Johnson Brothers Dishes

My grandmother turned ninety years old. We gathered to celebrate her birthday and shared stories of family dogs and ballet recitals and vacation cabins and dresses sewn and events attended and meals eaten. On and on and on. Four generations of family together for a weekend. The memories flowed. Even as the weekend went on we wondered aloud what the kids would remember of the weekend and of their great grandmother.

Memory, not what happens, but what we remember happens, fascinates me. I think about it nearly every day.

I took a class called "Philosophy of History" once where we discussed this phenomenon. How can you be completely neutral? Even a camera captures moments and a video is boring unless it is edited.

I think of a friend who lost her boyfriend in a tragic accident this summer. They knew each other a finite amount of time. She remembers the moment they met and she remembers the moment he died. It seems that with a more manageable amount of time you can recreate your time with that person. And yet even then, are you creating your experience of them? Does it matter? Why are you doing it in the first place?

I shared with my friend an idea that I think a character in one of my novels with experiment with. In my book, a mother kills her 8 year old son in a car accident. She creates logs of every day of his life and tries to recall a memory for each of those days. It seems doable and overwhelming at the same time. Of course she can't do it. Some days have many memories and others are blank and some have events with question marks because she doesn't recall the exact date.

In a book I just read, the main character does something similar. He creates a museum filled with the memories of a relationship - cigarette butts and jewelry and cologne and salt shakers and quince graters. He desperately tries to make something important to everyone because it was important to him.

It reminds me of Pioneer Village, which reminds me of my grandmother in so many ways.

She took me there repeatedly as a child. It's close to her house and we would go wander through the exhibits of a compulsive collector. The entire development of the phone, for example - captured in a wall display that you can walk past and see the entire history. Grams would share stories of her own childhood in Omaha in the Depression and we once found the car that she remembered from her childhood with roll down plastic shades to keep out the rain. So I remember what she remembered and told me about. I remembered a story about a childhood birthday party of hers that I got wrong. It was the Omaha Athletic Club, we both remembered that, and she ate a great delicacy that she did not order, but enjoyed a great deal. We agreed about the basics, but not the details. I remembered her story slightly incorrectly. Like a version of the Telephone Game.

History and memory are complicated.

My mother recently took my Fiestaware dishes in exchange for her dishes. She worried that I regretted the decision. I do not. I love the Johnson Brothers stoneware with the familiar blue flower. I know the plates and canisters and bowls. They are my childhood.

The existentialist in me scoffs at the idea that stoneware is important. Maybe it is not important per se, but it is an anchor to memory and feeling. Just ask my daughter who was distraught that I traded the dishes of her childhood for the dishes of my childhood!

I won't get it right, but I will keep trying. And dishes? Mean something. Just ask my Grams. She made me go through the dishes display at Pioneer Village every time we went!

Cat Woman

I swore that I would not be That Kind of Pet owner. Not just not the kind who talks baby talk and refers to myself as "mommy" to my "baby," but not the kind of pet owner who took extreme measures to preserve the life of an animal which has a short life span and is easily replaceable. I don't mean that cavalierly, but in reality, there are millions of unwanted cats and dogs put to sleep every year, so part of my pet health philosophy has been that I will give my pets a happy and healthy life (without letting them sleep with me or lick my plate or get called 'baby') and when their health declines, I will have them put to sleep humanely, and replace them with what would be an unwanted pet so I can repeat the cycle.

And then Jake got diabetes. And Jake isn't really my cat, he's Mary's cat.

I once had a vet (who I stopped seeing after this particular visit) who tried to talk me into getting some procedure done for my ancient shih tzu Maggie. "She can't advocate for herself, so I have to," he said. That really pissed me off. Who loved Maggie more than me? No one. I paid my bill, left his office, and never went back. Maggie lived another seven years without his stupid procedure.

Unlike having a greedy little vet advocate for him, Jake enlisted Mary's help. And hers are not hollow pleas of mercy, hers are research about the cost of insulin and pledges to help with his twice daily insulin shots. She recruited the neighbor, who is our usual cat sitter. Between them they convinced me that they, that we, could and should treat Jake's diabetes with insulin.

