Words to Drive By

 My sole passenger is six years old and strapped into his child car seat in the rear seat of my car.  As I start to back out of my driveway onto the highway, I see him in my rearview mirror craning his neck to check the traffic and hear him say in a confident tone, as if he's done so many times before, "Okay, you're good."  I catch myself, look for myself:  he's right, nothing is coming.  But you can't do that, can you, rely on a six-year-old's assessment of traffic flow?

Running with Scissors

   Today the boys and their mother were running around with scissors, clipping wildflowers and assorted foliage. Their Fair entries for the Garden Department were due:  a hanging spider plant, a vase of wildflowers, a miniature log cabin arrangement, and an entry in the Unusual Container Dept., the container being a Lego-eater. 
    Cookies were entered yesterday:  oatmeal, chocolate chip, chocolate, sugar, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, molasses, and butter cookies.  All seem contenders for prizes, except the butter cookies would not roll out, and so were dropped on the cookie sheet like the rest of the cookies.  It doesn't seem butter cookies are meant to be treated this way, because they reciprocated by turning into solid blobs of dough, even baked.  Pity the judges, but occupational hazards exist in all areas. 
    P.S.  All 8 of the cookies received some award, most a first or second place.  Several were entered in 2 age divisions, where they received firsts in one category and second in the other.  The butter cookies were entered in both the under 12 and over 12 categories,   They received blue ribbons in each division.  I thought they were really bad, had considered throwing them out before entering them, when Ben valiantly tried to roll them out, but had to abandon that idea as they were way too  sticky.  But since I'd already paid the entry fee entered them anyway, hoping the judges wouldn't poke too much fun at them.  We ate every one of the cookies baked from the leftover cookie dough, except I did toss the butter cookies out the window. 

Sweet Memory

   On August 24, 2014, 2:00 P.M., Theodore Ronald David Schroder was baptized at St. Mary's Church in Holliston, Massachusetts.  Godparents were Nikola Smy and Daniel Schroder, in whose absence Dave Schroder Sr. acted as proxy.  The ceremony was lovely and enjoyed by all, but I couldn't help but think how happy, and yes, relieved, Theo's maternal great grandmother would have been, and indeed, I hope is, in another plane of being.  I say she would have been relieved because Theo was eight months old, not the eight days she would have preferred.  Hers was the time when the belief was that unbaptized babies who died were consigned to Limbo, not Heaven, so the idea was to baptize as early as possible.  Back in the day, infant deaths were frequent, and  therefore the reason for haste. 
    "David's son."    
          My mother used to collect grocery stamps, mostly S&H, I believe.  She acquired a great number of them as she cooked for a lot of people and in generous amounts.  She would redeem the stamps for merchandise, and when the grandchildren arrived, it was her pleasure to spend her stamps on items for them---youth chairs, toys, tricycles, little 2-wheeled bikes with training wheels for the very beginners.  The first five grandchildren were spaced a year apart, so hand-me-down items were usual.  Some of the outgrown items eventually disappeared, either worn out or given to another family.  But there was one item my mother did not want to part with: A red tricycle, very sturdy and in very nice condition after passing through the five stages of use.  She put it away, in the small room at the top of the stairs.  She said she was "saving it for David's son."    David was probably about nine years old at the time, and why she specified his son, I don't know.  The tricycle remained in that room until after my mother died; what became of it is lost in time, but she did anticipate the time that David would have a son.

Another NYC Cab Ride

   We're at a cab stand wanting to go to the Planetarium.  There are other people around, but we're not paying attention to them; some are farther down toward the end of the block.  A cab pulls up beside us and we  load the kids in the back, and Dave, as asked, gets in the front passenger seat.  A middle-aged man approaches, protesting that  he was waiting longer, and it should be his cab.  The driver ignores him, and Dave turns toward the driver as he closes the door.  No one wants to confront  his probably righteous indignation.  I'm watching him though, and as the driver starts to pull away, the man runs alongside the cab.  The driver and Dave don't want to deal with him, but all of a sudden I notice that the man's hand is closed in the door.  He really wanted that cab.  I yell out, that his hand is in the door.  The cabbie brakes as Dave opens the door, releasing the hand, then closes it and the cabbie takes off, leaving the man standing there, wringing his hand.   The cab driver said only, "He should know better than to approach a cab when there are people in it." 

