Mason-Dixon Line and Shopping

Last night at a New Year’s Party, one of the guests was from Scotland. And since it’s always fun to listen to someone with a cool accent, lots of discussion ensued. At one point, someone marveled to me about how large the United States is and how similar the people of each state are. That got me to thinking. Granted the difference between each state is minimal compared to say the difference between Germany and France, especially in language. (Though I will point out that when I was a child living in a small town in Georgia and then moved to Hawaii where some people spoke in pidgin, I could easily have been in a foreign country—I couldn’t understand a word some of my classmates said. That’s where I developed a “polite I-have-no-idea-what-you-are-talking-about smile,” which has served me well as a pastor’s wife.) But, back to the issue. In order for someone to say there isn’t too much difference between states, they clearly have not recently moved from New England to the South.

There are so many differences that this might be a recurring blog theme. But the first topic is: Shopping. When we first moved here and walked in to the local grocery store, the cashier called out, “Good Morning!” Luke turned to me and said, “Why is that lady talking to us—we don’t know her.” I said, “I think she’s being friendly.” Luke looked suspicious; he didn’t quite believe me.

But it’s not just the friendliness. Once when I was in the local Connecticut Walmart, I found a coffee maker that had all the important features—it could make coffee and wasn’t too expensive. But, there weren’t any coffee makers in boxes, only the model on the shelf. So, I tracked down a saleswoman and asked her if she could find out if there were any extras “in the back” or, if not, if I could buy the floor model. She nodded and made other noises and gestures to indicate she understood and acquiesced to my request. Then, we waited. We contemplated the floor. We studied the other coffee makers, toasters, waffle irons, and long metal sticks with whips on the end whose function we didn’t quite fathom. Then, the kids decided, since there was nothing better to do, they’d play a standing version of tag. At that point, Cal decided to take them on a tour of the store. By the way, if you don’t already know, kids do not enjoy a tour of Walmart. And still, I waited.

After the tour was finished, I decided to “find” the salesgirl. I was a woman with a mission. I drew up my mental picture and hunted her down. And I found her. Before I came in for the kill, she must have had some primal instinct to turn and she did. She saw me—and took off running. Yes, as my kids can verify, the salesgirl ran away from me. Foolish girl. I’ve been running since I was 14, which is many, many years ago. If I’ve been running through four kids and a fortieth birthday, I can catch anything. When I had her cornered, she shrugged, gesticulated, and made vaguely hostile guttural noises that meant, “This is a bad day for me, go find your own stupid coffee maker.”

Fast forward to the South. I’m at BiLo, the local grocery store who, despite the “lo” in their name, charges way too much but is close to my house so I shop there anyway. I am buying yogurt-vanilla handsoap for the church bathrooms.
The cashier says: “Umm, umm, I love the smell of vanilla. Honey, does this soap smell good?”
Me: “Uh, I don’t know.” So, I unscrew the top and take a deep whiff. “Yeah, it does.” I hand the open bottle to the cashier. (Don’t forget there’s a long line of people behind me with whom I am trying very hard not to make eye contact.)
Cashier: “Oh, this does smell good.”
Me: “And it’s on sale.” Oops, I’ve now involved her in conversation—this is going to take a while. The people behind me now hate me.
Cashier: “How much is it?”
Me: “Uh, I don’t know.” She takes the receipt.
Cashier: “That is a good price. I’m gonna have to get me some of that.”
Me: Trying to avoid the gaze of people behind me who surely must be wishing instant death on me for taking so much time, “Yeah, that would be a great idea.”
Cashier: “Y’all have a great day, baby.”
Me: Though I am sure there’s only one of me and that I am not her infant, I say, “Thanks. You too.” At this point, as I gather up my things, I cast a furtive glance over my shoulder at the long line. Each and every person is completely unconcerned by my long conversation with the cashier. They are in contemplation mode, and even one lady may be vaguely irritated that she now can’t finish the People magazine article on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

On my way to the car, I ponder their patience. If I’d been in line behind a chatty soap buyer I would have been tapping my foot, making guttural noises and thinking, “Buy your soap and get on with it. I have things to do.” And Ariel would have said her standard, “Be patient, Mom. This is the South.”

I guess I’ve got a lot more New England (or maybe it’s the Dutch “use each and every minute effectively”) in me than I thought.

