Leave Room in Your Garden for Angels to Dance

Ten years ago, my friend Susie, made me a “thingy” for my flower garden.  I’ve since learned that “thingy” is actually a “garden ornament”.  If I hadn’t sent her the ONLY picture I took of her garden ornament, I would put it on here.  Susie does a lot of “folk art” in various mediums.  This one is similar to a cross but she paints her own angels, flowers and wording.  And that’s what makes it unique.  The one she made me had written on it “Leave Room in Your Garden for the Angels to Dance”.  Her hand painted angels were dancing on their “pole”. 

On Sept. 3, 2001 I wrote Susie a letter thanking her for the much loved garden ornament.  Fortunately, she saved my letter!  When I decided last December I was going to tell “my funny stories” this story was the first thing I thought of.  But I couldn’t find anything in the computer or anywhere else.  Susie mentioned to me back in the still frozen winter that I should tell this story and that’s when she discovered she still had my letter.

On September 3, 2001, my great-nephew, Jared, was only 6 days from turning four years old.  Hard to believe he just turned 14 years old and is taller than I am!  My favorite little boy in all the world really grew up fast!  I love him more than life, but have to admit that at 3 and 4 years old he was so very entertaining because he was so smart!  Watching him “learn” was always exciting!

So, here I am 10 years later “blogging” a story that still makes me laugh just thinking about it.  I know I haven’t managed to make it as funny as it was at the time, but this story is for sure in the top 10 funny stories I’ve lived in my life!  You probably had to be there to get the full impact, but use your imagination and visualize what we were seeing in our backyard!  Here's my letter:

September 3, 2001

Hi Susie,

Lest you think I am totally ungrateful for the garden “thingy” (what are they really called?) you made me, I have waited to say “thank you” because I wanted to take some pictures of it in my beautiful blooming garden.  As usual for me, there is a story.

I have worked all summer trying to get something to bloom - anything.  I’ve planted more flowers in the backyard - everywhere - than you can imagine.  And when I dig one inch, I immediately hit rock - so all these plants required a great deal of hard digging.  But I wanted your “thingy” to have flowers around it.  I finally decided while everything grew leaves and was very green - nothing was ever going to flower.  So I put your “thingy” up anyway.

Well, Jared comes over and asked what was written on it.  I read it to him:  “Leave room in your garden for the angels to dance”.  Jared, being almost a 4 year old, says, “Where do the angels dance?”  I should have figured out at this point that he and I were going to engage in a long question/answer time.

 I told Jared the angels dance in the garden.  He said he wanted to see them.  I told him he couldn’t - they only danced at night when no one could see.  He said he wanted to come out at night and see them.  I told him angels were all around us, but we couldn’t see them.  He wanted to know where they were.  I told him there were five great big angels on the roof of our house - one on each corner and one on the roof.  He asked how they got there.  I told him when we moved into the house I prayed for God to put the angels there to keep the house safe.  Our question/answer conversation went on and on and on about where the angels were, why he couldn’t see them, and why did they dance in the garden. 

I thought I would find some angel statues and put them in the “garden”.  After looking all summer I found these angels at Walmart on sale.  So I buy two.  When I got home I got the swan planters where begonias were blooming, and put the angel statues next to the begonias.  . I was determined to have you see blooming flowers next to your “thingy”.   I finally decided I needed to take a picture of my tiny little blooming patch.  Unfortunately, but normal for me, the battery was dead in the camera.  Summer rushed on and I never got batteries so I could take a couple of pictures until now.

A few days after I sat up my tiny, little blooming patch, I went to the back yard to water my container flowers and see if any blooms of all the flowers I planted in the ground had shown up.  The swan planters with the begonias and the angel statues are sitting in the ground cover.  The ground cover is the only thing that hasn’t died, so I use it to “frame” anything that has a bloom on it.  To my surprise, the angel on the right as you look at the picture had toppled onto the grass.  These are just resin so they aren’t very heavy and I just set it back in its place.  A couple of days later, it’s again fallen over.  So I dig around in the ground cover to make a hole so I knew it was sitting on ground and not the vines from the ground cover.  About a week goes by with no problem.  Then one morning I looked out and it was lying in the grass again.  By this time, I decide” the angels really have been dancing at night”.  This continued for several weeks.  Then one day Mother asked me why that angel kept falling over.   I said I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a  “fallen angel”.  So we had a good laugh over the “fallen angel” and nothing more was said.  

