Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Bad Marriage News is Mostly Delivered in the Kitchen


(Penguin/Viking sends me books to review. I select a few to share.  I liked this breezy, feel-good self-discovery story and gave it four stars on Amazon.  Ms. Pancol is a bestselling author in France.)

The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol

Most bad marriage news is delivered in the kitchen while the wife is preparing a meal for the dirty dog who is about to break her heart.

So it is with Josephine, the heroine of The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles who receives the news that her unemployed, self-indulgent husband is having an affair with a manicurist.  She tells him to leave and he is happy to oblige.  Josephine has been preparing all of her life to be trod upon.  She has played the plain nerdy sister to ambitious well-married Iris. She has played the socially inept daughter to her icy mother Henriette and she even allows her teen-age daughter Hortense to pile on the insults. Did I mention that Josephine is being left with only her own tiny salary to sustain her and her two girls and without a clue how to manage the finances?  If you haven’t guessed by now from the names, this book (a huge bestseller in France) has been translated for American audiences.

The reader knows that this heap of trouble for Josephine is the perfect roadmap for a journey into the land of self-discovery, new beginnings, and “look who is laughing now.” We aren’t absolutely sure how things are going to get better for Josephine or how her detractors (family) are going to be left with egg on their face but unless the author is playing a ghastly joke we are pretty sure it will happen.  The trick in these breezy romps into “Life couldn’t get worse but oh, look, it’s better now than before” is to keep heaping trouble on the main character until we beg for mercy.  The other trick is to let us see the weak underpinnings of the supporting cast slugs who beat up on our heroine.  We want a front row seat when their downfall arrives.

Ms. Pancol delivers all of this with good pacing, a colorful cast of characters and an
interesting menu of sub-plots and dénouements. The translation is clumsy in spots especially in the transitions and idiomatic expressions but not enough to spoil the story.

It's New Year's Eve. I'm sitting in my office in the house.


It’s New Year’s Eve.  I’m sitting in my office in the house. There are two windows in the room and I’ve covered them with venetian blinds because the sunshine in the morning is so beautifully invasive that I can’t see my computer screen. 

This room was originally a bedroom.  It was the Jill part of what developers like to call a Jack and Jill set up.  I sleep in the Jack part across the hall from the bathroom.   This room is located inches to the right of the front door and in the early days (I was still tolerant) when carousing co-workers needed a place to sleep I would tell them to come in the door, make a sharp right and just get in the bed. I never locked any of the doors even though my house is only one block from a main road and the Railroad Station. (I was tolerant and crazy.)

With the arrival of my first dial up internet connection I made the bedroom near the front door my office and moved the bed upstairs. This became the room where I re-invented myself as a publisher and purveyor of digital books that I learned to build and upload to Amazon.  I also created a rudimentary blog and began posting simple ideas that seemed brilliant in the shower. In this room I've received good news and disappointing news.  I’ve cried in here several times. (Not recently,)

Here is some of the good news I’ve received in this room over the years:
1.  Can you come in to town, I think I’m starting labor?
2.  Can you come in for the award luncheon?
3.  I’ve been asked to work on a show.
4.  Grandma, it’s me.  Can I come over?
5.  We got the house.
6.  Consuela, I read your manuscript last night.  It’s wonderful. (This from my devoted agent who never in twenty-five years has gotten my name right.)
7.  “Daughters is the best book I’ve read this year.” (Daughters has received 119 5-star reviews and 47 4-star reviews.  One reader gave me four stars because she was mad when it ended.
8. One Hundred Open Houses does not sell well but when someone buys it and connects - aaah! “I loved this book.  Now, how did the author get into my mind and pick out every thought I’ve ever had, do have and will have and get it all together in this book?” This is my personal favorite.
9.  Hello, Ms. Baehr.  This is Rachel from Fast Company Magazine. We’d like to include you in our Kings of Content article if you’re willing. Do you know anything about me, I asked?
10. We’d like to publish Thinner Thighs in Thirty Years as a Kindle Single.  Ok. 

2013 was a good year.  I got rid of a couple of bad habits. (Well, almost.) I did not lose a single pound although I was sure I would lose about five every single day. (Oh, you have to stop eating? Who knew.)

What I liked best were the e-mails and comments from people who read The Repurposed Writer.  The post goes out with a little click and the next morning readers weigh in.  I’m always surprised.  Who knew these good times were waiting for me?  Thank you. Thank you.

Happy New Year! 

