The Uppity Woman/Piece of Mind

Piece of Mind: Angels with Whiskers

2011-10-25T13:02:00.003-04:00

My husband has always had a rough time in the winter, with SAD. He's a sunshiney kinda guy, and I used to feel like he dropped into a sort of hibernation during the cold months and didn't even resemble his warm-weather self.

But that was before Opie the X-Dog. Never in my life have I witnessed an animal's effect on a person as profound as this one's. No therapy, no drug or supplement has ever or could ever have the impact on Jim's SAD like the X-Dog. I sincerely hope he lives for a long, long time, because there's no refill for that prescription.

So Jim sent me an email forward yesterday. He offered no introduction or explanation as to why he sent it, but not far into my reading of it, I knew the reason. It was self-explanatory.

I want to make it very clear that I did NOT write this piece or alter it in any way. I simply copied and pasted it. Thank you, Catherine Moore, wherever you are, for your intimate knowledge of the rare and priceless gift of a good, four-legged friend, not to mention the existence of angels sent by God for very specific purposes.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did:

A Father, Daughter & a Dog

- story by Catherine Moore

"Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!" My father yelled at me.. "Can't you do anything right?"

Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn't prepared for another battle.

"I saw the car, Dad . Please don't yell at me when I'm driving.."

My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.

Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts.... Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil. What could I do about him?

Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon . He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack competitions, and had placed often. The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to his prowess.

The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn't lift a heavy log, he joked about it; but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn't do something he had done as a younger man.

Four days after his sixty-seventh birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing.

At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived. But something inside Dad died. His zest for life was gone. He obstinately refused to follow doctor's orders. Suggestions and offers of help were turned aside with sarcasm and insults. The number of visitors thinned, then finally stopped altogether. Dad was left alone..

My husband, Dick, and I asked Dad to come live with us on our small farm. We hoped the fresh air and rustic atmosphere would help him adjust.

Within a week after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. It seemed nothing was satisfactory. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated and moody. Soon I was taking my pent-up anger out on Dick. We began to bicker and argue.

Alarmed, Dick sought out our pastor and explained the situation. The clergyman set up weekly counseling appointments for us. At the close of each session he prayed, asking God to soothe Dad 's troubled mind.

But the months wore on and God was silent. Something had to be done and it was up to me to do it.

The next day I sat down with the phone book and methodically called each of the mental health clinics listed in the Yellow Pages. I explained my problem to each of the sympathetic voices that answered in vain.

Just when I was giving up hope, one of the voices suddenly exclaimed, "I just read something that might help you! Let me go get the article.."

I listened as she read. The article described a remarkable study done at a nursing home. All of the patients were under treatment for chronic depression. Yet their attitudes had improved dramatically when they were given responsibility for a dog.

I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon.. After I filled out a questionnaire, a uniformed officer led me to the kennels. The odor of disinfectant stung my nostrils as I moved down the row of pens. Each contained five to seven dogs. Long-haired dogs, curly-haired dogs, black dogs, spotted dogs all jumped up, trying to reach me. I studied each one but rejected one after the other for various reasons too big, too small, too much hair. As I neared the last pen a dog in the shadows of the far corner struggled to his feet, walked to the front of the run and sat down. It was a pointer, one of the dog world's aristocrats. But this was a caricature of the breed.

Years had etched his face and muzzle with shades of gray. His hip bones jutted out in lopsided triangles. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention. Calm and clear, they beheld me unwaveringly.

I pointed to the dog. "Can you tell me about him?" The officer looked, then shook his head in puzzlement. "He's a funny one. Appeared out of nowhere and sat in front of the gate. We brought him in, figuring someone would be right down to claim him. That was two weeks ago and we've heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow." He gestured helplessly.

As the words sank in I turned to the man in horror.. "You mean you're going to kill him?"

"Ma'am," he said gently, "that's our policy. We don't have room for every unclaimed dog."

I looked at the pointer again. The calm brown eyes awaited my decision. "I'll take him," I said. I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me.. When I reached the house I honked the horn twice. I was helping my prize out of the car when Dad shuffled onto the front porch... "Ta-da! Look what I got for you, Dad !" I said excitedly.

Dad looked, then wrinkled his face in disgust "If I had wanted a dog I would have gotten one. And I would have picked out a better specimen than that bag of bones. Keep it! I don't want it" Dad waved his arm scornfully and turned back toward the house.

Anger rose inside me. It squeezed together my throat muscles and pounded into my temples. "You'd better get used to him, Dad . He's staying!"

Dad ignored me.. "Did you hear me, Dad ?" I screamed. At those words Dad whirled angrily, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes narrowed and blazing with hate. We stood glaring at each other like duelists, when suddenly the pointer pulled free from my grasp. He wobbled toward my dad and sat down in front of him. Then slowly, carefully, he raised his paw..

Dad's lower jaw trembled as he stared at the uplifted paw. Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. The pointer waited patiently. Then Dad was on his knees hugging the animal.

It was the beginning of a warm and intimate friendship. Dad named the pointer Cheyenne . Together he and Cheyenne explored the community. They spent long hours walking down dusty lanes. They spent reflective moments on the banks of

streams, angling for tasty trout. They even started to attend Sundayservices together, Dad sitting in a pew and Cheyenne lying quietly at is feet.

Dad and Cheyenne were inseparable throughout the next three years.. Dad's bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne made many friends. Then late one night I was startled to feel Cheyenne 's cold nose burrowing through our bed covers. He had never before come into our bedroom at night.. I woke Dick, put on my robe and ran into my father's room. Dad lay in his bed, his face serene. But his spirit had left quietly sometime during the night.

Two days later my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad 's bed. I wrapped his still form in the rag rug he had slept on. As Dick and I buried him near a favorite fishing hole, I silently thanked the dog for the help he had given me in restoring Dad 's peace of mind.

The morning of Dad 's funeral dawned overcast and dreary. This day looks like the way I feel, I thought, as I walked down the aisle to the pews reserved for family. I was surprised to see the many friends Dad and Cheyenne had made filling the church. The pastor began his eulogy. It was a tribute to both Dad and the dog who had changed his life.

And then the pastor turned to Hebrews 13:2. "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it."

"I've often thanked God for sending that angel," he said.

For me, the past dropped into place, completing a puzzle that I had not seen before: the sympathetic voice that had just read the right article... Cheyenne 's unexpected appearance at the animal shelter. . ...his calm acceptance and complete devotion to my father. . and the proximity of their deaths. And suddenly I understood. I knew that God had answered my prayers after all..

Piece of Mind: Meditation, Maturity, and Monkey Business

2011-10-13T09:40:00.014-04:00

The online dictionary defines meditation in this way: to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect. So, given the challenges I've been experiencing with my aging brain, I thought I could use some help with that. I signed up for a meditation class.

And I took a friend with me. She's about my age, so I assumed she needed it too. Turns out she'd done some of this engaging-in-thought thing before, so she had an edge. I was concerned she'd show me up, and, as it turned out, she did. But more on that later.

First I want to tell you that this friend -- I'll call her Sunny, for reasons I will soon shed light on -- and I have a long history of finding hilarity in inappropriate situations. One example would be the time Sunny and I went to some Weight Watchers meetings together. We were both comfortable with being under-achievers there. Neither of us had much weight to lose, just a smattering of pounds we'd gained during the holidays and wanted to take off before swimsuit weather. So our bar was already low and our personalities already sort of snarky, and I guess our demeanor reflected that. We were hands-down the class clowns, snickering at all the goofy little hints and tips and double entendres of the world of weight loss. Well okay, maybe the double entendres were our doing. They ended up being our UNdoing, too, as far as having the nerve to go back after one night of particularly bad behavior. I mean, when they started talking about organ meats, it was all over.

Ergo, my concern about going to the meditation class together. What I didn't factor in was our maturity. The Weight Watchers debacle had happened 15 years ago, and we were more mature now ... or maybe just duller witted. Maybe we had a prayer of navigating this class without offending our classmates or ticking the instructor off.

And I'm happy to report that our behavior was exemplary. In fact, one might even say Sunny qualified as Teacher's Pet. She performed all her meditative exercises so well and answered questions regarding her experience so eloquently that the teacher told her she was "like a bright light." She even took a break from the instructing I paid good money for, to further gush that Sunny was clearly a very nurturing person who did "so much to help others." Sunny beamed back at her with that stupid bright light of hers.

Wonk.

By the way, the teacher's sole assessment of me was that I was "organic." Organic? Really?? What exactly did she mean by that? That I wasn't glowing like a radioactive ninny; that I wasn't sucking up enough? That I had the odor of decay?? Well, pooh on her!

In response, I just smiled and said, "Oh." Guess I told HER!

Is that what maturity does? Taking a perfectly snide, hilarious person and turning her nice and no fun? Well then, I'm not having any of it. I'll keep my childishness, thank you very much.

And as far as my relationship with Sunny is concerned, I'm going to give her a second chance. I'm going to sign us both up for Kickboxing lessons, and if she doesn't make some reference to her opponent's organ meats, we're finished.

Piece of Mind: In Dogged Pursuit

2011-10-03T12:38:00.001-04:00

I'm sure you all miss reading about the extreme exploits of the X-Dog, right? Well, today's your lucky day. Pour your beverage of choice and settle in for the latest tail of the holy terrier. (Did I really write that? Yeah, I'm a goober.)

So you already know I'm one of those horrible people who has an invisible fence for my dogs. Yes, I admit it -- I consciously decided to let them receive a hideous, albeit low-level, electrical shock once during the two weeks of training required to acclimate them to the idea of staying in the yard as opposed to indulging themselves in a transformation to street salsa.

You can probably wait until after you've read this to report me to the authorities.

One morning last week, I let the boyz, Cowboy Calvin and the Opie the X-Dog, outside while I got ready to go work out. When I opened the door a short time later, only the Cowboy trotted back in. He seemed fine with it.

Then again, he's never gotten over wanting to be an only child. What prompted us to get the invisible torture device in the first place was his manipulation of our Irish Wolfhound years ago. His repeated reinactments of the scene where the woodsman took Hansel and Gretel deep into the woods to lose them got old. Again and again he'd lead Dugan into the woods behind our house and beat it back to the house by himself, wearing an oh-so innocent expression on his fuzzy-mutt mug. Who me? he unflinchingly conveyed.

But this time it couldn't have been Calvin's conniving. After all, we'd installed the chamber of horrors to prevent it.

So I called Opie. And I called and called and called, peppering my entreaties with promises that Daddy was home and I had treats -- the two things in life he is nearly powerless to resist. But he resisted. So I knew something out of the ordinary had happened, and I initiated emergency dog-finding protocol. I slogged through the dew-covered grasses in the pasture to make sure Opie wasn't up to his shoulders in a groundhog hole, I walked the periphery of the property... TWICE, and I got down on the soggy ground to check under the deck to make sure he wasn't under there playing a chipmunk to death.

(And yes, I did go back into the house and make sure I hadn't closed him in a closet. Geez. How'd you know about that? That's the first place I look... now.)

Damp and desperate, I went to the back of the property again and called him. And, from way back in the woods, WAY outside the invisible fence, I heard a high-pitched, piercing terrier bark, which, at times like this, I find especially grating. So into the underbrush I plunged, heedless of my own personal presentable readiness to go work out next to some elliptical-grinding, every-hair-in-place, color-coordinated professional power babe at Health Point.

Suffice it to say that after one trip into the woods poorly prepared and sans leash, followed by another equipped with leash, polished persuasive techniques AND milk bones, I was able to wrest the boy from the lure of returning the wild (which I may actually regret), and bring him safely home.

After that, I checked the power box of our ferocious fence and saw that the light was on, indicating it was in working order. So I called the company to ask what was up and was politely told that our battery replacement contract (for the nasty noose collars) had run out THREE MONTHS AGO.

That could be it.

Zap. I was correctively shocked. Apparently, like the oil in my car, these things aren't self-perpetuating. They have to be replaced once in a while. Imagine that.

Covered in clammy sweat and burrs, I didn't end up working out that day. I already felt fully put through the ringer and sucked of at least 500 calories anyway. I guess that was the bright side. And in more good news, our dogs' strangle devices have fresh new batteries now, so no more escape attempts for a while.

But rest assured -- stories of the X-Dog's escapades will continue. The boy still has what it takes to send me over the edge and right to the keyboard.

Piece of Mind: The Big Bang -- He Did it Again

2011-09-23T12:26:00.001-04:00

As if it weren't already the story-of-a-lifetime that my veterinarian husband once stitched up his own leg in the bathtub after slicing it WAY open with a chainsaw, he recently had an encore performance that arguably surpasses the Chainsaw Massacre. I'm considering calling this one Attack of the Killer Dresser.

We were in California, engaging in what one would think to be the quaint family tradition of helping prepare a nursery for our next grandchild. I was refinishing a chandelier and applying wall appliques, and Jim was putting together furniture. He had already assembled the crib and was working on the dresser, when our plans took a sudden detour.

My pregnant daughter and I had gone upstairs for a moment, when we heard a heeeeeuge crash.

"Are you okay?" I called down to Jim.

"NO!" he roared back, sounding more irritated than hurt.

So I asked again, to hedge my bets against the possibility of breaking my neck tearing down the wooden steps unnecessarily. After all, he did just sound exceptionally ticked-off, which is often his tone during situations where assembly is required.

"NO!!!" he yelled again, more pissily than ever.

So I tore down the steps, and despite yelling back at my gestating daughter not to run, she did, too. Dumb kid. What we found in the nursery, amid what the CSI's would term "blood spatter," was a highly-agitated Jim, on the floor, holding his knee.

If you've ever put together IKEA furniture, you know that the contemporary styling lends a certain aggressive, razor-sharpness to the edges of its wood (particle-board?) pieces. My husband has similar edges when he's in assembly mode. He is a hard-driven, top-speed, high-performance machine; so much so that he becomes -- well, a bit unaware of his surroundings. It's one of the things I love about him, that laser-focused sense of purpose. He's a dynamo. He gets things done. He da Man.

So there sat my wounded warrior, spurting more than blood ... things I really didn't want to see OR hear. From his expletive-enhanced explanation, we gleaned that he had been moving quickly, a la Jim, and tripped over some boards he had propped up, falling into some other boards, breaking them and cutting open his leg in two places.

[Warning: The follwing statements may be inappropriate for lily-livered audiences.] I don't want to make you queasy or anything, but there was more than blood. There were two big, thick flaps of loose tissue and even a glimpse of bone.

Vicious, vicious furniture.

What ensued was a lot of debate about what to do next. Mind you, Jim's expertise is in veterinary surgery, and he has sewn up more gruesome horse lacerations than you can shake a barbed-wire fence at. Of course, it was after hours for people-doctor offices, and we called a few area vets who refused to sell some crazy practitioner from the Midwest a surgical pack with needles and suture. (After all, we were in California, where rules are rules, and they are required, by law, to ecshew all sense of logic or compassion.)

So we decided to sew up his flappy leg with a regular sewing needle, needle-nose pliers and dental floss.

And he did, with me as his surgical assistant, pouring copious amounts of rubbing alcohol on everything within five feet of him. Sure, every once in a while a needle or the floss broke, but my expert veterinary surgeon eventually closed the two gaping wounds with about twenty stitches fit for even the highest-bred Arabian stallion.

What a stud.

Upon hearing about the fiasco, my other daughter -- the non-pregnant (at least to my knowledge) one -- said she was pretty sure her concept of masculinity was significantly skewed. I think she's right.

Two weeks later, Jim removed the stitches of a nearly-healed, not-too-bad-looking wound. And though he isn't terribly marred, his modeling career is effectively over. No doubt he'll manage to muddle through.

As for the rest of us, we have a new chapter for our growing volume of Dittoes' Believe-it-or-Not.

Piece of Mind: A Major, Monumental Announcement of Very Vague Proportions

2011-09-05T20:50:00.000-04:00

Okay, time to silence a nasty rumor: I'M NOT DEAD. I'm definitely not at the top of my game, but I do still detect a pulse and the occasional involuntary muscle movement.

Glad that's put to rest.

The fact is I'm percolating, ruminating, incubating, and formulating for the purpose of fulminating. And please, don't be too literal in your interpretation of that. The kind of explosion I'm working toward is more in the line of creating than flatulating. The thing is, I've got some ideas taking form that don't relate in any way to IBS, unless it stands for Inspired Brain Storming.

Yes, friends, it's been a whole year since my Piece of Mind column was so ruthlessly cut down in its prime. I had written it for 15 years, which equals fifty-seven in women's prime years. (Don't argue with me about that. I've devised a complex formula to calculate productivity, inspiration, and general sexiness, based on laboratory research of DNA collected from Mother Teresa, Sarah -- wife of Abraham, Sophia Loren and Grandma Moses.)

There's no stopping me. Okay, so I might take momentary stops for a cross-country relocation, hip replacement, or birth of a grandchild, but I'm committed to getting back in the saddle as quickly as possible after these stops at the watering holes of life. I mean, you wouldn't want me to die of thirst, would you? (Or did you actually enjoy those rumors of my demise? Must've been a slow season for a lot of us.)

So that's my deal. I'm building momentum in preparation to stun the world with a new, improved outlet for my creative above-averageness!

Now, if I can just figure out what it is...

Ditbits: Confessing

2011-04-26T11:35:00.000-04:00

I owe you all an apology. I promised I would post my Piece of Mind column here once a week, and, to clarify, I didn't mean that in Biblical weeks; i.e., the first day = creation of heavens and Earth, the second day = ... well, you get it. Hence, I am as guilty as sin.

All this leaning on my faith is a sure sign of sheepishness, and I'm owning up to it. But I can explain.

[Aw geez, Mildred, here she goes with the excuses again.]

Just to be sporting (and distract you from my shameless behavior), let's do this in a multiple-choice format! C'MON, IT'LL BE FUN, MILDRED! You get to choose your preferred excuse!

Here goes:
I have not posted a new column -- or, okay, ALRIGHT, even a simple paragraph to let you know I'm still alive -- for weeks. Mea culpa, Homies. Below are several possible reasons for my negligence. Choose one and, if you feel like sharing, justify your choice in the comment section below this post. Admit it, you love audience participation. Besides, it's not like I'm hypnotizing you and making you do the shimmy to "My Humps."

#1. I was on strike as a gesture of support for my teaching friends, to protest the ban on collective bargaining, because I really do think there's power in numbers if you're dickering on a cute pair of Hush Puppies.

#2. We've had so much rain here in the Midwest that I was afraid of electrocution if I used my computer. Hey, I am positive those cables are below sea level.

#3. I have been really absorbed in a compelling piece of literature with a penguin on the spine and a Fabio-alike on the cover.

#4. My dogs have been needy.

#5. We have listed our house and I've been cleaning, painting, and upgrading; my daughter is preggo and I'm so excited I spend all my time of baby-name websites; I'm going to the ASJA Conference in N.Y. this weekend and have been feverishly working on a book pitch; and my back is killing me.

Okay, folks. I didn't realize until I actually wrote those options that it comes down to picking the least preposterous. So do it. I have effectively place the onus for my misbehavior on you. Dang, I'm good.

Piece of Mind: Everything Old is Still Old

2011-03-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

My husband and I, due to circumstances well beyond our control, are cool again. And by "cool," I mean "cheap." Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose -- these are words that have, like so many other terms of necessity, recently been gentrified. And this makes us solidly and undeniably hip.

It all started in a crumbly brick duplex, not far from the O.S.U. -- yes, Go Bucks -- campus, thirty years ago. Back then, we were cool because we were young, not because we had to eat creatively-disguised permutations of spam to get my husband through vet school on my $11,000/year job. Back then, having functional collagen unquestionably trumped bed-sheet window treatments and starch-and-sauce progressive dinners with fellow students to make us cutting edge.

[Sidebar] We all managed a road trip to Aspen one year, bunked, en masse, on someone's older brother's floor, and sprayed our jeans with waterproofing. There were eighteen of us, safety in numbers, sticking out like crabgrass in the Chemlawn of beautiful people on the ski slopes that spring break.

In the intervening years, however, our former friends in frugality moved on while Jim and I remained mysteriously unevolved. We just kept improvising with hammer, wood stain, darning needle, and later, with blender and breasts (mine) for baby sustenance, while everyone else bought furniture "sets" for their dining rooms, living rooms and bedrooms. I chalk this off to inborn obstinance and an almost unhealthy rugged individuality we both seem to possess, which, by the way, I think is almost as unlikely as two carriers of any other rare congenital disorder finding each other and procreating. Heaven help our kids.

