"Overdone and Undercooked" Newspaper Columns©

“Your know how Dad loved that little blue-green pine tree.  Shaped like a Christmas tree at the end of the driveway.”  I said to Paige, who was lying on the couch, reading a textbook.  “He would always run his hand through it to smell the pine.  You know, we, I mean, I can, we can…

Paige sat up.  She slammed the textbook shut.  She turned to look at me, wearing a big grin on her face.  We didn’t have to say a thing.

We gathered up our outdoor clothes: Rain jacket, rubber boots, grabbed gloves, and headed out to the barn to find an ax.

We did find it with all the other tools that were stuck-fast in the wall.  “Whoa, Mom, way to get your anger out!” exclaimed Paige, when she saw all the tools stuck in the wall.

We rummaged through the tools and found rope, ax, a long saw with handles on both ends and a tarp.  We started down the driveway loaded with gear.

“Wow.  It is way bigger than I remember,” I said.  ‘And wide,” Paige said.  It was tall maybe 6 feet  9 inches (I have no idea really) I had never really looked at it this close before.  I could not quite get my fingers to touch around the width of the trunk.

Tools and I have an understanding. I don’t want to be a handyman. The reason I bring this up is that Paige just handed me the ax.  I had no more held an ax than used an ax.  And the ax was heavy!

But I had enough antagonism for both of us!!  My first try and the ax stuck in the tree.  Paige grabbed it and I grabbed her waist and we pulled.  The ax stayed.

We fell.  Paige on top of me and whacked me in the chin with her head.  We could not stop laughing. Now we have dirt on our face and in our hair and it is lightly snowing.

Yay! A white Christmas, maybe.  I was doubled over with cramps from laughing so hard.

“Screw the ax! Let’s try that saw.” I said. With the ax still in the tree we grabbed the two handles saw.

 

My daughter Paige is home from College for Christmas.  Our first new life:  Christmas without a father, without a husband.  I feel as if my heart has a hole in it so embarrassed that Paige’s father was no longer family.

After decades of Christmas day’s together.  I love all the holidays, but Christmas is the only day everyone is confined in the house because they want to be.  The warm feel and familiarity of tradition.  Same ornaments, same special breakfast, same holiday movie.

The same mess in the clean house of ribbons, wrapping paper, empty boxes scattered around and under the tree.  The family is all safe, warm, full, and best of all…together.

This Christmas Paige and I are both living on Financial Aid.

Together we decided it is best to have No Presents and No Christmas tree.

Studying law in college, Paige is inundated with studies and homework no time for Christmas anyway, she said.

Paige and I sat silently in the living room on this cold, bitter Christmas Eve Day.  My gray mood had turned black.  No Tree.  No Presents. No  Christmas. I shook my head.  I did not know what to do.

And then I had an Idea!

“Goodbye.”

I left the coffee shop just shaking.  Now I felt tired, aching tired, so deeply tired it was hard to find enough oxygen to lean against the coffee shop outside wall.

Biting my lip and clenching my fists at Cecilia.

Congratulation Cecilia.  Ta-da! In less than 10 minutes you have made me feel small and invisible. Was it not enough that Nick threw my life away?

Now my supposed best friend? Kicked dirt in my face.  I had never seen the green on her face before.  I always congratulated her or praised her but now looking back when I would be excited there never was a nice response.

Except for just a change of subject.  Whenever a suggestion or something you thought was nice. She would shrug her shoulders, tilt her head and say, “Nah.”

Worst then betrayal is abandonment.  You never forget the pain. You never loose sight of why? You never really trust or forgive again.  It changes you in a way no other emotion can.

Losing your innocence your naivety your desire to believe. It turns it all into dust.

No more solid ground.

Tiny little specks of what once was is now stuck in your hair, your mouth, your nose.  You never breathe the same; aways something caught in your throat…it is the leftover.

The leftover of love that has died.

An unseemingly and untimely death to only you as the other players watch, laugh, smirk, at your ignorance.  Smug in their knowledge of deceit they hang around you like shadows.

Pop up unexpected and stay as long as they want.

And then gone again only to leave you cold, alone, and shaken.

Abandonment is the cruelest thing you can do to another human being.

I never saw Cecilia again.

 

“I am the same age as you are.  Are you ready to go into a senior citizen home?  You have a trust fund Cecilia. Are you telling me that you will not help me financially to save the house?  The house is all I got.  What part of I have no education and bad credit are you not hearing?  Where am I going to live?  I have to save the house just to survive in the coming years.”

I can hear the hysteria in my voice, as I spread my hands and arms away from my body, with furrow brow. I might add.  Cecilia didn’t react.  Silence betwen us. My face is hot and my ears are pounding as my blood pressure rises.

With a deep breath. Gently I say, “You know I will pay you back after the house sells.”

“It is causing you so much stress Jillie just dump it and move on with your life.” She said boorishly.

