62 and Counting

Oh, Isn't The Weather Outside Frightful?

2011-01-20T17:19:00.006-05:00

For my first official blog entry of 2011, I want you to know that I am officially (faking) being clever and positive, upbeat and cutesy-pie, to cover for the fact that stupid me emailed my online journalist friend and told him I resolved to be more positive in 2011.

Here we go again: Me? Positive? Oooh – that would mean my cup is surely runnething over!

Speaking of honesty? My promise was only made up of words, and words are not the boss of me, even if they appear in an article in West Hartford Patch, because I didn’t pinky swear. Doesn't that automatically make me immune from living up to anything I rashly promise?

Truly? How can I be expected to be positive when our heating system has been on the fritz for an entire month (we’ve tried out three thermostats so far – and baby, it’s cold in here), I haven’t exercised, and I’ve had to wait every, single day for the heating guy to show up? (I call each day and beg him to fix it, please, fix it – but so far, no cigar!)

I want to say mean and negative things to all you super-duper, happy coldsters out there, who aren’t upset about being bundled in fleece and Smartwool socks, putting up with snow (the little balcony underneath the window in the computer room is filled to the window sill), or accepting the UConn women’s team loss to Stanford, but I’m not going to.

Instead, I’m going to sing "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” and quote Malvina Reynolds, who likes to look on the “sunny side, the sunny honey funny bunny side.”

I'm doing this because I'm bound and determined to prove my husband (Mr. In-Between?) wrong. You know, of course, that he bet me I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my promise? You also know that he’s usually 100% right when he bets, damn his hide?

Curses (@!%&*^). Foiled again.

I'm Sick; Therefore, I Blog

2010-12-17T12:17:00.000-05:00

I had breakfast with two old friends on Monday morning, before my cough and now yucky nose turned ugly. I was late, because the heating guy had to come early (or never) to install thermostat number two (it’s still not working right), and readjust the boiler settings. I hate being late, but I had no choice – stay home and let him reinstall the thermostat, or continue listening to my heat go on and off, on and off – over and over again. Funny – that’s what it’s been doing all morning. Yeah, so much for thermostat number 2!

As soon as I sat down in the booth, apologies bursting out of my cold lips like ice cubes clonking down an icemaker, my friend thrust her reading journal in my hands. She’d told me she was going to bring it, and boy am I glad she did. Are you ready for this? She’s been writing down the titles of all the books she’s read since 1972 – which means I got to walk down her reading memory lane with her. What a treat that was.

As soon as I finished, though, I came down with a case of neon green jealousy.

Darn. How come I didn’t create myself a permanent ongoing record of my reading life, considering the fact that I’m an out and out reading addict? I’m such a prime candidate, too, because I create freaking Excel spread-sheeted reading lists, which I’m never without. (Hey! I might be near a library during the day.)

Unfortunately, I update my list many times a year, once the penciled-in just-out must-reads fill up the white space; once the list’s updated, though, I throw it away. Therefore, I have never, ever had an unbroken record of all the titles I ate up (or spit out and rejected) in any one year.

I’m smacking my forehead with my palm, like a stereotypical Italian in a Fellini movie, for being such a buckethead when it comes to chronicling my life. Feel free to call me Ms. Stupido.

To make up for my lack of foresight, I’m writing down this week’s favorite December, 2010 book (It’s right up there with the Joyce Carol Oates piece about her husband’s death in last week’s New Yorker, which knocked me out and made me cry. I know it’s not a book, but it was a perfect piece of writing, in my opinion. Don’t miss it): The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger (she also wrote the Time Traveler’s Wife, which I haven’t read).

Please, please - don’t reject it because it’s a graphic novel. It’s a book addict’s dream, so to speak, and is so brilliantly imagined and drawn I couldn’t believe Niffenegger thought it up on her own. Yep. I’m oozing a little more jealousy, oh yes I am.

Unfortunately, I have to add a spoiler alert, because there’s a ridiculous suicide in the middle, or maybe towards the end, which kind of, sort of ruined the heretofore-flawless story for me and made me furious with the author. I wish I’d known about it before I fell in love with the book – which is why I’m telling you. Now that you know, you can eat it up and spit out the bad part.

Bon appétit.

How Come I Haven't Blogged Since Halloween?

2010-12-15T12:34:00.000-05:00

This morning I got an email from a friend, asking me why I haven't written a blog since Halloween. Instead of telling her the truth, I emailed her that I had a lot of "crap" going on - a nice, vague answer if there ever was one. Do you really want to know?

If so, are some of my best excuses: I've been dealing with massive (sometimes even 3-days-in-a-row) migraines, overseeing our new heating system thermostat which continues to malfunction, tutoring 1st and 2nd graders at Sarah J. Rawson School in Hartford, diligently keeping up with reading The New Yorker and New York Magazine, oh-so-religiously watching UConn men's and women's basketball game on TV, knitting up a storm, exercising 4-5 days each week, checking emails and Facebook to find out what's going on with friends and my daughter (she regularly posts stuff she neglects to tell me - so god forbid I should miss one little detail).

Today's excuse? I drove myself to the doctor, because I have a cough, instead of zipping over to my usual Wednesday morning stretch and tone class.

What surprised me was that I wasn't slotted in to see my regular doctor (no one bothered to mention this when I phoned for an appointment). It turns out he's been replaced with stand-ins and laptop computers. The two strangers who saw me didn't bother introducing themselves (the first one measured my weight, blood pressure, and temperature; the second checked my ears, nose, and throat, then prescribed some stuff while sitting at her computer, tap, tap, tapping away). I mean, why interact when you can obsessively enter data into a laptop computer?

Is it selfish of me to wish they'd been a little more interested in cough, cough, cough...me.

I have more excuses - there are always more - but I don't want to bore you with my need for coughing up long, drawn-out details. Instead of writing, I'm focusing all my energy on getting rid of my new cough, which I picked up somewhere between last Wednesday's trip to NYC and this past Sunday, checking my list twice (yes, I've been naughty and nice), and sublimating how awful it's going to be to be felt up by TSA workers when we fly to Chicago on Christmas Day to celebrate my first Christmas with my daughter and her husband's family.

Ho. Ho. Ho. Minus the bottles of rum.

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears...Oh MY!

2010-10-31T15:26:00.000-04:00

It’s Halloween - the second most popular holiday in America - so I'm wearing my Halloween socks, an orange shirt, and black pants in honor of this candylicious day, even though it's not my favorite holiday.

I wore Halloween socks to Zumba this morning, hoping they'd help me feel a little less ancient or movement-impaired than I usually do when shaking and shimmying like a lunatic, but they didn't. A few of us had on Halloween-colored clothes, but no one came in costume, thank goodness, which would’ve made Zumba-ing like a pack of wild Zombies impossible to do.

I had to stagger drunkenly to my water bottle between each song, for quick pick-me-up slurps, which did help me, miraculously, to make it through the entire hour without melting into a little puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West.

As soon as late afternoon rolls around, right before the sun goes down, I’m leaving the house to escape the knock knock, who’s there madness, though, since I no longer have any reason to celebrate, now that the kids are grown up and gone (boo hoo).

If you’re wondering where I’ll be, I’ll be hiding out in the dark at the movies, where I won’t have to worry about opening and shutting the front door (which sticks), my inability to curb my enthusiasm for eating miniature candy (which I can’t resist), or the incessant, unending ding dongs and loud, crashing door knocking of costumed children demanding treats.

After I get home, when Halloween is officially over, listen carefully (now that the doorbell's stopped ringing) and you might be able to hear me giddily counting down the days to my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. 25…24…

Cry Me a River

2010-10-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

In the last week, I’ve cried though two plays and a movies, plus a bunch of DVR’d TV shows I taped and caught up watching on Friday night while my husband, the card shark, was playing poker with his buddies.

Yes, it’s true: I’ve set the all-time Tiny Tears, Poor Pitiful Pearl record, which I’m humbled and honored to have set, thank you very much. In fact, please feel free to wave a Kleenex at your computer screens as you read on, because, believe it or not, I’m looking through you, oh yeah, I am - and I can see for miles.

Play number one: Broke-ology, playing at Theaterworks in Hartford, was so funny, poignant, well-acted, and heart-wrenchingly sad that I sniffled and snorted my way out of the theater and into the sun. It wasn’t until I was safely in the car that I was able to break into a round or six of loud sobs. My husband cried with me – but not as long or hard, because he was driving. When we got where we were going (a favorite restaurant), I made him take a walk around the block with me, so I could compose myself before we walked in the door for what turned out to be another yummy meal.

Play number two: Brief Encounter, playing on Broadway in NYC, was also funny, poignant, and well-acted, as well as incredibly innovative and clever. The set was minimal, but oh-so-creatively constructed, and the songs vintage Noel Coward. The actors were versatile and brilliant. The juxtaposition of clips from the original movie and videos made for the production were perfectly rendered. The end, though, turned out to be a four-Kleenex tearjerker, which was difficult for me, because I only had two stuffed in my jacket pocket.

Movie number one: Nowhere Boy, about the early life of John Lennon, before he became an official Beatle, made all four of us cry. (I was at the movies with another couple, right? You probably figured this out without me explaining, but I wanted to make sure, so I explained. OK?)

Since I’d also cried the night before while watching some of my DVR’d TV shows (like Parenthood, where I cried along with some of the characters, who were also crying), I’ve started to worry that I’m, maybe, baby, turning into a middle-aged, female version of Johnny Ray, the singer who cried like a baby when he sang on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Now that you all know I’m a world-class sobber, who loves to Cry Me a River, I heretofore guarantee you that the next time you see me, I’ll gladly cry a river over you.

Ten - Ten - Ten

2010-10-10T21:32:00.000-04:00

I know, I know – I haven’t written a word since exactly one month ago Just in case you want to know what I’ve been spending one entire month doing, I’ve been:

(1) Taking out storm windows, washing them, putting them back in, taking them out again, and putting them back in one last time (on the first floor).

(2) Vacuuming up paint dust (yes, the painters are still outside, driving me crazy).

(3) Fighting migraines.

(4) Growing a set of fingernails.

(4) Tutoring 1^st and 2^nd graders at Rawson School in Hartford. Reading.

(5) Teaching girls, boys, and moms how to knit each Wednesday from 3-4 at my local library.

(6) Taking the bus to NYC the second Wednesday of each month to cram myself full of cultcha.

(7) Doing the storm window shuffle on the second floor (the 3^rd floor awaits with bated bad breath).

(8) Getting my ears tested for hearing aids, which are arriving any day now.

(9) Forcing myself to give up bread, pasta, fruit, desserts, and cheese and crackers while sticking to the South Beach Diet, even though only six pounds have unstuck themselves and jumped ship.

(10) Reading, watching must-see fall TV, editing a book, exercising, and riding my bike.

Yes, I know that’s more than 10, because I'm terrible at math-centric writing (and speaking). Go ahead. Be my guest. Call in the math police. They've been buzzing around my door since I was forced to use flashcards to learn my multiplication tables in second grade. Ten Four. Over and out.

No Kisses for Mother (a comment on my last blog - and an obscure title some children's librarians will smile at)

2010-09-10T12:42:00.001-04:00

I’ve been engaged in a monumental battle with Migraine Madness, which translates into me lying in bed, emitting soft moans or humming segmented sections of songs (The Band seems to be this week’s top contender in Hummville), to help me cope with the unrelenting, burning, no-sleep-in-sight, head-crushing oh-you-don’t-know-the pain I’m in.

But, wait - there’s a silver lining in this sad tale, because my Shiatsu guru came to the house this morning (yes, people still make house calls - in 2010, no less), and painfully redirected some of my pesky electric impulses which had clumped together and refused to fire correctly on all four of their pain-producing cylinders. After she was done torturing me, I experienced, dare I say it, some relief.

Look, Ma. I’m typing, my stomach is demanding food, the outside painters have stopped sanding and gone for a long lunch break, and perhaps the world outside my closed windows (the dust from the sanding is back) can once again be my oyster (if only – I’d love some right about now).

And you worker bees out there imagined I was enjoying all my free time, now that I’m retired! Ha, that’s not even vaguely funny, considering how little of it I’ve been able to experience this week.

I wish I was livin’ la vida loca, or doing the Limbo (just in case you wondered, which I now realize you don’t, since I’m telling it like it is), but I’m not. Instead, I’m trying to keep my lamp trimmed and a-burnin’, because there’s trouble ahead, trouble behind (…you know that notion just crossed my mind).

Yikes, look out for escaping random song segments, which continue to pop out every second, mingling with the paint dust, coating my car, the ground, my windowsills, some of my neighborhood, and me and my little old migraine brain.

High Anxiety

2010-09-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

Two guys are out front (and alternately, in the basement), fixing our front columns and basement window (which, of course, needs more than just replacing, since the sill is rotted out and the plaster underneath is cracked). I’m trying not to panic, even though I just heard them arguing in Polish about the sorry state of something that’s terribly wrong with the columns and the faux porch above them. No, I don’t understand Polish – but I do understand what worried looks, pointed fingers, and loud voices mean: disaster.

The house painters are due tomorrow morning, and they’ll be living here for the next few weeks, which means my life will become a living hell as they scrape and sand up a storm. I can’t wait for the paint fumes to send me into Migraineland, a place I spend too much of my time visiting, as it is.

Yes, it’s a bone fide fact: I don’t do well with change, repair people, noise, smells, or life in limbo. Please, I’m begging you – don’t offer me any be positive comments, because they’re not going to lower my anxiety levels or calm me down. I’m on high alert, here, people, trying not to crumble like my old, needs-to-be-fixed house.

Oh, it’s gonna be a long, crazy September. Keep your fingers crossed that it’s sealed with a kiss.

Do The Math!

2010-08-24T11:34:00.001-04:00

Did anyone notice that in my last blog I mentioned that bad things come in threes, but since I’d experienced six bad things, that timeworn adage was obviously incorrect? Did anyone else notice that I’m incapable of doing the math? I am betting all my former breakfast, lunch, and dinner partners (and my math-centric husband) are laughing themselves silly over this faux pas, because they’ve experienced first hand my excruciatingly slow bill-splitting and tip-figuring routines at the end of each meal.

I admit it. I didn’t double-check my work, even though my teachers told me to when I was their nightmarish math disaster student, gazillions of years ago. If I’d paid more attention, I’d have easily figured out I experienced two sets of three bad things, and that…bzzzzzz…oops…time’s up. Papers and pencils down.

The multiplication police just arrived, and are going to take me away. They say I’ll have to stand in front of them and recite my times tables (neatly written on 3x5 cards) until the cows come home. Or the sheep stop needing to be counted by twos. Or my second grade, tenth grade geometry, and eleventh grade trigonometry teachers stop tossing and turning in their respective graves. (See, bad things once came in threes for me!)

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's THE FLY

2010-08-23T17:06:00.000-04:00

My attempts at casting my invisibility safety net and projecting a glass is half full juju failed, y’all, because:

(1) My daughter’s seven year-old car broke down a few hours after she and my son-in-law left Seattle, thanks to an air conditioner compressor meltdown. This derailed their journey and cost gobs of cash to replace.

(2) My stove went haywire and started beeping uncontrollably every second. I called its 1-800 repair number and was informed you have to turn off a circuit breaker for five minutes, not on and off for a second (like I did at first) if you want to reset a stove’s computer. So far (knock wood), it cancelled out that awful high-pitched beep, beep, beeping.

(3) The washing machine leaked all over the floor, the second time in a year, for no apparent reason. When I spoke with the salesman who sold it to me and asked him why, he replied with one of those, “Huh? Why this has never happened in the history of Bosch washing machines” numbers on me, then started to fill out the paperwork that would net the company $135 for a repair guy (who also claimed he’d never in his entire life heard of such a phenomenon). That figure was just to come out and take a look. A look? “I don’t think so,” I sighed. “I’ll wait until there’s a leak number three, thank you very much.”

(4) We have a mysterious infestation of big, black cluster flies in our kitchen. They seem to be magically and often invisibly popping through the kitchen screens, one after another, even after we closed the windows. Last night when we got back from picking up Harper the Granddog, there were more than I could count, so I’ve had to turn myself into a swatting, killing, vacuum ‘em up machine – just comin’ to get ya.

(5) This morning I slipped off the exercise ball in class, backwards, while holding two eight-pound weights (one in each hand). Both elbows came crashing down on the hardwood floor. Yes, ouch indeed. I iced, I took Motrin, and now I’m crossing my fingers that nothing terrible will develop (especially with the right one, which is the sorest right now). I called the orthopod and will be seen tomorrow at 1:00, thanks to Aunt C., who made me promise I’d be proactive instead of kvetchy and woe-is-me-ish.

(6) Harper the Granddog, who’s staying with us for an undetermined length of time while the kids stay with a family friend until their apartment is ready, is on a hunger strike. He refused to eat either dinner or breakfast. He smells terrible, is sad because he misses his mommy, and won’t play fetch with his favorite red Frisbee, no matter how much I beg and plead.

And you thought bad things came in threes? Ha! Count 'em up: Swat! Vroom! Swat! Vroom! Swat! Vroom! Swat! Vroom! Swat! Vroom! Swat! Vroom!

Shades of Blue

2010-08-16T21:59:00.001-04:00

Exactly one year ago today I wrote my first blog because I was sad, miserable, lonely, and blue after my daughter and her new husband packed up and moved from New Haven to Seattle. I missed my sweetie pie so much I fantasized that writing would help dull my sadness and, perhaps, erase it. I also imagined that blogging would bridge the vast three-hour time delay I was having so much trouble bridging (math has never been my strong suit).

Well, guess what? Fifty-seven blogs later, it worked, because as of September 1st, she’ll be baaaaaack. Yep. She and her husband are moving to New York, only 1 ½ car-driving hours away, where I’ll be able to see her in person, instead of in my imagination.

The movers arrived today and packed up their stuff, then the kids, Harper the granddog, and their computers and smart phones left Seattle late this afternoon. They’ll be driving like the wind for the next few days towards Chicago (my son-in-law’s home sweet home). When they’re done visiting The Windy City, they’ll snake their way further east to Bronxville, NY, their new home sweet home.

