Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
I Own This Face
This is my face. For a long time I’ve wanted to disown my face. Years of smoking, laying around in the sun with no sunscreen, using cheap face creams, and basically not caring gave me drapes of wrinkles, some so deep they look intentional. Like how could someone have such significant lines on her face?
Well, my mother did. She sunned and smoked herself so much and so hard that her fair, smooth skin wizened into the face of a Kentucky dried apple doll. Loving her, I followed her path.
All right. It was unwittingly.
So for the past ten years or so, I’ve really been disowning my face. Pretending the crevices weren’t there. Making sure my hair swept across most of my forehead to take care of that rocky landscape. Just stuck in an echo of ‘say it ain’t so.’
But it was and it is. So I’ve set about owning my face. First I had my hair cut impossibly short. This forced me to not only own my whole face but also give up the unsuccessful attempt to hide my two hearing aids. Oh yes, I’m not only wrinkled, I am also increasingly deaf. I want to embrace this.
So like some stereotypical old lady wanting to look young, I got my hair chopped off and spiked, had another hole pierced in both ears, bought a pair of skinny jeans and two pairs of boots and practiced saying, “I might be somebody’s grandmother but I can still kick ass.”
Because being hot is the hardest thing of all to give up. For years, I gave up that territory to everyone younger than me. No more. Too much went into building this little masterpiece. Too many worries, late night phone calls, incredible surprises, kids that elated and disappointed, close calls, and hard work to disown or hide or apologize.
I claim what’s mine. I own it. I own this face.
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The Daily Post prompt: Face
Say It Ain’t So – Rats in the Basement: Part 3
Why Nelson? Don’t take this the wrong way. But he’s my rat. You know how they say that only the rats and cockroaches would survive in a nuclear holocaust. Yeah, well, my son would be right there with them, making a sandwich and watching the only big screen TV to survive the blast. He wouldn’t wonder where everybody went. My other son? Mr. Social. Mr. Teamwork. His lifeblood is his friends and musical theater. I am mother to them both. The miracle and mystery of adoption.
Nelson is oddly impervious to things that drive other people crazy. Like spending his work day in a 2 ft crawlspace installing fiberglass insulation that gets embedded in the skin of his arms. You getting me here? Not like me or you. So I needed him to be our rat – I really needed him. I needed him not to be grossed out or scared of the rats. I needed him to be the front guy. I just figured that, damnit, I had done so much for him and he couldn’t even fucking answer me when I asked for help. I texted again. No answer. Now I despise this kid and his lousy father who just called in to report about his bike ride with his friend around Catalina Island. He was tired, he said. Sad.
Nelson was standing at the back door.
What?
We have rats.
Where?
In the basement. We have to get everything out.
Oh.
We started. The three of us – me and my two sons. Hauling everything that could be moved out of the basement and making a huge pile at the curb in the front of the house. Every now and then I spied a brown flash running from the pile to our house or the neighbor’s house. I tried to act like we were setting up a garage sale and the hamsters had gotten loose.
Deep in the bowels of our basement, oh, so aptly described, I stood looking at the furniture and the paint brushes, papers, and rags and at my sons loading junk into garbage bags, both with bandannas covering their mouths, and I thought what am I doing here? A nice Methodist girl from Michigan with two Nicaraguan men? And then I thought of the prayer I heard my husband say at our table and sitting next to me in the synagogue, “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us and enabled us to reach this season.”
And I thought to myself. Just stand with me, you guys. That’s all I ask. And that’s what I’ll do for you.
In this basement. With the rats. And the junk. Just stand with me. That’s all I ask.
Don’t ask me questions. Don’t judge me. Just stand with me down here in this fucking 100-year old basement with the crazy ass rat colony.
And take care of me. Because I’m your mother.
And they did.
___________________
What happened later:
- Jerry came on Monday and put out poison/traps for the rats.
- No more dead rats were found. Jerry hypothesized that word got out in the rat community about the sudden deterioration of the cuisine in our basement.
- I saw the Batzner truck in front of other houses on our block.
- My husband came home and we resumed a happy married life.
- The basement was dead to me for two years. Which was good because it meant my husband had to do the laundry.
- In the spring, my husband and Nelson filled all the holes where the rats got in with cement.
- My sons are still my sons. And I’m still their mom. And I know we’ll show up even when it’s a really shitty situation.
- It’s an oddly happy memory.
Say It Ain’t So – Rats in the Basement: Part 2
Things got worse before they got better.