I raise my head in disbelief. ”Cecilia is this your way of saying your not going to help me?”  Great.  Just great. Talking to her was like spitting in the ocean.  My words meant nothing to her, as I guess our friendship, didn’t either. I know if it was reversed I would help my friend in need and talk not just brush me off.

“It is what it is.” She said looking down at her tea and dunking and redunking her tea bag over and over until I stopped her.  I leaned back in my sit and shook my head.  “So, now I understand when I told you Nick had left. And I don’t even know, if you know that you smiled, when I said the attorney is leaving.  Who smiles at someone’s pain?

“I never realized before Cecilia how jealous you were of me?  But I do now.  I also know that you are a Fairweather friend.”

She refused to look at me.

My anger was spreading like cheat grass.

Cecilia was cheapter than table salt.

I forced myself to calm down.  I will put my latest worries, the latest fires, the latest threats, and scares into my Worrry Box.

The first thought that came into my head after I hung up with the Attorney was my long time friend Cecilia.  I texted her and asked if she would  meet me for coffee.

I had not seen Cecilia since that fateful day where I threw up our lunch in the car.  It took me months to call her and even then,  I couldn’t stop crying.  Cecilia is a Trust Fund Baby.  Surely, she would have some dollars to spare to help and old friend, right?  I mean we have been buddies since Junior High School.  I just need enough money to keep my attorney  and get their deed of trust off the house.

Cecilia sat at a small round table with two chairs when I approached her, she shouted. “Hey look who’s back!” Her tone and smile gave me a small eagerness that all would be right.  It’s ok hun” she said  as she patted my hand.  You do look like hell though.” Cecilia was in her Zumba class outfit green nd yellow dye-tied looking tights and a zipped black jacket.  Her bright red hair tied up in a topknot.

“I hope I didn’t take you from class.”  “Oh, no I have to leave soon though.”  “I see you got tea aready I’ll get something in a minute.” I said. ‘I’m so embarrassed but I need to talk to you.  The Attorney has put a lein on the property and is leaving me for lack of payment.”

A smile formed on Cecilia lips.  I almost thing she didn’t even realize it.  I kept talking and ignore it. “The attorney is leaving me for lack of payment.  I feel defeated, alone, and scared out of my wits.  And to top it off I can’t stop crying I’m beginning to feel lost.  Lost and that I will lose everything including my home, money and my dignity.  Trial is only 4 months away.  I’m broke.  I can’t get another attorney and if i go to trial…

Cecilia interrupted.  “Just get rid of the house.”  “You mean foreclosure”. I said. “Yes. Everybody is doing it , so what.”  I leaned in close.  ”So what? You do recall that I have no education and now I also have very bad credit. Where am I going to go live. I hastened to say.

‘Oh, please there are plenty of senior citzen homes. She cackled, too heartily.

In November, I was awarded by the Court my House.

The first thing the Attorney said was, ”Why do you want it?”

I told her because it is two acres of land and the recession will be over one of these days.

“Well, you realize you have sole responsibility for the Mortgage, Taxes, Utilities, etc.  so in lieu of you getting the house you will receive no Alimony.”

And then she left another bombshell in December.

“Because you are behind in paying your Attorney fees, we are going to bring an end to your case.  We are also putting a Deed of Trust on your property.”

“What?”  I said on the phone to her.  “And in case you don’t know what that is, we basically own your house until you pay us.”

“Now?”  Are you leaving me this month?

“Yes, we are pulling out this month.”

“But….but you can’t.  I have no one to defend me if we end up in Trial this coming March.”

“Not our problem.  We will send you a formal letter of withdrawal.” She hung up.

I had already realized in these last nine months that Court is a he-says, she- says, and no one is going to win.

Judges and Police don’t know you from Adam.

 

Mrs. Mortimer then told us our first assignment.  “Teach the class something you know.  The students (your peers) will individually Grade your overall achievement.”

The only thing I could think of was making carrot juice with my Juicer.  I dragged my Juicer to school. It was heavy and awkard. And the acoustics engineered for high quality made it a nitemare. And since we were in a huge auditorium with rows of seating I knew immeadiatly I brought a wrong thing to bring to school.

It was so LOUD in the auditorium .  No one could hear me.  The screaming juicer  got every one laughing.

Once the Juicer of carrot juice was full a student voluntered to help me pass the juice around to my classmates.  The reviews: Where half the class laughing.  Another half passing around the juice.  And others were saying the juice was good.  But everyone agreed it was too LOUD to hear you.  Others said it was a “Good Presentation.”

However, there were two student presentation’s that I will never forget.

One was an Old Hippie.  She brought down the screen on the stage.  She told us that she was a Ghost Hunter.  Her slides were dark and scary.  Her audio of her encounters with Ghosts made us all feel “Someone is walking over my grave”

The other was a quiet woman probably in her 40’s who came up onto the stage with nothing.

