My Christmas List

My son has been asking me for my Christmas list for two weeks now.  He wants to be finished shopping by Thanksgiving this year. I finally sent the list by e-mail to all three children and my husband this morning, and already I’m feeling anxious  thinking about all the things I forgot to include.  Now what?

It’s cute when a child says they forgot to put something on their Christmas list and you tell them:   Don’t worry, honey, Santa knows everything that you want.

It’s not so cute when an adult sends an e-mail attachment every few days and the subject line reads, addendum to my Christmas list - hope you haven’t gone shopping yet!

I don’t like making a Christmas list at my age.  I stopped making Christmas lists at age seven, after Santa disappointed me two years in a row and failed to bring me a Barbie doll.

I thought my husband was kidding, during our first year of marriage, and laughed him off when he asked for my Christmas list.

“Christmas lists are for kids,” I told him.

“Make me a list anyway,” he insisted.  “Everyone in my family makes a Christmas list.  My parents need a list from you, too.  They don’t know what to get you.”

I worked on the list for days, wondering, am I asking for too much?  Not enough?  Can I include clothing on this list?  Boots? Housewares?  Am I forgetting anything? I needed so much in those early years when all we could afford were the weekly groceries and a small bag of M&M’s for a weekend treat.

“Are you kidding me?!” my husband laughed when I finally handed him my Christmas list on an 8x10 sheet of loose leaf paper, filled front to back. He didn’t know I was holding page two behind my back. “Do you really think you’re going to get all this stuff?”

“What?” I asked.  “Did I ask for too much?  I wanted to give them choices, in case they couldn’t find some things.”

What did I know from Christmas lists anyway?  Was there an etiquette to submitting a Christmas list?   If the list is too long, does that mean you’re presumptuous and demanding?  If it’s too short are you insecure, lacking self confidence? What was the proper length for my first Christmas list to my new in-laws?

“That’s my list,” I told him.  “I’m not doing it over. Just pay close attention to everything that has a star next to it.  Those are the things I really want.”

“Do you want my list?” he asked, handing me a short piece of paper with about four items on it.

“Nope,” I answered, holding my hand up to the list.  “I already bought you something.”

Of course, I hadn’t, but I just had to get back at him for making fun of my long list.  And the look on his face was worth all the items on my list put together.

Colonoscopy Prep: Do’s and Don’ts

I had a colonoscopy on Monday afternoon, so you know what I was doing all day Sunday.  It wasn’t so bad, though.  This time I did things right.


I had my first colonoscopy in 2000.  What did I know back then?  They sent me home with the instruction sheet and the directions said, “eat a normal breakfast and a light lunch and begin drinking the prepared liquid at 3:00 PM.”  So what did I do?  I ate a large breakfast like it was Fat Tuesday and a lunch the size of the Last Supper.

While I was scoffing up a plate of spaghetti and meatballs for lunch my husband was shaking his head in disbelief.  “You’ll be sorry,” he said.

“Why?” I asked flippantly, while buttering another slice of Italian bread. “If I’m going to lose it all anyway, I might as well enjoy it going down. Besides, I won’t be able to eat again for 24 hours...I’ll need my strength.”

I spent the rest of the evening gagging over the kitchen sink trying to shove down another glass of golytely (that godawful drink that tastes like slimy salt water) on top of my already pasta filled stomach.  I didn’t sleep all night - for obvious reasons.  My stomach was blowing up like I was 9 months pregnant as I cursed every crumb, every bite, every piece of food that had to push through my gastrointestinal tract.  I even got mad at my husband - the sound of him snoring in a deep sleep, while I was suffering.

This time I did it right.  I was prepared and wizened to the do’s and don’ts of the colonoscopy prep.  I tried to have a positive attitude about the whole process.  I bought some lemon jello, white grape juice, chicken broth, blue Gatorade. I tried some reverse psychology with everyone, saying, “These are my special foods for tomorrow and you can’t have any.”  But they just laughed me off  - sure, mom, no problem.  

The night before, I hummed a happy tune while stirring the jello, I admired the beautiful blue of the Gatorade, I lined up a book to read and began thinking of the one good thing about a colonoscopy:  those few moments before you drift off into that happy sleep.  It’s the only time I don’t mind a doctor coming at me with a needle in hand.

It’s only a few seconds, between the time the anaesthesiologist says, “you might feel a little dizzy, a little tingly,” and the time you are totally knocked out.  But in those few seconds,  there is a bliss that comes over you - a tingling around the forehead, the relaxation of all tension, a warmth flowing through the body.  It’s the best feeling - that twilight moment before the dead sleep and no feeling at all.

So, how pitiful is my life, you must be thinking, that I have to look forward to feeling high from anaesthesia?  The truth is, I can’t drink alcohol; it makes me overheat with just one sip. I don’t smoke pot. I get hot flashes and itchy skin when I drink wine.  So I found the one bright moment in a colonoscopy - when I can get high and enjoy it.

Call me weird, but I had to find something to look forward to in this whole process, or I would never schedule another one again.

School Bus Rant

I got stuck behind a school bus today.  I forgot how annoying that is.  It seems like you wait forever for the kids to saunter on and off the bus.  Kids don’t run anymore, do they?  They take their sweet time. I swear they do it just to annoy all the drivers sitting in their cars behind the bus. 

And whatever happened to bus stops?  The bus I was trailing stopped at individual houses, put out the big STOP sign off the side of the bus, opened the door and patiently waited for the kids to finish their toast and brush their teeth. Take your time!  I’ve got all day here!

Worse than the kids, though, are the mothers who stand there in the morning gabbing with the bus driver.  They usually have a cup of coffee in their hand, pajama pants under a raincoat, hair all messy, no makeup.  They’re in no hurry.  They're going back to bed once all the little kiddies are safely on the bus. They don’t care that there are five cars idling behind the bus with very anxious drivers who are probably already late for work.

I’m sitting there this morning watching the clock on my dashboard turn over another minute, wishing I could blast my horn at the back of the bus, but really wishing I could run over the mother gabbing and laughing it up with the bus driver.  When they finally finish the conversation, the doors of the bus close and the mothers stand there frantically waving and blowing kisses to their little darlings.  Knock it off!  I wanted to yell out my window.  They’re coming back in six hours!

How I Blew My Father's Retirement Fund

I got on the internet today out of curiosity.  I wanted to see the value of a Kennedy half dollar.  I found a 1964 coin with 90% silver content valued at $129.95.  A 1965 half dollar  in perfect condition was valued at $299.95.  I almost cried.

My dad started a collection of Kennedy half dollars back in the sixties.  I guess he figured he was going to retire on their future value someday, since he had no retirement plan to speak of.  My dad was a mechanic.  He worked with his hands and got paid in cash for his labor.  Yes, back in the sixties people paid with real cash.  

I never had an allowance as a kid. I sold lemonade on the side of the road for 2 cents a cup in the summer.  And then there was the occasional happy accident.  A penny in the street, a nickel between the sofa cushions, a dime on the floor!  It was my only source of income back then. 

I would hop on my bike with my pennies in my sweaty hand and ride down to Tony’s Deli to buy some junky candy:  sugary liquid in colored waxy bottles, artificially colored hard sugar dots on strips of white paper, jaw breakers, gum. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was sweet and cost under ten cents. 

Getting a dime under my pillow when I lost a tooth was like Christmas for me.  It meant I could buy a chocolate bar the next day and still have change left over. Yes, a dime went a long way back then and a fifty cent piece went even further.

I don’t recall why I was in that particular kitchen cabinet that particular summer day, but I remember reaching way back behind the pots for something.  It was dark back there, I was kneeling on my knees and my hand fell onto an open can. I couldn’t see inside the can so I stuck my hand down into it and I felt coins - cool, large and heavier than any penny, nickel or dime I had ever held.  I shoved my hand way down into the can and heard a ching-ching  sound and I knew I had found treasure!

I grabbed a handful and brought them into the light and gasped. I had never seen anything like them before. They were so shiny and cool in my hand, I couldn’t stop rubbing them between my fingers. I had a feeling of fear and excitement all balled up in my throat. I felt an ecstatic scream coming on, but had the good sense to stifle it before it erupted. Something told me I wasn’t supposed to know about this secret treasure.

I put them all back except one.  I had to keep just one to look at it later.  A few days passed and all I could think about were the coins in the kitchen cabinet.  When no one was around, I would check to see that they were still there, running my hand through the can and listening to the ching-ching music I had come to love.

