First there was Sandy now there is Dragon . . . oh yeah. and that little matter of pepper wine

602

04 November 2012

R. Linda:

So the Friday before last, the residents of Cape May, New Jersey were told to get out of Dodge. My mother-in-law decided to heed the warning and so packed up the husband and her daughter and her husband (who live two blocks away from the ocean), and where did they decide to go? Yup, to my house. Yes, indeed. We were under the very same hurricane watch, but from what reports said, the storm was more likely to come ashore in New Jersey, not New Hampshire. And we know it did.

But at the time, I was doing the usual mandatory pre-storm yard cleanup, being blissfully clueless that a black cloud was winging me way. As for the mandatory pre-storm thing, that would be to go out and get in anything that could fly in high winds, like lawn furniture, gazing garden balls, birdhouses, bird feeders, and wind chimes. I was doing all that when I heard a car coming up what be me driveway. Well, we know I don't have a driveway, just a rutted cleared space that we call a driveway. I had to take a double take. There was this long white stretch limo. The driver hopped out to open the doors and pop the boot. Uh oh, I knew whoever it was had luggage. One fat ankle appeared and then another as the red-haired (yes, she dyed the mop dark red) head of the Dragon Lady rose up from the limo. I wanted to drop all the yard stuff, scream, and run for the hills, but I was seen, yes I was.

"Yoo hoo son-in-law come and help the driver with our bags."

I stood there speechless and stunned. I had me mouth hanging open looking at her like an idiot, my usual look when I see her. I had my arms full of yard thingies and there she was, no hello, how are ya, no, none of that, it was come get her bags. I watched wordless and motionless as Big Tony appeared out the other side stretching like he'd been car-bound for hours, and then two more familiar faces got out, Tonya's sister and her husband. Oi! The Jersey Shore had arrived at me abode!

Tonya had heard them and she came to the door as the kiddos flew out of the house shouting, "GRANDMA'S HERE!" All joyful they were running to her arms for squashing hugs and wet kisses. Yuck.

Oh goody, I thought as I dumped Tonya's yard stuff on a lawn chair and moved reluctantly forward.

"To what do I owe this . . . pleasant surprise?" I said moving passed Dragon to help with the hundred bags that had the limo's back tyres almost flat.

But before she could answer, Tonya was asking me what I was doing, "You can't just leave my yard decorations on that lawn chair, please go get them in."

"No, go help with the bags, you can do that later," her mother said to me as I hesitated.

"You both will drive me crazy," I muttered.

"What do you mean drive you crazy? There is no drive, you have been parked at the curb since I first met you." Dragon said to me under her breath.

I wanted to say something biting but couldn't think of a thing, but then I didn't have to because orders were being barked at me from the front door.

Well, when the boss speaks, the lackey must obey or sleep on the couch, so with a sneer at the Dragon I went back and picked up the entire chair with everything on it and took meself to the shed. Once inside I closed the door and let out a loud string of, "OI OI OI OI OI OI!"

When I had meself back under control I came out locking the shed behind me. By that time the limo was gone, and everyone was indoors. I steeled myself to go inside. I tell ya I must have stood in the chilly air for a good ten minutes trying to work up the courage.

The story was this, because the house in Cape May was in harm's way, Madame Abdullah had moved the immediate family up to New Hampshire. There I was thinking, "Hotels? Don't they have hotels in New Jersey well inland?" Anyway, Dragon has a bad ankle she does. She needs surgery so we all know this and we try to help her. But she tells us indignantly, "I can do it myself, I am NOT helpless you know!" OK. I stopped asking if I could be of assistance. So she comes into the parlour where I had just sat down to chat with Big and brother-in-law Angelo, and says to us, "Would any of you like a coke? I'm having one." We all said sure, that would be nice and as she turned to go she stopped next to my chair and whispered down at me, "It may take me an hour to get the cokes so do make yourself comfortable." And off she shuffles the cane doing the tappy tap thing. I was like really? Seriously? The coke was in the mud room, about ten feet away from where we were. An hour? An hour to shuffle in and shuffle back. I said I'd be happy to get them, no, no, "You just sit there and enjoy yourself, I'll go." And off she went but not after heaving a sigh and oh, the old lady sounds she made, I tell ya! To make this more dramatic on her part, she shuffled in with one coke at a time! If it wasn't so pathetic, I'd laugh.

This situation for me was becoming intolerable because the Dragon got on me last nerve she does. Meanwhile, the boyos were shifted off to a birthday party and that was not good for me, because without the boyos for Dragon to lend her attention, those now turned toward yours truly.

