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Getting Prepositioned

Dec10

On the edge, under the gun, at wit’s end, around the bend, under pressure, over the top, beside oneself, near panic. When someone asks how you are this time of year, just grab yourself a preposition. A preposition shows location. With a few exceptions, it’s anything you can say about a table: on, under, beside, etc. We also use prepositions to describe the soon-to-be-declared crazy.

This time of year we rush around, finding just the right gifts for our loved ones, deeply engrossed in a buying-wrapping-giving orgy of activity. For me it’s always a time of excess in spending, cooking, and eating. There are no small revels, only small revelers. I spend enough on the big dinner to feed us for a month. We ingest enough calories to supply energy for an alpine forced march. And our post-holiday bills roughly equal the GNP of Uganda. It’s the American way.

Our holiday excess is an art form. Children’s letters to Santa read like inventory sheets for Toys R Us. But we still weep over reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” Christmas episodes, when the kids offer Ma the set of coasters they made for her with their own little hands. She caresses them as if golden—although actually made from buffalo chips–and tearfully declares this the best Christmas ever! There is a credibility gap between our fantasy of Christmas and the reality.

I really try to give what people want, or at least something they need. I only resort to summer sausage and cheese log assortments when buying for complete strangers. (This begs the question, why buy gifts for strangers, but it comes up every year.) I ask for suggestions, make lists, put down alternate ideas, and I buy with care. It makes for fewer surprises, but that’s not always a bad thing.

I pity the family members who have to buy for me. When asked, I always say I can’t think of a thing I need. I really am happy as I am, but that doesn’t help my family. And my tastes are so eclectic, only my daughter will take a flyer on something she thinks I’ll like.  This is why Husband Bryan considers Christmas shopping for me the Seventh Circle of Hell. Ever since the Opal Fiasco, he insists I make a list.

Early in our relationship, he bought me a beautiful opal ring and necklace. I smiled bravely, thanked him profusely, and tried not to feel doomed. You see, my mother, who had a superstition for every occasion, always said wearing opals was bad luck unless it was your birthstone. Although some people thought you could neutralize the curse if the opals were surrounded by diamonds, my mother pooh-poohed that as wishful thinking. To be on the safe side, she advised avoiding barehanded contact with an opal of any kind.

Trying not to look like I was raised by a Tennessee mountain witch (although not far from the truth), I smiled and donned the acursed gemstones. When they didn’t immediately sear my flesh, I thought perhaps I’d dodged a bullet and could wear my gifts in health and safety. This was not to be. After a year of the worst luck I’d had in my entire life, I broke the news to Bryan and permanently deposited his gifts in my jewelry box. He accepted the situation with the grace of a man who knows a no-win situation when he sees one.

From that time on, however, I never received another surprise gift from my husband. He gets my list and googles each gift to make sure it doesn’t come with an associated curse. He’s under the gun because of a wife who is around the bend, and I’m beside myself with holiday angst.  Getting those presents under the tree is a dangerous preposition.

Downtown Odyssey

Dec3

Some of my best adventures happen close to home. This past weekend turned out to be a keeper, having a great time and never getting more than 17 miles from home. I went downtown Saturday and Sunday, and I might as well have been in Paris—Texas or France.

The big hoo-hah parades on television during the holidays leave me flat, but I love going to downtown Austin to watch a display of Local Cool march by. Whether the Texas Independence parade in March or Chuy’s Christmas parade last Saturday, I appreciate the efforts of those who get out there and act goofy for the entertainment of others.

This year’s Chuy’s parade had an added incentive for me to drive downtown, walk farther than I should, and stand longer than I should, just to get a glimpse of my oldest granddaughter marching with Cheer Station.

A lady in front of me saw their banner and said, “Cheer Station?” I don’t know what that is.”

I immediately explained my connection, that it is where my “gkid”  takes cheer and tumbling lessons. The youngsters duly impressed the onlookers, hoisting small girls up in the air, managing to catch them before they hit terra firma. The lady I spoke to and all her relatives cheered like fiends and turned to smile encouragingly at me. I felt surprisingly validated, knowing they thought my granddaughter and her friends were terrific, too.

I chose my perch for the parade on Congress Avenue carefully. It was a short walk to St. David’s on 7th street, where I had agreed to meet my daughter at the Art from the Streets exhibit. We’ve been before, but this time was especially fun, as Megan interviewed artists and took pictures for a grad school project. After introducing herself to one of the exhibitors and explaining why she wanted to interview her, the lady exclaimed, “Oh, I love the paparazzi!”

I shopped while Megan worked, finding a couple of handmade necklaces I needed. I also bought two photographs by Sam Cole, one of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend and one of iconic bluebonnets. I bought those for my husband’s office, which is decorated in Rustic Texan, especially when he’s at his desk. Megan and I ate lunch at Scholz Garten, and I headed home to rest up for Sunday.

