The Crab Chronicles

Summer Jobs

I started working when I was 16 years old, and except for brief periods when I was in school or laid off in recent years, I’ve worked ever since. Some jobs have been short-lived but interesting – like working security in a bar. Some jobs have been far less interesting but lasted a lot longer – like the three years I was a collections paralegal.

No matter what the job was, I’ve always been thankful just to have a job.

What I think about sometimes when I hear Michael complaining about something at work is: you need to be thankful to have ANY job.

Why do people in my son’s generation think the world owes them a fabulous job, when they haven’t earned it through hard work and/or education? Are we raising generations who cannot understand delayed gratification because everything is so instant now?

There’s a photo that goes around Facebook pretty often that shows an old-fashioned library and someone looking through the card catalog and the caption is along the lines of “This was the equivalent of Google, back in the day.”

I recall spending hours and hours in the library, researching papers for school, going home exhausted and having to manually type the paper on a typewriter, after painstakingly writing it out in longhand.

Michael’s generation (most of them) will never know that feeling of working your butt off in the library for a good grade, while also working, and also living on a very tight budget.

My father was a fine example of a great work ethic. He grew up during the Depression and had to work his way through college and work his butt off for everything in life. Nothing was ever handed to him. He went to work when it snowed, or when he was sick, and he usually worked 9-12 hours a day, almost never just 8 hours. He brought work home. He got calls from customers night and day, even when he was on vacation.

My mother started working at 15 and worked all through high school and college, and in the early years of her marriage. Nothing was ever just handed to her either. She didn’t stop working until she was pregnant with my brother and the school forced her to resign because she was visibly pregnant. She then worked her butt off at home, taking care of her family for the next 40+ years - while also doing a lot of room mothering and charity work. [ She deserves a great deal of respect for the 24/7 work she did, which I don’t take for granted.]

Dad helped me and my brother find jobs when we were young but he always told our bosses, “If Dee/Bruce doesn’t do a good job, fire her/him. I won’t hold it against you.” We always felt obligated to work harder than anyone else because we didn't want to incur Dad's wrath.

The first paying “job” I had was to go down to the bank with my dad and file stuff in the vault in the trust department. I was about ten years old. That bank, Valley Fidelity in Knoxville, had their own large vault and hundreds of trust department files, and a big stack of filing. I knew my ABC’s and I wasn’t afraid to get on the big ladder and haul down heavy, dusty old files. Dad paid me $1 an hour. I was bored silly but I liked having the money.

My favorite thing to do with my money – besides buy candy – was to go to the White Store and buy 3 records, 45 rpm records [2 songs, 1 on each side]. I could get 3 for $1. I amassed a huge collection of 45’s that way.

My next job was babysitting around the neighborhood, when I was 11. I looked about 15 and I was pretty mature. My parents were always close by and sometimes they stepped in to help me. One time some little boys [neighbors] tied me in a chair and then ran amok throughout the house. Another time the baby I was sitting for wouldn’t hush crying and I was at my wit’s end. I called Dad and he came and held the baby and walked him and he quieted right down.

[In hindsight I realize that however much I like babies, I’m not sure I possess the patience one needs to be a good parent to a baby or toddler. It was probably best that I skipped that and adopted older kids.]

I did a lot of babysitting, and 95% of the time I handled things well and had no issues. Babysitting is a great “first” job for any kid. You have to be patient with the kids and you have to be responsible and level-headed. You certainly learn project management.

My worst babysitting experience was when I was alone with a rambunctious toddler whose single mother liked to date a lot and hadn't bothered to potty train him. He was not happy with me and took off his diaper and pooped on the floor, then laughed hysterically at my horrified face. I cleaned it up and thought I won't be back here ever again. Yikes. (As I recall, the mom wasn't a regular customer of mine; I just took the job because my friend Kristy had something else to do that night and I was doing her a favor.)

I didn’t get my first “real” job until I was 16, but it was a terrific job. Dad knew the editor of the Knoxville Journal, and he let me work in the summer as a Copy Clerk. I didn’t feel guilty for getting the job through the “old boy” network because I was actually over-qualified, and I had Dad’s warning in my head at all times, to wit: work hard and don’t embarrass me.

The clerk position was easy. I just did a lot of small jobs nobody else wanted to do, like putting gas in the company cars, or running errands for the reporters, or going to the courthouse and copying down the names of everyone getting marriage licenses. The Journal had a popular “I See By” column.  Everyone in Knoxville read the I See Bys. We published marriages, divorces, and real estate transfers.

I worked from 12:30 until 8:30 because it was a morning paper. I learned how to walk around downtown Knoxville with confidence, and it was great experience. I had to learn not to be shy around people I didn’t know. I also had to parallel park on the Church Street bridge every day, which was a trial by fire in my enormous old Plymouth.

I occasionally got to write feature stories, if I came up with an idea the editor liked. I still have a scrapbook of yellowed clippings of all my stories.

I had been writing for my school newspapers for three years when they hired me as a Copy Clerk at the Journal. I had been the Features Editor for two of those years. When I turned in my first story for the Journal, the editor said “You can’t use so many big words, Dee. We write on a 5^th grade level. Re-write it and make it simpler.” I was then 17 years old.

