Due to the economy, the U.S. Government is looking at closing a lot of post offices. A whole lot of post offices and this bothers me because until I was about eight years old I was forever sending away for whatever could be obtained by virtue of saving up enough cereal box-tops. I was joined in this endeavor by my older sister and thoroughly encouraged in it by my Mom. Maybe this was because even in her early twenties, my mom was the world’s most avid supporter of the U.S. Mail Service. There might be a great blouse or hairdryer you could just as easily obtain by going to a local department store, but it was better if it was sent away for and received in the mail. To this day, I remember her excited poring over the S&H Greenstamp catalog and selecting just the perfect item to redeem those dozens of books of stamps for…all the hundreds upon hundreds of stamps we collected whenever we went, well, just about anywhere.
Thinking about it now, it seems like another world. A bizarre world where you could obtain a new Kayson’s china plate just for filling your gas tank (or as it happened back then, having the service station attendant fill it), driving home later to place that bland, white, paper thin china plate with the gold trim and what looked like a ubiquitous garden weed sprawling across its center into your cabinet as your ‘good china’, reserved for visiting relatives and special occasions. Special occasions such as almost every weekday morning when Mom would console my feelings of abandonment as my sister left for school and I stayed home, not yet old enough to attend kindergarten and not at all happy about it (if pre-school existed, if Montessori had been conceived of, they had not yet reached the realm of my existence). She’d pour a splash Folgers into a Kaysons cup and float a healthy blob of vanilla ice cream on top. To this day, therein lies the definition of comfort food.
Maybe this explains why I once spent four hours on Ebay, intent on emerging the victor in an auction for a full set of Kayson’s Golden Rhapsody, service for ten. I won, only to spend another two hours several months later to procure the salt and pepper shakers, butter dish and gravy boat. It was a happy day for me when I obtained, for under $20 in another Ebay auction, the final piece – the teapot/coffeepot, literally stealing it for so little money because the seller hadn’t realized Kayson’s was spelled ‘sons’, not ‘sins’. I left feedback letting them know of their error, and hopefully helping them realize full value on their next auction. I probably resembled my mom even more than usual the day it arrived in the mail, so excited I was to unwrap each piece, so happy to see nothing had arrived broken or chipped. I’d called my sister and she was as excited as I was. We agreed that someday we’d split the set evenly, as all she’d managed to collect to date was one butter plate and a serving platter.
It went into my china cabinet and was reserved, as Mom’s had been, for ‘special occasions’, even when that occasion was nothing more than a cup of coffee (with ice cream, of course) and an old Natalie Wood movie on TV late at night. When the china cabinet went to a friend in a much-needed downsizing, it never crossed my mind to downsize the china, not that I had much need for a service for ten. Some things in life you just don’t part with due to sentimental value, and I’ve found most of these things arrived, originally, in the mail.
So we were fervent about our box-top collecting, ever mindful that we were working on a deadline. Because it didn’t seem to matter if it was the scarecrow doll from Quaker Oats, the ‘binoculars’ from Trix, or the Secret Decoder Rings from Captain Crunch, you just had to get your box-tops and your $2 in the mail and postmarked before the deadline of June 30th. Even our mail-order catalogs, the Lillian Vernons with their #2 pencils and “Your Name Here!” staunchly upheld the June 30th deadline. Mom joked about this throughout my childhood, the fact that everything wonderful seemed to expire on June 30th, her birthday.
June 30th fixed in my mind very young, and although I’ve long ago given up sending in cereal box-tops (and lost my taste for cereal with the exception of an occasional bowl of Lucky Charms, which I strenuously insist nobody ever gives up or should give up completely) and since she passed away eighteen years ago there’s been no one to send that birthday card to, there’s never a June 30th that she doesn’t cross my mind, generally re-crossing it later in the day, traipsing across it several more times and finally winding up the day by running laps around it before I go to bed at night.
Without question, after my parent’s divorce and her subsequent and surprising voluntary relinquishment of both custody and rights, our relationship changed. Instead of a mother I had, suddenly, a character I’ve only seen replicated so completely in Patrick Dennis’s “Auntie Mame” books, someone I visited twice a year and who had me fluent in astrological charts, rising signs, karma, and numerology before I’d been introduced to the rudiments of basic geometry. Someone who took longer to put all the required (in her mind) layers of make-up on her face every morning than it takes me now (and probably then) to slap a first coat of paint on a spare bedroom. Someone, she insisted, I’d known in several of my past lives and who would, someday, reincarnate as my child (I study Basil and see no resemblance. I’m relieved). Someone who let me read both Ram Dass books and Mary McCarthy’s “The Group” when I was in the fifth grade (I learned an awful lot about astral travel but never understood what a ‘diaphram’ was or why a single woman would need to see a doctor to obtain one until many years later and a candid conversation with my then teenage sister).
She was what she was and I don’t bog down too much in trying to figure out what, exactly, that was. Fortunately for me, my dad remarried a truly wonderful, patient woman who didn’t mind taking on two kids in addition to the three she already had. Someone fluent in all things Tupperware, someone who created amazing things which included real vegetables every time she entered the kitchen, a holder of a degree in English Literature and a reluctant, although certified, Catholic to boot. She left death, sin, hell, the end of the world and eternal damnation right there where it belonged: on a shelf and only as something to threaten you with when it was your turn to keep the bathroom clean and you didn’t.
All things considered, I think I came out OK. I like to think I absorbed the best of both of these ladies, having evolved into someone not uncomfortable in the kitchen who also keeps a reasonably clean bathroom, a true fan of vegetables, an avid and broad-minded devourer of books who doesn’t always believe everything contained between their covers, a believer that you can condense religion of any kind into the idea that you do unto others as you’d like to be done to, and you believe in something bigger than you are, thereby not packing the world around on your shoulders alone all the time or being ridiculous enough to believe you’re ultimately in control of much of anything. Outcomes are what they are and you can call it karma if you’d like or past life baggage if you must but semantics don’t really matter. Sometimes, it just is what it is and it’s best to let it be that.
Had she lived (and this is another story in itself, and a sadder one, I honestly believe, than she deserved. She was four years older than I am now when she died, never having believed that an insulin shot is not a cure-all for a juvenile diabetic, that in addition to taking the shot you must also watch your diet, exercise, etc.) she would have been 67 today. No matter the age, she would still bear an uncanny resemblance to Natalie Wood. She would still, no matter where she was, have a book either open in front of her or somewhere on her person. If there was a stray animal within fifty yards of her, it would become part of her home. No matter what true junk it turned out to be when it arrived, she would always believe the item she’d saved up those box-tops or stamps for was going to turn out to be, as my dad often said, ‘the best thing since sliced bread’. Had she lived to see it, she would have been a huge fan of the Internet, and I can only imagine her emails, how they’d probably be so long, and so large, I’d have to keep updating my computer every six months just to handle them. I’m confident of that because her letters never failed to arrive with four or five stamps affixed and no less than three due on receipt, so fond was she of letters in excess of twenty pages, with a few magazine clippings thrown in for good measure. She stuffed the envelopes like she stuffed holiday and birthday boxes, never mind the year she stuffed $100 in the bottom of one box and we inadvertently tossed it into the fireplace on Christmas morning once it was emptied of gifts, not realizing we should have known her better, should have kept digging through the packing paper and newspaper until we’d truly found the bottom of the box.
All things considered, I believe she was a remarkable woman who did the best with what she had – and maybe, about the time of the divorce, had courage enough to walk away from something she knew she couldn’t do on her own. As a theory it has a few holes in it, true – but I’ll stick to it. And although it’s in the nineties outside today, I may just have that cup of coffee (decaf, but it’s the thought that counts) this evening and throw in some vanilla ice cream. And I really hope, for the sake of any kid out there who’s got a Mom with a love of receiving surprises in the mail, we keep a few of those Post Offices in operation.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Banned: A Sad But True Tale of Amenity Deprivation
It’s been a month now since I and dozens of other residents have been effectively banned from the pools at The Old Dutch Village Condominiums. This is especially unfortunate considering neither I nor they had an opportunity to so much as put a toe in the water this season, as the banning coincided neatly with the opening of the pool over the Memorial Day weekend.
Need I say I was out of town over the Memorial Day Weekend. I had no idea I had been banned until I first traipsed down to the pool with Basil on my return, just to take a look and see if in fact it had opened as scheduled.
I had no idea of my banishment until I tried my key and found it didn’t work.
