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Halloween or no Halloween, I am not much of a costume dresser upper. Even as a child, it was my mom, not me, who put thought into my Halloween costumes.  And more often than not they were one of a kind, handmade outfits her mother, my Grandma Kyle, had whipped up on her trusty treadle Singer. I was a circus clown, a Dutch girl, Pow Wow the Indian girl, all of which made it to the third generation as my daughter wore the same costumes gently preserved in tissue in a trunk at my mother’s house.

My grandma was a true seamstress. She made my mother’s wedding gown,and her sisters’, and even fashioned a woman’s wool suit out of a suit of my father’s which was the rage during WWII, I am told.  I suppose it was some sweet way to make all the war-torn marriages feel closer together, men in their dress blues and women in wool pinstripes.

Anyway, my grandsons this year were quite the adorable pumpkin and pilot. Not quite, I mean seriously adorable.  The oldest pulled a small airline suitcase to hold his candy and his dad said people on the street were calling him “captain” and asking when his next flight was going out.  The younger, whom we all agree is rather sturdy or borderline plump, probably just felt relieved that his mother finally dressed him in something that fit.

Kids and most adults just love Halloween.  But channeling my best Andy Rooney, I do not. For many reasons, but to save face and space and keep it to the last five of “60 Minutes,” I will highlight only a few of my Halloween aversions.

First, my idea of dressing up as someone else is when I wear jeans with holes in the knees that make me feel 18 or an old black vest that makes me feel like Annie Hall.  Similarly, I love my Meg Ryan thick-soled boots and miss my Princess Di haircut as much as I miss her. I suppose I work so hard at trying to stay age-appropriate and look like my preserved mental version of myself that the idea of taking on a whole new persona is overwhelming to me. Not to mention the self-confidence it takes to wear a costume that makes you look old, fat or ugly.

Oh no.  I work waaaaay too hard not to be any of those all day long to, God forbid, do them on purpose.

Nope, that costume thing? Not for me.  I’ll leave that to the confident, relaxed girls who love blackening a tooth to be an evil witch or wearing their daughter’s push-up bra to be a “waitress.”  I’d rather be wicked or sexy on my own terms, not for some overblown, out-of-control holiday that celebrates the night all the evil spirits emerge from their dark inner sanctum and haunt the earth before they are caught and shoved back where they belong by all the blessed saints on November 1.

Which brings me to another gripe I have with all our holidays, religious or otherwise.  When did we allow commercialism to let them become so over the top and out of whack?  I mean, really, there were pumpkins in Walgreens beside the back-to-school-supplies.  Santa’s reindeer were flying over rooftops in television commercials  on October 29 and do we even remember Thanksgiving anymore?  Other than that it’s the busiest weekend at America’s airports because all the college kids return to mama’s arms for the weekend?

Actually, I’m with Benjamin Franklin who wanted the founding fathers to move Thanksgiving to October with the harvest  where it makes sense like our more intelligent northern neighbor, Canada, does it. But no, that wouldn’t work because Walgreens would have to put the candy corn beside the turkey-and-gravy scented candles before July 4th sparklers and then that would push back Memorial Day flags into Valentine candy and we’d be wearing 2014 glitter glasses as Halloween costumes.

Now actually, that’s one dressing up idea I might oblige.

My daughter was over yesterday with her one and three -year-old sons and after a couple hours of “let’s play frisbee with Yaya’s coasters” and riding the scooter on the driveway and dinner and bath time, she let them settle on the couch in front of one episode of Mickey Mouse.  My daugher is very good about television with her kids. She never uses it as a babysitter but as a treat and only then on days that start with an “S” (Saturday, Sunday, Sick, mom feels Shitty). She also often watches it with them.  In fact, the one-year-old doesn’t really get to sit in front of it but when he does, he sits very still and laughs loudly at regular intervals to show he is really into the plot and “please don’t move me.” Needless to say, it’s adorable.

So I was in the kitchen doing whatever Yayas do in the kitchen when babies are in front of television.  Probably getting squished banana out of my rush-covered counter stools. And it hit me.  The sound of cartoons make me lonely.

I thought about it for awhile and I think I have an idea why.  First, I was the kind of kid who worried when I watched cartoons.  For instance, when the dog ran through the grocery store, cans and loaves of bread flying, I always stressed about who would clean up all that mess. Don’t even get me started on the mayhem Mr. McGoo created.  Or the Roadrunner. He could ruin a city block in the blink of an eye.

