On 31 December, 1977, my mother, Margaret Rose Cameron Herlinger, married Rocco Antonio Emanuel, my step-father. In just a few days, it will be their 30th wedding anniversary.
In stereotypical Midwestern fashion, they've asked that no fuss be made. In fact, it takes nearly two weeks of greasing to convince them to allow us to take them to dinner.
Dinner is at a restaurant called O'Charleys near the mall. There's not a lot of cuisine in this deprived area, so we keep to the 'no fuss' request and go to what is more or less your run of the mill family restaurant.
We are no sooner seated than my mother sidles up to me and starts making recommendations. I can feel my fuse shortening and realise I'm going to have to shut up until I get a beer in me. I'm losing both grip and patience with my mother, and I feel bad about it.
But what can I do? I've been here more than two weeks - more time than I've spent in the state of Ohio since I left to live in Pittsburgh in 1990. What was probably simply an attempt to recommend something from the menu strikes me as my mommy trying to show her sonny boy how to order food. I snap and rather unkindly tell her I can read a menu myself.
My outburst makes me feel like an ogre, and my mother recoils a bit. She looks hurt, but she often looks hurt, and I never really know what will hurt her or has hurt her. I suspect this is just what happens between parents and their educated, self-making adult children. She's a generation apart, still hasn't a passport and has never left North America. She's shaky in planes and has a deep-rooted need to control her environment. Travel, even to the next county, sometimes panics her.
We're different now, even though we were regarded as very similar - 'two peas in a pod' my sister used to say - when I was a child. Then I grew up, went to school, came out of the closet, moved away and never looked back. I became who I am. This is the way the world, as I understand it, works.
Still, it makes me feel terrible, for I so seldom see her and know that I am her son. Mothers are strange creatures if you're not one.
I read somewhere that the struggle in families is greatest between mothers and sons. The first would like your relationship to stay the way it was the day you were born for your entire life; the second must wrest independence from a nurturing, comfortable source of original love. How can we not be at our mother's throats - and vice versa - at some point?
The incident passes, and good times return. I gain an understanding of the way things very simply are: It's time to get back to my life.
Now in the room in which I've been sleeping, typing this entry in bed with a notebook computer on my lap, in the quiet solitude of this little space at the top of the house where I lived from age 12 to 19, this place where I first learned to be human before I made myself forget it all and learned thereafter to be myself, I realise that I live in London, but this place and these people are and always will be, for better or for worse, home to me.
You can't go home, and you can never fully leave it. Knowing this somehow makes the struggle of being alive seem less taxing and grounded in something approaching the comfort of carefully considered reasoning.
I fall asleep envisioning a smooth, uneventful flight tomorrow back to the reality I've invented across the pond.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Friday, 28 December 2007
Fifteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Moooove Over
I'm up at 11:30a.m. Yesterday's shopping extravaganza took a greater toll than expected. Nothing happens at all during the day except tea, cookies and digital TV. The only other task I manage to complete is an internet grocery order, which should arrive four hours after I return to my flat.
My sister's got on the food bandwagon recently and invites us to hers for London broil. I'm not sure what London broil is, so I check Wikipedia. It's not a cut of meat but a way of preparing an enormous slab of a traditionally tough quadrant of beef, such as a flank steak or round steak. The meat is marinated, grilled and cut into slices against the grain. It is usually recommended that the steak be beaten to a pulp to tenderise it. Now THIS I'm looking forward to.
Mom, Rocco and I arrive at my sister's at 10 past six. Rocco asks if we're late. Mom and I laugh, and I say, 'Good one, Rocco,' for my sister is genetically predisposed to tardiness. Every family has at least one member for whom 'punctuality' is a four letter word. This describes my sister's gently warped lexicon perfectly.
Kathy's husband Jim is sitting in his recliner in exactly the spot I last saw him. He works very early in the morning and is usually a goner by 9p.m. Jim is the household barometer and is camped out comfortably in his favourite chair, indicating at least an hour wait for dinner.
In the kitchen all guns are blazing. Kathy's got what looks like a cow in the oven and a pot of gruyere sauce melting on the stove. She's been watching the Food Network quite a lot recently, and her heroine is the 'make it in 30 minutes' cooking guru Rachel Ray. I've never heard of her of course, being absent from the country for seven years now. Cultural phenomena have come and gone in at least three waves since I moved to Britain.
The gruyere is in a bag and has come already shredded. Unfortunately, my sister's not that versed in things European and didn't realise that the words 'and Emmenthal' meant that there is also shredded Swiss cheese in the bag. The mixture is intended to be added to white wine and used for fondue. I stir the living hell out of the cheese sauce. The emmenthal works its way into the mix somehow.
At 6:30, dinner is served. Jim is in shock. Still he manages to cut short his respite and mosey into the kitchen, where mom, Rocco and I are already seated and salivating
Kathy hoists the beef off the broiling pan and into a serving dish as big as my back. Sauteed onions and mushrooms are piled on top, and we pour over the cheese sauce. The emmenthal has fallen out, as it does, off the heat. But the sauce has enough gruyere in it to make it full-flavoured and viscous enough to slide gently through the onions and over the steak. Kathy did warm us that her food forays are largely experiments. And how can one not applaud her for making the effort? Anyway, this effort's gone overwhelmingly well.
A half hour later, I feel the urge to moo wash over me. We're all stuffed to bursting with beef, onions, green beans, cheese sauce and scampis. My face feels as though it's turning blue from oxygen deprivation. Three glasses of Bordeaux deepen the dizzying effect. This is the most satisfying meal I've had the entire visit.
We chat for awhile longer, help with the washing up then drive home and pass out. It's the end of a perfectly relaxing day of quality eating and drinking. Mooooo.
My sister's got on the food bandwagon recently and invites us to hers for London broil. I'm not sure what London broil is, so I check Wikipedia. It's not a cut of meat but a way of preparing an enormous slab of a traditionally tough quadrant of beef, such as a flank steak or round steak. The meat is marinated, grilled and cut into slices against the grain. It is usually recommended that the steak be beaten to a pulp to tenderise it. Now THIS I'm looking forward to.
Mom, Rocco and I arrive at my sister's at 10 past six. Rocco asks if we're late. Mom and I laugh, and I say, 'Good one, Rocco,' for my sister is genetically predisposed to tardiness. Every family has at least one member for whom 'punctuality' is a four letter word. This describes my sister's gently warped lexicon perfectly.
Kathy's husband Jim is sitting in his recliner in exactly the spot I last saw him. He works very early in the morning and is usually a goner by 9p.m. Jim is the household barometer and is camped out comfortably in his favourite chair, indicating at least an hour wait for dinner.
In the kitchen all guns are blazing. Kathy's got what looks like a cow in the oven and a pot of gruyere sauce melting on the stove. She's been watching the Food Network quite a lot recently, and her heroine is the 'make it in 30 minutes' cooking guru Rachel Ray. I've never heard of her of course, being absent from the country for seven years now. Cultural phenomena have come and gone in at least three waves since I moved to Britain.
The gruyere is in a bag and has come already shredded. Unfortunately, my sister's not that versed in things European and didn't realise that the words 'and Emmenthal' meant that there is also shredded Swiss cheese in the bag. The mixture is intended to be added to white wine and used for fondue. I stir the living hell out of the cheese sauce. The emmenthal works its way into the mix somehow.
At 6:30, dinner is served. Jim is in shock. Still he manages to cut short his respite and mosey into the kitchen, where mom, Rocco and I are already seated and salivating
Kathy hoists the beef off the broiling pan and into a serving dish as big as my back. Sauteed onions and mushrooms are piled on top, and we pour over the cheese sauce. The emmenthal has fallen out, as it does, off the heat. But the sauce has enough gruyere in it to make it full-flavoured and viscous enough to slide gently through the onions and over the steak. Kathy did warm us that her food forays are largely experiments. And how can one not applaud her for making the effort? Anyway, this effort's gone overwhelmingly well.
A half hour later, I feel the urge to moo wash over me. We're all stuffed to bursting with beef, onions, green beans, cheese sauce and scampis. My face feels as though it's turning blue from oxygen deprivation. Three glasses of Bordeaux deepen the dizzying effect. This is the most satisfying meal I've had the entire visit.
We chat for awhile longer, help with the washing up then drive home and pass out. It's the end of a perfectly relaxing day of quality eating and drinking. Mooooo.
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Fourteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - A Boxing Day that's truly a knock-out
Boxing Day doesn't exist in industrious America, and people are back at work already today. I feel sorry for them, a bit, but I'm glad someone's working because I'm going to raid the shops like a high-seas pirate.
My mother drives me to my sister's. Neither mom nor Rocco can handle large crowds, so they won't be joining us. I hate to say it, but this is fine with me. I'm on a mission, and elderly parents in tow would only slow me down.
My niece and sister and I suit up and board our urban assault vehicle, a Saturn ASTRA 5-door XE. We head off like a SWAT team into the night. First and only port of call: The Eastwood Mall and surrounding shopping complex.
Kathy drops Tiffany and me at the JCPenney. It's not the most impressive shop in the mall, but it's bound to be more deal-heavy than anywhere else. I find two lovely knit jumpers made of high-quality cotton, normally $42 and on sale for $16 (GBP8). A Wenger 'Swiss Army' carry-on bag is the next foe to drop: SRP $100, cut to $40. I also get 15% off at the till with the printable coupon I've got from taking a customer survey on JCP.com. And like the assault on the salt marchers led by Ghandi to the sea, the beatings go on and on into the night.
