I've been blessed with two terrific parents. It's a corny thing to say, yes, but true nonetheless. There is much I've learned from each of them, and much I could say about each of them as well. Today though, I'd like to take a moment to talk about one of the traits that runs on the Lebowski side of the family: a quick wit. All of the children of the Lebowski-Jerboa union share this trait to a greater or lesser degree, and most of the grandchildren as well (I flatter myself amongst the grandchildren of wit). While she may not be as much of a natural spotlight-magnet as her younger siblings Hulka and Patty, my mother possesses the gift of a quick wit in spades. She is less of a storyteller, her gift is in her ability to play along with a situation or mutter a quick retort. Here are a collection of some of my favorite Diane Thirty off-the-cuff witticisms.
At a birthday dinner for Holly Lebowski (Hulka's beloved wife), we were all seated around a table in a restaurant. My mother is very particular about certain foods, and insists on only ever using REAL butter for her bread/rolls, not margarine. So when the basket of rolls arrived to the table with a mix of butter and margarine packets, she was nervous. The basket was going the wrong way around the table from her, and she was carefully watching as the stock of real butters gradually depleted. Eventually, the basket reached the diner directly to her right, her brother David "Blaze" Lebowski, with only 1 real butter left. Now, David is a scheming sort of guy, always up to do something to get a rise out of someone (another trait that runs in the family), so I can't say I blame my mother 100% for the preemptive strike she was about to launch, but it seemed harsh nonetheless.
As soon as the basket of rolls reached David's hands, it was slapped out of them, onto the table as my mother warned him, without a hint of warmth in her voice, "Don't even think about it, fuckhead." [alternative heard as "don't even think about it, dickhead."] She quickly snatched the last butter out of the basket and turned back to her conversation with my father, leaving David with his jaw on the table and only margarine for his roll. Now, I realize that wasn't a particularly "witty" comment to lead the tales of wit, but it was hilarious, fuckhead.
One Christmas in our old house, probably when I was about 13, 14 or so my mother had ordered a large leather recliner for my father for Christmas. It was a warm Christmas Eve that year, with very little, if any, snow on the ground. I recall being sent out onto the deck at some point in the morning with a bag of stale Rice Krispies to throw out to the birds. The house was built into a hillside, and the deck wrapped around from the side of the house where it was just a few steps up from the driveway to the back of the house where it stood above the slider doors to the finished part of the basement. I was feeling particularly lazy, and didn't feel like throwing handful after handful of cereal out onto the lawn proper, so I stood at the deck railing in the rear of the house and just upended the bag, dumping a pile of cereal down 1 story to the ground below where it remained.
Later that day, Dad's new chair arrived. My mother guided the deliverymen down from the driveway to the backyard and around to the basement doors to bring the chair in. She then noticed that to do so, they'd have to walk through a pile of Rice Krispies. Thinking quickly of a way to save face, she let the delivery man know that she'd asked her son to feed the birds that morning. But her son, she claimed, had Down's Syndrome, and didn't understand the task. How do I know she said this? After they left, she came upstairs and told me so. Angrily. As if it were my fault she lied and said I had Down's Syndrome.
Now, my cousin, Derek Dynamo, does in fact have Down's Syndrome, and he is one of the kindest-hearted young men you'd ever hope to meet, a real sensitive guy who loves his family and loves to make people laugh. One day my mother was sitting with her sisters, Susan (Derek's mother), and Patty chatting with their mother, Nonnie, and HER sister, Aunt Claire Philbert. Aunt Claire sometimes has a funky thought process, and doesn't quite follow exactly what's going on (but she is a very sweet and good person). At this particular time, Susan was talking about the accommodations Derek gets at school, including a dedicated para-educator. However, Aunt Claire didn't hear para-educator. Instead, she looked confused and asked my mother to clarify for her sister, just exactly, "what does the parrot do?". Now, my mother could've explained that Derek did not, in fact, have a parrot educator, but instead opted to tell her that the parrot uses its claws and beak to sharpen Derek's pencils. Aunt Claire looked not at all less confused by this, but blinked, nodded her acceptance, and sat back in her chair. To my knowledge, she has not, to this day, been corrected.
The final moment of unscripted, muttered wit I'll share today happened during a family game of Monopoly Junior. Monopoly Junior is like regular monopoly, but with fewer properties, set in an amusement park, and with the dollar values greatly reduced, usually by a factor of $100 or so. Also, the man currently officially known as Mr. Monopoly featured more prominently in the various cards and properties. However, Mr. Monopoly went by a different name back then. Back then, he was Rich Uncle Pennybags.
It was a typical family board game, the type pictured in print ads for the very same board games. All four members of the Thirty family were sitting on the living room rug, Steven and Diane Thirty patiently playing this childrens' game with Meghan and I. Mom was not winning though, and was becoming mildly annoyed with her poor luck. She rolled, and landed on one of the card drawing spaces, taking a card. She grumbled about how she had to pay back a $3 loan to her rich uncle. However, her description of this was "Oh, damn it, fine, pay $3 to Uncle Peniswhistle." Meghan and I laughed so hard we couldn't finish the game.
