Burnt Bologna Sandwiches and Other Comforts

When I realized a year ago just how much my frequent "really inexpensive" vacations were costing me, I decided it was time to stay home.  Of course, trips to visit family were non-negotiable, even though they weren't of the bargain variety.  But I have a comfortable home with a front porch where I can spend hours reading in my jammies in the mornings, and an old but wonderful pool where I do laps after dinner, as long as the season allows.  My liquor is well-stocked, as is my freezer.  I have hours and hours of movies on my DVR and a fresh supply of DVD's and books from the library every week.

So I haven't been to Hilton Head since my lovely Christmas on the beach last December,

and my last trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida was in April (I know, but I booked it way early the year before, and glad I did).  I am in the process of selling for peanuts my albatross of a time-share in North Carolina and, although I enjoyed 25 years of vacations there and elsewhere through exchanges, it will be a relief to no longer have that annual maintenance fee and the burden of renting it.

But everything I have is getting old, including me.  Last year I was dealing with shower faucets that leaked and when they finally got repaired in the spring turned out to be far more than crummy washers.  Then the cold water flow in my washing machine went down to a drizzle and I resorted to running pans of cold water through the kitchen for awhile before I got that fixed.

My five-year-old lawnmower wouldn't start, even after I did an honest-to-gods tune-up, leading me to imagine that it was the carburetor.  For the cost of a carburetor, I decided to get a new lawnmower.  To save the $75 delivery fee, I ordered it from Amazon.

I have a remote control for my bedroom light/fan that I had to resort to waving around in the air to get it to work and decided in the interest of not spending money that I would ignore it.  Then in the thick of the summer, the fan on my porch (where it was 80 degrees at 8 a.m.) went out, and I broke down and found an electrician to take care of both.

Then, in August, in the course of two weeks:  the toilet in the spare bathroom -- that nobody uses -- just started leaking and wasn't found out until the water flooded into the hallway; the toilet in my bathroom started to make strange, haunted sounds; and finally, when I reached under the bathroom sink for a roll of toilet paper, I found that the hose under the sink I don't use had all-by-itself sprung a leak, and soaked my Costco-sized supply of t.p.  A grunch of plumbing repairs.

And last week I noticed a small ceiling stain and the narrowest crack in the stucco ceiling in my bedroom.  I can almost remember noticing that years ago and having some roof tiles replaced, but I'm not sure.  Hurricane Matthew ought to resolve that question this weekend.

Are you exhausted yet?  I haven't even begun to complain about my own parts that are getting old and worn out.  Fortunately, when my blood pressure hit the ceiling and wouldn't come down, I eventually realized that it was because of my arthritis medication.  When I stopped taking the arthritis medication, the blood pressure went back to something closer to normal.  Leaving me with the option of joint pain or my head potentially exploding.  But, unlike the plumbing, I have learned to deal with body malfunctions philosophically.

So what does all that have to do with burnt bologna sandwiches?

Here I am, in Union, SC, a refugee from the hurricane.  I was resentful initially of having to spend money on a forced trip, but figure that it might be peanuts if Matthew has its way with Charleston.  So I booked this hotel quickly, the price was right, it was over 100 miles from the coast, and based on the photos it looked like it might be the best of the several two star hotels in the area.  In other words, for no really good reason.

Then I packed the essentials:  a bag of books, a bottle of gin, and my tennis racket and bag of old tennis balls.  And of course the less important stuff like toothbrush and undies.

I left sooner rather than later.  I hate being home alone when there are torrential rains -- the power inevitably goes out, which means no water, no phone, no internet -- and in the best of circumstances I am always a bit amazed when I can make it off my poorly maintained (read, not maintained at all) dirt road off Bears Bluff on Wadmalaw Island.

As Kinky Friedman would say, I left my cat in charge.  She is okay with that, she just assumes I am on another of my vacations.

The trip was slow but uneventful.  The proprietors of The Magnuson Hotel were friendly and welcoming.  We talked about what is happening in Charleston, past storms and past evacuations.  They were kind enough to let me be flexible about how long I needed to stay.  They gave some good restaurant tips.  Just next door is gas that is a few cents less than Charleston before Matthew, a diner, and a market where I can buy a six-pack if need be.  The pool was cold and green and closed, but I asked for (and got) one of the chairs so I can read outside my room.  And a couple miles away, a park with tennis courts.  HBO and TCM (the one without commercials), neither of which I can afford at home.

