karen rutherford, freelance writer

Independent Lens is accepting submissions until September 26th for their 2009-2010 season. God bless public television and independent filmmakers.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/submissions.html

The new season starts in October!

Austin’s grandparents had come for a visit, and we wanted to show them the new casinos in Tunica. (It’s just what you do.) We found a small Taco Bell inside The Grand, so we placed our orders and slid over to the pick-up counter. One by one, everyone picked up their trays and headed to a table. I was last. I gave her $6 for my and Austin’s orders and headed to the pick-up counter like everyone before me.

I waited. And waited. And waited some more. No tray. No questions. And even though, I never took my eyes off of her, she never so much as glanced anywhere in my direction. Finally, I asked her about my order.

“I don’t has no oh-der foh you.”

“I just placed it with you less than two minutes ago. I paid $6. I’ve been standing here waiting on it.”

“I don’t has it.”

And she walked off to the back of the kitchen.

I called to her to come back. “May I have my money back then?”

No response. I yelled again. “Can you check the register for it?” She was exasperated already, but she did check – she glanced at the screen on the register and said, “It ain’dare.” And walked away again.

I called after her, “Well, what are we going to do?

She shrugged. “I looks foh ma man-ger’s phonumba.”

“Okay, thank you.”

Then, she got on the phone. And I waited some more. I motioned to the table for them not to wait on me. Someone gave Austin a taco. She hung up and walked over to talk to her co-worker. I thought they might be discussing my plight, but they talked and laughed and the co-worker rubbed her bulging belly. They were talking babies!!!

I think I yelled. “Did you get in touch with your manager?

She looked at me like she couldn’t believe I was still there. “She don’t ansuh hu’pho.”

“Where is she?”

“A’ home.”

“Is there nobody here who can get my money or my order?”

“No.” And she turned back around to talk to her friend again.

I gave up and went to get the security guard who sits at a stand at the front of the casino. I explained the situation to him, and he walked back to the Taco Bell with me.

“I don’t has no oh-der foh huh.”

He looked as though he was giving consideration to the idea that I might be lying. I pointed to my family, here from out-of-town, and asked him why I might put myself through all this trouble for the mere pleasure of interacting with her.

Then, I did it. I said, “Tunica will never get repeat customers until these people learn how to work at customer service jobs.”

(What I MEANT was that while I couldn’t be happier that Tunica hires local and rural people from around Tunica who desperately need jobs, they can be uneducated, unintelligible, generally angry and put-out, and, as a result, untrained in handling customers.)

He grabbed the back of my suddenly criminal arm, and shouted, “Alright, that’s enough. We don’t tolerate that here.”

It took me just a second. “That wasn’t what I meant. THAT WASN’T WHAT I MEANT!!!!!!!!”

He started pushing me towards the exit.

“Unless I see my $6, I’m calling the police as soon as I get outside.”

So he stopped, pulled out his wallet, gave me $6 and proceeded to escort me from the building while my family and 9-year-old son watched. Lesson learned. I’ll never say “these people” in Tunica, Mississippi, again. And even better, I’ll never be in Tunica, Mississippi, again. Not that they'd let me in.

And available at Costco!The person who invented these is a genius and deserves a statue, an ode, a WIPO and a warm sudsy soak in his/her honor. I’m sad, though, because my grandmother would have love-love-loved one.

I wanted to make sure Austin knew how much I will appreciate one in my future.

“Hey, Austin, come look at this commercial.”

“And?”

“I want one of those in my wing when I move in with you in my old age.”

“You know where they have those? In nursing homes.”

“Not in the nursing homes I’ll be able to afford.”

“Well, you have a point. They do require indoor plumbing.”

“Thanks. I took care of your first eighteen years. You should take care of my last eighteen.”

“Eighteen? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You need to make sure you go quickly.”

“When do you leave for school?”

“Not soon enough, not soon enough.”

