Help me out here, Mother
Is there any sight more heartwarming than an old lady and her coon?
Yeah. I have done exactly jack shit today (that’s bugger-all to our British friends), so here’s a photo of my mother and friend that I ran across unpacking. That’s the last in a long series of pet raccoons she raised. It’s no longer legal to keep them on account of the rabies risk, but it was then.
My mother was extremely good with animals, but a raccoon makes a dangerous pet (and she had the scars to prove it). They’re very smart, very bitchy when they grow up and they have opposable thumbs — or as near as dammit.
They also like to shit high. After Mother died, I discovered the architectural high points of the house (the balcony, the sills) were a rich treasury of dessicated coonshit.
Who says I didn’t inherit anything?
April 14, 2009 — 7:35 pm
Comments: 18
Things that are ugly…
Isn’t this lovely? Why no, it is not. This is the ugliest scrap of ancient Weasel family legacy kitsch I own (and that’s saying a Very Great Deal). My heart clenched when I opened this box tonight. It’s bumblebee yellow and black…did I mention?
This handsome item was hand painted by my cousin Nan, who — as far as I know — was neither epileptic nor had a metal plate in her head of any kind. She was actually my grandmother’s first cousin, which makes me related to her only below the Mason Dixon line. Grandmother was a great friend to Cousin Nan, despite the terrible dark blotch on her past. How disappointed I was to learn Nan’s dark secret was a youthful d-i-v-o-r-c-e.
Cousin Nan was hot shit.
For most of her life, she was a seamstress nine months of the year, sewing fine gowns for rich ladies and saving her pennies. Then in the Summers, she would hop a banana boat for points South. That was back when freight boats always carried a few passengers (do they still?). She loved South America.
By the time I remember her, she had retired to California, very old and very deaf and unprepared to accept either. When she came to visit, she was a total liability in public. She would lean over in a movie theater and shout in your ear, “oh my god, would you look at that big fat woman in the next row?” Eh. Bless her.
By an odd coincidence, my dad and stepmother were in her home town for some kind of function and dropped by to visit her one day in the mid 1980s. First time ever, I think. My stepmother swears she looked up as they left and saw the curtain twitch.
At any rate, Cousin Nan was raped and murdered by a stranger later that day. It would be flattery to call her attacker a serial killer. He was an animal who had himself a brief, nasty spree…savaged a few women and got caught within the week. My dad was called to testify about the timing. Murderous asshole’s probably out by now.
Anyhow, we all took turns sticking each other with examples of Cousin Nan’s art. Because it’s horrible, but what are you going to do?
March 6, 2009 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 18
We hung Grandma tonight
Relax. Pictures are hung, people are hanged.
Great great great grandma, actually. I got her name; I’m told there’s a resemblance (honestly, if we want to wear crochet’ed earflaps in the house, I don’t see what business it is of anyone else’s). She buried three husbands and owned a bunch of property, including slaves (we saved the receipt). Lived most of her life in Louisiana, but came back to Tennessee to die. Or they shipped her body back, anyway.
I stumbled over her grave in Nashville’s old city cemetery once quite unexpectedly; I had assumed she was in Monroe. That must have been quite a trip for a stiff in 1850. There was a high pointy iron fence around her grave, and no caretaker in sight. I badly wanted to scale the fence and read more of the inscription on the stone, but I feared that would end badly.
Anyhow, Granny has been propped up against the wall of the dining room ever since my stuff got here. Uncle B and I salute her politely whenever we pass through the room. We’ve gotten so used to her company, we kind of wanted to keep her in that room. Tonight, Uncle B noticed some damn fool had screwed a heavy screw into the beam above the booze pile by the door, so that’s where Granny lives for now.
Keeper of the Hootch. I don’t know if Granny Weasel was a drinker, but (knowing what I know about the rest of the fambly) the odds are very much in favor of it.
February 5, 2009 — 7:43 pm
Comments: 21
VITALLY IMPORTANT MOONPIE UPDATE
That’s what Smartass gets for trying to tell the old coot something
he didn’t know.
November 22, 2008 — 9:11 pm
Comments: 19
You can take the Weasel out of the MoonPie, but…
The phrase “RC Cola and a MoonPie” came up two threads down and, because I totally have nothing else to do, I hit Google. Turns out, it’s another fine culinary innovation you can thank Tennessee for. You’re welcome.
The MoonPie was invented in Chattanooga in 1917. It’s two big round soft graham cracker cookie things with marshmallow filling, dipped in a sweet coating. I only remember chocolate and banana, but Wikipedia says there was also vanilla and strawberry. And, in modern times, lemon and orange. MoonPies are unspeakably vile.
Royal Crown Cola was invented in 1905 and is apparently also still around. The company renamed itself Nehi in 1925 — you may know them from the truly awful grape and orange drinks — and were later responsible for Diet Rite, the first diet soda. In the mid ’90s, RC came out with a “draft” cola — a 12-ounce premium cola made with cane sugar like the old days. Sales were disappointing due to distribution problems, and the line was dropped.