One day, I decided to spend my fifty cent piece at Tony’s deli.  I couldn’t even carry all the candy that coin bought.  When I realized my father didn’t notice a few coins missing, I became greedy and would snatch a coin every other day, running down to Tony’s deli for more upscale foods like potato chips and ice cream.  

Finally, one day, Tony asked me, “Hey kid, where you getting all these coins?”

“My father.”

“Oh, yea?  Well, bring me some more,” he said.

And I did.  Until, I got sloppy, and in my brazen wanton lust, I was caught one day by my younger brother.  To keep him from tattling on me, I had to share my secret, which meant the pile of coins was being depleted now by two.

My father kept dropping coins into the can at night and we would empty it by day.  At some point he must have realized that something wasn’t right.  Who knows?  Maybe the ching-ching sound got too hollow or maybe he reached in one day to see how high his retirement pile was growing, but that was the day my high life at Tony’s deli stopped.

“Who’s been stealing my Kennedy half dollars?!”  my father bellowed through the house.  “When I catch whoever’s been stealing my Kennedy half dollars I’m gonna kill ‘em!”

I was practicing for my piano lesson when the hollering started.  I tried to play through it, but my fingers started shaking and sweating and I had to stop when he stormed into the room.

“Have you been taking my Kennedy half dollars?!” 

“Me? No,” I said in my meekest voice. “Maybe Freddy took them.” 

It was as simple as that.  I sold my little brother down the river.  I’m not proud of that moment in my life, but that’s just how it was.  When you have a younger sibling that you can blame things on you do what you can to save your own neck.

I got my own bad karma right back at me in the next few months while I was sitting in the dentist’s chair having the cavities drilled out from all that candy I ate all summer.

Come to think of it, the only one who made out was Tony.  He got most of my father’s Kennedy half dollars - the real silver ones. I wonder where he retired to.

Weekend Pirates

My sons are playing pirate this weekend.  The three of them left on our sailboat this morning with food and drink for two days.  While loading the boat, one of them asked if the pillows were on board yet and the other two laughed at him.

“We’re not bringing pillows on this trip.  We’re roughing it,” said my oldest boy.  But when the youngest one came out with his fluffy pillow under his arm, the other two reluctantly  called out, “Oh, alright; get ours too!”

I stood on the dock going through a mental checklist asking, “Do you have the bug spray?- yes -  Do you have the sunblock? -yes -  Water? -yes - Matches?”

“Mom, we know what we’re doing.  You don’t have to ask us if we packed everything.”

It’s true.  I don’t have to do that every time my boys go off somewhere, but I can’t help myself.  Besides, I can’t tell you how many times I asked an obvious question like, “Do you have your dorm room key? your wallet? your license?" and got a blank stare as an answer, followed by the boy running off to his room for the missing object.

As the boat pulled away from the dock, I cupped my hands around my mouth to make a bullhorn and yelled, “Where are your hats and sunglasses?!”

They looked at each other with that blank stare and turned the boat around. My husband ran inside to get three baseball caps, and as I threw a line out for them to grab, I asked, again, “Are you sure you have the sunblock?”

“Yes, mom!” my son said, rolling his eyes, “it’s on the boat already.”

“You really have to stop doing that,” my husband told me as we watched the boat take off again.  “They are grown men.”

“Grown men who forget their hats,” I replied.

As the temperature reached into the 90's, I found myself wondering if they were applying sunblock regularly, or if they remembered to put it on at all. I knew they wouldn’t be spreading sunblock on each other’s backs.  Pirates don’t do those things.

 One of my sons was on a medication this week that required him to remain out of the sun.  How would that be possible on a bright hot summer’s day at the beach?  Was he going to stay down in the cabin all day?  They forgot to pack an umbrella.  But then, again, pirates don’t pack umbrellas.

I worried about the rip tides we were having this weekend.  I warned them to beware, but would that be enough?  Pirates don’t listen to their mothers.  They swig rum and dare each other to walk the plank, or some such thing.

At 3:00 PM the phone rang.  It was my youngest son calling to see if we would be coming down to the beach to join them. Odd, I thought.  Pirates calling for parental companionship? I was perfectly content under our shady tree, reading a book, so I told my husband to go ahead without me.

“I’ll just be there a little while,” he told me.  “I have to bring them some things.”

“Oh? What things?”

“They forgot the wood for the fire, and I’ll bring an umbrella so Paul can get out of the sun… And the sunblock," he mumbled. "They forgot the sunblock.”

The Lawnmower

I went for a walk this morning at the John Burns Park in Massapequa. That's where I saw five men - employees of the park -  hovering over a lawn mower.  One was poking it, touching and prodding like a doctor would do to a patient on his examining table.  One was kneeling next to the lawn mower, hand on the base.  And the other three were standing in a circle around the lawnmower, just observing.

A walk around the park is marked in tenths of a mile, for a total of one half mile total.  It takes me about ten minutes to walk a complete round.  My first round brought me back to the starting point and the five men, still hovering over the lawnmower...ten minutes.

As I approached the completion of my second round, there were now four men standing around the machine, arms crossed, as the fifth man hopped into a golf cart type vehicle to fly off somewhere.  Was he going for help?  One guy shuffled around and kicked some stones into the path.  They were obviously very concerned about the lawnmower.  No one wanted to leave it alone for a moment.  One man kept his hand firmly on the handle offering comfort to the ailing mower.

I was listening to a great song on my iphone so I contemplated another walk around, another ten minutes.  Nah, I thought, better get home and get ready for work.  Besides, my legs were starting to get tired and I was starting to sweat.  I hate sweat.

I did some stretches to stall for a few moments so I could finish the song.  The guy on the golf cart cruised back weaving the cart in a playful pattern over the roadway, then parked up on the sidewalk next to the lawnmower.  He remained seated under the cart's awning, out of the sun, observing the other four meandering listlessly around the lawnmower.

I couldn't wait any longer.  I had to leave.  But I'm wondering how the lawnmower is doing.  It must be pretty serious - to have five grown men so concerned.  I wonder if they are all still standing there trying to figure out what to do.

Giving Up Coffee - The End?

It has been a difficult journey.  Coffee is everywhere.  People are either drinking coffee or offering you a cup of coffee. It is the social drink of choice and to refuse a friendly offer of a cup of coffee seems to suggest that one's social skills need polishing. "I would love a glass of ice water," just doesn't cut it.

I remember a Valentine card I once bought for my husband.  The illustration on the card was of two steaming cups of coffee on a cozy kitchen table.  I can't imagine the same illustration with one steaming cup of coffee and a tall glass of ice water.  What would the message say inside? "You're hot; I'm cold.  Be my valentine"  I don't think so.

It's funny how we link associations to a cup of coffee. Coffee is a friendly drink.  It bonds people. It makes us warm and cozy. Just the smell of coffee makes people perk up and smile with anticipated pleasure.  How many times, I remember, enduring a bad cup of coffee, and when I was done saying something like, "Ah!  That hit the spot."  I believed that, even if it tasted like tar infused engine oil, coffee just made me feel better. It's what I went for when I was tired, depressed, bored,  relaxing, or making a pit stop on a long road trip. I drank it to wake up, wind down, warm up or calm down.

I just finished reading the three books by Stieg Larsson:  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest.  What amazed me, while reading those books, was how often the characters were drinking coffee.  In almost every scene - except the ones where someone was being chased on foot - someone was either offering coffee, brewing a pot of coffee, or sitting in a cafe drinking coffee.  Coffee, coffee, coffee!  I think that's what helped me commit to giving up the stuff.  I would find myself sighing with impatience every time a character would start brewing another pot of coffee.  Why were they sitting around drinking coffee when they should have been chasing the bad guys? Why, he probably could have condensed all three books into one if there weren't so many coffee breaks in between the action.

So how do I go from the person I was when I wrote my blog, The Coffee Party on March 29th of this year to the decaffeinated dud that I am now?  Not by choice, I can tell you that.  I loved coffee.  Coffee was my friend.  But like anything that doesn't agree with you anymore, or a friend that turns out to be a jerk, you have to painfully admit that it is time to end the relationship. 

