Busy But Fun

The day after Christmas Wally and Wes went snow skiing Up North, as Michiganders say.  Charles took me to New York to see his eldest daughter. I should have stayed home and got some work done but I could never pass up a trip to New York.

His daughter, Breanne, lived in a very old and very cool row house in White Plains.  Her significant other, Rob, was an architect and collected artifacts and gargoyles from old buildings.  I was in seventh heaven looking at all the artifacts he had crammed into the townhouse. I think he spent the first evening telling me about each piece and showing me pictures of the buildings they all came from. The next day we all headed into New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I could have stayed there for a week and not seen everything.

The interesting part of the trip was that Charles' ex-wife lived in New York and joined us for dinner.  Charles had never said much about her so I did not have an opinion before I met her.  The only interaction we actually had was that she told me I might be attractive if I wore more make-up especially lipstick. I smiled with my lipstick-less lips. There was also a comment about perhaps I should dress a little more stylish instead of my usual preppy self.  I made no comment but thought at the time that I wondered if she meant something more like a warm-up suit embellished with lots of bling. Henceforth warm up suits with jewels became known as jewish clothes especially with the addition of sparkly gold flats. All in all it was a very nice trip and I did have a great time.

But back to the reality of realizing that the next few months were going to be way too busy. First order of the day was to make sure I had all the measurements for the eight gentlemen who were to be in the Japanese number in the ice show and get a costume cut out in the right dimensions for each one of them.  Not as easy as sewing with a regular pattern. I had used regular pattern pieces for part of it and then big sheets of paper for the parts of the costume for which I had to make a pattern.  It was a nightmare to size all the pieces for each guy.  Then there had to be instructions on how to sew it together.  I prayed a lot the night we all met to hand out and pick up our little bags of costume pieces that I had guessed right on everyone.

I picked up the two bags for my costumes and instantly thought OMG, along with NO WAY, you have to be kidding and several expletives I won't write.  A Starfish!  I have to be a Starfish in the undersea black light number?  Then there was the Finale number with a cape that the costume chairman said took 52 hours to hot glue the sequins on. To top everything off the first costume check, meaning the basic outfit sewed together without the trim was due on both costumes in three weeks. Although the actual show was three months away this gave the director a chance to see them all in case he ended up wanting to make changes to them.  It also gave costume chairman a chance to make sure the costume was going to fit everyone and that they put it together so it looked decent as far as the sewing went.  Most of the costumes were made by the skaters or someone in their family since the cost to have them made professionally could run as high as $500.00 a costume. I felt like the little train in the storybook that kept saying "I think I can, I think I can".

Then my friend, Claire's, wallpaper for her upstairs hallway arrived.  Naturally since it was custom colored and she had waited four months for it and it had cost $100.00 a roll she wanted it hung tomorrow.  It didn't sound like a bad job as the very long hallway had lots of doors and not a whole lot of wall. There were ten rolls all together because of the pattern match so it should go up pretty fast.  Nice thought.  In really expensive custom wallpaper there is one minor little problem that I had never run into before.  When it is printed it does not go all the way to the edge with the pattern.  It has what is called a salvages much like a sewing pattern has.  You have to find the pattern match, lap the salvages over each other and cut a straight line down the entire wall then pull off the white edges and you have a perfectly matched seam. After I tried two pieces with some white showing, the pattern not matching, a very crooked line down the wall, whispered curse words and finally tears I decided I needed to go home and figure this mess out. You should always cry when things go bad since it will make the customer feel bad that she ordered such awful wallpaper. I just told her I needed to go home and figure this out and I would return the next day.  She kept apologizing when I left which meant I would not get fired and we would still be friends.  It was a long and frustrating night but I finally figured it out.

The other big thing on my list was the house in Dearborn.  By chance Wally and I were working on it and the lady who grew up there came by to say hello. She told us that after she had grown her parents had turned the upstairs into an apartment.  There was also an archway that they had walled up to make a separate enclosed room.  Interesting.
The art deco dining room table she grew up eating on was still in the dining room and in the basement was a gas stove her Mother used for canning. They had entered the stove in a contest at The Henry Ford Museum one time and it was deemed the second oldest Detroit Jewel Stove, the first being the one that belonged to the museum.  When we left that day I put an apartment for rent sign in the front yard even though I still had some painting to do.

Perhaps I should say something about Charles here. We had been sort of dating for about a year by this time.  Most of the time we met at the skating rink or he would stop by after work to see Bowser or take Wally and I to dinner someplace. He was so different from Dennis and introduced me to the fun of going to outdoor concerts where we saw Johnny Mathis, listen to famous jazz bands and the Detroit Symphony.  He loved to get dressed up and go places like Traverse City or New York. Important was that when I did off the wall things like ice skating in the show or buying a rental property he never chided me for it. We just had fun together.

