Where to Eat?

A group of 15-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen next to the Ocean View restaurant because they had only $6.00 among them and Jimmy Johnson, the cute boy in Social Studies, lived on that street.

10 years later, the group of 25-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the beer was cheap, the restaurant offered free snacks, the band was good, there was no cover and there were lots of cute guys.

10 years later, the group of 35-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the cosmos were good, it was right near the gym and, if they went late enough, there wouldn’t be too many whiny little kids.

10 years later, the group of 45-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the martinis were big and the waiters had tight pants and nice buns.

10 years later, the group of 55-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the prices were reasonable, the wine list was good, the restaurant had windows that opened (in case of hot flashes), and fish is good for cholesterol

10 years later, the group of 65-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the lighting was good and the restaurant had an early bird special.

10 years later, the group of 75-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the food was not too spicy and the restaurant was handicapped-accessible.

10 years later, the group of 85-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they had never been there before.

Praise the Lard

OK, who pays for these studies? I mean, really. A new one  links church attendence to obesity. (read about it here) “The study found that young adults who attend church at least once a week are 50 percent more likely to become obese than those who don’t attend religious services.”

Now I don’t know much about church, but I do know those church ladies can cook. And it stands to reason that if you have joined the Ladies Auxiliary down in the Fellowship Hall a few times, you might have an extra pound or two. I think these facts are skewed. I think southerners are more likely to go to church, and down in the south the primary concern is taste. If vegetables are served, the nutrients have been boiled out in a pot full of lard and hamhocks. Old southern ladies save their bacon grease and add it to everything.

 And the whole social structure revolves around food.

Someone dies? You get a refrigerator full of homemade comfort food.

Office meeting? Pile on the pastries!

New baby? Here they come with casseroles.

It’s just rude not to have a full dinner out if company stops by. The plates are big, the helpings huge, and every guest ought to head home with a plate of leftovers. That’s just how it’s done.

Let Us All Bow Our Heads…

Yesterday, I logged onto Facebook. There’s some annoying new feature on the site–polls asking everything from whether you prefer Coke to Pepsi to deeper questions of spirituality. A high school classmate, Facebook reports, voted “Yes!” to the question of whether there should be prayer in schools (I vow anyone to prove to me that little Timmy can’t bless his food or bow his head before a test.)  Directly below that was an “urgent” prayer request posted as a status from the same classmate. Seems “Kayla Scott’s” two year old had gone and shot himself in the chest with a nail gun, poor tyke. Immediately, someone had replied that they were already praying. If I could be bothered to look up that profile, I would probably find a half dozen more folks chiming in with their promises of prayer. I immediately wondered who Kayla Scott was, since she mentioned her name so casually I figured it might be another classmate, or a neighbor or family member that would be well known to most of the posters friends.

Yeah, nope.

It’s a long running internet hoax, the sort of electronic folklore that is all too common. http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/prayer/nailgun.asp  Have a looky see. It took me all of two seconds to figure that out, about the same amount of time it took my classmate to copy paste it as her status.

Now, should we have prayer back in schools so we can eat up valuable instruction time praying for imaginary injured toddlers, is that it?

Did I Call It?

I’m going to change my name to Lady Cleo because I predicted that mama’s simple little insurance claim would be dragged out into some absurdly long, needlessly complicated, melodramatic nonsense that would doubtless last half a year, and by gum, I was right on the money.

She has finally, after some two months, prepared her documentation and, once she finds a notary (Which, you can place your bets, will take at least four days, and come with it cries of the utter physical exhaustion seeking out such a rare specimen takes) will be faxing it off to some poor adjuster. (Who, if I get his name, I will be recommending for early retirement or, at least, a weeks paid vacation.)

Naturally, she called to read me the cover letter that accompanied this list. (Which, for those keeping track, now includes a new septic system, because she believes the burglars ran over and ruined hers as they backed their armored tank to the back door and filled it with treasures.)

“Now tell me if this sounds business-like…” she started. I was willing to bet everything I hold dear that business-like was very low on the list of adjectives I’d be able to use.

