The Laugh Less Traveled

Thanksgiving is blooming all over my house.

But before the family insanity breaks loose, we give thanks around the table as we imbibe some wine; usually give Mr. Tom a sip or two.  After all, he’s been through a lot.

Now I don’t have anything against being grateful. In fact, I strive to be on a regular basis, but I’m never fully prepared for going ‘live’ at the table before the feast and sharing my heartfelt gratitude.

Will I be judged? Did I say enough to let the guy next to me get his gratefulness in order before the spotlight hits him?  Or do I go global?

“I’m grateful to live in a country where people drive on the right side of the road?”

Or pare it down to something personal like, “Thanks for the memories. I love you all although a little more love goes to the dude or dudette who so selflessly cleans up the after-meal mess. “

Gradually conversation strays when a loquacious loved one embraces the yearly tradition as a time to enlighten those gathered at Thanksgiving table. Soon we all forget who was grateful for what and I can sigh, get up and start pouring the Chateau St. Jean for which I’m very grateful.

It’s great to be thankful, but it’s awkward when some people who aren’t as sparkling spontaneous speakers as others stammer and stutter before they can spit out their olive pit.

“Um, I’m grateful for … did you want a large or small thing?” my cousin asks.

“Hey, it’s your Horn of Plenty,” I say. “Suggestion –thanks for two-ply TP. Thanking God racks up a lot of points as well.”

“Can I say I’m grateful to God and two-ply TP in the same sentence?”

“Absolutely,” I say. “However, try to stay within the time constraints of Academy Award acceptances speeches. Mr. Turkey is getting impatient.

“And you might want to give thanks to your lovely wife sitting next to you and the gracious hostess who made this meal possible. Oh yeah, and you might want to thank your kids for teaching you patience, humility and unconditional love.”

Personally I’m grateful that I remembered to invite my mother-in-law and turn on the oven.

I give thanks that I posses my wisdom teeth. That automatically entitles me to infinite wisdom.

After you give thanks for the big things like health, fame and happiness, it’s really all about the little

things that add up to the whole turkey.

Think I will make it easy this year by volunteering to go first.

I am thankful  for sun, ocean and sand as long as my sunscreen hasn’t expired (advice, never buy it from a  99 Cents Only Store. You will get a dollars worth of protection. I sport a permanent sunburn).

I am thankful for any Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel song.

I am thankful my road rage hasn’t landed me in the hands of a lunatic motorist.

I am thankful I don’t have an overabundance of bellybutton lint.

I am thankful for peanut butter and artichokes.

I am thankful for a hubby who hasn’t put me on craigslist yet.

I am thankful I haven’t been bribed into Black-Friday mayhem.

And most of all I’m grateful for two-ply tissue and God not necessarily in that order.

I’m listening to President Obama on Jay Leno, and as I hear him talk about Halloween, I realize that at this moment our president is just a regular dude. And secondly, I didn’t know that the White House participated in this Trick or Treat business. It renews my faith in America.

Apparently, Obama says The First Lady, is a bit zealous in making healthy choices and is passing out fruit and nuts for Halloween treats.  Obama is concerned about his wife’s decision.

“I’m just afraid that if she gives out fruit and nuts the White House is going to get egged,” said the Pres.

Personally I agree with him. Unless you’ve got a real darn good piece of fruit there, you better start ducking.

You can tell a lot about people by the treats they pass out to little goblins.

For example, when my kids were Trick-or-treating and I combed through their candy to make sure everything looked safely wrapped, I was always amazed how those mini Snickers and 3 Musketeers looked a little too suspicious so unfortunately I had to confiscate them. What kinds of people give questionable chocolate?

“Mom, why are you eating the chocolate you took out of our bags? I thought you said were checking them for ants?” my 7-year-old daughter said confronting me crouching in my bathroom.

“Well, it’s a sacrifice, but if Mom doesn’t check them out, who will?” I said.

“But you’re eating the whole thing,” she protested.

“OK, that’s just a minor detail. Go back to bed, and you can have your Smart Tarts and apple in the morning.”

“Mike, Mom’s eating our chocolate bars,” my daughter bellowed through the house.

Man, it was never fun when my kids woke up on Halloween night. Now they discovered the dog isn’t the chocolate thief.

Well, I miss those days even if I got beat up once a year. It was a fun beating. I miss the little whippersnappers trudging to the front door and singing out in unison, “Trick or Treat,” and hearing adult voices whisper, “Don’t forget to say thank you.”

Well, I only have one thing left to say. I’ve spent 30 plus years manning the door as various characters even ME occasionally. Now it’s my turn. I say come one, come all children to my door with your very best offering of chocolate.

I will make it easy for you.

“Trick or treat, smell my feet; give me something good to eat.  If you don’t, I don’t care.
I’ll pull down your underwear!