All my family was over here one evening and literally out of the blue, Jimmy says, ”Denise you are going to have to move that one angel on the right”.  I asked him why.  He says “because it’s sitting on a sprinkler head and every time I set the sprinkler to come on, it’s shooting the angel up in the air and onto the grass!”

 Well if you don’t think we didn’t have a HUGE laugh over that - the mystery of the dancing, fallen angel was solved!  What made it funnier was other than Mother and I talking about it, we had never said anything to anyone in the family about it so of course, we  had to fill everyone in on the mysterious “fallen angel”.   I did ask Jimmy why he hadn’t said something about it.  He said because he couldn’t figure out why I would continue to set it on the sprinkler head.  I told him I couldn’t see the sprinkler head since they went back down to ground level when not on.  Then he said, didn’t you see it lying on the ground?  I said yes, I did.  He said he left it laying there thinking that I would get the message.  I told him I wasn’t going to get a message when I didn’t know there was one to get!  Talk about left brain/right brain thinking.  But it was really funny at that moment and I still laugh about it.

Anyway, I’m very proud of the “thingy” you made me - maybe next summer something will bloom out there - and I’ll take another picture to send you.  Or if some night I look out and see those angels dancing and the sprinkler isn’t on, I’ll know there REALLY is a Santa Claus!   I’ve told Jared Santa and his reindeer land on the roof of the house and come down through the chimney at Christmas.  We talk about that one year round!  He wants to believe me, but I think he’s beginning to think between all the angels and Santa and the reindeer, it’s getting crowded up there!

Love you,

’Nise

SOUTH OF SIXTY

Observation on  ‘Who is This Man in My House”

I do not like to cook.  I am not a good cook.  Fortunately, I’m married to a man who didn’t marry me for my cooking.

He probably didn’t know I wasn’t a good cook.  He probably assumed all women could cook because all the women in his family are great cooks.  Thank God he was blinded by my beauty and overlooked the check list for marriage that included “can she cook”.

The first meal I cooked for him as his wife was tuna casserole.  He didn’t even try to eat it.  Just looked at it and said “please don’t make this again because I can’t stand cooked tuna”.   He then made a peanut butter-jelly sandwich for supper.  I was shocked!  It was the best thing I could cook.  My two roommates and I had it once a week for 18 months!  It was CHEAP to make!   But since I had never liked it either, I never cooked it again.

I cooked dinner every night the first five years we were married.   Worked great the first two years when he was home every night.  The next three years he took flying lessons after work every night and didn’t get home until 10:00.

I continued preparing a home cooked meal.  Ate by myself and made him a plate.  Around 10:00 pm he’d get home, eat the cold plate of food (no microwaves in 1967) and go to bed.  By the end of the fifth year of marriage, I had an epiphany!  Why was I cooking a meal to eat alone, washing the dishes after I ate and then washing his dishes the next morning.  Obviously we didn’t have a dishwashing machine.  I was the dishwashing machine.

I had not been liberated yet.  My childhood years were the ‘50’s.  I was programmed to be June Cleaver.  In the cultural revolution of the ‘60’s, my only rebellion was to figure out I was NOT June Cleaver and no amount of trying was going to make me like her.

I was ready to quit cooking when husband went to Air Force Pilot Training.  I didn’t have to work that year.  I felt real bad about sleeping late when he got up a 3:30 am to be at the Base by 5:00.  So I got up and cooked his breakfast at 4:00 am.   FOR A WHOLE YEAR!  Then went back to bed, slept late, lounged in the pool all afternoon, and cooked supper.  I liked that life.

