(Blueberry Pie and Bagettes, mosaic mural by Therese Desjardin)
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
March-April 2014
Though the renovations to Jane and Gillam's house were much less extensive, Jane was over there every day she was not called in to substitute teach. Gillam brought home a face mask for her to wear to filter out paint and other fumes. When Ginny saw it, she drove right down to the same store and bought a supply for Myra. They actually helped Myra stay on site more, giving Ginny half a day off at a stretch, which she usually spent in the garden at Jane's, as they had begun to call their old place.
A week later, Myra woke up with the inevitable "bowling tournament", as she called it, that seemed to be part of their upstairs neighbor's morning preparation for work. She noticed that Ginny felt very hot to the touch. Over breakfast, she asked "Are you feeling a painting coming on?"
"Fighting it" said Ginny tightly.
Myra thought for a minute. "Go ahead. I can handle it."
"Are you sure? It's the plumbers this week, and if that tile upstairs has to be replaced -- "
"I'll consult you about the design. Otherwise, I'll take my laptop and sit on the bench by the fireplace downstairs, that's a relatively calm spot. We need to put down a dropcloth in the studio here, though."
She helped Ginny get set up, made her lunch and set an alarm to go off at noon to remind Ginny, and drove to the new/old houses with Jane. She emptied a thick cardboard box of its sink and used that as a table for her laptop. The second day, she took in a large cooler of soft drinks and snacks which she handed out to crew, solidifying her position as the new go-to owner. After four days, Ginny had produced a spectacular portrait of Jane as a pregnant Valkyrie. After ten hours sleep, she woke up with a second painting nipping at her heels, and Myra waved her on.
Demolition finally came to an end at both sites. Myra's turf was filled with plumbers, electricians, and elevator installers. The solar panel folks were doing both roofs at once. The back corner of their yard was dug up to install the grey water tank and the rainwater collection cistern, tracking mud throughout every room. At Jane's, however, exterior painting and appliance installation began. Ginny's blue door was transformed to a rich brown, while the outside walls became ivory.
"Won't that show every spot of mildew? And reflect sun-based heat, instead of absorb it?" Myra asked Ginny at dinner that night.
"Yes indeedy" said Ginny shortly. "But the copper salmon will go back on our new blue door. And Jane is from California, remember."
Myra wasn't sure what that last part meant. However, all their decisions seemed to be made just as much by Gillam as Jane. She decided not to point that out to Ginny. Instead, she said "The wrong fixtures were delivered for the roll-in shower. It's called brushed nickel instead of the shiny stuff you ordered. I called but you didn't answer, and they said it would take another week to exchange things, so I went ahead with what we had."
"Well, shit" said Ginny. "Did they find that leak in the side wall?"
"No. But they decided to run pex there instead of using the old pipes anyhow, so it doesn't matter."
"How much extra is that going to cost?" demanded Ginny.
"I don't remember. It's got a 20 year guarantee, though. Look, Gin, we're doing well, relatively speaking. At least the space they made for the elevator actually appears to match the car it's designed for, let's count our blessings. Here, have my extra scallop."
By the first of April, Jane and Gillam's house was ready and they moved in, with a pizza dinner that night for the extended family. They had purchased a massive old table which Ginny was going to paint for them at some point in the indefinite future. It was battered and had more than one finish at the moment, but nobody cared: Getting to eat in the familiar yet utterly transformed dining room was a relief for everyone.
A few evenings later, Gillam walked over through the new gate and invited Myra and Ginny to come for dinner which he was cooking. After seeing off their work crew, Myra and Ginny approached the back door, hearing Jane at the piano and the recently uncovered hot tub bubbling again. Gillam let Myra make the gravy for his broiled chicken, and Ginny went upstairs to cut herbs. Afterward, they retired to a living room arranged in a way they'd never used with furniture they'd never have looked at twice.
When she needed to pee, Myra stood up from the chair which was more comfortable than it looked it would be and faced a quandary: The bathroom adjacent to the main bedroom was no longer "her" bathroom. Neither was the bedroom. After a moment's hesitation, she turned left and went to the guest bathroom next to what was, thank god, still a laundry and storage room.