Sunday found me back downtown to see “Santaland Diaries” at the Zach Scott Theatre. It has become something of a holiday tradition for us, and every year I laugh like a maniac, as if seeing it for the first time. Short-term memory loss has its benefits. This is the farewell season for Martin Burke, however, the genius actor responsible for much of its popularity. His almost one-man show was terrific as always, but I left wondering where I’d be this time next year. I can only hope Martin reconsiders and comes out of his retirement from this role. Cher does it all the time.

We usually lunch at Casa de Luz before going to a play, but in deference to friends from San Antonio who are deeply suspicious of vegetarian fare, we ate at Threadgill’s, which never fails to please omnivores, especially those raised in the South.

I was ready to rest up Sunday night, just as tired as if I’d taken in a Broadway show. At least I didn’t have to unpack. We who are fortunate enough to live in Austin have diamonds on our doorsteps, good times just waiting for us. I’ll meet you downtown. 

We Gather Together…Cautiously

Nov19

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, but it has evolved over the years into something quite different from the ones I remember from childhood. Those were gatherings of family members who rarely saw each other the rest of the year, after the force-fed camaraderie of November and December. In those days, I was part of a large and cautiously friendly family.

The family backstory is long and complex, and I’m not sure I ever really heard it all or got it straight. And that was just on my mother’s side. My father’s relatives were equally absent most of the year, although at least they had the excuse of living out-of-town. I liked most of my relatives on both sides, but I heard a lot of grumbling from my older siblings. I think they would have preferred to be invited to Gettysburg for holiday dinners with the Eisenhowers. The result is I never learned to be part of any family, even my immediate one.

Lest this turn into bona fide cheap therapy, I’ll move on to talk about the type of Thanksgiving we have engineered to suit our needs, which we will enjoy again this year. We prefer to approach the holidays carefully. Part of the family is on the same basic diet and likes mostly the same foods. That group, which I’ll call Team Kale, will gather on Thanksgiving Day to eat lots of vegetables and lightened traditional foods.

My daughter is part of Team Kale, and every year she and I have our one family tradition moment with the raw dressing. The recipe has exact measurements except for the moistening chicken broth, so every year I add and stir until it looks right. At that point I call my daughter into the kitchen and say, “See, Megan, this is what it’s supposed to look like.”

“Right, Mama, I see” she replies as if answering ritual questions at a seder. I smile, having  fulfilled the tradition, and we don’t discuss dressing again until next year.

Over the next few days, we will visit the rest of our family groups, hopefully as less a part of the problem and more solution-oriented. We’ll visit calmly, with decorum, making tentative forays and returning before dark. It may be odd, but it works for us.

The point is, we have looked into the abyss that is a ridiculously closely-spaced holiday season in America, and we have blinked. Because there are no longer aging grandparents (other than us) to accommodate with a gathering of the clan, we have managed to bring a very Kilgorean sense of order to the chaos.

Christmas will be approached with the same caution. Gift-opening was an orderly business in my childhood home. Everyone sat and watched as one person opened all their presents. Order was determined by age, progressing from the youngest to the oldest. When I married Bryan, he threw this rather Prussian approach out the window, and we adopted his family custom of taking turns opening gifts, which also ensured reactions were seen by all, but in a more happy-go-lucky format.

I’m here to tell you, holidays are complicated, family dynamics are byzantine, and neither is for the faint-hearted. I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, starting with Thanksgiving this week. Don’t be concerned if you come to my house and see signs in the yard that say, “Slow—Rough Pavement Ahead,” or “Reduce Speed—Loose Rocks.” It’s just our way of proceeding with caution.

Texas History for the Birds?

Nov4

This monument stands in a charming little park in San Antonio. It shows Old Ben Milam asking who will follow him into Bexar (San Antonio). The row of pigeons resting on his rifle struck me as funny, but I reasoned it was better to be for the birds than go to the dogs.

Being Texan is a fulltime job. At work or play, we are Texans. When traveling abroad, if asked where we hail from, the answer is always, “Texas!” Not America or the U.S., but Texas. Only the most remote Amazon natives would fail to recognize the name, and even they might get it, given a few additional hints like, “Dallas! The Alamo! Willie Nelson!”

Texans aren’t just born; we’re made. We teach Texas history in elementary and middle school.  Prospective teachers have to pass a course in Texas history to get certified. We won’t let you near our kids if you don’t Remember the Alamo.

Texas history classes also serve to educate those seeking naturalized Texan citizenship. In the 19th century, Texas was the destination for thousands of settlers who wanted do-overs on the American Dream. My own mother was born in Tennessee. She travelled via the great Tennessee-Texas Turnpike, a little-known piece of infrastructure used whenever that state was tilted, causing about half its population to roll downhill into Texas. This explains why most Texans know that “holler” doesn’t only mean “to yell,” a fact unknown in New Mexico or Arizona.

