Small Amusements

Recently I was talking to Katie and she reminded me of the rather abortive sex talk Aunt Fern tried to have with us one summer. I think we cousins ranged in age from the bare teens to around nine, so she was taking the bull by the horns, so to speak. But with the local boys running wild, I'm certain she didn't want to send anyone home to their parents at the end of the summer with a hitchhiker on board. That was Uncle Otto's term for an unplanned pregnancy. Uncle Bob just wouldn't say anything. Uncle Ted muttered terms under his breath, but would hush quickly if Aunt Fern was around. I'm certain she wouldn't approve.

However, the day she took us aside, she had no idea what we had already been told by our respective parental units. Isabella was the most worldly, having seen things in her travels, if you believed her, would make an anthropologist have a heart attack. Scarlet's folks believed in telling her everything. She in turn, believed in sharing the wealth. So we more or less knew what Aunt Fern was agonizing over, with her references to Adam and Eve, and agonized grip on the bible in her hands.

We sat, perfect angels, in front of her, poker faced.

"Girls, it's time I think you should know some things. I didn't tell my girls until they married. But these days, the world is a different place."

"How different, Aunt Fern?" We chorused.
"Wicked."
"How wicked?" Again, the chorus.
"Very wicked. Sodom and Gomorrah."
"What's Sodom and Gomorrah?"
"It's in the Bible." Aunt Fern was starting to get a bit flustered by then.
"Should we read about it?" This straight faced from Isabella.
"Perhaps not yet."
"We shouldn't read the Bible?"
"Yes, of course you should, but certain parts aren't suitable for children."
"What parts, Aunt Fern?" This from Scarlet.
"Never you mind."
"But how will we know what parts not to read?" Me.
"Just read the parts your Sunday School teacher tells you to read."

We were stumped there for a moment, but the Katie brighten up.

"So, Aunt Fern, what is the stuff you wanted to tell us?"

Now Aunt Fern was pretty shaken by the exchange. She had thought she could do the birds and the bees talk, but she hadn't planned on the nieces from Hades.
Her courage fled.

"Have you ever heard about..." here she paused,as though she needed to gather her courage for a final onslaught. We girls leaned forward, waiting...
"SEX?"
"Yes Aunt Fern," we chimed.
"Good. Then just DON'T."

The good lady turn on her heel and marched out of the room, Bible in hand. She had finally been defeated by her own sense of propriety. We cousins, sat back, stifling giggles.

Every so often, I'll call one of the Cousins, and in the course of the conversation, I'll be sure to ask her if she's remembering to "Just don't!" Ah! The wonders of a shared shorthand of memory.

Love
Kennedy

PoMo and High Heels

The one good thing about giving birth while relatively young is that you can start to urge your nestling out of the nest while you still have your own teeth and enough mileage on your odometer to enjoy life.

The downside for me is that I sproggled a wunderkind. The type of young person teachers talk about in hushed tones and other parents look sideways at. He's more than a brain. He's more than a nerd. He's turned out well balanced and heaven's forbid, NICE. (How this all worked out is beyond me, really. I blame the milkman.)

However, from time to time, I get to sit through some truly strange events. Forensics tournaments, where hundreds of other bright teenagers have imaginary arguments with the walls. Take this to the National level and you witness a whole new definition of the word "Nerd." Hundreds of teenagers in black power suits. None of whom could crack a genuine smile. Most of them ready to take on Washington and any think-tank you could throw at them.

Now, it's not only Forensics time, it's the wind up to the Winter show-case Single-Act plays. Help me, please. I just read the most dire script. Some theatre teacher is seriously thinking a high-schooler is ready to direct this post-modern piece of depressed crap? ACK! The problem is, he'll do it, and I'll have to sit through it. And listen to all the problems up until the performances. And host rehearsals. (Been there, done that!)

Of course, we're also coasting through college applications and Cross-country, AP classes and college interviews. Not to mention all the fun things life of a typical teen can bring...

What was I thinking? Oh right! I wasn't thinking 17 years ago! But now the countdown is in earnest and Momma is dusting off her high heels. Time is coming around to start getting ready to kick those heels up again. Just hope I don't break a hip doing it!

Lipstick time of year

I noticed the other day I was paying close attention to the new lipstick displays. All at once, I knew what was going on. Fall. Stress. The Blues.
Anytime I start needing to buy lipstick rather than just wanting to wear it, I know I have the blues. Those kind of blues that sneak up on you and kick you in the pants when you're least expecting it. Nasty. Insidious.

A cool young guy I know goes out tie shopping when he has this kind of sneaking blues.

It's not the kind of depression where you don't get out of bed, or you fall into the bottle and don't get out. But a quiet, stomach sinking, feeling. So since you are out and about anyway, you might as well look at the lipstick colors for Fall. Hey! It works for me.

(Makes more sense than a colorful piece of cloth which is nothing more than a noose, when you come down to it.)

Oh well, I can always use more lip gloss.

Love
Kennedy.

Hubris

I was asked today if I didn't consider keeping a blog a "bit of an egotistical thing to do?" My reply was fairly blunt.

"I'm a writer." (I must admit, I nearly fell off my seat from the sheer silliness of the question.)

After all, isn't all writing fairly egotistical when you come down to the bare tacks of it all?

When a writer sits down to write, we make some serious assumptions.
(a)We have something to say and someone else will probably want to read it (even if it is just a teacher, parent, or ourselves at some later date.)
(b)Our observations are unique.
(c)We have a story to tell no-one else can possibly tell (in quite the same way.) Plagiarism aside.

