Regrets of the Snow Day

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, January 21st, 2011
If you were looking for something funny and uplifting, it won’t be here today. Sorry. I’m in a bit of a mood. Perhaps it was that snow day we had this week. I should be grateful, right? At least it was a mutual snow day, where I had the day off as well as my children, and that should be a blessing: being home, baking cookies, all that sort of good stuff, right?


That’s how your mind’s eye sees things, and sometimes that is a huge problem, that irritating mind’s eye. It sees and records things, all sorts of unreasonable things, and then it tries to control the rest of your being to get everything to fall into line that way.


I remember the time I had to run into the model home in our subdivision where the builders and/or developers were trying to peddle the last of their overpriced wares. I accidentally walked through – okay, lingered and lusted after – the interior of the model home. People with six children, a dog, and piles and piles of laundry that are rivaled only by the piles and piles of paper that are inherent with any schooling activity, should not be allowed to enter a model home. Period. It’s unhealthy and downright depressing to see all the perfection of such a place. The hyper decorated and uber-matched everything assaults your dignity when you realize that the only thing that is decorating your own white-walls-only home is assorted boogers left to dry on various walls …some walls more than others, and I’m not going to say where.


Of course, you realize as you go through the model home that the place is completely sterile – there is no one sleeping in or jumping on the beds. There are no toys, no books, no music, no life. There is nothing but canned perfection. Most annoying of all was that cleaning van dutifully parked to scrub that house every week. Forwhat? Cleaning the house was the only activity in that house. There was no life in it.


So you return to your home, trying to bolster yourself with self-righteous thoughts of how much life and activity you have in your home. Yours is a REAL house, because there is joy and laughter and there is bound to be a batch of freshly baked cookies. When you get home, there is bickering and teasing and the only activity seems to be generating more laundry and papers and possible “decorations.” Then you remember that, of yeah – none of us should be eating cookies, we’re supposed to be eating apple chunks and carrot slices, remember?


Why have some people still not brushed their teeth? Who is letting the dog, with her adorable yet sheddy self, slouch on those blankets you just spent a day washing? Before you know it, your aspirations to be that wonderful parent are drowned out by your own nagging and shouting.


Why couldn’t you have shut off your mind’s eye? Why can’t you shut your mouth? Why is it so active and envious? Why weren’t you strong enough to be joyful to come home to this and to give thanks that you have four walls, at least you have children, and least you have been given today. Because people are getting on your nerves, that’s why.


So this past snow day started out with the whole laughter-and-love theme, and it ended in a bit of bickering. I’ve heard various solutions to the bickering issue. I knew a lady who had only daughters, and when any of the daughters argued or fought with each other, as they tended to do in pairs, they were made to go and remain together in small, confined quarters until they were ready to forgive and forget each other. Oh, sorry – only forgive each other – I think it was the argument they were supposed to forget. (I don’t think the mom meant putting them in a broom closet and then forgetting that she had instructed them to stay there.)


I have done the “do not play with each other” technique in which the bickering duo is absolutely banned from any interaction with the offending party. This usually works like a charm, because kids can handle almost anything other than boredom: even battling each other is enormously more entertaining than the silence and loneliness. Sometimes I think this is the philosophy nations adhere to as well.


I know you might be familiar with that old “Arbeit macht frei” slogan of the Nazi camps – you know, that work makes you free, and I’ve sort of employed the same philosophy, except here it’s the children working that makes me free. If anybody’s going to waste time arguing and fighting, I have my simple “arbeit” solution. I put them to work. Things get done, people are occupied with something slightly more productive than annoying each other, and they get a little more careful about how they spend their free time.


Tomorrow might be another snow day. I hope to use it better. Maybe we’ll forget everything else. Maybe we’ll just play chess and make those cookies after all.

