To be extremely brief...I bid adieu to 2010.
And thank God that a friend of mine survived a plane crash,
and thank him again that a lone, misguided derailed military person didn't ever actually open fire in my workplace.
I am thankful that my former spousal unit seems to have gotten his proverbial stuff together, and no longer calls me for advice or assistance;
I am sad, in my own fashion, that someone I was seeing, for four years off and on, is finally and totally an off. Unless, that is, I want to wake up and be fifty years old and decide to go on match.com. In short, he has let me know that his life is hermetically sealed, well planned, and no changes, no thanks.
Well, hell.
Four years ago, that would have been great to hear.
Anyway....starting out a new year.
I have vowed not to date, in 2011.
This is not difficult.
I don't meet anyone, in the 'real' (i.e., non-Internet dating) world.
Very boring, ubiqutious, final post for the year.
Well, let's just cross fingers 2011 is more productive.
Yours, Madeileine
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Does This Burka Make My Butt Look Big?: On Not Being Shot (But Theoretically Coming Too Damned Close To It)
Where to begin…
I had such a great weekend. Went to a soiree at Holly’s on Friday, and I only stayed until nine. Got the dogs, went home, and went to bed (Just like a responsible adult )
Saturday, did something like four loads of laundry. Went to a birthday party at the hotel (partying in a hotel room, just like we don’t allow guests to do) and left after only a glass and a half of wine, a shot of champagne, much deep-fried food, and a little under two and a half hours (Just like a responsible adult)
Had a great Monday today (Perhaps not being hungover contributed)
Diane had returned from vacation. Completely wiped, and immediately overwhelmed. I loaded her up with chocolate (gift from my recently departed group) and some kind of their special herbal elixer that cracked me up because the label read, “Relaxation, in one shot.” Yeah, like this is even possible.
When I left tonight, she was wearing earphones for her Ipod and had the most vacuous stare on her face. “No vacation,” she announced, “goes unpunished.”
Casey wasn’t happy with her because she kept blowing off what happened on Friday, mainly because she hadn’t been there, so ‘it didn’t apply to her’. Wow. Case took offense to that, saying it applied to everyone, because basically, there but for the grace of God, we’re all dead.
It was Friday afternoon that the man in full military attire, carrying an assault rifle, was driven out of our hotel by a very wonderful security person (ex-street cop), and what the guy had been trying to do was to get to the roof. Obstensibly, if you consider the fact that he was more than a little bit armed and loaded for some very big bear with all the rounds he was wearing, because he wanted to check out the view, or – and it’s a very big ‘Or’ – he wanted to pick off a bit of humanity person by person. I finally got out about four-thirty. The cops had already shot him dead, right there on the bus turn around lot. I still cross myself (call me a die hard Lutheran convert, ex-wannabe serious Catholic or whatever, but it’s comforting, you know, to think you might not live to see tomorrow, but you crossed yourself so there, take me to the Which Other Side I’m Headed To) every day when I pull into the parking garage. I mean, somebody died there. Right there, by the new shrubbery we had put in last year.
Ew.
And scary as hell.
I guess I missed the bomb scare. That happened right afterward. I guess by that time, I was busy at the boutique market by my condo, picking up a couple of baquettes and some cheese dip and spinach dip for the soiree, and Holly said later, I brought the best food ever.
For some weird reason, that made me feel better.
Maybe it was just great to be one of eight women, not all of us really aquainted (but that’s the point of her monthly get togethers, you go there and you get to know new friends) and realize, wow, we didn’t get shot today. So it’s a good day.
Sanya…years back, I worked with her. She’s moved on, but that night she showed up with a couple of magnums of champagne, and although it was first expressed in Swedish (as most things are, at Holly’s house) it was later translated into English, about the time Sanya popped the cork on the first magnum, the force of the cork blowing off and richocheting off the ceiling nearly taking out a skylight, “Sanya has her own apartment!” and we all toasted her new beginning, because we’d all, in one form or another, been there. We’d all lost someone. Or given up on someone. And we’d started over. And the first and most important part of that was finding a place we could call home.
I thought about Owen, then. He was probably on the beach as I thought, toes buried in the sand. As it turned out, he called me later. He did make the beach, you know, in between rounds of golf, and had found my seashells. That’s all I ever ask that he brings me from the beach, and when I talked to him tonight he wasn’t yet satisfied with the ones he found. “They’re shells,” he said. “I want to find one with color.”
Well, OK. It gives him a mission.
I left him a huge bag of sugar and carb-laden chips, donuts, chocolate bars, and every variety of M and M’s known to man courtesy of my departed group on the dining room table, when I picked up the dogs tonight. Basil, because I always pick her up and bring her home. His dog, the pocket sized dog, the purse dog, because he’s had so much fun here, for the past weekend. Kind of like Doggy Disneyland, is how I put it. And I’ve enjoyed it, too. Having his mini-dog here, I’ve managed to put away all the laundry I did last week when I worked all week. For heaven’s sake, I couldn’t say that without him. I made no progress until he was here, his mini-Chewbacca Yorkie face staring at me from the foot of my bed, his stump of a tail wagging. So perhaps, in some entirely weird twist of fate, I owe this little dog that I can finally see the top of my dresser, and feel like I have an actual bedroom. Stranger things, I suppose, have happened. I’m just not entirely sure when.
Anyway, it’s been a great weekend, but back to this whole I’m Not Dead Yet thing.
Owen, five hundred miles away, was concerned. I was fine, I told him, but again, every the practical one, made him promise that…if the situation ever evolved (it won’t; this is once in a lifetime stuff) that I wasn’t OK, he had to promise to come and get Basil. And take her home. And love her forever, because the dog is…well, she’s everything to me. If you know me, you get that. If you don’t, just take my word on it.
“How’s this,” he said, “I’ll just come get both of you.”
That’s Owen. If it’s ever something he doesn’t want to happen, it just doesn’t.
Not an entirely bad way to go through life.
The guy…the Shooter, if you will…he was twenty eight years old, AWOL from the war, you know, and he’d actually made a reservation to stay at the hotel, but cancelled it. Well, gosh. First, I’m thinking, “why would we let him make a reservation?” and then it dawns on me, we are in the hotel business, he did have a Visa or whatever card, and that’s kind of what we do.
Then he cancels the reservation (for whatever reason for that, let me just say, “Yay!”)
He could have opened fire inside, and he waited until he was outside. So, OK. Thank you, God, and thank you to whatever was going through his mind. I mean, a shooting in your parking lot, you can recover from. A shooting INSIDE your establishment and you’re going to be looking at a very low occupancy rate for a while.
So you shrug it off. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re supposed to do. Still, it doesn’t make it feel much better. I mean, it still feels strange. Very strange. Very odd, and kind of like, “can’t we just come up with a new policy, and say, like, you’re welcome to the hotel, but if you’re wearing camouflage in public areas, we’re going to ask you to leave?”
Sure.
Effective.
And today the threat level is Orange.
(Hmm…I wonder if my purple twinset will go with that, or I ought to just throw on a go-with-everything-black-blazer)
You just don’t think about it.
A couple of guests saw him in the parking garage, at the elevator. They asked him what he was doing there and he replied, “I’m on a training mission.”
They thanked him for his service.
I would have done the same thing.
You just don’t know.
Odd and ironic twist, but today on the site visit, one of the people (contract signers) said she had two grandsons who had been in the war. “What they don’t tell you,” she said, dramatically hovering for emphasis over her chef’s salad, (note: I detest people who order a chef’s salad because it comes with no appetizer, therefore I can’t properly start on my appetizer until after her salad arrives, at which time my smoked tomato soup is beyond cold), “is that they medicate them. You know, to keep them hopped up and ready for whatever it is they do over there. Then they come home, and they’re not on these drugs, and…”
Thank God about this time we changed the subject to how fast I could come up with diagrams for their meeting space because they needed them, preferably, yesterday.
I thought about Trent.
I was just trying to figure it out, and I guess I whirled that around in my mind for maybe a minute or maybe ten, however long it took me to nod and smile and hide the grimace that wanted to come out that we could spend what was supposed to be a working lunch, you know, talking about our medicated troops…instead of looking at meeting space and figuring out the winter program, because at that moment, that’s all I really wanted to do. Because sometimes (all the time), figuring out how many people, if three per eight foot table, will fit in one third of a ballroom, is much more comforting than contemplating some AWOL twenty eight year old who came thisclose to ending my life and many others on Friday, and chose not to.
It never really made the news that he was in the hotel.
“It wasn’t germane,” Owen explained, in the calm, rational, facts-only tone reserved to those who once made their living in television news.
Yes, I knew that.
What was germane was that he shot at a cop, and the cops shot back (all twenty of them, did we mention that? I guess they hit him at least a half dozen times…) and that’s the story and the news is sticking to it.
And that’s all good at the end of the day, because I happen to work in that building, and that hotel is a huge part of my life.
I’m glad he didn’t fire off even one shot, inside.
Yet, I’m sorry for him. Because I think the same guy who died from one (or six?) gunshot wounds in the parking lot I’ll see every day when I go to work was as lost as the guy who once threw pasta at the ceiling of my rental house to see if it was done yet. Neither make sense to me, yet in an odd way, I respect them both for being where they had to be (Iraq/hell/Afghanistan/take your pick they’re all the same thing) so I could continue to do what I do: Worry about how many people, three per eight foot, I can fit into my ballroom, instead of gosh, does this Burka make my butt look big?
Both of them, if you want my humble opinion, would have been better served to have keeled over in old age, instead.
In a perfect world.
And that, as if we haven’t yet noticed, isn’t exactly what we’re living in.
I had such a great weekend. Went to a soiree at Holly’s on Friday, and I only stayed until nine. Got the dogs, went home, and went to bed (Just like a responsible adult )
Saturday, did something like four loads of laundry. Went to a birthday party at the hotel (partying in a hotel room, just like we don’t allow guests to do) and left after only a glass and a half of wine, a shot of champagne, much deep-fried food, and a little under two and a half hours (Just like a responsible adult)
Had a great Monday today (Perhaps not being hungover contributed)
Diane had returned from vacation. Completely wiped, and immediately overwhelmed. I loaded her up with chocolate (gift from my recently departed group) and some kind of their special herbal elixer that cracked me up because the label read, “Relaxation, in one shot.” Yeah, like this is even possible.
When I left tonight, she was wearing earphones for her Ipod and had the most vacuous stare on her face. “No vacation,” she announced, “goes unpunished.”
Casey wasn’t happy with her because she kept blowing off what happened on Friday, mainly because she hadn’t been there, so ‘it didn’t apply to her’. Wow. Case took offense to that, saying it applied to everyone, because basically, there but for the grace of God, we’re all dead.
It was Friday afternoon that the man in full military attire, carrying an assault rifle, was driven out of our hotel by a very wonderful security person (ex-street cop), and what the guy had been trying to do was to get to the roof. Obstensibly, if you consider the fact that he was more than a little bit armed and loaded for some very big bear with all the rounds he was wearing, because he wanted to check out the view, or – and it’s a very big ‘Or’ – he wanted to pick off a bit of humanity person by person. I finally got out about four-thirty. The cops had already shot him dead, right there on the bus turn around lot. I still cross myself (call me a die hard Lutheran convert, ex-wannabe serious Catholic or whatever, but it’s comforting, you know, to think you might not live to see tomorrow, but you crossed yourself so there, take me to the Which Other Side I’m Headed To) every day when I pull into the parking garage. I mean, somebody died there. Right there, by the new shrubbery we had put in last year.
Ew.
And scary as hell.
I guess I missed the bomb scare. That happened right afterward. I guess by that time, I was busy at the boutique market by my condo, picking up a couple of baquettes and some cheese dip and spinach dip for the soiree, and Holly said later, I brought the best food ever.
For some weird reason, that made me feel better.
Maybe it was just great to be one of eight women, not all of us really aquainted (but that’s the point of her monthly get togethers, you go there and you get to know new friends) and realize, wow, we didn’t get shot today. So it’s a good day.
Sanya…years back, I worked with her. She’s moved on, but that night she showed up with a couple of magnums of champagne, and although it was first expressed in Swedish (as most things are, at Holly’s house) it was later translated into English, about the time Sanya popped the cork on the first magnum, the force of the cork blowing off and richocheting off the ceiling nearly taking out a skylight, “Sanya has her own apartment!” and we all toasted her new beginning, because we’d all, in one form or another, been there. We’d all lost someone. Or given up on someone. And we’d started over. And the first and most important part of that was finding a place we could call home.
I thought about Owen, then. He was probably on the beach as I thought, toes buried in the sand. As it turned out, he called me later. He did make the beach, you know, in between rounds of golf, and had found my seashells. That’s all I ever ask that he brings me from the beach, and when I talked to him tonight he wasn’t yet satisfied with the ones he found. “They’re shells,” he said. “I want to find one with color.”
Well, OK. It gives him a mission.
I left him a huge bag of sugar and carb-laden chips, donuts, chocolate bars, and every variety of M and M’s known to man courtesy of my departed group on the dining room table, when I picked up the dogs tonight. Basil, because I always pick her up and bring her home. His dog, the pocket sized dog, the purse dog, because he’s had so much fun here, for the past weekend. Kind of like Doggy Disneyland, is how I put it. And I’ve enjoyed it, too. Having his mini-dog here, I’ve managed to put away all the laundry I did last week when I worked all week. For heaven’s sake, I couldn’t say that without him. I made no progress until he was here, his mini-Chewbacca Yorkie face staring at me from the foot of my bed, his stump of a tail wagging. So perhaps, in some entirely weird twist of fate, I owe this little dog that I can finally see the top of my dresser, and feel like I have an actual bedroom. Stranger things, I suppose, have happened. I’m just not entirely sure when.
Anyway, it’s been a great weekend, but back to this whole I’m Not Dead Yet thing.
Owen, five hundred miles away, was concerned. I was fine, I told him, but again, every the practical one, made him promise that…if the situation ever evolved (it won’t; this is once in a lifetime stuff) that I wasn’t OK, he had to promise to come and get Basil. And take her home. And love her forever, because the dog is…well, she’s everything to me. If you know me, you get that. If you don’t, just take my word on it.
“How’s this,” he said, “I’ll just come get both of you.”
That’s Owen. If it’s ever something he doesn’t want to happen, it just doesn’t.
Not an entirely bad way to go through life.
The guy…the Shooter, if you will…he was twenty eight years old, AWOL from the war, you know, and he’d actually made a reservation to stay at the hotel, but cancelled it. Well, gosh. First, I’m thinking, “why would we let him make a reservation?” and then it dawns on me, we are in the hotel business, he did have a Visa or whatever card, and that’s kind of what we do.
Then he cancels the reservation (for whatever reason for that, let me just say, “Yay!”)
He could have opened fire inside, and he waited until he was outside. So, OK. Thank you, God, and thank you to whatever was going through his mind. I mean, a shooting in your parking lot, you can recover from. A shooting INSIDE your establishment and you’re going to be looking at a very low occupancy rate for a while.
So you shrug it off. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re supposed to do. Still, it doesn’t make it feel much better. I mean, it still feels strange. Very strange. Very odd, and kind of like, “can’t we just come up with a new policy, and say, like, you’re welcome to the hotel, but if you’re wearing camouflage in public areas, we’re going to ask you to leave?”
Sure.
Effective.
And today the threat level is Orange.
(Hmm…I wonder if my purple twinset will go with that, or I ought to just throw on a go-with-everything-black-blazer)
You just don’t think about it.
A couple of guests saw him in the parking garage, at the elevator. They asked him what he was doing there and he replied, “I’m on a training mission.”
They thanked him for his service.
I would have done the same thing.
You just don’t know.
Odd and ironic twist, but today on the site visit, one of the people (contract signers) said she had two grandsons who had been in the war. “What they don’t tell you,” she said, dramatically hovering for emphasis over her chef’s salad, (note: I detest people who order a chef’s salad because it comes with no appetizer, therefore I can’t properly start on my appetizer until after her salad arrives, at which time my smoked tomato soup is beyond cold), “is that they medicate them. You know, to keep them hopped up and ready for whatever it is they do over there. Then they come home, and they’re not on these drugs, and…”
Thank God about this time we changed the subject to how fast I could come up with diagrams for their meeting space because they needed them, preferably, yesterday.
I thought about Trent.
I was just trying to figure it out, and I guess I whirled that around in my mind for maybe a minute or maybe ten, however long it took me to nod and smile and hide the grimace that wanted to come out that we could spend what was supposed to be a working lunch, you know, talking about our medicated troops…instead of looking at meeting space and figuring out the winter program, because at that moment, that’s all I really wanted to do. Because sometimes (all the time), figuring out how many people, if three per eight foot table, will fit in one third of a ballroom, is much more comforting than contemplating some AWOL twenty eight year old who came thisclose to ending my life and many others on Friday, and chose not to.
It never really made the news that he was in the hotel.
“It wasn’t germane,” Owen explained, in the calm, rational, facts-only tone reserved to those who once made their living in television news.
Yes, I knew that.
What was germane was that he shot at a cop, and the cops shot back (all twenty of them, did we mention that? I guess they hit him at least a half dozen times…) and that’s the story and the news is sticking to it.
And that’s all good at the end of the day, because I happen to work in that building, and that hotel is a huge part of my life.
I’m glad he didn’t fire off even one shot, inside.
Yet, I’m sorry for him. Because I think the same guy who died from one (or six?) gunshot wounds in the parking lot I’ll see every day when I go to work was as lost as the guy who once threw pasta at the ceiling of my rental house to see if it was done yet. Neither make sense to me, yet in an odd way, I respect them both for being where they had to be (Iraq/hell/Afghanistan/take your pick they’re all the same thing) so I could continue to do what I do: Worry about how many people, three per eight foot, I can fit into my ballroom, instead of gosh, does this Burka make my butt look big?
Both of them, if you want my humble opinion, would have been better served to have keeled over in old age, instead.
In a perfect world.
And that, as if we haven’t yet noticed, isn’t exactly what we’re living in.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Lucky People Part II: Trent Babcock, One Year Later
Today is Sunday.
It is a holiday here, and fireworks abound.
On or about a year ago Friday, or some such thing, Trent Babcock killed himself.
It hardly feels like a year ago that I wrote “Lucky People”, and yet it has been.
This year, I’m not quite so prolific. On realizing the anniversay, I texted his better half, his twin, my own ‘better half of years gone by’, and I did that not because of any anniversary but because I am, and remain, one of those silly humans who, once they have given their heart to someone may legally yank it back but who will forever keep the feelings where they were to begin with and just find some way to live with that..
I love his better half.
I always have.
I always will.
