I Have A New Therapist

For someone who abhors awkward situations, I sure do find myself smack dab in the middle of them an awful lot. Not meet-cute, sit-com rollicking, awkward events where the laugh track kicks in and we all go get shawarma afterward. Nope. I get the face-flushing-oh-God-get-me-out-of-here NOW moment where I would love it, LOVE it if the floor would open up and swallow me whole.

I try to say the right thing. Heck, I’m trained to say the right thing. I was in public relations in a former life and I wrote the company’s talking points when a tractor-trailer hauling toxic goo wrecked on an interstate in northern West Virginia. I could throw a spin on a situation faster than you could say “Shelter in place or you’re all gonna die.”

In the theatre of life, I can direct any play that doesn’t have me in it. I’m rather proud of my ability to step away from a situation, assess, and open necessary lines of communication between people. I’ve helped mend relationships and diffuse situations that verged on state police intervention and grand theft auto charges.

However, when it’s focused on me, when the klieg lights shine down on my wild, greying hair and my triple chin, I spew. I spit. I sputter. I cry. Often, I cuss. Sometimes I come out fighting like a cornered raccoon, but, more often, I crumble like a three-week-old *Bundtini.

Nobody respects a three-week-old Bundtini. If it was left uneaten for that long, it wasn’t very good to begin with. A tasteless confection.

When somebody comes at me on a personal level, I am so filled with self-doubt that I crumble. After all, I am obviously a tasteless confection.

 That happened recently and I was so shocked by the vigor with which this person came at me that I even surpassed my initial response to spew, spit, sputter, cry or cuss. It was an awful moment. A horrible moment, but when the floor refused to swallow me, I also realized that I could be a freshly made, red -velvet, cream-cheese frosted Bundtini and that I was not going to crumble. The response slid from my lips like a bar of soap slipping through my hands in the shower.

“I have a new therapist,” I said.

She looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and repeated the phrase because that was answer enough. It said so much. It said, “I’m working on myself.” It said, “I am learning boundaries.” It said, “This situation is so full of crap that we need muck boots and a pitch fork.” It even said, “This is a you problem and I don’t have to deal with this anymore.”

I’ve determined that this is my late middle aged, early senior citizen’s way of saying, “My mom said I couldn’t.” Until I can learn to respond with, “I don’t want to do that,” or “This makes me uncomfortable,” like the grown-assed woman I am, I’m going to use my new fallback, “I have a new therapist.”

“Tina, can you spend an evening writing a zillion postcards for a candidate who’s going to be elected anyway, and even though we know people don’t really read these postcards, this proves your fealty to us personally and in no way related to this candidate?”

I will shake my head. “Sorry. I have a new therapist.”

“Hey, I’m in the middle of a pyramid scheme, but it’s not like the other jewelry, makeup, essential oil, vitamin, cure-du-jour I’ve sold you on and this one really, really works.”

“I have a new therapist.”

“Hey, if you could just…”

“New.”

“But just this once?”

“Therapist.”

It pleases me, this saying, and it appeals to the part of me that is a people pleaser. I’m implying that I’m making my therapist happy by saying no, when, tbh my new therapist is a ridiculously upbeat person whose mental state depends upon mine Not. One. Bit.

It won’t work for all situations, of course. I’ll still shove aside the three Contributor newspapers lying on the passenger seat of my car and buy another one as I sit at a redlight. Someone experiencing homelessness rightfully gives zero flips about my new therapist.

I’ll still drop everything if one of my kids or Spousal Unit calls. I’ll continue to grumble, kvetch and moan, but pack up all the gifts and go to my parents’ house for Christmas. I will always, always try to be there for my friends. After all, I’m still gonna be me.

But the next time an electrician corners me in my kitchen insisting that Anthony Fauci was in on a conspiracy to spread Covid 19 and that he knows people, KNOWS people who had weird symptoms after they were vaccinated even as I’m whimpering, “My late twenties son has long term issues from his 2020 Covid exposure from an anti-masker and my unvaccinated aunt died from it,” I plan to look at my Apple Watch as if it holds the answers, suck on my teeth and before I walk off, say,

“I have a new therapist.

*Bundtini – a delicious tiny little treat from the bakery chain Nothing Bundt Cakes.
You should try one.

…

Happy 160th Birthday Mountain Mama

My home state is 160 today and for almost 62 of those years, I’ve shared a complicated history and love story with her. Like most creatures born of rebellion, she’s fiery, feisty and a little bit rogue. She’s also insecure, afraid to trust her instincts, so she often shoots herself in the foot, as the Appalachian saying goes, voting against her best interests and forgetting her roots in fighting against oppression and for social justice. John Brown and Mother Jones were West Virginians.

She’s a beauty, my home state, an original curvy girl. My stomach lurches driving interstates that bend like a gymnast and I expect my SUV to straighten a curve and soar into the air, Thelma and Louise style, instead of sticking to the pavement. I find myself facing the direction I just left as the road wraps itself around a mountain. If I weren’t behind the wheel, I’d be carsick.

I just spent nearly two weeks with the birthday girl. A writers’ conference. A visit with the fam. Both fed my soul and made me pensive. The writers’ conference was the best I’ve ever attended. Maybe that’s not saying much; I don’t get into the writers’ conferences that hold auditions. My new therapist tells me that’s because the folk at Sewanee are snobs. I like my new therapist a lot. The folk at the West Virginia Writers’ Conference are not snobs, but they know their stuff. I learn a lot. More than my brain can hold so I take notes. Pages and pages of notes that later fill a notebook.

Cloaked by hills in the middle of the state, I feel creative again. Presenters tell us we’re writers and I believe them. Surrounded by people with the accent I love, I’m home. I’ve lived away from West Virginia for 35 years, but it’s still home. These are my people, especially a bunch of Subaru-driving, left-leaning, grammar-loving, shit-kicking story tellers. I want to make sure they know I am one of them. I flaunt my Mountain State pedigree. From Milton. Went to Marshall. Married a Huntington boy. I might live in Nashville, but I’m one of you. They don’t care. They are not the folk at Sewanee. They are the antithesis of snobs. They’re West Virginians – all you gotta do is listen to their stories and then maybe tell your own.

My lifelong friend, Jennifer, is there. She’s the one who told me about the conference. When I say lifelong friend, I’m saying that our mothers were pregnant together. We attended first grade through college together. Journalism majors. Grew up in the same church. Buried a lot of our mutual friends, so we’ve grieved together. She drives a Subaru. She’s been there for all of my lumps. I hope I’ve been there for hers.

I’ve been going through it, as my kids say. Wallowing in a depression that was threatening to take over for a few months. It probably doesn’t help that Spousal Unit and I joined other members of our church in committing to read the Bible this year. The Old Testament is depressing as hell and listening to Job on the way up made me ready for my own sack cloth and ashes. Maybe Jen knew it instinctively, or maybe I’d told her. Depression is like that. Who knew? Who did I tell? Who cared? It doesn’t matter because Jennifer had a solution and I find myself in the middle of the state, surrounded by hills and like-minded folk driving Subarus, and remembering that I might never get into Sewanee, but I am still a writer.

The conference coincided with news about my dad’s health. He might have Parkinson’s. Most likely has Parkinson’s. We are afraid he has Parkinson’s. He’s 86 and still runs circles around me, but his left arm has a mind of its own and that doesn’t go over well with the man who is my dad. I want to have a heart to heart with his left arm and tell it to quit rebelling, to accept that Daddy is the boss. “Go along to get along, Arm,” I would tell it. “I promise you it’s what works best. That man is used to getting his way.”

