The Clever Kris » Nana

Gary makes me hungry.

The Clever Kris — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:08:00 +0000

I had a long, fun conversation with my friend Gary the other day, Sunday actually, over the telephone, and we quickly started talking about food, as our conversations tend to do.

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.

After that, I ate my chocolate cobbler in silence.

The Clever Kris — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:35:09 +0000

This past Sunday, my youngest nephew, Wynn, who by the way is a few months shy of three and has already rightfully earned the nickname of “Chunk,” turned to me and asked for coffee.

“What…did you…say?” I implored of him.

“Coffee,” he responded, and then with a nod of the head as if recognizing that he’d forgotten the magic word, added, “pease?”

It’s always precious when the little ones remember that fading concept known as “manners.” But, precious aside, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. I went in search of his mother.

She wasn’t a bit thrown off by what I felt had been a rather strange request coming from a toddler.

Oh yes, she said, he loves it. Drink a cup a day, if I’d let him.

Surely you don’t, I said.

“Nah,” she replied, “I don’t have the time to make it in the morning.”

Oh, well, thank god for that.

“How did he even get started with coffee?” I continued.

“I have no idea,” she said.

My guess, though, if I had to give one, would involve a caffeine-addicted mother, a squalling baby, and a free pacifier. We’ve all been the victim of pacifier-popping. In my family, it’s worse than pills. We were our own Valley of the Dolls, and, I mean, let’s be honest, we were also beautiful babies. I’m sure one afternoon, she found herself with a screaming kid and cup of joe, and before you know it, the pacifier is dipped in the cup and ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom, another barista is born.

“No idea. Huh,” I repeated.

I then went to the kitchen for an extra-large helping of Nana’s famous chocolate cobbler and waddled on back to the dining room, where, not more than five minutes later, my other nephew (step-nephew, actually), Isaac, a mature four-year-old if ever there was one, came and stood gracefully in the doorway connecting the dining room and the kitchen and announced that he would like to “make a pot of coffee.”

If only someone had had a camera to take a picture of my face at that moment.

His father said, “Isaac, now let’s wait a minute. We’re not all on dessert.”

Was that a slam to me? I eat fast, I’m sorry.

I looked at Isaac and said, “Do you even know how to spell your name, yet?”

“Yes, I do, and in cursive.” And with that, he slid into the shadow of the refrigerator. (It’s on account of where the refrigerator sits in relation to the door).

Am I missing something, here? Have children been drawn to the lure of coffee since time immemorial and I just didn’t know? I personally have never cared for it.

It’s not my kind of bitter.

Plus, it seems so unhealthy a habit, but then again, our first milk was hardly from our mothers. More likely, it came from the teat of Lipton. When we were weaned off our bottles, chances are they were full of sweet tea.

Besides, and you can trust me on this, it’s more than a little unsettling to have a four-year-old ask if you “want decaf or regular.”

Of course, only Marsha and I had anything really “anti-coffee” to say about this trend, whether it’s global or intra-family. Neither one of us drinks it.

Not so for the others in my immediate family. Several make a pot a day just for the smell of it; it signals morning. The rest of them would construct gated communities in their own cups of coffee—for crying out loud, it’s an ancient form of currency. That’s why I qualified it with the adjective “gated.”

Apparently, there is such a thing as a coffee connoisseur. And a coffee snob.

Amanda, for instance—more the connoisseur than the snob. But then you have people like Dodie who mainstreams her java tastes to whatever Starbucks says works for that week. Except during Christmas. She doesn’t care for their flavor-making experiments during the holidays.

I hadn’t realized the dominating pull of coffee for table conversation, though. People may not know what to do about the current Gulf Oil Crisis, or if they still like Obama, but god knows, they’ve got something to say about the quality of black gold.

And we got stuck on that for awhile, despite the fact that I’d been trying desperately to steer the point back to my original concern: children who drink coffee. But that seemed such a minor issue to the rest of the family.

So what if they drink coffee. It keeps them quiet, I was told.

And oddly enough, it did. They didn’t get hyper; they didn’t burst into an all-consuming ball of energy and run themselves into butter like Samba. They sat, in the den, in individual recliners and watched Handy Manny. (Though, to be honest, Wynn did pitch a fit when he was given his coffee in his sippy cup; he refused to drink it unless it was put in a “real cup.” Consequently, he got one, with its own little saucer).

I was, I’ll admit, amazed that that was the result. I expected, barely two sips in, for them to become Satan’s little helpers, running and screaming, as they were wont to do, often enough, without coffee.

Which begged the real question: What on earth are they eating and drinking the rest of time that would allow coffee, of all things, to calm them down?

No one had an answer to that.

As a matter of fact the only person who said anything at all was Nana, who after a few thoughtful seconds, said, “So when did Isaac learn to make coffee?”

After that, I ate my chocolate cobbler in silence.

Phenergan’s Wake

The Clever Kris — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:01:11 +0000

I’ve had an ill-behaving stomach, as of late.

Which has kept me up at nights, uneasy and nauseous. I couldn’t eat much of anything yesterday; I had to practically force myself to eat the leftover cheese sticks, a bowl of soup, and half a chocolate bar (with hazelnuts).

So, I did.

But, I couldn’t bear to go another night with fitful sleep; so last night, to combat this, I took a Phenergan. It’s a pill prescribed for upset stomachs, etc. We fear I might have IBS. (That’s quite a conversation-starter, there, is it not?)

It took a couple of hours, but it did the trick: it settled my stomach enough and made me drowsy enough to fall asleep and stay that way through most of the night. Though I fell asleep on the couch and as is the usual piper’s fee for that, I woke up with aching hips.

I also fell asleep with the heating pad on, which, the warning tag clearly indicates, is a no-no.

And the dream I had? Well…it was perfectly Joyce-ian, ironically comic and lengthy. As most of my dreams tend to be. I was, it seems, in my own version of Finnegans Wake, one that I am rightfully going to call, Phenergan’s Wake.

I swear that pun came to me just now.

(And I don’t care if you don’t believe me).

Here’s the dream, in two parts.

PART A: “Keep it down, out there, I’m trying to drink my shower!”

I’m the age I am now, but I’m back in my hometown, and I’m running late to church. I’m supposed to help Nana with the dinner, the setup, etc.

We often would eat dinner at the church, especially if it’s during Revival.

