At Lake Scranton

The parking lot for the reservoir is elevated and flush with the road that inclines past the lake and into the Pocono Mountains. From the lot, it is necessary to crash through some bushes and walk down to the hiking/running loop on the aforementioned glacial rocks and a carpet of pine needles. Pennsylvania's state tree is the Eastern Hemlock, and these majestic trees abound around Lake Scranton. The Eastern Hemlock is an evergreen tree that lays down its discarded needles year after year. Everyone calls them "pine needles" because if they said "hemlock needles", no one would know what they were talking about.

We were about halfway down to the lake when the first squirrel discovered us. His friends weren't far behind. I had remembered from years past that it was wise to bring an offering of nuts, but now I was not so sure. I think that the many years of these offerings had programmed something into the DNA of the wildlife there. Nothing had prepared me for how the situation had escalated. I was glad that I had brought two bags of nuts.

I am familiar with how Disney movies go. I have seen dozens of them. They almost all include woodland creatures like mice and birds and squirrels and chipmunks. The accompanying music is haunting, and all the heroines can sing beautifully and have waists the size of a Barbie doll's. Yeah, I can sing, and quite well. When I was eight, I used to practice being a Disney heroine at my Grandma Lavina's house. Next door to her, the owner's younger brother, Corbett (Corby) Jennings, used to mow their considerable lawn. Being totally smitten with Corby, who was at least twenty, I would walk up and down grandma's sidewalk, singing Disney tunes in my sweetest voice. This was supposed to put the come-hither on Corby, just like in the movies. Since he was operating a lawn mower, it is highly unlikely that he ever heard my paeans to love. I generally got tired of pouring my heart out and retreated to the coal chute, where I would pick out a nice piece of anthracite to draw a hopscotch on the walk. So much for young love. I do not, however, sing to roving squirrels, and on this particular day I was practically running from them. There was no accompanying score except for our laughter, and at every step on the way down to the lake shore, the rustling foliage seemed to bring out a new and hungry face. The chipmunks were undoubtedly the cutest, and tended to come in clusters. They followed me and Siss at a safer distance than the bold little squirrels, but would quickly gather when we paused, their eyes fixed on the paper bags.

The walk around the reservoir began rather slowly, for the chipmunks and squirrels were so cute that we stopped every five yards to turn and give them some nuts. Cheeky devils! I'll bet this is why they gather at the parking lot; fresh victims with bags of goodies. They would stay until their tiny cheeks were filled to the bursting point and then hobble off to deposit the booty and return for more. As we made our way down the path, one group would drop off and immediately be replaced by another. Siss and I had to start rationing the nuts, or we would never have made it around the entire loop without riot gear. At one point we even met a deer, grazing unworried at the side of the path. She accepted her portion of peanuts as her due and ate them, shells and all, as we walked on. Disney himself could never do better than this! These creatures have known for many generations that they are safe here. There is no hunting permitted on this protected land, including the surrounding watershed. The only visitors are those like ourselves, who come for a breath of fresh air and some exercise, and always bring food offerings.

We passed runners and walkers, parents with strollers, dads and sons, old buddies shuffling along in the dappled light. We stopped at the elevated stone viewing platform to look out over the entire lake and watch the tiny fishes sticking safely to the shallow water that lapped the rocky shore. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was a time of remembering for us both. I did not come to Scranton as often as Siss did, but I am sure that she did not visit these nostalgic places on a regular basis. We had taken this same walk on the weekend of Cella's memorial, when we talked about our mother and how we would always miss her presence. It had been more than six years since that day, and I did still think of Cella every day, and missed her on that walk.

I was very aware of the fact that, had Siss not been with me, I would have run the three-plus miles around the lake. That is one of the great differences between us, and always has been. I am kinetic, she is motionless. I run, she strolls. When we go to the gym together, I can see that she follows a routine that is familiar and easy for her. She never breaks a sweat, and her hair stays neat. She shows no muscle tone in her slightly overweight body. Therefore, when we are together, the fleet moves at the speed of the slowest ship. We walked around Lake scranton.

I really needed that run, the one that I wasn't getting. The days of physical immobility, the Wet Rag, the food, my sister organizing us like a tour guide; all these things had me wound very tightly and I wanted so very badly to "scream and run". I controlled myself and walked on amid the throngs of runners, walkers, and wildlife.

It has often occurred to me that it is so my fault to allow this "all about me" behavior and politely subjugate myself to my sister's "needs". For more than forty years, I had allowed her to come into and go out of my life as she saw fit. Sometimes she needed to run, and always did so nastily so that I wouldn't be tempted to follow. I let her run and I let her come back, sometimes years later, as if nothing had occurred. I think that I did this because I always saw exactly what made her tick. I understood her fears and her backing away from life and her retreat into therapy. As a result of this understanding I grew a very long fuse and let it burn. Somewhere on the shores of Lake Scranton, the fuse began to get very, very short. There were warning signs that I was about to open my big mouth and let fly a reaction to the crap of all those years. Yet I walked on, threw my peanuts, and laughed in the sun at things that weren't even funny.

Chick's Diner and The Beginning of The End

Siss always gets up early to do her ablutions and have coffee nuked in the microwave, and since there was no microwave in the room, this means that we got a very early start the next morning. I am no longer a person who sleeps until noon, but I do have my limits as to what time I will rise when on vacation. During the fall and spring semesters, I teach a 7:30 A.M. Jazz Dance class, which means that I rise at five. This is enough penance for all my sins, even if I were still a Catholic, which I most definitely am not. Who wants to be cut from the same cloth as all those pedophile priests?

Once out of the bed, I was forced to admit that this was the very best time of day to begin the assault on Chick's Diner and the "stroll" around Lake Scranton. The heat of the day was still hours away, the air was fresh, and I was armed with several bags of raw nuts-in-the-shell for the wildlife that tends to abound in these early morning hours.

Chick's Diner is an institution among the Lydons who frequent it. "Chick" himself, whose real name is, (or was) Charles, is (or was) the uncle of a man who married into our family. This man is the unlucky father of my detestable cousin who had the misfortune to call me "artsy-fartsy". See how complicated relationships can get in a large family? Anyway, I never even saw Chick in all the years I lived in Scranton and frequented the diner with my father. For all I know, there is (or was) no such person. All I know is that I like the breakfasts there, in the early morning hours before a walk or a run around Lake Scranton. All these things have to be present in order to achieve the desired effect.

In the booth with my sister, I perused the menu. Pancakes or eggs? Toast or biscuits? Honey or jelly? Coffee or tea? Ham, sausage, bacon, or skip the greasy breakfast meat? I ended up asking the waitress for a poached egg, dry wheat toast, hot tea, and tomato juice. Yes, I am thin and I do not apologize. No, I do not really diet, but as a dancer, there are things that I will simply never eat again. I don't miss them. I love the physical freedom of being unfettered by fat layers.

Why is my back as high as a cat's over this? Why do I bring it up now, in the booth at Chick's Diner in Scranton, Pennsylvania? Well, Siss is perennially trying to "lose five pounds before your visit" or "drop a few so I can eat over the holidays", and when we are together, she looks at what I eat and measures it with her eyes. It makes me nuts. She eats doughnuts and whoopie pies and all the goodies of Lancaster County, and I don't think that she understands why I do not. I can't really believe that she equates my avoidance of such things as some kind of anorexia or unhealthy self-deprivation, it is just an attempt to force a sisterly competition akin to dogs butt-sniffing. This being said, I sat in the booth and waited for the Sword of Damocles to fall. I was already thinking of things to say to justify the way I was eating when Siss got around to noticing that I wasn't having butter on my toast or bacon with the egg. She usually remarks on this. It didn't happen this time, but sometimes it does. The problem is that I felt ready to justify myself in order to make the vacation go smoothly. How sick is that!

This scene was like the rumblings of Mt. Saint Helens right before the big blow of May 18, 1980. There were warning signs and ashes in the air, but the status quo had been the status quo for so long that many people thought it would never happen. Then, it blew. Never before had I even thought of altering my own status quo. I was thinking it now, big time! Who was that old guy who had the little resort on Spirit Lake and refused to leave it when the mountain was going to blow? Ah, yes, his name was Harry Truman. I felt just like that guy.

This was the prevailing atmosphere as we left the diner and climbed into Siss' Volvo wagon for the five-minute drive to the lake. Nothing had happened. It was just that forty-odd years of crap that had been piling up was about to blow, but who knew when that would happen or what the trigger would be. The next 'phone call to The Rag? I clutched my peanuts-in-the-shell and slipped easily into enjoyment of the Pocono morning.

More Scranton Memories

I was mollified by dinner at Brenda's. "Brenda" is Brenda Bistocchi, a wonderful woman with whom I went to high school, and whose family has always owned and operated the best Italian restaurant in a city of old-country Italians who really know how to cook. The restaurant is called "Bistocchi's", but I never call it anything but "Brenda's" My entire huge Irish family frequents Brenda's, so I can always get a large dollop of news along with my entree. This is much better than actually contacting my family members, who are not my best friends and mostly have treated me like a poor relation. More about this at another time.

Brenda has also clued me in to the best Italian pizza on the planet. This would be at Revello's, in the town of Old Forge, just south of Scranton. I can get there in fifteen minutes, and it is well worth the trip.