My mom gave me a $50 gift voucher for Christmas to be used at Macy's. I find a Fossil wallet for $25 and am at a loss as to what to do with the other 25. Then my sister suggests a leather coat. I tell her I'm not good in leather. I grab a zip jacket to prove the point. I look like a retired university professor on his way to the local Harley Davidson dealer.
Kathy hands me a Claiborne lambskin zip jacket with a quilted Thinsulate lining. It catches me off guard and I try it on. Suddenly, I'm cool again. The jacket makes me look almost sophisticated. Almost. In any event, I'm falling for it.
I lift the right arm and read the price tag. My heart sinks. It's regularly $425. However, it's half price now. I ask the lady at the till if there's any other discount that applies today that doesn't involve open a JCPenney charge account. She grabs a photocopy of a voucher and takes another 10% off. They're giving things away today, all over America.
All in, including the balance of the store voucher, the jacket comes to about $175, or a slip over £85.
I'm dizzy with what can only be called a horny materialism. I'm high on an almost sexual wave of stuff. The next six hours are an orgy of Kenneth Cole jackets, Ecco and Nike shoes, Ohio sports team kit and more. And I'm only £300 lighter for the whole mess.
The dollar is in miserable shape. My old neighbourhood looks like Beirut in the 1970s - or 2006. The walls are crumbling, the social foundation is cracked. And yet these four glorious words are the only ones that come to mind:
God effing Bless America.
I return to my mother's house, battle-scarred and knackered, about 9:30p.m. My tendonitis is getting the better of my right arm, which is weighed down with swag. I take it all upstairs and don't ask any of the questions I used to ask myself when I was younger, such as 'How can you indulge like this when there's so much trouble, hunger, war and famine in the world?'
I pause for a second, attempting to reflect, then remember that I really need to arrange a Tesco grocery delivery and email my cleaning lady before going to bed.
I sleep like an overfed baby.
My mother drives me to my sister's. Neither mom nor Rocco can handle large crowds, so they won't be joining us. I hate to say it, but this is fine with me. I'm on a mission, and elderly parents in tow would only slow me down.
My niece and sister and I suit up and board our urban assault vehicle, a Saturn ASTRA 5-door XE. We head off like a SWAT team into the night. First and only port of call: The Eastwood Mall and surrounding shopping complex.
Kathy drops Tiffany and me at the JCPenney. It's not the most impressive shop in the mall, but it's bound to be more deal-heavy than anywhere else. I find two lovely knit jumpers made of high-quality cotton, normally $42 and on sale for $16 (GBP8). A Wenger 'Swiss Army' carry-on bag is the next foe to drop: SRP $100, cut to $40. I also get 15% off at the till with the printable coupon I've got from taking a customer survey on JCP.com. And like the assault on the salt marchers led by Ghandi to the sea, the beatings go on and on into the night.
My mom gave me a $50 gift voucher for Christmas to be used at Macy's. I find a Fossil wallet for $25 and am at a loss as to what to do with the other 25. Then my sister suggests a leather coat. I tell her I'm not good in leather. I grab a zip jacket to prove the point. I look like a retired university professor on his way to the local Harley Davidson dealer.
Kathy hands me a Claiborne lambskin zip jacket with a quilted Thinsulate lining. It catches me off guard and I try it on. Suddenly, I'm cool again. The jacket makes me look almost sophisticated. Almost. In any event, I'm falling for it.
I lift the right arm and read the price tag. My heart sinks. It's regularly $425. However, it's half price now. I ask the lady at the till if there's any other discount that applies today that doesn't involve open a JCPenney charge account. She grabs a photocopy of a voucher and takes another 10% off. They're giving things away today, all over America.
All in, including the balance of the store voucher, the jacket comes to about $175, or a slip over £85.
I'm dizzy with what can only be called a horny materialism. I'm high on an almost sexual wave of stuff. The next six hours are an orgy of Kenneth Cole jackets, Ecco and Nike shoes, Ohio sports team kit and more. And I'm only £300 lighter for the whole mess.
The dollar is in miserable shape. My old neighbourhood looks like Beirut in the 1970s - or 2006. The walls are crumbling, the social foundation is cracked. And yet these four glorious words are the only ones that come to mind:
God effing Bless America.
I return to my mother's house, battle-scarred and knackered, about 9:30p.m. My tendonitis is getting the better of my right arm, which is weighed down with swag. I take it all upstairs and don't ask any of the questions I used to ask myself when I was younger, such as 'How can you indulge like this when there's so much trouble, hunger, war and famine in the world?'
I pause for a second, attempting to reflect, then remember that I really need to arrange a Tesco grocery delivery and email my cleaning lady before going to bed.
I sleep like an overfed baby.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Thirteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Christmas
We all lie in until about 9a.m., eat, shower and hop in the car. It's time to go a-visitin', Crimbo style.
First stop, about 40 miles away, is my step-brother Tony's and his wife Stacey's house in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, once the 'rubber capital of the world.' If you had a car in the 20th century, the tires (or tyres) probably came from Akron.
Tony and Stacey and their kids Payton and Rylan live in a lovely, quiet suburban street with a paper-shredder of a toy dog, the name of which escapes me. Stacey's parents are there. I haven't seen them since Christmas 1998. Her mother, Lorraine, is a nutter, so we get each other's jokes straight away. Gifts are exchanged, gallons of coffee are drunk and a box of Krispy Kremes disappear. Then we're back in the car, winding our way down to Kent, Ohio.
We visit Rocco's mother Rose. Rocco's sister Regina is looking after her today. Rose has alzheimers, but she still manages to kick out a couple good one-liners at my expense. I'm lucky that she does, and I get that sinking feeling that this may be the last time I see her. I haven't been to her house in over a decade, and I remember it well anyway.
Regina slips nicely into Italian-American mother mode and empties the fridge of lasagne, green salad, cranberry sauce (unusual for Christmas in America), an artichoke dip and crackers. We have lunch and Rose plays with a soft toy goat that sings that goatherd song from Sound of Music when you squeeze it's jaws together. It's funny for awhile, and each time she does it, we know she believes it's the first time. We talk around the goat.
Regina is an elementary (grammar) school teacher in Kent. She loves her work and has been teaching her students, in pairs, to knit. I think this is brilliant and wish someone had shown me how to knit when I was in the fourth grade (age nine or so). Then again, I wish someone would have taught me what APR means and how to shop for the best mortgage, but theory won out over practice when I was in grammar and high school. Boo hoo.
The visit goes well and pleasantly and we head back home. The only strife all day happens in the front seat, but it's not much, and I am learning to ignore all the unnecessary tensions that arise. It's not my business, I keep saying, but I know it's all in me and that overcoming it has been part of my life's major mental well-being project.
My sister gets off work early and we visit for a short while. Before we leave, I snag a bag of last night's leftover ham out of the fridge. It's really amazing ham, and I'm going to make an omelette with it in the morning.
It's not a bad Christmas at all.
First stop, about 40 miles away, is my step-brother Tony's and his wife Stacey's house in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, once the 'rubber capital of the world.' If you had a car in the 20th century, the tires (or tyres) probably came from Akron.
Tony and Stacey and their kids Payton and Rylan live in a lovely, quiet suburban street with a paper-shredder of a toy dog, the name of which escapes me. Stacey's parents are there. I haven't seen them since Christmas 1998. Her mother, Lorraine, is a nutter, so we get each other's jokes straight away. Gifts are exchanged, gallons of coffee are drunk and a box of Krispy Kremes disappear. Then we're back in the car, winding our way down to Kent, Ohio.
We visit Rocco's mother Rose. Rocco's sister Regina is looking after her today. Rose has alzheimers, but she still manages to kick out a couple good one-liners at my expense. I'm lucky that she does, and I get that sinking feeling that this may be the last time I see her. I haven't been to her house in over a decade, and I remember it well anyway.
Regina slips nicely into Italian-American mother mode and empties the fridge of lasagne, green salad, cranberry sauce (unusual for Christmas in America), an artichoke dip and crackers. We have lunch and Rose plays with a soft toy goat that sings that goatherd song from Sound of Music when you squeeze it's jaws together. It's funny for awhile, and each time she does it, we know she believes it's the first time. We talk around the goat.
Regina is an elementary (grammar) school teacher in Kent. She loves her work and has been teaching her students, in pairs, to knit. I think this is brilliant and wish someone had shown me how to knit when I was in the fourth grade (age nine or so). Then again, I wish someone would have taught me what APR means and how to shop for the best mortgage, but theory won out over practice when I was in grammar and high school. Boo hoo.
The visit goes well and pleasantly and we head back home. The only strife all day happens in the front seat, but it's not much, and I am learning to ignore all the unnecessary tensions that arise. It's not my business, I keep saying, but I know it's all in me and that overcoming it has been part of my life's major mental well-being project.
My sister gets off work early and we visit for a short while. Before we leave, I snag a bag of last night's leftover ham out of the fridge. It's really amazing ham, and I'm going to make an omelette with it in the morning.
It's not a bad Christmas at all.
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Twelfth day of Christmas, 2007 - Christmas Eve
Illness and hospitals never sleep, and my sister has to work tomorrow, which is Christmas day. My niece is minding children until 4:30 this afternoon. That leaves us with no choice but to have Christmas lunch a day early and call it "Christmas Eve dinner."
I arrive at my sister's house in my nephew's car at around 6p.m. I could tell you all about the spiral-cut, honey-roasted ham; the boneless turkey breast roast; the endless bowl of prawns and red American cocktail sauce (in a nutshell, ketchup mixed with ground horseradish - it's delicious); the truckload of cheesy potatoes; the green beans in cream of mushroom sauce; the trays of cookies; the sticky toffee pudding I made this afternoon and thrust upon my unsuspecting family at dessert time. I could tell you all about that, but I'd rather tell you about the bathrobe.
