Category Archives: Family and Friends

Relationships and personal interaction

May 31, 2010 · 9:49 am

Holiday rituals

I logged in to the Internet this morning and saw Comcast’s Memorial Day Quiz on my home page.  I took it, in part because I wanted to write about Memorial Day today and I thought it might provide some ideas.  I scored 58 out of 150.  I am the first to admit I am not great at history.  But in my defense, I was distracted by all the typos in the questions.  I then took it again.  Different questions, fewer typos, but still…Star Spanged Banner, Arlington Cemetary, rememberance.   This time I scored 148.

Memorial Day means different things to different people.  For my husband and me, it used to be all about Dewey Beach.

I commemorated the holiday yesterday.  In church I joined in prayers for those who have given their lives in service to our country, and their families.  I thought of the American teenagers who have died in war these last nine years, and prayed for their mothers.  I joined in singing Eternal Father, Strong to Save, also known as the United States Navy Hymn, which asks protection of those serving on land and sea and in the air. 

Then I went home and had a barbeque.

Today I will partake in another important Memorial Day ritual:  taking out my white pants and shoes.  I know this news will elicit snickers from family members in Arizona who have been wearing white since March.  Anyone who knows me is aware I am an etiquette purist.  Pathologically compliant.  For me, living on the edge means wearing white on the Sunday before Memorial Day, but never past Labor Day.  I won’t even wear spectators outside the Memorial-to-Labor Day window.

I believe etiquette makes our lives easier by providing a clear framework for our behavior and lifting responsibility for making decisions about such matters.

In the movie Serial Mom, which stars Kathleen Turner (and my Aunt Patsy), a Martha Stewart-like homemaker brutally murders those who commit simple etiquette violations, such as smacking gum, stealing a parking space and not rewinding a video rental.  In her final act, she slaughters Patty Hearst for wearing white shoes after Labor Day.

See, I just wouldn’t want to risk the consequences.

Happy Memorial Day.

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May 27, 2010 · 8:06 am

Golden anniversary

Today is Word Nymph’s 50th blog post.  I never thought I’d have that much to say.

Milestones are good occasions to look back. 

In 50 blog posts I have learned:

  • Readers have as many peeves and curiosities as I do when it comes to language.  The ones they would like to explore further include “less” versus “fewer,” “use” versus “utilize,” “that” versus “who” and “that” versus “which,”  among others.
  • Most readers don’t take themselves or me too seriously, which is the object of the game here, though occasionally someone does school me with pronounced severity.
  • The search phrases leading to my blog (which I can see on the back end) are, shall we say, interesting.   I definitely underestimated the overall interest in anything nymphish.  Also, there are far more people interested in that silly mayonnaise commercial than I would have thought.  And far fewer people writing about it.  Hence, I might soon attain the title of Mayo Queen.  Thank you, Kraft!
  • I really shouldn’t blog before coffee.

Also on the occasion of this milestone, here’s what I’d like my readers to know:

  • If you see a typo in a post, check back later.  Chances are that it’s been fixed.  After the aforementioned coffee.
  • I appreciate your indulging this experiment of mine.  More than anything, your participation is what makes it fun. 

I hope you’ll stick around.

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May 26, 2010 · 7:38 am

The rest nest

Last night my husband and I spent two hours gazing into our future.  At the end of the two hours, we signed up for Long Term Care insurance.

The timing of the meeting with our insurance agent wasn’t ideal; and in retrospect, should not have been scheduled so soon after the Golden Girls experience I had just days ago.

In two hours’ time, we saw ourselves a decade or two, maybe three, in the future, when statistically, one or both of us will no longer be able to function independently, or inter-dependently. 

While the agent and my husband were crunching numbers, I visited a place where I was hunched over my walker, or maybe puzzled and doodling all over my checkbook or lying at the foot of the basement stairs with a broken hip.  Or, knowing me, walking away from blazing stove burners long after the pots have come off. 

Then, while those two pored over actuarial and premium tables, I traveled to Florida, to an upscale assisted living facility, and watched myself playing Scrabble.  My husband was out on the lanai, comfortable in a rocker, alternately grinning and dozing.  A musical group came into the dining room and performed a Sheryl Crow medley and the score from Mamma Mia.

One thing I know as I contemplate the long term care scenario is that we must do away with the word “facility.”  If I am going to one, it can’t be a facility.   It must be something fuzzier.

