Helloween

It’s that time of year again.  The smell of pumpkin scented candles, the crisp, vibrant leaves, the fact that I weigh ten pounds more than I should from eating candy – Halloween!  Halloween is typically not one of my favorite holidays simply because I’m not much of a dresser-upper.  Also, I’m not crafty or creative so I can’t really do much to help the girls with their costumes.  We always have to go with something store-bought rather than something I piece together or, even less likely, make.

But, as the girls have gotten older, I have enjoyed Halloween more and more.  Our neighborhood always has a get-together and there are always lots of other families to trick-or-treat with.  It’s fun to watch the girls happily race from house to house in their silly costumes with their friends.  There is no shortage of festivities – even for the parents – and I was actually looking forward to it this year.  This was the first of many of the night’s major miscalculations.

To start things off, we had some issues with our costumes this year.  Meg first declared she wanted to go as Satan.  Not a devil – specifically Satan.  I told her that no, she couldn’t do that.  It was inappropriate.  She then went to her back-up – a caterpillar.  I suppose if your mom won’t let you be Satan, the next best thing is a caterpillar…  The trouble is, there aren’t very many caterpillar costumes for six year olds out there.  Most of the ones that are available are bunting-type costumes for infants.  So, we punted that and decided that, given her love of 101 Dalmatians, she should be Cruella DeVille.  The trouble with that one is that Cruella isn’t exactly a current Disney character.  I could not find a single kids’ Cruella costume and I certainly wasn’t capable of making one.  They did have some sexy looking “Naughty Dognapper” costumes for adults, but nothing appropriate for her, so we were back to square one.

We landed on a clown costume – clowns are a good costume.  You know as soon as you see it that you’re looking at a clown.  I’m not wild about those costumes out there that are “Rainbow Fairy” or “Ice Princess”.  What the hell is a rainbow fairy?  What does ice have to do with being a princess?  I don’t like ‘em.  It’s not obvious what they are at first glance.  So, I convinced Meg that she wanted to be a clown.  I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be a horrible, horrible decision.

Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, Kate announced – I’m going to say back in April – that she was going to go as “a little girl on crutches”.  Last year I managed to talk her out of it.  “But Kate”, I reasoned, “How will you trick-or-treat on crutches?  How will you hold your candy bag?”  She acquiesced and went as a black cat last year.  This year, I explained all of this to her again but to no avail.  I found a cheap pair of children’s crutches that I actually had some guilt about buying.  Somewhere there was going to be an injured kid hobbling around without any crutches so that my strange child could pretend to need them.

I also purchased gauze and fake blood spray thinking that I’d wrap her head and other body parts so that people would understand that the crutches were part of a costume and not the result of a playground injury.  It occurred to me that Kate going door to door looking like an accident victim might be offensive to someone but I felt badly about squashing her dreams a second year in a row, so I reluctantly got on board.  She was excited so I didn’t have anything to be concerned about.  Oh how very wrong I was about this, too.

As I was putting the clown make-up on Meg’s face, Mike was “helping out” by wrapping Kate’s leg and foot with gauze.  Mike wanted to be part of getting them ready which is so sweet.  The girls cast him aside sometimes.  He can’t do hair.  He doesn’t know which clothes match.  They just don’t have any confidence in him when it comes to those kinds of things.  So, he was happy that Kate allowed him to wrap up her leg. 

As I would put one part of the make-up on Meg’s face, she’d turn around to the mirror and look at herself.  At every opportunity, she’d catch a glimpse.  She was growing more and more excited as I did her eyes, her mouth, etc.  The more she looked like a clown, the more excited she became.

Kate was excited too.  The gauze was looking more and more like a real cast.  Meg, Mike and I even signed it with get well wishes to make it look authentic.  I wrapped more of the gauze around her head but she decided against the bloody spray.  We were ready to go.

Except… Right when she stood up, Kate began experiencing pain in her wrapped leg.  First it seemed minor.  Then, within seconds of mentioning a slight discomfort, she was bawling.  She was so uncomfortable that she knew she’d never make it trick or treating.  Mike was visibly dejected.  All of his hard work and he still couldn’t get it right.  She was losing feeling in her leg.  I looked and it was wrapped about as tightly as was humanly possible.  Poor Mike.  He can’t win with them sometimes.  We decided he needed to unwrap the gauze and just start over. 

Here’s the funny thing: Mike hadn’t used gauze at all. He had used medical tape.  Therefore, he was going to have to rip it off of her tightly bound leg (which actually might not be that bad given that she didn’t have much feeling left in her leg).  The feeling came back, though, as he began to pull off the first few layers of her skin.  She was screaming and crying throughout the grueling process.  I was standing there DYING to tell her that I told her that this would be a horrible costume choice but of course, I couldn’t do that to her.  I’ll do it later.  Remind me to.

Mike felt terrible that he was hurting her.  She requested that I be the one to re-wrap it and he sunk quietly into the background and took to getting Meg loaded into the car.  Once she was wrapped with gauze instead of medical tape, we got into the car.  Her eyes were red from the crying but we all knew that a fun, festive night was on the horizon.  Or at least for the next 2&1/2 minutes.

We arrived late to the hotdog dinner due to the experience that we’ll now refer to as “Tape-Gate”.  Most families were already there with the children admiring each other’s costumes and the parents looking proudly on.  Almost instantly, one little girl gave Meg a funny look and my precious clown burst into tears and immediately demanded we go home.  What she didn’t know at the time that we found out later was that the little girl’s mother is petrified of clowns.  When her daughter saw Meg, she ran to tell her mother that there was a clown there just to tease her.  All Meg saw was that a girl had a look on her face that indicated something other than what she had wanted and it ruined her entrance to the party.