Uncle Peniswhistle.
Hahahahaha, it's still funny.
Showing posts with label Nonnie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nonnie. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tales From The Lebowskis - Their House (In The Middle of Their Street)
From the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's, the Lebowski family lived in a great big house (3 stories, 6 bed, 8 bath) that I've never seen the inside of. Seven people (two parents, five children) is a big family, and a large house would be reasonable for a large family, but this house also doubled as a care facility for several adult patients that my grandmother, Mary Lebowski was responsible for (she was an RN who basically ran a mini-rest home in her own home for a few wards of the state). It is a constant sadness to me that I never got the chance to visit this house (it is now occupied by a privately owned business, although my aunt Pappy does visit sometimes for her work, which is nice for her). It sounds like a fun place where lots of interesting things occurred. I'd like to walk you through some of the highlights.
The living arrangements were as follows. The basement was a basement, and had laundry machines. The first floor was the main living area with kitchen, dining room, etc. The 2nd floor had bedrooms for Nonnie, Jaja, their two sons David and Stephen (Hulka), and the patients. The third floor, accessed via a flight of stairs with each step painted a different bright color, housed my mother, Diane, and her two sisters, Susan and Patty (Pappy). The bulk of the third floor was Patty and Susan's room, which was enormous. My mother's room (she desperately wanted her own room, being the oldest) was tiny, like a broom closet. Because it was her VERY OWN ROOM, she got to paint it any color she liked. She chose lavender. Apparently this tiny room was extremely lavender. It was once described by David as "so damn purple, Prince and Barney would spew."
Having the patients live in the house provided Nonnie and Jaja with convenient watchful eyes when they wanted or needed to get out of the house. If you think about this, though, the patients living there were wards of the state. Hulka likes to point out that they were, "frequently left in the care of individuals the state deemed unfit to care for themselves." One patient's entire babysitting strategy was slap a box of cigarettes in his hand and demand that the children "get off my floor!" should they venture to play on the 2nd floor.
The first floor of the house, as stated earlier, was where the daily living took place. With 5 kids and 4 or so patients, Nonnie and Jaja thought it economical to invest in a milk machine, the type you might see in a college dining hall. They'd buy enormous bags of milk, load them in, and then the milk would freely dispense from it's tube when the lever was pressed. Susan perfected a trick she would demonstrate for Hulka where she would milk the milk machine. She would grip the pouring tube as if it were a cow's udder and use the "milking" motion to nudge the lever with her elbow. Classic misdirection. Hulka's use of the milk machine was more direct: he liked to wrap his lips around the tube and hit the lever.
The outside of the house was apparently full of memories too. It featured a built-in pool, for one thing. However, Nonnie lived in perpetual fear that young Hulka would have dangerous mishaps given any chances (this was a somewhat justified fear, given little Hulka's fearlessness, which is probably better described as obliviousness to danger rather than "bravery" per se. He once, at age 3 or so, held a Vietnam protest parade which consisted of walking the median line of the busy street the house was on holding a flower. Tractor trailers honked their support, he assures me.). As a result, the pool was not allowed to be filled beyond a couple of inches of water. Poor innocent Hulka might've drowned otherwise.
In addition to a pool, the yard also had a fountain. This fountain, like the pool, had much less water in it than it should, by design, have held. It held zero water. I do not know if this was another deliberate Hulka-proofing on my grandmother's part or not, but I do know that according to my mother, aunts, and uncles, an empty fountain has some great hide-and-seek possibilities.
Another outdoor highlight was a very tall evergreen tree. This tree was not a highlight on it's own, it was rather the site of an escapade involving my mother's cousin Jimmy Sownd. Young Jimmy was apparently an expert climber and a bit of a little shit. On this particular occasion, he managed to climb all the way to the very top of the tree, clinging not to a branch but to the central tree trunk, at that height so thin and flexible that he was reportedly swinging from side to side, rocking the top of the tree, shouting not with fear, but with glee. His father, George "Gorilla" Sownd demanded he climb down, a demand which was summarily dismissed. Uncle George was nicknamed Gorilla for a reason: he was built like one. The man called Gorilla was FULLY displeased at having to climb two full stories up a tree to haul his monkey-swinging son down. I'm pretty sure Jimmy's ass got beaten to hell and back for that one (it was a different time).
As if these weren't enough outdoor items of note, the backyard also featured a life-sized statue of the Madonna (the religious figure, not the singer), and an enormous D.O.T.-orange trash barrel. This barrel was notable for moonlighting as a swimming pool for the kids (since the real pool could not be filled, as mentioned above) and as a vehicle of sorts. A favorite game of the Lebowski children was to load a child or two into the barrel, turned on it's side, and send it rolling down the hill, most frequently to come to a sudden and clanging stop at the propane tank. This may sound dangerous, but the kids were sure to run a series of tests before attempting this. The tests consisted of getting their neighbor and friend, Sally Bigalow to do exactly this dangerous thing first. This was a valid strategy for a number of potentially hazardous outdoor activities, I hear.