Real Italian pizza comes in two styles, red and white. The red has pizza sauce on it, and a limited number of toppings are available, like shrimp or mushrooms. The white variety is folded up and has no sauce, but is filled with a melty cheese mixture that just may have a little pesto or something in it. Anyway, I always get a box of each at Revello's, and take home what I can't demolish there.

Back to Bistocchi's. I was much tempted to tuck into "Chicken Brenda", a glorious dish smothered in four different and harmonious cheeses, but after downing a Manhattan (to which I am definitely not accustomed), I settled for a shrimp cocktail and grilled fish of the day with, of course, a side of spaghetti. I don't know what it is bout Manhattans; I only have one about every ten years and usually in Scranton, but they are a very pretty color and have a cherry in the glass that my Grandma Lavina Lydon used to call a "Marciano Cherry", like the fighter Rocky. Grandma loved the Friday night fights, sponsored by Gillette. More about this later, as well.

Manhattans are also very filling, so the fish was just fine, and left room for Spumoni.I always have to pick around the candied fruit in Spumoni, like mining for gems except you throw out the gems. The candied fruit tastes nasty, not at all like fruit, and has the consistency of stale gummy-bears. The picking took me a long time, and Siss and I didn't say our goodbyes to Brenda until it was late. It doesn't take long to get from the restaurant to the hotel-that-used-to-be-a-Sheraton; just over the infamous Harrison Avenue Bridge that so many people were said to have jumped off in order to end it all. They could have, too. The creek that flows underneath, Nay Aug Creek, has a very rocky bottom; big, glacial things that look like they would do the trick if you had a mind to cash out. The creek flows out of Nay Aug Park, a Scranton landmark where I used to skateboard on my old, clay-wheeled ride and swim in Lake Lincoln, a man-made lake that was always filthy by summer's end, and where they would let the poor little elephant from the Nay Aug Park zoo come down for her annual swim. The zoo was ultimately condemned and the animals removed, but I was aware of their suffering even as a child.

The creek was a refuge in my early teen years. I could get out of the park when I had no money for food or rides, which was much of the time, and ride my skateboard down the long slope to the water. There I would jump from stone to stone until stopped by a small waterfall. This was a good place to sit and contemplate whatever it is that fifteen-year-olds contemplate, if teen contemplation is not an oxymoron.

Once back at the hotel, we prepared for bed and discussed the next day's itinerary. This would be breakfast at Chick's Diner, followed by the pilgrimage around Lake Scranton, the city's reservoir-cum-running-track. I believe that the wide path around the lake is about three miles long, but if I call this a novel rather than a non-fiction diatribe, I don't have to check my facts. So ha ha, it's suddenly a novel, maybe a novella if I run out of steam, or even a play.

Siss takes as long to get ready for bed as she does to go out for an evening. On this particular evening she opted for a shower, as did I, and we took turns steaming up the bathroom. I emerged in the buff, toweling off my short, red hair and Siss remarked that gee, I didn't look as skinny as I did in clothes, and actually was very muscled. Then she followed suit, walking around naked and loudly proclaiming that she had never done this in front of anyone before....but after all I WAS her sister. I was so grossed out! Nothing like being subjected to a self-conscious, overweight, cottage-cheese-thighed, naked woman who wants to bond. All this trying out of the waters on her part was getting extremely tiring, so I watched the news and went to sleep thinking of Chick's Diner, poached eggs, biscuits, ham, and fresh o.j. This is the stuff of sweet dreams.

Coal Mine Tour

Precisely at 2, we settled into a coal car and began the descent into the Lackawanna Mine. This was not the mine in which my grandfather, John "Sharkey" Lydon, worked, but it was close enough in both layout and geography to give me and Siss a shocking picture of how grandpa spent his childhood.It was so very cold, and dark enough so that the many lights could not see into corners and around bends. Water dripped from ceilings and oozed down walls. Always, there was the knowledge that we were under the earth, and somewhere above, the sun was shining and the air was warm.

There were many children in our car, most of them thrilled rather than frightened by the exciting ride through the dark tunnel. At every stop, they would run around looking for a chunk of anthracite to take home as a souvenir. This is forbidden, but every kid does it. My own child, whom I call N.P., had taken this selfsame trip in the fourth grade while visiting his Gramma Cella, and he had brought out a piece of coal so large that it barely fit into his backpack. He wasn't frisked by guards. No one questioned the staggering fourth-grader. So it was with these kids. The guards simply didn't notice, or didn't care if they did notice.

What really got me was the fact that my Grandpa Sharkey, at this same age, was working in a mine just like this, not just picking up bits of coal for fun. He went down innto the ground before light and came up after dark. He rarely saw the daylight. They had few or no child labor laws in the 1890s.

These are the times when I start thinking deep, philosophical thoughts about my life; halfway down into an old anthracite mine, freezing my ass off and realizing that alligator soup doesn't stick to your ribs. When I looked at my sister, I could only think about that ugly top with the iridescent sequins that I had worn for her sake. Why do I have to be so nice? I could have been honest and said that I hated it, that I wouldn't wear it, that it was butt-ugly. I could have told her exactly what I thought about grown women dressing alike. I didn't tell her that, just as I didn't tell her what I think of The Wet Rag and what I think of her malingering in therapy for forty years. Instead, I told all of those little white lies of which even Emily Post must have approved. I was cold and starving and irritated by all the screaming kids, but I was still channeling Aristotle.

The Coal Mine

We began with the coal mine. This descends to 300 feet below ground where it stays very cold and wet all the time, so I needed to fortify myself with lunch at Cooper's Seafood restaurant first. Cooper's is famous for having the largest number of beers on tap of any place in the nation, and the parking lot is always packed with tour buses. I don't drink beer, being a steadfast wino. The big draw for me here is the alligator soup, a thick, spicy, tomato-based wonder, and the frogs' legs. I am a foodie, so sue me.

I think McDade Park is named after some local politician, and I don't think he is dead yet. I can't swear to this because I haven't actually lived in Scranton since 1968 when I went away to college, but there has always been a McDade in Scranton politics. The name I remember from my mother, a rabid Democrat, is "Joe McDade". The park may be named after an earlier generation of McDades. I, myself, am a registered independent, gratefully relieved of primary elections and two-party squabbling.

Anyway, don't they have a rule about naming parks after people who are still alive? Presidents don't seem to get their green faces on money until after they are no longer with us.

Back to the park. The entrance to the mine tour itself consists of several large parking lots and a building containing a gift shop (coal chunks), cafeteria (pizza slices and french fries), and a small information section which isn't even interactive. This compact appearance is because the entire attraction is underground. Northeastern Pennsylvania was never into strip mining. Instead, they hauled their product, anthracite (hard) coal, and it waste product, picturesquely called "culm", out of great, deep holes in the ground. I always thought that the mining companies should have put the culm back into the ground to fill up all the holes, but they did not. Instead, they made huge mountains called "culm dumps" around the town, and simply left them there. After some years, these dumps spontaneously combusted, and so were renamed "the burning dumps" bu the population of Scranton. On rainy nights, the culm dumps would burn with an eerie, blue flame, and I always thought them quite beautiful. Eventually the mines collapsed, and the culm had to be bulldozed back into the ground. This proves that my girlhood theory was not without merit.

Siss and I had bough tickets for the afternoon trip into the mine, which was to begin at 2 P.M. This gave us time to peruse the gift shop for some of those souvenirs that you end up moving from place to place in your house and finally throw out or give to the Goodwill. I once had owned a beautiful pair of anthracite ear studs, polished like ebony, and I wanted to see if they had another pair. Alas, the current trend was toward ornate, chandelier earrings and crosses made out of coal; not my style, so I settled for a charm for my bracelet that featured tiny mining tools and a wee lump of coal. I still wear that bracelet.

Arriving in Scranton and Planning the Tour

We pulled into the parking lot of the hotel at that wonderful time when there is plenty of time for a few glasses of wine after checking in and before dinner. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. The hotel name escapes me now, but I remember that it used to be a Sheraton, and not so long ago. So, to me, it will always be a Sheraton. It is ideally situated between two of my favorite "must see" landmarks, these being Lake Scranton and Chick's Diner, and directly across the street from the most wonderful wine and liquor store. This store has an astounding array of those little airline bottles, so you can mix and match your way to nirvana. I tend to be more of a wine person, and they have a good selection of that, too. This is rare for Pennsylvania, which still clings to "state stores", and has the most antiquated set of blue laws in the country, except for the antediluvian places with dry counties. I can remember when you walked into a state store and were met by a solid, intimidating counter, behind which were shelves upon which were displayed the paltry selection of wines and liquors. Now, you can take a shopping cart and browse the aisles, as you would in any other state. You still have to face the state employee at the counter, who still gets paid far too much for doing far too little. This is why PA voters will never get rid of the state stores; they provide jobs as good as those held by the highway guys who get paid for leaning on shovels.

We had two full days to spend in Scranton. What we did there was more of a look back at our youth than it was any kind of mourning for our parents. We had come to forgive and love Cella and Jack in spite of all their flaws in the parenting department, and were more intent on memories that we shared and favorite places we both wanted to revisit. These were: Nay Aug Park, which included the Everhart Museum, the huge Lake Lincoln pool, and the small zoo and amusement park; Lake Scranton reservoir, with its running path and almost-tame woodland creatures, like something out of Disney; Chick's Diner, an institution, and the place to go for breakfast after an early morning run around Lake Scranton; Bistocchi's Ristorante, where our friend Brenda Bistocchi held court and served up the third generation of astounding Italian food; and the Lackawanna coal mine tour in McDade Park, a staple here in anthracite country and a must for the two granddaughters of a man who had started as a breaker boy when he was just seven years old and finished with the "second reader".