But beyond my not registering these were pictures that could be easily cleaned up with an eraser not a mop, I think cartoons represent a time in my life and a time of day I felt lonely.  When I was in grade school, my mom had gone back to work to help pay for my brother’s college education.  So there was an hour or so after school in middle school through high school that I would, in today’s world, be considered a “latch key kid.”

Now the reason that could be misleading is that we lived in a neighborhood where doors were always open. Playdates were arranged by a tap on the screen door announcing our arrival, certainly not any talk among our parents as to who should show up when. So coming home to an empty house always felt safe as I had Jean and Peg and Ruth and Loreen a hop, skip and a jump away. If I needed anyone or anything, even a hug, they were there.

But lots of days, I would throw my books on the dining room table, grab a bowl of dry Cheerios or a plate of Ritz crackers spread with strawberry jelly and retreat to the basement to watch TV.  And if  Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver wasn’t on yet, I was stuck with my chaotic cartoons. Our basement was dark with painted grey cinder block walls.  Dad’s favorite green chair with the stick shift footrest sat empty and the upright piano stood looming, shaming me for not tinkling the ivories for Aunt Alberta, my piano teacher, instead of vegging in front of Porky Pig or Daffy Duck. Which reminds me, cartoons always worried me also because all the characters seemed to have these horrible speech impediments that no one seemd to  notice or write in a speech therapist for.

I mentioned these deep-seated feelings of longing and sadness regarding cartoon time to my daughter and, completely typical of her personality, she hit the nail on the head and said, “It probably was the lonliest time of day raising us, too, mom.  You had done and run and coped all day and by the time you threw us in front of TV, you knew you had a good hour before dad got home and you had some adult relief.”

Bingo, I thought.  That, too.

So the next time you flip past the Disney channel, stop and pull out your hanky and take a moment to think about little Nancy Noble, the latch key kid, who thought cartoons were lonely and messier than her jam and Ritz covered fingers.

But take heart because I can whistle the tune to Leave it Beaver like a master or trip over the ottoman as well or better than Dick Van Dyke. So my salvation always came soon after Tom and Jerry or before my second bowl of Cheerios.

And no, thanks to my mad crush on Mark in The Rifleman, I still can’t play the piano.

We have all heard quotes  or old adages such as “Youth is wasted on the young,”(George Bernard Shaw) or “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards,” (Soren Kierkegaard) or one of my favorites,“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” (Allen Saunders).

In the past, I jotted these in a “things to remember” notebook or shared them in a card to a friend.  I thought if I read them often enough, I might understand them well enough to avoid the pain of their inherent truths.

But alas, I have lived long enough to realize that good advice only sheds light on a mistake after you make it, and emotions trump sound sense or wisdom in most human contact.  So in a fit of self-disclosure and seeking some sort of catharsis, I thought I would share a few of my pivital life moments I wish I could push rewind and relive. You know, the “if only we could do it over again, I would do it so differently” moments when you open your mouth and the wrong words fly out.  And the moment is gone and the regrettable thoughts hang in the air like the smoke of a bad cigar.

So in no particular order some of my moments would be :

My first born telling me she was thinking of naming her first child Declan.

Wish I had said:  Oh that’s lovely.  Isn’t it Irish? So creative of you to be thinking outside the box.

My real answer:  Declan.  Did you say Declan?  Like we’re Irish or something?  Isn’t it in the top ten most trendy, overused names this year?  What’s wrong with Jack?

My youngest showing me a small heart tattoo she had just had permanently inked on her left wrist.

Wish I had said:  A tattoo? How perfect for you.  Sweet, subtle, delicate.   Just like you to wear your heart on your sleeve. I so admire your self-expression. Love it!

My real response:  Is that thing real?!  You did it?  Without telling me?  Why don’t you just move out to LA with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and all the other trailer trash with ink all over their skin. (No surprise she soon moved to LA with Britney and Lindsay…)

Arriving home from church on a snowy Christmas Eve, three children in tow, to smell my brother’s arrival by the trail of smoke from his Winstons over-powering the heavenly scent my evergreen boughs draped throughout the house.

Wish I had said:  You’re here safely!  Merry Christmas!  How was your drive? Thanks for having a cigarette in the basement where we agreed you could  smoke…How about some eggnog?