Sure enough, when the tremors start, he tucks it under his other arm, or into his pants pocket. He grunts at it. I know that grunt. I’ve been the target of that grunt and I am afraid of that grunt. I’m telling you, Arm, you’d better do what he says or you’re gonna find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. You will be grounded ‘til the end of time.

Of course, my dad being my dad, the minute I walked through the door, he tells me, “I’m getting a job at Lowe’s.”

“But you just quit Walmart.”

“Yeah, but I’m getting a job at Lowe’s.”

I wait for it. I always wait for it.

He holds up his tremoring left arm. “Gonna shake the cans of paint.”

I snort laugh and tell him Man Child called him Michael J Pawpaw. He grins and laughs. We’re gonna be okay with Parkinson’s. Not much this family can’t handle.

After the conference, I have a week to hang out. I want to loll around the Rich People Patio, but this week of my visiting is not leisurely. There are a sister-in-law, niece and great-niece to visit. Old friend from high school to walk with. Church organist to check in with at the town library, which she manages. Back in the day I played piano while she played organ during church services. We were good. She still is.

I watch my sister’s child, my incredible niece, make the best of being stuck in a landlocked state with dreams of being a marine biologist. She’s a diver who tends the tank and fish at Cabelo’s and spends more than an hour under water cleaning the tank. At my encouragement, my mother, the consummate housekeeper, tells her she missed a spot. I record the moment for posterity.

I continue to be surprised at how many Subarus are rolling around in my home state. If stereotypes can be counted as true, there are a lot more Democrats in West Virginia than one might think. I share my surprise with my mother, “They’re everywhere. I thought it was just at the writers’ conference with a bunch of left-leaning writers, but look there’s one…and there’s one.” As the days continue, I point out Subarus to my mother until it becomes compulsive. I can not not yell “Subaru!” and point. A 2020s version of Slug Bug.

My mother’s best friend passed away while I was “up home.” I had stopped by her room at hospice on my way into town. I’m glad I did. She roused out of her sleep. “Man calendar,” she said to me. Not only did she recognize me, but remembered my ill-fated 1982 Men of Marshall calendar. I don’t hate that Betty Pancake met her maker thinking of me in that light.

We dress shop for my mom, who bemoans how long it’s been since the last time she got a new dress, every time I visit. After shopping for nearly an hour, I know why it’s been a few years. I’m not saying she’s hard to please.

I’m saying she’s impossible.

“No waist. I don’t have a waist so I don’t want a dress to have one.” The stylish niece tries to educate her Nanna about the fallacy of that. The stylish niece gives up. My sister, niece and I each hold out dresses. Goldilocks is having none of it. Too long. Too short. Too low. Too high. The dress needs to take Nanna from her friend’s funeral to her great niece’s picnic wedding reception on Saturday. Too formal. Too casual.

She holds up a shapeless, colorless blob of fabric. “If this were in a darker color,” she says.

It looks like something Job would wear. I had offered to buy her a dress for her birthday, but my sore back and state of hangry eclipse my largesse. “I’m not paying for that piece of shit.”

Now, Daddy’s arm and I are both grounded.

I find a blazer; she finds an outfit to go under the blazer. Of course, she looks like a million bucks. The woman is gorgeous. My sister and I choke down our bitterness and resentment. We’ve never had her legs and probably won’t have her graceful aging. We definitely don’t have her housekeeping skills.

By the end of the week, I am exhausted. I barely remember a writer’s conference and have had very little time on the Rich People’s Patio, which I suppose deserves an explanation.

Years ago, PC, (pre-covid) a little subdivision erupted from the winding road behind my parents’ subdivision. The winding road has a name – James River Turnpike – but we always called it the back road. The homes are nice – ish – and my parents are taken with them, especially the fact that the residents set patio chairs inside the garage where they hang out and watch the traffic (my parents) go by. It may have been a covid thing, or it could be the 2020s version of a front porch. Because the houses were nice – ish – my mom and dad called this phenomenon the “rich people’s patio.”

During that same time, one of West Virginia’s truly rich residents (the kind who files bankruptcy, then starts a new construction project) began renovating the old nursing home two hills over. I never realized how close Morris Memorial Hospital was until they mowed down the trees between us. My kids and I were devastated at the deforestation; my parents shrugged their shoulders, and pulled a couple of fold-up chairs and a collapsible table into their garage. They had a rich people patio from which to watch the construction and munch on banana popsicles.

They sit there, observe the three or four laborers who clock in each day and muse on the golfers riding electric stand-up carts where forest used to be. “Five went down the hill, but I only see four,” ponders my father.

“There he is.”

Golfers accounted for, they listen to the hammers. Never more than six bangs and then a pause. “I guess it’s time for them to take a break.”

I’m fascinated. This is the antithesis of a Nashville job site, giant cranes hovering, workers swarming like bees, towers rising faster than I can do a load of laundry. I compliment my dad for  his ability to understand the comings and goings of both the golf course and the job site.

“Experience counts,” he says. He’s been rich people patio-sitting for a while and is adept. He points toward the weed eater lying on the concrete driveway, abandoned by the need for a popsicle and some rich people patio time. “I’m trying to teach that thing to run itself,” he tells me. “If it lays there long enough, it might.”

I wish I could give him a self-driving weed eater for Father’s Day. Instead, my sister and I give him new rich people patio furniture. And a tiny fridge to keep his pop. Watching construction and golfers is dehydrating work.

When the sun begins hiding behind the hill, we go inside to fix supper and watch westerns. I’ve become a Wyatt Earp movie connoisseur and both my dad and I agree that the Patrick Swayze one is the best. My mom rolls her eyes and irons her new outfit.

I don’t want to leave, but my life is in Nashville. For now. Spousal Unit is aware that if Man Child and his wife ever leave this city, it’ll be nearly impossible to keep me here. Tennessee is an unforgiving, hard place to live and Nashville is poised to lose itself in itself. If it were a person, my parents would say it’s gotten too big for its britches and forgotten its raisin’.

After Father’s Day brunch, I get in my car to leave. Job starts mewling again and I let him. I agree, buddy. Shit sucks. I see my loved ones walking to their own car in my rearview mirror, look toward the left at an oncoming car, and say to myself, “Subaru.”

And a Merry Covid Christmas to You All

I dreaded our first Christmas without Art School Grad and Man Child. Each would be with their significant other and the thought of an offspring-free Christmas made my tummy hurt. Still, I put on my big BIG girl panties and through clenched teeth offered, “It’s only fair that we share. We had you last year.” Those big BIG girl panties were tight, however, and in a wad, because I hate sharing. I’m greedy and selfish, especially when it comes to my kids. They’re my favorite people on earth and *stomps foot* they’re MINE.

Fine. They’re also Spousal Unit’s but only when they get tattoos or need some POS project car towed.

I grumbled through Christmas songs and groused through Christmas movies. I snarled at Christmas shopping and whined at being invited to only one Christmas party. I don’t know why it bothered me that I’ve been cut from lists; I wouldn’t invite me either. I whine too much; eat all the food and usually break something priceless or spill tomato-based food on white carpet. I wear ugly sweaters and close my eyes for the group photo. Who wants that?

Apparently, my poor parents do. They were afraid I’d go to the garden and eat some worms instead of trekking to West Virginia like We Do Every Dang Christmas. I reassured them, Yes, of course we’re coming. Don’t we always? Well, okay, I’ll give you that, but admittedly that was the year that I was 38 weeks pregnant. And yes we also did miss then, but that was the year the world was shut down for Covid. We. Will. Be. There.

