The coming year

Monday I will get the results of the CT-scan I had a month ago.

I hope I am not dying any more than usual...you know, the "everybody is dying a little every day" bit.

 

Dying would suck.

 

 

Is it wrong to want Deviled Eggs at Christmas time?

Didn't sleep well last night. Watching the Christmas Light program for two hours while wedged into the love seat with daughter #2 left me with a strained back and pain in every joint of my body. Getting old stinks. Feeling pain stinks more.
Anyway, I was up half the night trying to find a comfortable place anywhere in the house for my aching body.
And thinking about deviled eggs.

I could make them easily enough. Right now, actually.
Hard boiled eggs, mayo, two kinds of mustard, sometimes horseradish...done.
But that would require me to go downstairs and start the process.
I'm still sore and miserable.

So, I guess there will not be deviled eggs today.

But why am I even thinking about that?
And since this is the time of good cheer and love and all that, and the birth of Jesus, how come I'm even thinking of something with the word "devil" in it?

Bring me back to the 1950s.
My mom getting ready for one of the few big parties they ever held.
Trying to make hors d'oerves (I can't ever spell that word) with Ritz crackers and assorted gooey things to put on them.

My mom, I do love her so, but she really wasn't an imaginative cook. Or a really good one. So, for her, Ritz crackers had Kraft pimento cheese spread thinly on them, or caponata from a can of Progresso stuff, or some of that deviled ham spread with the little red devil rampant on the paper cover.
Ah-hah!
This fits right in with the deviled eggs I have been craving!

It's not the devil bedeviling me into coming over to the Dark Side, it's a fond memory. I learned how to make deviled eggs at her side.

People partied differently back then. There were lots of mixed drinks going around in appropriately shaped glasses. Hi Balls came in tall glasses with little sleeves on them so the hand could grip the icy glass better. Every house had a cocktail shaker. Vermouth was popular, I don't know why. Four Roses was in every house for parties. I don't even know what kind of whisky that is, but my parents did. Beer flowed gently. People dressed to the nines. Men in suits and women in dresses with wide skirts and small waistlines. Nobody wore blue jeans. There was a sort of elegance, but not really. Not compared to the parties rich people had.

Ritz crackers, Kraft pimento cheese spread in a little glass container, caponata and deviled ham. Not even a cheese plate and most certainly, no veggie platters because nobody had ever heard the word crudites. God forbid!

But deviled eggs were just fine.

Doggone

If you have ever seen the movie Old Yeller, you will understand.
Spoiler alert: the dog dies and everybody cries.

I don't know how old I was when the movie came out, but we saw it at the Brook Theater in Bound Brook, NJ. Showing with it was some sort of Disney life in the desert movie. I remember running up to the candy stand to avoid seeing the snakes...and there were lots of snakes. So many, they almost made me forget the end of Old Yeller.

But not really.
Here, so many years later, dwelling in the shadow of this movie and hearing all sorts of publicity about the current Star Wars movie, I guess I draw a parallel.

But I won't spoil it for those who have not seen the movie. I haven't even seen the movie, but I know what happens and Old Yeller flashes before my eyes.

Dogs cannot die in a book or a movie without getting a very negative reaction. About the worst thing, next to the protagonist in a story biting the dust, is to have the beloved dog die. Cats never die in books or movies, but dogs die horrid deaths frequently. I can rattle off at least five important dog deaths in books/movies that tore our hearts out. But no cats.  They never reach the end of their nine lives.

We've had a few dogs. Not as many as other people, and we haven't had one in about fifteen years, but last night I remembered the demise of those beloved pets and it hurt all over again. More than the lost babies I never really got to see, the dogs had been with us a long time and loved us as much as we loved them.

No, they are not more important than people. Lots of lovely people I know have passed away and their deaths hurt me terribly. But in a weird way, not like Old Yeller. I can view the dog romping through the fields with Tommy Kirk and Moochie over and over. The loved ones who are gone, though, I can't flip a switch and see them laughing and singing and hugging me any time I want.

There's something oh so sad about this, but you can't make something happen that didn't happen when it should have.

Tell the people you love how much you love them. Do it now! Don't wait. Don't put it off! Do it now.
You need to do this for your own sake.

