Childhood A Go-Go

My ruminations on department stores and alcohol conjured a somewhat related childhood memory. At some point the Falk's Food Basket chain, of the cocktail lounge that would grill your steak fame, closed. I seem to recall this was caused by a tax problem of the sort where failing to pay your taxes leads to a problem. At any rate, the stores were sold off, but Falk's somehow retained the restaurants, which were naturally named Falk's Cocktail Lounge.

I recall driving by one or the other of the two remaining locations as a child and my mother sighing loudly and exhaling, "Go-go girls." I had no idea what go-go girls were, but they sure sounded like fun, maybe even like something I'd like to be one day. My mother's approbation only made these girls seem all the more glamorous. Even at that early age, I innately understood that anything that made my mother sigh was something really, really cool.

At around the same time much sighing would ensure whenever we visited her good friend Judy Kaplan. I loved Judy Kaplan. She always had candy, let me watch whatever I wanted on TV, and cooked crazy exotic food, the likes of which were never seen in our house, such as squash. Over the din of Laugh-In and sighs I could often make out the words "Marjorie" and "go-go girl." As I eventually came to understand, Judy's daughter Marjorie had dropped out of college and was shimmying her way to financial independence at some local watering hole (probably not Falk's, but who really knows). Marjorie Kaplan was undoubtedly the only Jewish go-go girl in the history of go-go girls, but there you have it. I only recall meeting Marjorie once, when she stopped by to visit her mother at the same time that we were visiting, and I indeed recall her wearing tall, white, patent leather boots. Go-go boots!

I had no idea what it all meant, but I was into those boots. I asked once if I could get a pair of boots like Marjorie's, and was disappointed when my request was met with only another a sigh and a definitive "NO." My parents often simply took me out to dinner with them rather than paying a babysitter (and as a consequence, although this is another story altogether, I have attempted to order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at every upscale restaurant between PA and NYC). Although I spent some months hoping that one day we would patronize Falk's Cocktail Lounge that day never came to pass.

Go-go dancing originated at the Peppermint Lounge in the early 60s, when enthusiastic patrons did the twist on top of the tables. The term is derived from the French expression a go go, meaning in abundance, galore. Although scantily clad, go-go dancers are not necessarily strippers, no matter what my mother thought. By the time I was old enough to go to a bar, Falk's Cocktail Lounge was long gone. I have no idea what happened to Marjorie Kaplan and her white boots. All that remains is this abundance of memories of the sighs galore caused by the simple act of dancing on tabletops.

Haiku

Kleenex in pocket,
I turn into my mother.
Emery boards are next.

A Very Good Thing

I have no doubt that everyone's in need of a laugh right now, so I'm happy to report that I have discovered what is probably the most hilarious show on TV. Maybe you've read about it: Whatever, Martha, on the Fine Living Network. Actually, the Fine Living Network is itself pretty hysterical. It is, essentially, a bunch of repeats from Bravo and HGTV, one constant loop of Queer Eye and Emeril and other shows from the recent boom discussing cooking, gardening, and other points of accessible luxury none of us can any longer afford or even care about. Really, gracious entertaining feels very 2006. These days entertaining no doubt involves a 12-pack of Milwaulkee's Best and some tuna casserole, but I digress.

Whatever, Martha is Mystery Science Theater 3000 with the sci-fi B-movies replaced by old clips from the Martha Stewart Show and the robots replaced by Alexis Stewart and her friend Jennifer Koppelman Hutt. The clips play and Alexis and Jennifer snarkily comment on them. What makes the show funny, beyond the quick wit of the hosts and the ridiculous datedness of the clips, is the fact that Martha's daugher is one of those doing the snarking. Alexis isn't entirely mean, but she does enjoy making fun of her mother as much as the rest of us.

A block of shows runs weeknights from 8 to 10 PM (each show is half an hour, but be sure to record rather than watching live - there are way, way too many ads, probably 15 minutes of them in each show). One of last night's shows featured face painting with a very scary "clown" named Peanut Butter, who looked eerily reminiscent of a club kid from the Michael Alig era and who inisisted on glueing beads to the faces of Martha and some of her staffers. In another segment, Martha demonstrated how to make tools for the maintenance of your terrarium while Alexis and Jennifer mercilessly mocked not only the tools but the entire endeavor. No description does the show justice. You really must tune in and see for yourself.

Each show ends with some absolutely random and inappropriate sex and dating chatter between Alexis and Jennifer. It's amusing enough to listen to someone defend getting drunk and having sex on the first date, but to hear a exegesis on the joys of drunken first-date sex coming from the mouth of Martha Stewart's daughter is pure ironic genius.