Three days before Christmas, we raced out of Nashville with Winter Storm Elliot on our heels, but Spousal Unit couldn’t escape Christmas Storm Tina. He stared out of the passenger side window and gripped the arm rest as I weaved between tractor trailers and enumerated all of the reasons I was persecuted and why this Christmas was going to suck. Six hours later, I plopped onto my mother’s couch to enumerate to her how I was persecuted and why this Christmas was going to suck while my limping, aching dad tore himself from the western on TV and helped Spousal Unit drag luggage and gifts from the still-panting Subaru.

The familiar smell of disinfectant wafted throughout the house. My mom’s house is always immaculate and if the local OR is ever backed up, I’m sure she could loan out her kitchen floor. She noticed my nose crinkling slightly – there seemed to be an even cleaner smell than usual. “Your dad has a cold. I’ve disinfected the doorknobs and his bathroom and the utility room and….” I tuned her out. Daddy’s seasonal cold did not pertain to my seasonal persecution.

The next morning, Mother fixed us a bed and breakfast-worthy brunch. I wiped syrup from the corners of my mouth and dusted French Toast crumbs from my chest, belched and looked around. Where was my mom? “Nanna is resting a bit,” Daddy said. Resting? Those people don’t rest. They don’t know the meaning of the word. They’re in their eighties and when we visit, my entire Nashville clan has to tag off shifts to keep up with them. My twenty-something kids’ eyes well up with tears when they spend the day “hanging out” with Nanna and Pawpaw, only to learn that a day of working in the yard, reconstructing the attic stairs and cooking three full meals is a “half day” to my parents. If my mother is resting after breakfast, then it is a Foster Family Code Orange.

I paced like a 1950s father-to-be in a hospital waiting room. Nanna is resting. That ain’t right. Spousal Unit and I look at one another. Nanna is resting. My dad seemed only mildly concerned. But Daddy, Nanna is resting.

She finally joined us downstairs, looking pale and weak. Told us her symptoms, apologized profusely (because of course it must mean you’re not a tough-as-nails-Nanna if you RESTED) and coughed. I gulped. “Do you have any covid tests here?”

Covid? But we haven’t been anywhere.

They’re not wrong. For almost three years, my parents have been Dr. Fauci poster children for Covid safety. When Daddy worked at Walmart, he strapped on masks and gloves like he was Meredith Grey performing a heart transplant. My mother was hostage to her home. She made a full recovery from Guillan-Barre eight years ago and the emotional toll was heavier than the physical. Nanna does not ever want to be that sick again. So, my parents attend church from the comfort of their car, sitting in the parking lot listening to the sermon through their car radio like they’re on a date back in the fifties at a drive-in. They order takeout and eat at a picnic table in a park. They missed my dad’s sister’s funeral last year because there was an uptick in Covid cases and my mom visited her ailing sister on my aunt’s front porch. She double masks to get her hair done, but mostly she stayed home.

Fifteen minutes and four red lines across two test strips later, we’d entered full Covid protocol. Masks on. Tempers up. Shoulders sagged. What monster had given my parents Covid?

But we haven’t been anywhere, they repeated.

Well. We went to Macy’s. And to Kohl’s.

And Hobby Lobby.

And we ate at Cracker Barrell.

Then we went to Aldi’s.

And the DMV.

I spewed into my mask. The DMV? You might as well have licked the handrails at the VA hospital, Daddy.

It wasn’t that crowded.

It didn’t matter how they got it, we had to help them manage it. “You need the antiviral,” I announced with confident knowledge. It had helped me. It would help them. I called my mom’s doctor’s office. The doctor had left for the holiday weekend. What about on-call docs? There weren’t any. I pulled out my inner Karen. You mean this practice takes care of a lot of elderly West Virginians and the doctors are all out sipping egg nog without anybody to call in prescriptions? This is why I live in Nashville, to get away from these backward arrogant sonofa… I looked up at my mom and my inner Karen gulped, remembering the Nanna Mantra.

Pretty is as pretty does.

“I’m so sorry,” I cooed to the receptionist, invoking my mother, Dolly Parton and God herself. “I know this isn’t your fault, but is there any way we can get a hold of somebody who can actually call in a prescription of Pavloxid for my mother?”

“Paxlovid.”

“Yes, is there somebody who can call in Pavloxid for my mother Who Is Resting.” Obviously this girl needed to understand that Nanna is Resting meant we were in Code Orange.

“Paxlovid.”

“Right. For my mother. Who is a patient of this medical practice. Who needs Pavloxid because she just tested positive for Covid.”

“Paxlovid.”

Then I realized when I said the word, it didn’t sound like when she said the word and we’d been having a Steve Martin’s Pink Panther moment.

Instructor, “I would like to buy a hamburger.”

Clouseau, “Ah wood lak to beh a am bagga.”

Intsructor, “Hamburger.”

Clouseau, “Dembarger.”

Instructor, “Hamburger,”

Clouseau, “Amabur.”

Receptionist, “Paxlovid.”

Tina, “Pavloxid.”

Receptionist, “You can call the urgent care center to see what they say.”

I did, got nowhere, hung up and looked over at my dad who was sitting smugly in his recliner, watching a western. “Okay Daddy, let’s at least call the VA to see if they can get it for you.” He already had. The prescription would be waiting for him at Fruth Pharmacy.

Daddy 1. Tina 0.

Daddy said he would share his Paxlovid with his wife. Daddy, it doesn’t work that way. I’m stomping around the house; Spousal Unit is standing by, arms akimbo offering to help; my mother is crawling to her bed, apologizing for inconveniencing everybody and my dad is practically skipping through the hallways, because he’s gonna fix it. It’s what he does. He fixes things. Daddy, you can’t fix this. You can’t go to the pharmacy. You need to quarantine and please I love you so much but please stay six feet away from me.

My sister, the nurse manager, pulled some strings and got my mom a prescription called in. Of course she did. This is why she’s their favorite. Spousal Unit picked up the PAX-LO-VID, bought more Covid tests, infirmary supplies and ingredients for chicken soup. My mother apologized for being sick and tumbled back into her bed. My dad bopped around like a teenager.

The first Christmas without both of our kids with us was strange indeed and so much better than I had anticipated. Instead of the usual holiday routines with giant voids where Man Child and Art School Grad used to be, space was filled with the honor of nurturing the people who’ve nurtured me my entire life. I was allowed to cook for them in a kitchen where I learned to cook and remembered that I still can’t cook worth a dang on an electric cooktop.

I had time to enjoy the opening of gifts without rushing to the next event where more gifts are hurriedly exchanged. I could savor the moment of my parents playing with Flarp. Yes. Flarp. Trust me, you want to give people Flarp for Christmas. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Most importantly, I GOT TO BOSS MY DAD AROUND! “Get out of here,” I commanded from the control center that is my mother’s kitchen. “You’re germy. You can’t empty the dishwasher.” Only people who know my dad know what a privilege it is to be able to tell the man what to do.

Granted, Spousal Unit and I grieve at a couple of things we missed. His sister’s amazing Christmas dinner that always features a tenderloin so rare it walks itself to the sideboard. I didn’t get to see my lifelong friend Jennifer on this trip, and I really wanted to visit Cindy’s son, his husband and daughter. Guess I’ll have to mail Shelley and Kelly’s gifts to them. I didn’t spend time with my sister or my amazing niece. Worst of all, I couldn’t hug my parents like I wanted to. But you know what?  I got to be with them.

