Martini Rescue Squad

Love Stinks. Sometimes. Part II of II

They nail the need to please a love, the value judgments about what it would take to do so and the tortured internal dialogue the singer endures trying to reconcile it all – usually after everything has fallen apart.

And those songs nail it in four minutes or less.

When we first heard those songs in our tween years, they touched something real inside of us, even if we did not understand them yet.

As the years have progressed, I’ve recognized that realness in the coworker who made the craziest hairstyle adaptations so his girlfriend would think he was hip.

...In the neighbor who always signed up for new class or challenge so her boyfriend would think she was smart enough, or athletic enough, or pretty enough.

...In the family friend who bore his mother-in-law’s verbal abuse for years to keep his wife happy.

...Or in me, who swore off any friend who did not approve of my seriously flawed relationship – the one to which I alluded a couple of weeks ago.  “You’re with us or you’re against us.  If you’re against us, don’t let the door hit you...”  Oops.

Our loves may or may not have asked these things of us, but none of these choices were optional; they were the only choice to make if those relationships were going to survive, just as the choices you made in your similar situations were the only viable choice.

And, although we knew we were not making the “right” decision, we did not recognize how hopeless it was to reconcile that choice to its consequences until – exactly – after everything had fallen apart.

That 80’s love song in the frozen yogurt shop later that week brought everything together.

Kendall’s sister’s dogs knew better than to drag dirty things into the house.  They killed that skunk, because they sensed in it a threat; their survival instinct took over and they won.

They probably hoped the comfort she took in seeing their strength was more important than the immaculate living room carpet.  “See how I’ve protected you?”  In their animal frame of reference, that was rational.

As small children, we knew better than to draw on the wall – or name your signature offense.

We hoped the amusement and pride our parents took from our picture would cancel out the rule infraction.  “See how happy this makes you?”  In our toddler frame of reference, that was rational.

Our coworkers, neighbors, family friends and we definitely knew better than to have chosen any one of the options we took that were incongruous with our values or common sense.

We hoped the possible reward, security, respect, love, intimacy or permanence - the commitment - of which we’d prove worthy and willing would legitimate everything.  “See how much I love you?”   In our adult frame of reference, that was rational.

Or not at all, in retrospect.  The dogs win this one.

Swirling the frozen yogurt into my paper cup, listening to that heartbreaking song we’ve all heard dozens of times...I smiled as my eyes misted over for an instant.   

Love Stinks. Sometimes. Part I of II

How appalled would you be about a stinky and bloodied skunk carcass on your immaculate living room carpet?

Right.  But that’s probably not the way your dog saw it.

Your dog saw a small, threatening creature who wanted to harm it.  Ooooh...and how proud would you be if you knew your dog had killed it and brought it to you to show how well she’d handled it?  How completely she had eliminated the threat and preserved all of your welfare?

How many things have all of us done, no matter how incongruous with our values or common sense, because we thought the possible reward or security achievable was more important than the obvious consequence?

Because we thought the possible respect we could gain from this one nonsensical act was more rewarding than playing it safe?

Because we thought the love, intimacy and permanence of which we would prove ourselves worthy by taking the unorthodox, counterintuitive path would be more substantial and credible than any immaculate upholstery?

“Oh, my God, Paige...My sister’s dogs...A skunk in her backyard attacked them,” my neighbor Kendall exclaimed last week.  “It sprayed them with its musk and tried to bite them...”

“Oh, God!,” I answered.

“Exactly,” Kendall  replied.  “So they killed the skunk and dropped it i-n t-h-e c-e-n-t-e-r of her livingroom!,” she finished, annunciating each letter.

“Can you imagine?!,” she asked.

“No!,” I answered, laughing.

Ew.  Definitely not.

But I ruminated over it for a few days.  Partially because I too have adopted dogs who sometimes do the zaniest things...Because I could imagine my dogs earnestly doing the same thing, expecting laud and adoration.

And partially because it smacked of that moment when I drew on the wall in my parents’ home when I was four years old max.

You too?

“Ooooh, Paigey, your drawings are beautiful!,” my mother exclaimed of my preschool sketches of the Santa with a curly turquoise unibrow and matching cap with a furry bobble on top I’d drawn on the small construction paper sheet.

“Well...I’m not supposed to draw on the walls,” I thought.  “But if she likes these drawings so much at this size, how much more will she like them at THAT size?!,” I wondered.

“THAT” size being the largest I could draw at my three feet in height, plus change.  I.e. about five inches by five inches.

“Eh...probably not a good idea,” I figured.  “I’m not allowed to draw on the walls...but she does like my little drawings...and maybe the bigger size will make her THAT much happier.”

So I drew.  And drew.  As big as I could draw, I drew.

She did not buy the imaginary friend with an imaginary crayon excuse.

So I received a spanking THAT much larger than usual.  It was all justly proportionate.

But skunk carcasses from dogs and wall drawings from toddlers started to make more sense as I heard an 80’s love song in the frozen yogurt shop later in the week.

A heartbreaking song we’ve all heard dozens of times about betraying the things we knew were “right” for the chance that they would make the person we love so much happier, it would offset the disservice we’d rendered to propriety, to ourselves or to anyone else.

Damn.  80’s songs nail that conflict.

(To be continued next week...)

 

A Lion

The other morning, I walked straight from spinning class to one of my favorite little restaurants.  It’s a cozy spot where they let me camp out for hours to read while I eat or sip coffee.  Cup after cup.

That morning, I had a date with an omelett of my creation, a bottomless cup of coffee and the last 60 or so pages in some celebrity’s relationship book.

Even if I had not agreed with every point, I’d made notes in the margins and for the most interesting ideas, triple-folded the pages.

One chapter stopped me.  “Strong, Independent – And Lonely – Women.”[1]

“Whooh..,” I thought, “Let me get settled before I start reading this.”

Once comfortable, having ordered and arranged my things under the table just so, I started reading.

In summary, he conveys that if we are strong, successful, secure, confident and well-adjusted women, men will not pursue us.  They will not want to be with us unless we need them.

How does that strike you?

At this, my whole face turned hot and stinging tears flooded my eyes.  The first time since childhood when I remember getting so spontaneously emotional about anything was when Mufasa died in The Lion King and it’s not happened many times since.

Mufasa was the ideal stable and committed figurehead who ruled his kingdom with a firm hand, loved and respected his strong lady and protected his cub.  James Earl Jones’ voice for that character didn’t hurt either.  Love, love, love…

Mufasa was a real man, role model and partner to his queen.  And he died.  You saw the terror in his animated eyes as he plunged down the canyon to his death.

My grandfather had passed away eight or nine months earlier and he was one my first reliable male role models.  He was my Mufasa.  That animated scene destroyed me.

In the collective, my female and male role models have enabled me to have a very good education, self-reliance and some security.

I feel safe and don’t feel like I’ve ever had to wait for a man to give me a stable lifestyle.  Nor have I feigned needing anything or tied myself to any railroad tracks to attract a man.  That shpiel is beyond insulting to both of us.

Every night, I thank God for the roof over my head, the food to fill my stomach, the education to enrich my mind, the ability and skill sets to have a good job, my health, dogs, family, friends, strength and inspiration.

At the end of every date, no matter how good or how bad, I can count on coming home, removing my make-up, brushing my teeth and nestling into bed to work on a crossword with a silly romcom on the TV across the room.  It’s a happy and fulfilling life.

You can count on one hand all of my lonely nights in the last eight years since I ended my longest-term and extremely toxic relationship.  For the better half of 2.5 years, I shared a home, a car, a dog and sometimes my body with a man and have never felt so alone.  Every day and every night.

To make it worse, I had isolated myself into life with him, swearing off anyone who did not approve – which included almost everyone important to me.

Since then, I have come a very long way.  We all have since our “thens.”  We've worked, studied, honed and hustled. 

Given that, tell me if you agree...

I love living alone, love my freedom and love my safety.

Do I want a man to have a man?  No.

Do I need a man to provide me with anything to make my life safe or comfortable?  No.

Do I need a man to feel my life choices are legitimate?  Never.

Do I envy my friends who are married, because they are married?  None.

In contrast, I am very happy for them and they happiness they have found together.

But do I want to share my life with someone?  Yes.

Do I want to have a loving and respectful partnership in which he can rely on me to be a lady and I can rely on him to be a man?  Yes.

Do I want to bring children into this world with a man who I am proud to tell is their father?  Definitely.

Do I want a stable, committed, loving and respectful male figurehead and partner?  Do I want a lion?  Yes.

But the right lion.

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[1] Harvey, S.  (2011).   Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment.  New York, NY: Amistad.

Baby Max Update

“Who is it?,” I answered as I ran down to open my front door a few minutes ago.

I could not hear their names, but peered through the window to see a mother with her beautiful daughter who I’d ballpark at 10 years old. Harmless.

“Hello. How can I help you?,” I asked.

“Hi,” the mother answered, “We’re your neighbors. I’m Angie and this is my daughter Casey”...Deep inhale... “Is this your turtle?”

I looked down at Casey’s arms in which she cradled a cardboard box that held a small, fussy, fluorescent-painted turtle.

“Baby Max!,” I exclaimed.

Angie and Casey looked at me quite confused.

“Hahaha...No, he’s not mine, but he belongs with the neighbor who lives right behind me. Her name is Sherry and she’s been looking for him for weeks.”

“Oh...OK. Cause we live at the top of the street. We saw him crawling up the sidewalk and did not have any idea where he could have come from. And he was moving quickly!”

“I know. Max is a speed demon,” I added.

We laughed.

“And we’ve been going door to door...,” she paused to take a breath. “We skipped her house, because it doesn’t look like a house where you’d expect a painted turtle. We thought, because he’s painted, he had to belong to a house...”

Breath.

“...With children,” we said in unison.

“Haha...I know,” I laughed. “I thought the same thing when I found him in my yard two years ago. I took him door to door as well and had to give him safe harbor in my bathtub so he wouldn’t get eaten by these two.” I pointed to my door, which clearly had two very excited dogs just behind it.

Angie and Casey straightened their spines in horror.

Too much information.

“Haha...No, don’t worry. He was fine.”

They relaxed.

“But it took three whole days of passing out fliers and we had the HOA on the case until we found he belonged to the household right behind this one.”

“Oh, God...OK, Good.

“I know Sherry will be glad to see him,” I said. “You’ll love her. She’s great.”

Yet again, a wandering turtle with a 5-by-4.5-inch-shell painted fluorescent yellow, turquoise and orange can remind us what it means to be neighbors.

 

Reference: "It Takes a Turtle..." http://www.martinirescuesquad.com/my-blog/2011/03/it-takes-a-turtle-part-i-of-ii.html

Vacancy: Universe Preferred, Part III of III

“Keep your day and your mind open for the universe to fill it,” my more judicious, tactful internal voice continued.

Novel idea.

“Be present and aware in every step, in every breath.”

I know, buh…

“Shhh...just watch and listen.”

Now that’s getting a bit radical.

“Shhh!”

OK, OK!…Calm down.

I laughed as my internal voices settled their debate, one gloating and the other harrumphing as it acknowledged the one’s correctness.

As that noise in my brain settled into a stalemate, I took the next step with purpose, as I did with the next one, and the next one…The purpose to fully inhabit each moment.

The dogs and I did not walk any slower. I don’t think we changed our pace at all.  Instead we, or I, started to take it all in.  It was all perfect.

The world became brighter.  The air became softer.  My dogs’ perpetual curiosity and indefatigable sweetness became more self-evident.  Every step became more precious than it would have been.

I rolled the day’s accidental perfection over and over in my mind with each meditative step.  “We’re happy, we’re healthy, we’ve exercised...Sure, that’s pretty basic.  Very lucky, but still pretty basic.”

Over and over in my mind, I rolled that gratitude.  It lovingly repeated itself in various ways without really promising to manifest anything more than that.  And that was OK.

If that had been all that day would hold, that would have been OK.

On the last leg, right before the end the fifth sixth - right where everything gets very busy and distracted again - I grabbed two orange-red flowers from the vine spilling over the tall fence.

This is a public vine spillin over a very tall public fence, not a private garden.

And I tucked one flower into each dog’s collar for the home stretch.

“Oh, God!  This is beyond perfect!,” I thought.  “But it’s time to hurry,” I realized.

How many of us are not as good at relaxing as we would like to think we are?  Despite lengthy, altruistic, verbally aggressive internal debates in which the pro-relaxation voice wins.  Right.

I ran into the market where the dogs and I had parked to select a bottle of champagne for that evening’s host and hostess and hurried home to shower and dress.

After a few bloopers, i.e boneheaded mistakes, I arrived at the party with the last couple of guests.  I was the last of the last, due to forgetting the champagne in my car…which I’d not realized until the second-to-last guest and I were about to walk into the party.

After looping back to my car for the champagne, I quieted my mind again as I returned to the party.  With that group, it’s easy to do.

All of the people at the party that evening have been friends for 10, 15 or 20 years...since we moved to town - which is home to many of us - after college.  Most of us met through community service or professional groups, if we did not already know each other.

When we met, all of us where single.  Perhaps a few of us were in a relationship, but all of us were unmarried.  Some of us were unemployed.  Very few of us had a clue who we would be if and when we grew up, no matter how firm our plans sounded at the time.

And how we defined that “who” has changed at least a few times for most of us, whether we defined it by career, marital status, having children or simply by quality of life.  The latter was definitely a bit too intangible for most of us back in the day.

This party venue is sacred territory.  At our adult friendships’ genesis, it was where we had wine and appetizers occasionally after work.  Then it was where we had the holiday gift exchanges.  Then we had the wedding showers, the baby showers, the promotion/moving away parties…all in this one home.  Many of them on that one terrace.

Its size always seems just large enough and just intimate enough.  Its size always seems to conform to fit the occasion.

In this venue, with that group, quieting your mind is pretty easy to do.

“Shhh...just watch and listen.”

Almost every friend there had their spouse or significant other with them.  The host and hostess had left their sweet baby with the hostess’ parents.  As I went into the kitchen to refill my water, one of the two husbands tending to the grill whisked me around the kitchen floor. Our party’s music, laughter and happiness filled the sky.

The radical thing I noticed there, some 10, 15 or 20 years after becoming friends, or becoming friends as adults, is everything feels so complete.

I wouldn’t say any of us are who or where we thought we’d be now, but I think we’d agree we’re right where we need to be to feel fulfilled.  We’re happy, we’re healthy and we’re fulfilled.  Or we’re getting there.

What better, more inclusive aspiration could any of us have?

When I lost my original plan or agenda for the day, the universe filled it with clarity.  When all of us lost our original plans for our lives, or how we defined who we were going to become, the universe filled them with quality.  With fulfillment.

 

Vacancy: Universe Preferred, Part II of III

That Saturday I had morning plans, lunch plans and dinner plans – all in different communities with ample time to mobilize between them.  Fine.

Until the first two became rather fluid, i.e. non-existent.  Cool.

I slept in a little, which was nice.  Then I got up to feed my dogs and put on exercise clothes.  Very nice.

“Maybe I’ll hit the gym after lunch?,” I asked myself hopefully.  “ Oooh....or walk the dogs!  Yes.”

Nothing impressively athletic, but a moderately challenging and fulfilling exercise for all three of us.  Yes.

Something that could definitely fit into the newly-open block between my lunch and dinner plans.

I decided I would not wear my running sneakers, which further neutralized this effort’s athleticism.

“My tatty beaded flip-flops and week-old pedi will do just fine, thank you,” I thought, resolving to make this a very relaxed walk.

First, a quick bite with some relatives and then it was time to hit our course.  It’s enticingly simple – If you park at the grocery store and circumambulate a country club in the community, the whole path is just a few yards shy of three miles.   Perfect.

It’s a course we ideally can cover weekly.  Realistically can cover twice a month.  Embarrassingly sometimes only manage to cover once every four to six weeks.  You get it.  It’s usually a nice, meditative way to spend part of the day when you can get there.

The whole path is basically an irregular rectangle with a few inexplicable and unforeseeable bends.

“Who planned that one?,” you ask yourself every now and then.

It’s an irregular, extremely odd rectangle.  Or imagining it that way makes it easier to visualize.

The first leg is rather straightforward – it’s full of people, cars and distractions, which is really fun when trying to handle two easily stimulated, very strong 60plus-pound dogs.

You have to pay attention to anything that could inspire them to run off in any direction, could hurt them or could hurt you; your neighbor running full steam ahead with his dogs who could spook yours, another neighbor driving full steam ahead while texting, a small, tauntingly nimble squirrel who darts past you, etc.

All of these can happen and have happened.  And yet you still embark full of ambition and optimism.  Usually.

On the back half of the first quarter, or the second sixth  – work with me – after you have made it through most of the distractions and dangers everything gets slower and quieter.  Peaceful.   Your weathered optimism now feels a lot like relief.

That Saturday, those first two parts were consistent with precedent.

“Keep going, Doggies,” I told them.  “Let’s keep pushing to Revoir Street and we can check the time there.”

Revoir is part way down the third section, which is the most peaceful, restorative part of the course.   We got there faster than I had expected.  The two-legged male scenery features on the course at that hour made the yards fly by.

When we arrived at Revoir, I looked at the clock on my mobile phone.  We were eight minutes ahead of schedule.

“What is your deal?,” I asked myself mockingly.  “Ahead of schedule?...You know you are going to make it around the course in plenty of time to get home, shower and dress for dinner.  Relax!”

“Get out of the universe’s way and stop trying to fill this day with something that does not fit,” my more judicious, tactful internal voice told me.

Most of us have both of those voices, don't we?

“You’re both right,” I thought. “Point taken.”

(To be continued next week...)

Vacancy: Universe Preferred, Part I of III

“When you lose something, don’t mourn the loss.  Consider it an empty space for the universe to fill with something better,” said a friend a few years ago.

“Buh...,”  “Wha...?” and “Psh!” are the first few things that may come to your mind to say in rebuttal to something like that.  They are the first few things that came to mine when I first heard it anyway.

It’s incorrect...it’s insensitive...it’s simplistic...it’s heartbreakingly hopeful...and it makes so much sense.  You’ve probably heard it or some version of it many times.   My friend cited an unspecified Eastern philosopher, but you may have heard it from your yoga instructor or in a Peanuts card.

If you want, take that first sentence and store it somewhere in your brain for the week.  See how many applications you can find for it.  How many on day one, day three and...begrudgingly, on day seven.

We’re not going to mull over serious losses in this entry.  We’ve done a lot of that lately.  Instead, think about smaller-scale things.  Little ways you or circumstances created an opening in your life that the universe filled.  And how abundantly did the universe fill it?

We all have busy lives with obligations, amusements, etc.  Most of our days are pretty full with either or both, with very little gap time between.  If anything, we may have some overlapping.

What happens when a busy day opens widely?

Do you freak out and fill it?  Do you luxuriate in it, planning some ways to pamper yourself?  Or do you simply get out of bed and roll with it?  See what develops?

I can and have done any of the above, depending on my mode at that time in life.   We can probably all recall having done the same.

Last weekend was my time to do the latter.  To get out of my own way and hold open my day for the universe to pour into it.  Starting with a dog walk.

(To be continued next week...)

...By Her Toenails, Part II of II

How many of us woke up the first morning of our new dream job, having just moved to our new dream town the week or day before, and realized to our horror that our nails looked horrendous?  Like a fictional beast’s claws?

And how many of us gave ourselves rapid mani-pedis and arrived at the Metro station that first day with just enough time to grab a copy of the Post and pretend we understood everything important in the world by the time our train pulled into the correct station - with the toilet paper still separating our toes?

Right.  Off to a great start.

Dusty Rose worked well those first few years out of college.  I had transitioned jobs, but not polish colors.  It was very appropriate for an aspiring PR and marketing consultant as well, but not for too much longer than that job was appropriate for me.

When that polish chipped, it was obvious and, frankly, it was boring.  Boringly boring.  Caffeinated, early-to-mid twenty-something does-not-yet-know-herself boring.  And I chipped my pedicures quickly, if I made it out of the salon with the polish still intact.

Furthermore, for a time after the PR days, I worked in an office where we had to wear pantyhose and closed-toe shoes every day.

"Legally we can't require women to shave or get pedicures, but we can require stockings and shoes.”

Ew.  But I get it.

And logistically, you can’t stop me from high-impact stubbing my toes into bus benches, my dogs’ crates or other subtle obstacles in my path when I’m careening around at 1,000 miles an hour, which makes my toes under my nails turn black and blue.

Charming.

Altogether, my iridescent chocolate Romeo & Joliet toenail polish made a lot of sense for a few years; you couldn’t see my battle wounds under my shiny chocolate nails and rules-wise, you could not see my nails anyway.

I loved my sultry, unconventionally-painted nails – but envied the women with pristine French manicures and pedicures that stayed perfect between salon visits.   I.e. the women who did not need to have a wild color to hide their self-inflicted injuries, whose jobs never physically taxed them so much as to chip a toenail nor are their feet compressed and deformed from years in high heels – our contemporary footbinding.

“How do they do it?”

Scoot forward a couple more years and finally, I was going to start my ultimate fantasy job in finance.

“No more of these boring or crazy colors!,” I thought.  “No, it is time to upgrade to a sophisticated, but bold and confident color.  Like my job!”

Burgundy, like the wine, was perfect.  And still is.  It’s peppy, but not insipid or goofy.  It’s never embarrassing. Unlike...right.

It’s been a year since I left that job in finance, but the color has stuck around and will for the foreseeable.  Lately, my shade has adjusted to more of a raspberry/cabernet in tribute to Big Nance.  Her color.

What’s your color?  How has it changed over the years?  The jobs?  The relationships?

And how do you express yourself now?  Not on your hands, but on those 10 tiny, secret canvases?

Are you conservative with your mani, but black and Goth with your pedi, secretly hoping someone will say “I never knew she was that kind of woman” when they see you take of your shoe to stretch your foot while in line at the coffee shop?   Kind of hoping they’ll be afraid of you?

Are they unabashedly shiny and purple or turquoise with rhinestones and sequins?  Your zany and playful side?

Do you keep them perfectly tidy from pedi to pedi?  Or do you only find the time for a pedicure on a quarterly basis, once you realize your unpainted outgrowth is as long, if not longer, than the painted remainder?

Do you even care?

You can tell a lot about what you want to tell about a woman by her hands – maybe - but you could try looking at her toenails to understand what she wants to tell you.  

 

How true, how true...

I saw this sign while out and about today.  The day and the exact moment on the day could not have been more perfect, probably for more than just a few of us.

Have a terrific weekend.

...By Her Toenails, Part I of II

“You can tell a lot about a woman...” is the start to many a prognostication about us.  Google the phrase and it finds over 135,000,000 search results in half a minute.  That’s slightly more than one search result for each woman in the US over age 15 years[1].  Astonishing.  And more surprising yet, many of the most popular findings end that phrase with “...by her hands.”

Eh.  Maybe.  But isn’t that a bit obvious?

Tell me what you think about this one – “You can tell a lot about a woman by her toenails.”  Those 10 secret little screens on which we convey our worries, insecurities, strengths and good fortune.

Grab a notepad and a writing implement – do this with me – and chart your toenail polish color development through your life.

How old were you when you started getting mani-pedis?  What was your color back then?  Was it the bright pink, peelable polish?  Or the ultraconservative clear?  Or did you get wild and glittery at an early age?

What did you and what were you allowed to do?

I bit my nails as a kid.  Not my toenails – gross – but my fingernails, absolutely.  My mother tried repeatedly to bribe me with mani-pedis if I’d stop for at least a few weeks.

Eh...OK.

I finally stopped due to two things: semi-formal 1993 and my orthodontist’s warning.  Yup, I was 16 and wanted to be top-to-bottom presentable for the dance, which for me included having nice nails.

That, and I wanted to be top-to-bottom presentable for life, which for me includes having nice teeth.  My orthodontist was pretty clear on how biting my nails would undo all the benefit my 34 months in braces with my headgear and neckgear at night had rendered me.

Thethxy.

No, I was 16 and was finally old enough to rock those nails!  A single, dainty coat of pale pink polish will do nicely for my hands, thank you.

But what about my feet?  My toenails?

Do both sets of nails need to be the same color?

If not, do you keep one conservative and go wild with the other?

And if so, what should you do with which?  Is it more important to you to express your wild side in secret ways, or to show it to the world?

I always stayed very conservative with my polish through high school and into college. Again, pale pink on the hands and a mauve or Dusty Rose on my toes.  Fine.

That was simple and “lady-like.”  And the perfect Sally Hansen shade dried evenly on my nails.

Freshman year in college, I tried to give myself a mani-pedi every couple of weeks.  I had a perfect system; I’d soak my nails in warm water in the communal sink on my hall, which was really sanitary.

Then I’d rush back to my dorm room to shove down my cuticles, thread toilet tissue through my toes to separate them and paint my toenails, followed by painting my fingernails.  Finally, I’d recline on my flannel bedcover to let my 20 masterpieces dry.  Which is when I’d fall asleep almost immediately.

This is why I had navy blue fuzz on my mauve nails for all of freshman year.

But summer 1998, no-ho-ho...It was time to go big.

That was the summer I studied in Paris.  Over the previous two years in college, I had developed a steely discipline about spending time in the language laboratory in order to tweak my American college girl accent to make it as authentically “Parisian" as possible.

Right.

I was about to turn 21.

The World Cup soccer championship would be in Paris that summer.  The world would be in Paris that summer.

Damn it if my toes did not sparkle like the Fourth of July!

They were shimmery gold.  Not glittery gold or gold as in yellow.  No, they were metallic, iridescent gold.

And I was not going to be pointlessly stealthy about this like ordering Tupperware with crazy, shimmery pink lids, assuming anyone will ever look in your fridge.  Or assuming you ever cook anything to put into your Tupperware that you need to refrigerate.

That summer, I packed five pair of shoes; beige high heel sandals, gold high heel sandals, black peep-toe sandal wedges, penny loafers - high school uniform hangover - and running sneakers.

Yeah, Baby, it was my summer to shine and shine I did.  Or my feet did. And continued to do so for the next two years until, Ah, it was time to grow up and graduate.

For my very impressive and super-intense job in a TV news room as the senior correspondent’s assistant’s assitant’s gofer that first summer out of college, I needed an equally sophisticated toenail polish choice.

“Hello, Dusty Rose.  How have you been, my old friend?”

How many of you can identify?

(To be continued next week...)

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[1] US Census Bureau. (2011).   Selected Social Characteristics in the United States 2011 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.  Retrieved from:  http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_11_1YR_DP02&prodType=table

Bridging the Chasm between Here and Your Silver Lake

It’s funny how often we complain it’s so hard to meet people, to make a quality connection in “this” or any city, based on things that matter. It’s a bit funnier how often we find ourselves ill-prepared to actually discuss anything that matters.

To add awkwardness to misfortune, when we ourselves are so consumed by things that matter – and matter a lot – those are the only things we are equipped to discuss.

“Time and place, time and place.”

Of course.

A very close friend who has just finalized his divorce moved over to my side of town, which is where he works anyway. He is remarkably intelligent, gentile and very Old World – yet has lived in a local Hipsterville for five years and fit in there just fine.

Outside of his work box at the company where he has worked for all of those five years, he has never known my neighborhood, where he now lives.

I am a native and wanted to celebrate his first night as a Westsider. He suggested the only restaurant/sports bar he knows near his work, because “the game” would be on TV.

In this popular spot, groups of people who do not know each other share long, high tables and a very intimate proximity with fellow strangers that you experience few places outside of an elevator.

“Perfect!,” I thought. We can have some nachos and margs and he can make some new friends. Very natural and easy.

I texted three or four friends who live close-by and none could commit. No worries. The bar was packed with plenty of other friendship candidates. A built-in community hospitality corps.

“Hey, Chris,” I shouted to the new tablemate, a stranger, who had just joined us. “This is my friend Fuller. He just moved to this side of town.”

“Oh, hey,” Chris, or Marty, or Victor, or Shayna, or (fill in the new tablemate’s name) replied. “Welcome to the neighborhood!”

“Yeah, thanks,” Fuller added, “I’m just kind of starting over...I just got a divorce.”

That sentence did not evoke nearly as much sympathy as when he changed his verbiage to “I’m just kind of starting over...I moved from Silver Lake.”

Each time he said he had just divorced, the response was “Oh, sorry...uh...,” and the conversation stopped. Everyone looked down at their beer glass as they took a sip and peered out of their peripheral vision, hoping someone would change the subject.

Each time he said he was a Silver Lake escapee, the response was, “Ohhhhh....Dude! I’m so sorry!”

You would have thought he had said he was going to be executed tomorrow.

“He dresses preppy from head to toe,” I offered our appalled conversation partners. “It’s amazing he made it out of Silver Lake alive.”

Huh, huh, huh...Big sip.

All eyes back to the game.

“Time and place, time and place.”

Of course.

“I never knew there was such a divide between the Westside and Silver Lake,” Fuller joked as we walked to our cars

“Yup,” I replied, very matter-of-factly. “It’s a different world.” Also you have to take into account that most of that bar’s patrons are 25 years old, give or take, or are 35-40 year-olds who behave like and try to seduce the 25 year-olds.

But the cultural and age divides were most likely not the most evocative factors at play in those conversations. The unspoken chasm was between how real is everything in Fuller’s reality right now and how uncomfortable that much reality can be to others.

Between how hard it is make a quality connection with people based on things that matter and how uncomfortable it is to discuss anything that matters.

In our average daily social engagements, we are so quick to offer sympathy to strangers as long as the misfortunes inspiring that sympathy are really not that sad. Unless you can solve them between margarita sips. Laugh them off.

Silver Lake is one of the hottest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It’s urban charming, arty and – over the last 10-or-so years – it’s become quite gentrified. Not a bad place to call home.

But saying you live, or have saved yourself from there, still evokes from Westsiders some effusive, gratuitous sympathy.

What’s it to them, really, if you lived in Silver Lake or West Whothehellcares?

Right. Nothing.

What’s it to them if you bring up divorce, death or anything important?

“Oh, sorry...uhh...”

Right. It’s awkward.

You may say to yourself that Fuller should have known you don’t bring up things like that with strangers, especially not mid-twentysomething strangers at a sports bar on a Saturday night.

“Time and place, time and place.”

Of course.

But when is the right time and where is the right place when you’re hurt? When you're heartbroken or terrified you may imminently lose something around which you have made every important decision for years and you can’t think of much beyond it?

Never and constantly, nowhere and everywhere.

That’s what is real. That’s the authentic information, the basis for a quality connection.

Not the game, or the hipster neighborhood or the huge glass of beer you’d rather jump into than talk with your new tablemate about his divorce.

The inconsequential stuff that makes engaging socially with strangers comfortable - that’s what you want to talk about.

But what do most of us crave in our relationships? Friendships? Partnerships?

Right. Something real.

“Time and place, time and place.”

Of course.

A few weeks, or months, or years later when we see the bar’s new heartbreak refugee standing a few feet away, fumbling in making friends with their new tablemates, those simple words will repeat in our minds.

We will resolutely wash down them with a margarita sip as we give ourselves internal hoorah for how far we’ve progressed from our own Silver Lake and call out to the new arrival.

“Hey! I’m (your name.) These are my friends Chris, Marty, Victor and Shayna. Great game, huh?”

The sympathy – the quality connection – can start later. It will have to.

"When Simplicity Is the Solution"

Lately, I am sure many of us have imagined how wonderful it would be to simplify life.  Tax season, spring cleaning, blessings and tragedies - all of these can return us to the same old revelation that our lives would be so much easier if we just...make them easier.

This week's entry is a terrific essay from the Wall Street Journal that I think we will all enjoy - especially the paragraph beginning "Complexity is the coward's way out..."  The balance of the paragraph is not quite as harsh and judgemental as it sounds.  

Have a terrific, uncomplicated week.

 When Simplicity Is the Solution

From tax forms to medicine bottles to store shelves, we are facing a crisis of complexity. But there's a way out. 

From: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324000704578386652879032748.html

 

March 29, 2013, 8:22 p.m. ET

 

By Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn

At the beginning of "Walden," Henry David Thoreau makes a concise case against the complexity of modern life. "Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" he writes. "[L]et your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail....Simplify, simplify."

That was the 19th century, though, and we live in the 21st. In a typical day, we encounter dozens—if not dozens upon dozens—of moments when we are delayed, frustrated or confused by complexity. Our lives are filled with gadgets we can't use (automatic sprinklers, GPS devices, fancy blenders), instructions we can't follow (labels on medicine bottles, directions for assembling toys or furniture) and forms we can't decipher (tax returns, gym membership contracts, wireless phone bills).

Every facet of our lives, even entertainment and recreation, is complicated by an ever-widening array of choices delivered at a frantic pace. Consider:

 

• More than 800,000 apps in the Apple App Store

• 240-plus selections on the Cheesecake Factory menu, not including lunch or brunch specials

• 135 mascaras, 437 lotions and 1,992 fragrances at Sephora.com

In 1980, the typical credit card contract was about 400 words long. Today, many are 20,000 words. "Fine print" complexity costs us money in the form of hidden fees (about $900 per year for the average consumer, according to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute), denied claims and unanticipated charges ($2 billion in one year for landline phone customers, according to the Federal Communications Commission).

Who has 90 minutes to read 20,000 words or the time to select a Medicare Part D prescription plan (a Web search on medicare.gov will return 45 plans for you to consider)? Ponder the fact that a dermatologist must sign his name to forms almost 30,000 times a year, according to a 2008 article in the Southern Medical Journal. We are on autopilot—blindly signing, agreeing, working and spending.

How did we get into this mess? Lawyers and technologists are the taproots of complexity. Government regulators make things worse with misguided attempts to require "disclosure." Predatory companies with business practices that are onerous for consumers are only too happy to hide behind the cloak of complexity. And virtually all companies and organizations are averse to change and naturally inclined to take the path of least resistance. For them, it is far easier to keep tacking on amendments and exclusions than to take a blank-slate approach that would make things clearer to customers.

Do you know anyone who stops to read "click-through" agreements on websites in the middle of performing a task? One company, PC Pitstop, deliberately buried a clause in its end-user license agreement in 2004, offering $1,000 to the first person who emailed the company at a certain address. It took five months and 3,000 sales until someone claimed the money. The situation hadn't improved by 2010 when Gamestation played an April Fools' Day joke by embedding a clause in their agreement saying that users were selling them their souls.

Complexity is the coward's way out. But there is nothing simple about simplicity, and achieving it requires following three major principles: empathizing (by perceiving others' needs and expectations), distilling (by reducing to its essence the substance of one's offer) and clarifying (by making the offering easier to understand or use).

Why is it so rare for a product or service to be launched with simplicity baked in? The missing ingredient is empathy. Companies tackle simplification as a science rather than as an art. They measure the length of customer service calls down to hundredths of a second, run readability formulas counting syllables and monitor mouse-clicks by the millions. Afraid to let common sense prevail, companies rely on numbers to judge clarity and usefulness—two attributes that defy quantification. As a result, they send out documents that they tout as being written at a sixth-grade reading level when in fact no college-educated person understands them.

Empathy is the only way to truly shorten the distance between an organization providing services and the individual receiving them. Cleveland Clinic (a client, in the mid-90s, of the brand-strategy firm where we work) understands that empathizing with patients is critical, so it doesn't just focus on simplifying medical care but looks at everything the patient experiences: smells, sounds, greetings, hospital gowns, security and appointment scheduling. It wasn't until staff members were wheeled through hallways lying in hospital beds that they realized how disconcerting and dizzying that experience can be. Preparing patients for the "thrill" ride is a simple gesture that allays fears.

The clinic's guiding principle—patients first—is used as a mantra by chief executive Toby Cosgrove, who weaves patient experience stories into all of his presentations. Everyone at the hospital, regardless of his or her job, is called a "caregiver." Through this simple change in vocabulary, Cleveland Clinic is able to send an important signal to everyone in the organization about what's expected.

What makes the biggest impression on people during their stay in a hospital? As Cleveland Clinic learned, it's the small details: how long it takes a nurse to answer the call bell, the availability of food on request, whether staff members follow the "10-4" rule ("when 10 feet away from a patient, smile and make eye contact; when 4 feet away, address the patient").

Borrowing from the hospitality industry, Cleveland Clinic has even paid attention to the scent in the air. No antiseptic aroma; the air smells like a signature fragrance favored by four-star hotel chains. Everything from the way doctors talk to patients (in plain English, and with a willingness to answer questions until there are none left), to the hospital gowns (designed by Diane von Furstenberg to combine ease of access with a touch of dignity), to the clear, concise bills you receive after checking out reflects a commitment to simplifying the interaction between a human being and a large, complex medical establishment. The hospital has achieved simplicity through the elimination of "hassles" and the addition of clearer, more human communication.

One of the keys to achieving empathy is feedback. The hospital gathers lots of it from patients and displays the data in patient experience "dashboards." For staff members eager to do well in comparison with their peers, "Bedside Manner" has become a measurable attribute, not an intangible quality.

If Cleveland Clinic appeals to the emotional side of our brains to provide a simple, soothing experience, the supermarket chain Trader Joe's tries to simplify rational choice. The company's long-standing goal is to reduce the grocery-shopping experience to a few manageable decisions. Trader Joe's figured out that trying to give people everything is a lousy business model: It overwhelms customers, clutters stores and undermines the shopping experience, causing some customers to default to "no" since they can't make up their minds. On top of that, it is inefficient for handling inventory.

Trader Joe's offers many fewer products than other supermarkets (about 4,000 items instead of 40,000, according to Peter Sealey of the Sausalito Group). Limiting variety doesn't mean bland selections, however; the company does extensive research on its customer base to make smart choices on behalf of the people who shop there, mixing in some exotic food choices and using playful, quirky packaging. Shoppers are thus spared the aggravation of having to sort through dozens of options for jam or mustard or frozen foods.

Does it work? The chain, which has about 350 stores in the U.S., sells an estimated $1,750 in merchandise per square foot, according to Fortune magazine in 2010, more than double the sales generated per square foot by Whole Foods Market.

Sometimes simplicity can be a matter of life and death. A decade ago, worried that confusing prescription labels threatened the health of her grandparents, Deborah Adler decided to do something about it. A graphic designer, she took on this challenge for her master's thesis. Rearranging the small type on the typical prescription label, Ms. Adler put the information in a logical order, giving prominence to the things that people most need to know at the moment they are reaching for their medicine. She divided the label into two parts, separated by a thick black line, and placed the critical information, such as the name and dosage of the medication, at the top, with everything else relegated to the bottom.

Ms. Adler next considered the shape of the bottles. The wraparound labels on conventional round bottles were difficult to read, so she designed a flat tube-shaped container that stood upright on its cap, with plenty of room for a large, flat label that could be read easily at a glance. Also, by color-coding the bottles, she made it possible for family members to distinguish among their individual medications. Her simpler, clearer drug packaging has been adopted by Target pharmacies nationwide.

Smart companies test product information by finding out how customers perceive it and how much of it the customers actually comprehend. Measuring perception alone can be misleading because people are often reluctant to confess their confusion. They view it as a personal failing rather than as a flaw in the information. Measuring their ability to perform tasks based on the information is a more reliable indicator of its clarity and precision.

This type of testing can be conducted quickly and cheaply with online panels of consumers. For example, testing a notice from the Internal Revenue Service (a current client of ours), a taxpayer might be asked how much they would pay in penalties and interest if they missed a deadline, revealing their actual understanding of the consequences of their actions, not just their impression of the tone and clarity of the notice. Similarly, patients can be asked what dosage of medication to take and when so that we don't have to guess whether they truly understand the package directions.

Simplicity is slowly catching on as a standard. The Pew Charitable Trust, for instance, is trying to develop simplified model documents on financial topics such as banking fees, about which there is widespread and costly confusion. The model form that Pew put forward last year has been voluntarily adopted by several of the nation's largest banks—a very encouraging sign.

Similarly, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working its way through the disclosures related to major consumer financial transactions (student loans, home mortgages, payday lending) with an eye to making it easier for borrowers to do comparison shopping. Local governments such as New York City are simplifying residents' interactions with the bureaucracy through systems such as a 311 hotline for complaints and urgent matters. And social media is allowing all of us to get closer to companies and institutions and to make known our concerns and compliments.

What do we still need to simplify? For ordinary personal and commercial transactions, we need brief online contracts with interactive features explaining key words, concepts and computations. We need personal health records that can be easily used and updated by all health-care providers. We need summaries of our home and auto insurance that clearly explain how we will be reimbursed when the next storm hits; clear, one-page hospital bills that will allow us to recognize each element in the care that we receive; and a simplified tax code that will eliminate the need for costly tax return preparation by professionals.

For any modification or addition to its pristine home page, Google has a famous zero-based approach, which is meant to avoid creeping complexity. The company requires extensive justification for any new visual element, assigning "points" for each change in type style, size or color. The goal is the fewest number of points because, as the company says, "More points = less simplicity." Other institutions would do well to adopt a similar approach for evaluating new services, communications and products.

Simplicity may sound like a narrow standard, but it can help companies, governments and every other sort of organization winnow down unnecessary choices and clarify their messages to consumers, clients and citizens. We may not quite be able to re-create Thoreau's calm life on Walden Pond, but it is always possible to drive improvement by simplifying.

—Mr. Siegel and Ms. Etzkorn are the authors of "Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity," to be published by Twelve on April 2. Mr. Siegel is the CEO of Siegelvision, a brand-identity consultancy, and is the chairman emeritus of Siegel+Gale, a brand-strategy firm where Ms. Etzkorn is an executive director.

Her Majesty's Final Packing List

As you know, the Queen Mum, my beautiful grandmother left us almost six weeks ago. We arranged a formal observance in her hometown in the Midwest that same week and almost everyone who knew and loved her attended, our family members in black and red.

It was a proper, elegant memorial. She would have been proud.

However her final wishes, all pomp and circumstance aside, were that we scatter her ashes in roughly the same place in the Atlantic Ocean where we scattered my grandfather’s almost 20 years ago. This week, we honored her bidding.

