The Great Curtain Fire and the Lady Cave

A backyard burn. Incriminating Evidence? Sissy says so.

I've always had a little thing for fire.   

From my days as a blond haired and woefully under-aged three foot package of energy, I loved those sparklers just as much as my GI Joe's, cap guns and freeze pops.

Those were the days where parents let their kids play with matches, saws, knives,  rope- just about anything so long as they left them to drink their martini's in peace. 

I'd spend hours lighting sparklers, mesmerized by  the white tip of the metal stick as I scrolled my initials into the dark sky.

They made my little pyro toes twinkle.

Though sparklers now fail to ignite those childhood passions, give me a pile of brush, some gasoline and a book of matches and I somehow morph into cave woman. 

I'd like to think I'm getting in touch with my Neanderthal brothers and sisters.

One of the greatest advantages of living on Cape Cod, besides the icy Atlantic Ocean, Wellfleet Oysters and  sweeping vistas, is that you can burn your junk in the backyard. Not cars or trash, but garden debris, like branches, rotten fence posts and the occasional wheelbarrow load of leaves.

I'm a responsible burner, most of the time.  Okay, I do toss in a few leaves here and there. Maybe a pizza box or two. A chair went in one time. And I'm having a flashback of dragging up  a desk from the basement and it ending up on the fire. I can't help it, I get carried away.

Fire is cleansing.

I've got my own little backyard baptismal font.


But if you happen to  mention my passion for backyard burning to Sissy, don't listen to whatever she says because she still blames me for setting her eyelet curtains on fire when we were in high school. She'll tell the mailman, the toll taker, anyone who'll listen that I'd been smoking in her room, had left a match burning on the dresser, which ignited her favorite curtains. A wide open window on a blustery spring day  gave that little match what he needed to incinerate Sissy's curtains.

I swear on Dot's grave  I didn't start that fire.

In fact, Sissy should thank me for my cat like reflexes and quick thinking because I sprinted into action, racing into our bathroom, grabbing the four ounce water tumbler and battling the fire like a trained professional, saving her frilly canopy  from going up in flames.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

But no matter how many times I tell Sissy  it wasn't me, she just opens those big brown eyes, raises an eyebrow and mouths, "Guilty as charged."

"You always wanted my room."

Okay, I admit, when we moved into our new house, she nabbed the best bedroom, a spacious and sunny front of the house room that overlooked our neighborhood, which in those days, was pulsating with teenage hormones, Schwinn Bikes, basketballs and sprouting facial hair.

She spent hours flipping through the sample books, picking out a plush cranberry wall-to-wall carpet so thick, pennies would bounce off it. I got stuck with a yellow scalloped patterned shag  that took on a decidedly mustard glow because I was too busy pulling up my tube socks and dribbling my basketball around the new neighborhood to look through the giant carpet books.

My room overlooked the back yard, a pretty boring place for a nosy tomboy who liked being smack in the  middle of the action. Sissy had the VIP seats in the house; I looked at Mom's new rock garden. She had the double canopy bed; I had the twin. But what I really envied was her closet, a double wide cavernous hideaway because she was able to squeeze a vanity and a Hollywood style lighted mirror inside. She'd spend hours tucked away in the dark mysterious room picking zits, plucking eyebrows and trying to subdue her wildly crazy hair.

She really pioneered the lady cave long before man conquered his subterranean refuge.

Her entire room was off limits, a highly secured big sister vault and she guarded it with ferocious drive. She'd unleash a cacophany of screams even if I touched her carpet with my big toe, or craned my head around the door, hoping to catch a glimmer of her lady cave.

So I'd have to sneak in when she wasn't around being careful not to leave my footmarks on that damn carpet.  My friends and I would tip toe in, slide open the doors to her lady cave and lust over her lighted mirror, the Clairol steam curlers, the Conair blow dryer, the makeup, the magazines. Her lady cave would stay warm long after she'd finished blow drying her hair.

It was like looking into someone's diary or handbag, because once you started, it was impossible to stop. I'd always snoop around in there, jealous that I didn't have my own little lady cave, but I was always on alert because when she caught me in there, she'd pinch me.

The  Cade sisters' are big boned gals and when Sissy pinched me, her big paws squeezed out more pounds per square inch pressure than a croc and left a welt that would hang around for days.

So when her curtains went up in flames, shooting across the room, threatening to ignite her canopy bed, she blamed me. 

I'm certain I didn't start that fire.

I think is was my mother's lucky strike. 

Or it may be been my sister, Debbie.

But it wasn't me. No matter what Sissy says.
















"

Pizza Wars

The other day I got stranded in my husband's matchbook sized car with two contentious teens for nearly two hours.