Culinary Possibilities

Hank the ham debuted at Christmas dinner. Luke made the most apropos comment. He said, “This is great” and then ate for twenty minutes without saying a word. So, I guess we’ll be doing country ham again. Even the very weird “glaze,” which consisted of brown sugar, pepper, and corn meal (yes, cornmeal), was delicious. After the meal was over and I was safely in the kitchen where no one could see me (after all, to be in the kitchen means you will surely get stuck washing and drying china and silver, so on one goes there on purpose), I picked glaze off the leftover ham—it was that good. And I had it all to myself.

But there are other treats to be had in the Keller home. One needs simply to be open-minded towards culinary possibilities. For example, Jezebel likes to eat caladium. I had a lovely green and red caladium plant in front of the floor-length arched window of the living room. Jez ate it. Every beautiful leaf of it. I checked to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. It’s not. It just has an acid that burns the skin, especially the tender skin of the mouth. Apparently, Jezebel doesn’t care. Must be a masochistic streak in her.

The kids jumped to her defense and explained the Jezebel just destroyed the plant in order to better see out the window so she can keep watch for the Pomeranian devil. Maybe. So, I cut her some slack on that. After all, she was trying to protect us from the foofy incarnation of faux canine evil. That held water until she decided to eat my amaryllis. The amaryllis wasn’t in her way. And it wasn’t even tempting—they were just dry bulbs that I was trying to force to bloom. But I found her gnawing on the tiny buds of leaves coming out of the bulbs.

After a severe reprimand, she looked positively repentant. Until, Sunday when I was taking a nap. She must have snuck into the room using her infamous army crawl and made a beeline to the plant. Anyway, now I have to decide whether to put the bulbs out of their misery. I think it’s clear she has a thing for plants. I can live with that to a certain extent. But there are plants, and there are orchids. And if Jezebel ever even sniffs one of my orchids…

Hank the Ham, not the cow dog

At every holiday I try to cook something special. At Easter I make a roast leg of lamb. On Thanksgiving I cook a turkey. And on Christmas I normally cook duck. But this year we decided that duck was a little too pricy. So, I thought we’d do something regional. After all, we’ve lived in many places, and I’ve tried to learn regional cooking. When we lived near San Diego, Cal and I learned to love swordfish tacos (though it’s only recently that I found a “killer” recipe). When we lived in Little Saigon, Cal and I fell in love with lemon grass and mint. In Santa Cruz…well, vegetarian food isn’t quite our thing. Then in New England I learned how to make real New England clam chowder and Italian spaghetti (even if I learned by way of a Polish friend).

Now we’re in the South and I’ve seen all these “country hams.” So, I thought, “Hey, they’re cheaper than duck and they’re regional. Sounds like a great opportunity.” So, after researching it in the Joy of Cooking, we bought our first country ham, aka Tennessee ham or Kentucky ham. The first sign there might be a problem at home was when the children realized that it was sitting in the pantry. Ariel asked me why it didn’t need to be refrigerated. I explained that the ham had been smoked, brined, and salted. Unfortunately, that made her curious, and she found the recipes I was considering.

Her first question was: “What does this mean ‘Scrape off any mold’?!! Are you going to cook and feed us something that grows mold on the outside!?!” I explained that mold itself wasn’t the issue; she ate mold all the time when she ate cheese. In no uncertain terms, she explained that cheese was completely different and irrelevant to the discussion. I told her to trust me—I got a raised eyebrow in return.

So, for the last two days we’ve been soaking and scraping our country ham, which releases the excess salt from the meat. And every 12 hours I change the water that “Hank” is soaking in. When Ariel heard me call the ham “Hank,” she was very disturbed. I can’t imagine why—it’s not like I called him “Wilbur” or some porcine name with literary implications. But she said, “How can you name our food?” I countered, “I always call the turkey, ‘Tomas.’” Apparently, that’s different.
At any rate, Hank is now 12 hours away from his date with my cooking pot. Cal and I are salivating at every whiff of smoked pork, and Ariel walks around the house muttering imprecations and murmuring words that sound like “food poisoning.”

p.s. If you've never read Hank the Cow Dog, you absolutely must. The audio books are great, even better than the books because the author sings the most hilarious songs (my personal favorite is "When Sally Mae comes with her Broom."). I know HCD are supposed to be "little kid stories," but these audio books are listened to surreptitiously by all the teens in our home, not to mention the pre-teen. Bunnicula is also fantastic.

Cal's Second Job

I have to start by saying that I’m not a conspiracy nut. It’s not that I don’t believe that people would want to form clandestine conspiracies, it’s just that conspiracies are not in accord with human nature. The bottom line is that people aren’t secret keepers—they’re secret tellers. And even if it’s in their best interest to keep the secret, it usually gets out. If not in their lifetime, then when they die.