Monday, December 30, 2013

High profile. High stakes. Hijinks


(Everything in this post is alleged.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about President Obama and not because of the Healthcare dust-up.  I’ve been thinking about him because of the dust-up at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela especially after I read in the National Inquirer (What? No good?) that it wasn’t just the selfie with the Danish Prime Minister.  There was a lot more to it.

I strive to get my news from many outlets and by that I mean standing in line at the supermarket and reading the tabloids. What I love more than anything is when they give me a drama that has so many potentially explosive repercussions that I have to step to the side and let the person in back of me go ahead.  (What? They make up stuff?)  That’s what I thought until John Edwards.  Besides, in the case of the Anglo/Dane/Yank selfie we have PICTURES.  And by the way was David Cameron acting as the beard?  And it’s not just the selfie.  The National Inquirer has more pictures and although you won’t believe it one of them is of the President kissing - yes, kissing, the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.  (All right it was a greeting kiss.) 

The headline writers had a field day Flirting with Dane-ger!  You’re going to get Helle from Michelle.

You know what’s strange?  We’ve become so enamored of the dazzling hook-up - good golly Miss Molly -two good-looking heads of state shamelessly flirting for our viewing pleasure. This hook up is so novelistically right that we DON’T CARE if it’s the Prez and his wife is sitting right there witnessing it. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? AND AT NELSON MANDELA’S MEMORIAL SERVICE!!!  It doesn’t get any better.  Who cares about unemployment and the economy when we have this vignette to contemplate.

Anybody who saw Michelle’s scowl and bought the spin that her expression was photographed at another event or she was reacting to something else is delusional. I’ve seen Michelle show displeasure. She tends to roll her eyes as if to say, “Can you believe I’m being subjected to this crap?” as she did during lunch after the 2012 inauguration.  Everyone denied that she was rolling her eyes at John Boehner who was seated next to her.  Anyway, Michelle’s expression almost corroborates that something unusual was going down.

Here’s the story in pictures.
Barak is carousing with Helle - Michelle is not amused

Seats are changed
Barak kisses Michelle’s hand to show his devotion and Helle looks annoyed.

Barak continues flirting.


Michelle strikes back by putting her hand on Bill Clinton’s knee.


Is this any way to run a country?
Yes. Yes, it is.

Now I’m going to tell you something serious.  You know Charles Krauthammer?  He’s the political commentator and although he comments for Fox News (What? You know it as Devil News?) he also has a column in the Washington Post, has won the Pulitzer Prize, has been a presidential speech writer and was once a Democrat.  Although most of the viewing public was not aware of it (myself included), he is partially paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.

Krauthammer stated this about Barak Obama recently and I believe it is a brilliant and astonishing observation.  Whatever scandal afflicts the White House - IRS targeting, citizens’ phone tapping, Benghazi, the billions given to and lost by Solyndra, the untruths about the Affordable Care Act, the un-kept promises about transparency, banishing lobbyists, closing Guantanamo, the increasing use of executive privilege for passing legislation, the stealthy way the Affordable Care Act was passed in the first place, none of it - NONE OF IT - is ever fundamentally ATTACHED to the smart, ironic, well-built Harvard dude known as Barak Obama. He can do anything he wants and we are almost embarrassed to call him on it.  His trust numbers are down.  His performance numbers are down.  But his popularity is not down.

Fox News can run a continuous loop 24/7 of Obama saying “If you like your health plan you can keep your health plan” (this won the “Lie of the year” award from PolitiFact) but in our mind’s eye he is not a Nixonian liar with a five o’clock shadow, he is the smiling hottie ordering a burger with his posse at the local joint and nobody cares about consequences? Is it any wonder the Republicans are so stressed?  The president has the kind of charisma that is so mesmerizing - we are in a trance. And gosh darn it, as Stuart Smiley used to say, people like him.

He has us in his thrall.

Disclaimer:  Naturally, this scenario comes out of my own highly inventive head and I cannot confirm that it actually happened.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Go bus, go!


Last week I had to take the bus to get my car from the mechanic and I found that bus riding and bus taking in an upscale enclave like the Hamptons (unlike the city) is a sub-culture activity.

No one that I know takes the bus or would think of the bus as a way to get from one place to another.  They would think taking the bus would be (at best) quaint - odd in an old-fashioned kind of way. At worst, they would think of the bus like the reduced produce rack at the supermarket - not for them

I pass by the bus stop whenever I go to the supermarket.  I see the people waiting. These bus riders are often holding take out dinners.  They lounge against the wood fence with a plastic fork in their hand, stabbing at their food. Some sit on a little embankment and listen to their music.  Many carry a lot of stuff in shopping bags.

