I had a wake up call the other day. It came in the form of an incapacitating dizzy spell that lasted for 24 hours. One day I was going about my normal activities and the next night I was crawling back to bed on my hands and knees, unable to stand upright for fear of falling down. I spent the entire next day lying in my recliner, getting up only to make the necessary trips to the bathroom, and holding onto the walls for balance.
Do you ever wonder what goes through someone’s mind when they are lying incapacitated, unable to read or listen to music or watch TV? Not much; I can tell you firsthand. You lie there and focus on a spot on the ceiling until you fall asleep. You notice all the details in the room: the cracked line where the paint meets the molding on the ceiling, the flaked paint around the unfinished door, the curtain that doesn’t quite hang straight. You just stare at these details and let your mind go blank until you don’t even see the thing you are staring at.
You leave the world behind and cringe at the sound of life beyond your window – people slamming car doors and driving off to their destinations, the mailman filling your mailbox and slamming the lid down. The worst sound of all is the telephone ringing because it cracks a hole in the comfortable silent cocoon you have wrapped around yourself and trys to yank you out by your hair.
Nothing matters at all when you feel so sick that you can’t even sip water from a straw without the accompanying ripple of nausea. And the familiar twinge telling you that you must walk to the bathroom now! makes you break out in a sweat. And making that trip with your head spinning upside down, like the worst roller coaster ride you ever had, eats up all of your energy for the entire day.
You forget about the work you are missing that day. You don’t care that the boss may be annoyed that you missed the important meeting and didn’t take the calls from the office. You know everyone is thinking, no one get’s that sick that they can’t even answer their e-mails! Everything that was so urgent and important yesterday seems like silly nonsense today.
You don’t think about the trips you never took or the career path you should have gone down. You forget the important appointments you missed and the chances you passed up. You don’t care that you haven’t taken a shower and your hair is dirty and there may be hairs growing out of your chin that no one should ever see.
I will tell you what did matter as I started feeling better that day. When I awoke from a long sleep and sat up to realize that my head was no longer spinning, I became aware that my mother was still in the room. She had been there with me all day, silent and napping in the recliner beside me when I was sleeping, jumping up to help me walk to the bathroom several times, then hovering outside the bathroom door asking, are you alright in there?
This is what really matters: To have people who care for you and love you when you are at your lowest point. To have someone sit beside you all day and have the energy of their concern and love and prayers be the healing energy that pulls you back from the edge and drags you back to life. You can’t buy that kind of love. No promotion, no vacation, no thrill, no amount of money matters as much. To feel that kind of love is to have everything you need on this earth and to know that that is all that really matters.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Beware of Dog
The lopsided rusty Beware of Dog sign still hangs on the gate leading into my parents’ back yard. There hasn’t been a dog in the yard for over forty years, so I asked my father recently why he keeps it hanging there.
“Leave it there,” he said. “It makes people think twice about coming into the yard.”
When Duke, our German Shepherd, was in his prime, there was a game that the kids in the neighborhood would play. It was a game of dare. Someone would dare some clueless kid to simply lift the metal latch on the gate and let it fall back into place. At the point of contact there was a single note, a clink! Then the count would begin: one -one thousand - two - one thousand - three - one thousand… No one lasted much longer than a few seconds with their hand on the gate before Duke would come charging around the side of the house, teeth barred, ears pointed, hair standing up on his back, barking and crashing into the fence. The fence is still bowed out, to this day, from Duke bashing it in his attempt to get at his tormentor.
When we got Duke he was a sweet little puppy, very loving and gentle. But soon, my father was training him to respond to sounds of entry, like the tinkling doorbell or the metal latch clicking open at the outside gate, or the front door opening. When the doorbell rang, my father would call, “Duke! Duke!” then he would growl like a dog, bark and grit his teeth while commanding in Italian, “Mangia le! Mangia le!” (Eat him!). This is how my father taught our pet dog to be a watch dog.
It is no wonder that my father often opened the front door to find no one there. Who, in their right mind, would stick around on our porch with a vicious German Shepherd barking behind the door, and my father barking and growling beside the dog, while bellowing out, “Who’s there!? Mangia le!”
When I started dating I would have such anxiety thinking about the scene my would-be boyfriend would eventually encounter when he came to my house to pick me up. It was a true test of character that my boyfriends had to endure just to pass through the threshold of our home. Before I would agree to a date with a guy, I would access him myself. Could he pass the test of my father’s vice grip hand shake, the steely eye contact? Would he make it past my overprotective dog? Was this guy really worth it?
If he could make it through those first few minutes out on the porch, he would then be face to face with my father - a large, broad-chested man dressed in a semi-transparent undershirt that revealed his full muscular chest of dark curly hair and bulked up biceps that stretched the very fibers of his t-shirt to their limits.
Before he even greeted the boy, my father would open the front door while he continued yelling commands to our barking German shepherd, who leaped up to greet the house guest at eye level, slamming into the glass storm door with his front legs. Dad would then show his own strength by flexing his huge bicep, grabbing the dog’s collar and yelling in a deep throaty dog-like growl, “Sit! Sit! Sit, goddammit! I told you to SIT!” The dog would take a few moments to calm down, his tongue would be hanging out dripping saliva and he was alert and ready to leap at the next command of Mangia Le!. This went on with every first greeting. It was a show of strength and warning. Don’t mess with my daughter!
If the young man had any ideas of impropriety with me before ringing that doorbell, they were certainly replaced by primal fear and silent prayers of redemption.
My calm well-mannered boyfriend, the one who many years later would become my husband, found that display of brute strength by man and dog humorous and would not be intimidated or deterred by it. He continued to ring my doorbell and even went so far as to kiss me in front of the overly protective growling Duke. This boy and that dog had a hate-hate relationship for months, pushing it to the limits, until one lovely spring day when we pushed Duke too far.
My boyfriend was walking me home from school that day. We approached the gate with the lopsided “Beware Of Dog” sign hanging from years of Duke bashing into it in his attempt to get the mailman, the UPS man or anyone of the neighborhood kids who played their game of daring Duke. After loudly clanking the latch a few times, we paused a moment, as we always did, to be sure he wasn’t in the yard. I called out, “D–u-k-e, D-u-k-i-eee?” in the sing-song voice I used to get his attention.
My boyfriend, laughing aloud, imitated me in a high falsetto, “Oh, D-u-k-i-e; Dukie boy?” We were only met by the sounds of chirping birds and gentle spring breezes so we proceeded boldly around the back of the house, my boyfriend walking in front of me, both of us laughing as he continued his silly dog calls.
It all happened so quickly: my boyfriend crouched and running across the lawn, his books scattered in his path, Duke running after him, boyfriend on the ground rolling and moaning with his hands in his crotch, Duke yanking at the end of his chain, trying to break free so he could finish the job, hovering with his tongue hanging out only inches over my boyfriend’s head. I stood frozen in my tracks. What happened? I never heard a growl or a warning bark to let us know he was there.
My mother ran out of the house chasing the dog with her dust rag, calling, “Duke! Duke! Get back on this porch!” The dog pausing a moment to think about this, then loping back to his place on the back porch alertly watching his prey as it writhed on the lawn like a caterpillar that’s been poked with a stick.
“Is he alright?” my mother called out to me. We had only been dating six months, so I didn’t know how I would check his injuries. All indications were that he had been hit in that spot that makes guys curl up and die.
“Are you alright?” I asked meekly, still standing far away from him. He only moaned louder.
“Can I get you an ice pack?” my mother called from the porch steps. “Was he bitten?” mom asked me. “Should I call an ambulance?”
We heard a low groan from the lawn. “I think he said no,” I reported back to my mother. I looked over at Duke and I swear that dog was gloating. Is it possible for a dog to smile? I could see one curling on his mouth as he was panting, his tongue hanging out, eyes all sparkly.
“Bad dog!” I said to him and he lowered his head a moment and then took a quick peek at his victim in fetal position, lying motionless on the lawn. Yes, that dog was gloating.
