Six More Days and Nine More Things

Everyone else counts the number of days before Christmas. I count the number of days until the Equinox, because after that the days will start to get longer again! Only six more days...

I have used lightboxes in the past, but they help only minimally. I had full-spectrum lights throughout the house and keep as many lights on as possible. I go through the house turning lights on; Brad goes through the house turning lights off. I think he is trainable, though; I'll keep working on it.

I didn't get my current quilt block finished yet, but it should be done today. In the meantime, the Fans block has totally disappeared. Honestly, how can a quilt block get up and walk away? I'm mystified, flummexed, gobsmacked and befrettered. Have you seen my quilt block? Please, if you have any information leading to the discovery and rescue, email me!

Now on to our next few Things on the 100 Things About Me list:

21. Our house had some good features and some bad. There was a built-in linen closet and chest of drawers in the hallway, where we stored linens in the cabinets above and my dad used the lower drawers for his clothes. In the dining room there was a built-in china cabinet. But we had only one bathroom for six people and no shower in it. We had no dishwasher or disposal, although later we bought a portable dishwasher. Green, of course. The kitchen had white metal cabinets, a white speckled linoleum floor, and a great breakfast nook all tucked away at the side. Unfortunately, my dad used the nook as his office, which meant that he had a big metal desk in it and it was heaped with papers and objects and all kinds of junk so he really couldn't ever get to the desk. We had our milk delivered twice a week-- three gallons each time, placed in an aluminum box that sat on the porch by the front door. We would cut off the top of the plastic milk jugs and use it for table scraps. My bedroom had no closet, but there was a storage closet in the hall, a long narrow space that had two rods across it. Lynne's clothes hung on the front rod and mine on the back. This was ok until Lynne got bigger, and I had to brush past or through her clothes to get to mine. It was especially bad when the light bulb blew and it was dark.

22. We had a full basement, very unfinished, where the washer and dryer were. It was full of exposed piping that creaked and thumped and whined. It was creepy. One of the basement rooms was supposed to be a playroom, but as it was all concrete and damp and spidery, we didn't like to play in it. However, we were condemned to polish our shoes there every single night. We later learned that the very back room, the creepiest of the creepy, was where Santa hid the Christmas presents. When I was in junior high, we put a shower stall in the basement near the rusted-out sink. There was just a curtain separating it from the whole basement, and I never used it for fear I'd be exposed. I was very modest.

23. Our "new" piano was a disaster, a large upright that was probably made in the '20's. The tuner gave up on getting it into tune, but we still had to use it for piano practice. My piano teacher was Mrs. Gladys Morin, the veterinarian's mother. She was older than Methuselah, her hands deformed with arthritis; but she was one of the sweetest ladies that ever lived. She gave lessons in her small foyer, and I hardly ever saw the rest of her house. At Christmas each year she made the best hard cinnamon candy-- it was like peanut brittle, only cinnamon and spicy. By the time I was nine years old she said she had taught me all she could, and recommended that I continue at the Fine Arts Center.

24. Also when I was nine years old and in the fourth grade, I started playing the alto saxophone. I still remember the price tag on my new sax: $325.00. It was a fotune and I still don't know how my parents paid for all these lessons and instruments. Since I already knew how to read music and was very good at sight-reading, I didn't have much problem learning the sax. I still didn't ask questions, and tried to be very patient, but one day I just couldn't stand it any more and told Mama that I liked playing the sax but when was I going to learn to play chords? Thankfully, she didn't laugh at me, but I was very disappointed to learn that you could only play one note at a time. What was the point? It just seemed wrong.

25. I was in Brownies and Cadets and Junior Girl Scouts. Until the end of the second grade, I wore my thigh-length hair pulled straight back from my face into one long curl of a ponytail. Mama would never brush it out, but would just loosen the ponytail holder, brush back the front, and reclose the holder. This meant that on Saturdays, when we washed hair, the torture was unbearable. One day, the Brownies were celebrating the American Indian, and we were going to Bloomington to do it (about 21 miles away). We were to dress like Indians, so I convinced Mama to let me wear my hair down, with a headband around my forehead. I climbed into the back of Kathy Cook's yellow station wagon, where all the rest of the brownies were (Kathy was one of nine children, and the only Catholic I knew). Nobody spoke to me, and it wasn't until the day was almost over that I realized that they did not recognize me. When I told them who I was they hardly believed me.

