Wishes for a Happy (or at Least Disaster-Free) New Year

 

Happy New Year!  I hope that all of you enjoyed the holidays.  Mine was lovely in spite of not receiving the World Peace I've been asking for since I was sixteen.  I mean, what the hell, Santa? 

Anyhoo, 2013 is off to a great start so far:  the kids are back at school, the house is quiet once again, and my sanity is mostly intact.  It feels good to have just the usual stuff to stress about rather than the dozens of additional worries that the holiday season ushers in. 

I always have such high hopes for each new year.  Each January 1st brings with it a feeling of bright and shiny optimism, bursting with potential.  Yeah, that old year really let us down (I'm talking to you, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012) but this one, THIS new year, is going to be when things finally turn around. 

So, before the alcohol wears off, er, I mean, before the disillusionment sets in, and while my cynicism is still sleeping, I'd like to throw a few of my wishes for 2013 out into the universe and see if they stick:

-  For starters, can this Great Recession/Depression/Whatever please end?  It's like an uninvited guest who keeps messing up the place and refusing to leave.  While the politicians remain beholden to  their own agendas, so many of us remain forgotten and continue to struggle.  Here in America, we shouldn't have to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food after working a full week.  We shouldn't be living one illness away from financial ruin or homelessness.  Something is fundamentally wrong with an economy that is content to allow the majority of its population to subsist as long as the stock market keeps humming along.   I pray that this is finally the year that people will matter more than politics or profits.

-  Speaking of politics, can Congress please just do its job without reducing every single item of legislation to a whiny-baby partisan fight?  If Moms ran the country, we'd know what to do to break the stalemate:  we'd count to three, and if the fighting continued, we'd take away their video games and send them all to the Naughty Chair.  The privilege of representing the American people should be reserved for those who will honor it and who will work for the good of the people - ALL of the people,  not just the wealthy, powerful, and influential ones. 

-  How about a year with no natural disasters?  Certainly, we've paid our dues in 2012 with wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.  We haven't even gotten all of those sorted out yet, so a boring year weather-wise would be much appreciated.  How lovely it would be to have a rainstorm just be a rainstorm and nothing more! 

-  Lastly, can we please at least move closer to that World Peace thing?  Maybe try diplomacy a bit more and violence a lot less?  Perhaps a good place to start would be by being kinder toward one another.  We gain nothing by magnifying our differences rather than embracing our similarities. We're all members of the same grand club known as the human race.  It would help to remember that we're all just doing the best that we can even if it doesn't always look that way. 

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and disaster-free 2013. 

"It's a turkey, Gertrude!"

 

 

I don't know how it happened, but Thanksgiving is next week. 

Next. Week. 

It totally snuck up on me, what with trying to keep all of my assorted balls in the air.  You know the ones:  keeping the kids alive, employers happy, animals fed, and bills paid.  Add in a hurricane and a presidential election and it's no wonder I'm a more disorganized mess than usual.

As I attempt to pull a holiday dinner together this year, I can't help but think how our Thanksgivings have changed over the years.  One of my favorite memories is of the time when my soon-to-be-husband Dan and I traveled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my maternal grandmother.

After we arrived, we learned that Grandma had not yet gotten a turkey.  Ignoring the obvious question of why didn’t she have a turkey already if she was having guests for Thanksgiving dinner, Dan and I offered to go to the store and buy one. 

Looking for a turkey on Thanksgiving Day was a much bigger challenge than we expected, especially considering that we needed a fresh, unfrozen one.  A frozen turkey would never thaw in time to cook.  Dan waited in the car while I went into the grocery store.  I made a bee-line to the back of the store toward the meat department.  To my horror, there was not a single fresh turkey to be found.  Not one. 

Should I get a chicken?  A roast?  As I considered the options, my eyes were drawn to a freezer bin near the meat case.  Inside it were smallish turkey-looking items.  I picked one up.  The size was perfect since there were only going to be the three of us for dinner.  As I checked the package for the little pop-out timer thingy (a necessity for a young cook), I discovered that my perfect turkey was really a capon.  A capon?  What on earth is a capon?  Oh well, it looked like a turkey and it wasn’t frozen.  It would have to do. 

