Coffee Chat: Keeping Up Appearances Or Not

 

I know it's later than usual, but do come in and have a chat with me, won't you?  I can offer you decaf coffee or an herbal tea.  I wish I were Granny's sort.  She had a cup of coffee every winter night before bed and never once complained that she couldn't sleep because of it.  

At 10:30, she'd make one last cup and sip it while she sat at the kitchen table, taking it with a little milk and a teaspoon of sugar.  I suspect she did so because her room was cold, and the coffee was warming.  She seldom left the heat on in her house at night, unless temperatures were dipping well below freezing and even then, she'd never allow the heat into her room. She had an electric blanket on her bed and wore flannel pajamas, but she also had a pile of quilts on her bed, lol.   She fully believed in weighted blankets helping you to sleep best. 

 There's a Pumpkin Banana bread on the counter if you'd like to try some.  It's an old favorite recipe, often pulled for fall baking.  I found the recipe on a box of Land O' Lake's butter back in the 1980's.  Somewhere along the way, I lost that recipe and searched all over for it with no luck, sort of like my Apple Cake saga...Remember I found that recipe last year...Anyway, searched high and low and finally found the number for Land O Lakes on a box and called to ask if anyone in the home economics department could locate the recipe.  That was in the 1990's.  The lady on the phone said she'd look for it...And they did!  They found it and sent it to me along with some coupons which was an added bonus.  The copy I have now is the same copy they sent me.

Would you like some?   No?  Then have a seat and let us talk.

Evenings of late, I've had the west window blinds open.  The sun slants in such a direction this time of year that it doesn't shine right in our eyes, and it doesn't usually blast us with too much heat.  I leave the blinds open in the hopes that I will see the gorgeous sunsets that I expect this time of year.   But John seems to have been in a time change frame of mind for weeks now.  Along about 6 pm, he's wont to go about the house and shut all the blinds.  He's always said how much he looks forward to heaven because it will never be nighttime there...and since we are still in the time of year that typically we don't get dark until after 7, it's puzzled me why he's apt to shut the blinds so early.   In another two weeks, the time will change, and it will be dark by 6pm every evening.   He'll go about the house shutting blinds then and complain loudly about how dark it is...I am all for leaving the blinds open until the last streak of sunset has disappeared.  But I guess I am also feeling that he's hurrying the year along a little too quickly by shutting the blinds so early. 

I've gotten interested in watching a young vlogger, who put up her fall decorations in August.  Early August, not end of August.   And this past week she took down all her fall décor and is starting to decorate for Christmas.  I'm completely flabbergasted.

I say, let's not rush it!  Let's enjoy this season while it's with us.  I know vloggers live on a different schedule than most of us but still...Let's nor hurry through our seasons quite so fast.  Heaven knows there's been little enough we might enjoy this year without a whole lot of angst going on, but can't we at least take our seasonal joys... well...seasonally?!   Mind you I personally still haven't gotten over the shock of missing all of spring, summer, autumn and even Halloween decor in the stores.  When I walked into a store in September and saw Christmas things up, I really felt the crazy effects of this year's shutdowns and isolation.

I was thinking earlier of the Fall Festival that's coming up at our church.   I remembered a year when John and I worked a fall festival at a church we were attending at the time.

The parents came with the children and each child stood patiently in line and followed all the rules about each game and claimed their prize then breezed off to the next game and then into the party.  But later, as John and I sat outdoors manning the games and prize buckets, some of the children drifted back outdoors to look the area over.  Every single child chose a game and played it exactly as they'd been instructed to do earlier.  Not one child claimed a prize unless they'd completed the game.  They did this naturally, without direction.  John and I just sat and watched.  No child ever took more than one prize.  They followed the rules.  Period.  They didn't seem to even notice that John and I were there, they were each so intent on their games and doing what was required to win a prize.

I was just thinking this evening that a lot of adults have forgotten some of the basic rules of conduct and what constitutes being a moral sort of person, which many have confused with sex, forgotten to follow the polite rules of society at large.  I mean not cheating when no one isn't looking and not grabbing at things that you haven't earned and not being belligerent and slinging insults and slurs and name calling and pointing fingers and....Well...You get the idea.  