A few days ago, I was wandering the shopping mall and found a terry Polo bathrobe. It is the bomb, and I fully intended to buy one after Christmas. But my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew pooled 20 bucks a piece and bought it for me. I opened it and nearly cried. There is no reason for them to spend their hard-earned money, for which they have so many essential uses, on a piece of luxurious ephemera such as this plush, poncey bathrobe that a self-centred, self-responsible and sometimes selfish, single, gay, quasi-bon vivant twat uncle who lives a near-fantasy life in merry old London can and should buy for himself.
There is no reason except that they love me and want to make me happy.
I do my best to contain my emotions, but it's clear I'm happier to receive this silly robe than I have been to receive any present I can remember. I feel important, respected, accepted and very simply loved for the Sex and the City wannabe, inane continent-hopping reflection of my father that I am. (Not that that's the worst thing I could be.)
All that's left to say is, thanks, guys. I love you all very much, and I'll think of you every time I wear my new robe, which will be, and this is no exaggeration, every stinking day until its tatters falls off my slumping, aged, liver spot-stained shoulders.
Now all I need is a pipe and slippers and a Bassett hound and I'm set for a stylish entry into middle age.
I arrive at my sister's house in my nephew's car at around 6p.m. I could tell you all about the spiral-cut, honey-roasted ham; the boneless turkey breast roast; the endless bowl of prawns and red American cocktail sauce (in a nutshell, ketchup mixed with ground horseradish - it's delicious); the truckload of cheesy potatoes; the green beans in cream of mushroom sauce; the trays of cookies; the sticky toffee pudding I made this afternoon and thrust upon my unsuspecting family at dessert time. I could tell you all about that, but I'd rather tell you about the bathrobe.
A few days ago, I was wandering the shopping mall and found a terry Polo bathrobe. It is the bomb, and I fully intended to buy one after Christmas. But my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew pooled 20 bucks a piece and bought it for me. I opened it and nearly cried. There is no reason for them to spend their hard-earned money, for which they have so many essential uses, on a piece of luxurious ephemera such as this plush, poncey bathrobe that a self-centred, self-responsible and sometimes selfish, single, gay, quasi-bon vivant twat uncle who lives a near-fantasy life in merry old London can and should buy for himself.
There is no reason except that they love me and want to make me happy.
I do my best to contain my emotions, but it's clear I'm happier to receive this silly robe than I have been to receive any present I can remember. I feel important, respected, accepted and very simply loved for the Sex and the City wannabe, inane continent-hopping reflection of my father that I am. (Not that that's the worst thing I could be.)
All that's left to say is, thanks, guys. I love you all very much, and I'll think of you every time I wear my new robe, which will be, and this is no exaggeration, every stinking day until its tatters falls off my slumping, aged, liver spot-stained shoulders.
Now all I need is a pipe and slippers and a Bassett hound and I'm set for a stylish entry into middle age.
Monday, 24 December 2007
Eleventh day of Christmas, 2007 - The past is a blast
My mother drove me to my sister's house around 4:30p.m. where I collected the keys to my nephew's car so that I can borrow it and drive to a bar called Buffalo Wild Wings in the Great East Plaza adjacent the Eastwood Mall in a town called Niles. There, at 6p.m., three friends from my high school graduating class and I will meet and try not to bore each other to death.
But first I'm charged with picking up my nephew Bill from the McDonald's where he works. I'm ten minutes late because there's no petrol in the car, and the first gas station I find along the entire stretch of burnt-out old West Market Street is on the edge of downtown Warren. The name on the station is 'McQuaid's,' the surname of one of my best friends and neighbours from my youth who will no doubt not be in attendance this evening at the wing bar. No one's heard from him since the first Gulf War, where he was toyed with until his mind snapped just enough to make him disappear, or so it seems.
My nephew and I discuss the folly of politics and the state of the American government, which brings us no end of laughs. I drop him off at home, the same place from which I retrieved his car only 30 minutes before. We do a lot of circular driving in my family.
I like Bill very much. He's not got a sentimental bone in his body, and every inch of him loves life and laughter in the moment and not a second longer. The car stops, he jumps out and waves goodbye. I shout a dumb joke at him. He laughs, of course, and then I'm off to rejoin the past.
As I drive, snow starts to fall. Three miles later, it's so heavy I cannot see more than about 20 metres in front of the car. I slow to 20 miles per hour in a 55 zone and try to find the road lines. Creeping down the exit ramp at Ohio route 46, I'm on the edge of a sort of highway panic and consider pulling the car off the road. I've not driven in yonks, let alone on what has turned into the wrong side of the road in a raging winter white-out. The other cars' lights reassure me, and I follow them.
I cannot see any structures along the highway and count about three lights before turning right. A snowy tug-of-war ensues with other drivers lost in the car park. We're circling the Home Depot, I believe, and I have no idea where the Great East Plaza is anymore.
Route 46 comes up again (speaking of driving in circles) and I take it to the right. Two inches of snow have fallen in 20 minutes, then, just as suddenly, it all stops. A few right turns and a dozen speed bumps later, I've got the wing bar in sight.
Marian Robison (nee Layfield) and Veronica Diles are the first there. I haven't seen Marian in 15 years. She doesn't look like a mother of three in her 40s. She looks like a woman with an uninitiated uterus of about 33. Veronica is thinner than the last time I saw her. Apparently, marriage is doing her some favours. I'm very pleased to see them both.
A few minutes later, Tom Gober arrives. He's looking very tanned. He's expanded his business empire to include a 2nd enterprise and has moved to Akron. He seems as relaxed and easy-going as ever, and he doesn't look as old as he is, either.
We order some drinks and spend two hours in those swirling sorts of conversations that only people who've known each other since they were in nappies can have. Then the Rev. John Jaros turns up.
John and I haven't seen each other in 15 years either. We were very good friends in high school, and I don't know where the distance came from. But it evaporated almost instantly, and he slipped right into the fray.
As much as I've been happy to see the back of northeastern Ohio, I'm almost wistful for carefree adolescence. These people were not just pals: they were, and are, true friends. I was a lonely gay boy, and these nutters, these ornery, drinking, swearing, wonderful goofballs, propped me up and prevented me from feeling hopelessly alone.
We keep at it until nearly 10:00 before the steadily falling snow outside and increasingly severe travel advisories on the television screens convince us it's time to go. John helps me sweep snow off my borrowed car (Note to sister and family: get a brush and scraper for Bill's car. Thanks.), and we intend to meet again this week before I return to London. We probably won't, but the expression of our desire is sincere.
The drive home is more like a crawl, but I feel safe, warm and buoyed up. I concede that, to varying degrees, I have been hiding from people most of my adult life. I also concede that this has been foolish.
But first I'm charged with picking up my nephew Bill from the McDonald's where he works. I'm ten minutes late because there's no petrol in the car, and the first gas station I find along the entire stretch of burnt-out old West Market Street is on the edge of downtown Warren. The name on the station is 'McQuaid's,' the surname of one of my best friends and neighbours from my youth who will no doubt not be in attendance this evening at the wing bar. No one's heard from him since the first Gulf War, where he was toyed with until his mind snapped just enough to make him disappear, or so it seems.
My nephew and I discuss the folly of politics and the state of the American government, which brings us no end of laughs. I drop him off at home, the same place from which I retrieved his car only 30 minutes before. We do a lot of circular driving in my family.
I like Bill very much. He's not got a sentimental bone in his body, and every inch of him loves life and laughter in the moment and not a second longer. The car stops, he jumps out and waves goodbye. I shout a dumb joke at him. He laughs, of course, and then I'm off to rejoin the past.
As I drive, snow starts to fall. Three miles later, it's so heavy I cannot see more than about 20 metres in front of the car. I slow to 20 miles per hour in a 55 zone and try to find the road lines. Creeping down the exit ramp at Ohio route 46, I'm on the edge of a sort of highway panic and consider pulling the car off the road. I've not driven in yonks, let alone on what has turned into the wrong side of the road in a raging winter white-out. The other cars' lights reassure me, and I follow them.
I cannot see any structures along the highway and count about three lights before turning right. A snowy tug-of-war ensues with other drivers lost in the car park. We're circling the Home Depot, I believe, and I have no idea where the Great East Plaza is anymore.
Route 46 comes up again (speaking of driving in circles) and I take it to the right. Two inches of snow have fallen in 20 minutes, then, just as suddenly, it all stops. A few right turns and a dozen speed bumps later, I've got the wing bar in sight.
Marian Robison (nee Layfield) and Veronica Diles are the first there. I haven't seen Marian in 15 years. She doesn't look like a mother of three in her 40s. She looks like a woman with an uninitiated uterus of about 33. Veronica is thinner than the last time I saw her. Apparently, marriage is doing her some favours. I'm very pleased to see them both.
A few minutes later, Tom Gober arrives. He's looking very tanned. He's expanded his business empire to include a 2nd enterprise and has moved to Akron. He seems as relaxed and easy-going as ever, and he doesn't look as old as he is, either.
We order some drinks and spend two hours in those swirling sorts of conversations that only people who've known each other since they were in nappies can have. Then the Rev. John Jaros turns up.
John and I haven't seen each other in 15 years either. We were very good friends in high school, and I don't know where the distance came from. But it evaporated almost instantly, and he slipped right into the fray.