All that to say, I’m not looking for conspiracies under rocks. Neither do I need excitement in my life. I have three teenagers and one pre-teen—I need irenic calm (I love the word “irenic”—I had to find a way to use it). Weird words are enough excitement for me.

So, why all these caveats? Because I want you to know that I am not a neurotic writer looking for ways to spice up her life. (If I wanted that, I’d take up belly-dancing.) But, spice found me anyway. Though in a very tame way.

It all started when we got this really cool Christmas gift. It’s an Epson Artisan 800 wireless printer. You name it, and it does it. Ariel was practically drooling over it. But, we had trouble setting it up. For some reason the printer and computers couldn’t talk to one another. Of course, I called tech support, multiple times. It’s always a bad sign when the tech people start getting ornery, and then they bump you up to the next level.

Finally, I got someone intelligent. To protect the innocent, I’ll call him “Bob.” After much gnashing of teeth, Bob discovered the problem. My computer was only pretending to be connected to our router. It said it was connected to our SSID, but it wasn’t—our SSID had been co-opted and was being rerouted—to where and to whom are up for grabs. At first, I didn’t believe him, after all you’re not supposed to be able to do that. Bob got really cranky then. But after I checked IP addresses, etc., I knew he was right. The scary thing is that everything in our computers is password protected—I won’t even tell tech support what the passwords are. (I’m a bit of a nut about security since I had a nasty experience with a stalker in college.) And here’s the creepiest part, the other system our stuff is being routed through has its own encrypted password, which is not a hexadecimal system (I’ve only ever used hexadecimal.). Needless to say, Bob didn’t want to talk to me for very long.

Now, I can’t figure out why any person/government would want to hack our system. We’re not rich or powerful. Ariel came up with the simplest explanation. Back before I met Calvin, he must have worked as a spy. And now, he does occasional freelance work. This theory received even more credence when I checked all the other computers in the house—all of them had been hijacked, except…Calvin’s. We confronted him about it, and he just laughed. Personally, I hope the government pays well.

Grin and Bear It

Most children look forward to Christmas. The presents, the cookies, the candy, the presents, the school vacation, the parties, the presents. My children look forward to Christmas, but with some trepidation. Matt worries about what new embarrassing thing I will write about him that will soon be read by all the obscure relatives. But mostly, the kids dread the “Christmas photo.”

This year we tried to avoid the normal stress and had a visiting friend take the picture right after we got back from church on Sunday. However, there was an issue. Unbeknownst to the friend, there was an odd shadow across the top of my head that blended into my dark hair and made me look, well, a bit odd. I will admit that I’m a little vain, but this went well beyond vanity—I looked like a cone head!

So, we had to take another picture. I thought, “Well, we’ll just do it the next day or so. But then, Cal came down with a nasty cold, the kind that puts you in bed with the covers pulled up. When he got better, I thought, “Okay, today’s the day.” Until Luke got up with a swollen red, crusty eye. Yep, pink eye. After a couple of days of drops, Luke no longer looked like the loser in a boxing match. Finally, it’s time—but, Jacob got sick with the same vile cold. His eyes watered, and his skin took on the tone of spoiled egg white.

This wasn’t going well. It was mid December, and we still hadn’t taken our Christmas picture. It was time—no matter what. I told the kids they could wear whatever they wanted (although the shirts had to have collars). They waited while I tried to get the tripod straight and to remember how to set the auto-timer. Then, I began the photographer commentary: “Luke, put your chin down. Matt, scoot over. Jacob, smile—it looks like you’re sneering. Watch at the camera. Etc.”

Time to take the picture. I pressed the button. The kids yelled, “Hurry, Mom, it’s blinking!” I rushed over, trying to avoid bumping the tripod. Once I was unsuccessful—but it made for an interesting, albeit not Christmas-y, picture. When I did avoid smacking the tripod with my leg, there was always the challenge of squeezing in and trying to have a non-fake smile. And, don’t forget the comments of the other participants: “Oops, my eyes were closed.” “Hey, you’re making yourself look taller than me.” “My knees/back/smile is hurting.” After about ten pictures, I thought, “Okay, we’re done.” I put the data card into the computer and Ariel showed me how to get rid of red eye and so on. Finally, we all settled on a photo and I thought, “It’s over!” But, it wasn’t. One child said, “Hey, Jezebel isn’t in the picture. We need her in the picture.” My fake smile vanished completely. And before I could say, “Have you lost your mind?!,” all the children said, “We need Jezebel in the photo!”

