Take My Wife, Please!

As I hinted in a previous post, I feel kind of sorry for men who marry young women.  They do not realize at the time, but they actually have no idea who they are going to end up with.  With some notable exceptions, most women do not come in to their own until middle age, when all hell breaks lose.  Sometimes the sweet, passive young thing you married becomes a mouthy, strongly opinionated woman in her 40's.  It happens!

I am uncomfortably aware this is a gross stereotype.  Still, I am going to follow this thought and see where it takes me.  I am not afraid to make a boneheaded argument and later discover I was all wrong.  It's kinda fun and it gives me something to do.

How many marriages end because the man no longer recognizes the woman he married, or the woman feels she has outgrown the man?  The contract has been broken, the promises have not been kept.  The husband may feel cheated and deceived when he finds out his wife has her own opinions and they do not jive with his own.  Imagine how heartbreaking it must be for a man to discover his wife cannot stand the things about him at 50 that she loved at 20?   That has got to be harsh!  You have my sympathy, gentlemen.

Most boys are allowed, encouraged even, to be “themselves.”  Boys are admired for having strong personalities.  Hey, they admire THEMSELVES for having strong personalities and they are not shy about revealing who they are.  I like that about young men.  Young woman let it all hang out with their girlfriends, but some do not reveal their "selves" when a young man is around.  Is it because a young woman does not want to "rock the boat" or alienate a boyfriend?  Don't you just love running into a young woman who does not care about things like that?  In fact, the world is not overly accepting of young women developing strong personalities.  I suspect most young men do not want a Bella Abzug for a wife, they want a Barbie Doll.  If you do not know who Bella Abzug was, then you were not politically active in the late 1960s and you really need to google her.  She was an amazingly accomplished and admirable political powerhouse who some tried to turn into a joke so as to diminish her power and influence.  Seems like some things never change.

We all change as we grow older.  I could be wrong, but I think women change over time more than men do. This is true for my generation, anyway.  I hope things have changed dramatically and the young whippersnappers of today are different.  It would make me very happy to be wrong, but I think Katniss Everdeen is still the exception to the rule. 

What do I mean by that?  Hopefully men will grow and change over time, but you often still recognize the essential 20 year old in a man even in old age.  The girl they married may have hung on their every word, blissfully allowing the husband to make all the major decisions when she was young.  The woman they grow old with may not be recognizable in that context.  Hopefully the husband has grown and changed along with her and has fallen in love with her all over again as she transformed into a woman.  Stranger things have happened.  But God help the old fart who marries a young woman.  By the time she becomes a grown up woman he no longer approves of, he might be too old and gnarly to find another malleable young girl.  Unless he has a lot of money, of course, then he might attract someone like Anna Nicole Smith.

Young women notoriously stop excelling at school around puberty and start researching beauty tips and clothing styles instead of math and science.  This is slowly changing, I am almost sure of it.  However, I fear a significant number of American Girls are still not being raised by parents encouraging them to be brilliant, quirky, or feisty characters.  It is sad to see a bright girl dumb herself down in hopes of attracting attention for how she looks instead of who she is, and even more sad when a grown woman does it.  I cannot help but wonder if Kim Kardashian has a personality or any deep thoughts.   If she does, she certainly hides them well.  Pink, on the other hand, is a celebrity I would be proud to know.  In fact, if you are not familiar with Pink's song "Stupid Girls" you really should listen to it.  Great stuff.

Once upon a time there was a psychologist named Carl Rogers.  According to the web site you will come to if you click on his name, he thought:

“…for a person to "grow", they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood).

Without these, relationships and healthy personalities will not develop as they should, much like a tree will not grow without sunlight and water.”

Some girls in traditional families do not get those things from their parents.  Hell, many wives do not get these things from their husbands.  Even in this enlightened day and age (?), many girls are not liked, accepted or understood, even in their own families.  Too many young girls are still being tolerated rather than celebrated.

I know a lot of exceptional women with strong and unique personalities who live normal lives and even vote Republican!  (I would insert a smiley face emoticon here if I could figure out how to use this blog site software.)  After many years of struggle and hardscrabble existence, these woman are living feminism, whether they want to own up to it or not.  They might have been meek and mild when they married their husbands at 19; however, they are no longer meek nor mild at 40, 50, 60 and beyond.  They are gloriously fully formed personalities full of piss and vinegar.  Deal with it!

It is true that I married T young.  However, I have always been a mouthy dame and I was lucky enough as a young woman to find a young man who appreciated women like me.  Or at least that is what I have always thought.   Just to make sure I am not deluding myself, I just went and asked T if I was meek and mild when he married me.   He answered with a resounding "YOU?" Then some laughter and maybe snorting.  "No, you were never meek and mild."  I am one of the lucky ones.  Or maybe he is?  

Old Friends

We had friends visiting from NYS this week; old friends.  Not that THEY are old, but two of the three have been my friends for a very long time, since the late 1970's and early 1980's.  The third has been a good friend since about 1990.  Well, perhaps we are old by some standards, but we certainly do not feel old. We all feel young.  I still feel like I am about 12 years old. 

They are work-related friends, people I met either working alongside them or in some other work-related capacity back in the day.  These friendships created deep ties.  We have been through so much together, with friendships waxing and waning over the years but always retaining a connection.  We were young together once, we all worked hard to build, establish, and excel in our careers, and now we are all retired.  Time marches on.  It is heartwarming to see that we still connect and can pick up where we left off regardless of how much time has passed.  It is fun to catch up on their lives and remember other friends (and enemies) from the same time period.   OK, OK, especially the enemies. 

