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.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
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.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thoughts on What May Eventually Become of A Holiday Houseguest
Having had him as a house guest for the holiday weekend, I have to say in all fairness that it wasn’t a chore having him around and I enjoyed the very few minutes he calmed down long enough to sit beside me on the couch and enjoy whichever movie I happened to be watching. In short, he wasn’t at all hard to live with and I’m not completely understanding his owner’s general lack of enthusiasm about his existence.
For a dog, I said, he’s not all bad.
I’m often corrected by Owen when referring to Spam as a dog, and this was no exception. “That,” he’ll say, pointing to the guinea-pig sized, inevitably shivering mass of fur huddled against the sofa, “is not a dog.” Looking at Spam I have to agree, much as I’d like to say something in his favor because if for no other reason, going on looks alone he hasn’t got much going for him to begin with and once you move onto other areas like practicality, companionability and basic dog skills such as property protection, he’s got even less.
To begin with, Spam is a Yorkie. Sadly, a Yorkie is not a Chihuahua and not a poodle but something sadly stuck between the two before being run over by a Shiz-Tsu. The result is an animal roughly the size of a guinea pig or an overfed hamster with fur that, if left un-groomed, will convince you George Lucas was thinking “Yorkie” when he created the “Wookie”, he just made it much, much larger to have the correct presence on the screen. Spam is not a dog you cuddle with on the couch. He’s a dog you worry you might accidentally sit on and crush when you flop down on the couch. His social skills extend to yipping hysterically for no other reason than that he can at moments when you least expect it and careening through the yard barking at absolutely nothing. When not sleeping in Parker’s bed, Spam sleeps in a dog kennel the size of my purse and has room left over. This is not a dog you take proudly to the dog park. This is a dog you walk on a leash the consistency of a five year old shoe string and hope nobody you know is watching.
Spam is a dog not well matched to his people and would probably be far better off with a dedicated dog lover who would dress him in little sweaters and carry him around in a purse. In short, someone like me. He does not belong with Owen and his teenaged son, two guys who spend any free time to be found on the racquetball court, on the golf course, or on the ski slopes, not home with a dog on their lap.
“That,” Owen says often, gesturing to Basil, who is generally in the process of ‘killing’ one or another of Spam’s toys, stuffed animals in various states of disrepair, “is a dog.” Granted I’m biased in her favor, but I can’t disagree. Basil is small enough to be portable, not so small you’re going to miss her when you flop down on the couch. She’s perfectly companionable but like her owner appreciates her own ‘space’ from time to time so doesn’t overwhelm your attention. She barks but not without reason and even when she’s overgrown and under-groomed she’s got a certain attractiveness that’s undeniable. Finally and importantly, she is not a wuss. If Basil is shivering it’s because she’s cold. If Spam is shivering it’s because he’s a nervous little Yorkie and that’s what they do.
He’s a dog I have to love, I think, because I get the feeling not too many people do, although Parker is more attached than he’ll admit, having had him for so many years. He’d been a gift from his aunt to his mother and when his mother died he officially became Parker’s dog. Which is good because never having had a ‘real’ dog, i.e. one more like Basil than like your basic hamster, Parker’s less apt to make comparisons. He probably doesn’t remember Roby, the Golden Retriever Owen had in his single days, who finally passed away of old age when Parker was in kindergarten. Roby was a real dog and I know Owen misses him. Much as he talks about how when Parker moves out Spam is going with him and how great it will be not to have a dog, Owen is not one to be dog-less for long. The empty nest syndrome will hit and it won’t take too many weeks or even days for him to realize having your place all to yourself to do whatever you want with isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not when you could be sharing your space with a dog who weighs more than your average library book.
When I mention this to Owen, he disagrees and lets me know once Parker is gone, he’s sending Spam out the door with him and he’s ‘done with dogs’. I generally don’t pursue the argument because I see the way he is with Basil and how happy he looked in pictures with Roby and I know he’s not done at all. No more than I was in 2005, when I moved out and was animal-less for the first time in my life, vowing to stay that way because, ‘it’s easier and I don’t have time for an animal’.
That lasted a little over six months and four months into it I was determined that if a stray didn’t come into my life soon (all my dogs have been rescues. I’m superstitious about ‘choosing’ a dog because of this, as they’ve all apparently chosen me and been such wonderful companions I don’t want to break my ‘streak’) I’d do something drastic like adopt a cat (Note: as it turned out I later adopted a cat to keep Basil company but that’s another story and sad example of how, when it comes to animals, I have all the resolve of melted butter).
I have never regretted Basil’s companionship or begrudged Gus one moment of his time in my home. There’s something necessary about animal companionship and much as he pretends to the contrary, Owen knows this, too. He might claim to be counting down the very few years until he’s come full circle and is once again the bachelor man in his bachelor house, but I know better. Golf clubs may well be able to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’, but I’ve never known one to greet you at the door at the end of a long day and that’s something I think we all enjoy having. He’ll have another dog, maybe even another Golden Retriever, but definitely there will be a dog in residence.
If for no other reason, I’m thinking, than that Parker’s going to have a heck of a time managing college courses, chasing women and finding time for the golf course, so there’s no way he’d want the added responsibility of a nervous little dog like Spam. Something tells me he’ll be ‘accidentally or not forgotten’ on moving day, left behind with a few dozen pair of dirty socks and a stuffed animal or two from ‘way back when he was a kid’. So Owen’s dreams of completely solo living are, for the most part, destined not to come true.
Unless, of course, Parker falls for a woman who can’t resist yippy little nervous dogs who can be carried in her purse.
For a dog, I said, he’s not all bad.
I’m often corrected by Owen when referring to Spam as a dog, and this was no exception. “That,” he’ll say, pointing to the guinea-pig sized, inevitably shivering mass of fur huddled against the sofa, “is not a dog.” Looking at Spam I have to agree, much as I’d like to say something in his favor because if for no other reason, going on looks alone he hasn’t got much going for him to begin with and once you move onto other areas like practicality, companionability and basic dog skills such as property protection, he’s got even less.
To begin with, Spam is a Yorkie. Sadly, a Yorkie is not a Chihuahua and not a poodle but something sadly stuck between the two before being run over by a Shiz-Tsu. The result is an animal roughly the size of a guinea pig or an overfed hamster with fur that, if left un-groomed, will convince you George Lucas was thinking “Yorkie” when he created the “Wookie”, he just made it much, much larger to have the correct presence on the screen. Spam is not a dog you cuddle with on the couch. He’s a dog you worry you might accidentally sit on and crush when you flop down on the couch. His social skills extend to yipping hysterically for no other reason than that he can at moments when you least expect it and careening through the yard barking at absolutely nothing. When not sleeping in Parker’s bed, Spam sleeps in a dog kennel the size of my purse and has room left over. This is not a dog you take proudly to the dog park. This is a dog you walk on a leash the consistency of a five year old shoe string and hope nobody you know is watching.
Spam is a dog not well matched to his people and would probably be far better off with a dedicated dog lover who would dress him in little sweaters and carry him around in a purse. In short, someone like me. He does not belong with Owen and his teenaged son, two guys who spend any free time to be found on the racquetball court, on the golf course, or on the ski slopes, not home with a dog on their lap.