After pilot training and relocating permanently to San Antonio, my work and his work enabled us to eat out more often – or buy it and bring it home.  I cooked less and less.  The last twelve years I’ve rarely cooked.  My life was good.

Jimmy just had knee replacement surgery.  He had one last year also but the weather was still good and I could bring cooked food home from all kinds of restaurants where I paid THEM to cook it.  And his niece was here the first week he was home and prepared and froze wonderful meals for us to eat after she left.  This year surgery was the start of bad weather in Missouri.  Ice storm, snow storm.  I knew I was going to have to cook this time around.  I bought food for a month.  I was prepared. 

Except for one small issue.  Jimmy isn’t a demanding husband.  Jimmy is a great patient.  He’s never complained about hurting, didn’t need me to help him in and out of bed or anything.  I just had to cook.  Issue:  Jimmy suddenly got real picky about how his food LOOKED!  How it was PUT TOGETHER.  Real picky.  By the third day he was home from the hospital I was asking “WHO IS THIS MAN IN MY HOUSE”?

I was already tired from going to and from hospital.  I have had some health “issues” the past few years that make it difficult to get around quickly – or at all some days. Getting him home and settled was exhausting for both of us.  But we did it.

First morning home from hospital.  Since I wanted to take care of him, I foolishly asked “what do you want for breakfast”?  His reply:  “Three sausage patties, two biscuits and gravy.”  I said why three sausage patties?  “I want two sausage patties, one to go on each biscuit, and one just to eat.  I want gravy over the sausage and biscuits”.  I asked “You don’t want one biscuit open faced with a sausage patty on each part”?  He replied rather abruptly (I thought) “No, I want two biscuits each with a sausage patty and gravy over all that.  Then I want one sausage patty by itself with no gravy.  And orange juice in a small glass and coffee”.  I laughed and said “you’re joking, right”.  His reply “no, I’m not joking”.  That’s what I want for breakfast.  Me:  “you’re pulling my leg”.  Him:  “no, that’s what I want for breakfast”.  He was really abrupt this time.

Jimmy knows I’m not a morning person.   Never have been.   Never will be.  He knows my body aches all over in the mornings.  He knows I need coffee and a bit of something to eat before I can even remember my name.  He’s always been, most of the time, patient with me being slow in the mornings.  Not this morning. 

When I asked the question, I was just being polite.  I KNEW he would say “just a bowl of cereal and coffee”.   Attorney rule:  NEVER ask a question to a person on the witness stand to which you don’t know the answer!  I’m not an attorney.  I asked the question.

I came oh so close to saying “forget it, what kind of cereal do you want”.  But he was just home from hospital and I figured in pain – otherwise he would NEVER have asked me to COOK at 8:00 in the morning!  He said he wasn’t in pain.  Not a good remark to make to me.

So I fixed his breakfast EXACTLY as ordered.  One and one half hours later I had cooked his breakfast to order, scrubbed the stovetop from all the grease, mopped the floor from the stuff I dropped, and loaded the dishwasher.  I didn’t even eat!  After cooking that much grease early in the morning – I had a bowl of cereal!

A couple days later, being the loving wife, I asked “what do you want for lunch”?   Now, I thought the directions for breakfast were a bit over the top, one thing about lunch was more over the top.  

Hubby wanted a ham sandwich.  I could do that.  Ham, Miracle Whip (we are from the Texas and always thought Miracle Whip WAS mayo) and bread – maybe a lettuce leaf.  I’m a purist with my own sandwiches.  Meat and bread – and Miracle Whip!

I asked what he wanted on that sandwich.  His answer:  Thin sliced Hillshire Farm ham with the thin slices spread out, sliced tomato, lettuce, Miracle Whip – and then the one that made me know he was on pain meds.  Two Vlsasic Stackers Zesty Dill pickles.

I pulled the jar out of the refrigerator, took out two slices.  Looked at slices, looked at sandwich.  Asked hubby:  “How do you want them put on the sandwich – long ways or sideways? I WAS BEING SARCASTIC.  He seriously answered “sideways”!  Sarcastically I asked again.  “You sure you don’t want them long ways?”  “No, I want them SIDEWAYS!”

