I took jenna to a pediatric opthamologist today. Her pediatrician wanted us to take her just in case, to check some, well quite a few, grey flecks and dots in the white part of her eyes, which she hadn't seen in a child before.
Probably because she hasn't seen many extra-ethnic kids That's my new term these days, extra-cultural or extra-ethnic, even extra-racial, pick your term, and for the record I hate that there are terms at all, because that isn't how I see it or we see it, but we don't run the planet, and extra is much better than bi-anything because these kids aren't positive-negative, they are enriched with layers of heritage, culture, and genes, and at the end of the day, quite simply, they are most certainly the opposite of being inbred in most every single way.
So I said to George the other day, I think I'm use the word extra, because along with being extraordinary, it also conotes "more" and going outside of, connecting beyond, and of course, being on the edge, unique, and can also mean superior, and so screw them, this is what I can say if I want to, and even better it's like extranets, which of course is at the crux of what I think about most days when I'm not thinking about eye doctors and extra-ethnicity.
Speaking of culture and ethnicity, I want to tell you about the richness and oddity of this visit to the eye doctor today, but it was one of those all-senses kind of events that makes me wish my whole body was a blog so that I could soak in the experience and not forget to tell you anything.
Being more blob than blog this day, I will do my best.
It has to do with Harley Davidson, really. Hot bikes and cool chrome. Fast riding. And it has to do with none of that too.
Once I had Jenna seated in the kids theater, watching The Little Mermaid, at this geared-to-kids doctor's office, I went to sit in the adjacent waiting area with an assemblage of other adults and one young boy who was there with his Grandmother.
You see, she had driven him down from the North Georgia Mountains to the opthamologist.
This is what I learned as I sat down in the middle of a conversation, a loud one, between grandma and this petite, sweet, blonde black-belt belle karate expert, suited in her black belt outfit, enjoying a lively talk with grandma. Apparently these folks had come a long way, from separate parts of north Georgia, to see this doctor because he's good. (Which, it turned out, he is).
I watched the ping and pong of conversation about getting lost, about finding shortcuts, about finally arriving, and about how late they'd get home, I noted mostly that they both were both very loud.
Now if you've been to the North Georgia mountains, you would know that folks from there speak with heavy, country, southern drawls. These are the people whose accents, actually quite charming, are parodied on TV and in the movies in a none-too-kind a light. And I admit, I bought into the stereotype when I first moved here. I've found that more often than not, though, they'll fool you. They ain't so country as they seem, ya'll. And they're usually nicer than you expect, or even would like them to be.
My attention is immediately absorbed by the little boy, about 8, who is louder than grandma and a real corker. With red-brown hair, a face full of freckles, an Opie accent gone due south, and Dennis the Menace's personality, you get the picture.
I'm watching him as he's grabbing grandma's jowels and telling her, "Looky all the meat you got on yer throat, grandma--you're so cuuuute," and then her, knocking him across the chest back into his seat with a, "You want these folks to see you get your butt beat, I'm ready to oblige," and then the two of them laughing and pushing one another, this obviously being their rough, fun loving game, or something, one that I'd bet gets much rougher when junior really screws up and isn't in a room full of people.
I say to grandma, "Boy, he's not a shy one, is he?"
"No I wouldn't say so--It's because of his name."
"What's his name?"
"It's Harley. Harley with the middle name of Davidson. Harley Davidson."
"You kidding?"
"NO--really?" chimes in the black-belt belle.
"Yes m'am. His parent's couldn't afford to get a Harley, so they named him Harley Davidson."
"Well, I guess they got one after all," I say.
chuckle, chuckle, slap, shift, fun, smiles.
I'm digging this. Real people. Real life. Touch them--they don't bite.
Now's the time when the Vietnam Vet whose son is getting glasses comes and sits down with us. He happens to be black, and I'm wondering how the petite black belt belle--by now she's told us that she is in fact a black belt (as are her husband and three boys)--grandma harley, harley davidson, the vietnam vet and I are all going to hit it off. You have to understand, a glance around the room tells you one thing: We all comin from real different places.
