Aunt Lily Rule #1: see Jeffreys Family & Robert Conroy @ Cornelia St. Tomorrow!

Jeffreys Family by Ellen Watson Photography

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 14th @ 6pm, Garland Jeffreys—one of my songwriting heroes—will perform at City Stories: Stoops to Nuts at the Cornelia Street Cafe. It’s a family affair: Garland, Claire, and Savannah Jeffreys will take the stage along with Robert Conroy, one of my favorite artists from the Loser’s Lounge.  Come out and beat the heat with a cool summer in the city show. Admission is $8 and that includes one free drink.

Thanks to rent control and nutty close living relatives, my family affairs were usually out of order. Here is an August memory of a dear departed Lulu, Mom's Aunt Lily.

Aunt Lily's Rules

Aunt Lily with her arms wrapped backwards around Aunt Vera

I'm 9, I walk into my 83rd Street apartment on a miserable August afternoon. It's dark, lights are out to pretend it's cool, and there's my mother's Aunt Lily sitting in her underwear at the kitchen table drinking coffee likes she's dressed for tea. Nothing on, but a giant white bra and big fat pink panties. I circle the table, my mother's sisters, Joan and Barbara are there, too, but they have clothes on.

I say hi to everybody, and give Mom the eye and head tilt to join me in the next room.

"Mom, what's with Aunt Lily?"
"She's hot."
"No, she's nude."
"No she's not silly. She has her underwear on."

I walked away spinning circles on the side of my head with one finger.

A week later, Mom throws a Tupperware Party on a record heat day. There are strange faces on my couch and a few of Mom's friends. I was playing ball down Carl Schurz and drenched with sweat. I tore my clothes off, threw them in a pile, kicked them under my bed, and put on a new pair of underwear and went to the fridge. The sweat on my back and belly came back, but I began to cool off from the cold air leaving the ice box as I pulled out the ice water. I took the old Mott's apple juice bottle to the kitchen table and sat in one of the kitchen chairs to catch a little bit of backyard breeze coming in from the living room. Where I sat gave the ladies on the couch a clear view of me and me of them. They stopped their gabbing and a few had their mouths wide open. Then Mom popped her head in.

"What the hell are doing?"
"Drinking, cooling off."
"Why are you in your underwear?"
"I'm hot."

She grabbed me by the neck and directed us towards my bedroom. 

Aunt Lily had her own set of rules.