In true Big Nance style, this entry is our packing list for her final release from her earthly existence:

• 12 delicious brownies, some of which we enjoyed before the main meal – very BN

• Eight relatives who have had 14 surnames among us, all of everyone’s marriages included

• Eight Diet Cokes - Her Majesty’s beverage of choice

• Five gourmet sandwiches

• Four cameras

• Three rum punches

• One marg rocks/salt (SoCal represents)

• One bottle of 50+ SPF sunscreen

• One iridescent pink, dissolvable urn

• One Book of Common Prayer for a parting blessing with gratuitously improvised, King James-style supplementary wording

• One immaculate half-second of silence, love and gratitude before reuniting her material being with Papa’s

• One extremely handsome and much, much, much younger Captain Ryan

I think I enjoyed the latter’s company much more than would have the Queen Mum. Or much more than she would have admitted.

Our cruise lasted a bit longer than expected. That day, the outgoing tides did not synchronize with our captain’s anticipated timing.

We had to push out to the deeper waters, well beyond the inlet, or Big Nance would have spent eternity circulating through the Intracoastal. An unimaginable hell for anyone but the million-dollar trailer park residents, golf pros and hedge fund tycoons with homes on the water.

Despite the uncooperative tides, we persevered through the shallow turquoise to the dark blue water and released our monarch just as she wished; to fly free and spend eternity dancing in the Atlantic with her precious Frank. Our precious Papa.

Papa is probably anywhere from South Florida to Iceland to our home turf on the Pacific Coast by now, but that is not what mattered to Big Nance. The poetic repetition was and is much more important.

After that ceremonial scattering, we did not have much time to rebathe our tide-soaked, briny bodies and reappear in festive clothing for her Florida “Celebration of Life.” A party.

No one wore all-black attire. Everyone in the community, though a finite one, was included.

This begets a very good question - How do you see your life? Almost more importantly, how do you see your death? Your memorial observance?

Is your memorial your time to exclude everyone for whom you don’t care, or of whom you don’t approve – for whatever reason? Or is it your finite window to open your eternal heart to love and accept the unlovable and unacceptable, no matter why you considered them so?

Is your death, your memorial, your test? Your final opportunity to exclude from your eternal heart everyone who did not deserve your love, or who did not love you in return?

Or is it your organic opportunity to show everyone in your life who loved you, who thought you loved them, that they are eternally included in your eternal heart?

Which choice is more important to you? And how will that change how you see this life?

What your final packing list look like – everything and everyone you won’t bring with you, or everyone you hope will lovingly continue your life long after you are gone? All because you loved them and they love you.

Midwestern Mourning, Part II of III

For the second day in a row, I woke up holding my breath. Is she...?

Exhale. She’s still with us. And Pastor Clara will be here at 10:30.

Pastor Clara is the associate pastor at the church where the Queen Mum would worship if and when she went to church.

The church where my parents married, where my brother and I were baptized and where we had the memorial for my grandfather Papa almost 20 years ago.

When you meet Pastor Clara, you can see why she excels in her position – you trust her to take care of you. You trust that whatever she says will be loving and appropriate. And she will say it with her eyes gently fixed on yours.

When she arrived, five or six of us in our family were at the Queen Mum’s bedside in the same positions we had occupied the last couple of days; crouched at the foot of her bed, curled up on the bench at the foot, standing gently next to it.

We held hands and closed our eyes for Pastor Clara’s prayer. Yes, the prayer Big Nance would want.

Pastor Clara had not yet reached the front door when one of the nurses walked over to Big Nance to check on her and told us, “Guys, she’s fading fast. Say your...” good-byes.

Pastor Clara had not yet gotten to her car before the Queen Mum faded peacefully from this life. Silently and gracefully.

All five or six of us seemed to hold our breath and to simultaneously remember it was time to let it go. And time to repeat that again and again. Time to cry, time to hug our reigning monarch and time to say our own good-byes.

As I stood and turned around, the first contact point my eyes met were Papa’s eyes, looking back at me from his handsome photo Big Nance had on her dresser. The only photo on that dresser she had turned to face her bed.

“She’s with you now,” I thought, vividly picturing Big Nancy as a young college girl running to her beloved soldier boy.

(To be continued next week...)

Midwestern Mourning, Part I of III

Nothing would have scared my grandmother more than dying alone and fortunately she did not have to. Nothing would have hurt her survivors more than grieving alone. All twenty-some of us.

Fortunately we did not have to do that either. In the Midwest, that really does not seem possible.

My grandmother, Big Nance/the Queen Mum’s hometown is one where “family friends” means your great-grandparents were friends.

...Where you return home from errands and tell your relatives you saw a street sign bearing a surname you recognize hearing in your family folklore - and one of those relatives is more than happy to tell you the whole story about how that is the street where your great-grandmother’s grandmother had her general store in the 1860’s, before she bought the whole block.

...Where your distant cousin met her third husband, also a distant cousin, at the family memorial service 20 years ago and it’s anyone’s guess where she will find her number four.

...Where food equals love.

Where all of this becomes starkly self-evident the minute you lose someone.

A couple of weeks ago, my brother Pat and I both received phone calls around 5:30 or 6 in the morning from our mother and (step)father, Dad Bob.

Nancy was not doing well. She had been in the hospital in the Midwest for most of the last five weeks and her antibiotics had ceased to help her pneumonia.

The doctors had told my family that her medications had done all they could and we should consider moving her home to hospice care, where she could fade away with dignity.

Trying to restrain her tears, my mother told us they had chosen to follow that advice. If Pat and I wanted to see her – was that really a question? – we should come quickly. Within three hours, Pat and I were at LAX, checking in for our flight.

Several hours and a few plane delays later, our cousins collected us from the airport for the drive to Big Nance’s. “Everyone” was there at the house.

That was mostly true, but not completely. About eight of us were there, seated on Nancy’s bed, perched on the bench at the foot of her bed, or standing close by as she slept deeply. A few more of us were due in town the next day.

“Oh, God. Is this going to be it?,” I, and probably most of us, thought.

We held each other, we held hands, we held Nancy’s hand.

No, the nurses said, she would probably not pass away that night, but her systemic infection level would reach a point in the next 72 hours when we would count down the minutes.

“What? Who says that?...Who thinks that's OK to say?”

The nurses. Hospice nurses. This is what they do.

Fury and grief bubbled up my throat to my mouth, where they dissipated with a deep, cooling exhale.

“She’s home, in her bed, where she is warm and comfortable,” I thought, squeezing my eyes shut and crouching on the bench at the foot of her bed. “Maybe she was waiting for Patrick?”

This was something I – and again, probably a few of us – had thought for at least the last few days. But it had not been necessary for him to come. Until that day, we had all been hopeful.

That night in Big Nance’s room, I held her hand and prayed loving thoughts as she seemed a bit fitful. When Patrick came over toward the bed and stroked her shoulder, her breathing evened out and she seemed calm.

“Huh...maybe she really has been waiting for him?,” I wondered.

A few minutes later, again her physicality became stiff and fitful. Again, she relaxed and her breathing evened out when Patrick circled back by her bedside to squeeze her shoulder and tell her he loved her.  

No, the nurses reiterated, she would probably not fade away that night. She probably had a couple more days – and yes, they would waken us if they thought her condition had changed.

We all hugged and kissed each other good-bye for the night.

The next morning, I was relieved to hear she was still with us. Four or five of us had spent the night at the house and were steps from Nancy’s room if it had been time, but she was fine.  Not visibly worse than she had been the night before.

We all dressed and reassumed our positions on or next to her bed.

“She can hear you,” the nurses said. “She can’t respond and she seems to be asleep, but she can compute everything you say.”

She can?

Our prayers turned louder and our comments turned softer.

No, she is probably not going to fade away today, but she knows you’re here.

At 10:30 or 11 that morning, Pastor Denny arrived. Surprise. He is the hospice firm’s “singing pastor” who they send to all families as their hours with their loved one dwindle. He comes to deliver their courtesy non-denominational, semi-Christian/more spiritual than religious last rites.

“Oh, my God, has she been waiting for this? For her last rights?...Are we going to lose her today?”

Pastor Denny, with his purple button down shirt and skinny tie, opened his bible and passed around his handouts with the lyrics for his chosen piece. He’s available for weddings too, in case you’re interested.

Uh...

No, Big Nance was not going anywhere just then.  

Pastor Denny with his kind eyes and soft singing voice did his very best to be sensitive to our family and to give us peace, but Big Nance would have none of it. As he sang his soulful prayer and I held Big Nance’s hand with my left, I could hear Big Nance scoffing playfully.

“Oh-ho, Hey-ull no! Do you think I’m leaving this life with this number? Ha!”

Pastor Denny concluded his prayers and we thanked him very much. That is his job – delivering last rites all day throughout the greater county. When he’s not doing the occasional wedding.

This is what he does every day and he could not be more sympathetic. But no, Big Nance was not going anywhere just then.

"This" was going to be on her terms.

That evening, almost everyone in our family who had arrived in town reassembled in the Queen Mum’s room. At least 10 of us.

We talked to her and told her stories, recapping some of our trips we had taken with her. We downloaded her favorite Frank Sinatra songs to play for her on our iPhones and laptops.

We quietly squeezed her hand three times, “I love you.” We imagined her squeezing back twice, “How much?”

We laughed about how we half expected her to pop up in bed and chuckle impishly...”Ha, ha..Got you!”

We prayed, we wailed, we wept and we embraced.  We loved each other.

No, the nurses said, she was probably not going to fade away that night, but she knows you’re here...and she’d want you to get some rest.

And yes, they would waken us if they thought her condition had changed.

(To be continued next week...)

 

Honoring the Queen Mum

Last week, my beautiful grandmother Nancy left this life.  A month or so prior, her aggressive cold had become pneumonia.  That pneumonia conspired with every other weakness in her system and eventually overcame her.

After such a loud and joyous life, she passed away peacefully and quietly at home in her comfortable bed, surrounded by family members and the cats she adored.  This week’s entry honors my grandmother, Big Nance/the Queen Mum.

My grandmother was 88 years-old, blonde and extraordinary.  Her hair, make-up and clothing ensemble were always impeccable.  She was almost always smiling.  And her attention often faded away to some secret place.  That was not age.  She had always done that.

For most of my life, at all times, she wore royal blue eyeliner, ice blue eye shadow, generous mascara and a cabernet/fuscia lipstick the maker titled “Moonlight & Roses.”  It did not matter if her outfit was red, orange, black, gray or beige, those were her make-up colors.  Similarly, her nails were always a cabernet/fuscia shade.  And she was flamboyantly gorgeous.

She was larger than life.  She was the Queen Mum.

She was a woman with a regal presence and her favorite food was White Castle burgers.

She was a woman who would slip you some money – whether the change from a Diet Coke or something that could be an important boost to your nascent career budget, i.e. $50 - and would always give you the same dignified nod, and say, “I remember being your age, starting out with Papa as newlyweds.  It meant so much to us every time my parents gave us a little lettuce.”

She was a woman who would tell you the most fantastical stories about how she and my grandfather played in the sand pile together as toddlers, but it wasn’t until the party when they were 12 or 14 years old that they spotted each other across the room and each said to their best friend, “That is the girl - or boy – I am going to marry.”

About how after my grandfather shipped off to World War II and insisted she date other boys while he was away, to spite him and to love him, she wore his fraternity pin on her bra strap every day.

About how almost everything in her life was magical.  And she believed it.

The incredible stories are the ones she would not tell you right away and it was very easy to find your attention swallowed whole by the way she told them.  Her enchantment was in her conviction.

She so admired her brother and would tell that to anyone who would listen.  What she would not tell you is he had flown planes in the war and she figured she could probably do a pretty good job of it as well.  So she began taking flying lessons.

She would tell you she does not cook, but she would not often elaborate that when she and my grandfather were newlyweds, he confessed to her he really liked dessert.  “So I did what any 21 year-old wife would do in those days and I went straight to Beninger’s,” she explained.  “I said, ‘Mr. Beninger, my husband wants dessert and I have no idea how to cook!  What can I do?’”

Mr. Beninger, the grocer, handed her six packets of Jell-O in the brown paper wrapping without preparation directions.  They did not provide them in those days, but he told her all she needed to do was add water and boil the powder.

“OK, I thought.  It’s just like fudge. I can do that,” she said.  When my grandfather returned home after work, Big Nance met him at the door and cried “crocodile tears,” as she called them.

“I’ve been boiling them all day and they don’t harden…he sold me six defective packages!,’” she wailed to Papa and pointed to the six pots on the stove with their brightly colored contents.

She laughed about it, but legend has it when they remodeled their new home thirty-some years ago, she told the decorator she wanted to expand the living room into the kitchen.  They would not need a kitchen, she said, as they would eat out every night anyway.  The fridge could stay in the garage.

That did not go over too well with Papa, who was the chef between the two of them.

She concluded each incredible, charmingly ridiculous story nonchalantly, as if her choices were the common sense thing to do.  Those were the true stories.

For the first 14 years of my life, I remember one of my favorite parts to every visit with the Queen Mum was right before everyone went to sleep.  I would change into my nightgown and flop at the foot of her and Papa’s bed with my brother.  Papa would wear his navy silk robe and bifocals as he slouched into his pillow to read his magazine.  Big Nance would sit upright in bed holding court with her pint-sized subjects.

Dressed in her sherbet-colored chiffon robe with sherbet pom-poms on the sash, she carefully secured her hair in pink foamy rollers without a mirror anywhere in sight.  All the while, telling some hysterical, wildly vivid story – complete with sound effects and total physical commitment from the waist up.

I was so impressed by how she could faithfully reproduce the same stories each time and wondered where were these incredible books?  How often must she reread them to remember the stories so well?

The brilliant thing - she made each one up on the spot each time and did not mind if we offered some corrective guidance on the story details based on our recall from the last time.  That would effectively reroute the whole story from the direction she wanted to go, but she rolled with it, sound effects and all.

Sometimes, her stories and jokes had a double meaning.

I did not get them at the time, but watching her delight as she giggled uncontrollably was the most wonderful thing!  Papa would either remain fixed on the line level where he read at the time and would shift his eyes her direction as if to imply amused disapproval – or he would break into a full chuckle, laying his magazine on his chest, removing his glasses and leaning over to kiss her.

Often over the last several years, Big Nance would drift off during a conversation and when you would interrupt, “Uh, Nance, where were you just now?,” she would reply without a moment’s hesitation, “In France with Papa, in winter 1956.”  She lost herself in conversations, but she could always lucidly pinpoint her location in her memory.  She was always with Papa.

My grandfather passed away almost 20 years ago and that was one of the saddest days in all of our lives in our family.  Big Nance built her whole life around him, to her own neglect.  In the years following Papa’s passing, my mother progressively began concentrating BN’s doctors in Los Angeles.

This was why Big Nance returned to Los Angeles once every 4-6 weeks.  This was quite sensible actually.  She would whisk into town to see her eyes and ears/nose/throat doctors, grab a dinner or lunch with us and skip right back out.  She stayed no longer than 72 hours.

She would insist she was in Los Angeles only to see my mother, Dad Bob, brother and me, but refused to stay with any of us.  No, thank you, she would stay at a very nice, very busy hotel where she could have her peace.

Walking through the lobby with her, you might have actually believed she was Snow White; the property staff cooed in perfect harmony, “Good day, Ma’am, it’s good to see you again.”  She gleefully giggled as she gave them a smile and reciprocated with her own bashful te-he.

Elevator doors anticipatedly open as she approached and blue birds landed on her fingertips as she pushed her floor number.  Or it certainly seemed that way – to her and to everyone with her.

On one of Big Nance's Los Angeles trips in the last few years, I re-realized how much I love her.  How grateful I am to have such an incredible role model.

On this trip, nothing was different.  Big Nance was there in all of her glory.  My mother had picked her up at the hotel very early for her doctor’s appointments and I met with them for lunch.  Around 2:30, she said she was tired and really wanted to return to the hotel.

"Girls, I think I am going to lie down for a while.  You go ahead and go home,” she said to my mother and me.

She had to get to bed early, because her cab was set to come very early the next morning.

"Well, as long as you are here,” she added, “maybe you can put my suitcase on the bench here at the foot of my bed.”

"Of course," Little Nance and I agreed.

"As long as you are up, could you please put my clothes in the closet into the bag for me?”

"Yes," we said, and grabbed the four hangers in the closet.

Little Nance and I took the cue and started packing her.  Asking her to change to her nightgown and put on her robe so we could pack her clothes from the day and lay out her clothes for tomorrow.

We put her small purchases from this trip, the rouge, mascara and eyeliner, into a baggie in her carry-on.  We did this and that...

Finally, we unfolded a terrycloth hand towel on her bed – as she would have done herself - and set on it the TV clicker, the last half of the huge cookie Little Nance had purchased earlier that she swore she’d never eat again, everything else that would make her comfortable and her bag of pink foamy rollers.

"I’m exhausted,” she panted.  “Watching you two bustle about exhausts me,” she smirked.

She knew how much work it took to do things as she would do them – and she knew we would do them for her.  That was actually pretty endearing.

None of the tasks were hard though.  They were useful.  We were stalling.  It was my chance to let it all settle in my head.  This was exactly who she had always been.

That afternoon was our chance to be with her, to uphold her in her being exactly as she has always been.  As she has always upheld us.

Perhaps every single one of us will always love her because she was the same extraordinary, flamboyantly gorgeous and purely loving woman who she had always been and that made almost every moment of her life magical.  And almost every moment of ours when we were with her.

I love you, Miss Nancy.

 

“Love All Around Us”

Trevor is one of my closest friends who is both a Buddhist scholar and a lawyer.  A few weeks ago, he launched his inspired blog, Burning the Incense at Both Ends, in which he reconciles his work to his belief system – Or rather, uses the attributes that are fundamental to his profession to support his Buddhist practice; “patience, generosity, ethics and wisdom.”

He is a realist, a comic and a compelling writer.   Please enjoy this week’s entry, courtesy of Trevor: http://tvstockinger.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/love-all-around-us/

Love All Around Us

My teacher has said that people are offering love all around us, but it is we who fail to see it.

Consider how frequently we wander through our lives, head down, lost in our own thoughts.  We miss things.  We miss all sorts of kindnesses – like the woman behind the cash register sincerely smiling as she hands you change, like the driver behind you slowing down to make switching lanes easier, like the customer at the café diligently wiping off the table as he leaves.  These are small things, but enough drops of water will fill an ocean.

We can all point to myriad acts by others that we perceive as selfish and harmful.  But, the point is, these same people can be selfless and kind.  It is we who have the choice: we can view people as kind and offering their love, or we can view people as selfish and frustrating.

The bottom line is that we will all be happier if we work to see the kindness around us.  It takes effort, but it will be worth it.  I would rather be surrounded by love than selfishness.  And, I can choose what I will be surrounded by because I can choose how to perceive the world around me.

This is a tough, hard world, but let’s take a little time to see the kindness that fills it.  

 

I Don’t Like Florence - and Other Fascinating Matters of Perspective, Part I of II

Everyone loves Florence.  The art, the architecture, the Tuscan scenery...That city welcomes up to 20 times as many visitors per year than there are residents.[1]  And I don’t like it.

Don’t mistake me – I love Italy.  I really like most Italians I’ve met.

And the consumer goods or cultural trademarks…Valentino, Alfa Romeo, cappuccino, gelato, spaghetti Bolognese...love, love, love.  If you filled a pool with Chianti Classico or iced Pellegrino, I’d swim in it every day until I was well past pruny.

Italy equals Love.  Florence, not so much.

This, obviously, is completely subjective.  As are many things, both important and inconsequential in relation to the rest of our lives.

But that subjectivity -  the result of how all of our lives up to, during and following certain specific placces, things and events can uniquely encode them in our brains – can take something so simple as a visit to Florence and make the wildest difference in how we understand it.  That is fascinating.

Unlike Florence.

(To be continued next week...)

---

[1]Tourists in Florence.  (2008, June 26).  The Florentine, Issue 82/2008.  Retrieved from: http://www.theflorentine.net/articles/article-view.asp?issuetocId=3313.

 

 

Keep On Dreaming..., Part II of II

And each time, we have let that fire get lit inside of us again.  We still let that fire get lit inside of us.

We do not hitch ourselves up to make the precisely same mistake over again.  That probably would not go too well.  But we have the strength and humility to try it again and to earnestly, with bright eyes, have faith it will work out.

It can break your heart to have that dream and to take that risk – Risks always hurt.  We know this.  But that heartbreak hurts a lot less than settling for something that we know will never hurt us.   That we know will never mean that much to us.

That is not what we tell ourselves on a second thought though.  No.  Instead, it seems many of us have conditioned ourselves to assess how hurt we are already.  To properly measure how much more taking that risk would hurt our self-esteem and how much more our unsuccessful results would compound that hurt.

We externalize those dreams.  Or we cut them down to size, to fit into a “practical” framework. And how valuable it is to that shimmery, vapid construct we call safety to write off those dreams in their rawest, purest form.  “Oh, thank goodness we did not try those.”

Yup – Pot, kettle - You know it...in so many, many, many permutations – But stop and think about it.  We all should.

The risks we take in our careers, our relationships, our relationships with ourselves...are huge.  But no huger than were our great-grandfathers’ or great aunts’ our great whosiewhatses.’  In fact, they are probably a lot less so.

How easy we have it is not the point, because it’s all contextual. Reality, that is.  I’m by no means comparing their reality to ours.   It’s at all proportionate to the rest of our reality.  And yet, we tend to see our reality as comparable to the cosmos.

Despite how many safeguards we have built into the way we understand life-as-normal these days, and no matter how much we appreciate how easy we have it compared to our great-whosiewhatses, sometimes we are still afraid.

We feel vindicated by having the courage to dream in the first place.  We are definitely scared to act on those dreams, or to do so until it breaks our heart.

That’s stupid.  Why would we do that?  Why would we be so vulnerable, bet so much, lay ourselves so bare?  Why would we knowingly leave ourselves open to be that hurt?

Because dreams are living things.  They are not that goofy sophomore semiformal dress you find in your folks’ attic and wonder why you ever thought it was pretty.  The trifling item you can store where no one can see it.

You can see your dreams all the time.  We all can.  Whether we acknowledge them or not, they are always with us.  What good can we render ourselves if we aren’t willing to study, work, hustle, slug it out, put ourselves on the line...to rally the best of everything we can give...to nourish those dreams, just as they are, to fulfillment?

If that means taking it on the chin a few times until we realize we are not yet ready for our dreams, or our dreams are not yet ready for us...If it means rallying our best, knowing we risk feeling our heart ripped out of our chest and stabbed 1.000 times by a hornet swarm of reality...Wouldn’t that hurt a whole hell of a lot less than benchwarming through life, feeling the constant biting by that persistent regret gnat who will never let us forget we didn’t try?

Tell me what you think, but it seems to me that being a strong woman does not mean being invulnerable.  Being a smart woman does not mean hiding behind safety.  Being a wily woman does not mean fronting with bombastic anger masked as prideful indifference.

Being an authentic, passionate, clever, teachable, successful woman... I think that means we have the strength and humility to keep on dreaming.

“Keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart.”[1]

And let every heartbreak settle into dust on our path achievement.

Or, from the most accomplished, loving and fulfilled people we know, so it would seem.  Thank you to all of our great-whosiewhatses.  Thanks, Poppy.  Thanks, Big Nance.  I love you. 

---

[1] Hoge, W. and Paslay, E.  (2009).  “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” [Recorded by Eli Young Band].  On Life at Best.  Nashville:  Republic Nashville.  (2012).

Keep On Dreaming..., Part I of II

I’m good at self-protecting.  Most of us are.  And some of us…I’m also good at picking the precise man who will never love me, the precise job that will never be right for me and the precise aspiration that is just lofty enough to be sexy, but is never really going to make me happy.

I have been good at each of those anyway – for much of my adult life.   As have probably many of us.

Each time it doesn’t work, I start to audit how long I have spent, or how hard I have worked, or how much I have compromised in my own happiness, hope for the future and sense of well-being to see it through.  To ensure its success.

Each time, I realize how silly I was to have ever thought that man, that job or that pie in the sky was going to be a healthy fit.

Each time, I retreat within myself to mourn.  To lick my wounds.  To accept responsibility where it’s due and learn what I can from the experience to prevent from doing it again.  To buck up and get back out there.

“Atta girl.”

To laugh through it.

Sometimes I have benched myself for longer than others.  Not taken myself out of the mix altogether, but busied myself with things that did not leave much spare time.  Safe things with no sharp corners.

Gradually, I regain footing in contentment and wholeness.  It’s very nice there.  So nice, it’s easy to deny I’m hiding.  Self-protecting.  Been there too?

A couple of weeks ago, right after sending my cousins a draft of my great-grandfather’s high school hall of fame proposal that I posted last week, I ran a few errands on the way to the gym.  I had exactly enough time to exercise before meeting with one of my best friends and advisors for a strategy dinner.  It was time to “buck up” again.

I started my car as a new song started on the Country station.  L-o-v-e love Country.

Way back on the radio dial

A fire got lit inside a bright eyed child

Every note just wrapped around his soul

From Steel guitars to Memphis all the way to Rock n' Roll[1]

“Aw, love this,” I thought, as I started projecting back to college in Tennessee.  A heartbreakingly earnest, painfully obvious and obviously painful time in my life.  To everyone but me.  Laugh through it.

We’ve all had one of those – and some of us maintain a dual citizenship in then and now, transported right back there after a vivid hurt.

From there, we all can envision being that bright-eyed child and remember that fire.  It’s echoingly empty where it should burn and we want so badly to get back to that.

Ohh ohh I can hear them playing

I can hear the ringing of a beat up old guitar

Ohh ohh I can hear ‘em singing 

Keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart[2]

“Oh, God!” I thought, with a laugh.  Having just spent a decent chunk of time over the preceding few days writing about Poppy, trying to summarize a singular personality who continues to be larger than life long after he passed, this song seemed all too uncanny.

As I have mentioned, Poppy’s verbal legacy would have you believe every huge risk he took was the rational, common sense thing to do.  The no-brainer.

It’s easy to forget that he left most of that verbal legacy in the early 1960’s, a year or two before he passed away and some 40 years after he first risked his life, his ego, his everything to fulfill his duty and his dreams.

A few times, he very nearly failed.  Very nearly lost everything.  But we don’t know that unless we listen for that deadpan humor in his words.  He had the strength and humility to put it all in perspective and to have the last laugh over himself.

In the stories he left behind, he made it look so easy, but it wasn’t.  Not at all.

Some dreams stay with you forever

Drag you around then bring you back to where you were

Some dreams keep on getting better, gotta keep believing if you wanna know for sure[3]

Yeah, OK.  If you know me at all, you know I was sobbing at this point in the song.  Crying like a big, fat baby.

Oh, God, how I know about dreams staying with us forever.  Don’t we all?

And, God, how we know about those dreams dragging us around – or about us hitching ourselves up for the dragging – only to find ourselves right back where we started?

(To be continued next week...)

---

[1] Hoge, W. and Paslay, E.  (2009).  “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” [Recorded by Eli Young Band].  On Life at Best.  Nashville:  Republic Nashville.  (2012).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Larger Than Life

If you have read Martini for a while, you know Poppy.  He was my great grandfather and Big Nance/the Queen Mum’s father.  He did not have an easy life, but none of his verbal legacy would convey that.

Although he passed away 14 years before I was born, I have always heard his voice in his poetry compilation, his jokes the Queen Mum often quotes – pretending to be him, no less – and the audaciously imaginative things he made happen during his life.  His joy, gravitas, wry humor and humility permeate all of them.

It seems many people these days consider themselves worthy of a great deal more celebrity and acclaim for achieving far less than any one of his paradigm-redefining accomplishments.  Yet in his journal, he describes his processes and conclusions as if those ideas were common sense – softened by his playful wink you can imagine as you read his words.

I felt very special when some cousins asked me to write his proposal for his high school’s alumni hall of fame.  This week’s entry includes the highlights.  May Poppy, and our own larger-than-life capabilities we can all recognize inside ourselves, inspire us this first full week in 2013.

Don Monroe Casto, Sr.

Don Monroe Casto, Sr. or “Poppy,” as his family calls him, was an orphan by age 17 who became a decorated World War I veteran, an entrepreneur and a self-made success.  He was the visionary who invented the regional shopping center and was the figurehead of an effort to open Columbus to its potential as a gateway to the world.  He was a family man, business man and proud American.

Casto was born in Cleveland on Valentine’s Day 1898.  His mother passed away when he was a toddler and he moved a number of times throughout the Midwest during his childhood as his father’s job necessitated.

In every community, he started his own business; he opened his first business at age four, selling cakes of soap.  Over his school years, he worked as a paper boy, bus boy, bellhop, steamboat deckhand, carnie and cherry picker, among other jobs.  As he said, “I was constantly busy at some sort of selling, because it seemed to be something that I enjoyed – not only in making money, but the idea of accomplishing something.”

When Casto was 15, he and his father returned to Ohio.  During junior high school in Columbus, he met the love of his life, Ruth.  Casto’s father passed away in 1915 and Casto became a ward of the state.  Nonetheless, he excelled in school sports and won the city championship for the pole vault – all while continuing to court Ruth.

In 1917, Casto and his three best friends enlisted in the US Navy; at Casto’s behest, his high school allowed him to graduate despite missing the last part of his senior year, provided he enlisted in the World War I efforts right away.  Ruth accepted his high school diploma on his behalf, as he had already moved for training.

Casto and his three friends were in Philadelphia awaiting commission when they heard an American officer was recruiting American soldiers for the US Army Ambulance Corps to serve with the French Army.  The French wanted them in France immediately.

The four youths received discharge from their US Navy obligations and began their intensive training for the US Army Ambulance Corps.  During his nearly two years in France, Casto lost two of his best friends who had enlisted with him.  In that time, he also won the Croix de Guerre.  This is France’s “Cross of War” bestowed upon individual soldiers for acts of heroism.

After the war, Casto returned to Columbus, where he married “(his) sweetheart Ruth” and began his career...

...Much larger than the potential he saw in (his invention) was the potential he saw in Columbus.  In 1928 Casto was on a Columbus airport commission, whose objective was to achieve approval to build an international airport within the city.

This was one year after Charles Lindbergh’s solo trans-Atlantic flight and America’s “air-mindedness,” as Casto called it, was pervasive.  Despite this, the Columbus electorate consistently voted down any measures that would support a new airport.

In a pending bond measure, Casto saw an opportunity to communicate to his fellow Columbusites how important it would be for them to open the city to the world.  He achieved passage on the Graf Zeppelin’s return voyage from New Jersey to Germany, which was the world’s first commercial flight from the US to Europe on the world’s largest airship.

The day the Graf departed, The Columbus Dispatch ran his “A Message to My Fellow Citizens of Columbus upon My Departure for Germany aboard the Graf Zeppelin.”  In this message, he wrote:

Air travel has come to stay...Moreover, with the increasing necessity for speeding up business, it is becoming more and more a necessary adjunct to the commercial life of the nation...

...Columbus can never be a sea nor a lake port, but it can become a great airport – if Columbus voters will it at the polls next Tuesday.  Columbus’ air advantages are superior to that of any Ohio city.  We are on the direct transcontinental airway – the shortest line between the great cities of the East and the great cities of the West.

Western air travel is our right by reason of our fortunate location on the map.  Also it will be logical to transfer Western travel to Europe aboard the Zeppelins of the future at the ‘Port of Columbus’ without the necessity of another transfer at Lakehurst or New York.  But a suitable airport must be provided by the citizens of Columbus if this is to become a reality.

...The airways are the transportation highways of the future.  Columbus should seize its golden opportunity to take a big forward stride as one of the important cities in America and vote for the airport bond issue at the polls next Tuesday.

When the Graf Zeppelin arrived in Germany a week later, Casto learned the measure had passed to finance an airport.  The next challenge was learning how to build one.

The following year, Casto and his wife personally visited airport engineers in several European capitals to compile the world’s most viable airport construction plans.  Port Columbus International Airport opened a couple of years later.

During World War II, the US Navy took over the airport to use as its headquarters for Naval units.  Before and since then, it has provided the world’s visitors and businesses access to Columbus.

You could say Casto, or “Poppy” was a character.  He continued pursuing his visions with his wife and family for the balance of his life.  He passed peacefully in his sleep in 1963.

Don M. Casto, Sr. was a boy with a vivid imagination who became a hero, a family man and an audacious entrepreneur.

 

Bah, Humbug to New Year's...

Bah, humbug to New Year's and everything about it.  Fast forward, actually, straight through to St. Patrick’s Day.  Because what happens every New Year’s is either we get all dressed up and go to a party clear across town – one that is not exactly easy to get to and from which it is not safe to drive home...

Or we go to a very expensive bar or restaurant, all of which is anticlimactic, because we don’t end up kissing anyone who means anything to us – or it’s a consolation kiss from a one of our male friends.  Or it’s a sloppy kiss from the first obliterated 24 year-old who stumbles past our table at some point after midnight.

“Hey, Baby...Come here...Have you” – he pauses to hiccup as he looks askance and you’re pretty sure he can’t stand on his own – “had your New Year’s kiss yet?”

Hmm...tempting.

“You’re hot,” he belches, as he stumbles right past us to pursue the waitress carrying the tray full of cocktails.  Cheers.

That is exactly how a number of us might assess our options.  That hit me hard the other night.

A stupid little tear almost formed in my eye as I decided I would much rather harrumph the whole thing and stay at home.  To snuggle warmly in my bed to catch up on the year’s accrued DVR recordings.

As single women, the whole question about what to do for New Year’s Eve can become a cruel joke we play on ourselves.  It can confound us, even if we are completely content as a singleton.

It’s not society’s fault, our our ex’s fault or our parent’s fault.  Fault judgment isn’t necessary or constructive.  Everyone, including us, makes a big deal about it.

It’s the one night of 365 that all of Western civilization agrees is significant.  Whether you’re a nostalgic or a forward-thinker, you might still pump this one little night full of such huge expectations.

The sensible thing to do?  Go to the house party with all of our married friends.  We know it will be beautiful.  Out here on the West Coast, the Times Square Ball will have dropped by 9 p.m. and everyone will be home to pay the sitter by 9:30.

And everyone’s baby’s auntie, i.e. we, will try to drive home, dodging the over-served revelers.  We’ll be in bed by a decent hour.

The free-spirited thing to do? Buy the ticket to that wild party at the new bar in the arty area of town.  Who knows who might pop up there?  Oooh, yeah...

The sophisticated and aloof thing to do?  Whatever we can to get a table with some friends at the hip restaurant with the prix fixe menu.

There we can enjoy our meal and wine and pretend that some tinsy voice inside of our head isn’t repeating hopeful chants that one of the way-overserved men at the restaurant isn’t our Prince Charming.  The one perfect New Year’s kiss.

What a funny story that would make 20 years from now when you try to tell your children why they can’t go to a New Year’s Eve party.  “Come on, Mom...It’s where you and Dad met!”

Wow.  Seriously?

Right.  And your reflex reaction in your brain is to chastise yourself for being such a romantic and again, setting yourself up for disappointment or hurt.

It becomes a lot easier to see the sense, cost-savings and dignity – Get real – and the self-preservation benefits to bagging the whole deal and staying home.

Ain't no shame in take-out.

Oh, my God, stop.  Can we repurpose this whole thing?  This whole scenario we have set up for ourselves?

Try this – Acknowledge we’re tired.  Why?  Because we have had very full year.

Tally all of the things you have accomplished this year, even if they are not big by anyone else’s metrics.  Count them if they are big to you.

No, you’re not trying to inflate things out of proportion to the rest of your life, but look at all of the little ways or big ways you have taken a risk, made a change, helped someone, helped yourself...

Look at all of the things you have done that have made a difference in your life.  In the way you see it, feel it and operate in it.

Make a list if you want.  That works for me.  Love Post-its.

Or silently review the year as you drive around town or walk to get some coffee.

We might laugh loudly.  We will probably feel that little bubble rise through our chest as we realize we did something very important.  We could feel our face flush with heat as we recall some things we probably should not have done.   Ooh...yikes – And then we start thinking about things we think we were really dumb or naïve to have done.

Duly noted.  Move on.

Keep rolling through the year.  Let this last year’s enormity authentically impress you.

Let the person you have become in the process impress you.

Once we do that, we notice how off-base we might have been in making such a big deal about New Year’s.  Or in making such a big deal about making a big deal about New Year’s.

Whatever importance we attach to New Year’s shows us one thing – Hope.  It’s still alive and well in all of us.  And we don’t need to fake it or flaunt it.

We just might need a little rest before implementing it.

Whether we drive clear across town to our married friends’ party, wait in the frigid air outside that new bar, get that coveted table at the hip restaurant or pick up a bottle of wine to sip while we make some pasta at home, we won’t have any regrets with our choice for this holiday.

The real celebration is happening inside of us.

We should feel accomplished.  Inspired.  And likely a little tired.

But sad, conflicted or unfulfilled?  Bah, humbug.

Happy New Year.

 

This is Gracie, my relative's dog, after our holiday celebrations last week.  This face was one inspiration for this entry.  Many of us might sympathize with Miss Gracie.

 

This is going to be a very good year

“Without Magic, Santa Would Need 12 Million Employees"

I am sure that many of us have wondered what it would take, logistics and resources-wise, for Saint Nick to deliver gifts to children all around the world in one night.  Many of us have probably tried to calculate it around this time of year, perhaps at a bar or holiday party.

We may have even divided the tasks with one person taking notes on a cocktail napkin and another volunteer googling the necessary information…until we scrapped the task, ordered another round and toasted the jolly old elf.

For any of us who may have wondered the same in a clearer-headed mindset, you will find this entry interesting.  The other night, en route to my niece’s and nephew’s holiday pageant at their school, I heard this introduction on NPR:

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: It's Christmastime and kids everywhere are writing letters to Santa Claus. One particular letter got us thinking. It's from Lucy Drummond(ph), daughter of the senior national editor here at NPR News, Steve Drummond

  

LUCY DRUMMOND: (Reading) Dear Santa, I hope you and Mrs. Claus are well. I think you are so kind but I have one question: How do you do it? Oh, by the way, you have a good sense of sight. Love, Lucy.

 

SIEGEL: How, indeed. How does Santa deliver presents to hundreds of thousands of children in a single night?

 

Well, as a public service to children everywhere, whoever wondered about this same question, Chana Joffe-Walt of NPR's Planet Money tried to find an answer.

 

“Huh.  This will be interesting,” I thought.  The following is the summary from the NPR website[1]:

  

There are 760 million Christian children in the world, according to the Pew Research Center. Suppose Santa delivers one gift to each child. What kind of delivery workforce would Santa need?

We couldn't get an interview with Santa. But we did get Paul Tronsor from FedEx and Mike Mangeot from UPS. They helped us go through the numbers.

Here are just a few of the positions Santa would need to fill to pull off Christmas:

• 46 international distribution centers, to allow Santa to reload as he crosses the globe. That means 400,000 workers for loading presents onto Santa's sleigh.
• 60,000 workers to develop optimized flight plans and communicate with the FAA, secure flyover rights, etc.
• 7,000 people monitoring demand and tweaking his route in real time.
• 100 meteorologists to make sure Santa doesn't fly into a blizzard.
• 40,000 people to help Santa clear customs.

To give you a sense of how big that team is, that's 40 times the number of employees at FedEx:

FedEx: 300,000 employees

Santa:  12 million employees

…This is what the whole workforce looks like: 

• 40,000 Elves deal with customs issues
• 67,100 Elves to calculate the best route for the sleigh and monitor the weather
• 152,000 Elves figure out how to properly load all of the presents onto the sleigh
• 180,000 Elves fly the presents to Santa’s distribution centers
• 400,000 Elves to work in Santa’s distribution centers
• 500,000 Elves work in Human (Elf) Resources, Accounting and other administrative departments
• 3,360,000 Elves drive the gifts to Santa’s distribution centers
• 7,300,900 Elves are on General Assignment

That’s a lot.  And that is simply the elfpower Santa would require.  No, we probably never would have gotten that far with our cocktail napkins, the google app on our mobile phones and our collective quafside calculations.

Those numbers are astonishing, but it was Chana Joffe-Walt’s closing comments with Mssr.s Tronsor and Mangeot that made me, and probably many of us listening, smile[2]:

JOFFE-WALT:  So, Santa Inc. is 12 million employees

  

TRONSOR:  Santa Inc. is 12 million.  It is massive.  I don’t know of any company that has the number of employees that Santa does.

 

JOFFE-WALT:  These two guys, with FedEx and UPS, can look at their own businesses and figure out a lot about Santa’s operation.  But Santa does have certain trade secrets that are his alone.  For Mike, with UPS, the biggest question he has about Santa’s operations is that sleigh.  Not only does it have to move fast, delivering almost 9,000 presents per second, but it’s also carrying a huge amount of weight. 

 

MANGEOT:  Santa’s sled has to be absolutely ginormous.  If you assume conservatively that each of those 760 million children get a present that weighs one pound, that’s 760 million pounds, which would take 295 747 aircraft to haul.  Interestingly, that’s about 50 more 747’s than exists in the entire world.  So that’s – these reindeer are doing something really impressive on Christmas Night.

 

JOFFE-WALT:   In the end, Mike and Paul both say they believe that with 12 million people, about $10 billion and lots of technology, Santa’s task does seem feasible.  The remaining questions they have, they just chalk up to Santa’s main competitive advantage:  Magic.

---

[1] Glass, I.  (Executive Producer).  (2012, December 19).  This American Life.  New York, NY:  National Public Radio.  Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/19/167570321/without-magic-santa-would-need-12-million-employees

[2] Glass, I.  (Executive Producer).  (2012, December 19).  This American Life.  New York, NY:  National Public Radio.  Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=167570321

Unwrapping Gratitude

"Gratitude is the heart’s memory.”  - Jean Baptiste Massieu

We all like giving gifts and we all certainly like receiving them, both of which are customary this time of year.

For the holidays we try hard to pick nice gifts, useful gifts, gifts our loved ones will appreciate.  But that creates a quandary.

Do you give the gifts on par with something you would appreciate receiving, or do you give something that aligns more with your recipient’s wishes or expectations?

And what do you do about the loved one who honestly does not want or need anything?

Do you find something to give them they would not have considered for themselves?  Do you call their spouse, child, assistant or work carpool buddy for intel? Do you give them something generic and universal so at least they have a box to open?

