NaBloPoMo #21: The weight of the world on the shoulders of little girls

I've got pumpkin bread and muffins in the oven tonight at 1:45 am, but I can't say I've got a blog post in my head. On day 21 of the challenge though, I'm not going to quit, so I'm just going to tell you what I'm thinking about.

When I was a little girl growing up in a small town in Iowa, I dreamed about the things I would do when I was old enough to get away and go to the big city. I have to admit, my dreams were vague, because I didn't even know anybody who had done those things I thought were out there, and what did I know of the world anyway except what I'd seen on TV and in the movies? I just knew there was something better, and I was going to experience it. Which means satisfying that little girl's dreams is more a matter of retrospective thinking than a fulfillment of any actual plan she had other than getting out and going .... somewhere.

This weekend -- and it's only half over -- has been one of those weekends when I can say to that now imaginary little girl, "Hey, I'm doing it. I'm doing those things you dreamed about doing. What do you think of us now?"

Maybe those things I offer her in retrospect aren't exactly what was on her mind. She wanted to go to college -- something that she was actively discouraged from doing -- and now she has a master's degree that isn't really worth much except the pride she takes in it. She was going to have a career, and so far .... well, she didn't really know what it would be like to be a military wife and mother, which is not considered a career, so that dream was deferred. But she knew there was music and theatre and food and people who loved books and music and theatre. And those things ..... we're doing pretty good with those things.

Last night I took Coraline to her first real, full-length play. We saw James and the Giant Peach at the school for the arts where I taught creative writing for a while. She loved it, especially when she got to meet some of the kids who were in the play out in the lobby afterwards. Then we came home, popped some popcorn and watched Monsters Inc. Hey, when I was a little girl we had 3 channels in black and white. Even watching a DVD is kind of cool to Little Reticula. Then this morning we got up and ate chocolate-banana pancakes with Elvira when she came to pick up Coraline.

The actual cast we saw

In the afternoon, I went with 3 girlfriends to see the touring show of Menopause, the Musical. It was hilarious, relevant (to many of us), uplifting, kind of depressing sometimes, but still uplifting -- if you think fucking hot flashes, night sweats, foggy brains, weight gain, and  all that other shit is funny, that is. We did. We laughed out loud for most of the performance, and then a couple of us even got on stage at the end. (Don't worry. We were invited.) Good times.

After the play, 3 of us went to a coffee shop to wait for the nearby Thai restaurant to open. The shop wasn't really open, but the owner let us come in while they were getting ready for a private party there later in the evening, and she made us hot chocolate and coffee.

Once we were seated at our little table on the balcony at the Thai restaurant, we ate coconut milk soup and spring rolls, tangy mango salad, warm, salty edamame, and sauteed vegetables with tofu. Zero heat, thank you. We drank hot sake and tea. We told stories, and laughed some more.

Finally, after a stop off at home to let my dog out and eat a couple of designer cupcakes, 2 of us went on to a local night market where we ate absinthe cotton candy, sampled Haitian chocolate, shared a piece of frozen banana chocolate pie, and visited with various friends who were there either shopping or selling.

In spite of the rain and plunging temperatures, it was a practically perfect day, and now I'm sitting in my kitchen surrounded by the smell of pumpkin bread, drinking a glass of chardonnay and writing my words that some people will even read. I'm a fucking writer, you guys! Little Reticula is thrilled. This! This is what she knew was out there in the world. Theatre, music, great friends, food adventures .... 

And then I started thinking .... I grew up in a poor family (money-wise), in a relatively poor town, in the middle of corn country. I had no reason to believe I'd ever leave there. In fact, I was told I never would, and that I might as well stop acting like I was better than everybody else and find that farm boy I was going to marry, because that was my future. Well, I did marry a farm boy, but he didn't want to stay on the farm any more than I did. So there.

We have so many choices in this country even when it seems like we don't have any. If we can dream, we can choose where to live based on whether the temperature is hot or cold or a mixture; whether the climate is humid or dry; whether the population is dense or sparse, urban or suburban or rural; near the mountains, desert, valleys, oceans, farms, tundra, or rivers; near people of our own ideology -- liberal, conservative, hands-off. In my own family one sister lives in a college town and works as a manager of a plant that makes electronic components, one brother lives in Minneapolis and the other in Alaska, and my youngest sister stayed close to home. That's just my one little family. When you consider that 319 million people live in this country and they all have dreams and aspirations ..... The possibilities are staggering.