With the tears flowing, it dawned on me that if I was going to get a picture of the two of them, it was going to have to be soon or she would cry all of her make-up off.  I grabbed her big red nose and shoved it onto her face and told them both emphatically that we were going to get a cute, happy picture.  I let Meg know that she was free to go back to crying once I had captured the staged moment of festive fun.  That poor child literally would bawl and then flash a quick smile for my camera and then cry out again.  What a horrible mother I am. 

 One of many shots like this

And finally a good one!



 

Meanwhile, as soon as the last picture was snapped, Kate ripped off her head wrap saying that it was too uncomfortable.  This left her only with crutches and a wrapped foot.  There was nothing that looked “costumey” about her ensemble.  I didn’t like it, but the more pressing problem was the sobbing clown, so I let it go.

Meg began hiding at the back of the building where everyone was gathering saying over and over again, “I don’t want to be a clown for Halloween!”  I felt awful because it had been my idea for her to be a clown.  She looked adorable to me, of course, but also a little ridiculous.  She had a painted face and a rainbow-colored afro for crying out loud (Crying out loud - that’s exactly what she was doing.)  Normally I can talk some sense into her, but she was clearly embarrassed.  Self-conscious for the first time that I can remember.  She was begging me to take her home.  Begging.  I thought back to that morning when I woke her up and she happily jumped out of bed and shouted, “Happy Halloween!”  She had been so excited and now she was devastated.  She had loved how she looked when we left the house and now she didn’t want to be seen.  It was heartbreaking.

After some begging of my own, I managed to convince her to come inside and eat some dinner.  She and Kate sat together at a table and I had to forcibly extricate my arm from her grasp in order to go fix her a plate.  I was looking around for Mike because I needed him to stay with her in my absence because she was still very upset.  I couldn’t find him so I went about fixing them a plate.  I returned and only saw Kate.  Upon further inspection, I noticed the rainbow-colored scraggles of her wig peeking up from underneath the table.  She was hiding.

I was trying to reason with the despondent clown by telling her not to let someone else make her change how she feels about herself and blah, blah, blah but it wasn’t working.  Her carefully drawn make up was now slowly dripping down her tear-stained face until she began looking like one of those horror movie murderous clowns instead of the cute, silly circus kind.  As I was giving my best parenting “be proud of who you are” speech, I caught a glimpse of Mike outside with his buddies, beer in hand, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding inside.  He, of course, had no idea she was so upset.  Had he known, he would have been inside helping me.   He didn't; so he wasn't.  I had to go it alone.  I found out later that he was able to enjoy two hotdogs while I only managed to get a few sips of a glass of wine before pouring it all over myself trying to wrestle with the forlorn clown. This was not my night.

Finally, we took off Meg's wig and hat and that seemed to make her less self-conscious.  I told her if she wanted to go home I would take her but that I really didn’t want her to miss out on a fun Halloween.  The lure of candy proved too much for her and she reluctantly decided to stay out and trick or treat.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that she wanted ME to go up to each house with her bag while she hid behind her dad.  I wasn't going to allow that.  Instead, I went with her to the first few houses until she felt more comfortable doing it on her own.  We ran into the mom whose daughter inadvertently started all of this, and once she found out all that had transpired, she had a good conversation with Meg and managed to single-handedly save the evening.  Of course, I had an empty stomach and a now-full glass of wine, so I was happy as well.

As I suspected would be the case, Kate realized at about the third house we went to that she couldn’t get around as quickly as the other children.  She was, as you’ll recall, on crutches.  She began picking them up and sprinting to the houses.  Then she just handed them to Mike and me so that we could carry them to each house along the route.  She also discovered that, lo and behold, it was too cumbersome to carry crutches and her candy bag, so guess who got to tote around her bag?  I felt confident that somewhere along the way I had mentioned all of these things as potential problems, but Kate acted as though this was a new discovery.  Grrrrr. 

Her costume was puzzling to people, too.  They’d see her coming and they’d say, “Oh, we will bring the candy to you.”  Or, “Sweetie, what happened to your leg?"  I’d have to explain that this was, in fact, her costume and then read the “what kind of a weird-ass family ARE you?” expression on their faces.  She was happy, though, so what did it matter?

We did eventually have fun trick or treating.  All of us.  We have great friends/neighbors to go with so once all of the crises were out of the way and my own feelings of embarrassment over the psychotic clown and limping weirdo had subsided, we managed to enjoy ourselves.  We went to a friend’s house toward the end of the evening where I was finally able to get some food – and boy did I eat.  The problem was that we stayed out so long that we only ended up getting three trick-or-treaters once we got home.  That means that I have about 37 pounds of candy still in my house.  Calling me.  Begging me to eat it.

The drama surrounding Halloween really surprised me.  It seemed to come out of nowhere and when it hit, it hit hard.  We have never had a fun event turn into such a stressful experience like that.  Other parents have shared their own stories with me over the years – spoiled holidays, ruined vacations.  I’ve always felt bad for them that their children were not as well-adjusted as mine.  Well, reality has hit the McCallie household and I now have the knowledge that my children are as crazy as everyone else's.  There is some comfort in that, I suppose.  Safety in numbers.  And now that Halloween is successfully behind I us, I can look forward to a nice, peaceful Thanksgiving.  Right?

RIGHT?????!!!

 

 

Duds

About two years ago, I wrote about our dog, Dudley, who was aging and was beginning to play upon my nerves.  He was 14 at the time; a good and loyal friend who was beginning to show his age.  That sweet boy died last month at the age of 16.  Our whole family is a little bit pitiful without our faithful friend and family member.  The house is quieter; vacant without him.

