It's Potty Time

I vividly remember potty training. This probably means that I used the "little potty" way too long.

WARNING WARNING WARNING: TMI(TOO MUCH INFORMATION). THIS IS POSSIBLY THE MOST HORRIFYING STORY THAT YOU WILL EVER READ!

Nagymama always told me not to go near the "Big Potty" because she was afraid that I would somehow fall in it and drown. To protect me, she claimed that there was a man hiding in the bowl that would grab my butt and suck me down into the sewer forever. Ironically, I recently discovered that this doesn't happen if you sit on the toilet, just if you sit on a crowded subway.

Anyhow, I was only supposed to use the small plastic potty that was placed on the floor adjacent to the big potty. From that point forward, every time I went to the bathroom alone, I would close the lid of the big potty with Nagymama's back scratcher and cover the lid with miscellaneous shampoo bottles. If I couldn't reach the shampoo bottles, I would pile some of my McDonald’s Happy Meal toys on top of the big potty to weigh it down so the man wouldn't still escape and suck me in while I was "busy" on the little potty. I performed this ritual every single time I went to the bathroom. No wonder I turned out to be so anal retentive.

One day, I tried to sit down on the plastic potty and my butt wouldn't fit. A waive of terror washed over me; I was stuck between a pot and a small place.

I walked over the big potty and precariously lifted the lid. I glanced into the bowl and was surprised to see that there was no man inside. I figured he was still hiding, waiting for my butt. I looked up and spotted a shiny metal handle on top of the toilet. I curiously pulled on it and it made a loud "BAWOOSH!" sound and the bowl started to fill with water. I got so scared that I ran out of the bathroom screaming.

I could hear my mother sigh from her bedroom. “Stephie, quit playing vit dah toilet. You’re vasting vater.”

On that day, I decided that I didn't need to go potty anymore ever again. So I held it. And held it. And held it...

(to be continued)

Photo by István Benedek

American Goulash - Part 4: Still in Dah Kitchen

Nagymama reads through some of the fan letters that were sent to her during her simultaneous YouTube & MySpace Feature! Note: I printed them all out with really big text so she would have an easier time reading them.

Thank you, again, everyone, for giving my grandma her 15-minutes of fame after being alive for almost a century! (She will be 97 in April! Doesn't she look AWESOME?!)

Special thank you to Cameraman Matt, for his assistance with capturing our family events on film.

Songs used: Brahm's Hungarian Dance No. 1, performed by Leo Christopherson.

Before you click "play", here are the original videos (in chronological order) in case you're a new reader that has missed some Nagymama action:

Nagymama
The Real Nagymama
Velcome to Piscataway
Velcome Back to Piscataway
Velcome to the Kitchen

If you are having any trouble seeing any videos, you can probably view the slightly pixely-er YouTube versions.

A Typical Thanksgiving

My family is pretty small, so they never want to prepare a full, traditional Thanksgiving. Instead, they prefer to go to the HomeGrown Buffet* (*name changed to protect the innocent), wait in the cold for 45 minutes to get a table, and feast amongst the other dregs of society.

Now before you crucify me, let me tell you that I typically like buffets. Sure, the food has been sitting out for a while and some little kid stuck his booger finger in the mac & cheese, but what the hell do you expect for $5.95 a head? But even with my general thriftiness, it somehow seems sacrilegious to go to a buffet on Thanksgiving (especially the HomeGrown Buffet, which is the “Motel 6 Express” equivalent of food service).

Years ago, I begged my mom to let me cook dinner and she got worried that I would burn the house down. Rather than argue, my cousin and I split the cost of one of those pre-made Thanksgiving dinners from the local grocery store. I was quite pleased with the relative ease and inexpensiveness of the meal, but my mother was extremely unhappy.
“Dese yams are shitty,” she said, as she took another bite of the creamed orange goo. “So, mom, next year we won’t buy them.”“Screw it, I vant to go back to da buffet. I like hafing a variety of foods.”

I don’t think “variety” is the right word. My family likes to eat the same food every single time, but they like the idea of having an endless supply of it to “play with”. Mom typically gets a piece of broiled fish that she mashed into a pile of powdered mashed potatoes, beets, corn, and chicken gravy. I think she likes making this concoction more than she likes to eat it, because she usually swirls it around for a while, talks to my aunt, swirls it some more, and then throws it out because it’s cold. This usually happens four or five times.Nagymama also really likes the idea of multiple servings…of cake, more cake, and nothing but the cake. My mom and aunt try to feed her some meat and potatoes, but she usually just stuffs the drumsticks in her purse and reaches for the carrot cake. She usually grabs a piece for herself, realizes that we don’t have any cake, so she places it in front of us, yells at us to eat it, and runs back up to the buffet as if they were running out of the stuff. This also usually happens four or five times. It’s actually kind of cute, but gets old quick when you realize that she’s stuffed cake into the pocket of her pants and you are the one that has to launder it.