I’m sure my Homeowner’s Association (a fancy term which translates neatly and effectively to, ‘Nothing Gets Done On Our Watch’) took this into consideration and realized I might not be happy over finding that my pool key (for which I paid $35 at move-in three years ago) had been rendered ineffective with no warning and certainly no reason (although, in the three years I’ve been in residence, I’ve yet to see a plausible reason for anything they do). I’m sure they might not have lost sleep over my distress but certainly believed they’d had a restless nap during their last board meeting. Until, however, they let me in on the logic behind this unprecedented ridiculousness, I was left to my own devices, which were to wonder what the heck was going on.
I was certainly current – even a month or so ahead – on my HOA fees. I was no more unattractive in a swimsuit than any other resident, and unlike last year, I’d made no attempt to smuggle Basil poolside (one scathing letter threatening fines in excess of my mortgage and the implied towing of not only my car but Basil too, had effectively dissuaded me from ever trying that one again).
There was no reason I could see for being locked out. And silly me, even after three years of life in a condo, I expected a reason from an HOA.
So I called the HOA office. Surely, they could help me. They’d been very helpful the last time I called, to inquire just why it was that my HOA fees were going up 4% again this year, just like last year and the year before, and perhaps forever until the mortgage was the small payment and the HOA required me to immediately consult with my financial advisor about dipping into the retirement fund. At the time of that call they’d informed me very cheerfully that the increase was due to, ‘scheduled improvements’ and to give them credit, I’ve actually seen a few of them happen. My entry foyer did get painted and I thank all the powers of heaven for that because one more day of a shade I came to refer to as Eggshell Disaster and I was going to have to close my eyes every time I opened my door and ventured down the stairs. They did, as they’d promised, ‘augment the landscaping with updated plantings’. The parking lot was resurfaced.
OK, I get it. But we’re talking one coat of asphalt, a couple cans of paint and three Japanese maples that aren’t even in front of my building. That’s hardly 4% worthy.
OK, they did hire a new grounds crew but just because they’re not undocumented aliens isn’t 4% worthy, either. What’s 4% worthy to me is access to the pool. Especially when it’s hot outside. Especially when I would like to get some semblance of a tan without resorting to artificial means like those ridiculous spray ons, or (heaven forbid) paying actual money to lay in a tanning bed and envelop myself in cancer causing rays (somehow, they seem less cancer causing and more Vitamin D enriched and healthy when they come directly from the sun. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it).
My helpful HOA office greeted me with a recording, and I left a message. Please, I said, contact me and let me know why I can’t get into the pool.
With lightning speed three days later and with no call back, the answer appeared in the form of a flyer posted in the foyer of my building, and everyone else’s. Due to a ‘malfunction’ of the electronic key system (which had managed, somehow, to function quite well for many years before now and which really should have been checked out as part of regular pool maintenance before the pool opened), all keys currently held were inactive. They should, however, not be thrown away (or, I’m thinking, returned for that $35 deposit considering they’re useless) and new keys would be distributed at 9:00a.m. on two specific mornings. Please come to the clubhouse and get yours.
Two specific mornings when I wasn’t home.
So, along with a lot of other people, I’ve been patiently waiting for the old key system to be repaired (this was implied, right? I mean, otherwise why hold onto the old key?) and being secretly happy that overall, the month of June has been rainy, wet, cold and cloudy. Not conducive to thoughts of swimming. This is changing as of today. When I hit the freeway this morning it was almost seventy. It’s going to be hot all week. It’s going to be hot this weekend. It’s going to be pool weather and I want to go to the pool. Just as I wanted to go to the pool last Saturday, the first sunny day we’d had in between thunderstorms. But rather than slathering myself with cocoa butter and absorbing megadoses of Vitamin D while I reclined in a lounge chair, I resorted to long walks with the dog, taking heart at the conclusion of the afternoon walk when I spotted Chad and Anthony, two of the upstairs neighbors, sprawled in lawn chairs at the back pool. Chad and Anthony may occasionally annoy me by using their living room floor and hence my ceiling as a trampoline, but overall they’re generally willing to help with just about anything.
“How did you get a key?” I asked.
“We didn’t,” Chad said casually. “We scaled the fence.”
I pondered that. Somehow the idea of scaling a chain length fence in a bikini, while it may have seemed plausible to me twenty years ago, didn’t appeal.
“Call the HOA?” I asked.
“Recording.”
“There aren’t going to be any new keys,” Anthony observed. “It’s a conspiracy.”
I thought about that, too, and realized he may just be right. Suddenly it dawned on me how foolish I’d been to trust them, to believe the whole ‘malfunction’ theory. It was smoke and mirrors, a screen for the fact that they didn’t want to deal with the pool, so they’d deal with as few users as possible. Users like that very small handful of people who were able to get to the clubhouse on those two specific mornings. Why should I trust people, I thought, who institute a ‘Severe Measure Policy’ (and even post notices advertising it) against the storage of furniture and other items in the carports? Who stress that carports are for cars only and any violation will result in an immediate and immense fine and the removal (never to be returned) of whatever item(s) was/were residing in said carport.
For the last three months I’ve been one carport down from a sage green Barcolounger. What a fool I’ve been.
I like to consider myself a fairly rational, reasonable person. I try to consider myself that, but I stray a bit (OK, I veer completely from it) when it comes to things dear to my heart. And trust me, time at the pool is dear to my heart, with the added bonus that it keeps me from looking like an Albino. Not for me this time would be rational measures such as perhaps, a letter to the HOA. Or a phone call to a board member. As far as I would go was the post I left on the association’s Facebook page, asking who I needed to contact, what I needed to hock, even perhaps who I needed to go on a blind date with or arrange a blind date for in order to get my 4% worthy pool key.
The Facebook page, obviously maintained by the HOA, did not respond.
It’s going to be hotter tomorrow than it is today. Therefore Basil’s walk this evening will be longer than usual, and perhaps when we’ve returned, I’ll spend an hour or so lifting those small dumbbells I for some reason kept when I moved in. Perhaps I’ll go for a quick jog after that, and start the push-ups and sit-ups before bed. If I really work hard, I can be stronger and faster by the weekend.
Determination will see me through.
Bikini notwithstanding and with my sincere apologies to any residents who may be looking out their window when it happens, I’m scaling the fence, too.
Need I say I was out of town over the Memorial Day Weekend. I had no idea I had been banned until I first traipsed down to the pool with Basil on my return, just to take a look and see if in fact it had opened as scheduled.
I had no idea of my banishment until I tried my key and found it didn’t work.
I’m sure my Homeowner’s Association (a fancy term which translates neatly and effectively to, ‘Nothing Gets Done On Our Watch’) took this into consideration and realized I might not be happy over finding that my pool key (for which I paid $35 at move-in three years ago) had been rendered ineffective with no warning and certainly no reason (although, in the three years I’ve been in residence, I’ve yet to see a plausible reason for anything they do). I’m sure they might not have lost sleep over my distress but certainly believed they’d had a restless nap during their last board meeting. Until, however, they let me in on the logic behind this unprecedented ridiculousness, I was left to my own devices, which were to wonder what the heck was going on.
I was certainly current – even a month or so ahead – on my HOA fees. I was no more unattractive in a swimsuit than any other resident, and unlike last year, I’d made no attempt to smuggle Basil poolside (one scathing letter threatening fines in excess of my mortgage and the implied towing of not only my car but Basil too, had effectively dissuaded me from ever trying that one again).
There was no reason I could see for being locked out. And silly me, even after three years of life in a condo, I expected a reason from an HOA.
So I called the HOA office. Surely, they could help me. They’d been very helpful the last time I called, to inquire just why it was that my HOA fees were going up 4% again this year, just like last year and the year before, and perhaps forever until the mortgage was the small payment and the HOA required me to immediately consult with my financial advisor about dipping into the retirement fund. At the time of that call they’d informed me very cheerfully that the increase was due to, ‘scheduled improvements’ and to give them credit, I’ve actually seen a few of them happen. My entry foyer did get painted and I thank all the powers of heaven for that because one more day of a shade I came to refer to as Eggshell Disaster and I was going to have to close my eyes every time I opened my door and ventured down the stairs. They did, as they’d promised, ‘augment the landscaping with updated plantings’. The parking lot was resurfaced.
OK, I get it. But we’re talking one coat of asphalt, a couple cans of paint and three Japanese maples that aren’t even in front of my building. That’s hardly 4% worthy.
OK, they did hire a new grounds crew but just because they’re not undocumented aliens isn’t 4% worthy, either. What’s 4% worthy to me is access to the pool. Especially when it’s hot outside. Especially when I would like to get some semblance of a tan without resorting to artificial means like those ridiculous spray ons, or (heaven forbid) paying actual money to lay in a tanning bed and envelop myself in cancer causing rays (somehow, they seem less cancer causing and more Vitamin D enriched and healthy when they come directly from the sun. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it).
My helpful HOA office greeted me with a recording, and I left a message. Please, I said, contact me and let me know why I can’t get into the pool.
