End of the Year Reflections

(I owned a 1974 Spirit of America Chevrolet Nova as my first car. My late friend, Rita Gray Allen, and I spent a lot of evenings driving around talking and listening to music played from eight track tapes. We were young, strong, and had the whole world ahead of us to explore. Those really were the best days of our lives. This one is for you, Rita, you'll never be forgotten!)

End of the Year Reflections

Another year is coming to an end,

Tonight I lost another good friend,

Started thinking about the days gone by,

Remembered her laugh and started to cry.

Life was simple without a job or a man,

Our biggest worry was getting a good tan,

Loved wearing high heels and nylon hose,

Looked silly with skin peeling from a burnt nose.

Cruising down Main Street in an old used car,

Soaring high though we didn't drive far,

Not in a million years would I have guessed,

All the treasures and riches we possessed.

Youth has fled and I'm growing old,

The winter winds are blowing cold,

Forever woven in my memories,

Are brighter, happier days than these.

Another year is coming to an end,

Another birthday is coming around again,

I'll search for friendship, flowers, and trees,

Build the rest of my life around all of these!

Dianna Doles Petry

December 30, 2010



Fleeting Moments of a Day

Fleeting Moments of a Day

 

I stood sipping on a cup of coffee, staring out of the window, past my own reflection, to watch the river flowing along peacefully this morning. I heard the whistle of a train coming in the distance and as it neared, thought it sounded mournful. It has rained here the last couple of days and the chill in the air has made me cold right down to my bones. I don't know why it is but days like this seem to turn my thoughts to the negative. While standing there at the window this morning I thought it would be nice to be somewhere else or maybe even be someone else.

 

Later in the morning, as I was trying to get the newspaper out of the delivery box and blink away the rain drops that were filling my eyes, I slipped in a puddle of water and landed right on my ample backside, ripping my jeans. As I made my way back to my feet, I heard another train whistle approaching and felt the vibration of the train rumble down my spine. It was as if it was stroking each and every nerve ending as it slid down my back. I stood there in the rain waiting for the train to come into sight, feeling as if I was about to be flattened.

 

By the time I went back into the house, my thoughts were as jumbled as a jigsaw puzzle fresh from the box. Has my life been marked only by bills and receipts, faded photographs, and empty medicine bottles? What if I just fall backward into the past and never find my way back to the present. Looking around my home I realized that was not really what I had planned for my life.

 

Before long it was time for lunch and my mother, along with my elderly neighbor, sat at the dining room table. I served them sandwiches along with steaming bowls of vegetable soup. Both women are in their eighties and though my mother is suffering renal failure and a host of other ailments, she still has an almost radiant promise about her as she talks. She smiles easily and often as she tells stories about her life. I haven't been sure for several years now of whether the stories are truth or embellished fiction but they often cause me to laugh and today was no exception. The neighbor, on the other hand, is a person filled with a sense of impending gloom and doom. Maybe, I thought, I've been spending too much time with this lady.

 

"Is your granddaughter still wanting to have a baby?" The neighbor asked with a melancholy tone to her voice. "Boy, they're a lot of trouble once they get here."

 

"They cheer you up!" My mother said with a mischievous smile. "They smell like talcum powder and they keep you so busy chasing them you don't have time to think about sex."

 

"Sex! Good Lord! I was so busy taking care of people I didn't have time for..."

 

My mother interrupted her. "Oh, that's hogwash! You wouldn't have had all them people to take care of if you wasn't enjoying your old man."  The neighbor's face reddened.

 

"Well, did you get pregnant easy?" The neighbor asked.

 

"All I had to do was take my shoes off!"  My mother said boastfully.  "I had to start sleeping with my shoes on to stay out of trouble."

 

My neighbor's eyes widened and I burst out laughing. I felt cheerful, like myself again. Sometimes I get so caught up in tackling the care giving, the dishes, the phone calls, and the laundry that I feel like I am never finishing anything at all. The truth is, I'm doing pretty much everything, everyday, and doing it well.

 

This evening, watching an autumn sunset, I felt quiet and peaceful inside. I will always have chores, regrets, and probably doubts but I will also find laughter, moments of serenity, and rays of sunshine. Life is good.