Nana has opted to cook for everyone in the church, by herself, and I have been given the task of setting the tables. Because it is a revival, we have invited everyone in the world. I am responsible for setting what appears to be 1,000 tables. All of which require linens and freeze-dried, hand-painted rose petals.

I have overslept. The only recourse to this is to grab my clothes, which were in the microwave, warming, and to shower at the church.

So, this is what I do.

The shower at the church (a shower which does not exist in real life) is located at the back of the old Fellowship Hall, by the nursery. It is a very tiny shower. And though my body is completely covered by the small shower curtains, my head is not and I am able to talk to all the people who walk by, on their way to the new Fellowship Hall where dinner will be served.

Except, I’m not talking to these people.

I’m yelling at them to “keep it down!” I’m angry at them. They keep asking me to do things, to explain things, to answer questions. I want them to hush because I’m trying to not only take a shower, but to drink it as well from a plastic cup that appeared out of nowhere (and yet that didn’t seem odd because doesn’t everyone take a plastic cup to the shower with them?) because I realized while bathing that I was bathing in holy water.

Which, for the record, has never seen the light of day in a Baptist church.

I somehow put it together that I’m not really in a bathroom, per se, but I’m in a secondary type of Baptistery. I’m showering in a spare, if you will, in case the actual Baptistery in the sanctuary was to break.

I realize I’m shouting to distract the people, the congregation, from noticing that I’m sacrilegiously cleaning myself…with holy water that has found its way in from some Catholic tributary.

They don’t seem to notice, though, or they don’t care…either way, the big problem hasn’t occurred to me yet.

When I’m finished, it hits me: I don’t have a towel.

[NOTE: I wake up in here, somewhere, and go to the bathroom. In a rare event, when I return to the couch, as opposed to my bed because I do not think clearly at night, I continue with the same dream].

PART B: “The turkey isn’t done until the vest matches Diane’s earrings.”

We’re now in the new Fellowship Hall. All the tables are set with linens, rose petals, water glasses, forks. Everyone is in line, and they’re all very excited to eat. It’s as if they’ve not eaten in days.

And they haven’t.

I see a clock on the wall that tells me we’ve been at church for four days. Four solid days. (Of course, some revivals have been known to last even longer – though they allow you time to eat in between sermons).

Nana has truly outdone herself, here. She’s cooked everything known to man: dressing, meatloaf, fried chicken, pies, creamed corn, and for the pièce de résistance, a mammoth turkey.

It’s easily the size of a Tercel.

And it’s wearing a thick, wool vest, stark white…with three marbles for buttons.

She looks at the vest and then shakes her head. She puts it back in the oven, which is sitting above the sink. As a matter of fact, the knob that turns on the hot water, also sets the temperature for the oven.

Everyone groans. They’re very hungry, and she’s not letting anyone fix their plate until the turkey’s done.

“You know the rule.” She says, “The turkey’s not done until its vest matches Diane’s earrings.”

Diane apologizes. She hasn’t worn any earrings today.

[And this is where I woke up].

It’s the first dream I’ve had in a long time that I fully remembered the following morning. I’m not saying that Phenergan is the answer to my restless eyes; I have no desire to be a substance abuser…again.

Though the last time I abused any substance to the point of becoming problematic I was ten and the substance was mashed potatoes, insofar as that counts as a substance.

I loved mashed potatoes. (Potatoes in general, really). And once when I was ten, I ate so many that I vomited. Right there at the Sunday dinner table, in front of Nana.

That’s what I thought, at least, that it was the fault of the mashed potatoes.

The truth was that I was in the process of getting the stomach flu. As you might imagine I assumed it was due to the excessive influx of mashed potatoes I’d consumed that caused the illness. The doctor assured me it was not the mashed potatoes.

I think in lieu of a traditional upbringing, rooted as such in the normal definition of a family with a Father, Mother, and 2.5 children, that familial love was sublimated by food and food preparation. I think it’s the reason for my love/hate relationship with cooking to this day.

Or, maybe I was just an ignorant, greedy child.

I couldn’t look at a potato for months without blushing.

***

Though, as you know, that is certainly not the case today.

Not with potatoes…and not, I pray, with the Phenergan.

Five foods that made me who I am.

The Clever Kris — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:50:42 +0000

I’m still stuck on the potato log.

Meaning, since confessing to you about my lust and love for the said potato log, yesterday afternoon, I’ve not been able to think about anything else except food.

And so, at the risk of offending some of you, I feel I’ve no choice to move myself past this obsessive food-thinking other than to write about it. So, I’m going to spend the next few moments with you, making one confession after another about a few dishes, recipes, snacks, and various other, sundry foods that I not only grew up with, but that, I feel, have defined who I am, today, in large part.

I hope you like me by the time I’m done.

I know some of my culinary cred is going to be challenged, disputed, if not taken away from me completely. Because, Lord knows, I have a very distinctive palate. (Maybe, you’ll all take pity on me and send me recipes for the foods you think I should be eating, instead).

Either way, I think it’ll be worth it, talking about this.

Now, I can’t remember what her name is, but I do recall a random TV show on the Food Network that I was watching, oh this has been months back, in which this philosopher (a food philosopher, mind you; I know of only one other in the country, and that is my good friend Dr. Glenn Kuehn) made this profound statement, “Our history, [the only one that matters], is right there on our plate.”

It is to that sentiment that I, then, share with you, a little of the History that’s found its way onto My Plate, over the years. I’ll try not to bore you, and I think the only way to not bore you is to limit my plate to a regular-size, Noritake informal dinner plate: it should only hold five items, and no item should touch the edge.

(Note: This list is not vegetarian).

Let’s get started, shall we?

