Category Archives: Family and Friends

Relationships and personal interaction

February 9, 2011 · 9:16 am

Blind luck

Today’s topic is, as the young people might say, kinda random.

It might seem that it comes out of nowhere, but there have been a couple of occasions this week that stirred me to give thought—and thanks—to something I often take for granted.

First, it was while I was editing a brochure on eyeglasses that it struck me how utterly dependent I am on something so small, yet so brilliantly invented. Then a casual conversation with someone whose eyes are as bad as mine brought it home.

I started wearing glasses in sixth grade. There wasn’t a fashion accessory much cooler in 1971 than octagonal, wire-rimmed frames. Now I can’t find the alarm clock in the morning without my beloved specs.  

I always wondered what it would be like to lose them. How would I survive? One day I had the chance to find out and, although it was 10 years ago, the memory still conjures panic.

My husband, son and I were on vacation in Aruba. The first day, I slipped on some jagged rocks, tearing up my whole right side. I was so covered with bruises and open cuts and was so sore that I could barely walk.

The second day, we took an all-day boat excursion around the island. The Jolly Pirate turned out to be an overcrowded party boat offering all the rum punch you could drink and some guided snorkeling, neither of which appealed to me. I had tried snorkeling only once – on our honeymoon, an island vacation that, in addition to a bad snorkeling experience, brought me intestinal flu, bronchitis and severe sun poisoning.

In Aruba I decided to give snorkeling another try. The boat had made several stops during which I had stayed aboard. The last stop, at the deepest point in the cruise, was the site of the featured attraction—an old shipwreck. The guide gave me some special goggles that fit tightly over my glasses so I could see under water. I lasted about five minutes, decided I still hated snorkeling and swam back toward the boat. As I was climbing the ladder, I pulled off the goggles and away went my one and only pair of glasses, flung far into the deep blue sea.

Immediately, my husband and son and a few people who were around to witness my mistake swam around to search for the glasses, but found nothing.

I sat there, on the edge of the boat, blind, disoriented and by then a little seasick, facing eight more days in Aruba. I didn’t have a spare pair, or a written prescription. I didn’t even have prescription sunglasses; all I had were clip-on shades with nothing to clip them to.

Bruised, blind and crying, I could not imagine how I’d get by another minute, let alone a week. We’d have to go home.

Someone brought my plight to the attention of the guides, who had helped themselves amply to the all-you-can-drink cheap rum over the course of many hours in the hot sun. I dismissed the idea as futile. Just then, the jolliest and seemingly most rum-soaked pirate guide took a swan dive off the side of the boat. He stayed under water a good long time, without a snorkel, and came to the surface with my glasses.

I was without my sight for only about half an hour, but it was almost as if I could see my whole life pass before my eyes. Or, in this case, not.

The morals of this tale: Travel with a spare pair and a copy of your prescription, don’t prejudge a jolly pirate and give thanks for the things in your life that give you sight.

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February 2, 2011 · 9:46 am

Picante parenting

Stories of extreme parenting techniques have gotten a lot of attention lately. First it was Yale law professor Amy Chua, the so-called Tiger Mother, who bragged in a recent book about depriving her daughters of all things social and calling one child “garbage” for being disrespectful.

Now, it’s the practice of “hot-saucing,” or washing a sassy kid’s mouth out with hot sauce, as a mother of six recently did—and was charged with child abuse.

I imagine some parents, upon hearing this news, might say they wish they had thought of hot sauce. Not I. Not because giving a young child hot sauce might be abusive, but because my child would have loved it.

My son bit into his first jalapeño pepper when he was just eight months old.

My husband and I were having dinner at the coffee table in our tiny first house, when our baby boy crawled over, pulled himself up to the table, grabbed a bit of raw jalapeño and popped it into his mouth. We freaked out. We got ready to call 911 while watching closely for a reaction. He shuddered for a few moments. Then he reached for another pepper, which of course, we grabbed before he ate it. No tears, no hives, no stomach effects, just a desire for more hot pepper.

Ever since, his fondness for all things spicy has only deepened. To this day, he goes into regular withdrawal living 100 miles rom the nearest Chipotle.

It never occurred to me to wash his mouth out with anything, let alone hot sauce. No, Dave’s Insanity triple-X habanero would be a reward. For my boy, punishment would be a mouthful of dark chocolate. No kidding.

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January 29, 2011 · 11:30 am

Say your kidding

It’s encouraging to hear people talking about the Wet Seal store selling a tunic t-shirt with the lettering: “If your single, so am I.” The giant spelling gaffe has been highlighted in the news. This is good. After all, public awareness is the first step.

I can’t tell you how many intelligent adults I know who contract “you are” as “your.” Once again, this isn’t something they teach in college. Anyone who passed fourth grade should know this.

