Lunch.
Nearly my favorite of favorite things as it frees me from my desk, my computer, and the client I've been glued to since arriving that morning.
Lunch in our cafeteria is, as Forrest Gump put it so well, exactly like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get but you do know you can always wash whatever it is down with a Diet Coke. Even when you're still wondering later what exactly it was that you got.
Today was no different. I set down my tray and my Diet Coke and as I did, my best friend Holly, setting down her own tray, said, "Ah...you're not drinking Diet Coke -- ?"
I'd planned to but I know that tone. I'd missed something.
"The cancer article," she said. "They found the same stuff in brain cancer that is in Diet Coke."
Ok, that definitely planted a visual in my head that made the thought of drinking it much less attractive.
"Now it's not just the Diet Coke," she went on. "If you read the article, it's everything diet."
"Well good," I said, pushing my drink away, "no more of that then."
And I made a mental note to myself to read the cancer article I'd as yet only skimmed since she sent it.
Keeping up with everything you shouldn't have vs. what you should is daunting enough. At least learning I should remove diet everything simplified the process. Until, that is, the next article came out.
Case in point: Soy milk. Love it. Prefer it over the regular kind. Read Dr. Christine Northrop's book and was so impressed with the miracle properties of soy I seriously considered moving to a remote island somewhere in the Pacific and existing on a diet of nothing more than edamame beans (even if I'd have to have them flown in daily and disregarding the fact that it wasn't necessary to move to an island to implement the dietary change but it did sound like fun). If it was a soy-based product, it was in my pantry.
Then came the day I pulled my soy milk from the office fridge.
"Be careful with that stuff," Diane, who offices next to me, warned. "You're just inviting breast cancer."
She wasn't kidding. She produced a copy of Prevention magazine, and there you go.
So the soy went the way of the caffeine (difficult at first but only in the a.m. and once I learned to blowdry and roll my hair while still completely asleep, it wasn't so bad) all sodium (hereditary high blood pressure), processed flour, and the use of all things aerosol.
And life was good and July arrived and I enjoyed as always my weekends at the pool until Diane reminded me, producing yet another issue of Prevention, that I was setting myself up for skin cancer.
Completely disheartened, I asked my doctor, at that year's physical, where she stood on soy.
"There are such benefits!" she said, and listed just about every one I'd already heard about, adding a half dozen more. "And there are risks," she said, and shrugged. "It's like with anything, you weigh the risks and the benefits and you make choices."
She should write for Prevention.
Still, I stayed the course as best I could but honestly, if I couldn't have caffeine and if it were truly toxic to your liver to take more than one B-complex daily in addition to a multiple vitamin, something had to give. Sooner or later, I thought, I'm going in for that Diet Coke.
But then I thought about Holly. I'd never get away with it. She's so intuitive, and she'd get it out of me somehow. I think, having told her no more Diet Coke for me, she'd know it if I even thought about having one. She'd ask me, at some point, "So, you haven't had a Diet Coke?" and if I had and tried to lie, she'd reveal the lie before I'd even finished saying, "Me? No! Absolutely no..."
Getting through life without keeling over from eating the wrong things should not be this hard.
I think tomorrow I'm going to petition management to extend our restaurant license to the cafeteria in the best interests of all employees, and expand on the beverage services. Let's rip out the Diet Coke tap and put in a wine cooler, stocked with red only, of course.
It's very good for you. The cancer article even said so.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Definition of Wow
When I was growing up there was a great TV program called Candid Camera. Unsuspecting People would be set up for semi-surreal situations and inevitably, at the point where these people were not sure themselves whether or not they'd just fallen down a rabbit hole, the announcer would intone, "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!"
They'd suddenly thus understand how they'd found themselves in such unexpected situations.
Last night I had a dinner date with someone I met on that site aforementioned. We'd been exchanging emails for four days and had talked on the phone and I'd be lying if I said looking forward to meeting him wasn't something I'd been doing since...well, since I'd read his profile. Yet at the back of my mind the Realist came to life and I reflected briefly over my past experiences with that site.
They didn't exactly result in any second dates, and that was my choice.
If you don't connect, you don't connect.
I hate to admit it but hopeless romantic or not there was a part of me that was beginning to suspect that feeling of meeting someone and 'just knowing', that spending five minutes with someone and having it feel like you had always been meant to spend time with them, was an experience only doled out by the universe one to a person, and I'd already had mine.
It had appeared unanticipated that four a.m. rain-sodden morning (is there any other kind?) in Seattle, Washington when I spied Brent Babcock across the lobby of a very vacant Amtrak station. We were married two weeks shy of twelve months later and even when it ended after thirteen years together and two years legally separated, all things considered to have had that feeling made it time well spent.
