Dread to Delight • One Fruit & Veggie At A Time
We’ve all heard of women who would not leave home without their make-up. But, what if the house was burning?
This is a true story. I had a choice: leave the burning building and save myself or wait till my mother put on her make-up and die.
What would you have done?
She is the fourth in a family of five and shall be five years old in September.
It was her “turn” to come and visit Pappy and the pool and the candy store and– oh yes– the home made ice-cream shop.
We have incentives here at Chez Pappy besides the ol’girl herself.
She brought her Polly Pocket miniature plastic “dolls” (if dolls that look like showgirls can be called “dolls”) but she was quick to tell me, “I brought the ones with clothes, Pappy.” When I play with these fashionistas at her house, they are often in bathing suits or skirts that go up to their waist. Pappy has been known to grumble about Polly Pockets shameful lack of attire and insistent state of blondeness. She couldn’t bring any brunettes because there aren’t any period case closed. There is a strawberry blonde, however. When we play with them, she’ll often start the play by picking dolls (she picks first because she’s the boss) and after I pick mine, she’ll begin their dialogue by saying, “You are beautiful” to my doll.
My grumbling begins.
“I’m more than just a pretty face, you know,” I say back to her through my mini-skirted call-girl . “I’ve had hard times. That’s why I can’t afford dresses that go to the knee.”
She looks at me as in the above photo. If I was holding a steaming turd, I swear to you she’d look the same way at me. “What is your problem, Pappy?” as if ‘ I just told you were beautiful. What else do you want in life?”
So, I’m not exactly totally malleable as you can see. I need additional “visiting-incentives”.
The pool comes with occasional frogs and at least one mouse (see my You Tube movie if you simply have to see for yourself) and that totally makes up for my limitations as a play mate. I also do not grumble in the water.
At the ice cream place, I let her get a “cone” instead of a dish which of course no parent in their right mind would do as it is a guaranteed waste of the ice cream as it either falls directly to the ground as it is waved around while telling a story or melts in the July heat before three licks.
But, where I shine is as a flower and “omato” grower. She likes to pick those “omatoes” and water the always thirsty flowers and her favorite vegetable is the Brussel Sprout plant which she pats like a dog but would not eat even if I held her Polly Pockets as ransom.
She watched me eat my braised Swiss Chard for dinner while holding her nose. She didn’t like the smell as I’d braised the dark leafy fronds in garlic. She has a very sensitive nose and could be used as canary in the mine if the world could afford to lose her which it most definitely can not so I just got up and took my dinner into my bedroom because she couldn’t eat her dinner of nuggets and noodles with one hand clamped on her nose.
She has popular songs running in her head 24/7. Currently, she is singing a song by “Train” and a “Taylor Swift” song. How do I know? The lady in the next booth to ours at breakfast complimented her on her choice of songs as we got up to leave. She said they were her favorite songs, too. So, I asked her who sang them as I had no idea.
On the way home, we listened to some Beethoven and she seemed quiet and dreamy. As soon as I turned it off, her singing soundtrack started up, “She doesn’t get you like I do”. La la la.
She asked me to put the radio to KISS 108 which on my dial is 107.9. I grumbled. If the station is 108 why is it 107.9 for God’s sake and on an on.
Immediately, she started singing along to another song. Except this time, I knew the song as her twelve year old sister had pointed out this song a few weeks back on our return ride home from her visit. It is by Rhianna and Enimem. The words include “I love your lies” and “don’t mind if you tie me to a bed.”
Whaat? Well, you can imagine Pappy’s reaction.
I went off like a heat-seeking missile to her twelve year old sister who just laughed and laughed and waited till I had crashed and burned (tangent wise not driving wise), calmed down, and then said, “Yeah, but don’t you think she’s got a good voice, Pappy?”
So, as I listened to the four almost five year old singing every blasted word of this song, I held my nose in Pappy Protest.
I can drive with one hand on the wheel.
©Pat Coakley 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.
••Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased or licensed at www.patcoakley.com
I went to an engagement party north of Boston in Essex, Massachusetts on Saturday. It was a day of divine light and clouds and a blessed property of horse corrals, green pastures, and expansive spring green marsh land below the corral. I wanted to photograph the guests but the property and the skies kept calling me. Judging from my gallery of photos accessible HERE, I think Mother Nature was the guest of honor.
©Pat Coakley 2010
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
**Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased at www.patcoakley.com
[slideshow]
WordPress has a new feature called “Slideshow” that suits perfectly a sequence of photos I took over the weekend of one of those timeless moments that dads and sons have every day when lessons for living are being imparted. This lesson had to do with tying a tie. They were just about to go to Easter services and Benjamin’s tie needed a little adjustment.
