The Voice of Treason

This has been one odd year. It will be the first one since the Reagan administration in which I will have no W-2. How does that work, anyway? At any rate, we had our historic snowfall - the most in Albuquerque on record - and since the city really has no infrastructure for oddball events like this, the city pretty much stood still. My sister and her husband never did get to see my mother (the reason for the trip out, really), and we almost didn’t get to see each other.

I was on the phone with her this morning and was standing outside looking at the two-foot long icicles coming off the houses. The temperature dropped last night, so there was a layer of ice on everything. There was fog - an oddity in these parts - and ice crystals were falling like glitter from the sky. My sister asked if I could see a rainbow.

“I do.”

“We saw crystals and rainbows in the Sierras. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Later I saw three rainbows and an illusion that made it seem as if there were two suns in the sky. This type of stuff is unusual, so I have to take advantage when I can. The other night when it was snowing, T and I went outside to watch. There was so much snow it was bright, like daylight. A bird flew past us and landed on the neighbor’s roof.

“It’s three in the morning and that bird is confused.”

A friend had called and mentioned damaging “ice dams,” so T went out to knock snow and ice off the roof and try to relieve the weight on our poor plants. I decided to meet my sister and brother-in-law before they left for the train station and I’m glad I did.

The main roads were improving as the sun started to melt the snow and ice, but side streets were still tricky. We live at the top of a very steep hill, so I went down the side with fewer parked cars so there’d be less chance of sliding into something. I’d watched neighbors attempt to venture out yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. Although it took some effort, I made it down…slooooowly. Coming up was still a challenge, but all went well. Just really sloooow.

Traveling is not recommended. One friend who had flown in from Missouri to see another friend who had flown from here to Missouri, missed each other completely because her flight back was cancelled and then his flight out was almost cancelled; even Donald Rumsfeld couldn’t get out of here to be at Gerald Ford’s services at the Capitol last night. It’s been a wacky week.

I’m hoping the weather will keep more people indoors tonight, and safer than on other New Year’s Eves. I plan to stay in and watch more on the Ford services. Last night’s went well, so I’ll keep my comments to a minimum. Ted Stevens? Two words: term limits. Hastert? Solid. Cheney? The man is the president I’ll never get. I don’t understand those who say he isn’t a good speaker or is monotone. I could listen, enthralled, to the man reading names from the White Pages. A fine, fine speech. See what happens when you marry an English major?

All in all, it was a year in which we lost many first-rate human beings and one remarkable dog.

No, I’m not talking about the new Congress - I’m talking about my memories of Chicago’s Big Snow of ‘67. I was seven years old, snowdrifts were at 42 inches, the entire city had come to a standstill, and grocery store shelves were bare. Eeeeerie.

T often criticizes my habit of stockpiling as if I were preparing for a nuclear holocaust. I remember my family living on those refrigerated cans of biscuits because for some reason that was the only thing left in the stores. Years later, right before the start of my final year of college, I was trapped indoors again - this time with chicken pox. I had the misfortune of renting a little Victorian house that had a mini-refrigerator. As God is my witness, I will never live with a small refrigerator again.

I feel a bit of Miss Scarlett O’Hara coming on. As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. Even if I have to stockpile MoonPies ’til the cows come home. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.

I used to think I developed the stockpiling habit from my mother, who survived the Great Depression and World War II; or maybe from my stepfather who had a never-ending supply of toiletries in his linen closet. Stacks of clean white towels, neat columns of Crest and new toothbrushes in every color, bottle after bottle of Prell shampoo, and an assortment of aspirin, powder, cotton swabs, soap, ointment, band-aids - you name it and it was in there. His mother used to preserve fruit from their garden, and jars were stashed in cupboards, closets, and in the garage. This was during the mid-seventies and the woman had been dead since 1969.

I spoke with my sister this morning, who’s trapped with her husband in a Holiday Inn Express here in town, and she said they had peanuts for dinner last night. I watched Alive yesterday on the History Channel - I don’t want to be in the position of filleting a friend with a piece of broken glass because I was unprepared.

T’s outside shoveling our historic snow off the driveway and creating a quintzee in the front yard. No, not the game - the snow cave. He’s been watching Survivorman , I Shouldn’t Be Alive, and Everest: Beyond the Limit and has been creating little survival kits. Between his inventions and my stash of MoonPies, leftover from Halloween, we won’t have to leave the house ’til the spring thaw.

