Actual Family Dynamic

Fishing from the pontoon boat? Of course!  The Matron and her family are at a cabin.

John: "I'm afraid to fish because everybody's going to argue about whether or not to kill it or throw it back in."

Merrick (thoroughly alarmed): "You were going to KILL a FISH?"

John: "See?"

Matron:   "Don't be silly. It will be fine."

John actually does catch a large fish -- maybe a carp? He knew, yours truly can't remember but DOES remember the screaming that ensued when the thing was dangling from the hook.

John: "Get the basket! Big enough for dinner!"

He might have said "let us murder all small children." Complete mayhem. Imagine all voices, top pitch.

Scarlett (already almost weeping): "Dad! He's gasping!!! Throw him back in!!!"

Merrick: "HIS NAME IS BUTTERBALL!!!! PUT BUTTERBALL HOME!"

Stryker: "My God, Dad. You're not seriously considering killing that poor thing are you?"

Butterball was returned to his murky home water.

John to wife: "Effective parenting or maternal indoctrination?"

Matron: "Careful. There's some algae on your leg that you might be smothering."

Matronly Malaise

a middle-aged witch, me --
tangled on my two great arms,
my face in a book
and my mouth wide,
ready to tell you a story or two
                      (Anne Sexton, Transformations)


One must be just the right mood to fully appreciate Anne Sexton and her permanent perch in the gallows.    It is the kind of mood best accompanied by a photo of a caged plastic doll and a bottle glass of cheap red wine.

And maybe a cheesecake.

The Matron finds herself just so.

From time to time, she is visited with a peculiar --quite specific -- malaise.  For the past few days, said state hinted and lisped, ebbed and surged, only to settle in today.

Nothing fits quite right:  her jeans are too, well, jean-like.   Yesterday's pert hair now hangs limp.  No book holds her attention and the play she is supposed to be penning for a local theater torments her from its unopened Microsoft Word file.    She yawns and rolls her eyes at students' online questions.  Stupid!

She knew it was going to be bad on Saturday while preparing for a lovely dinner party that she her fine self was hosting.   Whenever a guest texted or called to query "what should I bring" or "remind me of the time?" her immediate internal reaction was:  F- you.

These are people she likes.   Invited to her house, even.

The children are oppressive.   Life goals?  Laughable.    

There are too many dogs in the house.   In addition to her own two, she is currently dog-sitting her mother-in-law's.

He is 8 months old and a terror.  

Everywhere the Matron turns, there is yip, yip, yip.  The borrowed dog eats garbage.   His favorite toy is toilet paper, garnered mid-swipe (yes). The other two dogs have wood ticks.   Scarlett wants to go to Target, the library, Punch Pizza, and then a friend's house culminating in a 12:00 am pick-up.   Merrick is bored, a fact which requires much repetition and renewal "I'm bored.   Mom!  What can I DO?"    HWCBN says nothing from the sanctuary of his room until he emerges with complex requirements for cross-country college visits and immediate, equally-complex adult-level application issues for various scholarships and adult endeavors.  That must be done now.

Before anyone calls an emergency number, the Matron understands --and is grateful for -- the transitory nature of her intolerance toward . . . well, life.     This happens now and again, perhaps once, twice a year and inhabits her for a day, maybe three.  She is willing -- determined, even -- to call this malaise existential.

Being alive is to be awake, hungry, grateful, anxious, uncertain, elated.  Unsettled.  Temporary.  Yearning.

For no tidy reason or narrative, this is where the Matron sometimes resides.   Where she is now and, a psychological space from which she will -- according to life's transient and temporary rules -- also depart.    

Oddly, perhaps, yours truly is grateful for --and even oddly appreciates -- these underbelly moments.    She is glad to be a full spectrum participant, from Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath to . .. well, Garrison Keillor and Billy Collins.    Fog lifts and generally, there is sun.

After all, she named her one and only daughter Scarlett:  "Tara.  Home.  I'll go home and I'll think of some way to get him back.  After all, tomorrow is another day."

Now, pass the cheesecake.

