Which is hard to believe considering the bladder problems I’ve always had.

It wouldn’t have mattered, either way; my family doesn’t talk about such personal things, choosing instead to overlook them with polite parentheticals. Should an uncomfortable topic arise in conversation, we are likely to smile and pass it off with an “Is that so?”, but not in an encouraging way.

Inflection is key in asking a question without looking for an answer.

It’s an art form, actually.

Likely, had it been an issue, they simply would have spent a fortune on new sheets and bed spreads, and I would never have been the wiser…except—that awful guilty feeling you have waking up in your own, you know, pee.

Or urine, if you prefer. But, let’s be honest, there’s no way to talk about this without using one of those two words, so buck up.

I do, however, recall one incident in which I did wet the bed.

A family member had died, as they tend to do on occasion, and we had a house full of company, and not just random-hitchhiker company, either. This was strange-relative company which, as you know, is far, far worse because they come spending the night with a sense of entitlement.

I had given up my room to some random cousin-couple (read that as you wish), and was crammed in the front guest bedroom, where no one, not even Day or Night, or Guests, ever went. I have never understood the convention of giving up your own room for company. Is it because it’s a noticeable sacrifice that you hope makes your company feel, at least, a little bad? Or, Is it because you know you never clean the guestrooms and instead, they become extended closets, and so you’d be embarrassed to have other people see it?

I guess we’ll never know.

I was uncomfortable all night long, and when I woke up, it was of little surprise to see that I’d wet the bed but good. A change of sleep patterns is indicative of increasing bedwetting chances. If nothing else, this room would get cleaned now.

U.L. took it all in stride, though. (Which is the “up” side to being raised by the Last Great Victorian – confrontation of any kind is to be avoided). But, he was also a wonderful surrogate father. He was gentle and compassionate. And I think, I like to assume, that because he didn’t scold or embarrass or implicate me in those delicate mishaps, that it helped me overcome them—be it bedwetting or something I suffered with far worse in my early days: stuttering.

I still felt awful about it. He reassured me, certainly, but he was concerned. And though it wasn’t perhaps meant, what I eventually began to take away from these bedwetting moments, even as few and far between as they were, was the fear of one question: What would people think?

And that, I’m afraid, is what cemented in my young brain.

Case in point: last night’s dream.

I’m at a school, preparing for class, that I was suddenly told I had to teach. The room is quickly filling up with eager college students; I’m a nervous wreck. The room is crowded, and noisy. I decide that if we all take our shoes and watches off that it will settle us. So, everyone does. I have chosen to show the entire third season of Roseanne and have everyone write haiku about the plot. A student hands me a Thums Up, also known as the Coke of national choice in India; it goes straight through me. My bladder is literally about to explode.

I don’t know what to do. I’m in the middle of class. So, I call former TV-star Jay Thomas, by pressing a button on the wall by my podium—he was obviously a popular person at this school—he steps into relieve me for a few moments. I run down the hall and find the bathroom, but it’s entirely full. There are no available stalls and I can’t use the urinals because I sit down when I pee, we all do in my family as it’s impolite to be heard using the restroom.

I’d even warrant that we’d rather just die of kidney failure than to use one. (After this dream, perhaps that will change).

I wait and wait and wait. A stall finally opens. I rush in and turn to close the door, except it won’t shut. I’m nearing desperation. I try everything. Finally, I kick the hell out of it and it catches the latch.

Whew.

I begin to unbutton my pants when I realize that even though the door is latched, it doesn’t meet the wall of the stalls. There is an inches-wide crack all around the door. I can see everything; everything can see me.

I simply cannot pee in these conditions.

So, I do the next best thing. I wake up. At first, confused—I’m not really a Jay Thomas fan—and then it dawns on me: I really have to go to the bathroom.  My brain was trying to both tell me and not allow me to abandon my Victorian ideals, not even for a wayward second. It woke me up, instead.

It wove a dream involving two of my worst fears:  sudden teaching (the educator’s actor’s nightmare), and having to pee when I don’t have the time to. Don’t laugh; I secretly think that’s everyone’s fear.

The point is, it woke me up, first.

And when I crawled back into bed, I did so amazed at the lengths the human mind will go to steer you in the direction of your upbringing.  I was grateful, and then mad about it.

I couldn’t get back to sleep for admiring how smart my own brain was.

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And let me tell you something. When you give a lot of money to a cause, it is no longer a fad.

It is a fact, i.e. We now have bicycle lanes.

The thing is, it’s catching on. I went downtown, before Christmas to buy a book for my brother-in-law, a book I swore I’d never look at it, let alone, pick up—Dubya’s Decision Points—and I swore for a moment that I’d taken a wrong turn off Lafayette St. and ended up in a suburb of Tokyo. I was shocked to see how many people were pedaling.

I was pleased.

So pleased, in fact, that I asked for a bicycle for Christmas, and got one.

And now we’re entering Day 15 of The Stand-Off.

To be sure, I wanted to ride it. And, honestly, I did. Just down the road to the church on the corner and back, which very nearly killed me on both sides. My legs had no trouble, but the rest of me did. To put it lightly, I didn’t pedal with a happy heart. I was angry at the bike, at myself, at the fools who put a church at the bottom of a hill, in the first place. Even a small hill.

And then, I got in trouble. Casually mentioning how brave I was in getting on a bicycle after mgmhm years, I was stopped, mid-sentence, and scolded: Did you have helmet on?

“No.”

“You can’t ride your bike without helmet.”

“Ok, sorry.”

“I’m serious. You need a helmet. And you probably ought to get knee pads, and maybe elbow pads, too.”

Which is why I don’t usually cash in on a fad. There’s no end to what you need to buy. A helmet, I understand, but by the time I’ve put on the rest of that garb, I’m be too tired to even look at the bike.

But, this is the great marriage: Going Green means Safety. And I couldn’t argue with that.

And, this is the great Adulteress to that marriage: Vanity. Because I wasn’t sure I wanted to look like a half-breed Pod person, just for the sake of getting some outdoor exercise on my bicycle.

Until I remembered the alternative.