Even looking very forward to meeting this person, I was completely taken by surprise because we hadn't been seated at our table that long, we hadn't exchanged that many words, I don't think we'd even ordered an entree, and completely unexpectedly, it began to feel very much like a very rainy four a.m. in Seattle.
And it rained all through dinner and it poured when I looked in his eyes and especially when he walked me to my car in a downpour and kissed me goodnight.
I never kiss on the first date.
Never.
And there I was, never having felt so right both being kissed and kissing back and -- I'm positive of it--messing up his excellent hair because I couldn't keep my hands out of it.
Wow.
That's about the extent of my communicative abilities today and has been my most coherent comment when asked by any of my friends how the date went. Seemed sufficient enough when coupled with the look on my face but I did expand on it once. This is all I could come up with:
"Wow. It's a three letter English word for 'incredible', 'amazing', '...didn't see that one coming', 'Oh my gosh,' and 'hot damn!', respectively.
That seemed explanation enough.
I wasn't home five minutes when the doorbell rang and there was Lainie without even a hello, sizing me up I'm sure.
"Oh. My. God," she said.
"Yep."
Basil and I edged past her and she followed us around on a short but necessary pre-bed walk.
"So what's he like?"
I tried, you know, to say something. Just like I tried again and again and for some reason I will never understand (that's not true. I understand perfectly well. Blame it on the rain), the ability to form sentences, conjugate simple verbs and enunciate at all had left me.
Lainie stared for a minute, fished a Marlboro from her jacket pocket, and laughed as she lit it.
"Well damn," she finally managed, "Good for you!"
I am ever grateful Basil is not one of those companion animals who require witty repartee because I didn't have any to offer. I was too busy reliving the evening in my head if you want to know the truth and I'm sure that explains why, when I showered and reached for the hair conditioner later what I actually applied was the shampoo -- again.
I went to bed and fell asleep still reliving the evening in my mind, happy to rewind over every detail.
Very happy to note that at no point did an announcer's voice shatter the idyll, announcing my presence on Candid Camera.
I can't swear to it, but the last thing I heard before falling asleep was a distinct, "Wow!"
Could have been me.
Could have been Basil.
Could have just been the universe.
They'd suddenly thus understand how they'd found themselves in such unexpected situations.
Last night I had a dinner date with someone I met on that site aforementioned. We'd been exchanging emails for four days and had talked on the phone and I'd be lying if I said looking forward to meeting him wasn't something I'd been doing since...well, since I'd read his profile. Yet at the back of my mind the Realist came to life and I reflected briefly over my past experiences with that site.
They didn't exactly result in any second dates, and that was my choice.
If you don't connect, you don't connect.
I hate to admit it but hopeless romantic or not there was a part of me that was beginning to suspect that feeling of meeting someone and 'just knowing', that spending five minutes with someone and having it feel like you had always been meant to spend time with them, was an experience only doled out by the universe one to a person, and I'd already had mine.
It had appeared unanticipated that four a.m. rain-sodden morning (is there any other kind?) in Seattle, Washington when I spied Brent Babcock across the lobby of a very vacant Amtrak station. We were married two weeks shy of twelve months later and even when it ended after thirteen years together and two years legally separated, all things considered to have had that feeling made it time well spent.
Even looking very forward to meeting this person, I was completely taken by surprise because we hadn't been seated at our table that long, we hadn't exchanged that many words, I don't think we'd even ordered an entree, and completely unexpectedly, it began to feel very much like a very rainy four a.m. in Seattle.
And it rained all through dinner and it poured when I looked in his eyes and especially when he walked me to my car in a downpour and kissed me goodnight.
I never kiss on the first date.
Never.
And there I was, never having felt so right both being kissed and kissing back and -- I'm positive of it--messing up his excellent hair because I couldn't keep my hands out of it.
Wow.
That's about the extent of my communicative abilities today and has been my most coherent comment when asked by any of my friends how the date went. Seemed sufficient enough when coupled with the look on my face but I did expand on it once. This is all I could come up with:
"Wow. It's a three letter English word for 'incredible', 'amazing', '...didn't see that one coming', 'Oh my gosh,' and 'hot damn!', respectively.
That seemed explanation enough.
I wasn't home five minutes when the doorbell rang and there was Lainie without even a hello, sizing me up I'm sure.
"Oh. My. God," she said.
"Yep."
Basil and I edged past her and she followed us around on a short but necessary pre-bed walk.
"So what's he like?"