The newsroom was filled with fascinating characters. One of the male reporters looked like a model and had multiple girlfriends. He used to call me up, hungover, and tell me to go clock him in, but not when the boss was looking. "I'm chasing down a lead/heading to an interview/etc." he would say.

The reporters working the crime beats always had these big bulky police scanners on their desks and they listened in on all the police calls. Occasionally they would hear something and jump up, excitedly, and run out of the newsroom. “There’s a fire at a warehouse and two people are presumed dead!” for example.

I always kind of wished I could “ride along” with them when they went to those crime scenes.

One of my duties was to monitor the wire machines and make sure they had enough paper. Seeing the AP stories coming over the wire was thrilling, in those pre-internet days. I sometimes quietly called home and told Mom things like “Iraq just started a war with Iran!” because my mom was/is a news junkie and those were the days before we had cable and could watch CNN 24 hours a day.

One lady reporter was in her 40’s and often showed up looking really unkempt, like she’d slept in her clothes. She’d douse herself with a perfume called Jungle Gardenia, and between that and her cigarettes, she reeked. I avoided her desk and the immediate area. Looking back, now I realize she was likely an alcoholic.   

She was not a nice person, but I felt a bit sorry for her because some of the male reporters made fun of her behind her back, and she could write as well as they could.

Probably the most fascinating episode during that job was when a gunman took hostages in a building right across the street from the Journal, and the police were involved and it was quite thrilling. (I found an old clipping about it here.) There was a huge bank of windows and we had to get on the floor in case the crazy guy tried to shoot across the street at us.

The last few months I worked there I had to relinquish my copy clerk position to a journalism student and work in the “morgue” while also going to high school my senior year. (I only went to school in the mornings.)  Newspapers kept their past stories in hard copy in a big room called the morgue, filed by subject. There were clippings from the 1920’s up to then [1980] and often there were glass plates with old photos on them. It was fascinating. Mostly I just filed, but sometimes I’d read the files, just out of curiosity.

I didn’t take the money I earned at the Journal ($3.35/hour) and blow it on partying. Every cent went into a bank account and paid for my first semester of college tuition.

[above, me when I was on the staff of the Crow's Nest at Farragut]

My next paying job was actually singing in the chorus of our local dinner theater – doing Hello Dolly, 6 nights a week and 2 matinees. I made $35/week – half what everyone else made, since I was only a senior in high school. (The owner was a really cheap guy.) He had made an old barn into a dinner theater, and the stage was in the middle, so it was theater in-the-round. To go from one place to another “backstage” you actually had to go outside, or through the kitchen, which was kind of a scary place at night after they cleaned up and shut it down.

My “dressing room” was the waiter station. I learned how to dress and undress without anyone seeing anything. I wore a voluminous period costume, which helped.

My favorite story about that job was the time just before singing the finale when I was rushing around outside and a bug flew up my nose. I was so horrified, I was blowing my nose and trying not to vomit, and really not happy. Everyone else thought it was funny. The director said later to all of us “I LOVED the energy in the finale! Keep that up!” Someone said “there was a bug up Dee’s nose!” Needless to say, the energy was never as high any other night..

One of my fellow cast members was a 19 year old UT freshman named Dale Dickey. Dale now has a thriving career in Los Angeles, and appears in lots of movies and TV shows. Every time I see her I am taken aback, but also thrilled, for her.

I loved Hello Dolly and I never got sick of the show. Everyone else got tired of it pretty quickly but I never did. I was always just thrilled to be there and thrilled someone was paying me to sing. [I had a really powerful 3+ octave voice.]

That experience – and being in other plays over the years – made me completely unafraid of speaking to a group.

[above, me in my Dolly costume - it was late at night which is why Dad was in pajamas]

In the summer of 1980 I was in college and I didn’t work. I took a full load of classes and worked my fanny off academically.

In the summer of 1981 I had two jobs. One was a temporary job that last just a few weeks. The city of Knoxville had paid for a photographer to take aerial photos of all the houses in Knoxville to show how much heat was being lost due to poor insulation. I was assigned to be in different libraries around town with the photos, and I helped people find their home and look at it on the photo. Then we gave them information on how to make their home more energy efficient.

When that job ended, I was unemployed for a few weeks. One day the chairman of the board of the bank was at the house and I asked him if there were any open jobs at the bank. I spent a couple of months riding back and forth to work with Dad, who wasn’t happy about me working at the bank but not under his supervision. I was in a different department, helping to file checks and count checks and get check statements ready to mail. It was tedious. However, I heard a lot of gossip – which is likely Dad wasn’t keen on me working there. A bank in a small town is a hotbed of gossip.

The next summer [1982] I went to summer school at UGA, thrilled to be able to live in my own tiny efficiency apartment just off campus. I didn’t work.

The summer of 1983, between my junior and senior years, I worked at the Children’s Museum in Oak Ridge. I taught sewing and art, to kids whose parents were just trying to avoid paying a babysitter. They thought saying “my child is in arts camp at the museum” sounded better, I suppose, although the quality of instruction was pretty awful. The kids didn’t want to be there. I did NOT enjoy it. I was basically just there trying to keep the kids from climbing the walls.

The next summer, after graduation, I got my first post-college job, selling books at the Gateway bookstore in Oak Ridge. I will write an entire blog about that one day. It was a great learning experience.  