Or do you let it go with a verbal gift certificate for something you know they will want in a few months?

And whatever you give your loved ones, are they grateful for the item you have given them?  Or for the thought, effort and generosity – sometimes the sacrifice – those gifts represent?

These questions, and many others, can move through our minds right around now – right before we silence those superfluous philosophical distractions and focus.

As soon as we have worked through the shock and denial that we are, yet again, running hard and fast into the holidays, we become proactive.  Reluctantly or with great gusto – and sometimes both, depending on the day or the task – we confront the reality that we have to do something.

Something?  We have to do everything to prepare for the holidays.

If you have a sibling or a couple of siblings to whom you are somewhat close in age and with whom you have a good relationship, this can ease everything just a little.  Best case, you can split the labor.

Right.

Or you can brainstorm together about the perfect gifts to give your relatives.

Oh, sure...

Or, provided you and your sibling(s) have a similarly close relationship with your relatives and would more or less agree on an appropriate gift magnitude for those relatives, you can feel confident that if you select the gifts, you and your sibling(s) will be willing to split them with you.

There you go.

Isn’t one really nice gift from two or more people better than a couple of smaller, possibly less useful or unrelated gifts?

Exactly.

And once you agree on splitting the gifts, the gift magnitude and the logistics behind wrapping and delivering or shipping those gifts – i.e. once you have acquiesced to take care of all of the above for you and your sibling(s)...

Now you’ve got it!

...You can coast into the last few weeks, days or hours remaining before your family’s holiday celebrations, knowing you have things under control.

Unless you slam into that wall where you do not have any idea what to get a certain relative or two.

You can suit up and show up at the store, and wander around hoping for that moment when “the” ideal gift for those last few relatives calls out to you, magnetically drawing you to its store shelf.

And even then, having carved some extra time out of your thick day and mobilized to the store on that hope, you can still find yourself standing in the middle of your chosen retail paradise, unwittingly humming along with the store’s Carpenters Christmas Collection album, glancing from side-to-side like an abandoned puppy…paralyzed from the waist down by total cluelessness about what to do now.

In case of emergency, you can call your family’s matriarch.  Or patriarch. Or that aunt who seems to know everything about everyone – or thinks she does.  Any ideas are helpful, right?

A couple of days ago, I called our chieftain.

“You know, Paigey,” the Queen Mum/Big Nance said, “Cousin So-and-So and his wife love grilling.  Why don’t you get them a couple of spice rubs they can use on their grill.”

Oh…Huh…OK.  Cool.  Wouldn’t have thought of that.

A few weeks ago, I saw a greeting card with a quote that could inspire a lot of thought for many of us, especially this time of year.

"Gratitude is the heart’s memory,” it said.  Huh.

I took a picture with my mobile phone and looked it up later.  It seems many sources call it simply a “French proverb.” Others attribute it to Jean Baptiste Massieu, an eighteenth-to-nineteenth century French educator who was also deaf.

Unlike most people we know who speak in platitudes, especially during this season, he certainly did not talk to hear himself speak.

When we read that, I am pretty sure all of us nod or feel that internal click when we recognize an implicit truth.  Unwrapping it, articulating what it means to us and why that resonates is what gives us pause.

How do you understand gratitude?  Is it a reaction?  As in “You gave me a gift, therefore I feel gratitude.”

Or is it an obligation?  As in, “Wow, you did something pretty incredible for me.  I owe you big time.”

Or does it exist in the head at all?

Does it bypass the head altogether and exist in a spotless sanctuary in our hearts?

If you agree with the latter, what do we give each other for the holidays if we are giving to fulfill the heart and not to please the head?  Ours or anyone else’s.

Do we manifest our gratitude in the giving or the receiving?

Probably in both.  Which might be why we may not always mind having to do something, i.e. everything, to prepare for the holidays.  Not until next year anyway.

Happy Holidays to you and your family.

Name That Photoshopee, Round VI of V

Everyone seems to have mixed emotions about holiday cards; we love receiving them. It feels very special to know your friends thought of you when sending out the cards with the adorable picture of their infant twins and their cat in their matching holiday finery.

When you arrive at your parents’ place promptly at the time when they said everyone must be there for dinner, and no one is anywhere near ready, you are glad to repurpose those extra few minutes to look through the basket of cards your family friends have sent.

“Wow! I didn’t know Andrea and Scott moved to town. I’ll have to give them a call,” or “Aw, Mr. and Mrs. XYZ renewed their vows for their 50th anniversary. That’s sweet.”

All warm fuzzies. Everything about those cards is lovely – except for the “Oh, my God…it’s almost Christmas???” revelation that strikes as your finger tears through the paper on that first envelope you receive.

This is the moment when your holiday to-do list starts flashing through your brain in a non-linear, traumatic lightening storm, revealing tiny glimpses of everything you will have to do, to take care of, over the next few weeks.

Oh, my God…It’s almost Christmas. It’s a horrifying.

In our family, we have a teaser moment a month or two in advance of the holidays. One that softens the impact. This is when we all receive the e-mail that my grandmother, Big Nance/the Queen Mum needs our picture to insert us into her holiday card photo – provided we were not all at the same wedding or on the same vacation in the last year, which is a sensible occasion to take a family picture.

However, that has not been the case for more than perhaps four in the last 18 or 19 years.

If we cannot make it to her designated location in the Midwest at the designated time for the picture, await instructions. Within a week or so, we will receive the proof photo.

This is the one that shows all of our cousins who could be present for the photo standing with awkward gaps between them – gaps in which the Queen Mum’s Photoshop ace will insert us once we send a photo of ourselves standing at just the right angle, dressed in just the right holiday color scheme.

And even then, the Queen Mum may decide she’d prefer if your silvery sweater were green. She may decide she would rather you appear between these cousins on that side of the family huddle instead of those cousins on the other side – as you were instructed. Or she may decide your hair has too much body in that shot.

Don’t worry. Her Photoshop ace will take care of it.

And we’re never really sure what her Photoshop ace has done until that special day when the card arrives. This year remained faithful to precedent.

Two years ago, we played an amusing game on here. Over a five-week period, I posted a different holiday card picture Big Nance had sent over the previous 14 or 15 years – since she had first learned about Photoshop. Many of you sent some great guesses as to who, if anyone, in those photos was not actually there. That is, who had been photoshopped into the picture.

Last year’s photo was great and looked rather believable, but it was also a bit blurry. Too blurry to use for this game. This year’s photo though – it’s amazing.

With Big Nance’s gracious go-ahead, please join me in this year’s Martini Holiday Game: Name That Photoshopee, Round VI of V.

Your challenge, should you accept it, is to be the first person to correctly identify who, if anyone, has been Photoshopped into this year’s photo.

Please post your answers as a comment on Martini www.martinirescuesquad.com or on Martini Rescue Squad’s Facebook like page.

Should you prefer to pass on playing, I hope this picture makes you smile about how goofy, impractical and wonderful this time of year can be as it really sinks in - Oh, my God…It’s almost Christmas.

Happy Holidays.

 

“If You Would Have Told Me…”

"If you would have told me 10 years ago that xyz would happen...I would never have believed you.”  Many of us can and do say that about many things – good and bad.

"If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would end up staying in Chicago and falling for Danny....”

Or “If you would have told me 10 years ago that her career would have taken such a bad turn and she’d go downhill from there...”

It’s a rather neutral statement that could lead the whole conversation onto a different path – again, good or bad.

And sometimes, you say it simply because you cannot believe how much time has passed. Among friends, you can throw out a quick "If you would have told me 10 years ago...” and leave that idea hanging there.  Someone around you is certain to pipe in with a “No joke!”

The statement does not really have to be about anything, but that incredulity seems to resonate with everyone – and it has very little to do with the time.  There are still 60 seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour and 24 hours in every day.  That never changes.

Broken down like that, time seems abundant.  As if there is so much of it.  But when we try to get it to hold still so we can stuff it full, it runs away from us.

Time’s passage is not what astonishes us.  But how much we do in that time, and how quickly that amount of time diminishes in proportion to the rest of the time we have been alive - that is what perpetually surprises most of us.

How we characterize that time, whether good or bad, depends on how we fill it.  Quality, not quantity.  And sometimes, the simplest cast-aside occurrences can drive home all of that – time, its mischievous getaway and how we filled it before it escaped our grasp.

On the phone with a friend a month or so ago, I casually tossed into a conversation an expression I have used for years – something I inherited from a boyfriend over 10 years ago.

"Amen, Sister Fish,” I said.

My friend paused hesitantly before we both broke into laughter.

"Oh, God…Sorry, that is something I have said for years!  Got it from a former boyfriend and I have no idea where he heard it, but I can’t shake it,” I explained.

Mike and I dated for a year and change when I was a year and change out of college.  He is a few years older and was much more professionally established.  I was taking classes at a local university to prepare for a career change.  One year into my “career.”  Nice.

He too had a full-time job and was in school for his PhD in Philosophy, preparing for his imminent career change.  We could commiserate on a lot of things, one of which was proofreading each other’s papers.  He is a very good writer/teacher and he knew I wanted to be writer before I knew it.

We stopped dating almost 10 years ago, but have remained friends; we thumbs-up each other’s social network comments from time to time and check in via e-mail on a rare occasion.  It’s nice.

"You know what, I am going to e-mail him to ask,” I resolved that night on the phone with my friend, for no particular reason other than to ask where he got his Sister Fish.

ME

How are you and your cute family? I have a question...among the many charming idioms you implanted in my brain, one of the most charming is "Amen, Sister Fish." May I ask where you got that gem?

 

I am on the phone with a buddy and that just came out of my mouth. I cannot specify its genesis in my diction and would appreciate your help.

 

Thank you!  

No answer.

“Oh well.  His household is probably in bed,” I figured.

I had forgotten about that e-mail until a few days ago, when he e-mailed me in reply.   I was at the drugstore at 9ish on a Saturday night, picking up face lotion – so wild and crazy - when my alert chimed.  “Message from Mike Canardi.” 

MIKE

I don't think I ever responded to this. The origin is from 1996. My old boss, Ted McDonnell, used to use this term regularly. So much so, that for some odd reason it stuck 7 years later though our dating adventure. I guess it would just slip out...oh boy!

 

Hope you're well. Would love to hear how things are for you and the Martini Squad...

ME

Hysterical, Canardi!  Both for the phrase's adhesion and for referring to it as our "dating adventure." And I'm picking up toiletries at CVS, hearing a Don Henley song on the ambient tracks. Way to get nostalgic, right?

 

All is very well, thank you. I left finance months ago - Canardi, it was not for me. Giving it a go with the writing dream for right now. You'll know if it comes true as soon as I will.

 

How is your family? Is your son about 18 months now? How are your folks and your brother?

MIKE

Yeah...he’s 17 months...and a pistol!

ME

17 months!  Verbal?  Writing papers on Plato yet? 

MIKE

Nope...Gave that up for a while...I'll try that again in about 20...years

 

Keep up your writing.  You know Paula Deen was in her 40's when she started to cook for $$...don't forget me when your writing is on the on the New York Times Best Sellers...

ME

Oh Gohhhd! 

MIKE

You're the voice of the Modern Woman :)

ME

Oh God, the voice of the Modern Woman?  I heard I sound more like Minnie Mouse. 

MIKE

I'm not touching that one...

ME

Oooh, Baby! 

MIKE

Yep...thought that might elicit an Oooh Baby...

ME

I knew you did that on purpose! 

MIKE

Yup...

ME

And I still hear your little ditty anytime anyone says "Coolio" 

MIKE

Oh no! That'll stick...sorry about that...

ME

Ooh...and worse, worse, worse yet... 

MIKE

What could possibly be worse??

ME

No! That doesn't even COMPARE to the old faithful "I'm picking up what you're laying down"…Gawwwwd! 

MIKE

Please...You never had to deal with the humiliation of being called a pastry in public...

ME

A fluffy, but filling pastry.  At least I didn't call you Napoleon.  Muffin is harmless by comparison. 

MIKE

True...not emasculating at all :)
 
Keep writing...love to see what you're doing...

ME

Thank you! You too. You are a talented poet/scholar, Professor Canardi.  

Right then, it seemed as if the last 10 years, as if time had run away.  But no, there it is, trotting along side of us with 60 seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour and 24 hours in every day... And my, oh my, how full we have stuffed it.

If you would have told me - or many of us - 10 years ago that almost everything in the last 10 years would have happened...we would never have believed you.

Thanks to webegirls.com for posting a few Martini entries

A huge thanks to www.webegirls.com for running a few Martini entries over the last month or so.  This is a terrific lifestyle website "for the modern girl of every age," run by lovely people.  It's a pleasure to be posted here. 

 

Take a look when you have a moment and have a great weekend:

• You and Your Age, Rolling with the Punches:  http://webegirls.com/entertainment/you-and-your-age-rolling-with-the-punches
• Layover:  http://webegirls.com/featured/layover
• Like Me:  http://webegirls.com/entertainment/like-me

 

Kitchen Sink Gumbo

"Necessity is the mother of invention,” my brother Pat mused the other day.

True.  And it may also breed insanity.  Especially in the kitchen.

I don’t cook.  I can – and do for company – but on a day-to-day basis, I do not. Since college, my favorite cooking utensil has been my microwave.  Many of us would probably say the same.

The microwave is amazing with the powers it bestows us; it can enable us to become a frozen foods connoisseur, just as it equips us to extend our food’s useful life.

You don’t want to finish your whole plate of pasta at the hip new trattoria?  You can take it home and reheat it later or at work for lunch tomorrow.

We can hush the inner shell shock we still hear from our guilty conscience bombardments at the dinner table when we were kids –  the “Do you know how many children in (name anywhere in the world with less-than-fortunate circumstances) would be grateful for those peas?”es.

At the same time, we can doctor ourselves when we are sick and heat that chicken noodle soup, or brew that Sri Lankan andrographis paniculatabucachacha tea that no one can pronounce, but everyone at the organic store swears will heal our cold overnight.

And we can be the cost-conscious consumer who may stop by the market a few times a week for the take-out containers of prepared foods we can heat later.

But what happens when our microwave dies...Gives up...Kaputsky?

Oh God.

This is what happened to me a couple of months ago.  I came home from dinner one night and was simultaneously straightening things on my counter as I filled my water glass before bed when I noticed my fruit basket was on top of the microwave and not the toaster, where I prefer to put it.  Of course.

When I moved the basket, it seemed warm.  Hmm.

I felt the top of the microwave and it was hot. Very hot.

Uh-oh.

Part of me thought, “You’ve had this thing for 12 to 14 years...It’s still usable...Maybe unplug it and try using it again tomorrow.”

And the other, more rational part of me thought, “You’ve had this thing for 12 to 14 years...Maybe something in it shorted and it’s time to throw it away...Time to not risk having the whole thing blow up in your kitchen.”

Yup.  That made sense.

I hoisted that beast with magical powers off of the counter and promptly took it outside to the trash bin before I could change my mind.  Done.

“Eh.  Christmas is coming,” I thought.  “I don’t really need anything else.  I’ll tell my family a microwave would be great.”

“Oooh...Right,” I answered myself.

“What will you do about heating food until then?,” I asked, as I reluctantly turned my eyes toward my stove and my perfectly viable pots and pans.

“You dork,” I quickly chided myself.  “It will take only a minute or two longer to reheat things on the stove than it will in a microwave...and it’s about time you make more use of those pots and pans.”

I think that voice is the “children in (fill in the blank)”/peas voice’s older sibling.

And that is what I did for a week or two.  I would come home from the market with my cold packages of the rice, Brussels sprouts and turkey meatballs – or I would remove the same from my fridge – and would meet the moment of truth.

The moment when it was me and my innocent leftovers against that wily, neglected and bitter stove.

Slowly, respectfully, I would stir each element in its respective pan or corner of the pan until it was warm enough to be pleasant to eat.  Which also meant it was gluey, dry and...not so tasty.

After doing this for a few nights, I had the evolved realization a tablespoon or so of olive oil could help.

Sure, but that made the rice a little greasy and the meatballs a little olivey.

Hmm...what to do?

And then, one night at the market, a flash of genius struck me.

“I need broth!  Broth, broth, broth...Got it!,” I said as I rushed through the market to the soup aisle.

“Now, huh...Chicken broth, organic chicken broth with no added salt, French onion broth...Eh.  I’ll take a couple of each,” I resolved.

“Ooh, and shaved parm!  I need some shaved parm to top it all off!”

The excitement built with a couple more additions to my basket until I was ready to float out of that market.

Yes, oh yes.  In the last four or so weeks since that night, I have become a master of my own invention.  Kitchen sink gumbo.

You start with a cup-and a-half of broth – or of 1 percent milk if you know you will have trouble going to sleep that night.  Just pour either in your pan until it looks like what you think a cup-and-a-half would look like.  Bring it to a delicate boil.

Then, stir in whatever you have in your refrigerator; some steamed rice, the three tablespoons of leftover mac and cheese, the take-out mu shu beef, turkey meatballs or turkey loaf, the steamed kale, the creamed spinach, the ...you get it.  Everything but the kitchen sink.

If you don’t have a protein source in there, or you want more protein than your leftovers will afford you, just crack an egg over the mixture and voila!

Turn the heat down to medium and stir, gently and slowly, as the rice fattens while it absorbs the broth or milk.  Stir it for a few more minutes as you add herbs and spices to taste.

By now, the whole concoction should have thickened into what my Dad Pat and Dad Bob would call slop.   I prefer to call it “gumbo.”

Thicken to your preference.  Keep going and it will become more like a risotto, which can be tasty too.

Then carefully plate the dish, sprinkle on some shaved parm and there you have it.  Heaven on a plate.

That is how I described it to my brother Pat, who astutely replied “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

“Yes, but does it also breed insanity?,” we have to ask.

Kitchen sink gumbo is quite an invention.  One we have probably all created once or twice.  And it is the proper way to honor our left-overs or take-out so they will not have been prepared in vain.  None of it will go to waste.

It is artful, because we had to do something other than default to our microwave, or simply reheating it on the stove.

It’s a combination Mother Nature never intended – but probably would have if she knew how fabulous it would be.

And the wonderful thing is none of us will ever make the same one, because none of us will start with the same leftovers – each of ours will be a once-in-a-lifetime creation.  However I think all of ours will end up tasting more-or-less similar.

And it will be delicious.  It will be a triumph over circumstance. It will symbolize our new-found peace with our stove.  Our pots and pans will know they are loved again.  The gods of frugality, resourcefulness, creativity and good health will smile on this steaming glory.  It will be a win all around.

But will it be such triumphant deliciousness, because it’s what other people would consider tasty, or because it’s ours?

Necessity mothered the invention, but did it also beget the crazy idea that this dish tastes good?

As long as we enjoy it, and do not expect anyone else to, we probably don't need to care.

One Foot on Grace

It’s very warm. It’s very bright.  It’s a bit uncomfortable in Southern California – or uncomfortable for anyone who is ready for the late November aesthetic about which we get nostalgic during the months that are supposed to be uncomfortably warm and bright, e.g. June, July and August.

This warmth can make a few simple things, such as walking my dogs, somewhat unpleasant.  They are big, willful, healthy dogs; Moe is a Chocolate Labrador and her brother, Traveler, is a Pit Bull.

He looked Dalmatian enough to me when I adopted him from the Dalmatian rescue group.

When it’s time for a walk, these two have plenty to say about it.  Miss Moe prances along daintily, eagerly taking in everything around her.  The whole world is in her paws.  Traveler is very protective of both

 of us and is almost constantly on edge, looking out for anything that could be threatening.

Anything at which he can menacingly bark to reinforce that yes, he is the man of the street.  The lord of the manor. The protector and defender.

When Moe wants to go one way, Traveler wants to get there ahead of her.  When he wants to bark to ward off any frightening creatures, such as neighbors’ Chihuahua’s, she mimics her brother’s bark as if to say, “Yeah!...Uh..Whatever he said!”

Their personalities are two reasons why it helps to walk them uphill, despite the heat and glare.  The further along we get, the more compliant they become.  But that does not start easily.

Once we get their leashes around their necks, shove a couple of courtesy bags in our pocket and mobilize out the door, Moe and Traveler have worked each other into a frenzy with their anticipation.

What is so freaking exciting? We do this all the time. 

They know the route and are happy to lead.

Not so fast.

We cut hard right at the base of the drive and continue about 20 yards on a pretty tight leash.  Here is where it is wise to cross the street q-u-i-c-k-l-y so they don’t get in a barking brawl with that neighbor’s German Shepherd.

Once we’ve crossed over, I have to keep them on the streetward side so that neighbor’s Yorkie doesn’t instigate.

Moe and T rarely start the fracas.

We hustle past the Yorkie’s house, ducking under the thick foliage that spills over their gate to exactly my eye level and ease into the road’s curvature.  Up ahead, maybe another 20 feet, we see Grace.  The little street at the highest point in our walk.

This is the spot on our route where we can relax.  Only the Dachsunds on the left could cause a problem, but they are inside dogs.  Usually not an issue.

I congratulate Moe and T for not letting the Germy or the Yorkie rile them up and then the conversation naturally flows to how beautiful is the view on that block.  Despite the cars or fellow pedestrians, it’s peaceful.

Right at the top, we put one foot onto Grace and pivot turn.

How many, many times in life can many of us say that we, despite our best efforts to make a really stupid decision, have found that we have still had one foot on grace?

We may not have evoked it or even thought we needed to, but it rose underneath our feet and empowered us to pivot turn back in the right direction.  It protected us from our most impressive efforts to undo ourselves – in little things, in big things and in little things that could have become big things.

Every single one of those times are some pretty compelling reasons for which to be grateful this Thanksgiving.

“The words ‘gratitude’ and ‘grace’ share a common origin: the Latin word gratus, meaning ‘pleasing’ or ‘thankful.,’” writes columnist/author Phillip Moffitt.[1]

“Practicing mindfulness of gratitude consistently leads to a direct experience of being connected to life and the realization that there is a larger context in which your personal story is unfolding..."[2]

“Cultivating thankfulness for being part of life blossoms into a feeling of being blessed...in a more refined appreciation for the interdependent nature of life...”[3]

“It also elicits feelings of generosity...Gratitude can soften a heart that has become too guarded, and it builds the capacity for forgiveness, which creates the clarity of mind that is ideal for spiritual

 development.”[4]

Please reread that.

Perhaps this gratitude, this year, is not gratitude that is not for gratitude’s sake, or because that is what everyone expects of us when each have to share a Thanksgiving reflection at our 40-person family dinner – the one where our sister-in-law always tries to sound so poetic for 10 minutes of pointlessness.

This year, our gratitude can be a gateway to presence in our own life.  Into our own dynamic vibrancy.

Gratitude can be a gateway to forgiveness we grant and receive, whether or not we are aware of wanting or giving it.

Gratitude can be a crack on our own defenses, the ones we have worked so hard to build, through which we can reach the warmth and intimacy that awaits us on the other side.

Blah, blah, blah...I know.  That all sounds pretty idyllic until Moffit offers this:

Let me be clear: The practice of gratitude is not in any way a denial of life's difficulties.  We live in troubling times, and no doubt you've experienced many challenges, uncertainties, and disappointments in your own life... [5]

You don't say...

Smart Alec.  Read on:

Having access to the joy and wonderment of life is the antidote to feelings of scarcity and loss. It allows you to meet life's difficulties with an open heart. The understanding you gain from practicing gratitude frees you from being lost or identified with either the negative or the positive aspects of life, letting you simply meet life in each moment as it rises.[6]

So we don’t have to pretend everything is perfect to be grateful?  We don’t have to try to evoke gratitude, despite the mammoth-sized concerns we have?

We can channel gratitude as a way of accepting all of it?  We always have and always will deserve the freedom and peace that comes from gratitude? And we can access that anytime we want?

How empowering is that.

How warm, bright and beautiful does it feel to know we always have had and always will have one foot on grace.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

---

[1] Moffitt, P.  (2012, November).  Selfless Gratitiude.  Yoga Journal.  Retrieved from:  www.yogajournal.com/gratitude

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

The Unabridged Dating Website Dictionary

Many of us have ventured onto dating websites at least once, perhaps for a finite trial period…and some of us have been on and off of them for years.  You can ease into those sites, entering as an aloof tourist, taking the observationist’s smooth Town Car approach; you keep the windows rolled up and never venture too far from your air conditioned seat.

Or you can do as have most of us and find yourself on a crash course to dating - where you pause to watch the sexy Ferrari zoom past you just long enough for the emotionally clumsy, clunky guy to smash right into you.

You have flashbacks to that mean kid at your brothers’s bumper car birthday party who careened into everyone as his only way of socially engaging - the kid our mom’s told us to forgive, “because he just doesn’t know how to express himself.”

Some of us may have tried to be old fashioned, revisiting our tried and true dating tactics that are as reliable and traditional as a horse-drawn carriage.  You clomp along the same old route, passing the same relationship landmarks, circling round and round...until you found you’ve gotten nowhere and it ultimately stinks.

And others of us may have taken the scenic, peppy little Prius route through dating, acquainting ourselves with the territory’s ups and downs just well enough to understand the native tongue.

For anyone renewing your passport to dating country, please read this entry carefully.  Daters throughout the world seem to speak a particular dialect, but nowhere must you be more fluent in it than on the websites.  Your language proficiency in reading the signs can make the difference between a few fender-benders – Oopsy!  Te-he… - and PTSD-inducing dating reality collisions.

Ladies, these are your 20 most important translations in your unabridged Dating Website Dictionary:

1. “Entrepreneur” = Unemployed.

2. “I’m a creative type” = Also unemployed; the same guy you see all day everyday on his laptop at Starbucks working on his screenplay.  The one on which he’s been working for at least five years.

3. “Family oriented”/”my family is very important to me” = Talks to his mom three times each day.  Perhaps in a baby voice.  And may still live in the attic above her garage.

4. Has a profile that is about as long as a New York Times article without any paragraph breaks and every sentence begins with the word “I”; I have…, I want…, I go…., I buy…, I, I, I.. = “Are you my mommy?”  (Refer to translation #3).

5. “Currently separated” = Still married.

6. Every picture in his profile gallery shows him without a shirt = Yup, he was probably the “dancer” who popped out of the cake at your awkward cousin’s bachelorette.

7. Has posted a couple of pictures of himself in collared shirts, work suits or t-shirts...and one choice portrait of him topless in jean cut-offs sprawled on a Trans Am hood – Uh…right.

8. “The ideal girl for me is one who feels just as comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt for a night at home as she does in her sexy black dress for a night on the town”* = Probably nice.

*I'd really like to meet the poor schlub who originally wrote this, who 95% of men on these sites copy.  He should copyright that to collect some serious royalties.

9. “Wow, how do I sound original describing myself in 4000 words or less?” = Also ripping off the aforementioned schlub.

10.  Four of his five profile pictures show him: playing beer pong in a toga; dressed in Native American costume with the seductive eyes-half-open drunk look and clutching a beer bong; snowboarding with his mouth open and tongue hanging out; half-Nelsoning his friend with, what else, a bottle of beer in the other hand = Would still live in the frat house, if they’d let him.  And definitely has his Greek letters tattooed somewhere really special.

11. Describes himself as a “busy executive” and provides a photograph of him at a desk, looking intense, but without one single notepad, pen, computer, lamp on the desk or book in the bookcase behind him** = Didn’t really think that one through, did he?

**It’s OK, he’s not really looking for you.  He’s trying to one-up his brother who stole his shirtless Trans-Am shot idea.

12. Uses parentheses in every sentence as if to caveat his own profile = Wants to be a stand-up comic…and does not understand why no one thinks he’s funny.

13. “My friends say I am one of the funniest people they know” = Thinks he is hysterical and has no idea when to stop talking.  This guy is likely to bring a whoopee cushion to your and his daughter’s wedding someday.  What?...Everyone laughed when he brought it to yours.

14. “I’m sick of dating actresses/models/dog walkers...I’m looking for a nice girl to settle down with” =  Has slept with almost every woman on that site and does not see any need to revise his profile.  If it aint broke...?

15. “Some nights, I like to stay home and cuddle with my cat, Mr. McFuzzy.  He’s the best” = Wow.

16. “I’m just getting back into the dating scene after my break-up/divorce and thought I’d give this a try” = Handle with care - both for your sake and for his.  He may be a nice guy who had a rough go of it...Or his most recent model/actress/dog walker might still be stalking him.

17. “OK, for starters, I can’t believe I’ve actually resorted to trying one of these dating websites” = Still in love with his seventh-grade crush, who is married and lives in Phoenix with her husband and three kids.

18. Has a couple of pictures without his shirt, e.g. playing beach volleyball, or on a surf trip – along with a couple of pictures of him in collared shirts, t-shirts his well-loved fleece, etc... = Probably normalish.

19. “The ideal girl for me is one who can go from jeans and a t-shirt to her sexy black dress in 10 minutes tops” = Saw Wonder Woman too many times as a kid and still does not understand how realistic that is.  But these guys can be kinda cute in their idealism.

20. “I’m a busy, fully-employed man who has had enough of the bar scene in this town.  I’m not the most successful man in the world, but I’m passionate about what I do.  I’d like to find a nice, mellow woman to spend some time with and if you think we might click, drop me a line and we’ll take it from there” = Bingo!

Some of these translations may not hold true all of the time – we need to contextualize them with the balance of their profile.  To take it in as a whole.  More than anything, we need to trust our instincts and enjoy the ride.

Gotta love this country...

What a Wonderful World

Do you believe in signs?  Religious, spiritual...fill in the blank.  For you, are some subtler than others, or do you dismiss their validity until they make themselves undeniable?

And then do you accept them and open yourself to what they are trying to tell you, or do you invalidate what you derive from them just because you want so badly to believe in them?

Do you tell yourself that your sign is not an undeniable sign at all – just a fluke and your hopeful heart should not get too excited?

Or should it?  How much should you allow yourself to believe?  How much will believing hurt or help you – how much is healthy and how much is going to hurt you more than denying yourself that faith to begin with?

That’s the bigger-picture question that arches over all of the others. For many of us anyway.

What a wonderful world.  While that’s mostly true, the song by that title harpoons right into my core every time I hear it.  The first time I remember hearing that song was in the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam."

Louis Armstrong’s gently warbling voice packed every word with love and gravitas; it’s a positive, but heavy and very real song.  And every time I hear it, I think of my grandfather, Papa.

Papa was a Louis Armstrong fan his whole life.  I remember how excited he was that he and my grandmother, Big Nance/the Queen Mum, had seen him perform.

Louis’ and Ella Fitzgerald’s album, “Ella and Louis Again,” recorded in 1957, was one of my first CD’s I ever purchased with my allowance when that new technology became mainstream.

I have always loved Ella by herself and Ella and Louis together, but to me, Louis means Papa.  Papa means unconditional love.

Unspoken but certain strength – he never seemed to bluster or puff out his chest, but you knew not to mess with him...

...You could tell he had seen more horror in his life – in the War – than words could ever convey, so he never talked about it...

...But when he spoke, you listened.

And when he embraced you, you knew everything was going to be absolutely fine.  That he would not let anything hurt you.  That the world is wonderful and you really don’t have to try too hard to understand that.

To be quiet and watch, listen, taste, touch and breathe it in for a minute.  It’s there.  Right in front of you.

Even when he was weak and fading, he did not register any regret or self pity.  Only love.

On a Thursday evening in September 1993, I was at my father Dad Pat’s house when my mother called me from the Midwest, weeping.  She was barely verbal.

“Paigey, Honey, we’re going to lose Papa this weekend...We think...There is a flight out of LA first thing in the morning.  Do you want to come?,” she asked.

We had known something like this was coming for a while.  A couple of years prior, he dropped a significant amount of weight, shrinking from his warm, soft and cuddly, Santa Clausy physique to a size he had not been since he was a newlywed.

He had started carrying an oxygen tank and a mask everywhere we went.  The black tank strap slung over his shoulder had become a part of his wardrobe – like a pocket square to his blazer or an accent to his collared shirt.

That September weekend, Papa had already been in the hospital for a few weeks.  The days were winding down we heard, but we did not know when he would leave us.

I was 16.  I hoped he’d rally.  That there would be a game-changing discovery.  That he could stay alive.  But rationally, that call from my mother was not a surprise.

When we arrived at the hospital, his delicate, exhausted body was situated in his hospital gown, in his sparkling white bed.  He had tilted the upper half of his bed at a slight angle so he could see us.

He, or someone, had brushed his hair so he looked tidy and presentable.  His mask rested on his soft, velum-like skin – on his typically rosy cheeks.

And he smiled at us.  Or tried to.

I had done a pretty good job of holding it together on the flight and knew not to expect to see him animated, happy or well - but had no idea what seeing him that way would do to me.

As we entered the hospital ward, my face liquefied and my knees could not support me.  I diverted my course off to the side, trying unsuccessfully to escape his sight.  There was nowhere to hide in the ward.

“Pull it together!,” I shouted internally.

I was angry with myself for losing my composure, for betraying him with my sobs.

My Papa - my rock and assurance that everything was going to be absolutely fine - was not well and never would be again. I knew then that this was probably going to be the last time I would ever see him and there was no way around that.

I tried to collect and reconstruct myself to enter his small room.  He gently reached over to give me the best embrace he could.  As I pulled back from our hug, he squeezed my hand.

He always did that as he looked you in the eye before returning his attention to whatever else was

 happening in the room - to whatever else the Queen Mum was saying.

How do you look at someone in the eye, knowing how unconditionally you love each other - and knowing this will probably be the last time you will be together?  Get to embrace or laugh with or be comfortably silent together?

How do you control yourself from grieving a person who is still with you?  But who imminently will not be?

How do you stay strong for someone who has always meant strength personified and who now hasn’t any left?

Up close, I could see his crimson capillaries that wove through his cheeks.   Bright red, threadlike reminders he was still alive.  Still warm.

His chest rose and fell gently with his breath.  He was at peace.  Waiting.

I got to see him one last time a week or so before he passed away 2.5 months later, when he was at home for hospice care, but that weekend in the hospital was when I knew the man who had taught me what a wonderful world this is would soon leave it.

We expected it, but the day he passed was still one of the top five hardest days of my life.

It’s true, “he’s in a better place.”  Big Nance speaks with him every day.  A few of us in our family talk about how we channel him in our thoughts often.

Last week however, he was a presence.  As if he had something he needed to convey.

Three times while out and about in public, running errands or meeting friends for meals, I heard “What a Wonderful World.”

The first time was while I was walking through a store or a coffee shop. I don’t recall, because I did not think too much about it.

I don’t hear that song often, but often enough.

The second time, I was at a very important lunch.  My lunch mate has been an incredible help with the professional guidance he has both offered and provided.

A week or so before we met for lunch, I made a rather bold commitment to do something I have dreamed of doing for most of my life and certainly for the last six years - something that I have not yet had the courage, conviction and time to commit 100-percent to achieving.

As we started “talking business,” I heard the song.  Israel Kamakawiwo'oles cover of “What a Wonderful World.”

“Vincent, listen!,” I said, pointing upward.

My lunch mate looked at me slightly startled and concerned.

“What a Wonderful World,” I said. “I think this is the cover from the movie ‘50 First Dates.’  Do you hear it?...Did you see the movie?”

“I saw the movie, but I don’t recall the song being in it,” Vincent answered plainly.

His body maintained his stoic posture, but the skin around his eyes revealed a pinch of suspicion as I explained this song reminded me of my grandfather and has always meant assurance...

...That I rarely hear the song in public and that lunch was the second time I had heard it that week...

So we changed the subject and carried on with our lunch.

The weekend that followed was good, but I continued to carry some doubts – some concerns.  Those doubts and concerns whistled their hooligan buddies Sadness and Disappointment out of the dark to dance around me, taunting me.  They were having a grand time.

The weekend that followed was good, in that it included some fun plans but some not-so-fun thoughts.

A friend who is like a brother and I went to a movie to close the weekend – an interesting, informative movie – but I felt those thought thugs poking at me the whole film.

As my friend and I left the theater musing about what great movie it was, I felt icky.  Vulnerable.  Until we saw a violinist on the side of the walkway.

He had a plastic container in front of him for tips and I reached into my purse to grab something to give him as his notes softly harpooned my core.

“What a Wonderful World.”

Hi, Papa.  I’m listening.

And I am starting to believe this song-hearing trifecta last week might just have been him embracing me, letting me know everything is going to be absolutely fine.

For you, me and all of us if we stay open to what the universe wants to tell us.

If we are quiet and watch, listen, taste, touch and breathe it in for a minute.  It’s there.  Right in front of us.

What a wonderful world.

 

Patrick, Papa and Me - April 1992

A Borrowed Tribute

Sometimes you read something that takes your breath away. Each time you read it, it evokes that same reaction. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Michael posted on a social networking site this tribute to his father who passed away 10 years ago. I think you will enjoy it. Have a marvelous week, safe and healthy week.

It's a fact that as we get older, we perceive the passage of time to go by more quickly. It's why summer feels like an eternity when you're a kid, and why you'll say "Jesus, are those Christmas carols already?!?!" in a few short weeks.

But the passage of the last ten years since my father passed away has felt, at turns, like life is flashing by me like a film reel, and at other times yawning ahead. His passing at age 55 irreparably changed my perception of life expectancy, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It's a strange dichotomy to feel like the man in the black hat is chasing you down and closer than you think, but also to want to indulge the smelling of roses because, hey, no-one gets out of this alive.

There isn't a day out of the last 3,653 since he died that I haven't thought about him at least once. If anything, I've thought about him more as time goes by, especially in the last few years of tremendous personal and global change. What wisdom would he have had in 2008? What would he have liked about his daughter-in-law? How would becoming a grandfather change him, and change things between us? Were there thoughts for me on life, love, family, and risk he was saving for another day? Would I have listened anyway if he'd shared them?

I'll never know the answers to those questions. But like a river that dries up, my time with him left rich deposits, and if you ever knew my dad, and even more so if you didn't: life the shit out of your life. If there's prosciutto on the menu tonight, order it. If there's a speed limit, exceed it. It's OK to hate losing, and if you’re going to end up on the short end of the score, make sure they know they were in a fight. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" is complete nonsense - keep your friends and family the closest. Don't let school get in the way of your education. If you aren't going as hard as you can - stop, and find something you do want to do as hard as you can. Never let anyone cut you off on the road without letting them know how you feel (this is actually terrible advice).

At his memorial service ten years ago, I concluded by saying I would see him in my dreams. While that was vividly true for a time, I haven't dreamt about him much in the last few years. This is fine. It's OK because the older I get, the more I see of his imprint in my daily life, in times both mundane and extraordinary. And as much as I miss him every day, it brings a wry smile to my face when I find him around me more every day, and I look forward to emulating his best qualities with all of you.

Dogs are unbelievable. Turn down your volume before opening this:

http://www.waff.com/story/19841874/lost-boy-kept-warm-by-puppies?hpt=us_bn8

Have a terrific weekend.

Posted by Paige at 11:22 PM in advice, Current Affairs, relationships, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: happy, independent women, kyle camp, martini rescue squad, Paige Nesbitt, single, single women, thirties, twenties

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How many times have you gotten a peephole into a life choice that is not yours?  One you don’t necessarily covet or disdain.   Just another one.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with some couple friends; two beautiful, independent, capable and confident people who love each other very much and have done so for many years.

They are not married or bound by any socially conventional constructs.  They simply love each other.  And would rather be together than apart.   Their life is one.

Their relationship is just as you imagine you might like to feel someday.  If in a relationship.  Someday.

Glimpses into other life choices like that don’t necessarily call into question the life choices we are making, but they warmly, visibly remind us there are others to make.  And they may not be wrong or right for us.   They are just different.

And they still work.  They are still as marvelously fulfilling as are ours, and that is a good thing.  Even if they are not for us.  Even if the idea of applying them to our lives is a bit shocking to our sensibilities and expectations.

Almost a year ago, I received an e-mail from a family member who told me that a woman I have considered more-or-less as a godmother for my whole cognizant life had called her.  This functional godmother had told my blood relative that she envisioned me at en route to see my family, with my husband and the first of our two sons, within two years.

What?!!! 

Exactly.  That was my thought too.

But I love this godmother very much.  I haven’t seen her in more than 20 years, but I love her.  So I subdued the panic I felt when I first read this prognostication in an email from my blood relative on a lunch break from my job.

I coaxed that information into a loving, kind message that – in this godmother’s visions – I was on the right track.

And I questioned my source; the blood relative who conveyed my godmother’s prognostication has imagined me married and producing offspring since I was 20 years old.

She was deeply, tragically disturbed when I told her at the time I did not imagine marrying until my thirties.  When I said I did not think I would have the time to accomplish all that I wanted to do on my own until I had reached age 30 at least.

My godmother’s prognostication last year may not have been accurate at all – it was definitely filtered through a lens by which my relative had envisioned me married and pregnant since 15 years ago.

Therefore, it was somewhat easy to dismiss.

This was all my godmother’s loving message distorted by a relative who would say or do anything – even unwittingly – to convince me that her ideal life plan for me was the only way to go.

We don’t wish ill on anyone who makes those decisions that are not right for us and we don’t consider anyone else’s choices as inferior or less enlightened.  We just know, unconditionally and lovingly, that they are not ours.  Not now and maybe not ever.

At the same time, it does not make us a hypocrite to someday wish we had what those others have, despite our happiness.  It does not make us charlatans, no matter how purely and truly we believe in our life choices.

And it does not mean that whatever makes us happy and fulfills us now will always do so.

It simply means we are capable of evolving.  When we are ready.

It means we are more committed to having a fulfilling life than resisting change to defend “the principle of the matter.”

The principle changes.  The principle is each of us.  That is beautiful.

Evolution is a very, very good thing.  Standing by ideologies that no longer apply, just for the sake of being true to our ideology, will always hurt us more than it will ever help us.  Our fidelity to our ideology could betray your life of its substance.

Hiding behind whatever choices we are making because they are safer than risking hurt will eventually be more painful than not.

Not all relationships are perfect.  We know that.  Oh my, how we know that.

Many people hold onto fundamentally flawed relationships because they are afraid of being single.  Alone.  Regretful.  Disappointed with what they find behind their own conventionality veneer.

We know that too.

We also know how insulting it is for anyone to think that holding onto an empty, if not destructive, relationship is better than being single.

