance to get to the house and see if there’s anything you’ve left behind, because I’m selling the place and moving on.”

If Donnelley expected to rile his children, he was mistaken.  Because they really had made full lives for themselves.  David had become a pharmacist.  Jill, had her own business, making and marketing handmade soaps.  Bob, the old man’s second son, was an electrician, and Cathy, the youngest, had joined the army, attaining the rank of major, so far.  Their father never needed them and they didn’t need him.

Except—

“It’s funny that Dad never made a will,” David said, after they left their father and were dining at a restaurant in the middle of downtown.

“He never thought he would die,” Jill responded.  “And now a charity.  What a joke.  Whom has he ever supported except himself?”

“You know, if he dies intestate—“  Bob let the thought dangle.  And then they all looked at Cathy.  She, after all, had seen combat.  Her reaction was to laugh.  “Hey, I’m in the engineering corp.  I’m not a sharpshooter.”

David sighed.  “I guess we better get to the house and give it one last run-through, although I think we took all we wanted when Mom died.”

“Except her sewing machine,” Jill said bitterly.  “That was her memorial.”

So they got into rental cars and made their way to the house of their youth.  Meanwhile Donnelley stewed.  He’d hoped he’d get more of a reaction from his children, he thought they would finally show him at least the respect he deserved if not the affection.  He sighed and thought, oh well.  A charity it would be, but who should benefit?  Who was worthy of his help?

That evening he went home.  Despite giving his children one last chance to get what was theirs, he saw no difference in the house at all.  He considered calling for food delivery, but he had a frozen meal he could nuke, and that’s what he had with his nightcap of fine Irish whiskey.

After watching a bit of television, mainly to see his competitors advertising, he started up the stairs toward his bedroom, noting on the landing that it was pouring out.  He applauded himself for his foresight in getting the gutters cleaned from winter’s detritus last week.

Upstairs he went through his usual nighttime routine, took his pills, washed his face with some of the soap his daughter had sent him at Christmas.  Then he made his way to his bedroom, feeling, he had to admit, a bit woozy.  Too much whiskey.  He decided to turn on the bedside light to read a few book chapters to ease himself into sleep.  But, as soon as he pushed the switch, the bulb blew.  The extra bulbs were in the basement, and he had no intention of going down there this late at night.  So he’d sink into bed and count sheep, as his grandmother always told him to do.  He closed his eyes and had fond thought of his youth and this, his grandparents’ bed he was lying in, with the heavy mahogany headboard.  They didn’t make furniture like they used to.

As he was drifting into the netherland of sleep he had the feeling of falling.  Too much whiskey again, he assumed.  Donnelley never realized the bed itself was sinking and the mahogany headboard was toppling over on top of him until it was too late.  He tried to push it off of him, but, he found he just didn’t have the strength.

The police did a wellness check two days later.  Old man Donnelley was dead.  Died intestate.  Something ironic about a furniture store magnate being done in by furniture.  Or maybe—done in by something else?

Enough Already

Diddle diddle dumpling my son John

Went to bed with his trousers on

One shoe off the other shoe on

Diddle diddle dumpling my son John

What’s a mother to do with a son like that?  He’s twenty-eight years old.  The pandemic descends; he calls to say his school is closing, can he come and live with you for a few weeks until he can decide what to do.

John has issues.  This you’ve always known.  He didn’t have the stick-to-itivness of your other children.  Take the oldest.  She sells BMW’s.  During the pandemic do you think she’s making any money?  Like, who’s buying cars now?  Does she complain?  Not to you.  And now she’s home-schooling three children, while her husband, a radiologist, waits around for people to get X-rays or whatever it is he reads.  He’s also not making the big bucks, as everyone is terrified of heading to a hospital.

Your middle child?  Okay, he’s doing well.  You thought he was insane when, after being laid off at his marketing firm, he and a colleague pooled their money and bought a bike shop. A bike shop, for godsakes.  Who rides a bike anymore?  Little did you know.  Too bad BMW didn’t make bikes, maybe your daughter could have gotten in on the ride.

And John?  At twenty-eight he was still finding himself, right now finding himself back home.  How many false starts had John made in his life.  You sent him to college, he majored in sociology.  Was that even a major anymore?  He decided he wanted to be a pastry chef, but then there was that incident with the rolling pin that cost you a ton for a lawyer.  Onward to a teacher’s certificate, where he thought he might be able to teach social studies and coach soccer at the same time.  This was a promising start to a real career, derailed when he punched a parent making too many derogatory remarks about his team.  And now—school to become a medical tech.  Your husband always said, as the years passed, “When is he going to make something of himself?” And you’d reply because he was your baby, “Give him time. He’ll find the right path—eventually.”