I’m wishing for a safe journey, a job offer for my daughter (she’s waiting patiently for a teaching position to open up), and some juicy blogging material. Oh how happy [she has] made me.

FYI: Surprise! Our chimney was repaired, and nothing terrible happened. Take that Friday the 13^th! The damage wasn’t as bad as the mason thought it’d be, so he’s going to charge us less than he originally estimated. Therefore, the glass has gone from half empty to half full. Next up: outdoor porch column repair. Are you surprised I’m expecting the worst? Please - don’t be.

Nightmare on Foxcroft

2010-08-13T09:57:00.001-04:00

It’s Friday the 13^th, so I’m trying not to let that scare me too much, even though I’m so easy to scare it’s almost funny. You should see me, slumped behind my computer, hands held in front of my face to ward off the evil spirits, waiting for the band to play, goo goo g'joob, as I wait for the mason and his sidekicks to arrive to repair my leaking chimney. I’ve moved the car into the street, cancelled my swim date, and am sticking around, just in case they mess up and need my help, should anything, God forbid, go wrong.

My husband thinks I’m nuts for staying home, because he’s a glass-is-half-full kind of guy who doesn’t believe, like I do, that everything can go wrong, no matter how vigilant you try to be. I am incapable of hiding this negative thinking (and its antecedent, my pretend invisible safety net) from him, because there’s always something there to remind me.

Oh, goody, the first bad news of the day just rolled in: our dinner out has to be cancelled, due to some excuses which I couldn’t really hear, because they were told to me in what came across to my deaf ears as a whisper. I didn’t want to shriek, “Speak up, I can’t hear you!” like I did the other day to a caller I thought was my husband, but turned out to be the mason, because I heard enough to get the picture.

Darn. Now I’ll have to forage for vittles later on today and cook my own dinner. There’s no rest for the weary. No time off for good behavior. No end in sight. No pain, no gain. No sleep, no dreams. No time like the present. And no offense taken when none [was] meant. I’m an idiom machine this morning, oh yes indeedy do I am.

They just arrived - I’ll keep you posted.

With Love From Me, To You

2010-07-30T14:15:00.000-04:00

I just returned home (greeted by a huge, black bug waiting for me on the kitchen counter) from a first ever three-day, two-night sleepover at one of my oldest friends, SC’s (no, not South Carolina’s) house. Because her husband is in Haiti, photo-documenting a pop-up medical clinic, and because one of her writer friends just published her first novel and was giving a reading, I drove almost two hours for some rare one-on-one time together (and to keep her from committing hari-kari from writerly jealousy).

Not once did we worry about monitoring our comments or behavior, stifling our laughter, or repressing our gastrointestinal comings and goings. Instead of worrying, we gossiped, ate too much and too often, laughed hysterically, confessed real and imagined sins, read aloud to each other from the New York Times, obsessed about our children, talked about books and the last episode of Mad Men, and sat quietly, side-by-side on the couch, our laptops on our laps, noodling around Computerland.

On my second day, we jumped into the car and drove to the neighborhood farm store for fresh mozzarella, which we combined with fresh-picked tomatoes and basil growing like crazy in the garden. We side-tripped to a favorite bakery, Lakota, to snap up a dozen outrageously sweet homemade cookies for late night noshing (a nice change from the fresh ice cream we scarfed down the night before). They were so sweet I was worried I’d lapse into a diabetic coma after one bite.

We schlepped into Boston for the book reading at the Boston Public Library, easily found an ideal parking spot in a nearby parking garage, sat with our feet in a reflecting pool of water near an old church in Copley Square, then slowly dragged ourselves in the heat to the right room for the book reading. After the book signing and congratulating, we accidentally stumbled upon my husband’s favorite sushi joint on Newberry Street, where we sat on high-backed stools at the counter and stuffed ourselves once again.

We stayed up past midnight, our eyes closing and snapping back open as we talked and talked. We found out that we’re so in synch that we both recently bought expensive leather pocketbooks we’d coveted, but ended up with odd, non-traditional colors (coral and yellow) instead of more traditional brown and black. We both stored them in our respective closets in their individual cloth drawstring bags, and hid their ridiculously high costs from our husbands.

Are three-day visits, late-night talks, and wrong-colored pocketbooks the stuff of future novels? Nah. But we are: a friendship lasting 37 years, mixed and matched with loving kindness, easy camaraderie and shared memories, loud burps and inappropriate comments, wishes made on stray coins found heads-up on the street, and endless teachable moments. We might not be back in the USSR, but we sure do know how lucky we are.

Water, Water Everywhere!

2010-07-12T16:30:00.001-04:00

I’ve grown up to be a scaredy cat who’s (currently) afraid of heights, lightning, guns, an encyclopedic array of bugs, getting my head dunked under water, violent movies, flying on small airplanes (or big ones), late night (or very early morning), phone calls, all of my doctors, sitting in the passenger seat of my husband’s midlife-crisis (convertible) sports car, sunburn, our central air conditioning system (it tends to spring leaks and ruin our ceilings), calling my swollen big toes “bunions,” and many other things that if I listed them I’m sure you’d believe I should be institutionalized.

A few weeks ago (or was it only a week ago? Oh, how time flies when I’m so hot I can barely move, let alone remember anything) I was in Banff (or as my son-in-law likes to call it, “Banffffffffffffffff”) with my son-in-law’s entire family (on his father’s side), celebrating his grandparents’ sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. One of the planned activities for the trip was a 2-hour white water rafting expedition down the Kicking Horse (or as I called it – Kick Ass) River in British Columbia. Since one of my biggest fears is head dunking, I told my daughter there was no way I was going to participate in this idiotic day of water torture.

But then, my son-in-law’s brother kind of, sort of cyber-bullied me and typecast me as a wussygirl - which I am, but privately, not publicly (until today). This left me no alternative but to prove him wrong by emailing back that I was, too, going, so there, you macho man, arm twisting, semi-relative. So, busted!

Oh, I went all right - but at first with such a negative attitude (and teary-eyed stoicism) you’d have thought I was marching off to be water boarded. I reluctantly squeezed myself into my one-piece black wetsuit, flimsy fleece sweatshirt, yellow rubber raincoat, orange life vest, and orange helmet. I avidly listened to each and every word preached to the group by the rafting guides. I memorized all of the rules, especially the one for falling out of the boat (“feet up, let ‘em greet your face”). My anxiety level was sky high, but I didn’t raise my hand when we were asked if anyone wanted to sit on the bus for the next two hours (which I oh-so-badly wanted to do). When our guide asked if everybody was ready, I was the only one who didn’t scream, “YES!”

The before picture taken of me in the rubber river raft (I sat in the back for the first hour of the ride, then in the front for the last hour) vividly exposes scared-shitless me: my mouth is pulled down to my chin, my body is slumped forward, and my entire demeanor emanates fear. The next picture, taken right after we’d slammed through our first huge wall of ice-cold water, soaking me inside and out, shows me grinning from ear to ear, water dripping down my glasses, arms spread out in utter abandon. Surprise! I loved it!

I loved being scared to death, getting soaked, not falling in (two kids from another boat fell in – our boat rescued one, mute with fear), grabbing on to the ropes (inside and out), following every, single direction, paddling (yes, I even paddled!), shivering from the cold (it was icy cold that day and the water was even colder), going head first into Class 4 waves, and (be still my heart) howling with delight. I can’t lie: I experienced extreme happiness, because the ride was fun (but also because I didn’t fall out).

Would I do it again? Maybe. Is scaredy-cat me glad she went? YES! YES! YES! (Too bad the rafting guides can’t hear me, eh?)

Blame Canada!

A Rose is a Rose (or a Leah)

2010-06-16T16:07:00.003-04:00

When I was little, I had two grandmoms, but I didn’t love ‘em both the same. Leah, my favorite, was sweet and kind, mine all mine, while Rose, my hands-down unfavorite, treated me bad and made me mad.

After both sets of grandparents ended up moving to the same Center City apartment building, I spent most Sunday afternoons throughout my childhood visiting one and then the other, starting with Rose and Sam, my father’s parents, and ending with Leah and Grampy, my mom’s. We’d take the elevator to Rose’s floor, where we three kids always hung back by dragging our feet down the long, carpeted hallway. Our hands glued to our sides, we’d refuse to knock on the door, hissing back and forth, “You knock,” and “No, you knock,” until our father or mother would reluctantly lift the knocker to announce we were there.

Rose and her witch shoes would loudly clomp to the door, where she’d fumble to unlock the many locks guarding her fortress. As soon as I heard the final clonk of the last dead bolt, signaling she’d be popping her angry face out like a frightening jack-in-the-box, I’d have to force myself to breathe, because I dreaded her claw-like hand’s grab, which pulled me to her mouth so she could suck my cheek instead of softly kissing it. I don’t know if the rest of my family hating being cheek-sucked or visiting her as much as I did, because we never discussed it, but I’m guessing they wished they could be anywhere else but there, too. Since I only vaguely remember silent Grandpop Sam, I’m guessing that’s because wild, Jewish Rose takes up most of the room in my now middle-aged memory bank.

After she unhanded me, I’d walk inside and pay silent homage to 4 year-old me dressed up in my hand-me-down party dress, heart necklace (my one and only present from Rose), and black patent shoes, captured forever inside the one displayed picture on the cabinet next to the door: Rose and Sam’s Fiftieth wedding anniversary at the Warwick hotel. All I knew about Rose and Sam was in this family portrait, where all of us (except my cousin M, who wasn’t born yet) were permanently captured together as a family for the first and only time. I know they say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but I wish my grandmom had been able to substitute even half of those thousand, so I’d have learned more about her than the almost-nothing I knew and know.

What I can tell you about Rose is that she was short, low-to-the-ground, Yiddish-accented, unfriendly, boxlike, and scary. She sported dangling arm flesh, bright red lipstick, black clumpy lace-up shoes, and a humorless countenance. I used to stare at her in dread, wishing to be anywhere else but near her. She didn’t hug, coddle, or talk, although she sure did loom large. The only grandmotherly act I remember her performing was to offer us a dish of dried, stale candy, which she’d slam down on the coffee table and order us to “Est and be qviet.” As deprived of candy as we three kids were, and we were seriously deprived (my mom, dead against sweets, convinced me that even looking at candy would rot my teeth), I was never able to enjoy (or swallow) one piece of that white-spotted drek, Sunday after Sunday, during those interminable visits.

My favorite part of the visit occurred when my mother cheerfully reminded Rose it was time for us to visit her parents, our well-deserved reward for withstanding Rose’s unpleasantness. Getting off the elevator a second time, we three kids would race each other to the next set’s door, then fight each other to be the first to knock with all our might. Once inside, I’d snuggle up to Grampy or search for treasures in Leah’s drawers, which held a mish-mash of colorful costume jewelry, eyeglasses of every shape and hue, and little plastic volcano-shaped viewfinders with pictures of the two of them posing jauntily on vacation in Florida.

Now that I’m a grandmom, I wonder what the grandkids will remember about me, now that I have my own set of unmistakable DNA-twinned arm flaps (even after religiously lifting weights) and enough inner Leah to shower the people I love with love. At least when they’ve traveled over the river and through the woods, they’ll find a stash of children’s book to rival a library, many of the kids’ best-loved toys, and my husband’s and my two hearts (silver and gold) ready to burst with adoration when the time comes for our little treasures to come knocking at our door.

Oh, boy, does hope ever spring eternal, “ready to [expatiate] in a life to come.” (Yes, I’m quoting Alexander Pope – who’d have imagined?)

Rose-Colored Glasses? Yeah, Right!

2010-06-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

As the gulf oil spill continues to gush and my migraines to crush, the news from Lake Woe-Is-Me is not as rosy as I’d hoped. I know, I know - I made a vow to remain positive for the entire month of June, but my migraine brain refuses to let me live up to it. On Monday it unleashed what has now turned into a three-day bender’s-worth of pain, and it’s been really, really (yes – really) hard for me to do anything more than lie around in the dark, blocking out the bright, sunshine-y days outside my window.

Some of you TV-watchers may be familiar with the series Say Yes to the Dress (I’ve never watched it - sorry), which is why I’d like to introduce you to my own, original, newly-developing spring blockbuster: Say Yes, You’re a Mess. Oh what clever things I think up when I’m lying in bed, listening to the wheels go round and round.

Here are some of the upcoming episode titles: Yes, I’m spending too much time groaning, kvetching, and moaning (but you would, too, if it happened to yoooooou). Yes, I find it difficult to look on the bright side (even though I have a terrific pair of dark prescription sunglasses). Yes, I know I’m not a magician, which is why I can’t wave a magic wand and stop the pain. Yes, I’m doing yoga breathing, although it only seems to work on others, for some strange reason. Yes, I’ve made promises I can’t keep, even though I’m not Tim Hardin. Yes, I can do something about this mess I’m in, which is why I’m going to see my drug-pushing neurologist tomorrow instead of eating lunch at home like I usually do. And, finally, yes, we have no bananas.

Doldon (that’s what I sound like when I say “hold on,” especially when I’m teaching ESL) to your hats. Someone at the New England Center for Headache (in Stamford, CT) just called to “congratulate” (her word, not mine) me for being “accepted” (who do they think they are? Harvard?) as a patient (I called yesterday, when the pain was getting me down, to find out if they’re on the up and up). But, first, I must fill out a gigantic packet of forms, then pledge to pay out of pocket, since they don’t accept our insurance, and, last but not least, wait until August to be seen (or sooner, should someone cancel an appointment – or die, whichever happens first – nudge nudge, wink wink). As you can imagine – yes – I’m not over the moon about this place.

And the beat goes on, even though, yes, I know I’m not Cher (but once, right before my senior year of high school started, I was at a school dance, and the guy I was dancing with said my long hair made me look like Cher).

Everything's Coming Up Roses

2010-05-27T22:02:00.000-04:00

The other day I was unable to stop and smell the roses (don’t worry, I’m not referring to Ringo Starr’s album) popping up like popcorn in Elizabeth Park, because I’m so industrially allergic to them. I’m also highly allergic to most other flowers, dust, pollen, yeast, pine trees, perfume, cigarette smoke, anything and everything scented (think shampoo, sunblock, lotions and emollients, makeup, and, oh Lordy, a list so long I’ve only just begun to describe it), as well as, in the past few months, alcohol, of all things (it triggers an instant migraine so painful that if I described it, you’d get one, too).

I tried to imagine myself smelling them while wearing my old, rubber nose plugs, which rest in peace in my underwear drawer in their little plastic container (since 1964!) to block out their luscious (yet sadly toxic-to-me) odor, but I couldn’t, because I was too busy sneezing and itching my eyes out. I had to race home like Atalanta and swallow a Claritan (which I forgot to take before heading outside). It’s a good thing I didn’t actually try out the nose plug thing, though, because if I had, I’d probably have been arrested for insane, rather than indecent, exposure.

Since I am no longer able to literally smell things like roses, I started thinking about metaphorically smelling them, especially after my husband challenged me to say and do (he left off think, thank god) only “positive” things for the upcoming month of June. I’m not used to channeling my Pollyannaish, positive side, but since I have 4 cheeks to turn, I chose one and accepted his challenge.

I will be spending the next thirty days burying my Scrooge-like, bah humbug-ness, and channeling my inner Mama Rose. As I aim for hitting the heights, keep your fingers crossed for me as I skip the light fandango, turn cartwheels across the floor, and turn an even lighter shade of pale. I'll keep you posted as I keep myself from going postal.

Let the wild rumpus start.

Take My Hand...

2010-05-19T23:16:00.002-04:00

Recently, I started thinking that you might think I’m strange because of my need to obsessively hyperlink the music that swirls inside my head with my tip-tappingly typed-up bloggerly-written content. If you do, I’d rather you thought of me as Michel Gondry-ish strange, even though, unlike Gondry, who holds nothing back, I hold myself back from all-out exposing you to the full range of debris circulating inside my aging head (like my 62 year-old treasure trove of stranger than fiction book and movie references, as well as 58 years worth of stronger than dirt T.V. shows and commercials).

What I think is strange is that when I listened to Mick Jagger (my favorite after John Lennon when I was in high school in the 60’s) being interviewed the other day on NPR, I was shocked that he sounded like a veddy upper class twit Brit. He’s a good enunciator, as is Bob Dylan when he hosts his radio show on XM/Sirius radio, but I always thought of him as a street-talking kind of guy. When he was asked about the re-release of the Stones’ remastered 1972 album, Exile on Main Street, he must’ve thought it was strange that he had to offer up serious answers to what I thought of as strangely zip-a-dee-doo-dah questions. I have no idea how he managed to keep himself from hooting and hollering after he was asked if he wrote his new lyrics for the new album’s unpublished outtakes the same way he did forty years ago.

I wonder what the interviewer (Renee Montagne) was thinking when she asked this strangely inane question, because who doesn’t write (and think) differently, forty years down the pike (unless they’re stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again)? Jim Morrison was right – people are strange, especially when they’re strangers.

Take my hand, and become a stranger in paradise with me, as forty plus years later I explain how I think differently, now that I’m one month into being a senior citizen. I now think people act strangely in stores, especially when they bump into me, try to pretend they’ve done nothing wrong (even though they have), and then glare at me like I’m strange when I refuse to apologize for their mistakes. The other day I was in Whole Foods, minding my own business, methodically sorting through the sell-dates on all the Fage yogurts so I could snatch up the newest batch. Suddenly, this insane woman smashed her cart into my leg, loudly yelled at me to watch where I was going, then stood there tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for me to apologize. Since I had done nothing to apologize for (I was the one standing still, right?), I refused. Instead of giving her the satisfaction of speaking, I stared straight into her eyes, gritted my teeth (in pain), rubbed my now-bruised leg, and wiggled my nostrils in and out like a rabbit. Strange, but true.

I now think people are stranger, yet, on trains, especially in the newly created quiet car, which didn’t exist when I first started taking Amtrak in 1958. Today they often refuse to be quiet – even after being called out for rude, annoying, inappropriate, uber loud cell phone talking. I love how they pretend to ignore the Ssh! This is The Quiet Car sign, my (and other passengers’) repeated requests to shut up, and often even the conductor when we rat them out (which always makes me feel like I’m complaining to my mom that my younger sister is bothering me). I’m now amazed how people who break the rules act shocked and surprised when they’re being confronted, then look around in wonder at us, their accusers (strangers, all), as if the theme from Twilight Zone was suddenly leaking its way through the train’s loudspeakers, proving that we’re the strange ones, not them.