Well, maybe not the underwear part.

KathrynLeibovich.com on Monday, October 10, 2011 at 10:43pm

A great man from the past just sailed into my dreams. I’m married, and he’s buried, so the relationship remains totally innocent and forever enchanting.

Standing three feet in front of him, our eyes locked. Bells didn’t ring, but I detected the blast of a cannon. He stood tall and lean. Although he never uttered a single word, he allowed me do all the talking as his commanding spirit sailed into the harbor of my heart.

Standing in a wax museum in Mexico mesmerized, I studied his face. He was more virile than history books ever pictured him. I was putty. I was melted candle wax. I was syrup on a pancake.

“It’s an honor to meet you Mr. Christopher Columbus. I stand in awe of your accomplishments. By the way, how exactly did you run into America? Was it by accident, or did intuition guide you?”

“Mom, no one talks to a statue. Stop or you’ll be deported back to the border,” my son warned as he made a beeline for the bathroom.

My son’s words fell into oblivion. At that moment Chris and I were the only ones in the room. And no matter where I stood, his eyes followed me. My knees buckled and my palms reached out for an antiperspirant preferably, Secret.

Time stood still.

It is early Friday morning, Aug. 3, 1492. We embrace on the dock at Port Palos. He showers me with farewell kisses and promises of a victorious and safe return. I am brokenhearted. I can taste the hunger in his lips and feel our hearts thumbing as one. I run my hands slowly through his hair that slightly cups under at the ends.

“Who does your hair, anyway? I can’t find a hairstylist who can do that pageboy thing,” I speak through tear-drenched eyes.

He gently caresses my damp cheeks with gentle kisses and circles my lips with his right index finger. On my good knee, I plead to join his voyage.

“It’s a man thing. Wait for me,” he says as his Brut aftershave wafts through the air.

“I don’t wait well,” I softly whine.

I promised to be faithful, scrub the decks of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and bring my designer air fragrance of Vanilla and Lavender.

“Take me just this once,” I moan throwing myself at his toes.

It was a tempestuous moment that children would read about someday in history books.

“You have air freshener?” he asks. “Can I smell it?”

In a moment of excessive heartburn, he yields as I dig for the fragrance that would be my ticket abroad.

“OK, you mad and impetuous broad, hop aboard,” he says in a moment of surrender. “It was the Vanilla and Lavender wasn’t it?” I say.

“Actually, it was ‘scrub the decks’.” We sailed for 21 days with nothing in sight but motion sickness, discouragement and never-ending kisses

The next morning I shout, “Hey, Chris, do you spot a shopping mall on land, or do I need a second cup of Starbucks?”

Hung over from last night’s briny air, he peers into his binoculars. “Damn straight, it IS a mall. I’m going to name it ‘Katrina!”

Whispering with intensity, clearly pronouncing his vowels he says, “IOU my undying gratitude, devotion and last name.”

Christopher than steers our bodies toward ecstasy. Rethinking, he says, “Maybe ‘America’ would be a more gender -friendly name,” he breathes into my ears, the most vulnerable part on my body.

Reality time.

“Honey, what’s taking you so long here? My hubby said tugging at my arm. I glazed at him through a translucent stare and hypnotic spell.

“Rewriting history takes time,” I sigh.

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I’m dreaming of a white kitchen. That’s my current makeover mode.

Two moments ago the hubby and I clutched a sample of an Espresso kitchen cabinet. Our hearts united.

However, in the fragility of the dawn’s early light, yesterday can be fickle. During the night I dreamed my Espresso kitchen was placed on the back burner.

After full consciousness around noon, my brain did the bouncing ball thing. Why not cherry wood cabinets? If everybody loves Raymond, then everybody must love Cherry, right?

I’ll tell you what this is all about. For starters, I’m decision disabled, and I’m terrified of commitment hence the amount of daises I went through as a teen.”He loves me, he loves me not.” Try having to depend on a daisy petal to determine the fate of a relationship! My parents bought them wholesale.

One too many paint chip, granite sample, decorating magazine, and website and blog and I can’t find one dang daisy.

I remained in the cherry wood mode for some time until the sands in the hourglass looked scant and the Wicked Witch of the West appeared and threatened me with a meltdown if I didn’t make up my mind.

Back to the blogs, back to the books, back to Home Depot

“Hey lady, there’s an opening in the paint department.  Might as well, apply since you’re here at least eight hours every day.”

“Gee, thanks, but I look anemic in orange.” However, you gave me a brain bolt. Bold colors are returning to kitchens, right? What are your feelings on strawberry red walls with white cabinets?”

I spin the wheel and land on “White” again.