I got to be with them. What a privilege that I had an entire Christmas visit to be with these amazing people who continue to impress and surprise me. I got to watch westerns with my dad. So many westerns. So. Many. Westerns. I got to sit in an adjacent room and share meals with them. We could talk through the opening between the dining room and the kitchen. We sat like that and talked until our butts and jaws were sore and we were hungry again for the next meal. My dad is a story teller and admittedly has repeated most of his stories several times, but I heard some new ones. I must write them down because stories need never be lost.

I got to watch my dad be livelier than he’s been in years. My mom said, “It’s because he feels good.” I think it’s because the thing he’d dreaded the most these past three years had come true: his wife got Covid. She got Covid and yet she was going to be fine.

I got to care for my mom, the ultimate caregiver. I got to shush her as she continued to apologize for being sick. Because she was upstairs in her bedroom, she subversively watched Hallmark movies, (which my dad hates) so I got to giggle about that. Downstairs, the sounds of six shooters and John Wayne drawls continued. Daddy’s a renowned plot spoiler. “He marries her. She gets killed, but he marries her first.” My mom smiled from her bedroom. It’s impossible to plot spoil a Hallmark Christmas movie.

I’m home now and I miss them. My mom frets, so I assure her, “We’re still testing negative.” She apologizes once again for getting sick. I apologize that her getting sick lifted my spirits. Part of me wants to return to my pre-Christmas morosity. Our house is still a mess. The dog still farts. Spousal Unit still works from home. It almost feels as if Covid Christmas didn’t happen.

Then I walk into our den and the glow from the television emits a bearded Robert Redford in buckskins and a cowboy hat. His sky-blue eyes are serious. He sighs, as do I. Spousal Unit is watching a western.

Daddy 2. Tina 0.

Mini Musings

Mini Muse came into our lives when I didn’t want another cat. I was grieving the death of our comically-named cat-dog Poonis, but when fourth-grade boy child told his teacher that his cat had died, she proffered a kitten her husband had just discovered by his office dumpster.

I still haven’t decided if I’ve forgiven the fourth-grade teacher.

We went to her house to meet this dumpster kitty and I gulped as a tiny grey hellcat with zoomies zipped past us and up the drapes. The teacher called her Mini Me because she looked just like their big grey long-haired cat. I didn’t want to expose a kindergartener and a fourth grader to Austin Powers, so my late best friend Jerry came up with Mini Muse/Mews. It seems to fit, especially since she had an “M” marking her forehead and admittedly, any name was better than Poonis. I’ve noticed as the years pass that the spelling of her name changes with our moods.

Like a second wife ridding the home of any vestiges of the first one, Mini Muse promptly made our house hers by peeing on our pillows. Spousal Unit was not pleased. There have been many instances over 17 years in which Spousal Unit was not pleased with our feline queen. Although he is normally an affable guy, Mini Muse brings out his dark side. “Piece of shit!” he exclaims after slipping in ubiquitous cat puke. “Stop it you evil bitch” he barks as she shreds the antique leather chair upon which his great grandfather sat. She meows at him and runs off, sharpening her claws on an antique oriental rug instead.

Three of the four of our family members claim Mini Mews as our personal cat. I say she’s mine because I’ve spent the most time at home. She has always screamed to get into my lap. She would hide behind aforementioned antique leather chair to jump out and pseudo-attack my friends. She chased my trailing bathrobe belt and she nearly killed me multiple times running in front of me as I descended the stairs. Not unimportantly, I’m the one who kept her in kibble and litter.

Man Child claims her because he’s the one who brought her home.

Art School Grad says Mini Muse is their cat because they and the across-the-street neighbor dressed her in Build-A-Bear clothes. I didn’t remember that and honest-to-God find it hard to believe that all parties left that scenario unscathed. There must have been blood, because with Mini Mews, there is always blood.

Mini Muse is the type of cat that the young, innocent vet tech carries to “the back” to get a fecal sample and give shots. “We’ll trim her claws,” she graciously offers. I just nod and smile. Minutes later, the not-as-innocent vet tech returns, clothes shredded, hair askew, blood dripping from gaping wounds as she jams the grey hissing hairball back into the carrier. “You might try trimming her claws at home,” she says between clenched teeth before leaving the room and tendering her resignation. The next time I see the former vet tech, she will ask do I want grande or venti.

The one member of the family who doesn’t claim her as his is the one to whom she really belongs. Like dueling divas of a soap opera, Spousal Unit and Mini Mews have fought for 17 years. They remind me of my grandparents who snipped at one another from recliners on each side of the room until my grandfather died and my grandmother was left adrift. Spousal Unit will be the one unmoored, without the object of his disaffection at whom he can spit epitaphs. I’ve joked for years that I’m going to bury their ashes together and he threatens to come back and haunt me if I do. “I hate that damn cat.”

Methinks he doth protest too much. Mini Mews is dying right now and she’s dying much like she lived. Dramatically and with a whole lot of mess. We put her in her litter pan and she climbs out so she can pee in the floor beside it. Spousal Unit quickly cleans it up. He makes up beds for her in the places she loved most, even as he cusses at her and asks how her meth distribution efforts are going. Spousal Unit has long accused the cat of having a meth lab in the basement. We thought she was just breaking objects; he thought she was breaking bad.

“How’re ya doin’ Spewsly?” he asks as he passes her, tossing out one of his less colorful names. This one celebrates her delicate digestion: Mini Muse > Mini Spews > Spewsly.

Her meow is broken now, squawky, but she manages her version of “up yours” in response. He returns with more towels and puppy training pads. I’m surprised that he’s put her on our bed, but he says, “It’s one of her favorite places to hang out.” He makes a nest for her and asks, “How’s that, Shitwad?” The man only cusses when he’s watching the news or talking to the cat.

I am going to miss Mini Mews. It feels weird to be writing this and not bend down to pick her up and put her on my lap. She often begged to be picked up only to claw me and jump back down as if I were a lecherous coworker at the office Christmas party. I’ll miss the excitement of a near death experience every time I descend the stairs. I’ll even miss the sound of litter flying followed by the dementor fog of stench curling around the corner.

I’ll miss finding her curled up in a ball and barely touching an equally curled up golden retriever. Mini Muse has raised two goldens, Diesel and Thor, and a calico cat, Nala. Animals defer to her just as we humans do. Diesel and Nala are waiting for Mini Mews to join them on the other side. She’ll head butt them, squawk, then sharpen her claws on their favorite heavenly toys.

Mini Muse’s passing will close another door to my kids’ childhood. I am Maxwell Smart and the doors slam shut behind me. That broken-hearted fourth grade boy who told his teacher his cat died got married a few months ago. The wide-eyed kindergartener moved to Los Angeles. I realize that if I keep turning around to the slamming doors, my nose will be caught, just like Agent Smart, but damn if it isn’t difficult to keep going forward.

Maybe today I will just stand still, going neither forward, nor backward. I will savor the sound of my husband lovingly cussing at a dying cat as he asks, “You comfortable, Squidley?” I will continue to stroke her matted hair and ask her if she wants some water. She will continue to glare at us. And all will be as it should.

Booked

Well, I had another “great idea” and roped Spousal Unit into filling another weekend on a project that would change our lives. Bless his heart.