If you’re (you are, contracted) planning to purchase the Wet Seal shirt, I have two more pieces of merchandise to add to your (possessive pronoun) collection.

My parents and I have traded gag gifts for years; the tackier the better. The best ones are personalized with someone else’s name. Or have a spelling error.

One year for Mother’s Day, I gave my mother a hand-painted ceramic plate I found at the dollar store. She was gracious enough to have kept it all these years, and she submitted a photo for this post.

This reminded me of a conundrum my mother once had. She had bought a blouse at Chico’s that had all sorts of inspirational phrases and positive affirmations printed among various designs. When she got it home, she noticed one of the sayings was “Your beautiful.” She agonized over whether or not to keep it.

Yesterday, after she sent me the photo of the Mother’s Day plate, I asked if she could also snap a photo of the Chico’s blouse. She replied, “I don’t still have the blouse. I returned it because of grammatical issues.”

The apple doesn’t fall from the tree.

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January 28, 2011 · 8:52 am

Friends in power

Here in the Washington area, we are recovering from something called a thundersnow.

After escaping the monster storms that have ripped through the East Coast this winter, we got our due Wednesday and Thursday, with thunder, lightning and six inches of the wettest, heaviest snow and ice we’ve seen in recent times. Many, if not most, people—Democrats and Republicans alike—lost their power.

Our little town outside the city experienced added drama following the collapse of our power substation. For a time, around 8:00  p.m., we had total daylight with flashes of bright red sky. I wondered why I was the only person on my street out shoveling until the eight-year-old next door came out and begged me to go inside. “You’ll get struck by lightning,” he repeated until I obeyed.

I adapted reasonably well to loss of electricity, heat and hot water. Then, my trusty iPhone, and my lifeline to the outside world, lost about 90 percent of its functionality.

Once the thunder died down, I realized just how quiet life is without power. I don’t listen to television or music while I’m working; there’s usually enough noise in my head. Otherwise, my home is filled with the sounds of music, television, ringtones and appliance buzzers. In the absence of these devices, the quiet became uncomfortable.

From time to time I took refuge in my car, enjoying the heated seats and charging my phone in hopes that it might come back to life in time to entertain me. But when I found myself sitting in the car, alone in the driveway, singing Copacabana—loudly—along with Barry Manilow, I realized that maybe quiet isn’t so bad.

Everyone will have a memory from Thundersnow 2011. Mine is one simply of neighbors who care enough to tell you to come in out of the storm and help you clear your driveway when your spouse is away, and people with power who invite you to spend a warm night. And Barry Manilow.

P.S.  Stolen from the person who hosted me last night (and the first half of my life):  “The federal government put out an advisory that only those with essential jobs should report to work. Joe Biden built a snowman.”

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January 26, 2011 · 9:59 am

A snowy disposition

This has been kind of a weird week. Today I am looking at it differently.

Sunday night I came down with a miserable cold, which had me completely down and out on Monday and feeling miserable but functioning on Tuesday. I decided that, with my husband out of town and no outside meetings until Friday, I’d take it easy.

I saved the heavier lifting for later in the week, when I knew I’d have regained my energy. I’d need to make trips to several grocery stores in preparation for a dinner party Saturday, get to a couple of appointments and run some errands.

Today I awoke to snow on the ground and a forecast of another six to 10 inches to come later in the day. I threw a coat over my PJs and did some preliminary shoveling because I didn’t want those other inches to pile up on top of what was already there. I have a bad back that doesn’t take to shoveling and I still have that cold. And I still need to get out to the store. Poor me. Wah, wah, wah.

Then, as usual, I checked in with Facebook. A friend’s status read: “made it to the gym for a decent workout before heading out early to day 2 of chemo.”

I knew she had begun her third regimen of chemotherapy yesterday for what has been a long and frustrating battle with cancer. Still, since the first diagnosis, she has completed a number of half marathons and competed in bike races to raise money for cancer research. She also follows an ambitious daily workout regimen. Before I am out of bed in the morning, she has already done her aqua-jogging, ridden her bike many miles, gone for a run or worked out at the gym.

Today, she worked out before chemo; more astonishingly, after day one. And I’m sniveling about a head cold and a little snow.

Funny how life finds a way to smack you with a little perspective.

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January 19, 2011 · 8:46 am

Sargent at peace

Sometimes the smallest and simplest memories are the ones we carry most closely.

Hearing news of the death of Sargent Shriver brings to mind a sweet memory of a moment I’ll never forget.

In 1994, I was volunteering for a friend who was running for the Maryland Senate. One day, I received a call from a colleague, similarly helping a friend of hers who was running for the Maryland House of Delegates. She had come to an event for my friend and was asking me to come to one for hers. She had organized a meet-and-greet function for him in the community and wanted to ensure a good turnout. Would I show up to meet her candidate, Mark Shriver (who, eight years later, ran against my friend in the primary for a House of Representatives seat, but that’s another story altogether).

