Does a chicken have lips?

A question I had to answer frequently. I might ask Wayne this or that, and, of course, I never knew which question of mine, or which kind of question, might prompt his returning query, “Does a chicken have lips?” It was an impossible thing, because if I said, “No,” he would probably say, “Well, then.” And if I said, “Yes, I saw a chicken with lips just the other day”--if I ever thought that quickly--he would probably say, “Well, then.” And if I slugged him, he would probably hug me.

Such an exchange may seem unsettling, but if I was ever unsettled or irritated by it, I have long ago forgotten that part, and, of course, I cannot recall any of the questions I asked him. What I remember is that this was my husband's way. Kind of corny, kind of fun. It lightened the moment and always let me know he was still the guy I knew.

Tamale Pie, Me vs. Martha Stewart

I like tamale pie. My husband loved it. When I made it, say, a few times a year, we had seven kids running around the house. I don’t think any of them were crazy about tamale pie; a couple probably refused to eat it. With seven you’re bound to have a few picky eaters. So, when I made it, it was clearly for their dad.

I do not claim any originality in the stuff, no recipe that I created. Mine was a combination of recipes I tried, the right mix of ingredients that came together over the years. Ground beef, not a lot, onion, corn, cheese, black olives, a can of whole tomatoes which I would mash, and the corn meal topper, some of which I often just stirred into the meat mixture.

Whenever I fixed tamale pie, Wayne would say he could eat it once a week, that and Spanish rice. I guess I should have fixed it once a week.

Anyway, he liked my tamale pie. But he never raved over my recipe, my rendition of it, as he did over Martha Stewart’s when I made hers. Come on, it’s not really her own made-up recipe. She has people who do that. And I didn’t like it much because it had green olives instead of black and white cheese instead of yellow. To me, the stuff had no Mexicanness about it but took on some other flavor. And it did not taste very homemade, Martha. Tamale pie gone fancy. And what could be the reason for that?

Besides, why would he like hers better than mine? That was just dumb of him. I know, it's only tamale pie we're talking about here, not world peace. But the moment did establish policy in our home: No way was I going to make Martha's tamale pie every week. And I didn't.

Not Forever

The sky was dark and clear

this morning as I walked,

stars bright and white,

like on a winter night

when the moon and stars

seem fixed

in a blue/black sea of air,

never to move or fade,

always to blink out their light,

always to be up there as surety and comfort

for sailing ships and airplanes,

for walkers in the early morning dark,

but, of course, we know they won’t.

They’ll dim, fade,

disappear, like first love,

like my mother

when she died.

The Starting Place

Some people think that being sad at the death of your loved one is a denial of your faith. It isn't. And it isn't a sin. It's natural, understandable. I think sadness cannot be the end of all we feel, but I see it as a necessary starting place. And I see value in writing of it. Like this.

1/27/04
It’s a year now. Widowhood does not suit me. What am I supposed to do, to be like? I always knew that as I aged, people would lose sight of me. And I always knew that if I appeared ordinary—can’t find the right word—when they saw me with Wayne, I would be, somehow, more acceptable, better looking, legitimized. If I resented it, I banked on it too. Now, I am really aging, and he is gone. I cannot put my arm through his or walk along side of him or look across any room and see what he’s up to. He’s gone and I am the widow. I do not believe widows count in our society.

Beyond that, I miss him. No, it was not a perfect marriage, if such a thing exists. But that is not the point. What is the point? I’m not sure, but I say this: we were part of each other. Now he is not here, waking or sleeping, though something of him is in every room of the house. I don’t mean only the physical bits and pieces that indicate he lived here; I mean the sense of him, the feel of him. It’s in the air here. It moves through the walls and if I ever have the sense that it touches me I am one happy woman—for a few moments.