26. Mama started to act a little unpredictable. As an adult, I realize that she had a lot to deal with. Three growing children and a baby, tight finances, busy schedule... enough to make anyone crazy. She was very firm that I should not hold or carry my baby sister at all, anywhere, for any reason. One time she was in the bathroom and Lynne was in her stroller, probably ten months old or so. The sofa bed was out in the living room, and I decided to take Lynne out of her stroller and put her on the bed and play with her. As I leaned over to place her there, I hit my knee on the exposed metal underworkings of the bed and split it open. I quickly put Lynne back in her stroller and pondered the situation. What could I do? If I told Mama, I'd be in trouble (it didn't occur to me to tell her I'd hit it on the bed without telling her why I was by the bed!) So I ignored it. There wasn't a whole lot of blood, but the cut was deep and should have had several stitches. I was in Mrs. Hagerman's fourth grade class, and showed it off to the kids. I could open the wound and you could see all the way down to the... well, whatever. Muscle? Bone? I don't know. Mrs. Hagerman called Mama and I got in trouble. Again. I still have a very prominent scar from that little incident. Another time, Mama was in the bathroom and Lynne was in her stroller right outside the bathroom door. She was getting fussy and starting to cry, so I was trying to calm her down. "It's okay, Lynne, Mama will be back in just a minute..." Mama rushed out of the bathroom and told me to never think that I was Lynne's mother, that she was her mother and she would do the mothering. I was stunned and hurt. No doubt my mom has no recollection of that incident now, but it was highly traumatic to me then.

27. At the end of fourth grade, everyone said that the worst teacher to get for fifth grade was Miss Johnson-- Miss Harriet Johnson. She was mean, they said. Of course, that's who I got. I don't think she was mean, but when we learned long division I found out she wasn't as adept at the practice as she should have been. I was convinced I was right on a test solution, and she said I was wrong. I explained to her how I had arrived at my solution, she showed my how she arrived at hers, and although she could not tell me why I was wrong, she insisted I was. "Numbers never lie, Sheila," she said. This was very disconcerting.

28. When the date was about to change to 1970, we talked in class about all the wonderful changes a New Decade! would bring. Flying cars, trips to Mars, etc. As it turned out, the '70s weren't much different to me than the '60's. But in fifth grade I first became aware of the fact that there was a war in Vietnam, because Joye Sprague was wearing a POW bracelet. She showed it for Show and Tell, and I was intrigued. I shortly forgot about it, though, and was largely unaffected by the war. I suppose Joye was more in touch with it because she had an older sister who was very popular and suffered from some mysterious illness.

29. In April of 1971 I was eleven years old. Daddy now managed a Gulf station, and as his nickname was Smiley, it was called Smiley's Gulf. I remember the Grand Opening. Daddy had a cotton candy machine there and all kinds of people came by and life was wonderful. Then one night before we went to bed, Mama called us all into the living room, where Daddy sat in his big green recliner. I was wearing my pink quilted bathrobe and my fuzzy pink slippers, and the boys were in their pajamas and robes as well. We all sat on the couch, me in the middle, the boys on either side of me. Daddy explained to us, with tears rolling down his face, that Mama Marie was dead. She was only 35 years old. I just sat there wide-eyed, letting it sink in. David and Phillip started crying, but I fiercely refused. Daddy explained that Grandma Wilson (my maternal grandmother) had called and said that Mama Marie had been killed in a restaurant fire. The funeral was too soon for us to be able to get there. (I would learn much more about my mother's death later.) We went to bed, and there I cried. I don't think I cried because I missed her, after all, I hardly knew her. I think I cried because I knew I would never be able to know her. I cried for me, not for her.

Posted by Sheila at December 15, 2004 06:15 AM Posted to | TrackBack