ABOUT TOASTERS....

About toasters and the false economy of buying a cheap one. Our first toaster was a wedding present. It was a nice two-slice toaster and it did its job for five decades. One morning, about a year ago, it just stopped working. We bought another one. A four-slice, wide slot to accommodate English muffins number with a roaster oven. It never toasted two slices of bread the same color. Roasting in it was a joke, but it was sure pretty. It has a special spot on a shelf in the garage We decided to just pick up the first toaster we saw and make it work. Famous last words. The first toaster I saw in JC Penny's was a wonder of modern technology. It had a four slice toaster oven that can hold a 9-inch pizza, a non-stick griddle on top of the roaster, and a four-cup coffee maker on the side! WOW! All this for the mere price of $100.00. No way, Mister Sweetie Skinflint said, I'm paying a hundred dollars for a toaster. Um, I said, okay. He picked up a seven dollar wonder at WalMart. It has, religiously, consistently, at the same and all settings, turned every slice of bread that went into it an even crispy ebony while filling the entire house with the smell of burnt toast. Um, I said, okay. After burning six slices of bread this morning, Mister Sweetie gave up, disconnected the wailing smoke detector, put it outside, and ran around the house in an absolute panic waving a magazine at the smoke. I opened the back door, put the box fan on a chair in front of it and turned it on to exhaust the smoke. I dry toasted the bread in a skillet, buttered it and stacked it nicely on a plate Now, don't get me wrong here, Mister Sweetie is about as easy-going as they get, and one heckuva good cook, but if something starts to smoke....well.... So, we're sitting in the TV room, watching "The Age of Adeline" when I suggested that I pick out the next toaster We usually do this kind of thing as a committee. I "research", he pays. Lickety split my nimble little fingers typed me Amazon and there to my delight under small appliances sat the wonder of wonders I'd coveted three months ago, on sale at the budget-lovely price of $39.00. I'll be doing some more retail therapy tomorrow. The seven dollar wonder Mister Sweetie picked up? The good folks at Waste Management have accepted it as a donation to the cause.

The Note

Notes for the book.

She had finally slipped into a deep slumber. This once beautiful, brilliant, sassy smart-assed woman now had the mind of a four-year-old. Her doctor said this was one sleep from which she would never awake.
Estelle set the old bible on the night table, noticed the corner of something sticking out from the back pages.
Inside the envelope was a list, on it the names of girls she and Rebecca had gone to school with decades ago.
Girls who, for whatever reason of spite or jealousy or just plain viciousness, had made Rebecca's life a living hell until she finally left home and began to make her way in the wider world.
A successful high-fashion model, with an in-demand look, white-blonde hair that framed her face perfectly, and a coveted tall slim Nordic goddess build, she had to hire a secretary to keep her bookings in order. At the top of the page were only two words...
PRAYER LIST

SIBBYRENO BULL

Sibbyreno Bull

The women of my family have been called tenacious, headstrong, willful, and even stubborn. But no one in their right mind would call one of us bull-headed, more than once. The terms we prefer are steadfast, dedicated, relentless, and true. We've come by this reputation honestly. 

She was born in 1746, the youngest child and only daughter of a latter-day chieftain of what once was called the old Irish or, going way back, they were of the Clan Cenel Fearadhaigh.

They were horse people, their whole stock and trade was the breeding of some of the finest equine stock on the planet. She was my sixth great-grandmother.

MOLLY

     The last notes faded into the farthest corners of the auditorium and were slowly almost imperceptibly replaced with a soft murmur, it grew in volume and spread across the cavernous room, filling it with a sense of awe and an intangible feeling of longing. A single word, a name, for some almost a prayer... Molly, Molly, MOLLY! The crowd surged forward, hands reaching up to her, for her, a touch, a glance, some sign she knew they were there and adored her... MOLLYMOLLYMOLLY.... more insistent,  demanding...
Too late the people who had organized the performance realized the singer was in danger of being dragged down into a mob that wanted nothing so much as a piece of her. No one ever thought they'd need security for a skinny fourteen-year-old redhead. A kid for chrissake!
The young singer realized her position, perched precariously on the edge of the stage between two pot lights. Trapped. A single tear rolled down her cheek, a wan smile teased at the corners of her mouth and faded as she looked into the eyes of those closest to her. She extended a pale hand toward them...almost as if to hold them back. Their intensity was frightening...
     A hand clutched her arm tightly, fingernails sank in trying to hold on, she felt the sudden sharp sting as they cut through the skin, a thin trickle of red ran down her arm, staining the sleeve of her dress.
    She pulled back and leapt to her feet from the edge of the stage, her nimbus of auburn curls suddenly a halo of flame as she ran through the shaft of light from the overhead spots, into the darkness beyond and bolted from the stage, across the wings,  then, unnoticed, out the stage door and into the night. She didn't stop running until she reached the train and sobbed all the way home.