Like most people right now, I’m kind of losing my mind. Oh, I enjoy staying home. I’m a homebody. I also enjoy limited human contact. I’m more introverted than anybody knows. I especially enjoy ordering groceries online and they appear in our carport an hour or so later. As God as my witness, I may never step foot in a Kroger again.

It is canceling plans that I miss. The thrill of being wanted for something, whether it’s lunch with friends, a girl’s night out, or even a quilting class at Nashville’s continuing education program that is going to be slaughtered by the Metro School Board and Nashville’s city administration. There’s something very satisfying about making plans, realizing that it’s really just too much trouble to put on mascara and then canceling those very same plans.

Since COVID-19 entered our vernacular ,and quarantine entered our daily routine, I’ve not been provided the opportunity to cancel anything, except my monthly penance to an essential oil pyramid scheme. Don’t judge. We all have our moments of weakness. Anyway, I believe all of this uncanceling is making me a little. Ummm. Squirrely. Let’s just put it politely and say that I’ve had communications issues with my fellow human beings.

My mother often says, “When it seems like it’s everybody else, look at yourself.” Nine times out of ten, my mother is right, so I called her the other day and asked for clarification.

“Are you sure that sometimes it really isn’t everybody else? I mean, isn’t there a caveat to that particular bon mot?” My mother laughed. Not unkindly. But still. She laughed.

“It’s really feeling like it’s everybody else. Are you sure it isn’t everybody else. I really don’t think it’s meeeeeeee,” I whined. I’m 58 and can sound like a thirteen –year-old in a New York minute. I might have even stomped my foot.

“Well,” my mother paused. “Maybe?” I sighed. When she’s being this nice to me, I know I’m getting the sympathy vote and the “Her dad and I should have paid more attention to the signs when she was growing up” act. Damn. That means it really is me.

Fine.

I started making amends. Man Child and Fiancée first. Apparently I’d made it awkward the week before at their house. Whatever that means. (I’m in full sixteen-year-old at this point.) Kicked the dirt with my toe and invited them over for a socially distant dinner.

Then I sat in a corner and thought about what I’d done. Art School Student has been very patient about being locked in a house with parents as opposed to living the art school life in Chicago. Perhaps I have not been as life affirming as I should be. I must make amends, so I listened to an entire conversation without interrupting to give advice. Every time I wanted to say, “Well maybe you shouldn’t hang upside down in a tree in our backyard in the middle of the night for a performance piece without your dad and me knowing that’s what you’re doing,” I bit my tongue and instead said Okay Boomer to my own old self. I am proud to announce that I only commented, “You could have accidentally hanged yourself and been there all night” one time and it was at the end of the conversation.

These generous gestures of mine filled me with good vibes and happy juju, so of course I decided to pay it forward. These are tough times. I am here to help. I am – by golly – HERE for you. Therefore, I shall install a Little Free Library for my neighborhood to enjoy. The walkers, joggers, strollers and cyclists on the street will exchange tomes and commence with delightful, socially-distant discussions on perfectly manicured lawns. Birds will twitter. Rainbows will extend across the sky. Eudora Welty will rise from the dead to tell me in her lovely southern drawl that I am the best thing to happen to literature since she first put pen to paper.

I have enough self awareness to know that if we try to build our own Little Free Library, the project will undoubtedly go the way of Daisy the Trailer. A project cast aside, rusting, sad, unfinished and unloved. I justified the expenditure by reminding myself that I’m not spending ANYTHING at Target right now and ordered a cute red library from the Little Free Library folks. It arrived on Friday, within four days of ordering it.

Poor, poor Spousal Unit. In making up to the rest of the world for my negative energy, I asked him to dedicate an entire Sunday to a project that had nothing to do with any goal he ever considered having.

He gamely masked and gloved up, went to the hardware store, got the parts necessary and put my cute little red library on a pole. We set a bench beside it and I excitedly emailed the nabes, “We have a FREE LITTLE LIBRARY!” I announced. “BOOKS!” I screamed. I waited for their responses like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck. Unfortunately, my excitement is far less contagious than COVID-19.

We have nice neighbors. Really nice people. Polite. Friendly, but not too much. I’m close to a couple and they responded with messages of excited participation. They’ve already put books in the library. I wiggled in my seat, waiting for more responses. This was going to be fun.

I got a really nice response from a neighbor whose late mother we loved dearly and for whom we’re considering naming our library. Because. Y’know. We name everything.

I got a few more responses. They were nice. Really nice. Polite. Friendly but not too. I don’t know that I was expecting cartwheels down the street, but I was surprised at the unenthusiastic replies. I told my close neighbor friends that I feel like a high school nerd who thought, “Ima throw a party with HAWAIIAN PUNCH! And CUPCAKES! And we’ll play CHARADES!” The cool kids come to the party, roll their eyes, then go smoke weed in the school parking lot.

I’m imagining our sweet Free Little Library, months from now, covered in dust and spiderwebs, like Mrs. Havisham, waiting for a day that never comes. Meanwhile, I shall remain inside, hoarding books that I don’t want to loan (preshhhhh-usssss), canceling plans that are never made, screaming at the news on television, and calling my mother.

“Are you sure it isn’t everybody else?”

 

 

Imaginary Spring Break Day 3ish

I’m going to go to Huntington today. That’s the big city, the burg, the destination I chose when I needed prom dresses and Christmas gifts from Anderson Newcomb or The Huntington Store.

Sad to say, much of that Huntington is gone. As with much of the country during the 80s, prom dresses and Christmas gifts abandoned their downtown stores and moved to the redundant hallways of the mall. Like many West Virginians I know, Huntington is really good at several clichés: shooting itself in the foot; cutting its nose off to spite its face; is its own worst enemy.

Just as the Huntington powers-that-be shunned an interstate running through the city in the late fifties, Huntington powers-that-be also looked down their noses at putting a mall within city limits in the late seventies. Huntington became a Radiator Springs of sorts, off the beaten path, watching progress drive by and set up camp in Barboursville, a few miles shy of Milton.

My dad despises Barboursville the way Tennessee fans despise Alabama. Sometimes I wonder if a Barboursville boy didn’t steal my dad’s high school girlfriend or key his ’56 Ford Fairlane convertible. Maybe a Barboursville basketball player bonked old Fireball on the head in a game back in 1953. My dad’s hatred of Barboursville is second only to his hatred of Ohio drivers. Any time he sees somebody do something stupid on the road, “What the…” he exclaims, starting to chew them out. Then he sees the tag, “Yep. I knew it. Ohio. Blankety blank buckeyeknockers.”

This same level of disgust is used toward any and all things Barboursville, and like all bullies, the town of Barboursville seems to wake up each morning with a list of things to do that will tick off Bob Foster.

“We closed in and covered up our pool while Barboursville still has theirs,” he grumbles.

“Well, they’re smarter than we are,” my mother counters. Daddy lifts his lip in a snarl.

“They only think they’re better than us.”

He found it particularly audacious that when county schools consolidated, Milton and Barboursville combined. Not only did Milton lose its beloved Greyhound mascot, but also our sacred blue and grey. Even though the new school developed a new mascot – the Knights – they retained Barboursville’s school color, red. Quelle horreur!

Daddy could live with Huntington being the big city with the big city shopping and income from taxes, but the thought of Barboursville raking in from all that retail growth remains a burr under his saddle.

Personally, I’d rather have a mammogram than go to a mall. I’d rather have a blistering pustule on my fanny than go to a mall. I’d rather live through my daughter’s teenage years again than go to a mall. Wait. Those two things are the same.