He and Wally had a slightly rocky start to begin with but Charles could not have been better to him and even took him Christmas shopping for my presents and encouraged him in things he did.  I think Charles enjoyed the opportunity to be around a boy since he had only daughters.  Wally gained a lot of respect for him and learned a great deal about the Jewish culture including some really fun Yiddish words.

Was I in love with Charles?  Honestly no.  I still loved Barney and even though I was not sure when or even if I would ever see him again there was not really anyone who could replace him. How could you not like a person who was born on Valentine's Day and would usually fall asleep on your sofa so that you had to wake him up and send him home.

Wally, whose favorite line was that he did not have any friends, usually filled the house with boys from school. He also appeared to be getting quite the music buff. If he had a dollar or two he would ride his bike a few blocks into Birmingham to a used record store. Record albums were $1.00 a piece and he came home with as many albums as dollars that he had.  Guess he wasn't crazy about listening to my Barry Manilow, Barbara Streisand or broadway show tunes. His album picks ran the gammit on artists. Was this wonderful range of music due to Miss Malburg, his band teacher.

When I was married to Dennis it seemed like every time things were going well and I was happy a monkey wrench got thrown into the pot.  I was having a hard time believing that at any minute things were going to not fall apart.

Freon Fumes

There are those times in your life when you look back and wonder

just what you were thinking.  A brilliant idea pops into your mind and you go with it.  Only later it becomes something not quite so brilliant.  My best reasoning for some of the decisions I made were caused by freon fumes.  Too much time spent in the ice arena breathing in the ice making fumes causes one to think a little differently.

I am never at my best during November and December.  Holidays are my least favorite pastime and two of them fall very close together during that time.  Growing up my parents did not act very nice during holidays and it rubbed off on all of us.  Mom had to make Thanksgiving and Christmas look like a Norman Rockwell event while Dad only wanted to buy more presents. That resulted in two months of terse conversations or dead silence between them. I tried for the Norman Rockwell thing but it was a lot of work and I usually just prayed January 2nd would come quickly.

I was so good at procrastinating about the sample costume I was to make for the ice show that it threw most of November into a panic.  With no suitable patterns to be found I decided a class in how to draft a pattern was in order.  There was only one class to be had on that subject but it was an eighteen month course at the cost of $6,000.00.  I did not have eighteen months - only eight days. Lucky for me Wally was going to his Dad's for Thanksgiving so I did not have to be June Clever in the kitchen.  The auditions and the costume were scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving so I spent my day sewing and ripping apart what I had made several times.

Driving to the arena the next day I wanted to just turnaround and go home.  Why was I doing this?  No one had been very friendly in the last show, the sample costume was horrible, I would probably fall down during the auditions and I was terrified of the director. But by that time I was in the parking lot so I just decided to go for broke.

As I walked in the door someone smiled and said they were glad to see me back, I did not fall down although I was so nervous I didn't skate all that well. The director, Ron, only said I needed to make the belled sleeves bigger.  WOW! That wasn't so bad especially since I got put into two numbers instead of just one. I went home feeling just pretty darn good.

The first of December I became aware that I needed to do something or I would be very unhappy come Income Tax time. Seems like I would be hit with a pretty steep capital gains tax for my portion of the house we sold after the divorce. So after a week of looking all over the Detroit area I found a house in East Dearborn that did not need a lot of work or so I thought.  The neat thing about it was that it was what they called a two-flat.  There was an apartment downstairs and another one upstairs. Since Wally and I really had no intention of moving to Dearborn, I was now, after some work, a landlord.  Sounded rather fun and exciting at the time.

Wally came home from being with his Dad one day and Wes walked in the door with him.  This was the first time I had seen or talked to Wes in a year.  He decided when I divorced Dennis that I ruined his life. When he walked in he just said "Hi, Mom". There are several ways I could have handled his sudden re-entry like run to another room and hide, give him a terrible time for his behavior and all the tears he had caused or just say "Hi, Wes" and go from there. I chose to say hello and let it go at that.

Wally and I got out all the Christmas stuff and decorated the house up even with a live Christmas tree. We  invited Wes and Charles over for the big day. Charles, being Jewish, never had a Christmas tree and all the decorations.  He did wonder where we were going to hang the stockings since we had no fireplace.  So we made one. 

Charles arrived on Christmas morning with presents for everyone including the Bowser.

I had a great time being like my Dad and buying too many presents.  I know Wally got snow skis and Wes got a new guitar. Hopefully I also was like Mom with the perfect Norman Rockwell day.  At least it was one of the best Christmas' yet.

