Austin Part Two and Pretty Toothbrushes

I have an impassioned plea for those souls who invent things in this world, on behalf of all we who wish to be surrounded by beauty:

would it be too much to ask for pretty toothbrushes?

Please think about it. Many of us buy accessories for our boudoirs and bathrooms which are meant to be displayed in full view of inhabitants, guests, and casual wanderers-in. Cups, lotion dispensers, soap dishes, tissue box covers, and toothbrush holders-- we enjoy the Plenty we find at stores across our great land. We buy those items that appeal to us, that coordinate with our decor, that say something about who we are and what we like. Then, because we have no choice, we must ruin the effect because we have to populate the toothbrush holder with the hideous looking brushes on the market today. (Well, some of us who rebel just a tiny bit use our toothbrush holders for double-pointed knitting needles, but I digress.)

What would be so hard about making pretty toothbrush handles? Readily available are pretty mirror handles, pretty hairbrush handles, pretty cosmetic brush handles. There seems to be a large gaping void where the pretty toothbrush handles should be. We are doomed to display ugly plastic, weird-looking handles on the tools with which we brighten our smile or else cause our guests to wonder whether we brush our enamels or not.

Could we start a petition or something?

[this just in-- that was quick!]

Meanwhile, back in the Parlor, Madame Glitchbane continues to knit Rona's Hill and spin superfine merino which she hopes to dye some day soon. She turns her thoughts to the rest of life in Austin, Texas, a much happier time than the first part...

79. Our house was on Piping Rock Trail, a Bill Milburn home, of which there were thousands in the Austin area. I didn't care. It was my first home buy, and I loved it. I made curtains for all the windows, and paid special attention to the big box window in the kitchen, which was at the front of the house, adorning it with balloon shades and matching cushions for the window seat. Sherah's room was decorated in her favorite color, red. Whether she was influenced by Strawberry Shortcake dolls and decor or whether she liked SS because she loved red, I don't really know, but red is still her favorite color.

I went to work for a law firm in Austin as a legal secretary and except for the commute, I loved working with this group of people. The only problem was child care, and I eventually found a woman in the neighborhood who took the kids, but after a few months she didn't want to babysit any more. What to do? One of the attorneys in the office had a Mexican maid, and suggested that his wife, who spoke fluent Spanish, find me a live-in nanny. Saleta soon came to live with us, and I was struck by the sacrifices that some people will make to procure a better life for their family. She had had to leave her three children in Mexico, one of them only three months old, and every month when she got paid she immediately sent every dime to them.

Saleta kept the house perfectly clean. Spotless. It was disheartening, like living in a hotel. I'd put a nail file down on my dresser, come back to get it, and it would have been put away. She didn't speak any English, and I spoke no Spanish, so life was interesting. Sherah was talking, of course, but Randy hadn't yet learned (but it is no wonder, now that I think about it, that Randy now speaks Mexico City Spanish so fluently that noone can detect an American accent).

Sherah sucked her thumb still at age three, and carried a well-worn blanket around with her everywhere. Each morning as I left for work she would follow me, crying and pleading "don't go, Mommy, don't go!" until one day it was just too much for me, and I went to work to deliver my two weeks notice. The first day I didn't work, Sherah stopped sucking her thumb and no longer needed the blanket. I was so struck with guilt and remorse that I swore I would never again work while my children needed me.

One day Alex came home from work to tell me that a fellow pilot named E.J., a full-blooded Native American, had been disciplined because he had taken off in his jet a few seconds too early. Apparently the RF4's had been under scrutiny by some agency and it was considered a safety violation for them to take off more than about 12 seconds apart. EJ was being made an example of, since he was the pilot of the plane, and his wings had been removed. This was a serious and grave incident for the pilots of the squadron. Earning your wings was a huge accomplishment, and having them removed was about as humiliating and career-wrecking as you could get. I had rarely seen Alex depressed, but he was upset over this incident. The next day he was at home when he got a phone call, and I'll never forget the look on his face, one of utter desolation. EJ had gone to the barbershop, got a nice clean haircut, then drove home to sit in his garage and inhale carbon monoxide. He was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The base commander aged ten years overnight. It was the way of EJs people, we all knew, but we all felt responsible in some way, and I think that inside it aged us all.