“Dear Mr. Adjuster:

Enclosed is my list, which was no easy task for me. You may be able to place a value on some of these items, but to me they are priceless. Three years ago, I lost my daughter in a car accident. Of all the things that are missing, she was most dear to me, and if I could only have one thing returned it would be her…”

Yes, she did.

Of course she did.

I had to set the phone down a second and take a breath.

“…these tire tracks are clearly visible over the septic tank area. I find new items missing on a daily basis. Just yesterday, I discovered that all of the tools and lawn equipment I stored under my home were gone. My carpets have been ruined, and my furniture damaged. I think it is only fair that your company send me the policy limits and if you put yourself in my shoes, you will agree.”

“What do you think of that? Hand-written!”

“Take that part out about my sister.”

“Why?”

“Because it has absolutely nothing to do with anything, and it makes you look crazy.”

“Well, I’ll need to re-write this thing. This has been exhausting! I ain’t never written so much in my life. I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome from this. Does the rest of it sound all right?”

“It’s fine. I need to go, I have a meeting.”

 

 

They’s A Program For That…

I consider myself to be a fairly liberal person. While I fully realize that there are plenty of people who stand ready to abuse any type of social entitlement program, perhaps my naivety and basic belief in the goodness of mankind keeps me of the opinion that most of them are wonderful and I am happy to have my tax dollars used to help people get on their feet. But my mama, as anyone could glean reading more than two posts about her, is one of those that stands ready to work the system every which way but loose. It’s enough to turn me into a rabid tea party conservative sometimes.

She and I were talking yesterday about how the local power company in West Virginia is seeking approval for an astronomical rate increase.

“You would think that since all the coal is produced right there, you all would have lower utilities.” I reasoned.

“Shit! We gotta have one of the highest one’s in the country! Do you know I had a $700 power bill this winter?”

“Why on Earth? You haven’t even been at your house. You really ought to have the heat set just high enough to keep the water from freezing.” Mama’s house is fairly new, so it’s built to recent energy codes. And it’s all of 1200 square feet. I can’t imagine it should ever cost more than a few hundred to keep comfortable.

“Well, when they broke in here, they left the door open for God know’s how many days, I’s heating the outside. I ain’t got no way to pay that kinda bill!”

“Maybe if you call the power company and explain, they’d offer some sort of adjustment?”

“Maybe. I gotta figure all this out!”

“What’s to figure out? Just call them and ask, then you’ll know. No figuring required.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Trying to get ahold of somebody is like pullin’ teeth!”

“Well, it’s worth asking. And if you have to spend a half hour on the phone to save $700 it’s well worth it.”

“I guess I’ma have to break down and do it.”

“And if that doesn’t work, it’s worth asking the insurance company if it’s something you can claim.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta lot to figure out. Well, they cain’t cut my power off anyway.”

“Why?”

“It’s my only heat source and I’m disabled. So I just sent ‘em fifty dollars. They cain’t do nothin’ about it. And there’s a program I qualify fer that’ll hep out with power bills during the winter.”

Christ on crutches.

So far this week, there’s a program that is paying for her to have a house phone on this house she doesn’t live in, and now there’s one that’s keeping it heated to 80 degrees. I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t find a program to pay for a cleaning lady to go in and keep it tidy, since she’s disabled ya know.

Mama, The Shop Vac, and the Personals Ad

On one of my last visits to WV, Mama and Kenny gave me a new shop vac as a late Christmas gift. As gifts from her go, it was a great one. Normally, it’s clothes that are two sizes too large and two decades out of fashion. But let me back up, because while it is technically correct that they gave it to me, they first tried to SELL it to me. I’m not sure how they came to possess a new shop vac–maybe it was a gift they didn’t need. But at any rate, Mama mentioned that Kenny would give someone a “good deal” on it. I asked how much, Kenny had no idea, but after some discussion, they said $75. I had googled this particular model and knew it sold for almost $200 at the Home Depot, so $75 was a good deal.