The best part of all this? Martha herself is the executive producer, proof that she's not only a master markerter but also has a wicked self-depracating sense of humor. "Who doesn't have a bunch of 1990s video segments and B-roll lying, unused, in the basement?" I hear Martha asking. "On today's program, I'll show you how to repackage those used segments and make them look like new!"

Cerealized Drama

On with life. Remember Quisp? Back in the day it was my favorite cereal for two reasons. First, I loved Quisp himself, that short outer space man with the propeller on his head. Secondly, because my mother didn't understand that it was essentially Captain Crunch in a different shape made by a different company, it was the only really sweet "sugar" cereal I was allowed to have.

Rules about food in our house were randomly created and steadfastly maintained. For example, my mother wasn't kosher, but she had been raised that way. Our house was in no way kosher, not by any stretch of the imagination. But shrimp were the only shellfish allowed. She'd serve pork chops, but not ham. We had bacon, but not sausage. We also had Christmas stockings, but no tree, so at least she was consistent in her randomness.

What she referred to as "sugar cereals" were bad for me and were forbidden. I understand that packaged food wasn't labeled as thorougly then as it is today, so maybe that explains why I was allowed to have Fruit Loops, Apple Jacks, and Corn Pops; if it had a healthy-sounding word in its name, it must be healthy, right? What I wanted most of all was Captain Crunch, that nirvanna of a bowl full of sweet I encountered at friends' houses the mornings after sleepovers. No way; strictly forbidden. Maybe the docile, smiling Quaker on the label gave my mother a false sense of security (after all, would a Quaker ever endanger America's youth?), maybe it was the word "oats" in the Quaker Oats logo, but for some reason she felt that Quisp and it's brother-cereal, Quake, were acceptable.

Quisp and Quake were exactly the same cereal but in different shapes, and named for different cartoon characters. Quisp was of course from another galaxy and so was not truly sexually determined. His dress and hairstyle seemed to indicate that he was in fact a "he," but his masculinity was akin to that of a stuffed animal. His voice was high-pitched, his mannerisms childlike. Whatever masculinity he had was pre-pubescent, unthreatening. Quake, on the other hand, came from underground. While Quisp's cereal came from the galaxies, Quake's was of the earth, produced by earthquakes. Quake was muscle-bound, deep-voiced, virile. In the commercials shown during Saturday morning cartoons, Quisp and Quake are rivals for our affection. They are presented as superheroes, and in ad after ad they compete to see who can save the earth, Quake with brawn, Quisp with brains.

Naturally, I loved Quisp and hated Quake. After all, I could never grow up to be Quake. I'd never have brawn or a deep voice, but I could one day save the world through intellect and charm. My nerdiness could one day pay off. I don't know if the Quaker Oats marketers introduced two versions of the same cereal so that one would appeal to girls and one boys, but whatever they were thinking it didn't work. Sometime in the early 70s they decided they weren't selling enough of either cereal and to stop competing with themselves; one cereal would be discontinued.

They had a contest, and everyone could vote, including kids. Who do you want to keep around, Quisp or Quake? I enthusiastically voted for Quisp. How could he lose? He was cute, he was smart, he had a propeller on his head, for crying out loud! In what would become a lifelong pattern, I was on the wrong end of the vote. Quisp was toast, relegated to the infinite cosmos of memory.

Proud, defiant, I never ate Quake. Golden Grahams became my favorite cereal (again, the name of the cereal tricking my mother into a belief in imaginary health benefits) until I was old enough to stop eating cereal altogether. I never liked milk, you see. I only wanted sweet cereals to flavor the milk so that I could drink it. Quake also eventually disappeared from supermarket shelves, another victim of free love and disco.

All these years later I am avenged. A Quisp cult has been slowly growing, aided and abbetted by the internet. By the turn of the century, Quisp was again being produced in limited quantities. Today, it's available nationwide, at least according to Quaker Oats. Quisp has his own website, and a very good one at that. If you can't find it at your local grocery store, you can order some from the site. Chalk another one up for the nerds.

Why I Don't Have Children

When I was 15 I went on a diet. I think I'd lost something like 20 pounds before my mother noticed. She didn't notice that I was thinner; she noticed that I was eating more fruit and that she therefore had to buy more fruit. This has become a story I've told over and over again about how self-centered my mother was.

About a month ago I noticed that my cat was looking a little thin. He's also been acting crazy for food, begging around his bowl all day, bolting the food once I give it to him. I just figured he was getting thin because he's getting older, and frankly he's always been a pig and crazed for food. I took him to the vet the other day for his annual exam and found that he'd lost three pounds in the past year. It doesn't sound like much, but he only weighed 14.5 pounds to begin with.

Naturally the vet was alarmed. Any changes in his stool? No. Increased vomiting? No. Any change in diet or amount I feed him? No. A couple hundred dollars of tests ensued. Everything came back completely normal - blood sugar, liver, kidney, pancreatic function, thyroid, all normal. As far as she could tell, there is no medical problem.