Sure, I still have fond memories and I still have weak moments when I think about my old friend and contemplate a brief encounter.  Who would know?  I could sneak into any one of the thousand Starbucks on every street corner.  I would blend in with the crowd and no one would know that I was cheating.  I could make a 12-cup pot at home, when I'm alone, and spend the afternoon dancing on the tables and singing opera at the top of my lungs (with the windows shut, of course).  Who would know?

Who would know?

Giving Up Coffee: Day Three

My third day without coffee started with an upset stomach that, to put it nicely, turned into a "cleansing" of sorts. When that was over, I realized that I no longer had the headache, but the brain fog wasn't letting up and all my joints were aching. Was I getting sick, or was this part of the detoxing, I wondered. I popped two extra strength Tylenol and jumped into the shower to prepare for a long day in the city. My son was graduating from Pratt at 11:00 AM and my body had to be on the train in the next hour, with or without my headache and aching joints. With my stomach still rumbling, I also took a Lomotil pill - a prescription drug that stops stomach cramping and calms the digestive tract. It also makes me very drowsy, but given the alternative, I decided I would rather sleep on the train than be running between cars to look for an unoccupied toilet.

When I think back to that day, I realize that I spent most of it in a mild stupor. Sure, I saw my son walk on stage and receive his diploma. I hooted and hollered when his name was called and then I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. The auditorium was dark; I needed no other explanation.

About midway through the day, my other son, who had met us in the city to share in the festivities, asked me what was wrong with me.

"Mom, you seem a little zonked. Are you O.K. today?" he asked.

"This is my third day without any caffeine."

"What?! Why?!" he asked.

"I gave it up."

"No way! Why?!"

"Because the doctor said it would help my acid reflux. And for the first time in two months, I'm sleeping through the night."

"But you're also sleeping through the day," he observed. "What kind of life is that?"

"It won't be like this forever," I told him. And I believed that. I had to have hope that it would get better.

Walking through the streets of Manhattan, on our way to the restaurant where we had reservations for lunch, I noticed that sounds in the street seemed excessively loud. Honking horns sounded like they were aimed directly at my ears. Sirens were piercing my head and the light of day was hurting my eyes. I started getting hot flashes and my stomach felt queasy. I knew the symptoms very well now, and, sure enough, by 2:00 PM the migraine headache began again with a vengeance.

But I was still optimistic. After all, it was 2:00 PM. I had made it almost halfway through the day. Perhaps tomorrow, the headache would show up later in the day, and maybe one day, it would not be there at all.

I began to get angry at my body's dependence on this socially accepted drug and I prepared to do battle. I was determined to win this fight and swore never to drink another cup of coffee again. Problem was, at that very moment, all I could notice were the coffee wagons and Starbucks stores on almost every corner and I wanted a cup, or maybe just a sip.  I would even settle for a sniff of steam from a cup.

When the waiter came to our table to ask if we wanted a drink to start before our meal, everyone ordered an alcoholic beverage but me. My son suggested I order a cup of coffee.

The waiter asked, "cup of coffee for the lady?" smiling and writing on his pad.

"No thanks," I replied, "I'll stick with the water."

"Just the water?" he asked, clearly disappointed.

"Yes, just the water," I repeated and tried to muster a half smile.

He crossed out the coffee with an emphatic slash across his pad and repeated, "Just the water." So now, I wondered, would he drop my food on the floor before he served it to me? I was that person. The one who says, "just water for me" in restaurants and disappoints the waitstaff.

To be continued...

Giving Up Coffee: Day Two

The next day was a Sunday and all I can remember is the non-stop headache which was immune to Tylenol, Advil and Aleve. I slept most of the day while my husband worked around the yard, planting the flowers we had purchased the day before.

I remember passing by the window from time to time, watching him work, hoping he wouldn't ask me to help him. Whenever I heard the back door opening, I would get up and start folding laundry or pick up a broom to fool him into thinking that I was already so busy with my own chores. When the door closed, I returned to the recliner to doze.

My recliner was my new friend. It cradled me and held me gently while I slept through my caffeine withdrawal. It demanded nothing of me and was always there waiting for me when I needed the comfort of a silent support system.

I also remember turning to drink of another sort that day - water. The more water I drank, the more energy I had and I could sense a slight relief in my headache. I slept a little less that second day.

"How's your headache?" my husband asked as I swallowed some Aleve.

"Better!" I told him. "Someone pulled the axe out."

"Great!"

"Yeah, now I have a vice wrapped around my temples." But, I reasoned, a vice was an improvement, a step up. The headache was no longer debilitating and painful. It was just annoying. Annoying I could deal with. And tomorrow would be better. It had to be.

The next day we were going into Manhattan for our son's graduation at Radio City Music Hall. Just the thought of trains and subways and hot crowded streets made the vice tighten. How would I get through the long day tomorrow feeling like this?


To be continued...

Giving Up Coffee: Day One

I planned to start my caffeine free life on a Saturday. I didn’t have a bookkeeping job until Tuesday afternoon. Three days should be enough time to detox myself from the effects of caffeine, I reasoned.

To be honest, I don’t remember much of the events of that first day. The headache started around 9:30 AM, dull at first, but ever present. By 10:30 AM, my ears had clogged up and my head felt like it was filling up with water.

My husband asked if I wanted to go to the nursery that morning to pick out some flowers to plant. I asked him to repeat the question because, although I heard the words, my brain hadn’t connected the dots; the fog building up in my head was getting thicker by the minute. I think I said yes, because next thing I realized I was sitting in the front seat of the car. We were moving in slow motion – like a dream.

I know I was walking through the nursery, but I felt like I was swimming underwater. Sounds were muffled, the sun was burning my eyes – even with sunglasses on; the colors of the flowers were too intense to look at directly. My husband kept asking me, “how’s this?” and “maybe these?”

“Yes, fine, anything,” I mumbled. Just get me out of here. At one point, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up – like horses do, so I held on tightly to the wagon and pushed with my arms, dragging my feet behind in a slow-mo shuffle. “Are we done yet?” I kept asking, like some four year old child.

“Wow!” my husband exclaimed on the way home. “Those plants were expensive; don’t you think?”

I heard the question, but my lips wouldn’t move. The part of the brain that controls speech was already asleep, the rest of my body would soon follow. I floated through the front door, not feeling my feet on the ground, and dumped my body into the recliner. My head was buzzing now, the headache was of migraine intensity, my eyes were pin holes trying to focus, there was a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach and sweat beads were building up around my forehead and upper lip. I gave up, too weak to hunt for the Tylenol, and closed my eyes.

I woke up a few hours later, drool dripping down the side of my mouth, stomach burning from hunger. “Is there an axe stuck in my head?” I asked my husband.

“What?!”

“That’s what it feels like,” I told him. “I feel like there is an axe stuck right through my head.” He ran upstairs to get the Extra-Strength Tylenol and handed me two. I ate lunch and returned to the recliner to sleep away the remainder of Day One off of caffeine. It had to get better tomorrow, I thought.

To Be Continued…

Giving Up Coffee :(

I guess what I miss most about giving up coffee is the morning ritual. Crazy as this may sound, I liked thinking that my day couldn’t start until I had at least 2 cups of coffee. Some mornings, the thought of a fresh hot cup of coffee was the only thing that got me out of bed. In the winter chill, huddled over the steaming cup, I would write in my journal in the wee hours of the morning. In the summer, I would go out on the deck with my mug of coffee and inhale the fragrant salt air blowing in from the Great South Bay. Salty air and coffee – it doesn’t get sweeter than that.

When my children were young and wanted to go to the park or the beach before they even ate breakfast, I told them, “Don’t bother me until I’ve had my coffee.” They understood that, and as long as I still had that cup in my hand, they kept busy by themselves for awhile. Sometimes I walked around with an empty cup just to stall them a little longer.

It is an excuse I’ve heard and even used myself at work when someone comes into my office before I’ve had a chance to take my coat off and settle in. “Can we hold off on this,” I tell them, “until I’ve finished my coffee? My neurons haven’t fully connected yet.” We share a knowing chuckle and the annoying person disappears for awhile.

I don’t know if it was psychological or true that coffee in the morning made it easier to deal with things. With a steaming cup next to my calculator, my sewing machine, or my laptop, I knew I could do anything. Coffee was a ritual, a habit, a comfort, my friend.

Recently I developed a condition called GERD, short for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. It’s the medical term for heartburn, or, agitta, as my father calls it. I lost sleep at night for a month, forcing me to drink more coffee during the day, which exacerbated the problem further. I developed a slow constant burn in my stomach, and whenever I fed it, a fire roared up. I wasn’t digesting my meals, no matter what I ate.