The amazing miraculous thing was that this boy kept coming back for more. He continued to ring my doorbell and walk with his arm around my shoulders and even kissed me in front of the growling Duke.
The dog continued to assert his alpha male dominance over my boyfriend in little ways. There was the time Duke devoured the entire heart shaped cake I had made for my boyfriend on Valentine's day.
Then there were the times we would sneak inside after a date, when we knew everyone was asleep and Duke was tucked away in the garage for the night. We would watch an old movie, snuggled up on the TV room couch, but the minute we would start kissing and getting a little frisky, Duke's radar ears would pick up on the heightening emotions and start barking in the garage in an attempt to wake up my father.
The war of dominance eventually ended with Duke's passing. My boyfriend is now my husband, and with thoughts of Valentine's Day approaching I'm thinking about making that heart shaped cake that he never had a chance to see or taste. As for my husband, he does not need to worry about buying me some useless token of love. He already proved his love for me some forty years ago when he defied the Beware of Dog sign and walked into hell and back again, and again and again.
We heard a low groan from the lawn. “I think he said no,” I reported back to my mother. I looked over at Duke and I swear that dog was gloating. Is it possible for a dog to smile? I could see one curling on his mouth as he was panting, his tongue hanging out, eyes all sparkly.
“Bad dog!” I said to him and he lowered his head a moment and then took a quick peek at his victim in fetal position, lying motionless on the lawn. Yes, that dog was gloating.
The amazing miraculous thing was that this boy kept coming back for more. He continued to ring my doorbell and walk with his arm around my shoulders and even kissed me in front of the growling Duke.
The dog continued to assert his alpha male dominance over my boyfriend in little ways. There was the time Duke devoured the entire heart shaped cake I had made for my boyfriend on Valentine's day.
Then there were the times we would sneak inside after a date, when we knew everyone was asleep and Duke was tucked away in the garage for the night. We would watch an old movie, snuggled up on the TV room couch, but the minute we would start kissing and getting a little frisky, Duke's radar ears would pick up on the heightening emotions and start barking in the garage in an attempt to wake up my father.
The war of dominance eventually ended with Duke's passing. My boyfriend is now my husband, and with thoughts of Valentine's Day approaching I'm thinking about making that heart shaped cake that he never had a chance to see or taste. As for my husband, he does not need to worry about buying me some useless token of love. He already proved his love for me some forty years ago when he defied the Beware of Dog sign and walked into hell and back again, and again and again.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Psychic Tony
I went to a psychic about five years ago. I brought my mother along for a little coraggio. I’ll admit I was a little nervous and my practical minded 78 year old mother was the perfect companion to soothe my nerves.
“What are you nervous about?” she asked on the drive over there. “You don’t believe this stuff, do you?”
“If I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t be spending $75 to hear it.”
“Seventy five dollars? Are you nuts?! Keep your money and let’s go shopping instead.”
“Let’s see what kind of neighborhood he lives in first. If it’s a rundown shack with candles glowing through the windows, we’ll bolt.”
When we pulled in front of the house, my mother summed up the neighborhood with an approving, hmmm. “This is a better neighborhood than we live in.”
When we reached the front door I decided to test Tony’s psychic abilities. “I’m not going to ring the doorbell,” I whispered. “Let’s see if he can feel our presence.” We were a few minutes early, anyway. I was still a little timid about going in – afraid that I might hear bad news. My mother and I had already agreed, on the ride over, that I was only going to believe the good news and discount the bad stuff.
“Nice geraniums,” mom said, pointing up to the hanging pots that filled the wrap around porch. “They are all so healthy looking.”
“Take a closer look,” I told her. “They’re all fake. Who hangs fake geraniums in June?”
“I like this wooden porch,” she said.
“It’s not wood. Touch it and see; it’s that pressurized plastic. Everything is fake here -except these butts.” The tiny table between us held two packs of opened cigarettes and a soup bowl full of burned up cigarette butts.
The front door was suddenly yanked open and out flew a slim man with a slight paunch, and long skinny legs. His receding hairline was slicked back with a thick greasy gel that pasted every strand of dyed black hair in place. A slight red rash creeped below the well manicured matching black goatee.
Seeing us, he stopped short, clicked his heels together, and with a mime's exaggerated look of surprise, he stood with both arms outstretched waiting for us to introduce ourselves.
"I'm Chris, your 9:00 reading," I said.
He ignored me as he grabbed a cigarette from the table, snapped his lighter open and sucked in three short puffs until the tip glowed red. Studying my white haired mother with a peering eye, he squinted through the cigarette smoke, cocked his head to the side and pointed the lit cigarette at her left shoulder. She glanced quickly to see if there was something there to brush off, a bug perhaps.
"There is a gentleman on your left,” he said looking at the air over her left shoulder. “He is there all the time, watching over you." His cheeks caved in as he sucked hard on the cigarette, watching us closely, as my mother and I discussed who it could be.
"It's your father, of course!" I told her, as Tony blew a smoke cloud above our heads.
Mom's mouth was agape as she watched him in awe. Was it the information he gave her that caused her jaw to drop lower, or her latent desire to suck on that cigarette he was flaunting in front of her? I couldn't tell.
He paced back and forth in front of us, head down, concentrating on something. He stopped abruptly and, turning to my mother, said, "He was a piece of bread; capese?" He leaned between us to stub out his cigarette in the cereal bowl and grabbed another. Suck, suck, suck - three short puffs got it glowing red.
"A piece of bread…" mom repeated. “Yes, but he was unhappy,” she added.
"No he wasn't,” his words coming out in puffs of smoke. “What makes you think so?"
"People made a fool of him," mom said, her mouth turning down.
"No! He knew who he was. Anyway he's happy now," Tony dismissed her mood with a wave of his hand, blowing smoke around the top our heads.
"He is?"
"Of course! Everyone is happy up there. They don't have desires or anger or lust or any of the things that we have down here that make us pazzo - crazy - capese?"
"No?" she asked, not quite convinced.
"Of course not! And your father is in a good place. He's very happy. You have to believe that," he mashed his butt stub into the bowl to make his point. “Let’s go inside and begin the reading.”
As the front door opened we heard a mechanical sing-song voice announce, “Front door opened, making entrance.” There was a small camera and a TV screen recording our entry.
I asked to use the bathroom before we began. I locked the bathroom door and searched for cameras behind the mirror and around the ceiling moldings. Nothing. When I was done, I walked out to find Tony and my mother had vanished. I heard voices and followed them toward the kitchen. Empty. I walked back in the direction I came from, peering into a darkened hallway where every door was closed, I knew they couldn't be in there, but I still heard the voices. Muffled voices - they were behind a wall somewhere.
I had the feeling I was being watched – hidden cameras? - so I tried to visually take in the whole house without looking like I was snooping around. I kept my head straight and rolled my eyes around as far as I could to see beyond my peripheral vision. My sneakers made a squeaking sound on the polished wooden floors as I walked slowly back toward the kitchen. I was getting the creeps and would have fled on foot if my mother wasn’t hidden behind one of those doors somewhere. If only I could find her and sneak out. We would go shopping all day and forget this psychic escapade. I called out in a frightened whisper, “mom?”
Tony surprised me and came in the room from a direction that I wasn’t watching. He walked me to the kitchen table, and, pointing randomly, he said, "You sit there," as he scooted off into the darkened hallway and disappeared again behind a door. I wasn’t sure which seat he wanted me in, so I stood there waiting for him to return. Psychic auras being what they are, I wouldn't want to provoke the wrong spirit.
After a few minutes, he burst back into the room, his unbuttoned shirt billowing out behind him like a parachute. Grabbing a bottle of Windex, he sprayed the kitchen table, then vigorously wiped it down.
"I didn't know which seat you wanted me in," I said, still standing where he had left me.
"That one," he said, pointing to the specific seat. "I sit here," he said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table. It figured he would sit at the head of the table. It had to be the best place to channel the spirits. "I can only hear out of this one ear," he explained pointing to his left ear. “That’s why I want you there – on my left. Did you bring a piece of jewelry and the deck of cards?"
