Easter, Redneck-Style.

04/04/13

Here in Illinois, there are many Easter traditions. Most Christians go to church, spend time with family, hunt Easter eggs, fill baskets with goodies and remember the reason for the celebration: He is arisen. It’s a time of celebration and rejoicing, a time of reverence and gratitude. There’s ham and deviled eggs and readings of the Passion of Christ.

In Jewish households, it’s the time of liberation, the Pesach, or Passover. It’s about the Ten Plagues, a stubborn Pharaoh and Moses. It’s a celebration of the Exodus and freedom from slavery, a celebration to be savored with unleavened matzah and wine, song and ceremony.

Then you have Rednecks.

Nothing says Easter to my family like shootin’ stuff. Every year, on the Saturday before Easter, we get together with our arsenals; fill glasses with wine, pop caps off beer and yell, “Pull!” A clay target is thrown by some guy or gal with his/her hand on the lever of a strange contraption. It’s followed by a cacophony of gunshots, which we all hope will eventually splinter the target into black powder against a blue sky.

I like to shoot. There was a time—with youthful good vision—when I never missed. When I stepped up to the line, most of the men would step back because they knew they would never get a chance with me shooting against them. One of the proudest moments of my life was when my grandfather, a seasoned duck hunter, put his gun down and vowed to shoot no more because his granddaughter out-shot him. I still grin when I think about it.

This year, a new target was introduced—the exploding target. It was stationary, set in the field to await its fate. It’s essentially a plastic jar wherein two chemical components are introduced to each other and mixed thoroughly. All one must do is shoot the thing and duck and cover. The trouble is you must hit the target.

I didn’t get a chance to shoot at it.

Many others did, though. Shot after shot rang out as they tried to hit the tiny jar in the distance with hand-guns and rifles. I got tired of watching and walked back up toward the house. I should never have turned my back. A moment later, I was covering my head and looking for a hole to dive into. An explosion rang out over the hills. It was a boom of deafening proportions. When I chanced a glance back, billows of yellow smoked filled the air above a crater in my father’s unplanted cornfield. For a minute there, I thought we were under attack.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: guns, alcohol and explosives? My God, what about the children?

Fear not, dear readers. Those children were right there where they should be—in the thick of it all. They shot guns, kept score, tried to out-shoot, out-talk, and out-do each other all day. Hey, they’re not your kids. They’re redneck kids. My nephew brought in his first turkey when he was only seven or eight, and he did it with a bow. He has a good eye and was proud to bring home dinner. My daughter shot her target pistol like a pro and earned the envy of every boy there.

But . . . with all those guns and all those kids running around, you’d think it was a recipe for disaster. No, not in this family. Anyone who grows up with guns in families such as ours has a healthy respect for them. We all learn proper safety, proper handling and proper care. A gun is not a toy, it’s a tool. Like any tool, it’s to be cared-for and respected. That’s the way of it.

So, no, no one was hurt—unless you count all the sore shoulders from shooting all those long guns. Mine still aches. But guns are not the downfall of such gatherings. It’s when the guns are put away for the day because Ma Nature decides to rain on our parade that you need to worry.

That’s when the ATV’s come out. That’s when the kids really run wild. When you have the entire big farm to run wild on, you don’t worry about freaks and weirdoes or drunk neighbors driving home from the local bar. Hell, you just don’t worry. You let the kids have their freedom. Freedom is in short supply for city kids. Farm kids have it made.

So, a myriad of four-wheelers and go-carts were at their disposal. Fun things, these vehicles in the hills and forests of the farm. With a tank of gas, you can go all night in the spring mud.

But it’s all fun and games until someone flips a go-cart.

There we were, the adults of the party, ducking into sheds and outbuildings to get out of the soft drizzle that added to the mud. I’d just watched my kid ride off with her cousin at the wheel. My mom alarm was going off. I had a strange feeling I shouldn’t let her go, but she begged, “Just one ride before we leave? Please?”

“A short one,” I told her. Then to her cousin, “Be careful and go slow.”

It was a short ride. With my niece at the wheel and my grinning child in the passenger seat of the go-cart, I watched them speed up the hill and disappear into the trees. They were followed by my other niece’s boyfriend on a four-wheeler. I stepped into the shed to wait with my mother, my sister and a few others. I didn’t wait long.

