Iowa is Drowning

There have been a number of floods and drownings in Iowa in the last 10 days, and I've been watching the news with horror, as I see places like Cedar Rapids go under, and watch people try to salvage something from homes that are now covered in mud and debris.
My friend Roger called several times to tell me of his work sandbagging and helping people evacuate flood areas. Students and professors at the University of Iowa worked side by side for days pulling books out of the U of I library to save them from a watery fate, and there have been others who have tried to save books from the Cedar Rapids library. My mother grew up in small towns around Cedar Rapids, mostly in Monticello and Hopkinton, and she has been very upset about the state of things in her hometown.
I just know that if Muff were still alive, she'd be the first one out there, sandbagging, helping with the injured, saving books and doing whatever she could to help her fellow Iowans during the crisis. That's just the kind of person she was. She believed strongly in community, and in people relying on one another to make it through the hard times. She believed that things happened for a reason, and I know she would also be holding rosaries and lighting candles before mass for the victims of the floods.
When we were at Clarke, Muff was always getting me to sign up for all these humanitarian causes that I'd never heard of, but were integral to her idea of character and conscience. Before I met Muff, I'd never heard of Amnesty International, or Oxfam America, and I'd never worked in a Catholic Relief Workers soup kitchen on a regular basis. My political beliefs were somewhat nebulous, but Muff was having none of that, and would insist that I vote and keep abreast of what was going on locally and internationally.
I sincerely hope that she's working Angel Relief right now in Iowa, helping her brother Michael with the Cedar Rapids library, or giving a glimpse of hope to those who feel they've lost everything in the receeding waters.

Incredible Yeats Exhibit

W.B. Yeats would have been a rock star, had he been born in our era. As it was, he was a delicious poet whose work has withstood the test of time. Muff was a huge Yeats fan, and she was enamored of Irelands National Art Gallery's hall of Yeats family portraits, where it became clear that William was the rogue of the family. She and I strolled through the gallery several times while in Ireland and enjoyed reading every bit of information we encountered on the famed poet. We also read about him at the Dublin Writers Museum.

Here's a link to a wonderful interactive web site on Yeats that Muff would have loved. Since I can't send it to her, will post it here:
The New Yorker's Book Bench

blog recommended an extraordinary online and interactive exhibit, "The
Life and Works of William Butler Yeats " at
the National Library of Ireland: "If the solitude and decidedly
after-hours lighting don't inspire a virtual snoop, the contents of the
halls will. Original art installations, such as one inspired by 'The
Stolen Child,' accompany explanatory video. But most thrilling is the
library's collection of Yeats manuscripts--the largest in the
world--scanned and magnified."

Muff's Birthday

My friend Muff was a Gemini, born on June 1, and she would have been 47 in just a few weeks.
Here's some information on twin sun signers that is fairly accurate for Muff, though she was very
serious and reserved a lot of the time in her later years. But I think that was part of her duality--her serious side and her witty side.

Gemini is the most lighthearted sign in the zodiac, hands down. The Twins' circle of acquaintances is as varied as their interests, so they see an awful lot of invitations. Of all the reasons we love to have our Gemini pals around, their wit comes first. These folks find humor in absolutely everything, and their ability to say what's on their minds in an extremely entertaining fashion is world-famous and well deserved. These word-wizards and storytellers are able to uncannily impersonate anyone and anything at the drop of a hat. That includes accents, gestures and subtle idiosyncrasies that no one else would ever notice -- but then, if Gemini were a business, its motto would be 'Details-R-Us.'

True to the nature of its ruling planet, Mercury, Gemini is also quite communicative. So during those rare times when these talkative Twins are actually alone and not chatting on the phone, IMing with a friend or answering their voluminous email, they're probably on the phone or the Internet, or poking away at their Blackberries with a vengeance. If not, Geminis will manage to keep those restless minds active by doodling or solving puzzles and word games.

As for the dualities this sign is famous for? They're all true. In reality, there are a lot more than just two sides to the average Gemini, and each facet of this versatile sign has a fascinating story to tell. All that being said, it's easy to see that the one thing they just can't stand is being bored, tied down or isolated. 'Variety is the spice of life' is this sign's very own motto, and Gemini lives every second with that motto in mind.