He's lost almost six pounds in the last two months. His bony hips sway as he makes his way to the extra water dish we set out. His litter box use is out of control and affecting the other cat's use of the litter box. Jake's meows pitifully as he hangs slackly in Mary's arms as she frets about his weight.

We tried modifying his diet, but he has continued to lose weight. His dandruff, aggravated by the diabetes, became too much for him to handle and Mary groomed him regularly.

So I found myself at the vet's office with Mary and her friend the cat sitter. The cat sitter is essential, because with this decision, we now have a cat who needs medical treatment every twelve hours. So we all learned how to inject insulin into the cat. We practiced with saline. Jake lay mutely on the table as we stuck him over and over. (He is the sweetest and most patient cat I have ever known - another point in his favor. I would not consider sticking Paco the Cat with a needle twice a day.) The practice and information became too much for the cat sitter and she had to go lie down because she felt faint.

"Are you going to be ok doing this when we're out of town?" I asked.

"I will if I have to to help Jake," the little fourteen year old girl said earnestly.

I am surrounded by advocates for this cat and somehow I have convinced myself that twelve hour insulin injections for a cat somehow make sense.

The vet is ok with any decision that I make. She made that clear when she diagnosed him. That's why I trust her and why I continue to take the pets there.

The receptionist referred to me as "Jake's Mommy" when we checked in and I did not correct her. I think that's ok as long as I don't refer to myself as mommy, right? Sigh.

Good grief. There's cat insulin and a syringe in my frig. Who am I if not Cat Woman?

Gratuity Added

I remember the first time I ever ordered room service. I was pregnant. I was on a business trip with Anna who was three years old. I had hearings that day in North Platte and I brought Anna along with me for the trip. (She was going to a daycare while I went to work.)

So I was in a hotel room with a toddler and hungry and needing to get ready and get her ready. I saw the room service menu, immediately dismissed it, and then returned to the menu again. I stayed in hotels with my parents as a child and always read the room service menu but knew that it was too expensive and not necessary. I made a different decision that morning in North Platte. I picked up the phone, I ordered french toast and eggs, which were absolutely perfect. I remember the wonder of the crispy bacon and perfectly cooked french toast and little bitty syrup pitcher. It was like we were at home in that we did not have to deal with a restaurant first thing in the morning. I could drink my coffee and do my hair. Anna could watch "Arthur" and eat eggs with her fingers.

My love affair with room service began.

It's not like I get it every time, but I try to have room service at least once on a business trip and at least once on a trip with Bill. I have had room service dinners when I am traveling by myself, and I have to say that I think room service is at its best at breakfast. Eggs, toast and bacon. I pay extra for orange juice. I splurge on the large pot of coffee.

We had a weekend to ourselves and got a hotel room in Omaha and went out to eat and played Scrabble in a coffee shop and went to a movie. We also, at my great pleasure, ordered room service breakfast. It was not a break from the snow and ice (Omaha seemed to have it worse than us), but it was a break from our house and the kids and the pets and the stuff you do or feel like you have to do when you are home.

My talisman from this trip is a wee little Tabasco bottle that came on the room service tray as a potential condiment for my eggs. I cooed and put it in my purse. It is sitting next to me on my bedside table at home and reminding me that good things sometimes come in small packages as compliments to overpriced food with automatically added gratutity and service fees.

Happiness is a Warm Pie

On today, the Second Snow Day, we hauled the Christmas tree out of the dining room. I emailed my office and canceled appointments. The kids and I hauled the garbage bags of moldy things from the basement storage space (the mold I discovered when I got the Christmas decorations out) to the alley. We had marching bands, ski jumping and tight rope walking in the living room. (We got a Wii Fit for Christmas. The trash hauling is not yet a balance board activity.).

On tonight, the Second Snow Night, the kids repeatedly checked the LPS website for a Friday cancellation, and my nerves frayed.

I can't tell you what it is about them exactly. They have actually been model children. Kind of helpful. No real fights. Part of it is no doubt my own cabin fever that has no outlet but for Wii Fit Kung Fu (which is actually really fun). But the voices are elevated - the shrieking and chasing and the giggling are making me nuts.