It turned out to be a very short ride indeed. The four-wheeler came flying down the hill and over the creek and to a skidding halt in front of the shed. My daughter was on the back with terror in her eyes. The boyfriend said, “They flipped the go-cart.”

It’s funny how those words can galvanize so many adults into action. I was on her in an instant, thinking my little girl needed to be picked up. I’d seen that look on her face before when she was six and had broken her arm. I knew something terrible was wrong, but she wasn’t six anymore. She’s twelve. She no longer weighs forty pounds.

Still, a mom in such a situation can do miraculous things. I lifted her from the vehicle and stood her on the ground. Grandma was suddenly there, shoving me aside, demanding to know what was wrong.

Hello, I’m the mom here.

Then Grandpa showed up and tried to shove Grandma aside. Auntie was there, too, trying to get into it. Before I knew it, my parents had taken over and I couldn’t get next to my kid.

Ah, well . . . They’d raised the three of us—and we were a real handful. There were broken bones, open wounds, cracked heads. I suppose I could defer to the more experienced ones, and my dad had some first-aid training.

Dad declared it to be a sprain. Mom decided she’d take her to the hospital. I raised a brow. Um, I guess I’ll get the insurance card and meet you at the car.

Mom drove. We took my child to the ER at our little hometown hospital. It’s a very nice hospital with a good trauma ward. Yep, her arm was indeed broken, in the shaft of the radius. Crap.

The good doctor spent a good amount of time lecturing about safety equipment such as helmets and pads. Yeah, okay, I get it. Next time, listen to the mom alarm. Visions of my child’s head or spine crushed under the roll bar of the go-cart flooded my mind. I wanted to smack him.

If he shot me the hairy eyeball once, he did it a dozen times. He wanted me to be ashamed, to feel the guilt of a mother who failed to protect her young. Next time, I won’t put the guns away. Next time . . .

We got back to the farm with the kid’s arm wrapped from fingers to shoulder. The molded splint was bigger than her head. She was in pain, had missed her dinner and wanted to go home. We had prescriptions to fill, it was late and her father kept calling. Of course, I didn’t answer until we were on the road for home. We were supposed to be leaving just after he had, but that was hours ago. I’d called him from the hospital after saying a silent prayer of thanks he’d already left when the accident occurred. Nothing says “emergency” like a father on a rampage.

We got home shortly before midnight and spent a quiet Easter Sunday at home with no ham and no deviled eggs. I just wanted to forget the holiday—or all holidays. Given our track record of late, boycotting the holidays wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

So, the moral of the story is, don’t stop shootin’ stuff. If you do, someone’s bound to get hurt.

Christmas ADHD

It was a rough Christmas. To be honest, the entire holiday season has been a whirlwind of furious activity. When September arrived, I finally started feeling better. After one week shy of a year from the time my heart went haywire, I was finally starting to feel like my old self.

My old self took a look around and discovered my home was a mess. I spent several weeks scrubbing, cleaning, spackling, painting and barking orders at the rest of the household. New furniture was ordered and the place reorganized just in time to feed the multitudes for Thanksgiving. It took a week to prepare the food that would be devoured in less than two hours.

The next day I rested. Then it was time to prepare for Christmas. The days flew; the husband injured his shoulder at work. He needed care. He needed meds. He needed a doctor but convincing him of such is like trying to pull teeth on a tyrannosaur. We argued. I threw up my arms in surrender and tried to carry on.

The project this year was bath stuff—you know, soaps, oils, gels, salts, powders—all the stuff needed to enjoy a decadent bath, complete with chocolate truffles. What’s a luxurious bath without amazing chocolates? All of it had to be formulated, made by a caring hand for the women in the family. I turned my dining room into a laboratory.

Men don’t really care about luxuriating in a hot bath with fragrant salts and oils. For them it would be baked goods. The kitchen was turned into a bakery. I had to spend hours creating goodies and slapping the husband’s good hand every time he tried to sneak a treat.

Treats are a favorite of most men. They wander through life looking for some tasty confection to shove into their mouths. Grandma always said, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I think some women should aim their culinary weapon more carefully. Some of them tend to cook for the wrong men and end up with broken hearts and fatherless children.

Oh, yeah—the child. In the midst of flurry and mayhem, the princess fell ill. She came back from the annual cookie baking at Grandma’s with a stuffed head and a slight fever. On Monday, I left work early to take her to the doctor. The poor kid had a sinus infection—or so they thought.