Then, in the ultimate defy-the-Material-Man gesture, we converted our barn into a house and moved into it.

It was a few years after that when the world caught up to us with its avant-garde plan for the new R-word lifestyle. Hence, here we sit in the middle of everything, involuntarily trendy. Yuk. After thirty-some years of bucking the system, we're not so sure we like being fashionable.

So that's the explanation for our unexpected slide onto the cutting edge, where we are more than a little uncomfortable. Of course, our own kids will never view us that way -- e.g., when Jim scoured the internet to replace his 10-year-old car with another of the same age and model because he liked it so much -- but what does their generation know about using old, outdated stuff besides what they read in Art Culinaire? The day we stop embarrassing our kids is the day we hang it all up. Shabby-chic? Please.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make soup out of last night's leftover tuna noodle casserole.

Ditbits: Is This Age-Related?

2011-03-16T13:06:00.001-04:00

Guess what I'm doing at night, these days? CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND KNITTING! Yep, you read it right. My other option is reading. There's a common denominator here, and it's not just the reading glasses. It's the uncool element.

What is happening to me?? Okay, I won't deny a lifelong interest in knitting and reading -- do I get points for the latter, at least? -- but crossword puzzles? What's next -- harping about the unsuitability of television programming?? I've already started that. Don't get me going about Reality TV, mean spiritedness, and the systematic erosion of compassion and decency through media.

Yet, here's the irony: I love watching Glee occasionally, but last night's episode made me cringe. I tried not to, but I couldn't help it. There are just some things I have negative viseral responses to, and I honestly don't know if I can blame it on conditioning. I did grow up in a more reserved era in a more reserved locale (the Midwest), and I even squirm a little when there's a heated, tongue-omnipresent kiss between heterosexuals on TV, but last night's Glee was a game-changing, epiphanic episode for me. I'd like to blame it on good old generational stoicism, but I just don't know.

I might be a fake. I might even have faked myself out, with my openminded posturing. My social filter does clog at some point, and it can even happen in my own living room.

Regardless of the explanation, it's clear I'd better stock up on yarn, books, and crossword puzzles. My list of watchable television programs, like my near-sightedness, is rapidly diminishing.

Sorry kids. I just gave you another thing to love me in spite of.

Piece of Mind: Pests Primavera

2011-02-19T11:37:00.000-05:00

So I'm thinking our recent bout of sunshine is a mixed bag. It may be one of those things we miss disproportionately when it's gone and appreciate somewhat less when it's here.

This time of year, anyway, it introduces some unsavory players to my stage. My barnhouse is full of flies, I vered around three dead skunks on the road yesterday, and my floor is host to a roadmap of muddy pawprints. What's more, if I don't keep ahead of the items on this list, I'm gonna pay for it in varying degrees of -- shall we say, unpleasantness.

I'll elaborate. Let me first say that I love living in a barn (a prudent remark, given its current status: for sale). But the flies are not yet convinced, even after seventeen years of human habitation, that its dwellers are not bovine. If I had a tail to swish, this would be less of a problem, but as my lower spine seems to have completed its development, I'm stuck using a plastic swatter. Worse yet, if they happen to die before I do the honors, someone -- not naming names -- steps on them and makes them much harder to clean off the floor. The muddy pawprints? We gotta catch those scampering little paws before they paint the floors, freestyle form, interpretive-dance style; hence, a dingy rag hangs by the door and a damp mop is at the ready. Then my favorite: the skunks. They hold us hostage, alive, and deliver their pungent incense, dead. Best of all, they serve as a constant deterrent to letting our dogs outside. I'd almost rather clean up floor doodies than work feverishly to eradicate the stink from dog hide.

So right about now, you're wondering if this ol' broad is EVER happy. I am, truly, but two things: If I don't air my feelings, I don't have much in the way of writing material, and I'll grant you that it could be worse. We could live with, say, Tyrannosauri (is that the plural?) and bubonic plague.

And that's comforting.

Ditbits: S.A.D., but not Unhappy!

2011-02-09T14:17:00.000-05:00

Hello, All! I'm trying to avoid the now-jaded apology for being so negligent on here. As an alternative, I'll tell you what's been so dang all-consuming in my life. No less boring, but maybe a bit less groveling.

So the deal is that I've been so busy keeping myself busy to avoid the winter blues that I'm feeling a tad overburdened. The hubs and I have been working on a little building project (to be announced once the surprise has been sprung on the surprisee) and doing some traveling, and I have been dabbling in some freelance stuff and embarking on the beginning stages of selling our barnhouse. It is currently posted on several real estate sales sites, but remains, at present, unlisted. This latter, you may remember, is step one in our Master Relocation and Family Reunification Plan. Sell it and they will come, if you will. If they (the kids) don't, we will still live happily ever after, in our projected new home base, lakeside, in the Carolinas. Could be worse, eh? Wish us luck, because it ain't a completely-rosey prospect. This gal is a dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner and lover of all things homey and heartlandy -- except maybe tole painting and ruffles. It's not that I don't like 'em; I'm just, personally, more streamlined in practice.

So thas whassup here. In terms of my now-defunct newspaper column... I miss my weekly conversation with my sweet small town, but those other things on the burner are starting to simmer.

Talk to you again soon!

Piece of Mind: Reduced to This

2011-01-18T13:13:00.000-05:00

So I'm currently reading *Cleopatra: A Life* by Stacy Schiff, and realizing how far we've fallen as a culture. Oh, of course, they did kill their parents and siblings back then to solidify their political ambitions, but that aside, they were really quite civilized.

Cleopatra, above all, was the full package: a brilliant strategist, a regal beauty, saavy in social machinations as well those of business and politics, fluent in many languages, a doting mother, a sexual seductress, revered as half-god and half-human, a highly-successful ruler, and a dang good interior decorator.

Now, there's a broad who effectively reduces my self-image to amoebic proportions -- forget Alessandra Ambrosio. And yet, which item in the above list of exceptional qualities do we most often hear in any discussion of Cleopatra VII? The sexual seductress. Ironically this effectively reduces her, in the scheme of all remarkable and peerless historical icons, to the category of, well -- Alessandra Ambrosio. Cleopatra: The Vickie's Secret model of ancient history and -- oh yeah -- last Egyptian Queen and demigod.

Talk about objectified women. Cleopatra's is surely the most flagrant example in all of history.

This should really tick me off. And when I was in college, it would have. When I was in my twenties and thirties and a bit of my forties, it would have. Now, in my mid-well-okay-maybe-later fifties, it just sorta does. Funny how objectionable objectifying is when you still qualify for it.

At my age, I'm thinking of the legacy I'll leave. Sure, I hope future generations remember me as a fairly-intelligent, effective, and influencial woman, but would it really be so bad if someday my grandchildren told their kids that Granny still got a few cat calls well into her fifties???

Don't worry...I am appropriately ashamed.

Ditbits: Recycling Resolutions

2011-01-06T13:00:00.002-05:00

So it's a new year, and I'm pondering all the usual things: how to stay young and healthy; how to see more of my kids; how to be more productive; how to make a greater contribution, how to better understand my God-given purpose; and, of course, my perennial favorite, how to simplify my life. Is it possible that I always include that last one to neutralize the first five? I mean, those five require effort and change, both of which could be interpreted -- in a mind such as mine -- as complications. Hence, they cancel each other out.

Done. My life is simplified. That was easy.

OR I could actually trim some fat elsewhere in my environment to make room for the first Fab Five resolutions. I could stop doing Facebook and watching TV and participating in any of a number of other guilty pleasures. But then, by my warped calculations, I'd be boring, one of those hyper-efficient Robo People. Have I mentioned that boring is so near the top of my list of bad personal characteristics that I don't even want to tell you?

But I will. I mean, ya got your selfish, your cruel, your duplicitous, your arrogant, and in that same insufferable sorority, ya got your boring. I suppose that makes me judgmental -- another of my A-list detractors -- which, necessarily, adds self-loathing to my own heap of deficiencies.

Are you beginning to see what a challenge it is for me to simplify... anything?

Perhaps I should consider counseling. On the other hand, that would be just another thing to add to my schedule, not to mention my list of things to ponder. So, nah.

Maybe I should just maintain the status quo, as I have for the last half-century of new years.

All together now, in a rousing rendition of the old folk song "There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza!" What a delightful little ditty about circular thinking. For some reason, I've remembered it over these many years since Girl Scout camp. Hmm.

Thanks for helping me process all this. I hope it hasn't complicated your life.

Ditbits: Umbilical Cords, New and Used

2010-11-19T11:11:00.001-05:00

Sorry to leave ya'll high and dry for the past couple of weeks. Life... well, you know. And, frankly, the slightly colder, much darker days have slowed my metabolic muse. I make no other reasonable excuses.

But I do have a couple things to bring to the fore for a thorough airing out. Just a couple little intriguing tidbits...

Last weekend I visited my "baby," who is in grad school on Chicago's renowned South Side, and the experience took a virtual machete to the remaining remnants of the umbilical cord. I can honestly say that never have I felt more pulled to protect and nurture her, but NEVER has it been more poignantly clear that life has rendered her profoundly and completely in charge of her own well being. This has nothing to do with her and my feelings of connectedness but is solely about her ability to survive in the wild without me. Because, Baby, it's inarguably a jungle out there. When she has finished this year, she'll be qualified to climb Mt. Everest or navigate the Yangtze River solo, with only a paddle and a slingshot, whichever is required first. Please consider this an invitation to pray on her behalf.

In a quite different kind of news, my niece has found out she'll be giving birth to a girl in April, which wouldn't be newsworthy outside of our family boundaries except for the fact that, just a few weeks ago, she was going to be giving birth to a boy in April. Her father -- my brother-in-law -- has stated that this is certainly the earliest sex-change operation on record. In actuality, my niece had one of those exciting, flashy, not-doctor-sanctioned 4D Ultrasounds a while back and the "technician" told her the baby was male. My daughter-in-law also had a 4D early in her pregnancy, and they got it right. But in my niece's case, they apparently saw a little sum'n-sum'n that wasn't actually there. Soooooooo, the later ultrasound performed by the doctor's staff revealed that there was actually empty space where they once thought there was an appendage of specific significance. Bottom line: It's great news. The parents-to-be hadn't taken any irreversible action based on the 4D prediction, and they are tickled... yes, pink.

Now I'd like to take this opportunity to assume, based on my sketchy performance in recent weeks, that I won't be back on here with a Piece of Mind column or "Ditbit" before Thanksgiving and wish you a warm and cozy or wild and crazy -- whichever best applies -- Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading. I'm thankful for YOU.

Ballots and Baked Goods

2010-11-05T13:24:00.000-04:00

I exercised my right as a U.S. citizen on Tuesday and ate homemade cookies. Just another of the many perks of living in my Midwest haven.

As I was running errands prior to voting the other day, I was listening to NPR. They were talking about how voting has become an unpleasant, even costly, experience for people in some areas of the country, due to dangerously-located wards or those situated in areas of high traffic, where people actually have to take extra time off work to get to their polling places. Consequently, some eligible voters were refraining from casting their votes.

As I thought about how unfortunate that was, I pulled into the church where I vote and put the car in park. It was a little cold and drizzly, but certainly NOT dangerous or inconvenient. In fact, I walked right into the cozy lobby and immediately spotted friends and neighbors. After chatting up some of my favorite poll workers and fellow voters, I cast my vote, put on my sticker and headed back out to the lobby, where two sweet women attending another ballot box -- one for a handmade quilt they were selling raffle tickets for -- greeted me warmly and pointed out the table of cookies and coffee.

I felt the equivalent of a warm embrace for doing my civic duty, not unlike the one I once got for picking up my toys. Uncle Sam's elves always go above and beyond in my precinct, and I love them and the voting experience, as a result. What a shame it can't be like that everywhere, here and abroad.

So yeah, here I am counting my blessings again.

Piece of Mind: Throwing Myself Under the Bus for Kicks and Giggles

2010-11-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

I fully acknowledge that there are a few circumstances that can only point to one thing: I'm turning into an old lady. One of them happened yesterday.

I went to church with my pants on backwards. No two ways about it, that is a disturbing turn of events.

So after church, I went into the bathroom to pull my hair back, because it was driving me crazy. As I was positioned in front of the mirror reaching up to brush my hair, I happened to glance down and see two patch pockets on the front of my pants.

The realization of what I'd done went through me like an electric shock, in light of the fact that I'd just been out in public, mingling with lots and lots of people who, despite their good Sunday intentions, definitely check out what you're wearing every week.

Fortunately, these were sort of legging-like pants that I'd worn under a longish top. I racked my brain to remember if I'd done any significant reaching upward during church, and not being the spiritually-demonstrative type, reached the conclusion that I hadn't. Thank God for small favors.

When I discovered my faux pas, I let out a little horrified squeak that my husband heard from where he stood in the adjacent closet.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

The overwhelming temptation was to lie. But he'd caught me still in that vulnerable state of alarm where you can't think on your feet, and I told him what I'd discovered. Naturally, he thought it was hilarious, in much the same way I think it's hilarious that he's always hitting his head on stuff because his eyes are so deep set. Only I get the opportunity more often, so he really took advantage of this situation to thoroughly and profoundly enjoy the moment.

Once he'd calmed down, I tried to exact a promise from him that he wouldn't tell anyone. He protested, of course, reminding me that it was really funny... as if that would further his case.

"No!" I said firmly, and he acquiesed. Then I tried to put a positive spin on it by saying I was actually kind of proud my recent work-out efforts had reduced my rump to the extent that I could actually get my pants on backwards. But it wasn't all that convincing.

A few hours had passed when my sister and niece came for a visit. After some tea and lots of homey, fireside chatting, I let down my defenses and told them. They laughed with an undisguished lack of sensitivity and unbridled glee. And, though I was prepared for embarrassment, what I felt was fulfillment!

That's when I realized for the millionth time that I get a huge kick out of making people laugh.... with me OR at me. But let me put a finer point on that: I like being laughed at when I CHOOSE to be -- not by an entire congregation of people who've caught me with my pants down... or backwards, as the case may be.

So, in light of that bit of self awareness, I present the story to you, here, in this public forum, after the fact. Pretty darn funny, huh?

Farewell, Friend

2010-10-24T13:53:00.000-04:00

Thus, has passed my very favorite time of the year -- mid-October. It surpasses any other, in terms of gratifying every last one of my senses. So long until this time next year, my dear friend!

Piece of Mind: His Clerical Assistant

2010-10-22T15:02:00.000-04:00

I've figured something out: A man delegates duties with far more ease than does a woman. A woman thinks she has to do it all herself. A man easily identifies the things that are too menial for him to bother with and assigns them to someone else. A woman lives to serve, so she accepts these assignations without question... if she's really a sucker for many years, like me.

One day last weekend, my husband asked me the same question 5 times within a period of about 7 hours. That's what it took -- a figurative whop upside da head -- for me to realize he was using me as a file cabinet. I suddenly realized, after the 4th repetition of the same question, that he preferred to reference me for the info than make the effort to commit it to memory, himself. And I responded well to his training, like a skirted circus dog.

Gimme a hunk o' raw meat for being such a good girl.

Hey -- I'm no dummy. When I started to answer for the fifth time, it hit me that I was being used as a pocket encyclopedia.

Now I get why my husband is no good with song lyrics. Auditory repetition has no impact on a brain that is immediately on to more important matters... like football rankings. Incidentals like dates and times stick to his gray matter like a greased pig... unless of course that pig slipped through the grip of a defender for a first down.

Perhaps I should spin this new bit of knowledge in a more gratifying way. I should be flattered that he gives me so much credit for my encyclopedic retention. But, alas, I see too much of a parallel between this and his stated inability to find something in the fridge before he even has the door open all the way, even if he has to track me down in the shower to come find it for him. He perceives both as time-savers, pure and simple, and I suspect there's also that small element of their not being worthy of his exertion of effort. Me? I am nothing more than an implement of convenience and efficiency.

At the moment of my epiphany last week, I pointed all this out to him. And you know what he did, or I should say didn't, do? He didn't deny any of it. That right there, my dear friends, is supreme self confidence. He just gave me a sheepish grin that clearly indicated that I had caught him, that he was spanked.

And, you know, I would probably take the risk of being spanked, too, if I knew I wouldn't get caught for thirty-three years. Such are the gender dynamics of a longterm relationship -- mine, anyway.

Re: "And Speaking of Percents" (See below)

2010-10-18T15:33:00.001-04:00

To further illustrate my point...

Piece of Mind: Providing Incentives

2010-10-13T14:56:00.001-04:00

I am getting continual inquiries as to why I "stopped writing" my column. By now, most of you know it wasn't by choice. I basically priced myself out of the local market, and now have, as the sole outlet for Piece of Mind, this blog. So I tell everyone who inquires to check here for my weekly column.

Big lie. I can't seem, for the life of me, to post a new column on here on a weekly basis. I'm not sure why. The only reason I can think of is that I was paid (though not much) to write a weekly column before, and now I'm not. So SEND MONEY! (No -- chust choking -- to use some local, Dutch vernacular.) I would like to think I'm not financially motivated. And really, if I were, and if all it required for me to be so was the pittance I was motivated by when I wrote for the paper... well, that makes me a cheap -- um -- date. And among all the things I've aspired to be, that is not one of them.

But I do find that I need just a little sumpin-sumpin to keep me on task with many things. Like getting dressed in the morning. To tell you I'm not sitting here right now in my jammies with coffee breath and an unkempt coif would be to lie... again. For me to get up and get dressed immediately, or even before noon, would mean having something on the calendar for the day.

Now, lest you judge me, allow me to simply say this: I can be very productive in my jammies. So if you come to my door and catch me in them, do not assume I haven't, already that day, accomplished something of merit. Like cutting the fuzz mats from between my dog's paw pads or sucking an entire battalion of house flies from my window sills (not by mouth). I can move menial mountains en pyjama.

I'll admit it, I usually have to plan to host an event in order to get myself to thoroughly clean my house, too, and even then it's a matter of the classification of the event. As examples: A large-scale event involving first-time guests merits taking a scalpel to the cracks in my barn floor, for a crack-cruddotomy. A smaller event wherein more familiar guests or family spend the night? A decent, disinfecting wipe-down of the water closet facilities. But, my book club buds? Sorry girls -- it's merely a matter of blowing (by mouth) the dust off the leather livingroom ensemble and sprinkling a few finger foods amidst all those bottles of vino. Luckily, we all have four-legged children at home so it's understood that your attendance will facilitate the equal exchange of pet hair -- a long-accepted fair trade practice among us -- and, in addition to that, the (questionable) exchange of literary erudition and a nice wine buzz are the party favors du jour.

So, you see, I could use some sort of incentive, just a little nudge of some kind, to become more regular in posting new Piece of Mind columns herein. Money would be nice, a shock collar on a timer might also work, but I'm thinking chocolate. If you could all get organized in much the same way we moms used to sign up for the game snack schedule of our kids' soccer teams, you could take turns bringing me chocolates every Tuesday, if and only if I post a column the day before.

Sound reasonable?

Piece of Mind: And Speaking of "Percents"

2010-09-28T14:40:00.001-04:00

It occurred to me when I woke up this morning that I looked, as I do every single morning, like a percent sign... I mean, literally -- and I don't use that word lightly, because doing so is one of my many current cultural pet peeves, along with the unrepentant, widely-accepted, errant conjugation of the verbs "to lie" and "to lay." So allow me to make it abundantly clear that I literally woke up to find myself LYING (NOT laying) in the configuration of a percent sign. I was the middle part, the slash, and my two dogs were curled up as the little circles on either side.

This agonizing (because I have arthritis) but endearing little habit has evolved quite naturally over the past months as a result not only of the dogs' unrelenting devotion to me but also their unrelenting devotion to the comfort of my sleep-number bed, which was, ironically, purchased for the relief of my arthritis. Thus, its very comfort has given forth the cruel twist of fate that my dogs love lying on it and forcing me into uncomfortable positions.

Yeah, I know -- whine, whine, whine. And it's even less attractive coming from me than it is from my dogs, which is where it comes from, incessantly, when they aren't allowed on my bed in the morning. I have a choice: annoying whining or an achey body. Choosing to let them up is instant gratification in exchange for delayed consequences. For the tiny mind, such as my own at 5AM, it's no contest.