And the snow continues to fall here in Albuquerque…

My sister and her husband had planned to come in from California via Amtrak and it’s been snowing all day. I’d been waiting to hear something because I didn’t know if they’d be staying here or if I needed to pick them up at the train station. I really didn’t want to be on bridges or overpasses in this weather, but I was willing to be of service. This is the most snow we’ve had in the twelve years we’ve been here. Gosh, I love global warming.

It’s a strange day and James Brown and Gerald Ford will soon have company. See, I’ve always pictured a waiting room with kidney-shaped coffee tables and really old issues of Highlights, TIME, and National Geographic - dead people just sitting around waiting for the next level. They say Saddam has about an hour to go - and if that’s true, that’s fine. I just keep picturing him sitting with James and Jerry, going through stacks of ancient periodicals. An “accidental” president, a deposed dictator, and the Godfather of Soul all sitting, waiting, wondering.

It’s almost like an episode of Meeting of Minds…

On the day after Christmas, several hours before the news broke about the death of Gerald Ford, I was visiting my mother (a.k.a. Rocky Balboa, a.k.a. Rocky Raccoon). I knew she would have no memory of falling and breaking her nose on Christmas night. It hurt, she didn’t know why, so she kept touching it…then wondered why it hurt. Explaining the events repeatedly didn’t help much.

While I was there with her I spent some time looking at the placemat I’d bought over a year ago. It was cheap - I found it in the back to school section at Walgreens. One side lists all the U.S. presidents and their party affiliation, years served, and their vice presidents; the other side has illustrations of each, in order, numbers one through forty-three.

I reviewed the names of those who were in office during my father’s lifetime: Teddy Roosevelt (the president he was named after), Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon. My father died about two and a half weeks before his 65th birthday in 1970, yet he lived through twelve administrations. Some were short, and one was very long.

My mother has lived through eight of those, plus Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. That’s fourteen, and she’s eighty-three. My sister, who died three and a half years ago at age fifty, lived through the same number of presidents that I have. Everyone from Eisenhower to Bush 43. She was born during Ike’s first term and died during Bush’s first term. That’s ten presidents total.

We map out periods in our lives and separate our memories into manageable sections. Some use decades, conveniently, as compartments. Some use schools they attended and places they worked. Some divide by military service and wars. Others divide their lives by geography: these things happened when I lived there. Some people split the years by relationships. I was with so-and-so back then. And that was before what’s-his-name.

I tend to divide mine into chunks based on administrations. For instance, I was born in October 1959, so the Eisenhower years really didn’t exist for me; but I do remember watching JFK’s funeral on TV. My impression of the Kennedys, though, was formed mostly by the record album my siblings had played: Vaughn Meader’s The First Family. (My record collection is in boxes, and I suspect I still have that one.) I was aware of Johnson — and Him and Her. (And Yuki.) The presidential election of 1964 was a blur, but I watched the campaign coverage of Nixon and Humphrey, got hooked, and I’ve paid attention to politics ever since.

Ten presidents and only four of them survive: Carter, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. Carter and Bush 41 were born in 1924; Clinton and Bush 43 were born in 1946. I won’t guess which one will leave us first, but no matter who it is, I’ll be curious about the media’s coverage of the man and his administration.

Artwork by Elisa Jolas

“I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers.”

“Truth is the glue that holds government together.”

“My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage.”

“I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.”

“The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?”

“It can go on and on, or someone must write ‘The End’ to it. I have concluded that only I can do that. And if I can, I must.”

– Gerald R. Ford, 7/14/13 - 12/26/06

Just when I was starting to think that this Christmas wasn’t going to turn out so bad - I’d made a good call on my wildcard dish by adding bananas to my candied yams…no, seriously, I did, and I actually recommend it - things suddenly went awry. I was taking my mother home after dinner and it was just like when I was four years old - pulling away, running ahead, and falling flat on my face. Except this time it wasn’t me - it was my 83 year-old mother. She pulled ahead, I was behind her carrying her laundry, and I couldn’t stop her from falling face first onto the sidewalk. As the nursing assistant and I were wiping blood off my mother’s face and hands, I explained how it was like when I was a little kid and I didn’t want to hold her hand. Never failed - I always ended up on my face. She looked at me and said: “She’s the daughter now.”

It was two years ago on Christmas when we spent the evening in an emergency room and here we were again. Except this time she looked like Jake LaMotta. Lots of blood, some bruises, a scuffed chin, and a cut on the bump on her nose…and a fracture. The good news is that I didn’t have to leave her alone in the ER while I drove across town to check on the dogs, feed them, and give Doogan his insulin. And, happily, this ER was closer to home.

