Neighborly

I'm not saying it started with the mashed potatoes, but it certainly didn't end there.

I live in a "New South" community - carefully planned and executed as to mimic the "Old South" neighborhoods, where homes are close together, and we're all linked by greenways and sidewalks. Where people are encouraged to linger on a neighbor's porch, or start an impromptu game of kickball in the common area. Where the alleys that run behind our homes become the gathering place of children, and beers are shared over barbeques all summer long.

In reality, people let their dogs shit all over the greenways, so impromptu games of kickball often become impromptu games of wipe-dog-shit-off-your-shoes, and the alley as a gathering place has become a warzone thanks to the woman we'll call Gladys.

She's a staunch supporter of the Homeowner's Association which, in theory, isn't a bad thing. HOAs can be a force of good, making sure Cletus doesn't keep his '76 Dodge Dart on blocks in the front yard or have rockin' house parties when all the decent folks are trying to sleep. But Gladys really takes it to a new level. One that includes reporting children's shoes on porches for more than a day, or improperly contained trash receptacles, or a dozen other 'infractions'.

She's a real a-hole.

As a result, she's not super popular with either the neighbors or the HOA. We've lived in relative peace for over eight years, but in the past year Gladys has really ramped things up.

"What do you mean, she threw leftovers on the sidewalk?" The Husband is talking to the woman who lives behind us and right next door to Gladys.

"I mean, there was a big pile of food on the sidewalk in front of my house. Who else would have done it?"

"Well, what kind of food?" (This may seem like a silly question but, really, you'd want to know, right?)

"Well, there were mashed potatoes."

When The Husband relayed the story to me later, it was this point that really struck me. "Mashed potatoes!" I kept saying. "That is fucking ridiculous!" Because other starches - macaroni, some pilaf, even a sweet potato - seems so much more logical. "Why the mashed potatoes?" I couldn't help but wonder if, somehow, the mashed potatoes held the key.

It went from bad to worse when Gladys decided to stick her tongue out at another neighbor's 8 year old daughter.

1. Who does that?
2. What adult does that?

The mother, a very sweet nurse-in-training who also happens to look like Jessica Rabbit and has a wide streak of the badass, marched down to Gladys' house and told her, "You stick your tongue out at my kid again and I'm going to rip it out of your fucking throat."

Who says nothing good happens in the suburbs?

Gladys has had the nurse-neighbor arrested (twice), stolen (allegedly) the shutters off another neighbors house, screamed and cursed multitudes of children, not to mention the mashed potato incident. And this month, she won the Yard of the Month. I can only assume it's because of her superior composting skills.

Despite Gladys, maybe even a little because of her, there is always something to talk about over beers and barbeques, watching our kids ride the alley, carefully steering clear of her property. I see her outside sometimes, working in the yard, casting furtive glances our way. I raise my bottle and tip it her way, and offer a hesitant smile.

She looks at me for a moment and then, in reply, sticks out her tongue.

A Letter to My White Son

Dear Son,

By sheer luck of circumstance, you were born a white male, in a prosperous country, to a loving family, in a comfortable home. Fate had you land in a well feathered nest. You are a lucky boy.

Don't ever forget it.

No one will judge you based solely on the color of your skin.
No one will feel they have the right to harrass you because of how much skin you're showing.
No one will look at you and see a threat, or cross the street or lock their doors, or as an opportunity to assert themselves against you.

You, my son, are safe to wear hoodies.

Your father will never have to sit you down and explain an unwritten Code of Behavior. He will never have to tell you to act with deference, to be aware that there are people who are scared of you, to not take it personally when you are singled out, stereotyped and treated as if you are less than.

But what he will sit you down to explain, and what we will try to teach you every day, is that while prejudice and injustice exist in even the best places, we each have a moral responsibility to open our hearts to everyone. That a position of priviledge should be used as a lever to pull others up with us, not push them down. That words ring hollow when they're not supported by our actions.

It is too difficult to even imagine what the parents of Trayvon Martin are feeling. It is incomprehensible, the number of conversations being held by the parents of brown skinned boys across kitchen tables. I can't explain to you why, because I don't know. I don't know why hate is perpetuated from generation to generation, why ignorance survives.

I pray every day that you and your sisters live with open hearts and open minds. There are experiences you will never understand, because you do not live that reality. Learn to love, and learn to listen. There is so much we don't know.

Number Thirty-Five

When I wrote the List of Thirty-Nine, the idea for Number Thirty-Five was just a tiny seed.

Plan a huge benefit gala for charity. Sounds simple enough.

I was a meeting and event planner for fifteen years before ditching the career in favor of the glamour and glory of stay at home mom-ness. So I kind of assumed that putting together a benefit for our local Dress For Success affiliate would be easy. Just get some folks to donate some cool stuff for a silent auction, sell a couple hundred tickets, and find a fancy dress. No big deal.

