The lure of the maraschino cherry, and other things I learned this weekend.

Here’s what my weekend was like. (Besides, busy). Because busy needs a body.

Friday started early, for me. I headed to Jackson to visit with my dear, sweet friend Lora. She’s staying for a week at this resort and spa known as the University Medical Center.  It’s all on account of her cancer diet (her joke, by the way).

Ah, the tasty goodness. (Sans turkey, plus seafood)

I stayed there for a good, long time, sharing stories with her about faith, the future, etc. She had quite a busy day: former students, new acquaintances (everyone knows and loves Lora), and pleasant doctors all stopping by to offer well-wishes, and to remark on not just how good she was looking, but also to notice how high her spirits were.

The only real negative of the day was the food. The hospital’s food. I couldn’t blame her: even the onion rings were soggy. I was sent to Subway for a Seafood Creations sandwich, six-inch.

Lora was my initial reason for going to Jackson. And after my visit, I decided I would swing by the mall. I think we only have three in the state of Mississippi.  But, as I’m starting my new job this week, I wanted a fresh look.

And underwear.

Amanda called me around 3:00PM and told me not to forget that it was tax-free weekend.

I said I couldn’t forget what I didn’t know. Elaborate, please.

Apparently, Mississippi’s governor heralded this past weekend as Tax-Free Weekend. But, just on clothes and shoes. God bless the woman at Wal-Mart in Starkville who misunderstood and piled several buggies (that’s what we call shopping carts down south) with a month’s worth of groceries and all the school supplies her four children would ever need from now until graduate school.

None of that counted. It was only shoes and clothes. Very New York of us.

Having not previously heard of this tax-free business, I was unprepared for the disaster that was the highway to the mall. It was ridiculous. The traffic was reminiscent of all those last-minute people at Christmas Eve, who foolishly wait until hours before the exchange of gifts to buy all their gifts and I had no choice but to buy the leftover detritus for even the babies that Christmas because I am not good with time-management.  And, so,  lesson learned.

But, this? This was insanity. I guess, in theory, it sounds wonderful, despite the fact that you’re really only saving upwards of 7% to every dollar you spend, so results only surface if you’re heading toward multiple triple digits. 

I don’t know. I’m not good at math, which is why I was elated to have a Tax-Free Weekend.

Until I got stuck in 45 minutes worth of traffic merely four lights from the mall’s entrance. It’s like driving by Disney World and pretending you were there simply because you saw the top of Thunder Mountain from I-4. You know, you saw enough to describe the ride, but it’s not quite the same, right?

I finally got to the mall, and at that point, had decided it wouldn’t be worth all the stress of getting here unless I bought a lot of things. (In retrospect, I think this type of groupthink is what motivates and maintains the economy in this state, if not the country).

So, I did my American/Mississippi duty and bought things. Lots of things. to be honest, though, I didn’t really feel like I was getting any sort of a “deal” just by not having to pay sales tax.  My wallet certainly didn’t know the difference. Besides, a gift by any other name is just a tax called an embargo.

It ain't easy living in a coin-operated economy.

(I’m hoping that that last sentence, whereas perhaps not logically correct could at least fool enough people as to seem funny).

I returned home, the next morning, laden with what I consider appropriate apparrel to, at the least, appear professorial in the classroom.

The drive home was ugly: rain and rain and rain and I think, maybe a tornado around the Goshen Springs exit. I didn’t stick around to find out.

I’m still not sure what I did Saturday night, aside from watching the musical revue, Let Freedom Sing, at the theatre, downtown. It was a USO-related revue, and the end of the thing was a real tear-jerker.

I admit it; I cried.

There was an entire montage of projected photographs featuring soldiers from the area, and also pictures of those who had already passed on. I mean come on, nothing gets a tear out of me more than true reality. It almost doesn’t even matter what song is being sung or played in the background: post pictures up of those who are risking their lives, on a daily basis (still!), to ensure my freedom to sit in a 45-minute jam a la traffic and get aggravated at the cars in front of me, and all for the sheer pleasure of shopping…well.