I tried, you know, to say something. Just like I tried again and again and for some reason I will never understand (that's not true. I understand perfectly well. Blame it on the rain), the ability to form sentences, conjugate simple verbs and enunciate at all had left me.
Lainie stared for a minute, fished a Marlboro from her jacket pocket, and laughed as she lit it.
"Well damn," she finally managed, "Good for you!"
I am ever grateful Basil is not one of those companion animals who require witty repartee because I didn't have any to offer. I was too busy reliving the evening in my head if you want to know the truth and I'm sure that explains why, when I showered and reached for the hair conditioner later what I actually applied was the shampoo -- again.
I went to bed and fell asleep still reliving the evening in my mind, happy to rewind over every detail.
Very happy to note that at no point did an announcer's voice shatter the idyll, announcing my presence on Candid Camera.
I can't swear to it, but the last thing I heard before falling asleep was a distinct, "Wow!"
Could have been me.
Could have been Basil.
Could have just been the universe.
Giving My Own Judgement Another Chance
For those unfamiliar with my piece of the cyber universe here into which I regularly cast my observations, musings and the occasional coherent thought, allow me to bring you current.
I have had a series of regrettable first dates brought about by my lising myself on match.com. I was hesitant. It was my ex-husband who insisted I try it. "You have a lot to offer," he said, "and you won't meet them sitting at home. Get out there and keep your social skills sharp." Well who could argue with that? He made it sound more like attending a seminar than actual dating.
Once listed, the website did what it does: Suggested a few matches (um, no thanks) and made it possible for other people on the site to see my profile and email if interested in getting to know me.
An email, I naively thought, says a great deal about a person. So blindly trusting my own judgement (note to self: not always the best game plan) I proceeded to date.
The first two experiences were brutal. Nowhere in my email exchanges with Bachelor #1 did he even hint at being still so enamored of his ex-wife that the mere act of waking every morning was almost too painful to be borne. No, this minor detail was withheld until we were not halfway through dinner and he was blinking back man crocodile tears and attempting to form a complete sentence without his voice breaking (wasn't happening. His voice had other, very broken plans). I wound up spending almost two hours counseling him as best I could on how to win her back and insisted on picking up the check.
Bachelor #2, so positive in his emails and chipper on the phone, was a complete black cloud in person. Here he was, he said, on a dating site. How pathetic was he? No more so, I thought but didn't say, than your date, except I saw nothing pathetic about it.
Bachelor #3 had posted pictures that were twelve years old. If he'd had any hair left -- which he did not -- it would have been as gray as I felt when we met outside the restaurant.
Bachelors #4 and #5 were not even five feet six, a deal breaker because they'd claimed to be 6' 2". Bachelor #6 assumed splitting the check implied rights to follow me home (I hadn't even wanted him to walk me to the parking garage) and Bachelor #7 was nice enough.
We had a companionable hour together having a drink after work and OK, even if he was one foot three inches taller than my 5' 2" (yes, the universe has a sense of humor at me for disregarding the short guys), it was pleasant enough and I would have seen him again except for one thing.
I felt no connection.
I'm huge about connections. Not the best at describing them in detail but I know when I feel one.
And I just hadn't.
Only somewhat discouraged (it is not in my nature -- ever -- to be anything more than somewhat discouraged. There's always a different way to look at things), I retreated into my weekend determined to regroup, so to speak, and indulge in my own odd but effective restorative therapy. Don't try this at home but here goes:
I refinished a chair in antique white;
I made a pot roast in the slow cooker;
I broke out the Cuisinart and made salsa;
I finished reading that very heavy Norman Mailer novel and buzzed through two Dave Barry's to purge my brain;
I walked the dog several times;
I put on mismatched sweats, donned a baseball cap and pulled my hair into a ponytail, watched two chick flicks on HBO, one Lifetime movie, and two episodes of HGTV's Design On A Dime.
Life immediately looked better and after a good night's sleep I returned to the computer, conducting my own search and was bold enough to send an electronic wink to someone who intrigued me with what I thought (OK, so there I went thinking again but I'm giving my judgement another chance) was a great, sensitive, honest profile.
It was only when I delved further into his profile and noted his astrology sign that I forgave Cosmic Cupid for all the previous disastrous dates.
He was a Gemini.
Like me.
Not to put too much on astrology, but there has never been a Gemini I didn't connect with. My most long standing girlfriends are Geminis -- we're the only people who can keep up with us. Because a Gemini is forever thinking, dreaming, designing, imagining, creating, and generally always, always talking.