I handed him my wedding band and he slipped it halfway up his pinky finger. As I handed him the deck of playing cards, unopened, as he had instructed on the phone, he said, "First, let me tell you that the reading I give you is not the final word. You must listen to a power higher than me. And that is God. He is the supreme power and you must trust in him only. O.K.?" Aha! So that cleared him from anyone blaming him for bad luck.
"Well, I've been praying for guidance," I answered. "some answer to my question, but I haven't seen it yet. That's why I called you."
"O.K. Let's begin."
He slapped the playing cards into neat piles, observed them while scratching his chin, then his forehead, slapped a few more down, squinted at them than looked up and said, “The cards show me a state of confusion. You are trying to come to a decision about something” Didn’t I just tell him that? “….your job?” Good guess.
I answered, “Yes!” a little too quickly. I should have let him tell me more, because for the remaining hour Psychic Tony became Career Coach Tony.
“You’ve got to reinvent yourself,” he told me. “You’re too quick to give up when it gets tough. You’ve got to stick it out, nothing worthwhile comes easy… blahblahblah…”
We went on to discuss cooking and recipes for eggplant parmigiana, pizza dough and meat balls. He told me stories about his old neighborhood in Brooklyn and I laughed alot. He was very entertaining, but not very psychic. After about 45 minutes, I could sense that he was getting fidgety as he kept glancing over to the counter where his cigarettes were. “OK, let’s have a look at the photos you brought.”
He tapped on the faces of the people in the photos, looked at another photo, tapped his forehead and closed his eyes, and, finally the third photo. He shuffled the photos around on top of the table - like that game you play with the cups where you try to find the hidden item under one of the cups. Finally, he said, “Someone is getting married soon and a child will be on the way. There will be a death in the family. A male. Your husband loves you very much.”
“Who is getting married?” I asked. “Who is going to die?” I wasted all my time talking about recipes, and now that I finally had some psychic revelation, it was over.
I jumped out of my seat when, from nowhere, a black cat leaped onto my lap and flicked his tail in my face. “Cleo likes you,” said psychic Tony. “That’s a good sign because cats are psychic too and they know good people immediately.”
“Well, maybe Cleo can tell me who is going to die,” I said. That’s the only reading that I wanted more information about because I knew neither of my sons were ready to get married and I had no doubts about my own marriage.
“Come back for another reading and we can go into more detail,” said Tony. “Do you want to make another appointment now?” he said reaching for his crinkled pack of cigarettes, squeezing them tight.
“Let me see what my schedule is like,” I told him. We both wanted to get out of there for different reasons. I checked my finger to be sure I had my ring back. “Where is my mother?” I asked, as he yanked open a door to reveal her happily knitting in a chair in front of a small TV.
Back in the car my mother wanted to know what he said.
“He said I should work harder to build up my business, someone is going to get married and have a child and my husband loves me. He told me stories about the old days in Brooklyn and we swapped recipes.” I didn’t tell her about the death coming. Even though we decided not to pay attention to the foretelling of bad fortune, I knew it would weigh on her mind, as it was now on mine.
“So what’s the big news?” she said. “That someone is getting married? I wonder who? Peter?... James?... Paul is too young.”
“I’m sure every one of them will be married - eventually. And they will probably all have children – eventually. I already knew my marriage was good. And who doesn’t know that hard work builds up a business? The guy is a chain smoking quack who didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know! And I’m the idiot who just gave him $75 cash!”
“I told you to save your money. Now what are we going to do with the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know, mom. Let’s see if you can read my mind.”
“Well, we already travelled this far, why don’t we go to the Huntington Mall, grab a bite at Starbucks and have a look in Talbot’s?”
“Amazing! And you got it right on the first reading.”
“What are you nervous about?” she asked on the drive over there. “You don’t believe this stuff, do you?”
“If I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t be spending $75 to hear it.”
“Seventy five dollars? Are you nuts?! Keep your money and let’s go shopping instead.”
“Let’s see what kind of neighborhood he lives in first. If it’s a rundown shack with candles glowing through the windows, we’ll bolt.”
When we pulled in front of the house, my mother summed up the neighborhood with an approving, hmmm. “This is a better neighborhood than we live in.”
When we reached the front door I decided to test Tony’s psychic abilities. “I’m not going to ring the doorbell,” I whispered. “Let’s see if he can feel our presence.” We were a few minutes early, anyway. I was still a little timid about going in – afraid that I might hear bad news. My mother and I had already agreed, on the ride over, that I was only going to believe the good news and discount the bad stuff.
“Nice geraniums,” mom said, pointing up to the hanging pots that filled the wrap around porch. “They are all so healthy looking.”
“Take a closer look,” I told her. “They’re all fake. Who hangs fake geraniums in June?”
“I like this wooden porch,” she said.
“It’s not wood. Touch it and see; it’s that pressurized plastic. Everything is fake here -except these butts.” The tiny table between us held two packs of opened cigarettes and a soup bowl full of burned up cigarette butts.
The front door was suddenly yanked open and out flew a slim man with a slight paunch, and long skinny legs. His receding hairline was slicked back with a thick greasy gel that pasted every strand of dyed black hair in place. A slight red rash creeped below the well manicured matching black goatee.
Seeing us, he stopped short, clicked his heels together, and with a mime's exaggerated look of surprise, he stood with both arms outstretched waiting for us to introduce ourselves.
"I'm Chris, your 9:00 reading," I said.
He ignored me as he grabbed a cigarette from the table, snapped his lighter open and sucked in three short puffs until the tip glowed red. Studying my white haired mother with a peering eye, he squinted through the cigarette smoke, cocked his head to the side and pointed the lit cigarette at her left shoulder. She glanced quickly to see if there was something there to brush off, a bug perhaps.
"There is a gentleman on your left,” he said looking at the air over her left shoulder. “He is there all the time, watching over you." His cheeks caved in as he sucked hard on the cigarette, watching us closely, as my mother and I discussed who it could be.
"It's your father, of course!" I told her, as Tony blew a smoke cloud above our heads.
Mom's mouth was agape as she watched him in awe. Was it the information he gave her that caused her jaw to drop lower, or her latent desire to suck on that cigarette he was flaunting in front of her? I couldn't tell.
He paced back and forth in front of us, head down, concentrating on something. He stopped abruptly and, turning to my mother, said, "He was a piece of bread; capese?" He leaned between us to stub out his cigarette in the cereal bowl and grabbed another. Suck, suck, suck - three short puffs got it glowing red.
"A piece of bread…" mom repeated. “Yes, but he was unhappy,” she added.
"No he wasn't,” his words coming out in puffs of smoke. “What makes you think so?"
"People made a fool of him," mom said, her mouth turning down.
"No! He knew who he was. Anyway he's happy now," Tony dismissed her mood with a wave of his hand, blowing smoke around the top our heads.
"He is?"
"Of course! Everyone is happy up there. They don't have desires or anger or lust or any of the things that we have down here that make us pazzo - crazy - capese?"
"No?" she asked, not quite convinced.
"Of course not! And your father is in a good place. He's very happy. You have to believe that," he mashed his butt stub into the bowl to make his point. “Let’s go inside and begin the reading.”
As the front door opened we heard a mechanical sing-song voice announce, “Front door opened, making entrance.” There was a small camera and a TV screen recording our entry.
I asked to use the bathroom before we began. I locked the bathroom door and searched for cameras behind the mirror and around the ceiling moldings. Nothing. When I was done, I walked out to find Tony and my mother had vanished. I heard voices and followed them toward the kitchen. Empty. I walked back in the direction I came from, peering into a darkened hallway where every door was closed, I knew they couldn't be in there, but I still heard the voices. Muffled voices - they were behind a wall somewhere.