In the ’50s, an RC cola and a MoonPie became the standard workman’s lunch across in the South. You could get the combo special RC Cola and a MoonPie for a dime, which is one giant asswad of sugar and food coloring for a mere tenth of a dollar. Jesus. Wikipedia reminds me that some would buy a packet of peanuts, empty it into the cola, drink the cola then eat the peanuts. Damn you, Wikipedia! I had successfully papered over that memory!
This filthy combination was so wildly popular that it was set to music repeatedly, beginning with Bill Liston’s 1950s ballad “Gimm’e an RC Cola and a Moonpie” (which is where I’m guessing my mother picked up the phrase) and ending with the recent children’s record — I so totally and completely am not even a little bit shitting you — “Weezie and the Moon Pies.”
The little town of Bell Buckle, Tennessee has an RC and Moon Pie Festival every year that features deep fried MoonPies and crowns the Queen of…no, it’s no use. I can’t bear to paraphrase. I quote:
The 2008 Queen is Dr. Phyllis Qualls-Brook, Assistant Commissioner of Tennessee Community and Industry Relations and the King is actor/director Lane Davies who will be directing the 1st Annual Tennessee Shakespeare Festival to be held in Bell Buckle the two weekends following the RC-Moon Pie Festival.
Taking center stage as always is the wildly popular Synchronized Wading extravaganza, lovingly referred to as “dry humor on a wet stage”. This year’s performance will be “A Midsummer’s Nightmare” starring who else but the lovely little Moon Pie and the charming RC with unfortunate guest appearances by GooGoo Cluster, Coke, as well as a host of fairies and soldiers. Director and choreographer Carla Webb who is also known as the First Lady of Bell Buckle says that this year’s Synchronized Wading performance is one of the best since she began performing in a kiddy pool over 13 years ago.
Some things are unforgivable even in jest. There is also a more recent association of MoonPies and Mardi Gras, with some krewes throwing miniature pies into the crowd. You have to show your tits to make them throw beads, I don’t EVEN want to know what you have to show to make them throw MoonPies.
And people wonder why I’m changing my name and moving thousands of miles away to a country that makes puddings out of sheep guts.
November 20, 2008 — 6:47 am
Comments: 45
Things that are not right
In a continuation of my apparent blog death wish, recent comments got me thinking about when I had my tomcat Roughly put down. He got kidney cancer, poor lad, when he was about twelve.
The vet left the timing entirely up to me. I would have appreciated some guidance, actually. Different vet. Didn’t like him either.
If you go through this, make sure they’re giving your animal the sleepy, tranquilizer stuff. Because there’s another stuff that’s more of a stimulant. It’s quick, but beloved pet has enough time to let out a last yelp. This is not nice at all.
I lived downtown and yardless, so when they asked if I wanted him cremated, I didn’t have much choice. And when they asked if I wanted the ashes back, I said I guess so. I thought he had a better chance of being handled individually that way. I’m not usually sentimental about remains, but it just didn’t seem right to send out the Best Cat Ever cheek by jowl with somebody’s schnauzer (though I suppose that’s what actually happened anyway).
I forgot about it until several weeks later, when they called me to pick him up. I thought the box was strangely heavy. Inside was a big white marble urn!
My mom? She came back to me in a plastic baggie sealed with a twist-tie.
June 25, 2008 — 2:45 pm
Comments: 56
Happy birthday, Brother Weasel
Yesterday was my big brother’s…ummmm…56th birthday. June the 15th. Or, as he used to run around the house singing it, “June the Sisteense.” My brother didn’t discover the letter “F” or the phoneme “th” until he was about ten (oh, the tragic day mother sent him to buy fish food!).
That’s his horse, Polly. I insisted she was our horse, but by the time I was old enough to ride her alone, it would have been kinder not to. When running, she blew rhythmic wind out both ends simultaneously in a maneuver I called the “wheezefarts” while she worked up a big ol’ mouthful of lather to fling back in my face, like a big wet equine meringue clown-pie.
But I digress.
My brother and I aren’t estranged; we were never close. He’s a very nice guy, really. But he’s just such a…huge…banana. He’s my only surviving full sibling, which makes him closer to me genetically than anybody in the whole wide world.
Shit. That makes me feel warm; like a generous slice of equine meringue pie.
June 16, 2008 — 5:20 pm
Comments: 38
Who’s been writing on my damn furniture?
This great walnut rhinoceros is from my grandparents’ bedroom. My grandfather died when I was a baby, so it’s kind of nice to have something personal of his: it’s striped with cigarette burns on his side.
“Morning, Grampa…you slob.”
