(Here’s a tip: If somebody asks you what you want to do, you’d best think of something or you can end up watching 12 hours of football on TV.)

   “Well,” I said, rubbing my hands together, “let’s see. OK, tonight after you get off work, I want to get in the car and drive four hours to Williams, Ariz.”

   He raised an eyebrow.

   “We’ll stay there overnight,” I said, sounding like Christie Brinkley hawking a Bowflex, “then we’ll wake up and take the train to the Grand Canyon!”

   The eyebrow flat-lined and I dropped the sales pitch.

   “I’m hungry to see fall, OK?” I said. “I figure that’s as close as I can get to it this year.”

   When you grow up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you never lose your taste for fall, even if _ by some quirk of fate that proves God has a sense of humor _ you end up living in a neon desert called Sin City.

   My husband knows how I feel about fall. He knew it could be a problem when he married me. He tries to be sympathetic, usually. Not this time.

   Sorry, he said, he needed to work Sunday, maybe we’d go next weekend. Then, as if to offer a consolation prize, he said, “Wanna get a flu shot?”

   I am not making that up. That is what he said. And that is how we ended up, not feasting on the gold of the aspens at the Grand Canyon, but waiting in line for two days for a flu shot.

   Did I say two days? I meant two hours; two of the precious few that we had left to live.

   I knew something was up when I saw 15 people in line by the pharmacy, looking as glum as a herd of cows standing around waiting to get milked.

   An attractive elderly woman was seated in one of the few available chairs. I smiled all friendly like. “Been here long?”

   She shot me a look. “Two hours,” she said, “and it looks like another hour to go.”

   I wanted to ask if I could have her chair after she finished with it, but she nodded off again.

   We added our names to the end of the list and filled out forms electronically. This was supposed to speed things up.

   Then my husband wandered off to buy a magazine. (I had a cat that wandered off once; when he came back, I didn’t let him in.) Meanwhile, I roamed the aisles looking for things I ought to get while I was there.

   You’d be amazed at all the stuff you can buy while waiting in line for a flu shot.

   My husband came back with a “National Geographic” and took a seat in the electric massage chair. I sat next to him in the blood pressure booth, checked my pressure 500 times.

   “Should I get a pneumonia shot, too?” he asked.

   “Sure,” I said. “They use really big needles for that.”

    Finally, we got our shots and left, not for home, but to the gym, because one of us wanted to work out and the other didn’t want to admit she’d just as soon stand in line a few more hours.

   Today my husband got shot again, this time with the H1N1 vaccine. (He wanted me to get it, too, but I, oh darn, didn’t fit the criteria.) And tonight he came home from work with a headache and a very sore arm.

   Far be it from me to say I told him so. I took his temp (my hand is more accurate than any thermometer), wrapped him in a quilt and brought his dinner on a tray. If I get sick, he will probably do the same for me.

   It’s called being married.

   Sometimes you get to go to the Grand Canyon; other times you just get shot. Either way, you’ve got each other’s backs.

   I hope he’s better by Friday. I’m still hungry to see fall.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                   

                         "Goodness and Grace"
                          Nov. 3, 2009

   Here’s to the Bad Girls, bless their hearts, who make all the Good Girls look good.

   There’s one in every family. You know who she is. She’s the topic of conversation at every family table where she shows up late, or not at all, peddling some excuse nobody will buy.

   Everybody loves her, but hates how she acts. Her mother worries. Her grandmother prays. Her aunts and sisters all want to strangle her. And her nieces want to be just like her.

   The men in her family care about her, too, but they see it’s a fight that can’t be won so they try to stay out of the crossfire.

   She makes tongues wag, heads shake, eyes roll, tempers  flare and she can turn hair gray overnight. Why? Because she does flat-out as she pleases; and that doesn’t please her family.

    Among my grandmother’s nine daughters, competition was fierce for the title of “baddest of the bad.” My mother was a contender, but lost in the end because, more than anything, she wanted her mother’s approval. She never got it, but she kept trying.

   One of her sisters drank too much. A few never went to church. And even Aunt Hazel, who was good as gold, had a devilish bent for mischief. But when it came to being the Family Bad Girl, nobody could out-bad my aunt “Bad Ruby.”

   In the interest of disclosure, I want to say two things: First, I don’t fit into either camp; I’m not nearly good enough to be truly good and I’m way too chicken to be brazenly bad.

