September, 2011

Natter and Grommish

The mall is probably the last place I like to be. Bottom five, anyway. It's crowded, way too hot in winter, way too cold in summer, noisy, overpriced and frustrating. But other than that, it's a great place.

But sometimes I brave the doors. Because you have dozens of stores at your fingertips, you can get a variety of things. Very handy for Xmas shopping (that is the absolute worst time of year to be there, bar none). Or the one item you need is at one store in town—smack in the middle of the mall.

Hearth and Gnome is like Crate and Barrel… drawn by Picasso; like Home Depot's garden center… plucked from the DVD of Coraline; like Better Homes and Gardens… edited by Abby Scuito. It was more than 'a bubble off of plumb' as Gibbs' dad would put it.

It was also a fun place. And, keeping their name in mind, it was the #1 place for all things gnomish.

Mother is on the hit list for almost every charity on the planet and at least as many catalogues. (From August onward, we leave a milk crate by the mailbox with a sign reading "CATALOGUES" on it. At that time of year, it's filled up every 3 days or so.) Mother marks items with post-its, Charlie makes a spreadsheet, and then helps Mother cull and order in November. "But you'll see what you're getting for Christmas!" Mother objected. "I'll close my eyes as I type," Charlie said with a grin. Mother was satisfied.

While perusing yet another catalogue, Charlie stumbled over a set of gnome gardening pots. A dozen gnomes in various positions, each with an open area for a small potted plant, perfect for an herb garden. The catalogue company wanted $149.99 (plus tax and shipping). "They have a rather high opinion of their goods," Charlie sniffed.

A little hunting on the net, a couple of phone calls, and she found the exact same set at Hearth and Gnome—for $59.95. And at the end of summer, it was marked down to $29.95. Since this was an anniversary gift for Lily and Ev, she certainly couldn't ask them for a ride; I was happy to drive even before she offered ice cream as a bribe.

Charlie snagged her gnome pots, Lexi found a t-shirt emblazoned I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like (and in her size) and I stumbled over a Wild, Wild West-type wanted poster reading WANTED: $10,000 Reward - Schroedinger's Cat, Dead and Alive. I wasn't sure if I'd give it away or keep it—but I had to buy it. We celebrated our finds over ice cream (and I refused to let Charlie pay). "I love them dearly," she said, shoveling in ice cream quickly before it could turn into soup. "But sometimes the kitsch is overwhelming. At least they keep the gnomes confined to the back yard."

"At least," I agreed. Lily and Ev actually have excellent taste. They both often look like they walked out of a high end fashion show. The house is decorated—redecorated, actually—beautifully, and their bookstore/genealogy research office was in the Arts and Leisure section of the Metro Mirror last year under "hidden local gems." But, like any of us, they have their moments. One of them is an overwhelming fondness for garden gnomes—in or out of the garden. "At least it's not pink flamingoes," I amended, thinking of a neighbor of ours.

Charlie's smile faltered. "Mmmmh." I looked at her quizzically; her gaze dropped and she turned toward Lexi, dipping a paper napkin in her water and cleaning the ice cream and condiments from her niece's face and hands.

There was a crowd of teens behind her, loud and rowdy, in the 'you'll be embarrassed when you're 30 and look back on this' way of teenagers. (I have memories of being a total ass at the Tik-Tok Diner, things that are burned into my brain and will remain there until my senility makes Mother look like a Nobel laureate.) "Oh, that is so gay!" one of the you walked out of the house wearing that?/overdone makeup/skinny as a pencil girls trilled

I rolled my eyes. Back when I was in school, the big amusement was _ jokes. Italian, Polish, Irish, Catholic, Jewish, black folks, white folks—pick a group, it got skewered. (Larry Wilde made a fortune collecting them into book form.) We were young and insensitive; it's another thing I look back on and wince a little. But considering the focus on equal rights, lead strongly by the (sigh) younger generation—this phrase just baffles me.

Someone further down the table laughed at something we missed and threw out his own iteration of the lame phrase. Just as I figured, what the hell, let's bail, Charlie's head snapped up and she had 'that look' in her eye.

She let out a loud laugh. "Oh, Aunt Sandy!" she belted out at a decibel that carried four or five tables away. "So funny! You are so funny! That is so heterosexual!"

Dead silence from the next table. Charlie looked over and smiled sweetly at them. "That's stupid," one of the girls scoffed.

"Equally stupid," Charlie said agreeably. "The difference is… some people will take your foolish words and use them against my mothers." Her smile faded. "Please. Don't let that happen." Before they had a chance to do more than look at each other uneasily, she gathered the debris and tossed it in the trash and collected her shopping bag. "Shall we?"

Lexi hopped off the chair and took Charlie's right hand and my left, swinging to and fro. As we walked past the still quiet table, I glanced over…and saw a couple of the kids giving Charlie small, but approving smiles.

Score one for the home team!

While natter is a real word, it's part of a phrase I first ran into in David Gerrold's book, The Trouble With Tribbles. In acting class, if you are part of the background and supposed to be having a conversation that is just quiet chatter, you have to make noises that sound like conversation but actually aren't. He learned to have one person say, "Natter, natter, natter," and the other person respond, "Grommish, grommish, grommish." Natter & grommish is just so much mindless noise… like teens at the mall.