I wanted to impress my grandmother with how well I could cook a turkey, so I immediately began preparing the bird once we got back to her apartment.  There was no need to tell her about the capon.  After all, it looked just like a turkey.  Who would even know the difference?  I cut open the wrapper, cleaned the inside of the bird, and seasoned it so that it was ready for my grandmother’s oven.  I was proud of myself that I knew how to prepare a turkey.  Surely Grandma would be impressed as well.  I couldn’t wait for her to take the first bite.

My grandmother made several side dishes to accompany the “turkey”.  I helped her finish the rest of the preparations while Dan set the table.  Just as we were about to sit down to eat, there was a knock on the door.  It was my Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary was known for showing up unannounced whenever a meal was likely to be happening.  She was a tough, independent woman; the bold, feisty yin to my grandmother’s quiet, passive yang.  Aunt Mary believed that she knew everything about everything and no one dared to tell her otherwise.

The  four of us sat down at the table and took turns selecting our food.  After taking the first bite of her “turkey”, my grandmother paused and said, “Hmmm.”

Uh-oh.  Is that a good “hmmm” or a bad “hmmm”?  Did I do something wrong in cooking it?  Did she bite into the giblets bag? 

“What’s wrong, Grandma?”  I asked.

Grandma took another bite.  “This tastes like a capon.”

How could she possibly know that it tasted like a capon?  I took a bite.  I couldn’t tell any difference except that the meat was less dry than a turkey. 

Before Dan or I could say anything, though, Aunt Mary jumped to our defense.  “It’s not a capon, Gertrude.  It’s a turkey.”

Grandma took another bite and chewed it slowly.  “I don’t know.  It sure tastes like a capon to me.”

Dan and I looked at each other.  If we come clean with the fact that it is, indeed, a capon, we’ll embarrass Aunt Mary. 

Aunt Mary took a bite.  “This is a turkey, not a capon.”  She looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to say "your grandmother is losing it." 

Grandma wasn’t about to let it go.  After another bite, she was certain.  “Yes.  This is definitely a capon.  This does not taste like turkey at all.”

Aunt Mary, unable to contain herself any longer, slammed down her fork and shrieked:  “For crying out loud, Gertrude, it’s a turkey! What do you think, they’d buy a damn capon for Thanksgiving dinner?” 

Right.  Who would buy a capon for Thanksgiving dinner?

Thankfully, the identification of the bird wasn’t mentioned for the rest of the meal.  We talked and laughed and shared an otherwise uneventful Thanksgiving with my grandmother and Aunt Mary.   

The next day, as Dan and I were preparing to leave, Grandma thanked us for coming for Thanksgiving and for helping her cook the meal.  I could tell that something was bothering her though..

 “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.  “I still swear that bird was a capon.” 

 

 

 

photo by Lisa Kern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All was fine until the polynomials showed up

“Mom, I need your help with my homework tonight,” Evan announced as I picked him up from school.

Then, the words no parent wants to hear: “It’s algebra.”

Algebra. Not much scares me these days (except wolf spiders, poison ivy, and an ineffective Congress,) but algebra still paralyzes me with fear. At my age, I’ve forgotten much more math than I remember. In fact, I think algebraic concepts were among the very first things in my brain to shrivel up and die during childbirth.

Twenty-plus years and three children later, my memory of algebra hasn’t returned and I can honestly say I haven’t missed it. The way I see it, you’re inviting trouble when you allow letters and numbers to fraternize with one another anyway.

After dinner, Evan began to work on his math homework. It wasn’t long before he ran into problems (I know, I know…bad pun.)

I looked at his homework but it might as well have been written in Chinese. It made just as little sense to me.

I stared at the problems, incredulous that I’d ever been capable of figuring them out at any point in my life. No matter how long I stared at them, though, I could not remember what to do with them. Which do I solve first: the addition and subtraction or the multiplication? What about the x’s and y’s? What am I supposed to do with those? And what’s the deal with those tiny numbers that like to hang out above and to the side of other numbers? Those things are just plain annoying.

Why can’t math be more like language arts? If you can’t remember a grammar rule or how to spell a word, you can at least look it up in a stylebook or a dictionary. There’s no reference book for math problems.

