Suzy Says

Yesterday, I took advantage of a raylet of sunshine, setting up the clothes drying frame outside. I went back inside for the wet clothes, put them in the basket they had recently vacated in their prewashed state, and took them outside. There was a single pine needle in the bottom of the washing machine.

One of the advantages of my house is there are doors everywhere, so I took the laundry room/pantry/cat dining room door (the one which is also used for the giant extension cord from the generator when the power goes out) into the garden.

Every time I walk through the garden, I mentally clean it out, though I never actually do anything about it. That’s the Suzy way. Maybe in the spring I’ll go through and purge all the weird hippie crap and detritus built up over thirty years.

Or not.

As I carefully placed the clothes on the rack to maximize the limited space (it supposedly has 25 feet of drying space, but it’s a very different experience from 25 feet of clothesline), I enjoyed the sun on my back and the company of Luna, who seems to be constantly wet and muddy without minding it in the least. I did try and keep Her Muddiness away from the freshly washed clothes, though.

As often happens when I do a routine task, my thoughts drifted, and they landed on my paternal grandmother, Grammie. Grammie hung out her clothes year round in her tiny, yet beautiful garden in Surrey. She never had a washer, boiling her clothes on top of her gas stove or washing them in the sink by hand. I was startled when spending the summer with her in 1977 to find her stirring her clothes with a giant wooden stick one morning. Dad finally convinced her to get a spin dryer, which took out most of the water, but she resolutely refused to get a washer and dryer. “Unnecessary,” she said.

She was highly offended when the parquet floor started coming up after 50 years of constant use. “In my day, we built things to last“, she sniffed.

On the other hand and the other side of the pond, my mother’s mother embraced new technology. She had escaped the farm to go to college, shingle her hair, and have a career – she had no interest in the past. She and my grandfather had a color TV years before we ever did, and they always had up to the minute appliances. She never hung her wash out.

Here I am, two centuries after they were born, a combination of the two. I work, I have a washing machine which mostly works, but I hang my clothes out to dry, either inside or outside. I like to think that my grandmothers are still with me in some ways. And they both inspire me.

I woke up with a headache this morning. I’m not sure if it was the nearly sleepless night or the endless allergies or an unlovely combo platter of the two, but when I wake up with a headache, it’s usually my close companion for the rest of the day.

Thoughts of Advil danced in my head as I started the coffee brewing, but I have finally learned my lesson that taking anything to offset a headache results in what I refer to as “aspirin tummy” as well as the headache. Better to keep calm and carry on.

On the bright side, there was no Henry barf on the rug this morning. On the down side, the flash heater was out again and refused to respond to my lame-ish ministrations. I have to admit that I didn’t invest a lot of time in trying to resuscitate it, partly because I was uncaffeinated and partly because it was a two sweater morning and standing outside shivering and ineptly assaulting an inanimate object was not the most appealing prospect. I’ll call Mark later.

The night had started out well enough. I finally had the new Michael Connelly, which I requested from the library in October, and the reassuring thought that there is another one coming out this October. I had changed the sheets and fluffed up the feather bed and feather pillows, so the bed was a haven of comfort. I just settled down for a cozy read when I heard a tiny sound. I put the book down and listened. There it was again. I got out of bed and peered down the stairs.

It was Henry Etta, sitting on the stairs and sounding tiny and sad.

I called her and she came up the stairs slowly, then jumped on the bed (thank you, metacam and Sea Flex!). June, who was already ensconced in her usual place, gave Henry Etta the stink eye until I told her to knock it off. She turned her back on me and huffily resumed her beauty sleep. Henry sat next to me for a while and I petted her and talked to her while I read.

I must have bored her, though, or else the heat came on, because after half an hour or so she repaired to her cozy bed by the heater. It was nice while it lasted and I hope she does it again. She hasn’t been up there in months, as far as I know.

Sleep was hard to come by last night, and when it finally arrived, I was woken up by a heavy storm, slashing rain against the roof/walls and wind howling through the trees. I was almost sure there would be another power outage and waited anxiously in the dark, listening to the storm crescendo and thinking about the precarious electrical arrangements on the property and the foolishness of not clearing enough trees around the houses.

The power didn’t go out, though I eventually did. I dreamed of Dad. We were making dinner for a party of unknown dream people, and we were marinating fish in lime juice. One of the party goers asked Dad if he’d take a drink from his wineskin, which he offered. Dad laughed and said no, he’d stick to his 1952 Margaux. He would have in real life, too, since excellent wine rarely, if ever, comes out of a bag. Or box.