Here's how it works --
Upon recognizing that two adult people, two adult dogs, and, on some occasions, one or two cats (one juvenile, one elderly), LYING on the bed at night restricts my access to comfortable positions, I made the executive decision to cut back on whom I slept with. This, one might argue, is a decision most people make earlier in life, but it has been my good fortune to find myself a hotly-pursued bed partner in my later years. (Gotta take silver linings where we find 'em, eh?)

Anyway, I bought two nice little doggie beds, and like two nice little doggies, mine willingly slept on them for a few months before throwing obedient behavior to the wind in favor of being more warm and comfy. The elder dog, Cowboy Calvin, was easily redirected with the simple command to get down. The younger, the holy terrier Opie the X-Dog, was not so easily disuaded. So -- and please don't report me to PETA -- I have taken to tethering him, by leash, to the table leg beside his bed. This has been a successful maneuver, which has allowed me a blissful night's sleep. That is, until my husband gets up at the crevasse of dawn every morning.

(In fairness, I should note that he gets up so early because the dogs, at that time, begin whining because of their other unrelenting pursuit -- of breakfast.)

So my husband releases Opie from his bonds and feeds them both before starting to get ready for work. Their habit, after eating, has become getting into bed with me, vacuum-packing me against the mattress like a brick of Colombian coffee. Ultimately, I loosen the covers and free myself from one body curled into the back of my knees and the other in front of me, roll onto my back and form a straight, diagonal line across the mattress, providing no curves into which a dog can curl, and find myself, as I mentioned earlier, a slash between two rounded dogs.

Though this is a decent compromise, there is the problem that Jim's and my sleep numbers are different, so my upper hemisphere rests in a softer place than does my lower one. This is still preferable, in terms of aches and pains, to the coffee brick conformation.

Hence, from an aerial view -- say, if we were in a mirrored suite in the Poconos -- my dog collection and I look like performance art: La marque pour cent, de la femme et le chien.

It would be lovely if I could content myself with thinking of this phenomenon from an artistic point of view, but -- well, there's about a zero percent chance of that.

Piece of Mind: The 5%

2010-09-14T13:42:00.001-04:00

As I told a friend this morning, every degenerated disk, bronchitis symptom, and coughing fit is worth it when I think about the month I've had. After all, it all led up to one of the 5% times. I'll explain that to anyone who has never read one of my past references to "the 5%". It's the 5% of your life you spend the other 95% looking forward to.

For three weeks I planned, organized, and prepared for a twenty-four hour period that occurred last Sunday, the day before Labor Day. On that day, all three of my kids (who live in distant lands) and their significant others, including my spanking-new grandbaby, overlapped at the barnhouse. We took advantage of the occasion to invite a slew of relatives and a few close friends as well as some poppers-in, to come join the fun. It was complete madness and simultaneously heaven on Earth.

Let me tell you -- there is no feeling like seeing your daughters meet their new nephew or your mother-in-law hold her first Great Grandchild for the first time. It defies description, so I won't even try.

And to top it all off, my son and daughter-in-law (that would be Ferdinand and Bo Peep to you) and their new little son stayed for a week and a half after the other kiddos left, which served to delay my empty-nesting quite nicely.

Until today. Yesterday, I suspended the post-kid blues by uploading, editing, and posting somewhere in the neighborhood of the 976 pictures I took of the festivities. And wouldn't you know it? Not a single one of ME with the new baby. Truly, I am totally satisfied with the canoodling time I got with him, but I would've liked to come away with a commemorative photo for the "Grandma and Me" frame that my friend gave me back when I found out I was going to be a grandma. So that's a bit of salt in the wound of missing everyone today.

I'll live. In fact I'm getting used to this ol' deja vu all over again thing. And I plan to use the time constructively, rather than moping around licking my wounds as I have on past occasions. Today, I emulated some of my over-achieving friends and stripped the beds, washed the linens and hung them on the line, cleaned out the fridge, took out the trash and recyclables, and just generally got the house back in order -- almost all before noon. This flurry of uncharacteristic productivity served two important purposes: it got rid of most of the reminders that my little darlings have been here and it thoroughly wiped out my already aching back, which will be a great distraction for a while.

Does that sound a little desperate? Dang straight it's desperate. These are desperate times, and I'll indulge in whatever self-flagellation I need to to get through the withdrawal phase. Ve all haf our vays of dealing.

Meantime, let me give you a little insight into my agony with these pictures, but please, don't cry for me.

Piece of Mind: Grueling, Garish Garage Sale

2010-08-26T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'll never be the same. I've been bent, stretched, scratched and dented, run to ground, ground to dust, drenched in sweat, broiled to imperfection, and thoroughly, repeatedly pillaged and ripped off. And that was just in the first five minutes of my garage sale. What's worse is I subjected some of my best friends, who were on hand to help out, to the same treatment. Forgive me, comrades.

If I EVER suggest doing another garage sale, I want you to beat me to a pulp. I mean it -- don't stop until I'm putty. That would be less painful than another garage sale. Hopefully it will dissuade me, if the delusions of raking in obscene profits and having a pared-down, squeaky-clean house to retreat to afterwards don't overtake me again. And given my overly-generous estimation of the value of my worn-out chotchkes, that's a big "if."

Yes, I know that, with time, this tormented back, these blistered feet, and my severely-clogged pores, will heal, but will my sense of self and household-trinket worth? I don't claim to have good taste, but I never thought I'd have to PAY someone to cart away my lovingly-selected domestic treasures.

It's a blow to my self esteem that will require years of recovery.

I mean, come on. Who among you can't see the heirloom quality of a seventies-style hanging lamp/fern planter combo? And who will admit to not being able to identify the fine craftsmanship and inherent historical value evident in a macrame wall hanging that graced a college dorm room nearly four decades ago? (Ah, if that wall hanging could talk.) Where have all the discriminating consumers gone?

Long time passing; gone to strip malls, every one. Oh, when will theyyyyyyyyyyyy ever learn? (Thank you, PP&M. I'm just glad you weren't around to see it, Mary. R.I.P., dear girl.)

So what sold? I'LL TELL YOU WHAT SOLD: Bright-colored things like big, plastic coolers and big inflatable ski and snow tubes and polyester-acrylic stuffed animals! It was an affront to all things natural. The only heartening thing about it was that at least the materials that can't be recycled and reconstituted were REPURPOSED. Whatever... at least they're not in a landfill... for now.

(I still can't believe no one wanted my 18 inch, iridescent ceramic donkey figurine.)

Okay, that's it. I can't be held accountable for the tastelessness of others. I'm finished licking my wounds. It's time to move on. I need to work on making my house more pared down and squeaky clean. Excuse me while I go wipe down my cultured marble countertop and vacuum my polypropylene carpet.

Harumph.

Piece of Mind: News Spill

2010-08-11T11:57:00.002-04:00

Okay, so the cat's outta the bag. We are seriously considering leaving the barn -- for faraway lands. Yes, it will rip my heart out, but I don't see how it can be any more painful than the slow death I'm experiencing at the hands of having my kids live on the other side of the world. A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

Plus, there are numerous other reasons for our pursuing this course of action: weather, the absence of water in the landscape for us two anaerobes, the sheer size of this house... these and more, in addition to the slim chance that some of our kids may relocate to the same area we're looking at, result in powerful incentive.

Our lifestyle -- which is, inarguably, traditional in some ways and absurdly nontraditional in others -- has unapologetically turned on this axis: God, family, friends, then work. This drives our actions. But understand, we wouldn't remotely consider pressuring the kids. We gave them the roots that gave way to the strength and independence they ultimately developed, and we wouldn't change that for any amount of self-gratification. The deal is that each of them, from their currently-distant homes, has expressed the desire to be in closer contact with the family, quite possibly more for each other than for us Oldies. They grew up with a family network and cherish that.

To us, the obvious risk is in putting too much priority on the greater family, to the detriment of their new, separate, and very happy family units. THOSE MUST TAKE PRIORITY. And a greater tragedy would clearly be damaging those in favor of a hastily-arrived-at decision to move. If they simply want to visit us in the new venue the same as they do here, that will have to be alright. So let not my typical wear-it-all-on-my-sleeve style of doing things be mistaken for manipulation of my kids.

I just can't do anything wordlessly, except maybe sneak those late-night, highly-processed, belly-fat-producing snacks. (And see? I even spilled the beans about that.)

But back to ripping my heart out. I can honestly say that I've never lived in a setting I've loved more around people I adore more than the people I know here, from this treasured barnhouse to the attendants behind the counters at my local haunts -- everywhere from the drug store to the dry cleaner to my favorite coffee shop on the town square. And these friends -- ah, these friends. There are no words -- and that's a rarity for me.

That should give you a tiny hint at the struggle this will be for me, as well as how strong must be the motivation to leave it all behind.

So if you'd like to mention this to anyone, go for it. I have to admit, it already has people calling who are interested in my beloved barn. Qué será, etc...

But anyone who wants it will have to pry it out of my protective grip.

Excuses, Excuses (plus a little shout-out)

2010-08-07T20:06:00.000-04:00

Hey all! I'm taking a little break from Piece of Mind this week... my prerogative now that I'm no longer being paid to write it! (Gotta take those silver linings where you find 'em.)

The deal is that one of my California Girls is home, so I'm mindlessly happy, and, I think you'll agree, writing a column when your mind has vacated the premises -- well, that's just senseless. Besides, there's been an unusually high demand for word-crafting from my family members recently. And heaven knows, those requests always rise to the top, like cream... or bloated carcasses, depending on your perspective! Hence, the paid gigs and this ol' blog have been neglected, as has Piece of Mind this week.

Sooooooooooooooo, with your indulgence I will take this little vacay from POM, and return with a column next week that will knock your socks off... well, maybe just stretch the elastic out a little and make 'em slide down. Yes, I'm a nuisance, but you're here, aren't you??

And while I'M still here, allow me to give a shout out to my Maine Ladies, to go for the double entrendre, and to our precious friends and consummate hosts, Rose and Craig. This is a bunch of close-knit friends who supported their spouses through the grueling paper chase of veterinary school and have the scars to prove it. Gals, I guess our sacrifices paid off, huh? They're a bunch of used-to-be-complete-jerks, not-so-intolerable, pretty-decent guys now, wouldn't you say? And us? We're just as magnificent as ever!

Here's proof...

Piece of Mind: Testing 1-2-3

2010-07-30T12:24:00.004-04:00

I got chewed out by one too many of you for not keeping up with my annual female check-ups. So I got on the horn the other day and scheduled every last one of them, plus a haircut and a skin-check within a week and a half time frame.

I hope you're happy. Because within the last few days, I've been poked, prodded, sliced, squished, spread, and snipped in the quest for eternal youth -- or at least, good health. Don't get me wrong; I DO appreciate how much you care. And, since you do, you'll be glad to know I'm A-Okay. I'm glad, too.

So back off!

Because I need to get on with the business of nagging my husband to catch up on his diagnostics. He's worse than I am about attempting to do everything right and leave the rest to God's good helper, Mother Nature. In fact, we have long lived with the philosophy, "Interfere with nature as little as possible." But, in fairness, I have to admit that we might carry it just a wee bit too far. Like not having regular check-ups for, oh, decades on end.

Here's what passes for a regular check-up for my husband: draw your own blood and send it away to a lab to check your PSA and other routine tests. The guy just doesn't want to stop the world so he can get off to do what normal mortals do routinely. For example, when we were first married he used to take off his clothes and put them on the floor by the bed as a time-saving practice, because he was "just going to put them back on in the morning." Took me a while to break him of that one.

But I digress (as a career, in fact). In actuality, he had an associate, a fellow vet, draw his blood. Then he mailed it to this lab that advertises in his health magazine. A few days later, he got a call from one of the doctors on staff at this particular lab and the conversation went something like this...

"Hello? Yes, this is Dr. James Dittoe."

[Part of convo I couldn't hear.]

"Oh. Huh. Yes, I am alive," he said, laughed a little, said goodbye, and hung up. He then ACTUALLY TRIED to go back to watching the movie we'd rented without enlightening me.

"Oh, come ON! WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT ABOUT??" I blurted.

He explained to me that apparently when they checked his blood results, they found that he should, technically speaking, be dead. And then he again went back to watching the movie.

I grabbed the remote and put it on pause. "Are you sure you aren't?" I asked, sarcastically.

Then he elaborated. Apparently, given the high temperatures that week, they assume the test results were skewed. His blood had basically been cooked enroute to the lab. At least, that's what we hope happened, because, really, he has a heck of a lot of repairs to do around the house before he goes anywhere permanently.

"So that's it? You're just gonna leave it at that?" I asked in disbelief, thinking he would take the stand that he had, after all, done his bit. He'd drawn his blood and sent it off. Whatever became of it was not his problem. He'd covered his end of the bargain.

"No, I'm going to have it drawn at a lab this time and they can package it appropriately and send it in for analysis."

Hmm. Maybe he has decided to slow the world down just a smidge and actually go for a do-over. My heart swelled with pride. And I never wanted him more. I'm hoping my attitude will serve as incentive for him to tend a little more closely to his health in the future. I would like to keep him around... there are, you know, those chores to be done.

So he had his blood drawn again -- in a more conventional venue this time -- and now we're waiting for the ACCURATE results. Say a little prayer for my hurry-up hubby, the do-it-yourself dude. He's actually doing one by-the-books this time.

And me? I'm good for another decade anyway.

My Landscape, Now

2010-07-26T09:11:00.001-04:00

Baby Steps

2010-07-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here in my home office -- my favorite workspace -- with my pooches sacked out on the floor and sofa behind me and the scent of the purple petunias in the window boxes on the front porch wafting through the open window. How can my thoughts be anything but nostalgic and lovely with the scent of heaven lofting them?

As I sit here writing this book about leaving, how can I even contemplate leaving? And why is it that every minute of my waking days have become colored by the prospect? I'm wondering if this melancholy will be my constant companion until I'm relocated in the lakehouse. And what if it continues beyond that point?

I have to believe that prayer and forward motion will give clarity to my vision.

Piece of Mind: The Yearly Berry Report

2010-07-20T00:21:00.000-04:00

It's berry-pickin' time! Woot! Da Gurlz and I have already hit the slopes once and have a few more outings planned over the next couple of weeks. This annual activity is becoming the proving ground for members of the Uppity Woman Book Club. All new members must participate in this annual activity (that has rightfully earned its reputation as something akin to an Extreme Sport) in order to reveal her worthiness for membership in the group. (So look out, Karen and Amanda -- you're not getting off that easily; we will continue to chisel away at you to join our sweaty, bug-bitten little band until your resistance is effectively worn down.)
Last year's new participants returned to the front line with greater resolve this year. Sandy, who suffered from a scorching case of poison ivy after last year's grueling initiation, fashioned an intricate method to avoid the same consequences this year: rubber gloves with the fingertips cut out. She also kept to the extreme outer periphery of the berry bushes, a strategic move that will no doubt serve her well this season. Mary, who also suffered from ivy agony last year, didn't modify her aggressive technique of plunging headfirst into the underbrush, but did, to her credit, scrub herself very thoroughly when we got back to the house. Geri, a returning warrior, revived her conservative technique of last year, in hopes she would fare as well as she did before. And myself? I sweated like a pig on a spit and tried mightily not to wipe it off my face as it ran into my eyes. Because, as any seasoned blackberrier knows, touching your face with your hands is the kiss of death. You can end up looking like a pepperoni pizza within the week. Nah guh do that. Wouldn't be prudent.
Jane -- a newbie to the practice -- claimed a strong resistance to the devilish rash. We shall see, dear, daring girl -- we shall see. The other Karen was mysteriously absent again this year, artfully leaving us to conclude that she either had to mow the grass (her usual excuse) or she didn't know about our plans because she hadn't checked her email... Karen -- the story's wearing thin, Babe.
Anyway, here's this year's sweaty, scratchy berry-picking crew. Note that one of us appears to be coyly popping up out of a pail. Hmm... wonder who snapped the picture?

Good Fortune Abounds

2010-07-14T09:01:00.000-04:00

Lucky me. The county has left a complimentary power pole lying in my front yard. They also trimmed some of my trees, and though I might have opted for a different configuration, I still appreciate their efforts. The little red flags are a nice touch, too.
And, as if all this weren't bounty enough to be thankful for, they have been keeping my dogs entertained for the last few days, which leaves me free to work without the worry of providing my pets the necessary stimulation. Honestly, I have almost gotten used to my daily soundtrack of continuous, piercing barks. It may not be classical music in terms of encouraging intellectual activity, but it does keep me awake.

Piece of Mind: Technical Difficulties, Natural Solution

2010-07-13T11:26:00.000-04:00

We really find out what we're made of when our computer goes down. Me? I'm made of a flesh and bones accessory to a keyboard, a monitor, and a cup of coffee, via a magnetic fingertip connection. Severe that connection and I float about my house aimlessly, in search of another connection.

Don't think I don't know that's just plain pitiful.

What's ironic is that Sunday's church message was about our society's compulsive engagement in "aimless distractions." Eek! I'm not just pitiful -- I'm typical, which, in my warped perception, is even worse!

In my defense, I'm writing a book these days. And writing a book requires research, which requires connectivity. Email and Facebook are, by definition, forms of connectivity. Okay, so my book is not about quantum physics -- WHAT -- that surprises you??

So when my computer guru recently took both of my computers away for major surgery, I was thrust into suspended animation. Oh sure, I laughed and chatted gaily in that sorry excuse for social networking -- face-to-face conversation. And I zombied my way through my other highly-skilled job requirements -- folding laundry, cleaning toilets, etc. But every few minutes, as if I were set for intervals of auto-save, I started for the office and the computer with a book revision in my head, only to have my efforts cut painfully short with the discovery that my desktop was as empty as next season's Quicken Loans Arena. (Sorry, couldn't resist the reference.) At that moment, my head would drop, my tail would tuck and I'd slink back from whence I came, to the highly-skilled domestic task of the moment.

Clearly, it would take an extreme intervention, a maneuver as aggressive as a smack to the cheek to slap me out of my connectivity-withdrawal coma. But my husband was away on business, and, as I may have mentioned a few thousand times before, my nest is empty of other, younger, more permanent deserters. Only my pets were present.

Wouldn't you know the X-Dog would be the one to identify my silent cry for help, and take action. (As if he ever, in a waking state, doesn't take action.) Yes, my brilliant, perceptive, way-above-average Jack Russell terrier identified a crisis in the making and averted it in the most effective way anyone could.

He pooped on the living room rug.

And, by golly, I snapped out of it. To me, this is just further proof that, in nature, there is a cure for everything, and that technology will never replace intuitive wisdom, even if that wisdom comes not from man, but from man's best friend.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to ply one of my highly-developed skills to a spot on the rug.

My Own Knucklehead-in-the-News Stunt

2010-07-09T16:13:00.000-04:00

So I was working in the yard, pulling up 5 weeks worth of weeds and doing a little pruning, after having been in Florida. Since there was some poison ivy in the flower beds, I took special care to wear my garden gloves, not touch my face, etc. I did have on short sleeves and capris, which was probably not smart, but I have a penchant for living on the edge, and other than not flossing my teeth on the occasional night, this is about the extent of my bravado. Besides, I hurried inside after I was finished and thoroughly washed my arms, legs, and face.

A couple of days later, the small of my back started to itch, so I twisted myself around in front of the bathroom mirror, and yep -- poison ivy. How did that happen, I grumbled. Then I remembered...

The capris I was wearing for the yardwork didn't have pockets, so I'd put the pruners under the waistband of my pants, in the back.

Now I have the earthy-girl's version of a tramp stamp.

Message to my Daily Record Readers!

2010-07-08T21:17:00.000-04:00

I want to clarify what led to my no longer being a columnist for the Daily Record newspaper, because there seems to be a bit of misinformation floating around out there that has led some of my readers to be a little peeved with me.

In the fifteen years I freelanced my column to the paper, I raised my rate only twice... prior to last week. Last week, I sent in notice that I was raising my fee by a nominal amount again, for the third time in fifteen years of writing Piece of Mind.

In short order, I received the reply that the DR was "not prepared to pay for the column" and would be "going with other options." They thanked me for writing for them and wished me luck in the future. And that was that. Very polite; very succinct.

