I Hear the Tables Turning

It’s a classic stereotype that parents love playing with their children’s new toys.  Maybe they take a quick turn as they assemble things for Christmas, or they may have to wait until the children are worn out and safely asleep in bed.  No matter when you were born, the new toys are technically much more sophisticated than when you were a child.  It goes without saying that you should practice so that you can nonchalantly beat the pants off your child if the opportunity presents itself.  Parents need the sharper edge whenever possible.

This afternoon grandson David was quietly insistent that he and Grandpa were going shopping as they had discussed.  He mentioned Radio Shack and Toys R Us.  They went in one direction, and his mother went to the village with his brother.  John and David returned first, and I could tell David was excited about something.  I wasn’t suspicious until he asked if I wanted to open my birthday and Christmas gift right then.  Hummmm.  Did that quick shopping trip have something to do with me?  What on earth?  I said we should wait until the other two returned.  I wanted a bigger audience and time to anticipate this strange gift.  Unfortunately John was working the evening shift at Borders, so he wasn’t here for the fun.  I heard Kate tell David to wrap it up, and I called out that whatever it was didn’t need to be wrapped.  It was enough that the little box was covered up by the store bag.  Oh!  My Goodness!  It was a little remote controlled Silverado!!!  Weeks ago David heard me say that I wouldn’t mind getting a toy like that every year.  I could almost hear the tables turning.  A grandchild was tuned in to verbal wishes and remembered what I’d said.

Both boys offered to open it for me.  Citing owners’ privilege, I took it out.  The truck was screwed to the box, so the boys got two screwdrivers and set to work.  They politely took turns, but neither they nor Kate nor I could budge the second screw.  I said maybe they could take it to NJ and get magical Michael to extricate it.  He can fix anything or tell you that it's impossible.  By then it was time for me to cook dinner.  Wouldn’t you know, that’s when David finally got it loose.  I said I’d play with it after dinner.  Fast forward past a pleasant meal, washing dishes and cleaning the stove.

Nate and David with truck and obstacle

“Now!” I said.  “It’s time for me to play with my new toy.  I have to be the first to play with it.”

David, being the honest boy he is, said, “We played with it upstairs while you were doing dinner.”

“That doesn’t count,” I said.  “You were just testing it.”

That’s where things were a bit confused.  At times I was the child, but at that point I was the doting grandmother.

I went back to being the child.  I’m reasonably coordinated and was able to drive the car around the core of the house on the ground floor.  Both boys were coaching me.  “Turn left.  Back up.  A little more to the right.  That’s OK, you didn’t dent the bumper when you rammed the wall.”

Nate with the Silverado

David found one of Nate’s remote controlled vehicles, a much larger one than mine.  He and Nate began constructing an obstacle course.  I got through it and let Nate have the Silverado while I went upstairs to write.  Everyone settled down to serious playing -- Kate was playing with David’s iTouch in the dining room.  Before long Nate brought my truck upstairs, putting the cane across the stairs to keep the truck from falling.  He put a few things in the hallway to add interest.  Both boys rigged up a ramp to get across the sill at the bathroom door.  I said I wanted to drive it in and out of every room without leaving the computer chair, but it was dark in Lise’s room.  We needed lights on that truck.  Nate disappeared downstairs, coming back with a small flashlight and a rubber band.  We were ready for night time driving.  Varoom!!  Varoom!!

As I enter my second childhood, I’m so glad I can want toys again and am surrounded with people who don’t roll their eyes where I can see them.

P.S.    It’s about 24 hours since I opened my remote controlled Silverado, and I’ve already learned a lot from it.  For one thing, making a three point turn is extremely easy.  You move both thumbs to the other button and back again.  Done!  One of the most important things is to pretend whatever wild move you made is what you intended to do at the outset.  Stick with your story.  It’s essential that you realize you can learn new tricks when you are old.  After playing with this little truck, I’m confident I’ll be able to learn to drive my scooter or wheelchair when I’m no longer mobile.  That presupposes my mind is working, but then if it isn’t, I won’t know it, will I?

Merry Christmas From the Pollocks

Creatures Were Stirring, Including the Mice

If everything went smoothly all the time, I’d have nothing to write about.  Everything did go smoothly on “Pie Day”, the day before Thanksgiving.  I repeated the procedure from last year, doing one step of making the cranberry mince pies, reading a section of the newspaper and going to the next step.  It took about 2.5 hours to get the two lattice crust pies in the oven.  As soon as that was done, I began on the pumpkin cheesecake.  This was a first.  Every year I brought home a whole pumpkin pie and remnants of a second.  After 30 years, you’d think I’d get the message that our extended family does not favor pumpkin pie.  Rather than gear up for two more pie crusts, I opted for the cheesecake.  The recipe was loosely based on the family favorite by Aunt Doris.  I read about 15 sets of directions on the internet, jotted down approximate measurements and threw together this makeshift dish.  It wasn't exactly a hit, but it was more popular than our usual pumpkin pie..