A couple of days of girl talk is just what a doctor should have ordered for me.  It cheered me right up.  I love these women.  They are hardcore, no lightweights here.  They are women who lived their lives honestly, with great feeling, and on their own terms.  They are all comfortable in their own skins and revel in their individual personalities. We each married young, but they are older than me by 8-20 years.  So the men they married were pre-feminism husbands.  Rest assured these women have either retrained their men or divorced them by now.  It cracks me up to hear them talk about retraining tactics.  They are a joyous bunch.

Yesterday, sitting by the pool, we toasted a fallen comrade, Maggie, who died in 2006.  Oh how I wish she could have joined us.  She was what one might refer to as a ton of bricks.  I have never met a stronger personality.  She was older than us and alternately intimidated us and encouraged us to be our best selves.  She challenged our politics and our relationship choices at every turn.  This is a woman who refused to wear glasses because she thought they were a sign of weakness.  That is a direct quote, by the way.  She was single her whole life, and her listing in the telephone book was under the name Brandy Alexander.  If you were stupid enough to betray her  I am quite sure she could tear your heart out with her teeth.  We were all more than a little afraid of her. 

For many years this group of women (including myself) would meet Maggie at a yearly bazaar held at an elegant Victorian mansion turned restaurant over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  Let us call it a "Maggie mandated event."  The event was meant to kick off the holiday buying season and was called the Twelve Shops of Christmas.  We would eat a buffet lunch in the old carriage house on the property, staying long and talking loud.  She directed the flow of conversation and we all hung on her every word.  Then we would go into the mansion and shop in the twelve rooms where various upscale businesses set up shop.  It was fun. This annual event was often the only time I saw her.

In late August 2006, I received a call from another former co-worker and Maggie protégé, CA.  CA breathlessly and apologetically informed me that Maggie had been sick, was now comatose, was in the hospital on a respirator, and her family had made the decision to "pull the plug" that very afternoon.  CA has always been the one to inform us about former co-workers from that time period because she was the only one left at that particular workplace.  Her kindness is legion.  Unfortunately, she had only just realized she forgot to tell me when Maggie got sick.  For a while Maggie had been conscious and many of the old gang had gone to the hospital to see her and say goodbye.  Now she was not and the end was near.  This would be my last chance to see her before she was gone.  I was grateful to CA for taking the time to let me know. 

Leaving work immediately, I drove up to the hospital.  I walked into the Intensive Care Unit without anyone questioning why I was there and wandered from bed to bed until I found her.  Her eyes were closed, and her chest rose and fell mechanically.  From what I could tell, she was already gone.  It did not seem like a spirit inhabited that body.  I selfishly wondered why they had not turned off life support sooner.  What a cruel joke to pretend she was still alive.  She would have been angry for me to see her like that.  It was WAY beyond glasses.  In my mind I went on and on with my self-righteous indignation, as if I knew anything about anything.  In fact, I do realize how hard these decisions are for family; nobody wants to make a life or death decision for a loved one.  It takes great courage to do so, and such a decision requires a fearless nature and a clear conscience.  Not everyone can summon those qualities in the face of death.  It is just too hard.  Maggie could have made that decision for any one of us, though.  She was strong that way.

Maggie 1984

Picking and Choosing

Some people like change and others avoid it at all costs. I am not writing this because I have an agenda to push.  I do not subscribe to a one-size-fits-all life model.  It really comes down to who you are and what you need to be happy.  I am absolutely not comfortable with change, but I seem to need it periodically. I get antsy when things remain the same for too long.  I get bored easily.  I court change knowing full well the process of changing will likely be unsettling for awhile, and may even turn out to be a mistake; but I still want the change to happen.  I cannot help myself.  I come from pioneer stock.  Every so often I feel the urge to move on and reinvent myself.  It is called “throwing caution to the wind.”   It is my forte.

Retiring was a piece of cake, except for that unfortunate reduction in discretionary income.  It has been almost a year (I retired last Halloween) and I have never regretted the decision to retire.  Not working has been a pure joy.  We have always lived a fairly simple life, and we have adjusted to a limited income.  Still, I have not ruled out getting a part time job at some point for extra money.   I do not want to, but it would be nice to have some extra money to replace the sliding glass door to the pool area.  The door sticks.  I huff and puff and swear when I struggle to open it.  Plus, I would REALLY like to get my neck done…  I am almost serious about the neck thing.  Plastic surgery is definitely not in our retirement budget, but the neck is not pretty and it is getting worse.  I am not sure I can go through the rest of my life with my current neck. 

Moving, on the other hand, has been the real kicker.   Six months into it I can report that although I am surprisingly happy to live in Florida, I am not yet on the other side of the “process” of changing.  Changing residences interstate kicked our asses and we are both exhausted.  Part of that exhaustion was caused by bad luck, specifically the long delay in buying our house once we got down here last March.  The travel trailer era was a bit mindboggling to live through; however, in retrospect I am glad to have experienced it.  We rose to the occasion, and that is always satisfying.  Still...it sucked all the joy out of our initial move.  It would have been nice to feel excited about moving into a house instead of just feeling relief.  In addition, we moved from a 4-season, often cold and overcast, but devastatingly beautiful Northern blue state to a relentlessly hot, sunny, overdeveloped, and flat Southern red state.  In NYS we lived in the country amidst rolling hills and endless forest.  In Florida we live in a subdivision.  This all requires some adjusting.  I am not really complaining.  I was looking for change and these challenges certainly keep the old brain cells/sparkplugs igniting.  And I get to see my wonderful grandkids almost every day.  I cannot tell you how much I love that.  However, just selling, sorting, packing, moving from, and buying houses is a stressful process.  That was a LOT of work, for a long time.  I am tired.  I would really rather not move again until my daughter has to put me in the home, and then she can do all the heavy lifting.  I am not above faking dementia in order to get out of hard work.

