If 20 years is the projected outset of a good, healthy squirrel monkey lifespan, then it would seem that monkey years translate to human years in roughly a 1:4 ratio. So monkey menopause probably should probably occur at around age 12. And, for Edith Anne, it did. What a little grump!! For a couple of years there, we (none of us) could do anything right! The smallest unintended infraction could and often would elicit at the very least a snit…involving that prickly little I-might-bite-you warning sound…and at most a major meltdown involving teeth. As mentioned in a previous blog, squirrel monkeys have rows of straight-pin-like teeth with four rather nasty canines. Also as mentioned before, Edith slept in bed with us. Suffice it to say that rolling over during the night was, for that couple of years, a risky business. My husband and I were sound sleepers, but the first suggestion of that irritated little voice could send us vaulting from the bed in midair! Usually we were able to clear the imminent danger. But, occasonally….well, you know the rather fleshy area just behind your armpit? Yeah! Once the shrieking quieted down and the lovey chirping began, we could carefully and gently climb back in and settle down to sleep.
Oh, the joys of sleeping with a monkey child!
Man of LaMancha…more theatre adventures…
Reminiscing about my theatre days opens the memory floodgates! Oh, the joys of live theatre!
Waaaaaay back in, I think, the 80s (1980s, not 1880s; I’m not THAT old!}, our community theatre mounted a production of “Man of LaMancha”. Wow!!
First of all, the actors were so perfect for their roles. Amazing voices! I worked sound on the show. My amazing view from the bridge allowed me a bird’s eye view of Cervantes/Don Quixote as he died. His eyes actually rolled up in his head as he fell backwards. No matter how many times I witnessed this, I could not watch without tears! And, before the show, as he walked around backstage preparing, we could not speak to him. “Hello, Gary” did not work. He was already Cervantes.
A couple of backstage stories to share…. The horses, as I recall, were two 2-person teams. One of those persons (half a horse worth) apparently, per rumor, may have had substance issues of a disorienting nature. And one day, he did not show up for curtain call…or at all that day. Stage manager Susie did an outstanding job as half a horse that day!
During that phase of my life, we were busy at home putting a full basement under our hundred-year old house. On a budget. After “LaMancha” closed, the set director gracious allowed us to take the dungeon stairs from the set to use to get to our new basement. (Still using them!)
When my husband and I saw the show from the front row, during “The Impossible Dream” Aldonza’s voice suddenly cracked. She managed a small cough, then continued to sing. But I noticed that her hand seemed to be fisted by her side. Later at the cast party, she had not arrived. We learned that the muleteers, when carrying her offstage, had tied to gag too tight and broken a crown. She had almost choked on it during the song. Fortunately, George, who was running lights that night, was also a dentist. He whisked her away to his office across the street from the theatre and installed a temporary crown! And they made it to the party!
Aaaahhhh, the memories……
Mealworm Alcatraz…an experiment in breeding
Because squirrel monkeys need protein and enjoy live food, mealworms tend to be a staple in their diet. For Edith Anne, we called the mealworms the “escapables”, although she gobbled them up in a two-fisted frenzy, so escaping was not really an option for them. In order to cut expenses, we decided at one point to breed mealworms and invested in several plastic critter keepers and a box of bran. Refrigerating mealworms keeps them dormant, so we had to store tubs we had purchased in the fridge. However, mealworms placed in bran tend to find one another, propogate, and eat and poop their way through a myriad of generations. (Interestingly, my oldest grandson used to take some of the creatures out and trap them in structures built with Jenga blocks which he referred to as “Mealworm Alcatraz”. Where do they come up with this stuff?) Back to the reproductive process. A mystery, we learned, was how to grow the newborns to the size of the “giant rainbow mealworms” we purchased in the little tubs. Somehow, the offspring of large mealworms are tiny — and never seem to grow bigger. They do, however, shed their shells and emerge a tiny bit larger. And this cycle repeats itself ad infinitum…never really producing the original-sized mealworm even after several years’ worth of generations. (Sigh….) So we ended up with five critter keepers and gazillions of mealworms in a variety of sizes. Edith Anne preferred the giant rainbow full-grown variety. Eventually the tiny you’d-think-we-could-grow-these-but-can’t variety found employment as plant fertilizer in the yard. And I’m pretty sure we still have respiratory issues from the bran dust. Caution: Don’t try this at home!!
