Monthly Archives: October 2013

Leave my blankie alone!

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Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket. 
— An Indian Chief’s observation when he heard about the government’s action on Daylight-Saving Time.

“Have you noticed how dark it is in the mornings?” my daughter asked Sunday afternoon.

“And next week it’ll be light again when you get up for work,” I said.

Her eyes were question marks.

“Time changes Sunday,” I reminded her, “lighter in the mornings…darker in the evenings…”

“ACK! NO!  Is it that time already?”

Yup, it’s ti-i-i-me.

Nothing gets me wound up like pending time change. My mind has been made up long since about the foolishness of clocks “springing” ahead and “falling back.” If clocks were left alone there would be a gradual, natural change from daylight to dark, dark to daylight — an astrological dimmer switch, so to speak — not the mind-numbing jolt we get now.

A scholar once said, “Daylight-Saving Time effectively transfers an hour of little-used early morning light to evening.” Where, I wonder, did that “scholar” get his education?  Didn’t we all learn in fourth or fifth grade that early morning light comes from the east.  If an hour were truly “moved,” we’d have morning sun at dinnertime, wouldn’t we?

To the rationale, lose an hour’s sleep in the spring, gain it back in the fall, I say bollocks.  I have never met anyone who lolls around for months thinking, oooh, I can’t wait until I get back that hour’s sleep I lost. Saying time “springs forward” and “falls back” doesn’t make it so. And what are we saving daylight from?

Six years ago the Congress-approved Energy Policy Act went into effect.  One of the provisions added four more weeks of DST, changing the previous April/October dates established in 1966 to March/November.  Some have questioned whether daylight-saving results in net energy savings.  Really? Y’think?

One debatable reason for extending into November was that it would encourage greater voter participation because more people would go to the polls if it was still light when they returned home from work. The argument has some holes: not everyone leaves work at 5:00 p.m; some people work nights; some don’t have jobs to return home from; and others simply don’t vote because they can’t bring themselves to elect any of the candidates.

Frankly, I doubt that adding four weeks to Daylight-Saving Time has increased voter turn-out at all. Now, if they were to tack-on Congressional term limits, I’ll bet voters would knock down the doors to cast their ballots, especially this November!

 

Photographic memories.

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For my fortieth birthday, Peter, my heel-dragging, left-brained engineer and to-be husband, surprised me with a color- and number-coded itinerary for a trip to England, airfare included. It was fantastic! I met his dad, his friends, and I generally passed inspection.

Three years later, finally married after our whirlwind seven-year courtship, we went to England again. London-based friends Martin and Anna had bought a ski chalet they wanted us to see in the mountains above Chamonix, France in the Haute Savoie region. So we popped across the channel for a long weekend.

Their Alpine lodging was perched on a mountainside with a sweeping view of Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in Europe.  To wake up to flurries on June first was pure magic for a snow-lover like me. I was the only one who wanted to take the cable car to the top on that blustery summer’s day — Peter wasn’t keen on cable-car travel in any weather — but they humored me.

At Aiguille du Midi, the last stop, the wind drove icy toothpicks of snow at us. I hung over the guard rails to take photos from all angles, and finally agreed to warm up with coffee and grappa in the café near where France and Italy meet. I bought postcards — the café has its own postage stamp and letterbox — to send to my daughters.  (Leslie’s arrived a few days later, Carolynn’s took a year to make the same trip.)

I was still snapping pictures, thrilled to be cramming just a few extra shots onto my 36-exposure roll, when they dragged me off the mountain.

Back at the chalet the film wouldn’t wind back onto the spindle so I asked Martin, a camera buff, to help.  He shut himself into the windowless bathroom to work on my little Minolta.  There was garbled muttering.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Don’t tear my film!”

The door banged open. “No worries,” he said, “There’s no film in the camera!”

Well…merde!  My first trip to France, first ride in a cable car, in the snow, almost to the top of the beautiful white mountain, and I had no record of it!  Luckily, Martin had taken pictures so there is evidence.

That same weekend we went to the little village of Peillonex for a typical French meal. The restaurant was part of a long, low white farmhouse that also included the owner’s personal winery. The meal was delicious, wine too, but I didn’t imbibe as much as the others.  After dinner we joined the locals in the bar to play pool.  We were so bad the patron asked us to leave. I actually launched a ball off the table and across the room where it smashed into the upright piano. Still, I was the designated driver. I did myself proud on that tiny mountain lane that snaked three miles down and four crooked miles up the other side, driving a stick shift, I might add.

