All I Keep Saying, to Myself, is, “Give Cheerleading a Chance"

My husband and I have a new woman in our lives. We call her “The Cheerleading Lady”. The V.P. of Cheer at the local football and cheerleading league for grade school and middle school-aged children. She is part of the fabric of our existence now because our eight-year-old daughter suddenly decided that she wanted to be a cheerleader. This may be due to the influence of the babysitters that we have employed who were all members of the pom-pom squad at the local high school as well as that of the other friends her age who have cheered in past seasons. Whatever the reason, we have often told her that we would support her efforts to be a part of a team or a musical ensemble, as long as she really wants to do it and does her best. We honestly thought she would try soccer, ice-skating, softball or choir. Cheerleading it is.

If you know me, you probably know that I would personally rather sing the National Anthem at a sporting event and then head for home before I would want to stand on the sidelines and shout “Wash ‘em in the river, hang ‘em on a line, our team can beat your team any old time”. But when my little girl came up to me one day in June and said “Please, can I be a cheerleader, Mommy, puh-LEASE”, I snapped into research mode and told her I would check it out.

It is worth noting that, of all the parents I have met during my sojourn into suburbia, none of them has ever offered up a glowing recommendation of youth team activities. Frequently, I hear “Don’t do soccer, it has TWO seasons!”, “Hockey has way TOO much equipment.”, or “Do NOT let your kid try out for a traveling team!”. The cheerleading families warned me about “LOTS of practice and conditioning because cheerleading is a SPORT.” It appears that even young cheerleaders have a chip on their shoulders about the way that they are portrayed as mean girls in books and movies. Ergo, they jog up and down the sledding hill in the park even though it is 85 degrees Fahrenheit outside. My sweetie-pie is eager to join them and to obtain their color-coordinated hair bows.

Research mode suffered an immediate setback due to a thunderstorm that knocked out the power on my side of the street. For hours, long enough to send me across the avenue with pajama-ed kids and sleeping bags, I could not get online to view the cheerleading information. The next day, back in my own air-conditioned domicile, I visit the cheer website only to find that the day before was the last day one could register on line and without paying a late fee. I find a phone number, I plead my case, “Please let my daughter be on the squad without the late fee.” All the while, my munchkin is bouncing around and asking “Am I in? Did you do it? Can I be a cheerleader??? Puh-LEASE, Mommy!” I am transferred via email to the treasurer, I arrange a payment plan, I fill out forms, codes of conduct, I make an appointment for a sports physical, and I am ready to bring my daughter to the last uniform fitting before the season begins.

Tragically, the uniform fitting is cancelled due to a death of the sister of someone high up in the cheer chain of command. I assure my girl that she will get a uniform and she should stop worrying. As I am not about to badger people who are grieving, I wait to hear about a new fitting date. It is announced a few weeks later but falls during the week of our family vacation. I send a message to my daughter’s coach, asking for permission to come some other time. The coach passes on my request and thus, I am about to have my first run-in with The Cheerleading Lady.

It is a beautiful, hot sunny day, and I am with my family in a cabin in the woods, by a stunning sand dune beach on Lake Michigan. A pause to check my cell phone reveals a voice mail message. A nasal, pointed voice is saying, “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I am DENYING your request to have YOUR daughter fitted at a different time and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to get her THERE, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY”. The force with which she leaves this message is amazing, as if our inability to attend personally offends her. I do not even know how to return such a call.

At the same time, my husband tells me that “some woman” has left a message about the cheerleading uniform on our home answering machine. He, too, is surprised by the vitriolic tone. For a split second, I am afraid of The Cheerleading Lady, and I see myself jumping into the car with my daughter and driving the three hours home for the fitting, turning around and driving back to my vacation. That is crazy, isn’t it? It really cannot be done.

Fortunately for The Cheerleading Lady, my phone battery is running low and I have to go out to my car to charge it up. I also get more bars of signal if I drive down the road a bit. Off I go, wondering what words to offer up to the head of Cheer that will allow my daughter to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Since The Cheerleading Lady may be the one who recently lost a sister, I decide to cut her some slack. I call upon all the “I sing for a not-for-profit-performing-arts-company – and- hey- I work-for-a-CHURCH-charm” that I can muster and I grovel, “I’m so sorry, we are out of town, is there any way, I know you are a volunteer, how can I make this happen, I understand you have a lot of girls to deal with, please keep her in the program….”

