Queen Of The Cul De Sac

In all my years of city living, the police have never come to my residence.  I don’t count the night that I woke up to hear officers on my fire escape shouting “freeze motherfucker!” I hadn’t called them and we had no contact. The rest of the evening passed without incident or need for backup.

Not so however in the suburbs. I have needed to call the police twice in a few years. The first time was when I discovered what I thought was a gun in my backyard. After having a big booted officer pull up in my driveway, I learned that it was a toy gun. Now, before you scoff– it did not look orange with a suction cup dart hanging out. It was black and imprinted with “Smith and Wesson” and a warning not to sell to minors. I even consulted a neighbor who had seen guns before and confirmed that it looked like a gun.  In all fairness, had I picked it up I might have realized it was plastic but I have watched enough CSI–never compromise the scene.

The officer and I discussed things in my driveway. He told me it was an air gun that teenagers use and I was trying to make sure there were no unsolved crimes in the area involving a missing gun. After making me feel stupid, he pulled away. End of story– or so I thought.

A few weeks later I ran into one of my neighbors ina store. After some chit chat she said “OK- I’m just going to ask you- why were the police at your house” Clearly, she believed that some disturbance, possibly internal had required the police. There was no concern along the lines of “is everyone allright?” I explained what happened and she said she and her husband in discussing the matter hadn’t thought of that. Days later another neighbor inquired casually. In response to my explanation she said “Oh, I had been wondering…I mean you never know….”  It became apparent to me that not only had everyone seen what happened and speculated upon it, they had come to the conclusion that it was something we did.

To add fuel to the fire, the police were summoned not long ago in regards to our murdered cat. The police were getting a description of the canine perps and filing a report with animal control. Everyone had known about our cat’s demise and was either directly involved or sweetly sympathetic. I figured no problem- obviously the police were here for that. I was wrong.

Weeks later I ran into a neighbor and she had not heard about the cat. So, I said ‘well the police were here and everything.’  She said, quite tellingly, “Yes, I noticed they were here again- but I didn’t know it was about the cat.” Note how she mentioned “again” (even though it was two years ago). Obviously she suspected we were up to no good again.

In response to all this, my husband was outraged. “I am so nice to everyone- and they all think I’m beating you!” My response was “How do you know they don’t think I’m beating you?”  Then I tried to think of all the crimes we could hint at the were guilty of: growing marijuana, illegal betting parlor, underground cockfighting, brothel?  The options are endless. But, I’ll stick with defending our honor instead. Until the next time I guess.

I find that sometimes, especially after the holidays, you need a little divine intervention before stepping on the scale to check out the damage. If I may, I will share my prayer of contrition that I often say before I step on that great judge of the bathroom. My apologies to the Catholic church.

I confess to you you almighty scale

and to you, my skinny jeans and sweaters

That I have overeaten through my own fault

In my thoughts and in my pantry

In what I have eaten

And in what I have failed to eat

Not blessed carrots, but foccaccia with

Extra virgin

All the angel cakes and frosting

So I ask you, my belts and buttons

To stretch for me

There are times when you start to wonder if perhaps you have begun to “let yourself go”. It is quite sobering however when you come to the conclusion “yes. Yes I have.”

The other day in the car, my daughter asked “Why are you wearing your pajamas out?” Now, I have some standards and I was not about to let her think that her mother walks around in pajamas. “Correction.” I replied “These are not pajamas. I may have worn them to bed and not changed but that clearly does not make them pajamas. They are from the sportswear department.” There. That showed her.

But, when I found myself in the supermarket wearing my glasses, no bra, and my sportswear I realized it may be a fine line between not being overdressed and “crazy eccentric lady.”

The problem is there never seems to be a reason to get dressed up and pretty. Why waste my cool outfits or cute shoes (I do own them) when no one will see them. If all you’re going to do is drive in your car, pump gas, drop people off and see no one but the, I presume, registered sex offended who bags the groceries? I need to feel like it is not pointless to make an effort.

When I lived in New York I went out every day as if I was going to run into 10 people I knew- because most days I did so it was so worth it. And, it didn’t seem strange to be pushing a stroller with an embroidered skirt and high heel boots, and even a bra. There were no frumpy moms, just unfortunate domestic strollers. Back then, I looked as cool as I could considering; a)It was still me and b) I was in a sandbox with 3 year olds. Now I am so far from max capacity that I might actually be dragging down the mom down the street who wears Winnie the Pooh jackets.

So, I am going to try and reclaim my leopard mules for pick-up. I am going to reclaim my little jackets for the market (take that and smoke it Mr. Registered Sex Offender!). I just have to be careful not to try too hard. Yesterday at school I saw a mom drop off with skinny jeans, knee-high boots and enormous sunglasses and I thought “Who the hell does that bitch think she is?”

