High on the Vine E-Book

Terri Martin

• Herausgeber: Modern History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 193

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Humor abounding, the stories of High on the Vine feature thrice-removed cousins, Tami & Evi Maki, who often contemplate how their lives would be vastly different, if only they did not bear the burden of marriage to Toivo and Eino. Always shirking responsibility, the two spousal reprobates tend to work as little as humanly possible and gamble beyond their means. When Toivo and Eino do win a "pot" they pass along a share of the booty to their wives with an all-expense paid trip to someplace "exotic." While this may bring a tropical paradise to mind, it turns out to be a survival wilderness weekend in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere.
Tami & Evi punish their husbands with a hostile takeover of the boys' hunting camp. From there they explore many entrepreneurial adventures, including a "rustic" vacation rental, an Amish-run chicken ranch, and a winery operated by a group of misogynistic monks who turn out a product known as "Monk Juice." While the bottom line for Tami and Evi is always murky, the various ventures they pursue are even murkier.
"Terri Martin gets to show off her propensity for puns the best when Evi gets drunk at their weekly 'teatime' which starts with boxed wine and ends with her passing out, most often. If you like a good chuckle about Yooper foibles and follies, I highly recommend High on the Vine by Terri Martin. -- Victor Volkman, Marquette Monthly
"Readers should rejoice that all the stories now appear in one book and follow the cousins (thrice removed) from considering raising fish in a swimming pool to vacationing on a beach with a Pina Colada in hand and the Atlantic Ocean spread before them. The book is filled with grins, giggles, and out-loud laughter." Tom Powers, Michigan in Books

Leseprobe

© 2022 Gnarly Woods Publications

ISBN: 978-1-7352043-2-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022903539

First Edition 2022

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published by Gnarly Woods Publications

L’Anse, Michigan

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, reprinted or otherwise copied for distribution purposes without the express written permission of the publisher.

Thanks to my husband, Wayne, for decades of support and encouragementandto Cap’t Mike V., skipper of UP Magazine, who keeps the ship on course.

Table Of Contents

How It All Started

Ruminating the Female/Male Conundrum

Flush & Flourish

Gone Wild

Operation: She Shed

Getting Down to Business

Turning on the Gaslight

The Wholey Hideaway

Pecking Order

Plain & Simple & Eventually Rich (maybe)

The Chicken & the Egg Enigma

Famished

High On The Vine

The Whole Cluster Stomp

Setting Up Shoppe

Getting Your Wickiup

Cash Flow Problems

Women of the World Warriors (or not)

Full Circle

Epilogue—Turks & Caicos

How It All Started

Tami and Evi found themselves seeking warmth from the woodstove in Tami’s living room, or as Tami called it, the parlor. Having not completely adjusted to life in Upper Michigan, Tami still clung to the notion that manners and social graces accounted for something, and to her a parlor is where one received and entertained visitors. Evi was visiting so therefore, the erstwhile living room was a parlor. Furthermore, Tami and Evi Maki, cousins thrice removed, were at tea such as one might be invited to if in England. Interestingly, there was no tea present, but rather a fresh box of white wine, which Tami and Evi frequently pressed into service via the handy spigot located front and center. But for purposes of public information (i.e. gossip), the ladies were having tea.

“These little sandwich things are to die for,” said Evi as she popped a third one into her mouth. Tami had made some tea sandwiches with miniature squares of cocktail bread, cream cheese, smoked salmon and cucumber slices garnished with a little sprig of dill. These went down well with their emblematic tea.

“Thank you, Evi, I found it in my Living High on Tea book, along with my scone recipe.”

“I love your scones, too,” said Tami as she eyed the plate of crust-less sandwiches, looking for her next victim. “I wonder what the boys are having for their lunch,” she said, as she used a freshly-ironed linen napkin to dab a dribble of wine from her chin.

Tami snorted and shook her head in disgust. The ladies’ spouses, Toivo and Eino, were likely engaged in their own emblematic tea somewhere in the woods at the Maki hunting camp. Instead of a tidy parlor with doilies on the armchairs, they preferred a sagging couch that likely harbored enough microbes to destroy the world. Napkins would be absent as would any other tools of civility, such as proper silverware and dishes. Toivo and Eino loathed washing dishes and preferred using their hands as eating utensils. They weren’t great about washing their hands either, for that matter. Mostly they used their Leatherman tools (unwashed) as eating utensils and wiped them “clean” on their pant legs (also unwashed except when their wives could confiscate them along with their ratty flannel shirts to throw into the laundry).