I had the feeling I was being watched – hidden cameras? - so I tried to visually take in the whole house without looking like I was snooping around. I kept my head straight and rolled my eyes around as far as I could to see beyond my peripheral vision. My sneakers made a squeaking sound on the polished wooden floors as I walked slowly back toward the kitchen. I was getting the creeps and would have fled on foot if my mother wasn’t hidden behind one of those doors somewhere. If only I could find her and sneak out. We would go shopping all day and forget this psychic escapade. I called out in a frightened whisper, “mom?”
Tony surprised me and came in the room from a direction that I wasn’t watching. He walked me to the kitchen table, and, pointing randomly, he said, "You sit there," as he scooted off into the darkened hallway and disappeared again behind a door. I wasn’t sure which seat he wanted me in, so I stood there waiting for him to return. Psychic auras being what they are, I wouldn't want to provoke the wrong spirit.
After a few minutes, he burst back into the room, his unbuttoned shirt billowing out behind him like a parachute. Grabbing a bottle of Windex, he sprayed the kitchen table, then vigorously wiped it down.
"I didn't know which seat you wanted me in," I said, still standing where he had left me.
"That one," he said, pointing to the specific seat. "I sit here," he said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table. It figured he would sit at the head of the table. It had to be the best place to channel the spirits. "I can only hear out of this one ear," he explained pointing to his left ear. “That’s why I want you there – on my left. Did you bring a piece of jewelry and the deck of cards?"
I handed him my wedding band and he slipped it halfway up his pinky finger. As I handed him the deck of playing cards, unopened, as he had instructed on the phone, he said, "First, let me tell you that the reading I give you is not the final word. You must listen to a power higher than me. And that is God. He is the supreme power and you must trust in him only. O.K.?" Aha! So that cleared him from anyone blaming him for bad luck.
"Well, I've been praying for guidance," I answered. "some answer to my question, but I haven't seen it yet. That's why I called you."
"O.K. Let's begin."
He slapped the playing cards into neat piles, observed them while scratching his chin, then his forehead, slapped a few more down, squinted at them than looked up and said, “The cards show me a state of confusion. You are trying to come to a decision about something” Didn’t I just tell him that? “….your job?” Good guess.
I answered, “Yes!” a little too quickly. I should have let him tell me more, because for the remaining hour Psychic Tony became Career Coach Tony.
“You’ve got to reinvent yourself,” he told me. “You’re too quick to give up when it gets tough. You’ve got to stick it out, nothing worthwhile comes easy… blahblahblah…”
We went on to discuss cooking and recipes for eggplant parmigiana, pizza dough and meat balls. He told me stories about his old neighborhood in Brooklyn and I laughed alot. He was very entertaining, but not very psychic. After about 45 minutes, I could sense that he was getting fidgety as he kept glancing over to the counter where his cigarettes were. “OK, let’s have a look at the photos you brought.”
He tapped on the faces of the people in the photos, looked at another photo, tapped his forehead and closed his eyes, and, finally the third photo. He shuffled the photos around on top of the table - like that game you play with the cups where you try to find the hidden item under one of the cups. Finally, he said, “Someone is getting married soon and a child will be on the way. There will be a death in the family. A male. Your husband loves you very much.”
“Who is getting married?” I asked. “Who is going to die?” I wasted all my time talking about recipes, and now that I finally had some psychic revelation, it was over.
I jumped out of my seat when, from nowhere, a black cat leaped onto my lap and flicked his tail in my face. “Cleo likes you,” said psychic Tony. “That’s a good sign because cats are psychic too and they know good people immediately.”
“Well, maybe Cleo can tell me who is going to die,” I said. That’s the only reading that I wanted more information about because I knew neither of my sons were ready to get married and I had no doubts about my own marriage.
“Come back for another reading and we can go into more detail,” said Tony. “Do you want to make another appointment now?” he said reaching for his crinkled pack of cigarettes, squeezing them tight.
“Let me see what my schedule is like,” I told him. We both wanted to get out of there for different reasons. I checked my finger to be sure I had my ring back. “Where is my mother?” I asked, as he yanked open a door to reveal her happily knitting in a chair in front of a small TV.
Back in the car my mother wanted to know what he said.
“He said I should work harder to build up my business, someone is going to get married and have a child and my husband loves me. He told me stories about the old days in Brooklyn and we swapped recipes.” I didn’t tell her about the death coming. Even though we decided not to pay attention to the foretelling of bad fortune, I knew it would weigh on her mind, as it was now on mine.
“So what’s the big news?” she said. “That someone is getting married? I wonder who? Peter?... James?... Paul is too young.”
“I’m sure every one of them will be married - eventually. And they will probably all have children – eventually. I already knew my marriage was good. And who doesn’t know that hard work builds up a business? The guy is a chain smoking quack who didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know! And I’m the idiot who just gave him $75 cash!”
“I told you to save your money. Now what are we going to do with the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know, mom. Let’s see if you can read my mind.”
“Well, we already travelled this far, why don’t we go to the Huntington Mall, grab a bite at Starbucks and have a look in Talbot’s?”
“Amazing! And you got it right on the first reading.”
Friday, January 22, 2010
Family Pets
In the winter, when the weather is cold and nasty, and I’m indoors a lot, I think about getting a pet to keep me company. The children are all grown and moved out, the house is quiet, and I long for a friendly face and a wagging tail to greet me when I come home at night.
My husband pooh-poohs the idea and promises to smile more often and waggle his tail when he greets me at night, and when that doesn’t work he reminds me... “Remember the expense?... Remember what a hassle it was when the dog was sick?... Cleaning up the mess?...Remember when she would roll around in that muck outside and prance through the house smelling like sh..”
I raise my hand to stop him. The urge to have a pet has passed. We have had a few pets through the years – it was never a very good experience, I’ll admit. We just aren’t good pet people. Or maybe we chose the wrong pets.
We went to a shelter to adopt our first pet - a cute little tabby cat that they assured us was a female. I insisted on a female because I didn’t want to deal with a male cat spraying my furniture to mark his territory. I saw one flea on her the night we brought her home, but I caught it, and killed it, and thought that was the end of it.
Within a week, my house was flea infested, and on the first visit to the vet I was informed that my she-tabby was a he. Tabby grew into a huge monster that we all feared. Cuddly was not a word that I would use to describe this cat: nasty, snippy, lazy and fat were more like it – a demonic Garfield.
We had the cat spayed in the hope of sweetening his disposition and to avoid that awful spraying that males will do. This only made him meaner and fatter. The vet suggested having him declawed to stop the vicious scratching. But after his claws were removed, he came after us with his front paws, swinging like a prize fighter, perched up on his two hind legs, running after us.
I packed the cat in a cardboard box in my trunk one hot summer day and headed back to the shelter. From the moment I shut the trunk lid, he began to wail a high pitched screaming howl that sounded like some supernatural demonic beast. I caught the driver next to me looking over at my car when I stopped for a red light, but I looked straight ahead as if all was normal in my world. What sound? Coming from my trunk? Can’t be!
When I got to the shelter, I lifted the box out of the trunk and gently placed it on the ground. The cat was silent, but I knew he was still alive because I felt him pressing against the top of the box, trying to get out. I was so frightened to open the box with my bare hands, so I found a stick to gently pry the folded box top open. Crouching down a few feet away from the box, I gingerly lifted the top flap and the cat sprung out like an electrocuted jack-in-the-box and bolted out of sight. Good riddance!
I told the kids he ran away from home on his own free will, but they still searched the neighborhood for weeks. I hid behind the living room curtains, chewing my nails off and listening to their plaintive calls: “Tabby?” around the front bushes, then “Tabby?” in the neighbors’ yards.
The more they searched, the more fervently I prayed to God that this cat would never find its way home. I knew the cat would find a way to kill me if he did return, just for putting him through the ride from hell in that cardboard box in my trunk.
