March 2005

Hello everybody!

First of all, let me apologize for not writing "Tomie Says" for months and months and months.

Oh, I have some good excuses!

I had major rotator cuff surgery on my right shoulder that made it impossible for me to write (and draw) for months.  Right in the middle of THAT, I turned 70 and had a wonderful party.

Then, I got a new kitten I named Kahlo.  Kahlo has recently gone to work as a concierge at a great Kitty Hotel called "Country Cats."  Nancy Smith, the owner, is taking SUPERIOR care of Kahlo.  He was too lonely living with me.  He was alone in the house all day.  He only saw me when I went into the house for supper and then later when I went to bed.  So, he started breaking stuff because he was bored.

I was able to find him a job and a good home with Nancy.  She loves him and he loves living with a nice dog and lots of cats.  He loves bossing them all.

As I started to get better with physical therapy, my puppy Brontë who was born two days before my birthday (that means he's also a Virgo) was waiting to come here, but he had to wait until I finished a book tour.  (That was neat meeting SO many of you!)

Thanksgiving week I went to Montreal with my assistant Bob to be his NURSE.  He had laser surgery on his eyes.  Montreal was fun and Bob's surgery was successful.

During my book tour, my good friend, Trina Schart Hyman, died after a long heroic fight with breast cancer.

Suddenly it was Christmastime.

Brontë was living here with Kahlo and me and I wasn't getting a lot of sleep.  I had friends for dinner on Christmas Day and I got sick with the flu.  (I didn't have a big Christmas tree this year because I am adding a NEW, HUGE ROOM on my house and the construction was making the house a bit of a mess.)

Now, what else, oh yeah –

I had to go to NYC during the first part of February for a conference.  But, I had to leave before Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Gates were unveiled in Central Park.

And... I have to admit that I have been LAZY and not writing. BUT I'M BACK!  So what should I write about? Well, it's March and March is the month that comes in like a LION and goes out like a LAMB, the month of St. Patrick's Day, shamrocks, leprechauns and all things Irish – and Flossie's birthday!

In case you don't know, Flossie was my mother. She was born on March 9, 1907.  If she was still alive, she would be 98 this year.

(March 9th is also my niece Ellie's birthday.  This year she is going to be – OOPS! – I'm not supposed to tell.)

I promised last year I would tell you another Flossie story.  Here goes...

Flossie's Birthday Presents My mother was called Flossie by all her friends.  Her real name was Florence May Downey (later dePaola when she married my dad).  We kids called her Mom until we graduated from high school.  Then she became "Flossie" to us, too.

But this story takes place when I still called her Mom.  The Second World War was going strong.  Everyone's lives had been turned upside down.  Uncle Charles was in the Army; my two Italian cousins, Anthony and Dominic, were in the service, too.  Even my parents' best friend, Tony Nesci, was in the Sea Bees.

It was a usual sight to see small flags with stars on them in the front windows of the houses all over town.  The stars showed how many sons, daughters and fathers were off fighting the war.  If the star was gold, it meant that the person off fighting was killed in action.  It was a very strange time.

Despite all the disruption to ordinary life with blackouts, air raid warnings and rationing, Flossie worked very hard to keep our childhood safe and happy.  (At that time, the children in my family were Joe, Jr., my older brother whom we called Buddy, Maureen, my younger sister, and myself.  Judie, my youngest sister, had not been born yet.)

My dad was working two jobs:  his regular job as Connecticut State Barber Examiner and his evening job as the Night Shift Foreman at a local war plant.  Dad was a "missing parent," only visible on weekends.

So, we spent a great deal of time with Flossie.  Because sugar was rationed and molasses wasn't, Flossie taught us how to make old-fashioned taffy.  She'd organize "Taffy Pulls" with the other kids in the neighborhood telling all of us that that's how she and her friends had fun when she was young. She taught us how to dance the Polish Polka even though she was Irish.  We'd sit in the dark living room during air raid warnings with the blackout curtains closed and all the lights out listening to the radio.  "Lux Radio Theatre" was my favorite.  Buddy liked "I Love a Mystery."  Maureen was too young to have any opinion.

Flossie showed me how to "pinch" the little bead of color on the side of the plastic bag of WHITE margarine (butter was scarce and rationed too) and how to knead it until it turned yellow, so it would look like butter.  It certainly didn't taste like it.

She – and Dad – made sure that the wartime Christmases were wonderful too. Each of our birthdays was always celebrated with a party, complete with birthday cake, ice cream and crepe paper baskets full of jelly beans or peanuts.  And, of course, there were presents – practical ones like new socks and usually a baseball or something similar for Buddy, a doll or stuffed animal – often homemade – for Maureen and a new box of crayons, a watercolor set or some other art supply for me.

But it was one of Flossie's birthdays that I really remember.  Her birthday was March 9th.  The war was not going well both in Europe and in the Pacific.  People looked very glum.  We were having more and more air raid drills in school, more and more air raid warnings at night.

But our mom's birthday was coming.  We had to get her birthday presents.  Buddy had a paper route so he had some ready cash.  We didn't have allowances in our family, so probably Dad gave me some money – not much – but a king's ransom to me.  I most likely bought her a handkerchief with lace around it, with an embroidered "F" on one of the corners.  But, I'd also make a painting for her.  Dad got Maureen's present for her.  And Dad was going to take Flossie out to a "movie and a sandwich after."  We were all set.

The morning of Flossie's birthday, she woke us up and said breakfast would be ready, so to "hurry up."  Buddy and I tumbled down the stairs, dressed ready to go to school.  We each had our presents for our mom.

When we went into the kitchen, our places were already set.  And on our plates were OUR favorite breakfasts.  Buddy's plate was piled high with pancakes.  My plate held a "popeye" – an egg dropped into a hole in a piece of fried bread.  Even Maureen had her favorite – Pablum mixed up with warm milk. "On my birthday," Flossie said, "everyone gets their favorite breakfast!" But, that wasn't all.  At each of our places, including the tray on Maureen's high chair was a small gift-wrapped package.

"What's this?" Buddy asked, fingering his package.

"On my birthday," Flossie said, "every one of my kids gets a present from ME!"

I had NEVER heard of that before.  On birthdays, you GOT presents, you didn't GIVE them.

Not Flossie.  That birthday of hers, she started something that became a real tradition in my family that lasted until we all began to disperse into our own lives.

With that simple but magnificent gesture of giving all of us presents on her birthday, Flossie taught us the depth of the old cliché, "It is more blessed to give, than to receive."  As the years went by, the real fun of each of our birthdays was not what we would GET, but what WE would GIVE.

I don't do this on every one of my birthdays, I'm sorry to say.  But writing – and remembering – this has given me a new resolve to remember the lesson Flossie taught us on the birthdays I have left to celebrate.

I'll make sure at least one of my friends (I don't have a family of my own) gets a "FLOSSIE BIRTHDAY PRESENT."

Thanks, Flossie!

Enough for now.

I'll continue my ramblings in a few weeks.