The Cork Is Out Of The Bottle

We were sitting in the hotel room in Toronto when I told him I knew he had found the “secret” blog. He tried to deny it at first, but I had made up my mind not to keep up the charade. He finally said it was a shame we had to come to Canada for us to talk about it, but he knows that’s not the reason I spoke. It's just that my husband and I are still trying to sort out our new world order and we both agree it’s a lifetime project. I spoke a cliché about honesty being the best policy and he told me that wasn’t really true. He’s right you know. The truth is sometimes too painful for anyone to handle. My mother could not admit she was dying, not to her husband, not to her children, not even to the God she believed in with her whole being. She left us with no written will, no funeral plans, and no word of farewell, because she would not entertain the concept that the cancer might kill her. What we can make ourselves believe is really remarkable, isn’t it? He asked me if I wanted him to quit reading the things I was saying about him and the children. I think he believes he could, but I know if he was curious enough to track it down the first time, he will find reading it irresistible. Like my Daddy told me, “Never ask a man to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself.” I don’t think he meant to apply it to this sort of situation, but it does seem appropriate. So my husband and I seem to have a stalemate for now, and I’m not quite willing to walk away from Words II. It may change a bit. You will note a few new features, a Flikr link where you can see the photos I took while traveling around the Great Lakes, and a link to my first blog. The illusion that I was posting in secret is now officially gone, and by the way, those of you who might have thought you were reading in secret should know that my site meter is all knowing. I just want you to know that I'm okay with that as long as you don't tell my sister. Trust me, she doesn't really want to know.

I want to believe

He sat on the kitchen floor in his ratty green terry cloth robe that has been with him through thick and thin. It’s 9 am and he has a buzz on, else he wouldn’t be up here chatting so animatedly with his mom. He tells me things I need to know, but would rather not hear. My girl was mad at me in England, I have forgiven his father too quickly, the basement is the wrong place for him to live. I knew all those things already. Does he want me to pack his bags and put them in his car? Stop buying him ciggs and food? Turn my back on love? He knows I can’t, and like some scene from Camus we sat there together, he on the floor, me in the chair, rehashing the muddle we have made of our lives. I tell him everyone does stupid stuff and that’s how the human race progresses, slowly and painfully. He tells me again that he doesn’t blame me at all for his lack of motivation. I want him to though, because I want my child to be perfect. If there is fault please let it be in me, not in my creation, my magnum opus. The truth is we are both flawed, and talking about it makes no difference. He knows that and tells me so often. I keep hoping that words will somehow cure him.

His basement room has a window where his brother put a tiny X on the lower pane with black electrical tape, a sign that he was ready to know the truth that was out there. I think he just might have been in love with Dana Scully’s red hair, but for a while he really wanted to believe. He finally wondered off when he realized the answer was actually “out there”, not in the basement. Now his bro waits just as uselessly for opportunity to knock on the window. I try to avoid the traps I so often fall into when we have conversations. He is the smartest person I have ever known, but here he sits in the floor with no occupation and more disappointingly, no passion. He was born an old soul and I wait impatiently for him to become younger. The clock says 11 and we are still sitting. Nothing has changed and nothing seems likely to, but I am always desperate for a conclusion. After all, I am a writer. The story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end that ties the whole thing up nicely. I have chores to do, places I need to go. None of them are more important than talking to my boy in the kitchen, but finally I rise to leave. He lets me hug him, an indulgence he has learned to tolerate because he knows it pleases me. Before we part I ask him a mom question. “Do you need a new bathrobe?” He raises his arms like wings and laughs, revealing the holes down the side of each sleeve. “Of course not Mom” he tells me sincerely, “ I mean, this is my robe.” He wears it like a uniform as he pads back downstairs.

Baa

I am being kicked out of the vegetarian club as soon as they find out about the sheep. I would like to say that my problem started when I saw the acres of fields in England and Scotland covered with adorable new spring lambs, but that would be cruel of me. It actually started a few months earlier when I saw the package of free range leg of lamb on the shelf at my favorite organic food store. I knew it was wrong, and even though I walked away the first time, I went back and picked out the smallest package of lamb chops and hid it under the tofu and wheat gluten. I did not look the cashier in the eye, but honestly, she's a little weird looking and I usually avoid direct eye contact anyway. I bagged the groceries myself, sticking the package of chops on the very bottom of my reusable cloth bag, the one that makes me think I am reducing the mound of garbage the world is producing when I remember to take it out of my car. I took them home without saying a word and put them in the fridge, and since my husband can't find anything stored in there and has no sense of smell, he never knew that I cooked them with rosemary and garlic and tucked them into my lunch bag for work. The first bite made me feel a bit guilty, but then I thought, who's going to know? My trip to UK was a constant lamb feast; lamb curry, lamb kabobs, roasted rack of lamb with crispy little potatoes and grilled chops with a side of perfectly prepared green beans. Back home I stopped trying to disguise my new obsession, and when my husband took me to Outback, I discovered they have a way with the ever jolly Australian jumbucks. Yes my vegan son and daughter in luv would be disappointed in me, but they won't know unless they read this blog. Humm, I think I might have given that address to my darling DIL, but hopefully, she has become distracted with her busy life and wondered off to work on her own blogs.
I remember making lamb pictures with my children, letting them glue cotton balls to paper and drawing in legs and noses. I also remember Shari Lewis and her disturbingly named puppet, “Lamb Chop”. Even though I have done it myself, I find it disconcerting that we humanize food items. Ads assault us with dancing pigs, cows with a vendetta against chickens, and fish with suicidal daydreams. Having grown up in farm country I was never able to anthropomorphize sufficiently to justify vegetarianism on that basis. It’s always been about health first, and secondly about walking lightly on the earth. The earth is just going to have to suck it up until I pass through this phase.