 

© Dianna Doles-Petry

10/06/2010

Early Morning Quiet

(Photograph by Kyle Pack-Doles 2007)

Early Morning Quiet

In the early morning quiet,

New blooms wait for sun's kiss,

Baby birds tweet for nourishment,

I cherish moments like this.

A second cup of coffee,

As I think of days long ago,

Tin lard pails holding blackberries,

There was much I didn't know.

Life seemed to hold a grand secret,

Shared with only a few,

Sunshine warming my shoulders,

My future was still brand new.

My pace is slower now,

But there's more I hope to see,

Maybe if I'm lucky today,

Inspiration will shine on me.

In the early morning quiet,

Wings flutter and flowers yawn,

Peaceful moments of my life,

Arrive as beautifully as dawn.

© Dianna Doles-Petry

6/8/2010

Tapestry of Reflection

Tapestry of Reflection


Lately, I’ve been feeling, for lack of a more delicate way to describe it, older than dirt. Many of my friends and most of my family are either dying or dead. I no longer leave home often for work because I am the sole caregiver to my eighty-six year-old mother. My children are busy living their lives, following their dreams, and are preoccupied with relationships. I should have listened to my grandmother when she told me “Child don’t ever grow old.”

My lawn has become my reprieve from daily negativity and my escape from the rooms in my home that seem to grow smaller with each passing day. I have entered a new phase of creation and perfect maintenance. I work with the soil, I plant seeds, I cultivate flowers, and sometimes while digging up a plot of ground for a new rose bush or Hibiscus I find a treasure trove of memories. I found one of those today.

I stopped to allow a few tears to flow when I found the old rusted out coffee can buried about a foot deep in my back yard. When it was placed there the boys had called it a time capsule. When I first hit the can with the shovel and stopped to see what was keeping me from digging into the soil, I was aware of just how much time had gone past. I gently scrapped away the dirt around the can and with trembling hands lifted it from the burial spot two young boys had chosen about fifteen years ago.

Inside of the can I found two empty shotgun shells, a piece of old pipe, an old porcelain insulator, one Batman figurine with a broken arm, one Spiderman figurine with a missing foot, one black checker and one red checker, and about four of my daughter’s N’Sync dolls. Her dolls, I’m pretty sure, were not meant to be any kind of clue for historians. There were meant to disappear and never reappear where the boys would have to see them.

Children enter the house wrapped in blankets, snug in the arms of anxious parents. Before long they are drooling and spitting up on everything they come in contact with. They learn to run almost before they learn to walk and it seems like only hours have passed before you hear, “Mom, he just hit me with that rubber chicken!”

I wish I could remember more of the concoctions the boys put together when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. The youngest boy once painted the bathroom walls with a mixture of toothpaste, mouthwash, and spray bathroom cleaner. “You said you didn’t like the color anymore and wanted to paint it,” he said in self-defense right after I cut loose with a high pitched scream that broke the next door neighbors drinking glasses.

Once the two boys, determined to have revenge on their older sister, decided to cook her some pudding. She had used the boys as make up experiments when she had friends over and the older boy was left with a strange shade of blue on his eyelids while the younger boy looked like he had a permanent case of Fifth's Disease on his cheeks. The pudding was a vanilla pudding base (leftover dessert from lunch that day), mixed with balsamic vinegar, red food coloring, and plastic ants that were strategically placed in the bottom of the serving dish. Thank goodness the first bite gagged her and she never found the ants!

Then, before the mess from the pudding was even cleaned up, my daughter appeared in designer blouses, pierced ears, and painted nails. A telephone seemed to be growing from the side of her head because it was always attached to her ear and she was always with a friend. They giggled when the rest of the house was quiet and sat sulking over God only knows what when the rest of the house was alive with noise and movement.

The boys were wearing pressed shirts and tight fitting jeans, brown and blonde locks (respectively) either plastered down on their heads or sticking up in the air as if they just stuck their finger into an electrical outlet and the voltage escaped through their heads.

