#creativenonfiction – Karyn Johnson

You’re Invited

As we turned into the parking lot near One Observatory Circle, the butterflies in my stomach began fluttering faster and harder. I saw the shuttle that would drive us to the Vice President’s Residence, but before we could board, we had to be cleared by a Secret Service Agent. Once we were seated on the bus, another Secret Service Agent checked our names against her attendance list.

In moments, the bus departed. A short time later, it pulled up in front of a mansion festooned with wreaths in every window.

Another security check, and then we got into the line that snaked across the wrap-around porch. Christmas music played over the speakers. Hot cider and hot chocolate stations were set up so we could enjoy drinks while we waited.

We inched closer and closer to the room where the Vice President of the United States and his wife stood, posing with every person who visited that day. Before I knew it, we were at the front of the line. I could see Joe and Jill Biden warmly greeting the couple who had been in line just in front of us. My heart was pounding.

“Please don’t let me say or do something stupid. Please.” I’m not sure if I said that out loud or only with my inner voice.

The couple with the Bidens were ushered out. My husband and I stepped into the room. Mrs. Biden embraced my husband. The Vice President’s face lit up with recognition upon seeing him – my husband had been a member of his flight crew for nearly four years.

“Hey, buddy!” He said to my husband as he slipped his arm across my shoulders. He looked me in the eye. “Thank you for coming.”

The Vice President is thanking ME for coming? As if this was an invitation I would decline!

It was the most surreal moment of my life, but I think I managed to actually speak coherently. “Thank you for inviting me,” I think I said.

We crowded in for a photo. The photographer didn’t even warn us. Click, flash, done.

The Vice President thanked us again and that was that. We were ushered into the main part of the house, where a holiday reception was already in full swing.

Themed Christmas trees stood in every room. Hungry guests were lined up at the elegant breakfast buffet. Servers weaved through the throngs of people, carrying trays of orange juice and mimosas.

We ate and mingled and drank. Mimosas for me. I apparently had enough to make one waiter decide to come to me first thing after he replenished his tray. Mimosas at the Vice President’s Residence, though. You only live once.

But the thing about mimosas – they spill. In this case, all over the Vice President’s hardwood floor.

Oops.

Fruit Forward

The Craigslist ad beckoned to me – pouring and selling wine as an independent contractor around Southern Maryland? I’ve never been much of a salesperson, but how hard can that be? Wine practically sells itself. All I had to do was invite people to taste.

I responded to the ad and received a request days later for a Skype interview. Weird, but I did it, and the job was mine.

I had to buy some supplies before my first assignment: an ice bucket, plastic sample-sized cups, and a particular type of corkscrew – they were very particular about the corkscrew, and it wasn’t the type I normally used. I had to dress a certain way: all black, professional. And I needed to learn more about wine, so I bought a massive book detailing all the wine regions, vintages, terminology, etc.

I never gave much thought before to descriptors such as fruit forward, mouthfeel, soft tannins, hints of leather, buttery finish. I had to learn all this stuff so I could talk about the wines that I poured in a way that made people feel that I knew what I was doing, a true professional.

My first tasting was on an October evening at a liquor store in Prince Frederick. Italian wines. I was unfamiliar with the winery, and I absolutely had never heard of Montepulciano. I remember looking it up on Wikipedia so I could listen to a recording on the pronunciation.

Then there was the day, shortly before Christmas, when I was sent to a specialty grocery store in Waldorf to sell Amarula, which isn’t even wine. It’s a liqueur, similar to Irish cream in flavor, that’s made from the Amarula fruit that grows in Africa. That was my best sales day. Even better, I had a nearly full bottle afterwards that I took home with me.

Whatever I was selling, I never had much of a problem making the quota. Sure, there were people who were only interested in the samples. They would sip, thank me, throw away their cup, and leave. I’ve done my fair share of that, too. And even I didn’t completely love all the wine I sold. (I was encouraged to take the first tastes from each bottle to make sure they didn’t have cork taint.) But there is an audience for every wine, and I never had a problem finding my audience.