With lightning speed three days later and with no call back, the answer appeared in the form of a flyer posted in the foyer of my building, and everyone else’s. Due to a ‘malfunction’ of the electronic key system (which had managed, somehow, to function quite well for many years before now and which really should have been checked out as part of regular pool maintenance before the pool opened), all keys currently held were inactive. They should, however, not be thrown away (or, I’m thinking, returned for that $35 deposit considering they’re useless) and new keys would be distributed at 9:00a.m. on two specific mornings. Please come to the clubhouse and get yours.
Two specific mornings when I wasn’t home.
So, along with a lot of other people, I’ve been patiently waiting for the old key system to be repaired (this was implied, right? I mean, otherwise why hold onto the old key?) and being secretly happy that overall, the month of June has been rainy, wet, cold and cloudy. Not conducive to thoughts of swimming. This is changing as of today. When I hit the freeway this morning it was almost seventy. It’s going to be hot all week. It’s going to be hot this weekend. It’s going to be pool weather and I want to go to the pool. Just as I wanted to go to the pool last Saturday, the first sunny day we’d had in between thunderstorms. But rather than slathering myself with cocoa butter and absorbing megadoses of Vitamin D while I reclined in a lounge chair, I resorted to long walks with the dog, taking heart at the conclusion of the afternoon walk when I spotted Chad and Anthony, two of the upstairs neighbors, sprawled in lawn chairs at the back pool. Chad and Anthony may occasionally annoy me by using their living room floor and hence my ceiling as a trampoline, but overall they’re generally willing to help with just about anything.
“How did you get a key?” I asked.
“We didn’t,” Chad said casually. “We scaled the fence.”
I pondered that. Somehow the idea of scaling a chain length fence in a bikini, while it may have seemed plausible to me twenty years ago, didn’t appeal.
“Call the HOA?” I asked.
“Recording.”
“There aren’t going to be any new keys,” Anthony observed. “It’s a conspiracy.”
I thought about that, too, and realized he may just be right. Suddenly it dawned on me how foolish I’d been to trust them, to believe the whole ‘malfunction’ theory. It was smoke and mirrors, a screen for the fact that they didn’t want to deal with the pool, so they’d deal with as few users as possible. Users like that very small handful of people who were able to get to the clubhouse on those two specific mornings. Why should I trust people, I thought, who institute a ‘Severe Measure Policy’ (and even post notices advertising it) against the storage of furniture and other items in the carports? Who stress that carports are for cars only and any violation will result in an immediate and immense fine and the removal (never to be returned) of whatever item(s) was/were residing in said carport.
For the last three months I’ve been one carport down from a sage green Barcolounger. What a fool I’ve been.
I like to consider myself a fairly rational, reasonable person. I try to consider myself that, but I stray a bit (OK, I veer completely from it) when it comes to things dear to my heart. And trust me, time at the pool is dear to my heart, with the added bonus that it keeps me from looking like an Albino. Not for me this time would be rational measures such as perhaps, a letter to the HOA. Or a phone call to a board member. As far as I would go was the post I left on the association’s Facebook page, asking who I needed to contact, what I needed to hock, even perhaps who I needed to go on a blind date with or arrange a blind date for in order to get my 4% worthy pool key.
The Facebook page, obviously maintained by the HOA, did not respond.
It’s going to be hotter tomorrow than it is today. Therefore Basil’s walk this evening will be longer than usual, and perhaps when we’ve returned, I’ll spend an hour or so lifting those small dumbbells I for some reason kept when I moved in. Perhaps I’ll go for a quick jog after that, and start the push-ups and sit-ups before bed. If I really work hard, I can be stronger and faster by the weekend.
Determination will see me through.
Bikini notwithstanding and with my sincere apologies to any residents who may be looking out their window when it happens, I’m scaling the fence, too.
Monday, June 15, 2009
This Love May Not Be Right....But I'm Keeping It
Is it wrong to love a vacuum cleaner?
I mean truly, madly, deeply – to love it? I mean to love it in a way that I look forward to spending every day of the rest of my life with it, growing old with it, and knowing it’s always there for me when I come home at the end of the day? Is it wrong to feel a lightening of my heart and mood when I plug it in, knowing the time we are about to spend together will be everything I’d ever hoped it could be and even better than depicted on its commercials?
No, it’s not wrong. And even if it is, I can’t be the first person in the world to fall in love with an inanimate object. Sheree loves shoes. When she gets a new pair her skin flushes, she smiles so wide you’d think her lips would split, and there’s a lilt to her voice as if she’s on the verge of belting out a Broadway show tune or one of the more popular songs by ABBA at any moment. Sheree loves her shoes and she cherishes her shoes so much that she boots (pun unintended) her husband out of his closet space to make more room for her shoes.
I have a cousin who loves Hummel figurines and depression glass, so much that she’ll go without groceries in order to collect them and without sleep in order to bid for them on E-bay into all hours of the night.
Until I met the Dyson, the closest I ever came to this kind of emotion was with my love of books. No matter how they end, I can’t part with them. They’re in my life and plugging up my shelves forever.
So no, I did not invent this behavior and honestly, from the moment I extracted that Dyson from its packaging (this was not easy to do. It was packed and shipped as if it were en route to a third world country and would be transported for the majority of the trip via dogsled) and flipped the “On” switch, I was truly in love.
Words fail me when I try to describe my emotions as I ran the brush attachment over that first throw pillow. I hope never to see that kind of dust and whatever-it-is ever come out of anything I’ve actually put my head on to nap ever again, but what a moment! Likewise I was awed as I ran it over the rug in the living room. At last – a product that did what it said it was going to do: It got my stuff really clean. Not like the Fantom and the Oreck and the two Dirt Devils, who over the years merely extracted a little bit of stuff and assured me I’d obtained ‘maximum performance’.
I’ve experienced maximum performance. I will never be fooled again.
I know this is a new relationship and I’m moving awfully fast in my declaration of total devotion. The Dyson C324 is, after all, a machine. A machine is only a machine, and is therefore subject to faults. Perhaps I should step back and reserve judgement, remember all the vacuums that have let me down in the past. Wasn’t I just as head over heels for the Fantom? Didn’t the Dirt Devil and I have some great times together in the beginning? Wouldn’t a rational adult know enough, given these types of experiences, to step back and remain objective?
Yes, a rational adult would do that. But as I said, I am in love with this vacuum, and I don’t fall in love easily. Once I have, however, the only recourse is to follow my heart. Follow my heart and believe that what it’s telling me is true. Right now seeing is believing and if that Dyson has a flaw, I’m not seeing it. What I am seeing is the two of us together, cleaning throw pillows for many years to come.
Perhaps even a person like me, who has avoided the very idea for so long, is still capable of envisioning and believing in a love that lasts forever. I will have to think about that.
Right now I’m rather anxious to get home, and ask it how its day was.
I mean truly, madly, deeply – to love it? I mean to love it in a way that I look forward to spending every day of the rest of my life with it, growing old with it, and knowing it’s always there for me when I come home at the end of the day? Is it wrong to feel a lightening of my heart and mood when I plug it in, knowing the time we are about to spend together will be everything I’d ever hoped it could be and even better than depicted on its commercials?
No, it’s not wrong. And even if it is, I can’t be the first person in the world to fall in love with an inanimate object. Sheree loves shoes. When she gets a new pair her skin flushes, she smiles so wide you’d think her lips would split, and there’s a lilt to her voice as if she’s on the verge of belting out a Broadway show tune or one of the more popular songs by ABBA at any moment. Sheree loves her shoes and she cherishes her shoes so much that she boots (pun unintended) her husband out of his closet space to make more room for her shoes.
I have a cousin who loves Hummel figurines and depression glass, so much that she’ll go without groceries in order to collect them and without sleep in order to bid for them on E-bay into all hours of the night.
Until I met the Dyson, the closest I ever came to this kind of emotion was with my love of books. No matter how they end, I can’t part with them. They’re in my life and plugging up my shelves forever.
So no, I did not invent this behavior and honestly, from the moment I extracted that Dyson from its packaging (this was not easy to do. It was packed and shipped as if it were en route to a third world country and would be transported for the majority of the trip via dogsled) and flipped the “On” switch, I was truly in love.
Words fail me when I try to describe my emotions as I ran the brush attachment over that first throw pillow. I hope never to see that kind of dust and whatever-it-is ever come out of anything I’ve actually put my head on to nap ever again, but what a moment! Likewise I was awed as I ran it over the rug in the living room. At last – a product that did what it said it was going to do: It got my stuff really clean. Not like the Fantom and the Oreck and the two Dirt Devils, who over the years merely extracted a little bit of stuff and assured me I’d obtained ‘maximum performance’.