The Rag and Leaving for Scranton

I couldn't have been gone more than five minutes, but by the time I popped into the kitchen loking for a promised glass of Pinot Grigio, The Rag was already there, glass in hand. I hate when this happens, and it happens all the time. He never says anything much, just appears, and sits there with a brooding look while Siss and I talk. His presence never fails to set up an awkwardness and Siss never fails to include him without telling me....even on this "sisters' weekend". The last time I was in New Providence I brought Sig along to meet my only sister. We stayed in a great B&B across the street from Siss' house (part of this B&B was the converted apartment where The Rag used to dwell), and planned a glorious picnic in a grove near the old Civil and Revolutionary War cemetery with the many matter-of-fact inscriptions to entertain us. Not quite "died with his boots on" but just as forthright. However, when we sat down on the grass, The Rag immediately wandered away by himself and never said a word to anyone all day. Hence his moniker,"The Wet Rag", coined by Sig that very day.

This time around, I sat on Siss' back porch, deep into my second glass of wine, waiting and praying for him to just go home. I know that he asked me a question, which shocked the bejesus out of me. We were talking about the vacation I had just taken with Sig to Moab Utah, a mountain biking Mecca. I was laughing about having to rent a full-suspension bike because I had come to the famous Slickrock Trail and only owned a hard-tail. Suddenly this voice piped in, "What's a hard-tail?", and I honest-to-God didn't recognize whose voice it was. It was The Rag. It is telling that such an unmemorable question sticks out in my mind, but answering it spared me at least two minutes of his woodenness.

The back porch is one of my favorite things about Siss' place. It is low and shady, opening onto a lush lawn where fat robins wrestle with earthworms. Siss and I have tea there in the early mornings of every visit. We are Irish by both heritage and upbringing, and drink tea with milk, and I use sugar. It is another comfort food for me, bringing back memories of a snowy childhood. These days, Siss "nukes" hers in the microwave in a styrofoam cup when she is leaving for work in the morning, but not when I am there.

On this evening, we finished our wine and had dinner in the kitchen. The entree could have been anything, but the punctuation of those tomatoes and the crisp, curly lettuce, and the blueberries for dessert, made the entree irrelevant. I got what I came for except, of course, for The Rag. To add insult to injury, he stayed for a mivie as well, and Siss and I got no further time together until the next day.

I creaked down the steep stairs early the next morning, excited to get the trip underway. I tried to stay off the middle of the risers, but in houses this old the entire stair creaks. So what. Siss was up anyway, and already drinking tea (out of a real cup) on the back porch in her jammies. What did I expect? This is a woman who makes rounds with the surgeons at 6 A.M. I joined her in my own jammies, jersey pants printed with moose, a souvenir of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a t-shirt. For once, The Rag was nowhere to be seen. I had said nothing to her about last night, or about any of his other intrusions, because it is her house, but this time we had agreed that this time it was to be a "sisters only" trip. She had actually requested to go to Sig's place on her birthday trip, seeing that he's a nice guy and treats her like royalty, but The Rag is nowhere near a nice guy. Still, I held my tongue, which amounts to a recurring theme in the sisterly relationship; the one that was heading for the skids.

It takes about three hours to get to Scranton from Siss' house. There are many ways to untangle the knot of roads that lead out of Lancaster County, none convenient but all both quaint and beautiful. They all end up taking you north on Interstate 81 through low, mounded mountains and old coal towns with picturesque names like Tuscarora, and not-so-picturesque names like McAdoo (pronounced "Mackadoo") and Scotrun, which Siss always swore looked like "Scrotum" when she saw the road sign. I settled into the passenger seat of her mint-green, metallic Volvo wagon, watching the pastures and cultivated fields give way to the maples and broad-leafed oaks I remembered so well. In August, it was already evident that the seasons were about to change. The leaves looked tired and rusty, the greens having deepened to forest and their size giving them a discouraged droop. In Houston, the leaves skip the yellows and reds and go directly to brown. They tend to hang onto the tree until the next year's growth pushes them off. This means raking leaves in the spring. Well, the rich man gets his ice in the summer, but the poor man gets his in the winter.

During the drive, we talked about our extended family, some of whom live in Scranton. We did not intend to see anyone but each other on this trip, but juicy gossip helps the miles fly by. For instance, we have a cousin (male) who has been in and out of rehab several times for alcohol and/or drug abuse, is chronically out of work but manages to brag about having "bought" cars for all four of his sons, and worked the system to fake disability to support his lifestyle. I know this guy well. He is ten years my junior, being the son of the youngest of my father's siblings, and I used to babysit him when he was a little creep. Now he is a big creep. The last time I saw him, he called me "artsy-fartsy", which made him feel better about himself. I, in my turn, told him exactly how offensive I found him, which made me feel better about the whole world.

Heading For Scranton via New Providence

Then, there was the green dress to consider. It hung in plain sight in Siss' upstairs hallway. I think it was on a coat rack or an old department store mannequin, standing sentinel art the head of the stairs just in case genius should burn. Although I didn't think that this would occur, it felt a little indelicate to ask for the dress back because I was afraid that Siss would do a bolt for whatever reason while we were in PA together. I really wanted it back, though, and it had been in my mind for several years that it was not being used in Lancaster County, as a muse or anything else. I wondered if I were just being a dog in the manger for wanting a dress that I hadn't worn in twenty-odd years. I had, in fact, used the dress for a costume for a solo dance work that I set on a student of mine. That counts for something. I had also told Sig about the dress and how I wanted to wear it again some day. This, I believe, constitutes a witness.

So....there were a couple of inner warriors plucking at me with the result that I did absolutely nothing about the dress and went to Scranton like a lamb to the slaughter. Forty years of the same old song went entirely unheeded, and I bought a plane ticket to Philadelphia for mid-August. I had to be back at the college for in-service week around the 22nd or 23rd, and we wanted (read, she wanted) a good five days of sisterly communion. Once again, things were arranged at her convenience, so of course my flight home would dump me back in Houston on the very day before I had to begin work. But then, remember that it was all about her, and always would be.

Siss had arranged this vacation just as I had done for her birthday trip. She was to pick me up in Philly and we would spend the night at her house in New Providence before driving to Scranton the following morning. I always liked staying at her house because of the fresh farm produce, meat and baked goods that abound in that area. The Amish farmers are very friendly and welcoming, and almost every farm has a roadside stand where they sell fruit, vegetables, breads, and the very delicious treat called "whoopie pies". Whoopie pies are large, soft sandwich cookies stuffed with a filling that is probably whipped, sweetened lard. They come in red devil's food as well as dark chocolate and probably account for the large number of cardiologists with practices around Lancaster County.

Anyway, Siss picked me up at the airport all excited about the dinner she had planned to kick off the trip. This dinner was to be rich in seasonal specialties which, in August, are tomatoes, berries, and assorted summer squashes. I was excited too, knowing that I wouldn't have to cook a thing. Not that I dislike cooking. I am, after all, a "foodie". Cooking is relaxing therapy for me, and I do it extremely well. But vacation is vacation. I intended to be a slug the entire time.

We talked a steady stream for the hour-and-a-half it takes to get to New Providence from the Philly airport. This is the usual for us, as our entire extended family is loquacious and tends to talk one over the other while still managing to understand perfectly everything that is being said. It is a talent we have all developed in order to protect our senses of self, for my father was one of nine Irish-Catholic siblings who produced a whopping total of twenty-nine first cousins in my generation. Siss and I are the two oldest of these.

It was a very engaging conversation. Siss is funny and witty and very quick to play different characters in her retelling of everyday occurrences. Of course, the main character is a nurse like herself, voiced like Lily Tomlin's telephone operator with a harelip. The voice can make even the telling of turning over a five-hundred-pound patient amusing, gory details and all. Of course, any mention of the obesity problem there in farm country must end with a litany of all the fatty foods that abound there, from whoopie pies to some deep-fried cake thing pronounced faasnacht and spelled god knows how.

By the time we reached New Providence and Siss' neat little two-story house, set close to the street and sporting a long, shady, open porch along the front, I was weak from laughter and hunger, but by no means all talked out. I prepared for round two by visiting her upstairs bathroom, its small window propped open with a lipstick and sheer white curtains moving in a late afternoon breeze. On the way down, I paid homage to the green dress, briefly tweaking the long skirt into a liquid shimmy.

The Rest Of The Birthday Trip and Beyond

Sig's house is only about an hour from Buc-ees, in the northeast corner of San Antonio and right next to the hamlet of Bulverde, Texas. I realize only now that I was anxious about this part of the trip because I would be openly appeasing the "it's all about me" side of my sister in front of the man I love....a person of considerable intellect. I knew that the Birthday Girl would act out and I only hoped I could keep it down to a dull roar. As it turned out, I worried needlessly. Siss spent a good portion of her time on her cell 'phone with The Rag.