I was actually looking forward to the New Year which ended up being the usual fun along with the calamities.

Wally, Bowser and Me Makes Three

Every season in Michigan is beautiful. Can't say I ever got used to the cool summers but it sure beat the hot weather in other places we had lived.  Don't think it ever got warm enough for me to swim but that was certainly fine.  That first summer it was just Wally and I in our little house on Villa Street and what fun we had.

Being self employed I could fit work in around doing fun things with Wally.  He was going to start middle school in September which was going to be the fourth school in four towns he went to in six years of classes.  Luckily this time he would have friends he made the year before and perhaps was not quite so scary. We were both getting used to our new life and at times I wondered how much the divorce and the move to a new place bothered him.  One day we were driving by the building where we had gone for the ill-fated marriage counseling and I heard "Things are really a lot better since the divorce".  I can not remember how or even if I responded to that but it was something I was really glad to hear.

When school started he signed up for all the necessary classes and band.  The saxophone was paid for and I had not even had to threaten to return it if he didn't practice.  He actually played it all the time.  Bowser had even taken to sitting right next to him singing (howling) while he played. It drove Wally crazy and there were times I had to get the dog away. I was glad he decided to stay in band. There was a slight problem in that saxophone playing sort of delayed homework a lot.  He came home quite often with a Miss Malburg story consisting of nice things she had said or done. So I figured she was the inspiration for all the saxophone/dog howling that went on.

Wally's twelveth birthday rolled around in October and naturally he voted for another camping birthday.  With his two best friends, Mike and David, we spent the weekend at a beautiful park as the trees began to turn gorgeous colors.  Of course, Bowser went along but the boys slept in the tent and Bowser and I had the Bronco to sleep in. That was the same year that Wally decided he wanted to be Santa Claus for Halloween. My reaction was REALLY!  There are no Santa suits for sale in October so off to the fabric store we went.  I still wonder what people thought when Santa came to their door for treats.

In November Dennis got married.  Good timing as you have to wait nine months in Michigan to remarry so he was right on track.  His new wife, Ann, was the same lady he met at the divorce recovery group a year before.  She had three children and a house so Wes would not have to live in an apartment anymore. He still was not speaking to me. When Wally would go to visit for the weekend she would put up a post-a-note above the toilet reminding him not to pee on the floor.  Since Wally never did that it really hurt his feelings.  We made a game of it by him stealing the note before he came home each time and we just lined them up in our bathroom. We had a pretty good collection before she ran out of note paper.

The sad part about the wedding was that Dennis's whole family came for the big event. They brought Wally home that evening after the wedding and just dropped him off.  No hello or anything....just dropped him off and left.  Actually I had not heard from any of them since I filed for the divorce but I had spent a lot of time and had a lot of fun with them over the course of twenty years.  I guess I just expected too much. The other aspect of the wedding that I did find humorous was that a short while after the wedding I got papers from the Catholic Archdiocese that my marriage to Dennis was officially annulled. I found all this quite interesting as Dennis had never attended a church except for weddings and funerals in the twenty years we were married.

Bowser was growing and getting cuter everyday.  Charles and I went to Traverse City one weekend when Wally was at his Dad's. I think Charles was the only person in history to sink a paddle boat far from the shore in Lake Michigan. We left Bowser at a swanky dog hotel for the weekend and when we went back to get him they suggested we never bring him back again unless we enrolled him in their dog training course for $400.00.  No particulars about what he did to annoy them but I did not want Bowser to act like a person.  He was a fun playful dog and that was what we wanted.  Charles found a German Shepard class so he would learn to walk on a leash, sit and stay.  Once again after two classes Bowser got kicked out for being too playful. Actually he was very well behaved at home and I told Charles he would probably not want to eat the expensive cheese Charles bought for him if we made him behave.  No more obedience school for the Bowser.

The fall was beautiful and I am not sure I ever saw trees with such awesome color.  Claire was busy picking $100.00 a roll wallpaper and her husband, Jim, was busy sanding floors so I knew I would be busy after the first of the year. Claire and I spent a lot of time having lunch and choosing things for the house.  Probably more time having lunch than anything.

Wally , Charles and I were roller skating a couple times a week and I practiced ice skating some as auditions for the next ice show were the weekend of Thanksgiving. The week before the auditions Ron, the director, had me come by the arena and pick up the pencil sketch of the costume I was to be in charge of.  I did not know whether to cry, leave the country or break my sewing machine when I looked at it and knew there was not a pattern in the world to use for it.

Then the first week of December I had a brilliant idea.

Cast of Characters

It was amazing how lost I felt the day after the ice show was over.  For six weeks I had done nothing but show things like making the costume, trying to learn how to skate better, going to rehearsals everyday and still trying to run a home and a business. I spent a couple of days letting my blistered feet heal and bemoaning the fact the my showtime was over.