“That,” Owen says often, gesturing to Basil, who is generally in the process of ‘killing’ one or another of Spam’s toys, stuffed animals in various states of disrepair, “is a dog.” Granted I’m biased in her favor, but I can’t disagree. Basil is small enough to be portable, not so small you’re going to miss her when you flop down on the couch. She’s perfectly companionable but like her owner appreciates her own ‘space’ from time to time so doesn’t overwhelm your attention. She barks but not without reason and even when she’s overgrown and under-groomed she’s got a certain attractiveness that’s undeniable. Finally and importantly, she is not a wuss. If Basil is shivering it’s because she’s cold. If Spam is shivering it’s because he’s a nervous little Yorkie and that’s what they do.
He’s a dog I have to love, I think, because I get the feeling not too many people do, although Parker is more attached than he’ll admit, having had him for so many years. He’d been a gift from his aunt to his mother and when his mother died he officially became Parker’s dog. Which is good because never having had a ‘real’ dog, i.e. one more like Basil than like your basic hamster, Parker’s less apt to make comparisons. He probably doesn’t remember Roby, the Golden Retriever Owen had in his single days, who finally passed away of old age when Parker was in kindergarten. Roby was a real dog and I know Owen misses him. Much as he talks about how when Parker moves out Spam is going with him and how great it will be not to have a dog, Owen is not one to be dog-less for long. The empty nest syndrome will hit and it won’t take too many weeks or even days for him to realize having your place all to yourself to do whatever you want with isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not when you could be sharing your space with a dog who weighs more than your average library book.
When I mention this to Owen, he disagrees and lets me know once Parker is gone, he’s sending Spam out the door with him and he’s ‘done with dogs’. I generally don’t pursue the argument because I see the way he is with Basil and how happy he looked in pictures with Roby and I know he’s not done at all. No more than I was in 2005, when I moved out and was animal-less for the first time in my life, vowing to stay that way because, ‘it’s easier and I don’t have time for an animal’.
That lasted a little over six months and four months into it I was determined that if a stray didn’t come into my life soon (all my dogs have been rescues. I’m superstitious about ‘choosing’ a dog because of this, as they’ve all apparently chosen me and been such wonderful companions I don’t want to break my ‘streak’) I’d do something drastic like adopt a cat (Note: as it turned out I later adopted a cat to keep Basil company but that’s another story and sad example of how, when it comes to animals, I have all the resolve of melted butter).
I have never regretted Basil’s companionship or begrudged Gus one moment of his time in my home. There’s something necessary about animal companionship and much as he pretends to the contrary, Owen knows this, too. He might claim to be counting down the very few years until he’s come full circle and is once again the bachelor man in his bachelor house, but I know better. Golf clubs may well be able to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’, but I’ve never known one to greet you at the door at the end of a long day and that’s something I think we all enjoy having. He’ll have another dog, maybe even another Golden Retriever, but definitely there will be a dog in residence.
If for no other reason, I’m thinking, than that Parker’s going to have a heck of a time managing college courses, chasing women and finding time for the golf course, so there’s no way he’d want the added responsibility of a nervous little dog like Spam. Something tells me he’ll be ‘accidentally or not forgotten’ on moving day, left behind with a few dozen pair of dirty socks and a stuffed animal or two from ‘way back when he was a kid’. So Owen’s dreams of completely solo living are, for the most part, destined not to come true.
Unless, of course, Parker falls for a woman who can’t resist yippy little nervous dogs who can be carried in her purse.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The Best Christmas Ever...2009
I suppose if I had to pick the best Christmas ever, I'd pick this one.
I can't really say exactly why that was, because it wasn't any one thing, or any one event, but rather the culmination of so many of them and maybe I'll write more later and explain how they all came together, but right now I just have to say this has been the best Christmas I've had in years.
It was the year I went into Christmas with no expectations and wound up with so many surprises. Some good, some not so good. I never expected, for example, that my dad would lose the use of one side of his body and nothing I could have done, three days before Christmas, could have prepared me for that. Or likewise for the pure happiness of talking with him, every day, and hearing his coherent speech and knowing we really couldn't do anything until the MRI on the 29th. This was the year of every single day, for the last week plus, coming home to a different surprise on the doorstep. So many neighbors, and friends, leaving anonymous 'neighbor gifts' to the point that I told Alexi, at work, "maybe I've been nicer than I thought I was, last year", and the irony is, that was the year that Lainie moved and I'd vowed rather foolishly not to get to meet any of my neighbors at all.
This was the year I came home and tried to adjust the sound on my television...only to open the armoire and find out that my television was gone, and had been replaced by a 32" flat screen, HDTV, and I knew who'd done it and all they would say was, "Well, I've always really wanted a 1997 27" TV so I bought you a new one and traded you." This was the year of an incredible Christmas dinner with my Secret Santa family, and watching their kids having an incredible Christmas, never knowing (as they shouldn't) that dad is still laid off. This was an incredible Christmas, up to and including yesterday, when I slept late and got up and opened gifts over a pot of Earl Grey Tea, and loved everything.
This was the holiday that culminated tonight, in another dinner with friends. In a house where I don't live, per se, but where I've always felt so at home. And one of their house guests bid me adieu very europeonly and nobody has ever done that before, by kissing me on both cheeks. Oh, My (as Susan Sarandon said in Bull Durham, the movie). As if the night couldn't get any better, a little boy shouted out, "I love you!!! I love you!!!" as I left, and really, how much better does life get? My friend throughout the evening kept saying, "English, in English" because the entirety of conversation was in German. "Isn't that funny," observed He Who Kissed My Cheeks, "We all speak German except you. Usually we are the minority." And yet, throwing Frisbee (and very carefully, so as not to hit the tree, and loving every minute of it because playing with those kids is a highlight of any moment) with those kids, and just being there, in the midst of that family and with a wonderful friend, they could all have been speaking Icelandic and I'd still have felt as much at home.
This has been a fantastic Christmas.
So many things brought it to that point. I'm not sure which, if I had to point to any one, would have been 'it'. Maybe it was seeing Lainie, today. Or maybe it was the picture of her and her boys she gave me. Or maybe it was Holly, and Emannuel, and Sebastian. Or her cat, or my own animals, or the bottle of 'Poof!' "Animal Freshener: For the Very Coolest of Dogs" that Owen gifted Basil with. Or the innumerable plates of cookies, and candles, and neighbor gifts, that came my way. I'm not sure.
I just know it's been a very incredible holiday, and as I settle in tonight in front of my new, unexpected 'ginormous flat screen TV', in my zebra print 'blanket with sleeves' (see previous blogs re: white elephants), I just know that I feel very blessed to be just where I am, surrounded by the friends I have, and the place I live, and the animals who live with me, and the life I'm living.
It is not at all where I anticipated I would be, at this stage of my life.
But I would not trade it for anything in the world.
I can't really say exactly why that was, because it wasn't any one thing, or any one event, but rather the culmination of so many of them and maybe I'll write more later and explain how they all came together, but right now I just have to say this has been the best Christmas I've had in years.
It was the year I went into Christmas with no expectations and wound up with so many surprises. Some good, some not so good. I never expected, for example, that my dad would lose the use of one side of his body and nothing I could have done, three days before Christmas, could have prepared me for that. Or likewise for the pure happiness of talking with him, every day, and hearing his coherent speech and knowing we really couldn't do anything until the MRI on the 29th. This was the year of every single day, for the last week plus, coming home to a different surprise on the doorstep. So many neighbors, and friends, leaving anonymous 'neighbor gifts' to the point that I told Alexi, at work, "maybe I've been nicer than I thought I was, last year", and the irony is, that was the year that Lainie moved and I'd vowed rather foolishly not to get to meet any of my neighbors at all.