The Banana Sandwich. Contrary to the legendary gullet-stylings of Mississippi’s own Elvis Presley, we did not, in my family, follow suit with his particular banana sandwich design. Instead, we would often take two slices of white bread, usually Sunbeam, and slather it with mayonnaise. To this, we sliced a fresh banana, added cheese, and smooshed the whole thing together. I would, on average, eat five or more of these a week, all through grade school and beyond. U.L. started this internecine tradition, and with the exception of the kind of cheese, the glorious tastiness of this family snack has stayed relatively unchanged between his house and Nana’s. Sure, sure, you are probably already cringing, and that’s fine. I might, too, had it not started so early in my life. Every time I make a banana sandwich to this day, I can’t help but think about being a little kid, sitting by U.L. on the kitchen counter, oozing mayonnaise onto my knuckles, looking out the picture window at all the birds and the “idiot-fools, drag racing down the road. I’ve a mind to go call the sheriff, right this second […]” It’s more than a sandwich, you see; it’s the threat of a highway patrol encounter. Those were the days…
Biscuit Pudding. What, you say? I thought you hated pudding, Kris. And I still do, but this isn’t really a pudding. It’s a family secret recipe. My first exposure to the kitchen came, literally, at the heels of my great grandmother, Tigi. Her real name was Tiny Gertha. That was her real name and she lived up to it, all four feet, eight inches of her. She was born in the latter 1890s. And to this day, I love the idea that I am living in the 21^st century, but knew someone born in the 19^th century. It lends credibility to my old soul. She never used the first measuring cup, blender, food processor, or microwave. Everything she measured, she did so by using her hand or finger: to the first knuckle, a teaspoon. To the second knuckle, a tablespoon. She cooked by use of dashes, pinches, smidges, bits, and the evergreen rule of “Well, what’s it smell like?” A favorite dessert of hers, having grown up in the gumbo mud of the Delta, was biscuit pudding. The trick was to use stale biscuits. She’d line her trusty iron skillet with the crusty, tough buttered bottoms of the days-old biscuits, pour over that her own sugar cream syrup with the juice of whatever fruit might be around (usually apple or, pear, or if without fruit, Blackburn molasses), crumble the biscuit tops into the mixture, and bake it, like everything else: “on hot and until it smelled right.”
Nana’s meatloaf. I’m not sure what magic she uses when she makes this but I do know the process calls for it. That, and a good full morning of uninterrupted focus on her very specific mise en place. There was nothing easy about this meatloaf, but every inch of it was pure mouth ecstacy. In some order, the following went into the loaf: meat (beef and deer, sometimes turkey), green peppers, onions (sweet only, Vidalia above all else), red peppers, Worcestershire, eggs, day-old bread crumbs (homemade, soaked in butter), milk, and some other things. She’ll tell what the ingredients are, she says, but I know for a fact that she leaves a few choice ones out. Still, I have made this replica of hers a thousand times (before The Change, a.k.a. vegetarianism) and it’s never worked. Hers would melt into itself, and in the cooking process, some juicy, meaty pieces would slide off and into the corner, collecting what, even to this day, I can only describe as a liquid Shangri-la. I miss this dish more than anything else, and harbor about a quarter cup of jealousy when she serves it on Sundays.
Black-eyed peas and mayonnaise. Here it is again, that absolute necessity of the southern kitchen: mayonnaise. I mean, what’s better? Nothing. Mayonnaise covers all the bases whether it’s in a dip or flying solo. I realize, looking back, that I had (have) perhaps an unnatural kinship with this vinegar and egg by-product, but say what you will…it got me to eat my peas. I don’t know if it’s the creamy romance that results from the mixing of the earthy pea flavor and the tang of the mayonnaise, or if it just grossed my sisters out, but it stuck. Many is the night that I was found, sneaking into the kitchen, uncapping the Tupperware bowl of peas and glopping a tablespoonful of mayonnaise on top of the gelatinous mass of legumes. I was afraid of the stove for many years, so until the microwave arrived, I generally ate this snack cold. Thank god for Kenmore.
U.L.’s Tuna Salad. Only U.L. could take something as easy-to-make as tuna salad and turn it into an art installation. U.L., the youngest child of Tigi, took after his mother in many ways. Despite being the baby, and thus the farthest from her culturally, he let nothing stand in his way of becoming as creatively frugal as she was. Granted, he’s allowed a can opener, a microwave, and a Quik-Chop in the house, he still uses only one large mixing bowl, and a knife that came over on the Mayflower. I can’t argue with him, though when a) the bowl and knife have withstood the test of time, coming from an era when things were made well and with genuine craftsmanship, and b) the tuna salad is so deliciously made with love it knocks out the fish smell. This is not your mama’s tuna salad; it’s my uncle’s, and that means, it ain’t fast food: boiled eggs; an onion; pimentos or Ro-Tel; a handful (i.e., cupful) of homegrown, homemade sweet pickles that, I should add, live in a butter churn kilned by my great-grandfather and hasn’t seen the sun since 1944; and a mayonnaise-based cream sauce that includes the juice from the tuna, a little paprika, a little lemon-pepper, vinegar…salt, and pepper. The last two, he says, you add just for taste, but if you do that, I’ll tell him.

Now, go have a great day.

Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.

The Clever Kris — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:17:04 +0000

You know what’s hard? Yoga.

You know what’s harder than that? Trying to explain yoga to your precious family of aging Southern Baptists.

Because if it’s not explicitly typed in the King James version of the Holy Bible then it’s most likely of the devil, who probably created yoga to trick Christians into performing exercises that would get them into positions they couldn’t get out of, thus holding them in place so he could catch them.

But, yoga is a later issue.

First, we have to address a more pressing item, though there are several items overall, not the least of which is the fact that my hair has suddenly gone from brown to a bronze-red, due to a slight miscalculation of coloring when I tried to turn it fully blonde. For me to get bored, you see, is a dangerous mistake.

One my family, specifically U.L., prays constantly about.

So, last Sunday, U.L. asked me how I’d been doing, all the while staring at my mane of flame. I did a fair amount of traveling over this past holiday and hadn’t been “at home” as much as I usually am.

Some of that, though, was by choice. We’re still rebuilding the burned bridge from several months back when I finally had to break down and confess to my family that I was indeed a vegetarian.

And that’s what I’m writing about today: vegetarianism.

To say that I was a vegetarian was as shocking a statement to make as saying, “I’m gay,” or worse yet, “I’m moving my letter to the Episcopal church.”

I plead the fifth on both, for the time being because they pale in comparison to what I actually said, which was, “Yes, Virginia, I am a Vegetarian.” (Virginia is GamVa’s real name, by the way).

Man cannot live by peppers alone...entirely. He will also need tomatoes.

To admit that I was no longer eating meat was tantamount to saying I only read the short chapters in the Bible, or that I think the Flood was really God’s tears about the danger of having termites on board the Ark.