I must be inadvertently starving my cat. I'm going to feed him more for a month and take him in and see if he's gained weight. If he gains some weight, the diagnosis will be human-induced starvation. Who starves their own cat and doesn't notice? I may have to switch vets due to embarrassment.

So, the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. I've learned not only that my cat needs more food, but also that I ultimately am my mother's daughter.

Mom, In Memoriam

March 12, 1929 - April 25, 2007

Dream of My Mother Shopping

I haven't been using this blog as a personal journal, but that's what this entry will be, because the main thing on my mind this weekend (besides the assembly of porch furniture) has been a dream I had Friday night.

I'm in a the central business district of a small town. The town is surrounded by pristine mountains and fields, and all the buildings are either new or perfectly restored. In fact, I don't see any power or phone lines, and the seeming newness of the buildings combined with the lack of modern clutter makes me think that perhaps I've somehow entered the early 20th century. There is no vehicular traffic; the streets are closed off for some sort of parade or celebration, and in fact are teeming with people wandering about.

I follow the flow of people through the streets and run into my mother; she's walking arm in arm with a much younger friend I've never seen before. The friend appears to be about my age, and for a moment I'm jealous and feel somewhat replaced. "What are you doing here?" I ask. "I didn't expect to see you." My mother replies that she's doing well, and tells me that I really should get myself some pants that fit me. This is how I know it really is my mother. Literally on her deathbed she complained that I never buy pants that fit me correctly.

I tell her I've been worried about her and want to know how she's doing. Even as I'm dreaming I'm not clear whether or not the me in the dream knows that my mother is dead, and so part of the dream is watching the me in the dream interact with my mother, wondering whether or not I know she's dead. "I'm fine where I am," she tells me. "Don't worry about me." I ask her where she's been living, and she points vaguely down the street and says, "Really, we're both fine here. Don't worry about me, Elinor." We become separated from one another and I search the same few blocks for her over and over again, but she's gone and the dream ends.

She died almost a year ago, and this is the first time I've dreamed of her. I'm pretty certain I don't believe in an afterlife, so I'm pretty certain I was simply telling myself that what is, is, and that I'm the one who is doing fine. But if there is anything to the notion that loved one can reach out from beyond, I'm glad that she's in the world of her childhood, shopping.

Truth. Justice. American Way. Part II.

Where were we? Right - your mother dies, you move her out of her apartment, then the landlord takes you to court, claiming that you must pay the rent due on the remainder of her lease. Subpoenas ensue. The hearing is held. You sit in the chair marked "Defendant" and listen to attorneys argue over the definition of "termination" and the vague wording of the "acceleration clause." And then it's over and you go home and wait to receive a copy of the judgment in the mail.

Yes, Virginia, sometimes there is justice: we won. Of course, Lafayette Towers Apartments has the right to appeal, and my lawyer tells me to expect that to happen, but in the short term we have defeated Goliath. Let me take a moment away from basking in the glow of victory to explain why I did this, why this is important.

Lafayette Towers is the only apartment building in this town that has an elevator and a front desk, and it's therefore an extremely popular place to live for women whose husbands have died and who have sold their suburban homes and who are getting older and who don't want to have to climb stairs. A good percentage of the population of the building is elderly women. When my mother's illness entered its last stage and we were going over things, she told me that the owners would go after the estate for rent, and that I should fight it if I could. So that's one reason I fought.

But I also did it for all the other women who live in that building, many of whom were my mother's friends. They all know about this practice of holding estates responsible for the duration of the lease, and none of them like it. Many of their children live out of town, though, and for years people have just been paying whatever they are told they owe and letting it go. If I could win, I'd be helping all those other tenants. My particular case was fought over principle more than money, because my mother only had three months left on the lease after she died. A victory for me means that every lease in that building can now be challenged, which explains why the building's owners spent more on their attorney than they could ever recover from me.

In honor of Presidents' Day, I'll close with the words of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest speech writer to ever be President:

It is better only sometimes to be right, than at all times to be wrong.

Truth. Justice. American Way.

Let's say your mother dies. And let's say, just, you know, hypothetically, that she has four months left on her lease. Let's now say that you pay her up to date and then move her stuff out of the apartment. Do you still have to pay the landlord the remainder of the lease? If you answered, "Heck, no, clearly death terminates a lease," I'd think you are absolutely correct.

If instead you answered, "Yes, you have to pay. Death doesn't cancel a lease. And if you don't pay I will hire a lawyer and take you to court," you must be the management of Lafayette Towers Apartments, who took me to court this afternoon. What the judge has to say we won't know for five days.

In the meantime, if your elderly mother wants to move into an apartment, make sure she has a plain language lease written by a landlord who understands that the deceased no longer need their apartments.