How did it get to the point that it was fashionable to show your worst side?  Whatever happened to "If you can't say something nice..."?  I'm not referring to things political at present either but certainly some of the politics we are seeing are no better than school yard brawls...

No, I can't even say that because children seem to innately understand good behavior, at least the ones I've come across.   

As I've said, I have strong opinions on many subjects, but I generally tend to keep them to myself.   It's not up to me to make you think as I do, but I do hope that being courteous and kind and apologetic when I'm neither of those things, will encourage you to act in the same manner, not because I'm forcing you to do so but because it's only polite.  The world at present could use a big dose of good manners, don't you agree?

So let us take up our coffee, or tea if you prefer, and have a cookie and indulge in polite conversation, forgetting that this one is Republican and that one Democrat, this one black and that one white or purple or whatever.  Let's just be who we are: a group of homemakers, seeking to find ways to make our homes pleasant, our families feel well fed and sheltered and keep ourselves sane and in good spirit.

May we start with appearances?  I'm aging as I know some of you are and I felt I was holding up quite well.  I made it through the drama of letting my hair go natural.  I've not wrinkled or dealt with too many other issues, yet, but this summer I had something occur that I haven't shared here.  I lost a tooth.  In the very front of my mouth.   I hate to confess how I suffered and grieved and groaned silently to myself.  I owned only to Bess and Katie that my vanity was deeply wounded.  It wasn't until we were at the beach that I had a long talk with John about how shaken up I'd been by the whole thing.

You see, all my life long I've had really good teeth.  I didn't get my first cavity until I was very near fifty and even, so my teeth remained in fairly good shape.  My dentist warned me many years ago that I'd have periodontal gum disease.  He said he'd seen it repeatedly through the years that the people with the best teeth eventually had it and he told me to expect it.  

Six years ago, I started taking Metformin which leaches calcium from the body.  Now it is the only control I require for the diabetes I was diagnosed with, besides dietary managements.  But between the loss of calcium which no supplement is wholly able to replace, and the onset of gum disease shortly thereafter, I found a front tooth began to wiggle a bit.  And then one day during the summer, it simply fell from my mouth.  It wasn't broken or damaged.  It was a perfect tooth, but my gums had receded, and it had lost its hold so to speak.

I was horrified.  I wouldn't smile for weeks.  I couldn't speak without lisping worse than ever.  I'm tongue tied, you see, so I lisped somewhat before, but after...Well I sounded very childish.  I stood before the mirror and tried to practice smiling with my mouth shut, but I only managed to look smarmy or prim or in pain.  

Now as it happens, my lower teeth were rather crowded, and they have shifted slightly since I lost that one tooth and really no one has noticed it missing at all.  As you all know, I have two grandchildren who are ages five and six, and if any age is prone to point out an obvious flaw in appearance, it is those age children.  Yet neither one of those children has so much as mentioned that I have a missing tooth.  And the final test was being around Mama, who hasn't noticed either.  She has always been very quick to point out and exaggerate the flaws in my appearance.  So, I've relaxed a little in my attempt to 'hide' so to speak.

On vacation I did finally break down and confess to John my dislike of this development and how unattractive I felt overall and my fear that he might find me less pleasing in appearance.  He laughed and assured me that he didn't even notice until I'd said I'd lost the tooth and that it had failed to come to his notice at any moment since.  And considering this is the same man who once inquired why I couldn't wear the shirt I had on to church (it was hot pink with a big green frog on front and was part of a set of pajamas), I found it easy enough to believe him and I relaxed still further.

We are agreed that in time, I will go to the dentist and get a bridge or partial plate, but I asked to wait a bit until we see how the rest of the teeth behave there.  