I have just since then…not last year, but the time before that, when other things fell apart, …found a way to move forward. Beause when, at the end of the day, that is all that is left to you, …that’s what you do.
I’m not so odd, you know, in that.
At the end of the day, we both miss him. I can speak for myself, anyway. I can’t speak for Brent any longer, but I’m willing to wager he misses him, too.
Trent, I’m thinking.
I’m thinking, it’s been one year and I should say something. And yet, at the end of the day, this is it. This is all I can say, and I would think it’s what he would appreciate. As he used to put it when we grocery shopped, in Broomfield, those nights when Brent was working until all hours, just say what you think. Whether it was about the brands of macaroni on aisle five of the Broomfield Safeway or my deepest thoughts about whether or not we ever really went to the moon or it was a Hollywood hoax, there he was. Trent. With his ridiculous car. Standing in the soup aisle. Dawdling over cereal.
Crack me up.
Everything comes to mind, my friend.
These things stand out.
1. My dog used to scratch under his door, about a half hour before he was due to wake up. My dog loved him, and dogs can’t tell time, I know this…but it happened, day after day after day…at always the same time.
2. I used to get far too mad at him because his bathroom was never clean. It was always a serious study in ‘black body hair left behind after a shower’.
3. When his brother was sad, he always found some way to distract him, and make him laugh. This was his gift alone; no one else could do it.
4. When his brother and I fought, he always had the good grace to pretend that he hadn’t noticed.
5. To see if spaghetti is done, toss it at the ceiling. If it sticks, it is.
6. Don’t want to eat the entrée/vegetables? Toss a matchbox car on top of the serving dish
7. Want to make someone’s day? Show up in their parking lot at the end of a work day, their dogs hanging out the windows, and greet them after work with, “the kids just wanted to know where Mommy worked.” Follow you to the grocery store after that and not only help you shop, but help you put stuff away.
8. Be late with the rent but always at the ready with a joke and a smile
9. Ask, “what’s for dinner,” as if there’s supposed to be one.
10. Bother to come over and say hello, before you ship off to Iraq, and say hey to your soon to be ex sister in law. Laugh your ridiculous laugh and be you for what…as it turns out,….is the very last time.
Rest in peace, Uncle Waddy.
So now and always so alive to those of us, four footed and two, who keep you alive still. I guess you could say we’re…
Lucky People.
It is a holiday here, and fireworks abound.
On or about a year ago Friday, or some such thing, Trent Babcock killed himself.
It hardly feels like a year ago that I wrote “Lucky People”, and yet it has been.
This year, I’m not quite so prolific. On realizing the anniversay, I texted his better half, his twin, my own ‘better half of years gone by’, and I did that not because of any anniversary but because I am, and remain, one of those silly humans who, once they have given their heart to someone may legally yank it back but who will forever keep the feelings where they were to begin with and just find some way to live with that..
I love his better half.
I always have.
I always will.
I have just since then…not last year, but the time before that, when other things fell apart, …found a way to move forward. Beause when, at the end of the day, that is all that is left to you, …that’s what you do.
I’m not so odd, you know, in that.
At the end of the day, we both miss him. I can speak for myself, anyway. I can’t speak for Brent any longer, but I’m willing to wager he misses him, too.
Trent, I’m thinking.
I’m thinking, it’s been one year and I should say something. And yet, at the end of the day, this is it. This is all I can say, and I would think it’s what he would appreciate. As he used to put it when we grocery shopped, in Broomfield, those nights when Brent was working until all hours, just say what you think. Whether it was about the brands of macaroni on aisle five of the Broomfield Safeway or my deepest thoughts about whether or not we ever really went to the moon or it was a Hollywood hoax, there he was. Trent. With his ridiculous car. Standing in the soup aisle. Dawdling over cereal.
Crack me up.
Everything comes to mind, my friend.
These things stand out.
1. My dog used to scratch under his door, about a half hour before he was due to wake up. My dog loved him, and dogs can’t tell time, I know this…but it happened, day after day after day…at always the same time.
2. I used to get far too mad at him because his bathroom was never clean. It was always a serious study in ‘black body hair left behind after a shower’.
3. When his brother was sad, he always found some way to distract him, and make him laugh. This was his gift alone; no one else could do it.
4. When his brother and I fought, he always had the good grace to pretend that he hadn’t noticed.
5. To see if spaghetti is done, toss it at the ceiling. If it sticks, it is.
6. Don’t want to eat the entrée/vegetables? Toss a matchbox car on top of the serving dish
7. Want to make someone’s day? Show up in their parking lot at the end of a work day, their dogs hanging out the windows, and greet them after work with, “the kids just wanted to know where Mommy worked.” Follow you to the grocery store after that and not only help you shop, but help you put stuff away.
8. Be late with the rent but always at the ready with a joke and a smile
9. Ask, “what’s for dinner,” as if there’s supposed to be one.
10. Bother to come over and say hello, before you ship off to Iraq, and say hey to your soon to be ex sister in law. Laugh your ridiculous laugh and be you for what…as it turns out,….is the very last time.
Rest in peace, Uncle Waddy.
So now and always so alive to those of us, four footed and two, who keep you alive still. I guess you could say we’re…
Lucky People.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thirty-Five Things I Know For Sure: Miscellaneous Lessons in Love
1. Be aware that if your second date is an afternoon trip to the zoo, and two tortoises choose to have sex when you stop in front of their aquarium, you have received a sign from the universe that your relationship is doomed. Not to mention, you’re standing around more than a little embarrassed. This sign is irrefutable, as much an omen of bad luck as rain on a wedding is an omen of good luck. You should abandon all hope of proceeding further. Especially once you realize he’s failed to notice you’ve walked quickly away from the aquarium, so focused is he on leaning in further for a closer view;
2. Know that dating someone you met on a train is not reason enough to believe you’re ‘fated to be together’. It only means you have a slightly more interesting ‘How We Met’ story to tell at parties than that several times removed cousin of yours who met her spouse while dancing in a cage in a southern California ‘Gentlemen’s club’;
3. If you first visit to his home reveals neon signs shaped like tropical trees displayed on the mantle and more twinkle lights on his houseplants – all lit up and consecutively blazing and twinkling – than adorn the local mall every December 24th, you’re probably not compatible. Even if neon is your thing;
4. If by his own admission none of his marriages lasted as long as a car loan, this just isn’t going to work;
5. If he claims to want to 'be a big part of your life’ but interrupts you with, “you shouldn’t be telling me this, it’s too personal,” when you begin recounting your day at work, you can safely assume it’s not a love connection;
6. The man who asks you to ‘have the movers rearrange my stuff so it’s comfortable, I mean they’ll be here anyway,” as you’re moving out at his suggestion is not the one you should have married;
7. If his idea of preparing for the future is to secure a nominal life insurance policy – in lieu of an actual savings account or 401k – you’re probably not on the same page financially. Unless, of course, your savings ‘account’ is ‘deposited’ in an old sock in your t-shirt drawer;
8. A lesser known but equally serious side effect to the sleep aid Ambien is this: If after taking it you go not to bed but to the computer terminal, absolutely inappropriate matches appear to have potential;
9. A man who types with two fingers may have possibility. A man whose idea of a sincere approach is, ”Let’s chat,” does not.
10. If he views texting as, ‘talking , and getting to know each other,” he’s probably more suited to a relationship with an I-Phone than with a human being;
11. If he doesn’t like your dog, or vice versa, the odds for success are slim;
12. If his profile pictures are ten years old, their age is in direct proportion to his possibility as someone to consider;
13. If any situation in a Lifetime TV movie even remotely resembles a recent situation in your life, it’s time to make some serious changes;
14. The man who says, with all sincerity, “Look, I’ll make you a deal. If you have a dress or a skirt on, I’ll get the door for you, but otherwise, you can open it yourself,” was probably not the man to have married;
15. If he proudly shows you the high school track team uniform he ‘just found’ in his closet, he may have some issues with letting go of the past. Especially if there’s a very small amount of years between his next birthday and the one that entitles him to some serious dining discounts at Denny’s;
16. If his mood swings make your PMS look like, ‘a minor bad day’, cease all contact. Even if he’s still crying;
17. If he’s still wearing engraved jewelry from an ex-spouse, one of two things are going on: a) he has an emotional commitment to the ex-spouse, or: b) He likes the jewelry and has never been told about the existence of department stores/jewelry stores where it could be replaced. Not something you want to be involved with. You should not have to explain the concept of Macy’s to anyone;
18. It is perfectly acceptable to temporarily lose your mind and date the wrong person. It is never acceptable to lose your sense of humor about it afterward;
19. It’s OK if he wants to split the check. It’s weird if he wants to take your leftovers home;
20. When he says, “This may sound like creating drama, but…” he’s creating drama;
21. Even if he said, “It’s not you, it’s me,” when ending it, he could have meant it really was you, and not him, and just not said so. This generally turns out to be a blessing at the end of the day;
22. Never trust a man with a buzz cut who has two blow driers and a flatiron under his bathroom sink. This never bodes well;
23. Any man who lists, ‘cuddling’ as ‘something I am passionate about’ should be looked at funny;
24. Beware the man who claims, “I have no problem being alone. None!” and then reactivates his match.com profile while you’re still dating because, “Well, we were probably eventually going to break up.”
25. Anyone can buy a gift. Not everyone can give of themselves. Note the difference (even if you’re keeping the toaster oven);
26. There’s a difference between the heady exuberance of a true connection and the heady exuberance of three glasses of a fabulous Pinot Gris (note: only one costs $45);
27. It’s OK to disagree on religion. It’s weird if he thinks Jesus ‘just needs a catchy theme song, and I’m the one to find it for him,”;
28. It’s OK if he wants to get to know your friends. It’s weird if he emails them saying they should continue the friendship, ‘regardless of what happens’ with you and him. Bonus weird points when this occurs within the first month;
29. Run (like Forrest, only faster) from anyone who explains his three marriages as, “One, she was smart and I wanted smart kids, Two, She wanted to have sex all the time, and Three, I thought I was in love. Plus she was smart and wanted to have sex a lot.” Run. File entire experience under “E” for “Ew”;
30. The man who exclaimed, “Cheat on you? I would never cheat on you! But even if I did, you’d be the last one to find out!” was likely, a) cheating on you, and b) not the man you should have married;
31. It’s OK if he doesn’t have a car. It’s not OK if you live anywhere other than New York or San Francisco;
32. Any man who claims to , ‘read a lot! I just LOVE reading!’ and thinks Michener is a knock-off of a good brand of tires is just flat out lying to you;
33. Those who say, “I’ll never forget you! NEVER!” will be the first to forget you;
34. If he’s got a knack for flower arranging, there’s a reason. You’re not the first he’s done it for;
And finally…
35. If you can’t find the humor when it’s over, you shouldn’t have started it up in the first place.
2. Know that dating someone you met on a train is not reason enough to believe you’re ‘fated to be together’. It only means you have a slightly more interesting ‘How We Met’ story to tell at parties than that several times removed cousin of yours who met her spouse while dancing in a cage in a southern California ‘Gentlemen’s club’;
3. If you first visit to his home reveals neon signs shaped like tropical trees displayed on the mantle and more twinkle lights on his houseplants – all lit up and consecutively blazing and twinkling – than adorn the local mall every December 24th, you’re probably not compatible. Even if neon is your thing;
4. If by his own admission none of his marriages lasted as long as a car loan, this just isn’t going to work;
5. If he claims to want to 'be a big part of your life’ but interrupts you with, “you shouldn’t be telling me this, it’s too personal,” when you begin recounting your day at work, you can safely assume it’s not a love connection;
6. The man who asks you to ‘have the movers rearrange my stuff so it’s comfortable, I mean they’ll be here anyway,” as you’re moving out at his suggestion is not the one you should have married;
7. If his idea of preparing for the future is to secure a nominal life insurance policy – in lieu of an actual savings account or 401k – you’re probably not on the same page financially. Unless, of course, your savings ‘account’ is ‘deposited’ in an old sock in your t-shirt drawer;
8. A lesser known but equally serious side effect to the sleep aid Ambien is this: If after taking it you go not to bed but to the computer terminal, absolutely inappropriate matches appear to have potential;
9. A man who types with two fingers may have possibility. A man whose idea of a sincere approach is, ”Let’s chat,” does not.
10. If he views texting as, ‘talking , and getting to know each other,” he’s probably more suited to a relationship with an I-Phone than with a human being;
11. If he doesn’t like your dog, or vice versa, the odds for success are slim;
12. If his profile pictures are ten years old, their age is in direct proportion to his possibility as someone to consider;
13. If any situation in a Lifetime TV movie even remotely resembles a recent situation in your life, it’s time to make some serious changes;
14. The man who says, with all sincerity, “Look, I’ll make you a deal. If you have a dress or a skirt on, I’ll get the door for you, but otherwise, you can open it yourself,” was probably not the man to have married;
15. If he proudly shows you the high school track team uniform he ‘just found’ in his closet, he may have some issues with letting go of the past. Especially if there’s a very small amount of years between his next birthday and the one that entitles him to some serious dining discounts at Denny’s;
16. If his mood swings make your PMS look like, ‘a minor bad day’, cease all contact. Even if he’s still crying;
17. If he’s still wearing engraved jewelry from an ex-spouse, one of two things are going on: a) he has an emotional commitment to the ex-spouse, or: b) He likes the jewelry and has never been told about the existence of department stores/jewelry stores where it could be replaced. Not something you want to be involved with. You should not have to explain the concept of Macy’s to anyone;
18. It is perfectly acceptable to temporarily lose your mind and date the wrong person. It is never acceptable to lose your sense of humor about it afterward;
19. It’s OK if he wants to split the check. It’s weird if he wants to take your leftovers home;
20. When he says, “This may sound like creating drama, but…” he’s creating drama;
21. Even if he said, “It’s not you, it’s me,” when ending it, he could have meant it really was you, and not him, and just not said so. This generally turns out to be a blessing at the end of the day;
22. Never trust a man with a buzz cut who has two blow driers and a flatiron under his bathroom sink. This never bodes well;
23. Any man who lists, ‘cuddling’ as ‘something I am passionate about’ should be looked at funny;
24. Beware the man who claims, “I have no problem being alone. None!” and then reactivates his match.com profile while you’re still dating because, “Well, we were probably eventually going to break up.”
25. Anyone can buy a gift. Not everyone can give of themselves. Note the difference (even if you’re keeping the toaster oven);
26. There’s a difference between the heady exuberance of a true connection and the heady exuberance of three glasses of a fabulous Pinot Gris (note: only one costs $45);
27. It’s OK to disagree on religion. It’s weird if he thinks Jesus ‘just needs a catchy theme song, and I’m the one to find it for him,”;
28. It’s OK if he wants to get to know your friends. It’s weird if he emails them saying they should continue the friendship, ‘regardless of what happens’ with you and him. Bonus weird points when this occurs within the first month;
29. Run (like Forrest, only faster) from anyone who explains his three marriages as, “One, she was smart and I wanted smart kids, Two, She wanted to have sex all the time, and Three, I thought I was in love. Plus she was smart and wanted to have sex a lot.” Run. File entire experience under “E” for “Ew”;
30. The man who exclaimed, “Cheat on you? I would never cheat on you! But even if I did, you’d be the last one to find out!” was likely, a) cheating on you, and b) not the man you should have married;
31. It’s OK if he doesn’t have a car. It’s not OK if you live anywhere other than New York or San Francisco;
32. Any man who claims to , ‘read a lot! I just LOVE reading!’ and thinks Michener is a knock-off of a good brand of tires is just flat out lying to you;
33. Those who say, “I’ll never forget you! NEVER!” will be the first to forget you;
34. If he’s got a knack for flower arranging, there’s a reason. You’re not the first he’s done it for;
And finally…
35. If you can’t find the humor when it’s over, you shouldn’t have started it up in the first place.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
In Hopes Of The Return of The Awkward Silence
Two weeks ago, I re-upped on the dating site, taking my plunge back into the dating world yet a step further by signing up for a second site, this one alluding to the vast numbers of available ‘fish’ in the sea of romance anxiously waiting to meet me. What can I say except membership was free, photos were much easier to upload, a friend had enjoyed pretty good luck with the site, and another friend was ready to give the whole thing another try herself, just didn’t want to go it alone.
I spent the two weeks reading and exchanging emails, sharing the misadventure, if you will, with the girlfriend who had also recently hurled herself and her attributes into cyberspace, hoping to meet Mr. Wonderful or, barring that, Mr. Halfway Intriguing, or even Mr. Somewhat Still Interesting by The Time The Check Comes For Coffee. Friday nights she’d arrive at my apartment bearing organic tortilla chips, preservative-free salsa, fresh made guacamole, a bottle of white wine, and her dog, clad in his flannel monkey print pajamas complete with hoody. I’d add more chips, a cheese plate, more wine, and my own dog, who was significantly more scantily clad, sporting nothing but a Vancouver bandana. She’d catch up on all her electronic messages, “winks”, and Ims. The dogs chased each other through the apartment and made repeated futile attempts to reach the cats, who were sequestered behind the closed door of the den. We’d offer each other our individual commentaries on the various possibilities (as well as on the obvious, “are you kidding me?”s) in our email boxes. The evenings wrapped up long after midnight but a good few hours, anyway, shy of the start of the morning weekend news shows. I found I was getting used to finding her on my couch on Saturday late-mornings. It was comforting, somewhat, to know I wasn’t the only person in the universe who believed it was possible to meet someone feasible through a computer screen.
Something intangible yet integral remained missing for me, though. I received innumerable text messages, “chatted” through extensive IMs, answered who knows how many emails, and accepted a date for, but due to the work schedule couldn’t make it to, an art gallery opening. As the days went on I felt more and more that I simply wasn’t, as they say, “into it,” and not just because I wasn’t finding what I’d hoped for, which was a man my age or up to five years older. No, instead I ran to the opposite extreme. I’m still getting emails and the occasional call from the man eight years younger and – strange as it feels to say it – the man (boy? Yes, boy is what I meant to say) twenty-three years younger. Otherwise, it’s the man twelve years older, fifteen years older, who wants to talk about his retirement plans. One wanted to insure me ‘lifetime visitation to his retirement villa in Costa Rica,” and here I’ve never even been to Connecticut and would frankly rather see that first. So this, I’m thinking, is middle-age dating.
“It was so much easier,” my girlfriend observed, “when I was young, and drunk.”
A friend through work decided I needed to go out with a friend of her friend, so I did. We had dinner and drinks downtown and he was truly nice, if a decade older. Someone I’d decided I’d see again. Yet when a detail came to light I nixed that idea. He’s still married, it seems, although he’s been separated for two decades. Somehow I’m not yet willing to rule out the possibility that I may marry again. I’d at least like to keep the door open to the idea. Hard to keep the door open when you’re dating someone already married.