Sig had put his house on the market, ostensibly so that we can be together, so there was no furniture in it except for his bed and a few leather chairs and couches. He got my sister a suite of rooms at the Embassy Suites, and I was so impressed that I wanted to stay there myself. She had a sitting room, bedroom, and bath, with two televisions, six pillows on the bed, a mini-bar and, of course, an open credit card for the bar, lounge, in-room movies, and anything she wanted from the desk. One of the gifts I had given her was a hanging shower caddy with products from Bath and Body Works, scented candles, and luxury bath items. I also gave her a "room basket" full of her favorite snacks, the kind I never eat, but want to. Watching her sink luxuriously into a mound of goose down, surrounded by birthday loot, my mind tiptoed around the edge of a suspicion that all was not going to be well. In a way, she reminded me of Cella at her most aggravating, always calling attention to herself no matter who should be the center of attention. My Grandma Lavina would have said "like 'Cleopatter'' on her barge".

The Alamo; small, unprepossessing, sterile, a tourist attraction. For the tour, Siss chose to wear yet another pair of my shoes; this time, a pair of flat, gold strappy sandals from Cole Haan. Cole Haan had wisely teamed up with Nike for the construction of these sandals, and so there was a cunning bubble of air neatly placed under the heel of the wearer. On the whole, I considered this a much better choice than the black and white heels. At least Siss could walk more like a human being.

There are no ghosts at The Alamo, at least none that I could see, feel, or detect. The atmosphere of what really happened there has been scoured away by years of tourists' feet, scuffling between the placards telling where you are and what happened on that spot. The room where the women were placed for safety was cramped and sour with the breath of about twenty too many people for the space. I couldn't wait to get out! I was better off in the air conditioned gift shop, where I could see postcards of the Alamo and try on faux-fur coonskin caps. That's my kind of place. I don't know why Siss had to buy so many items for The Rag; she had been on the 'phone to him at least six times a day since arriving in Texas. That should be enough to say "I'm thinking of you". But no. She bought books and a t-shirt and several other things, which Sig, ever the gentleman, paid for. She talked a steady stream of praise for The Rag, even if she had to interject it into marginally related subjects.

Talk about this later. I really have no memory of the rest of the trip; where we went to dinner, the ride back to Houston, the departure scene at the airport. I do remember two things well: that Siss had so much loot from the trip that we had to go out to the UPS store and send a huge box to her house, and that she tearfully swore that we needed a sisters' weekend together in the old home town of Scranton, PA. She offered to make the hotel reservation and drive us there from Lancaster County if I would just get an airline ticket to Philadelphia (she hates driving to Baltimore). The "birthday" trip was in May (her birthday is in April), and she suggested that we go to Scranton in mid August, just before I was to return to the college for in-service week. I was all smiles and gushing mouth noises, all the while thinking that no good could come of this.

I have a long history with Siss, and I have come to know her pattern very well. She is an expert at seeming to be my best friend and confidante, but all the while she has one foot holding the door ajar for quick flight. I just prayed that the quick flight wouldn't leave me stranded in Scranton. What a fool! I had just finished taking her back into my life from the last time she pulled something similar, and I couldn't see it coming again?? A "sisters' weekend" sounded just a little too much like one of Siss' experiments in close relationships.

Siss's Birthday Continues

This being The Birthday Weekend, as soon as we checked out of the Hilton the next morning I took Siss shopping (her request) at Houston's Galleria (also her request). I must interject here that I truly detest shopping, and until I met Sig I had never been inside the Galleria. Even parking there is intimidating to me. When I need to buy something like a gift, I prefer the many museum gift shops in Houston or shopping online. However, by the time Siss and I pulled into the parking lot, I had been there often enough to be immune to the honking horns and rude, entitled behavior of the Galleria patrons.

The Galleria is the largest urban shopping mall that I have ever seen. I know that larger ones exist, probably most of them called "The Galleria", and hopefully they will remain legends to me forever. Our Galleria features well over three hundred shops and a designer row worthy of Rodeo Drive. We were there to shop for some new scent for Siss which, of course, had been another birthday request. I gladly waltzed her down to Macy's, where we picked up both "Lovely" by Sarah Jessica Parker and "Pure Turquoise" by Ralph Lauren. Both of these are scents that I have and love and wear, but since Siss lives almost 1500 miles away from me, I thought it would be safe and not too "matchy-matchy". Siss had actually fallen in love with "Pure Turquoise" at my place, and we had both drifted into the Skyline Grill in a cloud of it. Now I remember that night every time I wear that scent. Isn't it funny how smells remind us of places and events? Sig says that the anti-bacterial liquid hand soap that he uses reminds him of his grandmother's linen closet. How Gothic.

Did I mention that I hate shopping? I do, and with a passion. Remember how, before Sig, I had never once been to the Galleria in all my years in Houston? Well, he lured me there to see the Christmas tree and the skating rink, and reminds me regularly that while we were sitting in a Starbucks overlooking the skaters and sharing latte and gingerbread, I ate all the frosting off the entire piece while he was otherwise occupied. I suppose that I will be atoning for this for the rest of my life. Actually, as I remember, it was well worth it.

Maybe I had been lured by the holiday decorations, but I was really hooked by the regular trips to Jimmy Choo and Dior and Max Mara and Wolford. I had never seen things like that before. I mean, stockings that cost $300. a pair! And I have them. And I have actually broken down and worn them! Face it! My idea of shopping is either online or in a museum gift shop. For myself, if I ever needed anything, Ross Dress for Less was the place to be....or Pay Less Shoe Source. When Siss and I attended Cella's memorial service, we shopped together for something appropriate to wear, and I could not imagine that she went to Nine West for shoes. That was too upscale for me. Needless to say, my ideas of what is "upscale" has changed a little.

But I digress.

So, armed with enough scent to last for years, we hit the Interstate for San Antonio. I must interject here that at the end of the long trip, Siss got too greedy for scent, and tried to take a half-bottle of my Dolce and Gabbana "Light Blue" on the plane, where it was confiscated from her clutching hands. Ha Ha.

The road to San Antonio. Two hundred miles of nonstop gabbing. My sister is a wonderful conversationalist, witty and funny, and with a speaking style that is full of picturesque imagery. We stopped at one of the "destination spots" along the way. This would be Buc-ees, a combination gas station, gift shop, deli and outdoor shop, with the cleanest restrooms in the West. Honest.

Anyone who stops at Buc-ees, this particular one in Luling, Texas, must avail himself or herself of the facilities, buy "Beaver Nuggets", which are corn pops with a burnt-sugar coating, and shop the tasteless western stuff. We accomplished all of this, in the protected, "no tractor-trailers" sanctuary where you can also buy deer corn, barbecue grills so big they have trailer hitches, and Mexican rugs and chimney-type burners. We scored several deals. Thank goodness I don't have a trailer hitch.

Too Much Attention To Siss

The delighted recognition exhibited by the valets was repeated on the 24th floor as we emerged from the elevator into the open arms (or so to speak) of the hostess, the maitre'd, the sommalier, and the wait staff. Sig had told the reservations desk that we were celebrating a birthday, so we were ushered to the best window table, a corner from which you can see the Houston skyline in several directions. I couldn't even watch my sister try to negotiate in those heels, so I walked in front, coward that I am. Without even having to ask, the waiter glided over with a glass of one of my favorite wines, BV Tapestry, a meritage from California that I think is the only wine that BV produces that is worth drinking. , This, from a woman who used to drink Carlo Rossi from a jug!

Siss ordered a Pinot Grigio, and we let the games begin. "Games" is the proper word. She long ago relegated me to the safe role of "little sister", and constantly asserts, jokingly of course, that "it is all about her". Seeing me in my current iteration as the beloved of a very kind and generous man, she sailed through the dinner on a cloud of birthday supremacy. Of course it was all about her, even though I got all the attention. Who cares, anyway? I knew those people, and they were very sweet because they had been oiled with Sig's money over quite a period of time. However, as a talisman against turning into the evil bitch that I can be, I ordered a second bottle of Tapestry "to go" from the delighted waiter.

I had Ahi, which is a comfort food for me, and several glasses of Tapestry, also a comfort food. During the dinner, the sky treated us to an amazing lightning and thunder display. Being on the 24th floor with almost a 360-degree view, it was pretty spectacular. In retrospect, I should have considered it to be an omen of things to come. Lightning and thunder. I was ready to grab my spare bottle of Tapestry by the neck and head for the room but the waiter had one more treat in store. He descended upon us with a ganache-covered mountain of a dessert, complete with birthday candle. It was swoony, and I had a cappuccino as well. Then, I grabbed that bottle by the neck and we headed down to watch movies in bed, having merely signed the bill and the tip to be charged to the room. I could get used to this. The patent leather stilettos barely made it, and were tossed aside in favor of some Lancaster County scuffs. We spent the remainder of the evening watching the passing storm, exchanging sisterly gossip and watching a movie on the charge-it-to-your-room channel. I don't remember what we saw, but leave it to my wonderful Sig to leave his credit card open for all our wants and needs. He really is a prince.

The Great Rift Begins

The Great Rift began with the celebration of Siss' sixtieth birthday on April 23rd, 2007. At that point, we had been estranged for about two years, over another one of her moralistic summations of my life. Then, she suddenly e-mailed me to say that she had had an epiphany, and realized that I am the only sister she has. Well, I have always been the only sister she has, but I fell for the line again and embraced her back into my life. Mistake. You can't keep falling for people's sob stories and not expect to get burned, or at least singed. After a few months of sisterly correspondence, I proposed that I would do something big for her "Big Six-O". Of course, The Rag had beaten me to the punch, so she asked if we could do it a few weeks later, maybe in the first part of May. This was highly unnecessary, as The Rag actually did nothing for her birthday, but we agreed anyway. "We" is me and my significant other, who lives 200 miles from me in San Antonio, TX. Sig Oth and I planned a totally awesome four-day weekend, the first two days in Houston (my home) and the remaining two in San Antonio (his). I let Siss choose the activities, but the only thing she knew about Texas was the Alamo, and was quite excited to learn that it was in San Antonio. This is how America's monument to defeat became the cornerstone of the trip. Ironically yourself.