This was the year I came home and tried to adjust the sound on my television...only to open the armoire and find out that my television was gone, and had been replaced by a 32" flat screen, HDTV, and I knew who'd done it and all they would say was, "Well, I've always really wanted a 1997 27" TV so I bought you a new one and traded you." This was the year of an incredible Christmas dinner with my Secret Santa family, and watching their kids having an incredible Christmas, never knowing (as they shouldn't) that dad is still laid off. This was an incredible Christmas, up to and including yesterday, when I slept late and got up and opened gifts over a pot of Earl Grey Tea, and loved everything.
This was the holiday that culminated tonight, in another dinner with friends. In a house where I don't live, per se, but where I've always felt so at home. And one of their house guests bid me adieu very europeonly and nobody has ever done that before, by kissing me on both cheeks. Oh, My (as Susan Sarandon said in Bull Durham, the movie). As if the night couldn't get any better, a little boy shouted out, "I love you!!! I love you!!!" as I left, and really, how much better does life get? My friend throughout the evening kept saying, "English, in English" because the entirety of conversation was in German. "Isn't that funny," observed He Who Kissed My Cheeks, "We all speak German except you. Usually we are the minority." And yet, throwing Frisbee (and very carefully, so as not to hit the tree, and loving every minute of it because playing with those kids is a highlight of any moment) with those kids, and just being there, in the midst of that family and with a wonderful friend, they could all have been speaking Icelandic and I'd still have felt as much at home.
This has been a fantastic Christmas.
So many things brought it to that point. I'm not sure which, if I had to point to any one, would have been 'it'. Maybe it was seeing Lainie, today. Or maybe it was the picture of her and her boys she gave me. Or maybe it was Holly, and Emannuel, and Sebastian. Or her cat, or my own animals, or the bottle of 'Poof!' "Animal Freshener: For the Very Coolest of Dogs" that Owen gifted Basil with. Or the innumerable plates of cookies, and candles, and neighbor gifts, that came my way. I'm not sure.
I just know it's been a very incredible holiday, and as I settle in tonight in front of my new, unexpected 'ginormous flat screen TV', in my zebra print 'blanket with sleeves' (see previous blogs re: white elephants), I just know that I feel very blessed to be just where I am, surrounded by the friends I have, and the place I live, and the animals who live with me, and the life I'm living.
It is not at all where I anticipated I would be, at this stage of my life.
But I would not trade it for anything in the world.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Cancelling Christmas: (Not So Great) News From Home
When I was a kid (Note: as I am still a kid, what I mean to refer to is that time when I was still wearing tights and those abominable holdovers from the 1950’s, white leather saddle shoes my dad insisted were more durable, attractive, and cost-effective than the canvas tennis shoes it seemed everyone else wore), I was convinced my dad was undefeatable and could do anything and I was convinced of this for very good reasons, not the least of which being any of the following Amazing Accomplishments Only He Could Do:
· Only my dad would bring home a garbage can full of gigantic toads he and my uncle had captured when they took a load of miscellaneous junk to the dump and turn them loose in our backyard ‘just for the hell or it’ and to ‘see what would happen’. That was one evening of toad-chasing, no-cost entertainment I’ll personally never forget;
· Only my dad would think of building his daughters a play house suspended from the rafters of the garage and accessible only by a narrow ladder staircase sans safety rail daunting enough in appearance that local mothers banned all but one of the neighbor kids from using it, thus ensuring my sister and I the most elite playhouse in the neighborhood as no one but us really knew what it looked like on the interior;
· Only my dad would think of attaching a tow rope to the back of his Schwinn bicycle and entertaining my cousin, my sister and I for hours by letting us ‘water ski’ behind him on a skateboard;
· Only my dad would conquer my fear of the dark finally and forever by asking me what I saw when the light went out (“Nothing”) what I saw when I closed my eyes (“Nothing”) and asking me what the difference was and hence what was the big deal to be afraid of (“Nothing”);
· Only my dad would likewise conquer my fear of the deep end of a pool by unceremoniously tossing me into it one Saturday afternoon, demonstrating once and for all that if you could keep yourself afloat, it didn’t matter if you were in 4’ or water or 9’ you still couldn’t touch bottom;
· Only my dad, after politely echoing Mom’s warnings on the evils of R-rated movies and ‘that awful ‘Saturday Night Fever in particular’ would the next weekend (with a stealthy, “Don’t tell Mom,”) hike up to the local theater and take us to see it, seemingly as happy as we were to get away with something so blatantly verboten.
Dad has always been a thirty-something kid in my mind and over the years if I occasionally noticed some sign of aging (the hearing aid, the retirement from his job, the ‘Thanks for calling’ when he was the one who’d called me) it was easy to disregard.
Until today.
I was stepping into the coffee shop with a lunch date when Mom’s cell number flashed across my Blackberry’s screen. It’s not unusual for her to call during the day and after a brief hello I asked if I could call back, as I was just stepping out to lunch.
“If you’ll call right back,” she said and I’m no clairvoyant but I knew something wasn’t right.
“Is everything OK? Are you OK?”
“I’m OK,” she said. “It’s your dad. (Insert far too long a pause here) He’s not doing very well.”
So there you go, I thought, and I suppose that conversation, which took place in the hall outside the coffee shop after I’d left my date to be seated without me, was one of those moments which drive home very concretely the fact that no matter how young you perceive them to be, your parents do tend to age when you yourself are no longer thirty-something. They’re not indestructible and they’re not infallible and they’re not invulnerable to getting older. It was also one of those moments in which you understand the truism that eventually the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent, the parent bestowing calm and inserting logic and more than anything, really, steering the conversation into the realm of, ‘let’s just take this one thing at a time and not jump ahead of ourselves, OK?’. All of that came rushing down like a springtime downpour as I listened to Mom explain the situation, telling me what the doctors had said, what they hadn’t said, what they might find out after more tests and then, bizzarely, her tears came when she ended with telling me she and Dad had ‘called off Christmas, told all the kids to stay home, your dad just doesn’t want anyone to see him like this,’ and she didn’t know ‘what in the world’ she’d do with all the cookies she’d been baking for weeks. She was terribly upset about the cookies.
I suppose it was the cookies that put me into parent mode and I assured her everything would be fine, she should just put the cookies in the freezer, they’d keep forever, and did she want me to come home? What could I do? I could, she said, just call. Every day. But no, don’t come home. Your dad, she said, doesn’t want anybody to come. Let’s just wait and see but would I call that night?
Of course I would. And every day, and I guess at this point I suppose it’s pointless to note that when I returned to the booth and the waitress appeared I ordered three different things and changed my mind on all of them, finally settling on a fruit plate that for the most part I just cut up into smaller pieces and pushed around on my plate until I’d constructed a semi-modernistic artistic creation of skewered pineapple and various melon punctuated by blackberries and framed in cottage cheese that was attractive, if unconsumed in the end.
I can’t remember any difficult time in my life in which my dad didn’t, at some point, affectionately refer to me as ‘a real trooper’ because I managed to get through it without crying, not the least of which being every time he’d hauled me to the doctor’s office for stitches and/or a tetanus shot because I’d: a) fallen off the deck and neatly onto my head and a rock, b) decided to pick up broken glass with my bare hands, c) stepped on a nail or five, or d) otherwise been injured or hurt or frightened, and I suppose I really was a trooper through today’s lunch and right up until the moment I returned to the office where I did the completely human and sometimes necessary thing by bursting into tears. But only for a few minutes and then I got busy with what was on my desk because…well, just because it was there, and it was on my desk and crying didn’t fix anything and somehow, being busy did.
