The Bering Blog

Leave A Tender Moment Alone

I take a lot of photos of my granddaughter Claire, but some moments deserve to be preserved in words and memory only.

This afternoon, I heard Claire fussing just 25 minutes into her nap. I was in the guest room writing, but I knew my daughter Carlene would tend to her. An hour later, I checked to see where everyone was and I found Carlene asleep in the rocking chair in Claire’s nursery as Claire laid asleep in her arms, wrapped in her fuzzy green blanket and her head resting in the crook of Carlene’s left arm. It was a perfectly awesome moment of peace and stillness, but most of all, love.

When I write about Claire, I often mention her mother (my daughter Cassie) or her father (my son-in-law Matt), but Aunt Carlene is probably the third most important person in Claire’s life. It’s been interesting watching my oldest daughter interact with her niece these last 7 months. I’ve not witnessed her interact with anyone the same way before. Carlene is not one for public displays of affection, but that credo flies out the window when Claire is around. She puts seasoned baby-talkers, neck-kissers and peek-a-booers like me to shame.

Carlene has always been forthcoming about her feelings for Cassie and me. The three of us are a tight little enclave and we trust each other explicitly. She loves her grandparents and aunts and uncles, but she’s not as gushy with her love as Cassie and me. She’s not stoic, but she’s an awful lot like her father, even though he died when she was a baby. She’s as much a product of nature as she is nurture.

One way you can really tell Carlene loves her niece is her tolerance of Claire’s bodily functions. Carlene detests puke, snot, pee and poop. When she was little and had the stomach flu, she willed herself not to throw up. Absolutely rejected that idea. She also refused to cough a good hard get-up-the-phlegm cough when she had a cold. I’d beg her to cough and she’d simply say no. And getting her potty trained, well, that’s a whole other story and one I’ll never tell because she’d never speak to me again.

Carlene is more than I ever deserved, and watching her today with her niece in her arms, so soft and tender, I thanked God I did something in my life to warrant such a moment as that.

With my apologies to the Apostle Paul, I’ve rewritten his famous passage on love from his first letter to the Corinthians because, to me, Carlene is the embodiment of what he describes love to be.

"Carlene is patient. Carlene is kind. She (usually) does not envy and she almost never boasts. Carlene is proud in the right way. She’s not rude (except maybe on a really bad PMS day, but she always apologizes). She is not self-seeking, it takes a lot to get her angry, and she’s never thrown something I’ve done wrong back in my face. Carlene does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Carlene always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Carlene’s love never fails.”

Voices From the Past

My mom teases my daughter Cassie whenever Cassie sends her weekly, sometimes daily, photos and video of grandbaby Claire, saying Claire is the most well documented baby in history. It’s true we take tons of video and photos of Claire, but it’s only because everything she does is new and cute and we don’t want to miss a thing.

We also do it because we can. Our cameras take photos and serve as mini video recorders, and we keep them near at all times.

Want to see Claire laughing at dandelions? Click here. Claire crawling and pulling out her daddy’s leg hair? Click here. Claire playing with the Musical Band Stand (and baby monitor and Thighmaster) and attempting to dance? Click here.

The earliest video I have of my children was from Carlene’s 5^th birthday party. Cassie was 3. There might be two or three other videos of them after that, otherwise they are documented through photographs only. However, I was given the gift of the past – the voices of my children as babies – earlier this week from my sister Debbie.

When Debbie and her husbandn moved to Washington DC, my dad tape recorded every family Christmas from 1978 to 1991 so they could “share” in the festivities. Debbie recently had all the tapes converted to CDs and sent them to my parents and siblings. When I was in Pittsburgh last week, Carlene, Cassie and I listened to Christmas 1984, and I heard a memory that was fogged over in my brain. For the first time in 24 years I heard my children’s tiny baby voices, and while I recognized them immediately, I’d forgotten what they sounded like because I only know them as I hear them now, as grown women.

Carlene and Cassie loved hearing their voices, too, since no one remembers what they sounded like as babies. (Except, perhaps, Jill Price.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen my kids more mesmerized as they were listening to themselves for the first time.