Every job I’ve ever had has given me skills I needed – life skills as well as job skills. I’ve never expected any job to be easy, or any employer to take it easy on me because I was Tony Thompson’s daughter, or a female, or because I had a master’s degree. Kids today need to understand that the world owes them nothing. They need to raise themselves up to the level of the employer’s expectations, not expect any employer to just kiss their feet because they put down their phones for 5 minutes and work.

When I was 19, if someone had told me my 19 year old son would one day be able to carry a tiny computer in his pocket that would function as a phone/radio/tape recorder/calculator/movie screen/flashlight, etc. I would have laughed.

Imagine what Michael’s 19 year old son will be able to do one day. It's boggles my mind. I just hope my grandson will understand how important it is to work hard.

Making the World Better

So much of what we see on the news every day is so negative. I love seeing stories that are more positive - I look for them. I seek out stories with a sense of fairness and justice. We need more of those stories. We need inspiration.

 

Every night before I go to bed I eat a carton of Chobani yogurt. It tastes great and it's high in protein. Mother often eats it for lunch. We buy about 12 cartons of Chobani a week. I love this story: At Chobani, Now It's Not Just the Yogurt That's Rich.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's the main point:

"Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish immigrant who founded Chobani in 2005, told workers at the company’s plant here in upstate New York that he would be giving them shares worth up to 10 percent of the company when it goes public or is sold. The goal, he said, is to pass along the wealth they have helped build in the decade since the company started. Chobani is now widely considered to be worth several billion dollars."

The employees who have been at Chobani the longest will get the biggest payouts. Oftentimes when a smaller company is sold the person who founded the company makes out like a bandit, but the workers are left in the dust. Not so for Chobani. 

I've worked for big companies whose CEOs were billionaires, while the people who worked hard to keep the company profitable could barely pay their bills. Is that fair? No. I'm not in favor of socialism or communism - I've seen the results of that firsthand. It doesn't work. However, when the inequality of earnings is so stark and unfair as it is at many big companies here, there needs to be a change of some kind.

It's not only about fairness, though. Doing what's right instead of what's easy often pays off in the long run.

I have a cousin who started working at a small company as a secretary when she got out of high school. The owner of the company recognized her intelligence and promoted her, even though she had not gone to college. Skip ahead 20 years. The owner died and the small company - which was still small but now highly profitable - did something extraordinary. He didn't have children to leave the company to, so he left it to his employees. My cousin, who worked there her entire adult life, kept the company thriving and profitable after the original owner died. She retired not too long ago, very comfortably. That's an example of the kind of thinking we need more of in this country.

I remember seeing a story on TV years ago about a Japanese car company that gave out ownership interests to its employees. Once they became vested owners, they worked harder and were happier, and the company thrived.

 

I also love this story: French supermarkets must now donate all unsold food to charity. France is a country that cares deeply about good food, and I love that about it. Now it's mandatory for grocery stores to not waste food. How cool is that?!

Grocery stores throw away tons of food every day here in the USA, and yet there are thousands of hungry people. That bizarre dichotomy is just disturbing to me. If you want to read the sad facts, check out the website Hunger in America. Many people have "food insecurity" in our country. That's just ridiculous, since grocery stores are throwing out food DAILY.

I watched an episode of one of my favorite shows, Bizarre Foods, and this episode, Dumpster Diving in San Francisco, was fascinating. These two young women get food from dumpsters that's perfectly good, perfectly edible, and "cook it for anyone in need."

Why can't that happen everywhere?!?

The Atlanta Community Food Bank is always in need of donations. Why can't they go to Kroger or Publix and get the food that's being thrown out every day? If I were hungry and had no resources I wouldn't mind eating an overripe banana, or some vegetable soup. Once you throw everything in the soup pot and bring it to a boil for a few minutes you've killed any germs. 

Maybe my feelings are this come from the fact that when my son was small, he often went hungry.

Here's a little story about how that still impacts him today.

I put compost in my garden over the winter, and much to my shock, I am now growing potatoes. I would never have even tried to grow potatoes. Michael and I were outside yesterday and I pointed out the potato plants, which are numerous and thriving, just grown from peelings. "I've picked potatoes before, in Kazakhstan," he said quietly. "When you were with your birthmom?" I asked. "I don't know. I just remember picking them. I don't remember details," he said quietly. It was clearly not a memory he treasured, but rather something sad. I know when he was with his birthmom they were often homeless and hungry. He refuses to eat a banana now unless it's so unripe it's green. She would get bananas from the trash and feed them to him when he was small.

The effects of hunger last a long time, physically and emotionally.

When you walk into an orphanage and look into the faces of kids who aren't fed well, and know that many of them are only there because their parents cannot afford to feed them, it changes you. It gives you an incredible sense of the fragility of life.

 

If you know a similar story to these, drop me a comment and let me know. I really want to spread positive stories, and encourage folks to think about justice and fairness - in employment, in food situations - in everything. My dad used to always said to me "Life isn't fair. Better get used to it."

Well I got used to it, but I still don't like it.

Why can't each of us try, in our own small way, to make the world a better place? Maybe if we do that, it will become a reality. Worth a try, right?!

Here's one way you can help. My friend Stephanie, has adopted 13 kids, all special needs. Her son Nate would love a special therapeutic bike. Nate was severely abused in an orphanage before Stephanie and Warren adopted him. He is nonverbal and has huge challenges. This bike would be such a blessing. Check out their Go Fund Me page and help if you can. Thanks!