Tami took a dainty sip of wine, contemplating the bane of her existence: Toivo, and how she had been, if not tricked, at least misled into marrying the clod. Toivo often had similar thoughts about Tami, though he dared not think of her as the pain in the (bleep) she was, since she always seemed to know what he was thinking or doing. Tami always knew what Toivo was up to (rarely work that involved a paycheck) because he was so predictable.

“He’s got terrible eating habits,” said Tami, just as Evi was poised to consume yet another tea sandwich. “Likely he’s eating some fat-laden, sodium-rich junk food—something that doesn’t require a fork.”

Evi held the tea sandwich inside her mouth without chewing for a moment; she felt as if Tami were studying her. Unfortunately, the bread began to dissolve on her tongue, making it difficult to talk. Eventually she managed to get it down by taking a generous slug of wine.

“As much as I complain, I do care about the lout,” Tami said. “I don’t want him to keel over before his time. He’s never been able to get disability, since sloth-itis is not considered a valid medical condition, so we have to wait for regular Social Security. I, of course, have my small pension from the government. I gave up my career at the post office in Blemishville to move up to this place. God’s Country, my foot! More like God-forsaken,” Tami said.

“I thought you said the post office closed because of budget cuts,” Evi said. There were still six tiny sandwiches on the delicate cut-glass plate. Would it be rude to eat them or leave them? Evi was not as cultured as Tami and didn’t know the protocol with such things. She knew it was rude to take, say, the last one, but there were several. Her wine was gone too.

Tami sighed. “True, it did close, but because of my stellar work record, I was guaranteed a transfer—maybe someplace warm like Nashville or Atlanta. There were no transfers available up here. Oh, I wonder how my life would have been if not for that double date we had for Slick and Sally’s wedding—remember?”

Evi nodded. How could she forget? It was indeed a fateful night. Toivo and Eino were both cousins and uncles to one another and related to the groom as cousins several times removed. They had made a special trip down below the bridge to attend their cousin, Slick’s wedding and likely to take advantage of the free booze. The bride (and soon-to-be mother), Sally, was a mutual friend of Tami and Evi’s from a water aerobics class they all had taken at the fitness center. Sally, matchmaker that she was, fixed Tami and Evi up with Toivo and Eino for purposes of wedding escorts. The boys had cleaned up pretty well and neither Tami nor Evi were getting any younger. Tami, out of vanity, did not wear her glasses, which normally dangled on a decorative chain round her neck, so Toivo’s image was somewhat fuzzy and rather hunky. Evi spent too much time at the punch bowl, which was spiked. While doing the funky chicken to a rag-tag band called the Pizzlesticks, Tami and Evi got caught up in the festivities and before they knew it, found themselves somehow enamored with a couple of backwoods reprobates who decided they needed women in their lives to do the cooking and cleaning and whatnot. Before Tami could wipe the fog off her glasses and Evi could sober up, a quick double ceremony took place and Tami and Evi found themselves living in remorse in the back woods of Nowheresville.

“I think the first thing is to cut out meat,” said Tami.

“Huh,” said Evi, snatched back from her reverie of Slick and Sally’s wedding reception. And the party after the reception. The full moon, stars in the sky. The bed of Eino’s pickup. Her angry daddy. Mama crying…

“Of course, the boys like to think they are putting meat on the table with all their hunting prowess, but truth be told, Toivo hasn’t gotten a deer or even a squirrel for that matter since we’ve been married,” Tami said.

“Well, Eino did get a racoon last spring when it was coming out of hibernation, but it was with his truck not his gun,” Evi said. “It was too flattened to salvage any meat but he did use the fur to make a coonskin hat.”

“Not much better with fishing either,” Tami said. “Though he sure has enough invested in gear. We should have a freezer full of fish.”

“Eino got a turtle a while back. It was a snapper. They are good eating, but I refuse to clean something like that. Besides it escaped before Eino could figure out how to dispatch it. Even spit out the hook, neat as can be with the worm still attached. The worm was a little worse for wear.”