Cupid only once blessed me with a Gemini romance. Back when I was twenty-two and my heart could stand it.
We emailed throughout the weekend. He was as intriguing, and genuinely nice, on the phone as via email.
I am meeting him for dinner this evening. I am hopeful -- because that's just the way I am -- that in person nothing changes.
That ridiculous Tom Cruise movie (and aren't they all ridiculous?) had a line in it that said, "You had me at hello." This profile had me the same way and very intrigued where it said, "I don't need another person to be happy, but I would like to find that special someone to share life with and possibly grow old with, even if I haven't gotten it right up until now."
My thoughts exactly.
I have had a series of regrettable first dates brought about by my lising myself on match.com. I was hesitant. It was my ex-husband who insisted I try it. "You have a lot to offer," he said, "and you won't meet them sitting at home. Get out there and keep your social skills sharp." Well who could argue with that? He made it sound more like attending a seminar than actual dating.
Once listed, the website did what it does: Suggested a few matches (um, no thanks) and made it possible for other people on the site to see my profile and email if interested in getting to know me.
An email, I naively thought, says a great deal about a person. So blindly trusting my own judgement (note to self: not always the best game plan) I proceeded to date.
The first two experiences were brutal. Nowhere in my email exchanges with Bachelor #1 did he even hint at being still so enamored of his ex-wife that the mere act of waking every morning was almost too painful to be borne. No, this minor detail was withheld until we were not halfway through dinner and he was blinking back man crocodile tears and attempting to form a complete sentence without his voice breaking (wasn't happening. His voice had other, very broken plans). I wound up spending almost two hours counseling him as best I could on how to win her back and insisted on picking up the check.
Bachelor #2, so positive in his emails and chipper on the phone, was a complete black cloud in person. Here he was, he said, on a dating site. How pathetic was he? No more so, I thought but didn't say, than your date, except I saw nothing pathetic about it.
Bachelor #3 had posted pictures that were twelve years old. If he'd had any hair left -- which he did not -- it would have been as gray as I felt when we met outside the restaurant.
Bachelors #4 and #5 were not even five feet six, a deal breaker because they'd claimed to be 6' 2". Bachelor #6 assumed splitting the check implied rights to follow me home (I hadn't even wanted him to walk me to the parking garage) and Bachelor #7 was nice enough.
We had a companionable hour together having a drink after work and OK, even if he was one foot three inches taller than my 5' 2" (yes, the universe has a sense of humor at me for disregarding the short guys), it was pleasant enough and I would have seen him again except for one thing.
I felt no connection.
I'm huge about connections. Not the best at describing them in detail but I know when I feel one.
And I just hadn't.
Only somewhat discouraged (it is not in my nature -- ever -- to be anything more than somewhat discouraged. There's always a different way to look at things), I retreated into my weekend determined to regroup, so to speak, and indulge in my own odd but effective restorative therapy. Don't try this at home but here goes:
I refinished a chair in antique white;
I made a pot roast in the slow cooker;
I broke out the Cuisinart and made salsa;
I finished reading that very heavy Norman Mailer novel and buzzed through two Dave Barry's to purge my brain;
I walked the dog several times;
I put on mismatched sweats, donned a baseball cap and pulled my hair into a ponytail, watched two chick flicks on HBO, one Lifetime movie, and two episodes of HGTV's Design On A Dime.
Life immediately looked better and after a good night's sleep I returned to the computer, conducting my own search and was bold enough to send an electronic wink to someone who intrigued me with what I thought (OK, so there I went thinking again but I'm giving my judgement another chance) was a great, sensitive, honest profile.
It was only when I delved further into his profile and noted his astrology sign that I forgave Cosmic Cupid for all the previous disastrous dates.
He was a Gemini.
Like me.
Not to put too much on astrology, but there has never been a Gemini I didn't connect with. My most long standing girlfriends are Geminis -- we're the only people who can keep up with us. Because a Gemini is forever thinking, dreaming, designing, imagining, creating, and generally always, always talking.
Cupid only once blessed me with a Gemini romance. Back when I was twenty-two and my heart could stand it.
We emailed throughout the weekend. He was as intriguing, and genuinely nice, on the phone as via email.
I am meeting him for dinner this evening. I am hopeful -- because that's just the way I am -- that in person nothing changes.
That ridiculous Tom Cruise movie (and aren't they all ridiculous?) had a line in it that said, "You had me at hello." This profile had me the same way and very intrigued where it said, "I don't need another person to be happy, but I would like to find that special someone to share life with and possibly grow old with, even if I haven't gotten it right up until now."
My thoughts exactly.