Responding With Love to Your Teenager

I read somewhere the other day that a hug lasting 20 seconds or more releases tons of endorphins in one's body. I have been trying to hug more, just for that reason. I am going to try and keep up the practice even as we move into hot weather. I am also going to remind myself every day that teenagers need hugs and love - indeed, it's the miracle therapy.

I don't really like to get parenting advice from men because inevitably when I mention issues I am having with one of my teenagers they just say "Well tell them to straighten up or hit the road." So kicking a kid out of the house will solve everything. Men tend to see everything as black/white or ON/OFF - they are not complicated and nuanced in their thinking, much of the time. Women tend to be more willing to dig deeper into a complex solution or an unusual solution, in my experience.

When I was having major issues with my daughter years ago I couldn't let her continue to live here with us. I cried for months over that decision but I just couldn't see an alternative. She kept saying, too, that she didn't want to live here. I took a lot of criticism from non-adoptive parents over that choice but they simply didn't understand what I was dealing with. Many adoptive moms of older children have had to make the same terrible decision. It's just impossible sometimes to reason with a teenager who views adults as the enemy - particularly adults called "Mom" or "Dad" because these kids are so skeptical of those terms. There's no legacy of trust. Sometimes there's no really deep emotional bond as you usually have with birth children. Older adopted kids often see lying as perfectly normal, natural, and OK. I cannot bear it when someone lies to me. It just tears me up.

We've been having some issues with Michael recently and I can't be specific because I want to protect his privacy. However, the huge improvement I have seen in him in just the past couple of weeks has been an answer to thousands of prayers.

I wasn't going to kick him out - not ever. Lying is not the issue, as it was with my daughter. However, plenty of my guy friends would just say "kick him out" if I asked for advice. So I quit asking them, finally.

Responding with love gets you much further with kids like mine, even though it's incredibly hard sometimes.

For an older adopted child, particularly one like my son whose earliest years were filled with homelessness, neglect, and abuse, the transition to adulthood is terrifying. When your first memories are of overwhelming insecurity and fear, you fear the thought of being on your own. I can look back now, with the benefit of hindsight, and see what was happening with my kids as teenagers. [Mike will be 20 this summer.] I also rely on the blogs of other adoptive moms because it's oddly comforting to see that it's not just our kids, it's everybody's kids acting out. We usually see a kid around age 16-18 just go off the rails. [Yes, I know most teens can be a hand full but older adopted teens are far worse.]

Fear causes acting-out behaviors.

I have 3 friends who are adoptive moms of older teen daughters who just in the past 6 months have become grandmothers because their daughters got pregnant out of wedlock. I pray for those mamas and babies every day. It's hard enough being a parent, period, but a parent at 19? 20? With no education or decent job? Lord, have mercy.

What floors us, always, is the notion that our kids think they are worthless. The girls want babies because they want someone to love THEM - not realizing anything about parenting, of course. The boys act out differently.

Michael has just been very angry in the past couple of years. Thank goodness he is getting over that phase.

Michael said to me on Friday, "Why are you so nice to me? Every time you are nice and loving to me I wonder why." I wanted to cry. "I am nice to you because you DESERVE it, son. Everybody makes mistakes. It doesn't mean you don't deserve love. You're a smart, good, kind guy."

What makes me want to cry the most is that I had been truly delusional in my thinking that 9 years of living here in a pretty stable, normal home would have erased the damage done to him by his early years. It didn't. The early damage had left him with zero -- and I mean ZERO -- self esteem.

I don't know of any magic answers to any of this. I can only tell you this: loving our kids when they are going through this phase is far better than anything else. IF we, as parents, can keep calm, no matter what, our kids will benefit the most. Maybe the tough-love drill sergeant approach works best with some kids, but not with ours. Our kids need love and understanding piled on, as much as possible, because that's when we witness miracles.

Our kids need calm, peaceful conversations where they don't have to be defensive.

Our kids need a lot of hugs.

Our kids need constant reassurance that they ARE worthy of love. The future can be bright. There is joy in the world, if they look for it.

Faith really helps. Faith shines the light that nothing else can. Over and over the bible says DON'T WORRY! PRAY! [Phillipians 4:6] so in these days of witnessing my son struggle, I pray constantly. I pray when I'm working in the garden. I pray when I'm cooking. I pray when I'm listening to music. Usually it's just a heartfelt God please help us. I don't think it has to be formal. I tell Michael all the time, if things are stressful, PRAY. [Of course, he has finals next week. I want him to pray but I also told him he needs to study NOW.]

Love and prayer. Those are the engines of peace and miracles.

The Bathroom Controversy

I thought this was a pretty funny cartoon.

I have had a really busy week and just not had time to write but today I thought I should speak my mind about the North Carolina bathroom controversy. No doubt I will make everybody angry who reads this because I tend to view things as they ARE, not in the idealized way that most zealots view such controversies.

For instance: I admire Bruce Springsteen for canceling his North Carolina concerts since he felt like he would be playing in a homophobic environment. I also think he made a huge mistake. By refusing to play there, he punished fans who had absolutely nothing to do with the bathroom controversy.

The controversy itself is a bit hard to get a bead on, and I read this article with that in mind. "...a little less than half of North Carolina residents -- 49 percent -- essentially agree with the bill's premise preventing cities from passing ordinances allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they associate with (39 percent thought cities should be allowed to pass those ordinances)." The bill won't even be signed until October.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of opinions all over Facebook.

