I didn’t know what to do. If I couldn’t bring myself to kill a spider, there was no way I could bring myself to kill a snake. I wouldn’t know how, anyway. Step on it? You can only ask so much of a clog.
I ran to the closet, grabbed a broom, and, screaming the entire time, swept the snake out of the house, through the front door.
The snake was only too glad to slither outside.
The spiders were only too glad to run inside.
Touchdown!
King Tut
Okay, so my brother has escaped back to Miami, and my mother is extending her visit with me and daughter Francesca. One afternoon we were all in front of the TV, comatose before the Everybody Loves Raymond marathon, having finished the Law & Order marathon. For the past two weeks, my mother wouldn’t go anywhere else but the kitchen. Driven to distraction, I offhandedly suggested we go see the King Tut exhibit.
“King Tut?” my mother asked, suddenly perking up. Her eyes widened behind her round glasses like an octogenarian Harry Potter. “Let’s go!”
I blinked, astounded. “But, Ma, it’s In Town.”
“So what? I love King Tut!”
I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was, More than Telly Savalas?
“Only thing is, he’s not there,” my mother said.
“That’s because he’s dead,” I told her, then ordered the tickets online before she remembered she didn’t like having fun.
The next day, we were at the King Tut exhibit—Mother Mary, daughter Francesca, and me—three generations of Scot-toline women, freshly showered and dressed up, giddy to be out of the house. My mother wore her best perfume, smelling great because she stopped smoking a few years ago, when she got throat cancer. She’s in complete remission now, which doesn’t surprise me. It’ll take more than a deadly disease to kill Mother Mary. I’m betting on a meteor.
I picked up our tickets, bought the audio tour, and slipped the headphones over my mother’s hearing aid, then turned on her audiotape, which was narrated by Omar Sharif. She broke into a sly smile and said, “Omar Sharif can park his slippers next to mine anytime.”
“Who’s Omar Sharif?” Francesca asked.
“Doctor Zhivago,” my mother answered.
“Nicky Arnstein,” I added.
“Who?” Francesca asked again, and we let it go. I cannot explain Omar Sharif to a generation who has not swooned over him. For Omar Sharif, I would have learned to play bridge.
But back to the story.
We waited in a line that zigzagged for an hour, which was a lot of standing for Mother Mary, especially after she’d come three blocks from the parking garage. She’d walked only slowly, but she hadn’t complained at all. Her vision is poor from glaucoma and macular degeneration, but she was gamely squinting at the museum map. We entered the exhibit, which began with a short movie about King Tut. In the dark, my mother said to me, “Watch your purse.”
In the first room of the exhibit, we were a field trip of underachievers. We couldn’t pronounce Tutankhamen or figure out his genealogy, and we didn’t know what canopic meant. I kept pressing the wrong numbers on my mother’s gadget for the audio tour, so the tape would play the spiel about liver embalming when she was looking at the mask of Nefertiti.
But we found our stride as the exhibit continued. The lights were low and dramatic; the rooms modeled after the King’s own tomb. I held onto my mother’s elbow as she wobbled along, and my daughter read aloud for her the plaques she couldn’t read herself.
We saw lovely calcite jars, so luminous that they glowed. Delicate statues called shabti, glazed a vibrant blue. A gilded chest covered with carved hieroglyphs. The artifacts, all over three thousand years old, had been placed in King Tut’s tomb to keep him company in the afterlife. In the Egyptian culture’s reverence for the dead, I could see its reverence for the living. Looking at the amazing artifacts, holding onto my mother and my daughter, I realized that this moment might never come again. Cancer kills mothers every day, and death comes for all, boy kings and perfumed women.
Then I tried to understand why it took a glimpse of the afterlife to make me appreciate this life.
It was an afterlife lesson.
We passed into the last room of the exhibit, which was darker than all the others. I had expected to see the grand finale, King Tut’s famous golden sarcophagus. But where it should have been, instead was a stand the approximate size and shape of a sarcophagus. On it was projected a ghostly photo of King Tut, which morphed from a picture of his mummified remains to a picture of his sarcophagus.
