Searching For Nora Ephron

Over the Thanksgiving Holidays, Mrs. G. wanted to spend an afternoon on the couch in her sweats watching movies. She was hoping to settle in with a couple of romantic comedies. She likes to watch them alone, so she can laugh and tear up without Mr. G. snorting and putting his head in his hands.

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Feast (by Mrs. G.)

As Mrs. G. and her family laze around on the couch like surburban sloths (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy...with pumpkin and cherry pie mere minutes away)...

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a quick parlor game: who would you most like to run over with a truck? (by Mrs. G.)

Forgive Mrs. G, she is feeling testy and weary of hearing about these two muttonheads. Mrs. G. wants to make it clear she is not advocating vehicular homicide...

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The Leader of the Crap

Each Halloween, as soon as the street lights flicked on, Mrs. G. hit the streets with Holly Hobby pillow case to gather sweet loot. She was partial to apartment complexes—more pillage, less terrain.

When her pillowcase became too unmanageable to haul, she would head home and dump the spoils on the living room floor and begin the time honored, planetary, childhood mandated sort.

The great pile, the good pile, the crap pile and the apple and miniature raisin box you-suck-as-an-American-and-why-don’t-you-worry-about-your-own-fracking-health pile.

Mrs. G. loved candy, so her crap pile was small. But the leader of the crap was a roll or six of Necco Wafers. She found them nasty. In Mrs. G’s mind, if you are an object that can be used to write a message on a brick wall, you are not a candy. You, my wafer friend, are an imposter, a candy grifter.

Reader, if you are lucky enough never have had a roll of Neccos dropped in your bag, consider yourself treated, not tricked. A Necco Wafer is simply a circular sliver of sugared chalk that comes in eight flavors:

Flavor                       Tastes like…

Lemon                     ~ Yellow Chalk

Orange                    ~Orange Chalk

Lime                         ~Green Chalk

Clove                        ~Purple Chalk

Cinnamon                 ~White Chalk

Licorice                     ~Black Chalk

Wintergreen             ~Pink Chalk

Chocolate                 ~Chicken

Reader, when you emptied that bag of candy back in the day, what was the leader of your crap?

A Mrs. G. Social Inquiry x 3

1. What is your favorite facial moisturizer?

2. What is your favorite brand and flavor of tea?

3. What is your favorite packaged cookie?

 

Teachers

 

The first week in September, Mrs. G. felt a twinge of woe as she watched the neighborhood kids pile into the school bus with their new backbacks and shiny shoes and realized that for the first time in years, she wouldn't be teaching. And while she is eager to move in a new direction, (hello? New direction? Could you reveal yourself soon? Thanks in advance.) Fall has a little less sparkle.  

  Mrs. G. taught creative writing to so many children she has lost count, but her students were so genuinely affectionate and grateful that Mrs. G, periodically, blesses each of their hearts before sleep and wishes them all a charmed life without one speck of pain or hardship. In short, she loved their sweet mugs, and if any of them grow up and become writers, she will buy their books...in hardback. Or read their blogs. 

Mrs. G. was touched by the young student who gave her this box of truffles and shyly told her that she went to a new candy store in Seattle and carefully chose only the truffles that reminded her of Mrs. G. These truffles were so spectacular (one of them actually glittered) that Mrs. G. doubted she would be able to eat them...oh, be quiet, she knows you know she ate them...just give her a minute to wax on, will you?

And while these truffles really were the most handsome and radiant truffles she has ever received, Mrs. G. was even more captivated by this handwritten truffle chart--undoubtedly the sweetest map she has ever followed. Mrs. G. loves a young girl writer who puts an exclamation point after Chocolates! and gets extravagant with her y's.

Mrs. G. worked really hard to be a good teacher, because good teachers were some of the most influential people in her life. She worked hard to make a connection with the kids in her class, because she knows that writing is personal and risky, and she wanted them to know she took it seriously. She wanted to be sure they understand that she was less interested in the spelling and the grammar and the punctuation and so much more interested in what they had to say. This picture was taken in 1985. It is seventeen-year-old Mrs. G. with her speech teacher Mrs. Paulson, and, reader, Mrs. G. loved this woman. Mrs. Paulson taught classes all day long and then stayed after school and coached the speech team--and by speech team Mrs. G. means a group of knuckleheads who hung out in Mrs. Paulson's classroom eating Fritos, drinking Big Gulps and cracking jokes. Mrs. Paulson was so gentle and supportive. Students would stand in front of her classroom and do little more than stammer, and Mrs. Paulson would listen intently and always, and Mrs. G. means always, find something positive to say...something like now, Ed, I want you to remember to breathe and try not to wiggle so much, and I have to tell you that the green in your shirt really brings out your personality. I can tell, already, that you are a natural born orator. And then she would go home and cook dinner and take care of her real kids. She was a saint.