What a privilege. What a blessing. I'm ashamed I don't give thanks every day for all that I have. I take it for granted too often.

I can't imagine what it's like to be a child who lives here .... 

.... What does she dream of doing when she grows up? What does she even dream for the next day? The next hour?

I wish I had the one perfect right answer. I don't. I understand why people want to help. I understand why people are scared to help. Don't hate. I live in the gray areas where we're all in this fucking mess together. There are no easy answers in a world that has become so very small, with problems that are so overwhelmingly large.

When I was a little girl dreaming about the big world that was out there, I couldn't have known there was also .... this.

NaBloPoMo #20: Are those really my keywords?

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NaBloPoMo #19: If we were having a glass of wine ....

If we were having a glass of wine .... is a new feature here on Reticulated Writer. I didn't make it up. Lots of bloggers do it. Some drink imaginary coffee, but I don't drink caffeine, so we're going to drink wine. Because I said so.
*******

If we were having a glass of wine, I would say, "That's enough about you. Let's talk about me. Did you know I won a prize -- $25 and a trophy! -- at my neighborhood chili cook-off?"

And you would say, "But you hate spicy food. One drop of hot sauce in a swimming pool of chili would make you whine unbearably for hours. How could you win a prize at a chili cook-off?"

And I would tell you about how I didn't want to go to the chili thing, but my neighbor and president of the neighborhood and one of my co-stars in All the Sex Monologues insisted I had to. I said, "I'm not coming. I don't like chili. I don't like spicy food. That's why I didn't come last year."
He tried to look patient. "You can bring your own chili then. Whatever you like. It doesn't have to be spicy. Just eat your own."
"But I won't win if I bring my chili," I said. "If I come, I want to win."
"You never know. You might win," he said.
"I did win a chili cook-off at my church," I said. "But I think my daughter and her friends stuffed the ballot box. I don't want to come."
"OK, then, come for the beer. We'll have beer," he said.
"I don't like beer," I said. "Beer is yucky."
"You don't like beer. Fine. Bring some wine, then. You can drink wine, can't you?" He wasn't so patient now, but he was still trying, because he also wanted me to commit to raking leaves at 9:00 am the morning after I was having a party. It wasn't going to happen, because I like letting my leaves rot where they land. Also, my parties go late late late.
"OK, fine. I'll come. I'll bring my mild Iowa chili, which nobody will want to eat. But I'll come."
"Good! And you'll rake leaves too? We want our street to look nice." He's persistent.
"Sure," I said. But my fingers were crossed behind my back.

So 5 hours after my last guests left Saturday morning, I was up making a big fucking pot of chili, because I don't know how to make a small batch of chili. I also stirred up a pan of cornbread, because chili has to have cornbread. As I pulled my cornbread recipe, written in my mom's hand decades ago, out of my old recipe box, a wave of nostalgia hit me. First, because my mom had a stroke 16 years ago, and she prints with her left hand now. Her familiar handwriting is only found on historical documents, like my cornbread recipe.

But also because I remember coming home from school on afternoons when I had a basketball game and smelling the crockpot of chili my mom would have waiting for me. If I had an away game, I'd eat it fast with a piece of cornbread slathered with butter and honey, gulp down some black coffee, grab my uniform, which she'd washed for me, and head back out the door to catch the team bus. Everybody else would eat later, and then come to watch me play. My chili is pretty close to what my mom made: more like soup with tomato juice, ground beef, beans, onion, and a little chili pepper. I add a couple of secret ingredients to mine, but it's still similar.

Many years ago when I was an 18-year-old bride I asked my mom to copy some of her recipes for me, and the cornbread recipe was one of those. My grandma gave me a recipe box she wasn't using, and I started my collection with recipes from my mom and both of my grandmas. It grew with recipes from friends over the years .... until it didn't any more. These days, other than those old recipes, I keep my recipes on my computer or on Pinterest. If I need a hard copy, I print it out. If one of my kids needs a recipe, I email it. But for some old standards, like cowboy cookies, pumpkin pie, and cornbread, I get out my old recipe box.

