Soon

In 24 hours, he's here.

My Jarhead will be here... and we'll do all the things he wants to do. Well, not all of them, because I'm his mom and he wants some time with a buddy who is driving him up here... but, during the day, he's mine.

For three days, he's mine. We'll go see Times Square first (I'm using Oob's ideas) and play tourist, and laugh and argue, I'll cry a bunch... for three days, I'll drink in my fill of my blue eyed boy. He'll walk with his arm around my shoulder in public, 'cause he loves his momma, and doesn't care who knows. He doesn't wear his uniform...the Marines suggest that Marines don't wear them in public, even to fly, unless they are attached to a ship, or on special duty. They are targeted more than the other branches. Still... you can tell by his bearing... he's a Marine.

For three days.

He'll fly to his dad's house, and visit his siblings, TheSlumlord, MissH, HRH will fly in... he'll miss out on TheInvestment, who is on his first grownup job.

Then, he goes back and does the war thing.


But, for three days....he's mine.


So, if you see a woman with dark curly hair with a white streak in the front, red sunglasses, and a good looking blonde, blue eyed man young enough to be her son walking around, with her smiling a huge smile this next few days...

That's me and my boy.

Say hello....

The Wax

Last month, TheBee,

Oh, as a warning... men, this may be a little.... personal...


....anyway, she mentioned her roommate exclaimed upon seeing her in the shower, "HOLY BRAZILIAN!!", remarking, of course, on her wax on her personal parts.

I waxed....once.

I did it myself.

In a prior post, I've stated my photo is next to the definition of oblivious. I don't reconise people, I walk blindly into streets, down stairwells, a man said, "Hello, Quin." *using my real name* in the 'A' train station on Monday, and by the time my head whipped around.. he was gone.

I've no idea who it was.

I also don't RTFM. That's Read The Fucking Manual. Why bother when you can blunder your way though trying to make things work? Besides, it adds mordu de l'excitation to my otherwise beige life.

It was 1997.

I was newly divorced.

Although I had the kids 99% of the time, I liked to pretend I was single and desirable, and..smoking hot.

I did this by not passing reflective surfaces.

The new thing was waxing one's personal areas... "Ah-HA!", I said to myself. "I'm going to try this cutting edge style."

Self said, "Are you insane? It's not cutting edge, it's putting hot wax on your gagootz, and ripping the hair off...it's having a STRANGER look at you...down there."

I'd forgotten about that part... the stranger looking down there. I'm pretty modest... in high school, I carried a note from my mother that gave me the longest period in the history of women, thus avoiding PE. If I'd not had C-Sections, I'd have made my doctor wear two masks... one over her eyes. She's one of my best friends, and I hate the exam thing, because she'll chat on about kids and where are we going for lunch... I stare at the ceiling and offer it up for the unbaptised children who have no place to go now that Limbo is lost to them.

Self won, and I went to the local beauty supply place and bought myself a waxing kit. The kids were at their father's house, I had the weekend to myself, and I was ready to join the world.

Read the instructions? Of course I did...

Let's see...

Heat wax to melting point... spread evenly.....apply muslin strips... blah.. blah....blah.... turn page over... blah....watch tv.... blah.... pull off strips against the growth of hair.

Got it.

Most of it.

Some of it.

A few lines.

I used the cute wooden spreader thing, and thickly coated that area, and I don't mean the Brazilian area... it was more the along the thigh meets body area....and firmly patted both sides with the muslin strips from one side of my body to the other...following the curve of my leg on my body.

You heard me ladies, BOTH sides. At the same time.

Then, I leaned over the counter and read a book while I watched TV... and let the wax cool.

Yeah.

I let it cool.

Somewhere in the blah blah blah part was the don't let it cool part.

Whatever.

When it was cool and hardened, I stood up, firmly grasped the lower edge of right muslin strip which at this point was adhered to my skin tight and formfitting, like a cross-dressers girdle and riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiped that baby off.