Old Yeller was a good dog, until the end.
Remember that.
Think of the good times, not the bad.
Tell people you love them today!

Enough

Things I am sick and tired of and have absolutely no way of fixing:

This gun shit.
This shooting shit.
War.
Stupid people.
Not sleeping enough.
Cluttered house.
Cluttered counters in kitchen.
Dirt and dust.
The never ending cavalcade of bullshit which I am subjected to all day long, every day.
The insipid use of 24/7. the word "icon" when you refer to somebody famous, Beach Front Bargain Hunt and the ilk where people put three kids of opposite sex (well, two of them) in one cheapass bedroom.
Worrying.

The First Thanksgiving

No native Americans, no Pilgrims, no venison or pumpkins or beans or corn.
Pity, that.
What we did do was have Thanksgiving dinner at a colonial era tavern in a quiet part of the county with my mother, brother and his wife. Just the girls and Herb and me.
And a thousand other people.

Wow.
Now I know why we have never ever done this before and will never do it again.
The old tavern was a slew of tiny rooms and one big one, even rooms upstairs which we did not get into, thank you very much. It was difficult enough going from our table (which was between some weird wooden columns and very tiny) to the buffet (which I must confess was quite good and plentiful) and back to the table through four little rooms and one big one and a bar. Holding a plate in one hand and my cane in the other. But I made it before I dropped the plate.
Because it is such an old place, the wide plank floor was squishy and very uneven, which is disturbing because since I can't feel my feet very well, it was like walking on water.

There were lots of elderly people, lots of little kids, lots of women with sneers on their mugs (probably thinking this was a pain in the butt and wishing they had stayed home), an abundance of canes and walkers. With Herb only having one hand to use, me with the cane and thus one hand, and Mom being so tiny and confused looking...we fit right in.

Karyn wasn't nuts about the whole restaurant idea. She and Elyse proclaimed that they would make Thanksgiving dinner next year.

Maybe their cousins will be off work and be able to join us.
Maybe we'll all be together, which would be super nice.
Like it has been for so many years. Just nine people I love at one table.

We neglected to say grace.
That wasn't good.
So I will write it now, the way it was said once a year at our house when I was growing up.

Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, through  Christ our Lord...Amen.

Amen and God bless us all!

Go away!

Uncle Gene was the third of five brothers, one having died quite young, another born well after him. He passed away at the age of 73...by dropping dead while eating Chinese food for his birthday. At my mother's kitchen table. Just another story about this uncle...one who was extremely dear to my heart.

Unk was a state champion wrestler in high school. An Eagle Scout. He was in the Navy during WWII and later the Merchant Marines. He traveled the world and brought all his nieces and nephews fabulous presents from everywhere. At one time, this adventurous man owned a Ferris Wheel and ran with a carnival. When he was off ship, he loved the horses and made a comfortable living at the racetrack.

 I never heard him say anything bad about anyone who wasn't a moron or a hypocrite.
Just before his father passed away, he made Gene promise to take care of his mother, which he did until she died. He attended mass every week. He loved his family and his grand nieces and nephews. All of them.  I can't even count how many there were.

But Uncle Gene didn't tolerate nonsense from people. In his vast wisdom, garnered from years of traveling the world, he was very quick to size up people. The non-tolerating of morons is a genetic trait in our family and this kind, gentle giant spoke from the heart and mind at all times.

Now, I am writing this for a purpose. With the current world situation in the aftermath of Paris and the World Trade Center and the horrors in Africa and every other place where people have been randomly killed off...I have to comment for my uncle as he is not here to give his opinion.

Remember, he was a good man and a tolerant one, but he was not god.

He used to do the shopping for my mother and an aunt and my husband and me for the girls. He would go well out of his way to get bargains or special toys or videos for my kids...going to a store early in the morning just to be the first to get The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, etc. 'cause my kids loved the stories. He did it for them.

But we all have limits.
One day, while standing in line at a local supermarket, he was behind some younger woman who was bellyaching to her friend. "Oh, this is so expensive. It's so much cheaper in Pennsylvania. In fact, everything is so much nicer in Pennsylvania. How can you stand to live in Jersey?"