Gadgets, tools, and handy husbands

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, January 14, 2011

Many of us can confess to having some partially functioning appliance or gadget (and we’re not even going to discuss humans here) that we have learned to accept and work around. We really don’t consider its defects until it’s time to hand it over to someone else to use. Even then it doesn’t dawn on us to mention that the dryer starts as soon as the door is shut; there’s no need to press the “Push to Start” button. Others may view this as a defect, but over the years, you have come to see this as a time saving feature.



Haven’t we all had that experience where someone offers us a ride, and only when we’ve been tugging on the door handle to get in, do they remember that, “Oh, the door on that side doesn’t work; you’re going to need to creep in from the window or climb across the driver’s seat.” This also could be a feature, depending on who the driver is, and who is accepting the ride.


I grew up in a household in which our “toolbox” consisted of a small plastic bin atop the dryer. Into this, sundry tools were tossed, including the butter knife-cum-screwdriver. My father never regarded mechanical issues to be of great import, and there were times when we would travel places with the car battery in a corroded enough state that the butter knife was practically a part of the key chain. Car won’t start? Open up the hood, scrape the terminals, then jumpstart the car. (Remind me, by the way, not to clip out this column to send to my parents.)



My husband, on the other hand, grew up in a household with an Erector (Meccano) set that had spanned a few generations. Under their father’s guidance, the three boys, and sometimes one of the three girls, would make actual, working models of clamshell excavators, automatic transmissions that shifted gears as needed, and other such “small and simple” projects. He and his brother even made, from Meccano, a ventilator that they actually used on a patient in India. See what alternatives are available to the family that grows up without a television and a car?

I remember one of the first times my husband-to-be visited my parents’ home in Columbia, South Carolina. While there, a number of maintenance projects began to pop up like daffodils at the end of winter. I believe this is a phenomenon that typically occurs when the son-in-law comes visiting, and it may be more acute prior to marriage, during the time when it may be necessary to impress someone, whether it be the erstwhile in-laws or the future mate.


There was some issue with the lawn mower at my parents’ house (as there usually was every other summer), and Eldred asked me where we kept the oil to be put into the mower.


“Oh, no, no, no,” I explained in my superior, I-grew-up-in-America voice. This man had only just come to the United States in his mid-twenties. He had grown up in a series of flats in Bombay (now Mumbai) where they barely had a patch of grass, much less need of a lawn mower. “We don’t put oil in our lawn mower, Silly! We put gasoline in it to make it run.” It was obvious to me that he had grown up in a family without a car.


Needless to say, I learned a little something about lawn mower maintenance on that day. I also picked up some clues as to why our lawn mowers seemed to always need resuscitation. I wish I could to excuse my ignorance by saying that I was nineteen at the time, or that I was never gifted mechanically, but these would just be excuses.

Before we got married, I taught my husband how to drive, although I rarely like to advertise this now. It’s not that he’s a bad driver per se; it’s just that he always seems to be focused on something else.

What amazed me then was that although he had never driven a car in India, and rarely ridden in one there, he knew and understood everything that went on under the hood. We bought an old, mileage-ridden car. Back then I thought we were buying that car because we were college students and that was all we could afford. Now that I reflect on it, I realize that our first car, that old 1977 Mercury Marquis that we bought off the gas station parking lot, was really an excuse for my husband to begin acquiring tools in earnest. Lots of them. And not of the butter knife variety, either. How many college students have an air compressor and air impact tools in their apartment?

My husband is still obsessed with tools and gadgets. I’m really glad to have him, defects and all.

Medicine Man comes calling...Let it Snow! Part II

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on January 22nd, 2010.


Last week's column was about the stooped old man who cleared our driveway of snow. His accent made him difficult to understand. After his exertion in the cold, I invited him in to warm up with a cup of coffee, and my sons (aged 14, 11, and 4) and my 7-year-old daughter introduced themselves. (My husband and teenaged daughter were busy watching something on History Channel upstairs.) The old man's topic of conversation made me uneasy.

