A few more questions for Marney

After letting Marney's Thanksgiving dinner digest for a while, so to speak, I have a few more questions about her sublime, yet puzzling manifesto/memo to her loved ones.

After the military harangue about containers WITH A LID, and NO aluminum foil (and what's she got against foil? It molds itself to any container, so you DON'T need an exactly-fitting lid!), "HJB" gets off with only two words: Dinner wine.

OK then, I demand to know WHO THIS HJB IS and WHY he or she is exempt from the rules everyone else must follow. My theory is that this is her lover, and they are speaking in code, sexting each other madly between courses. Hell, she doesn't even say WHAT KIND of dinner wine! It could be Wild Turkey or Ripple or some kind of foul home-brew.

The turnips are a real issue with me. Nobody likes these lousy things, they taste like dirt and wax mixed together, so WHY in God's name should the Mike Byron family have to bring them?

And why is this same family burdened with bringing TWO half gallons of premium ice cream, none of that supermarket shit, and bottled water on top of that, when HJB only has to bring a crappy bottle of wine?

I have other questions. Given the sheer volume of the servings, just how many people are coming to this shindig? Must be at least 40 or 50, if they need five pounds of each vegetable (and we'll get to the 15 lbs. of potatoes later. Or maybe we won't, this is all so fucking insane.) If that many are coming, why not spread out these demands over all those families, instead of loading on the preparation, not to mention the expense, on only a few? Are these the members of the clan she really really hates: or, worse, are they all bulimics who plan to stuff their faces, then run behind a bush after the dessert course?

The inconsistencies gall me. If she allows turnips, why not beans? Beans are life in some cultures. The NO COCKTAIL SAUCE rule is also a bit opaque. Hey, it's great on those shrimp you get in a plastic ring in the frozen section. You can pretend it's the '60s and you've just ordered one of those shrimp cocktails in a parfait glass full of ice where the shrimp are hooked all around, with the tails left on. And why can't Lisa just buy a goddamn plastic platter and transfer the veggies onto her platter (WITH A LID, OF COURSE)? Are hand-prepared veggies any better, or are you just torturing her by demanding 2 or 3 hours of preparation time?

The proscuitto (Marney's not much of a speller) pin wheel is a real puzzler. What's a "pin wheel", anyway? It's one of dem-dere thangs you stick in the ground in yore yarrd, and it spins around whenever there's a breeze. Prosciutto is ham, ain't it? Either that, or a big round chunk of cheese. In any case, the "no need to bring a plate" rule is puzzling in light of Marney's fixation on the correct containers (with lids that fit!). Is Michelle supposed to balance it on her lap or spin it around in the air or something?

Marney must really hate the June Davis family. Peeling potatoes for 15 lbs. of mash would be something like KP duty in the army. Forrest Gump comes to mind. And that oversized blue serving dish. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH IT? ANYWAY? Doesn't it have a goddamn lid or something? If someone's willing to peel 157 potatoes, they should be able to bring them in a plastic garbage pail (with a lid!) if they want to.

Now, Amy Misto is my favorite. I could get along with Amy. Note that while she is required to bring two pies (as she's supposedly too idiotic to do anything else), she is NOT required to bring a pie knife. That particular duty falls to The Michelle Bobble Family. Why is this? BECAUSE AMY MISTO IS A CRAZED PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT and she can't be trusted with knives!

But I'll tell you this right now. Someone in the family is going to make sure she gets her hands on that pie knife. Oh yeah! She will get her revenge for that dig about "why do I even bother she will never read this", not to mention the insistence she bring her pie in a pie dish (when the prosciutto pinwheel doesn't even need a plate!). This will teach her once and for all that there's no such thing as a "silver palate" (though there may well be a heart of stone).

Who does this Marney think she is? Anyway? And is anyone really looking forward to the 28th, except to see the attempted murder in the bedroom (in which Marney is caught in flagrante delicto dusting the furniture with HJB)?

I have just one more question. WHERE'S THE GODDAMN TURKEY?

A squirrel of one's own

From way back in the memory junk drawer, I recently retrieved an image (or a song, or whatever-it-was) of Martin Short playing the bizarre Jackie Rogers, Jr., a performer always on the verge of being buried by his own pretentiousness.

What sticks in my mind like a paper clip is a song he did: "Pardon me, miss, but I've never done this/With a real, live squirrel."

I remembered the original, smarmy song from the Mike
Douglas Show, one of those '60s things that sounds predatory and creepy now (a "real live girl?" As opposed to a blow-up doll?). It was like something playing in a bar on Mad Men. Well, OK then, what's the connection to me as I sit here over coffee (God, it's too strong, give me more) contemplating my "new" surroundings?

I've never had a real live office before. Never. The room I've worked in since I started writing with a computer in Year Zero isn't really an office, it's more of a utility room. There are cheap bookcases everywhere, crammed and cluttered with other people's stuff. My husband is a kind of controlled hoarder (controlled by me, I mean) who just sort of exudes or emits this stuff, little coils of wire, black plastic things, used twist ties, boxes that haven't been opened since 1972. He keeps instruction manuals for appliances that have long ago bit the dust. On top of that, one of his desks with an old obsolete computer on it was pushed against the wall, never used, just stored.

The stuff that was mine wasn't work-related: craft boxes full of felt and beads and feathers, and and and. The place had become a catch-all.