My family is rather self-sufficient. We grow (and certainly used to, back in the day) most, if not all, our own vegetables. We have a good bit of land, and we share what we grow with our neighbors, because that’s in the Bible, and we can what’s left over so we have homegrown vegetables in the winter, etc. etc.

On top of this, we also have our own private cattle farm. Which means fresh, organic meat. And when various hunting seasons start, we send out our gentle menfolk to kill for the sake of eating. We keep in stock fresh deer meat, and have been known to wrangle up a real, bona fide turkey for Thanksgiving.

All of which I, for many years, enjoyed. I do not deny this: I grew up with meat, and I liked it.

But, then, I had a horrible, disgusting dream about eating meat which was so pervasive that it forced me into becoming a vegetarian, and to this day, I honor it. I will actually celebrate my tenth month anniversary (which is almost as long as any relationship I’ve ever had) as a veg-head, next Sunday.

I don’t have anything big planned, other than an argument.

Because that’s what it’s become. Every Sunday. An argument.

Is this what lifelong veg-heads have had to endure? Every week, I have to defend the fact that I choose not to eat meat to my family. I have never known such judgment as I’ve encountered since becoming 100% veggie-friendly.

I have been castigated about everything, and not just by my family. They’re biggest gripe really is the meat part, if you will. Because Nana cooks so much of it, each week. Very meat-centric.

Ok, now, blow.

Now, every sniffle I have, every little bitty cough, and their immediate diagnosis is, “Well, if you ate meat…”

I had no idea that meat was such a cure-all. The next time U.L. gets the flu, I’ll see to it that he gets a nice hot bowl of chicken fried steak.

I mean, it’s not that I disagree entirely: I think all food is cyclically healthy, in its own way, but there are substitutions…good, FDA-approved substitutions.

And, my god, the way we eat, each week, I’m surprised none of us are dead, yet.

But, the judgment from others, is what’s staggering. I’ve been looked up and down and chastised for my “vegetarianism” while I seem to have no trouble “wearing leather gloves.”

They were a gift, by the way.

People have joked about what shoes I’m wearing, what materials my clothes are made of, and it’s not just animal-based products either. There is no end in sight to the scope of judgment I’ve shouldered, all in good humor: plastics, woods, and…well, OK, my list has an end, but that’s just because I have no political agenda about the “cause.” So, I don’t keep a tally of what’s “in” and “out” where “green” is concerned.

It has, still, however, brought a lot to light.

Am I just caving into a trend with my dietary habits? Am I really a true vegetarian? (I know I can’t be vegan because I could never do without cheese, and though tapioca is a fun substitute, it just doesn’t do it for me).

Or is doing even a little good, just not good enough? Now, I’m starting to question everything I touch, buy, or put in my mouth, on my face, on my body, near an elbow, you name it…I worry about it.

I recently returned from NYC, and I made sure that every purchase of mine was animal-, environment-, and judgment-free. From my shoes, to my shirts, to the foods I ate. And at quite a cost.

The (insert noun here)-free world is not a cheap one. Which sometimes smells a little like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?

What started out as such a simple way to make the world a little bit better has quickly escalated into an addiction, and one with a price tag.

Which brings me to two points: 1) We must be doing something wrong in this country because hundreds of other countries live this way and don’t go broke doing it, and 2) U.L.’s argument that what I’m doing is somehow “wrong” is testament to what this current culture has become: Lost.

Because in a sense, the way I’m living now, the way I’m eating and thinking about eating is no different than the way U.L. grew up (or me, for the most part). They farmed everything themselves, they grew fresh vegetables, they milked cows, they created their own health.

Cow, sheep, goat, soy, or rice. God loves us all the same.

And took pride in it.

But, somehow, because what “was” has now fallen into the hands of what “is” (meaning people who use words like yoga as well as people who are part of the corporate-farming network), it has become a dirty thing, a nasty deed, practically ungodly.

However, I hold firm because I still believe that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step…and what matters is that you take that step, either way: whether you’re vegetarian, pescatarian, or Presbyterian.

So…you know, just hush up and start walking, already.

A thousand miles is a long, long way to go.

“We’ll just draw names again. Except for the babies.”

The Clever Kris — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:11:05 +0000

I’ve never really cared about the gift exchange element to Christmas. Time and time again, as a child, I’d be asked what I wanted and time and time again, I’d say I didn’t care.

I’d be pressed until I crumbled and rattled off some random item. A typewriter (which I ended up loving), board games (which I’ve since donated to high school theatre departments), books (I still have every one of these), a video recorder (I used it once six years ago to document a living will).

I’ve never really put that much focus on material things. Not to say that I don’t like material things. I do. I don’t, however, keep a running tally of what I want.

The one year I wouldn’t tell U.L. what I wanted for Christmas (which was nothing), I ended up with a drum set.

I don’t want that to happen again. Nor does he.

Bless my family, though. They simply cannot stand the thought of a child not getting a little something under the tree. Even when it backfires on them, as the drum set inevitably did, in what I’d argue was record time: just under four days.

Do you hear what I hear?

The only other gift that came back to haunt U.L. was the BB gun/tree stand combo gift that really, when you think about it, never was a good idea…for me. It was transparent whose advice he’d taken on that gift.

I’ve wasted no time, this year, though. I began asking last Sunday, who wanted what.

And the answer I got was the same I’ve been getting since 2006.

“We’ll just draw names again. Except for the babies.”

Please.

My family has grown considerably in the last few years, and that, coupled with the ongoing recession, has led us to collectively agree that it’s smarter to draw names, for the adults…and let everyone buy gifts for the babies.

This is what we decided a few years ago, when the recession was a Bush-fueled gas hike issue and not yet a full-out, textbook recession. Not that it made much of a difference what it was called.

Just like it doesn’t make any difference when we say, “We’ll just draw names again. Except for the babies.”

Obviously, a baby can’t draw names.

Though a few have turned the corner of five, and, in my opinion, are practically old enough to get a job. I mean, if you’re old enough to sing along with Handy Manny, then you can draw names, and if you draw a name, you better have money to buy a gift. It’s hardly Christmas if there aren’t stuffed stockings on the mantle, a gulf of wrapping paper waiting to be ripped into, and so many presents under the tree, you can’t get to the bathroom and are tempted to do the unthinkable.

Because you can’t spell Christmas without “mas.” And in Spanish, that means “more.”

