The Ghost Wins--No Contest

When I was little I was afraid of the top floor of my grandmother's house.   I didn't love the basement because it was dark and dirty and empty except for the furnace, the washing machine, and maybe some boxes or other things of little note.  But I wasn't afraid.  I was perfectly fine on the first floor, which held the kitchen, the bathroom, and the dining room.  It also had a creepy little bathroom near the back door with an ancient toilet and a really tiny sink.  It was old and dingy, but I wasn't afraid.  The second floor had a small bedroom where Aunt Bridgie slept, a big bedroom that Nana and Kathleen (her daughter) shared, and a living room.  I was fine there.

But when you went upstairs to the third floor, there was a two by three foot rectangular hole in the ceiling.  A metal ladder was bolted into the hall and led over the stairs to the hole.  I was never up there.  It was black.  I touched the ladder on occasion with the intention of climbing up and looking around, but I never made it past the second rung.  I am assured by both my mother and aunt that there was nothing up there but old clothes and photographs, but never, not even as an adult living there, did I seriously consider exploring.  Over the course of my life I have dreamt of the hole in the ceiling.  In these dreams I have found brightly furnished pleasant rooms with staircases leading to shabbier rooms, with ladders leading to storage rooms, with ladders leading to dark, foreboding, horrible secret hiding places complete with the preserved remains of murder victims from past generations.

But the attic wasn't the problem.  If I left it alone, it left me alone.  There was something wrong with the whole apartment, especially the hallway.  When I lived there I felt perfectly safe.  I slept for ten months in the front room, which I had strong reservations about.  When I was 18 the family gathered downstairs for some occasion.  My cousin Gavin, who I only saw a few times a year, was about 15.  He was sent to the upstairs kitchen to get ice from the freezer.   After he was gone for an unreasonable amount of time I was sent to find Gavin and the ice.  I found him waiting for me on the bottom step.  "It's about time you came," he said.  "I'm not going up there alone."  I looked at him questioningly and together we ran up two flights of stairs, grabbed the ice, and tore back downstairs.  A few hours later, his sister Geraldine, who was about 25, and who I saw only once or twice in a year of two, came over.  She suggested we go upstairs to get away from everyone.  Gavin and I  settled on the sofa, while Geri sat on the floor a few feet away.  The cat, Lance, was sleeping curled up on the floor.  We got to talking about how we were all scared of the third floor  for as long as we could remember.  We talked about the attic.  We talked about our hunchbacked grandfather who lived up there alone until his death about ten years earlier.  We agreed that the hall made us queasy and that there was something not right about the front room.  As we talked about the front room, the cat jumped up with a yowl, fur up, and stared into the darkness of the front room.  The three of us bolted through the door and thundered downstairs.  That was enough of that.

When, four years later, we were offered the upstairs apartment, I immediately said no.  BP, with dollar signs in his eyes, a healthy measure of common sense, and no experience with the third floor, talked me into it.  Rent free is a good deal.  But truthfully, in the ten months we lived there we were 99% incident free.  There was just one problem on one morning.

I was alone in the house.  Nana and Kathleen were away on vacation.  BP had gone to work.  I was in the bathroom doing my hair.  I heard footsteps in the hall.  I went into the hall and listened.  Nothing.  I returned to the bathroom.  I heard footsteps in the hall.  I stopped, looked, and listened.  I unplugged my curling iron, grabbed my purse and jacket, and went to work.  Something was present and walking in it's apartment.  I was not going to get in the way.

The Beginning of Domestic Bliss: The Day from Hell

Yesterday I wrote about my pecan pie.  What I only touched on was the rest of the day from hell.  It was our first day home from our honeymoon and BP had to work, even though it was a Saturday.  I was so looking forward to setting up our apartment. We were living in the upstairs apartment above my grandmother and aunt in Brooklyn.  We had a kitchen with an old refrigerator with an ice compartment, metal cabinets, and a stove with a lift top so it could double as counter space.  We also bought a freestanding metal cabinet for additional storage and counter space, and an electric dryer.  Nana had a washer in the basement, but she always preferred to hang her clothes in the yard.  We had a nice little living room with huge windows, a little room that held a closet, a loveseat, and a small desk.  Then there was a large but slightly haunted bedroom, that I will write about another time.  The bathroom had a bathtub but no shower, and a tiny sink with separate hot and cold water faucets.  The house was built, I think, in the 1910's.  We  got married in 1983.  But since we were living there rent free so we could save for a house, it was a really sweet deal.

So we wake up for the first time in our new apartment.  BP goes to work.  I am supposed to go to the bridal shower of someone I don't know very well, so I call to say that I can't come because I have to wait for the dryer repairman.  Since we'd just returned from a two-week honeymoon, I decided to attack the laundry first.  I carried our clothes down three flights of stairs to the basement.  As I put our clothes in the washer I meet Spot and Henry.  Spot and Henry are now our pet water bugs.  They are dark brown, about an inch and a half long, and live over the washer.  I admit to being a little unnerved, but I make a mental note to pick up a couple of leashes if I find them in the right size. 