My perspective is complicated because I've been in a complicated bathroom situation. When I was in my early 20's and out of college I lived in Atlanta briefly while attending paralegal school. One night I went to a club with my friend Gary and another friend, a female. It was a gay bar with a lot of transvestites. Their lip syncing was remarkable and most of the drag queens looked far more feminine than I did. I sat on a sofa and watched several performers. However, I don't, as a rule, like crowded noisy bars of any kind, so I didn't want to stay long. Before hitting the road I ran in the ladies' room, as my mama had taught me. "Always go to the bathroom before you get in the car." That's especially important in Atlanta, where traffic can snarl up in a nanosecond and trap you in your car for a long time.

I went in the bathroom and I did what I needed to do. When I came out of the stall there was a very large drag queen at the sink. Another trans person was in the corner, snorting cocaine. Well, I will be honest here. I freaked OUT.I honestly don't recall if it was the large man or the drugs that freaked me out.

I was out of that club and in my car in a New York minute. I left my friends there. Beth gave Gary a ride home or maybe he gave her a ride home. I don't remember exactly. They were both ticked off with me later because they lived far from each other, but I didn't care. I just had to LEAVE.

So I am sympathetic with the people who think trans folks need to go to the bathroom of the gender they were born with.

OTOH, I am also very sympathetic to LGBT folks who are transsexual and straight folks who simply like to dress as the other gender. Life isn't easy or fair for them. I've never had any problems with being female, but I knew a girl in school who endured a lot of taunts and bullying because she dressed and acted like a guy. That was what she felt like inside, a male. (I think she had surgery later in life.) People who have gender issues deserve the same rights as anyone else.

I think there has to be a solution fair to everyone. My thought is to encourage businesses to have a "family" bathroom which can be used by only one person at a time, or a parent with a child. That eliminates the problem. Not all bathrooms need to be available to more than one person at a time.

I can tell you this, in other parts of the world you are lucky to find ANY public bathrooms. In Russia most businesses will not let you use the bathroom, except restaurants, and even in nice places the bathroom is often used by both sexes.

I hope that the North Carolina controversy causes a conversation that is ultimately beneficial to everyone. It's about fairness - for ALL.

Mamaw

As a little girl, I loved to sit in the lap of someone who loved me. My maternal grandmother ("Mamaw") had a wonderful lap. She was soft and she always smelled nice, like Coty's L'Origon or Estee Lauder perfume. She loved to wear good costume jewelry, and I loved to sit in her lap and play with her jewelry.

When I was born, Mamaw was 63 years old. She was a tiny person, just 4'10, and not physically strong. She limped due to an old knee injury, and she had edema in her lower legs. I don't recall her ever picking me up, simply because she couldn't do it. However, she would sit on the sofa or in an easy chair and I would climb up to sit in her lap, or just sit close to her, snuggled in.

[below, Mamaw and Papaw, about 1963]

Despite her age and infirmities, Mamaw was always fun. I've played countless games of Chinese Checkers, checkers, and Old Maid with her. She was a formidable opponent in Monopoly. Only years later did I realize she sort of lived in a Monopoly game, growing up in Marietta Georgia. Her father owned many businesses in the town, from drug stores to car dealerships, a real estate firm, and a marble company.

above, Mamaw and some of her siblings - she is sitting on the floor, far right

Growing up with a dozen siblings taught Mamaw a lot. She learned to be feisty. She could drive a car at the age of 11, and since her father owned car dealerships and was a wealthy and prominent guy, nobody stopped her. She would sit propped up on cushions and steer while her sister Hazel worked the pedals.

Living through the Depression made her careful. She never threw away a button, and she re-used foil. She sewed beautifully and made all my dresses when I was small. When my parents were young marrieds and Mom needed a fancy dress to wear to a big party, Mamaw would make it for her.

My mamaw taught me about being industrious and organized. She always kept her living room "picked up" in case company came to call. I've seen her scurry around and straighten up quicker than a hiccup.

She had a large jewelry box and one way to keep me occupied as a small child was to sit me in the middle of Papaw's huge bed and hand me the jewelry box so I could "straighten it up."

above, Mamaw and three of her 6 sisters, Marcel, Dot, and Hazel

Mamaw liked to cook large meals for family, and she never got into a last-minute hassle. She would cook the entire meal right after lunch, then clap lids on the pots, turn the burners off, and go relax and read the newspaper. At 5:30 she would re-heat everything and set the table, and make sure there was plenty of sweet tea.

I didn't realize until I was grown that some people drink tea without sugar in it.

Mamaw always carried a large purse, and in that purse you would always find the following items: kleenex and/or a handkerchief, Chiclets chewing gum, a crossword puzzle book, her wallet, a comb, a lipstick, a pencil.

After my grandfather died, sometimes we would go on car trips with Mamaw tucked into the back seat between me and my brother. Her purse was a source of fascination, Chiclets were handed out. Mamaw believed everyone should "work" a crossword puzzle. She had a large and extensive vocabulary and she was a good speller. At one time, she worked as a proofreader for a newspaper, and forever afterwards when she saw a mistake in a newspaper she was beyond disgusted.