In addition to the horrors of eating piles of pastries next to processed turkey fat with mushy stuffing and grape jelly instead of cranberry sauce, Nagymama is a bit hard of hearing and my family is naturally very loud. Like…REALLY loud. On more than one occasion, I’ve noticed people move tables just so they aren’t near us. This usually doesn’t stop Nagymama from running up to adjacent tables and following small children around the restaurant and patting them on the head. People usually think its sweet, but after a few minutes, it gets a little creepy when she doesn’t stop patting and they notice that she has cake and salad dressing on her fingers.

So, although everyone means well, our Thanksgiving usually ends up being an unnecessarily overindulgent, sticky mess. But if you think about it, there actually is something very uniquely “American” about that!

Photo courtesy of Garrison Photography

Trick or Drink?

Every year, I wanted to dress up as Barbie for Halloween. But rather than buy a blonde wig and some type of princess gown, we would go to the local K-Mart and buy a “Barbie Kit” which contained what looked like a crappy vinyl hair cutting cape with a dress painted on it and a plastic face mask. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted that cheap-o costume because all the kids in school ran around in plastic “Ninja Turtles” or “Power Ranger” suits. It sure beat the heavyweight upholstery fabric my aunt used in prior years when constructing me so many couch-like costumes.

When I was about 8 or 9, I convinced my mom to let me be "Princess Barbie". We got home with the costume and my mom immediately whipped out a pair of trusty scissors. For a moment, I was afraid that it was time for my Bowl Cut, but instead, she started cutting into the Barbie mask. She was convinced that the plastic mask would asphyxiate me, so she cut larger nostrils into the nose…and in case my nose was stuffy, she cut off the lips…and so I didn’t trip while I was walking, she cut open the eyes. Nagymama had to physically restrain me as I screamed “Don’t cut! Don’t cut!” as if Mom was amputating my freaking face.

Once she was done butchering Barbie, I glumly put on the costume; I was at least satisfied that she did not cut into the dress. But of course, since New Jersey is usually a bit chilly during Halloween, Nagymama made me bundle up and cover my entire costume. So, I basically went door to door wearing a peach-colored jagged piece of plastic strapped to my face with a piece of elastic, two layers of patched-up sweatpants, a Christmas turtleneck, and an oversized goose-down coat buttoned to my chin. This is how the door-to-door conversations should have went:

“Trick-Or-Treat!”

“And what’s your Halloween costume, little girl?”

“Formerly Barbie. But now I’m the creepy guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre who straps people’s faces to his own face.”

“Oh, okay. Here, have some crappy Mary Janes, they’ve only been sitting around my candy dish for six months.”

Oh, the frustration.

So this Halloween, much like every other Halloween, Nagymama, mom, and I went over to our neighbor Gustaaf’s house for candy. And as always, he invited us inside. I hated going inside because their house always smelled like mothballs and old doilies, and he and Nagymama would talk to each other in Dutch for hours on end. After a few minutes, I stared to anxiously pace around the house because I wanted to go Trick-or-Treating.

Gustaaf’s 500-year-old wife, Olga, screamed after me, “Shit down, shit down, you run round too mush, I git you someting.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

I was scared because almost every other time I went over, Olga brought me out hideously bitter grapefruit juice that my mom would make me drink because it was “good for me”. This time, I was thrilled when she brought out what looked like a cold glass of soda. I took a fast gulp and nearly spit it everywhere. I must quote Ralph Wigum from “The Simpson’s” when I say, “It tasted like BURNING!”

Nagymama was not pleased with the faces I was making. “Drink it, you don’t want to be rude, do you?” she said in Hungarian, with her menacing, “I’mona get the fa kanál” stare.

So, I drank it. And the family talked some more. And Olga poured some more. And Nagymama stared some more. And I drank some more.

After some endless jabbering, Gustaaf finally reached into his wallet and pulled out a five-dollar bill, which was my “Treat” for this year. For a moment, I got excited thinking about how much candy I could buy with that $5! As I went to walk to him, I felt a little funny, and promptly fell over.

Oh, the chaos…

I was immediately picked up, ushered out, and brought home for fear of concussion. My mother deduced that fell because I could not see correctly in my mask and gotten my foot caught on my vinyl Barbie dress. In reality, it probably had something to do with the two-and-a-half Black Russians Olga had given me.

I didn't get much candy that year. But I'm pretty sure I got a hangover in the morning.

Photo by PeeJay

Nagymama's Run-In With the Law

Whenever Nagymama walked to the corner store to buy milk and eggs, she would always stop by the liquor store to buy a lotto ticket. Since my grandmother has always been a little bit of a handful, my mother always welcomed Nagymama’s trips to the corner because it gave her “a moment’s rest”.

Well, one day, that “moment” turned into over an hour. We started to get really worried; the store was no more than half a mile up the road, so Nagymama was usually there and back in about 30 minutes. My mom ran to scour the neighborhood.

Nagymama wasn’t at the corner store. She wasn’t at the liquor store. She wasn’t even at her usual spot at the local McDonald’s, eating hamburgers and petting little kids on the head with greasy fingers while their parents smiled uncomfortably. Nagymama was missing.