My first bicycle was electric blue, weighed more than I did, and the handle bars were literally a part of the bike. They weren’t adjustable. They rose so high from the neck that had I been smarter, faster, and more coordinated, I could have hooked a blade to the bottom of my bike and cut my neighbor’s yards while trimming those pesky low-lying tree limbs that hung too close to dangerous power lines.

But, nobody has legs that strong. And even my freakishly long, Abe Lincoln arms couldn’t reach higher than the flimsy crepe myrtle branches.

Which factors prominently in my story.

Because, ever the curious child, I trained myself to pedal without holding onto the handle bars up to a certain speed, for the sole purpose of trying, with all my eleven-year-old might, to pull off the small, miniscule bulbs from the lower branches of the crepe myrtle trees down by the start of the driveway.

Then, I would pretend they were magic beans and I’d have to—you know what, never mind, that isn’t important to the story.

Now, you must understand, I grew up out in the woods. Not raised by coyotes, necessarily, though they did what they could to the chickens. So, they were more like those neighbors. My point is, what’s a helmet to a kid who, on occasion, had to round up stray, discontented cattle?

 I’d made my mind up, this particular Saturday morning, and I was going to start all the way over in Nana’s yard, get going at my fastest speed, and in one quick fell swoop, would let go of the handle bars and grab every single bulb on both trees, at one time.

I’d never done that before; I’d just soft-pedaled my way around the crepe myrtles up by the house. And so, I wasn’t thinking of how I’d then have to re-grab the handle bars, once I’d succceeded. I wasn’t one for thinking things through.

As U.L. put it, I “wasn’t but book smart.”

Do you know anything about crepe myrtle trees, by the by?

They’re a smooth bark, with a thick base off which spring whiplike little branches that make the world’s best switches, or so I’ve been told. They’re flimsy and flexible; they don’t have any trouble at all, going with the wind, wherever it may go. And they’re sturdy and can leave a right smart slap to your skin.

That is something I learned that day about crepe myrtles.

I never made it past the first tree. My handle bars got caught in the first branch, the bike fishtailed, I went flying off the banana seat, leaving my Members Only jacket in the top part of the tree, somehow. I fell hard onto the gravel driveway, face-first, and slid a few inches more into the dirty culvert, in the ditch by the second crepe myrtle.

The best part, though, wasn’t the myriad gashes and cuts I suffered. The best part was how the tree and the bike, in collusion, mocked me. Looking back, my bicycle looked as if it had simply been parked by the tree. Wheels on the ground, handle bars locked in a loving embrace with the branches.

Only I looked a fool. And as my bruises and cuts began to heal, I also looked like a poor, neglected child, much to U.L.’s dismay.

 In short, I’m going to buy a helmet this weekend.

 And I thought you should know why. It’s not because of any fad.

 It’s because of my face.

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They were replaying, in conversation, a blow-by-blow of what they’d done earlier that morning: sledding. It doesn’t snow here the way it does “up north.” The threat of a half-inch closes down most businesses and schools.  We’d gotten several inches, actually.

And they had gone sledding.

And they were talking about it.

One guy said, “Yeah, I hit you pretty hard.”

Another guy said, “Yeah, you did.”

They laughed at that. Then, said the exact same thing again, using different words, and laughed again.

From where I sat, they seemed to be having a really good time talking about nothing. Or rather, the same thing.

It prompted me to say to Thomas, who was with me, that I wondered exactly what it is we talk about. Do I ever say anything worth talking about? Not just between me and Thomas, but between me and you, me and the world, me and everything.

I really couldn’t answer.

And Thomas, being a good friend, wasn’t going to a) encourage me in the irony of talking about whether or not I have anything worth talking about, and/or b) tell me the truth.

But, he understood.

Maybe there’s not even really a problem, here. Maybe it isn’t about what you say when you’re with your friends as much as it’s about being with your friends.  Still, it takes a few brave people to hang out, and then say nothing the whole time, wouldn’t you say?

On the other hand, everything you say can’t be a pearl of wisdom.

The issue, then, is striking a balance.

I’ve noticed in myself—because this hypersensitivity to blabbering didn’t just raise its head yesterday—that I do talk about myself a lot. I do. In almost every conversation I enter into I find that I try at almost every moment to correlate whatever it is we may be talking about to myself.

I do this for several reasons: equal disclosure, familiarizing myself with subject matter, using myself as a safe example. That’s what I tell myself, at least.

I’m sure the people on the other end of the conversation don’t see it that way, per se.

And yes, OK, OK, sometimes I bring the subject back to myself to maintain a modicum of interest in conversations, especially those I find boring.

But, then, don’t we all do this? Who can pay attention forever? Not me.

Perhaps, we should take a moment and dissect a conversation, though.  

A conversation is two or more people engaged in a point of interest with either corresponding  or opposing views. (I threw that “opposing” in there, although technically that’s called an argument). In general, one person offers a statement; the others then add to it or redirect by offering a separate statement, right?

Am I close on this?

In Speech, I used to teach the old formula that Communication (which is, in its most basic form, a simple conversation) = a Speaker  (Information) + a Medium + a Receiver– as little Noise/Interference as possible.

In that formula, I’m afraid I’m the Noise/Interference, much more often than I’m the Receiver. Because people in general bring a lot of “noise” with them: cell phones, distractions, menus, time constraints, make-up, it’s an endless list dependent only on the environment in which the conversation is being held.

I, at least, recognize that I’m responsible for a lot of my own “noise.”

First, it’s hard for me to concentrate, even with big ears. I say I listen too hard, but maybe that’s a plain, good, old-fashioned lie.  I do listen for too many things. And so, sometimes, I pick up the wrong indicators, and respond to a minor point, or no point at all, in a conversation.

I often miss cues.

The other day I was at the theatre, helping build the set for our upcoming production of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; I play Panch, who doesn’t sing because I don’t sing during the cold months if I can help it; the temperature is too hard, too thick on my vocal cords.