LPS ends its semester in January. Each of the kids has a big project that was due this week. They've been on the phone with their project partners. There has actually been much sighing and concern expressed about how all of this is going to work with all these snow days. More on Anna's mind is that it's the Nebraska Thespian Convention tomorrow. Anna, the child happiest about staying home from school, was anxious for school to stay open Friday so that I could call her in as excused, so she could go to her convention.

The kids know the drill at this point. By 7pm they are poised, waiting for the phone to ring and the automated LPS Voice to tell me that due to weather conditions that school is canceled. The Drama Queen was distraught when The Call came, but there were squeals soon after when she confirmed that yes, the convention will go on, and most importantly, she will get to deliver her monologue in the competition.

The kids piled into bed with me to watch "Mad Men." It's probably not child appropriate, but it's what I wanted/needed to watch on this night before the Third Snow Day, and the kids wanted to hang out with me. "There's no naked people, are there?" Frank asked with concern. "No. No deliberately naked people," I assured him.

The timer went off and I pulled the apple pie from the oven. We ate warm pie snuggled beneath afghans.

Tomorrow is the Third Snow Day.

Christmas Wishes

Who knew that a tent and sleeping bags could be so much fun in December? The kids set their tent up in the attic after they opened it Christmas morning, laid out their sleeping bags, books, snacks and lamps, and they were set.

Frank patrols the halls with his Nerf dart gun and sets up shooting targets all over the house. This morning the bathroom door was a target. I was trying to take a relaxing tub. Thunk thunk thunk. He whistles as he aims like a sharpshooter. "Or a serial killer," Bill says. Thanks for making me feel better about buying a toy gun for my son, Bill! :-)

Yesterday as I was carving the turkey and preparing to serve a full meal on the dining room table covered in a tablecloth with napkins and Christmas Fiestaware, I realized that I was still in my pajamas. I thought about changing, but then I noticed that the kids were also still in pajamas, Christmas socks and stocking hats (though Sophia favored a fabric book cover). This is us this year, I thought, and we sat down to a formal meal in pajamas and hats and with one Nerf gun sitting alongside a place setting.

It is sad that Grandparents have not been visited, nor have they been able to visit. I am guilty in my happiness and pleasure at being snowbound. This really has been a wonderful Christmas and I could not have wished for a better couple of days with the kiddos. I am almost sad at the thought of snowplows and cleared streets and my real life coming back sooner than I want - namely, end of year files to close and a report I need to write at work. I have been blissfully unaware of road conditions because once the decision was made to stay home, I didn't care.

It has reminded me a bit of the blizzards in the Sandhills with drifts as tall as my head right next to bare ground. If I didn't already feel Pioneer-Enough, the loss of water and electricity sure made the experience authentic. We would huddle around the wood stove and hope that Marion Lee would come careening out of the storm in his truck to take us to his ranch for Margaret Lee's potato soup.That's what I remember - huddling in a sleeping bag around the woodstove reading a book, the flash of Marion's truck lights as he pulled in, and that amazing soup of Margaret's - I had never had anything so good.

I made corn chowder tonight without potato. Bill and I joked about who would walk to the store for potatoes and stayed put in our warm kitchen. Then we used liquid hand soap in place of dish soap since we're out of that too.

We're at our limit for being snowed in, I think. I mean, we may look hearty with our winter tent camping, but although the attic is cold, it's not as cold as outside.

(Video taken December 25th during the Christmas Blizzard of 2009.)

Deck the Halls With Christmas Javelinas

I am not a fan of Christmas. I have been consciously avoiding the holiday as much as possible for the last nine years.

Something happened this year as Christmas grew near. I agreed to a Christmas tree - the first in nine years - and we ended up with a gloriously huge frasier fir that takes up half the dining room and touches the ceiling. I decided to make cookies and today I made dozens of peanut butter blossoms, dozens of sugar cookies, almond bark snowman things, and two batches of gingerbread. The kids helped decorate and were delighted that I gave them free reign - zombie snowmen and erratically decorated gingerbread - I let them have at it. The pile of candy left over after decorating gingerbread is insane. The kids played hide and seek and helped me with cookies and are now watching "Elf." They are happy.