Whooo...that’s ridiculous.  And lonelier than any, any, anything else we can imagine.

Been there.  And as has anyone else who has visited the terrain, I promise, it’s much, much, much, soul-shatteringly worse.

To make your and your partner’s shared bed in the morning, feeling it’s a foreign land - knowing no love is made there anymore.   Knowing any utterances of love have become routine - more expected than felt.

Knowing you secretly fear that is the very best you will ever feel when you get down to the daily reality.  With that partner.  Or with any.

And we know how delicious it feels to be confidently single.   Proudly single.  Defiantly single.

But don’t fool yourself.  Please.

If you are defying what you really want, it will not ultimately work.

It’s not an accident that any of us are single.  It may or may not have been our choice to be so, but it is our choice to fill it out, to inhabit this place.  To milk it for every nourishing droplet we can ingest.  And to love it while we’re here.

If your choices are not right for you, for now or forever, honor that.  And if they are, honor that as well.

Have the strength and humility to let your heart engage in the discourse with your mind.  To change.  When you are ready.

On that night over the weekend when I peered through that peephole, into my couple friends’ life, what I saw gave me a lot to consider.

Just after I dropped them off, I noticed my “godmother” had e-mailed me.  This time, it was a new prognostication directly from her.  Without any of my relatives’ filter.

She e-mailed me that she thinks the man I am supposed to be with, my soulmate and I, are going to find each other “very, very soon.”  That we “are going to be madly, passionately, happily in love.”  And to “just let go...”

And she might be right.

And that does not mean I am any less happy, fulfilled or convinced that what I am doing is right for me right now.  It just means that all of that, of me, might change.  Evolve.  When I am ready.

And that might be a very, very good thing.

Just as it might be, whenever it is – in whatever form it takes  - for all of us.

 

Santa Monica is an odd little city, full of conventionalities and contradictions; within its 15.9 square miles, you can find some of the preppiest, white-picket-fenced nuclear families and some of the artiest, most alternative sorts - along with a noticeable number of mentally ill homeless wandering throughout.

This is the place that, in some quarters, looks like Mayberry.  In others, the stench of human waste and marijuana should not deceive you about the half-million dollar condo just inside the cinderblock walls.  In fact, you’d believe the homeowners if they told you that stench vouched for the condo’s value, for the block’s authenticity.

Permeating all quadrants, there is a peculiarly high concentration of very, very good-looking people.

In this bayside cherry the metropolitan Pac Man wants to gobble, you will find some of both the most benevolent and those most in need of charity.  On that, it is not unusual to find a benefit somewhere in the city on almost any night of the week.  Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, I attended one.

Don’t think posh hotel ballrooms, formal attire or engraved invitations – this one was at a newish vegan restaurant on a main thoroughfare through Santa Monica.  One that starts at the ocean and continues further east than anyone can specify.

The attire at this place is always come-as-you-are and the invitation was a text from my friend, Andie, at 5:09 p.m. that went a little something like this, “Hey hon! A gf of mine is doing a fundraiser for Oceana Guardians at Vegan Eden in Santa Monica tonight, so im having dinner there at 6:30 if u want to join!”

I had just come out of a yoga class a few blocks away from that restaurant and did not have anything on my agenda that was more pressing than a trip to the market to get some more detergent, toothpaste and take-out.  Oooh...sexy, I know.

Andie’s friends are the most interesting cross-section of people from her days as a financial analyst, her astrology studies in San Francisco, her business school in Los Angeles and her holistic lifestyles/social justice PR practice here in LA.  It is never, ever boring to be her guest.  Even if only for pizza and a movie on cable.

“I’d love that!  Thank you, Andie!,” I replied.

Andie and I arrived at the same time and noticed the queue that extended well outside Vegan Haven’s door – and nearly down the stairs in front of the restaurant.

“Mer should be really glad,” Andie said.  Her friend Meredith had planned the evening and it appeared to be a success; Vegan Haven earned some exposure with new patrons and the charity kept a portion of every dish the restaurant sold that night.  A win all around.

Over the next several minutes, the rest of Andie’s guests arrived.  “We” consisted of her British friends, the yoga instructor/interior designer and the astronomer; our mutual friend, the Buddhist intellectual property attorney; Andie and me.  We made for an animated discussion – or several of them, all taking place at the same time.

“Hey, Guys!,” Mer said as she gracefully dumped herself into the spare seat in our brightly colored vinyl booth for a breather.

“Well done!,” we all told her.

“This is a great crowd tonight.  Your charity should be very excited!,” said Andie.

Mer nodded happily.

She and I were scanning the crowd as the conversation picked up right where it had been when she joined us and both of us noticed the same person at the same time.

“Oh, my, my...,” I thought.  Young, slightly scruffy, fashion indifferent/accidentally stylish with, yes, surfer shag hair and, yes-oh-yes, very, very good-looking.

Mer and I met eyes with a surprised look of agreement.  Curiosity.

This was not really the time or place to do anything other than enjoy the conversation medley with our friends – but that newcomer, that man, was someone we tacitly agreed we’d like to know more about.  If the occasion arose.

A solid several minutes passed in our open-minded world aware discussions before I realized I had more or less forgotten about the blond stranger when he rounded the corner and started back toward our booth – and this time, he was very involved in a conversation.  Interesting.

As he passed us, Mer and I noticed he was also completely alone.  Without a mobile phone, an ear bud or any visible indication there was anyone listening to him.  He did not seem to realize this.

We watched expectantly as he passed us.

At that moment, Mer and I met eyes again in startled agreement.  “Hot or homeless?,” she asked calmly and coolly.

“That’s a very good question,” I answered with an awkward laugh.  These days, you never can be sure.  And most often, what’s it to you to give people the benefit of the doubt?

Unless the candidate for that doubt is wandering around the benefit, talking to himself.

In this odd little city full of conventionalities and contradictions, the arty couple may live in the clapboard cottage, the carpool mom and her family may live in the post-industrial loft, your tofu Buffalo Wings may have helped save a dolphin, your table’s multi-disciplinary conversation might inspire change in the way we study a spiral galaxy 50 million light years away...

...And that striking, slightly scruffy man who is passionately vested in his conversation right next to you might be 2013’s pop culture icon.  And/or he might be homeless.

 

That cycle is not simply futile, it’s destructive; the more times we repeat it, the less we believe the happiness we imagine is possible.  We start bartering down our expectations and settling for “Eh, that could work.”  That’s the rational thing to do.

Like many of us, I would convince myself the externalized trappings of the dream – the degree, the job, the partner by age 32, the baby...add on as applies to you – are what will make me happy.  Eventually, once we get well on our way to achieving those trappings, we find they come to symbolize our disillusionment.  It gets messy.

But what if we quiet our minds and listen to our dreams instead – about how we want to feel?  What if we stand underneath our cloud of dreams with our hands cupped to catch everything that condenses?

Let it distill out of our nebula, let it overflow our hands and rain all over us, washing us clean – and pushing our messy, splintery “Pragmatism” construct back out to sea.

What if we trust those dreams to guide us and see what solid sense we can make of them – instead of trying to shove those dreams into whatever sounds like the most sensible plan?

What if that horizon of heart/mind wholeness is inside of each of us and all we have to do is let it rain?  Let ourselves believe in what our mind sees when we are not consciously in charge.

It’s very likely we remember our dreams as children. We may also remember how proud we felt of ourselves when we became “sophisticated” enough to dismiss them.  A few of us may also remember the approximate time when we stopped remembering our dreams.

It’s very likely we remember when we started forgetting or discarding any information that did not fit into our box.

When we started feeling empowered that we can wake up, turn off the alarm and start our day with very little recall of everything we had seen the night before.

Perhaps we recall fragments throughout the day, or the week and it gives us pause, but not for long.

We quickly shake our head, straighten our posture, wince as we take another sip of our sour room temperature coffee and refocus on the task before us.

I read something over the weekend that is absurdly appropriate - Albert Einstein said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”[1]

Society does that and, as single women in our age group, we have to own up to being its accomplice.  The further along we get into our careers and our adulthood, the more we agree we need a “thicker skin,” we need to attend this seminar about our career strategy and to read that book about developing our professional network.

We need to hush the intuitive vision and manipulate it into a rationalized version.  A set of actionable goals that we think will enable us to achieve the success we want to see for ourselves - something that works.

We need to “get real” about the direction our life is going.  We need to stop dreaming.

Then we wake up in a job that is not fulfilling, or dating a partner who we don’t feel really gets us - who only sees us in a little box - or overcommitted to a series of committees and obligations that just don’t give us the time to find any peace.

Or worse – we have convinced ourselves that is the best we can expect.

Guess what?  We got what we asked for.

We have this moment right now – this immaculate moment when we are reduced to our elements – to look up to our dreams and to see what they have to say.

Not about the job, the house, the partner, the baby...not about the trappings, but about what they symbolize about how we want to feel in our life.

We have this moment to let that dictate our course of action.  We have this moment to let it rain.

 

 

 

---

[1] Smalley, S.L. & Winston, D.  (2010).  Fully Present, The Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness.  New York: Da Capo Press. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9hnbmml8fOY&hd=1

I’m a dreamer. Always have been and I like me that way.  As are probably many more of us than will so readily admit.

At the same time, one big, huge, chunky challenge I claimed as far back as high school was to make sure my important decisions checked off all of the boxes in the Sensible column.  To be rational.  Pragmatic.

I tried to hold onto my dreams, inventory and catalogue them, then deposit them in the nebula over my head.  That gorgeous cloud that holds in it everything perfect I have ever imagined.

That’s a sensible place to keep them, so I can grab those dreams as needed, I thought.

Then, in my early-to-mid twenties, I learned a sure-fire technique for making some big decisions, e.g. career choices, hair styles, relationship ventures, etc.; I would chop my lofty aspirations into solid, manageable deductions, bind them together with rational cohesion and hammer them in place with my piercing introspection.  Thus I would build the most perfectly beautiful, elegant, undeniable and indestructible box.

I would select my most intimidating and important goals, find a way to combine them that sounded like it fit and hammer them together with my own convictions.

Then I would return to my nebula of dreams of things that make me happy and try to coax it into my precious box.  Try to make those dreams fit into what sounded like the most practical, substantial plan for success and security – professional, financial, personal, etc...

Finally I would emblazon on the side of that box the word “Pragmatism” – this was my coup, my final dismissal of any lingering indecision - before hammering it shut and setting sail in search of the gratification that we are all certain awaits us just past that brilliant heart/mind fusion horizon.

I would try to force a gorgeous cloud into a box – and put all of my faith in that box as the way I would achieve all of the happiness to which I had ever aspired.

Yeah, we all know what would happen next.

My clean-burning commitment would fuel my embarkation well past the breakwater and into the open sea before I noticed my precious Pragmatism box was not seaworthy.

I had kept my head down and my eyes focused on getting out past the training, earning the credentials and all of the preamble, sailing headlong in the real deal before I noticed I was not happy.  Not at all, really.

I was stuck in a situation of my own creation that had taken a lot of work to build – and was not actually making me happy.  And my dream nebula was not in there with me.  And I could not breathe.

I’d lie in bed trying to force my deepest ujjayi breath, calling on every peaceful insight from a fourteenth-century Sufi poet/Panda Express fortune cookie saying that my ridiculously handsome blond yoga instructor with surfer-shag hair – God, how I still love that do – has imparted to close a yoga class.  With little success.

Ultimately, I’d realize the only way to get back in touch with my dreams, to reconnect with my nebula, was to break out of the box I’d built and swim back to shore.

All the way back, I’d mock my carefully composed vision statements.  My mantras I’d selected as my life rafts on this journey.  My hopeful moments when I thought I saw that horizon in the distance.

And I’d ignore my dream nebula in spite, to show it how hurt I was that it had not come along with me.

Finally, I’d arrive back where I started and say with a harrumph, “OK, whatever, let’s try this again.”

I’d stumble around, looking for those lofty aspirations I could cut down to size and start the process over.

Recently when I got back to the shore, exhausted and betrayed, I lay there for a moment to collect myself.  This time, I was authentically sad.  I’d built this beautiful, pragmatic plan.  Written off all other options and set sail, certain the best of my dream nebula would come along.  And it did not.

None of the things that would have made this plan so rewarding and fulfilling were going to be attainable until I’d survived the uncertain sea for a very, very long time.  The journey was not going to be fun.  My consciously-constructed dream was not going to come true.

“What now?,” I asked.  Do another pro/con list?  Write another vision statement?

Sure, I thought, I could do this and realized my regenerated passion would make all of this very exciting...

...But then I’d do as I have with every vision statement I have written – I’d decide I was having too much fun being dreamy and would look for something lofty, something really difficult – pie-in-the-sky challenging to do, but ultimately really practical and sexily sensible with the doors it would open for me – to bring it all back down to earth.

I would let my head trump my heart.  I would let my thoughts and words try to strong-arm my dreams.  Sound familiar?

 

(To be continued next week...)

What happens when you try to put a cloud into a box?  First and most obviously, it will not go.  No matter how well-built or strong that box may be, the cloud will not obey.

Clouds and dreams have that in common – clouds do not fit into a human-made structure and dreams do not fit into your reality.  Quite honestly, the reverse is true and we have to respect that.  This is one thing I have understood recently.

Dreaming is a one of the most curious activities – we know this.  It is, by its nature, a passive action – oxymoronic in name and result.

It is something you do.  You can’t stop it, you really cannot control it – or not as well as you can your actions when you are fully awake and cognizant.

It is not something you learn to do.  It just happens.  And has probably happened through your entire life, well before you could derive any meaning from your dreams or had any verbal proficiency to help you understand them.  To apply them to your reality.

You are and always have been the passive observer in a private screening of a film your own mind creates.

If that is not wild enough, think of all of the very determined actions some of those narratives may have inspired in your life.  Or throughout history, for that matter.

Then think of how we abuse that noble word and the mighty notion it represents.  We “dream up” things to do on our vacation, we have a “dream job” or we think an afternoon at the beach would be just “dreamy” – all of which are options we consciously decided are the best for us, weighed against all of the other options we considered.

To top that, we add insult to injury – yes, worsening the situation – by diminishing our dreams or using them as scapegoats for things our rational mind thinks we should not have done; “Ha!  Grow up and stop wasting your life chasing your silly dreams,” or “Shyeah...Like she’d go out with him.  Keep dreaming!”

This is a very mean way to treat one of the few constants we have in our lives.  One of our natural, spontaneous gifts endowed to each of us, regardless of our education, health or circumstances.

And we all do it.  Or most of us do.  We learn to dismiss or ridicule these precious windows to our horizon of consciousness where our heart and our mind connect into one pure, glowing whole.

Wow.  That is quite sad.

Ahem...getting back on point – We all have some pretty huge decisions to make, now and always.  The further along in life we get, in many cases the stakes get higher as well.

Mull this over - What would you say to letting our dreams guide us through some of the most important of them instead of trying to manipulate the take-aways from our dreams to fit into our over-rationalized intentions?

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

On September 11, 2001, I was sleeping when my frantic cousin called me and told me to turn on the television.  Some drunk or crazy pilot had flown a plane directly into the World Trade Center Towers.

“What?!,” I stammered.  That was the most absurd,horrible thing you could imagine, I thought.

I really did not believe her, so I grabbed my clicker to turn on the TV in just enough time to see the second plane hit the other tower.

Over the next several hours, days and weeks, those of us who were about as far away from New York City as you can get in the Lower 48 prayed, meditated and comforted each other.  We waited and waited for news about loved ones and friends.

Every few days, it seemed, my friends and I received an e-mail or a letter from our respective college, or campus organization or company listing our friends and our friends’ significant others who had perished in the attack.

But here, among my friends, it seemed like shock melted into denial, which hardened into a heavy, blunt assumption that where you had not heard anything, the worst case scenario has probably actualized.

A couple of years later, I was spending time in the copy room at work with my old friend, the printer/fax/scanner/copier and looked up to the cork board to see what jumped out at me.  To see if there was anything interesting to read to pass the time.  My eyes went straight to a newspaper clipping with an angel on it.

“An angel? In a company copy room?,” I thought.  “How odd – not so PC.  What is this?”

So I read.  And read.  And wept. It was a letter to America from Phillips 66 and I believe it ran in the New York Times in the first few days after September 11.  For many of us, no matter where you align yourself politically, I think it still resonates.

Thanks to a former coworker of mine who scanned and e-mailed it to me, the image is attached with this entry.  In case the image is not easily legible, the text is below.

__________________

Dear America,

May this letter find you in the warm embrace of each other.  To the weary heroes – the firefighters, police officers and volunteers at ground zero – we are with you.  Your courage and resilience have brought us all to tears more than once – along with millions of others who don’t even speak your language but who understand and feel your pain as if it were their own.  To you who have lost your fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, friends and relatives, we are silent with you.  May you feel our arms around youthis day and every other. To all of you who are carrying the weight of the world in your hearts, and still stare into the faces of fear and hatred and say, “You will never, ever win,” we are with you.  Your love is so strong. 

You should see the light burning in your hearts.

Sincerely,

The Angels who keep you

 

“I see. Thank you, but I am going to work with a different contractor.” I stated, flatly and plainly.

Click!

He hung up on me, not the other way around.

This contractor assumed I am married.  He persisted in insisting on meeting my husband, who may or may not exist, despite me telling him I make those decisions.  And he is the one who abruptly hung up.

This is one of those moments when you decide what feminism means to you.

If an employer, coworker, anyone in a position of authority, a friend or a relative holds you back, pigeon-holes you or undercuts your contributions due to your sex, yes, fight like hell. Remain focused and “choose thoughtfully that course which occasion and conscience demand.”[1]  That’s not what I’m addressing here.

On a much bigger scale, I’m asking if feminism means being angry with or exacting revenge upon any person who ever made you feel less-than?

Who ever made you feel like a man’s opinion must be the final word on a situation, no matter how educated you are?  No matter how much due diligence you have vested in the process?  No matter how much conviction and resonance you feel about your determination?

- Knowing fully well that this decision could gobble up a big portion of your bandwidth for the balance of your life, and could thus obligate you to spend a large amount of time filled with negative energy -

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if feminism means proving a point at all times, or if it means letting those who have hurt you or diminished the validity of your decisions render for themselves whatever karma they are due.

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if one hurtful victory, no matter how pithy or low, is more important - Or if you prioritize yourself, your peace of mind and your dignity ahead of such tiny wins...and let that person, male or female, ride out their lives with their own dysfunctional paradigm.

Do you “set the record straight,” or let them learn on their own?

At the market that evening, I was incredulous.  As my friend Jodie asked, “What was he thinking?  This is not the 1950’s, when the husband makes all of the decisions like that – even if you are married.”

“Right?,” I answered with a laugh.

“Whew...,” said Randy, a gentleman contractor I met that Friday, a new addition to the mix, as he shook his head and cautiously inhaled.  “If someone had said that to my fiancée, good night!  She would not hear of any of that.”

“Thanks, Randy,” I laughed.

As single women, if we want something done around our home, either we have to do it – or we have to engage the person who will.  I know many married women who would say the same.

It’s up to us and, in more cases than not, we probably do a great job.  We get it done.

Most of these projects become an educational opportunity - they may not go as well as planned, or they may go better.  Either way, we learn.

We learn about the pricing, the process, the supplies involved, the time it takes...and in my experience, I have met some pretty incredible people, most of them men.  They are experts in their field I know I can call again and to whom I can refer business, because they are knowledgeable, honest and respectful, and completed their work on time and on budget.

Maybe someday, if we want to get married, our husbands will handle those projects.  Go for it, Babe!

But isn’t it educational to handle these things on our own?  Possibly in many, many ways extending far beyond the project and its genesis.

Foremost among those is what we learn about ourselves and our own strength in that moment when we decided if we want to try to fix every person who insults or hurts us -- or turn our energy to fixing more important things like our driveway.

No, my husband will not be there.  Not this time.

---

[1] Howard, E.S.  (1904).  The Chi Omega Symphony.  Retrieved from: http://www.chiomega.com/press/about.aspx?item=media/AboutXO/G1_TheSymphony.xml

 

It’s summer, which we all know.  That means sun, perhaps a vacation, loud floral prints are in and peep-toe pumps are encouraged.  To me, that also means it’s project time.

The weather is permissive, unlike the snarky California autumn and the pushy winter that follows right behind, shoving you clear into January.

But also in the summer, it seems some things naturally go awry and you have to fix them.

The night I came home from Ohio in July, my garage door opener stopped working.  It lifted, but would not lower.

The only way to close the garage door was to stand on my ladder, pull the emergency release handle and then scramble to catch the falling door and gently lower it before it crashed to the ground.  Fun.

After I fell off the ladder onto my back, onto the unsympathetic concrete, and ran around my place uncertain if I should go to the doctors or take an aspirin and a really long shower, I decided I should address this opener situation the right way instead of improvising around it.

I did what I think most of us single women would do for things we cannot or do not want to handle completely on our own – researched garage door openers, shopped around for the most competitive price and combed through a few consumer-generated review websites to find the most competitive, competent installers.

Then I realized I had to clear away the brush in front of my place to comply with fire code...repair and reset a few things with my place’s security system... replace many of my light bulbs...clear away the magazines in my home office I will never read...purge my file cabinet of papers I no longer need and reorganize the papers that I do...finally order new chains from which the lanterns in my backyard hang - the ones that become sacrifices to the gardening chores on the summer’s “To Do” list – etc, etc...

This list continued growing until I committed to sitting down and drawing out the complete tabulation of projects from large to small.  So small, you usually do not include them, because you know you will never have the time to address them.

One of those items has to do with the potholes on my driveway – yes, the same potholes I cold-patched by myself three years ago, if you read and recall the “Handy” series.

However this time, this project could be quite a bit larger and it’s a late-comer.  One of those, “Well, if I’m taking care of all of this, why not add that to the list as well?”

Makes sense.

So again, I did what I think any of us would do – unless you already know someone who is an expert in whatever you need done.

I researched my options and what the pricing should be and then started researching the contractors with the best consumer reviews.

By the middle of last week, I had narrowed the list and had a pretty good sense for the options to fix my problem and the contractors available.

At the same time I was not shocked to receive a call from a new candidate on Thursday morning.

“Hello?,” I answered.

“Hello, is Paige there?”

“Yes, this is she.”

“Hi, Paige.  I am Dell from Shovan-Isto Construction.  I would like to come out to you to take a look at the project and give you an estimate.”

“Thanks, Dell, but I think I know who I am going to hire.”

“OK, but we are in your area anyway.  It’s no trouble to come by.  I’d really like to see if we can be competitive with what the other firms have bid. We can be there at 1 or 4.”

I agreed to meet them at 4 p.m. with thanks.

And at 3:56 p.m. I was still a couple of miles from my place, so I called.

“Hello, Shovan-Isto Construction.  How can I help you?,” a man answered.

“Hi.  This is Paige and I am your 4 p.m., but I am still about five minutes away.”

“Don’t worry, Honey,” he replied.  “The estimator got there a few minutes ago and no one was home, so I told him to go get some food.”

We agreed he’d be back to my home in half an hour and all was well.

“Honey, are you married?,” he asked, just before we hung up.

“I’m sorry – Why?,” I asked.

“Because before we agree to do any projects, we want to talk to the husband too,” he said.  “Will your husband be there?”

“OK.   Well, I am the only one who will be there and I am taking care of this project,” I answered, a little taken aback.

“I understand,” he softly balked.  “We just usually prefer to speak to the husband and the wife.”

“Fine, but I am the one who makes the spending decisions in this household, so I am the one with whom you want to speak,” I said kindly, but matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but we will want to speak to your husband before we move ahead with any projects.”

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

If you could be one bumper sticker, what would you say?  If you had to sum up your whole life and everything you stand for into one message, what would it be?

Do you ever find yourself stuck in traffic behind a car whose backside is covered in stickers?  As you brake into place behind them, you think, “Heh.  This is going to be fun…What is that important that you need to ruin the paint on your car to express it?”

By the time you have come to a full stop behind that car, your eyes are overwhelmed by the colors, your brain is overcome with the messages and you are a bit insulted.  There is something on there to offend everyone – their intelligence, their lifestyle choices, their values…

Along with a cross, a peace sign, an Om – pick any religious or ideological symbol.  A symbol that could buffer the offense you could take to all of the other stickers, but it doesn’t.  Instead, that symbol compounds those other stickers’ ridiculousness and by insulting the belief system or ideology that symbol represents.

At the least, you have to think that person is passionate.  Perhaps a bit overwhelmed by their own passion, but still passionate.

You have to think they must have started with one.  One clear message that resonated within them.  That one thing they wanted to tell the whole world.  Or the whole world who reads their rear bumper.

And then maybe they found another sticker – something that represents what they felt was consistent with the position represented by the first sticker, but that second sticker made the point even more clearly or forcefully.

Or the position that second sticker represents is a natural match to position represented by the first sticker.

OK.  We can all get that.  We’ve been there.

And maybe we even get the third sticker.  Especially if the third sticker is a symbol and not a position piece.  Fine.

But you have to ask, “What were they thinking?” when they applied stickers 4 through 37?

Yikes.

Did they still think they were doing their causes any favors?  Or did they do it on purpose?  Did they intentionally combine several conflicting perspectives, and caustic expressions thereof, just to irk everyone else who does earnestly believe in at least one of those causes?

We all know a few people who would do that.  The people who value a good kerfuffle more than any accord or tolerance.

Pretend that is not what you want to do.  Pretend you want one message.  One living epitaph that tells the world everything you want everyone to know about you.

Not everything about you.  That’s too much information.

One message that tells the world, “Hey, you!  When you step on the gas pedal after this light, this is what I want you to take with you.  This is what I want you to remember.”

Is it kind?  Is it loving?  Is it inspirational?  Is it insulting to everyone who does not agree with you?  Or is it self-righteous?  Or pseudo-intellectual?

Is it non-verbal, e.g. a peace sign or an Om - something that is open to interpretation?  Very progressive of you.

Or is it your alma mater, your company, your sorority?

Is it a permanent manifesto, a due comeuppance for someone specific who hurt you?  Someone whose hurtful legacy will always be on the back of your car, wherever you go?

Or is it forgiveness?

Is it a cause?  A quote from Shakespeare or Einstein?  A picture? A joke?  A New Yorker cartoon?

Try it.  Design your “you” bumper sticker.

Write out what you would be on a 3-in-by-12-in strip of adhesive-backed polyvinyl chloride.  No more and no less.

Then for a week, or however long you want, remember, write down or take a quick mobile phone camera picture of the top five you see.  The top five that you know will stay with you.

Be careful about it, but post them on here, or e-mail them to me if you want.  Or keep them for yourself.

What does each show you about the person inside?

From time to time, I see one that makes me laugh, that makes me cry or that makes me really, really angry…and then I see one that is perfect.

A few weeks ago, I was coming back from a walk.  A long walk I took by myself, cup of coffee in hand, and I saw one that silenced all of the noise in my mind.  That took me to that peaceful, fulfilled place.

That is the kind of reaction you’re after.  What is the one thing you want the world to remember about you as that light changes and your rear bumper disappears into the distance?

...Anyone else with me?  (Read the caption).

Retrieved from:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151120267368254&set=a.100690783253.87226.80329313253&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

 

We have all written and/or received Thank You notes.  Some of us have probably written and/or received a Thank You note for the Thank You note we have written and/or received.  It’s happened.

Thank You notes are a very civilized tradition that is really very simple.

Someone does something nice for you, e.g. gives you a gift, or lets you stay in their home when you are in town, or invites you to an incredible party.  Something like that.

You may give them a gift in return, or bring a gift with you when you stay with them, or send one ex post facto.  Those are all very nice gestures.  

However, just as “the pen is mightier than the sword”[1] in resolving any conflicts, so too is it a more powerful way of expressing gratitude.  Or so many of us were taught.

A gift requires creativity and generosity, but it does not have to.  You can remember their favorite delicacy and send for a box, just as you can simply bring an item any sensible person would appreciate.

Those coasters will look beautiful on that person’s coffee table for years to come.  Just as they will on his, and hers and everyone else’s.  Everyone likes coasters.

In either of those cases, you would have done a very nice thing.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

In contrast, a Thank You note is a living animal you have to wrangle.

Doing so requires careful composition, some pre-planning.

Are you going to use tact for the gift or favor rendered unto you – whether or not you are really all that glad about it – or are you going for exuberance?

If it’s too generic and blah, the sentiment sits there like a sleeping Sheep Dog.  Too many exclamation points and your recipient will not be able to read fast enough to shut up that Chihuahua of a note.

Do you go for formal and uber polite, very penguinlike, or do you throw a joke in there?  The former is a safe way to go, but the latter can be endearing.  Just as it can get inappropriately jokey and the note screams silly otter.

Do you tap into something emotional?  Something nostalgic, uplifting, or loving.  Something that could make that note look like a runaway pony...

“Where are you going with this?...And how the hell are you going to bring it back around in on the space alloted on this tiny piece of stationery?,” you, and your readers, might ask.

Or – uh-oh - are you going to have an “Oh, my God!” huge cuddly bear revelation moment when you recognize how much this person means to you at the same time as the words are flowing from your pen?  And you start crying, smudge the whole letter and have to start again?

We’ve all been there.

Uh...right?

And how do you handle days when your handwriting is not optimal or when you notice misspellings?  Perfectionist’s nightmares!

Do you rewrite the whole thing, as any purist would, or do you hope no one will notice?

Do you try to cover your spelling errors by playing some optical tricks, e.g. discretely inserting the missing letter/letters – or letting the letters adjacent expand to absorb the letter you should not have written?

Eek – or do you cross it out?

Or do you try all of the above, notice it looks horrible, then tear it into successively smaller pieces to offset your aggression as you finally confront that you would have saved yourself at least a few minutes if you’d just started over from the get-go?

And once you have made it through all of that drama, a final taunting challenge is the closing.  Is this a “Sincerely” kind of note?  A “Love?”  A “Love and thanks?”  A playful “xoxo?”  The wrong closing could change the whole character of this note, leaving it mocking you like an evil hienna.

You imagine your recipient’s face twist in curiousity and disappointment as they get to the bottom, then toss that carefully worded note you recopied two or three times in the trash in an awkward, “What else am I going to do with it?” moment.

Horrible.

All you want to do is to thank the people who have done something kind for you.  To show them how much their gesture, or -  if you are close enough -  on a larger scale, how much they meant to you.

That expression and authenticity are wonderful.  Both as we write and as our recipients read our writing, we have an opportuntiy to isolate ourselves in a lovely shared moment when both parties are focused on each other.  On their gratitude.

People who can do that eloquently, succinctly and naturally are an anomaly to most of us Thank You note goons.  And why do all of them have perfect handwriting?  Baffling.  Awe-inspiring.

A few years ago, my brother Pat and I gave our niece and nephew each a personalized box of pre-formatted Thank You notes.  They were amazing!  Each went something like this:

 

Dear  __________, Thank you very much for the __________.  It’s great!  That was very nice of you. From,  ________

 

Amazing.

That, right there, is the whole essence of the note.  That is all you have to write.  But rarely is it all you do write.

And even if you develop a comfortable template you can use for all the notes you have to write for the same occasion, you still have to find the right balance of everything. You still have to create the template and coax it into shape.

Over the weekend, I was at a small function with some friends with whom I had been at another small function the weekend prior.  Yes, almost all of us had written our Thank You notes.  Except...ahem...a couple of us.

That couple of us have written each other so many Thank You notes, we have a verbal and many-time repeated pact never to write each other another Thank You note again.

Until one of us writes the other a Thank You note.

We two were sitting next to each other, going over the notes we wanted to write for the prior weekend’s event until one of us said to the other in dismay, “Oh my God, and I still owe you a note for the picnic at the end of last weekend!”

“Oh, Honey, I still owe you a note for the brunch the weekend before,” that person answered with a quick dismissal.

Huh.

“You know what?,” the more resourceful of the two said.  “Why don’t we just look each other in the eye and say ‘Thank you’ and that will be fine?”

“Oooh...that is the best idea!,” I said.  “We’ll just do that and be done with it.”

At that, we looked each other in the eye with a smile and said “Thank you.”

“Wait, you can do that?,” our friend Phil asked.  “Is that Emily Post or something?  Did your grandmother’s teach you that?...Is it proper ettiquette?”

Phil was concerned.

“Eh,” we both answered, staring toward the sunset in cool cowgirl confidence.  “It’s enough for us.”

One less occasion to wield that mighty, mighty pen.

One less living animal to tame.

 

---

[1] [1] Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1st Baron Lytton.  (1839).  Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books/about/Richelieu_or_The_conspiracy.html?id=LqcOAAAAIAAJ

Between topics, we would lie quietly for a few minutes, hoping one of us would come up with something to say.  Every now and then, Nancy would break into an awkwardly hopeful, “Te-he, I just love you, Paigey,” and she would pat my hand from over on her side of the bed.

“I love you too, Miss Nancy,” I would reply and give her hand a soft squeeze.

This continued for what seemed to be 45 minutes at least until suddenly, a creative impulse...

“Miss Nancy!,” I said with a start, “Tell me about your Academy Awards!  You know, the ones you won for that murder mystery series.”

Big Nance had studied theater in school, as had I, but she was accepted into a prestigious dramatic arts academy in New York City.  Her true love, Papa, was at war and she wanted to be at home when he returned.  That was much more important to her than any aspirations to be a movie star.

“What, te-he?,” she asked nervously, which is her way of saying, “Are you flipping insane?”

“Remember?  The murder mystery series?  Those five movies?  Did you know you were going to win?”

“Ohhhh...those...He-he...No, I had no idea.”

“But even after your first three Oscars for the first three films, didn’t you sort of expect you would win for the other two?”

“No, Paigey.  You know how it is – You just never know about those sorts of things.  I was surprised each time,” she said with a downturn in her voice, as if to imply she wanted to change the subject back to something “real.”  I might have been freaking her out.

“I loved your acceptance speeches.  I’ve seen each one in your video files,” I said, disregarding her downturn.

Wait for it...

“Oh yes, of course.” she affirmed.  “Well, I was just so flattered each time.”

Game on.

“Now, Nancy, tell me about your first husband – you know, the Czechoslovakian film-maker who fell in love with you when he saw your screen test when you were at the dramatic arts academy in New York.”

“Huh?...Oh, yes, him!,” she giggled like a fairy.

“What was his name again?”

“Happy Cornfeather,” she replied without hesitation.

“Happy Cornfeather?,” I asked her with a surprised laugh.

Where did that come from?

“Yes, Happy.  We had the neatest apartment in Greenwich Village.”

“You did?,” I squeeled.  This make-believe love story sounded very hip for its time.

“Yes, it was the cutest, arty little place.”

“Wow,” I replied.  “That’s right, you had a very BoHo lifestyle together, didn’t you?”

“But I knew he wasn’t for me,” she replied, sweeping right past my question.  “I always knew it was Papa.  That’s why I had to go to China.”

“You did?,” I asked - Translation: “Where the heck is this going?  And where did that come from?”

“Yes, to Beijing, where I met my second husband,” she said.

Boom.  She was into it.

“Wha...?  Your second husband?”

“Yes.  He was a film maker in China and we had the most beautiful place in Beijing.”

O-h-m-y-G-o-d.  This is amazing!

“Huh.  No kidding, Nance.  But tell me about Papa – Didn’t he go right over there to get you back?”

“Oh, yes he did,” Big Nance replied with a chuckle.

“Tell me – What did he say to you again?  I love this story.”

If you cannot guess it already, I was expecting one of her vignettes in which Papa tells her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and he would love her forever...That’s a logical expectation based on a lifetime of precedent.

“Well he barged right into our apartment and he said, ‘Nance, what are you doing?”

“What?  He was angry?”

“Oh-ho-ho yes, he was!  He screamed, ‘I can’t believe you, moving all the way over here – It’s like I don’t even know you!’”

“Huh?”

“Yes.  Oh, Paigey, you should have heard him.  He was so mad.  He said, ‘Nance, what has gotten into you?  This is not the girl I know!,’ and he marched right out of there.”

“He did?,” I asked, a bit incredulous.

Yes, this is complete fiction.  Yes, I am the one who started it - And yes, I am the one who continued escalating the ridiculousness, notch by notch....But no, that is not Papa’s style – Not with all of the grand and lovely professions of eternal adoration I had heard were typical of him.

“Well, I knew what I had to do,” she stated with complete conviction.  “Frank was the love of my life and that was it.  So I packed up my things and was on the first plane back to America.”

“That’s right,” I supplemented.

OK, we’re back on the familiar narrative path But the detour was fun.

“And what did Papa say when you got home?”

“Oh, he took me in his arms and said...” (Insert profession of eternal adoration).

Big Nance and I spent two nights that way, improvising our own funny narrative about her life.  Not about my cousin’s babies, my brother’s return from Colorado, the weather, Moe, Traveler...Not about anything normal.

On one our nights with roughing it with minimal electricity, I had some things to do on my laptop and she was ready for sleep.  I asked her permission to sit on the chaise lounge over in the corner with the lights off so I would not disturb her.  My computer screen would provide enough light.

“Sure, Doll Baby,” she agreed, as she turned off the lights and nestled into bed.  She focused her eyes on the ceiling above her.

“Thank you, Miss Nancy.  But I don’t need to be quiet while I’m working on this,” I said.  “Please, tell me some stories about Papa.”

“Haha...Sure, Honey. What do you want to hear?,” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Anything you want to tell me.  Tell me something I have not heard before.”

“Alright,” she acquiesced as she refocused on the ceiling while she jogged her mind.

She then adjusted her pillow so she could comfortably look my direction while still lying down and provided as agreed – She told me a few stories I had never heard; a couple about high school and one or two about coming home from the war.  Interesting stories.

To all of them there was one consistent theme, “Well Frank was just so completely in love with me, as I was with him, that he did not know what to do with himself...”

“I know, Miss Nancy,” I replied as I smiled.

And in every story, their love and loyalty triumphed over everything.

Several minutes later, Big Nancy was asleep and I was still working on my computer.  I looked up for a minute to crystallize a thought and noticed how the fan perched on the dainty vanity stool halfway between the chaise and the bed gently blew the lace canopy framing Miss Nancy, isolating her in a comfortably cool breeze in that still, muggy house.

I noticed how much I love and gratitude I have for my grandmother.

You can’t plan those things – But this was not an accident.  None of this trip was.

Every day of the trip except for surgery day, I went visited Miss Moe for an hour, give or take.  It seemed much safer and kinder to keep my sweet fuzzy patient at the air conditioned hospital with doctors onsite 24 hours each day. 

The other option was to take her back to the Queen Mum’s house without any guarantee the air conditioning would work and hope she could handle the shock from her surgery in a stifling menagerie of nosy, playful household pets she had never seen.  That did not seem fair.

Dr. M and the surgeon dutifully answered all of my questions each time I visited the hospital and Moe provided the entertainment.

You would expect Moe would be a little shaky about walking again and this is when you would be incorrect.  This is when you would come to understand how painful her hip must have been before the surgery.

She did not understand any of this “take it easy” business – She wanted to run!  And jump!  And play!  And no...Not yet.

Fortunately the flight home was uneventful.  Moe’s brief exam the next morning by the local surgeon I liked the most was very positive; she did not loosen any of her stitches while in transit.

In fact, the doctor came to speak with me after looking at her to express his astonishment at how well she was doing so soon after a surgery of that magnitude.

Yes, thank goodness, everything was going according to plan.

A week or so after returning, my friend Chevy came over for dinner and to help me take my dogs for a walk – Traveler on his leash and Moe in her stroller. Trav needed some bonding time with a fellow man’s man and Moe is still not allowed to walk very far.

We sat at my kitchen table after the walk, musing how lucky it was that everything came together – considering how many things could have gone awry - and I felt Traveler’s warm belly shake gently with his midsection was draped over my foot.  He was snoring peacefully.

I looked under the table to check on both dogs and to make sure Moe was comfortable as well, that she did not have her tender new hip cocked at an odd angle.

No, they were both fine and they were spooning.  Things were as they should be.  After this peculiar odyssey, everything was once again normal.

Duty to my animals inspired the trip.  The opportunity to enjoy 10 days with my grandmother without anything else on her typically busy calendar designated the precise place and time.  The storm, the power outage, the heat, the laughter, my professional in-betweenness and every other moving part brought all circumstances together to create a perfect trip.

Everything went according to plan – actually, better.  Unplannably better.  And in retrospect, you have to laugh at yourself for wondering why all of life can’t be that easy.

 

That morning, the surgeon and Dr.s K, L and M on the surgeon’s team cleared Miss Moe for surgery as planned.  That would have been special, had she any rashes or impediments to proceeding with the operation.

“You can come to visit her every day if you want,” said Dr. M, “Except for tomorrow.  But don’t worry – I will send you at least three texts a day with updates.”

To my great relief, she kept her word.

“Pretty lady is sitting comfortably – I will call you shortly to update you : ),” she texted at 4:47 p.m. on surgery day.

When Dr. M called a few minutes later, she reported that Moe was being lovely and calm and "taking it all in." However, they put the cone on her head to be sure she could not gnaw at her stitches.  She was not happy with this.

At 8:35 p.m., Dr. M texted, “Everything went beautifully – we can go over it tomorrow but here’s her beautiful hip,” and attached Moe’s x-ray.

Dr. M confirmed she was a little slow that evening, but happily wagging her tail.  She attached this picture that, of course, I promptly posted on a social networking page.  One of my friends said it best -“Those eyes tell the story, happy she is fine!”

But another of my personal favorites was this comment, “Yeah!!! Bionic Moe!”   

Indeed.  My little girl doggie would be fully restored in no time.  She never seems to lose her sense of humor or her keen deductive capabilities. 

When Dr. M and I spoke a few minutes later that night, she told me Moe had been making noise with her cone that evening, so she walked over to look in on Moe. Maybe she wants attention? Maybe she misses her brother Traveler?...

When MoeMoe saw the doctor's feet standing in front of her crate, she stopped making noise and turned her head down as if she realized, 'Uh-oh...busted."

The doctor then said when she talked to Moe and "tried to reason with her" and Moe seemed rational and receptive.   Much more so than she was when the surgeon had tried baby talking to her earlier that day.  She does not take well to baby talk – Nor should she.