Hubby didn’t know I was being sarcastic – and won’t until he reads this.  But I’m looking at the sandwich and saying to self “it’s just a sandwich for cryin’ out loud.  What does it matter how the ham is put on it or the pickles sideways or long ways”?  But he got it as ordered!

Obviously, cooking of food isn’t something I like.  Presentation of food – if I’m paying for someone else to cook it – I want “presentation”.  If I’m cooking it – take it like I dish it up – it’s just food!

I started writing this story shortly after his Dec. 7^th surgery date. 

I've cooked a lot of meals since then.  And there were other instances of his “quirks” with food presentation.   But I guess I forgot them in the daily life of three meals a day.  He is now driving himself to outpatient physical therapy and most mornings, brings me a bowl of cereal and coffee.   Aw, life is good again!

He did say one thing last week that made me realize how much the very few pain pills he took affected him.   I said something about being glad we could go out and eat again.  He said yes, you did cook a few meals while I was recovering.  A FEW??????????? 

I didn’t argue with him.  He doesn’t remember – he was drugged.  After all my efforts to do something I hadn’t done in YEARS – cook every day – I could have made him HIS version of a sandwich and he would have never known the difference!  But I wouldn’t have felt that I’d taken good care of him if I hadn’t cooked homemade meals for him.  And taking care of him was all I really wanted anyway.

Denise Ball Carrigan

January 21, 2010

SOUTH OF SIXTY

OBSERVATIONS ON “CHURCH FUNDRAISERS”

This story was written for a church Facebook Group. We are writing “memories” of our time at this church, posting them to the group page, and having a wonderful time doing it! 

One of the posts on our church Facebook Page was made by Tina, who was writing about fun things she remembered as a “Youth” in the church.  She mentioned making fried pies along with a few other things like the annual fireworks stand the church choir had to raise money for choir robes and other choir functions.  We had a church full of people with creative ideas for fundraisers.  Unfortunately, they usually involved a lot of hard work!

Tina’s post prompted me to tell the REAL story about making those fried pies because I don’t remember the event as being fun at all!  A few names have been changed to protect the innocent, but everything else is the truth! 

There were three of us “young married couples” who had been asked to “sponsor” our Youth Group as we had no Youth Pastor.  Since we married people were barely out of the Youth Group ourselves, I think our pastor thought we would relate to the Youth while providing some more mature guidance.  It is highly probable that our Pastor was mistaken about the “mature guidance” part.  This church was in Amarillo, Texas.  We had the greatest people in this church! 

We needed a fund raiser.  I think it was to help fund the very first ski trip the Youth Group made to Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains. 

Several ideas were presented to and by the youth.  Since we "sponsors" worked fulltime, we were suggesting some type of fundraiser that was EASY and took little time. 

Linda was one of the young ladies in our Youth Group.  She suggested the Youth Group make fried pies.  There was a great deal of arguing back and forth about how hard & time consuming it would be to make fried pies.  I still have never figured out WHY we agreed to her “not so brilliant idea” to raise money.  It might have been because we would take orders for the fried pies for a month before and would be able to "sell" more people on buying those homemade fried pies.  

Orders were taken.  Many, many orders!  Dozens and dozens of fried pies were ordered.  We were really excited about all the money we were going to make which would pay everyone's way on the bus.  Did I mention dozens and dozens of orders?

The Friday arrived for us to start making fried pies.  I personally had never then, or since, made a fried pie.  But we got instructions from people like my mother-in-law who made really good ones.  Sandy was the best cook amongst us "sponsors", so she figured out all the ingredients we would need.

With borrowed money from the church (to be repaid), Sandy purchased tons of flour, shortening, sugar, various fruits because we offered three kinds:  apple, peach and cherry.  And lots and lots of cooking oil.  Many containers of it.  

We borrowed every frying pan that was owned by every cook in the church.  We DID NOT have deep fryers! 

We had so many orders, we set up 3 shifts working all Friday night from 6:00 pm to midnight; midnight to 6:00 am Saturday; and 6:00 am to 12:00 noon on Saturday. 

