Category: Humor

The Rack

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

The Rack

Driving a car in England is no small feat for a Yank, and doing so in London requires a leap of faith. Aside from the obvious problem of driving on the opposite side of the car and a different side of the street, there is the crush of traffic on streets so narrow that it is a wonder that anyone ever makes it out alive from a simple excursion. Nonetheless we were intent on seeing some of the surrounding countryside and towns, so we rented a car and gave the task of navigating it to my brother, Pat, whose resume as a chauffeur is rather impressive. As a college student he had worked for the United States Postal Service delivering mail in one of those paneled trucks with the steering wheel on what is usually the passenger side of the car. He’d also driven a fourteen wheeler for a department store, and both an ambulance and a fire truck for the City of Houston. His credentials certainly seemed to indicate that he was up to the task of taking us out for a little spin.

Aside from the obvious problems associated with driving was the realization that parking is almost nonexistent in London. We wanted to secure a car for a week and travel back and forth to various destinations from our home base at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury. Try as we may we had still not found a reliable solution for our parking dilemma after a week of inquiry and we worried that finding a place to store it each evening would be almost impossible. Thanks to the quick thinking and negotiation skills of sister-in-law Becky we were able to set that worry aside.

  On the very evening before we were scheduled to secure the car Becky and brother Mike were locked out of their room, forcing them to inquire at the front desk of the hotel as to why this was so. They learned that the manager wanted them change to a different location, an up grade in fact, so that a handicapped individual would be in an adjoining room to his traveling party. They begged Becky and Mike for understanding and even insured them that the process of moving would be taken care of by members of the staff. Becky saw an opening for a special request and boldly mentioned our concern with having a place to park the car that we were going to rent for a week. She noted that there appeared to be a few empty parking spots right in front of the hotel and suggested that they would be ideal. A few words with the manager made everyone happy, as he gladly announced that he would be overjoyed to provide us with the needed parking slot. Our most worrisome problem was instantly solved!

The next morning we all walked to the Hertz rental location taking a long and circuitous route around the neighborhood before finally finding a small office on a hidden street. Since Pat was going to be the driver he had to secure the actual rental agreement which required documents that he had not brought, so there was another brief delay as he walked back to the hotel. Not long after noon we were excitedly piling into a Citroen that was supposedly designed for as many as seven people. We immediately realized that seats other than those in the very front were meant for only the smallest of children. To say that we were cramped is an understatement and the seats were not only tiny but also as hard as rocks. It didn’t take us long to refer to the vehicle as “the Rack,” as in an instrument of torture. Nonetheless we were quite excited about seeing more sights in the country so we squeezed ourselves inside and carried on.

As if driving in the country was not going to be difficult enough, the Citroen came with a manual transmission that required shifting gears with the left hand while steering with the right around corners. The second gear had an irritating habit of getting stuck in the worst of situations. It took Pat a bit longer to adapt than he had thought, but his wife Allison was an ever alert navigator by his side who kept him appraised of directions and alerted him whenever he was about to take off a mirror on a parked car. She came up with a way of telling him how to make his turns that eventually worked out well, “Make a wide right” or “This is a tight left.”

The first trip was to Brighton just to the south of London. It became more of a driving lesson for Pat than anything else and we only had a few close scrapes, but at first there was a lot of screaming and backseat driving as we all adapted to the strangeness of being in a car where everything was backwards. Not even Alice’s adventures in Wonderland were quite as ridiculously scary as our first hours in the tiny car.

By the time we reached Brighton we were famished, a bit shaky, and our limbs ached from the cramped conditions. We were more than ready to find a pub where we might enjoy a good Sunday roast and Google led us to the perfect spot. It was located on a neighborhood street and was packed with revelers giving us a sign that the food would be quite good. Happily we were not in the least disappointed.

We sat at an outdoor table where other diners came with their pets, sweet dogs that entertained us as we waited for our dinner. The meal was perhaps the best of our entire trip and husband Mike was particularly excited by the quality and taste of the Yorkshire pudding which reminded him of his own grandmother’s cooking. We splurged by ordering a sticky toffee dessert that was scrumptious and left full, satisfied and relaxed.

The beach at Brighton looked out on the English Channel. It’s rocky surface was not what we had expected and the piers and hotels were not as elegant as they appeared in movies set in the early twentieth century when women wore long white dresses and carried parasols to shade them from the sun. The famous gazebo and pier that is often associated with Brighton was a burnt out shell ravaged by fire and never rebuilt. The skeleton of its ruins sat forlornly in the water. Still it was a lovely place that looked out onto a route to the continent and to a storied history.