After practicing yoga for the past 36 years, I more often than not believe that yoga classes have turned into refuges for strange, odd duck acolytes. My favorite yoga class is often invaded by a loud-breather guy whose noises make it impossible for me to keep a straight face as he turns what are usually quiet downward facing dog and warrior posing moments into high comedy. Instead of in-through-the-nostrils, out-through-pursed-lips breaths, he produces loud piggy snorts, gurgling, or deep-voiced groans, making it hard for me to focus on anyone or anything but him. His obvious-to-me strangeness doesn’t seem to bother the others, but unbalances me so much I have to om shanty om up a storm inside my head so I won’t fall off my tree pose and dissolve into hysterical giggles.

I can’t help but feel like a stranger in a strange land these days - maybe because I’m getting older, maybe because I’m not working full time and I have more time to think about strange things (don’t get me started on those Tea Party poopers) – or maybe because my past is butting up against me, laying waste my powers. Never fear - faces aren’t coming out of the rain – but I’m pretty sure something equally bizarre will emerge next on my middle-aged strange-o-meter, proving to me that I am, in fact, not morphing into old and intolerant, but merely experiencing strange days, indeed.

Count on Me

2010-05-11T14:47:00.001-04:00

I told the head of group exercise at my gym that she could count on me to wear an AARP-sponsored pedometer for 10 weeks, with the goal of taking at least 10,000 steps a day. Unfortunately, I’m not even close to meeting this goal, so my failure has turned me into a petulant pedometer pooper (which every party has, all alliteration aside).

I mean – how on earth is it possible that I, Ms. Flibber-de-Gibbet, the Original Restless Leg Swinger, am only averaging 5,000 steps a day, considering all I do is walk, exercise, then walk some more? Explain why no matter how I try to up my step quotient, I remain lower than low on the totem pole. I’m all ears, since these feet don’t seem to be doing enough walkin’.

My newest illogical answer is that I must be moving my legs and size 7 feet too fast for the pedometer to accurately measure my steps; therefore, it’s the pedometer’s fault, not mine.

As if.

Seriously, though – how can it be my fault, when I rarely sit still (even when I’m typing on the computer or checking email)? How come I, uber diligent student and slave that I am to this stupid, frickin’ black and white plastic clip-on box, am not in the top 50,000 step range, considering that I even clip the thing on my underpants when I get up, so that (God forbid) I won’t miss counting a step before I get my pants on? How come, now that I go out of my way to run up and down the stairs even more now than I did before I had to count my steps, they don’t add up?

I’ve decided that it’s your turn to explain, because this morning when I went to yoga, which was taught by a new instructor whose voice was pitched so low and New Age water-dripping-down-the-stones music was so droningly and ear-splittingly loud I couldn’t hear most of what she was telling us to do, I barely moved, let alone took steps. But, when I got home and checked my pedometer, it said I was up to 7,221.

I am no longer holding myself accountable, even though I try so hard. Maybe I do not understand, because something is happening here, but I don’t know what it is. Do you?

Where The He(art) Is

2010-05-07T15:36:00.001-04:00

I can’t make art, so I compensate for it by decorating the walls of my house with as much of it as I can. My newest acquisition, titled Tableau, is a Michelle Weinstein dipping-pen-and-ink-on-paper original, hot off the walls of her Smack Mellon Brooklyn, N.Y. exhibit. It arrived from Los Angeles (where she lives and paints), wrapped in so many layers of bubble wrap that it took me nearly twenty minutes to cut it free from its shackles.

As I sat down on the kitchen floor to look over Moo’s magnificent gift, my heart swelled with pride at her depiction of wintery trees, spine-like in their bareness. I spent so much time kvelling that I left myself less than five minutes to drive like the wind to the library for my last day of volunteering at its community knitting program (say that fast three times - and I can guarantee that the skin around your mouth will tighten and tone). It was my last volunteer hour there until the program starts back up in the fall, so I didn’t want to be late.

For our last day together, our library leader decided to reward our knitters by introducing a simple take-home art project: decorating cheap tchotchke pendants with bottles of glitter glue. Our young knitters instantly turned themselves into mini-Picassos and Pollocks, while I cheered them on, oohing and aahing like the true art lover that I am. Each kid’s creation-in-the-making looked really and truly terrific (unlike their knitting projects, which often looked mostly not-so-terrific). Watching them effortlessly work like busy bees, I was reminded yet again how I tank at creating art (even though I rule at teaching knitting).

I didn’t want to admit up front to them that I’m art-impaired, so I plopped myself down at the “adult” table and attempted to imitate them. I started with silver (oh-so-sparkly and tiara-ish), quickly switched to pink, green (a disaster – I smeared it all over the letter i), purple, gold, and last but not least, blue, which was the only color not being used. Soon the other adults joined me in decorating (and appropriating glitter glue squeeze bottles from the kids).

As I dabbed dots of colors along my pendant’s letters (f-r-i-e-n-d), I found myself muttering that I was not doing a very good job, was I. One mom across the table from me was painting a magnificently colorful pendant, as was the one across from her. My friend L, on the other hand, seemed to be having almost as much trouble as I was. We whispered to each other that we were not only far from terrific, but missing the “art gene,” too.

The kids had finished with their decorating by then, so they gathered around me, the person who always gathers around them to cheer them on with their knitting. They weren’t cheering, though, when they saw the disaster I’d produced. Instead they shouted things like, “Oh. You’re not very good at art, are you?” “Do you want me to do this over for you?” “I can make this look better, if you’ll stop ruining it.” “Were you the worst student in art when you were younger?” “You should wash off all the glitter or you’ll never fix this mess.” “You might be ‘the ripper’ when you help us knit – but you’re the dripper today, because look at you - you’ve smeared glitter glue all over yourself.”

Oh, were they ever happy correcting me, their weekly corrector. Laughter and joy literally dripped out of their mouths, along with the pink-iced cupcake, hummingbird cake, and snickerdoodle crumbs they were chowing down on. I can tell you that they loved “fixing” my mistakes for once, instead of me fixing theirs, and that I loved that they offered to fix L’s, as well (it made me feel a little misery-loves-company better).

Once they were all done, they happily grabbed their artwork, and L and I graciously donated our made-over pendants to the girls who labored over remaking them. I thanked the librarian for my thank-you gift (a sampler box of Whitman’s Dark Chocolates), we all hugged each other, and then waved good-bye with our glitter-covered fingers.

And, oh, was I ever happy, because I’d never to have to see that pendant again. Smiling like the Cheshire cat at my hour of artlessness, I couldn’t wait to get in my car and drive myself home, where the art is.

Cat and Mouse

2010-05-03T17:38:00.002-04:00

My migraine brain has been trying to kill me. It misunderstands me, and thinks I’m happy living with it, but I’m not. Today it’s playing mouse, so I’m playing cat as I lay in wait for this brief, pain-free interval to stop sticking like a perfect Olympic landing.

As I wait, I’ve been entertaining myself by sorting through my blockbuster laundry list of movies-in-the-making events. My first feature, Oh My God, Our Passports Have Been Stolen, stars me as a frantic, drawer-ripping-apart lunatic and my husband as a calm, naysayer who exclaims, over and over, “You always do this. You swear something’s been stolen and it never is. Remember your “stolen” earrings? Hidden in your sock drawer. Remember your “stolen” heart necklace? Hidden in a different sock drawer.”

This drama-packed film is full of insane dialogue (“Of course I didn’t move the damn passports. Don’t you know I never move things from their spots – especially this spot, which is 26 years old? Trust me. I know they were stolen.”), live action strewing of desk drawer contents, kangaroo-like jumps up and down stairs, and madcap rifling through random rooms and sock drawers.

The final scene slowly lingers on me, exhausted from searching for and shrieking about “stolen” passports, not listening to my husband first threatening to call the police to report our cleaning people and ruin their lives, and then repeating over and over, “I told you so.” Spoiler Alert: The passports were not stolen. I can’t be trusted. I move things, and forget I moved them. Yes, I moved the freaking passports inside a fireproof safe given to me by my pseudo-daughters, which they no longer needed after they emptied out their mom’s estate. Satisfied?

My second feature, Let’s Itch Again, Like We Did Last Summer, stars me (yes, again!) and my husband. The camera lovingly lingers on a silver BMW sports car, its top down. and on two grumpy middle-aged people (yeah – us again) squeezed into a pint-sized death trap, getting ready to zoom (“Too fast,” the wife screams, “You’re driving way too fast.”) to Tulmeadow Farms in West Simsbury, CT to treat themselves to their first favorite ice cream of the newly sprung spring season.

As they drive along in the husband’s midlife crisis convertible (or as the wife calls it, the penis), it’s clear that it’s a warm spring afternoon, because the car’s outdoor thermometer says 83 degrees. The wife has forgotten that the air is full of pollen and allergens. She has also forgotten to bring her antihistamines. (Yes – I admit it! I forget things. So sue me and get it over with, already!) The wife does remember to wear her (stupid) UConn basketball-insignia-ed baseball cap to ward off scalp cancer, though, so all is not lost.

When they arrive, there is a long line of people dying to eat delicious, creamy, Voted Connecticut’s Number One ice cream. Husband and wife stand behind some young, vital, sports-loving dads and their daughters, whom the wife takes an instant dislike to because she’ll never be young like them again. She tries not to drool as she waits for her small (2 scoops) red raspberry, chocolate chip regular not sugar cone. As she sucks saliva back into her mouth, she spies gorilla-sized bees flying above her head, foreshadowing something ominous. (You’ll have to keep reading to find out what, though.) They dive-bomb, so she keeps cringing and pointing at them, as if that’s going to stop them from scaring the living beejesus out of her or those damned adorable young dads.

Finally, the exhausted kid behind the window hands the couple their ice cream in both cone and cup (the husband always orders his ice cream in a cup, because he believes doing so will cut down his caloric intake, even though this ice cream is so chock full of fat and calories that one tiny cone is a drop in the proverbial bucket). Pan in on the wife grabbing a too-big pile of paper napkins, which she starts pointing at the damn bees, because they’re getting a little too close for comfort, for goodness sake.

The camera pans away as the two grumpuses slowly march away from the killer bees, into the woods, where they walk, slurp, and wipe. Suddenly, the wife’s left eye becomes wildly inflamed. She experiences an itching so strong that she screams, “I’m going to scratch this eye out, and I don’t care if it makes me go blind.” Zoom in on the swelling, red, allergic, pollen-filled left eye, which instantly swells up into a carbon copy of those damn killer bees’ bodies. Aah. Foreshadowing explained at last. Happy?

I’m sorry, but there’s not going to be a third feature, because I’m too old to sit through three movies in one day, let alone write about them. I’ll leave you with a brief synopsis-like trailer of the third (and last) movie, though, because I’m a nice person and I don’t want to leave anyone hanging. (Get it? Trailer? Hanging? Foreshadowing? Knick knack paddywack, give the dog a bone?)

With a roar sounding nowhere near as scary as the opening-credits MGM lion, this fake filmmaker (Yes, me again! It’s my blog and I’ll appear if I want to) must now slowly lower the curtain on yet another beautiful day in the neighborhood, because it’s time for her to work on keeping that mouse at bay, so that please, oh please, she will not have to experience another migraine before the day is done.

The Party's Over

2010-04-21T16:47:00.001-04:00

The phones (both cell and land – sometimes both at the same time) have stopped ringing, the cards have stopped dropping through the mail slot, the Facebook greetings and emails have ceased, the doorbell’s stopped ringing, and the UPS guy has stopped delivering. My 62nd birthday has come and gone, quick as a wink, so the party’s [definitely] over.

Our tasting menu of a lunch took four hours to eat, because there were so many courses and so much artistically prepared food delivered to our table by the window twenty stories up (overlooking Hartford and the Connecticut river). I lost count after the fourth course (I think there were more than eleven!), because I had to get up and take a walk around the restaurant, to redistribute my mussels, New Zealand cockles, head-on shrimp, and sous vided scallop to make room for more.

By the time our delightful waitress placed the so-called last plate of food in front of me, I was on the verge of tears, because I was afraid that leaving uneaten food on my plate would insult the chef (I ended up bringing it home), who’d stood at attention in his kitchen, cooking up deliciously-creative dish after dish, just for the two of us. I was unable to put one more morsel of food into my mouth, even though Hudson Valley foie gras and duck were staring me in my bloated face. I ate the leftovers for lunch today – and they were still delicious (even though I ate them cold, directly out of the take-out container, without heating them up).

I dried my eyes and watched my husband eat his portion, then I got up and walked around some more, so I’d be able to farci myself like a long-necked goose with a few tastes of dessert. I don’t know how I ate every morsel of the two desserts that were eventually delivered, but I probably managed to stuff them down the hatch because I have a separate compartment inside that opens its gates even after the regular compartments are chock full.

The icing on the cake of this birthday present extravaganza, though, my favorite present of the day (along with my newest commemorative UConn Women’s basketball T-shirt, and 3 Jane Austen paperbacks – which my husband will be reading aloud to me) was the lunch and learn portion of the afternoon. I was invited to come into the kitchen and watch the chef prepare four of our courses. I wish I could’ve helped him cook, too (he said a firm “No! No!” to the idea when my husband asked, because he works alone), but being a watcher still turned out to be a big treat for foodie me (I call myself foodmaven on Chowhound).

I was thrilled to my quickly-filling core to be allowed to step inside his stainless steel private Idaho and watch how a real artist works behind the scenes, because I never, ever slow down long enough to deconstruct or conjure up the origins of beautifully-presented food. I’m so glad I had a chance to stop being my usual little piggy eater self and smell the spices.

I loved watching, because I’m not (darn it) capable of creating culinary masterpieces like my idols, Hartford’s Noel Jones of On20 or world-famous Thomas Keller of Napa’s French Laundry and New York City’s Per Se. I’m a mere recipe-following cook (and pattern-following knitter), which is why my four forays into the kitchen were eye opening and delightful artistic lessons for someone like me, who, once food magically appears, gives it a quick oh-wow, isn’t-this-amazing glance, then slurp…inhales it. (I’m not referred to as Hoover for nothing.) My four instructive trips turned into welcome, concrete mini-lessons that reshaped and refueled my (un)orthodox foodieism.

In case you’re interested, we’re eating leftovers tonight, from the pedestrian dinner I cooked on Monday (eye of the round in special, secret sauce, cooked @ 300 degrees for three hours; a tossed salad with my daughter’s delicious lime dressing, fresh Parmigiano Reggiano cheese sprinkled on top), along with fresh asparagus (even though today’s New York Times food section had an interesting recipe for baking asparagus in parchment packets for an hour @ 200 degrees) and string beans, simply steamed, to perk things up. Oh – what the hey. I’m fancy-foodied out.

May the long time sun shine on you [and] all love surround you.

They Say It's [My] Birthday...

2010-04-19T13:59:00.001-04:00

I just changed the name of my blog to 62 and Counting, even though it took an inordinate amount of time and energy to remember how to do this, because at 1:10 a.m. I will be turning a year older (and a whiter shade of pale).

62. Sounds old. Sounds even. Sounds like icky-poo. Sounds about right.

I guess this means I can stop lying at the movie theater kiosk, where I like to buy my tickets because I can click the “senior” button and pay less (ah, baby, that’s-a what I like). Just think, even though I’m not senior enough to get a reduced fare bus (or New York subway) pass, I will be in three more years, giving me something new to look forward to. So, look out, Cleveland…

When people ask me about my birthday, I usually tell them that it’s the same day as Hitler’s. Now that I’m turning a year older, I’ve decided to try and act a bit less obnoxious (yeah – right), so I Googled April 20th birthdays to find out who(m) I share this day with, other than Adolf. I discovered that Juan Miro (one of my favorite artists), Senor Wences (“S’all right? S’all right”), Lionel Hampton, Tito Puente, Edie Sedgwick (oh, boy, does this mean I’m only six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon?), Carmen Electra (my brother will be happy about this one), Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Stephen Colbert (my sister will also be happy, since she’s always asking me if I watch his show), and way, way too many cricket and football players were also born on my birthday.

I’m also proud to share this day with all of my pot-smoking doper friends around the world (except in France, where they celebrate on June 18th), who will be lighting up a doobie to celebrate a day that Wikipedia calls “counterculture” but I call let’s go get stoned.

I won’t be smoking a joint, but I will be celebrating part of the day by chowing down on a 9-course tasting menu at On20, my favorite Hartford restaurant. I’ll spend the rest of the day gaining back all the weight I’ve tried to lose over the past week via the South Beach Diet (yeah, I porked up again), cursing my husband (who took off the day to celebrate with me - thank you, sweetie) for subjecting me to his idea of the perfect birthday present: food, glorious food, and enjoying the calls and emails from friends and family that (I hope) will trickle in, one by one.

In the words of my favorite band on earth, “it’s my birthday, too…” so I’m gonna have a good time! Oh me, oh my.

Wishin' and Hopin'

2010-04-09T14:22:00.002-04:00

I’m baaaaack (as Tina Charles exclaimed to Barack Obama after she’d cut the net down, since the team will be returning to D.C. a second year in a row), chugging ginger-pineapple-carrot juice, made for me by one of my pseudo-daughters to help me get back on my feet from the cold, sore throat, and now fever that have taken up residence inside me and my iffy immune system (which doesn’t seem to be all that particularly immune from Alamodome, hotel and airplane germs, does it?).

I came, I saw, and I conquered San Antonio. I rode the water taxi and trolley, walked along Riverwalk and the streets above it (which we explored from end to end), cheered like crazy for UConn (thank God they won, or I’d have gnawed off my wrist at being stuck in Texas without basketball to look forward to), and ate at some off-the-beaten-path restaurants. (I posted my comments on Chowhound, which you can read if you’re a member or have nothing better to do.)

