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Things My Brother Said

Because I've hired my 40-year-old brother to do some yard and house work for me, because he is mentally disabled, and jobless, and feels useless, because I'm trying to help my parents, I have been spending more time with the brother over the last couple of weeks than I really ever wanted ever again in my lifetime.

But it's okay, because all counseling service I have purchased in order to cope with our tempestuous relationship have suddenly magically reprogrammed my brain to manage and respond appropriately to the awkward attempts at conversation.

So, this is giving me fodder for a new blog feature I'm calling, "Things My Brother Said."

Even though he is 40, he is mentally 17 years old.  Therefore, my brother is obsessed with just a few subjects:

1. Money
2. Cars
3. Guitars
4. Himself
5. Comparing Himself to Me

This week's installment of Things My Brother Said falls under subject #5, my favorite.

There are a lot of things he says to rival me. Or rile me. I went to college and he did not. This is a very sore subject.  For him, not for me.

He did not go to college because he chose to move to Hollywood with his dreams of rock stardom, and instead became a drug addict.  He does not see my choice to go to college as an achievement but as an undeserved gift I received from the angels and unicorns that surround me with with their rainbows of sparkly happiness.  He has been thinking about this injustice for 25 years.

And so he said:

"Don't take this the wrong way, but do you really need a college degree to do your job or do you just like saying you have a college degree?"

How I could have responded: 

"Why the fuck do you keeps saying the same shit for 25 years, asshole?!"

How I actually responded, in the same voice I use to talk to 8-year-olds, carefully selecting my words and not getting angry:

"That is a very good question indeed.  Hmmm.... I think that to get a college degree you need to use the same skills you would use for a profession, so, while there's no requirement for a college degree to do my job, I think I am able to do my job because of my experience in getting a college degree."

He said, "Oh," then proceeded to talk about another subject. That's for next week's installment.

Highballs

I decided to edit the post I had hastily blabbed out and change it into a more loving thank-you letter to my Grandma, incorporating the suggestion from a reader that perhaps Youth Dew perfume was the secret to Grandma's long life. I told my mother I wrote this letter and that if they wanted to open up the floor to anyone to share thoughts or whatever at the memorial service I would consider reading it. 

As it turned out, my aunt asked me to get on up there as part of the program. So I stood up and said,  "I'm a granddaughter. Grandma and I were letter writers. Here's a letter."  Then I took a deep breath and read from the paper shaking in my hands. I don't do this kind of thing, I hate reading to a crowd.

It's started off well:

"Dear Grandma,"

I broke down just then. SHIT. I have the reputation among my relatives as being Sappy but I was hoping I wouldn't have to live up to that.  When I finished struggling through it my mouth was parched and my face was soaking wet and there was no other sound in the room except lots of people sniffling. I was embarassed.

My mom came up to me and hugged me.  That's right, SHE HUGGED ME.  A real hug, not a hold-me-at-a-distance-pat-pat, and she said quietly, "I'm so proud of you." No recommended changes, no "I wish you had done this differently..."   I made my mom proud.  That's it.  I NO LONGER NEED THERAPY.

And then I got to hang with my cousins, whom I rarely see.  There was Judgy, Pretty, Talky and Crazy. The others couldn't make it so I didn't give them names. 

Pickle Juice

I'm not exaggerating when I say I am going to North Bumfuck New York for my grandmother's funeral.  She and my family got the hell outta there 20-some years ago but that's where her cemetary is. 

This formerly cute industrial hamlet is dead in the water. It's beyond depressed.  It's a freaking ghost town. The old theatre, the one that went porno in the 1970s, is in condemned ruin.  My mother's high school graduating class had like 35 people and now I think they're in a one-room schoolhouse.  The biggest business in town is the funeral home. I haven't been there in a decade.

So I was confirming directions, and just wrote down the following notes from my mom for the final 20 miles of the journey:

"After you pass the lake, turn left onto Pickle Hill Road (unmarked.) Go up and down hills. Turn right at the river. You'll recognize it." 

I'm sure that Gabby-too, my Garmin GPS, knows the way.  And I can't wait to hear her say "pickle hill road."

Manischewitz

Man, oh, man.

Sitting at the Chinese-buffet after services with my in-laws this weekend, my mother-in-law asked the following:

"You know those teabagging parties people are having? [of course she meant "tea parties"] Someone told me that there is a sexual meaning to "teabagging." I've never heard of that. What is it?"

Salty D. cracked up.

"Are you gonna tell her?" I said, across the table of dumplings and lo mein and other assorted salty carbohydrates.

D. said, "Nope. It's all yours if you want."  My mother-in-law and I do not have a cool relationship where we talk about sex unless it's Sex & the City. Then again, Samantha does address teabagging at some point, mother-in-law must have forgotten that episode.

Mother-in-law said, "What?  So what is it?"

"Well," I explained, "teabagging is when you dip a.... testicle into a.....mouth. Like from above. And you make a dipping motion like dunking a tea bag."

Her response:  "Oh that's not so bad."

AWKWARD FAMILY MOMENT.

