Grannie Sands, the Surviving Teapot and Sirens with your Supper

They always bombed at tea time.

Not the pass the cookies, pinky finger out thank you very much kinda tea; but the this is the real meal, pass the plate, wash your hands, elbows off the table,  kinda tea.

They always came together, the sirens with  the supper. It was as if Hitler didn’t want the English to ever have a hot meal.

Sirens sounded, chairs pushed away from the table, leave everything,  and remember to close the blackout curtains before you go.

Then with gas masks in hand, the family, the block, the entire city, would walk,  not run to their designated bomb shelters. Not easily rattled, those  English.

The children carried children sized gas masks in little boxes tied with string. Hand in hand, down they would go, each family to their assigned spot, each spot marked with a mattress propped against the wall. The mattresses were lowered onto the floor and they all sat and waited.

First they waited for it to start.

Then they waited for it to stop.

The all clear sounded, the mattresses were propped back onto the wall, and hand in hand they all emerged and went home.

Life went on in Liverpool.

Juxtapose  that with my house,  present day where life just  isn’t worth living if the cable, internet or electricity are out. All three would sign the beginning of the apocalypse. I shudder to think what would happen if everyone should be in the same room, at the same time, talking, and forced to have actual eye contact.

My father-in law, Griffy was one of those children, the ones with the little boxes tied with string.

The night his house blew up, the sirens went off but the supper wasn’t the only thing left behind.

That night, the last night in the house, Griffy was bedridden  and coughing and Grannie refused to go until the tea he had a cuppa tea to sooth his throat.

“We will be right behind you, ” she said as the rest of the family left for the shelter.

Grannie put the kettle on, and as she went to close the curtains, she saw her neighbor across the street writing  a letter at her kitchen table. Her boyfriend was away at war, and afterwards Grannie liked to imagined the young woman’s  last thoughts were filled with love.

The whistle of the kettle and the bombing were simultaneous.  Grannie Sands filled  the Brown Betty teapot with hot water and then collected Griffy from the bed.  Teapot in one hand and child over her shoulder Grannie Sands made for the shelter.

She  made it to the front door before Hitler landed a direct hit on the neighbors house across the street.

Griffy was blown into the alley and landed unharmed. He stood and ran to find Grannie Sands.

He found her in the street, sitting straight up, arms out, with her ass wedged into the street drain.

The teapot  still clutched in her hand.

and she hadn’t spilled a drop.

Following Your Gut

The drugs were very disappointing.

I had really hoped for something a little more….recreational.

One second I am being pushed into the OR with white cotton heated heavy cuddle-up this is almost like a spa blanket and looking into the face of a very handsome….Argentinian anesthesiologist, a dark curly-haired Polo player… bet he drives a sports car… god he is really short, but look at those dark curls… can’t see the size of his feet from my position, Damn! Wow..very handsome…the vain bitch in me wonders if he likes short pudgy middle-aged women who can make killer soup…

My inner monologue never really shuts up. Even laying naked with a slit up the back please leave it open cotton gown, it will not be silenced.

The next he looks into my eyes says “Bye Bye, you might feel a little stinging…” and proceeds to take a rather large vial of a white milky substance and inject it into my IV.

My monologue continues only momentarily…

STING!…shit this crap burns like a motherfucker…and then almost simulateosly…I wonder if the is the same stuff that killed Michael Jackson?

I started to wonder if it was going to be a slow sleepy decent into oblivion, and as soon as that thought materialized. It happened.

No sleepy decent, no calm feeling, no comforting dreams, nothing. From constant contained inner chatter to nothing.
Bam.

Then I opened my eyes, the not so magic sleep of childhood ended as abruptly as it began.
I look at the clock. An hour has passed.
Past. Unsettling really.
An hour of you have been unconscious and things have happened to your body you have no memory of, totally unsettling.

Wow the last time this happened it was the ’80′s…remember?
ah no, no I don’t and I would deny it even if I did…..

The nurse hands me my four page patient instructions…complete with full color photos of the inner workings of my colon.
Nice thanks,

“Can I get you anything?”

All I want is water, one bottle down I ask for another, half way through I start looking at the instructions, the words, three 7 to 9 mm polyps resected and retrieved… pop out immediately.