This morning I listened to Christmas 1978 and 1983. In 1978 I was 15, my brothers were 25 and 12, and my little sister Emily was 3. When Emily sang “Away In A Manger” in her little toddler voice, I remembered that moment so clearly, along with other things from when she was 3, like playing Barbies with her and being awakened early every morning to the sound of her Toonyville Choo Choo. It was fun to hear my own voice, too, an awkward and kind of dorky teenager talking into a tape recorder. I laughed when I heard my dad exclaim after my sister opened a gift, “I think she digs that train all right!” Ah, Dad. Ever the hip lingoist.

In Christmas 1983, our first Christmas after Bruce died, Carlene was a little older than Claire is now – about 9 months old. Carlene’s laugh is so sweet and heavenly. Its sound reminds me so clearly how I felt that evening – a little sad, but mostly happy, loving Carlene and my family and missing Bruce, but apparently dating some tall skinny guy named Tim that, even after hearing his voice, I can’t for the life of me remember in any way. I can hear myself in the tape, too, talking to Carlene so casually, like a mom does, and giving out instructions to my brother who’s holding her. These are memories I’d never have so vividly without the audio recall to coax them out of my head.

While I’m grateful we have the technology to document Claire’s life so minutely, there is something really profound about hearing a voice you never expected to hear again. It dusts off the corners of your mind and takes you on a surprise escape to the past. These CDs document times that I sometimes remember differently. They are the truth and they are helping reform my memory so that I don’t recall the past in a revisionist way.

Thank you, Debbie, for the priceless gift of the voices of my children and our sister and brothers and parents, frozen in time, in good times.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. I hope your memories of loved ones are as rich and vivid as the ones I’ve been blessed with this week.

Close Encounters of the Ursus Kind

The first time I saw a black bear in the wild was a few years ago, around this time of year, in Cook Forest State Park. My husband got me out of the house and on a picnic after I had foot surgery and was going crazy not being able to shower.

We were driving past the picnic pavilions when we saw her sitting in the middle of the road. Startled, she lumbered to the edge of the road, all the time looking behind her. That’s when three cubs emerged from the ravine and ran across the road. Their paws were almost as big as their bodies and their long black nails were visible from where we sat, stunned in our car. The cubs scooted effortlessly up a tree after their mother sent out some kind of bear code for “stranger danger,” and we drove past them slowly, grateful for the moment and for the bragging rights of seeing bears in the wild.

And in the wild is where I wish our last two bear encounters were.

A few weeks ago, a bear found the sunflower seed feeder just off our back deck. At least we’re pretty sure it was a bear. What else besides Superman could twist our 4-foot wire fence and bend a ¾-inch steel pole nearly to the ground? I found the feeder 20 feet away in our neighbor’s yard with a perch broken off, but all the sunflower seeds in tact. My guess is he was pretty ticked he couldn’t get it opened, gave up, and vowed to return for some other foodstuff in our yard because he returned last Monday with an agenda.

This time he went for the the bird feeder in the front yard, the one my dad made a few years ago with the cardinal on the top. Dad had mounted it to a 1-inch piece of rebar and cemented it into the ground. That puppy wasn’t going anywhere. Well, until the day the bear came and bent it to the ground.  

Makes me wonder what’s in that bird seed. He licked the entire feeder clean, leaving nary a nut on the ground. When we discovered the destruction the next morning, birds and squirrels were looking at it like, “What the …? We were just eating from this six feet in the air yesterday.”

I’ve seen hawks and falcons in our yard, and we had skunks in the neighborhood last year and the year before. Not sure bears are a welcome addition. I’m not running a wildlife refuge here.

I’m not sure if I’ll put the bird feeder back up. Maybe I can find some bear-proof bird seed, although bears eat pretty much anything, don’t they? I just want to know I can come home at night and not be greeted by a big old black bear dining in my front yard. It’s a fun one-time event to brag on, but in the future, give me a raccoon or possum any day.

Jose Cuervo (and vodka and bourbon), You Were A Friend Of Mine

You know how it is. You’re squeezing out thawed boxed spinach into a colander in the sink, your husband is chopping cauliflower for the meatless meatloaf, and you reach for the drink you think is your chardonnay but it’s really your husband’s gin that he didn’t put an olive in and you take a big swig then you taste your mistake as it burns down your throat?