I’ve experienced maximum performance. I will never be fooled again.
I know this is a new relationship and I’m moving awfully fast in my declaration of total devotion. The Dyson C324 is, after all, a machine. A machine is only a machine, and is therefore subject to faults. Perhaps I should step back and reserve judgement, remember all the vacuums that have let me down in the past. Wasn’t I just as head over heels for the Fantom? Didn’t the Dirt Devil and I have some great times together in the beginning? Wouldn’t a rational adult know enough, given these types of experiences, to step back and remain objective?
Yes, a rational adult would do that. But as I said, I am in love with this vacuum, and I don’t fall in love easily. Once I have, however, the only recourse is to follow my heart. Follow my heart and believe that what it’s telling me is true. Right now seeing is believing and if that Dyson has a flaw, I’m not seeing it. What I am seeing is the two of us together, cleaning throw pillows for many years to come.
Perhaps even a person like me, who has avoided the very idea for so long, is still capable of envisioning and believing in a love that lasts forever. I will have to think about that.
Right now I’m rather anxious to get home, and ask it how its day was.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
UnDepressing Lainie
She moved in about a year ago, replacing the unit’s owners, a very young Mormon couple who kept to themselves for the most part, were overly chatty when we met in the foyer and who maintained at all times a level of apparent domestic bliss that I found oddly irritating at best and downright annoying at worst. I waited for two entire years and never once heard them argue. They were forever together, not even going to the gym separately, and if there was a single Sunday the smells of fresh-baked bread didn’t seep under their door, I missed it.
They left ‘holiday’ cards on my door (May Day is a holiday? The first day of summer is a holiday? Groundhog Day, are you kidding me?) and everyone else’s doors, thanking us for being ‘great neighbors’. It was creepy and for a long time I thought one or both must be running for an open slot on the HOA board but as it turned out they were just perpetually nice (either that or overly medicated on something they should have shared with their ‘great’ neighbors). Like everyone else in the building I became immune to them after a time and would have been happy to have them across the hall forever had it not been for their one irritating routine: The Sunday Missionaries.
Every Sunday they had the requisite two Mormon missionaries over for dinner (I’ve often wondered why there are always two, why you never see a missionary out peddling salvation solo. Begs the question, if a missionary preaches the Book of Mormon in the forest and no companion missionary is with him, is what he’s espousing any less ridiculous?). Which was fine. What wasn’t so fine was the half hour or so after dinner when they’d congregate outside their door (which is inconveniently located just outside mine), and take forever to say goodnight, goodbye, and let’s all just go home.
Inevitably, this long goodbye coincided with Basil’s required evening walk, and you can only postpone a dog so long. Although my best case scenario would be to wait until they were gone so I wouldn’t have to endure polite conversation and not so subtle efforts at conversion, it never happened. Basil always won out and I kid you not, in the two minutes it took me to lock my door behind us and the ten minutes they delayed me on the landing with idle inquiries such as where did I work, was I married, and had I read the Book of Mormon lately, I never wished more that my dog would for once not be long-suffering and just take her pee right there in the foyer. Preferably on someone’s shoes.
The couple moved out shortly after their wedding, purchasing a townhome two miles away and setting themselves up as landlords. For a short time a single guy moved in but he didn’t last. He seemed to be always home, so maybe his unemployment shortened his residency. The young couple may have been perpetually cheerful but two mortgages are one too many and I don’t think they were very understanding.
Lainie moved in over the course of a weekend when I wasn’t home much so I never saw her until after she’d settled in. We met for the first time when I came in from work one night. She was sitting on the front step, smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone, managing two different calls at the same time without so much as flicking an errant ash as she moved from call waiting to call waiting. That kind of multi-tasking, I admire. I waved a greeting and she put both calls on hold long enough to introduce herself, let me know she’d just moved in, and offer a smoke.
Given the kind of day I’d had, it was beyond tempting. I explained I’d quit and really wouldn’t want to have to quit again (I’d rather endure the agony of a root canal without novacaine) but thanks anyway, and the smell of smoke didn’t bother me so don’t worry about it if you leave the door to the stairs open (she had).
“Cool,” she observed, returning to her phone, then hesitating a moment to give me a truly sincere smile and ask if I was married.
“Divorced,” I said.
“Kids?”
“Animals. You?”
“Two. Every other week they live with me. Boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
Again: “Cool,” and then, as I went up the stairs, “we should hang out.”
I decided she had to be in her early thirties, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I liked her. She seemed to be a pretty genuine person and although I couldn’t really see myself ‘hanging out’ with her or anybody else in the building (although I had, more than once, accepted Amy and Everett’s invitation to play cards on a Saturday night), it had been nice of her to suggest. She’d definitely, I thought, be much nicer to have as a neighbor than her landlords had been. The cigarette alone had clued me in to that.
Lainie and I never officially ‘hung out’, but as time went on we did become pretty good friends and to be honest, we spend a lot of time together for two people who never officially make any plans to spend time together. If she’s sitting out on the step I’ll sit with her and just talk. I’ve met her kids, two really polite and nice pre-teen boys who live with her every other week. When I was on match.com she encouraged me not to give up after every bleak and disappointing dinner date, and I did the same for her. It’s not unusual for me to be sitting at home and she’ll text me, asking me to stop by for one reason or another, and if I get a package or something in the mail and I’m not home, she always takes it inside her place until I come back. When she’s going out ‘clubbing’ and needs jewelry, I’ve always got three or four pieces that will complete the outfit.
Through everything, Lainie’s been a bright spot. She’s funny and smart, and she has an odd sense of humor and in many ways we’re very much the same. The fact that we’re both Geminis may have something to do with this, but I’ve appreciated her from the day we first met and if there was ever anything I could do for her, I would.
Which is why lately, I’ve felt somewhat at a loss. For the last almost two weeks, Lainie has been in a state of depression brought about by her decision not to see Ben any longer. Ben was the (latest) love of her life, and Ben decided he couldn’t see Lainie any longer until he’d finished ‘processing’ his feelings for a previous relationship (see my earlier posts for my unequivocal opinion of what a man saying he’s still ‘processing’ is really saying). The poor kid is devastated.
The weekend it started, I was with Roy. She texted me a couple times, and when I went home for a change of clothes and saw how incredibly sad she really was, I felt like a terrible neighbor/friend for leaving her. She chain-smoked on the step and I recommended she spend the weekend at home, ignore Ben’s texts (which had been pretty much one right after the other. Apparently ‘processing’ his feelings required making sure every five minutes he still had Lainie’s attention), and do something to distract her mind. Watch movies.
“I don’t have cable,” she said, “and I don’t want to go to Blockbuster.”
So I set her up with my password and log-in to Netflix, and showed her how to watch the movies on her computer, which is conveniently in her living room and functions nicely as a television. Which was good because it gave her something to do, and also made her put down the smokes long enough to go inside and log onto her computer. We talked for a few more minutes, then I went home and was heading out the door when she texted me asking if I had quarters because she planned, while she was ignoring the phone and watching movies, to do laundry. On my way out I gave her ten bucks worth of quarters and as an afterthought, my most recent two issues of Oprah (I’m convinced Oprah cannot go to press without at least two mandatory articles advising against involvement in ‘toxic relationships’ and Ben just had to fall into that category).
I have to admit, I haven’t been home much lately, so I wasn’t sure what I’d find Monday night when I finally rolled in for longer than it took to change clothes. Lainie texted five minutes after I shut the door and I let her know I’d be home for the week. She asked me to come over and a few minutes later her oldest boy, eleven year old Andy, let me in.
It wasn’t pretty.
He had the TV on in the back bedroom and Lainie was slouched disconsolately in a chair in front of the computer, Match.com on the screen. Clearly, she’d been crying. Ben had been texting. She’d been looking on Match and there was ‘just nothing’, and ‘just nobody’, and she was tired of it all, anyway. I said a few things – not entirely helpful, I’m sure, and not entirely what I’d have wanted to hear-- things like, “It will get better,” “You deserve better,” and “blah blah blah” respectively, then asked Andy if he’d help me with walking Basil. From the look on his face and the readiness with which he accepted, he was overdue for getting out and eager to do anything other than watch TV while his mom cried.
I texted her yesterday and she said she was, ‘a little better’. I called her last night and she said she was ‘doing OK’ and had emailed someone who ‘seemed really nice’ on Match.com. I want to believe these are all positive signs but to be completely honest, I’m worried about her. I’m worried about her and I’m at a loss because I’ve never encountered a depression a few issues of Oprah, several mind-numbing days worth of movies, and maybe the refinishing of a piece of furniture couldn’t cure.