Nostalgia

The Matron can't pinpoint when Dan Fogelberg slipped into her psyche (again) but there he was:   "I'll be in love with you."   Over the past week, she's been humming and singing and slurping through all that syrup that is Longer.

Which means she's been thinking about Eddie.

When the Matron was but a Young Miss, she took on Eddie Schryer as her first boyfriend.  "Took on" is the best phrase, perhaps, because Young Miss was acutely aware that she acquired Eddie on the rebound--a gift, as it were, from her prettier, savvier friend Bonnie, who was through with him.    As events unfolded, Young Miss understood that her proximity to Bonnie -- as one of Bonnie's best friends -- was no small part of Young Miss's original appeal.

Still, at 17 and a high school senior, the young yours truly believed "boyfriend" to be the next appropriate step and -- happily -- she truly liked Eddie, a popular student from the 'other side' of the educational tracks:  he attended Catholic school, she public.

Eddie liked Young Miss too.  He wanted her around him as much as possible -- football games, family dinners, driving, movies, parties -- even at his job.   She spent hours sitting on the counter of the gas station where he worked, eating licorice, listening to the radio as they talked, talked, and talked about . . . well, absolutely nothing, like teenagers are prone to do (at least they were).  

Eddie's family was long-rooted in this small middle-of-Minnesota town where his father owned a plumbing business.   It was understood that Eddie --as the oldest son of many -- would take over his father's plunger someday.   Eddie didn't question this as he was very busy enjoying the moment:  it was he who introduced Young Miss to alcohol and parties.     Young Miss was simultaneously terrified and enthralled.  She partook of said alcohol just once  (held no appeal for her ) and existed mostly as "Eddie's girlfriend," a bystander to drunken mayhem,, lying to one's parents, and dangerous driving.

She remembers that year -- the year of Eddie --as standing on the edge of a dream, a world separate from hers were 15 year old boys kept vodka in their trunks and girls carried condoms.  These were also all kids from a different school, completely out of her day-to-day high school existence.    There was a faint hint of something dangerous always, forever around the corner -- and Young Miss, not indulging in anything requiring vodka or condoms -- was never quite certain what it was, but the scent seduced her.

One of the marvels of the Matron's life is that -- with one staggering exception -- she has had remarkable luck with men.    While the Universe-Oprah-God-Allah-Buddha handed her some personal challenges, Bad Men has not been one of them.   Yes, Eddie liked to party.   But in this small town, so did the grown-ups.   You went to a job you more-or-less tolerated and drank beer as your reward.   Same for high school, with this set.   Eddie was just doing what was expected in small-town Minnesota; it didn't mean he wasn't a kind and decent boyfriend.

Every night -- no matter what -- that kind and decent boyfriend phoned Young Miss around bedtime.  She'd be in her room with its purple walls and pink bedspread, with the white telephone by her side:  waiting for her song.  

Because Eddie called to say good-night by playing Longer.  

Eddie:  "Just thought I'd say good-night."

Young Miss:  "I'm so glad you called!"

Eddie:  "Here's how I feel, you know.  It's not just a song."

And the violins would begin and Dan Fogelberg would fill Young Miss's heart (and perhaps a few other burgeoning body parts) and Eddie would hang up as soon as the song ended so his girlfriend could go to sleep with their enduring love carrying her away.   Every night.  For nearly a year.  Longer.

As the school year wound down, though, so did love.  It seemed that Longer was just that -- a little longish, thought Young Miss, who would rather read or sleep.   It seemed that Eddie was just a little less adorable with his greasy gas station uniform, cigarettes, and beer breath.  Drunk people - and the problems that accompanied them  -- were no longer an instructive, anthropological exercise but, well, boring.     She tried to return to those heady days of new love -- all thrill and enchantment -- but found very little there.

One afternoon, as Young Miss chatted from her perch on the counter while Eddie rang up gas and washed windows, he paused in between customers.

Eddie:  "You're getting out of here, you know.  It's not just that you're going to college-- lots of people do that.  But you're leaving this place -- who we are.  And you're never coming back.  I just wanted you to know that I know."