And so he did—find the path—right back in his old bedroom, doing nada, not looking for a job, not even continuing his studies on line.  He’s suddenly decided that medicine right now was too dangerous.  He’d find something he’d be more committed to.  Like maybe organic farming.  “Life’s too short to work at something you don’t love,” he told you.

How would you know.  You had worked too many years as a dental technician to put the kids through college, still working  so that you and your husband could have an interesting retirement.  That’s if your husband stopped working in construction, which didn’t look likely.  With everyone staying  home, they all found remodeling projects they put off for years that needed to be done immediately.  Your husband even offered John a job deconstructing a living room wall, but John came home and said the dust bothered his asthma.  Since when had John had asthma?

“We can’t just kick him out,” you were prone to saying.  Because when a child’s your child, you’re responsible.  Aren’t you?

“Every day I come home to find him slopping around the house aimlessly,” your husband complained.

“He says he’s thinking.”

“Yeah, well I’m thinking too.  Let him borrow a bike from his brother and start making deliveries.”

You know your husband is right.  You are an enabler.  But how to break this cycle of John’s dependence?

You suppose the crisis came when you opened the cabinet to have your nightly bourbon and discovered the cupboard was bare.  The bottle was missing.  Since your husband never drank, there could be only one answer.

More in sorrow than in anger, you went to your son’s childhood bedroom and opened the door after knocking softly.  Yeah, there was John, lying in bed, cradling your bourbon bottle, trousers still on, one shoe resting on the newly laundered duvet cover, while the other shoe had slipped off his foot.

Oh so gently you removed the shoe still on his foot and eased his legs together.  Then you left his room and went to the garage to get a sheet of plywood, an electric screw driver and some nails.  You weren’t exactly handy with construction material, certainly not like your husband.  But your skill set wasn’t particularly needed to cover John’s bedroom door with the plywood.

When you were revving in the final nail, John opened his bedroom door and marveled at being confronted with a wood panel.  “What’s this?” he wondered, perhaps now too alert to slur his words.

“I’m carrying out an experiment,” you replied.  There was plenty of room for John to hear you because the plywood left a gap both at the top of the door and the bottom.  “I got it from my readings.  Do you remember the story of Livilla?”

“Who?”

“Livilla.  She so disgusted her mother that her mother locked her in her room and let her starve to death.”

“But—but—what does that have to do with me?” John wondered, sounding a bit worried.

“Just stay put, dear. I have to find another sheet of plywood for your window.”

“Mom?”

“Be back in a second.”

“But, Mom?”  You made no answer. “Where’s this coming from?” you heard him call, as you left the house for the garage again.

He was at the bedroom window when you returned with the second sheet of plywood.  “What are you doing?” he panicked.

“Darling, you’re our responsibility.  I don’t want you to be a burden on society, so I’m doing what should have been done ages ago.  I think there are still Tic Tacs in the top drawer of your dresser, where I put your clean underwear this morning.  They should keep you going for a while.”

“You’re—you’re insane!”

You found it hard to balance the plywood against the window, but you figured once you got one nail in the rest would be easy.

“You can’t do this!”

“My house/my rules.”

“If you think I’m going to stand for this.”

“You can lay down for all I care.  As that’s how I found you less than an hour ago.”

“I can break down this plywood any time I want,” he countered.

‘I know.  But when your father comes home, I’m sure he’ll have a more permanent solution.  After all, there’s always brick and mortar.”

“You’re truly truly nuts!”  He waited for your reply. You gave none.  I”m not staying any longer in this house if this is the way I’m going to be treated.  I thought I was your favorite.”

Just as you suspected, the second nail was easier to get in.

Then you heard a loud crash coming from inside the house.

Knowing your son so well, you took the precaution of hiding your purse and your car keys. So there he was, out the door of your house, running down the street as if the Furies were after him.  And you thought to yourself, there’s nothing like a classical education.

Of course, your husband wasn’t pleased with the damage you had done to the house, but he brightened when you said John had run off, hopefully for good.

John never did return to your house, ever.  And sometimes that hurt.  But for the most part you breathed a sigh of relief.  Besides, he had a new family now, working as a Manny for two adorable children, and you refused to believe he was the cause of the impending divorce due to adultery.