The next day, the Batzner truck pulled up in front of the house. The driver got out and put on his sandwich sign which said in 2 ft tall letters: THERE ARE RATS IN THIS HOUSE. RIGHT HERE. WHERE I’M PARKED.
I met him on the front porch and we walked around the house. I told him about the Lazarus rat that had been dead but came alive in our garbage cart. I asked him if he could catch the rat. And kill it with something – poison, a shovel, a rifle.
He said. He SAID. And I will remember these words on my deathbed – while the grieving family waits for me to give them parting words and spiritual guidance, I will see the Batzner man with his clipboard, the insignia on his shirt (Jerry), and the policeman flashlight hanging from his belt. Words to live by. You thought there was one fucking rat, Jan, and there were HUNDREDS.
That’s right. That’s what Old Jer said, “Ma’am, you don’t have A rat. You probably have a couple hundred rats. I would say probably 2 or 3 hundred rats are going in and out of your basement.
We went in the basement. It creeped me out even being with Jerry and his big boy flashlight. My husband should be doing this. Bonding with Jerry and the rats. That’s why people fucking get married. To have an appropriate division of labor. But no, my husband is on Catalina Island having heart to heart talks with his friend while I’m in the basement with a uniformed stranger and 300 rats.
He started flashing his light – this corner, then that one. See, that’s where they’re getting in. My buddy Jer explained how the rats had a network of tunnels underneath the house, that led to burrows into the basement. He pointed out the gnaw marks with the tip of his pencil and I could see how their little sharp wicked teeth had drilled through the wall leaving little excavation mounds.
Jerry checked off all the things that attracted the rats – easy access because of the age of the house, stacks of magazines and newspapers, old furniture, paint brushes and rags, and a giant bag of dogfood with, yep, little rat lip prints on the bottom corner. When you get all this stuff out of here, I’ll come back and set the traps.
I called my husband. His response? Ah, there aren’t 300 rats. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m not even sure there was one rat. Looked like a mouse to me. Just leave it and we can clean it up next weekend. (This is what’s called Howard’s Housework Scheduling Program (HHSP). Using HHSP means that when a need for any household intervention arises after 6:00 p.m. Friday, it can only be scheduled for remediation after 6:00 p.m. on the following Friday. This is how we live, folks. I’m not making this up.)
Obviously, there was no way in hell I was going to clean the basement by myself. Or sit upstairs drinking Scotch while the rats played cards downstairs.
My only kid within reach was the one I love having lunch with. Loyal, funny, chatty, and helpful, Joe was not my rat man.
This job required his brother. The same brother who I actually would have killed with a shovel had he graced my front door during the previous three months. It was either deal with Nelson or wait a week.
I texted: Nels. Come over tomorrow at 9. I need your help. And don’t ask any questions.
Tomorrow: Rebuilding Relationships with Rat Shit
Read more about Norway rats here http://www.batzner.com/pest-database/rodents/norway-rat.asp
Say It Ain’t So – Rats in the Basement: Part 1
This is a story I’ve thought of telling many times but it’s always been so hard to get my arms around it. You know. Stories about rodents are just so very hard to craft well.
My story started when I saw this creature in my backyard laying under a tree. As still as can be.
That’s a rat. I told my husband.
It’s not a rat. It’s just a large mouse. We live in the city. There are mice.
Mice aren’t that big. It’s a rat. There’s a dead rat in our yard. If there’s a dead rat in our yard, there’s probably a live rat IN OUR HOUSE.
My husband uses denial of reality as a primary labor-saving device. So if I tell him that one blade of the ceiling fan is hanging inches lower than the other blades and is about to fly off and decapitate us, he will say, first, What fan? I never noticed a fan.
And then, after being forced to recognize the existence of the fan, will say, Oh, that fan. No, I don’t notice anything different about the blade hanging 12 inches lower than the others.
So because he is basically gallant, especially when pressed, he picked up the dead creature in the backyard with a shovel and put it in the garbage cart.
Then he said, Fine, if YOU think it’s a rat, I’ll call the exterminator tomorrow and have him come out here. But, you know, I’ll be gone so you’ll have to deal with it.
The next morning I dropped him off at the airport for his annual weekend with his best friend – this year, they were going to Catalina Island. I was going home to the very large dead mouse in my garbage cart and the exterminator who was coming the next day.
That night, I took out the trash. Heaved open the lid of the garbage cart and right away saw it.
The hole.
Holy crap. Not only is this not a mouse, this is a live rat. A live, motherfucking rat that is running around out here with me in the damn dark or already in my house waiting for me with his big awful teeth and that horrible tail. IN MY HOUSE!