Little did we know that Grandma had gotten her lotto ticket as usual, but on her way back home, she started “shopping” for houses. For as long as I have been alive, Nagymama has wanted a “bi-level house”. She would even “case” the neighborhood to see if any bi-level houses were for sale, so “I vill know vhich house to buy vhen ve hit dah lotto.” If she had saved all the money that she spent over the years on lotto tickets, she could have probably bought six bi-levels!

So, on this particular day, she must have gone up to one of the neighbor’s houses and they called the cops. God, I could, just HEAR the phone conversation:

“Uh, hello, 911? There’s a crazy old lady wearing house slippers on my front lawn, peeking though my windows and writing something on a napkin. She probably belongs to someone. No, I checked, she’s not wearing a collar…”

The cops immediately answered the call and drove up to Nagymama, asking her is she was lost. Although she speaks Hungarian, Romanian, German, and Dutch, her hearing is really bad and her English is only “so-so.” She lied, “No, no, I am Mizz Mary Smith from New Brunswick!” They assumed she was disoriented and couldn’t remember where she lived, so they planned to put her in the car and drive her around the neighborhood until she recognized something.

Both cops got out of the car and tried to get her in the back. She clawed and kicked and scratched and screamed bloody murder. She screamed so loud that my mother was able to hear her from around the block. My mom sprinted towards the noise, screaming, “Anyu! Anyu!”

Of course at this point, there was such a commotion that all of the neighbors were outside to see the spectacle. This is yet another reason I didn’t have many friends in the neighborhood.

The cops finally saw my mom and backed off of grandma. “Officers, officers, dis is a mistake, dis is my modder!” While Nagymama then proceeded to take her papucs off and smack my mom in the side of the arm.

“You’re trying to send me to the nuthouse!” she screamed, “You called them to take me away!”

If that was true, I might have had that phone number on speed dial.

Photo by Eric Martin

Prom Part 4: Prom Weekend

If you haven't read the beginning of this story, please begin with Part 1, Prom Preparation.

The limo dropped me off and I watched as my family flooded down the stairs to open the Kapu. I peered back and the driver shot me an evil stare as he drove away. I sighed, but before I could even inhale, my mother started asking questions. Anyu always asks a lot of questions, but never listens to the answers because she is too busy thinking of the next question. I ignored her, sauntered into the bathroom, and shut the door.

For about a half-hour, I chiseled layers of makeup off my face as she bombarded me with questions through the door. “Stephie, vhat are you doink in dere? Did you see Jordan? Vas he wit hiss new girlfriend? Does she look fat? Stephie, don’t git soap in yer eye. Do you tink he still vants you? Vas his new girlfriend very heavy? I tink he still luffs you. Did you git soap in yer eye? Stephie…”

I plopped into bed and set my alarm for 8 a.m. Although the prom was a total bust, I couldn’t wait to go down the shore with all my friends in the morning. Though some miracle, Anthony’s mom convinced my mom that she would make sure I hung out on the boardwalk, far way from the deep, dark, dangerous ocean. You see, the problem is that I can't swim.

When I was 13, Anyu signed me up for swimming lessons after one of my teachers yelled at her for being too overprotective. So, there I was, the only 5’foot 8” girl in a 4-foot deep swimming pool with a bunch of three-year-swimming laps around me. Sadly, I actually flunked out of the class because I refused to “jump” into the pool from the side; I was convinced that my lungs would fill with water, my eardrums would explode, the water would hold me down, and I would be unable to resurface. So, instead of sending me to more lessons, every time I went on a school field trip, Anyu simply made a large note on the “Allergies” section of my permission slip: “Stephanie, she cannot swim, don’t let her drown,” next to a drawing of a curly-haired girl swimming with an “X” through it. I don’t even HAVE curly hair.

I woke up the morning of Prom Weekend and immediately ran to the bathroom to get ready. As I was brushing my teeth, Anyu swung open the bathroom door without knocking and pinned the cordless phone to my ear. “Hew-whoa?” I said, my mouth full of minty paste.

I heard Allen’s pre-pubescent voice on the other line. “Hey, it’s me.”

I spit the toothpaste into the sink. “Oh, hey...I’m almost ready, should I bring the soda in a cooler or do you already have one?”

“Well, uh, don’t worry about it, see, I don’t think we’re going.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, some stuff came up, and uhhh, yeah, I think we’re just gonna hang out today, just the guys, but we’ll go down to the shore later on in the summer. Okay, I gotta go, my mom is calling.”

Click.

I stood holding the phone in one hand, with my toothbrush still partially hanging out of the side of my mouth. I immediately called Crystal, hoping she would still want to hang out and save me from yet another weekend with my family. Alas, I got her answering machine. I left a desperate message and glumly sat down to play some Sega games.

My mom stood over me with her hands on her hips. “Vhat are you doing? Don’t just sit dere! Vhile you vait, go outside with grandma.”

“Go outside with grandma” always meant “manual labor.” Nagymama kept a large vegetable garden in the back of our one acre yard, and I was in charge of getting the water from spicket at the front of the house to the garden. I begged my mom to just buy a hose, but she always said “A hose is too much, I don’t vant to vaste vater.” I probably wasted more water carting overfilled buckets to empty into Nagymama’s leaky watering can than if I had ran a garden hose from New Jersey to China.