 He learned we were from India, and he mentioned he knew several Indians, one of whom had owned a business and suffered a violent end due to unpaid debt. Or, at least, that was what I could gather from his accent and garbled speech that made him sound like he was speaking with marbles in his mouth. 
 
He pointed his index finger right between his own eyebrows to simulate a pistol going off. I glanced at my four-year-old. Lord, let him not pick up and repeat this gesture. (I knew the kids were somewhat insulated; no one else could understand him well.) Repeating this gesture would be risky at school where his sweet, sweet, teacher had once asked that he refer to killer whales by the less violent term, “orca.”


Then, my teenaged daughter came down, introducing herself as I like the children to do. The moment she arrived, the man's face lit up. Way up.


He promised reduced-rate services. His voice rose and he drew his words out long, so everyone, unfortunately, could understand him. “How old you?” he inquired enthusiastically. She said “seventeen,” and his response was, “Dang! I thought you 21 or 25 or sumpin'.” He proceeded to make smacking sounds as if he had just consumed some delectable dessert. Even if my precious, flesh-and-blood had been 25, that would still make her about 40 years too young for him, I wanted to say.


He asked that I cool his coffee with a little half-and-half, which I hurriedly did. He himself could have used a little cooling off, I thought, as he continued to look my daughter up and down. She had been doing homework and college applications all day, and was thankfully shabbily dressed with no makeup and a sloppy ponytail. My daughter crossed her arms high over her ample bosom, in what she terms the “protective stance.”


“Tevy,” my high-pitched voice came from behind gritted teeth encased in a fake smile, “why don't you go get your FATHER?” I emphasized the father part, because that would take my too-delightful daughter out of view and replace the lovely sight of her with someone bigger, grouchier, and loaded with angry testosterone.


My daughter disappeared, and the man prepared to leave. (He had wanted me to cool his coffee so he could drink it and get out of our way.) He had suffered partial paralysis in 1991, he told us in the foyer, after being hit in the head with a baseball bat. I wonder whose daughter he had been checking out then, and why that lesson hadn't been enough the first time around.


He felt compelled to corroborate his story by showing his epilepsy medications. His good hand fished around inside his jacket, and he produced a water bottle to prove that he had to swallow his meds. Then he continued fumbling in his jacket before producing a bottle. Unfortunately, the last time he had taken his medications, he must have forgotten to close the container or perhaps he had used his bad hand, because right then, tiny pink and white capsules tumbled all over the floor and inside of his jacket. We immediately crated our little dog Betty Lou.


“Doan wan y'all thinkin' Ahm no drug attic nor nuthin'.” Yes. A pedophile on prescription drugs is so much more tolerable than a child molester who is also abusing drugs. By this time, my husband partially descended the stairs and was on the scene. I helped pick up the man's medications, and when he was unable to retrieve the capsules from inside his jacket, I was in the uncomfortable position of having to delicately pluck them off his person without touching his body. Remember that game called “Operation” where you had to remove bones with the forceps without touching the metal and making the buzzer go off? This man's buzzer had obviously already gone off quite enough.

 
I spied my daughter hiding in the darkened living room, and gave her a fierce eyeball. This was her cue to hold her position till the coast was clear. Once the man got back onto the porch with his shovel, he promised to return the next time it snowed.


My husband, who had only come down at the end of this meeting, just glared at me and went back upstairs in complete silence. The poor man knows that anything he says, can and will be published in a future column.


As I write, we are expecting 20 inches of snow in the worst storm in decades. I'm scared – and it's not of the snow.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

published last year in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, 1/15/2010, as "The winter's first snow brings out a stranger - with a shovel"

The first time we had snow, our doorbell rang at dusk. A stooped man, who could easily have been my father, asked if we wanted our driveway cleared.


Just then, my 14-year-old son came to the door. It's wonderful to have sons, because even though they can eat up all the groceries, these individuals LOVE to do the tasks that I don't: cut the grass, dig holes, accompany their father to Home Depot or Radio Shack, and shovel the driveway. (It's wonderful to have daughters too.) I felt terrible about turning away this old man, but Snow Shoveler Son #1 had just reported for duty.