I hate my husband.
Tomorrow is Part 2 of this lovely story.
See how rodents show the way to family bonding.
The Power of I Am Sorry: Mending Family Estrangement
I’m resurrecting this piece that I wrote several years ago about my long term estrangement from my parents. It’s the story about how 10 years of silence ended. It also was the first serious personal essay I wrote. It just goes to show that the most important thing about writing is to have something to say. And I had something I had been waiting a long time to say.
Every once in a while, especially around the holidays, I like to put this piece out there to remind people that if you think it’s too late to make things right, you’re wrong.
The title of the piece which appeared in Newsweek Magazine in September 2008 was The Power of ‘I Am Sorry’; the title’s been changed a bit to The Power of Saying You’re Sorry. I actually like that better.
Mario
I fell in love with a little boy in Nicaragua 18 years ago. Tonight he’s recovering from surgery in a hospital in North Carolina. There’s a story here.
I met him when I went to Managua to bring back our newly adopted 6-year old daughter. That’s her. The one in the red shirt with bangs and a little pageboy haircut.
Every day for a week, I would go to the orphanage and we would hang out, she and I. Each of us being monolingual in our own way, we spent a lot of time drawing pictures and practicing writing her name. Generally, we would sit on the floor of the toddler hut amidst kids in playpens and kids in walkers.
That’s where I met Mario.
He was a little guy – maybe two or two and a half. He buzzed around us in a walker, one of those that have a sling seat surrounded by a little plastic table, four wheels. He zoomed into us, around us. And even as he sped around it was obvious that one leg was ok but the other one wasn’t.
What’s wrong with Mario? I bugged my Spanish-speaking friend to ask the workers. Ah, his leg is not good.
You can ask questions all you want in Nicaragua. Doesn’t mean you will get answers.
Mario was beautiful with a round face, big brown eyes, a constant smile. So friendly and busy and happy. But I was obviously already committed and the girl I had come to get was herself beautiful, friendly, busy and happy. I could have no complaints.
Plus that wasn’t the way it worked when we adopted from Nicaragua. We didn’t get to shop. Children were chosen for us – actually by a single very remarkable woman who headed the country’s human services department. At the time, I thought God spoke to her. Now, I think God spoke to her.
Anyway, when I got back, I tried to start a family campaign to adopt Mario. It lasted five minutes. My husband, accurately determining that we were already over our heads, said no.
But because Nicaragua’s focus at the time was on helping kids with disabilities get adopted in countries with first world medicine, like the U.S., the authorities there sought another home for Mario.
And they found one. A family in Racine that had already adopted a little girl from the same orphanage was ready to adopt Mario. They did. They were already part of our little band of Wisconsin Nica adoptive families – about ten of us who had adopted from the same orphanage. And so it happened that the same little boy who zoomed around in his walker in Nicaragua would visit my house in Milwaukee and do the same thing. For several years, I would see him at least once a year at our annual Three Kings celebration and then his family moved across the country and we lost touch.
Enter Facebook.
Through a friend I connected with Mario’s mother and then I saw the pictures of Mario as a young man. Mario with his parents and his sister. Mario now a very handsome guy with the same beautiful eyes and terrific smile. Wow, he grew up. I am so happy that he grew up.
And then the news of chronic health problems related to the condition of his leg, of his mother searching for solutions, of recurring stays in the hospital, of long, difficult nights, and a lot of reaching out for prayers. And I sent up my prayers although I am not what one would normally call a prayerful person.
So all of this causes me to think alot about fate and how orphaned kids end up with particular families. When we say an adopted child is chosen, who really is chosen? Is it the child or the new parents? I don’t know.
I do know that this child – this Mario who so caught my heart so many years ago – found the mother he needed. And it wasn’t me.
So in my own not very prayer-oriented way, I pray for her and him tonight. That he heals quickly and good and she can rest and enjoy her son.
That’s it. That’s my story tonight.
What Did I Know? Words from a Non-Yiddisha Pisk
What did I know? I knew nothing.
I was 35 when I married a nice Jewish man from Philadelphia. His mother was small, blond, smart, and very scary. She had told him growing up that she would sooner hang herself in the closet than see him marry a shiksa (non-Jewish woman).
He told me this before I met her for the first time. In the car on the way to her house, I could feel my shiksa self growing ever larger, more Christian, and more alien. So by the time we went in the front door, I felt like a Russian peasant with a babushka and a pitchfork who had just cheered on the Cossacks in their raid of the shtetl (little Jewish village). I wanted to apologize right away.
