Fiddle Dee Dee and Grilled Cheese

Isn’t it funny, the things that trigger memories and emotions for us? So today is one of those for me, it’s what I consider a beautiful Fall day, overcast and comfortably cool. Days like this always remind me of growing up in Alabama. Growing up Southern was quite an adventure and had a distinct fairytale quality for me, even to this day. Not that it was always happy and spectacular, Lord knows, my family took the fun OUT of dysFUNctional…..lol. However, there are certain things that will ALWAYS be close to my heart and put a smile on my face. So just for the heck of it I thought I would share a few….

~Rain: Yep, rain…..we never got much snow down in Alabama (at least not compared to the amount we get here in Connecticut), maybe a few inches a year, which was rarely enough for a snowman or snowballs yet would immediately shut the entire state down until it all melted, but that was it except for every couple of years or so when we would get about a foot and that would all melt in a couple of days. So ANYWAY, the idea of a white Christmas as a kid wasn’t all that “Christmas-y” to me. Rain however…that was another story. Rain STILL brings me happy memories of long warm Autumns, family Thanksgivings at Grandma’s, Christmas tree shopping from the Boy Scouts in the rain and leaves still falling off the trees at Christmas!

~Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: My mom LOVES grilled cheese sandwiches and when I was a little sprout whenever she would take me out to eat, she always ordered grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles for the two of us. Three of our favorite spots back then for the best gc’s around the Birmingham area were,

1) The “Giant Chuck Wagon Driver” Drive Through. Neither one of us can remember the actual name of it because that was the nickname we gave it, but when I was little there was a tiny little drive through near the Eastwood Mall that had a GIANT crusty looking, whip switching, chuck wagon cowboy on the roof. They had the best grilled cheese by default because they were just so COOL…therefore they were the top choice and I would constantly BEG my mother to take me there. I’m sure many times she took me there simply to shut me up. LOL.

2) The “Roller Skate Drive-In” Restaurant. Another one we can’t remember the actual name of, but I’m pretty sure it was located near Irondale and just a short way from the area where Fanny Flagg based her book, Fried Green Tomatoes (even though it was filmed in Georgia). I’ll tell you more about that in another post someday. So the roller skate drive-in was the best because they actually WERE the BEST. To this day, every grilled cheese sandwich I have or make myself is compared to them and they still are the best. Perfect melty cheese, perfect crispy yet sloppy buttery toasted bread….MMM….the fact that they skated the food over to us in cute little plastic baskets was just a benefit. LOL

3) Woolworths. There were many Woolworths all over the place as many of you know and remember…but the one in Vestavia had the best grilled cheese for yet another reason. Now, they were the best not for flavor, quality or uniqueness. They were the best because they had a counter to eat at and toothpicks with frilly stuff! Now, tiny as I was, there was nothing more fun than climbing onto the top of one of there chrome and pastel colored vinyl stools and watching the cook (dressed in mostly white and a little paper soda jerk hat) make the grilled cheese on the griddle. Ok, maybe there WAS something more fun than that…. The next step was then spinning myself round and round on the stool until not only was I dizzy but I nearly launched myself into the booth behind us. It was cute for a while, but when I was one step away from puking, it was no longer cute to mom. Now Woolworths also had an added benefit that made them the best…..TOYS. So after lunch we would roam through the aisles and I would reach up or climb up and finger all the goodies that were so nicely displayed in rows. Woolworths also had another distinct trait that stays with me to this day, the smell. Don’t make that face…..it wasn’t a BAD smell. It was a clean, dime store smell. It was a combination of clean crisp linen (from stacks of starched hankies and neatly folded pajamas), cardboard boxes, new plastic toy smell, and French fries. LOL….yeah go ahead and laugh but those of us that remember Woolworths, especially the one in Vestavia, I bet they recognize that smell. J

Of course, all three of those places are long gone now; replaced by bigger, better and more modern things….but the memory will always be fresh to me.