So, I spent the entire afternoon trying to keep the buckets of water from soaking through my shoes, wondering where the hell everyone was. It wasn’t until Monday that I heard what really happened: The boys decided to ditch all the girls because they didn’t want to people to assume we were their girlfriends, thus ensuring that they would “bang some hot chicks” down at the shore. I don’t know if any of you guys have ever seen the Jersey Shore, but I don't think any “hot chicks” frequent the area, unless you like chicks that wear hideously big plastic earrings to match their hideously big plastic hairdos.

“I’m so sorry,” Crystal said as we piled books into our lockers, “I was so pissed about the whole thing, I just went off-roading with my brother and didn’t even think to call you. What did you end up doing all weekend?”

I sighed. “I helped my grandma water her vegetable garden so that she could grow more crap to put in her famous ‘letcho,’ which is basically over-boiled tomatoes, peppers, and rice.”

“Oh, so THAT’S what smelled-up the limo the other day!”

Dammit. I hate Letcho.

Photo by Diego Medrano

Velcome to the Kitchen

Please remember to watch Part 1 and Part 2 before viewing this video.

If you can't see the video above, try this link instead.

A typical visit to my family's kitchen. Pretty stressful, but you get used to it. :)

Thank you to Cameraman Matt, http://www.cinevore.com, for his assistance with capturing our family events on film.

Songs used: Brahm's Hungarian Dance No. 1, performed by Leo Christopherson, http://www.leochristopherson.com

Prom Part 2: The Promenade

Please see Part 1: Prom Preparation before reading this.

After the debacle inside, I grabbed Allen and ran to the limo as fast as my high heeled shoes would carry me. But I was stopped by The Kapu.

The Kapu ("gate" in Hungarian) is the front gate to our home. This gate remains locked at all times to "guard the fortress," despite the fact that my family lives in a 1920's 435 square foot, 1-bedroom house next to a ton of brand-new bi-levels and colonial homes. Coming to and leaving the house has been an issue my whole life because of The Kapu. Mom said it was to protect us from “crazy psycho killers.” The way I see it, crazy psycho serial killers are probably good at three things: psycho killing, gym class, and hoping fences. Why bother?

So as usual, I had to wait for Nagymama to come out with her key to unlock the fence as my entire prom party watched from the parked limousine. I started getting anxious; I was sure that the sight of two young adults in formalwear getting locked behind a fence by a 4-foot tall woman wearing papuchs and a babushka was getting captured on everyone’s camera. As she unlocked the gate, Nagymama made sure to throw a few more criticisms about my appearance my way before we ran like hell to the limo.

We desperately crawled into the car and I prepared myself for the onslaught of teasing. However, I found our prom party rummaging through a mini fridge in the limo and inspecting some sort of liquid in a glass decanter. My date’s friend Anthony whispered, “Yo, I think they have BOOZE on dis bus!”

I was thrilled. Not about the liquor, but about the fact that no one but my date witnesses my entire family chasing me around the back yard with cameras, curling irons, and kapu keys. But my joy quickly subsided when my friend Crystal said, "Whoa, what smells like dirty diapers?"

“We live in New Jersey, EVERYTHING smells like dirty diapers,” I retorted.

Thank goodness, everyone laughed and their attention turned back to the booze, which Anthony was proudly pouring into Dixie Cups. But I knew the truth - it was the letcho! The stench of peppers cooked for ten-thousand years probably covered every single inch of my being, and probably my date's tux, too. My grandma always tried very hard, but her cooking usually causes mild nausea and the occasional seizures.

Suddenly, the door of the limo opened. Crystal’s date, Keith, started to climb into the car. But the driver spotted Allen drinking the mystery booze, pushed Keith to the side, and started screaming something unintelligible in Russian. He grabbed the cups, poured the contents on Keith’s driveway, grabbed the rest of the Dixie Cups, and brought them to the front of the limo with him.

Keith sat down and we immediately took off. “Uh, what the hell just happened?”

“The driver musta left the booze in the car from the last people and now he’s pissed,” said Anthony.

My date chimed in, “Yeah, but he took away our cups and not the booze, if that makes any damned sense.”

Anthony scoffed. “I don’t need a cup to drink booze, cups are for sissies.”

“Please, Tony,” I begged, “Don’t be an ass.”

But he still reached for the decanter of mystery liquid and took a swig. And then the “privacy partition” between us and the driver dropped down. So Keith put used the remote to put it back up. And the driver put it back down.

“I can do dis all day!” the driver yelled.

Great, I thought. My mom’s sent one of her spies from the old country to make sure we don’t have any fun.

Eventually, we made it to our high school for the "Promenade." Now, I'm not sure if it's typical for most schools to have this, but my high school had a prom opening ceremony where the staff and parents would decorate the cafeteria with balloons and crepe paper in order to take more embarrassing photos of their awkward teenagers. I figured my mom wouldn’t really understand the custom, so I didn’t invite my family to this event. Besides, I was still reeling from the last time my mom came to my school when she managed to embarrass me in front of everyone watching the football game (I’ll write more on that some other blog).