We got married but not in a Jewish or a Christian way. We were married by a judge in a rushed, wacky courthouse wedding. Not having a big deal wedding meant we could avoid choosing a church or a synagogue – a minister or a rabbi. Besides, my husband would say then — he was Jewish, he wasn’t JEWISH.
But the minute we got married, he suddenly seemed like the most Jewish person I’d ever met. Every two seconds, he’d let loose with some Yiddish word. “I don’t want to deal with all the hazarai (junk),” he’d tell me when he got tired of talking about complicated plans for a weekend. “Stop bubbameisting me,” when he’d decided I was henpecking him. He would alternate the Yiddish with my favorite, moo’ing like a cow to suggest I was being bossy.
“Hey, before you leave, there’s some schmutz on that shirt.” Schmutz? Junk, crud, major lint.
And my very favorite of all time, on a day when I decided to wear a long denim jumper from the thrift store, “Where did you get that schmatta (raggedy piece of clothing)?” That last one has stung for a long time even though I later deep-sixed the jumper in a Goodwill bag and resolved to eschew the Earth Mother look going forward.
There are a bunch of other choice words — mummzer and shicker (both not so nice words). And then there’s Yiddisha pisk which he uses to mean a Jewish face although the Yiddish dictionary says it means loud mouth. So he’s taken a little license with the term. He says that’s how Yiddish works.
Oy, I tell you. What do I know? I know nothing.
I Cracked
I cracked and cut her bangs. “I can’t stand this,” I said and went to fetch the scissors from the City Hall cup on my desk that John Kalwitz gave me when he was president of the Common Council. I have said cup for the obvious reason. I am old enough to have been around City Hall when John Kalwitz was CC president. I am old enough to be a grandmother after all. I am this particular kid’s grandmother as well as grandmother to another little girl in California about whose bangs I never have to worry.
This girl’s bangs make me nuts. I go for months. Ignoring. Brushing them out of the way.
When they look like this, it’s like Waif Central.
Cute for 30 seconds. And then I’m shuddering in my desire for the scissors.
Then I start the muttering, the arguments with myself. It’s not your place to cut her hair.
For a long time when she was very little, her other grandmother would give her a bowl cut every time Alita slipped into her custody. I loved it. But was conscious of my daughter-in-law’s aggravation with her mother. After all, I would have gone apeshit if my mother or my mother-in-law had cut one of my daughter’s hair. Good f**king grief. The gall.
Still. I hate the hair in the eyes. “I can’t see your beautiful face,” sounding like the invisible grandmother on the coffee cup I have downstairs. The one with all the grandma sayings that somebody gave me…..Hi honey, don’t you want another cookie? I think there are some quarters in my pocket for you. Are you cold? Here’s my sweater.
I’ve come to this realization. Many times. But today for sure.
I can only be kind for so long.
Then I have to cut the bangs. And then, as I look at the picture, cut them badly. I’d try to fix it, again with my office scissors, but the outcome is likely to be even worse. I don’t know how to cut hair. I only know how to end my aggravation.
But. I will say this.
She was all smiles afterward. She looked in the mirror and had a big smile. And I figure it was because she could see her own little face for a change.
I’d like to be like the grandmother on the cup. But I’m not.
Screw it. I’m doing the best I can. So sue me.
Since writing this post, I’ve had time to reflect. I’m going back to my rule not to mess with my granddaughter’s hair and put the scissors in a lockbox buried in the forest.
Susan G. Komen and My Toe
When a Facebook friend posted the news about Komen cutting its support for Planned Parenthood, I had a quick and visceral reaction. Can’t possibly be true. There’s got to be a lot more to the story. I quickly posted a comment. Only semi-indignant. I held back but I was really disbelieving. There had to be a really good reason why Komen would make such a decision — like maybe Planned Parenthood was siphoning off money to buy Mercedes for top executives or holding flashy parties with male strippers who were getting tipped with Komen cash.
I couldn’t believe Komen would do anything so seriously wrong. After all, I’d walked sixty miles for this organization. Twice. Two 3-Days. And I’m not like 25 years old either so it’s kind of a big deal to go strolling for 20 miles three days in a row with a sea of women who could all be my daughters.
But as the news unfolded, it became oh, so clear what had happened. And it made me sick. It really made me sick. I can’t stand stuff that makes life harder for poor people. It’s a major theme in my life. But a big reason why this Komen thing really hit me and I reacted so incredulously and this isn’t a joke, although you will think it is, had to do with my big toe.