   Second, I don’t have an aunt named “Ruby.” I changed the name out of respect for her children in the hope they won’t come after me with a hammer.

   My earliest memory of my aunt Ruby is from a morning when I was 7. I awoke to the sound of shouting. This was not unusual. My grandmother was giving somebody a piece of her mind. On my way to the kitchen, I stopped in the living room to hear my aunt Clara whisper to my mother, “She stayed out all night again!”

   My grandmother stood at the kitchen sink, her back stiff as a fence post, channeling her fury into scrubbing a skillet.

   Aunt Ruby sat hunched over a cup of coffee, hair tangled, eyes red, lipstick smeared on her chin. As the tirade continued, she looked up and met my eyes. Then a big, loopy grin dawned across her face and she winked.

   I was in awe. How did she do that? I never smiled when I got in trouble. I surely didn’t wink.

   That was the difference in Ruby and her sisters. They all saw trouble. But she was the only one who winked at it.

   I remember years later when Aunt Ruby was dying.  My mother was pretty old and not well herself. But she drove for 12 hours in a blizzard just to tell Ruby she loved her.

   I was glad they were close in those final hours. I only wished they had been so for a lifetime.

   I am nearly as old now as they were then, a thought I find completely astounding. I spent a lot of years trying to be good only to realize at some point that I wasn’t good at it.

   If there was a way to make a mistake, to say the wrong thing, to hurt someone’s feelings, to disappoint someone I loved, to fall on my face, I would find it.

   Then one day I discovered grace. I learned it from my children. When I was bad (I was bad a lot) if I said I was sorry, they’d forgive me. And like magic, the distance I’d put between us would be gone.

   In the days I have left, I want to spend less time trying to be good and instead learn to be more forgiving. Because there are only two differences, really, between Good Girls and Bad:

    Good Girls worry too much about what people think.

   And Bad Girls have more fun.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at www.randallbay(at)earathlink.net.)

                      


"Recipe for Disaster"
                            Oct. 27, 2009

   Warning: The following contains a recipe you should not try, unless you are hoping to be banned from cooking, in which case, be my guest.

   For the record, it was not the recipe’s fault. When I cook, it is never the recipe’s fault. I have no one to blame but myself.

   After my oldest and his wife drove five hours from Los Angeles to spend the weekend with my husband and me at our home in Las Vegas, I figured the least I could do was feed them a decent meal.

   Not that they expected it. My children learned long ago not to expect much of my cooking and I see no reason to disappoint them. But still, we had to eat.

   It helped, of course, that we had tickets for the U2 concert Friday night. People don’t care much about what you feed them if you show them a pretty good time. Some call it sweetening the deal. I just call it dessert.

   Friday night was easy. There wasn’t time to do dinner before the concert, so we grabbed burgers on the way. Then we filed into Sam Boyd Stadium with 40,000 other fans, used pitons to climb to the top of the bleachers and settled in for the ride. When Bono sang “It’s a beautiful day…,” I looked at the faces around me and wished that he could see what I saw.

   Everybody, rock stars and mothers alike, should get a chance on occasion to see how they make people happy.

   The next night’s dinner was easy, too: Grilled chicken, roasted veggies and a salad. Even I don’t need a recipe for that. We ate outside on what was perhaps the last warm night of the year, listening to coyotes howl at the moon.

   Sunday, we drove across town to see “More than a Game,” a documentary on LeBron James’ high school basketball team. It proved to be, as I suspected, about a whole lot more than basketball.

   After the movie, my husband, bless him, suggested we go out to eat or maybe pick up pizza?

   No, no, I said, I’ll cook. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. By the time we got home it was late. We were hungry.

   Not to worry, I said, dinner would be ready as soon as I figured out what to fix.

   For reasons that now escape me, I decided to make risotto.

   Risotto is not difficult, but it is not quick. God forbid that you try to rush it, or cook too big a batch in too small a pot.

   I started by chopping an onion, always a good place to start. Except the onion was so potent I thought for sure I was going to be blinded for life.

   Then I decided to double the recipe because the boy is a big eater; legendary, actually. You should see him eat pancakes.

   Except, I didn’t use a bigger pot. By the time I added enough broth to cook the rice, I needed a cement mixer to stir it.

   Instead of fresh mushrooms, I used freeze-dried, which would have been fine had I soaked them longer, but I was trying to hurry, and they ended up tasting like little chopped up erasers.

   Also, I didn’t have decent lettuce to make a salad, so I just faked one with a few wilted leaves and a mushy tomato.