The girl loved to shop, one boy was artistic and the other boy loved to play basketball. Then one boy decided he must be in dress clothes at all times while the other boy wore jeans and sweatshirts with hoods. All three children were enthusiastic when report cards were due from school because they knew they would receive an extra allowance for each “A” they received. One time I thought I would have to take a loan out on the house to pay them for the perfect marks they brought home but I didn’t care. It was worth it. THEY were worth it.

The boys sometimes made their sister cry. She sometimes made them laugh out loud. Somehow it all balanced out and they learned from each other. “You retard!” she said to one of the boys. “You nerd!” one of the boys replied.

“You’re brats!” she said loud enough for me to hear. “Well, you’re like a bad apparition that won’t go away!” the oldest boy replied.

“Mom! What’s an apparition?” she yelled out to me. (Keep in mind she was almost ten years older than the oldest boy.)

They all entered the house, kissed me, sometimes argued, sometimes pulled pranks, but always went to sleep in their own beds, safe, well-fed, exhausted, eager to face the next day.

Now the house feels empty. One teenager lives in the house, though not one of the original three children who grew up here. The youngest of the Three Stooges, my nickname for my children, has already died and the other two live in separate cities. If I put my car keys on the dining room table and come back two hours later they are still there. If I buy three boxes of cookies at the market only one box gets eaten the same day I bring them home. I thought I would enjoy this time in my life but in all honesty, it’s just plain weird. The years went past way too fast for my liking.

I mow the lawn. I plant seeds and plants. I hoe, I mulch, I cultivate. I tenderly pluck withered petals from the roses and attack weeds around my flowers as if they were burglars invading my home. My flowers beds are lush, filled with green plants and potted flowers. I tend to them with love and dedication just as I once tended to my children.

I placed the rusted coffee can and all of the contents back into the ground for someone else to find sometime in the future. I will keep the memories it brought back to me safe within my heart. Life is really a tapestry of moments shared and moments spent wishing you were sharing them. I just wish I had more time to spend on weaving an even more elaborate tapestry.

© Dianna Doles-Petry

6/02/2010

Blessings in an Ordinary Day

Blessings in an Ordinary Day


My eighty-two year old neighbor came to visit with me today. She appeared at my back door at a time when I was trying to juggle three tasks at one time; preparing breakfast, refilling my mother's medicine tray, and brewing coffee, or as my family often reminds me, my life blood. At first I felt a pang of anxiety because I was so busy and didn't want to have a visit with anyone but then she held out a gift for me and I not only smiled, I stopped to take two Tupperware containers from her hands.

Without realizing what I had done at just that moment, I know now that I made a split-second decision that felt right to me. It was the right decision to make. By stopping to smile at my neighbor and thank her for making my day a bit brighter we had both received a gift. She needed the gifts of attention and friendship this morning while the gift I needed was a reminder to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, the coffee.

The Tupperware containers contained freshly ground coffee and memories of a different era in my life. Sally, my neighbor, asked, "Dianna, do you remember where I got that Tupperware? You were just a strip of a girl and you had a party with this stuff. It was the first time I ever went to a party to buy plastic containers but I sure did have a good time. Now I come over here for coffee about every day so I figured I would bring you some coffee for brewing and get you to take a break long enough to drink a cup with me."

I slathered heart-healthy spread on the butter I took from the toaster, added milk to two bowls of shredded wheat, and took fresh strawberry jam from the refrigerator. My mother and Sally took seats at the dining room table and I poured three cups of coffee, one for each of us. While the two older women enjoyed cereal and toast, I checked out the Tupperware.

"Sally, how in the world did you remember where you got this Tupperware?" I asked.

"Well, Child, lift up the lid. You'll see. I always figured on giving it back to you some day and today seemed like a good day to do it."

I lifted the dark blue lid of one of the containers and saw that my name had been neatly etched into the plastic along with a date, July, 1974. My thoughts started to drift back to my teenage years. I always seemed to be finding ways to make a few dollars back then. One year I wore the rubber right off of my tennis shoes by walking door to door selling greeting cards. Another time I sold a tabloid like newspaper, "The Grit", door to door for a few months. I sold raffle tickets, I cleaned windows, I washed cars, and I groomed pets, but my biggest money maker had turned out to be selling Tupperware.

