Boo! 2

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.

 

 

Memories Monday -- Boo!

 
When my mother was a child, she had lived in a suburb that was really The Country.  There were cornfields on two sides of her house.  She and her friends would go into the fields, pick corn, shell it, and on the nights before Halloween, go out without adults, sneak up to windows of houses, throw the corn, and run away.  (It was animal corn, so it was hard, like the decorative Indian corn you see in stores, although in the summer, when it was soft, she and her friends would eat it.)  The bolder ones would ring the doorbell.  The kids love this story and would have loved to try it, but fortunately there aren’t any cornfields around.

In our town, Trick or Treat night is always the Friday or Saturday before Halloween, so the kids won’t be kept up too late on a school night.  This makes Halloween rather anti-climactic, but I always make a Halloween dinner, which we eat by candlelight; pumpkin soup from the intellectual deli and grilled cheese sandwiches imprinted with a jack-o-lantern. (I got the stamp in a set, with stamps of a smiley face,  Santa, an Easter egg, and a turkey.)  We have tomato juice to drink, since it looks like blood.

Karen asked me if I wanted to come over and try to contact Margaret with a Ouija board.  I said we always watch scary movies together, and why didn’t they come over here.  Maybe it makes me a wuss, but after The Exorcist, which gave me nightmares as a child, I’m afraid of Ouijas.  I asked Karen if they were going to have pea soup.

I would have told Karen that it would probably be more worthwhile to say a prayer for Margaret on All Saints’ Day, but I didn’t want to be an obnoxious churchlady.

Pulp Nonfiction

“So,” I said to Karen and Nikki “Betsey had her friend Becky overnight last Saturday and the next morning, I asked if she wanted orange juice with lots of pulp or no pulp.”

“You get both kinds?”  Karen was incredulous. 

“Well, Cilla and I like it with pulp, but nobody else does. We tried some with ‘some pulp’, but then nobody was happy.”

“Nobody ever is when you compromise,” Nikki said.  “You have to make a commitment, especially with things you feel strongly about.”

“What kind did she want?”

“Lots of pulp, and of course Betsey had to say how yucky it was, and I had to remind her that everyone is entitled to their own preferences.”

“Not at my house when I was a kid,” Karen muttered.  “My mother refused to buy chunky peanut butter.  Fortunately, Tom and the boys like it.”

“If they didn’t, would you buy smooth for them?”

Karen looked surprised, as if she had never thought this could be an option.

“I guess so, but wouldn’t it be spoiling them?”

“Well, not if Tom liked it too.”

“We always used Hellman’s Mayonnaise,” I said, “and Janet always used Miracle Whip.  It’s no wonder people say she can’t cook.  Anyway, when we got married, we bought both.  I think that’s when I really felt independent.  My mother probably would have made herself use Miracle Whip.”

“Unless she hid a little jar of Hellman’s in the back of the fridge and snuck spoonfuls of it once in a while.”

 “But anyway,” I said, getting back to my story, “Becky told her mother about it and about the mayonnaise and her mother called me and said that I was spoiling the children.  I told her that it gave them practice making choices.”

“What did she say?”

“That there are limits.”

“Did she mention the jelly, too?”  We have about eight kinds of jelly in the refrigerator: strawberry, raspberry with seeds, raspberry without seeds, grape, blueberry, peach, pineapple, and marmalade.  And we’ll probably have more after the Christmas Bazaar at church.

“Dear, God, the jelly!”  Karen looked up to heaven and laughed.  “I’m never going to let the boys look in your refrigerator”

“So what did you say?”  Nikki got us back on track.

“I thanked her for her input and told her what an angel Becky had been.  Then I said I had to go because Ed needed me for something.”

“Did he?” 

“Well, he might have.”

“I’m sorry I only have one kind of wine, tonight.” Karen said. 

Nikki snorted.  “It’s lucky we don’t need to learn how to make choices.”

Memories Monday -- You Have to Be In to Be Outted

Dear Readers:  It just occurred to me that you might think I outted Kate and Janet in my last post.  Not to worry;   you have to be in to be outted.

