All of a sudden my life has changed: we (my wife and I) have gone to New York to stay with my (S)son and DIL (daughter-in-law) for four days. I've gone from snow and ice and being afraid to walk down my driveway to a temperate clime with not a trace of snow. My S and DIL are a lot of fun for me to be with because they live more or less detached - the same way I do. By that I mean they don't fall into the conventional roles of husband/wife, mother/child or earner/spender or any other kind of stereotype: instead they are able to operate in a freestyle mode which allows for all possibilities and is quite relaxing. For instance, if you don't like something you can just say it and no one is going to feel hurt because no one takes things that seriously. My S made a dinner of spaghetti and beef meatballs even though he knows I don't eat beef. A few minutes later my DIL came down from putting the kids to bed and asked:
"Did you like the meal?" in a quiet voice . My S was watching a rerun of "The Simpsons" in another part of the room while consuming his food by himself which is, he told me, the way rget all like to eat. Are you getting the picture?
So in response to mny DIL's question about the meal I shook my head no. This would have caused consternation in a more conventional situation but here she just smiled at my bluntness as my spouse (SP) looked on.
"I didn't like those meatballs either," she said. "I don't like beef but between my mother and my SP I live in a meat-centric environment." That's how it goes: nobody is upset and no one makes a big deal out of it. Try that with some other people and see what happens. Later, my DIL says to me "Maybe the next time you should bring all your own food so you can have what you like," and I think to myself that is not a bad idea.
This idea of "no fault" extends to other areas too. For instance we are trying to develop plans for a seder here in a month. My SP is traditional and would probably like doing it in the traditional way of reading the Exodus story. My DIL feels there is too much violence in the traditional story and does not approve. Instead of coming to blows over this clash of feelings I'm sure it will be settled in favor of something we could all enjoy and still preserve the symbolic glory of the occasion. It's great.
One day my DIL, who is a world-class blogger, interviewed me, her SP and her younger sister (SI) who is dating about how soon you should start having sex with someone after dating. This segued into the Eliot Spitzer thing and then the David Paterson thing and we finally ended up talking about Indian toilets. (My SP was kind of dismayed and left the area.) You might ask why a thirty plus something mother of two would be interested in talking about these things but it actually stimulated all of us to participate in conversation relying on our own experiences for examples. We discussed whether boob-size meant much as sexual attractors and the opinions were mixed. (Then I heard my SP go downstairs.)
This is how it goes. Almost anything goes and my two grandchildren are cute as can be. It's like therapy all the time but I still can't sleep decently. But we all don't just accept the way things are supposed to be but rather think how we can maneuver around to make the day more endurable.
We talk about random things until late and it sure beats the ambience in some households where noone says anything. We end the evening by looking at photos and videos of their family vacation in Hawaii. One of the best is of my S's mother-in-law (MIL) and daughter in a rented van....one in the front seat, the other in a car seat...out cold from exhaustion. And that's the way it is...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Ice- cycles
My street has been devastated by the weather: crusted, rutted ice layers the whole strip so that people walking have to take quick little pigeon-toed steps like the elderly in order to walk their dogs. My wife is supposedly out chopping ice at the front of our druveway but I haven'ts een her in the last hour or so. Maybe she decided to go to Florida after all. Even if we could get out of the driveway, the car wheels are frozen in ice in my downhill garage. Inside, me and the dog are slowly going crazy. Once in a while she barks at me. Does this mean that she has to go outside? I've already had her out for a wlak in the park and I'm too tired to go again. My new issue of the New Yorker came last week and it seemed like 30 pages of ads and 12 pages of writing and the articles weren't very good. I'm trying not to eat too much of my bread as I don't know when I will be able to get to City again. I guess the last part of winter is always the worst.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Who's right?
I went to City today because I needed bread and the racks are stacked with beautiful baguettes, loaves and rolls on Friday. While there I also bought a package of Dr. Kracker cracker-flatbreads (seeded) that I love with "guac" even though they are a little expensive. When I got home:
She: (waving package in air) "I coulda got you these for a dollar!"
Me: "I don't believe it. Show me the coupon."
She: Goes to her office (dining room table) and comes back with a Shaw's coupon book.
Me: "This says $3 off $10 worth of Wild Harvest products."
She: "I know. They're in that section"
Me: "But you have to buy $10 worth."
She: "So? I can buy from anywhere in the store. They don't seem to care."
Me: "But it' s not ethical. It's not what the coupon says, and what if I don't want to buy
$10 worth of their products?"
She: (Staring incredulously) (Sigh) "Some people just don't know how to shop."
Am I wrong? There was no coupon for Dr. Krackers only a store coupon for $3 off IF you buy $10 worth. That might be $7 worth of stuff you wouldn't otherwise want to buy there so there's a gimmick unless you try to float the coupon for other stuff which might result in an awkward rejection. Who wants to put themselves through this? I'd rather eat less and enjoy the shopping experience more. What do you think?