After she came out, she went to the kitchen to refill her cup of tea. Ginny followed her, calling out to those in the living room "Shall I start another pot?"
"I'll do that" began Gillam in his host voice.
"No need to, if you want the same as before" said Ginny. He settled back down and said "Will you bring it in here when you're done? And pile more of those hazelnut bars on a plate, too."
"Their compost is overdue to be taken out" Ginny whispered to Myra.
"I'll do it" Myra offered, but Ginny said "No. It's their household, they'll run it the way they want." After a moment, she couldn't help but add "Sitting in that living room, though, is like being in an Ikea catalogue."
"They bought it themselves" said Myra, "That's what counts."
"Did he just hate all the color and solid old furniture growing up, then?" continued Ginny in her barely-breathed but still aggrieved tone.
"He adored it. But he did grow up. And he's sharing his world with someone else now. I gave up the idea of ever having my own soda fountain on this counter here because of you, remember Besides, the feel of this house is still as wonderful, don't you think?"
Ginny grudgingly agreed it was nice to be there. As if to argue with herself, she said "The biggest plus is the commute we had to get here."
"Exactly" grinned Myra.
"What are you two whispering about in there?" called Gillam. Ginny poked her head around the corner with a quizzical look and said "Uh, are these little brown mice new pets you didn't tell us about?"
Gillam was on his feet in horror before he realized Ginny was teasing him. They all laughed as she and Myra returned with a tray, Ginny saying "If I'd let you have that soda fountain, you'd be dead now of a heart attack."
Jane was now eight months pregnant and having trouble finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. Both she and Gillam looked tired all the time. Myra began doing their grocery shopping for them and persuaded Gillam to accept a cleaning service to come in once week for laundry, vacuuming, mopping, and other heavy labor. It was all he and Jane could do to keep up their classes and Gillam's job. They had both done extra class work all semester as a deal with their professors against the time when the baby would be delivered and miss at least a week for Gillam, more for Jane. Jane was going to take her final exam later in the summer. They were both such exceptional students, they were granted this leeway.
Myra also got into the habit of making lunch for Jane, walking over to their house through the gate and finding out what Jane's appetite was needing that day. She made enough extra to provide the young couple with dinner as well. Ginny was going over in the morning to have breakfast with Jane, who had stopped getting up with Gillam because she was short on sleep.
On Sunday, Myra and Ginny arrived with a large roast, two ducks, and enough side dishes to feed an army. Jane and Gillam were both crabby, and Myra said "We're just dropping these off. We plan to be next door, hashing out yard plans on graph paper, if you need us for anything." Neither of the young people urged them to stay. Once they out of earshot, Ginny said "I think they were fighting."
"Wouldn't surprise me" said Myra. "Is it safe for us to use the elevator yet?"
"I don't know and I'm not going to risk it. There's stuff we can do inside, since it's starting drizzling. I'm taking this broom upstairs." She vanished into what Myra was beginning to think of as an enormous house, especially compared to their cramped apartment.
An hour later, Gillam came in the back door. "I made a pie earlier, thought you'd like a piece" he said, holding out a plate with two wedges on it.
"I would, even though I'm full of my share of that roast" said Myra. She sat down on a lower step and offered him to join her. "Wow, this is tasty -- did you add almond juice to the blueberries, or what?"
"Or what" grinned Gillam. "Trade secret."
After two more bites, Myra said "So, how's it going?"
"We're squabbling over the baby's name" said Gillam dejectedly. "And I can't talk with you about it, don't try."
"Is she unyielding in a way you never noticed before?" asked Myra. "Petty? Humorless?"
"Yeah" said Gillam, surprised.
"It's not her. I mean, it is, but it's the final trimester hormones hitting her brain, too. Protect the fetus at all costs translates into some weird behavioral shifts" said Myra.
"Good to hear" he said. "I'm feeling pretty irrational myself, way too often."
"A little like watching a freight train bear down on you?" said Myra.
"I thought getting the house ready would help more than it has" said Gillam. "I guess there's no sanctuary from insane responsibility."