The next day, day one post-surgery, Big Nance and I stopped by the veterinary hospital to visit Miss Moe on our way out to the lake.  It was Friday and we would be at the lake all weekend with various cousins.  Big Nancy and I wanted to give her a hug before leaving.

We spent almost an hour with her and as we left, I told Dr. M we would be at the lake until Tuesday, but I would come back on Sunday to visit.

The most frightening part of the duty portion to this trip was behind us.  Now it was time for the pleasure element.

Ahh...Everything was going according to plan.

Again - Ha ha ha.

The sky was bright, but hazy when we arrived at the lake at around 2:30 p.m.  Two or three hours later, the sky was grey, it was raining and the swells in the lake were as high as I have ever seen them.

Growing up, there was a huge storm at the lake every summer that seemed to happen the week we were there.  Better yet, it oddly happened the afternoon we all took the boat to the ice cream parlor at the end of the lake – the one that banned my great grandfather after he thought it would be delightfully funny to release the ducks my mother and her siblings had won at the sweet corn festival into the parlor to fly around.

The family who owns the ice cream parlor did not see it that way.

But ohhhhh, my!  Big Nancy would tell us that story every year as we sat in the booth at the parlor, savoring our annual treat.  She would take tiny bites of ice cream, pause to fan her closed mouth with her finger tips – as if that would offset the ice cream’s biting coldness – then start giggling like a Munchkin as she recapped the Poppy story.

We would sit there trying to imagine ducks flying through this sweets sanctuary.  To us, the ice cream cone murals that you’d ballpark from their “renovation” in the 1950’s were the frescoes in our Sistine Chapel and the wax sundaes perched on the shelves above might as well have been the Creation of Man statue.  You imagine they had not been dusted since opening day.

By the time we returned home from the parlor, we would find the storm had knocked out the power to everyone around the lake and we would have to play Monopoly by flashlight.

“That’s great,” I thought with a smile as I walked around downstairs this year, looking at the furious storm outside and recalling all of those quirky evenings.  “It’s uncanny to be here for storm night again, but I hope everyone can get here safely.”

In line with precedent, this year’s storm took out all of the power and plumbing at the lake house.  It was 95-degrees outside and we had five family members coming in for dinner from a couple of different directions.  We improvised and finished dinner on the gas grill.

“That goodness we could look forward to going back to town tomorrow,” we thought.

One more time....Ha ha ha.

"The big storm” every year disabled power service to many households around the lake. It’s pretty rural out there.  But in town, people usually did not have a problem.

Hmm...not so fast.  This year’s storm left over 500,000 households in the state without power.  That meant the lake and most of the city.  That meant Federal Disaster Declaration.

Everyone else got this memo before we.  As the Queen Mum and I drove back into town, I called every hotel in the downtown area and wouldn’t you know it, but every hotel within eight miles of downtown was booked.  Solid.  No dice.

Even the athletic club’s tiny rooms were booked.

This is when the pleasure element to this trip started to require some ingenuity.

Big Nance’s home is an older house – beautifully restored, but certain things like air circulation are not optimal.  A handyman Big Nance engaged was able to start her emergency generator to provide power to two rooms; the kitchen, so we had a refrigerator and a microwave – Big Nance does not cook either - and her room, so we could plug in a fan.

That was it.  It was approximately 70 degrees at the lowest and we had air circulation in one room – Big Nance’s bedroom.  Heat rises and despite the fan in her room, it still felt like 80-some degrees.  Staying in the attic bedroom one floor above would have been very, very poor decision.

“Miss Nancy,” I said to the Queen Mum, “the attic room is sweltering and there is not any air in the guestroom over here.  May I crash with you tonight?  Just until we get the air back on?”

“Of course, Sweetheart,” she allowed.

That evening is when I realized my grandmother is addicted to the news and to Lifetime Movie Network.  We could turn on the lights, the fan and the TV, but the latter did not do much for us without the cable.

Even with the fan, it was still too uncomfortably warm to sleep right away.  She had two or three DVD’s and I picked up four more at Target, but did not have any idea how to make her DVD player talk to her TV with her elaborate cable box configuration.

Every 10 minutes or so, Big Nance would hopefully turn on the TV to see if cable was restored.

“Oh my God, what are we going to do?,” I thought in a near panic.

This was not, not, not going according to plan.

We talked about my grandfather, we had a couple of laughs...and then what?

We talked about my cousin’s babies, my brother moving back from Colorado... and then what?

We talked about brave little Moe and her sweet brother Traveler...and then what?

We had quickly exhausted every single topic either one of us was prepared to discuss in that distracting heat...and then what?

(To be continued next week...)

The last thing we needed to confirm before committing to Moe’s hip surgery/our visit to the Queen Mum in the Midwest was the timing.

Haven’t you found at least once or twice, the minute or so after you commit to an ideal strategy, you awaken to everything that successful execution will entail?

...The Queen Mum/Big Nance planned to leave town at the beginning of the second week in July and I could stay with her until then…

...I wanted to spend some quality time with my glorious grandmother – that was part of the reason I chose this surgeon - and she was really the only family member who would have the peaceful space and time for Moe, her crate, me and our schedule...

...Big Nance’s home was an easy shot down the highway from the animal hospital, so this was logistically sound.  I could get to and from the hospital as necessary...

...The airline said they will allow Moe to fly after her surgery, as long as her surgeon signs off on it...

... The lab technician in the surgeon’s office said it would not be in Moe’s best interest to fly until a good week after the surgery - the doctor would want to examine her on day seven and make sure she looked strong and healthy enough to fly.  But flying before then was a bit premature and unsafe...

…I.e. no sign-off, no flying home, until day seven post-operation.  Understood.

All of this meant her surgery would have to be the last week in June.  That way, she would have a full week to recover in the Midwest and achieve the surgeon’s approval to fly, we would have a place to stay, I could visit Big Nance and we could clear out before she had to leave town.  Simple enough in theory.

But what that meant in practice was each step on this plan’s continuum depended on successfully arranging for the steps before it.  There was not a way to navigate around any of this not going – Exactly – according to plan.

And the surgeon was away and would not return until that last week in June.  His surgery slate was full that week.

Hmm…not good.

Perhaps he could work us into his schedule?  Hoping, hoping, hoping...

Yes, the lab technician confirmed, the surgeon would make room in his schedule for Moe, her hips and me.

L-o-v-e love the surgeon, the lab technician and everyone at that animal hospital.

We would fly in on a Tuesday, go in to the see the surgeon for the pre-operation exam on Wednesday and her surgery would be first thing on Thursday.

  If all went well, the surgeon would clear her to fly the following Thursday.  From departure to return, this whole trip would take 10 days.

Yes, the most crucial things were set; the surgery date, accommodations for Moe and me while there, the airline’s approval to fly. 

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

MoeMoe is a 60-pound dog.  Several airlines allow you to fly with a dog weighing 17 pounds or less, as long as you keep them in a travel bag that meets certain specifications and fits under the seat.  Right.  Not Moe.

Of the airlines that will allow larger animals as cargo, none fly directly into the city where we needed to go.  We could change planes anywhere from Dallas-Fort Worth to Dulles in Greater Washington, D.C., but we could not fly straight into our destination city.

I did not want to risk traumatizing Moe during a plane change. Worse yet, I did not want to run any chance the airlines would lose her, i.e. literally misplace her.  It happens.

Thus, the only option that seemed safe was to pick the closest hub city to our destination, arrange for a rental car there and drive the 2.5 hours to our destination city.

With the airline and flight selected, I had to find the travel crate that meets all of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) specifications.  This is a bit trickier than it seems – a few manufacturers claim their crates are IATA approved, but IATA does not endorse or lend its name to any specific products.

This meant doing some rather detailed research into various crates, calling the airline, bouncing back and forth for a couple of hours and re-iterating the whole schpiel to at least four people at the airline until, at last, one airline representative confirmed that yes, the crate I just described will be approved.

That was fun.

Fortunately, while on the phone with the last airline rep, I googled something I had seen while on hold for the first 35 minutes in order to ask that last airline rep a question.  To my surprise, the first google hit was not what I wanted, but it was a page advertising an “IATA Kit.”

Yes, as it sounds, this is a box of goodies that you actually need to have in order to be approved to fly – which includes a specific kind of bolt that you must use to assemble the travel crate.

Wouldn’t it be great to get every detail in place, having spent hours on hold with the airline to do so, order the new crate and assemble it only to arrive at the airport and find you cannot fly on your intended travel date, thus cannot arrive in time for the intended surgery date, all because you do not have the special IATA doohickey?

Hmm…not good.

I nearly wept envisioning it.

“Peg,” I asked the fourth airline rep, “I know you approved the crate I just described, but I just found a page selling an IATA Kit with a few extra items it says any airline will require.  Should I buy this as well?”

Yes, Peg agreed I should order the kit.

Breathe.

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

Next, I needed to research car rental companies.  I would need a car the whole 10 days I was there so we could pick it up in the hub city, cozy Moe into her crate in order to cruise to our destination city and freely transport her around town as needed for check-ups with the surgeon.

This required another couple of hours on hold with the car rental company until a kind representative assured me the mid-size SUV would be large enough.  And yes, they could arrange to meet me at the airport, even though the website said I would need to shuttle to the off-site car pick-up location.

Eh.  I was not too confident in that assurance.  This is where Saint Matthew, location manager at that rental car company’s office at our hub airport, came into the picture.  We phone tagged each other for a couple of days until at last I reached him with a nice suggestion, i.e. a bribe.

“Matthew, I taking my sweet dog for hip replacement surgery in the Midwest.  We are flying into the airport your office services.  ‘We’ are one 60-pound dog, a four-foot by two-foot, by two-foot crate, two duffle bags and me.  We will not fit on your courtesy shuttle.”

“No, Miss, you will not.”

“And we cannot guarantee we can find a taxi van at the airport that could fit us and not charge a fortune for the quick trip to your office.”

“No, Miss, you can’t.”

Hmm…Not good.

“Right.  But let’s say I offer to treat us both to lunch en route from the airport to your office.  Will you pick us up at the baggage claim in our rental car?”

Matthew agreed, but said lunch was not necessary.

At this point, I had spent hours on hold, developed two new friendships with Peg and Matt, arranged for the plane, the car and the crate.  Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

“Paige, you really should get Moe a Thundershirt,” my brother Pat suggested.

“A what?”

“It’s a thing that wraps around them and basically hugs them to calm them down.  It naturally sedates them.”

“Oh...good idea.”

For 2.5 weeks, I had made sure to spend a few minutes every day explaining to Moe and Traveler, her brother dog, that Moe and I were going to take a special trip to fix her hip.  That Traveler would stay at his favorite kennel.  That I would sent Trav to the kennel with his sister’s blankie and would use Trav’s blankie as the one thing I could enclose in Moe’s crate for the flight.  That we would be apart 10 quick days, and then we would all be together.

Again, Moe and T are non-verbal and I know this.  However, they are very intuitive.

But Pat was right, those talks still would not help her with her anxiety about being in the cargo hold on a plane with strangers.

The Thundershirt, the new crate and the orthopedic dog pillow all arrived a week before our travel date.  This gave us some time for Moe to become familiar with her new outfit, her new abode and her new bed.

The day before we left, she was comfy and calm, Traveler acted a bit clingy – which he does when he knows I am leaving in a couple of days – and I was exhausted.

When the taxi arrived at 4 a.m. on travel day, we were ready.  Sort of.

We got to the airline’s live animal cargo drop-off at 4:30 a.m., right when they opened.  The staff at the airline desk was not exactly as spry as were we.  We’ve all been there.

They were kind, but still somewhat asleep, i.e. not very reassuring.

It took 30 minutes to check in Miss Moe, because the airline rep kept losing my credit card, my paperwork, her LA vet's release form, the “Live Animal” stickers I showed him I had already adhered to her crate and a few other things - but by 5 a.m., we were ready.

“Go ahead, Ma’am,” the rep said, smiling in what seemed like relief that we had checked her in.  “Everything is fine.”

I looked down at sweet Moe, swaddled in her shirt and zip-tied into her crate that was sitting in the middle of the waiting area among the other human passengers checking in their pet.

Hmm…not good, not good, not good.

I said politely, “No, I am going to wait until you move her back to the secured area for loading.”

“Oh!,” he replied with a giggle.  “Of course.  Here we go.” And away rolled Miss Moe.

On the plane, I mentioned to one of the flight attendants, “I am flying with my little girl dog, Moe.  I want to make sure she makes it on the plane before we take off.”

“Of course!,” the flight attendant replied.  “I’ll announce it before we take off.”

I did not find this very comforting either.

A few minutes later, the first flight attendant ended her pre-flight information speech with, “Miss Moe is on board.”  Ahhh.

All of our parts were now moving in the right direction.

The flight was smooth, the drive was easy and the stop at the Wendy’s off the highway was a welcome chance for us to stretch our legs.  We made it to Big Nance’s house with just enough time for me to get her crate and our duffle bags up to the attic bedroom before the evening’s dinner event.

This was going according to plan.

Moe could not sleep too well – she ran up and down the bed intermittently throughout the night.  Thus I did not sleep too well.

Was she uneasy in the new place?  Did she miss Traveler?  Was she scared about the surgery?  Or could she intuit that I felt all of those things and she was reacting to me?

All of those were possible, the latter more likely than others.

The next morning we were both calmer.  A fitful night had tired both of us.

As I finished dressing to take Moe to the hospital, I looked down at her as I asked playfully, “Are you ready for your exam, Miss Moe? Tomorrow’s going to be a big day!"

She was calmly and daintily relaxed on the bed, looking at me intently with her sweet, round eyes.

Several moving parts would finally come to rest in their proper place.  She seemed to know that.  Or she knew that I did.

(To be continued next week...)

 

Another happy maker: "Lost boy kept warm by puppies"

Dogs are unbelievable. Turn down your volume before opening this:

http://www.waff.com/story/19841874/lost-boy-kept-warm-by-puppies?hpt=us_bn8

Have a terrific weekend.

Posted by Paige at 11:22 PM in advice, Current Affairs, relationships, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: happy, independent women, kyle camp, martini rescue squad, Paige Nesbitt, single, single women, thirties, twenties

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How many times have you gotten a peephole into a life choice that is not yours?  One you don’t necessarily covet or disdain.   Just another one.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with some couple friends; two beautiful, independent, capable and confident people who love each other very much and have done so for many years.

They are not married or bound by any socially conventional constructs.  They simply love each other.  And would rather be together than apart.   Their life is one.

Their relationship is just as you imagine you might like to feel someday.  If in a relationship.  Someday.

Glimpses into other life choices like that don’t necessarily call into question the life choices we are making, but they warmly, visibly remind us there are others to make.  And they may not be wrong or right for us.   They are just different.

And they still work.  They are still as marvelously fulfilling as are ours, and that is a good thing.  Even if they are not for us.  Even if the idea of applying them to our lives is a bit shocking to our sensibilities and expectations.

Almost a year ago, I received an e-mail from a family member who told me that a woman I have considered more-or-less as a godmother for my whole cognizant life had called her.  This functional godmother had told my blood relative that she envisioned me at en route to see my family, with my husband and the first of our two sons, within two years.

What?!!! 

Exactly.  That was my thought too.

But I love this godmother very much.  I haven’t seen her in more than 20 years, but I love her.  So I subdued the panic I felt when I first read this prognostication in an email from my blood relative on a lunch break from my job.

I coaxed that information into a loving, kind message that – in this godmother’s visions – I was on the right track.

And I questioned my source; the blood relative who conveyed my godmother’s prognostication has imagined me married and producing offspring since I was 20 years old.

She was deeply, tragically disturbed when I told her at the time I did not imagine marrying until my thirties.  When I said I did not think I would have the time to accomplish all that I wanted to do on my own until I had reached age 30 at least.

My godmother’s prognostication last year may not have been accurate at all – it was definitely filtered through a lens by which my relative had envisioned me married and pregnant since 15 years ago.

Therefore, it was somewhat easy to dismiss.

This was all my godmother’s loving message distorted by a relative who would say or do anything – even unwittingly – to convince me that her ideal life plan for me was the only way to go.

We don’t wish ill on anyone who makes those decisions that are not right for us and we don’t consider anyone else’s choices as inferior or less enlightened.  We just know, unconditionally and lovingly, that they are not ours.  Not now and maybe not ever.

At the same time, it does not make us a hypocrite to someday wish we had what those others have, despite our happiness.  It does not make us charlatans, no matter how purely and truly we believe in our life choices.

And it does not mean that whatever makes us happy and fulfills us now will always do so.

It simply means we are capable of evolving.  When we are ready.

It means we are more committed to having a fulfilling life than resisting change to defend “the principle of the matter.”

The principle changes.  The principle is each of us.  That is beautiful.

Evolution is a very, very good thing.  Standing by ideologies that no longer apply, just for the sake of being true to our ideology, will always hurt us more than it will ever help us.  Our fidelity to our ideology could betray your life of its substance.

Hiding behind whatever choices we are making because they are safer than risking hurt will eventually be more painful than not.

Not all relationships are perfect.  We know that.  Oh my, how we know that.

Many people hold onto fundamentally flawed relationships because they are afraid of being single.  Alone.  Regretful.  Disappointed with what they find behind their own conventionality veneer.

We know that too.

We also know how insulting it is for anyone to think that holding onto an empty, if not destructive, relationship is better than being single.

Whooo...that’s ridiculous.  And lonelier than any, any, anything else we can imagine.

Been there.  And as has anyone else who has visited the terrain, I promise, it’s much, much, much, soul-shatteringly worse.

To make your and your partner’s shared bed in the morning, feeling it’s a foreign land - knowing no love is made there anymore.   Knowing any utterances of love have become routine - more expected than felt.

Knowing you secretly fear that is the very best you will ever feel when you get down to the daily reality.  With that partner.  Or with any.

And we know how delicious it feels to be confidently single.   Proudly single.  Defiantly single.

But don’t fool yourself.  Please.

If you are defying what you really want, it will not ultimately work.

It’s not an accident that any of us are single.  It may or may not have been our choice to be so, but it is our choice to fill it out, to inhabit this place.  To milk it for every nourishing droplet we can ingest.  And to love it while we’re here.

If your choices are not right for you, for now or forever, honor that.  And if they are, honor that as well.

Have the strength and humility to let your heart engage in the discourse with your mind.  To change.  When you are ready.

On that night over the weekend when I peered through that peephole, into my couple friends’ life, what I saw gave me a lot to consider.

Just after I dropped them off, I noticed my “godmother” had e-mailed me.  This time, it was a new prognostication directly from her.  Without any of my relatives’ filter.

She e-mailed me that she thinks the man I am supposed to be with, my soulmate and I, are going to find each other “very, very soon.”  That we “are going to be madly, passionately, happily in love.”  And to “just let go...”

And she might be right.

And that does not mean I am any less happy, fulfilled or convinced that what I am doing is right for me right now.  It just means that all of that, of me, might change.  Evolve.  When I am ready.

And that might be a very, very good thing.

Just as it might be, whenever it is – in whatever form it takes  - for all of us.

 

Santa Monica is an odd little city, full of conventionalities and contradictions; within its 15.9 square miles, you can find some of the preppiest, white-picket-fenced nuclear families and some of the artiest, most alternative sorts - along with a noticeable number of mentally ill homeless wandering throughout.

This is the place that, in some quarters, looks like Mayberry.  In others, the stench of human waste and marijuana should not deceive you about the half-million dollar condo just inside the cinderblock walls.  In fact, you’d believe the homeowners if they told you that stench vouched for the condo’s value, for the block’s authenticity.

Permeating all quadrants, there is a peculiarly high concentration of very, very good-looking people.

In this bayside cherry the metropolitan Pac Man wants to gobble, you will find some of both the most benevolent and those most in need of charity.  On that, it is not unusual to find a benefit somewhere in the city on almost any night of the week.  Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, I attended one.

Don’t think posh hotel ballrooms, formal attire or engraved invitations – this one was at a newish vegan restaurant on a main thoroughfare through Santa Monica.  One that starts at the ocean and continues further east than anyone can specify.

The attire at this place is always come-as-you-are and the invitation was a text from my friend, Andie, at 5:09 p.m. that went a little something like this, “Hey hon! A gf of mine is doing a fundraiser for Oceana Guardians at Vegan Eden in Santa Monica tonight, so im having dinner there at 6:30 if u want to join!”

I had just come out of a yoga class a few blocks away from that restaurant and did not have anything on my agenda that was more pressing than a trip to the market to get some more detergent, toothpaste and take-out.  Oooh...sexy, I know.

Andie’s friends are the most interesting cross-section of people from her days as a financial analyst, her astrology studies in San Francisco, her business school in Los Angeles and her holistic lifestyles/social justice PR practice here in LA.  It is never, ever boring to be her guest.  Even if only for pizza and a movie on cable.

“I’d love that!  Thank you, Andie!,” I replied.

Andie and I arrived at the same time and noticed the queue that extended well outside Vegan Haven’s door – and nearly down the stairs in front of the restaurant.

“Mer should be really glad,” Andie said.  Her friend Meredith had planned the evening and it appeared to be a success; Vegan Haven earned some exposure with new patrons and the charity kept a portion of every dish the restaurant sold that night.  A win all around.

Over the next several minutes, the rest of Andie’s guests arrived.  “We” consisted of her British friends, the yoga instructor/interior designer and the astronomer; our mutual friend, the Buddhist intellectual property attorney; Andie and me.  We made for an animated discussion – or several of them, all taking place at the same time.

“Hey, Guys!,” Mer said as she gracefully dumped herself into the spare seat in our brightly colored vinyl booth for a breather.

“Well done!,” we all told her.

“This is a great crowd tonight.  Your charity should be very excited!,” said Andie.

Mer nodded happily.

She and I were scanning the crowd as the conversation picked up right where it had been when she joined us and both of us noticed the same person at the same time.

“Oh, my, my...,” I thought.  Young, slightly scruffy, fashion indifferent/accidentally stylish with, yes, surfer shag hair and, yes-oh-yes, very, very good-looking.

Mer and I met eyes with a surprised look of agreement.  Curiosity.

This was not really the time or place to do anything other than enjoy the conversation medley with our friends – but that newcomer, that man, was someone we tacitly agreed we’d like to know more about.  If the occasion arose.

A solid several minutes passed in our open-minded world aware discussions before I realized I had more or less forgotten about the blond stranger when he rounded the corner and started back toward our booth – and this time, he was very involved in a conversation.  Interesting.

As he passed us, Mer and I noticed he was also completely alone.  Without a mobile phone, an ear bud or any visible indication there was anyone listening to him.  He did not seem to realize this.

We watched expectantly as he passed us.

At that moment, Mer and I met eyes again in startled agreement.  “Hot or homeless?,” she asked calmly and coolly.

“That’s a very good question,” I answered with an awkward laugh.  These days, you never can be sure.  And most often, what’s it to you to give people the benefit of the doubt?

Unless the candidate for that doubt is wandering around the benefit, talking to himself.

In this odd little city full of conventionalities and contradictions, the arty couple may live in the clapboard cottage, the carpool mom and her family may live in the post-industrial loft, your tofu Buffalo Wings may have helped save a dolphin, your table’s multi-disciplinary conversation might inspire change in the way we study a spiral galaxy 50 million light years away...

...And that striking, slightly scruffy man who is passionately vested in his conversation right next to you might be 2013’s pop culture icon.  And/or he might be homeless.

 

That cycle is not simply futile, it’s destructive; the more times we repeat it, the less we believe the happiness we imagine is possible.  We start bartering down our expectations and settling for “Eh, that could work.”  That’s the rational thing to do.

Like many of us, I would convince myself the externalized trappings of the dream – the degree, the job, the partner by age 32, the baby...add on as applies to you – are what will make me happy.  Eventually, once we get well on our way to achieving those trappings, we find they come to symbolize our disillusionment.  It gets messy.

But what if we quiet our minds and listen to our dreams instead – about how we want to feel?  What if we stand underneath our cloud of dreams with our hands cupped to catch everything that condenses?

Let it distill out of our nebula, let it overflow our hands and rain all over us, washing us clean – and pushing our messy, splintery “Pragmatism” construct back out to sea.

What if we trust those dreams to guide us and see what solid sense we can make of them – instead of trying to shove those dreams into whatever sounds like the most sensible plan?

What if that horizon of heart/mind wholeness is inside of each of us and all we have to do is let it rain?  Let ourselves believe in what our mind sees when we are not consciously in charge.

It’s very likely we remember our dreams as children. We may also remember how proud we felt of ourselves when we became “sophisticated” enough to dismiss them.  A few of us may also remember the approximate time when we stopped remembering our dreams.

It’s very likely we remember when we started forgetting or discarding any information that did not fit into our box.

When we started feeling empowered that we can wake up, turn off the alarm and start our day with very little recall of everything we had seen the night before.

Perhaps we recall fragments throughout the day, or the week and it gives us pause, but not for long.

We quickly shake our head, straighten our posture, wince as we take another sip of our sour room temperature coffee and refocus on the task before us.

I read something over the weekend that is absurdly appropriate - Albert Einstein said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”[1]

Society does that and, as single women in our age group, we have to own up to being its accomplice.  The further along we get into our careers and our adulthood, the more we agree we need a “thicker skin,” we need to attend this seminar about our career strategy and to read that book about developing our professional network.

We need to hush the intuitive vision and manipulate it into a rationalized version.  A set of actionable goals that we think will enable us to achieve the success we want to see for ourselves - something that works.

We need to “get real” about the direction our life is going.  We need to stop dreaming.

Then we wake up in a job that is not fulfilling, or dating a partner who we don’t feel really gets us - who only sees us in a little box - or overcommitted to a series of committees and obligations that just don’t give us the time to find any peace.

Or worse – we have convinced ourselves that is the best we can expect.

Guess what?  We got what we asked for.

We have this moment right now – this immaculate moment when we are reduced to our elements – to look up to our dreams and to see what they have to say.

Not about the job, the house, the partner, the baby...not about the trappings, but about what they symbolize about how we want to feel in our life.

We have this moment to let that dictate our course of action.  We have this moment to let it rain.

 

 

 

---

[1] Smalley, S.L. & Winston, D.  (2010).  Fully Present, The Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness.  New York: Da Capo Press. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9hnbmml8fOY&hd=1

I’m a dreamer. Always have been and I like me that way.  As are probably many more of us than will so readily admit.

At the same time, one big, huge, chunky challenge I claimed as far back as high school was to make sure my important decisions checked off all of the boxes in the Sensible column.  To be rational.  Pragmatic.

I tried to hold onto my dreams, inventory and catalogue them, then deposit them in the nebula over my head.  That gorgeous cloud that holds in it everything perfect I have ever imagined.

That’s a sensible place to keep them, so I can grab those dreams as needed, I thought.

Then, in my early-to-mid twenties, I learned a sure-fire technique for making some big decisions, e.g. career choices, hair styles, relationship ventures, etc.; I would chop my lofty aspirations into solid, manageable deductions, bind them together with rational cohesion and hammer them in place with my piercing introspection.  Thus I would build the most perfectly beautiful, elegant, undeniable and indestructible box.

I would select my most intimidating and important goals, find a way to combine them that sounded like it fit and hammer them together with my own convictions.

Then I would return to my nebula of dreams of things that make me happy and try to coax it into my precious box.  Try to make those dreams fit into what sounded like the most practical, substantial plan for success and security – professional, financial, personal, etc...

Finally I would emblazon on the side of that box the word “Pragmatism” – this was my coup, my final dismissal of any lingering indecision - before hammering it shut and setting sail in search of the gratification that we are all certain awaits us just past that brilliant heart/mind fusion horizon.

I would try to force a gorgeous cloud into a box – and put all of my faith in that box as the way I would achieve all of the happiness to which I had ever aspired.

Yeah, we all know what would happen next.

My clean-burning commitment would fuel my embarkation well past the breakwater and into the open sea before I noticed my precious Pragmatism box was not seaworthy.

I had kept my head down and my eyes focused on getting out past the training, earning the credentials and all of the preamble, sailing headlong in the real deal before I noticed I was not happy.  Not at all, really.

I was stuck in a situation of my own creation that had taken a lot of work to build – and was not actually making me happy.  And my dream nebula was not in there with me.  And I could not breathe.

I’d lie in bed trying to force my deepest ujjayi breath, calling on every peaceful insight from a fourteenth-century Sufi poet/Panda Express fortune cookie saying that my ridiculously handsome blond yoga instructor with surfer-shag hair – God, how I still love that do – has imparted to close a yoga class.  With little success.

Ultimately, I’d realize the only way to get back in touch with my dreams, to reconnect with my nebula, was to break out of the box I’d built and swim back to shore.

All the way back, I’d mock my carefully composed vision statements.  My mantras I’d selected as my life rafts on this journey.  My hopeful moments when I thought I saw that horizon in the distance.

And I’d ignore my dream nebula in spite, to show it how hurt I was that it had not come along with me.

Finally, I’d arrive back where I started and say with a harrumph, “OK, whatever, let’s try this again.”

I’d stumble around, looking for those lofty aspirations I could cut down to size and start the process over.

Recently when I got back to the shore, exhausted and betrayed, I lay there for a moment to collect myself.  This time, I was authentically sad.  I’d built this beautiful, pragmatic plan.  Written off all other options and set sail, certain the best of my dream nebula would come along.  And it did not.

None of the things that would have made this plan so rewarding and fulfilling were going to be attainable until I’d survived the uncertain sea for a very, very long time.  The journey was not going to be fun.  My consciously-constructed dream was not going to come true.

“What now?,” I asked.  Do another pro/con list?  Write another vision statement?

Sure, I thought, I could do this and realized my regenerated passion would make all of this very exciting...

...But then I’d do as I have with every vision statement I have written – I’d decide I was having too much fun being dreamy and would look for something lofty, something really difficult – pie-in-the-sky challenging to do, but ultimately really practical and sexily sensible with the doors it would open for me – to bring it all back down to earth.

I would let my head trump my heart.  I would let my thoughts and words try to strong-arm my dreams.  Sound familiar?

 

(To be continued next week...)

What happens when you try to put a cloud into a box?  First and most obviously, it will not go.  No matter how well-built or strong that box may be, the cloud will not obey.

Clouds and dreams have that in common – clouds do not fit into a human-made structure and dreams do not fit into your reality.  Quite honestly, the reverse is true and we have to respect that.  This is one thing I have understood recently.

Dreaming is a one of the most curious activities – we know this.  It is, by its nature, a passive action – oxymoronic in name and result.

It is something you do.  You can’t stop it, you really cannot control it – or not as well as you can your actions when you are fully awake and cognizant.

It is not something you learn to do.  It just happens.  And has probably happened through your entire life, well before you could derive any meaning from your dreams or had any verbal proficiency to help you understand them.  To apply them to your reality.

You are and always have been the passive observer in a private screening of a film your own mind creates.

If that is not wild enough, think of all of the very determined actions some of those narratives may have inspired in your life.  Or throughout history, for that matter.

Then think of how we abuse that noble word and the mighty notion it represents.  We “dream up” things to do on our vacation, we have a “dream job” or we think an afternoon at the beach would be just “dreamy” – all of which are options we consciously decided are the best for us, weighed against all of the other options we considered.

To top that, we add insult to injury – yes, worsening the situation – by diminishing our dreams or using them as scapegoats for things our rational mind thinks we should not have done; “Ha!  Grow up and stop wasting your life chasing your silly dreams,” or “Shyeah...Like she’d go out with him.  Keep dreaming!”

This is a very mean way to treat one of the few constants we have in our lives.  One of our natural, spontaneous gifts endowed to each of us, regardless of our education, health or circumstances.

And we all do it.  Or most of us do.  We learn to dismiss or ridicule these precious windows to our horizon of consciousness where our heart and our mind connect into one pure, glowing whole.

Wow.  That is quite sad.

Ahem...getting back on point – We all have some pretty huge decisions to make, now and always.  The further along in life we get, in many cases the stakes get higher as well.

Mull this over - What would you say to letting our dreams guide us through some of the most important of them instead of trying to manipulate the take-aways from our dreams to fit into our over-rationalized intentions?

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

On September 11, 2001, I was sleeping when my frantic cousin called me and told me to turn on the television.  Some drunk or crazy pilot had flown a plane directly into the World Trade Center Towers.

“What?!,” I stammered.  That was the most absurd,horrible thing you could imagine, I thought.

I really did not believe her, so I grabbed my clicker to turn on the TV in just enough time to see the second plane hit the other tower.

Over the next several hours, days and weeks, those of us who were about as far away from New York City as you can get in the Lower 48 prayed, meditated and comforted each other.  We waited and waited for news about loved ones and friends.

Every few days, it seemed, my friends and I received an e-mail or a letter from our respective college, or campus organization or company listing our friends and our friends’ significant others who had perished in the attack.

But here, among my friends, it seemed like shock melted into denial, which hardened into a heavy, blunt assumption that where you had not heard anything, the worst case scenario has probably actualized.

A couple of years later, I was spending time in the copy room at work with my old friend, the printer/fax/scanner/copier and looked up to the cork board to see what jumped out at me.  To see if there was anything interesting to read to pass the time.  My eyes went straight to a newspaper clipping with an angel on it.

“An angel? In a company copy room?,” I thought.  “How odd – not so PC.  What is this?”

So I read.  And read.  And wept. It was a letter to America from Phillips 66 and I believe it ran in the New York Times in the first few days after September 11.  For many of us, no matter where you align yourself politically, I think it still resonates.

Thanks to a former coworker of mine who scanned and e-mailed it to me, the image is attached with this entry.  In case the image is not easily legible, the text is below.

__________________

Dear America,

May this letter find you in the warm embrace of each other.  To the weary heroes – the firefighters, police officers and volunteers at ground zero – we are with you.  Your courage and resilience have brought us all to tears more than once – along with millions of others who don’t even speak your language but who understand and feel your pain as if it were their own.  To you who have lost your fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, friends and relatives, we are silent with you.  May you feel our arms around youthis day and every other. To all of you who are carrying the weight of the world in your hearts, and still stare into the faces of fear and hatred and say, “You will never, ever win,” we are with you.  Your love is so strong. 

You should see the light burning in your hearts.

Sincerely,

The Angels who keep you

 

“I see. Thank you, but I am going to work with a different contractor.” I stated, flatly and plainly.

Click!

He hung up on me, not the other way around.

This contractor assumed I am married.  He persisted in insisting on meeting my husband, who may or may not exist, despite me telling him I make those decisions.  And he is the one who abruptly hung up.

This is one of those moments when you decide what feminism means to you.

If an employer, coworker, anyone in a position of authority, a friend or a relative holds you back, pigeon-holes you or undercuts your contributions due to your sex, yes, fight like hell. Remain focused and “choose thoughtfully that course which occasion and conscience demand.”[1]  That’s not what I’m addressing here.

On a much bigger scale, I’m asking if feminism means being angry with or exacting revenge upon any person who ever made you feel less-than?

Who ever made you feel like a man’s opinion must be the final word on a situation, no matter how educated you are?  No matter how much due diligence you have vested in the process?  No matter how much conviction and resonance you feel about your determination?

- Knowing fully well that this decision could gobble up a big portion of your bandwidth for the balance of your life, and could thus obligate you to spend a large amount of time filled with negative energy -

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if feminism means proving a point at all times, or if it means letting those who have hurt you or diminished the validity of your decisions render for themselves whatever karma they are due.

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if one hurtful victory, no matter how pithy or low, is more important - Or if you prioritize yourself, your peace of mind and your dignity ahead of such tiny wins...and let that person, male or female, ride out their lives with their own dysfunctional paradigm.

Do you “set the record straight,” or let them learn on their own?

At the market that evening, I was incredulous.  As my friend Jodie asked, “What was he thinking?  This is not the 1950’s, when the husband makes all of the decisions like that – even if you are married.”

“Right?,” I answered with a laugh.

“Whew...,” said Randy, a gentleman contractor I met that Friday, a new addition to the mix, as he shook his head and cautiously inhaled.  “If someone had said that to my fiancée, good night!  She would not hear of any of that.”

“Thanks, Randy,” I laughed.

As single women, if we want something done around our home, either we have to do it – or we have to engage the person who will.  I know many married women who would say the same.

It’s up to us and, in more cases than not, we probably do a great job.  We get it done.

Most of these projects become an educational opportunity - they may not go as well as planned, or they may go better.  Either way, we learn.

We learn about the pricing, the process, the supplies involved, the time it takes...and in my experience, I have met some pretty incredible people, most of them men.  They are experts in their field I know I can call again and to whom I can refer business, because they are knowledgeable, honest and respectful, and completed their work on time and on budget.

Maybe someday, if we want to get married, our husbands will handle those projects.  Go for it, Babe!

But isn’t it educational to handle these things on our own?  Possibly in many, many ways extending far beyond the project and its genesis.

Foremost among those is what we learn about ourselves and our own strength in that moment when we decided if we want to try to fix every person who insults or hurts us -- or turn our energy to fixing more important things like our driveway.

No, my husband will not be there.  Not this time.

---

[1] Howard, E.S.  (1904).  The Chi Omega Symphony.  Retrieved from: http://www.chiomega.com/press/about.aspx?item=media/AboutXO/G1_TheSymphony.xml

 

It’s summer, which we all know.  That means sun, perhaps a vacation, loud floral prints are in and peep-toe pumps are encouraged.  To me, that also means it’s project time.

The weather is permissive, unlike the snarky California autumn and the pushy winter that follows right behind, shoving you clear into January.

But also in the summer, it seems some things naturally go awry and you have to fix them.

The night I came home from Ohio in July, my garage door opener stopped working.  It lifted, but would not lower.

The only way to close the garage door was to stand on my ladder, pull the emergency release handle and then scramble to catch the falling door and gently lower it before it crashed to the ground.  Fun.

After I fell off the ladder onto my back, onto the unsympathetic concrete, and ran around my place uncertain if I should go to the doctors or take an aspirin and a really long shower, I decided I should address this opener situation the right way instead of improvising around it.

I did what I think most of us single women would do for things we cannot or do not want to handle completely on our own – researched garage door openers, shopped around for the most competitive price and combed through a few consumer-generated review websites to find the most competitive, competent installers.

Then I realized I had to clear away the brush in front of my place to comply with fire code...repair and reset a few things with my place’s security system... replace many of my light bulbs...clear away the magazines in my home office I will never read...purge my file cabinet of papers I no longer need and reorganize the papers that I do...finally order new chains from which the lanterns in my backyard hang - the ones that become sacrifices to the gardening chores on the summer’s “To Do” list – etc, etc...

This list continued growing until I committed to sitting down and drawing out the complete tabulation of projects from large to small.  So small, you usually do not include them, because you know you will never have the time to address them.

One of those items has to do with the potholes on my driveway – yes, the same potholes I cold-patched by myself three years ago, if you read and recall the “Handy” series.

However this time, this project could be quite a bit larger and it’s a late-comer.  One of those, “Well, if I’m taking care of all of this, why not add that to the list as well?”

Makes sense.

So again, I did what I think any of us would do – unless you already know someone who is an expert in whatever you need done.

I researched my options and what the pricing should be and then started researching the contractors with the best consumer reviews.

By the middle of last week, I had narrowed the list and had a pretty good sense for the options to fix my problem and the contractors available.

At the same time I was not shocked to receive a call from a new candidate on Thursday morning.

“Hello?,” I answered.

“Hello, is Paige there?”

“Yes, this is she.”

“Hi, Paige.  I am Dell from Shovan-Isto Construction.  I would like to come out to you to take a look at the project and give you an estimate.”

“Thanks, Dell, but I think I know who I am going to hire.”

“OK, but we are in your area anyway.  It’s no trouble to come by.  I’d really like to see if we can be competitive with what the other firms have bid. We can be there at 1 or 4.”

I agreed to meet them at 4 p.m. with thanks.

And at 3:56 p.m. I was still a couple of miles from my place, so I called.

“Hello, Shovan-Isto Construction.  How can I help you?,” a man answered.

“Hi.  This is Paige and I am your 4 p.m., but I am still about five minutes away.”

“Don’t worry, Honey,” he replied.  “The estimator got there a few minutes ago and no one was home, so I told him to go get some food.”

We agreed he’d be back to my home in half an hour and all was well.

“Honey, are you married?,” he asked, just before we hung up.

“I’m sorry – Why?,” I asked.

“Because before we agree to do any projects, we want to talk to the husband too,” he said.  “Will your husband be there?”

“OK.   Well, I am the only one who will be there and I am taking care of this project,” I answered, a little taken aback.

“I understand,” he softly balked.  “We just usually prefer to speak to the husband and the wife.”

“Fine, but I am the one who makes the spending decisions in this household, so I am the one with whom you want to speak,” I said kindly, but matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but we will want to speak to your husband before we move ahead with any projects.”

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

If you could be one bumper sticker, what would you say?  If you had to sum up your whole life and everything you stand for into one message, what would it be?

Do you ever find yourself stuck in traffic behind a car whose backside is covered in stickers?  As you brake into place behind them, you think, “Heh.  This is going to be fun…What is that important that you need to ruin the paint on your car to express it?”

By the time you have come to a full stop behind that car, your eyes are overwhelmed by the colors, your brain is overcome with the messages and you are a bit insulted.  There is something on there to offend everyone – their intelligence, their lifestyle choices, their values…

Along with a cross, a peace sign, an Om – pick any religious or ideological symbol.  A symbol that could buffer the offense you could take to all of the other stickers, but it doesn’t.  Instead, that symbol compounds those other stickers’ ridiculousness and by insulting the belief system or ideology that symbol represents.

At the least, you have to think that person is passionate.  Perhaps a bit overwhelmed by their own passion, but still passionate.

You have to think they must have started with one.  One clear message that resonated within them.  That one thing they wanted to tell the whole world.  Or the whole world who reads their rear bumper.

And then maybe they found another sticker – something that represents what they felt was consistent with the position represented by the first sticker, but that second sticker made the point even more clearly or forcefully.

Or the position that second sticker represents is a natural match to position represented by the first sticker.

OK.  We can all get that.  We’ve been there.

And maybe we even get the third sticker.  Especially if the third sticker is a symbol and not a position piece.  Fine.

But you have to ask, “What were they thinking?” when they applied stickers 4 through 37?

