Dinner Time

(Please note, I wrote this several years ago when the war in Iraq was at its height of casualties.)

Family Dinner is an oxymoron to me. Eating together as a family at home has not been an experience I ever enjoyed or struggled to have, but it certainly is food for thought....

While growing up, eating in our family was a solitary endeavor. I came home first from school, so I ate first. We had a small kitchen with a round table for two and we were a family of 5. My mother was constantly cooking and serving us individually as we arrived home from school or work. My father required total quiet and efficient service during his meal time. Eating at the dining room table was never a consideration. The "dining room" was reserved for doing homework.

Unfortunately, as time marched on our family grew smaller rather than larger because of the untimely passing of my father. Yet, our eating habits never changed. My mother, my two brothers and I still took turns. Yet, eating alone was never lonely. We had added the all important tiny television to the kitchen counter. That TV became each of our dinner companions. We were silent as we took our turns eating. Over the years, I ate dinner with local television anchor teams, or Walter Cronkite. Sometimes I ate slowly so I could hear how many soldiers died in Viet Nam, watch the colorfully clothed protestors marching, or check on the weather reports during the unpredicatable Chicago winters.

Now I have my own family and a big kitchen with plenty of room for our four family memembers to sit together if we so chose. Perhaps because of the way I gew up I never really try to create the "family dinner" I saw on television shows like Little House on the Prairie, My Three Sons or the Patridge Family. My husband works long hours and often grabs a sandwich at Subway on his way home. I do not allow my children to watch the evening news. It is simply too disturbing and difficutl to explain. They are unable to sit together peacefully for any length of time anyway. I have no desire to be a referee or to try and explain what war means and how we got in one yet again during my short life time.

Luckily, the large screen television in the family room is easily visible from our kitchen. My son, the older child dominates the remote from the kitchen table. Sponge Bob is my choice for his dinner companion. He would prefer cartoons filled with gross humor and animated violence. My daughter, the youngest, retreats through the doorway at the other end of the kitchen to the living room where she is served on a TV tray placed in front of an old blue leather recliner. Her television is smaller but she has her own remote and that is all she cares about. We rarely eat the same foods. My son sticks to pizza and bagel dogs. My daughter prefers cereal or macaroni and cheese. I sit and read at the kitchen island, eating salad and intermittently wondering how many people have died in Iraq and Afghanastan thus far.

When we first moved out to the the suburbs in 1997 we were invited to dinner by our next door neighbors. There were two parents and five children. All the kids had some role in preparing the meal or setting the table. Everyone sat down together, ate the same food, and talked, sharing the day's activities along with the meal. It looked like a lot of work, but the effort seemed worth it. Those were the best behaved children I had ever seen. They obviously knew the value of a family dinner.

We were amazed, but sadly unchanged. Just yesterday, we quietly took our places at Subway, at the kitchen table, at the TV tray in the living room, and at the island and ate in peace and quiet with the exception of some laughter from Sponge Bob. There never has been friendly conversation at the dinner table of either the family of my childhood or the family of my adulthood. This time around I managed to turn the war off, at least on the television set if not in the real world.

Oooops, I am not a cougar

I wish I was a cougar, but I guess what I really am is a middle aged nerd that does not understand the real meaning of cougar. My idea for cougar beat magazine is all wrong. I would be way too embarrassed to be naked with someone 20 years younger than I am. So I guess I need to change the idea for the magazine. What animal am I? If I am not a cougar, I need to be identified as some other mammal. The magazine needs a hook. As noted before, I want glossy posters for my bedroom, but not necessarily of 20 something males. I often like the 40 year olds (they are still 9 years younger, so would that qualify me as a cougar?). If I don't fit into Tiger Beat demographics and I do not think I could be a reliable cougar then I need a different animal identity. Monkey Beat? Maybe, it worked for a psuedo group once before. And even better Davy Jones was one of the original crushes I had back in the day when I did fit into the Tiger Beat demographic. They may not have been the Beatles but they were okay. I am not aspiring for any literary prizes here so if I modeled the magazine after another impersonation so closely related to the theme, it might work. If there are copy rights involved I could always go with the Chimpanzee Beat, or the Gorilla Beat (for women who like hairy men or women who refuse to shave under their arms). I am still looking to "beef up" the staff, so interested parties need to reply to this Blog ASAP before we all qualify for AARP (which in my case is only 6 years away!)

Cougar Beat

Cougar Beat!

I have a great idea for a new magazine aimed at frustrated AND sarcastic house wives. It would be so much more realistic than all those Ladies Home Journal type magazines, not to mention television shows that are "suppose" to be reality based showing housewives from New York, or California. Let's get real people!

It would be a combination of Tiger Beat, Mad Magazine, The Onion. We need glossy pictures and
"posters included" sections of Hugh Laurie, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan (I must have a thing for Brits). I want to wall paper my bedroom like I did way back when. But instead of David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman and Donny Osmond (although Donny has some good staying power in the looks department and could be grandfathered in), I would use men who better reflect my mature sophisticated adult taste.