Someone Needs a Therapist

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie

Kissed the girls and made them cry

When the boys came out to play

Georgie Porgie ran away

Okay, let’s face it.  Georgie has problems.  There’s a duality in his nature that should be examined.  Most members of the male species like to brag about kissing girls, whereupon such girls are labeled as fast or easy.  But Georgie doesn’t stick around for self-aggrandizement when the boys make their appearance. Instead, he runs away.

Is this because all the girls have boyfriends?  Hardly.  They’re too young and the boys are too callow.  Then, knowing all this, let’s put on our thinking caps.  What must we deduce about Georgie Porgie?

You got it in one.  He’s a pervert, an adult preying on young girls in the school yard.  The girls are innocently playing double dutch or hop scotch, while he’s lurking around, maybe waiting for a game of tag or hide and seek, where he can take his pleasures where he may.  But he didn’t reckon with Girl Scout Troop 197 Eagle.  Nor did he understand that there was a new Girl Scout badge for crime busters.  Poor Georgie, his porridge would soon be in a puddle.

Due to strict lectures from their mothers, all the girls knew what was happening. Many times they had reported Georgie to the principal, who had alerted the police; but Georgie was smart enough to make himself scarce if he saw surveillance.  So the time had come for 197 Eagle to take action and earn that badge.

And so it was on a perfect spring day that the girls organized themselves into what some might call a tag team of vigilantes.  There were the double dutchers, the dodge ball players and the hide and seekers to tempt Georgie out of the shadows.

There he came, right on schedule, looking left, right, forward, behind, happy to see no police cars, no teachers, no one watching—except, here was Lucy with the lisp, standing boldly before him.  She said in her sweetest voice, “Hello, Mr. Porgie.  Do you want to play with me?”

Can the big bad wolf look any more sinister than Georgie did at that tempting and oh so innocent invitation?

Lucy skipped around the perimeter of the school yard, coming back once again, giving Georgie the sweetest smile so that he dared to follow her onto the school grounds, salivating as he went, not noticing the double dutch girls moving closer and closer and—

Whapp!

All of a sudden ropes were flailing him right and left, smacking him hard across his body whipping him this way and that until he was totally entangled.  Panicked, he knew he had to escape.  But as he tried to remove the ropes, all of a sudden there was a barrage of balls slamming into his body over and over again, until he was suddenly down on the ground, all trussed up, ready for the police, as the principal rushed out of her office and called them on her cell phone.

Girl Scout Troop 197 Eagle were delighted to have their photos in the paper and even more thrilled to receive their crime busters badge.  Lucy with the lisp spoke for all of them when she said, “I’m proud to be a Girl Scout and I can’t understand how any girl would want to join the Boy Scouts.”

Okay, that was off message, but the point was that just because no boy wanted to be a Boy Scout any more that didn’t mean that girls should prop up the Boy Scouts.  After all, propping up men would come later in their work lives and if they married.

As a side note, Georgie Porgie’s bio included being a Scout leader, but no action was taken, as he only attacked girls.

Mary and her Lamb

Mary had a little lamb

Fleece as white as snow

Followed her to school one day

Which was against the rules

Made the children laugh and play

To see a lamb at school

Yes, this is a very truncated version of “Mary had a little lamb.”  But did you really want to read all the repetitions?  It’s probably swirling around in your head, even as you read this. I know it is in mine.

So what’s with Mary and her lamb, you might be wondering.  Was she a  farmer’s daughter and a 4-H member?  You got it in one.  Every year she raised a lamb to show at the State Fair, where she hoped to get a blue ribbon.  After the fair, her parents would insist she sell the lamb to the highest bidder, who would lead it to the slaughterhouse.  But the lamb was loved—for the moment.

The mistake this lamb made was following Mary to school—one day.  So many happy children were out at recess, laughing and playing, as the lamb gamboled about their school yard.

But there’s always a bully in a school yard, isn’t there?  This one’s name was Percival.  Now you’d think someone with the name of Percival would have enough problems without picking on other people or their lambs.  But Percival had his own lambs, and he was sick of not ever getting a ribbon at the State Fair, not even honorable mention. While this little Mary in her pinafore and Mary Janes always seemed to win something.  If it wasn’t for her lamb, it was for her samplers, or her pineapple upside down cake, which Percival was sure Mary’s mother helped her with.

So when the school bell rang, calling the children in from recess, everyone lined up to return to class—except Percival and the lamb, as lambs in school were against the rules.