Yikes.

Did they still think they were doing their causes any favors?  Or did they do it on purpose?  Did they intentionally combine several conflicting perspectives, and caustic expressions thereof, just to irk everyone else who does earnestly believe in at least one of those causes?

We all know a few people who would do that.  The people who value a good kerfuffle more than any accord or tolerance.

Pretend that is not what you want to do.  Pretend you want one message.  One living epitaph that tells the world everything you want everyone to know about you.

Not everything about you.  That’s too much information.

One message that tells the world, “Hey, you!  When you step on the gas pedal after this light, this is what I want you to take with you.  This is what I want you to remember.”

Is it kind?  Is it loving?  Is it inspirational?  Is it insulting to everyone who does not agree with you?  Or is it self-righteous?  Or pseudo-intellectual?

Is it non-verbal, e.g. a peace sign or an Om - something that is open to interpretation?  Very progressive of you.

Or is it your alma mater, your company, your sorority?

Is it a permanent manifesto, a due comeuppance for someone specific who hurt you?  Someone whose hurtful legacy will always be on the back of your car, wherever you go?

Or is it forgiveness?

Is it a cause?  A quote from Shakespeare or Einstein?  A picture? A joke?  A New Yorker cartoon?

Try it.  Design your “you” bumper sticker.

Write out what you would be on a 3-in-by-12-in strip of adhesive-backed polyvinyl chloride.  No more and no less.

Then for a week, or however long you want, remember, write down or take a quick mobile phone camera picture of the top five you see.  The top five that you know will stay with you.

Be careful about it, but post them on here, or e-mail them to me if you want.  Or keep them for yourself.

What does each show you about the person inside?

From time to time, I see one that makes me laugh, that makes me cry or that makes me really, really angry…and then I see one that is perfect.

A few weeks ago, I was coming back from a walk.  A long walk I took by myself, cup of coffee in hand, and I saw one that silenced all of the noise in my mind.  That took me to that peaceful, fulfilled place.

That is the kind of reaction you’re after.  What is the one thing you want the world to remember about you as that light changes and your rear bumper disappears into the distance?

...Anyone else with me?  (Read the caption).

Retrieved from:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151120267368254&set=a.100690783253.87226.80329313253&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

 

We have all written and/or received Thank You notes.  Some of us have probably written and/or received a Thank You note for the Thank You note we have written and/or received.  It’s happened.

Thank You notes are a very civilized tradition that is really very simple.

Someone does something nice for you, e.g. gives you a gift, or lets you stay in their home when you are in town, or invites you to an incredible party.  Something like that.

You may give them a gift in return, or bring a gift with you when you stay with them, or send one ex post facto.  Those are all very nice gestures.  

However, just as “the pen is mightier than the sword”[1] in resolving any conflicts, so too is it a more powerful way of expressing gratitude.  Or so many of us were taught.

A gift requires creativity and generosity, but it does not have to.  You can remember their favorite delicacy and send for a box, just as you can simply bring an item any sensible person would appreciate.

Those coasters will look beautiful on that person’s coffee table for years to come.  Just as they will on his, and hers and everyone else’s.  Everyone likes coasters.

In either of those cases, you would have done a very nice thing.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

In contrast, a Thank You note is a living animal you have to wrangle.

Doing so requires careful composition, some pre-planning.

Are you going to use tact for the gift or favor rendered unto you – whether or not you are really all that glad about it – or are you going for exuberance?

If it’s too generic and blah, the sentiment sits there like a sleeping Sheep Dog.  Too many exclamation points and your recipient will not be able to read fast enough to shut up that Chihuahua of a note.

Do you go for formal and uber polite, very penguinlike, or do you throw a joke in there?  The former is a safe way to go, but the latter can be endearing.  Just as it can get inappropriately jokey and the note screams silly otter.

Do you tap into something emotional?  Something nostalgic, uplifting, or loving.  Something that could make that note look like a runaway pony...

“Where are you going with this?...And how the hell are you going to bring it back around in on the space alloted on this tiny piece of stationery?,” you, and your readers, might ask.

Or – uh-oh - are you going to have an “Oh, my God!” huge cuddly bear revelation moment when you recognize how much this person means to you at the same time as the words are flowing from your pen?  And you start crying, smudge the whole letter and have to start again?

We’ve all been there.

Uh...right?

And how do you handle days when your handwriting is not optimal or when you notice misspellings?  Perfectionist’s nightmares!

Do you rewrite the whole thing, as any purist would, or do you hope no one will notice?

Do you try to cover your spelling errors by playing some optical tricks, e.g. discretely inserting the missing letter/letters – or letting the letters adjacent expand to absorb the letter you should not have written?

Eek – or do you cross it out?

Or do you try all of the above, notice it looks horrible, then tear it into successively smaller pieces to offset your aggression as you finally confront that you would have saved yourself at least a few minutes if you’d just started over from the get-go?

And once you have made it through all of that drama, a final taunting challenge is the closing.  Is this a “Sincerely” kind of note?  A “Love?”  A “Love and thanks?”  A playful “xoxo?”  The wrong closing could change the whole character of this note, leaving it mocking you like an evil hienna.

You imagine your recipient’s face twist in curiousity and disappointment as they get to the bottom, then toss that carefully worded note you recopied two or three times in the trash in an awkward, “What else am I going to do with it?” moment.

Horrible.

All you want to do is to thank the people who have done something kind for you.  To show them how much their gesture, or -  if you are close enough -  on a larger scale, how much they meant to you.

That expression and authenticity are wonderful.  Both as we write and as our recipients read our writing, we have an opportuntiy to isolate ourselves in a lovely shared moment when both parties are focused on each other.  On their gratitude.

People who can do that eloquently, succinctly and naturally are an anomaly to most of us Thank You note goons.  And why do all of them have perfect handwriting?  Baffling.  Awe-inspiring.

A few years ago, my brother Pat and I gave our niece and nephew each a personalized box of pre-formatted Thank You notes.  They were amazing!  Each went something like this:

 

Dear  __________, Thank you very much for the __________.  It’s great!  That was very nice of you. From,  ________

 

Amazing.

That, right there, is the whole essence of the note.  That is all you have to write.  But rarely is it all you do write.

And even if you develop a comfortable template you can use for all the notes you have to write for the same occasion, you still have to find the right balance of everything. You still have to create the template and coax it into shape.

Over the weekend, I was at a small function with some friends with whom I had been at another small function the weekend prior.  Yes, almost all of us had written our Thank You notes.  Except...ahem...a couple of us.

That couple of us have written each other so many Thank You notes, we have a verbal and many-time repeated pact never to write each other another Thank You note again.

Until one of us writes the other a Thank You note.

We two were sitting next to each other, going over the notes we wanted to write for the prior weekend’s event until one of us said to the other in dismay, “Oh my God, and I still owe you a note for the picnic at the end of last weekend!”

“Oh, Honey, I still owe you a note for the brunch the weekend before,” that person answered with a quick dismissal.

Huh.

“You know what?,” the more resourceful of the two said.  “Why don’t we just look each other in the eye and say ‘Thank you’ and that will be fine?”

“Oooh...that is the best idea!,” I said.  “We’ll just do that and be done with it.”

At that, we looked each other in the eye with a smile and said “Thank you.”

“Wait, you can do that?,” our friend Phil asked.  “Is that Emily Post or something?  Did your grandmother’s teach you that?...Is it proper ettiquette?”

Phil was concerned.

“Eh,” we both answered, staring toward the sunset in cool cowgirl confidence.  “It’s enough for us.”

One less occasion to wield that mighty, mighty pen.

One less living animal to tame.

 

---

[1] [1] Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1st Baron Lytton.  (1839).  Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books/about/Richelieu_or_The_conspiracy.html?id=LqcOAAAAIAAJ

Between topics, we would lie quietly for a few minutes, hoping one of us would come up with something to say.  Every now and then, Nancy would break into an awkwardly hopeful, “Te-he, I just love you, Paigey,” and she would pat my hand from over on her side of the bed.

“I love you too, Miss Nancy,” I would reply and give her hand a soft squeeze.

This continued for what seemed to be 45 minutes at least until suddenly, a creative impulse...

“Miss Nancy!,” I said with a start, “Tell me about your Academy Awards!  You know, the ones you won for that murder mystery series.”

Big Nance had studied theater in school, as had I, but she was accepted into a prestigious dramatic arts academy in New York City.  Her true love, Papa, was at war and she wanted to be at home when he returned.  That was much more important to her than any aspirations to be a movie star.

“What, te-he?,” she asked nervously, which is her way of saying, “Are you flipping insane?”

“Remember?  The murder mystery series?  Those five movies?  Did you know you were going to win?”

“Ohhhh...those...He-he...No, I had no idea.”

“But even after your first three Oscars for the first three films, didn’t you sort of expect you would win for the other two?”

“No, Paigey.  You know how it is – You just never know about those sorts of things.  I was surprised each time,” she said with a downturn in her voice, as if to imply she wanted to change the subject back to something “real.”  I might have been freaking her out.

“I loved your acceptance speeches.  I’ve seen each one in your video files,” I said, disregarding her downturn.

Wait for it...

“Oh yes, of course.” she affirmed.  “Well, I was just so flattered each time.”

Game on.

“Now, Nancy, tell me about your first husband – you know, the Czechoslovakian film-maker who fell in love with you when he saw your screen test when you were at the dramatic arts academy in New York.”

“Huh?...Oh, yes, him!,” she giggled like a fairy.

“What was his name again?”

“Happy Cornfeather,” she replied without hesitation.

“Happy Cornfeather?,” I asked her with a surprised laugh.

Where did that come from?

“Yes, Happy.  We had the neatest apartment in Greenwich Village.”

“You did?,” I squeeled.  This make-believe love story sounded very hip for its time.

“Yes, it was the cutest, arty little place.”

“Wow,” I replied.  “That’s right, you had a very BoHo lifestyle together, didn’t you?”

“But I knew he wasn’t for me,” she replied, sweeping right past my question.  “I always knew it was Papa.  That’s why I had to go to China.”

“You did?,” I asked - Translation: “Where the heck is this going?  And where did that come from?”

“Yes, to Beijing, where I met my second husband,” she said.

Boom.  She was into it.

“Wha...?  Your second husband?”

“Yes.  He was a film maker in China and we had the most beautiful place in Beijing.”

O-h-m-y-G-o-d.  This is amazing!

“Huh.  No kidding, Nance.  But tell me about Papa – Didn’t he go right over there to get you back?”

“Oh, yes he did,” Big Nance replied with a chuckle.

“Tell me – What did he say to you again?  I love this story.”

If you cannot guess it already, I was expecting one of her vignettes in which Papa tells her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and he would love her forever...That’s a logical expectation based on a lifetime of precedent.

“Well he barged right into our apartment and he said, ‘Nance, what are you doing?”

“What?  He was angry?”

“Oh-ho-ho yes, he was!  He screamed, ‘I can’t believe you, moving all the way over here – It’s like I don’t even know you!’”

“Huh?”

“Yes.  Oh, Paigey, you should have heard him.  He was so mad.  He said, ‘Nance, what has gotten into you?  This is not the girl I know!,’ and he marched right out of there.”

“He did?,” I asked, a bit incredulous.

Yes, this is complete fiction.  Yes, I am the one who started it - And yes, I am the one who continued escalating the ridiculousness, notch by notch....But no, that is not Papa’s style – Not with all of the grand and lovely professions of eternal adoration I had heard were typical of him.

“Well, I knew what I had to do,” she stated with complete conviction.  “Frank was the love of my life and that was it.  So I packed up my things and was on the first plane back to America.”

“That’s right,” I supplemented.

OK, we’re back on the familiar narrative path But the detour was fun.

“And what did Papa say when you got home?”

“Oh, he took me in his arms and said...” (Insert profession of eternal adoration).

Big Nance and I spent two nights that way, improvising our own funny narrative about her life.  Not about my cousin’s babies, my brother’s return from Colorado, the weather, Moe, Traveler...Not about anything normal.

On one our nights with roughing it with minimal electricity, I had some things to do on my laptop and she was ready for sleep.  I asked her permission to sit on the chaise lounge over in the corner with the lights off so I would not disturb her.  My computer screen would provide enough light.

“Sure, Doll Baby,” she agreed, as she turned off the lights and nestled into bed.  She focused her eyes on the ceiling above her.

“Thank you, Miss Nancy.  But I don’t need to be quiet while I’m working on this,” I said.  “Please, tell me some stories about Papa.”

“Haha...Sure, Honey. What do you want to hear?,” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Anything you want to tell me.  Tell me something I have not heard before.”

“Alright,” she acquiesced as she refocused on the ceiling while she jogged her mind.

She then adjusted her pillow so she could comfortably look my direction while still lying down and provided as agreed – She told me a few stories I had never heard; a couple about high school and one or two about coming home from the war.  Interesting stories.

To all of them there was one consistent theme, “Well Frank was just so completely in love with me, as I was with him, that he did not know what to do with himself...”

“I know, Miss Nancy,” I replied as I smiled.

And in every story, their love and loyalty triumphed over everything.

Several minutes later, Big Nancy was asleep and I was still working on my computer.  I looked up for a minute to crystallize a thought and noticed how the fan perched on the dainty vanity stool halfway between the chaise and the bed gently blew the lace canopy framing Miss Nancy, isolating her in a comfortably cool breeze in that still, muggy house.

I noticed how much I love and gratitude I have for my grandmother.

You can’t plan those things – But this was not an accident.  None of this trip was.

Every day of the trip except for surgery day, I went visited Miss Moe for an hour, give or take.  It seemed much safer and kinder to keep my sweet fuzzy patient at the air conditioned hospital with doctors onsite 24 hours each day. 

The other option was to take her back to the Queen Mum’s house without any guarantee the air conditioning would work and hope she could handle the shock from her surgery in a stifling menagerie of nosy, playful household pets she had never seen.  That did not seem fair.

Dr. M and the surgeon dutifully answered all of my questions each time I visited the hospital and Moe provided the entertainment.

You would expect Moe would be a little shaky about walking again and this is when you would be incorrect.  This is when you would come to understand how painful her hip must have been before the surgery.

She did not understand any of this “take it easy” business – She wanted to run!  And jump!  And play!  And no...Not yet.

Fortunately the flight home was uneventful.  Moe’s brief exam the next morning by the local surgeon I liked the most was very positive; she did not loosen any of her stitches while in transit.

In fact, the doctor came to speak with me after looking at her to express his astonishment at how well she was doing so soon after a surgery of that magnitude.

Yes, thank goodness, everything was going according to plan.

A week or so after returning, my friend Chevy came over for dinner and to help me take my dogs for a walk – Traveler on his leash and Moe in her stroller. Trav needed some bonding time with a fellow man’s man and Moe is still not allowed to walk very far.

We sat at my kitchen table after the walk, musing how lucky it was that everything came together – considering how many things could have gone awry - and I felt Traveler’s warm belly shake gently with his midsection was draped over my foot.  He was snoring peacefully.

I looked under the table to check on both dogs and to make sure Moe was comfortable as well, that she did not have her tender new hip cocked at an odd angle.

No, they were both fine and they were spooning.  Things were as they should be.  After this peculiar odyssey, everything was once again normal.

Duty to my animals inspired the trip.  The opportunity to enjoy 10 days with my grandmother without anything else on her typically busy calendar designated the precise place and time.  The storm, the power outage, the heat, the laughter, my professional in-betweenness and every other moving part brought all circumstances together to create a perfect trip.

Everything went according to plan – actually, better.  Unplannably better.  And in retrospect, you have to laugh at yourself for wondering why all of life can’t be that easy.

 

That morning, the surgeon and Dr.s K, L and M on the surgeon’s team cleared Miss Moe for surgery as planned.  That would have been special, had she any rashes or impediments to proceeding with the operation.

“You can come to visit her every day if you want,” said Dr. M, “Except for tomorrow.  But don’t worry – I will send you at least three texts a day with updates.”

To my great relief, she kept her word.

“Pretty lady is sitting comfortably – I will call you shortly to update you : ),” she texted at 4:47 p.m. on surgery day.

When Dr. M called a few minutes later, she reported that Moe was being lovely and calm and "taking it all in." However, they put the cone on her head to be sure she could not gnaw at her stitches.  She was not happy with this.

At 8:35 p.m., Dr. M texted, “Everything went beautifully – we can go over it tomorrow but here’s her beautiful hip,” and attached Moe’s x-ray.

Dr. M confirmed she was a little slow that evening, but happily wagging her tail.  She attached this picture that, of course, I promptly posted on a social networking page.  One of my friends said it best -“Those eyes tell the story, happy she is fine!”

But another of my personal favorites was this comment, “Yeah!!! Bionic Moe!”   

Indeed.  My little girl doggie would be fully restored in no time.  She never seems to lose her sense of humor or her keen deductive capabilities. 

When Dr. M and I spoke a few minutes later that night, she told me Moe had been making noise with her cone that evening, so she walked over to look in on Moe. Maybe she wants attention? Maybe she misses her brother Traveler?...

When MoeMoe saw the doctor's feet standing in front of her crate, she stopped making noise and turned her head down as if she realized, 'Uh-oh...busted."

The doctor then said when she talked to Moe and "tried to reason with her" and Moe seemed rational and receptive.   Much more so than she was when the surgeon had tried baby talking to her earlier that day.  She does not take well to baby talk – Nor should she.

The next day, day one post-surgery, Big Nance and I stopped by the veterinary hospital to visit Miss Moe on our way out to the lake.  It was Friday and we would be at the lake all weekend with various cousins.  Big Nancy and I wanted to give her a hug before leaving.

We spent almost an hour with her and as we left, I told Dr. M we would be at the lake until Tuesday, but I would come back on Sunday to visit.

The most frightening part of the duty portion to this trip was behind us.  Now it was time for the pleasure element.

Ahh...Everything was going according to plan.

Again - Ha ha ha.

The sky was bright, but hazy when we arrived at the lake at around 2:30 p.m.  Two or three hours later, the sky was grey, it was raining and the swells in the lake were as high as I have ever seen them.

Growing up, there was a huge storm at the lake every summer that seemed to happen the week we were there.  Better yet, it oddly happened the afternoon we all took the boat to the ice cream parlor at the end of the lake – the one that banned my great grandfather after he thought it would be delightfully funny to release the ducks my mother and her siblings had won at the sweet corn festival into the parlor to fly around.

The family who owns the ice cream parlor did not see it that way.

But ohhhhh, my!  Big Nancy would tell us that story every year as we sat in the booth at the parlor, savoring our annual treat.  She would take tiny bites of ice cream, pause to fan her closed mouth with her finger tips – as if that would offset the ice cream’s biting coldness – then start giggling like a Munchkin as she recapped the Poppy story.

We would sit there trying to imagine ducks flying through this sweets sanctuary.  To us, the ice cream cone murals that you’d ballpark from their “renovation” in the 1950’s were the frescoes in our Sistine Chapel and the wax sundaes perched on the shelves above might as well have been the Creation of Man statue.  You imagine they had not been dusted since opening day.

By the time we returned home from the parlor, we would find the storm had knocked out the power to everyone around the lake and we would have to play Monopoly by flashlight.

“That’s great,” I thought with a smile as I walked around downstairs this year, looking at the furious storm outside and recalling all of those quirky evenings.  “It’s uncanny to be here for storm night again, but I hope everyone can get here safely.”

In line with precedent, this year’s storm took out all of the power and plumbing at the lake house.  It was 95-degrees outside and we had five family members coming in for dinner from a couple of different directions.  We improvised and finished dinner on the gas grill.

“That goodness we could look forward to going back to town tomorrow,” we thought.

One more time....Ha ha ha.

"The big storm” every year disabled power service to many households around the lake. It’s pretty rural out there.  But in town, people usually did not have a problem.

Hmm...not so fast.  This year’s storm left over 500,000 households in the state without power.  That meant the lake and most of the city.  That meant Federal Disaster Declaration.

Everyone else got this memo before we.  As the Queen Mum and I drove back into town, I called every hotel in the downtown area and wouldn’t you know it, but every hotel within eight miles of downtown was booked.  Solid.  No dice.

Even the athletic club’s tiny rooms were booked.

This is when the pleasure element to this trip started to require some ingenuity.

Big Nance’s home is an older house – beautifully restored, but certain things like air circulation are not optimal.  A handyman Big Nance engaged was able to start her emergency generator to provide power to two rooms; the kitchen, so we had a refrigerator and a microwave – Big Nance does not cook either - and her room, so we could plug in a fan.

That was it.  It was approximately 70 degrees at the lowest and we had air circulation in one room – Big Nance’s bedroom.  Heat rises and despite the fan in her room, it still felt like 80-some degrees.  Staying in the attic bedroom one floor above would have been very, very poor decision.

“Miss Nancy,” I said to the Queen Mum, “the attic room is sweltering and there is not any air in the guestroom over here.  May I crash with you tonight?  Just until we get the air back on?”

“Of course, Sweetheart,” she allowed.

That evening is when I realized my grandmother is addicted to the news and to Lifetime Movie Network.  We could turn on the lights, the fan and the TV, but the latter did not do much for us without the cable.

Even with the fan, it was still too uncomfortably warm to sleep right away.  She had two or three DVD’s and I picked up four more at Target, but did not have any idea how to make her DVD player talk to her TV with her elaborate cable box configuration.

Every 10 minutes or so, Big Nance would hopefully turn on the TV to see if cable was restored.

“Oh my God, what are we going to do?,” I thought in a near panic.

This was not, not, not going according to plan.

We talked about my grandfather, we had a couple of laughs...and then what?

We talked about my cousin’s babies, my brother moving back from Colorado... and then what?

We talked about brave little Moe and her sweet brother Traveler...and then what?

We had quickly exhausted every single topic either one of us was prepared to discuss in that distracting heat...and then what?

(To be continued next week...)

The last thing we needed to confirm before committing to Moe’s hip surgery/our visit to the Queen Mum in the Midwest was the timing.

Haven’t you found at least once or twice, the minute or so after you commit to an ideal strategy, you awaken to everything that successful execution will entail?

...The Queen Mum/Big Nance planned to leave town at the beginning of the second week in July and I could stay with her until then…

...I wanted to spend some quality time with my glorious grandmother – that was part of the reason I chose this surgeon - and she was really the only family member who would have the peaceful space and time for Moe, her crate, me and our schedule...

...Big Nance’s home was an easy shot down the highway from the animal hospital, so this was logistically sound.  I could get to and from the hospital as necessary...

...The airline said they will allow Moe to fly after her surgery, as long as her surgeon signs off on it...

... The lab technician in the surgeon’s office said it would not be in Moe’s best interest to fly until a good week after the surgery - the doctor would want to examine her on day seven and make sure she looked strong and healthy enough to fly.  But flying before then was a bit premature and unsafe...

…I.e. no sign-off, no flying home, until day seven post-operation.  Understood.

All of this meant her surgery would have to be the last week in June.  That way, she would have a full week to recover in the Midwest and achieve the surgeon’s approval to fly, we would have a place to stay, I could visit Big Nance and we could clear out before she had to leave town.  Simple enough in theory.

But what that meant in practice was each step on this plan’s continuum depended on successfully arranging for the steps before it.  There was not a way to navigate around any of this not going – Exactly – according to plan.

And the surgeon was away and would not return until that last week in June.  His surgery slate was full that week.

Hmm…not good.

Perhaps he could work us into his schedule?  Hoping, hoping, hoping...

Yes, the lab technician confirmed, the surgeon would make room in his schedule for Moe, her hips and me.

L-o-v-e love the surgeon, the lab technician and everyone at that animal hospital.

We would fly in on a Tuesday, go in to the see the surgeon for the pre-operation exam on Wednesday and her surgery would be first thing on Thursday.

  If all went well, the surgeon would clear her to fly the following Thursday.  From departure to return, this whole trip would take 10 days.

Yes, the most crucial things were set; the surgery date, accommodations for Moe and me while there, the airline’s approval to fly. 

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

MoeMoe is a 60-pound dog.  Several airlines allow you to fly with a dog weighing 17 pounds or less, as long as you keep them in a travel bag that meets certain specifications and fits under the seat.  Right.  Not Moe.

Of the airlines that will allow larger animals as cargo, none fly directly into the city where we needed to go.  We could change planes anywhere from Dallas-Fort Worth to Dulles in Greater Washington, D.C., but we could not fly straight into our destination city.

I did not want to risk traumatizing Moe during a plane change. Worse yet, I did not want to run any chance the airlines would lose her, i.e. literally misplace her.  It happens.

Thus, the only option that seemed safe was to pick the closest hub city to our destination, arrange for a rental car there and drive the 2.5 hours to our destination city.

With the airline and flight selected, I had to find the travel crate that meets all of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) specifications.  This is a bit trickier than it seems – a few manufacturers claim their crates are IATA approved, but IATA does not endorse or lend its name to any specific products.

This meant doing some rather detailed research into various crates, calling the airline, bouncing back and forth for a couple of hours and re-iterating the whole schpiel to at least four people at the airline until, at last, one airline representative confirmed that yes, the crate I just described will be approved.

That was fun.

Fortunately, while on the phone with the last airline rep, I googled something I had seen while on hold for the first 35 minutes in order to ask that last airline rep a question.  To my surprise, the first google hit was not what I wanted, but it was a page advertising an “IATA Kit.”

Yes, as it sounds, this is a box of goodies that you actually need to have in order to be approved to fly – which includes a specific kind of bolt that you must use to assemble the travel crate.

Wouldn’t it be great to get every detail in place, having spent hours on hold with the airline to do so, order the new crate and assemble it only to arrive at the airport and find you cannot fly on your intended travel date, thus cannot arrive in time for the intended surgery date, all because you do not have the special IATA doohickey?

Hmm…not good.

I nearly wept envisioning it.

“Peg,” I asked the fourth airline rep, “I know you approved the crate I just described, but I just found a page selling an IATA Kit with a few extra items it says any airline will require.  Should I buy this as well?”

Yes, Peg agreed I should order the kit.

Breathe.

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

Next, I needed to research car rental companies.  I would need a car the whole 10 days I was there so we could pick it up in the hub city, cozy Moe into her crate in order to cruise to our destination city and freely transport her around town as needed for check-ups with the surgeon.

This required another couple of hours on hold with the car rental company until a kind representative assured me the mid-size SUV would be large enough.  And yes, they could arrange to meet me at the airport, even though the website said I would need to shuttle to the off-site car pick-up location.

Eh.  I was not too confident in that assurance.  This is where Saint Matthew, location manager at that rental car company’s office at our hub airport, came into the picture.  We phone tagged each other for a couple of days until at last I reached him with a nice suggestion, i.e. a bribe.

“Matthew, I taking my sweet dog for hip replacement surgery in the Midwest.  We are flying into the airport your office services.  ‘We’ are one 60-pound dog, a four-foot by two-foot, by two-foot crate, two duffle bags and me.  We will not fit on your courtesy shuttle.”

“No, Miss, you will not.”

“And we cannot guarantee we can find a taxi van at the airport that could fit us and not charge a fortune for the quick trip to your office.”

“No, Miss, you can’t.”

Hmm…Not good.

“Right.  But let’s say I offer to treat us both to lunch en route from the airport to your office.  Will you pick us up at the baggage claim in our rental car?”

Matthew agreed, but said lunch was not necessary.

At this point, I had spent hours on hold, developed two new friendships with Peg and Matt, arranged for the plane, the car and the crate.  Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

“Paige, you really should get Moe a Thundershirt,” my brother Pat suggested.

“A what?”

“It’s a thing that wraps around them and basically hugs them to calm them down.  It naturally sedates them.”

“Oh...good idea.”

For 2.5 weeks, I had made sure to spend a few minutes every day explaining to Moe and Traveler, her brother dog, that Moe and I were going to take a special trip to fix her hip.  That Traveler would stay at his favorite kennel.  That I would sent Trav to the kennel with his sister’s blankie and would use Trav’s blankie as the one thing I could enclose in Moe’s crate for the flight.  That we would be apart 10 quick days, and then we would all be together.

Again, Moe and T are non-verbal and I know this.  However, they are very intuitive.

But Pat was right, those talks still would not help her with her anxiety about being in the cargo hold on a plane with strangers.

The Thundershirt, the new crate and the orthopedic dog pillow all arrived a week before our travel date.  This gave us some time for Moe to become familiar with her new outfit, her new abode and her new bed.

The day before we left, she was comfy and calm, Traveler acted a bit clingy – which he does when he knows I am leaving in a couple of days – and I was exhausted.

When the taxi arrived at 4 a.m. on travel day, we were ready.  Sort of.

We got to the airline’s live animal cargo drop-off at 4:30 a.m., right when they opened.  The staff at the airline desk was not exactly as spry as were we.  We’ve all been there.

They were kind, but still somewhat asleep, i.e. not very reassuring.

It took 30 minutes to check in Miss Moe, because the airline rep kept losing my credit card, my paperwork, her LA vet's release form, the “Live Animal” stickers I showed him I had already adhered to her crate and a few other things - but by 5 a.m., we were ready.

“Go ahead, Ma’am,” the rep said, smiling in what seemed like relief that we had checked her in.  “Everything is fine.”

I looked down at sweet Moe, swaddled in her shirt and zip-tied into her crate that was sitting in the middle of the waiting area among the other human passengers checking in their pet.

Hmm…not good, not good, not good.

I said politely, “No, I am going to wait until you move her back to the secured area for loading.”

“Oh!,” he replied with a giggle.  “Of course.  Here we go.” And away rolled Miss Moe.

On the plane, I mentioned to one of the flight attendants, “I am flying with my little girl dog, Moe.  I want to make sure she makes it on the plane before we take off.”

“Of course!,” the flight attendant replied.  “I’ll announce it before we take off.”

I did not find this very comforting either.

A few minutes later, the first flight attendant ended her pre-flight information speech with, “Miss Moe is on board.”  Ahhh.

All of our parts were now moving in the right direction.

The flight was smooth, the drive was easy and the stop at the Wendy’s off the highway was a welcome chance for us to stretch our legs.  We made it to Big Nance’s house with just enough time for me to get her crate and our duffle bags up to the attic bedroom before the evening’s dinner event.

This was going according to plan.

Moe could not sleep too well – she ran up and down the bed intermittently throughout the night.  Thus I did not sleep too well.

Was she uneasy in the new place?  Did she miss Traveler?  Was she scared about the surgery?  Or could she intuit that I felt all of those things and she was reacting to me?

All of those were possible, the latter more likely than others.

The next morning we were both calmer.  A fitful night had tired both of us.

As I finished dressing to take Moe to the hospital, I looked down at her as I asked playfully, “Are you ready for your exam, Miss Moe? Tomorrow’s going to be a big day!"

She was calmly and daintily relaxed on the bed, looking at me intently with her sweet, round eyes.

Several moving parts would finally come to rest in their proper place.  She seemed to know that.  Or she knew that I did.

(To be continued next week...)

 

A Peephole, For Our Consideration

How many times have you gotten a peephole into a life choice that is not yours?  One you don’t necessarily covet or disdain.   Just another one.

Over the weekend, I spent some time with some couple friends; two beautiful, independent, capable and confident people who love each other very much and have done so for many years.

They are not married or bound by any socially conventional constructs.  They simply love each other.  And would rather be together than apart.   Their life is one.

Their relationship is just as you imagine you might like to feel someday.  If in a relationship.  Someday.

Glimpses into other life choices like that don’t necessarily call into question the life choices we are making, but they warmly, visibly remind us there are others to make.  And they may not be wrong or right for us.   They are just different.

And they still work.  They are still as marvelously fulfilling as are ours, and that is a good thing.  Even if they are not for us.  Even if the idea of applying them to our lives is a bit shocking to our sensibilities and expectations.

Almost a year ago, I received an e-mail from a family member who told me that a woman I have considered more-or-less as a godmother for my whole cognizant life had called her.  This functional godmother had told my blood relative that she envisioned me at en route to see my family, with my husband and the first of our two sons, within two years.

What?!!! 

Exactly.  That was my thought too.

But I love this godmother very much.  I haven’t seen her in more than 20 years, but I love her.  So I subdued the panic I felt when I first read this prognostication in an email from my blood relative on a lunch break from my job.

I coaxed that information into a loving, kind message that – in this godmother’s visions – I was on the right track.

And I questioned my source; the blood relative who conveyed my godmother’s prognostication has imagined me married and producing offspring since I was 20 years old.

She was deeply, tragically disturbed when I told her at the time I did not imagine marrying until my thirties.  When I said I did not think I would have the time to accomplish all that I wanted to do on my own until I had reached age 30 at least.

My godmother’s prognostication last year may not have been accurate at all – it was definitely filtered through a lens by which my relative had envisioned me married and pregnant since 15 years ago.

Therefore, it was somewhat easy to dismiss.

This was all my godmother’s loving message distorted by a relative who would say or do anything – even unwittingly – to convince me that her ideal life plan for me was the only way to go.

We don’t wish ill on anyone who makes those decisions that are not right for us and we don’t consider anyone else’s choices as inferior or less enlightened.  We just know, unconditionally and lovingly, that they are not ours.  Not now and maybe not ever.

At the same time, it does not make us a hypocrite to someday wish we had what those others have, despite our happiness.  It does not make us charlatans, no matter how purely and truly we believe in our life choices.

And it does not mean that whatever makes us happy and fulfills us now will always do so.

It simply means we are capable of evolving.  When we are ready.

It means we are more committed to having a fulfilling life than resisting change to defend “the principle of the matter.”

The principle changes.  The principle is each of us.  That is beautiful.

Evolution is a very, very good thing.  Standing by ideologies that no longer apply, just for the sake of being true to our ideology, will always hurt us more than it will ever help us.  Our fidelity to our ideology could betray your life of its substance.

Hiding behind whatever choices we are making because they are safer than risking hurt will eventually be more painful than not.

Not all relationships are perfect.  We know that.  Oh my, how we know that.

Many people hold onto fundamentally flawed relationships because they are afraid of being single.  Alone.  Regretful.  Disappointed with what they find behind their own conventionality veneer.

We know that too.

We also know how insulting it is for anyone to think that holding onto an empty, if not destructive, relationship is better than being single.

Whooo...that’s ridiculous.  And lonelier than any, any, anything else we can imagine.

Been there.  And as has anyone else who has visited the terrain, I promise, it’s much, much, much, soul-shatteringly worse.

To make your and your partner’s shared bed in the morning, feeling it’s a foreign land - knowing no love is made there anymore.   Knowing any utterances of love have become routine - more expected than felt.

Knowing you secretly fear that is the very best you will ever feel when you get down to the daily reality.  With that partner.  Or with any.

And we know how delicious it feels to be confidently single.   Proudly single.  Defiantly single.

But don’t fool yourself.  Please.

If you are defying what you really want, it will not ultimately work.

It’s not an accident that any of us are single.  It may or may not have been our choice to be so, but it is our choice to fill it out, to inhabit this place.  To milk it for every nourishing droplet we can ingest.  And to love it while we’re here.

If your choices are not right for you, for now or forever, honor that.  And if they are, honor that as well.

Have the strength and humility to let your heart engage in the discourse with your mind.  To change.  When you are ready.

On that night over the weekend when I peered through that peephole, into my couple friends’ life, what I saw gave me a lot to consider.

Just after I dropped them off, I noticed my “godmother” had e-mailed me.  This time, it was a new prognostication directly from her.  Without any of my relatives’ filter.

She e-mailed me that she thinks the man I am supposed to be with, my soulmate and I, are going to find each other “very, very soon.”  That we “are going to be madly, passionately, happily in love.”  And to “just let go...”

And she might be right.

And that does not mean I am any less happy, fulfilled or convinced that what I am doing is right for me right now.  It just means that all of that, of me, might change.  Evolve.  When I am ready.

And that might be a very, very good thing.

Just as it might be, whenever it is – in whatever form it takes  - for all of us.

 

The Doubt of the Benefit

Santa Monica is an odd little city, full of conventionalities and contradictions; within its 15.9 square miles, you can find some of the preppiest, white-picket-fenced nuclear families and some of the artiest, most alternative sorts - along with a noticeable number of mentally ill homeless wandering throughout.

This is the place that, in some quarters, looks like Mayberry.  In others, the stench of human waste and marijuana should not deceive you about the half-million dollar condo just inside the cinderblock walls.  In fact, you’d believe the homeowners if they told you that stench vouched for the condo’s value, for the block’s authenticity.

Permeating all quadrants, there is a peculiarly high concentration of very, very good-looking people.

In this bayside cherry the metropolitan Pac Man wants to gobble, you will find some of both the most benevolent and those most in need of charity.  On that, it is not unusual to find a benefit somewhere in the city on almost any night of the week.  Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, I attended one.

Don’t think posh hotel ballrooms, formal attire or engraved invitations – this one was at a newish vegan restaurant on a main thoroughfare through Santa Monica.  One that starts at the ocean and continues further east than anyone can specify.

The attire at this place is always come-as-you-are and the invitation was a text from my friend, Andie, at 5:09 p.m. that went a little something like this, “Hey hon! A gf of mine is doing a fundraiser for Oceana Guardians at Vegan Eden in Santa Monica tonight, so im having dinner there at 6:30 if u want to join!”

I had just come out of a yoga class a few blocks away from that restaurant and did not have anything on my agenda that was more pressing than a trip to the market to get some more detergent, toothpaste and take-out.  Oooh...sexy, I know.

Andie’s friends are the most interesting cross-section of people from her days as a financial analyst, her astrology studies in San Francisco, her business school in Los Angeles and her holistic lifestyles/social justice PR practice here in LA.  It is never, ever boring to be her guest.  Even if only for pizza and a movie on cable.

“I’d love that!  Thank you, Andie!,” I replied.

Andie and I arrived at the same time and noticed the queue that extended well outside Vegan Haven’s door – and nearly down the stairs in front of the restaurant.

“Mer should be really glad,” Andie said.  Her friend Meredith had planned the evening and it appeared to be a success; Vegan Haven earned some exposure with new patrons and the charity kept a portion of every dish the restaurant sold that night.  A win all around.

Over the next several minutes, the rest of Andie’s guests arrived.  “We” consisted of her British friends, the yoga instructor/interior designer and the astronomer; our mutual friend, the Buddhist intellectual property attorney; Andie and me.  We made for an animated discussion – or several of them, all taking place at the same time.

“Hey, Guys!,” Mer said as she gracefully dumped herself into the spare seat in our brightly colored vinyl booth for a breather.

“Well done!,” we all told her.

“This is a great crowd tonight.  Your charity should be very excited!,” said Andie.

Mer nodded happily.

She and I were scanning the crowd as the conversation picked up right where it had been when she joined us and both of us noticed the same person at the same time.

“Oh, my, my...,” I thought.  Young, slightly scruffy, fashion indifferent/accidentally stylish with, yes, surfer shag hair and, yes-oh-yes, very, very good-looking.

Mer and I met eyes with a surprised look of agreement.  Curiosity.

This was not really the time or place to do anything other than enjoy the conversation medley with our friends – but that newcomer, that man, was someone we tacitly agreed we’d like to know more about.  If the occasion arose.

A solid several minutes passed in our open-minded world aware discussions before I realized I had more or less forgotten about the blond stranger when he rounded the corner and started back toward our booth – and this time, he was very involved in a conversation.  Interesting.

As he passed us, Mer and I noticed he was also completely alone.  Without a mobile phone, an ear bud or any visible indication there was anyone listening to him.  He did not seem to realize this.

We watched expectantly as he passed us.

At that moment, Mer and I met eyes again in startled agreement.  “Hot or homeless?,” she asked calmly and coolly.

“That’s a very good question,” I answered with an awkward laugh.  These days, you never can be sure.  And most often, what’s it to you to give people the benefit of the doubt?

Unless the candidate for that doubt is wandering around the benefit, talking to himself.

In this odd little city full of conventionalities and contradictions, the arty couple may live in the clapboard cottage, the carpool mom and her family may live in the post-industrial loft, your tofu Buffalo Wings may have helped save a dolphin, your table’s multi-disciplinary conversation might inspire change in the way we study a spiral galaxy 50 million light years away...

...And that striking, slightly scruffy man who is passionately vested in his conversation right next to you might be 2013’s pop culture icon.  And/or he might be homeless.

 

Distilling the Pragmatism from the Nebula, Part III of III

That cycle is not simply futile, it’s destructive; the more times we repeat it, the less we believe the happiness we imagine is possible.  We start bartering down our expectations and settling for “Eh, that could work.”  That’s the rational thing to do.

Like many of us, I would convince myself the externalized trappings of the dream – the degree, the job, the partner by age 32, the baby...add on as applies to you – are what will make me happy.  Eventually, once we get well on our way to achieving those trappings, we find they come to symbolize our disillusionment.  It gets messy.

But what if we quiet our minds and listen to our dreams instead – about how we want to feel?  What if we stand underneath our cloud of dreams with our hands cupped to catch everything that condenses?

Let it distill out of our nebula, let it overflow our hands and rain all over us, washing us clean – and pushing our messy, splintery “Pragmatism” construct back out to sea.

What if we trust those dreams to guide us and see what solid sense we can make of them – instead of trying to shove those dreams into whatever sounds like the most sensible plan?

What if that horizon of heart/mind wholeness is inside of each of us and all we have to do is let it rain?  Let ourselves believe in what our mind sees when we are not consciously in charge.

It’s very likely we remember our dreams as children. We may also remember how proud we felt of ourselves when we became “sophisticated” enough to dismiss them.  A few of us may also remember the approximate time when we stopped remembering our dreams.

It’s very likely we remember when we started forgetting or discarding any information that did not fit into our box.

When we started feeling empowered that we can wake up, turn off the alarm and start our day with very little recall of everything we had seen the night before.

Perhaps we recall fragments throughout the day, or the week and it gives us pause, but not for long.

We quickly shake our head, straighten our posture, wince as we take another sip of our sour room temperature coffee and refocus on the task before us.

I read something over the weekend that is absurdly appropriate - Albert Einstein said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant; we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”[1]

Society does that and, as single women in our age group, we have to own up to being its accomplice.  The further along we get into our careers and our adulthood, the more we agree we need a “thicker skin,” we need to attend this seminar about our career strategy and to read that book about developing our professional network.