One of her favorite things to do was to smile and say to me sweetly, "Guess what we're going to do today?! We're going to CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSET!" She would say that in the same tone of voice one might say you've won a million dollars! My look of horror never deterred her. The word "we" was misleading there. I would clean out the closet and she would sit in the room. When I was done, she would look at it critically and it would either pass muster or it wouldn't.

When I got it cleaned to her satisfaction we might go in the kitchen and reward ourselves by making Jello salad.

My mom and I were lamenting the other day the fact that nobody makes jello salad any more. I rarely ate a meal at Mamaw's house that didn't include jello salad. Often she would mix in a can of fruit cocktail or mandarin oranges. Making jello salad taught us patience. You had to mix in the boiling water and jello powder, and whatever fruit you were using, and then let it set in the fridge for a while.

I liked to sit in the kitchen and watch Mamaw cook. She was a wonderful cook, but she was old school. She never used garlic, and very little onion. Salt and pepper were her "spices." The closest she came to any non-American food was to open a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti. I never saw her cook a piece of fish in my life.

Fried chicken was always cooked in an electric skillet, in Crisco, but first it was well salted and put into a paper bag of flour, piece by piece, and I got to shake the bag so each piece was perfectly coated.

Nobody's fried chicken ever came close to hers.

Mamaw always wore dresses, and she put on an apron before cooking. Remember aprons?!

Vegetables were boiled until they turned very soft.

Mother told me recently that when she was a kid and they lived on a farm during World War II that Papaw usually came home for lunch, and he'd pick a bunch of broccoli before he came in. Mamaw would proceed to wash that broccoli and cook it in the pressure cooker until it was mush.

I can guarantee you this: if Mamaw had ever gone into a restaurant and been served crunchy vegetables she would have sent them back to the kitchen.

Rarely does a day go by that Mamaw isn't mentioned in our house now. I wish Michael could have known her. Like the rest of us, he would have adored her.

left to right, my cousins Bill and Linda, Mamaw, me and Bruce -- I was only 12 here and I was already taller than Mamaw

This and That

Every once in a while it occurs to me that not all of my friends are on Facebook, but some of them that don't do Facebook DO read my blog. I think wow, my life is pretty boring and quiet and there's not much to tell, but then I realize well, I post little things on Facebook and sometimes Twitter and I can share those on my blog as well.

So here are some tidbits of information - observations - anecdotes - etc.

We are easing into hot weather this week. Tomorrow it's supposed to go up to 84! ACK! I dread the heat. It's the one big drawback about living in Atlanta, the heat in the summer. However, we have nice weather 6 months of the year, winters usually mean decent weather [no snow or ice] 95% of the time, and in summer we stay inside the air conditioned confines of home or in the pool or at the lake. We don't get snowstorms or hurricanes or earthquakes. The beach is 5 hours away, the mountains 1 hour away. I still would rather live here than anywhere else.

After trying my patience a great deal recently, my son is acting better, knock wood. Not perfect, but better. He had gotten really obnoxious. I keep reminding myself... he's 19. He was argumentative with the doctor at his checkup last week, then apologized, and the doctor said "Don't worry about it. I have a 19 year old son," and he looked at me and shrugged. Nice man.

I posted this a few minutes ago: Every once in a while I find myself saying something I NEVER in a million years thought I would say - and I get tickled as the words leave my mouth. It started when I adopted my daughter in 2004 and within a few days I found myself saying "DON'T WALK ON THE SOFA!" Just a few minutes ago I found myself saying to Michael "DON'T BITE THE DOG!" [FYI - He was just playing. Lola's tail was wagging.]

[from yesterday] After working all day yesterday I kept thinking "I'll rest tomorrow. It's Sunday." Um.... nope. Already walked Lola, watered all my outdoor plants and the garden, fertilized and weeded the roses, made tuna salad for Mom, and cleaned out a bunch of old papers I was happy to throw away. Now I'm fixing to run to the drugstore. Then I need to sweep the stairs, clean the kitchen, run a load of clothes, cook dinner, and shower. Maybe I can rest tomorrow... [today I paid bills, fixed Mike's breakfast, fixed Mom's breakfast and lunch, walked Lola, swept the stairs [too tired yesterday], washed and put away a load of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and polished the silver]

Every day remaining in the week I am working [from home]. Sunday afternoon I am helping Michael write a paper.

The fun never ends.

I have watched this video of what it's like to parachute into Neyland Stadium more than once and it's thrilling every time. I have been to games in that stadium many times, since I lived in Knoxville for 20 years. Never flew in and landed like a bird though!

[from last night] I love fresh garlic. I just started some homemade salad dressing by mincing 2 fat garlic gloves and mixing them with about 2 tablespoons olive oil, some fresh squeezed lemon juice (lime works better), and sea salt. If you make sort of a paste with the garlic, olive oil, and sea salt, the garlic flavor infuses the oil. Just before tossing in the veggies I will add some crumbled feta cheese. My mother developed this recipe years ago and I've never seen anyone not like her salad. / Of course, the stupid part is when you don't wash your garlicky hand carefully enough and then you rub your eyes. That's fun.

Lola has learned that when I leave the house to go to the store or to run an errand that Granny will give her Nilla wafers. So yesterday I ran to the drugstore and while I was gone Lola got right next to Mother's chair and Mother ignored her. She was playing Farmville. Lola got tired of waiting for her treat and put her head back and HOWLED! It tickled Mom. It was very clear what Lola wanted.