It took two years of sad eyed begging from the kids before we were convinced to try another pet – a dog this time. We went to a breeder, spending a small fortune, and came home with Bailey, the Springer Spaniel. True to his name, he kept jumping over the fences we built to contain him in the yard. When he was indoors, he was a streak of light blazing through the house like the Road Runner cartoon character, knocking things off of tables and leaving behind a cloud of dust and broken pieces. When we left him alone at home, he broke through all the gates and barricades we set up, ignored the doggie toys and rawhide teething bones, and had a grand time chewing our door jambs and wooden furniture. We sold him after six months.
Soon after Bailey, the children were begging for another cat, so we went to another shelter in a different – more upscale – neighborhood. At this shelter, you had to pay for your pet, so we were convinced that we would be coming home with a better – more upscale – cat. What we weren’t prepared for was the intensive screening process.
First we had to complete a four page questionnaire and list three personal references (not family members) that could vouch for our character, disposition and moral fiber. Then we were split up from each other and taken into separate rooms to be interviewed – like they do in those police shows when they interview multiple felons involved in the same crime. My husband went into one room for an interview and I took the kids into the room with me, rather than leave them alone to wander among the animals. Big mistake.
When my interviewer asked how we would discipline the animal, my son butts in and says, “Remember when you chased Bailey through the yard with a hairbrush after he chewed up the dining room chairs?” He ignored my scornful look. “Don’t you remember, mom?” he laughs, turning to the interviewer who asked him to please continue.
“Mom was so mad. She was yelling, I’m going to kill you! while she was running after Bailey, but she couldn’t catch him. Bailey was such a fast runner. So she reached into her pocketbook and grabbed her brush and threw it at him and the brush landed on his back and broke in half! But Bailey just kept on running around the yard like he didn’t even feel a thing! It was so funny!”
We did not go home with a cat that day, but, a few months later, we went to another breeder and came home with the most loving, adorable, sweet tempered West Highland Terrier. We had the best of both worlds with this dog because she thought she was a cat. She was so affectionate and gentle and loved to cuddle.
I was welcomed home every night with so much enthusiasm. She greeted me with a big doggie smile and ran circles around my feet, wagging her tail and leaving a trail of pee in her wake. She peed in her cage every night, too, and liked to pee on the rugs from time to time. As she got older, she peed wherever and whenever she liked. She was a lady, however, and was discreet with her bowel movements, leaving them out of view and neatly piled at the top of the stairs.
As much as I would sometimes like to get a pet now, I know I’m not ready to make that commitment again. I would much rather rent my neighbor’s cat, Max, when I’m in the mood for some purring.
Max thinks my yard is his territory and I’m happy when he strolls over for a visit. I rub his belly and call him sweet names in a sing-song voice. He purrs as he slinks in between my legs and rubs his cat hair all over my pants. In the summertime I let him into my screened-in back porch and he sits there with me - just chillin’ – while I sip a drink or read a magazine.
With Max there’s no commitment, no responsibility. I don’t have to offer him a snack, I don’t have to pay for his vet bills or clean out his litter box. We just have fun together – like a date. And when I’ve had enough of him, I send him home.
Sometimes I feel bad leaving Max outdoors in the dead of winter. I think I would like to open the front door and let him come into my house, but I know that will be the end of our beautiful relationship. The next thing you know, he will be looking at me funny if I don’t clean out his litter box, or turning up his nose at the cheap cat food I bought in the discount pet store.
You know how that is. When you’re dating, it’s all fun and laughs and money is no object. And then you get married and, well, let’s just say things change. It’s always better to keep it casual. Everyone stays happy that way.
My husband pooh-poohs the idea and promises to smile more often and waggle his tail when he greets me at night, and when that doesn’t work he reminds me... “Remember the expense?... Remember what a hassle it was when the dog was sick?... Cleaning up the mess?...Remember when she would roll around in that muck outside and prance through the house smelling like sh..”
I raise my hand to stop him. The urge to have a pet has passed. We have had a few pets through the years – it was never a very good experience, I’ll admit. We just aren’t good pet people. Or maybe we chose the wrong pets.
We went to a shelter to adopt our first pet - a cute little tabby cat that they assured us was a female. I insisted on a female because I didn’t want to deal with a male cat spraying my furniture to mark his territory. I saw one flea on her the night we brought her home, but I caught it, and killed it, and thought that was the end of it.
Within a week, my house was flea infested, and on the first visit to the vet I was informed that my she-tabby was a he. Tabby grew into a huge monster that we all feared. Cuddly was not a word that I would use to describe this cat: nasty, snippy, lazy and fat were more like it – a demonic Garfield.
We had the cat spayed in the hope of sweetening his disposition and to avoid that awful spraying that males will do. This only made him meaner and fatter. The vet suggested having him declawed to stop the vicious scratching. But after his claws were removed, he came after us with his front paws, swinging like a prize fighter, perched up on his two hind legs, running after us.
I packed the cat in a cardboard box in my trunk one hot summer day and headed back to the shelter. From the moment I shut the trunk lid, he began to wail a high pitched screaming howl that sounded like some supernatural demonic beast. I caught the driver next to me looking over at my car when I stopped for a red light, but I looked straight ahead as if all was normal in my world. What sound? Coming from my trunk? Can’t be!
When I got to the shelter, I lifted the box out of the trunk and gently placed it on the ground. The cat was silent, but I knew he was still alive because I felt him pressing against the top of the box, trying to get out. I was so frightened to open the box with my bare hands, so I found a stick to gently pry the folded box top open. Crouching down a few feet away from the box, I gingerly lifted the top flap and the cat sprung out like an electrocuted jack-in-the-box and bolted out of sight. Good riddance!
I told the kids he ran away from home on his own free will, but they still searched the neighborhood for weeks. I hid behind the living room curtains, chewing my nails off and listening to their plaintive calls: “Tabby?” around the front bushes, then “Tabby?” in the neighbors’ yards.
The more they searched, the more fervently I prayed to God that this cat would never find its way home. I knew the cat would find a way to kill me if he did return, just for putting him through the ride from hell in that cardboard box in my trunk.
It took two years of sad eyed begging from the kids before we were convinced to try another pet – a dog this time. We went to a breeder, spending a small fortune, and came home with Bailey, the Springer Spaniel. True to his name, he kept jumping over the fences we built to contain him in the yard. When he was indoors, he was a streak of light blazing through the house like the Road Runner cartoon character, knocking things off of tables and leaving behind a cloud of dust and broken pieces. When we left him alone at home, he broke through all the gates and barricades we set up, ignored the doggie toys and rawhide teething bones, and had a grand time chewing our door jambs and wooden furniture. We sold him after six months.
Soon after Bailey, the children were begging for another cat, so we went to another shelter in a different – more upscale – neighborhood. At this shelter, you had to pay for your pet, so we were convinced that we would be coming home with a better – more upscale – cat. What we weren’t prepared for was the intensive screening process.
First we had to complete a four page questionnaire and list three personal references (not family members) that could vouch for our character, disposition and moral fiber. Then we were split up from each other and taken into separate rooms to be interviewed – like they do in those police shows when they interview multiple felons involved in the same crime. My husband went into one room for an interview and I took the kids into the room with me, rather than leave them alone to wander among the animals. Big mistake.
When my interviewer asked how we would discipline the animal, my son butts in and says, “Remember when you chased Bailey through the yard with a hairbrush after he chewed up the dining room chairs?” He ignored my scornful look. “Don’t you remember, mom?” he laughs, turning to the interviewer who asked him to please continue.
“Mom was so mad. She was yelling, I’m going to kill you! while she was running after Bailey, but she couldn’t catch him. Bailey was such a fast runner. So she reached into her pocketbook and grabbed her brush and threw it at him and the brush landed on his back and broke in half! But Bailey just kept on running around the yard like he didn’t even feel a thing! It was so funny!”
We did not go home with a cat that day, but, a few months later, we went to another breeder and came home with the most loving, adorable, sweet tempered West Highland Terrier. We had the best of both worlds with this dog because she thought she was a cat. She was so affectionate and gentle and loved to cuddle.