And he trotted outside in the rain to help a young woman figure out the gas pump.    Young Miss knew he was right --and she understands now that he was smarter than she was.

That night, Eddie called Young Miss at bedtime.

Eddie:  "Can we listen to it one more time?"

Young Miss:  "Of course."

Eddie:  "It's okay with me if this is the last time we do this.   Is that okay with you?"

Young Miss:  "It's okay with me too, Eddie."

And they listened to Longer, one last time.

Once Again: Her Life in Movies

Thanks to her locale (coffee shop) and phone (broken) current picture options are limited.  These are in no WAY doing the beast justice.  You'll see.

This might be a pretty picture -- deep red and eerie blue  -- except there are two animals in it, spoiling the mood.   Satan's Familiar Scruffy has his little cloven hooves on the couch and Boc is planning dinner people-watching.    Take a second look at Boc's hindquarters (just what you really wanted to do).   That is the energy source of a locomotive.   Poised.

Below,  consider the neck -- thickness traditionally the sign of a lout, brutish but strong.  Tough guy. If this dog was human he would be lifting weights and swilling beer.     Don't be fooled by the 'come hither' face and soft eye.  It's a lie.  He would also be slugging.

 Yes he is on the bed.  On the sheets, a location with which he is highly familiar and extremely comfortable.  Why shouldn't he be on the bed?  He is Man-Size, after all.   That dog weighs just over 90 lbs.

Wait!  So does the Matron!

\

Observe the utter lack of 'lout' in the Matronly presentation.   Note the moniker "Matron."    This may connote a certain strength but it is of a stubborn, psychological nature -- decidedly not physical.   Matrons actually totter.  We clutch handbags.  We're aging.  

Toe-to-toe in the weight game, Boc is the clear victor in velocity and mass.   The Matron has been dragged across many varied terrains by this beast.

 Boc sees something of interest -- a bird!  a dog!  a toddler! -- and off he goes, with the Matron doing her best (from the unfortunate position of belly bumping at high speed along the ground ) to hang onto the leash so she can continue her ineffective shrieks of "Stop!  Stop!"

Alas, see this orange Tic-Tac stuck in the corner of the sleeping dog's jowl?

That is actually the size of his brain.

He is too stupid to finish his Tic-Tacs.  When was the last time you fell asleep, eating?

On Monday, the Matron took her life in her hands and walked both dogs -- together -- Boc secured in her stronger right hand, taught in a brand-new harness promising  to give the owner "Command" and "Mastery" over their beast.   Scruffy scurried along the left.

All went extremely well for . . . two whole blocks.

Until Boc saw a pretty little gray cat sitting in the yard of a neighbor who the Matron does not know and has never met.  It's a well-kept, vivid and lush lawn full of flowers and green; there are little gates and rocks and fussy stuff that pleases the Matron, while simultaneously reminding her that her yard will always look much, much different.    The Matron does know that a woman -- well, well into her own matronly years -- lives here alone.  She seems like the peaceful sort, puttering in the yard and what-not, with a straw hat.

Wait!  Here comes the woman, straw hat and all, rounding the corner of her house just in time to see Boc KNOCK OVER the Matron, break free from the leash (exact opposite of command and mastery!!), and roar into the fenced-in yard (gate ajar) to chase the cat!!!

The woman screams!   The Matron screams!  

The cat!  Does what any sensible creature would do and RUNS INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Friends.  So does that damn dog.  Runs.  Into.  The.  House.

Woman:  "Oh my GOD!!   That dog is in my HOUSE!   It's in my HOUSE!"

Matron:  "Oh my GOD!  He's in your HOUSE!"

They quickly establish this fact -- loudly -- until crashing sounds from inside said house demands immediate dramatic attention.

(Sidebar:   read conversation below in high, hysterical and speedy pitch)

Woman:  "My dog is in there!   She's in the kitchen -- he'll kill her!!  She's 15 years old!"  

Matron:  "Can I go into your house and get him?"

Woman:  "By all means."  She can do a mean eye-brow raise in a crisis and launches this look while taking Scruffy.  "Let ME hold onto THIS one.  So ANOTHER one doesn't get in."