My mother and most of the women in this community were old fashioned stay at home wives. The only parties they attended were baby showers, bridal showers, and family occasions or events held at church. Even those were rare because I grew up in a coal mining camp where the men worked swing shifts and dads were not always available to watch the children while a woman went anywhere alone. Babysitters, while not unheard of at that time, were not in high demand in this area. The point is that these "parties" could be held in the middle of the afternoon or in the early evening and they were perfectly acceptable. The Tupperware was also an item that could be used by women of all ages.

"Dianna," Sally said, jolting me out of my stroll down memory lane. "Do you remember trying to teach us all how to burp those containers?" Sally laughed so hard at the end of this question that coffee spewed from her nostrils. "I think it was harder than burping a baby! I also think you learned to make sure the container was empty when you did that demonstration!"

Have I mentioned that Jell-O was also wildly popular as a dessert in the 1970's? I can still see the look on the widow Brown's face as bright red Jell-O seemed to jump from a little square Tupperware container and land right at the top of her ample bosom before beginning a slow decline through the mounds of flesh and onward to the top of her girdle. She was jiggling more than the Jell-O as she worked to unfasten the top buttons of her dress to remove the Jell-O.

"Oh, I remember that very well, Sally," I said with a smile.

"Child, you might not have known it, but every one of the women that came to your parties left there smiling and just praying you would have another party like that. We all went home thinking about the plastic junk we had bought to add to our saved up butter bowls and jelly glasses in the cabinets. We didn't really need that junk, we bought it to help you and we bought it to get together and save our sanity. You were funny, friendly, and fed us all finger foods we didn't have to fix ourselves. You wouldn't want to have another one of those parties would you? I'd buy some more of that Tupperware and you could send it to your daughter!" Sally's face was full of expression and happiness. My mother's face was full of need for me to refill her coffee cup.

I realized at that very moment how overwhelmed I sometimes feel by the frustrations of trying to be everything to everyone in my life. There are many moments when I ponder on the dreams that seem to have evaporated and my days that seem to have stalled in a rigid zone of chores and responsibility. What happened to that teenager who was so full of energy, determination, and ingenuity? Well, I think that young girl went through many changes of seasons and scenery and to be honest with myself, they were not all bad.

I've experienced people and places I never dared to dream about and I am still tapping into the potential I never even knew I possessed. I have learned and I have grown. I have been able to see past the rain falling around me to see the rainbow developing after the storm. I have taken the moments from my life and turned them into adventures I can retell and memories I can use to warm my soul during a cold period in time. That teenager seeking to make a fortune and see the world became a woman who brings her own unique gift to this world every day in some small way.

My mother started to bang her spoon against her empty cereal bowl and Sally gently placed her hand on one of my mother's hands. My mother seemed to calm down and I saw a tear trickle down Sally's face. "Would either of you ladies like another cup of coffee or some more toast?" I asked.

Sally stood and said, "Well, I'd better be heading home. My phone might be ringing off the hook you know. Every now and again one of my children remembers that they have a mother.” Her facial expression saddened and then she looked at me before adding, "Dianna, you have no idea of how blessed you are to have such a close family. You're a blessing to your friends and family every day."

I felt a tear trickle down my cheek as Sally walked past me. We aren't alone in this world. Many people face the same struggles and we all need a human touch of kindness. I'm pretty sure that I often search for the wrong blessings and overlook the blessings I'm given in an ordinary day. Sally is one of those blessings.

I guess Tupperware might have been designed to keep food fresh but for me it preserved memories, friendship, and a reminder that miracles happen when you least expect them. I think I need to purchase some new Tupperware very soon.


© Dianna Doles-Petry

03/25/2010

Treasuring My Life

Treasuring My Life


My life has been hectic for a few years now. Lately, with my mother’s health declining on a daily basis and me being her full time caregiver, the days have felt unbearable at times. I have recently learned to breathe in slowly and breathe out even slower to calm myself and help me to appreciate the blessings I have in my life. It does not totally alleviate the stress but it does help me to relax.