I was nervous about leaving the pies on the dining room table, since that is where mice destroyed a decorative gourd a few days before.  After we disinfected the area, we saw no further evidence of mouse visitation.  I figured we had the table in the center of the room, so that was a step in the right direction.  I pulled the chairs away from the table, assuring myself a mouse could not jump high enough to get on top.  Once in the night I woke and wondered if the pies were OK, but I didn’t get up to check on them.  I slept even better than usual, waking without an alarm.  I showered, went downstairs and saw grandson Nate and husband John putting breakfast on the table on Thanksgiving morning.  Although they were within two feet of the pies, they acted as if nothing were wrong.  My eyes had immediately gone to the pies like metal to magnet.

I wailed, “Oh!  No!”

John said, “What’s the matter?”

“The mice have been at the pies!”

They ate the top crust from a quarter of each pie.  Actually, I’m glad they attacked both so I wouldn’t be tempted to think they didn’t touch one.

I said, “Let’s eat breakfast.  What time do we have to leave for the choir rehearsal before church?”

John said we needed to leave at 9:15.  I drank half my coffee and ate four bites of the lovely chocolate cheese horn John bought that morning.  As I gathered the things for new pies, I asked John to throw the first ones in the woods.  I wonder what animals had a nice Thanksgiving feast, thanks to our mice.  Hope they enjoyed it as much as we would have.

Having just used the recipe the day before, I referred to the cookbook only once.  Going into high gear, I quickly put the filling ingredients in a bowl and asked Lise to stir them while I lined the newly washed pie plates with pastry.  The woven lattice crust would take too much time.  The short cut was a top crust thrown on, sealed, crimped and vented.  I had 10 minutes to finish breakfast and get dressed.  The non-cook Lise was left in charge of getting the pies out of the oven.  The record breaking time was one hour, more than twice as fast as the day before!  It’s probably the first time John and I ever walked into church and found the full choir standing about waiting.  We made it!  I took a deep breath, and we rehearsed the four pieces the choir was doing and got through the service creditably.  I came home to put my feet up (which I obviously didn’t because I wrote this), and then went back for the family Thanksgiving Feast.  We had much to be thankful for.

A friend, Carol, wrote that she would have cried if mice had nibbled her desserts.  I replied that there was no time to cry.  Daughter Lise heard my exclamation and told me later that she stayed upstairs, thinking I was going to explode.  After I took the mouse eaten pie pictures, Lise wondered when it would be funny.

"It's beginning to be funny right now," I replied.

What saved the day was thinking about how to write this story, even as I whipped out the utensils to replace the pies.  It seems I'd rather write than cry.

We had a debate about where to store the remaining cranberry mince pie after our snack Thanksgiving night.  Chrissie, living in an older house upstate, suggested the microwave.  She doesn’t know how often ours is used.  John liked the idea, saying he could have another piece of pie every time he heated a cup of coffee.  I was not willing to leave the pie unguarded on the dining room table, knowing the mice would be back for more.  I voted for a different table in a different room.  John fetched the largest Tupperware mixing bowl and popped it over the pie.  David and Lise agreed with me that the plastic alone might not deter a fierce family of rodents.  If they could squeeze under a fairly tight doorway, they might pry their way under the bowl.  John added two tile trivets, but I shook my head.  David chose the green marble napkin holder and tested the combined weights.  I still had misgivings, but the others were satisfied.  I woke once in the night but didn’t have the umph to check out the mouse block.  Everything appeared undisturbed in the morning light.  I did not assume the pie was safe but lifted the heavy things to make sure.  All was well.  We found the winning combination at last.  Somehow, winning a skirmish in a mouse war lacks drama, but I was inordinately pleased at our success.

  

One person wrote that after he saw the picture of the mouse nibbled pie, he thought David and Nate might be the culprits.  I could understand that a fond grandmother might call the thieves mice, not pointing to her grandsons by name.  When another of my posts kept talking about REAL MICE, he realized I was writing about rogue rodents and not human thieves.  I thought that was the end of the story, but we had another twist Friday night.  Around 10, John, Lise, David and I sat at the infamous table eating dessert.  After telling the story about our grandsons being under suspicion in one person's mind, I commented that our children and grandchildren would have known by age 2 not to touch a dessert left on the table.

David snickered.  He said, “Look at what I’m doing to the pie.”

He removed the top crust of his piece and put it to one side on the plate.  He was using my old trick of saving the best till last.

“Stop!”  I said.  “Where is my camera?”

I thought there was a remarkable resemblance to the destruction of the lattice top and the naked slice on his plate.  The big difference was David finished the filling as well as the crust.  I would trust him to guard my pies any day.

