Blogcritics

O Christmas Tree

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Wed, 5 Dec 2007 10:55:32 EST

Ann Hagman Cardinal discovers... (wait for it...) the true meaning of Christmas.
When I was little, my father would supervise while my brothers, sister, and I decorated the family Christmas tree. Though plastic or aluminum trees were all the rage in the '60s, we always had a real tree, the intoxicating smell of pine filling the downstairs of our New Jersey home. He would sit back in his leather butterfly chair, a gin and...

Culinary Nurturing

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:33:43 EST

Guys who cook: Exploring the benefits of being gastronomically nurtured by two guys during this season of family meals.
Ahhh, November in Vermont. So much to enjoy. An early winter dusting coats the mountains like sugar. The whir of freshly balanced snow tires accompanies every drive. The crisp scent of wood smoke hangs in the air, and lest we forget, the impending bacchanalia of poultry-based family feasts: Thanksgiving. This year we are having our first...

SpongeBob PhilosopherPants

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:07:10 EDT

Ann Hagman Cardinal expounds on the Zen of Spongebob... and the downfall of Western civilization.
Indulge me, gentle readers. I would like to speak to you today of SpongeBob Squarepants. I now, I know, with his cube-shaped, gap-toothed smiling face appearing on every lunchbox, notebook and bedsheet set, you’ve had just about enough of him, but hear me out. I am here to confess that his is my favorite show on television -- and I’m...

Urban Renewal

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:19:22 EDT

Who would have thought sitting in my sister's country kitchen I would be discussing bitches and hos with a 12-year-old?
Last weekend I sat at a local park with a friend, enjoying the gorgeous fall weather while watching our sons skateboard around. We relaxed with the sun on our faces and lazily talked about nothing and everything. There was a young neighborhood kid there, who, at about fourteen was older than our boys. You couldn't help noticing him as he was...

Body-Building Hobos... with Guns!

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Sat, 8 Sep 2007 12:34:19 EDT

Of any possible threats in rural Vermont, the one I never considered was my son's biggest fear: body-building hobos.
My son Carlos and I were driving down Elmore Street one day last week, when we saw a long-haired dachshund running up the middle of the road. Its gait of total glee, immaculately groomed coat, and jingly tags told us it was not a stray. The dog was weaving back and forth across the road, cars screeching to avoid it.“Mom! We have to do...

Carlosgate

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Sun, 2 Sep 2007 20:45:40 EDT

It was my idea to name him after a long line of lawyers and judges.
Okay, so maybe it’s my fault, at least in part. After all, it was my idea to name our son after a long line of lawyers and judges from my side of the family. The first, my beloved great uncle Carlos Victor Davila is, in fact a retired Supreme Court judge in Puerto Rico, so I guess it was inevitable that my kid would show lawyerly qualities....

Sex and the Inappropriate Mother

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:25:43 EDT

My mother was always inappropriate; she prided herself on it.
My mother was always inappropriate; she prided herself on it. I’ll never forget sitting in a restaurant in Burlington with my sister Ellen and our mother. My sister and I were grown women, 30 and 40 years old. A very attractive male waiter walked up to the table and asked us if we wanted something to drink. Mom glanced over her menu with her...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

The Nest Is Never Empty

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:39:41 EDT

As a mother I have always paid attention to those who are further along in the process of parenting than I am. I figure it is an ideal way to learn what might be yet to come. As a result I have learned much — mistakes, triumphs, best ways to avoid what a friend calls “social service moments” — but over the past few years I’ve noticed a particular phenomenon among my friends and family with teenage children, one you don’t read about in women’s magazines. We all know about “Empty Nest Syndrome,” but from what I can tell, incidents of this psychological and emotional condition are on the decline. I had the first indication of this from observing my sister, Ellen. We were in Puerto Rico and our aunt Georgina — who has twelve dogs and carries a case of dog food in her trunk to feed strays — had just rescued an unbelievably cute puppy from her office parking lot. He was a Sato, a street mutt, black and furry with big, pleading, chocolaty eyes. Georgina was trying to find a home for him, and since I’m allergic I suggested to my sister that she take him with her to Vermont. Her reaction was so vehement I had to take two steps back. “No! No more dependent creatures!” Ellen was recently separated at the time, with her two sons well into their teenage years, and she explained (after she stopped twitching at the very thought) that when the boys’ dog and cat died, she was not getting anymore creatures that needed her to survive. It was then that I understood that when the boys were gone and off to college, Ellen wanted to focus on herself, not feeling bound or completely responsible for any living creature. Recently my friend Nancy at work was talking about the two fish she had gotten for her daughter. She too has recently separated and her daughter is now a junior in high school (notice a pattern here?). They discovered that in addition to their five cats, that one fish was male and the other female, and subsequently, Nancy awoke one morning to find a tank occupied by two orange parents and a dozen flittering babies. Frustrated at the thought of caring for them all or giving them away she yelled into the tank, “For God’s sake, isn’t your breed supposed to eat your young?” Now, when she told me the story, I knew that Nancy was not wishing ill on the poor, defenseless (albeit fertile) fish, but rather like my sister, the concept of yet another group of mouths to feed, no matter how small, was just too much to consider. I have some other friends who wish their children could stay little: the smiling baby that smells like powder and all things good in the world; the round faced two-year-old toddler who grasps your two fingers tightly as you walk along side-by-side. But as for me, though I adored those times and ages in my son’s life, I am enjoying watching him grow and become more and more independent. He can fix his own breakfast better than I can and manage a computer better than my husband, and we wouldn’t go backwards if we could. I know that Ellen missed Jed and Josey when they left home and that Nancy will pine after her daughter when she leaves for college, but I’ve also come to realize that unlike the fretful 1950s Mom wringing her hands, waiting for her kids to come back to the nest at the holidays, feeling incomplete without the more immediate, daily role of mother, there are some of us who, after the initial grieving, will enjoy having time to ourselves. Who will look at the nest and say, “Boy, this would make a great yoga room/office/ pottery studio/darkroom.” We will celebrate our children’s arrival in adulthood but also our own new unfettered status (though we all know motherhood never ends, at least you don’t have to worry about them sticking a fork in an outlet or drinking Mr. Clean anymore… I think). Because, after all, the nest is never empty while we are still in it.

