Ask Jeeves

I remember watching a TV show in childhood where a little redheaded boy and a girl with short blond pigtails lived in a mansion with their uncle and spent most of their time with their English butler. I always thought it would be cool to have an English butler, but back in Iowa, we didn’t have such things.

If you’re a regular blog follower of mine (thank you!), you’ll note that I’ve been processing a lot of “Mom material” since her death three years ago. In so many ways, she was the hub of the family wheel. She had her kids, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren believing she had an answer for every question. It’s true, she did. I don’t know if they were always accurate, but she had answers. I was married to a guy once who had a similar propensity for supplying answers to any question and citing the Readers Digest as his source.

Back to Jeeves. Since Mom is no longer around, to whom do I ask questions like, “does eating spicy food make you dream?” I treated myself to dinner at a local Ethiopian restaurant last night after a long work week. I tried the honey wine—truly a different taste sensation, sort of like beer and rubbing alcohol infused with honey, served at room temperature. Not as bad as it sounds. I know nothing about Ethiopian food, but love Moroccan cuisine, and figured it would be similar. I’ve always been an adventurous eater. Bravely, I ordered the combination plate with three different lamb stew tastes, one beef contribution, and a mini chicken (?) leg, along with an amazing stewed cabbage something-or-other, all eaten by scooping the food onto pieces of flatbread. Like with Moroccan food, they bring a warm fragrant towel for hand cleansing before the meal. I like eating with my fingers—it puts me in touch with my more primitive side.

After dinner I commented to the very solicitous waitperson that the food, while delicious, was much spicier than Moroccan. “Really?” he said, with arched eyebrows. “This is our very toned-down version, to please the local palate.” His smile said, “Lady, you think that’s hot, you’re just a plain old sissy.” Although I’ve never been prone to dyspepsia, I had some concerns about whether or not my digestive tract would survive unimpeded throughout the night. I did, of course, expect (and receive) an increase of hot flashes.

My stomach survived just fine, but OMG the dreams . . .

The whole night was filled with dreams of confusion, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, not finding what I was looking for, coming in at the end of an event that I was supposed to host, losing my direction, forgetting my script for a performance—on and on, until I woke up feeling more exhausted than when I’d treated myself to dinner after the long week.

Back to Jeeves. Since I couldn’t call Mom and ask her if this was a direct result of having eaten spicy food at night, I turned to Jeeves—the perfect (in my imagination) English butler with all the answers, even if I don’t have cute little blond pigtails.

“Hey Jeeves,” I typed in, “does spicy food at night make you dream?” And just like my mom, and just like my ex-husband, Jeeves had an answer for me:

“When and what we eat may affect our nighttime rest, if not our tendency toward bad dreams. A small study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology had a group of healthy men eat spicy meals before bed on some evenings and compared their quality of sleep on nights where they had non-spiced meals. On the spicy nights, the subjects spent more time awake and had poorer quality sleep. The explanation is that spicy food can elevate body temperatures and thus disrupt sleep. This may also be the reason why some people report bad dreams when they eat too close to bedtime. Though few studies have looked at it, eating close to bedtime increases metabolism and brain activity and may prompt bad dreams or nightmares.”
Via http://www.divinecaroline.com/22201/62493-six-reasons-dreams#ixzz1UGRSPBXv

That’s probably more than Mom would have said. Her answer might have been more along the line of, “Sure does.”

So, if you have any burning questions and no one to answer them for you, I’ll lend you my English butler. He knows stuff. Just type in Ask Jeeves.

Surprise!

I woke in a cold sweat from a dream not long ago. When I'd worked my way back to consciousness, and was able to replay the dream in my head, I got a bad case of giggles. Bargaining with myself so I could get back to sleep, I promised to turn it into a short story in the morning. Hope you enjoy.


Jill turns off her printer and extracts the seven pages of her novel in progress, Live Wire, a story loosely based on growing up in a family of schizophrenics. Fiction allows her some emotional distance in a way that memoir doesn’t. She’s been working on the manuscript since the writer’s group, Friday Night Live—a collection of characters fit for a novel, all striving to be writers—began a year ago, and has promised herself she will have it ready to send to an editor before she turns sixty, which gives her exactly three weeks.