I consider myself to be an intelligent person, but not being able to figure out my son’s seventh grade homework makes me feel uneducated and, worse, incredibly old. What would I forget next – how to tie my shoes or eat with a fork?

Even though I did not want to allow myself to be beaten by my son’s algebra homework, I hadn’t been able to successfully solve a single equation. Still, this wasn't my homework so why should I have to continue to struggle with it? I’d already passed seventh grade!

I decided to give up and tell Evan that I can’t help him with his homework. One of the perks of maturity is that we no longer have to be so concerned with how competent we appear to someone else. We’re more relaxed with ourselves and therefore less likely to feel insecure by admitting our shortcomings.

Or something like that.

While it’s probable that I care less about my shortcomings and more about not spending the rest of my night with an algebra book, I felt proud that I was able to drop the Supermom façade and admit that Evan’s homework was beyond me.

I couldn't abandon Evan, though. Solving algebra successfully would require the big guns, a secret weapon, and an ace-in-the-hole.

I asked his older brother to help him.

Who says I’m too old to figure this stuff out?

 

In which I fling my comfort zone off a cliff

(and it only took us 1-1/2 hours!

I've been a bit distracted lately.  Most days, it feels as if I'm not fully present at all.  Blame it on overwork, stressful challenges, or lack of a vacation, the result is still the same:  I'm missing out on my own life.

As if to punctuate the fact that I've been living in a fog, I mistakenly put body wash in my hair the other day instead of shampoo.  There's nothing like smelling the scent of "Energizing Citrus Ginger" where it's not supposed to be in order to jolt me to attention.

Realizing that I need to make some changes in order to restore some semblance of balance, I began examining the way that I've been living.  If I'm honest, I'll admit that I'm rarely mindful of whatever I'm doing, and I tend to hop from activity to activity at a frenetic pace.  I'm rushing through life and missing out on its joys.  I need to slow down, plain and simple.

At the same time as my stop-and-smell-the-roses epiphany, my son Evan began bugging me about accompanying him and his class on an overnight field trip.  There will be lots of driving, chaperoning other people's children, and, most distressing of all, sleeping in a tent.

A tent!  Doesn't he realize that I seriously love electricity and indoor plumbing? And what about the woods?  I'm a poison ivy and wolf spider magnet!  My biggest worry, however, is kind of embarrassing.  Thinking of it makes me feel old and out of shape.  Of course, it  doesn't help that I AM old and out of shape. 

When my stiff and aged body meets the hard, unyielding ground beneath that tent, I'm not sure what's going to happen.  I mean, I'm far from being anything resembling flexible.  What if I go to sleep on the floor of the tent and can't get back up?  I imagine a muscle spasm so severe that I'm forced to lie there,  paralyzed, while everyone else contemplates whether or not to bring in the Jaws of Life to free me.

But then, there's my sweet boy, wanting his mom to go with him.  At age twelve, he's becoming more of a young man and less of a child every day.  I'm not sure how much longer he's going to feel this enthusiastic about having me around.  What if this trip is the last time?  How would I feel if I miss it?

Before I could talk myself out of it, I signed up for the trip.  I can do anything for one night, right?  Even if it does mean sleeping in a tent and putting myself out there as bear food. 

Best case scenario:  we won't get eaten by bears, I won't get stuck in the tent, and I'll make some happy memories with my kid.

Worst case scenario?  I'll have plenty of stories to write about.  Just as soon as they free me from that tent.

 

*photo by Lisa Kern

What the Great Recession didn't take

 

 

I may have mentioned a time or two (or twenty, if you ask my kids) about my relentless case of poison ivy - how I’ve had it all summer and how it won't go away no matter what I try. 

My frustration finally led me to see my doctor.  This is a very big deal considering I have no health insurance and the cost of an office visit throws my monthly budget right off of a financial cliff.

The diagnosis was indeed poison ivy, and a round of prednisone was prescribed.   This, of course, created an open invitation for the kids to poke fun at me:  "Hey!  Mom's on 'roids!" 

'Roid Rage, PMS, it's all the same outcome:  at least they’ll leave me alone for a while.

The prednisone worked until it didn't, which, unfortunately, happened to be the day after I stopped taking it.  Soon itchy little blisters once again covered the areas of my skin that had attempted to heal while I was taking the steroid.