We need to hush the intuitive vision and manipulate it into a rationalized version.  A set of actionable goals that we think will enable us to achieve the success we want to see for ourselves - something that works.

We need to “get real” about the direction our life is going.  We need to stop dreaming.

Then we wake up in a job that is not fulfilling, or dating a partner who we don’t feel really gets us - who only sees us in a little box - or overcommitted to a series of committees and obligations that just don’t give us the time to find any peace.

Or worse – we have convinced ourselves that is the best we can expect.

Guess what?  We got what we asked for.

We have this moment right now – this immaculate moment when we are reduced to our elements – to look up to our dreams and to see what they have to say.

Not about the job, the house, the partner, the baby...not about the trappings, but about what they symbolize about how we want to feel in our life.

We have this moment to let that dictate our course of action.  We have this moment to let it rain.

 

 

 

---

[1] Smalley, S.L. & Winston, D.  (2010).  Fully Present, The Science, Art and Practice of Mindfulness.  New York: Da Capo Press. 

A guaranteed happy-maker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9hnbmml8fOY&hd=1

Distilling the Pragmatism from the Nebula, Part II of III

I’m a dreamer. Always have been and I like me that way.  As are probably many more of us than will so readily admit.

At the same time, one big, huge, chunky challenge I claimed as far back as high school was to make sure my important decisions checked off all of the boxes in the Sensible column.  To be rational.  Pragmatic.

I tried to hold onto my dreams, inventory and catalogue them, then deposit them in the nebula over my head.  That gorgeous cloud that holds in it everything perfect I have ever imagined.

That’s a sensible place to keep them, so I can grab those dreams as needed, I thought.

Then, in my early-to-mid twenties, I learned a sure-fire technique for making some big decisions, e.g. career choices, hair styles, relationship ventures, etc.; I would chop my lofty aspirations into solid, manageable deductions, bind them together with rational cohesion and hammer them in place with my piercing introspection.  Thus I would build the most perfectly beautiful, elegant, undeniable and indestructible box.

I would select my most intimidating and important goals, find a way to combine them that sounded like it fit and hammer them together with my own convictions.

Then I would return to my nebula of dreams of things that make me happy and try to coax it into my precious box.  Try to make those dreams fit into what sounded like the most practical, substantial plan for success and security – professional, financial, personal, etc...

Finally I would emblazon on the side of that box the word “Pragmatism” – this was my coup, my final dismissal of any lingering indecision - before hammering it shut and setting sail in search of the gratification that we are all certain awaits us just past that brilliant heart/mind fusion horizon.

I would try to force a gorgeous cloud into a box – and put all of my faith in that box as the way I would achieve all of the happiness to which I had ever aspired.

Yeah, we all know what would happen next.

My clean-burning commitment would fuel my embarkation well past the breakwater and into the open sea before I noticed my precious Pragmatism box was not seaworthy.

I had kept my head down and my eyes focused on getting out past the training, earning the credentials and all of the preamble, sailing headlong in the real deal before I noticed I was not happy.  Not at all, really.

I was stuck in a situation of my own creation that had taken a lot of work to build – and was not actually making me happy.  And my dream nebula was not in there with me.  And I could not breathe.

I’d lie in bed trying to force my deepest ujjayi breath, calling on every peaceful insight from a fourteenth-century Sufi poet/Panda Express fortune cookie saying that my ridiculously handsome blond yoga instructor with surfer-shag hair – God, how I still love that do – has imparted to close a yoga class.  With little success.

Ultimately, I’d realize the only way to get back in touch with my dreams, to reconnect with my nebula, was to break out of the box I’d built and swim back to shore.

All the way back, I’d mock my carefully composed vision statements.  My mantras I’d selected as my life rafts on this journey.  My hopeful moments when I thought I saw that horizon in the distance.

And I’d ignore my dream nebula in spite, to show it how hurt I was that it had not come along with me.

Finally, I’d arrive back where I started and say with a harrumph, “OK, whatever, let’s try this again.”

I’d stumble around, looking for those lofty aspirations I could cut down to size and start the process over.

Recently when I got back to the shore, exhausted and betrayed, I lay there for a moment to collect myself.  This time, I was authentically sad.  I’d built this beautiful, pragmatic plan.  Written off all other options and set sail, certain the best of my dream nebula would come along.  And it did not.

None of the things that would have made this plan so rewarding and fulfilling were going to be attainable until I’d survived the uncertain sea for a very, very long time.  The journey was not going to be fun.  My consciously-constructed dream was not going to come true.

“What now?,” I asked.  Do another pro/con list?  Write another vision statement?

Sure, I thought, I could do this and realized my regenerated passion would make all of this very exciting...

...But then I’d do as I have with every vision statement I have written – I’d decide I was having too much fun being dreamy and would look for something lofty, something really difficult – pie-in-the-sky challenging to do, but ultimately really practical and sexily sensible with the doors it would open for me – to bring it all back down to earth.

I would let my head trump my heart.  I would let my thoughts and words try to strong-arm my dreams.  Sound familiar?

 

(To be continued next week...)

Distilling the Pragmatism from the Nebula, Part I of III

What happens when you try to put a cloud into a box?  First and most obviously, it will not go.  No matter how well-built or strong that box may be, the cloud will not obey.

Clouds and dreams have that in common – clouds do not fit into a human-made structure and dreams do not fit into your reality.  Quite honestly, the reverse is true and we have to respect that.  This is one thing I have understood recently.

Dreaming is a one of the most curious activities – we know this.  It is, by its nature, a passive action – oxymoronic in name and result.

It is something you do.  You can’t stop it, you really cannot control it – or not as well as you can your actions when you are fully awake and cognizant.

It is not something you learn to do.  It just happens.  And has probably happened through your entire life, well before you could derive any meaning from your dreams or had any verbal proficiency to help you understand them.  To apply them to your reality.

You are and always have been the passive observer in a private screening of a film your own mind creates.

If that is not wild enough, think of all of the very determined actions some of those narratives may have inspired in your life.  Or throughout history, for that matter.

Then think of how we abuse that noble word and the mighty notion it represents.  We “dream up” things to do on our vacation, we have a “dream job” or we think an afternoon at the beach would be just “dreamy” – all of which are options we consciously decided are the best for us, weighed against all of the other options we considered.

To top that, we add insult to injury – yes, worsening the situation – by diminishing our dreams or using them as scapegoats for things our rational mind thinks we should not have done; “Ha!  Grow up and stop wasting your life chasing your silly dreams,” or “Shyeah...Like she’d go out with him.  Keep dreaming!”

This is a very mean way to treat one of the few constants we have in our lives.  One of our natural, spontaneous gifts endowed to each of us, regardless of our education, health or circumstances.

And we all do it.  Or most of us do.  We learn to dismiss or ridicule these precious windows to our horizon of consciousness where our heart and our mind connect into one pure, glowing whole.

Wow.  That is quite sad.

Ahem...getting back on point – We all have some pretty huge decisions to make, now and always.  The further along in life we get, in many cases the stakes get higher as well.

Mull this over - What would you say to letting our dreams guide us through some of the most important of them instead of trying to manipulate the take-aways from our dreams to fit into our over-rationalized intentions?

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

September 11, 2012

On September 11, 2001, I was sleeping when my frantic cousin called me and told me to turn on the television.  Some drunk or crazy pilot had flown a plane directly into the World Trade Center Towers.

“What?!,” I stammered.  That was the most absurd,horrible thing you could imagine, I thought.

I really did not believe her, so I grabbed my clicker to turn on the TV in just enough time to see the second plane hit the other tower.

Over the next several hours, days and weeks, those of us who were about as far away from New York City as you can get in the Lower 48 prayed, meditated and comforted each other.  We waited and waited for news about loved ones and friends.

Every few days, it seemed, my friends and I received an e-mail or a letter from our respective college, or campus organization or company listing our friends and our friends’ significant others who had perished in the attack.

But here, among my friends, it seemed like shock melted into denial, which hardened into a heavy, blunt assumption that where you had not heard anything, the worst case scenario has probably actualized.

A couple of years later, I was spending time in the copy room at work with my old friend, the printer/fax/scanner/copier and looked up to the cork board to see what jumped out at me.  To see if there was anything interesting to read to pass the time.  My eyes went straight to a newspaper clipping with an angel on it.

“An angel? In a company copy room?,” I thought.  “How odd – not so PC.  What is this?”

So I read.  And read.  And wept. It was a letter to America from Phillips 66 and I believe it ran in the New York Times in the first few days after September 11.  For many of us, no matter where you align yourself politically, I think it still resonates.

Thanks to a former coworker of mine who scanned and e-mailed it to me, the image is attached with this entry.  In case the image is not easily legible, the text is below.

__________________

Dear America,

May this letter find you in the warm embrace of each other.  To the weary heroes – the firefighters, police officers and volunteers at ground zero – we are with you.  Your courage and resilience have brought us all to tears more than once – along with millions of others who don’t even speak your language but who understand and feel your pain as if it were their own.  To you who have lost your fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, friends and relatives, we are silent with you.  May you feel our arms around youthis day and every other. To all of you who are carrying the weight of the world in your hearts, and still stare into the faces of fear and hatred and say, “You will never, ever win,” we are with you.  Your love is so strong. 

You should see the light burning in your hearts.

Sincerely,

The Angels who keep you

 

“Will Your Husband Be There?” - My Husband and His Home Improvement Projects, Part II of II

“I see. Thank you, but I am going to work with a different contractor.” I stated, flatly and plainly.

Click!

He hung up on me, not the other way around.

This contractor assumed I am married.  He persisted in insisting on meeting my husband, who may or may not exist, despite me telling him I make those decisions.  And he is the one who abruptly hung up.

This is one of those moments when you decide what feminism means to you.

If an employer, coworker, anyone in a position of authority, a friend or a relative holds you back, pigeon-holes you or undercuts your contributions due to your sex, yes, fight like hell. Remain focused and “choose thoughtfully that course which occasion and conscience demand.”[1]  That’s not what I’m addressing here.

On a much bigger scale, I’m asking if feminism means being angry with or exacting revenge upon any person who ever made you feel less-than?

Who ever made you feel like a man’s opinion must be the final word on a situation, no matter how educated you are?  No matter how much due diligence you have vested in the process?  No matter how much conviction and resonance you feel about your determination?

- Knowing fully well that this decision could gobble up a big portion of your bandwidth for the balance of your life, and could thus obligate you to spend a large amount of time filled with negative energy -

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if feminism means proving a point at all times, or if it means letting those who have hurt you or diminished the validity of your decisions render for themselves whatever karma they are due.

This is one of those moments when you have to decide if one hurtful victory, no matter how pithy or low, is more important - Or if you prioritize yourself, your peace of mind and your dignity ahead of such tiny wins...and let that person, male or female, ride out their lives with their own dysfunctional paradigm.

Do you “set the record straight,” or let them learn on their own?

At the market that evening, I was incredulous.  As my friend Jodie asked, “What was he thinking?  This is not the 1950’s, when the husband makes all of the decisions like that – even if you are married.”

“Right?,” I answered with a laugh.

“Whew...,” said Randy, a gentleman contractor I met that Friday, a new addition to the mix, as he shook his head and cautiously inhaled.  “If someone had said that to my fiancée, good night!  She would not hear of any of that.”

“Thanks, Randy,” I laughed.

As single women, if we want something done around our home, either we have to do it – or we have to engage the person who will.  I know many married women who would say the same.

It’s up to us and, in more cases than not, we probably do a great job.  We get it done.

Most of these projects become an educational opportunity - they may not go as well as planned, or they may go better.  Either way, we learn.

We learn about the pricing, the process, the supplies involved, the time it takes...and in my experience, I have met some pretty incredible people, most of them men.  They are experts in their field I know I can call again and to whom I can refer business, because they are knowledgeable, honest and respectful, and completed their work on time and on budget.

Maybe someday, if we want to get married, our husbands will handle those projects.  Go for it, Babe!

But isn’t it educational to handle these things on our own?  Possibly in many, many ways extending far beyond the project and its genesis.

Foremost among those is what we learn about ourselves and our own strength in that moment when we decided if we want to try to fix every person who insults or hurts us -- or turn our energy to fixing more important things like our driveway.

No, my husband will not be there.  Not this time.

---

[1] Howard, E.S.  (1904).  The Chi Omega Symphony.  Retrieved from: http://www.chiomega.com/press/about.aspx?item=media/AboutXO/G1_TheSymphony.xml

 

It’s summer, which we all know.  That means sun, perhaps a vacation, loud floral prints are in and peep-toe pumps are encouraged.  To me, that also means it’s project time.

The weather is permissive, unlike the snarky California autumn and the pushy winter that follows right behind, shoving you clear into January.

But also in the summer, it seems some things naturally go awry and you have to fix them.

The night I came home from Ohio in July, my garage door opener stopped working.  It lifted, but would not lower.

The only way to close the garage door was to stand on my ladder, pull the emergency release handle and then scramble to catch the falling door and gently lower it before it crashed to the ground.  Fun.

After I fell off the ladder onto my back, onto the unsympathetic concrete, and ran around my place uncertain if I should go to the doctors or take an aspirin and a really long shower, I decided I should address this opener situation the right way instead of improvising around it.

I did what I think most of us single women would do for things we cannot or do not want to handle completely on our own – researched garage door openers, shopped around for the most competitive price and combed through a few consumer-generated review websites to find the most competitive, competent installers.

Then I realized I had to clear away the brush in front of my place to comply with fire code...repair and reset a few things with my place’s security system... replace many of my light bulbs...clear away the magazines in my home office I will never read...purge my file cabinet of papers I no longer need and reorganize the papers that I do...finally order new chains from which the lanterns in my backyard hang - the ones that become sacrifices to the gardening chores on the summer’s “To Do” list – etc, etc...

This list continued growing until I committed to sitting down and drawing out the complete tabulation of projects from large to small.  So small, you usually do not include them, because you know you will never have the time to address them.

One of those items has to do with the potholes on my driveway – yes, the same potholes I cold-patched by myself three years ago, if you read and recall the “Handy” series.

However this time, this project could be quite a bit larger and it’s a late-comer.  One of those, “Well, if I’m taking care of all of this, why not add that to the list as well?”

Makes sense.

So again, I did what I think any of us would do – unless you already know someone who is an expert in whatever you need done.

I researched my options and what the pricing should be and then started researching the contractors with the best consumer reviews.

By the middle of last week, I had narrowed the list and had a pretty good sense for the options to fix my problem and the contractors available.

At the same time I was not shocked to receive a call from a new candidate on Thursday morning.

“Hello?,” I answered.

“Hello, is Paige there?”

“Yes, this is she.”

“Hi, Paige.  I am Dell from Shovan-Isto Construction.  I would like to come out to you to take a look at the project and give you an estimate.”

“Thanks, Dell, but I think I know who I am going to hire.”

“OK, but we are in your area anyway.  It’s no trouble to come by.  I’d really like to see if we can be competitive with what the other firms have bid. We can be there at 1 or 4.”

I agreed to meet them at 4 p.m. with thanks.

And at 3:56 p.m. I was still a couple of miles from my place, so I called.

“Hello, Shovan-Isto Construction.  How can I help you?,” a man answered.

“Hi.  This is Paige and I am your 4 p.m., but I am still about five minutes away.”

“Don’t worry, Honey,” he replied.  “The estimator got there a few minutes ago and no one was home, so I told him to go get some food.”

We agreed he’d be back to my home in half an hour and all was well.

“Honey, are you married?,” he asked, just before we hung up.

“I’m sorry – Why?,” I asked.

“Because before we agree to do any projects, we want to talk to the husband too,” he said.  “Will your husband be there?”

“OK.   Well, I am the only one who will be there and I am taking care of this project,” I answered, a little taken aback.

“I understand,” he softly balked.  “We just usually prefer to speak to the husband and the wife.”

“Fine, but I am the one who makes the spending decisions in this household, so I am the one with whom you want to speak,” I said kindly, but matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but we will want to speak to your husband before we move ahead with any projects.”

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

If you could be one bumper sticker, what would you say?  If you had to sum up your whole life and everything you stand for into one message, what would it be?

Do you ever find yourself stuck in traffic behind a car whose backside is covered in stickers?  As you brake into place behind them, you think, “Heh.  This is going to be fun…What is that important that you need to ruin the paint on your car to express it?”

By the time you have come to a full stop behind that car, your eyes are overwhelmed by the colors, your brain is overcome with the messages and you are a bit insulted.  There is something on there to offend everyone – their intelligence, their lifestyle choices, their values…

Along with a cross, a peace sign, an Om – pick any religious or ideological symbol.  A symbol that could buffer the offense you could take to all of the other stickers, but it doesn’t.  Instead, that symbol compounds those other stickers’ ridiculousness and by insulting the belief system or ideology that symbol represents.

At the least, you have to think that person is passionate.  Perhaps a bit overwhelmed by their own passion, but still passionate.

You have to think they must have started with one.  One clear message that resonated within them.  That one thing they wanted to tell the whole world.  Or the whole world who reads their rear bumper.

And then maybe they found another sticker – something that represents what they felt was consistent with the position represented by the first sticker, but that second sticker made the point even more clearly or forcefully.

Or the position that second sticker represents is a natural match to position represented by the first sticker.

OK.  We can all get that.  We’ve been there.

And maybe we even get the third sticker.  Especially if the third sticker is a symbol and not a position piece.  Fine.

But you have to ask, “What were they thinking?” when they applied stickers 4 through 37?

Yikes.

Did they still think they were doing their causes any favors?  Or did they do it on purpose?  Did they intentionally combine several conflicting perspectives, and caustic expressions thereof, just to irk everyone else who does earnestly believe in at least one of those causes?

We all know a few people who would do that.  The people who value a good kerfuffle more than any accord or tolerance.

Pretend that is not what you want to do.  Pretend you want one message.  One living epitaph that tells the world everything you want everyone to know about you.

Not everything about you.  That’s too much information.

One message that tells the world, “Hey, you!  When you step on the gas pedal after this light, this is what I want you to take with you.  This is what I want you to remember.”

Is it kind?  Is it loving?  Is it inspirational?  Is it insulting to everyone who does not agree with you?  Or is it self-righteous?  Or pseudo-intellectual?

Is it non-verbal, e.g. a peace sign or an Om - something that is open to interpretation?  Very progressive of you.

Or is it your alma mater, your company, your sorority?

Is it a permanent manifesto, a due comeuppance for someone specific who hurt you?  Someone whose hurtful legacy will always be on the back of your car, wherever you go?

Or is it forgiveness?

Is it a cause?  A quote from Shakespeare or Einstein?  A picture? A joke?  A New Yorker cartoon?

Try it.  Design your “you” bumper sticker.

Write out what you would be on a 3-in-by-12-in strip of adhesive-backed polyvinyl chloride.  No more and no less.

Then for a week, or however long you want, remember, write down or take a quick mobile phone camera picture of the top five you see.  The top five that you know will stay with you.

Be careful about it, but post them on here, or e-mail them to me if you want.  Or keep them for yourself.

What does each show you about the person inside?

From time to time, I see one that makes me laugh, that makes me cry or that makes me really, really angry…and then I see one that is perfect.

A few weeks ago, I was coming back from a walk.  A long walk I took by myself, cup of coffee in hand, and I saw one that silenced all of the noise in my mind.  That took me to that peaceful, fulfilled place.

That is the kind of reaction you’re after.  What is the one thing you want the world to remember about you as that light changes and your rear bumper disappears into the distance?

...Anyone else with me?  (Read the caption).

Retrieved from:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151120267368254&set=a.100690783253.87226.80329313253&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

 

We have all written and/or received Thank You notes.  Some of us have probably written and/or received a Thank You note for the Thank You note we have written and/or received.  It’s happened.

Thank You notes are a very civilized tradition that is really very simple.

Someone does something nice for you, e.g. gives you a gift, or lets you stay in their home when you are in town, or invites you to an incredible party.  Something like that.

You may give them a gift in return, or bring a gift with you when you stay with them, or send one ex post facto.  Those are all very nice gestures.  

However, just as “the pen is mightier than the sword”[1] in resolving any conflicts, so too is it a more powerful way of expressing gratitude.  Or so many of us were taught.

A gift requires creativity and generosity, but it does not have to.  You can remember their favorite delicacy and send for a box, just as you can simply bring an item any sensible person would appreciate.

Those coasters will look beautiful on that person’s coffee table for years to come.  Just as they will on his, and hers and everyone else’s.  Everyone likes coasters.

In either of those cases, you would have done a very nice thing.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

In contrast, a Thank You note is a living animal you have to wrangle.

Doing so requires careful composition, some pre-planning.

Are you going to use tact for the gift or favor rendered unto you – whether or not you are really all that glad about it – or are you going for exuberance?

If it’s too generic and blah, the sentiment sits there like a sleeping Sheep Dog.  Too many exclamation points and your recipient will not be able to read fast enough to shut up that Chihuahua of a note.

Do you go for formal and uber polite, very penguinlike, or do you throw a joke in there?  The former is a safe way to go, but the latter can be endearing.  Just as it can get inappropriately jokey and the note screams silly otter.

Do you tap into something emotional?  Something nostalgic, uplifting, or loving.  Something that could make that note look like a runaway pony...

“Where are you going with this?...And how the hell are you going to bring it back around in on the space alloted on this tiny piece of stationery?,” you, and your readers, might ask.

Or – uh-oh - are you going to have an “Oh, my God!” huge cuddly bear revelation moment when you recognize how much this person means to you at the same time as the words are flowing from your pen?  And you start crying, smudge the whole letter and have to start again?

We’ve all been there.

Uh...right?

And how do you handle days when your handwriting is not optimal or when you notice misspellings?  Perfectionist’s nightmares!

Do you rewrite the whole thing, as any purist would, or do you hope no one will notice?

Do you try to cover your spelling errors by playing some optical tricks, e.g. discretely inserting the missing letter/letters – or letting the letters adjacent expand to absorb the letter you should not have written?

Eek – or do you cross it out?

Or do you try all of the above, notice it looks horrible, then tear it into successively smaller pieces to offset your aggression as you finally confront that you would have saved yourself at least a few minutes if you’d just started over from the get-go?

And once you have made it through all of that drama, a final taunting challenge is the closing.  Is this a “Sincerely” kind of note?  A “Love?”  A “Love and thanks?”  A playful “xoxo?”  The wrong closing could change the whole character of this note, leaving it mocking you like an evil hienna.

You imagine your recipient’s face twist in curiousity and disappointment as they get to the bottom, then toss that carefully worded note you recopied two or three times in the trash in an awkward, “What else am I going to do with it?” moment.

Horrible.

All you want to do is to thank the people who have done something kind for you.  To show them how much their gesture, or -  if you are close enough -  on a larger scale, how much they meant to you.

That expression and authenticity are wonderful.  Both as we write and as our recipients read our writing, we have an opportuntiy to isolate ourselves in a lovely shared moment when both parties are focused on each other.  On their gratitude.

People who can do that eloquently, succinctly and naturally are an anomaly to most of us Thank You note goons.  And why do all of them have perfect handwriting?  Baffling.  Awe-inspiring.

A few years ago, my brother Pat and I gave our niece and nephew each a personalized box of pre-formatted Thank You notes.  They were amazing!  Each went something like this:

 

Dear  __________, Thank you very much for the __________.  It’s great!  That was very nice of you. From,  ________

 

Amazing.

That, right there, is the whole essence of the note.  That is all you have to write.  But rarely is it all you do write.

And even if you develop a comfortable template you can use for all the notes you have to write for the same occasion, you still have to find the right balance of everything. You still have to create the template and coax it into shape.

Over the weekend, I was at a small function with some friends with whom I had been at another small function the weekend prior.  Yes, almost all of us had written our Thank You notes.  Except...ahem...a couple of us.

That couple of us have written each other so many Thank You notes, we have a verbal and many-time repeated pact never to write each other another Thank You note again.

Until one of us writes the other a Thank You note.

We two were sitting next to each other, going over the notes we wanted to write for the prior weekend’s event until one of us said to the other in dismay, “Oh my God, and I still owe you a note for the picnic at the end of last weekend!”

“Oh, Honey, I still owe you a note for the brunch the weekend before,” that person answered with a quick dismissal.

Huh.

“You know what?,” the more resourceful of the two said.  “Why don’t we just look each other in the eye and say ‘Thank you’ and that will be fine?”

“Oooh...that is the best idea!,” I said.  “We’ll just do that and be done with it.”

At that, we looked each other in the eye with a smile and said “Thank you.”

“Wait, you can do that?,” our friend Phil asked.  “Is that Emily Post or something?  Did your grandmother’s teach you that?...Is it proper ettiquette?”

Phil was concerned.

“Eh,” we both answered, staring toward the sunset in cool cowgirl confidence.  “It’s enough for us.”

One less occasion to wield that mighty, mighty pen.

One less living animal to tame.

 

---

[1] [1] Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1st Baron Lytton.  (1839).  Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books/about/Richelieu_or_The_conspiracy.html?id=LqcOAAAAIAAJ

Between topics, we would lie quietly for a few minutes, hoping one of us would come up with something to say.  Every now and then, Nancy would break into an awkwardly hopeful, “Te-he, I just love you, Paigey,” and she would pat my hand from over on her side of the bed.

“I love you too, Miss Nancy,” I would reply and give her hand a soft squeeze.

This continued for what seemed to be 45 minutes at least until suddenly, a creative impulse...

“Miss Nancy!,” I said with a start, “Tell me about your Academy Awards!  You know, the ones you won for that murder mystery series.”

Big Nance had studied theater in school, as had I, but she was accepted into a prestigious dramatic arts academy in New York City.  Her true love, Papa, was at war and she wanted to be at home when he returned.  That was much more important to her than any aspirations to be a movie star.

“What, te-he?,” she asked nervously, which is her way of saying, “Are you flipping insane?”

“Remember?  The murder mystery series?  Those five movies?  Did you know you were going to win?”

“Ohhhh...those...He-he...No, I had no idea.”

“But even after your first three Oscars for the first three films, didn’t you sort of expect you would win for the other two?”

“No, Paigey.  You know how it is – You just never know about those sorts of things.  I was surprised each time,” she said with a downturn in her voice, as if to imply she wanted to change the subject back to something “real.”  I might have been freaking her out.

“I loved your acceptance speeches.  I’ve seen each one in your video files,” I said, disregarding her downturn.

Wait for it...

“Oh yes, of course.” she affirmed.  “Well, I was just so flattered each time.”

Game on.

“Now, Nancy, tell me about your first husband – you know, the Czechoslovakian film-maker who fell in love with you when he saw your screen test when you were at the dramatic arts academy in New York.”

“Huh?...Oh, yes, him!,” she giggled like a fairy.

“What was his name again?”

“Happy Cornfeather,” she replied without hesitation.

“Happy Cornfeather?,” I asked her with a surprised laugh.

Where did that come from?

“Yes, Happy.  We had the neatest apartment in Greenwich Village.”

“You did?,” I squeeled.  This make-believe love story sounded very hip for its time.

“Yes, it was the cutest, arty little place.”

“Wow,” I replied.  “That’s right, you had a very BoHo lifestyle together, didn’t you?”

“But I knew he wasn’t for me,” she replied, sweeping right past my question.  “I always knew it was Papa.  That’s why I had to go to China.”

“You did?,” I asked - Translation: “Where the heck is this going?  And where did that come from?”

“Yes, to Beijing, where I met my second husband,” she said.

Boom.  She was into it.

“Wha...?  Your second husband?”

“Yes.  He was a film maker in China and we had the most beautiful place in Beijing.”

O-h-m-y-G-o-d.  This is amazing!

“Huh.  No kidding, Nance.  But tell me about Papa – Didn’t he go right over there to get you back?”

“Oh, yes he did,” Big Nance replied with a chuckle.

“Tell me – What did he say to you again?  I love this story.”

If you cannot guess it already, I was expecting one of her vignettes in which Papa tells her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and he would love her forever...That’s a logical expectation based on a lifetime of precedent.

“Well he barged right into our apartment and he said, ‘Nance, what are you doing?”

“What?  He was angry?”

“Oh-ho-ho yes, he was!  He screamed, ‘I can’t believe you, moving all the way over here – It’s like I don’t even know you!’”

“Huh?”

“Yes.  Oh, Paigey, you should have heard him.  He was so mad.  He said, ‘Nance, what has gotten into you?  This is not the girl I know!,’ and he marched right out of there.”

“He did?,” I asked, a bit incredulous.

Yes, this is complete fiction.  Yes, I am the one who started it - And yes, I am the one who continued escalating the ridiculousness, notch by notch....But no, that is not Papa’s style – Not with all of the grand and lovely professions of eternal adoration I had heard were typical of him.

“Well, I knew what I had to do,” she stated with complete conviction.  “Frank was the love of my life and that was it.  So I packed up my things and was on the first plane back to America.”

“That’s right,” I supplemented.

OK, we’re back on the familiar narrative path But the detour was fun.

“And what did Papa say when you got home?”

“Oh, he took me in his arms and said...” (Insert profession of eternal adoration).

Big Nance and I spent two nights that way, improvising our own funny narrative about her life.  Not about my cousin’s babies, my brother’s return from Colorado, the weather, Moe, Traveler...Not about anything normal.

On one our nights with roughing it with minimal electricity, I had some things to do on my laptop and she was ready for sleep.  I asked her permission to sit on the chaise lounge over in the corner with the lights off so I would not disturb her.  My computer screen would provide enough light.

“Sure, Doll Baby,” she agreed, as she turned off the lights and nestled into bed.  She focused her eyes on the ceiling above her.

“Thank you, Miss Nancy.  But I don’t need to be quiet while I’m working on this,” I said.  “Please, tell me some stories about Papa.”

“Haha...Sure, Honey. What do you want to hear?,” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Anything you want to tell me.  Tell me something I have not heard before.”

“Alright,” she acquiesced as she refocused on the ceiling while she jogged her mind.

She then adjusted her pillow so she could comfortably look my direction while still lying down and provided as agreed – She told me a few stories I had never heard; a couple about high school and one or two about coming home from the war.  Interesting stories.

To all of them there was one consistent theme, “Well Frank was just so completely in love with me, as I was with him, that he did not know what to do with himself...”

“I know, Miss Nancy,” I replied as I smiled.

And in every story, their love and loyalty triumphed over everything.

Several minutes later, Big Nancy was asleep and I was still working on my computer.  I looked up for a minute to crystallize a thought and noticed how the fan perched on the dainty vanity stool halfway between the chaise and the bed gently blew the lace canopy framing Miss Nancy, isolating her in a comfortably cool breeze in that still, muggy house.

I noticed how much I love and gratitude I have for my grandmother.

You can’t plan those things – But this was not an accident.  None of this trip was.

Every day of the trip except for surgery day, I went visited Miss Moe for an hour, give or take.  It seemed much safer and kinder to keep my sweet fuzzy patient at the air conditioned hospital with doctors onsite 24 hours each day. 

The other option was to take her back to the Queen Mum’s house without any guarantee the air conditioning would work and hope she could handle the shock from her surgery in a stifling menagerie of nosy, playful household pets she had never seen.  That did not seem fair.

Dr. M and the surgeon dutifully answered all of my questions each time I visited the hospital and Moe provided the entertainment.

You would expect Moe would be a little shaky about walking again and this is when you would be incorrect.  This is when you would come to understand how painful her hip must have been before the surgery.

She did not understand any of this “take it easy” business – She wanted to run!  And jump!  And play!  And no...Not yet.

Fortunately the flight home was uneventful.  Moe’s brief exam the next morning by the local surgeon I liked the most was very positive; she did not loosen any of her stitches while in transit.

In fact, the doctor came to speak with me after looking at her to express his astonishment at how well she was doing so soon after a surgery of that magnitude.

Yes, thank goodness, everything was going according to plan.

A week or so after returning, my friend Chevy came over for dinner and to help me take my dogs for a walk – Traveler on his leash and Moe in her stroller. Trav needed some bonding time with a fellow man’s man and Moe is still not allowed to walk very far.

We sat at my kitchen table after the walk, musing how lucky it was that everything came together – considering how many things could have gone awry - and I felt Traveler’s warm belly shake gently with his midsection was draped over my foot.  He was snoring peacefully.

I looked under the table to check on both dogs and to make sure Moe was comfortable as well, that she did not have her tender new hip cocked at an odd angle.

No, they were both fine and they were spooning.  Things were as they should be.  After this peculiar odyssey, everything was once again normal.

Duty to my animals inspired the trip.  The opportunity to enjoy 10 days with my grandmother without anything else on her typically busy calendar designated the precise place and time.  The storm, the power outage, the heat, the laughter, my professional in-betweenness and every other moving part brought all circumstances together to create a perfect trip.

Everything went according to plan – actually, better.  Unplannably better.  And in retrospect, you have to laugh at yourself for wondering why all of life can’t be that easy.

 

That morning, the surgeon and Dr.s K, L and M on the surgeon’s team cleared Miss Moe for surgery as planned.  That would have been special, had she any rashes or impediments to proceeding with the operation.

“You can come to visit her every day if you want,” said Dr. M, “Except for tomorrow.  But don’t worry – I will send you at least three texts a day with updates.”

To my great relief, she kept her word.

“Pretty lady is sitting comfortably – I will call you shortly to update you : ),” she texted at 4:47 p.m. on surgery day.

When Dr. M called a few minutes later, she reported that Moe was being lovely and calm and "taking it all in." However, they put the cone on her head to be sure she could not gnaw at her stitches.  She was not happy with this.

At 8:35 p.m., Dr. M texted, “Everything went beautifully – we can go over it tomorrow but here’s her beautiful hip,” and attached Moe’s x-ray.

Dr. M confirmed she was a little slow that evening, but happily wagging her tail.  She attached this picture that, of course, I promptly posted on a social networking page.  One of my friends said it best -“Those eyes tell the story, happy she is fine!”

But another of my personal favorites was this comment, “Yeah!!! Bionic Moe!”   

Indeed.  My little girl doggie would be fully restored in no time.  She never seems to lose her sense of humor or her keen deductive capabilities. 

When Dr. M and I spoke a few minutes later that night, she told me Moe had been making noise with her cone that evening, so she walked over to look in on Moe. Maybe she wants attention? Maybe she misses her brother Traveler?...

When MoeMoe saw the doctor's feet standing in front of her crate, she stopped making noise and turned her head down as if she realized, 'Uh-oh...busted."

The doctor then said when she talked to Moe and "tried to reason with her" and Moe seemed rational and receptive.   Much more so than she was when the surgeon had tried baby talking to her earlier that day.  She does not take well to baby talk – Nor should she.

The next day, day one post-surgery, Big Nance and I stopped by the veterinary hospital to visit Miss Moe on our way out to the lake.  It was Friday and we would be at the lake all weekend with various cousins.  Big Nancy and I wanted to give her a hug before leaving.

We spent almost an hour with her and as we left, I told Dr. M we would be at the lake until Tuesday, but I would come back on Sunday to visit.

The most frightening part of the duty portion to this trip was behind us.  Now it was time for the pleasure element.

Ahh...Everything was going according to plan.

Again - Ha ha ha.

The sky was bright, but hazy when we arrived at the lake at around 2:30 p.m.  Two or three hours later, the sky was grey, it was raining and the swells in the lake were as high as I have ever seen them.

Growing up, there was a huge storm at the lake every summer that seemed to happen the week we were there.  Better yet, it oddly happened the afternoon we all took the boat to the ice cream parlor at the end of the lake – the one that banned my great grandfather after he thought it would be delightfully funny to release the ducks my mother and her siblings had won at the sweet corn festival into the parlor to fly around.

The family who owns the ice cream parlor did not see it that way.

But ohhhhh, my!  Big Nancy would tell us that story every year as we sat in the booth at the parlor, savoring our annual treat.  She would take tiny bites of ice cream, pause to fan her closed mouth with her finger tips – as if that would offset the ice cream’s biting coldness – then start giggling like a Munchkin as she recapped the Poppy story.

We would sit there trying to imagine ducks flying through this sweets sanctuary.  To us, the ice cream cone murals that you’d ballpark from their “renovation” in the 1950’s were the frescoes in our Sistine Chapel and the wax sundaes perched on the shelves above might as well have been the Creation of Man statue.  You imagine they had not been dusted since opening day.

By the time we returned home from the parlor, we would find the storm had knocked out the power to everyone around the lake and we would have to play Monopoly by flashlight.

“That’s great,” I thought with a smile as I walked around downstairs this year, looking at the furious storm outside and recalling all of those quirky evenings.  “It’s uncanny to be here for storm night again, but I hope everyone can get here safely.”

In line with precedent, this year’s storm took out all of the power and plumbing at the lake house.  It was 95-degrees outside and we had five family members coming in for dinner from a couple of different directions.  We improvised and finished dinner on the gas grill.

“That goodness we could look forward to going back to town tomorrow,” we thought.

One more time....Ha ha ha.

"The big storm” every year disabled power service to many households around the lake. It’s pretty rural out there.  But in town, people usually did not have a problem.

Hmm...not so fast.  This year’s storm left over 500,000 households in the state without power.  That meant the lake and most of the city.  That meant Federal Disaster Declaration.

Everyone else got this memo before we.  As the Queen Mum and I drove back into town, I called every hotel in the downtown area and wouldn’t you know it, but every hotel within eight miles of downtown was booked.  Solid.  No dice.

Even the athletic club’s tiny rooms were booked.

This is when the pleasure element to this trip started to require some ingenuity.

Big Nance’s home is an older house – beautifully restored, but certain things like air circulation are not optimal.  A handyman Big Nance engaged was able to start her emergency generator to provide power to two rooms; the kitchen, so we had a refrigerator and a microwave – Big Nance does not cook either - and her room, so we could plug in a fan.

That was it.  It was approximately 70 degrees at the lowest and we had air circulation in one room – Big Nance’s bedroom.  Heat rises and despite the fan in her room, it still felt like 80-some degrees.  Staying in the attic bedroom one floor above would have been very, very poor decision.

“Miss Nancy,” I said to the Queen Mum, “the attic room is sweltering and there is not any air in the guestroom over here.  May I crash with you tonight?  Just until we get the air back on?”

“Of course, Sweetheart,” she allowed.

That evening is when I realized my grandmother is addicted to the news and to Lifetime Movie Network.  We could turn on the lights, the fan and the TV, but the latter did not do much for us without the cable.

Even with the fan, it was still too uncomfortably warm to sleep right away.  She had two or three DVD’s and I picked up four more at Target, but did not have any idea how to make her DVD player talk to her TV with her elaborate cable box configuration.

Every 10 minutes or so, Big Nance would hopefully turn on the TV to see if cable was restored.

“Oh my God, what are we going to do?,” I thought in a near panic.

This was not, not, not going according to plan.

We talked about my grandfather, we had a couple of laughs...and then what?

We talked about my cousin’s babies, my brother moving back from Colorado... and then what?

We talked about brave little Moe and her sweet brother Traveler...and then what?

We had quickly exhausted every single topic either one of us was prepared to discuss in that distracting heat...and then what?

(To be continued next week...)

The last thing we needed to confirm before committing to Moe’s hip surgery/our visit to the Queen Mum in the Midwest was the timing.

Haven’t you found at least once or twice, the minute or so after you commit to an ideal strategy, you awaken to everything that successful execution will entail?

...The Queen Mum/Big Nance planned to leave town at the beginning of the second week in July and I could stay with her until then…

...I wanted to spend some quality time with my glorious grandmother – that was part of the reason I chose this surgeon - and she was really the only family member who would have the peaceful space and time for Moe, her crate, me and our schedule...

...Big Nance’s home was an easy shot down the highway from the animal hospital, so this was logistically sound.  I could get to and from the hospital as necessary...

...The airline said they will allow Moe to fly after her surgery, as long as her surgeon signs off on it...

... The lab technician in the surgeon’s office said it would not be in Moe’s best interest to fly until a good week after the surgery - the doctor would want to examine her on day seven and make sure she looked strong and healthy enough to fly.  But flying before then was a bit premature and unsafe...

…I.e. no sign-off, no flying home, until day seven post-operation.  Understood.

All of this meant her surgery would have to be the last week in June.  That way, she would have a full week to recover in the Midwest and achieve the surgeon’s approval to fly, we would have a place to stay, I could visit Big Nance and we could clear out before she had to leave town.  Simple enough in theory.

But what that meant in practice was each step on this plan’s continuum depended on successfully arranging for the steps before it.  There was not a way to navigate around any of this not going – Exactly – according to plan.

And the surgeon was away and would not return until that last week in June.  His surgery slate was full that week.

Hmm…not good.

Perhaps he could work us into his schedule?  Hoping, hoping, hoping...

Yes, the lab technician confirmed, the surgeon would make room in his schedule for Moe, her hips and me.

L-o-v-e love the surgeon, the lab technician and everyone at that animal hospital.

We would fly in on a Tuesday, go in to the see the surgeon for the pre-operation exam on Wednesday and her surgery would be first thing on Thursday.

  If all went well, the surgeon would clear her to fly the following Thursday.  From departure to return, this whole trip would take 10 days.

Yes, the most crucial things were set; the surgery date, accommodations for Moe and me while there, the airline’s approval to fly. 

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

MoeMoe is a 60-pound dog.  Several airlines allow you to fly with a dog weighing 17 pounds or less, as long as you keep them in a travel bag that meets certain specifications and fits under the seat.  Right.  Not Moe.

Of the airlines that will allow larger animals as cargo, none fly directly into the city where we needed to go.  We could change planes anywhere from Dallas-Fort Worth to Dulles in Greater Washington, D.C., but we could not fly straight into our destination city.

I did not want to risk traumatizing Moe during a plane change. Worse yet, I did not want to run any chance the airlines would lose her, i.e. literally misplace her.  It happens.

Thus, the only option that seemed safe was to pick the closest hub city to our destination, arrange for a rental car there and drive the 2.5 hours to our destination city.

With the airline and flight selected, I had to find the travel crate that meets all of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) specifications.  This is a bit trickier than it seems – a few manufacturers claim their crates are IATA approved, but IATA does not endorse or lend its name to any specific products.

This meant doing some rather detailed research into various crates, calling the airline, bouncing back and forth for a couple of hours and re-iterating the whole schpiel to at least four people at the airline until, at last, one airline representative confirmed that yes, the crate I just described will be approved.