She was the last speaker of the day.  She started to talk about Parrots.

Suddenly she stops talking and starts to open her closed jacket.  And inside on her shoulder was her Parrot!!  It had sat on her shoulder inside her jacket during all the presentations.

She said the Parrot was ill.  She had been pulling out it’s feathers.  She explained why and the Parrot never spoke and did not leave her shoulder.  She got massive applause from all the other students!!   I was enjoying school and reqretted so much that I had never attended before.

When I was young and lived with my parents my mother used to tell me I was just a renter.  My father used to tell me women just get married so why waste and education on a housewife.

Was that their thinking or societies in the 1960’s.

INTRO TO PUBLIC SPEAKING-COLLEGE STRATEGIES-ELEMENT OF ARITHMETIC

The Art of Public Speaking

The Speech class held in a large theatre stadium with a full-size stage at the front.  I entered to see sitting students spread out among the comfortable theater chairs.  Barely looking over the top of the microphone on stage our teacher introduced herself as Mrs. Mortimore.  She read from the Curriculum (with an actress’ voice) that was handed to us as we entered the room.

When asked a question she would put her palms together with fingers of both hands spread and fingertips touching,  stare at you with purse lips untill finally she would answer.

In Speech there were so many students that Mrs. Mortimor divided us up into groups.  Our first day we formed a circle on stage as we all held hands—one by one introducing ourselves with just our first name that we were to shout out!  Then back to are seats to hear her lecture.

“Trust is established through congruence-that perfect alignment between what is being said and the body language that accompanies it.  If a speaker’s gestures are not in full agreement with the spoken words, the audience consciously or subconsciously perceives duplicity, uncertainty, or (at the very least) internal conflict.”

Later we sat back in our circle on the stage.  We were to tell a small story about ourselves.  I told the story of my crazy dog – a Jack Russel Terrier who loved to run.  We called him Biscuit who liked to trek through our field.  One day the Dog Catcher showed up.  We were outside the house and watched as the Dog Catcher  chased and yelled and ole Biscuit started barking and running faster.

Finally, the out of breath dog catcher hollered up to us at the house.  ”Do you own this dog?”  We said, “No.”  Everyone laughed and it felt good.  The last thing I wanted to talk about was the fact my life was falling apart.”

Mrs. Mortimor then told us our first assignment.   Teach the class something you know.

 

INTRO TO PUBLIC SPEAKING-COLLEGE STRATEGIES-ELEMENTS OF ARITHMETIC

My first day of Math class I arrived to see all the students lined up against the wall.   “What’s happening?” I asked a student.   She looked like she still belonged in Junior High in her pink shorts, pink tank top and pink flip flops.  Except that both her ear lobes stretched and adorned with silver tunnels that let me see right through her ear.

“The door to the classroom is locked.”  She said and popped her gum.  I nodded. Thanks, and just tried to glance away from her ears.

Being a Community college, everyone was different ages.  That was comforting I guess, except for the fact I hated being so close to 60 and feeling like I had lost my grip on my life.  I waited for the teacher, with everyone else leaning against the wall.

When she approached, I thought she was just another pretty student.  She looked like a ballet dancer walking towards us with such light quick steps.  Her dark hair and smooth complexion, beauty and brains I thought. Later she told the class she was from India.

The room had round tables with 4 chairs. Everyone just found a seat an sat down. The teacher told us to introduce ourselves to each other and to call her Ms. Helena. It wasn’t long before my favorite co-student at the table was Marcus, he was funny and as bad at Math as me.

Our Teacher Ms. Helena was delightful.  All enthusiasm about Math.  As school progressed it was apparent to the teacher that I needed the bare basic:

Multiplication and Fractions.

 

Oh gawd, this was going to be Hell.  School and I have never had a good history.  But me and math had even a worst relationship.  It’s funny because as an adult I escaped anything that had to do with math.  I don’t know how many people, knew how frozen  I would become trying to figure out math.

One slight problem I could not start cooking in the kitchen until  I passed Math! and Speech by the end of the quarter.  Great.  More pressure.  That is all I needed.

Except for one thing the Financial aid money that will let me survive the rest of this year.

Oh boy.  When I was 16 in 1969 my mother had made all my clothes –typical of the day.  I wanted her to stop and she said if I wanted store bought clothes then get a job.  So, I did at K-mart.

I worked inside a long circular enclosed area that held fancy candy.  I was a chocoholic, so i did find a few that were running loose and I had to knock them over and eat them.  I had only been there three months and was called into the upstairs office.

They told me.  I was Fired.  Why?  I kinda knew it had to be few fancy chocolates missing.  But NO, that wasn’t it at all.  They said I had been stealing money.

Of course I had not stolen any money, but what I didn’t tell them was that I did not know how to count change!

Huge embarrassment at 16.

The beginning in my life full of embarrassment.