So I’m worried but I understand that Lainie is an adult and she’ll have to find her way out of this on her own. She’s already smart enough to know Ben isn’t the right choice for her but still semi-non-intelligent enough to convince herself from time to time and every ten minutes that he might: a)change, or b) be the right person anyway. This makes her human. She’ll figure it out. By my rough estimate last time I logged onto Netflix, she’s worked her way through over twenty romantic dramas and has moved on to comedies. This has to be a sign of recovery and I’m hoping it is.
In the interim I’ll be on stand-by with quarters, and a few more issues of Oprah.
It’s the least I can do for a friend.
They left ‘holiday’ cards on my door (May Day is a holiday? The first day of summer is a holiday? Groundhog Day, are you kidding me?) and everyone else’s doors, thanking us for being ‘great neighbors’. It was creepy and for a long time I thought one or both must be running for an open slot on the HOA board but as it turned out they were just perpetually nice (either that or overly medicated on something they should have shared with their ‘great’ neighbors). Like everyone else in the building I became immune to them after a time and would have been happy to have them across the hall forever had it not been for their one irritating routine: The Sunday Missionaries.
Every Sunday they had the requisite two Mormon missionaries over for dinner (I’ve often wondered why there are always two, why you never see a missionary out peddling salvation solo. Begs the question, if a missionary preaches the Book of Mormon in the forest and no companion missionary is with him, is what he’s espousing any less ridiculous?). Which was fine. What wasn’t so fine was the half hour or so after dinner when they’d congregate outside their door (which is inconveniently located just outside mine), and take forever to say goodnight, goodbye, and let’s all just go home.
Inevitably, this long goodbye coincided with Basil’s required evening walk, and you can only postpone a dog so long. Although my best case scenario would be to wait until they were gone so I wouldn’t have to endure polite conversation and not so subtle efforts at conversion, it never happened. Basil always won out and I kid you not, in the two minutes it took me to lock my door behind us and the ten minutes they delayed me on the landing with idle inquiries such as where did I work, was I married, and had I read the Book of Mormon lately, I never wished more that my dog would for once not be long-suffering and just take her pee right there in the foyer. Preferably on someone’s shoes.
The couple moved out shortly after their wedding, purchasing a townhome two miles away and setting themselves up as landlords. For a short time a single guy moved in but he didn’t last. He seemed to be always home, so maybe his unemployment shortened his residency. The young couple may have been perpetually cheerful but two mortgages are one too many and I don’t think they were very understanding.
Lainie moved in over the course of a weekend when I wasn’t home much so I never saw her until after she’d settled in. We met for the first time when I came in from work one night. She was sitting on the front step, smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone, managing two different calls at the same time without so much as flicking an errant ash as she moved from call waiting to call waiting. That kind of multi-tasking, I admire. I waved a greeting and she put both calls on hold long enough to introduce herself, let me know she’d just moved in, and offer a smoke.
Given the kind of day I’d had, it was beyond tempting. I explained I’d quit and really wouldn’t want to have to quit again (I’d rather endure the agony of a root canal without novacaine) but thanks anyway, and the smell of smoke didn’t bother me so don’t worry about it if you leave the door to the stairs open (she had).
“Cool,” she observed, returning to her phone, then hesitating a moment to give me a truly sincere smile and ask if I was married.
“Divorced,” I said.
“Kids?”
“Animals. You?”
“Two. Every other week they live with me. Boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
Again: “Cool,” and then, as I went up the stairs, “we should hang out.”
I decided she had to be in her early thirties, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I liked her. She seemed to be a pretty genuine person and although I couldn’t really see myself ‘hanging out’ with her or anybody else in the building (although I had, more than once, accepted Amy and Everett’s invitation to play cards on a Saturday night), it had been nice of her to suggest. She’d definitely, I thought, be much nicer to have as a neighbor than her landlords had been. The cigarette alone had clued me in to that.
Lainie and I never officially ‘hung out’, but as time went on we did become pretty good friends and to be honest, we spend a lot of time together for two people who never officially make any plans to spend time together. If she’s sitting out on the step I’ll sit with her and just talk. I’ve met her kids, two really polite and nice pre-teen boys who live with her every other week. When I was on match.com she encouraged me not to give up after every bleak and disappointing dinner date, and I did the same for her. It’s not unusual for me to be sitting at home and she’ll text me, asking me to stop by for one reason or another, and if I get a package or something in the mail and I’m not home, she always takes it inside her place until I come back. When she’s going out ‘clubbing’ and needs jewelry, I’ve always got three or four pieces that will complete the outfit.
Through everything, Lainie’s been a bright spot. She’s funny and smart, and she has an odd sense of humor and in many ways we’re very much the same. The fact that we’re both Geminis may have something to do with this, but I’ve appreciated her from the day we first met and if there was ever anything I could do for her, I would.
Which is why lately, I’ve felt somewhat at a loss. For the last almost two weeks, Lainie has been in a state of depression brought about by her decision not to see Ben any longer. Ben was the (latest) love of her life, and Ben decided he couldn’t see Lainie any longer until he’d finished ‘processing’ his feelings for a previous relationship (see my earlier posts for my unequivocal opinion of what a man saying he’s still ‘processing’ is really saying). The poor kid is devastated.
The weekend it started, I was with Roy. She texted me a couple times, and when I went home for a change of clothes and saw how incredibly sad she really was, I felt like a terrible neighbor/friend for leaving her. She chain-smoked on the step and I recommended she spend the weekend at home, ignore Ben’s texts (which had been pretty much one right after the other. Apparently ‘processing’ his feelings required making sure every five minutes he still had Lainie’s attention), and do something to distract her mind. Watch movies.
“I don’t have cable,” she said, “and I don’t want to go to Blockbuster.”
So I set her up with my password and log-in to Netflix, and showed her how to watch the movies on her computer, which is conveniently in her living room and functions nicely as a television. Which was good because it gave her something to do, and also made her put down the smokes long enough to go inside and log onto her computer. We talked for a few more minutes, then I went home and was heading out the door when she texted me asking if I had quarters because she planned, while she was ignoring the phone and watching movies, to do laundry. On my way out I gave her ten bucks worth of quarters and as an afterthought, my most recent two issues of Oprah (I’m convinced Oprah cannot go to press without at least two mandatory articles advising against involvement in ‘toxic relationships’ and Ben just had to fall into that category).
I have to admit, I haven’t been home much lately, so I wasn’t sure what I’d find Monday night when I finally rolled in for longer than it took to change clothes. Lainie texted five minutes after I shut the door and I let her know I’d be home for the week. She asked me to come over and a few minutes later her oldest boy, eleven year old Andy, let me in.
It wasn’t pretty.
He had the TV on in the back bedroom and Lainie was slouched disconsolately in a chair in front of the computer, Match.com on the screen. Clearly, she’d been crying. Ben had been texting. She’d been looking on Match and there was ‘just nothing’, and ‘just nobody’, and she was tired of it all, anyway. I said a few things – not entirely helpful, I’m sure, and not entirely what I’d have wanted to hear-- things like, “It will get better,” “You deserve better,” and “blah blah blah” respectively, then asked Andy if he’d help me with walking Basil. From the look on his face and the readiness with which he accepted, he was overdue for getting out and eager to do anything other than watch TV while his mom cried.
I texted her yesterday and she said she was, ‘a little better’. I called her last night and she said she was ‘doing OK’ and had emailed someone who ‘seemed really nice’ on Match.com. I want to believe these are all positive signs but to be completely honest, I’m worried about her. I’m worried about her and I’m at a loss because I’ve never encountered a depression a few issues of Oprah, several mind-numbing days worth of movies, and maybe the refinishing of a piece of furniture couldn’t cure.
So I’m worried but I understand that Lainie is an adult and she’ll have to find her way out of this on her own. She’s already smart enough to know Ben isn’t the right choice for her but still semi-non-intelligent enough to convince herself from time to time and every ten minutes that he might: a)change, or b) be the right person anyway. This makes her human. She’ll figure it out. By my rough estimate last time I logged onto Netflix, she’s worked her way through over twenty romantic dramas and has moved on to comedies. This has to be a sign of recovery and I’m hoping it is.
In the interim I’ll be on stand-by with quarters, and a few more issues of Oprah.
It’s the least I can do for a friend.
Re-Bonding With Basil
With a little help from Mother Nature in the form of a severe thunderstorm, Basil and I are reconnecting, and I’m glad about this. As much as I care for Roy, the idea that my dog, the one constant in my life over the last nearly five years, may have wavered in her conviction that I (and only I) am and will forever be She Who Hung The Moon was a very troublesome thought.
