On Dirty Dishes, Clean Kitchens, and the Campfire Girls

My dishwasher is broken again. Third time in two months. As frustrating as that is, it got me to thinking about washing dishes as I stood there unloading dirty glasses from the top rack.

We did it...a lot...when I was a kid. My parents had a dishwasher most of the time, but there was a period of what seems like a couple of years, though I'm sure it wasn't that long, when the dishwasher was broken and for whatever reason, it wasn't fixed or replaced. Those seemed like years of misery and pickled fingers and long hours in front of the night-darkend kitchen window, up to our elbows in bubbles.

Even in the good years, when the dishwasher worked, we always had a boatload of dishes to finish by hand. My mom never fixed less than a meat, a starch, a couple of vegetables, and a salad. There were at least three or four pans on the stove each night to scrape and scrub. And God forbid we serve from those pans. Oh no. Mom rarely, if ever, served off the stove. Every night, the food was spooned out into Corning Ware bowls to place on the table to be passed around. So not only did we have the three or four pots, we had the three or four serving bowls that held the food that was once in those pots. Meanwhile, those nearly empty pots sat on the still-warm burners while the food clinging to their insides dried hard to bottoms. We must have had stock in the Brillo company.

So after supper, my sisters and I would begin the transfer of the leftovers to yet another dish to put in the refrigerator where it would sit for 4 or 5 days before we'd finally throw it in the garbage. (I don't think Mom had it in her to throw away perfectly good food, but that's another story!) We'd scrape the sides and tap the spoon and put the dirty porcelain on the counter next to the sink to be rinsed and loaded. What didn't fit in the dishwasher had to be washed by hand. That was my favorite job.

There was a science to washing dishes, and I had it down. First, I'd put a little soap in the sink, and then run some hot water about 1/4 of the way full. Then I'd put any silverware in the bottom of the sink to soak. Next I'd wash any glasses or mugs that didn't fit in the top rack. Wash the silverware. Drain the water. And start again with the serving bowls and pots. I was always in a secret race to keep up with whoever was drying, trying to keep a dish or two up on them so that they never had to wait for me to finish washing something.

Often as my sisters and I would help in the kitchen, we would break into song. Camp songs mostly. "Sipping Cider" and "Moonlight Bay" and "There Once Was a Farmer." We did it so frequently that one of my sister's boyfriends started calling us the Campfire Girls. It drove him a little bit crazy in a nice kind of way. We'd start, and he'd roll his eyes and say, "Here come the Campfire Girls!" and then go join my dad in the family room. Sometimes we'd sing even after the dishes were washed and put away, standing in the kitchen together while it rained outside or snowed, singing the songs of our childhood.

Mom never went to bed without the dishes washed, the floor swept, and the counters wiped down. She hated to wake up to a messy kitchen. It drove me crazy, and I often tried to skate around one of those chores. I usually got caught and had to do it anyway. I'll say that I'm not as adverse to a messy kitchen as she was, and I often go to bed hoping for the Dish Fairy to come at night (sometimes he does!), but I'll admit, a clean kitchen is much nicer to wake up to.

There is something unique to washing dishes and cleaning the proverbial heart of the home. I used to dread it on holidays when there would be so many dishes that you couldn't see the counter. I'd make myself scarce with my cousins while Mom and her sisters washed and cleaned and the men sat in front of the tv and dozed. As I got older, however, I HAD to help. It started with clearing the tables and then moved up to actual washing and drying. I often got stuck with the putting away, which I hated, but because it was my house, I knew where things went. We'd sweep the floor and shake the tablecloths and wipe down the counters. My aunts never left our kitchen a mess. Never. It just wasn't done no matter how much Mom would protest. Even the centerpiece would be back on the table at the end of the night. Job well done.

One day, I was surprised to find myself looking forward to this time in the kitchen with my mom and my aunts and my older girl cousins. It was kind of like moving to the grown-up table. I got to hear the gossip and stories and memories of my family. I heard recipes and kitchen tips and learned how to make gravy without lumps. I knew I had made it when I was allowed to wash the good china, and the crystal glasses, and Great-Grandma's cake stand.

The last time I washed dishes like this with my mom was the Easter before she died. She had been in decline for several months, and didn't feel like having a big dinner for everyone, but she did it anyway. After dinner, Mom started to help clean up, but I remember sending her to the family room while my sisters and aunts and cousins washed and dried and put away. It was odd without her in there directing us all, but she didn't feel well, and we all knew what to do.

Had I known it was going to be her last big dish washing, kitchen cleaning evening, I would have insisted she remain with us and just sit at the kitchen table if nothing else. But I didn't and she didn't and so it goes.

Today, I wouldn't trade my dishwasher for anything, but I wouldn't trade my memories of washing dishes either. As I stood there today, up to my elbows in bubbles, I sang "Moonlight Bay" to myself, all the while praying that Thursday's repairman would hurry up and get here.