Ohhhh I told you not to eat that McDonald’s cheeseburger!

I then brave the second and third pages with the proof, the full on color, complete with location guide to find the exact location place, pictures.

Wow… this is easier than a Disney World Map…

It’s then I wonder how sore I am going to be tomorrow considering each polyp seems to have had its own spot light, camera crew and removal team up my ass…
Wonderful, all this without a happy ending or a cigarette great.

I had seen other pictures, seen what a polyp looks like, the little stalks, tiny little mushroom like innocent polyps.
These don’t look like that.

Oh joy! See how the Doc. highlighted the polyps in yellow boxes and made them easier to see?

The yellow boxes make me think of the middle light in a traffic light, which depending on your world view and the cost of insurance means either speed up, slow down, or all stop….

yellow means caution,
yellow means slow down,
yellow light means hurry , hurry through or you’ll miss it?

Miss what…?
Miss everything…. you dolt.

I look again and again and again. I am amazed in a rather disconnected way.

An hour ago with no risk factors whatsoever, little  miss granola never eat anything from a package girl…was totally sure nothing was going to be found…after all no family history, unless…

Unless you count the lovely time I had in Florida watching my mother-in-law die from colon cancer, isn’t life funny? What a coincidence!

An hour ago it was, “I don’t think we are going to find anything, we are just ruling it out, if we don’t find the cause of your pain it’s off for a CT scan…”

Yea, nice coincidence.

Dr. Raja opens the curtain and takes a seat.

Shit.
Ha ha funny girl, gotta laugh, gotta admit your word choice is funny…

ah no I don’t…. And while I have your attention, please shutthefuckup.

Quiet inside and out, and I don’t like the fact that he is sitting down.

Sitting means he has more to say than maybe I want to hear.

“So we did find, three what I would call medium to large polyps…they have been sent to pathology, and I recommend another colonoscopy in three years…. you should take it easy for the rest of the day, we will let you know when the pathology report comes in, it usually takes 6-7 days. Do you have any questions?”

Please take note, for future reference, I was quiet, both inside and out.

Great 6-7 days.
Today is December 16, 2010.

Husband out of the country for the second time in less than two weeks, my eldest daughter is going to have to drive my knocked out ass home, where I will still have to wait hand and foot on a grumpy old man who really is dying and before this moment, I had considered to be the biggest pain in my ass.

Merry Christmas to me….

On the way home I am greatly irritated by the automobiles who are shoving happiness in my direction. Little stickers on the windows denoting child and activity, ya great way for the pedophiles to learn your kids names, really smart…. families of fishes, getthefuckover evolution already…and the ultimate in obnoxious, the little reindeer antlers sticking out your windows and a red pom-pom stuck to your front grill…really…like I am supposed to think your Yukon is a fucking reindeer?

I did not take it easy, to do so would have been too logical and really beyond the scope of my ability.

For the few days I made armies of gingerbread men that would break a tooth, but looked wonderful if not quite so anatomically correct…
“Mom what did you do to the frosting?”

I baked shortbread, Empire biscuits, and made more pots of soup than we could consume..

I sorted out the laundry room, scoured the washer, just how the little plastic trays that held the soap and softener get so gross is still a mystery.

I vacuumed the dryer hose to eliminate the ever-present fire hazard of lint build up, and most astonishingly finally found matches to the millions of odd socks that had accumulated atop said dryer for most of the year.

I kept busy during the day, but thoughtful most of the sleepless nights.

I did not worry about finishing law school, or bills, or house repairs or anything that really doesn’t matter.
I thought instead, that I should write, finish the stories, and laugh, a whole lot more.

I could not remember the last time, the last time I had fun…

When was the last time I went to brunch?

When was the last time the warm sun and beach was all there was on today’s schedule?

I told ya,…gotta listen to the flight attendant.
What?

The flight attendant…you know the part about the oxygen mask?
You know…how ya gotta put your own on first,
you know before you help anybody else….
you gotta have yours on first…

The call came on Sunday, the 19.
Had it only been three days?

The Adenomatous polyps were not cancerous, but were premalignant.
I was ok.

There is something to be said about following your gut.

For a long time my body was telling me something was wrong.
I had not only been in pain, but not at ease….

