Mom with the Sticky Fingers

I had posted on one of Kevin’s entries about the spirit of my kleptomaniac mother, and thought I’d share a few of my mother’s sticky finger moments.

Mom wasn’t really a shoplifter, per se. She didn’t go into stores wearing a trench coat so that she could stash things under it. But she was a firm believer in the idea that she should not speak up when the cashier made a mistake in her favor. Years later I am still reprogramming the part of my brain that won’t speak up, so that now I actually do speak up when the cashier makes a mistake—even when it’s in my favor.

Now when I do speak up when I am in that situation, I can almost feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder and her voice saying in Polish, presumably so the salesperson can’t understand what the imaginary voice is saying, “Quiet! You’re getting that for cheaper!” By not speaking up, Mom collected a variety of goods including a camera, and a sled for one of her granddaughters either for free or for some drastically reduced price.


The Legend of the Blue Bin
Mom was notorious for finding useful things on the side of the road as she was driving along. Sometimes she’d find a bungee cord that was in perfect condition, or she’d find tools that had fallen off of a truck. One day, when cities and towns first started collecting recyclables with the regular trash pick up, she came home with a blue bin that said “Western Massachusetts Recycles!” on it. We didn’t have trash pickup at the curb in our town at that time, so we didn’t see trash cans and bins on the street in our neighborhood.

She burst into the garage after coming home from work and said “Look at this great bin I found on the side of the road! This would be great to keep all the garden stuff in, wouldn’t it?”

“Um, Mom? That’s a recycling bin. Somebody put that on the side of the road so the garbage man would empty it.”

“Oops!” she laughed. That bin is still in the garage to this day. I think it contains a volleyball, and various odds and ends in the garage.

Ill-Gotten Umbrella
Several years before the blue bin incident, when Mom used to drive a school bus, she used to go on an outing with the other bus drivers at the end of the school year. One year they all went to Boston for the day. In the afternoon it began to rain as Mom and the bus drivers were shopping in Fanieul Hall. She walked into the Swatch store to buy an umbrella. She stood at the counter and waited for the clerk to finish talking on the phone. She waited for several minutes, and the clerk never acknowledged that Mom was waiting. Mom didn’t want to keep her friends waiting, so she put the umbrella back and left the store, figuring she’d come back for it later.

Awhile later, she went back to get the umbrella. The clerk was still on the phone, and Mom waited with cash in hand for the woman to stop talking. Again, the woman didn’t acknowledge that Mom was waiting. “I know how I’ll get her to pay attention,” she thought as she turned on her heel, umbrella in hand. She walked toward the door of the shop, then out the door. She turned and saw the clerk, still chatting on the phone, and opened the umbrella to shield herself from the rain and kept walking.

Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad just turned 70 yesterday. It's amazing to think of all that he's seen in the last 70 years. Dad was born in Poland in 1938, and grew up in post-war Poland. He has memories of his village under siege as the German and Russian fronts duked it out literally on his front lawn. He traveled to America when he was 23 years old so that he could start a new life. It took Poland three years to grant him a passport so that he could leave the country, so as a 20 year old he was already thinking of his future and how to make it better in the land of opportunity. He's watched his new country go through changes, and noticed how much his home country grew and changed every time he went back.

He met my Mom, somehow convinced her to marry him and they raised five kids. He worked himself to the bone so that all of us wouldn't go without and so that we would all go to college. He grew more tolerant over the years, as his children grew and went through their stages. Now he can sit back and watch his 11 grandchildren grow and go through their stages--and watch his children grow into adults, spouses and parents.

Dad, thanks for everything you've ever done for me.

Happy birthday.

This is me, Dad and Todd at the surprise birthday that my brothers, sisters and I threw for him on Saturday night:

Guardrail

Nobody needs to tell me how amazing you were
I watched you fight and I watched you stand down
And I wonder which one took more guts

I wish I had your strength
I wish I had your brain
If only I had half of your energy

But I’m scared, I’m sick and I’m starving
I pulled over on the highway
To hold the guardrail in my hands
And I wonder what’s gonna happen next

We gather and we clutch the pieces of who you were
I wear your earrings, I walk around in your clothes
And I stare at your photo and wonder where that better place is
That everyone keeps talking about

And I’m scared, I’m sick and I’m starving
I pulled over on the highway
To hold the guardrail in my hands
And I need someone to tell me
What part of the equation I got wrong
And I wish someone would tell me
If I am doing this right now
Because I don’t know how to grieve
And right now I’m too tired to try