I talked to my friends over at Triad Moms on Main and they agreed to help organize, promote and sponsor the event. I don't think any of us had any idea exactly how much work it was going to be. We employed the help of Kristen from Four Hens and a Rooster, and a crack team of volunteers and spent the next six months busting our asses.

Last night, the four of us, all the volunteers and 250 of our friends came together at the amazing Millennium Center and partied. Hard.

We had over 100 silent auction items, generously donated by individuals and local businesses, and executed with perfection by the Charity Chicks.

The Millennium Center is a stunning building, full of architectural detail and with an amazing history.

Let me just say friends, until you watch a 40 year old drunk ass neurosurgeon do Da Butt, you have not lived. I used my drink tickets, The Husband's drink tickets, and a significant amount of cash. At some point, I remember having a conversation with a couple of friends about hemorrhoids and thinking, why the fuck am I talking about hemmies? It was great.

DJ Miss Eaves started the party.

And The Ardmores shut it down. Late.

At one point, while my husband and I danced, I just about cried from happiness. Happy that it was done, happy that it was successful, happy that so many people came out to support an organization that's making a real difference in the lives of women in our community.

What a handsome guy I have.

I am truly thankful to everyone that supported the event, especially Kristen, and Katie and Rachel from Triad Moms on Main.

Katie, Rachel, Me & Kristen

I am marking this one off the list, in style.

Nadine

My maternal grandmother Nadine was four feet eleven inches of barely contained fury, wrapped in the latest fashions from Filene's department store. She was as round as she was tall, and often commented with a mixture of disgust and disbelief, "You can't find pants to fit a duck." Dressing her was my mother's duty as a child and when I was old enough, and we were visiting, the responsibility became mine.

She rose every morning before dawn. Some days, it was to travel into the city for dialysis, to combat the lupus that so affected her body, and later her mind. Sometimes I would go with her, waiting patiently in the hall while they poked and placed needles, discretely covering them with blankets before letting me in the room. I'd crawl up on her big expanse of belly, smell her smell - equal parts Icy Hot and Chantilly - and fall asleep to the soft clicks of the dialysis machine.

Other mornings she would be up with the birds; their chirps and whirrs filling the small greenhouse off the kitchen of the rambling house on the corner of Central Avenue. We would wait patiently in the greenhouse, swinging on her favorite glider, while my Grandfather prepared breakfast. Coffee, heavy on the milk and sugar, toast, light on the toastiness, bent under the weight of a thick slab of cream cheese.

My grandparents were old when I was born, and I have no memories of my grandfather as anything but frail. Grandma Nadine, 20 years his younger, was robust in comparison. "Herb!" she would cry out and he would shuffle in the room, small and bent. She would rattle off her ridiculous demands and he'd nod his assent before turning and muttering under his breath, "Bitch, bitch, bitch..."

Nadine was not an especially kind person, from what I'm told. She was raised in a poor home in a poor town in Missouri, and married my grandfather to escape poor Missouri for exotic Oklahoma. She worked hard, and made sure he did too, to provide their daughters with fine clothes and cars and vacations, and the appearance of generations of wealth they'd never possessed. She was notoriously eccentric, fiercely protective and oddly charming.

My mother was the middle child, and lived up to the reputation of the station. Nadine's favorite refrain for her teenaged daughter was that she was 'wild as a buck, and wouldn't ever amount to anything'.

Indeed.

And so when that wild middle child got married young and had a baby girl, I wonder if Nadine was surprised at how that baby filled up her heart? She always preferred girls, and there would be no more granddaughters, and so that baby became the best baby, her favorite baby. And she had no problems letting anyone know.

Let me tell you, it is good to be the favorite.

I cannot recall ever witnessing her legendary temper, or being the victim of a cross word. I would sit and watch her shave her chin with an electric razor, or help her hook her 18 hook bra, or rub Icy Hot on her back, or sit and sip sweet coffee and listen to the birds, and was as completely devoted to her as she was to me.

I would lie in her big bed at night - my grandpa forced to the couch - and she would scratch my back. "Don't laugh, or I'll stop," she'd say, scratching so lightly I couldn't hardly tell if I wanted her to stop or not. But of course, I didn't, so I'd bite the pillow to keep from laughing, until I fell asleep with her heavy warmth next to me, a smile on my face.

She died when I was 8. It was shocking and heartbreaking and terrible. I slept in her house the night of the funeral, alone in a bed under a large framed and artistically lit picture of my five year old self. Earlier that day, I had kissed her lips and seriously considered climbing up in the coffin with her, just to hold her once more. It is a disturbing thought today, but seemed so natural at the time.

The absence of a person in the physical sense makes them no less part of our lives. After I had Katie, and I lay there in the dark hospital room watching her sleep, I could hear Nadine - "A girl," she would say, "Well done."