~The Birmingham Zoo: For most of my childhood, we lived VERY close to the zoo and the Botanical Gardens, so both of them became favorite haunts of ours. (You know you go to a place a lot when the staff recognizes you.) So anyway, I have many fun memories from inside the zoo over the years, but my FAVORITE zoo memory was actually far outside the walls of the complex. Because we lived so close, I remember on some nights when not much traffic was on the road and all was quiet in the neighborhood, I would sit on the steps of our porch and HEAR the lions roaring. I remember using my imagination and pretending that I was in Africa and the silhouetted trees in front of me were hiding a jungle of wildlife and hidden treasures waiting for me to discover them. It’s not a very big memory…but it’s one of my favorites as a kid.

~Gone With the Wind: Now as far as I know, they don’t do this anymore….but when I was a kid, you could count on several movies being played on TV every year, like clockwork. It’s a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, and Gone With the Wind. To this day all four are among my favorite movies, but the last one holds special meaning. My mom just adored the gentle kindness of Miss Melly and admired the fiery chutzpah of Miss Scarlett. We all agreed that while Ashley was a kind and gentle man, he was also a mamby-pamby wimp and while Rhett was a rough around the edges and boorish cad, he was also deeply in love with Scarlett and would have done anything to have her love in return. They were her literary heroes….although she would never call them that, trust me, they were. She wouldn’t throw out the common quotes and sayings of Scarlett that we all hear, like, “Fiddle Dee Dee” and she wouldn’t make us eat like piglets in private so we could eat like birds in public…no none of that. What she WOULD do however, is whenever times got tough, she would ALWAYS rally herself by saying, “I just can’t think about it today, it’ll drive me crazy if I do…..I’ll think about it tomorrow, after all, tomorrow IS another day”. She would then talk with GREAT affection about how she believed Scarlett and Rhett got back together because she had FINALLY come to her senses and realized she truly loved Rhett all along, and how she just knew that she would go back to Tara to gather her strength. Then as the conversation would progress, mom would inevitably bring up how her grandmother was on the board of movie critics in 1939. And how they almost banned the movie because that famous kiss was too long between Rhett and Scarlett and because it was the first time a swear word had EVER been in a silver screen movie (that famous last line where Rhett says, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”…wow…mild compared to today, but I digress). Of course there would also follow the stories of Sherman and the yankees (not the baseball team all you non-history buffs). When they came through, looting the homes, my relatives who were determined not to have the enemy touch their precious things, took all of the family silver, china and jewels and buried them in the back of the property. A great idea in theory, but there was such a rush as horror stories filtered in of Atlanta burning, that no account was made as to WHERE on the property the pieces were buried. So when they came back to retrieve them after the war, some pieces were hidden so well, that they were simply never found. So watching that movie, although a vast Hollywood epic, it does bring back memories of countless family stories I remember hearing as a little girl…and even now actually.

These are just a small handful of memories from growing up Southern….there are sooooooooo many more. I’ll share most or all of them over time….but these are my favorites, the ones I think of the most often. Of course, I’ve finally come to call New England home since my migration North 19 years ago…but I still love and cherish my Southern roots. Maybe that’s where I get some of my Pollyanna-ness….Scarlett and Melly…..hmmmm….food for thought.

It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to!

So today’s question is, Can Pollyanna’s Have Pity Parties.

The answer is a resounding, YES!

Now one thing that those closest to me, my trusted inner circle..(You know who you are, you mighty blessings from God!)…know about me is that I always try to be boldly transparent, because there is a wealth of freedom in unabashed transparency so that will be my promise to you readers on here too. If I’m going to share with you the ups in my life then it’s only fair that I share the downs too…it’s the only way you can get a true view of who I really am…..and WHY I’m that way.

