Wastin' Away Again

Karen, Nikki, and I did get to talk about the things that didn’t involve olives (although we couldn’t escape them).

Karen wondered who would win if Doug tried to beat up my father.

“My dad, of course.”  I had to be loyal. 

“What would you have done if he had shown up?”

“I don’t know.  Probably let them fight it out.”

“They could have thrown olives at each other.”  We all found this uproariously funny.  It was Friday night and Nikki had found some strawberry margarita mix at the store that she had to try out.

“But I only had the green ones.”

“Well, maybe you could have waived the rule that one time.”

“And green ones are more festive.”

I wasn’t sure about the rule waiving.  “It’s a slippery slope there.  The next thing you know they’ll bring in the unpitted ones, they’ll be throwing pits at each other, and someone will get hurt.”

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hit in the eye with an olive pit.”

We got a little sober with this, envisioning trips to the emergency room.  Nikki broke the silence.

“If your mother had gotten into a fight with Missy, who would have won?”

That was harder.  “Well, Missy is bigger, but Aunt Pooh told me that my mother was quite a scrapper.”

“The middle child.”

I had to laugh at my mother decking it out with Missy.   But I thought maybe we should be a bit more serious.

“Why do you think they came in separate cars?”

“Maybe Missy was afraid someone would say something.”

“You mean Ed?  He had more issues with his father than with Missy.”

Karen put down her drink and got very serious.  “You know, she screwed over both his mother and father and he doesn’t seem to be mad at her.  What is it about her?”

“I don’t know.  Missy is very sweet and men seem to want to protect her, even at her age.  Except her first husband.  He fooled around.  Oh, and Ed’s dad.  He did, too.”

“She certainly can pick them.”  Karen said, “Not your father, of course.  He’s a catch.”

“For an old guy.”  I thought we should be realistic

“Well, she’s no spring chicken.”

“If they watch the kids of Christmas Eve and they aren’t married, are you going to let them sleep in the guest room?”

“No way, Jose.  If I did, the kids would be wanting to do the same thing.  It’s bad enough thinking they’d be having sex anyway.  But I couldn’t take it in the house.”

Nikki looked thoughtful.  “My mother always said, ‘If you’re going to smoke, do it at home.  If you’re going to drink, do it at home.’  She never said, ‘If you’re going to have sex, do it at home.’”

Karen nodded.  “The only thing creepier than the idea of your parents having sex is the idea of your children having sex.”

We drank to that.
  

Memories Monday -- Move Over, Miss Marple

Karen, Nikki, and I decided to imitate those soccer moms in the mystery books who are always getting together to eat and solve murders.  Usually they have confrontations with the perpetrator and almost get killed, but we decided to ignore that.  We made a list of places Margaret could have met the killer.  (As Nikki pointed out, even if Margaret had used “he,” she could have done it just as a further cover-up.  So I still wasn’t in the clear.)

Of course there was the college and the library.  And the Methodist church.  Maybe it was a neighbor.  We decided to go through the college yearbook.  Karen, who really likes to throw herself into things, decided that she could check out the Methodists.  She’d been thinking that maybe her boys could use some religious training.  Nikki would stake out the neighborhood and chat with some of the workers in the stores.

“What was her type?” Nikki asked. 

I thought.  “The actors she liked were Anthony Hopkins, Peter Lawford, and William Powell.”

“Who’s he?”

“He played Nick Charles in the old Thin Man movies.”

“Oh, I love them,” Karen said.  “And Peter Lawford played him on TV in the fifties.  My mother has a bunch of DVD’s of the series.”

“I love Peter Lawford.  He was Laurie in Little Women.  Liz Taylor got him”

“I never liked that version.”

We all agreed that Peter Lawford was the only good thing in the ‘fifties Little Women.

“So, anyway,” Karen got us back to business, “She liked Nick Charles and Dr. Lector.  I wonder how that affected her sex life?”  And she made the fava bean noise from Silence of the Lambs.

I wanted to laugh, but then I remembered that we were talking about this because my friend had been murdered.

“But Anthony Hopkins played Richard the Lionhearted in The Lion in Winter.”

“But what do we remember him for? “  She had a point.

“So we’ve got debonair charm or smoldering menace.”

“Hello, Margaret.” And she made the fava bean sound again.