Now, some of us are compelled to write. It's a trick of the old brain and we just can't help ourselves. We've tried not to write, but have a compulsion. When compelled, we blog. Think of it this way: Blogging is saving millions of trees. Those with "The Midnight Disease" as it was once called, are doing the only environmentally sound thing possible: we're committing our outpourings to the electronic medium. It's also the need to share thoughts, the drive, the urge: blame our poor miswired lymbic systems.Again, I repeat, it's a neurological compulsion. At least we're not doing it naked. (Oh well, some of us probably are.) Ahem.

So, Bloggers, Unite and take it from me: it isn't hubris that compels us to blog. It's just our wiring.

Love
Kennedy.

Memories and Skinny Dipping

The fresh nip of fall in the air reminded me the other day of the usual wind up of summers with Aunt Fern. The Cousins always dreaded this time, since it meant we would be torn asunder for the school year and would resume our normal, humdrum lives, apart from the best friends we had, each other.
No ordinary school friends could quite live up to the spectacular joy and verve of Katie, Scarlet,Isabella, Raquel or Esmeralda. Even Pilar, on one of her very infrequent visits was one of us. She understood the dynamic, the sheer lunacy it was to belong to this family. The Uncle's with their shared terror of their fearsome, tiny sister. Aunt Fern, ruling with an iron fist, but loving us none-the-less. The escapades, the hidden 'waffle syrup' even Uncle Bob's obsession with Star Trek. Our joy knew no bounds as we hijacked his pickup truck, or ransacked the forbidden hooch. As long as we cleaned up well for Sunday Services and helped Aunt Fern with the chores and never sassed her back, we were as lucky as any kids could be.

We were also holy terrors, and we knew it.

In fact, the whole state of Michigan knew it, and they braced themselves as each summer approached and we made our pilgrimage from where-ever our families had landed that particular year. Isabella always had the farthest to come, but she showed up, usually with something exotic to share with us. It sometimes wasn't necessarily legal, but what the heck?

One of the most famous stunts we tried pulling off was unfortunately one we were soundly caught at. It was two weeks before we were to disband and one of the hottest months on record. We were sweltering and no amount of ice-tea would help. As Katie kept pointing out, at least we had indoor plumbing as the ice-tea made it's way through our systems.

At some point, that particular hot, steamy night, as we lay, stripped down as far as we could go, without Aunt Fern having a canary heart-attack, I groaned for the lack of a close swimming hole. At this, Scarlet suggested 'borrowing' either Uncle Otto's or Uncle Bob's truck. Katie snorted at the suggestion, since the last time we liberated a vehicle, we were all put on gardening duty for a week. However, something must have lit a fuse under Isabella, since she started to wave her hands at us to shush the snorting.
"I've got it, I've got it!"
What she had was a minor stroke of genius. The water tower at the train station, not but a hop step and minor jump down the road.

Well, we had all been raised on re-runs of "Petticoat Junction," so how hard could this be? We grabbed towels and shoes and snuck out the window.

What we were thinking, to this day I have no idea. But we were teenagers and the heat had sunk into our very bones. We were barely clothed and the breeze on our skin just made us plumb crazy. As soon as we got out of ear shot, Scarlet started passing around a bottle of Uncle Bob's 'Waffle Syrup'. Danged if we really needed it, but we all got a little buzzed. Katie was giggling, 'Bella was marching proudly, stripping down even more, and wrapping her PJ top around her boobs like a bikini top. Esmeralda had dispensed with her nightie, and wore it around her head, turban wise.
I had thought to bring my shoulder bag and after a quick application of lipstick I rolled up my pj pants and then unbuttoned my pj top and retied it, so my navel was bared. A very daring thing to do in the woods in Michigan, where the mosquitoes can carry you off.

It wasn't a long hike to the railway station, a very small affair indeed. At night, it seemed very lonely,even spooky, but fortified by more Waffle Syrup, we bravely climbed the rickety ladder up the side of the tower. There before us was the cool water. For once, I didn't want to be the last one in. I dropped my bag on the small platform and shucked out of my pj's faster than you could say "Jack Rabbit." Clambering up and over the side I jumped in. In came Scarlet, Katie, Esmeralda, and 'Bella. None of us were wearing a stitch of clothing and in those few moments, when the water hit out overheated skin, we just didn't give a damn.

Of course, the water was a bit brackish, having been sitting there in the heat of the day, but as we paddled around, it was might as well have been the finest swimming pool money could buy. Scarlet had managed to haul the bottle in (of course!) and we passed it around, floating in the small space, looking up at the stars, giggling, intoxicated not only by the moonshine whiskey, but by the sheer daring of our exploits.
How long this would have gone on, I can't say, but we were rudely brought back to Terra firma when a high powered light was beamed directly on us. Ahem. We'd overlooked the fact there might be security at the station.

Well, long story short: Aunt Fern could hardly look at her Church lady friends for a few weeks once the story of her naked nieces made the rounds. It was lucky Scarlet managed to let the bottle of hooch fill up with water and sink to the bottom of the tower, or poor Aunt Fern would have been even more mortified.

The Sheriff didn't press charges, we got off with a warning about trespassing. But, Oh lordy, what heady stuff it is to be so young on a hot summer night and you can just about feel as though you own the stars.

With love
Kennedy.