Kate called to thank me for mentioning her in my blog.  “So far we’ve gotten two new couples at Epiphany.”  Then Janet got on and said she burst out laughing when she read it, because I had “nailed” Kate.  “She talks that way all the time. Once she told me to ‘be mindful’ of something.  I said, ‘Cut the Pastor talk’ and she said ‘I’m sorry; what I meant was ‘Keep your head out of your behind and pay attention’ in her Therapist voice.  And she wasn’t being sarcastic, either.  She doesn’t believe in sarcasm.”

 “She didn’t think I meant it in a nasty way, did she?”

“Bless her heart, she didn’t notice.  By the way, what does your dad think of all this?  Or haven’t you told him?”

“Cilla did.  He said something about chickens coming home to roost and now I knew how my mother felt.”

“Good old Jack.  Mr. Liberal unless it’s his family.”

“I told him she’s probably getting a good laugh up there.  He just shook his head.”

Janet and my father have been sparring ever since Ed and I got engaged.  They’re like Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn in those old movies, except they won’t fall in love at the end.

 

Memories Monday -- I may be embarrassed about caring about what other people think, but I’m not going to be embarrassed about being embarrassed.

I can’t count how many times I’ve told the kids that we don’t run our lives according to what people think of us.  This works fine as long as you don’t think anyone might disapprove of you.  Now I’m worrying about what to tell people at church when they ask where Cilla is.

Karen says I should just tell them to bug off, though she didn’t say “bug.”  I said, “I can’t do that; I’m on the Altar Guild!”

Ed suggested I talk to our rector, Father Mike, but I was too embarrassed to tell him that I cared what people thought.

Nikki thinks we should have our own reality show and said, “Why don’t you talk to Kate?”

Kate is Rev. Katherine Parker, rector of Epiphany Episcopal Church (the church across town) and my mother-in-law’s significant other, and if anyone’s had experience dealing with disapproval, she has.  She laughed and said, “Nothing like the smells and bells, is there?”  (Her church is High.)  “But seriously, if someone asks where she is, say, ‘Oh, she’s around somewhere’, which isn’t a lie.”

Then she launched into Priest Mode.  “It’s wonderful that you’re letting her do this.  But I’m concerned about your being upset.  And I’m not sure whether I’m hearing that you don’t think you should let her or that you’re upset about what people think.”

“I’m upset that I care what people think.”

”You certainly seem to understand your feelings.  But you want to know what to do about them.  Does that sound right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, tell yourself there’s nothing wrong with feeling the way you do and mentally tell everyone to bug off.”

Kate didn’t say “bug” either.  I hugged her.  “I’m so glad you’re my . . . you’re Ed’s . . .  whatever.”

After I talked to Kate, I felt better  Nobody asked about Cilla, which was a relief, though I was surprised that nobody noticed that she was missing.

Corn Dogs, Cannons, and Cotton Candy

 



My mother, aunt, and uncle grew up in what was technically a suburb but was really the country.  They had cornfields on two sides of their house and a neighbor who raised bantam chickens.  Every year, the township Volunteer Fire Company held a carnival the second or third week of September.  My mother, Aunt Pooh, and Uncle Hank had always gone and years later they would take me and my cousins.

The carnival was held in a large field in back of the firehouse.  A policeman would direct you to a parking spot in the beaten down grass and you hoped the ground wouldn’t be muddy.  As soon as you got out of the car, you could smell the carnival:  pierogies frying, the cotton candy swirling in its machine, the pony ride ponies simply smelling like ponies.

We were all supposed to stay together, which meant that the older ones had to stand around while the younger ones went on the baby rides and the younger cousins had to wait while the others did the flying swings and the house of mirrors.  I’d like to say we did this without complaining, but I know you wouldn’t believe me.  Aunt Pooh had told us stories about children who wandered off from their families and were never seen again.  That scared some of us, but later Jimmy pointed out that maybe the children had run away with the carnival, which didn’t seem so bad.

When it got dark, the strings of lights went on.  Local bands would play on the stage – country music or tributes to whatever rock group was popular.  The younger children would dance, while the older ones stood around and said how corny it was and then went on to talk about how corny the world was.