Can't get much more Mundane than this

I have recently discovered that everyone has not been introduced to Two Buck Chuck, and in the interest of budding alcoholics everywhere I really should say a few words about this very cheap, but acceptable wine that has become a true urban legend. That would be unlike the rumored urban legends we know and love. Charles Shaw is the name brand of a wine that I first found for $1.99 on a visit to the west coast. It is only available at Trader Joe's, and cost slightly more on the east coast, a whopping $3.49. The cabernet is dry, fairly full bodied, and eminately drinkable, especially after you’ve had a few bottles. You can actually serve it with dinner, even to guests without apology, but you might want to decant it and hide the bottle from your friends with more sophisticated tastes. In its favor it comes in a real bottle with a semi-real cork and in many uh, flavors, none of them with a lot of depth, but neither are they cloyingly sweet. The price is a function of over production of wine grapes in California, not necessarily grown in Napa valley, but near enough that they translate into a decent wine for the masses, sort of the Model T of wines. There is no way to make yourself believe you are drinking a $25.00 bottle, but hell, who can afford that with any frequency? I have one suggestion before you dash out to Trader Joe's over the weekend. There are aficionados who go into the store, open a case, pull out a bottle, and take it to the parking lot to sample. Upon deciding that the case is a good one, they go back inside and buy the rest of the lot. This would let you know that quality control is not perfect in Chuck’s bottling facility, but once again, $3.49, what do you want for next to nothing? I have never done this because while I have found the rare case to be slightly off, I have found none undrinkable. The wine connoisseur among us have already left this site in disgust and gone off to talk about the soft tannins, the exploding palates, the approachable rich blackberry and red current undertones, the opulent bouquet, the velvet firm persistence of cassis, and the long finish with an aftertaste of vanilla. Personally, I think think they might not be getting enough, but to each his own. I’m going to go make sure my husband has taken his meds and open a bottle of chuck’s finest. Night all.

Do You Know This Man?

This is the view from my daughter's bedroom window. At no time in the week I was there was the door ever clear of cars. At no time did the door ever open. I think the man in the driver's seat might have been a terrorist. He looked very startled when I took this pic, then got out of the car and followed me to the door of the flat, while I tried to tell him why I was taking his picture and frantically unlocked the door. I left him talking to himself on the sidewalk.

Over The Top

It's going to be another one of those nobody to blame but myself days. I knew it the minute I turned on the faucet in the shower and a blast of cold water hit my naked back. I was ready to do bodily harm to the last person who had used my bathroom and failed to pull out the little lever that diverts the water from the tub to the overhead spray. As I was leaping about cursing silently, I realized that would be me, and natural consequences had taken care of the culprit. I was already groggy due to the fact that my husband had awakened me at 2:30 because, and I quote, "I'm sorry, but you turn me on so much". I thought we had taken care of our respective needs when we went to bed at 11, but the pill evidently hadn't worn off, and he is a restless sleeper. You all must be laughing at my complaints about this issue, because as you know, I have no one to blame but myself. Feast or famine, I have a long established rule never to turn down sex with my husband, so a long sleepy day now stretches before my half open eyes. He on the other hand is snoring contently away and will probably stroll into work around 11 AM, because he works for the state and he’s the boss. I of course took umpteen years off to raise babies and got on the mommy track, which I don’t regret, and once again, nobody to blame but myself.

My first phone call this morning was from a man whose body mass index was well over 55, 25 points above obesity. For reasons that are mysterious to me, he does not blame himself in the least for his health problems. It’s not like he’s the first person I’ve ever talked to that can’t seem to see the obvious, and certainly not the last. I suppose that living a life with no regrets is a blessing of sorts, but not if it blinds us to the truth that is glaring all around us. I think I’m glad that I recognize my own responsibility for the life I have created, but there are days, like this particular Wednesday, when I wish I had a scapegoat. Judith Viorst, one of my favorite funny poets, said that she got married so she would have someone to blame. Then she laughed, but I heard the little whisper she uttered under her breath. Most people who take that path end up divorced, and often remarried to another person with the same problems. All of them find it ultimately futile and unproductive. Warts and all, I accept my life, my job, my husband, and my children. They are all the things I said I wanted, and ignorant as I might have been about cold showers and sleepy mornings, I am a woman content for today. Besides, it will be Friday very soon.

She said, "This way Mom"

...and I took a deep breath and ran after her. I had one amazing day in a spa being wrapped, steamed, and infused with anti jet lag serum, then one amazing night on the town where we saw three acts at the Comedy Store, got pissed (UK for drunk) together in someplace called Rose something, fell on our asses in Trafalgar Square, and lost my Ipod on the night bus back to Crouch End. The days that followed are a bit blurry and out of focus, but I know we went to Brighton and listened to my almost former son in law make fun of my home town (well, it is funny as hell to be from Beaver Dam, after all), rode on the London Eye, spent a day and a half in York and another in Edinburgh, and missed the flight coming home. While waiting in Heathrow for the next plane, I managed to lose my cell phone in the confusion of making two carry on bags into one, and realized after I was on board I had not only undeclared gels in the form of hand lotion, but that my very sharp finger nail file was in my bag. My god, I could have hijacked the plane!

It is good to be back in the land of muggles with only a broken rib and assorted bruises, unless you want to count the assault on my bank account. My homecoming welcome from my lonely husband was of Biblical proportions, even though we had to work around the fractured bones. It is very good to travel, but even better is having a safe haven where I can return.