There are significant cultural differences I notice whether I want to or not.  Some of the cultural norms in Florida are unfamiliar to me.  There are days when the differences are interesting and fun, and there are days when they are overwhelming and threatening.  This morning, for instance, I woke up at 5 am and got up in the dark house to look out the front window.  As you might remember from my last post looking out the window is one of my new pastimes, apparently even in the dark.  Today is garbage day. Everyone puts the garbage cans and recycling cans out on the street the night before.  Imagine my surprise to see a scruffy looking older man flying by on a bicycle down our darkened street.  He went from garbage can to garbage can, opening the lids and using a flashlight to see what he could see.   He held a big trash bag in one hand as he piloted the bike.  I saw him stuff something into his bag at the house down the street and then he drove away.  Yes, I saw a real live garbage-picker.  Things like that never happened in the hamlet we lived in up North.  The only person who came to our NYS house that early in the morning was delivering the paper.  

Joining the Bourgeoisie?

OMG – I find myself watching the neighbors through the blinds in my room.   How did it come to this?  

The neighbor to our right is a middle-aged woman with two teenaged children and a dog.  There might be a husband, but I have never seen him.  She seems very nice.  Of course nearly everyone in the South seems "very nice.”  It is hard for a Northerner like me to discern if she is really nice or just well mannered.  When we first moved in she came over and introduced herself and immediately started telling us the details about other neighbors on the block.  Not all the neighbors, just the white ones.  She did not tell me any information about the tattooed Hispanic guy who drives a Harley.  She did not tell me about the two black families who live on the street.   That raised a bit of a red flag with me.  If you remember from my May 29, 2014 post “Oy Vey, and I Really Mean It!” I am uncomfortable with living in a suburban neighborhood.   I do not want to know the details about my neighbors.   The neighbors on our left are our kind of people – they ignore us and have never even waved or spoken to us.   I am pretty sure they wish we would disappear.  I can relate to that sentiment.

So how did I develop this new spying behavior?   My room, aka office/quiltmaking/grandchild’s playroom, faces the street and during the day I keep the blinds open to let natural light in.   My computer is set up in front of the window, because otherwise the room seems dark and gloomy.  As I work on the computer I keep catching sight of Next Door Lady walking her dog, and going across the street to another neighbor’s house.  Every morning she goes over there around the same time.  You can imagine how intriguing this window on the world is to a retired woman with no friends and time on her hands.  I cannot help but notice.  I cannot help but wonder why is she going there every day?  She lets herself in the house and she always has her dog in tow.  There is another dog that lives across the street.  Maybe she is feeding it?  Next Door Lady never stays in their house long.  If I see Across the Street Family outside I inevitably see Next Door Lady walk over across the street and interact with the family’s dog or pick up their toddler.  Are they close friends, or maybe family?   Does Across the Street Lady like spending so much time with Next Door Lady, or does she cringe when she sees Next Door Lady hightailing it across the street whenever she ventures outside?  I wonder what the story is on the tattooed biker down the street?  Why am I thinking about this stuff?

I might move my computer away from the window.  Life is too short.  

Counting Calories

Day 3:

I started a diet two days ago.  Today is the day three.  I am counting calories using a calorie counter on my iPhone.  It is a nice app; it converts food to calories and also gives a nutritional breakdown so you know if you are eating healthy each day. When you first sign up you code in your age, height, and weight.  Based on this information the app determines the number of calories you can consume each day and still lose weight.  You can choose to loose ½ pound a week or a pound a week.   Obviously if you want to lose a pound a week your daily calorie count will be lower than if you want to lose ½ pound per week.   I chose ½ pound a week because I am a big weenie.  You then proceed to record everything you eat during the day, every day, possibly for the rest of your miserable life. My brother, Big D, has been counting calories for a while and he has lost over 55 pounds.  

All food has a total number of calories associated with it.  For instance, a McDonalds Quarter Pounded Bacon & Cheese Hamburger has 600 calories.  A large order of French Fries is 510 calories, and a medium Coke will add another 200 calories to your count.  Two scrambled eggs have 202 calories.  Six sweet cherries are 26 calories.  A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is about 360 calories.  You see where I am going with this.  You are kind of forced to eat healthy simply because it is the only way to eat more than once a day.

You also type in the exercise you do, including the kind, duration, and exertion level. Exercise burns calories. The great thing about counting calories is that you can earn food by exercising.  This is brilliant motivation for getting more exercise.

Imagine your goal each day is 1,500 calories.  At 7:00 pm, you find yourself wanting an ice cream bar that has a calorie count of 170 (Weight Watchers Brand– not the good kind, NEVER the good kind).  Unfortunately, you have already met your calorie goal for the day. You cannot just eat more because you will go over your goal and then you will not lose that ½ pound this week.  If you have been struggling all week to keep within the calorie goal to lose that measly ½ pound, you do not want to mess this up.  You really want to lose ½ pound.  In fact, if you do not lose ½ pound you will lose your mind.  Consequently, you jump in the pool and swim laps for 20 minutes because you know you will burn up 170 calories, thus reducing your daily calorie count down to 1330.   THEN you can eat that damn ice cream bar and your calorie count is back up to 1,500, within your daily goal.  Voila!  You have earned an ice cream bar.  Nothing weird about that.  Totally hypothetical example, of course.  Or maybe that is what I did last night?  No matter, it is exactly what I will be doing this evening.