... the microphone landed with a dull metallic sound that reverberated all across and around the stadium, five thousand voices went silent....
What the hell?
"She just disappeared!"
"One minute she was sitting there, then wham, she was gone!"
***

"Molly? Honey, are you alright?" A long-loved voice, one she knew as well as she knew her own, cut through the fog of sleep and troubling dreams.
"Morning. Sure. I'm okay. Why?"
He reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek, held it up, watching as it rolled slowly down his finger and looked at her.
"You were crying in your sleep."
She sat up and yawned hugely, stretched, well, stretched as much as a life of nine decades would permit. She moved her legs aside so he could sit down. He'd brought coffee, two cups, they sipped quietly waiting for their no longer young or limber bodies to finish waking up. They joked about their Golden Years.
   It was early autumn; they planned to drive up to the Arboretum. Years earlier Molly'd bought a membership and every fall since they'd walked through the fallen leaves taking pictures of their world as it began to slowly spin into winter.
Tim once mentioned how he was beginning to see himself in the old oaks. She knew what he meant. They'd grown well past the need for explanations, a word or two carried what had once needed paragraphs. It was the shorthand of people who'd spent most of their lives together.
   They'd married young, too young many said, taking and making wagers at the wedding reception, that it wouldn't last till the first anniversary. Of course, they were all wrong.
   She smiled and slid out of bed, her legs rebelling a bit as she tested how well they were going to work that day. His arm right was there if it was needed.
***
 They walked through the leaf-strewn pathway, arm in arm, listening to the soft crackle of dry leaves underfoot. So many years they'd been together, so many hills climbed, valleys coasted through, deserts and oceans crossed. They'd taken to referring to the growing number of decades they'd shared as something akin to cross country travels. Days of joy and sunlight and nights of mind-numbing terror and the icy grip of a grief colder than any winter storm.
   The joy of seeing their children grow, the unspeakable agony of burying their youngest before the tiny girl could say a first word, the memory of the fragile infant sleeping in her arms, a faint baby smile on her face, then she was gone ...no, there was still too much pain there. They clung to each other through all of it.
"Are you happy?" Tim asked, his voice oddly quiet.
" I am."
"No regrets?"
"None. Why?"
"You've woken up crying every morning this week. Do you ever wonder what..."
She stopped him, a finger placed gently over his lips.
"That wasn't the life I wanted. This" she lifted their clasped hands, "...this is."
" How did I luck out, you could have had any guy in the world."
"Oh stop!" She gave him a little nudge. "My mom always said you chased me until I caught you."
"And the singing...."
" I thought you understood, it was the singing I loved, not the life that went with it, not the performing. That was Millie, that's what she wanted. I just wanted to sing."
A warming shaft of sunlight broke through the leafy canopy overhead, turning their hair into halos of silver.
"Let's sit a while. "
They sank onto one of the many benches scattered through the nature preserve, leaned against each other and closed their eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their faces.
"Did you know Millie's estate sent all my tapes here when she died?"
"I've often wondered why she didn't go public with them. You were the mystery of the decade. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to little Molly...."
She smiled, snuggled closer.
"Molly decided to live her own life."
They dozed, slowly it drifted into something deeper, something more permanent.
***
It wasn't until one of the park guards walked by, returning from the first lap of his route and noticed that the elderly couple hadn't moved....
***
BREAKING NEWS: In the news this hour; The entertainment reporter covered the story with all the breathless awe and giddy excitement of one covering the resurrection of  Jesus Christ.
 "She was called the vanishing waif, The decades-long mystery finally has been solved. The young singer with the voice of an angel has at long last been found. Molly, the only name anyone knew, vanished from the stage after completing her first concert. Speculation about her fate raged for years with theories that ran the gamut from underworld ties to alien abduction.  One story said she had vanished with a bright flash of orange-red fire and pure white smoke. 
"We now know the answer to this decades-long mystery. The simple truth was that the vanishing waif never vanished at all. She went home, finished school, married her high school sweetheart, settled down and raised a family. A day ago she and her husband of seventy years were found in a local nature preserve where they died, sitting arm-in-arm on a park bench"
   
The people who haunted the fringes of a life that Molly hadn't wanted suddenly became experts on the whys and wherefores of whatever happened to Molly. Old, amateur tape recordings of her first and only concert began appearing in the news. The record company that had signed her released copies from the master tapes and was paying royalties to the estate of a young woman who had only one live performance to her credit. The trust she had set up would make the lives of  her children,  grandchildren and great-grandchildren more than comfortable for a very long time. Her grown children were stunned to find out that the mysterious "vanishing waif" had been the woman they called Mom.
*** 

A PROMISE MADE

     I'll come back for you. I promise. She reached out and handed me the barrette that had fallen to the floor.

    I looked into her blue eyes, seeing the tears she tried to blink away. Blue eyes, I realized decades later, that were only one of the genetic gifts she gave me. 

    I watched her stand, then walk halfway across an enormous room. She hesitated, then turned quickly to her right, hurried down a long green hallway, down a short flight of stairs, and out a heavy wooden door that closed behind her with a dull muffled thud. 

    Some part of me held on to that promise. 

    I'll come back for you. 

   A man came along pushing a string mop, making wet grey swirls across the black and white marble floor. Then another man in a dark brown suit, the kind a man wears to church on Sunday, who kept looking over his shoulder as he clicked his camera. 