What could I possibly say about dogs that hasn’t already been eloquently said by countless writers?  Quite simply, dogs are better than we are.  Kinder in a lot of ways.  More loving.  More open and inviting.  What you see is what you get.  They don’t judge.  They just love.  They treat you like a rock star when you come home after having only been gone ten minutes.  They are fiercely loyal.  They forgive.  They offer themselves completely.  True, they sometimes offer gifts from their bowels in unexpected places, but it’s a small price to pay for what you get in return.

Dudley became the standard by which Mike and I will forever judge other dogs.  He was in our lives for our most important life events.  Our wedding.  Our move to Chattanooga. The births of our daughters.  The purchase of our lake home (which I still contend Mike bought specifically for Dudley).  He was the constant.

 Our girls loved him very much – he’d been with them their whole lives.  But our next dog will be the one they will more identify their childhood with.  We will get a puppy at some point and the girls will be involved in his or her life from the beginning.  Duds was grumpy in his later years.  He didn’t love the girls as much as they wanted him to.  About a year ago, Kate was talking about the fact that Dudley wouldn’t be here forever and would we get another dog someday.  I told her yes and she suggested that we get the type that “doesn’t bite at me”.  He was simply growing tired and they were rambunctious.  A puppy will LOVE that rambunctiousness and that will bind them to a new puppy to a bigger extent than they were to Dudley.  But Dudley will be the dog Mike and I talk about for the rest of our lives.  Sure, we will love other pets, but not like Dudley.

In his absence, I am finding that we talked about him all the time.  We would give him this elaborate back story on pretty much a daily basis.  We’d be watching a movie and one of us would say, “Remember when Dudley did that?  Remember when he was the head of that drug cartel and killed all of those people?”  Or I’d put his little Christmas jingle bell collar on him at the holidays and Mike would fuss at me: “Maggie, why do you do that every year when you know Dudley is Jewish?”  We did this EVERY DAY.  Our girls did it too.  “Guess who had to go to the principal’s office today.  Dudley.”   If we couldn’t find him inside the house immediately, one of us would suggest that he was outside smoking with his “bad seed” friend, Robert.  I didn’t really realize how much we talked about him or somehow inserted him into a story or event but I find myself about to do it now and I get that little pang of sadness.

He had too many nicknames to count.  He was, of course, Dudley.  Duds.  But early on in our relationship, Mike thought he looked like a goat due to the scruff under his chin, so he became “The Goat”.  Then Goatey.  Then, in some intricate tale I don’t even remember the origin of, Goateres Banderas. He was Buddy Budders.  Buddy Butter Bean.  Smallest Friend.  Señor.  And the list goes on.  In fact, we called him so many things that it has occurred to me that maybe he didn’t lose his hearing as soon as I thought he did.  Maybe he just didn’t have any idea we were talking to him.

 We also incorporated him into songs.  All songs and TV themes could and would be routinely Dudley-ized in our house.  We also had some songs we had written (not written down, mind you - that would be pathetic and not “cool” like the rest of this that I’m sharing) and continued to sing over the years.  I’m not saying they were great songs, but certain occasions called for a good homespun Dudley ballad.  Again, I didn’t realize how often we would do this but now that he’s gone, I catch myself doing it all the time. 

 It makes me profoundly sad that he is not here anymore.  Sixteen years is a long time to have a pet.  I was 24 years old when I got him.  His routines were my routines.  There is a void there now that he’s gone.  I now fix the girls’ lunches for school and expect to hear his little nails scrape across the floor as the scent of the lunch meat proves too hard for him to ignore.  When I roll over in the bed, I expect to hear the tired little grunt he would let out when I was disturbing him.  I feel like I still need to let him out at night before bedtime.  I don’t quite remember life before him and I’m having a hard time adjusting to life without him.

We had known for a while that he was not long for this world.  He had been in decline as you would expect a 16 year old dog to be.  That said, he was very healthy right up until the time he… wasn’t.  It was not a long and dragged out process, thankfully.  It was basically one bad weekend and then I knew.  He wouldn’t eat the scrambled cheese eggs (his favorite) I had put in his bowl on Friday morning and then I cried for the rest of the weekend with the knowledge that he was coming to his end.  On Monday morning, we made an appointment for that afternoon.  I drove him there.  I took him out of his crate.  I carried him in.  There was something so personal about it.  I was the one carrying him to his death.  That’s the worst part about it.  With a dog, you have to determine when it is time.

We had decided to have the doctor examine him just to be sure we were making the right decision.  If he was simply sick and we could give him some meds and get a good 6-12 months out of him, we would do that.  But if there would be no quality to his life, we would not put him through that.  I knew when we took him in that he was more than likely not going to be coming home.  I had prepared the girls and they got to spend some time with him before I left for the vet.  Mike was coming in from out of town and was trying to get me to put off the appointment until Tuesday morning.  I was against that because I didn’t want to go through having a “last night” with him.  I felt like it would be too painful to go through a big production of saying goodbye.  So, he met me there at the vet’s office.

The vet examined him and found several large masses in his intestines and possibly in his liver.  It was bad.  It was time.  That actually made me feel better.  We had no choice but to let him go.  I had always pictured holding him – being there with him in the end.  I wanted to do that, of course, but now he was as much Mike’s dog as he was mine.  I didn’t want to rob Mike of the opportunity to also be a part of it, so he and I held him together.  A few times, Dudley looked around; searched for my eyes.  We told him to relax.  We pet him.  We told him we loved him and would miss him.  I’m not sure what all we said to him, but we just wanted him to feel loved - cuddled - in those last moments.  They first gave him a shot to make him peaceful.  Then they gave him THE shot.  He closed his eyes.  We cried.  The doctor put the stethoscope up to his heart and she looked at us and nodded solemnly.  He was gone. 