Meanwhile, I’m at The Rainforest Cafe, and it hits me in between the roaring lions and screaming elephants.  Suddenly I’m thinking of every reason I should toss out all thoughts of white and opt for a woodsy forest motif.  Dark cabinets, earthy counter top, forest green walls, a few trees, some plants, and a couple of animals. I’m sure my two large dogs wouldn’t mind joining us for at the table for dinner.

OK, counter tops. Do we need them?  Yes according to my favorite blogger, they are very important and useful, and when you find the right granite, wild horses will stand on their hind legs and shout to the world, “Go Mama. Go!”  This means, of course, at some point before I grow up and move out of my house, I must make a few horses very happy. Yes, make a decision without a daisy and trust that’s it is right.

Now if white, Espresso and Cherry wasn’t enough for my caboose to let loose, two-toning pops into my busy brain. I like it. White and black; I like the combo. It’s clean, crisp, contrasting.

“I’ve decided I want a Yin and Yang kitchen,” I tell our kitchen contractor.

Phone rings.

It’s the dearly beloved brother wanting to know how the kitchen planning is going.

“Well, there are a lot of options here,” I said.  “Hey, at least I’ve narrowed it down to 300 combination’s, but I really think I’m going to go with the two-tone, white cabinets on the top and black on the bottom.”

“You’re a contractor’s worse nightmare,” he says.

Then, of course, he gives me the brotherly advice.

“How about you two- tone your hair, and you won’t have one regret that a haircut can’t repair.”

My brother thinks he’s an artist because he is one. That automatically makes him an interior designer. He also thinks he’s the boss of me. But he’s the baby so it automatically cancels that title.

That’s what I love about him. He’s the Yin. I’m the Yang. He’s the black. I’m the white. I’m the Diva. He’s the Dope.

I’m fear there are not enough daisies for the fate of this kitchen.

So like there’s this knock at the door. After a cursory peephole inspection, I determined the knocker who clutched a pink pitchfork most likely wasn’t a serial kill. And if she was a loony tune, oh well, my day wasn’t going all that well anyway.

I answered the door.

“I hear your cell is terminally ill. Here’s my old one,” she said.

When someone hands you a phone, what are you suppose to do besides produce a bucketful of happy tears.  Since I was slightly waterless, I threw myself at her feet with unbridled gratefulness.

“Mom, get up!” my daughter said.

Meet my youngest, the toughest, and the stranger so busy living life I often forget what she looks like. However, she always seems to get word of Mom’s current crisis and swoops down with her Super Woman powers and no matter what, she will be the stranger at the doorstep who rescues me.

“Oh, hey, it’s you again,” I say. “Don’t I know you?”

She was the kid I popped out in record time, drug free without so much as a Tylenol. With no warning whatsoever, I felt myself saying, “Ooops, I think I’m having a baby.”  Fifteen minutes later, she pushed herself into this world effortlessly and was on her way to ruling Mother Earth.

The baby thinks she’s the boss of me. She listens, judges and lectures. One might think the youngest has it easy when she has three siblings’ footsteps to learn from. However, all eight footsteps are completely unique.

“Yes, I dropped my cell phone into a boiling vat of coffee, and now I’m cell-less.”

“Mom, don’t tell me you were driving with a cup of coffee again,” she said.

“OK, I was driving with a bowl of oatmeal too.”

We both give each other the “Mom is Hopeless” sigh.  I know she will have perfect children just to spite me.

“Mom, rumor has it you’re contemplating an iPhone. Forget it, my friend Monica’s husband, Gene, is 40 years old and she said it took him three months to figure out how to use it.”

“It must suck being 40.”

Apparently, I have to be a learned man to master all the applications. Personally, I only need two buttons. ‘Hello and ‘goodbye ‘button. Unfortunately, there’s way too much complicated stuff between the first and the later.

Smartphone?  I don’t want anything smarter than me.  It takes a college education just to Twitter I’m told.

Losing a phone is never easy. It’s complicated on many levels.

First, you beat yourself up. Whether you lose your cell or drop it in the commode or an ice bucket in Vegas, people usually demand explanations, yes even the grump at work who has never said, “Hi.”

Second, self-esteem plummets into the toilet. You start calling yourself names you wouldn’t even call your ex-husband’s brother’s wife’s sister’s husbands first born kid’s Labradoddle.

At the advice of others who nursed their phones back to their ringtones, I buried mine in a bag of rice.

Next, hallucinations kick in. Did I hear my phone ring? A phone can’t ring in rice, can it?  You answer it only to hear a ringtone, “Ding dong, your phone is dead, D-E-A-D, lady. Dead!”

Should I cook this rice and throw in some butter and salt, I ponder.

I promised my daughter I will not make Gene’s foolish mistake. I will not buy an iPhone before I get a Masters in communications.

“See you at the peephole when you’re in town again,” I say.

“Mom, try to stay motionless until we meet again. You know — no motion, no commotion.”

Ah yes, until then.

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