I have yet to recover from the 120 minutes of continuous bickering. As each minute passed, the car seemed to shrink, their voices grew louder and like many times before, I truly understood why so many mothers go AWOL, leaving their minivans to rust in mall parking lots throughout the country. I had to fight the urge to run.

I got a flat at 5.15pm-perhaps the most unsuitable time for rubber puncture, but then again, is there ever a good time for a flat? When I heard that familiar thud, thud, kerplunk noise coming from the front end of the car, I admit I uttered a few colorful expletives.

I'd raced out of the house looking like an old dishrag left in the kitchen sink too long. This is what happens when you work from home- you get very, very lazy when it comes to throwing on a set of clothes.

Some of my get-ups even scare me.

With a cardigan that looked like Swiss cheese ,(if you see any chubby moths around, its because they have skeins of my sweaters in their guts) the layers of my hair sticking up like wayward sails, no make-up and wearing that ultra fashionable white sock and athletic slide look, I grabbed teen girl and told her to come along while I fetched her brother in Wood's Hole, a 30 minute drive away. She didn't come to keep me company, but rather to make a beauty and junk stop at the CVS to buy another batch of nail polish and candy corn. Nothing would make this girl happier than to be in bed, reading a book, cell phone in hand, completely surrounded by giant bags overflowing with candy corn.

Think Veruca Salt.

The rim resting on the asphalt confirmed my suspicions- Michael had obviously run over something earlier in the day. As a woman who prides herself on being self reliant, I took the jack and spare tire out and got to work. It must have been quite a sight- me in my fashionista attire, teen boy standing over me with his hands in his pocket, hood pulled down over his face, blank look on his face and teen girl in the car with her taffy like legs stretched out the window, her big feet still in her white soccer cleats, painstakingly applying a coat of passion purple on her nails. After a few minutes of trying to take off the those thingys that hold the tire on, I belched out another round of naughty adjectives and phoned AAA.

"He'll be there shortly," the lady said.

And then the fighting began.

"What are we going to have for dinner?" asked teen boy.

I know, someday I will miss that question but for now, it goes right through me like a bad curry.

"I can tell you one thing we are not having. My cooking," I said.

"Can we get pizza?" asked teen girl.

And this is where it got ugly.

We're a family of pizza lovers- but the teen offspring can never agree on where to get the pizza. Both the hubby and I love pizza and although I really haven't found the ultimate pizza here on Cape, a pizza for dinner sure beats whipping up a meal at 8.00 at night. As long as it comes hot in a box and I don't have to fire up the range, I am happy. But this comes from a woman whose male babysitter used to broil up his own version of pizza using Wonder bread, ketchup and American cheese.

But these darn kids.

"Can we have Sweet Tomatoes," teen boy asks, knowing full well that his sister hates the chunky thin crusted pie.

"Can we have Domino's," says teen girl, knowing full well that her brother hates that pre-formed doughy discs.

"I hate Sweet Tomatoes" teen girl hisses. "It's gross."

She has no idea what a gross pizza tastes like until she tries the Wonder Bread Delight.

"Well I hate Domino's" teen boy puffs. "It's disgusting."

Ditto for Teen Boy. A soggy piece of white bread drenched with ketchup- now that's disgusting.

And so it went- for two hours- we went through every pizza place this side of the Mason Dixon line, both unwilling to make a concession.

"Okay, that's it," I shouted. "I am never, ever ordering pizza again until you guys leave for school," And like so many other outlandish threats issued over the past 17 years, it had as much bite as the tooth fairy.

They just stared.

"Well, then, Daddy and I will order pizza and you guys will have to fend for yourselves." I said.

"I call leftover macaroni and cheese," yelled teen boy.

"No fair," screamed teen girl.

"Okay, that's it. I don't know why we ever gave you the choice," I said, reminding them for the hundredth time that my parents always ordered the pizza in our house. No "It's your turn this weekend, darling." Nope, they had full reign since they were picking up the tab. The only time we were given the choice was on Friday night when they went out for dinner and left Sissy in charge. Sissy ruled over us with a titanium fist, deciding where we got the pizza and how many pieces she would let us have. But what really made us mad was her calling "first choice" which meant she opened the box and slowly scanned the whole pie until she found the biggest slices.

"Those are mine," she'd shout.

She'd leave us to fight over the misshapen slices, the ones that slide around the pizza box and lost half their cheese. She'd leave us the ones with those giant bubbles on the crust- according to Sissy, they were pizza warts and she wasn't eating any of those.

I don't know what to cook for dinner this evening, tumbling through my mental recipe files, I can't come up with anything that won't provoke a dispute. I don't know what I'll manage to throw together but one thing is for sure, it won't be pizza.