Even though I’m officially sick, I’ve washed, folded, and put away all my UConn-themed T-shirts, read all the back issues of the Hartford Courant, and finished reading Lee Smith’s newest book of short stories, Mr. Darcy and The Blue-Eyed Stranger. I’ve recounted my Final Four adventures to my friends and daughter, spent way, way too much time in bed trying to fight off this cold, and utterly enjoyed the silence of home, where neither the loud, raucous UConn pep band nor those high-pitched gaggle of cheerleaders can continue to blow out my already-blown eardrums like it did in San Antonio. (I bet you didn’t know that I was the only fan in the entire Alamodome who wore earplugs to block out the noise!)

I’m glad my we-only-live-once, UConn-obsessed husband made me go with him on this topsy-turvy, four days and nights of men’s and women’s basketball-filled trip. I’m now wishing I was a baseball fanatic, like my son-in-law, so I could continue to read the sports page each morning and cheer for my favorite players, like I do all fall and early spring. Unfortunately, I’m not (it’s hard to teach this old Husky dog new tricks), but, hey, hope springs eternal…so who knows what tomorrow may bring.

Queen of the Wild Frontier

2010-04-02T17:00:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving on a jet plane for San Antonio, Texas – home of the 2010 NCAA Women’s Final Four. I’ve packed four, old, ratty UConn-themed T-shirts, sunscreen, a bathing suit, too many clothes and shoes, four library books, my iPod, and a tiny notebook, since I’m leaving my laptop home.

I’ll be putting on my great, big Girl Scout smile as I open myself up to the next five days of sun, river walks, Tex-Mex food, my husband’s UConn Women’s Basketball Team fanatacism, the hotel’s rooftop pool and Jacuzzi, and…last but absolutely not least…some great college basketball.

I’m ready for the challenge of being on foreign turf without a computer, across from one of my favorite childhood TV characters' (Davy Crockett) beloved Alamo. I thank my Uncle Justin for this early fascination of mine, which started on the day he picked up my brother and me in his convertible, a coonskin cap on his head, to take us on a fast trip to Howard Johnson’s. The waitresses flirted with him and admired his hat, and so did I.

I know that some girls are turned on by a guy’s muscles, but Davy Crockett’s hat does it for me.

I’ll be taking notes and pictures, which I’ll upload and share when I get back.

Westward, ho (and adios Fes Parker)!

Chicken Soup With Rice

2010-03-29T14:39:00.000-04:00

Even though I’m working on day two of a stubborn migraine, (last week I had one for 3 days, triggered by a wild and crazy Zumba class I tried for the first time on an early Saturday morning, with a wiggly, jiggly, gyrating, inspirational instructor known as “Sistah”), at least I can type, which I think is quite a trick for a cloudy, rain-rain-go-away Monday afternoon, don’t you?

It’s almost the end of March, a time when madness strikes big time at my house, thanks to the daily college basketball games that my husband and oh yeah, me, too, watch two-at-a-time on the split screen of our TV set (even though this year I really only care about the UConn women).

My bracket-obsessed husband kind of, sort of believes we’re going to magically score two tickets, then hop on a plane to San Antonio on Saturday to cheer on the women in person as they fight their way to the top of the ladder. I, on the other hand, believe we’re going to stay home and watch our women win, me on the couch or rocker, him in his first-dibs-claimed leather chair, bathrooms close at hand.

While I patiently wait for my favorite team to ace the NCAA championship, I’ve also been anxiously anticipating April, which T.S. Eliot called “the cruellest month…” but I call the best. How “cruell” can it be if it brings the Final Four, May flowers, “the whistle of returning birds” (Emerson), my (Hitler’s, too, aren’t we oh-so lucky to celebrate together?), Charlotte Bronte’s and William Shakespeare’s birthdays, plus 4:20 or National Get Stoned Day, April Fool’s Day (my friend SC’s birthday), Arbor Day, Buddha’s birthday (4-08), Tax Day, the Boston Marathon, and Earth Day?

I love this month so much that I sometimes let myself fantasize that “in April I will go away, to far off Spain [or Paris] or old Bombay, and dream about hot soup all day.” I know it will not happen this year, but it’s a great almost-April fantasy, nevertheless, to brighten up this dreary, rain-soaked day.

In reality, I am going to stay close to home, watching bball, checking out the crocuses and “a host of golden daffodils,” waiting patiently for my sneezing and eye-rubbing allergies to kick in, blossom and bloom, as March Madness gallops across April and slowly morphs into the merry month of May.

Purple Rain

2010-03-16T17:36:00.000-04:00

I returned home after spending three soggy, dripping, puddle-jumping days in New York City, soaking up culture as I walked among a sea of abandoned, bent, broken umbrellas littering the streets and sidewalks like road kill. I saw three plays in three days (Come Fly Away - Twyla Tharp’s brilliant choreography which co-habited with Frank Sinatra's singing, Red - Marc Rothko and his young assistant yelling and arguing about art, life, and death (both plays turned me into a clapping, stomping, cheering looney), and The Book of Grace, which was so awful it triggered a migraine). I ate great food (the prix fixe Sunday Suppa at Dovetail was especially wonderful for the third time in a row), and interacted with some outstanding exhibits at MOMA, The Museum of the City of New York (the Charles Addams exhibit was too short, but funny and sweet), and the renovated Eldridge Street Synagogue (our docent was not only adorable, but full of anecdotes and information).

My favorite art moment was the Marina Abromovic exhibit at MOMA, which I want to ooh and aah about, but not before I blurt out the words nudie people. (I also saw the William Kentridge and Tim Burton exhibits, which I found equally mind-blowing, so please check them out online.)

Abromovic’s performance piece started on the second floor of MOMA, so I stood outside the lines and watched her sit silently in her wood chair and stare across the wood table at whichever crazy participant volunteered to sit and stare back. The guard asked me if I wanted to join her, and I emphatically told him, “No way José,” because at first I thought it was kind of insane to sit in silence in a huge room illuminated by klieg lights, people watching and ogling, video and regular cameras whirring. But, the more I watched, the more I found this performance piece riveting and thought-provoking. I mean, when, if ever, do I sit silently and look at someone without bursting into words (or song)? Never is when. Because I lack the words to more thoroughly explain what I experienced, I’m going to channel Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons singing Silence is Golden, and Beverly Cleary’s Ramona The Pest (when Ramona was told by her kindergarten teacher to “sit down for the present.) to inch me a little closer to understanding the essence of this piece.

Let me be honest. I only checked out this exhibit at first because I read that there were going to be nude men and women “performing.” Since I haven’t seen all that many nude people up close and personal in my lifetime, I wanted to up my count. You know what? I didn’t ogle. Surprised? So was I.

The first two nudies (it varied – sometimes there were two women, sometimes two men) flanked a narrow doorway, which means I had to sidle past them and touch their live flesh and nether regions to enter the rest of the exhibit. The guard who had to stand there all day had a smile plastered on his face as I slithered past. Could you blame him?

The second nudie (a male) lay on a slab with a skeleton draped on top of him. Since I went through the exhibit twice, I got to see one circumcised and one uncircumcised guy. The under side of the circumcised guy’s penis was black. I wanted to know why, but there wasn’t anyone to ask, plus I knew that if I’d Googled it later, I’d only have gotten porn sites. Therefore, it’ll have to remain a mystery.

The third nudie (female) had to sit on a bicycle seat suspended above us on a wall. She was the only nude performer who made eye contact, but I ended up looking away after a few minutes, because I couldn’t keep my chattering monkey brain quiet. Or stop smirking.

When I got tired of seeing the nudies, I checked out the clothed people. Two stood across from one another, inside a glass enclosure, their index fingers pointing, but not touching, like Adam and God in da Vinci’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Two others sat back-to-back in another glass enclosure, their hair tied together. Unfortunately for me, I wouldn’t have been invited to perform this piece, because I have no hair to tie.

There were many videos to watch, when the silence and nudies got to me. My favorite showed a slew of men humping a large, verdant lawn. According to legend, it was believed that when men masturbate into the ground, a more abundant round of crops will grow. Another video played above the original set of the exact same rooms depicted in the video. Butcher knives formed the rungs of the ladder leading to the “rooms.” A constant loop of the artist talking about each and every thought and action she experienced while in these “rooms” blared from loud speakers, but the videoed verbal diarrhea exhausted me so much (almost as much as live silence, come to think of it) I had to run out of there.

In case you want to know, I didn’t find the live nudies any more titillating than all the painted and sculpted nudes I see standing, sitting, and living in silence in every, single museum I’ve ever visited. I found it exhilarating to experience art in the flesh. And in 3-D, minus the chintzy paper glasses.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this unbelievable exhibit, but I have to admit, it got me to think of something other than UConn basketball, the two migraines I got when the weather got stormy, and how much weight I’ve gained this winter. Quite an accomplishment worth noting, eh?

I Wonder Why

2010-03-08T09:48:00.001-05:00

I wake up every, single morning with a different song playing inside my head. I don’t know if this is normal, and I sometimes wonder why, but it’s been my normal for as long as I can remember, so it’s normal for me.

The other day I woke up humming Storm Warning, a Bonnie Raitt song I hadn’t heard in years. I couldn’t figure out why that exact song was spinning around inside, until a few minutes ago, when I leaned over to fill in my Headache Calendar. Yep. Each and every mega-migraine I’ve had in the past three months has coincided with a storm. Coincidence? Serendipity? Ouch.

I should probably do some statistical research correlating my wake-up songs with the events of my life, but the thought of it exhausts me. On the other hand, if I did it, maybe I’d learn something new about myself, since learning something new every day is a goal I try to fulfill, day in and day out. I don’t know where the idea came from (either my mom told me – or a teacher – or the songs inside my head), but it doesn't matter, because it’s become such an integral part of the me nobody knows (along with those random wake-up tunes - oh yeah).

Right now it’s 9 a.m., so I’ve already learned a few new things. One: my current UConn basketball heroine, Maya Moore, signs each autograph with a Bible verse. Two: New York City’s High Line runs from Gransevoort Street to 34^th Street, between 10^th and 11^th Avenues.

What haven’t learned, though, is what’s gone wrong with my email. Each day I’ve been getting a slew of mail titled Mail Delivery Subsystem, but I can’t figure out how to stop them or why they're continuing to arrive. My daughter told me to change my password, but that hasn’t made a difference, becasue those mailer daemon mail-hackers continue to use my email for their own purposes. I’d love to learn how and why so I could cut them off for good. Trying to figure out why has kept me up at night and anxious during the day.

But, since the sun’s shining, and my stretch and tone exercise class is beckoning, I'm going to suspend my disbelief for a little while and seize the day on this rare almost-spring morning. Today I've got the sun in the morning and a UConn game at night. Who could ask for anything more (Moore)? Go Huskies!

Fallin' and Flying

2010-02-25T21:27:00.002-05:00

I’ve been a movie lover since I was a little girl, my maybe because my grandfather was a film projectionist, my cousin owned a movie theater, or my cousins, brother, and I went to the movies every Saturday afternoon. I turned into one of those crazies who stay up past bedtime each March to watch the Academy Awards (and now the surgically enhanced stars parading around in their designer clothes), even though these days you’d think I was old and wise enough to know better. Don’t worry, I’m not, since it’s one of my all-time favorite habits, which I refuse to break (along with cleaning my ears with Q-tips). This is why my DVR is set to tape both the red carpet and awards ceremonies.

What I hate watching, though, are bad movies, because I’m a movie lover who finds them annoyingly frustrating and disappointing. So much so that my husband created the five-minute rule to cut down on my complaining (even though sometimes we don’t follow it, because hope continues to spring eternal). The rule is: we watch for five minutes, and if it’s not good by then, we stop, knowing with 100% certainty it’s never going to improve (even though most people – and critics - swear up and down that we’re wrong).

I hate to hate those crappy movies, but I do, and yet, I get no kick from hating them (although I do get one from champagne and watching ice skaters fall). I’m such a movie-lover, I watch almost everything (except violent movies), because I’m convinced I’ll miss out on the next best thing if I don’t. This means I end up watching (for five minutes) a lot of crappy ones.

Like 17 Again, which I watched last week when I was sick, and which I thought was one terrible, drekky, crappy film, even though both my husband and daughter promised me I’d love it, since they both did. Feh. Or The Hangover, another five-minute failure, even though my sister, son, and many (too many) friends said it was hilarious, and made them laugh non-stop. I hated it so much I had to get up and walk out of the room, away from the TV, where my husband stayed, in violation of his own rule, even though he agreed that it stank after less than five minutes.

I know. I know. No one likes a movie hater, which I admit I often am. Ooh – this definitely explains why I’m never going to be unconditionally loved in my movie-schmoovie lifetime, doesn’t it?

But – in my defense – there are so many movies I love, love, love. Unfortunately (for me), many (O.K. – most) aren’t embraced and adored by my friends (or most of the world), so my favorites often turn out to be so foreign even to those who try to please me by watching them, that I come off as a radical, weird-movie-promoting wackadoodle, which I don’t think I am.

What’s worse than the oddball label is how I have to constantly force myself to bite my tongue when the topic of movies comes up, which it always does, because I’m obsessed with talking about them. Yeah, it’s true: I tend to blurt out a stream of negative opinions about what I call drek (and most people call must-see). But if I don’t, I don’t have much to talk about, like, say, about one of my favorites, the six-hour Italian masterpiece, The Best of Youth, which I love to recommend but rarely succeed in convincing anyone to love or watch, no matter how hard I try.

I should probably stop trying so hard, even though my friends never do. They constantly try to convince me that the movies they love (which, duh, I more often than not end up hating) are absolutely, positively worth seeing. Since I rarely agree, that means I’m rarely in sync, odd woman out – a veritable, cultural poopy pants. Even though it’s no longer 1966, when fitting in mattered (and I made sure I fit in back then, come hell or high water) – it still stings to be out of mainstream America’s popular culture loop. Sigh.

So – for all of those who’ve asked: no, I haven’t seen Avatar (please! blue people? 3-D glasses? Spare me!), Up, The Blind Side, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious (I read the book about twelve years ago, though), or A Serious Man.

I saw An Education, which I didn’t love, because I’m not a fan of watching older men prey on younger, innocent women, and Julie and Julia, which I adored (plus I followed Julie Powell’s blog when it first appeared, and I read her subsequent book).

I saw Crazy Heart, which I thought was merely eh-only-fair (it was only playing in one out-of-the-way theater in Manchester, CT., so I should’ve known it wouldn’t be all that great). I loved the music (six original songs, no less), but utterly hated the greasy-haired, alcoholic, cigarette-smoking Bad main character. He made me cringe (but my friend swoon). No way, José, I told her, would I have had either sex or a relationship with that loser guy, even though the women in the film (and my friend) seemed to want to jump into dirty, unmade beds with him. I’d run in the opposite direction, I exclaimed, holding my nose as I backed away so I wouldn’t get a migraine from inhaling the boozy, cigarette-smell odor I’m sure he wore like an invisibility cloak. My negative review annoyed my friends, I’m sure, which is probably why they defiantly hooked arms and loudly announced that they adored both the characters and the movie. My husband gave me a CD of the soundtrack for Valentine’s Day – so I made them a copy to make up for not liking the movie they loved.

I thought Invictus was one-note, because it presented the same information over and over, had Matt Damon acting like anything but a famous South African rugby star and contained way, way too much rugby (which I thought was booooring. Thank god I’ll never have to watch that ever again). My husband frowned at my critique (which makes sense, because he cried during parts of the movie), then argued that I should’ve been as moved as he was by the Nelson Mandela story. I told him I was moved by the idea of Nelson Mandela, just not this film version, which I found a weak substitute for my fantasy of the man. I couldn’t figure out how to care about Morgan Freeman as Mandela, whom he portrayed as so he-manly sports-focused. Feminist me hated that Mandela used a guy-centric game to advance his country, even though I’m a rabid UConn basketball fan.

And that’s all, folks!

Ah! Woe is Me

2010-02-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

I was feeling sorry for myself today, because my husband and visiting daughter got to traipse off to NYC to visit my granddaughter, while I had to stay behind because I’m sick. I thought I’d perk myself up by watching the movie Bright Star, Jane Campion’s take on the poet John Keats and his muse (and love) Fanny Brawne, but I ended up sobbing uncontrollably, along with Fanny, after Keats died in Rome. I continued to sob some more while I reread The Poems of John Keats, a lovely, leather-bound book given to me by an ex-boyfriend I first met in Amsterdam in 1968, on my first trip to Europe. (He was leaving me to visit Keats’s apartment next to the Spanish Steps, so he promised me a present when we met up back in the USA.)

Ah – isn't there just something to love about crying over spilt prose?

Because I still need cheering up, plus a quick reentry back into the 21^st century, I’m going to curl up under my quilt and watch the movie 17 Again, which both my husband and daughter saw last night and promised me was entertaining.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! This afternoon's turned into a two-movie, marathon-watching, beautiful day in my indoor, homebound neighborhood.

Some Pig

2010-02-09T22:40:00.003-05:00

I know – some of you are going to complain that I should be writing about interesting stuff, like string theory, sustainable energy, or how hard it is for me to lose weight in the winter. I’m even betting that a few of you are going to exclaim, “Who wants to read about your knitting addiction?” Please, don’t prove me right, because that’s who and what I was and now am, once again, which is why I’m asking you to grin, bear it, and (pretty please with strawberries on top) give my newest blog entry a chance to unravel.

Allow me to offer you a tiny peak into my knitting history: I taught myself to knit when I was about five (or four – who can remember that far back?) with pick-up sticks and string. I have no idea how or why I taught myself to knit, because there sure wasn’t anyone around me to copy – except for my Aunt Ceil, a fabulous knitter, who I saw maybe once in a blue moon during my entire early childhood. My one and only knitting memory of her involved raffia (she was making a sweater out of it), which I remember thinking was incredibly exotic and exciting. But, since I was about 11 at the time, and I’d already been knitting for years, I would have to guess I didn’t inherit my knitting gene from her, and that I was born a knitting addict – with the propensity for knitting and purling woven into the very fabric of my DNA. That sounds wacky, but interesting, eh?