What I really said loosely translated to keep this PG:  Why does your smoke always have to precede you? What’s wrong with smoking outside?  (It was probably 30 below with the chill factor.) It’s Chrismas Eve, for God’s sake. Can’t you take a night off??? Oh, my babies’ little lungs…full of carcinogens…Blah, blah blah…

And on a lighter note, I’ll share a moment in which I have no regets about my mouth working faster than my brain. As I mentioned in my last entry, my left foot is once again either fractured or has a gaggle of torn tendons. I say “once again” because after dragging around a walking bootie  for several months after surgery two years ago, I spent last winter in a walking cast for a stress fracture and now have something again impairing my stride and making me miserable.  The doctor told me to R-I-C-E:  rest, ice, compress and “eat whatever I want with the added bonus of doing nothing and not gaining a pound” (really it’s ‘elevate’) and come back in two weeks. I dutifully “RICED” and waited and laid on the couch as much as possible and returned with the same swollen, red, aching foot. I stood in front of her, painfully balancing on both sets of toes and she said matter of factly, “Well, it’s still swollen.”  And I responded, “Well, duh!!”  Luckily she had a sense of humor.

Perhaps my sometimes too honest tongue is an over-reaction to my mother’s motto, “If you have nothing good to say about someone, say nothing at all.”

We are all some mixture of what we intrinsically are–were born to be–and what our parents tried to mold us into. And I feel certain, none of us say what we should at all moments and more of us think of the perfect response to many encounters as we drive away or rethink the day’s interactions in the shower.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson may have said it best. Duh!!

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

To say I am a perfectionist by nature would be an understatement. To say I have fought it all my life would be a lie.

No, for most of my existence on this earth, my quest has been for the best.  Of anything.  Grades, colleges, cribs, strollers, cars, shoes, cell phones, mattresses,porch furniture,grandchildren’s scooters.

Now, my “quest for the best” should not be confused with having to have the most expensive version of all things. To me, those are two very different animals.

In fact, having the most expensive version of all things is pretty easy to do if you have the money.  It takes no imagination, research or style to simply buy what is on the cover of the Neiman Marcus  catalogue or whatever is strutted by the latest celebrity in People. Buying or living this way may give some people a sense of importance or status. But to me, it lacks any originality or je ne se quoi. (That’s French for a person that inherently has their good-taste-in-all-things shit together. No one has to tell them. They just know. Think Katherine Hepburn. Her unrelated fellow actor, Audrey.)

So my most recent quest has been for the perfect washer and dryer.

With piles of Lulu Lemon and Feel Good white T’s (two of my “quest for the best” favorites by the way), piling up in front of my on-its-last-leg Kenmore, I was faced with a whole new world of research possibilities. Not having bought a washer and dryer in over a decade put me somewhere between owning a washboard and mangle.  And still drying things on “the line.”

Right out of the box, I realized to my horror machines no longer use agitators or a heaping cup of granular Tide. The control panels are no longer happy ratchet sound knobs but LED lit touch screens. So much new to over-analyze and so little time, as my clothes were growing small shrubs of mold in the tub of my dilapidated machine. Per usual, my over-research involved two calls to different  manufacturers’ customer service centers, lengthy discussions with three Lowes salesman, massive internet review reading and even a trip to Lowes by my sister after I broke my foot. (Not related to tripping over my ever-increasing mounds of laundry. Another story.)

To me, this is where a “best quest” steps out of normal consumer range and my OCD tendencies step in and I make myself and everyone around me crazy. I’m sure on some level here I am parading my OCD tendencies as a simpler diagnosis of meticulous researcher.  A simple girl who just likes to get the most bang for her buck.

On a good day,  I’m hoping I fall somewhere in between.

This story gets so much better but to keep this to a one page entry and hopefully not have you nodding off between paragraphs, I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version of what transpired before my new washer and dryer were safely placed and leveled in my laundry room.

–I finally chose a sort of new age/old lady hybrid by Whirlpool that had my familiar cycle knobs and no agitator. Instead it had an impeller that gently rocks the clothes like a new mother using less water, less soap, less suds and less energy. All those lesses sounded like less clean clothes to me.  But my Lowes salesman assured me the power jet rinse and high speed spinning would balance it all out to perfectly clean laundry.  He had me at “perfectly.”

–But as luck would have it, the dryer in this set (which I never gave a second thought as a dryer is a dryer is a dryer) had a heat sensor flaw that snagged, shredded and ruined my first load of towels.

–Lowes, who gets an A++ on customer service, asked few questions and offered to replace both appliances the next day.

–Given a chance to rethink my choice, once more, and having had a few loads of practice at getting used to the world of no agitators, I traded up for the full deal, LED screen, doorbell chime end of cycle signal Whirlpool set. Which, by the way, is made in the USA and even has a flag in the lid to prove it.