Missing time at work, behind on the gift projects and still trying to find time to do the shopping, Christmas was just a week away. The work week ended, the child was not improving. I was in the final push when she began crying in the night. Fortunately, I was still up furiously working away at getting things finished. At this point, I was no longer looking at the calendar, but at the clock.

The husband was pressed into taking her to urgent care. They sat there for three hours while the smoke hissed from my furious hands. The oven fired non-stop, with the aromas of various cookies mixing with the scents of lilacs, lavender, jasmine, oranges and cloves.

The salts spilled all over the floor.

I love my floor, durable hardwood that shines as highly polished wood should. I believe I wrote about the odyssey of having it installed. Home repairs always come with their own special problems. No matter how well you plan, how organized you are, something always goes wrong.

I have yet to paint the kitchen and dining room. Kitchens need fresh paint regularly, at least in homes where kitchens are used. I cook. I cook a lot. My walls are a mess. I really must get them done. Maybe I should paint them green. Green is a nice color for kitchens.

Where was I? The phone rang and the husband informed me the princess had strep. She was indeed very ill. That’s just fabulous. As I contemplated this new development, I set my bare foot in the spilled bath salts. Oh, yeah. Clean up the salts.

The timer went off and I couldn’t remember why I’d set it. Was there something in the oven? Butter cookies.

My husband loves butter cookies. He’d eat his weight in them every day, if I could bake that much. I would have to hide them if I wanted any left for Christmas presents. I had yet to wrap things and the daughter would be home soon.

So, I wrapped. Still working furiously, I had paper and ribbons strung across the living room floor. When she got home, she found a pile of packages covered in pretty paper. I told her she could decorate them with all the ribbons and trinkets from the wrapping box and turned her loose.

The husband returned to town to fetch meds and toilet paper. Antibiotics have an adverse effect on the digestive tract. I also asked him to get yogurt. It’s essential while taking antibiotics.

The day ended, the child tucked in and the next day was a mess. Not a surface in the main part of the house was clear. There were still cookies to bake, soaps to make, gifts to finish and a kid who was up in the night with an ear ache.

Ear pain is the worst. The poor kid has dealt with this since she was three months old. There is nothing more crazed in the world than a mother with a sick kid. When she’s in pain, I’d kill to have her healthy again.

Another dose of meds and a glance at the abandoned vacuum cleaner and I tried to remember what I was doing. The husband complained of throat pain. I demanded he see a doctor immediately. He told me to . . . Never mind.

Focus. Christmas gifts. Cookies? Tinsel is shiny.

The day sped by. It was a day when I cursed the Mayans. If the end of their calendar had meant the end of the world at midnight on the 21st, I wouldn’t be struggling to finish crap up. The Mayans were an interesting people. So much technology, so much violence. I wonder what they would think of our modern Christmas rituals.

The cookies are burning. I don’t even remember putting then in the oven.

There was a loud crash at the back of the house. I didn’t bother to find out what it was. It didn’t matter. I still had to clean up bath salts.

Cookie sheets loaded with balls of raw dough were shoved in the oven. Melted soap had to be poured into molds.

The kid was screaming again. The pain was unbearable. Her regular doctor could get her in right away. Get dressed. Now!

The strep was drug resistant. They put her on something stronger and recommended complete bed rest. Well, duh. It was Christmas Eve and Christmas with the family was just canceled. While driving to the pharmacy, I made all the calls needed to inform family, blew up at my sister who didn’t want to help get the gifts to my mother’s—after all the hard work—and got the kid home. The concern now was her infected eardrum rupturing. It did, later that night. It’s the first time it’s ever happened.

Christmas Eve. I’m in a panic. There are things to finish. My brother-in-law generously offered to pick up the gifts for my mother’s party. I suspect it was because I blew up at my sister, then called my mother to tell her I would bring the things myself , then my mother probably called my sister to tell her to cooperate and now the entire family is angry at me. I don’t care at this point. I’m still walking in spilled bath salts. I grabbed a broom.

The broom lay forgotten on the floor while I boxed, bagged, wrapped and tagged. It was all done when the man arrived. He didn’t look very happy. I’m sorry for that. Truly I am, but I shoved the thought to the side while tending the child’s pain. I put a pot of soup on, tripped over the broom and skinned a toe on the bath salts.

