Thanks for Grandchildren

Dear God,

As the holidays are upon us, I realize I have much to thank you for. Grandchildren are supposed to be a blessing and although they throw your “cool” factor right out the window, they teach us many things. I refer specifically to the grandchild you sent me three years ago. A lovely little girl, who is obviously influenced by one or more demons.

Thank you for her strawberry curls, cornflower blue eyes, and cherubic face, it has reminded me just how deceiving looks can be. Please do not make me do time in purgatory for when she drew all over the aforementioned cherubic face with permanent blue marker. I was on the phone at the time and didn’t know she had figured out the drawer locks - I can’t figure out the drawer locks.

Thank you for using her to teach how kind men can truly be. In particular the ferry man who looked into my car window, saw a child with a half blue face, probably assumed she was an extra for Braveheart Two, and accepted the ferry ticket with flowers drawn on it and waited until he was three cars back to start laughing at me.

Thank you for granting her the gift of artistry that runs in our family. Like my mother, my Uncle Bill, my brother, and my daughter, she lives to express herself with color. I now understand how the petroglyphs in France came to be. As I regard my crayola covered walls, I imagine that in pre-historic France some grandmother watched a grandchild destroying her freshly carved cave walls with ocher drawings, shrugged her shoulders and said, “If he starts painting in the dining hall, we’re eating him.”

Thank you for using her to reach me the how fleeting the joy of the holidays can me as she removes in seconds, decorations that took hours to put up.

Thank for using her to remind me to remove the locks from the inside of the bathroom doors. And how to stave off panic when I hear the toilet being flushed over and over on the other side of the locked door, followed by the music of her hysterical laughter.

Thank you for the little fenced playground by the school where she can run out her endless energy without running into the road and scaring people. Thank you for the company of the other grandmothers who sit on the bench and together we smile at the children as we curse under our breath. Thank you especially for the grandmother I met who was watching three of her seven grandchildren that day and shared her strawberry daiquiri mix with me and the other grandmother there. We took a slug from the Cinderella thermos and passed it down. It seemed a bit early in the day, but as she pointed out, it’s 10 A.M. somewhere.

I admit that before she was born, I was really having trouble with empty nest syndrome. Thank you for teaching me that the cure is often worse than the disease. And I know that it is said that God doesn’t send us more than we can handle, but I’d like to remind you that there are exceptions to every rule. And I’d also like help finding the rest of my great-grandmother's pearls so I can reassemble my only real pearl necklace, broken by either a small curly haired liar or the invisible man.

To close on a positive note, I do love her, which further confirms that love makes us mentally ill.

Thanksgiving - and Why Not?

Here is comes, my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. I love the sentiment of it, pausing to think and give thanks for all that we really do have. Enjoying all the delicious foods associated with the feast and asking ourselves, “How come we don’t have turkey more often?”

I think Thanksgiving is always a combination of trial, trauma and triumph.

There always seem to be situations that try our patience to it’s absolute limit.

“I told her not to bring him, but she did, so what can we do, Roger?.......No, if we reject him she’ll marry him for sure out of spite.....okay, you can drink scotch, but only if you lock the gun in the outside shed.”

“Bob, we’ve been married 36 years, you know my mother always brings turnips. I’ve told her you hate them, but she just can’t remember it. My Dad loved her turnips and that’s why she makes them for you. I’ll hand you a little dish under the table so you can sneak them away.....I know you’re a grown man and shouldn’t have to pretend in your own house, but I have to look at all the photo albums of your mother’s modeling career in the 50’s every time we go there - and it takes a lot more time to look at those albums than it does to slip turnips under the table.

There always seem to be situations that are traumatic.

“Now Joe, remember, Ronnie is my little brother and you can’t kill him about that car.....I know the engine blew up before the check even cleared.... it’s just one of those things, that’s why they say never sell a car to a relative.....yes, I know all about the $500 you loaned him in July, and you’re right, he’s not going to pay it back by Christmas....I don’t know what to do....it I don’t invite him, Mom gets really upset and if I do invite him, you get upset. Can’t we just suspend hostilities for eight hours?”

“I don’t care, Mark, Mary ran over my cat, your sister did it on purpose, I don’t want her in this house!....drunk is not an excuse, she squashed Miss Marmalade, and don’t say, “It’s just a cat”, a pet is more than an animal. She was my friend, until Bloody Mary tore out of the driveway last Thanksgiving in a big huff. Go ahead, let her in....no, I won’t make a scene. Like Dante’s Inferno, I have many levels of passive aggressive pain to inflict.

Fortunately, there are times of triumph at Thanksgiving too.

“Regardless of any petty things that happen, I want you all to know that I am so happy that we are all here and sharing this time together. I brought out Grandma’s dishes just for this occasion. We don’t have the whole service of course, but we won’t bring up what Karen did anymore. The important thing is that we all have at least a plate or cup that we can remember from Grandma’s table as part of our own place setting today. There was of course, a large turkey platter and gravy boat, I guess someone else has that at their house, but let’s not focus on petty details, guilt is it’s own punishment. Therefore , let’s lift a glass and Thank God, yes, God, for all the blessings we can see and especially for those we can’t. Amen”

Frankly, Scallop, I Don’t Give A Clam

The Shelter Island Reporter recently described a disappointing scallop harvest this year, as opposed to a huge harvest last year, the biggest since the brown tide hit the East End in the mid eighties. The truth is, it would have been another banner year I suppose, if I had known the Island was going to keep such close track of these things.