You’re not my dad! My dad has fur!….
My fourth child (my third monkey child), Edith Anne, was just a little bit spoiled. When she was quite young, we lived in an old house that did not have a full basement (only a dirt floor with a curb wall), so we had to excavate a basement while living in the house. This hefty project involved disrupting the gas line to the house; and, because it was October in the midwest, this meant that we needed to find way to stay warm. Being a pound and a half squirrel monkey, Edie tended to get cold easily. We used a heat lamp inside a tin canister to provide heat for her room (a 4x3x2 cage that was inside our bedroom). Early into the basement excavation, we realized that the light was going to keep us awake all night, and we couldn’t risk using the kerosene heaters while everyone was sleeping. So, being caring parents, we decided that Edith should sleep in bed with us to snuggle and stay warm while the construction was going on. And the construction took awhile. Quite awhile. Long enough for Edie to become very attached to sleeping with us. You know how hard it is to get a little kid to go back to bed and/or stay in bed once they start crawling in with mom and dad? Well, there you go!
Our little bedmate had some preferred places to sleep. Her very favorite was daddy’s armpit (possibly because it was furry), although I could never quite relate to that choice. Phew!! With me, her favorite spot was on my pillow plastered against my face…and, whenever she could get away with it, holding my nose shut with her little furry fingers. To ensure my breathing, I had to devise a hand position which allowed her to cuddle into my outturned palm. Edith Anne eventually appointed herself the bedtime monitor and would take attendance. If daddy had to be up late working, Edie would go to bed with mommy; however, at the hour Edie deemed the appropriate bedtime, she would wake up and begin to pace the bed, running up and down on top of the covers and calling out for her dad. Everyone had to be accounted for at her designated bedtime. But she trained us to behave for the most part and things generally went smoothly. Edie did occasionally have her jealous moments wherein she would wedge herself between us and push our faces apart if she thought we were getting a bit too chummy. (More to come about Edith’s bedtime adventures.)
When we first had Edith, we always joked that she took after her father who was tall and thin and furry. (He sported longish hair and a full beard, and Edie loved to snuggle into his neck and surround herself with fur.) Eventually (a few years later), my husband decided to cut his hair and shave. Uh oh!!! The first time Edith laid eyes on her dad, she went ballistic! Shriek shriek shriek!!! Boom bang boom on the side of the cage!!! Teeth bared and ready!!! He had to walk past her room (cage) to get to his side of the bed, and she was hell-bent on grabbing and biting him. The message was crystal clear — “You’re not my dad! My dad has fur!”
Dilemma! What to do?? Fortunately, it was during a warmer time of year so Edith Anne could spend the night in her room. But she strongly objected and would pace and thump around in her room and fuss and scold. So sleeping was a bit difficult. And yet, she was not about to come out of her room and have anything to do with that non-furry stranger of a man. Nope!! Uh-uh!! Negative!!
Ultimately, daddy started talking to her after dark and with the lights safely off. It was daddy’s voice, so she was amenable to that. And then he would talk to her and bring her out of her room and to bed…in the safety of the dark room. She was amenable to that, too. And somehow little miss Edith Anne decided to accept and love her defective furless dad again.
Edith Anne lived to be 28 years old (eight years longer than the top end of the age range for a squirrel monkey). She shared our bed for 27 of those years. My youngest child. My baby!
Today’s Word…palindrome
Palindrome — [noun, Thelmese] a buddy in the capital of Italy
My Mom and My Other Moms: things I learned…
My mom, my aunts, my cousins, my oldest friend’s mom, my foster mom, my mom where I did live-in babysitting, my moms-in-law — wow!! What an amazing cross-section of women influenced my life.
Despite the fact that, after my dad died, she and I were pretty much a diad living in a city at some distance from other relatives, my mom instilled in me a strong sense of family. Several times a year we hopped a Greyhound bus, rode the “rolly-coaster hills”, and went “down home” to visits aunts, uncles, and cousins on the farms of central Ohio. As a city kid, I was not fond of outhouses, spiders, geese that chased me, chickens that defended their eggs with their beaks, or dung that required careful navigation of the fields and barnyard. But, oh, I loved the people! And sheep! And dogs and cats! When my mom, widowed and thus a single mom, needed a break, I had warm and welcoming places to go.