It was customary for all the prom-goers to enter through the back of building in order to “make an entrance” through The Archway, aka, some hideous sparkly crepe paper explosion some soccer moms glued together. I tried to walk with my Allen, but he already ran ahead to talk to Keith about monster trucks or something. Anthony was busy talking to the other people in the party that I didn’t know. Luckily, I wasn’t alone because Crystal had fallen behind as she struggled to make it through the freshly mopped hallway in her three-inch heels. She rolled her eyes, “Why are they running like they have a class to catch?”

I looked over at her and suddenly remembered that I looked hideous. Crystal was tall, thin, confident. She was reminiscent of Cinderella in her $250 baby blue dress from the local bridal shop. She had French tips put onto her fingers with the tiniest rhinestones decorating the center of each nail. Her long blonde hair on top of her head into a cascade of curls, flowers with a fantastic jeweled comb adorning her tresses like a crown. Compared to her, I looked like I just stepped out of a garbage pile. I couldn’t wait to get to the actual prom where there would be flog machines and dark corners for me to hide in.

As fast as we tried to walk, we couldn’t catch up to the herd of boys. As we rounded the corner, we heard an eruption of laugher come from inside the cafeteria. Apparently, Allen and Keith unknowingly walked through the archway together, and didn’t even notice that people were taking pictures of them as if they were a couple. They just continued their conversation about GTO’s and V8 engines while walking down the isle of confetti, glitter, and tool, unaware of the implications.

Crystal smacked her hand to her head. “Freaking morons.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” For a moment, I was excited because I thought this meant that I didn’t have to walk through The Arch. Oh, I am not that lucky.

The hired photographer started flailing his hands,“No no no no no, where are your dates?”

The boys simultaneously turned around. “Oh.”

Crystal glided up the walkway next to Keith with the grace of Marilyn Monroe. I was next – my date didn’t even want to hold my arm. We walked a few feet and as I was ready to run the other way, the damned photographer had to put his two cents in again.

“Um, honey, can you take off your shoes so you’re not taller than him? Just for the picture.”

I was begging for some higher power to strike him down from above. Lightning. Thunder. Locusts. Even TOADS would have made me happy. But instead, I just gave in and took off my big boat shoes. The photographer rubbed his chin.

“Nope, you’re STILL taller. Can somebody grab me The Chair?”

Oooo, The Chair! Alas, it was not the blessed relief of 2000 volts surging through my body as I had hoped. It was simply some cheap, painted-wood, fake-flowered monstrosity that got passed down the isle. The entire cafeteria watched as I struggled to put my shoes back on without my top falling down. The photographer awkwardly positioned us and snapped a photo.

Again, if I ever find this damned picture, I am BURNING IT.

We ended up talking to a bunch of parents and then made our way back to the limo towards the prom. Where, believe it or not, this story gets WORSE. (To be continued.)

Photo by Maciej Lewandowski

Velcome Back to Piscataway

If you can't see the video above, try this link instead.

Part 2 of the exploration of my former New Jersey abode. Please watch Part 1 first :)

Thank you to my family who, despite not quite understanding the whole "filmmaking thing," has a good sense-of-humor and deals with me!

Thank you to Cameraman Matt for his assistance with capturing our family events on film (and braving our "little castle," as my mom likes to call it.)

Songs used:

J.S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Elvis Presley: "Jail House Rock"

Mannheim Steamroller: X-Files Theme Song

Nagymama Featured on MySpace

So, I was sitting at my computer, during lunch, stuffing my face with oatmeal raisin cookies, when I went to send a friend a "Happy Birthday" message because MySpace, being the life saver that it is sometimes, reminded me that I am a horrible friend and missed a birthday. And I was a little surprised to see a (pardon my French) SHIT TON of messages on my account. I was confused. Did people on YouTube "google" me and find my Myspace?

And then I actually used the eyeballs in my freakin' head and looked two inches to the right. This is what I saw:



Let me tell you, I uploaded this video on there about a year ago, with NO TAGS, NO DESCRIPTION - I think a friend from my mom's church wanted to see it and the easiest way I could get it to her was through MySpace. So, I forgot I even had it up there! I guess someone noticed!

You know, originally, I was going to make my personal MySpace the only place on the internet where I would have "friends only," i.e. people I actually knew...because who the heck would really want to read me ranting about bad drivers or how I made a "Snakes on a Plane" costume for Halloween? Only very supportive, non-judgmental friends, that's who! But I guess that means I just have to get to know you all if you add me as a friend:P

So, thank you MySpace.com! You have made my granny famous-er-er. That word is hard to say. I don't think it's even actually a word. Okay, that means it's TIME FOR BED! This time, no shoelaces :)

Velcome to Piscataway

If you are having trouble seeing the video above, try this link.

This is an example of a typical visit to my family's house - stressful at times, but pretty fun! In this clip, you'll meet my mom and have a short tour of the front of my quaint little one-bedroom former place of residence. Sound simple and uneventful? Hardly.