My leap right back out of the dating pool came yesterday, the decision forming itself in my mind with one simple call to our sales office, a little banter with a fellow divorcee who’s just a few steps past forty herself (wink wink nod nod). I asked, how’s your love life? She laughed, and it was heartfelt, not disappointed. “Oh, I’m over all that,” she said. “Life is much easier without all that to deal with.”
I digested that, because it was true. Did I really want to make the time to answer emails and read profiles and pretend to be witty and interesting on a Saturday night when I’d rather be home with a great movie, my sweat pants, and my dog? Maybe at some point, but that point isn’t now.
So I pulled the plug on both sites last night, becoming magically ‘invisible’ on one and disappearing altogether on the other. I have to say, I felt immediate relief. Real conversations I can handle. What was becoming exhausting was responding to, “Tell me more about yourself.” If this was supposed to be real life, why did it feel more like a flash back to Advanced Composition?
I know it can be said that these days, if you aren’t willing to date electronically you’ll never meet anyone. I’m sure I don’t believe that. Twenty years ago, on a rain-drenched four a.m. morning in Seattle, I met Brent in a train station. I was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ponytail. I was not trying t be witty, or charming, or articulate. Twelve months later we were married, and although it was hardly Forever After, it was absolutely a whole lot of years and a whole lot of interesting, and we’re still friends.
I’m choosing to believe in that kind of kismet, or whatever you choose to call it. Even to go so far as to say yes, I met an incredible person online this time last year. I went on to have one of the most memorable spring and summers of my life, the irony being – we’d met previously – without the Internet. So in a roundabout way that tells me I should have been a bit less preoccupied with other things during that initial encounter, and ‘meeting’ later on the Internet was just the universe’s way of giving the whole thing a second chance. Again, from that came a very good friendship, and one I appreciate.
So I told my girlfriend, the couch is always available. And my dog will be disappointed if hers quits coming to visit. Ironically, two terrier mutts wound up being the hearts who found a match out of the whole thing. For myself though, I’m going back to stepping away from the whole thing. It’s spring, summer’s coming, and if Mr. Right For Me is destined to meet me, he’ll just have to make that discovery at the dog park, or in the library, because I’m opting out of the pool. I think I’m ready to return to reality, where a ‘wink’ involves your eyelid, not the semi-colon and right parenthesis keys on a keyboard, and where a ‘chat’ involves your vocal chords, not an IM box flashing on your screen. True, eliminating the technology removes the barrier against awkward silences and pauses in conversation, but ironically, those are what I miss the most when it came to ‘meeting’ people.
I spent the two weeks reading and exchanging emails, sharing the misadventure, if you will, with the girlfriend who had also recently hurled herself and her attributes into cyberspace, hoping to meet Mr. Wonderful or, barring that, Mr. Halfway Intriguing, or even Mr. Somewhat Still Interesting by The Time The Check Comes For Coffee. Friday nights she’d arrive at my apartment bearing organic tortilla chips, preservative-free salsa, fresh made guacamole, a bottle of white wine, and her dog, clad in his flannel monkey print pajamas complete with hoody. I’d add more chips, a cheese plate, more wine, and my own dog, who was significantly more scantily clad, sporting nothing but a Vancouver bandana. She’d catch up on all her electronic messages, “winks”, and Ims. The dogs chased each other through the apartment and made repeated futile attempts to reach the cats, who were sequestered behind the closed door of the den. We’d offer each other our individual commentaries on the various possibilities (as well as on the obvious, “are you kidding me?”s) in our email boxes. The evenings wrapped up long after midnight but a good few hours, anyway, shy of the start of the morning weekend news shows. I found I was getting used to finding her on my couch on Saturday late-mornings. It was comforting, somewhat, to know I wasn’t the only person in the universe who believed it was possible to meet someone feasible through a computer screen.
Something intangible yet integral remained missing for me, though. I received innumerable text messages, “chatted” through extensive IMs, answered who knows how many emails, and accepted a date for, but due to the work schedule couldn’t make it to, an art gallery opening. As the days went on I felt more and more that I simply wasn’t, as they say, “into it,” and not just because I wasn’t finding what I’d hoped for, which was a man my age or up to five years older. No, instead I ran to the opposite extreme. I’m still getting emails and the occasional call from the man eight years younger and – strange as it feels to say it – the man (boy? Yes, boy is what I meant to say) twenty-three years younger. Otherwise, it’s the man twelve years older, fifteen years older, who wants to talk about his retirement plans. One wanted to insure me ‘lifetime visitation to his retirement villa in Costa Rica,” and here I’ve never even been to Connecticut and would frankly rather see that first. So this, I’m thinking, is middle-age dating.
“It was so much easier,” my girlfriend observed, “when I was young, and drunk.”
A friend through work decided I needed to go out with a friend of her friend, so I did. We had dinner and drinks downtown and he was truly nice, if a decade older. Someone I’d decided I’d see again. Yet when a detail came to light I nixed that idea. He’s still married, it seems, although he’s been separated for two decades. Somehow I’m not yet willing to rule out the possibility that I may marry again. I’d at least like to keep the door open to the idea. Hard to keep the door open when you’re dating someone already married.
My leap right back out of the dating pool came yesterday, the decision forming itself in my mind with one simple call to our sales office, a little banter with a fellow divorcee who’s just a few steps past forty herself (wink wink nod nod). I asked, how’s your love life? She laughed, and it was heartfelt, not disappointed. “Oh, I’m over all that,” she said. “Life is much easier without all that to deal with.”
I digested that, because it was true. Did I really want to make the time to answer emails and read profiles and pretend to be witty and interesting on a Saturday night when I’d rather be home with a great movie, my sweat pants, and my dog? Maybe at some point, but that point isn’t now.
So I pulled the plug on both sites last night, becoming magically ‘invisible’ on one and disappearing altogether on the other. I have to say, I felt immediate relief. Real conversations I can handle. What was becoming exhausting was responding to, “Tell me more about yourself.” If this was supposed to be real life, why did it feel more like a flash back to Advanced Composition?
I know it can be said that these days, if you aren’t willing to date electronically you’ll never meet anyone. I’m sure I don’t believe that. Twenty years ago, on a rain-drenched four a.m. morning in Seattle, I met Brent in a train station. I was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ponytail. I was not trying t be witty, or charming, or articulate. Twelve months later we were married, and although it was hardly Forever After, it was absolutely a whole lot of years and a whole lot of interesting, and we’re still friends.
I’m choosing to believe in that kind of kismet, or whatever you choose to call it. Even to go so far as to say yes, I met an incredible person online this time last year. I went on to have one of the most memorable spring and summers of my life, the irony being – we’d met previously – without the Internet. So in a roundabout way that tells me I should have been a bit less preoccupied with other things during that initial encounter, and ‘meeting’ later on the Internet was just the universe’s way of giving the whole thing a second chance. Again, from that came a very good friendship, and one I appreciate.
So I told my girlfriend, the couch is always available. And my dog will be disappointed if hers quits coming to visit. Ironically, two terrier mutts wound up being the hearts who found a match out of the whole thing. For myself though, I’m going back to stepping away from the whole thing. It’s spring, summer’s coming, and if Mr. Right For Me is destined to meet me, he’ll just have to make that discovery at the dog park, or in the library, because I’m opting out of the pool. I think I’m ready to return to reality, where a ‘wink’ involves your eyelid, not the semi-colon and right parenthesis keys on a keyboard, and where a ‘chat’ involves your vocal chords, not an IM box flashing on your screen. True, eliminating the technology removes the barrier against awkward silences and pauses in conversation, but ironically, those are what I miss the most when it came to ‘meeting’ people.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
A Period of Co-Opted Insanity
If the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, when I look back (as I will, I’m human) on my time with a certain person I’m going to have to call it not so much a relationship as a period of co-opted insanity. A period of time in which we mutually agreed to ignore the fact that certain integral areas of disagreement were never quite going to resolve themselves, just continue to crop up as regularly as dandelions in a lawn and serve to cause frustration. This we probably should have seen from the outset and perhaps we did but as we were, at that time, happily ensconced in our mutual delusion, we chose to see only what we wanted to see. Sometimes people do that.
Over time we became so adept at seeing only what we wanted to see that we were able to coexist in blissful acceptance of our communal near-sightedness, pairing it after a time with an almost pleasant and certainly ubiquitous Alzheimer’s-like ability to forget the obvious and have no recall of anything beyond the past five minutes or so which, for the most part, had generally been pretty nice. Perhaps it was the combination of these two impairments that drove us right back together whenever circumstances, in their infinite wisdom, threw roadblocks in our way to serve as flashing red lights in the cosmos advising us to stop immediately as we were definitely going in the wrong direction. Blindly and happily amnesiac, we might pause to separately consider the roadblock but always, without question, wound up together again, racing forward in the wrong direction. Without putting too fine a point on it, may I just say we were, in our time, the Toyota Prius of romance.
I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I’ve already said that), I may find myself tempted to linger a bit longer than is wise on a memory, settling far too comfortably into the darkened confines of the movie theater of my mind, refusing to leave my seat after the film has run its course, content to simply wait for the second showing and perhaps, if time permits, a third or fourth. I may find myself thinking the movie wasn’t all that bad. The sets were stunning, the cinematography amazing and the acting as passionate as any I’d ever dreamed of seeing, no matter the plot fell as flat as my hair in humidity. I may, in my weakened and semi-delusional state, find myself wishing at that time that a sequel could be made, if for no other reason than that in addition to everything else, my dog’s part in the film had been darling and something I would love to see recreated. I may find myself tempted, and sorely so, to reach for one or the other of those two dangerous contraptions, the dial of a Blackberry or the keyboard of my computer, that oft-times dangerous portal to the Internet, where nothing you say can ever really be taken back. This is the time I will need to remind myself, to do so would be to personify insanity, and in the sometimes cold, oft-times warm and generally consistently pleasant light of reality, this would be a very bad idea.
We fell for each other too hard and too fast so I can’t be surprised at the ending. I’ll keep the memories but try not to wear out the film with constant viewing, and perhaps the next time I feel I’m ‘crazy about someone’ I’ll pause to consider if perhaps that particular choice of verbiage could be a possible warning to myself. Crazy was a bit much, a bit out of control and unpredictable, and more than a little disconcerting. I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I think we all know that by now), I should remind myself to remember that.
Over time we became so adept at seeing only what we wanted to see that we were able to coexist in blissful acceptance of our communal near-sightedness, pairing it after a time with an almost pleasant and certainly ubiquitous Alzheimer’s-like ability to forget the obvious and have no recall of anything beyond the past five minutes or so which, for the most part, had generally been pretty nice. Perhaps it was the combination of these two impairments that drove us right back together whenever circumstances, in their infinite wisdom, threw roadblocks in our way to serve as flashing red lights in the cosmos advising us to stop immediately as we were definitely going in the wrong direction. Blindly and happily amnesiac, we might pause to separately consider the roadblock but always, without question, wound up together again, racing forward in the wrong direction. Without putting too fine a point on it, may I just say we were, in our time, the Toyota Prius of romance.
I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I’ve already said that), I may find myself tempted to linger a bit longer than is wise on a memory, settling far too comfortably into the darkened confines of the movie theater of my mind, refusing to leave my seat after the film has run its course, content to simply wait for the second showing and perhaps, if time permits, a third or fourth. I may find myself thinking the movie wasn’t all that bad. The sets were stunning, the cinematography amazing and the acting as passionate as any I’d ever dreamed of seeing, no matter the plot fell as flat as my hair in humidity. I may, in my weakened and semi-delusional state, find myself wishing at that time that a sequel could be made, if for no other reason than that in addition to everything else, my dog’s part in the film had been darling and something I would love to see recreated. I may find myself tempted, and sorely so, to reach for one or the other of those two dangerous contraptions, the dial of a Blackberry or the keyboard of my computer, that oft-times dangerous portal to the Internet, where nothing you say can ever really be taken back. This is the time I will need to remind myself, to do so would be to personify insanity, and in the sometimes cold, oft-times warm and generally consistently pleasant light of reality, this would be a very bad idea.
We fell for each other too hard and too fast so I can’t be surprised at the ending. I’ll keep the memories but try not to wear out the film with constant viewing, and perhaps the next time I feel I’m ‘crazy about someone’ I’ll pause to consider if perhaps that particular choice of verbiage could be a possible warning to myself. Crazy was a bit much, a bit out of control and unpredictable, and more than a little disconcerting. I suppose when I look back on it (and I will, I think we all know that by now), I should remind myself to remember that.
Monday, March 15, 2010
On Pink Fog and Changes In The Seasons
I couldn’t help myself. When the email came through of ‘amazing’ photos of submarine races recently held in Canada, I had to forward them to Lainie. I had to do this because she, like me, is pretty gullible, and I didn’t want to feel like the only person in the world who would spend way too much time scrutinizing all three photos, scrolling down and believing I was going to see something other than wide, empty expanses of ocean before getting the big, “Well what did you EXPECT to see?” notation that the joke’s on me at the end of the email. She didn’t let me down. I think she might even have scrutinized for longer than I did.
“I’m such an idiot,” she emailed back. “I really expected to see something.”
Note that Lainie’s no idiot but the fact she would think she might be made me feel immensely better. I wasn’t in fact the only one feeling that way. Her email went on to say we needed to get together and ‘catch up’ soon, which is true. I haven’t seen Lainie for weeks. I haven’t seen her since she disappeared into the pink cloudy haze of sunshine and flowers that settles around you like coastal fog when you’ve met a New Man and are about two months into a new relationship, which she is. I’ve yet to meet him. Maybe that’s why the rest of her email disturbed me more than a little, raising all my inner red flags, red flags so much a part of all overly concerned (read: nosy) and caring (read: bossy) girlfriends such as myself.
“So Bill asked me to move in with him last weekend,” she wrote. “What do you think?”
What bothered me about that was, she’d asked and now I’d have to tell her. So I did. As she knew I would. Because she knows if you ask my opinion, you’re going to get it. At least three times. I wrote back and at first was vague. This was something they both had to think about. This could be a very big step to be taking so soon in such a new relationship. This seemed a little rushed, and I wondered what the urgency was.
She wrote back and explained they were together all the time, anyway. He traveled a great deal, and as she already spent so much time with his kids, this way she could spend all her time with them. It would help him with babysitting and it would help them both financially, significantly reducing not one but two rents. With that in mind, what did I think?
Well, she’d asked again so I finished out my thoughts. I was going to support her in any decision she made and I wanted the best for her and for her to be happy. There was just a lot to consider. She would also, like it or not, be going from The Girlfriend to She Who Is Here All The Time And Was Supposed To Take The Garbage Out This Time, and I advocated against making the move so fast. Sixty days is a long time in dog years but in people time, it’s rather a blip. A really, really small blip. A blip so unformed it can’t cross the street by itself, has to take a nap after lunch and is definitely not tall enough to ride even the tamest stuff at the amusement park.
I had to question what you really know about a person in sixty days, even when you’ve spent nearly every one of them together. Call me romantic and stupid (because let’s face it, when it comes to matters romantic I’m definitely not the smartest woman out there), wouldn’t you want to take your time discovering these things about someone else? Would you truly want to combine dresser drawers before the new is even faded, even a little bit, from the relationship? Call me skeptical but I think there’s something to be said for the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt, only contempt is a stronger word than I’m looking for. I’m just saying 24/7 familiarity when you’re both used to having your own space is a bit of a big load to put on a brand new pony when you expect him to carry it on a very long journey.
OK, I’ll step away from the animal analogies before some PETA person tears me up for writing such bad ones. I finally simply condensed it and asked her to really evaluate her motivations. Be very careful mixing your romances with your finances, basically. Because if finances are the primary motivator in being together, that’s some rather shaky ground. Kind of like a plywood board balanced on two sawhorses with a Great Dane chasing a cat around on it….OK, I promised. No more animal stuff.
She wants to get together one night this week so we can catch up and talk things over. I’m all for the idea. I’m all for the idea and I think I can even free up a night here in a few days. My schedule, other than making time to see Roy, is pretty wide open. Yes, I just wrote that. Seeing Roy. It must be spring time.
There I go sounding cynical again, but Casey recently told me what I needed was a man for all seasons, not just two. She had a solid point because if you think about it (and you don’t even have to think very hard), Owen was the Fall and Winter Man who disappeared in the spring and summer (I’m not sure where he goes but think it’s either a golf course, a racquetball club, a beach in southern California and generally a combination of all three) and Roy disappeared once winter hit almost as fast as the grass turned brown under the first couple of snows. He reappeared at the first signs of spring, as persistent as dandelions in the lawn and I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering if, once this season’s vegetable garden is plowed under and gone, he’ll disappear like all those zucchini squash and tomatoes.
I wonder about that, but am still willing to give us a chance. Which begs the question, if you think about it, why Lainie thinks any advice I have to give would be worth anything, as in all the time I’ve been single I’ve yet to be in any relationship like the one she’s apparently in, because the idea of giving up my home and moving in with someone else has never been anything that impelled a sense of urgency or a feeling that I needed to decide on it right away.
So I could either be skeptical, too independent, too set in my ways, overly hesitant, or gosh help me all of the above and I think it’s all of the above. Yet I’m still willing to laugh at local news stories with this German and see how many seasons we can get through this time. There’s a part of me that remains that impulsive, and romantic at heart. Which is good.
Knowing I still have that part of myself will make me feel much better when I’m letting Lainie know that brakes are put on cars for a reason, and even if you choose not to use them you should never forget they’re there. Even though I understand in a very elementary way why she’d want to be with him all the time. I think I understand what it’s like to be with someone who thinks like you do, shares your sense of humor, supports the things you’re interested in, enjoys your home décor (even all those faded antique family photos of people who are actually your real relatives)and understands your work hours. Until Roy came along, Basil was the only one who really ‘got’ all that.
Yet I still wouldn’t move in with him tomorrow and certainly didn’t consider it an option at two months into the relationship last spring. I still think we’re trying a different route, one of more friends than those overpowered by the pink fog of romance and this time, I think that’s a good thing. So whatever I tell Lainie she’ll just have to understand is coming from someone a little older, and maybe someone who still believes in the weather forecasts, just likes to let time take time and see for herself how they turn out.
Kind of like how a dog can sit for hours, just staring at the cabinet door behind which reside the Milk Bones, waiting for it to magically open….Sorry. Couldn’t resist one more bad animal analogy. If PETA calls, tell them I’ll try to be a better writer next time.