Each time, involuntarily I have the same group of thoughts.
1. If you take the bus you are not a driver.  If you are not a driver, you don’t make enough money to own a car.
            a. You are probably a dayworker.
2.  Or you are a habitual drinker whose license has been suspended.
3.  Or maybe your friend who got you to move here because there is day work can’t give you a ride today.
4.  Or you are a teen-ager who doesn’t drive and whose parents are not able to pick you up because they are working.
5.  Or you are one of the seniors who lives at the Windmill Village Trailer Park or the Affordable Senior Housing.
6.  Or your wife/husband/son/daughter needs the car to go to a regular job far away.

I could probably extrapolate a bunch of socio-ecomic truths that follow but let's just say these bus regulars are not participating in the upper portion of the American Dream.

There are implied rules on the bus.
            1. The bus need not be on time and there’s no talk about it when it finally arrives.
            2.  The bus will let you off wherever you like as long as it is safe.
            3.  A few “regulars” have a camaraderie with the driver.  They greet him both boarding and leaving.  They converse in single sentences followed by long silences.
“Look at the funny way they angled that new house.”
“Some drunk will drive into it.”
The regulars don’t discuss sporting events but they do discuss other regulars or other drivers who aren’t there.
“Jimmy’s not here today.”
“Nope.”
The rest of the riders say nothing. There is no intra-rider conversation except if you ask a bus question and then everyone weighs in.  The driver knows the habits of each regular and accommodates them.  Some don’t have enough change that day and they put in whatever they have.

I can’t tell you why but I felt safe and comforted on the bus. Even though it was shabby, I liked the simplicity of it and that I had no responsibility.  All I had to do was sit, look around, look at the passing scene and get off.  

If you took away the Public Relatiobns deficiency, the bus is a wonderful resource.  My fare was seventy-five cents.  If I wanted to go all the way to Riverhead - about forty miles - it would still be seventy-five cents. 

Go bus!  

Monday, December 16, 2013

The Manchurian Candidate but with barley.


(During one of the most stressful weeks of the year, thought I'd take your mind off of Christmas by reposting this totally off subject blog entry.)

When I made barley for the first time I couldn’t stop eating it.  I kept going back to the big pot and ate it all day long.  About 4 p.m. I began to feel sick and disoriented.  My mouth tasted like lead but I continued eating the barley.  Something in my mouth, my saliva, my salivary glands, my right brain or my left brain steered me to the pot, put a spoon in my hand and put more barley in my mouth.  I was like the Manchurian Candidate but with barley.

As I do with most grains, I had bypassed the recipe on the package and substituted lemon juice for some of the water and added salt and butter so it was like the best thing I had tasted in a long time.  Not that it mattered.  I was cramming the barley into my mouth so fast and chewing it so carelessly that it could have been flavored with roadside oil slick.  I wasn’t really tasting it.

I never made barley again.  When I passed the barley in the store I shivered and soon after I was gratified to learn that barley was full of the devil gluten anyway so there was no need to long for it. 

Last week I received A five pound bag of quinoa.  What the heck was I going to do with five pounds of a grain that was already annoyinglyoverpronounced (like Alex Trebek upchucking his tonsils to sayNicaragua) so that you had to Crazy Glue your hands to your pants to keep from slapping someone.  One day I had nothing to eat in the house (it happens) and I made some of the quinoa.  In my usual maverick style, I made it with lemon juice and water plus butter and red pepper flakes.  Do I need to tell you what happened? Do you know that song Sugartime by Johnny Cash?  Quinoa in the morning, quinoa in the evening, quinoa at suppertime. Be my little quinoa fix and I’ll love you all the time.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

My day with big brother/sister


This morning I was innocently eating breakfast. There in the glossy white of my eggs over easy was a picture of a pair of Dansko Pro XP Clogs I had just look at on Amazon.  It was refreshing to see those clogs at the edge of the yolk.  For about a week, I had been seeing the Little Pete Multi-Catch Mouse Trap in the pancakes, the panini, even the bathroom mirror.  Little Pete was all over the house.  

It was like the apostles finding the imprint of Jesus' face on Veronica's Veil.  Uh, well, no, it wasn't like that at all.  Sorry.

While I could tolerate the shoes and Little Pete, I rebelled at taking my grandchild to the playground and seeing that bellyfat lady squeezing her stomach right on the side of the slide.  And then when I tried to rub her out finding her stamped every few feet on the sidewalk all the way home.