Happily, while we were on vacation, I was able to walk quite well without any pain at all...But once we returned home, my knee began acting up and I've been limping about like a wooden legged sailor.  I mentioned to John the other day that I was thinking of getting a cane and winced as I said it.    He suggested I get a 'hurry cane' which is a possibility further along in my future, but not for now, so I declined.  I had something else in mind and told him about it...

When I was a girl, a woman I can only describe as old, used to drive from somewhere far away to attend our church services.  That she was old wasn't remarkable.  All the women who attended that church were old but one or two.  What was remarkable about this particular older woman was her mode of dress, which was more old-fashioned than the other ladies who attended.   In autumn, she wore a thin, long wool coat with a fox fur collar, the sort of fox fur with the head and feet and tail still attached.  And in winter she wore a voluminous heavy black wool cape that always had the appearance of great warmth.  This cape had a chain that held it closed at the throat.  Sometimes she wore a beret and other times a sort of mushroom looking hat that squatted upon her white hair. Not for her the fancy pill box or wisps of feathers and veils such as the other women wore.   But it was her cane that really captured my attention.  

It was a lovely cane of dark polished wood with a gentle twist to it and had a silver embossed handle and a silver tip.  It was beautiful.  It was elegant.  And while I noted that she used it to help support her when walking, evidenced by the leaning into it, it appeared an accessory more than a necessity.

I admit that's the sort of cane I was thinking I would have.  I don't need it for hard support just now.  I just need it as a bit of help in steadying my gait and keeping my balance.  And I want it to look like an accessory...not a necessity even though at times it might be.

And now I have revealed to you all the depth of my vanity, lol.  I might not indulge in plastic surgery to remain young, but I shall most likely indulge in foolish things like fancy walking canes and practiced smiles.

I have often judged others by appearance, but I've learned not to expect my judgements to stand up to any sort of test.  I learned too much from my time working in the nursing home, in which one might, at first glance, see some poor old person, but be absolutely astounded as they revealed themselves to you over time.  Getting to know someone makes such a huge difference over that first impression, agreed?

I knew so many people you see, in those six years at that job.  Some for years, some for just a few weeks.  I shall have to share some more of the people I met with you, as I shared dear James who was such a courtly soul.

I have to chuckle as I remember one woman from the nursing home now...and of course, this story is related to a tooth since I've shared my own vanity.

We had a new admission one day when the activity director and I were out visiting other nursing homes and we hurried back to do our part of the admission process.  We stepped into the room to greet our new resident and the interview went very poorly.  The woman was happy enough, and ready to answer any and all questions but Monica nor I could remember a thing we were meant to ask while in the lady's room.  

You see, she had a tooth, just one.  It was on the bottom gum, and it was without a doubt the blackest, longest tooth I've ever seen in my life.    I could barely take my eyes off it.  I watched in fascination as she'd shut her mouth and the tooth would come up over her top lip and touch the base of her nose.  Or she'd open her mouth to speak and all I could do was watch the rhythmic wobbling movement of the thing as she spoke.  I wondered how on earth she managed it.

We had a form we were following so Monica asked if she had a dentist she'd like to keep seeing.  The woman cackled and asked what could she need with a dentist?  And Monica by this time was as mesmerized as I.  She could only stare and stutter and then fell silent.  "Well, perhaps you might need to have a tooth pulled..." I said quietly and the woman got downright mad.  "I don't need a tooth pulled!  I'm just fine!"  "Yes ma'am..." I said and we left it at that.  It seemed that she was quite proud of that tooth and meant to keep it.  We did our best to finish our mutual interviews but as I said, it all went poorly.

When we walked out of the room, Monica and I didn't speak to each other at all.  We were both dazed, I think.  But when we got in our office, I looked over at her and said, "My word...."  and Monica gasped between deep roars of laughter "I know!  I couldn't take my eyes off it!"  "Neither could I!"   We laughed until tears ran down our faces.  

 I say quite sincerely there was much relief among the staff the day the tooth broke and was reduced to the size of a normal one.  "At last," sighed the head nurse, "I think I can finally notice what color eyes she has!" 