The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that she can have a fitting when we return home. Problem solved.

Until the next day, as we are strolling through the tourist town looking for espresso and at over-priced summer clothes, we check our phones and my husband groans, “There’s another message from The Cheerleading Lady.” “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I have been told that you have NOT paid the entire fee yet and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to PAY the balance due, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY”.

Aghast, and wondering why every message from her has to end with her expellling my kid from cheerleading, I take a deep breath, pray for patience, and return the call, explaining that I have contacted the Treasurer of the organization and he agreed to my proposed payment plan.

The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that I can make my payments as planned. Problem solved.

Until the next day, about to walk through the woods to the arts and crafts porch to make shrinky dinks, I make the mistake of checking my messages. “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I have TALKED to the TREASURER and HE says YOU have NOT made the payments yet and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to PAY the balance due, by AUGUST 1, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY, really, it’s THE POLICY.”

For a moment, I contemplate the consequences of telling The Cheerleading Lady where I think she should stick the POLICY. As my children create shrinky dink designs with their daddy (who turns out to be very good at making trinkets by cooking plastic), my future pep rally leader looks up and says “Cheerleading is going to be GREAT, isn’t it mom?”

My husband wonders aloud about the exclusive attitude of The Cheerleading Lady, she’s giving cheerleaders a bad name. Time for another ride in the car so I can call and explain to her that the point of the payment plan, is that I make payments. I also email the treasurer. Once again, The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that I can continue to make payments, at great inconvenience to the organization. Problem solved.

Back home and in the midst of washing the sand and bug spray out of our belongings, cheerleading practice finally begins. The Cheerleading Lady is actually rather nice to me in person. She is blonde, petite, and athletic. I am certain that if there were a middle-aged men’s football league, she would be on their cheer squad. In a park field filled with dozens of girls gathering with their squads and coaches, her voice cuts through it all. We shake hands and say our “Nice to meet yous” and she thanks me for my “patience and understanding” of the situation. The happiest eight-year-old in town goes skipping across the grass towards a group of her cart-wheeling pals.

After practice and trying on a uniform, my exhausted but beaming babe tells me about how much running she did. “I LOVED it! Thanks Mom. It would really mean a lot to me if you come to Sunday games and watch me. You know, cheerleading is a SPORT.” Thank goodness for The Cheerleading Lady.

Jesus at the Java Hut

It seemed like a good idea to take the children swimming at the Marshalltown, Iowa, YMCA, with their cousins before starting a 285-mile drive home to Elmhurst, Illinois. It was hot, steamy and drizzling outdoors but much fun was had indoor at the Y’s play pool, and even the adults used the water slide many times. The kids would surely be exhausted from the activity and spend much of the ride snoozing in the car.

The idea worked so well that, 15 miles into the trip, my head started nodding as my eyes tried to rest themselves. The gray drizzle, the corn-scape and the book on CD that we were listening to were not helping me stay awake. (Cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, soybeans!) I reached for the pack of tic-tacs in my purse and bit my teeth into minty freshness, waking my taste buds momentarily. (Cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, cows in a pasture!) I wanted to turn the book off and turn up some driving music but, one child was still awake and following the plot. (Cornfield, small town, cornfield, cornfield, Indian Casino!) My 5 year-old daughter and infant son were napping peacefully. It occurred to me that the napping would cease if Cheap Trick, the Pretenders or Ella Fitzgerald began pumping through the speakers near their tiny heads.

Unfortunately for me, I had chosen the quaint route home, on a US highway instead of a four-lane interstate. This was due to the fact that the bridge over the Mississippi River on I-80 was under construction. I sat through that traffic back up on the way into Iowa, thank you very much, and I wanted to avoid that on the way out. This, too, seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed less so as the traffic on the sometimes two-lane road caused the miles to become elongated. The close-up view of acre after acre of the pride of the corn industry and its petro-chemical fertilized fields had a dulling effect on my vision and repulsed my sense of smell. My eldest asked, “Mommy, what is that STINK?” and after I answered she asked “Can you turn off the car’s nose?”

Sixty-two miles from Marshalltown on quaint highway later, three kids were sleeping and I needed coffee, pronto. It took that many miles to reach this state of desperation because I am a coffee snob and I did not want to drink “gas station coffee” from any of the Casey’s that I had passed in several small towns. At a minimum, I was looking for coffee from McD’s. I would have been overjoyed to spot a Dunkin’ Donuts, but there were none on this road so far.

