Save Some Chicken Parm for Me

Saturday night we had a dancing-on-the-coffee-table caliber throwdown at the house for my birthday. Our friend Randy DJed all professional-like, and some of my favorite straight men got fabulous in wigs that were the wrong colors for their skin tones but oh so right in so many other ways. Mark even got Mitchell’s Ice Cream cake. It was bliss.

And as happily wrung out as I am from all the fun here, I still can’t help but feel bummed to have missed a different party last week.

My Godmother, Mimi, turned 95 on Thursday. And when I called her in the middle of the day, her house was rockin’.

She’s bellowing into the phone to me that she didn’t know she had so many friends and could she maybe call me back another time? It was kinda hard to hear with all the action. Oh, and there’s the doorbell! More guests.

Sheesh.

And is it wrong to admit that part of my sad-to-not-be-there feeling—I mean, how many 95th birthday parties does one get invited to, really?—has to do as much with the inevitably amazing food offerings, as it does with my desire to hold court as a long-standing member of the celebrant’s posse?

Ah, the food. These are the people who throw down a ham, a couple lasagnas (one meat one veg—as if a vegetarian EVER darkened their door), stuffed artichokes, fennel and orange salad, broccoli done guinea-style (cold with a little lemon juice), maybe something with shrimp or scallops, and no doubt a breaded cutlet of some sort. Really, Caligula ate worse than this, but these folks’ll still chastise themselves all through the clean-up and for a good day or two after that they forgot to put out the eggplant parm.

And by “them” I mean Mimi and her sister and ever present sidekick, Aunt Mary. The silly-she’s-so-spry nearly-90-year-old who lives next door, and who reigns supreme over the dessert realm of the food world.

I challenge you to not weep over her Better Than Sex Cake. And every time I’m lucky enough to have some I debate which is better, hearing Aunt Mary snicker with her friends about her cake’s superiority to sex, or the dark chocolate with coconut whipped cream frosting confection itself. You ask me, both are surefire crowd-pleasers.

Another reason it’s so tortuous to miss these shindigs—aside from my denial that there’s an inevitable limited time offer on them—is that parties that Mimi and Aunt Mary throw, even in their dazzling twilight years, are part of my DNA. Growing up next door to them (and their brother, who lived in the third house over and never I’d guess even knew how to boil water, but did an impressive Italian-style job of eating), growing up next to them they’d entreat my mother to host a “little something” for whatever event was taking place in our lives.

My first communion? “We’d love to just have a small party for Kristen.” My graduation from elementary school? Confirmation? My oldest sister’s engagement? “We’d be honored if we could have some people here to celebrate. ” And of course the standards: Christmas Eve, Fourth of July, Memorial Day? “You’ll be coming by, won’t you? It wouldn’t be a party without the Brunos here.”

They’d start cooking days in advance, filling our abutting back yards with a narcotic cloud of essence of garlic. When the party day arrived we’d be drawn zombie-like and Pavlovian out our back door to their homes. In hot weather we’d be on Aunt Mary’s glorious plant-filled patio or in Mimi’s large garage, which doubled as an airy screened-in porch in the summers. (Told you they were Italian.)

In that way that you don’t know what your life would be like otherwise because it’s not that way it’s the way it actually is, I never stopped to think that everyone didn’t have neighbors like them. I mean, Mimi, her utterly amazing late husband, my Godfather, Uncle Ant (as in, Anthony, pronounced ANT-nee, yo) and Aunt Mary—despite the Aunt and Uncle titles and all—aren’t even kin. They just lived next door.

For a while there many of the food fests took place around Mimi and Ant’s pool—an in-ground jobber they’d built when I was in Junior High. It was like the Pool Fairy had finally answered my prayers but delivered the goods one door down. No matter, since they didn’t have kids and I was at their house as often as my own. In fact, Mimi and Ant never swam in the thing themselves, preferring instead to sit at the edge dangling their feet in. (Ant often referred to the pool as “the world’s most expensive foot basin.”)

Between the vittles, the handy proximity, and the effusive Italian grandparent-like adoration, I was too young to know how freaking lucky I was to have so much love cooked into so many breaded chicken cutlets. (Come to think of it, they made great iced tea too.)

It really hit us when my mother eventually moved to a smaller house in town. She marveled that she’d never even seen the folks across the street, forget having been invited over for sausage and peppers and Scrabble.