I did NOT choose to stop writing for the paper. It was their decision.

My solution is to continue Piece of Mind, weekly, here on my blog. Just check here once a week, and we can continue along our merry way!

Coming in the next few days!

2010-07-05T12:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, pals. There are some changes a-comin'. From here on out, I will run my weekly Piece of Mind column here on The Uppity Woman. These columns will no longer be reruns, so I won't entitle them Dittoe -- All Over Again, unless I get a request to actually DO a rerun, in which case I will call it Dittoe -- All Over Again. All the fresh, new columns will run under the title Piece of Mind, followed by the subtitle of the individual title.
Hence, I hereby entrust all parties engaged in the consumption of said works to incorporate above disclaimer into the redefined composition of the the first party's weblog.

Huh?

Nevermind, just keep reading, with the knowledge that I love and appreciate every one of you!

(And now, I would like to direct you to the picture of my new grandson in the column at right. Feel free to express your admiration in comment form.)

From Hades to Heaven, with Love

2010-07-05T12:18:00.000-04:00

(Drum roll, please) Birth Announcement: My first grandchild, a baby boy (for whom I’ve yet to concoct a pseudonym), was born on June 24th, 2010, and weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz... He was instantly and officially labeled “exceptional,” a write-in category on the Apgar Scale.
I’m considering “Hercules” for his pseudonym. Hey – what did you expect? Humility?

To quickly review: I had been in Hades, aka “Florida”, for about a month, helping my son and his wife move into a new place and prepare for the birth of their first child, and blistering like bacon on a burner, when the big payoff came.

So there we were – my son Ferdinand, my daughter-in-law Bo-Peep, Bo Peep’s mother, Bo-Peep’s best friend, and me – just hanging out in the delivery room of the hospital, when all of a sudden here came this remarkable, tiny human specimen out of Bo-Peep! Even the well-seasoned doctor and nurses were awed.

This is the way I remember it. As for Bo-Peep’s perspective – it’s maybe not quite that streamlined, but with the same result: the birth of a wunderkind.

My son’s memory may be slightly modified by having viewed the birth, and ultimately the whole day, through a persistent veil of tears. His father (my husband, now a grandfather), has always claimed he had something in his eye during such times, but Ferdinand is part of a new generation of openly-sensitive men. I have a feeling this is something the father will learn from the son, as Grandpa allowed himself the luxury of red, watery eyes without making a grab for his sunglasses every time he looked at his new grandson.

So I guess tearing up is the new Tough.

Anyway, we spent the next three days, the last of our visit, trying to soak up as much of the new baby, his darling parents, and our redefined family structure, as we possibly could. We weren’t really any different from other folks who experience the same process. We made phone calls, sent text messages, and took pictures as well as turns nuzzling the newcomer. We recounted fingers and toes, commented on resemblances, gushed, marveled, discovered, hugged, kissed, and took frequent sniffs of that tender, sweet-smelling little head.

And then, sadly, the time came for us to drive to what felt like the other side of the world – home -- with the knowledge that things will never be the same for any of us. This point is inarguable.

Brand-new Baby Dittoe has already changed the planet, at least from the perspective of his devoted following. For us, the world’s edges have softened, its trials have become less trying, its pleasantries more joyful, its future more promising. There is even more reason to plan, adapt, embrace, and love.

For all of this, and the very grasp of those tiny, pale fingers around our own, we thank God. And we pray that, as individuals and collectively, we will always be just what this little child needs to become a happy, healthy, faithful, and contributing force in a world that is already the better for his birth.

Passages

2010-06-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

Feeling a little blue today, due to circumstances beyond... blah, blah, blah. I'm lying. They definitely were NOT beyond my control. Anyway, changes in the wind for this uppity scribe. More on that later. I need pout time.

Meantime, here's the next-to-last "Hades" installment. The Big Payoff post is next! Read on and I'll (CAUTION: cheap word play alert!) WRITE ON.

Much love to all!

Dittoe, All Over Again: Hades -- Week Whatever. I've Lost Count.

2010-06-30T10:05:00.000-04:00

So I've been here in Florida prepping for the birth of my first grandchild for a month. By week two we had the baby clothes washed and put away, the nursery finished right down to the last wall hanging, the floor mopped, the dog and cat flea-treated, the video camera charged, the bug-splats cleaned off the windshield, and the route to the hospital programmed into my GPS. (The latter we did in the event that both the expectant father and mother become so excited about going to the hospital that they loose their ability to communicate the directions, verbally or by drawing a diagram.)

So we've been amusing ourselves and distracting a very anxious mother-to-be with a variety of activities. Besides bouncing on her Pilates ball, eating spicy foods, and doing laps around the mall, we've tried to come up with creative ways to keep the impatience at bay while also attempting safe methods to persuade the baby to come out. That's trickier than it sounds, especially when whatever thing we're trying gets no results, and Mommy ends up back on the couch, looking like Ho Tai but with an expression that says Rub my belly and DIE.

The only exception was when we went to a doula for an "Induction Massage." This was the first time I'd ever heard of such a thing, but it was actually recommended by the hospital staff and both Mommy and I could have kissed them – or for that, matter, a total stranger -- for suggesting another way to pass the time and possibly move a step closer to the delivery.

One must keep hope alive. Despite all indications that a baby will eventually make an appearance no matter what anyone does, a nine-month pregnant woman will always fear that she'll have to waddle around like that forever. "Eventually," "patience," and "when he's ready" are words that fall on hostile ears at that point. They'll get you no where but maybe in a headlock. A woman with cankles is a woman beyond reason.

So, off to the doula we went, with Mommy hanging onto the statistic she'd been given on the phone – an 85% success rate for delivery within 2-5 days. I did a few quiet calculations. They won't perform the induction massage until the woman is past her 39th week of pregnancy. Then they quote an 85% success rate in 2 – 5 days. At the earliest, that puts the woman two days before her due date. I wondered what percentage of women deliver a couple days early or on the actual date anyway. I also wondered about the absence of the word "guarantee" in this claim of effectiveness.

But I kept my mouth firmly shut to give me an immediate, 85% chance of not causing hormonal upheaval

When we got there, the therapist asked if I would like a massage, too. I graciously refused, with the knowledge that if it resulted in a baby coming out of ME, both my daughter-in-law AND my husband would kill me. It just wasn't worth even a remote possibility.

Ultimately, Mommy emerged from her massage, happy and relaxed, which in my mind, completely justified her having it. And, as luck would have it, the doula's statistics for success will prove true, because Mommy's doctor has scheduled her for a medical induction tomorrow – exactly FIVE DAYS after her massage. I briefly wondered if they were in collusion, but decided not to make a stink because – hey, we're having a baby TOMORROW.

And no way, no how, am I gonna argue with that!

Dittoe, All Over Again: Hades -- Week 4

2010-06-22T16:33:00.000-04:00

OK, so it's still really hot here in Florida, but I'm fighting the good fight. I've learned this survival breathing technique that has helped me avoid the use of supplemental oxygen. I take short, shallow breaths when I'm outside in the elements – or I should say, the “element.” I'm only aware of one outside element here: perspiration. I also use biofeedback to drop my metabolic rate. I visualize myself as a giant, greasy slug. It's not much of a stretch, really.

I get a real charge out of the weather announcers down here. Without any actual weather to report, they have to embellish to fill their time slots on the newscasts. I mean, how many ways can you say it's going to be a hot one today?

I've noticed they do draw things out a bit by, every single day, explaining the “heat index.” Invariably, they'll say something to this effect:
The high temperature today will be 95 degrees, but with the accompanying humidity, it will actually FEEL like 114! So fry, Suckas, FRY!!! MWAH-HA-HA!

(OK, I added that last part myself, but that's the general idea.)

My daughter-in-law tells me it's more exciting than usual right now because it's “storm season.” This means that forecasters can inject a little drama (or, for that matter, interest) into their segments by talking about things like tropical waves thousands of miles away in the ocean that could maybe/potentially/possibly gain strength by the time they hit the Florida coast. It's like they practice at great length for the infrequent occurrence of a hurricane so they can say I told you so if it ever actually happens.

That is what we, back home, call “crying wolf.” But we don't have to do it much, since we have real weather.

To make it even more thrilling and suspenseful, they creatively pre-name the maybe/potential/possible storms. I'm guessing that personifying the phenomenon like this draws us in more, making us feel more intimately threatened and hence, further heightening the drama. Besides, what else are they gonna do in the meterologists' break room every day? Talk about the weather?? That's a short conversation.

And each season, they start the names at the beginning of the alphabet, presumably to allow for as many as 26 hurricanes per season. (Hey, hope springs eternal for Florida forecasters.) The current ripple way across the ocean off the coast of Africa has been pre-named “Alex.” Mind you, it won't officially assume its identity until it turns into a real, grown-up storm, which probably won't happen, in which case, they have to move on to the letter “B” for their second-born, faraway ocean current.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Begonia is coming!

I wonder what these people would do during a Midwest winter blizzard. Their heads might explode with the sheer excitement of it.

Wait a minute... there's a weather update! Toddler tropical almost-storm Alex has weakened as it moves away from the African coast in the general direction of the lower part of the greater Western Hemisphere! It no longer poses a threat to life as we know it!

Whew. That was a close one. The revised forecast: It's going to be a hot one today.

Dittoe, All Over Again: Week Three in Hades

2010-06-15T16:53:00.000-04:00

Hades, a.k.a. Florida, isn't such a bad place after all. As long as the air conditioning stays on. Or you can eat ice cream from that adorable place on Las Olas. Or be at the beach. Or, obviously, have a first grandchild here. I'll have to wait for that last one until the bun-in-the-oven is fully baked, but at least I'm learning how to “do” Florida, in the meantime.

It's really not unlike the way we Ohio folks “do” winter. We stay inside during the coldest weather, whereas here, they stay in during the hottest weather. So my daughter-in-law, Bo Peep, and I try to go out to get things done and be home by lunchtime. (Or maybe that's because neither of us – she, because she's nine months pregnant, and I, because I'm a chow hound – can bear to miss a meal.) In turn, we are home in the air conditioning by the time it gets hot enough to sear sea scallops on their front porch paving stones.

I now fully understand the concept of siesta, and I LIKE IT.

Yesterday, we took our siesta at the beach. Lucky for me, Ferdinand and Bo Peep have a beach umbrella, so my skin won't bubble up and get crisp. Irish skin is better suited to drizzly bogs than sizzling sands. Actually, tan used to look good on the lean young girl I was before I fully embraced my ethnicity. Since then, I seem to get more Irish with each passing year.

Or maybe I just get older. I caught a glimpse of the three of us in a window as we were leaving the beach, and it looked like a cute young couple taking their pet cadaver for a walk. Maybe I should have gone a little lighter on the SPF 50.

But back to the beach... I still love it there. The sights, the sounds, the smells never fail to put me in a great mood. And going into that glorious, cool water is the ultimate pay off. It always makes me feel like a college kid on spring break. There's something to be said for the simple buoyancy of salt water, cosmetically and emotionally. That night, I retired to what has been dubbed “the grandmother suite” at the kids' house and watched James Taylor and Carole King in concert on TV. Talk about discovering the fountain of youth! Here it was, in the Beach-and-Grandma-Suite Combo Package, all along.

Sorry, Ponce De Leon. Close but no cigar, Buddy.

So now that the kids have figured out how to lure me out of the house at midday – by waving the promise of ice cream or the beach in front of me the way you'd beckon a dog with a piece of meat – I've been participating more fully in the Florida experience. And in doing so, I'm beginning to understand why anyone in their right mind would want to live here.

But I'm still Irish and I'm still a Buckeye. So if they ever move to another state and take my first grandchild with them, it's very unlikely that the famous Florida sunshine will ever again get a crack at leaving its liver-mark on this lily-white hide.

Dittoe, All Over Again: Week Two in Hades

2010-06-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

As I may have mentioned a time or twenty, I am here helping my son and his VERY pregnant wife unpack in a new home and get ready for the birth of their first child – my first grandchild. That should clarify, right up front, my motivation for traveling southward during the Fry-an-Egg-on-your-Head months. The unadulterated truth is that anything short of that would barely get me across the southern border of Ohio, let alone this close to the equator, this time of year.

I hate to sweat unless I'm fully prepared for it, by which I mean exercising in air conditioning with a shower nearby, sitting beside a body of water for the express purpose of getting into it, or gardening with an engorged and willing water hose handy for a quick spray down.

But I'm glad to say that so far I'm managing pretty well down here, primarily because I am hanging out with a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, and she doesn't want to be hot either. It's been sort of like when you're pulled along in the vacuum created behind a semi truck on the freeway. Mind you, it's not that my daughter-in-law is in any way comparable to a semi truck. (Hoo-boy, I'm digging myself into a deep one here.) What I mean is that being with her naturally pulls me into cooler places where we both can be more comfortable.

Let's put that metaphor to bed now.

Anyway, I've managed my personal thermostat really well, except for yesterday. That's when the allure of working, shoulder to shoulder, with my son as he landscaped the new yard sucked me in. What fun it would be, after all those years when he was a teenager at home and refused to work outside with me because it was boring and terminally uncool! It would be a chance to tick something off my maternal bucket list.

Cool.

Actually, no. More like searing tataki. I don't want to be indelicate here, but picture a dumpy-ish fifty-something woman, chalk white from life in the northern climes and an addiction to SPF 50, nose running like a faucet, hair matted with sweat, face filthy from having to repeatedly push up her sliding sunglasses, and clothes drenched from responding to fight-or-flight by blasting the hose on her face.

That's when the attractive young couple next door pulled into their driveway in their sparkling, late-model SUV, tastefully clad in colorful beach attire, with their adorable baby decked in Kate Mack couture.

My son – young, tan, and fit – looks very good in sweat. His wife – young, tan, and fit, right down to the baby bump – looks good no matter what. And there I was -- the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I was downright rude, saying only a quick, “I'm one of the moms,” and beating a hasty retreat. It was actually a brilliant move, now that I think about it. By saying one of the moms, I left the possibility open that maybe I was the OTHER one. One can only hope. (Guess that's kind of an in-law thing.)

I guess what I'm saying is that, except for yesterday afternoon, I'm doing quite nicely here in the oven, and you don't have to worry about me. I'm sure that's a great relief to you. But if don't hear from me next week -- same time, same place -- send in the National Guard... or maybe the fire department, with a full tank and a big hose.

Dittoe, All Over Again

2010-06-06T01:18:00.000-04:00

Unnatural Disasters

I remember when wearing your penny loafers without a dime in each one was considered taking a chance. My mother always cautioned me never to go somewhere alone without money for a pay phone. What if I had car trouble, or got stranded somewhere without a ride? That was living dangerously.

Time passed and I eventually married a guy who thought I was a wimp – too worrisome and cautious. His question to me, when I showed concern about being in a vulnerable situation was, “What can possibly happen?” He claimed I needed to “toughen up.” This was a man who preferred Zena the Warrior Princess to Rapunzel.

Me: Lock the door when you go.

Him: Why? Do you think there's an ax murderer hanging around outside, just waiting for me to leave?

OR --

Me: I'll be home before dark.

Him: Is that because zombies will come out of the woods after sunset and drag you down into the Underworld?

And then there were all the questions that I started with “I'm worried about” and “Don't you think we should,” to which he responded with wisecracks about hurricanes washing us away, lightning strikes reducing us to a scorched spot on the ground, and earthquakes swallowing us whole. I'd married a man who was bent on driving out my baseless fears and helping me be all that I could be. A drill sergeant.

More time passed and I eventually toughened up, and the guy I married became more cautious. I realized that I was beginning to get worried phone calls when we were apart.

Him: Why didn't you call? I was worried.

Me: What did you think was going to happen?? I'd be swept away in a Midwest tidal wave?

Rapunzel had shaved her head and donned an brass bustier. You get the point.

I also started to range farther and farther afield, taking innumerable cross-country trips, a couple of which I took alone, by car. And lo and behold, I actually WAS struck by lightning and swept away by a tidal wave ... figuratively speaking.

The first time, I was on my way back to Ohio from Charleston, South Carolina, after having helped my son move there, and my car broke down – twice. Each time, I spent hours dozing on a plastic couch in a car repair shop. After the second stop and additional delay in my trip, I decided to drive the rest of the trip without stopping – about a twelve-hour odyssey. I drank a can of Surge or Catapult or whatever the heck were the uber-caffeinated dregs being sold in the nearest convenience store, and I made a homeward blitz. The way I figured it, the chemical assault on my body was preferable to death by fiery crash.

Not only did I arrive home safely and in record time, but I didn't sleep for twenty-four hours afterward.

My second long, solo, road trip happened just two days ago. It involved an eleven-hour drive between North Carolina and Southern Florida. Not an hour into it, my cell phone died. Mind you, just a few short years ago I didn't even have a cell phone. But when mine died the other day, with ten hours of driving ahead of me, most of it after dark, I had visions of those zombies yanking me underground before I even had time to think about calling my husband and telling him to be sure to water the hanging baskets.

I suppose the important thing is that, both times, I made it safe and sound. But I have to tell you, there were moments when I thought this Warrior Princess stuff wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I think I'll take a little break from long, lonely car trips for a while, and take my independence to the friendly skies. At least then, the likelihood of being swallowed by a giant crevasse is very slim. And it'll be easier on my worrisome husband.

FYI, Status Message, Update... whatever

2010-05-27T10:32:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder that I'm partially off the grid for a while, in Florida with Jen and Andy,awaiting Baby Brady whilst helping settle the new house for habitation.

YES, IT'S HOT. But they have very good airco, or as our dearest French daughter would say "cli-mah-ti-zah-see-OWN!" They say things so much more elegantly than we do!

Jen's tummy is doing gymnastics for our viewing pleasure every night... more entertaining than TV! Funny, but that's a sensation I'll always miss. I loved that feeling.

I scrubbed down the nursery yesterday, and enjoyed every minute of it. Can any of you explain the phenomenon? It's just so much more fun to clean in one of my kids' houses than it is at home, where it's a grueling chore. I could get used to THIS style of indentured slavery, even if I won't earn my freedom until all future grandchildren are grown.

Buy my freedom? No thanks. My sales resistance is at it's highest in this instance!

2010-05-17T13:19:00.000-04:00

I'll be leaving soon to spend a few weeks helping my son and daughter-in-law. They are moving into a new house and having a baby soon thereafter. They need me. It's actually been a while since any of my kids has, and it feels good.
My darling Millie (Mother-in-Law) will be here with my hubby while I'm gone, which is a golden opportunity for them to do some catching up on their one-on-one time. Sooooooo, this week will be devoted to getting the place ready.

I find the process to be very therapeutic, almost like the nesting phenomenon of pregnancy. Ironic, eh? I'm sort of getting my things in order, laying a fresh cover of feathers on my nest.

Window boxes and container flowers planted? Check.
Fridge and oven cleaned? Check.
House straightened? Check.
Dog washed and clipped? Check.
Roots covered? (A separate entity from planting window boxes.) Check.
Packed? Not yet. Ew... gotta get going on that.

My husband and I have never been apart as long as we're going to be for this trip. I'm sure we'll survive it but not without a little aching. But, the deal is, we get a grandson out of it. Good trade. We can buck up.

Really gonna miss the dogs, though.

In rereading this, I note that it sounds very old-fashioned, quaint, even Pollyanna-ish, for a gal who claims to be a feminist. Good. Welcome to the new feminism, Guys. It's not new to me or a lot of other women I know; it's ours and always has been.

Been running like a girl and waiting for the world to catch up.

Dittoe -- All Over Again: Shame on Me

2010-05-11T15:32:00.001-04:00

I am a fungal growth under the toenails of humanity -- the worst kind of lousy, rotten scoundrel. I’m barely a notch above Michael Vick.

I broke Opie the X-Dog’s toenail, and he’s in excruciating agony ... or so he would have us believe. And it’s working, because I feel like horse doody.

It was an accident, I assure you. I place injuring one of my pets in the same category as destroying priceless religious artifacts or pillaging a village or throwing away perfectly good chocolate. I just don’t have it in me to do it intentionally. I mean, the only way I would ever damage a priceless religious artifact would be if I opened a door too quickly and smacked it really hard, which happens to be how I broke the X-Dog’s toenail.