We cycled through several topic-strings, one in particular involved my recent trip to Orlando and the E.T. ride at Universal, which led to technological advancements in amusement park attractions, which then jumped to The Goonies and Martha Plimpton and Stand By Me and the fate of those boys in the movie both literal and cinematic and then here’s what happened:

Paul, the director, was in heaven stabilizing a platform for the pianist; heaven is what we call the upstairs part of our stage. He said, “I wonder what the significance of the M&M’s is.”

I had the perfect, made-up response, and said, “It’s all marketing. E.T. had Reese’s Pieces, so The Goonies took on M&M’s.”

I was wrong on a lot of accounts. I knew for instance The Goonies had successfully secured a coup with the Baby Ruth, and assumed I’d just forgotten the scene with the M&M’s. (I hadn’t. There are no M&M’s in the movie); I also incorrectly thought that the movies had come out in the same year. (Again, no. E.T. – 1982; The Goonies – 1985). I also thought we were still talking about E.T. and The Goonies. (But, we were not).

Paul was referencing a scene in the musical.

They were gracious enough to not call me out on it, but I think it’s because I’m already considered a wild card in conversations, as in, God only knows what Kris will say, just keep talking. He’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he’ll laugh at anything, so roll with it.

So, I rebounded by laughing, naturally, as if I’d made a joke so funny and of such wit and internalized reference that to explain it would render us all fools for not having caught it in the first place. (That rarely works, by the way; instead, I just come across as weird and eccentric, but not the cool, fun kind).

Yet, when I think through the many conversations that I’ve had, I’m not sure I’d change anything, really. Maybe I didn’t always understand everything being talking about; maybe I faked it; maybe I meant it; maybe I gave good advice, or talked about myself the whole time. Maybe I’m just a conversational hazard.

I don’t know. I can’t remember every conversation.

But, what I do recall is that I was there, with you or him or her or us or y’all. I listened, you listened, we listened. We shared; we disagreed; we agreed.  We gossiped; we stood up for ourselves; we sympathized; we misheard, whatever.

When the dust settles in the years to come, all we’ll really remember is that we went sledding, we went to lunch that one time, we worked on the set, we talked about movies, etcetera.

We’ll just remember that we were together.

Period. 

And really, that’s all that’s worth talking about…

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 It seems that Santa has a very thin line of discussability (today’s word du jour). Either you are six, or thereabout, and Santa conjures up images so explosively potent that you have to lock yourself in a bathroom until the feeling passes, and though the whole messy Santa business only lasts for about twelve total hours on the night of his imminent arrival, you still swear to heaven and everywhere else that you will do anything, anything!, if he just brings you what you asked for; or, you’re in your thirties and all you remember about Santa, in retrospect, is how he was nothing but a figment of some adult’s imagination manipulated into a vehicle for behavior modification, and the only thing your parents ever agreed on…and all for an evening’s worth of peace and quiet. (For those children who could even go to sleep Christmas Eve).

And for us, that evening, it seemed that learning the Truth of Santa was pretty much the definitive moment in which we stopped being kids and turned our faces toward that uphill climb to adulthood.

 So, with that in mind, I’d like to turn back and look at a brief timeline of a few moments in my own life, through the eyes of what Santa (as well as Christmas) Has Done To Me, childhood to manhood, or whatever it is I’m supposed to call what I’m doing nowadays. Perhaps I can show that Santa’s not the only “bad guy,” or bad idea, when it comes to Christmas.

1. Age 5 – The whole family should have seen trouble on the horizon, when I knelt lovingly beside the tree and approached, with due caution, an enormous box wrapped in themed paper. This gift would single-handedly set a precedent within my own life that I was destined to meet, time and again. I was a gentle child, one who didn’t rip into gifts, like my other rude cousins. And after the dust of gold bows and the Frosty-and-Rudolph-playing-in-the-snow wrapping paper had settled (FYI: Frosty and Rudolph never played together in the snow. They never even met), there sat a brand-new Easy Bake Oven. Within the hour, I’d burnt my first batch of miniature sheet cakes. But they all ate them without saying a word.
2. Age 8 – We got out of school early; 60% day. U.L. dropped me off at Nana’s; she wasn’t expecting me yet. Uncle Moon was outside, chopping wood (remember how we used to have to chop wood?), told me the door was open, to go on in. I did, and there in the hallway closet was Nana, carefully placing presents on the top shelf. We had an awkward stand-off, and then in true family fashion, she looked me squarely in the face and said, “These are your gifts from Santa. So…just, leave them in here.” I was confused. She mistook that for realization, and continued, “You’ll still be surprised. It’s not like you know what we got.”
3. Age 10 – A time-worn tradition in my family has been to let the children help make the candies, munchies, etc. a week before the Big Day that will adorn all the tables at Nana’s and U.L.’s houses during Christmas week. Typically, these foods have included haystacks, thumbprint cookies, bacon-wrapped parmesan breadsticks, but above all else, divinity. Our family’s secret recipe for divinity actually belonged to Uncle Moon; I can’t remember much of it, sadly. It involved boiling water, a greased serving spoon, and a lot of patience; that much I do recall because patience is something I didn’t have much of, back then. Things that fell under the category of Little To No Patience included, but were not limited to: playing Risk with my cousin Carrie, participating in the annual family Christmas play (I was always Joseph), and divinity. You couldn’t drop but a few white clumps in the water at any given time because they “each needed breathing room.” I found the idea of breathing room a waste of time. Add to this that I preferred divinity to most of the people in my family, and what you have on your hands is a child that should not be in the kitchen making divinity. The only child, as a matter of fact. Everyone else had gone on an Easter egg hunt. That’s right: an Easter egg hunt. I’d actually hidden eggs in the yard to lure them away from the pending divinity. My plan only partly worked. The other children were gone, but then, I dumped all the remaining ingredients into the boiling water which elicited two responses: a) a sheer and immediate reaction not altogether pleasing from Uncle Moon, and b) no divinity for anyone, at all.
4. Age  12 – I never asked for anything, really, for Christmas, ever. It wasn’t out of some bizarre sense of selflessness, or an act of charity. I just never really could figure out what I wanted in time. This led, naturally, to a series of Christmases of random, uncharacteristic gifts from my family, desperate that I should have something beneath the tree both from them and from that pipe dream of a man called Santa. It started at the with the Easy Bake, I guess.  And then, age 12, I woke to find a full drum set, glossily painted red, already set up, waiting for me to do nothing more than summon up my best John Bonham impression and take to the tom-tom. (This soon proved to be a huge mistake, and the cymbals and drumsticks disappeared. The remaining pieces of the drum kit I turned into planters for asparagus ferns). Other gifts , in no particular order, were an early-form, prototype BeDazzler; all the Nancy Drew mysteries in hardback; an Ewok village with whole families of Ewoks; Laurel and Hardy ventriloquist dolls (I actually liked these); and, my personal favorite—a microscope with hundreds of slides, as well as a frog in formaldehyde that, according to the instructions, I was all but expected to dissect.
5. Present Day –I just turned 34, and though it may seem silly to say, there’s one more tradition that continues, even though I’m as old as I am. Despite the treacherous history many my age have had with Santa, I still get a gift from him. U.L. never fails to put a gift (or two) under the tree, a small card attached that reads, “To: Kris, From: Santa.”  It’s just that now I help wrap it the night before; it’s become a ritual. U.L. and I sit up Christmas Eve, we drink some Red Hot (a quick little cider recipe Nana made up), he pulls out the package(s)—they’re pre-sealed, at least—and we wrap them together, sip on the cider, and remember how important Family is. Last year, he handed the wrapped gift to me and asked if I wanted to actually fill out the card, but I said, “No. I’ll let Santa do that.” With a twinkle in his eye, U.L. said, “Fine, but remember, I can’t drink milk, so just put out a Sprite.” With that, I put some tea cake cookies on a plate, grabbed a Sprite, set them both on the hearth,  and went to bed.