Monday, April 6, 2009
And I Thought Only Vampires Were Defeated By Garlic
The definition of insanity has been rightfully deemed to be, "doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result."
When it comes to that little jar of garlic in my fridge, I am certifiably insane.
Yesterday, like so many Sundays before it, my slow cooker awaiting the pot roast I'd trudged through snow to obtain and carry home in my earth-friendly reuseable canvas tote (yep, I'm one of those), I extracted the jar from the fridge, determined that today would be the day and that jar would open.
Never mind it never has before.
As I've done an embarrasingly large number of times before, I grasped the lid, applied all the force and determination I had within me, and believed that jar would open. So much so that I would have bet money on it and I never bet money on anything.
I did this, you see, because when it comes to that unopenable jar, I am insane.
The pot roast survived. The jar went back into the fridge and I chopped fresh garlic. Next week, I told myself. Next week it will open.
Now, a non-garlic-insane person, which I'm not, would have simply crossed the hall, rang the bell of the Nice Married Couple Always Happy To Help With Anything At All, and Mr. Nice Married Man would have (happily) opened the jar and never thought anything more about it. That would have been the logical course.
Note that when it comes to matters like these, I am completely illogical. I do not want to be 'that nice single lady in 4B who really could use a man around the place, poor thing'.
I've been this way since I was a kid. Damsels in distress always more or less peeved me. Had I been Rapunzel I'd have tied my hair to the doorknob, done a backflip out the tower window, more or less bungee jumped to within 3' of the ground, whipped a pair of scissors from my pocket, sacrificed a couple feet or so of hair to free myself, and put to rest right then and there the whole, "Oh dear, I'm stuck in a tower" thing. And if Cinderella let her sisters tell her she couldn't go to the ball and they could she needed to toughen up and do what I did with my sisters. Sometimes a simple, "Oh yeah? Well you're not the boss of me!" goes a long way, especially if you consider getting beaten up worthwile in the right circumstances. It sure put the kybash on a lot of Barbie abductions when I was growing up.
So it's that, and it's the fact that I'm stubborn. Some things, I have to ask for help with. The installation of a light fixture, a ceiling fan, and my doorbell, for example. I know myself. Fortunately, I also know someone who knows something about electricity. The only thing I truly understand about electricity is that you pay a bill every month to keep it turned on.
Jars that won't open are an entirely different matter. I refuse to ask for help.
So that jar of garlic is back in the fridge and I remain convinced that next Sunday, perhaps when the planets are aligned differently and the moon has entered a new phase, it will open.
That's my insanity and I'm sticking to it.
When it comes to that little jar of garlic in my fridge, I am certifiably insane.
Yesterday, like so many Sundays before it, my slow cooker awaiting the pot roast I'd trudged through snow to obtain and carry home in my earth-friendly reuseable canvas tote (yep, I'm one of those), I extracted the jar from the fridge, determined that today would be the day and that jar would open.
Never mind it never has before.
As I've done an embarrasingly large number of times before, I grasped the lid, applied all the force and determination I had within me, and believed that jar would open. So much so that I would have bet money on it and I never bet money on anything.
I did this, you see, because when it comes to that unopenable jar, I am insane.
The pot roast survived. The jar went back into the fridge and I chopped fresh garlic. Next week, I told myself. Next week it will open.
Now, a non-garlic-insane person, which I'm not, would have simply crossed the hall, rang the bell of the Nice Married Couple Always Happy To Help With Anything At All, and Mr. Nice Married Man would have (happily) opened the jar and never thought anything more about it. That would have been the logical course.
Note that when it comes to matters like these, I am completely illogical. I do not want to be 'that nice single lady in 4B who really could use a man around the place, poor thing'.
I've been this way since I was a kid. Damsels in distress always more or less peeved me. Had I been Rapunzel I'd have tied my hair to the doorknob, done a backflip out the tower window, more or less bungee jumped to within 3' of the ground, whipped a pair of scissors from my pocket, sacrificed a couple feet or so of hair to free myself, and put to rest right then and there the whole, "Oh dear, I'm stuck in a tower" thing. And if Cinderella let her sisters tell her she couldn't go to the ball and they could she needed to toughen up and do what I did with my sisters. Sometimes a simple, "Oh yeah? Well you're not the boss of me!" goes a long way, especially if you consider getting beaten up worthwile in the right circumstances. It sure put the kybash on a lot of Barbie abductions when I was growing up.
So it's that, and it's the fact that I'm stubborn. Some things, I have to ask for help with. The installation of a light fixture, a ceiling fan, and my doorbell, for example. I know myself. Fortunately, I also know someone who knows something about electricity. The only thing I truly understand about electricity is that you pay a bill every month to keep it turned on.
