I'm Sick; Therefore, I Blog

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?

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!

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

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

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)

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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)

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!

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

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...

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

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

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

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.