Two things happened later that really helped. The first being, I ran into Holly in the lobby and let her know what was going on. She listened as she always does, then said only one thing (Holly’s that way. She’ll say one thing and it’s always what I need to hear). “What,” she asked, “would you tell me to do in this situation?”
“I’d tell you,” I said after a moment, “to take the emotion out and try to see all sides of it.”
“So do that,” she said, “and we’ll wait and see how it all comes out.”
The second thing happened about an hour later when Mom’s cell number once more flashed across my Blackberry except this time, it was Dad on the other end. “There’s something going on with me,” he said, “that I need to tell you about.” And he did, not aware that I’d gotten a call earlier.
Listening to him I felt it again, that odd sense of the tables having been turned, the child becoming the parent because if I’d ever felt the desire to call someone ‘a trooper’ that’s what I would have called my dad as he ran through the gamut of the situation, what the doctors had said, what might be coming, how he felt about how things were now, and whether or not they’d change or not. It would be redundant to note how much I loved him in that moment because even with all the uncertainty and all the unknown I still heard undeniably that spark of the undefeatable, of that little mischievous kid who somehow wound up in the body of a 69 year old man. A man who was happy to have brought home that can full of toads ‘just for the hell of it’ and would probably do it again if he had the chance and even if he didn’t, was so damnably grateful that he’d gotten to do it once because in the end, it was a whole lot of fun.
I wanted, right then, to get on a plane, get a rental car, go to his house and hug him and yet I understood when he explained the whole canceling Christmas thing and just wanting to be home ‘without the chaos of a full house and all the damned grandkids running around’ and even as he said that last you could hear that he loved them, he just needed…a Christmas without all that.
So we’ll wait and see what happens. And we’ll wait to hear what the doctors have to say. And I’ll do the only thing I can do right now, which is to call tonight as I said I would, and somehow conjure up the right words to assure Mom that those cookies will be OK in the freezer.
I think we’ll both know we’re not really talking about cookies, but we don’t necessarily have to think about that.
· Only my dad would bring home a garbage can full of gigantic toads he and my uncle had captured when they took a load of miscellaneous junk to the dump and turn them loose in our backyard ‘just for the hell or it’ and to ‘see what would happen’. That was one evening of toad-chasing, no-cost entertainment I’ll personally never forget;
· Only my dad would think of building his daughters a play house suspended from the rafters of the garage and accessible only by a narrow ladder staircase sans safety rail daunting enough in appearance that local mothers banned all but one of the neighbor kids from using it, thus ensuring my sister and I the most elite playhouse in the neighborhood as no one but us really knew what it looked like on the interior;
· Only my dad would think of attaching a tow rope to the back of his Schwinn bicycle and entertaining my cousin, my sister and I for hours by letting us ‘water ski’ behind him on a skateboard;
· Only my dad would conquer my fear of the dark finally and forever by asking me what I saw when the light went out (“Nothing”) what I saw when I closed my eyes (“Nothing”) and asking me what the difference was and hence what was the big deal to be afraid of (“Nothing”);
· Only my dad would likewise conquer my fear of the deep end of a pool by unceremoniously tossing me into it one Saturday afternoon, demonstrating once and for all that if you could keep yourself afloat, it didn’t matter if you were in 4’ or water or 9’ you still couldn’t touch bottom;
· Only my dad, after politely echoing Mom’s warnings on the evils of R-rated movies and ‘that awful ‘Saturday Night Fever in particular’ would the next weekend (with a stealthy, “Don’t tell Mom,”) hike up to the local theater and take us to see it, seemingly as happy as we were to get away with something so blatantly verboten.
Dad has always been a thirty-something kid in my mind and over the years if I occasionally noticed some sign of aging (the hearing aid, the retirement from his job, the ‘Thanks for calling’ when he was the one who’d called me) it was easy to disregard.
Until today.
I was stepping into the coffee shop with a lunch date when Mom’s cell number flashed across my Blackberry’s screen. It’s not unusual for her to call during the day and after a brief hello I asked if I could call back, as I was just stepping out to lunch.
“If you’ll call right back,” she said and I’m no clairvoyant but I knew something wasn’t right.
“Is everything OK? Are you OK?”
“I’m OK,” she said. “It’s your dad. (Insert far too long a pause here) He’s not doing very well.”
So there you go, I thought, and I suppose that conversation, which took place in the hall outside the coffee shop after I’d left my date to be seated without me, was one of those moments which drive home very concretely the fact that no matter how young you perceive them to be, your parents do tend to age when you yourself are no longer thirty-something. They’re not indestructible and they’re not infallible and they’re not invulnerable to getting older. It was also one of those moments in which you understand the truism that eventually the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent, the parent bestowing calm and inserting logic and more than anything, really, steering the conversation into the realm of, ‘let’s just take this one thing at a time and not jump ahead of ourselves, OK?’. All of that came rushing down like a springtime downpour as I listened to Mom explain the situation, telling me what the doctors had said, what they hadn’t said, what they might find out after more tests and then, bizzarely, her tears came when she ended with telling me she and Dad had ‘called off Christmas, told all the kids to stay home, your dad just doesn’t want anyone to see him like this,’ and she didn’t know ‘what in the world’ she’d do with all the cookies she’d been baking for weeks. She was terribly upset about the cookies.
I suppose it was the cookies that put me into parent mode and I assured her everything would be fine, she should just put the cookies in the freezer, they’d keep forever, and did she want me to come home? What could I do? I could, she said, just call. Every day. But no, don’t come home. Your dad, she said, doesn’t want anybody to come. Let’s just wait and see but would I call that night?
Of course I would. And every day, and I guess at this point I suppose it’s pointless to note that when I returned to the booth and the waitress appeared I ordered three different things and changed my mind on all of them, finally settling on a fruit plate that for the most part I just cut up into smaller pieces and pushed around on my plate until I’d constructed a semi-modernistic artistic creation of skewered pineapple and various melon punctuated by blackberries and framed in cottage cheese that was attractive, if unconsumed in the end.
I can’t remember any difficult time in my life in which my dad didn’t, at some point, affectionately refer to me as ‘a real trooper’ because I managed to get through it without crying, not the least of which being every time he’d hauled me to the doctor’s office for stitches and/or a tetanus shot because I’d: a) fallen off the deck and neatly onto my head and a rock, b) decided to pick up broken glass with my bare hands, c) stepped on a nail or five, or d) otherwise been injured or hurt or frightened, and I suppose I really was a trooper through today’s lunch and right up until the moment I returned to the office where I did the completely human and sometimes necessary thing by bursting into tears. But only for a few minutes and then I got busy with what was on my desk because…well, just because it was there, and it was on my desk and crying didn’t fix anything and somehow, being busy did.
Two things happened later that really helped. The first being, I ran into Holly in the lobby and let her know what was going on. She listened as she always does, then said only one thing (Holly’s that way. She’ll say one thing and it’s always what I need to hear). “What,” she asked, “would you tell me to do in this situation?”
“I’d tell you,” I said after a moment, “to take the emotion out and try to see all sides of it.”
