Three Hands Make Light Work

The clap of thunder sparked Posie's memory. It was the Monday afternoon bridge game on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina -  and a stormy one at that.

The boom outside brought Hurricane Hugo back to Posie nearly 25 years later. One of the worst hurricanes to hit the southeast coast it devastated Charleston and the surrounding areas. But, as in all life's trials and tribulations, bridge (and whiskey) helped ease the pain - at least in the Fontaine household.

"Tom was theya," she said indicating her long-time bridge partner.  "He came ovah to arrah house because we had three floors theya on Wentworth Street. But when I saw him walk in with a bottle of Rebel Yell whiskey, I said, 'Now Tom don't be crackin' open that bottle. We've got alotta work to do."

Tom, Posie and Felix got started moving furniture from the first two floors of their Charleston single all the way up-top to floor number three. It took hours but finally all that was precious and necessary to the Fontaine family was safely tucked away and the house battened down. The clock was about to strike midnight and Hugo was minutes away. The trio settled in around the card table ready for their uninvited guest.

"Then we cracked the Rebel Yell," Tom said, taking a bite of Happy Cannon's fabulous blackberry cobbler she brought in to share. "I don't drink it anymore, I prefer Maker's Mark, but anyways, we sat there through that little dust-up they called Hugo and drained the whole bottle."

And they played bridge. Three-handed bridge. It causes a bit of a bidding dilemma, but it can be done. Just as surviving a hurricane can be done. You deal four hands, turning up 6 cards of the fourth hand and each player bids for the contract (conventions won't work here) using his/her hand and the 6 cards of the fourth. The winning bidder gets the fourth hand as his/her dummy and then you play normally.

Posie said the bridge game was a "disastah" but at least, in their neighborhood,  the storm was not. The eye was twenty miles north of the city and the barrier islands got the brunt of it. Tom, Posie and Felix escaped with water damage and nasty hangovers but with lives and houses intact.

But three-handed bridge would never again be played at 38 Wentworth Street because one "disastah" in life is more than enough.

Not So Great Expectations

My most vivid and broad impression of events seems to me to have been gained on a raw afternoon...it was a Friday in the middle of one of the worst winters on record and to be able to venture over to the Center for Bridge seemed quite a warm and cheery idea.

As I recall, this bleak of days even for February, was supposed to be snow-free, or so the forecaster of weather had so earnestly expressed. But as morning turned to afternoon, light grew dimmer not brighter and the sky became heavy laden with big grey clouds.

Inside, the bridge players were cozy, contently concentrating and occasionally gleeful. No one noticed the doom that was slowly but certainly creeping toward the Center. No one had any way of knowing that even that occasional glee soon would be snuffed out like a candle in the wind. 

We played two hands and moved to the next table; played two hands and moved to the next table. A hospitality break was announced and most of us pulled out the crumb of bread we had stored in our pockets. Others - the more fortunate among us - would unwrap a leg of pickled pork or a handsome mince pie.

But upon finishing our repast we all finally looked up and out and saw it. The snowflakes. Big and fat and round (even though pictures of them always have points - why is that?). At any rate, a flurry of flakes quickly made a wonderland of the stark parking lot and snow mounds of the cars parked in it. The wind blew the whiteness about until all you could see was opaque oblivion. There was a frenzy in the atmosphere that was palpable - you were on pins just waiting for something to erupt or explode! It put your nerves on edge and your hairs on end!

Bang bang bang bang!!!! We jumped in our chrome and plastic chairs. Rattle rattle. Shake shake. What was that commotion? What is going on? Is the world coming to an end?

No. Some poor, hapless bridge player was trying to get in the locked entrance of the Center - the door no one enters once the games begin. Everyone knows you go around to the back. Everyone. 

But still...bang, rattle, shake...

Through the gloom we could barely make out a form. Hooded from the elements, frail, trying to balance herself on an insufficient wooden cane she continued to plead with the door handle. My compassionate bridge partner said to me (who was nearest the door) "Oh please. Let her in. Just let her in!"

"No!" shouted the director. "She must use the back door like everyone else. Everyone knows this. Everyone!"

"But she's old and she's using a cane and she's covered in snow and it's so cold, so cold," cried my partner.

The director hesitated, thinking and then... gave in. She was just trying to be fair and keep the rules the same for everyone, everyone. But her tenderness won out and she got out her large ring of keys - jingle, jangle, jingle - and had the door unlatched in seconds.