Even when you really, really mean to do less.

We’re now entering our fourth year with this money-saving Christmas decision of ours.

It has failed miserably, so far.

Guilt never looked so good.

The first year we made this announcement, it was as if no one was even listening. We all ended up buying presents for everyone, and not just one present a piece. Anything we saw that we thought someone in the family would like, we bought for them. My oldest sister does this routinely, not just at Christmas, which is how I ended up with an antique cheese plate and a flashlight that doesn’t require batteries.

That first year, I walked into Nana’s and there beneath the Tannenbaum were enough boxes to build a room at the inn for Mary. Everyone, it seemed, had gone against the “rule” of We’ll-draw-names-again-except-for-the-babies that we’d settled upon not but a few weeks earlier.

Everyone, that is, except for me.

I was true to my word, I honored the rule like any well-mannered child should have, and I purchased only one gift for the name I drew (it was my middle sister; I bought her a day at the spa, etc. etc.) and I bought the babies two gifts each.

The joke was on me all right, as everyone and their mother had chosen some thoughtful gift for every single member of the family, even Keith, and there I sat with one gift card, only, for my sister.

I was livid except it was Christmas and you’re not supposed to be livid when it’s Christmas so I just stayed in my chair and drank my cider, stirring it with my candy cane, and hummed viciously enough to make my point.

Trust me, you don’t want to question a man who can hum “What Child Is This?” and make it sound like a court-ordered paternity test.

The following year, we did something we’d never done before. We opted not to celebrate Christmas at Nana’s. As a matter of fact, we were going to not draw names; we were going to pool our monies together and go to the mountains for a week of pure, unadulterated nature and morning fog. We were going to buy the babies one really, good gift each so they’d have something to open on Christmas morning, but aside from that: our gift to each other would be family time and memory-making.

I was down for that.

There’s no family on earth more exciting and droll to travel with than mine. I’ll give them that, hands down.

That’s all they got, though, because the trip was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

By the time it was over and we’d returned home, one of my nieces had threatened to file for divorce, the youngest baby had contracted a virulent strain of the stomach flu, and I had to drive back with the old people all the way home. Who, in pure southern fashion of ignoring the obvious for the sake of convincing themselves that it isn’t true since no one’s said it was true, decided to focus the “car talk” on the only bright spot they could think of: the Dixie Stampede. A few moments recalling that indigenous dining experience was one thing, but after two hours, I was done.

I tried to change the topic, but I obviously miscalculated their ability to stretch the limits of their God-given right to talk about whatever the ________ they want to talk about.

So Dixie Stampede it was. That, and the size of the apple pie slices at Aunt Granny’s restaurant in Dollywood. Did I remember how big those slices were?

Oh, and on Christmas morning, guess what: gifts galore.

Except for me. Again. I had bought nothing. I’d given my money to U.L. to go in on the big gifts for the babies. And that was it.

In lieu of cider, I drank hot chocolate.

Don't worry: No eggs were harmed in the making of this egg nog.

A little more than a month away from Christmas, now, I want to say I don’t even care. I didn’t, initially. But, then, I thought, No, Kris, take the high road. Do the right thing.

And so, I’m going to.

I’m determined by sheer force of my own personal example, to show this family that Your Word is a Gift Unto Itself. (If I can just figure out how to wrap that).

But, No, I’m not going to back down.

I’m going to buy my One Gift for the Name I Draw, and that’s it, the end, period.

And I’m going to sit right where I always sit, by the piano, and politely collect the slew of gifts I know I’ll be getting, and I’ll enjoy every minute of it.

And, I think this year I’ll bring egg nog. Yes, I think I’ll drink egg nog, this year.

It’ll help.

I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Can Brag About [...]*

The Clever Kris — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:03:24 +0000

* The full, real title is I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Feel I Have the Right to Brag About and also Things I Cannot Stand. Just, you know, FYI.

You should know that what follows is a) a partial list only, and b) they’re not in any particular order of Cannot Stand vs. Brag. I would say to put your Big Boy Panties on and read carefully, but it’s odd how similar the things I can’t stand and the things I want to brag about actually are.

I’m not sure what that says about me, but anyway – to be safe – how about I don’t say anything about your panties. No need to tip the scales against me…

This is the very face of irony. And its finger.

Just enjoy the read.