“So do that,” she said, “and we’ll wait and see how it all comes out.”
The second thing happened about an hour later when Mom’s cell number once more flashed across my Blackberry except this time, it was Dad on the other end. “There’s something going on with me,” he said, “that I need to tell you about.” And he did, not aware that I’d gotten a call earlier.
Listening to him I felt it again, that odd sense of the tables having been turned, the child becoming the parent because if I’d ever felt the desire to call someone ‘a trooper’ that’s what I would have called my dad as he ran through the gamut of the situation, what the doctors had said, what might be coming, how he felt about how things were now, and whether or not they’d change or not. It would be redundant to note how much I loved him in that moment because even with all the uncertainty and all the unknown I still heard undeniably that spark of the undefeatable, of that little mischievous kid who somehow wound up in the body of a 69 year old man. A man who was happy to have brought home that can full of toads ‘just for the hell of it’ and would probably do it again if he had the chance and even if he didn’t, was so damnably grateful that he’d gotten to do it once because in the end, it was a whole lot of fun.
I wanted, right then, to get on a plane, get a rental car, go to his house and hug him and yet I understood when he explained the whole canceling Christmas thing and just wanting to be home ‘without the chaos of a full house and all the damned grandkids running around’ and even as he said that last you could hear that he loved them, he just needed…a Christmas without all that.
So we’ll wait and see what happens. And we’ll wait to hear what the doctors have to say. And I’ll do the only thing I can do right now, which is to call tonight as I said I would, and somehow conjure up the right words to assure Mom that those cookies will be OK in the freezer.
I think we’ll both know we’re not really talking about cookies, but we don’t necessarily have to think about that.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Just In Case I Need To Hear It Again: Letter to Lainie
With the new year approaching I’m reminded of my parent’s collective advice over the years, which has basically been the repetitive mantra: “Be prepared.” Prepared for what exactly, they were never terribly specific but you could guess your bases were covered so long as you regularly ‘put a little something in savings’ and without exception (this from my mom) ensured you had clean underwear on at all times ‘just in case something happens, you could be in an accident.’ Honestly? I’ve never known anyone involved in an accident and worried about their underwear with the exception of Brent. Shortly after we were married he was hospitalized and the first thing he asked when he regained consciousness in the ICU was would I please bring him ‘better underwear’ because he was wearing a pair from his bachelor days I’d always thought would make a better dust rag than anything else.
As I generally do at the end of a year, I spent some time recently reflecting back over the past twelve months and giving thought to what I’d like to do in 2010. Without, it should be noted, making this a terribly complicated or detailed process as it’s been my experience that the creation of a detailed ‘Goals and Objectives’ list with requisite foot-noted timeline for completion produces nothing more than a detailed ‘Goals and Objectives’ list with requisite foot-noted timeline for completion that looks ridiculous there on the fridge, secured by a magnet and covered by HOA bulletins and store coupons. Going into the new year, I thought if nothing else I’d like to be---well, as prepared as I can be for, if nothing else, anything I can hedge a guess will be inevitable.
It’s a fact that income is down, at least over previous years. 2010 is looking much better but it made sense to increase savings and cut spending. That alone made me feel as if I’d already accomplished something, and we’re still weeks away from midnight on New Year’s Eve. I donated some clothing, gave away some furniture and miscellaneous (having finally realized my condo is not going to expand to fit the contents input, like a cell on an Excel spreadsheet), and with that felt—well, prepared.
It wasn’t until I got an email from Lainie this morning that I realized I’d forgotten one other measure I might consider putting into place, and that measure explains this particular post. Because this morning I got an email from my very dear friend who is still, weeks after the departure of Blake, holed up in the donut-consuming, romance movie watching (Never mind my advice to watch only, “He’s Just Not That Into You” and make notes on what the guy bartender says in the beginning until you get the lesson), tear shedding, not sleeping, Pure Hell (pardon my French but there is no other word for it) of ending a relationship with someone you love. She asked me what I thought and I told her what I thought, not realizing until after I sent what I thought and re-read it that maybe my own advice was something I should put into my preparedness repertoire because, discomfiting as it may be to admit, the odds are good, statistically, that at some point next year I’m going to need to hear exactly what I said to her in my reply.
This is inarguable considering that: a) I am single, and b) Although not listed on any dating site or Facebook or Twitter or anything else, occasionally the universe decides to mess with me and I find myself dating someone. Which means there is a 50% chance that I will Meet Someone Wonderful And Just Settle Down Forever (this is my dad’s favorite subject to discourse upon, ad nauseum, on the bi-weekly phone call) but there is also a 50% chance that I will Meet Someone Wonderful And It Will Be Great But It Just Won’t Work Out And We Won’t Try To Fix It. Knowing there’s a better than 50% chance, working with the public as I do, that I could get the flu this season, I wash my hands a lot. So considering the whole percentage thing and my ability to, if not keep my heart unbroken, step away from the Kleenex and the romance movies sooner rather than later when it is broken, I’m reprinting (with my own permission, and hers as well) my response to Lainie, in the spirit of Emergency Preparedness:
To: Northernhorse112557@gmmails.net
From: MadBeringer96555222555@earthlink.net
Re: Hello – Can I Vent?
Hi Sweetie,
Of course you may vent. You may vent any time and for as long as you want. I love you to pieces and I'm always here for you, you know that. I'm doing well -- keeping the holiday extremely LOW KEY, and I like it that way. There's just too much hype that goes into it, it's gotten too commercial, and let's face it -- it's an emotional time for single people in general, so I find the more I keep it to the basics, the better time I have with it.
First of all, quit beating yourself up over Blake. It was, for all intents and purposes, a long term relationship, even if he was never really one to use the 'R' word and call it that and hurting when it ends is completely human and understandable. I know exactly what you're going through. Sweetie, I went through the same thing after You Know Who I Mean, and I still do catch myself, that is, thinking back on it. Wondering where it went wrong, how it could have been fixed, etc. But here's the bottom line. It all comes down to the truth someone told me years ago, and it was only in really accepting this that I was able to stop crying myself and move on, even if it was at first half-heartedly and definitely haltingly: If you're supposed to be with someone, there's nothing you can do to change that, and not be with them. If you're not supposed to be with someone, there's nothing you can do to change that, and be with them. In other words, while we do make choices on who we're with and how we spend our time, when it comes down to it we're not the ones in charge of how life works out, especially not in the romance department. Another thing I believe is that everyone comes into your life for a reason. Think about what you learned from Blake. Or think about a few good memories you had with him. Either one could have been the reason. So be grateful for the experience -- but don't let it stop you from enjoying what you have today.
Before Blake came along, you were a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. While you were with Blake you were a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. Without Blake you are a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. He made a decision, and that decision does not diminish who or what you are or change what you have to offer. You can offer someone a Mercedes, in other words, and they'll opt for a skateboard or decide to just walk. Doesn't make the Mercedes any less of a prize (Think about that one).
I remember doing nothing but crying (well, that and smoking, and not eating, and crying some more, and developing a ridiculous affinity for cinnamon Pop Tarts which were the only thing I would eat when I did) when I left Brent in 2005. One day I found a bookmarker in an Oprah magazine so I cut it out, and kept it in front of me for the next several years. Today it's framed, in my living room, and it literally got my b*tt going again, just because I said it to myself several times a day. I have no idea who Yehuda Amachi is, but bless him or her for saying what’s on that bookmark: "Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding...". You don't have to believe it. Just say it. Repeatedly. What happens will surprise the heck out of you, I promise.