Moving on: If you’d lived in Cambridge, MA with me in the 60’s, you’d have known that I also taught myself to crochet (with a little help from a mean knitting store owner in Central Square, who didn’t want to teach me, she just wanted me to buy yarn and get the hell out of her store). My first big crocheting project, which continues to live with me today, covering the back of the living room couch, was a patchwork afghan (the same one appeared on The Cosby Show, much to my delight). I worked on it my one semester in college, during large lecture classes – probably driving my geology professor, Erskine Caldwell’s son, insane. (He once asked me if I was related to Madame Dafarge, which meant he was a Dickens reader, but not a good enough reader to know that Dafarge was knitting, not crocheting, like I was.) I later pieced that gigantic project together in Philadelphia, on the floor of my boyfriend’s parents’ apartment – taking up the entire living room and driving his father insane (because I was having so much trouble deciding which square went with what). That boyfriend became my husband, whom I later knit an Irish Fisherman Knit sweater for, which he wore to death (but before he did that, my sister-in-law memorialized it and him in a drawing she did of him holding our baby son, which I framed and hung).

I continued to knit (and sometimes crochet) things for my kids, family and myself (plus two Cabbage Patch dolls) - until one day, when I had to quite, cold turkey, because I started having hot, hot, hot flashes that made me so boiling hot that just hearing the word “wool” threw me into a blazing round of intense sweating and flashing.

I kicked my knitting habit so thoroughly that I gave away my huge Mexican basket of yarn on Freecycle. Yep. I got rid of my lifetime stash of yarn, which I’d religiously saved for all my one-day-in-the-future projects. I quickly became a knitless wonder (since I could no longer wear even one sweater out of my collection, or anything wool, turtleneck, or long sleeved). I turned into a sleeveless, 100% cotton top-wearer, because that sweaty, always-steaming skin of mine now had to remain uncovered (and, alas, knit- free).

Then, I found out I was going to be a grandmother. Although I’d given away all my yarn (ouch – I no longer had my vast collection to create with), I smartly held on to my knitting needles, knitting and crocheting tools, and patterns. Thank goodness I did, because the second I found out I was having a grandchild, that old knitting addiction had me in its spell, and I was once again obsessed with knitting things, small things - like a striped hat and socks, to begin with (small things = small sweat droplets).

The day I fell off the wagon and found myself back under knitting’s spell, I found I was unable to go anywhere without my latest project at my side. I now knit at monthly library board meetings (so far, no one’s said I had to stop – or mentioned Madame Dafarge), during UConn basketball games, in the car on trips to NYC, and each Wednesday afternoon at my neighborhood library, where I volunteer in its all-ages knitting program. I joined Ravelry, an online knitting forum – where I’ve learned a few new tricks (thanks to YouTube knitting videos), and spent far too much time ogling other people’s knitting projects.

A few weeks ago, my daughter’s started knitting (I taught her how when she was in college) - finger puppets for her new niece – and she calls me for advice on how to follow directions. Friends have started calling to ask me to help them fix their knitting, which means the word’s getting out about me and my knittingness.

I’ve enjoyed picking up the pieces and putting them back together again, even though yarn is more expensive than it used to be. My fingers have loosened up nicely and these days I feel like Charlotte the pig, lovingly knitting (yes, knitting - not weaving) my own version of T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C into each new, little creation, because sweating the small stuff is lately a small price to pay.

Let It Snow

2010-01-28T12:11:00.000-05:00

After my car skidded past my driveway on my way home after tutoring this morning, I realized it was more slip-a-dee (as my daughter used to say) out there than I thought at first. I’ve been monitoring the snow as it falls at a furious slant outside my upstairs window, and as I look over my shoulder to watch it fly, I can hear the voice of my weather-phobic friend ringing in my ears (along with my usual tinnitus), telling me to call and cancel my noon doctor’s appointment, because driving in this weather is dangerous.

I feel like a wussy scaredy cat doing it, but I do it, anyway, so I’m now officially stuck inside, all dressed up with no place to go – a new doctor’s appointment under my belt, so to speak – an afternoon of leisure lying before me like a white blanket.

I am either going to: (1) watch all the DVR’d TV shows taking up space on our TV’s hard drive (2) watch Adam, the movie I rented from Netflix (3) cook up something yummy for dinner (4) read one of my library books that’s waiting patiently for me in a pile at the side of my bed (5) learn how to use my camera by reading the camera manual that came with my new Canon PowerShot (almost two months ago) or (6) noodle around on the computer.

Groovin’ on a Thursday afternoon…

What Would You Think?

2010-01-18T14:50:00.000-05:00

Since writing my previous blog, the one in which I vented about my annual winter hatred so I could get it out of my system – I’ve morphed back into my official (well, official since 1994) winter persona: Ms. UConn basketball sports fanatic. Hell, yes – the yelling, screaming, knit one, purl two, critic-at-large I turn into until March Madness ends and April showers begin has officially re-entered the building.

Check me out: My tush is mush and my weight is up, since all I do every other night and sometimes day (on weekends) is sit in front of the TV in our comfy Stressless leather reclining chair and cheer on my favorite winning women and more-often-than-not losing men. Oh, yeah, baby (as Dick Vitale would say) – you’re looking at me.

I’m an equal opportunity fan, oh yes I am, someone who religiously reads the sports section of the Courant, listens to her husband’s daily statistical recitations (well, I try to listen, but I often tune him out, because statistics are not my cup of tea), tunes in to AM radio before each game so she can hear what the coaches have to say, and watches each and every The Geno Auriemma Show on CPTV so she can soak up even more details on the women’s team.

I’m also someone who rarely misses a game, thanks to DVR, unless I’m struck down by one of my vicious migraines (but never fear - I make up for a miss by reading about it and then listening to my husband recap it in detail the next day).

Hey – wait just a minute, here. I have a sneaking suspicion that my true basketball confessions are making you drowsy. You’re suddenly thinking you need to shut down your browsers, aren’t you? Yawns of boredom are popping out of your mouths, aren’t they? Some of you are actually shaking your heads or laughing at UConn-basketball-focused maniacal me.

If any of the above describes you as you read my newest Splog (sports blog, for those who’ve never heard this word I just made up), please stifle your big sighs of oh-shut-up-already. Instead, buy into my obsessive, little ole sports-crazed exhortation to check it out.

Seriously. I beg you not to miss one more night of Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Jerome Dyson, and Stanley Robinson – just to name a few of my 2010 faves. I know I’m merely the me nobody knows – that oldie-but-goodie basketball diarist holed up in cold, grey, not-New-York-City-but-only-CT. I admit to being a little bit of a crazy lady (I wear blue and white UConn-themed T-shirts to exercise class), but even so, pay attention to my pleas.

See me. Hear me (but no touching, please). I’m down on my knees, begging you, please: Join my team. If you do, you might just end up like me, surviving another season, stayin’ alive, watching “my” guys, chasin’ away the blues.

Go Huskies.

I've Got Plenty of Nothing

2010-01-07T11:49:00.000-05:00

It’s one week into 2010, but I have very little to write that anyone other than poor, pitiful me would like to read, because my thoughts aren’t very interesting or newsworthy in the winter. They abound in the spring and summer, start falling off in November, then die out completely in January, because…drum roll... I’m a bona fide winter hater.

I haven’t written since December because I am convinced that only other haters like me would want to read about why I hate living in ice-cold New England in January and February (and sometimes March). Who but another winter-hater would care that I can’t plan anything, because I worry it might snow or ice up and the roads‘ll get slippery and cancel all activities? How I hate that it’s dark when I wake up, dark again at 4:45, and darker, still, in general? How it’s so dry inside that I have to slather anti-skin-crack cream on my heels and thumbs? How my scalp itches and flakes so much I can’t wear my beloved black because of schmutz fallout? How the wood and paint on all the woodwork in my house is cracking? Why the heat seems to be on more than off (or how much oil costs - a fortune)? How my car is covered in salt and rime, but if I take it to the carwash, my hands’ll get chapped after I dry it off, then the temperature will fall just enough to melt the ice and filth up that just-cleaned and dried car and I’ll have to start all over again?

See, I told you that you wouldn’t want to read about my day-in-and-day-out, once-the-temperature-drop-into-the-teens-I’m-a-mess winter-hating, even if I try to make it sound like I’m just a crazy crank or explain it away, like I do, most often to complete strangers (since everyone I know learns to avoid me from January 1^st to March 1^st). Who but a stranger (or another winter-hater) would want to hear me describe in vivid detail how cold and miserable I am, how I hate, hate, hate snow, how I have to rub my hands together (it feels so handwringingly effective) like I’m Lady Macbeth, or how chapped my lips are, because no product out there blocks that freaking wind chill?

You winter-loving people out there, and I know you outnumber me – I am writing down this stuff so you’ll read my pain and weep…err - empathize. Please?

Oh dear. I should’ve kept all this to myself, right? I should’ve just detailed, instead, how I’m knitting an interesting Dofuku jacket, watching hours of UConn basketball on TV, reading (but nothing worth mentioning…yet), cooking the usual repertoire (unlike my daughter, who’s turned into an updated Cook’s Illustrated), catching up on a few new movies (Up In The Air, Invictus, and It’s Complicated, La Danse), planning a short trip to NYC (here I come, Jane Austen, get ready for me to check you out at the Morgan Library), exercising, or planning to tutor elementary kids in Hartford.

But – don’t you know? It’s so much more fun to winter-bash, because it warms my heart and gets my blood boiling. Keeps me on my icy-cold toes, and stokes that brrr-ning, brrr-ning, yearning feeling inside me. Oh, yes it does.

Red and Yellow and Pink and Green

2009-12-26T16:12:00.000-05:00

When I found out my 28 year-old daughter had morphed into an avid NPR-listener, just like me (she even quotes from it in casual conversation), I decided it was time for me to morph into her by turning back into a Fiestaware user, because ooh, la la, [they come] in colors everywhere…they’re like a rainbow.

What? You don’t know what Fiestaware is? Then, it’s time to check it out. We’re talking color here, from cinnabar to the newest hue, lemongrass. Today I restarted my collection with unmatched dinner plates, so I can pretend I’m on an LSD trip as I chow down my oatmeal in a plum bowl, lunch leftovers on a sunflower plate, and dinner on lemongrass and scarlet. If it sounds like I’m now channeling the game of Clue, I’m not. Instead, I’m honoring the brilliance of my daughter’s choice of mixing good, old (but new) colorful dinnerware, started by two strangely-named brothers (Homer and Shakespeare) from Ohio, back in 1871.

This morning I drove to Macy’s, where they were having a buy-one-get-one-free Fiesta sale, with an extra $10 off if I bought everything before 1 p.m. Since I was the only one buying, I had plenty of time to choose my 6 new dinner plates in 6 different colors. This was definitely a radical departure for me.

Travel back in time with me for a second, and meet me, a dyed-in-the-wool white-color lover when it comes to décor (all our walls are painted white, much to the chagrin of one of my color-loving friends). It’s 1984, and I want to replace our set of plastic Heller dishes with something more grown up. I have come late to appreciating the art and design of Fiestaware, but I am a scaredy-cat, so I only have the nerve to buy white, even though I know from a friend across the street who collects the original colors like green and pink, that there are better choices to be made. Since the originals are more expensive than my new lead-free replacements (remember, I’m a cheapskate), I don’t listen to her and scout out oldies but goodies. I do, on the other hand, become an instant convert, even though my new conversion is actually considered a bit tame by New England standards.

Jump ahead a bunch of years and meet my now grown-up daughter, also a convert (she quickly rejects my safe, white color choices, though). She asks me for my original, scratched white set, which I’ve replaced with a new all-white set of dishes from Williams Sonoma (yeah, I’m still a tighty whitey). She, on the other hand, psychedelically leaps and bounds ahead and replaces my original white dishes with a bouquet of colors (old and new, because she didn't inherit the cheap gene). They quickly take over her kitchen shelves, and alienate her future husband, who doesn’t understand Fiestaware obsessions. (But, wait - he’s no stranger to Chicago basketball and baseball obsessions – are you, T?)

After visiting my daughter in Seattle and eating off a different colored plate each meal, I decide to rekindle my Fiestaware obsession, replace white with color and morph into my daughter. Yeah, I’m a copycat, but so what?

From now on in, as I eat on my new plates and listen to NPR (Car Talk, Fresh Air, The Food Schmooze, Colin McEnroe, All Things Considered, or Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me), let it be known that I’m proud to share her obsession, act the part of her East Coast twin, and [eat] a rainbow.

White on (or should I say, white out?)!

Lovely Rita

2009-12-25T21:58:00.000-05:00

Since I don’t celebrate Christmas, the way I’ve learned to deal with feeling left out and lonely is to play as many Beatles albums as I can from the minute I wake up on Christmas day till about 9 p.m. I crank up the volume and blast their music, singing along throughout the day and night until I’m so hoarse I can barely talk. Playing Beatles albums is my one and only Christmas ritual, and listening to them helps me forget about not getting presents, being apart from my kids, and not eating the yummy food that I imagine the rest of our Christmas-celebrating world is pigging out on (and I’m not).

This morning I sang along as I cooked breakfast, stopping to cha-cha and twist when the music moved me. I harmonized along with John and Paul as I segued into baking sugary desserts, mashing avocados for guacamole, and getting ready to take the food and myself to our early afternoon eat-a-thon at our friends’ house. This means I had to cut my Beatles-playing a bit short, but I didn’t mind, because I got to spend the rest of the day with my pseudo-grandkids, T and R, their aunt M, and both devoted (but exhausted) parents. I sat on the floor and played dinosaurs with T, kissed and hugged R so she’d sing and smile, and I swear, being with the smartest and most adorable pseudo-grandkids in the world made me one happy little non-Christmas-celebrating clam.

Speaking of clams, our friends cooked up a huge pot of paella, packed to the gills with fresh cherrystones. I’ve never had the nerve to make it from scratch, myself, but maybe it’s time to reverse that fear, because I’m a paella-lover from way back. I first tasted it when I was a student hitching through Europe in 1968, and I ended up in Madrid, because a friend of mine was an exchange student there for the year. I ate paella every, single afternoon at a tiny restaurant that made it to order. Since it took a loooooong time to cook, we’d drink sangria to fill the time, which means I was always more than tipsy by the end of the meal. After we’d finished stuffing ourselves, we’d stagger out and spend the rest of the afternoon lying around the swimming pool at the University of Madrid. I was usually so looped I can now barely remember whether I was sober enough to swim. But, my taste memory of that paella is still with me, thank you very much.

It’s past 9:30, I’m done singing and digesting my paella, and John, Paul, George, and Ringo are officially silenced for another eight-days-a-week year. To all you reminiscers out there - have a happy, healthy and merry.

Poetry in Motion

2009-12-19T20:37:00.000-05:00

Reading your poems

filled me up

like a soda-shop milkshake

made from scratch,

with vanilla ice cream,

and chocolate syrup,

in its own silver

ice-cold

metal container.

It’s 1964.

The jukebox

is playing 45’s

in the background.

The booths are filled with

Haverford high schoolers.

Watch me delight

in my happiness

as I sip my frothy, cold drink

through a paper straw,

whose wrapping I’ve removed

and blown into the air,

so it can hit the friend

sitting across from me

square on the nose.

I duck

to avoid

her retaliatory missile,

so it lands

in my water,

and sends us

into loose-lipped

paroxysms of giggles.

Oh, oh, oh,

it seemed

easier

back then,

to slurp up

life’s

every, last

drop,

didn't it?

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

2009-12-14T18:23:00.000-05:00

One of my first memories is standing next to a large, boxy record player and watching a huge, red, vinyl Babar The King record spin round and round, filling the room with gloomy hunter-killing-Babar’s-mother music. I grew up listening to my music on a different record player, a clunky, wooden Telefunken radio, and later, when I was about 7, a tiny transistor radio with one earplug. By high school I’d graduated to a white, plastic hi-fi/stereo, but today, I listen on my iPod Nano, Bose Wave radio, Sirius/XM radio (in my car), my computer, or. sometimes still, our old turntable.

I guess this makes me a tech-lover, but the problem with all this tech-loving is my 1948-engineered brain. The poor thing gets easily overwhelmed and challenged by the daily struggles I torture myself with as I try to master each new device I buy, thanks to planned obsolescence. Lately, I feel like I’m drowning in technology overload as I’m pulled under after each laboriously self-taught failure at instant mastery. This weekend I spent way too much of my time trying to tread water as I tried and retried to upgrade and re-configure.

I’m exhausted from this latest dive into the vast sea of gadget obsolescence after buying both a new Apple Airport Express base station (don’t even ask me to figure out how to get iTunes to come out of it) and a new point-and-shoot digital camera (I broke my old one last week). I had to re-learn all the ins and outs of pointing and shooting and reconfiguring Internet and printing preferences (tech support wasn’t answering the phone). Let’s just say I fumbled and bumbled my way through.

What upsets me is how big my learning curve grows, how much older I get, and how much vaster my gaps of ignorance are. My brain is packed to the gills with passwords and preferences, so I shouldn’t be surprised when I cannot, for the life of me, remember whether or not I turned off the water to the outside faucet so it doesn’t freeze and burst our pipes. There’s no more room at this inn, is there?

Today my daughter emailed me using her new Google phone. She said she wasn’t sure how to use it, yet, because there was so much new information to download into her formerly cellphone-based (with texting thrown in) storage depot brain. If she’s only 28 and she’s experiencing tech-brain drain, what are my chances of surviving?

Oh, all you Holiday celebrators out there – just make me an angel that flies to Montgomery and we’ll call it a day.

I'm Stuck on U-2

2009-12-12T16:12:00.001-05:00

Last weekend my husband and I flew to Seattle for a short-but-sweet visit with the newlyweds and our granddog. In my opinion, flying across the country is not for sissies or people like me with migraine and hunger issues. If you don’t come prepared, you’re doomed, which explains why I brought enough food to keep me alive for an entire weekend (or in case the plane was grounded), earplugs to block out the loud plane noises and the screamers in the seat behind me, books and two weeks-worth of New Yorkers to take my mind off the fact that I wasn’t on a train, but high above the clouds in a sardine-can state of discomfort, and gum to keep my Eustachian tubes from clogging. We had a good time hanging out with our newly married kids, and I did my best to be happy about getting dog hair all over my clothes and up my nose. As usual, I cried when we had to leave.