I called the doctor's office and was told that they'd call in a prescription of a steroid cream for me.  No office visit!  I just had to go to the pharmacy to pick it up.

My joy was short-lived when I arrived at the pharmacy and learned the cost of the prescription. Nearly $50.00!  I didn’t know what to do.  I only had $20.00 or so in my checking account until pay day. 

To make matters worse, I’d just learned a few hours earlier that our Internet and telephone were shut off.  While engaged in the Great Recession sport known as Competitive Bill Juggling, I must have missed making the payment for it.  I’d already spent every single moment prior to arriving at the pharmacy stressing about how to get the funds in order to have the phone and Internet turned back on.  I certainly didn’t need an expensive prescription thrown into the mix.

 

As I stood there, seeing the cost of the prescription displayed on the cash register and the clerk waiting ever so patiently for me to pay, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

I don’t want to cry!  Not here, not now!

But it was too late.   I’d reached my emotional breaking point and tears were now rushing down my cheeks.  Not only were my financial struggles once again bearing down on me, but now I’d never get rid of the poison ivy rashes that were psychologically torturing me.

                “I’m so sorry,” I choked through the tears.  “I just can’t afford this.” 

As I turned to leave, the pharmacist rushed over to the counter.  “Here are some lower-cost prescriptions that you can ask your doctor about.  They work just as well as the prescription she ordered for you.”

She handed me a paper with a couple of different drugs circled.  “Why don’t you call your doctor when you get home and see if she’ll prescribe one of these?”

I was so relieved to know that there was an option for me.  I nodded and took the paper from her.  I would call the doctor when I got home.

My husband Dan had been waiting with me and heard the whole conversation.  We walked out of the store silently and empty-handed.

In the car, Dan suddenly erupted in laughter – the kind of uncontrollable laughter that spills out of you in spite of your best efforts to stop it. 

                “What are you laughing about?” I sniffed.  “There’s nothing funny about this situation at all.”

                “I’m sorry,” he snorted between laughs.  “It’s just that I realized the ultimate irony in all of this.”

                “Irony?  What do you mean?” I asked.

Dan still couldn’t stop laughing.  “She told you to call your doctor…”  More laughter erupted.

                “Yes.  So?”

                “…but we don’t currently have a phone!”

And with that, I suddenly burst into laughter as well:  wonderful, healing, clearing, belly laughter.  There we sat, in the car, laughing our crazy, broke heads off.  It was the perfect illustration of how challenging life had become for us, yet in that moment, we were both overcome by the sheer implausibility of all of it.  There was my never-ending skin rash, our never-ending financial quicksand, and now, the cherry on top of this terrible trifecta, no phone to call the doctor. 

In a strange way, it was comforting to accept that there wasn’t anything we were going to do about any of it in that present moment.  Perhaps solutions would reveal themselves tomorrow, but for now, there wasn’t anything to do except be with one another and laugh until our bellies hurt.

 

(photo by Lisa Kern)

 

 

 

Remind me about this when I'm whining in February

Even Mewcifer thinks it's too hot

Welcome to August, the time of year when I can't remember what I ever found appealing about summer in the first place.

The yard, so beautiful at the beginning of the season, now looks like an abandoned field. In the Survival-of-the-Fittest Plant contest, the weeds are definitely winning. The grass, once green and vibrant, is now a crunchy, lackluster brown and isn't even a contender.
The endless string of ninety-plus degree days have certainly worn out their welcome. The electric meter is spinning like a whirling dervish on 5-Hour Energy. I know it's hard to believe, but the fun has definitely gone out of opening the monthly electric bill. At this rate, I'm going to need to sell a kidney and one of the kids in order to pay for these summer heat wave energy costs.

What a change from June, when the hot weather was a welcome treat, a sign that winter was really, truly over. Day 1 of hot, humid weather: It's definitely summer! Day 37 of ninety degree weather: For the love of all that's holy, can we please fast forward to February?

Yep, only August can make a Pennsylvania winter look inviting.

By this point in the summer, I've had my fill of getting dressed in front of the window air conditioning unit just to avoid receiving brush burns from putting on my bra. Likewise, a head of huge frizzy hair has also lost its appeal. By the time August rolls around, my hair has seen more silicone in the name of frizz fighting than Pamela Anderson's breasts.

