Pages

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Jaki Jean & Stainless Steel & my Sister



In my somewhat eclectic past, I have lived in spaces without a dishwasher.  None of my spaces in the inner city had dishwashers.  Although the house on Caroline Street had a portable dishwasher, we only used it on holidays or for parties.  My apartment on Virginia Avenue in Washington, D.C., had a dishwasher, but my space in Arlington, Virginia, did not.

So I know how to wash dishes by hand
.
At times, I find it soothing.  Standing at the sink, looking out the kitchen window at my neighbor’s wall, thinking about anything but washing dishes.

Most of the time, I hate & avoid it. 
 
A long day ago, I cannot remember exactly when, the dishwasher in Jean’s house died.
And while I know how to wash dishes by hand, my love/hate affair with the process escalated.  I behaved badly, allowing the dishes to stack up, punishing myself for it during the subsequent cleaning.

Recently, I decided to leash my directionless obsessive compulsive tendencies toward keeping up with the dishes.  No dishes allowed to rest unwashed in the sink
.
And then my sister bought a dishwasher for Jean’s house
.
The dishwasher was not a pressing need.  After all, I know how to wash dishes.  The stove top went out & when Janet bought its replacement, she bought a dishwasher for Jean’s house.

While I was resigned to the absence of a dishwasher, I missed a working stove stop.  No way to cook chick peas for hummus, no way to create the week’s tomato sauce.  No cooking greens or omelets or steaming vegetables.

The new stovetop is beautiful.  And a bit intimidating.  I approach it carefully, clean it after every use, marvel at how nice it looks.  I even read the instruction manual.

The dishwasher was a surprise.  An unsolicited, unexpected gift from my sister.
And I find it amazing.  It smells new, like a new car smells new.

There are little slots for the forks, knives & spoons.  Slots I can use to organize the utensils.  All of this plays into my obsession with organizing the loading of a dishwasher.

I still find myself wanting to wash dishes & pots & pans & forks & knives & spoons before loading them into the new dishwasher, 

And then I remind myself that Jean’s house now has a dishwasher & I can rinse the dishes & load them in the unit. 

I think of all the things I have taken for granted over the years – dishwashers, disposals, central air & heat, a car, a safe place to land, my family’s love.

Somehow this surprise of a dishwasher reminds me of the wonder & beauty & grace of a sister’s love.  A daughter’s love.

I have written before that I am not the hero of this journey my siblings & I are taking with our Mother Jean.  My sister makes it possible for me to care for our mother. 

She is my hero.

Jaki Jean & Jean & Rush & Communion & Memory



So, this afternoon, watching a James Cagney flick (Blood on the Sun, circa 1945) with Jean, as I am battling what I am sure is a case of Shingles & Jean is dealing with all my battles & complaints & groans, Jean brings up the Lord’s Supper.

You know, the other day when Doc Price & Pam came to have Communion with us, & Doc Price was talking about how Baptists have traditionally served Communion once a quarter & how Catholics & other churches serve it more often, I wanted to tell them about my Daddy.

For those of you who read me who don’t know, Jean’s Daddy Rush was a Church of Christ minister.  I imagine it was a very intense meeting between Rush Sims & my father, a divorced man, when Jack wanted to marry Jean. 

So I asked Jean, What did your father say about the Lord’s Supper?

He said, & her voice deepens to mimic Rush Sim’s amazing, engaging, authoritative,  voice, Every first day of the week.

So we talk, my mother & I, about why something so amazing, something done in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, of God’s sacrifice, is not celebrated every moment of every day.

I tell her that I have never understood, even as a child, why a sacrament so essential to Christian faith, would only be celebrated once a quarter.

And Jean says, Every first day of the week.

I ask Jean about something she told me a few weeks ago, that her mother Luna was not raised in the Church of Christ.   About how she always thought her mother smoothed the way with Rush when Jean joined the Baptist Church.

She doesn’t remember that conversation. 

This afternoon, I don’t weep.  This afternoon, she remembers that her father Rush believed in & celebrated Communion with his congregation every first day of the week.

I will weep later – for not realizing the wealth of text & stories & insight my mother houses in the filing cabinets of her brain. 

Tonight, I hear not for the first time, about when she dated J.R. Rambo, a friend of her sister Melba’s eventual husband, Robert, when she was in Dallas.

And then she tells me she had to return to Canton to finish high school.  That part was new.

That part she has left off over the years.

Now, she no longer intentionally leaves out anything.

Now, she searches & retrieves.  I see it, as her brow furrows, searching for what she wants to remember, for what she wants to express.

So, emulating  Roland Barthes’ braid of text, compiled from all text before, present & to come, I try to braid together the text of my mother’s memory & memories.  And all those pieces.

Gotta wonder what happened to J.R. Rambo.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Jaki Jean & Oscar Mayer, aka Anthony, Weiner



So, about Oscar Meyer, aka Anthony, Weiner.

I have read the incessant, omnipresent, continuous coverage of this man, his fall from grace, his bid for forgiveness, his attempt at redemption, his second (less humble) bid for forgiveness, his insistence on redemption.

It is insistence that his propensity for sexting & sharing himself with women not his wife has nothing to do with his bid to be the mayor of the country’s largest & most prominent city: that insistence irritates me
.
Really, Weiner?

During Anthony Weiner’s tenure in Congress, he missed 5.5%. of rollcall votes.  Significantly more than the median of 2.6% of the lifetime records of representatives serving at the same time (govtrak.us). 

During Anthony Weiner’s tenure in Congress, he sponsored a number of bills.  All but one was sent to committee.  Death, in the life of a bill.

The lone bill on which he was the lead sponsor, signed into law, a 2010 measure aimed at reducing cigarette sales-tax evasion, hardly gives me confidence either he or his image would be good for the city New York. 

Or any other city or the nation.

It seems to me that Anthony Weiner did not resign from a successful or productive Congressional career.  While I am sure that identifying & prosecuting cigarette sales tax evasion must be profitable, it was hardly the stuff of which dreams & political careers are made.

His predilection for sexting & texting & sharing (his vision of) seductive photos of himself clearly took up his concentration, not to mention his time.  And, apparently, continued to take up his concentration & time after he resigned from Congress.

If Anthony Weiner does not understand why his behavior, combined with his less than stellar performance in Congress, might give New York voters concern about his ability to lead the most populated city in the country, he is delusional.

As is his much admired wife.  Her protests that his behavior is a matter confined to their marriage rings disingenuous.  Clearly her husband does not respect that marriage, or his wife.

How can voters expect him to respect & remain faithful to a much more demanding partner – the city of New York?

As more & more revelations about Anthony Weiner are touted by the tabloids & the mainstream press, as Mr. Weiner continues to appear in public & attempt to talk about issues while defending his own lack of decorum, the situation is beyond embarrassing.

For the voters of New York, for the country, for this man’s wife.

And I am reminded of a tune that all of us of a certain age know my heart, a tune I have paraphrased for this particular occasion:

His Baloney has a first name,
A-N-T-H-O-N-Y
His Baloney has a second name,
W-E-I-N-E-R
Oh it is time for him to go away
And if you ask me why I say,
Cause' Anthony Weiner has a way with B-A-L-O-N-E-Y.

As someone who loves the city of New York, I do hope that Anthony Weiner does go away.

Really, Weiner.

R-E-A-L-L-Y.