And honey, you have a lot, today. I've found that at the times when I feel I have the least, that's when I am reminded I have the most. What I do when I get really in a funk is, I have to write down everything in my life I'm grateful for. What to do if you can't think of anything? If you think there's nothing to be grateful for? That's easy. Take a look around you and think of what you'd be sad NOT to have. I'm not writing your list, but I'd start with, 'your kids, your home, the fact that you have a car, and a job, and friends, and your mental faculties, and food in the cupboard, and shoes on your feet, and a great sense of humor, and a beautiful appearance, and a great personality, and.....' See where I'm going with that? Sometimes we don't know what we have because we forget to envision how we'd feel if we didn't have what we take for granted.
I am sending you huge hugs, and please know that I'm always here for you, and I'm around and about this week (working all week) but of course I would come by any time you wanted me to. In the interim, try something. Try this. Sounds dumb, but it works. So your brain doesn't want to let go of Blake and I understand that....I still, from time to time (and sometimes all the time) think about You Know Who I Mean. And romanticize the whole thing. And feel like cr*p about it. And forget (how conveniently we do this) that it's not really HIM that I miss, it's what I thought we were (which we weren’t, or we would be). So in short, I'm tearing myself up over a myth (Great. And until I realized that, I'd thought I was a little intelligent, then realized I was in the end only human, which isn't so bad, either :)). Change your routine. Drive to work a different route. Move a piece of furniture, or better yet -- your entire room. Sleep on the OTHER side of the bed. Sounds ridiculous but it's really, really helpful. Because when you walk into new surroundings, or take different paths -- you're no longer in the same space and on the same paths you shared with HIM (yes, that mythical version of who you thought the two of you were) and this is very healing.
Not automatically, of course. Nothing in life is automatic except sleep after an ambien, but it's a huge step in the right direction, and any kind of step is a very good thing.
As for what you should do, be with your crazy aunts for lunch this week or not? Sweetie, I can't tell you that. You will know for yourself. Again, I'm pretty black and white on it, so if it was me, I'd take a sheet of paper, and put three columns on it: "Pros", "Cons" and "Rathers". List the pros of going, the cons of going, and in the final column, what you'd rather be doing instead and if there's nothing you'd rather be doing, leave it blank. If you'd rather be eating a bon bon and watching an old movie, put that down. Pretty easy to tally them all off when you're done, and the right reason in any column is going to be the one you go with.
I love you hugely. I'm here for you. Remember what I said, fellow Gemini -- we're not truly "Twins" as our symbol says, but cats. Cats sometimes have a rough go, but they always, always, always land on their feet and even with the occasional low spot, manage to cram all the fun and experience of nine lives into one.
That in mind, Blake and You Know Who I Mean are maybe just blips (and not terribly huge ones) on the big screen of life. Be glad for the moments of happy static they brought, wish them the best, and leave the rest.
Behind all this, I promise you (well, me and Yehuda promise you), some great happiness IS hiding.
Hugs, Hollyberries, Gaudy Christmas Wreaths, Overcooked Turkey, all that other Holiday Nonsense and Lots of Love,
M
I’m hopeful I won’t need that advice in the new year, but just in case, there it is.
As I generally do at the end of a year, I spent some time recently reflecting back over the past twelve months and giving thought to what I’d like to do in 2010. Without, it should be noted, making this a terribly complicated or detailed process as it’s been my experience that the creation of a detailed ‘Goals and Objectives’ list with requisite foot-noted timeline for completion produces nothing more than a detailed ‘Goals and Objectives’ list with requisite foot-noted timeline for completion that looks ridiculous there on the fridge, secured by a magnet and covered by HOA bulletins and store coupons. Going into the new year, I thought if nothing else I’d like to be---well, as prepared as I can be for, if nothing else, anything I can hedge a guess will be inevitable.
It’s a fact that income is down, at least over previous years. 2010 is looking much better but it made sense to increase savings and cut spending. That alone made me feel as if I’d already accomplished something, and we’re still weeks away from midnight on New Year’s Eve. I donated some clothing, gave away some furniture and miscellaneous (having finally realized my condo is not going to expand to fit the contents input, like a cell on an Excel spreadsheet), and with that felt—well, prepared.
It wasn’t until I got an email from Lainie this morning that I realized I’d forgotten one other measure I might consider putting into place, and that measure explains this particular post. Because this morning I got an email from my very dear friend who is still, weeks after the departure of Blake, holed up in the donut-consuming, romance movie watching (Never mind my advice to watch only, “He’s Just Not That Into You” and make notes on what the guy bartender says in the beginning until you get the lesson), tear shedding, not sleeping, Pure Hell (pardon my French but there is no other word for it) of ending a relationship with someone you love. She asked me what I thought and I told her what I thought, not realizing until after I sent what I thought and re-read it that maybe my own advice was something I should put into my preparedness repertoire because, discomfiting as it may be to admit, the odds are good, statistically, that at some point next year I’m going to need to hear exactly what I said to her in my reply.
This is inarguable considering that: a) I am single, and b) Although not listed on any dating site or Facebook or Twitter or anything else, occasionally the universe decides to mess with me and I find myself dating someone. Which means there is a 50% chance that I will Meet Someone Wonderful And Just Settle Down Forever (this is my dad’s favorite subject to discourse upon, ad nauseum, on the bi-weekly phone call) but there is also a 50% chance that I will Meet Someone Wonderful And It Will Be Great But It Just Won’t Work Out And We Won’t Try To Fix It. Knowing there’s a better than 50% chance, working with the public as I do, that I could get the flu this season, I wash my hands a lot. So considering the whole percentage thing and my ability to, if not keep my heart unbroken, step away from the Kleenex and the romance movies sooner rather than later when it is broken, I’m reprinting (with my own permission, and hers as well) my response to Lainie, in the spirit of Emergency Preparedness:
To: Northernhorse112557@gmmails.net
From: MadBeringer96555222555@earthlink.net
Re: Hello – Can I Vent?
Hi Sweetie,
Of course you may vent. You may vent any time and for as long as you want. I love you to pieces and I'm always here for you, you know that. I'm doing well -- keeping the holiday extremely LOW KEY, and I like it that way. There's just too much hype that goes into it, it's gotten too commercial, and let's face it -- it's an emotional time for single people in general, so I find the more I keep it to the basics, the better time I have with it.
First of all, quit beating yourself up over Blake. It was, for all intents and purposes, a long term relationship, even if he was never really one to use the 'R' word and call it that and hurting when it ends is completely human and understandable. I know exactly what you're going through. Sweetie, I went through the same thing after You Know Who I Mean, and I still do catch myself, that is, thinking back on it. Wondering where it went wrong, how it could have been fixed, etc. But here's the bottom line. It all comes down to the truth someone told me years ago, and it was only in really accepting this that I was able to stop crying myself and move on, even if it was at first half-heartedly and definitely haltingly: If you're supposed to be with someone, there's nothing you can do to change that, and not be with them. If you're not supposed to be with someone, there's nothing you can do to change that, and be with them. In other words, while we do make choices on who we're with and how we spend our time, when it comes down to it we're not the ones in charge of how life works out, especially not in the romance department. Another thing I believe is that everyone comes into your life for a reason. Think about what you learned from Blake. Or think about a few good memories you had with him. Either one could have been the reason. So be grateful for the experience -- but don't let it stop you from enjoying what you have today.