We walked on the rocky surface among hordes of sea birds and I even found one pebble shaped like a heart that I stuffed into my pocket as a remembrance of that day. It was nearing nightfall and we still had the drive back to London so we said our adieus and folded ourselves back inside the confines of “The Rack.”

For the most part our return journey was smooth, if uncomfortable, and Pat was quickly becoming a seasoned driver. He took our kibitzing in stride and we joked and laughed about the drawbacks of the car with a bit of lewd language. With grateful hearts we were soon safely parked in front of our hotel and congratulating Pat for getting us back “home” all in one piece. He and “the Rack” had served us well.

Into the Weeds

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
photo of person s hands
Photo by João Jesus on Pexels.com

I love to watch all of the programs on HGTV. There are so many good ideas that always appear to be so easy, at least until I try them. Then I find myself taking two to three times longer to accomplish any of the tasks than indicated by the always lovely looking stars of such programs. Not only do I generally end up with a huge mess to deal with but I myself look like a homeless person or a time traveler from the Tudor era when nobody took baths or washed their hair. I have no idea how to stay put together when attempting home repairs, decorating or gardening. In fact, I try to do such things during the week when my neighbors are not around so they won’t see what becomes of me when I begin to sweat and get grimy. I’d hate for them to be thinking, “Well there goes the neighborhood!”

I have lately been working on my yard. Aside from the fact that it almost always rains when I choose a day for such work, I find that I invariably end up looking like I have been participating in a mud wrestling competition. I also have a tendency to get scratched by thorns and bitten by any stray insect that might be around. I do wear gloves and heavy rubber boots, but somehow the injuries to my skin and my appearance have a way of happening in spite of my best efforts, and I always run into some unforeseen problem.

I have a nineteen foot long flowerbed on the side of my house that is filled with double knockout roses that are simply gorgeous at this time of year. I prune and feed them and watch for problems. Generally they are quite lovely, literal car stoppers. I’ve had folks drive by and thank me for brightening the neighborhood with them. So why is it that in the long hedge there is that one bush that doesn’t make it? All of the others did just fine, so why that one that leaves a hole?

It reminds me of the time that I planted a trio of pines in my front yard. They were growing just the way I had hoped, and the look was exactly what I wanted to achieve. Then one day one of them was damaged by beyond repair by a freak accident. Somehow the balance was never quite right again, but I suppose that it could have been worse like the time a tiny tornado moved over the yard taking out everything in sight. I was glad that nobody was hurt and nothing major was damaged, but had to wonder if my yard was some kind of magnet for trouble.

I’ve put down tile floors and painted just about everything known to man. I’m not afraid to do things on my own, but I have learned that if the directions say it will take an afternoon, I must expect that afternoon to turn into several days. I don’t know if I’m just slow or if it’s a rule of thumb for Murphy’s Law to be part of every home improvement project. If there is something that might go wrong, it will go wrong for me. I’ve had to cultivate lots of patience which I suppose is a good thing after all.

My neighbor across the street works as hard as I do to make his home lovely, and it really is, but both of us noticed that the lawn at the house where nobody does anything is the greenest on the street. We were wondering if the key is to neglect and let nature take it’s course. Instead I’m becoming a devotee of Randy Lemmon, a local radio talk show host who has a supposedly sure fire schedule for achieving the perfect lawn. I’ve applied the fertilizers and pre-emergent herbicides as well as the weed attacker exactly as he outlines. I’m waiting to see if the dollar grass goes away and the St. Augustine flourishes. We’ll see. With my track record it will work and then some fool will lose control of his car as he enters the cul-de-sac and make tire tracks on the lovely green carpet.

I suppose that I should just be satisfied that I am not one of those poor souls who has lost a home due to flood or fire or tornado. I saw so much of that during hurricane Harvey. My heart was saddened by the damage that was all around me. Earlier this spring I saw a before and after photo of a home that was totally destroyed by a tornado. I can’t even imagine how horrific such a thing would be. My little annoyances are nothing by comparison, so I should just count my blessings.

Still I am intrigued by the beautiful women who demolish walls, install wiring and plumbing, paint exteriors and still look as though they are ready to model the latest home repair fashions. Seriously, do they not think that we are on to them? Of course they don’t really do any of the work. They just pose for the cameras after some poor soul gets their hands in the muck. They can preach all they want, but I know how it really works, and it is never easy.