No one noticed Percival was missing, or maybe they did and were just glad to be rid of him for a while.  So outside on the playground were just the two of them, Percival and the lamb oh, and the knife Percival held in his hand.

“Come here, lamby-pamby,” Percival urged, slowly creeping up on Mary’s little lamb with fleece as white as snow.

But those of us who have shepherded lambs know that they do not come hither for anyone, except maybe for Mary and an experienced sheep dog.  So the chase began.  Percival moved one way, the lamb skittered the other.  Off they went, darting back and forth, until Percival had chased the lamb to the edge of the cliff far above the roiling waves of the sea.

Now lambs will be known to follow a leader over the edge of a cliff, but Mary’s lamb had no leader.  Mary was its leader.

Well, the inevitable happened.  Percival ran at the lamb, knowing this time there was no escape.  But the lamb hunkered down just in time to watch Percival fly over its fleece as white as snow and also the cliff’s edge.

The end of Percival the Bully?  Not quite.  Because it wasn’t a sharp drop down to the sea but a series of cascades, Percival had caught hold of a tree root and found a foothold on a narrow ledge, where he could look up at the lamb and down to the sea below.  Because of his jealous nature, Percival knew he was done for.  Unless—unless he called loudly enough so that someone would hear him.

But the only one to hear him was the lamb.  Mary’s lamb.  However, if Percival could hold out until lunchtime, maybe—

And that’s when the lamb, realizing that not everyone was as nice as Mary or as nasty as Percival, decided to make a moral choice.  Off the lamb gamboled, back to the school yard and up to the school house window.  There it butted its head against the glass and let out innumerable bleats, so many that the teacher became irate and told Mary to take the lamb home, pronto.

So out Mary went, ready to scold her lamb.  But unlike most times, this time the lamb shied away from her, bleating and leading her onward, making circles around her so that she would follow.

And follow she did, over to the cliffside, where she heard a weakened Percival calling for help.  “Oh, my!” Mary exclaimed.

Mary’s interpersonal relationships at that point in her young life were mainly with the girls in her class.  So she had no idea how much Percival despised her.  If she had realized his dislike, she might have acted differently.  But instead with a pureness of soul and a good-hearted nature, she rushed back to the classroom and informed both teacher and students of Percival’s predicament.

Fire and rescue were called.  What excitement it was for the children, as they gathered around to watch the rescue!  When Percival was finally lifted above the cliff’s edge, the children cheered.  Percival looked abashed but happy to know not everyone hated him.  How grateful he was to Mary—and her lamb.  Tears came to his eyes when he saw even the children he bullied celebrating his rescue.

Maybe this experience would make him a better person?

Well—maybe, but let’s not count on it.

Meanwhile, the hero of the day was Mary’s lamb.  This one, because of its bravery, Mary’s parents allowed her to keep. It was with her always for as long as it lived.  Its wool served her well for mittens and blankets; and even if the lamb no longer won blue ribbons, Mary’s weaving did.  She became well known throughout the county and then the state as an artist of distinction for her intricate patterns.

Percival?  A leopard doesn’t change its spots.  Or so they say.  Having never seen a leopard in the wild, this I cannot attest to.  Percival soon forgot the joy he felt upon his rescue, his love of all mankind, and became known, both as boy and man, as someone to avoid.  He moved away from the farm where he grew up to a small town.  There he made life miserable for everyone he encountered.  Until one day finally he disappeared and no one knew where he had gone.  Or they just weren’t saying.

Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after

Yeah, we’ve all heard this one before.  But does anyone know the true story?  Here are the facts:

Jack and Jill were siblings.  Their parents’ names were Jane and Jason Janowitz.  Jane’s maiden name was Jerrard.  They wanted to keep the J’s in the family.  Jill was born two years before Jack.  She was old enough when he was born to know that she was being displaced in her parents’ affections.  Jack was a prince. She was his handmaiden.

And so it continued as years passed.  Jack went to an elite private college costing the family over eighty thousand dollars a year.  Jill was sent to a state university because it was so much more sensible to pay instate tuition.  Jack got his parents’ monetary support through medical school.  Jill, despite a fellowship, was forced to take out student loans to pay for room, board and expenses when she got her Ph.D. in anthropology.  Her thesis was, of course, on patriarchal societies.

Education completed on both their parts, their parents bought a summer cottage upstate, among the rolling hills and green pastures, dotted by the occasional glacial boulder, which made farming hard—for farmers, of which the Janowitzes were not.