She is our comic relief.

Love the meme below. So true.

The Big Head

I have always had a weird fascination with the size of human heads. This is likely due to the fact that my mother told me often when I was a child that I have an overly large head. Thus began my weird fascination with head size.

I have a very high forehead - a fact that was pointed out to me numerous times when I was a kid. I got this from my grandmother Cordelia, who I was named for. Having this huge forehead was not fun for me at school, because kids sometimes called me baldy and laughed derisively at my huge forehead and weird hairline. I remember feeling very sorry for Frankenstein.

Needless to say, I rarely wear hats. When I do, I feel like a parade float.

During my 20's and 30's when I was looking for someone to marry and father my children I immediately rejected men with large heads. For instance I would never have married Vincent D'Onofrio.

Although he's a terrific actor and not too bad looking, I pictured our enormous children and how agonizing it would be to give birth to them. [I also rejected men with large behinds, as mine is overly large - think of the agony of giving birth to a big-headed large-assed baby! Aaaargh! There wouldn't be enough drugs and I would never have had more than one child...]

Below, me and my cousin Tono. I am 5'4 and he is 6'1 and look how enormous my head looks compared to his! He was lucky in the gene pool. He also got Cordelia's forehead but it doesn't look weird on him.

I got the bad end of both the maternal and paternal gene pools. My great-grandfather Christopher Columbus Phillips had a large head.

Apparently, I am not the only one who notices weirdly-sized heads.

One of my favorite movies is Kate and Leopold, even though I really don't like Meg Ryan's character in it. I just noticed this morning when I was flipping channels and I watched it for a moment that Meg's head is bigger than Hugh's head.

Most people wouldn't notice or wouldn't care. I have always thought Hugh was/is attractive but that tiny head of his is odd. I noticed when I Googled their names together I got a lot of photos of them where it appears that a clever artist has made their heads look more the same size, in shots from the movie:

Very clever, how the artist has her leaning back and him not. Also, notice how his hand is much bigger.

 

Remarks about heads can be not just weird, but cruel.

I remember when I was a kid one of my neighbors telling me she would never tell her daughter she was pretty because then "she'd get a big head." Obviously having a "big head" is a very bad thing.. Years later Mom and I discussed the stupidity of that. First, the girl WAS quite pretty. Second, she didn't have any self-confidence. She wound up marrying a man who was somewhat ugly and I thought wow, how sad, if she had just realized her attractiveness she would've set her sights on someone far more attractive. Then again, I think she is still married to the ugly guy, and maybe since she's the same age as me they look more alike in the attractiveness department. Men often look better with age; not so for [most] women..

Did you know there is actually a band called Big Head Todd and the Monsters? Interesting that Todd's band is "the monsters" - it implies big-headed people are monsters, to my way of thinking.

Then there's the fact that on a ship the bathroom is known as "the head."

The word "head" is not always something negative. The head of a company is an important person, for instance. It's also sometimes used as a verb - "Joe, I want you to head up the Parade Committee" for instance. Or it can simply be a direction - "Let's head over to the coffee shop."

If you have a normal-sized head, be thankful, although her big old noggin apparently hasn't hurt Meg Ryan's career...

 

Walk With Me

I walked outside a couple of weeks ago and noticed a bird flying very close to me, out from underneath my porch, flying like it was being chased. Really startled me. I stopped and looked up and noticed something new, a nest:

You see the nest, in the corner there? It's impressive. Sturdy construction, out of wind and rain. The bird did well, I am thinking, although Mother says a snake can still get into it. I suppose that's something the bird took into account, but felt like overall it was a good spot.

In February, I put out four lovely cedar birdhouses, as you can see here, but apparently they didn't appeal to this bird. She made her nest where she felt it was safest.

Perhaps the lesson I need to learn is that you cannot control a wild creature. I don't know. My son has been wild lately, and had me worried. I have had a lot of discussions in the past week with him, about his behavior. He likes to do things his way, without listening to mama, but I pointed out that he needs to try listening to me for a change.

I told him when I was 19 life wasn't too great for me either. I started my sophomore year at UGA knowing nobody, and I wasn't able to make any lasting friends that entire year. I liked my roommate and she was reasonably nice but she was a senior and not really interested in hanging out with a sophomore. My dad and I were having a lot of fights, all the time. That put a strain on my normally excellent relationship with my mother. I drove an old car that broke down a lot. I didn't like living in an un-air conditioned dorm. I didn't go on a date that entire year. Life was NOT exactly hunky dory for me. He looked startled - I guess thinking because I had a daddy who had a good job and we lived in a nice house and didn't have money woes that everything was great. It wasn't.

I won't go into details of my other discussions with Michael but here's something I told him this morning that seemed to perk up his mood a bit, after I hugged him: we prayed together and I asked Jesus to be with him and help him to see past his troubles, and to guide him in all things. I told Mike that last week when I was having a really tough week I kept picturing Jesus walking beside me, or riding in the car with me, and that picture always helped me to stay calm and focused.

I am not a bible-thumping fundamentalist - far from it. I just know what works. Listen to this gorgeous song - which has been in my head a lot - and remember who is in control -

 

Checking Back In

Wow, it feels like I haven't been on here in forever. I have had a terrible week, truly terrible. One of the worst weeks of my life. I can't blog about what has been keeping me so on edge, but my close friends know the turmoil I've been facing.