The poor, hapless, tottering player passed through the door and nodded her head in gratitude to the director. But as her hood was thickly coated in snow, this most gracious of gestures blanketed all of us who were near her in icy cold wetness in which we had to sit for the remainder of the game.

That's what tenderness and compassion get you...

Home is Where Your Heart Breaks

It was just a picture on Instagram of two dogs asleep on a sofa in a cozy, warmly lit room tagged: "good to be home." My now married son was back from his honeymoon, back in the Pacific Northwest... back home?

But home is here.  Oh sure he lives there and works there, but home is here. Where we hide Easter baskets in obvious places and the boys run and look for them pretending they're hard to find. It's here where we light a fire on Christmas morning and dad has his sausage-and-egg casserole all made and ready to put in the oven for brunch. Where I used to read to them at night and get up every morning - thousands of mornings - hurrying breakfasts into tummys, books into backpacks and two little boys out the door before the school bell rang. Home is here. This is home. 

How did it happen that in a blink of an eye home is now somewhere else and mom is no longer #1? I'm lucky to be #3, if you count the dogs. Someone said, "Just wait. You'll keep dropping. Wait'll the grandkids come." Now I know how my mother must have felt all those years when I was so busy with husband, children, dogs and home. She, too, kept losing her place in my life.

The fab foursome were over playing bridge the other day when we saw a bustle of activity next door. New neighbors had moved in and the little boys were running in from school and scurrying off to football practice. I so well remember those days. An old lady used to live in that house and she told me once that she loved looking out her window watching me with my boys. She was in a wheelchair and we kept the shrubbery low so she could see all the goings on. She said, "It reminds me of when I was a young mother raising my two sons." That was 22 years ago and now I'm the old lady at the window.

I wonder if her heart broke each time she dared to look out?

Time to Write a Blog Post

Someone asked me the other day when Betty was going back to work on the blog and I realized how long it had been. But with a year like this - one wedding and a funeral, two houses for sale and a house to build -  I didn't know if I was coming or going half the time. I felt like the baker in the old Dunkin' Donuts commercial, "Time to make the donuts. Doh! I made the donuts."

In one day, for instance,  I had to choose flowers for the rehearsal dinner, negotiate the price of my mom's house with the buyers, and pick out a roof for our new house. Another day I had to take six bags of my precious mother's clothes to Goodwill, sprinkle holy water on our lot before they poured the foundation (just as a precaution) and wrap eleven groomsmen gifts. I was so confused I almost sprinkled holy water on the bags and dropped the gifts off at Goodwill. 

As it was, I did go to a dress fitting without the dress and almost mailed a letter with no address on it (I had put a stamp on it, though). Not to mention the load of laundry I did with no clothes in the machine. When I went to transfer the clothes to the dryer, the machine was empty. Apparently I washed a load of water. I even added BIZ. 

Needless to say, in this busy and confusing time I've played very little bridge. Naturally my game has suffered. My normal deft and precision playing has waned a bit. But the worst of it is my partner was getting a little too happy with another. "Barb and I came in first last week." "Barb and I came in first again last week." "Barb and I came in first again once again last week." And on and on. It was getting redundant. Was this it? Was our long and prosperous partnership... ok, let me rephrase that... was our long partnership going to end on top of everything else? Would I need to start looking for someone new?

Alas, no. Cindy and I are back together and we played last Friday. It was a wonderfully strange day -  pouring down rain while the sun was shining - and silver-point week no less. Well, I'm happy to say, it was just like riding a bike. I didn't forget a thing. I played four or five 1NT hands and went down each and every time. It was great! We barely made the board. Fantastic! Just like old times. 

We didn't win any silver, but at least for the time being my life is somewhat back in order. I'm much less absent-minded these days. Unlike the man on Friday who drove a convertible to the Bridge Center and left the top down in the rain. What was he thinking???

Squish. Squish.

Wedding Bell Horrors

My first blog post I wrote that my baby boy had left and gone to college. I wrote about going into his room (clean for the first time in his life, btw) and standing there feeling sad and so empty inside. This was the impetus for taking up bridge -  a silly game (I thought), a useless hobby (I thought) where I have met so many wonderful people and had so much great fun.

Well now, that baby is getting married. This time, however, I am filled with joy. I am thrilled to be getting a daughter. It's all good.