My favorite detail about the Lebowski house of those days, saved for last, is the fact that it had a laundry chute. I always thought laundry chutes were really cool when I was younger, because it was a legitimate excuse to drop things from a fair height, usually a no-no. But this laundry chute was special. It ran from the 2nd floor to the basement ceiling, with an opening on the first floor as well. In about 1970 or so, the Lebowski children needed to find out just how valid a shortcut from the 2nd floor to the basement the laundry chute would be. Sally Bigalow must not have been available, because the test pilot for this mission was none other than Hulka, 6 or 7 years old at the time.
The four assistants made sure there was plenty of laundry at the bottom of the chute to cushion the landing. A few bedsheets and a pair of underwear was probably enough, right? The intrepid young sailor of gravity gave his thumbs up and he was hoisted into the chute to make his rapid headfirst descent. What the kids didn't realize was that about halfway down the chute, it narrowed. Hulka did not. Firmly lodged upside down in the chute, Hulka awaited rescue by his siblings. They tried valiantly to free him, eventually resorting to using a broom to try to push him through the narrow segment to freedom. Hulka reports that he wishes they'd used the other end of the broom, and that the handle didn't even buy him dinner or call him after the time they had together.
Eventually, Hulka was freed, relatively none the worse for wear. But it's a pretty unique family of five kids that sends the youngest brother down a laundry chute just to see what would happen. Or maybe not so unique. You should ask my dad's brother Sean Thirty about that.
The living arrangements were as follows. The basement was a basement, and had laundry machines. The first floor was the main living area with kitchen, dining room, etc. The 2nd floor had bedrooms for Nonnie, Jaja, their two sons David and Stephen (Hulka), and the patients. The third floor, accessed via a flight of stairs with each step painted a different bright color, housed my mother, Diane, and her two sisters, Susan and Patty (Pappy). The bulk of the third floor was Patty and Susan's room, which was enormous. My mother's room (she desperately wanted her own room, being the oldest) was tiny, like a broom closet. Because it was her VERY OWN ROOM, she got to paint it any color she liked. She chose lavender. Apparently this tiny room was extremely lavender. It was once described by David as "so damn purple, Prince and Barney would spew."
Having the patients live in the house provided Nonnie and Jaja with convenient watchful eyes when they wanted or needed to get out of the house. If you think about this, though, the patients living there were wards of the state. Hulka likes to point out that they were, "frequently left in the care of individuals the state deemed unfit to care for themselves." One patient's entire babysitting strategy was slap a box of cigarettes in his hand and demand that the children "get off my floor!" should they venture to play on the 2nd floor.
The first floor of the house, as stated earlier, was where the daily living took place. With 5 kids and 4 or so patients, Nonnie and Jaja thought it economical to invest in a milk machine, the type you might see in a college dining hall. They'd buy enormous bags of milk, load them in, and then the milk would freely dispense from it's tube when the lever was pressed. Susan perfected a trick she would demonstrate for Hulka where she would milk the milk machine. She would grip the pouring tube as if it were a cow's udder and use the "milking" motion to nudge the lever with her elbow. Classic misdirection. Hulka's use of the milk machine was more direct: he liked to wrap his lips around the tube and hit the lever.
The outside of the house was apparently full of memories too. It featured a built-in pool, for one thing. However, Nonnie lived in perpetual fear that young Hulka would have dangerous mishaps given any chances (this was a somewhat justified fear, given little Hulka's fearlessness, which is probably better described as obliviousness to danger rather than "bravery" per se. He once, at age 3 or so, held a Vietnam protest parade which consisted of walking the median line of the busy street the house was on holding a flower. Tractor trailers honked their support, he assures me.). As a result, the pool was not allowed to be filled beyond a couple of inches of water. Poor innocent Hulka might've drowned otherwise.
In addition to a pool, the yard also had a fountain. This fountain, like the pool, had much less water in it than it should, by design, have held. It held zero water. I do not know if this was another deliberate Hulka-proofing on my grandmother's part or not, but I do know that according to my mother, aunts, and uncles, an empty fountain has some great hide-and-seek possibilities.
Another outdoor highlight was a very tall evergreen tree. This tree was not a highlight on it's own, it was rather the site of an escapade involving my mother's cousin Jimmy Sownd. Young Jimmy was apparently an expert climber and a bit of a little shit. On this particular occasion, he managed to climb all the way to the very top of the tree, clinging not to a branch but to the central tree trunk, at that height so thin and flexible that he was reportedly swinging from side to side, rocking the top of the tree, shouting not with fear, but with glee. His father, George "Gorilla" Sownd demanded he climb down, a demand which was summarily dismissed. Uncle George was nicknamed Gorilla for a reason: he was built like one. The man called Gorilla was FULLY displeased at having to climb two full stories up a tree to haul his monkey-swinging son down. I'm pretty sure Jimmy's ass got beaten to hell and back for that one (it was a different time).