One night, at a liquor store in Dunkirk, I was featuring Chilean wines. The very first customer bought an entire case. Later that same night, two women walked in, already drunk, and made a beeline for my display.

“What are you pouring?” One asked.

“Wine from Chile,” I responded. “Would you like to try some?”

“Oooooh! I love chili cheese fries!” She said. She looked at her friend, and they laughed hysterically.

Naturally, I tried to convince her that wine from Chile was absolutely made to go with chili cheese fries. Anything to make a sale.

I remember the woman who complained that I was pouring wine from the wrong country. “I won’t buy your wine,” she said. “It’s not from California.” And then there was the guy who tried to correct my pronunciation of “Chee-leh,” insisting that it is “Chill-ee.”

Wine people can be the best people, but they can also be kind of weird.

My short-lived career in wine sales ended about six months after it began, after a night that yielded zero sales. That was a first, and it was the company’s policy that a night of no sales resulted in termination. Had I been determined to keep doing it, I would have bought a couple of bottles myself to make the quota.

So, I said goodbye to being on the pouring side of the tasting table. It’s more fun being the taster, anyway.

The Accidental Gardener

We closed on our house two years ago today, and with the house came a decent-sized vegetable garden. It was all a bit intimidating. I had only been a homeowner once before and never got around to doing much in the way of gardening. Throughout Lance’s military career, we lived in a lot of rental homes. I had container plants – mostly flowers. Two years ago, before we moved, I grew grape tomatoes and mini eggplant in containers, but that was about it. I didn’t even have a lot of experience with houseplants.

Could I do this?

I mean, you can lay sod over a garden, I suppose, if you didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. However, our garden plot is enclosed by a wall made of brick and wrought-iron fencing (the previous homeowner was a professional landscaper). Removing it would be somewhat difficult and require a lot of work.

So, I was resigned to learn how to garden, even though I wasn’t sure how interested I was in it.

We moved in early in August, when it was too late to do anything about the garden. But it did give me some gifts in those first few months. The previous owners had neglected it for some time, and it was essentially a compost heap with various tomato plants and zucchini running amok. Some of the zucchini was monstrous, several weeks past the time it should have been picked. A lot of the tomatoes rotted on the vine, but I harvested what I could. We had purple and yellow onions. Sunflowers stood tall and cheerful along one side. We had a raspberry bush in one corner. I ended up with gourds as well, which decorated the fireplace in the fall. And then there was another plant in another corner that friends later identified as asparagus.

When the garden was done for the season, Lance pulled up the asparagus (or so he thought) and tilled everything over. The raspberry bush was severely pruned back, ready for next spring. During the colder months, my stepdad and I made plans for what we would plant and where.

April 2017: Ready to plant!

Spring came early the following year. I noticed a tall, thick asparagus shoot before we even planted anything. We yanked that out and planted strawberries, 12 tomato plants, carrots, two blueberry bushes, two more raspberry bushes, and onions. Given how fertile the soil was from all the compost the previous year, everything did just fine with very little help from me. I watered and weeded. I did my best to manage pests (damn Japanese beetles!).

The strawberry plants, still young, spread out but yielded little fruit. Asparagus continued to shoot up through the soil within the strawberry plants. The raspberry bushes filled out nicely but didn’t provide as many berries as I’d hoped. I got a few blueberries, but those need a few years to really get going.

The tomatoes, though. Good God.

Remember I said 12 tomato plants? That’s about 10 too many. The plants grew as tall as me and merged into one giant plant.

Exhibit A:

I spent the summer making and freezing tomato soup and sauce. My stepdad canned some – a task, I admit, that I have no desire to undertake. I took endless boxes of tomatoes to work to give away. (One friend, who probably took more tomatoes than anyone, gave me some walleye that her husband caught. I consider that a fair trade.)

