Thanks for Reminding Me

Now ...
and then ...

I don't have any photos from this period, more's the pity (probably get some good blackmail out of it). Okay, there's this one, which I scanned recently and comes from the tail end of my stay in New York. My Glamorous cousin Marylynn and I went to Tavern on the Green. This was just prior to her trip to Russia and she is wearing her red Red Square dress, which is entirely and utterly backless. Hope she has a nice wrap in case it was chilly!
This weekend I was reminded of a number of things having to do with theatre (which link directly to NYC, but also elsewhere) and thought I'd better write some of them down before I forgot them - not impossible considering I can barely remember what I did yesterday.
I had gone to NY to audition for shows and do the Theatre Thing. One did this by reading the trade papers, finding audition ads, calling for an appointment/sending in the 8x10 and resume (if not a cattle call) and hustling over to the locations. One was the marvelous Ansonia Hotel, the home-away-from-home for many in the biz. Others were in catch-as-catch-can locations (Let's see how many dashes I can use! They're free!). One in particular was in the auditorium of the New York Times newspaper building.
The ad had been for redheads, which I was at the time, although this photo might not show it very well. Red fades, you know. A company was going to put on a production of "The Taming of the Shrew," a show I love, having seen the BBC version with John Cleese who shocked everyone by doing it abso-tootin-lutely straight (except for one tiny bit where he clucked like a chicken) and a Spanish golden age drama by Calderón de la Barca, "Life Is a Dream." Coincidentally, I had been a Spanish major and had memorized Segismundo's famous soliloquy ... in Spanish. And I swear this was entirely a coincidence.
The audition was at an awkward time for me. I was working as a temp and the audition was right after work, not giving me time to change. I was wearing a grey/lavendar wool suit, a polyester blouse (probably - although I did have one silk one that was white), and some Italian heels that cost what at that time (for me anyway) was an unheard of $84 plus NY tax. Should have bought them in Boston. No tax on clothing in "Taxachusetts." Go figure.
So, that is how I showed up: red hair, tight wool suit, hose, big fake pearls that would make Barbara Bush envious, and expensive leather shoes. We were to meet in the lobby and, you know, it was obvious who was there for the audition. It was redhead central. I thought this was really funny, but then I think everything is really funny.
All us alleged redheads were herded into the auditorium and the woman in charge (let's call her Hilda for want of her real name) sighed and announced that "some" of us apparently had (message) services that had not given us the part of the message that said to "dress for movement." I had actually talked to a live person and knew for certain that no one had mentioned that. I checked later and there had been no follow-up call to add it. Bitch. She meant me.
She then described some of the other shows this group had put on. The latest one, and the one that stuck in my mind, was "The Merchant of Venice." They had created a concept on this poor play wherein the performers were concentration camp inmates who were being forced to put on TMoV. Extra actors entered in German uniforms and holding machine guns, marching the prisoners in, glaring at both actors and audience. OMG.
Does anybody remember that movie, "The Goodbye Girl"? There's a Shakespeare group whose director wants Richard Dreyfuss to play Richard III as a screaming queen? I'm sitting in the auditorium thinking, "This is the group! This is the group Neil Simon was talking about!" They also wanted to do "The Taming of the Shrew" as a sort of Buzby Berkeley thing. Well, I could almost see that. Almost. I wasn't sure what they were going to do with the Calderón piece, but by this time I was pretty sure that I did not want to be part of it.
I love auditions. I enjoy rehearsals. Performances are a pain. Auditions are The Thing. In an audition, you can spend a couple of minutes doing a part you have not the slightest business playing. And if you don't really want the part, if you've just found a long-term temp job that is loaded with perks and gives you a huge office with a view of the ... the ... Empire State Building, then an audition gives you the chance you've always wanted to be a complete and total asshole. I felt my adrenalin surge. This was my moment, my destiny called me! And though it may be just once in a lifetime ... I'm gonna slam-dunk this audition!
But first, I had to go through the hazing process called "The Warm-Up."
"Okay, everyone," said Hilda. "Let's all get up on the stage here and sit in a circle!" On the floor, I might add. So be it! I was younger and more bendy, although my skirt resisted. We were going to play the Memory Game. The guy directly on my left started. He said his name. The next person to the right (that's-a me!) said his name and then her own name. That's easy! Skinny Dude, Marf. The next person added her name to the list. I could see where this was going. Even in my early 30s my memory was mush, especially with names. They were going to come around again and I'd have to do everyone. I studied. Feverishly I worked on learning the names as they went around the circle. I tried to make my face look neutral, but I could feel the sweat running down my spine. Some of the women were faltering, and they were barely halfway around. Sure enough, they made me do the whole list ... they also went a few more people past me to lead me to believe I wasn't being singled out.