I do these deep breathing exercises at the end of the evening when I want to sit at my computer and ease my weary soul by tapping away at the keyboard until my thoughts and feelings are neatly bundled into a journal entry or an essay. It is at that moment, when a sense of accomplishment envelopes me, that I feel thankful for being safe, warm, and capable.

As I look back at my day I can almost always find a few moments that make me smile, some that make me think about my past, and still others that make me wonder what the future might hold. A special moment from today was my mother telling me that her father had been in the living room praying with the sailor on the wall. My grandfather passed away thirty-six years ago and the sailor on the wall is my late father who passed away twenty-one years ago. Still, my mother was adamant about their presence in our living room and she described the scene in great detail. It brought her comfort and peace. Who am I to tell her that it is beyond possibility? I listened quietly and smiled at her when she was done talking.

I have been complaining about having cabin fever but tonight I feel no negativity in my heart or mind. I am grateful for the home that is warm and sturdy as the snow continues to pile up on the lawn. I am grateful for the love of my children, family, and friends. I appreciate each and every blessing that comes to me including being able to care for my mother during her fragile days. While life has given me many challenges and a lot of heartbreak I have also been given many small joys in everyday life.

Over the last few days I have cried over deaths, I rejoiced for a birth, and I have prayed for people all over the world who have been through upheavals and devastating natural disasters. The blessing I find in this is being able to pray for them. I am living to see these events unfold and I am able to reach out to others in some small way to make a difference. I am here to see the outpouring of love and faith that is given to people in need without regard to location, race, or beliefs. I am blessed to finally understand that we are all the same no matter where we live, how much or how little money we make, and no matter what color our skin might be. We can band together. We can work together. We can make a difference in the world together.

I don’t know what tomorrow might bring. It could bring a storm that unleashes the Heavens in a way no one has ever seen or it could bring a rainbow with colors so magnificent people will take photographs of the rainbow until it dissipates. No matter what tomorrow brings, I will be grateful just to be a part of it and have the chance to record the journey as I travel toward my final destination.

I think we all have miracles in our lives but we don’t always see them. My mother has an open mind now. Her interactions with life are not limited by her fears or her beliefs. She sees things the rest of us are unable to see. This is her miracle. This is her blessing. I think I was blessed to share a small part of that miracle with her today. It was one more reason for me to treasure my life.

© Dianna Doles-Petry 2/16/2010

Thoughts on Lying

A couple of weeks ago I opened my email to find a challenge from a dear friend of mine. Her challenge for those of us in her writing circle was to start a blog and post at least three entries a month. I’ve started a few blogs before but they never seemed to take off or offer me inspiration. This one, however, has been different. This gesture to please my friend and widen our circle of writing acquaintances has started a journey down a road that is paved with self-reflection and introspection.

I’ve written about my need to write, the perils I’m facing as I age, and how stereotyping people can be painful and destructive. Tonight I am writing about lying and how I feel about it. I guess I have learned to lie, (with only the best of intentions), but I get very irritated when someone, (namely my teenager), lies to me.

I’m not an expert on this matter but I would bet that we all lie to some degree when we’re with our friends or our family. Most of us refer to these lies as “little white lies.” I remember a day in the late 1970’s when I had taken my niece on a shopping excursion. She is only five years younger than I am and I always enjoyed her company. I was an old married woman of twenty years-old and that placed her at the age of fifteen years-old. We giggled, tried on clothes in store after store, and walked through the mall until blisters were forming on our feet.

My niece wanted to grab a snack before we headed back to the vehicle so we headed to the food court of the mall. Just as we were sitting down I heard my niece speak to someone. I turned just as she said to the lady, in a very loud voice, “Gee, do you think you could find an uglier blouse?” I was in shock and people around us were laughing. The middle-aged lady left the table without saying a word as she pulled her sweater closed and walked away without looking back. I scolded my niece for being rude and her argument was, “But I was only telling the truth.”

Sometimes the truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, many people think Andy Warhol’s art is creative genius while others think he was probably poking fun at the people who pay huge sums of money for art. I must admit, I have a copy of one of his famous pieces, a soup can, hanging in my upstairs hallway.