The onions did great and the carrots did, too. But 2017 will always be the year of the killer tomatoes.

It was a relief when the garden was done for the year.

The cold season came again, and it was time to plan this year’s garden. Obviously, we were keeping the strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. However, I insisted on zucchini and fewer tomato plants. I talked my stepdad down to six this year (still too many) because he wanted to do more canning. I wanted carrots and onions again, too.

Spring came late, and planting took place several weeks later than the year before. That didn’t matter. The soil is still fertile, and in early June, I had an abundance of strawberries. Then the strawberries stopped for several weeks, but they just started coming back again. The damn asparagus is still coming up, one spear at a time. The zucchini is out of control (and I bought three plants – the minimum amount). The raspberries did not do well and I think the blueberries are dead. And something keeps eating my tomatoes before I can pick them, so I don’t have as many as I should. I sprinkled animal repellent around the garden today, so let’s see if that helps.

The carrots have been in the ground much longer than they are supposed to be, but I picked one about a week ago – puny. I don’t have high hopes for them this year. The onions and garlic are doing great.

After two years of tending this garden, I’m learning a few things.

For starters, a weed-free garden is utterly impossible, which clashes with my perfectionist tendencies. I do the best I can, but the important thing is that I’m able to grow food. I have to let the idea of a perfect, pristine garden go. Besides, pulling weeds can be a great stress reliever. There is something deeply satisfying about digging in the soil with my CobraHead tool and ripping them out by the root.

Try a tomato other than Better Boy. Not that Better Boy isn’t delicious, but a little variety never killed anyone, and Better Boy has been the tomato of choice these past two years.

Allow more spacing between plants.

Plant more carrots.

There is a limit to how much zucchini I can tolerate. I have zucchini bread in the freezer and I’ve eaten more zoodles than I care to think about it. I also have a gallon-sized bag of diced zucchini in the freezer to throw into soups this winter. And I’ve given away more zucchini than I’ve actually used.

Finally, I love gardening. It’s a lot of hard work, yes, but it is so very rewarding to be able to go a few steps out your back door and pick things that you can eat. You know exactly where it came from and what’s been done (or not done) to it (all organic for me).

In the winter, you can pull some homemade sauce out of your freezer or add a jar of home-canned tomatoes to your chili, and it gives you that fresh summer taste to help make those cold, short days more bearable. Knowing that you grew that yourself – well, for me, at least, I get a true sense of accomplishment from that.

Plus, it’s fun to share your bounty with friends and family.

I take a lot of pride in what I’ve done in just a couple of years. I may have had my reservations at first about having this garden to care for, but now I’m so grateful for it. If we bought a house that didn’t already come with a garden, I’m not sure I’d be doing this. And I would never know what I was missing.

Sheep Shit Shirt: An Oktoberfest Story

As I glanced at the empty seat next to me on the luxury coach and then gazed out the window, I knew without a doubt that the man exiting the hotel was going to be my seatmate. The first thing I noticed was his t-shirt, which advertised sheep manure. A minute later, he slid into the seat next to me and introduced himself in a thick southern drawl.

He was chatty. I was not. I had, in fact, wanted to peacefully contemplate the Bavarian landscape out the window as the bus rolled toward Munich. Our destination was Oktoberfest, not one of my bucket list items. But my two traveling companions – who sat together in the row in front of me – decided rather last minute that they wanted to take this tour. The hotel happened to have exactly three tickets left. It was a sign that we had to go.

Hey, when in Bavaria during Oktoberfest…

I don’t remember much of what my seatmate said that day, other than his t-shirt was his talisman against becoming a sloppy drunk. When he could no longer say “sheep shit shirt” without slurring, that was his cue to stop drinking.

In the row ahead of me, I heard snickering.

The rest of the journey is a bit of a blur. He rambled on and on, and it seemed endless.

Finally, we arrived! Oktoberfest! Despite my reluctance to go, I felt ecstatic to be there.