When I said I didn’t have that much cash on me, mama said I could just mail a check. I said, “Well you still owe me $62 from Thanksgiving, why don’t you just take that off the $75 and I can give you the other $13 right now.”

“No!” she giggled.

“Why not?”

“Well it’s Kenny’s shop vac, and I caint afford to give him $62 right now.”

I’m not counting on getting my $62 back. 

“Well, let me see if it will even fit in my car.” I said. I was, by now, annoyed over the whole money issue because she had used every excuse known to man to avoid paying me the $62 she had extorted from me at the Kohl’s cash register a few months prior. (She and I had been shopping, and when we got to the checkout, she just looked blankly at me as the clerk gave her the total for the tank tops and sweat pants she bought.)

So I carried the shop vac out to my little brown bus and made sure it would fit. When I came back in to say my goodbyes, Kenny said that I wouldn’t owe him anything for it, that I could consider it a late Christmas gift. I thought it was very nice of him. But no gift from mama (even though this was technically from Kenny) comes without dramatic strings.

“Didya put that shop vac together yet?” she asked at least a dozen times over the next few weeks. Once I was finally able to answer “YES” every other call included queries regarding the damn shop vac. “Handy aint it?” “Bet you’ve liked havin’ that in the garage!” “What did Darling think of that shop vac?” Yes, it’s great to have, but I don’t run a woodworking shop, so it’s not like I have a daily use for it. I’ve used it to vacuum out the cars once, and another time to vacuum up some dirt out of the garage. It is not a life changing device.

Earlier this week, she was wandering into the TMI category by telling me that she and Kenny had yet to consumate their union.

“He’s a real gentleman!”

“I don’t think that’s why mom.” (Had she forgotten that she had forced me to listen to her drone on and on about how his “pecker won’t work“?)

“It’s about to drive me damn crazy. Did I tellya I answered an ad in the paper?”

“No….”

“I saw an ad in the trading times, a guy was looking for another man, and I forget the word he used but it meant ‘straight’, to go on a cruise with him. You know, no hanky panky, he’s just lookin’ for a travel buddy.”

“If he was looking for a man, why did you answer it?”

“I didn’t know if this guy was gay or what. But to tell you the truth, I was intrigued. And, boy, Kenny got mad as a hornet!”

“Well, yeah. I can see that…”

“I told him he wuddent the only fish in the sea! But he’s been so good to me. Ain’t many that would stick by ya when you’ve been sick like I have.” So she repays his kindness by answering a personal ad?

“And he knows people in high-up places! He’s worked for the school board twenty some years ya know.”

“As a maintenance man. Yes, I know.”

“He’s generous too! Like that shop vac, there’s more where that come from!”

“I don’t need more than one.”

“I just mean he gives nice gifts. He told me to sell that for $100. But he said, unless your son wants it, and then it’s a gift., but for anyone else, it’s $100. That’s what he told me.”

“Really? Because he didn’t mention GIVING  it to me until I already had it in my car. And neither of you had any idea what price to ask for it five minutes earlier.”

“Oh yeah, he thinks real high of you!” Mom’s quite prone to giving people such revisionist histories of events. I, for one, will call her out on it, but I think most people just nod and let her tell whatever story she wants.

“With summer comin’ you’ll have all kindsa use for that shop vac! What did Darlin’ say about that shop vac?” The truth was, Darling asked “What are we going to do with that?”

“Said it was really nice of you all.” I lied.

“You can reverse it and use it as a leaf blower. It’s a real good one.” Jesus Mary and Joseph. I don’t think she will be content until I ask the damn shop vac to stand up as best man at my wedding.

“It’s very nice.”

“I told your Granny how we gave that to you and she said that was an awfully nice gift.”

For fuck’s sake.

“OK, I need to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Alright honey. What’s the weather like down there?”

“Warm and cloudy.”

“Same here! Pollen is awful I’m in agony today cause I was outside too long yesterday.”

“I’ve heard this part of South Carolina has one of the worst pollen counts in the country.”

“I need to come down there a while, I’d be immune to the pollen we got up this way if I’s down there in that a while.”