And here, washer drum roll please, are my compulsive researcher conclusions.  HE (High Efficiency), no agitator, energy saving machines are leaps and bounds better than the machines our grandmothers used. When I pulled my first load out, and it had been spun to half way to dry and smelled like spring flowers, I swear Snow White’s bluebirds circled my head singing “You’re out of the woods” while braiding blue satin ribbons in my hair. (I know I’m mixing fairy tale/movie allusions here but that was my image, so I’m sticking to it.)

To be honest, I am sure my research perfection/obsession involves some mortal fear of making a mistake, any mistake, that is tangled up with feeling like a failure if I ever get a grade less than an A.

Or perhaps it was  the humiliation of my eighth-grade gym teacher, Mrs. Burford, screaming she hated me when my Tahitian fake hair ponytail ( a 70’s fad I had purchased from an ad in the back of Teen magazine) fell out from under my 70’s bun, hitting  mid-court like road kill, during homeroom basketball.  Which stopped the game.  And sent me to the bench. In front of the whole school.

More likely the latter. I’d still like to give Mrs. Burford a spin in my new high speed Whirlpool.

Shel Silverstein wrote in The Giving Tree, “And she loved a boy very, very much, even more than she loved herself.”

My “boy” just turned thirty a couple months ago and a little over a week ago, he asked the love of his life, beyond me of course, to marry him.

I’ve heard it said that  “a son is a son ’til he takes a wife; a daughter is a daughter the rest of her life.” But in our case, I have high hopes that my son, at least occasionally, will choose his mama for a Chrismas or two and maybe a vacation once every few years.

You see, we have been through a lot together, my boy and me.  Since he was a senior in high school he has had six or so major surgeries. Two of them day-long brain resections, a neurosurgeon’s fancy word for brain surgery. (https://askmrsmom.com/?p=397)  He has survived treatment for two cancers, has been declared cured of one and continues to be monitored for the other.

At the beginning of this cancer journey, a road we are forced on and never take by choice, I let my mind go to the worst case scenerio at every test result, path report and doctor’s visit.  But as time passed and he still woke up smiling, I learned to lean into every moment we had together, all of us as a family. And slowly I went from living one day at a time to one step at a time and finally one breath at a time.

Nothing like a healthy awareness of death to make living all that more precious.

So this news that we are adding another member to our family is joyous on so many levels. My positive, follow-me-I-am-invincible son has led me to yet another happy place.  He has lived and loved and hoped and dreamed. And more than a decade after his first diagnosis, he is healthy and getting married.

What’s more, this beautiful woman he has chosen to spend the rest of his life with is someone I can pass my baton to with confidence. And know she will pick it up with a heart full of love and hope for all their tomorrows.

What more could an old tree stump ask for?

I seldom look at People magazine or US unless one is sitting tattered and three weeks old in a doctor’s waiting room.  Or I am stranded at an airport. No really, I buy them at airports regularly and weekly at check out lines in the grocery store. It’s a guilty pleasure although I am sad to say as I get older, and the stars get younger, the celebrity news doesn’t thrill me as it used to. Still love the personal stories of the heroes of the Boston Marathon tragedy or appreciate the issue on the parents of the children who perished at Newtown Elementary. The fashion sections of do’s and dont’s are always good for a chuckle as well as the self-indulged star or starlet section in US called “25 Things You Don’t Know Me.”  As I mentioned, I usually don’t know who they are much less care to read a laundry list of the name of their first dog or their favorite food.

But I was thinking, for my purposes in this blog, a little self-disclosure might be fun, since I drone on and on about subjects or events I find interesting or feel may interest you.  Thought perhaps knowing a little more about me would lend that shared information more credibility.

1.  I am mortally fearful of thunderstorms.  Especially while driving.  Don’t know if my fears are based on being trapped in a second floor apartment, tornado sirens blasting out my window in the flatlands of the midwest the first week I was married.  Or perhaps it is just congenital, like it was for our old dog Trey.  (See, I’ve already worked in my dog’s name and didn’t even have to list it.) But dark clouds gathering or the weekly emergency broadcast test signal on TV sends chills down my spine.

2.  I am convinced that the fancy piece of plastic that pretends to keep toilet seats fresh and sanitary only goes in one big circle.  Same dirty cellophane cover, tucked around the lid like a shower cap, just circling the lid for fool after fool, bottom after bottom.  Never sat on them; never will.

3.  In the same germaphobe vein, I don’t drink after others, even my children or grandchildren.  No one, no matter who or how dear or special, do I want to share saliva backwash with.  Same with lip or chap stick.  My lips or no one’s.