When I came to, I was lying on the floor, whimpering in pain. In my left hand was a strip of muslin that contained hardened wax, my gagootz hair, bits of my flesh and blood. I then looked at my left side, and realised....

I had to remove....it.

Yes, there it was....mocking me... sucked up to my skin like a second skin....waiting. "Pull me off", it taunted. "It's so going to hurt."

Where was the Marquis de Sade when you needed him most?

My self said, "I told you to rea..." at this point, it realised it was best to shut up, or suffer my going to a psychiatrist's office and finally getting just the one personality.

I stood there... do I call 911? "Yes, I need some blind, ugly paramedics to come remove my self-waxing linen strips from my left personal area, please."

Do I go to the hospital? "We need a blowtorch, stat." and then suffer the indignity of hearing laughter from behind the closed curtain?

I could wait two weeks, and let it grow out a bit, wearing baggy shorts and walking a bit straddle legged, then clipping away the offending linen strip.

I did what any self respecting woman would do.... I got a bottle of tequila, some tiny scissors, and ran a hot bath... and I sat there all night...soaking, clipping, drinking...and slowly pulling.

To this day, I have scars on one side.... I will not show you because I am modest.

I'll just journal about the experience instead.

The Bronx

A month in my 'hood.

I get nods now from the neighbors who sit on the steps in front of the banks of brick buildings like mine. I'm the lady with the red sunglasses and the little white dog who leaves at the same time, who picks up her dogs mess, as if it would be noticed in the wealth of garbage strewn on the sidewalks. The grandmothers who are younger than I am, the mothers younger than HRH.

The word Mamii is called to me everywhere, except by the guy at the pizza place, he calls me 'Baby', which is great for my ego...usually, I stop by on my way home for their homemade lemonade...I'm hot and tired and feeling anything but great, so, the "What can I get you, Baby?" is enough to make me smile.

I hear mothers screaming at their children, cursing them... I have to wonder how they will turn out, if the generational behaviour will carry on, if any of them will escape this place. I walk by, overhearing one young woman, no more than 20 or so, one child on her hip, pregnant with another, pointing to a third who toddles about as she talks to her friends;

"Yeah, that one...he's by a DR boy, this one, he's the white boy's baby. This one (here, she pats her belly), he's a black boy's kid. You know he's gonna be dark. Look how pretty this white boy's baby is, though!"

No names for the different fathers... just races. A mean thought crosses my mind...does she remember the names?

On the first of the month, the empty house across the street is busy... crack dealers move between cars, money is exchanged, packets passed. I walk, eyes straight ahead. The police step up the street patrols, two follow me home tonight, when I am coming home late. Even my pizza beau calls out, "Baby, hurry home!"

On Saturday, the doorbell rang... I called out, "Who is it?"

"Yo! You need any....medication?"

"What?"

"Mamii...medication. I ain't going to say it...you know. Medication."

"No, wrong place."

"You sure? It's good."

"No."

"Ohhh, right, you're the white lady. You have a good day, Mamii."

Have a good day? Does he pass out dope in packets with yellow smilie faces on them?

Friday, I stopped to talk to the couple who helped me get my stuff upstairs a week ago... the husband, a soft spoken man, told me to let him bring my heavy cases that had been delivered from N's house at long last. I was dragging them up, one slow step at a time, worried about them in the courtyard, even with the amazing gypsy driver who told me he'd rather sit and wait and make sure they were safe then pick up another fare.

He easily lifted a huge case on his shoulder, and picked the other up, walking the stairs without breaking a sweat.

His wife told me how they were looking to find a better place to raise their son... her father, who spoke almost no English, stood up, took off his hat, and gave me a slight bow. He gestured for me to take his chair.

She and I talked for awhile, the breeze was cooling, and it was much nicer than it would be in my baked in the sun all day under the roof flat.

Children ran about, and the ice cream truck, playing that damn tune from The Sting over and over and over... I used to like it. I used to like the product it sells. After 45 minutes of tinny Scott Joplin, I want to scream.