My nostalgia for the old ‘hood drove me to dredge up an orange photo album Mimi made me years ago. Pictures of me through the years, posing in their clam shell driveway in the JC Penney clothes they’d bought me for back to school, showing off the stitches I’d gotten on my right eyebrow, snuggled up on a bench next to Uncle Ant drinking from one of their plastic orange-shaped cups with the built-in straws that I loved so much. (I’d kill to own one now.) And a bunch of me playing dress-up in Uncle Ant’s old Army hats and over-sized drooping uniforms. (He was a well-decorated Army man back in the day, and a devout fan of the show Hogan’s Heroes, having recorded every episode off of cable onto precisely-labeled VHS tapes.)

Anyway, I came across this Diary of a Catholic Girl photo from around when Mimi, Uncle Ant and I first started hanging out. (I’m the one in white. The one on the left in white, that is.)

I knew right away that Uncle Ant was a social force to be reckoned with. Anyone who wears sunglasses inside at church is my kind of bad ass.

Sadly, I’m bracing to miss another Mary-and-Mimi production next weekend, when Aunt Mary turns the big 9-0. They won’t be cooking for that one since Mary’s kids are hosting, but I still expect to spend some time that day feeling sorry for myself and wishing the Midwest’d finally just cave into the ocean to move the two coasts closer. (A favorite pastime of mine, despite the dear folks who I know and love in those middle parts. In my fantasy they’re all kept safe and are happily re-installed in homes along the new narrow peninsula-like strip of North America.)

We plan to be in Lil Rhody for July 4th, of course. (God sets his watch to it.) It’s my adored, most favorite, never-to-be-missed hometown holiday. And I can assure you that on that trip I’ll be setting aside some time and stomach space to party with Mimi and Aunt Mary. We’ve got some lost time to make up for.

Life on Earth

Kate: “Do we live on a planet called Earth?”

Me: “Yes.”

Kate: “Does Grandpa live on Earth too?”

Me: “Yes.”

Kate: “Where?”

Me: “Well Grandpa lives in the USA, like us. But he lives on the East Coast and we live on the West Coast.”

Kate: “I want to live where Grandpa lives.”

Me: “Why?”

Kate: “Because I love him.”

Now, as my handy dandy What I’m Reading widget shows, I’ve just started in on a book called Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938. It takes place in my sweet wee home state of Rhode Island. And the rich silly Yankee history and descriptions of natural beauty—along with the fact that summer (a season Little Rhody does proud) is right around the corner—are making me jones hard for a big dose of home.

They’re also giving me real estate lust for a rambling ancient beauty of an ocean-side home in, say, Jamestown, or maybe Little Compton. Big enough to house plenty of guests, casual enough to keep the doors wide open and to welcome whatever sand gets dragged in. But stately enough to clean up nice too.

This fantasy includes us spend summers there, of course, and retreating to Cali when the skies turn gray.

Anyway, it’s probably obvious that I don’t need much encouragement to find myself in these Rhode Island reveries. But then I start reading this book, and Kate—my little pleasure-seeking alter ego—goes off about living too far away from Grandpa, and I’m pretty much done for.

Don’t Cry for Me Chopping Onions

My Aunt Mary, who was my neighbor growing up in Rhode Island–and who my sisters and I call “aunt” even though she ain’t blood kin–is one of those dazzling people who children instantly adore.

At an amazingly spry 90 years old, she remembers every word to seemingly every children’s song, including the little hand gestures. Kate was still an infant when she met her for the first time, and even then she was enraptured. Today, the love is more about the home-baked cakes Kate’s come to know Aunt Mary always has on hand.  She serves up big slices with glasses of milk, and Kate sits blissfully on the same wooden stool at the same yellow linoleum counter where my sisters and I used to preside.

Aunt Mary is nothing short of a legend. I’m so happy my kids have gotten to know her. I just wish her wonderful kitchen wasn’t now so many miles away.

So, back when I was the one begging baked goods, Aunt Mary used to tell us there was a little girl, clearly some sort of ghost-girl (though she never quite spelled that out) who lived in her attic. She said her name was Isabelle Onnabike—which just a few years ago I realized was a pun for ‘Is a bell on a bike?’ I think she must have found that funny, but maybe didn’t realize we weren’t in on the joke. Or perhaps she knew we didn’t get it and that was what delighted her.

Another thing I remember her often saying, or rather singing, was, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, and all I do is cry all day!”