So in true Betty Davis fashion, (I never liked her, actually, I couldn’t stand the woman…but the sound bite is appropriate for this…..lol) “Hang on…it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

So to clarify….what exactly is the definition of a pity party? Well, contributor “Raspberrymuffin” on the website http://www.urbandictionary.com/ has I believe the funniest definition I have found thus far. She says, and I quote:

2.	pity party
	A way of experiencing grief, in which you spend your time feeling sorry for yourself and whining endlessly about how crappy your life is. Pity parties can be just for one or for many people, such as maybe your friends and close people, who will try to comfort you or just be there for you while you keep asking yourself what did you do to deserve whatever it is that made you so sad in the first place. Pity Parties require the proper outfit, which is usually pajamas cause you don’t get all dressed up during those feeling-sorry-for-myself moments. Also you should have no make up on or just the one from the night before; hair undone as well. It also involves tissues, comfort food such as ice cream; chocolate; potato chips; cookies; cake; and candy. Low fat food is banned Alcohol might or might not be allowed (if alcohol makes you go wild, no alcohol should be brought to the pity party in that case since the point is not exactly to have fun). The purpose of a Pity Party is to dump. The pity music is also very important at pity parties, including songs like "One is the Loneliest Number", "All by Myself" and any other song that makes you feel like throwing yourself from the nearest cliff. Pity parties usually end after you are done whining or if someone breaks it up. This will usually be a cynical loved one who will not let you drown in self pity and will take you either to have the best time ever, drinking and partying or will just make you crawl out of bed by making you see how pathetic you look and how you should cut the whining and just do something to make things better “My boyfriend dumped me and my cat was run over, time to throw a pity party!” “Sorry to break the pity party, but you seriously have to get out of bed and get over it” whining whine depressed pathetic sad by raspberrymuffin Aug 1, 2006

Now, I don’t know about you, but that definition alone was enough to bring me out of my little pity party. LOL. Whether you agree with everything that she said or not, she definitely got the gist of it and nailed a freeze frame moment for all of us.

So what was my pity party about? Well…..to make a long story short…EVERYTHING…..and yet, nothing. I had a classic female meltdown in a most obnoxiously grandiose fashion. Stress from the Deathstar (read my very first blog entry for clarification), stress from hearing, reading, and seeing TOO MUCH bad US politics, stress from the global, national and state economy and how it’s trickling down and affecting our personal finances (insert mental picture of empty wallet with moths flying out). Stress from an over busy schedule, stress from too little rest, stress from living inside the eye of the hurricane, here a stress, there a stress, everywhere a stress, stress…..in a word, STRESS.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, but my Knight in Shining Armor was feeling it too. Now normally he and I blend so perfectly that when one of us is down, the other bolsters the down one with words of encouragement and hope and in no time, we are back on track again. This time however we were both battle weary. (I told a couple of dear friends yesterday it feels like being nibbled to death by a duck! At which point Rae put her head down and tried to hold her laughter in until Allen made a Pac-man hand gesture and referred to Aflac, which sent us all into hysterics….sigh…..thank God for laughter.)

So my dear sweet Ben crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn Saturday morning only to come home hours later from a tedious battle with our local bloodsucking state run DMV…don’t even get me started on that one….and the poor guy was just drained. He opened up and told me what he was feeling and in total and complete empathy, I got teary eyed and hugged him. It’s horrible when your hero feels worn down to nothing and you’re so worn down yourself, that you don’t have the strength to pull yourself back up, let alone helping him back up.

So as he was sharing I was listening and doing my best to give him a safe harbor to vent to, when in the midst of his own transparency he happened to hit upon a raw nerve of my own. It was something I had already been beating myself up over and struggling with the fact that I needed to address it (What is the “it” I’m talking about? Dust bunnies, dirty dishes and laundry…..things that when I’m so mentally and emotionally exhausted I just don’t have the drive to do…one of my worst traits) and the fact that it was bothering him too made me feel worse than worm spit…... So how did I respond? Did I agree and tell him calmly how much I was struggling with it myself? No…..what did I do instead? I turned into a raving witchy Tasmanian she-devil, saying things I shouldn’t say, crying uncontrollably and going on a cleaning tirade powered by shear anger and frustration. Meanwhile poor Ben and Sargie both developed eyeballs the size of dinner plates and backed away from me as quickly as they could to avoid being hit by my verbal shrapnel.