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I’m not sure how, but I think it’s probably very important that we ask ourselves this and learn how knowing what type of finger-pointer we are unconsciously dictates our lives.

I was first brought to the attention of the power of the finger not, as you might imagine, by a rude driver showing me his emotional state caused by my “granddaddy” style of driving along our nation’s roadways. No, I was first trained in Finger under the generous auspices of the good people at Walt Disney World. I worked there through the College Program back in 1997.

The good people at Disney wasted practically no time in alerting us to the dangers of single-finger usage.

In other words, Don’t point. It’s, like, the rudest gesture on the planet. Like, everybody everywhere gets mad about being pointed at. Those may not have been Penny’s actual words—Penny was the name of my Disney Coach and it has been a few years back—but the gist is the same. It’s universally rude to point. And with the exception of offering the hand signal for “A-OK” in front of Brazilians, you’re pretty much safe to never, never point using only one finger.

Instead, we were strongly encouraged to double up on the fingers. There were those, naturally, who cared more than I did, and opted for loftier heights by using their entire hands to point guests toward bathrooms, popcorn kiosks, and the ubiquitously unfortunate length of most every queue in the park.

I needed variety, however, and so I never used the same hand-stance twice, unless I was caught off-guard like that time that insufferable little eight-year-old girl wouldn’t, would not, stop asking me How many nails are in Cinderella’s castle? How do you know? Have you counted all of them? So, you can’t really know how many? (I mean, on and on and on).

I came dangerously close to using what we secretly referred to (and prayed to God would eventually become acceptable) as the Half-Hand gesture, or, in layman’s terms, a Fist.

I left Disney knowing perfectly well the meaning of fingers and what they said (or didn’t) in daily conversation. For a short while, I became obsessed with observing how people used their hands, which I think subconsciously took deep root in my own physical behavior. (Nana, of course, thinks excessive hand usage a weakness in men; I, now, of course, cannot stop using my hands in excessive ways).

I hadn’t really thought about it, recently, though, until I was in Piggly Wiggly on a very real, very serious search for turnip greens. Which you’d think were just laying around in the aisles in a southern grocery store. (They were not, and I was both grateful and frustrated about that).

I got sidetracked, as I’m wont to do in a grocery store (one of my favorite places to visit), though, and found myself on the aisle dedicated mostly to dry cereals and marshmallows; sometimes, I can’t help it, but I just keep buying cereal. There were three people also on this aisle and for some reason, I noticed how they were searching the shelves: the old woman was all but frenching hers, (but then, old people have trouble with holding their tongues in), and with her left hand, she was softly spirit-fingering the items, as if she might magically cause the items she wanted to disappear from the shelves.

The young, college-age guy was closer to me, face-to-face with a box of what I consider to be grossly misleading “delicious” cereal bars. His method of pointing involved the rarely seen two-handed framing technique where you hold your arms up, bent at the elbow and create a sort of movable box between your opposing index fingers. It was hard to look away from him.

At the other end of the aisle was a woman, a buggy, and a child that preferred not to be quiet. She held one hand aloft, all fingers curled beneath the palm except the index and middle fingers and bounced them item to item. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

I couldn’t help but wonder: what kind of finger-pointer am I? Is it something I do every day, or only when I’m besotted with so many variations on a theme, i.e. fifteen brands of cornflakes, that I’m unable to pull out of a drunken stupor, standing before item after item. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. I have no idea. And I didn’t have time to think it through because suddenly, everyone had a use for fingers: sifting, fiddling, choosing, and I wasn’t sure I fit in.

I thought I shouldn’t be here, so I had to convince myself that turnip greens could wait, what I really needed was a sheep ricotta in case I made lasagna accidentally. I honed right in on the international cheese section, despite it’s being hidden in the back over by the frozen fish, and before I knew it there beside me was a middle-aged, middle-stressed woman, searching over the very same cheeses.

She picked up cheese after cheese, looked at the ingredients, tapped the product with her whole hand of bejeweled fingers as if that might rearrange the calories per serving, and then replaced the cheese. It was distracting, but in true gentlemanly fashion, I fought fire with fire. Having not yet settled on my own Personalized Finger Profile, I was forced to combine the three I’d previously seen and gave the cheese a spirit-finger-two-hand-framing-bouncing once over.

It worked and then, it didn’t. The woman left, perhaps wondering if I’d had a small seizure when faced with so much cheese, and in her hand, the last of the sheep ricotta.