Anyway, do you really need to say anything to someone that will cause them to be embarrassed for the sake of honesty? Is dancing around the truth the same thing as telling a lie? Is it better to make up an excuse for declining an invitation instead of just saying, “I just don’t want to see that horrid movie or have dinner at that cheap restaurant?”

I tend to tell peace keeping lies at times. I see no need to have anyone irritated or arguing if I can keep trouble down. For instance, my telephone has caller ID and voicemail so I know if a call comes through whether I am here to answer it or not. Just yesterday my brother was here spending some time helping me with my mother. His ex-wife, whom he still dates, had called several times and my brother had not picked up the phone. He has excellent hearing too. When his ex showed up here at in the early evening hours and demanded to know why he hadn’t answered the phone, his response, without batting an eye, was “I never heard it ring and it didn’t show up on the phone.” It wasn’t on the main phone because he had deleted the entries but they were still listed on my office phone. I felt guilty knowing that he told her a lie yet I did not challenge him because I knew it would cause a fight between them. In my eyes, I told the lie myself because by not saying anything I backed up his lie.

I lie to my mother about the state of her health at times. I never tell her that she’s young and strong or that she will soon be running a marathon but I don’t tell her that only a miracle will keep her heart beating indefinitely. I dance around the truth to protect her because she trusts me, she relies on me, and because I can’t stand to see her frightened or worried if I can prevent it.

I’m not claiming to know what’s best for anyone else, I’m not God. I only follow my heart and trust my instincts to help me do the right thing. But is lying ever right?

Then there are the lies meant to manipulate and control, the lies teenagers often tell and some never outgrow. They come in late and weave a tale of events that kept them out the extra twenty-five minutes past curfew or they can’t account for money they’ve spent and tell you they ate six burgers, three fries, and two milkshakes from McDonalds. When you ask how they got there since they are not supposed to be in any vehicle with another teenager without prior permission, they tell you that somebody’s mother picked up all this food and brought it to them…even though her child wasn’t there and she had no way of knowing how many people were there and she works a minimum wage job to keep her own children fed. Sigh…

Lies, I have come to believe, fit some people like a second skin. They are good at lying, most of the time they don’t get caught, and they don’t feel a single pang of remorse after they tell a lie. For most of these people, if they get caught lying, they just tell another lie, usually one that gains sympathy or understanding, to cover up the first lie.

My final thought is that some people actually start to believe the lies they tell and without those lies, their lives would unravel. My palms get sweaty if I even hear that someone else did something wrong so there is no way I could tell a lie and believe what I’m telling. I’m sure most people are the same way. They don’t lie because while someone else might buy the line of bull, they don’t accept it themselves.

Do you lie?

© Dianna Doles-Petry

2/3/2010

Sometimes I Talk Funny

Sometimes I Talk Funny


I was having a telephone conversation today and since it was a business call I was carefully weighing my words before I spoke. “That will not be necessary. One aspect of my intentions is…”

My teenager, sitting at the kitchen table, was looking at me questioningly.

After ending the conversation and placing the telephone back on the receiver, I turned to him and asked, “All right, what’s up?”

“Why do you talk funny when you talk on the phone?” he asked.

“I talk funny?” I asked in a slightly offended tone.

“Yeah, you don’t talk that like around here,” he said. That was the end of our conversation at that moment but I’ve thought about what he said to me all evening. I’ve come to the conclusion that my writing has more of a place in my life than I had imagined.

As a writer, I try to portray the characters I write about accurately. If they are southern, I try to write with a southern dialect. If they are from the Bronx, I try to imitate a New York dialect, or at least my concept of what it sounds like when I hear it. It just never occurred to me that I switch mannerisms in my daily life depending on whom I talk with or who I’m around. Am I not comfortable with who I am, or my roots, or my heritage?

A typical conversation with friends or family might include phrases such as; “If the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise,” or “Just keep your shirt on!” I saw a neighbor this evening that had obviously had too much to drink. I said, “He’s good and tanked up!” Maybe I do talk funny, at least to a teenager who uses much more modern phrases such as; “My bad!” or “Hanging with my buds all up in the crib!” Surely he is not referring to plant buds!