4.  I accidentally on purpose wore a friend’s watch home from her house after school in first grade. Mom made me return it to her and apologize to her scornful parents.  Lesson learned.  Never wear a plastic watch with a black rubber band strap again.

5.  I can write my name in cursive or print with my toes.  And a writing utensil, of course.

6.  My brother called me Burl (he combined girl and boy; not sure about his spelling) from childhood well into college.  My dad called me Punkin’.  Dad wins alternate name category.

7.  In high school, I always felt like “Miss Almost.”  Lost cheerleader five times, student council eight and graduated number 11.  Of course the top ten were in the newspaper. A friend at my last high school reunion heard me tell that and said, “Yeah, we should get you a t-shirt.  On the front it should say, Miss Almost.  On the back it should say, Get over it.”

8.  I would leave my husband for Dennis Quaid or Andy Garcia.  At least for a night.  For Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, maybe a week.

9.  I love birds except those that walk like people.  You know, the ones that step one foot in front of the other instead of adorable birdlike hopping.  i. e. pigeons, mourning doves, grackles, starlings.  One exception might be any shore bird. Never saw a bird on the beach I didn’t like, walking humanlike or hopping.

10.  Sundays give me a sad feeling of longing and I love Fridays.  Just like in college.

11.  My favorite number is three. Except for martinis.

12.  I once contracted scabies ( an icky sort of body lice) after a fateful sit in a cedar hot tub.  I was newly married and when I told my mother she advised me to get rid of them and not tell my husband.   Which I did quietly until he called the next day from a business trip and said he thought he had lymphoma because of all the bumps under his skin.  He welcomed the scabies and his new bride.  I wouldn’t tell Dennis, Andy or Daniel about that though.

13.  I flipped from the back to the front seat of a convertible once in high school when the driver slammed on the brakes. Landed unharmed. Two things.  Should have been the driver since I was the only one not drinking.  And seriously, how did I not make cheerleader?

14.  My husband and I met on a blind date in high school.  We played miniature golf. I nearly aced every hole because it had been a long summer of putt-putt dates. He thought I was athletic and I thought he was the second coming.  Love, like our date, was also blind.

15.  I met Nelson Mandela on a business trip with my husband to South Africa in 1994, soon after his release from prison and election to the presidency.  Being in his presence was surreal, like meeting Gandhi or having an audience with God.  It was magical and indelibly etched on my memory.

16.  I won a set of World Book Encyclopedias at 13 by writing Ask Andy, a national science question column, and asking why it was so hard to swat a fly.  Had my picture in the paper and got my green and grey set of 12 books delivered to our door.  In case you are wondering, it’s because they take off backwards, so aim a half inch or so behind.  Haven’t missed one since.

17.  I’m pretty good on a pair of roller skates. As a kid, I once skated with Dallas Bias, the Police Chief, at the local rink.  We skated arm-over-arm, hand-in-hand, leg crossovers as we rounded corners.  Idol worship at its best.

18.  Mr. Deitrick had a garage near my two room grade school (See Martin School post March 13, 2012) and he had a pet bear in a cage that we walked past to get home each day.  Don’t know why I didn’t think it was strange or scary.  Maybe because my parents voted in that garage every election day, stepping behind cloaked booths right beside his pot belly stove. And the bear.

19.  I love Toby Keith’s American Soldier.  I crank it up every national holiday, road trip or whenever I need an inspirational kick in the butt.  Cry every time.

20.  I have never had a McDonalds burger.  Never.  Still waiting for Letterman to call to do a spot on that.

21.  I can sing and read music, but only when holding a Methodist hymnal.  I can harmonize with any hymn, great or small and do it loudly and with confidence, much to my children’s’ chagrin.  Especially on Easter morning or Christmas Eve.

22.  I always carry a tape measure in my purse.  I especially like the small leather one my sister gave me several years ago.  It comes in handy for a myriad of things: furniture at flea markets, dress length, inches to the finish line if my grandson comes in second.

23.  I am a slow reader and often invert numbers.  Unless it is the finish line and my grandson comes in second.

24.  I am addicted to lip gloss.  Must have it on my lips day and night.  Day on a dip-stick and night in a pot.

25.  I am convinced waiters spit on or do worse to food returned to the kitchen if it is too cold, undercooked or not just right.  I am sure it often happens to me since I always order at restaurants something like Sally in When Harry Met Sally.

So we have this woman who cleans and basically runs our house in West Virginia.  She comes in before and after we leave and keeps the place in better shape than we do.