Tami shuddered a bit. “Yes, meat must go. Also, dairy. The time to eat healthy is when we are still, well, fairly young. We’ll be glad we did when we get in our golden years.”

Evi looked at the tea sandwich that had somehow made its way between her thumb and forefinger. “Is cream cheese dairy?”

“I’m afraid so,” Tami said.

“What about the salmon?” Evi said, rather mournfully. She had developed a real liking to the smoked salmon that Tami procured from the fish market.

“A true vegan does not consume products from or eat anything that walks, crawls, swims, hops or flies,” Tami responded.

“Vegan? What’s a vegan?” Evi asked. Is that one of those cults?

Tami ignored her. “Nope, no meat, fish, seafood, cheese, milk, ice cream...”

“No ice cream!” shrieked Evi. “I love Mackinac Island Fudge. I must have it...”

“Too much fat in the dairy. And all those chemicals they use to make the animals grow up faster and fatter.”

“But fish?” Evi said, still hoping for a smoked salmon exemption.

“Well, do you really want something that swims around in a lake polluted with its own excrement?” Tami responded.

“But I swim around in the lake all the time,” Evi said. She had never really thought about all the fish poop in there.

“Yes, think about it. I prefer a nice pool where I can see the bottom.”

“But there are chemicals in the pool!” Evi said, enjoying a small victory for her side.

“True,” Tami said. “But no excrement.”

“Oh really? What do you think those children do during family swim night?” Evi said ever so smugly.

“That’s what the chemicals are for,” Tami snapped.

“Maybe they should raise fish in swimming pools,” Evi said.

Tami ignored her. Sometimes Evi came up with the most ridiculous ideas. Still, it did seem that something that was being constantly washed, albeit not always in pristine water, might be better than say a rutabaga. After all, didn’t vegetables grow in the dirt? Just exactly what was dirt, anyway? Ground up rock, pollution, contamination, toxins, and of course excrement from all creatures that walked, crawled, flew, or slithered across the earth, doing their business randomly and repeatedly. Why, farmers even intentionally put excrement on their crops to supposedly enrich the soil. Ug! Tami shuddered at the thought.

“Perhaps salmon could be an exception,” Tami said, as she took a miniscule sip of wine. “Especially if it’s smoked. That should certainly purify the meat.”

“Oh, absolutely!” Evin said, eagerly nodding her head. There were now three sandwiches left. Okay, two. She had to tip the box to get the wine to flow properly.

“And really, dairy doesn’t come from the flesh of the animal. Weren’t we all first given dairy from our mother’s milk when we were babies?” Tami said. “I would think that having dairy is very natural to us. Even if we add a bit of sugar and some chunks of chocolate.”

“Did you know that chocolate is actually a health food?” Evi said. There was one lone sandwich remaining of the plate. The wine box was empty and Evi was feeling a bit woozy.

“Really, how so?” Tami said. She was skeptical that chocolate was “healthy” but felt it important to occasionally let Evi have her say. After all, Tami believed that being a good listener and pretending that the other person had anything of value to offer was simply a social grace that one must exercise from time to time. Even if the other person was, well, simple, not to mention beyond tipsy.

“Oh yesh. You shee the chocolate bean...”

“I don’t believe chocolate is a bean,” Tami said. “It comes in bars. Beans are things you soak overnight to make soup, not fudge.”

It seemed that Evi’s wine glass was again dry. She was feeling plucky and had read an article in some magazine at the doctor’s office about the health benefits of chocolate and she did not believe a doctor’s office would sponsor rubbish. She was feeling a bit lightheaded yet emboldened by the wine. “Yesh, eventually it turns into bars, but it sharts out ash a bean that growsh on a tree. It has good stuff called flapandoodles or antiaccidents—or shomethang like that.”

“Oh, come now, Evi. Chocolate grows on trees?” Tami snickered. “Is this some wild version of Jack and the Beanstalk?”

“Huh?” Evi said.

“You know,” Tami said. “Magic beans?”

“Oh riiiiight! They’re mashic. And I want them in my icesh cream. But as fudge, not beans.” She giggled. “Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you...”

“Evi!” Tami admonished. “How many glasses of wine have you had? And the sandwiches. I never had even one.”