Sig was actually on to this irony and mentioned it to me, at the same time inventing the phrase "America's monument to defeat." For a computer scientist, he sometimes amazes me with his wit and wisdom. I think it must be the loonyness gathered from all those years spent staring at that gray screen covered in lines of code. Here is a sterling example: after our first vacation together, which we took in the summer of 2005 to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Sig and I were sitting in a little bar in the Denver airport waiting for a connecting flight to Houston. He ordered one variety of red wine and I ordered another. They were both illustrative of the quality of wine that you get at an airport, but one was much worse than the other. When we ordered a second glass of the better wine, the first glass of the lesser wine remained on the table. Sig offered to split the new glass of wine with me by pouring some into my half-empty glass. When I objected to the combining of the two, he merely said "if we put them together, it will make Sangria"!

Pause....long pause. This remark was not funny unless the listener were able to immediately take the necessary steps to understand what composes Sangria and how this could be analogized to the two sorry wines that were on the table. I happen to like and appreciate this type of humor. This is why Sig and I are still a couple and also why I immediately adopted his moniker for the Alamo into my vocabulary, where it remains to this day.

Our first two days were to be spent as a sister act in Houston, and then segue into a leisurely drive on I-10 to San Antonio for the remaining time. Sig had booked a palatial room at the Hilton of the Americas in Houston for me and Siss. He left his credit card open for us to have dinner at the Skyline Grill a very nice dining area on the 24th floor, and for room service, the mini-bar, the spa, and whatever else we wanted.This, since Siss "simply couldn't" stay at my warehouse space because of her allergy to cats. She did, however, manage to come to the warehouse to inspect my stuff and rummage through my clothes, all without even a small wheeze. She also managed to open, inspect, and admire all her birthday surprises, which took some time. I am pleased to say that, during this interlude, Siss managed to refrain from commenting (either negatively or positively) about my lifestyle, my surroundings or the presence of six cats and a dog at my place. This was a relief, but it left me hanging as to exactly where the pendulum was in its arc. Was she in my back pocket our ready to sprint? Only the next four days would tell.

We arrived at the Hilton bag and baggage, a few hours before the birthday dinner reservation at Skyline Grill. I was greeted like a long-lost relative by the valet parking staff, which caused my sister's jaw to drop to her knees. You see, Sig is not only the love of my life, he is exactly as he described himself in one of his first e-mails to me: "generous to a fault". He had, on the many occasions we had stayed at the Hilton of the Americas, been unfailingly generous to the staff, and the valet attendant remembered my car, remembered me, remembered what I do for a living, and remembered to carry me around as if on a litter. Chops to him. Siss was astounded. Her bags were whisked away to the reserved room, and the bellman personally escorted us there. Sig had armed me with plenty of five-dollar bills, and instructed me on when to tip whom, and how. Not that I am a rube or anything, but Motel 6 doesn't run to valet parking or bellmen. After checking out the room and the contents of the mini-bar, which Motel 6 doesn't have, either, and which doesn't matter anyway because the Hilton's mini-bar has really crappy wine, Siss and I decided to use our few hours to good purpose. We took a field trip to the lobby floor, where there is a little sports bar that is open to the lobby and all the passers-by, tucked neatly in behind the fake Dale Chihulie chandelier. I know what real Dale Chihuli glass looks like. I saw some on exhibit at a gallery in downtown Houston. The Houston Press described the show as looking like "a sale table at Nieman Marcus". The sports bar at least had drinkable wine....barely. This is an ideal place for people-watching, as it lies directly between the check-in desk and one of the banks of elevators. Also, it serves a bar snack filled with salted nuts and sesame sticks, two of my favorite munchies. These snacks are great by themselves, but their true usefulness is to make drinkable the sports bar wine, the quality of which is somewhere between screw-cap and cardboard box.

We probably spent a good deal of time commenting on women's butts, mothers who couldn't control their children, men whose belt buckles disappeared between two separate stomach bulges, and outfits from both Vogue and the Salvation Army.

Back at the room and feeling mellow as only the grape allows, Siss began to unpack all the clothes she had commandeered from my place to wear on the trip. My shirts and shoes and handbags were fair game, being either size-neutral or common to us both. Pants and skirts were another matter altogether. Suffice it to say that Ms. Bosc brought her own. They tended to be wide-legged pants with drawstring waists and skirts with a slight bell. I am more drawn to straight sheaths with slits up the back or long, slithery tubes. The point here is that we used to be the same size. Her waist was much longer and smaller than mine, and it always ticked me off that I could not wear her prom gowns. This was probably a good thing, for she favored pink, the color of infant girls and Pepto-Bismal. The worm has turned. Now she can't fit into anything of mine.

At one point, we had considered wearing the same outfits to this bash; a.k.a. the birthday dinner. I have two Wolford pant outfits that have strapless tops and long, elegant, flowing legs.When Siss managed to shoe-horn into one of them, she admitted that it would be "rump-sprung" if she left it on any longer. This saved me from another humiliation like the sequined tops.

I have never seen anyone take so long in the bathroom or pay so much attention to the details of hair and makeup as I saw that evening. Her mascara wand was too skinny and she had to borrow mine. The shade of her eye shadow was wrong for the outfit. I wouldn't know. I wear the same color with everything, and it works for me. She changed tops at least four times. By the time Siss was teetering down the hall toward the elevator in my $800. black-and-white patent leather stilettos (courtesy of Sig), my stomach was churning and my eyes were glazing over. All I could see in front of them was an Ahi steak, very rare. Skyline Grill did this very well, until they unwisely 86'd it from the menu. Also, they used to present my favorite salad in a fennel bulb, which was quite cute, and they quit doing that, too. I guess Sig's splendid tipping goes only so far.

More About Siss

In contrast to me, my sister lives in a small, rented house in the midst of Amish farm country. The narrow road in front of her house is always a minefield of horse droppings, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the ever-present low, soothing hum of the Holstein. There is abundant greenery, both in the fields and in the numerous, informal farmers' markets that seem attached to every local farm. Young Amish girls go door-to-door with baskets of strawberries and blueberries on their arms. Farm dogs hurtle from driveways if you are ill-advised enough to try to take a stroll. Whoopie pies abound.

Her house is small and cozy and safe and secure. It is very attractive and inviting in a "country" way. Not that she has those fake geese or windmills staked out in the front yard or anything. Siss really does have taste. But....the rooms are small and square and always smell faintly of old wood and aging wallpaper; the kind that is so old that you really don't want to know what is under it. It exudes the feeling of a refuge or a retreat; a place where real life is suspended.

Why would anyone who lived like this envy an urban farm with a view of a freeway and some huge, though not unattractive skyscrapers? The paradox is that Siss chose her rural, pastoral, beautiful, secure life, but yet she constantly both envied and vilified my urban, artistic, pet-filled, kinetic way of being in the world.

The end for my sister and me came on more of a whimper than a bang. Our relationship was a downward spiral that lasted for around forty years, ending, appropriately enough, with the circumstances surrounding the return of the green dress. It had been a relationship in which she had always managed to call all the shots, but I called the final one. I suppose I just got sick of my own patience with her approach-and-run style, but at the same time, I can pinpoint the very thing that triggered my decision to cross the Rubicon and end the whole mess with a single letter. That is the marvelous thing about composing on the word processor; the "save" key. Seeing the letter in print once more will help me to decide whether I did end on a bang after all. Unfortunately, the very thing that triggered my decision was a cutesy little bread-and-butter note from Siss, which I discarded after the bang or whimper was complete. The "delete" key can be devastating to a moment of hasty decision.

I have a very long fuse. Ask Sig, or any one of my animals. This is probably because I have always been an avid student of human nature and have a good eye to see what really makes people do what they do, even myself. I owe this gift to Dr. Richard Schwartzman, the Orgonomist who saved me from becoming my mother and gave me the strength to strive for, and achieve, a career in the Arts. Ironically, but par for the course, it was my sister who first introduced me to Orgonomy when I was 25 and she was 28. More than thirty years later, she is still languishing in therapy, and I am the one writing this saga. Ironically again.

There are myriad reasons why I would not want to become like my mother Cella, although I loved her dearly and mourn her passing still. One of these reasons was her "volatile effusiveness", if this term is not a violation of one or more rules of English grammar. Can effusiveness be volatile? You had to have known Cella for confirmation of this fact.

Cella was larger than life; in fact, much larger....too much larger. She was like the character "Mrs. Raymond" in the movie "Sideways"; overly excited about every little thing, the excitement always accompanied by much hand-flapping, eye-rolling, and noisy intakes of breath. She name-dropped about all her clothes, except that the names she revered were from the old lady section of Macy's. In other words, Cella was very naive, and this should have been a very endearing quality. I am sorry to say that it was not. It was merely a misguided attempt to call attention to herself and hide the fact that her self-opinion was very much on the low side.