I’m sure there are other verses to this odd song, but as I said, she’s the one who remembers the words to these things, not me.

Anyway, I thought of that ditty the other day since I seem to somehow be channeling Heloise and her tactics for avoiding the onion-cutting weepies.

Kate’s old nanny came over one day last week to provide childcare and psychological relief for me while Mark was out of town. I also managed to convince her to whip up a batch of her chicken and sweet potato curry for us. So I got a couple dinners out of the deal too.

When she arrived she enlisted Kate’s eager help with the cooking. Her first instructional comment being, “So first we need to put the onions in the refrigerator so they’ll get cold and we won’t cry when we cut them.”

Huh. Who knew?

Then on Saturday, when Randy came over to do some front porch sitting, we were drinking iced tea—as one does on a front porch (unless it’s an hour when one should be drinking alcohol, which, sadly, it wasn’t quite yet). There were quotes or fun facts or something written in our bottle caps, and I actually decided to read mine. It said that if you chew gum while you’re cutting onions, you won’t cry.

Randy thought it was bullshit.

As for me, I don’t have the energy—or enough interest, frankly—to test either tip.

I’m just curious why the universe is sending me so many pointers on this issue. Perhaps it’s time for me to rejoin the workforce? And I’m going to be pulling long shifts of KP duty, peeling potatoes and chopping onions?

Or maybe I’ll be reincarnated, some hopefully far-off day, as a lonely little petunia in an onion patch?

Hard to say how my immersion in onions will manifest itself, but it seems prudent for me to keep these tactics—and my old ski goggles—handy, just in case.

We Love Gay

A few years ago we went to a wedding in Philadelphia, the bride’s hometown, and I was blindsided by just how much I liked it there.

And I wasn’t alone. Throughout the weekend other guests from San Francisco made comments to the bride like, “This is actually a pretty cool city. Who knew?” Backhanded compliments, for sure.

Living in the Bay Area for more than 16 years now makes me often wonder about what life’s like elsewhere. But since moving is so complicated, and we’re forever stymied about where it is we’d go, I process most of my curiosity through pretend play.

So one morning when we were at that wedding in Philly, I woke up, rolled over and said to Mark, “Let’s pretend we live here, okay? So… Here we are! We live in Philadelphia! What should we do today in this city that we live in?”

Mark humored me for a short time, but ultimately found the game more absurd than socially enriching. And of course, he’ll never forget it. Sometimes still if I’m doing or saying something, he’ll turn to me and ask, “Are we pretending we live in Philadelphia again?”

One of the other places I invariably find myself fantasizing about being a resident of is my wee hometown of Bristol, RI. Or at least some place like it.

On our recent visit there I took the girls to the town’s newly expanded stone facade library. In the fabulous new children’s area–replete with huge windows, soft-sided animal-shaped chairs, bins filled with toys, an outdoor path through a lovely little garden, and of course books books books–I couldn’t resist imagining that the girls and I would be regulars there if we lived in town. Bringing them to proudly return books in the drop slot, pick out a new batch, and sit in on story time–all at the very library on whose once-mildewy basement carpet I spent many childhood afternoons of my own.

The other folks there during our visit–a father with a boy somewhere between Kate and Paige’s age–were hardly the friendly cohorts I was hoping to encounter. Paige made every opportunity to engage them, and her powers of charm are nearly bionic, virtually impossible to resist. But somehow, in what I attributed to a brusque New England attitude, both father and son barely made eye contact with us. Likely even found our presence there annoying.

It was nearly enough to shatter my sunny we-live-here-now fantasy.

So anyway, a few months ago when I was throwing dinner together, Kate was playing on the kitchen floor with Paige and announced, “Mama, I’m gay!”

Which, hey, is fine and all, but I have to admit, coming from a three-year-old took me a bit off guard.

But I managed to find a kindly response that also aimed to garner more information. “Oh really, honey? How’s that?”

Kate, who was encircled by books–a fairly typical setting for her–held up one with the pages open outwardly to face Paige, and explained, “I’m gay, and it’s story time, and Paige is one of the children coming to story time.”

(Then to Paige in a slightly affected tone.) “Good morning, children! Welcome to story time!”

At which point I realized she meant Gay–capital ‘G’–not gay, gay. Gay being the name of the beloved grandmotherly children’s librarian right here in Rockridge.