I finally followed my gut, and it saved my life.

But as happy as  I am just don’t look at me to stick no fucking reindeer antlers and pom-poms on my car,  ever….

The Night of Two Christmases and the Hassle of Hogmanay

I was 9 the night of two Christmases.

Not two, gotta go to both grandma’s house Christmases. Or two open presents Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Christmases.

Two Christmases, in one place on the very same night.

It was the clocks fault.

The mantel clock with the Westminster chimes  my Nana got as a wedding present.

It sat on her mantel, then on my mothers, and now it is on mine.

It was  hurry, hurry go to sleep.

‘Cause sleep was like magic.

Magic sleep  is the kid kinda sleep.

The kind when you close your eyes for a moment, and when you open them again, its morning.

Magic sleep won’t come with wishing or squeezing your eyes closed real tight.

Not tonight.

The sooner you sleep , the sooner it comes.

When you wake, it will be Christmas.

The magic isn’t working.

I am thinking about my stocking.

Stocking are Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers in Black Cherry and Tangerine.

Stockings are Loves Baby Soft, lavender soaps, licorice whips, Life Savers books, and the little rose flavored candies that come in a metal tin so pretty you can’t ever throw them away.

Stockings are new crayons, trace the outline first then fill in the color new coloring books.

They are new tooth brushes, socks and undies.

But mostly stockings are chocolate.

Chocolate only appeared three times a year in my house.

Easter, Halloween and Christmas.

Solid chocolate Santa’s, in milk and white, gold coins and candy canes filled with M&M’s.

That was the American kind.

Then there was the other kind.

The British kind. Cadbury’s and  Fry’s Turkish Delight, Flakey Bars, Roses Assorted, and Black Magic. There was Terries All Gold with creamy orange or strawberry filling. The best part was, you could eat as much as you wanted. Chocolate for breakfast, chocolate for lunch, and chocolate for dinner. It doesn’t get any better, even now.

You could open no presents on fear of death before my mother woke up with her instamatic little light cube  flash camera.

Before parents were up,  presents were piled by recipient, mounded and counted always equal,  always.

But sorting piles and seeing stockings will not come, not until I sleep and wake.

Stop thinking about the chocolate, count things instead.

One minute my feet are seeking cold spots in the sheets and the next magic happens, and I am asleep.

Then it is jump out of bed, gotta be first, round the corner see the tree…

see the  stockings are slack and nothing is wrapped.

The clock, it says 6.  I skip a beat,  feel it stop.. sink a bit…. then start again.

I see  the yellow Caterpillar dump truck with the real shovel and bed that dumps, Baby Tender Love, Barbie dolls with the bendable knees, click click see her sit… a pile of books, crayons and coloring books, packages of undies, socks and toothbrushes…

I see and know.

Really know.

I  see then what my parents said, saw the lists and letters I wrote to Santa. The  folded letters I had thrown into the blazing fire…. that is how you reach Sanata..they said.

I see the letters  dissolve into ashes; they rise and fly up the chimney and across the world to Santa’s workshop.

Right.

No more would I wonder why Santa used the same wrapping paper as my parents, why his writing looked like the notes I took to my teachers and why Santa always seem to know exactly what I wanted.

No more.

See the wrapping paper, tape and ribbon and  just start. Start to wrap.

I know but the others should not.

I wrap and guess who get’s what until there is nothing left sit back and see, the piles and packages of the first Christmas after, knowing.

The door opened, parents laughing, next door for a drink,  they laughed at my worry laughed and shoo-fly my tears, go to sleep, back to your room, back to bed, back…but I can’t really go back , not all the way.

The kids will be up soon I say, look to the clock, it no longer says 6, but 1230 instead.

The magic sleep comes quickly the second time around.

My second Christmas I do not bound,  I do not want to be- the- first- to- see just what is underneath the Christmas tree.

I have already seen.

My second Christmas, the packages are piled, and the stockings are full the others are laughing, and counting, and the chocolate is just a little less sweet.

Christmas is here Hogmanay yet to come. My father has the giant green Hefty bag at the ready for the boxes, the wrapping he tosses into the fireplace with glee.

Hogmanay.