One of the reasons I love to visit my niece and her husband is to watch how they parent their two boys. Sometimes I have tears in my eyes wishing her father, my late brother, could see what I am seeing through the lens.
©Pat Coakley 2010
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
**Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased at www.patcoakley.com
My lying cousin Mary is on the left. She flew into town (I thought) to help celebrate her niece and my best buddy, Tina, who is a breast cancer survivor alive and well & kickin’ you know what.
But, no, it was a surprise birthday party for me and, it turns out for Mary, too, as it is her 65th birthday later in the month.
My nephew John said I must have been brain dead not to have realized the truth.
The gloves are always off in my family. No refuge from brutality even on your 65th.
Well, brain dead it is cuz I didn’t know.
I was toasted at the party by the husband of one of party organizers and despite being dreamy looking (if you have cataracts) was wearing a sweaty gray T shirt that you usually see someone wearing in Gold’s Gym after going twelve rounds with the heavyweight champion of the world. He had the nerve to say I was the biggest pain in the rear to plan a party around and he was so glad it was over and didn’t have to hear each morning the latest road block I’d thrown across his wife’s bow on trying to pulling this party off.
Alright, alright…he did have a point. I did email the initial invitation to “Tina’s” party and say, “Hello, people. It’s New England. February. You know–the month usually described as snow and icy? I’m not driving on Rt. 495 for an hour to Concord (my cousin’s house) no matter how much I love Tina.! Let’s have a pot luck party at my house. I’m closer to everyone anyway. We’ll save mermaid costs if we have to cancel due to weather.” (This is the crowd that hires mermaids to entertain at pool parties in the summer.)
And, so it began for these well-meaning folks to try and get me the hell out of the house on a February evening.
It took every lying gene in my family’s DNA helix and, as it turns out, we have an excess of that gene in our spiraling Irish helix: we are one deceitful but charming group is all I can say.
But, sadly, not all of us in the family got the sartorial gene and really, really don’t know how to dress for a 65th birthday party, but I’m not naming any names.
Oh, yeah. I lied about not naming names.
Bob Kinlin.
Thank you, all.
©PAT COAKLEY 2010
THANKS TO KAREN COAKLEY FOR THIS PHOTOGRAPH. SHE MANAGED TO GET A PHOTO OF ME SMILING WITHOUT BROCCOLI IN MY TEETH!
••Select photographs from this blog and my wider archive can be purchased at www.patcoakley.com
My cousin, Mary, arrives today and when I asked if she wanted me to get anything in particular she said just a flashlight and a nightie.
Check and check.
I have a flashlight but I also put a nightlight with a big beam in her room cuz she’ll be 65 soon too and when we get up in the middle of the night, we oldie girls need to know where the hell we are going.
Check on the nightie, too, since she gave me all the sleepwear I have in my drawer or hanging from the back of the bathroom door. She gave me her mother’s pink robe after she died that is as soft as a cloud and must be over thirty years old . Her Mom died in 1991 and it was an old robe then, but I love it! Cousin Mary gave me an ice-blue version several years ago (she has a store in Palm Beach and sells lingerie, sportswear and jewelry) probably hoping that I’d make the switch. I sometimes wear the blue one but her mother’s robe (I called her Auntie Dode–her name was Dorothy) is the one I’m in most mornings greeting or cursing the day.
On the bureau near where she’ll sleep is a birthday present I received from my other cousin who I adore but never see, Dickie. He builds custom homes and his own boats in Maine and is the son of my favorite favorite uncle, Dan. The box it was in was placed near my door by UPS and it was a shape that was longer than a floral box but could have been long stemmed roses. But, when I got closer I could see that it said, “Samsung LCD TV”. I saw his return address and laughed out loud. He’s sending me a TV?? A TV that is the shape of 24 long stemmed roses?
It didn’t make sense.
Once inside the house I opened the box and brought out this hand made toy dory pictured here on my mantle. It must be three feet long.
I burst into tears it was so beautiful and because my father’s boat had been named “Hunky Dory” and my memories of Dickie are all on beach or on the waters of Buzzards Bay. He and his Dad were sailors and on the water all the time.
When I could read the note that came with it, it said that he had made this for my birthday but that it wouldn’t be complete untl one of my grand nieces or nephews pulled it through the green waters of Buzzards Bay.
He said he could still feel the sand of the beach we grew up on.
