Jocelyn the Wharton Grad, it’s a five-minute drive in her Prius. And for Lisa, the youngest of the three of us, and the most beloved daughter, the Daughter Who’s Produced Grandchildren, it’s a major megillah requiring a taxi, a plane, and car service because Lisa now lives in Atlanta. Her husband, Tate Underwood III, and the reason Lisa moved 868 miles away to what my father calls “that Southern speed trap,” is usually too busy to attend Hallberg family functions. Tate III manufactures pool-cleaning supplies. Tate III travels to Asia. Not Long Island. Of course the twins, Travis and Tate IV, do accompany their mother back home, and that’s what really matters. They’re six years old and two of my favorite human beings on earth. They speak with Southern drawls; I’m “Aunt Maaahhlly.”
When we gather for our mini-family reunions, each of the Hallberg girls sleeps in her former bedroom, except Jocelyn’s room is now a TV room, Lisa’s room is my father’s at-home office, and my room is my mother’s upstairs arts-and-crafts room, versus her basement arts-and-crafts room, and the bedroom most likely to kill off a daughter from the deadly fumes of poisonous glue. The boys sleep on air mattresses in Lisa’s room. That way they stand a chance of surviving until adulthood.
The Year Bitsy Gave Up Cooking—that’s not a time reference, that’s the name my father uses to refer to the year my mother gave up cooking—was notable for another big reason. Within days of her “Enough’s enough!” announcement she gave away her chafing dishes, tossed out her cookbooks, said good-bye to her Cuisinart, and started cutting pictures out ofher stacks of magazines, relabeling her Tupperware containers and filling them with alphabetized categories—flowers, puppies, butterflies, umbrellas—for her hobby: decoupage. And not just a decorative touch on a tchotchke or two, but decoupage with a vengeance. The bread bin, lampshades, tabletops, picture frames, jewelry boxes, toilet-seat covers, the back of my father’s fish tank—any hard surface is at risk. The house went from smelling like brisket and potatoes to library paste and shellac. My father blames this unfortunate turn of events—from cook to kooky—on my mother’s getting lost in the wrong aisle at Michaels, suburban America’s paean to hobby crafts. If she hadn’t turned left instead of right after the pipe-cleaners section, she might be crocheting all of us afghans instead of plastering pictures of fruit on my father’s toolbox.
I like to imagine that first night in 1970 when my parents met at Cafe Wha? in the Village, two strangers across a crowded room, one with a business degree, the other the only child of Ziggy and Shirley Grossman, owners of Grossman Upholsterers. Three months later they were married and my father was given the title of president, probably the only upholstery business in the universe to even have a president, but Ziggy and Shirley didn’t want their daughter to marry anything less.
My grandparents promptly bought a condominium in Boca Raton, spending winter, then winter and fall, then spring, winter, and fall—every season other than the beastly hot summer—in Florida, until Grandpa Ziggy suffered a massive heart attack while floating on a blowup raft in thecondominium building pool, which aside from the tragedy of it all was supposedly quite a sight. A heartbroken Grandma Shirley tried living the widow lifestyle in Florida, but since she didn’t play canasta and could enjoy only so many shopping expeditions to the Boca Town Center and had no patience for all the other women fighting over the few available widowers, she sold the condo for a nifty profit, packed up her Hummel figurines, and moved back to Roslyn, where she’s spent the past twenty-five years telling my father he doesn’t know shit about running an upholstery business. Which even she knows isn’t true. Really she’s just jealous and regrets that she didn’t
When we gather for our mini-family reunions, each of the Hallberg girls sleeps in her former bedroom, except Jocelyn’s room is now a TV room, Lisa’s room is my father’s at-home office, and my room is my mother’s upstairs arts-and-crafts room, versus her basement arts-and-crafts room, and the bedroom most likely to kill off a daughter from the deadly fumes of poisonous glue. The boys sleep on air mattresses in Lisa’s room. That way they stand a chance of surviving until adulthood.
The Year Bitsy Gave Up Cooking—that’s not a time reference, that’s the name my father uses to refer to the year my mother gave up cooking—was notable for another big reason. Within days of her “Enough’s enough!” announcement she gave away her chafing dishes, tossed out her cookbooks, said good-bye to her Cuisinart, and started cutting pictures out ofher stacks of magazines, relabeling her Tupperware containers and filling them with alphabetized categories—flowers, puppies, butterflies, umbrellas—for her hobby: decoupage. And not just a decorative touch on a tchotchke or two, but decoupage with a vengeance. The bread bin, lampshades, tabletops, picture frames, jewelry boxes, toilet-seat covers, the back of my father’s fish tank—any hard surface is at risk. The house went from smelling like brisket and potatoes to library paste and shellac. My father blames this unfortunate turn of events—from cook to kooky—on my mother’s getting lost in the wrong aisle at Michaels, suburban America’s paean to hobby crafts. If she hadn’t turned left instead of right after the pipe-cleaners section, she might be crocheting all of us afghans instead of plastering pictures of fruit on my father’s toolbox.
I like to imagine that first night in 1970 when my parents met at Cafe Wha? in the Village, two strangers across a crowded room, one with a business degree, the other the only child of Ziggy and Shirley Grossman, owners of Grossman Upholsterers. Three months later they were married and my father was given the title of president, probably the only upholstery business in the universe to even have a president, but Ziggy and Shirley didn’t want their daughter to marry anything less.
My grandparents promptly bought a condominium in Boca Raton, spending winter, then winter and fall, then spring, winter, and fall—every season other than the beastly hot summer—in Florida, until Grandpa Ziggy suffered a massive heart attack while floating on a blowup raft in thecondominium building pool, which aside from the tragedy of it all was supposedly quite a sight. A heartbroken Grandma Shirley tried living the widow lifestyle in Florida, but since she didn’t play canasta and could enjoy only so many shopping expeditions to the Boca Town Center and had no patience for all the other women fighting over the few available widowers, she sold the condo for a nifty profit, packed up her Hummel figurines, and moved back to Roslyn, where she’s spent the past twenty-five years telling my father he doesn’t know shit about running an upholstery business. Which even she knows isn’t true. Really she’s just jealous and regrets that she didn’t
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