As if these weren't enough outdoor items of note, the backyard also featured a life-sized statue of the Madonna (the religious figure, not the singer), and an enormous D.O.T.-orange trash barrel. This barrel was notable for moonlighting as a swimming pool for the kids (since the real pool could not be filled, as mentioned above) and as a vehicle of sorts. A favorite game of the Lebowski children was to load a child or two into the barrel, turned on it's side, and send it rolling down the hill, most frequently to come to a sudden and clanging stop at the propane tank. This may sound dangerous, but the kids were sure to run a series of tests before attempting this. The tests consisted of getting their neighbor and friend, Sally Bigalow to do exactly this dangerous thing first. This was a valid strategy for a number of potentially hazardous outdoor activities, I hear.
My favorite detail about the Lebowski house of those days, saved for last, is the fact that it had a laundry chute. I always thought laundry chutes were really cool when I was younger, because it was a legitimate excuse to drop things from a fair height, usually a no-no. But this laundry chute was special. It ran from the 2nd floor to the basement ceiling, with an opening on the first floor as well. In about 1970 or so, the Lebowski children needed to find out just how valid a shortcut from the 2nd floor to the basement the laundry chute would be. Sally Bigalow must not have been available, because the test pilot for this mission was none other than Hulka, 6 or 7 years old at the time.
The four assistants made sure there was plenty of laundry at the bottom of the chute to cushion the landing. A few bedsheets and a pair of underwear was probably enough, right? The intrepid young sailor of gravity gave his thumbs up and he was hoisted into the chute to make his rapid headfirst descent. What the kids didn't realize was that about halfway down the chute, it narrowed. Hulka did not. Firmly lodged upside down in the chute, Hulka awaited rescue by his siblings. They tried valiantly to free him, eventually resorting to using a broom to try to push him through the narrow segment to freedom. Hulka reports that he wishes they'd used the other end of the broom, and that the handle didn't even buy him dinner or call him after the time they had together.
Eventually, Hulka was freed, relatively none the worse for wear. But it's a pretty unique family of five kids that sends the youngest brother down a laundry chute just to see what would happen. Or maybe not so unique. You should ask my dad's brother Sean Thirty about that.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Tales From The Lebowskis - Great Jaja Adventures, Vol. 5
After a long hiatus, I thought it prudent to do another installment of Tales From The Lebowskis. For those of you just joining us, you may want to navigate older posts and acquaint yourselves with the individuals featured in these tales. This installment is the fifth Great Jaja Adventure, entitled "Lunar Fenderbender"
In the early 1970's, an enjoyable pastime for the Lebowski crew was to play the board game Password. The whole family could get involved with this: Mary Lebowski (later to be known as "Nonnie"), David Lebowski Sr. (eventually "Jaja"), Diane Lebowski (my mother), Susan Lebowski, David Lebowski Jr. (later "Blaze" and/or "Daven"), Patty Lebowski (later "Pappy") and the youngest Lebowski, Stephen (later "Lebo" and "Hulka"). On some occasions, they were joined by the clan patriarch, John Lebowski, then Jaja, eventually Great Jaja, and now living in our hearts and memories.
It was April, 1972. I am sure of this for a reason that will eventually become clear. The entire Lebowski clan was playing a heated game of Password. It was Great Jaja's turn. Password, for those unfamiliar, consists of a player attempting to get the other players to guess a secret word within a time limit. Great Jaja had the perfect clue for his secret word. The timer began. "Astronaut" he said smugly. Reasonable guesses such as "rocketship", "space", and "planet" were thrown out. Shocked and angry his perfect clue fell to such simpletons, he repeated it again, angrily. "Astronaut!" More guesses. "God damn it, astronaut!" More guesses. "God damn you people, astronaut! Astronaut!" But alas, the younger generations of Lebowski were unable to come up with the secret word, even as more and more obscenities framed the perfect clue.
Time eventually ran out, as time is wont to do. The time came for the big reveal. What was the secret word, Great Jaja?
Fender.
You may be thinking, "what in god's holy name does the word astronaut have to do with the word fender?" This, and other variants thereon, was the exact question every Lebowski in the room asked Great Jaja.
"Don't you people watch the goddamn news?"
You see, in April 1972, the Apollo 16 mission was taking place. Apollo 16 was one of the moon missions that made use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) or "Lunar Rover". The LRV used in Apollo 16 experienced issues with its rear fender extension during the mission. Essentially, it broke off, the astronauts attempted to reattach it with tape, but the lunar dust caused the tape's adhesive to fail, and the part was lost. They eventually constructed a makeshift fender out of, amongst other things, duct tape and moon maps.
But you no doubt already knew this. Everyone knows this, god damn it. What kind of damn fool could even hear the word "astronaut" and not immediately think "fender"? Certainly not the Lebowskis, not anymore. In fact, to this day, if you approach any of the Lebowskis present that evening (and several who were not) and prompt them with "astronaut" the response will ring clear and true.
Fender.
If you know who these people are, try it for yourself some time.