That night,  I plumped my pillow hoping for a pleasant sleep only to catch sight of the Vita-Mix 7500 framed by the hemstitching on my heirloom pillowcase.  I had clearly only looked at the Vita-Mix 5200.  Geez, Amazon, get it right.  It’s enough to make you want to take out a restraining order.


Wednesday, December 11, 2013

For Xmas: a medically induced concussion.


I read recently about a young man who had a concussion playing football but when he came to he could play the piano like nobody’s business.  The young man said, “I think I got rewired.  Something just changed." 

Another man, after getting kicked in the head in a mugging discovered he could visualize difficult mathematical formulas and turn them into complex diagrams.

There’s a medical term for this event:  Acquired Savant Syndrome.  The brain rewires itself after a head injury in an attempt to compensate for the information it lost and demonstrating new astonishing capabilities.

We’ve all read about blind or deaf people who have slipped and hit their head on the coffee table and when they came to they could see or hear or bake a pie.

It annoys me that sometime in the future they’ll figure out how to rewire the brain without an accidental concussion.  They’ll be able to give you a medically induced concussion.  We won’t have to go to the shrink to avoid self-defeating behavior.  We’ll just re-wire. 

Hey doc, I need a re-wiring. 

No prob.  I can schedule your concussion for next Tuesday. Give your "to change" list to the nurse.

The doctor will execute your medically induced concussion and rewire you to dislike cheese and bread, to enjoy not speaking, to love the outdoors and possibly also to play the piano.  When someone doubts miracles, I always point to Google.  If someone had told you ten years ago that you could find out the answer to anything in three seconds would you have believed them.  Exactly.



Monday, December 9, 2013

I'm done with the top sheet. No really!



Here’s what’s wrong with the top sheet (or the flat sheet as it’s called) (or the super effed up whose idea was this sheet) and why we must blow it off the face of the earth. What me too angry?

The top sheet is NEVER going to be big enough to allow one person (let alone two) to twist and turn throughout the night in decent REM sleep without becoming a major roadblock to unimpeded nighttime comfort and freedom. 

When I was a child, the top sheet in good bed making was tucked in at the bottom.  In those simple days, Ike and Mamie were in the White House.  Pogo was our source of irony.  The plumber charged $16 dollars for fixing almost any water issue.  We slept quietly on our backs and didn’t budge until the first ray of sun pierced our curtains.  Didn’t we?   

Today after another hell day at the cube farm the top sheet is an intolerable border constraint - the 38th parallel - roadblocking our healthy sleep.

Let’s talk purpose.  A top flat sheet is meant to be a shield between the body beneath and the warmth instrument on top.  If we touched our warmth instrument - a blanket or a naked comforter - with our body it would be impractical or itchy or just plain gross (or so we are told.)

Let’s talk dimensions:  the sheet is only big enough to tuck in a few inches at the bottom if we are to have enough fabric left to get that buffer up top between our chins and the itchy blanket or to keep us from drooling on the duvet. What no one else drools in sleep?

Let's talk about side dimensions.  A queen-size mattress - and by the way who chose these regal names? - is 60 x 80 inches. Even in Fieldcrest’s super luxe one million thread count supercale, organic, Egyptian cotton sheet set the most generous queen flat sheet is 90 by 102. Deduct the eight inches in mattress depth, leaves you twenty-two inches to play with length wise and a mere eleven inches per side.  Even if you are slim and sleep alone, your body heft will eat up those inches in a gulp and you have nothing left.  If you thrash side-to-side because of “I’m  naked in the supermarket dream”, your sheet will turn with you but it will not return for the "I fell off the roof of my house but have not yet hit the ground dream." What you don't have those dreams?    

At the foot of the bed, your feet have fought the good battle and are now free of sheet prison but god knows where the sheet has gone. After the first bathroom break, don't even bother to look for the sheet.

The top sheet has become as useless as the appendix but what to use instead?  Recently, I found a super soft encasement thing, zippered on three sides, in my linen closet.  I had no idea what it was or where it came from.  Maybe the gods of good sense put it there just for this issue.  The fabric was a beautiful matte cotton, super soft. It was too shallow to be a mattress cover.  I measured it and found it was the exact size as my generous comforter.  I put the comforter into the case and zipped it up.  I started sleeping under this new zippered thing without a top sheet.  It was trouble-free, simple, soft, shifted easily and stayed where I put it.  It provided warmth and held the promise of easy on-off for washing.  Canon, Springmaid, are you listening?  I’m handing you a million dollar idea for free.  It even has a campaign.  It's one a.m. do you know where your top sheet is?  Yes.  It's on top of me.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Toro! Toro! Toro! Olé!