I didn’t know whether to laugh, shiver, or cry.

We’re going to do our separate investigations.  I don’t know how much information we’ll find, but maybe Karen will find Jesus. I’d been worried that her boys didn’t go to Sunday School.

 

Memories of ?

After everyone had gone to bed, I was lying awake thinking about the olives and the picnics at my grandmother’s and Aunt Pooh’s houses. 

“Isn’t it funny how my mother is remembered for her remark about olives?”

“You ought to have it put on her tombstone.”

I knew Ed was joking, but I wondered what my mother would have thought of that.  I hate to say it, but humor wasn’t her strong point.

“What do you think the kids will tell their kids about us?”

Ed sighed.  “Here we go again.  We will probably be around long after our grandchildren are grown, so the kids won’t need to tell them anything.”

“But what if we’re not?”

“Why don’t you write down what you want them to remember?”

“But that’s not the same thing.  It should be spontaneous.”

“Well, they’ll probably remember the time you lost it and said, ‘We are not having any goddamn artificial Christmas trees in this house!  Ever!’  The ever was the best part.”

I haven’t decided whether this was one of my prouder moments or more shameful ones.

“Maybe every Christmas when they put the tree up, someone will say, 'We are not having any goddamn artificial Christmas tress is this house!  Ever!’ and the kids will laugh  (unless Betsey decides that in her house they won’t use trees that have been cut down and maybe hurt animals and Josh becomes a priest who really can’t joke about swearing) and they’ll remember poor . . . “

I suddenly had a thought.  What were the grandchildren going to call me?  “What do you want our grandchildren to call you?”

“Charlie.  Seriously?”

“Grandma is fine for me, since that’s what I called my grandmother and that’s what they call three of their grandmothers.  Janet might not like them using the same name they did for Missy,”

“Now Janet and Missy probably won’t be around.”

“They could still say it at Betsey’s.  As irony.”

“Say what?  Oh, about the trees.”

I had another idea.  “Maybe one of the grandchildren will have a cute name for me before he or she can really talk and everyone will use it.  Karen calls her grandmother Noo Noo.  It’s a long story.”

“Fine.  I’ll speak to the first grandchild about it.”

I fell asleep thinking of Betsey and Josh and Cilla putting up their trees.  And of Christmas dinners when someone would say “Olives are so festive.”  It would be like Tiny Tim’s “God bless us every one.”

 

 

Memories Monday -- WWCW What Would Carrie Wonder?

As they say in the old detective movies, there’s been a break in the case!  The police have found Margaret’s diaries and letters under a ceiling tile.  They were written about and to this person she was having an affair with.  Naturally, the other party was married.

Karen was delighted that she had been right.  Nikki wondered if Margaret had had the drop ceiling put in especially to hide the letters.  I agreed that she was organized and tidy enough to do that.  If only she’d been a little bit tidier with her life.

They told me not to be such a churchlady.

“At least she had something, even if it ended badly.”

“There’s a difference between your boyfriend breaking up with you with a note on the fridge and stabbing you to death."

Karen and Nikki conceded that I had a point.  But as Carrie Bradshaw used to say, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been worth it.  Margaret had loved tales of passion and hopeless love like Wuthering Heights.  Maybe it had been what she wanted until the last minute.  And I wondered (Sorry, Carrie, but “can’t help but” makes my teeth hurt.) if, looking at my messy but conventional life, Margaret had felt sorry for me.





Not As Festive, but More Fun

They say the no party is really over until it’s been discussed.  Some say that is the best part.  Usually there isn’t much material at a family barbecue, but when the guests are your father and his new girlfriend, who used to be (and actually still is) married to your husband’s father, there are endless possibilities.  But we didn't get to that at home.

After my father and Missy had left, everybody collapsed in front of the television with the remains of the snacks.  Fortunately, we used paper plates, so there hadn’t been much cleanup.

Cilla was taking the pimentos out of the remaining olives and giving them to Duke and wondering why we never have black olives.

“Because they suck,” Betsey said.

“And they aren’t festive,” Josh added.  “They’re all black and boring.”