The Christmas Poodle and the Rocking Horse

I love my Christmas tree. I took it down today, a ritual that I usually do by myself with relish. I know. I know. That's a weird thing to enjoy doing, but I love it. See, when we put the tree up, it's all about the kids. They are so excited to find "their" ornaments and get them on the tree first, that I just kind of step back and let them do their thing. Taking it down, though, is another story. Nobody wants to help, but that's okay. I get to hold each and every ornament and savor the memory that it evokes.

First, I take off the glass ball ornaments. Red, green, gold, blue...They don't have any sentimental value, really, except for the memory of my mom saying every year that we needed more gold balls on the tree. I take them off and put them in the plastic tote and move on.

Next come the homemade ornaments. They are the ones the kids made each year in early elementary school...Kyle in a wreath covered with glitter glue. Claire as an angel under the words "Feliz Navidad." Claire's thumbprint turned into a reindeer. Emily in a mitten, high blonde ponytails on her head. The Norwegian paper candy holder Claire made in 4th grade for Christmas around the world. The Santa Kyle spray painted at a party when he was 9. The wooden ornaments Emily decorated for presents for Kyle and Claire when she was about 3...They are all there, and as I hold them, I think of the children that my children were, and I miss them.

Then I remove the non-Hallmark ornaments. There is the giant seashell we found on a day trip during our vacation on Sanibel Island in 2006. It had a hole in the top, and one of the kids thought it would be neat to hang on the tree. So it does. It also reminds me of Kris, for it was at Sanibel that we learned her cancer had metastasized...There's the poor starfish-turned-Santa that my mom got for Kyle when we went to Destin with my folks when Kyle was 3 and Claire was a baby. Nothing would do him but to have that Starfish Santa, and Mom, being Mom, got it for him. There's the metal crawfish from my trip to New Orleans the Mardi Gras before Katrina. The hula girl I made at a family support group meeting in Hawaii, and God love her, the hula frog one one of our neighbors gave me for Christmas that year. There's a kukui nut shell I got off our tree in Hawaii and an old time glitter car that I loved, loved, loved as a kid.

There's the ceramic cat I painted in 1979 in Jenny Snellen's garage. Her mom fired it for me. A reindeer Kyle made in about 3rd grade from an ornament, pipe cleaners, googlie eyes, and pompoms. A glass tear drop painted with bluebonnets that I got in La Vallita in San Antonio the first time Kirk and I went down there and an ostrich egg painted with a desert scene from an art fair in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. There is a construction paper Santa I made when I was in kindergarten. Cotton balls still cling to each corner of the star as fur trim. There is also a picture of the Blessed Virgin cut out of a Christmas card and taped into two plastic Folgers can tops and hung with some really long thread. I remember making this in CCD one Sunday, although why I was at CCD, I don't know since I went to Catholic school.

Two of my favorite ornaments are the poodle head and the ceramic rocking horse. I love them for their story. The poodle head was my grandma's. It hung on her tree every year despite (or in spite of) the fact that it is hideous. Every year, my uncle would make fun of this ornament and tease her about it being on the tree, and she hung it every year anyway. It's a big, white satin ball with 3 inch pompom ears and a 3 inch pompom poof on the top if its head. It has little bows on each ear and googlie eyes. I always thought the whole thing was hilarious, and when she died, of course nobody wanted the poodle head but me, so I took it.

When Kirk and I got married, the poodle head went on our tree. He was like, "That is the ugliest ornament I've ever seen! You can't be serious about putting that up!" I was just as determined as my granny. Later that week, he came home proud as a peacock with a horrible green, white, and red ceramic rocking horse that he got free with a fill-up from the 7-11. I said, "That is the ugliest ornament I've ever seen! You can't be serious about putting that up!" But he was just as determined as my granny. He said, "If you're putting up the poodle head, I'm putting up the rocking horse." And they grace our tree every single year, and I smile each time I see them. It would not be our tree without them.

Then we have the regular old Hallmark ornaments. The Mickeys and Minnies and ballerinas and barbies and Buzz Light Year...As the years pass, you can see the interests of the kids change. There is a Batman and a fairy princess, a cleat kicking a football and a High School Musical locker, a cell phone "texting" and a fancy dress shoe...

We have an ornament that we got at the millennium. Inside was a small scroll of paper where we could write our accomplishments for the year past and our dreams down for the year to come. I read it every year, carefully unrolling it from its case. I get a smile out of some of my hopes. I resolved in 2000 to "maybe have a new baby" and move to a new house in a "kid-filled neighborhood with a big yard." I wanted peace in the world and health for my parents and good family relationships. Three out of five ain't bad.

Finally, the angel comes down. Kirk has to do that. It's a straw angel that we got at Walmart the first year we were married. He had been to the National Training Center in California until just right before Christmas, and by the time we realized we didn't have a topper for the tree, they were all sold out. We got this straw angel somewhere, maybe Walmart, and put glitter on her wings and poked a hole in the bottom and stuck it on the top of our tree. The glitter has mostly fallen off, and the bottom of it is covered in sap from years of trees, but she still graces the top every year.

I love my tree. It's not fancy, but neither am I. Our history hangs upon it for the world to see.

Until next year...