October 4th, 12:15 PM has carved its way into my brain
12:14 and 12:15 are radically different
No matter how hard I try
12:16 will never be like 12:14

It used to be I could tell you exactly how long it’s been
At any given moment right down to the minute
Obsessed I calculated over and over
Please don’t leave me alone with my thoughts too long

Because I’m scared, I’m sick and I’m starving
I pulled over on the highway
To hold the guardrail in my hands
And I need someone to tell me
What part of the equation I got wrong
And I wish someone would tell me
If I am doing this right now
Because I don’t know how to grieve
And right now I’m too tired to try

Nobody needs to tell me how amazing you were
I watched you fight and I watched you stand down
And I wonder which one took more guts

I started to write this the night you died, and kept working on it for over a year after. It's an angry song with dissonant, incomplete sounding chords. Every time I sing it, I feel ripped open and raw. But I still sing it.

It was 6 years ago today that I said my last words to you, “Thank you for everything. I love you.” I have missed you every single day since then. Some days I laugh at the way you didn’t understand that the word “junk” didn’t have a plural and you’d say “I have to put away these junks.” Some days I cry when I remember how your hair had fallen out to the point where you had to wear a wig. Most days I marvel at the life you led, and want to be like you—indestructible, unstoppable, brilliant, tough. I will tell your grandchildren all about you, I promise.

"I've Been Looking So Long at These Pictures of You, That I Almost Believe That They're Real..."*

All through my childhood Mom and Dad always had the camera around. Every little milestone was documented, every sports award night, every band concert, every graduation, and every vacation. Not only were the little milestones documented, but just the little things like when our cousins would come over, the camera would come out and Mom or Dad would snap a few shots.

When I was a little kid I stood around when photos were being taken quite a bit. I used to think that it would be cool if the film captured 1-2 seconds of sound when the picture was being taken, and then when you looked at the picture later on you could hear that 1-2 second sound byte. So if we were taking pictures at a birthday party, you might hear a second or two of the people at the party singing "Happy Birthday" or, inevitably, the sound byte would be of everyone in the picture saying "Cheeeeeeeese."

Then I would wonder what sound would go with the picture when ever a picture was taken. Then I'd try to remember that sound when I looked at the pictures when they came back from being developed.

I still catch myself wondering what the sound byte would be when a picture is being taken. I still catch myself trying to remember the sounds from that moment when I look at a picture later on.

*The Cure, "Pictures of You"

Let Me Tell You About My Sister

Friday night I was driving to my sister C’s house. She lives about 3 hours away from me. C’s son would be making his First Communion on Saturday, so I drove over on Friday night to help her get ready for the party.

C and I are 5 years apart, and we’ve pretty much constantly been in different stages of life. She was in high school when I was in junior high. She was in college when I was in high school. She got married when I was 17; she had kids when I was in college. She had more kids when I was finished with college.

Now she has 4 kids, and is rarely in the same place long enough to talk on the phone or write an email. She’s a mom of 4, and I don’t have kids. So, lately there really hasn’t been that much that we have in common. I can’t relate to PTA meetings, she can’t relate to going sailing, or camping on a weeknight, or the other stuff I do. But we do connect now and then, and it’s cool.

As I was driving to her house on Friday night I remembered a trip C and I took when I was 17 and she was 22. She was married, and I was a senior in high school. We decided to take a weekend and go to Newport, RI together. I went to her house after a field hockey game, to shower and then we’d go. When I got there, she had just finished making her husband a pot of chili for the weekend. See what I mean? I was playing field hockey that afternoon, and she was making chili for her husband. Back when she played field hockey I was probably being potty trained, or something like that.

We got in the car and headed east. She was driving, and I sat in the passenger seat with my hair still wet from the shower. She rubbed her eyes, and started howling in pain. Apparently the jalapenos she’d cut up for the chili left oil on her hands, and the oil stung her eyes.

“C, pull over,” I said. “Use my hair, it’s still wet.”

She pulled the car over and grabbed my head, and began mopping her tearing eyes with my wet hair to ease the pain in her eyes. She finished, and let me have my head with the rest of my body on the passenger side of the car. Then we proceeded to have fun in Newport all weekend. That was the weekend I so rebelliously got my ears double pierced, and lied about my age on the form at Barry’s House of Scrimshaw to do have it done.

C, thanks for a great weekend (if you’re sitting still long enough to ever read this) and thanks for taking me to Newport that time. And I’ll always let you mop your stinging eyes with my hair.