People have been very kind since we lost him.  Most of them simply understand what it feels like to lose a beloved pet and can relate to our grief.  But the people who knew him – or us – (to know us was to know him) recognized how quirky and silly he was and what a huge part of our lives he was.  We have been told by many people that it was obvious he lived a good life.  He had a lake house.  He slept in a king-sized bed.  He went to the beach, the mountains, and everywhere in between.  And he had a family who adored him.  In truth, he may have had the best life of any dog ever in the history of pet ownership.  Mike and I were fairly obnoxious about him.  It’s kind of embarrassing.  But we loved that boy.  If you think about it, our family started with Dudley.  We simply added on from there.

Yes, he had a good life, but we were the lucky ones.  He brought so much joy to us.  His sweet little face and his silly little personality – he really brightened our day.  I know he was “just a dog” but to be just a dog is to enhance the lives of the people who take you in.  And he certainly did ours.  Will Rogers said, “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.”  The girls have heard that dogs don’t go to heaven and so they are sad that they will never see him again.  I told them that I believe that heaven is where you are reunited with the people and things you cared about in life.  That said, I believe he is there, waiting for us.  I picture him in a big expanse of water, swimming after his racquetball.  Snarling at his brother Bailey.  Napping and then waking up only to eat some steak (medium rare, of course). 

Take care, Duds.  And thank you for loving us as you did.  I’ll throw the ball for you when I get there.

 

 Dudley McCallie

1997-2013

 

 

 

 

The Big 4-0

A couple of weeks ago, I turned 40.  Wow.  Just writing that is exhausting.  I can’t believe I’m 40.  Middle-aged.  Half dead.

I remember as a child when my parents hit 40, being so upset because I was just sure that they’d die soon.  Both are still alive so I suppose that is a good sign.  When I turned 30, I actually relished it.  I still felt very young and yet I knew myself well; I had reached a point where I felt good about my life and the direction it was going.  As I lay in bed on the eve of my 40th though, I was suddenly jarred from my peaceful attempt at falling asleep by a horrible thought: If I live to be 80, I’m halfway done.  Holy cow!  How is that possible?!  Granted, I have had a lot of good fortune in my life.  I have had a good childhood for the most part, good friends, good jobs, good food, good music, good laughs, a great husband, and wonderful children.  But there are a lot of little things I don't remember.  The older I get, the more old memories fade to make room for new ones.  How much of my life today will fade away from my memory?

Really, I feel too clueless and immature to be a middle-aged woman.  I’m not ready to fullyaccept it and I am far from being ready to embrace it.  In fact, I’ve not been on the elliptical machine since my birthday because I don’t want to have to increase my age in all of my saved information.  I’m worried that when it calculates my burned caloriesbased on my age and weight, it might end my workouts with the current message of “Great Workout” but add “..for an old person”.  

I really don’t feel middle aged.  Yes, I have been having hot flashes for about a year now.  And yes, I do spend more time in the restroom than I ever have before (in other words, I’ve turned into a man).  But the main reminder of my age is that sometimes when I blink, the little fold of skin above my right eyelid droops a bit and I have to work harder to force my eye open.  It’s like the youthful elasticity snaps every once in a while and my skin just collapses, forcing my eye to close.  I can’t imagine how ridiculous I look when I’m speaking to people and I blink like a normal person would only to have my eye-skin droop and then have to bug my eyes out to correct it.

It’s like I go from this:

 

 To this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It's probably quite disconcerting for those innocent people simply trying to have a normal conversation with me.

My actual birthday was a great day.  First of all, my sweet daughters excitedly wished me a happy birthday first thing in the morning.  It’s so nice to be greeted with love from the two of them.  My hubby was sweet too.  He took care of the morning routine so I could have that time off.  I ran with a friend – a little over three miles.  We had a good pace which I thought was an accomplishment since I was now 40.  I also treated myself to a 90-minute massage that may be the best one I’ve ever had.  And then that night, we went with friends to Atlanta to catch the Mumford and Sons concert.  Mumford and Sons – they’re hip.  “The young people” like them.  Maybe I’m still reasonably cool for an old lady.

Of course something that happened the following morning threw that “reasonably cool” assessment into question.  We were in line at Starbucks (Cool) where I ordered the weakest blend possible (Not Very Cool – you have to order a skinny frappa-something-or-other to be Cool).  While I was waiting for my order, I spilled a little bit of water from my gigantic water jug that I always carry (Uncool).  I grabbed some napkins to wipe it up so no one would slip on the wet floor.  Right there I’m thinking like a responsible adult (Uncool).  Worried that those “rambunctious kids” might get hurt.  At any rate, I wiped up my spill and then I actually turned to my friend and said the following:

I’m going to get a few extra napkins to put in my purse in case we need them.

Oh.

My.

GAWD!!!