Oh I was a sight to be seen, red eyed and snotty nosed from crying and going on and on like an unbearably whiny broken record stuck on the highest volume setting. Rambling on and on about why on earth did he ever bother marrying me because after all I am SUCH a bad housekeeper and wife and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH… Pull out the world’s tiniest violin and play Moon River for me! I was obnoxious!! Absolutely toxic! Not at all the picture of grace and decorum I TRY to maintain. Finally, out of pure fear for his life Ben decided to go run an errand and leave me and the boy alone for a couple of hours…..I don’t think Sarge appreciated that gesture very much, but he was safe under his living room chair.

So after about a half an hour I calmed down enough to gather my brain cells and rethink my behavior.

Now, it’s at this point that I would normally be able to rally around my faith and be fine. However, I was tired and WANTED to feel sorry for myself. I wanted a good cry, I wanted a moment to be the victim (something I very RARELY do)….so I sat…like a lump….sniffly and quiet and let the mid day sun streaming through the living room windows just bathe me in warm light. Silence….it truly is where I gather my strength from.

I sat there in total peace and quiet for about an hour and then as I was finally feeling receptive to encouragement again, my mother called. Thank God for that woman….we haven’t always had the best relationship, in fact years ago it was downright volatile, but we’ve come a long way since then and in spite of it all, there are so many times that she knows EXACTLY what to say to bring me out of my pity party. This was no different. Her words were the start of hope again. Hope that everything will work out regardless of what it looks like now. Things that I’ve said to her in years past when she felt beaten down and hopeless she now reminded me of and encouraged me with. When I tried to slink back into it, she pulled me right back up…and then….she prayed. Something I have come to value more than life itself. When I got off the phone with her about an hour later I was starting to feel a trickle of life again…..but I was STILL was feeling pretty beaten down…. So I did more cleaning and when it came time to go to the street ministry…..I stayed home to squeak out some more self centered sulking while Ben went by himself.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep too incredibly well that night and the choice to sleep in and skip church just wasn’t an option. I recently accepted a new leadership role at church that requires my presence every Sunday and until my team gets solidified, there are no days off. So I went and tried to be as perky as possible….even though I still felt crummy. When I finished everything I had to do before service I went upstairs to take my seat next to Ben. I was finished a bit early so I got to sing the last worship song, which was no mere co-incidence….especially considering the song was, “The Healer”…and BOYYYY did I need some emotional healing.

As the pastor got up to speak, (whom I must say I just ADORE because he’s so real and transparent which is something more pastors should be, but are usually too afraid to because it may compromise how they are perceived. Then there are the other type that are too caught up in deep “intellectual” sermons that don’t easily translate to the daily battles of the average person and leave the parishioner feeling like they just wasted an hour or more of their time. Soap box…sorry…ANYWAY) he announced that he felt he needed to deviate off his scheduled sermon and do something a bit different. He shared that he himself had been feeling worn down, weary and a bit hopeless due to the current world events….and knew that there were others of us going through the same thing. Everything he said…all of it….was exactly what we all needed to hear. There were collective sighs of relief that flooded through the room as he hit different topics…and of course tears…I was one of them. I felt like a dry sponge that was having cool water poured all over it…just soaking the life back up. It was then that I decided that it was time to snap out of it. Time to pick up and move forward.

So yes, Pollyanna’s have pity parties and they have hissy fits and other things just like everybody else…..but this particular Pollyanna doesn’t want to STAY there. Going through difficult times is normal, but how I respond to them is my choice. In fact, one of my favorite quotes refers to just that.

“All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about… We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."

~Joseph Epstein

To Gag or Not To Gag, That Is The Question......

Somehow I doubt Shakespeare ever encountered this particular situation. Although, you never know…I suppose it’s possible that good old Wills had to chase around his little dog, Julius Woof-ser and stop him from eating the nasties….