In the early 1970's, an enjoyable pastime for the Lebowski crew was to play the board game Password. The whole family could get involved with this: Mary Lebowski (later to be known as "Nonnie"), David Lebowski Sr. (eventually "Jaja"), Diane Lebowski (my mother), Susan Lebowski, David Lebowski Jr. (later "Blaze" and/or "Daven"), Patty Lebowski (later "Pappy") and the youngest Lebowski, Stephen (later "Lebo" and "Hulka"). On some occasions, they were joined by the clan patriarch, John Lebowski, then Jaja, eventually Great Jaja, and now living in our hearts and memories.
It was April, 1972. I am sure of this for a reason that will eventually become clear. The entire Lebowski clan was playing a heated game of Password. It was Great Jaja's turn. Password, for those unfamiliar, consists of a player attempting to get the other players to guess a secret word within a time limit. Great Jaja had the perfect clue for his secret word. The timer began. "Astronaut" he said smugly. Reasonable guesses such as "rocketship", "space", and "planet" were thrown out. Shocked and angry his perfect clue fell to such simpletons, he repeated it again, angrily. "Astronaut!" More guesses. "God damn it, astronaut!" More guesses. "God damn you people, astronaut! Astronaut!" But alas, the younger generations of Lebowski were unable to come up with the secret word, even as more and more obscenities framed the perfect clue.
Time eventually ran out, as time is wont to do. The time came for the big reveal. What was the secret word, Great Jaja?
Fender.
You may be thinking, "what in god's holy name does the word astronaut have to do with the word fender?" This, and other variants thereon, was the exact question every Lebowski in the room asked Great Jaja.
"Don't you people watch the goddamn news?"
You see, in April 1972, the Apollo 16 mission was taking place. Apollo 16 was one of the moon missions that made use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) or "Lunar Rover". The LRV used in Apollo 16 experienced issues with its rear fender extension during the mission. Essentially, it broke off, the astronauts attempted to reattach it with tape, but the lunar dust caused the tape's adhesive to fail, and the part was lost. They eventually constructed a makeshift fender out of, amongst other things, duct tape and moon maps.
But you no doubt already knew this. Everyone knows this, god damn it. What kind of damn fool could even hear the word "astronaut" and not immediately think "fender"? Certainly not the Lebowskis, not anymore. In fact, to this day, if you approach any of the Lebowskis present that evening (and several who were not) and prompt them with "astronaut" the response will ring clear and true.
Fender.
If you know who these people are, try it for yourself some time.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tales From The Lebowskis - Can't Say That Anymore
Around 1999-2000, my immediate family was in the process of moving from our old house to our new house. Because the old house was sold about a year before the new house was finally done being built, we had to make certain arrangements to have living space in the meanwhile. Luckily, my maternal grandparents, David (aka Jaja) and Mary (aka Nonnie) Lebowski kindly and generously let us share their house until ours was finished. I got to live in my uncle's old room in the basement (David "Blaze" Lebowski, Jr., not Stephen "Hulka" Lebowski), which was pretty sweet, while my parents and my sister, Meghan, occupied spare bedrooms on the main floor. There were aspects that took getting used to, and it was probably easier on me than others since Nonnie treated me like gold and I was in the basement, removed from most of the drama anyway, but all in all, it worked out really well.
One evening, all six of us were seated around the kitchen table eating dinner. I forget what we were talking about specifically, but I guess it came out that my father, Steven Thirty, had done something helpful or kind. Nonnie, wishing to show her appreciation for my father's good deed, told him:
"Well, that was awfully white of you, Steven."
Normally Meghan and I were pretty good about not actually laughing out loud and embarassing our elders for a remark like that. But this time the defenses were down, and we both nearly choked laughing at Nonnie's politically incorrect remark. My mother just looked embarassed. Jaja kept eating, absolutely unfazed. Nonnie, meanwhile, looked confused and a little hurt, and couldn't understand what was so funny. My father, with trademark patience, explained to her the racial connotations of her statement.
Nonnie was shocked. Surely we understood she meant white as in pure, like snow. His soul was glowing white, and this had nothing to do at all with skin color. My father continued explaining that today, a comment like that would be taken as having a racist meaning, even if she didn't mean it that way. Perturbed, but determined to salvage the conversation, Nonnie switched topics and started telling us about her latest night shift at the local convalescent home she worked at part time. It was pretty standard for the most part. But then, she started telling us about an orderly who she spotted catching a nap in a side room. This orderly was a big black man. She told how how:
"I walked right over to that big jungle bunny and told him 'quick, wake up before the supervisor sees you!'"
Again, Meghan and I couldn't hold back our laughter. My mother was laughing too this time. Jaja, still, continued eating without missing a beat. Again, Nonnie looked confused and hurt. While my father explained that "jungle bunny" was considered a racist term now, she explained how she was trying to help him out by waking him up before the supervisor could catch him. Surely we didn't think she was racist or disliked this man because he was black. My father (who, by the way, Nonnie adored. If she thought me golden, he was platinum) told her that he knew she was just trying to help, and that it was only the choice of words that was an issue. He told her he was sure the orderly appreciated her helping him not get caught. Finally Jaja spoke.