Do you think my husband will mind? If I position the poster of Hugh Laurie just right I will be able to discreetly open only one eye during love making. I guess I could play fair and let my husband put up some posters too? Who would he pick? Who cares? Not me.

The glossy, picture filled magazine would also be known for what it absolutely will NOT include: No damn recipes, no promises on how to improve your body, do your stupid make up, get better in bed, make him better in bed, raise concientious kids, arts and crafts for adults or kids. Instead lets make up funny quizzes like "What Kind: What kind of mother are you? A. I forgot to take my son to his piano lesson today.
B. I ran the dishwasher with only 2 dishes in it.
C. I ate a bag of pretzels while typing a stupid blog
D. I got my nails done, did lunch with friends and went shopping.

I am A, B, and C. I hate anyone who answered D, and they know who they are, and they are not the market for my new magazine. I need a fantasy life because this real one is just too much. I think I need the life of whoever would have answered D. Those are the women on those housewife shows and that is why I cannot relate to any of them. Real housewives would not be nearly as boring!

Other samples "What Kind" quiz:

What kind of wife are you?
What kind of daughter are you?
What kind of friend are you?
What kind of self obessessed materialistic superficial reality watching back stabbing friend are you? (for those "friends" we all end up with but don't know how we got, you know the ones without the return receipts).




So, if anyone would like to join me in coordinating this new magazine and feeding the hungry dark monster mother hiding in all of us, please contact me. I can't wait to hear about how we never "emotionally" graduated high school and the stories of backstabbing, social climbing, women still looking to be popular.

You know your popular if:

A. You were invited to an adult party on a Saturday night.
B. Your kid is invited to a birthday party every weekend.
C. You are always in a group of friends on School Night talking about the latest whatever
D. Your cell phone rings all the time.
E. You are not sitting alone writing a stupid blog and eating a bag of pretzels.

See ya later. I gotta go give someone 140 dollars to highlight my hair. What recession??? I am about to start a successful magazine. Cougar Beat: Roaarrrrrrr

Joy


Could it be I found my muse? I was picturing a female mentor type since I have always been a girl's girl. I only liked men for sex, which is how I know being gay is not a choice issue. If it were it would be a no brainer for me. I prefer women in every other way. I guess this can be added to the anecdotal evidence supporting being gay starts at birth. But my muse is a man, a friend of the family. I am inspired by Paul, the Apostle (his new nick name). Now I have to go and learn the New Testament and find out who the heck Paul was in a historical sense. It sounds like it could provide a new thread for the writing. I guess I should be worried about how this writing will make me look in the eyes of strangers. Or even worse, how will I look in the eyes of the people who I know and who I least want to see this. I cannot choose who will read these words so if I insist on living by the sword then I guess I must risk dieing of humiliation and exposure by the sword. Because we have all learned Words are just Swords with an S in the front of them. Why have I chosen Paul as my muse? It is his Fearlessness that is inspiring me to come out of the closet. No, I am not gay. I have already established that my preference is for men in that one area. The closet I am exiting actually has a revolving door. It is admitting I want to be a writer. I am a writer and even more importantly: I am a MEDIOCRE writer! There I said it. I don't care if anyone thinks I stink. I still get to write. I get to expose myself to friends and enemies alike (you know who you are) and know the exposure will not kill me. I doubt it will make me stronger. So I will consider this an experiment of sorts to see exactly what the effects will be.

As noted in my previous entry, Paul asked me what brings me joy more than anything else.

My reply:

What brings me joy? I have been trying to figure that out for 48 years. At first it was a bottle of milk and a clean diaper. Then it was spending time with my dad. Then my dad died. Then it was riding my bike around the neighborhood. Then I found cigarettes. Then I found pot. Then I found alcohol. Then I found sex, and then I found more alcohol. Then I found Depression and endless hours of telelvion. Then I found a VCR and video tapes so I could watch movies all by myself in my living room while my mother was alone in her bedroom in the apartment we shared in the building she owned. We were alone together a lot. Okay, so the joy certainly disappeared somewhere in all that. I guess I must search for what brings me joy.

By the way, what is joy???

I am starting this Blog today as a way to share the wit and wisdom I have accumulated over the last 48 years. My friend Paul J. told me to share my writing. I wanted to develop and sell cheesy products on television or win the lottery in order to achieve financial success. The problem is I kept coming up with ideas other people had already executed. I asked Paul what what business should I be in:
Promotions
Marketing
Product Development
Prostitution
Help me out here I begged him. Why do I still want to be a peddler like the guy with the truck from the TV show Green Acres. At which point Paul sent me a photo of Dear Mr. Haney and wrote "and by the way you already know the answer. What brings you greater joy than anything else? Seriously?

To which I replied, "didn't you steal that line from Glinda the Good Witch?" I have always had the power, I just needed to learn the lesson that is was inside me the whole time. Which leads me back to the blank page. I hope I can find the answers in these words I plan on stringing together overtime, over space, over the internet.



It is better to have a big butt when learning how to ice skate. A bony but is bad because it doesn't provide a good landing pad. Words to live by.