Lonely. No one here to grumble at or smile with. No one to rub my feet or ask me if that is something new I’m wearing and tell me how nice it looks, how nice I look. No one to prepare food for, do laundry for, consult with on this or that, look to for answers and safety and that kind of comfort I knew when he was here.

It Is Green

Some kind of grass. That’s all I know, unplanted, unwanted, uncultivated but outgrowing the rest of my lawn—and spreading. My mower guy drives away and this stuff starts in. By evening it’s sticking up an inch above the other grass. By the next week it’s twelve inches tall, waving in the breeze. And I am not kidding.

So far it has been identified as quack grass, tall fescue, common something or other, and nut sedge—and all by the lawn experts, one telling me that the other probably doesn’t really know.

There’s my lawn mower guy, the owner of the company, in fact. He said, “It’s not tall fescue, it’s quack grass. Go up to Zamzow’s and get a quack grass treatment.” Okay, I thought, a little exasperated, I can do that. Later, after he finished mowing, he said, “Carol, call your Emerald Lawn people. They should be treating for that already or at least should have something on the truck to take care of it. Just tell them it’s quack grass.” Good idea, I thought.

But, over the phone, the Emerald Lawn girl said, “Well, you chose not to have the mid-spring treatment. That probably would have taken care of it.” Oh great. Whatever the heck it is, it’s my fault.

I said, “Well, you may remember, I did that because we had a dog at the time and no grass in the back yard to treat. Besides, my lawn mower guy says it’s not tall fescue but quack grass.”

“Well,” she said (the snippy little thing), “I’m sure Dave knows more about it than your lawn mower guy.”

Dave is the one who last year called it tall fescue.

“But my lawn mower guy is the owner of the company,” I said. “He’s seen a lot of grass.”

“No,” she said. “Dave would know.”

“Okay. Ask Dave to call me, please,” I said.

Two weeks passed, and Dave never called. Meanwhile, the stuff is out there . . . growing. Finally, a few days ago, the Emerald Lawn guy, name of Keith, sprayed something down (I wish I had been home) and left a note. “Carol,” the note read, “I didn’t find any crab grass, but I found and treated the nut sedge. Don’t water for four hours.”

Crab grass. Who said anything about crab grass? I know it isn’t crab grass.

So, did the Emerald Lawn girl—who knew everything—write crab grass instead of quack grass? Or didn’t she write anything? Does Keith know what he’s talking about? Whatever. Either they got it wrong or they got it right, and I still don’t know what the heck it is, but I know it grows. And it’s still out there. So I must conclude that Keith’s treatment of it—nut sedge or whatever it is—was very kind treatment, indeed, because the stuff is flourishing. Silly me. I thought "treatment" meant the stuff would be dead. Dead, however, is not the word for it, no, not the right word at all. Thrive. That word comes to mind. Threatening. That word also comes to mind as I find new patches of it throughout the lawn.

And I haven’t even mentioned the gardening lady who writes for the local paper. I emailed her about it. She wrote back, “Who told you it was tall fescue?” (Should I feel defensive?) She said it was probably not tall fescue; it was most likely common . . . I really don’t remember. She said to put some Roundup in a small bottle with a sponge top and swab each blade of the whatever by hand. Is she kidding? She needs to come out here. Then we can talk about swabbing.

If my husband were here, it would all be different. He would be my lawn mower guy, as he always was. Which is not to say he would know what the stuff is, but he might. Maybe he would put down a little weed and feed, and that might do the trick. But even if he didn’t know, my concern about this whole matter would be filtered. I would do my worrying, my fussing, my complaining to him. Maybe I would mention it too often. Maybe I would become slightly unreasonable, expecting him to just take care of it so that one day I’d walk out to the front lawn and the stuff would be gone.

But he’s not here, and the trouble with that extends well beyond whatever is uglying up my lawn. All things, it seems to me, were less difficult than they are now. Whatever it was, whatever we had to deal with, if he couldn’t fix it, at least he was here at the end of the day. And that fixed a lot of things.