Black Velvet

My grandma is literally on her deathbed. I'm not that sad about it because she's 97 and miserable.

She and my grandfather were inseparable until his death 30 years ago and so as she's babbling now about her childhood and talking to dead people, I hope she's talking to Grandpa and he convinces her to rest. She's a great-great-grandma who plays favorites.  She loves me and one of my Kansas girl cousins the best out of the whole bunch. I'd bet she wouldn't feel that way if she read this post.  

Actually, in her last card to me, which she said would be her last, she wrote, "This world is too much for me now."

I think I will be sad when I go to her pre-paid memorial service in a little podunk post-industrial town in upstate NY and the life cycle becomes very real to me.

I wrote her a letter yesterday but haven't sent it yet. I think I'm just gonna trash it because she won't get it in time, and it's not really the letter I would want to write. This one is:

Dear Grandma:

Even though I liked my other grandma better than you (just face it, she was much nicer, less structured and more fun) you were cool in a different way.  What, that's not a good way to start a letter?

On the dark side

The throbbing pain in my ears intensified.  All I could hear was an Irish reel and bells and electronic explosions.  I hadn't blinked in several minutes. I dug my phone out of my bag to check the time and realized two hours had passed and I was late for my meet-up! 

I had met two friendly elderly men, seated on either side of me, one who trusted me enough to watch his chair, with his players club card still in the machine, while he relieved his bladder and another who took out his wallet two or three times.  This guy was a nice grandpa type who ordered not whisky sours from the roving waitresses but hot chocolate. 

He distracted me from my own bright lights as I noticed him tapping on the glass of his Super Dublin Jackpot (or whatever it was called) slot machine.  What the hell is he doing?  You're supposed to hit the buttons, not the display!  I turned and looked at him like he was a freak so he explained he was doing a weird superstitious thing to get the spinning thing to stop on the pot o' gold bonus because that's what would set the penny machine into auto-spin overdrive mode, racking up the credits and making rocket noises.  I could barely hear him. We had to yell at each other.  We started watching each other's play and cheering together.  He could tell me how much each spin won before I figured it out, and before the little screen finished counting up the points.  He was a nice man who decided it was time walk away from a losing machine to find another in the sea of thousands of slot machines. 

Waaah, I lost my new friend.  But I kept playing. 

I'm so thirsty.  So thirsty.  How long has it been since I've peed?  I remembered I had a bottle of water, and that's when I checked the clock and decided that even though I was down $12, I should go meet up with my family at our designated spot, Betty's Diner. 

We were at beautiful Mount Airy but it was not this old place (remember the song?):

 

It is now an evil monster that haunts my dreams.

I will always love you, Aunt Jeanne!

I didn't meet my great aunt Jeanne from South Carolina until I was 24 but we totally clicked.  She was raised with her sisters, including my prim grandmother, but Jeanne was the wild child of the bunch.  A gorgeous girl (I wish I had a picture) who knew how to party. 

She "was away" for a number of years after getting married and birthing a kid, so she was kind of separated from the family for a while.  She was in "an asylum," I was told, when I asked why I had never met her.  She had a case of the crazies or something.  But we didn't talk about such things so she was a mystery until I really sat down and talked with her when I went to South Carolina. 

Aunt Jeanne was so spirited and had an awesome sense of humor, and great stories.  One of my favorite stories is how she dated Phil Rizzuto.  Before he became the Money Store guy.  Perhaps "date" is not an accurate term, but, with all due respect to my party girl ancestry, I will stick to that story. 

She died a few days ago.  Bedridden for the past 5 years, she was hanging on with no ability to hear, speak, write, walk.  I don't know how she kept herself alive, but it was like a light that just slowly flickered away.  Until last year, she still sent cards to me that she would dictate to her nurses to write.

So, her 70-year-old daughter E-MAILED the cousins (who are all of the same age...) to tell them that Aunt Jeanne had finally passed.  E-MAIL.  Someone in the family read the email and called my grandma.  My mom found out only by chance a day later when she was chatting with Grandma.  Grandma doesn't have email, she's 96.  My mother only reads her email on a weekly basis, so anything that's "need to know" has to be communicated through one-to-one real time voices. 

It struck me then that we've gone too far, when a person can't pick up the phone and start a chain to let people, especially older people, know of a momentous occasion of a passing of the life of a loved one, that time when people need one-to-one communication, more than any other time in life, so they can say "I'm sorry" or "Did she suffer?" or all those other things you awkwardly say when someone dies, and you can share emotions and pain and comfort in a real time connection.  You don't want to be alone with your keyboard when you find out, do you?

This is a time in our history where there still exists a "digital divide" that we can't ignore. We can't just expect people who were using the pony express to be network users like we are and immediately respond.  And then you can't passively say, "Oh, didn't you get my email?  I told you three days ago!"  As if to say, it's your fault you didn't share in this news, not mine.

Of course I was expecting her demise, but, when my mom told me ON THE PHONE, I cried.  It's a life, for the love of God, and the life of a lovable person who was well accessorized and good humoured until the end, a person who is now a fun-loving angel dancing with the stars.