An upper endoscopy revealed everything was normal, but the doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid:
Coffee and caffeinated beverages (my friend)
Chocolate (my lover)
Carbonated Beverages (seltzer with lemon – my drink of choice)
Peppermint and peppermint tea (my favorite tea after dinner, Mentos!)
Citrus Fruits and Juices (love my navel oranges! And lemon ices!!)
Tomato Products (I’m Italian. Need I say more?)
Pepper (Put pepper on my toast in the morning. Love hot stuff.)
Fatty or fried foods (don’t care about these)
Alcoholic beverages (don’t drink ‘em)

“What’s left to eat?” I cried in disbelief on the ride home.

“I’m sure you can have coffee,” my husband said. “Just limit it to one cup a day.”

Was he kidding, or what? May as well give it up altogether, I thought. Besides, I reasoned, if I had to give up my favorite foods, I may as well suffer the full blunt of the blow and say farewell to my longtime friend and companion – my coffee.

…To be continued

Shut That Dog Up!!

Every night as I gently slip into those first moments of peaceful slumber, I am awakened by a constant piercing high pitched yap! yap! yap! I’m beginning to think that my neighbor watches my house to see when the lights go out so he can let his dog out.

The other night the dog was yapping outside until midnight. I was so angry that, even after the barking stopped, I couldn’t calm down enough to fall asleep until after 1:00 AM.

After walking around in a sleep deprived stupor all day, I retired to bed last night at 10:00 PM. My husband fell in a few minutes later.

“Maybe we can fall into a deep sleep and we won’t hear the dog barking when they let him out at 11:00,” he said. But within a few minutes, the barking started.

Yap! Yap! Yap!

“But it’s too early to let the dog out,” he said, confused, looking at his bedside clock. “It’s only 10:15.”

“They’ll probably let him out again at 11:00,” I said.

“But he’s out now. Why would they let him out again in 45 minutes? He couldn’t possibly have to go again that soon.”

This absurd conversation about my neighbor’s rationale and his dog’s poop patterns continued for about ten minutes until I jumped out of bed and began pacing the floor.

“What are you doing?” my husband asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll walk over there in my pajamas and ring his doorbell. Do you think I should get dressed first or go over there in my bathrobe just to make a point?”

“He’ll stop barking soon,” my husband said as he reached for his ear plugs.

I stood in front of the window for 20 minutes, peering through the dark night, trying to locate the yapping mutt, wishing I had a high powered bb gun. Would I shoot the dog or shoot the owner, I wondered. When you are sleep deprived, all sorts of vicious things run through your mind. With no weapon at hand, I did the next best thing. I kneeled down in front of the window, lifted the screen up and leaned out into the dark night screaming, “SHUT THAT DOG UP!!”

I was even more frustrated now, hearing the rotten hair ball yapping away showing no fear from my sudden outburst.

“What should we do?” I asked my husband, pacing.

He answered me with a sleepy, “hmmm?”

“Take those ear plugs out! Why should I be the only one suffering here? What should we do??!!" I repeated.

“Don’t scream again,” was all he could offer.

“Let’s call the police. What are we paying all these village taxes for? There must be an ordinance about barking dogs.”

“OK,” he said, “Call the police.”

“You call them,” I said, dialing the number and handing him the phone. “You’re the man; they'll listen to you. They’ll think I’m just some hysterical woman.”

I stood in front of the window, watching for the police car that never came. They were just humoring him when they told him they would drive by and take a look. I could just imagine them laughing it up at the station. Just wait until I get another envelope from them asking for a contribution.

“You should have sounded meaner, been more forceful. You should have told the cops that this mutt barks every night, not just tonight. This can’t go on all summer! We have to get up early for work and we need our sleep! Why didn’t you tell him all that?” I realize I’m ranting, but can’t stop myself.

On our 5:30 AM morning walk, today, my poor husband was tripping over his own feet. I was still angry and the adrenaline made me walk even faster than I usually do. My mind was also racing, thinking of strategies.

Do I pay a visit to our neighbors at this wee hour of 5:30 AM, ring their doorbell and say something pithy like: “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Do I ask my son for his bb gun? Should I get a laser pointer and shine it through the window on their foreheads at night? Maybe I’ll bang some pot lids outside their windows just before sunrise?

I’m trying to remember a Seinfeld episode. What did Elaine do with that yapping mutt in her apartment complex? Did she hire someone to get rid of it?

Should I write a letter to them? My husband did that with another neighbor several years ago, when their sprinklers woke him up every morning at 4:00 AM. The letter was not received well and they have remained aloof, but the sprinklers were reset to go off at a later hour and the problem was resolved.

I wouldn’t care if the neighbors never talk to us again as long as the yapping stops at night. I thought about submitting an editorial to my local newspaper, signed anonymously, of course, hoping they read it and see themselves in it.

My husband says we should just go outside when we see them and talk to them about the dog.

“You do it,” I tell him. “I hate confrontation.”

My Writing Hiatus Ends

It has been five weeks since my last blog. Somehow this sounds like the beginning of a Catholic confession. If I say three Hail Mary’s will I be forgiven?

No! says my writer’s conscience.. A serious writer writes every day. No excuses.

But, I had a good excuse. I bought an iphone and have been downloading apps, looking at subway maps, listening to books on tape, checking out the latest new apps.

You should have been writing!

But, truthfully, no one is reading this blog anyway – except my mother, my family and my close friends. They have to read it. I have them set up so they receive the posts in their e-mail box, whether they want them or not.

It doesn’t matter if no one reads your blog. You write because you must. You write for yourself, if you have to, just to hone your skills.

But the iphone is so much fun! Who knew a phone could do so much? I can check my e-mail, play games, read books, listen to books, listen to music, take pictures and videos. Why, I just posted a video I took on my phone to You Tube this morning. How cool is that??

Cool, schmool. That silly video isn’t going to get you anywhere. I’ve seen it and it stinks.

I know, but I had fun learning how to do it. The next one will be better. I promise.

OK, OK, you are forgiven. Are you ready to start working on your writing again?

Yes.

Well then. You can start by saying three Hail Mary’s, and two Our Father’s. Begin with the Act of Contrition.

Oh, my God, I am truly sorry for having offended thee…

{pause} I forgot the rest of the words. Luckily there is an app for that. It’s called Pocket Prayer Pro – and it’s free!

Sleepless in Long Island

I just returned the Montel Williams Health Master Blender. Thirteen dollars for return shipping, but, honestly I would have paid anything just to get the damn thing out of the house. It was sitting on my dining room table for three days - brand new and not even unpacked completely. I couldn’t even lift it out of the tight styrofoam packaging. When I removed the outside box to reveal all the pieces, I found an instructional CD as well as a booklet of instructions for assembly. That did it for me. Anything that complicated was too scary for me. And I feared that I would never be able to get it packed exactly right when I wanted to return it, so I just left it sitting there.

On the second day, waving his arm over the dining room table full of boxes and blender parts wrapped in plastic sticking out of styrofoam packaging, my husband asked,  “What’s all this mess?”

“Just ignore it; I’m returning it,” I answered.

I wouldn’t even try it for the sixty day trial period. I knew the moment I hung up the phone, after the woman took my order, that I would be returning it. Even before it arrived, I was thinking, I wonder how much it’s going to cost to return the darn thing.

I’ve done this before. I wake up at 3:00 in the morning, roll over and realize that I still haven’t digested my dinner. Something is wrong somewhere in my digestive tract and I feel like if I could just sit up and burp everything would be alright. Except, when I sit up, I realize the dinner I had at 7:00 PM isn’t going anywhere fast.

I stumble downstairs, boil some water for a cup of peppermint tea, settle into the recliner and find that position that will make it tolerable for the next hour or so until I can burp or do whatever gastronomical emission is necessary to get this sludge moving down the pipes and on its way.