And there was Mrs. Little, Mrs. G's high school British Literature teacher. Mrs. Little was passionate about the Brits. She would get so worked up during class discussions that she would pull her hair back in a rubber band and fan her cheeks. Her hands would literally shake when she read Keats' Ode to a Nightingale and her hair would quiver when she recited Lord Byron's She Walks in Beauty.  Mrs. Little took the Romantic poets very seriously and, now, so does Mrs. G.

But Mrs. G. was also heavily influenced by her bad teachers. She learned how to sleep with her eyes open tolerance in Mr. Hedgepot's Algebra I class. He broke his ankle square dancing the year Mrs. G. took his class. He came to class and pretty much spent the hour, with his leg propped on his desk, complaining about his life and regularly swigging coffee to wash down his "Tylenol" He was mean and surly, but the class let it slide and spent a lot of time and energy trying to cheer him up. The man didn't want much--he just wanted to square dance.

It might be difficult to imagine, but Mrs. G. ran cross country in high school. She won't mention that she joined the cross country team in a drastic attempt to find a sport where she wouldn't trip, fall, drop the ball or injure anyone else. Mrs. G's cross country coach was Mrs. Varns, a thin, fragile woman in her fifties who coached while leaning against her green Chevy Nova and chain smoking Virginia Slims. Mrs. G. is not making this up. Looking back, she's not sure how this was OK, but at the time, she and the other kids didn't even think about it. They would just gather around Mrs. Varnado and her cloud of smoke and follow her directions. She could hold a cigarette, a cup of coffee and a stopwatch in one hand. Mrs. Varnado taught Mrs. G. all about shattered dreams and multi-tasking.

And, finally, there was Mr. Morris. He taught Mrs. G's senior American History class. Mr. Morris wore a confederate flag pin on his lapel and was a little too sentimental and dewy-eyed about the Old South. He occasionally made disparaging remarks about Abraham Lincoln's misguided intentions or slipped in a sentence or two about the advantages of slavery. Mr. Monroe taught Mrs. G. how locate the Mason-Dixon Line on a map and how to identify a narrow-minded ignoramus.

Mrs. G. had the good, the bad and the best--they all left their mark. Who was your favorite teacher.

Overrated

Christopher Hitchens, author, journalist, literary critic and occasional overbearing, bloated asshole, is said to have been dining with friends at a swanky New York bistro when he inexplicably interrupted the conversation to declare: The four most overrated things in life are picnics, lobster, champagne and an*l sex!

Mrs. G. really likes picnics and champagne, so she can't accept Hitchen's list as gospel. She brought the subject up with Mr. G. and her son at dinner and they all compared thoughts.

Mr. G. went with the following:

The Wizard of Oz

Prom Night

The Super Bowl

American Idol

Mrs. G's son declined to answer, saying he didn't think about these things.

Miss G, through the miracle of IM, said her four were:

Steak

Prom night

Video games

The Sound of Music

Mrs. G. doesn't get the hype of:

Breakfast in bed

Dark chocolate

Fireworks

Liza Minnelli

What are your four?

Remembrance of Things Past...The Conclusion

 Mrs. G. Absolutely adores each and every one of you, Really. You love your husbands and your kids and your pets. Clearly we are going to have to start a choir at the Colony, because most of us are wannabe singers. These are the last soul revealing Proust questions. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer them. Next week, Mrs. G. will unveil just how she plans to use your answers. She thinks you are going to like it. In an effort to toss out some inspiration, she is answering her questions for all to see.

1. Where would you most like to live?

2.   What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Sadly she always end up with one of these arrousing numbers with upholstery-like fabric and straps broad enough to serve as landing strips to small commercial aircraft.

3. Who are your favorite writers?

4. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Meriwether Lewis, minus the keen sense of direction.

5. What is your most treasured possession?

Currently? Besides her family, this fancy ass espresso machine her father mailed her a few months ago. Every seven years or so, Mrs. G's father sends her some sort of extravagant gift. The last one was this enormous trampoline for her kids. She hasn't seen him in 25 years, so she often thinks about indignantly sending the gift back and calling him a good for nothing, but then she thinks naaah and sends him a brief thank you note. Mrs. G. can set a timer and have a hot latte waiting for her in the morning and that, Reader, can inspire years worth of forgiveness.

6. What are your favorite names? Caitlin (Mrs. G's Irish blood) and Lorenzo (Mr. G's Italian blood)

7.   What is one selfish thing you would like to do before you die ?

Have a real live Colony gathering, minimum three days and nights.

Your turn:

1. Where would you most like to live?

2.   What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

3. Who are your favorite writers?

4. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

5. What is your most treasured possession?

6. What are your favorite names?

7.   What is one selfish thing you would like to do before you die?