Lesson in, Law

   The family was in NYC, taking a cab, to somewhere, I'm not sure where now.  The cab driver had David, about 10 years old, sit in the front seat with him.  Traffic was heavy, and the driver cut through some area to avoid the tie-up.  Suddenly, the loudest sound I'd ever heard, the amplified voice from a police car ordering the driver to pull over.  He did so, and was confronted by a cop angrily telling him he knew better, that it was not a through passage.  The driver, who was some "minority" but I don't recall which, agreed with the officer in a most subservient manner.  He was let go with a warning to never repeat his transgression. 
    As soon as the police car drove away, the driver turned to David, in the passenger seat, and, most likely relieved but still agitated from his brush with the law, delivered a lecture in a stern and serious tone:  "Did you hear what I said?   I said Yes, Sir, and No, Sir. That's how you talk to the police. I didn't try to explain or argue with the police.  And that's what you should do.  Remember to be polite, agree with them.  Remember that!"  

Suicide 2

   I think this is true.  If you are in the midst of mortal physical agony,  nothing else matters.  A woman in labor can not care if her house is burning down, it doesn't matter if she wins a million dollar lottery.  She is obsessed only with  finding a way to ease the terrible pain which wracks her body.  A suicidal person is likewise oblivious of  everything else in the world, including loved ones.  Everything is put aside in a desperate search for a way to end the pain of living.  Nothing else matters.  The deeply primal force that urges a newborn infant to cry out, as the only mechanism it has to assert self,  is the same force that propels one into doing whatever is necessary to assert self at the other end of the spectrum of life.  Nothing and no one can outrank the concept of self. Witness how parents love their own children more than any others; the children, as other loved ones, are an extension of self.
     We hear sirens, harbingers of potential tragedy, and our minds race as to where our loved ones are, and, once their safety is satisfied, to the hope that nothing bad has befallen anyone we know.  Our priorities are in direct proportion to their impact on our lives.  How very selfish of us.  The saying goes that you can't love another until you love yourself first.  With love or not, self is all any one of us has.  Everything else and everybody else can and will ultimately leave.  We are, each of us, alone.

The First Time Ever I Saw the Cape

      It was a long time ago, and it was summer, one of those hot summers.  I don't remember how it came about, but Barbara drove, I think it might have been her Mustang convertible, but I could be wrong. I remember riding along, carefree, with the radio playing "Hang On, Snoopy"  and perhaps, Dean Martin's "Houston."  We were there for probably a week or more, and went to several of the towns, but what I remember most was the trip to Truro, way far out on the Cape.  It seems we drove to the very end, into the dunes, until we came to a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff, pretty much deserted. It's hard to believe now, but back in the 60's, no one carried water with them, not even in their cars, no one we knew anyway.   Bottled water was yet to be invented, (except for glass quart bottles of Saratoga Vichy) , and people didn't eat and drink as often then anyhow.  Most likely, telephone service was not even available, and of course no one had ever heard of a cell phone.  Isolation was possible in those days. 
     For some reason, we decided to descend the dune, by the abandoned lighthouse, down to the ocean.  We made it down okay, and probably dipped our toes in the water, but the climb up almost killed us.  I speak for myself, but it must have been true for both of us.  The climb, for that's what it was, was long and steep,  the day was blazing hot, and we were parched.  I remember trying to gain purchase on the side of the cliff, and just grabbing a handful of sand.  There must have been a reason the place was deserted, and I think if we'd died that day our bodies could still be there.  
    Years later, on a family trip to the Cape, we decided to explore a little, and to revisit the scene of my near demise, but the road to that part of the cape was closed off, permanently I understood.