But it’s so much worse than that. He is limping around as if I broke his entire foot, or even all FOUR of them. In fact, I thought I did break his foot at first. It looks very strange, kind of poking inward toward his other toe at an odd angle. I’ve, no doubt, ruined any chance he had at Milk Bone endorsements.

And you should see his face. I know, I know – some of you don’t think dogs have facial expressions, but I have this to say to you: Don’t be a schmuck. I’m not actually saying you are a schmuck; I’m just saying all you need to do is look at my dog’s face to know he’s milking this thing for all it’s worth.

For a Jack Russell, he’s doing a great imitation of a Bloodhound.

Luckily, I have a resident vet, and he was able to look at the foot and assure me it was just a broken toenail. It’s nice to have free vet service ... well, not entirely free. I did have to promise to love, honor, and obey my vet, which is a pretty big investment. But at least I don’t have to wait for an appointment.

Anyway, in my defense, the X-Dog brought it on himself. (And please don’t say I sound like all the other abusers out there.) He does this thing where he imagines that he sees some horrible, drippy-fanged invader in the back yard and goes crazy, barking and dashing toward the door. Then, his sidekick Cowboy Calvin gets all worked up and together they repeatedly throw themselves against the door like battering rams.

So on this particular occasion, they started their demented, intruder-intimidation frenzy in another room. I happened to be near the door and began to open it just as they came barreling around the corner.

Understand, this was not exactly a surgical strike on the X-Dog’s part. He launched himself at the door with no concern about collateral damage, and his foot lodged under the door with a force intended to strike shock and awe into the hearts of enemy combatants.

I’ll skip the description of what happened then, but suffice it to say that, as far as his fighting bad guys was concerned, it really killed the mood. And he’s been a pitiful, helpless little lamb ever since -- about five days now.

My vet-mate continues to assure me that the severity of the injury falls way short of commensurate with the patient’s behavior and promises a quick and complete recovery. But that doesn’t make me feel much better.

Because, for a guy that usually likes to pretend he’s tough, the X-Dog deserves an Emmy for this performance.

And so it begins...

2010-05-07T12:34:00.000-04:00

So my little teeny daughter-in-law has gained over forty pounds, all out in front, in pregnancy parlance, and she has over a month to go, and it's getting scorching hot where they live, and she's kinda miserable. Oh, and did I mention they are MOVING in a couple weeks?

Didn't take me long to say Heck, yah! when they asked me to come down a "little early." But this ol' Granny cannot BEAR the heat, which begs the question: How embarrassed will they be introducing themselves to the new neighbors with a 56 year-old woman running around naked at their house, unpacking boxes and shuffling things around?
Truly, folks might not even notice. I've gotten just that bland.

Seriously, though, I need to scour my closet for decent-looking, hot-weather garb that is almost... no, VIRTUALLY weightless! I'm even leaving my hair long and overgrown so I can twist it up off my neck. Vanity has succumbed to the bonfire, or I should say the "Sunshine State's Summer Sauna."

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? (Remember -- A show of flesh ain't what it used to be.)

Girls, Girls, Girls (That oughta make the search engines overheat!)

2010-04-27T11:40:00.000-04:00

So good to see my Maine Ladies and the lovely Katie-Bride (not to mention the dashing Raul) last weekend. I am so glad we're seeing more of each other lately, Ladies. Missed a couple of you, though.

Uppity Women Book Club -- I'm completely rejuvenated by our recent gabfest. Love ya'll. The next book sounds intriguing, but who really cares as long as we get to gather? Chocolate wine -- nectar of the godesses! (That, we are!)

Otterdollies -- To much time has passed. I need my 2nd-floor-Cochran fix!

GPs -- Ah, the memories!

Boat Gals -- Too long to go without water, or wallyball, or YOU. One cannot live by bread alone... not even the green kind.

4th Fireworks Favs -- If you light long enough, I will catch you in my net!

Gotta mention you Nutcrackin' Girls -- Miss our generational madness!

I gotta say it, Girlfriends -- You've made the short list with God and Family. You fuel me. (Not foolin'.)

2010-04-17T01:02:00.000-04:00

I'm chowing down on Italian breadsticks and Jalapeno jelly. That's gotta be some kind of cross-cultural faux pas. Two glasses of chardonnay and I can't be held responsible for my actions. Such a cheap date.

Who’s Next for the Knot?

2010-04-15T12:03:00.001-04:00

We just returned from our nephew’s wedding in Houston and are basking in the afterglow.

I’ve just checked the figures, and for the last five years, we’ve had a wedding a year (TWO one year) among our own children and their cousins. And within that same group of cousins, there remain only three who are single.

No pressure kids, but do remember that these weddings and their peripheral functions, i.e., showers, rehearsal dinners, etc., comprise the sum total of our social life. And by that, I mean there are no better-suited occasions during which we, the older generation, can so thoroughly and without reprisal make complete fools of ourselves in the name of celebration.

Without your weddings, we are bored. Without your weddings, we are boring Without your weddings, we might as well shrivel up and die.

So listen up, you remaining three: One of you needs to bite the bullet and find someone, anyone, to marry next year for the sake of the parents and grandparents who have toiled and sacrificed so much for you. [Insert visual of kid-corresponding, wrinkle-browed, graying-rooted parent here, with woebegone facial expression.] You can draw straws or something, I really don’t care. Just figure it out among you in time to set all the wedding plans in motion.

Let’s see now, maybe I can help. One of you is a bit too young, one of you just got into grad school, and one of you is settled comfortably into a nice job and a serious relationship with a wholly-acceptable candidate. Seems like a slam dunk to me.

But you know me; the last thing I want to do is meddle. (HEY – I HEARD that!)

My imaginary wedding map shows pins with red strings stretching from Ohio to Minnesota, to Houston, to Florida, back to Ohio, then back to Houston again. It’s time for a new matrimonial destination – I’m thinking maybe a West Coast venue.

Wait, that fits!! Imagine that!

And here’s another perk. We get to experience the sheer joy of shopping for new, fully-accessorized, special-occasion ensembles every year. OK, so that’s kind of a gender-linked bonus, but who’s writing this column anyway? Who’s actually stepping up to the plate to get this thing rolling?

The rest of you geezers can thank me later, at least those of you who aren’t in line to foot the bill for the next nuptials.

For the rest of us, the annual big bash is just a gift and an airline ticket away, plus the aforementioned wardrobe benefits. It’s well worth the cost of admission, not to mention all that joy and emotional fulfillment stuff.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wonder what you’re gonna do for fun when all the kids are married off.

Wedding-crashing is out of the question, because kids we don’t know are under no obligation to let random people over fifty perform their unique dance stylings to “Bringing Sexy Back” at their wedding receptions. Their own relatives can handle that, and that’s ugly enough.

So let’s face it, Brothers and Sisters – our really fun and carefree wedding days are numbered. Let that be a warning to the final three. Eloping is always a possibility, but the codgers in the family will never forgive you, and that may be reflected in your gift assortment.

Picture a large collection of carnival glass gravy bowls before you do anything drastic.

Change is good, and that bears repeating

2010-04-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

OBVIOUSLY, I've been falling down on the job, and I'm probably losing all my blog readers because of it.

Life has been heating up, and my blogging fever has been cooling down. Sooooooooo, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to try, at least during this hectic time, to change the purpose of The Uppity Woman. For the most part, I'm going to use it as a forum for rerunning my newspaper columns for folks who don't subscribe to the newspaper that carries "Piece of Mind."

This seems to be the logical strategy, since readers often request my old columns.

The Uppity Woman is now an Oldies Station. That's what's new. I'll post mostly my Dittoe, All Over Again columns, with the occasional spontaneous-commentary post when the spirit moves.

So, not to repeat myself -- ditto(e). Everything old is new again. And a Piece of (My) Mind will be one that I've given to someone else, at another place in time.

Make sense? Good. Then I'm as convoluted as ever! Stay tuned...

Dittoe -- All Over Again: An Award for Good Common Sense

2010-03-17T11:31:00.001-04:00

(Note: This column was published in the newspaper shortly after the Oscars; hence, the after-the-fact nature of it's posting here.)

OK, you can stop holding your breath – here is my post-Oscars report! Don’t expect to glean any artistic value from this, and I’m definitely not Mr. Blackwell, so my fashion commentary is equally worthless. Just consider this a transcript of what your mother would probably say, if you were sitting beside her on the couch, watching the big night.

First of all – what is the DEAL with the tufted hairdos? Actress after actress filed onto the stage with downy-soft heads last night. At first glance, they all appeared to have lovely upswept hair styles, but a camera close-up invariably revealed fuzzy outcroppings on the tops of their heads. Wasn’t it just last year when everyone was straightening and slicking their hair as if it they needed to be able to slip through a network of laser security beams without triggering an alarm?

And can we TALK about Kathy Ireland? Yes, she’s pretty. And, in fact, whatever cryo-procedure – or maybe plasticization -- they’ve performed on her has nicely frozen her face and body in, very nearly, its original form. But they obviously needed to consult with some of the nominees for animation awards to figure out how to program her for more natural-looking movement.

Enough about that.

Inarguably, George Clooney does make a very handsome scowly-face, but being an actor, he might want to change it up a bit at the next televised awards program, if for no other reason than to show off his “range.”

Miley Cyrus, repeat after me: Chest up, shoulders back, stomach in! You could definitely benefit from a stint in the military. And imagine how much MORE volume you could get out of a liberated diaphragm! (On second thought -- never mind.)

Gabourey Sidibe. Yep, that does feel good rolling off the tongue. No wonder there was an open-mic contest all night to see who could produce the most musical pronunciation of it.

And on that cold day in Hades when I make it to the Oscars, remind me to get the name of the sheep who contributed its wool in case they ask me who I’m wearing. And, for the record, it’s “whom,” but that would sound pretentious, and we certainly wouldn’t want THAT at the Oscars.

Host Sherri Shepherd -- I love ya, Girl, but let’s go over it again: When you ask a question, aim the mic at yourself. When the actors answer your question, aim the mic at them. Don’t get all worked up and forget who’s talking. Your interviews reminded me of the old schtick where the comedian aims his gun-finger at someone and shoots, then holds it up to his mouth to blow off the smoke, then back again to shoot, and back again to blow off smoke, faster and faster, until he confuses the two and shoots himself in the face. If you’re holding the mic to your mouth while the actor is moving his, you’re shooting yourself in the face. And last Sunday night you did … a lot.

Now to end on a positive note –

Neil Patrick Harris – You do us proud, Son. Mama just wants to pinch your cheeks and pat you on the head. You are such a talented young man. I’m always telling the other kids they should be more like their brother. Now, about those scantily-clad dancers …

I could go on, but I’m guessing right about now you’d be tuning your mom out anyway.

But, in case you’re still listening -- go wash behind your ears.

Rock-A-Bye Baby

2010-03-16T23:21:00.000-04:00

There's little more endearing that a strapping young man holding a baby. The sight has always touched a tender chord in me. In fact, I look forward to seeing it often, starting this summer when my son and his wife have their first child, my first grandchild, Brady.

The other day, I received a text message from my daughter, the soon-to-be aunt, and she sent me this picture of her soon-to-be-uncle husband and cat Bella, accompanied by the caption, "Practicing for Brady."

This isn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's certainly a close second...

(Note both their facial expressions -- the strapping young man appearing to sing a lullaby and the "baby" looking completely disgusted.)

Oscar Yak

2010-03-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, OKAY! George glowers, Patrick prances, Meryl mesmerizes, Sandra stuns, and Gabourey gushes -- we GOT it. And I'm all over it in my column. Stay tuned -- I'll reprint it here after it runs this Sunday.

But those were just teeny scraps of color.

Meantime... was anyone else underwhelmed by the Oscars this year? I mean -- so few shameless displays of celebrity eccentricity, though Elinor Burkett gave it her best, anemic-substitute-for-Kanye shot.

(BTW -- How dare she attempt to speak for women-in-the-shadows-of-men everywhere. Surely our deserving gender is far classier than that. Now, we have to clean up her mess. Deja vu, Sisters.)

Other than that, the show was EXACTLY what I've always longed for in past years -- dignified and sensibility-pleasing. Ho-hum. But, truthfully, I'd rather be bored than offended. Guess I just have a little too much Midwest matron in me.

What DOES Joey Smell?

2010-03-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

...or maybe it was just my soup.

There's Hope

2010-03-05T10:38:00.001-05:00

Take heart! Animals have great instincts, and Joey smells spring in the air.
(Move over, Punxsutawny Phil.)

Welcome!

2010-03-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

At my house, everyone's treated to a warm welcome from the Sunshine Committee.

Talk about DOGMATIC...

2010-03-02T13:49:00.000-05:00

So my Jack Russell started firing off his screechy, machine-gun bark at the back door. He was looking into the woods at absolutely nothing and going all terrierist zealot over it.

I tried to focus on the tiniest possible movements in our woods, where he was looking, and could see nothing. This wasn't unusual, as he often goes psycho over a blowing leaf or the mere twitch of a chipmunk's tail, among other things invisible to the agitated human eye.

I squinted, heedless of the deepening threat to my fifty-something frown lines, and stared and saw only white snow and black motionless tree trunks of all sizes. Then one of the smaller saplings moved ever so slightly, and then another moved, and then another.

My brain wasn't yet making sense of these cautiously shifting tree trunks. Then a few feet away, another little tree trunk moved, followed by another a little further away.

The dog's volume was cranking up to an unbearable level, as he repeatedly ramrodded the door. So I opened it, and the mighty little dynamo catapulted toward the woods.

That's when the tree trunks magically formed into deer limbs, and suddenly I could see their heads and their white tails flashing as they bounded away.

You've seen those pictures with hard-to-discern objects blended into the scenery. I have too. But this was the first time in over half a century of life that I've had the virtual experience! It was remarkable.

Dittoe -- All Over Again: Time, Well-Drained

2010-02-21T17:07:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I spent two hours of my life trying to solve a crisis. My antivirus software was, well… sick. And after 120 minutes of my precious time, I was no closer to a solution than when I started.

I’ve done this sort of thing more often than I care to remember. I wish I could cash the lost hours back in for the cumulative total collagen loss.

I do know a bit more about initialization files, IP addresses and domain names now, though none of that knowledge served in any way to help me fix the problem. It’s just knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But I’d just as soon have taken a two-hour class on how to perform a root canal. I’d probably find that more practical. You never know when you’ll be Lost on a tropical island after a plane crash and need to do an emergency root canal.

Which leads me to another means of burning hours of time and having nothing to show for it: Season premiers! They are here, and they are fully-prepared to suck the life out of us, and, frankly, I couldn’t be happier about it.

For two nights in a row, Jack Bauer and the 24 clan siphoned off a total of four hours of our lives – in terms of percentage, that’s -- heck, I don’t know. I didn’t retain anything from the countless life-hours I sacrificed to math instruction, except maybe for some of the hilarious stunts we pulled on our fresh-to-the-U.S., barely-spoke-English, algebra teacher. Those are some great memories.

Hey, we were ADOLESCENTS. That qualifies as temporary insanity. I can’t be held accountable.

As for Lost, it will begin with a THREE HOUR premier in February. Talk about draining time… I can’t wait. There hasn’t been anything decent on TV lately except for Cavs games. I have a deep, emotional need to reconnect with my old friends, the Oceanic Six and the staff at CTU.

Yes, I watch television. I admit it. But I redeem myself by listening to high literature on my iPod when I’m working out, and you can’t prove otherwise. I also have many notable books lying around my house, some of which I actually read. So back off, Bronte.

I’ll never forget many years ago when I was at the grocery store, perusing the titles of the rental videos. I had three small children dripping from various parts of my body, tugging, poking, and whining for me to do something -- anything -- but what I was currently doing.

An older man walked up to me and said, in a very judgmental tone, “Don’t you read?”

I looked at him and noted that there were no gooey, squirmy appendages hanging from his body, mussing his dapper apparel, and made a snap judgment about his snootiness. This guy probably put on his smoking jacket, slippers, and decanted his wine, prior to settling into a fireside easy chair every night to open a book.

I responded, “Yes, in fact I do. And if you’ll excuse me, I am reading the titles of these videos at the moment.” He walked off in a huff.

Not especially clever, I’ll admit, but regardless of how well-read I was, at that moment I had more important people and things to attend to than someone who had no genetic right to challenge my motives.

I guess my point is that we all have our ways of burning time, the value of which is in the eyes of the burner. I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me, with one exception…

If you ever catch me burning time on my computer again, attempting to be a technical support person, feel free to slap me out of it. Where’s that snooty old guy when I need him anyway?

Simple Minds

2010-02-15T10:51:00.001-05:00

Whose is simpler -- mine or the dog's?

I throw the snowball, he chases it and burrows into the snow to retrieve it. The snow is up to his shoulders and he burrows, apparently until he can no longer hold his breath, and then lifts up his head, his nose covered with snow, takes a breath and goes back under to search more. I laugh. Every time.

Throw, burrow, laugh, repeat.

Obviously, these are the musings of a Midwest Madwoman suffering from hypothermia.

This is not an admission of wrong-mindedness

2010-02-10T12:18:00.001-05:00

Here's my dilemma:

I LOVE the Midwest. The rest of my family loves it, too, but will definitely leave it (and have) because of the weather, this very day being a prime example of the seasonal brutality they object to.

I think it's beautiful. It brings back childhood memories of a time when I couldn't have cared less that it was cold, as long as there was SNOW. The white stuff was a big bonus for me.

Not so for the genetic mutants in my family.

However, there is one caveat to my almost-undying affection for Ohio. I have been "growing into" -- I hate to blame it on growing "old" -- a slightly different attitude about the snow and cold, and that is that I would like to have less of it. It's not that I don't still love it, it's just that I love it in smaller doses... like for an occasional long weekend.

In addition, I would be delighted to have framed art of snow scenes on the walls of a house I might inhabit in a warmer climate.

I think this stance is entirely reasonable and bears no similarity to a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the rest of my family is right.

Tip of the Day

2010-02-10T11:25:00.000-05:00

Do NOT rub your eye after rubbing Caribbean Jerk into a rump roast.

2010-02-01T14:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I decided to come out of hibernation long enough to write a blog post. I know, I know, it's long overdue. I won't say the honeymoon is over or the bloom is off the rose or the novelty of writing a blog has worn off -- oops, I guess I just did -- but I will say this: It's hard to type with gloves on.

And I am wearing gloves in my house more often than not lately. I'm finding the sub-freezing temperatures outdoors are really beginning to have an effect on me indoors that the occasional menopausal warming phenomenon does no more to offset than the global warming one does. Lately, my faith in black cohosh has gone the way of Al Gore. Relegated to the fraternal order of "Also-Rans."

I'd just like to know how my extremities -- which, by their very definition, have a long-distance relationship with my brain -- have any idea how cold it is outside. I mean, I customarily keep my house at 68 degrees. Maybe I need to give them more credit. But I've been plying them with a crackling fire, wool, and a glass of wine every night for the past week, and they've remained oblivious to my overtures.

Sunday afternoon, I asked my husband if he wanted to go to the gym with me for a work out, and he said yes. He said he really wasn't very motivated to work out but he'd do it if for no other reason than to warm his toes up.

Eureka. It worked.

This gives me a couple more things to grump about --
One, my husband was right... again.
Two, the benefits of exercise really are many and all-encompassing, darn it. So the excuse that I'm too cold to go out to the gym is thereby robbed of all legitimacy.

What I wouldn't give for a bit o' beach time right about now.

Dittoe All Over Again: Just Justifying

2010-01-27T10:56:00.000-05:00

OK, so I’ve always thought of myself as being borderline-granola. Mostly-natural, partly-organic, relatively tech-resistant, semi-earthy and fairly back-to-basics. Our house has always been the last on the block to get such things as a microwave, a computer, and a flat screen TV. It’s been that way, in part, because we’re cheap, but we prefer to claim the rugged-individualist posture.

But things change, as do peoples’ stripes. And while I like the rugged-individualist image, sometimes pure desire takes over, an unadulterated yearning for indulgence.

Don’t start fanning yourselves with this newspaper; I’m not talking about sins of the flesh here.

I’m talking electronic toys, not erotic ones. I’m talking about the irresistible urge for digital thrills, and I don’t want you to read too much into that. Suffice it to say that, heaven help me, I just can’t fight it.

Two of my favorite Christmas presents this year are an e-Reader and an iPod. And despite the fact that I’ve had to study (virtual) manuals of instructions, I’ve been willing to do it. This is not like me.