You know those feature films - major motion pictures where Dogs Do Bad Things, like wreak havoc with sugar and flour or chase dog-hating middle-age men and rip their trousers  . . those sort of scenes demonstrating just how Bad a Dog Can Be?

The Matron entered this.

The cat flew  -- like Spider Man -- from couch to chair to counter to hallway to kitchen -- with Boc in hot pursuit.  He knocked over a coffee table, lamp, tossed pillows, moved the living rug ten feet, hit walls, and tumbled a pile of magazines.  He plowed over the nearly catatonic old dog stumbling around the kitchen.  By plowed over, she means knocked over.   Yours truly set the poor thing back up.

All this to the tune of the Matron screaming:  "STOP STOP STOP" while she too takes up the dance, stumbling in Boc's wake through pillows, rugs, couches trying to catch the leash . . until.   The cat races down a loooong hallway into a room that seemed so very, very, very far away -- so INTERIOR.

So deep --and definitely inside someone else's house -- where her dog was chasing a cat.

Into a room  where the cat hid.

Eventually the Matron retrieved her dog.   He skulked out into the hallway where the Matron took up the leash and skulked out into the yard to report that the cat and dog both lived, but there was some - uh -- collateral damage.

Woman (EXTREMELY anxious to get away from the Matron and back in her house to verify all):  "I can't believe that dog went into my house.   Thank you for getting him out!!!"

Then -- the bomb.

Woman:  "This was all my fault."

Matron (stunned):  "What?  How?"

Woman:  "The side door was open -- how the dog got in.  I never should have left that door open."

Hundreds of years of women apologizing rose up before the Matron.

Matron:  "Not one thing about this was your fault.   Not one thing."

And here the woman paused -- just for a minute - to look a little harder at Boc.

Woman:  "I guess you're right."

The Matron, limp with exhaustion and anxiety, took feminist history and that damn dog immediately home.   She made herself a good strong cup of tea and relived primary fact:  her dog chased a cat into someone else's house.  And chased the cat IN the house.  Knocked things over and terrorized.  Like in a movie.  Then the homeowner apologized as it was HER fault for . . well, being home.

Later, the Matron brought that neighbor the most stunning, artful, memorable bouquet of flowers that her garden -- and two stores -- could manage.    Maybe, just maybe, she made a new friend.   The woman couldn't believe her good luck!  Flowers!

The Matron was happy and alarmed that no law suit was being mentioned.

She will never, ever, never, -- did she say ever?  -- 'walk' that dog again.   There's the gift to her sisters.

Long ago, the Matron traded in her Big University Theorist hat for a job at a community college, thanks to the growing brood of children.  She was schooled in the world of Idea, but Practice and Grind?  Not so much.

 This is far from theory, folks.  Practice.

 The course of her days at the community college level (10 day span):

45 research assignments
45 600-900 word research papers
23 6-10 page research papers with annotated bibliographies
27 creative writing portfolios including four pieces of students' best writing
45 short 'discussion posts'
45 quizzes


The Matron has nothing left in her beside "great' and "eliminate extra words."    She writes these words hard and furious, tries to add something more meaningful.

  Frequently, the students don't even read that.   Not because they don't care, but because they're at their jobs, taking care of children, or otherwise occupied with paying the bills.

Such is life at the community college.  She knows that there are others out there, slaving away at Big Idea and Theory.  She just hopes that trickles down while she's up to her pretty little elbows in "today's society moves at a fast pace" papers.

Indeed.

Moving Day

This is the Matron's house.

This is the house next door.

Scott and Lori left last night.  Their house -- decomposing garbage heap that it is -- was nonetheless theirs until the bank took over.    Lori was a bartender until a few months ago when a breast cancer diagnosis left her unable to work.    Her son, Scott, barely stumbled out of high school and now hammers nails for a living, doing construction for a friend.  

The Matron wishes there was a neat narrative for Scott and Lori:  good folk, hard times, and all that.   But in reality, what these folks were not?  Smooth sailing.   Let's just say that their house is the only one on the block defined by filth and chaos.