So why is it that every night I have nightmares about the upcoming event? Or should I say nightmares about missing the upcoming event. One night I was at a Wal-Mart and couldn't get the doors open to get out of the store and by the time I got to the church, the ceremony was over.

Another night I was getting dressed and I kept putting my earring in backwards so that the post thing was sticking out front and the jewel part was behind my ear. And there were freckles on my face drawn with an eyeliner pencil that I couldn't wash off.

Last night I dreamt I was dressed and ready to go, earrings were in place, I looked in the mirror and to my horror I had grown a full beard. I tried to cover it with Bobby Brown make-up and although it did tone it down a bit, hairs were still sticking out. It was getting late and we needed to go and I said to my husband "What am I going to do?" and he said, "Shave it! And hurry!"

Have any of you ladies ever tried to shave a full beard in a hurry? It ain't easy. I was going over these long hairs with an off-brand razor not making a dent in the beard but doing a good job slicing up my face. Blood dripped down my pretty mother-of-the-groom dress and it was getting later and later..... Suddenly my husband's alarm-clock-from-hell rang out and for the first time I was glad to hear it.  Thank God it was just a dream, I thought, drenched in sweat and luckily not blood (And to think I used to have nightmares about Two-over-One).

I'm told Gillette Pro Fusion is a good razor. I plan on keeping a package handy as the big day approaches.

Absence of Crackers

Why did I do it? 

Was it frustration over a 1 heart contract we were in (down 2) that really belonged to West (made 3)? Or the lay down spade slam we didn't bid?

What else could have compelled me to rat out a compatriot, a fellow soldier in the sometimes cruel trenches of bridge?

Maybe it was as basic as hunger. The Life Masters had a catered party to celebrate one of their own and we speculated whether  there was going to be an "invitation" in our future. Meanwhile, the ambrosia of creamy noodles dotted with tender pieces of beef made it's way into the non-life master room, determined and tenacious.

I wasted no time asking the director if (hypothetically, of course) a person had brought in a (low fat, ugh) peanut butter sandwich and some (stale, even ugher) potato chips for lunch, would that person be wise to leave said "lunch" in its crumpled brown bag with hopes of better things (nodding toward the room with noodles, naturally). A wink and a nod on her part sent my spirits soaring... so I waited.

But lo! Before our next round began, one of our opponents said she was in need of a cracker and marched right into the noodle room in search of one. Whoa! I said. Director! I said. Virginia (not her real name) is in the noodle room right now! Without invitation! After her!! And she did go after her. And Virginia was caught red-handed - or should I say "bread"-handed because, due to the absence of crackers, a roll was all she could purloin.

Oh, was she reprimanded! Oh, did I feel like we were back in kindergarten, mainly because that's where I belonged. I don't tattle-tale! I'm not like that! But all these forces were working against me and finally won out. Virginia was so mad she wouldn't eat the roll now "if it were the last bit of food on earth." I found her conviction admirable and offered to toss the roll in the trash for her. 

It was the least I could do.

I'll Be Seeing You In All The Old Familiar Places...

There are a lot of good things about having a dead mother.

Firstly, you don't have to worry about her dying anymore. No more wondering if today is "the" day, etc. That's a pretty good thing.

And you don't have to worry about her falling or having a stroke and you not finding her for three days because you've been playing too much bridge. And when nearly a week has gone by and you haven't picked up the phone to say hello, you don't have to feel like pond scum anymore. Especially when you finally do call her and say, "I'm so sorry I haven't called you; I'm the worst daughter in the world," and she says, "You are a wonderful daughter and I love you very much." Knife right in the heart! What a relief not to have to go through that anymore.

And those lunches we used to have together that we loved so much? Why, it would take my 90 year-old mother at least 10 minutes to get from the car in the handicap parking space to the front door of the restaurant. And those two places aren't that far apart. Oh, and the grocery runs I used to make. She would give me a list of two, sometimes three things to pick up "whenever it's convenient - not to worry." What a nuisance!

As you can see, there are many many good things about it. The only bad parts are that the first person I ever loved on this earth, I will never see again. The only human being who knows there's something wrong at the sound of my voice, I will never talk to again. The woman who would give her life for me and be happy to do so, I will never get to hug and kiss again. And who's going to tell me everything will be alright in the morning?

So there are some bad things about it too.

"I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you..."