I didn’t like that one bit.

(I gave her another finger for that, though).

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She was, in most lights, the iron fist in the velvet glove personified with a smidge of Ma Kettle sewn in the seams; trust me, sugar syrup wasn’t the only thing she kept out in the smokehouse.

And when Christmas rolls around I tend to give her her due because of her Christmas “inventions.” Now, she wasn’t the epitome of Yuletide cheer, too hard a life for that before she got married, but still, in her way, in her boiled-down-get-to-it-and-get-done-with-it way, she is the definition of modern Christmas.

Either way, I miss her.

She was not a woman given to laziness by any means, but she didn’t consider prioritizing a weakness. The more a day, a week, etc. added up to what she thought of as superfluous, the more she set about devising a system to “sweep it up into a ball of the same.”

She often said things like that. I’m not sure any of us ever really knew what she was saying, but there was no doubt what she meant.

And Christmas offers a prime example. She loved a holiday as much as any shawl-wearing, cane-wielding grandmother could. Especially if it meant spending the holiday at someone else’s house. But for years, her house was the destination, and that meant, over time, some modifications would have to be made.

I imagine these were suggested by one of her sons, but she took to these modifications like a pig to a blanket, so I give her the credit.  These modifications led to her “inventions” of time-saving devices, which if they took a little of the point of Christmas away (togetherness, family sharing, decorating, etc.), they at least gave us more time to eat.

And that was a fair trade-off as she, even to this day, still holds onto to a spot in the Top Ten Best Cooks Ever in my alleged book that I never show anyone but often brag about keeping such lists and tallies in.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I’d share with you not only a couple of her “inventions,” but a recipe, as well. Because despite her need to rush through the “extras” that holidays like Christmas bring (“extras” that I too am now beginning to bemoan the older I get), deep down inside, maybe next to her bursitis, she loved Christmas, just like everybody else.

1)      The Rolling Tree Table – I’m not sure exactly when this crafty item first appeared, but once it made its debut, it stayed. It wasn’t really a table, per se, in that chairs couldn’t be coupled around it. It was a platform on which the tree was nailed. Beneath it were wheels. In effect, the tree could be rolled to any part of the house, the floors were mostly hardwood. So, if you felt like looking at the Christmas tree while you ate breakfast, no problem. Simply take it with you. Have a sudden desire to light up the windows in the parlor, which was all the way down at the other end of the house, and inhabited by the ghost of Aunt Sally’s attitude? Easy-peasy, wrap your hand around a wayward branch and trail it along behind you like an IV. The true raison d’etre, though, for this contraption lay in the fact that she got tired of removing ornaments, icicles, garland, etc.  A real tree was traditionally nailed to the base of this table, but I think it began to feel sacrilegious so, a fake tree was purchased and permanently attached; we spent one early December afternoon adorning the said fake tree with all the said ornaments, (I’m pleased to note that the one I made for her out of modeling clay and baked too long in the oven was still in the mix) and voila!, after a coerced cleaning of the foyer hall closet, the plan came together. When Christmas was done that year, there was no dismantling, no pick-up of Douglas Fir nettles, no removing of ornaments, nothing. The tree was simply rolled down the hall and snugly hidden in its own little house to sit and collect dust (which in the right light took on the glean of spray snow) until the following Christmas.

2)      Web O’Lights – Long before Wal-Mart and the sad other retail giants who try to elbow their ways into our wallets came up with the idea of connected strings of outdoor lights, Ma Onie had already thought it up, by giving new life and meaning to old bread bag ties. My guess is that it was accidental, as are most inventions.  I say that because until we began the non-tradition of not-decorating a non-tree, we had to remove the lights and roll them up into twisted, rubber green circles. She would then have us use the ties, not the ends of the chords, to knot around the mass and fasten them roughly into their shapes, which resembled Mobius strips more than anything else. (Look it up).  They were then thrown into a box labeled Lights, interestingly enough, and then put away. What happened next is anyone’s guess. I do know that Michael did complain (and that was by no means a rare thing) that every other house had outside lights, so why didn’t she. The next night I was there, she did.  And only on the shrubbery right by the front door. From the road, it was a beautiful, fluid sheet of luminosity, as if, an afghan of star-bits had been carefully laid over the Yaupon and Boxwood.  Pull on into the driveway, get out of the car, and it was a grossly intricate web of mangled green wire held together by a randomized reconfiguring of old bread bag ties. It looked as if someone, and I’d guess Michael, had just angrily yanked the lights from their box and tried desperately to strangle the shrubs. I can just hear her now, “Fine, Michael, go put some lights out on the bushes, then, but, don’t take off those ties. Just leave them on there.” Because they were on there. 

And now, before I forget, I want to leave you with a recipe for the holiday season. Try as she might have, Ma Onie couldn’t escape what was in her bones—good cooking. And as you well know, that’s all anybody down south cares about. Oh, we like the pageantry of a holiday, especially Christmas, and we all want a prettily wrapped gift under the tree and a crackle of a fire (preferably in the fireplace and not in the front yard, but that’s a story New Year’s Eve). When it’s all said and done, the greatest gift really is a full table and every chair accounted for.

Ma Onie was no different, and no Christmas at her sprawling ranch house ever came and went without a table laden with baked stuffed tomatoes, cheese cake with apricot sauce, turnip greens casserole, etc. all sitting somewhere on that fine, long, homemade cherry and oak table. I’ll at least leave you with another one of her holiday standbys; it makes the house smell wonderful:

• Orange Mulled Apple Cider – You’ll need fresh oranges, honey, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, unfiltered apple cider, and cheesecloth.  In a large pot bring the cider to a boil (2 gals.); break the cinnamon sticks in half and gently grate the outer skin of each, dip them individually in honey and roll them in nutmeg; in a soaked cheesecloth lay the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and any other seasonal spice you might prefer. Tie the cheesecloth together, and after the cider has come to a boil, turn down heat, drop in the cheesecloth and let steep for two hours. Eventually, you will juice the oranges, add that to the mix, and slice it, adding those slices as well.