Yeah. Happens all the time, right?

I should have known by the smell, but it happened so fast. It was one of those moments where my brain didn’t identify the pine smell faster than my hand could tip back the glass. As soon as the gin hit the back of my throat, it was like a slow-motion “Ohhhhhh nooooooooo” moment in my mind, but it was too late. The swallow had begun and I had no choice but to follow through.

As my mother would say, “Uffda!”

It’s been years, 14 in fact, since I’ve had the hard stuff. When I moved away from Clarion in 1994 to finish my degree in Minneapolis, the bartender at one of my favorite local bars bought me a shot of tequila. I gladly licked the salt and lime off his bicep before putting back the shot. The burn was worth the bicep moment. Trust me.

Since then I’ve stuck to drinking wine, sometimes a beer. But last night’s gin surprise got me thinking of all the potent potables I’m missing out on. (Speaking of which, didn’t Mormon Ken Jennings run that category every time it came up in Jeopardy during his 74-game streak? Hmm.)

I’ve had some good times with Wild Turkey and Southern Comfort (not at the same time). Top shelf brandy on a cold winter’s night would bring back a lot of good memories, too. The only liquor I can’t drink or even smell without getting nauseous is vodka. Vodka brings back some of my worst memories ever, like the smell of an ex-boyfriend’s aftershave or the song “Sister Christian.” I put back a lot of vodka in the day. Straight up. No mixer. I’ve got the hairs on my chest to prove it.

OK, so I don’t have hair on my chest.

Perhaps the worst thing I ever did with vodka was mix it with grape juice. “WKRP In Cincinnati” character Arthur Carlson, the station owner, said on one episode that he liked vodka and grape juice. Called it a Purple Cow or something like that. I liked grape juice. I liked vodka. I was 17. That’s my only excuse. (Mom, if you’re reading this, it was Pam’s fault. She made me.)

My love for vodka started when I was a kid. Dad let me have the ice cubes from his martinis when he was done. Come to think of it, he let me have the ice cubes from his scotch and sodas, too. Didn’t turn me into a big scotch fan, though.

With most things, too much of something good will kill the pleasure in the end. And so it was with vodka. Too many trips to the porcelain altar, and that morning-after vodka headache is worse than anything wine’s ever done to me. But that was back in my wild days. I can’t drink like that anymore. But a few bad vodka moments doesn’t mean I should punish the rest of the alcohol on the shelf. I do love a good tangy margarita. And Jose Cuervo is pretty tasty……

If my throat can stand the surprise burn of gin and not be turned off, perhaps I’m ready for a Big Girl drink.

I Missed My Workout For THIS?

In late March, I got a letter from the PayPal Plus credit card company telling me they decided to close my account and were not sending me a replacement card when it expired in April. Their explanation was vague, so I called the number on my statement and talked to a service representative in, of course, India. She explained that PayPal reviewed my account and decided that since I hadn’t used the card in a few years and I still owed them money, they would close my account. It didn’t matter that I NEVER missed a payment or that I NEVER went over my credit limit, which was much more than what I owe them, I was apparently dragging down their bottom line and they dumped me like a bad mortgage.

I was concerned how this would appear on my credit report and she assured me, in a tone that suggested I’d done something wrong, that as long as I paid my account on time every month (I reminded her that was never an issue), there would be nothing negative posted to the credit bureaus.

Right. Like I trust that.

But I made my peace with their stupid decision and did what they told me to do in the letter which was to shred my credit card because I wasn’t supposed to use it anymore. Fine. I did that.

Fast forward to today. My PayPal credit card payment is due in two days. No problem. I’d pay it online like I always do. Only, I no longer have access to the card’s website through PayPal. It’s been taken away, vanished, whoosh! It’s gone.

Mildly ticked off, I decided to make a payment by phone since for me to send them a payment by check would take longer than two days to get there and then technically my payment would be late. After five minutes of answering the voice activated questions, I was told this transaction would COST me $10! The voice said, “Do you accept these charges?” to which I screamed in the phone, “HELL NO!” Funny how the voice activation understood that.

“Would you like to speak with a customer service representative?”

“HELL YES!”