Now Kate adores Gay and it’s easy to see why. She is adorable, though not in a baby bird kinda way.

Once I was walking behind a klatch of mother’s who were heading to the park after story time and they were all cooing over how much they dig it when Gay reads books–doing all the voices for different characters and singing songs that require you to move you hands one way or another to act out things as you sing. As much as you can’t imagine enduring this stuff as a non-parent, trust me, it’s equaling surprising to find yourself one day getting into it.

In fact, I’m sometimes like a maniac getting us out the door so we don’t miss Gay’s opening “Good morning dear Earth, Good morning dear Sun” song that somewhere along the line I decided I just love love love and that in its simple way makes me kinda sorta just happy.

Chalk it up to sleep deprivation, a deficiency of daytime adult conversation, and the presence of a kindly woman who’s happy to entertain my kids for a half-hour–somehow that story time gives me as much a hit of serotonin as it gives the wee ones for whom it’s intended.

After the stories–which are always related to some sort of train or family or mitten theme–Gay is besieged by the small beasties, reaching out to get either a sheet to color in, or a sticker. She even gave out blueberries one day after reading the Maine classic Blueberries for Sal. Something I found generous and fun, and delicious for greedy blue-mouthed Kate, even if there was a part of my brain I was trying to ignore that was wondering, “Are-they-organic?”

During my “office hours” here at Chez McClusky I’m often surprised by the small things that trigger Kate’s curiosity. They’re usually such commonplace things it’s weird to realize Kate has no clue about them. You know, like what happens to stuff we put in the recycling bin, how corn is grown (not on a tree!), that dogs have a special sense of smell. Often whatever Kate and I are discussing turns into the thing that she wants to get books about at the library.

On Tuesday we made applesauce, and Kate got all freaky-obsessed over the seeds–as she’s wont to do–which got me explaining about Johnny Appleseed, which got Kate wanting a book about him from the library. Plus, after listening to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack for years now, I recently mentioned that the music was from a movie–actual live-action footage that could come to her through the TV, a rare treat. This information had her nearly blow a gasket.

So on drizzly Tuesday we sauntered to the library, just a two block walk from home. Kate got Gay in her cross hairs immediately and run up to her desk, pumping adrenaline and panting as if she were about to evacuate a burning building. “Gay! Gay!! Do you know what? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang IS A MOVIE. Did you know that? Do you have the movie, Gay? And also, you know what? We want to get a book about Apple Johnnyseed too. Do you have that, Gay?”

Gay’s reaction is perfect. She mirrors Kate’s excitement in a genuine way that makes me feel like she gets Kate–and truly likes her. A mother’s joy. And while she looks up whatever Kate requested–she’s animatedly sharing factoids about “Johnny Appleseed, sweetie, not Apple Johnnyseed.” And she pokes out a finger towards Paigey’s belly. “Hello, Little Sister. Don’t you look proper today in your wool hat.”

My excitement to interact with Gay is nearly as great as Kate’s. I just keep it more on the DL. Although I doubt she even knows our names, Gay is someone who, in the midst of some seemingly endless empty days of having to find this or that thing to do with the kids, knows us. Which can sometimes provide just the amount of comfort that I need to change my perspective on the day.

But after Paigey’s poke it’s back to Kate. And I stand back as Gay shows her a few different book options which she paws through quickly, while whining, “The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang DVD! I need that too!”

Ah, ever the ingrate.

Prompting me to remind Kate to use her manners. And Gay to dismiss my comment with an unspoken don’t-you-worry-about-that-we-have-business-to-conduct-here-Kate-and-I as she ambles over to the movie section.

“Oh you are right!,” she clucks. “I did almost forget that, didn’t I? Now let’s make sure no one else has taken that out…”

Thank you, thank you, Gay, for being our most exceptional small town librarian in this big city of Oakland. We are oh so lucky to have you, parents and children alike.

What’s more, whenever we see you I don’t even have to pretend we live here.

Love, Italian Style

Greetings from Bristol, Rhode Island.

Today I visited my 94-year-old Godmother, Mimi, and her 90-year-old sister, Mary. Both women are more spry than I could ever hope to be when (and if) I live to be even 20 years younger than they are.

Here’s part of our conversation. Pardon the phonetic Italian.

Mimi: [pinching Paigey's cheeks] “Coo-mah zee bell! Coom-oh cool la dee-ahl!”