I told my colleague, no, I couldn’t attend, because my husband was out of town and I had no one with whom I could leave my five-year-old son.

She said, “Bring him,” assuring me the event would be very informal. They’d be serving six-foot subs on paper plates in a recreation hall. “Your son would be welcome.”

On our way there, I explained to my first-grader what we’d be doing. He was no stranger to political events, and I had no doubt he’d behave himself. He had, in fact, once been to the home of Ethel Kennedy, so I tried to make the Kennedy-Shriver connection. I might have even told him that Mark Shriver’s father had run for Vice President of the Unites States in 1972; I can’t recall. Still, I was a little nervous about how others would regard a young child being there.

There was indeed a very good turnout. I introduced us to a few people, met the guest of honor and shook the obligatory number of hands, while tending to my son. Then I got us plates of food and the two of us sat down at an empty table for four, trying to stay out of the way of event supporters and VIPs.

Before long, with plenty of seats open at the surrounding tables, an older couple walked over with their plates and asked if they could sit with us.

“Of course, please join us,” I said, only then noticing they were Eunice and Sargent Shriver, who were there to support their son. The room was filled with voters and potential donors and they chose to sit with us.

What I remember most is how gracious they were with my son. They asked him about school, sports and hobbies, so respectfully and with such interest. They took time to listen to him.

So often, at these kinds of events, the person you are facing is looking over your shoulder, surveying the room  for someone more important to talk to. But for those 20 minutes or so, my son and I were the only people in the room, as far as the Shrivers were concerned.

They’re both gone now. Eunice died in 2009 and Sargent joined her yesterday. My son remembers them only vaguely these 17 years later, but they made a lifelong impression on me.

Rest in peace, gentle souls. You touched millions of lives here on Earth, but I am grateful for the night you touched mine.

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January 8, 2011 · 12:33 pm

Dechristmatization

This weekend the last of the Christmas decorations will likely come down at my house. Or, more accurately, go up—to the attic.

We dragged our spruce skeleton out before New Year’s. I am guessing it was cut down around August.

The crèche should have been put away on Thursday, which was Epiphany. We’ll just say the Magi extended their trip, but they’ll head back to their Orient in the attic this afternoon. Most everything else is packed up. I hate the see the mantel garlands go, they’re so pretty, but they too will be gone soon.

The last to go will be the Christmas cards that we affix to the molding in our living room—primarily that which frames an alcove where the tree goes. The remainder of the cards spill over into doorways and such. Taking down 180-some cards will be time-consuming and bittersweet, because we’ll re-read each one, take a moment to remember each friend and look at pictures of kids we seldom see.

There are several other items that stay up all year. We don’t necessarily consider them Christmas decorations, but people tend to ask mid-year why we still have Christmas decorations out. The truth is, well, I don’t know what the truth is.

Over the years, our kitchen has developed a chili pepper theme, and there’s an iron chili pepper wall hanging that says Feliz Navidad. It’s been hanging for 20 years, as much for the peppers as for the Navidad. There’s a carved wood statue of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus; it lives on the dining room mantel year-round. There’s a collectible Byers’ choice caroler that the family of one of my hospice patients gave me. She has a special place on a little shelf and deserves to stay out of the attic. Because our dining room is red, there are all sorts of adornments—candle holders, berry wreaths, red glass bowls and such—that could be considered Christmasy. Maybe we’ve just forgotten to put them away, or perhaps no longer even see them.

Are there knickknacks in your home that you can’t quite explain?

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January 7, 2011 · 9:56 am

Like the corners of my mind

Actress Marilu Henner has been getting a lot of air time lately for a rare skill—some are calling it a diagnosis—known as Superior Autobiographical Memory. Henner is one of only six people in the world who are confirmed to have this gift.

She has talked about her gift for years and has recently written a book about it. The book is due out this Spring.

Henner appeared on the Today show yesterday, and maybe some other programs, in follow up to a more in-depth piece that ran on 60 Minutes last month.

I was struck in a deeply personal way upon hearing both of these accounts. I may not have Superior Autobiographical Memory, but I dare say I have something similar. Let’s call mine Excellent Autobiographical Memory. My friends tease me about the details I remember about specific days of specific years—what happened when, what day of the week an occasion fell on, what I was wearing, what song topped the charts and what was going on in the world.

The autobiographical part might seem a bit ego-centric but, as Henner does, I also recall details about other people, conversations we had long ago, what they were wearing (including in many cases, a fragrance) and, often, something about music. I can hear almost any popular song dating back to 1960 and tell you the year it came out. This isn’t superior, maybe not even excellent. But it is my thing.