At 3:00 AM there isn’t much to watch when you have the cheapest cable TV program money will buy – channels 2 through 21. But that particular night I hit on something big. Montel Williams was doing a show on the Montel Williams Health Master Blender. I watched in awe for almost an hour while they pulverized vegetables, fruits, nuts and even a piece of brick. Yes, a piece of brick was actually ground down to grey sand. I leaned forward for a closer look and burped. Ahhh

I was feeling better already and thought, this must be fate that I’m up at this hour to see this amazing Health Master Blender! I reached for a pencil and wrote the phone number down, but I wouldn’t call just yet; I wasn’t 100% convinced that I needed another appliance in the house. After all, I’m not new at this. I’ve done this before. Sitting up all alone at night, you order stuff just to feel like you’re not the only one awake at this god forsaken hour. Who else can you call at 3:30 in the morning besides LL Bean or the Health Master Blender order taker?

A few months earlier, while I was trying to digest another heavy dinner, I ordered the amazing Mandolin Slicer-Dicer-Shredder. I knew I had to have this appliance. The guy doing the demo was slicing vegetables with the speed and accuracy of a Samurai and spinning around the kitchen like a whirling dervish. Watching him, you would swear he had more than two arms working at once. In a mere ten minutes he had an entire kitchen table and two countertops full of an assortment of vegetables, fruits, cheeses, olives, hard-boiled eggs and even a rubber ball.

I never bothered to return the Amazing Mandolin. After slicing my fingers up just trying to get it out of the packaging to put it together, then mashing every vegetable I tried to slice into a mushy blob, I threw all the pieces into a large paper bag and tossed it into the garbage. I couldn’t risk losing a finger trying to repackage it and I didn’t want my husband to know I had ordered such a stupid thing in the first place. Except for a few band aids on my fingertips, that I explained as quilting mishaps, I left no trace of my foolish late night purchase.

But now Montel was introducing real people who had used the Health Master Blender and lost 30, 40, even 50 pounds, drinking nutritious vegetable smoothies. How fortunate I was to be up at this hour, to witness this amazing appliance that would change my life forever. I was dialing, credit card in hand, so excited I could feel a little ripple of gas escaping. Ahhh, more relief.

“Yes, I want to order the Montel Williams Health Master Blender! I’ll pay in the four easy installments,” I said, when the sweet talking southern woman answered the phone.

“If you pay in full tonight, we’ll upgrade you to the professional blender – the chef’s model– at no extra charge..”

“Yes! I’ll pay in full tonight.” Burp! “ Excuse me.”

When it came time for me to begin reading off the numbers on my VISA card, I faltered slightly and began asking more questions: Can you really grind up a brick? How strong is the motor? What kind of warranty is offered? Is the container glass or plastic? Is it very heavy? How much does the whole thing weigh? What are the exact dimensions? and, finally, Where is the blender made? Because if it’s made in China, I don’t want it. I don’t trust anything coming out of China!

All of my questions were answered satisfactorily except the last one. After she put me on hold for quite a while, the phone assistant finally came back on the line and admitted that no one there at the switchboard knew where the unit was manufactured.

“Why don’t you just order the blender,” she said, sounding more exhausted than I was. “We have a 60-day, no questions asked, return policy.”

And true to their sales marketing, there were no questions asked when I called to return the Montel Williams Master Blender that had arrived three days earlier in an oversized, very heavy box that had Made In China stamped in bold lettering and in plain sight.

With the Montel Williams Master Blender out of the house, at last, I know I’ll sleep much better tonight.

That Russian Orphan

Have you been listening to the news these days, following the story about that Russian boy who was adopted by an American woman and then returned to Russia? The media slant - and the media always takes a slant - is portraying her as some cruel, irrational person. Who would send a child back, unaccompanied, on a plane to Russia?

The Russian foreign minister is outraged by this incident, saying, in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, that the actions of the American parent were "monstrous, immoral and against the law." I watched the Today Show interview this morning as Matt Lauer asked the American author, who wrote a book about the adoption process in Russia, if there were any unique issues about that process. Here is her answer:

I got my child from Baby House #6. There were 106 children there where they were lined up in pack-n-play cribs. The children were cared for and loved.

He then asked if there was a higher incidence of emotional issues in Russian orphans. Here was her chance to shed light on the truth of how Russia treats their orphans. She came close, but I doubt anyone will pick up on her last sentence before the interview ended. Here is what she said:

Well, to some degree there is. There are attachment issues and sensory issues. It's very difficult for these children who spend almost 20 hours a day in their cribs.

I'll repeat that, in case you missed it: these children spend 20 hours a day in their cribs.

If you want to read further about the real abuse these children go through at the hands of the Russian orphanage system, I urge you to go to your local library and look for the book: The Boy From Baby House 10. From The Nightmare Of A Russian Orphanage To A New Life In America, by Alan Philips and John Lahutsky

This book is so disturbing to read; I often get a queasy stomach and have to put it down for a day or two. The conditions described in Russian orphanages is so horrific that they would be illegal in America. In fact, they would be illegal by ASPCA standards.

The book follows the life of a young Russian boy born prematurely with some disabilities, and, as a result, is diagnosed as retarded. He is bounced back and forth between the orphanage, an insane asylum and a hospital. Each place is worse than the one before it, and you start to pray that this child will simply die, just to escape the inhumane vile treatment he receives.

He is confined to one room for his entire first seven years and told to keep silent whenever he tries to speak on his own. He spends most of the day in a high-sided iron crib, lying in his own excrement, screaming himself to sleep. He never learned to walk because his muscles were unable to develop from lying in a crib all day. Instead, he would slither on the floor like a snake when no one was watching, because if he got caught out of his seat at mealtimes, he would be punished. I wouldn't give my pet dog the slop he was fed at mealtime. If the caregivers cited in this book ran a facility like that in America, they would have gone to jail for the cruel treatment they bestowed on these helpless children.

That's why I'm appalled by the sanctimonious reaction of the Russian foreign minister and others in the Russian orphanage system who are now threatening to withdraw any further applications for American adoptions. They are citing incidents of death among Russian children who were adopted by American parents. They do not cite the condition that these children are in when they arrive in this country, a result of the atrocious unhealthy upbringing during the most formative early childhood years in their Russian orphanages - conditions that could possibly contribute to their deaths after they arrive here.

Putting this boy on a plane back to Russia is not the outrage we should be focusing on. The real outrage is the immoral and inhumane conditions these helpless children are forced to endure in Russian orphanages. The Russian foreign minister should be outraged at his own country and their lack of adequate care for innocent helpless children in orphanages and their erroneous medical diagnoses that doom some children to a lifetime of hell when they land in an insane asylum.

I urge you to find a copy of this book. If you don't have time to read the entire book, open the middle of the book at page 112 and look at the horrific pictures. I guarantee you won't be able to put the book down. And, if nothing else, you will see the other side of this story, the side the Russians don't want the world to know about.

My Day OFF

I had a day off today. Accent on the word: OFF

In my mind a day off means exactly that. A day off. Off from work, off from responsibilities, appointments, demands. It also means a day off from fun, if I choose it to be that way.

On my day off I put the alarm clock under the bed and wake up when my body decides to awaken. If I decide to stay in my pajamas until 1:00 PM, and eat M&M’s and coffee for breakfast, no one is going to stop me. The idea of lunch might not occur to me at all because I’ve been picking on cookies and fruit all day.

I won’t make the bed, clean the bathroom or straighten up the kitchen all day. It’s my day off. I will take in the mail, but I won’t open any bills.

I don’t want to feel like I have to justify a day off or do something on my day off to make the off-time worthwhile. Why should I? Haven’t I been busy enough all week? Don’t I deserve to just do nothing on a day off?

So why, then, do I stutter like a guilty child when my husband calls in the middle of the day and asks, “So, what are you doing on your day off?” I draw a blank, I falter and pause and try to think up something –anything - that I’ve done in the past three hours that might justify my free time.

“I did some laundry and got an idea for my blog,” I say, hoping that those are adequate activities to justify the past six hours.

“It’s beautiful out today,” he answers. “Haven't you been out yet? You should go out somewhere today. Why don’t you take your mother to the beach and walk along the boardwalk, or pack a lunch and go to the park?”

I want to tell him to butt out of my day off. Don’t be planning things for me to do. Damn the sunshine. Why couldn’t it be raining today? Do I have to feel guilty here because it is such a beautiful day and I’m still in my pajamas (I didn't tell him that) and I’ve wasted the entire morning and half the afternoon sitting in front of my laptop watching the new Mac iPad demos and seeing what’s new for Spring at Talbot’s online?

“I don’t know if I’ll be going out today; I’ve got a lot of things on the agenda,” I lie.

“Oh, too bad,” he says. “Well, try and relax a little. After all, it is your day off.”