And she is one of a kind.  In all ways.

She is a watch dog for every man, woman, deer or UPS truck that steps foot on the property or darkens the door there.  We met through the former owners and it was love at first sight.  For me, at least, it was.

The interview went something like this:

Me:  So how did you get into this line for work–care taking, house cleaning?

Trina:  Well, I was carin’ for my mother-in-law and she died.

Me:  Oh, I am so sorry.

Trina:  Oh, don’t be.  It was time.  I’d been wipin’ her butt for fifteen years for free.  Figured now  it was time I got paid for my hard work.

Can’t argue with that sort of pragmatism, I thought.  She was hired on the spot.

Trina started working with us practically the next day and when I am there alone, she talks.  We talk.

She climbed out her bedroom “winder” at sixteen to cross the border to Virginia where marrying her twenty-one-year-old Dean was legal.  Thirty years and three kids later, both their eyes twinkle when they are in one another’s presence. He gets up at 3:30 every morning to mine the coal he has for thirty five years and she gets up with him to make his coffee, serve him breakfast and pack his lunch.

Her married name is Trina Lilly Lilly.  “There are too many Lillys ’round here so I just divide them between the good ones and the  bad. Dean’s family was one of the bad Lillys, except for him ‘course.  We are definitely not relations.”

He has a hand-engraved tatoo inside his left wrist that is a simple hand drawn” TL.”  They are a great American love story.

But I digress.

The real stories are the ones that Trina tells as she is carrying out a trash bag or helping  me  change a bed. She usually starts with, “Did I tell you about…”  and it will entail some wild tale about her sister, Toots, or her other one who is “on the check,” Sharon, or some lady from the church she used to attend.  Her doctor visits are always good ones.  She had a pin put in her left foot and when she woke up she told the doc, “That were the worst screwin’ I ever had. ”  She swears he smiled behind his surgical mask.

My son thinks she should have a spot on Late Night TV.  He can picture the host saying, “And now it’s time for our segment called Let’s Talk to Trina,” as he picks up a cream-colored corded phone.  And they should. Hearing her tell a story is as good as the story itself.  She could read the phone book and make you laugh.

Full of horse sense and good humor,  her perspective on all matters is honest and direct and uncluttered by pretense.

So today she called with a “good one”, as she says.

Trina:  Did I tell you about our friend who died?  The egg guy?

Me: No, you told me about the guy who died on an ATM.

Trina:  Now, Nancy, you know I meant ATV (all-terrain vehicle).  Was funny, wasn’t it?  I suppose if you got held up at an ATM you could die that way, though.

Me:  You have a point.

Trina:  So anyway, there’s this real good man we know, just the nicest kind.  Joe Smoot.  He’s  sold eggs ’round here for years. Well, the obits two days ago says he had died.

Me:  That’s too bad.

Trina:  Well, I know but the puzzlin’ part is, I’ve been searchin’ the paper everyday for the details. You know, of the service, his wife’s family name, the survived by names and all that.  And everyday–nothin’. And as I said, I really liked the guy. He was popular with alot of folks.  And I wanted to show my respects. So finally after three days of nothin’, I called Rose and Quesenberry, the funeral home, myself.

Me:  What did you find out?

Trina:  Well, a lady answered and I asked what were the particulars of the Joe Smoot funeral.  And she said, “It weren’t the egg guy. And there ain’t no funeral.” And I says, “What?”  And she said, “Yup, thars another Joe Smoot and he’s the one that’s dead.  The egg guy even called me yesterday to see if we could handle this confusion and I just told him, “We are busy enough dealin’ with the deceased to worry about him bein’ alive.” And then she said the livin’ Joe Smoot said it was turnin’ into a terrible mess.

Me:  A mess?

Trina:  That’s what I said,  “What mess? ”   And the lady said, ” Yeah, the egg guy, Joe Smoot, said, ‘Can’t we do anything about this mix up? My front porch is a pilin’ up with food and flowers all over the place and I have no idea what to do with them!'” I told the lady he oughtent just send them to the funeral home for the dead Joe Smoot since no one seemed to care about him and all. But the lady didn’t take to that.

Me:  So did you call the alive Joe Smoot ?

Trina:  Now, why would I do that?  I don’t need no eggs.

So I have little or no good explanation as to why I have not blogged in a month.  I guess my only excuse is time flies when you are havin’ fun. My daughter and her brood moved out about the time I took this hiatus. Perhaps I have been prone on the couch exhausted or luxuriating in the sweet silence of having morning tea alone for the past few weeks.