When the Matron first moved into the 'hood, Scott was about 11 and Lori had a hard-drinking, gun-toting, boa-constrictor owning boyfriend -- Casey (so not everyone's real name).  

Casey liked to show Stryker (then 6) his loaded handguns.  Casey let Stryker peek into the windows at the 17 foot snake nesting in the living room -- alongside the four, child-eating German Shepherds who (although related in various ways) did nothing but reproduce.

The entire group appeared to use the floorboards as a bathroom.

Stryker:   "Can I go to Casey's house and play with the GUNS and BOA CONSTRICTOR?"

Just what every mother wants to hear her son shouting out on a beautiful summer day:  can I play with guns and boa constrictors.   No, honey, you can't.

Casey had his own sons who sometimes visited.  That father made a big show of letting his two boys sling those guns (loaded?  unloaded?  nobody knew!)  on their belts and swagger around the front yard.    They brought the boa constrictor to the front porch and paraded the child-eating, biting, barking, German Shepherds up and down the sidewalk.

Those were good days. A bad day?  Add virulent, violent screaming matches between Casey and Lori  -- oh, and visits by Lori's older son, Mike.   Who was a meth addict.   Mike had another bad habit:  breaking into people's houses to steal stuff.  The two - meth and theft -- were a unit and meant Mike was in and out of jail (and in and out of half the houses on the block).

The situation was bad enough that the Matron could not allow her children to play outside unless this magic combination existed:  1) Casey wasn't home, 2) Casey's boys weren't visiting, and 3) Mike and his gang-banger friends weren't casing the block.  

For one awful summer, exiting the house felt like putting her children's lives on the line.

As part of this powerful learning experience, Matron did pick up a new savory insult, thanks to the mother of one of Mike's growing pack of children.   This is what you say to your ex-boyfriend at 2 a.m. -- screaming in the middle of the street works best:  "YOU SMALL DICK BITCH!"

Now that has a ring to it.

 Casey and Mike were perpetually moving on -- Casey and Lori breaking up and reconciling, Mike back in jail or living elsewhere. . . .until, finally, blessedly, both departures became permanent.    The day an actual truck pulled up to haul away Casey's snake and less important belongings, the Matron walked into her house and prostrated herself:  "I believe in Jesus!"

True.  Her children still speak in amazement of the sight -- Mom on the floor proclaiming love for Jesus.

Over the past few years, life next door settled down considerably.    Indeed, their lives settled into the sort of grind poverty and lack of education bring:   early mornings and late nights, defined largely by working for minimum wage.   Mike sometimes visited but now, drug-free, and with his wife and that particular pack of children (NO idea where the meth-encounter children are).   Scott held various steady jobs and brought home a case of Miller Lite on the weekends.

The Matron has been inside the house twice in 10 years.    The first time, she staggered out, stunned that anyone could live there.   It would be nearly seven years later and a cancer diagnosis for Lori that brought the Matron back into the fetid mess.    Because when your neighbor has cancer, you help them in small ways when they ask, even if it means bracing yourself, holding your breath, and touching nothing.

With the cancer, economy, and general spate of bad luck, the whole block knew that the bank was coming.   Still, yours truly was slightly unnerved last week when Lori told her that the end was near:  they had to be out, May 1.   Still weak from chemo  -- but alive, thanks to a Minnesota program that pays for breast cancer treatment for the uninsured -- Lori had to scramble to shove her life into green plastic garbage bags, boxes, and in the end, a pick-up truck.    She moved into a friend's apartment.  Scott -- who probably will never make enough money to really make ends meet -- moved in with his father.

The remaining two killer German Shepherds-- one of whom once bolted from the house and BIT the Matron, leaving a permanent scar on her arm . . .   at a nonprofit animal rescue.  

Although the whole block is worried about what will happen to the house, nobody's particularly sorry to see its residents leave, although everybody feels badly about it in a roundabout sort of under-involved way.

Still.

Every weekday morning at 5:30 a.m., the Matron pulls the kitchen shades up.  She clicks on the warm yellow kitchen table lamp.  She starts a kettle of hot water, coffee, and feeds the dogs.    Being the first one up is medicine for the Matron:  she needs that space, the ability to test out her bones and brain, scan the sky for the weather.