So if you're a Gemini yourself, you know this all boils down to the fact that you can't stand being in a rut -- especially when it comes to relationships. Your sign has been called fickle more than once, but that's not fair. The Twins are perfectly capable of being faithful, as long as the person they're with is witty and interesting enough to keep them interested. No, it's not an easy task, but it's well worth it. Life with a Gemini is full of constant activity, endless movement and even more fun. And you can bet they won't scatter their affections if they can find someone who'll be willing to at least try to keep up. Gemini, whether you're a friend or a lover, you're one of the main reasons life on this planet can be fun for the rest of us -- so accept our thanks for just being you.

Oliver

"Someday, when we owe no more to the future, we will meet again."
Quote from a letter written by Jean Russell Larson, Muffs mother and famed childrens book author


Muff had a tenderly loved teddy bear named Oliver. She told me she'd had Oliver since she was a little girl, and she often called him "Odd Liver" and would position him with a good book on her bed, as if he could read it during the day while she was in class.
When something would go horribly wrong in our dorm room, Muff would sternly reprimand Oliver, telling him that, unlike Pooh, he was not a silly old bear, and he was expected to be a discerning gentleman bear. Oliver always looked suitably chastened. Muff once showed me how dancers never get dizzy by keeping their eyes on a spot on the wall while she demonstrated by twirling in a pirouette with Oliver, who cut quite a rug.

It was that sense of whimsy that endeared Muff to my heart so quickly, along with her sly wit and love of literature. She often told me that she felt like Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh tales, but she wanted to bounce like Tigger, yet she didn't want to be so irresponsible and undignified as the head-of-rubber and tail-of-spring critter. I was always a Winnie the Pooh type, in body shape if nothing else, and I used to be such a fluff head in the mornings that Muff would marvel at how long it would take me to put on my socks. She could go to several classes in the morning, come back and still find me with a sock in my hand, half asleep.

Muff had a strong sense of practicality and responsibility because she'd help raise her brothers, and she felt responsible for the well being of her whole family. She also had a sense of dignity and honor, and was steadfast in her morals. I learned a great deal from her on how to be more reserved and less wild and "out there" as a theater major can be...I also tended to say whatever was on my mind out loud, a bad habit that always got me into trouble. Muff once told me that tact was the ability to make a point without making an enemy, and I realized that, through my need to be honest, I often hurt peoples feelings. She taught me that sometimes silence is the best answer, and sometimes its better to err on the side of kindness rather than brutal truth. I miss having that moral compass so close at hand, when I could call her and sound out my ethical dilemmas.

She told me before I got married that she'd checked Jim out, and that he seemed like a good guy, but she had explained to him that if he hurt me, she'd find a way to make his life miserable. In that way, she made him realize that to her, I was part of her family, a person to be treasured and not forsworn. I remember joking to her years later that I was musing about having an affair, and she was vehement in telling me that I should do no such thing, because it would only cause pain to everyone involved, and that as long as I had someone to care for me through sickness and financial troubles and other difficulties, I should consider myself fortunate. She yearned to share her self with someone worthy, and was taken before she found him, but I know that she helped me rethink my priorities and my approach to ethical and spiritual problems many times. I will always be grateful to her for that.

Thackery and Poetry

Kyrie - Mr. Mister

The wind blows hard against this mountainside
Across the sea into my soul
It reaches into where I cannot hide
Setting my feet upon the road

My heart is old it holds my memories
My baby burns a gemlike flame
Somewhere between the soul and soft machine
Is where I find myself again

Kyrie Eleison
Down the road that I must travel
Kyrie Eleison
Through the darkness of the night
Kyrie Eleison
Where I'm going will you follow
Kyrie Eleison
On a highway in the light

When I was young I thought of growing old
Of what my life would mean to me
Would I have followed down my chosen road
Or only wished what I could be