That was fun.

Fortunately, while on the phone with the last airline rep, I googled something I had seen while on hold for the first 35 minutes in order to ask that last airline rep a question.  To my surprise, the first google hit was not what I wanted, but it was a page advertising an “IATA Kit.”

Yes, as it sounds, this is a box of goodies that you actually need to have in order to be approved to fly – which includes a specific kind of bolt that you must use to assemble the travel crate.

Wouldn’t it be great to get every detail in place, having spent hours on hold with the airline to do so, order the new crate and assemble it only to arrive at the airport and find you cannot fly on your intended travel date, thus cannot arrive in time for the intended surgery date, all because you do not have the special IATA doohickey?

Hmm…not good.

I nearly wept envisioning it.

“Peg,” I asked the fourth airline rep, “I know you approved the crate I just described, but I just found a page selling an IATA Kit with a few extra items it says any airline will require.  Should I buy this as well?”

Yes, Peg agreed I should order the kit.

Breathe.

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

Next, I needed to research car rental companies.  I would need a car the whole 10 days I was there so we could pick it up in the hub city, cozy Moe into her crate in order to cruise to our destination city and freely transport her around town as needed for check-ups with the surgeon.

This required another couple of hours on hold with the car rental company until a kind representative assured me the mid-size SUV would be large enough.  And yes, they could arrange to meet me at the airport, even though the website said I would need to shuttle to the off-site car pick-up location.

Eh.  I was not too confident in that assurance.  This is where Saint Matthew, location manager at that rental car company’s office at our hub airport, came into the picture.  We phone tagged each other for a couple of days until at last I reached him with a nice suggestion, i.e. a bribe.

“Matthew, I taking my sweet dog for hip replacement surgery in the Midwest.  We are flying into the airport your office services.  ‘We’ are one 60-pound dog, a four-foot by two-foot, by two-foot crate, two duffle bags and me.  We will not fit on your courtesy shuttle.”

“No, Miss, you will not.”

“And we cannot guarantee we can find a taxi van at the airport that could fit us and not charge a fortune for the quick trip to your office.”

“No, Miss, you can’t.”

Hmm…Not good.

“Right.  But let’s say I offer to treat us both to lunch en route from the airport to your office.  Will you pick us up at the baggage claim in our rental car?”

Matthew agreed, but said lunch was not necessary.

At this point, I had spent hours on hold, developed two new friendships with Peg and Matt, arranged for the plane, the car and the crate.  Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

“Paige, you really should get Moe a Thundershirt,” my brother Pat suggested.

“A what?”

“It’s a thing that wraps around them and basically hugs them to calm them down.  It naturally sedates them.”

“Oh...good idea.”

For 2.5 weeks, I had made sure to spend a few minutes every day explaining to Moe and Traveler, her brother dog, that Moe and I were going to take a special trip to fix her hip.  That Traveler would stay at his favorite kennel.  That I would sent Trav to the kennel with his sister’s blankie and would use Trav’s blankie as the one thing I could enclose in Moe’s crate for the flight.  That we would be apart 10 quick days, and then we would all be together.

Again, Moe and T are non-verbal and I know this.  However, they are very intuitive.

But Pat was right, those talks still would not help her with her anxiety about being in the cargo hold on a plane with strangers.

The Thundershirt, the new crate and the orthopedic dog pillow all arrived a week before our travel date.  This gave us some time for Moe to become familiar with her new outfit, her new abode and her new bed.

The day before we left, she was comfy and calm, Traveler acted a bit clingy – which he does when he knows I am leaving in a couple of days – and I was exhausted.

When the taxi arrived at 4 a.m. on travel day, we were ready.  Sort of.

We got to the airline’s live animal cargo drop-off at 4:30 a.m., right when they opened.  The staff at the airline desk was not exactly as spry as were we.  We’ve all been there.

They were kind, but still somewhat asleep, i.e. not very reassuring.

It took 30 minutes to check in Miss Moe, because the airline rep kept losing my credit card, my paperwork, her LA vet's release form, the “Live Animal” stickers I showed him I had already adhered to her crate and a few other things - but by 5 a.m., we were ready.

“Go ahead, Ma’am,” the rep said, smiling in what seemed like relief that we had checked her in.  “Everything is fine.”

I looked down at sweet Moe, swaddled in her shirt and zip-tied into her crate that was sitting in the middle of the waiting area among the other human passengers checking in their pet.

Hmm…not good, not good, not good.

I said politely, “No, I am going to wait until you move her back to the secured area for loading.”

“Oh!,” he replied with a giggle.  “Of course.  Here we go.” And away rolled Miss Moe.

On the plane, I mentioned to one of the flight attendants, “I am flying with my little girl dog, Moe.  I want to make sure she makes it on the plane before we take off.”

“Of course!,” the flight attendant replied.  “I’ll announce it before we take off.”

I did not find this very comforting either.

A few minutes later, the first flight attendant ended her pre-flight information speech with, “Miss Moe is on board.”  Ahhh.

All of our parts were now moving in the right direction.

The flight was smooth, the drive was easy and the stop at the Wendy’s off the highway was a welcome chance for us to stretch our legs.  We made it to Big Nance’s house with just enough time for me to get her crate and our duffle bags up to the attic bedroom before the evening’s dinner event.

This was going according to plan.

Moe could not sleep too well – she ran up and down the bed intermittently throughout the night.  Thus I did not sleep too well.

Was she uneasy in the new place?  Did she miss Traveler?  Was she scared about the surgery?  Or could she intuit that I felt all of those things and she was reacting to me?

All of those were possible, the latter more likely than others.

The next morning we were both calmer.  A fitful night had tired both of us.

As I finished dressing to take Moe to the hospital, I looked down at her as I asked playfully, “Are you ready for your exam, Miss Moe? Tomorrow’s going to be a big day!"

She was calmly and daintily relaxed on the bed, looking at me intently with her sweet, round eyes.

Several moving parts would finally come to rest in their proper place.  She seemed to know that.  Or she knew that I did.

(To be continued next week...)

 

“Will Your Husband Be There?” - My Husband and His Home Improvement Projects, Part I of II

It’s summer, which we all know.  That means sun, perhaps a vacation, loud floral prints are in and peep-toe pumps are encouraged.  To me, that also means it’s project time.

The weather is permissive, unlike the snarky California autumn and the pushy winter that follows right behind, shoving you clear into January.

But also in the summer, it seems some things naturally go awry and you have to fix them.

The night I came home from Ohio in July, my garage door opener stopped working.  It lifted, but would not lower.

The only way to close the garage door was to stand on my ladder, pull the emergency release handle and then scramble to catch the falling door and gently lower it before it crashed to the ground.  Fun.

After I fell off the ladder onto my back, onto the unsympathetic concrete, and ran around my place uncertain if I should go to the doctors or take an aspirin and a really long shower, I decided I should address this opener situation the right way instead of improvising around it.

I did what I think most of us single women would do for things we cannot or do not want to handle completely on our own – researched garage door openers, shopped around for the most competitive price and combed through a few consumer-generated review websites to find the most competitive, competent installers.

Then I realized I had to clear away the brush in front of my place to comply with fire code...repair and reset a few things with my place’s security system... replace many of my light bulbs...clear away the magazines in my home office I will never read...purge my file cabinet of papers I no longer need and reorganize the papers that I do...finally order new chains from which the lanterns in my backyard hang - the ones that become sacrifices to the gardening chores on the summer’s “To Do” list – etc, etc...

This list continued growing until I committed to sitting down and drawing out the complete tabulation of projects from large to small.  So small, you usually do not include them, because you know you will never have the time to address them.

One of those items has to do with the potholes on my driveway – yes, the same potholes I cold-patched by myself three years ago, if you read and recall the “Handy” series.

However this time, this project could be quite a bit larger and it’s a late-comer.  One of those, “Well, if I’m taking care of all of this, why not add that to the list as well?”

Makes sense.

So again, I did what I think any of us would do – unless you already know someone who is an expert in whatever you need done.

I researched my options and what the pricing should be and then started researching the contractors with the best consumer reviews.

By the middle of last week, I had narrowed the list and had a pretty good sense for the options to fix my problem and the contractors available.

At the same time I was not shocked to receive a call from a new candidate on Thursday morning.

“Hello?,” I answered.

“Hello, is Paige there?”

“Yes, this is she.”

“Hi, Paige.  I am Dell from Shovan-Isto Construction.  I would like to come out to you to take a look at the project and give you an estimate.”

“Thanks, Dell, but I think I know who I am going to hire.”

“OK, but we are in your area anyway.  It’s no trouble to come by.  I’d really like to see if we can be competitive with what the other firms have bid. We can be there at 1 or 4.”

I agreed to meet them at 4 p.m. with thanks.

And at 3:56 p.m. I was still a couple of miles from my place, so I called.

“Hello, Shovan-Isto Construction.  How can I help you?,” a man answered.

“Hi.  This is Paige and I am your 4 p.m., but I am still about five minutes away.”

“Don’t worry, Honey,” he replied.  “The estimator got there a few minutes ago and no one was home, so I told him to go get some food.”

We agreed he’d be back to my home in half an hour and all was well.

“Honey, are you married?,” he asked, just before we hung up.

“I’m sorry – Why?,” I asked.

“Because before we agree to do any projects, we want to talk to the husband too,” he said.  “Will your husband be there?”

“OK.   Well, I am the only one who will be there and I am taking care of this project,” I answered, a little taken aback.

“I understand,” he softly balked.  “We just usually prefer to speak to the husband and the wife.”

“Fine, but I am the one who makes the spending decisions in this household, so I am the one with whom you want to speak,” I said kindly, but matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but we will want to speak to your husband before we move ahead with any projects.”

 

(To be continued next week...)

 

Your Rear Bumper’s Message to the World

If you could be one bumper sticker, what would you say?  If you had to sum up your whole life and everything you stand for into one message, what would it be?

Do you ever find yourself stuck in traffic behind a car whose backside is covered in stickers?  As you brake into place behind them, you think, “Heh.  This is going to be fun…What is that important that you need to ruin the paint on your car to express it?”

By the time you have come to a full stop behind that car, your eyes are overwhelmed by the colors, your brain is overcome with the messages and you are a bit insulted.  There is something on there to offend everyone – their intelligence, their lifestyle choices, their values…

Along with a cross, a peace sign, an Om – pick any religious or ideological symbol.  A symbol that could buffer the offense you could take to all of the other stickers, but it doesn’t.  Instead, that symbol compounds those other stickers’ ridiculousness and by insulting the belief system or ideology that symbol represents.

At the least, you have to think that person is passionate.  Perhaps a bit overwhelmed by their own passion, but still passionate.

You have to think they must have started with one.  One clear message that resonated within them.  That one thing they wanted to tell the whole world.  Or the whole world who reads their rear bumper.

And then maybe they found another sticker – something that represents what they felt was consistent with the position represented by the first sticker, but that second sticker made the point even more clearly or forcefully.

Or the position that second sticker represents is a natural match to position represented by the first sticker.

OK.  We can all get that.  We’ve been there.

And maybe we even get the third sticker.  Especially if the third sticker is a symbol and not a position piece.  Fine.

But you have to ask, “What were they thinking?” when they applied stickers 4 through 37?

Yikes.

Did they still think they were doing their causes any favors?  Or did they do it on purpose?  Did they intentionally combine several conflicting perspectives, and caustic expressions thereof, just to irk everyone else who does earnestly believe in at least one of those causes?

We all know a few people who would do that.  The people who value a good kerfuffle more than any accord or tolerance.

Pretend that is not what you want to do.  Pretend you want one message.  One living epitaph that tells the world everything you want everyone to know about you.

Not everything about you.  That’s too much information.

One message that tells the world, “Hey, you!  When you step on the gas pedal after this light, this is what I want you to take with you.  This is what I want you to remember.”

Is it kind?  Is it loving?  Is it inspirational?  Is it insulting to everyone who does not agree with you?  Or is it self-righteous?  Or pseudo-intellectual?

Is it non-verbal, e.g. a peace sign or an Om - something that is open to interpretation?  Very progressive of you.

Or is it your alma mater, your company, your sorority?

Is it a permanent manifesto, a due comeuppance for someone specific who hurt you?  Someone whose hurtful legacy will always be on the back of your car, wherever you go?

Or is it forgiveness?

Is it a cause?  A quote from Shakespeare or Einstein?  A picture? A joke?  A New Yorker cartoon?

Try it.  Design your “you” bumper sticker.

Write out what you would be on a 3-in-by-12-in strip of adhesive-backed polyvinyl chloride.  No more and no less.

Then for a week, or however long you want, remember, write down or take a quick mobile phone camera picture of the top five you see.  The top five that you know will stay with you.

Be careful about it, but post them on here, or e-mail them to me if you want.  Or keep them for yourself.

What does each show you about the person inside?

From time to time, I see one that makes me laugh, that makes me cry or that makes me really, really angry…and then I see one that is perfect.

A few weeks ago, I was coming back from a walk.  A long walk I took by myself, cup of coffee in hand, and I saw one that silenced all of the noise in my mind.  That took me to that peaceful, fulfilled place.

That is the kind of reaction you’re after.  What is the one thing you want the world to remember about you as that light changes and your rear bumper disappears into the distance?

Been giggling about this for two whole days...

...Anyone else with me?  (Read the caption).

Retrieved from:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151120267368254&set=a.100690783253.87226.80329313253&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

 

The Thank You Note, a Living Animal

We have all written and/or received Thank You notes.  Some of us have probably written and/or received a Thank You note for the Thank You note we have written and/or received.  It’s happened.

Thank You notes are a very civilized tradition that is really very simple.

Someone does something nice for you, e.g. gives you a gift, or lets you stay in their home when you are in town, or invites you to an incredible party.  Something like that.

You may give them a gift in return, or bring a gift with you when you stay with them, or send one ex post facto.  Those are all very nice gestures.  

However, just as “the pen is mightier than the sword”[1] in resolving any conflicts, so too is it a more powerful way of expressing gratitude.  Or so many of us were taught.

A gift requires creativity and generosity, but it does not have to.  You can remember their favorite delicacy and send for a box, just as you can simply bring an item any sensible person would appreciate.

Those coasters will look beautiful on that person’s coffee table for years to come.  Just as they will on his, and hers and everyone else’s.  Everyone likes coasters.

In either of those cases, you would have done a very nice thing.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

In contrast, a Thank You note is a living animal you have to wrangle.

Doing so requires careful composition, some pre-planning.

Are you going to use tact for the gift or favor rendered unto you – whether or not you are really all that glad about it – or are you going for exuberance?

If it’s too generic and blah, the sentiment sits there like a sleeping Sheep Dog.  Too many exclamation points and your recipient will not be able to read fast enough to shut up that Chihuahua of a note.

Do you go for formal and uber polite, very penguinlike, or do you throw a joke in there?  The former is a safe way to go, but the latter can be endearing.  Just as it can get inappropriately jokey and the note screams silly otter.

Do you tap into something emotional?  Something nostalgic, uplifting, or loving.  Something that could make that note look like a runaway pony...

“Where are you going with this?...And how the hell are you going to bring it back around in on the space alloted on this tiny piece of stationery?,” you, and your readers, might ask.

Or – uh-oh - are you going to have an “Oh, my God!” huge cuddly bear revelation moment when you recognize how much this person means to you at the same time as the words are flowing from your pen?  And you start crying, smudge the whole letter and have to start again?

We’ve all been there.

Uh...right?

And how do you handle days when your handwriting is not optimal or when you notice misspellings?  Perfectionist’s nightmares!

Do you rewrite the whole thing, as any purist would, or do you hope no one will notice?

Do you try to cover your spelling errors by playing some optical tricks, e.g. discretely inserting the missing letter/letters – or letting the letters adjacent expand to absorb the letter you should not have written?

Eek – or do you cross it out?

Or do you try all of the above, notice it looks horrible, then tear it into successively smaller pieces to offset your aggression as you finally confront that you would have saved yourself at least a few minutes if you’d just started over from the get-go?

And once you have made it through all of that drama, a final taunting challenge is the closing.  Is this a “Sincerely” kind of note?  A “Love?”  A “Love and thanks?”  A playful “xoxo?”  The wrong closing could change the whole character of this note, leaving it mocking you like an evil hienna.

You imagine your recipient’s face twist in curiousity and disappointment as they get to the bottom, then toss that carefully worded note you recopied two or three times in the trash in an awkward, “What else am I going to do with it?” moment.

Horrible.

All you want to do is to thank the people who have done something kind for you.  To show them how much their gesture, or -  if you are close enough -  on a larger scale, how much they meant to you.

That expression and authenticity are wonderful.  Both as we write and as our recipients read our writing, we have an opportuntiy to isolate ourselves in a lovely shared moment when both parties are focused on each other.  On their gratitude.

People who can do that eloquently, succinctly and naturally are an anomaly to most of us Thank You note goons.  And why do all of them have perfect handwriting?  Baffling.  Awe-inspiring.

A few years ago, my brother Pat and I gave our niece and nephew each a personalized box of pre-formatted Thank You notes.  They were amazing!  Each went something like this:

 

Dear  __________, Thank you very much for the __________.  It’s great!  That was very nice of you. From,  ________

 

Amazing.

That, right there, is the whole essence of the note.  That is all you have to write.  But rarely is it all you do write.

And even if you develop a comfortable template you can use for all the notes you have to write for the same occasion, you still have to find the right balance of everything. You still have to create the template and coax it into shape.

Over the weekend, I was at a small function with some friends with whom I had been at another small function the weekend prior.  Yes, almost all of us had written our Thank You notes.  Except...ahem...a couple of us.

That couple of us have written each other so many Thank You notes, we have a verbal and many-time repeated pact never to write each other another Thank You note again.

Until one of us writes the other a Thank You note.

We two were sitting next to each other, going over the notes we wanted to write for the prior weekend’s event until one of us said to the other in dismay, “Oh my God, and I still owe you a note for the picnic at the end of last weekend!”

“Oh, Honey, I still owe you a note for the brunch the weekend before,” that person answered with a quick dismissal.

Huh.

“You know what?,” the more resourceful of the two said.  “Why don’t we just look each other in the eye and say ‘Thank you’ and that will be fine?”

“Oooh...that is the best idea!,” I said.  “We’ll just do that and be done with it.”

At that, we looked each other in the eye with a smile and said “Thank you.”

“Wait, you can do that?,” our friend Phil asked.  “Is that Emily Post or something?  Did your grandmother’s teach you that?...Is it proper ettiquette?”

Phil was concerned.

“Eh,” we both answered, staring toward the sunset in cool cowgirl confidence.  “It’s enough for us.”

One less occasion to wield that mighty, mighty pen.

One less living animal to tame.

 

---

[1] [1] Bulwer-Lytton, E., 1st Baron Lytton.  (1839).  Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books/about/Richelieu_or_The_conspiracy.html?id=LqcOAAAAIAAJ

The Queen Mum, Dog Hips and 95 Degrees, Part IV of IV

Between topics, we would lie quietly for a few minutes, hoping one of us would come up with something to say.  Every now and then, Nancy would break into an awkwardly hopeful, “Te-he, I just love you, Paigey,” and she would pat my hand from over on her side of the bed.

“I love you too, Miss Nancy,” I would reply and give her hand a soft squeeze.

This continued for what seemed to be 45 minutes at least until suddenly, a creative impulse...

“Miss Nancy!,” I said with a start, “Tell me about your Academy Awards!  You know, the ones you won for that murder mystery series.”

Big Nance had studied theater in school, as had I, but she was accepted into a prestigious dramatic arts academy in New York City.  Her true love, Papa, was at war and she wanted to be at home when he returned.  That was much more important to her than any aspirations to be a movie star.

“What, te-he?,” she asked nervously, which is her way of saying, “Are you flipping insane?”

“Remember?  The murder mystery series?  Those five movies?  Did you know you were going to win?”

“Ohhhh...those...He-he...No, I had no idea.”

“But even after your first three Oscars for the first three films, didn’t you sort of expect you would win for the other two?”

“No, Paigey.  You know how it is – You just never know about those sorts of things.  I was surprised each time,” she said with a downturn in her voice, as if to imply she wanted to change the subject back to something “real.”  I might have been freaking her out.

“I loved your acceptance speeches.  I’ve seen each one in your video files,” I said, disregarding her downturn.

Wait for it...

“Oh yes, of course.” she affirmed.  “Well, I was just so flattered each time.”

Game on.

“Now, Nancy, tell me about your first husband – you know, the Czechoslovakian film-maker who fell in love with you when he saw your screen test when you were at the dramatic arts academy in New York.”

“Huh?...Oh, yes, him!,” she giggled like a fairy.

“What was his name again?”

“Happy Cornfeather,” she replied without hesitation.

“Happy Cornfeather?,” I asked her with a surprised laugh.

Where did that come from?

“Yes, Happy.  We had the neatest apartment in Greenwich Village.”

“You did?,” I squeeled.  This make-believe love story sounded very hip for its time.

“Yes, it was the cutest, arty little place.”

“Wow,” I replied.  “That’s right, you had a very BoHo lifestyle together, didn’t you?”

“But I knew he wasn’t for me,” she replied, sweeping right past my question.  “I always knew it was Papa.  That’s why I had to go to China.”

“You did?,” I asked - Translation: “Where the heck is this going?  And where did that come from?”

“Yes, to Beijing, where I met my second husband,” she said.

Boom.  She was into it.

“Wha...?  Your second husband?”

“Yes.  He was a film maker in China and we had the most beautiful place in Beijing.”

O-h-m-y-G-o-d.  This is amazing!

“Huh.  No kidding, Nance.  But tell me about Papa – Didn’t he go right over there to get you back?”

“Oh, yes he did,” Big Nance replied with a chuckle.

“Tell me – What did he say to you again?  I love this story.”

If you cannot guess it already, I was expecting one of her vignettes in which Papa tells her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and he would love her forever...That’s a logical expectation based on a lifetime of precedent.

“Well he barged right into our apartment and he said, ‘Nance, what are you doing?”

“What?  He was angry?”

“Oh-ho-ho yes, he was!  He screamed, ‘I can’t believe you, moving all the way over here – It’s like I don’t even know you!’”

“Huh?”

“Yes.  Oh, Paigey, you should have heard him.  He was so mad.  He said, ‘Nance, what has gotten into you?  This is not the girl I know!,’ and he marched right out of there.”

“He did?,” I asked, a bit incredulous.

Yes, this is complete fiction.  Yes, I am the one who started it - And yes, I am the one who continued escalating the ridiculousness, notch by notch....But no, that is not Papa’s style – Not with all of the grand and lovely professions of eternal adoration I had heard were typical of him.

“Well, I knew what I had to do,” she stated with complete conviction.  “Frank was the love of my life and that was it.  So I packed up my things and was on the first plane back to America.”

“That’s right,” I supplemented.

OK, we’re back on the familiar narrative path But the detour was fun.

“And what did Papa say when you got home?”

“Oh, he took me in his arms and said...” (Insert profession of eternal adoration).

Big Nance and I spent two nights that way, improvising our own funny narrative about her life.  Not about my cousin’s babies, my brother’s return from Colorado, the weather, Moe, Traveler...Not about anything normal.

On one our nights with roughing it with minimal electricity, I had some things to do on my laptop and she was ready for sleep.  I asked her permission to sit on the chaise lounge over in the corner with the lights off so I would not disturb her.  My computer screen would provide enough light.

“Sure, Doll Baby,” she agreed, as she turned off the lights and nestled into bed.  She focused her eyes on the ceiling above her.

“Thank you, Miss Nancy.  But I don’t need to be quiet while I’m working on this,” I said.  “Please, tell me some stories about Papa.”

“Haha...Sure, Honey. What do you want to hear?,” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Anything you want to tell me.  Tell me something I have not heard before.”

“Alright,” she acquiesced as she refocused on the ceiling while she jogged her mind.

She then adjusted her pillow so she could comfortably look my direction while still lying down and provided as agreed – She told me a few stories I had never heard; a couple about high school and one or two about coming home from the war.  Interesting stories.

To all of them there was one consistent theme, “Well Frank was just so completely in love with me, as I was with him, that he did not know what to do with himself...”

“I know, Miss Nancy,” I replied as I smiled.

And in every story, their love and loyalty triumphed over everything.

Several minutes later, Big Nancy was asleep and I was still working on my computer.  I looked up for a minute to crystallize a thought and noticed how the fan perched on the dainty vanity stool halfway between the chaise and the bed gently blew the lace canopy framing Miss Nancy, isolating her in a comfortably cool breeze in that still, muggy house.

I noticed how much I love and gratitude I have for my grandmother.

You can’t plan those things – But this was not an accident.  None of this trip was.

Every day of the trip except for surgery day, I went visited Miss Moe for an hour, give or take.  It seemed much safer and kinder to keep my sweet fuzzy patient at the air conditioned hospital with doctors onsite 24 hours each day. 

The other option was to take her back to the Queen Mum’s house without any guarantee the air conditioning would work and hope she could handle the shock from her surgery in a stifling menagerie of nosy, playful household pets she had never seen.  That did not seem fair.

Dr. M and the surgeon dutifully answered all of my questions each time I visited the hospital and Moe provided the entertainment.

You would expect Moe would be a little shaky about walking again and this is when you would be incorrect.  This is when you would come to understand how painful her hip must have been before the surgery.

She did not understand any of this “take it easy” business – She wanted to run!  And jump!  And play!  And no...Not yet.

Fortunately the flight home was uneventful.  Moe’s brief exam the next morning by the local surgeon I liked the most was very positive; she did not loosen any of her stitches while in transit.

In fact, the doctor came to speak with me after looking at her to express his astonishment at how well she was doing so soon after a surgery of that magnitude.

Yes, thank goodness, everything was going according to plan.

A week or so after returning, my friend Chevy came over for dinner and to help me take my dogs for a walk – Traveler on his leash and Moe in her stroller. Trav needed some bonding time with a fellow man’s man and Moe is still not allowed to walk very far.

We sat at my kitchen table after the walk, musing how lucky it was that everything came together – considering how many things could have gone awry - and I felt Traveler’s warm belly shake gently with his midsection was draped over my foot.  He was snoring peacefully.

I looked under the table to check on both dogs and to make sure Moe was comfortable as well, that she did not have her tender new hip cocked at an odd angle.

No, they were both fine and they were spooning.  Things were as they should be.  After this peculiar odyssey, everything was once again normal.

Duty to my animals inspired the trip.  The opportunity to enjoy 10 days with my grandmother without anything else on her typically busy calendar designated the precise place and time.  The storm, the power outage, the heat, the laughter, my professional in-betweenness and every other moving part brought all circumstances together to create a perfect trip.

Everything went according to plan – actually, better.  Unplannably better.  And in retrospect, you have to laugh at yourself for wondering why all of life can’t be that easy.

 

The Queen Mum, Dog Hips and 95 Degrees, Part III of IV

That morning, the surgeon and Dr.s K, L and M on the surgeon’s team cleared Miss Moe for surgery as planned.  That would have been special, had she any rashes or impediments to proceeding with the operation.

“You can come to visit her every day if you want,” said Dr. M, “Except for tomorrow.  But don’t worry – I will send you at least three texts a day with updates.”

To my great relief, she kept her word.

“Pretty lady is sitting comfortably – I will call you shortly to update you : ),” she texted at 4:47 p.m. on surgery day.

When Dr. M called a few minutes later, she reported that Moe was being lovely and calm and "taking it all in." However, they put the cone on her head to be sure she could not gnaw at her stitches.  She was not happy with this.

At 8:35 p.m., Dr. M texted, “Everything went beautifully – we can go over it tomorrow but here’s her beautiful hip,” and attached Moe’s x-ray.

Dr. M confirmed she was a little slow that evening, but happily wagging her tail.  She attached this picture that, of course, I promptly posted on a social networking page.  One of my friends said it best -“Those eyes tell the story, happy she is fine!”

But another of my personal favorites was this comment, “Yeah!!! Bionic Moe!”   

Indeed.  My little girl doggie would be fully restored in no time.  She never seems to lose her sense of humor or her keen deductive capabilities. 

When Dr. M and I spoke a few minutes later that night, she told me Moe had been making noise with her cone that evening, so she walked over to look in on Moe. Maybe she wants attention? Maybe she misses her brother Traveler?...

When MoeMoe saw the doctor's feet standing in front of her crate, she stopped making noise and turned her head down as if she realized, 'Uh-oh...busted."

The doctor then said when she talked to Moe and "tried to reason with her" and Moe seemed rational and receptive.   Much more so than she was when the surgeon had tried baby talking to her earlier that day.  She does not take well to baby talk – Nor should she.

The next day, day one post-surgery, Big Nance and I stopped by the veterinary hospital to visit Miss Moe on our way out to the lake.  It was Friday and we would be at the lake all weekend with various cousins.  Big Nancy and I wanted to give her a hug before leaving.

We spent almost an hour with her and as we left, I told Dr. M we would be at the lake until Tuesday, but I would come back on Sunday to visit.

The most frightening part of the duty portion to this trip was behind us.  Now it was time for the pleasure element.

Ahh...Everything was going according to plan.

Again - Ha ha ha.

The sky was bright, but hazy when we arrived at the lake at around 2:30 p.m.  Two or three hours later, the sky was grey, it was raining and the swells in the lake were as high as I have ever seen them.

Growing up, there was a huge storm at the lake every summer that seemed to happen the week we were there.  Better yet, it oddly happened the afternoon we all took the boat to the ice cream parlor at the end of the lake – the one that banned my great grandfather after he thought it would be delightfully funny to release the ducks my mother and her siblings had won at the sweet corn festival into the parlor to fly around.

The family who owns the ice cream parlor did not see it that way.

But ohhhhh, my!  Big Nancy would tell us that story every year as we sat in the booth at the parlor, savoring our annual treat.  She would take tiny bites of ice cream, pause to fan her closed mouth with her finger tips – as if that would offset the ice cream’s biting coldness – then start giggling like a Munchkin as she recapped the Poppy story.

We would sit there trying to imagine ducks flying through this sweets sanctuary.  To us, the ice cream cone murals that you’d ballpark from their “renovation” in the 1950’s were the frescoes in our Sistine Chapel and the wax sundaes perched on the shelves above might as well have been the Creation of Man statue.  You imagine they had not been dusted since opening day.

By the time we returned home from the parlor, we would find the storm had knocked out the power to everyone around the lake and we would have to play Monopoly by flashlight.

“That’s great,” I thought with a smile as I walked around downstairs this year, looking at the furious storm outside and recalling all of those quirky evenings.  “It’s uncanny to be here for storm night again, but I hope everyone can get here safely.”

In line with precedent, this year’s storm took out all of the power and plumbing at the lake house.  It was 95-degrees outside and we had five family members coming in for dinner from a couple of different directions.  We improvised and finished dinner on the gas grill.

“That goodness we could look forward to going back to town tomorrow,” we thought.

One more time....Ha ha ha.

"The big storm” every year disabled power service to many households around the lake. It’s pretty rural out there.  But in town, people usually did not have a problem.

Hmm...not so fast.  This year’s storm left over 500,000 households in the state without power.  That meant the lake and most of the city.  That meant Federal Disaster Declaration.

Everyone else got this memo before we.  As the Queen Mum and I drove back into town, I called every hotel in the downtown area and wouldn’t you know it, but every hotel within eight miles of downtown was booked.  Solid.  No dice.

Even the athletic club’s tiny rooms were booked.

This is when the pleasure element to this trip started to require some ingenuity.

Big Nance’s home is an older house – beautifully restored, but certain things like air circulation are not optimal.  A handyman Big Nance engaged was able to start her emergency generator to provide power to two rooms; the kitchen, so we had a refrigerator and a microwave – Big Nance does not cook either - and her room, so we could plug in a fan.

That was it.  It was approximately 70 degrees at the lowest and we had air circulation in one room – Big Nance’s bedroom.  Heat rises and despite the fan in her room, it still felt like 80-some degrees.  Staying in the attic bedroom one floor above would have been very, very poor decision.

“Miss Nancy,” I said to the Queen Mum, “the attic room is sweltering and there is not any air in the guestroom over here.  May I crash with you tonight?  Just until we get the air back on?”

“Of course, Sweetheart,” she allowed.

That evening is when I realized my grandmother is addicted to the news and to Lifetime Movie Network.  We could turn on the lights, the fan and the TV, but the latter did not do much for us without the cable.

Even with the fan, it was still too uncomfortably warm to sleep right away.  She had two or three DVD’s and I picked up four more at Target, but did not have any idea how to make her DVD player talk to her TV with her elaborate cable box configuration.

Every 10 minutes or so, Big Nance would hopefully turn on the TV to see if cable was restored.

“Oh my God, what are we going to do?,” I thought in a near panic.

This was not, not, not going according to plan.

We talked about my grandfather, we had a couple of laughs...and then what?

We talked about my cousin’s babies, my brother moving back from Colorado... and then what?

We talked about brave little Moe and her sweet brother Traveler...and then what?

We had quickly exhausted every single topic either one of us was prepared to discuss in that distracting heat...and then what?

(To be continued next week...)

The Queen Mum, Dog Hips and 95 Degrees, Part II of IV

The last thing we needed to confirm before committing to Moe’s hip surgery/our visit to the Queen Mum in the Midwest was the timing.

Haven’t you found at least once or twice, the minute or so after you commit to an ideal strategy, you awaken to everything that successful execution will entail?

...The Queen Mum/Big Nance planned to leave town at the beginning of the second week in July and I could stay with her until then…

...I wanted to spend some quality time with my glorious grandmother – that was part of the reason I chose this surgeon - and she was really the only family member who would have the peaceful space and time for Moe, her crate, me and our schedule...

...Big Nance’s home was an easy shot down the highway from the animal hospital, so this was logistically sound.  I could get to and from the hospital as necessary...

...The airline said they will allow Moe to fly after her surgery, as long as her surgeon signs off on it...

... The lab technician in the surgeon’s office said it would not be in Moe’s best interest to fly until a good week after the surgery - the doctor would want to examine her on day seven and make sure she looked strong and healthy enough to fly.  But flying before then was a bit premature and unsafe...

…I.e. no sign-off, no flying home, until day seven post-operation.  Understood.

All of this meant her surgery would have to be the last week in June.  That way, she would have a full week to recover in the Midwest and achieve the surgeon’s approval to fly, we would have a place to stay, I could visit Big Nance and we could clear out before she had to leave town.  Simple enough in theory.

But what that meant in practice was each step on this plan’s continuum depended on successfully arranging for the steps before it.  There was not a way to navigate around any of this not going – Exactly – according to plan.

And the surgeon was away and would not return until that last week in June.  His surgery slate was full that week.

Hmm…not good.

Perhaps he could work us into his schedule?  Hoping, hoping, hoping...

Yes, the lab technician confirmed, the surgeon would make room in his schedule for Moe, her hips and me.

L-o-v-e love the surgeon, the lab technician and everyone at that animal hospital.

We would fly in on a Tuesday, go in to the see the surgeon for the pre-operation exam on Wednesday and her surgery would be first thing on Thursday.

  If all went well, the surgeon would clear her to fly the following Thursday.  From departure to return, this whole trip would take 10 days.

Yes, the most crucial things were set; the surgery date, accommodations for Moe and me while there, the airline’s approval to fly. 

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

MoeMoe is a 60-pound dog.  Several airlines allow you to fly with a dog weighing 17 pounds or less, as long as you keep them in a travel bag that meets certain specifications and fits under the seat.  Right.  Not Moe.

Of the airlines that will allow larger animals as cargo, none fly directly into the city where we needed to go.  We could change planes anywhere from Dallas-Fort Worth to Dulles in Greater Washington, D.C., but we could not fly straight into our destination city.

I did not want to risk traumatizing Moe during a plane change. Worse yet, I did not want to run any chance the airlines would lose her, i.e. literally misplace her.  It happens.

Thus, the only option that seemed safe was to pick the closest hub city to our destination, arrange for a rental car there and drive the 2.5 hours to our destination city.

With the airline and flight selected, I had to find the travel crate that meets all of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) specifications.  This is a bit trickier than it seems – a few manufacturers claim their crates are IATA approved, but IATA does not endorse or lend its name to any specific products.

This meant doing some rather detailed research into various crates, calling the airline, bouncing back and forth for a couple of hours and re-iterating the whole schpiel to at least four people at the airline until, at last, one airline representative confirmed that yes, the crate I just described will be approved.

That was fun.

Fortunately, while on the phone with the last airline rep, I googled something I had seen while on hold for the first 35 minutes in order to ask that last airline rep a question.  To my surprise, the first google hit was not what I wanted, but it was a page advertising an “IATA Kit.”

Yes, as it sounds, this is a box of goodies that you actually need to have in order to be approved to fly – which includes a specific kind of bolt that you must use to assemble the travel crate.

Wouldn’t it be great to get every detail in place, having spent hours on hold with the airline to do so, order the new crate and assemble it only to arrive at the airport and find you cannot fly on your intended travel date, thus cannot arrive in time for the intended surgery date, all because you do not have the special IATA doohickey?

Hmm…not good.

I nearly wept envisioning it.

“Peg,” I asked the fourth airline rep, “I know you approved the crate I just described, but I just found a page selling an IATA Kit with a few extra items it says any airline will require.  Should I buy this as well?”

Yes, Peg agreed I should order the kit.

Breathe.

Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

Next, I needed to research car rental companies.  I would need a car the whole 10 days I was there so we could pick it up in the hub city, cozy Moe into her crate in order to cruise to our destination city and freely transport her around town as needed for check-ups with the surgeon.

This required another couple of hours on hold with the car rental company until a kind representative assured me the mid-size SUV would be large enough.  And yes, they could arrange to meet me at the airport, even though the website said I would need to shuttle to the off-site car pick-up location.

Eh.  I was not too confident in that assurance.  This is where Saint Matthew, location manager at that rental car company’s office at our hub airport, came into the picture.  We phone tagged each other for a couple of days until at last I reached him with a nice suggestion, i.e. a bribe.

“Matthew, I taking my sweet dog for hip replacement surgery in the Midwest.  We are flying into the airport your office services.  ‘We’ are one 60-pound dog, a four-foot by two-foot, by two-foot crate, two duffle bags and me.  We will not fit on your courtesy shuttle.”

“No, Miss, you will not.”

“And we cannot guarantee we can find a taxi van at the airport that could fit us and not charge a fortune for the quick trip to your office.”

“No, Miss, you can’t.”

Hmm…Not good.

“Right.  But let’s say I offer to treat us both to lunch en route from the airport to your office.  Will you pick us up at the baggage claim in our rental car?”

Matthew agreed, but said lunch was not necessary.

At this point, I had spent hours on hold, developed two new friendships with Peg and Matt, arranged for the plane, the car and the crate.  Now what?

Ha ha ha.

Several moving parts...

“Paige, you really should get Moe a Thundershirt,” my brother Pat suggested.

“A what?”

“It’s a thing that wraps around them and basically hugs them to calm them down.  It naturally sedates them.”

“Oh...good idea.”

For 2.5 weeks, I had made sure to spend a few minutes every day explaining to Moe and Traveler, her brother dog, that Moe and I were going to take a special trip to fix her hip.  That Traveler would stay at his favorite kennel.  That I would sent Trav to the kennel with his sister’s blankie and would use Trav’s blankie as the one thing I could enclose in Moe’s crate for the flight.  That we would be apart 10 quick days, and then we would all be together.

Again, Moe and T are non-verbal and I know this.  However, they are very intuitive.

But Pat was right, those talks still would not help her with her anxiety about being in the cargo hold on a plane with strangers.

The Thundershirt, the new crate and the orthopedic dog pillow all arrived a week before our travel date.  This gave us some time for Moe to become familiar with her new outfit, her new abode and her new bed.

The day before we left, she was comfy and calm, Traveler acted a bit clingy – which he does when he knows I am leaving in a couple of days – and I was exhausted.

When the taxi arrived at 4 a.m. on travel day, we were ready.  Sort of.

We got to the airline’s live animal cargo drop-off at 4:30 a.m., right when they opened.  The staff at the airline desk was not exactly as spry as were we.  We’ve all been there.

They were kind, but still somewhat asleep, i.e. not very reassuring.

It took 30 minutes to check in Miss Moe, because the airline rep kept losing my credit card, my paperwork, her LA vet's release form, the “Live Animal” stickers I showed him I had already adhered to her crate and a few other things - but by 5 a.m., we were ready.

“Go ahead, Ma’am,” the rep said, smiling in what seemed like relief that we had checked her in.  “Everything is fine.”

I looked down at sweet Moe, swaddled in her shirt and zip-tied into her crate that was sitting in the middle of the waiting area among the other human passengers checking in their pet.

Hmm…not good, not good, not good.

I said politely, “No, I am going to wait until you move her back to the secured area for loading.”

“Oh!,” he replied with a giggle.  “Of course.  Here we go.” And away rolled Miss Moe.

On the plane, I mentioned to one of the flight attendants, “I am flying with my little girl dog, Moe.  I want to make sure she makes it on the plane before we take off.”

“Of course!,” the flight attendant replied.  “I’ll announce it before we take off.”

I did not find this very comforting either.

A few minutes later, the first flight attendant ended her pre-flight information speech with, “Miss Moe is on board.”  Ahhh.

All of our parts were now moving in the right direction.

The flight was smooth, the drive was easy and the stop at the Wendy’s off the highway was a welcome chance for us to stretch our legs.  We made it to Big Nance’s house with just enough time for me to get her crate and our duffle bags up to the attic bedroom before the evening’s dinner event.

This was going according to plan.

Moe could not sleep too well – she ran up and down the bed intermittently throughout the night.  Thus I did not sleep too well.

Was she uneasy in the new place?  Did she miss Traveler?  Was she scared about the surgery?  Or could she intuit that I felt all of those things and she was reacting to me?

All of those were possible, the latter more likely than others.

The next morning we were both calmer.  A fitful night had tired both of us.

As I finished dressing to take Moe to the hospital, I looked down at her as I asked playfully, “Are you ready for your exam, Miss Moe? Tomorrow’s going to be a big day!"

She was calmly and daintily relaxed on the bed, looking at me intently with her sweet, round eyes.

Several moving parts would finally come to rest in their proper place.  She seemed to know that.  Or she knew that I did.

(To be continued next week...)