'tis the season

I just found the family letter that my mother is sending to her Christmas card list: ***

 

 

Dear friends across the miles,

 

The year 2008 was glorious and so full of blessings for our family.  Especially for our lovely daughter Laura.  We are so proud of her even though she hasn’t quite mastered the art of keeping a home clean and organized, and her baseboards are always, always dusty.  I guess a parent’s job is never done!  

 

Laura really surprised us this year, as she has not excelled at work, or her volunteer commitments, or even house cleaning.  But, she only endured a couple of anxiety attacks, so that’s progress!  We’re not quite sure where she gets her inclination to have those. 

 

She and her husband have made us some of the few non-grandparents in our circle of friends.  We’ve given up hope for a biological grandchild to spoil.  All the children’s toys and books I had stashed away, I donated to charity this year.  Such a joy to give back!

 

Little Laura says she has thought about adopting or being a foster parent, and is also hoping to start off 2009 with a dog.  We’ve told her, we don’t think she could handle a dog, much less a foster child!  She can’t even keep her home clean and organized now, how will she manage that?  Oh, that crazy kid.

 

She loves to cook but frankly, uses too much olive oil or butter for her own good.  No wonder

no drama

My brother's freeloading friend found a different family to dine with on Thanksgiving, and I am very thankful for that! 

My other favorite family moments were:

Me, talking to my 96-year old Grandma on the phone about her plum pudding recipe which she can recite and talk about every occasion she served it, and at the end of the conversation I said, "Happy Thanksgiving, Grandma!"  and she said, "Happy New Year, dear."

_______________________________________________

My dad, serving a bottle of wine. 

Dad:  "It's a Bordeaux."   we all tried it and it was not very tasty.  Dad was the first to admit that.  "I don't usually drink French wine, but I thought Bordeauxes were supposed to be good."  I was like, "Daaaaad, just get wine that you like."   "But what I like isn't fancy enough for a holiday."   What?  I'm like, what do you normally drink, Night Train?  Thunderbird?  No, he drinks smooth California pinot noirs and cabernets. "Well," he said, "The guy at the liquor store recommended this, so I'm going back there tomorrow to tell him what we think!"  I almost feel sorry for the liquor-store guy.

________________________________________________

My mom likes to keep secrets from me, because she says I "overreact."  WHATTT?!   ME?  Nooooo.

But my dad spilled the beans on my mom's Black Friday plans.  "Your mother is going to the casino!"  My mom glared at my dad and yelled his name.  "Why did you have to say anything!  She overreacts every time I go to the casino!"  I do, because I think she goes to casinos too often for someone with a fixed income.  I said, "Why the hell are you driving two hours on Black Friday to go to a casino!?"  and lose money...   She said, "because I won't be able to go every week in December, and I have comps to use!"  Comps in the buffet. So drive to spend money and eat crappy food.  I don't get it.

_______________________________________________

Whatever, there's enough real drama in the world that it's good to have a calm homefront.  

Salty D. and I are headed to Connecticut.  Heyoooooooooooh  !

Who's coming to dinner?

My in-laws have skipped town for Thanksgiving, which means I don't need to host the annual family summit this year, and also that I don't have to consume any Xanax.  This is good.

My mom wants to have Thanksgiving at the family homestead.  The menu is, of course, extensive.  More food than any of us needs to see on the table. 

I'm in charge of a vegetable and desserts.  Today I was informed that I must make my vegetable green or orange so that the meal would be colorful.  I was hoping to make a brussels sprouts dish because I wanted to be all local and in-season but I was also informed that nobody likes brussels sprouts.  Then mom said "We like carrots and broccoli and cauliflower..."  Cauliflower is not colorful, MOM.

I'm rather confident that nobody will be able to turn down my brussels sprouts.  The secret will be prosciutto, which is basically how I make any vegetable taste good.

My mom called today to ask to borrow a few serving items for the dinner, and told me she wanted fall-color napkins and did I have any?  Sure, I have some yellowish damask cloth napkins. 

Mom:  Great, I'll need 6 napkins.

Me:  Six?

Mom:  I invited Henry.

Me:  Who's Henry?

Mom:  He's your brother's friend. ₁

Me:  Oh.  Is he...able to have regular conversation or is he a weirdo?

Mom:  He's fine.  Just be nice.

Me:  Me??!!?  

Mom:  Henry lives with your brother.

Me: What?  Is that a recent thing?

Mom:  It's been several months, I thought you knew. It's fine, that's all we need to say about it.

Me:  Really?  OK.  As long as he's not a psycho druggie mooch like the last roommate.  Does he work?

Mom:  Yes, he runs a business and he's about 50 years old. 

I hung up the phone and said to D., my brother has a friend.  Do you think he's a friend or a "friend"?  

This should be interesting.

₁   Last time I found out my brother had a friend I discovered that the friend was mooching rent off of the family and causing my sick misguided brother to be sicker and I hauled off and vaporized the bugger.  So you can understand my alarm about hearing of another roommate.

I'm testing out the new Typepad composer editor stuff and I'm not quite feelin' it yet so this post feels weird. Does it look weird?  It feels weird.