I realized looking back on my blog, that, in keeping with its original charter, I paint a pretty bleak picture of my life. Only writing about the things I want to get OUT of my head, which tend to be the negative stories. I've decided that I'll share something terrific with you this time. Just to show you that I am well aware my life is mostly sweet.
Years ago, back during a time before both my parents died, when in fact they both were very much alive...a time that is hard to believe was ever real...as if it is actually a fantasy made up in my brain to overcompensate for my current 30 something orphan state. But it was real, they both were alive for all of my formative years. For most of those years our family lived on the south shore of Long Island in a tiny village called Bellport.
We had a ship's bell on our door post to the left of the door as you're facing it from the outside. It was copper with a faint patina and mounted on the portico (it wasn't actually a portico, but it did seem very grand and architectural at the time) via an anchor. It's ringing was how you knew it was time to come home from wherever you were. You could be down at the bay, skipping rocks across the water, and you'd hear the bell ringing and run home. You could be climbing trees in the woods, jumping from ever higher branches, daring your body to break beneath you as you hurtled to the earth, and you'd hear the bell and come running. You could be playing a game of front lawn kick ball with your siblings and whatever friends and neighborhood kids you'd managed to rope into your madness and that bell would ring and you'd run inside. You'd run through the rocks away from the water and up the hill, make a left, as you sped onto Wyandotte Lane, as peanut butter breathes (the name for humidity and allergy induced belabored breathing we frequently experienced) burned up your lungs. You'd cut across the Arcery's lawn and almost step on Rosie, their glorious Irish Setter and run through the split between the great big pine and the blue spruce between our properties over the lawn onto the pebble driveway and take a hard left to head for the steps of the stoop. Up, four brick steps guarded by half barrels full of impatiens, ring the bell to your left because it was funny and plow through the door, probably slamming it in your wake, which would bring a pretty stern reprimand not to slam doors.
Saturday night was always taco night in our house, ever since mom and dad picked up the tradition from a fellow navy family stationed with them in Hawai'i, although seeing as I wasn't alive it could just as well have been San Diego, or even Beeville, I'm sure someone who knows better will correct me. In addition to being taco night, during the time before the time when everything went insanely wrong, it was also the night when you'd bring your friend of the opposite sex by to be tested and tried-what was dross would be burned away and if anything was worthwhile it would withstand the fire and you would remain a friend, or more, of the family.
We stood around the kitchen. Some set the table, properly, of course. The napkin and fork on the left side of the blueberry LL Bean plates, knife (and spoon if necessary) on the right side of the plate with the cup up at the top of those utensils. The entire place setting stood atop a blue and cream calico quilted place mat. The napkin was likely encircled by a papier mache elephant or tiger dad brought home from india one year that had since been gnawed by a german short hair that we kept for only a summer and returned to the gifter, our uncle, after he ate nearly everything in the house and we realized we never asked said uncle for this great gift. Some fried corn tortillas (are flour tortillas even an option for tacos? I think not). Others diced tomatoes into perfect centimeter cubes and still others shredded lettuce, using a knife, not a food processor. Usually the guest had the honor of grating the cheese, in part to see how they would react to the inevitable grating of their own knuckles after being instructed to keep going even when only a nub of cheddar remained. Whoever was in need of punishment diced the onions, to the tune of their own tears, and the weakest link got the pickles.
It was a pretty well rehearsed concert, perfected over decades with a certain harmony that accompanies shared genetics; if you were lucky enough to be invited, you'd better hope you found a way to fit in. Ten, maybe eleven people squeezed around the table within thirty minutes, and that's when the real test began. Would the would be suitor be observant enough to take a miniscule enough amount of meat so as not to offend the other ten people at the table to expected to have anywhere from six to ten tacos that night despite the fact that only two pounds of ground beef had been cooked and dressed in tomato sauce. To be fair, it wasn't just suitors, it was close friends, frenemies, and random strangers mom picked up off the street from time to time, as well. But the testing was mostly for the wanna be boyfriends.
Nervous people are rarely naturally good at math, so the majority of the fellas failed, and gloriously so. They were summarily reprimanded and drawing back their bloody knuckles never made that mistake again.
We would clean the kitchen with the same precision. Then retire to the living room for a sweet game of pictionary. Here's the thing about pictionary, there are certain combinations of sisters in our family that can with a single stroke of the pen communicate a complex several word answer, infuriating everyone else as they watched in disbelief, sure that something nefarious was afoot. After Meghan and I trounced everybody handily, it was usually time for the boy buddy to go home.
He'd be led to the door. And watched, by the whole family. Then we'd sing, "Oh goodbyeee, oh don't you cryeee, there's a silver lining in the skyee, fair thee well old friend, until the end, we'll be back another year, so goodbyeee....for it's hard to part we know, and we're far from....a tickled to death to see you go....goodbyeeeee etc..."
If the young man were deemed truly worthy, there would be an encore. A game of Dr. Tangle, led by mom. Mom would have us all join hands, in a circle, under the stars, with the moon herself holding court above the brick patio. Then we would be instructed to cross over to the other side under two clasped hands or twist under our own arm and our partner's or even throw a leg some arms. Then it would be the job of the outsider to untangle us. Or not. Or it's just funny to get tangled up with nine other people. Then we'd have one last chant "one, two, three and a zing, zing, zing." Followed by some freeform high kicks and raucous dancing.
If you couldn't handle the heat, you got out of the kitchen. Hilariously, they always came back for more. I guess mom was a social genius.