"You're up to it, boychik" said Myra. "If Poppyseed appeared overnight, you're ready. What's required is empathy, flexibility, and love, love, love. You're as good as they come in those departments."
"I get scared when I see her climb the stairs" he said. "I get scared when I feel the baby move under my hand. I'm scared now, being out of the house."
"I hear you" said Myra. "It gets better, once you have a routine of hands-on things that actually do make the baby safe and happy."
He rubbed his forehead. "Listen, I need to tell you something. You and Mom both."
"Should we get her down here, or you want to start with me?"
"I'll take the easy route" he said with a faint smile. "You know that Jane's parents are coming for the birth. And Lucy, if she can. They'll be staying at our house."
"Yes. We'll be on call to feed them or drive them around, if necessary."
"Yeah, Thad has offered, too. Well, the thing is...Jane wants her mother and Lucy in the room for the birth. And her dad, if he really wants to. Plus me. But nobody else." Gillam looked at her with not quite apology.
"Oh. Well, I guess -- I had hoped to see your child born, I'll be honest. But -- it's what the mother needs, Gillam, what the woman doing all the work that counts. And you, I don't mean to erase your role, but she's -- it's unbelievable, giving birth, Gillam. You have to be and do whatever Jane wants. You're her lifeline. Even the baby comes second, once labor is underway." She repeated what Patty had told her before Margie's birth.
"I don't think Mom is going to be so understanding" said Gillam.
"Don't underestimate her. She delivered both of you without anesthetic, she knows firsthand in a way I don't. And, if you asked us but not Allie, well that would be strange, and then what about Carly and Margie -- no, I think Jane's support system makes sense. We'll be on hand, out in the waiting room, when you need us." Myra was deeply disappointed and determined not to let any of it show.
"Jane says fuck pain, she's having an epidural" said Gillam.
"Good for her" laughed Myra.
"How about if you and Mom do all the arranging of the naming ceremony?" said Gillam. "At our house. And if Aunt Cathy is here, we want her to be the kvatterin. If not, then Aunt Allie, like she did for me."
"And Margie" said Myra happily. "Are you getting Rabbi Rachel to officiate?"
"No. Carly" said Gillam. His elbow was next to Myra's, and she suddenly realized he was trembling slightly. She put her arm around his shoulders and said "It's going to be okay, honeyboy. It's all going to be just fine."
He cried, as she hoped he would, leaning against her and letting his chest heave. Ginny appeared from above them and sat on his other side, stroking his back. When he was done, he wiped his face with the back of his hand and said "Whew. A little backed up, there."
"Come visit the gatekeeper anytime" said Myra. Ginny had picked up the pie plate and began eating.
"I should get home. Stop by again before you leave, okay?" he said, kissing them each on the cheek.
After he was gone, Myra filled Ginny in on the conversation. Ginny said "I'd wondered about the birth room thing. I don't blame her. The truth is, if Chris hadn't been phobic about hospitals, I'd not have wanted her and Sima in there with us, either."
"A month from now..." mused Myra. "And the contractor told you absolutely, we get this place finished in ten days?"
"He swore. For what it's worth" said Ginny.
The following Friday, shabbos was at Chris and Sima's. Chris's dictionary had been published by the Smithsonian and she had advance copies for them all to crow over. It was a jubilant meal.
Over dessert, Sima said "Guess who I ran into on the street this week? Yoshi Barton."
Myra looked instantly uncomfortable. Allie said "Yeah? She living here now?"
"Yes, she's moved back with her partner. She asked about you. She likes your books, she said."
Ginny said "I don't think I know her, do I?"
Sima answered "She's one of Allie's exes. They were together around the time I met Chris. She asked after you, too" she said to Chris.
Chris said "I bet she didn't ask after Myra." Her tone was provocative.
"Why wouldn't she?" said Gillam.
Myra didn't look up from her plate. Gillam couldn't tell if she was mad or embarrassed.
Allie said "Myra didn't like Yoshi. Was crazy jealous of her."
Myra did look up, then. Mad, Gillam decided. "You're right that I didn't like her. But it was not jealousy."