Even though the Huntington of my youth is gone and the former Huntington Store is a huge Marshall University-themed sports bar, prom dresses and Christmas gifts can still be found within city limits. Once on I-64, I blast past the mess that is mall traffic and take my credit card to one of my favorite shops in the whole wide world, Old Main Emporium. Or as I call it, The Saras.

Old Main Emporium and the Saras are featured in this kicky little video. https://www.facebook.com/theboutiquesontheavenues/videos/342286646177642/

Sara Deel and Sara Sturgen started Old Main Emporium nearly six years ago. They worked together at Marshall’s bookstore and discovered an entrepreneurial like-mindedness. University-based apparel showing team support doesn’t always mean dressing up like a member of the team. Sometimes it means a floral dress, or a kicky skirt, or a snazzy bow tie.

If I lived in the area and went to Marshall games, I would shop exclusively at Old Main Emporium. Of course I’d still have to get my underwear at Target, but everything else would come from the Saras.

As it is, a good percentage of my wardrobe is from them. I either go into the store and raise Cain with them, chasing away other customers, or I order online. I particularly enjoy their tchotchkes that reflect their awesome senses of humor. For Christmas, I got my aunt a mug that says, “Keep it up and you’ll become a strange smell in the attic.” Sometimes my aunt needs to let people know she has that kind of power.

When my sister-in-law’s birthday came around in January, Spousal Unit wanted to send her flowers. I’m like meh, we’ve done that. What we haven’t done is send her a mug that says, “Keep it up and you’ll become a strange smell in the attic.” He called the Saras late on Saturday. He asked if they had any of the mugs left. They did. He asked if they delivered. They would for us. Friends in high places, people. I have friends in high places.

Sara Sturgen delivered the mug to Spousal Unit’s sister the next day. To thank the Saras for their extra effort, I contacted another of my favorite places in Huntington, Bottled Up. Carmen walked a bottle of wine over to the shop and sent me a picture of Sara Deel happily holding it. The magic of a small town.

But wait, there’s more. Not only are we going on an imaginary trip to West Virginia during this extended spring break, we are also traveling through time. It’s the mid 70s in a small Methodist church in Milton, West Virginia. There is a room with a rainbow and doves painted on it. You’re welcome. It was Brian’s idea. In that room is a Sunday school class taught by a Marshall University dean, bless his heart. He will teach Bible knowledge to this group of ruffians, miscreants and ne’er-do-wells if it’s the last thing he does.

I doubt that Sara Deel’s father ever imagined his Bible teaching fervor would give me the legs on which I stand when fundamentalists try to skew teachings of Jesus into justifying greed, misogyny, racism and xenophobia. Call me a snowflake, a libtard, or even a feminazi, but don’t tell me I don’t know my Bible.

Also in that 1970s Sunday school class is a set of twins. Meredith and Martha. It is Martha’s daughter, Carmen, who brings the wine from her cool wine shop, Bottled Up, to Sara Deel the proprietress of Old Main Emporium. Like, how incredible is this, right? This whole small town one degree of separation thing is AWESOME.

The people I grew up with are some of the coolest people I know. And I know some cool people. Ronnie Dunn once sang happy birthday to me in a restaurant as I sat next to his wife and kvetched about a schoolteacher.

Sara Deel’s coolness is off the charts. It’s her story to tell, not mine, but ask her for photos of her rock band years. Martha was a school principal for eons and is a college professor these days. Now Sara co-owns an awesome boutique and Martha’s daughter owns a craft beer and wine shop.

In my imaginary trip, I’m at Sara’s store, sipping wine from Carmen’s store and because it’s my imagination, even my mother doesn’t mind. I’m touching ALL of the garments, because they are sooooo soft. I want this top with the ruched bodice and that skirt with the slit. Man Child will love that bow tie and Art School Kid will adore that clever little piece of jewelry. Niece will love this dress and Spousal Unit will learn to love Marshall green with this sweater.

In the real world, the Saras are closed to the public, but they’re offering free shipping. I bet if you mention you read about them here, they’d toss in something fun for free. I’m about to finish up my order here in a minute. TOTALLY going for that floral skirt and no you can’t have it, it’s MINE.   https://www.oldmainemporium.com/

Check out their Facebook page and note when they’re having live sales. https://www.facebook.com/OldMainEmporium/

They’re more fun to watch than a gay meth-head with hundreds of exotic animals and watching the Saras won’t leave that metallic taste in your mouth that watching white trash leaves.

Tomorrow I’m going to go to Bottled Up and see Carmen. I know that my tee-totaling parents won’t approve, but hey, I went to Sunday school with the owner’s daughter!

 

 

Imaginary Spring Break Day 3

I wake up to the sound of a train whistle and the smell of my dad’s coffee. Daddy’s an old time coffee drinker. Folger’s, black, and strong. He used to brag that he only liked coffee that could walk across the room. I grew up thinking only manly men and tough old broads drank coffee. Women drank tea. Then I had a baby with ear infections and another one with colic. I suppose I’ve become a tough old broad.

Not tough enough to drink my dad’s coffee black, though. Two packages of sweetener and some half-and-half. Throughout the years, the sweetener’s changed. I remember jars of tiny white pills when I was little, saccharine. Then pink packets of Sweet-n-Low followed by blue ones of Equal. Sunny yellow packets of Splenda have probably been in my mother’s kitchen drawer next to the loaves of Heiner’s white bread the longest. These days they’re mixed in with green packets of Stevia, which my mom also grows in her herb garden.

Dolores Foster’s herb garden is the stuff of legend and garden club meetings. It has been her obsession for three decades . When Guillain-Barre syndrome felled her in January 2014, paralyzing my mother from her feet to her neck, she boldly announced to doubtful physical therapists that she would be able to walk down to her garden and have a cup of tea by spring.

Three weeks later, as she walked – WALKED – out of the rehabilitation center, she and the therapist made an appointment. They would both have a cup of tea in her herb garden. They did.

The rectangular garden sits three quarters of the way down my parents’ back yard. They have a little more than an acre of land that looks tame enough from the road. A seventies era whitewashed brick colonial split level with a columned front porch nestles tidily near the front of a slightly sloping yard. Behind the house, however, the land drops like the ancient Camden Park roller coaster. Natural and Bob Foster-made terraces lead to a steep precipice over a mostly dry creek.

The last terrace before the slope leading to that precipice is where my parents’ gardens lay. His and her gardens, side by side, like my mom and dad have been for sixty-three years.

The herb garden is adjacent to a garden shed my mom had built echoing one of the garden sheds at Cheekwood in Nashville. My daughter, niece and I she-shedded it a few summers ago and I could spend days in there. I could write novels in there. Perhaps I will take time to do that during my imaginary Spring Break trip. After all, I’m only limited by my imagination, right?

I pour two packets of stevia into my dad’s strong coffee and search through the fridge for half-and-half. Mother keeps it on hand if she knows I’m coming and she also has it if she’s planning to make her cream of broccoli soup. I’m praying for the cream of broccoli soup. The half and half is hiding behind a bowl of her egg salad. Oh yeah, lunch is in the bag. Daddy grunts his way up the stairs and plops containers on the kitchen table. He’s been to Tudor’s. Breakfast is also in the bag.

In real life, Tudor’s burnt down. My religious town of origin tisks that if something is gonna burn over there, it shoulda been that shameful porn store. Because life isn’t fair, the porn store remains and fluffy biscuits covered in gravy or filled with pepperoni, or cheese or God knows what else are gone.