I think I’m off news again for a while. Shaken babies, absent-minded parents leaving children in cars to die, people imprisoned by their parents in trailers and basements, people eating people on busses, legislators working 30 days for $200K in retirement funds, disastrous presidential choices, Lohan Lohan Lohan.

So…..

Truly terrific, absolutely true fun ((I stole this link from Ross Matthews’ blog, but
it’s too fantastic to ever forget):

Musical memory fun: Romeo's Tune

Addictive fun: Sequence

Puppy fun:

Heartwarming fun: StoryCorps

And just for my own fun, if I were interviewed:

What was the happiest moment of your life?
I’ve had a lot of little happy moments, but picking something that stands out as the happiest? I don’t know. I’ve had proudest and most grateful, but happiest? As in joyful? Maybe eating lobster and blueberry pie with Austin at the Fisherman’s Catch? Maybe listening in Poindexter Hall? Maybe talking to UF on the phone? Maybe my 30th birthday?

What are you most proud of?
The thoughtful and responsible man my son is turning out to be.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?
Gut instinct is God. What I focus on expands. Positive thinking is faith. Mind off self is happiness. Listening is the best gift. I need people. I can’t change people. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Compassion. That it’s all just various forms of Love.

What is your earliest memory?
Painting our toenails on the tiny porch of our house on Sterling Drive, hearing the ice cream truck at the same time and my mother rushing around to find change for us.

How would you like to be remembered?
A good friend, intelligent, funny, hopeful, tried to do the right thing, independent.

I thought I was home free. Only two weeks to go, and I really haven’t felt all that emotional.

Until yesterday, that is, when he cleaned his room.

He has had a summer project to organize and purge, which he did and ended up with a pick-up truck full of stuff to donate and three lawn and leaf size bags of stuff to throw away. I saw little soccer and t-ball trophies poking out of one bag, but when I went to comment on not throwing his entire past away, he jumped down my throat for backpedaling.

The purging didn’t even hit me, because his room still looked like it belonged to the kid I’ve known for years.

Then, he had to go and clean it. Bed made. Clothes on hangers. Posters off walls. No junk on the computer desk or the nightstands or the armoire. No dishes or wrappers on the floor. Carpet! Hell, there were vacuum tracks.

There’s a song out there somewhere about a father who just sits in his daughter's room after she leaves. But I can’t go in there. There’s a floodgate that I’m pretty sure would take all of freshman year to plug. And I do have plans. And I still need to work.

I think I’ll make him start closing the door, though, because I know it’s just going to get worse from here, and I have a feeling I already may be taking it pretty hard.

My brother and I were adopted at birth from different mothers. I’m sure we both had opportunities being raised by our adoptive parents that we never would have had with our biological ones, although neither of us would ever know anything other than what we were told about our birth parents to be sure.

Our parents were decent, moral, upstanding people. But they were obsessed with appearances, which made my brother a bigger problem for them than he might have been for other parents. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t be what they expected. This would result in life-altering disappointment for both sides.

I distinctly remember my mother telling me I was adopted around age 6, but I don’t remember when Pat was told. I really didn’t see him enough to have conversations like that. Initially, he was always so busy. He was a hyperactive child, put on Ritalin before he ever made it to first grade. I’m sure it was intended to calm him down for public appearances, but it never worked. Eventually, we just grew up in different places.

My first and faintest memory of my brother is of him pedaling a little yellow and blue plastic scooter down the long hall of our first house in Memphis, Tennessee. Almost daily, he would wait for me to toddle innocently out of my room at one end, and as soon as he saw me, start pedaling from the other end, picking up considerable momentum (it was a long hall and I wasn’t that fast) before hitting me and knocking me down - HARD. As soon as I started to cry, he started to laugh. I also remember my mother reacting when she came to assess the damage:

“Why, Pat, why? Why can’t you be a good boy?”