One test down, we lay down and made a sound symphony with just tones to warm up our voices. Then, one by one we went up on stage to do our humorous and dramatic monologues. In order to finish my monologues (you are often cut off early), I had developed some eight-line ones, poetry or lyrics, that I could do quickly but that still ran a gamut of feelings. I don't remember what my dramatic one was, but when I led off with it, the group laughed. I say it was dramatic, which doesn't mean it wasn't wry, but when I finished, I announced that as they had laughed at my dramatic monologue, I would have to substitute another. Oh, sure! Actually, I had planned this.
"Since you are planning to do Calderón's "Life Is a Dream," I'll do Segismundo's soliloquy. Unfortunately," I added in my patent off-hand manner, "I only know it in Spanish." With that, I threw myself against the back wall and proceeded to eat scenery like nobody's bidness.
"¡Es verdad!" I shouted. "Pues reprimamos esta fiera condición, esta furia, esta ambición - por si una vez soñamos y si haremos pues estamos en un mundo tan singular, que el vivir solo es soñar ..." I went on like this through the entire soliloquy until I ended it, flat on my face: wool suit, fake pearls, Italian shoes and all. Dead silence. I haven't been that proud since. Well, except for the day that someone called me an "asshole" for reminding him of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" all afternoon. Ahhhhh, that felt soooo gooood!
Oh, and for a treat afterwards, I got to do an improvisation with Skinny Dude and Short Dude. Skinny Dude is the bastard who called me and did not tell me about the clothes for moving. He was gonna pay. Each auditioner was given pretty much the same improv. Short Dude would try to make us laugh. I don't laugh when I don't want to. Full Stop. Now, for those of you who don't "do" theatre, I might have to point out that the whole point behind improvisation is not "to win." It is to create something together (if you are working with someone), to show thinking on your feet and cooperation. But, the situation being what it was, my whole purpose in life that day was to win, to flatten these people like 'possums on I-75.
The next improv? I was to try to kiss Skinny Dude, who would be oblivious to my intentions regardless of what was going on. Short Dude was to try and stop me. Ohhhh, they picked the wrong dude. And the memory of the looks on their faces still has the ability to make me giggle. A shiver of pleasure runs through me as I see the look on Short Dude's face change after I've made a couple of feints, harrumphed in disgust, and then picked him up bodily and set him behind me. I just put my hands in his armpits and lifted him. Carrying people my own size on stage was my specialty. This guy was a flea. And again a surge of delight as I remember the look on Skinny Dude's face. Talk about a deer in the headlights. I grabbed the front of his sweater and he tried to make a break for it. I hung on and, as he reached the end of his yarn, he toppled and I swung him to the floor, straddled his inert frame, and kissed the bastard. Actually, he was quite cute - despite the two inches of roots where the natural hair color was belying the black he'd had for TMoV.
"Is that it?" I asked, glancing up at the audience and Hilda.
"I don't think so!" said Skinny Dude, who pulled me down and kissed me back.
Sometimes life just doesn't get better than that.
Oh, I'd like to say they called me and begged me to do one or both of the shows and that I'd airily turned them down, but I think we know better. Not a sausage.
Instead, let me include a totally imaginary, fictionalized, untrue fantasy of the company's conversation later that evening.
Skinny Dude: I liked her.
Short Dude: Jesus Christ.
Hilda: No, she's immature. She can't follow direction.
Skinny Dude: She's got a prodigious ... memory!
Short Dude: JEsus!
Hilda: No, forget it. She's not what we're looking for.
Skinny Dude: Are you kidding? She's got Katharine written all over her!
Short Dude: I need a drink.
Hilda: I'm telling you, forget it. I'm not working with her!
Skinny Dude: Let me just call her ...
Hilda: I said, No!
Short Dude: You are such a masochist!
Skinny Dude: I'm calling her. She seems like she'd be fun.
Hilda: If it's a date you want...
Short Dude: He doesn't want to date her, trust me.
Skinny Dude: I'm calling.
(Exit, not pursued by bear.)
Hilda: I don't believe it. She's a scenery chewer!
Short Dude: My armpits still hurt.
Hilda: I can't believe anyone thinks they can land a part that way.
(Skinny Dude re-enters.)
Hilda: Well?
Skinny Dude: I got her roommate and he laughed at me. Then he put her on, and she laughed at me and said she wouldn't be caught dead in one of our productions.
Hilda (in meltdown): That bitch!
Skinny Dude: But we're meeting for drinks at Uncle Charlie's Friday.
Ba-boom!
End of Fantasy.