What happened was this: our usual screaming territorial battles escalated when he went into semi-retirement and spent even more time clumping back and forth between the main part of the house and the garage. This meant clumping right through my non-office, the only room with an access door, a door which had to be slammed heavily (or so he believed) every time he clumped on through.

It was getting bad, I mean, really bad. He just didn't see that there was a problem. Why was it disturbing me that he ran a power saw in the garage, when there was a whole wall between us? Why was it bothersome that he had blathering ad-infested talk radio on full-volume as he worked because he's deaf as a cucumber?

I just ground my teeth a lot and put up with it until he suggested something.

"You know the bird room."

"Yeah. The bird room."

"Upstairs."

"Yeah."

"I had this idea, but I don't think you're going to like it."

"Try me."

"What if we switched your office with the bird room? I mean, put the bird down here. This would be his bedroom. Then you'd have your own private room upstairs and I could do anything I wanted in the garage."

It was one of those idiot-simple solutions that no one had ever thought of before. Jasper is the most spoiled 3"-long bird in history, with a cage that takes up 1/4 of the room. Wouldn't he be happier downstairs where he could have his own bedroom and be part of things? Why was this so unthinkable?

When my long-grown-up kids found out about this, they looked almost offended. "Whaaaat? What are you going to do that for?"

Move something in the house? In the house?

"Sure. The bird needs a change."

This may have had something to do with the fact we're finally putting some money into the place and getting a new bathroom and new windows and stuff like that. I hate change, and my first reaction was unease, even dread, but I was absolutely gobsmacked when the change was made relatively smoothly and without mishap.

Instead of fuming and tripping all over and missing the stack of 750 padded mailers in the old place, I find I. . I. . .

I like it here.

I have a view, which I never did in the old place, unless you count a wall with a huge tacky bulletin board on it. It's all cedary, layers of feathery green which right now has a gentle drizzle sifting through. On nice days, if they ever come, I'll have sunlight. I can see birds flitting about. In 25 years here, I have never looked out this window. I never had this perspective, ever. It was wasted on a dumb bird.

The room kind of wraps around my desk (a huge desk which I love, and which was in storage for years before I realized I could be using it). These are my books in the bookcases, not frayed copies of Shell Busey's Home Ideas and How to Repair Practically Anything.

It's just. . . my stuff, my space. I feel both humbled and exalted. The energy is completely different, almost cocoon-like (when I feared it would be claustrophobic). My old amplifier from 1973 is gone, replaced by a sleek model that looks like it might have come from this century.

There are carpets, which softens the sound of everything. I like it.

I could go on and on about all that "room of one's own" stuff. And I wonder now if I'll be able to concentrate without all that clumping and slamming. Will I miss the hissing arguments, his posing as a bloody saint wronged by a heartless, selfish bitch? Well, we can still do that in Ikea when we can't agree on a lamp. (Snarling at each other in public is especially enjoyable.) And have a few Swedish meatballs with gravy in the cafeteria while we're at it.

The good fairy came (or maybe the sanity fairy), and now Pinocchio is a real boy. I never thought it would happen. And hey: what's that I see leaping from branch to branch in my stunning new view? Could it be. . . a real live squirrel?

Cereal monogamy

This blog was originally going to be about the Writer's Life, until I realized there were already approximately one billion blogs called the Writer's Life, so to hell with that idea! I do however like the image of the tightrope walker (a picture of great-uncle Howard in 1906) and its implications of an endless struggle for balance.

That's a long way of saying I can write about anything I bloody want to, and probably will. The last blog I tried to keep, which eventually crashed in flames, was far too creative (hmph!) and eventually harassed into an early demise.

Or at least that's how it seemed to me.

This one, well, I'm barely keeping a foothold as I struggle with details that are probably ridiculously simple for anyone else. So I just bash away at it, wondering what all those little dragonflies are and why I can't post a photo in the middle of my post. Oh foo, someone will attack me soon anyway.

So what's this about? Cornflakes, I guess, and the way a certain man eats them (every day for 37 years, and perhaps more). Do I represent the cornflakes of his life? In any case, that's how long we've been together.

People wax romantic (or at least wax their cars) when they find out that we've been together for such a jaw-dropping amount of time. I was, of course, ten when I married him. Bill is a good guy, but he drives me crazy. He's irritating. He has gone deaf and won't admit it. And God, he looks old. If he's my mirror, then I am in big trouble.

But nothing could ever take the place of so much shared experience, grief, elation, and the boring trudge of everyday existence. The cornflakes of life. There are still times when I wonder if I can stand this, but I know no one else could live with me, with my permanent tendency to ricochet when things go wrong or I get pissed off.

He's a good guy, like I said, a very smart guy, a professionial (environmental expert, which is direly needed these days), but most of all a man who protects his family and loves them without reservation. His Dad lived to be 93 and towards the end, ANYTHING would make him cry. It was irritating, but what's even more irritating is that Bill is moving inexorably in the same direction. As my daughter once put it, "He cried when the hamster died."

There's a neat saying that sums it all up: "The rocks in his head fit the holes in mine." I'm supposed to be the crazy one, but maybe we're meeting in the middle (or I've driven him crazy, whatever). I don't get it, the unutterable part of it, the thing I can't explain: maybe it's like that old Jerome Kern song, Bill.

"And I can't explain, it's surely not his brain

That makes me thrill

I love him, because he's -

I don't know,

Because he's just. . . my. . . Bill."

Oh yah.