“What’s this?” I asked, mystified. “Where’s King Tut?”
Mother Mary said, “Told you. He’s not here. I read it in the paper.”
“That’s what you meant?”
“Yes.”
I felt terrible, for my mother. “Sorry about that.”
But she waved me off. “Makes no difference.”
Francesca looked over at me. “Bummed, Mom?”
“No,” I answered, without hesitation.
“Me, neither,” she said, with a smile
And we both took Mother Mary by the arm.
Dream Job
It’s fun to do something dumb. Not something really dumb, like my second marriage. That was really really dumb.
I mean, it’s fun to perform a mindless task. I realized this today, when I clipped my pony. Yes, even though I’m a grown-up, I have a pony named Buddy. I bought him from a little girl who thought he was too old, too small, and too slow.
Bingo!
Buddy is a brown-and-white paint with a wavy black mane and eyes round as Ping-Pong balls. He’s barely taller than a golden retriever, and when I ride him, my heels practically drag on the ground. And he’s shaggier than a mastodon. He needs to be clipped twice a summer, which is where our adventure begins.
I was supposed to be working on a novel at the time, but I couldn’t figure out the plot, the character, or the dialogue. That’s about all there is to one of my books, except for the sex scene, but we’ll leave that for another day. I was in first draft, and even though I tell myself first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, I feel as if it does. By the time my book goes out the door, it has to be as perfect as I can make it, which still isn’t perfect. It’s perfect, for me.
But today I couldn’t do perfect; I couldn’t even do good. I lost my mojo, it was hot outside, and I knew a pony who was sweating his ass off. So I went to the barn, turned on the Rolling Stones, tied that little furball up in the aisle, and grabbed the electric clippers.
Start me up.
I shaved strips into Buddy’s thick, curly hair, and the Stones got me rocking. My mind wandered, and I became Mick Jagger. I sang. I played air guitar. I looked awesome in really tight pants.
Two hours later, my little Beast of Burden looked as if he’d been sheared by Keith Richards. Mental patients get better haircuts, and a close second are condemned prisoners. My clipping method wasn’t perfect. Buddy’s coat had been matted in places, but I cut it off rather than untangle it. Nor had I decided in advance which type of clip job to give him, and there are three types: full body clip (self-explanatory), trace clip (top-half only), and Scottoline clip (until pony looks schizophrenic).
And the worst part was that I had started the job wearing my prescription sunglasses instead of my regular glasses, but that had made it too dark to see what I was doing. So I took the sunglasses off, but then I couldn’t see the pony at all. Still I clipped him anyway. I got the job done, which is good enough for a rock star.
The other mindless task I love is mowing the lawn. I mow on an ancient diesel tractor and I pretend it’s a new John Deere riding mower. Or a Corvette, a Maserati, or a horse that’s taller, faster, and younger than Buddy. I’m in the ring at a horse show. In my mind.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
And I don’t do a perfect job on the lawn, either. I ride my tractor/Olympic steed around the backyard, plowing strips wherever I please, spewing chopped
sticks and broken glass. I breathe in random scents of mint, onion grass, and diesel smoke. Bugs fly up my nose, and I wear orange earphones for maximum hotness.
I aim only to get the job done. I swerve to avoid frogs, which creates crop circles worthy of M. Night Shyamalan. I drive around rocks that have been there forever, and my backyard looks like it has hairy moles. So what? My Aunt Rachel had hairy moles, and she was my favorite.
And if a hose is on the ground, I drive around that, too. I never get off the tractor, move the hose, and mow underneath it. I leave my hose and grass to their own devices. Not everything on my property is my business.
And, as you may have guessed, I never decide in advance what type of mowing method to use. As you know, there are three types: up and down (self-explanatory), around and around (dizzying), or Scottoline (surprise me!)