   You may find this hard to believe, but it was not the worst meal I’ve ever served. It took some chewing, but we ate it.

   My husband ventured an ill-advised comment on the erasers, but otherwise, they all seemed to like it. 

   Afterwards, while loading the dishwasher, my oldest wrapped his big arm around my neck and rested his chin on my head.

   “That was a great meal, Mom. Thanks for making it for us.”

   Making risotto is a lot like mothering a child. It takes patience. You can’t rush it. It needs time and room to grow.

   In the end, it’s not about the mistakes you make; all that matters is the company you get to share it with.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at www.randallbay@earthlink.net.)

              
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                     "Taming the Wild Things"
                     October 20, 2009
 

   When my children were small and wild at heart, they loved Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”

   At least, I think they loved it. They never said they didn’t. It was definitely one of my favorites. That would explain why I read it to them time and again, night after night. I liked it. That was my rule. To read a book more than once, I had to like it a lot. If I didn’t like it, they could read it themselves. If they hadn’t learned to read yet, they could just gum its pages.

   I think that’s how it works in most families. The books that get read are books the reader likes. That is as it should be. The reader should get to pick. Same goes for storytelling. No one should ever tell a story she doesn’t like, or something will surely be lost in the telling.

   No matter how busy or tired or hopping mad I might be, I could usually manage to read “Where the Wild Things Are.”

   I loved Max’s magic trick, how he tamed the Wild Things by staring into their terrible eyes. I used that same trick on my kids. But my favorite part was where Max would grow weary of romping with Wild Things and long to be where someone loved him best of all.

   I would read that part slowly in my very best voice. Then I’d stop and look in my children’s sleepy eyes to let that thought pass between us_ to let it linger for a moment and settle into our bones _ that one-of-a-kind comfort of being with someone who loves you best of all.

   Then we’d give a knowing nod to how lucky we were, and I’d go on reading the story.

   I wonder if they remember that? Children have a tendency to forget what you want them to remember and remember what you hope they’ll forget.

   I thought of that recently, late one night, talking with my daughter-in-law, Jesse, who was visiting for the weekend.

   Earlier that evening we had gone with my husband to see Spike Jonze’s film version of Sendak’s classic on the IMAX screen, where even the littlest monsters were big enough to scare the bejeezes out of us.

    For all its jaw-dropping imagery, the movie delivers a wonderfully seamless blend of reality and imagination, suggesting that one is never far from the other _ a fact that children always seem to understand and the rest of us would do well to remember.

   After the movie, Jesse and I sat in the hot tub under a big desert sky watching planes fly in and out of Las Vegas.

   She couldn’t wait to see the movie again, she said, with her husband, my youngest, a rookie teacher who’d stayed home to catch up on school work.

   “He’ll love that movie,” I said. I told her that I used to read “Wild Things” to him, and that my favorite part was the line about wanting to be where somebody loves you best of all.

    I was about to say I hope that he will always remember that line and the sound of my voice and the look he saw in my eyes as I read it. And that he will always be wild at heart ….

   Suddenly, she gasped. “I saw something move,” she said, “over there in the shadows.”

   I smiled. “Probably a jack rabbit. We get busloads.”

   “It was pretty big,” she said. “Oh! It just moved again!”

   “Trust me,” I said, “it’s only a rabbit. But it is getting chilly.”

   We grabbed towels and went inside. The next day she flew to home to California, promising to bring her husband back soon.

   That evening, our neighbor _ never one to jest about matters of life and limb _ reported seeing in our yard just before sunset a rather large bobcat.

   I’m sticking with the rabbit story. But just in case, I’m working on Max’s magic trick.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                    "Trick or What?"
                     October 13, 2009

   OK, I asked for it. I needed a costume to wear to a big wing-ding Halloween party where my husband is going to be the bass player in the band. So I asked you to send me your ideas.

   And boy, did you ever, bless your helpful little hearts. In fact, you are still sending them. Even as I write this, e-mails keep arriving like the steady drip of a faucet at 4 a.m.

   Who knew there could be so many possibilities?

   First, someone sent a photo of a rather large-boned woman who had painted her backside (or paid some fool to do it for her) to look like jack o’ lantern with a very broad grin.