"What was it, then?" challenged Allie. Ginny realized this was an old, untouched wound.
"I don't think she was...ethical" said Myra.
Allie said to Edwina "We was together almost a year, and Myra never once hung out with the both of us."
"I don't remember you asking me to" retorted Myra. "And I'm sure she didn't."
"Did you have some sort of past relationship with her?" asked Ginny cautiously.
"No. I mean, I'd met her. Through Blue" said Myra. There was definite evasion coming from her, Ginny could tell.
"So you just magically knew she was wrong for me from the get-go and that was enough to not support me in the first big relationship I had during those years" said Allie. "But you can't explain why."
"Was I wrong about her?" replied Myra. "I mean, she dumped you for somebody else and never answered your calls."
"You never talk about her" said Edwina quietly.
"It's a sore subject" said Allie. "Matter of fact, let's drop it now."
There was a long, turgid silence. Myra could tell Edwina's hand was on Allie's knee. Finally Carly said "How 'bout them Seahawks?", which sent them all into relieved laughter.
Back at their apartment, as Ginny was heading for bed, she stopped and turned to Myra. "What's the story with that ex of Allie's -- Yoshi, was that her name?"
Myra put down her pencil and sighed. "I don't talk about it. I don't have anyone I can talk to about it. But I'd like to. You have to promise to never tell anyone, especially Allie."
Ginny sat down swiftly at her worktable. "I promise."
"She was a friend of Blue's, from Ithaca, where Blue lived before. She moved here with her lover, Wicca, after they'd traveled around in their camper for several months. They were crashing with Blue, and fighting nonstop because somewhere along the way, Wicca had slept with a woman they met. They were technically nonmonogamous, but it was one of those deals where neither of them ever acted on it, so they had all the political points without having to deal with actual other women. But Wicca had upset the applecart, and Yoshi couldn't get past it. So...I had some sort of rep as being good with mediation, helping dykes sort out stuff. I'd do it for groups or two women in conflict, usually for a simple barter. Blue asked me if I'd meet with them, and I agreed. Wicca was good at haircuts, so I traded a two hour mediation for two haircuts, I remember. I didn't tell Allie about it because, well, I felt like these sessions were confidential and shouldn't be part of community knowledge."
Myra stopped, rolling her pencil back and forth cross her desk.
"And?" prompted Ginny.
"Well, it did not go well, to say the least. They'd been together at least five years but you coulda fooled me, they had absolutely shitty communication skills. Wicca was apologetic, kept saying she'd never do it again, she'd take it back if she could, but that wasn't good enough for Yoshi. She wanted her beaten down and destroyed, seemed like. I finally confronted her and said 'What do you hope to get from this? Wicca can't apologize any more than she has. Either you believe her and move on, or you two won't be able to go on being lovers, is that what you want?' Wicca was wailing, saying 'Don't leave me!' Yoshi was so fucking cold, I couldn't believe it. She said 'We have to even up the score. The only way to do that is for me to fuck somebody else, too.' Wicca begins begging her not to, saying it'll make her crazy, which is just feeding Yoshi's lust for vengeance. Then Yoshi says 'And since you say this woman you were with didn't mean anything to you, I'll make that even, too. I'll pick somebody who's a nothing, a loser. I'll fuck her and we can talk then about starting over.'"
Ginny's face was horrified. "You're not saying..."
"Yep. They left, because Yoshi wouldn't budge and I said I couldn't help them any further. And six days later, not even a week, Allie calls me one morning before work to say she's got a new girlfriend. She was thrilled to bits, saying it had happened in a whirlwind, after one date. I had to get off the phone to throw up. I couldn't tell her, Ginny, you see that? I couldn't break confidence, but I also -- I just wanted it not to be true. And when Yoshi kept seeing her, I thought maybe it wasn't revenge, maybe she really had fallen for Allie, I mean, who wouldn't? Only then Wicca came over to give me a haircut and she said Yoshi had called her, they were talking about making up when Yoshi was 'done with her affair', and in the meantime they were sleeping together again. I was beside myself, Ginny. And I couldn't talk to anyone about it. After a few days, I called Yoshi and told her if she didn't stay away from Allie, I was going to beat the shit out of her. She laughed at me and hung up. And then she stayed with Allie for months and months, dragging her through all kinds of emotional games and lying hell. She never did get back with Wicca, she was jacking her along, too." Myra's face was miserable.