Me: “Wait, what does that mean?”

Mimi: “Well, you know ‘Coo-mah zee bell…‘”

Me: “Right. [That's 'How pretty you are.'] But what was that last part?”

Mimi: [Pretends to not hear me and starts playing with Paige.]

Me: [Turning to Aunt Mary] “What was that other thing she said? After ‘Coo-mah zee bell?‘”

Aunt Mary: “Well, uh, it’s a kind of funny thing to say. Literally it means ‘like the backside of a frying pan.’”

Me: “Oh my God. I have got to write that down. Okay, Mimi, so say it to me again so I can get it.” 

Mimi: [slowly] “Coooo-mahhh zeeee bell. Coooom-oh cool–”

Aunt Mary: “Oh, and ‘cool‘ literally means, well, bottom. You know…ass!”

Me: “Okay, so what she is saying is, ‘How pretty she is, like the ass end of a frying pan?’”

Aunt Mary and Mimi: [in unison, looking at each other] “Well, yeah. That’s about right.”

Brilliant. I can’t think of two people I love more paying my sweet baby Paige a better compliment. 

It’s truly wonderful to be home.

Crashing and Burning Across the Finish Line

Saturday afternoon Mark made his long-awaited return from Vegas.

He entered the house to see the typically-banned-from-TV Kate lying languid on the couch, a Sesame Street-watching zombie, hear Paige wailing miserably from her crib, and find me splayed out in bed with a brain-crushing migraine.

Not exactly the Bree Van de Kamp meets Heidi Klum greeting I’d had in mind.

But in the glamorous, fast-paced, take-no-prisoners Domestic Engineer life I lead, reality often misaligns with expectations. 

When I was in high school my friend’s little sister was crazy fired-up to have been asked to prom by a guy she’d been moony over for months. As mature oh-so-over-it-all seniors, my friend and I marveled from the sidelines as her sister dragged her mom dress shopping to every mall in Rhode Island (which I think was a staggering three shopping centers at the time, maybe four). She obsessed over limo rental, where they’d eat, and whether she could trust her best friend and her boyfriend to be sufficiently un-dorky double dates.

When the big day arrived–much to our collective relief–she bathed herself silly for hours (ah, those bygone epic soaks with Cosmo and Glamour), then got her nails done and her hair up-doed. A couple hours before the event she decided to bleach her moustache, left the stuff on too long, and burned the shit out of her upper lip.

Which just goes to show it’s sometimes the home stretch that screws you. 

As for me on Saturday, I eventually managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed and wince into dim light without recoiling in agony. And a couple hours after that I even combed the sleep-induced rat’s nest snarl out of my hair. I’m not sure I ever got around to brushing my teeth, but the way things unfurled that day I think Mark planted our long-anticpated welcome home kiss atop my aching noggin anyway.

Thankfully by yesterday I was back in the pink. We romped with the girls at the beach in Alameda, drank beers at a kid-friendly burger joint for lunch, and rolled our eyes at each other over Kate’s intermittent three-year-old no-I-won’t-ever-put-that-jacket-on fits. I got to sleep in, had what I’d humbly report was a fabulous hair day, and managed to perform myriad other maternal and wifely, uh, ‘duties’ with a little that’s-what-I’m-talkin’-about spring in my step.

Mark’s back. I’m back. Yay.  

Little Miss Malaprop

One of Mark’s friends from his New York days wrote a great book about misheard song lyrics called ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy. Who can’t love a book like that? It should be required reading in bathrooms across America. And I truly mean that as a compliment.

One of my personal misheard song faves was from my friend Cynthia. She confessed to me in college that she’d long been singing, “I jog in the city! Running wild and looking pretty!”

You’d have to know Cynth to really appreciate how perfectly hilarious that was. Even now it’s a total side-splitter to me.

Not that I’m much better, mind you. No doubt there are myriad song lyrics I belt out daily that are utterly incorrect. One Mark caught me in the act of was from that Billy Joel song “Piano Man.” I thought the guy in the song was “making love to his tiny can gin” instead of his “tonic and gin.”

Not sure what led me to believe gin ever came in cans. Or weirder: tiny cans. It’s one of those things that as you’re singing it doesn’t seem quite right but oh well you’re not the songwriter you’re just driving in your car singing along happily and maybe even thumping the steering wheel when the spirit moves you, so who are you to question what vessel gin traditionally comes in and how big it is. Know what I mean?

