Pizza Night

When my neighbors moved into the house next door, they had three children under three and both of them worked.  Oh, yes, they were in a state of constant exhaustion.  By Friday evenings, they had no energy for painting the town red or even pale pink.  Thus came the tradition of Pizza Night. 

Every Friday night Cynthia would make pizza, the children would run around until they dropped, and the parents would share as many quiet moments as they could manage between diapers, skinned knees and worn out toddlers. 

Steve and I have been shamelessly mooching off Pizza Night for 12 years.  I usually bring a salad for Cynthia, Steve and myself (Richard doesn’t eat anything green), and Steve would nab a bottle of wine.  We’d scarf that pizza and have a glass of wine or two or, well, who’s counting after two?  At the end of the evening, we had only to stumble up the hill between our houses.

Pizza Night led to putting in concrete steeping stones on that hill.  It led to my working with a couple of the children on their reading (and, by proximity, half the neighborhood).  It led to Steve building Boy Scout pinewood derby cars with their boy (again extending to half the neighborhood).  If nothing else, it led to endless experimentation in pizza-making.

The three children grew older; money and energy and the neighbors’ social life increased.  We are frequently out of town; in fact, right now Steve is working out in Washington State.  We lived in Russia for two years; that’ll put a crimp on a weekly get-together (although Cynthia and Richard did visit us in Russia where we enjoyed hatchapouri, a sort of Georgian pizza).  While no less welcome, Pizza Night occurred sporadically.

When Cynthia invited me for pizza last Friday, of course, I said yes.  But, alas! come Friday, Richard had caught some nasty bug.  What could we do?  The children must still eat, therefore pizza must still be made, so Cynthia prepared the children’s pizza and then climbed those stairs and brought the fixin’s over here.    

Because she is a doll, Cynthia thanked me for allowing her to make pizza at my house.  I graciously accepted her appreciation.  (Okay, what I really said was, “You’re thanking me for allowing you to bring food over to my house and make me dinner?  You’re welcome.) 

Two mini pizzas (made on store-bought naan this time; isn’t she clever?) and two glasses of wine later, we had pretty much covered politics (hope the right side wins), child-rearing (the children scooped up tons of As in school) and the marriages of half the neighborhood (hey, we’re only human). 

Here’s the thing.  I don’t even like pizza all that much, but I wouldn’t miss a Pizza Night for the world!

It's Becoming

I grew up when girls had long hair and wore dresses.  Trousers of any sort were forbidden at school except for snow pants on a winter’s day, and then they had to be removed at the classroom door.  (Anyone remember cloak rooms?)  I, however, was a tomboy.  Somehow I buffaloed my Mom, usually so conscious of social norms, into letting me lop off my hair (think a cute bob a la Rachel Maddow).  Out of school, I ran around in my brother’s old Tee shirts and jeans.  (Well, my Mom was a product of the Great Depression; hand-me-downs were a fact of a third child’s life.)  Even as a little girl, I did not like the constraints of a stereotype. 

My own daughter was a petite, slim child (read “small and skinny”) on the outside but indomitable on the inside.  The days of gender dress were over, and I have vivid memories of her racing through her aunt’s kitchen and out the door with an enormous millipede between her fingers, screaming triumphantly, “Look what I’ve got!  Look what I’ve got!” 

Then there were the hours of delightful play as she entertained her brother thinking up ways to kill the doll Billy by having him jump off the dollhouse roof, fall out the dollhouse window or slip in the dollhouse bathtub.  Sweet girl.  Her ambition was to be the person who went down in the shark cage.  She was a wonderful child and easy to raise but pink tutus and tea parties, not so much, either of us.

My Perfect Granddaughter?  That’s different story.  She chooses the pink and the frilly every time.  We laugh and say she must have gotten her girlie streak from her dad.  She knows all the Disney princesses, and the thrill of her life was getting done up at the Bippety Boppety Boutique at Disney World.  She’s nobody’s pushover, believe me, but she is all girl.  

(Alan got done up, too)

When she was misbehaving at the dinner table (both my grandchildren are Perfect, so although I can’t remember what she was doing, I’m sure she was doing it to perfection), my daughter rebuked her mildly with, “Stop it, Suzannah; that’s not becoming.”

My head swiveled, and I mouthed, “Not becoming?”

My daughter shrugged, “It works.” 

And so it did. Suzie sat up straight, smiled and became a model girl.

Don’t you wish it were always that easy?  The mean kids bully a meek one in the parking lot, so you walk over and say, “That’s not becoming.” They immediately stop and extend hands of friendship.

Secret service agents in Colombia:  “That’s not becoming,” and they zip their flies and return to the hotel, alone, and sober.

The mental cloud following you around?  Shake your fist at the sky and say firmly, “That’s not becoming,” and the universe shapes up and sends you a sunny, sunny day.