Mt. Vernon, Iowa, welcomed me. I knew there must be coffee in this town because there is a college here, Cornell College, that was attended by three of my siblings. A break in the drizzle and the sun shone down upon the Java Hut, which I had just passed. Eureka, I struck coffee gold and turned around!

The Java Hut is just what it sounds like. A booth with driveways on both sides. One side was occupied with a parked car, adults and kids were hanging out and chatting with the occupant of the hut. I maneuvered my car to the vacant side of the hut and looked through bleary eyes at the pleasant-looking middle-aged man seated in the booth.

Holding my debit card in my hand, I asked for a cup of regular coffee with cream. He listed the possible sizes and after I selected the medium, he told me that his card reader was down but, if I didn’t have the money, “Don’t worry about it.” “Hold on, “ I said, “there might be some change at the bottom of my purse.” After scrounging around my handbag, I remembered that I had already pulled the “bottom of the purse” change routine to pay some library fines.

Meanwhile, the Java Hut gentleman asked me, if I really needed the coffee to stay awake, would I like to “cheat and have a shot of espresso thrown in”. As I wasn’t even sure if I could pay for the coffee, I didn’t think it was right to order a shot of espresso so, I laughed and said “no, thanks.” Spying the sleeping 5 year-old, he held up a dum-dum lollipop and asked if it was OK to give her one for later. “Sure,” I said, “but I’ll need two because there’s another sleeping kid who will want one.” “I see three kids back there, take three of them.”, he said. I pointed out that the baby was too young and took the two suckers.

I had found all of four pennies in the purse. He urged me to try the coffee and let me know if it was hot enough. If not, he would brew a fresh pot. All the while, the friends or family that were visiting him on the other side of the hut were popping their heads in to chat. At this point, I noticed the hours posted on the side of the establishment and said, “You’re CLOSED. I’m so sorry for bothering you!” “Don’t worry about it, really.” He looked for a loophole, in order to give me the coffee, and asked me “Are you or your husband military or ex-military?” “Nope.” “Are you a student?” “Not presently” He chuckled and threw his hands up in the air "Really, don’t worry about the money.”

I scoured the glove box and came up with a small change holder. “Wait! How much am I looking for, anyway?”, I asked. “$1.34”. After handing over thirteen dimes and a nickel, I received “a penny for your thoughts” as change. Before I left, he leaned down from his lofty seat in the hut, looked directly into my eyes and said “You stop if you get sleepy, you hear?” “Yes sir,” I replied, “I have precious cargo in the back.” “Well, you are a little young to have all those kids, 26, right? “ (He winked). I laughed “26? Me?” “Just go with it, dear,” he said. I grinned, put the window up, waved, and turned left onto the highway.

The coffee cup warmed my hand and the aroma awoke the nose that I had turned off. The caffeine jolt was sufficient to keep me rolling towards Illinois. We crossed the River and then joined an Interstate for the duration of the trip, which included more cornfields before yielding to exurbia, outlet malls, and at long last, suburbs. I did not yawn again until I exited the highway 4 hours later in my town, long past the children’s bedtime.

I looked down at the empty cup and read a tiny label that had been stuck to the lid, “Friends are God’s way of taking care of us.” While that may be true, sometimes a stranger with a few kind words and a potentially free cup of coffee can provide the care you need to reach the end of your journey.

The Sweet Table (Maria Theresa and Nicholas Get Married)

It is the Saturday night of my last gig with the wedding band for this year. Not because of some planned 3-month pre-maternity leave from singing but simply because there are no more gigs until January, when my nine months will be up. Tonight’s job is at Manzo’s banquet hall, in Des Plaines, not far from home. It is an easy 20-minute ride after peeling my children off of me as they attempt to squeeze in one more hug before I leave for the evening. The dance music is scheduled for 8:00-11:00pm, which is good, I won’t be out too late. A full day of mothering and setting up church music for Sunday morning has already worn me out.

The parking lot is packed. Since I only have to set up a music stand and plug in a vocal microphone, I’m always the last musician to arrive. Since the bride is the daughter of the owners of the hall, it looks like everyone who has ever purchased a wedding package here has returned for the festivities. My small car fits into a tiny space at the far end of the lot, and my stuff isn’t heavy, so it’s no big deal.

