november 26 all along, along there were incidents and accidents, there were hints and allegations I think I'm allergic to going home.
I love it, you understand -- I think Maryland is always going to be the place with the greatest lien on my heart, but for probably the first time ever, on this visit I kept wondering when I got to go home. Lynda said it was probably because I owned a place now, didn't just rent. I think it had something to do with the itching. And the sneezing. Mom doesn't own any pets, but after a few days in her house I itch like a mofo, my clothes smell like smoke (that's Larry's doing, wonderful fellow, but shame on him) and the central heating jams up my sinuses.
I left the day after my birthday on the 15th, which I'd graciously been given off by the job. Now, that's a nice, nice bonus. Friday night found me in Baltimore chowing down sushi with Lynda, who says she thinks she wants to go to law school. Not that she'd leave Baltimore permanently, but she might relocate to Chicago for a few years. She wants to go into family law. "Ironic, huh?" she asked as we drove through the city. I crashed on her futon (and got spat at by kitty Henry, who despite being declawed insists on being vicious; her other cat, Oscar, is neutered but insists on having a close, personal relationship publicly with Lynda's scarf. Their love is pure, and they're unashamed) and the next day we did our pilgrimage to Lexington Market and the crabcakes (Faidley's!) and cookies (Bergers!) within. Photos of that visit to come; they're in the "normal" camera and could take a while. Tasty stuff! We were some of the few white people there at that time of morning (it is never too early to have a crab cake) and as we left, someone shouted at me, "Hey, white girl! Want some soul food?" To which I turned and said half to myself, "Nah, I'm all full up." I'm funnier with Lynda around. She's a good audience. I think it works both ways: at Penn Station (Lord only knows why New York, Baltimore and Pennsylvania ALL have Penn Stations) we watched in fascinated amusement as an overall'ed mama chased her toddler all over the station, followed close behind by their tomboyish older girl soccer player. Lynda did the cooing thing, which I can't stand -- I talk to the kids; it means about as much -- and the mama asked if she had kids. "Good Lord, no," cried Lynda. Got a noon train and met up with mom and godmother Suzanne at Union Station, where we had some nice portobello sandwiches, a lunch during which Suzanne discussed the finer points of not using cilantro with the waiter, who was Thai, and in which both Mom and Suzanne insisted on knowing what wonderful garlic smell was coming from below our balcony. "Someone's fixing his lunch," said the waiter in pigin English. We never figured it out, only that it wasn't on the menu.
Faidleys!
Mmmmm ... crabs ....
What's wrong with this picture?
Oh, right ... no indication it's
at the Press Club.Thanksgiving was only a few days away. I had an interesting lunch at the National Press Club courtesy of Suzanne and her (very kind, but ancient) boyfriend Gershon, who apparently used to write for the Washington Post, and who knows every codger in there. It was a perfectly interesting afternoon, but I guess I'd expected more "Club" and less "Press," if you know what I mean. I'm a jaded little shit, by the way. The lunchroom felt cafeteria-like, down to the buffet and decidedly limited menu. I thought there would be a dining room with high ceilings and waiters with their napkins draped over an arm and things like quail on the menu. Hah! Opened my eyes right up. I think for the first time in my life I wished I didn't have so much of an overactive imagination. It makes reality suck a lot of the time. The rest of the week was spent in blessed nothingness: Commandeering the digital camera and taking pictures around the lake outside our townhouse (more on that trip, with photos, soon; I left my narrative on Larry's computer and Mom and Larry are now cruising through the Caribbean) (update: it's the next entry, here); re-reading the book I'm still, still working on -- I'd stopped writing after September 11 and needed to get back in the groove; emailing and surfing the web. (This is the cutest game I have ever seen, and I'm not much into games, or frogs, but damn, that music makes me all mushy. And his tongue! Don't get me started. I've already indoctrinated two more editors at work.) Time also wasted with Mom and Larry's satellite dish -- when you don't have cable, people who have satellite are Gods. I so dig the Game Show Network; Let's Make A Deal is a riot and a half, so is the $1.98 Beauty Contest. The lower rent, the more ancient it is, the better. I love people getting all worked up over $500. Now, I could get worked up about that sum, but not to the point of dressing like an alien on national television. So the week went by in a lovely haze of nothingness.