As much as I've been happy to see the back of northeastern Ohio, I'm almost wistful for carefree adolescence. These people were not just pals: they were, and are, true friends. I was a lonely gay boy, and these nutters, these ornery, drinking, swearing, wonderful goofballs, propped me up and prevented me from feeling hopelessly alone.
We keep at it until nearly 10:00 before the steadily falling snow outside and increasingly severe travel advisories on the television screens convince us it's time to go. John helps me sweep snow off my borrowed car (Note to sister and family: get a brush and scraper for Bill's car. Thanks.), and we intend to meet again this week before I return to London. We probably won't, but the expression of our desire is sincere.
The drive home is more like a crawl, but I feel safe, warm and buoyed up. I concede that, to varying degrees, I have been hiding from people most of my adult life. I also concede that this has been foolish.
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Tenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Bake a behemoth batch of biscuits
It's cookie day. My sister, before she became a nurse and started working 70 hour weeks, used to bake a brazillion Christmas cookies every year. And because she wasn't making nursey money, which is much nicer in the US than in the UK, she gave trays, bags and boxes full of them as Christmas presents.
In honour of my visit, she's suggested we stir up a few batches of sweet holiday cheer, and I'm jittery with anticipation. I borrow my step-father's car today, and we hit the supermarket, which is called Giant Eagle. (My niece works there, safeguarding and entertaining the children of busy shoppers in the Eagle's Nest. See what they did there?) We also stop at the Aldi. I'm surprised to find Aldi in the US, let alone in Ohio. I"m even more surprised to find out it's almost exactly the same. Weirdly, it's also the only place I've seen since I got here that stocks a truly international wine selection. I grab a bottle of Bordeaux as we snap up baking ingredients.
All in, we've gathered around $100 worth of sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch morsels, molasses (treacle), nuts, coconut etc. We heave it onto the kitchen table.
I spend the next four hours sipping 50/50 coffee (half decaf, half caffeinated) with Bailey's and rolling buttery (and/or peanut buttery), sugary balls in my hands. Each one needs to be rolled in white sugar and placed on a baking sheet about three inches (7 cm) from its neighbours. The chocolate chip cookies are applied to the sheets with the 'two spoons' method. The chocolate drop cookies need a Hershey's kiss deposited in their centres within a minute or two of coming out of the oven, then they're carefully scooped off the sheets and placed gently on my sister's miracle, stackable cooling racks.
My mother turns up about half way through, and we form an impromptu cookie manufacturing centre the efficiency of which rivals that of a Mercedes Benz plant.
My sister gives me a thank you card from my niece. She's customarily written notes to everyone who came to her graduation. 'Sorry it all got a little insane,' she wrote, 'but you didn't think we'd let you come all this way without giving you a little real-life entertainment, did you?'
We're all doing the best we know how, and some of us are even succeeding.
The cookies are strewn about. There's something like five dozen of each of seven types of cookies by the time we finish. Stacks of them are tucked into every corner of the kitchen. We've sampled at least half of one of each kind, and we're all in a sugar slump that coffee can't cure. My mother is the first to go home.
My sister's kitchen looks like Dresden after the fire bombing, but she doesn't mind that I can't go on and won't hear of me staying to help with the washing up. She's an angel and I realise again how much I love her.
I drive home via the local truck stop on Route 5, where I'm looking for some chewing gum. Forgetting where I am, I ask if they have any Airwaves. The woman behind the counter gives the customary forehead wrinkle. I apologise and grab some Extra, explaining that I grew up just down the road but now live in England.
Her eyes light up. She gasps and takes my hand as she tucks the change into my palm. "You're so lucky. I envy you so much. Please take me back with you!", she laughs.
I roll over the bridge crossing the swollen Mahoning River, past the abandoned, farmed-out fields, the vast marshlands that dot this floodplain and fill the place with mosquitos in late spring, and past the small, rickety houses that shelter impoverished families. "Please take me back with you!" I would if I could. I really would.
In honour of my visit, she's suggested we stir up a few batches of sweet holiday cheer, and I'm jittery with anticipation. I borrow my step-father's car today, and we hit the supermarket, which is called Giant Eagle. (My niece works there, safeguarding and entertaining the children of busy shoppers in the Eagle's Nest. See what they did there?) We also stop at the Aldi. I'm surprised to find Aldi in the US, let alone in Ohio. I"m even more surprised to find out it's almost exactly the same. Weirdly, it's also the only place I've seen since I got here that stocks a truly international wine selection. I grab a bottle of Bordeaux as we snap up baking ingredients.
All in, we've gathered around $100 worth of sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch morsels, molasses (treacle), nuts, coconut etc. We heave it onto the kitchen table.
I spend the next four hours sipping 50/50 coffee (half decaf, half caffeinated) with Bailey's and rolling buttery (and/or peanut buttery), sugary balls in my hands. Each one needs to be rolled in white sugar and placed on a baking sheet about three inches (7 cm) from its neighbours. The chocolate chip cookies are applied to the sheets with the 'two spoons' method. The chocolate drop cookies need a Hershey's kiss deposited in their centres within a minute or two of coming out of the oven, then they're carefully scooped off the sheets and placed gently on my sister's miracle, stackable cooling racks.
My mother turns up about half way through, and we form an impromptu cookie manufacturing centre the efficiency of which rivals that of a Mercedes Benz plant.
My sister gives me a thank you card from my niece. She's customarily written notes to everyone who came to her graduation. 'Sorry it all got a little insane,' she wrote, 'but you didn't think we'd let you come all this way without giving you a little real-life entertainment, did you?'
We're all doing the best we know how, and some of us are even succeeding.
The cookies are strewn about. There's something like five dozen of each of seven types of cookies by the time we finish. Stacks of them are tucked into every corner of the kitchen. We've sampled at least half of one of each kind, and we're all in a sugar slump that coffee can't cure. My mother is the first to go home.
My sister's kitchen looks like Dresden after the fire bombing, but she doesn't mind that I can't go on and won't hear of me staying to help with the washing up. She's an angel and I realise again how much I love her.
I drive home via the local truck stop on Route 5, where I'm looking for some chewing gum. Forgetting where I am, I ask if they have any Airwaves. The woman behind the counter gives the customary forehead wrinkle. I apologise and grab some Extra, explaining that I grew up just down the road but now live in England.
Her eyes light up. She gasps and takes my hand as she tucks the change into my palm. "You're so lucky. I envy you so much. Please take me back with you!", she laughs.
I roll over the bridge crossing the swollen Mahoning River, past the abandoned, farmed-out fields, the vast marshlands that dot this floodplain and fill the place with mosquitos in late spring, and past the small, rickety houses that shelter impoverished families. "Please take me back with you!" I would if I could. I really would.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Ninth day of Christmas, 2007 - Superkids
Nine congested days later, I'm feeling nearly human again. Nine days of starch-heavy meals is also making me feel a bit flabby. My niece recommends the gym at the Trumbull County Campus of Kent State University, my collegiate alma mater.
It looks reasonably equipped on the website, and, for $5 (about GBP2.50) is practically free to use. If I were going to be here for a month and could prove I graduated from Kent State (which I can't - my diploma is in London and I've no tattoo or bar code imprint), I could come back every day for a one-off nominal fee of $10.
I gulp down a huge bowl of oats, oat bran, dried fruit, nuts, seeds and peanut butter and pack a bag for the gym. My mother lets me borrow her car and I'm off.
The gym is full of young men. I have, of course, no issue with this. Okay, when I say 'full,' I mean there are eight of them. And this will be my only visit to the KSU Trumbull gym: they're shut from 22 December to 1 January. I give a fiver to the shy boy on the desk and ask where to change.
"There's a men's bathroom out the door and to the left. There are lockers and a shower in there." I find everything but being a post-locker twat with a membership to a posh gym in the shadow of the London Eye, I didn't even consider bringing a padlock. My Tuscan leather overnight bag and I will both be working the gym floor today. I tuck it under a shelf behind shy boy and go to it.
My spectacles are in the rich-bitch bag, and I can't see very much. I'm constantly squinting, which must come across as leering, trying to see the kids in the gym better. They're fit as fiddles, tattooed and slim-waisted with huge biceps, triceps, deltoids and lats. HUGE. Were these farmboys cum Schwarzeneggers always lurking about northeastern Ohio, or have they sprung up with this media-saturated age of commercial materialism? And who cares, really?
Mind you, I'm not complaining. Having them around was such a brilliant distraction that my workout passed in what seemed like seconds. I got on a treadmill and walked fast (I have too many wonky body parts to run anymore) for probably 20 minutes to round out the session. I turned around and no one was there at all. Even shy boy's shift must have ended, for a young woman had taken his place.
But best of all, my bag was just where I left it, unsecured, unguarded and untouched.
There is a lot of cynicism in my family, much of it misanthropism disguised as wisdom. People are mean. People are bad. People are idiots. People suck. People have done awful things to me, and I will never forgive them for it. People cannot be trusted to do anything right.
I suspect this is why there are so many animals about. You can control them to some extent. They're grateful for your attention and care. They don't talk back and have no dissenting opinion. I like animals, and sometimes I think having a pet would be nice. But if you ask me, I'd say all these passive qualities make animals much less interesting than people.
And we are people: some of us just won't get used to it is all.
My bag is where I left it, and everything is in it. In the bathroom/locker room, there's one boy just finishing getting dressed. Then the whole place is mine. I shower long and leisurely. In the car park, which is surrounded by acres of flat, open grass fields covered in snow, suddenly the world looks beautiful, even this fallen world in which I grew up. I stand and stare into the distance until I become self-conscious. I'm relaxed and momentarily at peace.