What is a big deal is the event going on inside. It’s 7:55pm, five minutes until the couple’s first dance. The guests haven’t even begun to eat dinner. Apparently, there are so many guests that the open bar and appetizers portion of the menu took much longer than expected. The first best man (there is more than one) is giving the first toast. He is followed by a second best man, a maid of honor, and a bridesmaid. I lose count. Father Carmen gives a blessing.

At this point, the bandleader dismisses me to find a comfy chair out in the hallway. Our 10-piece band is crowded and there is no place for me to sit down in the dining room, plus there is a DJ set up on the same stage area. The band plays dinner music and I retire to the hallway, where two tuxedoed men are setting up a real espresso bar, with the copper steamer, chocolate shavings, fancy sugars and chocolate-covered espresso beans. They use LaVazza beans, which they assure me are very expensive but also the best. As they have no guests to serve yet, they chat with me, pouring a double-shot latte, decaf, because I’m drinking for two. No small demitasse cup for me, I get the big to-go cup. It is hot and foamy and very nice. These guys are serious about their coffee duties, they have a gig tomorrow at the Palmer House.

The guest list with table assignments is printed on a large poster right next to my comfy chair. This is the biggest Italian wedding that I have ever witnessed. The guest list is populated by family names like Salerno, Passannate, Fannelli and Deluca, as well as O’Shea, Zagorski and Kranz.

As I sip my drink, I meet the star of the evening, the Dessert Lady. We are in a long, narrow hallway, right outside the ballroom doors. She has several six-foot tables set up against one wall, draped in sheer white and gold buntings. The tables have platforms covered in linens on them. Interspersed are enormous floral arrangements of hydrangeas, lilies and harvest-orange roses on pedestals. There is an ice sculpture of two hearts pierced by an arrow, glistening on the center table.

She begins the project of going to and from the hallway to a back room and returning with tray after tray of fabulous confections. She places baskets made from chocolate, including handles, filled with raspberries and cream on mirrored platters. She has cones of chocolate-covered strawberries amidst chocolate-mousse cakes. She has created cream puffs that have swan’s heads and wings crafted out of pastry. A chocolate Effiel Tower stands surrounded by petit fours. A chocolate grand piano opens to a view of pastel covered candies where a piano’s strings would be. Swans made out of white chocolate flank either side of the ice sculpture. Boats like the kind you would see in the canals of Venice are made out of chocolate and filled with fruits. Tiny plastic champagne glasses are filled with three different layers of liquor-flavored creams and topped with slivers of berries and twigs that are, of course, made out of chocolate. Real fruit, not covered by candy, is also on the stunning display. Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, kiwi, melons and pineapple slices.

The violinist is strolling from table to table, I hear the strains of “O Sole Mio” coming from the dining room. A half-hour into my job, and I’m still drinking coffee. I have been to a lot of weddings and many post-concert receptions featuring sweet tables. I have already guessed that I am watching a Polish woman from Oak-Mil Bakery set up a 40-foot length of sweets. Sometimes, I make a pilgrimage there for paczki, they are that good.

She looks fifty-ish and she is wearing red alligator skin high-heeled boots with squared-off toes. Even in these heels she is only about 5’4” tall. She has black jeans on, with rhinestone-encrusted pockets, both front and back, a black leather belt with silver studs, and black sweater that doesn’t quite reach her fashionable low-rise waistline, giving everyone a view of her bronzed, un-toned midriff. Her hair color betrays her devotion to peroxide, and her face displays either an addiction to nicotine or too many trips to the tanning salon. She is poetry in motion.

After bringing out even more treats like tiny custard fruit tarts and squares of pecan pie dipped in chocolate, she turns to a cart full of greenery, berries on branches and cream-colored roses. Now she adds her floral touches in between the pastries, going up and down the length of the many tables until she is satisfied with the results. Next come trays of candles, candles on crystal stands, candles floating in vases filled with rose petals and a big lighter.

The diners are experiencing a break in courses and the only route to the restroom or to smoke outside is to walk past me and the Dessert Lady. The guests are clearly noticing the decadent display and make favorable comments in English and Italian. One portly gentleman exclaims that he just had his teeth cleaned and he can’t have any of this, as if that’s the only reason he might need to skip the calories. Others indicate the desire to bypass the main course and go right to dessert. Not so, for the Dessert Lady is installing velvet ropes meant to keep their hands off the goodies until the appointed hour.