I don’t know about people with Superior Autobiographical Memory, but I know the birthdays of all my friends and family, without having them written down anywhere. I know my credit card numbers and expiration dates by heart (too much online shopping perhaps?). I even remember the phone number we had when I was six (CL6-2808).

In this blog, I have shared a number of childhood memories that my family members barely remember. Often the memory is as clear as the day it happened, though it’s my memory, and not always 100 percent historically accurate. Usually I’m pretty close.

This is not to say that I have a great memory. I’ve been known to put my car keys in the medicine cabinet. I can be in mid-sentence and forget the simplest of nouns. (Humorist Dave Barry claims the nouns are the first to go.) The day before yesterday, I started out for Jazzercise and ended up at the grocery store on autopilot. Sadly, the names of rivers, mountain ranges, poets and playwrights appearing in crossword puzzles will forever elude me.

Yesterday I wrote about how dancing is considered to have a positive impact on memory. I’m dancing like crazy to keep my wallet out of the refrigerator, while my life’s DVD plays in my hotwired head.

Now where did I leave that crossword puzzle?

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January 4, 2011 · 10:40 am

Green-eyed fan

My husband makes no secret of the fact that he is wildly in lust with actress Natalie Portman. He quivered all the way through Black Swan. From the seat next door, I could tell he was projecting himself onto the screen with her. Never mind that he is almost old enough to be her grandfather.

Just a few days ago, he harrumphed at the fact that she’s starring in a romantic role opposite Ashton Kutcher in the upcoming No Strings Attached. His feeling is that Kutcher is no match for Portman’s talent, beauty and experience. I am pretty sure my husband won’t be rushing to see his love share a screen—or bed—with the actor he pretty much considers a goofball.

On the flip side, I am an Ashton Kutcher fan and have been since he played a goofball on That 70s Show. Never mind that I am more than old enough to be his mother. Apparently, he’s quite intelligent. He can act okay enough, is plenty handsome and, I dare say, is pretty darned appealing.

Here’s the funny thing. According to a Vanity Fair piece appearing online yesterday, my husband isn’t alone. In fact, the magazine’s Juli Weiner has a theory about why men won’t be rushing to see the No Strings Attached: Jealousy.

Remember, in Black Swan, while sizzingly sexy, Portman didn’t play opposite a male lead per se. This, I suppose, is why men may have found it easy to imagine themselves on screen beside her. Weiner posits that one reason men aren’t eager to see her upcoming movie is that “men are saddened, revolted, and tortured by jealousy at the mere thought of Portman’s paramours.”

Very well then. The movie opens January 21st. Who’s up for a girls’ (well, middle-aged ladies’) night out? The guys can stay home and weigh in on VF‘s poll, “Who Is the Person You’d Least Like to Imagine Sleeping with Natalie Portman?” (As of this posting, John Mayer’s in the lead.)

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December 30, 2010 · 9:09 am

The food chain

As you may have noticed, I pay a lot of attention to etiquette. Some might say a little too much.

Lately, I’ve found myself in uncharted etiquette territory. I wonder if you have too.

Much has been written about online etiquette, but I have found very little with regard to chain e-mails.

Thankfully, the days of chain letters coming in the U.S. mail have passed. I remember one in which I had to mail new dish towels to people while abashedly asking my friends to buy and mail dish towels to others. I also remember wondering why this odd practice seemed unique to women.

In the past year and a half or so, I have received e-mails entitled “Recipe Exchange” from more than a dozen friends. I assume these come to me because I like to cook, am known to share unsolicited recipes and especially love getting new recipes from friends. Or maybe because my friends know I am pathologically compliant.

The first time I received a request to send a recipe to Person #1 and ask two friends to send recipes to Person #2, I obliged enthusiastically. The second time, I sent it to two more friends. The third time, I found two more friends I hadn’t picked on. Then it got ridiculous. Lately I am getting them about once a week.

Some might suggest I ignore these or delete them. I can’t. Occasions are rare when I ignore an e-mail on purpose. For lack of established etiquette on the matter, I have taken to responding to the sender with a note that I’ve tapped all of my friends—some more than once—and that I am unable to keep the chain going. And then I send my recipe for pesto torte to Persons #1 and #2, just so there aren’t any hard feelings.

I haven’t consulted my copy of How to Say It, my new manual for saying the right thing in virtually every situation, because I have lent it out. I do wonder if there’s prescribed language for declining on a chain letter.

I hope my friends reading this will not think ill of me or stop exchanging recipes with me over the course of normal conversation or mutual enjoyment of a good dish.

There are a few websites out there about how to stop friends from sending chain e-mail. The advice there pertains mostly to the kind of correspondence that promises eternal life or portends eternal damnation contingent on forwarding, within eight seconds, a PowerPoint poem about butterflies. This isn’t what I’m after. I’m just looking for a nice way to say, thanks for thinking of me but I just can’t participate. Or did I just find it?

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