Muff LOVED the above song by Mister Mister when it came out in the 80s. She also loved their initial hit, Broken Wings, but this song seemed to speak to her soul. It was her "song of the year" that year, just as Crosby Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross" was my song that year. She was also fond of "Come on Eileen" by Dexies Midnight Runners and Squeeze's "Black Coffee in Bed." Only the coolest songs would do for Muff. None of that sticky pop stuff by Madonna or Bruce Springstein or the Police.
She also adored the works of William Makepeace Thackery, and was always reading and re-reading the Barchester Towers series, as well as Vanity Fair. Dickens was always on hand whenever she wanted to read aloud, of course, and she loved his stories of underdogs who triumph, but for her own pleasure reading, it was always Thackery. Muff wasn't a big fan of most routine poetry foisted on English majors, but she did enjoy Seamus Heaney, Oscar Wilde, Robert Frost, the odd bit of Byron, Keats or Shelley, and at times she could be seen reading Gray. She loved Poe, and hated Plath. She liked the wit of Dorothy Parker and the natural imagery of Walt Whitman. She always appreciated Milton and Blake more than I did, and could enjoy an EE Cummings poem, while Cummings always made me shudder. Yet I always had a thing for Carl Sandburg and Pablo Neruda poetry that Muff found bizarre, I think. Her favorite poet was William Butler Yeats, of course, and she could recite most of his ouvre by heart.
I found myself automatically buying a new kind of stationary with matching pens at the Dollar Tree yesterday for Muff to write to the troops, and I had to stop for a moment in the aisles and cry, because it hit me, painfully, in the heart again that she's gone, and no longer has need of pen and paper. Dear God how I miss you, my friend.

Rosary for Rosemarie

Muff once took me to the Sacred Heart Chapel at Clarke to experience a rosary. I tried to follow along, but it was difficult to stay awake because I'd been up til the wee hours of the morning memorizing lines and direction for a play I was in at the time. So, drowsy, I watched as the chapel seemed to transform into something luminous, with Muff and several nuns almost glowing as they recited Hail Marys and Our Fathers.
Flash forward to last Sunday, when my dear friend Jenny Zappala and her delightful mom Dixie came to their parish church, St Louise in Bellevue an hour and a half before mass to say a rosary with me for Muffs soul, now that she's passed beyond this veil of tears.
Muff would have laughed, I explained to Dixie and Jenny, to see me struggling to do a proper rosary in her honor. She knew what a klutz I was during mass, never knowing when to kneel, or stand, or sing or recite a response to the priest. Yet she also would have been touched and glad, I think, that I made the effort. She would have known that I'd risk looking like a dork in a huge Catholic Church because I loved her so very much.
At any rate, Dixie brought three pages of written instructions for us, because apparently she and Jenny hadn't actually completed a rosary for a long time. So there we were chanting hail Marys and Our Fathers and beseeching God to let Muffs soul sit at his right hand and be glorified. Jenny had a grief counselor from the church come and talk to us, and she lead us in a separate prayer, and was wonderfully comforting.
Then we attended evening mass, and the church was full of young people, the elderly and families, and full as well of song. This was a church that celebrated mass by lifting their voices to heaven! It was glorious and beautiful and I loved it. I also discovered that Jenny can sing like an angel! Who knew? Muff couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, bless her, though she was so talented at everything else she set her hand to. But she used to take singing lessons at Clarke, and learn to hear herself sing so she could discern if the notes were sounding right. Sadly, I think she also had a tin ear,or was tone deaf. That never stopped her from singing along with the Chieftans or the Irish Rovers when we were listening to their folk music.
We were joined at mass by Jenny's father, the witty Chuck Zappala. Jenny and her hubby Alex are joining her parents for a huge trip to the Zappala birthplace near Sicily, Italy next week, where Jenny and Alex will be staying for 2 weeks and Chuck and Dixie will be hanging out at the Zappala dairy and noshing on great cuisine with the Zappala clan for an entire month. I wish them great joy on their trip, and I hope meeting the Italian branch of the family is fulfilling and wonderful. I also hope they bring back great recipes for Alex to make and try out on those of us stuck back here in the USA.
Anyway, Muffs name was said in special intentions during mass, and Jenny and I lit a candle for her. I tried not to cry, but I was, of course, a sodden mess by the time we left the church. Yet I felt more at peace than I have since I picked up the telephone that awful Saturday morning and heard the news of Muffs demise. I felt that what Dixie told me after mass was true, that Muff would be my guardian angel now, and watch over me and my family.