Before I can, the Father turns from his friend, and whispers, "Mamii..you want some.." and he mimes drinking from a bottle.

"No, no.. thank you."

"Is good. Not cheap. I have in car." He goes over to an '80's model Buick, and brings over a paper bag, the ubiquitous paper bag found all over the Bronx, all of them holding a drink of one kind or another....

"No, really..."

"You try." He shoves it my way.

"Umm... I have cancer." Before I can use an excuse and say my medications will not allow me to drink... he says,

"Is okay, I wipe bottle before I drink." and he smiled to show his good will.


What a kind offer.


It's a toss-up here. For the many bits of negative, you find some good... what costs $50 in Manhattan, I can buy for $10 here...so, my wardrobe is building. Since I've lost a huge amount of weight, and dropped five sizes, I'm also in the area that finally gives me a nice selection...especially here. I type this, feeling somewhat guilty for the semi-gloating feeling I have. It almost makes up for the fact all my toes are the same size.

Yeah, I have garbage on the street, drug deals going down, children having children, guys wearing those hats that they've stuffed so they sit high on their heads, LOUD music at all hours... but, I also have nice little boys who look for me to come home at night so they can open the gate and pet the terrier, a young woman who waves at me when she sees me, her father who tips his hat, a handsome pizza guy who smiles and calls me Baby... and... a neighbor who has a burst of wild roses here in the Bronx. I'll survive until I find something else.

Mr. Neebes

Tonight was going to be about the Bronx, living here, the train rides, the odd man who keeps offering me liquor out of a paper bag.

Focus changed when I found a missed call coming out of the train on the way to rehearsal... Mr. Neeebes had called. I rang back... I mean, what was one of my Top Five (if I had that service) doing calling me? I'd just spoken to the SisterWife the night before...Mr. Nebes was in Chicago, doing Fine Arts stuff.

"Well, hello, Miss New York! What are you doing?"

I proceeded to babble on, filling him in... this wonderful friend with the freckles and the curly hair and the wonderful wife and the children who swarm over you... the man who taught me about directing and theater and who has Hawaiian blood in his veins.

"What time are you finished tonight? Can I come watch your rehearsals?"

First, I screamed.... "You are in NEW YORK!!!" and I did a dance, in the middle of a sidewalk on Park. Oh! A person! Not just a person, but, a beloved person...A person who knows me, who knows me well, and loves me all the same.

Then it sank in... watch me direct???

There is no way in Hades (see? already I'm back in Land of Utes language) he's going to watch me in my first directing gig.

"I'm finished at 8...I'll meet you at..." and I gave him a place to show up.

"Well, I'll do my best.... I'm not sure I can make it, but, if nothing else, we'll chat on the phone."

With that to tide me over, I made it to rehearsals... did my best, and almost skipped to the meeting place.

No Mr. Neebes.

I dialed his phone. Straight to answering machine.

Heavy sigh.

Then, his voice that can smile... "Looking for me?"

I cried.

We wandered around, looking for some place with a table outside since I had the terrier... none to be found... and settled on grabbing a meal and eating at Union Square... the best idea we could have had. He went in first to order his meal.. and came out with a huge pizza, drinks and wonderful desserts for both of us. I'd not eaten since Friday, so, I think I sucked down the first two slices without tasting them.

We talked and talked and talked. I'd forgotten how much I missed the sound of his voice and his laughter. He told me the girls had their hair short, and how beautiful E was, that she would be a handful.. I told him not to worry, with her penchant for wall writing, the boys would have Sharpie markings on their faces before they could cause problems. That H was as smart as ever... I wouldn't reconise the baby... she who devoured her first birthday cake that I made for her; her whole body in a spasm of delight when she saw it. Mr.T... da man. Solid, funny, stubborn as ever.

How proud he was of the SisterWife, with her lead in the Festival. I kept tearing up, as I am now... she is one of those women you adore... and she has this laugh. This laugh that pulls you in and holds you tight. Red haired, beautiful, with an talent... the first time I saw her, she read cold for her audition. Others had done their audition pieces, memorised, worked on... she simply stood there, and read from the script.. he'd talked her into it...Bella's monologue to her mother from Lost in Yonkers... the Casting Director and I sat there, stunned.. and I wept. She was....there.