I cried because it humbled me. And embarrassed me. And shamed me. (At least, at first). I mean, I consistently return to it, but I almost always manage to misplace my focus, my attention on what’s important…temporarily, anyway.

After the show, I called Aggy, a friend of mine in the Navy, and I told him about the production, and about my subsequent guilt. Wood, of course, is already in Afghanistan, so I couldn’t call him. Aggy told me that it didn’t offend him that I had been shopping. That knowing that, sort of encouraged him all the more to defend my rights, our rights, etc. To him, it was a story that resembled normalcy. And that’s what he wanted more than anything else.

I went to another department store yesterday and bought him some underwear, socks, and T-shirts. Because I liked his answer. If for no other reason than because it assuaged my guilt. (FYI: The tax-free weekend ended at midnight on Saturday, so this was like a real gift).

It’s hard to know how to feel about things you can’t change.

I miss Ma Onie and her smokehouse antics.

I ended my weekend with two of my nephews, who were for the most part, well-behaved. Though, somewhere after the gallon of sweet tea (which in Mississippi has now supplanted breast milk – but don’t worry, Ma Onie for years fermented her own sugar syrup, and also another FYI: when you use the word “ferment” it automatically means healthy and good for you.  It goes down, swimmingly, you might say), the two boys, nicknamed Chunk and Bug, hit the top of their threshold of behavior and went berserk.

I was at a loss as to what to do, mostly because I was exhausted from my first half of the weekend.

Nana, then, from regions unknown in the second sitting room, emerged and declared that she had cherries. (Not the real kind, the Maraschino-style kind, coated in 100% sugar and 0% amaretto).

It was as if a miracle occurred. Both Bug and Chunk stopped their misguided revelry, and in a zombie-trance, worthy of kitsch, stalked to the nook table and sat down, like miniature adults, and ate two plates of staining cherries.

I’d never seen anything like it; never was made aware of the lure of a maraschino cherry.

I’ve filed it away for future playdates/babysitting responsibilities. And I can’t say I’m shocked, after all that sugar intake, that the first thing both of them asked for when they were finished, was a glass of ice.

Classic. Better ice, though, than what their mothers ate for a snack, back in their younger days: butter.

I just don’t know how Aunt Lola lived to be 98. Gamva turns 93 in October, and Uncle Pat died at 101. Gran just hit 92.

I don’t know much, but I know this: There’s no way it was on this diet.

I think “nice flip-flops” is an oxymoron.

I think “nice flip-flops” is an oxymoron.

This is eight flip-flops too many.

That’s what I said to Amanda, last night, after the show.

She’d brought a group of our professor friends to see my play, and afterwards, as is the normal routine and course for our social troupes, we ambled over next door to the Old Venice Pizza Company, the neighborhood bar and grill, and I stood patiently accepting kudos and the like, something I don’t always enjoy doing because it seems so impratically rote, but I endure it all the same – I mean, I was brought up right.

All the while, though, I was staring at the Pinot Grigio selections. 

I was reminded me of the evening a few nights back, at the Opening Night Reception, when all I wanted was to get to the Swiss cheese plate on the food-laden reception table, and never could quite get to within arm’s reach because people wanted to stop me and congratulate me (which was nice of them), or attempt to hug me until they realized how sweaty I was from all the running we do on stage.

And you just can’t be rude to audience members at an Opening Night Reception…not even for Swiss cheese.

To avoid further well-wishers, I directed us toward a collection of low sofas and wingback chairs in the far back corner of Old Venice. Unless you were lost or trying to get lost, you really wouldn’t see us, I thought.  I was wrong on three occasions; however, they were kind enough to buy me drinks.  I suppose I could have just gone home and avoided the entire public scene, but I think we all know that I secretly was ok with being on display. Actors, huh…

Anyway, we planted ourselves there in the corner. I was exhausted, thoroughly.  This show, fun and rollicking as it is, is not doing much right by my lower back and, I’ll say it, my rather sinewy and muscled gams.