And grandma harley's just gettin warmed up.
She wants to tell us about the BYOB dance party she went to on her birthday a couple weeks ago. And we all want to hear it. No, I'm serious.
Apparently the deal is, everyone meets at a big hall and brings their own booze; there's a live band, kids and adults, and they dance all night long. Costs $8 to get in ($16 for a couple, grandma tells me). Sounds like some kind of a barn raising from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers to me, and I'm thinking, that's kind of charming. Well grandma explains that she had a bit too good of a time.
Harley Davidson chimes in, "She ain't supposed to drink cause of all the medicines she's on, but she drank that night!"
She shakes her head, "Yes I did, I took two of them shots--they call 'em tooters--and I felt such a nice buzz--I'd never had a drink in my life, and that buzz lasted ten minutes, and as soon as it was gone I said I wish I could get that back. Then I went home and read my Bible. I sure did."
The group laughs in unison, a couple of us shaking our heads.
"Well, it sounds like fun," I tell her
"You know, we're in a mixed room, or I'd tell ya'll a joke I got from that party. But somebody's probably deck me. I bet he [pointing to the Vietnam Vet, who, as I said, happens to be black] just as soon knock me out if I tell this one."
I'm thinking, okay. Here we go. Here's that southern thing where you get along fine and then someone has to demonstrate that you're not so foreign to them that they can't fit you in as the butt of a joke. In other words, I'm thinking here come's the racial joke.
I pipe up, "Well if he doesn't, I might."
"You? Really. Well here goes anyway..."
I look at the Vietnam Vet, giving a look that is one part "here we go" and one part "what a trip," and he smiles back, shakes his head. We wait.
"So the head of that party we went to, he says, 'Bea, you know what a man's favorite thing is on a Saturday Night?' And I say, 'No, what?' And he says: 'Tooters and Hooters!' Tooters and Hooters! I about fell over laughing. And now ya'll probably think I'm foul."
Tooters and Hooters? A booze joke? It dawns on me that she was concerned about being unladylike in mixed company, not about offending the varying color hues in the room.
In her own way, she was concerned about propriety. And I gave myself an internal kick for assuming she was coming from another place. Yeh, sure, up at the barn raising there may have been plenty of those kind of jokes too, but not this day. She had as good a talk with the vietnam vet as she did with the black belt belle as she did with me, and all of us together talked for close to an hour, laughing a good bit of the time, shaking our heads at grandma and harley davidson (which seemed to delight them) the rest of the time.
Whatever else she is, grandma harley's one of a kind.
"My husband's 22 years younger than I am," she says. "That's right, I'm 54 and I married me a 32 year old man who treats me right. I met him on a Tuesday and got a ring and proposed to him on Saturday, and that's when we got married."
Harley pipes in about grandpa's role in his life, "He's real nice to me too," which grandma seconds. "Don't you tell him that boy ain't his own grandson or you'll be in for some trouble."
Mostly we're sure we would be.
Harley starts to rev his motor some at this point, tired of waiting and used to being the family comedian, he's getting bored. He's telling us how much weight grandma's lost over the last two months, and she's telling us too, and then Harley starts grabbing grandma's sides, and she backhands him in the chest again, at which point they begin their joyful pushing and shoving all over again.
"He has ADHD, you know," grandma tells us.
Black Belt Belle says, "Well he's not really hyper--they're supposed to be hyper right?"
"That's because his medicine's just startin to wear off. That's what happens. Another hour and he'll be climbing the ceilings."
Harley's eyeballing the ceiling now and shaking his head. Yes, he'd like a rope to climb on up, so he could get up onto the ceiling tiles and get ready.
But instead the nurse comes out to the waiting area and calls his name to go back for his appointment.
I was sorry to see Harley and grandma go. I decided I was going to miss them both.
But I don't have to miss them. I have them here now, for good. And so do you.
More soon...