“I’m such an idiot,” she emailed back. “I really expected to see something.”
Note that Lainie’s no idiot but the fact she would think she might be made me feel immensely better. I wasn’t in fact the only one feeling that way. Her email went on to say we needed to get together and ‘catch up’ soon, which is true. I haven’t seen Lainie for weeks. I haven’t seen her since she disappeared into the pink cloudy haze of sunshine and flowers that settles around you like coastal fog when you’ve met a New Man and are about two months into a new relationship, which she is. I’ve yet to meet him. Maybe that’s why the rest of her email disturbed me more than a little, raising all my inner red flags, red flags so much a part of all overly concerned (read: nosy) and caring (read: bossy) girlfriends such as myself.
“So Bill asked me to move in with him last weekend,” she wrote. “What do you think?”
What bothered me about that was, she’d asked and now I’d have to tell her. So I did. As she knew I would. Because she knows if you ask my opinion, you’re going to get it. At least three times. I wrote back and at first was vague. This was something they both had to think about. This could be a very big step to be taking so soon in such a new relationship. This seemed a little rushed, and I wondered what the urgency was.
She wrote back and explained they were together all the time, anyway. He traveled a great deal, and as she already spent so much time with his kids, this way she could spend all her time with them. It would help him with babysitting and it would help them both financially, significantly reducing not one but two rents. With that in mind, what did I think?
Well, she’d asked again so I finished out my thoughts. I was going to support her in any decision she made and I wanted the best for her and for her to be happy. There was just a lot to consider. She would also, like it or not, be going from The Girlfriend to She Who Is Here All The Time And Was Supposed To Take The Garbage Out This Time, and I advocated against making the move so fast. Sixty days is a long time in dog years but in people time, it’s rather a blip. A really, really small blip. A blip so unformed it can’t cross the street by itself, has to take a nap after lunch and is definitely not tall enough to ride even the tamest stuff at the amusement park.
I had to question what you really know about a person in sixty days, even when you’ve spent nearly every one of them together. Call me romantic and stupid (because let’s face it, when it comes to matters romantic I’m definitely not the smartest woman out there), wouldn’t you want to take your time discovering these things about someone else? Would you truly want to combine dresser drawers before the new is even faded, even a little bit, from the relationship? Call me skeptical but I think there’s something to be said for the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt, only contempt is a stronger word than I’m looking for. I’m just saying 24/7 familiarity when you’re both used to having your own space is a bit of a big load to put on a brand new pony when you expect him to carry it on a very long journey.
OK, I’ll step away from the animal analogies before some PETA person tears me up for writing such bad ones. I finally simply condensed it and asked her to really evaluate her motivations. Be very careful mixing your romances with your finances, basically. Because if finances are the primary motivator in being together, that’s some rather shaky ground. Kind of like a plywood board balanced on two sawhorses with a Great Dane chasing a cat around on it….OK, I promised. No more animal stuff.
She wants to get together one night this week so we can catch up and talk things over. I’m all for the idea. I’m all for the idea and I think I can even free up a night here in a few days. My schedule, other than making time to see Roy, is pretty wide open. Yes, I just wrote that. Seeing Roy. It must be spring time.
There I go sounding cynical again, but Casey recently told me what I needed was a man for all seasons, not just two. She had a solid point because if you think about it (and you don’t even have to think very hard), Owen was the Fall and Winter Man who disappeared in the spring and summer (I’m not sure where he goes but think it’s either a golf course, a racquetball club, a beach in southern California and generally a combination of all three) and Roy disappeared once winter hit almost as fast as the grass turned brown under the first couple of snows. He reappeared at the first signs of spring, as persistent as dandelions in the lawn and I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering if, once this season’s vegetable garden is plowed under and gone, he’ll disappear like all those zucchini squash and tomatoes.
I wonder about that, but am still willing to give us a chance. Which begs the question, if you think about it, why Lainie thinks any advice I have to give would be worth anything, as in all the time I’ve been single I’ve yet to be in any relationship like the one she’s apparently in, because the idea of giving up my home and moving in with someone else has never been anything that impelled a sense of urgency or a feeling that I needed to decide on it right away.
So I could either be skeptical, too independent, too set in my ways, overly hesitant, or gosh help me all of the above and I think it’s all of the above. Yet I’m still willing to laugh at local news stories with this German and see how many seasons we can get through this time. There’s a part of me that remains that impulsive, and romantic at heart. Which is good.
Knowing I still have that part of myself will make me feel much better when I’m letting Lainie know that brakes are put on cars for a reason, and even if you choose not to use them you should never forget they’re there. Even though I understand in a very elementary way why she’d want to be with him all the time. I think I understand what it’s like to be with someone who thinks like you do, shares your sense of humor, supports the things you’re interested in, enjoys your home décor (even all those faded antique family photos of people who are actually your real relatives)and understands your work hours. Until Roy came along, Basil was the only one who really ‘got’ all that.
Yet I still wouldn’t move in with him tomorrow and certainly didn’t consider it an option at two months into the relationship last spring. I still think we’re trying a different route, one of more friends than those overpowered by the pink fog of romance and this time, I think that’s a good thing. So whatever I tell Lainie she’ll just have to understand is coming from someone a little older, and maybe someone who still believes in the weather forecasts, just likes to let time take time and see for herself how they turn out.
Kind of like how a dog can sit for hours, just staring at the cabinet door behind which reside the Milk Bones, waiting for it to magically open….Sorry. Couldn’t resist one more bad animal analogy. If PETA calls, tell them I’ll try to be a better writer next time.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Metaphorical Dryer Sheets: Notes on Men, Women, Cyberspace, and Weirdos in the Produce Aisle
“Do you want to help me?”
This from Abby yesterday as she plopped into a chair in my office, and it was the way her eyes lit up, illuminated by the force of some mysterious Grand Plan That Just Had To Be A Lot Of Fun, and the fact that it’s my nature to reply, “Of course” whenever a friend says “Help”, that caused me to hesitate not a second but just nod my head, already thoroughly caught up in the excitement of whatever it was we were about to do.
“Will you write a profile for me for Match dot com?”
I suppose the smart decision would be to say no, of course not, that’s entirely too personal and you should write your own. My writing it would be wrong on many levels, kind of like writing a recipe with actual measurements in it when my true method of cooking is a handful of this and two shakes of that and a cooking time of somewhere around a half hour and whenever it smells done. It would be unethical and I suppose I should have said no but I didn’t because I will write anything requested by any of my friends and as a result I’ve written everything from obituaries to 50th birthday poems to speeches to ‘personalized thoughts’ in parents’ birthday cards, and that’s only been in the last couple of months. Besides, Abby’s got good reason to give Match dot com a chance, if for no other reason than the comic relief of reading some of the profiles out there but more importantly just to have affirmed that yes, she’s attractive, and she’s desirable, and there are articulate, interesting men in the universe who would like to meet her (there are, it should be noted, also a lot of geeks, freaks, and flat-out weirdos but the same can be said about the produce aisle of any supermarket in any city in the country, so it’s OK. You just arm yourself with a sense of humor and a delete key).
In short, she needs affirmation that all men are not like The Last Guy. Not all men are going to date you seriously and exclusively for over a year and then for no reason at all, simply stop calling. Stop emailing. Stop all communication and simply walk away without letting you know why they’ve come to the conclusion that this would be a good thing to do. It was the last thing she expected (it generally is, with all of us who’ve had the experience of it and perhaps the most difficult part of that is the point at which you consult your calendar and realize the weeks have flown by and you haven’t heard a thing from someone who was allegedly a pretty big part of your life. It’s at this point that you apply: a) éclairs, b) Sauvignon Blanc, c) a mad, unbridled shopping spree at Macy’s, or d) a marathon of Lifetime Television for Women movies after you’ve done all of the above, directly to the pain that has become what once was known as your heart. And is, from a physiological standpoint, still known as your heart, it just feels like an oversized, unbearable, “Ouch!” that’s taken up residence in your chest that you’re pretty sure isn’t either a heart attack or the ill effects of picking up lunch at the local taco cart). It was, in the final analysis, “Rude!” as she put it, capturing its essence with one four letter word (not, I’m sure, the only four letter word that entered her mind when ruminating on the entire situation, but one of the most repeatable in a public place). Having been dutifully dumped, it’s time for Abby to move on, to launch herself into Cyberspace where the worst thing that might happen is The Last Guy might pull up her profile in one of his own searches and have pause to reflect on what exactly it was that he let go of (note that in a perfect world he pulls up her profile at the exact moment he’s holding onto someone new who isn’t half as attractive or an iota as intelligent and who speaks with an unmistakable lisp that almost but not quite detracts your attention from the fact that she has all the curves and bulges of your basic Buddha statue, only with a chest that makes Kate Hudson look downright voluptuous and to top it all off she’s incapable of anything but a bad hair day, especially on her upper lip. Yep, it’s a worthy cause if for only that reason).
So we’ll get together on Saturday and we’ll write this profile and launch her out there. Maybe she’ll find Mr. Wonderful. Alternatively, she’ll have something to do on those rare evenings when boredom overtakes her (as it does from time to time with anyone living alone) and she’ll have plenty of emails to print out and correct the grammar on (I’m sure she’d do that. I can’t be the only one that obsessed with punctuation and vocabulary. On second thought, if I am the only one that obsessed, I’d rather not know it). She’ll step out into that strange world known as ‘being in a relationship’ and I’m quite sure, while I will be wishing her the best of everything in that pursuit, there will be some small part of me (or, who am I kidding? There will be some big part of me) standing at the sidelines thinking, “What is she thinking?”
That small/large part of me seems to be very much at the forefront of much of my thinking of late, because when it comes to relationships I’m batting about….well, about like that grade school kid with the astigmatisms and the wimpy arms who was always picked last for the softball teams. My ‘relationships’ seem to have all the longevity of your basic dryer sheet, and I’m not sure why this is (Brent is very sure why this is, and he’s espoused his theory with all the assurance of any man who was married to the same woman for fifteen years and is now happily ensconced in a friendship with that woman which makes much more sense and entails no sharing of the television remote and definitely no more angst over whether the toilet paper properly rolls from the top or from the bottom. Brent would say I am too independent. Men don’t want independent. Men want to feel needed. I am too outspoken, as well, and perhaps it doesn’t entirely help my case that I’d rather read a book than watch a movie, especially any movie where the only action seems to be buildings blowing up and maidens being ravaged). I just know that lately, (lately being looking over last year and the start of this one), the relationships I begin to trust as ‘Gosh, this is great and I’d be happy to stay in this relationship forever,’ turn out to be those relationships with men much like Abby’s own The Last Guy, who simply and confoundingly disappear like the mate to the one solo sock the dryer consistently spits out. Or there’s the relationship with someone who really seemed to get it, finally, why I stopped seeing him once before, only to suddenly remember why I stopped seeing him once before and exhibiting that same irritating behavior when I’ve finally settled in to the whole routine of seeing him again, thus leaving us at the ridiculous point that so far, the only real conclusion we’ve come to is that we now understand why we broke up in the first place.
Sally (Formerly known as The Strange Girl Downstairs, but no longer. I’m not sure what’s happened to her in the past several months since Lainie moved, but she’s started making actual eye contact in the foyer, calling out a ‘hello’, or a ‘have a great day’, and gabbing at me with little gossipy details about her life and the lives of the other residents in the building that simply make my day) has a theory, and she espoused it last night, after listening to the tail end of a conversation I was having with He Whom I Already Broke Up With Once Before and realizing it wasn’t exactly a happy moment.
“Girl,” she said, with all the flair of either a southern belle or a Vegas ‘escort’ (wink wink nod nod) I couldn’t be immediately sure, “you need to forget the whole relationship thing and get yourself a man friend with benefits.” She seemed so sure of herself I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had a man friend with benefits. He had a chop saw, and a DeWalt drill, and an uncanny knack for completing home improvement projects. Those were the only benefits I was capable of allowing myself in order to keep from finding myself in another ‘relationship’ that was pretty much doomed from the outset, kind of like any diet I start when I have PMS.
So while obviously, I’m hardly The Poster Child For Believing In Romance Forever right now, I am sincerely rooting for Abby, and happy to assist with this profile and her debut in cyberspace. Romance simply eludes me right now, like directions for any appliance I’ve ever purchased, or the location of that blue sweater I’ve been wanting to wear for months. As for myself, I’m limiting my own venturing to the produce aisle at the market, and maybe – and it’s a slim maybe – actual eye contact with someone at the gas pumps or at the dog park. Not to say that I’m over romance forever. I prefer to think of it merely as a sabbatical of sorts, more of a manbatical, if you will. A step back until I can figure out how to extend the longevity of that metaphorical dryer sheet.
This from Abby yesterday as she plopped into a chair in my office, and it was the way her eyes lit up, illuminated by the force of some mysterious Grand Plan That Just Had To Be A Lot Of Fun, and the fact that it’s my nature to reply, “Of course” whenever a friend says “Help”, that caused me to hesitate not a second but just nod my head, already thoroughly caught up in the excitement of whatever it was we were about to do.
“Will you write a profile for me for Match dot com?”
I suppose the smart decision would be to say no, of course not, that’s entirely too personal and you should write your own. My writing it would be wrong on many levels, kind of like writing a recipe with actual measurements in it when my true method of cooking is a handful of this and two shakes of that and a cooking time of somewhere around a half hour and whenever it smells done. It would be unethical and I suppose I should have said no but I didn’t because I will write anything requested by any of my friends and as a result I’ve written everything from obituaries to 50th birthday poems to speeches to ‘personalized thoughts’ in parents’ birthday cards, and that’s only been in the last couple of months. Besides, Abby’s got good reason to give Match dot com a chance, if for no other reason than the comic relief of reading some of the profiles out there but more importantly just to have affirmed that yes, she’s attractive, and she’s desirable, and there are articulate, interesting men in the universe who would like to meet her (there are, it should be noted, also a lot of geeks, freaks, and flat-out weirdos but the same can be said about the produce aisle of any supermarket in any city in the country, so it’s OK. You just arm yourself with a sense of humor and a delete key).
In short, she needs affirmation that all men are not like The Last Guy. Not all men are going to date you seriously and exclusively for over a year and then for no reason at all, simply stop calling. Stop emailing. Stop all communication and simply walk away without letting you know why they’ve come to the conclusion that this would be a good thing to do. It was the last thing she expected (it generally is, with all of us who’ve had the experience of it and perhaps the most difficult part of that is the point at which you consult your calendar and realize the weeks have flown by and you haven’t heard a thing from someone who was allegedly a pretty big part of your life. It’s at this point that you apply: a) éclairs, b) Sauvignon Blanc, c) a mad, unbridled shopping spree at Macy’s, or d) a marathon of Lifetime Television for Women movies after you’ve done all of the above, directly to the pain that has become what once was known as your heart. And is, from a physiological standpoint, still known as your heart, it just feels like an oversized, unbearable, “Ouch!” that’s taken up residence in your chest that you’re pretty sure isn’t either a heart attack or the ill effects of picking up lunch at the local taco cart). It was, in the final analysis, “Rude!” as she put it, capturing its essence with one four letter word (not, I’m sure, the only four letter word that entered her mind when ruminating on the entire situation, but one of the most repeatable in a public place). Having been dutifully dumped, it’s time for Abby to move on, to launch herself into Cyberspace where the worst thing that might happen is The Last Guy might pull up her profile in one of his own searches and have pause to reflect on what exactly it was that he let go of (note that in a perfect world he pulls up her profile at the exact moment he’s holding onto someone new who isn’t half as attractive or an iota as intelligent and who speaks with an unmistakable lisp that almost but not quite detracts your attention from the fact that she has all the curves and bulges of your basic Buddha statue, only with a chest that makes Kate Hudson look downright voluptuous and to top it all off she’s incapable of anything but a bad hair day, especially on her upper lip. Yep, it’s a worthy cause if for only that reason).
So we’ll get together on Saturday and we’ll write this profile and launch her out there. Maybe she’ll find Mr. Wonderful. Alternatively, she’ll have something to do on those rare evenings when boredom overtakes her (as it does from time to time with anyone living alone) and she’ll have plenty of emails to print out and correct the grammar on (I’m sure she’d do that. I can’t be the only one that obsessed with punctuation and vocabulary. On second thought, if I am the only one that obsessed, I’d rather not know it). She’ll step out into that strange world known as ‘being in a relationship’ and I’m quite sure, while I will be wishing her the best of everything in that pursuit, there will be some small part of me (or, who am I kidding? There will be some big part of me) standing at the sidelines thinking, “What is she thinking?”
That small/large part of me seems to be very much at the forefront of much of my thinking of late, because when it comes to relationships I’m batting about….well, about like that grade school kid with the astigmatisms and the wimpy arms who was always picked last for the softball teams. My ‘relationships’ seem to have all the longevity of your basic dryer sheet, and I’m not sure why this is (Brent is very sure why this is, and he’s espoused his theory with all the assurance of any man who was married to the same woman for fifteen years and is now happily ensconced in a friendship with that woman which makes much more sense and entails no sharing of the television remote and definitely no more angst over whether the toilet paper properly rolls from the top or from the bottom. Brent would say I am too independent. Men don’t want independent. Men want to feel needed. I am too outspoken, as well, and perhaps it doesn’t entirely help my case that I’d rather read a book than watch a movie, especially any movie where the only action seems to be buildings blowing up and maidens being ravaged). I just know that lately, (lately being looking over last year and the start of this one), the relationships I begin to trust as ‘Gosh, this is great and I’d be happy to stay in this relationship forever,’ turn out to be those relationships with men much like Abby’s own The Last Guy, who simply and confoundingly disappear like the mate to the one solo sock the dryer consistently spits out. Or there’s the relationship with someone who really seemed to get it, finally, why I stopped seeing him once before, only to suddenly remember why I stopped seeing him once before and exhibiting that same irritating behavior when I’ve finally settled in to the whole routine of seeing him again, thus leaving us at the ridiculous point that so far, the only real conclusion we’ve come to is that we now understand why we broke up in the first place.
Sally (Formerly known as The Strange Girl Downstairs, but no longer. I’m not sure what’s happened to her in the past several months since Lainie moved, but she’s started making actual eye contact in the foyer, calling out a ‘hello’, or a ‘have a great day’, and gabbing at me with little gossipy details about her life and the lives of the other residents in the building that simply make my day) has a theory, and she espoused it last night, after listening to the tail end of a conversation I was having with He Whom I Already Broke Up With Once Before and realizing it wasn’t exactly a happy moment.