Honestly, I’m not sure how the conversation drifted to the topic of footwear. I never know how a conversation drifts, anyway, I just ride the tide, so to speak. If pressed, though, I’m sure it must have drifted toward feet, etc. after the compliments my legs received. They’re encased in tights the entire run of the show. It’s hard not to notice.

Follow a leg further down, and what do you get? A foot. Usually, anyway.

I know you’ve all seen that picture of my shoe closet. I also know it’s an embarrassing picture, but only for its lack of structure and cleanliness. I think it’s plainly obvious that I adore a good shoe, if I, ironically, am no fan of feet. U.L. told me one time that shoes are one of the first things people look at in an interview. That has stuck with me, but I was still curious about a couple of things: for instance, I don’t know how he knows that or why, as he’s been at his job for the past 45 years; he could go barefoot with string cheese stuck between his toes and no one would care, and secondly, why on earth would anyone at a job really, truly care about your shoes. Unless you’re conducting a business meeting with your loafers. Which I think, honestly, would just be distracting. PowerPoint is a much safer bet, in my opinion.

No, shoes only count when you go to church, a funeral, a wedding, or a bar. And in Mississippi, you’re continuously going to one or the other. Sometimes, they’re all four in the same place, at the same time. Except in a Baptist church where you will only ever get Welch’s grape juice for the blood of Christ, so stop asking.

I tend to be rather critical of poor shoe choices when in one of the four above-mentioned locales. Even of myself. I, however, forgave myself last night for my ugly slip-ons simply because I had, after all, just sweated the hell out of myself in a purely physical comedy for two solid hours. My T-shirt was nearly translucent so dense had been my sweat.

Amanda, though, god love her, should have just known better. She has admitted this, herself.

There she was in a cute summer smock-set, brushed with a fair hint of yellow and orange, just a touch, it really set off her beautiful skin tone, like a sunned caramel, and I was quite pleased at her entire ensemble until my eyes fell to her feet.

This is twelve bottles too little.

Because there, hanging by a dying strap, the thick soles veritably shouting out to the world to be shot, were her hot pink flip-flops. A disaster of the second degree; she has one other pair of shoes that I detest so much I cannot in good conscience even describe them for you here. I was in a mild state of shock, saved only by the fact of my proximity to a good white wine.

She took one look at me and knew she had made a mistake. So, she sat alone in the chair. I, on the couch beside the chair. Of course, our friends Alix and Megan, were haute as usual. I expected that we’d soon forget about the flip-flops, a term itself that is ridiculous, though fitting. I hoped no one else would care.

They didn’t.

Until we saw Alix’s shoes. Purchased in Java, she said, on some exotic vacation, made of a leather so beautiful I wanted to build a whole house out of it. It was molded to her foot, as if it’d been poured around her heel and ankle, with a heavy heel and the most luxurious color, an evening maize. I’d never seen such before.

The shoe looked smart. It looked clever. It knew you wanted to wear it. It oozed sex appeal.

But, not in an in-your-face kind of way: Marilyn not Pamela Anderson.

It’s a good shoe that knows its place and is happy to stay there. I had to bring people over from other tables just to look at Alix’s shoes. She was pleased. In the process, however, I accidentally, and I would say, subconsciously, stepped on Amanda’s foot and she was forced to withdraw her feet underneath the chair, to avoid further traffic incidents.

I apologized. I know it hurt. I have a steel step. Also, she showed me this morning the small abrasion my ugly shoes left on the end of her big toe. It was hard to sympathize, though, as she’d said almost as soon as she came into my room that perhaps she should just throw those flip-flops away.

Keep them in your emergency kit: Hurricane season is around the corner.

I told her No, believe it or not. Because once when an electrical storm blew threw town and took out the lights, I used the left flip-flop to find the bathroom cabinet where the flashlights were kept.  Hot pink, you know, tends to have a shine, a glow about it.

I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with the flip-flops, in and of themselves. 

…they’re just not meant to be worn, is all.