I’m a chicken when it comes to technology.

When we got our first remote control, I was actually afraid of it – all those buttons and arrows pointing north, south, east, and west. I just didn’t trust my sense of direction. And the operator’s manual looked so intimidating.

I don’t even want to talk about how traumatic it is for me to upgrade my cell phone.

But I actually lusted after an eReader, and an iPod may just be this girl’s new best friend. They’re good for me, too, because they make me face down and conquer my phobias.

I can also justify the Reader in terms of my borderline-granola-ism. After all, when one can download hundreds of books onto a little pocket-sized gizmo, one is surely eliminating a significant amount of waste going into landfills. This one likes that.

Same goes for the iPod. No more buying multitudes of those little metal disks in their nasty plastic cases. This makes me feel like a natural woman again.

But here’s my biggest hi-tech confession. I have recently fallen in love with a blatantly-overblown, highly-commercialized movie. It’s not even a screenplay adapted from a notable literary work. It’s just a record-breaking, money-pit production that, again, gives me shameless thrills.

Yep – Avatar in 3-D! And yes, I did wear the glasses. What’s more, I’m going to see it AGAIN. There, I said it.

Ironically, this high-budget, über-sensationalized, digital monstrosity of a film has a moral about the wrongness of the technical and commercial world’s takeover of the natural world.

And I’ve decided that’s how I can justify liking it so much.

I rationalize that the half-billion in production costs are well worth it to get the environmentally-responsible message out to the masses.

Better prepare that Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Mr. Cameron. You’ve got it in the bag.

And me? My conscience is clear for another year, at least.

Dittoe All Over Again: Attainable New Year’s Resolutions

2010-01-11T19:36:00.003-05:00

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that we often set them so high that they’re all but unattainable. There’s just something about a fresh, new year looming ahead to make us believe we can do something we’ve never done before… like bring about world peace or climb Mt. Everest or keep our checkbook balance current (or maybe that’s just me).

And when we set our sights so high, we get discouraged and give up altogether. It’s a cyclical phenomenon. When Christmastime rolls around the next year, we’ve forgotten the pain and disappointment of broken resolutions and we’re ready to do it all over again. It’s kinda like childbirth. You don’t think it’s a coincidence that the New Year is symbolized by a baby with a banner across his chest and the old year as a grizzled old geezer, do you?

I say we give the 2010 cutie a dip in the fountain of youth, a dose of collagen serum on his dimply little bootie so he doesn’t end up looking like Keith Richards by next Christmas.

What could be better than facing the New Year strong and confident in the knowledge that we can attain whatever goals we set for ourselves and triumph over our shortcomings of 2009? I believe I have the secret to achieving this glorious and noble objective! And for just $19.99 plus shipping… just kidding! (Too many pre-holiday infomercials.)

Here’s the key: Set your bar really, really low. This strategy will keep you feeling good about yourself the whole year long. And, as we’ve all learned from magazine covers staring back at us from newsstands everywhere, the secret to a long and happy life is overblown self esteem; for example, Tiger Wood.

Just be sure not to set your bar too low.

To help you in this process, I have assembled a list of ten completely-lame-to-mediocre resolutions -- depending upon your personal laxity level -- that you may feel free to use as a guide in compiling your own list. Here they are:

Alphabetize your spice rack.
One night a week, put your remote between the couch cushions and operate your television manually.
Floss. Once in a while.
Carry a lint roller in your glove compartment. (You don’t really have to use it.)
Reduce by 25% the number of times you push “snooze” on weekdays.
Cut down on sugar on days containing the letter “Q” and on caffeine in months with 31 days during leap year.
Exercise regularly, when you have the time and feel like it.
Resist the urge to buy something you don’t need by any stretch of the imagination or in any remote possibility during your years here on Earth.
Maintain an optimistic attitude about your crippling credit card debt.
Never go to bed angry at a loved one, unless they really ticked you off and you want to make them squirm a little longer.

I hope this helps you get started thinking about your New Year’s resolutions. Good luck, and if you can’t honor all the resolutions you set for yourself, remember the mantra, "I'm good enough, smart enough, and, darn it, people like me" – unless, of course, you’re Tiger Wood. Then none of these apply, and all you’ve got going for you is you carry a club.

Seeing the Sugarplums

2010-01-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am ashamed of myself. That I have not written a post since mid-December is totally unacceptable, and I take full responsibility for my lapse. But in my defense, it was Christmas time, and I did a lot of other things I'm ashamed of, too, involving food and drink, inactivity, and all-around self-indulgence. Pretty pathetic excuse, huh?

But I'm back now, and, as it happens, with a SPLASH! My splash is in the form of some very big news:
It's a BOY! My first grandchild is -- will be...whatever the jargon is for prenatal ultrasound gender identification is -- A BOY! I've had visions of blue sugarplums dancing in my head ever since I found out.

My son, the baby boy's father, claims he didn't care one way or the other, boy or girl, but I knew better. And according to his wife, his celebratory dance in the exam room resembled a marionette having a grand mal seizure (my description, not hers); hence, his "neutrality" bore a remarkable resemblance to a distinct preference.

Apparently, the mommy was pretty happy with the news, too, as she went directly to the store to buy 12 variations on blue baby ensembles, which she showed me via flip video that night.

Even the aunts-to-be are beside themselves. I called one of them right after the news release, and she answered the phone singing, "I'm gonna be a nephew, I'm gonna be a nephew."

It's pointless to claim we're all in full control of our faculties right now. Then again, we have a good excuse, far better than the one I tried to feed you about not blogging for three weeks.

I want to thank the soon-to-be parents for what promises to be a steady flow of new material.

Reduce, Recycle, and Remorse

2009-12-16T10:17:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about acquisition lately. I saw a video a while back that detailed the cycle of "stuff," from its manufacture to its disposal. The spokesperson quoted a lot disturbing statistics about the cumulative effect of rampant acquisition on our physical world, which may or may not be entirely accurate, but she made her point with me. Regardless of our personal, political, or spiritual stance on things, we need to consider having fewer of them... things, that is.

Up until now, I've seen, heard, and read messages like this and felt momentary concern, but this time I actually internalized it. And it haunts me. The video suggested that people in our culture usually buy/consume for the purpose of being considered worthy. I instantly rejected that assessment. But the idea played upon my conscience any time I bought something that wasn't absolutely necessary to survival. Clothes, for example. I realized that I was not buying them because I didn't already have perfectly good ones at home; I was buying them to create an impression that made me feel a certain way about myself.

Then, one of my dearest friends -- not a fanatic about saving money (or even needing to) or the environment or really anything other than the welfare of her family, which is only normal in my circle -- told me she was going to try to go a year without buying any new clothes. My first impulse was to ask why, but my new and not so welcome enlightenment kicked in and her vow suddenly made sense.

Now, I'm all about reducing, recycling, and repurposing -- this was seeded in early marriage, when the bucks just weren't there to do otherwise. But it never occurred to me to cut down on personal items like clothing, for heaven's sake. After all, clothing is made of biodegradable material, right? That was the logic and the justification I used on a lot of items I wanted, not realizing that being biodegradable most often doesn't mean the item will ultimately end up in the optimal conditions for degrading. More likely, it will end up sealed into a landfill with no exposure to the elements that would cause it to break down.

I really admire my friend for her commitment. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm ready to make it myself. But here's the rub: Some of the immense enjoyment I've always gotten from acquiring self adornment and elements of home decor is now tainted by the niggling, persistent cognizance that I don't really need it, I'm probably buying it to enhance my image, and the item will ultimately end up part of a big ol' heap that eats up green space somewhere.

Hence, my list of things to feel guilty about has lengthened.

Thankful Bikers in Paradise

2009-12-04T14:27:00.001-05:00

Zounds, it's been a coon's age -- can we still say that? -- since I last posted! And I have so very much to say!

Mostly it's about my family; so there's your warning. Feel free to bail on me if you don't want to read all kinds of hilarious and schmaltzy stuff about those near and dear to me.

Okay, time's up. No turning back now.

I just spent the most amazing, memorable, and extraordinary Thanksgiving with my family in Key West. (I warned you.) My son, herein known as Ferdinand, rented a house for us among the palm trees and six-toed Hemingway cats, and we made full use of it's many charms: A pool and poolhouse, multiple decks, window views galore of tropical paradise, gorgeous interior, huge media center, and very engaging company. (We brought that last feature along with us, including Milton of the Strutting Tutu, my son and daughter-in-law's Corgi.)

Thanksgiving -- the day itself -- was pretty close to the traditional experience, albeit played out in a more exotic setting than our barnhouse. But then, anything is a more exotic setting than the barnhouse.

Yep, we baked pies, stuffed the bird, peeled eggs -- gotta have deviled eggs -- and gave effusive and heartfelt thanks to our gracious God, as we always do. But this time there was somehow, impossibly, even MORE to be grateful for as our three generations (and a fourth on the way for Andy and Jen) gathered to break bread and celebrate our blessings.

After turkey day, we packed the rest of our time there combining and recombining for shopping, scooter-riding, dining, dancing, and scuba diving. Yet, it was relaxing. I can't explain that, but I'm glad it was.

As an amusing aside, I'd like to mention that, on the day we spent scooter-sightseeing, we gave each other biker names. Yeah. And nobody messed with us. We were just that intimidating.

So, in memory of an exceptional Thanksgiving holiday, I'd like to give a shout-out to my gang, from their big, bad, biker mama -

Geezer, Mad Max, T-Bone, Slash, Loose Lois, and Stabby Sue --

Can't wait to get back there and crack it with my clubbers again. Mind your mingers.

Love,
Geezer's backwarmer, Blisterbuns

The Mountain

2009-11-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

When I arrived at my weekly volunteer gig yesterday -- scooping for the ice cream social at the nursing home -- I got some bad news.

All the volunteers acknowledge that we should expect to hear about the passing of the elderly residents there now and then, but nothing prepared us for what we heard yesterday.

A lovely young woman who was a private aid to one of the residents, someone we'd always enjoyed chatting with on Wednesdays, had killed herself. She'd been a single mother and left two kids behind.

This had a leveling effect on me that I didn't expect. She'd been so sweet, so willing to linger a while and talk to us, as if she appreciated the connection we had... or at least the connection we thought we had. Apparently she was feeling desperately disconnected from anyone.

Why else would this happen?

As the day passed and we heard more about her situation, we found out there was this issue, and that problem, and perhaps she thought her kids would be better off if this or that, or maybe a physical condition seemed hopeless. Regardless, the finality of her act was something none of us would ever be able to fathom. Her pain was only hers, since we'd never truly connected.

And those children.

I really didn't know her well; she was just a Wednesday friend. But I'm left wondering why I have such a hole in my heart and when I can expect it to heal.

The Molehill

2009-11-19T14:54:00.001-05:00

Holy hair highlights! In a trivial example of how life goes on, I messed with my hair color today. I thought I needed to pump up the drama a little, to make my hair a little less solid brown and a little more hey, look at me! So I put a few blondish streaks in it. Thought I would give it a little glimmer.

Now I'm trying to decide if I look like Morticia. I guess any change takes some getting used to. Maybe I'll post a picture and invite you to be brutally honest...

Nah.

I'll be trying it out next week on my whole brutally-honest family in Key West. Of course, with Key West as the frame of reference I'll probably look exactly like what I am: A relatively conservative, borderline pudgy, Midwest, middle-aged woman.

Yuk.

Maybe I'll put a few more streaks in for good measure, put a little distance between me and mediocrity.

S'more Time with Old Friends

2009-11-14T11:35:00.001-05:00

I ate my seasonal s'more last night.

The s'more is, hands down, the ultimate autumn treat. Eaten any other time of year, without the scent of burning leaves as accompaniment, it tastes less than 75% as good.

Of course, prepared in an authentic setting -- around a campfire -- there are pitfalls. My fellow marshmallow roasters and I fell victim to every last one of them last night.

I went first, tripping on a rock on the dark path to the firepit, and nearly doing a face-plant in the underbrush.

Most of the rest of the setbacks were due to marshmallow mishandling. I'm convinced they use melted marshmallows as an adhesive in the aerospace industry. I can't begin to imagine what they do to our digestive tracts.

First, Big Boy -- who has apparently forgotten the childhood skill of how to eat a s'more -- ended up with it squeezing out the corners of his mouth, creating kind of a Hannibal Lector mouth-guard effect. A flashlight shone in his face revealed white bubbles and strings barring his mouth as he talked. Later, he'd developed a growth of fuzz and brown leaves like a grotesque Fu Manchu.

Meanwhile, his wife Primrose stood by shivering and reading aloud the shameful ingredients on the marshmallow bag, refusing to engage any element of the great outdoors, from the smoke to the skewered marshmallows. Rosie stayed clean and pristine, as she stood at the epicenter of an invisible sphere of crisp airspace between her and the tree-stump seats, firepit, and sticky husband.

The hostess and s'more ingredient assembly person grew webbed fingers with unidentifiable particulates stuck to them, as Granola Girl plunged into the roasting arena, toasting fork loaded and ready to fire. Before long GG's marshmallows were perfectly browned, bulbous, and threatening to plop into the fire -- the quintessential, s'more-ready, purpose-of-life state for any lucky marshmallow. Show off.

Across the firepit from me, my husband Boone efficiently loaded his mallows, stuck them directly into the flame and set them blazing, then quickly blew them out with a firm, "I meant to do that," then tried to pawn the hot, ashy lumps off on someone else. Mr. Generosity.

Our host sat motionless behind the beam of a flashlight with only his legs showing, a disembodied voice offering wry commentary on our shenanigans. He astutely pointed out that this night, as most of our past get togethers, had devolved into the usual hapless nonsense accompanied by his wife's and my helpless hysteria.

Ah..... old friends and sticky s'mores. Life was good last night.

Read the Fine Print, Genius

2009-11-10T13:41:00.000-05:00

I'm easy. Hopefully you won't find that on any restroom walls, but at the Visa Customer Service Department, they're replaying the recording of my call today and yukkin' it up bigtime.

A word to the wise-but-wandering minds out there: "Read the fine print" isn't just your grandfather's admonition; it's actually a relevant reminder for modern mindfulness.

And I am fertile turf for such a cautionary seed. Being what I like to call a Big Picture Person, I often overlook menial details... like did I deposit that thousand dollar check or I don't remember if I should cut the red wire or the green one.

So far I haven't maimed or bankrupted myself or anyone else (that I'm aware of) in my happy little conga lifeline, but there's no doubt my flippancy has caused me to make the occasional misstep and get a bit behind the beat now and then.

Today, I discovered a Visa gift card that I bought for someone last Christmas but ended up replacing with another gift. So I thought I'd hit a small, but not insignificant, jackpot -- $50 to spend any way I liked. It was like a visit from a very generous Tooth Fairy who let me keep all my teeth.

Then I noticed the expiration date on the card was one month ago. Dang, Gina. Well, I'd just call the 800 number and get a replacement or an extension.

So I did, but I didn't.

I explained my situation to the friendly, foreign representative, and she asked if I'd mind holding for a few minutes. When she came back, she gave me three options: I could trade up to a higher value card for the additional amount plus a $5 charge, I could get a replacement card for a $10 charge, or I could receive a refund check for a charge of $10.

Well, I thought, my bad -- I should have expected some sort of penalty (the fees) for not using the card before it expired. So I opted for a refund check.

The rep did some quick calculations and told me my refund would be in the amount of $25.

Twenty-five dollars for a fifty dollar card? I thought the fee was only $10, which I politely pointed out to her.

Yes, she said, also politely, but after a period of 6 months, Visa accesses an additional fee for every month you don't use the card. So they would take an additional $15 off the card's original value based on the five additional months I failed to use it.

Let me get this straight... I gave them $50 plus the $5 purchase price -- so $55 -- last December that they could put somewhere to earn interest, but now MY investment has been cut by less than half 11 months later, due to THEIR various "administration" fees?

"This is a really bad deal for the consumer," I feebly stated to my helpful customer service rep. "With gift certificates and merchandise credits, you have by law two years to use them, maybe more in some instances, for the full amount. I don't think I'll be buying any more of your gift cards."

Wow, could I be tough or what?

Then she giggled. Seriously -- she giggled, and said, "I'm sorry but those are the terms."

I've been told I have a flair for comedy, but this was a prime example of the lack of control I have over it.

I put on my readers and looked at the fine print on the card, and darned if Miss Chortles wasn't right. So I thanked her, politely but not sincerely, for her help and gave her my address for the measly, scum-sucking refund check.

Oh, I know -- it's only $25. But darn it, it's the principle.

Financial interactions should somehow be made simpler and more accessible to the mindfully-challenged. I'm utterly convinced I'd be a wealthy woman if they were.

Dittoe, All Over Again: Parents Under House Arrest

2009-11-09T13:57:00.001-05:00

It occurs to me that lately my columns have been almost exclusively about kid issues; i.e., discipline, adolescent behavior, nostril piercing, etc. And though I=ve enjoyed your overwhelmingly positive feedback to these columns, I thought it might be a good idea to vary my repertoire a bit by dealing with some grown up subject matter. To speak seriously to an issue of grave concern involving people of maturity and sophistication. And so I shall.
My social life is in the toilet because of my kids.
I don=t mean to come down too hard on the precious darlings, but the glaring fact is that they've sucked the life out of my husband's and my extracurricular activities. It used to be that they asked us what we were doing on a weekend and worked around our schedule, but that's all changed. Anymore, we gear our nearly extinct recreational time to their increasingly aggressive social doings.
I remember when we actually had friends. Now what we have are fellow survivors. People who, like us, have pubescent freight trains barreling through their lives scattering in their wakes the debris of their formerly dynamic social selves.
You can spot us in any crowd. We're huddled in small, murmuring groups of two or more, usually on week nights, huddled in neighborhood cafes. We sit by the windows sharing war stories and keeping constant vigil over passing vehicles, casting frequent glances at our watches so as not to stay too long and tempt fate.
We have come to know that a house with no parental presence, what I like to call an unadulterated house, sings a siren song to bands of roving teenagers. We know that even if we post guard dogs and wrap barbed wire around the periphery of our property when we leave, kids on the outside will make any heroic attempt to get in. Kind of a reverse-Papillon phenomenon.
What is it with today's kids? (Now I'm beginning to sound like something from the musical score of Bye Bye, Birdie.) What motivates this frenzied pursuit of social nirvana? For me to keep up with that kind of social schedule would require supplemental oxygen. I'd be going to movies, eating tacos, and glow bowling with a tube in my nose.
But I don't ask nearly that much. Maybe just an unhurried dinner out or movie with friends (if I still recognize them). Biannually would be just fine.
It just happens that we attempted that very thing last night. First we had to flush seven fifteen year old sled riders out of the house and deliver our twelve year old to a party. We were only ten minutes late for the movie, which was a record in punctuality for us. Afterward, we actually had coffee and conversation with some delightful people we vaguely recall interacting with about a year ago this time. Although we all have teenagers and hence, permanently knitted brows and eyes trained to surveillance, with relaxation techniques and slow breathing patterns, we managed to sip the coffee at a controlled pace without spilling a drop. Then acting very casual, even blasé, we said our goodbyes, got in our cars, peeled out, and hauled tail home like our fannies were ablaze.
Much to our astonishment, there was no sign of covert celebratory activity at our house. And wonder of wonders, upon making a few phone calls, we found that all children were where they reported they would be, in houses that were indeed adulterated.
Something is terribly wrong. I hereby alert all parents of teenagers in the area to be on their guard. Circle your wagons, batten down the hatches, and secure all exits. The sneaks must be planning the mother of all parties for next weekend.

"And a Boobie, Too???" -- Franck Eggelhoffer

2009-11-06T13:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, I can announce it now: I'm going to be a grandmother! Woot-woot, Yay, and Boo-Yah! This crosses a biggie off my bucket list.

I can't wait for the effect this will have on the family. A baby rejuvenates things. Holidays, get togethers, just the general mood of a family group morphs when a new generation is introduced into the mix. I remember so clearly when my sister had her first child and then, again, when I did. Suddenly the Christmas tree was more shimmery, the dog was more captivating, a simple walk became more of an adventure... even mud was a beautiful thing again.

Despite the surge of youthfulness Opie the Jack Russell brought into our lives, coupled with his rejuvenating effect on my husband, conditions are still optimal for the introduction of a tiny new human on the scene. He or she will no doubt blow off some stank in more ways than one.