Mostly, I have spent the last thirty days (more like six months) preparing for and enjoying the trip of a lifetime.  My husband and I and our adult children plus an in-law and a girlfriend, took a ten day vacation in Provence, France two weeks ago.

I spent months researching and planning the details of our travels from where to stay, train schedules on weekdays to which hikes lead from which perfectly quaint hill town to another. I checked the weekly weather in France, prayed for sun and listened to French for Dummies on CD’s in my car.

I scoured the stores for comfortable yet Parisian chic shoes.  (Which in the final hour I did find and immediately bought in two colors.  Best packing move ever.)

I researched the lightest, strongest luggage for overseas travel, updated documents, cut my hair shorter to keep up with the younger ones who walk out the door with “wet head” and look adorable.  I dyed my eyelashes black, again to wake up perky and stay with the pack.  Needless to say, I put some thought into this trip.  We were celebrating my birthday with a zero at the end, my son’s 30th, our daughter’s 25th and we landed on our 38th anniversary. As though we needed even one reason to make such a trek, we had many.

Since our return, I have thought and thought about how I could write about this trip.  Without sounding like a PBW.

Which brings me to my main hesitance about this entry. My brother, who is a writer and faithful supporter of my blogging, wrote this to me not long ago.

“The great writers are always one of a kind.  What’s unique about them always comes through, and that’s what makes them great ones.  Think about it — you can recognize Poe or Fitzgerald after reading only a sentence or two.  I think what’s unique about you in this blog, as a blog writer, is this mix of privileged burb wife-at-the-spa (PBW) and heart.  These inner conflicts.  Most of the great ones are expressing  their unique inner conflicts —  even the unique stylistic features seem to come from these conflicts.”

So aside from him nearly comparing me to Fitzgerald ( a stretch but I’m running with it) my conflict here must seem self evident.  How do I write about this nearly perfect, ridiculously expensive trip and not sound like a privileged burb wife (PBW)?  And rereading his note, I figured it out.  I will tell you about it from my heart.

First of all, having all my children plus their most-loved others travel happily with me anywhere was magical in itself. Now granted, calling my kids and saying, “Wanna come to France with me in April, all expenses paid?” was sort of a slam dunk but kids can be kids and life throws up roadblocks. But this time it didn’t and we got an overwhelming “woot woot” on the first group email.

Secondly, we could have been at the Wisconsin Dells (if cell power was down) or in a log cabin in the Smokies (if there was no land line) and my trip would have been much the same.  Away from our daily routines, gathered in the same house for ten days, I had my kids with me dawn to dusk, without their thumbs tapping on a cell phone or them leaning into a computer screen.

We were all on a new and exciting adventure together where no one knew the way and we were finding it together.

Yes, the French countryside was so picturesque and heavenly perfect you almost expected the director, with a beret of course, to step in at each corner or field of lavender with his black and white clapperboard and say, “Cut, that’s a wrap!” (I’d write that in French but don’t know it.)

But aside from the exquisite beauty of our locale, the moments, the real moments, happened in the seven person mini van we so embarrassingly, American-lookingly traversed the countryside in, as a team.

With a European GPS, we would set out for a destination and invariably, there would be a glitch, at least one moment of right or left panic. But we rolled with it, laughed alot, mostly at my youngest who, nodding off at her window, said things like “Oh you love that French hand lotion so much. Should I arrange for each of you to bathe in it tonight? ”

Perhaps the highlight of our trip was the final night together. We had hired a cook, organic no less, (I know it oozes PBW) and sat around this great dining room table at our house with a fire roaring at one end. But before dinner, my son-in-law had the idea that my son’s girlfriend, who is a stylist for J. Crew, should raid all our closets, mix and match all our clothes and dress us all for the “last supper.”

Well, it was one of the best fashion shows I have ever seen.  She went into each person’s room with a pile of clothes and knelt and tied and cooed and smiled and made us all feel like movie stars.  Then we each emerged from our rooms, one at a time, before dinner and walked the runway around the pool.(I know, dear God, we had a pool!)

At dinner, all shiny and new with our revamped attire, we all talked about our favorite moments of the trip. And overwhelmingly, it was “What was the name of the waiter we had at lunch the first day?” or “Wasn’t it funny when we found out on the last day we had seven keys to the house and all along we had been juggling one?” “Maybe it was that crazy scops owl that made his mating call all night long, every night?  I was ready to go offer myself as a mate.”  (Again, my youngest.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3D2jq1HoQ

Alas, it was the moments between the moments that stuck in our minds. The little gifts my husband picked up at the flea markets we visited each day and presented to the “ladies” at dinner each night.  The late night dancing to iTunes cramped in the only tiny room in the house that offered Internet. The rooftop views of the Luberon Valley.  The church bells that chimed out our windows, 24/7 every hour on the hour and one at the half.