The band is playing “Besame Mucho” as a parade of beautiful young women make the trip down the hallway to the Ladies Lounge. What is remarkable is that they are all wearing incredibly high heels. Four-inch patent-leather stilettos with peep toes and platform fronts, studded with faux-jewels are everywhere. For lack of a better term, I would call these some of these styles “dominatrix heels”, and I marvel at how girl after girl walks down this hallway on her tippy toes (Even if I had a pair of shoes like this, which my husband would love to come home and find me cooking dinner in, I think I would need a chiropractor immediately after removing them). Not just the younger girls, it seems that everyone under the age of 45 is wearing their fanciest shoes. Even the grandmas are wearing pumps, albeit with more sensible heel heights. My own pregnant ankles are the size of grapefruits right now and I am rather embarrassed by the fact that I am wearing black leather riding boots with ¼-inch heels (If you listen closely, you can hear my mother saying “put your feet up” as she reads this). There is no way I could have worn pumps.

Very short formal dresses are in with this crowd, all the better to see your shoes in. In just a few minutes, I see purple satin, red chiffon with even redder maribou feathers, gold, scarlet, teal, and electric blue. The young men with these colorful ladies are favoring black. They are tall, dark and handsome. I witness a few who must help their dates adjust their skin-tight dresses. “See, it’s bunching right there, see it? See it?”

The mother of the groom is wearing silver chiffon studded with rhinestones, She comes out to “ooh” and “aah” at the work of the Dessert Lady. She has had quite a few drinks and needs a little help from the bridesmaids, who are dressed in cerulean blue chiffon gowns that also include rhinestones, in navigating the narrow hallway so as not to crash into the sweets.

I am hoping that Dessert Lady will leave for just a few moments so I can tuck some small treat into my bag to bring home to the kids. She does not take a break for even one second. I hear the introduction to “What a Wonderful World” start up and it’s show time.

Or, maybe not. One song is sung, but the guests have just finished the pasta course. It’s 9:00pm and a small army of white-gloved waiters is now serving the main course, filet mignon. Suddenly, a mini-bagel with peanut butter and a few spoonfuls of Campbell’s Princess Noodle chicken soup doesn’t seem like enough dinner. Especially after watching the Dessert Lady for an hour. Another fifteen minutes of instrumentals and I have earned about $100 so far this job by doing nothing.

Time for the band to take a break, and we all adjourn to the hallway where the Dessert Lady is still not allowing anyone to take a bite. She says that she started working on all of the chocolate decorations, fans, twigs, leaves, boats, etc., on Friday morning. A sweet table of this dimension is a full two-day project. By now, the photographer is taking detailed pictures of it and guests are pulling out their camera phones to document this overabundance of sugar and heavy cream. Dessert Lady sits in my comfy chair and guards her masterpiece as if it were the Mona Lisa.

You know that you are at a good ethnic wedding when “to-go” boxes are handed out. Guests are packing up their leftover steaks. They are served a dessert, personal cakes shaped like hearts, and in addition, a giant white wedding cake is brought out. This cake is sliced and the wax-paper wrapped pieces are placed near the coatroom for the guests to take home, perhaps to freeze and eat on the one-year anniversary of the happy couple. Bride and Groom are visiting each table, the bride’s dress is covered in lace interspersed with crystals, her veil twinkles.

The lights dim, wheels of colored lights turn and make the entire room glow blue, now pink, now gold. The senior folks ask for tangos, fox-trots, waltzes. I sing Rosemary Clooney’s version of “Mambo Italiano”, which has many words in it. It’s a little hard to concentrate on lyrics like “Hey, goombah, I love-a how you dance the rhumba” when an internal child is doing the cha-cha in your belly.

A second wave of guests is arriving, mainly young people who have been invited for dessert, coffee, drinks and dancing. The Sweet Table is open for business and I watch plates piled high with mini-cannoli and cream puffs make their way with patrons from the hallway, across the dance floor and back to tables. Like Tracy in the Partridge Family, I play the lame tambourine on a few numbers, although I look more like a middle-aged Laurie. We play the usual rock, country, big band stuff, and “Mamma Mia”. How are they dancing in such high heels? By taking tiny steps and swaying from side to side, clinging to their dates or even to their girlfriends because girls always dance with girls at these parties.