And since I'm soon to be part of the exclusive sisterhood of grandmothers, prepare for a shift in my preferred subject matter. I promise not to be obnoxious.

Sure, that's what they all say...

Big Brother Saves the Day - OR MAYBE – Bad Timing

2009-11-02T11:25:00.001-05:00

I really don’t want one more thing to think about, especially something with the redeeming value of a chigger bite. That’s what Daylight Saving Time is to me – a chigger bite. No, WORSE … it’s the illusion of a chigger bite. It’s something that manipulates me into thinking I HAVE a chigger bite, much the same as thinking I HAVE a 25-hour day.

A whole extra hour of sunlight! Gee, maybe I should stop taking my vitamin D supplements.

I’m a night person, so the whole “springing” and “falling” thing doesn’t have much effect on me, other than to make me screw up two perfectly good days every year by forgetting to change my clock. Even for day people, I don’t get it. Why can’t they just go to bed and get up an hour earlier? Is that too much self-determination for Big Productivity Brother? Why don’t businesses just adjust their hours for those six months of the year? Why can’t they all just LEAVE ME ALONE??

I really don’t like being manipulated.

Besides, I think it’s threatening my mixed marriage. My husband is a sunlight-worshipping, day person. This bi-solar condition is challenge enough in today’s society, but worse yet, he buys into the whole DST thing. Oh, yeah – rugged individualist and individual liberties defender that he is, he still conforms to this movement. He doesn’t even KNOW it, but he does.

Subconsciously, I know he thinks he’s getting an extra hour of sunlight, over and above the amount provided by the change of seasons, sort of cheating the cosmic realm out of something. He is being indoctrinated by the secret society without his knowledge.

Where are we anyway? STEPFORD? I want the DST agents out of my husband’s head, the figurative microchip out of his neck.

The thing is, they say the energy-saving, economic benefit of DST is offset in the cooler months by more electricity and utility usage in the dark morning hours. So what’s the point? I say it’s power for power’s sake.

It almost makes more sense to go to year-round Daylight Saving Time. At least that would eliminate the silly little springing-falling dance we’re doing now. Did you know

Kyrgyzstan

is the only country in the world that does this? Whodathunk?

Face it, this is just one of many things in our world that don’t make sense. Like having remote control everything and machines that do our physical labor for us, so we’ll have more time to go to the health club and work out.

So to review -- why do I object so strongly to Daylight Saving Time? Because, as I said, it’s manipulative.

Or I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that I’m sitting here in my office, looking up at a clock that’s mounted about seven feet up on the wall, over a work counter and above a window, that still needs to be reset to DST. Every time I look up I’m reminded that I’m going to have to do it. This will require going to the garage, bringing in a ladder, climbing up and resetting the clock, and carrying the ladder back out to the garage, and I don’t feel like doing it.

Where’s a remote when you really need one? Besides, I’m late for my workout at the health club.

Prioritized Communications

2009-10-29T07:47:00.000-04:00

My husband can sit and watch a 2 hour movie with me and not utter a word. But if I'm on the couch reading a book and he sits down beside me and starts watching a game, it's different. He pelts me with, "Did you see that play?? Watch this replay, watch!" and "FOUL? There was NO FOUL!" and "Aw, Shaq. What was THAT?" I don't know what it is in my body language that suggests I'm interested. Maybe the way I'm scrunched down, motionless, under a blanket with my eyes deceptively glued to the page. He must detect a pulse.

Still and all, I love him for sharing his passion for sports. Heaven knows it may be weeks before he shares something like making an offer on a house or booking a trip to San Diego for a meeting. But I can always depend on someone telling me at the grocery store.

Besides, a little mystery keeps things fresh and exciting. In that respect, it's felt like a first date for the past 32 years.

In Awe of This

2009-10-23T11:32:00.000-04:00

I don't know what subclassification of egotism makes us assume that our offspring are nothing more than the sum of two parts -- their parents -- but I think lots of us start out thinking that way... before our kids enlighten us.

In the cases of all of my kids, I've actually been surprised when they go beyond their father and me in some way. When they become someone totally unique or create something completely original, or accomplish something we never could have. Against all logic, I'm awed.

Now, I'm a thinking individual -- at least by some peoples' standards. Why does this phenomenon continually amaze me? After all, the genetic pool, while certainly extensive, is finite. What explanation can there then be for these apparently all-new, unexpected, unprecedented qualities in our children?

There is only one possible explanation, and it's the one that keeps me believing.... forever and ever, Amen.

You're Killin' Me, Kid

2009-10-23T11:13:00.001-04:00

I just wanna say I've never been so happy to be outdone by someone. This little scamp tickles my funny bone more than anyone else, and the fact that she's my daughter has nothing to do with it. No -- I MEAN it!

Love it... and YOU, Kid.

Romantic Moments and Heritable Love

2009-10-20T19:54:00.000-04:00

Had a pleasant flashback today. Don't know why... I must have been listening to the country station. It always makes me sentimental.

Anyway, I was remembering the times that I've come to think of as the most romantic moments in my marriage. They were simply these: The times when one of our kids did or said something incredibly cute or insightful for someone so young, and my husband's and my eyes met over the child's head. Each of us was reacting to the utterance by looking into the other's eyes for acknowledgment that it was truly a remarkable moment in time. I've never felt more loved or more blessed.

I've heard people say things like spouse first, children second or my first loyalty is to my spouse, and my kids come second. How can people think this way? For one thing, it's so legalistic. But I was never able to separate the two. They were always parts of the same whole, and establishing a hierarchy would never have entered my mind.

Now that they are grown not much has changed, except for the geography of my love. I've learned to suspend, even schedule the gratification I get from loving them. And as they've met special people and two of them have gotten married, I've also learned to expand my heart. It's much easier than I ever would have guessed. Someone who is so loved by the people I love... well, they're easy to love. They've sort of been vetted and prequalified by my children.

I have much to look forward to. Someday, I'll be able to look over the heads of grandchildren into my husband's eyes, and the love will be multiplied by the years and the generations.

This is a gift from God that will, each time it happens, strike me as miraculous.

Dittoe, All Over Again: All Together Now... O-H!

2009-10-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

All Together Now...O-H!

I feel like I’ve been sacked for a loss of twenty… years.

Experiencing an OSU football Saturday, on-site, isn’t what it used to be for this ol’ Buckeye Babe. Or maybe it’s the babe who’s not what she used to be.

I’m feeling the need to channel Toby Keith here:

I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good ONCE as I ever was.

I think I effectively proved that last weekend, when I successfully completed an all-inclusive OSU football Saturday… and then crawled back home to spend the next five days recovering.

It all started when my friend Sassy called to ask me if I wanted to go to the Illinois game with her. Being a childhood friend of the Illini coach, she’d scored some tickets to the game, and she’d chosen me as her lucky Buckeye cohort, along with her daughter. Adding to the always-irresistible allure of attending an OSU game was the fact that she had never been to Horseshoe Stadium.

This would be a tricky situation, in that our seats would be on the Illinois side and we would be there because of her connection to their coach. Our compromise was to wear Buckeye gear but be respectful of the opposing team, cheering, for the most part, in the dignified manner of attendees at a tennis match. This would be no small effort for three women who frequently display wild animation in response to something as subtle as a cute pair of shoes.

Sassy’s inaugural attendance at a home game elevated the invitation to Siren-Song status, effectively rendering me brain-dead to anything else I might have planned for that day outside of the exact coordinates of Lane Avenue, the Olentangy River, High Street, and the South Stands. No way was I going to let anyone else introduce my friend to the experience, without benefit of MY historical slant on things –

“And this is where I lived my junior year, and that over there is the dorm where my husband flooded his floor and he and his friends did naked, shaving cream slip-‘n-sliding down their hall, and here’s where the big, class-skipping, snowball war happened during the first snowfall every year, and –“

You get the idea. I’m sure the poor girl almost lived to regret inviting me… that is, until the tailgating started and the official kickoff of GAME DAY -- if not of the game, itself – occurred. From that point on, it was nothing but kicks and giggles.

Even the part where the three of us sat, like side-by-side Russian nesting dolls, in the stadium. Amorphous bumps on the bench seats. In the pouring rain. For the entire game. Watching the game through tiny tunnels in our full-coverage, tent-like rain slickers. With holes in them.

Well. I mean – who actually inspects their rain slickers for tiny leaks BEFORE taking them to a game? Not this girl. And not in my pre-game state of euphoria. Be reasonable.

Unfortunately, my less-experienced Buck Buds didn’t get their slickers on as soon as I did, in time to avoid a comprehensive initial soaking. But they were champs more than worthy of fan status by any nut-lover’s or vest-wearer’s standards. They sat through the whole game supporting their team, without heed to their personal comfort. And given the outcome of the game, the team clearly felt their unflagging support and appreciated their sacrifice.

They did me proud.

So here I sit -- several days after all the walking, tailgating, and poker-straight marinating in the cold for 2 ½ hours on a metal bench – feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck in forward and, then again, in reverse.

Like I said, game attendance isn’t what it used to be for me, but chances are it’s the only time I’ll get to go to one this fall. So it was worth every kink in this aging alumna’s body. By this time next year, I’ll be ready for another go ‘round.

I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.

Cooking and Remembering

2009-10-15T14:22:00.001-04:00

I just rifled through my overstuffed recipe box for something, and noticed a few things:

- The finish is wearing off the edges of the box, and I can't close the lid anymore.

- At least a third of the recipes are in my deceased mother's handwriting. This somehow, simultaneously, delivered a punch in the gut and a caress of the soul.

- The dog-eared ones are the most legendary.

- The contents follow my personal history and elicit memories, from my early twenties until present, as well as any diary would, and given my negligence when it comes to any other type of journaling, this is a good alternative.

Can't believe I was looking for a sauerkraut recipe and ended up meandering through family dinners, celebrations, and other moments in my developing life, long forgotten.

I highly recommend it.

Season, Divine

2009-10-12T14:04:00.003-04:00

I'm happy. I could be up a creek without a paddle, painted into a corner, have my neck in a noose and anything in a ringer, and I'd still be happy. Some joys transcend the mundane.

Why? I live in paradise. What constitutes paradise? The Midwest in mid-October, or, to put a finer point on it: my little valley a few days either side of October 15th. Here and now, I'm -- as my dear father used to say -- as happy as if I had good sense.

It's my favorite time of year, and I've only experienced it 55 times. I've loved it elsewhere, but in my valley I've loved it best. I've only experienced it here 15 times. Some of those years I was busy experiencing it, vicariously, through the eyes of my kids, so that further reduces the stats to 2 years, which is when the baby-gotta-love-her graduated from college and moved out of state. Then, there was that year of scorching Empty Nest, which distills the focus of the purest form of my ardor to this very autumn season.

Need convincing? Well, lookie here:

Life is good. God is great.

Want a Little Whine with That?

2009-10-08T12:42:00.000-04:00

As I remember from Developmental Psychology class, if you skip one of the important stages of development in your youth, you'll either be impaired in some sense or you'll regress and process it later in life.

As a college student I didn't abuse chemicals, so I'm considering making up for that deficiency now.

I have a perfectly acceptable excuse, too: My lower back feels like sprites who aren't cute are pounding away at it with their tiny jackhammers (which are also not cute) -- from the inside. AND my lumbar region is spasming in response to being under ugly-sprite construction. And everyone knows that one of the most significant threats to life on this planet is unsightly urban sprite sprawl in the guise of rennovation. These are not little "green" men.

So if chemical abuse were ever warranted, it would be now. But despite what one might think from this written description of my agony, I have not engaged in it yet. I'm just out of my mind with pain.

You know, I have read that the great comic illustrator Erik Larsen was his most brilliant when he was at the peak of mental illness. Maybe I can make the most of this situation. Oh, I know what you're thinking... Marilyn, you're no Erik Larsen. But I also skipped the "brilliant" stage in college. Maybe it's time to develop that one, too.

My other options are to see a doctor or to wait it out. I've effectively done both in the past, but this time it seems the condition is lasting longer. Meantime, I'm doing a lot of not doing a lot, and my life is gathering dust while I baby myself. And I'm bored. Silly. (See above sprites-with-jackhammers reference.)

But let me be clear: THIS IS NOT A MATTER OF GETTING OLD. I will never, ever make that claim about anything. In fact, I'm thinking of requesting that this be engraved on my headstone, maybe in a nice bold Antiqua-style font, sic -- "This is NOT a matter of getting old."

It's merely a matter of being overly-ambitious in my activity level.

Maybe I'll have surgery. I have a friend who regularly has it on her face and a few other body parts to, as she says, "keep from getting old." A little preventative procedure couldn't hurt.

Perhaps a spritectomy.

Cheap Cabernet Launch!

2009-10-06T00:41:00.000-04:00

So today's the BIG DAY for my online buddy and fellow writer Cathie Beck. Today is the launch of her hilarious and poignant new book, Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship.

A little background for ya...
A few weeks ago the members of my dear and irrepressible Uppity Women Book Club were the lucky recipients of advance copies of Cheap Cabernet, with Cathie's blessing and firm directive to let her know what we thought.

Let her know what we thought? Did this woman have ANY IDEA what she was getting herself into?? Not only did we read it, but we taped our meeting afterwards and bombarded her with a half dozen video clips of it! As you'll see if you follow the link to those clips, we let her know what we thought in no uncertain terms...

We thought it was hilarious, outrageous, maddening, perceptive, intuitive, ridiculous, memorable, and very, VERY thought-provoking, not to mention downright FUN for a women's book club the likes of ours (which actually may not exist anywhere outside of us, but we heartily recommend it to women's book clubs that may be slightly more subdued, too)!

Cheap Cabernet is just a book, like its namesake, to be savored with friends. And if your friends are anything like mine, you'd better stock the wine rack, put out lots of munchies, and prepare yourself for a long, loud, lively evening!

(Click here to see a video of Cathie in an interview about Cheap Cabernet at Divino Wine and Spirits in Denver.)

Life of a Twenty-Something

2009-10-02T13:45:00.002-04:00

"From Prom Queens to Mom Jeans" is the best post yet, Charrichis! (Okay, so you are my daughter, but I can truly maintain perspective. The neutral views stated herein are completely impervious to the fact that you are simply brilliant, witty, and on a par with PLATO in your insightfulness.)
So when was the last time you cleaned your room, Ms. Savant?

Relevant Advertising

2009-10-01T13:27:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I signed in to my blog to see what the adoring masses -- all three of you -- might have seen fit to comment on, and the first thing I clapped eyes on was this question:

Struggling w/ urine smell?
(Tastefully framed, of course, in a subtle, color-compatible ad box below my latest post.)

ARE YA KIDDING?? Granted, I've thrown myself at the mercy of the ad aces to use their finely-honed "analytics" to determine what type of ads would be most effective herein, but I'm puzzled as to how they arrived at this particular one.

And can you blame me? Here I am, endeavoring to present an adroit, ageless, witty, even a teeny bit hip, approach to a fifty-something gal's view of life, and the first thing my (maybe I'm delusional) sophisticated readership is met with upon entering is a pee-pee question?

I'm thinking adult diapers with odor control will be the next hot commodity featured. What the --? Do I need to take "baby boomer" off my list of search terms?

This is reinforcing the creeping -- and creePY -- realization that what my more-gripey fellow Boomers have been claiming is true: That there is, indeed, a certain cultural stigma attached to being beyond the half century mark. That you can dress me up but you can't take me out, not pretending I'm the new thirty anyway. What you can do is take me out and order me a Sun Setter's Special of small-portioned, easy-to-chew comfort food, but don't even think the server's gonna believe I can wrap my dentures around a maki roll.

As the kids today say, Bah humbug.

I should've sensed the direction things were going when I saw bladder-control ads on here, but I was in denial.

I could actually go onto my ad preferences page and block these types of ads, but I gotta tell ya... now my curiosity is piqued. I want to see if it's something I SAID or if it's nothing more than a case of age discrimination. I mean, I could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they got the idea to peddle smelly urine solutions from something I wrote about. I did, after all, make reference to an "internal itch" in my last post. A quick perusal might lead one to assume I was talking about a urinary tract infection, not an unresolved psychological phenomenon. And in another recent post, I blogged about my dog tangling with a skunk -- an undeniable odor reference.

So I think I'll just keep an eye on the situation -- maybe even dangle some bait and see if they go for it. Let's see...

If I get myself into one of my classic predicaments and blog something about "being on the hot seat," do you think I'll get a Preparation-H ad? Worth a try!

On the Cusp

2009-09-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Fall always does this to me, makes me long for a change. Sometimes it's a haircut, sometimes a shift in my personal "style," sometimes a redecorating flourish, often a new writing project.

But this time it's different. This time I want an ADVENTURE; no small tweak to my wardrobe or surroundings will cut it. At the very least, I need to embark on a significant piece of work or, at most, a life overhaul -- maybe even a relocation.

There was a time when this internal itch could be scratched by having a baby or getting a new job, but not anymore. A new baby I would love, but it's no longer possible; a new "job" -- at least the in the traditional style -- would be entirely possible, but I would detest punching someone else's clock. I am profoundly past that.

I love fall but, as is so often the case, love hurts. And it's hurting me more than ever this year, due either to empty-nest boredom or a midlife sense of not having accomplished anything significant recently.

I can load my calendar up with busy little fillers, but they're only temporary distractions, and the post-activity letdown lets down deeper each time. Contrary to Marcus Buckingham's study, this state isn't what I'd call unhappiness... it's more like a case of all-encompassing restless leg syndrome, a through-and-through sense of needing to "move," needing to produce, needing to effect, needing to enhance, needing to help, needing to matter.

It's like a severe infestation of chiggers or not being able to find the keys you just had in your hand a moment ago. And if I don't scratch it, find them, or discover it soon, I will surely burst... or maybe just dry up and blow away.

I'm prayin' like there's no tomorrow.

Dittoe All Over Again: Much Ado About Spew and Pew

2009-09-28T15:36:00.001-04:00

When they say “The Dog Days of Summer,” I doubt very much that they are referring to the kind we had at our house last weekend. Our Dog Day didn’t exactly lend itself to literary reference.

Last Saturday, one of our dogs obliterated any notion of quaintness from a day that might have otherwise been considered downright idyllic.

Let me set the scene. My friends and I were trekking the perimeter of my rural property, picking wild blackberries, while my dogs tripped gaily along with us, a la Lands End. When we were finished, we sat down at my kitchen table for some still-warm apple crisp one of my friends had baked for the occasion.

Lands End, right? Yeah, until my husband walked in.

Actually, he wasn’t the one who shattered the preciousness of the moment – his DOG was. He’d entered the scene to tell me Opie the X-Dog had barfed on the rug in the living room … a lot.

I don’t want to be excessively graphic here, but “a lot” didn’t do it justice. It appeared – and the feint of heart may want to skip this paragraph and scurry along to the next one – that our adventurous Jack Russell had indulged himself in a bit of his own berry-picking. But the recycled berries on the carpet weren’t blackberries; they were bright red berries that also grow in profusion on our property. I don’t know if these berries are actually poisonous or if it was just a matter of classic terrier overindulgence, but I do know they are a real bear to get out of carpeting. (I ended up practicing on several heaps of it, as the day wore on.)

Thank heaven my guests were rugged sorts, all of them having pets at home and experienced with being dealt a similar wildcard while entertaining.

You’d think a purging like that might render our holy terrier a bit, shall we say, spent for the balance of the day. But nooo, not the X-Dog. Unlike your average hound, Opie had yet-untapped reserves of mischief. The boy had shenanigans to burn.

Which is precisely why, at around 10:00 that night, just as we’d settled in to watch a movie, we heard his high-pitched “adventure bark,” and Jim went to the door to let him in.

The dog darted in faster than the speed of stink. But when the scent caught up with him, it nearly burnt the cilia from our nasal passages.

“PUT HIM BACK OUT!” I screamed. Despite Jim’s passionate urgings, Opie hung back, perhaps to amuse himself, in a stubborn-terrier fashion, by watching his master do a spaz dance. Either way, Jim didn’t get him out soon enough to prevent the stench from lingering in the house.

It goes without saying that for the rest of the night, we busied ourselves with eradicating skunk pollution from our dog and house, which is not an easy task. But thanks to a generous reader who sent me a wonderful deskunking formula a while back, when I wrote about another of our dog’s tangling with a skunk, we were much more successful this time.