"And Allie never knew?"
"Not from me. But she stopped talking to me about her and Yoshi when she decided I was jealous of them and being irrational. It was -- it took everything we had to stay friends through that." Myra looked into Ginny's eyes. "I hate her, Gin. Yoshi, I mean. I think she is the scum of the earth."
"I can see why" said Ginny. "I think you should tell Allie now, though.'
"What, that she was so pathetic she was tagged as a loser by someone new to town, a woman she loved who used her as a pawn? I can't say that to Allie" said Myra.
"But it's a barrier between you. Listen, how about if I talk it over with Edwina? Allie doesn't see herself as a reject any more, not in any way. I think she'd be relieved to know you weren't an asshole in the way she thinks you are. You are vitally important to her, much more than even the memory of Yoshi is, I'm sure" said Ginny. "Secrets are toxic, Myra. In ways you can't control."
"I don't know" said Myra worriedly.
"Trust me, Myra. I think this as much for Allie's sake as for yours. Give me the okay to talk with Edwina, and if she disagrees with me, says don't tell Allie, then we won't. But if she thinks Allie would rather know, well, you'll trust her assessment, won't you?"
Myra chewed her lower lip. "Yeah. Okay. Especially since that fucking skank has moved back to town and I may have to run into her."
Ginny stood and kissed Myra. "I'm amazed you've kept this to yourself without imploding."
"Anything to not hurt Allie" said Myra. Ginny hugged her close and whispered "I know what you mean."
© 2008 Maggie Jochild
Saturday, October 4, 2008
GINNY BATES: PREGNANT SPRING
(Blueberry Pie and Bagettes, mosaic mural by Therese Desjardin)
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
March-April 2014
Though the renovations to Jane and Gillam's house were much less extensive, Jane was over there every day she was not called in to substitute teach. Gillam brought home a face mask for her to wear to filter out paint and other fumes. When Ginny saw it, she drove right down to the same store and bought a supply for Myra. They actually helped Myra stay on site more, giving Ginny half a day off at a stretch, which she usually spent in the garden at Jane's, as they had begun to call their old place.
A week later, Myra woke up with the inevitable "bowling tournament", as she called it, that seemed to be part of their upstairs neighbor's morning preparation for work. She noticed that Ginny felt very hot to the touch. Over breakfast, she asked "Are you feeling a painting coming on?"
"Fighting it" said Ginny tightly.
Myra thought for a minute. "Go ahead. I can handle it."
"Are you sure? It's the plumbers this week, and if that tile upstairs has to be replaced -- "
"I'll consult you about the design. Otherwise, I'll take my laptop and sit on the bench by the fireplace downstairs, that's a relatively calm spot. We need to put down a dropcloth in the studio here, though."
She helped Ginny get set up, made her lunch and set an alarm to go off at noon to remind Ginny, and drove to the new/old houses with Jane. She emptied a thick cardboard box of its sink and used that as a table for her laptop. The second day, she took in a large cooler of soft drinks and snacks which she handed out to crew, solidifying her position as the new go-to owner. After four days, Ginny had produced a spectacular portrait of Jane as a pregnant Valkyrie. After ten hours sleep, she woke up with a second painting nipping at her heels, and Myra waved her on.
GINNY BATES: GOODBYE TO ROY STREET
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
February 2014
The day after Ginny's birthday, Myra slept late. When she got up, an enormous wooden crate blocked the living room, and Ginny was methodically removing all the art, hers and others, from walls, wrapping the pieces in special padded boxes, then standing them on end in the crate. Myra helped her with a feeling of desolation at how the house already looked. Ginny packed fragile and rare items, like the pot Myra had brought her from Second Mesa, into a second compartmented crate, and they hammered the lids down. Late that afternoon, a crew came to take the crates for storage at a bonded warehouse with temperature control and high security.