Years ago, when I first began writing my newsletter, I tried hard to break into publishing.   I was always submitting something to some online site or another and the occasional printed magazines.  And I did get published here and there, though never any big-time recognizable things except a Chicken Soup for the Soul book or two and a tip sent to Woman's Day magazine...

I joined various writer's groups and there was a huge debate amongst other writers.  Some said, "If you haven't been published you aren't really a writer."  And some others said, "If you've been published, you're a writer."  And others said "If you've been published but not paid, then you aren't a writer..."   and each day the parameters of what constituted a writer was argued over and over.

I wrote my newsletter.   I won contests.  At some point, I was published in hard copy and online magazines.  I was paid very small sums, if at all.  I wrote a book, which is hidden away here somewhere.  I took a university sponsored writing course and eventually I created Penny Ann Poundwise and later I killed her off and became just me, writing about home and family and frugal things and trying my best to share my life as it is, good and bad.  

But I struggled with all those would be authors I'd known once upon a time who had their own definition of when you became a writer.  It took me a long time to realize that I had a body of work behind me that proved I was a writer, albeit not necessarily one who had earned their fortune at the task.

I once complained, some years ago that in my small Southern town, men are much admired when they say, "I'm just a poor dumb country boy..."  regardless of their wealth or accomplishments.  Saying this meant they weren't the sort of people who tooted their own horn.  Indeed, they might well have been born into a wealthy family and have two or three college degrees and any number of professional honors.  They were the sorts whose opinion was sought after when choosing a candidate for offices or whose advice was wanted when the economy was slowing down a little too much for comfort.  Or whose services were required when the IRS was coming after someone who really had proven themselves to be a poor, dumb boy.   The higher the education and the greater the status, the more humbly they proclaimed their country boy status.   This false humbleness simply ticked me off.  I felt they were, at best, putting on a false front, not owning who they really were.  They were attempting to change their appearance.

But I learned mighty quick that as lonely as I might feel as a writer and a homemaker, if I so much as uttered either word as my occupation in a public place, veils dropped over eyes, ears became deaf, and a quick exit strategy was sought by all.  I found it frustrating and humiliating.  I felt I couldn't share who I truly was because people felt I was either getting above myself or simply had nothing of interest to contribute to any conversation.  I was stuck, truly, in being who I was.   

But this weekend I ran into another sort of judge...

A few weeks ago, John played at a senior talent show.  I know good and well how talented the man is.  I've lived with him for years and I've watched him create songs out of nothing but the beat of a windshield wiper blade or pick up a phrase and turn it until it's a polished lyric, the way that any good poet does.  I've recognized for years that his talent is largely unsung and a huge surprise to most people when they realize how good he is.  

After the talent show was over, John was immediately sought out by a man who could truly be said to be equally as talented in a different field.  He very much wished for John to join in with his small group.  Later, John discovered it was a group of creative people and he suggested that I might want to join in, as well.

Sunday at church, the man invited us to dinner next month.  He said "All the spouses are invited..."  "Oh, how nice!  Thank you."  He laughed and said, "You might not thank me when I start the portion of the film, I'm showing..." and he drifted off into what sounded like a fascinating piece of work, one that I think I'll enjoy a good deal.  

As he would up his description, I said   "John thought I might like to join the group, since you are a group of creatives?"  "Oh!  What do you do?"  "I'm a writer," I said.  "What sort of writer?"  "I have a blog..." and before I could finish, he asked quickly "And what is it about?"  "It's based on living well on a budget but it's about my life overall, I share more than..."  I could see the veils close down and he began to desperately look for someone whose eye he might catch.  "I share about my spiritual journey and.." "That's nice...but you see, you'd be expected to share your work."  "I think I have portions that are shareable.  I've written poetry for years, as well..."  "Hmmm...I see my friend is about to leave and I really must go speak with him..."   And just like that I was dismissed.   I was Not Enough.