The husband announced he was hungry. The kid wanted to unwrap gifts. The sausage we were supposed to share with the in-laws for Christmas Eve dinner needed to be cooked. Forgetting completely about the soup, I started a loaf of bread to go with the spaghetti I was now planning.

The lights on the tree are pretty. It would be nice if I could enjoy it. I sat down to gaze at it. The kid announced she was hungry. I had to feed her because she was losing weight from lack of appetite. I just put a tray in her lap when the husband returned with some of her favorite soup from her favorite restaurant. Excellent timing.

I was done. Finally. After stubbing my toe on the broom in a pile of bath salts, I cursed and began packing all my supplies. The husband complained about the mess on the floor, but didn’t bother to help clean it up. Instead, he made a bee line for the piles of cookies I’d failed to hide.

The sun was shining on the melting ice outside the window. Shiny. The cat ran through the room and skidded on the salts. I finally remembered to clean them up, finished packing the supplies, put the centerpiece in place and headed for the living room.

“Can we unwrap presents yet?”

The child was finished with her lunch, patiently holding the tray with its uneaten remnants of food. Dropping a handful of tissue paper, I took the tray and tried to find a clear surface in the kitchen to set it on. It was a mess. The cat found something to bat across the floor and right underfoot. The dog chased after the cat. I tripped and knocked over a jar of bath salts.

To occupy the kid, I let her open a gift. It was a sketch kit, complete with everything a sickly child needed to occupy her hands. She was overjoyed.

I stepped in bath salts while carrying empty tea things to the kitchen and went in search of the broom. I found something that needed to be wrapped and went back to the piles of crap in the living room. Ribbons and bows and tape and paper—all over the floor. Decorating gifts is a creative talent of mine. I enjoy it. I don’t use those cheap ribbons available only at holiday time. I go to fabric stores and buy the good stuff. I use lace and ornaments and candy canes.

The husband growled about gritty salt under his feet.

I abandoned the living room mess and went in search of the broom. The kid wanted water.

The sausage was burning.

The dog was chasing the cat.

The stockings were hung with great care.

The last batch of cookies were disappearing down my husband’s gullet.

I forgot what I was going to write about. Christmas rituals? Insanity. Ooo, that golden ornament is shiny. Nice.

That Vicious Mood

January 27, 2010

The mood comes upon us and we don’t even realize it.  We rise in the morning, look at the scary freak in the mirror, scratch our butts and start the day.  Then, while listening to Snap, Crackle and Pop over the din of morning news reports, barking puppies and screaming kids, it hits.  The Mood…

Oh, come on.  Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.  We’ve all been there.

The cereal tastes like crap.  The kid is on a tear, screaming because she doesn’t have a thing to wear in all the clothes you spent a king’s ransom on.  The dog just chewed through your best summer pumps, which she dug out of the back of the closet after depositing a fresh, fragrant gift next to your bed.  The sweet little trinket/bimbo on the tube is smiling brightly and giggling while she tells you—with great enthusiasm—that you better get out your long handles and snow boots because there’s going to be yet another blizzard in a long succession of sunless days.

Suddenly you’re envisioning that adorable puppy roasting on a spit over a blazing fire and watching the weather-twerp’s dyed hair dissipate, leaving her bald and screeching her humiliation in front of the camera.

Yep, that’s right.  It’s The Mood.

Beware, dear people.  This is not something to be taken lightly.  It affects Northerners far more frequently than Southerners—especially in the winter months—but no one is immune to its influence.

Your morning commute becomes a nightmare of knuckle-dragging idiots without enough glyco cells between them to make a decent primate.  (For you brainiacs out there, I know that’s not the correct usage of the terminology, but I’m being facetious.) 

The guy in the white Cadillac Escalade is back, taking up your lane as well as his while he juggles his morning coffee, his cell phone and the briefcase he keeps fishing crap out of.  What the hell?  Is it on auto pilot?

Oh, let’s not forget your favorite soccer mom, shuttling her kids, the neighbor’s kids and some vagrant who sneaked into her soccer-mom-prerequisite minivan.  She’s not paying attention either.  She’s singing along to the radio and studying her daily agenda while Junior and his buddies toss the ball around until it flies out the window and crashes into your windshield.  WTF?  Why do they have the window down?  Hellooo…It’s winter!