Maybe to save me, Tonya thought it would be a good idea if we took her parents, sibling and hubby out to lunch. So we tried the new place that opened in Bedford, the Copper Door. I told Tonya to chew slowly because we needed to spend as much time as possible there since there was nothing to do at home. She did not take kindly to my suggestion. Meanwhile, her MOTHER near about ordered almost everything on the menu! I was like not that much time, gees the woman. During the very slow chewing our way through every dessert on the menu, my wife had let the sugar go to her head and suggested since we now had bellies full of food we should go do some wine tasting at the new winery that opened in Amherst. Hey, it is on the way home! So why not? OI OI OI OI OI. I'll tell you why not, because this little luncheon out was costing Gabriel O'Sullivan body parts. First, the arm, then the leg, the way it was going I'd be a torso soon.

Off we go, all six of us packed in me Saturn like sardines. I didn't hear the end of it the entire time. "When are you getting a soccer mom car?" Sissy Abdullah asked, "You have outgrown this tiny thing you need a bigger car," that from Dragon. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. None said a word about Tonya getting rid of the Volkswagen Beetle she drives, no.

We arrived at the winery and Tonya, her sister, her husband and meself went on up to the terrace near the door. Meanwhile, Dragon was taking her sweet time about getting out of the car as Big stood there hand out to assist her. A waitress comes flying out with a set of menus to ask if we were there for lunch. Are we going to eat outside on the terrace she wants to know. No, we were there for wine tasting. OH! Then come on in the bar is right inside and off she goes.

We wait, and we wait as the Dragon shuffles up, the cane holding her up on one side, Big on the other. As we walk in the same waitress comes up and asks us if are we there for lunch. Oi. How much had we changed from five minutes ago I wanted to know, to unrecognisable? Once again we gave her the spiel and off to the wine bar we went.

We bellied up to the bar and the wine person asked us if we wanted to taste five wines for $8 a person or for five additional dollars to taste ten wines. You KNOW what I said. I didn't care about the expense by then, I needed to be besotted with wine to wipe out the fact I was with DRAGON. And I reckoned to fill the old Dragon lady up with vino which might not only lessen me own pain but mellow her out. At least that was the plan.

I'll tell ya after tasting 8 different wines, some of us needed a break from the tasting. Big and I wandered over to the other side of the room to look out on the back patio when the same waitress who had been trying to seat us for lunch came over to see if we wanted to be seated and look over the lunch menu. When we told her we were still "tasting" but taking a break, she offered to take us on a tour of the winery. Both of us were feeling a buzz so no, we said, we were not about to go lurching through the winery just yet. Back to the bar we went.

I had tasted me last taste and saw on the menu there were three wines listed below the rest that were listed in a smaller print. Stupid me, blind with the drink says to the wine person behind the bar, "Hey, let me try this Jalapeño Pepper Wine just for the hell of it." She looks at me, pushes out her bottom lip with a rather surprised expression on her face, and says, "Well . . . okay. Actually, this goes nicely as a splash in a Bloody Mary." She pours me a bit and as she pours, I realise there is total silence at the bar and everyone and I mean EVERYONE was looking at yours truly. I almost said "What?" but instead I took a sip and almost burnt my palate and throat to hell and back. But I pretended that never happened though I be sure my eyes were teary, bugging out of me fool head and very red.

"Interesting taste," I croaked.

"Should be you are tasting the cooking wine now," Tonya quipped.

OH MY GOD! See this be what the Dragon lady does to me!

We finished tasting, we each bought some wine, and yes, I did buy the cooking wine (I was too embarrassed not to), and I took mine to the hallway where you can look down on the wine vats and that same waitress was coming at me with the dessert menus asking me if I'd like dessert and coffee, maybe to sober up. I tell ya, she was zealous.

I went out on the patio to be by meself just to get away from her and her menus, and so I sat in front of the fire pit.

Me, being ribbed about the pepper wine by Big  - and yes, I bought some and that's it right there in the bag

Suddenly I was not alone, Big Tony was ribbing me about the pepper wine. Then Dragon and the cane arrived, she was nudging me with it!

"You still drinking Uncle Ben's?" She sneered sitting herself down.

"Oh ha ha. No, it's Aunt Jemima now," I quipped. (You'll remember a short time ago, me being not awake thinking the decaf coffee was regular coffee and for some reason, I got confused between Paul Newman's and Uncle Ben's. I know, I be daft sometimes and when Dragon finds out about something stupid I did, I never hear the end of it.) The entire time they stayed with us, every morning I'd be subjected to the Uncle Ben's story. I tell ya!