I ground my teeth and said, “Sure, okay”…maybe it’s not the kids who hate the Christmas picture, maybe it’s me.


{Here's the picture we finally chose. (I won't even tell you about trying to get it made into Christmas cards--and how the photo machines at Sam's Club hate me and try to sabotage my cards every year. This year they tried to crop off half of Calvin's head. Thankfully, I was able to save him from the digital guillotine.)}

The Law of Averages

No, this post isn’t about math (sorry, you math-o-philia-ities)…well, it’s a little bit about math. You know how everywhere has an average rainfall for the year, well, here in Chattanooga the average yearly rainfall is 54.52 inches. Last year we had a drought and ended up way behind in rain. This year things were looking pretty dismal too. But, and here’s where the law of averages comes in, the thing about average rainfall is that sooner of later you catch up. Sadly, it seems to be happening at all once.

Last week, it rained and rained and rained some more. And that was great—plants drink in the moisture, depleted reservoirs fill, and basements flood. Yes, basements. Most houses in Chattanooga don’t have a basement, and there’s a reason. Flooding. Our basement floods, that’s why it has a drain in the corner. (It ought to be in the middle, where the lowest point is. I’d normally say that the engineer got his/her degree from an internet diploma mill, but since the house was built in 1940, I don’t suppose that will work.)

Early in the week, we suspected the basement would flood, so Calvin took the plastic bins and cardboard boxes and stacked them in nice piles. The idea was to keep everything as dry as possible. But, at some point, like a house of cards, the boxes tumbled. No one knew this until I went downstairs to put away a couple of Christmas things… Now in case you’ve never stumbled onto a scene of epic disorder, let me explain: there is a moment when you look upon the chaos and your brain tries to fit it into some kind of harmony. “Surely this can’t be a catastrophe of soaked boxes floating in a sea of mildew-y rainwater.” Of course, your brain gives up, and the reality of disaster follows closely afterward. The next thing that hits you is that the person who stacked this tragedy is currently out giving your 16 year old daughter driving lessons and will not be around anytime soon. In case you haven’t guessed, at this point you yell, “Arugh!” (After this, you call your husband and whine very loudly about your suffering. He doesn’t seem too concerned as he is instructing your daughter how to navigate a narrow ridge road without driving over the edge.)

Then you call your three sons and inform them that they will be taking their father’s place in this debacle. Now, you should be aware that the two youngest sons, who are card-carrying members of the “communist workers’ brigade,” aren’t eager to help, but they are willing, especially since they’ll be conscripted anyway. So they get assigned to wash the toys and toy bins. Apparently, they were confused and thought this entailed throwing soap bubbles at each other and spilling water on the kitchen floor. Suffice it to say, they now know it’s NOT part of the plan.

The 18 year old bears the brunt of the labor—he’s the only one strong enough to carry 30 rolls of soaked toilet paper out of the basement into the rubbish bin. He also carried out the bins of soaked books, clothes, and blankets. Unfortunately, there are no medals for meritorious service during a basement flooding. Oh, well.
Later that night, when you sit with your beloved trying to figure out how this came about, it hits you. It’s the mouse in the basement that refuses to be caught—this is his revenge for the traps. It’s going to be a long winter…

Watch Your Back

The bummer about having a mom that blogs is that your friends end up following her blog. And they may say, “Hey, got that dog poop cleaned off your shoe yet?” Of course, that doesn’t bother Luke, Ariel, or Jacob much. But there are others…

So, we discussed pseudonyms. I told Matthew that I could refer to him as “he-who-may-not-be-named.” But that conjured ideas of Voldemort. So, we threw that out. Jacob told me he had a pseudonym all picked out for himself. He wanted to be called “Luke.” Luke, however, was not amused. Ariel doesn’t care too much that I mention her in my blog. But we sometimes have different ideas what actually occurred in a particular incident. (BTW, Ariel, you did really love the Orestia.) And Luke, he doesn’t care one way or the other—as long as his shoes are clean.

The bottom line is I think the kids should be happy to be "well-known." Maybe it’s preparing them for a famous future. Luke could be a rock star—he just needs long hair and an electric guitar. Ariel could be the dictator of a third world country—she just needs to find an available dictatorship. (Do you think Venezuela is tired of Hugo Chavez yet?) Jacob could be a movie heartthrob—he’d just need to give up his dreams of being a computer programmer. That leaves Matt. Matthew could be a famous master criminal—but I think Artemis Fowl has that already sewn up...Artemis, you better watch your back.