She still had her sense of humor at the end of the night, so that’s a good thing, too. And as the doctors were quick to point out, it’s better to break a nose than break a hip. But tomorrow morning she’ll get up, she’ll be sore from top to bottom, and she’ll look in the mirror and have absolutely no idea what happened.

Have yourselves a merry little Christmas,
Let your hearts be light.
Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight.

Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,
So have yourselves a merry little Christmas now.

1. Be pro-active in your education and don’t limit yourself to just the things you like or excel in. Read voraciously. Don’t let anyone tell you that spelling isn’t important. Don’t avoid math and science. Read fiction and non-fiction. Expert penmanship is like breathing; why write if no one can decipher it? Read the classics and Newberry Award winners (if you can only get through the ones from 1922 to 1967, that’s fine). If you have to limit your magazine subscriptions to just one, buy National Review. Know classical music, jazz, swing. Listen to Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and The King. Learn the lyrics to Mack the Knife - the Bobby Darin version. Sing, even if you don’t sound like Judy Garland. Know art. Love history. Study film. Go to the theater. (I’m certain there’s one left somewhere.) Study different religions, languages, and cultures. Learn Latin. Enjoy your home schooling and always be grateful Mother didn’t send you to a public school.

2. Don’t waste too much time worrying about peculiar things you were born with. Rhinoplasty is unnecessary unless your nose is so deformed or damaged that it prevents you from breathing. Eventually you’ll get used to these minor distractions and discover you have other, more pressing things to worry about. Trust me when I tell you that whatever you hated when you were fourteen, you’ll love when you’re forty. And vice versa.

3. Don’t get into the habit of buying expensive toiletries. The only product worth splurging on is a great foundation, unless you’re fortunate enough to find a good inexpensive one, but chances are you won’t be. (I recommend Bare Minerals. One .3 oz. container of powder lasts what seems like forever. And it looks like you’re not wearing make-up at all which should be your objective, strangely enough.) Take note: It’s not the price of the cosmetics that’s important - it’s how you apply them. (Years of working with theatrical make-up has taught me volumes.) Choose blush carefully and apply it with the lightest touch. It should look like you just ran up a flight of stairs and not like you just fell down a flight of stairs. Avoid applying cosmetics in public. If you ever do it while you’re driving, Mother will kill you with her bare hands. Learn how to discreetly apply lip balm without a mirror. Don’t go to sleep with make-up on your face. No matter how exhausted you are, muster up the energy to wash your face and brush your teeth. Don’t waste your money on expensive cleansers and moisturizers. Tip: the store version of Cetaphil is top notch and if you mix it with baking soda, you will have created a fabulous scrub. Yes, you can exfoliate effectively on the cheap. (Use the soda on your teeth, too, while you’re at it.) Don’t share your make-up with others. Don’t collect a lot of it - it just spoils. Same with fragrances. Apply products sparingly and invest in good brushes. You’ll need to toss your mascara every two to three months, so don’t spend a lot on it. Remember, you want it to make your lashes visible - you don’t want to marry the stuff. Choose brownish black instead of black and line your eyes judiciously. You are not Cleopatra, nor are you a raccoon. Maybelline and Almay make fine products and you can buy them on sale. Keep a spare product on hand in case you drop a tube in the toilet. It’s true that less is more - you don’t want to look like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, do you? You can work wonders with simple, inexpensive items like hydrogen peroxide, witch hazel (bless you, Florence King), baking soda, baby oil, and petroleum jelly. Simplify. Find solid products, stick with them, and don’t be tempted by packaging and marketing. Never leave the house without some thought to your appearance - you’ll always run into someone you know and be humiliated. Hair: Don’t twist it, chew it, or swing it. Don’t comb or brush it in public. Avoid unnecessary hair products. Shampoo and conditioner are more than enough. Never, ever get a perm. Shave your head at least once in your life. Pluck, shave, clip, trim, file, and wear clean underwear - if you get hit by a bus, you’ll be glad you did. Your physician will be, too.

Don’t buy expensive cleaning products for your home when things like bleach and baking soda can do the job. Your tools are usually more important than your product. Shop wisely, look for bargains, use store brands if they’re cheaper, and stock enough so you don’t run out of anything important. You never know when your car won’t start or you come down with chicken pox and are unable to get to a store. What you save on these basics will give you more money to spend on other things. Like a sewing kit, tool box, a good vacuum cleaner, a set of decent cookware, a quality mattress, books, or a dependable, practical sedan, wagon, or truck. Or real estate.