I will not eat food while wearing a jacket.
I’ve never been bitten by a rattlesnake.
Pudding, Cool Whip, and/or meringue, formless foods that try to make you think they can stand alone.
I cannot, cannot, cannot abide a haircut where they “wet your hair” instead of rinsing it, fully.
I hate talking on the phone.
I have good teeth.
People who pass gas and are proud of it.
I don’t like people who don’t use turn signals, myself included.
I rarely get sick.
Animals like me.
I’m a very good driver.
I can listen to a song I like on repeat way, way longer than you can.
I do not appreciate tardy people, and I tell them that.
I cook well.
Interestingly, I can give myself a fever.
I disapprove of people who smack.
I am, for the most part, actually clever.
I’ve been featured on the back cover of The Dramatist three times.
Spandex.
I frown on poor penmanship.
People who say “kewl.”
I’ve never broken any bones…well, not my own. (Please see the next bulleted point).
Once, I got so mad at this boy, at some Christian Bible camp I had to go to, that I wished and wished he’d get hurt. And he did, he broke his collar bone.
I dreamed once that a man was going to drown, and he did.
Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. And talk of future meetings.
I am routinely complimented on my penmanship. FYI.
Truckers.
I learned Hebrew when I was four.
I’ve never had a mullet.
But, I have eyelashes of jealous, enviable length.
No one in my family has ever baby talked the babies.
I wrote my first poem when I was eleven.
People who prefer not to use deodorant.
4-way stops.
Answering the phone. (Please see the fifth bulleted point, above).
Lying.
I only have original art in my house.
I’m more than likely the reincarnation of either Truman Capote, Noel Coward, or Oscar Wilde. I’m just saying. Because that’s like, totally something to brag about.
Fedoras and scarves.
My cat, Aristophanes, is part-bobcat.
Church cantatas that include handbells.
My legs.
Hang nails.
I have a brother who is half-Iranian, a second brother and sister who are half-Polish, and a third brother who is half-Cherokee, between my parents. On top of that, as you might have guessed, we’re all half-siblings. Now, add on top of that this: the Iranian brother is Muslim, but our mother comes from a Jewish family, which makes us Jewish, so I feel certain war will eventually break out between us. Talk about a conflict of interest.
I was once ranked third in the state in Men’s singles tennis.
My brother who is half-Iranian is also an up-and-coming rap artist, in Las Vegas, by the way. I thought you should know that.
I have an autographed book by Eudora Welty, who was a friend of my mother’s.
Screaming, and any variation of it.
Proselytizers.
Mississippi is no longer the fattest state in the nation.
My grandmother once made me stop the car and get out, to help a turtle get across the road. That’s the stock I come from.
Billy Hull, who lived down the road from me, was once the longest-serving County Supervisor in the United States. He held the record until he died.
My cousin, Lucy, was a second-alternate for the 1996 Olympic gymnastics team, behind Amanda Borden.
My Uncle Oscar started Morrison’s Cafeterias.
My Nana is deaf in the same ear as Caesar.
Feet.
I was Little Mr. Winston County in 1983.
Fred Phelps.
I won the Mississippi State Horticulture award in 1994, even though I didn’t climb the tree like everyone else at the week-long camp did to retrieve a sample of blighted mistletoe.
Boogers.
People who end all of their sentences as if they’re asking questions.
I’ve never gotten pregnant.
I almost met Harper Lee.
I can play the piano by ear, if the piano is out of tune like U.L’s.
Oh, and get this, U.L. had a brother who was a dwarf, named Ran.
I saved a young boy from drowning when I was fifteen.
Coffee.
I know the world’s greatest drummer. No lie.
That being said, the world’s foremost banjo player is from my hometown.
My mother dated Marty Stuart, years ago.
Pumpkin pie.
I once sang a note, and held it for a minute and twenty-eight seconds. But, only once.
Even people who hate me, like me.
Sweating in work clothes.
Computers that are slow.
I once got stung by twelve yellow jackets, at the same time. Three on the face, alone. And lived to tell it.
I used to make my own books of poetry from discarded gift boxes and wood glue, which I for years thought was more durable than normal glue. They fell apart, though, after about five reads.
One of my neighbors, growing up, had a pet monkey that did not like curtains, or his daughter.
My Aunt Sally lived to be 100; my Uncle Pat, 102.
I am the Cat Whisperer.
People who pepper their conversations with French. How gauche.
My blog is an app on someone’s iPhone.
Rude children.
Waking up.

Both art and a good philosophy.

I’d like to continue but, ironically, another thing I can’t stand is writing. Who’d’ve thunk it? I’m driven to write, though, I can’t ignore that, but I still find it painful and grueling. Probably because it’s such a raw craft, makes me vulnerable…or better yet, makes me think and feel that I’m vulnerable.

Which reminds me…

• Being vulnerable, you know, and stupid things like that.

Oh, and, one last thing…

• I’ve held a baby gopher turtle. I bet you haven’t.

I know that makes you jealous, the baby gopher turtle part, and I’m sorry for that. I would be too, I mean, come on! It was a baby gopher turtle! You’ve probably never even heard of a gopher turtle, in the first place…raise your hands if you have.

I didn’t see a single hand go up.

Ok, I’m done. That’s all for now.

So…go on and have a good one.

Suffice it to say, I was spanked, a second time, OR The 100th Blog.

The Clever Kris — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:09:26 +0000

I didn’t get spanked, as a child…much.

U.L. didn’t really believe in that, unless you’d done some really horrendous thing, which I never truly did because God, you know, also rented a room at U.L.’s house, and so it was really hard to get away with much of anything between the two of them. And then there was Jesus. He was always like, Hey, we’ll fix it later. I liked him the most. I hated that he moved out.

Rent's pretty cheap here: one soul for life.

I’m not saying I never got spanked, kids being kids, but I tried really hard to be a good boy. And, for the most part, I was.

I didn’t do anything illegal until I was of age, which then made it not illegal…well, some things. But, I would imagine living in Orlando would challenge anyone’s fealty to the law. I was, until the age of twenty-one, give or take a few years, so picture-perfect that I could have had my own Bible story. It would be a devastatingly, achingly luculent parable about the evils of children who were born a smoke screen. About the shocking shallowness that excessive daydreaming and over-reading of literary classics causes in small boys who are living so many different, confusing lives.

And it would also, in spades I tell you, address the dangers of being quiet, of staying quiet, and of speaking low, when speaking was necessary.

In my family, you see, we fought with the standard Victorian weapons of mass destruction: words and stares.

U.L. could cut you down to size quicker than a bee sting with nothing but the curve of an eyebrow, and Nana could put you in your place with just the ever so subtle shift of her mouth. I won’t even speak of Tigi or GamVa, here. Their powers of reprimand are too potent to even be put on the page.

This is how we loved and fought: tersely and sternly…and yet, genuinely.

We also did not raise our voices. That wasn’t “of class.” So, imagine if you will, fighting fire with a flame, or sometimes half a spark, or better yet, a defective Bic lighter.

Regardless, it’s still eerily effective.

We would rather live together in abject silence until the anger passed over, much like the Angel of Death, except instead of painting my bedroom door with a red slash, I would walk around embarrassed with flushed cheeks at the “crime I had committed,” whatever it may have been.

It never failed to work.

Ah, the Old South: antebellum homes, insane half-Jewish blood, candle factories, magnolias, cattle farms, churches, guilt…oh, and cornbread dressing.

It's our state flower and a sure-fire yard killer.

It’s just about the only South I know.

So, then, with a family this prone to not showing how upset they are about anything on earth, what oh what could I have done to garner a spanking? Two, even?

I’m glad you pretended to ask.

My first offense was, I think in retrospect, worthy of a spanking. I’d been left alone too long in the house, and I’d discovered my mother’s deteriorating vanity, full of old make-up, in a back bedroom. We never went into this part of the house, except when U.L. felt the need to play “The Old Rugged Cross,” or “Whispering Hope,” on the stagy upright that sat against the front parlor window, next to her bedroom.

We couldn’t go in the parlor at night because the curtains were too sheer…music only happened in that house when the sun was out.

I, naturally, went into her bedroom, then, during the day. And in it, there stood this huge vanity, an antique, with an oval, gilded mirror that seemed to float above the dresser. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? I sat down on the soft, rounded bench, covered barely with the remains of a tulle and cotton cushion, and proceeded to open every single drawer.