On our way back to Hartford, we met up at the Sea-Tac airport with my pseudo-daughter from Canada and my year-old pseudo-granddaughter, who were coming back to CT to visit sisters, aunts, and friends and help put her mom’s house in order so it can be sold. We sat in the same row of 3 seats, talking and paying attention to the baby – and for the first time in my short flying history, I didn’t notice that I was in the air. Instead, I was in the moment– connecting with my adopted family – so the flight flew by so fast that I didn’t experience my usual panic at taking off, circling, and landing. Instead, I talked, cooed, and marveled at the baby’s genius at figuring out how to do things like close the window shade and then force her mom to open it so she could close it over and over again. (You get the picture, I know you do!)

I’ve been back a week but I haven’t been able to do much, because I have had a series of skull-crushing migraines that keep me so down I am stuck in a moment [I] can’t get out of. No matter how many Relpax I pop, how much yoga relaxation breathing I do, or how often I smoosh ice packs on my head and neck, my migraines continue to come, one after the other. They are either triggered by smells, weather, food, or nothing at all, but whatever it is that got this round started, I was rendered useless by an iron grip so strong it was impossible for me to function like the human bean I am – the one who loves to read, write, talk, eat, exercise, watch UConn basketball. This week I hung out in bed and tried not to obsess about how much pain I was in.

A friend called yesterday to tell me about a new book by a migraine-sufferer that she read about in the Wall Street Journal, A Brain Wider Than the Sky by Andrew Levy. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to know that my friend was looking out for my best interests, since I’m definitely unable to, what with feeling vulnerable and incapacitated. Therefore, I didn’t run out and buy myself a copy, but I did put an online reserve on it at my library so I can read it when my head stops hurting. And I thank you, J…

Before I wind up this brief howdy-do, I’d like to shout out to all you music-lovers out there in Bloggersville to remind you that Elvis Costello re-started the second season of his fantastic show on the Sundance channel, Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…, which I faithfully watch and listen to. This week he interviewed and sang with Bono and The Edge (honestly, how can they keep straight faces with those silly names?). Next week will showcase Cheryl Crow, Neko Case (I saw her a few weeks ago at the Calvin Theater in Northampton), Ron Sexsmith, and Jesse Winchester. Later on Costello will interview Levon Helm – later still, Bruce Springsteen. Don’t miss this gem-of-a-show, because the interviews are fascinating and probing – and the music is outstanding. Plus, Costello wears weird hats and socks, which are fun to giggle about.

FYI: in case you didn’t know this little factoid, a fellow blogger taught me how to insert hyperlinks into my blogs. I don’t know if you ever click on those links, but in case you don’t, try ‘em, so you can peel back one more layer of my migraine brain to discover what’s going on inside my head, where songs are my helpmates who greet me each morning and get me through my live-long day. They’re my constant companions, therapists, friends, reminders, eye-openers, and headache-helpers. They are one reason I’m still ah – ah – ah – ah stayin’ alive.

Oh, Brother - Where Art Thou?

2009-11-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

My brother, who is turning 65 tomorrow, deserves a sincere and heartfelt apology from me, because I inadvertently left him him off my What-I'm-Thankful-For list. He should now, in turn, be thankful for his younger sister, who clued me in this afternoon. (Sigh! I need to be kept on on my toes, oh yes I do-oooh...)

Happy 65th Birthday, Big Brother. May it now, officially, be known to all who read this blog: I AM MORE THAN THANKFUL for having such a sweet, kind, 3 years and 8+ months-older only brother to look up to these past 61 years.

Wait just a moment, please - there's more. Not only am I thankful for him - I'm also thankful for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law.

I hope that just about covers my multitude of sins for the day.

And I Thank You...

2009-11-26T11:12:00.000-05:00

And I Thank You...

(don't forget to click above to hear one of my all-time favorite songs)

When I was a little kid in Philly I had to say what I was thankful for before digging into my plate of Turkey Day food. Since I’m not having Thanksgiving with my family this year, I’ve cooked up a list of things I’m thankful for.

Before I drag myself downstairs to the kitchen to make the cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole I’m bringing to a friend’s house in a few hours, here’s who and what I appreciate this year:

My husband, who sticks around (even though I snore louder than a leaf blower each and every night) and reads aloud to me, even though at first he thought House of Mirth was terrible (he cried at the end!)

My daughter, who calls me on her way to work, Skypes me when I ask, iChats when she has a free moment, and stays connected - even though she lives far, far away in that alternate universe known as Seattle, and her husband, my new son-in-law, even though it’s his fault she moved so far away

My son, for fathering my first granddaughter

My Miami Beach aunt, who talks to me on the phone each week and tells it like it is

My sister, who calls me on her cellphone when she’s in an airport, a car, or upstairs in her attic office (typing on the computer – which she thinks I can’t hear, but, hellooooo, I can)

My friend, Janet Rose, who provided me with friendship, support, and love for 24 years (and continues to, in absentia, since she died an untimely death this past September)

My friends (old and new), who listen to me rant and rave, but don’t hang up, keep emailing, Facebooking, and loving me

My adopted pseudo-daughters and grandchildren

Yoga, stretch and tone, and spinning classes

My Philadelphia and California family (they’re really my husband’s family, but they’ve been kind enough to adopt me into the fold for the past 40 years)

All the stupid, addictive TV I refuse to stop DVRing, watching, and fast forwarding past the commercials: Glee, 30 Rock, Brothers and Sisters, Modern Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Private Practice, The Big Bang Theory, The Geno Auriemma Show, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, Bored to Death, and UConn basketball (there, are you happy, now that you officially know some of my dirty, little secrets?)

The brothers across the street who agreed to once again snowblow our sidewalks and driveway

My tinnitus, deafness, migraines, sprained left foot, high cholesterol, fat stomach, psoriasis, poor vision, tight hamstrings, creaky back, drooping jowls, and scarred lips, because they make me what I yam (minus the marshmallows on top)

Stop, Children. What's That Sound?

2009-11-19T17:02:00.000-05:00

This morning I forced myself to go to my first, official ENT appointment in years, in order to consult with a highly recommended professional. I was urged to make an appointment with him after I told my friend about my hearing loss and tinnitus, which I have refused to deal with because my last ENT visit (which took place so many years ago I can’t remember) upset me so thoroughly I blocked out both it and the name of the doctor who claimed I needed to embrace my hearing loss, love my tinnitus, and not worry my pretty little head about things out of my control. I hated being patronized and treated like a moron, but I did what he said, didn’t I? Instead of facing up to the fact that I have hearing problems, then finding a different doctor who would treat me like an adult, I put up and shut up. What a poor, pitiful Pearl am I.

My friend said it was time for me to face up to my hearing problems, which might be why I told him the ringing had reached such a high pitch that it was no longer easy to ignore or love. I called his beloved Dr. Tinnitus for an appointment, back in September, but I was told I’d have to wait till today to see him. I didn’t tell my friend this, but I temporarily returned to pretending not to have a hearing problem, even though I do (just ask my husband, who yells at me that he’s not mumbling, even though I yell back at him that he is), until this morning, when I reality reared its ugly head and made me push a red button whenever I heard a sound, or didn’t, more often than not.

I hated failing those tests, so maybe that’s why I argued with the audiologist after I was through flunking myself. I told her that the test couldn’t have been conclusive, since the room I was sitting in wasn’t soundproof. I told her it had been hard for me to concentrate on the sounds she was supposedly making in my ear, because the loud voices from the women shouting and laughing in the room across from my testing room mixed with the high-pitched ringing in my ears from my tinnitus, and masked sounds I might’ve gotten right. She said it didn’t really matter – that my hearing loss was what it was, so I continued to try to convince her that the results would’ve been different had the conditions been more optimal. She pooh-poohed me, then attempted to read the results to me, but since I was too upset to comprehend what she was talking about, I stopped listening.

She handed me a pink copy of my test, which was a waste of time, because I couldn’t decipher it on my own, and told me to return to the waiting room to wait for Dr. Tinnitus, the expert. He turned out to be nice, but his lilty Irish-accented voice lulled me away from paying attention to his long, involved explanations comparing the hairs inside my ears to broken piano strings. Even though I was unable to absorb his technical explanations, I was able to understand that he has tinnitus, but that he’s a lucky duck, because it doesn’t interfere with his life one iota. Well, bully for him. It’s making mine a living hell.

He must’ve sensed he was losing me, so he launched into another long story about the time he got progressive lenses, and they made him so dizzy he reeled all over the place until he got used to wearing them. Obviously, he thought sharing his personal stories would make me feel better about how noisy and upsetting it was going to be to wear hearing aids, so I interrupted him and said that I never had trouble wearing my progressive lenses. He kept talking, instead of changing his tune because, after all, he wasn’t all that interested in me – only himself.

He ended up offering me a few alternative therapies if I didn’t want to wear hearing aids – but one I refused outright was Zoloft. I told him strong drugs and I don’t mix, and that I wasn’t even going to think about trying Zoloft, an antidepressant, as an off-label tinnitus inhibitor. He went on and on, extolling it, but I blocked him out until he wound down, and launched into a different riff on how wearing hearing aids will make it possible for me to hear so well I’ll hear myself crunch on things (he mentioned apples) when I eat, and when I’m done crunching, they’ll mask my tinnitus. He told me that like progressive lenses, I’d need to wear the hearing aids at all times in order to get used to them. But, if I’m hearing myself crunch, how can he expect me to want to wear them? Crunching drives me crazy, I told him – but he just Kanga and Baby Roo-ed me (maybe because he ran out of stories about himself) and told me to make a hearing aid appointment at the front desk.

Here’s the very best news of the day about those two hearing aids he said I will need. I have to pay for them out of pocket, since insurance doesn’t cover them. Boy, oh boy, I can’t wait to fork over $6-8,000 so I can hear myself crunch and think, but I’m worth it, right? Please, tell me what the upside of this bargain will be, because I have two weeks to chicken out of returning to the very same audiologist I most probably alienated (after questioning her testing conditions), who’ll probably sell me two left hearing aids as payback.

I’ve become that deaf, dumb, blind kid, minus the mean game of pinball.

Ding.

What? Didn’t hear the sound of one hand clapping when my striped ball went through the flipper? Chalk it up to celestial interference, that damned tree falling in the forest, or my husband, who whispers and sometimes lip syncs – I swear he does.

Food, Glorious Food

2009-11-15T16:24:00.000-05:00

Did you know that I’m so food obsessed I read cookbooks like they’re novels, and obsessively trawl Chowhound and Yelp before, during and after traveling in order to discover the best of the best while I’m away from home?

Did you know that I’m considered unnecessarily food crazed, here in West Hartford, CT, where palates are more Puritan-centric than not?

Or that eating at nearby restaurants turns me more cold than hot (except for Bricco’s, the only place I return to over and over)?

Or that I feel the need to stand at the stove and stir up my Jane Brody-influenced 10-minute oatmeal with milk (and a half an apple, later sprinkled with roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds and a splash of agave syrup), while also cooking up what to make for dinner?

Or that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, probably because it’s the only holiday my secular, Jewish family celebrated?

Or that its menu sounded like the lyrics of a song, at least to me?

Roast turkey with Pepperidge Farm stuffing

Giblet gravy made from scratch

Homemade cranberry sauce from the recipe on the back of the Ocean Spray bag
Southern sweet potato pudding baked with marshmallows on top

Tossed salad with homemade Italian dressing

Fresh, steamed green beans

A small bowl of Jumbo canned, pitted black olives

Apple crisp from the Settlement Cookbook

And a big Panama with a purple hatband.

Over the years, I’ve tinkered (Brussel sprouts, creamed baby onions and peas, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, lemon squares, mashed potatoes, and one year lasagna instead of turkey – which my son still hasn’t forgiven me for), but there’s no need, because my family’s old timey, totally American-centric menu is so solidly engraved inside me that it’s a relief to let down my foodie guard and stir up the past.
I know they say you can’t go home again, but I do, every November 26^th (except for the year my husband and I went to St. Thomas to follow the UConn Huskies’ Thanksgiving Tournament, leaving our adult kids to fend for themselves).

Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh.

What Am I Living For?

2009-11-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

FYI: the title of this blog entry comes from a song, because I'm a song-lover who likes to use lyrics to speak for me, now and then (mostly now, though)

This morning I asked myself what, exactly, was the point of spending so much time obsessing about things that are wrong with my rather ordinary life. Come on, I told myself, isn’t it about time to be thankful for having two grown, healthy, employed children and an adorable granddaughter? I chose not to answer back with my usual zap of negativity.

Instead, I talked myself into facing up to the fact that since I stopped teaching freshman composition, I’ve turned my paper-marking, curriculum-developing, too-busy-to think-about-you-or-me self towards the dark side, filling up too many now-empty teaching spaces in that migraine-y head of mine with full-to-bursting closets-full of obsessing, kvetching, and moaning.

Come on, I urged myself, turn over a new leaf (after all, there are so many to choose from in both front and back yards). Let yourself fast-forward and fill each day with joy, instead of spending so much time dancing like a dervish at all those pity party orgies you seem overly addicted to.

What this means is that this heavy hitter has officially declared today, November 12, 2009, her first day of uncontested peace. That’s right - I’m going to open myself up to experiencing more love supreme and fewer I’m-gonna-get-you-sucka moments.

I’m tired of being overdue, in a rabbit stew.

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

2009-11-07T11:36:00.000-05:00

Dear Sharron,

So, how was your 3-day visit to Philadelphia? Did you totally relax in the quiet car on the train from Hartford to Philadelphia’s 30^th Street Station? Did you have fun schmoozing with your husband’s Philadelphia and California relatives, eating each and every meal at a different restaurant or relative’s apartment, taking the cousins for a stroll through Center City, and being ignored by your mother-in-law? Did you enjoy using your friend Janet’s FLIP camera to record as many relative events as you could, even though people gave you a hard time for videotaping them by snapping at you and yelling things like, “O.K., stop! That’s enough?” even though they continued to mug for the camera?

How was that subsequent trip to New York City? Did you enjoy taking your husband’s cousins for a long, wet, soggy walk through Central Park, in the rain? Did you pat yourself on the back for scoring discount tickets to Brighton Beach Memoirs, which you thought was excellent (even though the next day the New York Times reported that it was going to close), Finian’s Rainbow (which you loved, maybe because you were named after the main character by your mom, who saw the play a few days before giving birth to you), and Fela, which was funky, loud (I heard you wore ear plugs during some of it), dance-centric, and Afro-beatish? I know you were disappointed in The God of Carnage, which everyone you’ve every talked to or read raved about, because the actors weren’t up to snuff, your hearing device didn’t work, and you had to pay full price for the tickets. I hope you didn’t complain too much about it, because it wasn’t worth either the money or after-play analysis.

I bet you loved winding your way through the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim (and melting in awe over his later work and his work on paper), tromping on the hard floors of the Met to ogle the Oceania and Robert Frank exhibits, standing in front of Klimt’s glittering, glorious Adele Bloch-Bauer 1907 oil (in silver and gold) at the Neue Gallery, and strolling through MOMA twice to revisit all your favorites. What I don’t understand is how you could eat the same lunch at MOMA both times you visited. What happened to your adventurous foodie spirit?

I’m going to bet you that you didn’t tell your husband how much you spent at Babette for the hip, edgy, unusual black skirt and white top you bought (after trying on at least 20 different articles of clothing), or about the brunch of Eggs Benedict you inhaled at Balthazar, where you opted to sit at the bar instead of waiting for an hour for a table for one, because the place was overrun with young couples and their children (and their strollers). I won’t tell anyone you ate the potatoes that came with the eggs, because I know you claim you aren’t eating potatoes, white rice (which is part of the sushi you ate for dinner one night) or any other “bad” carbs, even though you do when you think no one is looking.

Did you enjoy eating dinner with your husband at a different restaurant each night? I hear you had Vietnamese banh mi @ Xie Xie, Middle Eastern/Mediterranean @ Taboon, Thai @ Wondee Siam, Japanese @ Gari Sushi 46, and New American @ Dovetail. I bet you also enjoyed eating macarons from Bouchon Bakery, and bread, pastry, and brioche from Sullivan Street Bakery. Again – I won’t tell anyone about the carbs you snuck into your supposedly carb-free body. I bet your scale will know, though, once you step on it after you’re back home.

I’m sorry to hear that you fell off your left Dansko clog on your last night in the city, right in the middle of the street, also scraping your right knee (aren’t you glad you wore that old pair of pants instead of the new ones you were thinking of wearing). I heard you twisted your left foot so severely that you could barely walk, so you decided to take a cab to the restaurant. But, it turns out you had to get out of the cab you hailed, because the New York Marathon let out and all cars were at a standstill. How did you manage to walk 23 more blocks without giving up and lying down on the sidewalk like a ragdoll? Wasn’t it nice of the restaurant manager to bring you a huge bag of ice, and let you use the staff bathroom, so you wouldn’t have to hop down 3 flights of stairs to the customer bathroom? Who’d have thought a restaurant manager and waiter could be so caring and solicitous?

What I’d like to know is why you decided to walk back to your hotel (Ink48 – where they changed your room so you didn’t have to hear those loud people next door’s every, single word), after dinner, instead of taking a cab, like any other normal injured person would think to do. I know you stopped at CVS to buy an ace bandage, which didn’t do a thing to stop the pain, but why you soldiered on and kept walking is a mystery to me. You must be a glutton for punishment.

I hear you walked (Again, walking? What is wrong with you?) to Penn station, dragging your luggage behind, limping up a storm, because it was your last day in the city and you wanted to get in one more hour of walking in before the long train ride home. I didn’t realize you were such a city-loving kind of gal.

I’m glad you got your own seat on the train trip back to Hartford, even though your husband’s seat didn’t have a working light, and the man sitting in front of you screamed on his cellphone for 45 minutes. (Weren’t you lucky that those earplugs you wore to Fela were still in your backpack?) How serendipitous was it that when you changed trains in New Haven that you sat down next to a neighbor and old friend’s daughter, who used to be friends with your son – and that since her dad was picking her up in Hartford and there would be room in his van for you, you didn’t have to pay for a cab? There is sometimes such a thing as a free ride, isn’t there?