The point is that in honing my writing skills to evoke emotion or paint a mental image with my words, I have merged my everyday life with the business aspect of my writing. I use words to camouflage the real woman I am when I talk to strangers or need to wear my intellect like a well worn winter cap. I think before I speak, I put thought into my reactions, and I am always on guard.

The language I use here at home is spontaneous, honest, and intimate. That is the difference; I am not portraying anything or anyone. I am simply being myself. For example, this conversation took place this evening.

“Nana,” my teenager said, “I sort of made a mess upstairs, but I’m going to clean it up, but it might leave a stain on the carpet.” He stands motionless waiting for my reaction. I turned and headed in the direction of his bedroom with him following me in close pursuit.

Opening his door, I saw a mess that defies any logical explanation or description. “Good grief, Cole, sometimes you can be as dumb as a box of rocks! What in the name of Jezebel did you do in here?”

“Nana, how do you know whether rocks are smart or dumb and who is Jezebel?” The master of subject change thought he had me cornered but he was wrong.

“Every dog has his day, Cole, and one of these days you’ll get your just reward. You’ll have a little boy or little girl that is just as wild as you are. I’m going to enjoy watching you deal with that!” I was jabbering away while trying to figure out what the red puddle in the middle of his carpet was and what I should do with it.

Cole rolled his eyes, “The dog didn’t do it, Nana. I had my Gatorade sitting on this board so I wouldn’t have to get up to get a drink while I played my video game. I didn’t expect a reward for that. I just wanted to beat the darn game before one of the other guys did.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “And I don’t want any kids until I’m fifty. I need to have some fun before I have to worry about sending somebody to college!”

“Well, how in the heck did the Gatorade end up on the floor? Getting this up is going to be harder than Chinese Algebra!” I was already reaching for paper towels to blot up the excess liquid as we spoke. I didn’t really care how it got onto the floor. It needed to be cleaned up quickly or it would leave a permanent stain.

“The Chinese have a different kind of Algebra?” Cole asked with a quizzical tone. “Anyhow, the cats were running amok in here and one of them jumped up on the board and it flew up on the other end like a see-saw. I tried to catch the Gatorade before it landed but my foot slipped in the salsa and I missed it.” This was just great. There was apparently chunky red stuff mixed in with the liquid red stuff. I’m thinking it could be every mother’s nightmare.

After blotting up all of the liquid I could blot up, I sent Cole downstairs to get the carpet shampooer. He carried it upstairs along with a bottle of carpet cleaner and a can of soda. I mixed a solution of cleaner and pulled the machine in front of Cole so he could use it to clean his carpet. When he turned the machine on, I lifted the corner of the bed to move it to the side. I thought I was making it easier for him but he had stacked food wrappers and snacks beneath the bed and they all came tumbling out onto the wet mess on his floor.

“Boy, it’s going to take you a year of Sundays to get this mess cleaned up. I sure hope you don’t have any important engagements for the next couple of days. I want this whole room cleaned up yesterday!” I was standing there like a drill sergeant training new cadets and feeling like one too.

“Nana, please stop talking about me getting married all the time. I’m not engaged because I’m not getting married!” He was grumbling and using some form of sign language that the shampooer was supposed to understand.

An hour later the carpet was clean, the messes were picked up, and Cole was fixing himself a sandwich and explaining to me that he was going to be rich someday and he would hire a maid to keep his room clean.

“I just hope you don’t end up eating your own words someday, Cole. You’re not the first young man to declare that you aren’t going to get married and you are going to get rich. A lot of times a fly in the ointment can change everything.” I just smiled at him and watched him devour his triple stacked sandwich.

“What ointment are you talking about? I didn’t hurt myself, I don’t need any ointment. “Do you want a bite of my sandwich?” He was pulling a bag of chocolate chip cookies from a cabinet to go with the few crumbs of sandwich he had left.

“Never mind about the ointment, it’s just an old cliché. You eat your sandwich, Sweetie. A boy your age has a hollow leg and you’ll burn the calories right off.” I smiled at him and was about to leave the room when he replied to me. “Nana, I do not have a hollow leg, you’re thinking of Capt. Jack Sparrow again, aren’t you?”

I guess sometimes I do talk funny!

© Dianna Doles-Petry

1/29/2010