Discussing jobs, options, directing, friends, summers, camping with kids.... things.

We sat until it was dark, then he rode the 4 with me to where he had to change trains... I put my head on his shoulder for a second, and with that, he was gone.

My little bit of Utah, my quick smell of fresh air and dear friends and my longed for Orion went with him... the doors closed, the terrier resettled in my lap....

He had said to me how proud he was of what I was doing... that I looked happy. I told him how much I was giving up, how I missed him and the SisterWife and Mrs S... how I missed the stars. I wasn't sure it was worth the trade.

Sitting on the train, listening to 15 different iPods, looking over at the remains of someone's dinner under the seat across from me, smelling the drunk who took Mr. Neebes' seat, on the walk home, past the garbage, pretending not to see the drug deal I walked past... I seriously wondered if it was worth the trade.

Life is that last 100 feet of film, no money left... the moments that take your breath away. It's wondering if love is worth it, if it exists at all, dare we hope for anything.... how is it that a few emails can cause a catch in your throat... if living alone and having that dream are enough.

So far, it is.

Yep, Mr. Neebes, so far... it is. Seeing you, though... I had second thoughts.

Dad~Part II

They were gone, and it was my time to fill my summer with my cousins who spent almost every day with me, in their neighborhood filled with kids my age..Dad's sister introduced me to theater, took me to the library, kept me entertained. She is, like him, a woman of many talents... she could re-create any bit of couture she saw, she started her own company back when women were housewives, she is extremely intelligent and with my dad's same dry humour that sucks the moisture out of a room that I find carried forth in my own children and in one other person I know. That humour I watch and listen to and envy.

My best friend lived next door to my MawMaw, we read and she taught me 'Heart and Soul' and we played it until her brother chased us out of the house with a baseball bat.

Really, he did.

I bought comic books on credit at the local grocery store, and once a week, MawMaw and I would dress up, catch the bus to downtown Monroe where she would shop, and we'd go to Luby's for lunch. Afterwards, she'd have her hair cut and we'd go to a film, ending the day with a hot fudge sundae. We always made it home in time for Lawrence Welk. She and I would dance together in the front room, and she'd say how she loved those Lemon Sisters.


She taught me to make meatballs and red gravy and all the other family recipes. She would sit and make mud pies with me when I was very small, and never failed to spank me if I needed it.


I swam in the bayou, fished, read every afternoon when she said her prayers, then we'd both nap...we are Sicilian...and she'd brush my hair in the evening. Whatever I wanted, she made for supper. She'd tell me stories of her father and the family in Sicily. How she played the piano for the various theaters in New Orleans during the times of the talkies to add 'atmosphere'. How her father died in the flu epidemic of 1918. How she and her sister, Rosery, ran and found a priest in time to give him last rites, when so many others died without. How my dad looked just like him. How I should marry a nice Sicilian man....and thank the Blessed Virgin I didn't look Irish.


Now, you're thinking, Quin...how is this about one day, the day that shaped all the other days, how is this about your father?

When it was time for me to journey home from my sojourn with my MawMaw, my parents would come again in August. This particular year, both my siblings were in existence... the Heir and the Spare.

We'd do the reunion thing with Dad's sister, E, and her family...her husband, C, called Uncle Sonny, and her three children. We were the only cousins they had, since Sonny was an only child.

He was an architect, and they had an amazing house. The backyard was a kids paradise, complete with an enormous treehouse, playgrounds, sandboxes, trees and bushes everywhere around a lush lawn. They even had a slip and slide on it's own section of yard...everything you needed in the South to have a great time. It was a one story house, with a wraparound porch, the house shaped like an 'L', the master bedroom area forming the short part of the letter, circling around the backyard.