I divide the world into two groups.

Those who throw the box, packaging and the owner’s manual away immediately.
Those who keep the box and the owner’s manual for twenty years even after they have thrown away the item they served.

I thought about this recently when I wanted to convert my twelve year old Toro electric blower/vac from a blower to a vac.

When I first bought the Toro I was a timid new homeowner. The idea that I could use a torrent of air to force all the leaves to collect in one manageable space and make my yard look pristine without lifting a rake made my mind dance.  

Yipee! I sang as I drove home with my Toro. There is no song that has Yipee in it but the anticipation of performing this magic act inspired giddy me to make up a song.  Yipee, Yipee, Yipee.  Life is going to be easy.  I know what I’m doing.  Nothing can stop me.

Cleaning up the yard was going to be a snap. Enjoyable and satisfying.  

It was not a snap. It was not that satisfying.  The machine was heavy and clumsy.  The leaves were as unpredictable as a teenage monkey. They went up in the air or accumulated in the wrong place or went where I had just cleaned or stayed stubbornly embedded in the grass.  From time to time the Toro blew dirt and/or dust in my face.  At the end of a long, noisy battle with the heavy Toro I had a raggedy pile of leaves and other leaves that had stayed behind.  I had to rake.

Each year I drag out the Toro and a long extension cord and give it another chance.  Last week I noticed that on the side of the Toro motor it says, blower/vac.  Wow.  It’s a vacuum, too.  Right after that I saw a big canvas bag on a hook in the garage that had Toro printed on it.  Wow.  If I could vac the leaves instead of blowing them, I’d have them trapped in that big bag.  I went in search of the manual so I could convert my Toro.  

This brings me back to the original premise.  I’m in the group that keeps the manual and the box.  I have a manual folder.  It contains manuals for a dremel, a dehumidifier, three remotes, a washing machine, a gas boiler, a mixer but not the Toro.  I called Toro to ask for an owner’s manual but it was the week-end and they were not in the office. 

Then, beckoning me like a lantern in the dark, the Toro Owner’s Manual drew me to the kitchen junk drawer where it rested, upside down, a little stained but still intact. There on page 15 was the heading: Converting your blower to a vac. Home run.

A nasty weather system has kept me indoors for the last two days but the minute the sun is out again and the Thanksgiving sleepiness goes away, I’m going to be converting my blower and vacuuming those leaves right out of my yard. I feel that old excitement welling up in me. What?  You’re worried it might not turn out as I imagine?  Don’t worry.  It’s going to be a snap.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Clean up in aisle three - uh, and four



When Oprah tells me to do something I do it. 

Okay maybe not her fiber fat flush.

When she offered me a 21 day meditation challenge with Oprah and Deepak* and it was free I thought, why not? 
At the very least it will quiet my restless mind.

Oprah is not to be taken lightly and she doesn’t have to do this stuff with us.

The first day, Oprah and Deepak asked me to identify my DEEPEST desire.  
They said that if I asked my heart and was alert to my daily life the answer would come.

Usually when I’m asked this question I close my eyes and the first image that comes to mind, I take as a metaphor for the answer. 
The image was a lawn chair but even as a metaphor - a modest resting place in a big expanse - a rest stop in a safari?- I couldn’t cram my usual superficial desires into the image.

Deepak and Oprah said not to worry.  They said to continue meditating and asking. The answer would come.

I chanted the mantra and minded my breathing for eleven days but nothing came.

It was the meditation on Surrender that began to turn things around.
I do not like to surrender to anything. 
 I’d rather control things even if it means not going anywhere or doing anything or engaging with the rest of the world.
   
After the meditation on Surrender, I had the ‘new to me’ idea to surrender to a couple of things.  
This might sound lame but it was a new thought, a thought I would not have had before. 

The trick to surrendering is to catch yourself getting ‘your back up’ which means ‘defending’ yourself or your ego against something you perceive as threatening to the status quo.  We just adore the status quo (even if it’s not that great.)

During the gratitude meditation that Oprah swears changed her forever, she quoted Meister Eckhart an old German mystic priest that I had read a long time ago. I trusted him.  He said if you only say one prayer in your life 
let it be ‘thank you.’

Normally I would make fun of this to entertain myself.  Really?  Just say thank you? After years of looking at my life and shouting: Clean up in aisle three, uh and four the Universe is suddenly going to say: 
Polish the trumpets, somebody had an aha moment?  Maybe. 

