Vegetable of My Discontent

When I arrive at someone’s house for dinner, I’m always glad to learn that green peas are not being served on the side, or indeed, included as a part of any dish.  Ever since Mom shoveled green baby mush into my mouth, I’ve had an aversion – no, aversion is too weak a word – repulsion? – ah ha!  - a loathing-  for this vegetable.  Even eggplant – which you might think would be my most hated food after Grandma Johnson’s every-dish-has-an-eggplant-component-in-it dinner – is immune to the level of disdain that I hold for peas.  Pea.  Peas.  Who chooses names of vegetables?  This is certainly a bad one.  I mean, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, artichokes all have a slightly melodious or even clever element to them.  But pea?  Right up there with leek if you ask me.  Muffin agreed with me, too.

 As many nine year-olds do, I thought I would surreptitiously provide nutrition to our dachshund mix.  Well, Muffin seemed to be gobbling up the little green jewels (Mom’s nickname, not mine).  Content that I had a staunch ally in my war against things small, round and green,  I put them in my hand, and my canine accomplice licked them up.  When we rose from the dinner table, the floor was littered with green confetti.  To say Mom was not happy would be an understatement.

This hatred survived my childhood, and years later caught up to me when I was living in the USSR, during the winter of 1990.   During one of the worse economic times in recent history, when everyone stood in line for bread, cheese, vodka…the necessities of surviving Russian winters, I had the good fortune to be invited to a friend’s apartment for a celebratory dinner. Along with the requisite appetizers, conviviality, salads, conversation, and potatoes, Ivan and Tanya served a giant bowl of – you guessed it.  Everyone happily took large servings, commenting on the rarity and generosity of this treat.  When questioned about my reticence in taking any peas, I feigned stupidity – “What are these?  I’ve never seen them before.”  I stumbled, “No, no, please you have them all…I’ve eaten too much already.”  No luck.   I pretended not to understand what was in the bowl or the Russian word – горох (goroch) – even in Russian it sounds gross!  I faltered.  Then, aha!  "У меня аллергия" – I’m allergic to them.  Russians tend to have a soft spot for medical problems.  Heads nodded gravely.  For a moment a silent, sympathetic, collective sigh.  And, then a toast!  All was well, and I was freed for the tyranny of the Soviet pea.  I ended up being served (and eating without complaint) a giant quantity of beets and sour cream, as well as a meat product that I, to this day, do not know the name of.  But, anything’s better than peas. 

Arts and Crafts: Or, Why Not to Go Greek

         People who know me now are infinitely surprised to learn that I was in a sorority in college.  Furthermore, when I go on to tell them that indeed, I was not only in a sorority, but was also pledge class president, scholarship chairman, ritual chairman, and chapter president, they nearly fall over in a faint.  Obviously, I do not have sororitiness to my present demeanor.  In fact, whenever an about-to-go-to-college-and-I’m-a-little-intimidated-about-leaving-home-and-high school friends-age person asks me for my thoughts on or recommendation for the Greek system, I have to say I discourage it with all my being.  However, it was an odd requirement of being in a Greek chapter that led to my actually being able to teach my mother something.

            In our sorority, we had family systems, as I suspect many sororities used to, and perhaps still do.  As a new pledge, you got a pledge mom.  Ostensibly, this person would show you the ropes, much like a professional mentor in the workplace.  Upon being initiated, which was after a semester of pledgedom, your mom had cross-stitched you a pledge pillow.  A remembrance, of sorts, of your childhood within the bonds of sisterhood.  After receiving your pledge pillow and full membership status, you were expected to adopt a child immediately or at the next rush, whichever came first.  I did, in fact, get a pledge daughter from the next fall rush and commenced to helping her navigate the intricacies of sorority life: 

            “Yeah, the party is Friday from 8-11.”

            “Umm, the kitchen quits serving breakfast before 2 pm.”

            In addition to such overwhelming complexities of living in a sorority, I had to figure out what cross-stitching was and find a way to make a pillow from it.  Now, one might think that someone who had taken some amount of Girl Scouts and 4-H in her earlier life, as well as having a mother who sewed and mended probably everything I wore in childhood, and who owned – well, I’m not sure, but more than three sewing machines – would have some kind of aptitude for such a mundane task as creating a token of sorority life.  Well, cross-stitching , it turned out, is not complex needlework.  Putting the pillow together properly, turning it inside out, stuffing it, and sewing the suture firmly shut actually required a PhD in civil engineering.  Nevertheless, Lisa received her pillow in due course.  I have the sense that it wasn’t until the following school year that she got it, but I can’t be sure.  I mean, between the parties, chapter meetings, schoolwork, and parties, who has time to sew?  Once I got it down, though, I realized there was potential here. 

            I stitched something for my mom for some holiday – I don’t know what it was or what holiday it commemorated.  I do know that she loved it.  (Since becoming a mother myself, I happen to know that loving any handmade craft from your child is part and parcel of the mom contract one signs upon giving birth – page three, paragraph 8.  “Mommy, I made this out of mud, dog poo, and grass – it’s sculpture of you!!”  “I love it!  I’m putting it on the kitchen window sill right next to the painted rock and remains of last year’s dandelion bouquet!”)   That I had discovered a craft that was beautiful, well, at least attractive, probably stunned my own mother.  I had never exhibited even the slightest artistic ability.  Well, I had taken ballet and performed adequately enough to garner an occasional solo at a showcase or two – but really, art and I are oil and watercolor.             

            Not long after this initial gifting, Mom asked me to show her how it was done.  Now, anyone who knows anything about crafting knows that basic cross-stitch can be done quite successfully by blind monkeys.  And, just now, I have realized that I am sure that my mother - who graduated high school at the age of 16 and went on to college, a teaching job and raising three daughters (the list could go on for pages) -  did not need my instruction in order to figure out how to cross-stitch.  Nevertheless, I showed my mom how it was done and – for the sake of my dignity -  I am going to maintain that I taught my mom how to cross-stitch. 

            I went on to make one more pledge daughter pillow, employing the help of a few engineering majors when it came to stuffing the cursed thing.  Mom, however, has gone on to create literal works of art with cross-stitch.  All seven of her grandchildren have an intricately woven framed picture commemorating the day of their birth.  I would venture to guess that anyone who knows my mother or whose mother or grandmother knows my mother has one of her works of art somewhere in their home.  I know I have at least ten of mom’s needle-art in my home. 

            So, it is with some pride that I take partial credit for the hundreds of pieces of art that my mom has created, as a result of my teaching Mom to cross-stitch.  And, if that’s too much of stretch for you, well, just remember – you can learn cross-stitch without joining the Greek system.  Just come see me.