My mom encouraged my interest in drawing, designing doll clothes, pretend play, singing and reading. She made sure I went on school field trips to orchestral concerts and took me to a few plays. These events fed into my lifelong love of the arts.
When my mom had bouts of illness and mental health issues, a whole cadre of women stepped in.
My friend from Belgium (the Brussels sprout) had a mom who was friends with mine. She took me in on a couple of occasions when my mom was hospitalized. I learned to love rare steaks and garlic. And to parle francais un peu.
An aunt who lived half an hour away in another town took me in for a number of weeks and drove me back and forth to my high school daily. (I learned twenty years later that her daughter, my dear cousin, had begun to make plans to adopt me should it be necessary.)
Eventually, arrangements were made for me to live with a minister and his wife in a mansion that would later be razed to construct a nursing home. So, for much of my junior and senior years of high school, I lived in a 28-room mansion on eight acres of property with two ponds and a stream. (The minister and his wife were to become the administrators or the nursing home later on, so were living in the mansion and showing a sample room that had been built on one of the porches.) These folks had been missionaries in Egypt for a number of years, and the woman’s elderly father lived in the home as well. I learned a lot of elephant jokes, a teeny bit of Arabic, saw “Lawrence of Arabia” with them, and fell in love with camels. (In fact, I can do a rather impressive camel imitation — facial features, vocalization, the whole works!) My “foster mom” encouraged my writing and had me enter poetry contests for the two years I stayed with them. I won a third place prize and an honorable mention! Wow!
I began to do babysitting my senior year for a family with five kids, and became a live-in babysitter for that family for about a year. The mom was a librarian and fostered my love of reading. She also introduced me to the music of The Weavers and Bob Dylan.
Mothers’ Day has certainly dredged up the memories for me. And they are precious.
My Mom(s)…
As Mother’s Day approaches, my thoughts go back to my mom. She passed away when I was 25, and there was so, so much that she missed. I wish she could have been here to share in all that I am proud of. She only knew my son until he was five so never got to see the ornery all-boy rough-and-tumble kid growing up, the motorcycle racer who eventually raced the Grand National dirt track circuit, one of the best motorcycle racing motor builders in the country, and eventually the multi-talented entrepreneur managing apartment rentals, planning and implementing construction and design projects, owning and running pizzerias, and fathering five sons. Mom never got to meet her bright, handsome, wonderful great grandsons and her superhero great great grandson. And, sadly, they never got to know her. My mom always supported me, the shy kid, and prodded me to get my education, have friends, and create; yet she never got to be involved in my adult life of theatre, racing, writing, social work, and more.
She worked hard as a single mom (my dad passed away when I was a little over a year old) to ensure my needs were met. She had a unique sense of humor that I keep tucked away in my heart. She was renowned for her indecisiveness over major purchases (e.g. had me take piano lessons from 4th through 6th grade but couldn’t make up her mind on which piano to buy until I was 14). My mom loved fashion and glamour. She taught me to love the color blue (almost exclusively, actually, until I finally figured out there was a rainbow out there). She taught me basic morals and values – don’t lie, cheat, steal, etc. – to the point that I was pretty much a goody-two-shoes back in the day. She taught me to be kind to people. She respected me, and I in turn respected her….at least insofar as obeying rules. Being an only child, I was also a spoiled brat and believed that tantrums were the way to go. They always worked with my mom. With others, not so much. I learned that quickly!
My mom had some wonderful recipes! I wish I had kept up some of those traditions better over the years. She would bake fruitcake bars (NOT to be confused with yucky fruitcake) at Christmas time along with gingerbread cookies, rum and bourbon balls (I didn’t eat those), and stuffed dates (of which I ate a lot!). Her recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with semi-sweet morsels was the best, an amazing blend of salt and sweet that was so delicious that I consumed a lot of cookie dough back in the day. (Hint: be careful with that – not so much due to salmonella as to the fact that raw cookie dough will expand inside a human stomach just like it does in the oven and can produce a bit of a tummy ache.)