Why Men Are Happier

I'm experiencing brain drain this week. I don't know if it is the beautiful weather that beckons me away from this desk, or just a fog in my head from the newly bursting flowers and pollen in the air. Whatever the reason, I do not have an original piece to post for this week. Instead, I am sharing with you something that still gives me a chuckle, no matter how many times I read it. This was one of those e-mail chains I received and passed along to some of my women friends, but it is so good, it is worthy of a reprint for all of you who haven't seen it yet. Hope you enjoy it and find some humor - and some truth - in a few of the observations.

Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character.

Wedding dress $5,000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes - one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25minutes.
No wonder men are happier!

The Coffee Party

Someone should tell the new Tea Party members that coffee is the preferred beverage in America. A National Coffee Association survey done in the year 2000 found that more than half of the adult population of the United States drinks coffee daily, and 25% of Americans drink coffee occasionally. That leaves very few tea drinkers – a minority, to be sure. Phew! Well, that makes me feel better about things.

Reading the New York Times Week in Review section this weekend, an article by Benedict Carey, Mad as Hell. And…Then What? had me on the edge of my seat. This new Tea Party seems bent on creating havoc and violence in our country, but we, in the Coffee Party, far outnumber them, so no matter how loud they scream, we can surely drown them out by our numbers alone.

We, in the Coffee Party, know that tea just doesn’t cut it when you need to wake up in the morning and perform at your best. You can spot a tea drinker a mile away. They are the dreamy eyed sleep-walkers who block your way on the steps leading down to the subway platform. They are the poky drivers who plant themselves in the left lane. They are the slurred talkers, the pasty-faced bank tellers, the slow-as-molasses cashiers, the dopey faced waitress who never smiles and always gets your order wrong. You know them; you’ve seen them, worked beside them.

Some days, the smell of coffee is the only thing that makes my body rise up from the mattress and walk down the stairs. I take a thermos to work with me – just in case there is no coffee pot on the job. I even ask if there will be coffee served before I commit to attend a late night meeting. My son says I’m no different from a drug addict. I tell him, “So be it.”

When my son’s freshman college average was teetering on the borderline of losing his scholarship, my husband gave him a serious lecture about time management, priorities and hard work. I simply told him, “Try drinking some coffee now and then.”

Offer your surly boss a cup of coffee some time and watch the transformation from animal to gentle-human. And think about this…If a cute guy asks, "Would you like to go out for a cup of coffee sometime?" who wouldn't say, "yes!"? If, instead, he asked: "Would you like to go out for a cup of tea sometime?" tell the truth, now - you would be thinking, Is he straight? Is he weird?

Coffee is embedded in our culture. It is as American as apple pie. There is a reason the original Tea Party tossed all that tea overboard. Once they had a taste of coffee, they knew there was no going back to King George's rule or his sissy drink.

So what am I worried about? Let the new Tea Party scream all they want. Most of them are over 50, anyway, and will be in bed by 9:30. Tea just doesn't have the staying power that coffee does. Coffee rules.

That's The Way Boys Are

One of my favorite songs of the early 60’s was, That’s The Way Boys Are, by Lesley Gore. This song was #12 on the Billboard charts when I was twelve years old, in 1964. I heard it on the radio the other day and cranked up the volume as I threw down the potato I was peeling and started dancing and singing into a wooden spoon in my kitchen. For a few silly moments, I was twelve again. I was young and innocent to the ways of life and love and men and it was wonderful – until I listened to the words. I had to stop singing. The fact that my husband had just walked through the door had nothing to do with it. It was the lyrics; they were ridiculous!

It’s a good thing Aretha Franklin came out with Respect a few years later, in 1967. She may have, single handedly, saved a generation of women – myself included!

I've written the lyrics to both of these songs and juxtaposed them together in a different font. See which one you identify with!

When I'm with my guy and he watches all the pretty girls go by
And I feel so hurt deep inside I wish that I could die
Not a word do I say, I just look the other way
'cause that's the way boys are
That's the way boys are

What you want
Baby, I got
What you need Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

When he treats me rough and he acts as though he doesn't really care
Well I never tell him that he is so unfair
‘cause he loves me and I know it;
but he's just afraid to show it
cause that's the way boys are
That's the way boys are

I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone
Ain't gonna do you wrong, 'cause I don't wanna
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)

Oh, when he wants to be alone,
I just let him be
'cause I know that soon enough
He will come back to me

I'm about to give you all of my money
And all I'm askin' in return, honey
Is to give me my profits
When you get home

When we have a fight I think that I won't see him anymore
Then before I know it, there he is standin' at my door
Well I let him kiss me then,
'cause I know he wants me back again
That's the way boys are
Yes the way boys are

Ooo, your kisses,Sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
All I want you to do for me
Is give it to me when you get home
Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)
When you get home, now

Oh! I love him (that's the way boys are)
Well now, that's the way boys are (that's the way boys are)
I said, that's the way boys are (that's the way boys are)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB

(re, re, re) 'spect
When you come home
Or you might walk in
And find out I'm gone
I got to have
A little respect (just a little bit)

Now, I'm glad Aretha had the last word on this.

Romancing The Storm

Before this weekend’s Nor’easter blew in, my idea of a cozy storm went something like this: There is a blazing fire roaring in the fireplace and the room is toasty warm. My husband and I are lying on a soft furry rug sipping wine and gazing into each other’s eyes. The wind is roaring outside and tree limbs are snapping off. We snuggle up. And then the inevitable happens: passion and romance. In my dream, there was always romance when the lights went out.

But things never turn out the way you imagine them. Anyone who knows me, can tell you that I romanticize a lot about being stranded in a cabin during a winter storm with nothing but my books and a few dimly lit candles. But when the dream comes true, it is a nightmare.

I realized, this weekend, that dimly lit candles are only romantic when they are an option. When they become your only source of light for three days, they become annoying real fast.

And there is nothing romantic about going without a bath for two or three days. When the only options for personal hygiene are an ice cold shower or the tepid murky water of a sponge bath, you opt out of both and choose to stay a safe distance away from your mate.

My primary concern this weekend was simply keeping warm. It was all about building up the layers from the inside out. It didn’t matter if the shirts were ironed or the colors matched because my top layer was a down-filled coat that covered everything down to my shoes. In fact, contrary to my previous feelings about being stranded in a storm, romance never entered my mind this weekend - until my husband came up with his idea for keeping warm.

“I know one way we can keep warm,” he suggested with a wink and a gleam in his eye, “but I’ve got to freshen up a bit first.” With no hot water for a shower, he took the other option - an old fashioned sponge bath.

A half hour later, he swaggered into the kitchen, and fixed himself a cocktail, extolling the wonders of the sponge bath. “I feel so fresh!” he exclaimed. “You should take a sponge bath too.”

A weak, “M-a-y-b-e,” was all I could muster. With the thermostat reading 50 degrees indoors, and the wind blowing through the walls, it was going to take a lot more than a wink and a sponge bath to get something going with me tonight.

“Oh, come on, it’s not that cold,” he chuckled. Then, seeing my hesitation, he added, “What do the Eskimos do?”

We ate dinner by candlelight, with lots of wine, and I finally began to warm up enough to remove my coat and hat. My husband offered to do the dishes so I could “get ready.”

“Go take your sponge bath,” he urged me, and I left him humming a tune over the static on the transistor radio, happy in his task and full of expectations for the evening ahead.

“Don’t forget to boil the water first,” I reminded him, “so you can clean the dishes with some nice hot water…” and as I said the words, I realized that I would not be taking that murky sponge bath, after all, since he was using the only kettle we had to boil water to wash the dishes. Oh, well.

I headed upstairs anyway, a little groggy from too much wine, but very mellow and very warm. I began undressing and redressing for bed. Layers came off and new ones piled on: a turtleneck cotton shirt, long undies, woolen socks pulled up to my knees, a heavy flannel nightgown, gloves and hat.

I took a book and a lantern to bed, but in a matter of moments, my eyelids began to droop, so I blew out the lantern, burrowed into the chilly sheets and pulled my hat down over my face.

Some time later, my husband awakened me from a distant dream as he slid into bed, grunting and gasping in quick shortened breaths from the shock of cold air on skin.

“Still feeling romantic?” I murmured from under my hat.

“Are you?” he asked.

“I asked you first.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Tell you what,” I dared him. “You start. Take off your hat and socks and let me know if you’re still in the mood.”