This year, the parents came up early to get me, and so it was, on my birthday at the end of July, we all gathered to have a final family meal. They were always interesting, as E hated my mother, and that feeling was returned with equal gusto. As the two had their drinks... E her scotch and Mother her gin and tonics, the barbs grew in sharpness, Mother's in her innocent voice, Ellen's in a acid wit that could etch steel, both voices coated in Southern tones Cigarette smoke curled up to the ceiling fans as we sat and watched the battle done in by two true Steel Magnolias.

"Ah, yes, P...what a clever little frock. I didn't realise people actually wore that colour."

Mother would respond, "E, still pretending you don't put vodka in your orange juice in the morning?"

The air crackled with ice. Who needed the air conditioning turned on, when we had these two? My grandmother excused herself and went to lie down with a cloth over her eyes.

Leaving the women to amuse themselves by seeing who could inflict the larger wounds, Dad and Sonny started a fire in the pit under the oak tree... then forced my cousin, G and I to forgo our preferred evening activity of avoiding people and reading in solitude. Adding insult to injury, we were made to watch our youngest siblings. To make up for this affront, we were offered the gift of s'mores and ghost stories.

It was almost a fair trade.

Gathering the neighborhood kids along with the six of us, the men started in with the tales of gore and ghosts. There we were...myself, G, M, M2, GC, D, the Barr twins..Hershey and Candy (yes, those were their names...causing me to believe they should have qualified for free psychiatric help for life) and two others who go nameless into history.

My dad was great at stories. Years of Boy Scouts had honed his skills so that he knew when to hit you with the punch line, causing you to jump, even when you knew every word by heart. Our food was forgotten, as we listened to the story of the hook man and the lovers lane couple...his versions of Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft were retold for our pleasure... our eyes gleamed in the firelight. Sonny excused himself during this scarefest, and none of us paid any attention to his leaving. A full moon rose over the master bedroom portion of the house, illuminating everything with that deep silver glow you find in the South in the summer. By this time, Mother and E had put aside their differences, but not their drinks, to sit on the patio and listen in. All you could hear was my father's voice as it rose and fell, open mouth breathing by the younger children, and the occasional slap to kill a mosquito.

Suddenly, in the midst of a hellish story about zombies, we heard it....a moan. Deep, reverberating, gurgling, it came from behind us. Dad stopped talking...and there it was again. Deeper, louder.... we turned as one, and saw...it. On the roof....silhouetted against the moon, dark cloak held out, white face... and that moan.

There was a collective gasp so solid, so severe, the leaves on the tree we sat beneath moved downwards. It was the only thing that moved for a frozen moment. A scream came out of ten throats in a variety of tones as we jumped up and scattered, adrenaline pumping, kicking over the fire and my father. G and I headed into the house in a dead run, leaving our wards, D and M2, to fend for themselves... M and the Barr kids went down the alley to the Barr home... the nameless kids ran though a rose hedge, causing huge gashes in their arms and legs and ruining the roses and GC went up the tree... the nearest branch was seven feet off the ground.

We never figured out how he managed that one.

The parents all laughed so hard, I believe the women peed. Of course, I think everyone should laugh at least once in your life so hard that you pee, however, not when your children are fleeing in terror. It took an hour to find everyone and calm them down.

It was always Dad's favourite story... and even now, with all of the pain that separates my mother, GC, D and I....if one of us starts a sentence with the words, "Remember when Sonny got on the roof..." each of us starts to smile, and for a brief moment, all is forgotten that has occurred since that time when my father and an uncle with a mad laugh plotted to scare a group of children, making their hearts flutter with frightened delight as they scattered into a firefly filled warm July night.

Dad~Part I

This is a two part post, dedicated to my father, who died Thanksgiving Day, 2005. He would have been 80 tomorrow. He was many things, an engineer, an archaeologist, a craftsman of stained glass, a historian, a man who could easily discuss anything from Greek drama to the minutia of the battles of the wars he studied. He gave me a love of music, reading, and history. He did not suffer fools gladly. He held medals of honour from Korea. He had a wicked sense of humour, a hard hand, and a great love of his grandchildren. He died while suffering from Alzheimer's, his only discussion points Judge Judy, the rotten food he ate, and his pride in the Jarhead. While in the home, he started many a geriatric rumble, an evil grin on his face as he yelled "Fuck you!" to the Mormon caretakers. He knew what he was doing, and loved every minute of it...