I tip my hat to the folks who work in yards or on construction sites every single day. They must have callouses and scratches and dirt under their fingernails. They are hardy souls who wade into the weeds and rarely get the credit for the beauty of the world. I try to remember that they are the ones who dug the holes and carried the bricks. They are my heroes.

Fashion

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
adult beautiful elegant eyewear
Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com

A good twenty years ago one of the principals with whom I worked was complaining about a shopping excursion with his middle school aged daughter. He described how she had begged to purchase a pair of jeans with an acid wash that made them appear to be well worn. The jeans were expensive due only to the brand, so he was appalled by the idea of paying so much for something that looked like it had come from a rag bag. He asked the girl why they didn’t just go to a thrift store and find a pair of used jeans that cost maybe one sixth of the price. He wondered if I had ever experienced what he saw as the ridiculousness of fashion or if he was simply out of touch.

I laugh even to this day as I recall his concern, and wonder what he may be thinking if he has walked through the women’s and teen’s clothing sections lately. Trends have gone from washed out colors to purposefully placed holes in jeans. Sometimes the legs are even lopped off  to create shorts with stringy edges. Even I have gone from being an ardent supporter of the vagaries of fashion to wondering if procuring some very old jeans at a thrifty cost might make just as much sense as paying premium prices in the name of fashion. It would not take much skill to create the same looks that are on display in expensive boutiques with far less expense.

Fashion has evolved in so many directions over time. My husband was only recently longing for the days when women showed up at church on Easter Sunday with lovely pastel dresses accessorized with hats and gloves. He spoke of how elegantly his grandmother dressed even for Saturday shopping excursions. Now at church on Easter Sunday we will saw everything from jeans with sloppy t-shirts to shorts that seem more appropriate for a day at the beach. There are only a handful of ladies who still adhere to the idea of dressing up for services complete with wearing beautiful hats that compliment their lovely suits and dresses.

We have become a more casual society and I don’t mind that at all. I personally don’t like to wear hats. Most of them don’t fit right on my head and leave me with a headache after a few minutes. I am actually quite happy that I no longer have to worry about finding one that suits my features. I also hate the upkeep of those white gloves that we used to wear. I say good riddance to such things, but I miss others like the requirement of wearing hosiery for more formal occasions. There are very few women over the age of forty whose legs look good without stockings. The queen is correct to insist that all royals wear hose. They really do look nicer than pasty old legs and they aren’t all that uncomfortable.

I once looked into the possibility of wearing the same brand and color of hosiery that Princess Kate wears because she always looks so natural. I found out that I can even order a pair on Amazon. I was quite excited about the prospect of hiding the always and veins of my legs in a way that appeared to be almost invisible until I noticed that one pair costs forty five dollars. I knew that with my luck I would find a way to put a run in them on the first outing, so I decided not to even experiment with a pair. The problem is that finding an alternate source that does not look funny in today’s stockingless world is not that easy, so I just go with the flow of the current trend even though I would prefer to somehow camouflage my legs.

I’ve seen crazy things come and go. I was once part of the mini-skirt revolution back when hiking skirts was shocking to my elders. I loved the look and showed off my slender gams quite willingly. My girls wanted parachute pants and Vans which I never purchase for them because I thought that the price of those things was ridiculous. I still feel a bit guilty for not indulging them with looks that were popular at the time. My grandmother wore dresses that trailed down to her ankles and my mother got by with very short skirts by claiming that they were little playsuits. Women of every era try different ways of wearing clothing, some of which are actually stunning and timeless and others that quickly become dated.

I have settled into more classic looks in accordance with my age, but I actually appreciate the trendier styles for the younger set. It’s fun to try different styles and to determine what works best. I suppose that my mother was right whenever she told me to create my own looks by choosing the colors and the cuts that enhanced my figure rather than going with the flow. Each person indeed has skin tones and body issues that can be made to look lovely with a bit of care in choosing. The women who master such techniques are always beautiful and not obsessively worried about how they appear to the world.

Fashion is a superficial kind of thing, and yet I truly enjoy attempting to create a look for myself. I’ve lost two inches in height so I have had to change the way I pick clothing. My mid section is no longer long and slender so the sleek tower look doesn’t work for me like it once did. I do my best to hide my flaws and accentuate the things that are best about me. Mostly I now just want to blend in nicely. I sometimes have to remind myself that seventy year old women don’t have to look dowdy, but they should not look ridiculous either. There’s a fine line between staying modern and seeming to be a bit daft.