Be safe this holiday season. And in lieu of any legal concerns, let me leave you with this: Happy Everything!

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My nephews, this past Sunday, case in point, were running neck-and-neck, outside, racing each other from one side of the yard to the other, simply for the bragging rights of saying, “I beat you. I got here first.”

Wynn Chandler, the baby who just turned three, couldn’t handle this. However, instead of pitching his typical, 100-decibel fit, he lumbered off and hid behind the tulip tree. I watched him, in case he decided to split for the road and chance a blind run across it.  He didn’t. He just stood behind the tulip tree with droopy eyes, casually casting a glance my way every now and then to see if I noticed.

He was the first child to ever do this: to worry about parental responsibility. And for what it’s worth, he was the first to hide behind a tulip tree, which doesn’t offer much in the way of concealment. The rest, especially Conn, choose to face conflict and disagreements head-on with a fist in each hand, and have shown no particular preference for any kind of foliage.

I mentioned what Wynn Chandler was doing, to Marsha who was outside with me, fearful it might be indicative a much more deeply-seeded issue like autism, or juvenile diabetes, or you know, whatever it is kids get these days.

Marsha said, “Hm. That’s new. Though he did have pink-eye earlier this week. Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

I assumed she meant his hiding behind the tulip tree, as it felt more in favor with the question I’d asked. (Oddly enough, I’ve never had pink-eye).

Her response, however uninformative it may have been to the question I’d asked, jogged my mind, nonetheless: What would these four boys do in this family that would be worthy of a Number One Ranking?

I secretly crush on all things First. I drive people crazy about my expansive knowledge of usesless trivia, especially where Mississippi is concerned. I am very pro-Mississippi (when it reflects on us a positive light).  I admit it; I like to be first. Even now. I like to know people who are first in their fields.

Did you know that Mississippi was the first in the world to conduct lung and heart transplants, respectively; the first to bottle Coca-Cola; the first to create a public university for women? We built the first nuclear submarine, had the first planned system of community colleges, and get this—we were the first state to sell shoes in pairs. (So, rubbish to the barefoot and pregnant rumors; sadly, I can only eliminate the former part of that combo-criticism because we are also first in the nation for teen pregnancy).

And then, there’s me. I did a lot of things first in my family, too, you know.

I was the first to out-twirl my sister, a drum majorette, one evening during one of her slumber parties. We went into the yard, the sun was setting, and in an attempt to “psych me out,” she threw me the broom. I’d preferred the baton, but of course, I was not the drum majorette. I believe the anger of having to use the stupid broom did nothing but focus my raw instinct. I twirled that broom with the precision of who/whatever it is that would twirl brooms for a living, and nearly hit the power lines. But, more importantly, I caught that sucker on its descent with one hand, all the while it stayed in constant motion.

(Tell me I can’t twirl a blame broom…)

I was also the first (and to date, the only) one in my family to get first chair in flute. I played in the band all of one year, fifth grade, and within a matter of days had mastered the tricky, repetitive fingering of “The Mexican Hat Dance,” which I’m not sure you’re allowed to say legally anymore for fear of a lawsuit, and thus was awarded first chair. The fact that no one else, not even the girls, had attempted to play the flute merely narrowed the competition down.  Was it that sissy of an instrument, or was it simply too difficult for their fat, fifth-grade fingers to master?

I think we know the answer to that.

I stood a long while looking at my nephews, trying to figure out their future firsts.

Wynn Chandler, no doubt, will be the first on anti-depressants, in this little group of cousins. I’m thinking of stocking up on my prescriptions, as an incentive. Conn, despite being the smallest of the four, has already flexed his wings in the area of “bullying.” Within the family, that’s understandable. I suppose like any pack animals, a pecking order will have to be established. Unfortunately, they spend most of their time under the care of Marsha, a sweet, gentle soul who recently retired from teaching third grade; she was one of the New Wavers in education—the kind who worry about grading tests in red ink.

But, outside of the family, as the news has currently reported, bullying isn’t an answer.  It shouldn’t even be an option. So, lines will have to be drawn, and soon, before his behavior becomes habitual. If it hasn’t already.

A.K., bless his heart, is struggling to find his own identity.  It’s in there, somewhere, I can see it. But, he’s gone from the baby to the oldest in such a quick amount of time, that I’m not sure where his first will fall. I hesitate to say it, but he’ll probably be the first to be arrested. (Oh, wait, no he won’t).  Maybe, then he’ll be the first sent to rehab, and then…(No, scratch that).

He’ll be a doctor, then. He’ll be the first doctor in the family. Isaac’s came with the territory; he’s the first stepchild.  A.K., I suppose, will be the first to buckle down and put his nose to the grindstone. He’s obviously concerned about his place in the pecking order, but I think, now that he’s turned six, he’s begun to wise up: let the “children” rough-house; he’s got cursive handwriting homework to do.

Of course, there’s a chance he’ll grow up to be a writer.

But, if he does, I’ll pull him aside and show him this blog. I may not be a child, anymore, but I’d put good money on the fact that I was first to hold a grudge.  I’m sure he’ll understand; he’s got a pure heart, but if he doesn’t, he’ll just have to set aside any ill-will he might have towards Wynn Chandler and ask for a handout of Prozac.

Because, there can be no doubt, I was the first to write, in my family. It’s all I’ve got left.

There can be no doubt, about that. No doubt, at all.

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But, something is making me have crazy, exhaustive dreams, as of late.

It’s not the first time I’ve had crazy dreams, but rather, it is the first time I’ve had a regular string of them. I’m going on Week 3, now.

Which makes for 21 nights of what can truly be called dreams of “complete abandon.” I’ve been shot twice, lately; nearly drowned off the coast of Mykonos (a place I’ve never even been to); ran for a position on the EU Board of Alderman (that’s right: I was living in France at the time, in a small village with half a water well—ask me later); unsuccessfully tried to thwart two hitmen by using an Egyptian accent (the discarded pizza box in the garbage can out by the road gave me away); manifested wings in one dream, because God told me to, and flew around half the country instructing the trees as to what their decorating duties would be between now and Christmas (I vaguely remember arguing for some time with an aging magnolia about her ‘holiday indifference’); rebuilt a wall in a friend’s house by using spit and cement steps; and last night, survived two tornadoes in the basement of a gnome’s castle somewhere outside Asheville, North Carolina…with my mother.