In the book, The Road, the father says, "....this was the time by which he measured all other days of his childhood."

I spent my summers in Monroe, Louisiana, where my father's family had moved when he was four. My time to measure all of childhood days was measured by a day in one of those summers, a day plotted by my dad and my uncle.

Summer started with our annual road trip to Monroe, which began the day before Dad's birthday, in order for him to be there with his mother, a wonderful, odd, Sicilian woman who loved him deeply, and who built her life around his well being. I was, as the eldest grandchild, her secondary purpose in life, and with the passing of my grandfather, our summer drive up to drop me off was a ritual, consisting of an hours long drive ending with an enormous meal that we were expected to consume when we arrived, no matter everyone was dead tired..

These rides gave me such a dislike of cars, that until I could control the steering wheel, I never liked road trips, nor cars in general. I still hold them as something to do only when pushed. To me, they were moving bits of steel that encased my family...dad at the wheel, mother making bologna sandwiches on white bread with that nasty sandwich spread and my mother's Golden Child, who always ignored the magic line down the middle of the back seat and encroached on my space. By the time my youngest brother was around, we had a station wagon, and the entire back area belonged to me and the luggage. Six pieces of Samsonite making a barrier around my pillow and books and imagination were far better than sitting with the rest of them.

I was not a social child.

My side of the backseat contained my books, a pillow, a shared blanket and the Barbie I refused to play with. Since we were usually traveling to the home of someone who had a daughter, and I would not be allowed to sit and read the way I felt I should be, I knew I'd have to do the Barbie thing. Out she came for the trip, complete with the wardrobe in the nice shiny black case with the pink 'BARBIE' in script on the front. Mine had a bubble haircut, and her head fell off on a regular basis. Actually, this made it easier to dress her.. I just popped off the head, threw on her clothes and there you are... instant out-of-proportion female body to aspire towards in your near future, including breasts with no nipples. Personally, I loved Ken and his embossed jockey shorts...no chance of sex education from Mattel! I wasn't good at Barbie.. my imagination didn't go down those lines. My Barbie was content to lie in her box and not talk to the other Barbie's. She, too, was a Private Car dweller...preferring to observe life and avoiding contact with others. The GC's side held tonka trucks, and a colouring book with colours.

Oh, and it held the Golden Child himself.

We'd drive like mad down the two lane highway, both parents smoking like trains, Mother's voice an Mississipppi accented flow of sound...Dad's a responding grumble... hashing out the day and week and their lives together working themselves up to arguments that would do Edward Albee proud... They really were masters of that biting cruelty. The funny thing is, in her mind, they were speaking sotto voce, and we didn't hear anything. I remember fights, smoke, JuicyFruit gum and Estee Lauder Youth Dew perfume, all crammed into that interior, each of those things can still make me ill, especially when confined to a car.

The trunk held small suitcases with their things, they only stayed until the morning after Dad's birthday, my big case for the summer, and the ice chest....it held muffulettas from Central Grocery for my MawMaw, with the olive salad in a separate container, cannoli from Brocato's on Carrollton, and Creole cream cheese... all her favourites from the city she was born and raised in.

We didn't have air conditioning in our car. When we complained about the heat, Dad's standard joke was that we had 475 conditioning.. four windows down, doing 75MPH. I'd read as long as I could by the light of day, having taught myself at a very young age this useful skill or I'd watch the fields go by...wondering who worked in them, what they looked like.. thinking the rows between looked like the legs of someone running as we drove past. Sometimes, Dad and I would sing, stopping only when the GC or Mom joined in... to say they couldn't carry a tune in a bucket is the kindest thing I can say.