Only this time it wasn't devastation I felt but amusement, total amusement.  I'd been summarily weighed and dismissed by this man who is an intelligent educated man and not prone to call himself a poor dumb country boy... Just as quickly as I'd been denied access by all those poor dumb country boys and girls who thought I thought I was Too Much.  I felt a bit crazily that I didn't seem to have one foot solidly in any of the right worlds. 

I talked with John about it this afternoon.  He'd shared that someone we've been getting acquainted with at church had stopped him and stammered on and on about how surprised he'd been, he'd never known, he'd never dreamed, he meant...And John had laughed and said easily "That I was a 'sleeper'?  You didn't think I had it in me?"   And the man had graciously laughed at his own misjudgment of another and admitted that he didn't look like a songwriter...  

But I wonder quietly now what does a songwriter look like anyway? Or a writer?  Or a professor?  Or a nurse? Or a teacher?  Or a laborer?  I suspect that they all look like me and you and John...

I shared with John that I'd learned in the nursing home, (a great learning ground for me) that no matter how often I admitted a patient and thought "Oh what a nice old man/woman.", later as I got to know them and heard their stories I realized that to a person they might look ordinary on the outside but they were extraordinary people one and all, some good and some not so likeable but not by any means ordinary.  If I had dismissed them all because they were old and I was young, because they had no education and I had, I'd have missed out on some wonderful experiences and not learned half as much as I did.   They changed my perception of people over and over.  I will tell you I still judge by first appearance, but I'm never shocked any more when I have to alter that first impression.

It's a good reminder to me to not miss the opportunity to be amazed by another.

I did wonder briefly this evening, since the man had shared that he was once a chef, if my cooking would be dismissed as quickly as my writing?   And then I thought of my cousin who had lived in Germany and Italy and the Middle East, who had come home from all those wonderful places and spent her culinary life cooking turnip greens with ham hocks and black-eyed peas and boiled okra...Not exactly the top line of anyone's culinary list that I'm aware of.  

I confess I did wonder how Elaine could talk of Italy and remember only that she'd searched high and low for any sort of green resembling collards...What about all those wonderful dishes she'd surely eaten there?  The only thing I ever heard her mention with any fondness was a Turkish coffee, rich and sweet and bitter at the same time.  And for all the thirty years they'd spent trekking across Europe she only wanted to cook collards?  I was and am puzzled by this...but maybe Elaine was just comfortable with who she was.  

She was born and raised in Georgia, and she'd learned to cook the foods her mom cooked, and her mom had learned to cook what she did because it was what her mother cooked.    Maybe holding on to that bit of home was what got Elaine through 30 years of living in Europe and the Middle East and the only thing that kept her on solid ground when she was homesick.

Granny was a plain cook.  Her food was good and often made from scratch.   Daddy used to complain that she never met a piece of meat she couldn't fry...And that part was true, especially where beef was concerned.  But she was a good cook.

Mama was more prone to trying a recipe if it involved a boxed mix or package of something.  She loved the sorts of 'salads' that began with a box of Jello gelatin or pudding mix.   And while I myself love a casserole even if it does include the ubiquitous canned creamed soup, Mama couldn't bring herself to cook much that didn't include something ready prepared.  

In her mind, this was the way to cook.  It was modern.  It was not her mother's plain cooking nor her grandmother's country style of cooking.  It was more convenient than cooking from scratch.  It also represented a financial coup of sorts.  She could afford the mixes and boxes of things that allowed for quick and convenient meals, and she could follow the trends of Southern cookery at the time.  

And then I came along and took up a cookbook that was old fashioned and made meals from that.  It boggled Mama's mind, but she'd shrug her shoulders and let me cook my way.  

Admittedly I'm not all that much of a modern-day cook.  I'm not going to make a recipe if it has fourteen ingredients or something rare or exotic.  I'm not big on organic foods.  I harken back to my grandmother's generation and look for thrift and good taste and freshness in recipes more than anything else.  

In the end, we are what we are.  And what we are is not what's always in the eye of the beholder is it?

Well dears, there you are.  I see it's pushing past nine and definitely time to let you all go home.  I've thoroughly enjoyed my visit with you all.  Good night!