“Mmm hmmm. I gotta go.”

“Alright then. I might brave this pollen and walk down to see Crystal.”

Oh, you courageous saint! I’m sure the three-trailer walk to Crystal’s will give her reason to lay in bed the rest of the week.

“I’ll call ya back later tonight!”

It Must be Exhausting…

For the past several years, I’ve told myself that my crazy mama might not be as crazy if she weren’t downing pills like they were M and M’s. But, she’s been “clean” for a couple of months now (the true  reasons still elude me) and she is still nuttier than squirrel shit.

Let’s have a brief recap before I dive into my latest conversation with her:

Mama has been, since last fall, living with Kenny at the Doy Mobile Home Park. She still has her own home, mind you, which she must keep heated to 82 degrees because her power bills there are still higher than the annual income of most third-world country citizens. That house was “burgled” sometime after Christmas. The deranged thieves made off with untold scads of jewelry, mountains of priceless collectibles, a freezer full of the finest cuts of meat, several thousand dollars mama had hidden under her mattress, and a can of fruit cocktail. (At least this is the list mama has given the insurance adjuster.) In truth, the crowbar they used to open the door was probably the most valuable item that left the house that night. Mama met with her insurance adjuster exactly one month ago today. (Take note, that’s important a little later.)

Kenny is a hardworker. I’m reminded of this almost everytime I talk to mama. This means Kenny has a job that he goes to most days. Mama, as longtime readers will recognize, has a skewed view of what constitutes hard work (not to impune Kenny, who I’m sure is very dedicated to his job as a maintenance man). While Kenny is putting in his hours at work, Mama sits at his house, naps, and socializes with the other unemployed residents of the Doy Park. She complains of boredom and of feeling trapped. Why wouldn’t such a stir crazy person get into their car, you might ask? Well, Mama’s car has had a flat tire for over two months. God forbid she do ANYTHING to remedy that. She’s probably waiting to take advantage of some government program that provides tires to the “needy and disabled.”

Kenny, like many of us these days, does not have a landline phone. Mama does, back at her house. She also had a cell phone which provided 250 free minutes a month to the “needy and disabled” through some hairbrained program. Naturally, she burned through those 250 free minutes rather quickly each month. Much to my horror, Mama has recently decided to get a REAL cell phone plan. (Two years ago, I got a call from Verizon telling me that she was trying to add herself a line to MY plan. I may as well have been speaking Greek when I explained to her that if Verizon, a multi-billion dollar company, didn’t feel she was a good credit risk, that I, as a person of more modest means, certainly didn’t want to take her on.) Her new cell plan provides UNLIMITED minutes. Which means I once again get two or three calls a day from mama telling me about all of her maladies and her ongoing drama with the insurance company, the exhausting nature of the most mundane tasks, etc. etc.

Anyhoo…

Mama was explaining her new cell plan to me. I told her she may as well get rid of the landline she has back at the house in order to save money.

“Oh I just don’t feel right not havin’  a house phone.”

“It’s a waste of money, you don’t even live there!”

“Well I found out I qualify for a program….”

My blood starts to boil. Somewhere, my tax dollars are being spent to keep a phone line working in a house that some “needy and disabled” woman doesn’t even live in. I’ve always wondered what exactly she is disabled from. She’s never really worked a day in her life, so whatever physical ailment she has invented really isn’t preventing her from doing exactly what she has spent the last half a century doing. I digress…

“I need to get out and get my mail, I guess we’ll get to it this weekend, Kenny don’t have much energy to go out runnin’ around after he gets in from work. He puts in a hard day.”

“Why don’t you go do it yourself during the day then?”

“I ain’t got no way to.”

“You have a car.”

“I gotta get a tire for it.”

“God damn it, I’ve been hearing that for months. Go fix the damn thing!”

“I will, but I ain’t been feeling good.”

“For two months?”

“This thing has knocked me flat on my ass. But I’ll bounce back! I’m a fighter.” (Mama’s conversations are littered with little eg0-boosting comments such as “Im a fighter! I’m tough! I’m a hard worker! I’m a good person!” She must be trying to convince herself of these things, because to any reasonable person she’s a lazy, entitled complainer.)