“Brrr! Jeez!” was the romantic response I got from the other side of the bed.

I waited a moment and nothing more was forthcoming, so I pulled my hat back down over my face, leaving just enough room for my two nostrils to take in the cold night air.

The Princess and The Queen

My granddaughter turned three last week. When I saw her in her poufy party dress, sparkly pink shoes, pink gloves and little costume jewelry pearls, I had to remind myself to inhale. She simply took my breath away.

Having raised three boys of my own, and having grown up with two brothers, I never experienced the wonder of a little girl turned princess. As a child, my older brother’s outgrown pants became my play clothes and my Buster Brown leather tied school shoes were also my party shoes, just polished up a bit.

When I asked my mother, recently, why she never dressed me up like a princess she told me they couldn’t afford to be frivolous. "Besides," she told me, "those Buster Brown shoes were better for a young child’s developing feet." My mother was frugal and practical – a bad combination for nurturing a little princess.

As I was growing up, my mother told me many stories about the women in her family. One was about her cousin who was always dressed up in frilly clothes and was called “princess” by her father, even after she was married. As a child, she wasn’t allowed to get her pretty clothes dirty when she played outdoors. Later, as a young woman, she would spend hours primping herself to get ready for a date. “So much for being a princess,” my mother told me. “She ended up marrying a bum who smacked her around. And she didn’t have the guts to stand up to him.”

Then there was her aunt, a delicate beauty in the Roaring 20’s, with dark wavy hair who “dressed to the nines” and was very popular with the men. She married a very attractive man who loved to go out dancing at night – without my aunt. She ended up with an indelicate social disease that prevented her from having children and a marriage that ended in divorce. My mother always ended this story with a warning: “Don’t marry a good dancer. He’ll leave you home alone when you’re pregnant and go looking for a good time.”

Then, there was a sister-in-law who ignored her husband when he belittled her and talked down to her in company. She would giggle, as if his nasty comments were humorous. “He gives her nice clothes to wear and treats her like an imbecile,” my mother would say. “Don’t ever let a man treat you that way.”

Back in the 1950's, there was the woman on our block who dressed in tight fitting pencil skirts and high heels, wore makeup and red lipstick every day, and walked with her chin a little higher than the rest of us. Her hair was done up on top of her head, not pushed back with a headband, like my mother’s. We would often look out the front window and catch her striking leggy poses while watering the front lawn with a garden hose. “Who does she think she is?” my mother would say, laughing and imitating her poses, “a princess or something?”

These, and other stories about the women in my family, were the influential anecdotes that shaped my little girl mind. Without lecturing me directly on the subject, my mother was teaching me that the value of a woman lies not in her physical appearance but in her personal strength and knowing who she really is inside. She taught me the importance of standing up for yourself and your integrity – even if it means standing up to a man and the authority he may hold over you. That may not be proper behavior for a princess, but, perhaps, without knowing it, my mother was grooming me for a higher position.

So, when we were studying English History in high school and my best friend asked me one day, “Who would you rather be back then? The princess or the queen?” I answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“The queen,” I said. “Definitely, The Queen.”

Let It Snow!

It has been forty-plus years since I’ve walked the halls of my neighborhood high school and I still get a thrill out of hearing the snow report school closings. My husband doesn’t understand my thinking. I don’t work in a school and I no longer have any school age children living at home. I am a bookkeeper who finds my own clients. I make my own hours and can reschedule a job any day of the week to give myself a day off. Yet, I get excited when a fierce snowstorm shuts everything down.

There is an electrical charge in the air right before a snowstorm. Total strangers will strike up a conversation about the impending storm. People are united in their fear and anticipation. Excitement builds throughout the day before a storm, when people at work start talking about the predicted snow accumulations and asking, I wonder if it will be bad enough to give us a day off? I get pulled into the frenzy with them and express my hopes for a snow day off, even though I know I will be postponing any job I have for the next day if I awaken to see just one flake of white stuff in the street.

Everyone you speak to, from the street vendor to the sales clerk, ends the conversation with an enthusiastic, “good luck tomorrow!” I call my husband at work and tell him we must go grocery shopping after dinner to prepare for the storm and he reminds me of the freezer I have in my garage that is already full of loaves of bread, home made cookies, cooked soups, tomato sauce, meatballs and other frozen leftovers that I squirrel away for nights when I come home late.

“But you are almost out of milk!” I tell him, my voice edging on panic. “Let’s at least get you some milk and toilet paper; just the necessities, in case we can’t get out for a few days.”

We always split up in the grocery store: two wagons, two lists. I make up both the lists and I put him on the cold cuts line, to buy me some extra time to read package labels and pick out the best fruit. I tell him to buy anything he thinks we might need, even if it isn’t on the list, because, normally, he will put nothing in his wagon that isn’t on his list.

When we are finished shopping my wagon is spilling over and he has the original six items on his list, plus one bag of potato chips. My wagon has M & M candies, Devil Dogs, bags of flour and sugar for baking cookies in the storm, some butter cookies - in case the lights go out and I can’t bake cookies in the storm.

The total comes to $243… just the necessities for two people in a snow storm.

Sex, Drugs And Baby Boomers

I am a Baby Boomer, a member of the generation who said we would never grow old. With all the anti-ageing tricks available - hair coloring, face lifting, tummy tucks, hair implants, breast implants – you can go on fooling yourself for a long time. But if you happen to catch The Who performing at Super Bowl half-time, you just might run to the nearest mirror and wonder: Do I look as old as they do?

The pharmaceutical companies have us duped into believing that we can turn back the clock and feel like we did when we were 30. They advertise pills that can cure anything from an overactive bladder to erectile dysfunction (conditions that our parents might only whisper about behind doctors’ closed doors). Now we are bombarded with TV commercials showing two sexually satiated giddy 50-ish people dancing, golfing and soaking in hot tubs, while a high-speed garbled voice-over lists the possible side effects from dry mouth to death.

With the development of Viagra came a plethora of drugs for sexual enhancement for those of us who are at that age when our mind has enough spark to jolt the engine but not enough to get the pistons to rise to the occasion.

One sex drug promises that if you take their pill once a day, “you can be ready anytime the moment is right.” But, it also warns, if you get chest pain, dizziness or nausea during sex you should get medical help right away. Bummer! You might also get a headache and an upset stomach, ringing in the ears and loss of vision. Can you hear me now??? And here is the kicker… In rare events, you might have an erection for more than four hours. Now, I wonder, what would my husband do with that problem all night after I’ve rolled over and nodded off to sleep?

I say, instead of spending millions of dollars in research and development for more powerful sex enhancing drugs, for a generation of old farts who’ve already had their heyday, why don’t the pharmaceutical companies develop a medication that can cure a sinus infection without giving you diarrhea for a month?

We had our time, when hormones ran wild and our bodies were virile and sexy, and love and lust were blended into one emotion. There is one reason alone that nature made us such horny beasts between the ages of 18 and 45, and that is to procreate. Once we’ve done that, in the eyes of mother nature, we’ve used up our usefulness in the great Mandala of life. Because we are living longer, we think that we should continue to behave like young people, but I’m telling you, don’t believe the hype; 50 is not the new 30, no matter what little pill you take.

By now most of us Baby Boomers are already ushering in a new generation of grandchildren. Remember learning the facts of life and imagining your parents doing it? That was bad enough. Do the poor kids today have to look at grandma and grandpa with the same creepy thought?

Forget those sexual enhancement drugs that can kill you with a severe drop in blood pressure and heart attacks. Who wants to go blind and lose their hearing before their time? Besides, most of the women I know over 50 would much rather see their partner reach into their tool box and pull out a screwdriver or a hammer. And if you’ve got four hours to kill in the middle of the night, and you need a little action, you can quietly paint the ceilings.

What Really Matters

I had a wake up call the other day. It came in the form of an incapacitating dizzy spell that lasted for 24 hours. One day I was going about my normal activities and the next night I was crawling back to bed on my hands and knees, unable to stand upright for fear of falling down. I spent the entire next day lying in my recliner, getting up only to make the necessary trips to the bathroom, and holding onto the walls for balance.

Do you ever wonder what goes through someone’s mind when they are lying incapacitated, unable to read or listen to music or watch TV? Not much; I can tell you firsthand. You lie there and focus on a spot on the ceiling until you fall asleep. You notice all the details in the room: the cracked line where the paint meets the molding on the ceiling, the flaked paint around the unfinished door, the curtain that doesn’t quite hang straight. You just stare at these details and let your mind go blank until you don’t even see the thing you are staring at.