In my imaginary Spring Break, however, Tudor’s remains and the sausage gravy-smothered biscuits are low cal and fat free. In my imaginary spring break, I fit in my old spot between the table and the wall. In my imaginary spring break, I’m not crying over my computer in fear for my parents, knowing that my dad is going to work at Walmart today because a steel mill screwed him and hundreds of others out of their retirement.

I hope my daddy understands that even as our skewed national value system considers him both essential as a worker in a grocery-based business and expendable as an 83-year-old man, he is indispensable to me. I am supposed to be there right now. I am supposed to be in Milton, West Virginia, eating Tudor’s biscuits and my mother’s egg salad. Instead, I am social distancing in Nashville, Tennessee, taking an imaginary trip to places that are more familiar to me than my own back yard.

Because these two tough old birds taught me to be a tough old bird, I’m going to continue my imaginary trip. I will lay my head on my mother’s shoulder as we watch yet another rerun of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I will kiss the top of my father’s head before I go to bed, that thick head of hair, thinning ever so slightly on top.

I will continue my trip. Tomorrow.

 

 

Imaginary Spring Break Day 2

It’s another gorgeous day to be on the road. Before I hit I-64 and head east, I join my friend Drew Kemmerling and her son Nathan for breakfast at Hayden’s Stockyard Eatery, strategically placed near the Kentucky Horse Park.

Unlike Nashville’s former grand old dame, The Stock-Yard Restaurant, Hayden’s resides in a location that retains its original goal: it’s a stockyard. Despite the newness of the building – a fire destroyed the old one – the unmistakable earthy livestock smell is like olfactory background music. I’m transported to the field beside my parents’ subdivision, cows dispassionately observing my adolescent mood swings as I stomp through their pasture, certain that I am the only teenager EVER who suffered this way.

Nathan will be four in October and according to Nathan, we are not the boss. This curly-headed cherub is the spitting image of his mother at that age, who is the spitting image of her mother. They’re horse people. Art School Kid rode Drew’s horse for a while, another moody mare whose goal in life was in complete opposition of any human goals. If the goal was to retrieve her from the pasture, her goal was to stay in it. If the goal was to return her to pasture, her goal became staying away from it. Drew’s mom, Staci and I share a bond that time, distance, and the unimportant fact that we have never met will never break: we raised independent teenagers who love mares.

We are old before our time.

Check out their website  http://www.haydensstockyardeatery.com/

 

Drew orders biscuits and gravy. Because this is imaginary and therefore fat and calorie free, I order the Stockyard Breakfast, eggs over easy. Nathan is sharing his mama’s breakfast, but is so busy flirting with the table next to us he ignores the biscuit Drew set aside for him.

We kvetch about politics and compare stories about irritable mares. Drew may actually win with her retired old broad. We talk about the things we would do with the money we had if horses weren’t in our lives and grin, knowing that we wouldn’t trade the nags for anything in the world.

Nathan’s bored and wants to run around the restaurant and Drew gently admonishes him. He looks at her with his perfectly shaped eyes that are a replication of her perfectly shaped eyes and announces, “I’m the boss. You’re not the boss.”

Staci is vindicated.

I grab a coffee for the road and hug the two goodbye. I’m two hours from home and the pull is getting stronger.

Heading east on I-64, there is a sign that says Ashland 100 miles. Spousal Unit and I swear that there are three of those signs and they are 20 miles apart. They all say Ashland 100 miles. It’s the Groundhog Day of drives. I suppose it’s pleasant enough, rolling farmland, the occasional busy exit with the same drive-thru choices as the other busy exits. It just feels endless.

Finally, the terrain begins to change, rolling becomes jagged, as if God were using a planer to smooth out rough spots and it got caught on something, gouging rough spots into it. Pollyanna struggles a bit to pull Daisy up the inclines. We’re not at emergency exit ramp for brakeless trucks terrain, but we’re at please-trucker-keep-on-your-side-of-the-line curves. I grip the steering wheel a little more tightly, as if by gripping the wheel, I encourage tires to grip the road.

There is a curve, a final curve, Kentucky’s wave goodbye that reveals the storage tanks of the Ashland Oil Refinery. Spousal Unit worked here after bringing home a chemical engineering degree from Vanderbilt. He continues to feel responsibility toward the plant and our family members have dented armrests with white knuckle finger strength as he peruses modern industry from behind the wheel. “They have number 5 going,” he says. “That looks good.”

“The road. The bridge. The truck next to us.” I repeat hazards as if they were a mantra.

Spousal blithely repeats the story we all know, “It was when I found myself standing ankle deep in flammable carcinogens, I decided to get my MBA.”

It was when I could see myself careening off a mountain and into the Big Sandy River that I decided I would be behind the wheel on that leg of the journey. The offspring thank me still.

I pass beneath the sign that welcomes me to West Virginia. It used to say, “Almost heaven.” Then it said, “Open for Business.” I think it says, “Wild and Wonderful” now. Because this is my imaginary trip, I’m going to believe it says, “Welcome home, Tina.”

I have 28 more harrowing miles before the Milton exit. A lot of lives have been lost on this interstate, indicated by the plethora of crosses on the side of the road. Recently an elderly man’s vehicle was pushed off a bridge by a driver high on meth. He didn’t die immediately. She lived to tell the story, if only she could remember it. Drugs are just the most recent thieves stealing lives of Mountaineers. It’s made an edgy people even more reactive.

I pass the three exits of Huntington. Decades ago powers that be determined that the interstate would circumvent the town. It did. So did progress, like a busy parent bussing a kid on the top of the head as they head toward an evening out. The forlorn child feels neglected and fails to thrive.

At last, I reach the Milton exit and Pollyanna sighs with relief. I grouse at the extraneous stoplight in front of Sheetz. For a town that only had one the whole time I lived there, it seems redundant to have this one, like somebody must have gotten a two-for-one discount, or as if a delicate balancing act were in play. “Well, if yer gonna put in a redlight here at the Mack-Donald’s then you orta put one at the Wendys.”

Miltonians are nothing if not fair.

I’m on Route 60, making my way east, past the old nursing home that is slated to become the new Greenbrier. I wish they’d had more frequent and deeper conversations with an architect.

Up the hill to the subdivision where I transformed from a child to a woman. We moved there in 1975. The country was almost 200 years old and I was 15. We were both young, but full of ourselves. We both lost our way, but I found mine. Seems as if the country is behaving like the kids lurking outside the band room, smoking weed and comparing stories of shoplifting at Hills.

Daddy’s truck is in the driveway, which means he’s finished his shift at Walmart. My mom greets me at the door, those stunning blue eyes bright as ever. I hug her and get lost in the scent that has comforted me for 58 years.

I also smell dinner. Now that I have found my way home again, I’ll rest and have some pot roast.

Imaginary Spring Break Day 1

It’s a gorgeous day, without a cloud in the sky and the temperature is a breezy 70 degrees. Daisy is hitched to Pollyanna the 2004 Honda Pilot and both gleam in the sun. We wave goodbye to Spousal Unit and since this is MY imaginary Spring Break, I’m in size ten jeans and my hips don’t hurt.

There is no construction on 440 and when I merge onto I-40, truckers, slow to let me in front of them, waving joyfully from their cabs. I successfully navigate crossing three lanes so that I don’t end up on Rosa Parks Boulevard and then navigate three lanes back after Trinity Lane so that I don’t end up heading to Clarksville. Bluebirds twitter safely from their perches on bridges beneath which I pass, telling me there is no need to look up and make sure nobody is about to unload a cinderblock onto my windshield.