“She” understood that, too.

Pretty soon I was talking to “George” in India. I explained to George my problem. He said he would extend my payment date and charge me no late fee if I mailed my payment today. Thank you, I appreciate that, I said, and I went on to explain that I want to continue making my payments online.

“How can you make that happen for me, George?"

He replied, and this is my FAVORITE part:

“You’ll need your statement AND YOUR CREDIT CARD to access our site.”

“Um….George?” I say to him calmly, believe it or not. “Let me explain something to you. The letter your company sent to me said I had to SHRED my card. I DID that. I played by your rules. And now you’re telling me I can’t pay my account online because I don’t have the credit card you guys told me to shred? Do you HEAR how ridiculous that is? I want to pay my account online. Now how will you make that happen?”

“Ma’am, you’ll need your credit card…” he insisted.

“I get that part, George. Who can I talk to who will at least ACKNOWLEDGE how ludicrous this situation is? I don’t want much, George. I just want someone at PayPal to admit PayPal is wrong,” I said, a little more agitated than before, but still not raising my voice, at least not too high.

He transferred me over to his manager and I explained the same thing to her. I didn’t yell, although I admit I was sarcastic, but she would not – no, she REFUSED – to acknowledge how backassward this whole thing was.

I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish, what kind of satisfaction I hoped to glean by asking one company representative to take responsibility for a problem the company created, not me, but all I got was her assurance that she’d “take it up with her managers” so something like this wouldn’t happen again.

Right. And I won’t be charged a late fee for mailing in my payment this month and nothing negative will be reported to the credit bureau. What was I? Born last week?

I’m sure she was doodling on a notepad the whole time I was on the phone, probably making faces into the phone, maybe sticking her tongue out at me when I said, “Do you see what a Catch-22 this is?” Then I wondered if she understood the literary reference. Not sure if they read Joseph Heller in New Delhi.

I hung up the phone and went upstairs to get an envelope because I threw away the one in the billing statement because I ALWAYS pay them (on time) online. I went to the post office to buy a 1-cent stamp to accompany my 41-cent stamp I bought last month and I stuck the envelope in the mail box.

Yadda yadda yadda…I’m keeping a close eye on my statement next month, and on my credit report for that matter. I really hope I don’t have to go rounds with another George in Dubai. It’s really not worth missing another workout for.

I Love Being a Mom Better Than Anything

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who mother or care for children, family members, pets and gardens. I don’t mind the commerciality (is that a word?) of the day and it’s rendered some pretty neat gifts from my kids throughout the years.

There was the nearly bionic spider plant that wouldn’t die and I swear produced little baby spider plants overnight. I got that from Cassie when she was in second or third grade. Carlene brought home a pumpkin plant one year that we planted in our tiny little yard and we learned a few months later why you don’t grow pumpkins in tiny little yards.

I’ve received hand prints in plaster, hand prints in finger paint, and a wind chime made of a small clay pot and a washer. I looked forward to the Friday before Mother’s Day every year my kids were in grade school because I knew they would have been working on some gift project in school and would be so excited to give it to me. Their anticipation and excitement was the true gift.

Two years ago my daughters gave me a picture frame montage of 10 photos of them dressed in “I (heart) Mom” shirts. I’m not sure what’s up this year, but I have strict instructions not to look in Carlene’s car. She’s upstairs sleeping, having come up to Clarion last night to visit a friend and to see me today. It’s like the Friday before Mother’s Day all over. I’m sure Cassie will call this afternoon after her shift at the hospital and ask if I like their gift. I can already say I do and I have no idea what it is.

I know in Buddhist thought nothing is permanent and certainty is an illusion, and in most contexts that is true, but I am certain I love my children more than anything or anyone and I always will, in life and death. I love mothering more than chocolate or mountains or money or sex. It will always be my favorite thing.

A close second favorite thing is being Emily’s sister, who was born this day, Mother’s Day, May 11, 1975. Happy birthday, Em! Last year’s Mother’s Day blog was about my sister and how my mother had her when she was 43, which caught her completely by surprise (my mom, not Emily). You can read it here: My Favorite Mother’s Day – 1975.

