Super wife or at Least I Tried

In the summer of 1965, our house in Nassau Bay was finished and we prepared to leave 7307 Carew in Sharpstown and neighbors that had become family. Ken was working at the Manned Spacecraft Center and finishing up his doctorate at Rice University so I had been in charge of supervising the construction. This involved months of loading our toddler son into the car and winding our way across town. At that time Loop 610 was only in the planning. All of this meant we had little time to socialize with the community around NASA. Fortunately our small Sharpstown house sold quickly and we were at last residing across the street from the MSC. I, at age 25, was figuring out window curtains and my role in the new community.
It would be generous to say I was reluctant to fill the role of a rising executive’s wife. Maybe reluctant isn’t’ the right word…clueless is more like it. My mother knew more about this than I did and I just really wasn’t interested enough to pay attention growing up. I was several years younger than most of the wives of Ken’s employees but tried to keep up. I hated the “division wives luncheons” but felt I should go as Ken was in management. I hired a sitter, donned the panty hose, hat and gloves, gritted my teeth and showed up smiling. I was trying.
The week after we moved in Ken’s office group of employees got together to give us a housewarming on short notice. I panicked and knocked myself out ironing curtains and unpacking between washing diapers and scraping mac and cheese off the floor. I was just relieved I didn’t have to cook. My idea of getting ready for a party at the time was to make sure the bathroom was clean with plenty of toilet paper and somewhere there was ice for sodas and beer.
Fortunately the group was prepared and brought food, drinks, ice and paper plates and napkins. Our breakfast table was covered with newspaper and a huge tray of unpeeled boiled shrimp was laid in the middle. I was dismayed; I had never seen shrimp served with the heads and shells on. I had no idea what to do with them. After a demonstration, I squeamishly pulled the head off a shrimp and then the shell. I thought the whole thing disgusting but didn’t want to appear ungrateful so I just removed myself and became very busy looking after our 20 month old. The beer flowed, the shrimp disappeared. Everyone had a great time and all pitched in with the clean-up. Eventually I got over my shrimp phobia (living on the Bay did I have a choice?) and can now clean and cook them with finesse.
A couple of years and two kids in diapers later, I agreed to Ken’s wish to host the office Christmas party at our house and waded in with both feet. I loved decorating the house for Christmas and spent hours after the kids were asleep creating ornaments and decorations and looked forward to sharing all of it. But the menu was pure agony. Food prep was not and never has been my thing. Like my mom, I can do it but am just not that into it. I finally settled on some kind of Mexican food. The appetizer was the forever Lipton onion soup dip and chips, the only one I knew how to make. I left Ken to get the drinks iced down and prepared chicken enchiladas in baking dishes and a great big salad with pralines for dessert. I so wanted things to look like I knew what I was doing among these more experienced guests.
Guests arrived, drinks served and I popped the enchiladas in the oven while tossing the salad. All was going pretty well until about twenty minutes into the 30 minute baking time when smoke started rising from the oven activating the smoke alarm. I opened the oven door and flames were rising from the floor of the oven where the enchiladas had spilled over. I grabbed the dishes and ran for the baking soda to douse the flames. Ken opened the windows and turned on the exhaust. On checking the enchiladas, they seemed done enough and I announced dinner was ready. All was well and the party went on without another glitch and the kids stayed asleep.
The next year once again I bravely invited the office back for Christmas. We finally had a table in the dining room, my grandmother’s, a buffet (my aunt) and a sofa from my aunt and uncle in the living room so I decided to use real china and go a little more formal with a simpler menu that could be prepared in advance. I borrowed my mother’s silver chafing dish and polished silver trays for small sandwiches. The silver chafing dish sat on a silver tray on the breakfast table with a hot dip and chips underneath. As the doorbell rang with the arrival of the first guests, I lit the sterno under the chafing dish and removed the lid. Soon people went about helping themselves to dip and chips. I went on to talk with guests when I heard a shout from the breakfast room. Shit! There was a fire under the chafing dish. Chips were in flames and before I could get the fire out with a wet dish towel, a leg of the chafing dish melted, the bowl tilted and out went the dip. Good grief! Another fire! What were these people going to think and what was I going to tell my mother? Everyone seemed to still have a great time and made jokes about the dip and fire but I was rather traumitized.
By the time the next Christmas rolled around needless to say I was less than enthusiastic about entertaining Ken’s office. However after a year I figured most had forgiven or forgotten and out of guilt and my need to try again to be the “supportive good wife”, invitations went out to his office for a Christmas gathering. The children were older and I was able to really get going on decorating without the fear they were going to eat them or tear the decorations apart. We put a tree up in the den, another in the living room and even a little one in the guest bathroom downstairs. It was Christmas everywhere.
I had been gifted with a punch bowl and cups (by my mother, of course) which I placed on the new Christmas table cloth in the dining room. The platters of food were going there as well so I prepared a pretty centerpiece down the center of the table of greenery, pine cones and candles on a piece of aluminum foil to protect the new table cloth. The table looked lovely. The buffet held plates, napkins and silver ware.
Guests helped themselves, ate well and were relaxing after dinner with coffee and sweets. The kids were in bed and I was relaxing at last on the floor in the den talking with friends. Others were milling around, talking and drinking. Whew! Life was good, coffee hot and good conversations with real adults. But then Ken came rushing in from the kitchen saying “We just had a big problem but it is over. I took care of it and all is fine now.”
He had been standing in the kitchen next to the refrigerator with his back to the open door into the dining room when the friend facing him and the dining room said, “Is the table supposed to be doing that?” Ken turned and saw flames rising from the centerpiece on the table and it wasn’t the candles. He quickly grabbed the fire extinguisher from the utility room and doused the flaming pine cones and greenery.
Amazingly the remaining punch and food survived untouched. The foil under the centerpiece saved the table cloth; the extinguishing foam was easily brushed off later. It was all over before I even knew anything was happening. But right then and there I decided there was a message in all this. Three fires and that was it. The universe was telling me something. I was done hosting big office parties. No more—to hell with being super wife. If Ken’s rise to fame and glory depended on a classy wife entertaining flawlessly with great success, he was doomed.
I would later hostess many parties for friends and family whom I love and cherish but only taking heed that simpler is better and always have a plan B.