Ann Hagman Cardinal is a freelance writer as well as the Marketing and Admissions Director for the newly formed Vermont Collge of Fine Arts of UI&U. Her first novel, Sister Chicas--co-authored with two other Latina writers--was released in 2006 by NAL/Penguin Books. Her column, Café Con Lupe, appears in the monthly publication, Vermont Woman. Ann lives in Northern Vermont with her husband Doug and son Carlos.

The Whole Story: Families Who Tell Tales

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:44:11 EDT

We all have them. In fact, some of us have more than others. Family stories. Historical ones, inspirational ones, and, of course, humiliating ones. Though I am certain that many of you hear your share of these at any family gathering, it is the storytellers (or cuentistas) among us who carry these tales forward. Though, as I came to find out about my mother’s tales, they are not always based in fact, but are sometimes closer to fiction; but I had to inherit the skill from somewhere, verdad?I started telling stories when I was five. In the sixties, family vacations were road trips. Every summer my parents would load the five of us kids into our VW van and head down to Florida to visit our grandparents. We would stop at the South of the Border stores, purchase pounds of colorful plastic souvenirs, eat massive amounts of heavy comfort food, and stay at motels with tiki-themed pools. On one particular occasion we had been on the road for several days and had run out of things to talk about. My brothers and sisters surrounded me with arms crossed and sulky looks on their faces as we putted along highway 95. Seeing the possibilities for an audience, I announced, “Once, I had a pony.” Silence. I looked over and saw that my brother John was smirking at me and suddenly realized that he would know I was lying since he was indeed six years older. I quickly added, pointing to John authoritatively, “I once had a pony, and then you were born.” Silence. Then uproarious laughter. Needless to say I will never live this down and though I am 44 it is still brought up at family gatherings, but that afternoon, when things calmed down in the car my mother gave me a lecture about not making up stories, and how I should always tell the truth.My mother's insistence on the truth made sense to me as I never thought she had much of a flair for telling stories. There were certainly more talented cuentistas in the Davila family, but she had a few she would tell me from time to time, always with a seriousness that implied she was imparting a deep, dark family truth for my own good. There was a room in her great aunt Ana's house, right next to the one we used to stay in when we went down to Puerto Rico for a visit. Ana would never let anyone in there; when she needed to get something out of it she would open the door just wide enough to slip through and close it behind her so I wasn’t able to follow. I couldn't imagine what was behind that slatted wooden door. Treasures? Scaly green monsters with glowing yellow eyes? I asked my mother about it one night as we tried to sleep to the whir of the air conditioner and the whine of mosquitoes above our heads."Why won't Anatia let anyone into that room?" My mother replied, "Well, her father, my abuelo, shot himself in that room." I gaped at her in the dark. "What? Why?" I squealed as she shushed me, looking toward the closed door as if Abuelo himself were listening from the other side. "He was sick with TB and he didn't want to be a burden to his family, so he took out a pistol and shot himself in that very room. Anatia is the one who found him and since then no one can enter the room but her." I lay there in silent awe, gently pulling my head away from the stucco wall that divided me from the memory of my great-grandfather's violent death in the next room.Over thirty years later, ten years after my mother's death, I was in a restaurant with my mother's siblings, and I mentioned the story of my great-grandfather. Uncle Jorge practically choked on his tostones. "¿Que? Abuelo didn't shoot himself! He died very peacefully in a hospital! And that house Anatia lived in wasn't even built then!" I just stared at him, heat rising from my chest to my face. Finally I sputtered, "What? Mom made it all up?" I began to recount the other stories she had told me. One after another, they were confirmed to be fiction. I was furious. Beyond furious. How could my mother feed me these lies year after year? And I believed her! I could just see her talking to me over her shoulder in the VW van, her self-righteous lecture about not telling stories ringing in my ears.I stared at my half eaten lunch, tears gathering in my eyes. My cousin Jose Luis took my hand and said, "Annie, what does it matter if the stories are true or not? Isn't our family as defined by the stories that aren't true as by the ones that are? Write them down, Annie. That is your role in this family. Write them down, true or false. They are what makes us who we are." It was this revelation that helped me become a writer as well as a storyteller. My cousin taught me a very important lesson that day and I often hear his wise words in my head. Every day we have fewer and fewer opportunities to hear these oral histories (or, in my family's case, historical fiction). Any hours spent traveling by car are now filled with Gameboys, individual DVD players watched with headsets on, our ears glued to cellular phones. Something has been lost in the electronic din. Something that once defined us. I want my son to hear the stories of his abuela, no matter how outrageous, how fabricated. It is the storytellers that continue to weave the fabric of our families by bringing these tales forward. So what if they add a bit of their own embroidery or embellishments along the way? I’ve come to believe that it is these intricate designs that define us, that reflect who we are as a family. So next Thanksgiving, let your drunken uncle Hal tell his tall tales. And be sure to take notes. You never know when you might want to remember it.