Role Reversal

Since human offspring are born totally helpless, parents provide 100% of their care.  Much later, as parents age, children often begin to take on care giving responsibilities.  If you are lucky enough to live a long time, you get your revenge in the end.  It’s more socially acceptable to call it role reversal.  I assumed it wouldn’t start until we were 80 plus, but I was wrong.  It has already begun in our late sixties.

John and I were having a cup of tea at the dining room table Thursday afternoon when he said, “What on earth happened to the gourd?”

If we’d had time, I would have taken a picture.  The pumpkin-like decoration had a ragged three inch hole in it with seeds spilling out all around.  Oh, no!  It had to be the mouse!  Nothing else would have done that damage.  We were wondering how the rodent got on the table when I saw lights coming down the street.

“Hurry!” I urged.  “That’s Lise coming home.  Let’s clean this up or she’ll have a meltdown fit.”

I’m not sure how our resident daughter feels about mice, but I do know her violent reaction to spiders.  I didn’t want to find out her rodent rate score.

As we scurried around, I thought of my actions as a child.  My brother and I loved to jump on our parents’ bed.  When we started, I was too young to know you needed to remove the evidence.  I just ran and hid.  A bit later I knew we needed to smooth the bedspread and be visibly angelic in another area of the house when Mother came in.  I don’t think she ever caught us red handed, but we didn’t escape detection, either.  I guess it was worth it, because I think she just reprimanded us verbally without physical punishment.  Bob was always more smooth than I was and often quietly went his own way without opposition.  I raised a ruckus about permissions and paid the price.  If time outs had been in vogue back then, I’d still be sitting on a stool in the kitchen.

John and I jumped into action.  I threw the damaged gourd into the woods as he cleaned up all the seeds and threw the rest of the gourds out.  We jumped back in our seats, looking innocent, as she entered the front door.  Luck was with us because she came in saying she needed to Skype someone in Denmark before it was too late there.  She never even looked at our faces.  A couple of hours later Lise and I met my coworker Valerie for dinner at a steak house, so Lise never actually shared the table with the mouse.  The following night Lise and her sister Kate went out for dinner because John and I were too full from lunch to eat anything more.  Saturday morning I told Kate why I needed to clean up the table.  She helped me clear everything off, after which I swabbed the plastic tablecloth with a germ killing solution and put a fresh one on.  Whew!  I think we got away with it!  The feeling persists that John and I were hiding something from an authority figure.  Yes.  Role reversal has come to our house.  Let the games begin!

The Paper Clip Affair

You’d never know to look at me that I’ve had a miserly love affair with paper clips. There is no date on the calendar that I can point to and say, “That’s when I fell in love.”

I was probably too busy learning a new job to think about paper clips the first few years I worked. Gradually I noticed clips and began to appreciate them as special little tools that made my life happier. Nothing in my mind can compare to a paper clip. It holds papers together until you want to separate them, and then you can remove it without a special tool and without leaving holes in the papers. There are many patents for paper clips according to Wikipedia, but the most common was never patented. Gem paper clips were produced in England in the early 1870’s. They still delight me today.

I suspect there is a quiet war going on in offices and homes all over the world. I don’t know about people in other professions, but accountants love staples. I loathe them – the staples, not accountants. Almost every set of papers that lands on my desk is stapled, and I’m usually asked to scan or copy them. You have to root around looking for the unstapler, snip at the pesky metal legs, jerk the middle part and stare at the big holes you’ve now ripped in the upper left corner which are guaranteed to get hung in the automatic feeder. What is there to love about a staple? If you’re not careful, you can draw blood if one is hidden and you rake your finger across it the wrong way. There is no right way to rake a staple. Still, considering human nature, I’m sure battle lines could be drawn up for those favoring either clips or staples.

 Sometime in the middle 90’s paper clips became important to me, especially the colored ones. I never, ever bought that kind, since they are more expensive than standard metal ones. However, I have a wonderful collection of them. Every time an interesting one passed through my hands, I substituted a plain one and put the prize in a pretty glass container on my desk. I use them only on boomerang papers – those that are sure come back to me. Right now the prime use is for holding audit reports before they are proof read. I delighted in all the bright colors and then fell hard for the striped ones. Oh! They are so much fun! If Dr. Seuss had designed a paper clip, it would be one of those.

I have to admit that segregation thrives on my desk. There are the loved colored clips and the tolerated plain ones. They have their own containers and do not mix. The plain ones have their ranks, too. For no reason at all, I do not like crinkled ones, much preferring the smooth ones. And then there are the detested mangled ones. At some point they were used for jobs that were too big for them, or they were squeezed sideways and looked pinched the rest of their lives. Whenever I prepare a bank deposit, I look through the plain clips and pick one I don’t want to see again.

