January 28, 2019 – “When are you going to rehang the curtains?”

        Yes, we have been living in a literal fish bowl the last few days.  The double window in the formal dining room is naked – yes, and all the neighbors can look in as they drive by.

         And, honestly, many are slowing down and peering in to see what we are up to.  One neighbor caught me on the 3-step ladder painting the woodwork and even paused to give me a big smile and wave.

         Maybe the entire neighborhood will get the “improvement” bug and the property values will go up.  Then the taxes will go up – I’m not sure I like the latter part of that theory. 

         Wall number two is now painted and I can safely put back up the curtains.

         Wall number three is coming up a little later today – this will require the scaffolding.  I’ve never worked on scaffolding so I am looking forward to the experience.

         In the next few days I might be off line – I will have to shut the computer down and remove it to safety in the next few days – but I am not gone – only “gone dark” temporarily.

         But, living in a “fish bowl” brings back a poignant memory from the time we lived in Seaford, Delaware, during one of many corporate moves.   

         I helped packed my husband’s travel bag for a business trip to Florida where he was going to work on a special project at a satellite plant.  I was working at a law office and he called me midday with last minute reminders and kisses. He was flying out that afternoon and would touch bases with me in the morning when he had a telephone number where he could be reached in case of emergency.  [This was way before cell phones even came into existence.]

         On the way home from work I decided to do a bit of grocery shopping and deciding to make my life easier, I picked up a few frozen dinners.  Back in the old days they were called TV dinners and sometimes I even revert to that quaint name now.   Back then, I did not have a microwave so what I picked up were the little tin trays with the frozen food in same and then capped with a tinfoil top which were baked in a conventional oven.

         I casually picked up one of this, one of that, oh, that looks interesting, and put a weeks’ worth in my cart.

         The next morning as I was making my coffee prior to going off to work, my husband telephoned.

         “We live in a fish bowl,” were the his first words.

         “What?”

         “I hadn’t even got to having dinner with the boss down here and I got the report that ‘your poor wife has been reduced to frozen dinners’.

         “Are you serious?”

         “Yes – you did buy frozen dinners when you were shopping yesterday after work?”

         “I thought it would be easier than cooking for just one.”

         “Well someone saw you and it hit the wild-fire gossip mill.  I was embarrassed to say the least.”

         “I didn’t see anyone I knew in the grocery store.”

         “Well you wouldn’t, you haven’t met all the troops.”  [Troops is what he called his employees.]

         “How would they even know me?”

         “I’ve brought you to the plant a few times for you to see the new tools, everyone knows everyone in that burg.”

         “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

         “Just know that you are being watched and they will probably be reporting everything you do.  Use discretion.”

         He didn’t say I miss you or I love you or any endearment because he felt ‘company ears’ were listening to his telephone call.

         Use discretion.  What was that supposed to mean? 

         I didn’t know anyone except plant management and their wives and the people I worked with in a small three-person law office.

         I mentioned the situation to my attorney-boss. He had the biggest belly laugh but confirmed the strength and breadth of the gossip mill in the area pointing out there were only three big places of employment in town, and my husband worked at one of them.  There were few outsiders and most everyone was born and raised in the area. 

         That was the day my attorney-boss mentioned that I shouldn’t even shop at “that” particular grocery store as it was for the blacks.  I didn’t comprehend what he was really saying as the prices were good and the store was close to the office.

         “Why?”

         “Let me phrase this differently, don’t shop after dark at ‘that’ store. But, if you still want to grocery shop at ‘that’ store please do it at lunch time and take your groceries home and don’t worry if you return to work late.”

         I ate every one of those dreadful TV dinners for several evenings waiting for my husband’s return.

         The first night back he took me out to dinner at a nice restaurant hoping the gossip mill could report to the boss that I was being treated like a corporate wife should be treated.

         We know the real meaning of living in a fish bowl.

February 6, 2018 – Kissing Dutch Couple Statues

         The spring garden catalogs in the daily mail haven’t let up a single bit these last several days during my crash landing in bed with the flu/cold.  In between locating something hot to drink to stay hydrated and grabbing another box of tissues, I sort the incoming mail into piles of bills and catalogs.  I am just now getting to the garden catalogs.

         Kissing Dutch Couple statutes are back and being touted as iconic cuteness - how marvelous! Part of me wants to crawl into the photo closet and dig out a picture of the cement Dutch kissies [what I called them] when we lived in Delaware.  Part of me says mental memories are easier on the knees than digging in old dusty photo albums packed away.  The latter thought won the argument.

         At the time, we were living in Seaford, Delaware, which is widely known for the E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co., chemical plant started back in 1939.  I must admit, I don’t know if DuPont Company still exists under that name or another, but it was a perfect example of a “company town” or “mill town” that employed more DuPont workers than any other employer.  My husband was employed elsewhere in the area, but when the DuPont employees received increases in wages, all commodities in town went up – milk, bread, gas, etc.  A bitter pill to swallow if you were not a DuPont employee as your wages didn’t keep up with the cost of living.

         The area was steeped in history and it was a step back in time for us when we moved there.  More importantly, a step back in time for me, as a woman, personally. I had to supply a copy of our marriage certificate to the insurance company in order to get insurance on our home and autos because I was one of those ‘modern women’ who decided to keep her maiden name when she married. I had to prove we were married and not just living together.  I also could not get the electricity, natural gas, and the telephone turned on or the accounts even opened as I was a mere woman and only the “husbands” were allowed to do that, which struck me odd.  Every previous corporate move, as his corporate wife, I’d turned utilities on and off without my husband in attendance.  I was forced to make that embarrassing phone call to my husband at his place of work to tell him I had failed at such a simplistic corporate wife duty as turning on the electric. He had to leave work and come to the electric company office as well as trot around with me to the natural gas office and even the telephone office.  