How quaint the cottage was. How back to nature, albeit with all the modern conveniences.  But how tenuous modern life can be when the power goes out during a family vacation, and you’re left in the dark with no tv, no heat, and your phone is running out of charge.  And, perhaps most important for human survival, no water.

A drive into town would have solved that problem if a giant oak hadn’t fallen over the driveway and landed on the Range Rover.  But there was that pump up the hill.  It hadn’t been used for a while, but the farmer who sold the land to the Janowitzes assured them it still worked.

As morning broke without coffee and croissants, Jane insisted her two darling children take the ice buckets up the hill and at least pump some fresh water.

So they set out, Jill carrying two ice buckets, Jack urging her onward.  The sun glinted on Jack’s Patek Philipe watch that he had received for graduation from medical school.  Even though she had presented her parents with a bound copy of her thesis, all Jill had gotten was, “That’s nice, dear.”

Reaching the pump, Jill put down the buckets and waited. After all, men have better upper arm strength than women, so surely Jack would pump the water while she held the buckets.  But he just looked at her.  So she said, “Aren’t you going to—“

He held up his hands.  “Can’t risk them if I’m going to be a surgeon.”  He waited as she did nothing but fume.  “Come on, Jill,” he urged.  “I mean, all you do is use a trowel, right?”

So Jill, anger building, stepped up to the pump and started pumping.  Now, if you’ve ever pumped your own water, you know that water doesn’t come right away.  You pump and you pump and then a dribble, then a medium flow before it gushes out and gets all over you—if you’re not experienced, as perhaps the farmer was.

Jill was wet.  The buckets were full.  Jack was standing with his back to her, admiring the sunny landscape after yesterday’s storm.  He turned slightly, made note of the full buckets, then turned back and said, “Come on, then,” waving her on, as he took his first steps back down the hill.

But Jill didn’t move.  She lifted one bucket and swung it around her head over and over again like a sling shot until it achieved maximum centrifugal force, and then she let loose and watched with orgasmic delight as it smacked her brother right in the middle of his back.  Whereupon he lost his balance and tumbled down the hill, ricocheting off a fence post and a boulder until he landed about a hundred feet from the cabin door.

Of course Jill came running down after him, wondering if his fall had broken his twenty-two thousand dollar Crown and Caliver Patek Philippe watch.  Dare she hope?

Their parents rushed out the cabin door as soon as they heard Jill’s shriek and saw their son crumpled on the grass in front of the cabin.  “What happened?” Jane Janowitz asked her daughter anxiously.

“Damned if I know,” Jill replied.  “But here’s the water you asked for.”

Of course the story has a happy ending—of sorts.  Jill’s parents with the last of their phone charge called for a Medivac helicopter to get Jack to the nearest trauma center.  By the time the whole family was able to gather in the hospital waiting room, the neurosurgeon on call assured them that Jack would be fine, a mild concussion only, but the orthopedic surgeon informed them gravely that Jack had broken his wrist.  It would take some time to heal and probably not have the mobility ever again that he would need as a surgeon.

So Jack, whose memory of the incident was always a bit hazy, even when seeing a therapist, went on to become a dermatologist, while Jill discovered that the neurosurgeon treating Jack had been three years ahead of her at the state university.  They had fun reminiscing about their favorite ice cream parlors and pizza places and, well, what else is love made of?

So Jill and the neurosurgeon married.  It wasn’t the life she expected, but her husband did volunteer for Doctors without Borders, which gave her a chance to do some field work of her own.  His name was Dimitri by the way.  Their children were Sasha and Elena, loved equally.

Jack married a shopper.  Their children were Jacqueline and Jackson.  Poor Jackson suffered in the clothing department, having to wear off-brand jeans, but Jacqueline’s clothing always bore a designer label.  She was such a princess, while Jackson—well, that’s another story, isn’t it?

Joy To The World

When I was growing up, about twenty miles north of New York City, our town was rather homogenous in that we were a Norman Rockwell painting of Americana.  Parades for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and definitely July 4th.  I always marched in my Brownie uniform, after which I was given a ticket to get a one-scoop ice cream cone from Johnson’s.  This was way before the city’s suburbs expanded, and we became a part of the greater Metropolitan area with its many “ethnic” newcomers.  In other words, even though there were about four Jewish families at our school, no mention of our holidays was ever made.  In fact, our music teacher always ended our classes with a rousing rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and we never thought anything of it.  Or should I say I didn’t.  I think our parents kept a very low profile.  Can you imagine the fuss that would be made now if any music teacher tried something like that?