The well-fed and sugared-up crowd is discoing and hugging, laughing and kissing. The bandleader is frustrated and upset momentarily because the pianist is a sub and he doesn’t get the transition between two of the songs right. I tell him to “let it go” because these people do not care, they are having a great time, just look at them.

It’s 11:00pm and the DJ takes over. This group is going to dance for a long time. The espresso guys are working until 12:30am. I have not worked very hard at all, and it takes about five minutes for me to pack up my music and bid the wedding business farewell until next year. One male guest in a shiny suit says to me, in a voice like Father Guido Sarducci, “that was-uh real nice-uh”, the mother of the groom gushes over the beauty of the music (she’s still feeling good) and I’m glad that my singing made into the schedule.

Back in the hallway, I see that Mr. Clean Teeth is forsaking his purity pledge. Although the large crowd has descended up it, Dessert Lady now has a young man helping her to constantly re-arrange the treats so as to appear less ransacked. She makes my day by placing, you guessed it, “to-go” containers on the Sweet Table! She is an artist, but her chosen medium is perishable, and it must be consumed in order to fulfill its tasty destiny. A selection of teeny fruit tarts, chocolates and melon will surely draw squeals of delight from my girls tomorrow. Except for the square of chocolate-covered pecan pie, which does not make it out of the parking lot. Yum, that’s-a nice-uh.

A Day's Worth of Kisses

Monday, September 28, 2009

It is a busy Friday, beginning around 7:00am with the rousing of Laurel from her sleep to get ready for another day of second grade. She gives me a “Good morning Mommy, I love you” kiss with a sleepy look on her face. The bus comes to our corner at 8:05am and she needs about an hour to dress, eat, and hang out with me. She already knows that I have multiple gigs and responsibilities today that will keep me away from home until long after she has gone to bed. She does not like it if I am not at home in time to read stories and sing a lullaby to her. She holds my hand as we walk to the corner and gives me a big hug and a kiss on the lips as the bus is pulling up. We blow kisses to each other after she sits by a window, I already miss her and I love her.

The first gig is in a church in a south suburb of the city. I need about 40 minutes to get there. Lena is still asleep as I prepare for the job, I leave some grapes and a choice of outfits for her in the living room. She will wake up before daddy does and know to get dressed. I kiss the top of her sleepy head and tiptoe out of the bedroom.

The gig is an Irish funeral for an elderly gentleman, Mr. Mahoney. This in itself is not unusual or remarkable except for the fact that the family asked for an Irish instrumentalist, too. That means that I get to sing with one of my favorite Irish musicians, Jimmy, who plays guitar and whistles. He will be groggy and late because he was out at a bar gig until the wee hours of the morning and should probably still be asleep. (He has four kids, so, how late would they let him sleep, anyway?)

He is Irish-from-Ireland, and that means, even though he is cutting it close in getting to the church, he must pause for a moment to kiss me “hello”. A buss on the lips followed by “good morning”. Together, we have as much fun as is possible while playing music at a funeral. The 85-year-old priest begins the Homily by saying, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die”. We are giggling. Jimmy plays his instruments so beautifully, you’d swear he was wide awake. I know I haven’t done a bad job myself, because both Jimmy and the music director at the parish praise the singing in ways that they just don’t have to. After we walk to the parking lot, we exchange the “good-bye, see you later” smooch that is required in order for us to part ways. He’s a great musician, a sweet person, and I just love him.

I race home in order to see Lena before she goes to preschool. I make it there in time to sit with her for a few minutes while she waits for our neighbor to walk across the yard with her own preschooler and collect Lena for their carpool. She is wearing purple Crocs on her feet and I notice that the Tinkerbell charm in her shoe is missing its head. As I remove the headless fairy, Lena is asking me to rethink my plans for the day and to come home while it is still morning. (Morning for Lena is anytime when you can still see daylight.) I tell her that I will be home before she wakes up on Saturday and I help her put her backpack on. We walk towards our neighbor’s car, and Lena kisses me goodbye, going off happily with her friend. I already miss her and I love her.