Every weekday morning at 5:45, Scott walks to his car, which is parked directly across the street from the Matron's kitchen window.   Every weekday morning at 5:46, Scott pauses as his car door opens -- to smile and nod (and sometimes give a little wave) to the Matron.  She imagines how he sees her --  the woman moving in the brightly lit kitchen -- a little yellow glow and movement in the black box of Minnesota morning sky.

She waved back.  Every day.

And the Matron will miss that.   Good-bye and godspeed, Scott and Lori.

Adventures in the Emergency Room

The Matron is a fan of Mondays:  her children go to school!

Mostly.

Last Monday, JJ Hill Montessori Elementary welcomed Merrick at 8:20 a.m. and spit him out at 9:30 a.m.    Yes, she received the dreaded School Nurse Phone Call, this time announcing that her child had a fever of 100. -- with a wee tenor of "how could you miss this, Mom?"

Merrick languished at home through Wednesday, in a state vaguely reminiscent of his Vitamin D haze.   The Matron, who likes occasional moments ALONE, was in her own state:  agitated.  She could not wait to send that child to school.   Unfortunately, Merrick's relatively languid, low-grade fever and discomfort spiked into tummy ache agony and Thursday morning found him at the doctor's office instead of in school.   With his mother, of course.

The pediatrician promptly sent Merrick to the ER, certain this was appendicitis.  The Matron, who has been down that road before with her oldest, knew enough to grab her favorite take-out on the way to the hospital.

Merrick, waiting for his mother's food at the restaurant:  "Aren't I an emergency?"

Matron (appraises her son):  "Not really.  You're not bleeding or choking, right?"

Merrick (umbrage, taken):  "Well, my APPENDIX IS PROBABLY BURSTING."

Minnesota Matron:  "You betcha."   That's just what we say here -- works for nearly every situation.

However, it would turn out that the Matron did not need to stock up on food or other hospital-stay supplies.  One ultrasound and x-ray later and the diagnosis:  poop!

Matron to doctor:  "But he hasn't been constipated.  All systems have seemed quite normal."

Doctor:  "Then he's a big producer--there's more waiting."

So they slumped home, Merrick still clutching his stomach and the Matron, in a thorough and complete funk on several time-wasting, bad-parenting, over-reacting levels.    She poured her son a big glass of Metamucil and pondered the many benefits of similarly sized wine.

Imagine her surprise when the phone rang and "Children's Hospital" popped up on caller ID.   Certain that she was about to be upbraided for something, she nearly didn't answer the phone.  Nearly.

ER Doctor:  "Is this Merrick's Mom?  Mom, you don't have to rush back to the ER after spending the day here, but . . . "

Let's pause here, to fully experience that gap between "you don't have to rush back to the ER, but" and what comes next.   How long was that gap?  A second between 'but' and --what?

 Forever can indeed be an instant.

ER Doctor:  " . . . the radiologist found an abnormality."

And the Matron sat down.

It turns out that Merrick has calcification around his adrenal gland.   That slim bit of information is all that the doctor would give her -- that and instructions to schedule another ultrasound, ct scan, and blood work as soon as possible.

Thanks to her highly efficient internet skills, the Matron has been able to come to some conclusions while they wait for the tests (Tuesday).

Calcification  =   Bad News.  Universally -- there is no way around this.   But calcification is also  a frequent companion to Vitamin D deficiency -- involving some odd imbalance of Vitamins D, K, and calcium.  An although calcification is also a marker for cancer, tumors of various incarnations, and autoimmune disease, the Matron has done what any sensible parent would do and has selected Door Number One -- Vitamin D--as the culprit.   She also discovered that repairing the Vitamin D deficiency with the mega-doses Merrick has been slurping causes . . . (drum roll):  constipation.

Damned if you do and calcified if you don't.

Still.  

Tests on Tuesday.   And that mistaken appendicitis diagnosis and half day in the ER?  Doesn't feel so much like wasted-time any more, but great good luck.