She stuffs the pages in her book bag, grabs her keys, wallet, and a bottle of Champagne that has been chilling in the refrigerator, and is out the door when Jonathan honks the horn of his Toyota in front of her house. She turns the key in the lock, and pats the door with affection. “Back soon,” she says. Jill has an odd relationship with her dilapidated little cottage. They are like an old married couple, used to each others ways, each becoming slightly more decrepit with age. Jill has never married and has no interest in partnering up just because she is getting old.

Jonathan is a forty-year-old bachelor who, if he had been born a woman, would have been described as Zaftig. As it is, pasty will have to suffice. He avoids the sun, as do many redheads, and avoids exercise, as do many men with mid-life paunch. He is the sole representative of the male gender in the writer’s group, and considers it an honor and a responsibility. Jonathan is working on a book called, “The Feminist Male.”

Every Friday, they rotate homes so no one will be overly burdened by the task of hosting. This week, they are on their way to April’s house. The last meeting was at Catherine’s, an upscale artisan cottage with skylights that allowed the light of the full moon to drench the dark walnut floors. Catherine is fifty, and writes Haiku, a style of poetry that leaves Jill scratching her head at the complexity of this simple form. Last week, Catherine’s butch lesbian lover, Hanna, served them grilled oysters on the half-shell, a cheese and fruit platter, and French bread.

Two weeks before that, they had met at Margie’s, a tract home in a noisy neighborhood. Margie’s husband, Tom, had failed miserably at keeping their four children contained upstairs for the two hour writer’s meeting, and they’d been interrupted frequently by requests for snacks, lost puzzles, books to be read, and questions that apparently only a mom could answer. Margie, forty, stocky, with curly brown hair that defied capture in the clip she continually adjusts, swore this was the last time they’d meet in her home, and apologized profusely on her way through the room to meet yet another child’s request. Margie writes children’s stories in her spare time.

“You have the address, right?” Jonathan says by way of greeting, as Jill slides into the passenger’s seat.

“Yeah, I spoke with April this afternoon. I can’t wait to see her new apartment.”

“God, I hope she’s not depressed,” Jonathan mumbles. “I never know what to say to women who are depressed—or who are having cramps,” he adds.

“Maybe that could be a chapter in you book,” Jill suggests.

Jonathan pulls up in front of a non-descript townhouse, in a non-descript segment of the city—neither old, nor new—and turns off the ignition. He shoots Jill a baleful look and says, “Well, let’s get this over with.”

April, in her mid-forties, recently divorced from a prominent orthodontist, has downsized from a multi-level, Frank Lloyd Wright home—with water features—in the hills, to a shared rental in the flatlands. She writes memoir, and has plenty of material, having lived the last ten years with an alcoholic sex addict. It is her new-found freedom and safe living space the writer’s group is celebrating this evening.

They knock on the door. Jill plasters a smile on her face and holds the Champagne in front of the peephole.

A stunning woman, sixty-ish, in a flowing hostess gown answers the door. Her quizzical expression is answered by Jonathan in a fit of over-gregariousness.

“Ah, you must be the roommate,” he smiles, and introduces himself and Jill. “We’re here for the . . . ” his voice trails off, as he notices a large gathering of people in the living room, none of whom appear to be Friday Night Live members.

“Surprise birthday party,” the woman completes his sentence. “I’m Francesca, please come in,” she says, and motions in them into the throng. “She isn’t here yet, but she’s due any minute.”

“Oh dear, we had no way of knowing,” Jill says. “There are two more of us coming. I hope we don’t ruin the surprise. I thought her birthday was in January,” Jill stammers, handing the hostess the Champagne.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s tonight,” Francesca says. “Go on in and introduce yourselves around.” She takes the Champagne to the kitchen.

“It’s not so bad,” Jonathan says, looking around. “A little cramped, but do-able.”

“Good heavens, they’re all unpacked,” Jill notes. “It takes me weeks when I move. I wonder where Catherine and Margie are,” she says, glancing over her shoulder.

Francesca comes back over to them and says, “I’m a terrible hostess. I’m sorry, I don’t even know how you know her,” she smiles.

“We’re in her writer’s group, the one that meets every Friday night,” Jonathan explains.