Superstitious Minds

Ann Hagman Cardinal — Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:59:57 EDT

If you accidentally spill some salt, do you discreetly throw a pinch over your shoulder? Or perhaps you forward those ubiquitous good luck angel emails to ten of your “closest” friends, just in case. And what about those cracks in the sidewalk… just how is your mother’s back, anyway? It seems to me that more people suffer from the repetitive and bizarre affliction of superstition than not, but I have to admit that at times I am as guilty as most. However of late I’ve become interested in how these beliefs come about. But rather than do real scholarly research — who has the time and truthfully, I’m just too lazy for that — I have arrived at my own theory: that many of these old traditions are based on simple practicalities. They were a way of instilling sensible behaviors early on in life. For instance, my Puerto Rican aunt told me you should never place your pocketbook on the floor. “The money will flow out,” was her belief. I considered what might be behind this one. There is the issue of being sanitary: a purse that’s been on the floor will be carrying all sorts of germs on its bottom. But then there is also the safety issue. I know this isn’t as much an issue in Vermont, but if you consider the crime rate in Puerto Rico, a purse on the floor is not a good idea in general, at least in a public place.“Ay Annie, when you leave the house, you can’t go back in if you forgot something! It’s mala suerte!” My friend Jane admonished me in hushed and reverent tones. Okay, this one completely baffles me, because if I were to take this to heart, I would never have anything I need and my life would be chaos (well, at least more chaotic than it already is). I have to go back at least once, EVERY SINGLE TIME I leave the house. I mean, really! Was the person who invented this one a mother? I don’t think so! Anyway, I thought the history of this one might also be safety. Going back through your door opens you up for someone to follow. Never put shoes on the bed. Again, this begs the interpretation of a plea of unsanitary. Lord only knows where those soles have been anyway, and I can’t imagine you’d want remnants of it on the bed. If you keep making that face it will get frozen like that. I love this one. The fact that I almost bought this as a child makes me laugh out loud. From the vantage point of motherhood, I have to chalk this one up to simple social control: my mother was probably embarrassed by my behavior. Or maybe it’s some kind of parental in-joke that is passed on from generation to generation. If so, it’s stopping with me. I have yet to say it to my son and he spends half his waking hours making faces. Wait. Maybe I should rethink this. Walking under ladders. Okay, as a painter’s wife, this one makes perfect practical sense as well. I’ve seen many a ladder slip, fall over, or upend its paint can from on high, so why would you want to walk under one? And doesn’t this theory make so much more sense than the triangle being the shape of the pyramids, the holy trinity or the gallows? I mean, really. Breaking a mirror. Now I don’t know whether YOU think mirrors are magic or can see your soul in them and are concerned about shattering it, but I would be more concerned with the sharp pieces of reflective glass. But hey, that’s just me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the passing on of traditions. I’m a cuentista (storyteller) who is trying to carry forward the tales, beliefs and history of my family, but when something is detrimental I think it should be passed along with care. I remember standing frozen in the middle of a sidewalk in Leonia, New Jersey, surrounded by a spider web of cracks in the concrete, certain that with just one step I was going to condemn my mother to a life of immobility. Kids are so literal, so I try to present this kind of tradition as a silly quirk, actions done with a sense of fun. You might not agree with me on this theory; you might believe it’s better to be safe than sorry. In that case -- forward this column to 100 of your closest friends and you will have a month of good luck (until next month’s comes out). Really. (Knock wood.)