   A woman walked into the vestibule and looked at me, surprised. Maybe shocked would be a better word. Then another, then a group of them, clucking like a flock of hens. 

   They wanted to know who I was. 

   Where did I live? 

   How old was I?  Where was my mommy? 

   "What's your mommy's name?"

   "Mommy."What else did she expect me to say? A policeman walked into the vestibule looked at the women and shook his head. He squatted down in front of me.

   "Are you hungry?" He pointed to his mouth.

I nodded yes. No one had thought to ask that.

    "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He pointed to the ladies' room sign.

Another nod. One of the women volunteered to take me. When I got back to "my" bench someone had produced some cookies and a small glass bottle of milk. No glass, no straw. 

    The women evaporated; one minute they were there, the next only the policeman and I remained.

    A huge hand took my own and we walked down the green hallway to that heavy wooden door. I had to reach way up to hold his hand, but I was determined not to let go.

    The door closed with the same muffled thud and I knew I'd never walk through it again. A moment of panic came up with the cookies and milk.
How would my mother find me if I wasn't there anymore?
***

POSTER CHILD

The first in a series of vignettes. 

    In the late 1940s, one of the Chicago newspapers held a weekly photo contest. Winning submissions would be published. Cash prizes would be awarded. Amateurs from the Midwest fanned out, cameras in hand, searching for the perfect picture -the money shot. One week the winning submission netted the photographer a page eight below the fold re-print, generous praise, full credit, and, of course, a tidy sum. The picture was a three-quarters profile black and white shot of a little girl sitting at the edge of a long bench. She wore a pair of corduroy overalls, a knit shirt, and high-topped "baby shoes." A mop of long hair tumbled down her back; all attempts to keep it out of her face had been limited to the unsuccessful barrette in her hand. Behind the bench, a green wall, its only ornament a framed document, the bottom edge of which just showed in the photo. It was the state's license for The Chicago Protestant Orphan Asylum.
   The photographer stumbled across his subject by accident; quickly set up his equipment, snapped away, and was out the door before anyone told him to leave. He entered the picture in the contest and sold the rights to a charity named The Red Feather Organization. The picture had been titled "Unwanted;" the brief caption stated only that the child had been abandoned in the lobby. The photo was repeated on posters and flyers that were sent out in the hopes that the image would touch people's hearts and open their wallets.
   Years later the orphanage used the picture in their website's history timeline. The child was never identified.
   Subsequent publicity material touted their success in placing the child with a kind and loving family. It was, they said, a happy ending to a sad story about a little girl no one wanted.
I remember the smell of the bench.

RETAIL THERAPY #1

My retail therapy yesterday went extremely well. A week or two back I absolutely fell in like with a beautiful quilt, but time was at a premium while getting ready for Niki and Michael's wedding. So, I decided to order it on-line when I had time. I spent two days more or less trying to find someone who still had it in stock. No one. So I decided to take my sweet self over to the mall where I first saw it and see if they still had any left. Went into Macy's where I was sure I'd seen it. They have the pillow covers on-line, but no quilts. ??? They didn't even have the bedding line in the store, but the snobby clerk was only too happy to talk about the Martha Stewart collection and "We also have some CHEAPER off-brand kinds if that's what you're interested in." I ignored the elitist attitude and said I didn't like the Stewart line. Then I did something I almost NEVER do. I "up-snobbed" him. "I really prefer the Porthault line, but you don't have that either. Thanks so much."
Off I trotted to Carson's, all the way on the other side of the mall. Trotting stopped before I reached the center court, brisk walking slowed to a meander then to a virtual shamble and then I crawled into Carson's.Linens? Second floor? Okay. Up escalator being serviced. Half a block to the elevator. Another half a block to linens. There it was, in all its wondrous floral and quilted glory. A pile of them! No shortage here! Grabbed one and nearly gave my sweet self a hernia. These are heavy! Well, my feelings about good old Carson's went up a few notches when a young clerk offered to carry the quilt to the register for me. Another couple of notches when she asked if I had any coupons, I didn't, she grabbed one from a pile, then said the words that made my afternoon. "Are you over fifty-five? We have a special seniors' discount for our customers who are." Huh? Could she possibly NOT know I was waaay over 55?
" I'm seventy."
"No, really?"
Fifty percent discount, plus a nice boost to this senior citizen who has been really feeling her age the last couple of months. Plus, the quilt was on sale, and I added a whole two and a half miles to my walking distance for the day. No, I didn't float back to the car, it was a really hard slog carrying several extra pounds of quilt, but I made it. Even though I went out the wrong door in Macy's and had to walk around to the other side of the building. On to the grocery store for a deli dinner then home to soak my aching tootsies. But I didn't stop smiling. I found what I wanted, it was on sale, I got a lot of extra exercise, a nice boost to my mood, and I didn't have to cook dinner. (Some days my cooking mojo just vanishes.)
I may go back for the pillow shams today, just for the exercise, ya know. And that cute navy blue pullover I saw on my way out. Have a great Thursday!