“Girl,” she said, with all the flair of either a southern belle or a Vegas ‘escort’ (wink wink nod nod) I couldn’t be immediately sure, “you need to forget the whole relationship thing and get yourself a man friend with benefits.” She seemed so sure of herself I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had a man friend with benefits. He had a chop saw, and a DeWalt drill, and an uncanny knack for completing home improvement projects. Those were the only benefits I was capable of allowing myself in order to keep from finding myself in another ‘relationship’ that was pretty much doomed from the outset, kind of like any diet I start when I have PMS.
So while obviously, I’m hardly The Poster Child For Believing In Romance Forever right now, I am sincerely rooting for Abby, and happy to assist with this profile and her debut in cyberspace. Romance simply eludes me right now, like directions for any appliance I’ve ever purchased, or the location of that blue sweater I’ve been wanting to wear for months. As for myself, I’m limiting my own venturing to the produce aisle at the market, and maybe – and it’s a slim maybe – actual eye contact with someone at the gas pumps or at the dog park. Not to say that I’m over romance forever. I prefer to think of it merely as a sabbatical of sorts, more of a manbatical, if you will. A step back until I can figure out how to extend the longevity of that metaphorical dryer sheet.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Good Hands: Notes on Letting Go
Years ago, in the early nineties, back in the days when I foolishly scoffed at under-eye moisturizers as something I would need ‘one of these days, but surely not now’, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article called, “Women Who Love Their Dogs Too Much.”
I read it, riveted. I Identified with every word. Yes, I was one of these women. One of these women who would spend their entire lunch hour driving home to make sure the dog was ‘in a good mental place’ while left at home during my work day. Yes, I was one of those women who would forego any kind of a blind date that didn’t entail my dog’s being able to tag along. Call me codependent if you must and call me completely beyond hope if you will but I was what I was and I still am. Still. The article left a huge impression, and since reading it nearly a decade ago, I’ve strived to make positive change. I’ve realized that my dog, like me, needs time away from the one who loves them the most. Occasionally, I make this possible. I take Basil regularly to a doggy day care facility. On a regular basis, I walk up to my local convenience store and buy groceries* (*I’m single. Groceries means a loaf of bread, a six pack of Bud Light, a jar of peanut butter, and a pound of cottage cheese) and leave her tethered outside, unattended. Sometimes, I return a library book and leave her in the car. With these small gestures I console myself that I am not truly one of those women who love their dogs too much and cannot stand simple separation anxiety.
In short, I lie. Like a rug. To myself. Case in point being recently* (*’recently’ meaning: today).
Recently, I promised Roy that I would allow him to have my dog as a ‘therapy animal’ while he recovered from surgery. You all remember Roy, yes? Oh, wait a minute. I suppose not. You see, Roy was someone I dated through the entire summer and thought I would spend the rest of my life with and long story short I wound up deleting every post I wrote about Roy because Roy frankly and honestly told me, he’d prefer not to be written about on my blog. So, I deleted every post. Hence most of what you read that I wrote this summer seemed as if it skipped around and it did because I literarily deleted everything he and I experienced together. In the long run, this was an OK thing. Putting myself in his shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in someone else’s blog, either, so it was easy for me to not write about Roy during the duration of what was, and/or appeared to be, our ‘relationship’.
Uh, hum. Anyway. Being as we’re no longer in a relationship, let me make a long story short and say that we are friends. And where Roy and I may not exactly meet in the middle, he and Basil absolutely connected on more than a fur-deep level. I’ve often pondered how tough it is for single parents (Lainie goes through this a lot. She’s the world’s greatest mom, and yet when you’re a single mom even that isn’t always good enough) and if you want to know the truth, when I first heard from Roy again, after he’d sort of gotten back together with me then not really and then disappeared again and then turned up again and then told me he was having major major surgery (yes, I wrote ‘major’ twice, and I meant to) the first thing that came to mind was, gosh, it would be great if you had a therapy animal.
Which is to say, gosh Roy, since I can’t be there for you any longer because we’re not together but because I still really do care for you (I wasn’t, in the long run, the one who pulled the trigger on the whole thing) you are more than welcome to have Basil come out and stay with you for a few days, if you like…or longer, if you like, because there’s a lot to be said for a therapy animal.
And there is, really.
Roy is supposed to take three to four walks a day. Much easier to do with a dog, especially a dog who wants to take these walks. So today, with heavy heart I took Basil out to the west side of the valley, with a carefully packed bag. I left her The Essentials:
Dog food
Dog treats
Dog sleeping quilt (which she likes to be covered with when she sleeps)
Leash
Dog food (two bags. That’s it. I’m not committing beyond that)
Mom’s shirt ( for sleeping on. If she misses me, it is immersed in Estee Lauder’s Cinnabar, so she’ll remember me)
Dog brush (Who am I kidding? I don’t use it on her, so doubt he will, either)
Leash (Complete with red LED flashing light to alert other cars and dogs to her presence after dark)
So Roy and I had a brunch today, eggs over easy and lots of bacon, and I left my life’s companion with him, and I said, see how it goes, and I can come get her tomorrow, or the day after. Already they’ve taken a walk, and probably gone to bed. “I feel bad,” he said. “I know you will miss her, and you will be sad.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I have the cats.”
Yeah, the cats.
So far, they haven’t been quite that entertaining.
It has been a matter of hours now since I left Basil with him, and I know she is in good hands. He and I may not have worked out so well, but I do know that he loved her, and still does. So I console myself with an evening on my own. My cats are nothing but thrilled that they have my sole and complete attention. Perhaps tomorrow, Basil will come home.
Or maybe not.
Maybe Basil will stay several days with Roy, which he said he would enjoy very much, and I can hardly begrudge her that. She loves his yard, she loves the fact that he walks three, four times a day and enjoys it, while her ‘mother’ drags herself out maybe half that on a good day and really would rather be inside watching Lifetime Television for Women.
“When you come back,” he said today, “your dog will be a Nazi. She will be a German Shephard. She will salute you and say, ‘Heil Hiltler!”
Yikes. Given Roy’s German heritage and Basil’s proclivity to believe any doctrine coated in bacon, I have something very real to worry about.
But, what the heck.
At one point, I truly loved that German. I made him a huge part of my life, and in the same vein, of my dog’s life. Holly would have my head if she knew we were even in contact let alone that he had my dog, but at the same time, I have to let go of that, too. Roy told me, he could have died, during that surgery. And a lot of things became clear to him while he was waiting to ‘go under’. Things that were probably and for the most part of the variety of ‘too little too late’.
OK.
We’ve all moved on.
I do love my dog too much.
But I can, despite what Cosmopolitan writes, let go.
Every once in a while.
In the case of necessity, or triple neck fusion, whichever comes first.
And that’s all I have to say, and all (Holly) I’m going to say, about that.
It’s just that I know Basil is sleeping very well. And she is in, if not my first choice, in ultimately the very best choice, of good hands for her.
I read it, riveted. I Identified with every word. Yes, I was one of these women. One of these women who would spend their entire lunch hour driving home to make sure the dog was ‘in a good mental place’ while left at home during my work day. Yes, I was one of those women who would forego any kind of a blind date that didn’t entail my dog’s being able to tag along. Call me codependent if you must and call me completely beyond hope if you will but I was what I was and I still am. Still. The article left a huge impression, and since reading it nearly a decade ago, I’ve strived to make positive change. I’ve realized that my dog, like me, needs time away from the one who loves them the most. Occasionally, I make this possible. I take Basil regularly to a doggy day care facility. On a regular basis, I walk up to my local convenience store and buy groceries* (*I’m single. Groceries means a loaf of bread, a six pack of Bud Light, a jar of peanut butter, and a pound of cottage cheese) and leave her tethered outside, unattended. Sometimes, I return a library book and leave her in the car. With these small gestures I console myself that I am not truly one of those women who love their dogs too much and cannot stand simple separation anxiety.
In short, I lie. Like a rug. To myself. Case in point being recently* (*’recently’ meaning: today).
Recently, I promised Roy that I would allow him to have my dog as a ‘therapy animal’ while he recovered from surgery. You all remember Roy, yes? Oh, wait a minute. I suppose not. You see, Roy was someone I dated through the entire summer and thought I would spend the rest of my life with and long story short I wound up deleting every post I wrote about Roy because Roy frankly and honestly told me, he’d prefer not to be written about on my blog. So, I deleted every post. Hence most of what you read that I wrote this summer seemed as if it skipped around and it did because I literarily deleted everything he and I experienced together. In the long run, this was an OK thing. Putting myself in his shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in someone else’s blog, either, so it was easy for me to not write about Roy during the duration of what was, and/or appeared to be, our ‘relationship’.
Uh, hum. Anyway. Being as we’re no longer in a relationship, let me make a long story short and say that we are friends. And where Roy and I may not exactly meet in the middle, he and Basil absolutely connected on more than a fur-deep level. I’ve often pondered how tough it is for single parents (Lainie goes through this a lot. She’s the world’s greatest mom, and yet when you’re a single mom even that isn’t always good enough) and if you want to know the truth, when I first heard from Roy again, after he’d sort of gotten back together with me then not really and then disappeared again and then turned up again and then told me he was having major major surgery (yes, I wrote ‘major’ twice, and I meant to) the first thing that came to mind was, gosh, it would be great if you had a therapy animal.
Which is to say, gosh Roy, since I can’t be there for you any longer because we’re not together but because I still really do care for you (I wasn’t, in the long run, the one who pulled the trigger on the whole thing) you are more than welcome to have Basil come out and stay with you for a few days, if you like…or longer, if you like, because there’s a lot to be said for a therapy animal.
And there is, really.
Roy is supposed to take three to four walks a day. Much easier to do with a dog, especially a dog who wants to take these walks. So today, with heavy heart I took Basil out to the west side of the valley, with a carefully packed bag. I left her The Essentials:
Dog food
Dog treats
Dog sleeping quilt (which she likes to be covered with when she sleeps)
Leash
Dog food (two bags. That’s it. I’m not committing beyond that)
Mom’s shirt ( for sleeping on. If she misses me, it is immersed in Estee Lauder’s Cinnabar, so she’ll remember me)
Dog brush (Who am I kidding? I don’t use it on her, so doubt he will, either)
Leash (Complete with red LED flashing light to alert other cars and dogs to her presence after dark)
So Roy and I had a brunch today, eggs over easy and lots of bacon, and I left my life’s companion with him, and I said, see how it goes, and I can come get her tomorrow, or the day after. Already they’ve taken a walk, and probably gone to bed. “I feel bad,” he said. “I know you will miss her, and you will be sad.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I have the cats.”
Yeah, the cats.
So far, they haven’t been quite that entertaining.
It has been a matter of hours now since I left Basil with him, and I know she is in good hands. He and I may not have worked out so well, but I do know that he loved her, and still does. So I console myself with an evening on my own. My cats are nothing but thrilled that they have my sole and complete attention. Perhaps tomorrow, Basil will come home.
Or maybe not.
Maybe Basil will stay several days with Roy, which he said he would enjoy very much, and I can hardly begrudge her that. She loves his yard, she loves the fact that he walks three, four times a day and enjoys it, while her ‘mother’ drags herself out maybe half that on a good day and really would rather be inside watching Lifetime Television for Women.
“When you come back,” he said today, “your dog will be a Nazi. She will be a German Shephard. She will salute you and say, ‘Heil Hiltler!”
Yikes. Given Roy’s German heritage and Basil’s proclivity to believe any doctrine coated in bacon, I have something very real to worry about.
But, what the heck.
At one point, I truly loved that German. I made him a huge part of my life, and in the same vein, of my dog’s life. Holly would have my head if she knew we were even in contact let alone that he had my dog, but at the same time, I have to let go of that, too. Roy told me, he could have died, during that surgery. And a lot of things became clear to him while he was waiting to ‘go under’. Things that were probably and for the most part of the variety of ‘too little too late’.
OK.
We’ve all moved on.
I do love my dog too much.
But I can, despite what Cosmopolitan writes, let go.
Every once in a while.
In the case of necessity, or triple neck fusion, whichever comes first.
And that’s all I have to say, and all (Holly) I’m going to say, about that.
It’s just that I know Basil is sleeping very well. And she is in, if not my first choice, in ultimately the very best choice, of good hands for her.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
How To Run An Office
When Abby rolled in a half hour late this morning, nobody was surprised to see an email two minutes later simply stating, “Donuts in the break room,” because this is the rule. Fifteen minutes and you’re late. Anything over sixteen minutes and you bring breakfast. This was one of the first ‘rules’ Liz put in place after taking over as department director, and it works well. Keeps us all on schedule for the most part because even if it’s just a couple dozen donuts, nobody wants to buy breakfast for eight other people on any kind of regular basis. I know I don’t. The closest bakery for me when I’m running late is Petra’s, and eight breakfast croissants can set me back $40.
We have a lot of rules in the office, none of which are written down officially, but they’re no less in place and ruthlessly enforced and all things considered, they constitute a nice way to effectively run an office peopled by eight women of various ages and diverse personalities. I’d have to say the majority of them center around use of the bathroom. There’s the toilet paper rule. If you’re the last one to use the bathroom and you leave anything less than 20 squares of tissue on the roll without changing it, you’re going to get an email from someone if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’re more apt to find someone standing in your office doorway announcing to you (and everyone else within earshot) that you forgot to change the toilet paper.
Likewise nobody wants to be called out for splashing water all around the sink so the next person who happens to lean against it while washing their hands gets to walk out with a lovely water stain across the band of their skirt.
It’s not an official rule that you must be an animal lover, but if you absolutely don’t like animals it is understood you will keep your opinions to yourself. This is largely due to the fact that between the eight of us, there are 3 dogs and 6 cats, respectively.
The lower right hand cabinet in the bathroom is a veritable mini-Costco of hair products and if you’re in the throes of a notably bad hair day and about to meet with a client, it’s perfectly acceptable to pilfer a spritz or two of someone else’s Tresemme to get you through. More than the occasional spritz and it’s an unspoken understanding that you’ll buy your own product or at a minimum, the next can of what you borrowed.
Everyone has free use of the bathroom, but setting up camp in there to apply your make-up, do your hair, or do anything else that requires more than five minutes will find you receiving the same kind of talking to. I think we’re all trying to stay conscious of this one, and the only person who actually does a wardrobe change in there is Casey, when she changes before her nightly sessions at the gym. This can be a problem when I’m waiting to use the bathroom because I know if I don’t I’m going to wish I did when I’m sitting in traffic that (Murphy’s law being the inevitable it is) will back up and make me twenty minutes late getting home just because I didn’t.
Everybody eats at their desk sometime and that’s fine, it’s what you’re eating that matters. We’re collectively OK with just about anything except onions. Onions are the gift that keeps stinking up the office long after the sandwich/salad is gone. The only offense worse than eating onions in your office is eating them in the boardroom, because that makes the daily 2pm meeting stink, too. I think this rule evolved years ago when one of our admins insisted on buying her lunch from the local taco cart every day at 11am, and from 11:15 until closing, the whole office smelled like the inside of an old burrito. I remember driving home and catching stray whiffs of red pepper and salsa that seemed to somehow have infiltrated my hair and my clothes, too.
It’s not a rule but an accepted fact that we have a comprehensive in-office recycling program. You’re free to bring in your old magazines, books, DVDs, and all those make-up samples you get at the Clinique counter when buying moisturizer, and put them in the break room, the unofficial ‘recycling area’. By the end of the day, they’ve been pretty much guaranteed a new life and a new home. Likewise you can bring in just about anything from your refrigerator and count on it being consumed. With all the weekend entertaining Jules does, she pretty much keeps us in veggie crudités every Monday, which is nice. There’s generally always a bag of tortilla chips in the break room and salsa in the fridge and without question, it’s open for anybody who wants it. But we do rigorously enforce the whole ‘double dipping’ thing, and ask that any utensil that’s been in your mouth doesn’t get put near or in anything that’s likely to go in anyone else’s.
I suppose it’s a given that you can also bring any homeless animals to us and we’ll give them homes, as well. Jules wound up adopting the feral cat from the loading dock, and Holly’s now the proud owner of the black tabby discovered wandering the east end of the parking lot. I adopted Gus because Casey routed pictures of him in an office email, thus weakening my defenses and finally slapping the kybash on them altogether by telling me how happy Basil would be to have ‘a brother’. I like to say with that, I ‘gave at the office’ and can absolve myself of the inclination to ever adopt another animal again.
We keep a coffee pot in the back and if you drink the coffee, you’re on the rotation for replacing it when it’s gone. I personally stick with cafeteria coffee, because as time goes on I’m less and less of a coffee drinker. I seem to require one cup in the morning and occasionally a cup in the afternoon and it makes no difference to me if it’s instant, canned, or liquid concentrate, I just need the caffeine. The office coffee pot can apparently only process bags of coffee with a starting price of no less than $12, so it’s understandable there are really only about three people who are still drinking it.
I suppose the final and handiest rule is that of absolute honesty. It’s just a given around here that nobody’s going to lie to you about anything, and if you ask an opinion you’re going to get (at least)one. I personally enjoy this one, although I’ve learned long ago never to ask, “Does this skirt make my butt look big?” when I’m having one of those days where I feel like my butt is big, and I can see in the mirror that it’s big, so why set myself up for being told I need to somehow make it smaller. I have also saved money by employing this rule when it comes to salon appointments. Just last weekend I stopped into Liz’s office and announced I was going to hit the salon Saturday and have my color done again. “Uh, no,” she said, glancing up at me. “You’re not ready yet.” I then bent down so she could inspect the top of my head and she said again, “couple more weeks,” which was great because it saved me not only cash but a few hours of my Saturday that otherwise would have been spent in a salon chair.
My very favorite of all the ‘rules’, however, is that for the most part, what happens in the office stays in the office, to borrow from the old Vegas slogan. Let’s just say we’re not always Human Resources Correct, but that’s OK. Maybe it’s because we’re not that we’re able to handle stress as well as we do, and spend so many hours together every day, year round, and consistently get along. It’s our unspoken ‘Code’, and it’s never broken.
Never.
No matter who’s asking.
When Liz received her fifteen year service award recently, our General Manager asked if anyone had any ‘stories they’d like to share’. Well, nobody did, or at least none they wanted to share in the executive boardroom in front of the General Manager. “What about you, Madeleine?” he asked, “anything you want to share?”
I didn’t hesitate a second. “Nothing,” I said, and held up a hand against his protest. “Let’s just say we have a code.”
And I’m very glad we do, or at least I know I will be when my own service anniversary next comes around.