***PETER PAN ALERT***

Ok, so here’s the new rule. In order to prevent all of you from gagging…….or worse, from now on when I’m going to post something that will be in gross detail I’ll start the entry with that. I know at this point only two of you know the whole story behind that warning…and at some point, either Beth or I will have to retell the story to fill you in…but until that day comes….just trust me when I write that. LOL

So…..this morning as we’re going through our normal routine to get ready for work, Sarge is being his usual cute self and wanting to cuddle every five minutes and wanting to have his toys thrown to him every two minutes. I had taken him outside already for his morning potty and he was happy. Well, he has learned our routine well enough that he knows we will be at work all day so if he has to go again before we have to leave he lets us know. Not a problem, I appreciate his mindful consideration so I don’t have to worry about an accident on the floor if we get stuck in traffic on the way home.

So anyway,…..when we got down and had about a half hour left before we had to leave, Sargie asked if he could go out again. Since I was doing my hair Ben took him this time. Moments later, they returned and Sargie trotted down the hall past me and popped the door open to go to his fort. (If you don’t know about that read my last entry) I looked over and saw him come out a moment later only to run into our bedroom and jump on the bed just as I heard Ben come walking down the hall. I saw him eating something and when I looked up at Ben, I noticed he had a banana in his hand and a small knife. So I assumed he was eating a piece of that. Now you have to understand, Sargie has a few favorite foods that he will tackle you for….and bananas are one of them. So I sweetly asked him, “Sargie, did daddy give you a piece of banana?” Sargie looked up at me and Ben with that oblivious “MMMM-MMM GOOD” look at the exact moment that Ben said, “No, I didn’t give him any yet…that’s why I came down here”

Oh, here we go again!

Instantly we were both like “….Dear Lord…what is he eating NOW?!?!?” We rushed into the bedroom and cornered him on the bed. There was a large wet spot….and as he innocently looked up at us we noticed he had white…..cream…on his lips and flecks of black…stuff….on his face. Both of us instantly recoiled but Ben was the first to say what we were both already thinking…. “What IS that????” I rushed around the side of the bed and as I did so, Sargie, who knows the routine by now, flipped the thing out of his mouth so we could inspect it closer. We both leaned in until we were hovering about three inches above this thing. Through all of Sargie’s spit, it looked like a cross between a chewed up piece of black gum and the inside of a walnut, neither of which would cause him to look like he had a milk mustache. As I got even closer to try and figure it out, all of a sudden Ben stood up straight and in a tone of voice that revealed he knew EXACTLY what it was, he burst out with… “AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW…………….was that a CATERPILLAR?!?!?.....UGHHHHHHHH!!!!! (It was at this point that both of us traded our previous gargoyle like faces of disgust for even WORSE gargoyle like faces of disgust as Sargie sat in proud admiration of his tasty tidbit.) “I saw it outside on the ground and realized one of us had stepped on it…but didn’t see it again. Then I saw him pick up what I thought was a leaf off the kitchen floor when we came in…..I guess it wasn’t a leaf……UGHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Ben grabbed a Kleenex from my side of the bed and tossed it to me so I could pick up the bug carcass and wipe the boy’s face and mouth, but by the time he saw the Kleenex coming his way he quickly licked his lips. UGHHHH……..

By this time Ben was thoroughly disgusted and left the room at which time Sargie had the rapturous realization of “BANANA???? Dad’s got BANANA?!?!?! I want banana………BANANA……GET THE BANANA!!!!!!” and leapt off the bed chasing Ben into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, I stood there….staring nauseously at the wet spot on the comforter and trying to dab it dry with the Kleenex….. All the while the only thing running through my head was that famously gross line from The Lion King cartoon where Timon, (who’s voice was provided by the perfectly sardonic, Nathan Lane) grabs a caterpillar from a dead log and says, “OOOHHH, the cream filled kind!” and pops it into his mouth.

I don’t think I will ever be able to watch that again without gagging.

Not how I wanted to start my Friday morning!