I head north on I-65. I’ve lived in Nashville since August 1988 and “go home” at least five times a year. You do the math. This trip is familiar. The climb out of the sinkhole that is the Nashville basin is always nerve-wracking. Reaching the top, near the state line is relief. There are emus right before the truck weighing station north of the Tennessee/Kentucky border. Spousal Unit and I have a running shtick. “Look! Large, flightless birds,” he says.

“There aren’t any large flightless birds,” I answer, gaslighting him. The repartee gets us through a couple of miles. After that, Bowling Green claims three exits and we can never remember which one has the Starbucks. Is it the exit where the Corvette Museum is, or the exit with the Fruit of the Loom building? Invariably we miss it and offspring are miffed. Good thing I’m alone with Daisy for this trip. I got coffee and a pastry at Dose before I left. We good.

Now I’m driving through cave country, where holes in the ground provide tours, spelunking and the occasional Corvette-swallowing news story. I’ve only been to Mammoth Caves twice, both times at the behest of others. I don’t like small spaces. Daisy and I are made for the open road. However, if one is inclined toward that sort of adventure, that sort of adventure can be had by taking the Park City, Cave City, or Horse Cave exits.

On the other hand, if one is inclined toward porn, the Horse Cave exit provides. Once, the building was an outlet mall where I got sweet, soft Carter’s baby clothing. Life is just one ironic paradox after another.

Just shy of the Elizabethtown exit, I bear right onto the Bluegrass Parkway. The land rolls like a sheet thrown on the bed before it’s flattened out. Fewer trucks crowd the road and I breathe a little easier. I know I’m halfway there when I pass the second Bardstown exit.

Forty-eight miles into the Parkway, Pollyanna and I are hungry. I stop for gas and fried chicken at the Marathon station in Willisburg. Burly guys reeking of cigarette smoke and hard work read my bumper stickers and roll their eyes. It’s okay boys. I can parallel park a stick shift in Morgantown, West Virginia, so roll your eyes all you want. I’m no snowflake.

This place used to have dead animals all over the walls. Taxidermy could be considered an art form, I suppose. We still call it the dead animal gas station although many of the trophies are gone. They renovated a few years ago, added on, got more than one bathroom stall, fancied the place up a bit. It’s still the kind of place where my mother would purse her lips and remind us to put toilet paper on the seat before we pee. The fried chicken is to die for.

Burping fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and sweat tea, Daisy, Pollyanna and I leave the Bluegrass Parkway one exit shy of its delta. We’re gonna take the scenic route, through the small town of Versailles, (pronounced Vir-Sales dontchaknow) and into the world-renowned horse country that keeps Lexington on the map.

Once upon a time, I imagined living on a horse farm near the outskirts of Kentucky, or the marshes of the Low Country. On this imaginary spring break trip, that imaginary life gains traction. The road is hugged on either side by trees, much like the two lane highway that has taken my family from Charleston SC to the beach in the summers. I am consistent with what I love.

Behind the line of trees are acres and acres of famous Kentucky blue grass, being chomped and nibbled and grazed by horses lazily flicking their tails and passing the time. I imagine our horse, Isis, among them, asserting her place as alpha. Our pony Callie, her valiant sidekick, making peace in Isis’s wake. “I know. I know. She’s difficult at first, but I promise you’ll get to love her.”

I am going to Midway, one of my three favorite small towns in the world. This little burg straddles the railroad track that created it. I tend to stick to the north side of the track, but the last time we visited, we ate at the Italian place, Mezzo. It was worth crossing over.

My three favorite shops are Fisher Antiques, Damselfly Studio Gallery and Midway Gifts and Books. I picked up an awesome 20s Tiffany-esque lamp at Fisher over the holidays for Man Child and Fiancé. The colors were beautiful in our living room. I still gave it to them. There should be merit badges for such sacrifices.

Man Child and Spousal Unit usually get lost in the upstairs section of the bookstore, where tomes of history lure them like sirens. I’m glad I didn’t bring them along on this trip, because I’d rather stay downstairs and shoot the bull with the shop owner. She and I grouse about politics while I look at artisan jewelry she has. I consider a pair of earrings for my aunt. Or maybe for myself. I’m not as generous as I like to believe I am.

I wander over to Damselfly. I love this guy. We watch a good old boy with a chainsaw and a rickety ladder address the tree just outside the Damselfly studio. Rob, the owner, and I wonder aloud at the likelihood of our watching Darwin in action. It’s Kentucky. Good old boys usually live to tell the tales of their adventures.

I grab as many pairs of tie-dyed bamboo socks as I dare – they’re hard to come by – and wish him well as I pay. He knows I’ll stop back by on my way home.

In real life, Rob says, the Coronavirus has struck a mortal blow to the merchants of Midway. I can’t reach the owners of my other two favorite places, but I’m going to keep trying. Rob doesn’t have a sales website because most everything he sells are original pieces. He keeps his website and his store Facebook page updated regularly and all you have to do is call him.

Let him know you’ve read this. He’ll give you a ten percent discount and free shipping. Call him at  (859) 846-9963 or email him at rmills8372@gmail.com. https://www.damselflygallery.org/

Pollyanna, Daisy and I are tired. Imaginary vacations can be exhausting and shopping small business when it’s so much easier to order from Amazon takes time.

I think we’re going to stay here in Midway until tomorrow.

Imagine This

Throughout our marriage, Spousal Unit and I plan dinner parties. We create a list of people we know and those we’d like to know better. This couple would enjoy the witty repartee of that couple and ooh wouldn’t these two singles get along beautifully?

We plan our menu and decide whether the good china or the fun dinnerware will be involved. We squint our eyes and stare at our various mélange of tables and chairs. Should everything be in the great room, or should the evening flow throughout the house?

Then we squint more closely at our lovely abode and note the dog hair bouncing across the hardwood floors like tumbleweed across the dry desert ground. We look through the windows harboring last year’s spider webs replete with last year’s spider food, bound like a swaddled newborn.

We consider the labor involved in actual grocery shopping, cooking, polishing and table setting and nod our heads in agreement. Maybe next fall. Or winter. Then we gently finger the remote and agree once again. Just one more episode of The Wire.

We call these lapses of judgment our imaginary dinner parties and occasionally, we’ll actually tell people that, for a brief moment, they were invited. Man Child and Fiancé are usually included. They’re great fillers and get along with any gender, generation, or gentrification. If Art School Student is home, they are included as well. Someone is always intrigued by the green and purple hair. Imaginary dinner parties often include our friends Robin and Jen, and Kathy and Scott. “Oh you would enjoy getting to know Candace,” I tell Kathy. She looks at me with confusion and wonders if she’s supposed to write a thank you note.

This is why I’m more than a little smug right now. As earthlings are encouraged to have imaginary (some call it virtual) social interaction, sheltering in place for this stupid virus, Spousal Unit and I look at one another in solidarity. We got this. Hold our cocktail.

Right now, I’m supposed to be in West Virginia, eating my mom’s cooking and spending WAY too much money on Blenko Glass and cool stuff at cool boutiques. Instead, I’m holed up with a farting dog, a working-from-the-house spousal unit and an I’m-supposed-to-be-in-a-performance-art-class-doing-cool-stuff college kid.

And our toilet paper supply is running low.

I need to escape.

It’s time for an imaginary spring break.

I leave tomorrow. I’m bringing Daisy. Come with me, if you want.

 

Tomorrow: Traveling from Nashville, through Kentucky, to the hills of the Mountain State