Suicide

   Being human means we all think of dying.  Our ultimate power is that we are capable of taking our own lives.  Losing the will to live afflicts most of us as we age, realizing that which used to be can not be forever.  It's a passive state of mind in  most cases, and life goes on.  Suicide prevails in some, when everything is internalized to the point where nothing  outside self matters. 
    Though a person may proclaim deep love for spouse, family, friends, that love is subsumed by self-obsession.  There is danger in looking too deeply or thinking too much.  Suicide is not a passive surrender; it is an outright act of  aggression.  While a few may successfully obliterate their existence on earth, most leave the spoils of their war for others to clean up.  Anyone who professes love for others  profanes  that avowed love by creating a grisly scene which will be for eternity etched in the minds of whoever finds what the suicide has left.

Family (Re) Union

    Trying to coordinate a family event is challenging, presently involving 5 states and 2 countries.  Everything all simultaneously interacting. The residents of Maryland will be in Maine, the New York family in Florida, the relatives traveling from Great Britain to Mass. And us, from Valley Falls to Cape Cod via Holliston.   To be resolved: the cat, the dog, and the cookie-baking for the Schaghticoke Fair, not to mention hauling the entries there, and re-scheduling appointments.  The logistics are mind-numbing, especially for one who has been pretty much in isolation at  home for the last year. 

Agitator

   I think there is nothing wrong with being an agitator.  They do a lot of good,  helping  to get rid of a lot of dirt,  straightening things out, and untangling a lot of soggy situations.  This is especially true of washing machines.  My washing machine was replaced when I was out of town.  I have paid no attention to washing machines since I bought the last one about 11 years ago.  When I looked into the new one, I was surprised to see an open chasm, no agitator rearing up in the center of the tub.  More room for clothes, I thought, a good thing, maybe.  But when I went to take the clothes from the washer, they are in lumps.  They need to be fully shaken out before going into the dryer.  The agitator was there for a reason, people.  (I guess I should read the directions, anyway.)

Six-Year-Plan

   He's 6 years old and has his future planned, some of it anyway.  He will have a child, a boy. That child will be adopted at an age beyond the baby and toddler stage because he doesn't really like very young children.  His wife will agree to this arrangement because they will have talked it over before they got married.  The adopted boy will be an only child.  That way, he says, he will not have to spend all his time and all his  money on child-raising. 

Closing Time

     It's 3:30 a.m., and I woke up a short time ago.  I remember going out on a Friday night, and regretting having to leave because it was closing time.  Did that used to be  4:00 A.M.?  After Ruthie got engaged in Hawaii, leaving her fiancé there, and she and I were teaching at HVC, we would go out every weekend, usually on Friday night.  I always drove, as she had neither a car nor a license.  We would go to different clubs or bars, the Country Grove, the OCA, Mario's, Raphael's, the Circle Inn, and a bunch of other places, but we  probably felt the most at home at Faye's in East Greenbush, so that was our usual hangout when we wanted to unwind.  We knew the owner and the bartender, and would occasionally go to breakfast with them after closing time, at Thornie's  Diner I think.  It was fun, in the most benign of ways; we were good girls, but we liked to stay out late, often arriving home with the rising sun.  One time, when driving home with morning full upon us, R.  said that if anyone asked, she was going to say we'd  had a flat tire. I agreed, though I wasn't worried about anyone asking me, but neither would I have expected anyone to believe that we'd  spent  6 or more hours having a few drinks, eating pizza, listening to music, dancing a little, and going out to breakfast with the bartenders. 
    We were never tired, possibly because we'd taken naps after work, but I don't think so in my case; I've never been one to sleep during the day, most likely because of Ma, who thought it almost sacrilegious to waste daylight.  It just turned 4:00 a.m. and I'm not tired now either, but  it's probably a good thing I don't have to drive home.
    