That was the only kind of stopping we ever did. Those signs would be there, 'Come see the Biggest Iron Skillet in the World! Only Cruel Parents Wouldn't Stop Here!!' We didn't stop. "No restroom for 50 miles!!" Nope. 'Only 14 miles to the next Stuckey's!' Having never stopped at one, to this day, I never understood the appeal of Stuckey's. Dad would not be swayed from his schedule. He actually made schedules for our trips, timetables a train conductor would envy. The trip from New Orleans to Boston one June still gives me nightmares... we camped out the entire trip, pulling a trailer. Camped out. For over 1000 miles. That trip alone constitutes it's own story. I don't camp anymore either. Our experience on the New Jersey Turnpike was so traumatising when we tried to get to NYC, it was either stay or it was kill a toll collector. It kept me from visiting the city for years, in fear I'd have find that same toll collector and be there forever. The only thing Dad found acceptable to stop for was gas and a Civil War site...other kids had Mickey Mouse tshirts, mine showed Stonewall Jackson. We worshiped at the shrine of Jefferson Davis.

As we traveled along, GC would start to complain his stomach hurt. He'd alternate the complaints with kicking the back of Mother's seat. Eventually, her hand would swing over the bench seat, swatting at whomever she could reach. GC stayed curled up, I was leggy and had to stretch... I took the swats. So, I'd have to pinch him in retaliation. It seemed fair to me. He'd scream as if, well, soundly pinched. This would be the point where Dad would yell at Mother who would yell back.. she'd turn around and bend over the seats, swinging away. I've always said the behaviour of children in cars has decreased with the removal of the bench seat. No longer do you see cars hurtling down the highway with some mom's bottom framed in the windshield as she dealt with the recalcitrant children in the back seat of the family sedan...add to this is the knowledge that there was a good chance she wore a girdle and stockings, balanced a lit cigarette, kept her high heels from puncturing any of the upholstery and never smeared her lipstick proved her dexterity in this job. Truly, a lost art form.

Depending on the trip and how bored he was, GC worked on his carsickness with the deft touch of a master.

"Ohhh, my head. Let me put my head in your lap, Sis."

"No."

I knew what would happen. I'd have to be quiet and not be able to hold my book up to my nose to read.

"Mom.. MOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!" he would moan.

The front lines of war started again...usually, they had both left directly from work to start to the trip, and were tired from the get-go. Dad telling her to do something, anything to shut up that highly pitched sound. Mother and I would have the "why do I have to let him by me because I said so but why he will throw up on me no he won't yes he will do it or I'll beat you" discussion. Eventually, I had to allow him to cross that line, and put his head in my lap, and proceed to complain every time I turned a page.

That wasn't the main strategy, though. Oh, no...that was just the tease to the Big Show. He'd wait until he was really starting to feel ill... when he could time the amount of smoke in the car, that the two combatants in the front seat were at a breaking point, the fact I could no longer read.. and no rest stop for at least 50 miles. He'd sit up, and scoot back, huddling on his side.. gagging. I knew it was coming. I'd curl into my corner, as tight as I could get.

"Mom.. he's going to throw up." My refrain didn't halt, as he inched his way back over, holding my eyes... working it.. working it.. and when he got right on me... up it came. On me. On Barbie's case. On my side of the magic line. Mission accomplished, he'd burst into tears and move back over to his pristine seat, looking wan and pathetic.

He was an expert.

Dad would curse and yell, Mother would shout back he should have stopped at the last rest stop... they'd slam onto the kudzu covered shoulder, I still sat in the remains of sandwiches and chips. He was pulled out, cleaned up and comforted.. and I sat until they were done with him.

Finally, everything was clean as possible.. his clothes changed.. mine too, but, that stench lingered. The windows were rolled down, in spite of Mother's complaints about her hair blowing about. GC had the blanket to himself, they would have moved the ice chest from the trunk to the backseat floor, creating a little bed for him, and I stayed on my side of the line, watching and listening as they showed me how not to be married, voices truly lowered now, but, the anger was always there, floating on their smoke. Their tone became a lullaby...we'd drift off to the rhythm of the standard arguments we knew by heart. As his eyes slowly closed, GC would look over, and smile. I had to hand it to him.. he was good.