Because my mom, in her later years, had many health and emotional health issues, she was unable to attend my high school graduation, and that broke my heart. She did, however, get to attend my first college graduation—although we nearly missed it due to a flat tire on the way to the university. Mom, I miss you and love you!!
With my mom’s health situation and a number of hospitalizations, I was fortunate to have a string of “second moms”: my aunts, my older cousins, the mom of my closest friend (the Brussels sprout), a foster mom found through our church, the mom of the five kids for whom I lived in and babysat, and a couple of mothers-in-law. These women were instrumental in my life at the times when my mom was unable to be, and I thank them wholeheartedly.
Theatre Whispers, backstage and on…
Once upon a time my husband and I were fortunate to be cast in a local production of Amadeus. I was cast as Teresa Salieri, wife of the protagonist, a non-speaking role which allowed me to wear an elegant blue gown and to attend the opera. (Admittedly, my ADHD tendencies came into play at one point and I, along with several other performers sharing a lively chat in the green room, was UNfashionably late for the opera. Oops!)
My husband was cast as one of the two Venticelli or “Little Winds”, whose job it was to keep the story moving through narrative and whispers which took them from past to present in the action. (We lovingly referred to them as the Vermicelli, of course. How could we not!)
Salieri took the audience through the chain of events with a series of lengthy soliloquies which also alternated from present to past to present. This vacillating chronology required several quick costume changes for the Venticelli, who had to go from foppish 18th century court attire with satin, lace, knickers, wigs, and makeup to everyday 18th century street clothes. And, at the time of this production, the theatre’s dressing rooms were located on the second floor — with two long flights of stairs and no elevator to help. Timing is everything! During a long monologue in one performance, as the Little Winds were upstairs halfway between street clothes and wigs, they heard on the monitor as Salieri jumped ahead two and a half pages in dialogue (did I mention l o o o n n g soliloquies?) which indicated an imminent entrance for the Venticelli. Somehow, they managed to scramble to come up with the costume change and fly down the steps without injury, hoping to arrive in time for their entrance. Just as they prepared to go onstage, they were brought to a screeching halt (amazed they didn’t leave skid marks!) as they heard Salieri loop back two and a half pages in his dialogue to the very place from which he had jumped ahead a few minutes prior. Whew!!
Another aside regarding Amadeus, during the run of the show one of the Venticelli (not my husband, thank goodness!) had managed to fall off his icy roof while cleaning gutters and broke his wrist. Luckily the costumes involved very long, lacy sleeves, so his cast was obscured…although his hand gestures were just a bit stiffer than usual.
Well, as they say, the show must go on….
Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, and Hang On….The Dirt Track Years…
Although this title sounds a lot like what the world expects us all to do right now (with the pandemic and all), it actually refers to the window sticker on the race vans during our forty or so years of motorcycle racing, particularly when we travelled the A.M.A. Grand National Championship circuit. (One of our other window stickers proudly boasted “We Race Motorcycles and We’re Broke to Prove It”.)
Ah, the good ol’ days! I’d be having a conversation with folks planning vacations, and they’d be estimating how long it would take to get to their destinations. I’d raise my eyebrows and assure them it did not take that long. (Case in point: going from Ohio to California does not indeed take three days. It can be accomplished in thirty hours if you need to be there badly enough.) With my son’s running a shop, manufacturing parts, and doing performance work on motors, getting the van loaded and out of the driveway was always a challenge. Hence, we learned that the amount of time it takes to get anywhere in the U.S. or Canada is the amount of time that exists between when we would leave the shop and when the sign-up window at the track was scheduled to close. (Incidentally, we only ever missed sign-ups once, and that was due to being stuck on a parking lot freeway due to a traffic incident.)