Not only did I turn 40, but in that one moment, I accepted my fate and leapt forward to the behavior of someone twice my age.  I mean, who carries a giant wad of napkins in their purse?!  Old ladies do, that’s who.  And why am I still calling it a purse?  Now that I’m 40, I guess I should just start calling it a “pocketbook” and just get it over with.  I already have a set of tweezers in my pocketbook so that I can pluck any errant whiskers that I run across.  All I need to complete the package is an adult diaper.  In fact, as a fun little game, I decided to check the current contents of my pocketbook just to see how sad this state of affairs actually is.  Here’s what we’ve got:

1. Wallet and keys (Necessities – not Cool, not Uncool.  Neutral)

2. Gum (Neutral)

3. Sunglasses (Coach aviators – cool!)
…in the sunglasses case so they don’t get scratched (Uncool)

3. Lip gloss (Neutral), lipstick (Neutral), powder (Neutral, but bordering on Uncool), tweezers (Extremely Uncool), nail file (Neutral), a comb (Unacceptable – a comb?!  Who uses a comb?  Old ladies do.), a safety pin (Uncool – it indicates I am planning ahead for a situation which would call for one), Hand sanitizer (Debatable), and a tampon (Cool!  Thank God I’m still young enough to menstruate!)
…all of these items in a zipper pouch for easy access (Uncool)
...Said pouch was purchased at Walmart (Uncool. And Shameful)

4. A travel container of ibuprofen (Neutral.  Thank heavens I finished my Goody powders before deciding to make this list.)

5. A jump drive (Cool!  It indicates I’m technologically savvy and that I can navigate “the cyberspace”)

6. Travel-sized Kleenex (Dammit.  Uncool but at least it’s not a handkerchief.  That would have been worse.)

7. Three pens – one can never be too prepared (Uncool – one shouldn’t refer to oneself as “one”.)

Well, it isn’t great, but I suppose it could have been worse.  And what am I worried about being cool for anyway?  I’ve never been particularly cool (Uncool).  It shouldn’t matter now if it never mattered before.  Maybe instead of looking through my pocketbook for my “cool” validation, I ought to refer to the most recent movie I watched.                                       

Crap!  It was Clue.

 Okay, the book I’m reading.

 Dammit!  It’s Linda Ronstadt’s memoir.

 What’s currently playing on my iPod???

 Oh, hell, it’s Carole King.

 

My most recent purchase?

 

Shitbiscuits!  It was toothpaste for sensitive teeth.

I give up.  I’m 40 and uncool and there’s nothing I can do about it.  Can’t go backwards.  Hopefully when my kids think about my age, they won’t be concerned that my death from old age is imminent.  And hopefully it isn’t.  I’d like to think that the phrase “Many happy returns” still applies to me.   And I’d like to think that I can keep my mind and my body from aging too quickly.  Gotta keep my whiskers plucked and whatnot.  And if for some reason I become incontinent or start drooling on myself in the near future, at least you know where you can find a giant wad of napkins to clean me up.

 

Circles

It’s funny how something as somber and sobering as a death can provide a platform for so much laughter, music, and silliness.  Early last week, I lost someone close to me.  It’s funny to say that since this man was of no relation and was a good three decades older than I.  And yet he was a huge part of one of the best parts of my life.  My friend, Andy, was actually one of my father’s friends.  They had known each other growing up but not well.  They only became good friends about 15 years ago when they were brought together by other close friends of my father to sing in a little band that called themselves “The Elderly Brothers”.  

Ben would provide the strong voice and witty banter.  Tom would provide the guitar, mandolin and baritone.  My dad would provide the guitar and more witty banter (or less, depending on how you looked at it).  And Andy would provide the banjo-pickin’.  And he was really, really good.  The whole group was.  I don’t know how good they really were since I was, of course, biased.  But to me, it was the greatest music I had ever heard.  These men so enjoyed playing together – mostly songs of their youth – folk, with a little bluegrass mixed in here and there, and even a little more current (like, 1970’s) pop fare.  If you were a fan of that music, you couldn’t help but want to sing along.  And most of what they played, I had heard ad nauseum as a child myself.  Most people my age, if you polled them, would a. Not have any Kingston Trio songs on their I-pods or b. Even know who the Kingston Trio was.  I am not embarrassed to admit that I can answer affirmatively to both.

The group was formed over a slightly drunken weekend in Atlanta at the home of our dear friends, the Greers, who provided the inspiration for my daughter’s middle name.  I don’t quite recall exactly how it all came to be, but my memory is that by the end of the weekend, they had decided to play together at the rehearsal dinner of Ben’s older son.  During the singing and merriment (and wine consumption) my sister, who I will never forgive, came up with the name “The Elderly Brothers”.  It paid homage to the better-known Everly Brothers whose song Bye, Bye Love would be featured in the Elderly Brothers’ playlist while also pointing out that these men were old friends.  Old in the sense that their friendships went pretty far back, but also that they were grayer than they had once been.  It was the perfect name and one of those comic gems that I am so jealous I didn’t come up with.  Well played, Mary.  Bitch.

I had grown up knowing the Greers, but Tom and Andy and their families came into my life that weekend.  I immediately was comfortable with them.  I knew they understood the same kind of humor I did and they certainly enjoyed the same kind of music I had been raised on.  Each of the Elderlys and their wives were intelligent and hilarious.  Curious and interesting.  Just really neat people.  All of them.  That weekend was such fun for me.  It was a treat to be included and to instantly be treated as one of their long, lost friends.  These people were not “Mr. and Mrs. Kilpatrick” to me.  They were Tom and Bebe.  Andy and Jina.  And of course, Ben and Lynda.  I would have enjoyed simply watching them sing and laugh from a distance as I was required to do as a child due to the adult language and drinking.  But, given that I was now an adult, I was part of the fold.  And I will always be grateful for that.

Somehow, most likely due to a large amount of wine, my sister and I had agreed along with Lynda that we would also perform with them at the rehearsal dinner..  I started the weekend as Maggie Prugh, grad student.  I ended it as Maggie Prugh, one of the three members of the Viagras; backup singers to the Elderly Brothers.  And thus was born one of the best experiences of my life – my kinship with this group of people.