"He probably thought it was awfully white of you."
One evening, all six of us were seated around the kitchen table eating dinner. I forget what we were talking about specifically, but I guess it came out that my father, Steven Thirty, had done something helpful or kind. Nonnie, wishing to show her appreciation for my father's good deed, told him:
"Well, that was awfully white of you, Steven."
Normally Meghan and I were pretty good about not actually laughing out loud and embarassing our elders for a remark like that. But this time the defenses were down, and we both nearly choked laughing at Nonnie's politically incorrect remark. My mother just looked embarassed. Jaja kept eating, absolutely unfazed. Nonnie, meanwhile, looked confused and a little hurt, and couldn't understand what was so funny. My father, with trademark patience, explained to her the racial connotations of her statement.
Nonnie was shocked. Surely we understood she meant white as in pure, like snow. His soul was glowing white, and this had nothing to do at all with skin color. My father continued explaining that today, a comment like that would be taken as having a racist meaning, even if she didn't mean it that way. Perturbed, but determined to salvage the conversation, Nonnie switched topics and started telling us about her latest night shift at the local convalescent home she worked at part time. It was pretty standard for the most part. But then, she started telling us about an orderly who she spotted catching a nap in a side room. This orderly was a big black man. She told how how:
"I walked right over to that big jungle bunny and told him 'quick, wake up before the supervisor sees you!'"
Again, Meghan and I couldn't hold back our laughter. My mother was laughing too this time. Jaja, still, continued eating without missing a beat. Again, Nonnie looked confused and hurt. While my father explained that "jungle bunny" was considered a racist term now, she explained how she was trying to help him out by waking him up before the supervisor could catch him. Surely we didn't think she was racist or disliked this man because he was black. My father (who, by the way, Nonnie adored. If she thought me golden, he was platinum) told her that he knew she was just trying to help, and that it was only the choice of words that was an issue. He told her he was sure the orderly appreciated her helping him not get caught. Finally Jaja spoke.
"He probably thought it was awfully white of you."
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
My Geekiest (But Possibly Favorite) Dream Ever
Alright, so this dream is not that recent. It occurred probably at least a full year ago, if not slightly longer. However, I have wanted to record it somewhere for a while now, and figured this was as good a venue as any, especially because I want to get myself back into the habit of moderately frequent updates. So, here is an account of my geekiest dream ever, which may also be my favorite dream ever.
The dream opened in a weird, larger version of the house I spent most of my childhood in. Meredith and I were helping my mother, father, and sister clean up and pack various items into storage boxes to go into the (enormous in this dream) attic. There were also some cats moving around, which were unfamiliar, but in the dream I recognized them as being our new cats. I went to bring some boxes up to the attic and as I rounded the corner from one part of the attic to another (like I said, the attic was enormous in this dream), I was surprised to find my father asleep on a trunk, because I had just seen him downstairs.
He woke up and started being a real dick to me, saying things like "what the hell are you doing up here?" and "get the f*ck away from me." This is out of character for my father, for those who may not be familiar. I went away into another room in the (massive) attic and realized something was wrong. Using some careful peeking, I realized this person was not my father, but was in fact a shapeshifting monster in my father's form: a doppelganger! I went downstairs and found Meredith and brought her up a different set of stairs into another part of the attic we could spy on the doppelganger from without being seen (yet again, it was a big damn attic.) The doppelganger started moving around and I realized we'd need to take action. I went downstairs and found my real father.
Knowing (somehow) that we would need to beat this thing without facing it head-on, my father and I evacuated everyone else from the house and took gasoline cans and started dousing everything. "Once we start this, there's no stopping. Anything or anyone we find left inside could be and probably is the doppelganger," he instructed me. We managed to finish soaking everything in gasoline without another encounter, lit matches, and got ourselves outside, locking the door behind us. Then I heard meowing, and realized a cat was still inside. I reminded myself that the cat was probably just the doppelganger trying to prey on my sympathies, I stopped myself from unlocking the door, hoped with all my heart I was right and wasn't killing an innocent animal, and watched the house burn.
However, this must not have finished off the doppelganger, because the next thing I knew, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were investigating the case, trying to track down and capture the monster. For some reason, for this segment of the dream, I shifted from a first-person perspective to a third-person, watching Mulder and Scully carry out their mission. They successfully lured the doppelganger into small room in a derelict factory/warehouse and managed to lock it inside (it was in the form of some random, kind-of-menacing-looking guy at this point). They went to get back up, and just as they returned, the doppelganger grinned at them through the window of the locked door and collapsed into a puddle of black slime that oozed through the crack of the door and over to a big storm drain in the floor, escaping.
Agent Mulder did not take this turn of events well at all. In his frustration, he proceeded to urinate down the storm drain while screaming obscenities at the escaped creature. During this unfortunate outburst, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner and a few other agents showed up and had to remove Mulder from the scene physically. Later, in front of a panel of higher-ups, Mulder faced his punishment. The X-Files were being closed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In the back of the room, the Cigarette Smoking Man grinned as he lit another cigarette, finally able to shut Mulder down because of his unsavory tantrum.