The Story I Will Never Write

It being excruciatingly close to my birthday, I got to thinking recently.
There is a story in my life that I will never write. I have had all sorts of bizarre experiences, but the most bizarre will never issue from this keyboard, any other keyboard, or any of the myriad forms of writing that exist. And the story that I will not be able to tell is of the one where I give birth.
I can tell the one story about the time where I might have been pregnant. I have a blind terror of pregnancy, because it is something I have never experienced and so I fear it. It is a life changing experience and I don't take change well. The scariest part is that once I have passed through that experience event horizon, I think, Oh, that was nothing! I can do that a thousand more times! And the last thing I or anyone else on earth needs is a thousand of my babies. But that's what happens. Once I have an experience under my belt, I turn into a ditto machine and I do it over and over.
To prevent this, I have never been pregnant. I have never carried a child to term. And I have never given birth. You can say all you want about what a wonderful experience this is, I can read all about it, I can watch Jennifer Anniston on "Friends" fake it to much canned laughter, but it has not happened nor will it ever happen to me.
Therefore, there will be no amusing, traumatic, poignant (a word that a Tidewater English teacher I had pronounced "pwahg-nent"*), hilarious, or otherwise interesting story about me breaking water, having contractions, having false contractions, panicking my husband, exciting my mother, alarming the neighbors, getting stopped by state troopers, having flat tires, giving birth in the back seat of a taxi, demanding painkillers in an Exorcist voice, screaming invectives at my bewildered husband when he tries to coach me in the LaMaze breathing while inflicting cold irony on my obstetrician, sharing wisecracks with the nursing staff, loping like an orangutan to a bathroom dragging my IV on a wheeled stand, finding my emotional balance when confronted by a terminal cancer patient, threatening friends who arrive with videocameras, suddenly going back into labor to give birth to an unexpected twin-triplet-quadruplet-etc., being forgiven for the stream of invectives by a frazzled but proud father, blogging the whole thing on MySpace, and passing out from happy exhaustion after a job well done or crying inconsolably over sixteen hours of pain in vain. I will have no funny stories about the nursing bra, incompetent baby-changing (I hope - I could still get stuck with that for someone else's kid, I suppose), and a thatch of outrageously colored hair that is quickly superceded by four years of bald baby girl with a pink bow taped to her head (as was done for me).
No, the only stories I will be able to relate (or even relate to) are about me. I was born, but I don't remember it. I wasn't born blogging, nor were my parents. My sister is no longer around to describe the series of failed pregnancies that preceded me nor to pointedly not tell about how she wandered off when she was supposed to be in a neighbor's care and stepped into a yellow jackets' nest and wound up in the hospital at the same time as our mother.
And then there's that one time (referenced above) that I thought I might be pregnant because I had skipped a period and was nauseus each evening. Yes, I know it's supposed to be morning sickness, but I have a tendency to get things backwards and at the time I was going through a phase where I ate dinner things for breakfast and finished off the day with a bowl of cereal. It seemed logical that I might have evening sickness in that case instead. I don't recall if I'd been having sex at a time prior that would have put me in the early stages of pregnancy - probably not. My friend Cindy was also skipping, but she felt she at least had an excuse. We considered moving to Charleston and she could have the baby there and we would each tell people it was the other person's baby, thereby covering the embarrasment. In the end, our periods returned naturally and the need to leave town (it was the 1970s and there was still a stigma to unwed motherhood. In fact, according to my state supplied health insurance, pregnancy was not covered if I was not married) evaporated. Yes, years later when I was married I had a skipped period, but by then it could just as easily have been menopause as a pregnancy.
So, I've never been pregnant. And the only reason I'd ever want to be is because there's this smug superiority to deal with from the women who have been through it, the same smug superiority that I wield when I have had an experience someone else has not. It's as if I am not a real woman if I haven't been through this. No one ever actually says this out loud, but their actions and their looks at the rest of us hiss it in a nasty, nasty whisper. What is it, some sort of exclusive club? Faugh! In fact, they are probably just jealous that we can still stay out late, need no babysitters, buy toys for ourselves, never deal with teenagers, not have to pay for some ingrate's college, don't have some out-of-work adult child move back in just when we thought we were free and clear, and never, never, never have to set a good example.
So that is the story that will never be told. You will never have to read my amusing tales of motherhood. I will never show you photos of children or grandchildren or bore you with details of their unexceptional lives.
Remember, you never read it here.