I did visit Alexis: youngest Peter is still huge for his age (a little over a year) but not yet talking. "He just makes Tim Allen sounds when he wants something," said Alexis. "And when he wants to be fed, he does this," and she clawed at her chest. We both agreed that if he could ask for it, it was time to wean. Emily, the middle kid, wanted all the attention (shocking) so I braided her hair and she combed mine while Alexis read a bedtime story about some bugs that turned a tennis ball into a house. Peter crawled and stumbled around all of us. When I first walked in, the Nightmare Of The Hamster had been resolved -- somehow the black rodent had gotten out of its cage and ended up in the basement (where they found turds). Jerry, Alexis's husband and my old buddy, too, had it in his hands and set up the cage again in Emily's room, then tucked a freshly-scrubbed 7-year old (nearly) Katie into bed and read her Harry Potter. Shooed away, I went downstairs to wait for Alexis and heard Jerry reading, so I tracked down the sound to the baby monitor. I can't tell you what the warm fuzzies felt like exactly as I listened to my friend from 10th grade reading a story to his child. I stood by the kitchen counter and listened: "How do you say Hermione?" Katie asked. When Harry shot up with his broom and went after the bully, she shrieked. "What's going to happen to him?" she asked, terrified. Meanwhile, Jerry turned out to be a great reader. I wanted to go upstairs and sit in the room and listen, but I didn't want to break the flow or keep Katie up longer than she should. But it was one of those lovely crystallizing moments where I think I'm very, very lucky to know these people. Alexis and I finally went out and got some very heavy Italian antipasto and dessert at a local restaurant; the waiter was efficient in explaining every element of the menu (as though we hadn't read one before) and forgot things like water and straws. But he was about 8, so we didn't rag on him too hard. Alexis is a full time mom now (she does some part time stuff from the home) and while she loves it, you can tell she's also getting run ragged over it. Jerry helps, she explained, but sometimes having to explain everything to him, what to do, when to do it, was like having another kid. I could understand. There's helping where you have to ask what to do next, and there's helping where you figure out the flow and just do what presents itself. Both get the job done; the first makes it a lot harder on the one giving orders.
Valerie came into town at some point but never called. She also never sent a birthday card, which was a failing prior to having Cameron, which really pissed me off. Never heard from her one way or the other. She's on the shit list now.
And then it was ......
Thanksgiving!
Well, it was the day before. And here our photo essay begins. Mom got home early on Wednesday night and started right in on her stuffing, which is a true classic involving Pepperidge Farms stuffing crumbs, celery, pecans, onions and turkey juice. You could just eat that and go home a happy camper. It really is the fruit of the gods. Well, not really, because mom makes that too -- Cool Whip, coconut, mandarin oranges -- and calls it ambrosia. Nobody eats it except her and Lynda and I think Lynda does it to get in good with her adoptive mom.
Gotta get 'em young, I always say. Mom was all atwitter at how cheap the turkeys were this year; apparently she got this one for .39 cents a pound, which I'm told is cheap. Cheap, cheap ... oh, that's a canary joke. So here is our little bird ready to go -- except for the cleaning and the basting and the paprika and about fifteen hours in the oven. Mom spends most of her Thursday fussing over the bird, dripping drippings all over it -- and she has no baster! What a process -- and sprinkling Paprika. We also end up having two kinds of cranberry sauce (the kind shaped like a can and the full berry kind), green bean casserole with those crunchy onions on top, lots of wine, lots of soda and Parker-esque rolls. I think that just about covers it. Don't she look nice? I'm a veggie and this is really a nice looking bird. Note it swimming in juices (see far right in pan). That's some bird.
Larry wanted to sit at the kids table with the cool people (me, Lynda, cousins Greg and Jess) and away from the curmudgeon (Buddie) but mom insisted we could fit nine around the main dining table. So Larry came up with the very brilliant idea to set up the kitchen table as a buffet. Here she is, unadorned with food as such. For reference, in case you might ever want it, outside those windows is the backyard, and beyond the trees, the lake (about which there will be much written in days to come). That Tiffany lamp has been a part of my life since I can't remember when. We've clonked heads against it a billion times, and it's super-heavy. The candlestick holders came in a Thanksgiving basket I sent to mom last year, when I was feeling money-heavy. The plates are her good white-and-gold-rimmed ones; she has them all with the padding that they originally came with when she got married in 1965. This woman is nothing if not organized. She's got the sort of personality that would tell Mother Theresa it was a shame she never got married. (And don't you think we get that all the time!) I told Greg and Jess as we walked around the lake after the main meal (something I read about in the Post as being good for you -- of course, the Post writer probably was referring to people who ate at 3:30, not 6) that I was forging the way for them by being the eldest grandchild and not married at 32. They should realize that lessened the pressure on them. But they don't always think independently, so I don't know how much of it sunk in.