“Oh, I didn’t even know she wrote. Just when you think you know someone . . .” she laughs merrily. “Excuse me,” she says, and leaves to answer another knock at the door.

Jill and Jonathan wander into the dining room. “Wow, look at this spread,” Jonathan says. He dips a jumbo shrimp into a tangy sauce and takes a bite. A parenthesis of catsup attaches itself to the corner of his mouth.

“Do you think we ought to call Catherine and Margie and see what’s holding them up?” Jill glances at her watch. Without waiting for a response, she opens her cell and dials Catherine’s number.

“Hey, where are you?” Catherine answers.

“We’re here,” Jill says, “where are you?”

“Out back,” Catherine replies. “We’ve been waiting for you. Did you remember the Champagne?”

Jill motions to Jonathan to follow her, and moves through the crowd toward the back patio. “Yes, I handed it to Francesca when we came in.”

“Who’s Francesca?” Catherine asks.

“April’s roommate. Didn’t you meet her?” Jill says, sliding the plate-glass door open and stepping onto the patio. “I don’t see you,” she says, scanning the outdoors crowd.

“I don’t see you either,” Catherine says, “and her roommate’s name is Fred. Where are you?”

Just then a cacophonous cry rises up from inside the condo. “Surprise!” People are yelling and clapping, noisemakers are being twirled about. Confetti is tossed in the air and rains down soundlessly.

“Happy Birthday,” Jonathan yells, carried away by the infectious energy of the crowd.

“Is that Jonathan?” Catherine asks. “Whose birthday is it?”

“April’s?” Jill says, suddenly unsure of anything. A fine layer of sweat breaks out over her skin and chills quickly in the night air.

“April, is it your birthday?” Catherine asks on the other end of the phone. The muffled answer is “No. Why?”

“Oh my God, Jonathan,” Jill says, poking him in the arm, “we’re in the wrong house.”

In My Dream

In memory of Jean M. Bidwell 10/2/24 - 8/9/08

Sometimes there’s a cross-over between dream and waking states. Where one ends and the other begins is hazy:

The oncologist wiped sweat from his forehead onto the back of his hand. Self-consciously he slipped his hand into the pocket of his white smock. He placed his other hand on my arm. I felt the warmth penetrate through the layers of my blouse and sweater. His eyes, the color of ocean fog, reflected blue-gray, and focused slightly to the left of my nose. His voice was grave and resonate as he said, “Your mother is dying. The cancer is back. There’s nothing more we can do.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry.”

A cold stillness passed through my body. I knew my heart must still be beating, but I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t feel it. For fifteen years, she had beaten the odds. Year after year, the cancer checks had come back clean. After the twelfth year she said, “Now I believe it’s really gone.” I had believed it too. Cancer had not claimed my mother. She had beaten it into submission with her will.

I woke in a cold sweat, the blankets tangled about me as I struggled to sit upright. My heart pounded--that was good. I could feel it; I could hear it. It was only a dream.

Over a lifetime, I’ve earned the rep as the family nut who calls early in the morning to suggest, for example, my sister take her cat Sasha to the vet because I dreamed of an obstruction in her feline’s stomach that had been overlooked. I later offered to pay the bill for the x-rays that showed a perfectly healthy and functional intestinal tract.

Then there was the time I instructed my brother to look under the loose brick in the neighbor’s back yard where I had dreamed his wallet, missing for a month, had been hidden. There was a loose brick, under which a scorpion was hidden that nearly stung him. Therefore, I was now in the habit of discounting my own dreams, and would only call to share a self-deprecating chuckle over the absurdity of yet another crazy story from my subconscious.

I lingered over a cup of French Roast. Oh, what the heck, I thought. As I reached for the phone to call Mom, it rang. I jumped. Hot coffee splashed onto the sleeve of my robe and dripped off my wrist as I hurled an expletive into the light of day. I set my cup down, dabbed at my cuff with a Kleenex, reached again for the phone, and picked it up on the third ring.

“It’s your mother,” she said. Mom had a way of cutting to the chase that made me smile when it wasn’t exasperating me.

“Mom, I was just about to call you. I had this…”

“The cancer is back,” she interrupted. “It’s on my liver this time. I’m dying,” she stated.

“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”