I collected quite a bit of mascara, lipstick, melted rouge, and broken eyeliner pencils, one that was shamelessly from the 80s and electric blue.

I bet you think I made my lips up, slapped some rouge on my cheeks, outlined my eyelids, extended my lashes.

But, I didn’t. That small mountain was a later one to climb. No, I, instead, took my loot and crawled onto the ancient sleigh bed in the room there, and began to draw on the quilted bedspread. It was a garish pink a la Tigi, and so I had to concentrate and dig deeply into the fabric for my artwork to be clearly seen.

And the things I drew.

I drew spaceships, and birds, and in one of the corners a rather macabre scene: a hearse, with a small comment bubble wafting above the hood that said simply, “But, he was dead.”

Do you know how much determination it takes to draw on fabric, of any kind? Of course, I was spanked. I was seven.

I’d have spanked myself, had I known what bits of family history I was ruining. (Or adding to).

How I avoided therapy, though, is not surprising: Could you imagine a southern family admitting to the plain fact of having something akin to an idiot savant in their midst, and out in public? Hardly. I just became a “colorful child, and so imaginative.” I didn’t get to many birthday parties.

This is the very definition of a Merry Un-Birthday.

The second time I was spanked was because I’d convinced a slow cousin of mine to sneak off with me, one afternoon, to the neighbor’s barn to see a litter of new puppies that had been born to the rogue part-Collie/part-Cujo who’d taken up residence there.

I’m not sure if I was spanked then because I’d manipulated a slow cousin or because of the threat of rabies or a combination of the two.

Suffice it to say, I was spanked, a second time. I was eleven.

In between those four years, and up until I turned thirty, I fell into the expected pattern of familial silence, much to their relief. I did my work, I sang in church, I wrote little stories, I read every blame book I came across, I didn’t put any elbows on the table, I said Yes Ma’am and No Sir, and all-in-all became the storybook child everyone wants.

At least on Sundays.

The trouble is, those Sundays just never were quite as good as the stories I read.

Which, I think, says a lot about what I tried to be, then.

But a lot more about whom I’m becoming now.

The very idea of texting your mother…

The Clever Kris — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:38:10 +0000

God help us all if we get arthritis.

You tell me if you get this: a student gets up to leave at the end of this morning’s class, and casually turns back to me and says, “Well teetle, I guess! Have a good weekend!”

Teetle?

Do you know what that means?

I didn’t either.

I asked her to repeat it.

“I said ‘teetle.’”

“Do you mean like toodle-loo? Is that what you’re trying to say? As in, See you later, toodle-loo?”

“I would never say that. That sounds dumb.”

There was a lull as we tried to figure out how to communicate what, at first glance, appeared to be nothing but a simple, closing remark as she headed out the door.

“So what are you actually saying to me then?”

“’Teetle’ like you know, T-T-Y-L? Teetle.”

Let’s stop right there for a moment, shall we? I’ve never known anyone to say this in actuality, ever. I’ve never even known anyone to use it in a fashion other than via texting. I have in a joking conversation heard it used before, but they spelled it out, as in “Well, t-t-y-l, I guess. Have a good weekend,” where they pronounced each letter carefully so as not to shroud the humor implicit in using texting code in passing conversation.

But, to use it as a complete word, and so nonchalantly, as she did…both frightens and fascinates me.

We’re redefining the way we communicate in this culture at an alarming rate. Case in point, I think I’ve told you this already, but I’m experimenting with some of these new-fangled definitions of communication in my composition classes. I got so frustrated with them constantly texting during my lectures, etc. that I decided to embrace it, instead.

I certainly couldn’t get them to stop without jeopardizing the “learning environment,” per se, so I challenged them to write their first narrative assignment entirely in SMS text code. Far from daunted, they leaped at the opportunity. I’ve never seen a class so focused on a task before. I’ve also never had a class turn in an assignment so quickly and on time before either. I collected their papers and perused them a moment.

Rarely seen in its natural habitat, the A+ paper is an herbivore.

It might as well have been Klingon.

I had not one clue what they’d written. I was, however, impressed at how condensed a three-page narrative paper becomes when all we use is text; it reminded me of Nana’s shorthand notebooks from when she was the Church Social Secretary. Somehow, in those strange conglomerations of letters, and very few vowels, they’d, almost hieroglyphically, told me their life stories.

I thought, Think fast, Kris, what do you do now? And was instantly given this idea: pass the papers back out, but randomly, and then have them re-write the paper in Standard English. I mean, we all use texting, pretty much, but we don’t all use the same “codes,” it seems, little of it actually SMS.

That proved to be the real challenge. And one they faced with proper grumbling. They whined and moaned and griped that they couldn’t “understand most of this.”

I pressed further, saying, “OK, then write down what you think they’re saying, or what you think they’re trying to say. We’ll ask afterwards.”

It was a remarkable day, I must admit. They had to actually think through the assignment because one student complained that she didn’t “say it like that” when she texted. Another student said she used several versions of a couple of codes depending on whom she was texting (i.e., her friend a.k.a “BESTY,” or her mother).

The very idea of texting your mother.

No, what it really challenges is language we’re comfortable with. Language that we’ve been taught; this is a generational issue, any way you look at it. Even though I text, myself; I already feel as old as my parents. I imagine it wasn’t much easier when Gutenberg’s and Shakespeare’s “thees” and “thous” were thrown out in favor of the more colloquial “yous” and “yours,” but at least they were still using whole words.

Or, you could pick up an Austen novel. Or Shelley’s Frankenstein. We don’t talk like that, anymore, either.

I also understand the resistance. The uneducatedness of utilizing text in formal writing. If I have to circle one more “ur” and mark it for not being “your,” or “you’re,” which still, as far as I know, represents two different sets of semantics, it’ll be too soon. But, it seems we’re standing on the precipice of a major paradigm in communication, all forms, but especially written communication.

Back in the day, writing a letter took effort, and time. It had to travel, so we prepared each letter with a certain timelessness considering the art of handwriting. These days, there’s no such consideration given. Or, so it seems, though I’d be willing to bet that personalizing an entire system of texting the way “you do it,” as compared to someone outside your circle, is nothing short of a craft in and of itself.

Even if it looks tacky.