Christmas music?  I loved it.  I loved the hymns where I got to sing alto.  Every year the dairy where we got our milk would hand out a free booklet of Christmas carols, which I would pound out on the piano while my siblings gathered around, singing loud and in tune.  And let’s not forget the Christmas pageant, where we all wore purple robes and solemnly marched down the aisle with our battery-operated candles, singing “O Come All Ye Faithful.”  A pantomime of the Nativity story was part of the extravaganza.  Every year we all waited expectantly to find out who would be blessed enough to be chosen to play Mary.

Happy days, some of them.  Of course growing up is never happy all the time.  And then off I went to college, where, if you can believe this, my roommate introduced me to Handel’s “Messiah.”  How had I missed out on the “Messiah?”  Yes, my parents had a lot to answer for!

Now I am old and times have definitely changed.  Everyone is so culturally sensitive.  If you’re mentioning Christmas, you should mention Hanukkah and Kwanza.  Is the New Year the New Year or is it Silvester (St. Sylvester’s Day)?  Let’s not flip the calendar back to Halloween many decades ago where some parents wouldn’t let their children participate because it celebrates the saints.  I know it’s better to be all inclusive as opposed to exclusive.  But I won’t give up my love of Christmas carols and the joy they bring, even though now I could probably qualify as a tenor, should anyone allow me to join in.

So joy to you all.  Let us sing our way into the new year, where a brighter light shines.

Shandy Blue

What do you owe a father you’ve never known? Julian Billings asks himself that question when he discovers he’s the son of an artist.  Not a famous artist, a mediocre artist on the verge of discovery when the inevitable happens.

Tifton Shandy, the unknown father in question, had received a $5,000 grant from the Great Lakes Art Council because of his work “Moods in Blue,” six panels in various hues of blues, for which he made his own pigment.  Expectations were high for an exhibit of this defining work.  But when Julian had his father’s estate dumped on him unexpectedly, he had to ask himself:  Where were the panels?  Where were the “Moods in Blue?”

Larceny is at the heart of “Shandy Blue.”  Does art corrupt?  What about collecting art?  Is banking on a dead artist’s work turn one into a criminal?  Well, yes, at least for those associated with Tifton Shandy.

How will Julian Billings and his girlfriend Lettie Gorlick deal with the duplicitousness?  Not to mention how will Julian relate to a family he has never known?  And will Julian be forced to take up oil painting, something he has never tried before?

Will these questions all be answered within the depths of “Shandy Blue?”  Of course!  So join Julian for a lighthearted romp through the world of artful deceit.

Get Ready for Shandy Blue

Does art imitate life?  Oh, yeah, I know the question should be reversed, but I find events in my life flowing into my—“art?”  Let’s just call it “writings.”

Take, for example, my first novel, “The Moroccan.”  I was living in Israel in 1972 before the country became super prosperous for some people, where the caste system wasn’t based on money but on country of origin.  Moroccans were down at the bottom to be supplanted by other arriving nationalities in later years.  That was fun to write.

Then along came Melissa Abrams in “The Academic Factor, another spy novel.  This is a woman who lives to complain.  Much like myself.  As my husband has often said in explanation, “If she’s not complaining, she’s not happy.”  How very very true!  Who knew he could be so perceptive?

I think I married my husband for his exotic background, as opposed to my New York small-town suburbia.  Here was a man, born in Baghdad, moved to Tehran, made it to Tel Aviv and then to Princeton, where he had the good fortune to meet me. We married within two months so there wasn’t much time to get acquainted.  But over the years that followed, he told me stories of his life and that of his extended family.  I used that background as inspiration for “Flowers of the Desert.”  Goodness, no!  That wasn’t my title.  When it was published and I vaingloriously asked a book shop if they carried it, they directed me to the gardening section.  Thus, you can imagine how successful the novel was.

However, it created a volcanic reaction in a certain member of my husband’s family, who will remain semi-nameless.  At first he thought of suing me.  But then, I assume, he realized that, if he recognized himself in a totally fictional character, others might too.  So instead he sued my husband for stamps he gave him as a gift when my husband was twelve.  Is it any wonder that in the family he’s called Uncle Monster?

“A Mother’s Secret” was my next family saga and the most popular book I’ve ever written.  Even I cried while writing it.  It was supposed to get a blurb by a well-known author but she refused because it contained too much sex, which she thought would offend her reading public.  I think I shall give credit to the map room at the university library in Urbana for this one.

“Getting Even?”  Exactly as it sounds.  I wanted to get even, but I didn’t want to be arrested for murder, so I did it on the page.  My dear husband, the font of so much joy and laughter, decided to drag me away from wonderful Atlanta and move me to—Illinois again!  I thought I had a reprieve from death on earth when we left Urbana.  (See above about complaining.). In this, one of my favorite novels—by me—a guy gets it.  He spent his life betraying women and it finally caught up with him.  This was the only one of my books translated into Russian.  Something to contemplate.

On to the north shore above Chicago.  Does “entitled” ring a bell?  So I wrote “Caught in the Shadows,” my first murder mystery, which cast an unfavorable light on my new home town.  They didn’t even bother to review it. Tant pis!  Still available on Amazon, baby!

Then the fertile mind lay fallow—until I saw a notice in our very wonderful public library—no complaints here!—for a poetry contest.  It was a puzzle piece and I entered.  For some reason I didn’t win.  Bad taste on the judges’ part?  But one time, when I parked at the library, I saw the poetry society outside reciting poems to one another.  I didn’t hear the poems but the whole setting brought an evil smile to my lips.  Ergo, “The Wanker.”  This was my first self published book on Amazon because my agent didn’t seem to understand it.  I was celebrating bad poetry.  And I had so much fun writing said bad poetry that I laughed all the way through writing the novel.  Poets, be aware:  You are celebrated.

Now along comes “Shandy Blue.”  Yes, blue is my favorite color.  I give credit to the Art Center of Highland Park and my excellent teacher there Carole Pearlman for inspiring my love of—well, blue.  And collage and watercolor and all the other different media we used.  However, “Shandy Blue” is about oils.  There aren’t enough rags in the world to make me take up oil painting, but our hero in this novel certainly did, with a vengeance to prove his father’s worth.

More anon!

The Ughness of Preparing Dinner

I have many failings as a mother.  Could the worst be my inability to produce a decent dinner?  I’ll let my three kids take a vote on that.  Mealtimes with Mama might come up on top.

My lack of culinary skills starting early.  While at my mother’s knees, I learned to sew and that on a treadle machine.  Cooking?  She never endowed her children with a love of it.  And her skills?  She was a meat-and-potato-type woman, which is why my father ended up with gout.  (On the bright side, she made a potato salad no one could beat and her spaghetti sauce was admired—by my daughter.)

My mother never mastered the broiler.  Too much trouble to clean was her assessment.  On the rare occasion when we had steaks, they were fried in a pan on top of the stove, and our treat was bread soaked in steak grease.

My first experience with cooking after marriage was making my husband a dish I learned in Girl Scout camp.  He was not impressed.  On the other hand, the only thing he ever managed to make was an omelet, although he was a mean hand with cold cereal topped by 2% milk.

Naturally, I breastfed when the kids came along.  That was until they could move to a sippy cup.  For my last child I got ambitious and made my own baby food, so much healthier, I was informed.  But kids grow up and they want more than a sippy cup and mush.

For the longest time I suffered from depression.  It started about four thirty in the afternoon, when I knew soon enough I’d have to put a meal on the table, and it ended about seven, when the kitchen was cleared for another day.  I was a great one for casseroles, and I can remember my older son asking hopefully, “What are we having for dinner tonight?”  And I’d answer “Crap 24,” or “Crap 290.”  He got the picture quite quickly.  We’d be eating crap again.

Did they starve?  Well, okay, the kids were on the thin side.  But always when they came home from school I would have cut-up fruits and fresh vegetables for them to munch on.  And I would always have homemade chocolate chip cookies available.  Did actual meals really matter?

When each child in his or her turn decided to become vegan, I thought, well, that’s it.  Why even bother?  And yes, I had sort of bothered before.  My stint in the kitchen shrank further when my two oldest went to college and I had just the younger one, the one who left the freezer door open all night and spoiled everything inside.  Enough said.

Finally free of children, just my husband and I were left to contemplate dinner.  The saving grace here was that he ate his main meal at lunch, thanks to the subsidized university cafeteria where he worked.  So it was just a matter of putting something in front of him.  I would make a large batch of pasta and serve him at six.  For some reason by the third day of pasta he only reluctantly came to the table.

Me?  Hey, now that we no longer had to eat en famille, I eat at 7:30 in front of the television, within reach of my bourbon on the rocks.  That 4:30 depression.  Long, long gone.

Has there been an upside in my lack of culinary skills.  You betcha.  Each of my children have become gourmet cooks.  And they owe it all to me.