Before Blake came along, you were a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. While you were with Blake you were a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. Without Blake you are a beautiful, intelligent, loved, respected, awesome woman. He made a decision, and that decision does not diminish who or what you are or change what you have to offer. You can offer someone a Mercedes, in other words, and they'll opt for a skateboard or decide to just walk. Doesn't make the Mercedes any less of a prize (Think about that one).
I remember doing nothing but crying (well, that and smoking, and not eating, and crying some more, and developing a ridiculous affinity for cinnamon Pop Tarts which were the only thing I would eat when I did) when I left Brent in 2005. One day I found a bookmarker in an Oprah magazine so I cut it out, and kept it in front of me for the next several years. Today it's framed, in my living room, and it literally got my b*tt going again, just because I said it to myself several times a day. I have no idea who Yehuda Amachi is, but bless him or her for saying what’s on that bookmark: "Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding...". You don't have to believe it. Just say it. Repeatedly. What happens will surprise the heck out of you, I promise.
And honey, you have a lot, today. I've found that at the times when I feel I have the least, that's when I am reminded I have the most. What I do when I get really in a funk is, I have to write down everything in my life I'm grateful for. What to do if you can't think of anything? If you think there's nothing to be grateful for? That's easy. Take a look around you and think of what you'd be sad NOT to have. I'm not writing your list, but I'd start with, 'your kids, your home, the fact that you have a car, and a job, and friends, and your mental faculties, and food in the cupboard, and shoes on your feet, and a great sense of humor, and a beautiful appearance, and a great personality, and.....' See where I'm going with that? Sometimes we don't know what we have because we forget to envision how we'd feel if we didn't have what we take for granted.
I am sending you huge hugs, and please know that I'm always here for you, and I'm around and about this week (working all week) but of course I would come by any time you wanted me to. In the interim, try something. Try this. Sounds dumb, but it works. So your brain doesn't want to let go of Blake and I understand that....I still, from time to time (and sometimes all the time) think about You Know Who I Mean. And romanticize the whole thing. And feel like cr*p about it. And forget (how conveniently we do this) that it's not really HIM that I miss, it's what I thought we were (which we weren’t, or we would be). So in short, I'm tearing myself up over a myth (Great. And until I realized that, I'd thought I was a little intelligent, then realized I was in the end only human, which isn't so bad, either :)). Change your routine. Drive to work a different route. Move a piece of furniture, or better yet -- your entire room. Sleep on the OTHER side of the bed. Sounds ridiculous but it's really, really helpful. Because when you walk into new surroundings, or take different paths -- you're no longer in the same space and on the same paths you shared with HIM (yes, that mythical version of who you thought the two of you were) and this is very healing.
Not automatically, of course. Nothing in life is automatic except sleep after an ambien, but it's a huge step in the right direction, and any kind of step is a very good thing.
As for what you should do, be with your crazy aunts for lunch this week or not? Sweetie, I can't tell you that. You will know for yourself. Again, I'm pretty black and white on it, so if it was me, I'd take a sheet of paper, and put three columns on it: "Pros", "Cons" and "Rathers". List the pros of going, the cons of going, and in the final column, what you'd rather be doing instead and if there's nothing you'd rather be doing, leave it blank. If you'd rather be eating a bon bon and watching an old movie, put that down. Pretty easy to tally them all off when you're done, and the right reason in any column is going to be the one you go with.
I love you hugely. I'm here for you. Remember what I said, fellow Gemini -- we're not truly "Twins" as our symbol says, but cats. Cats sometimes have a rough go, but they always, always, always land on their feet and even with the occasional low spot, manage to cram all the fun and experience of nine lives into one.
That in mind, Blake and You Know Who I Mean are maybe just blips (and not terribly huge ones) on the big screen of life. Be glad for the moments of happy static they brought, wish them the best, and leave the rest.
Behind all this, I promise you (well, me and Yehuda promise you), some great happiness IS hiding.
Hugs, Hollyberries, Gaudy Christmas Wreaths, Overcooked Turkey, all that other Holiday Nonsense and Lots of Love,
M
I’m hopeful I won’t need that advice in the new year, but just in case, there it is.
Friday, December 18, 2009
This Year Santa Brought The Sham Wows: White Elephants Conquered
I last left off my struggle with White Elephants by noting I had in my possession, in a translucent plastic Walgreens bag on my kitchen counter, a 20 pack of Sham Wows, the As Seen On TV wonder towels with a life expectancy equal to roughly three of my own and reputed to be able to absorb the contents of an Olympic grade swimming pool. These were to be my contribution to our office White Elephant Exchange and Hopefully (if we all remember to bring something) Potluck Luncheon in our boardroom on December 22nd.
I had these on my counter because every other White Elephant I purchased wound up as a gift to myself, my having no willpower whatsoever, a ridiculous affinity for semi-useless items advertised on television, a penchant for believing all the advertising I read, or (most likely) all of the above. In short, the ‘Amazing Blanket with Sleeves’ in a zebra print? Something I had to keep for those chillier evenings when I’m deeply involved in a Lifetime Television for Women movie and too lazy to go get an actual blanket to wrap up in. The ‘Amazing Blanket With Sleeves For Dogs: Keeps your Body Warm And Your Paws Free!’? It’s Basil’s. At least we match when we’re watching that movie. The ‘Incredibly Soft and Luxurious Throw Blanket’? Thrown luxuriously over the back of my favorite reading chair. You begin to see the problem. The 20 pack of Sham Wows were intended to be the one gift I absolutely wouldn’t want to keep for myself.
Since that posting the situation has changed. It changed because I spilled coffee on a cashmere blend sweater while paying more attention to conversation than to my beverage at a luncheon last week, and I hand-washed the resultant stain from the sweater that evening. I was finishing up the rinse when I remembered one of the photos from the box of Amazing Sham Wows, namely, the photo of a wet sweater being laid on a large Sham Wow and then rolled into a tube. Something short of five minutes or so later, the sweater was almost completely dry. I’m sure you can see where this story is going, so I won’t give you too many details except to say in something short of five minutes my sweater was as close to dry as anything put in a dryer for a full cycle and I was not only a Sham Wow convert but the proud owner of 20 of them.
Which left nothing for the White Elephant exchange but at the time, I was so excited about this wonder towel I didn’t care. I didn’t care even more when, the next morning, I realized I could continue my old folly of ‘towel-drying’ my hair before using the blow dryer, a process that left my hair as damp and unruly as the towel I’d wrapped it in, or I could dry it with a Super Sized Sham Wow. For anyone who’s never tried this, I can only say that Sham Wow is this close to making the blow dryer obsolete and I’m amazed every time I dry my hair. All that water, somehow absorbed by this astounding orange towel made somewhere in Germany (which begs the question, why are all the really good products made in Germany? Why did it take Germany to make Sham Wows, when the best we Americans seem to come up with are ‘Quicker Picker Uppers’ like Bounty? For the record, it would take two rolls of Bounty to dry just one section of my hair. Just once, I’d like to be in the “As Seen On TV” aisle and find something truly awesome with a label that read, ‘made in Cleveland’) that still didn’t need wringing out. I don’t know where the water goes once it’s absorbed, I really don’t. All I know is, I hang the Sham Wow on the towel rack and it dries itself as if by some miracle or something, in a matter of minutes.