Following a quick trip to the Jewel for some provisions so that the family will not starve while I’m away for the rest of the day, my husband anxiously desires a cup of coffee from the Caribou. I don’t know why he doesn’t want to brew a pot at home but, hey, he’s buying so I’ll go with him on my way out of town. First I have to swap my funeral-singing clothes for the outfit that I will need in the evening. He patiently finds my microphone and helps put the groceries away. We get coffees at Caribou and sit for a moment in their comfy chairs, chatting about neighborhood happenings. He looks a little tired, possibly from lack of coffee until 1:00pm, or from the tremendous effort he is putting into creating class materials for a music camp that he will be teaching at next weekend. I could sit all day (or go home and nap), but I have to get moving. I kiss his cheek because I love him.

The next stop is all the way northeast, into the city, where I will spend time being an Arts Administrator. Half-way there, I get a phone call saying, “Where are you? We miss you!” I am coming as fast as I can, although Chicago’s finest cops have inexplicably come screeching into the intersection near the Superdawg and closed it right in front of me. A small detour is required.

Polish-from-Poland people share the same kissing culture as the Irish-from-Ireland do, and both the boss and the secretary of the organization that I am on my way to fall into that category of Polish-ness. However, I see them both so often, that we have developed an un-spoken understanding of when to kiss “hello” and “goodbye”. We do it when we are out on social occasions or at post-concert receptions. We save the biggest Polish kisses, three times – one cheek, the other cheek, the first cheek again, for Christmas and Easter activities. We are released from kissing obligations at our office. On this particular day, I solve a major problem for the boss who is preparing for both a concert on the weekend and a yearly board meeting. “I love you!” she cries out to me. This is such a frequent sentiment expressed at our office that I offer her my standard response “What’s not to love and I love you, too.” (Just don’t kiss me, I’m trying to get some work done!)

The Presbyterians that I know are not an overly kissing bunch. Genuinely caring, yes, and they like to shake hands and hug each other on Sundays. Today, one of them has an artistic concern that is bothering her to the point of sleeplessness. In between prepping music and writing paychecks for tomorrow’s concert, I read email messages from her and attempt to compose a cohesive message to her that might assuage her fear of being treated unfairly by the Music Director, who happens to be me. I think I have crafted a loving and thoughtful reply to her, perhaps we will exchange a hug soon.

It’s 8:00pm now and that’s really bad because I am still in the office near Lake Michigan and I am supposed to be standing in front of a band at a country club near Elgin by 9:00pm. It’s too far, it can’t be driven in sixty minutes. The boss, who is the one who has begged me to stay and help finish things for the board meeting, finally makes me leave by saying, “I love you, but, get out of here!”

It’s 9:00pm now, and I have somehow made it, in a light drizzle, to the highway exit, only 8 miles from the country club. The phone is ringing, it is the drummer who, of course, would like to know where I am. I am coming as fast as I can, I’m almost there, I ask him to have the male vocalist, who is also the guitar player in the band, to start singing the set. There is a small problem with my suggestion because it seems that the guitarist thinks the gig is on Saturday, and today is Friday. The guitarist’s wife knows not his whereabouts. The band would be really grateful if I get there soon. It doesn’t matter that I am late because the event includes a charity auction, which is still going on.

Seven men in tuxedos are very glad to see me at 9:10pm because they are huddled together trying to re-do the set lists for the evening. Fear not, I say to them, because we live in the era of internet on our cell phones, I can pull up the lyrics to any tune that the male singer does. (Just don’t make me sing “Mony, Mony”, I’m not getting paid enough for that!) The only one who has to suffer anxiety now is me, the person who will have to sing the songs she doesn’t really know. A list is written, the auction is over, the guitarist calls, he is shocked at his own forgetfulness but he is on the way! I am so happy when he arrives that I could kiss him! (We’re busy, so I won’t.)

The view from the bandstand is one of sparkling wealth and privilege, people are dressed to impress. Ladies of a certain age show proof that doctors who perform botox injections and personal trainers earn a good living in this neck of the woods. Also striking is the decades of age difference between some of the more beautiful women and the men they appear to be escorting or married to. I have clearly let my career opportunities to become a trophy wife pass me by, since I am on stage both in my 40’s and pregnant. C’est la vie.

One female guest stands out. She looks Latina, the only one in the room who is not part of the wait staff at this gala affair. She is wearing the loudest dress, a pastel that stands out in a sea of dark colored frocks. It is floor length and fringed like a flapper girl outfit, and it has a very daring, long slit in the back. She dances with abandon all evening. She laughs and smiles, she does not appear to have a frozen face. She is not the youngest or the most classically beautiful of the women in the room, but she is alive and captivating. It is impossible not to notice her throughout the course of the dance sets.