Many of our early Texas heroes were known for glorious, lopsided battles in which they were killed. Later on they were known for glorious, lopsided battles in which they did the killing–of bandits, rustlers, Native Americans, and shepherds. Still later, they became famous for glorious, lopsided mineral rights deals, which brought millions of dollars to the oil companies and gave the landowners a fine down payment on a new chicken.

Like Willie, my heroes have always been cowboys. It’s hard to view them in their natural habitat, the working ranch, but if you avoid the interstates and take smaller state roads, you will see them in the towns. You don’t have to hang out in ranch stores where they sell exotics like squeeze chutes and calving chains. All you have to do is drop in at the local café VERY early in the morning. About 6:00 a.m. they meander in, take their usual chair at their usual table, and greet their look-alike friends with a nod and as few words as possible. The waitress doesn’t ask for their orders; she just brings their coffee, hot and strong, and keeps the refills coming.

Their lives are etched on their faces. Eyes crinkle at well-worn stories, while they stir their coffee to cool it down. After a while, displaying true telepathy, they shift their eyes from one to another, unfold themselves from their chairs, and leave, a ritual repeated in a hundred little cafes every day.

No Texan questions teaching our kids Texas history. Crockett, Houston, Travis, et al are prologue to history still being made. It’s not being made in Dallas or Houston but in little cafes in tiny towns that dot the state. The people in those towns remember the Alamo, the Dustbowl, when local oil fields played out, and the years they found a way to feed their livestock when it would have been smarter to shoot them. Texas history isn’t for the birds. It’s for Texans.

Time Machine Tune-Up

Oct29

On September 23, I wrote about plans to attend my 45th high school reunion. I had doubts I’d made the right decision, but my husband and I went this past weekend. I’ll be stopping by Sonic tonight for an order of crow with a side of fries.

Bryan and I decided to play tourist in San Antonio, my home until 1980. We checked into the Country Inn, a very nice mo/ho/tel a stone’s throw from the site of Saturday’s soiree. Then we went for dinner at Adelante, a surprisingly Austinesque, healthy(er) Tex-Mex restaurant near my old high school. Their lard-free policy helps lighten the cuisine, and the menu offers vegetarian and vegan delights, as well as real-deal-just-lighter favorites.  After vegetarian enchiladas and tamales, we went back to the hotel feeling self-righteous and light on our feet.

I grew up in San Antonio, but for once I was grateful for the GPS’s whiney instructions. It’s been a long time since I could navigate the city on autopilot. We headed downtown, bound for El Mercado to shop Mexico without going there. It took some effort to figure out where to park, but after a few false starts we found a place. Enjoying one of  San Antonio’s annual Five Days of Perfect Weather, we walked the couple of blocks to the market. We shopped for treasures unfindable just 90 miles to the north and ate lunch at Mi Tierra. Undoing all the benefits of the previous night’s supper, we pigged out on the delicious-but-deadly version of Tex-Mex.

Fast forward a few hours, after a little rest and a lot of primping, and it was time for my reunion. Checking in and getting a nametag with my full name, Janet Wheeler Kilgore, complete with a black-and-white senior photo of a girl with pretty eyes and an improbable bubble of very dark hair, I was unsure of myself, making mental notes of all the exits. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into a lovely room full of old people. Not that I expected to see the place full of teenagers, but when time-travelling into your past, shouldn’t people at least look familiar? Obviously, my time machine needs a tune-up. The nametags helped tremendously, but even with glasses, by the time I got close enough to read them, I felt obligated to say something, like, “Nice tie!” or “You really need to get that heart murmur looked at!”

People seemed genuinely glad to see me, and I really enjoyed seeing them and catching up. I’d thought of most of them over the years, wondering what became of them. Somewhere between our teens and dotage, I guess we’ve all learned a thing or two. I spent the evening saying, “Hi, I’m Janet Wheeler,” a sentence I hadn’t uttered since my first marriage and name-change in 1971. Questions from our younger days (“Are you going to Prom?” “Is the punch spiked?”) were replaced by, “Do you have grandchildren?” and, of course, “Do you know where the restrooms are?”

I stopped in my tracks at the list of 45 classmates who have passed on. That was definitely the epiphany of the evening for me. My husband was terrific, mingling with ease in a room full of total strangers. He said he enjoyed hearing stories about a time in my life he hadn’t shared, and recalling names and faces was all on me, another plus.

So, I was wrong about my reunion. My memories of high school now have a different quality—lighter, softer, sweeter. I’m so glad I went, and assuming the Mayans were wrong, I’m even looking forward to the next one—the 50th. Groan.