Please keep in mind, my family is pretty unusual - I reserve the right to poke fun of them, just like they poke fun of me [all the freakin' time] - but remember, they are MY FAMILY, so please don't be mean. Don't mess wit' mah mommah! :oP

Thank you to Cameraman Matt ( http://www.cinevore.com )for helping me shoot these videos (he's a brave soul!

Re: Nagymama: A True Story

Wow, so the last week or so has been pretty amazing. I don't think I have ever had so many e-mails in my inbox at one time! Because of YouTube, I have managed to connect with long-lost friends & family, as well as make a bunch of new friends that are helping me learn to read & write in Hungarian!

Originally, this video was shown to an English-speaking audience, so the scene with the bedroom was supposed to sound like a very upset rant from Nagymama! I took some audio I videotaped her, so if anyone is curious, here is the translation for the bed scene:

"Dollar! Smelly stingy pig, he got $50,000 that he shares with his Mistress, but you don't get a thing." I originally chose to use this sound clip because my deadbeat dad is probably the #1 thing my grandmother talked to herself about, even in her sleep (which is really sweet if you think about it - she's just looking out for me!)

As for the end credit scene was translated as a joke since the other thing Nagymama usually rants about is gypsies and robbers watching her through the window, and her plans to chase them away with her broom. I used that particular clip because she points at the camera, but the subtitles were a joke based on things she has said in the past. The actual subtitles are: "I'm going to play the lotto, and if I win, I will put it in an envelope for you." Also sweet and funny, but my animation class seemed to like the "joke" subtitles better.

So, here is the never-before-told backstory about this film. I was a senior at the Philadelphia University of the Arts and I had no freaking clue what to do for my senior project. I wanted to avoid the chaos of my junior year (2001-02) when I began production on a film called Fabian Fish, a tale about a clownfish and a yellow tang trying to escape from a fishbowl, but the clownfish keeps forgetting "the plan" every few seconds. Sound a little like a Pixar film that came out later that year? Yeah. I’ll tell you more about that Junior Film in another blog.

Anywho, it was well-known through my social circle that I had a pretty darned sheltered childhood. (Like…I didn’t know who the Beatles or Simon & Garfunkel were until college, I still haven’t seen any of the Starwars movies.) As usual, my friends were giving me crap about how my family kept me locked in a cage, and I said, “You ain’t kiddin’; my granny basically tied me into the bed my fastening the blanket down with shoelaces because she was so scared I’d fall outta bed!” My teacher overheard the story and said, “Now THAT is what you need to make your senior movie about!” I figured, “What the hell?” My professors have always said, “Write what you know,” and I sure as heck know my family!

Thus began the tale of “Nagymama.” I really wasn’t sure which story to write about, but for whatever reason, the mirror & shoelaces fiasco seemed to be the most traumatic and life-defining. And believe it or not, the full-story is possibly WORSE than the movie. I had to drop out a few details just so it would make sense in the context of a 4-minute cartoon, so here’s what actually happened:

My entire life, Nagymama stayed up and checked on me. CONSTANTLY. She surrounded the bed with dining room chairs to make sure I couldn’t roll out, fastened the blankets with shoe laces, toted around a flashlight and mirror, closed all the windows in 90 degree weather, and then stacked pots & pans in front of the windows so she could hear the robbers and/or gypsies. God only knows, she’s unbelievably hard-of-hearing, so if someone DID break in, they could probably steal the very bed she was sleeping on without so much as a peep.

So here’s the kicker - I was actually 12 or 13 years old when I found out this whole thing was NOT normal.

I was at my first slumber party, and we were complaining about our parents. I said, “Yeah, and don’t you HATE IT when they come up to you when you are trying to sleep and check your breath with a mirror?”

My friends looked at me like I was nuts.

One quickly responded, “Uh, Steph, people do that to infants – that’s how you tell if a kid has SIDS. You check ‘em with a mirror to make sure they are still breathing with a mirror.”

I guess Nagymama just never stopped.

I asked my cousins if their parents did this and they confirmed that the ritual was a little excessive. I considered running away from home, but my cousin had an idea: Hold my breath, just to see what would happen. So, one night, I was tucked in, it was hot as heck, I had to go to the bathroom, my grandma was snoring like a beast, and I was generally pissed off. So, I rustled around a bit and she woke up….grabbed the mirror…walked over…and I held my breath.

I know what you’re thinking: I’m “mean”. I could have given the poor old lady a heart attack. Believe me, this was not my typical behavior – it was DESPERATION. So, what happened? Like the movie, Nagy pretty much ran around the room screaming, and called in my mom. And then my mom started freaking out, too.

Nope, they didn’t call an ambulance. They didn’t try to resuscitate me. They ran around the room screaming. In a way, it’s a little disturbing to think about because if something DID actually happen, I would have been a goner!

So, after realizing that everyone was genuinely upset, I opened my eyes and the covers had been pulled off of me enough for me to scoot out. I ran to the bathroom, not only to pee, but to escape two very, very, very pissed-off Transylvanians cursing and screaming after me.

God, what did the neighbors think?