Recently I found a particularly mean little clip to send to our bank. It’s a legal way of getting rid of one, since I have a personal law that I cannot throw away a usable clip. Normally Leslie takes the deposits to the bank on her lunch hour. I think she must get the same teller most days, because the carbon and the bank print come back stapled together. They are usually done the way I like them, with the carbon behind the print and both right side up. That is one instance in which I’m glad to trade a clip for a staple. I get rid of an ugly clip and pay no attention to the staple. Today my ploy backfired! The deposit slip came back with its bank print held together with the bent clip I had banished. It seemed to grin at me, knowing it had come back to torment me when I tried to banish it.

Musings of a Writer - Introducing my New Motto

Last Summer - Field of Dreams

The other day I was walking with my friend, Jenny. We were hiking my dog around our normal 2-mile loop idealistically called the "Field of Dreams." A group of college girls preparing for a track meet ran by us several times. Jenny had no clue who they were, but whooped and hollered, cheering them on all three times they passed us during our hike. She apologized for her outgoing-ness and said she hoped I wasn't too embarrassed. Fact is, I WISH I felt free enough to whoop and holler. I'm just not like that. I'm cheering them on inside, yet the sound is hesitant to leave my heart and escape from my throat. In my years, though, I've tried forcing myself to get those yells out, for whatever reason, and I've learned that it just isn't me. Just as I know I'll never feel truly comfortable praying aloud in a group, and that's okay.

I feel that way in writing, too. I adore reading poetry, and the words speak to me like intricate quilts that wrap me in art and history. But when I attempt to write it, all it tells me is that I ought to keep my pen to myself. I read "A Ring of Endless Light" by Madeline L'Engle last week, sobbing my way through the last chapters, not just for the sad turn of the story but also for the strength and beauty of the writing. Why can't I write like that? Why can't I weave politics through my stories like Chaim Potok, encouraging readers to reach out and aid a struggling world? Why can't I delight readers with whimsical puzzles and tidbits of fascinating information like Jen Funk Weber? Why do I eat a fabulous meal and say, "Wow, that was great" when writers such as Linda Covella describe each bite in a manner that gets a reader drooling?

It's because I'm me. And that's not a bad thing, either. It's boring, I know, but someone needs to take intricate concepts and put them in layman's terms. I can do that. Someone needs to help filmmakers and actors publicize their art, appreciating their work without being awe and star-struck. I can do that. And it's okay. It takes all sorts of writers to make the world go 'round.

Sooooooooo. I've decided this weekend that from here on out I'm going to continue reading other authors with awe, but I'm going to stop trying to figure out how I can weave their style into my writing. Awe, not envy. It's my new reading/writing motto.

(I'm still going to write my poetry on the side, though, even if I do stink at it - but I promise that I won't make others read it.)

The Today Show, October 29, 2010

Michael & Dennis Hennington

Someone from NBC contacted husband John several weeks ago after he saw the web site for the Long Island Live Steamers.  There are photographs and videos showing people riding on small trains in a county park.  The idea was to stage a Halloween skit on the Today Show involving a steam engine.  John was intrigued with the idea, and others in the train club were enthusiastic.

Three men loaded 80 feet of track, a boxcar and a caboose at the train park and drove them to Manhattan.  Michael, the owner of the engine and cars, brought the engine and tender from his home in New Jersey.  They began assembling the tracks at 11 p.m.  Everything was set up on the private street outside the NBC studios, just a stone's throw from Rockefeller Center.  They had about 3 to 4 hours of sleep before going to the set.    Michael steamed up shortly after 6 for the segment that was to be live at 8.  A makeup man applied a handlebar mustache to Michael's face, trying to make him look sinister for the skit.

Mustache being applied

It wasn’t a slick production, but it was lots of fun.  Tina Fey was tied to the tracks, and Will Ferrell and Al Roker, the weatherman, were to save her from the advancing steam engine.  As Will was removing the ropes from Tina , he said they were so loose she could have gotten out of them by herself.  Wonder if that was part of the real script.  Al, dressed as Superman, gallantly stopped the train.  He swirled his cape and pushed on the engine with both hands.  I didn’t notice how quickly he jerked away until John told us that he burned his hands on the hot engine.  He also bent something, but Michael said he could repair it himself.  After the engine cooled down, the NBC people asked that it stay there on the tracks.  During another segment (Doctor Love?) the tiny woman who was screening questions for the doctor sat on the train with her laptop.  I think they may have used the train again for the next show.  It took forever to get everything dismantled, and then they had to travel through rush hour to get home.  John managed to stay awake through dinner, telling us as many details as he could think of.  It wasn’t long before he was sound asleep.  He was very satisfied at the way everything worked out, saying it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Michael as sinister villian