Uncle Howard, Aunt Sandra (he's mom's brother) and our grown cousins Greg and Jess arrived around 4:30 with Buddie (who has been cleared of the lung cancer thing, we think, but may still need some kind of operation to "aspirate" whatever it is out of her lung; the big debate is whether or not a nearly 82 year old woman should undergo major surgery). We love her, we really do. But she makes every event we spend together fraught with minefiends and difficulties. She claims she can't hear, so a lot of stuff has to be repeated. She doesn't walk well (she's got terrible osteoperosis and has lost 7 inches in the past several years). And she's very, very opinionated and requires that she is the center of attention. In other words, she's an old lady.
One other reason for coming over early is to munch on cheese and crackers (see table in mom's living room) and pose for the annual Sofa shot. From left, that's Larry, then mom, Howard, Sandra, Jess, Greg, Buddie (apparently sitting in a hole -- oh, wait, no, that's the osteoperosis; she's 4 feet 3 inches) and me. The Sofa shot happens every year. It's a room of the house hardly anybody uses except on Thanksgiving, so it always looks nicely preserved. For years, this room was pretty barren -- we had no extra money for furniture, so the record player/8-track player/radio combo sat on the floor and the piano (off to the far left) was the only major piece of furniture. I loved the room -- I could run around and dance to the albums I was playing. But not dance too hard, or the needle would skip. Now mom's got extra income and the place looks swank. But I miss having the room to run around.
This picture should be an ad for calcium.
Well, it had to happen -- the turkey was finally done. Looked a lot more savory in the oven, I tell you. Mom said this photo looked pornographic, and I can't say as I disagree with her. It looks like a snuff film reject.
No one was injured by the exploding candleabra, which actually hurts the eyes to look at even in the photo. Actually, it's just a trick of the camera. Larry doesn't usually eat much and he got bored easily so he stood up and started doing candids with the digital camera. I love this picture. Buddie's got a perfect curmudgeon face on. Note how no one is paying her the least bit of attention; hence the face. Or maybe she wanted more turkey. Dinners with the group of us around the table become barbed affairs; we all turn passive aggressive against those elements that bug us the most. Buddie gets the brunt of it, mainly because she can't hear most of what's being said. I'd call us an Algonquin Round Table kind of group, only we're rarely that witty. Two incidents stand out best from the evening: I was talking to Greg, Lynda, Sandra and Jess about something, and the other half of the table was talking about something else. The volume increased to where Buddie couldn't even hear herself, so she rapped on the side of her glass with a spoon repeatedly until we shut up. "I can't hear!" she complained, which sent us into gales of laughter. Later on, she advised Larry about his upcoming cruise. In a very serious tone, she waved an arthritic finger at him and said, slowly, "When you go on your cruise, and you go out on the deck in the sun, be sure to be very careful and protect your instep."
Clearly this was an issue weighing on her mind.
Don't know what we were laughing about here, but it was pretty damn funny. By the way, the missing person here is Craig -- he headed out to Arizona to pick up his new girlfriend, and drive with her back to Maryland. He's insane sometimes, I tell you. Freaks out over flying so he took the train from Maryland to Arizona. 61 hours. "You know who rides a train 61 hours to Arizona?" he asked mom on the phone. "Convicts!" And, apparently, really freaked out 29 year olds. Then he stayed in the state to meet her family. Her name is Christina, and she seems perfectly nice, but he sprung all of this on Buddie over lunch just a few days earlier. Buddie claims she was "sick" for two days but has now come around to the idea. Can't wait until she learns the other piece of the puzzle: Christina is Hispanic. The good news about that was that Buddie started the whole conversation with Craig by asking, "So, any dates?"And for once, he had an answer. That'll show her!
Man, are we pale or what? Lynda and I tried picking out "Body & Soul" on the piano, but never quite managed it. After the main meal we took our "constitutional" down the block and around part of the very dark lake and had a nice chat with Greg and Jess. Greg is working in a law firm now, having just passed the bar; Jess is in law school. Their dad is a lawyer. Lynda thinks Greg needs rescuing from being a middle-aged man at the age of 26. I think she'd corrupt him fabulously. But she'd better hurry: He's already introduced a girlfriend to the clan, and they all adored her. So many boys to save, so little time...
Need I explain why I love this?