We were bound to tackle euphemisms here someday, so we might as well start now.

I am not going to an assisted living facility.  Where am I going?

According to the blog of Entertaining Euphemisms, it’s a “wellness and vitality residence” or “continuum of care lifestyle community.”

Pretty good.  Can you do better?

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May 24, 2010 · 8:03 am

Golden Girls

About 20 years ago, I worked in an office with an extraordinary group of people, many of whom were women my age.

When you spend more than a third of your day with the same people, you become close.  These women and I had our children together and, in the ensuing years, we shared everything–the challenges of working and rearing children,  strategies for making it through each day with our sanity, recipes, more laughs than can be counted and oceans of tears.  Some of these women have passed on, a sad reality that has brought the rest of us even closer.

Once, in the office lunch room, I suggested that maybe someday we would all live together, like the Golden Girls, which was at the height of its run on television.  I painted a picture of us sharing a house in Florida, driving around in a big convertible, with our head scarves tied tightly beneath our sagging chins.

In The Golden Girls series, which ran from 1985 to 1992, the characters played by Bea Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan were in their early 50s.  Estelle Getty played Sophia, who was 70, tops.

The day before yesterday, I had lunch with three of my old girlfriends.  It hit me then that we had, alas, become the Golden Girls.

After settling in according to who needed to sit on which side of whose good ear, many parts of the conversation still had to be repeated.  There was, after all, background noise in the restaurant.

Next came the organ recital.  We discussed our health screenings, what conditions are plaguing us, which body parts ache and what meds we take.  We talked about our feet, debating which are worse, problems with the plantar or those of the metatarsal.

We talked about our emptying nests and commiserated about all it has taken to help our hatchlings fly on their own.  We also heard what it’s like to have an adult child move back home with all of her children.

We heard news of parents and more former colleagues who had passed.

We acknowledged the challenges of dwindling incomes and investments and compared notes on which chain restaurants offer two-for-one entrees on which weeknights.

We laughed at all the old lady behaviors we’ve adopted, such as finding a blouse we like and buying it in every color.

I shared that I had recently bought half a pie.

What brought our lunch to a close was a conversation about television–what shows we like and the fact that you can now can get TV programming through Netflix, which streams through the Wii. 

That was it.  Just the idea of “streaming through the Wii” sent us rushing to the ladies’ room, where we shared a final laugh and called it a day.

I haven’t bothered to take the Which Sex and the City Girl Are You quiz that’s going around in anticipation of the new movie.

Instead, I will start my own quiz and ask my peers to consider:  Which Golden Girl are you?

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May 19, 2010 · 8:09 am

The other woman

My husband is in love with Ms. Garmin Nüvi.  It happened the moment he heard her voice through our new GPS. 

This came as a big surprise to both of us.  He is among the last to fall for any high tech gadget.  He has the most distant relationship with his cell phone.  After four years, he has yet to record a voice mail greeting and usually doesn’t recognize when it rings that someone is calling him.  He recently bought his first home computer but, alas, after several weeks, it still has no software.  He will probably never own a Blackberry.

He bought me the Garmin nüvi for Mother’s Day, intending it would be mine alone to take on business trips. 

Last weekend we went out of town for a wedding, so we took it along to try it out.  My husband was astonished that this woman, who spoke sternly and resolutely through the speaker, knew where we were going and, further, how to get us back on course when we stopped for gas. 

When she spoke, he answered.  “Thanks, sweetheart.”  When she said to turn right, he said, “I’ll do that, sweetheart.”  “What next, sweetheart?” 

As we headed out to the various wedding events, my husband asked me whether we were taking “her” with us.  It was starting to feel like a threesome.  Only she was the one being called “sweetheart.”

After the wedding Saturday night we went back to our hotel and stepped into the elevator.  An electronic voice announced, “Going up.”  My husband gasped, “It’s her!”

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May 17, 2010 · 7:33 am

An apple a day

“You can’t burn a candle at both ends.”

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

These adages played over and over in my head last night as I slept fitfully.  Perhaps it was because I went to bed not knowing what I’d write about today or, more likely, because a sinus and bronchial infection I’d been running from for weeks finally caught up with me.

So in the midst of my fever, body aches, nausea, congestion and cough, all night long I was hallucinating medical sayings.