Back to the chili cook-off. Twelve people brought entries, and most of them were spicy. I tasted 2 or 3 of them, and then filled my bowl with my own. It was delicious -- to me. Just like Mom made.

Eventually it was time to vote. Voting was done on a sheet of paper with hash marks. I cast my vote for the chili that had the most votes already. Mine, I noticed, didn't have any votes. I was probably the only one who ate any. Like I gave a fuck. I didn't even see the sheet for voting on the cornbread.

Imagine my surprise when Jason announced that cornbread #4 had won the cornbread contest! I had to run to the kitchen and make sure that was really my number. It was! $25 cash and a trophy for my mom's cornbread.

As for the chili that won, the woman who made it said she'd followed the guy who won 2 years ago outside and sat on him until he told her his secret ingredient, which was ..... are you ready for it? Velveeta. Velfuckingveeta cheese won the chili cook-off. It's not even food! Whatever though. I was happy with my little trophy and $25 cash in my hand.

I called my mom in Iowa and told her we'd won.
******

If we were having a glass of wine, I'd tell you I went with a friend to an audition Tuesday. She'd never auditioned before, so I went to give her moral support. I know the director, and I knew she wouldn't mind if I just watched. I wasn't auditioning myself because I thought I was much too old for the parts. Imagine my surprise when 3 of my friends and a couple of acquaintances showed up. Apparently the director was looking for older women for this play, and had sent them emails asking them to come. They talked me into auditioning too.

Now, I do love auditioning, but I felt a little silly, because I was too old for this play by at least 20 10 years. And there were lots of young -- I mean young -- women there. The friend I went with is barely over 30. But it didn't matter. Experience showed with the older actors. It was interesting to watch the difference.

I didn't get a part. I didn't expect to. But my 3 friends and 2 acquaintances did get the 5 parts .... and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I felt a tiny bit left out. Not that I imagined myself getting a role as a bride's maid, but .... it would have been fun to work with my friends.
********

If we were having a glass of wine, I'd say, speaking of plays, All the Sex Monologues made over $2000 for Planned Parenthood, and that's after expenses. It's not a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.5 million the fucking Ohio Senate and House just stripped from PP though. I'm proud of what we did. I'm worried sick about all the women who have lost their health care.  I'm worried sick about my vagina and all the fucking Republicans who keep poking their heads up in there like rude tourists. Women are going to have to stand up and get loud.
********

If we were having a glass of wine, you'd probably think I was doing all the talking. And maybe you'd offer me some chocolate, knowing I dearly love me some dark chocolate with my wine. But I'd decline because I'm on some fucking sugar fast, and I can't eat chocolate or anything good. It hasn't really been that hard, and I've given myself 3 cheat days. And Thanksgiving is coming up and that entire weekend is a cheat weekend.

I've probably reduced my daily calorie intake by about 4000 chocolate and wine calories a day this month and I've lost ..... drum roll please! Half a pound. And that's probably because I peed before I weighed myself.

It would be a lot easier to resist that bag of frozen chocolate chips if I had realized one single fucking benefit in the past almost 3 weeks. But it doesn't matter. I've been doing the research, reading the studies, and sugar has zero benefits either. Other than its addictive taste, it's nothing but bad news. Kind of like any guy I ever dated ever.

And speaking of dating .....
*******

If we were having a glass of wine, I guarantee you the subject of dating would come up, and you would say, "Whatever happened to those 10 men you were going to date?" And I would say, "They don't exist." And you would say, "Oh, c'mon now. I don't want to hear that. There's someone for everyone. When you're ready the right person will be there. Because you're too fabulous to be alone for the rest of your life. You have to be open to him when he comes along though. Or she. Why don't you try to find a woman?" And you would raise your eyebrows as if to tell me you know I'm just not open enough or we wouldn't be having this conversation, because otherwise? Otherwise I would be way too busy fucking my brains out with my brand new boyfriend or girlfriend, who adores me and cooks for me and fixes my computer problems and cuddles with me on the couch while we watch Netflix, eat buttered popcorn and drink chardonnay.