It was my first 3-Day walk. San Diego 2007. The first day — we’ve got our new shirts on, our little pink hats, and our little fanny packs and we start walking. And it’s a sensation like no other because first I’m thinking – wow, this is so amazing to be here with thousands of women setting out on the streets of San Diego, we’re a damn army here — and then within minutes, I’m incredulous at my own misplaced bravado. I thought I could walk 20 miles a day? So after the first brave mile, there was 19 miles of faking it.
That night after a ridiculous Lucille Ball-like episode where I lost and then found our tent (which had been hiding about 6 feet away from us at the time), we settled in. And then it happened. The suitcase dropped on my big toe. And hearing, not hearing, feeling the splitting as the toenail pulled away from the nailbed.
Next morning. A lot of bandages, the sock, the shoe, the walking. I wanted to stop every 20 feet, unwrap it and look at the damage. The car wreck in my shoe. I hobbled into the first aid tent at one stop and asked the nurse what could be done. The nurse told me she could take the nail off right then and there or I could keep wrapping it and icing it and soldier on. I remembered the adage about how you can take your mind off one pain by creating another one so I tried to focus on the blisters on my other foot. And tried not to see the little peek of blood seeping through the top of my shoe.
I will say this. I kept on walking. That day (day #2) and the third day. And I walked into Padre Stadium at the end of the 60 miles with my daughter and a massive herd of sweaty, blistered women and got this shirt. And I was so amazingly glad to be done. So relieved that I hadn’t dropped dead or cried or had to have people carry me or ride in the dreaded sweep van. I walked every stupid step.
I felt pride. And solidarity. And gratitude. I felt like I overcame my damn toe and my wimpiness and my wanting to lay down on someone’s lawn and ask for a blanket. All that pink made me strong, man.
Seriously.
So when I first saw the news about Komen’s crappy decision, I just couldn’t believe it. These were the people who made me a tough girl (if only for three days). So I reacted to the news by immediately defending Komen – reflex. Like somehow being in the 3-Day had made the Komen folks my peeps. I think a lot of women across the country might feel like I do – like the organization they stood up for just took them for a ride.
I’m feeling pretty sad right now. Maybe I’m kind of feeling had. Feeling like the solidarity and the pink and the sea of women were more props than real. I don’t know.
Those were some great days.
- Me and my husband and our breast cancer fighting dog, Bow Wow, at the end of the walk.
Start Where You Are, Use What You Have: Involving Dads in their Kids’ Lives
This is week 2 of my little campaign to figure out ways to make my son have fun with his daughter. Last week it was sledding. Today, skating.
Don’t bother me with “you shouldn’t have to do that.” I shouldn’t. But I do. And I am. So lay off.
For the uninitiated, his daughter, our granddaughter, spends most weekends with us (her grandparents) – hence, inviting him to go skating with us at Red Arrow. It’s complicated.
I texted him. We’re skating at Red Arrow Park. Meet us there at 2. Then I sat back and waited for excuses.
I have no idea where that is, he texted back. After I sent instructions, he texted I’ll try.
“You used to do stuff like that with me,” my husband said. “Didn’t you?” “Try to figure out how to make me do things with the kids.”
I admit nothing.
So about a half mile from Red Arrow Park, I got a text. I’m here.
And he was. Sitting in the corner of Starbucks. Texting.
Wearing the same white warm-up pants with the blue stripe that he wore his entire senior year in high school (he’s now 27) and his favorite Klondike traveler hat. 
Ten years ago, heck, five years ago, or maybe last week, this outfit would have driven me nuts. That’s before I had the deep realization that a) no one would ever imagine we’re related and b) he might be just as annoyed at how thrift store dorky I look. We both still really like it – in a weird kind of way – when we act like mother and son and catch funny sidewise glances from other people. We would have been a big hit on What’s My Line?
Walking out to the ice rink in our skates, I told him, “Hey, you know, I have this theory.”
“Yeah. What?”
“Dads make kids braver.”
He’s oblivious. As he is to much of what I say, said. Ever.
But I’m right. In ten minutes, he’s holding his little girl’s hands, skating behind her and they are going fast enough that her hair is flying out behind her.
She’s grinning. Really grinning.
Last time, she was smiling while she held her grandparents’ hands and inched, inched around the rink.
This time she’s flying. And she’s grinning.
I am so satisfied with myself. La maestra.
Right.
I can’t make life perfect. But I can make sure this little kid can ice skate and I can make her dad teach her.
So that ain’t bad. As my husband would say, “That’s not nothin’.”
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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