As I prepared for the Christmas of the Century, I read through old cookie recipes and looked for craft ideas (we're making the ornaments on the tree - fruit and popcorn and paper chains). I found a four page recipe and description for a gingerbread house that I cut out of a magazine in 1996. I decided that this year I am making it. I actually made two batches of dough today - the kids made one dimensional houses covered in icing and candy. I carefully made the templates for my 3-D house and baked the pieces. I put the walls together. Tomorrow the roof goes on. It's a three day process, I learned when I read the recipe. Maybe that is why I have never made it before?

It's a combination of domestic/Christmas bug that has gotten to me this year. Part of it is that Bill's kids are here for over a week, my kids are out of school all week, and I took the time off from work to be at home with them. I have the time to do stuff like string popcorn and make gingerbread houses. And make Gingerbread Javelinas to hang on my tree.

"What are these?!" Sophia says in that Lea-You're-Crazy Voice.

"Traditional Christmas Javelinas, made with my javelina cookie cutter," I say.

"What?!"

"Javelinas," I say as I string ribbon through the hole in the top of the cookie.

"My mom has a thing for javelinas," Mary says knowingly.

"What is a javelina?!" Sophie asks again.

"It's these cookies that I am hanging on the tree," I say.

"Aaaagh!" Sophia says, and laughs.

In reality I am clinging to the Christmas Javelina. He is keeping me from completely crossing the line to Christmas Insanity. The Javelina keeps me true to myself. At least that is what I tell myself.

A Re-run From August 31, 2005

"It's surreal," said the woman on the radio talking about the devestation of her home due to the hurricane.

In the back seat a little black kitten sat in a cat carrier next to the birthday girl who was smiling and giggling in a charming way. She's been begging for a pet for months.

We were listening to the news as we drove home from Beatrice where we went to an animal shelter that was overrun with cats and was running a "special." Instead of the usual $100, the adoption fee was $35. They just wanted the cats to go to a good home. I emailed the application yesterday and got interviewed last night. We got ok'd.

So despite the cost of gas, we made a road trip.

We visited the shelter and met about thirty kittens. Then we headed down the street to a "foster" home which is really the plumbing shop.

Only in a small town would a place like this exist.

We met another twenty kittens and the foster mom / plumber.

"I can't decide!" squealed my daughter as a tiger kitten lept onto her shoulder, a black kitten with white socks snuggled in her arms and three orange tabbies circles her legs.

"Ooh! She's so pretty!" she exclaimed as a tortise shell kitten curled up on a cushion.

We narrowed down our choices and she asked, "Where did he come from?" She was holding a black kitten who snuggled into her patiently and was quiet.

The parent in me felt impatient. Sheesh. It's a shelter. It's an abandoned cat. Some idiot didn't spay or neuter their cat.

"He and his sisters were abandoned on the road in a box," the foster cat mom explained. "It was one of those hundred degree days and when we got them they weren't in the best of shape. One of his sisters didn't make it. The other sister got adopted. She was sweet just like him," she explained.

This cat is a cuddler. And I knew that my daughter was looking for a pet to haul around - to carry and pet and talk to. She's just that kind of kid.

"His name is Jake? Can I change his name?"

"You can change it to whatever you like. I named him Jake after one of my favorite cats. I lost him - he died. His personality reminded me of my Jake," she explained.

"I think I will keep his name as Jake," said my daughter.

So we took Jake home. And on the highway North we listened to NPR and the interviews of those who survived the hurricane. We listened to the observation that it was surreal. I felt a bit guilty about our happiness. I felt funny about being smug rescuing a kitten that had almost died in the hot Nebraska summer because someone abandoned him in such a cruel way. Why does it matter? What is a stupid kitten compared to the human life that was taken today in cruel and senseless ways? You can mire in hopelessness. You really can. It would be oh so easy for me. I seem to be prone to it.

I felt happy and sad at the same time in that car as I listened to tragedy on the radio and giggles in the backseat.

It is all life. The tragedy - big and small scale - and the giggles.

It was surreal.