On Getting Older: Let Us Meander

Note:  I will never say on getting old.  Why face the truth?

So what is the essential question for women on getting older.  Quite naturally, pun intended, it’s to dye or not to dye—as Hamlet might have put it, if he were a woman.

I have dyed my hair for—oh, I really can’t remember when I started.  I was born mousey brown, very straight, very fine hair, meaning that there was no curl whatsoever and it was very hard to create one.  (At this point I’m going to mention the incredibly expensive Dyson hair dryer because it has worked miracles on my straight hair.).

Mousy brown began not to cut it as I grew older, so I started going blond, then blonder, until I found for some reason I really didn’t need to dye my hair all that often. At first four times a year, while now I do it twice if that.

I have been blessed with the same hair genes as my Aunt Rosalyn, who had pure white hair, but I’m too young to look angelic, so I add a hint of blond. A year or so ago I decided I wanted to go pink.  Loved it, but I think that dye was physically harmful, so I stopped.

I’ve stopped a lot of things.  Like in this pandemic I don’t wear a bra.  How close to heaven can one get!  Yes, my tits drag themselves down to my waistline, but I wear big shirts; and, let’s face it, at my age, who’s looking.

How times change, foundation-wise.  And how the word “foundation” itself has changed.  Now it could mean one’s makeup base.  Or a charity.  Before it meant—girdles. When I married, I still had peasant hips; but I weighed one hundred eleven pounds.  Yet, on my wedding day I wore a girdle. Attached to the girdle with snaps were nylons with seams.  What was I thinking?  Now people wear Spanks.  I tried them once.  I felt like an Italian sausage in its casing.  Money wasted.

My mother wore a one-piece girdle-bra combo every day of her life with garter snaps and nylons.  The only surrender she made to modern times was to wear nylons without seams.  She never wore pantyhose, she didn’t even have a pair of slacks.  She was a great one for throwing parties at Christmas, and I remember her confiding with shock that she didn’t think the boss’s wife was wearing a girdle.  Quelle disgrace!  

My mother lived to 102, not happily, I might add.  She had a fall and after that, the girdle was out.  But every day her caretaker would dress her in a skirt, a blouse and a sweater, where she would put Kleenex up the sleeves for emergency use.  Unfortunately, for her sartorial splendor, she wore socks and slippers.  When she was sensate and I would visit, I suggested that I take her out for a stroll around the neighborhood.  By that time she was in a wheelchair and was shocked that I would even suggest such a thing.  “I don’t want people to see me like this,” she said to me.

Yes, insane. Like people would be staring out their windows, waiting for her appearance.  Her misguided pride kept her a prisoner in her own home for the rest of her very long life.

We can learn from our parents, can’t we?  And I certainly learned from my mother that I will not be stuck in my house alone with no one to talk to. All her children lived far away; she never wanted to leave her precious house; and her caretakers were busy talking on their cells to relatives overseas.

There used to be all that talk about not wanting to be discarded in a nursing home.  But there are other choices now, assisted living, memory care, people, activities, life—at least what you can make of it.  Children?  Would I live with my children?  Ah—NO!!!!!  Hey, kids, you’re safe.

But back to our sartorial discussion.  As you might have cottoned to, I don’t spend a lot of time coordinating my outfits for my many public appearances—in the grocery stores.  Jeans, yes, even at my age, a sweater on top, sneakers, light makeup—and of course a mask.  Do I look fashionable?  No.  My daughter tends to be horrified by my clothing selections.  But, hey, we each make our own choices.

I used to be more cognizant of my public persona.  That was before I discovered sweatpants.  Therein lies my downfall.  Previously, I was wearing zippered jeans.  Zippered jeans:  They’re like a girdle, don’t you think?  Sweatpants leave room for expansion, which I did.  And let’s not talk about the weight menopause puts on, at least for some of us.  I would call myself pleasantly plump.  Or just plump.  I don’t regret it.  I have seen older women who are stick figures and proud of it.  These women also tend to be tanned.  Let’s face it.  They look mummified.  At our age, we need flesh on the bone.  Or at my age, I suppose I should put it.

I think I’m happier now that I’m older.  Hopefully, the only trauma ahead is my appointment in Samarra.  I have three wonderful children (I put this in in case they read this), I have friends, and I have autonomy.  Of course, there’s always a caveat.  Who knows what’s going to happen?  Right?  But until then I’ll chug along in my elastic waist jeans and enjoy life while I can.