“But they’s a check from the insurance company supposed to be in the mail.”

“Oh, did you get all that settled?”

“Well, part of it. This check is for the door and the refrigerator. They’s gonna be another one for all the stuff they took.”

“What’s the holdup on that one?”

“Lord, I gotta fill out all this paperwork! I don’t even know where to start! Then I gotta fax it over to him.”

This “paperwork” is a list of all the allegedly stolen items. That’s it. The adjuster asked for it a MONTH AGO. She sits in Kenny’s  house day in and day out, unable to leave because her lazy ass can’t get a tire fixed, and somehow has not managed to get this list together in A MONTH?

“Mother, I could make a list of every damn thing in my house in about two hours. There is no reason why it should take you a month to list what was stolen.”

“I’ve got a lot more stuff than you do! And you wouldn’t believe what all they took! You know how much jewelry I had! Plus my CDs and everytime I look I find something else missing. But I met a new friend out here, her name’s Crystal, she’s 25 and has three kids, and her boyfriend went to school with your sister. She’s gonna help me get all this together.”

“Why on Earth do you need help to get this list together? Are you completely incapable of doing ANYTHING on your own anymore?”

“Well I found out I qualify to get a home health aide in four hours a day to do respite care. I’m gonna put that off long as I can though. I’m tough!”

“Respite care for what??”

“I’m disabled!”

“Now next time you come up, we gotta find a notary.”

“For what?”

“I need to put it in writing that you get everything when I’m gone.”

“I would anyway, you have no other heirs.”

“Yeah but you gotta sign it and I do to.”

“No I don’t.”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Well whoever ‘they’ are gave you bad advice. You have no other heirs, it would all come to me automatically, and whatever your will says does not require the people you’re leaving it to to sign off.”

“You know Robert died.” (Robert is my grandmother’s long-time hairdresser.)

“I didn’t. How’s Granny taking it?”

“I told her she was more upset at seein’ his obituary in the paper than she was at seein’ your sister’s.” (Mom didn’t even know she was in the world when my sister died, so she would have no idea as to what reaction my grandmother had at her passing.)

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I told her that too, cause it’s how I felt. She said I was crazy.” Imagine that.

“I need to go.” I’d had more than enough for one phone call.

“Alright baby, I’ll call ya back a little later.”

 

A Little Mid-Week Mish Mash

1. Anyone out there a Sugarland fan? I’m not much into country music, but I have always liked them. Last week, I had the opportunity to see them in concert and it was probably the best show I have ever seen. The lead singer in particular (Jennifer Nettles) has such an amazing energy and you can just tell that she loves what she is doing up there. And did I mention our tickets were in one of the arena’s suites? A friend’s boyfriend has season tickets in one of the suites, so we watched the show in leather club chairs, sipped from the stocked bar, and munched on the goodies that catering had set up. I must say I’ll feel more than a little jealous the next time I’m packed shoulder to shoulder in the “regular” seats to see a concert, knowing the suite ticket holders are watching in luxury.

2. Headed up to good ole Dubya Vee this past weekend. A client my office is doing a house for needed my help to address a few issues and finalize her tile and cabinetry selections. From a work standpoint it was very productive. I also got to spend some time with my family, meet my lil brother’s new girlfriend (who, I might add, gets my seal of approval, not that he cares), and hang out with two of my dearest friends. We treated ourselves to dinner at the best restaurant in the little town I grew up in–it has the best house salad dressing, and braciole I’ve ever had.

3. I also got to take my 8 year old godson to his last basketball game of the season. I’ve seen their games before and am always impressed by the sportsmanship that age group shows. They’re too young to be brutally competitive. More than once, I’ve seen a kid fall on the court and get helped up by half of the OTHER team, even if it meant missing a rebound or not getting into position in time to stop a point. And while my godson’s team lost badly (40-6) none of the kids seemed disappointed, they had enjoyed themselves and seemed proud of their efforts despite the low score. The one team member who was visibly crestfallen by the loss was “just a bad loser” according to my godson. More people need the kind of attitudes those kids show.