The time to ready,  the time to clean,  the time when the house must be, what it will be for the coming year.

Every Scottish housewife knows, the house will be,  what ever it is when the New Year comes.

If it is dirty, dirty it will be.

If it is tidy at the New Year, then tidy it will be.

New Year. Hogmanay.

The way you end the year,  will tell you how you will be in the next.

The dressers are cleaned, the clothes folded, the trash taken out.

The laundry is done, and baskets are empty. The fridge is full, the rooms are cleaned, toilets scrubbed, closets cleared, and garbage out, and no stuffing anything under the bed.

The way you enter the New Year, is the way it will be.

Hogmanay meant cleaning, and hassle and hiding out till the work was done.

When the sun went down on New Years Eve, the feast began, the friends came, the scotch flowed, and Hogmanay really happened.

It was ceilidhs…Kailey’s… dancing and  laughter.

Hogmanay was meat pies, and dark-haired first footed strangers after midnight at your door.

The darker the hair the stranger, the better the luck.

A hold over from the days of unlucky light-haired Nordic Viking blondes who raped and pillaged; the darker the stranger the better the luck.

Mom always looked for a dark-haired man enter the door first after the New Year. First foot was not to be ignored.

It meant the best of luck, the best of things to come, even  now 40 years after the year of the two Christmases, and the clock who told the wrong time, I look for a dark-haired stranger to cross my threshold at the New year, and bring the best of things; it means the best is yet to come, in the New Year.

Slainte! (Slan-ja) To your Health,  all you dark- first- footed- strangers, imaginary or not.

Then & Now

Like a  Kurosawa film the action was in slow motion.

The windup, the letting go,  it  flies through the air, tumbling over and over until with the precision of a surgeon it hits the target.

The boy in the back row never saw it coming. The eraser hit the side of his face and a mushroom cloud of dust erupted on impact, leaving a chalky imprint in its wake.

One must pay attention if only to know when to duck.

Mr. Robertson had a deadly aim.

Taking an eraser to the head was nothing compared to getting a swat.

A swat. The go outside into the breeze way and wait for me swat.

Getting a swat was only for the particularly egregious crimes, like fighting.

The logic of hitting to prevent hitting is still lost on me.

It usually happened on the play ground. The monitors, with whistles dangling, or ever ready clenched between front teeth, would let loose a sound that any first Saturday of the month this is just a test warning siren would envy.

It was usually  Mrs. Tallman the bus driver, who was anything but tall, or Mrs. Myrick, also short but thick, mean and always had dark sunglasses on so you never knew exactly where she was looking.

It was usually one of them, women who clearly define the term, broads, one  of them would blow the whistle, everybody on the playground froze. It was red light- green light with out any green.

The offenders were called over with nothing more than a nod of the head or a pointer finger slowly repeatedly curling, there were no words.

They would sit out the rest of the recess, while another student was singled out to go to the teacher’s lounge and inform the teacher.

The teacher’s lounge. A mysterious place where it was rumored teachers would shed their fierce skins and take human form.

A single knock, was all it took. Cigarette smoke, stewed coffee  and laughter erupted when the door opened.

It was always dark, and you stood on the outside looking in hoping your eyes would adjust to the darkness before the door was closed,  but it never did.

The message delivered and the door closed.

It comes immediately after recess.

The class falls silent as the offenders exit, each  like a convict going to the chair.

Silent words swim, thank god it isn’t me, thank god it isn’t me.

The paddle hung by the door was taken down and the teacher follows outside.

It’s drilled with holes to decrease wind resistance and covered in signatures, proof of past survivors.

The quiet deepens, we wait, we wait to hear the moment when the wood lands. It echos off the concrete and brick, the snap  gunshot loud, crisp, … crack.

It was the echo that always made me jump.

Did they cry? If they did it was inside, cause we never heard.

The teacher would enter first, the offenders a little later.

Soon it was line up for lunch.

Lunch meant separate lines, boys on one side girls on the other. Walk don’t run, teacher watches, as you grab some gritty pink stuff  and give your hands a scrub. It was more like ajax  than soap,  reddened hands sought spouts continuously spraying, make sure you wash your hands! They always checked…

Through the door smell the rolls, grab a carton of milk.