Ever since last Monday when I got the news that Andy had succumbed to the liver cancer that had invaded his body, I have had a hard time articulating – even to myself – how important these people have been in my life.  A lot of people grow up with “close family friends”.  We really didn’t.  I mean, we knew the Greers and thought they were hilarious.  One the occasions when they would visit, my sister and I would hide in the stairwell with a tape recorder and record all of the singing and laughing.  I knew even as a child that this was something special.  I remembered them visiting when I was fairly young, but we didn’t really see them during the middle and high school years.  I’m not sure when my parents reconnected with them on the level that led to more visits, but it wasn’t during most of my youth.  My parents had friends in town that they would get together with on occasion, but never with us kids.  We never really were close to any of their friends.  So when, as an adult, I became close with these people who had a shared history with my father, it was really an emotional connection for me.

Plus, these are really, really, interesting people.  They are well-read.  They are active.  They are creative and introspective.  I’ve always thought that my own friends were such neat people.  And they are.  All of my close friends are smart; all of them funny.  You can’t be funny without being smart.  It doesn’t work.  If you are a close friend of mine and you are reading this, know that that’s what I think of you.  If I allow myself to be close to you, I regard you as being “a couple of clicks above”.  (I realize that makes me sound pretty pretentious, but that’s how I feel about my friends.  I could be a total loser and you could be too, but I regard you as not being a loser.  So there.)  But the Elderly group is on a different plane than even my closest friends.  They are a group with whom I have shared some really beautiful and intimate times.

Music binds me to people.  So does humor.  So the fact that I share both with the Elderly Brothers and their wives makes them some of the most important people I have ever had, or will ever have, in my life.  There’s something that happens when you sit around a room together and sing and drink wine and laugh.  There is an intimacy in that goes beyond anything I could adequately describe.  There is a love that forms even if most of what’s spoken are well-timed insults and hilarious quips that make reference to long-running jokes.  All of the Elderlys and their wives have a deep love for one another.  And I have been lucky enough to be a part of their group for going on 15 years now.  My husband has been part of the group for 12 years now.  They have welcomed us in without ever realizing how important it would be to me.  Watching my husband sit around play guitar with them (is it any wonder I married a music lover?) is one of my favorite things to do.  

And that’s exactly what we did Saturday night to honor Andy.  There was a very informal gathering at the Kilpatrick’s house with Andy’s close friends and family.  Stories were told.  Tears were shed, of course.  Then the group dwindled down to about 20 of us.  There we were in the basement, wine in hand, picking and singing all of the songs I’ve heard for so many years.  There was a noticeable void.  No Andy on banjo.  The Elderlys stumbled over the lyrics that had long been deemed to be Andy’s parts in the songs.  And no one was quite ready to play Scotch and Soda which had become his signature song.  But, he would have loved it.  We were silly and sarcastic and off-color and raucous.  Had he been there, he would have been laughing louder than any of us at the dirty jokes and ridiculous conversations.  He was such a sweet man, but he had a wicked sense of humor.  They all do.  That’s why I love them.  To be a sensitive, caring human being but also funny as hell – that’s a good package in my mind.  And the Elderlys are that package and a lot more.  The music sounded great that night even in his absence.  Interestingly, no one asked the Viagras to perform.  Ingrates.  

To be a part of his memorial meant the world to me.  It meant that I had mattered to him in his life.  He certainly has mattered in mine.  I obviously did not know him as well as most of the people in attendance.  Most of the stories I heard about his background were new to me.  But I feel like I knew who he was.  Who he was came through as he played and sang with his old friends.  And on a couple of occasions, I was privileged to share the stage with him.  Granted, they were small stages.  Some might even call them “people’s living rooms”.  But still…

Since the memorial for him, I have caught myself humming and/or singing many of the songs that were sung that night.  One of my favorites, a Harry Chapin song from the early 70’s called Circle, has been running around in my head the most.  Maybe I’m stuck on it because it seems to accurately express the nature of true, significant and substantive friendships as well as the passage of time.  Here are the lyrics:

All my life’s a circle;

Sunrise and sundown;
Moon rolls through the nighttime;
‘Til the daybreak comes around.

All my life’s a circle;

But I can’t tell you why;
Seasons spinning ‘round again;
The years keep rolling by.

It seems like I've been here before;
I can't remember when;
But I have this funny feeling;
That we'll all be together again.

No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.
I’ve found you a thousand times;
I guess you’ve done the same;
But then we lose each other;
It’s like a children’s game;

As I find you here again;

A thought runs through my mind;
Our love is like a circle;
Let’s go ‘round one more time.

Andy, thank you for being in my life and allowing me to be part of yours.  You are missed.

The Inevitable

Well, today it happened.  Just five days shy of my 40^th birthday.  

I don’t think it was my hair: I just had it cut yesterday.  It’s looking pretty good (for my hair, anyway).  My outfit was fine.  Cute, actually.  I was wearing black pants with decent black strappy sandals and a chartreuse fitted-yet-flowy top that others have complimented before.  Could it have been my toenails?  I’ve only had one pedicure this summer.  I’ve got a gnarly blister on the side of my big toe from running that I don’t want someone trying to scrape off.  So, I’ve been the one to cut, file and paint my toenails in recent weeks.  Sure, they don’t look great; but not horrible.  I don’t think it was my toes.  Nah, that’s not it.

 

Did I remember deodorant?  What am I saying – of course I did!  I am fanatical about deodorant.  I apply it several times a day since I have a (hopefully completely unjustified) fear of body odor.  Plus, it was at 7:30 this morning so even if I had forgotten it, surely things wouldn’t have been that bad already.  No, I don’t think it was that.