Evi seemed to be snoring. Tami shook her head and sighed. Evi was a dear; she just had a short attention span. Simpleminded, but nonetheless a good friend who simply could not hold her—tea.

Ruminating the Female/Male Conundrum

Tami and Evi sat by a warm fire in Tami’s parlor, which by most standards was simply an ordinary living room, but Tami was intent on maintaining a certain standard so therefore it was a parlor. The women were sipping “tea,” which came out of a box with a spigot, discussing their husbands, Toivo and Eino. While men discuss their women with a locker room mentality, women become philosophical about their male counterparts, trying to inject sense into them who have none.

The gals’ menfolk had gone ice fishing, leaving Tami and Evi in blissful male absence. Glorious hours with no mud tracked in, no toilet seat up, no crumbs scattered on the kitchen counter and no flatulence. Toivo and Eino, who couldn’t be bothered to get up by 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning to attend church, had arisen at 4:00 a.m. to drive out to the bay, trudge across the frozen tundra, cut a hole in the ice and sit in a freezing ice shanty under the pretense of bringing home the bacon a/k/a fish to the family larder. Whether or not the fish were biting was of little concern to the pair, who would remain huddled in their shanty like a couple of dolts, watching their hole skim over, while keeping warm with alcohol.

Tami topped off the women’s wine glasses, added a log to the wood burner, and shared an article that she read in some guy magazine called: Man Up! The article discussed the differences between men and women, with women emerging unfavorably as being overly preoccupied with shoes, children, beauty products and miscellaneous details that, in Tami’s opinion, is what keeps their households from collapsing into ruin. It was clear that the so-called reporter had overindulged in an adult beverage to have written the defamatory article, which lacked any truth or fact whatsoever and was clearly written by a man who did not see a clear picture at all when discussing the Female/Male Conundrum.

Evi had brought along some lovely scones she had purchased before coming over for her visit with Tami, and the two women nibbled on them while thinking about the actual and verifiable differences between men and women. Oh sure, both sexes have their little quirks. For example, while a woman will excavate deep into the dairy cooler for the freshest milk, a man will grab anything without even checking the expiration date. Unimaginable, but true. It’s amazing more people don’t die from expired products because of this. A woman will painstakingly price-compare, while a man will simply grab and go, heedless of cost. Though it’s true that a woman may have multiple pairs of shoes in her closet—neatly arranged—a man will have a jumble of mud-caked boots moldering out in the garage for everyone to trip over.

Of course, women do obsess a bit over their wardrobes, trying to be attractive and accessorized. Men, on the other hand, NEVER get rid of a single piece of clothing. Ever. There is a reason that the thrift store has an overabundance of women’s and children’s clothes, and very little men’s. The only reason that any male clothing is there at all is because the man who owned it died and his poor wife had to slog through forty- or fifty-years’ worth of clothing that is so old it’s turning to dust.

Along that same line, a woman may have a vast assortment of products, well organized and stored in the bathroom. The man also has his share of things, but they are mostly empty tubes, crusty toothbrushes, combs and brushes that have never been de-haired or de-loused, and of course a lot of facial by-products—whether trimmed or shed—in the bathroom sink. While there is a ridiculous claim in the article that women have 337 items stashed in the bathroom (clearly an exaggeration brought on by intoxication), Tami and Evi point out that the average Yooper male has no less than three boats, a dozen guns, two dozen fishing poles and rods (with extra reels), six tackle boxes containing at least 337 lures, melted/fused rubber worms, five pounds of sinkers, an enormous snarl of tangled fishing line and hooks, and fishing rule books dating back to the Ming Dynasty. This is not to mention duck blinds, tree stands and decoys. And everything has to be “camo” including underwear and sleeping shorts. A woman’s meager possessions, none of which were purchased at full price, pale by comparison.

But it isn’t the material differences that Tami and Evi contemplate while sipping their wine (Tami has brought out a fresh box). Additionally, being a good hostess, Tami prepared a nice salad for lunch, which featured smoked salmon (store-bought, with an excellent freshness date) and some little orange slices, grape tomatoes and toasted almonds, all resting on a crisp bed of romaine lettuce with a side of a homemade raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Toivo and Eino, to the knowledge of the women, had liverwurst sandwiches, barbeque pork rinds, venison jerky and beer for their ice shanty repast.