One other note, I know Wikipedia isn’t always a reliable source for facts, but the information they have about Mother’s Day origins around the world is very interesting and, with the little research I’ve done, seems solid. Click here to read it.

I hope you get some time today to reflect on the ways you mother the people and things in your life, and how they satisfy you in return. I truly wish you a very happy Mother’s Day, even if you’re a guy or you don’t get a card or flowers or go out to brunch because you haven’t birthed something. Mothering and nurturing should never be limited to the womb.

The Claire Poop Club

Nothing says “I love you” like being pooped on by your grandkid. I’m now an official member of the Claire Poop Club, a exclusive club of people who’ve been pooped on while holding and playing with the baby. They don’t make diapers strong enough for what comes out of that kid’s bum sometimes, especially now that she’s eating prunes and green beans and sweet potatoes.

It happened Tuesday just as we were about to leave Cassie’s house and go to Carlene’s for dinner. I stood up, handed over baby Claire to her mother, and Cassie said, “What’s that?” I looked down and saw a 3- by 1/2-inch rectangular yellow stain on my (white, of course) pant leg, the same thigh Claire had been bouncing on the last 15 minutes.

“It’s poop!” I said proudly.

Claire has peed and spit up on most of her family members, but up until then she’s only pooped on her daddy.

I know better than to wear white when I’m visiting Claire, but earlier I’d nicked my knee shaving and got dressed before the wound cauterized so I figured nothing the baby could do would be any worse. Poop, blood, spit up, pee – that’s why God invented Clorox.

We got to Carlene’s and Claire wasn’t done with Grammy Lynn. While Cassie ate her dinner, I held Claire and fed her a rice/bananas/apricots concoction straight up out of the jar. She must have gotten an itch on her nose because before I had a chance to wipe up the excess around her mouth, she leaned in and wiped her face all over my shirt. Then she gave me a big old grin, showing off her two little pearly whites sitting on her lower gums, and I laughed. Never mind the paper towel, I told Carlene. The food was ground into my shirt and Claire’s face was clean.

On to the floor to play. Claire likes things that tie – shoes, belts, the bottoms of Capri pants. She had me untied faster than my junior prom date. Before I could stand up, I had to tie my clothes back up so they wouldn’t fall down. She drooled on my knees, chewed my shoes, and patted my face and said “bah bah bah,” which I interpret as “I love you Grammy. You’re the coolest grandma ever.”

It was Claire’s smile, her drool, her puke and her poo that I meditated on as I strapped on my wrist splints this morning and worked through some nauseating arthritis pain (for the lowdown on my “condition,” here are the blogs: Bad Wrists and A Car Wreck and My Lunates Are Dying). I had held Claire’s 17-pound, 7-month old wiggly body too long and I was paying the price. I don’t have that balance down yet, that place of holding Claire and looking on as other people hold Claire because I shouldn’t any longer. When I’m with her, I want to hold her and kiss her neck and whisper secrets in her ear. It’s like breathing and eating. If I can’t hold her I will die. And so I must make some decisions or compromises.

Here’s my dilemma. I’m 44 years old and feel stuffed in a box when I wear my wrist splints. I can have two surgeries that will fuse my wrists stiff like a mannequin and will take me months to recover, all the while I can’t hold Claire even for a few moments. In those months, she’ll get older, less wiggly, although heavier. Do I sacrifice the time now or wait? A few days in my splints, some Advil, and my wrists are back to “normal,” at least Lynn normal. The surgery is permanent. Fused, unbendable wrists. I’ll still have arthritis and tendonitis in my elbows…..ERGH! Back and forth and back and forth my thoughts go.

In a perfect world….

Deep breath, Lynn. Time to go wash my pants. Time to apply a little Clorox to the stain and think about how Claire banged a wooden spoon on the counter and laughed as she secretly pooped out her diaper and on to my pants. What’s the right thing to do? I don’t know right now. But thanks for letting me say it out loud here.

 

A Story Of A Man In Women's Clothing In My Bathroom

It’s raining pollen, kicked up by the mower the boy next door is running over his lawn. Tiny yellow flecks are resting on my computer, my apple, the dogs and my glasses, settling in my eyes and up my nose. The “Tommy” soundtrack’s been running through my head all afternoon while I vacuumed behind the stove, washed down the back of a neglected counter, threw mulch on the gardens and walkway, and now as I sit watching pollen drift and stick, drift and stick.