I do wish my mom wasn't so superstitious. I cannot shake the idea that "bad things come in threes" and so the past week has been a threefold deal.

This morning as I walked Lola it was a bit chilly, but I thought to myself OK, no biggie. We don't have snow to deal with.

I came through the week's turmoil, all of it. The three bad things are over and done, for the most part. My friends stood by my side. My mom gave me a shoulder to cry on. The sun is shining. My little family is OK. Bills are paid. There's food in the fridge. There are lots of vegetables growing in my gardens, and flowers, which give me joy. I truly have so much to be grateful for, and I need to focus on that. I thanked God for seeing me through the very difficult days I've had recently. The attitude of gratitude really helps to keep me calm.

For the next couple of months I've got two jobs, my normal job for Storyline Group, which is part-time, and another part-time job grading online essay tests. So money isn't going to be so tight, I hope, knock wood.

My one remaining uncle is having more medical issues and I worry about him. Please say a prayer for him.

The next week is going to be busy, I can see by the calendar, but we will muddle through..

Just Float

Last night I was looking at a photo of me and my father that was made in 1990, right after I finished my master's degree. We were having a celebration cookout at my parents' house on the lake in Knoxville. I had worked hard for three years - while working as a legal assistant for 30 hours a week also - and finished my MA in about 3 years. Dad paid the tuition, even though he was disappointed that I didn't want to go to law school.

[I wish I hadn't been holding a cigarette in the photo - thank God I stopped smoking in 1997.]

I was pondering something today, a metaphor that is significant to me.

When most of us are growing up and then young adults we are in our balloons, metaphorically speaking, and Mama and Daddy are the lines tethering us to the ground. We bob along in the breezes, protected by the parents from being blown astray.

photo by Lisa Amos

Then one of our parents dies. Suddenly, everything is off-balance. We are no longer tethered securely to the ground. We are not fully anchored.

I remember feeling like the entire world was off-balance for months after my dad died. Our relationship had sometimes been rocky. He was a very genial, funny, easygoing guy in public. In private, he was much harder to deal with, for his immediate family. It was not easy to be his child.

However, despite the rough spots in our relationship I never doubted for one moment that my father loved me and wanted only the best for me. The people in his department at the bank used to jolly him into a better mood by saying "How are Bruce and Dee?" - because no matter how stern a taskmaster he was [and he could be really tough] talking about his children always lightened his mood.

Dad was a fixer. He was always trying to micromanage and fix everything in my life, and my brother's life. It was done out of love, but it was maddening sometimes. [For instance he started badgering us both about "When am I going to get some grandchildren?" right after we finished college.]

One of the toughest lessons for me as a parent has been recognizing that I cannot always fix my children's issues. Like my dad, I love to solve people problems.

Unlike most parents, my children were 12 [Alesia] and 10 [Michael] when I first met them, and they had lived through some horrific neglect and abuse. Those years before they met me took a toll on them emotionally, made it hard for them to trust me as a parent, or to have faith that I could anchor them and protect them effectively.

Michael has been a pretty easy kid, most of them time, despite his past.

Not so with my daughter.

I was reminded of that the other day when my daughter's boyfriend called me and said a lot of very mean and unfair things to me. I won't go into details, but trust me, it was one of the most awful and bizarre calls I've ever endured and I finally just hung up.

What I wish I could have explained was this: I did the very best I could to parent her. She didn't want to be parented, and found it strange and unnerving. She had spent 6 years with a mother who left her alone most of the time, or put her in situations where she was abused, then she spent 6 years in a Russian orphanage - a place much like a prison. The first few years after I adopted her we maintained an uneasy truce, most of the time.

When she turned 18, she was off to the races, getting in trouble right and left. There was nothing I could say or do to stop her. Nothing. I tried. She lied to me all the time. I finally had to make the really difficult decision that she couldn't live here, since she refused to follow my rules. Without going into details I will just say this: it was a matter of safety. I stand by that decision as being right, and Mother and Michael understand that and back my decision. However, I still love my daughter and I pray for her every day of the world.

The early 20's may not have the reputation as being a difficult age - everyone knows teenagers are moody and difficult - but they are. I had most of my worst fights with my parents not as a teenager but when I was in my early 20's.

As I am now trying to parent my kids - and watching them make some bad choices - I keep wondering if the lines that tether them are strong enough. Are they grounded enough? As a single parent, you always wonder, am I doing enough? I am trying to fill both parental roles and it's not easy, especially when children are not adopted as babies.

When a child turns 18, you don't stop being a parent. The role just changes.

Sometimes I think about how incredibly sad and depressing it will be when my mom dies. I will miss her terribly. Being her caretaker these past few years has not been a huge burden. I think it's the way we are supposed to do it; we are supposed to take care of our parents. She is also a co-parent with me, too, which is comforting. When things are rough, and I go in her room and need to cry a bit, like the other day, I am very thankful she is still with me.

One day, that rope tethering me to the ground, the rope called "Mama" will not be there. However, I will be floating free, on winds of faith. She taught me to trust God. I hope instead of feeling off-balance and scared, I will remember to relax, and breathe, and look at the incredible beauty all around me, focusing on the journey.

photo by Lisa Amos [thanks Lisa!]