That morning, feeling a bit dorky, I said thanks for the hot shower and for my strong legs and the warm and sunny weather in November.

I continued with the meditation challenge and repeated my mantra even though pronouncing Om Vardhanam Namah for twenty minutes takes some doing.

During the gratitude meditation it came to me. It was such a jolt I had to open my eyes and begin to write this post.  
My deepest desire was UNDERSTANDING. That was the only desire I needed because it would lead me to everything else.

This is not earth shaking or even exciting.  BUT to receive an answer to a question you’ve posed to your heart and mind and be CERTAIN of the answer is a pretty good discovery.  I could use this method -  surrender, alertness and gratitude - to get an answer to other things.

So what do we have here? Surrender to what comes your way (well, not a runaway bus), be alert to your daily life and say thank you (yes even for your annoying friend Delores who rants against the government non-stop). 
You can’t go wrong.  

Happy Thanksgiving. 

I say thank you every day for the people who read this blog. I am in your debt.

* Oprah & Deepak Meditation <experience@chopracentermeditation.com>

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Let's chat about laziness.



I don’t think you’re lazy.  You get up you get dressed you go somewhere you do things.  You make your smoothie and drink it.
No, I’m lazy.  Once in a while I'll do some fake hard work to avoid real work.

Do you know what lazy means?  A disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to do so.
That’s exactly it.  I sit around.  No daily plan.  No delaying instant pleasure in order to get greater pleasure.  

What’s wrong with instant pleasure?
Doesn’t last long.

What about greater pleasure?
I don’t know.  Never had it. 

Maybe it doesn’t last long either. Name a person who you think isn’t lazy.
That’s easy.  Joyce Carol Oates.  She has written over 40 novels and almost that many plays, short stories, nonfiction. She writes so much people make jokes about it. I once saw a picture of her at a party and her slip was showing an inch below her skirt. She works so hard, she doesn’t even know her slip is showing.  If I worked that hard, I’d go out in my pajamas that’s how little I would care about anything else.

Maybe you’re not lazy.  Maybe you are gestating, as in incubating ideas that you will use later.  Or maybe life, as in LIFE, is so hard you are rightfully stepping aside for a day.
No, I’ve been lazy all my life. I'm lazy about the things that really matter.  

If you were not lazy what would you be doing?
I’d be working much harder and getting things done. I'd be focused. I would kill for more self-discipline.

Do you know what 'not being lazy' feels like?
Yes.  I get lost in the task - I could be dead that's how immersed I am in the work.  In fact, that's what I think dead feels like.

I believe we use the word lazy because we don’t know what to call the trait we are really exhibiting.  We don’t know to say: I work hard at physical tasks because I don’t know how to access the task I should be doing. Is there any prompt that makes you work hard?
Yes.  If I get good news I become hyper and ideas pour out of me.  My head explodes. 

Why do you think that is?
I think good news jerks us around, jiggles some part of our brain and makes it want to do things.

So the answer to laziness is to get good news every day.
No. The answer is to learn to jiggle our own brain and make it act as if it heard good news.

Is there anyone you know who has enough self-discipline?
Yes.  I know one a person who is all self-discipline.  Everything he does is deliberate and would be hard for most of us.  He never takes the easy road.  If he did that experiment where you delay eating the cookie in order to get two cookies, he wouldn’t eat the cookie.  He wouldn’t even eat the reward cookies.  He’s all discipline.

Is that person happy?
No.   That person is not happy.

So hard work doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness?
I guess not although I don't believe in that amorphous, ill-defined state known as happiness.

What have we learned here?
I don’t know. Nothing.

Monday, November 18, 2013

One narrow inlet of guilt, wonder, fear, apprehension, anger, joy and WTF.