But here is the point. What I do during these mindless tasks is dream. Some people call them chores, but to me, they’re dream jobs. This isn’t just marketing or reverse psychology; we all need time to dream. I take a break from the real job to do the dream job. And unlike the real job, the dream job doesn’t have it be perfect. It just has to get done in a dreamy way.
And after I clipped Buddy today, I went inside, sat down at my computer, and got back to work. Do you think my plot, characters, and dialogue magically appeared?
You must be dreaming.
Suggestion Box
I don’t know when this started, but I’ve become very suggestible lately. I first noticed it when I was watching TV and a commercial came on, for spaghetti and meatballs. Instantly I wanted a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. I couldn’t help myself. I craved spaghetti and meatballs, even though eating carbs is now against federal law and I’m supposed to be a vegetarian. Still, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about spaghetti and meatballs.
Then it got worse.
I was watching Sex and the City reruns, and I wanted a nice pink Cosmo, or three. During a Wendy’s commercial, I wanted a square hamburger. And every time Kentucky Fried Chicken came on TV, I’d be thinking, extra crispy is the best. Extra crispy always hits the spot. I’d just love me some extra crispy right about now.
But it went beyond food.
I’d watch tennis on TV, and I’d want to be a professional tennis player. I’d watch Top Chef, and I’d want to cook for Chef Tom Colicchio. Bottom line, I’m starting to want whatever I see on television, and lately I’m watching Miami Ink.
You can see where this is going.
Miami Ink is a reality show about people who go to this tattoo parlor in Miami and walk out covered with tattoos. There’s a little story behind each person’s tattoo, and many of the stories are sad. There are parents who get tattoos to memorialize children who died; there are teenagers who get tattoos to memorialize parents who died. Plenty of people get tattoos of their dogs and cats who died. All this dying and all this tattooing, I can’t take it. I cry like a baby through every episode.
But that’s beside the point. The point is that I went from being a person who was disgusted by tattoos to being a person who wants tattoos very badly.
I think about tattoos all the time now. I look at pictures in magazines and wonder, would that would make a nice tattoo? I squint at tattoos on other people, appraising them with a critical eye. I visits websites with tattoos when I’m supposed to be working. I think about tattoos so much that I have already selected three, though they are imaginary.
And because I have to decide where to put my three imaginary tattoos, I think about that, too. Should they go on my arms? Too flabby. Lower back? No tramp stamp for me. Ankle? Looks like dirt with heels. Neck? Can you say state prison?
There are a lot of choices to be made in the imaginary world in which I live.
I suspect, however, that I’m not the only person to pick out imaginary tattoos. Fess up. You know you want one. If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine:
I like Kewpie dolls, so for my first tattoo, I thought it would be nice to have a tiny little Kewpie doll on the inside of my wrist, where it will be discreet, even classy. (Okay, maybe not classy.)
For my second tattoo, I would like an old-fashioned Sacred Heart, but I don’t know where on my body to put a Sacred Heart tattoo. It’s too butch for my arm, and I could burn in hell if I put it anyplace else. You take your chances with the religious tattoos, and you don’t want to be thumbing your nose at you-know-who.
Thirdly, I think one of those colorful Japanese scenes would be nice, something with orange koi fish or calcium-white kabuki masks or an ornate kimono of threaded gold. I can’t decide about my last tattoo. I think about it a lot. It has replaced spaghetti and meatballs in my magical thinking, at least for the time being.
Unfortunately, I’ve passed my suggestibility on to daughter Francesca. We watch Miami Ink together, and though she doesn’t want a tattoo, she wants the tattoo artist—Ami, the star of the show. Come to think of it, I want Ami, too. And while we’re on the subject, I also want Chef Tom Colicchio from Top Chef. He’s more my age, and with his bald head and intense gaze, he’s my Telly Savalas.
It turns out that the power of suggestion extends to everything on TV.
Maybe I should get a tattoo of Chef Tom?
September Song
Summer’s over, and I’m trying to be mature about it. I’m ignoring the depression I always feel at the end of summer and the dread at the onset of autumn. For a cheery girl, I get a little gloomy around now.