Recipes for Disaster

    I was looking for something that I couldn't find, out in the room attached to the kitchen: first a garage, then a playroom, later a storage room, and now a place where things go to die.  I couldn't find what I was looking for, a newspaper article about St. Peter's Hospital, and maybe that was for the better. (I'm bitter about some things.)  I came across a plastic bin containing  files and notebooks of recipes and cooking manuals.  It doesn't seem like too long ago that I put them out there, just for a while I thought at the time.  But the musty smell belied that they had been cast aside for only a brief time. 
   I'm trying to de-clutter my house, just to be fashionable of course.  I made an armful of the folders and notebooks and had the thought I should just toss them into the recycling bin, located only a few feet away.  But no, I had to look through them first, and that's where the trouble began.  I took a brown paper bag to recycle the discards.  I had no problem tossing a few sheaves of blank notebook paper, saved  to copy recipes on, I suppose, but now old and smelly. Likewise a recipe for a handwritten éclair cake.  I won't ever make that again.  Out with a Family Circle booklet of rich desserts---Bourbon Pound Cake, Black Bottom Pie, Meringue Torte.  A folder of different Cake Rolls from a 1983 Ladies Home Journal--they looked really good, but I don't roll cakes any more. I threw away a recipe for Double Duty Steamed Dessert, Fresh Grape Tart, Bear Squares, Orange-Maple Pecan Bars, a Pillsbury pamphlet on Molding Dough Cookies, and a recipe for Shrimp Salad with Oranges and Avocado, as well as Spinach Roll-Ups and Skillet Beef Stew.  I even pitched a New York Times article by William Safire on Newtonian Linguistics, very clever, I'd thought, back in 1993, when Newt Gingrich was a force to be reckoned with and which had somehow been tucked into my recipes. I even went so far as to discard a recipe for "Phil's Supremely Easy, Not-Yet-World-Famous Nesselrode Pie.  I'd heard of that kind of pie, but I'm pretty sure I never made it because I still don't know what it is.  I was making progress, slow but sure. 
     Then I hit a block.  I found a recipe for rice pudding which last winter I'd looked for and hadn't found.  It was the first thing I put aside.  With it was a recipe for bread pudding, which is akin to rice pudding, so I saved that also.  In an envelope was my collection of cheesecake recipes: I don't make cheesecake anymore, out of respect for cholesterol levels, but I have such favorable memories of the past productions I put them aside also.  Conditions rapidly deteriorated.  A thick envelope of all the decorated cake and cupcake idea that we used for Fair entries back in the day.  Better save them, I thought, for the grandkids.  They still want to do Fair  entries.  Then I realized that when they look for ideas, they log on to the internet, much easier and much more current.  There are copies of McCall's and Family Circle Magazines, marked on the front page with favorite recipes within.  I browse through them, and can't help being impressed by the number of cigarette ads showing beautiful women smoking, one woman wanting to Make Friends with Max, the Maximum 120 mm cigarette.  I'd forgotten about Doral also.  I'm getting nowhere, and then a crashing halt.  Tucked in among the recipes a drawing from a young Danny, of his Dad, probably for Father's Day. I used to put his little notes and pictures  in places where they would cheer me up as I came across them, but finding them now makes me want to kill myself.   I realize how long ago these recipes were collected, how many of them I thought I would make and never did and know now that I never will.  But still they remain in my house, reeking of the past. 

I knew I wasn't dreaming.

Some years ago in the wee hours of the morning, some weird-sex type show was on cable.  There was an organization of folks who pretended they were horse and had sex as such.  They would meet at conventions, and share their horsiness. There was a name for it, but I forget it. The video  was so graphic I couldn't believe my eyes, and even though no one else was around, I had to turn it off. It was a fantasy for sure, for some.  Now I hear about the Brony.   As I understand it, My Little Pony, and I don't want to think about what else.