TheBanyanTree: This Business Continues Part 1

[Pam North]

When I first started emailing Diane after Miller died, the 'tag' on
her email under her name was, "One must first learn the rules in order
to break them properly."- His Holiness, The Dalai Lama"

Within a couple of weeks, she'd changed it to:   "Life does not cease
to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when
people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw".  Under the circumstances, it
seemed pretty appropriate, and we have shared a lot of laughs in
between on the tears and cussing.

This morning she emailed with another and asked if I didn't think it
was time for a another change.  Her newest?  "Accept the things to
which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you
together, but do so with all your heart.
-- Marcus Aurelius".  Once again, the woman has found what is most
appropriate for the moment.

Because while she and her children are learning to accept what 'fate'
binded, we're already loving each other whom 'fate' has brought
together.  A small block away, and we didn't know what we were all
missing.  Here we are, two single moms, with six teenagers, two dogs,
and five cats between us!  (Okay.. the cats are all mine... and four
are new kittens, but Diane's gonna get at least two of them so....!)

And while the kids have interacted in school and sports and life,
they've never really spent 'quality' time around each other just
hanging out, and I really think it's good for them!  Especially
Charlie.  He's an incredibly shy 14-year old.  Huge in his body, and
not sure of himself, or what to do socially.  He has a couple of male
friends, and the only teenage girls he's spent any time around were
his sister and her friends.... for the all the quality there is in
that!

This past weekend we worked to take down Diane's rotting deck.  She
first mentioned it a couple of days prior, and Charlie jumped on it! 
He was ALL about being given permission to *destroy* something with
hammers and saws and axes!!  In fact we almost decided to hold off for
a week or so (and go watch baseball), but Charlie wasn't having any of
it.  He was the first one with a sledgehammer!

And the group doing the demolishing included she and I of course, and
Charlie, her youngest son Zach and her oldest daughter Jessica, and
her boyfriend Larry, his friend Chris, and the girls' friend Grebe. 
(Actually, her first name is Amanda, but everybody calls her by her
last name.)

During the destruction, we sort of all took turns taking breaks,
walking over to the picnic table grabbing a drink when we needed it,
eating watermelon, or Diane and I grabbing a smoke.  We stopped to
feed the kids, and they took short breaks to dip into the pool...  It
was a hot and humid day around here!

One of the breaks consisted of a short round of pitching.  *All* of
Diane's kids have played ball.  The girls are all-star softball
players, and Grebe was another member of their team.  And of course
Charlie is all about baseball, but he's only ever experienced it with
guys.

And there he was, with the handle that broke off of one of the
sledgehammers, and Grebe with several of their dog's plastic balls,
and one just started pitching the ball.  Then they reversed it and the
other pitched.  It was amazing to watch my son.  No embarrassment, no
questions asked!  Around this whole group - and all *their* friends -
he's just another guy, another ball player, and everybody is
constantly harassing each other so nobody ever needs to feel picked on
or singled out, or 'different'.  My son played ball with a cute
girl!!!  (Those are *my* words, not his!)

And all these teenagers have a game (I might as well go ahead and tell
ya'll this!).  We refer to it as the "Burp Game".  Don't know where it
was ever started, but it's just one of those dumb kid things you do,
just to be silly.  And you can when you're a teenager!  And Diane and
I can 'cause .... well .... 'cause we can!!  These are the rules: 
Whenever somebody burps, everybody has to call a color.  The last
person has to make 'sex sounds'.  It's amazing what can be attributed
to 'sex' through teenagers who've never participated!  (In sex I
mean!)

And of course, I can't resist the opportunity to embarrass, and so I
make the most exaggerated, pornographic sounds I can muster, "Oh...
OH... *OH*!  Yes, oh YES!  That's IT!!... YEEESSSSSSS"!!!  Seems like
my daughter was relating this to her father in amazement, and he told
her, "Well ya Molly... how do you think you got here?!"  And she told
me!!!!!!!!!!  Geez kid!  I assured and *re*assured her that those
weren't REAL sounds!!!  Kids!

Anyway.  We took that same deck down on Monday, and loaded up her
truck with old wood.  Unfortunately, it didn't come close to carrying
all of it, and the dump wasn't open, so we started making piles, by
sizes, of the remaining wood.  I told her that the next morning I'd
come get the truck and whatever kids were around, and we'd make all
the trips we needed to the dump to get rid of the wood.

Long story short (and who'd believe that *I* could do that!?), we got
it all done, and even shared some funny moments, but in between, they
all took turns being lazy, whining, complaining teenagers made to work
in the hot sun on their vacation days.  I didn't really care - I just
wanted the wood moved!  But on a whole, *I* thought it made for a
funny story, and so I emailed it to Diane when we were all done.

As a recently widowed woman with all the stresses involved with going
from a two-income family down to one, payments here, benefits there,
cars everywhere (!!), she didn't see the humor in my story that day,
and she got really, REALLY pissed!  In fact, before I could email back
to her response and stop her, she'd already emailed all her kids and
chewed them out, threatened, and gotten pretty ugly.  Oh man.  Sure
they were brats, but they're KIDS!  It's what they do!  Nobody is
gonna jump up off the couch and be motivated to work in the hot sun
just to help out deal old mom!  They gotta be cajoled and threatened. 
And fed!!!

I felt terrible!  I went and saw the kids, explained what I'd done and
that I had never intended to do it.  I promised them I'd do everything
I could to calm her down, and meanwhile... ummm... maybe ya'll want to
make extra sure that you pick up after yourselves and not let her come
home and find a mess.  Some times the very smallest thing can set her
off.

- take a break here - 

Pam