On this day in history

November 12 is the birthday of  Charlotte Emily Anne Sommerville McDonald, heroine/narrator of the fiction family sitcom blog Meet the McDonalds.

Mother of three, who works in the library at The College, Charlie (as she is best known) is a recovering English major and former Unitarian, who became an Episcopalian in  college.

Meet the McDonalds 

Cast of Characters

The Family

Ed, Charlie, Betsey, Josh, Cilla, Duke, and Nigel 

Janet McDonald -- Ed’s mother, married to

The Rev. Kate Parker

Douglas McDonald -- Ed’s father, who left Janet for

Missy Hays (currently McDonald), who has just left him for 

Jack Sommerville – Charlie’s father

Allison – Ed’s sister, married to Tony 
Their children are Dylan and Courtney

Ancestors and Extended Family

George (deceased) and Alice  (deceased) Whitfield. Charlie’s maternal grandparents.  He was an English professor and she was an at-home mom and painter.  Their children are

Louisa (Louie), Charlie’s mother (deceased) 

Ursula (Aunt Pooh)  Married to Dr. Joseph Gruenwald, a therapist.  Their children are Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and James (Jim). (His nickname was Jamie until he figured out why.) 

Henry James Whitfield (Uncle Hank) Married to Judy, Their children: The Three J’s  Jessica, Jason, and Jennifer

The Girls

Karen – Married to Tom.  Their children are Eric, Jacob (Jake) and Lucas

Nicole (Nikki)  Married to Helmut.  Their children are Jennifer and Ilsa.

Dr. Emily Evans – Professor specializing in Early American Literature.   Single, Lesbian, and looking.

Alice Barrett –New guest  lecturer at The College.

Michele - Emily's ex.  A mysterious visitor.

Charlie’s been blogging and writing in her diary for a year and a half.  Since we can’t do a clip show, here are some recurring McDonald moments.

Charlie says, “Before you can say ‘knife.’”

Betsey says “Moron.”

Josh says, “No way, Jose.”

Cilla says, “Please, please, please.”

Kate says, “How do you feel about that?”

Janet says, “Bless her heart.”

Jack says, "Damn religious foolishness."

Karen says, “More wine?”

Nikki says, “Don’t be such a churchlady.”

Aunt Pooh says, “Let’s have a nice cup of tea.”

Emily  says, "Do I need a makeover?"

Alice says, "Terrific!"

Michele says,  "Charlotte . .  ."                      

What does Ed say? 

 Thanks to Ylvis for” What Does the Fox Say?”

Catch up with the action or relive favorite moments through the Archives.

Memories Monday -- Move Over Miss Woodhouse

 

 

You can’t find a cup of pumpkin spice tea or anything else anywhere, although there are plenty of eggnog and candy cane lattes.  I don’t have to mentally block out the Christmas decorations at the mall.  I may even watch a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel, and I’ll address the Christmas cards while I do.

Emily came to her first Girls’ Night In at Karen’s.  She brought a bottle of wine and cookies shaped like turkeys and cornucopias.

“How was Thanksgiving?”

“Well, the food was delicious and my nieces and nephews were fun.  But  . . . well, you know.”

“Did your parents give you a hard time?”  Emily is gay.

“Oh, they’re cool with my ‘Lifestyle,’ as my mother says.  My father keeps asking me when I’m going to meet a nice girl, and my mother says, ‘Woman, Bruce.  Emily needs to meet a nice woman!  You make her sound like a damn pedophile.’  She really tries, bless her heart.   

“This year she took me aside for a Real Serious Talk.  She said, ‘Honey are you sure you’re gay?  Maybe it’s the Reverse Katharine Hepburn Syndrome.’”

“What’s that?” Karen asked.

“That’s what I said.  She said, ‘You know how everyone knew Katharine Hepburn was a Lesbian except Katharine Hepburn?  Maybe everyone knows you’re straight but you.  I don’t care one way or the other.  I just want you to be happy.’”

“Where did she hear about that?”

“She read this short story about a straight woman who tries to help her Lesbian friend find somebody.  And they end up together.  It’s called ‘Reversing Katharine Hepburn.’  It’s pretty funny.”

We must have looked concerned because she said, “But don’t worry.  I don’t want to break up anybody’s marriage.”

