Dream a Little Dream of Me

watching over us?

Lately I've been having a lot of dreams in which my mom is alive and well. In the seven years since her death, I've had a few dreams about or including her, but to my dismay she always appeared as I last remembered her - gaunt and thin, coughing and breathless, wasting away from the cancer that stole her from us. Needless to say, this latest bout of a happy and vibrant mom making a cameo in my dreams is welcome indeed.

As stated in this post, I'm not a religious person. I find cemeteries soothing & peaceful largely because I don't believe in ghosts. Even when people tell me stories of "eerie" coincidences that somehow prove that our loved ones are still with us, my skeptical mind stubbornly refuses to believe it and looks for rational explanations. Therefore, I always treated my dreaming of my mom as simply my subconscious aching to see her again, and simply supplying the vision of her as I (unfortunately) remembered her best.

In the past few months, I've had several dreams in which my almost-17-year-old daughter Lexi is little again, and my mom is healthy and happy and, most of all, listening attentively as I talk about my daughter. I ascribe this to two factors: one, the shocking revelation that my daughter is almost grown, and my subsequent longing to have her young again; and two, the inevitable march of time that prompts any woman to want to confide in her mom. Words cannot express how much I wish my mom could see Lexi now - this breathtakingly beautiful young woman who is so collected and unflappable. How I hope everyone else is right and I am wrong, and our loved ones do indeed survive in some other form, and can communicate from beyond. If that were true, then my mom has seen my daughter grow from that immature, clingy, going-through-her-awkward-phase 9 year old.

She's seen Lexi's first signs of womanhood, her first innocent crush, her first schoolyard kiss. She's seen her decide that perhaps being a paleontologist isn't in her future. She's seen her decide on a dozen other careers at one point or another. She's seen her excel in school and become Little Miss Social Butterfly. She watched, horrified, as Lexi had a seizure in eighth grade, and she cried when Lexi was diagnosed with epilepsy. She's been so proud to see how well Lexi handled this diagnosis, and has been pleasantly surprised that her scatterbrained granddaughter always remembers to take her pills.

She's seen Lexi's first day of high school and stood beaming proudly next to me as we watched my daughter get on the exact same bus I once took, at the exact same bus stop I once had. She's seen Lexi join the high school swim team, and she remembered how much we all enjoyed watching Lexi on her old swim team at Tavistock swim club. She watched as the cutest boy on the swim team, one of the most popular boys in the junior class, asked Lexi out. She did everything in her power to try and smack Lexi upside the head for agreeing - Lexi was only a freshman, after all - but she relaxed once she saw that Lexi was in control at all times.  She cheered when Lexi and the boy broke up (even though she felt bad for Lexi) but was glad that Lexi remained gracious and friendly toward him.

She felt so helpless during Lexi's sophomore year as she struggled with the harder courseload and with her constant fatigue & brain fog from the ever-increasing epilepsy medications. She tried so hard to warn Lexi to study harder, to rise above the fatigue, but to no avail. She mourned as Lexi failed her Honors classes. She heard Lexi begging me to let her homeschool the following year and wasn't so sure it was a good idea, but hoped for the best. She eventually saw that Lexi did very well teaching herself, happily devouring textbooks.

She watched as Lexi began driving school, and did the old stomping-an-imaginary-brake-pedal-on-the-passenger-side while in the car with her. She was so proud when Lexi finally got her first job after trying for a year. She tried to give Lexi driving tips, but Lexi couldn't hear her. She tried to give her tips on how to excel at her new job, but Lexi couldn't hear her. Lexi couldn't hear her no matter how hard she tried. But at least she was there. At least she got to see her beloved granddaughter.

How I wish this were true.

Evil Sadistic Penguins

AUGHHH!!! RUN!!!

So yesterday we had our weekly Sunday dinner at Granny's, and my daughter brought a guest - her cousin Samantha, who also happens to be one of her best friends. Since this was Samantha's first visit, Granny and Daddy told her some amusing family tales, particularly the stories of my dad's and uncle's time in the Catholic schools of the '50s in Philly. Even though I've heard these stories hundreds of times, it still strikes me as unbelievable that the nuns in those days were so cruel and abusive, while the nuns my daughter and I had were always so kind and loving. My guess is that most of these nuns lived through the sadistic nuns' reign of terror in the '50s, and vowed to bend over backwards to be nice when they themselves became nuns.

First was the story of my dad's brother Sam's introduction to the devil: one day when Sam was in second grade, a huge dragonfly buzzed through the open window (then, as now, Catholic schools were too poor to afford air conditioning. You haven't really lived until you've felt sweat dripping down the back of your itchy polyester uniform jumper while you futilely flail away with the accordion fan you folded out of an old test paper). In those days, Catholic schools were even more overcrowded than now, and there were at least 45 rambunctious eight-year-olds presided over by one elderly nun. The kids were hot, cranky and wound up, and predictably started freaking the heck out when they saw the dragonfly. The nun's brilliant idea to restore order and make the little rascals behave? She told them the dragonfly was the devil, and he would immediately snatch away the soul of any child who made so much as one more peep. Needless to say, my poor Uncle Sam came home bawling his eyes out that day.