80. I started working out to Jane Fonda exercise videos; I baked bread twice a week; I devoted myself to my children and my house. And, for the first time since we were married, we started going to church. Alex had been brought up in the Methodist church, and as you know, my background was Baptist (independent fundamental bible-believing, of course). We chose a southern baptist church, less stringent than my background but more stringent than Alex's. The church gave us a focus and allowed the children to mix and mingle with others, aside from the supposed moral values they were being taught.

Those days were happy, and one day as Alex and I were walking down the road that led to the lake behind his parents' house in Mississippi, I proposed that we should have another child. Alex wasn't so sure. I suggested that if we looked up into the next tree we came to and saw mistletoe, we should have another baby, and if not, we wouldn't. Alex was game. Sure enough, there in the top of the tall pine tree was a huge ball of misletoe, and before long I was again expecting (it was said that I could get pregnant at the drop of a pair of pants).

80. Our three years in Austin were almost up, and we were hoping that the baby would be born before we were to leave in January of 1987. I was due in late December, but in September I went into labor, far, far too early. This time I didn't have such a nice and caring doctor. I showed up at the hospital and he asked what was the problem, in a voice which really said by its tone "why are you wasting my time?" I explained that I was in labor, and I was only 22 weeks pregnant. He said quite condescendingly "you're not in labor, I'll tell you when you're in labor!" He then proceeded to put me on a monitor and had to admit I was in labor.

This time I was sentenced to bed at home for the next three months. Alex took the kids to Mississippi for a week, then brought them back home and stayed home for a week, and repeated this for the next three months. It was a trying time for all of us. I went nearly crazy with boredom and loneliness. I started every kind of project imaginable with the skills I possessed at the time-- crochet, knitting, cross-stitch, quilting. I read hundreds of books. I had to take those little tiny heart-racer pills every two hours around the clock and perhaps worst of all, I wasn't allowed to drink coffee, the elixir of life.

Eventually my ordeal was over (who knows how many years it took off my heart!), and the baby would be allowed to come at any time after the first of December. But did he? Oh no. We were still pregnant when we moved out of the house, renting it to friends, and went to Mississippi to stay for six weeks while Alex went to, oh, I don't know... Squadron Officer's School? in Alabama. Fortunately, Zachary decided to make his appearance before Alex had to leave, and on January 3, a week overdue, we had our third and last child, and on January 4 Alex left, coming home every other weekend. We were soon to be assigned to Peterson Army Base in Colorado Springs, but until Alex finished SOS we would stay in Mississippi.

Zachary perhaps thought that he was my substitute for the little pill, as he wished to nurse every two hours on the nose. At that time the Dunkin' Donuts folks had a commercial on television that featured a Dunkin' Donuts manager getting up far too early in the morning, fairly sleepwalking on his way to the kitchen, saying "it's time to make the doughnuts..." Every time I got up in the night I would say to myself "time to make the doughnuts..." Other than that, little Zach was a treasure, and perhaps because his father was absent or maybe because I was much more comfortable with motherhood, we quickly bonded with more force than I ever knew possible.

One day Mama called from Illinois, wanting to tell me some news. She asked if I remembered Melissa and of course I did... she was my good friend the youth pastor's wife who had Sherah (after whom I had named my daughter) and then Shelah. Mama said that she had also had a son, Nathan, and when I sat down to figure it all out, her children were spaced exactly as mine were. But what Mama had called to tell me was that Melissa was out taking the children to school one morning and had been hit head-on by a carful of teenagers, driving drunk. She, Sherah, Shelah and Nathan had all been killed instantly.

I immediately thought of my own family, how precious they were and how fragile life could be, and I could not imagine losing them all at once. I called Alex, and despite the fact that it was midweek and he had classes to attend and it was a four hour or more drive, he drove to see us immediately. I don't think we ever felt closer than we did at that time, holding our offspring close and praying that they would be safe and that we would have them with us for a very long time.

Posted by Sheila at January 26, 2005 06:18 AM Posted to | TrackBack