I hear you and your husband had a lot of luck finding pennies and dimes on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City, and that you made a lot of wishes on those random coins. I hope your wishes come true – and that you don’t contract any serious, lingering diseases from handling such filthy things.

Welcome home. I suggest that you prop up your bad foot and watch all those DVR’d programs that are taking up all the space on your TV’s hard drive. I also suggest that you pack up your sorrows, because in a few days you are going to have another opportunity to turn back into your old self – Ms. Happy Husky Fan. Your UConn basketball-watching mania is going to quickly take up so much space in your migraine-prone head that it will displace all your negative, obsessive thoughts, making you forget you ever had them in the first place. That’s right. Help is on its merry way.

Goooooo Huskies!

And Away We Go

2009-10-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

Hey there blogreaders,

Wondering why I haven't been writing anything new and exciting for your reading entertainment? Wondering what is going on to keep my fingers from tapping out a new blog? Wondering what the heck I'm alluding to?
The answer: I've been off and running - first to Philly and then to NYC, visiting friends, family, and foes. I'm sitting in my hotel room as I type these words, trying to ignore the deep, coughing voice of the guy in the next room, who seems to need to shout into his cellphone for at least thirty minutes each morning and evening. I've considered asking for a different room, but since I'm sure the insulation is terrible in all of them, I'm gritting my teeth and bearing it for the second day in a row.

Wait. I just had a great idea. I'll plug my iPod into the iHome sitting next to the wall, and blast ABBA until he shuts up. I hope he enjoys listening to ABBA'S Greatest Hits as much as I am.
Hee haw. Oh my, this act of retaliation was an original stroke of genius, was it not? I'll let you know.

Freeze Frame

2009-10-21T14:22:00.000-04:00

Two years ago I had trouble sleeping at night, because I was more often than not overstimulated by the intensity of my day-to-day teacher-student involvement. I was exhausted and crazed from paper-marking and curriculum creating, and cross-eyed from emailing drafts back and forth with demanding students who believed that if they attached a paper to my email I would remain online 24 hours a day to help them revise it. I chose to be at their beck and call, maybe because they begged me to be or probably because I was as needy as they were. I liked making myself available to help them perfect their writing, but I didn’t like how I turned myself into an editing machine who marked up their narrative drafts, paragraph by paragraph (and sometimes word by word). Back then I believed that was the only way I could meticulously guide them through the writing process, kick them up a level, turn them into more polished college-level writers. I have no idea what they believed (except that they all deserved A’s). I used to believe that spinning wheel would never stop.

Fast forward.

I retire from teaching, but I’m still exhausted and crazed. I continue to get so revved up I have trouble calming down enough to easily fall asleep. The spinning wheel slows down, but lately it speeds up again as I spend time thinking about my two closest West Hartford friends, whose wheels no longer turn. Thinking about them makes me feel future phobic, but I try to project myself forward, even though merely thinking about my future freezes me in the present, just like back in 1978, when I tried to read Gail Sheehy’s Passages past the chapter chronicling my age group (I was 30 when the book came out), and I was unable turn the page, because I was too afraid to read her predictions of what future me might become.

I know - I should be thrilled to be present me, but lately I’m not as thrilled as I could be. Yesterday I imagined I'd feel better if I could see my future projected above me on a huge movie screen, right before the final credits begin to roll – encapsulating my progress before the house lights turn back on. Today I’m not so sure.

I wish I could feel less frozen, but it's hard to thaw unless I am looking back at what now appears to me to be my brighter past. In 1978 I was one year away from moving from Philly to relocate in West Hartford, CT, three years from having my daughter, and four years from starting my children’s bookstore, Kidlit. A few years later, I'd written a few novels and published some articles (I never published the novels, though). I taught part-time, and sat, sat, sat through youth soccer, baseball, and basketball games (and even wrestling matches). I walked an hour a day for exercise with my friend until we couldn't walk together anymore because she died from cancer (1995). I lifted weights to keep my arm flab from turning into Grandmom Rose danglers. I took up spinning to keep my heart healthy. I talked on the phone to my friend, who died the next morning. (9/7/09 - If only I could turn back time.) A few weeks ago I became a grandmother, and I read aloud to my husband (who always reads aloud to me) from the two detailed journals I kept of my son and daughter’s first year of life.

I know, my roll-back-the-sands-of-time self needs to stop living in the past. It's just that I feel safer when I spend time there looking at old photographs, reading old journals, hearing old stories or jokes, and reconnecting with old friends. As long as I scroll backwards, time becomes neat and tidy. One and done. Not scary. Predictable.

I am trying to move ahead, I am, but it's hard, because whenever I do, I swear, my soul becomes psychedelicized.

There's A Hole In The Bottom Of The Sea

2009-10-14T17:15:00.000-04:00

Monday was a holiday, but the geriatric painter guy came anyway, and scraped, sanded, destroyed, and hummed from 8-4. When he first arrived, I tried to explain to him how I needed him to put up plastic to seal off the rooms from the paint dust, which he half-heartedly attempted to do. Only he didn’t tape the plastic down, and it billowed each time he moved around the hallway, which spread the dust even more thoroughly throughout the house. He doesn’t speak much English, so I stopped trying to communicate my anti-schmutz ideas and gave in to the paint dust falling where it may (which happens to be everywhere). I have to say this is the worst house painting experience I’ve had since the mentally ill painter guy painted my kitchen 12 years ago and refused to finish the job until I lied and discreetly told him I was having my own mental health issues. He finished up in no time.

The word “discreet” brings me back in time. I’m 10 years old, and visiting my aunt and uncle in Manhattan. They run a ticket agency, which I don’t really know much about (but I met Ed Sullivan there, and he shook my hand). What I understand is that they have access to free tickets to musicals and movies. I get to see Oh, Captain, which bores me, but stars Tony Randall, who is very funny; a few years later I see Oliver, which is loud, boisterous, and veddy British. I miss out on seeing Oklahoma and West Side Story, but get to spend one afternoon by myself in a theater watching the movie Indiscreet, starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. I mistakenly think it is titled In the Street, and I am unable to follow the plot or figure out what the heck is wrong with the characters. I have no idea what the word means, but 51 years later I finally do.

I have been ordered not be indiscreet or write about what’s really eating a hole in my heart, stopping it from calmly going on. I’ve been warned that if I disclose what’s tearing at my heart, I’ll either be sued or shunned like an Amish defector (or West Point cadet). Therefore, I force my fingers to type fluffy stuff, like how oil paint fumes give me migraines. (Yes, I have one now.)

You should know that I hate being hogtied by my fear of indiscretion repercussions. I wish I could blow the real stuff inside me in the wind. Unfortunately, my marred and scarred by mole removal lips must remain sealed. For a blabbermouth emoter like me, my gag order is hard to swallow. The quieter I have to stay, the more my issues try to reclaim a space in my leaky heart, where they have trouble sticking like glue, like birds of a feather that stick together.

So, because I can’t write what I also love to refer to as the truth, I have to write fluff, which spills out of my keyboard like a tipped over bag of goose feathers. My resentment and upset at having to remain permanently discreet have driven me so crazy I convinced myself I could somehow disguise the truth by hiding it between the lines Yeah, I know that’s as insane as thinking that walking between raindrops keeps us dry. But I am no longer lying, like I did with the psycho painter guy – I have issues, and bottling them up is making me fester.

I know that “loose lips sink ships,” which is why I can’t open up the floodgates and spill any more beans. If I do, I’ll turn into the original human Titanic. Splish fricking splash.

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

2009-10-10T22:03:00.000-04:00

One of my pseudo daughters called yesterday to say she was feeling sad, so I agreed to run over and commiserate, even though that meant leaving the painter guy alone in the house to snoop, steal, or turn on the heat gun and burn the house down.

As I drove through the sunless drizzle, I let my sadness wash over me like the rain washing over my windshield. It was A’s first day by herself since her mom died. She told me that she stood outside on the deck and cried for about ten minutes, shouting out her mom’s name and yelling as loudly as she could that she missed her and wished she would come back. I know I’m only a mom substitute, but I since didn’t want her to keep feeling like a motherless child, I offered to play the piano while she played along on her violin. We slowly limped through a Schumann song together, even though I haven’t played the piano in over fifteen years. Afterwards, she played me some Bach on her violin, while I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the melody. When she was done, we went into the kitchen, leaned over the counter and tore apart a pomegranate. Since I haven’t eaten one in ages, it was a new and exciting experience for me. As we picked out crimson seeds, sucked off the juice and spit out the remains, we traded stories, exchanged a few tears, and soon came to realize we both felt a little better.

I felt so useful and productive that I offered to load up the trunk with the six bags of food A no longer wanted in her mom’s pantry, so I could drop them off at the town food bank. The woman at the desk was delighted at my generosity, until I told her why I had so much food to donate. Why do people say, “I’m sure she’s in a better place, now” when I tell them my friend is no longer alive? How is death a “better place”? I think of it as emptiness, a black hole of nothingness. I didn’t say this to the well-meaning woman, but I wanted to shout it at her. Where’s that death manual when I need it?

I had to force myself to return to Disasterville, my paint dust-covered hellhole. When I opened the back door, loud music hit my ears. It was blaring from the painter guy’s boom box, which he must’ve brought in when I left. He was humming along as he expanded his path of destruction. He only works until 4:30, so I had exactly six more minutes of loud music and humming to put up with. You can’t imagine how happy I was to stop hearing Don McLean belting out Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, one of my least favorite songs of all time.

At 4:30 on the dot, he turned off the radio and started taking his supplies outside to his car. As soon as he was gone, baby, gone, I swooped down and cleaned up his mess. I cleaned until the cows came home, because there was paint dust on every surface imaginable (and even some that were unimaginable).

Just think, I get to do this all over again on Monday, Tuesday and forevermore. I’ll keep you posted on my lead paint absorption rates and doorknob hunting adventures.

Joy to the fishes in the big blue sea.

She's Come Undone...

2009-10-08T10:51:00.000-04:00

The painters are here, scraping and making a mess out of the water-damaged closet in my former computer room. Tomorrow they’re going to sand the ruined downstairs hall and get it ready for painting. That means I’ll be dealing with even more mess and stress. Joy.

Oh, no, no, no. I don’t do well with strange painters, intrusive home repairs, mistakes, strong smells, or disruptions. I become anxious and out of breath. Hyper alert. Fearful. Distrustful. Schmutz-crazed. Undone

The painter marched in early this morning, filthy shoes on his feet, paint cans swinging from his arms. The cans were filled with paint I’d told him to buy, but I’d told him to buy the wrong color. He and his dirty shoes had to stomp back outside and drive to the paint store to replace it. Damn.

Before he left, he told me that whoever painted the room used the wrong type of paint (latex vs. oil). I got so overheated and upset about both my color mistake and past poor choice of a housepainter that I had to strip off my fleece in front of him. Yep, I’ve turned into the New England Stripper. Ta da.

One of his painter guys unhinged the damaged closet door and leaned it against one improperly painted wall, but didn’t put anything between the door and the wall to protect it from being scratched. I inwardly screamed, and outwardly ran out of the room. Aargh.

I noticed that the so-called drop cloth he’d put down under the wall-scratching door and over the rug to catch the sanded paint flecks was the size of a washcloth. This means that paint flecks will cover my previously clean rug. Teeth gnashing ensued. Gasp.

Another painter arrived, reeking of stinky deodorant, making my upstairs smell like him. I can’t breathe in without smelling his damn scent. Migraine time, buggedy buggedy buggedy shoot. Ouch.

I know they’re going to make mistakes (because, hey, I made one already today), but I’m not looking forward to cleaning ‘em up. I hate feeling out of control, imposed upon and worried, as well as at their mercy, but them’s the breaks. Sigh.

I’ve lost the sun, haven’t I? Bazinga.

Help, I Need Somebody...

2009-10-06T18:14:00.000-04:00

My computer mail program has been acting up for the last three days, which means I haven’t been able to send or receive email. Since I’m never going to give up email and turn into a Luddite, my latest computer malfunction has unhinged me. What has made me the craziest is watching that annoying little ball endlessly spinning, spinning, spinning next to my gmail mailbox, signaling that all’s not right in MacMail Land. I tried to fix it on my own, but failed each and every time. This meant that I had no choice but to call and try to understand those dreaded voices at…dah dah dum dum…tech support.

I realize there are far more upsetting things going on in the world right now that trump my blip-on-the-radar email glitch, but my blip is what I’ve chosen to obsess about today. Why? Because as long as I stay focused on it I can stop myself from thinking about all the other upsetting things that are going on in my life. Fair trade, wouldn’t you agree?

This morning I sacrificed my abs and gluts, as well as my inner peace, and instead parked myself on my tushie, the portable phone jammed up against my deaf ears. For over three hours. I talked, talked, talked to a variety of tech support people from all over the globe. One tried to fix the problem, but he gave up and handed me off to a different one. That one couldn’t fix things, so she transferred me to another one. That didn’t work, so I ended up calling back the first number. Then I got cut off and had to call again. By the time I was done, I’d talked to more than five different people.

Because I never crossed the same person twice, I had to calm myself down over and over in order to rationally re-articulate what my problem was. My brain kept threatening to seize up and short-circuit, but I forced it to keep it spinning like my defective Mac icon.

Why does talking with tech support turn me into such a crazy wackadoodle? Is it because I have to work so hard to interpret what the various and sundry techies are saying? Is it because I have to make multiple phone calls to solve each problem? Is because having to interact with faceless support people makes me shake with pure and utter fear that I’m never going to get no satisfaction? Is it because their fix-it solutions sometimes crash my computer and I’m convinced it’ll never work again? Is it because merely talking about my blips makes me hold my breath and forget to breathe?

I wish there was a computer Mommy out there who’d rush to my side, wrap me in her expertise, and offer more than a tech supported carrot-on-a-stick Mac-band aid fix. Or a computer wizard best friend who’d intuitively know all the right buttons to push, the right cache files to trash, the right something-or-other to tweak to get me up and running in no time.

Oh, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds! (I’ve been asked to stop cursing, now that I’m a grandmother.)

Baby, Baby, Sweet Baby...

2009-10-03T15:16:00.000-04:00

I know I’m not the first 61 year-old woman in the universe to become a grandmother, since there have actually been a zillion, bazillion moms who’ve turned into them throughout civilization. But at 10:30 this morning, when I was elevated to that new parallel universe, the one where my granddaughter officially lives, I believed, I truly believed, that I was the only grandma in the entire history of the world to ever feel such joy.

I would like to believe that turning into a grandmother - a delirious, delightful, happy, peppy and bursting with love event, if there ever was one - is so special that nothing bad will touch me today. Take that, M.C. Hammer.

Shower The People You Love With Love…

2009-10-01T20:12:00.000-04:00

My bloodhound nose caught a familiar smell while it was walking outside with me this morning. I pointed it high up in the air, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing that yummy smell, just like a pointer puppy, and was instantly transported back in time to a place I’m way too old for and will never go back to again: camp. Camp was my home away from home for part of each summer in the 1950’s and 1960’s, my safe haven. Pretend to breathe in that campish smell with me as I return, like I often do in my imagination whenever I need to feel better (which I do, oh I do do do).

Look, my dad’s car is inching its way down camp’s narrow, dusty, woodsy road. As it pulls into the parking lot, watch me dive out the door like I’m entering a swimming pool filled with warm water. Feel that welcoming We-Love-You-Sharron, Oh-Yes-We-Do atmosphere suck us up like a powerful vacuum cleaner. Can you hear it announcing with its smells that we’ve returned to that magical world of woods, water, mosquitoes, campfires, songs, camp friends and adoring counselors?

Walk with me to the MOP, the Make Out Place, where I once dragged poor Peter Linton, who wasn’t ready to make out, let alone be alone with me. The MOP, that supposedly secret place where you could hunker down among the bushes and kiss each other a few times before being spied on. Watch the kids standing on the roof of the youngest kids’ bunk as they watch the kissers. Laugh as I crawl out to the cheers of all the little girls from my sister’s cabin, who call out my name like I am a conquering hero, emerging from the trenches.

Wake up with me to either a loud, gonging bell or reveille played on a trumpet. Watch me reach for my glasses, which lie on top of my wooden orange crate, then cover your ears as I start talking a mile a minute. Empathize with me about the time I wet my bed, when I was much too old to be doing such a thing, and was so afraid of being found out that I told my counselor I wanted to go home. Hear her tell me that Alison Lee wet hers, too, and watch us become instant pee-pals. Check out my impetigo that was once so bad I had to visit the scary crone, Helen the Nurse, who held me down so she could scrub off my scabs. That she thought this would make me get better is still a mystery to me, but bear with me as I put up a screaming fight each time she scrapes my arms and back with her nail brush.

Watch me canoe, swim, water ski and then swim some more. Run around with me as I play Capture the Flag with flour bombs that I love to throw at the opposing team. Be my partner at the square dance and enjoy that ancient record player scratching out those old timey tunes. Can you see me in the dark? I’m flirting with the boys as they bow to their partners, dosey-doe and allemande left. You know, we had real callers, sometimes, along with a tall microphone that stood outside, connected to speakers. A thin man and a short, square-dance-skirt-wearing woman stood beside him, calling out each dance move.

Sign up with me for the Ping Pong ladder, which I always wanted to climb to the top of, but never did. Play tennis with me on the terrible, rutted courts and cheer me on as I win the girls’ doubles tournament, my first time playing for real.

Sit outside on KP duty and peel potatoes with me in front of the screened-in kitchen. Help with Set Up and Clean Up duties, even though I remember washing the dishes more clearly than I do setting the tables.

Join me in singing songs throughout the meal, like, “Here’s to the cook, the cook, the cook. Here’s to the cook, the best of them all. She’s merry, she’s jolly, we like her by golly” or “Oh the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed, the Lord is good to me.” Scream out, “Here’s to Sharon and the way she does the hula hop. Here’s to Sharon and the way she does the hula hop. Here’s to Sharon and the hula ho-op. Sharon is a social flop, she can’t do the hula hop” and wait for me to get up and gyrate wildly in front of everyone. Notice how there’s only one “r” in my name, because I didn’t add the second one until I was much older. Or better yet, shout, “Happy Birthday, hunh. Happy Birthday, hunh. There is sorrow in the air, people dying everywhere; but Happy Birthday, hunh. Happy Birthday, hunh” as we celebrate someone’s birthday.