I shared this purely hypothetical example with my youngest sister, who is also counting calories and has been doing so for months.  Her answer to me was "Wait until you see what you will do for a glass of wine!"  I can only imagine.  That sounds like a day 5 kind of challenge to me. 

Today I ate breakfast at 8:00 am.  It is now 10:30 and I am waiting for it to be noon so I can eat again. Eating my next meal is pretty much all I think about now.  

My Mother's Daughter

About 15 years ago my mother moved from the family home to a small apartment. She made the change a few years after my father died.  For over 35 years she lived in the old barn-like house that 6 of my parents’ 7 children at least partially grew up in.  Of course it was not a barn, but it resembled one so I will henceforth refer to it as the Barn House.

There was 20 years between my oldest sister, CHD, and my youngest brother, WW. CHD was grown up when we moved into the Barn House.  She only lived there for a couple of months before she found an apartment and got on with her adult life. I must have been about 12 when we moved in.  I was in 7th grade.  There was a lot of living that made THAT old house a home!  At first there were only five children living there, because CHD had moved out in 1965.   Good Catholic that she was, my mother was soon pregnant again and we had a sixth child living with us (the 7^th sibling) in the Barn House by 1966.  In The Borg society, I am referred to as 3 of 7.

When Mom made the decision to move, I went to Northern Indiana to assist my siblings in paring down her belongings.   The goal was to keep only the “essentials” enabling her to fit into a one-bedroom apartment.  My sweet mother is a fully realized pack rat.  She saves everything because everything is on her “essentials” list.  It was always chaos in that house, but after 35 years the Barn House was jam-packed with memories and odd treasures.  Old pictures were in every drawer, and filled old purses and boxes tucked away in the back of her closets.  Cookbooks were stuffed with additional handwritten recipes.  Her bibles, St. Joseph Missal (Latin/English) and post Vatican II missal (English only) were chock full of genealogical goldmines in the form of funeral cards and obituary clippings.  She saved every saint medal, holy card, rosary, ceramic Blessed Virgin Mary statue, and wall crucifix her kids and grandkids ever gave her.  She has 7 children and 16 grandkids so that made for a lot of Catholic tchotchkes.  I do not know how many years worth of braided palm leaves we found.  For those of you who do not know, you get palm leaves when you go to mass on Palm Sunday.  You take them home, braid them and put them up in the house.  It is a Catholic thing.  I actually had one up on my bulletin board in the NYS house. Why not?  I threw it away last February before WE moved. Actually, I regret throwing that braided palm away.   What was I thinking?

It was fun wading through each room of my parents’ house one last time.  Of course I wanted to help my Mom and my siblings, but I must confess my primary purpose was to wallow in my mother’s things for the last time. I savored every drawer full of "stuff" and every room full of junk. That "stuff" was soul deep.  It was about my past.  It was about my parents’ life together.  It was about my mother’s neurosis. It was all a living testament to my mother’s strengths and weaknesses.  I wondered if our lives would change once her "stuff" was gone.  Interestingly, it was also about old time Roman Catholicism, the kind of mystical/devotional life every Catholic was taught to observe back before Vatican II modernized the church in the mid 1960’s. I have to stop before this post turns into my standard rant against Vatican II changes.  It always shocks people who mistakenly presume my normal liberal views would support saying the Mass in the vernacular.  That rant will have to wait for another post.

Unlike my more pragmatic siblings, I could not fault her when I found stacks of old church calendars in a corner of the kitchen.  These are calendars that each parish church gives out free to parishioners every year. The pictures of saints, the BVM, and her illustrious son were reason enough to keep them. They were beautiful.  There are many things one might fault the Roman Catholics for, but their art is not one of them.  For crying out loud, wouldn’t it be a venial sin to throw out things like that anyway?  OK, I threw them away when she was not looking, but still – I was so happy to get my grubby little hands on them for a few minutes. I stood firm in defending this collection, although I did kind of wonder why the pile was stacked on top of chocolate covered cherry boxes filled with old recipes and newspaper clippings that were stored underneath a chair pushed in a corner of the kitchen.  But then again, the opposite corner held a cart filled with old newspapers and magazines.  Maybe it was about balance, or a feng shui decision meant to increase the flow of favorable energy in the room?  I am willing to give the old lady the benefit of the doubt.  I love her madly and I find her quirkiness endearing. 

Believe it or not, I found a handwritten Pillsbury Flour Contest recipe submission that my maternal grandmother (who died before I was born…) submitted in the 1940s.  It was lying between two magazines in a pile of many.  I wish I knew how it got there.  If I had just picked up the entire pile of magazines and dumped them in the trash this recipe would have been lost forever.  Talk about treasure!  I probably slowed everyone down because I insisted on looking at every knickknack and perusing old recipes to my heart’s content.  I did not care, though.  On that day I imagined myself an archaeologist of sorts, and I am nothing if not self-indulgent.  It made the old lady happy, too.  She was thrilled that I valued her stuff.  I was having fun and I might even have been her favorite child for a few fleeting moments there.  When you are 3 of 7 you appreciate those fleeting moments.

I took pictures of rooms and furniture and piles of junk.  My younger siblings thought I was nuts.  They seemingly had no nostalgic feelings about the Barn House.  They just wanted to throw everything away so the house could be cleaned out, cleaned up and sold.   I was shocked and disturbed.  Why wasn’t I practical and focused?  Could it be that I am like my mother?  Oh, HELL no!