She: (waving package in air) "I coulda got you these for a dollar!"
Me: "I don't believe it. Show me the coupon."
She: Goes to her office (dining room table) and comes back with a Shaw's coupon book.
Me: "This says $3 off $10 worth of Wild Harvest products."
She: "I know. They're in that section"
Me: "But you have to buy $10 worth."
She: "So? I can buy from anywhere in the store. They don't seem to care."
Me: "But it' s not ethical. It's not what the coupon says, and what if I don't want to buy
$10 worth of their products?"
She: (Staring incredulously) (Sigh) "Some people just don't know how to shop."
Am I wrong? There was no coupon for Dr. Krackers only a store coupon for $3 off IF you buy $10 worth. That might be $7 worth of stuff you wouldn't otherwise want to buy there so there's a gimmick unless you try to float the coupon for other stuff which might result in an awkward rejection. Who wants to put themselves through this? I'd rather eat less and enjoy the shopping experience more. What do you think?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
A Tableau
Sometimes I think of my whole family slowly rolling through town on a big float. Tethered to the float are gigantic balloons of Darth Maul and Dora. Sherry sits at a round table tearing coupons out of a Sunday paper while Frank walks alone around a perimeter "bike path". Bailee peels a mangoe while Ben tries to show her his latest drawing of a new kind of helicopter. Talia is on a raised platform in front of a full-length mirror trying on earrings and lipstick. Josh sits across from Sherry at the round table counting dollar bills. Every once in a while he rises and chops garlic on a chopping board. Kasama is in a swim suit with "water wings" and a scuba snorkel, dancing with an animated sea turtle. Saydee rides a tricycle around a large box of animal crackers as Daisy crawls speedily after her. Dan sits motionless in front of a flat screen TV which is showing a rerun of "The Simpsons." Stereo speakers at the front of the float blare out the latest Tom Jones hit: "As Good As It gets." Every so often one of the family members gives a wave to the sidelines of cheering children and their parents.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Two wishes
I have two wishes about my life and they both relate to experience with my mother.
First, I wish I had not been afflicted with asthma as a child. The agony of not being able to breathe is enough to have to endure without the additional consequences, both physical and mental, of being confined to the home, alone in trying to keep breathing, for longish periods of time. And the humiliation of feeling you were the only one in your school class experiencing this kind of suffering. There were no support groups then. My mother told me once, as consolation, that at least it kept me out of the military and perhaps serving and dying in Vietnam and this is true but, if given the choice again, I would take my chances with military service or look for a way to avoid it.
Second I would wish that I could have been a musician in the mode of say, Isaac Stern: a serious musician yet a showman who could also appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Not someone who functioned only in the elite world of classical music, but a kind of Everyman performer who could bridge the gap between the sublime and the ordinary, between the concert hall and the music hall. I wish I could have appreciated all classical music, the slow movements, the atonal and opera as well as the swirling symphonies of triumph and celebration: Mahler as well as Mozart. Yes...I would have wanted to be a more mature person.
But we have to live with the personality we are given and make the best of it. Sometimes, thinking back, I can't believe how callow I was in youth. I can only hope I'm a little better now and that those I hurt or disappointed forgive me.
Music relates so much to life and expresses the ineffable more convincingly than words as anyone who has ever experienced the rush of exuberance from the overture to a Broadway musical (like Fiddler, like the Lion King) knows. And there are almost countless others, too, with each individual having their favorite.
First, I wish I had not been afflicted with asthma as a child. The agony of not being able to breathe is enough to have to endure without the additional consequences, both physical and mental, of being confined to the home, alone in trying to keep breathing, for longish periods of time. And the humiliation of feeling you were the only one in your school class experiencing this kind of suffering. There were no support groups then. My mother told me once, as consolation, that at least it kept me out of the military and perhaps serving and dying in Vietnam and this is true but, if given the choice again, I would take my chances with military service or look for a way to avoid it.
Second I would wish that I could have been a musician in the mode of say, Isaac Stern: a serious musician yet a showman who could also appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Not someone who functioned only in the elite world of classical music, but a kind of Everyman performer who could bridge the gap between the sublime and the ordinary, between the concert hall and the music hall. I wish I could have appreciated all classical music, the slow movements, the atonal and opera as well as the swirling symphonies of triumph and celebration: Mahler as well as Mozart. Yes...I would have wanted to be a more mature person.
But we have to live with the personality we are given and make the best of it. Sometimes, thinking back, I can't believe how callow I was in youth. I can only hope I'm a little better now and that those I hurt or disappointed forgive me.
Music relates so much to life and expresses the ineffable more convincingly than words as anyone who has ever experienced the rush of exuberance from the overture to a Broadway musical (like Fiddler, like the Lion King) knows. And there are almost countless others, too, with each individual having their favorite.
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