Over the next two days, they sorted through all the items they'd possibly need for three to four months and packed what they could into boxes. Everything else going into storage would be left for the movers. Gillam and Jane wanted to keep the shelving in the store room, so the rows of preserves could be left. Ditto the contents of the freezer, and all of Ginny's plants on the upstairs deck. Gillam's bedroom furniture was moved into the upstairs hall and stacked. The mini-stove in Carly's kitchenette was given away, since Jane wanted to use that space for a stacking washer and dryer upstairs, an idea Myra wished she'd had decades earlier. Carly and Eric moved the furniture from his old room to their apartment.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ROBBERS AND RESISTANCE
(Save My Ass Too, by TMNK, The Me Nobody Knows. Used by permission of the artist. Mixed media on canvas.)
(Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, 1933; photographer unknown.)
My grandfather Bill Atkins ran a gas station in a tiny Crosstimbers town ten miles from the Oklahoma border. He claimed to have once pumped gas for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, giving them free soft drinks when he recognized them. He said they paid him with silver dollars that he was sure came from a recent heist. It's a good story, and certainly their route of coming and going did include that county. But I've never believed it. He was a great teller of tales, and Bonnie and Clyde were much admired in that part of Texas. They robbed banks, you know.
(Jesse and Frank James, Carolinda, Illinois, 1872. Photo from the collection of Phillip W. Steele.)
Bill's father, Joe Atkins, had been a blacksmith on the same block where Bill had his gas station. Joe claimed that around 1880, a couple of hard-looking men rode up on lathered horses. One of the horses had thrown a shoe, and as Joe fitted a new one, he realized they were the James brothers, Jesse and Frank. Joe said he didn't let on, and was glad to see them leave without incident: He did admire them, but people had a way of dying around them. Again, it's a possible event, but unlikely because of the mismatch of timing and geography. People in that community told the story about him, however, more than 60 years after he died. The James boys didn't just rob the hated banks, they often gave away some of the money to ordinary folks in need. Or so the legend goes.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
THINKING ABOUT PAUL NEWMAN
(Paul Newman with campers at a Hole In The Wall Gang Camp; all images in this post from their website)
When I worked at a cancer clinic here, one of the oncologists spent two weeks each summer as the on-site physician for one of Paul Newman's Hole In The Wall Gang Camps in Colorado. His example inspired other members of our staff to donate their vacation time as well to serve at the camp, and one of our extremely competent chemotherapy nurses, Mel, went every year. She was bristly and brisk most of the time: Her job was a hazmat position, and she didn't tolerate any short-cuts. (As you'd wish, in my opinion.) But the camp brought out her deeply tender heart, and I loved hearing her stories after she returned each summer.
The children who attended this camp were profoundly ill, many of them terminally so. They had spent much of their lives in medical settings, shut away from natural environments, spontaneity and risk-taking. The counselors did everything they could to make their two weeks at Hole In The Wall an antidote to the rest of their regimented existence, but sometimes it was a hard sell because the kids were far too used to being dependent and cautious.
There was a tradition that on the next to last night of camp, the most trusted counselor that year would persuade the kids into wrong-doing. A big dessert of some kind would be brought, with much public fanfare, into the cafeteria and stored for a party the next day. Once everyone had gone to bed, the counselor would go from cabin to cabin, rousting well-behaved campers into a raid on the kitchen.
One year it was Mel's turn to lead the raid, the prize being tubs of chocolate ice cream. It took much time to get everyone assembled and on the path to the kitchen, in chairs, on crutches, a few dragging IV poles. Mel said the racket was enormous despite their desperate attempts to proceed with stealth. Since the rest of the staff as in on it, however, no one emerged to demand what was going on.
Once in the kitchen, Mel insisted they operate in complete darkness, which added to the children's thrilled terror. She said it was at this point every year that they began to get into the spirit of it, to revel in their own daring and the denied rebellion of childhood.
They feasted like animals on the ice cream, constantly and vainly shushing one another as the sugar hit their bloodstream. At the peak of their exhilaration, as they were about to sneak triumphantly back to their cabins, Mel released the booby trap, a large pan of silverware which she unobtrusively dropped into the metal sink. The resultant clatter was stupendous.
