One Man’s Trash is…

My father used to have a bigger company with many employees, but over the years, he has cut back, and now he’s just got this one guy, Ron, who’s been working for him for years, doing different types of labor. Ron’s not much younger than my father, but he’s built like a little fire plug. And for a guy who has taken little care of himself (smokes, breathes in all kinds of dust, and no doubt partakes in the recreational substances) he seems like he’s in pretty good shape. He’s very strong. I’ve seen him lift an iron radiator over his head. Whenever there’s heavy lifting to be done, Dad calls in Ron.

In the past few years, Ron hasn’t been as dependable though. He disappears for days at a time, usually once he gets a little money in his pocket. He’s got that kind of swagger that makes you think sometimes he might be drunk, or a little on something, and there’s no doubt that sometimes he is. Ron lived for many years at the local YMCA. He had a little trouble managing his finances, and my father helped him out, giving him enough to get by on, but putting some aside so that Ron could eventually get a car. Which he did.

With my father’s help, Ron became the proud owner of a late-model Buick. It’s blue with a white leather top. Pretty swanky ride.

A year or so after he got the Buick, Ron’s father died and left his house to Ron. Dad tried to help Ron manage the responsibility of home-ownership, but Ron, who’s not the most intelligent of men had a little trouble with the basic concepts. And also, his substance abuse problems were probably a factor. Perhaps he was broken up about his own father. Maybe there were things that had never been said. Ron had some troubles around that time and seemed to be self-medicating a bit to keep the sad thoughts away. He wouldn’t show up for work or answer the cell phone my father had given him. Dad would inevitably drive over to the house and find Ron in a daze, a couple of skanky women always hanging around, or other guys, all in similar states, lounging on the dilapidated furniture in Ron’s parlour.

Eventually, Ron loaned the Buick to some guy who said he needed it to go get some money with which he could pay Ron rent for a room in the house. Ron never saw the guy again. Turned out the guy had traded the car for some crack, and no one is really sure what happened then, how it got into the hands of those teenagers, but in any case, by that time Ron and my father had already reported it stolen. The police spotted the Buick and gave chase. The kids in the car freaked out, and tried to hide, driving into a city park and wedging the car beneath the large branch of a tree, the force of which peeled back the front edges of the white leather top.

Ron’s still driving that car. The paint is completely dull, and the tattered leather of the top flaps in the wind as he cruises along. The muffler trumpets the car’s velocity, audible from two or three blocks away. A few weeks ago, Ron parked it somewhere, and when he came back for it, the car had a boot on its wheel. My father paid the $400 and change in parking tickets, plus almost $200 in towing fees.

At this point in the story I stopped my father. “Is that car even worth six hundred dollars??”

He laughed and told me that Ron claims people are always offering him money for the car. He tells Ron time and again to get rid of the thing. It needs frequent repairs, $500 for a transmission, then it might need a brake line, or a new tire. Dad will pay for those, and then Ron always pays him back, or does some job for him, whatever. And every time my father urges him to let the car go, Ron says, “Are you kidding? Some guy just offered me money for it last week!” But because it’s a “classic” Ron has no plans to part with it.

And so, Dad was teasing them right before the two of them came over here yesterday to do some handy work in my basement. This week the city is working on my street (some kind of hush-hush problems with the sewage system) and as they got out of their cars, my father teased Ron by admonishing the men on the street, “Now don’t be offering this man any money for this car, gentlemen!” he said laughing. Sometimes Dad gets a kick out of himself. And he is a pretty funny guy.

They came in, and he got Ron all situated with the tools for the job in the basement, and then he  went off to tend to other business. As he went out to his car, one of the city workmen stopped him. “Hey,” he said with all earnestness, “does your friend really want to sell that car? How much does he want?”

Snippets from the Front (of Motherhood)

At Edison’s school, the kids wear uniforms. Spring uniforms were permitted at the end of Easter break, and for the boys, this meant shorts with a polo shirt. It was cold this week (highs in the 50’s) so I let him wear the polo shirt, but with his longer pants. Every day he would come into my room before the last of my snooze-button reprieves had ended to ask what he should wear. And every day I told him short-sleeve shirt, long pants, squinting at him from the mattress like Popeye.