It's been a lovely break.
It looks reasonably equipped on the website, and, for $5 (about GBP2.50) is practically free to use. If I were going to be here for a month and could prove I graduated from Kent State (which I can't - my diploma is in London and I've no tattoo or bar code imprint), I could come back every day for a one-off nominal fee of $10.
I gulp down a huge bowl of oats, oat bran, dried fruit, nuts, seeds and peanut butter and pack a bag for the gym. My mother lets me borrow her car and I'm off.
The gym is full of young men. I have, of course, no issue with this. Okay, when I say 'full,' I mean there are eight of them. And this will be my only visit to the KSU Trumbull gym: they're shut from 22 December to 1 January. I give a fiver to the shy boy on the desk and ask where to change.
"There's a men's bathroom out the door and to the left. There are lockers and a shower in there." I find everything but being a post-locker twat with a membership to a posh gym in the shadow of the London Eye, I didn't even consider bringing a padlock. My Tuscan leather overnight bag and I will both be working the gym floor today. I tuck it under a shelf behind shy boy and go to it.
My spectacles are in the rich-bitch bag, and I can't see very much. I'm constantly squinting, which must come across as leering, trying to see the kids in the gym better. They're fit as fiddles, tattooed and slim-waisted with huge biceps, triceps, deltoids and lats. HUGE. Were these farmboys cum Schwarzeneggers always lurking about northeastern Ohio, or have they sprung up with this media-saturated age of commercial materialism? And who cares, really?
Mind you, I'm not complaining. Having them around was such a brilliant distraction that my workout passed in what seemed like seconds. I got on a treadmill and walked fast (I have too many wonky body parts to run anymore) for probably 20 minutes to round out the session. I turned around and no one was there at all. Even shy boy's shift must have ended, for a young woman had taken his place.
But best of all, my bag was just where I left it, unsecured, unguarded and untouched.
There is a lot of cynicism in my family, much of it misanthropism disguised as wisdom. People are mean. People are bad. People are idiots. People suck. People have done awful things to me, and I will never forgive them for it. People cannot be trusted to do anything right.
I suspect this is why there are so many animals about. You can control them to some extent. They're grateful for your attention and care. They don't talk back and have no dissenting opinion. I like animals, and sometimes I think having a pet would be nice. But if you ask me, I'd say all these passive qualities make animals much less interesting than people.
And we are people: some of us just won't get used to it is all.
My bag is where I left it, and everything is in it. In the bathroom/locker room, there's one boy just finishing getting dressed. Then the whole place is mine. I shower long and leisurely. In the car park, which is surrounded by acres of flat, open grass fields covered in snow, suddenly the world looks beautiful, even this fallen world in which I grew up. I stand and stare into the distance until I become self-conscious. I'm relaxed and momentarily at peace.
It's been a lovely break.
Friday, 21 December 2007
Eighth day of Christmas, 2007 - Hound dogs and darkies
Deciding what to do today is proving rather difficult.
My aunt Helen and uncle Burns (my mother’s younger brother) want to see me before pulling out to visit their son, my cousin Scott, a US Marine, in North Carolina.
I ask my mother how she wants to play it. She cannot answer because Helen has already made known what SHE wants to do. My mother is stricken by such situations, and what she wants to do is a consideration she seems genetically unable to entertain.
Helen would like us to come out to dinner. My mother has told Helen to keep it simple, meaning don’t go to so much trouble, meaning don’t spend your money on me, I’ll feel guilty for it. I’m jumping up and down saying “Take me to dinner! Take me to dinner!”
My mother suggests everyone come to hers. Kathy, Jim, Tiffany and Billy will all be coming out after their various work shifts and it would be easier to make a bit of food and spend a little time here. Helen concedes and nearly begs my mother to bring the dessert. Mom allows this, and everything seems settled.
My mother puts the phone down and issues one of her bone-chilling sighs, indicating, as they do, her great displeasure in something.
Not even a competent deity can tell you exactly what it is she’s not happy about, however. I foolishly attempt to adhere to rational thought: “Isn’t this what you wanted? For them to come here?”
“No,” my mother says in a voice that suggests I should already know this, “What I’d really like to do is just sit on my ass at home and do nothing tonight!”
As always, it’s way too late to do anything about turning anything around. I should be used to this, but it still stumps me. Every adult is accountable for themselves and seeing to the manifestation of their desires. If they don’t get what they want, the vast majority of the time it is their own damned fault. I almost pity my mother for her apparently inborn predisposition to bow to the desires of everyone else on earth before the possibility of tending to her own dares to flicker in her mind’s light. I really wish, once in a while at least, that she'd think about herself first.
At 6pm, the doorbell goes. The Camerons have arrived.
I like Burns and Helen. They’re smart, hilarious and generally light-hearted people. They’ve done some traveling and know how to enjoy a good thing in life now and then. But there comes a moment somewhere in the evening when Helen’s apparently latent membership in the KKK snaps into ‘active’ status.
“I liked Scotland. That was nice. Very nice people. But in London, they’ve got them Indians and Pakistanis and lots of blacks.” I’m no longer baited by comments such as these. I prefer to let them go because I can do nothing other than become frustrated. I only say that the favourite food in the UK is chicken tikka masala, a dish brought to the UK population by Indians. Just like that, the conversation shifts again, and we’re onto more innocuous subjects as though nothing had happened.
We eat turkey burgers, the rare handful of crudités, beer, wine, coffee, pie and cake. They’ll be traveling with my cousin Carla and two hounds: one blood, one Bassett, in a four-seater all the way to the southeast coast. After a bit of parting banter, they’re up and out. They’re leaving in the morning and haven’t started to pack. They may have a thing racist streak in them, but they’re spontaneous and daring more than anything else – and in their 60s. I’m happy to see there is some of this spirit still lurking in a corner of my ancestry and wish them and the dogs happy trails.
My aunt Helen and uncle Burns (my mother’s younger brother) want to see me before pulling out to visit their son, my cousin Scott, a US Marine, in North Carolina.
I ask my mother how she wants to play it. She cannot answer because Helen has already made known what SHE wants to do. My mother is stricken by such situations, and what she wants to do is a consideration she seems genetically unable to entertain.
Helen would like us to come out to dinner. My mother has told Helen to keep it simple, meaning don’t go to so much trouble, meaning don’t spend your money on me, I’ll feel guilty for it. I’m jumping up and down saying “Take me to dinner! Take me to dinner!”
My mother suggests everyone come to hers. Kathy, Jim, Tiffany and Billy will all be coming out after their various work shifts and it would be easier to make a bit of food and spend a little time here. Helen concedes and nearly begs my mother to bring the dessert. Mom allows this, and everything seems settled.
My mother puts the phone down and issues one of her bone-chilling sighs, indicating, as they do, her great displeasure in something.
Not even a competent deity can tell you exactly what it is she’s not happy about, however. I foolishly attempt to adhere to rational thought: “Isn’t this what you wanted? For them to come here?”
“No,” my mother says in a voice that suggests I should already know this, “What I’d really like to do is just sit on my ass at home and do nothing tonight!”
As always, it’s way too late to do anything about turning anything around. I should be used to this, but it still stumps me. Every adult is accountable for themselves and seeing to the manifestation of their desires. If they don’t get what they want, the vast majority of the time it is their own damned fault. I almost pity my mother for her apparently inborn predisposition to bow to the desires of everyone else on earth before the possibility of tending to her own dares to flicker in her mind’s light. I really wish, once in a while at least, that she'd think about herself first.
At 6pm, the doorbell goes. The Camerons have arrived.
I like Burns and Helen. They’re smart, hilarious and generally light-hearted people. They’ve done some traveling and know how to enjoy a good thing in life now and then. But there comes a moment somewhere in the evening when Helen’s apparently latent membership in the KKK snaps into ‘active’ status.
“I liked Scotland. That was nice. Very nice people. But in London, they’ve got them Indians and Pakistanis and lots of blacks.” I’m no longer baited by comments such as these. I prefer to let them go because I can do nothing other than become frustrated. I only say that the favourite food in the UK is chicken tikka masala, a dish brought to the UK population by Indians. Just like that, the conversation shifts again, and we’re onto more innocuous subjects as though nothing had happened.
We eat turkey burgers, the rare handful of crudités, beer, wine, coffee, pie and cake. They’ll be traveling with my cousin Carla and two hounds: one blood, one Bassett, in a four-seater all the way to the southeast coast. After a bit of parting banter, they’re up and out. They’re leaving in the morning and haven’t started to pack. They may have a thing racist streak in them, but they’re spontaneous and daring more than anything else – and in their 60s. I’m happy to see there is some of this spirit still lurking in a corner of my ancestry and wish them and the dogs happy trails.
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Fourth and fifth days of Christmas, 2007 - Fallout and frankfurters
Day 4
I wake up around 11. I take a quick pillow inventory because I'm convinced one of them has crawled into my left ear. I am now officially bunged up snout to tail, highway to byway, and nothing can pass into or out of just about any orifice of my body.
Downstairs, everyone's up, drinking coffee and generally smoking away. My stepfather is in his chair, and Rosie the cat is standing in front of the TV again. She's waiting for the magical red light to appear and dance about the floor and walls. If you've ever had a cat and a laser pointer, you know what I mean.
I am not in the mood to be alive. I'm constipated and stuffed up and my two favourite allergens are swimming around my head for inability to infiltrate the swollen linings of my respiratory system. I slunk back upstairs for nasal spray and Tina precursor (Sudafed). Within the hour, I'm feeling vaguely human again.