I was welcomed home every night with so much enthusiasm. She greeted me with a big doggie smile and ran circles around my feet, wagging her tail and leaving a trail of pee in her wake. She peed in her cage every night, too, and liked to pee on the rugs from time to time. As she got older, she peed wherever and whenever she liked. She was a lady, however, and was discreet with her bowel movements, leaving them out of view and neatly piled at the top of the stairs.
As much as I would sometimes like to get a pet now, I know I’m not ready to make that commitment again. I would much rather rent my neighbor’s cat, Max, when I’m in the mood for some purring.
Max thinks my yard is his territory and I’m happy when he strolls over for a visit. I rub his belly and call him sweet names in a sing-song voice. He purrs as he slinks in between my legs and rubs his cat hair all over my pants. In the summertime I let him into my screened-in back porch and he sits there with me - just chillin’ – while I sip a drink or read a magazine.
With Max there’s no commitment, no responsibility. I don’t have to offer him a snack, I don’t have to pay for his vet bills or clean out his litter box. We just have fun together – like a date. And when I’ve had enough of him, I send him home.
Sometimes I feel bad leaving Max outdoors in the dead of winter. I think I would like to open the front door and let him come into my house, but I know that will be the end of our beautiful relationship. The next thing you know, he will be looking at me funny if I don’t clean out his litter box, or turning up his nose at the cheap cat food I bought in the discount pet store.
You know how that is. When you’re dating, it’s all fun and laughs and money is no object. And then you get married and, well, let’s just say things change. It’s always better to keep it casual. Everyone stays happy that way.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Simple and Cheap: Broccoli Soup
There wasn’t much meat at our table when I was growing up. If we had a piece of meat for dinner it was a small chop or a thin cutlet served as a second course. The first course was usually a soup made of pasta and beans or pasta with broccoli or cauliflower. This was my mother’s strategy for filling your belly a little so you wouldn’t want much meat. She would pull out some of the vegetable that was in the soup and that would be served with the cutlet as part of the second course.
I learned to cook by watching my mother and my grandmother cook. At a young age, I was fascinated with the creative process in the kitchen. The kitchen was a symphony of sound and motion, smell and taste, and all things wonderful came out of my mother’s kitchen. I never saw her use a recipe to cook dinner. Dinner was simple. Ingredients were cheap. There were no cooking shows or fancy cookbooks, or blogs with pictures to show you step-by-step preparations. My grandmother, an Italian immigrant, once told me this story about how she learned to cook back in the early 1900’s.
When I married your grandfather, I didn’t know how to cook. My mother never taught me anything. All she cared about was work. ‘Work and give me your pay,’ she said. I gave her some of my pay and kept the rest. She never knew what I made. My sisters, Mary and Sadie, gave her everything – all their pay. Stupid!
Your grandfather tried to eat the meat I cooked for him one night, but it was so tough he couldn’t chew it. He spit it out, grabbed his hat and went to the door. He said to me, ‘Why did I marry you if you can’t cook?’ and he went out. Can you imagine that? He stayed out all night and came back in the morning.
When he came back, I told him, ‘If you ever do that again - stay out all night - don’t come back here.’ What does he think he can make a fool of me? So he didn’t go out at night anymore and I learned to cook.
I watched the woman in the next apartment. She thinks I’m there to talk and drink coffee, but I watch her clean the broccoli, chop the garlic, fry the chicken cutlets… Soon, I cook better than her.
During the Depression, my grandmother had to return to work all day in a sweat shop so, at the young age of ten, my mother became the “little mother” in the household and was responsible for taking her younger brother to a babysitter before school, cleaning the apartment and preparing dinner every night for the family. She developed her own strategies for precooking and partial cooking so that she could start dinner early and sneak out for an hour to play handball or run down to the beach at Coney Island and still have dinner on the table on time.
One of the soups that we ate a lot, when I was growing up, was a simple broccoli soup with macaroni. It was delicious and cheap and I often make it to this day. It can be partially prepared ahead of time and sit on the stove until the last step, when you are ready to add the pasta – leaving you plenty of time to go out for a few sets of handball or a quick swim at the beach.
Broccoli Soup with Macaroni
Wash a bunch of broccoli. Chop off the bottom two inches of the hard stem and discard. Peel the hard skin off the stems and discard. (It comes off easily if you place your paring knife at the base of the stem, make a tiny cut and just peel it back.) Slice the stems down in halves or
quarters to cook the broccoli evenly in water.
To judge how much water to use, place the raw broccoli to a 2 qt. pan and add enough cold water to cover the broccoli completely, plus about another inch or two over.
When you have the adequate
amount of water, remove the raw broccoli and bring the water to a boil.
Cook the broccoli a few minutes in the simmering water until the stems are softened enough to break easily with a fork.
Mash the broccoli in the pot with a potato masher or a large fork, leaving some pieces whole. You can stop at this point and when you are ready for dinner bring the water with the cooked broccoli to a boil, again, and add some pasta.
My grandmother gave me a good guide for measuring how much pasta to use. She would break off the edges of spaghetti or linguini into ½ inch pieces and place them in a bowl. Then she would measure one palm full for each person.
My grandmother and my mother did
not own measuring cups, so I still measure the pasta this way. Just cup your hand to form a small “vessel” in your palm and use that to measure: for a medium sized head of broccoli I would use about 4 palms full of pasta. You may like your soup thicker, so experiment and use your own judgment.
When the pasta is cooked the soup is ready. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the pot and stir before serving. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You may also make this soup using cauliflower.
Photos by Tom Vanderberg
I learned to cook by watching my mother and my grandmother cook. At a young age, I was fascinated with the creative process in the kitchen. The kitchen was a symphony of sound and motion, smell and taste, and all things wonderful came out of my mother’s kitchen. I never saw her use a recipe to cook dinner. Dinner was simple. Ingredients were cheap. There were no cooking shows or fancy cookbooks, or blogs with pictures to show you step-by-step preparations. My grandmother, an Italian immigrant, once told me this story about how she learned to cook back in the early 1900’s.
When I married your grandfather, I didn’t know how to cook. My mother never taught me anything. All she cared about was work. ‘Work and give me your pay,’ she said. I gave her some of my pay and kept the rest. She never knew what I made. My sisters, Mary and Sadie, gave her everything – all their pay. Stupid!
Your grandfather tried to eat the meat I cooked for him one night, but it was so tough he couldn’t chew it. He spit it out, grabbed his hat and went to the door. He said to me, ‘Why did I marry you if you can’t cook?’ and he went out. Can you imagine that? He stayed out all night and came back in the morning.
When he came back, I told him, ‘If you ever do that again - stay out all night - don’t come back here.’ What does he think he can make a fool of me? So he didn’t go out at night anymore and I learned to cook.
I watched the woman in the next apartment. She thinks I’m there to talk and drink coffee, but I watch her clean the broccoli, chop the garlic, fry the chicken cutlets… Soon, I cook better than her.
During the Depression, my grandmother had to return to work all day in a sweat shop so, at the young age of ten, my mother became the “little mother” in the household and was responsible for taking her younger brother to a babysitter before school, cleaning the apartment and preparing dinner every night for the family. She developed her own strategies for precooking and partial cooking so that she could start dinner early and sneak out for an hour to play handball or run down to the beach at Coney Island and still have dinner on the table on time.
One of the soups that we ate a lot, when I was growing up, was a simple broccoli soup with macaroni. It was delicious and cheap and I often make it to this day. It can be partially prepared ahead of time and sit on the stove until the last step, when you are ready to add the pasta – leaving you plenty of time to go out for a few sets of handball or a quick swim at the beach.
Broccoli Soup with Macaroni
Wash a bunch of broccoli. Chop off the bottom two inches of the hard stem and discard. Peel the hard skin off the stems and discard. (It comes off easily if you place your paring knife at the base of the stem, make a tiny cut and just peel it back.) Slice the stems down in halves or
quarters to cook the broccoli evenly in water.