My granddaughter was recently invited to attend a military ball at her school. She wisely chose a very understated and classic dress, one that would work throughout the ages. I suppose that in the end the styles of women like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly are defined by their timelessness. A photo of Coco Chanel looks as lovely today as it did decades ago. Perhaps the key to fashion is to have some fun now and again but always remember that in general less is more.

A Mother’s Story

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
abstract break broken broken glass
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Moms today seem to put so much more into their parenting than I ever did. They research child rearing ideas, learn about proper nutrition, create healthy schedules, and worry when their little ones behave badly. I have great admiration for them because I was truly a fly by the seat of my pants kind of mom. There is so much that I might have done better but I was far too ignorant to even know that I was doing some things wrong. My daughters seem to have turned out just fine, but I often wonder if I might have done a better job of parenting if only I had taken a bit more time to learn more about the best child rearing methods. I suppose that I will never know what might have been if I had not been so immature, and so I content myself with knowing that it doesn’t matter anymore because they are on their own and raising their children quite well.

I laugh whenever a young mom is feeling a bit guilty about some meltdown or troubling incident with a child because I have stories to tell that would curl their hair and cause them to look askance at my own mothering. I always think about a time that I took my eldest child to the old Gulfgate Mall with a friend who had a son who was only slightly older than my girl. Each of us would eventually have two children, but at the time only our first born were around and they were still  toddlers who went on shopping trips in their strollers.

We were not looking for anything in particular on that day. We just wanted to get out of the house for a time with our kids. Little did we know that we were about to give a whole new meaning to the term window shopping. We went into one of the clothing stores and parked our strollers just long enough to glance through a bin of sale items. We honestly had not turned our backs on the two children for long at all, but when we turned around the strollers were empty. We began searching for them in a state of panic when we heard a commotion and lots of giggling in the showroom window. We peeked around the corner and there they were having a good time pretending to be on display for all the world to see. We quickly whisked them up, placed them back into the strollers and hurried out of the store lest we be called to task for our lack of control over our babies.I nervously imagined someone calling CPS on us, or even worse, telling my mom who would never have allowed such a thing to occur.

Once we were safely away we breathed easier that our close call had not resulted in some kind of tragedy, and we attempted to explain to the little ones as best we could how important it was for them to stay put in their strollers. Then we continued walking up and down the mall, proud of the more regimented behavior that our children were exhibiting, and once again enjoying our little walk. We became so certain that the worst was behind us that we made it all the way to the end of the stores where Sakowitz lured us with signs advertising great sales in progress. We moved from aisle to aisle being very careful to watch over our charges and then entered an area filled with fine glassware reminding our babies not to touch anything.

All was going well until we found some items to purchase and were standing in line to pay. That’s when we heard a loud crash and looked to see a display case on its side with broken glass littering the floor. I have to admit that I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that my little girl was still sitting serenely and innocently in her stroller while my friend’s son toddled away in fear of the consequences for what he had so obviously done.

The two of us corralled him quickly and his mother fussed at him with tears of abject embarrassment in her eyes. When a manager came over to assess the situation her tears turned into heaving sobs as she explained that she would gladly pay for all of the damage, all the while worrying that the cost of the mess might be more than she actually had. The kindly man insisted that he was more concerned with making certain that everyone was okay. He chided himself for putting such a fragile display in the middle of a busy walkway, and assured us that store insurance would take care of the damage. 

His kindness and understanding was such a sweet thing to encounter, and he put the whole incident into perspective. We paid for the things we had selected and almost ran to our car from there. We felt humiliated, frenzied, and guilty about the seeming lack of control that we had over our children. The school of hard knocks on that day taught us a great deal about shopping with youngsters. We never again had such a difficult time, but a sense that we had been grossly neglectful refused to leave us. It would be years later before we were able to put our mishap into the past, and even smile a bit when we thought of it.

My advice to mothers who are struggling with headstrong, inquisitive or hard to control children is to learn how to take those bumps along with all of the wonder of having children. There will indeed be moments when they seem to be heading down a direct route to the penitentiary. That’s when we have to stay calm and carry on. As long as these kinds of moments are the exception rather than the rule, we are probably, and should consider the occasion as a way to learn and in turn teach our children. Mothers have to be prepared for many disappointing moments and find ways to judge how severe a reaction is  needed. Sometimes all everybody requires is a good nap.