Jars that won't open are an entirely different matter. I refuse to ask for help.
So that jar of garlic is back in the fridge and I remain convinced that next Sunday, perhaps when the planets are aligned differently and the moon has entered a new phase, it will open.
That's my insanity and I'm sticking to it.
Chopping Down The Family Tree
Between Lifetime movies this weekend I was riveted to ads for a new website called ancestry.com. With a few simple mouse clicks you can uncover your complete geneaology, slice it and dice it and roll around in it until all questions about your lineage are answered.
Well sign me up.
I'm only trying to answer one question so no matter what membership costs it's got to be worth it. Maybe they offer a 'Free Trial", which should be long enough to post my single query:
"Dear ancestry.com, Is it possible that I am not related to my oldest sister?"
A few mouse clicks and voila! Proof positive that much as I suspected she was never birthed at all, just fell from an errant planet, crawled under a rock, was later discovered and left on my parent's doorstep and accidentally brought indoors with that morning's delivery from the milk man.
No discovery would please me more, at this point.
Quite simply, my sister -- that person claiming to be my sister -- is insane. Not in the kind of way that would prevent her from functioning because she functions at high speed every day, sending emails and making phone calls and insuring that at any given moment every one of the siblings knows what the others are up to, what's going on in their lives (both real and imagined) and otherwise, as she puts it, "Keeping this family together!"
Admirable plan with one exception: The family really doesn't want to be so together and plugged in. We got enough of that whole togetherness thing trying to share one bathroom without beating each other on a daily basis growing up. I love my siblings. What I love most about them is that, like myself, they stay too busy with their own lives to devote much attention to speculation about mine.
Note that my use of the word "siblings" excludes the one who fell from a planet and was later found under a rock.
So the latest thing is this: Having spent countless hours and cell phone minutes dredging up 'the scoop' on a third cousin I only met once when I was five and we were arguing over the last cupcake at a reunion picnic, I get a phone call with news about this cousin I 'absolutely HAVE to hear', the problem being it's a quarter to twelve on a Sunday night. The only thing I want to hear is the sound of my own breathing.
I'm not a complete hot head. It takes something rather large to make me blow up. Something like an unneccessary midnight phone call. You always expect the worst from those, like Ed McMahon and the prize patrol calling to say they rang your doorbell but you didn't answer so they awarded the prize money to your neighbor, instead.
I blew. I know I called her a lot of things, beginning with 'ratchet jaw', progressing to all the conjugations of 'idiot' and only stopped at 'insensitive gossip' because my dog shot me a glance clearly communicating from her spot at my feet that now I was messing with her beauty sleep and that wasn't going to be tolerated. I value my shoes so I shut up.
There was silence at the end of the phone line. The kind of silence there had been until the phone rang at all and the kind that should have continued uninterrupted until shattered by the electronic beeping of my alarm at five a.m.
Silence, and then:
"Well Madeleine Elaine, being upset with me is SO LIKE YOU. If you had any feelings at all! But you don't! You don't care about the family and you never have!"
Pause for dramatic sigh and to inhale, then:
"You are a cold-hearted, self-centered, unfeeling ICE QUEEN and I can't believe you could be so HURTFUL. I will NEVER NEVER speak to you again!"
One more dramatic pause and then, just as she hangs up, a fervent:
"How DARE you!"
You see how having my From A Planet To A Rock theory hold true is so important.
This is the fourth time this year she has promised never to speak to me again. Unfortunately she's as good with promises as she is with meddling, which is to say not at all.
I actually look forward to these times of being 'forever disowned', as she puts it. True, I fall out of the information loop and have no idea what second and third cousins, siblings and great aunts are up to, but at least when the phone rings past eleven at night I rest assured knowing it's just Ed McMahon and the Prize Patrol calling to wish me better luck next time.
Well sign me up.
I'm only trying to answer one question so no matter what membership costs it's got to be worth it. Maybe they offer a 'Free Trial", which should be long enough to post my single query:
"Dear ancestry.com, Is it possible that I am not related to my oldest sister?"
A few mouse clicks and voila! Proof positive that much as I suspected she was never birthed at all, just fell from an errant planet, crawled under a rock, was later discovered and left on my parent's doorstep and accidentally brought indoors with that morning's delivery from the milk man.
No discovery would please me more, at this point.
Quite simply, my sister -- that person claiming to be my sister -- is insane. Not in the kind of way that would prevent her from functioning because she functions at high speed every day, sending emails and making phone calls and insuring that at any given moment every one of the siblings knows what the others are up to, what's going on in their lives (both real and imagined) and otherwise, as she puts it, "Keeping this family together!"