Of course when Mark discovered I’d been making this mistake he pounced on it delightedly as only a loving spouse can. In a futile attempt at self defense I think I tried to cover my tracks by explaining I thought he was “making love to his tiny Can Jin.” You know, some diminutive Asian woman. (Yeah, he didn’t buy it either.)

Anyway, yesterday I asked Kate what she wanted to bring into school today since she was the Star of the Day, the school’s one-at-a-time version of Show and Tell. She took the question to heart and started surveying her toy empire intently. At one point she ran up to me with some wooden play dishes and said, “Mama, I want to take these in for Start of the Day.” To which I corrected, “It’s not start, honey, it’s star. Like you’re a shining star!”

Here I am trying to help her out, teach her something, and what I get back is an insistent, “No, Mommy“–the name she reserves for me when she’s being stern–”It’s start.”

There’s just no telling that girl she’s wrong. I wonder where she gets that from.

Turns out Kate’s gotten some other school-related things wrong too. The circle time song she insists goes, “Make a circle. Make a circle. Make it ground! Make it ground!” She sings this song nearly incessantly causing me to mutter between clenched teeth “Round, Kate. Round.”

And they say some non-denominational hippie-type grace before eating at school. I’m not sure exactly what the words to it are, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t, “Thank you, thank you, my hard things! Thank you, thank you for everything.” My guess is it’s a “heart” that “sings.” Though, knowing that school it might also be a harp.

Anyway, one song I’m certain I know the words to–since this Star of the Day thing has had it stuck in my head all day–is the theme song from this low-budg New England talent show called Community Auditions that was on TV when I was a kid. It had a small studio audience comprised of mostly pushy pageant-type
parents, and was on something equivalent to local cable access. (UHF on the dial, yo.)

I was likely one of about seven people bored enough to watch it, but TV producers must be desperate these days because a Google search led me to discover it’s actually been brought back like some bad 70s TV show zombie stalking the airwaves. My God, modern science can resuscitate anything these days, but what are the ethics behind these frightening decisions?

Anyway, back in the old school Community Auditions day their most popular act by far was young girls wearing bad red wigs and warbling out “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie. They also had a preponderance of young dance and gymnastics troupes who’d perform in bright matching costumes covered in those old big round sequins. Lots of kids “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with canes and top hats too. Oy.

I can nearly assure you that none of the acts that appeared on Community Auditions made it big.

So, the show’s theme song (in hopes that typing it will drive it out of my head) went:

Star of the day, who will it be?
Your vote could hold the key!
Is it you? Tell us who
Will be star of the day!

When I picked up Kate from school this afternoon one of her teachers came up to me to report that Kate took her Star of the Day title very seriously. At one point during her my-crap-from-home presentation some kids were talking. The teacher said Kate stopped, glared at them and said, “Please be quiet. It’s my turn to talk.”

Again, where does she get this from?

Ah, little Miss Kate. You are my start to every day and my star of every day. And your Mama loves you so very very much.

Hi Ho Silver, Away!

When my mother was sick and started losing her hair, my sister Ellen went online to find her some turbany hat-type things. I was home in RI when the package arrived, and since Mom and I didn’t know Ellen had ordered them, when we saw the return address—Chemo Savvy—we weren’t sure what to expect.

But when you’re relegated to spending day after day indoors, a mysterious package like this represents a small adventure. So, sitting on the edge of the bed, I knifed the tape off the box and handed it to my mother to open.

Not one to beat around the bush, when she saw what was inside were hats for her balding head, she rolled her eyes. “Oh God. Look at these,” she said, holding one up. Then looking at the label, “Ellen sent them.”

Complaining, especially when she was sick, had become somewhat of an art form for my mother. In fact, she could be ruthless, and many was the time my sisters or I would chase after some kindly nurse or visitor who’d been worn down by my mother’s crabbiness, to convince them while standing in the driveway that she didn’t mean it, she was really just angry at the cancer not them, and tomorrow would be a better day.

From here now I can see that the complaining, and the brutal sarcasm—which had always been her hallmark—must have been a kind of last-ditch form of empowerment. Making fun of the hats distanced her from the unwelcome reality that was upon her. Made it somehow seem like wearing turbans when your hair falls out from chemo was something other people do, not you. Even if it was just for a moment before having to give into whatever it was, she liked to exercise some resistance.