 “Well, Ahm jes sayin', theysa callin' furass – all this gonna fraze.” I like to pride myself on being able to follow people's accents, but this man's was difficult, even for me. Whether this was due to partial paralysis or because he was storing marbles in his mouth, I cannot say. My kids accuse me of developing a bogus “sympathy accent” whenever I speak to someone with an accent. They say this is patronizing, even if unintended. We all know this cannot possibly be true, because that portrays me in a bad light. (They're probably just jealous of my abilities.)



I told him we would definitely clear our driveway before dark, before the ice and before the freeze. I wished him best of luck going door to door, because of the many vacant houses in our neighborhood. “Well, Ah thankye, ma'am, anna Murry Christmas to ya, ma'am. Murry Christmas!” he said as he doddered off.

 Just stab me in the heart, will you? How can you let someone like that stumble away into the cold? I checked with my husband before dispatching my son to bring the man back. We “let” him do the job, but real generosity would probably have given him money, a nice, warm meal and asked nothing in return. Instead, my version of generosity stayed inside the warm house and put together a bag of granola bars and fruit while the old man set to work on our sidewalk and driveway.

 “Would you like something hot to drink - some coffee, perhaps?” I shouted out to him. (Shouting is my preferred method of communication; it is as effective indoors and out.) I dared not offer hot chocolate because we were out of milk, but not creamer. “Thadda be jes' fan – but no sugga, nor nuthin' – jes' straight black,” he said. How convenient for me. And then, worry clouded his face. “That coffee ain't comin' outta my money, now, is it?” I reassured him it would not, and began percolating the coffee.

 Then, I ran about the house looking for cash. I had about thirty cents in my purse. Hmmm. I was out of milk and out of cash. Perhaps I should be the one out there with a shovel. There were two reasons I desperately needed cash. You don't want to hand a check to someone who is desperately going door-to-door to work for cash. Second, all of our contact information is on our checks. I don't mind handing out coffee, cash, and cheer, but, and I'm ashamed to be like this, I don't necessarily want to advertise all of our contact information.



I located $ 2 in my husband's wallet, drained $ 8 from my 17-year-old daughter, and got a $ 5 offering from my 11-year-old son. There wasn't another dollar in the house. Thank God, literally, that I had scraped together $ 15, because that's exactly what the man had asked.



I asked the man if he'd like to come in for his coffee. How could I expect him to drink it on the porch? He came in and stood unsteadily on the mat, refusing my offer to sit on the sofa. He didn't want to put his muddy boots on the carpet. With his good hand, he removed the glove from his stiffened left hand, and he accepted the coffee. His hand kept quivering, and coffee sloshed. We both apologized profusely, and I had him come sit at our kitchen table, where everyone who was nearby (my three sons and 7-year-old daughter) introduced themselves.


“Y'all Panish 'o Mexgun?” he asked.

“No, we're not Spanish or Mexican - we're from India,” I said.


“Yep – Ah knows lotto Inyuns in Marshall. One gottumself kaled. Owed somebuddy money o' sumpin', and theysa 'jes put a 357 mangum upta his hade. Thenna pop!” He pointed his index finger to simulate a pistol going off, smack between his eyebrows. This made me a little nervous; it's not the usual light conversation people make, even if young children aren't present.



Then, my teenaged daughter politely came down to introduce herself. This grandfather could barely contain his enthusiasm. His whole countenance lit up. “Well, now – who this? Who this? You sho is boo-ful.” Then he looked at me, “Ma'am, yo' rate jes got cut. Thas right – yo rate jes got cut in heyuf.  Heyuf uv heyuf!”
 Stay tuned for part 2 next week.