So, this full story said, my teacher told me to cut it down – omit my friends, cousins, and mother, focus on Nagymama, and draw myself as a younger child so it wouldn’t be so...weird. I still think it’s pretty weird.

After this YouTube feature, what surprised me the most was the all-out race war this little 4-minute film started. Hungarian vs. Romanian. Romanian vs. Hungarian. Everyone vs. America. It might be naive for me to say this, but it never ceases to shock me whenever I see racist comments. I really thought more people were over that. Also, last time I checked, I made a film about a weird childhood moment, not social commentary or international border analysis.

After listening to my film a few times, do realize that I made a fatal error in judgment - I clipped out the words "old world" from the original script where I said "some unusual old world traditions,” and added “Hungarian” because some of my colleges were confused about how my family could be Hungarian, but from Transylvania, which is in Romania.

You wanna know the hideous reason I took out the words "old world?" Because I can't freakin’ SAY the words “old” and “world” next to each other. There are certain words that I just can't pronounce for god knows what reason – “theater”, “collegiate”, “ballot”, and of course “old world”. I think I tried to pronounce this freaking line 900 times and I sounded like a bee bit my freakin' tongue.

I was actually tempted to upload the uncut audio, embarrassing as it might be, just so people stop thinking I hate Hungarians, hate my culture, and that I am a “terrorist.” But as I was trying to dig through the clutter of my old crappy-crap-crap computer that my original animation files are on, I came to a startling revelation – I am wasting my time. You can't make everyone happy.

People are going to think what they want to think, regardless of the innocent intent. People will post “You suck” and “FU” all over blogs, videos, hell, even public restroom stalls, simply because they want to vent some of their anger. It’s like being able to anonymously crap on someone’s front lawn – they get relief with the guaranteed that no one will chase them for having made a mess.

Mostly, I think people forget that there is a real person on the other side of that comment, and criticism that isn’t constructive is simply destructive. It’s hard enough to expose my most embarrassing moments to the entire world, so it’s a bit disheartening when people tell you that your life was not lived correctly.

I've always felt that in order have a fulfilling life, you must have the ability to laugh at yourself. As strange as my childhood was, I wouldn’t change a darned thing about it, because I am who I am because of the way I was raised. I am Hungarian-American, and proud of it.

Or as my mom would say, “Oh, Stephie, you are such an overly-sensitive American. Vhat is vit you people, you over-analyze everyting.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, mom. Pass the goulash, would yah? It’s really tasty.”

The Doll House

All I ever wanted was a Barbie Dreamhouse.

Unfortunately, mom was the only one supporting me and Nagymama with her baby toy assembly-line job, so an item this extravagant seemed excessive. Even at a young age, I was very aware of finances, so I made due with the cardboard boxes she brought home for me from Pathmark.

I was actually quite content with cutting windows into the sides of the boxes with my safety scissors, and draw carpeting and artwork all over the inside of the houses. My aunt was even kind enough to give me scraps of foam and fabric from her upholstery shop so I could have a deluxe dream-bed in my cardboard mansion.

But I still yearned for a Barbie Dreamhouse for one concrete reason – I wanted Barbie to stand up straight. The boxed my mother got me were meant for 2-Liter Soda bottles, so they were about 10 inches tall, whereas Barbie is 11.5 inches tall, so she had to walk around the house with a hunch. Needless to say, my dolls sat around and “ate dinner” lot. It’s amazing that Barbie and Skipper didn’t get fat.

I spent most of my childhood days fabricating elaborate cardboard houses, and Nagymama would spend most of her nights tearing them down. And of course, since we both slept in the living room, it was very difficult to hide my mansions from her. I tried to tie the boxes together, tape them, glue them – nothing would stop granny from disassembling them every night when I went to sleep and piling the boxes neatly in the corner. Once I even tried to stay awake so she wouldn’t tear it down, but then I gave in to the threats of the “Wooden Spoon.”

So, one day, I looked out the window and saw a lady from church talking to my mom in the driveway. A young lady sat in the back of the church lady’s car, playing some sort of handheld electronic game. I could hear their muffled talking.

The church lady said that her daughter, Lisa, had outgrown out of her clothes and toys. I remembered her daughter from when she and I were in Pioneer Girls (like Girl Scouts, but they sell religion instead of cookies.) I couldn’t believe the young girl in the car was Lisa; she was once a quiet little mouse that always had a Barbie doll in one hand and an inhaler in the other.

My mom agreed to accept the donations and dragged a few black garbage bags onto the steps. She smiled as the church lady pulled away but then ran inside to make a frantic phone call.

This was my chance! I tried to sneak out the front door so I could peak into the bags, but Nagymama nabbed me and told me that if I went outside, the gypsies would steal me and put me into their caravan. Just then, my mother hung up and went outside to see what the commotion was about.

They shooed me in, closed the door, and continued to argue on the front steps. I ran to the side window and pressed my face against the glass to get a better look just as they started dragging the garbage towards my mom’s spicy-mustard-colored 1979 Dodge Station Wagon. As Nagymama lifted one of the bags into the trunk, I saw a shocking piece of triangular pink plastic poke the bag.