Really, texting is just glorified telegramming. And it’s here to stay.

Looks like a size 6, to me.

Of course, this could all be a long phenomenon. And nothing else. I suppose when all else fails we still have the ability to actually talk to each other. And to listen…though that’s challenging enough for some. Somehow, today, in my catch-all Opening that begins each of my lessons, I managed to address several broad topics: cell-phone usage while driving and Maria Shriver, the horror film Paranormal Activity, Halloween costumes, and carbon footprints.

I’m not sure if he was joking or not, but it was still funny – I’d just mentioned the term carbon footprint. And a young man asked me to explain what it meant. I said, “I thought surely you would have discussed this in your Chem Lab. I’m no scientist, but surely you know what a carbon footprint is?”

He said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but mine’s a size 12.”

I looked at him a second and then allowed the wash to come over my brain. What other choice did I have?

I looked him straight in the face and said, “LOL.”

That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear.

The Clever Kris — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:37:56 +0000

I like to think I’m a good uncle.

This is my family tree, ready for Christmas.

Even though, I don’t really know my “real” nieces and nephews. I’ve seen Millie, once; I’ve seen Auden, once; I’ve never meet Vinnie. So, to make up for this: I give all my grand uncle-ness to a series of young cousins, whose mothers I grew up with, as my nieces, being the baby of the adopted family I claimed with their grandmother, who I took as my—

You know what, let me scratch that.

It’s too confusing.

My family tree, you know, is really just an assortment of random branches that were blown down during a storm, and happend to fall around an exposed root out in the yard. So, we’ll go with that.

Again. Ahem: I like to think I’m a good uncle.

I spend each Sunday afternoon with my current batch of nephews: A.K., 4; Conn, 3; and Wynn, 2. I do everything I can to encourage their imaginations (i.e., taking a puzzle box top and making into a pirate’s hat), but, every now and then they surprise me with their own little internal thinking skills.

For example: A.K. told me once when he grew up he wanted to be either a ninja or a box of crayons. When I asked him Why (for the box of crayons), he said, Well, everybody I know likes crayons.

Brilliant, huh? And somehow poignant.

Sometimes, it’s just plain funny what they say…and do. Last weekend, for instance, we were playing one of their favorite games. It’s called Crazy Bulls. And here’s how you play it: everyone crawls on all fours, making any very loud sound they care to, then they do a “bull run” down the long, long green carpet hallway at Nana’s, and then the Farmer has to give them candy.

This is played in rotation for…oh, let’s say, two hours.

So, last Sunday, we’re playing this game, and I’m the Farmer, and I’m running them down the hall (actually, I sat in the recliner at the east end of Nana’s house, where the family den is – we sit there after dinner and watch some television show about cows, ironically. We have a cattle farm, that’s why; I mostly just read the paper, as I don’t really care for cows as far as prime time viewing is concerned), anyway, I sat in the recliner and just watched them run back and forth, up and down the hall.

I'll read anything that keeps my eyes off a cow.

I was halfway through the Foxtrot comic when I heard Conn say, “Whew!” and then collapse. I jumped up and hoped he was fine (we’re having several medical scares with his health, as of late).

He was completely fine, though. Don’t worry.

I got down the hall, to him, and I said, “Conn, are you OK, buddy?”

He nodded, and looked up and said, “Yeah. Let’s just pretend like I’m a dead bull.”

He’s 3, for crying out loud.

I can’t remember when I first even knew what death was, let alone want to play dead. I don’t think I started that until I was, at least, in first grade, which would be what six, and I didn’t want to do the May Day school production. I figured Conn must be tired, is all…

So, I started to say No, Conn, no dead bulls today. Let’s just take a break…but A.K. intervened.

“That’s not right, Conn.” (Good, good, A.K. will talk some sense into him, I thought).

“What, AA?” (That’s what Conn calls him).

“That’s not right!” (A.K. was getting a little loud, but I stood by, observing the natives in their natural habitat).

“What is.”

“Bulls don’t die like that! Gosh! They fall on their sides.”

At which point, Conn got up and proceeded to die, time after time, until A.K. pronounced it “good enough to do.” This took quite awhile; I had two pieces of Scotch Chocolate cake in the interim. Wynn, having found his way back to his own dinner plate (and believe me, he eats enough) decided he was through with deviled eggs and brown sugar ham. He was going to die like a real bull, too. Though it came out more like, “Ido wi’AA and Con-Con, me.”

I’m not sure how many minutes passed, in reality, but at some point, Nana came down the hall because “it’d gotten too quiet.” That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear. It’s also, incidentally, how one of my sisters learned to play the piano and my patience.

Nana came around the corner, and I’m sure Had She Not Loved and Brought Me Up with U.L., she would have thought I’d killed three children. They were all very silent I must agree, and laying on their sides, their little tongues sticking out. A.K. had been stubbornly insistent that they do this the right way or not at all.

(He is his mother’s son, of course).

He can't even get a Capitol One credit card.

But, what he hadn’t figured on was just how tired they all three were. And as I stood by, ever vigilant, he could have no way of knowing that I was simply allowing them to wear themselves out. I motioned to Nana to walk softly, just in case I was right.

And I was.

By the time she stepped down into the sitting room, where we’d been playing, all three of the boys were completely asleep. They looked dead, I know, but they weren’t. They were in a mad, fast world of dreams, and Wynn, as he usually does when he naps, had a slap-happy grin on his face.

God, I’d love to know what he dreams about.

I also wished I’d had a camera; it was such a sweet picture. All the more so, when you know just how aggravating three boys can be. I’ve got a white hair for each of them, but I learned a valuable lesson, all the same: it’s not always a bad thing to be bull-headed.

Especially not if, in the end, it helps you go to sleep.

The Clever Kris » Nana

Gary makes me hungry.

Related Posts:

After that, I ate my chocolate cobbler in silence.

Related Posts:

Phenergan’s Wake

Related Posts:

Five foods that made me who I am.

Related Posts:

Yes, Virginia, I am a vegetarian.

Related Posts:

“We’ll just draw names again. Except for the babies.”

Related Posts:

I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Can Brag About [...]*

Related Posts:

Suffice it to say, I was spanked, a second time, OR The 100th Blog.

Related Posts:

The very idea of texting your mother…

Related Posts:

That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear.

Related Posts: