EVERYDAY HOUSEWIFE IN SEARCH OF...

 In my recent scurrying around, I was thinking to myself "The Life of the Everyday Housewife." I came home and looked it up and found out it was sung by my Glen Campbell titled "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife." 1968. Now the exception and not the norm. My first blog starred Glen Campbell, my first heart throb. August 2013.Glen Campbell and "Wichita Lineman."  

I have been remiss at any regular blogging which started with the Pandemic but at one time I was fairly consistent. I stand at 198 blogs but as any good writer will admit, I have repeated and rearranged when needed. And six in that number are titled with ideas but not yet fully fleshed out.  Obviously, there have been postings at random. If you are reading this, thank you, thank you for reading and your time. Not as one locally famous newspaper columnist told me, "Thank you for your readership (dahling)" walking away from our conversation.

With the chill in the air the last few days, my housewife industry has been restored. Yesterday, I swept and then mopped the deck with an official deck scrubber. Google said OxiClean worked and it did. The deck had not been officially cleaned since before the Pandemic. I moved everything on the deck, front to back or side to side to get the job done. I washed two windows and hosed down the chairs and tables and cleaned the grill.  And unwittingly gave the dog a gleefully wet playtime. 

I had to walk down the deck stairs and unwind the back yard hose but the little metal sprinkler wouldn't come off of the end and I had to turn the water on and walk the hose with the sprinkler going, back up the stairs. Very small sprinkler head. I held the little sprinkler up to rinse. But I would slide it under the railing when not in use which sprinkled whatever was under the deck like a dog, running back and forth and then back and forth through a batch of heaped old leaves. There was my hour and half of rigorous work. New heart studies are all about how many hours of sleep and cholesterol and blood pressure. I check all the boxes but good exercise. 

I immediately came in and took two Tylenol which is  my miracle drug of choice. I cross-stitched for a couple of hours and then putzed in my office while doing some laundry. Deathtaxeslaundry. 

The question of the day. What's for supper? As my mother always said, I could go without but there are always three sets of eyes looking at me, wondering." Leftover cornbread sent me down the cornbread dressing route complete with sauteed chopped onions, bell pepper, and yellow squash. Served with cranberry relish. We sat down to eat and I exclaimed, "This is our meat free meal for the week." But K. reminded me we had already had our meatless meal the night before. Baked sweet potato, turnip greens and cornbread. 

Another cool morning. I knew it was supposed to be warmer so I better catch cool while I can. I put on my work clothes and headed out to detail my car which is parked in the driveway while the convertible eeks out the one clear spot in the garage. I had my daily wasp encounter when I opened the garage door. (Carry Epi-Pen for such encounters.) Packed my bucket with spray on glass cleaner, Tire Shield, Armor All Car Cleaner, paper towels and Dawn dish soap. Brillant idea. I used my new O'Cedar wring and twist cloth mop to wash the car. 

I walked around the side of the house to the snake pit. There has never been a sighting. Still, I would never go around to turn the front yard hose on again. I say snake pit because of all the rocks around the faucet. I attached the multipurpose nozzle that will turn off/on in different spray patterns. I finished the car and with a little pride noticed how little water I had used. Not even enough to make it to the end of the driveway. I left the hose on the side yard ready to water, not returning back to the snakepit. 

Whew! Worked up a thirst for a coke and two glasses of water. Took a shower. Sat down to call a friend and cool off. Made a grocery list for the holiday weekend. Hamburger meal. Steak dinner. Chicken and Mango Pasta Salad. Street Corn Dip. Stood up and back to the Tylenol. Out the door.

Gas is ten cents lower. Just give it thirty six hours. Pull up next to pump. Big, noisy truck pulls right in behind me. He will never get around me. I have a whole tank to pump. He leaves his truck RUNNING.  There is a skull sticker printed like an American flag on his front grill. Poor old Glory. 

Cleaners. Finally to the grocery store. Wearing my new Levi's Denim Bermuda shorts. Nice and long but above my knees. Cute shirt. Or so you think until you see your reflection in the opening store doors. Maybe there is a reason I don't go out in shorts. Oh well. Nothing can dim this productive day.

I can never find Cojita cheese in Kroger. I'll have to look elsewhere. Nice shopping trip. Two hundred dollars. Blue Bell was two dollars off. Even bought Brand Name chips. But no meat. Basics. Trash bags. Toilet paper - my Pandemic supply is almost zilch. Dishwasher pods. Cabbage. Grapes. Lemons. Limes. Apples. Mushrooms. Peanut crackers. Milk. Eggs. Butter. Dot's Pretzels. Etc. Etc.

Now I remember why I don't frequent this location. One line is open with about seven people waiting. I politely offer to help bag if she will send my things on down the line but Ms. Cheerful gladly bags almost everything herself. She is not very fast. 

Plan of action. Something I never do but I have ice cream and milk and eggs. I start the car with the air going (horn honks) and carefully put the cold items in the front floorboard and the rest on the back seat next to the dry cleaning. Because there is a new print which takes up most of the back of the car until K. takes it into work. Debate leaving my cart but cave into peer pressure. Head for home.

Quickly bring in cold items for the outdoor fridge. Head for the kitchen for the rest. Start to put up inside groceries and realize No Toilet Paper. About that time, feel the give of a box underneath my foot. Oh yea. My box of Little Debbie Birthday Cakes Ten Individual Cakes. Individual is very important. Not two packaged together. But really when have I stopped at one? I reach for sweets in the stress of life. Smushed little white cakes with sprinkles. Well, the TP is like two and half gallons of gas.

Grab a cold Coke Vanilla Coffee, cheaper than Starbucks and head out the door in afternoon traffic. What are the chances it will still be on my cart. None. And due to staffing issues, there is no one at the info desk. I walk back to my car empty handed. Four miles back home. Eight miles total trip. Still less than twenty miles per gallon. Start thinking about a song Lives of the Everyday Housewife. 

Come home. Think about a blog. Forget about fixing supper because I will come up with something. 

Look up song. The song is very dated and basically, the dreams of long ago compared with the present. I am pretty much an everyday house wife but I don't have time to sit around and dream. Campbell sings "She gave up the good life for me." 

Here comes the great hunter from another day at the office. First words to me are "When did the hose  break?"  No, I left it in the yard for watering plants. Well, the hose broke at a weak kink and water has been pouring down the yard, onto the street. All the way to the next curb inlet which is past two houses. I really think it must have happened recently. I would have noticed it when I was going back and forth to the grocery store. K. fixed supper tonight. We had meat.

"She looks in the mirror and stares at the wrinkles that weren't there yesterday. Thinks of the young man that she almost married. What would he think if he saw her this way?

"She picks up her apron in little girl fashion as something comes into her mind. Slowly starts dancing remembering her girlhood and all of the boys she had waiting in line.

"Such are the dreams of the everyday housewife you see anywhere anytime of the day.

"An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me.

The photograph album she takes from the closet, and slowly turns the page.

She closes her eyes and touches her house dress that suddenly disappears and just for a moment she's wearing the gown that broke all their minds back so many years.

An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me."

"GUNTER, WHERE'S MY PURSE"

 

Nellie Catherine 

I celebrate today, June 1, as a remembrance of my Grandmama. She was a head of her time and one of a kind. 

                                                                  ***

At 3 a.m. in the morning, everyone was sleeping soundly.  My Grandmama and Pa were visiting, sleeping in the middle room of my parents' house, the guest room.  Obviously not everyone was sleeping soundly.  Without even a whisper but a blood curdling scream saved only for life-threatening moments, Grandmama sat up in bed in the pitch dark night, screaming, "GUNTER, WHERE'S MY PURSE???"  All the lights flew on, the commotion putting the rest of the house in "danger" mode, sending everyone else scurrying to a fallout shelter.  It is funny now but to live it was another matter.  Grandmama could be kind and gentle but she could also flip a switch that brought every other activity to a halt or sleeping neighborhoods to attention.  The purse was found.  She always had a thing about her beautiful bags.  Somehow, I may have inherited both of these qualities.

 

Sometimes I think my lot in life is unpacking boxes.  Boxes from remodeling or boxes moved to the garage for temporary safe keeping.  Ah, the garage.  The glorious repository of all things without quick solutions.  Easy out.  Just open the kitchen door and pitch.  Maybe a professional organizer is in my future.

 

But good things do come in forgotten boxes.  I recently found the box holding souvenirs I have collected from my grandmother's life.  This is not a huge collection because she was the sort of person who had just what she needed and little excess except for dinnerware and family correspondence.  The original place for everything.

 

NRE (1909-2003) started out with a holler, on a hot, summer day in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, after the doctor had asked her father whose life to save, the mother's or the baby's.  The delivery left small scars on her little head.  She was quickly wrapped and placed on a table, unattended, while the doctor and his helper labored to save her mother.  Cassie was spared but would never have any more babies.  At some point, as the story has been told for years, the neglected baby made herself known with a big cry.  And thus, she continued for her ninety-three years, feisty and much loved from day one.

 

We shared a close relationship and could talk about almost anything.   Others insisted I was her favorite but I had no control in being the first grandchild born and sharing her middle name.  When I was fifteen, she shocked me for the first time.  We were walking in a dwindling downtown area.  One store offered nothing but bare mannequins posed for the empty streets.  Grandmama whispered to me, "Somebody really told her where to stick it."  I never saw her in the same way again.

 

Before I left for college, I drove to visit my grandparents.  She loved to shop but always with a purpose in mind.  Always the best and always her brand.  Going out required her to go upstairs to put on her rings, grab her purse and get her credit card (which she paid in full each month).  We went to the local boutique where my mother had bought her wedding dress years earlier.  Grandmama said yes to three dresses for my college wardrobe.   Her generosity was famous.

 

She also shared a story about her first few days in college.  Her beauty was well-known and preceded her to school.  Upon her arrival, the captain of the football team made her acquaintance and offered her any and everything on campus, with one proposition.  Again, I was shocked.  But this was her warning to me about the dangers lurking in college.

 

Family genealogy was a natural talent.  Every introduction included "your people" and her ability to know the chain of relations of dozens of people and families.  She would have loved computers for genealogy.  Her family was precious to her and she always cherished the life she had had with her parents.   

 

To the penny and with a sharp pencil, she kept up with all of my grandparents' business, from running a hotel to tracking the stock market.  My grandparents' love story began in college.  Once they married, they were equals in life and work.  Her business acumen was well advanced for a woman of her time.  Almost every visit, a large ledger was offered to family members for viewing stock fluctuations, dividends and net worth.  In another era, she could have climbed the corporate ladder.

 

Division among the ranks as to her cooking.  I remember being a child and wondering if my Grandmama cooked.  Didn't they all?  When she was young, her mother cooked.  When newly married, the deli cooked.  Running hotels and raising small children, the kitchen cooked.  And my Pa cooked.  But she cooked potato salad.  Pot roast.  Meatloaf.  Vegetable soup.  Angelfood cake.  Applesauce salad.  Divinity and fruitcake cookies.  Squash casserole.  Turnips.  Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie.  Popcorn.  Fritos.  Dr. Pepper.  Nobody starved.

  

Every morning of her life, she ate a banana, half a grapefruit, a bowl of Grape Nuts, orange juice and coffee.  Must have been the right combination.  She saw her doctors when necessary or for check-ups.  The only time she was hospitalized was when her two children were born.  When she died, she had never had any surgery or broken bones and was taking one or two prescriptions.  

 

You can be feisty and independent all of your life.  The same will that got you off the table on day one can carry you almost to the end.   With good health, luck and care, you can grow old and wise.   But being feisty or stubborn will not prevent the spider webs of dementia from running through your mind.

 

Stubbornness will make you say you don’t need help.   You don’t care if you lay at the bottom of the stairs dead for days.   You don’t need any medicine at all.  You can’t turn the dining room into a downstairs bedroom.   You can lie in your gown tail in bed all week.  You will fight desperately, verbally, physically, and emotionally to not go to a nursing home.

 

Dementia makes you call the police if your caregiver aggravates you.  You throw books at people you care about.   You scream and cry to get attention.  You lose the battle and enter a nursing home.  You tell strangers you don’t have on underwear.   You call your daughter Mama.   You don’t remember being married.   You think your parents are still living.   You deny your ninety-three years.

 

The last years of a very old person’s life are often not the true picture of that person.  The wonderful people who took care of her didn't know who she really was.  They did not see the beautiful face that broke hearts, or the fun loving, young mother and wife.  They did not see the countless hours she spent serving at the Red Cross in WWII.  Or the years running a hotel or helping at church.  Her sturdy shoes and turtlenecks belied the once stunning figure, impeccably dressed.  They did not know she helped her father and mother-in-law when they were sick and dying.  Or that Grandmama was sitting next to her mother when she died suddenly, unexpectedly.

 

She was the oldest person I have ever known.  I always wanted to ask her what it was like to be so close to heaven.  Burt's grandfather had just died and I needed to pack.  But before leaving, I felt like making the trip to see Grandmama.  The difference in a week was dramatic.  She had never been this way before.  She was leaning over in her wheelchair.  It was hard for her to talk so I did all the talking.  We held hands the whole time.  She would squeeze my hands and look at me.  I know she knew me.  I poured my heart out to her about how much she was loved,  my admiration of her.  What a wonderful life she had lived.  I talked about all of her family waiting in heaven.  As much as I would miss her, I gave her permission to let go.  Four days later, I rushed from a funeral in another state to be by her side but she left before I could get there.  

 

When she was born, her father had smallpox and was quarantined in a shed.  He was allowed to come to the glass window and peer in at his new baby.   Love at first sight.  Grandmama always had a wealth of love and attention.   And she returned the same.