And then there's summer's favorite torture trio: poison ivy, oak, and sumac. Would you believe that I am on my third round of poison ivy? This stuff just won't go away. I've had it in one form or another since May and I'm ready to let someone else have a turn.

I don't even know how I get poison ivy. It's not like I actually garden or anything (unless weed-whacking to get to the grill counts.) Yet here I am, covered in calamine lotion and wanting to scratch my skin off. I must have logged seventy-three hours Googling 'poison ivy remedies' on the internet. Let me save you the trouble: nothing works.

And of course, August wouldn't be August without some fussing from the offspring.

The kids say they're bored and there's nothing to do. I totally don't understand this at all since the last time I've experienced boredom was in 1982.

Maybe the next time they complain, I'll have them research poison ivy cures for me. That'll keep them busy.

Right after they're done weed-whacking the patio furniture.

Posted in Life between spin cycles on phillyburbs.com on Friday, August 3, 2012 12:51 pm. Updated: 1:02 pm.

Screen Name or EmailNow I remember!

                  

Pardon me, my local pride is showing

I live in a place where nothing ever happens.  Nothing bad happens, but nothing very exciting happens either.

On most days, the lack of excitement is welcome, especially considering there's always enough stuff going on in my house to keep me entertained.  Anyone would agree that  scaling world-record sized laundry piles and cleaning up after the humans and animals I share my space with are always engaging activities.  You can't find that kind of fun just anywhere.

But back to where I live...

It's a tinier-than-tiny town located in one of the suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia.  Its unique blend of rural and suburban areas means that we have frequent encounters with wildlife.  Just a few weeks ago, a bear was wandering around the area, following the creek and stopping to munch bird seed from back yard feeders along the way.  By all accounts, he was having a splendid time.  He was probably here on vacation from New Jersey. 

There are plenty of other animals, too.  We frequently have visits from deer, groundhogs, and coyotes, and every spring, Evan and I watch the fox babies play in the field behind our house.  Deer and groundhogs are so abundant that our dog Bailey is the only who still gets excited about seeing them. 

Since there are always so many animals around, it wasn't exactly a surprise to see a critter of some sort crossing the road in front of us as we drove home the other night.

Upon nearing the animal, we could see that it was a turtle.  More specifically, it was a huge snapping turtle, the size of a trash can lid, who'd decided to come to a complete stop in our lane of the road. 

Since the road that we were on is one of the main ones in the area, it was likely that this turtle wasn't going to make it all the way across the road without someone running it over.  But how do you move a huge turtle, especially one with as bad of an attitude as a snapping turtle?

My quick-thinking husband stopped the car a few feet from Turtlezilla and put on the hazard lights.  Dan jumped out of the car and began digging around in the back of it to find something to help him move the turtle off the road.  There wasn't anything in our car that could provide enough distance and survive the strong bite of a snapping turtle, though.

Just then, three other vehicles stopped around us.  A young man jumped out of a car across the road from us and grabbed a golf club from his back seat.  A man wearing a safety vest who looked like he'd just finished work on a road crew parked his truck behind us and ran past our car carrying a huge plank.  Another man and his three young children watched the turtle rescue operation from the safety of their car on the other side of the road.

The man with the plank placed it squarely under the bottom of the turtle, lifting its rear legs into the air.  He pushed the turtle forward so that it was walking solely on its front legs.  At the same time, the man with the golf club used it to guide the turtle on its path and to prevent the turtle from doing what it does best:  snapping.

I watched as they coaxed the turtle into the tall marshy grass on the side of the road, relieved that no one had been bitten and that we could finally get home.

The three young kids cheered once the turtle was safely off the road, and Dan and the other two men briefly exchanged thank-yous and high-fives.  And then, just as quickly as they'd all gathered, everyone was back in their vehicles and on their way to wherever they were going.

I like where I live for many reasons, but most days, I don't readily think of them.  I get so mired up in day to day life that I forget about the beauty and peacefulness that lured me here thirteen years ago.  

Now I have one more reason to love where I live:  any place that has the sort of people who'd stop to help a snapping turtle cross the road has to be one of the kindest places on earth. 

I'm so glad that it's also the place I call home.