In my dreams, Dad is never dead.

I was awakened by the balcony door slamming open in the wind. I lay in the darkness for a long moment, remembering all over again that he’s gone. That’s the worst thing about dreams: waking up to reality.

I got up and closed the door.

Livin’ La Vida Suzy

I was thinking about how Elvis named his private plane for his daughter and how cool it would be to have a yacht or a plane named after you. If only I had a more glamorous name!

Apparently surveys show that Susan is considered a sexy name. I’ve always considered it a boring one, and when combined with a middle name of Jean, it’s hardly a surprise that I ended up living in Hooterville. Even though the consummately glamorous Marilyn and Self share the same unglamorous middle name, it still makes me feel like I should be chewing on a piece of straw and scratching under my overalls.

Seriously, can you think of one gorgeous Susan? Can you?

While you’re thinking about it, I’ll go empty the gross green bin contents into the woods and see if I can find Lucky, who’s been scarce lately. I wonder if she’s looking for a boyfriend.

(Later)

I’m back and slightly disgusted. I bet you couldn’t think of a beautiful Susan. The closest I could get was my idol Suzy Parker (seen above), but her real name was Cecilia, not Susan, so I’m not sure if she even counts.

My mother’s father, he of the great charm and humor, used to be the only person in the world who called me Suzy. I always felt we had a close bond. We both had green eyes, though he wasn’t related to me by blood, and I loved to listen to his stories. When he was well into his eighties, nearly blind and walking with a cane, he would still attract clouds of pretty girls while waiting for my grandmother at the mall.

“Let’s go home, Ernest, you’re tired, ” she’d say, taking his arm and steering him away. “I’m not tired,” he’d protest, with a backward glance and wink at his audience.

I was fifteen when he died. I used to sleep in on a cot in my grandparents’ bedroom, and the night before his funeral, I dreamed that he was lying in his coffin (both of my grandparents had open coffins and three visiting days at the funeral home, some of the worst days of my life) with black plastic billowing around it. Peeking into the coffin in my dream, I saw that he was laughing. When we arrived at his grave the next day, there was the billowing black plastic of my dream. I knew it meant that he was happy to join my grandmother, who had died three months earlier. It wasn’t scary at all, it was reassuring.

I missed him so much that I started asking close friends to call me Suzy. It made me feel as if he wasn’t really gone forever. Now friends and family call me Suzy*, and work-related people and grown-ups call me Susan, so I have my real life self and my work self. Perfect for a Gemini.

*The other day, Megan and I were laughing about how she and Jonathan can call me “Floozy” or “Boozy” or variations on this theme and I always answer without even thinking about it.

Magnolias at the library, Saturday afternoon

Hey! I successfully lit the oven tonight without exploding it, or Self, or even burning off eyebrows or other valued body parts. This always gives me a feeling of accomplishment, especially since it’s a new month and so far I’ve gotten through a whole day without even a minor injury. Hopefully it’s not like “In like a lion and out like a lamb” and I end the month in traction.

Here in Hooterville, March came in more like a lazy cat than a lion or a lamb. it just kind of sat there, grey and unmoving, all day. Yesterday, however, it was sunny enough for a local beekeeper to come and inspect the remains of the hive.

On the bright side, the Queen is alive (long live the Queen!), but the population is pretty much decimated. I’m not sure if it was mites or the fact that the bottom of the hive is mesh (which the previous owner failed to mention) and they probably froze to death, the poor things. But the Queen is still reigning over her depleted realm, and there is a LOT of honey. I hope the bees recover and/or we can find a new colony to join the survivors.

We had a more festive dinner than usual last night. I had the genius idea of making Thanksgiving Lite, so I got a couple of turkey breasts (since none of us likes the dark meat and there’s no carcass to deal with) and roasted them. I made dressing/stuffing with leftover bread and et ceteras, including corn bread (score!) and herbs from Megan’s garden. I learned at Safeway that they don’t carry fresh cranberries after the holidays, so canned it was. Add in some fresh green beans and too many bottles of local-ish wine (from the next county over) and you have a fun dinner on your hands. The boys gradually dispersed, and Meg and I stayed up too late, listening to music and having just one more glass of wine.