The time came when I needed to call all my clients back that I tried to ignore during the ice show time.  Top of the list was Claire.  Claire lived in my old neighborhood in Farmington.  She had me come and wallpaper her kitchen during all my turmoil with the divorce and my oldest son, Wes, deciding not to speak to me.  Nothing like making a complete fool of yourself crying while you are hanging wallpaper in some total strangers kitchen.

She was super however and told me some things she had gone through when she got a divorce.  She was married now to a very nice guy who was an attorney for Ford Motor Company.  They had two little boys, Jay who was nine and Mark, who was five and was born with Downs Syndrome. She managed to make me feel rather lucky after all she had been through.  We had visited a few times before I moved and during the ice show she called to say they had bought a home in Bloomfield Hills that needed a lot of work.  One of the reasons they decided to move was that Jim, her husband, had ordered a new car that was delivered to their house.  The neighbors instantly became rude to her.

 The new house was built in the 60's and had all the possibilities of being a showplace.  How many houses have a wrapping closet in the upstairs hall or full servants quarters complete with a kitchen in the basement.  It was more than a little mind boggling but I knew it would be fun to do especially because it was Claire and Jim.  Who knows whether it was fate or karma that got us together but for both of us it was the beginning of a friendship rather than just a working experience. As they used to say in the New Neighbors League in Kansas City people don't just pop up on your porch and want to be your friend.
Maybe Claire and I were both in the right place and needed a friend.

Out of curiosity I went to the costume sale at the arena the first week in June.  All the costumes from the show were the property of Ice Company and the director, Ron Basten, sold some of them at the end of each show. He sold ones he knew he would not use again and evidently had some in storage he would pull out to sell. The gold lame' thing with all the beads that I wore was on sale along with the Toy Soldier ones. I had no intention of buying anything but how could I pass them up especially since I had worked so hard on the gold one.

Ron, who had done quite a bit of yelling, was surprised to see me.  When he greeted me by name and told me he was glad to see me I almost fainted.  Maybe he remembered me out of a cast of 134 because I was the worst skater.  The sale was not very busy that day and we sat and talked for a hour or so.  I asked a lot of questions and found out that he had been a US Champion Pairs skater years ago and then skated all over the world with Ice Capades for fifteen years.  That made me realize that the format of Southfield's show was the same as Ice Capades with the kiddie number thrown in for new skaters and lots of parents in attendance. He asked a lot about me and by the time I got ready to go home he asked me if I would be interested in being a costume chairman for next year's show.  I had not even thought about being in the next show but of course I jumped at the chance.

Charles had told me that he would definitely not be interested in doing another skating show.  He did not give me a reason and I did not ask why.  I know he was struggling with the skating part but there was something more than that.  I think Charles was very homophobic.  That was never a subject he and I discussed but I guess it would be difficult to be in a dressing room with twenty some men who were gay.  I am not prejudice in any way but that was just how I was taught.

Actually Charles had a very interesting story.  He was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants.  His father disappeared shortly after he was born and it was just Charles and his Mother.  She had a job but it was not enough to really support them.  He remembers coming home from school a few times only to find all their belongs on the street because they were evicted.  He only had two pair of pants, a couple of shirts and one pair of shoes when he was in high school.  So he did not look poor he would wash one pair of pants every night and polish his only pair of shoes. There was never money for movies or anything but if he had a dime he would ride the bus the the Museum of Art and spend the day.

After high school he went to cosmetology school and by the seventies he owned a very successful beauty salon.  He married and had two girls and had a nice home and money to go more places than the art museum although he still went on a pretty regular basis.  Charles was not any taller than I am and had a small frame.  I can imagine because he owned a beauty salon there were those who thought he was gay.

Wally did not like him at first but not liking him had nothing to do with Charles himself.  It was perhaps a fear of someone new coming into our lives.  But I wasn't ready for anyone more than just a friend. So we would see each other at the skating rink, Charles would come over to see Bowser and feed him expensive cheese and he would take Wally and I to dinner.  If Wally was at his Dad's Charles would take me to dinner or to the Museum of Art so I guess we were dating.

When school was out the middle of June I was rather concerned about leaving Wally alone when I had to go to work but a lot of times he would go with me. He learned how to paste and hang wallpaper that summer and we went camping a lot.  Living a mile or so from the Detroit Zoo we spent a lot of time visiting with all the animals.  All in all it was a very nice laid back summer.  That was a good thing as Wally would start middle school in the fall and there a lot of other interesting developments.

Now you see why I titled this the Cast Of Characters.  Wally, Bowser, Charles and Claire.  There will be lots of adventures and fun with this group.