Then yesterday, I was up and around, getting his clothes out for him. He asked if he could wear shorts, but I said no. The forecast was windy with a high of 60. “But,” he said, his face sad and pleading like a Basset Hound, “all the other boys in my class have been wearing shorts all week.” And I couldn’t argue with that, so I gave in easily. Okay, kiddo. Be chilly, but fit in. I understand where you are coming from.

Several weeks ago, I was at GapKids with The Princess, and she came across a pair of ballet flats with a large jewel on them. There are times, when as a parent, yes, you do have to pick your battles, but even then, even when you are ready to battle, even if you know going in that you’ll have to go all “William Wallace” on them, you know, they’re just never going to cave. Never. This was one of those times. The shoes were almost $30, and I thought, shit, when the heck is she going to wear those? But I coughed up the thirty and sucked it up because I knew. The only way she was leaving the store without those shoes was going to be unending stress for me. And that’s worth $30, isn’t it?

Well, the answer to the question about when she was going to wear them was that she was going to wear them all the time. We’ve gotten the $30 use out of them and then some. She wears them everywhere, and everywhere she goes, people make a fuss over the shoes, only reinforcing her steadfast determination to wear them for almost any and all occasions.

They came in three colors, but only the pink ones fit her. She knew there were others, and in the last week or so, she had started asking for blue ones. I figured by now, they would be discounted, and they were, but every store I looked in was out of her size, including online. I enlisted the help of my stepmother and my mother-in-law, both of whom searched the malls that were out of my normal circle. Last week, my in-laws took a drive to New England, and they found a pair of blue ones, the last, apparently in the state of Massachusetts.  They had them shipped here, and they arrived yesterday, just as I was getting ready to make dinner.

I took them out of the package for The Princess, and returned to my supper duties. The next time I turned around, she had changed her entire outfit to match the shoes. “Don’t I look fancy?” she asked.

And she did.

This Saturday, I’m having a yard sale. I don’t know why, except that I have a huge pile of crap in the basement that I just want to get rid of. Clooney LOVES to sell stuff, so when I said I was thinking of having a yard sale, he took off running. Oh, we are having a yard sale. Every day he’s been collecting more stuff for the yard sale. Counting down the days to the yard sale. Yes, yes, yes. No turning back now.

Not that I’m not living in the moment, but I can’t wait for next weekend.  Manfrengensen and I will away to NYC for our anniversary. Going to stay at a swanky hotel and celebrate eleven years of relatively blissful marriage. We also have tickets to see God of Carnage, which stars James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis. Should be a fun weekend. Just plan to stroll the city (hopefully with good weather), spend some time at Central Park, visit my bro and his family, and a museum or two.

Seven more days.

A Story From the Past

I haven’t had many blog-worthy moments lately. My mind has been blank and yet busy, I guess too busy to focus on any one thing to write about. Last week I went to a funeral for an old friend’s father, and I guess that got me thinking about the past. My friend, Lu and I have been close since high school, and even though we don’t see each other much, we have this kind of relationship that just picks up every time where it left off. We are both married now, with our own families, etc., but I still love the guy like I did the first time he posed the question “What’s the poop?” to me almost 30 years ago.

I remembered that Lu came to visit me in NC when I was down there working at the paper, and that got me thinking about this story:

I had been out of school for six months or so, working temp jobs at banks and such, simple filing work; living in a one-room flat, freelancing for local magazines and waiting for my “big break” in terms of a real job. I had been checking out the Want-Ads in Editor and Publisher every week, and had sent my resume down to a paper in NC that was looking for a copy editor. They flew me down for an interview in February of 1987.

I was young, 22, but you know, when you’re 22, you think you are all grown up. You’re ready to take on the world and live your life, that life you’ve been dreaming about for as long as you can remember. You think you know what’s coming next, you’re ready to make it all happen because you know how the world operates. I mean, what the hell did I know?

So the plan for the flight was this: I got a plane out of Philly to Charlotte, NC, and when I got to Charlotte, I had to call for a shuttle to take me to my connecting flight to Wilmington, NC. There was snow in Philly, so we got a bit of a late start. I was a little nervous even though there was plenty of time to make the connection, I’m just a spaz about traveling.