Laundry started, I run upstairs and put things away.  Then I clean.  I decide to call Aunt Mildred and invite her and Uncle Richie over for dessert.  I flip through my only cookbook and look for something I have ingredients for.  Before getting married, we went to the store to stock up our kitchen.  For some unfathomable reason, we happen to have the ingredients for pecan pie.  I have never had pecans in stock since.  Satisfied with my plans, I proceed with the cleaning.  I note that the metal venetian blinds are filthy.  They are also incredibly big.  The apartment had ceilings that I'd estimate at 12 feet high, at minimum.  The windows reach almost to the top of the wall.  The blinds have many, many slats and we have 5 of them, two in the livingroom, two in the bedroom, and one in the kitchen.  Realizing that it would take approximately a year to dust each slat, I figure it would be much more efficient to remove the blinds and wash them in the bathtub.  Metal scratches porcelain.  By the time I had removed wet, and mangled blind number one, I had muddy water, a smudged blind, soggy strings, and a horribly scratched tub.  The more I work, the more it scratches.  I have to give up and hang the unevenly washed blind back in the window.  I never attempt blind number two.  So I dry the floor and go downstairs to retrieve my laundry. 

I return with my wet clothes, stuff them in the dryer, and hit the on button.  Nothing happens.  I called the repair hot line.  They tell me to try plugging something else into the outlet.  The something else doesn't work either.  I need an electrician, but I am not going to get one to come immediately on a Saturday.  So I take my laundry down to Nana's to use her clothesline.  She introduces me to the clothespins and shows me how to use them.  Within five minutes it starts to rain.  She tells me to hang everything from the clothesline in the basement.  I lug my basket past Spot and Henry, and proceed to start hanging.  Apparently I am not very efficient because the wet towels and some white shirts fall on the floor.  When I pick them up, they are black.  Black, as in coaldust black.  Soot black.  Black black.  Now the house had an oil furnace.  But the floor was going to forever be covered with whatever fuel remains were there previously.  I rewash the clothes and resign myself to leave it all there until an electrician can be located.  Nana offers no sympathy and flatly states that going back home to Mom is not an option.  As a footnote, let me repeat that I started my day lying about why I couldn't go to that bridal shower.  I have never, ever again lied as an excuse for anything.  I'm pretty much convinced that if I'd said I was sick, I would have contracted the plague. 

I return empty handed to my upstairs abode.  It iss time to start dinner.  I flip the switch to turn on the kitchen light.  Nothing happens.  Nana assures me that the lights all work and that I just need to replace the bulb.  She hands me a bulb, sends me back into the fray, and probably wonders why she thought it had been a good idea to let us live in her house.  I climb up the ladder again, as high as I can go.  The whole socket turns and plaster rains down on my head.  Using one hand to hold the socket, one hand to hold the bulb, and no hands to keep me from plunging to my death, I finally get the bulb changed.  Yes!  Let there be light.

I don't believe I ever made dinner, being busy with the lightbulb, and about to become even busier with pecan pie.  Eventually the laundry gets done, the bathtub get a third rate paint job, and I decide to never examine the blinds above eye level. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the ghost.

Cooking From Scratch

I had something to prove.  I was just 22 and just married.  My husband, BP, had to work our first day back from our honeymoon.  I begged out of a shower for an acquaintance so I could stay home and set up the apartment.  It was truly a hell of a day.  The newly delivered dryer didn't work, I scratched the bathtub trying to scrub metal venetian blinds, and plaster fell on my head as I teetered on the top of a twelve foot ladder trying to change a lightbulb.  That's the abbreviated version of my day.  But it wasn't over yet.  In my misguided optimism, I had invited my Aunt Mildred and Uncle Richie over for dessert. 

At age 49 I know that when in such a situation one may justifiably cancel the engagement or go to the store to buy a cake.  One might, if extraordinarily ambitious, bake a cake from a box mix.  However, if the person in question is a very young and naïve newlywed, she will think it is a good idea to attempt her very first, made from scratch, crustless pecan pie.  Why pecan pie?  I can only guess at my own motivation here.  I had only eaten pecan pie a few times, but I was aware that BP liked it.  Mostly, it struck me as sophisticated, especially coming from a background in which homemade pies were never really thought of.  I was going to show the world that I could do anything. 

So I took out the never actually used cookbook that I lifted from my mother's house.  I carefully measured all the ingredients and deposited them in my brand new mixer.  I turned it on high and stood frozen in horror as corn syrup and molasses spurted in every direction and dripped down our kitchen cabinets, leaving streaks on our newly painted yellow walls.  Having very little time before our guests arrived, I tried my best to ignore the stickiness of the floor.  I remeasured the ingredients and turned the mixer on low.  Successful this time, I stirred in my pecans and poured the mixture into what I thought was a standard pie plate.  I filled it right up to the top and had batter to spare, although I didn't know why.  I placed it in the oven and got to the business of cleaning the mess.  When Aunt Mildred and Uncle Richie arrived, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the goop that oozed under the freestanding metal cabinet that we had just acquired.  To there credit, they did not laugh or run.  Without a word, they grabbed cleaning supplies and joined us in the disaster relief effort. 

Things were looking up until someone smelled something burning.  No, the pie was not on fire.  But I now know that the pie plate I'd received at my bridal shower was not standard size.  Pecan pie batter was bubbling over the rim of the plate and was hardening across the bottom of the oven that had managed to stay in good condition from the 1930's until my first day with it.

After a stint of wiping and scraping, we managed to settle in the living room with slightly burnt pecan pie and a big pot of tea.  It was an experience and ultimately, it was fun.  It didn't taste half bad and we had a nice little visit.  Despite the stress, the mess, and total exhaustion, this first experience of cooking gave me a sense of satisfaction.  It wasn't perfect or anything close to the evening I'd imagined.  But I did prove something.  I proved to my aunt and uncle and BP that I was not an accomplished cook.  But I proved to myself that I can make a simple plan, watch that plan go off the scale haywire, and fight my way through every difficulty until things come out alright.  BP still says that it was the best pecan pie he ever ate.