That was a relief, but later I wondered if Emily was just being kind and the real reason we didn’t need to worry was that we didn’t do anything for her sexually.  But, I told myself, we would always be friends.

“What do you think is the problem?”

 “For years I was really too busy to seriously get involved or even look, but now that I’m back in business so to speak, I don’t have any customers.”

“Have you tried yoga classes or women’s support groups?” Nikki asked.

“Or church?  I can ask Kate if there are any prospects at Epiphany.  Or the Unitarian Church;  people were always hooking up at my old church.”

 I didn’t add that they were also unhooking, but that was a minor point.

“Meeting people isn’t the problem.  I’ve met women and we go to the movies or a concert or something, but when they ask me in for coffee, all I get is coffee.”

“Have you tried asking them in for coffee?”

“Yes.  And that’s all they want.  But we’ll go to the movies again or get together for lunch.  It’s not that they don’t like me.  At least I don’t think it is.”

This was beyond all of us.  If a man asked you to the movies and you invited him in for coffee, you knew what was coming.  Not that I’d had any experience, since I got married so young,  But I read.

Then I got an idea.

I never really liked Emma Woodhouse, but perhaps I can do her job more efficiently.  “Maybe we can help.  We must know some women you haven’t met.  But it will have to be after the holidays.  In the meantime, you can start going to church.  I have to warn you that Epiphany won’t be Christmassy until Christmas Eve.  With the Unitarians you never know.  You can try both if you want.”

“Well, I might as well.  I’ll tell my parents that I have some friends who are matchmaking for me.  That should hold them until the new year.”  Then she looked concerned.  “Do you think I might need a makeover?  Do you think I’m clueless?” 

Nikki took charge.  “Of course not.  Anyway, we’re not the ones to ask.  But we’ll find someone to ask if necessary.”

January is so boring.  It will be nice to have a project.

 

Memories Monday-- Remembrance of Thanksgivings Past

I’

I'd say that Thanksgiving is about my third favorite holiday, after Halloween and Christmas.  Of course, it’s special because Cilla was born on Thanksgiving.  My water broke just as I was bringing in the pies. (My mother made sure Ed had the carpet cleaned before I came home from the hospital.)  My cousin Joanna, who is an artist, was doing the birth announcements for us and designed one with a turkey wearing a pilgrim hat carrying a bundle with a baby girl wearing a pilgrim lady’s cap.  If anyone had said anything, or even looked like they were thinking of something, I was ready to say, “Cutesy is the new trendy.”   But nobody did.

When I was a child, we always went to my mother’s parents’ house for dinner.  (My other grandparents lived in England.)  Aunt Pooh would be there with my Uncle Joe and my cousins Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and Jim, and my Uncle Hank (Henry James) and Aunt Judy, and their three children,  Jessica, Jennifer, and Jason.  Aunt Judy refused to go literary with the names, although she did try to persuade Uncle Hank to start calling himself H. James, so they could be the Five J’s. 

We kids all had fun running around, but what I liked best was sitting with the grownups and listening to them talk. Someone would always say that Thanksgiving was their favorite holiday, since it wasn’t cluttered with a lot of religious baggage.  There would usually be a debate about what we had to be thankful for, since the world was in such a state and how should we feel about having so much when so many people had so little?  Someone would say something about helping the poor, and everyone agreed that we had to do it, but really what good does charity do when the system continues to oppress everyone?

One year Jennifer, who was just in nursery school, wanted to say grace, but my grandmother saved the situation by suggesting we all go around the table and say what we were thankful for.  I said I was thankful for the Barbie doll and Barbie Dreamhouse I’d just gotten for my birthday.  Aunt Pooh looked at my mother, who said, “She wouldn’t give us any peace.  But we got her Veterinarian Barbie.”

Holidays can be delicate situations for divorced families. Janet and Ed’s father switch off between Allison and Ed.  This year, Janet and Kate are came our house, as well as my father.  There was some game on TV for the men to watch and Janet and Kate like to help in the kitchen or amuse the kids.  By dinner time, everyone had had some wine, so we all got along.  I’m thankful for that.

Memories Monday -- Boo Ho Ho (Not to Mention Gobble Gobble Gobble)

Well, here it is the beginning of November and Christmas Madness has started already.  The Hallmark Channel is showing Christmas movies every day, Christmas candy is out next to the last reduced price candy corn at the drug stores, and on Facebook, people are sharing pictures of Santa with a countdown of shopping days.  Sometimes their comment is “Mwahaha.”