Once I checked in, I revved up my computer.  One of my home pages is The State newspaper and no longer feeling the urgency of the storm, I clicked on the headline "Where to Find SC's Best Fried Burnt Bologna Sandwiches."  Go ahead and laugh, but damned if one of the places mentioned wasn't Dairi-O in Union, SC!  And if that weren't enough, a check with TripAdvisor had raves about their soft ice cream (I have a soft spot for soft ice cream; you aren't surprised, are you?).

As I unpacked, I realized that sacrificing my vacations to save a few dollars just hasn't been working.  It is too much time at home agonizing over stuff breaking down, chores that have to be done, bills that have to be paid, stuff, stuff and more stuff.

When I'm away, if something breaks, somebody else fixes it.

When I'm away, the most stressful decision I have to make is where I am going to eat, or whether I should take a walk or go for a swim.

I absolutely don't need a fancy, expensive vacation.  A beach or a pool is nice.  A bag of books is essential.  I believe there is ALWAYS good food, and it is my challenge to find it.  But I really, really need to get away.  Regularly.  There are just times when I am the only old breaking down thing I want to have to deal with.

As for Dairi-O and their burnt bologna sandwiches, they are worth the trip.

Hello... I Am an Old Woman

Hello, My Name Is Doris with Sally Fields has gotten a lot of acclaim.  Unfortunately, it is along the lines of the Rotten Tomato review that Fields' character has "geriatric gusto."

I was not at all surprised to find that the director is a man, who sadly co-wrote the script with a young woman.  As an old woman (a few years younger than Fields) I think I need to toss my two cents into the hat.

Sally Fields is a great actress.  Apparently they couldn't find a woman who looked the age of the character -- Fields, maybe thanks to the drugs she advertises -- looks like she could be half her age.  And she is gorgeous.  Because, as with women's roles throughout history, you can't have a homely woman.  You can have fat, ugly men, but the woman they end up with is always, always, gorgeous.  And thin.

So here she is playing Doris, who many years ago gave up her hopes and dreams to take care of her mother.  Like her mother, she is a pack-rat.  She has lived in the same house all her life.  She has had the same job for much of her life, even though the company has been remade with the times, with a younger, hipper staff.  Because these young folk are good guys, they have grandfathered -- or grandmothered -- her job into their new plans.  Their new plans include replacing office chairs with exercise balls.

What everybody seems to find so exciting and refreshing about this movie is that Doris still has sexual desires and fantasies.  Imagine that.  And what makes it a comedy and also poignant at the same time of course is that she ends up with a steamy crush on the newest hot, young member of the staff.

Moments after her mother's funeral, Doris' brother and wife start to pressure her to get rid of the junk, sell the house and move on.  Suddenly concerned about her welfare as they hadn't been in all the years Doris had taken care of mom.  And now telling Doris what she needed to do to join the  world.

This reminds me of the book, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, by Roz Chast,

which also got great acclaim.  Here too you have a couple of old folks who have gone along planning and living their lives quite adequately, and now that they are old, here comes their annoyed and annoying daughter.  She is annoyed at all that they have collected.  She is annoyed that they live so far away.  She is apparently annoyed that, as their only child, she feels responsible for them.

So too, from moments into the movie, the aggrieved brother-and-wife duo step in to tell her what she needs to do to fix her life.  I was not happy.  I cheered when she threw them out of the house, asserting her right to her memories and the stuff that reflects those memories.

And then she develops this instant crush on her new fellow employee.  With hot fantasy scenes.

I imagine these scenes were so delightful because they were irreverent and also made us all so uncomfortable.  Even though, in my humble opinion, Fields is so much more attractive than Greenfield.  And she does pull off making Doris' venture into the indie music scene great fun, although the undercurrent is always that it is the old woman's young behavior that makes her so fascinating.

Let me just put this into its proper perspective.  Flip the gender, and all we would have is another old man/young woman relationship.  Nothing to look at here.  I can think of an awful lot of older men/ younger women relationships that totally gross me out.  In fact, that whole fat ugly man attracting a gorgeous woman stereotype also puts me off.

I don't find the crush cute.  The fantasy sex scenes are uncomfortable not because they are of an older woman wanting to make love to a younger man, but because they reinforce how bizarre it is for an older woman to want to make love to a younger man.  Ageism is indeed a woman's burden, and I find it tiresome and offensive.

So how about a movie about an old woman written by an old woman?  About a woman who when her family tells her to sell her stuff and go quietly, she tells them to fuck off.