“And they have those pits,” I added.  “That can be a choking hazard.  Of course there are some with the pits taken out.  My cousins and I used to put them on our fingers.  But we wouldn’t eat them.  Sometimes we’d put them in our pockets and throw them at each other later.  Outside, of course. ”

Ed shook his head.  “And you wonder where they get their ideas!”

“What did your grandmother say when she found them in the yard?”

“I don’t know if she ever did.”

Josh was thoughtful. “It was smart that you did it outside.  That way when the grass was cut, they would get chopped up and the evidence would be destroyed."

“That’s very good thinking, Josh.”  I wondered if he had applied his good thinking to anything else.

Naturally, Cilla started putting the olives on her fingers.  I had to head her off.  “The rule of the game is you have to use black olives.  It doesn’t work with green ones.”

Ed wanted to know why it wouldn’t.  I don’t know if he was really puzzled or if he was just trying to trip me up.

“Yeah, why?” Josh asked.

I am not firm very often.  But there is such a thing as tradition.  “Because that is the rule.  You can’t break a rule.”  The kids understood that.  Ed looked disgruntled.

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

Memories Monday -- Pilgrimage

People are getting tired of the murder;  there haven’t been any new developments.  I keep thinking I should be doing something, like the soccer moms or sweet little old ladies in my mystery books. 

Karen, Nikki, and I rode by Margaret’s house, a small bungalow a few blocks from the library. They’d taken the crime scene tape down, if it had ever been up.   It seemed odd that she would buy a house since she was single.  “How did she get the money?” Nikki asked.  “Maybe she was a spy.  Or she’d been blackmailing somebody for years.  Or several somebodies.”

“Or she had a sugardaddy.  And he got tired of it,” I said.  “But I can’t imagine her doing it or even making out.”

“You know what they say about the quiet ones.  They’re wild in the sack.  She probably got loud, too.”

“Karen!”  I was shocked.  Then I had to laugh.  Then I got embarrassed picturing Margaret in that situation.

We didn’t get to go to the grave because even though the name of the cemetery had been in the obituary, there wouldn’t be a marker and we wouldn’t be able to find it.

So we went to Friendly’s.  I had the fish and chips.  It came with a free sundae.

 

 

 

 

Grilling by the Grill

The dinner went well enough.  I decided to barbecue and eat outside.  That way the kids wouldn’t have to sit in one place and might forget to ask questions.

My father and Missy arrived in separate cars.  I didn’t know if they wanted us to think they weren’t living together or what.  I got everybody settled with drinks and cheese and crackers.  Cilla sat down next to Missy and got to the point quickly.  “Nana, are you still our nana?”

Missy looked a little taken aback.  “Why, of course, I am, Honey.  How could I not want to be your nana?” 

“Are you still Courtney and Dylan’s nana?”

“Well, I’d like to be.  But sometimes you can’t get what you'd like.”

“Cilla, why don’t you come out to the kitchen with me and help put out the olives?”  To Cilla, it just isn’t a picnic or fancy dinner without olives.  But she was enjoying the conversation.

“My Grandma Louie always said, ‘Olives are so festive.’  She used to be married to Grandpa Jack, you know, but she died.”

Betsey had turned up.  “Nana remembers Grandma Louie.”  (Fortunately, she didn’t add “Moron.”)  "She was here with Grandpa Jack for dinners when Nana was here with Grandpa Doug.”

“Is he still our grandpa?”

My head was starting to spin.  I didn’t know if this was making people uncomfortable, but Cilla wasn’t doing anything wrong.  And of course, it must have been very puzzling to her.

“Yes.  You have the same grandparents as ever,” I said.

“But I guess Grandpa Doug won’t be coming here.”

“He will sometimes.”

“But not when Nana and Grandpa Jack are here.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think Grandpa Doug might try to beat up Grandpa Jack?”

“Girls, I really need you to help me.  I need someone to get out the potato chips.”  Fortunately potato chips didn’t inspire any conversation.

Karen asked me how I felt about my father and Missy.  She wanted to know if I felt insecure about sharing my father. 

Nikki asked if I felt conflicted out of loyalty to my mother.  I really didn’t think so.    But maybe I’ve just been too busy to worry about being insecure or conflicted, what with the end of softball season and Betsey’s and Cilla’s flute and dance recitals, getting everybody ready for camp and helping with the church picnic.

Sometimes it’s hard to give your neuroses your full attention.