I had the girls over on Saturday night, and, just to be ironic, I served eggnog and fruitcake.   The fruitcake had brandy in it and I had a bottle of rum so everyone could do it themselves with the eggnog.  As a nod to Thanksgiving I got pumpkin spice eggnog as well as the regular kind.  Fortunately, the kids think eggnog and fruitcake are yucky.

“This is probably the last chance I’ll get to relax,” Nikki said.  “I’m doing Thanksgiving, since Helmut’s invited some German friends for ‘a real American feast.’” (She said the last with a German accent.)  “I was afraid my mother would get mad, since we usually go to her house, so I had to invite her and my father.  Fortunately, my sister has to go to her mother-in-law’s.  It’s not that I don’t want them, but still . . . I was thinking I wouldn’t have to get too fancy, since the Germans wouldn’t know the difference, but if my mother is there, she will.”    

“Did Helmut ask you first?”

“He said,”(in a German accent) ‘If you wouldn’t mind Liebchen.’ “ 

“How can you say no to him when he’s so charming and has that cute accent?”

Nikki snorted.

Karen has really gone Methodist, so she is now Assistant Director of the Church Christmas pageant.  “They tell me it’ll be fun.  Now Tom has even more opportunities to tell me how awful organized religion is.”

‘What do you say to that?”

“I tell him he should be glad that I have some organization in my life.”

“I’m doing Christmas, but Missy offered to do Thanksgiving at her house.  I mean my father’s.  I don’t know what the kids will say or what I should tell them.”

“They know what’s going on.  They could probably tell you.”

“Maybe they think she sleeps in the guest room.”

Nikki rolled her eyes and Karen sighed.

“Well, maybe Cilla does.”

“Just hope she doesn’t ask in the middle of dinner.  You don’t want to be spitting cranberry sauce all over the tablecloth.  You can’t get the stains out.”

I wondered if I should have a talk with the children about the situation.  I really didn’t have the courage to bring it up.

“I still don’t know how I’m going to handle Christmas Eve when they’re coming to watch the kids while we go to the midnight service.  My father always slept over.”

“Maybe Missy will be divorced by then and they can get married.”

“Good one,” I said and had another eggnog.

Memories Monday -- I Get the Urge For Spicing Pumpkins

Fall is my favorite season.  School starts, then Halloween arrives, then Thanksgiving, all leading up to Christmas.  And Cilla and I both have birthdays in November.   The only problem with fall is that you know what’s coming next.

On Saturday, I got out everyone’s winter clothes and put the summer ones in garbage bags until I could decide what to do with them.  We had just had the first prediction of frost and the college radio station was playing wistful Autumn songs.  Ed says they're annoying and if he wanted to get bummed out, he'd watch TV ads for animal shelters .  I tell him not to be such a curmudgeon;  the point of the songs is to get pleasantly depressed. 

On Monday, I had lunch with my friend Emily who teaches English at the college.  “I see it’s turtle time,” she said.  “You know, your turtleneck.”

“Oh yeah, I got them out on Saturday.”

“How do you get anything done on Saturdays after your debauches on Friday night?”  Emily loves to hear about our Girls’ Nights In.  She jokes (I think she’s joking.) that my stories are the only excitement she has in her life. But since her specialty is early American literature, maybe she isn’t.

“I guess I have a high tolerance.  They say that that’s a sign that you could be an alcoholic, but nobody in my family ever had a drinking problem, so I’m probably okay.”

Emily nearly choked on her pumpkin spice tea.  “Bless your heart, Charlie. You think you’re such a wildwoman, but I think your idea of heavy drinking is two glasses of wine.”

“Three glasses,” I said with dignity.  “And we have cocktails.”

We would love to have Emily join us, but before she got tenure, she usually had to go to some English Department thing so she could schmooze and politic.  And now that she has it, she’s free to live the life of a madcap bachelorette and to try to meet somebody, so she can’t be sitting around with three tired out old married ladies on Friday night.

“You know you’re always welcome, but we don’t want to cramp your style.”

“Maybe I will come after Thanksgiving.  I’ll need something after a weekend with the family.”

“Will you be able to hold out until Friday?”

