Ice Cream for Aunt Alice

Every summer for the last fifteen years or so, my mother and her younger sister, Grandma Hip, rent a cottage in or near Charlestown, RI, near a beach. My mom's (and now my aunt's) good friend Bethie completes the trio that hang out at the cottage, spending mornings and evenings at the beach, "going on a toot" as they call a drive around the area, sharing the crossword in the Providence Journal, buying corn, tomatoes, and pies at the farm stands all around, stopping for ice cream along the way.


All kinds of people come down to the cottage during the three weeks they're ensconced there. My cousins come and go in waves, some overnight, some just for the day, and Grandpa Hip and his youngest (the youngest of all of us cousins) spend their days off down there. Grandma Hip's brother-in-law and his wife and their children and grandchildren usually get a place nearby. My mom's older brother, UD, used to go for days at a time starting political discussions just to get a rise out of everyone. My Aunt Alice would go as well, though she was the only one who never went to the beach. Everyone in the family really enjoys the water, and synchronized swimming, which Mom and Grandma Hip did in high school, has become one of our favorite water pasttimes, buffeted by the waves. But Aunt Alice rarely even came to the beach. She probably enjoyed being the cottage by herself.


I was there in 2002, and one night Grandma Hip, Bethie, Mom, aunt Alice, and I went to a big Italian restaurant for dinner. I introduced Grandma Hip to the Appletini that night, and we had a long leisurely meal with cocktails and appetizers. After the server had taken our empty dinner plates away, she came back to ask if we would like dessert. The rest of us ordered off the menu, but Aunt Alice demurred. The server asked, "Are you sure?" Mom said, "Maybe they have ice cream, Alice." The server said that they did indeed have ice cream, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and strawberry. Aunt Alice, a small woman, looked up at the server and said, "May I have a dish of vanilla ice cream please, with some hot fudge sauce if you have it?"


Aunt Alice passed away a couple weeks ago, and though it was expected and my mom was with her, it's been hard. The evening of the day we learned she'd passed away, No, KT, and I met at Fenton's Creamery. It seemed like to eat ice cream would be the best way to honor her memory, and it was.

A Late Post

Since I haven't been to bed yet, for me it's still Saturday and the 15th, though the clock indicates it is 12:40 am on Sunday the 16th. So a short post and I will write more thoughtfully tomorrow.


1. Four places that I go to over and over:

The food bank, the Hayward Public Library, Mom's, home


2. Four people that e-mail me regularly:

Shobi-wan, Mom, the Tea Lady, Zoyie


3. Four of my favorite places to eat:

Pakwan, Alice's (La Patisserie & Le Paradis in Hayward), Buon Apetito, Mom's


4. Four places that I would rather be now:

The Cabin (Rocky Mountains), Playa Fiesta (Puerto Vallarta), Lake Pinecrest, somewhere quiet


Four TV shows that I watch (but none regularly - I go in spates):

Battlestar Galactica (grrr!), Dinner Impossible, Chef Jeff Project (which ends this Sunday), The Daily Show

Lucky

I have been thinking this week that the loss of our dad clearly had an impact on our family, and yet No and I didn't grow up missing him.


We didn't grow up thinking we would not be having this or that experience if he hadn't died.


All three of us were lucky, after the stroke of incredibly bad luck that took Dad from us. I'm grateful for that, and so is No.

One Way We Knew She Loved Us

Mom hates Star Trek. She calls it "that show with the people with stuff on their heads." I think she probably hates Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine more than the original series, because there are a lot more people with a lot more stuff on their heads, but she didn't like the original series either. Somehow No and I convinced Mom to take us to a Star Trek convention when I was seven or eight. It was at the Civic Auditorium in 1976. One of the things we saw was a preview for a movie coming out which sounded totally boring to me. Then the next summer I wound up seeing it six times: Star Wars.


We were very excited. There were a lot of Klingons and Andorians, as well as humans and Vulcans in Starfleet uniforms. There were communicators and phasers and all kinds of Star Trek paraphernalia to look at. There was someone selling Tribbles! Mom got us a pair, and Star Trek uniform shirts. Mr. Spock was my hero, so mine was blue; No got a yellow one. Or maybe I got the yellow one because, as the older child, I should naturally be the captain.


While standing in a hallway, No and I saw the Salt Monster come up behind Mom and put its hand on her shoulder. We weren't afraid that the monster was really going to reduce Mom to a pile of minerals, but I could barely breathe. I don't remember what Mom's reaction was, but I remember that the Salt Monster seemed pretty benign that day, giving her a little "goodbye" wave as it glided away from us.

Monday Doggerel

Last night I was thinking about breakfast and came up with this little ditty:


Grains, grains, good for the brains
Grains, grains, your brain they trains
The more you eat, the better you think
Eat more grains, be in the pink


This reminded me of this little rhyme Mom used to say, which I don't think originated with her (though I don't think she stole it from someone else), "I'm a poet and I don't know it!"

To which she would add, "But my feet show it!"

And she would wiggle her toes at us.

"One Happy Pleasant Thing Followed By Another Happy Pleasant Thing"

I had a conversation with Mom recently in which she described her life in this way. Mom's been thinking about her - not end-of-life but "towards the end." She was saying that should she lose her memory, should she be in a bad situation when she's older, No and I should know that she has had a happy life. Her childhood was good, she's had friends she loves who love her, she did work that she liked that interested and challenged her, and her kids turned out to all right. "...Except for one terrible thing," she said, "and that was worse for you and your brother."


Mom is generally pretty optimistic. It's true that she mostly does what she wants to do, and as she's gotten older and away from obligations to her children and work, she does more of those things. She loves her football and opera, loves going to Rhode Island for three weeks every summer, loves walking her dog in the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and the beach. She loves her sisters and brother and their families, and the families of her friends. She likes to go to restaurants and to host dinner parties. She likes her son-in-law and her daughter-in-law and the many friends of her children. Sometimes she likes to play the "old lady card" if she doesn't want to deal with something, and she's always grateful to whoever deals with it for her. She laughs a lot.


Mom is a great role model for me.

@ 2000 Ephemera Inc.

Before They Were Our Parents

Springtime Magnolias in Back Bay, photo by R. Birkenshaw
Designed and printed by The Postcard Factory, distributed by Card Works, Inc.

Mom sent me this postcard from Boston (she sent one to No too). She wrote on the back, "This is where your father was living when we met. Easy to see why I was seduced!"


When we talked on the phone I told her I'd received the card. She said that all the brownstones in Back Bay have bay windows, and she sat in the window with my father, sipping Polish vodka. I imagine my father wearing the suit and tie and my mother in a short light-colored dress, each holding a small glass of vodka icy from the freezer. They are smiling in the spring sunlight coming through the windows, years before they were parents, maybe before they knew they would marry.


I asked what Dad had cooked for dinner. She said baked mushrooms and chicken livers, and it was delicious, though she "was so in love, it would have tasted good if it was shoe leather."


I could hear the smile in her voice when she added, "Your father was such a phony. He never cooked again after that!"