I have a photograph somewhere of the three cousins on the beach playing when we were about 4 years old. There is no way I’ll be able to find that photo but tonight Mary shall sleep with my new toy dory on the dresser and I bet both of us in rooms with nightlights shall find our way back home.
©Pat Coakley 2010
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMSSION
••Select photos from this blog and my wider archive are available for sale or licensing at www.patcoakley.com
We went to Europe in 1956 as a family- two kids, 11 and 13, two parents and a Leica.
The slides of my father shall be a new periodic series.
He loved ships. He and my mother had gone on their honeymoon in 1939 on the French Liner, The Normandie, but I have found no slides (as of yet) of that trip.
We traveled on the Queen Mary from New York to Southampton in June, 1956 and returned early July on the Andrea Doria, the Italian liner, the trip before it sank on July 25, 1956.
Regular readers know I’ve written about both my father, brother, and both ships previously here and here.
In the depths of winter here in New England, as I begin my 65th year, the images of ships with red smoke stacks have taken me, once again, on a journey-an appreciation of my father’s talent as a photographer.
Stay tuned as I’ve even found a image taken behind the wheel!
Thank you scanning machine–from vegetables to memory, you shall be busy in the coming months.
©Pat Coakley 2010
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
Holiday time separates agin’ single girls wearing their big girl underpants from those wearing thongs.
(PS. Planetross doesn’t think single or married agin’ girls should be wearing thongs anyway–just orthopedic shoes)
Like old age itself, it’s not for sissies, but on the other hand, there’s time to create a new video blog, “The Bad Chef” because no one, married or single, is more consistently a dunderhead in the kitchen as I am.
There’s time, too, to create a way that anyone interested in buying my photographs or illustrations can do so on line: www.patcoakley.com, (The shopping cart is not there today but will be by Tuesday)
Time, too, (and with this post) to begin a new holiday SFAR series geared to the vistas of singledom that I am uniquely qualified to describe.
The title was going to be “Single, Solitary. Ah, the view!” mostly because I liked this image above that I created late yesterday.
Then, I decided on another title.
I read on a government website (It has to be true, right?) that only 4% of the population in the United States will never have married by the time they are 65. Since I am only two months away from being 65, I appear to be headed steadily, ok– hurtling– into that 4% category.
But, there must be a study some where that breaks down that 4% further. Those who never married but are currently living with someone, for example. Ok, with that screening analytic, I’m guessing now I’m in the 2% category.
But, another study breaking down the remaining 2% would surely focus on single people who have never married nor are currently living with a significant other but who live with animals and birds. I believe that this 2% of population who never marry nor are living with anyone by the time they are 65 invariably and in some spectacular quantities, do bond with a cat, dog or a bird.
It’s unscientific, I realize, but since I don’t have a dog, cat, bird or significant other, this lack of a dog-cat-birdie-or human live-in bond pretty much puts me in a category all by myself, don’t you think?
So, I feel confident in titling this new series, either “My One Percent Guide to Happiness” or “Single, Solitary and I Hate Cats.”
Which do you think is best?
Hey, we all want to be unique and important and this is my niche. Most of us satisfy this human need with some combination of significant others, children, friends, animals and meaningful work.
Since I’ve lived long enough to observe that at the end of life being married or a parent doesn’t insulate you from feeling alone, my niche might even have some survival skills for the other 99% of the population.
Google Analytics has nothing on me.
I can tell you that one true thing absolutely positootley on this late November Sunday when the sound of distant hoofbeats is unmistakable.
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHY CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
What I don’t have in cooking skills, I make up for in ninja skills.
Thankful to the gods for those who, despite reaching the age of reason, love me crappy sticky buns and all.
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
I am her play buddy but.
She’s got to keep an eye on me cuz I might check my phone for messages to which she says, “Pappy, we are playing right? You are helping me with my puzzles, right?”
Or, I might be taking her photograph.
Or daydreaming and looking out the library windows wondering if we’ll go to McDonalds or Islington Pizza for lunch.
She lives in the absolute moment and has an inner radar for my wanderings.
Is there a message I absolutely have to get? No.
Do I have to daydream looking out the window about where I’ll take her next? No.
Do I have to take her photograph?
Hell, yes. It’s my way of living in the moment, Miss Mary.
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
I am not a baker, butcher or a candlestick maker but I’m about to become a drinker. Christmas cookies keep burning. Baking is more a science and not for one who has the attention of a mayfly. I’ll display the results in another post, provided I can stay in the kitchen for six minutes straight. [...]