Roy left on Monday and won’t be back until Sunday. When I brought Basil home on Monday night she was happy enough, but far from ecstatic. I’d expected this, knowing I was returning her to a place where she may have two overloaded totes of dog toys, cat companionship, a courtyard to patrol and a designated dog area to rule over (as well as many dog friends and a random sampling of senior residents who simply had to pet her every time they saw her), but I was taking her away from Roy’s house. Roy’s house had a much bigger window to look out of all day. Roy’s house had a yard with so many flowerbeds, gardens, birds, bugs, and even a waterfall that it was the equivalent of a Doggy Disneyland. Roy let her ride in his truck and as it sat up much higher than my car, her view was expanded and somehow, at that elevation the wind on her face just felt better. Roy fed her people food directly from the table. The benefits of life at The Old Dutch Village Condominiums couldn’t help but pale in comparison. She missed him absolutely and I understood that. She and I were in the same boat there, but still, the matter of her primary allegiance needed to be addressed.
Knowing I had only a week in which to re-sell myself to my dog as The Greatest Person In The World You Could Ever Belong To, I had a fairly full agenda for us. Last night I’d intended to expand our regular evening walk, adding a full three blocks to it so she could literally sniff out new territory and add it to her world. My plans were foiled by the advent of a thunderstorm. Not just a thunderstorm, but a fairly intense thunderstorm that rattled the windows more than once. With the first cracks of thunder I was irritated. There went my plans. With the second cracks of thunder and flash of lightning, I looked down at my feet and realized Mother Nature had done me a favor.
Basil was shivering as if it was 32 degrees in the apartment rather than seventy. She looked up at me with wide eyes, her ears semi-flattened against her head, and I did what I always do. Picking her up, I wrapped her in a throw blanket and settled in with her in the big leather chair, keeping one arm tucked around her and using another to flip through the new issue of Oprah. We sat like that until I’d absorbed everything of interest in the magazine (I should be the best at ‘living your best life’ after many years as a subscriber), then moved to the couch as the storm continued and watched several episodes of HGTV. Somewhere in the middle of House Hunters, Basil fell asleep. I was out halfway through the $250,000 Design Challenge.
The good news about this is we both got a good night’s sleep, waking at four a.m. and relocating to the bedroom. The bad news is, we missed a call from Roy. When I’m out I’m out and nothing short of the alarm clock or a bucket of ice water is going to wake me up.
Settling into bed, I thought about that missed call, how nice it would have been to talk with him, and that in turn reminded me – and I honestly needed no reminder – that I missed him. So I thought about that and didn’t think about Basil too much until I turned out the light and saw her at the foot of the bed.
Not on her usual left side of the bed, but on the right side of the bed. Because it was on the right side of the bed that I’d left Roy’s white t-shirt, the one he’d sent home with me as a reminder to Basil that he hadn’t abandoned her, just gone away for awhile and would return. I wasn’t exactly sure it would work as a tactic, but I’d read about it once in an issue of Country Living and remembered years ago, Gertie (since relocated to dog heaven after a very happy sixteen year life) had been inconsolable unless she could sleep on my ex-husband’s dirty socks when he traveled.
Needless to note, she slept on the floor, not the bed.
Basil was stretched over the shirt, her head tucked up against an armpit. The truest form of Dog Body Language I’d ever seen to say she was irrefutably in love and quite content about it. Watching her fall back into sleep, I couldn’t help but feel happy to see her happy, and it dawned on me that perhaps it was OK if not one, but two people Hung The Moon in her eyes. Perhaps my little Basil, ever the diplomat, had never let it enter her mind to love one more than the other, or settle on any preference for whom she was with. Maybe she was just happy to have that much love in her world, not to mention the added bonus of people food direct from the table.
I decided that was the case: Dogs don’t question things, they just accept them for what they are. And it was a nice thought to have, as I fell back to sleep myself. Maybe I should spend a little less time learning from Oprah, and take a few lessons from my dog.
Roy left on Monday and won’t be back until Sunday. When I brought Basil home on Monday night she was happy enough, but far from ecstatic. I’d expected this, knowing I was returning her to a place where she may have two overloaded totes of dog toys, cat companionship, a courtyard to patrol and a designated dog area to rule over (as well as many dog friends and a random sampling of senior residents who simply had to pet her every time they saw her), but I was taking her away from Roy’s house. Roy’s house had a much bigger window to look out of all day. Roy’s house had a yard with so many flowerbeds, gardens, birds, bugs, and even a waterfall that it was the equivalent of a Doggy Disneyland. Roy let her ride in his truck and as it sat up much higher than my car, her view was expanded and somehow, at that elevation the wind on her face just felt better. Roy fed her people food directly from the table. The benefits of life at The Old Dutch Village Condominiums couldn’t help but pale in comparison. She missed him absolutely and I understood that. She and I were in the same boat there, but still, the matter of her primary allegiance needed to be addressed.
Knowing I had only a week in which to re-sell myself to my dog as The Greatest Person In The World You Could Ever Belong To, I had a fairly full agenda for us. Last night I’d intended to expand our regular evening walk, adding a full three blocks to it so she could literally sniff out new territory and add it to her world. My plans were foiled by the advent of a thunderstorm. Not just a thunderstorm, but a fairly intense thunderstorm that rattled the windows more than once. With the first cracks of thunder I was irritated. There went my plans. With the second cracks of thunder and flash of lightning, I looked down at my feet and realized Mother Nature had done me a favor.
Basil was shivering as if it was 32 degrees in the apartment rather than seventy. She looked up at me with wide eyes, her ears semi-flattened against her head, and I did what I always do. Picking her up, I wrapped her in a throw blanket and settled in with her in the big leather chair, keeping one arm tucked around her and using another to flip through the new issue of Oprah. We sat like that until I’d absorbed everything of interest in the magazine (I should be the best at ‘living your best life’ after many years as a subscriber), then moved to the couch as the storm continued and watched several episodes of HGTV. Somewhere in the middle of House Hunters, Basil fell asleep. I was out halfway through the $250,000 Design Challenge.
The good news about this is we both got a good night’s sleep, waking at four a.m. and relocating to the bedroom. The bad news is, we missed a call from Roy. When I’m out I’m out and nothing short of the alarm clock or a bucket of ice water is going to wake me up.
Settling into bed, I thought about that missed call, how nice it would have been to talk with him, and that in turn reminded me – and I honestly needed no reminder – that I missed him. So I thought about that and didn’t think about Basil too much until I turned out the light and saw her at the foot of the bed.
Not on her usual left side of the bed, but on the right side of the bed. Because it was on the right side of the bed that I’d left Roy’s white t-shirt, the one he’d sent home with me as a reminder to Basil that he hadn’t abandoned her, just gone away for awhile and would return. I wasn’t exactly sure it would work as a tactic, but I’d read about it once in an issue of Country Living and remembered years ago, Gertie (since relocated to dog heaven after a very happy sixteen year life) had been inconsolable unless she could sleep on my ex-husband’s dirty socks when he traveled.
Needless to note, she slept on the floor, not the bed.
Basil was stretched over the shirt, her head tucked up against an armpit. The truest form of Dog Body Language I’d ever seen to say she was irrefutably in love and quite content about it. Watching her fall back into sleep, I couldn’t help but feel happy to see her happy, and it dawned on me that perhaps it was OK if not one, but two people Hung The Moon in her eyes. Perhaps my little Basil, ever the diplomat, had never let it enter her mind to love one more than the other, or settle on any preference for whom she was with. Maybe she was just happy to have that much love in her world, not to mention the added bonus of people food direct from the table.
I decided that was the case: Dogs don’t question things, they just accept them for what they are. And it was a nice thought to have, as I fell back to sleep myself. Maybe I should spend a little less time learning from Oprah, and take a few lessons from my dog.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
(Hopefully) Stopping The Insanity…
Sometimes you go into a relationship knowing it’s statistically doomed to failure. You make the commitment and you involve yourself, you disregard the fact that every similar relationship you’ve had ended with one of the parties being tossed aside and discarded without a backward glance or a moment’s regret.
Sometimes you know you’re doing the same thing all over again and expecting a different result (the definition of insanity), but you do it all over again, anyway.
Call me crazy, but I have entered one of those relationships: I have once more committed myself and too much of my money to a vacuum cleaner.
I do this hoping-- as I have always hoped--to achieve a relationship of long duration. One which can be counted on, one based on mutual gratification. This shouldn’t be difficult, I’m thinking. I will give the vacuum a nice place to live in the closet. The vacuum in turn will disappear the cat hair that seems to adhere to everything except the cat. I do this because I hope for this relationship and I believe this relationship exists in the universe – despite my past disappointments – because I had that relationship once.