*Okay, this could be "poin-yant," or "pwahn-yant" or the fully frenchified "pwahn-yong," but it just can't be "pwahGG-nent" and I was aware of this even as early as high school.

How Does Nora Ephron Get Published?

I picked up this cd of Nora Ephron's book - something with a title about not being happy about her neck. Anyway, I'm listening to this and my first thought is how ever did she get this published? I am 53 (or will be soon), I've got surgery in the neck area coming up, and I can in no way relate to this problem with the neck. What's with the turtlenecks and scarves? Then she goes into her life in New York City. I should be able to relate to that. But she talks about an apt. she paid a $24,000 (yes, that's right) key fee for. She was paying more a month in the 1980s than I earn a month now. Perhaps this is amusing to other people who had eight room apartments in New York.
The next thing I wonder is why on godsgreenearth they allowed this woman to read her own material? Her speaking voice is driving me crazy - and that's saying something after I endured a computer-generated voice reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, a book larded over with t' broad Yorkshire dialect and all. The eerie feeling you were being read a children's book by Stephen Hawking aside, I was sucked right into the story and mostly forgot it was a machine.
This is Ephron's real speaking voice? I just get the impression that she has tried to slow it down, which only makes the s's hissier and her final t's like tiny hammers on metal. I'm sure when she talks normally she picks up the pace ... and in fact, has some pace. This audio book reminds me of a truism I used to have about poets, that they should never be allowed to read their own material. I have since revised this opinion, as there are some poets who read beautifully. There are some authors who make great speakers and do a boffo job of reading their material, even when you think they wouldn't (Kaye Gibbons comes to mind).
Fran Lebowitz is just plain funny. I read Metropolitan Life when I first moved to New York and laughed my arse off. Dodging dog poo is indeed an Olympic Event. I don't know if I'd let her read it to me, though. I'd audition her first. Then I might recommend a nice out-of-work actor to read her stuff and she can just lick her wounds all the way to the bank.
I'm not saying I could read Ephron's material any better. I bet she's drop dead hilarious in person. But talking and telling stories is not reading written material. Ask anyone who's ever corresponded by audio tape.
Maybe I just can't relate to her lifestyle. Sorry, Nora, I'm just not getting it.

Snore?

