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.”