Another archaic throwback was even more shocking to me.  I tried to open a new savings account at a bank with a cashier’s check [proceeds from our closed savings account from another state] and I was not allowed to open the account because I hadn’t yet obtained a job in the area.  I was cited some sort of strange rule that you must be employed in the state before you can deposit money in a bank.  Yet, my husband had a job here? I immediately wondered, so they don’t want anyone to “retire here?” 

I’d suddenly been reduced to a second class citizen due to my gender by just crossing the state line? You can bet we didn’t bank with that particular lender, but again, my husband had to accompany me to the bank in order to open up a simple joint checking and joint savings account.  There was no such thing as me setting it up and my husband dropping by to sign a signature card like we had done many times in the past in other states.

The above, unnecessary hurdles in moving to a new area for my husband’s new corporate job, tarnished our opinions of quaint, old-world,  Seaford, Delaware, and the area for several months.

         Sorry - I digressed a bit – but when I am reminded of Seaford, Delaware, whether it is a crab cake recipe, the sailboats we owned, friends, or the rich local history, I first remember the rough start of our settling in and not the fabulous memories of the time spent there during our colorful corporate life.

Back to the Kissing Dutch Couple Statutes:  We had settled in and as usual, we invited my parents down for a little visit/vacation.  We turned my Mom and Dad into world travelers visiting us at all the places we landed during our many corporate moves.

Showing my parents around the Delmarva area, I pointed out Dutch Kissing statues in people’s gardens or near their front doors or mailboxes.  I thought they were darling, [a phrase I picked up living in Delaware] and of course, my Mom agreed.  I had yet to find where you could buy them.  During their visit, we discovered the area was predominantly settled by the Dutch in Lewes, Delaware, [the first town in the state] in 1787, so we assumed the reason behind so many little Dutch boy and Dutch girl lawn ornaments.

Surprisingly, my husband and Dad found a source, and we drove out to a cement lawn ornament place.  Each flat-sided cement Dutch girl or Dutch boy was molded around a 36-inch rebar. Daddy opened his wallet and gladly paid for a set as our ‘house warming gift.’  It made me deliriously happy.

Both Dad and my husband complained they were heavy and awkward to pick up and carry, but the pair of “kissies” as we all called them, were stowed in the trunk safely for their ride home. I remember they were a challenge to paint, which I did to my satisfaction. Then, getting them set into the garden for everyone to admire was another challenge due to 15-inches of rebar protruding from the bottoms. You had to dig a hole for each as well as find a way to keep them upright in the extremely sandy soil of the Delmarva shore area.

         When friends visited us, they commented on them and I’d always say, “Daddy bought us the kissies.”  They were a delightful bit of whimsy.

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         Nowadays, they make them light weight out of resin, 3-D not flat, and already painted – simply darling - I think as I fold down the page to mark for future reference.

         Yes, maybe I do need to add a bit of new whimsy in my garden this year.

December 7, 2016 – Our Christmas Tradition – White Florist Cyclamen 

          Our first Christmas together my husband surprised me with a big beautiful “hot house” potted plant.  I had never seen anything so lovely.  It had a mound of marbled heart shaped leaves and above were stems adorned with white recurved blooms that looked like a flock of white doves startled into flight. The tag indicated Florist Cyclamen.

          And, as a bonus, perched on a stick stuck in the flowering plant was a decorative feathered bird with a long tail.  I kept that Cyclamen alive until our first corporate move to Kansas City.  I lovingly wrapped that feather bird in tissue paper and put it among the Christmas ornaments.  It has adorned every Christmas tree we have ever had.

          Since I was so thrilled with the white cyclamen that first Christmas, it became my husband’s tradition to find one every December.  About five years into our marriage we lived in Seaford, Delaware at the time and he went on a wild goose chase looking for a white cyclamen.  He searched and searched and at the last florist shop they told him he could order one, but it wouldn’t get there for Christmas.  He knew I would be disappointed for Christmas, but he ordered one for our wedding anniversary which is in the middle of February.

He came up empty handed that Christmas and profusely apologized to me.  I was disappointed, but I understood as we were removed from “real shopping”. We lived in rural America where the “watermen” lived.  They were the oyster catchers in winter months and crab men in summer months and the only other thing in the area of interest was a pickle factory.

But, come February on our wedding anniversary, my husband came into the house with the finest specimen of a white cyclamen we have ever had these 38+ years.  It was beyond words.  It was stunning.  It also was a shock to my husband’s wallet as the price tag made him gasp.  The florist indicated it was “imported from Washington, D.C.”   He opened his wallet and paid the shocking price.

Since the Delaware cyclamen it has become a “tag-team sport” of locating a white cyclamen for Christmas. One of us finally finds one.  The first one to find one buys it and brings it home. It always kicks off our Christmas season.

Today I happened to be at the local Ingles and as I was cruising by the floral display I noticed a big white cyclamen whose leaves still had raindrops on them.  In the rain, I had parked beside the floral delivery truck, so I knew it was “fresh stock” just delivered. I picked it up and peered through the heart shaped leaves and OHHH lots of buds coming on and the soil was properly moist.  Without hesitation I plopped it on top of the groceries.

When I came into the house from shopping, I brought the white cyclamen in first.  I immediately retrieved the blue delft bowl I traditionally put the Christmas cyclamen in and placed it on the kitchen table announcing,

“The Christmas Season has begun!”

My husband answered, “That’s a nice one. I’ve been looking.”

“See, it’s got lots of buds coming on.” I showed him.

He started to reminisce saying, “Remember the first one?”

How could I ever forget?