The best part was when three of us went through the linen closet with my Mom present.   She had a huge upstairs hallway closet with lacquered wooden doors that opened up like French doors.  This linen closet was wide enough that all four of us could stand and sort through the shelves at the same time.  We found many linens, very few of them useable.  There were old tablecloths with holes in or stains on them, sheets so threadbare you could see through them, and old towels and doilies that were tattered and torn.  Unfortunately, our sweet mother did not see them in the same way we did.  These things held different meanings for her.  She became agitated and defensive, not wanting to throw anything away.  Her standard response if we posed the question “Can we throw this away?” was “No, it is still good, someone could use that.”  She displayed classic Depression Era post-traumatic stress syndrome with subsequent hording behavior. It was amazing to observe at close hand. Her eyes were wild. She positioned herself behind us so she could see exactly what each one of us was doing.  She pulled things off the trash pile if we tried to sneak them there without asking her first.  We made four piles on the floor: the trash pile, the Goodwill pile, the give-to-a-family-member pile, and the keep-for-the-new-apartment pile.  I think you can imagine how much went on the trash pile. 

After 15 minutes our sweet mother could no longer stand the sight of us.  We took a break.  We three siblings conspired when Mom went to the bathroom (do not get me started on her bathroom…). We decided to reassure her by putting the unusable things she could not bear to throw away on the Goodwill pile and then throw things away when we took them away from her house.  We also agreed to “take” many things she wanted to pass on to family that in reality no family member would possibly want, and to quietly dispose of them accordingly.  Sorting into piles became easier for all of us.  She was happy, we were happy, and the job got done.

I came home from that visit with many amazing treasures:  An aluminum potato ricer I have absolutely no memory of, the tin French fry slicer that had intrigued me my entire childhood even though I do not make French fries, a heavy metal meat grinder I will almost certainly never use, the no-tech haircutting tools my grandmother used to cut our hair as children (giving us Mamie Eisenhower bangs in the 1950s).  I foolishly brought home two boxes filled with the inexpensive Currier and Ives-style china that my Mom had painstakingly purchased piece by piece at the grocery store.  I did not want them, but it made her so happy when I said I would take them.  I also had Mom’s old Singer sewing machine even though both my daughter and I already had new machines.  I took many funeral cards and all the Blessed Virgin Mary statues that I ever bought her, despite the fact that I have not been a Roman Catholic since 1968.  It made me happy to take these things, but I found it made me sad to have it all. I am happy T and I were able to get rid of so much “stuff” this past year in anticipation of our move to Florida. That is when I finally gave the potato ricer, the china, and the old sewing machine to the Salvation Army.  They were still good.  I am sure someone is using them.

I Dream of Bagels

Last night I had a dream about bagels.  I did not dream about the frozen kind one might buy at a Publix Grocery Store in Florida, but the fresh ones pulled from the bin at a bagelry in Upstate New York.  I ate two plain toasted bagels in rapid succession.  In this dream we were at an outside picnic where bagels were being served, and they had only one toaster oven for the entire crowd.  I simply could not get enough.  I decided to have a third bagel.  I was embarrassed (there was a long line waiting for me to finish) but I knew it was my only chance to have a decent bagel again.  Let them wait!  They probably have bagels all the time.  I have not had one in over 6 months.  I split it open and baked it in the toaster oven, covered with NYS extra sharp cheddar cheese.  I used white cheddar – not the artificially orange colored, mild cheese that purveyors down here try to pass off as cheddar.  I wanted a bagel toasted crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.  In my dream world the cheese is not simply melted; it is transformed into a golden brown, bubbly mass of yum.  Of course it is best if baked long enough so the melted cheese oozes both down the middle hole of the bagel and down the sides to the bottom of the pan where it will fry up hard into a toasty, tasty mess.  Then you can pull that cheese off the bottom of the bagel and eat it first.   That is the best part as far as I am concerned.  Anyway the crowd was getting restless, so I woke up.  It was either wake up or pull the bagel out before it was ready.  I have certain standards.  I did not get to eat my perfect bagel.   Sad.  I could almost taste it.

The Happiest Place on Earth

I had been sick for a couple of weeks.  It was intermittent and since I had a physical exam scheduled for the end of this month, I ignored my discomfort.  When I got chills and fatigue I surrendered and went to the doctor.  Until the antibiotics kicked in I was bedridden for a few days and could not do much of anything except read and sleep.

This is a nice thing about being retired.  When one gets sick one can actually go to bed and sleep no matter what time of day it is, and for as many days as it takes to get better.   No guilt, no concern; it is downright sinful.  As always, it felt so good to be bad.

After a few days of antibiotics and inactivity I felt well enough to venture out and visit The Magic Kingdom with my daughter and both grandkids.  We were all excited and happy to go.  It is purportedly the place where dreams come true – and for crying out loud, it is The Happiest Place on Earth.  Can’t beat that!  I probably have a few dreams left. 

Unfortunately, Fate had other plans for us.  She is such a pain in the neck.  I thought she had forgotten about me after she gobsmacked me with anxiety while keeping me stuck in a travel trailer for three months.  No such luck.

FYI, The Magic Kingdom is my least favorite Disney park.  It is every child’s favorite.  It is also the only Disney park that does not sell beer.  Consequently, the place is packed with hysterically giddy children and frazzled parents who must experience the park and their over-stimulated children sober.