   I put it in a category I called “Not a chance.” Other entries in that category include: “Eve in the Garden of Eden” (three well-placed fig leaves)”; “Pregnant Angel” (papier mache wings, stuffed belly and a sign proclaiming   “the devil made me do it”: “Statue of Liberty” (couldn’t quite see myself holding up a torch all night); “Mermaid” (flesh colored leotard, I don’t think so); and “Red Hot Riding Hood” (don’t even ask.)

   Next, is a category I labeled “Groaners” for reasons I hope will be apparent: “Buccaneer” (tape a dollar bill to each earring); “Self-absorbed” (glue sponges on a sweat suit); “Dog catcher” (carry a stuffed dog to toss up and catch); “Tic Tac Toe” (glue Tic Tacs to the toes of your shoes); “Laundry basket” (cut out the bottom, step inside, stuff with laundry); “Old news” (cover yourself with yesterday’s newspaper, but save my column for the bird cage); “Cereal killer” (carry boxes of breakfast cereal studded with plastic knives and covered in fake blood); “Mixed greens with dressing on the side” (dress in multiple shades of green and carry a bottle of salad dressing); “Freudian slip” (wear a slip to which you’ve pinned a photo of Freud); “Autumn leaves” (cut holes in a garbage bag for your arms and legs, climb inside, fill with newspaper, tie around your neck and stuff colored leaves in all the openings): “Hip chick” (dangle a rubber chicken or duck from a side pocket); “Vampire victim” (white powder on the face, two small ink dots on the neck): “Cup holder” (carry a cup.)

   These ideas require a “Gown and a Tiara”: “Tooth Fairy” (attach photos of teeth to the gown); “Queen Bee” (substitute fake bees for the teeth): and “Miss Ugly America” (add a banner as a sash and wear a fake nose and mustache.)

   And these are “My very own personal favorites”: “Black Eyed Pea” (wear the letter “P” and blacken one eye with make-up); “Ghost of Technology Past” (carry a typewriter or an old adding machine); “Swine Flew” (wear a rubber pig nose and a pair of wings); “Ceiling Fan” (carry pompoms and a sign that reads, “Go, Ceilings!”); “Dust bunny” (rabbit ears and gray sweat suit covered with tufts of polyester fill); “In Cognito” (wear a sign that reads “world’s sexiest woman disguised as me.”)

   By far the most suggested idea was that I should go as a “groupie” with the band. One reader said I could wear a sheet covered in music notes and go as “sheet music.” Another said I should go as a fiddle so I could “fiddle” with the bass player.

   Or we could share a set of army fatigues; one would wear the shirt, the other the pants and go as “Upper and lower G.I.”

   Finally, the perfect costume for the woman (or man or child) who hates costumes: A T-shirt printed “This is my costume.”

   Thank you so much for your suggestions. All I need to do now is decide which idea … oh, wait. There’s another e-mail.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394 Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

               "I'm not a ghost, I'm a mattress"
                       October 6, 2009

   Just when I thought my costume days were over, my husband (an editor by day, and a bass player any chance he gets) came home recently with a big announcement.

   Some months ago, in what might be the world’s longest rehearsal, he started meeting once a week to “jam” with a group of guys who, much like him, temper their passion for music with the nagging sense that they are probably not ready to quit their day jobs.

    Which somehow brings to mind what my grandmother used to say about my granddad, a part-time Baptist preacher: “He works for the Lord when he can’t find a paying job.”)

   Preaching and playing music are not all that different.

   But back to the big announcement.

   One of the guys in the band (they’re a bit modest about calling themselves a “band,” but I say get over it, it’s easier than calling them “a bunch of guys who play music for free”) is planning a Halloween party.

   And guess what? The “Not Really a Band” is going to play.

   “You’re invited, too,” he said.

   “Fine,” I said. “We never get any trick-or-treaters anyhow. No reason to stay home. I can eat the candy later.”

   He grinned the way he does when he knows he’s on thin ice and thinks being cute will help him skate. “Uh, there’s just one thing….”

   I gave him a look. “What?”

   “You have to go in costume.”

   “Excuse me?”

   “They said it’s not costume optional. You have to wear one or they won’t let you in.”

   I snorted Diet Coke out both sides of my nose. “And you believed them? Don’t you know that old trick? If somebody tells you’ve got to wear a costume, you can bet your last piece of Halloween candy that you’ll be the only fool in costume.”

   “Not if you go, too.”

   He is nothing if not persistent.

   I started to tell him that my grandmother rarely went to church with my granddad, and she never would’ve gone at all if she’d had to wear a costume.