We have a lot of rules in the office, none of which are written down officially, but they’re no less in place and ruthlessly enforced and all things considered, they constitute a nice way to effectively run an office peopled by eight women of various ages and diverse personalities. I’d have to say the majority of them center around use of the bathroom. There’s the toilet paper rule. If you’re the last one to use the bathroom and you leave anything less than 20 squares of tissue on the roll without changing it, you’re going to get an email from someone if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’re more apt to find someone standing in your office doorway announcing to you (and everyone else within earshot) that you forgot to change the toilet paper.
Likewise nobody wants to be called out for splashing water all around the sink so the next person who happens to lean against it while washing their hands gets to walk out with a lovely water stain across the band of their skirt.
It’s not an official rule that you must be an animal lover, but if you absolutely don’t like animals it is understood you will keep your opinions to yourself. This is largely due to the fact that between the eight of us, there are 3 dogs and 6 cats, respectively.
The lower right hand cabinet in the bathroom is a veritable mini-Costco of hair products and if you’re in the throes of a notably bad hair day and about to meet with a client, it’s perfectly acceptable to pilfer a spritz or two of someone else’s Tresemme to get you through. More than the occasional spritz and it’s an unspoken understanding that you’ll buy your own product or at a minimum, the next can of what you borrowed.
Everyone has free use of the bathroom, but setting up camp in there to apply your make-up, do your hair, or do anything else that requires more than five minutes will find you receiving the same kind of talking to. I think we’re all trying to stay conscious of this one, and the only person who actually does a wardrobe change in there is Casey, when she changes before her nightly sessions at the gym. This can be a problem when I’m waiting to use the bathroom because I know if I don’t I’m going to wish I did when I’m sitting in traffic that (Murphy’s law being the inevitable it is) will back up and make me twenty minutes late getting home just because I didn’t.
Everybody eats at their desk sometime and that’s fine, it’s what you’re eating that matters. We’re collectively OK with just about anything except onions. Onions are the gift that keeps stinking up the office long after the sandwich/salad is gone. The only offense worse than eating onions in your office is eating them in the boardroom, because that makes the daily 2pm meeting stink, too. I think this rule evolved years ago when one of our admins insisted on buying her lunch from the local taco cart every day at 11am, and from 11:15 until closing, the whole office smelled like the inside of an old burrito. I remember driving home and catching stray whiffs of red pepper and salsa that seemed to somehow have infiltrated my hair and my clothes, too.
It’s not a rule but an accepted fact that we have a comprehensive in-office recycling program. You’re free to bring in your old magazines, books, DVDs, and all those make-up samples you get at the Clinique counter when buying moisturizer, and put them in the break room, the unofficial ‘recycling area’. By the end of the day, they’ve been pretty much guaranteed a new life and a new home. Likewise you can bring in just about anything from your refrigerator and count on it being consumed. With all the weekend entertaining Jules does, she pretty much keeps us in veggie crudités every Monday, which is nice. There’s generally always a bag of tortilla chips in the break room and salsa in the fridge and without question, it’s open for anybody who wants it. But we do rigorously enforce the whole ‘double dipping’ thing, and ask that any utensil that’s been in your mouth doesn’t get put near or in anything that’s likely to go in anyone else’s.
I suppose it’s a given that you can also bring any homeless animals to us and we’ll give them homes, as well. Jules wound up adopting the feral cat from the loading dock, and Holly’s now the proud owner of the black tabby discovered wandering the east end of the parking lot. I adopted Gus because Casey routed pictures of him in an office email, thus weakening my defenses and finally slapping the kybash on them altogether by telling me how happy Basil would be to have ‘a brother’. I like to say with that, I ‘gave at the office’ and can absolve myself of the inclination to ever adopt another animal again.
We keep a coffee pot in the back and if you drink the coffee, you’re on the rotation for replacing it when it’s gone. I personally stick with cafeteria coffee, because as time goes on I’m less and less of a coffee drinker. I seem to require one cup in the morning and occasionally a cup in the afternoon and it makes no difference to me if it’s instant, canned, or liquid concentrate, I just need the caffeine. The office coffee pot can apparently only process bags of coffee with a starting price of no less than $12, so it’s understandable there are really only about three people who are still drinking it.
I suppose the final and handiest rule is that of absolute honesty. It’s just a given around here that nobody’s going to lie to you about anything, and if you ask an opinion you’re going to get (at least)one. I personally enjoy this one, although I’ve learned long ago never to ask, “Does this skirt make my butt look big?” when I’m having one of those days where I feel like my butt is big, and I can see in the mirror that it’s big, so why set myself up for being told I need to somehow make it smaller. I have also saved money by employing this rule when it comes to salon appointments. Just last weekend I stopped into Liz’s office and announced I was going to hit the salon Saturday and have my color done again. “Uh, no,” she said, glancing up at me. “You’re not ready yet.” I then bent down so she could inspect the top of my head and she said again, “couple more weeks,” which was great because it saved me not only cash but a few hours of my Saturday that otherwise would have been spent in a salon chair.
My very favorite of all the ‘rules’, however, is that for the most part, what happens in the office stays in the office, to borrow from the old Vegas slogan. Let’s just say we’re not always Human Resources Correct, but that’s OK. Maybe it’s because we’re not that we’re able to handle stress as well as we do, and spend so many hours together every day, year round, and consistently get along. It’s our unspoken ‘Code’, and it’s never broken.
Never.
No matter who’s asking.
When Liz received her fifteen year service award recently, our General Manager asked if anyone had any ‘stories they’d like to share’. Well, nobody did, or at least none they wanted to share in the executive boardroom in front of the General Manager. “What about you, Madeleine?” he asked, “anything you want to share?”
I didn’t hesitate a second. “Nothing,” I said, and held up a hand against his protest. “Let’s just say we have a code.”
And I’m very glad we do, or at least I know I will be when my own service anniversary next comes around.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
No Room For The Queen(s)
I realize I have too much furniture, too many books, far too much dishware and more clothes than any three normal people need so it’s no surprise that I also have too many animals. I understand I could get by with a few less chairs, one less couch, and who knows how many less end tables. I could also lose the entire midsection of three of my closets and go six months without noticing which suits were missing. I comprehend that if I were to minimize in this regard, life would probably be less complicated and therefore that’s what I should do. The problem is, I’m not apt to actually do it. Not now and not at any time in the foreseeable future. No more than I would be apt to give up either of my cats or consider living for one minute in a house not largely dominated by Basil and her stuffed animals. If I know anything about myself it’s this: Once anything – animal, vegetable, mineral, or end table – earns a place in my heart, I’m hanging onto it. If this occasionally poses a difficulty, I simply work around it.
The working around it is the easy part, most of the time. About the third time I bang my leg into an end table, I just move it to a different location. I’m constantly finding new places to store books, and you’d be amazed just how many clothes you can fit into a closet if you hang everything correctly. I’ve managed to convince myself I need antique Kayson china service for ten in addition to the service for fifteen I have in Fiestaware and the regular every day plates from Macy’s. I’ve learned to step over the inevitable cat in the hallway when I exit the bathroom in the semi-dark of morning, and double check to insure that’s a pillow not a dog on the couch before I flop down on it. Most of the time, life flows pretty smoothly.
Once in a while, though, we hit a snag and last night was no exception. About ten-forty-five I started shutting down lights in the living room and called Basil in to bed. Creature of habit that she is, she trotted down the hall and I heard her leap up onto the ottoman beside the bed so she could make the leap up onto the mattress (Girlfriend’s getting a little too chubby to make the leap without it, so mental note to lay off the Milkbones for a bit). A night like any other, I thought, and then saw that both cats had already settled onto the bed, something they generally won’t do until after Basil and I are both asleep. I’m not sure why this is, but have decided it’s an innate part of a cat’s nature to have the last word in everything, including the final prowl around the house before the day is officially over. The fact that they’d retired to bed earlier than usual wasn’t a huge problem for me. I just slid in a little closer to the wall and over to one side to give them both space.
The problem was Basil. Rather than jumping onto the bed she continued to sit on the ottoman, staring blankly at me, pausing only momentarily to dart her eyes over to each cat in turn before returning her gaze to mine. I patted the bed. “Come on, Bas,” I said, “night night.” Well, the ears came up but that was it. She simply continued to stare and that’s when I realized that given the positions of both cats, there wasn’t a whole lot of bed left for her. There was a small space near the wall but nowhere near the foot of the bed where she’d long ago staked out her own ‘spot’.
I thought about shifting the cats around and probably would have but something stopped me. Maybe it was a rare moment of insight when I realized surely I had better things to do with my time than use it to rearrange cats at nearly eleven p.m. Maybe it was just the fact that it was nearly eleven and I had to get up early. I’m not sure which, but I do know I patted Basil’s head, pulled the comforter around me, and fell asleep, confident they’d somehow work it out amongst themselves. Never mind I felt terrible at the blank stare Basil continued to send my way, a blank stare that said as plainly as I’m sure she would have if she could talk: “Are you kidding me? What’s up with this?”
I woke up shortly before five, due in part to the alarm clock’s beeping and the fact that I had two ice cold kitty paws wedged just above my right ear. Both cats idly raised their heads at me, then lowered them back to the bed, stretched, and resumed sleeping. Basil was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t on the bed, she wasn’t on the couch, she wasn’t on the back of her favorite chair. I found her in the den, on the twin bed, curled at the foot of it, still giving me the eye. “Look,” she seemed to be saying, “I had to sleep here all by myself last night and I’m not happy about it.”
I empathized with her sentiments, but only partially. Only partially because given the kink in my neck at the time (induced by having to semi-constantly shift the position of my head on the pillows to avoid the pre-dawn placement of ice cold kitty feet on my ears) the idea of sleeping alone seemed like the only intelligent one. It might be time, I thought then, stepping into a hot shower, to revert to Plan B.
Plan B was instituted last week, and had a very short run. It started out as a brilliant idea on my part, or so I thought. When it came time to go to sleep at night, I’d simply close the bedroom door. Basil and I would have the entire bed to ourselves, and I wouldn’t have ice cold paws applied to various parts of my head and shoulders when I was trying to sleep. Plan B was promptly enacted and lasted exactly two nights. On the first night, I fell asleep to plaintive meowing coming through the door, followed by the swooshing sounds of random kitty paws swatting under the door. The second night foiled the plan altogether. That’s the night Gus, the boldest of the cats, made a game of lunging at the door, making a nice resounding thud that sounded for all the world like a burglar trying to break in, shortly before 2 a.m. After that night, the bedroom door had remained open and the queen sized bed was available to all of us. Which had worked out, but not for very long.
“Oh, yeah,” Casey said this morning, when I told her about how Basil had been booted from her own territory and forced to sleep alone, while I myself had been reduced to sleeping in far less space than I wanted. “You give them an inch, they take over.”
I digested that, because it was true. They had taken over the bed. They’d also, come to think of it, taken over most of the furniture in the house and they certainly had me hopping to their command. I might be in full management mode in the workplace, but within two minutes of coming in the door at night and being assaulted by both of them meowing for dinner, I drop everything – no matter what it is – to crack open that can of food and get it served. The label may say “Classic Dinner Pate, Beef and Chicken” but I call it simply, “The Silencer”.
“So what do I do?” I asked, and Casey just gave me a look and shrugged, a look and a shrug that told me what I do is nothing because there’s nothing I can do. A look that told me, as she has many times before, that she lost her own bed years ago to her two cats, and not even her husband has been able to get them under control. Sometimes, she said, he’ll even get up and sleep in the guest room just to get away from them.
Which is sad, in a way, if you think about it, but maybe not so much on second glance. That is a pretty comfortable twin bed in the den. If Berk promises not to take up too much of the room on her side of it tonight, I should sleep pretty well.
The working around it is the easy part, most of the time. About the third time I bang my leg into an end table, I just move it to a different location. I’m constantly finding new places to store books, and you’d be amazed just how many clothes you can fit into a closet if you hang everything correctly. I’ve managed to convince myself I need antique Kayson china service for ten in addition to the service for fifteen I have in Fiestaware and the regular every day plates from Macy’s. I’ve learned to step over the inevitable cat in the hallway when I exit the bathroom in the semi-dark of morning, and double check to insure that’s a pillow not a dog on the couch before I flop down on it. Most of the time, life flows pretty smoothly.
Once in a while, though, we hit a snag and last night was no exception. About ten-forty-five I started shutting down lights in the living room and called Basil in to bed. Creature of habit that she is, she trotted down the hall and I heard her leap up onto the ottoman beside the bed so she could make the leap up onto the mattress (Girlfriend’s getting a little too chubby to make the leap without it, so mental note to lay off the Milkbones for a bit). A night like any other, I thought, and then saw that both cats had already settled onto the bed, something they generally won’t do until after Basil and I are both asleep. I’m not sure why this is, but have decided it’s an innate part of a cat’s nature to have the last word in everything, including the final prowl around the house before the day is officially over. The fact that they’d retired to bed earlier than usual wasn’t a huge problem for me. I just slid in a little closer to the wall and over to one side to give them both space.
The problem was Basil. Rather than jumping onto the bed she continued to sit on the ottoman, staring blankly at me, pausing only momentarily to dart her eyes over to each cat in turn before returning her gaze to mine. I patted the bed. “Come on, Bas,” I said, “night night.” Well, the ears came up but that was it. She simply continued to stare and that’s when I realized that given the positions of both cats, there wasn’t a whole lot of bed left for her. There was a small space near the wall but nowhere near the foot of the bed where she’d long ago staked out her own ‘spot’.
I thought about shifting the cats around and probably would have but something stopped me. Maybe it was a rare moment of insight when I realized surely I had better things to do with my time than use it to rearrange cats at nearly eleven p.m. Maybe it was just the fact that it was nearly eleven and I had to get up early. I’m not sure which, but I do know I patted Basil’s head, pulled the comforter around me, and fell asleep, confident they’d somehow work it out amongst themselves. Never mind I felt terrible at the blank stare Basil continued to send my way, a blank stare that said as plainly as I’m sure she would have if she could talk: “Are you kidding me? What’s up with this?”
I woke up shortly before five, due in part to the alarm clock’s beeping and the fact that I had two ice cold kitty paws wedged just above my right ear. Both cats idly raised their heads at me, then lowered them back to the bed, stretched, and resumed sleeping. Basil was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t on the bed, she wasn’t on the couch, she wasn’t on the back of her favorite chair. I found her in the den, on the twin bed, curled at the foot of it, still giving me the eye. “Look,” she seemed to be saying, “I had to sleep here all by myself last night and I’m not happy about it.”
I empathized with her sentiments, but only partially. Only partially because given the kink in my neck at the time (induced by having to semi-constantly shift the position of my head on the pillows to avoid the pre-dawn placement of ice cold kitty feet on my ears) the idea of sleeping alone seemed like the only intelligent one. It might be time, I thought then, stepping into a hot shower, to revert to Plan B.
Plan B was instituted last week, and had a very short run. It started out as a brilliant idea on my part, or so I thought. When it came time to go to sleep at night, I’d simply close the bedroom door. Basil and I would have the entire bed to ourselves, and I wouldn’t have ice cold paws applied to various parts of my head and shoulders when I was trying to sleep. Plan B was promptly enacted and lasted exactly two nights. On the first night, I fell asleep to plaintive meowing coming through the door, followed by the swooshing sounds of random kitty paws swatting under the door. The second night foiled the plan altogether. That’s the night Gus, the boldest of the cats, made a game of lunging at the door, making a nice resounding thud that sounded for all the world like a burglar trying to break in, shortly before 2 a.m. After that night, the bedroom door had remained open and the queen sized bed was available to all of us. Which had worked out, but not for very long.
“Oh, yeah,” Casey said this morning, when I told her about how Basil had been booted from her own territory and forced to sleep alone, while I myself had been reduced to sleeping in far less space than I wanted. “You give them an inch, they take over.”
I digested that, because it was true. They had taken over the bed. They’d also, come to think of it, taken over most of the furniture in the house and they certainly had me hopping to their command. I might be in full management mode in the workplace, but within two minutes of coming in the door at night and being assaulted by both of them meowing for dinner, I drop everything – no matter what it is – to crack open that can of food and get it served. The label may say “Classic Dinner Pate, Beef and Chicken” but I call it simply, “The Silencer”.
“So what do I do?” I asked, and Casey just gave me a look and shrugged, a look and a shrug that told me what I do is nothing because there’s nothing I can do. A look that told me, as she has many times before, that she lost her own bed years ago to her two cats, and not even her husband has been able to get them under control. Sometimes, she said, he’ll even get up and sleep in the guest room just to get away from them.
Which is sad, in a way, if you think about it, but maybe not so much on second glance. That is a pretty comfortable twin bed in the den. If Berk promises not to take up too much of the room on her side of it tonight, I should sleep pretty well.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Back in Action: Return of the Road Warrior
I was walking back to the office from the banquet kitchen this morning when I felt the buzz of my Blackberry and saw “Dad Cell” flash across the Caller ID. Knowing I’d just spoken with him last night I have to say my initial reaction was carefully concealed panic. Some people say late night phone calls are the truest indicator of bad news on its way but in my experience with my parents, it’s the daytime calls that you need to worry about. They know my schedule. A daytime call is an oddity, and the last one, three days before Christmas, had been the one to let me know my dad had suffered a stroke.
“Hi there,” I said, forcing a smile into my voice I really didn’t feel.
“How did you know it was me?” Dad hasn’t quite gotten his head around modern technology. I remember the first email he sent me, in the mid-nineties when he and Mom finally installed the Internet in their home: “It’s Dad Stop. Write me if you get this Stop.” Apparently the Internet service hadn’t explained to him that broadband was slightly more in tune with the times than a telegram. His first emails were cryptic consistently because he couldn’t understand how he could send an email that would take ten minutes to read and not be charged for a ten- minute long distance call.
“You have a special ring,” I lied. “How are you?”
“I’ve just had some great news from the physical therapist,” he said, “and I knew you’d want to hear it.”
As soon as he said that, anxiety started melting. I knew he’d been working very hard with the physical therapist who came to the house three times a week, and I knew Mom had been on him like a boot camp drill sergeant to insure he kept up with the exercises on his own. The combined effort had paid off. As of today, the physical therapist cleared him to drive. He’d regained enough use of his right hand and was getting some mobility back in his right foot. While there had been talk of him getting a brace for his foot he was now, as he explained it, ‘on hold’ with that idea, although if progress continued it wouldn’t be any kind of permanent brace, just something to help him as he continued to progress. “So I don’t have to drag my foot along behind me,” he said and I couldn’t help but wince at the imagery that conjured. Hard to match with the dad I’d done so much with throughout my life, from all the sailing trips and all the boats, and the hikes through the redwoods to Stinson Beach and the climbs up Mt. Diablo. I remembered when we used to jog through Berkeley in the early weekday morning hours in the late seventies when he was in his ‘running phase’ as Mom called it, and it just didn’t fit.