For our first Christmas here there certainly were a lot of traditions that I missed from the city; going to Rockefeller Center, walking home with our own tree, seeing the city lit up with decorations. There was one tradition however, that I was more than happy to leave behind. The one that involved waiting on line at the bank with nearly everyone else in the city in order to withdraw wads of cash in very specific denominations to be given to the doormen and service workers for their annual tip. The tip that would ensure that that you continue to receive your packages and obtain help when struggling with a stroller and groceries and to not be talked about every time the elevator doors closed behind you. The politics of tipping is very fraught for people living in the buildings and you never know if you are giving enough or if the night doorman even would know who are so does it matter if you only give him 15 bucks?  All I know is that my first Christmas out of the city I was looking forward to eliminating about 18 people off my Christmas list- an amount that overshadowed what I spent on my actual family several times over.

So there I was on a mid-December evening: Christmas music playing, eating cookies and basking in my newfound appreciation for not being responsible for anyone except the immediate family. Then, the doorbell rang.

“Who could be coming over now?” I opened the door and saw my neighbor, arms laden with wrapped packages. She had sweets for my husband and I and beautiful books for the children. Caught off guard and feeling sheepish that I hadn’t even thought of a gift for her (I mean, I guess our kids do play together a lot and we do chat quite a bit in the summer) I stammered a thank you and quickly recovered telling her we didn’t have her gifts right now and would be doing all our shopping later. I closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief at having thought so quickly. Ok- a gift for a neighbor we see outside all the time. That’s not so hard. No sooner though, had I gone into the kitchen that the door rang again. Another neighbor with an elaborately wrapped basket filled with treats- not even homemade but fancy store treats. Now I started to get annoyed. What is this- the official pre-arranged give your neighbor a gift night? Add one more person to the list. Still, I told myself we are no where close to doorman proportions.

The rest of the night passed without incident, but a few days later the doorbell rang again. I started to say “what the…?” and then realized it must be another gift. And on it went, baskets with gift cards to Blockbuster and movie treats, snowman making kits, a Christmas village package with personalized ornaments. People I barely knew were bringing gifts that had obviously taken time and money. And, I couldn’t even regift them to the neighbors that I now owed tons of gifts to as they were all the same (I saw people making the rounds with giant sacks of identical gifts). So that is how I found myself at Pier One a few days before Christmas that year spending a butt load of money and wrapping gifts- at least the doormen only needed some crisp bills and a white envelope- these things required thought and effort.

The next year I hoped it would taper off and people would not be so extravagant. I mean, it wasn’t like we had all hung out or gotten closer in the intervening year. Alas, I was mistaken- and off I went again to distribute gifts to the neighbors in turn. As the years have passed, I have accumulated several snowman making kits, endless ornaments, and countless baskets and tins. I have learned that a doorbell in December means “It’s On People” and for all that effort, no one is even helping me with my groceries.

Compared to the urban jungle and the desolate isolation of actual woods, my neighborhood seems pretty harmless. No wild animals, no screeching owls. But, I’m here to warn you that danger lurks. Right before Christmas, two loose dogs set upon our cat lounging in the front yard and instead of dying in his bed at 14 years old like he deserved, our poor friend was murdered. I guess it is true- of all the things you worry about- it is always what you least expect. At home I fear kidnappers and I fear burglars, the deranged and the sociopathic. In the woods, I fear rabid animals, bears or sharks flying into my swimming pool ( google Atlantis resort shark- it’s chilling). I know, quite a list but the cliché of a dog attacking a cat in my own front yard was not what I had bothered to worry about. So, like a dowager wrapped up for her daily airing, I let our companion out for his usual stroll around the grounds.

The fact that I didn’t think to worry about it- well that makes me feel so guilty and so responsible. I believe I betrayed him by not thinking to worry about him in a suburban yard. It certainly did not help that when I took my traumatized children to the rescue shelter with my tale of woe that the advocates there told me we could not be trusted with adorable kittens due to our unfortunate irresponsibility. I resisted the urge to remind her- “don’t you guys usually put to sleep the unadopted cats?” I’m thinking risking the two cute kids who are known slackers would be a better bet than to roll the roulette with someone else walking in the door. After lots of promising on our part we were able to leave with two formerly homeless cats- and now I know to worry. If anything happens to one of them, I’m sure we’ll be blackballed by every rescue center in our state.

But that’s the essence of worry- you don’t know. You don’t know what will happen or even, it seems, what to worry about. Worrying allows you the soothing illusion that you are doing something. When there is so much at stake, your children, your home, your loved ones, you have to do something, And what I do, and I like to think that I do it rather well, is worry. I’m guarding against the possible- as if anticipating the awfulness of life will somehow prevent it all. And, aside from the traumatic loss of our pet who we loved, it gave me the unsettled reminder that you can’t think of everything. No matter how much you try to prepare, all the worry in the world will still not keep the demons from your door. I wish that was enough to make me quit the worry business for good- I will certainly try. But still, I’m so sorry sweet cat.