Admirable plan with one exception: The family really doesn't want to be so together and plugged in. We got enough of that whole togetherness thing trying to share one bathroom without beating each other on a daily basis growing up. I love my siblings. What I love most about them is that, like myself, they stay too busy with their own lives to devote much attention to speculation about mine.
Note that my use of the word "siblings" excludes the one who fell from a planet and was later found under a rock.
So the latest thing is this: Having spent countless hours and cell phone minutes dredging up 'the scoop' on a third cousin I only met once when I was five and we were arguing over the last cupcake at a reunion picnic, I get a phone call with news about this cousin I 'absolutely HAVE to hear', the problem being it's a quarter to twelve on a Sunday night. The only thing I want to hear is the sound of my own breathing.
I'm not a complete hot head. It takes something rather large to make me blow up. Something like an unneccessary midnight phone call. You always expect the worst from those, like Ed McMahon and the prize patrol calling to say they rang your doorbell but you didn't answer so they awarded the prize money to your neighbor, instead.
I blew. I know I called her a lot of things, beginning with 'ratchet jaw', progressing to all the conjugations of 'idiot' and only stopped at 'insensitive gossip' because my dog shot me a glance clearly communicating from her spot at my feet that now I was messing with her beauty sleep and that wasn't going to be tolerated. I value my shoes so I shut up.
There was silence at the end of the phone line. The kind of silence there had been until the phone rang at all and the kind that should have continued uninterrupted until shattered by the electronic beeping of my alarm at five a.m.
Silence, and then:
"Well Madeleine Elaine, being upset with me is SO LIKE YOU. If you had any feelings at all! But you don't! You don't care about the family and you never have!"
Pause for dramatic sigh and to inhale, then:
"You are a cold-hearted, self-centered, unfeeling ICE QUEEN and I can't believe you could be so HURTFUL. I will NEVER NEVER speak to you again!"
One more dramatic pause and then, just as she hangs up, a fervent:
"How DARE you!"
You see how having my From A Planet To A Rock theory hold true is so important.
This is the fourth time this year she has promised never to speak to me again. Unfortunately she's as good with promises as she is with meddling, which is to say not at all.
I actually look forward to these times of being 'forever disowned', as she puts it. True, I fall out of the information loop and have no idea what second and third cousins, siblings and great aunts are up to, but at least when the phone rings past eleven at night I rest assured knowing it's just Ed McMahon and the Prize Patrol calling to wish me better luck next time.
The Jolly White Giant
The giant. He said he was 6'5".
He wasn't kidding.
I think he may even have underestimated and I wondered more than once in the hour or so we spent together if at that daunting height you'd have to start each day with a multi-vitamin and a Dramamine just to fend off altitude sickness.
Points in his favor: He's quick-witted and we share the same dry humor. We went to a quiet, out of the way club, sat on a couch and barely noticed the other two people in the place. He had a martini and I had a Pinot Gris.
He was heading out of town for the weekend and said I'd definitely be hearing from him. Already he's sent a text, which is nice but...it's about the extent of his communications in writing. He prefers the phone. Hmmm. Call me too cerebral, but that was if not a deal breaker, at least something that caused a flagging in my own enthusiasm.
So there you go. A very nice guy, a nice evening -- but no real 'sparks'. Not that the first meeting should hit you with all the force of jamming a fork into an electrical outlet, but something like that. Call me a hopeless romantic but you know a connection when you make one.
OK, call me a hopeless romantic. I just haven't given up hope.
And really, the date wasn't totally unenjoyable. It was enjoyable. It just wasn't...like being mildly electrocuted and I guess that's more important to me than I realized or I would have gone home, logged on to Match and hidden my profile, not interested in meeting anyone further.
My neighbor Lainie could read it on my face as I came home. Psychic, I swear the girl is. She was on the front step smoking and texting somebody on her phone. Barely looked up and then, "Not the one, huh?"
"Nope." I dropped to the steps beside her. "Nope, but it wasn't all terrible or anything."
"Look," she said, "neither is a root canal but that doesn't mean you volunteer for one."
Lainie. The voice of reason.
We probably talked out there for thirty minutes, catching up on all her misadventures on the same site. I swear she's been in love four times and that's just since the first of the month. Lainie's unflappable. She knows what she wants and she's going for it one date at a time until she unearths Mr. Right like that perfect tulip bulb you'd missed during spring planting.