To judge how much water to use, place the raw broccoli to a 2 qt. pan and add enough cold water to cover the broccoli completely, plus about another inch or two over.
When you have the adequate
amount of water, remove the raw broccoli and bring the water to a boil.
Cook the broccoli a few minutes in the simmering water until the stems are softened enough to break easily with a fork.
Mash the broccoli in the pot with a potato masher or a large fork, leaving some pieces whole. You can stop at this point and when you are ready for dinner bring the water with the cooked broccoli to a boil, again, and add some pasta.
My grandmother gave me a good guide for measuring how much pasta to use. She would break off the edges of spaghetti or linguini into ½ inch pieces and place them in a bowl. Then she would measure one palm full for each person.
My grandmother and my mother did
not own measuring cups, so I still measure the pasta this way. Just cup your hand to form a small “vessel” in your palm and use that to measure: for a medium sized head of broccoli I would use about 4 palms full of pasta. You may like your soup thicker, so experiment and use your own judgment.
When the pasta is cooked the soup is ready. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the pot and stir before serving. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You may also make this soup using cauliflower.
Photos by Tom Vanderberg
Friday, January 8, 2010
Searching For My Roots
Why is it so important to know where we came from? This search for one's roots is a national preoccupation with us in America. We are a lost nation, a people with no unified cultural history, in search of something that will link us together with unknown relatives in foreign lands. It is a basic human need to know where you came from.
Back when my ancestors first came to this country in the early 1900's they were searching for something better - escaping hardships I can't even imagine. I say "first came" because the man in our family tree went back and forth a few times, finally deciding to return to Sicily for good, leaving behind his wife and 5 children to fend for themselves in America.
This story, as told to me in bits and pieces through the years, has become a haunting tale that consists only of a few dots on a page in random order. My family was robbed of their personal history because my great grandmother wiped her husband's memory away along with all the history of the life she left behind. She murdered him in her mind because she was so angry at him for abandoning their family and starting another family when he returned to Italy.
My great grandmother may have tried to erase the memory of her past by not allowing her husband's name to come into a conversation, but I doubt she ever forgot the hurt and the loneliness he left behind.
This story of a strong woman surviving against all the odds of a foreign land, the Great Depression, World War II and raising five children by herself has been a salient force in my own personal life.
As I get older, I feel the need to find the beginning of the story so that I may connect all the dots and complete the line that will lead me back to where I began. So I posed a question to myself the other day: If my great grandparents were never divorced, shouldn't the land my great grandfather owned in Italy be transferred to my great grandmother in America, and, subsequently to her offspring?
I remember stories my grandmother told me of acres of property that her father had, in addition to a villa with tile floors and a factory where he made men's shoes. She picked lemons off of trees that were so sweet she ate them like we eat oranges in this country.
Just on a lark, I contacted an Italian search engine site that traces property owned in Italy and had a very pleasant conversation with a lawyer in San Francisco who does title searches for Italian-Americans.
"You would be amazed," he told me, "at how much people own in Italy that they aren't aware of." I told him my story and he said I could very well be one of those people who have land ownership rites in Sicily. "The second marriage in Italy is null," he writes in an e-mail back to me, "and the property may still be there and no update to the title ever having taken place (very common)...we should check the title to the property..."
Then he tells me about someone who became the property owner of 360 acres of abandoned property in the Province of Genova in the town of Varese Ligure.
I have begun searching fervently now for my ancestors in Sicily - specifically around the Catania area. Today I viewed antique maps on line, in search for a little town called Militello di Colania, Sicily. It probably doesn't exist anymore. Click on the link to see what I did find. (I'm not sure I want to go there!) I need the birth year and town where my great grandfather was born to begin a title search. It would be great to trace my lineage for my family history and nostalgia, but, hey! - now there also might be the possibility of land ownership over there too!
My mother laughs when I tell her this. She doesn't remember those stories. And she doubts there is anything left of his property, if he had property to begin with.
"They sold all their property when they came to this country. They needed the money for the passage," she tells me.
"No!" I disagree. "The ship's manifest, according to the Ellis Island website, documents him coming into this country with only $12 on his person."
She is laughing. "Do you think they told the government how much money they had? They sewed their money into their hems and lined their coats with it. The government is the last person they would admit to having money."
So, I'm a little naive. But I'm still searching. If anyone reading this has any information of the birth town of a Mario Riccioli, born around the year 1869 - give or take a year or two...because my mother says they also lied about their age, let me know. She also says that no one in his native town would know his name as Mario. Everyone in those little Italian towns had a nickname that was given to them when they were a child. No one would ever admit to knowing a Mario Riccioli. Maybe his town name was Frankie Soup or Mangia Bona.
So I'm searching for property somewhere, owned by someone, born at sometime.
Back when my ancestors first came to this country in the early 1900's they were searching for something better - escaping hardships I can't even imagine. I say "first came" because the man in our family tree went back and forth a few times, finally deciding to return to Sicily for good, leaving behind his wife and 5 children to fend for themselves in America.
This story, as told to me in bits and pieces through the years, has become a haunting tale that consists only of a few dots on a page in random order. My family was robbed of their personal history because my great grandmother wiped her husband's memory away along with all the history of the life she left behind. She murdered him in her mind because she was so angry at him for abandoning their family and starting another family when he returned to Italy.
My great grandmother may have tried to erase the memory of her past by not allowing her husband's name to come into a conversation, but I doubt she ever forgot the hurt and the loneliness he left behind.
This story of a strong woman surviving against all the odds of a foreign land, the Great Depression, World War II and raising five children by herself has been a salient force in my own personal life.
As I get older, I feel the need to find the beginning of the story so that I may connect all the dots and complete the line that will lead me back to where I began. So I posed a question to myself the other day: If my great grandparents were never divorced, shouldn't the land my great grandfather owned in Italy be transferred to my great grandmother in America, and, subsequently to her offspring?
I remember stories my grandmother told me of acres of property that her father had, in addition to a villa with tile floors and a factory where he made men's shoes. She picked lemons off of trees that were so sweet she ate them like we eat oranges in this country.
Just on a lark, I contacted an Italian search engine site that traces property owned in Italy and had a very pleasant conversation with a lawyer in San Francisco who does title searches for Italian-Americans.
"You would be amazed," he told me, "at how much people own in Italy that they aren't aware of." I told him my story and he said I could very well be one of those people who have land ownership rites in Sicily. "The second marriage in Italy is null," he writes in an e-mail back to me, "and the property may still be there and no update to the title ever having taken place (very common)...we should check the title to the property..."
Then he tells me about someone who became the property owner of 360 acres of abandoned property in the Province of Genova in the town of Varese Ligure.
I have begun searching fervently now for my ancestors in Sicily - specifically around the Catania area. Today I viewed antique maps on line, in search for a little town called Militello di Colania, Sicily. It probably doesn't exist anymore. Click on the link to see what I did find. (I'm not sure I want to go there!) I need the birth year and town where my great grandfather was born to begin a title search. It would be great to trace my lineage for my family history and nostalgia, but, hey! - now there also might be the possibility of land ownership over there too!
My mother laughs when I tell her this. She doesn't remember those stories. And she doubts there is anything left of his property, if he had property to begin with.
"They sold all their property when they came to this country. They needed the money for the passage," she tells me.
"No!" I disagree. "The ship's manifest, according to the Ellis Island website, documents him coming into this country with only $12 on his person."
She is laughing. "Do you think they told the government how much money they had? They sewed their money into their hems and lined their coats with it. The government is the last person they would admit to having money."
So, I'm a little naive. But I'm still searching. If anyone reading this has any information of the birth town of a Mario Riccioli, born around the year 1869 - give or take a year or two...because my mother says they also lied about their age, let me know. She also says that no one in his native town would know his name as Mario. Everyone in those little Italian towns had a nickname that was given to them when they were a child. No one would ever admit to knowing a Mario Riccioli. Maybe his town name was Frankie Soup or Mangia Bona.