Thus passed the kind of Dog Day of Summer we have at our house.

More of the Dog Days of Summer: Wolfhound Worship

2009-09-23T11:37:00.001-04:00

And speaking of specimens, here's a little sumpin-sumpin from the photo archives. Back by popular demand, this image of Dugan the House Horse giving my mother-in-law a little sugar -- with the help of her adoring son, my husband, and Wolfhound Daddy extraordinaire, Jim.

The Cowboy's New 'Do

2009-09-22T17:11:00.002-04:00

Such a specimen...

Minnie S.O.S.

2009-09-22T12:28:00.000-04:00

This is a public appeal to my lastborn --

(Below interspersed with gut-wrenching sobs)

DON'T SHUT ME OUT, MY DARLING! MY WORLD REVOLVES AROUND YOU. I LOVE YOU MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF.

That should do it.

The above would be classified as a Level Four Communications Alert. When I want to talk to Minnie, outside of the contacts she initiates, I begin with a text message that requests a phone call. That is Level One. If this doesn't result in a response from her, I advance to Level Two: The voicemail message. I leave one that is clear and concise, devoid of any type of alarmism. That being unproductive, I move on to Level Three: The email, direct and no-nonsense and, again, not alarming.

So I've worked my way through the first three levels and am now activating a Level Four Alert, the public appeal. The next few alert levels grow increasingly more persuasive, as they, too, involve bringing third parties into the process, via contacting her roommate, a neighbor, or -- and this is especially risky -- her place of employment. The latter should only be executed in the event of an actual death. But still, the word "urgent"* is not to be part of the communique.

This phenomenon, though somewhat inconvenient, is merely part of Minnie's charm. Call it the old hard-to-get, value-added relationship trick, if you will -- but it actually works to make the contact-initiator want her more. And the charming part is that Minnie absolutely DOESN'T intend for it to have that effect. The last thing it is for her is a tool of manipulation. She is simply, irretrievably, and totally into whatever it is she is doing at the time she gets your message and honestly doesn't want to divide her attention, thereby short-changing anything or anyone of the fullness and immediacy of her attention... even if it's Grey's Anatomy.

The girl is a communication purist. How can you fault that?

Hence, everyone who loves her is willing to create a new category of acceptance, an exception to conventional rules of correspondence, and Minnie, alone, is that exception.

I think this is a very accurate indicator of how much she is loved -- that everyone in her circle is willing to wait. After all, she IS the baby and we DO have to love her.

So, how 'bout it, Darlin'? Give your Old Mom a call, eh? I'm at Level Four and lovin' you more than ever.

*I learned quite some time ago, not to attach the word "urgent" to any of my messages, as it sets off a panic response. The one time I did, Minnie called in a frenzy, certain someone had died, and though it was effective in triggering an immediate response, the resulting verbal tirade rendered the remainder of the conversation null and void. I was back to square one.

DITTOE -- ALL OVER AGAIN: Getting Old a Pain in the Patoot (written in 2000)

2009-09-21T14:59:00.000-04:00

Getting Old A Pain in the Patoot

If one more person smiles sympathetically and starts to say, "Well, at our age ...", I'm going to hit him with my cane.
The only thing worse than my aching backside is the frequent reminder that this is only the beginning of a series of aches and pains that I'll take great pleasure in complaining about to others in upcoming years.
You know, I resent the heck out of that. First of all, I'm not getting old, and secondly, I certainly will never be one of those people who whines on and on to one person after another about my physical ailments.
Not when I can reach the masses in this column.
I honestly am not trying to elicit sympathy, but you just can't imagine the excruciating, agonizing, hideous pain I'm in. Picture a well-meaning but myopic vampire slayer mistaking me for his prey and driving his wooden stake into my posterior instead of my heart ... repeatedly.
People in the know -- old folks like me -- tell me it's my sciatic nerve. I don't really care -- I just want it yanked out. I haven't felt like this since I was in labor.
Last night it knocked me to all fours and made me whimper. My husband came rushing into the room and did his best impersonation of Timmy talking to Lassie: "What is it, Girl?" Concern furrowed his brow.
Actually, he's been very considerate. This thing has been a minor test of our wedding vows, the "in sickness and in health" part. He's had to put my socks on for me the past few days. He used to do that toward the end of my pregnancies, too, but somehow it was cuter and more romantic then. Maybe that was because he felt responsible for my condition. (As well he should.)
And I really appreciate his help, but I hope it doesn't progress to the point where he has to dress me completely. I love the guy to pieces, but if he starts picking out my ensembles, it's going to be either Victoria's Secret or Carharts. He doesn't acknowledge anything in between. It'll most certainly ruin my shot at Mr. Blackwell's Best Dressed.
I'm getting all kinds of advice about how to treat this thing. The method of choice seems to be moist heat, which would be great if I could spend all day in the bath tub. The alternative is to soak a towel in warm water and sit on it, but I don't relish the idea of sitting around feeling like I'm wearing a diaper, much as I'd like to recapture the vigor of youth.
Another suggestion is to ice the area. Sure, that sounds good ... sitting on a nice comfy chunk of ice in the middle of winter. How soothing.
My ever-helpful brother-in-law told me to roll around on a tennis ball to massage the affected area. Then he handed me a tennis ball and told me to try it. This is the same guy who gives me gag gifts every Christmas, everything from a decoupaged picture of the Canton Football Hall of Fame to a huge, iridescent, ceramic figurine of an elephant. I don't know why it surprised me that he found it so hilarious when I tried his suggestion. I drew the line when he got out the camcorder. It gave new meaning to the term "pain in the ..."
There is some comfort in the knowledge that conditions like this are fairly common. One time my husband was walking along and sneezed, throwing his back out. He suffered for weeks until he slid in the wet grass when he was throwing the ball during a softball game. His back crackled and popped from the twisting motion and he felt great afterwards.
Maybe I should go hang out at the diamond and try to get into a pick-up game.

My American Idol, Mary Travers

2009-09-17T11:55:00.004-04:00

My heart is broken into bits. I just found out Mary Travers died on Wednesday. It's unthinkable that the idol of my youth could have died yesterday and I didn't somehow intuit her disappearance from the world before reading it about in the news today.

Revisiting the magic of her performances via YouTube this morning, I was poignantly aware of how far I've come since the days I bowed reverently before my family's stereo console as it sent Peter, Paul and Mary's collective and honeyed voices purling around our living room. Their harmony -- their alchemy -- was my drug of choice back then. In listening to them again, after what seems a lifetime, I know how easily I could relapse.

In early pubescence, I masqueraded as a hippie. After all, I am a "Jones Boomer" -- not the authentic, rebellious flower child that my sister, born 8 years before me, qualified as and honestly manifested.

I was what they call today a "poser." As a moderate conservative (aren't ALL publically-proclaimed conservatives these days?), I probably still am... a poser, that is. I do love so many things that are culturally labeled "liberal." And I do, viscerally, detest that labeling system, but there really isn't much I can do about it.

Except maybe confound labelers with my occasionally-liberal leanings, and Mary will forever be my ally in that. The shimmery blonde goddess with the voice I would've given a kidney to possess, gave me a certain stature back then. And I'm not ready to give it up just yet. In fact, I hereby announce, in honor of Mary's memory, that I never will.

I went to as many P P & M concerts as I could talk my parents into financing. I spent hours, lying on the gold carpet of the living room, positioned with nano-incremental accuracy between the stereo speakers, memorizing every word and every harmonic inflection of each of the three voices... voices seemingly channeled from the angels.

This, I think, disturbed even my older-and-cooler-than-most-of-my-friends-had parents. After my sister broke their younger versions in with her alarmingly-stated hipsterisms, they were more often than not, pretty relaxed in their rearing techniques with me. (By the way -- thanks, S.) But after hours of exposure to Mary's and the boys' dovesong from behind the firmly-closed door between them and her kitchen, my mother often opened the door long enough to say something very like this --

Why are you spending all your time listening to that MOURNFUL music. Can't you play something a little more upbeat?

I just barely tolerated the interruption because I only had that small edge of rebelliousness, remember, and it was completely apolitical.

For those of you who are younger and may not be familiar with the phenomenon that was -- and still IS -- Mary Travers, allow me the honor of explaining it to you:

Mary was magnificent, with that soul-shredding, earth-borne, unflinching voice; her towering stature; that HAIR... I will simply say that you've never seen anything like the way she used it onstage. She whipped it like white lightening, a rhythmic exclamation point marking what you were convinced were her own, personal, crescendos within a song. And you truly believed you were the only person who caught on.

Mary used everything she was -- beautiful, soulful, harsh and angelic -- to cut you to the quick and sew you back up, repeatedly. And you were, somehow, scarred AND improved by the experience.

I'm sorry if you never saw her, live, onstage. She was unlike anything you've ever seen: a shard of pure platinum and a angel of gossamer, all at once.

And don't for one minute think I've overstated. Need proof? Lookie here. And here's one for my babies.

DITTOE -- ALL OVER AGAIN: Post Beach Blues (Of Luggage, Laundry, and Liberty)

2009-09-16T12:15:00.002-04:00

Don’t you just hate it when you come home from vacation and your still-packed suitcase glares at you every time you walk through the bedroom for the next three days, just daring you to open it to the smelly spoils of a carefree, fun-filled week?

Oh, okay. Maybe you’re one of those neat and efficient types who unpack your bags, wash the clothes and have them folded or hung up before your head hits the pillow the first night home. Something’s wrong with you, my friend. Don’t you know that as long as your suitcase is still packed, your vacation isn’t technically over? Ya gotta wait until the remains are good and ripe before you give up the ghost, Kiddo.

I also like to wait as long as possible before looking into the magnifying mirror that I’m an absolute slave to here at home. When I’m on vacation, I go with whatever surface is available for reflecting my more relaxed, less fussed-with likeness. So I walk around with rick-rack eyeliner. Who cares anyway? Nobody knows me where I’m going or I wouldn’t be going there. If my eyebrows are sprouting alarmingly long strays, so be it. I know that first glimpse, at home, of my 3X larger face is going to be a setback of Post Traumatic Stress proportions, but it’s still worth it for a few days of ogre-faced oblivion.

Especially if I’m just returning from a beach trip. In this case, it was in coastal L.A. And L.A. is, after all, L.A., where impossibly-proportioned bodies rollerblade around with parrots on their heads. I mean, no one is going to be looking at the modestly-attired, middle-aged lady from Ohio. Out there I am as close as I’ll ever be to wearing an invisibility cloak. It’s very liberating.

Pasty skin? Dry, fly-away hair? Hail-damaged thighs? Not a problem. I move in and around the beautiful people seamlessly, with the stealth of a penguin waddling the beach and pier, unnoticed and, hence, unselfconscious.

I bought some clothes out there. They’re intertwined among the ripening suitcase produce. Fact is, I’m almost afraid to get them out and examine them in the light of the harsh Midwest sun. They’re a bit more apropos of West Coast beach style, all flowy and beady and, possibly, ill-fitting, by regional standards. Booths at street festivals are always a fashion risk. That’s one lesson I can’t seem to learn in the excitement of the moment.

Oh, look! Sparkles!

But I suppose it’s up to rubes like me to put food in the mouths of L.A.’s starving artists, their young, and, in many cases, their pit bulls. Some of them also have significant body-art overhead.

Yet another reason to give my suitcase a few more days un-dealt-with. Maybe styles will change here in the interim.

So, all things considered, I’d say I have maybe two more days of letting my luggage sit untouched. Unless, of course, it starts to smell.

At that point, my dogs may develop too much of an interest in California couture.

Feline Better Now...

2009-09-15T10:36:00.004-04:00

And now, to scrub my emotional palette...

Lookie here.

The Good Fight

2009-09-13T18:12:00.003-04:00

The pull of wondering what one "deserves" in this life is nearly irresistible. But since receiving the news about Tyler a few days ago, I've been suffocated by feelings of guilt for still being alive while this young man, who would've changed the world, is gone.

I realize giving in to these feelings removes God from the picture. My guilt is, thus, doubled.

Tyler

2009-09-12T13:20:00.002-04:00

Rest in peace, Tyler. You were, and will forever be in our hearts, a magnificent human being. Thank you for serving and dying on our behalf.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

1st Lt. Tyler E. Parten, 24, of Arkansas, died Sept. 10 in Konar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

Return-Policy Hooey Redo-ey

2009-09-11T14:04:00.002-04:00

Okay, a nice lady named "Leslie" answered my second inquiry and told me, not only that I could return the cute little teal top for a credit, but that she would send me a post-paid return address label.

I am officially sheepish.

But I am merely guilty of being a victim of our contentious contemporary culture. So I'm thinking of suing said culture for its victimization of me.

Return-Policy Hooey

2009-09-11T13:44:00.002-04:00

So what they (herein, known only as "Chadwitches"... or maybe "Chadbeeotches") are saying is I can't return the cute little teal top for a credit, after 60 days, if it's been washed or worn?? But it virtually started to DISINTEGRATE after I wore it once and washed it once (according to the directions, I might add).

Meantime, we threw a wedding and went on vacation; hence, the 60-day delay.

So the deal is, under this special set of circumstances, I'm stuck eating the total price of the CUTE LITTLE TEAL TOP, even though I can't wear it anymore??

I respectfully submit that the tag inside the cute little teal top where the washing directions normally are, should read as follows:
This cute little teal top is programmed to self destruct after wearing and washing once, Sucka.

What a bunch of bulldoodie.

Dittoe -- All Over Again: Man-Eye Disorder

2009-09-10T13:32:00.001-04:00

I’ve recently learned a new term – “man eyes.” This refers to the degree to which a man visually perceives the world around him. Or even just the world within four feet of the tip of his nose.

I have often heard it postulated that a man’s power of observation is less acute than that of a woman. I beg to differ. There are some critical things a man – at least the one at my house -- sees in far greater detail than a woman does; for example, how long the grass is. He also seems to have an almost extra-sensory knowledge of things like sports trivia, meteorology, chemistry, and physics.

Of course, there’s always a chance that such “knowledge” is a bluff. I’m reminded of the many times I’ve rhetorically asked a question about something, not really expecting an answer but getting one from my husband nonetheless. In fact, as our relationship has matured, I have become increasingly suspicious that he makes up a lot of these answers because he simply can’t stand for me to pose such a question and not get an authoritative response from the man of the house.

Allow me to illustrate this with a hypothetical conversation -

Me: I wonder if I should take an umbrella.

Him: Nah. Those clouds are moving at a north-southerly angle. They’ll miss us altogether. Besides, we’ll be late if you go back into the house and look for the umbrella.

Or –

Me: I’ve got to throw this lunchmeat out.

Him: It’s HAM, Marilyn. Ham doesn’t go bad. It’s cured.

Me: Still, I’m just going to throw it out to be safe.

Him: (Grabbing it from me.) No! Don’t waste it! You think ham grows on trees? I’ll eat it right now.

I suppose it’s a good thing men have this sort of primal, gender-linked knowledge, because they need it to offset the man-eyes disadvantage. Most of the time, my man can’t even find the bad ham in the fridge. Typically, he’ll make a quick, visual sweep of its contents, and come find me in the shower to tell me we’re out of ham.

“Did you look on the middle shelf?” I’ll ask, and he’ll curtly reply that OF COURSE he did. Then he’ll wait impatiently as I quickly wrap up my shower, dry off, dress, and go to the fridge to find the ham right there on the middle shelf.

“Why did you hide it behind the mayonnaise?” he’ll then ask indignantly. That’s when I’ll realize that he, again, used his man eyes.

So I’ve instituted a new protocol to assure that I won’t have to cut any more showers, phone conversations, or email sessions short when I suspect he’s using his man eyes to find something.

The first thing I do is ask if he has looked beyond the items on the front surface of the fridge, cupboard, or whatever. If his answer is a sincere-sounding “yes,” I will bet him that I can find whatever he is looking for within five seconds.

This technique is effective on many levels. Firstly, it challenges his authority, -- that primal, man-of-the-house know-how. Secondly, it turns his dilemma into a game, which makes the process more fun. And last but not least, it appeals to his competitive nature, making him determined to try again and this time find it himself in LESS than five seconds. Which, in most instances, he’ll then do and take great pride in.

I offer this information as a public service to all women out there who suspect their men are suffering from man-eye disorder. I hope you find yourself enjoying more luxurious showers, more leisurely phone conversations, and, generally, more freedom of movement as a result.

It’s my pleasure to help my sisters-in-need.

Delicious Recommendations, Intellectual AND Gastronomical

2009-09-09T17:01:00.002-04:00

I love to feed my mind almost as much as my sweet tooth. Hence, today's "diet-tribe"!

First, one of my Uppity Women friends' new blog: Thoughts of an Uppity Grad, and second, one of my new favorite chocolatiers: Jan's Homemade Candies

In The Uppity Grad, you'll discover a youthful intellect's approach to uppityness, as Lynette navigates the waters of her first year in grad school. On Jan's Homemade Candies site, you'll rediscover women's age-old way to fuel it -- their uppityness, that is.

But don't blame me if one of them gives you a big head and the other, a big arse. I'm just the messenger, well-fortified from my visits to both!

Format Change

2009-09-03T13:33:00.000-04:00

Gonna try a little sumpin-sumpin, Kids. I've had some requests for old Piece of Mind columns and/or P of M columns that have previously run on the bottom of this blog -- da bloggy bottom -- i.e., Dittoe -- All Over Again! Unfortunately, posting my columns there doesn't allow me to archive them so you can access them after they've run.

So here's the deal -
I'm going to start running my Piece of Mind columns, AFTER they have been published in the newspaper, in this section of The Uppity Woman, where the new posts are. Okie Dokie?

So here's one, right here, right now. Done and done.

Dittoe -- All Over Again!

2009-09-03T13:22:00.003-04:00

I'm Not Getting Older, I'm Getting Bitter

This morning I spent a half hour trying to tie a double knot. Actually, it was a triple knot, now that I think about it, but that doesn't make me feel significantly better.
I was repairing my daughter's necklace, which was made of miniscule beads threaded on microscopic plastic threads. I had to hold it at arm's length to see it, and my fingers kept fumbling and dropping the threads. I finally decided to use tweezers to hold the threads, but when I opened the drawer to look, I forgot what I was looking for. As if the situation weren't challenging enough, the cat, who was perched on my work surface, kept swishing her tail and scattering the beads everywhere.
Now, pop quiz. Which of these aggravations isn't a result of age? I'll give you a hint: Meow.
The forties are inarguably the armpit of life. The most one can hope for is decent personal hygiene.
The forties are that black hole you fall into before you've earned the right to proceed to the grace, wisdom, and serenity of advanced age. They're like an initiation. Given a choice, I think I'd rather run around a stadium in a neon spandex body suit with my head shaved, singing Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog, thank you. A little hazing sounds mighty good compared to being lost at night in an inner city area looking at a map I couldn't read if my arms were twice their length.
Get reading glasses? Are you crazy? I'm way too young.
But the other day, I admired a friend's vintage sports car. I used words like cute and quaint. It's curves were rounded, and it was amusing to think it was once considered a hot little number. Then he told me it was a 1959. Younger than I am. That wiped the smug little smile off my face. I mean, are people looking at me and thinking, Aw, isn't she quaint? Or maybe they're thinking, "She looks like a model ... T."
Don't get the idea I'm vain. It's just that I'm too busy whining to be especially deep these days. I admit I was a little disappointed when my recent haircut didn't make me look twenty again, but I'm certainly not overly concerned with superficialities. Just to prove it, I'll gladly reveal my age to each and every one of you. I am (sorry -- printer malfunction) years old and proud of it. How's that for a bold move? I'm a saucy old babe.
I think the smart thing is not to fight it. Just let nature take its course. Age gracefully (sure). Accept the inevitable, and move on (uh huh). Laugh, love, and live with the maturation process (whoopie ding). Sweeten your attitude while you soften your lines (they call it meltdown). Embrace old age with a tranquility of spirit that serves as an inspiration to those younger than you (smug, self satisfied bimbos). And above all, harbor no resentment (I love my wrinkled kneecaps).
Remember, aging is a state of mind. And considering the state my mind's been in lately, I won't remember any of my own advice tomorrow.
That might not be such a bad thing. If I flunk the initiation, maybe they'll kick me out of the club.