New Year’s Resolutions – don’t tell me about them

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend on January 7th, 2011

Don’t talk to me about New Year’s Resolutions. Everyone in America is supposed to have the same resolution. Apparently, it’s to lose weight. Again.

Why couldn’t we all join some sort of Global Swap program in which we each trade lives with some underprivileged, undernourished person from an equally underdeveloped country for about six months? That would thin us out a bit and fatten them up a bit, and then we would trade places back…just in time for the monsoons. Oh, wait. I think I see a problem with this plan.

You must be wondering what’s wrong with me. Wasn’t I supposed to complete that fascinating column on how decrepit my microwave had become? With children home all last week, I force-fed them my last column. There was plenty of eye-rolling. I confess: I have written several columns on my dying dishwasher, the death of my washing machine, clogged toilets, and now, the microwave oven. I was scraping the bottom of the broken barrel, so to speak.


Think peer pressure is bad? Try progeny pressure. It’s worse.


Naturally, I have some New Year’s resolutions. These would be apropos to share with you in our first week of 2011. I realize that I am a little late, since this will print with January 7th’s date. I also realize that I am leaving another task (the microwave saga) undone, but all these can be dealt with in the Resolutions Phase.


Speaking of resolutions, mine are to lose some weight (don’t want to seem unpatriotic here), stop being late (although you must recognize that I am fighting a huge cultural handicap here), and to try to get my house straight (never-ending task). Summarized version: lose some weight, stop being late, and keep it straight. Also, I should free myself from this compulsion to rhyme.


There are other resolutions, too, but I’ll just stick with these few. Ugh! Another rhyme. I need my list to be small, because if it gets any bigger, I’ll have to write it down to keep track of it all. That would mean locating a list, and of course, when you’re disorganized, that adds in a complicated twist. Must stop rhyming.


Obviously I’m already failing on the punctuality issue. And when you’re afraid of losing a list, you’re not too well organized. So, seven days into the New Year and that just leaves the weight issue.


The dieting industry. Need I say more? Need I even use a complete sentence? Remember, when sentences go “light,” they use fewer words. Or should I use that hateful word, “lite,” because it weighs one letter less than its legitimate counterpart? It seems like the vowels are analogous to vegetables, so “lite” is tall and slim, while “light” seems to be a little constipated with consonant carbs in the middle. Enough of the word analysis. I am no lexicographer.


I don’t know how many billions of dollars we spend on trying to slim down. I know it’s healthier to be slimmer, but I feel like we have an unhealthy obsession with it.


I know. Don’t remind me of the statistics of my own home, because you’ll deflate my whole theory and also call into question my qualifications to talk about weight. But skip the part that my husband had a massive heart attack at age 52 and that most of my household is overweight. Obviously, I have been a little negligent in the nutritional department at home, and have abdicated my responsibilities on emphasizing exercise in the past. But that’s the good thing about a New Year. We can look forward and we can try to make changes. So ignore my personal experience, and just pretend I’m an expert.


The other day, I was standing at the grocery store checkout with my eight-year-old daughter. Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing when you are accompanied by young, reading-age children when you enter the checkout lanes, as you must, if you have selected something and intend to pay for it before departing the premises.


One of the headlines blared something like, “Get the thighs, legs, and butt you’ve always wanted.” What, were they advertising chicken parts? Amazingly, and thankfully, they had omitted mentioning those two items, whether you speak of squawkers or that which is of intense interest to gawkers. When your child scrunches up his or her nose or snickers, it’s one thing. If questions ensue, that’s another. There are words and thoughts and images that do not need to be pushed at their young minds. All I have to say is, why, why, why? Obviously, there is an audience for this sort of thing, but must it accost us, and must the covers be required reading for non-shoplifters?


So, forgive my defeatist attitude about New Year’s Resolutions. We all know that there is bound to be some measure of failure. That gives us the impetus to continue in our status quo until 2012 emerges. That’s when the majority of us, whether or not we are good habitual recyclers, will pull out those same tired but true resolutions. Provided we can find them.