 

And it couldn’t have been that I had something visible in my nose.  I’m a fanatic about that, too.  I check it periodically throughout the day and it’s always clear.  But now that I’m thinking about it, I have been known to have an errant nose hair or two try to grow a little longer they should.  Perhaps it was that?  I can’t be sure until I check it.

 

Okay, I’m back from a thorough examination in the mirror.  It wasn’t dangly nose hairs.  Was it my hair?  I mean, let’s face it – I have to kind of get used to the length before I can really style it correctly.  Maybe it didn’t look as fresh and sleek as I thought it did.  My hair is usually the problem in a myriad of situations.  That could very well be what it was.

 

My zipper wasn’t down.  I keep my bra straps hidden.  Maybe it’s the way I walk.  I really do have horrible posture.  Sometimes when I walk past a mirror (which I purposely try to avoid at all costs) I’ll catch a glance of what appears to be Prehistoric Man before he was fully upright. Was I slumped over too much?  Perhaps.  But I can’t imagine it would have been markedly worse than any other given day.  

 

And it couldn’t have been my whisker problem.  I had a good ol’ plucking session late last week.  I even got the scissors out and trimmed my beard.  Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it’s because I have a beard.  But, I’ve had a lot of facial hair all of my life.  Maybe this is the wake up call I needed to finally get it lasered off.  And speaking of lasering, my armpits could use a little how’s-your-father as well.  I get the 5:00 shadow by noon most days.  But again, it was 7:30 in the morning.  And I’m pretty sure that even though any pit hair very well could have been visible due to the fact that I was wearing a sleeveless shirt, I wasn’t flailing my arms about.  I don’t flail that early.  Couldn’t have been that. 

 

It had to be my hair.  My damn hair.  Oh, how I loathe my hair!  But you know, it could have been my sandals.  I was reminded this morning why I never wear this particular pair.  They don’t have any kid of strap in the back and they are very loud when they slap-smack-flap-flop when I walk.  Maybe I was just drawing too much attention to myself with every thunderously flapping step I took.  I’m one of those people for whom it’s just better to deflect attention than attract it.  I don’t need people noticing that I really can’t dress myself or style my own hair.  Or that I’m horribly awkward and uncomfortable.  And my loud, thwacking shoes just served to point that out, I suppose.

 

I don’t know what it was.  Maybe it was all of those things.  Maybe it was none of them.  Maybe it was just an “off” morning.  Maybe the mood just wasn’t right.  

 

Or MAYBE, it’s just the natural order of things.  I mean, it was bound to happen one day.  Maybe this was simply the right time and I shouldn't try to explain or rationalize it.  These things happen.  It's life.  It's how things go. 

Maybe that’s why my clearly embarrassed seven year-old daughter refused - for the first time but likely not the last - to kiss me goodbye in front of her friends and ran off without looking back in my direction at school today.

Summer 2013 And The Evolution Of A Beach Trip

Well, as you can see by my lack of posts since May, we have had quite a busy summer.  We were constantly on the go; spending time with friends at impromptu pool parties and neighborhood gatherings.  Sleeping late.  Going to movies.  Gluttonous eating and drinking.  And now it’s over.  I feel like it was yanked out from under us right in the midst of the fun and frivolity.  And yet, it has to end, doesn’t it?  Life has to continue to move forward.  My kids have to go back to school and become educated, productive members of society.  I have to stop barreling toward 300 pounds with the way I’ve been devouring food and drink.  We all have to get back to “normal”.  Normal totally blows.

Not really.  It’s just that we are coming off of such a nice summer.  The kids and I really spent almost all day every day together; never with much of an agenda.  Yet our days always seemed to be filled.  One of my favorite things was we started a new tradition of walking in the neighborhood at night and just talking.  Relating to one another.  It was the one time in the day when the girls didn’t get on each other’s nerves.  We laughed and acted silly and occasionally ran into other neighborhood friends.  The girls’ favorite thing to do on our walks was play “Would You Rather”.  We would ask each other hard-hitting questions like, Would you rather tee-tee in your pants or throw up on your teacher on the first day of school?  Then we would each have to explain our thought process on why we chose the response we chose.  Utter ridiculousness.  But it was such fun.

We travelled some.  Mostly to the lake; many times with friends.  The lake house is great for reconnecting with friends we don’t often see.  I especially enjoy watching our kids become friends with our friends’ kids.  Even though they may only see each other at the lake once a year, they look forward to it and they fall right back in line every time.  It’s nice.  One day/night this summer, we had neighborhood moms and their kids over.  There were 22 of us there – good heavens!  What were we thinking?!  There were bodies all over my house!  And it was an absolute blast.  

We have such great people in our neighborhood.  The girls don’t know how lucky they are to grow up around such a big network of friends.  When I was growing up, it was basically me and my siblings and two sisters at the end of my street.  When we weren’t sparring with the kids across the street, we might occasionally get together for a kickball game, but that was about it.  My kids are growing up in a neighborhood where they walk out their door and have over 10 kids on their street alone.  They could have a kickballtournament with brackets and everything!

In addition to our lake trips, we also went to Chicago – the girls’ first plane ride!   They were so cute rolling their suitcases through the airport.  They thought they were so big being served peanuts and Sprite on the plane.  It never occurred to them to fear any of it.  I wish I had flown at their age. I’ve always been a very nervous flyer.  To this day, I get sweaty palms the whole time and am constantly aware that we are in the air.  But they just sat back andenjoyed the view.  They also had a blast once we got in the city. Of course, the fact that we took them to a two-story American Girl store helped, I’m sure.