4. We saw a commercial on TV for the new Buick, which apparently has an iphone app that will allow the owner to start it, unlock it, etc right from their phone. Now, Buick has put out some nice looking cars the past couple of years, but do they not know their demographic? I think the average driver of a Buick sedan is 83 years old and still makes all of their calls from a Harvest Gold wall-mounted rotary phone. What they really need is an app that will let the cars behind the Buick speed it up to something close to the speed limit and move it out of the left lane.

5. So, I  go into the grocery store to buy ONE BAG OF FLOUR last week. As I’m getting into the 10 item or less aisle, an old man with a cart FULL of groceries pulls in. “Are you gonna yell at me for comin’ in this aisle?” he asked the clerk. She answers, “Well, I won’t but I can’t promise no one will.” He, and his cart full of groceries goes on in. As he starts unloading, looks right at me and my ONE ITEM. Doesn’t offer to let me go ahead of him. And then, when the clerk has finished ringing up the $140 worth of food, he WRITES A CHECK, adding to my wait.

There’s More To This Story

 

Mama called to talk about her appointment with her general practitioner yesterday. She was looking forward to this all week, because she couldn’t wait to tell the good doctor that she “was off all this medicine on her own.“

“Lord that makes for a long day, they kept me forever.”

I tire very easily when Mama moans about a “long day”. A long day to her is a couple of hours at a doctor. Or it might be that she had to go out and pay two bills. Or go to both the grocery store and the gas station. Anything that consumes more than a half hour of her time makes for a long day that requires three or four days to “recover” from. If she had to have what most of us consider to be a typical day…you know, work eight or nine hours, squeeze in a few errands at lunch, then go home, cook dinner, do a load of laundry, and scrub a toilet or two, then, my God, she would have to be put in traction.

At odds with this long day at the doctor was mom’s claim that “She didn’t weigh me, check my pulse, or nothin’.” Clearly, this was a poor examination paid for by Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer.

“She couldn’t believe I’d gone off them drugs by myself.” Mom said proudly.

“But when I took the piss test, she could see wudn’t nothin’ in my system but a little marijuana. And that’s ok, it helps me be more creative.” She went off onto a tangent about how she used to go take a few puffs of OO-wee in the bathroom when we were kids, and then come out feeling very creative and make Christmas ornaments out of lace or stencil paint canvas hoops to hang on the wall.

But, hold my mule. Piss test? What’s this about?

“She could tell I wudn’t takin’ anything.”

Now, I don’t know an arrhythmia from an armadillo, but why exactly would a doctor do a drug test on a patient? Does anyone else think that just maybe Mama’s doc declared “no more scripts for you” a few weeks back? So do I, puppies, so do I. I think this even more because Mama went on to say “She told me I’d  have to see Dr. Pushapill (her psychiatrist) to get somethin’ fer my nerves though.”

“What do you need for your nerves?”

“Probly valium or klonopin, ya know, just somethin’ to take the edge off.” Yes, take the edge off of those long and stressful days when she not only has to go get the mail, but might also have to take the trash out.

Mama kept building the case that her recent sobriety was not altogether her own choosing.

“I know I’ze takin’ my life into my own hands with them pills.” Does anyone else think the part of the story I’m not getting here included her doc saying a few weeks back, “Crazymama, you ought to get to rehab, you’re risking your health with this.” Yes, I think so too. Does anyone else think mama told her doc, “See! I don’t need ‘em, I aint addicted,  but can’t you per-scribe somethin’ for my nerves?”

Whatever the reason, I’m glad she’s dried out. BUT, a prediction. Within the month, she will have a new doctor. She’s laid the groundwork for this by moaning about how her current doctor didn’t even weigh her. She will have a new doctor, owing to the shoddy treatment the old one gave her, and once again have a prescription for a monthly 5-gallon drum of party favors, with daily proclamations that “I done proved I don’t need ‘em, that much I can say!” Anybody want to make a bet?