My faithful friend, I love your optimism, but you're full of shit. First, because there are too many single women out there for you to still believe there's someone for everyone. And second, surely you can't believe lesbians are more plentiful than men. Seriously? And finally here's where I'm at on the topic of dating .... which doesn't mean I won't write about that shit whenever I want to because I do what I want, but you are still full of shit so full of crap.

But I do love you, and since you want me to find someone so bad, I'm going to introduce you to my imaginary boyfriend Simon soon. He's cute and funny and he adores me. You'll like him. I promise.

I'm glad we could share these glasses of wine together, but holy insomnia do you see what time it is? I've gone on and on .... But don't leave yet. What about you? What's going on in your life? Pour another glass and tell me. I've got all night to listen.

NaBloPoMo #18: Wordless Wednesday: Now that's a superpower!

(Tell the truth. How many times did you watch that?)

NaBloPoMo #17: Coralineisms #103

And now for another installment of I'm a doting grandmother Coralineisms: adorable and/or crazy shit my granddaughter said.

Worst bad guy ever

Coraline: I'm going to gun you!
Me: You're going to what?
Coraline: Gun you. I'm going to gun you.
Me: That sounds unpleasant.
Coraline: (pointing at me with a knot I've tied in a curtain to get it out of the way) I'm gunning you with flowers. Now you're covered with flowers!
Me: That's certainly much better than I expected.

Worst vampire ever

Coraline: I’m a vampire.
Me: Do you know what vampires drink?
Coraline: Yes, but I don't drink blood. I drink the smell of roses.

Where does she get her way with words?

We're at United Dairy Farmers buying peach ice cream for the second time that week.  We might have had a bit of an addiction for a short while, but we're working our program this month. The clerk holds out the receipt.

Me: You can have that, Coraline. I'll take the ice cream.
Coraline: OK. I need it anyway.
Me: What are you going to do with it?
Coraline: Sit on it?
Me: Sit on it? Huh?
Coraline: Sit on it. It is a receipt.
(If you don't get it, leave me a comment.)

They don't serve ice cream in jail

Me: After we go to the dog park if we see a place we'll stop for ice cream.
Coraline: And steal it.
Me: Steal the ice cream?
Coraline: Yes, steal the ice cream.
Me: Why would we steal it? We don't need to ...
Coraline: I didn't say steal all the ice cream. Just one big can of ice cream.
Me: That's generous.
Coraline: I know.

Sometimes I don't know what to say

Last month I drove to Asheville, NC, for a few days to visit a friend. I happened to go during the 6-month anniversary of her 18-year-old son’s suicide. When I got home, Coraline and I talked about my trip.

Coraline: Does your friend have a daughter?
Me: She has 2 daughters. I met one of them. You would have liked her. She’s sweet and pretty and she works in an ice cream shop.
Coraline: Did you meet her son?
Me: No, I didn’t get to meet her son.
Coraline: Why not?
Me: Her son died a few months ago.
Coraline: Why did he die?
Me: (Long pause. Coraline has talked quite a bit about death lately, and how afraid she is that I will die, and she’ll miss me too much. I just didn’t think she was ready for the concept of suicide, so I did something I rarely do. I lied equivocated.) Her son fell off a bridge.
Coraline: And he died?
Me: Yes, he died.
Coraline: And then did his mommy pick him up in her arms and carry him?
Me: No, not this time. She couldn’t do that this time.
Coraline: Who carried him?
Me: This time a paramedic took care of him. Someone like Aunt Montana. You remember she’s a paramedic? She took care of him, and then he rode in an ambulance ….
Coraline: Was his mommy sad?
Me: Yes, very sad.
Coraline: I think she wanted to pick him up and carry him.
Me: She would have if she could. She will always carry him in her heart though. That’s just a different way of carrying him.
Coraline: She will always love him.
Me: Yes, she will always love him. Come here and give me a hug. I love you. (I give her a big hug and get a big one in return.)
Coraline: I love you the most.
Me: Oh, you ... you win again.