I know, I know, I’m fairly amazing. But, we knew that, already.

What bothers me the most is that in each of these dreams, to date, I always catch a glimpse of an ex of mine, standing somewhat aloofly in a corner, or behind a curtain—much like they did during our relationships—trying so very hard to “blend” in.

Something they never did seem to accomplish.  Not a one of them.

And despite my growing ability to control my dreams, to some extent, known as lucid dreaming, I seem unable to eradicate my subconscious of the impact, the impressions, they have all made on me.

It isn’t surprising I suppose that each of these dreams correlates with each of them, and interchangeably. Storms, bullets, flight, burial.  It doesn’t take a genius to align the “meaning” of a dream to one of them. But, now that I’m awake, and the house still stands (my tornado dreams are, admittedly, frighteningly vivid and believable), I’ve decided to sit down and reckon these mind-missions out.

Far be it from me not to render unto Ceasar, what is Ceasar’s.  Regardless of the messiness of what eroding relationships leave behind in the mental backwash of a breakup, it stands to reason (if for no other reason than to preserve sanity), that you take away something that is good, something that has made you a better, stronger person.

(I didn’t make that up, did I?)

So, now, I’m sitting upright in my very wonderful bed (I hold no grudges against it, though I may well be suing the pillows), and I’m forcing myself to think of what it is each of them gave to me. What did I learn from them?  (I’m hoping that by answering this question, I will exorcise their dream-demons, or if you will, their dreamons).

I’m surprised at what I’m discovering, too.

With Bill, for instance, I walked away the most heartbroken, but then again, I was 18, mindless, invincible, not a little sexy, and blessed with a razor wit. (These are not good combinations for undergraduates to possess, by the way). In addition, though, I was also desperate, and desperate people are copycats.

Copycats are, if little else, amazing listeners.

And Bill had a lot to say, which he said through music. I love jazz to this day because Bill made me listen to it. He felt it was important that an educated man in America know and understand the most Americanized form of music: jazz. Bill learned to love jazz as a child in Taiwan. Even if I’d hated it (which I do not), I would have listened to jazz all day long, just for the appreciation of that bit o’ irony.

And then came Bo. 

A true musician, a piano player, and…well, I’ll stop my description there. I was with Bo the longest.  His passion was in opera, mostly, but also a deep sense of respect for classical music, and, I’m proud to say, he’s on his way to becoming a rather famous accompanist.  His credits include the best opera houses in the country; his academic pedigree certainly allowed him great opportunity.

If it weren’t for him, for instance, I wouldn’t understand why I tear up hearing Beethoven’s Appassionata, or why I obsessively play Liszt’s The Mephisto Waltz on repeat when I have long sections of time to myself to write. Or why I can actually sit through all of Tosca. Listening attentively.

After Bo, came Brit.

With Brit, I just learned how to swallow BC powder without water.  But, in his defense, I didn’t get my headache until we were already on the road to Dismal’s Canyon. (Again, irony, but by no means, was it a repeat experience on my Do Again List).

Now before you count these up and wonder how I, of all people, ever settled for only three lovers, let me stop you by saying, “Hush.”

I was never as bad as I made myself out to be. And there were others, I just didn’t “click” with them the way I did with these three. And who even knows why I clicked with them?  Growing pains, I guess.

Certainly a learning process:  I was young, confused, I had questions that nobody wanted to answer. Trust me, I prayed for years. (Still do, by the way).

But, I had to live the best way I knew how. To take the lessons given, however hard they were taught to me, and go from there. I like that I still cry when I listen to Chopin, or Debussy; I have no shame in admitting that I will spend hours in front of the bathroom mirror (any mirror, Amanda might say), singing at the top of my lungs, along with Ella or trying my best to out-sing Tony, or Frank, or even Chet Baker (I’m a belter so the soft falsetto is a challenge); and I will take with pride, to the grave, the amount of masculinity added to my personal style now that I can shoot BC powder with a straight face. Because that stuff is awful.

And though I’m more than happy to stay single, I have, as a definite precaution, made myself sign a contract stating that I will, at the least, never again have a relationship with any man whose name begins with the letter “B.”

 You know, just to be safe…because, try as I might, I simply can’t stay awake forever.

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I haven’t written a blog in about two months. Because…well…

…in other words, I’ve been busy. I mean, excuse me, I meant to say I’m sorry.

Also, I have no flowers to give.

Just an odd complaint or two.

I hadn’t intended my time to be taken away from me quite the way it has been, theatre, deadlines, stress, moving…hell, we’re not even a quarter way through the semester.

Mm. Let me start there, actually.

I resigned my job this past summer because I was moving to NYC. I still intend to, but things didn’t quite pan out that way at the end of July, not the way I’d planned them. Mostly due to a promise of funding that then became not a promise.

Nor did it become a reality.

That was bad enough. Then came the fact that I’d resigned my job. Which meant no money. And that was worse than bad.

So, I crawled into bed with my old, trusted friend Depression and sort of stayed there awhile, determined to make a cuddler out of him.

Then, somewhere in the background, I remember the phone ringing and a voice asking me if I’d teach a class on campus; they were short instructors. I said Yes, as I needed the money.

Now, I’m teaching five classes. One online.

Plus, I’m in the middle of a play, a farce, which of course requires energy, which of course I’m low on, and well, suffice it to say,

I’ve got my life back…

And it feels good.

And NYC is still hanging on, though not with the original school I’d been accepted to…I’m back to the waiting game, for several more months.

And I’ve been published three times since April.

And I’m eating sushi tonight.

So, for the first time in my life, I’m about to quote Shakespeare, as a smoke screen to a personal sentiment. But, it’s really relevant. Because, so far, anyway, it’s true that “all’s well that ends well.”  

At least, in the reverse.