 (We're approaching Holiday time - our annual torture test.  I thought it might be okay to re-post this "get out of jail card")

Today on Facebook I saw a video that urged me to “live life to the fullest.”  I would totally do that if I didn’t have to leave the house.   “Live life to the fullest” is one of those sayings that is so lacking in specifics that you just slosh around as if wearing regret galoshes that are ten sizes too big and you have no solid footing. 
Oh, my god, I’m not living life to the fullest.  What to do?  Hey wait, what does that mean? When I hear that phrase I see some foolhardy athletic activity as in when one of my children jumped off a cliff in a foreign country with only a rubber band tied to his feet to keep him from plunging.
In my teens and 20’s I did about fifty “life to the fullest” things that could have ended in me being dead or randomly hurt or going down a bad road that would have altered the entire direction of my life. The direction of my life was altered anyway and some of it was good and some of it was bad.  Discretion and my children’s sensibilities keep me from spilling some of the stuff.  At 20, I left the country and my senses while I traipsed (love that word) through Western Europe with a movie group. At 18 I went to Miami and lived for a year first working as a waitress (half of a day) at Jersey Charlie’s, unwittingly as a jewel thief's assistant and then as a telephone operator at the Eden Roc Hotel. I lived in a hotel room in not yet trendy South Beach.  At 23 I quit a dream advertising job to lead a penniless life in Greenwich village. At what point does “living life to the fullest” and acting like a dodohead merge?
I got married and had children and my life contracted into one narrow inlet of guilt, wonder, fear, anger, joy and WTF.  If someone had asked if I was living life to the fullest I would have punched them.  I kept thinking I’m never going to get out of this.  It’s just going to go on and on like some Groundhog Day film.  BUT.  Something weird happened. During this time of guilt, fear, anger joy and wtf, I re-connected with my writing. With three kids hanging on to my nightgown and an ancient Royal typewriter with a missing N, I began writing and publishing op-ed pieces and columns and eventually books.  I was writing not in the luxury of an isolated Village apartment but within the chaos of a family of five.
I was creeping up on the “life to the fullest” road.  But that still wasn’t it. The kids grew up and I moved to a distant village where I didn’t know a soul and began what I can only describe as a ‘what fresh hell is this?’ episode that morphed into something decent. I made friends with my adult children.  I took on a job that could have been neurosurgery that’s how off base it was with my usual.  Taking that job and not even thinking of failure allowed me to re-compute who I was.  Live life to the fullest?  How about if I just don’t leave a big chunk of money on the table.

Friday, November 8, 2013

An intimacy freak throws in the towel


I never felt confident at parenting and with good reason.  When the kids were little I was overwhelmed. There was no close family around and living in a kid-poor area, I was isolated.  We won’t mention the fact that four pregnancies in five years left me batsh*t crazy.  Unfortunately for the kids, it was also the time when I was “discovered” as a writer and was often invited to "humiliate" them in the national and local press.

It was a lonely life, not another kid in sight.  I had to drive to the park, supermarket, playgroups.  I had to even drive to the school bus because we lived on a long non-public road. Did I mention I was a poor driver and only learned in my thirties?  I once made an illegal left hand turn right in front of a cop and when he pulled me over I had no clue what was wrong.  He told me to keep off the main roads for a few months. 

On the plus side, we were a three minute walk to Long Island sound where the kids learned to swim and sail a small boat that is still in use today.

I mention all of this because today I am getting ready to welcome two of my children and their children and I’ve been up since ten (kidding) cooking and getting the toys out.  I may not have aced it as a mother but (surprise) I am a good grandmother. We’re all surprised by this turn of events.  The grandkids like me and I like them.  I like playing with them and talking to them.   I think they are gorgeous and wise and funny and confident.  They have taught this intimacy freak to throw in the towel.

Here’s what I made for them to eat over the week-end.  I dragged out my old (70’s) Redbook manicotti recipe where you make crepe-like wraps, (made them this a.m.) fill them with a three-cheese (optional chopped zucchini) mix, wrap them like little fat cigars and cover them with a good tomato sauce and more cheese on top. I also made baba ghanoush, home-baked corn chips, lentil soup, pizza and medallions of pork.  There are  lots of organic greens ready for dressing and good ice cream for dessert.

Everything is done so I can spend the entire week-end free to engage and play.  Redemption thy name is grandma.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

There goes my money


The gift receiving season is fast approaching. I have several people in my life to whom I give the gift of money. When they were younger, these people thought cash gifts were crass and thoughtless. At the time, they were not paying their own bills. Currently, money is accepted without hesitation.


1.  The best reaction is when the receiver takes the check or the cash, looks at it, is overwhelmed with the amount, immediately tries to give it back.  “I can’t take this.” is the first sentence.  “Too much.”  I’m so thrilled that I’ve stunned the person, I want to stun them again. “I could make it more if you like.” “No,” they demure. “This is more than generous.” The check or bill is placed carefully in a wallet.  I know where my money is.  It is safe, unfolded and I can go my way satisfied.