Tami hypothesized that the female/male differences reach beyond the obvious physical disparities and transcends beyond the iteration of variation in taste and priorities. No, it is deeper than all these things. The women grew silent for quite some time, listening to the crackle of the wood stove and drinking their wine.

Tami clucked her tongue and shook her head. She thought maybe it was simply a matter of the male Y chromosome, and that men were hard-wired to behave as Neanderthals. Evi nodded. Yes, her Eino did have a protruding forehead and a lot of nasal hair. Tami speculated that those of a spiritual mind and who think that God has a sense of humor, believe that He first created man, found His creation flawed, and sought to salvage the human race through the creation of woman. (Note: the prefix “wo” means “better than” man.) Hence, having confidence in the females (after all He entrusted them to bear young), God left the less-than-perfect male component of the human race around for the females to straighten out.

Tami and Evi sighed in unison. So much work, so little time.

Flush and Flourish

Tami found the position to be rather undignified: down on her elbows and rump in the air, but she was resolved to make things work even if it killed her. She could hear Evi grunting a bit. Evi was a tad overweight. Well, so was Tami, for that matter, but she was used to physical hardships. After all, she was married to Toivo.

“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze!” cried Madam Zanacks.

The idea was to squeeze one’s buttocks while thrusting the adjoining leg out, up or sideways. It was all part of Madam Zanacks “flush” operation, which preceded the “flourish” portion of the regime. Flourishing, apparently, involved the purchase of many assorted items sold by Madam Zanacks, which included a colon cleanse, essential oils, herbal teas, age-defying creams, and a CD of monotonous music—such as that being played during the flushing exercise—that would put a cheetah on steroids into a trance.

“Now rest!”

Everyone belly-flopped onto their exercise mats.

“And streeeeetch!

Everyone lay motionless, pretending to stretch. The music was some kind of penny whistle that apparently had only two maybe three notes.

“Next, turn over and reeeeeeeeach.”

Everyone turned over on their backs and reached upwards.

“Everything you ever dreamed of is just beyond your fingertips. Try to grab it!”

It seemed a little counter-productive to be reaching for something unreachable, whether one’s dreams or one’s toes. Tami glanced over at Evi, who looked like a sleep-walker, lying on her back with her arms outstretched. Or the walking dead. Not to be catty, but Evi apparently forgot to look in the mirror before coming to Madam Zanacks Flush and Flourish class.

Tami was thinking that Madam Zanacks, if not an outright fraud, was certainly mean-spirited and opportunistic. Still, Tami had lost two pounds and could bend over to tie her boots now. She had also been relieved of almost $200, thanks to all the products she was talked into purchasing. It was all the fault of Tami and Evi’s husbands, Toivo and Eino. Had it not been for their ridiculous camp, Tami and Evi would never have taken the bait for Madam Zanacks “free” first class, which was the hook that reeled the two women into four weeks of hell on earth.

It all started with Tami and Evi’s weekly soiree during which they had pondered the meaning of life and, in this case, discussed with disgust Toivo and Eino’s Annual Open Maki Camp Party.

“Well, I just don’t understand why Toivo spends all of his time out at that disreputable camp,” Tami had said as she adjusted the doily on the arm of her lounge chair. “I mean, why wouldn’t he want to be here in our lovely, well- appointed home, which I keep neat as a pin? I am an excellent cook and if it weren’t for me, Toivo’s clothes would rot off his flesh and he would only bathe in the river once in a blue moon.”

Evi nodded in agreement. Her husband, Eino, co-owned the very same camp. It was a family hunting camp, with Toivo and Eino being both uncles and cousins. The camp had endured many generations of neglect, fire, flood, blizzards and wifely scorn. The greatest abuse occurred once a year when a hoard of men crawled from beneath their rocks to whoop it up in a drunken event predictably called the Annual Open Maki Camp Party. The cover charge was— surprise, surprise—alcohol.

Tami said, “There were over two-hundred dollars in empties to return to the IGA after the bash. At ten cents each, that’s an excess of two thousand cans and bottles of beer. They filled up all of the crusher machines and the manager asked them to go away and never come back.”

“That doesn’t even account for Wisconsin no-deposit cans and bottles, or wine and distilled spirit empties,” Evi said.