Working/Feasting/Paris Cuisine

"We want the liver and the lights of Paris, we want to gormandize until we're green, because we're eating out our hearts for Paris, by which we mean the Paris Cuisine. We'd really settle for some bread and butter, we'd really settle, for a bit of crust, or for some gristle gathered from the gutter, but eat, eat, eat we must!"
From Cyrano, the Musical starring Christopher Plummer


Muff was always a hard worker, and though she learned young how important money can be, especially when you don't have any, she was very generous with her money and her time when she had a surfeit of either.
I remember once when we were unusually poor during our sophomore year at Clarke that we decided to scrounge up leftovers from the 'caf' and the Onion, and also cook some things my grandmother had given me in case the 'evil Catholics' as she called them, decided they weren't going to feed the protestants that day and cut me off from the cafeteria. She and my grandfather had driven from their home in Monticello to Dubuque just to bring me this mammoth roast, some potatoes and douches...don't ask.
Mary Karl got out her rice a roni boxes, and decided that would be a side dish, though it came perilously close to the dreaded pasta that Muff loathed with all her being.
We then seasoned and browned the roast, and put it in the oven in one of the dorms, along with some potatoes and Muff was in charge of cooking some canned corn. I don't know what happened in the ensuing hours, because we had all repaired to the Onion for a brief aperatif before the big meal. Next thing we know, smoke is pouring from the dorm kitchen and there's corn all over the place...seems Muff had figured out a way to make corn explode and the meat had caught on fire. The poatoes actually roasted up rather nicely in the fire, however, and were still edible, but the only parts of the roast we could scavenge were the middle bits where it was thick and still slightly red.
But when we were flush, we'd head to Marios for Ponzarotti, which were the size of a regulation football, and made with bread dough stuffed with motzarella, meat and spices, cooked and slathered with marinara sauce. They were impossible to eat in one sitting, but they were very tasty, and cheap. And the leftovers, like pizza, could be consumed for breakfast.
As I've noted before, while on campus Muff often worked in the cafeteria, with Larondo, or sometimes did room cleaning, so her boss was a 300 pound chef who wasn't too picky. My work study consisted of cleaning blackboards and attempting to be a model for the art students (clothed, of course, usually in whatever theater costume I was wearing for the latest production). I was under the auspices of Sister Xavier, or Zav, as we called her behind her broad back. Sister Zav was one of the few BVMs at Clarke who refused to abide by Vatican 2 and wear normal clothing instead of the big stuffy penguin-like habit. She towered over most of us, and she despaired of people like me, who are serial dawdlers. Yet she gave me the keys to all the classrooms without a qualm, even when I regularly forgot to lock them behind me after I'd cleaned the blackboards. She threatened me with something like eternal damnation (but, realizing I was a protestant and not suseptible to the requisite level of guilt, she lectured me on the aeons of Clarke students graduated in the century before who were responsible, moral adults, and not sniveling, brainless drama dweebs like myself) and told me that if one more book got stolen from the psych professors classroom (Hank Goldstein, who was a nebbish kind of guy, but whose nasal whine could send anyone reaching for a bottle of aspirin), I was going to be fired and roasted in Hades.
Of course, I had some huge tests the next day, and inevitably forgot to lock three key classrooms, so whom did I call to save my bacon? Muff, of course, the only person able to slip into the building and back out without being seen by Sister Zav. I eventually got fired anyway, but I kept the job for a couple more months.
After graduation, Muff tried to follow me to Boston to get her graduate degree in library science from Simmons College. Much to her disgust, Simmons, at the time, wasn't interested in books or periodicals at all, but wanted librarians to be computer experts and focus on gathering information for patrons, not in helping them find it themselves. Because she only had one class that dealt with books, and a childrens book class at that, she lost her enthusiasm for grad school rather rapidly. I was working as a household help to Mrs Pierce, a blind lady who lived in Cambridge and had a disgusting, pig-like dog named Suki. Suki was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier, according to Mrs Pierce, but she snorted instead of barked, and would eat anything, even rotted garbage, happily. Suki was voracious and had no qualms about biting or chewing through things to get to food. Muff would come over and stay with me at Mrs Pierces place, up in the attic/garret I was allowed, and we'd slip down to the huge old kitchen and make M&M dogs. Muff invented these luscious things, which consisted of