I don’t know where it came from before that. I don’t know any stories about it or which side of the family it came from or anything. Grampy Weasel’s family was from Virginia; Granny Weasel’s were from Maryland. I think it’s Regency. I’m not good with furniture, but I think those thumping huge feet mean Regency.
The floor guys — a pair of wiry little scrawny dudes — took one look at it and shoved it in the bathroom door rather than carry it downstairs, completely blocking same. I didn’t get a real shower for a week (ha! ha! sun-ripened weasel!).
Anyhow, that’s the first time I got a look at the back of it. It’s been signed! In large letters with black paint and a soft brush. Writing with a brush like that means most characters take at least two strokes, all down-strokes. I can’t quite make out what it says.
The Col on the left is distinct, then possibly a second l, though there’s a raggedy glue stain down the middle there obscuring it. The next few strokes are hard: m or w most likely, but could be…something else. Then i or ii (which makes no sense) and rr, with the second r all long and weird like they used to do with double-f (just a guess, maybe it IS a double-f). Then…ord? Or maybe or and some symbol that’s not a letter?
Collmirrord. Collwiirord. Collmirford. Collwifford. Coll mirror’d. Coll wirrar D. The only hit I got was Colliford, which is a town in Cornwall on the edge of Bodmin Moor (as in the Beast of Bodmin), but that is so not Colliford.
Any ideas?
April 15, 2008 — 1:20 pm
Comments: 38
Dead monkeys and self portraits
One of my mom’s best friends was a carney. We called her the Monkey Lady, on account of she had a monkey act. Duh. When Mother adopted her, she was old and retired and lived in a burnt-out bar down by the river, and her five big evil monkeys spent every waking minute working at the bars of their cages in an effort to free themselves and — she devoutly believed — chew through her jugular vein while she slept. Shitting you not. But they were still her precious furbabies.
Well. I didn’t like her, either.
Somehow, Mother got guilted into arranging to have these beloved psychotic homicidal monkeys gassed. I’ll tell you the whole horrible story some day, but you’ll have to get me drunk first.
The general plan was, the Monkey Lady would leave the house and come back some hours later to a peacefully monkey-free zone. Only, when she came back, she found one of the vet’s assistants had left a choke harness behind in the middle of the floor.
Dun-dun DUNNNNN!
I feel a bit like that. I went through all the stuff in my studio, picked through thirty some years of old letters and bad self portraits and selected only the juiciest morsels for posterity. I fully expected to come back and find all the rest had been whisked away while I rolled about the countryside, madly gay, roasting champagne and drinking chestnuts.
And so it did come to pass, I thought as I arrived home late last night.
Until I left for work this morning and found the lot, neatly packed and stowed in the garage. I guess my ragpicker couldn’t believe anyone would give up such awesomely fantastic junk.
Albatross? WHAT albatross?
January 8, 2008 — 7:30 pm
Comments: 49
Do you know the old joke?
A: Do you have any naked pictures of your mother?
B: No!
A: Would you like to buy some?
This is why you must never try to set me up for that joke. Yep. It’s Mom, in the buff, circa 1960. She was 30. Actually, it’s a photo of a Xerox of a stat of a Polaroid my dad (whew!) took. The original hung on the wall of my office. It was a popular attraction. My mother only visited me up here in Yankeeland the one time and she was shocked when she saw it.
“What kind of daughter hangs a naked picture of her mother on her office wall?”
“The kind of daughter who has a naked picture of her mother.”
Then I showed her the Miracle of Photoshop and she spent half an hour trying to fluff up her right tit because, “it was all flat from nursing you.”
I was going to try to elevate the tone of this blog today, but screw it. I got a notice that I never quite finished some paperwork related to Mother’s sad little estate, so I had to go into the Ouchy Folder tonight and try to find one last copy of her death certificate to file with some useless scrap of bureaucratic hoo-ha. One more verse of the Intimations of Mortality Rag.
I found her Do Not Resuscitate order. She had to counter-sign it herself. Can you imagine what a downer that was for her? There’s a real grown up moment, right there. I found a bunch of paperwork from the hospice, chock full of vomitous metaphors about ships and naps and adventures. I found a bunch of uncashed checks I never opened because I assumed they were bills I had taken care of (yes, Uncle B, I’ll make some calls tomorrow).
And I found a whole stack of Xeroxes of this picture. Mother always said, “I hope you don’t post this on the Internet” in a tone that sounded like of all the things in her life she really didn’t want to happen, if this one happened it would make her the least unhappy.
So there you go, Mom. Immortality.
p.s. I don’t seem to have any more copies of the death certificate, dammit.
p.p.s. I’ve called my mother “Mom” twice in this post, which might be just enough to earn me a haunting. Only I’m pretty sure she’d have haunted me already for the hell of it, if she possibly could.
p.p.p.s. No, we don’t look all that much alike.
December 11, 2007 — 6:49 pm
Comments: 19