Thankfully, my mother’s sense of humor managed to thrive alongside her grumpy-patient persona. So after the initial, “Now why did she buy these?” remark, followed by an eyebrow raise and an approving cluck that they were at least all cotton, she pulled out one of the hats, put it on, and looked at me while intoning, “Chemo Saaavvvy!”

We sat on the bed for God knows how long, both trying on the hats, commenting to each other, “Kemo Sabe? That hat is Chemo Savvy!” and laughing until we cried.

When all else looked bleak, these moments provided enough of a respite to fortify us for the next gut-wrencher lurking around the corner.

This morning Chez McClusky we had some excellent family time piled into Mark and my bed, reading books, playing with Kate’s new yard sale doll, and kissing the bejesus out of Paige. Since Paige’s favorite alone time activity is clawing at her head, I’ve started putting her to sleep in those cotton skull caps intended for newborns. And since she’s outgrown most of them by now, they don’t fold up at the brims like they’re supposed to.

When the hat’s pulled down low on her eyes, the resulting look is at best like a flapper girl. With her ears sticking out–or more often than not, one ear–she looks slightly Smurfish. Or, if you catch her at just the right angle, as I did today, hat snug around the forehead and loose but crumpled down on top, she looks a little Chemo Savvy.

Oh Miss Paige, who we love so well. You will never know your grandmother, I’m sorry to say. But take it from me, she had a wicked sense of humor. And I just know that if she saw you this morning, she’d be calling you her little Kemo Sabi.

The Smoke has Cleared

It’s July 5^th. For me it’s like December 26^th
is for many other people. The day after all the hoopla, and when you need
to start counting down until it happens again next year.

It’s noon but we’ve already done a hearty round of visiting,
and all around town it’s the same. It’s like every Bristolian has an over
abundance of home-grown tomatoes and zucchini–but in this case it’s desserts
from their Forta July celebrations. Everywhere you go people are either foisting
off or fending off cookies, brownies and red-white-and-blue cakes. What’s that
joke about having to lock your car doors or else someone will load it up with
stuff for you?

Anyway, what ends up happening is everyone ends up with the
same amount of leftovers to eat their way through. It’s just that some of it
wasn’t yours to start with.

So of course, we decided to order out sandwiches from Leo’s
for lunch. The over-stuffed refrigerator be damned.

Greetings from Rhode Island

Greetings from Rhode Island
where men with moustaches manage to get dates, a place called Van’s Spa purveys
“mile long hot dogs” not massages, and the exercise craze of walking with Heavy
Hands never died in the 80′s.

We’ve been here since Sunday
night, kicking off two-and-a-half weeks on this here coast. And if you’re
reading this and planning to rip off our house while we’re gone, the old lady
across the street assured me she’d be keeping an eye on the place. I’m not sure
but she might have some mean judo moves up her sleeve, so don’t try anything
funny.

Little Rhody comprises the
first leg of our multi-part vaycay. After this there’s Cape Cod, Harrisburg,
PA, and the metro DC area. Wish us luck.

Alas, despite a small
inconvenience with dehydration that resulted in my visiting the town medical
center on Monday (I’ve long contended the intake of water is overrated), we’re
having a lovely time. Past summertime visits home have reminded me of the
famous mercurial weather that New England serves up, but thus far–knock
wood–we’ve already gotten in two beach days. No better tonic for the soul, I
say. Plus, Kate’s honing some serious sand castle skills.

What else? The humidity is
just above what you’d think would be bearable–though it adds some nice volume
to your hair. There’s a slightly annoying light layer of sand on the floors, my
breath is offensively garlicky from a lunchtime spinach pie (despite a couple
aggressive brushing sessions), and the Del’s Lemonade cart is stationed along
the bike path at Colt State park doing a brisk business.

And let’s not forget the knuckleheads
who ride their motorcycles through town wearing muscle shirts, shorts, and no
helmets. Like many of the state’s charming idiosyncrasies, there isn’t a law
requiring that you wear a helmet on your motorcycle. Despite my theory that–especially
in such a petite state where this population is correspondingly small–this would result in the Darwinian extinction of this
group, somehow at least some of them have managed to hang on.

But, like the local custom
of drinking coffee milk, calling drinking fountains “bubblers,” and being the exclusive
breeding ground for the large clam-like quahog, things here are just not like
they are other places.  

It’s good to be home.