a hot dog in an open bun covered in motzarella cheese. Then we'd pop them into the toaster oven until the cheese melted, add a bit of mustard and voila, mustard and motzarella dogs. Our only problem was keeping the pig-dog quiet. Suki would grunt and push forward inside of her locked dog carrier so hard, she'd have the thing scooting across the floor because she knew there was food being made and she wanted it---all of it. So inevitably, we'd have to bribe Suki with three hot dogs and some buns with peanut butter on them to keep her quiet while we made our repast. Before Muff left Boston, I felt it only proper to take her out to a real seafood dinner, since Iowa affords little opportunity to eat fresh fish. As we were served freshly boiled lobsters and crabs, Muff dropped her napkin and paled visibly when the food arrived. "I can't eat this," she said "It's LOOKING at me!"
"But Muff," I said, "It's dead, its been boiled, its no longer on this earth, trust me, and its delicious, please don't let it die in vain, just give it a try!" But she refused, from that day on, to eat anything that was cooked with its eyes still in, so it could look at her. And I was stuck eating a lot of lobster and crab...not that this was such a bad thing, mind.
Muff went on to become a nanny for a family in Chatanooga, Tennessee. She was required to take care of the three kids, help with the laundry and light housekeeping, and, unfortunately, occaisional cooking. Muff didn't like to cook because she felt she wasn't too adept at it. She especially disliked cooking the food she hated the most, the dreaded macaroni and cheese. Muff would rather be dipped in boiling oil than eat a spoonful of mac and cheese. Once, when Muff, myself and Monica, the three leads in the Great Cross Country Race play, were invited to the director Tom Scores house, Muff had to sit down and politely make her way through a stuffed manicotti shell with a tiny bit of marinara sauce over it. I was going to say something, but she looked at me and hissed through gritted teeth "NOT ONE WORD" and proceeded to eat with great deliberation and in tiny bites, everything on her plate. OF course, the favorite food of the kids she was taking care of was none other than mac and cheese. Poor Muff, consigned to pasta hell for a year.
Once she returned to Marshalltown, Muff started working for Hardees Restaurants, after working briefly at a town Made-Rite Diner, and I recall telling her once how much I loved Hardees breakfast cinamon-raisin biscuits. "Those things are made almost entirely of LARD...you do know that, right?"she said. I was appalled, and never touched another of those fat-bombs again.
Muff worked for Hastings Bookstore for many years, and rose in the ranks just as she had at every job she'd tried that had even a whisper of advancement potential. She told me that while working there she'd gained a lot of weight, and I didn't really believe her until I saw her deplane in New York, where we met to get on our flight to Ireland. Muff assumed I would be horrified, but I wasn't bothered at all...I could tell my friend Muff was still there, full of life and adventure and mischief as ever.
And fortunately, Ireland isn't at all enamored of pasta, because potatoes, which Muff adored, were plentiful as were pork chops and chicken and beef dishes. The first "Irish Fry" breakfast we were served at the Blooms Hotel was a bit off-putting, however, because it consisted of eggs, Irish oat bread, a rasher of bacon, broiled tomatoes and, gasp, black discs of blood sausage. Neither of us could bear to even try the darn things, let alone eat all that we were served. But the lovely requisite pot of hot Irish tea made everything taste good. We had some fantastic meals while in Ireland, especially at the Waterford Crystal plant. Their cafeteria made the most delicious dishes, and you could go through cafeteria style and pick what you wanted, and eat for a pittance. I remember having a delicious stew and I think Muff had pork chops, but I remember the portions being large and satisfying and the Irish people being wonderful and warm to both of us.
Muff worked for a video store after Hastings closed, but then surprised me, as she often did, by going back to Marshalltown Community College and getting administrative training (she really wanted to do paralegal training but they didn't offer that) that allowed her to get her dream job of working in a library.
I remember her phone call the day she got the job--she was so thrilled, and I was so thrilled for her. She didn't mind that she'd be working in the basement, she was just happy to be working amongst books and bookish people. She told me that she'd had BJ cook healthy meals for her, since being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and that she'd lost some weight, enough so that she didn't have to take as much Metforin as she had before. Muff had stopped smoking and had the use of a CPAP machine for her sleep apnea, and was in better health than she'd been for years, she told me.
Thats why it was such a blow to hear of her untimely death.
I raise a glass to you, my friend, and know that I will always remember you.