We parked in the Heroes parking area (Simba lot, row 21) and from there took the tram train to the boat.  Eventually the boat filled up with enough people and departed for the Magic Kingdom.   M and I have done this before with two year-old N and he likes the tram ride and the boat.   This time, however, he was all hopped up on testosterone and clearly suffering from Baby Attitudinal Disorder (BAD).   Remember, I never had a son.  I was one of your original radical feminists in the late 60’s/early 70’s.  Back then I was pretty sure there was no difference between boys and girls besides the obvious biological thing.  I was anti-nature and pro-nurture.  Consequently, this boy energy thing never fails to catch me off guard.   How could I have been so wrong?

N did fairly well on the tram, although he would not sit still and I had to wrestle him down to keep him from flying out of the moving tram.  His mother had the folded up monster stroller between her and the rest of us at the opposite end of the long seat.   She is so clever, that one.  When we arrived at the boat I found his favorite place so that he could watch the water and the other boats.  No, that was not good enough.  He insisted on walking around the boat to investigate.  It is a double decker boat and we walked up the stairs.  Unfortunately, when we got upstairs they cordoned off the steps and started the boat moving.  That meant we (N, his 10 year old sister E, and I) were stuck upstairs.  Mommie was downstairs with the monster stroller.  The boy was miserable.  I tried to distract him but he was screaming for his Mom.  He got very angry with me and said “Gwamma, you go!  Get up and let Mommie sit down.”   I calmly explained that the captain makes the rules on the boat and he said we had to stay upstairs until the boat stopped.   He did not seem to understand English.  He wanted his Mom.  Like Woody Allen once famously said, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”   The tween granddaughter was sitting not far from us with her head turned as far in the opposite direction as it would go.  She did not have much to say; in fact when I spoke to her she seemed not to hear me at all, as if she was not with us. Odd.

When we got there, he insisted on walking.  Too bad, because when we put him into the stroller he is delightfully docile and cooperative.  On his feet he runs away.  Still, one must save these extraordinary efforts for when they are most needed.  The time would come.

E and I went on the Haunted Mansion ride while M and N went on the Dumbo ride.   Great fun, good start to the day.  E was so happy to show me the Haunted Mansion sights.  It was great to be alone with her for a few minutes.  I love that girl.  We all met up afterwards at the baseball themed Casey’s Corner for hot dogs and fries.  There was actually a vacant table inside the air-conditioned restaurant so we grabbed it.  Good thing, because almost immediately the heavens opened and the rains fell down. Luckily there is a large shopping area attached to the hot dog stand, so after we ate we were able to wander in and shop while it rained.  It rained hard for an hour.  Try keeping a toddler politely occupied in a store for that long.  He runs; he does not walk.  He has to touch everything, and he has a penchant for jewelry racks.  Specifically, he likes to put necklaces on with great force.  There were toys, and that kept him busy for a while.  Of course they were all in boxes and we would not let him open them so that frustrated him a bit.  There was, however, an open bin filled with long plastic swords… The sword was retractable and opened in 5 different layers, which was dangerous on so many levels.  Thank you Disney.  He was entranced.  Then he wanted to play hide and seek inside the store.  Or maybe he just wanted me to chase him.  Hard to tell.

My sweet tween granddaughter had money burning a hole in her pocket and wanted me to shop with her.  I tried, I really did; however, I kept catching sight of N as a flash of light running down the aisles and I simply had to grab his chubby little self to keep bad things from happening.  His mother was doing the same, but he is a fast little stinker.   It takes a village and all that.  It might require the infantry with this kid.

Finally we could take it no longer.  It was still raining but it was winding down.  We opened our umbrellas, harnessed the boy into the stroller and went on our merry way, nerves shot and minds muddled.  Oh, and I bought one of those swords.  Seriously, I did.  It made him SO happy, and it gave him something to do while we walked around.  Of course he kept leaning over the stroller dragging the sword underneath which drove his poor mother crazy, or retracting and opening it quickly so that bystanders were endangered, but what the hell – he was happy and occupied.  Trust me when I say that was all I cared about at that point in time.  M, E, and I were miserable.  I was a little nervous that his father was not going to be happy with me when N brought the sword into their house, but it was only $10 and he was happy.  I am pretty sure there is no other toy at Magic Kingdom that only costs $10.  Someone had to be happy in the Happiest Place on Earth.  Let it be the boy.

We had fast passes for a few more rides, so we found our way to The Little Mermaid ride.  We parked the stroller and let him out in order to get on the ride.  Big mistake.  He immediately made a break for it and I had to chase him into the Peter Pan ride across the way to catch and carry him back to the Little Mermaid.  I am so thankful for fast passes, otherwise we would have had to wait in line with him for 10-30 minutes.  Can you imagine?  With a fast pass you can pretty much walk right in.  He loved the Little Mermaid ride from the moment the restraining bar came down and hemmed him in.  When the ride ended we were going to walk to the final ride for which we had fast passes, Winnie the Pooh.  But it started raining again and he was kicking and screaming as M put him in the stroller.  She suddenly announced we were going home. I concurred with great feeling.  E was understandably pissed. 

We were able to keep N in the stroller for the ride on the boat to the tram.   He was great and played with his sword.  E was not talking.  M was only communicating with her iPhone. I was grateful for the quiet moments and the sound of water slapping against the boat. Or maybe it was the sword hitting the stroller wheels?

Unfortunately when we got off the boat we still had to get on the tram train to take us to the parking area.  Getting on the tram meant we had to take N out of the stroller, fold up the monster stroller and lug everything onto the long seat while convincing N to sit still until the tram started moving.  Horrors! 

