"Surgical Operation"

People who know me know that I love to use pretty things.

If I set out a plate with a bunch of grapes cascading over the rim, I am the person who will have a pretty pair of silver grape shears to accompany those grapes, so you can cut off a bunch for yourself.

If I serve soft cheeses, I’ll have a pretty spreader to use for the crackers.

Hey—I have them, so I use them.

My brother Eddie always made fun of me because I used nice things, and he knew I like things to look attractive. He’d come into my kitchen and ask if I had any tea: “Do you have any tea? I don’t mean some artsy-fartsy tea, I mean… like Lipton’s?” Eddie’s a no-nonsense kind of guy.

Eddie and his wife Jenn, who live in VA, have an adorable little boy named Graham, (or, as I like to call him, “the Graham Cracker.”)

When Graham was little, he had a game he loved to play with Eddie and Jenn. He’d be visiting here in North Carolina, and he’d lie down on the bed. Then, he’d call his mom and dad, and say, “Can we play ‘Surgical Operation?’”

Surgical Operation was a much-played game which involved his lying down on his back, lifting his pajama top up so his stomach was exposed, and once it was, Jenn or Ed would use their hands to pretend they were making big incisions in his stomach. Then, the other one would bring forth a shoe, hat, glove or cell phone, and say, “Oh, My! Look what was in there!? No wonder you haven’t been feeling very well!” Never failed: it resulted in peals of laughter and smiles.

Hmmmm...wonder if there were any grape shears in there?

(It could happen!)

Hands in the spaghetti

I was never glued to the tube for the Sopranos, but I was a fan. I probably even missed some seasons in their entirety, but for a number of episodes, I tuned in with lots of other people to see what good old Tony was up to.

Once, I was telling Joe what my brother Eddie says about people he thinks are too cowardly in handling challenging situations. Eddie would always say to me, “You know what I mean, Sue, she’s just not someone who’s willing to get her hands in the spaghetti.” Of course, since it was Eddie, I knew exactly what he meant by that. Not being willing to get your hands into the spaghetti was just not at all attractive to Eddie! He liked people who would fight for a cause, even if that meant getting down and dirty if you have to. (Who knows where he comes up with these things.)

Anyway, I'll set the stage for you:

Last year, I was heading down to visit my dad, and I had shared with Joe that I wanted to have a real heart-to-heart talk with my dad about some important topics from the past. I suppose I was a little bit apprehensive, hoping daddy would understand what I would say, and that he'd take it in the right way when I did. Now, as it turns out, my dad is a “Tony,” --(although, certainly a much nicer, more admirable Tony than Tony Soprano.) My dad is now living in Statesboro, Georgia with my older sister Mary Kate.

Joe came along on my visit, (and Joe is originally from Oklahoma.)

My dad and I wound up having a very nice visit, much as I thought we would, and we really communicated well--we had a great talk, hugged and cried, and there was nothing at all to worry about, but prior to my heading down there for my visit, Joe thought I might be anxious, and he handed me this hilarious photo with this caption beneath it. I never shared it before with my dad, and daddy, I know you read this blog, so I hope you get as big a kick out of it as I did.

It still makes me laugh…

“The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” (-Erma Bombeck)

“Remember the tea kettle—it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings.” (-unknown)

Joe’s a coffee drinker, I drink tea.

I wish I liked coffee. I really do. I want to.
I admit to loving the redolent scent of fresh coffee brewing, especially in the morning. Joe sometimes likes to grab a cuppa from Starbucks or any of the local coffee shops while we’re out, and he’ll sometimes really boil the canary and add a dash of almond flavoring. There have been days when I didn’t want to leave the car, just to sit and savour that fragrant aroma. I love the ritual of coffee and the camaraderie of people meeting for coffee.

But drink it? My brother Eddie always told me I was “a bit tightly wound,” and he’s pretty accurate there. The last thing my body needs is coffee, which brings me to such a frenetic state of anxiety that it’s criminal. Friends tell me it helps wake them up and get them going to have a cup of coffee, but it doesn’t have that effect on me. I believe them, and envy them that, but if I drink coffee, I’ll still feel tired, only then, I’ll feel tired as well as tense and agitated for hours.

A cup of tea won’t affect me that way. I find it soothing and comforting, and it doesn’t leave me feeling as if every nerve ending is exposed to the cruel world the way coffee does. I love the whole notion of brewing coffee and drinking the adult beverage that everyone else does, but I just can’t do it. So, have a cup, and enjoy it for me. For now, I'll take your word for it...vicariously.