   But he was playing his bass and couldn’t hear me. Again.

   He knows how I feel about Halloween costumes. It’s not that I don’t like them. I just don’t have any luck with them.

   Growing up, I always had to take my blind brother along trick-or-treating. For a costume, I would throw a sheet over his head. People would say, “What a cute little ghost!” And he’d get mad and yell, “I ain’t a ghost, I’m a mattress!”

   When my oldest child was 10, he went to a church party for which children were told to come as Bible characters and avoid anything “scary or gory.” I dressed him up as John the Baptist and let him carry his “head.” He was the hit of the party, but I nearly got excommunicated.

   And once, when I was old enough to have had better sense, I twisted my hair up in two tight buns by my ears, sprayed them with an entire can of mega-hold hairspray and went to a party as Princess Leia from “Star Wars.” That was 1978. My hair never recovered.

   I have no clue what to do for a costume for this party. If you have any suggestions _ provided, of course, that they can be easily assembled from materials found lying around the home by a woman with little patience and no sewing skills whatsoever _ I would love to hear them.

   Meanwhile, I asked my husband if he has decided what his costume will be.

   “Yes,” he said. “I’m going to the party as a bass player.”

   Maybe I’ll wear a sign that says, “I’m with the band.”

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted a P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                      "Love Can Find You"
                      September 29, 2009

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   What a difference a day can make. For two weeks, while I visited family in the Carolinas, it rained more or less every day.

   A lot more, really, than less.

   I love rain. Like many Southern children, I learned to swim walking home from school in a cloudburst.

   I don’t get to see much rain these days living in the desert outside Las Vegas. I miss it _ the sound of it drumming on a tin roof, the smell of it sweetening the air, the feel of it warm on my skin. I was hoping to get a taste of it again; a taste, yes, not a steady diet.

   But as my grandmother used to say about the weather or life in general, “It’ll be what it is.” And so it was.

   It certainly didn’t stop me from talking and eating. I can talk and eat in any weather.

   It also didn’t stop me from spending hours sitting on my sister’s porch watching the leaves on the trees begin to show their fall colors.

   It’s a little like watching paint dry, only slower. I took breaks, of course, to talk and eat, but I never grew weary, never quite got my fill of watching Nature do her autumn dance. I doubt I ever will ever tire of that.

   At first, the rain felt like a summer storm, steamy, like lifting a lid and holding your face over a pot of boiling water.

   But as the rain kept falling, the parched red earth turned to thick red soup, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees.

   The day I picked my brother up to go out to lunch, the clouds parted briefly and the sun peeked out like a child playing hide and seek. Joe was waiting for me in the swing outside his apartment.

   Blind all his life, he knows the sound of my footsteps as well as I know the shape of his stubborn chin. I can never manage to sneak up on him.

   “Hey, sister,” he said, lighting up, “good to see you!”

   I sat beside him, pushing the swing with my toe, fast, the way I did when we were kids. He laughed recalling the time I pushed so hard we got flung into the yard.

   "Want to try that again?"

   "No," he said, chuckling, "once was enough." 

   We lingered a while like old times, talking and swinging, until the clouds started spitting again. Then we drove to “Wade’s” and ordered pretty much everything on the menu. Between bites, he talked about the pieces of his life, going to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, listening to Clemson games on the radio.

   After his first wife died of cancer and a second marriage didn’t work out, he doesn’t hold a lot of hopes, he said, for ever finding a companion.

   “You never know,” I said. “When you’re not looking, love can sneak up and find you.”

   He knows my story, how love found me. He nodded, smiling, then asked for more bread.

   On my last morning in town, it was so cold on my sister’s porch I needed a blanket and an extra cup of coffee. The leaves weren’t showing much color yet, but it felt for sure like fall.

   I packed, said my goodbyes and drove for two hours to the airport dodging accidents in the worst rain I’d ever seen.

   Five hours later, I landed in Vegas, extraordinarily happy to see the moon and the stars and the lights along the Strip and, God bless him, my husband.

   The next morning, despite what the calendar said, it was summer; sunshine, blue skies, float-in-the-pool kind of day.

   The forecast says it won’t last; cooler temps are on the way. I say it’ll be what it is.

   Sometimes when you think you’re in the autumn of your life, summer will come sneaking up to find you.

   I need to call my brother and tell him that. Life will be what it is. But you never know what a difference a day will make.

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(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

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                           "Late Again"
                       September 22, 2009