“My mother is going to send me home with lots of food, so I guess I’ll be all right.”

It made me sad that a holiday with your family could drive you to drinking and eating, especially when you don’t have to cook.

The Spiral Staircase -- From Charlie's Diary

 

I had forgotten my lunch, and as I was coming out of the library to go to the snack bar, I ran into Michele.

"Why, Charlotte, what a nice surprise! I’m having lunch with Emily, but she’s tied up in a meeting and told me to sightsee. And I remembered what you said about the library. It’s lovely." The College has two libraries. The science library is in a modern building from the turn of this century and liberal arts library is from the turn of the last century. It has stained glass windows and hardwood floors.

I decided I could quickly show Michele around and still get to the snack bar. "Do you want to see basement first? It’s full of old files and really creepy. In a fun way." I didn’t explain that whenever anybody calls me Charlotte, I feel like I’m being scolded and anyway I didn’t.

"Fun?"

I felt I’d said the wrong thing. "Or we can go up to the top floor where the 800’s are. You know literature and sh—things."

The spiral staircase is like something out of a Victorian murder mystery and when you get to the top floor, you can see most of the campus. The 800’s don’t get a lot of scholastic action and it was deserted.

"What a wonderful place to escape everything, Just you and all these stories."

I don’t know how she knew that I liked to come up there on my breaks. "It makes me sad, sometimes. All these books just sitting and waiting and gathering dust. And the authors are probably dead."

"But that’s what makes it so special isn’t it? I’m so glad you shared it with me."

"I’m glad you like it." I’d never told anyone about it except Ed, and then we started reminiscing about the stacks at our old college where people came to get high and make out.

I went to the window. "It’s so pretty in the fall."

"Yes, isn’t it?" Michele was standing in back of me. I didn’t know what to say next, so I just stood there trying to think of something.

"You know, Charlotte, . . ." Michele began, but all of a sudden there was a crash. Someone somewhere had knocked some books off a shelf.

I had to get back to work and Michele had to meet Emily. I got some crackers and soda out of the food machine. I didn’t feel like eating, though.

 

Memories Monday -- Boo Two!

When I was a child, Halloween was my favorite holiday.  I loved dressing up and going outside in the dark.  The weather was usually just turning nippy by October, but somehow it was always warm enough on Halloween that we didn’t have to wear coats over our costumes.

My mother had never liked dressing up.  Even as a child she couldn’t see the point of pretending to be something you weren’t.  But she liked the candy, so she always went trick or treating.  She’d usually wear Aunt Pooh’s costume from the year before.

My grandmother loved to make costumes.  When the kids were quite young,  she decided to dress them as the Three Little Pigs.  She got my grandfather to stay home and hand out the candy and she made herself a wolf costume.  She enjoyed it so much that the next year she decided to do Little Red Riding Hood.  Aunt Pooh was the woodsman, my mother was Little Red Riding Hood, and my Uncle Hank was the grandmother. “You should have seen your mother.  She was five years old and she kept saying ‘This is really dumb’ and rolling her eyes, just like a teenager.  My mother finally told her that she could stay home, but she wouldn’t get any candy and she wouldn’t let me or Hank give her any of ours. Not that she really had to worry about that.  So she went.  Poor Louie.”

This year, Betsey decided she wanted to be a cat.  “A sexy cat?” Josh wanted to know, “Or just a regular one?”

“Or a slutty cat?”  Cilla piped up.

I didn’t know what to say.  But Betsey saved me.  “Don’t be such a moron.  That’s gross!”

Then Josh wanted to know the difference between a sexy cat and a slutty cat.

“Nobody is going to be a sexy or slutty anything.” 

“Veronica and I are going be nuns,” Cilla said.  “But just regular ones.  Veronica’s mom is making the outfits for us.”

“That’s a lot of work for her,” I said.  I didn’t want Cilla to get any more ideas about converting.   “I know!  Why don’t you go as a priest?”  That was an easy costume – black pants, black sweater over a white turtleneck and a cross.  “You can wear makeup.” 

“But she already started it!”   I could feel the “please, please, please” coming.  I didn’t have the energy for it.

“All right.  But you know, there are Episcopalian nuns.”

“Ok.  I’ll be one of them.  Are they sexy or slutty or anything?”

“Certainly not.”

Josh decided to be a zombie again.  Just a regular one, he assured me.