The benefit of my having warmed up vocally early in the day, and having already sung quite a bit before arriving at this gig, is that I sound good. Better than I should sound because I am now getting sleepy. One of the sax players notices both, “God, you sound great today. You look kind of tired.” The guests at this party are nice, a cultured group. They care enough to hire live musicians, and they come up to the stage to talk to us and compliment us throughout the night. It is a pleasant job. They are trickling out now, towards the coatroom, many of the ladies taking the extravagant floral centerpieces with them.

We will play until as long as the contract requires us to for the hearty few dancers who still want to party. This includes the Latina lady in fringe. She dances, now with her girlfriends, until the last note is played. At which point, she scoops up her own centerpiece and runs up to me. Thrusting the large bowl of flowers, tall gladiolas, freesia, gloxinia and greenery into my hands, she says in accented English “Take this, this is for you, you deserve it!” With exuberance, her arms encircle me and the bowl of flowers, she hugs me, and kisses my cheek. I don’t know her name, but in this moment, I just love this adorable woman.

After the long drive home, there is no one awake to give me a good night kiss. At 3:00am, with giant flowers on the table, I head for bed, confident that my husband and children will shower me with good morning kisses when the sun comes up.

Thoughts from the Funeral Service Trenches

September 23, 2009

1. "Flight of the Bumblebee" ring tone is a real mood-breaker.

2. Snappy comeback needed in response to the relative who, before hearing my voice, declared me incompetent to sing the O'Malley funeral Mass because I do not have an Irish surname. Has he considered that it might be a married name, or that I could be Irish on my mother's side, or that a spelling mistake was made at Ellis Island, or that Susan is really Siobhan? That's not the case, of course, but, this is the U.S.A. and those are valid possibilities. (Perhaps my friends who include, for example, Fergus, Berndt, Moore, Cowan & Keane can show me the secret "approved by the Irish" handshake! )

I don't usually sing for the deceased with anger in my breast, but this comment did get on my nerves. I had nothing to say in response to him at the time except that I was the singer who was hired and present and I would do my best. So, I threw myself into it with the goal of making the music so beautiful that Uncle Jack would cry. Which he did, during the sacred version of "Danny Boy".

3. Apology accepted, Uncle Jack. Hey, is that your phone ringing?

Thankful Moments and Great Eulogy Closing Line

September 11, 2009

Today, I was up early getting Laurel ready for school and wondering how exactly I was going to pay for the balance of Lena's birthday party when I got THE CALL.

A singing friend with a sore throat needed a sub for a 10:00am Irish-Polish-Italian funeral at St. Thecla's on Chicago's northwest side. Repertoire requirements included "Serdeczna Matko", "Ave Maria", "Santa Lucia", "Celtic Alleluia" and "The Rose". Luckily, I had sheet music for "The Rose" in a file of music dating from my high school years on my back porch, right next to "You Light Up My Life" (hey, you never know what someone might want to hear). Thank you, Kathy, for helping me earn the cash to pay for the party (get well soon)!

St. Thecla's had a huge rummage sale going on. Thank you, St. Thecla's, for Laurel's new $1.50 pair of ice skates, and for two Build-a-Bear outfits at $.50 each!

My dear friend and fellow singer Ewa lives right down the street from the church. She doesn't know "The Rose" so, she could not go sing the funeral at her own parish. But, she called and invited me over for homemade butternut squash soup, fresh croutons and cookies. She gave me a nice maternity top. Thank you, Ewa, for free lunch, clothes, and conversation!

My parents were driving to town today from Iowa, on an afternoon when I desperately needed a babysitter before York H.S. students are available. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for free babysitting!

The funeral this morning was for an elderly woman who had fought back from bouts of cancer several times over decades. I did not know her but she was clearly beloved by her family and friends. Normally, I try not to listen to the eulogies because it's very hard to sing afterwards (humming "Copacabana" or "The Chicken Dance" to myself usually helps). Today, with no song in my head, I paid attention to the eulogy, given by her widower. He talked about the day they met (It was raining and he had an umbrella) and a little about the 50 some years since then. He ended with this line: "It was fun. Thank you, Alice."