Stand in line with me at the One Utensil meal, where we will pick one out from a big box as we enter the dining room and eat with it, even if it is a potato masher or a rolling pin. Celebrate Backwards Day, when we wake up to taps, wear our clothes inside out, walk backwards and eat dinner for breakfast. On rainy days slosh through the puddles with me in bare feet, with a poncho slung over us to keep us dry.

Hear me tell ghost stories at night. Watch me practice kissing with my pillow, write letters home at rest period, get mail from family and friends, read with my flashlight after lights out, then sneak over to the boys’ side to shortsheet their beds. Adore each cookout, canoe trip, Color War, Carnival and Last Dance, where we will wear dresses and make finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Sing with me around campfires and on the steps of my bunk. Watch me learn to play the guitar by practicing the strum to Jamaica Farewell on my counselor’s back. Allow me to include you in the camp skits that I wrote the words to. Play the guitar with me some more and cheer me on as I learn new finger pickings. Memorize all the words with me to every Joan Baez album.

Rip open a Care Package filled with food I am never allowed to eat at home, like Kosher Salami, Cheez Whiz, Cow Cheese, Peanut Butter and Ritz Crackers, which I love to eat late at night, while my counselors are out (until a skunk finds our food and ruins that secret pleasure forever). Watch me shriek with delight the day my brother’s best friend sent me that gigantic envelope filled with gum that we aren’t supposed to have, but somehow, no one notices. Hoard it with me for the rest of the summer, and make gum wrapper chains out of the empties, like I do. Admire them hanging on the wall next to my bed.

Weave zillions of lanyards, as if you had repetition compulsion. Work on a new creation each day, attaching one end of it with a pin onto a shoe or the end of cut-off jeans to finish as we sit around, talking, waiting for dinner or lunch to start or free period to be over. Learn the box stitch and use as many different colors of gimp as you can to make each and every lanyard stand out.

Quick. Whoosh back to reality with me, because that’s it for today.

I want to thank you for returning with me to that safe, loving place where people loved me, they really loved me (yeah, I’m channeling Sally Field) and I wasn’t unlovable, like I often felt (and still sometimes feel) at home.

I know, I agree with you – it was awfully brief, but that’s all camp memories are – quick trips. Ahh. Things are gonna be much better, right, James Taylor?

Thirty Days Hath September...

2009-09-30T22:50:00.000-04:00

Today’s the last day of September, so I’ve decided to say my official goodbyes to summer and force myself to accept it’s over. But, let me warn you - I’m not happy about it. That's right - I'm downright droopy. Please, fear not, I’m not dense. I knew it was coming, since it magically happens every damn year. It's just that I'm afflicted with a serious case of magical thinking when it comes to summer, so I cling to it when it’s here and imagine that if I hold on to it hard enough it won't go.

So, now that I've seen the light (well - more like lack of it), I've been able to appreciate the swarms of pine cones covering my driveway (seriously - you can't miss 'em). They've been yelling at me with their Christmas-scented breath that it’s time for me to accept that fall is not going to turn back into summer, no matter how much I pretend it will. One out and out bonked me on the head the other day when I was walking down the street, I guess to remind me it was about time I gave up all my wishin’ and hopin’.

What worries me is that those stupid pine cones might be portending a cold, cold, cold and dark-as-a-dungeon winter. I'm shivering just writing down the word cold, because it makes me think about the possibility of one more New England winter (my 30^th!). Hmmm, the very thought of it launched me out of my chair towards the thermostat. I turned it on, oh yes I did, and let it warm up my purple-with-fall-cold toes. What a difference a few degrees of Fahrenheit make.

Once I warmed up, I was seized with a case of fall fever, so I ran around the house like a squirrel on speed, zipping up the screens and yanking down the storm windows, then closing up all the open air conditioning vents (with a few quick curses thrown out, because of all the damage that stupid air conditioning unleashed in August).

I know I sound like a Scrooge (bah, autumn), but it’s because I'm a summer gal from head to toe. I'm not a pumpkin patch picking, leaf-peeping, cider-mulling, football-game-going rooter tooter. I mean, all of those things are terrific...for the fall guys. I'm a California girl - a Beach Boys-er. A sun shining through my dirty (never been cleaned) upstairs windows at 5 a.m.-er.

Sigh. Bye.

2009-09-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

Dear Blogreaders,
I've been laid low by a massive 5-day migraine, which explains why I'm not writing (or talking or doing much more than curling up in our bed in a fetal position).
Stay tuned, though, because I plan to jump back in the saddle and pick up the mighty pen (tee hee - I mean, type on my lovely laptop) once the pain recedes.

Movie Madness

2009-09-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

How’s this for surreal? Drive to a park, walk down a path to a former dog “beach,” listen to some moving speeches from family, relatives, and friends, watch someone dig a hole in the ground to receive cremains, empty three baggy’s-full of ashes into the hole, and mound the dirt back on top.

Find a nice pile of stones to put over the mounded spot, talk for a few minutes, walk back down the path to the car, drive back to the house, drive like the wind to pick up Harry’s pizza and salad, then race back to feast on it.

Drive to a neighborhood church, walk in and wander around its empty rooms, watch as so many people arrive they fill up the room. Hold up a teeny, tiny Flip video camera to capture the cast of hundreds who have crowded in to honor Janet with speeches and piano playing. Step up to the podium and read some words on a page that try to capture what it’s like to be a best friend among a sea of best friends. Meet and greet once all the talking and piano playing end. Go home and toss and turn – then have nightmares.

Luis Bunuel, where’s your film crew when I need it? Don’t you know that I feel like I’ve been cast in one of your movies?

Yep. My life has become a foreign film. What’s odd is how incredibly real it now seems. Sure, on a day-to-day basis, my old life was real, too, but in a different way - painful, annoying, upsetting, fun, agonizing, delightful, and scary, all at the same time. I took that old reality for granted, though. These days surreal is my new reality (sort of like how 60 is the new 50).

Since I started living on Planet Janet, I feel surreally disconnected from planet Earth. I used to think reality equaled down-to-earth activities like hanging out with my husband, reading, running errands, going to the library, knitting, cleaning the house, cooking yummy dinners, emailing, talking on the phone to the usual suspects, shopping, thinking clearly, watching Netflix videos, going to the movies, exercising regularly, or enjoying Connecticut’s amazingly beautiful fall weather.

These days reality makes me feel like I'm living inside a giant kaleidoscope. I turn in one direction and I’m hanging out with a 10 month old and 3 year-old. Turn again, and I’m interacting with a changing cast of adult mourners. Keep turning, and I’m helping to organize bills and receipts, obituary editing, or memorial-service planning. Turn once more, and I’m exploring the rocky terrains of sadness. The weird part is, living in this new amorphously psychedelic reality makes me feel useful – and alive. Yeah - achingly alive. But blurred around the edges.

It produces bad dreams, too, when I fall asleep. In one dream a very dangerous person was on the loose. He wanted to kill someone I was close to. I tried to protect this person (I can’t remember whether it was a male or female) from the killer, but it wasn’t possible, because the killer had amazing super powers and could track my every move. I tried to think of ways to hide, but I couldn’t figure out how to avoid being found.

After I woke up, I realized that it's impossible to avoid death, because it’s inevitable. And omnipresent. Yeah, it’s merely waiting in the wings to swoop down and snatch me up. Like it snatched up Janet.

Move over, Carl Jung.

Shake It Like A Polaroid Picture

2009-09-17T11:41:00.000-04:00

Someone asked me the other day what all the brouhaha was about Zumba. What, you’ve never heard of it? You have no idea what this marbles-in-the-mouth-sounding exercise class is all about? Here’s what you’re missing: loud Latin-beat music, constantly-moving legs, lots of open-mouth panting, buckets of sweat, easy-to-follow steps, and a mumble-jumble whirlwind of arm movements.

Why go to a class like this? To shake yourself silly, that’s why. To dance the blues away. For a change of pace. To move like crazy to songs that make you want to clap and stomp your feet. To race over to your water bottle and glug down a gulp or two to revive yourself before you hop, skip, and jump back to your spot. To move and groove like there’s no tomorrow.

No, don’t shake your head and say Zumba’s not for you. Try it. I promise, it’s not hard to follow the teacher’s moves. As soon as the music starts, you’ll find yourself shimmying, jerking-ing, salsa-ing, and cha-cha-ing up a storm. You’ll be instantly gratified.

Does this old body of mine sometimes balk? Sure, but when it does, I just slow it down and go through the motions. When it doesn’t, I find myself Zumba-ing with the best of them.

Yes, yes, sometimes it’s a struggle for my 61 year-old body to gyrate and wave its arms around like a June Taylor dancer, but since I’m far, far from one, who cares. Sure, I look kind of crazy in the mirror, but that’s the beauty of Zumba: it doesn’t matter.

No, I’m not being paid by the Zumba people to hype it. I just wanted to let you know what’s available, in case you’re as stubborn as I am and don’t like to try new things. Or you're sad because your best friend died and all you want to do is hibernate. Zumba-ing helped me pack up my sorrows, lace up my dancing sneakers, and celebrate living like it was 1999.

Going in Style

2009-09-16T11:44:00.000-04:00

I will probably get in a lot of trouble with someone, somewhere for putting an obit in my blog that identifies my friend and uses her real name. But, I'm doing it anyway, consequences be damned, because I want everyone to roar with laughter and cry along with me (and all her other gazillion best friends) as I celebrate her life.

She would've been on the phone with me this morning, cackling with laughter at the irreverence and length. She also would've noticed that the obit on the following page was twice as long (but three times as unexciting). I wonder what she'd have said if she'd known how much these suckers cost...$4.00 a line. Count 'em up, folks - we're talking one expensive send-off.

Enough about money - click on the title of this blog entry and you'll be brought right to her Hartford Courant obituary.

Stopping to Smell the Rose(s)

2009-09-13T12:05:00.000-04:00

My best friend, who died with her family at her side on 9/11/09, used to tell me I was her best friend. What amazes skeptical old me is that I believed her. In fact, her endorsement made me feel so loved and special that sometimes my little old ego got way, way too big for its britches, causing me to pat, pat, pat myself on my back. I also got so full of myself that sometimes I’d even strut around my house after I’d talked to her, because she made me feel so popular. I liked imagining that I was more loved and special than any of her other regular friends, the ones who populated what I have recently found out is a gargantuan, multi-peopled, best friend planet.

Well, get ready for some even more amazing news. There are now (and this is only based on yesterday’s count) 3, 479 other people who claim that she told them they were her best friends. The craziest thing is – we all are. I know you might have a hard time believing me, but let me tell you a few details, and you'll become her best friend, too.

I’m not sure how one short, Canadian-American, maple-syrup-guzzling piano teacher was capable of pulling off convincing so many best-friend-needing people that she loved them the most, but isn’t it downright delightful that she did? She was a brilliant con artist who somehow connected us to her like she was a gigantic surge protector. That’s right - she out and out plugged us all in to her love – maybe so she could keep us from finding out about the gigantic best friend Ponzi scheme she was clandestinely operating.

Yesterday, both the mailman who stopped by and the CVS pharmacist I spoke with on the phone to cancel her pre-ordered prescriptions told me they were her best friends. A few days before, nurses and doctors at the ICU said they were her best friends, even though she never gained consciousness, so we’re talking ESP here. Each and every piano student and their parents who called or stopped by said they were her favorite. Her three daughters individually confessed to me that they were her favorite, as well as absolutely and positively her best friend. Her granddaughter, who can’t speak yet, made it clear to me that she was her Bubbie’s best friend. Her grandson, who can talk, announced he was her best friend (and also her favorite). Each of her dogs yippingly communicated to me that they were her best friends. I know – it’s amazing and wonderful, isn’t it?

Her house has been crawling with people who’ve been coming over and leaving off food and goodies. The phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people who emphatically assure the machine that they’re her best friends. Aren’t those people lucky, though, to be able to hear her voice again on her answering machine?

Love just keeps on pouring out of all these best friends, like she poured hers all over each and every one of us, each and every day she was alive. She truly was everyone’s best friend, our own, gooey, 100% pure Canadian maple syrup (which you now know she was addicted to) that streamed over, under, around and through us, her endless batch of luscious, best friend pancakes.

Ahh, how good she was to the very last drop.

I’m Going Down, Down, Down…(thanks Bruce S.)

2009-09-10T22:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve been so busy trying to keep up a good front, act like an adult, do the right thing, and stay focused on being useful that I haven’t allowed myself to feel down about the fact that my friend is almost done dying.

I have decided to let down what little hair I have left on my head and face up to my sadness, with the help of idioms, similes and metaphors, since they have officially become my new best friends. Bear with me as I try to describe what it’s been like for me to lose my old one.

I’ve can’t think up much of anything positive to say about watching someone I just spoke with on Sunday afternoon suddenly stop existing as I knew her on Monday morning. Watching her die has been painful, like pulling teeth without Novocain, frustrating, like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and pointless, like beating a dead horse with a stick. Dying, after all, is not as easy as pie. It’s as hard as nails. And it’s not for sissies.

For watchers like me who aren’t doing the dying, it isn’t easy to face the fact that all you can do is watch someone else do the work while you just stand around, staying alive.

I mean, watching has been comforting, that it has - but boy has it also been scary. It’s left me with a lot of down time to feel sad, guilty, angry, bitter, superfluous, and impotent. It’s also made me feel so jealous that part of me has wanted to climb into that hospital bed, next to my friend, and join her.

Watching a friend die has been a roller coaster ride – but without that cloyingly delicious cotton candy smell wafting up, or those happy-scared-ecstatic shrieks echoing through the air. It’s been a horrific house of horrors trip, full of sad good-byes, tearful embraces, and bewildered why-you’s.

This is one trip I’d rather not be watching you take – but I have no choice. So, here I stay, waving goodbye, crying out how much I’ll miss you leave on your final gut-wrenching, headache-inducing, sob-producing, if-only-I’d…, what-if-we’d..., why-didn’t-you…oh-what-will-I-do-without-you journey.

Bad Things Happen to Good People

2009-09-09T15:22:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I know. I am going to sound incredibly trite and stupid – but I want to know why bad things happen to good people. I don’t want to know why good things happen to bad people, because I could care less about them. All I want to know is why the good ones, the very ones who don’t deserve to suffer, end up doing just that. I never actually ask this question out loud, but I've been silently thinking about it all week.

Right now a good one (good, better, best), my dearest, sweetest, most generous, long-timiest West Hartford friend, was silenced when she stopped breathing before the EMT’s arrived. She’s now lying unconscious in the ICU, plugged in to what appear to me to be an incredible array of machines – but they are keeping her alive, so I’m grateful for their intrusive existence.

But, oh, oh, oh – how she’s suffered (often in silence) these past few years, from terribly debilitating problems like GERD, asthma, non-stop sinus infections, and diabetes (brought on by all the prednisone she has taken to control her freaking sinus infections). She has been so sick that she has no longer been able to breath easily, teach without struggling, take her dogs for long walks, travel, go out on the town, or talk as much as she used to.

She’s undergone so many invasive tests, procedures and treatments that it’s amazing to me how positive and upbeat she’s continued to be. We often compare and contrast her breathing problems and my migraines, but usually end up laughing hysterically at ourselves for generating so much kvetching and moaning.

I’ve been visiting her in the ICU, where she’s still unconscious, paralyzed (by drugs) and unresponsive. Even though I’ve never talked to anyone who’s unconscious, it’s not as scary or bad as I thought it’d be. I merely lean over and let my spontaneous babbling loudly fill her ears with details about the nurses, her friends who have visited, her daughters, various doctors’ explanations, and the highs and lows of her blood pressure.

As I talk, I pretend to myself that we’re talking on the phone, which makes it easier for me to talk up a storm to the one person I’ve talked to almost every single day for the past 24 years. I blab on and on, saying anything that comes to mind, because talking helps me (Ms. Glass-is-Half-Empty) believe she (Ms. Glass-is-Half-Full) will recover.

According to one nurse I spoke with, “…hearing is the last thing to go.” I want to believe she’s right, so I keep filling up the silence with my words. In my humble opinion, at this point in time, silence is the farthest thing from golden, "hope is the thing with feathers..." and talk is anything but cheap.

What Happens If You Blog and No One Comments?

2009-09-04T19:02:00.000-04:00

I remember my first day of Philosophy 101, when my professor earnestly asked our class, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” I didn’t have the answer I was sure he wanted, so I kept quiet. I wanted to give him the right answer, but my answer didn’t feel right enough. Or, I might not have answered because I’m such a concrete a thinker I only like answering answer yes or no instead of conjuring up original responses to abstract philosophic musings. Did my not commenting that day invalidate his question?

If I write a blog and no one comments, are my words worth writing? Are they invalid?

Are my words invalid if you don’t talk back to me when you read my musings on daughter-missing, air conditioning leaks, migraines, dieting, or petty hatreds? If I expect a response, am I asking more of you than I was able to give forty-two years ago?

Are you asking the computer screen (if you like talking to it like I do) why I continue to publicly philosophize about these rather random thoughts? Are you wondering why I keep exposing my words to what I like to think of as you, my amorphous, blogospheric audience – even after you remain silent? Can my blog be considered worthy if almost no one comments?

Oh dear. I’ve gone and replicated my professor’s class, filled with a sea of invisible, silent me’s, haven’t I? By trying to answer these new-age questions, I’ve turned myself back into that nineteen year-old college student self, that stranger in a strange land. Yep. I have officially morphed out of myself, back into someone who continues to have trouble re-imagining the bigger picture (the forest for the trees).

Therefore, I’ve decided to change course and answer my questions.

Yes, writing my blog is a worthwhile activity, even if no one responds. Maybe because these days I’ve become somewhat deaf, I am no longer able to hear trees falling in either forests or my back yard (let alone actors talking in movies or on TV shows, like Mad Men, my current favorite).

Now that I’ve finally opened my mouth and talked…or, to be more accurate, written back, I would like to imagine that my uber-edited, unresponded-to paragraphs are ultimately making a teeny, tiny bit of difference, responded to or not.

Class – what do you think?