N wiggled, squirmed, and yelled during the whole tram ride.  I was terrified he would fall out, even with me at the end of the row.  Finally we arrived at Heroes Parking, Simba lot, aisle 21.  The train stopped and we all lumbered off the tram.  M lugged the monster stroller off and struggled to open it quickly in the middle of the street.  It was not easy.  She might have been swearing at that point.  N refused to get off the tram.  I had to grab him and carry him off.  As I set him down he crumbled into a heap of sobbing baby flesh in the middle of the street.  He refused to stand up.  He weighs a ton.  I picked him up and lugged him across the street to the waiting stroller.  I may or may not have been dodging oncoming cars.  I felt my back go out.  I was on my last nerve.  I deposited him into the stroller.  N and E were not speaking and their eyes were glazed.  They walked fast with the boy in the stroller to the other end of the lot where the car was parked.   I could not keep up and decided not to try because, well, I was afraid I hurt my back lugging the boy across the street.  Plus, if you remember from the beginning of this post I had been sick.

When we got to the car M was struggling to get N out, harness him into his car seat, fold down the stroller, lug the heavy-ass diaper bag into the car, get him water, treats, etc.  I wandered back in her general vicinity to help.  She looked a little scary.  She said in a very controlled voice, “Mom, just go sit in the car.”   I did.

N fell asleep in his car seat.  No one else spoke. Well at one point I jokingly said to E, “Next time you find out we went to Magic Kingdom while you were in school you won’t be jealous, instead you will feel sorry for us.”  She did not laugh, reply, or even look in my general direction.  She was steaming mad.  I felt so sorry for her.   It is not easy having a two year-old brother.  I said “I am sorry it wasn’t fun for you.”  She replied “It would have been more fun going to school.”  Ouch.  I will make it up to her, never fear.

N woke up just before we got home. He was happy after his little catnap.  He was sweet and funny.   I remembered why I love him so much.  It had rained hard and there was water running down the gutters on the side of the street outside his house.   He and I like to go down and splash in the water barefoot after a heavy rain.  We took off our shoes and splashed around.  It was lovely until he made a break for it and starting running down the street.  I managed to catch him and carry him home just as M came outside to see what was up.  Then I went home and took a three-hour nap.   True story.

The Lipstick Games

T recently reconnected with an old friend whom he has not seen in over 42 years.  T and TGK were originally friends in middle school and later reconnected as wayward hippies for a while on the road in the late 60’s.  I think I met TGK once.  He said we met once, anyway.  I do not really remember.  It was a long time ago. 

We did not know what to expect, nor did T know if he would recognize TGK.  TGK was bringing his wife, whom we had never met.  I had no idea what her priorities or interests were, how old she was, or what she looked like.  That was a little scary for me.  I worried about how to dress because I am the kind of woman who cares more about what other women think of me than I do about what a man thinks.  Hard choices, since I was dressing to please her, yet I had absolutely no idea who she was.  For almost six months I have only worn shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops.  I guess I have not yet reinvented myself as a fabulous Florida retiree fashion maven.  Add that to my to do list.

My hair was particularly insane from humidity that night.  Consequently, there was not much I could do about passing for a normal 62 year-old woman.  If truth were told, I am not even sure what normal is, especially at 62.  I settled for the unassuming comfortable old dame look:  cropped blue jeans and a black top.  I wore my black leather sandals instead of my ubiquitous Croc flip-flops.  I even put on jewelry like dangly earrings, rings, and a bracelet.  I wanted to wear a necklace, too.  However, it seems I am unable to pull off earrings, rings, bracelet AND necklace at the same time.  Three out of four seems to be my limit.  Beyond three pieces of jewelry I am unable to leave the house without being overcome by insecurity.  It is like wearing a scarf.  I love seeing women wear beautifully tied scarves.  I can put one on; I can even tie it.  However, I cannot leave the house until I take it off again. I really wanted to wear eye make-up, but for the life of me I could not find any.  Something tells me I threw it all away when I moved down here.  I was even going to wear my contacts for the first time in months, but without eye makeup it did not seem worth the effort.  After tearing the house up I did find a tube of lipstick in a neutral coral color.  It was neither flattering nor a fashion statement, but it was all I had.  I applied it with gusto.

When we arrived they were the only ones there, so it was easy to pick them out of no crowd.   He was, like T, an aging old-school hipster (i.e., back when hipster was a cool thing to be, kind of like a beatnik or a jazz musician – not the narcissistic and much hated young hipster of today).

His wife seemed even more nervous about meeting me than I was about meeting her.  Turns out she is beautiful and a good 10 – 15 years younger than me with pitch black hair falling around her face and down past her shoulders.  She was carefully made up and wore a tight fitting vintage black dress with bangles, bling, and ample cleavage; imagine a brunette Stevie Nicks with more delicate, classically beautiful features.  She wore platform shoes with zebra stripes.  Her lipstick was red!  I was so excited.  Her purse was a small vintage pewter triangle thingy with metal doodads all over it.   I loved her on sight.  My first thought was “Oh my, we are not in Kansas (i.e., Ithaca) anymore.” No – I just made that up.  My first thought was actually “Wow, this is really going to be fun.”  And it was.

Legally Gray

I am officially a Floridian.  Last week T and I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to get Florida driver’s licenses, giving up our New York State equivalents.   We also registered our cars in Florida and got FL plates.  In the course of these transactions I opened the hood of my car to look for the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number).  Imagining that I was coolly displaying my auto smarts, I clicked the knob that opens the hood, walked to the front of the car and yanked open the actual car hood, grabbed the metal rod that you pull up to hold the hood open and burned the *^$# out of my hand.  Yes, it was SO HOT the metal burned my hand.  Blisters even.  So believe it when I say that August in Florida is blistering hot.  And to top it all off, the VIN is not even inside the hood.  Everyone else seems to know that.  The lady who was taking care of us kept telling me not to open it, but I would not listen.  I was bound and determined to open the hood.  Sheesh, I don't know car things.  Truthfully, I did not even know how to open the hood of my car until that morning.  I asked T to show me how before we left.  That is why I was hell bent on opening it up.  There was no stopping me.