There was an older man sitting next to me on the plane, and he struck up a conversation, told me a bit about himself, and asked where I was going, etc. Because I was nervous, I started talking, and I gave him basically my whole story; how I was just out of college, looking for this job at the paper, how I’d been freelancing and hoped to someday write for Rolling Stone, my whole big plan. Again, I was young, a dreamer, and open. I wasn’t playing any cards close to the chest because I had no idea how to even get into the game.

He was a nice man. As the plane touched down in Charlotte and we took off our belts, he told me that he could tell I was talented and that I would “go far” in life. At that moment, I swelled. I felt so hopeful, so sure of my future. This man, this stranger, had seen the diamond in the rough that was me, could see the potential of my future success. We had talked so much about me, that I had completely forgotten what his story was, so I asked him, “What is it again that you do?” His answer: “I’m in waste management.”

So I got into Charlotte. This was long before cell phones, so I had to rush to find a pay phone, and finding one that wasn’t being used was a challenge. I finally got to one, and just as I picked up the receiver, everything in the airport went black. It was a complete power outage. No phones, no lights, nothing. People were just wandering about in the gray light, unsure of what to do next.

Now I was really nervous. The minutes ticked away until the lights finally came back on. At that point, I had about fifteen minutes until my connection was scheduled to leave. I dialed the number I had for the shuttle, and a woman with a slow Southern drawl answered. I told her I needed a shuttle, and she told me to wait out on the sidewalk and the van would be around in a few minutes to transport me. I was still kind of freaking out, so I said that my plane was going to leave very soon, was there a chance I would make it?

She laughed a little and said reassuringly, “Well now, I seriously doubt that plane’s gonna leave without you, I mean, your shuttle bus driver is your pilot.”

And sure enough, he was. This big dude in a khaki jumpsuit who looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and come to work. He threw my bag in the back of the van and sped around the terminal, stopping once for another passenger. Then he took us straight to the plane on the tarmac. It was this four-seater puddle jumper, the inside of which reminded me a lot of my brother’s beat-up Honda Civic. There was trash strewn about, crumpled burger wrappers and styrofoam cups.

I climbed in, clung to my seat, and we took off (me white-knuckled the entire time) toward my future. 

Another Thing I Never Imagined Myself Doing

Saturday Manfrengensen had to work, so I took the kids to the Y. The boys have separate tumbling classes in the morning, so I usually put the other ones in babysitting and work out while they have their classes, switching them in or out at the top of the hour.

Saturday though, I was on day three of a migraine, functioning yes, but barely. My plan (I always have one, which must somehow amuse God) was to put one in his tumbling class while I took whichever combination of the other two I had out to the playground while we waited. It was nippy, so I brought a bag of warm weather gear, hats, scarves, gloves, etc. I also brought a book, figuring I would just relax on a bench while they expended some energy climbing and sliding. Pretty good plan right?

Well, I hadn’t even read two sentences before The Princess emptied her bladder into her pants. This, literally one day after I had said to myself, well, she hasn’t had any accidents in a while, guess I don’t need to keep this change of clothes in my car anymore. Ugh. We ran into the family locker room where I rinsed her bottoms, spun them in the bathing suit dryer and then ran them under the hair dryer for at least two dozen cycles.

Can you see it? A woman frantically trying to dry a tiny pair of undies with one of those hand dryers on the wall? One of her kids, the eight-year-old boy, is sitting on a bench near the lockers, leaning on a pile of down coats, a bored look on his face. He’s wishing he had his DS with him. Her daughter is happy as a clam. She’s dancing around the locker room with all the modesty that is normal for a three-year-old to have, which is to say none. Her cherub-esque ass on display for her peers just back from their poliwog swim classes. The room is filled with the sound of the dryer, about as melodic as a vacuum cleaner. Whaaaaaaaah. Done. Again, Whaaaaaaaaaaah. Done. Again…

Got the underwear to the point where she could wear it, but not her pants. Luckily, I had dressed her that day in a dress over skinny-legged pants, so she could make do with just the dress (and squishy sneakers) but at that point, playground was out of the picture.

I put her in babysitting, and after switching Edison into his class, I took Clooney to the lobby where he played his DS for a half hour. It was fun, let me tell you.

Other than that, I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I have been dealing. Manfrengensen is elbow-deep in work these days, which means that I am treading water over here on my own. Two out of the three of them had pink eye last week, so we were around the house quite a bit.

I can’t wait for Spring.