Added to the scrolling nocturnal banner of phrases was “Button up your overcoat,” which my mother had counseled me as we were chatting online the day before yesterday, when I told her I thought I was coming down with something.  Her advice was figurative, as it was 92 degrees where I was.  You know the song?  Button up your overcoat, when the wind is free, take good care of yourself, you belong to me.  She was trying to tell me to take better care of myself.

In the last four weeks, I have traveled more than 2,000 miles by car (it’s out there now leaking fatigue onto the driveway) and thousands more on germy planes.  Anything in between is a blur.

Right now I am going to have an apple, crawl back in bed and dream of something happy to write about tomorrow.

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May 12, 2010 · 7:26 am

Record time

Road trips always get me thinking about music.  So I hope you will indulge me in another reflection brought on by time spent in the car with Rosebud, my trusty iPod. 

To put this one in proper perspective, I go back to the Spring of 1969.  I was in the third grade.  My father came home from a Washington, D.C., record store with two albums that changed my life.  Well, at least made a deep impression.

The first was Bill Cosby’s comedy album, To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With, and maybe one day we will get back to that.  I still have the whole thing memorized.

The other album was extraordinary for so many reasons.  First, it was the first double album I had ever seen.  Two whole records in one cover that split into two parts.  Pretty amazing.  Second, the cover was entirely white, including the title, The Beatles, in raised white lettering.  I had never seen anything so radical in my lifetime of nine years, especially in the 1960s when everything was shocking pink and lime green.  Finally, the album came with four 8×10 glossy head shots of the long-haired musicians.  When I discovered these, I swiped them and tacked them up on the brand new yellow and green daisy wallpaper in my room.

At age 9, my friends were listening to The Archies.  I don’t know what their parents listened to, likely Pat Boone or maybe the New Seekers, but I can guarantee no one’s parents listened to The Beatles’ so-called White Album, released in late 1968.  Mine did.  We all loved it.  Maybe it was the snappy piano intro of “Martha My Dear,” the show-tuney sound of “Honey Pie,” maybe the animal noises sprinkled into “Blackbird” and “Piggies.”  Or the simple melody and chord changes of “Mother Nature’s Son.”

The first song I memorized was “Rocky Raccoon.”  What a great story.  It was the first time I had ever heard of Gideon’s Bible.

At 9, I understood very little about what was going on in the world and didn’t understand intellectually what most of the lyrics meant.  Still, the music made me aware on some level.  As it does now, the song “Julia” tore my heart out, even though I had no concept of the nature or depth of the romantic angst the song captures.

When I listen to the White Album, as I did on a recent long car ride, the images of the 1960s flash before me.  The music and lyrics are relatively simple, but they evoke vivid memories.  Volkswagen Beetles, avant-garde displays in Georgetown storefront windows, the psychedelic pattern of my diary cover.  Men with long hair.  Incense.  Laugh-In, which I only saw in black in white until we got our first color television in 1970. 

There really is no point to this.  Except maybe to suggest you pull out your copy, pop it in (or on) and see where it takes you.

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May 8, 2010 · 8:10 am

Pomp and circumstance

Tomorrow is the big day–my son’s college graduation.

In the movie Parenthood, the grandfather, played by Jason Robards, observes this about being a parent:  “You never get to spike the ball in the end zone and do your victory dance.  It never ends.”

There’s no doubt that’s true.  But tomorrow will be pretty darn close.

As much as I look forward to watching my son walk across that platform, there’s something else I am looking forward to.

Yes, the all-important commencement address.  I’ve heard very few in my lifetime.  My father was the commencement speaker at my high school graduation and, while he was a big hit, I’d heard him speak a few times before.  I didn’t participate in my own college graduation exercises because I was already working full time and didn’t consider it important.

This time of year, I enjoy reading the various commencement addresses.  These speeches are intended to give young adults advice for succeeding in their professional lives and motivate them to high achievement.

Let’s get real.  The graduates are sitting there numb from exams and term papers, perhaps a little hungover, and exhausted from clearing away the leaning towers of pizza boxes and other debris that’s piled up all year, in anticipation of their parents’ arrival.

A commencement speaker with any hope of stirring these men and women had better make it pithy, punchy and to the point.

I’m no Kurt Vonnegut  (who reportedly never delivered that famous Wear Sunscreen speech at MIT), but I’ve often wondered what I’d say if I were in front of an audience of graduating seniors. 