So she's off to Vegas with an old boyfriend on Wednesday because he's calling again and apparently she's forgotten why they ever broke up in the first place. I'm going to babysit Blue, her cat, and I'm looking forward to it. He's talkative, attentive, affectionate, and loyal.
If he were a man, I'd buy him dinner.
He wasn't kidding.
I think he may even have underestimated and I wondered more than once in the hour or so we spent together if at that daunting height you'd have to start each day with a multi-vitamin and a Dramamine just to fend off altitude sickness.
Points in his favor: He's quick-witted and we share the same dry humor. We went to a quiet, out of the way club, sat on a couch and barely noticed the other two people in the place. He had a martini and I had a Pinot Gris.
He was heading out of town for the weekend and said I'd definitely be hearing from him. Already he's sent a text, which is nice but...it's about the extent of his communications in writing. He prefers the phone. Hmmm. Call me too cerebral, but that was if not a deal breaker, at least something that caused a flagging in my own enthusiasm.
So there you go. A very nice guy, a nice evening -- but no real 'sparks'. Not that the first meeting should hit you with all the force of jamming a fork into an electrical outlet, but something like that. Call me a hopeless romantic but you know a connection when you make one.
OK, call me a hopeless romantic. I just haven't given up hope.
And really, the date wasn't totally unenjoyable. It was enjoyable. It just wasn't...like being mildly electrocuted and I guess that's more important to me than I realized or I would have gone home, logged on to Match and hidden my profile, not interested in meeting anyone further.
My neighbor Lainie could read it on my face as I came home. Psychic, I swear the girl is. She was on the front step smoking and texting somebody on her phone. Barely looked up and then, "Not the one, huh?"
"Nope." I dropped to the steps beside her. "Nope, but it wasn't all terrible or anything."
"Look," she said, "neither is a root canal but that doesn't mean you volunteer for one."
Lainie. The voice of reason.
We probably talked out there for thirty minutes, catching up on all her misadventures on the same site. I swear she's been in love four times and that's just since the first of the month. Lainie's unflappable. She knows what she wants and she's going for it one date at a time until she unearths Mr. Right like that perfect tulip bulb you'd missed during spring planting.
So she's off to Vegas with an old boyfriend on Wednesday because he's calling again and apparently she's forgotten why they ever broke up in the first place. I'm going to babysit Blue, her cat, and I'm looking forward to it. He's talkative, attentive, affectionate, and loyal.
If he were a man, I'd buy him dinner.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
...Do I Really Want To Do This?
Update on Saturday's date...
The dinner was good. The company was good. Everything would have been great, I suppose, except at the end of the date (which was three hours long) he walked me to my car and said, "Well, what do we do now?"
"I need to get home," I said, and didn't add I have a pot roast in the slow cooker because that's what I do every weekend. Not neccessarily pot roast, but something, goes into the slow cooker so I don't have to cook during the week if and when I hit the rare occasion that I'm hungry and it's after work hours.
"Do you want me to follow you home?"
Um, NO.
"Um," I said, not quite eloquently but at a minimum honestly, "I think I can find it."
OK, so that and the fact that he was definitely NOT five nine. I had 3" heels on which made me 5'5" and I still felt like Nicole Kidman in the days she was married to Tom.
Tomorrow...because I'm nuts if for no other reason, I'm meeting P--for a drink downtown after work. He claims to be 6'5". He seems nice enough.
He will probably be a dwarf with multiple personalities.
OK, not a fair statement and now is no time to become cynical. It's just that sometimes, I can't help myself.
Mental note to self: Laugh about this later. :)
The dinner was good. The company was good. Everything would have been great, I suppose, except at the end of the date (which was three hours long) he walked me to my car and said, "Well, what do we do now?"
"I need to get home," I said, and didn't add I have a pot roast in the slow cooker because that's what I do every weekend. Not neccessarily pot roast, but something, goes into the slow cooker so I don't have to cook during the week if and when I hit the rare occasion that I'm hungry and it's after work hours.
"Do you want me to follow you home?"
Um, NO.
"Um," I said, not quite eloquently but at a minimum honestly, "I think I can find it."
OK, so that and the fact that he was definitely NOT five nine. I had 3" heels on which made me 5'5" and I still felt like Nicole Kidman in the days she was married to Tom.
Tomorrow...because I'm nuts if for no other reason, I'm meeting P--for a drink downtown after work. He claims to be 6'5". He seems nice enough.
He will probably be a dwarf with multiple personalities.
OK, not a fair statement and now is no time to become cynical. It's just that sometimes, I can't help myself.
Mental note to self: Laugh about this later. :)
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