Very quietly, Uncle stepped closer to her and said in the nicest tone possible, "Lady, if it's so much better in Pennsylvania, why don't you go back and stay there?"

When I thought up this little post, I had a good reason. It meant something to me to write it. Now, I realize it might not actually fit in with the situation in the world. Unless what I meant was that if you keep bitching about something but are not about to do anything to change things, maybe you better shut up.

The whole story doesn't really apply to anything...unless you stop and think that the people who have left their homes in faraway lands have no homes to go back to. Uncle Gene would have seen through all the fears and gotten straight to the point. To those who have no place to go...America's supposed to be the best place to go. We're sorry you have no place left to call home. We'll see what we can do about that. I hope.

Veterans' Day

Tomorrow, the 11th day of the 11th month of the year, is designated as a day to honor all veterans of all the wars, those living and those long gone, for their service and sacrifices.
I live with one of those men. I was nearly considered a veteran myself, having been a WAC one summer, but I don't really qualify except for knowing part of what these people went through.
All honor is theirs.

In my brief experience of boot camp and being treated as an officer...I saw all sides of the army and myself.
I was not suited for the rigors of military life. Here I was, 21 years old, sent off willingly to Anniston, Alabama (a hole in the world) in the middle of that ugly Vietnam war. I knew so many men over there...my own brother and eventual husband. They were there fighting for their lives while I was suffering in the hot Alabama sun.

It wasn't fun, even the brief time I spent in the army.
The tedium. Standing for hours for absolutely nothing. Learning army protocol then marching. Lining up to get a meal, eating in a rush to line up to stand for nothing again. Marching with a pack to nowhere. Crawling, jumping, climbing on an empty belly at dawn. Not my idea of fun summer camp.

But you want to know why?  How I got myself into that situation?
Because my college was closed down in protest to the war.

Jerks from Rutgers came up to agitate, causing all sorts of trouble. Two guys came into my lit class and started screaming. This was one of the classes I did not share with any veterans, but my brother was over there, risking his life for these morons.  One guy, I will describe in the immortal Eric Burdon's word as "a long haired leaping gnome" actually jumped over a desk in his fervor, right in front of me. I told him to get the hell out of my face because my brother was currently in Nam. I didn't appreciate this asshole with some red masking tape over one lens of his eyeglasses and red paint dripped over his t-shirt.
As I look back on it now, I see it as sort of a loud pantomime of reality. His, not mine.

So I decided to enlist or see if I could do something. I was filled with as much fervor as this guy, only pro-the soldiers serving at the time.
I went to an enlistment center and found out about spending my summer in Alabama at Fort McClellan, to learn how to be a WAC officer. I did take the opportunity. If I stayed, I'd have my college paid for. I would also owe the Army two further years of my life.
I went.
I learned lots of things: the Army is hard on the soft human body, it is loud and dangerous and exhausting. I also learned that there was way too much Mickey Mouse (military slang for bullshit) for me to tolerate. After all, I am not a physical person, I'm more mental and creative. But it was good to know what was going on and how necessary it is for some people to be in the military.
Just not me.

It is different now. Instead of being separate, women and men work together. I could never have done it. The women who qualified as Rangers were extraordinary. I'd never have been able to do all that without killing myself.
And women at that time were not allowed to carry firearms, except officers. Now they can blow the hell out of enemies...something I applaud, only I wish no one had to worry about such a horrible thing.

I wasn't military stuff, though I was asked repeatedly to sign up. A WAC didn't do much more than paperwork and fill in for men at that time. What they did was important and necessary, but not really active. The old laws about women being weaker than men held fast. And, their softness assisted in being something for the active men to want and date. Perhaps people thought that was their most important part of being in the military...it wasn't true, but people thought that. They actually thought WACS were whores. Nurses were treated differently, but in the old days, like WWII, WACS were not thought of highly enough.

It's different now. Or is it? I don't know for sure, but I understand that women are mistreated, raped, ignored, worried about, shot at, blown up...all while being women.

It wasn't for me. I learned a great deal and will never forget what I learned about the Army and war and the men and women who serve.
We owe them our very existence.
We should honor them every day.
We should thank God that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for their country if necessary.
They deserve so much more than our country seems to be willing to give them back.