The more recess, four square, tether ball, and talking to boys on the bleachers.

There was art with Mrs. Clemans, pink magenta with a metallic sheen, the paints she mixed herself  at the back of the room.

We sat in long wooden tables stained with the creative excesses of those who came before. Giant murals were painted, each an old Christmas card divided into squares, we work in teams, our efforts hung in the cafeteria for all to see.

There was a fall carnival, a cake walk, musical chairs and plastic prizes, like the soldier with the parachute who we could never throw high enough to untangle the strings.

There was Mrs. Little Page, silver bun, gravel voice and forever hocking loogies into a kleenex. Miss Lee with her huge purse filled with cough drops, combs and patience, everything a fourth grader would need. Mr. Sennet the original hippy, who rode his bike, and shed more dandruff than was humanly possible. Mr. Floyd the cool teacher I never had, Mr. Cauthen, who remembered my older sister, who he called the hawk, so I became the hawk-ling.

First day 5th grade, standing arms crossed, foot out, “My name isn’t Share-in, its SHAR-IN.”

Eyes do not have to be closed to remember now.

These were then memories, before tax brackets, and labels,

and titles and what do you do really means,

Are you  an important person or a waste of my time?

Gotta love a cocktail party.

It’s now. Time to go, time to see, will I remember them, will they remember me?

Yes.

The boy who made funny faces, had become the man who still did.

The kind girl became the kind woman.

34+ years was not enough to erase faces, all looked similar if not exactly the same. It was easiest to see them when they laughed, the boy or girl who was could not hide then.

Food was ordered and most not eaten. We were filled with laughter, hugs and stories instead.

We stayed long past closing, lingered after in the parking lot, not wanting it to end.

Until now it hadn’t really hit me.

That everyone knew my name.

Shar-in.

Now I wonder when  was it  exactly that I stopped correcting people, and just let it go.

Where had the 5th grader gone with her crossed arms, bossy manner and loud voice?

When was it exactly that I forgot my  own name?

Phoenix

Vivid blue crayon sky.

Camelback, Praying Monk, and Squaw Peak, familiar shapes rise from the desert floor.

Lunar landscape pink Papago with worn holes through and through, the place to ride bikes watch the sun set and the stars rise.

Giant saguaros marching, stopped forever in their uphill climb, arms  ever reaching.

How could you forget such things.

In town for a reunion, driving east, new roads fast and paved in basic black,  extra wide lanes with solid bright white lines, stay on your side please…

Rear view mirror,  look behind, see the sun set, it never fails to impress, only see it in pieces, and curse the luck of my direction, always going the wrong way.

Invite for pizza at a childhood friends house, meet her kids, see her mom, her brother always a huge crush.

Standing around the kitchen granite gleaming, spic and span, glass shines, so unlike my own, where I consider myself lucky to have floors the color of dirt.

It is not unusual to have some foreign unidentifiable substance stuck to your bare feet…. last time it was a gummy bear.

The patio something out of Pottery Barn, a little living room, sofa- chair-tables lamp, all complete with drapes, hold the warmth in.

Here he was, the golden-haired boy of summer, how many times did I sit in the bleachers hoping he would see me?

Stories began…

His stories were crude, his language base and biased.

Jew whore, bitch, slit..I took a breath, sat and just listened.

…. we  had lit a fire outside,

I had forgotten how cold it gets when the sun goes down in the desert.

Then they both really started talking…

their  mom used to leave them for days at a time. 10 and 8 no food, mom gone… imagine.

Mommy was off for the weekend with different boyfriends.

He remembers sitting in the back of a car with his sister while their parents were in the bar  gett’n their drink on….strangers knock on the window and
laugh….

After working with children in foster care for a decade, I knew how damaging neglect could be they don’t even care enough to beat.

I watch him, but his voice is drowned out in my mind,

Coldplay Fix you….I will try to fix you…plays instead.

No way social worker girl….this is not your problem..

His story was drugs,  38 years worth, everything you could imagine. The longer he spoke the more broken he became, splintered and scattered.

I was given tours of scars and injuries, DUI’s…

I sat and listened, as rants of political views vastly different from mine began,
I hear some Fox news one liners spouted with ease.