I spend the rest of the day in the chair next to Rocco's, drinking water, tea, a couple cups of coffee and eating whatever's lying around. My mother's chatter is directed at Greg and Lou, who are much better at listening than I am. I'm a little saddened to know that they'll be returning home to Florida tomorrow, and not just because they form such a brilliant firewall. Kathy and Bill come round at some point and hang out much of the day as well.
There is some talk about the previous night's precedings, but I avoid it. This is not down to my delusion but to a desire to remain in denial that this sort of rupture occurs - probably too regularly - in my family, and I realise that my gene pool is wired for and doomed forever thus. I grab another cup of coffee and add brandy.
Sometime late in the afternoon, one of my bunged-up orifices opens. Thank god it's the one you're thinking of.
Greg, Lou, Rocco and I sit in the TV room all evening watching the final installment of Lord of the Rings. It takes ages, and I'm happy for something to focus on. By 11:30, I'm upstairs and dead away. Damn this bloody cold.
Day 5
I'm up at 9a.m. I am third to awaken. Greg and Lou are still in bed. My mother's in the kitchen. I hesistate slightly. She'll say good morning, as will I, and then the service inventory begins. There's coffee in the pot it's 50-50 caffeine-decaf pumpkin rolls and monkey bread for snackin' we're going to the Hot Dog Shoppe for lunch at 1 look at the squirrel with no tail do you remember that desk from your brother's old room etc. A protracted weather forecast follows as the sun breaks through the cloud layer, and I grab a coffee and go sit down in the chair next to Rocco's. The morning passes.
We all get showered eventually and a million tiny things happen all the while the computer needs an update download spybot destroyer Kodak picture software USB cable for camera no need bluetooth smoke smoke smoke. My family is obsessed by noise making. My mother's head cannot contain anything as it is all projected outward. Her thought processes, administrative tasks, pressing the soap dispenser - everything is verbalised, and I really do believe she thinks we're listening to all of it. My needs are anticipated before I show any sign of interest in having a need. From a distance, it appears she wants to pamper us. Closer up, she may have a need to control every aspect of the movement and desire of every person and animal inside of her house, as well as within a 20 metre radius. It becomes difficult for me to relax.
Or is it this annoying head cold twisting my psyche in corked-up circles?
About 12:45p.m., we head for the Hot Dog Shoppe, one of the few institutions remaining, and that ever existed, on Warren, Ohio's west side. The plates arrive heaped with the most wonderful heart attack gut rot known to man: I have two frankfurters in white buns topped with chopped raw onions and a chilli sauce. These are called 'chilli dogs' and taste as divine as they did when I was a boy. The chips are made from potatoes shredded and deep fried on the premises. They, too, are exactly the same as they ever were.
In fact, to my memory, nothing at all is different about the Hot Dog Shoppe, and I'm grateful that something constant remains in this economically deprived, depressed and depressing corner of the state.
As we drive back to my mother's after a quick stop at Walgreen's drug store, I scan a solid mile of disused, derelict or destroyed commercial real estate that was mostly always vibrant and glowing when I was a kid. Now, abandoned gas stations look like I-bar skeletons; the McDonald's (you heard right) stands - barely - boarded up and vacant, it's car park full of last night's heavy snowfall, sharing a fate with the Burger King directly over the road (Things are so bad here, apparently, that there are no victors in most commercial rivalries, only losers.); the shopping centre that once held seven or eight stores now houses just three. The remaining blocks appear to close in on them rather than the other way round. A commercial and communal cancer has chewed unmercifully at this end of town. There's no arguing it's dead and will probably never come back. There is more hope for a united, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Back at my mother's house, Tiffany, wearing no make up and rightly so, flops down onto the couch next to me. 'I can't wait to get out of this stinking town,' she says. I laugh, although I may cry later.
And tell her I can't blame her one bit.
I wake up around 11. I take a quick pillow inventory because I'm convinced one of them has crawled into my left ear. I am now officially bunged up snout to tail, highway to byway, and nothing can pass into or out of just about any orifice of my body.
Downstairs, everyone's up, drinking coffee and generally smoking away. My stepfather is in his chair, and Rosie the cat is standing in front of the TV again. She's waiting for the magical red light to appear and dance about the floor and walls. If you've ever had a cat and a laser pointer, you know what I mean.
I am not in the mood to be alive. I'm constipated and stuffed up and my two favourite allergens are swimming around my head for inability to infiltrate the swollen linings of my respiratory system. I slunk back upstairs for nasal spray and Tina precursor (Sudafed). Within the hour, I'm feeling vaguely human again.
I spend the rest of the day in the chair next to Rocco's, drinking water, tea, a couple cups of coffee and eating whatever's lying around. My mother's chatter is directed at Greg and Lou, who are much better at listening than I am. I'm a little saddened to know that they'll be returning home to Florida tomorrow, and not just because they form such a brilliant firewall. Kathy and Bill come round at some point and hang out much of the day as well.
There is some talk about the previous night's precedings, but I avoid it. This is not down to my delusion but to a desire to remain in denial that this sort of rupture occurs - probably too regularly - in my family, and I realise that my gene pool is wired for and doomed forever thus. I grab another cup of coffee and add brandy.
Sometime late in the afternoon, one of my bunged-up orifices opens. Thank god it's the one you're thinking of.
Greg, Lou, Rocco and I sit in the TV room all evening watching the final installment of Lord of the Rings. It takes ages, and I'm happy for something to focus on. By 11:30, I'm upstairs and dead away. Damn this bloody cold.
Day 5
I'm up at 9a.m. I am third to awaken. Greg and Lou are still in bed. My mother's in the kitchen. I hesistate slightly. She'll say good morning, as will I, and then the service inventory begins. There's coffee in the pot it's 50-50 caffeine-decaf pumpkin rolls and monkey bread for snackin' we're going to the Hot Dog Shoppe for lunch at 1 look at the squirrel with no tail do you remember that desk from your brother's old room etc. A protracted weather forecast follows as the sun breaks through the cloud layer, and I grab a coffee and go sit down in the chair next to Rocco's. The morning passes.
We all get showered eventually and a million tiny things happen all the while the computer needs an update download spybot destroyer Kodak picture software USB cable for camera no need bluetooth smoke smoke smoke. My family is obsessed by noise making. My mother's head cannot contain anything as it is all projected outward. Her thought processes, administrative tasks, pressing the soap dispenser - everything is verbalised, and I really do believe she thinks we're listening to all of it. My needs are anticipated before I show any sign of interest in having a need. From a distance, it appears she wants to pamper us. Closer up, she may have a need to control every aspect of the movement and desire of every person and animal inside of her house, as well as within a 20 metre radius. It becomes difficult for me to relax.
Or is it this annoying head cold twisting my psyche in corked-up circles?
About 12:45p.m., we head for the Hot Dog Shoppe, one of the few institutions remaining, and that ever existed, on Warren, Ohio's west side. The plates arrive heaped with the most wonderful heart attack gut rot known to man: I have two frankfurters in white buns topped with chopped raw onions and a chilli sauce. These are called 'chilli dogs' and taste as divine as they did when I was a boy. The chips are made from potatoes shredded and deep fried on the premises. They, too, are exactly the same as they ever were.
In fact, to my memory, nothing at all is different about the Hot Dog Shoppe, and I'm grateful that something constant remains in this economically deprived, depressed and depressing corner of the state.
As we drive back to my mother's after a quick stop at Walgreen's drug store, I scan a solid mile of disused, derelict or destroyed commercial real estate that was mostly always vibrant and glowing when I was a kid. Now, abandoned gas stations look like I-bar skeletons; the McDonald's (you heard right) stands - barely - boarded up and vacant, it's car park full of last night's heavy snowfall, sharing a fate with the Burger King directly over the road (Things are so bad here, apparently, that there are no victors in most commercial rivalries, only losers.); the shopping centre that once held seven or eight stores now houses just three. The remaining blocks appear to close in on them rather than the other way round. A commercial and communal cancer has chewed unmercifully at this end of town. There's no arguing it's dead and will probably never come back. There is more hope for a united, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Back at my mother's house, Tiffany, wearing no make up and rightly so, flops down onto the couch next to me. 'I can't wait to get out of this stinking town,' she says. I laugh, although I may cry later.
And tell her I can't blame her one bit.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Third day of Christmas, 2007 - Graduation and, yep, the shit hits the fan
We're all up and at 'em this morning by 9a.m. I pop my 12-hour decongestant, give each nostril two shots of spray, and I'm good to go.
Down in the kitchen, my mother is making French toast and bacon (the lovely, salty, thin, streaky, part-crispy, part-fatty American kind; oh, how I adore this stuff) and I am soon almost literally in hog heaven. We eat the French toast with butter and a sprinkling of icing sugar. I follow up with an apple, for I have not had a shit in three days. Not even two strong cups of coffee can sort me out. I consider smoking, but I can't breathe as it is.
Today is my niece's commencement ceremony. She is graduating cum laude from Kent State University with a BS in early childhood development. We're all proud to bursting, and I'm happy to be home for a visit to see her complete the arduous task, which has occurred in the face of great adversity - the death of her father and an ensuing bout of depression. She came out the other side with honours and without missing a beat.
The ceremony goes well. We head out of the auditorium to find a couple good inches of snow covering everything. Immediately, there's panic in the ranks. Everyone goes mad in the snow, despite the fact that it is completely expected and very common in December in the Midwest. We're in three cars, and my mother can't manage everyone, which she seems to need to do or perhaps the world as she knows it will end. We all become separated but end up back home in good time and in one piece.