Sleeping on the way to the track was probably my very favorite way to sleep. I packed a supply of pillows and could be snuggled in fairly safely, although there would be the occasional brake-hard-because-the-highway-patrol-was-spotted situation…in which ending up on the floor of the back seat was a distinct possibility. The Ford maxi-van was the least comfortable as the bench seat was stiffer. One of the early race vans had no back seat. We improvised with three metal lawn chairs wedged side by side. We could seat three across and one lying down horizontally underneath the three chairs. And the cooler between the two front seats provided a nice footrest for the middle chair passenger in the back. The box truck was roomy, and its walls were carpeted. But the best sleep was in the Dodge maxi-van. Cushy ride, that! And, not only was the Dodge van comfy, it had some other advantages. It had theft protection in the form of fluorescent paint (experimental from a nearby factory) in neon orange. Anyone trying to get very far would be thwarted by the van’s high visibility factor. Everyone in town knew exactly where that van was and had been! Interestingly, one time we had to get from Springfield, Illinois, to York, Pennsylvania, for 8 am sign-ups…having left Springfield about 2 a.m. due to a rain delay. This involved traversing the Pennsylvania Turnpike where the speed limit is 55 and the highway patrol is plentiful. Thankfully, there was thick fog that night, so traffic was minimal and the Highway Patrol absent. Obviously, it did not occur to them that there would be one vehicle flying through the fog which they could actually have seen to ticket (in vibrant blue and fluorescent orange). Whew!!
I generally got my turn at the wheel for what I called the deer-feeding shift, about 3 a.m. Adrenaline would get the guys that far, and they’d wake me up when they got too sleepy to focus. The one time we had affixed deer-whistles to the front of the van (to warn the animals and prevent them from running out) was the one time a deer walked right out in front of the van. Fortunately for all concerned, we missed! And we removed the deer whistles since they were apparently ineffective (and perhaps even summoned the deer).
In the early no-money days we used to camp for many of the overnight stays, so there were some adventures there, too. One year at the KOA Bulow in Florida (Bike Week), we had a severe storm that had me trying to dig a hole in the bottom of the tent to get underground. In the morning the wind was still strong enough to inflate — yes, inflate — the 8×10 cabin tent like a hot air balloon! Wow!! (We had a photo, but I can’t find it. Would love to share!) We also spent a week camping on-grounds at the racetrack in Barberville, Florida. I had called ahead and was assured there were restroom and shower facilities available. What they failed to mention, however, was that only the men’s restrooms were open overnight as the women’s restroom was located inside the chain link fence under the grandstand. So I had to have husband and son guard the door to be able to use the facilities. It seems like the few other female campers were with the big teams that travelled in motorhomes. (At that early stage of my son’s racing career, we didn’t know those folks that well yet. Darn!)
Storm and restroom stories abound in regard to the racing years. Stay posted for more adventures.
And if anyone tells you to get in, sit down, shut up, and hang on — trust me! It’s fun!
Dominic’s Honeymoon…
Dominic was telling his brother Luigi about his honeymoon trip:
Aah, Luigi, the wedding was-a beautiful. And for our honeymoon-a, we scheduled a train trip down-a the east-a coast-a to Florida. My beautiful bride-a Virginia, she pack-a a beautiful picnic-a basket with a delicious lunch-a and a nice-a bottle of wine-a and a big-a cigar for me. We get on-a the train and ride-a for awhile. Then my beautiful bride-a Virginia, she take-a out the picnic basket and start-a to fix our lunch-a. And the conductor, he come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a eat-a in this-a car-a. You have-a to eat in the dining car-a”. So Virginia, she pack-a the lunch-a back in the basket, and we go-a to the dining car-a and have our delicious lunch-a. After lunch-a I start-a to pour-a the fine-a wine-a, but the conductor come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a drink wine-a in the dining car-a. You have-a to drink in the club-a car-a”. So me and my beautiful bride-a Virginia take-a the wine-a to the club-a car-a and enjoy a nice-a drink-a. After the wine-a, I take out my big-a cigar and start-a to light it up. But the conductor come-a by and clap-a his hands and say, “No, no, no! You can’t-a smoke-a in the club-a car-a. You gotta go to the smoking car-a”. So we go to the smoking car-a, I smoke-a my big cigar, and-a we decide we are gonna go to the sleeping car-a. So we go to the sleeping car-a, and just as we’re about to consummate our marriage, the train-a stops-a suddenly, and the conductor yells-a on the loud-a speaker, “Norfolk-a, Virginia!” Next-a time-a, I’m just-a gonna drive down.