I thought back to something I did when my son went off to college four years ago.  As the nerdy, over-involved mother I am, I jotted a list of keys to success, typed it out and framed it to sit on the desk in his dorm room, so he could look at it every day and be inspired.  I think it came home sophomore year, never to be read again.

10 Secrets for Lifetime Success and Happiness

  1. Drink water – eight glasses a day will keep you healthy, inside and out.
  2. Read the paper – know what is going on in the world; be informed, keep a global perspective.
  3. Say your prayers – ask for guidance and give thanks.
  4. Say no – to options that are destructive to yourself and others.
  5. Say yes – to opportunities to do good for yourself and others.
  6. Count your blessings – at the end of every day, think of three things you are thankful for.  Even when you have a bad day, you will always find something good, however small.
  7. Make eye contact – look people in the eye; it will help you to be a good listener.
  8. Keep God at the center – let him, not you, be the focus of your life.
  9. Help the needy – be attuned to those who are vulnerable and tend to them.
  10. Call your mother – she worries.

Maybe I’d add “watch your grammar.” 

If you had one piece of advice for today’s college graduate—perhaps something that has worked for you or something you would have done differently—what would it be?

In the meantime, I will enjoy the big day and might even do a little victory dance.

Reminder:  Word Nymph doesn’t post on Sunday.  Did I mention my son is graduating?

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May 7, 2010 · 7:44 am

Chain-free zone

Good morning and greetings from Boone, North Carolina.

My husband and I are here for our son’s graduation from Appalachian State University.  I just couldn’t let the festivities begin without telling you a little about this charming place, where we’ve been coming a couple of times a year for the past four years.

Not everyone knows about Boone or Appalachian State.  App State entered the national consciousness in 2007 when its then-two-time Division I-AA national championship football team beat the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the season opener.  It was the largest upset in college football history and landed the Mountaineers on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  Later in the season, they won the championship for the third year in a row.

Appalachian State sits high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, in what’s known as the Ski Capital of the South.  The student population is about 15,000.  One of the institution’s most famous alumni is Steven J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics.

Boone itself is artsy and bohemian.  It’s surrounded by a number of elite resorts, so there’s a cultural dichotomy that sometimes causes friction on the local political scene.

I think what stands out most about downtown Boone is the absence of chain stores and restaurants.  Up and down King Street, Boone’s main avenue, you’ll find one character-filled small business after another.

On King Street, you’ll find no Gap; just The Jean Pool.  There’s no Abercrombie; there’s the Mast General Store.   I was sad to see that the second-hand store, Love Me Two Times, has closed its doors.  There’s no CVS; just Boone Drug, which still has a lunch counter.  There’s no Panera; it’s Our Daily Bread.  There’s no Hair Cuttery; there’s Split Endz.  No Starbucks, only Higher Grounds and The Beanstalk.  No Chipotle; only Black Cat Burrito. The closest Chili’s is an hour away, which is fine because there’s the The Boone Saloon.   And if are you are looking for a cheap place to stay on King Street, you’ll find no Days Inn; only a nondescript  motel with a sign that reads:  2 people 1 bed $29.

What more can I say?

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May 6, 2010 · 7:47 am

Wormhole in the empty nest

I have waited 21 years to say this:  my son is graduating from college this weekend. 

It is hard to reflect without cliché.  So I won’t wonder where the time went.  Not exactly anyway. 

Instead, I’d like to send a message to parents who might be preparing for an empty nest in the coming months.  It’s a tough thing to say goodbye to your baby, who at times might also be acting like a three-headed adolescent monster, bless his heart.

Four years ago I thought my life had ended.   I couldn’t imagine not having our only child around every day. 

The February before his 2006 high school graduation, I saw an ad for a writing contest on the subject of motherhood.  I can’t recall specifically what it called for, but I took the opportunity to channel my dread and anxiety into an essay.

It undoubtedly provides no comfort to know that, for me, reality played out far worse than the dread.  I wished someone had told me how hard it would be to experience the separation.  Thankfully, someone did assure me it would get better.  And it did.  Someone else assured me that, like all adolescents who live in a wormhole for years, my son would come out on the other end, once again pleasant and respectful.  And he has.

To parents on this side of Orientation, pace yourselves.  While the college experience does go by quickly, it can be a long and arduous trek, as you and your child navigate your way though a changing relationship and work together to seek solutions to problems that inevitably arise.  But take comfort, little by little, you will adjust to your empty nest, your child will come out of the wormhole and so will you.

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