This surely wasn't the movie.  In the end, when Doris faces the fact that her love wasn't reciprocated, she grows up.  She gets rid of all the clutter and moves out of the family home, I imagine so a real family can take possession of all that space to which she is not entitled.  She leaves her job to the young innovators.  In a final act of rebellion, she does throw the exercise ball at her young boss.  And in a final nod to just how awkward this whole crush has been, she apologizes once more, he doesn't speak, she has one more romantic fantasy, and then, as the elevators close, he calls for her.  OMG, maybe he really is having second thoughts about their future.  Or maybe the screenwriters/director wanted us old ladies to have something to hold onto as the credits roll.

No thank you.  I'll just wait for the role where Sally Fields rejects the smitten young guy who sees her for the hot, fascinating woman she really is.  

Put Down the Damned Pocketbook!

I have watched an awful lot of horror movies over the years.  When I first lived by myself, I wasn't able to read Stephen King or watch a horror movie after dark.  Now that I've pretty much seen it all, zombies, exorcisms, Freddy Krueger, that after dark rule no longer exists.  I do, however, have a loose rule that, from my stack of library DVD's, the horror movie gets watched on Sunday night.  Maybe a throwback to my Catholic heritage.  Like the white guys in my neighborhood that pull out their guns for target practice on Sundays.

If you've watched enough of the genre, you know the devices.  Each new generation of horror had to give a new twist, so the hands coming out of the grave at the end of Carrie, totally terrifying, had to be bested by subsequent directors just to stay a couple of steps ahead of the horror aficionados.

Even before Carrie scary sounds and subtle sights -- banging on the walls and creaking doors, lights flickering -- would be enough to build suspense.  Alfred Hitchcock knew how to mine that technique.  Back in those black and white days, with the exception of the shower scene in Psycho, women crept about old houses looking for the source of the strange sound, in high heels and toting their purses.  "Put the damned pocketbook down!" we wanted to yell, and by the way, run in the other direction, you idiot.  What fun.

Then there was The Blair Witch Project, which in 1999, turned horror movies upside down with a brand new twist:  the video camera.  Back in those days, I waited till a family friend, also of Catholic heritage, came to visit; we needed the security of each other's company to brave this insane new flight into terror.

These days I just yell at the TV, "Put down the damn video camera."  It has become such an intrusion, such a cheap gimmick, such a cop-out that I can't believe how many movies continue to get made with the camera as the central character.

I have in the past been a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan, as appears to also be true of The Nightly Show's Larry Wilmore, who masks his disappointment by stumbling over the writer/director's name as he insults his movies.  If you loved The Sixth Sense, you just have to keep hoping that in the next movie he will rediscover his genius.

So with that hope in my heart, last night I watched The Visit.  Two fairly obnoxious, all-too-clever-for-their-own-good kids spend a week with grandparents they have never met because of a falling out with their mom.  The older child has the pretension of being a film maker, and thus is able to carry a video camera around with her throughout the movie.

Even stupider, I think, running away from something that is supposed to be terrifying while running a camera on it, right?  Also, while crawling around in the crawl-space.  Preposterous "interviews" with grandma and granddad, not to mention brother and even herself, was just about the clumsiest expository technique -- and done poorly -- that I've ever seen.

Here's the thing.  I think the movie had the potential to be great.  Turns out the plot was terrific, and each step towards the plot twist worked.  Except for the damned camera.  It was a totally cheap device.  To make the movie without the camera doing all the exposition would have taken work.  The kind of work Shyamalan did in The Sixth Sense.  That made you want to watch the movie again immediately so you could follow all the clues you missed.

But he didn't do that.  And while I'm glad I resisted the urge to turn off the TV after a few minutes of watching the two precocious kids toting their camera around, I really, really wish I could see this movie done right.

I continue to hope that the video camera conceit will go away, and maybe it will.  But I'm afraid what is going to replace it will not be pretty.  There have already been a couple of horror movies that feature internet and iPhone chats.  And can you possibly imagine anything more boring than reading an iPhone chat in order to follow the stalkings of some nasty creature?  On the other hand, imagine a scene where a bunch of teens are Skyping and the movie monster sneaks up behind and clocks them with a purse.  Truly satisfying revenge horror.

Where the Son Doesn't Shine

His sister talked early, read early, wrote early.  She charmed us all.  Just as it is with most second children, he didn't work as hard because he didn't have to.  He told us he would learn his ABC's when he started pre-k, and he did.  There was a chance that he wouldn't be let into the pre-school because he wasn't yet toilet trained, but that happened as soon as he found out it was a condition of starting school.  Then he said he would learn to read when he started kindergarten, and he did that.  He made up stories but didn't write them down, because his sister wrote them for him, and he supplied the drawings.