“We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven’t had any tea for a week…
the bottom is out of the Universe.”

(-Rudyard Kipling)

“A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.” (-JRR Tolkien)

I keep several sets of wine charms in some little nesting containers my brother gave me years ago: you know, like those little Russian dolls that fit into one another, each progressively larger than the last. Eddie said he knew I’d like them, and I think of him every single time I look at them on our kitchen counter top.

So, let me tell you a little bit about my youngest sibling, Eddie. He’s 7 years younger than me, and I remember the day he was born as if it was yesterday. My oldest sister, Mary Kate and I were always together until Claudia came along, and then the three of us were inseparable as siblings. People always referred to us collectively as “the girls:”

It was “Tony and the girls...”

...or “Mary and the girls.”

Suddenly, there was Eddie, and life as we knew it was never quite the same ever again. Eddie was an adorable little guy, and he was well-loved by his 3 older sisters. Overnight, we became “the girls and Eddie.”

Eddie was always gregarious, intelligent, and hilariously funny. As a teenager, girls always had crushes on my brother. Everyone knew there’d be fun if he was going to be around. As the one in the middle, I often felt as if I faded into the background, because it was either “you’re Mary Kate’s sister?!” (My older sister Mary Kate was very smart.) Or, “you’re Claudia’s sister?” (Claudia, my younger sister, could be a Wild Woman.) But most of all, it was “You’re Ed’s sister??” (Usually spoken in disbelief, and accompanied by a big smile: Eddie was handsome and cool and people just always gravitated towards him…even today, that’s true.) He can “work a room” like no one I’ve ever known. Everyone enjoys him.

When I was a single parent living in Virginia with my son Eric, Eddie came to live with us. He was going back to school, and he called me from New Jersey to ask if he could come stay with me until he “got settled” in Virginia. We never discussed it more—I was deliriously happy to have Eddie move in with us. In my mind, I figured he'd be with us—3 months? In his mind, evidently, there wasn’t quite the same finality. He wound up living with us for a number of years while Eric was growing up. They were many years apart in age, but Eric was raised almost as if he had an older brother, and I sometimes felt I had 2 sons. (Although, to this day, in our family, we all think of Eric as sort of the older brother to the older Eddie.)

Once, when my older sister's sons were small, they looked up at Eddie as he regaled us with one of his hilarious stories, and then, when Eddie left the room, her youngest son Michael watched his uncle leave the room and innocently asked, "Is Eddie a boy? or a man?" We all burst out laughing...we're still trying to figure that one out!

When my son was married, he was trying to decide who, of his friends, should be his Best Man at his wedding. Katie, Eric’s wife, said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt as to whom it should be…Eddie.” I was touched, and Eddie was amazingly flattered.

Eddie becomes the center of attention in any room he enters. He’s one of those people who takes up a lot of body space when he’s around, not in an obnoxious way, but just because he fills a room with his entertaining presence. He’s lovable and always interesting, because he’s just interested in everything. When he was little, Eddie’s bedtime reading with my dad consisted, for quite some time, of a set of encyclopedias for kids called Tell Me Why. They read those tomes from “Aardvark” all the way through to “Zygote,” and to this day, Eddie will come out with some wacky, little-known-fact that amazes me, and I’ll ask him: “Where’d you learn THAT, Eddie?!” His matter-of-fact reply will often be simply: Tell Me Why.

Now, he’s a dad, and he and his wife Jenn, up in Falls Church, VA, are the best parents of a wonderful son Graham, (affectionately called “Graham Cracker.”)

I’m very lucky in the siblings I have. We’re all very different, but I love them all. Eddie just makes me smile. You gotta' love him.

“Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring—quite often the hard way.” (-Pamela Dugdale)

“It snowed last year, too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.” (-Dylan Thomas)

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well." (-Virginia Woolf)

“Schizophrenia beats dining alone.” (-Oscar Levant)

Good food and good company go hand-in-hand: Meals with family and friends have always been important to me. I can be a creative cook, but I always try to set a nice table, reasoning that if the food is not perfect, at least the table shows I put some effort into it.

Pretty linens, sparkling glassware, flowers and color at the table make for a festive gathering. My mother and grandmother always taught us to like a beautiful table, and I try my best to uphold that tradition.

My brother used to make fun of me, telling me that I was “artsy-fartsy.” So be it. I admit that I am. But guess who always showed up at the door just when it was time to eat?

“Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity.” (-Frank Lloyd Wright)