4. Don’t wear stupid shoes and avoid trendy clothes. Know what colors and shapes are most flattering on you and you’ll save yourself money and aggravation. If you’re going to wear a skirt, wear pantyhose. I don’t care if it’s 120 degrees outside, a leg inside a good pair of hose is infinitely superior to a bare one. Always wear good quality underwear. A well designed, good fitting foundation is the most important item of clothing you will ever own. Avoid things that require dry cleaning and a lot of fuss. Learn to accessorize. Don’t wear too much jewelry. Less is more. Don’t wear earrings that can get caught in a car door. If you must get a tattoo, get one that only your physician and the person you’re willing to marry will see. And remember that you might live to be 80 or more, so choose carefully. Don’t pay attention to what your peers say: A good fitting black turtleneck sweater over a well constructed brassiere will always be more flattering, more alluring, than a tube top.

5. Don’t chew gum with your mouth open. Don’t chew anything with your mouth open. Etiquette is not passe - learn how to use utensils and write a thank you note. Don’t litter, and if you decide you don’t want something at the store, put it back precisely where you found it. Sending a greeting card is always a good idea. Buy postage stamps and checks online and never run out.

6. Don’t be a slut. No matter how great it seems to misbehave, people will still think you’re a slut. Remember, the only thing worse than a young slut is an old one. A sense of decorum is never inappropriate. As for men, cultivate the ability to converse with them about things that interest them. Sports, politics, cars, food, beer, dogs, and them are all good topics to start with. You can have wonderful relationships with the male species and still manage to keep your clothes on. They do make fine friends, so be sure to have a few. When you contemplate being intimate with one, ask yourself two questions: “Would I feel comfortable eating off this person’s used utensils?” and “Would I be willing to bear and raise this person’s offspring?”

7. Be financially independent. Keep accounts and credit cards in your name. Pay bills in a timely manner. Establish credit early and keep your rating pristine. Always have options. Don’t allow yourself to get trapped in a situation you can’t afford to get out of. Don’t prostitute yourself or your children. And only have children if you’re willing to parent. (Read Lord of the Flies again if you have any confusion in this area.) If you do breed, teach and protect your offspring as if you are a bear. A big, angry, sharp-toothed bear.

8. Be generous, honest, kind, responsible, dependable, punctual, and trustworthy. Learn how to tip. Pay attention. Vote. Volunteer. It might not seem like much, but self-respect is priceless and cannot be bought. Chances are you will spend half your life thinking you’re a dupe, but who cares?

9. Learn to cook. Eat well, eat smart, appreciate food and be adventurous with it. Don’t be afraid to try different things. (Though you might want to avoid tripe. Yuk.) Learn to make a good pot of coffee and a mixed drink.

10. Be nimble, be quick. Don’t collect, be organized, and don’t burden yourself with things you don’t need. Delete e-mail, deal with junk mail the moment you get it, keep an updated address book. You know, all those things your mother doesn’t do, but plans to do one day.

11. Recycle what you can - paper, glass, plastic. Avoid waste. Recycle yourself, too, and donate whatever you don’t use. Give blood. Be an organ donor. Have yourself cremated. You’ll take up less space.

12. Enjoy and appreciate nature. Go for walks. Look at the sky. Grow things. Learn about the things that live around you and be able to identify them for out of town visitors. Develop some sense of direction so you can avoid getting yourself hopelessly lost. Love trees, plants, bees, and other animals - especially dogs. Remember: Canines are God’s most perfect creatures. Honor them.

13. Be open to possibility. Healthy skepticism is good, but don’t get into the habit of scoffing. Cynicism isn’t a bad thing, but balance it with optimism. Never lose hope. Never give up. When things seem they’re at their very worst, they probably aren’t. Remember - they can always get much worse. But that, too, shall pass. Onward.

I wasn’t going to comment on The Donald, or Rosie, or on the long parade of girls behaving badly, but I feel I must address this issue of Miss USA and the belief that once she’s out of rehab, supposedly keeping her knees together and her tongue in her mouth, she will become a sterling role model for young women. This is patently absurd.

Tomorrow I will provide here, free of charge, my guide - albeit a partial one - for young women. A primer, so to speak. Simple rules of conduct. Helpful hints. Quick tips. A system to live by.

Take notes, if you’re so inclined.