We'd pull in around 1AM, the porch light would be on... she'd come out....running to Dad, throwing her arms around him, pulling us out of the back seat. Holding us tight, ignoring my mother who was Irish, and not good enough. It didn't matter she'd married one, too. He was dead, and therefore now sainted.

My room was ready, my little fan already going, the cotton sheets crisp and white and ironed. The books were lined up, the dresser drawers empty and sprinkled with lavender. My PawPaw's photo was on my nightstand, the one of me sitting on his lap...

My summer was there, to start in 24 hours...

I could wait.

Miss H

Long ago, in a town far, far away from here...I met and married a man who had two children.

I became a step-mother.

You can approach this very delicate position in life a few ways... they are his kids, you see them rarely, you don't get involved, they are the bane of your existence, take away time from your new spouse, money from your pocket, create chaos in your new life, when your own children come along, there is trouble there...the list is endless.

It's one reason more second marriages fail than first ones.

I went into it the way I go into most things in my life...I jumped than looked around. I married a family, not just a man. Let him deal with the ex, although I did my fair share of that...and her husband! Oy! That's a book in itself... he wanted nothing to do with those kids once they had their own... again, a book in itself, and there is a nice bed in hell where he rests now.

I married a man who had two children, the Slumlord, so named because he owns more than one home...the second bought to give his sister a place to settle and have her child, and MissH.

She was two when we married... one when we started to date. She had these big blue eyes and curly blonde hair and a huge mouth. Huge. Like her dad, you never offer MissH a bite of anything, or you are left with nothing.

I used to stand and rock her to sleep, holding her close.. she had speech problems, ones no one would address, so, the wicked step-mother took her and had her tested. I was cursed roundly by her mother...it was worth it. She got the therapy she needed, and finally, and the age of three, she was able to talk enough that you could understand her.

I felt this way...they never came for visitation, they came home. I never spoke about their mother in a negative way...well, I slipped on occasion, but, it was home they came to... they shared rooms with their siblings, they had their clothes, they were treated no differently. Life went on, only in two houses. I refused to let guilt step in. Your parents are divorced? Big deal, so are mine.

She called me 'Mom' from the age of three.. and if you ask about her mom, she will talk about me. Their natural mother gave up custody when she was ten, and didn't see them for five years.. see the step-father comment...so, I guess that's what I became.

She has a big booming laugh, worries about everyone, has a head like a rock, can cuss like a sailor. I worry about her, we all do...and now she carries my first grandchild. She asked, "What do you want to be called?" and in my complete weirded out of being that old, I suggested 'Miss Quin'.

That didn't fly.

We settled on Nonnie. I wanted MawMaw... it's not done in Denver.


She has a mouth that holds a smile that goes on forever...it is surrounded by masses of tiny dimples. She is short, the shortest of my babies...next to TheInvestment and his 6'5"ness, she almost disappears. She has grown into a good woman, who will take over my reins eventually...but, for awhile...oh, for awhile, she was my wild child.

I remember at one point, every man she dated was arrested for something. I said, "Do you go to the Post Office and pick them off the wall?" She had no self-esteem... her search for a man to love her for her was long. She is beautiful, but thought the way to get a man was to be flashy and trashy, and that is how she was treated.

It took her to realise she was a woman, and beautiful inside and out to change her. I still worry about her, but, she's settled now, focused on her life, on her baby, on being a good mother.

She adored her siblings when they arrived...and HRH was her personal toy. She was my little girl always, I simply can't remember not having her, to the point I went into a guilt rant once, and said...

"All those hours of lab..."

She cut me short..."Mom, wrong kid."

No, I didn't labour to have her, we laboured other ways, to build our relationship as parents and children do...

She is not bone of my bone, nor blood of my blood, she was not born beneath my heart, but, in it.

Happy Birthday, Miss H.

I love you forever.