We're all back in the cars an hour later to head to the graduation party. The disparate factions of my niece's history surround her at tables on all sides: her father's dire and always dour-looking family, only one of which, mother Billie, has shown any joyful emotion since 1978; her boyfriend's mates, none of whom seem interested in Tiffany and vice versa; Uncles, aunts, grandmothers - just about everyone who could drive in snow and walk from the car to the restaurant (a constantly shrinking list of kinfolk) attended.
We're all merry, except for the Rose family, of course, and head off into the night. Back at my mother's the call comes in from disaster central. Gary's at Tiffany with shouting and verbal abuse. Suddenly, my mother, brother, brother-in-law and I are all in the car at midnight hurtling like an ambulance towards Tiffany's apartment, where Gary also lives, for another hour, it seems, at most.
Nowhere it seems to me does the philosophical belief that there are no facts, only interpretations of events, occur more soundly than in families. We're like most people: we have our pet delusions; some of us know what they are, and others do not.
My brother Greg is at the throat of anyone who suggests we treat Gary with respect. I'm thinking he wants to lynch to skinny bugger. I can't get the point in edgewise for Greg slapping it back down like he's spiking an emotional volleyball. Or perhaps I'm being too rational in a highly charged situation. Or perhaps I'm tripping over a personal delusion that I didn't know was there. Nothing makes sense suddenly, and arrows a flying everywhere.
We arrive at the apartment to find Tiffany and Gary welling up on the couch. My sister is in the room, as is my nephew, who is a very big fellow these days and rather pissed off. I don't want to take charge, but it seems agendas are all rolled out, personal, and vying for dominance. I don't know what to do, so I do what I always foolishly do: assert myself as calmly and empathetically as I can. This game doesn't play well in the sticks, I am reminded, and soon there's a shouting match and I'm out the door running down the drive towards the road. I don't know how I've gotten there when I come round a few seconds later. This is all going very badly and my brother comes outside to try to reconcile. He suggests making a snow angel, which for some reason seems exactly the right thing to do. I make a snow angel on the asphault car park. We seem to have to revert to childlike behaviour in order to reach each other.
The lesbian next door sticks her head out and asks if we wouldn't mind please putting a sock in it. She has a point: we're all shouting, and it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
Back in the lounge, Billy is in the grip of a choking asthma attack. Kathy and I hop in her ambulance - I mean car - and we're off to hospital. We don't make it there because Bill is, taken away from the disquieting circumstances, fine again in under 10 minutes. We return to Kathy's house.
In the meantime, something constructive has actually happened on the domestic front at Tiffany's. Mom and Greg take Gary to a friend's house (Gary has no car, no money, and I'm not sure how he survives the journey); Greg's partner Lou drives Tiffany to Kathy's house, and we all meet there eventually. The atmosphere is almost weirdly self-congratulatory, but I suppose the object, my niece's safety, has been achieved. I find my brother-in-law Jim's beer supply and have a few.
I suppose my Tiffany's passed two milestones in one day. She's a college graduate and no longer interested in putting up with a man who makes her feel badly about herself. This much, anyway, is encouraging.
We're home in the small hours and I hit the bed at 3. My last thought is that things can only get better. They certainly can't get any more absurd.
Down in the kitchen, my mother is making French toast and bacon (the lovely, salty, thin, streaky, part-crispy, part-fatty American kind; oh, how I adore this stuff) and I am soon almost literally in hog heaven. We eat the French toast with butter and a sprinkling of icing sugar. I follow up with an apple, for I have not had a shit in three days. Not even two strong cups of coffee can sort me out. I consider smoking, but I can't breathe as it is.
Today is my niece's commencement ceremony. She is graduating cum laude from Kent State University with a BS in early childhood development. We're all proud to bursting, and I'm happy to be home for a visit to see her complete the arduous task, which has occurred in the face of great adversity - the death of her father and an ensuing bout of depression. She came out the other side with honours and without missing a beat.
The ceremony goes well. We head out of the auditorium to find a couple good inches of snow covering everything. Immediately, there's panic in the ranks. Everyone goes mad in the snow, despite the fact that it is completely expected and very common in December in the Midwest. We're in three cars, and my mother can't manage everyone, which she seems to need to do or perhaps the world as she knows it will end. We all become separated but end up back home in good time and in one piece.
We're all back in the cars an hour later to head to the graduation party. The disparate factions of my niece's history surround her at tables on all sides: her father's dire and always dour-looking family, only one of which, mother Billie, has shown any joyful emotion since 1978; her boyfriend's mates, none of whom seem interested in Tiffany and vice versa; Uncles, aunts, grandmothers - just about everyone who could drive in snow and walk from the car to the restaurant (a constantly shrinking list of kinfolk) attended.
We're all merry, except for the Rose family, of course, and head off into the night. Back at my mother's the call comes in from disaster central. Gary's at Tiffany with shouting and verbal abuse. Suddenly, my mother, brother, brother-in-law and I are all in the car at midnight hurtling like an ambulance towards Tiffany's apartment, where Gary also lives, for another hour, it seems, at most.
Nowhere it seems to me does the philosophical belief that there are no facts, only interpretations of events, occur more soundly than in families. We're like most people: we have our pet delusions; some of us know what they are, and others do not.
My brother Greg is at the throat of anyone who suggests we treat Gary with respect. I'm thinking he wants to lynch to skinny bugger. I can't get the point in edgewise for Greg slapping it back down like he's spiking an emotional volleyball. Or perhaps I'm being too rational in a highly charged situation. Or perhaps I'm tripping over a personal delusion that I didn't know was there. Nothing makes sense suddenly, and arrows a flying everywhere.
We arrive at the apartment to find Tiffany and Gary welling up on the couch. My sister is in the room, as is my nephew, who is a very big fellow these days and rather pissed off. I don't want to take charge, but it seems agendas are all rolled out, personal, and vying for dominance. I don't know what to do, so I do what I always foolishly do: assert myself as calmly and empathetically as I can. This game doesn't play well in the sticks, I am reminded, and soon there's a shouting match and I'm out the door running down the drive towards the road. I don't know how I've gotten there when I come round a few seconds later. This is all going very badly and my brother comes outside to try to reconcile. He suggests making a snow angel, which for some reason seems exactly the right thing to do. I make a snow angel on the asphault car park. We seem to have to revert to childlike behaviour in order to reach each other.
The lesbian next door sticks her head out and asks if we wouldn't mind please putting a sock in it. She has a point: we're all shouting, and it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
Back in the lounge, Billy is in the grip of a choking asthma attack. Kathy and I hop in her ambulance - I mean car - and we're off to hospital. We don't make it there because Bill is, taken away from the disquieting circumstances, fine again in under 10 minutes. We return to Kathy's house.
In the meantime, something constructive has actually happened on the domestic front at Tiffany's. Mom and Greg take Gary to a friend's house (Gary has no car, no money, and I'm not sure how he survives the journey); Greg's partner Lou drives Tiffany to Kathy's house, and we all meet there eventually. The atmosphere is almost weirdly self-congratulatory, but I suppose the object, my niece's safety, has been achieved. I find my brother-in-law Jim's beer supply and have a few.
I suppose my Tiffany's passed two milestones in one day. She's a college graduate and no longer interested in putting up with a man who makes her feel badly about herself. This much, anyway, is encouraging.
We're home in the small hours and I hit the bed at 3. My last thought is that things can only get better. They certainly can't get any more absurd.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Second day of Christmas, 2007 - Good ol' ham face
I wake up convinced that an entire gammon joint has been shoved up each nostril. My eyes are popping out of my head owing to the pressure behind them. The drugs aren't working, even though I've double-dosed the lot. The nasal spray provides limited relief, although it should keep things up and running (sorry) for 12 hours.
I ask for some pseudoephedrine. My mother looks at me as though I've asked where the boy whores are kept. Turns out kids have been buying wheelbarrows full of the stuff from the various Marts of America and turning the active ingredient in Sudafed into crystal meth. The federal government has recently slapped a regulation on the sale of my favourite decongestant, which I could have been turning into Tina the whole while.
My sister and I sneak off to the mall for an afternoon of drooling over stuff. We wander the JCPenney, the Dillards (where I find a tasty pair of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes for GBP29), everywhere up to and including Victoria's Secret and then hit the food court for a heap of teriyaki the size of my congested head.
As we do, my sister and I discuss our family. We're often concerned that we are saying or doing things that may hurt our mother's feelings, and this furnishes us with plenty of consternation. We never quite know what's going to set her off: we walk in a minefield full of scorpions in the dark. There are, however, two very certain no-go areas: politics (mom voted for Bush, which was for us not so different from seeing her walk into the house one day dressed in a Nazi costume and calling herself Helga) and drugs. Today, most of what my sister and I discuss is related to drugs.
There's a drug for everything here in America. There are even drugs to level the side-effects of other drugs. Drugs are advertised on television more often than cars or food. For a place so alarmist and paranoid about them, America sure do love it some drugs.
My mother is on a statin drug, which is, in something like 98% of the population, effective in lowering 'bad' cholesterol levels. My sister takes this drug as well. She is also a nurse and believes in Western medicine. So do I, but we both know there are holes in every science. Small holes, granted, but holes nonetheless. Kathy has seen great benefits from statins. My mother thinks they caused her arrythmia last year, for which she was hospitalised, and her leg cramps, both of which can be found in the side-effects listing on the 'world of statins' pages on the internet. She's stopped taking them against her doctor's advice.
Long story short, everyone's at odds with my sister over these bloody drugs. (My brother is on them as well. He didn't like them, either. As he often sees things my mother's way, this comes as no great surprise.)