I was nervous about going to the DMV.  I imagined the worst: evil DMV employees foaming at the mouth, making my life hell just so they can savor a fleeting moment of authority.  I figured something was bound to go wrong.   I gathered up everything on their list of required documentation and more.   We went with two separate portfolios (one for T and one for me) both stuffed to the gills with documents that proved we existed and we owned those cars.  I brought every piece of paper I could find that seemed even remotely connected to our cars, including receipts for all repairs and inspections since we bought them.   Yep, that is not an exaggeration.   My motto is “Better Superfluous than Sorry.”  Good thing, too.  When she asked for proof that I paid off the loan on my car I was able to dig a little and produced it on the spot.  That was NOT on the list.

The reason it took so long for us to register is that:

1.  T lost his SS card, and

2.  Neither of us had an official state-issued birth certificate Florida would accept

That’s right; according to the “list” Florida will not accept the hospital-issued birth certificates we have successfully used all these years.  We had to write and wait for these things to arrive from the state’s Department of Vital Statistics.  Of course the place we needed to get the birth certificates from required SS cards, so we had to wait for T’s SS card to arrive before we could apply for our official birth certificates.  The clock was ticking.   A couple of weeks ago we went ahead and got Florida auto insurance because that was required.

A few days after we canceled our NYS policy and replaced it with a Florida policy a representative from the insurance company called to tell us they would not be able to cancel our NYS auto insurance until we turned in our NYS license plates and faxed them proof that we did so.  They were so sorry, but they would have to charge us for both policies until we turned in our NYS plates.  Grrrrr.   Of course, we had already signed up for the Florida insurance, and we still had not received our official birth certificates from a certain Midwestern State.  Plus, when the certificates arrived it would still take a while to get an appointment at the DMV.  So for at least a month we are stuck paying for both NYS and FL insurances.  Of course, we cannot physically turn in our plates so we mailed them.  We now have to wait for written notification from NYS DMV stating we turned them in.  Assuming we actually receive this notification, we must fax or mail it to the insurance company.   Then hopefully someone somewhere will cancel our NYS policy without us having to call multiple times with desperate cries for help.  Many of these bureaucratic actions seem a lot like screaming into the void and waiting for an answer from God.  This is how our life has been since we moved - endless complicated hassles.

The DMV representative was seriously sweet and kind.  I was relieved.  She took one look at me over the counter and said with a beatific smile, “Don’t be so nervous!”  Must be that she is psychic because it could not have been that obvious.  I tried to lower my shoulders, but they were seemingly hooked to my earlobes.  She smiled a lot and she laughed at our corny old people jokes.  The process took a long time and of course I burned my hand, but besides that everything went pretty well.  At last something was easy.  However, the next day she called to tell us that she forgot to copy one of the required documents and we had to bring it in.  She called T’s cell phone, so he thought she meant the document needed was for his car.  I was out gallivanting around, so he took the document down to the DMV.  After waiting in line for a while, she told him the document she needed was for my car, not his.  T does not do well in situations like this, so I am fairly certain there was steam coming out of his ears when he heard that.  He called me while I was driving home from Target loaded up with toys and sweets my grandchildren would most certainly not need.  I picked up the phone because it is not illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving in Florida.  Florida is wild.  There are also lots of accidents on the roads.  But that is another story.

I drove home in a foul mood, grabbed the document, and drove like a Bat Out of Hell to take it to the DMV.  I was thinking bad thoughts all the way there.  When I arrived, the representative was still so damn sweet.  She waved me over so I did not have to wait in line.  To my twisted, friend-deprived psyche it seemed she was happy to see me.  It has been a long time since a non-family member was happy to see me.  I caved.  When she said how sorry she was for the inconvenience I just smiled my biggest smile and replied “No problem.”  I am such a liar.

Nothing is familiar or easy.  I still do not know where many things are in our house.  I do not know where any place outside our home is either.  I rely on the steady, robotic voice of my GPS.  I do not know the rules governing our lives.  I keep making mistakes.  I strongly prefer things to seem familiar and secure.  That will happen with time, I know.  Any time now would be good, actually.  Like Warren G. Harding and the post WWI populace, I await the return to normalcy.

Saturday morning we rode our bikes to the farmer’s market.  It is a nice market with great produce and interesting booths.  There was live music, Cuban sandwiches, flowers, crafts, and much more; and like good farmers markets everywhere, it is the heart of the community. We jumped in the pool when we got home.  I spent the afternoon doing genealogy research to my heart’s content.   Then we took Italian take-out to our daughter and son-in-law’s house because it was his birthday and nobody in their right mind wants to go to a restaurant with a 2-year-old.  We brought a little cheesecake (Sara Lee, if you must know) and let our 2-year-old grandson stick candles all over it.  He was so happy to make Daddy’s birthday cake.  We sang Happy Birthday.  There was a team effort by M&MV&N to blow out the candles and then we left.  Great day. 

Our 10 year old granddaughter was performing in a play this past weekend.  We saw it on Thursday, her parents saw it on Friday, and Saturday was her other grandparents’ turn to see the play.  She was incredibly good, by the way.  She is a natural comedienne with a flair for the dramatic.  At the risk of sounding positive, perhaps I should start thinking about that damn bright side once again.