Parenting is a marathon and the sense of responsibility does not end even as our children come of age and begin their adult lives. Every parent lies awake at times thinking of their offspring and worrying about them. It is part of the whole package and as normal as can be. That children’s story about the woman loving her son forever is truer than we care to admit. A child becomes the focus of our life and as a mom that intense connection never really ends. It’s good if we learn how to laugh at the little stuff so we will have what we need when the really big stuff comes around.

Comedy of Tragedy

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
man person red white
Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

I’m a creature of habit. I still tune in to Saturday Night Live whenever I happen to be home on a Saturday night. I have to admit that the writers seem to have run out of original ideas. In the golden days there were so many great comedians and hilarious skits that I would laugh my head off. Now I’m lucky to find one segment that makes me chuckle. Still I watch in the hopes that new talent will bring more genius  and hilarity to the program, but on most nights I leave disappointed, wanting more than the show appears capable of providing.

I’ve always enjoyed political satire. I laughed at the antics of comedians who impersonated the Kennedy family. I had no trouble finding the humor in jokes like The Vatican Rag with it’s chorus of “genuflect, genuflect.” I’m a great fan of satire, and don’t generally feel indignant when my own sacred cows become the butt of jokes. I truly believe that laughing at ourselves and our idiosyncrasies is a healthy exercise. Still, it seems as though Saturday Night Live has taken a one note approach to laughter. I weary of the continuous digs about President Trump, republicans, and religion. Surely there are other topics that are more interesting and worthy of exploring. What happened to great schticks like candy gram, Bill and Ted, Samurai chef? Why are the present day offerings so predictable and actually a bit unfunny?

On a recent episode of Saturday Night Live one of the comedians indicated that listening to the music of Michael Jackson given his supposed predilection to pedophilia is akin to continuing to go to a Catholic church after learning of the grievous offenses of some of the priests. The goof ball who made the comment is the same fool who poked fun at a Texas congressional candidate who wore an eye patch without learning that the man was a war hero who lost an eye while fighting in the Middle East. The so called jokes come across as more akin to insults than clever ways of poking fun at institutions. The constant beating of such drums feels like propaganda rather than entertainment.

I serve as a Eucharistic Minister at my Catholic church which is a humbling task because it has shown me exactly why my fellow parishioners continue to hold fast to their faith in spite of grave anger about the handling of wayward priests. As I present the chalice to each person the notion behind the word “communion” comes clearly into focus. What I see is a community of good but imperfect souls who come together in a spirit of faith and love to be better versions of themselves. The fact that some among us have sinned is not the point of our devotion, rather we are searching for a source of serenity in our lives that we find in the gospels and promises of Jesus. We know from them that we will always be loved. Why indeed would we want to abandon something that powerful?

I’ve learned that there are bad people everywhere. I’ve seen teachers harm students, bankers steal, doctors take advantage of patients, coaches cheat, engineers build unsafe structures. The fact that any profession or organization is found to have evil in its midst is not an indictment of an entire group. It is simply an indication of our human weaknesses.

When I worked in a school where a man was accused of sexually abusing his daughter the rest of us were shocked, saddened, and even angry. We had no thoughts of indicting the entire faculty based on one man’s transgressions. Our students did not leave the school in droves for fear of being in a nest of evil. So it is with the Catholic church. As the faithful we are filled with so many emotions. We grieve and seethe with anger while also understanding that our own faith and the ideals of our church are bigger than the harm that has been done.

We are a family, and just as with any family we are shocked and hurt when one of our own proves to be a traitor to our group. A breach of trust is difficult to handle, but we do not break apart the entire structure because of the sins of the few. So it is with those of us who remain members of the Catholic church. My own parish is a loving and inviting place that brings me comfort, and so I eagerly go to mass each Sunday. I do not ignore or forget the sins of some of the men who were supposed to be our shepherds. They have smeared our reputation as Catholics in a horrendous way, and we want assurances that things will change. I also understand that we will never reach a state of perfection as long as humans are part of our group.

If the comedian who posed such a silly question were to come to my church with a sincere desire to become a member of our community I am certain that he would be welcomed with the spirit of love that Jesus taught us to convey to all of our fellow humans. Knowing that we are one in the spirit of our religion is what keeps us coming each week, not some blind allegiance to strange beliefs. In reality our continued support of the Catholic church is more of a pledge to the teachings of Jesus than a testimony of ignorance. It is indeed a beautiful thing.