Children ran in every direction, some of them screaming. As they almost reached their cabins, lights began coming on and other staff would yell to each other behind opening doors, "Did you hear that? Let's go investigate!" Miraculously, however, no child was ever captured. They reached the safety of their own beds and lay there, panting, pulses racing, muffling their own gleeful laughter at the sounds of staff running along the path and loudly repeating the discovery of ice cream theft.
At breakfast the next morning, the camp director would solemnly condemn the actions of thieves. Fortunately, there was a second batch of ice cream in another freezer, and he would conclude with a decision to not punish everyone for the misbehavior of the unknown miscreants. The gloat and shine on the children's faces at getting away with it made Mel suddenly weep as she talked about what it meant to see them having a few minutes of normalcy.
A good life lasts for generations.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
BE YOURS TO HOLD IT HIGH
(Me reading my poetry at the "Hot-Mouthed Texas Women" performance on the grounds of the state capital, Texas Book Fair, 1998)
In follow-up to my last post, about the role books played in my childhood and how reading was handed to me by my mother, here's a poem I wrote about it on the 20th anniversary of her death.
BE YOURS TO HOLD IT HIGH
When I was born, within a week
my eyes began to swell and ooze
They called it eczema and told
my mother to tie down my hands
to keep them from the dreadful itch
She bought the gauze to bind my wrists
but also brought home books of poems
And when I fretted she would read
The Highwayman or Flanders Fields
Jellico Cats and Sam McGee
Because I could not stop for death
Margaret, are you grieving
John Anderson my jo, John
We were very young, we were very merry
Until the wire of cadence shocked
my jellid brain and hissed it live
Aside from every cell I am, this flesh
that shows her womb-stamped sport
as well as face so much like hers --
Aside from that, the finest thing
she ever did was give me verse
© Maggie Jochild, written 24 April 2004, 12:15 p.m.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
BOOKS ARE THE LOVE OF STRANGERS
(Traveler, image copyright by Houston photographer Cara Barer, shown at Pine Street Art Works)
When I was a child, I was home sick with asthma one school day out of five, mostly confined to my bed. Until age nine, this would be in a tiny trailer room with a vaporizer running. My mother was overwhelmed with my little brother, a household to run absent my father, my enraged and epileptic teenaged brother, not enough money, and her own serious health issues. If she made sure I had books, she could leave me on my own for most of the day.
She began reading to me the day after I was born. She'd bought a children's set of encyclopedias before my birth, during a time when money was more flush than usual, and sprinkled throughout each thick maroon volume were clusters of poetry deemed suitable for kids. Which, in the 1950s, was much more challenging literature than it might be now. Probably the first poem she ever recited into my newborn ears was "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. I knew it by heart by the time I was five.
LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, 30 SEPTEMBER 2008
Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.
Monday, September 29, 2008
GINNY BATES: EATING FOR TWO
(Fire-King "Manhattan" tilted pitcher in jadite, made by Hocking Glass, one of only three known)
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
January-February 2014
Ten days before Ginny's birthday, Myra got up at 11 a.m. Ginny met her in the kitchen, saying "I just finished constructing a green goddess salad, but I don't suppose you want that for breakfast."
"Not hardly. I feel really hungry, though, like I'm not getting some essential vitamin" said Myra, opening the fridge.
"I'll make you eggs if you want. How about some cranberry juice?" said Ginny.
"Make it a fried egg sandwich. I'll pour my juice. I'm not drinking Cokes, Ginny, you don't need to run interference. Do we have potatoes left still or did you eat them?"
"We do. You want me to fry them?"
Myra took her juice and sat down at the breakfast bar. "Just nuke 'em, I'll eat 'em plain with salt and pepper. How about avocado?"
"I used it all in the salad. You can have it later. But it sounds to me like you might need potassium, how about a banana?"
Myra took one from the fruit bowl and began eating it. "Not very good with the cranberry, but yeah, it's hitting a spot. What else do you advise?"
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