It just takes awhile to learn how to share yourself, with Yourself. I always thought it easier to just open my arms to all detritus and force myself to figure out how to hold onto all of it, all the time. It’s foolish to think I could do that when I have trouble carrying my laundry to the washing machine. Many’s the time I’ve started a load only to find, on my way back to the living room, that several socks and boxer briefs have jumped ship.

I was well into my 20s before U.L. told me I wouldn’t get electrocuted if I opened the washing machine, even during the spin cycle, and dumped the defectors in with the rest of the captives.

It’s a lesson I learn every weekend. Though, I’m still missing one half of my striped Paul Smith socks. Going on three weeks now.

You’re always told to share with others, anyway. I guess that’s what makes it hard when it comes to self-care.

It’s ingrained in us at an early age, too. A few Sundays ago, I was standing on Nana’s porch with A.K., now 6, and he desperately wanted a turn on the “big boy bike.” His brother, Wynn, 3, had commandeered it. This is, at the moment, the only bike without training wheels in our family.

I told him that the polite thing to do was to ask for a turn.

He did. Wynn told him No, and zipped off down the driveway.

A.K. turned to me and sighed, shaking his head, and said, “He’ll never make it in kindergarten.”

No, maybe he won’t. But, right then, selfish as he was being, he was fully aware of Who He Was. And that, I’m sure, as the baby in the family, he knew, deep down inside where Jesus lives, once he let go of that bicycle, he wouldn’t see it again.

I was probably wrong to smile. But, I did.

That Wynn…not even realizing that he’s already a step ahead of the rest of us.

I went in to Nana’s to fix my plate, and thought, Man, I gotta get a bike.

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Gary, now a famous playwright/critic, who spends most of his days on a plane, as opposed to by a plate, always wants to hear about what Nana has cooked, created, invented, resurrected from her kitchen shelves.

Nana’s kind of magical that way.

And she has become something of folklore in my social circles, and many of my friends eagerly await for my Sunday dinner details. (I can think of one person who eagerly awaits for an invitation, patiently, week in and week out…I promise to make that happen, Maddy, I promise).

But, for those who have made the trek to the countryside of eastern Winston County, seemingly at the very line where the red clay becomes true dirt, well, those few can give honest testimony to the validity of her culinary talents.

Talents Gary had me bragging about in under fifteen minutes.

He was waiting in the airport for a return trip to NYC, and hadn’t had a “decent, damn meal in days.” Gary, though a southerner by birth, has since adopted the native tongue of the New Yorker.

“Tell me, tell me good, in long details, what she made today.”

So, I did.

And he told me I was a fool if I didn’t sit still long enough to right this all down. Which I then started to do. I do have an old church cookbook that has some of these recipes in them, already, but his point, fervent and directed at me specifically, made me think of how blessed I’ve been in the world of food.

I mean, I think I can honestly say I don’t come from sinners in the kitchen.

I come from saints.

No sooner had I started rattling off the menu: homemade potato salad (as in we grew the potatoes); pork barbecue ribs bathing in Nana’s secret sauce; yeast rolls, Moon biscuits and gravy, zipper peas (a favorite of mine!), freshly shelled butterbeans, apple pie…excuse me—

—my hand started to cramp from the weight of those delicious words—

Suffice it to say, Gary’s response was prophetic in its simplicity.

“Don’t ever think she didn’t love you. Mean people don’t cook like that.”

I’m inclined to agree, and since so much of my upbringing revolved around food (whose doesn’t, really?), and since so many of my blogs end up in some talk of the table, I thought what better way to honor the Nanas (and the U.L.s –don’t get me started on his coconut cake) of this world than by passing along a few of our secret family recipes, but nothing fancy, mind you…

I still want to be remembered at Christmas…

(Maybe you just don’t tell anybody I did this, OK?)

Ok.

Tigi’s Green Tomato Pickles

                1 gal. sliced green tomatoes

                8 medium onions, sliced

                3 green bell peppers, sliced

                3 c. vinegar

                5 c. sugar

                1 tsp. ground cloves

                2 Tbsp. mustard seed

                1 Tbsp. turmeric

Cover the first three ingredients with and ice and ½ salt. Soak 3 hours or overnight. Bring the remaining ingredients to a boil.  Add drained vegetables to this and cook until they turn color or comes to a good boil. Pack into sterilized jars and seal.

Cornbread Salad

                1 pan cornbread, cooked and crumbled

                2 lg. tomatoes, chopped

                1/3 c cooked bacon, crumbled

                2 boiled eggs, chopped

                1/3 c. sweet pickle juice

                1/3 c. sweet pickles, chopped

                1/3 c. onions, chopped

                ½ c. good quality mayonnaise like Blue Plate

                salt and pepper to taste

Crumble cornbread and add all other ingredients, then the mayonnaise. Mix well. Serve immediately, or for better taste, let it set overnight in the refrigerator.

Biscuit Pudding

                6 to 8 left over biscuits

                6 eggs

                1 tsp lemon (or vanilla) extract

                2 c. milk

Butter left over biscuits, place them in oven to crisp a bit. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over the biscuits, in a deep iron skillet. Bake at 350 until firm. You may want to add cinnamon to the top.

Chocolate Cobbler

                2 stick of butter

                1 ½ c. self-rising flour

                1 ½ c. sugar

                ¾ c. milk

                1 c. sugar

                6 Tbsp good cocoa

                ¾ c. hot water

                another ¾ c. milk, set aside

Melt the butter in a 9×13 pan. Mix flour, 1 ½ cups of sugar and ¾ cup of milk. Combine 1 cup of sugar and the cocoa; sprinkle over flour mixture. Combine hot water and the other ¾ cup of milk; pour over the sugar mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  After the cobbler cools, you might sprinkle a little powdered sugar and cocoa over the top. 

Trust me, there’s more than one cookbook’s worth of deliciousness in the collective heads of my family. Of course, when they find out I’m passing along the contents of their “secret cabinets,” I might be impeached.

In the meantime, try them out. Ask me for more. See what you think.

Personally, I’m shooting for the chocolate cobbler, for the first time, on my own, for a little party I’m attending this weekend. 

My goal? To get it to at least look like Nana’s.  

The taste part only comes with age.

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