If we were to go back to France now we would have no cozy chalet to visit.  Martin and Anna sold their mountain aerie after the 2002 heat wave that began to change the nature of skiing in that part of France. They now have a home on the south coast, with a distant view of the Alps. When conditions are right they drive to the slopes to ski for a day or two. Best of both worlds.

By the time we visited their new place I had a digital camera. I took some beautiful pictures as we toured. Unfortunately, the most telling photo was one I took after I fell down their circular staircase and broke my foot when it wedged between the two bottom steps.

Am I an accident waiting to happen?  Well, yes. But I did photograph my own foot myself.

 

 

Bigger isn’t always better.

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Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are not my strengths.  Unless the situation absolutely demands it, I don’t do numbers.

I do words.

Thank goodness my social security number is easy to remember.  Our street address, too — it’s the same, minus a one, as the address where I grew up. Our phone number back then was 1128W, but our current number?  Let me think.  I can remember my own age (odd years are easier than even), and that my husband is seventy years older than our dog who is five.

The blasted multiplication tables handed me yet another comeuppance not too long ago. The seven-inch magnifying mirror I’ve had for at least five years has a modest sticker that whispers 5X.  If that means what I think, then my face looks five times larger than when it’s reflected on the non-magnifying side. I can handle that. That bit of up-sizing helps me pencil in my balding eyebrows, and darken, clumpily, my graying lashes.

Over the past months though, I’ve noticed I haven’t been able to see what I was doing to myself at 5X as clearly as before. I found a three-inch “purse-size” one that shouted 10X on a sticky label that covered the glass.  By my calculations, ten times the magnification should be big enough.

OMG, TMI!

I had no idea how my age spots (fka freckles) looked, nor how many stray chin hairs (think bearded lady) and errant eyebrows (under my brow line where I don’t need them) I had. Obviously I’ve wasted a lot of money over the years on the vats of Clinique All Day Eye Creme I’ve used to shore up my bagging eyes.  And where the bleeding heck did that cluster of flaming red spiders come from?

What must I look like to others?

Where is that glib woman who used to boast, “I’ve earned every wrinkle I’ve got”?  My face is ready for Halloween!  All I need is a black pointy hat and a broom.

I have the broom.

 

 

She’ll always be Bonnie to me.

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One cold March day [it was 1942], my mother stuffed me into my snowsuit and shoved me out into the front yard.  To be told to play out front was a surprise.  Usually I was confined to the hedged-in back.  “There’s a family looking at the house across the street,” she said. “Maybe they’ll have a little girl for you to play with.”

I was an only child.

I plowed as far as I could into the knee deep wet snow.  Sure enough, I saw a mother wearing a coat with a big furry collar, a father wearing a daddy hat, and a little girl in a blue coat with matching leggings that were zippered at the ankles like mine.  She looked grumpy, as if she wanted to be any place else except standing hip deep in snow.

“Can your little girl come out to play?” I yelled.  I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself, so I had to yell, even though it wasn’t polite.

The mother laughed and waved.  “Maybe later, we’re going to look inside.”

“How old is she?” I yelled, pointing.  Pointing was a no-no, too.

“Two-and-a-half.  How old are you?”

“I’m almost three,” I bragged.  “I’m tall for my age.” The girl looked very small.

The family did buy the house and Al, Betty and Bonnie moved in several months later.

When Bonnie and I started school we walked together holding hands. We played dress-ups and baby dolls, learned to ride bikes and skip rope, we giggled and fought, pulled hair and tried to catch each other’s illnesses at our mothers’ urging, and, strangely, we whispered into each other’s mouths when we had secrets to share.  In high school we pursued different interests, her, band, me, orchestra, her, yearbook, me, newspaper.  We drifted apart over the years, though never far apart in our thoughts.

She ended up in Florida, well away from the snow she hated. I ended up in Virginia where it doesn’t snow as much as I’d like. We met up at high school reunions, though she attended more regularly than I.  When Bonnie emailed that she and husband Paul would be traveling through Virginia — ticking things off her bucket list — she wanted to know if they could stop and say hello?  Could they ever!

Now that we are seventy-four — well I am, she is seventy-three for 18 more days — she is the only person left who has known me nearly all my life, and except for one much older cousin, the reverse is true for her as well.