The dream shifted back to my first-person experience at this point, and I was checking out the site where we once burned down the house futilely trying to kill the doppelganger. However, for some reason this was now the site of a seedy carnival/boardwalk area, including a particularly sketchy set of motel-style rooms. I had with me a scrap of paper with some sort of clue about the doppelganger, but I have no idea now what the clue was. Now, the odd thing about these motel-ish rooms was that the names of the occupants were posted on the outsides. I crept about, checking the names, and came across one name in particular (I don't recall it now) that I recognized. Suddenly, I pieced together clues that I had no idea I knew, and had not been previously introduced in the dream. The name on the room was the name of a popular internet webcam stripper. In the news, men had been disappearing recently around this area. I don't watch camshows or that much broadcast news in real life, so I don't know how I knew these things in the dream. But I figured it out: the online stripper was the doppelganger, luring victims to its skeezy lair.
At this point, I woke up. In real life, I had to pee. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but for me, once I wake up, I never am able to get back to the dream I was having before I woke up, even if I fall back asleep. I wrote all of the dream off so far as a neat story that I'd never see the end to. Oh well. I used the bathroom and went back to bed. It happened this time. I got back in the dream. Not only was I back in the dream, the dream had continued in my absence, as though I was watching a TV show, left the room, and came back in at a later point. And the situation had become dire.
Somehow I had wound up in some sort of industrial alley or parking lot. I was facing off against the doppelganger once and for all. It had abandoned taking on human faces and appeared before me now as a vaguely humanoid mass of black slime. I realized I had no idea how to fight this thing, when suddenly, light shined down from the sky. Floating in the air above our heads was the ghost of my beloved grandmother, Nonnie. With reassuring and determined smile, she dematerialized into white energy and shot down to the doppelganger, surrounding and paralyzing it. Now feeling like I had a chance, I reached into my pocket and found a Harry Potter wand. Skeptical of its power (but oddly accepting of the fact that I had it at all), I gestured with the wand towards my target and was gladly surprised when a tiny beam of white light shot forward from the tip, passing through the Nonnie-light and piercing through the doppelganger, causing it to make a sound of pain. It worked! And if that worked...
I had a crazy idea, but crazy seemed to be working at the moment. I re-pocketed the wand and took a wide stance. Cupping my hands and drawing them back to my right hip, I gathered energy between my palms. (Ka... Me...) If you are a geek like me, you see where this is going. After charging up for a few seconds (Ha... Me...), I thrust my hands forward towards the doppelganger and called out the last of five syllables (Ha!!!). The Kamehameha Wave exploded toward my foe in a wash of blue-white energy. The light of it was blinding. When I could see again, the area was littered with tiny scorched blobs of black goo.
After a moment, though, the blobs began to quiver, then start oozing towards a center point. The monster was going to re-form, even after that! I leaped into the air (apparently I could hover/fly in this dream too, which was cool) and thought to myself, "Guess I need to use this after all," as I took the wand back out. I used the wand to draw a large circle in the air in front of me, and a similar massive glowing circle appeared on the ground, wide enough to contain all of the blobs. I quickly made sketching motions with the wand and a rune symbol appeared inside of the circle on the ground. As I finished the last line of the rune, the ground darkened within the circle and became a black vortex, pulling the blobs into itself. The glowing circle that formed its border gradually shrank in diameter until it vanished completely.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "what kind of bizarre person has a dream involving his or her immediate family, a doppelganger, arson, the X-Files, public urination, supernatural sex predators, the protective spirit of his or her deceased grandmother, Harry Potter, and Dragon Ball Z?" This kind of bizarre person, my friend. This kind.
The dream opened in a weird, larger version of the house I spent most of my childhood in. Meredith and I were helping my mother, father, and sister clean up and pack various items into storage boxes to go into the (enormous in this dream) attic. There were also some cats moving around, which were unfamiliar, but in the dream I recognized them as being our new cats. I went to bring some boxes up to the attic and as I rounded the corner from one part of the attic to another (like I said, the attic was enormous in this dream), I was surprised to find my father asleep on a trunk, because I had just seen him downstairs.
He woke up and started being a real dick to me, saying things like "what the hell are you doing up here?" and "get the f*ck away from me." This is out of character for my father, for those who may not be familiar. I went away into another room in the (massive) attic and realized something was wrong. Using some careful peeking, I realized this person was not my father, but was in fact a shapeshifting monster in my father's form: a doppelganger! I went downstairs and found Meredith and brought her up a different set of stairs into another part of the attic we could spy on the doppelganger from without being seen (yet again, it was a big damn attic.) The doppelganger started moving around and I realized we'd need to take action. I went downstairs and found my real father.