Once made me a believer forever, and I will always fondly remember my Kenmore canister. We had a beautiful relationship from the moment we met on the third floor of Sears, one in which we were both happy and well provided for. After a short time, I couldn’t imagine my life without that vacuum.
Yet eventually, it came to an end. I said goodbye to my Kenmore canister in 2005. Devoted as we were to each other, I did not receive custody in my divorce and had only a few brief visitations between apartment moves.
We separated forever, my Kenmore going on to live a nice life with my ex-husband and his equally doting cleaning lady, me plunging half-heartedly into new relationships, still hoping to find that same satisfaction. Without going into painful details, let me simply admit I was let down, respectively, by a Eureka, an Oreck, a Fantom, and completely devastated by two different Dirt Devils. Despite hope, and belief…it always ended with that trash bin outside.
Losing hope, I resigned myself to simply ‘settling’, making do with whatever model JC Penny had on sale, knowing I was simply filling four to six month voids in my life and completely ignoring my real needs for completely clean floors.
Oh, I suppose I always committed. I invested in them. They, in turn, held up their ends of the bargain completely in the beginning but faltered after sometimes a month, often as long as six, and the Fantom stuck it out for almost a year. But sooner or later, everything ended in disappointment and we split. They packed up and moved to the trash bin outside and once more I was alone.
Time went on and I adopted a calloused attitude, deciding ‘all vacuums are the same,’ and they ‘only want one thing’ (a closet to live in and no expectation of having to do actual work). At the height of my disenchantment, as I’d put yet another Fantom into the dumpster, I was saved by a friend, whose intention it never was to save me.
I suppose I will remain ever grateful to Diane, who one morning came to work and raved – yes, raved – about her satisfaction with her new Dyson vacuum. Not wanting to believe her, I couldn’t help myself, and found myself actually reading their advertisements, listening to their commercials on the television. Willing myself to believe once more. Hoping against hope because honestly, Diane is a tough sell. She doesn’t put up with a lot of B.S. from anybody or anything, and would never have found herself involved in the ridiculous relationships I’d invested in and later deposited in the dumpster.
So, believing that sometimes the first step forward is a leap of faith, I placed my order on Saturday. Added express shipping for two reasons, I just couldn’t decide which: a) I couldn’t wait for Dyson’s arrival, and the beginning of (finally!) a relationship that would turn out to be all it seemed to be, or b): the sooner Dyson got here, the sooner it would let me down, and may as well get it over with.
Dyson arrived this afternoon, and in a very short while – probably only an hour or so – we’ll begin this new adventure together. He has great references. His warranty is ironclad. He’s actually quite attractive. I hate to admit this before we’ve even been alone together, but I think I could actually grow old with him.
Only time will tell and ready or not, I’m making the leap.
Sometimes you know you’re doing the same thing all over again and expecting a different result (the definition of insanity), but you do it all over again, anyway.
Call me crazy, but I have entered one of those relationships: I have once more committed myself and too much of my money to a vacuum cleaner.
I do this hoping-- as I have always hoped--to achieve a relationship of long duration. One which can be counted on, one based on mutual gratification. This shouldn’t be difficult, I’m thinking. I will give the vacuum a nice place to live in the closet. The vacuum in turn will disappear the cat hair that seems to adhere to everything except the cat. I do this because I hope for this relationship and I believe this relationship exists in the universe – despite my past disappointments – because I had that relationship once.
Once made me a believer forever, and I will always fondly remember my Kenmore canister. We had a beautiful relationship from the moment we met on the third floor of Sears, one in which we were both happy and well provided for. After a short time, I couldn’t imagine my life without that vacuum.
Yet eventually, it came to an end. I said goodbye to my Kenmore canister in 2005. Devoted as we were to each other, I did not receive custody in my divorce and had only a few brief visitations between apartment moves.
We separated forever, my Kenmore going on to live a nice life with my ex-husband and his equally doting cleaning lady, me plunging half-heartedly into new relationships, still hoping to find that same satisfaction. Without going into painful details, let me simply admit I was let down, respectively, by a Eureka, an Oreck, a Fantom, and completely devastated by two different Dirt Devils. Despite hope, and belief…it always ended with that trash bin outside.
Losing hope, I resigned myself to simply ‘settling’, making do with whatever model JC Penny had on sale, knowing I was simply filling four to six month voids in my life and completely ignoring my real needs for completely clean floors.
Oh, I suppose I always committed. I invested in them. They, in turn, held up their ends of the bargain completely in the beginning but faltered after sometimes a month, often as long as six, and the Fantom stuck it out for almost a year. But sooner or later, everything ended in disappointment and we split. They packed up and moved to the trash bin outside and once more I was alone.
Time went on and I adopted a calloused attitude, deciding ‘all vacuums are the same,’ and they ‘only want one thing’ (a closet to live in and no expectation of having to do actual work). At the height of my disenchantment, as I’d put yet another Fantom into the dumpster, I was saved by a friend, whose intention it never was to save me.
I suppose I will remain ever grateful to Diane, who one morning came to work and raved – yes, raved – about her satisfaction with her new Dyson vacuum. Not wanting to believe her, I couldn’t help myself, and found myself actually reading their advertisements, listening to their commercials on the television. Willing myself to believe once more. Hoping against hope because honestly, Diane is a tough sell. She doesn’t put up with a lot of B.S. from anybody or anything, and would never have found herself involved in the ridiculous relationships I’d invested in and later deposited in the dumpster.
So, believing that sometimes the first step forward is a leap of faith, I placed my order on Saturday. Added express shipping for two reasons, I just couldn’t decide which: a) I couldn’t wait for Dyson’s arrival, and the beginning of (finally!) a relationship that would turn out to be all it seemed to be, or b): the sooner Dyson got here, the sooner it would let me down, and may as well get it over with.
Dyson arrived this afternoon, and in a very short while – probably only an hour or so – we’ll begin this new adventure together. He has great references. His warranty is ironclad. He’s actually quite attractive. I hate to admit this before we’ve even been alone together, but I think I could actually grow old with him.
Only time will tell and ready or not, I’m making the leap.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Defection of Basil
It’s inevitable: Eventually your kids leave home. I’d never expected Basil to do this at age seven. I know that seven is actually 49 in dog years but still…it’s awfully young.
I miss her.
I would have hoped she’d have given me some indication, some notice, that she was leaving so completely, but I got nothing. She just walked away from everything and moved west a few weeks ago. She left her cat, her two totes of dog toys (taking only the Blue Monkey and the Brown Monkey), her inlaid wood food bowl stand, her former favorite napping spot in the window seat, and a half box of MilkBone Training Treats.
I don’t think she ever looked back.
Basil now resides with Roy who ironically and by his own admission was not a ‘dog person’ when we met and who admitted he considered the fact that I had a dog at all more of a liability than an asset. This was said before they met. This was said somewhere in the last two months when she was still my Basil, my loyal devoted dog.
This was before she constantly wore not one but two bandannas, both from Roy, of course.
I know when I’ve been defeated, and clearly, I’ve lost her. Roy and I have reached a very odd shared custody arrangement whereby she lives with him for the majority of the time and comes ‘home’ to visit me only a day or so a week and full time when he travels.
I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m convinced my dog has been abducted. Surely, I explained to her, you could not have willingly left a loving parent who doted on you and indulged your every whim. I quickly listed my qualities, hoping to sway her loyalties once more back in my direction: I bought you bag upon bag of chicken jerky, I pet you a lot, I let you get up on the furniture, I took you on endless walks, and I fed you only the best Iams Mini Chunks.
She looked at me and shook her head sadly. Clearly, I just didn’t get it. She ticked off Roy’s winning qualities on her paws: He didn’t waste time with the chicken jerky, just divvied out the people food straight from the table, he maybe didn’t pet her so much but he had much bigger, ‘man hands’ so it felt like more, he let her up on his furniture and it wasn’t leather so therefore was much more comfortable and conducive to leaving behind pet hair and thereby marking it as her private territory, he had a fabulous yard with birds and bugs and grass and flowers, and a garden and just so much neat stuff it was an incredible sensory overload every time she went outside so walks on a leash weren’t necessary and I’d be kidding myself if I thought they were missed. Riding in my car with her head out the window might have been fun, but hanging her head out of his truck was much better, as she sat up higher and could see much further. He fed her Iams, too.
I had nothing to say in my own defense.
Being a grown-up, I’m mature enough to know that people who love you won’t necessarily love you forever. Unless, of course, they’re your parents and therefore have to, or your cat and don’t know any better. I’m mature enough to want the best for the people I love, and Basil is one of them. I want her to be happy. I am a calm and reasonable person, and I accept this. I will not cajole, plead, or resort to any devious means to win back her affections.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy a whole bunch of dog treats and maybe even some cheese slices. Roy is traveling next week so I have seven days to win her over.