I liked to wait until it got dark to go on the Ferris wheel.  It seemed braver to go up in the dark and feel you were in the sky yourself in the middle of the stars.

Towards the end of the evening, a man would be shot out of a cannon.  We would spend the ride home talking about whether we would want to do that and arguing whether girls could be human cannon balls.

 

The carnival is still going on, and naturally Ed and I try to take the kids every year.  They sit in the back seat playing video games and asking if we are there yet.  Ed, who can be quite literal at times, says, “No.  We are on the way.  If we were there the car wouldn’t be moving.”

“What if you’re parking the car?  Is that being there?”

Josh had him on that.

“It depends on what you mean by being and what you mean by there.”

But eventually we are there, the car is parked and we are in the middle of the crowds and smells and noise.  The kids are discussing what they are going to eat, but I tell them they should go on the rides first.  They are still the same, including the “sit down ride.”  After Ed took Betsey and Josh on it last year, he had to sit down.  It’s one of their favorite stories, although, as Betsey pointed out, it would have been better if Ed had thrown up.

Then, of course, we have to eat, after we have walked around to see what’s available, so that no one gets stuck with something after they’ve seen something better, stopping at the game booths to try to win stuffed animals or tee shirts or outdated video games.  Cilla wins six stuffed animals at the skill crane, with Betsey and Josh cheering her on as Ed and I hand out the money.  I end up carrying them for the rest of the night.  Fortunately, I have some plastic bags in my pocket that I keep for Duke’s walks.

Finally it is time to go home.  Topics of discussion during the ride home are:

Why do they have only the sucky red candy apples and not the caramel ones?

Why wouldn’t working for a carnival be a good career choice, since you could probably go on the rides for free?  (Because carnival workers don’t have health insurance.)

                                                                  

                                                             

 

Are the ponies being exploited?

How many times did everyone see the ponies go to the bathroom?

Why do we say that animals “go to the bathroom” when they don’t have bathrooms, except, of course, those cats that are trained to use the toilet or cats whose litter boxes are in the bathroom?

Why don’t they shoot people out of cannons any more, or did I make that up?

By the time we get home, Cilla is asleep and even Betsey and Josh are rubbing their eyes.  Ed leads Cilla upstairs and tucks her in with her new stuffed animals. 

I give Betsey and Josh some cocoa and then herd them up the stairs. 

“Do you think they might shoot somebody out of a cannon next year?” Josh asks.

“Do you think they might have caramel apples?” Betsey wonders.

 

 

 

Memories Monday -- Catholic -- With Everything

Cilla’s friend Veronica invited her to go to “Mass” with her.  I thought it would be educational, and one thing I learned from the Unitarians was "Never pass up a chance to learn something."  Cilla came home talking about the incense (which smelled “neat”), the bells, and the “beauty-full outfits” the priests wore.  Unfortunately for Cilla, who likes as much pageantry as possible, our Episcopal church is “Low,” which can be described as “beautiful in its simplicity,” “no nonsense” or “dreary and boring.”

When she asked if she could go the next week, I said, “If it’s not inconvenient for Veronica’s family.”  I doubted that it would be.  How much trouble is it to save a soul from eternal damnation? 

The next week she came home all excited because Veronica’s mother had given her a dollar and she’d lit a candle and made a wish. “You’re supposed to say a prayer,” I said.  Then a thought occurred to me.  “Was there a statue by the candles?”

“Oh, yes, Mary.  Veronica said we call her ‘the Blessed Virgin Mother.’”  Ed started coughing.  It’s too bad he wasn’t drinking anything at the time; it would have been a wonderful sitcom moment.  I always thought I was broad minded, but I suddenly understood how parents could have their children kidnapped from cults.

I almost told her to say a prayer at the Jesus statue next time, but I didn’t want to put the idea of a next time in her head.  I needn’t have worried.  “Can I have a dollar for next week?”

Ed gave her two.  “Here’s one for Veronica.”

I was glad Betsey and Josh weren’t around, or we would have had to give them money, too.