Knowing (somehow) that we would need to beat this thing without facing it head-on, my father and I evacuated everyone else from the house and took gasoline cans and started dousing everything. "Once we start this, there's no stopping. Anything or anyone we find left inside could be and probably is the doppelganger," he instructed me. We managed to finish soaking everything in gasoline without another encounter, lit matches, and got ourselves outside, locking the door behind us. Then I heard meowing, and realized a cat was still inside. I reminded myself that the cat was probably just the doppelganger trying to prey on my sympathies, I stopped myself from unlocking the door, hoped with all my heart I was right and wasn't killing an innocent animal, and watched the house burn.
However, this must not have finished off the doppelganger, because the next thing I knew, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were investigating the case, trying to track down and capture the monster. For some reason, for this segment of the dream, I shifted from a first-person perspective to a third-person, watching Mulder and Scully carry out their mission. They successfully lured the doppelganger into small room in a derelict factory/warehouse and managed to lock it inside (it was in the form of some random, kind-of-menacing-looking guy at this point). They went to get back up, and just as they returned, the doppelganger grinned at them through the window of the locked door and collapsed into a puddle of black slime that oozed through the crack of the door and over to a big storm drain in the floor, escaping.
Agent Mulder did not take this turn of events well at all. In his frustration, he proceeded to urinate down the storm drain while screaming obscenities at the escaped creature. During this unfortunate outburst, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner and a few other agents showed up and had to remove Mulder from the scene physically. Later, in front of a panel of higher-ups, Mulder faced his punishment. The X-Files were being closed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In the back of the room, the Cigarette Smoking Man grinned as he lit another cigarette, finally able to shut Mulder down because of his unsavory tantrum.
The dream shifted back to my first-person experience at this point, and I was checking out the site where we once burned down the house futilely trying to kill the doppelganger. However, for some reason this was now the site of a seedy carnival/boardwalk area, including a particularly sketchy set of motel-style rooms. I had with me a scrap of paper with some sort of clue about the doppelganger, but I have no idea now what the clue was. Now, the odd thing about these motel-ish rooms was that the names of the occupants were posted on the outsides. I crept about, checking the names, and came across one name in particular (I don't recall it now) that I recognized. Suddenly, I pieced together clues that I had no idea I knew, and had not been previously introduced in the dream. The name on the room was the name of a popular internet webcam stripper. In the news, men had been disappearing recently around this area. I don't watch camshows or that much broadcast news in real life, so I don't know how I knew these things in the dream. But I figured it out: the online stripper was the doppelganger, luring victims to its skeezy lair.
At this point, I woke up. In real life, I had to pee. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but for me, once I wake up, I never am able to get back to the dream I was having before I woke up, even if I fall back asleep. I wrote all of the dream off so far as a neat story that I'd never see the end to. Oh well. I used the bathroom and went back to bed. It happened this time. I got back in the dream. Not only was I back in the dream, the dream had continued in my absence, as though I was watching a TV show, left the room, and came back in at a later point. And the situation had become dire.
Somehow I had wound up in some sort of industrial alley or parking lot. I was facing off against the doppelganger once and for all. It had abandoned taking on human faces and appeared before me now as a vaguely humanoid mass of black slime. I realized I had no idea how to fight this thing, when suddenly, light shined down from the sky. Floating in the air above our heads was the ghost of my beloved grandmother, Nonnie. With reassuring and determined smile, she dematerialized into white energy and shot down to the doppelganger, surrounding and paralyzing it. Now feeling like I had a chance, I reached into my pocket and found a Harry Potter wand. Skeptical of its power (but oddly accepting of the fact that I had it at all), I gestured with the wand towards my target and was gladly surprised when a tiny beam of white light shot forward from the tip, passing through the Nonnie-light and piercing through the doppelganger, causing it to make a sound of pain. It worked! And if that worked...
I had a crazy idea, but crazy seemed to be working at the moment. I re-pocketed the wand and took a wide stance. Cupping my hands and drawing them back to my right hip, I gathered energy between my palms. (Ka... Me...) If you are a geek like me, you see where this is going. After charging up for a few seconds (Ha... Me...), I thrust my hands forward towards the doppelganger and called out the last of five syllables (Ha!!!). The Kamehameha Wave exploded toward my foe in a wash of blue-white energy. The light of it was blinding. When I could see again, the area was littered with tiny scorched blobs of black goo.
After a moment, though, the blobs began to quiver, then start oozing towards a center point. The monster was going to re-form, even after that! I leaped into the air (apparently I could hover/fly in this dream too, which was cool) and thought to myself, "Guess I need to use this after all," as I took the wand back out. I used the wand to draw a large circle in the air in front of me, and a similar massive glowing circle appeared on the ground, wide enough to contain all of the blobs. I quickly made sketching motions with the wand and a rune symbol appeared inside of the circle on the ground. As I finished the last line of the rune, the ground darkened within the circle and became a black vortex, pulling the blobs into itself. The glowing circle that formed its border gradually shrank in diameter until it vanished completely.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "what kind of bizarre person has a dream involving his or her immediate family, a doppelganger, arson, the X-Files, public urination, supernatural sex predators, the protective spirit of his or her deceased grandmother, Harry Potter, and Dragon Ball Z?" This kind of bizarre person, my friend. This kind.
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