Only when they started on immigrants did I speak.

“I am an immigrant”

She seemed shocked.

The rant became one of foreigners serving in the military,

“I wasn’t a citizen when I was in the Navy, ” I said.

She was agape.

“But you were born here, your parents had a mortgage, how could they do that not being citizens?”

The basic civics lesson ensued….one can be a legal immigrant, tax paying with all the rights and duties except holding office and voting.

It almost stopped the ranting, having a familiar face be the unmentionable, immigrant non-citizen scapegoat for all of the country’s ills.

Almost.

They ranted on, he gesturing violently punching the air, Michele Obama the intended target.

Calling Barrack, Barry, a child chiming in, age ten looking up for approval.

I watched in two worlds, seeing the boy, hearing the man.

I realized their view comes from a place of fear, distrust, and ignorance.

Not my view, I chose another way.

Yes,  I voted for Obama, I said when asked.

Yes,  I am in Law school.

“You’re not going to work for those ACLU assholes are you, those lying un-American Civil Liberty Union pricks”

It almost turned uncivil when I showed them my ACLU membership card.

My childhood friends, different paths different world views, here they were with a Democrat in the house. Don’t think there is enough bleach in the world to clean that up…suddenly I have the image of them hosing down my chair when I left.

I let them rant, the rants only outpaced by the number of bottles of beer, I lose count.

No thanks I am driving….

He asked  me for a ride to his mother’s house.

I blink and remember we are both 48 years old.

I swallowed my judgment, smiled and nodded.

He wanted to stop and get beer, wanted me to drink  a tall boy in the parking lot, I just laughed, and said I didn’t roll like that.

What else could you do?

I pulled up to the house, he opened the door, and then paused.

He turned and looked me straight in the eye and said,

“I love you, I have always loved you, and always will.”

Then he left.

I cried all the way back to the hotel,  deep sobs, and had to calm down with hot bath and an overpriced mini bar shot of  Grey Goose.

Fix you,  still playing, this time on my ipod….they seemed so splintered, and the pieces are scattered…even social worker girl knows…

There is no way to fix that.

.

Nellie Bell, the Wonder Bread Bag, and Decades of Different Dye

 

 

 

 

 

Nellie Bell loved to dance, laugh, smoke, and drink.

Usually simultaneously.

Nellie Bell was my Nana, my mothers mother, who told everyone she was five feet nothing, but that was just a bold-faced lie. At five foot  two, I towered over her, even in her heals which she wore every day without fail.

Nellie Bell only ever gave me two pieces of advice.

The first was, “always put lipstick on before your husband comes home from work.”

I think I was 12.

The second, when I was 19 and living with her for the summer.

Spontaneously one afternoon with her highball, Pall Mall and while listening to Dean Martin on the stereo,   she turned to me and said,

“Mens bodies are awfully ugly, …you know,  I never saw your Papa naked.”

Not knowing what the appropriate response is to your grandmother voicing her sexual dysfunction, I remained silent.

For once.

Mistaking my silence for acquiescence, she continued after pausing and taking a long drag on her fag and letting the smoke simply rise from her mouth.

“He took his jammies into the bathroom every night and dressed in there.”

Only for a moment did it cross my mind to tell her that I already had formed an opposing opinion.

Nana was a brunette before I was born,  a red-head after, and a platinum blond from 1970 on. Sifting through the family photos, you realize sorting the decades by her hair color is a pretty safe bet.

Nellie would send me to the drug store, armed with a twenty, a bribe of candy, and a piece of cardboard.

Never a logical being, the cardboard which had been torn from the top of the hair color box, never bore the brand, shade name or color number. Nellie saved the photo of the model instead.

Many a long hour did I spend walking the hair color aisle in Rexall Drugs, moving from picture to picture, box to box until I made the  correct match.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same…

It wasn’t as easy when they changed the models on the box.

The dying of the hair is something of a hereditary trait.

The sisters and I have our own …colorful past, which shall remain a secret, at least for now.

It happened in the spring of 1966.

I remember because it was right after I won the bathtub fight. The one where my sister and I fought over the right to sit closest to the bath tub spout.

I won.

Only because it was my 4th birthday, my father said.

It happened after that.

It started with the cackling, and ended with The Wonder Bread.