I suppose it was because of this self-esteem issue that Cella deliberately cultivated an image of herself as a latter-day "Auntie Mame". While she was, in fact, rather conservative in most things, she delighted in calling herself "Crazy Lady" with that fake Oriental mispronunciation that came out as "Clazy Lady". Here's a "ferinstance": Cella came to visit me in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I was about to present my thesis concert for my M.F.A. in Modern Dance from the University of Michigan. She considered everything about the dance world to be exotic, and so she dived in with gusto to help me complete preparations for the big night....nights, actually. The Art Department had volunteered to help hand-paint the costumes for my work "Under the Porch Light", and since I was one body short of having models for all the costumes, Cella gamely donned the skin-tight unitard and got herself hand-painted. She drew the line at wearing no underwear, so she kept on her granny-panties and Playtex living bra, which also got painted, right through the milliskin fabric of the unitard. Here was her proof! Here was validation that she did something wild and crazy that would set her apart and make her very cool! When she got home to Scranton, PA after the concert weekend, she did everything short of bronzing that underwear! She told the story of her "crazy" exploits for months, to anyone who would listen and some who were forced to listen several times!

Vicarious thrills? Living her life through her daughter? I don't know and I really don't care. She had a good time, and this, along with all the other "adventures" she shared with me, gave her great joy and a reason to be "Clazy Lady".

Don't get me wrong. Cella's very imperfections and annoying habits were what made her such a memorable character. Even in literature, I always hated those perfect characters that the authors shove at you as what we all wistfully strive for and never attain. Troy Allyn comes to mind. This is the painter/wife of Ngaio Marsh's character "Inspector Roderick Alleyn". She is an Ice Maiden, and everything about her is perfect, unapproachable and thoroughly nauseating. No one like this exists in nature! Ngaio Marsh invented her and had her fall (reluctantly, and over time) for Inspector Alleyn so that the reader would know intelligent and aristocratic Alleyn is, and how worthy he is as a human-being-other-than-just-a-cop.

Want another, more current, example? Here we go. Stieg Larsson's own variation on the quirky Ice Maiden, Lisbeth Salander. She is the silent, sullen, brooding girl with the dragon tattoo; the girl we are supposed to envy for her photographic memory, her hacking skills and her general disdain for the rest of mankind. In every book, this girl has to do something "quite unlike herself", like fall for or sleep with some man, or have an interesting conversation with somebody other than herself. The reason for this is that she is really an uninteresting, two-dimensional freak and her story would die on the vine if she were not prompted by the author to step outside of her carefully constructed persona. How dull!

While we are on the subject, these chicks all seem to be able to eat whatever they want and never get fat. Salander chugs beer and eats calamari (that is usually deep-fried, is it not?) and brags about being 4'11" and 90 pounds!! By the way, she doesn't exercise! And then there is Kinsey Millhone, the anti-social anti-heroine of Sue Grafton's alphabet books (A is for this and B is for that). This one lives in the 1980's, so she "jogs" a bit, but still wolfs down QPCs (Quarter Pounders with Cheese) from BK and Big Macs and fries....and "moans" and "whimpers" with pleasure. Anyone who has seen"Supersize Me" knows that this is an impossibility, yet I believe that Kinsey weighs in at 115 or so. HAH!

No, Cella was none of this. She was a real living, breathing human being with a taste for bear claw pastries, Chicken Marsala, and Manhattans; fried-egg sandwiches, french fries and red velvet cake. She ate with gusto and dieted with remorse. She was never overweight, and when she died she was 5'4" and 94 pounds. This was not from dieting, but from an unfortunate series of mini-strokes that closed her esophagus and prevented her from swallowing properly. Although Cella died from a massive stroke while waiting to be discharged from the hospital after having her esophagus repaired, her last threee days....after the surgery, were glorious. She called me every day with complete details about the day's meals. She hacked her way through forests of cherry pie, mashed potatoes, cole slaw,(all favorites) and candy brought in by friends and neighbors. She indulged shamelessly in all the things that would help her put the weight back on. She was in heaven. When "the big one" hit, Cella was sitting, fully dressed, on her bed, waiting for the doc to make his rounds and discharge her. She had an appointment to have her hair cut and styled, and was meeting several friends at "The Ground Round", their favorite haunt in Scranton PA's Steamtown Mall. Rest in Peace, Cella. You were not perfect, but you were not bland either.

The aforementioned long fuse is probably why the relationship with my sister lasted as long as it did. While Cella, was alive, she acted as a buffer between us, communicating the news about one to the other, and allowing us to feel connected although we never saw each other. Mothers often do this, I hear. That is why I am glad that I had only one child.

After Cella died, we were on our own to communicate or not, as we wished. Siss took it upon herself to orchestrate a "must do" bond between us, even suggesting that we mutually buy a crash pad in the old home town of Scranton, PA, and use it for sister-type getaways. Looking back on this time, the year 2001, I should have known that it was the beginning of the end. Siss was always either in my back pocket or running a thousand miles away as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels. The pendulum between near and far never stopped swinging long enough to have a normal relationship, and the suggestion of the crash pad and sister-type getaways just meant that the pendulum was at the "in my back pocket" end. Nothing more.

A Peek At The Players

The "Wet Rag"....this is my, so to speak, brother-in-law. He and Siss (my sister, rhymes with "hiss" because you never know when she is going to strike) have been "married" for more than twenty years, yet she lives alone and takes mini vacations with girlfriends. More than ten years ago, he told her to get out of the house, that theirs had never been a marriage, that he had never loved her, and left her like a pile on the floor with only her half of their 401K. She bought some furniture and moved into a little house in another town, miles away from him. She started life anew. End of story, right?
Not hardly! Somehow they became the best of friends and he moved into an apartment right across the street from her, and thence into a house right next door to her. Cozy. She allowed this to happen. Now, every other word out of her mouth is this rat's name, and she uses him as an excuse not to get on with her life. Her green dress diaries went completely to hell, and she now lives and dies for this pseudo man. His non-presence dominated every visit and every conversation she and I had, including the infamous "birthday trip". Even when he was not physically there, his name came up with nauseating frequency, and she called him by cell 'phone many times each day. I really mean many times. Even when she was with me and Sig, she dialed him from the car, from the restaurant, from the Alamo, for heaven's sake! Would she ever have written anything about the dress if he had not been in the picture? I don't know. What I DO know is that she has hung my dress in her house as "inspiration" for about four years, and has not, to my knowledge, taken a single note. If she had written just one paragraph for every 'phone call to The Rag, she would have had a tome to rival "War and Peace"!

My dress. My warehouse space. My clothes. My music. My "style". My perfume. The list goes on and on. There is nothing about me that my sister has not envied and/or tried to copy at one time or another. At the same time, there is not one thing about me, including the above list, that my sister has not vilified in self-righteous tones. There are times when I think she actually wants to BE me. She has gone so far as wanting us to dress alike so much that she ran out and bought us matching tops! They were profoundly ugly, a tired shade of peach with a v-neck surrounded by a wide, rippling band of iridescent sequins.The were sleeveless "wife-beater" type material, and very unflattering to both my body type and my red hair. I just found mine lingering at the bottom of a drawer last week, and threw it out. What a pity! It would have made a fine illustration to insert right about here.

I live in a warehouse, in a 1200 square-foot artists' live-work space. I have concrete floors, stained a clear, cocoa brown that highlights and brings together all the stains and imperfections of the space's original use. I did the stain myself,a mixture of clear concrete sealer and Rit cocoa brown dye. I applied it with a long-handled paint roller that allowed me to roll stain with one hand while wielding a glass of Pinot in the other. Quite the civilized little Boheme!

I have glass cabinets full of beautiful glass and ceramic and "sparkly" objects, a glass dining table, and a huge glass coffee table on wheels. My computer desk is also glass. The walls are full of paintings and fine-art photographs and primitive frescoes from my travels to the western U.S. There is a real fossil fish, 65 million years old, in my glass cabinet. There is a tiny cut-crystal pineapple from Kauai. I like glass and the illusion of space that it creates, and its reflective sparkle.

All my furniture is "disposable"; that is to say that it is inexpensive enough to be clawed, stepped on with muddy paws, and strewn with fur of various hues and textures. The dressers are made of high-impact plastic, and the kitchen shelving units are steel. This is to accommodate my six cats and one dog; Julie, Jackson Pollock, Leo Scrap, Pisces, Kong and Squee. Since my warehouse space is indeed one big room, I don't even have a bedroom where I can retreat and shut the door on the thundering herd. They all play and sleep where they choose except the dog, Julie, who is 15 and too arthritic to climb on chairs and sofas. Julie has a cushy, circular bed of her own, with raised sides that she can use as chin rests.

Note: since this was originally written, Julie passed away from cancer, and a visitor to another warehouse space here stole Pisces for her kids when she left.

The warehouse is also an organic farm, so I am free to run barefoot out my door and come back with arugula and lettuce, cilantro and green onions. We have crops twelve months of the year. We are "The Last Organic Outpost", an urban farm with three locations, non-profit status, and great, fresh food. My friends Joe and Marcella own the farm and are becoming famous as everybody wants to jump on the "Green" bandwagon....but they were first.

I wear Jimmy Choo shoes, and have more than thirty pairs, along with shoes and boots by Chanel and Marc Jacobs and a host of other luminaries. Where a humble girl like me should come upon such largesse is another story, but suffice it to say that I am well shod, and well dressed, too.