I’ve become a Sham Wow devotee and stand completely ready to put them to all kinds of uses, now that I’ve seen for myself how truly amazing they really are. Possibilities abound. Maintenance fee (passed into my HOA fee) for draining and cleaning the pools? That’s going by the wayside, just as soon as I drop a super-sized Sham Wow in each one, is what I’m thinking.
I felt ridiculous enough being so pleased by a zebra print blanket with sleeves, so pardon me while I confess to being more ecstatic over these Sham Wows than I’ve been over anything in my life, with the possible exception of the day I adopted Basil. After washing the dishes, I lay them out on a medium sized blue Sham Wow and again, I don’t know where the water goes, but minutes later I put the clean dishes away and the towel is as dry and ready for the next project as it was when it hit the counter. For whatever reason, this is fascinating to me.
Lest I get booted form the White Elephant luncheon for arriving gift-less this year, I rectified the gift problem finally and completely over the weekend and had to go no farther than a Barnes and Noble’s entry foyer to do it. There, displayed in nice even piles, were ‘Humorous Holiday Kits – The Perfect Gift!’s. Reluctantly bypassing the foam fruitcake (‘The Perfect Re-Gift! Includes copy of 50 Uses For A Fruitcake’) I selected ‘The Zen Dog”, a box including a plastic curry comb, CD of soothing meditation music, instructional booklet on dog massage, instructional booklet of dog meditations to read to your pet while you play the accompanying DVD of relaxing images for your dog, and also “The Complete Kazooist”, which included a CD of favorite Kazoo songs, DVD of proper Kazoo handling techniques, and of course, a silver plated Kazoo. Once home, I wrapped them both, firmly taping the Kazoo kit on top of the Zen Dog box. In retrospect I think I’ve spent too much time in the “As Seen On TV” aisle lately because instead of a label I applied stick on letters to both boxes. On the Zen Dog, the letters spelled out “Best Gift Ever!” and on the Kazoo kit, “But Wait, There’s More!”. I put both in a bag, and considered my White Elephant Drama over.
And it is over, but only because I took the bag to my office the very next morning, deciding to store it on my credenza rather than in my eye line at home. I did this for no other reason than that Basil seems a bit stressed lately and I can’t afford to consider the possibility that she might enjoy a plastic curry comb, DVD of relaxing images or CD of soothing meditation music. If there’s one thing I don’t need for Christmas, it’s yet another White Elephant from myself.
I had these on my counter because every other White Elephant I purchased wound up as a gift to myself, my having no willpower whatsoever, a ridiculous affinity for semi-useless items advertised on television, a penchant for believing all the advertising I read, or (most likely) all of the above. In short, the ‘Amazing Blanket with Sleeves’ in a zebra print? Something I had to keep for those chillier evenings when I’m deeply involved in a Lifetime Television for Women movie and too lazy to go get an actual blanket to wrap up in. The ‘Amazing Blanket With Sleeves For Dogs: Keeps your Body Warm And Your Paws Free!’? It’s Basil’s. At least we match when we’re watching that movie. The ‘Incredibly Soft and Luxurious Throw Blanket’? Thrown luxuriously over the back of my favorite reading chair. You begin to see the problem. The 20 pack of Sham Wows were intended to be the one gift I absolutely wouldn’t want to keep for myself.
Since that posting the situation has changed. It changed because I spilled coffee on a cashmere blend sweater while paying more attention to conversation than to my beverage at a luncheon last week, and I hand-washed the resultant stain from the sweater that evening. I was finishing up the rinse when I remembered one of the photos from the box of Amazing Sham Wows, namely, the photo of a wet sweater being laid on a large Sham Wow and then rolled into a tube. Something short of five minutes or so later, the sweater was almost completely dry. I’m sure you can see where this story is going, so I won’t give you too many details except to say in something short of five minutes my sweater was as close to dry as anything put in a dryer for a full cycle and I was not only a Sham Wow convert but the proud owner of 20 of them.
Which left nothing for the White Elephant exchange but at the time, I was so excited about this wonder towel I didn’t care. I didn’t care even more when, the next morning, I realized I could continue my old folly of ‘towel-drying’ my hair before using the blow dryer, a process that left my hair as damp and unruly as the towel I’d wrapped it in, or I could dry it with a Super Sized Sham Wow. For anyone who’s never tried this, I can only say that Sham Wow is this close to making the blow dryer obsolete and I’m amazed every time I dry my hair. All that water, somehow absorbed by this astounding orange towel made somewhere in Germany (which begs the question, why are all the really good products made in Germany? Why did it take Germany to make Sham Wows, when the best we Americans seem to come up with are ‘Quicker Picker Uppers’ like Bounty? For the record, it would take two rolls of Bounty to dry just one section of my hair. Just once, I’d like to be in the “As Seen On TV” aisle and find something truly awesome with a label that read, ‘made in Cleveland’) that still didn’t need wringing out. I don’t know where the water goes once it’s absorbed, I really don’t. All I know is, I hang the Sham Wow on the towel rack and it dries itself as if by some miracle or something, in a matter of minutes.
I’ve become a Sham Wow devotee and stand completely ready to put them to all kinds of uses, now that I’ve seen for myself how truly amazing they really are. Possibilities abound. Maintenance fee (passed into my HOA fee) for draining and cleaning the pools? That’s going by the wayside, just as soon as I drop a super-sized Sham Wow in each one, is what I’m thinking.
I felt ridiculous enough being so pleased by a zebra print blanket with sleeves, so pardon me while I confess to being more ecstatic over these Sham Wows than I’ve been over anything in my life, with the possible exception of the day I adopted Basil. After washing the dishes, I lay them out on a medium sized blue Sham Wow and again, I don’t know where the water goes, but minutes later I put the clean dishes away and the towel is as dry and ready for the next project as it was when it hit the counter. For whatever reason, this is fascinating to me.
Lest I get booted form the White Elephant luncheon for arriving gift-less this year, I rectified the gift problem finally and completely over the weekend and had to go no farther than a Barnes and Noble’s entry foyer to do it. There, displayed in nice even piles, were ‘Humorous Holiday Kits – The Perfect Gift!’s. Reluctantly bypassing the foam fruitcake (‘The Perfect Re-Gift! Includes copy of 50 Uses For A Fruitcake’) I selected ‘The Zen Dog”, a box including a plastic curry comb, CD of soothing meditation music, instructional booklet on dog massage, instructional booklet of dog meditations to read to your pet while you play the accompanying DVD of relaxing images for your dog, and also “The Complete Kazooist”, which included a CD of favorite Kazoo songs, DVD of proper Kazoo handling techniques, and of course, a silver plated Kazoo. Once home, I wrapped them both, firmly taping the Kazoo kit on top of the Zen Dog box. In retrospect I think I’ve spent too much time in the “As Seen On TV” aisle lately because instead of a label I applied stick on letters to both boxes. On the Zen Dog, the letters spelled out “Best Gift Ever!” and on the Kazoo kit, “But Wait, There’s More!”. I put both in a bag, and considered my White Elephant Drama over.
And it is over, but only because I took the bag to my office the very next morning, deciding to store it on my credenza rather than in my eye line at home. I did this for no other reason than that Basil seems a bit stressed lately and I can’t afford to consider the possibility that she might enjoy a plastic curry comb, DVD of relaxing images or CD of soothing meditation music. If there’s one thing I don’t need for Christmas, it’s yet another White Elephant from myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)