They stayed through the storm to find out they couldn't go back. No one was allowed in the Cape May area. That meant they were staying with us through Halloween. That evening she said to me she was bored. By then we had lost power, lost cable, and no Internet, just a generator I got going kept us in heat, water and refrigeration. But that was it. I was too lazy to break out the rabbit ears for the telly and disconnect it from the cable, thus the "I'm bored" comment.

I suggested she go trick or treating it was not too late if she was that bored. And the best thing I told her was, "Don't worry about a costume, you're fine as you are." She was not amused but I was.

"The fat lady has not sung Gabriel," she said looking at me after I complained aloud about political phone calls and how happy I was going to be when the election was over. The Obama people were still manning the phones through a hurricane. I was pissed! It seemed like one call every half hour!

"Take heart that many of your Republican friends are Romney supporters. Well . . . they will choose Romney over Obama if Obama does not get out the young and mindless. Make that liberal indoctrinated college vote. But take heart this nightmare could end in your favour."

I sat there and looked at her. REALLY? Did she really just say that to me? Yes, she did.

"Are we grumpy today?" I asked her.

"Not as grumpy as you quite obviously. Though, I bumped my head against the wall with the insurance company and our flood insurance," she muttered. "I was on the phone with them today for an hour! They frustrate me, I have no legal recourse to get them to do anything and that makes me grumpy!"

"I wonder if there's a vent web page? That is when the Internet is restored," Big was saying in response to the mini-tirade, "Some cartoonish place where you could wield a freaking big bat and swing at cartoon images of insurance men, phone operators, or whoever! Maybe you could pick and choose, who do we know that could invent something like that?"

WAS HE SERIOUS? Who are these lunatics?

"Oh Gabriel," the Dragon suddenly remembered, "there was an article in the Journal about how sarcasm is misunderstood in email and that some folks insert *S to mean sarcasm. You can also download a symbol for it for a nominal fee, though it seems to me that defeats the whole point of sarcasm. It's called Sarcmark. You can Google it when your Internet comes back."

I couldn't help myself I burst out, "THAT is so dumb! And of course, they'd charge for it because there are a lot of dumb people who would buy a sarcastic mark just because they can." Then I realised by the look on her face she was one of those dumb people. Oi!

"You sound frustrated Mother Abdullah," I said, "you need a hobby."

"Like what?" She asked. That she would ask at all, well, that set me into a sarcastic mode.

"Let me think . . . hum . . . maybe smash watermelons with a mallet at your local farmers market, oh wait, that's been done. How about you buy a blowup Joe Bazooka and a pair of boxing gloves and have a go, vent that insurance man frustration. No, that won't do, that would look like too much fun to Big and Sonny Boy over there and they'll want their turns. Hum . . . oh, here's a thought, get some finger paints and bring out the Picasso in you, create, create, create! You can sell it at a faux yard sale which would really be your gallery opening, and you'd have the quiet satisfaction that the neighbours are clueless as to what your ulteriour motive really is, selling lousy artwork. Okay, do I need a sarcastic mark for all of this? I don't think so."

"Are you quite finished?" She asked her eyes slits in her face, not finding me sarcastic wit even a tad amusing.

"Nah my personal fav way to vent frustration sarcastically would be to advertise a giant bake sale at curbside for weeks, and then the day of, put a sign up just for the hell of it on the front gate, or lamp post, or mailbox, SOLD OUT. However, that can't be as much fun as when the power goes out and your yard is lit up like a city block BECAUSE YOU have a full house generator and your neighbours are at the front gate begging to come in out of the cold. But you won't let them because you are SARCASTIC." I couldn't help meself. I knew I was treading dangerous waters, but I just could not stop.

"See what you started?" Big said to her shaking his head.

"Gabriel, your imagination is precious! However, I still think Big's idea of a video game with your ideas could top Angry Birds! Apparently in your world, if one digs deeper, there is no need for a symbol for sarcasm."

She should have ended it there, but like me, she couldn't help herself. She held up a finger to make a point, "I do know there is a symbol other than the Sarcmark. There is an Ethiopian character, which I find most intriguing, why would the Ethiopians have one? The crazy Greeks, yeah they could use one for sure. But the Ethiopians?"

"Ethiopians? That's funny," I said not really feeling it.

This is what I had to put up with for what seemed a long, long time when it was only a few days. The Abdullah clan got the go-ahead to go home, they could get to their house. They did find that they had some sand on the front porch that had got in under the front door, so there was some cleaning in the hallway in order. I know they have a generator, so even without power they can stay there. But now there are petrol shortages and food shortages, and I am dreading that I will come home from work and there they will be, not only the senior Abdullahs but the entire family!

Gabe
Copyright © 2012 All rights reserved