Next was the day my Uncle Sam got quite the spelling lesson. He was asked what the letters H-E-A-D spelled, and got it wrong. The nun came over to him and hit him over the head with his spelling book, punctuating each smack with "head, HEAD, HEAD!" When Granny arrived at school to walk him home that afternoon, he told his mother that school had been fine, but his friend Kimmy piped up, "Sammy, it was not fine!" and proceeded to tell Granny what had happened. Granny was understandably furious, and went right back to the school to have a word with the nun. "Oh," the nun laughed, giving my uncle a motherly squeeze, "I would never hit a child! I just tapped him on the head with my finger and said 'head, head, head' [in a lilting voice]. Remember, Sam?" My uncle just nodded, terrified. In those days, the Church was supreme, priests were God incarnate, and my granny ended up believing every word of this.
Two days later it was Kimmy's mother who told Granny what happened in school the day after this incident: the nun immediately asked in an icy voice, "Okay, who squealed to Mrs. Lagrotteria about yesterday?!" Fingers pointed to Kimmy. The nun called Kimmy up to the front of the room, handing her a dunce cap. "Kimmy, we do not like dirty squealers in this school. You will wear this dunce cap on your head and go to each and every class in this school. You will open the door and loudly announce 'I am a squealer'. Go, Kimmy." Off Kimmy went, sobbing the whole way. By the third class she was crying so hard she could barely get the words out, but children in those days did what they were told without question. My granny was horrified at this and said to Kimmy's mother, "My God! We have to go say something to the principal about this!" "NO!" Kimmy's mother replied. "You've done enough damage already! Please don't say anything!" So Granny let it go, reluctantly, telling Sam to mind the teacher always. The lesson stuck, because my uncle was rarely disciplined after that.

My uncle may have been the obedient one, but my father was the rebellious one. He was always mouthing off to the nuns, priests, anyone in authority. He simply hated school. Case in point: on his very first day of school, he noticed many of the students raising their hands to be excused. These students then left the classroom. So he raised his hand, asked to be excused, and left the classroom - and walked the four blocks home. When my very surprised granny asked what he was doing home, he replied, "Well, I tried school, and I don't like it."
Naturally my dad got quite his share of smacks and outright beatings with rulers and pointers. He told us of one nun's penchant for grabbing the "naughty" boys by their ties and repeatedly slamming them against the chalk board while she nonchalantly continued with the lesson. One day, she started to grab my dad by his tie, but he was (luckily!) wearing a clip-on. When she grabbed him, putting all of her force into it, the tie came off in her hand and he was free. This threw her off balance and she toppled over, much to the amusement of the students. Furious at the affront and the class laughing at her, she proceeded to beat my dad with her pointer until he could get away.

My uncle never once sent his two children to Catholic school (wonder why?) My mother, however, very much wanted me in Catholic school so my dad did what any rational person would do: he sat in the back of the classroom for a week to make sure the nun didn't try to beat anyone. The first time he saw a student turn around and start talking with another student - in the middle of a lesson - he panicked, sure he was about to witness a nun smackdown. He was astonished when the nun calmly said, "Joe, please turn around. Thank you." He was even more astonished when the student actually listened. He never got over his fear that eventually, something would go wrong, but at least he stopped sitting in on my classes.

Crying over commercials? Yep, you're old too

Growing up and growing old are funny things. I remember being a young kid, thinking "When I hit double digits, THEN I'll be big." I turned 10 but still felt the same as always, so next it was "I'll be big once I become a teenager." Turned 13, yet I still enjoyed playing with Barbies and yes, I was still so afraid of the dark I slept in my mommy's bed every chance I got. I basically spent my entire childhood waiting to be "grown up", until the day adulthood was abruptly thrust upon me and I realized I'd better grow up PDQ.

Being a young mom will make any woman feel old before her time. Once I turned 30, I started feeling the inevitable tick-tock of life's clock speeding up. My husband was shocked to discover the other day that most of our daughter's friends are now both old enough to drive and old enough to vote or buy cigarettes. Since our daughter's the size of a typical 11-year-old and is one of the youngest kids in her class, we tend to think of her as our little girl; the occasional reminder that she herself will be voting (and NOT smoking) in about two years is pretty shocking indeed. I know my husband, who's always had an irrational fear of growing old, is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he's now outside of advertisers' coveted 18-34 demographic. He makes light of his age by joking that our daughter's Playboy-centerfold-worthy friends will be legal in a mere two years. I'm pretty sure he's joking, anyway. And if he's not, well, our daughter also has guy friends with pretty nice bods, who turn 18 in just a few months...what, I'm joking, for Pete's sake!