Life little amazements

This afternoon I got a call from Harpo, Oprah's company. They wanted to know if they could quote a line from a response I sent them to Oprah's current book choice, Say You are One of Them.

The book is so interesting...set in Africa, written by an African. Sad and touching look into impoverished families who manage to care for and love each other under terrible circumstances while holding onto their faith. It is a story of children as prostitutes providing for their family accepting the responsibility without question until they are able to finally leave.
They asked me to read a line from my response which they recorded for possible use in promoting the book.
Each day I awaken grateful for whatever the day may bring but certainly would never have imagined this happening.

The Kerrville Wine and Music Festival was so much fun and even better this year having some friends come along. The music line-up was the best we have heard in a long, long time. I adored these guys, Los Texmaniacs, mostly from San Antonio...incredible accordian player and great sound altogether. I was up and screaming "more, more, more" when their set ended and they accomodated. I've ordered their CD...definitely conjunto music...geez, did I spell that right? It fed right into my love for Mexico and so reminded me of my father-in-law, born in Mexico, the son of a Methodist missionary. Dad played guitar and sang Celito Lindo and other Latin tunes. We played the Mexican national anthem at his funeral.
The Wine Seminar was great...so full of information. Four Texas wineries were represented on the panel which focused on port wines. A little plate of chocolate tidbits was served to go with each tasting. I had never enjoyed much port wine before but now think we may try serving one as dessert occasionally especially with chocolate.
The Texas hill country is shockingly brown...the severe drought is taking such a toll...trees are dying, creeks have dried up...so when it began to rain during the seminar, everyone was thrilled. As Kerrvivers, we have learned to expect the mud, the flood and the crud when at a Festival weekend so we made sure we were all prepared with ponchos and umbrellas. Unfortunately all that was in the car so I and a friend volunteered during a slight break in the downpour to walk to the car and get them. We both got pretty wet. After the evening concert, I was mostly dried off when we got to the motel but thought I would never get my feet warm.
Of course, a stop at Schoebel's for lunch coming and going to Kerrville was a must. Their buffet is loaded with lots and lots of veggies with awesome fresh green beans. Others went for their pie...especially the chess pie...not just once but over and over. I was good, darn it, only tried one piece and just ate the top off since I've avoiding wheat.
It was a great weekend and a nice celebration of our 51st wedding anniversary. I doubt when we volunteered to help the Festival out 25 or so years ago in exchange for lifetime tickets that they ever dreamed that these old folks would still be coming. Ha! ha! Here we are!

From Robert Genn's newsletter

As a sometimes teacher, I love these quotes:


"The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they're learning something else." (Randy Pausch)

Esoterica: In the conduct of your own affairs, understate and over-prove. Give well-planned, information-rich demos. Let folks make up their own minds and take what they want for themselves. Make your comments short and precise. Tenderness and your own humility count. People are human beings first and artists second. Thankfully, some will pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, no matter what you have to say. And while there will always be those who stay put, a properly conducted workshop can be a place of miracles. "The burned hand teaches best." (J. R. R. Tolkien)

So amiss at writing...

I have been terrible about keeping up this blog since I discovered Facebook. Good grief. Now I get all these ridiculous requests for an egg in someone's basket, to tend their farm, discover my chakra color, send someone in the Mafia a new gun and it goes on and on. I have failed the Myers-Briggs so I guess I am without personality. My writing skills have gone down the tubes trying to text my pre-teen grandaughter on her phone. I try to do better but get seduced to join the American Red Cross or Artists United or some poetry group. And then when I do get to my blog, nobody has commented so I think that no one is reading so why should I bother when there is Facebook where it seems that if I sneeze, I get blessed by many. Hmmmmm......

 

This is a wonderful fun fountain in downtown Colorado Springs. It begins as just a blue dome but on the hour it begins shooting water out like an umbrella and rises to reveal a guy playing a horn. Pretty magical. There is lots of public sculpture around CO Springs. I spent a relaxed week there visiting a friend from high school. We did so many things...a jazz concert at The Secret Garden, the movie "Food, Inc.", a farmer's market with more jazz, a gallery opening at a gallery called Rubbish, a tour of the Garden of the Gods and other spots in Colorado Springs. All this began or followed with some great meals of fresh, fresh organic veggies. And the best pizza I've ever eaten at a place called Rico's. What a great place to live...free music every night of the week somewhere. All this with lots of laughter at memories and other stuff and dining al fresco (something just about impossible here because of the heat, humidity and mosquitoes).

Love this from Jan Phillips' Muse Letter

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say that there are no halos
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

~ Lisel Mueller ~

(Sixty Years of American Poetry, The Academy of American Poets)

Inspiration?

Wheee....I sold another painting which means two things: I have money to travel and I am inspired to keep painting. So off I went to Aaron's super sale on canvases. They are now sitting staring at me in my studio as I write. Writing this blog is a way of procrastinating the inevitable first brush mark on the empty white space. So then may I should think of texturing the canvas before the paint. Virgin canvas is always intimidating and I don't think I am alone in this feeling. I've heard other painters express the same. Sometimes it is as easy as just throwing some charcoal marks on it or putting a wash of some hue all over it. Today I sorta have in mind what I want to do but then I may procrastinate some more with cleaning off my desk, folding laundry. Hmmm....