I should be writing. I should wash the car, too. Instead, I want to share a weird story with you that I woke up thinking about this morning. Hopefully by telling it, I won't think about it anymore.

The first summer I owned my antique store, back in 2002, a man came in looking for vintage clothing. He was dressed in a suit, it was around noon, and my dad was eating lunch in his shop in the back. I told him we didn’t have much in the way of men’s period clothing or jewelry and he said that was OK, he was looking for women’s items. Oh, I said, will this be a gift? He said no, that he was going to a “party,” wink wink. An “adult” costume party.

It was like standing in the middle of a back issue of Penthouse Forum. I didn’t press him for details, although I asked him what he was looking for specifically.

A delicate ladies shirt or jacket, he said. I sized up his shoulders and it looked like he could fit in some of the items I had, so I showed him a pink feathery waist-length opened jacket and a teal blouse with eyelet closures in the front. Perfect, he said, and he asked if he could try them on.

I was dying of laughter inside, wondering what my dad would think if he saw this guy bringing women’s clothing into the bathroom. I told the man to give me a second to see where my dad was. The man looked a little nervous, but I assured him I could keep my dad busy. I wasn’t going to lose a customer just because he wanted to dress like a woman!

With the coast clear, the man went into the bathroom and tried on the clothes. He peeked his head out the door and asked if I minded rendering an opinion. Sure, I said. No problem. I walked over to the door, looked in, and there he was, buck naked in my bathroom wearing only the pink jacket and checking himself out in the mirror. He asked me, with a serious look on his face, “Does this look alright?”

I clenched my toes to keep from laughing (or looking down). He turned around and checked out the back in the mirror. I admit I looked down.

“Why don’t you try the teal blouse,” I suggested. “Maybe you’ll like that one better.”

OK, he said, and I shut the door.

I wasn’t sure if he was serious or if he was just some flasher who got off shocking antique store owners by wearing women’s clothing in their bathroom, but that seemed preposterous since I had the upper hand. He was naked in my store, and my dad and my .22 were in the back room. This guy really did have a party to go to.

So I went back to the rack and picked out a few other tops I thought would look good on him. He  appreciated the effort, and found one he liked – a white lacy high-neck number that a school teacher would have worn with a long black skirt, only he didn’t want the skirt.

Just when I didn’t think things could get more weird, he asked me (while still naked in my bathroom), “Do you have any jewelry that would, you know, fit around ‘it’?” Apparently they dressed their Johnsons and hoo-haas for the party, too. Alrighty then.

I wasn’t about to take out the measuring tape, but at quick glance I could tell a small bracelet might actually work, so I told him to give me a minute and I’d go see what I had. I found a thick metal clasp bracelet with a tiny sword dangling from a chain that I thought might work. Strangely enough it did. Fit him like a glove. Its previous owner was surely rolling in her grave.

The man got dressed and met me at the counter. My dad emerged from the back and greeted the man. “Found something for your girlfriend?” Dad asked. The man turned several shades of red (funny he didn’t blush when he was showing off his bejeweled bishop in the bathroom) and I said yes, he found just the right things. “Well good,” said my dad, and he went back to his shop.

The man thanked me for my discretion and I told him he could come back anytime. And he did, sometime around Halloween, and he bought some dangling earrings and a black fur cape. I never saw him again, though, and I sold the store in 2006.

I sometimes wonder about those parties. Maybe that’s what was in my subconscious this morning that woke me up. I figured a whole lot of sex was going on, but that’s not what intrigues me. It’s actually the aesthetics. What was everyone wearing? Did every man dress up his jimmy, every woman her v-jay? I feel so naïve when I think about this! Naïve and amused.

Ah, the mower is off. The pollen is everywhere and I have to sneeze again. Thanks for listening and letting me share my weird tale of the jewelry sporting, party-going customer. Aren't you glad you read all the way to the end? LOL I'll probably think about it still from time to time, but at least I'm not the only one who knows it now, lucky you. I can only imagine what your thoughts are. Share!