And I'm wondering how, with damned near everyone smoking and/or overweight, eating too many fried and 'beige' foods and not taking enough aerobic exercise, the fundamentals of good health are being so overlooked in favour of 'magic beans.' But anyway, a conclusion: if you feel your meds are doing more harm than good, don't take them. I don't have a problem with this. In principle, neither does my sister. I'm glad she is here.
We get the Sudafed, for which my sister must present a driving license and sign an electronic box, and drive to my mother's house. My head is now ready to implode.
My brother Greg and his partner Lou are in the living room when we get back to mom's. It's been nearly two years since we've all been in the same room. We hug quickly and I run to the water jug and pop my Sudafed. Two hours and four Jack Daniels toddies later, I'm not only effectively stoned but also able to breathe normally. The air fills with cat dander and cigarette smoke. I know I will survive, but I'm going to have to stay medicated for the next two weeks. I decide this is fine as it will help me stay level when the shit hits the fan, which it always does somehow.
I float up the stairs on a soothing wave of booze and drugs and don't have time to think about American ironies or contradictions or delusions before I drop out of consciousness.
I ask for some pseudoephedrine. My mother looks at me as though I've asked where the boy whores are kept. Turns out kids have been buying wheelbarrows full of the stuff from the various Marts of America and turning the active ingredient in Sudafed into crystal meth. The federal government has recently slapped a regulation on the sale of my favourite decongestant, which I could have been turning into Tina the whole while.
My sister and I sneak off to the mall for an afternoon of drooling over stuff. We wander the JCPenney, the Dillards (where I find a tasty pair of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes for GBP29), everywhere up to and including Victoria's Secret and then hit the food court for a heap of teriyaki the size of my congested head.
As we do, my sister and I discuss our family. We're often concerned that we are saying or doing things that may hurt our mother's feelings, and this furnishes us with plenty of consternation. We never quite know what's going to set her off: we walk in a minefield full of scorpions in the dark. There are, however, two very certain no-go areas: politics (mom voted for Bush, which was for us not so different from seeing her walk into the house one day dressed in a Nazi costume and calling herself Helga) and drugs. Today, most of what my sister and I discuss is related to drugs.
There's a drug for everything here in America. There are even drugs to level the side-effects of other drugs. Drugs are advertised on television more often than cars or food. For a place so alarmist and paranoid about them, America sure do love it some drugs.
My mother is on a statin drug, which is, in something like 98% of the population, effective in lowering 'bad' cholesterol levels. My sister takes this drug as well. She is also a nurse and believes in Western medicine. So do I, but we both know there are holes in every science. Small holes, granted, but holes nonetheless. Kathy has seen great benefits from statins. My mother thinks they caused her arrythmia last year, for which she was hospitalised, and her leg cramps, both of which can be found in the side-effects listing on the 'world of statins' pages on the internet. She's stopped taking them against her doctor's advice.
Long story short, everyone's at odds with my sister over these bloody drugs. (My brother is on them as well. He didn't like them, either. As he often sees things my mother's way, this comes as no great surprise.)
And I'm wondering how, with damned near everyone smoking and/or overweight, eating too many fried and 'beige' foods and not taking enough aerobic exercise, the fundamentals of good health are being so overlooked in favour of 'magic beans.' But anyway, a conclusion: if you feel your meds are doing more harm than good, don't take them. I don't have a problem with this. In principle, neither does my sister. I'm glad she is here.
We get the Sudafed, for which my sister must present a driving license and sign an electronic box, and drive to my mother's house. My head is now ready to implode.
My brother Greg and his partner Lou are in the living room when we get back to mom's. It's been nearly two years since we've all been in the same room. We hug quickly and I run to the water jug and pop my Sudafed. Two hours and four Jack Daniels toddies later, I'm not only effectively stoned but also able to breathe normally. The air fills with cat dander and cigarette smoke. I know I will survive, but I'm going to have to stay medicated for the next two weeks. I decide this is fine as it will help me stay level when the shit hits the fan, which it always does somehow.
I float up the stairs on a soothing wave of booze and drugs and don't have time to think about American ironies or contradictions or delusions before I drop out of consciousness.
Friday, 14 December 2007
First day of Christmas, 2007 - Tom Wolfe ain't no kinda liar
The 767 leaves London Heathrow just 20 minutes late. This is because it needs de-icing, which I'm grateful for as it greatly decreases the odds of my death occurring today. I cannot remember a smoother flight over the Atlantic.
In Washington, DC, where I must change to a puddle jumper, the situation is less happy. Our 24-seat Canadian plane is an hour late for takeoff. We're pushed away from the gate but return to it 15 minutes later for 'parts replacement.' Again, I am grateful. All in, I arrive in Cleveland two hours late.
My mother and sister Kathy are waiting near the baggage carousels. My bag is on it before I get there. We leave Cleveland Hopkins International airport pretty quickly.
Within the hour, my nose explodes in a flood of snot, then slams shut like a bear trap, during the one hour drive to my mother's house and childhood home. This is exacerbated by the seven (or is it eight now?) cats and two dogs in residence, one of which requires daily insulin injections. Diabetic dogs. My sinuses rebel like colonials.
My mother's house (in which also lives my hilarious stepfather, Rocco, but I don't think it appropriate to call it his house) sits on precisely one acre of land on a rural Ohio state road. It's pretty much the same as it ever was, except there are, with the copious country-style knick-knacks, armed mousetraps all over the desks and counter surfaces. The bait, which would be in this part of the world cheese, is missing. In its place are pieces of plastic Swiss cheese-esque cubes. I can't imagine any mouse that would be fooled by this.
I'm soon told that the mousetraps are not for mice at all, but for the cats. They tend, as cats do in abundance, to insist on free reign of the place and frequent the countertops etc, especially at night or whenever no one is watching, as cats do. The traps are cat scarecrows. I'm worried that I'll lose a finger at some point over the next two weeks.
It turns out to be my niece who gets snapped first. For this I am also grateful, although it's also kind of sad.
My niece, Tiffany, who is graduating from university, and my nephew Bill, who is going to uni and working at McDonalds, arrive at my mother's house eventually. We eat beef roast and potatoes that my mother has been simmering in a crock pot all day.
I also meet my niece's boyfriend Gary. His stock is down with nearly all the family. At first, I cannot see why. He seems a shy, unassuming boy and at worst a bit thick. Then the reports come in, after he and Tiff have gone, that he says terrible, hurtful things to her on a regular basis, and she does nothing about it. I'm shocked by this as Tiff is not the sort to take shit from anyone.
The more things change etc, and I'm reminded of my sister and her first husband and all the noise that generated until they divorced in 1995. But onward...
Did I mention that I'm incredibly allergic to cats?
My sister brings me some super-duper nasal spray and a drug called loratadine (NB: drugs play a BIG part of conversation and controversy between family members. But more on that anon.). The nasal spray sorts me out, and, after everyone leaves, I go up to bed, now it's late enough to do so, ward off jet lag and breathe again. I sleep until 8a.m.
In Washington, DC, where I must change to a puddle jumper, the situation is less happy. Our 24-seat Canadian plane is an hour late for takeoff. We're pushed away from the gate but return to it 15 minutes later for 'parts replacement.' Again, I am grateful. All in, I arrive in Cleveland two hours late.
My mother and sister Kathy are waiting near the baggage carousels. My bag is on it before I get there. We leave Cleveland Hopkins International airport pretty quickly.
Within the hour, my nose explodes in a flood of snot, then slams shut like a bear trap, during the one hour drive to my mother's house and childhood home. This is exacerbated by the seven (or is it eight now?) cats and two dogs in residence, one of which requires daily insulin injections. Diabetic dogs. My sinuses rebel like colonials.
My mother's house (in which also lives my hilarious stepfather, Rocco, but I don't think it appropriate to call it his house) sits on precisely one acre of land on a rural Ohio state road. It's pretty much the same as it ever was, except there are, with the copious country-style knick-knacks, armed mousetraps all over the desks and counter surfaces. The bait, which would be in this part of the world cheese, is missing. In its place are pieces of plastic Swiss cheese-esque cubes. I can't imagine any mouse that would be fooled by this.
I'm soon told that the mousetraps are not for mice at all, but for the cats. They tend, as cats do in abundance, to insist on free reign of the place and frequent the countertops etc, especially at night or whenever no one is watching, as cats do. The traps are cat scarecrows. I'm worried that I'll lose a finger at some point over the next two weeks.
It turns out to be my niece who gets snapped first. For this I am also grateful, although it's also kind of sad.
My niece, Tiffany, who is graduating from university, and my nephew Bill, who is going to uni and working at McDonalds, arrive at my mother's house eventually. We eat beef roast and potatoes that my mother has been simmering in a crock pot all day.
I also meet my niece's boyfriend Gary. His stock is down with nearly all the family. At first, I cannot see why. He seems a shy, unassuming boy and at worst a bit thick. Then the reports come in, after he and Tiff have gone, that he says terrible, hurtful things to her on a regular basis, and she does nothing about it. I'm shocked by this as Tiff is not the sort to take shit from anyone.
The more things change etc, and I'm reminded of my sister and her first husband and all the noise that generated until they divorced in 1995. But onward...
Did I mention that I'm incredibly allergic to cats?
My sister brings me some super-duper nasal spray and a drug called loratadine (NB: drugs play a BIG part of conversation and controversy between family members. But more on that anon.). The nasal spray sorts me out, and, after everyone leaves, I go up to bed, now it's late enough to do so, ward off jet lag and breathe again. I sleep until 8a.m.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)