We knew he was smart, the way parents know their kids are smart, the way his sister was smart.  There was an odd intensity, though.  He was in his own head much of the time, what could be called daydreaming, although it wasn't to the point that he would withdraw from us.  At some point he learned how to do cartwheels and would spend what seemed like hours in the backyard doing cartwheels.  That turned into what we soon called "bouncing," where he would seem to throw himself from one place to another, again seeming to be wrapped (or rapt) in his own thoughts.  He bounced in the yard, and in the house, and as he grew bigger, I would from time to time resort to yelling to him to "stop BOUNCING!"

In school he had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then not having a clue why he was in trouble.  The other kids that had begun whatever trouble it was had known to stop when the teacher showed up, but not my son.  He was in the wrong place at the wrong time in his first year of high school and ended up getting arrested (a lie by a school bully and no clue as to how to defend himself).  The charges got thrown out, as did the bully by the end of that school year.

My son had a strong sense of right and wrong, and would not be pushed around.  That got him a punch in the nose and a detention in middle school, although the teacher that witnessed the altercation totally supported him for defending himself against the other kid.  It was his refusal to be pushed around that led to the false accusations that got him arrested in high school.  To this day he has strong feelings about justice, although since his arrest he has learned not to physically push back.

When we learned he wasn't just smart but brilliant I don't think we were surprised.  It was just a part of who he was.  He had his father's ability to recall details, and I imagine he spent a lot of time thinking about the way things worked.  I can only imagine that, because he didn't talk about it.  I do take responsibility for not fostering a desire for adventure, for the urge to experiment.

When we moved south he was not yet eight and I decided I would remedy my overly cautious parenting.  I bought an old phone at Goodwill and told him he could take it apart.  We sat at the kitchen table and he took up some tool or other.  He touched something in that phone and got such a shock that he ended up on the floor.  I believe that was the last time I tried to encourage him to throw caution to the wind.

In fact, during a summer research program after his first year at Harvard he showed me his research lab and I am ashamed to say that my overriding impulse was to tell him to be careful.  I am an idiot.

But he has adapted his genius to his upbringing and is pursuing a career in theoretical research.  And he continues not to talk much, to me.  I was surprised the first time I heard him engaged in a telephone conversation with his sister.  He paced around the house and talked non-stop.

He doesn't do that with me.  In fact, I send him emails which he mostly ignores.  Unless I ask him a practical question, for example about my computer, which he may answer, but in five words or less.  And he ignores follow-up questions, so I need to get it right the first time.

I don't know how to feel about my son.  I get angry and frustrated that he doesn't have any desire to talk to me.  I have absolutely no clue what he thinks of me, or who he thinks I am.  We have comedy and movies in common.  We share much the same political views.  He is learning to cook and seems to enjoy it.  But we rarely talk about any of that.  When he came home for longer than a few days we would do an elaborate cooking project together, but he's never here long enough anymore.

He doesn't tell me when he plans to see me until shortly before I see him, and no explanation from me of how I need to know if he is coming so that I can plan will move him any faster.  I don't know if he comes to see me because he wants to or because he feels obligated, or because he has no better offer.  I do know that when I see him he doesn't say much.  It is awkward.  At first I tell myself that's just the way he is, and I go about my business.  But then I wrestle with feelings of insecurity, because it appears not only do my grown children not need me, they no longer care whether they see me or not.  They don't seem to like me much.  And then I get angry.  And after it's all over, I berate myself for making a big deal out of it, so I get to feel bad about myself all over again.

Since Christmas, when my son graced me with his presence (and his silence) for a few days, I have gotten one brief email from him in response to several I sent him.  I asked a computer question and then a personal question (how are you doing...).  He responded to the computer question.  Follow up emails went unanswered.

So now I wonder whether I should call him or not.  On rare occasions (I know we both remember them because he referred to them during our argument at Christmas) we have had engaging conversations, but mostly it feels like pulling teeth.  And I don't want that.

I want us to talk freely, because that is what I usually do.  I assume that if we are not talking freely that:  1) it is because he doesn't want to talk to me, and 2) that it is my own fault.

And then a part of me says that I would never, ever try so hard to maintain such a frustrating relationship with anyone else in the world.

But he is my son, and I recall him bouncing in the backyard, and telling stories that his sister would write down.  And I even remember him on my lap, and I remember hugging him and making him laugh, and laughing with him.

So I keep trying.