“That,” I said, “is fantastic! I am so glad!”
He was glad, too. His voice had a lift to it I hadn’t heard since before the stroke. “Oh this is swell,” he said then. “I’m back in action. No handicap at all! But I’m not signing up to drive on the highway or anything,” he said, pausing. “Not right now. But if I want to drive down to the store, or down the road to my friend’s house, I can do it! And Mom doesn’t have to drive me anymore. She’s been having to pack me around everywhere…” Which was, I understood as he let the conversation trail off, what had most bothered him.
There’s never been a question, really, of who the alpha dog was in that household. If I had a dime for every road trip they’d taken together in over thirty-six years, and a nickel for every mile they’d traveled in a vehicle, I certainly wouldn’t be working right now. The ability to get up and go had always been important to him, and had been one of the reasons he’d found some enjoyment in the last hectic years of his auditing career when the oil company had him one month in Hawaii, one month in Alaska, the next month in Nigeria, and after that in Canada, Kansas City, or the wrong end of Texas. I remembered all the plaques on the wall of the den recognizing the miles he’d traveled for his job, year after year being acknowledged “Road Warrior of the Year” and although he’d grumble about the airports, the hotel food, and the loneliness of it, you knew he was also proud of it. To hear the relief in his voice that he could do something as simple as drive down the road for a quart of ice-cream again was touching. He sounded as giddy as a clumsy school kid who’d just been picked first for the softball team.
Now I have to be honest and admit my first reaction following that call was to be relieved and incredibly happy for him. It was only after I got back to my office and really considered the ramifications that I wondered if being able to drive meant being able to drive anything, or if he’d be somewhat selective. My parents have too many vehicles for just two people. They have a new Subaru wagon, a new Diesel truck, a vintage convertible, an antique corvette, an antique Packard, and another car from somewhere in the forties of which I have a picture at home but off the top of my head I’m not sure what the make of it is. Suddenly, like any over-concerned daughter I wanted to call him back and admonish him not to attempt to drive anything other than the Subaru wagon, the smallest option of all their vehicles and surely one of the few with actual air bags. I wanted him to perhaps not do this driving until spring, when the snow had gone. I wanted to especially remind him not to drive anywhere just to be driving, but to drive if he had somewhere to be or something to do, as there was no sense rushing right into this whole thing and taking on too much at once. I wondered if that physical therapist really knew her stuff, or if she was rushing his recovery. Finally, as I opened a file on my desk and attempted to yank my brain back into the Now and out of the worry mode, I wanted to insure he was securely wrapped in bubble wrap before he got behind the wheel of anything, just in case the air bag wasn’t as good as the manufacturer’s warranty claimed it was and heaven forbid he needed it.
It was at that moment that I had what Oprah calls an ‘Aha’ moment, because what I thought about then were all the times Dad had sent me or any of his kids off somewhere, and how he’d make sure we had a few bucks in our pocket (“You always need some walking around money,” as he put it) and he knew exactly where we’d be and when we’d be home. I remembered all those times I’d be babysitting down the street and the doorbell would ring. There on the porch of whatever house I was earning $1 an hour in watching some toddler would be my dad, holding a Mealamac plate wrapped in Reynold’s Wrap. “Meals on wheels,” he’d announce, and there would be the dinner I would have had at home if I’d been home. I realized in that moment why he did all of that, and how he, like me now, wanted to do everything he could to ensure nothing happened to one of his kids.
And yet life does what it does, and I’m sure at every turn he had to realize you really have no control, and I think I realize that now, too. I think he realized it for the first time in 1969, when I fell off the deck and cracked my head. And again in 1975 when my sister was hit by a car when we were on a bike ride. And again in the early nineties, when my brother was mugged and turned up in a Berkeley hospital as a John Doe with permanent hearing loss in his right ear. I think he realized that sometimes you have to let go. You have to realize you’re only human, and life is going to do what it’s going to do regardless of anything you do.
So having realized that, I’m not going to tell him what he can and can’t drive, and I’m not going to remind him that snow is slippery to drive on, and I’m also not going to advise bubble wrap as a sensible secondary safety initiative in a vehicle. I realize I’m only human. I realize I’m not in charge of this.
I also realize this is my dad I’m talking about. So I may just wait a bit and then call Mom and ask if there’s any way she can temporarily ‘lose track of’ keys to any vehicle other than the Subaru wagon until the Road Warrior gets a little stronger.
“Hi there,” I said, forcing a smile into my voice I really didn’t feel.
“How did you know it was me?” Dad hasn’t quite gotten his head around modern technology. I remember the first email he sent me, in the mid-nineties when he and Mom finally installed the Internet in their home: “It’s Dad Stop. Write me if you get this Stop.” Apparently the Internet service hadn’t explained to him that broadband was slightly more in tune with the times than a telegram. His first emails were cryptic consistently because he couldn’t understand how he could send an email that would take ten minutes to read and not be charged for a ten- minute long distance call.
“You have a special ring,” I lied. “How are you?”
“I’ve just had some great news from the physical therapist,” he said, “and I knew you’d want to hear it.”
As soon as he said that, anxiety started melting. I knew he’d been working very hard with the physical therapist who came to the house three times a week, and I knew Mom had been on him like a boot camp drill sergeant to insure he kept up with the exercises on his own. The combined effort had paid off. As of today, the physical therapist cleared him to drive. He’d regained enough use of his right hand and was getting some mobility back in his right foot. While there had been talk of him getting a brace for his foot he was now, as he explained it, ‘on hold’ with that idea, although if progress continued it wouldn’t be any kind of permanent brace, just something to help him as he continued to progress. “So I don’t have to drag my foot along behind me,” he said and I couldn’t help but wince at the imagery that conjured. Hard to match with the dad I’d done so much with throughout my life, from all the sailing trips and all the boats, and the hikes through the redwoods to Stinson Beach and the climbs up Mt. Diablo. I remembered when we used to jog through Berkeley in the early weekday morning hours in the late seventies when he was in his ‘running phase’ as Mom called it, and it just didn’t fit.
“That,” I said, “is fantastic! I am so glad!”
He was glad, too. His voice had a lift to it I hadn’t heard since before the stroke. “Oh this is swell,” he said then. “I’m back in action. No handicap at all! But I’m not signing up to drive on the highway or anything,” he said, pausing. “Not right now. But if I want to drive down to the store, or down the road to my friend’s house, I can do it! And Mom doesn’t have to drive me anymore. She’s been having to pack me around everywhere…” Which was, I understood as he let the conversation trail off, what had most bothered him.
There’s never been a question, really, of who the alpha dog was in that household. If I had a dime for every road trip they’d taken together in over thirty-six years, and a nickel for every mile they’d traveled in a vehicle, I certainly wouldn’t be working right now. The ability to get up and go had always been important to him, and had been one of the reasons he’d found some enjoyment in the last hectic years of his auditing career when the oil company had him one month in Hawaii, one month in Alaska, the next month in Nigeria, and after that in Canada, Kansas City, or the wrong end of Texas. I remembered all the plaques on the wall of the den recognizing the miles he’d traveled for his job, year after year being acknowledged “Road Warrior of the Year” and although he’d grumble about the airports, the hotel food, and the loneliness of it, you knew he was also proud of it. To hear the relief in his voice that he could do something as simple as drive down the road for a quart of ice-cream again was touching. He sounded as giddy as a clumsy school kid who’d just been picked first for the softball team.
Now I have to be honest and admit my first reaction following that call was to be relieved and incredibly happy for him. It was only after I got back to my office and really considered the ramifications that I wondered if being able to drive meant being able to drive anything, or if he’d be somewhat selective. My parents have too many vehicles for just two people. They have a new Subaru wagon, a new Diesel truck, a vintage convertible, an antique corvette, an antique Packard, and another car from somewhere in the forties of which I have a picture at home but off the top of my head I’m not sure what the make of it is. Suddenly, like any over-concerned daughter I wanted to call him back and admonish him not to attempt to drive anything other than the Subaru wagon, the smallest option of all their vehicles and surely one of the few with actual air bags. I wanted him to perhaps not do this driving until spring, when the snow had gone. I wanted to especially remind him not to drive anywhere just to be driving, but to drive if he had somewhere to be or something to do, as there was no sense rushing right into this whole thing and taking on too much at once. I wondered if that physical therapist really knew her stuff, or if she was rushing his recovery. Finally, as I opened a file on my desk and attempted to yank my brain back into the Now and out of the worry mode, I wanted to insure he was securely wrapped in bubble wrap before he got behind the wheel of anything, just in case the air bag wasn’t as good as the manufacturer’s warranty claimed it was and heaven forbid he needed it.
It was at that moment that I had what Oprah calls an ‘Aha’ moment, because what I thought about then were all the times Dad had sent me or any of his kids off somewhere, and how he’d make sure we had a few bucks in our pocket (“You always need some walking around money,” as he put it) and he knew exactly where we’d be and when we’d be home. I remembered all those times I’d be babysitting down the street and the doorbell would ring. There on the porch of whatever house I was earning $1 an hour in watching some toddler would be my dad, holding a Mealamac plate wrapped in Reynold’s Wrap. “Meals on wheels,” he’d announce, and there would be the dinner I would have had at home if I’d been home. I realized in that moment why he did all of that, and how he, like me now, wanted to do everything he could to ensure nothing happened to one of his kids.
And yet life does what it does, and I’m sure at every turn he had to realize you really have no control, and I think I realize that now, too. I think he realized it for the first time in 1969, when I fell off the deck and cracked my head. And again in 1975 when my sister was hit by a car when we were on a bike ride. And again in the early nineties, when my brother was mugged and turned up in a Berkeley hospital as a John Doe with permanent hearing loss in his right ear. I think he realized that sometimes you have to let go. You have to realize you’re only human, and life is going to do what it’s going to do regardless of anything you do.
So having realized that, I’m not going to tell him what he can and can’t drive, and I’m not going to remind him that snow is slippery to drive on, and I’m also not going to advise bubble wrap as a sensible secondary safety initiative in a vehicle. I realize I’m only human. I realize I’m not in charge of this.
I also realize this is my dad I’m talking about. So I may just wait a bit and then call Mom and ask if there’s any way she can temporarily ‘lose track of’ keys to any vehicle other than the Subaru wagon until the Road Warrior gets a little stronger.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
New Study Shows: Pizza Consumption Doubles When Teenagers Start Dating
Owen’s son is having his first real ‘relationship’ and as he’s 17 years old, that’s probably a good thing. A good thing so long as he keeps his hands in plain sight at all times and doesn’t get so distracted by a girl that he takes the focus off school, grades, and his sports interests. So far, it’s been working out well. He seems enamored enough of this particular cheerleader, but he’s still uber-focused on softball and (like father, like son) weekly skiing, racquetball, and golf. In other words, he seems to have his head on straight about the whole thing and hasn’t gone so far off the deep end that he’d rather sit around mooning about a girl than reading the latest Sports Illustrated.
This is a good thing. As Owen put it, it’s time for his son to move into this phase of his life, and while I often tease him about, ‘It’s eight o’clock, do you know where your son is?’, he handles it well.
“Baseball,” he replied the other night.
“Oh, really? In the dark?”
“It’s an indoor baseball field, I’ve been there and seen it myself.”
“Hmmm….but…I mean, are you sure?”
World weary sigh, and then, “Let’s put it this way. He wouldn’t put a cup on to go see a girl.”
I couldn’t argue with that one.
Now that Parker has entered this more adult, more independent stage of his life, it’s made life a little more interesting for his dad. Owen’s life has basically gone from driving his son to various places and events every day to being driven by his son to various places and events, now that he’s got that all important learner’s permit. I suppose the next step is a car, and it’s inevitable, it’s just not happening yet. But I’m pretty sure it’s not too far off, because for the first time, I’m hearing Owen comment that it’s probably time he got a new car himself.
“And this one would go to Parker,” I said.
“Of course.”
“But not for a while,” I observed. “I mean, it’s just me but I’m not sure he’s ready for a girl AND a car. I mean, not a car with any kind of back seat or anything.”
For that one I got ‘the look’, but it’s ok. It’s OK because ‘the look’ is and always has been Owen’s way of telling me without saying a word that he was thinking the same thing, he just wasn’t ready to verbalize it yet. “I’m still,” he said, “treating this as a learning experience. It’s important to me that he understands relationships can be wonderful, but they’re a lot of work, and there’s a lot more to them than….”
“Than backseats,” I finished for him, and got ‘the look’ again. To which I could only nod in sympathy and think to myself the fact that I’ve never had to parent a teenager really hasn’t been that terrible of a thing. I’m not sure I could stand that kind of stress and worry. I have a tough enough time watching Basil get older.
My personal opinion is that Parker is a good kid and he’s certainly had a pretty solid foundation put out there for him his entire life. He’s never had time to get distracted by alcohol, drugs, and the other diversions that can take a kid off track, probably because he’s been in skis and golfing since he was something like two or three years old. He’s made a few mistakes but he’s learned from them very quickly and certainly never made them twice. Like his dad he’s very competitive, but he’s also a very courteous guy. I think he’s far more considerate than he’d admit to being because it’s just not cool, when you’re 17, to admit that. So I think he’s going to come out of this whole thing just fine, although the fact that he’s got an independent, and perhaps even a romantic, life away from home has changed the parameters of the time I spend with his dad.
In short, his dad spends a lot more time at my house. Number one, I have the better cable and finally a very nice television. Number two, my house is a refuge from the always-unscheduled, semi-irritating bouts of teenage angst and non-communication you can be subjected to when you share a roof with a seventeen year old. By comparison, the antics of my two cats and one ridiculously spoiled dog seem almost soothing by comparison. Number three, being at my house is one of the few times Owen can spend any amount of time and not be worrying or otherwise occupied with being a single parent and I think he appreciates that.
My take on it is, if Parker is going off into the world and entering the angst of dating, etc., I think it’s a great time for his dad to keep his own private life private. So it’s better if I don’t spend much time at their house. This also keeps me from having to answer embarrassing questions, an embarrassing question being any question Parker might ask me about relationships. Usually, this works out well. Sometimes it works out strangely, as it did a few Saturdays ago. Parker was out on a ‘date’, due home at eleven. Owen was on my couch, trying to figure out how to operate my DVR and watching episodes I’d recorded of both Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’d ordered two pepperoni pizzas earlier, mainly to use the yet another ‘Dominos MVP’ card I’d received in the mail, and also because you could put a filet mignon in front of Owen and a pepperoni pizza in front of Owen and the pepperoni pizza would be his choice. It was also time I’d reciprocated on buying dinner, although Dominos was hardly a fair trade as opposed to, say, seafood and cocktails at Market Street.
I suppose it was that second episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that made us both forget the time because it was just short of eleven when it ended so Owen hurriedly grabbed his jacket, both pizza boxes, and went out the door. As it turned out, he pulled up to his house just as a car was dropping off Parker, who did a double take when he saw his dad was also just getting home.
“Where have you been?” he asked, expressing his shock that anybody over seventeen might actually have somewhere to be on a Saturday night.
“What do you mean?” Owen held out the pizza boxes. “I was out getting dinner for you.”
This was accepted as logical and sensible in a way it could only be accepted as logical and sensible when heard by someone seventeen years old and too caught up in their own world to really consider anyone else’s. It was quick thinking on Owen’s part, and the kind of quick thinking he’s going to need as the next few years go on, I’m sure. I’m sure because Parker is very nearly a clone of his father, a veritable ‘mini me’ albeit just a shade taller than his dad’s 6’. You can see a bit of his Mom in his eyes but his mannerisms, coloring, sense of humor and overall personality are strictly from Owen. Along with, I have to add, a smile that could melt butter at twelve feet. All of which combined tell me Owen’s going to have his hands full with Parker and all his ‘learning experiences with relationships’ because I wasn’t the only female in the valley who developed a grown woman crush when his dad was flashing the same smile on the TV screen during the sports section of the local evening news broadcast and as I said, they’re very much alike.
Sometimes, all I can offer by way of support is a comment that at least he didn’t have a daughter. Imagine how tough that would be. And at least he hadn’t had two kids and the second was a daughter, because if one teenager was this challenging, imagine worrying over two, especially if the second was a willowy brown-eyed teenaged girl with a winsome smile. Of course I get ‘the look’ again for that, but that’s OK. They’ll both survive the whole thing, I’m sure. And in the meantime, I get to use up all those Dominos MVP coupons, and finally take the time to watch all those programs I’ve recorded.
This is a good thing. As Owen put it, it’s time for his son to move into this phase of his life, and while I often tease him about, ‘It’s eight o’clock, do you know where your son is?’, he handles it well.
“Baseball,” he replied the other night.
“Oh, really? In the dark?”
“It’s an indoor baseball field, I’ve been there and seen it myself.”
“Hmmm….but…I mean, are you sure?”
World weary sigh, and then, “Let’s put it this way. He wouldn’t put a cup on to go see a girl.”
I couldn’t argue with that one.
Now that Parker has entered this more adult, more independent stage of his life, it’s made life a little more interesting for his dad. Owen’s life has basically gone from driving his son to various places and events every day to being driven by his son to various places and events, now that he’s got that all important learner’s permit. I suppose the next step is a car, and it’s inevitable, it’s just not happening yet. But I’m pretty sure it’s not too far off, because for the first time, I’m hearing Owen comment that it’s probably time he got a new car himself.
“And this one would go to Parker,” I said.
“Of course.”
“But not for a while,” I observed. “I mean, it’s just me but I’m not sure he’s ready for a girl AND a car. I mean, not a car with any kind of back seat or anything.”
For that one I got ‘the look’, but it’s ok. It’s OK because ‘the look’ is and always has been Owen’s way of telling me without saying a word that he was thinking the same thing, he just wasn’t ready to verbalize it yet. “I’m still,” he said, “treating this as a learning experience. It’s important to me that he understands relationships can be wonderful, but they’re a lot of work, and there’s a lot more to them than….”
“Than backseats,” I finished for him, and got ‘the look’ again. To which I could only nod in sympathy and think to myself the fact that I’ve never had to parent a teenager really hasn’t been that terrible of a thing. I’m not sure I could stand that kind of stress and worry. I have a tough enough time watching Basil get older.