Friday the first shift was to arrive and begin making fried pies.  Then everyone was scheduled to be there for cleanup of the kitchen in the youth building on Saturday afternoon.  With everyone there we figured cleanup would take about 2 hours max. 

Sponsors, Dick and Sandy, had first shift and their assigned "youth" to get started.  That way we knew Sandy would have given prep and cooking instructions to everyone which would be passed on at the shift change. 

My husband, Jimmy, and I had the midnight shift.  We arrived early; about 10:30 pm.  Kitchen was busy.  We ate a few pies; watched the process so we had some clue what to do.  We had been there awhile when I asked if Linda was on our shift. 

Dead silence.  Finally one of the youth who was braver than most, spoke up and informed us Linda wouldn't be there.  At all.  She had gone out of town for the weekend!!!!!!! 

We sponsors could not believe it!  Linda was in deep trouble with us.  We grumbled about it all night and all day Saturday.  And saying “grumbled” is putting in mildly!

You see, most of the "Youth Group" could not get permission to stay all night cooking pies.  So we had rounded up a couple more married couples who had permission to stay out all night, and we cooked fried pies.  Mostly we sponsors cooked fried pies.  I think Dick and Sandy went home about 6:00 am.   Jimmy and I did not get home until after 6:00 pm on Saturday! 

We had so much dough on the floor, the walls, everywhere that when we finally got all those pies fried by Saturday afternoon, it took us hours to scrape up the dough and scrub everything clean for Sunday School the next morning.

But we did finish.  All those dozens of fried pies were put in the refrigerator with names on them.  A few people came by and got theirs fresh but 90% of them went into the refrigerator. 

I left there more exhausted than I had ever been in my life.  Over 16 hours in that kitchen standing on our feet, covered in dough, fruit, etc. and then on our hands and knees scraping the floors with putty knives to get all the trampled dough up!  And cleaning up all those frying pans!  Grease was everywhere!  We may have had to repaint the walls in the kitchen because of the grease! 

Sunday morning arrives.  Jimmy and I taught a Sunday School class.   We rushed to get there on time; therefore, it wasn't until after Sunday School when I arrived in the choir room to get my robe on, that someone said to me "too bad about the fried pies".  I whirled around and said what do you mean "too bad about the fried pies"? 

Answer was very casually given that SOMEONE had unplugged the refrigerator on Saturday night and all the fried pies were ruined!!!!!!!!!!!!  

There wasn't time until after service to find out WHO unplugged that refrigerator!  Murder was in my heart!  After asking two or three people the answer was "JOHN".  The janitor. 

John, the janitor, was a good man.  He just had a “hearing” problem.  What one would say to him would not necessarily be what John “heard”.  What was in John’s mind at any point in time was what John DID!

Several of us cornered John as well as the Pastor after service on Sunday morning.  Why in the world had John unplugged that refrigerator?  The answer:  because the Pastor had told John that after every activity in any part of the church, to go and make sure every light was out and everything unplugged so as to keep the electric bill down!  John never did understand why we were all so upset at him!

We sponsors had to pitch in along with a few of the youth who could get some money, to REPAY the church for what we borrowed for ingredients!  

Linda came strolling into church Sunday night with not a care in the world.  When attacked by all of us, she just looked at us confused and said, "I forgot it was this weekend"!

Linda lived many more years before illness took her life at too young an age, but she came REAL close that Sunday night of being one of two people who almost got killed.  John was the other one! 

As for the ski trip - we went on it anyway.  Left the church at 6:00 on Friday evening on a school bus, drove all night to Sandia Mountain, spent the day on the slopes either skiing or riding inner tubes down the mountain, got back on the bus at 6:00 Saturday evening so we could make it back in time for us all to rush home and get dressed for church on Sunday morning!

Now you know the REAL story of making fried pies!  And why one should think twice before agreeing to “sponsor” the Youth Group!  “Sponsor” usually means doing most of the work!

Denise Ball Carrigan

January 15, 2011