For me the biggest indication that I'm getting old isn't how big my daughter (or her disturbingly well-endowed female friends) get. It's the fact that I get a lump in my throat over the stupidest things. I've spent my whole life getting choked up by the soaring arias in the Phantom of the Opera - what can I say, my mom got me hooked on Andrew Lloyd Webber - but now it seems just about any poignant lyric or good memory will do it. When I saw Taylor Swift perform "Innocent" at the VMAs? Lump in my throat. The first time I heard "Frosty the Snowman" on the radio this Christmas? Lump. Rock songs will do it too - there's a line in Offspring's "Gone Away" that goes "I reach to the sky/ and call out your name/ and if I could trade/ I would". See? BIG lump.

Commercials do it to me - anyone around my age will remember those old Folgers commercials where the soldier comes home for Christmas. I can't recall specific commercials, but let's just say there have been an embarrassingly large amount that have made me choke up in the past few years.

Life events? Dear Lord, where do I begin?! When my daughter had her Confirmation two years ago, I sat in the church watching these kids, the very kids that used to run up to me and hug me around the waist and call me "Lexi's mom" or even "Mom". The vision of their little six-year-old selves merged with the tall young women and men I saw before me, and that did it for me; I just lost it, much to my husband's confusion. I was a bit better at her 8th grade graduation, luckily.

My daughter makes fun of me for my frequent lumpy throats, especially since most of her life I've been something of an Ice Queen, keeping my emotions firmly and safely bottled. I wonder how much of this new weepiness of mine is due to age, and how much is due to the inevitable cracks in my carefully built glass shield. I hope I learn to repair the shield, or else I may just flood the place when she graduates high school - heck, even when she gets her license!

Weird Al Helps A Grocery Store With Its Grammar

Weird Al Helps A Grocery Store With Its Grammar

I always did like Weird Al...

The Frogman of Hammonton

This is not the Frogman, but the real thing was MUCH SCARIER

My Granny told me this story years and years ago, one of her many too-wacky-to-be-fake True Stories. I was having a conversation about frogs' legs with a coworker today, and was reminded of the story. Don't ask me to explain, just work with me here.

Anyway, as my legions of loyal fans* know, my beloved Granny has had quite the interesting life. For your reading pleasure, I present another of Granny's True Stories: The Frogman of Hammonton. (dum dum DUM!)
*legions of loyal fans = three family members and two inexplicable readers from Canada and Australia. That's LEGIONS of devoted fans right there. 


One day Granny was doing the dishes. As I described in this post, her kitchen is on the second floor and overlooks a very long, woodsy backyard with Hammonton Lake beyond. Hammonton Lake is small as far as lakes go, and although the wider part near the White Horse Pike is certainly pretty, it's never been much of a fishing or swimming lake. Where she lives, at the narrow "swampy" end of the lake, there's no activity at all, and with all the underwater weeds at this end, fishing or swimming could be downright dangerous.

On this particular sunny and pleasant day, Granny glanced up from the dishes and gazed towards the lake, only to do a double take. She saw a dark shape, far too large to be a fish, swimming below the surface. As anyone who has read my Granny posts knows, she's got quite the imagination, but even she was flummoxed - what on earth could that huge shape be? And if that was a fish, how unfortunate that her son and grandson weren't there to see it!

AUGHH!!!

Transfixed, she followed the shape with her eyes. She set the dish she'd been holding down as she came to realize the shape was looking more and more human-like every second. Suddenly, the figure broke the surface, and she stared openmouthed as the figure emerged, dripping, from the lake. Her first panicked glimpse had her convinced it was some sort of aquatic alien with dark shiny skin and bulging eyes (sort of like a Sleestak, if you will).

As her panic subsided, she saw that it was no Sleestak but was instead a fully outfitted scuba diver. When I say fully outfitted, I mean FULLY OUTFITTED - wetsuit, flippers, mask, scuba backpack, the whole nine yards.

Granny continued to stare, transfixed, as the Scuba diver slowly walked up the embankment of the lake and started to walk through her back yard to the street out front. Her paralysis broke as he came closer and closer to her home, and she quickly dialed her trusted neighbor across the street. It's a testament to what a dear friend and neighbor this woman is, because instead of calling the guys with the white jackets on Granny, she instead looked out her window. She confirmed to Granny that indeed, the frogman was now crossing the street in front of Granny's house, passing the neighbor's house, and was walking on down the road. Granny and neighbor stayed on the phone until the frogman padded out of sight, his swim fins flapping on the asphalt.

Granny never did find out why on earth a scuba diver decided to go exploring in the swampy little area of the lake behind her house. Several neighbors saw the bizarre sight, and one even called the police, but no arrests were made and indeed, no one ever saw The Frogman of Hammonton again. Theories abounded; my personal favorite was that he had just robbed a home on the far side of the lake and thought he'd found the perfect getaway route. I'd hate to think of where he stashed the jewels as he swam across, though.