You leave the world behind and cringe at the sound of life beyond your window – people slamming car doors and driving off to their destinations, the mailman filling your mailbox and slamming the lid down. The worst sound of all is the telephone ringing because it cracks a hole in the comfortable silent cocoon you have wrapped around yourself and trys to yank you out by your hair.

Nothing matters at all when you feel so sick that you can’t even sip water from a straw without the accompanying ripple of nausea. And the familiar twinge telling you that you must walk to the bathroom now! makes you break out in a sweat. And making that trip with your head spinning upside down, like the worst roller coaster ride you ever had, eats up all of your energy for the entire day.

You forget about the work you are missing that day. You don’t care that the boss may be annoyed that you missed the important meeting and didn’t take the calls from the office. You know everyone is thinking, no one get’s that sick that they can’t even answer their e-mails! Everything that was so urgent and important yesterday seems like silly nonsense today.

You don’t think about the trips you never took or the career path you should have gone down. You forget the important appointments you missed and the chances you passed up. You don’t care that you haven’t taken a shower and your hair is dirty and there may be hairs growing out of your chin that no one should ever see.

I will tell you what did matter as I started feeling better that day. When I awoke from a long sleep and sat up to realize that my head was no longer spinning, I became aware that my mother was still in the room. She had been there with me all day, silent and napping in the recliner beside me when I was sleeping, jumping up to help me walk to the bathroom several times, then hovering outside the bathroom door asking, are you alright in there?

This is what really matters: To have people who care for you and love you when you are at your lowest point. To have someone sit beside you all day and have the energy of their concern and love and prayers be the healing energy that pulls you back from the edge and drags you back to life. You can’t buy that kind of love. No promotion, no vacation, no thrill, no amount of money matters as much. To feel that kind of love is to have everything you need on this earth and to know that that is all that really matters.

Beware of Dog

The lopsided rusty Beware of Dog sign still hangs on the gate leading into my parents’ back yard. There hasn’t been a dog in the yard for over forty years, so I asked my father recently why he keeps it hanging there.

“Leave it there,” he said. “It makes people think twice about coming into the yard.”

When Duke, our German Shepherd, was in his prime, there was a game that the kids in the neighborhood would play. It was a game of dare. Someone would dare some clueless kid to simply lift the metal latch on the gate and let it fall back into place. At the point of contact there was a single note, a clink! Then the count would begin: one -one thousand - two - one thousand - three - one thousand… No one lasted much longer than a few seconds with their hand on the gate before Duke would come charging around the side of the house, teeth barred, ears pointed, hair standing up on his back, barking and crashing into the fence. The fence is still bowed out, to this day, from Duke bashing it in his attempt to get at his tormentor.

When we got Duke he was a sweet little puppy, very loving and gentle. But soon, my father was training him to respond to sounds of entry, like the tinkling doorbell or the metal latch clicking open at the outside gate, or the front door opening. When the doorbell rang, my father would call, “Duke! Duke!” then he would growl like a dog, bark and grit his teeth while commanding in Italian, “Mangia le! Mangia le!” (Eat him!). This is how my father taught our pet dog to be a watch dog.

It is no wonder that my father often opened the front door to find no one there. Who, in their right mind, would stick around on our porch with a vicious German Shepherd barking behind the door, and my father barking and growling beside the dog, while bellowing out, “Who’s there!? Mangia le!”

When I started dating I would have such anxiety thinking about the scene my would-be boyfriend would eventually encounter when he came to my house to pick me up. It was a true test of character that my boyfriends had to endure just to pass through the threshold of our home. Before I would agree to a date with a guy, I would access him myself. Could he pass the test of my father’s vice grip hand shake, the steely eye contact? Would he make it past my overprotective dog? Was this guy really worth it?

If he could make it through those first few minutes out on the porch, he would then be face to face with my father - a large, broad-chested man dressed in a semi-transparent undershirt that revealed his full muscular chest of dark curly hair and bulked up biceps that stretched the very fibers of his t-shirt to their limits.

Before he even greeted the boy, my father would open the front door while he continued yelling commands to our barking German shepherd, who leaped up to greet the house guest at eye level, slamming into the glass storm door with his front legs. Dad would then show his own strength by flexing his huge bicep, grabbing the dog’s collar and yelling in a deep throaty dog-like growl, “Sit! Sit! Sit, goddammit! I told you to SIT!” The dog would take a few moments to calm down, his tongue would be hanging out dripping saliva and he was alert and ready to leap at the next command of Mangia Le!. This went on with every first greeting. It was a show of strength and warning. Don’t mess with my daughter!

If the young man had any ideas of impropriety with me before ringing that doorbell, they were certainly replaced by primal fear and silent prayers of redemption.

My calm well-mannered boyfriend, the one who many years later would become my husband, found that display of brute strength by man and dog humorous and would not be intimidated or deterred by it. He continued to ring my doorbell and even went so far as to kiss me in front of the overly protective growling Duke. This boy and that dog had a hate-hate relationship for months, pushing it to the limits, until one lovely spring day when we pushed Duke too far.

My boyfriend was walking me home from school that day. We approached the gate with the lopsided “Beware Of Dog” sign hanging from years of Duke bashing into it in his attempt to get the mailman, the UPS man or anyone of the neighborhood kids who played their game of daring Duke. After loudly clanking the latch a few times, we paused a moment, as we always did, to be sure he wasn’t in the yard. I called out, “D–u-k-e, D-u-k-i-eee?” in the sing-song voice I used to get his attention.

My boyfriend, laughing aloud, imitated me in a high falsetto, “Oh, D-u-k-i-e; Dukie boy?” We were only met by the sounds of chirping birds and gentle spring breezes so we proceeded boldly around the back of the house, my boyfriend walking in front of me, both of us laughing as he continued his silly dog calls.

It all happened so quickly: my boyfriend crouched and running across the lawn, his books scattered in his path, Duke running after him, boyfriend on the ground rolling and moaning with his hands in his crotch, Duke yanking at the end of his chain, trying to break free so he could finish the job, hovering with his tongue hanging out only inches over my boyfriend’s head. I stood frozen in my tracks. What happened? I never heard a growl or a warning bark to let us know he was there.

My mother ran out of the house chasing the dog with her dust rag, calling, “Duke! Duke! Get back on this porch!” The dog pausing a moment to think about this, then loping back to his place on the back porch alertly watching his prey as it writhed on the lawn like a caterpillar that’s been poked with a stick.

“Is he alright?” my mother called out to me. We had only been dating six months, so I didn’t know how I would check his injuries. All indications were that he had been hit in that spot that makes guys curl up and die.

“Are you alright?” I asked meekly, still standing far away from him. He only moaned louder.

“Can I get you an ice pack?” my mother called from the porch steps. “Was he bitten?” mom asked me. “Should I call an ambulance?”

We heard a low groan from the lawn. “I think he said no,” I reported back to my mother. I looked over at Duke and I swear that dog was gloating. Is it possible for a dog to smile? I could see one curling on his mouth as he was panting, his tongue hanging out, eyes all sparkly.

“Bad dog!” I said to him and he lowered his head a moment and then took a quick peek at his victim in fetal position, lying motionless on the lawn. Yes, that dog was gloating.

The amazing miraculous thing was that this boy kept coming back for more. He continued to ring my doorbell and walk with his arm around my shoulders and even kissed me in front of the growling Duke.

The dog continued to assert his alpha male dominance over my boyfriend in little ways. There was the time Duke devoured the entire heart shaped cake I had made for my boyfriend on Valentine's day.

Then there were the times we would sneak inside after a date, when we knew everyone was asleep and Duke was tucked away in the garage for the night. We would watch an old movie, snuggled up on the TV room couch, but the minute we would start kissing and getting a little frisky, Duke's radar ears would pick up on the heightening emotions and start barking in the garage in an attempt to wake up my father.

The war of dominance eventually ended with Duke's passing. My boyfriend is now my husband, and with thoughts of Valentine's Day approaching I'm thinking about making that heart shaped cake that he never had a chance to see or taste. As for my husband, he does not need to worry about buying me some useless token of love. He already proved his love for me some forty years ago when he defied the Beware of Dog sign and walked into hell and back again, and again and again.