I am looking back through my writings, and I realize that I simply do not know how to phrase things, how to whitewash things, so that I don't look like "miss perfect". I have "stuffed" everything that Siss needed to be told for the past forty-odd years, and of course I am venting now. The red thread of piss-off that runs through this whole thing is intentional, I assure you.

I am the one with the grievance; I am the one who has been slapped down verbally and emotionally time and time again. I am the chance-taker, and always have it rough coming up against my safety-first sister. It is so easy for a person like her to pontificate from the safety of her sheltered and structured life about how SHE would never take the chances in life that I do.

These are my writings, my opportunity to see in print the truths that have been so evident all along but were silenced for kindness' sake. Perhaps when I am finished with notes I will disguise everything in novel form, but don't bet on it. I was always partial to the essay.

In the next post,meet Siss, Orgonomy, and the "Bang or Whimper" theory.

The Second, and First "Debut" of the Green Dress

I begin with the second airing of the green dress because I have vivid memories of that occasion, while the first has strangely slipped into oblivion. I have almost no recollection of that first time, and what I do remember is really strange.

After the senior dinner dance, the dress was idle until after I got married in 1973. As a young bride, I lived in New York City and danced at Alvin Ailey and American Ballet Theatre, among many others. I was having a ball! On Thanksgiving Day in 1974, my young husband arranged for us to have dinner at the famous (now infamous to me) Rainbow Room on the top of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. The dress and I made a grand entrance. The suede shoes and faux gold necklace were still with us.

Because I had grown up in poverty, my few good things were always carefully "laid away" when not in use, a la Ma Ingalls(recall the famous "Delaine" in Little House In The Big Woods). Therefore, the shoes and necklace had hung in a cloth bag, suspended from the dress' padded hanger. I really was afraid to use anything too much, for I knew from experience that things of value simply could not be replaced. I remember that, in the seventh grade, I got a Gilbert chemistry set for Christmas, but I was too afraid to use up the chemicals in experiments. Because I drastically cut the required amounts of chemicals, all my experiments were dismal failures. I knew exactly why, but that didn't help any. I did learn to bend glass pipes, and made a great little distillery. You see, glass pipes were reusable and did not go away after they were used. I was much less fearful about experimenting with them. What made me even happier were my own improvised experiments, like the time I lighted a sparkler in Grandma Lavina's upstairs bathroom. When it burned low, I threw it into the brand new porcelain sink, and escaped in a hail of shattering porcelain. Grandpa Sharkey was pissed, but I could see his inner Elf chuckling. Grandpa Sharkey always had a weak spot for the feisty ones.

Oh yes, The Rainbow Room. The prix fixe menu included rack of lamb for two in its short list of entrees, and that is what we ordered. Our table was lovely, being upstairs on a balcony overlooking the main dining and dance floors. Violins were in my ears from the full orchestra, and truth to tell, violins will never be the same to me. As soon as the waiter delivered our rack, I lit into mine with knife and fork. At the first stroke, the rack flew off my plate as if bewitched, and sailed over the balcony to strike a diner below and rebound onto his plate. Honestly, this is the gospel truth. He looked up, trying to isolate the offender, and my quick-thinking husband whisked me down to the dance floor until the heat was off. The rest of the evening was lovely, and I suppose that I looked lovely, but somehow I never felt lovely, or as lovely as the other women there who seemed so poised, or lovely enough to be noticed. I felt gauche and young and inexperienced and childish, all of which I certainly was. I think that this second outing for the green dress only stands out in my mind because I did something to mortify myself. I seem to recall that it is a corollary to Murphy's Law that we are destined to remember in detail those events which embarrass, mortify, or otherwise point to ourselves in a less-than-perfect light. Conversely, I probably had an okay time at the first wearing because I remember nothing about the evening. I do remember my grandma's house before the dance because of the terrible struggle I was having with food at the time.

I remember standing in my grandmother's parlor getting ready for the big dinner dance. Although I lived away at college, I had come home for the weekend to get ready in the comfort of home. Grandma's house was always home to me. It was a house in which the appliances always stood out, either because they were outdated and prone to malfunctioning or because they were on their last legs and grandpa had invented some way to kept them alive....an early form of life support.

Take the stove, for instance. When I was small, we had a coal stove. Grandpa Sharkey would start it up with chunks and sticks of wood, which would make the kitchen smell very good. Then he would tell me to "run down the cellar and put a shovelful on". This meant that I should put some coal on the furnace and then bring up the coal scuttle so we could put some coal on the stove as well. It was usually my job, and I loved it. I loved looking into the fiery furnace and seeing the blue and gold lights dancing and hovering above the coals. It was also creepy, because Grandpa Sharkey used to empty the mouse traps into the furnace, and the dead, burning mice smelled horrible....and looked worse.

The coal stove was where Grandma Lavina did all the cooking and baking, and one truly needed to be a scientist to know how to do these things using coal for a fuel. The heat was not even, and Grandma Lavina needed to know exactly how much coal to add for what she was cooking. Bread and cakes were the hardest, and you could never open the oven while the baking was in progress.

On top of the stove was the tea pot and the tea kettle. The kettle was full of water, and seemed always to be simmering in wait for the next pot of tea. We were an Irish family, so this could be at any given minute. The tea pot was brown crockery, and was half-full of tea leaves. This was because Grandma just threw in another handful every time she boiled up the water for tea. At the end of the day, there was a mighty heap of tea leaves emptied out of the pot.

I had set up the ironing board in the parlor, and for the life of me, I can't remember what it was that I was ironing. It couldn't have been the dress, for Qiana was a stretch knit that didn't like heat. Maybe it was my waist-length hair, for even though my hair was as straight as a poker, convention said that a girl should rinse her hair with Downy Fabric Softener and then iron it to achieve that Cher straightness.

For whatever reason, I had the iron at the ready, and I stood there feeling hungry and anxious. I had not eaten much all day, fearing that a stomach bulge would be too evident beneath the clingy material. Hindsight is 20/20, and I know now that I was showing the early signs of the eating disorder that would plague my life briefly in my twenties. I had not yet learned to throw up, so I starved instead. I had allowed myself four pieces of melba toast with cheese for lunch, but that was long gone by the time I stood at the ironing board. As much as I try, this is the only memory I have of my college senior dinner dance. I don't know where it was,, what was served, who played the music, what my date wore, or whether I had a good time. Time is frozen at the old ironing board with its burned, ill-fitting cover, food anxiety occupying what should have been a very happy and excited mind.

Meet the Green Dress

When I do notice the dress, or when I think about it, it strikes me as lovely and timeless. I bought it in 1972 for my college's senior dinner dance, and I think I could still wear it today. I am speaking of style rather than size, as I am the same size that I was when I was eighteen. It is floor length, a beautiful bottle green, and originally brushed the tops of a pair of narrow, rust suede ankle-strap platform heels. It features a turtleneck that buttons up the back and folds over, and full, long sleeves that terminate in buttoned cuffs; quite virginal, considering what an exhibitionist I was in my salad days. The Maid Marian theme is played out in the dropped waist that comes to a point at mid-abdomen, and the skirt is full of movement and serpentine grace.

It is made of Qiana, a fabric that makes my spell-check shift into a hasty red underline. Qiana is a stretch knit with a sheen to it, and it clings to the figure or flows off on its own. It is probably a petroleum byproduct, the result of invention during the Vietnam War, just as nylon replaced silk during WWII. I don't care. I loved the dress on sight and love it still.

I bought it in a boutique in Wilkes-Barre, PA, with the last of my college grant money, the money that was supposed to support me through the rest of my senior year. I paid seventy dollars for the dress, which, in the dog years of 2010 would be four hundred and ninety dollars. It probably would be very expensive today, what with inflation and the passage of time and the scarcity of Qiana factories.

It is a dress with a zillion buttons on it, in addition to one long zipper up the back. The buttons are round, like green marbles, and exactly match the color of the dress itself. I would hate to lose one. Where on earth would I find a replacement today?? There is a row of them up the back of the turtleneck, that cleverly fold to the outside once they are buttoned, and each sleeve has a row of them up the long cuff. All this makes the dress very challenging to get into solo, especially that turtleneck.

The adornment that I got to go with the dress was a faux gold necklace that depended onto my sternum like a series of beaten rectangles with a flat temple bell at the end; a flat, silent temple bell. I was very conscious of not entering the dance like Elsie the cow.

I suppose this bit of history might be why I wanted it back badly enough to fib to my sister. I really did want it back. It still fits me, and it doesn't fit her, flowing though it is. I am lucky enough to be built just like my mom, while she shares the bosc shape of the women on my dad's side of the family. Spell check doesn't recognize the word "bosc", either. Fruit, you moron, pears!!

So the dress is hanging here, and I haven't a clue about what I want to do with it. Maybe nothing. Maybe I wanted it so that I could write about its history.; 38 years of hanging in closets and on costume racks, of lying wadded up in trunks and suitcases, of dancing and dining, of being borrowed and worn, of being performed in.

My sister borrowed it from me more than once. This last time, she said she wanted it to be an inspiration to her writing, a gift which she always said that she had, but one that she never realized. This is another reason that I reeled in the dress and flopped it back on board my own little raft. Balsa wood encloses and protects those fragile ropes that hold the raft together. Thor Heyerdahl proved that on the Kon Tiki. I feel like Thor Heyerdahl. Maybe I will be the one to write about the green dress.