A dollhouse!

And as quickly as a saw it, it disappeared into the depths of the monstrous car. Mom and Nagymama promptly walked through the door, and before I could protest, my mother announced that we would be going to my aunt’s lake house for the weekend.

I stopped in my tracks.

Now everything made sense; the toys were a SURPRISE! I deduced that I wasn’t supposed to SEE the dollhouse because they were going to bring it to the lake house and let me set it up there so Barbie could have lake-front property. THIS made sense! I pretended that I didn’t see any of the bags for fear they would take them away from me for ruining the surprise, so for almost a week, I waited in anticipation of my dollhouse.

...To be continued...

The Real Nagymama - Behind the Scenes

A light conversation turns to Nagymama vs. Nagymama.

The Bowlcut

I feared the chipped, 1970s, spicy-mustard–colored bowl in our kitchen cabinet. It was used primarily for whisking egg whites, making dough, and to measure out my haircut.

One day, I was walking through my kitchen, nagging my Nagymama for a Fudgesicle before dinner. After about five minutes of persistent whining, she reached in the freezer and handed me the frozen treat. I ripped the white waxed paper victoriously, but my bliss was cut short when I spotted the notorious bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. For a moment, I hoped that my grandma was just going to make us some Hungarian crepes (Palacsinta) for dessert, but I dismissed the thought when I saw the rusty, green-handled scissors adjacent to the bowl.

I almost dropped my ice cream.

This was a trick! They were getting ready to give me a haircut! I looked for a hiding spot. I had tried everything in the past: hiding behind the shower curtain in the bathtub, standing in the back of my mom’s closet with her blue bathrobe draped over me and cowering behind cardboard boxes of toys under my bed. For whatever reason, they always found me.

This time, I tried the hamper in the living room closet. I knew when my mother’s friend Dimitri had arrived because I could smell his cheap aftershave, even with the closet door closed. She felt that since he was good at mowing our lawn, he would be a competent haircutter for her little girl. I could hear muffled chit-chat a few feet from where I was standing. I was still sucking on the remnants of my ice cream when blinding light flooded in from the opened closet door. “Sorry for all dah mess,” my mother said, “I haven’t even had a chance to do dah laundry—” She opened the top flap of the large wicker hamper and had already dumped about five pounds of handkerchiefs and kitchen towels on my head before she saw me.

“Stephie! Vhy are you playink in dah closet? Silly girl.”

She lifted me out of the hamper with great ease.

“Say hallo to our friend, Dimitri!” I didn’t even have a chance to wave hello before she took the popsicle out of my hand, dragged me across the house, and seated me in our blue, flower-patterned kitchen chair.

“Ve’re gonna do some snip, snip, snippy today, yes?” Dimitri said, his breath reeking of vodka. I stared at his grey speckled five-o’clock shadow as he placed bowl on my head. It was cold, heavy, and still smelled like eggs. He hummed some semblance of a polka as he snip, snip, snippied away, his shaky hands occasionally slipping and putting a little “v” in my perfect ring of hair.

My mother and Nagymama provided the audio commentary the entire time.

“No, it’s crooked, vat are you doing, that side is shorter than the other, make sure you trim her bangs!”

Nagymama was always afraid that my bangs would pierce my eyes, so as always, she made sure to have him trim them about an inch too short. She then took two pink plastic, bow barrettes and pinned the extra hair to the side of my head.

Dimitri handed me an old black pocket mirror. “Lookit, you’re beautiful!”

I looked like I had a receding hairline at age seven.

The next morning, I went to kindergarten with my navy blue, pom-pomed ski cap pulled over my head. I tried to hide in the back of the group, but my teacher nabbed me.

“No hats in class, Stephanie!” she snapped.

“But I vant to, my head iz cold.”

I could hear a few of the boys snickering in the front row.

“No ‘ifs,’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts,’ take that hat off right now!”

“I can’t I—“

Mrs. Vandershaff had her hands on her hips. She meant business.

All eyes were on me. I slowly pulled my hat off to reveal a slightly staticy version of my bad haircut. The entire class erupted with laughter.

“A-ha, we have a new BOY in class, ha ha ha!” said Patrick, the head bully.

It also didn’t help that my mom had made me wear a boyish sweater with the big red knit tie sewn to the bosom.

“What’s your name, NEW KID?” said Kelly, the girl with pig tails, a pig snout, and a barnyard attitude.

“I bet it’s STEPHEN!” Patrick roared.

Kids can be so cruel.

If I knew what I know now, I would have come up with a snappy kindergarden comeback and put the class to shame. I sometimes imagine running into Patrick in the grocery store and saying, “Oh, yeah? Well, I am rubber you are glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!” I’d pull out Kelly's pig tails and shove her head in a plastic trough of gummy worms in the candy isle.

Somehow, I don’t think it would be as effective, fifteen years after the fact. And I might get arrested.

So, after all of that, Mrs. Vandershaffy, seeing that I was visibly upset, put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Well, I like your haircut.” Of course she did. She had the same exact haircut, minus the hideous pink barrettes. Lucky her.

I wonder what color her bowl is.