Our bus driver gave us a stern warning about returning to the bus throwing up drunk. There would be consequences, he said. On that charming note, we disembarked, everyone going their separate ways.

***

Several hours later, exhausted and sunburned, we were back on the bus. It had been a terrible day. Excessive heat, an endless parade, and not one seat to be found in any of the beer tents. This was Oktoberfest, and not one of our trio had a beer. We were all unimpressed with the experience.

Little by little, everyone returned to the bus. Everyone, that is, except Sheep Shit Shirt guy. I said a silent prayer, hoping he got lost and we would leave him behind.

Finally, he arrived. Staggering drunk. Oh, no.

He joked that he had enough beer for both of us, then promptly dozed off.

Or… not.

He suddenly sat bolt upright, leapt out of his seat, and ran off the bus to vomit.

Moments later, he returned with a plastic bag that the driver gave him, assuring me that he was done. I was neither comforted nor convinced by this assessment.

The driver, satisfied that everyone was accounted for, began the drive back to Garmisch. I curled up against the window, trying to make myself smaller and create as much distance between us as possible. Sheep Shit Shirt man fell asleep. His head lolled onto my shoulder.

Worst trip ever. I hated Oktoberfest. I hated everything.

As I succumbed to misery, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. A teenage girl sitting behind me told me that she made room for me in the back of the bus.

Hallelujah! Sweet rescue!

Sentimental Journey

The night before Grandma died, she woke up, briefly, and teased my brother for coughing.

“Ah-choo,” she said, smiling. Then she slipped back into unconsciousness. That was the last we heard her voice.

It was just a couple weeks between her diagnosis of terminal cancer and her death. We thought it was Alzheimer’s, but it was a malignant brain tumor. Compared to Alzheimer’s, it was a blessing, I suppose. If cancer can be a blessing.

Shortly after she went into hospice, I flew from my home in Seattle to my hometown in Ohio. I wasn’t sure how long she had left. Hours? Days? Weeks? I kept extending my stay.

My parents, brother, aunt, cousin, and other family members stayed at Grandma’s house, reporting to her bedside at the senior living facility each day. When Grandma was awake, we took turns spoon feeding her, helping her drink, and rubbing lotion into her cracked skin. That was the hardest part for me, the caregiving. Grandma had always taken care of us. The first time I saw her be spoon-fed, I had to leave the room to cry. Eventually, I was able to do it, too.

We passed the hours sharing memories and playing her favorite music.

Gonna take a sentimental journey
Gonna set my heart at ease
Gonna make a sentimental journey
To renew old memories

She slipped into a coma on a Friday morning, when my brother and I were alone with her. Nothing could rouse her. She didn’t respond to loud noises. She didn’t respond to being touched. She hadn’t moved at all. We were told that this was a sign that the end was very near.

I noticed Grandma’s fingers were turning blue. The nurse came in and checked her toes – those were turning blue, too. Grandma awakened when her feet were being touched. The nurse gave her oxygen as a comfort measure and left.

Grandma kept saying, “I gotta go. Let’s go. Bye bye.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “I love you very much.”

“I love you too, sweetie. I gotta go. Bye bye.”

She grimaced and told me her head hurt. My brother called the nurse, who administered pain medication and re-positioned her. We heard exclamations of pain, a low wail – like a wounded animal. I rushed to the bedside to see tears streaming down her cheeks. I stroked her forehead gently, showered her face with kisses, and held her hand. I told her to imagine a beautiful place where there was no more pain.

“Will everything be ok?”

“Yes, Grandma, it will.”

She fell back asleep.

We kept vigil overnight, administering morphine every hour.

She slept through the next day. The snow fell heavily outside.

At 8:56 pm on Saturday night, she took her last breath. In those final moments, Mom and my aunt cradled her.

“It’s ok, Mom, go to Daddy. Daddy is waiting for you.”

Gotta take that sentimental journey
Sentimental journey home.