“Step out of the car, please, Ms. Flynn.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything.”
“Breath into this breathalyzer, please.”
“What? It’s 4 P.M. and I don’t drink anyway. What are you testing me for?”
“You blew a .24 for salt water Ms. Flynn. How many scallops have you eaten today?”
“What? I don’t know, breakfast, lunch, why are you asking?”
“We’re going to conduct a road side test for bi-valve consumption. Walk this line with your eyes closed while balancing this test scallop on your head.”
“This is stupid. Since when did scallop consumption become a problem?”
“Since you and a handful of other people decided that since we had such a good year last year, it was open season for scallops. It’s bad enough the way you single handedly decimate the clambeds here, Ms. Flynn, you don’t need to consume every available scallop we have. And that’s the third time you’ve dropped the scallop off your head. You’re listing to one side, your pitch and yar is clearly impaired. You’re being cited for being Shellfish Selfish. Please open your car.”
“Shellfish Selfish? That covers half the people on the Island!”
“Can you explain this? There’s a buschel of clams and a half buschel of scallops in your trunk, four packs of Nathan’s hotdogs, soft drinks and six bags of chips? What do you call this, Ms. Flynn?”
“I’m calling it a good time. I’m going to a barbecue at the McGayhey’s.”
“They eat a lost of shellfish, do they? The McGayhey’s? Are they bringing clams and scallops too?”
“Oh, ah.....no, they never touch the stuff. This is just my supply. I’ll be the only scallop trollop there.”
“This bumper sticker, “Will Trade Sex for Lobster”, doesn’t help you, Ms. Flynn, please have that removed before any other women get any ideas.”
“Hell, I know women that will trade sex for mussels.”
“Well, so do we and we know where that leads. Mussels are a gateway shellfish. A little butter, a little garlic and soon they’re craving clams, then scallops, and look where that has gotten you.”
“Please sign here, it is not an admission of guilt, just an admission that you were caught dead to rights and you are aware that we will be raking your over the clambeds of justice very soon.”

The Age of Never

The Aztec’s called it, “the age of never”. Reaching a time in life when everything seems to take more effort. That hill was never so high, the walk to town was never so long, the days were never so long, the years were never so short.

I figure for most of us, the age of never hits around 45. I recall in my early twenties when I stayed out till 4a.m., came home, napped, showered and was at the hospital by 7a.m. shift. I couldn’t do that today whether you offered me a million dollars or held a gun to my head. I have reached the age of never. Moreover I have reached an age the Aztecs never even thought of, I call it, the age of “are you outta your mind?”

You’re still in the age of never if you can be out till ten at night, get to bed by midnight, and still get up at six. You have crossed over into the age of Are you outta your mind? if you have to take a nap to be out till ten p.m., get in bed by midnight, but can’t get to sleep until three a.m. because you made the mistake of thinking about money when you went to bed.

Once you’ve reached the age of Are you outta your mind? you want to be home and in your jammies by six p.m., no matter what is offered. You’ve been to enough fun or boring parties in your life, you’ve had enough hangovers, you’ve awakened with enough strange people to know you’ve experinced all that the night life has to offer and you can now revisit memories and get the same emotional highs without the risk of spending the rent money, getting lost on the way home, or worrying about STD’s.

The biggest marker to tell you when you’ve reached the age of Are you outta your mind? is the realizing the danger of sitting down at the wrong time.

If you are planning to go out to an event one evening and you and your hubby nap in the afternoon to store up energy for the evening, you have the best chance of making it out the door if you remember the cardinal rule - once the ‘getting ready’ process has begun, do not sit down FOR ANY REASON!

If one of you is ready ahead of time, usually the man, remind him to stand by the door and nag you to hurry up, or get in the car and honk the horn, anything but sit down.

However, if you are one of those women who can easily commit to the event when first asked, but lose your momentum, and then you’d rather just send a check for the cause, or wait for the movie on dvd, then setting your husband up to sit down to wait for you is a perfect out. As soon as you hear him call out, “I’m just gonna check the scores,” and you hear SportsCenter come on, you are home free.

Walk into the living room in the middle of SportsCenter reviewing highlights of something. Sit down quietly next to him so that he knows that you are ready, but you will wait until he sees the highlights, and then, ever so slowly, tilt your head back, slowly close your eyes. He’ll glance over and think he can watch a little more sports while you rest your eyes. Now let your body relax and don’t notice he has put the couch throw over your legs and is trying to sneak a pillow behind your head. He never wanted to go anywhere in the first place. But you insisted, and you couldn’t change your mind after he gassed up and cleaned out the car. So all you had to do to get out of what would have been an exhausting night, is to have one of you sit down. Before you know it, you’re the best dressed couple on Shelter Island sleeping through CSI: Miami.