My personal opinion is that Parker is a good kid and he’s certainly had a pretty solid foundation put out there for him his entire life. He’s never had time to get distracted by alcohol, drugs, and the other diversions that can take a kid off track, probably because he’s been in skis and golfing since he was something like two or three years old. He’s made a few mistakes but he’s learned from them very quickly and certainly never made them twice. Like his dad he’s very competitive, but he’s also a very courteous guy. I think he’s far more considerate than he’d admit to being because it’s just not cool, when you’re 17, to admit that. So I think he’s going to come out of this whole thing just fine, although the fact that he’s got an independent, and perhaps even a romantic, life away from home has changed the parameters of the time I spend with his dad.
In short, his dad spends a lot more time at my house. Number one, I have the better cable and finally a very nice television. Number two, my house is a refuge from the always-unscheduled, semi-irritating bouts of teenage angst and non-communication you can be subjected to when you share a roof with a seventeen year old. By comparison, the antics of my two cats and one ridiculously spoiled dog seem almost soothing by comparison. Number three, being at my house is one of the few times Owen can spend any amount of time and not be worrying or otherwise occupied with being a single parent and I think he appreciates that.
My take on it is, if Parker is going off into the world and entering the angst of dating, etc., I think it’s a great time for his dad to keep his own private life private. So it’s better if I don’t spend much time at their house. This also keeps me from having to answer embarrassing questions, an embarrassing question being any question Parker might ask me about relationships. Usually, this works out well. Sometimes it works out strangely, as it did a few Saturdays ago. Parker was out on a ‘date’, due home at eleven. Owen was on my couch, trying to figure out how to operate my DVR and watching episodes I’d recorded of both Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’d ordered two pepperoni pizzas earlier, mainly to use the yet another ‘Dominos MVP’ card I’d received in the mail, and also because you could put a filet mignon in front of Owen and a pepperoni pizza in front of Owen and the pepperoni pizza would be his choice. It was also time I’d reciprocated on buying dinner, although Dominos was hardly a fair trade as opposed to, say, seafood and cocktails at Market Street.
I suppose it was that second episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that made us both forget the time because it was just short of eleven when it ended so Owen hurriedly grabbed his jacket, both pizza boxes, and went out the door. As it turned out, he pulled up to his house just as a car was dropping off Parker, who did a double take when he saw his dad was also just getting home.
“Where have you been?” he asked, expressing his shock that anybody over seventeen might actually have somewhere to be on a Saturday night.
“What do you mean?” Owen held out the pizza boxes. “I was out getting dinner for you.”
This was accepted as logical and sensible in a way it could only be accepted as logical and sensible when heard by someone seventeen years old and too caught up in their own world to really consider anyone else’s. It was quick thinking on Owen’s part, and the kind of quick thinking he’s going to need as the next few years go on, I’m sure. I’m sure because Parker is very nearly a clone of his father, a veritable ‘mini me’ albeit just a shade taller than his dad’s 6’. You can see a bit of his Mom in his eyes but his mannerisms, coloring, sense of humor and overall personality are strictly from Owen. Along with, I have to add, a smile that could melt butter at twelve feet. All of which combined tell me Owen’s going to have his hands full with Parker and all his ‘learning experiences with relationships’ because I wasn’t the only female in the valley who developed a grown woman crush when his dad was flashing the same smile on the TV screen during the sports section of the local evening news broadcast and as I said, they’re very much alike.
Sometimes, all I can offer by way of support is a comment that at least he didn’t have a daughter. Imagine how tough that would be. And at least he hadn’t had two kids and the second was a daughter, because if one teenager was this challenging, imagine worrying over two, especially if the second was a willowy brown-eyed teenaged girl with a winsome smile. Of course I get ‘the look’ again for that, but that’s OK. They’ll both survive the whole thing, I’m sure. And in the meantime, I get to use up all those Dominos MVP coupons, and finally take the time to watch all those programs I’ve recorded.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Temporarily Out Of Touch: The Blonde Moment
Let’s just say it was a blonde moment that went on all evening long.
We pulled into valet parking at The New Yorker at 5:00pm as I silently debated over whether or not to bring my purse inside. We were headed into one of those Business After Hours Chamber of Commerce networking events (Translation: Use your free drink tickets, hand out a business card or two, and go home) where your time is spent standing unless you’re fortunate enough to get a table while one is still available. Carrying a purse or a coat is cumbersome as within a half hour or so of the event’s start it’s standing room only and elbow-to-elbow until it’s over. It should be noted that I don’t enjoy these types of events and avoid them where possible. It’s just that this year, my boss decided our goals (goals are important as when you have your annual review, you’d like to have at least one or two things to point to as real accomplishments after so many years of doing the same thing) were to include attendance at one seminar related to work and a minimum of one social networking event outside of regular work hours. That’s how I’d found myself at a Zig Ziglar seminar with Diane for an entire afternoon in November, and mingling my way through an “It’s A Wonderful Life”-themed networking event in December. Technically I could have said my goals were achieved, but when Owen invited me to this one if for no other reason than to see the restaurant and try the food, I thought one more couldn’t hurt.
“Do I get points for this?” I asked Liz after printing Owen’s email with details about the event, “because if it counts, I’d like to go.”
She looked at it for only a moment. “It’s networking, it’s a chamber event….sure. That counts.” And that’s how I found myself standing outside The New Yorker debating with myself over a purse.
“Just leave it,” Owen advised, holding open the back door of his car. “I’ll throw my coat over it.”
I hesitated, then decided against it. “They’re not responsible for anything left in the car,” I said, not sure if that was true or not and not wanting to say anything to offend the valet, who looked perfectly trustworthy and was patiently waiting for the keys. “I’ll take it in,” I said. “It’ will give me somewhere to put my phone.”
It was still in my hand and had been since I left my office. I dropped it into my purse, we headed inside, and the blonde moment began.
As far as those events go, it was enjoyable. Claire and Meg were already there and we wound up getting a table by the windows in front. We were each handed our two complimentary drink tickets. “Good for beer or wine,” the perky brunette at the registration desk announced. “If you need hard liquor, you’ll have to pay for it.”
“If you need it?” Owen observed drily, and I poked him with my elbow.
“That’s OK,” I assured the brunette. “It hasn’t been that tough of a day.”
Once Owen slipped the waiter a couple bucks (“Nobody’s tipping,” he said. “No wonder they’re slow with the service”) we had his complete attention and nodding and smiling at people I vaguely remembered from one program, event or meeting over the past nearly eight years became a lot easier. I even found myself enthusiastically agreeing with a gentlemen who was recounting that ‘great meeting we had in your office just three months ago, about that October program’ when in actuality I was convinced we’d never met in my life. Somehow, when you’re surrounded by a thousand conversations, what feels like a thousand people, and a table full of shrimp and tiny meatballs, little details like sincerity somehow fall by the way side.
Claire and Meg left early, leaving Owen and I alone at the table but only very briefly. We were soon joined by a saleswoman from a local hotel, one of Owen’s golf buddies, and two sales reps from a temporary employment service who’d done business with Owen for years, staffing his winter and summer retailer shows. The saleswoman and I connected immediately. However it came about, conversation turned to where we lived, and I said I’d bought my place during my divorce. I suppose the ‘D’ word was what made the connection. She was divorced as well, had no interest in getting married again, really enjoyed her life, and after about twenty minutes along these lines we exchanged cards and decided we should get together socially very soon. By the time she left the golf buddy had departed (but not without quietly patting Owen on the back, thereby affixing his stick on name tag to the back of his jacket. “There’s a sign on your back,” I told him when the golf buddy was out of hearing range. “I know,” he said. “So long as it doesn’t say ‘kick me’ I’m fine with it.”) and we were left with the ladies from the temporary agency. A half hour or so later and another half glass of Chardonnay and we left them with our unused drink tickets, Owen begging off with an evening meeting with his son’s softball coach.
“Well that was fun,” I said as we pulled into the lot. I opened my purse then and rummaged for some lipstick, “and my goals are completed. Even better.”
After dropping me at my car, Owen left for his meeting and I drove home. I dropped my purse on the desk, gave Basil a hug, quickly changed clothes and took her out for her walk. It was only when I returned that I realized I should take my phone out of my purse and put it on the charger. The only problem with that it wasn’t in my purse. I actually took everything out of my purse and laid it on the counter and the phone wasn’t there.
There are a few things in life that completely unsettle me and for whatever reason, one of those things is losing my phone. I’ve had terrible luck with phones over the past few years, having inadvertently dropped one in a toilet, one in a swimming pool, and having had a Blackberry go out on me completely, relegated to doing nothing but making buzzing noises while the track ball moved around the screen randomly on its own. This last had happened only a month or so earlier and now it seemed it’s replacement had been lost. Which meant I’d have to go to work the next day and throw myself on Holly’s mercy, explaining what I couldn’t explain myself – that my phone had vaporized at some point during the night while it was inside my purse.
I’d opened my purse exactly twice. Once to get business cards, and once in Owen’s car. It had to have fallen out during one of those times.
The new neighbor across the hall let me use her phone to call Owen. He checked his car, and it wasn’t there. My neighbor suggested I call my phone with her phone, and I did. “Do you hear yours ringing?” she asked, and I didn’t. Of course, the fact that I was standing in the foyer between our apartments, calling my phone against the background noise of her television and my stereo probably made this one of the bigger blonde moments of my life. “No,” I said, and thanked her for use of her phone, resigning myself to the fact that mine was lost for good.
It was only by telling myself it could be so much worse (it could have been my car keys, my debit card, my entire wallet) that I was able to pretty much put it out of my mind, and get some sleep. I found not having emails to check throughout the evening wasn’t all that bad, and neither was missing a few phone calls. Waking up to my regular alarm instead of the cell phone alarm wasn’t terrible either, and I’d almost convinced myself I could probably do without a phone altogether, but only until I got to the office and realized it was time to go see Holly and let her know I’d had another round of bad phone karma and needed yet another replacement.
She wasn’t at her desk, so I returned to my office, thinking about my phone. Wondering who had it, wondering if it would have a good life with this new person, wondering if I had any embarrassing text messages saved on it and hoping not. I missed my phone and I entertained the ridiculous notion that maybe if I called it one more time, whoever had it would actually answer. So I dialed, and on the second ring, I heard it.
Faintly, yes – but insistently, softly ringing from somewhere close by….somewhere under my desk…somewhere…inside my purse. Feeling like a complete idiot, I hung up on myself, retrieved my purse, and stared at it. I’d emptied it the night before. Completely emptied it. And yet, my purse had just been ringing.
I called myself again, unzipped the purse, and located the phone, finally. Wedged way down in the bottom, still in its black leather case, wedged firmly against the black leather compartment built into the purse to ‘keep items organized’. That’s when I realized two things simultaneously: 1) Sometimes I can be a real idiot, and 2) I don’t think my vision is all that it could be up close anymore. That bothered me only briefly, and was soon displaced by my happiness to have my phone once more back in hand.
Of course, calling Owen to let him know I’d found it was more than a little embarrassing. “It was in your purse?” he asked, “the whole time?” Yes, the whole evening, actually. Even the part where, after talking with me, he’d called the restaurant back and sent a waitress not only over to our table but to the valet parking area, thinking I may have dropped it there, then sent me an email, then given way too much thought to hoping I wouldn’t be in a mess at work for losing another phone. In short, he lost more sleep over the whole thing than I did.
Which I feel bad about, I really do. But at least now I can call him, and tell him I’m sorry to have caused the worry.
We pulled into valet parking at The New Yorker at 5:00pm as I silently debated over whether or not to bring my purse inside. We were headed into one of those Business After Hours Chamber of Commerce networking events (Translation: Use your free drink tickets, hand out a business card or two, and go home) where your time is spent standing unless you’re fortunate enough to get a table while one is still available. Carrying a purse or a coat is cumbersome as within a half hour or so of the event’s start it’s standing room only and elbow-to-elbow until it’s over. It should be noted that I don’t enjoy these types of events and avoid them where possible. It’s just that this year, my boss decided our goals (goals are important as when you have your annual review, you’d like to have at least one or two things to point to as real accomplishments after so many years of doing the same thing) were to include attendance at one seminar related to work and a minimum of one social networking event outside of regular work hours. That’s how I’d found myself at a Zig Ziglar seminar with Diane for an entire afternoon in November, and mingling my way through an “It’s A Wonderful Life”-themed networking event in December. Technically I could have said my goals were achieved, but when Owen invited me to this one if for no other reason than to see the restaurant and try the food, I thought one more couldn’t hurt.
“Do I get points for this?” I asked Liz after printing Owen’s email with details about the event, “because if it counts, I’d like to go.”
She looked at it for only a moment. “It’s networking, it’s a chamber event….sure. That counts.” And that’s how I found myself standing outside The New Yorker debating with myself over a purse.
“Just leave it,” Owen advised, holding open the back door of his car. “I’ll throw my coat over it.”
I hesitated, then decided against it. “They’re not responsible for anything left in the car,” I said, not sure if that was true or not and not wanting to say anything to offend the valet, who looked perfectly trustworthy and was patiently waiting for the keys. “I’ll take it in,” I said. “It’ will give me somewhere to put my phone.”
It was still in my hand and had been since I left my office. I dropped it into my purse, we headed inside, and the blonde moment began.
As far as those events go, it was enjoyable. Claire and Meg were already there and we wound up getting a table by the windows in front. We were each handed our two complimentary drink tickets. “Good for beer or wine,” the perky brunette at the registration desk announced. “If you need hard liquor, you’ll have to pay for it.”
“If you need it?” Owen observed drily, and I poked him with my elbow.
“That’s OK,” I assured the brunette. “It hasn’t been that tough of a day.”
Once Owen slipped the waiter a couple bucks (“Nobody’s tipping,” he said. “No wonder they’re slow with the service”) we had his complete attention and nodding and smiling at people I vaguely remembered from one program, event or meeting over the past nearly eight years became a lot easier. I even found myself enthusiastically agreeing with a gentlemen who was recounting that ‘great meeting we had in your office just three months ago, about that October program’ when in actuality I was convinced we’d never met in my life. Somehow, when you’re surrounded by a thousand conversations, what feels like a thousand people, and a table full of shrimp and tiny meatballs, little details like sincerity somehow fall by the way side.
Claire and Meg left early, leaving Owen and I alone at the table but only very briefly. We were soon joined by a saleswoman from a local hotel, one of Owen’s golf buddies, and two sales reps from a temporary employment service who’d done business with Owen for years, staffing his winter and summer retailer shows. The saleswoman and I connected immediately. However it came about, conversation turned to where we lived, and I said I’d bought my place during my divorce. I suppose the ‘D’ word was what made the connection. She was divorced as well, had no interest in getting married again, really enjoyed her life, and after about twenty minutes along these lines we exchanged cards and decided we should get together socially very soon. By the time she left the golf buddy had departed (but not without quietly patting Owen on the back, thereby affixing his stick on name tag to the back of his jacket. “There’s a sign on your back,” I told him when the golf buddy was out of hearing range. “I know,” he said. “So long as it doesn’t say ‘kick me’ I’m fine with it.”) and we were left with the ladies from the temporary agency. A half hour or so later and another half glass of Chardonnay and we left them with our unused drink tickets, Owen begging off with an evening meeting with his son’s softball coach.
“Well that was fun,” I said as we pulled into the lot. I opened my purse then and rummaged for some lipstick, “and my goals are completed. Even better.”
After dropping me at my car, Owen left for his meeting and I drove home. I dropped my purse on the desk, gave Basil a hug, quickly changed clothes and took her out for her walk. It was only when I returned that I realized I should take my phone out of my purse and put it on the charger. The only problem with that it wasn’t in my purse. I actually took everything out of my purse and laid it on the counter and the phone wasn’t there.
There are a few things in life that completely unsettle me and for whatever reason, one of those things is losing my phone. I’ve had terrible luck with phones over the past few years, having inadvertently dropped one in a toilet, one in a swimming pool, and having had a Blackberry go out on me completely, relegated to doing nothing but making buzzing noises while the track ball moved around the screen randomly on its own. This last had happened only a month or so earlier and now it seemed it’s replacement had been lost. Which meant I’d have to go to work the next day and throw myself on Holly’s mercy, explaining what I couldn’t explain myself – that my phone had vaporized at some point during the night while it was inside my purse.
I’d opened my purse exactly twice. Once to get business cards, and once in Owen’s car. It had to have fallen out during one of those times.
The new neighbor across the hall let me use her phone to call Owen. He checked his car, and it wasn’t there. My neighbor suggested I call my phone with her phone, and I did. “Do you hear yours ringing?” she asked, and I didn’t. Of course, the fact that I was standing in the foyer between our apartments, calling my phone against the background noise of her television and my stereo probably made this one of the bigger blonde moments of my life. “No,” I said, and thanked her for use of her phone, resigning myself to the fact that mine was lost for good.
It was only by telling myself it could be so much worse (it could have been my car keys, my debit card, my entire wallet) that I was able to pretty much put it out of my mind, and get some sleep. I found not having emails to check throughout the evening wasn’t all that bad, and neither was missing a few phone calls. Waking up to my regular alarm instead of the cell phone alarm wasn’t terrible either, and I’d almost convinced myself I could probably do without a phone altogether, but only until I got to the office and realized it was time to go see Holly and let her know I’d had another round of bad phone karma and needed yet another replacement.
She wasn’t at her desk, so I returned to my office, thinking about my phone. Wondering who had it, wondering if it would have a good life with this new person, wondering if I had any embarrassing text messages saved on it and hoping not. I missed my phone and I entertained the ridiculous notion that maybe if I called it one more time, whoever had it would actually answer. So I dialed, and on the second ring, I heard it.
Faintly, yes – but insistently, softly ringing from somewhere close by….somewhere under my desk…somewhere…inside my purse. Feeling like a complete idiot, I hung up on myself, retrieved my purse, and stared at it. I’d emptied it the night before. Completely emptied it. And yet, my purse had just been ringing.
I called myself again, unzipped the purse, and located the phone, finally. Wedged way down in the bottom, still in its black leather case, wedged firmly against the black leather compartment built into the purse to ‘keep items organized’. That’s when I realized two things simultaneously: 1) Sometimes I can be a real idiot, and 2) I don’t think my vision is all that it could be up close anymore. That bothered me only briefly, and was soon displaced by my happiness to have my phone once more back in hand.
Of course, calling Owen to let him know I’d found it was more than a little embarrassing. “It was in your purse?” he asked, “the whole time?” Yes, the whole evening, actually. Even the part where, after talking with me, he’d called the restaurant back and sent a waitress not only over to our table but to the valet parking area, thinking I may have dropped it there, then sent me an email, then given way too much thought to hoping I wouldn’t be in a mess at work for losing another phone. In short, he lost more sleep over the whole thing than I did.
Which I feel bad about, I really do. But at least now I can call him, and tell him I’m sorry to have caused the worry.
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