Why?
Because even though I’m allegedly grown-up, I still have the mentality of a middle-schooler: September to May sucks, and summer rocks! No more pencils, no more books! Summer is for getting crazy, and fall is for facing the music.
I don’t go to school anymore, but I remain on the back-to-school mental clock. It’s like I have to gear up for AP Bio, but I don’t take AP Bio. I never did take AP Bio. They didn’t even have AP Bio when went to high school. They had pop quizzes, and that was scary enough. “Pencils down” will forever be associated with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Nor is it as if I go back to work in September, after my summer vacation. I don’t always take a vacation, and didn’t this year. Like a lot of us, I work seven days a week, year round. I’m not complaining, mind you, I love my job. But it raises the question, why should I be sad that summer’s over, when it’s not as if it were such a big break?
The same goes for Sunday nights.
I always feel a little bummed out on Sunday nights. Sunday night is the Labor Day of the week, if you follow. It’s as if the weekend = summer, and Monday = fall. This makes no sense, again, because I work on Sunday, the same as I do on Monday.
So why do I dread Monday, on Sunday night? Why do I dread fall, at the end of summer? Why do I feel this way? My days don’t change one iota.
Daughter Francesca thinks she knows the answer, and she weighs in, below:
Well, Mom, that’s not exactly true, your days from summer to fall do change in one respect: me. Sure, you haven’t been in school in a long time, but for almost two decades, I have. For the last sixteen years, just being my mother has put you on some version of the summer vacation schedule. Although I realize that, for you, it may not have always been such a vacation—driving me to day camp when I was little, watching me attempt the perfect dive for the 100th time in a day, later on, teaching me how to make the drive down to Ocean City by myself, or, most recently, giving in to my insistence that summer is the perfect time to get two kittens. For better or for worse, my summertime glee and back-to-school dread has probably rubbed off on you over the years. But that’s about to change. For both of us.
In a sense, this is my last real summer. The last summer of my childhood, the last summer as a student. As I prepare to be a senior in college, I am preparing for my last academic fall. By next summer, I will be a (gulp) grown-up, or, I guess I’m supposed to say, adult. Summer vacation will shrink to two weeks, and the rest will just be going to work in hot weather. I’m excited to ent
er the adult world, but to be honest, I’m scared, too. I will have a new sort of weight in the pit of my stomach when I hear my last “pencils down.” I’m out of time.
The chemistry test may be over, but the new test is just beginning. Is my adult life the “fall” of my summertime childhood? Now that I think about it, I don’t even like the word “fall.” It sounds perilous. And I’m afraid of heights.
But then again, maybe summer isn’t gone for good. Of course I know the season isn’t going to disappear, but I mean, summer as-I-know-it won’t go away forever, either. Like you said, Mom, you still get that thrill when the spring days get longer and warmer, regardless of work schedule. It’s as if the weather and the people can finally exhale into the balmy summer breeze. Summer will always be the time of short sleeves, lunch outside, and guilt-free ice cream. Last time I checked, sunshine has no age limit.
And, you know, fall isn’t so bad. Fall isn’t only about back-to-school. Fall is warm colors and warm houses, Thanksgiving and football, crunchy leaves and crisp air. “Fall” doesn’t have to be a scary word. People fall in love. Things fall into place.
And, Mom, if what you wrote proves anything, it’s that if I really miss my summer vacation, I’ll always be able to relive it when I have kids of my own.
Oh wait. Now I’ve scared myself again.
Road Map
I write this the day after I took daughter Francesca back to college, and I miss her. I know I’m not the only sad parent. My good friend sent her son to kindergarten last week and she’s still crying.
September is a time of beginnings and endings, which are not coincidentally the same thing; the beginning of middle school for your kid will finalize the ending of elementary school. Any movement your child makes toward something will be a movement away from you. And though we’ve all heard that dumb roots-and-wings speech, it still hurts.