So I'm searching for property somewhere, owned by someone, born at sometime.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Lost and Found
I lost my keys last week. For four days I searched everywhere - under every bed in the house, under every chair, sofa and recliner. I pulled out all the seat cushions, felt around in dark places - under bureaus and behind desks, even in some garbage bags. I worked myself up to a frenzy – jumping out of bed at night when I had a vision of where my keys might be, only to return to the cold mattress, empty handed.
In my frustration, I finally offered up a reward of $20 to anyone who found my keys. Before the reward was posted, no one bothered to help me. Now, with the promise of a mere $20 bill, everyone was getting into the search effort. Suddenly they were scurrying about as I heard the opening and closing of drawers and closet doors, rustling of papers, lifting and pushing things off of table tops.
Then the courtroom interrogation began:
"When did you see them last?" If I knew the answer to that, they wouldn't be lost.
"When did you last use them?" On December 23rd. I remember I drove home that day, so I had to have them to get into the house.
"Where did you put them after you walked into the house?" If I knew that, they wouldn’t be lost!
They were legitimate questions, and ones I had asked myself already, but my brain was not making the connection between when I last had the keys and when I realized that I didn’t.
When so much of a day is routine, you don’t pay attention to details. Our repetitive actions form little ruts that grow into paths and, over time, become trails that we follow day in and day out. Sometimes I’ll be driving - working out a problem in my head or thinking about a report that I was working on - and I will pull into my driveway and I don’t even remember the drive home. I don’t remember a single song that was playing on the ride home. Did I have the radio on?
I asked for a whistling tea pot for Christmas this year, because often I’ll put up a pot of water for tea, walk upstairs for something, start working on my computer, get distracted and lose track of time. When I finally go back downstairs, the kitchen has become a steam bath and I think, Oh, right; the tea!
A holiday like Christmas can throw a life of routines into chaos. Furniture is rearranged to make room for a tree, so my mindless path through the house is disrupted and I'm bumping into walls and tripping over wooden soldiers in my way. There’s a basket holding Christmas cards where the key plate used to be, and a tin of cookies is sitting on top of two days worth of mail, so the mindless act of placing your keys down where they usually go becomes an exercise in mental acuity for four days. Where is the Cablevision bill? Was the mortgage paid yet?
The interesting thing that happened, and what eventually led me to find my keys, was that I was forced to rewind the events of the past four days and examine every detail. What I found most distressing was that, in trying to remember the details of a day, I realized that most of the time I was not paying attention. I was moving on auto-pilot, following my trail, going through the motions of a day and not remembering anything about it.
Losing my keys forced me to wake up and pay attention. At first, I couldn’t remember anything about the past four days. What did I cook for dinner last night? Then, slowly, I began to remember some details – bits of conversation; what people were wearing on Christmas day; the seating arrangement at Christmas dinner; the smell of my son’s cologne when I kissed his cheek in mass on Christmas Eve . I went back another day and began to remember seeing the keys somewhere in the kitchen, but where? I saw myself opening a drawer, cleaning off the counter, moving things off a table to make room for some Christmas decorations.
Reviewing my life over the past four days was like seeing myself floating through a misty dream sequence. I stopped physically searching for the keys and spent my time mentally searching, working my mind harder, trying to see the details in action, as if I was viewing myself in a movie.
Then, finally, one evening while I was lying in bed in that twilight state between the real world and the world of dreams, when the mind is perfectly clear and empty of all thought, I sensed where the keys were. I didn’t bother to jump out of bed to verify my vision because I knew they would be there.
“Ah!” I said the next morning, as I grabbed the keys in my hand and held them up in the air like a prize. Suddenly, all the details that were missing came flooding into my brain and all the empty synapses were ignited and the paths were connected with the memories that were temporarily lost.
This mental exercise of trying to remember a mindless action taken out of a repetitive routine was a wake up call for me. I began to think about all the lost memories that accumulate in a lifetime and how much richer a life would be if we just paid more attention to the details.
So my one and only New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to be more mindful - to pay attention, to wake up! and walk through my day aware of my surroundings, to use all my senses and see my world anew. At the end of the day, I want to remember the details.
I also found a clip that I can attach to a ring on my purse handle so I’ll never misplace my keys, and, yes, I did get the whistling tea pot.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
In my frustration, I finally offered up a reward of $20 to anyone who found my keys. Before the reward was posted, no one bothered to help me. Now, with the promise of a mere $20 bill, everyone was getting into the search effort. Suddenly they were scurrying about as I heard the opening and closing of drawers and closet doors, rustling of papers, lifting and pushing things off of table tops.
Then the courtroom interrogation began:
"When did you see them last?" If I knew the answer to that, they wouldn't be lost.
"When did you last use them?" On December 23rd. I remember I drove home that day, so I had to have them to get into the house.
"Where did you put them after you walked into the house?" If I knew that, they wouldn’t be lost!
They were legitimate questions, and ones I had asked myself already, but my brain was not making the connection between when I last had the keys and when I realized that I didn’t.
When so much of a day is routine, you don’t pay attention to details. Our repetitive actions form little ruts that grow into paths and, over time, become trails that we follow day in and day out. Sometimes I’ll be driving - working out a problem in my head or thinking about a report that I was working on - and I will pull into my driveway and I don’t even remember the drive home. I don’t remember a single song that was playing on the ride home. Did I have the radio on?
I asked for a whistling tea pot for Christmas this year, because often I’ll put up a pot of water for tea, walk upstairs for something, start working on my computer, get distracted and lose track of time. When I finally go back downstairs, the kitchen has become a steam bath and I think, Oh, right; the tea!
A holiday like Christmas can throw a life of routines into chaos. Furniture is rearranged to make room for a tree, so my mindless path through the house is disrupted and I'm bumping into walls and tripping over wooden soldiers in my way. There’s a basket holding Christmas cards where the key plate used to be, and a tin of cookies is sitting on top of two days worth of mail, so the mindless act of placing your keys down where they usually go becomes an exercise in mental acuity for four days. Where is the Cablevision bill? Was the mortgage paid yet?
The interesting thing that happened, and what eventually led me to find my keys, was that I was forced to rewind the events of the past four days and examine every detail. What I found most distressing was that, in trying to remember the details of a day, I realized that most of the time I was not paying attention. I was moving on auto-pilot, following my trail, going through the motions of a day and not remembering anything about it.
Losing my keys forced me to wake up and pay attention. At first, I couldn’t remember anything about the past four days. What did I cook for dinner last night? Then, slowly, I began to remember some details – bits of conversation; what people were wearing on Christmas day; the seating arrangement at Christmas dinner; the smell of my son’s cologne when I kissed his cheek in mass on Christmas Eve . I went back another day and began to remember seeing the keys somewhere in the kitchen, but where? I saw myself opening a drawer, cleaning off the counter, moving things off a table to make room for some Christmas decorations.
Reviewing my life over the past four days was like seeing myself floating through a misty dream sequence. I stopped physically searching for the keys and spent my time mentally searching, working my mind harder, trying to see the details in action, as if I was viewing myself in a movie.
Then, finally, one evening while I was lying in bed in that twilight state between the real world and the world of dreams, when the mind is perfectly clear and empty of all thought, I sensed where the keys were. I didn’t bother to jump out of bed to verify my vision because I knew they would be there.
“Ah!” I said the next morning, as I grabbed the keys in my hand and held them up in the air like a prize. Suddenly, all the details that were missing came flooding into my brain and all the empty synapses were ignited and the paths were connected with the memories that were temporarily lost.
This mental exercise of trying to remember a mindless action taken out of a repetitive routine was a wake up call for me. I began to think about all the lost memories that accumulate in a lifetime and how much richer a life would be if we just paid more attention to the details.
So my one and only New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to be more mindful - to pay attention, to wake up! and walk through my day aware of my surroundings, to use all my senses and see my world anew. At the end of the day, I want to remember the details.
I also found a clip that I can attach to a ring on my purse handle so I’ll never misplace my keys, and, yes, I did get the whistling tea pot.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
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