Donna Reed in New Orleans

Donna Reed Lend Me a Hand
By
Debbie Lindsey
Back in the bra burning days when freeing a woman from the bondage of her apron, inspiring her to career climbing heights, breaking that glass ceiling, and achieving… her own office cubicle, I too, had no interest in marriage, birthing babies, or being house bound.
But there I was, bound to a restaurant slugging it out with dirty dishes, demanding customers and bosses that made the most insensitive husband seem like a saint. Not quite the career move my sisters of the sixties envisioned. Still, I proudly kept my distance from Donna Reed and her gang.
Mea culpa mea culpa to all the mothers, housewives, and househusbands that my generation of well-intentioned liberators of the feminine condition, unwittingly belittled as slaves to the unimportant.
I also ask forgiveness for having turned a smug nose up towards living in the burbs. Here, French Quarter digs are to New Orleans what Manhattan is to Yonkers. There is pride among Quarterites and perhaps a shared fear of the mundane. But now, to my surprise, Boyfriend and I are totally ensconced in old-fashioned neighborhood bliss and all its domesticity (and demands).
For nearly 16 years I lived in an apartment so small that I kept my vacuum cleaner on the balcony, hung my clothes in the kitchen, and when visited by out-of-town company their suitcases had to be stowed in the bathtub. I simply did not have the space to inspire my domestic skills.
When I first met Boyfriend I was given a tour of his apartment which contained almost as much bric-a-brac as I had amassed over the years. I knew we were decorative soul-mates, curators of second-hand treasures.
For nearly ten years we lived in and around each other’s apartments, feeling each was home depending on the moment. I did the girlfriend thing, occasionally lugging my trusty Electrolux over to his place to tackle dog hair and dust (more for my benefit– Boyfriend could inhale sawdust without complaint). In turn he would do manly things like stomping cockroaches for me.
Being a chef he elevated my kitchen with culinary tools and spices. And taught me the art of baking and raining flour upon every kitchen surface. With his creativity and my vacuum cleaner we were destined for domestic greatness.
And on the day we decided to unite forces, combine blenders, and merge households into one large expanse of hard wood floors Mrs. Reed nodded to June Cleaver and they smiled down upon us.
We are now “all about our lawn” sodding and sowing, mowing and mulching. My pride and joy is my old fashion push mower powered only by my calorie burning efforts. A new pair of garden shears from Boyfriend sends me into romantic flutters, only out done by flowers – the kind you plant.
Boyfriend cooks and I garden. And when I say cook I mean everything -- baking, canning, pickling, juicing, you name it he creates it. I’m in charge of the crock-pot but he’s the slicing and dicing creative force preparing nearly every meal for close to two years now. He’s even discovered the joy of dishwashing.
We are the newly weds (sans the marriage license – I must maintain some semblance of non-conformity) picking through thrift stores for household delights. And then there’s grocery shopping. We both become heady as we enter the market with our matching Winn Dixie saver cards in tow. Among the aisles of fresh produce my man, my chef, never looks better than when tenderly choosing between cantaloupes or honeydews.
Now I know this all sounds like fun and games -- life in the burbs, playing house. There’s barbecuing at the neighbor’s, going to crime watch parties, and proudly scooping dog pooh as we strut our four legged family down sidewalks past homes that would make June and Donna proud (of course today they’d be lovers having ditched the husbands, and Aunt Bea would be meeting us for drinks at Liuzza’s).
But for all the thrills of nesting there is the dark side – the relentless cleaning.
Tackling the indomitable tumbleweeds of dog hair and bales of cat fur that cover every square inch of our five-room house is vigilant work -- important work. Yet it almost pales next to dirty dishes – they simply breed among themselves. Surely we must be washing the entire neighborhood’s; perhaps my next door neighbor is dropping his off when we’re at work – I must change the locks.
The litter boxes take on a life of their own, the water bowls never stay full, mop a floor and Rosie promptly pees buckets, mop again and she soaks the area rug. Thanks to Pepper and Sophia with their black fur the house looks like a manufacturing plant for toupees.
And then there’s Zack the Kitten gliding through the house like a flying squirrel, shredding newspapers, and scattering everything in sight, hiding his toys of beer caps, jewelry, pencils, and medicine bottles under every rug or stick of furniture.
The urine wars do not confine themselves to rugs and litter boxes; there’s the routine visit to our Vet with the sterilized Miller High Life bottle filled with Pepper’s urine. Have you ever tried to get a cat to pee on command? And oh those dog walkin’ nights when bone tired, half asleep, and Sophia simple can’t decide which blade of grass she feels right about before gracing it with her presence. Of course Rosie the Incontinent will sniff and reply to every (and there are sooooo many) pee-mail.
Around every corner the dog hair mounts its attack, dirty dishes wait to pounce, and the toilet bowl rallies its troops of germs. Boyfriend has my back, and I am armed, Electrolux and mop in ready positions, but we will lose.
Still, there are days when Donna Reed would give me her blessing and admit that she made it look all too easy. And I think of the women out there without a man, or a woman, to partner with and help them at every turn, which have to face grueling jobs and children of the two-legged variety and far more meals, laundry, and doctor visits than there are hours in the day. They are the unsung heroes who are often too tired to enjoy the pleasures I have found.
This is not the diary of a mad housewife, but rather a love song to a bit of peace and happiness I have found – New York or Paris may beckon one day but for now I have contentment in our dusty old cottage.