Mij and Marf "Wedding" Photo

I don't know where this memory came from, but it popped up recently. While living in New York with Fred, we would occasionally take in people who were trying to break into the city. We were a sort of launching pad, if a very small one. We lived in a studio apartment and Fred and I were very much in each other's pockets. So, taking in a third party was a stretch. We tried to confine it to people we knew and liked from back South.
This brings in someone I will, to protect his anonymity, call Mij. Our Dear Friend Mij Mubnergard came to stay with us. Now, Fred and I (and I can admit this now that my mother is dead) shared a sofabed. Mij had to sleep on the floor, when he arrived, on the sofabed cushions. We wanted to give him time to get on his feet, leave the nest, fly on his own - yadda-yaddah. As it happened, he would be getting a little extra time because I was scheduled to go to Cambridge to see Temple at Harvard Law School. I would be gone a week or more. Undoubtedly, I would be sharing Temple's bed as well (sorry, Mom). Before returning, though, I gave Fred a call to see how things were going.
"How's Mij?" I asked.
"Still here," he moaned.
"Oh," and a thought occurred to me. "Should I find another place to stay?"
"No, no," Fred insisted, "come home!"
When I arrived I found that Mij had made himself at home, moving to the sofabed. Fred had done his best to make things uncomfortable for him. He insisted that Mij stand out in the hallway to smoke. At night, though, we were all in the same bed, Mij then Fred, then me. It was ... cramped.
Most of the time we weren't all in the apartment together. Mij and I would be alone waiting for Fred to finish a show for the night. Don't get me wrong, we loved Mij. We enjoyed each other's company, it was just too small a space for three people.
One day Fred made a strangled noise from the kitchen area. He was standing at the clothes closet (in the kitchen) and holding a white shirt at arm's length.
"Look at this!" he squawked and I dutifully moved the six feet required to get from the couch to the kitchen.
It was one of Fred's shirts. The collar of the shirt was almost black with dirt. "He must have worn this for a week! And then hung it back up instead of putting it in the laundry pile!" Fred was very particular about his clothes and his appearance. Mij had not asked to borrow a shirt. He'd worn it until dirt was ground into it.
"He has to go," said Fred.
"Don't do it when I'm here!" I pleaded. I hate confrontations.
Later that week Fred called me at work. "What are you doing this evening?" I didn't have any plans and I said so. "That's fine if you want to go out with your friends," he said, pointedly.
I sucked in my breath. "This is it, isn't it? You're going to tell him to go."
"I thought Mij and I would go out for dinner," he said.
"He's there, isn't he?"
"That's fine. Some other time then." He was going to let Mij have it, firmly, and then he was going to go off to work, leaving me to deal with the shrapnel. I stayed away as long as I could.
When I got home, Mij was standing in the hallway, smoking. He asked me about my day. And I returned the favor, as if I didn't know what had gone on.
"Fred told me I had to go," he said, putting out his cigarette and following me inside. "But, you know, it's just as well. I just can't stand the snoring anymore."
"Snoring?" I began, worrying that I might have been disturbing his sleep.
"Fred's snoring. It's just too much. I can't take it."
"Snoring?" I reiterated, "but Fred d-" and I caught myself. I had never heard Fred snore, and he was usually asleep first. He was intentionally turning to face Mij each night and snoring very loudly. Such genius!
After that, Fred and I agreed on some rules for houseguests, who, like fish, take up way too much room after three days. We had three basic rules for the House:
1. We Share Everything (towels, tableware, food, bevvies, space).
2. Anyone who spends the night has to meet the approval of both residents because
3. See rule number 1.
A couple of years later, I was the one who got the Dinner. Fred was crashing and burning and didn't want me there when it happened. We went out for dinner and after we ordered he said that he had to tell me something. He told me I had to move out and once he'd told me, he felt better and tucked in when the food arrived. My salad turned to ashes in my mouth. Oh, well. What goes around, comes around.
I moved in with two other people and decided it was time to leave New York. One of my new roommates, let's call him Nad, was a backstabbing little trick who lied about the cost of the rent so he could charge us girls more and get a free ride. When I was packing to leave, he switched sweaters on me (we had bought identical sweaters) because he had torn the armpits out of his. Nad was the nightmare roommate I had not experienced until then. He did have his good points, though, I must admit. He had good taste in boyfriends and we enjoyed some Metropolitan Opera perks thanks to him. This just goes to show that it's not always who you know that counts, but with whom who-you-know is sleeping.

The Sedaris's Are Not Dysfunctional

I was in LibraryThing this morning reading posts on librarians who librarything and blog when I followed some links to a review of a book by one of my favorite authors. The reviewer referred to the Sedaris family as dysfunctional and that while the reviewer laughed at the stories, they also made the reviewer sad. I started to submit a comment, but it wasn't working and the site didn't accept it. Fortunately for you, hahaha!, I saved the comment and I add it here:

You know, I get a completely different reaction to Sedaris's family, but then I have read just about all his books (there might be one I missed). His family was deeply involved in each other and his parents apparently supported him in all his crazy incarnations (until it became obvious that he was gay and his father threw him out, but apparently his father has gotten past that). If anything, they were too much in each other's lives.
Despite all the cigarettes and alcohol (which look normal by 1960s standards) of the parents and the apparent drug use of the children, they are functioning pretty well. The Sedaris kids were "encouraged" to do volunteer work in the summers and to take music lessons (which they were allowed to discontinue when they showed a lack of interest or aptitude). Despite their upper middle class status, they did not consider "menial" jobs beneath them. They rally around each other when things go wrong.
My reaction is often one of delighted relief, mostly that his family, while entertaining, was not mine. Yet at the same time, I am envious of their spirit and lack of reserve. My family is northern euro and despite the eerie parallels (IBM, drinking-which goes with the IBM, moving south, an overly-thrift-conscious dad, live-in granny of foreign birth, my move to Manhattan to pursue acting of all things), they come off as, well, boring. This leads me to the tentative conclusion that Sedaris may be, how you say, exaggerating the seemingly dysfunctional bits just a wee bit. And I seem to note that they come off as being very, very ... happy.