Well,  not the bread, but the bag.

The gleaming white bag with the blue, yellow and red circles.

My mother, my Aunt, and my Nana were having a cup of tea.

To a 4-year-old, cackling meant tea, tea meant cookies.

The cackling drew me in,  but I stayed for the shortbread.

They sat around the table, tea and shortbread at the ready, my aunt was dying Nellies hair.

This being 1966 it was red.

It wasn’t until much later I realized the early do-it-yourself hair colors didn’t really come with all the supplies you needed.

I just thought everyone wore a Wonderbread bag on top of their hair when they were waiting for it to “take”.

It wasn’t long after the final cup, the time finally came to take off the plastic, and give it a rinse.

The stove timer buzzed, the moment was at hand.

I watched the magic happen from my seat under the table, under the laced tent, where the sun came through in pieces.

The Wonder Bread bag was removed, and silence followed.

It had come off, you see.

They had waited too long. Cackled too much.

There across my Nana’s gleaming red hair, and all the way around, were the words Wonder Bread, and the bright colored circles of the wonder bread bag.

The cackling only got louder.

Clean

The game we play, my father-in-law and I, has no written rules, no tiny hour glasses filled with sand,  buzzers, or points to be counted.   Well,  that’s not exactly true, there is a type of score. 

This time the score is 7 days, 4 hours and 27 minutes.

That’s 7 days, 4 hours and approximately 27 minutes since Griffy’s last shower.

The first move is always his.

“Sharon, I think I’ll go for a shower.”  …although he has started calling me Karen…

“Ok Griffy,” my reply.

Let the game begin.

The announcement comes mid-afternoon,  never in the morning, never at night. He declares his intent, shuffles off down the hall, slippers buffing, scuffing all the way. One does not need to watch, you can hear his progress, down the hall fainter and fainter until he reaches his room, opens the door and goes inside.

The shower isn’t in there.

There is nothing he needs to retrieve; supplies and towels are ever ready in the master bath. Do not ask me what he is doing, there are  some things I just don’t care to know.   A few minutes later, the door opens, he comes out empty-handed, and heads for the master bath.

The next move is mine.

I sit and count to 100, not too slow, not too fast, 1 -1000, 2-1000,  3-1000; like a game of hide and go seek only now there is no seeking,  just me hiding out of sight.  

I take my cell phone and into the master bedroom I go, taking my place just outside the bathroom door and wait.

Well,  not just wait exactly. I listen.

I listen for the sound of the water being turned on, and when it starts, I look down at my cell phone  and start the stopwatch.

It started out just listening, listening for trouble. The plastic shower seat, hand rails, and hand-held shower were there to assist, make it easier, but  the mommie mind  raced, never at ease waiting on the other side of the house for his return. He can barely keep upright walking on a solid dry surface, never mind on a wet soapy one. So instead of waiting out of ear shot heart racing thinking every noise is a sign of distress, heart pounding call the paramedics!  I started sitting in the bedroom listening for trouble just outside the bath room door. 

The proximity eased my worry.

I don’t know why that is, why being closer  seems to alleviate the fear. It just does. It’s the same with  all my children, as long as they are near, as long as they are close,  as long as they are under my roof, in my house, they can come to no harm.

The simple nearness is a strange comfort, but it works.  So I sit, just outside the bathroom door assuring that no harm will befall the tottering 75 year-old man just  beyond the door, nothing can happen, because I am near.

That’s when I first noticed it. I noticed that despite the fact that the water takes a while to warm up to even body temperature, it never seemed to run for very long.  

So I started timing it. The water did shut off almost as soon as it was turned on.

How soon?  

Less than two minutes. As in you have got to be kidding  there is no way  you are soaping up and rinsing off  anything in that amount of time, soon.

That’s how the game began.

It started off with me just listening, making sure he didn’t fall in the shower, and evolved into me playing  some sort of hygiene monitor.  I now arrange the soap, shampoo and even his tooth-brush and when I check them after his almost weekly attempts at personal hygiene they have not been moved.

His tooth-brush is never wet.

That’s the game we play, Griffy and I. 

He pretends that he washed.

And I pretend not to notice he was in the shower for less than 120 seconds.