Back To The Beginning

The green dress is at home once again, having spent a number of years hanging in my sister's house in rural Lancaster County, PA. I lied to get it back. I don't know why I lied when there was no need. Perhaps the lie just sounded like a better reason for wanting the dress than just "gimme what's mine". I told her that I was on sabbatical, and I was reviving an old solo of mine that used the dress as a costume. This was partly true. I was on sabbatical, and I was reviving an old solo. But the dress for that dance is red, making two-thirds of the reason true which, in my mind, makes it okay. I won't go to hell, although technically I gave up my Catholic faith at the age of six, when the nuns at my school took away my book because it espoused evolutionist views instead of the required creationist ones. Never mind that I was reading at that level at that age.

The Sisters of the Holy Cross, whom we called the "paper plate nuns" after the shape of their wimples, taught at Calvert School in Washington D.C. Calvert School was the K-8 school attached to St. Matthew's Cathedral. This is the church where I remember meeting and shaking the hand of President Eisenhower on the steps after the service. I told my mom that I thought Ike was nice and that because of that I would become a Republican. I did not become a Republican, but then again, I did not become a Democrat either. I am very happy as a registered Independent. I am happy to report that the last time I visited our nation's capitol, the school was surrounded by a chain-link construction fence, in preparation for its demolition. Good riddance!

I attended the first grade at Calvert School, and it was to the paper plate nun in charge of the first grade that I brought a book to our weekly show-and-tell. It was by far my favorite book, "The Sea Around Us" by Rachel Carson. This book was full of exciting stories like the great volcanic explosion of the island of Krakatoa, and the resulting wave that measured 112 feet high and nearly swamped the ship "Ramapo" that was in the area and reported the event. I remember wanting to read that section aloud in class. I was six. I was in the first grade.

Instead of reading my passage aloud with fervor and fire and gusto, my classmates' eyes and mouths wide, I was summoned to the desk and thence to the Principal's office. I remember standing, very small, between my teacher and the Principal, smelling that nun-odor of Jean Nate and hearing the rattle of the long rosary beads that hung down the sides of their habits. I often wondered why their rosaries were so much longer than everybody else's.

My parents were summoned, and they were told in no uncertain terms that this book, with its evolutionist theories, was inappropriate reading for a Catholic, and especially for an impressionable Catholic school child. They sent me home without either nun picking up on the fact that a six-year-old kid could actually read that book. I went back to school the next day, having had breakfast sitting on my dad's knee, reading to him from the New York Times. I'll bet the paper plate nuns never read the Times, and they also didn't know that they had lost a sheep from the fold on that fateful day. I was only six years old, and I never considered myself a Catholic again. I just figured that any organization that could be so narrow-minded and dumb was not the place for me.

Back to the point. The green dress is home again and hanging on an open rack in my warehouse artists' live-work space. Most days when I walk by I do not notice it at all, which is another reason why I wonder about myself for wanting it back, much less for taking the trouble to lie about it. And to my sister, no less, who hasn't spoken to me in almost two years!

The Beginning and The End

The entire story is about an ending; a 45-year-long ending that I like a pussy, wiener,idiot,fool,weak sister,candy-ass, allowed to go on as long as it did. In therapy-speak, I was the "enabler". I allowed my sister to get away with the same crap, piled on in the same fashion, over and over and over and over.....you get the picture.

Since the whole thing is one big ending, I guess the beginning is really the beginning of the end. This is where the green dress comes in. She had my green dress, and the day that I finally decided to end the cycle of lunacy for good, I e-mailed her and asked to have it back. You might say that I "waved the green flag"; green meaning "go". Hence the title of the blog.

If the beginning is the beginning of the end, then the end might be called the end of the end. Sounds really final, doesn't it? That's because it is. As soon as that green dress was in my hands, I wrote her a snail-mail, enclosing a check for the cost of the postage she bought to mail the dress, and breaking what was left of the fraying bond between us.

Here, I will reprint that letter in its entirety, and in the next post, I will start from the beginning and piece this mess together. Along the way, you will meet some of the players, peek into my shanty-Irish past, visit my hometown of Scranton, PA, and hopefully laugh rather than yawn or cry or....whatever.

At the end, perhaps you will be able to tell me whether I ended the thing with a bang or with a whimper.

The letter had no date, no salutation. I taped the check for the postage to the top of the page, and let fly as follows:

"This is necessary....for me.I do not, and will not, forget your behavior in the matter of my vase and poster from the Everhart Museum; this, after having me leave them there on the promise that you would mail them.

Then, there was the more-than-frosty reception I got when I so happily sent you the last big box of goodies....you do remember the leather coat?

This has been a pattern with you over more years than I care to count. You come really close, saying that I am 'the only sister you have', and then depart abruptly when the burden of a real relationship becomes too fearful for you to handle.

The last time you came back after several years,after having been self-righteous and moralistic about my life, I said nothing, but welcomed you back. There was no mention of the past, and I treated you with love, generosity, and true friendship. However, not being anyone's doormat, I vowed inside myself that it would be the last time....and it was.

The reason that I have been so forgiving of your behavior is that I have seen all along that it comes from fear. That can no longer be an excuse. It HAS been 'all about you', and not joking....the relationship has to be on YOUR terms, when it suits YOU, when and what YOU can cope with. It is a real drag to try to be in an adult relationship with someone like that.

It has not escaped me that there has never once been an apology from you for any of your rude, cheap, and moralistic behavior. You expect to run the show on your terms, and everyone else has to make allowances. Well, I am clean out of allowances.

You show me hatred for the life in me, and have ever since I was a child. I can remember you stopping me from dancing at a party when I was in the seventh grade. That is how far back and how deep this goes!

I am finished with being slapped back for the best and finest in my nature. I have worked hard to live my dream of dancing, and dancing has managed the considerable fund of energy with which I was endowed. I love what I have become; caring and loving and kind and generous, with very clear eyes. I cannot ever allow negativity and fear back into my life.

As things stand, there is no relationship between us, simply because I am tired of being kicked in the head for all that is best in me. You are fearful and hiding; hiding in therapy instead of using it as a tool to be free; hiding in that horrible relationship with that 'wet rag' who smothers you.

It has taken me many years to finally say this to you. I feel liberated by the truth. If I meet you at a lecture at ACO, so be it. I will still be civil and polite, as I hope you will be as well. If I had been interested in seeing you, I would have told you that I was going to the political lecture/forum. I did not. Then again, if you had cared about anyone but yourself, you would have contacted me when Ike hit so hard....it WAS national news.

You want to be safe, not happy. I ventured out of safety and became happy. Namaste.

P"

That is the end of the end. Since I mentioned the party when I was in the seventh grade, I suppose that I should use that as the beginning of the end. This doesn't mean that I will leave out the juicier tidbits of our earlier days, as some of these stand out in my mind as sterling examples of why we are the way we are today. Take this, for example:

When I was about to enter the sixth grade, age eleven, and Siss was just beginning high school, age fourteen, our parents, Jack and Cella, packed us up and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. This was for no reason that I was ever able to discern, but I came to know later that Jack was a person of impulse and whim. Whatever struck him at the moment was obviously the best thing to do. So, off we went. I sat in the back seat of our blue-and-white Nash Rambler clutching my cunning brown train case, which I had packed with all the necessities; huge gumballs called "sputnik" and "sour apple" and "sour grape". The train case had a convenient flap in the front that would pull down to allow a stream of gumballs to roll out, all colored blue and purple and red and yellow. The "sputniks" were blue with sugar on them that resembled all the spikes on the Soviet space thing of the same name, and the "sour apples" were red-and-yellow spotted. Neither of these made any sense at all, but were nevertheless, delicious.

Siss and I were put into Catholic schools, and I suppose that Cella was expected to become a housewife. Before the first month was over, we had endured a hurricane that shut our power off for an entire week, Jack departed to live with his mistress in Chicopee, Massachusetts, and Cella went back to Scranton, where she was admitted to Clarks Summit State Mental Institution. We were left with the memory of the hurricane, and no parents. Jack would show up every weekend with money for us, but we were expected to cook, clean, do laundry, and get ourselves out to school every day. The apartment was furnished, which made our surroundings thoroughly unfamiliar, but it had a fireplace and was very cozy. It had dishes just like my Grandma Lavina's "Blue Willow" pattern except that they were brown. Every evening after school and homework I ate my Campbell's vegetable beef soup from those bowls and read my "Little House" books. We had no telephone, so the evening that Cella so dramatically slit her wrists (this was a fake) I had to walk her across the street to the drug store to call for help. She then made her escape to Clarks Summit.

I was there for the entire semester until Grandma Lavina found out that her son Jack was not exactly living with us. She hit the roof as only an old Irish Catholic woman can do, and sent my Uncle Paul (who is also my godfather) to bring us home. I was top of my class in Hartford and I was half finished with a pretty outfit I was making in sewing class (naturally, it had a plaid, pleated skirt), but off we went again. I never got that outfit back from the school, and someone said that Siss had been molested on her way to school some time during that semester. Cella remained in the institution for three years, sometimes in the locked ward. I got her back in my freshman year in high school. Siss was a junior by that time. How could this stuff have left us unscathed? What happened to Siss up there in Hartford, Connecticut? No one ever discussed it, least of all Siss herself.

This semester was before the infamous party in the seventh grade, but the kettle was already on the boil for the events that led up to the writing of the letter. We are all products of every single thing that has ever befallen us.