I’m thinking my odds are good, when you consider that’s a whole forty-nine dog days.
I miss her.
I would have hoped she’d have given me some indication, some notice, that she was leaving so completely, but I got nothing. She just walked away from everything and moved west a few weeks ago. She left her cat, her two totes of dog toys (taking only the Blue Monkey and the Brown Monkey), her inlaid wood food bowl stand, her former favorite napping spot in the window seat, and a half box of MilkBone Training Treats.
I don’t think she ever looked back.
Basil now resides with Roy who ironically and by his own admission was not a ‘dog person’ when we met and who admitted he considered the fact that I had a dog at all more of a liability than an asset. This was said before they met. This was said somewhere in the last two months when she was still my Basil, my loyal devoted dog.
This was before she constantly wore not one but two bandannas, both from Roy, of course.
I know when I’ve been defeated, and clearly, I’ve lost her. Roy and I have reached a very odd shared custody arrangement whereby she lives with him for the majority of the time and comes ‘home’ to visit me only a day or so a week and full time when he travels.
I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m convinced my dog has been abducted. Surely, I explained to her, you could not have willingly left a loving parent who doted on you and indulged your every whim. I quickly listed my qualities, hoping to sway her loyalties once more back in my direction: I bought you bag upon bag of chicken jerky, I pet you a lot, I let you get up on the furniture, I took you on endless walks, and I fed you only the best Iams Mini Chunks.
She looked at me and shook her head sadly. Clearly, I just didn’t get it. She ticked off Roy’s winning qualities on her paws: He didn’t waste time with the chicken jerky, just divvied out the people food straight from the table, he maybe didn’t pet her so much but he had much bigger, ‘man hands’ so it felt like more, he let her up on his furniture and it wasn’t leather so therefore was much more comfortable and conducive to leaving behind pet hair and thereby marking it as her private territory, he had a fabulous yard with birds and bugs and grass and flowers, and a garden and just so much neat stuff it was an incredible sensory overload every time she went outside so walks on a leash weren’t necessary and I’d be kidding myself if I thought they were missed. Riding in my car with her head out the window might have been fun, but hanging her head out of his truck was much better, as she sat up higher and could see much further. He fed her Iams, too.
I had nothing to say in my own defense.
Being a grown-up, I’m mature enough to know that people who love you won’t necessarily love you forever. Unless, of course, they’re your parents and therefore have to, or your cat and don’t know any better. I’m mature enough to want the best for the people I love, and Basil is one of them. I want her to be happy. I am a calm and reasonable person, and I accept this. I will not cajole, plead, or resort to any devious means to win back her affections.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy a whole bunch of dog treats and maybe even some cheese slices. Roy is traveling next week so I have seven days to win her over.
I’m thinking my odds are good, when you consider that’s a whole forty-nine dog days.
The End of Indulgence
So they were issued today and distributed before ten, the long-awaited April bonus checks. Diane and Carrie made a quick trip to the bank but I’m not in much of a hurry to deposit mine. Not that I don’t want the money in my account and not at all that I don’t agree that’s the best place for it. I simply don’t want to let go of it yet. I want to tuck it into my wallet and enjoy the fact that it’s there, knowing as I do it’s likely to be the last in the category of, “Gosh, I Can’t Wait To Get That!” I’ll see this year.
Due to the economy, my potential is down slightly for the remainder of 2009. Due to the cancellation of two good-sized programs, I’d say it’s down somewhere around sea level, actually. But all is not gloom and doom. I checked my 401K today and there’s still a few bucks in it. My financial guy, the one who manages my investments (and to whom I owe many hugs for convincing me to divest my GE stock at $48, something I appreciated when it dropped to $12) hasn’t yet called to tell me everything’s gone down the tubes and I should give serious thought to getting some real use out of that Pet Carrier I bought for Basil years ago and used only once by seriously considering its possibilities as a retirement home. I don’t pay a mortgage or an HOA fee again for two months, mainly because I’ve become so enamored of online bill pay through my bank that I can’t tear myself away from the keyboard and stop clicking the “Pay Now” icon. It’s a free service. Free anything is semi-addictive under any circumstances.
So even with sub-par to nonexistent bonus potential, I’m doing OK. I’ll just miss those checks. They inspired such wonderful, unnecessary purchases, like the 5lb bags of 100% organic free range chicken jerky strips that Basil loved so much but didn’t really need and honestly couldn’t distinguish from a Beggin’ Strip. The $28 a bottle hair treatment rinse that had the same effect as the $1.29 Suave product but somehow made me believe my hair was so shiny it could not be looked at directly without protective eyewear, kind of like the sun. That last round of books from QPB I haven’t read yet. Indulgences, with no guilt. What the heck, I’d think, it’s bonus money. And I’ve already put most of it in the bank.
When I measure my basic expenses vs. my income I could very probably continue the indulgences anyway, but the magic is missing, the fun is gone, when I know I’m being frivolous with salary, with ‘regular money’. Regular money is supposed to go to the bank, where it will sit quietly and behave itself.
I’m just not a shopper by nature or an extravagant person with expensive tastes so I’m actually ideally suited to an economy so depressed not even a direct infusion of Prozac would prop it up. I become way too excited over a $5 pair of sweat pants from Rite Aid. Malls make me crabby. Bills bug me. I can live for a week on one four pack of chicken breasts.
But I’m still going to miss those checks. Basil’s back to plain MilkBones and the occasional dollop of Jif Peanut Butter. I may actually wait until I’m 60, at which time I should have finished reading the books I already own, before ordering anything more from QPB. My hair will only shine as brightly as discounted Avon products will allow.
I’ve calculated my next bonus check and concluded that Basil will receive one small box of store brand MilkBone knock-offs, the cat is out of luck completely and gets nothing, and I may purchase one half of an Oprah Magazine but only if the clerk at Rite Aid will allow me to tear it in half.
Tough times, but I’m convinced they won’t last forever.
I’m hanging onto that Pet Carrier, though.
Just in case.
Due to the economy, my potential is down slightly for the remainder of 2009. Due to the cancellation of two good-sized programs, I’d say it’s down somewhere around sea level, actually. But all is not gloom and doom. I checked my 401K today and there’s still a few bucks in it. My financial guy, the one who manages my investments (and to whom I owe many hugs for convincing me to divest my GE stock at $48, something I appreciated when it dropped to $12) hasn’t yet called to tell me everything’s gone down the tubes and I should give serious thought to getting some real use out of that Pet Carrier I bought for Basil years ago and used only once by seriously considering its possibilities as a retirement home. I don’t pay a mortgage or an HOA fee again for two months, mainly because I’ve become so enamored of online bill pay through my bank that I can’t tear myself away from the keyboard and stop clicking the “Pay Now” icon. It’s a free service. Free anything is semi-addictive under any circumstances.
So even with sub-par to nonexistent bonus potential, I’m doing OK. I’ll just miss those checks. They inspired such wonderful, unnecessary purchases, like the 5lb bags of 100% organic free range chicken jerky strips that Basil loved so much but didn’t really need and honestly couldn’t distinguish from a Beggin’ Strip. The $28 a bottle hair treatment rinse that had the same effect as the $1.29 Suave product but somehow made me believe my hair was so shiny it could not be looked at directly without protective eyewear, kind of like the sun. That last round of books from QPB I haven’t read yet. Indulgences, with no guilt. What the heck, I’d think, it’s bonus money. And I’ve already put most of it in the bank.
When I measure my basic expenses vs. my income I could very probably continue the indulgences anyway, but the magic is missing, the fun is gone, when I know I’m being frivolous with salary, with ‘regular money’. Regular money is supposed to go to the bank, where it will sit quietly and behave itself.
I’m just not a shopper by nature or an extravagant person with expensive tastes so I’m actually ideally suited to an economy so depressed not even a direct infusion of Prozac would prop it up. I become way too excited over a $5 pair of sweat pants from Rite Aid. Malls make me crabby. Bills bug me. I can live for a week on one four pack of chicken breasts.
But I’m still going to miss those checks. Basil’s back to plain MilkBones and the occasional dollop of Jif Peanut Butter. I may actually wait until I’m 60, at which time I should have finished reading the books I already own, before ordering anything more from QPB. My hair will only shine as brightly as discounted Avon products will allow.
I’ve calculated my next bonus check and concluded that Basil will receive one small box of store brand MilkBone knock-offs, the cat is out of luck completely and gets nothing, and I may purchase one half of an Oprah Magazine but only if the clerk at Rite Aid will allow me to tear it in half.
Tough times, but I’m convinced they won’t last forever.
I’m hanging onto that Pet Carrier, though.
Just in case.
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