Another highlight was taking our annual trip down to St. George Island, Florida.  St. George is a fairly new destination for us.  We have been going to Hilton Head for more than 20 years now with my side of the family.  St. George is where we go with Mike’s family.  I absolutely love it!  It isn’t crowded.  It’s quaint.  Great seafood (of course, what beach doesn’t have great seafood?).  I am never more relaxed then when I am at the beach.  I could sit on the beach under an umbrella with the waves crashing and the breeze blowing every day for the rest of my life and not feel like I had missed anything.  It’s just calming.  Serene.

It’s funny how a person’s trips to the beach evolve over time.  When you are a kid, it’s all about impatiently waiting for your parents to drink their coffee or do whatever it is they have to do before they can take you out to play in the surf.  It seems to take forever!  You make a day of ridingand jumping waves.  You dig in the sand and make castles.  Your castles never look like the show-offs down the beach who have somehow sculpted a palace out of the same sand you were using.  You methodically unfurl your kite and raise it proudly into the air before you realize that it isn’t really terribly exciting.  And each night you go to sleep in a bed full of sand.  Pure heaven.

As a teen, at least a teen girl, you are there for one reason and one reason only: to get a tan.  You are out before anyone else and stay out long after everyone else has tired of the sand sticking to their skin.  Everyday you check your tan lines to be sure they are whiter than they were the previous day.  And if it rains, you are inconsolable.  I guess teenagers are also there looking for other teenagers - a summer romance, if you will.  I never was, because I was always there with my extended family.  They were so entertaining that it never occurred to me to go out and meetsomeone else.  There’s no way they would have been as fun as the people I was there with.  But most normal teenagers do that, I suppose.  I wonder what it must be like to be normal…

Anyway, when you are an ABB (Adult Before Babies) you finally notice how beautiful the water and surrounding scenery is.  It becomes a place of respite instead of play.  The trip focuses more on what you will be eating and drinking during the days and nights.  Of planning meals (if you will be the chef) or picking the perfect restaurant.  Ensuring you’re not our of bloody mary mix for your it’s-5:00-somewhere happy hour.  And while you’re an ABB, if someone else on your trip is an AWB (Adult With Babies) you marvel at how much their trip must suck having to tend to a baby.  It’s great birth control, actually.  You go inside and give Junior his bottle  and I’ll grab the Bocce set for myself and the other ABBs.  Probably the worst part of an AWB’s beach trip is the poopy swim diaper.  It’s always diarrhea and ¾ of it is sand – some of which they’ve consumed and some of which has simply found its way into their pants.

Once you yourself are an AWB, your trip is mainly about how it’s not really your trip anymore.  You can’t stay on the beach all day and relax under the umbrella with an adult beverage.  You’ve got naps to monitor and bottles to prepare.  Plus, you have to spend each and every moment on the beach in pursuit of your one beach trip goal at this point in your life – capturing that perfect baby beach picture.  And it ain’t easy.  A lot of babies don’t like the sand and are therefore grimacing on those rare occasions you can actually get them to look in the direction of the camera.

Once you transition from an AWB to an AWK (Adult WithKids), your focus is more on wanting to foster your love of the beach in your children.  You are planting the seeds of the eventual nostalgia you want them to feel for their childhood beach trip. I see it in my children now.  They love the relaxed pace.  They love the smell of salt in the air.  They could build sandcastles all day.  And it was actually on our beach trip this year when the girls and I started walking together at night.  We used to do that on our beach trips when I was a kid.  It’s just what would happen after we’d eat.  Before anything in the kitchen would be cleaned, the entire lot of us would head out and walk down the beach for 30-45 minutes.  I love being on the beach at night.  The sand is cool.  You can smell people grillingfood.  And everyone around is snapping pictures so you can trade cameras with someone and get a shot of the entire family.  Unfortunately, in our picture, the wind was blowing my shirt against my skin and my belly bulge isclearly visible so we will have to come up with something else for the Christmas card.

I’m guessing the next phase in the beach trip evolution- although I’m not there yet - is when you are an AWT (Adult With Teenagers).  Probably that trip is about trying to reconnect with your kids or trying to get them to acknowledge your existence.  Begging them to not make you walk 40 paces behind them if you can actually get them to go on that beach walk after dinner.  What would probably follow would be ENA (Empty Nest Adult), where you’d be there together after not having seen your kids in a while since they are busy building their own lives.  Then would come GPBT.  Grandparent Beach Trip.  Watching your kids play with their kids and wondering how much longer you’ll be making these trips.  Getting home at the conclusion of the week and looking through old photos you took of your babies on the beach; the photos yellowed with age (much like your teeth, if you still have them).  Hoping your kids are aware that these are the good times.  These are the days they and their own kids will remember.  

I guess that’s what is making me reflect on our summer and lament its passing.  I truly enjoyed it.  Every day of it.  In July, I went back to work.  Maybe it made me value more the time I had left with them before school started.  Although it is part-time work, it took away from the time I had to take them to the pool or to the movies or just to sit down and have lunch with them.  As that first-day-of-school date approached, it made me very sad.  I was more aware of time I can’t get back.  Time well spent, certainly.  But time that has passed nonetheless.  

The older we get, the faster it seems that the time goes by.  These are the good times.  These are the days we will remember.  Being an AWB is very tough.  It’s all-consuming.  You’re tired all the time.  Worn out from the constant demands on your time and attention.  But something happens when you become an AWK.  Your children are more capable of doing a lot of things for themselves and your time with them starts to become more about relating to them as the people they are and they are becoming.  And doing that was what made this summer so special and so memorable for me personally.  I miss it so much even though admittedly it’s nice to be back on a schedule.  Soon enough we will all be in the thick of the school year and fall festivities and it will be a distantmemory.  But it will remain a lovely memory and I will recall it fondly when talking with my kids about the beautiful moments in my life.