2. “Thanks. I love money,” is another reaction.  The check or bill is stuffed into the shallowest jean pocket where it doesn’t even fit all the way. It becomes crumpled. Those jeans will be washed with the money or check in the pocket if it hasn’t already fallen out in the street.   The money will be destroyed or lost.   There goes my money.


3. The third reaction has no words.  The money is flipped into a fold and slid under the jacket in a razor quick movement. It nestles in that odd pocket on the inside lining that opens sideways (the manufacturer only put that pocket there for empty marketing.) When the maneuver is over I’m unsure if the event took place.  Did I give somebody money?  Where is that money?  It’s in that pocket nobody uses or looks in.  That jacket will go to the cleaner or be given away to a charitable organization.  The person unpacking donations will find it.  He might or might not turn it in.  There goes my money. 

Sunday, October 20, 2013

One of these things is not like the others


Facebook Spiritual Offerings Erratum


I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light.

I would rather live in Seattle and pack salmon than live in Paris and write like Robert McAlmon*

I would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.


*Robert McAlmon was one of the Paris literary ex-pats who got no respect.



Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The "AHA" use for what you already have.


Remember George Forman?  He was a boxer who made a comeback at forty-five and named all of his many children George. In 1994 he started selling the George Forman Grill - the mean lean grilling machine.  We all bought one.  We were astounded at the sense of it.  Then we were less astounded and put it on a high shelf. I don’t know why we do that.

The G. F. Grill was meant for grilling meats (mainly hamburgers) and it sloped downward so the fat from the meat could trickle out, leaving you with a nice lean burger and an oily mess on the counter.

 
One day recently I wanted a panini very badly. For some reason any simple sandwich tastes better if you smush it so all the stuffings melt and blend together.  It helps if you call it a fun name - panini.  I thought about the mechanics of steam rolling that sucker. You need something heavy and hot that makes the bread toasty and the ingredients (should always include good cheese) begin to ooze out.   There are lots of things that can qualify.   A frying pan with a foil wrapped brick, a foil wrapped weight of any sort - heck you could foil wrap the cat and plop it on top of that sandwich. (Kidding.)  I looked in the cupboard and hauled out the dusty old Forman grill heated it to high and put the sandwich inside.  There was a big gap between the jaws but as the sandwich gave in to its fate, the gap lessened and a beautiful panini resulted.  I left the G. F. grill on the counter because I wanted to eat paninis three times a day.  When I wanted a vegetable panini, I grilled the zucchini or peppers in the G.F. grill before assembling the sandwich.  This was great for eggplant that usually needed a lot of oil to cook in a regular skillet.

One morning I made some pancake batter but right in the middle of readying the pan I wished for waffles instead. Waffles are always airy and crisp whereas getting fluffy pancakes is difficult.  I poured a little of the batter into the G. F. grill.
The grill slopes down so a few drops of batter dribbled out before it set (easily remedied).  In about a minute and a half, I got a waffle. It had ridges and tunnels instead of squares but it tasted light and airy.

Real Simple magazine would call these “aha” uses because you’re going to scream “AHA!” when you think of it.  I certainly did.  If you have any “aha” ideas, please send them to me.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Prince of Ass (or So Many Wipes, So Little Time)


One day at 3 a.m. a resentful, sleep-deprived mother was changing her baby and using wipes as fast as they popped out of the holder. Soon there were seventeen wipes for this one tiny bottom that was now as clean and inviting as rose petals. The mother surveyed the sparkling plump cheeks. A light bulb went up over the mother’s head. Why should this up-all-night baby be the Prince of Ass?  I’m going to use these comforting moist sheets on my own ass?   This outlier began a revolution and now mothers everywhere are using wipes for their toilette and causing an unbiodegradable apocalypse.

Let me say something here about wipes in general and the new rules for cleaning up a baby’s bottom. I have seen mothers obsess about the direction in which the wipes must be used.  The rule starts at the elimination place or the “poop chute” as Tom Hanks called it in some movie. and moves backward, especially for girls.  Not only for poops but for peeps too. Mothers are now taught to regard the baby’s bottom as we would our dinner plate - it has to be fit to eat on.  It’s as if the entire report card on motherhood is weighted on wipe direction and quantity of wipes used. Suppose you’re half asleep, (it’s counter-intuative) and you do it the wrong way?  The baby’s butt is not going to fall off from gangrene.  Trust me, if it’s a girl, that butt will be there to torment her throughout her life.

In the pre-wipes middle ages when I had babies, I often put the kid over my arm, rump up and used the hand held shower in the bathtub,  Quick and to the point. Not sanitary, you say?  We’re all still here.  Asses in place.