In the noise and the stillness, we were together in a strange land and always familiar to each other.

And that was the best gift of all.

Just writing that title, it takes me  back to Bob Phillips Drive-In in Charleston, WV, replete with curb-side orders into the intercom perched on a pole beside lines of cars with roller skating waitresses.

Yep, right out of Happy Days.

On a  summer day in 1962, my brother at 17 was hanging at the curb with some friends and apparently, things got a little rowdy. No dope, no alcohol, just a few amped up teenagers honking their horns and feeling their oats.  The cops were called and when they got to my brother’s car, they leaned in his window and asked for his driver’s license.

Now at this point, being nine years his junior, I always picture him as a 60’s classic: crew cut,  khaki pegged pants, oxford cloth starched shirt, skinny  black belt and white socks with Weejuns, shined to a mirror gloss.

My brother looked up at the policeman and when the officer repeated the request, he retorted, “Driver’s license. Driver’s license? Driver’s license!”

Well the rest of the story is family history and local lore. My brother and his two buddies in the car were thrown in a paddy wagon and hauled into the station for his irreverence, along with a dozen or so others.  He called my parents and asked their advice as to what to tell the police and they basically said “the truth will set you free.” Innocent and kind as my parents were, they were also naive. The other boys got daddy’s attorney to set them free and my brother’s name was the only disorderly youth listed in the Sunday paper. Even made the local news as he, on his own accord, was the only one of those arrested not to cover his face in a Justin Beiber-like faux cry for privacy.

Family uproar at the time, but now it makes me smile. Every time I hear the words “driver’s license”  I think of my brother and that day. As complicated as it seemed when it happened, it calls up a simpler time in my mind. When kids were called rowdy for what they said, not who they hurt or what they did. And helicopter parents didn’t always hover for a landing in each child’s learning experience.

But on to the purpose of this post. As I mentioned last week, I recently had a birthday and with it, I needed to renew my driver’s license. (Do I hear car horns, roller skates, The Shirelles?)

My letter in the mail from the Secretary of State noted I was required to take the written test as well as get a new picture. Both thoughts sent chills down my spine.

I had the good fortune for eight years to have kept the same license and the same decent picture.  Because of my good behavior, unlike my brother, I got a sticker on the back of my my driver’s license for my pristine record that gave me an automatic renewal for a basic fee.

But  this letter stated  I must show up before my birthday and take the written exam.
I don’t like exams because I have to get an A.  Tests bring out the ACT/SAT watch the clock/sweat bullets in me.  I become the three point shot at the buzzer, the defining cross-examination in the trial, the horse that pulls out in the final lap and takes the crown.  I have to get 100%. Or die.

My daughter told me to print out the Rules of the Road online, which I did,  all 90 some pages, in black and white. I studied.  I fretted. My hair fell out, I developed an ulcer.

So after three days of ruminating, I decided on a whim to breeze into the DMV and pick up the real Rules of the Road.  The computer sheets just weren’t doing it for me. And while I was there I, again breezily, asked the guy at the desk to check and make sure if I did indeed have to take this exam. Hope springs eternal.

He took my license, glanced at it and said, I swear with a wink, “You shouldn’t have to take the exam, unless of course , you have been bad.” Wide-eyed I assured him I had not been, as he typed my social into the computer.

“You weren’t bad four years ago in West Virginia?”  Busted, deflated, again full of test angst, I remembered a little speeding ticket I had paid for at the local station and supposedly gotten off my record.  Mom and Dad would have been so proud, I pled guilty as charged.

“Ah, go on and take the test,” he said, “It’s slow today.  Look around.”

So I took a deep breath, paid the fee, picked up my test and sat down in a row of  school desks lined up for test-takers. Really?  Couldn’t we have lounged on sectionals, munching popcorn, lazily choosing a, b or c? The pressure was killing me.

I have to say my days of study and quick perusal of the Rules of the Road as I stood in the short line for the cashier paid off.  I finished quickly, only missing one.  The picture taking was a blur of post-exam relief.

As my son in law said at dinner a few days later after he had also taken the test to reestablish himself as an Illinois resident, “Even a chimpanzee could pass that thing.”

Averting his gaze, I peeled my banana and reached for the next limb.