That was all I had intended to put in there, as it was just a comment on the review, which shouldn't be longer than the review itself, right? And I left out the bit about how much I just plain love David Sedaris. I stood in line for over an hour (it might have been two, I'll have to ask my husband) for his autograph on his cd, "Live at Carnegie Hall," but that is nothing compared to the amount of time he sat there autographing. Yes, he's making money (ca-ching! ca-ching!), but he stayed until the absolutely last person got their autograph. He spoke with people as if he really liked them (perhaps he's just hunting for new material). He presented new material at his reading, rather than capitalizing on his old stuff. And then there are those eerie parallels.

I was an IBM child. Even after my dad left IBM, we were still tied up in the IBM satellite system of friends and vendors. My parents were drinkers. They had been smokers, but gave it up fairly early. All of my dad's friends were grateful because Dad was a terrible mooch. In the end I think they only gave it up because it was an expense. My mother did some occasional smoking and tells a story about how after one of her Kaffeklatsches we, and I was only three or four, shared out a Turkish cigarette whose colored paper matched the theme colors for the party. As a family we would eat the wine gelatin that was leftover from such frolics, right down to the family beagle. Tommy (named after the IBM president, the dog's full name was Thomas J. Watson Shopmyer Jr. the Second in a comic parody of the habit of naming a child after said prez in order to get the $50 bonus) would whimper and whimper until he got the gelatin, which he ate gingerly and spit out the grapes.
My parents and their friends used to get drunk and then pull out the IBM songbook for a good old, drunken sing-along. Now, my sister claimed that our parents' parties were just short of orgies. And she actually went so far to say to our mother when she was married and had children, "Mother, we have nice parties." [Mom's retort to that was that she had "fun parties."] Speaking as someone who sat in my sister's laundry room and translated the subtitles on the x-rated movies for one of her and her husband's legally blind friends, Blind Fred (he could not see well enough to follow the video and read the subtitles), I can't recall my parents' parties being quite as "nice" as that. Yeah, the adults jumped up and kissed each other at midnight on New Year's Eve, but I don't recall any couples under the table or in a spare bedroom. Of course, I was nine years younger than my sister.
I'm beginning to suspect that my sister could have written some Sedaris-type stories about our family that I just can't. I am loath to exaggerate. I scruple to misrepresent. It's one thing to write wild tales of fiction, but I can't do it about me or my family. Consequently, these Tales of the Blonde Shikseh wind up being almost funny. My experiences are not quite adventures. For this, I apologise, but at least you know that, barring my infamous poor memory, everything that I have written here is factual.
The cartoons, though, might have a teeny bit of exaggeration.

Doin' the Dishes

I have learned that older people don't see well. Or hear. This is doing the dishes without my sister, while I was living as an adult (in my 40s) with my parents between jobs.

Doin' the Dishes: The Beginning

These things always start somewhere. My mother recounted to me how her mother and her mother-in-law behaved when they were both visiting at the same time and offered to do the dishes. No, really. Would I lie to you?

Son of Doin' the Dishes (Part the Third)

All true; all factual. Relationships with our siblings just don't get any worse than this ... without the actual shedding of blood. Inside some of us, the younger siblings, there is a well of anger and frustration just waiting to get out. Unfortunately, some of us don't get to release that and we wind up punching refrigerators because our mothers informed us that our older siblings, as large as they might be, have little feelings that are easily hurt. We have to "make nice." This will serve us well (?) in our future where we will run into this same type of relationship again and again and again. To be fair, it is because I look for these people. It's a relationship I am comfortable in. Phew! How sick is that!?

Doin' the Dishes Part 2

I can't tell you how many times this was enacted. The only over-the-top part is where my sister grabs me by the throat. She never did that. Otherwise ...

Doin' the Dishes, Part the First

This hearkens back to the days when our parents would leave us alone and my sister (who was nine years older) and I would have this wrangle over who would do the dishes. There's a double issue here: dishes and my relationship with an older sister who adored me ... but.