Life’s a Funny Old Dog, or Two or Three

Oct15

Dogs have always been integral part of my life. The few times I was between dogs, I marked the days until had one again. If I’m not careful, I find myself preferring the company of dogs to people. They don’t lie, they don’t complain, and they’re always overjoyed to see me come home, even when I’m just returning from the bathroom.

My husband and I love big dogs, and we had three until a few years ago. Eventually, our home turned into an assisted living facility for geriatric dogs. We coaxed them into living another day, each day, until they creaked into their sixteenth and seventeenth years. The dogs weren’t in pain, just very, very old, and we didn’t want to say goodbye. But finally, when they could no longer stand up, we bowed to the inevitable and had them put down. The first time I saw my husband cry was when he came from work to the vet’s office to say goodbye to Smokey, our coffee table-sized old friend.

We didn’t know it at the time, but that marked the beginning of a new dog era for us. On that day, we accidentally switched to small dogs. The first was my mother-in-law’s dog, which came to us when Mom went into a nursing home. Angie, age 15, is an endearingly unattractive little brown dog. She has an overbite and an overbite and eyes that remind me of Yasser Arafat. She actually came to us in the last days of the dinosaur-dogs, and she seemed so little!

Before long, we rescued two more dogs from a bad situation with a relative. Annie, age 14, is an affectionate piece of fluff, mostly shih tzu, not terribly bright but totally adorable. The only male in the group is Taco, age 4, a black-and-white Chihuahua with a Napoleon complex. Angie, all seventeen pounds of her, was promoted to Big Dog, and she glories in her status. The other two are still duking it out for second place.

Admittedly, it’s like living with the Marx Brothers. These dogs provide the comic relief and chaos missing since our kids grew up and left. They are perfect children. I don’t have to worry about turning them into responsible citizens, no one cares about their politics or religion, and they’re always sorry when they mess up.

Angie, Annie, and Taco are impressed with my opposable-thumb adroitness and relative mental superiority.  If they notice my slower step or creaky joints, it just makes them love me more. They know the old girl unintentionally drops more food on the floor these days. My dogs don’t care that my ancestors didn’t arrive on the Mayflower, or that I can’t trace my lineage back much farther than theirs.

The point is, life’s a funny old dog–not pedigreed, not a show dog. Mine resembles Annie and Angie more than Lassie, Taco more than Rin-Tin-Tin.

And I like it just fine.

 

Droughts and Druthers

Sep16

I’ve been enjoying the latest spate of rainfall. There will always be a part of me, buried deeply under the years, which breathes a sigh of relief every time it rains. Even if we’re in the middle of El Nino plenty, it still looks good to me.

I grew up in Texas during a drought that began in the Fifties and lasted, to the best of my memory, well into the Sixties.  Now when we slip into even a dry spell, much less a bonafide drought like now, something stirs in my brain, and half-remembered images and snatches of overheard adult conversation come back to me.

We weren’t exactly farmers living in a soddy on the Plains. We lived in comfort in San Antonio, but my father was a gentleman farmer and rancher. In Texas, that meant we had “a place” about an hour outside of town that we visited most weekends. My father would hunt, fish, and eventually meet with Felipe, his foreman, to see how the crops and cattle were coming along. During that long, dry time, the cattle herd got smaller and the crops had to be irrigated just to keep them alive.

Not that I worried much about it, since it had no apparent effect on my little life. I was just aware that Daddy got up even earlier than usual, made the first pot of coffee of the day, and doodled numbers on more pages than usual on the Yellow Transit pads his brother gave him. Uncle Charlie was a salesman for YT, having the family gene for selling ice boxes to Eskimos, and replenished my father’s supply when he hunted at the ranch. I could never understand my father’s notes, but when he stopped writing numbers and started drawing boxes filled with criss-crossed lines that resembled the struts of oil derricks, I knew everything was under control, and he would soon start the second pot of coffee that day.

I remember so clearly when that drought broke. I was away at college and had heard on the news that it finally had rained in Central Texas. I called Daddy to congratulate him. It was always good to hear his laconic voice.

“Yeah, it rained three inches down at the ranch. But now we’ve got another problem,” he explained.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, the grass has grown up so tall, we’re afraid it’s going to lift the cows up off their feet, and they won’t be able to walk to water.”

If I could see him and read his face, I could usually tell when I had wandered into one of his minefields. But over the phone, he drew me in every time. I heard him chuckle just a bit, and then my mother groaned. She never really appreciated his sense of humor nor his gift for laying verbal booby-traps.

I inherited his sense of humor to a great extent, but I can never quite bring myself to make jokes about that topic. Rain is still very serious business to me. Rather than make a joke, I’m much more likely to smile and whisper, “It’s raining, Daddy!”