Then you get to work and your coworkers are doing that pretend-to-be-cheerful-so-they-think-you’re-a-stellar-employee dance with their big fake smiles and their jovial greetings.  You want to tell them all to stick it up their butts, but you smile and do your best to join the dance, or the supervisor gives you that look that says she knows you’re in The Mood. 

That’s where I found myself today—deep in the clutches of this nasty frame of mind.  I was too PO’ed to even fake the dance as I went about my daily grind at the lovely cube farm. 

My first call of the day was from an egotistical dork who took great pleasure in reminding me that I was there to serve him.  I’d like to serve him, all right, with a nice Chianti and some farva beans.  Slurp.

But I did my job, saying in a voice oozing saccharine, “That’s what I’m here for, sir.  I’ll be happy to take care of whatever issues you have.  Now, what may I do for you?” 

With a Star Wars Universal Translator the caller would have heard, “Yeah, let me take care of the problems you caused because you’re too dim-witted to figure out how to fill out the same paperwork you’ve been filling out in the twenty-two years you’ve been doing your job, you mindless sack of cow pies.  I’ll fix it with some arsenic.  You want that straight up, or on the rocks?”

It didn’t get much better as the day progressed.  Everyone, it seemed, was in the same humor.  They were ticked off at the world, and me in particular because I was foolish enough to take their calls.  By the time I was finished for the day, I was ready to (in the words of Arlo Guthrie in his famous Alice’s Restaurant—the long version) Kill!  Kill!  Kill!

Not having taken enough punishment for the day, I decided to stay after and call up member services to deal with a few of my own benefit issues before heading out into what was starting to look like a wicked winter storm.  There’s an employee program that reimburses us for money spent to get in shape, have well care visits with doctors and anything else we do for our own good health, but I can't get into the system.  I haven’t been able to since I signed up over three years ago.  I have to get the paperwork before I sign up at the gym in order to get the discount.  I’ve been trying to join a local gym for several weeks now and this is the only thing holding me up. 

So, I stayed late, on my own time, to talk to the people at the help desk, but because I'm an employee, they can't access my account and fix it.  I have to talk to someone in employee services.  Those people are only there during the same hours I'm on the phone and I have to have a computer in front of me when I talk to them on the phone, so I can't call them on my lunch hour because I'm not supposed to use my company computer or the company phone for personal business during regular business hours.  ARGH!

An hour and several handfuls of hair later, I headed into the eye of the storm—and I’m not talking about the weather.  I was fed up to the gills with the day, with the job, with the people around me and the world in general. 

It took time, and a great deal of personal restraint with all the knuckle-draggers on the road, to make it to the interstate.  As I headed for the on-ramp, my one goal was to make it before the salt truck/snowplow two car-lengths ahead of me got there.  I was just about to make my move when a Mercedes cut me off.  A big glob of sticky slush hit my windshield and left me temporarily blinded.  By the time my wipers had done their job, there were two cars on the side of the road, the Mercedes was behind me again and the salt truck was on the ramp.  With a few choice words for Mr. Mercedes, I followed the truck—at a safe and slow distance.

For those of you who rarely or never see a salt truck, this big thing on the back of the truck wings salt chunks everywhere, making it impossible to pass without damage to your car, so I had to stay behind it.  It was spraying rock salt, some chunks as big as my fist and the mix of raw salt, slush from the truck tires and the snow coming down caused a nasty film on my windshield that was near impossible to wipe away. 

I got into the left lane and tried to pass him, but the salt sprayer covers both lanes, so bits and pieces were hitting my car.  I got behind him again and stayed there.

Finally, the others behind me decided to slide around him.  The first was Mr. Mercedes and I had a wicked moment of malicious glee when a huge chunk hit the car causing something to break off the front end.  I had to swerve to miss it when it came flying back.  Oh, the perverse joy!  Then came several others, one in a big SUV.  I got on his back bumper and followed him around, using him as a shield.  I got past the big truck, got up to my exit, took the next ramp to my turnoff and ended up behind another salter. 

I pulled off the road, screamed profanities and waited until I was sure he was far enough down the road before I continued. 

Let me tell you, dear readers, there isn’t enough chocolate ice cream in all of Christendom to make a day like this go away or cure The Mood once it sets in.