I can’t count how many times I would hear this over the coming years. I don’t know if I ever learned to look first, but, more than likely, he quickly got bored and moved on to something else before I had time to figure out a workable solution. My mother, already tired at this point, decided to just wait and pick up the inevitable pieces rather than try to predict her son’s behavior.

Pat’s first grade teacher at Sea Isle Elementary School showed real concern for his ability to control himself. At first, she felt sorry for him because he was such a sweet, thoughtful boy. She thought he just needed special attention, but when that ended up with him craving even more and more attention from her, anything good about him soon faded in comparison to his unforgivable behavior. He refused to stay in his seat, wreaking havoc on the classroom and the other kids. He would throw crayons, pencils, books, erasers, anything he could get his hands on. He would use markers to draw on the windows. Lunch and recess were constant struggles. He’d be banished to the outskirts or the teacher’s table or the bench or the sidelines for this reason or that, and even under watchful eyes, he would still seem to slip just out of reach and misbehave.

She also often asked him, “Can’t you just be a good boy and behave like the other children?” But he never had an answer. Nobody knew yet that he didn’t understand the question.

A funny (well, it’s really not so funny) link a dear friend sent me this week: http://aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

I recently participated in an Untours scavenger hunt. The contest was pretty easy – just find things around their Website and submit via email for a chance at the prize of $200 off a future trip.

I, along with some others, won the prize. I’m grateful and all, but unfortunately, that $200 doesn’t put a dent in the inflated prices they charge single travelers (this practice is rampant and hasn’t caught up with the demographic shift of the entire world yet – why should it, after all, when it can make a fortune off of us).

They suggest we singles hook up in the Café and travel together, allowing us to take advantage of the “normal” prices.

Good lord. <shivering> I’d sooner travel with a spider monkey than a complete stranger.

So, hold on, the World's Greatest Railway. Save me a spot in decade number two. I’ll be there.

Every time I think of the word "squarespace",  the Square Pegs theme song starts up. Every time, every single time.

I dunno about this new look. Squarespace did a seamless job with the major-est of upgrades last night, but it forced me to upgrade my look as well. (If only they'd force an in-person makeover too!)

I can play around with the colors and fonts and things, so if you hit here and come back and it looks different, blame it on a mood swing.

I do recommend Squarespace to one and all! They're reliable and nice and customer-oriented and ambitious and just grand.

Every year on my birthday, I read my annual “Today’s Birthday” horoscope message. It predicts how the next year will be. I don’t know that it’s ever been that accurate, but I still do it every year. This year, I found some site that told me about who I am because of my July 17th birth date. Apparently, I should embrace individuality, social skills, and a happy disposition and avoid procrastination, judging others, and self-righteousness. I think I’m okay on the embracing part, but the things to avoid? Now I find this? A cruel, cruel joke. I think I’ll just put off thinking about all that. Oh, must go anyway, there’s someone to judge.

My last experience with a writing class was a bust. I hated the authors that the professor held up as the bar and in the second class, the prof told us that success in writing was “all bullshit”. He meant that writing is one thing, but being successful entirely another dependent upon someone else’s workload and mood. I get that. I didn’t need some guy who also used the F-word like I used to eat M&Ms to tell me that. I went back, but just once. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the properly placed F-word, but its ability to make a person appear different or bohemian has long passed.)

But I still love the feeling I get when I read about writing classes. Ami McKay, who wrote The Birth House, a good book full of detail I recently read, passed along something called The Ellie Poem. Supposedly, writing teachers use it as an exercise in class a lot. It is an inventory of self. I thought it was a neat thing and did one for myself. I am posting it here because it’s my birthday. So there. Me, me, me. Hopefully, I’ll get to do another one in 2028 and see if my inventory has moved.

How does it feel to be my age? This week, I've found myself humming the tune in the Activia commercials. And I seem to be the only one who actually drives the worker-zone speed limit. In the far right lane. Like the old woman I am.