Nowadays, my old friend goes by her middle name because when she met her to-be husband he was dating another Bonnie, though she didn’t know that for some time.  He told her he really liked her middle name. He’s always called my Bonnie, “Lynn.”  She’s been his Lynn for fifty years, but for seventy-two of her years, she’s been Bonnie to me. 

* * *

Yesterday was The Day. From the minute they arrived, we laughed and gabbed and reminisced. Our husbands tolerated us well. I hated to say goodbye. Even if she does live in Florida, visiting her has long been on my bucket list. Now it’s underscored and ranks just after “go to Antarctica.”  BTW, both of them were cold all day, our 65 degrees too chilly for their thinned blood.

Good to go wherever.

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Estimates say there are more than 600,000 total knee replacements (TKR) in this country every year. Last January, I was one of those.

Seven years ago I was knocked off my bicycle on a nearby trail. I landed hard on my right knee adding injury to the insult of existing arthritis. When I told the story to my doctor, he chuckled.  He was glad I was hurt while being active. “Better than sitting at home doing nothing,” is his philosophy. He sent me for some physical therapy and, over the years since, I tried various injections, all in hopes of avoiding surgery.  Yes, stalling!

Like so many others, including my younger daughter, I reached the point where every step was grinding the heck out of the shredded remains of cartilage and bone. No more morning walks, bike rides, or shopping. (Truthfully, I’m not really a shopper, but the idea that I couldn’t go made me want to.)

The side-trip excursions on our travels left me “sitting by the side of the road.” On a sea trip around the British Isles I didn’t get to see puffins up close because I couldn’t climb the cliff to their nesting site.  On a Canyons trip out west, I limped along worrying about being a drag on our little group. And when I wanted to try hang gliding off the dunes in North Carolina I was told I needed two good knees to land.  I could paraglide though, and that was way better. I flew higher and a nice young man named Jim took care of take-off and landing.  All I had to do was hang on and enjoy the view.

But surgery was inevitable.

I wasn’t afraid of Dr. M’s hacksaw nor the idea of his arsenal of power tools, but the long rehab and months of physical therapy were daunting to think about. Thanks to daughters Carolynn and Leslie, my recovery went smoothly. It helped that Leslie had TKR six months earlier. I learned from her experience and borrowed her “equipment” — walker, cane, commode frame (don’t ask), and cache of OTC medications. This past June, I returned those aids because she had her other knee replaced. Between us then, three knees to add to the annual total, and now the threat looms on Carolynn’s horizon.

Chris, the physical therapist I saw three times a week post-op for three months, could make a contortionist cry “uncle.”  He was wonderful in spite of my carrying on. “Nothing you can do will be worse than childbirth,” I said during my first visit. I’d have another baby (were that even possible) before I’d go through PT again.

Knock on wood my left knee remains intact!

In August, Brian Williams, “NBC Evening News” anchor, announced he would, “be away for a while.”  He’d finally given in and was having TKR for the knee he’d crushed in a high school football game when he was nineteen. Williams’ progress rated mention on “Nightly News” and “Today.”  I wrote my own headline:

PAIN FREE AND GOOD TO GO WHEREVER…!

‘I hate to go anyplace before I go anyplace.’

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My mother loved early morning picnics, walks in the woods, fishing on a riverbank, small social gatherings.  She kept a spotless house, she sewed, she gardened, she canned, she baked, and all while taking care of my dad and me.

Back in the day it was customary for friends and family to drop in unannounced for an evening or a Sunday afternoon.  She always had a snack she could offer, or fresh pie and a cup of coffee to serve.  She was never caught short.

But she loathed going to fancy dos — the dances organized by dad’s fraternal organizations or a PTA benefit. Oh, she’d dutifully refurbish an old dress for the occasion or make a new one. And she’d try to do something with her flyaway blonde hair ahead of time even though the home perms she’d used left her frizzed. To make her rough hands presentable, she’d slather them with Vaseline and wear white cotton gloves to bed. Inevitably futile.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Put me in grubby jeans, hand me a trowel and I’m happy.  Drop by for tea and I’ll welcome you with open arms and dirty hands.  But tell me I have to go to a party or a reception and I’ll come up with some excuse.

I remember one evening when my parents were getting ready to go to a dance that was to be preceded by a cocktail party at the home of friends.  Dad was impatient.  He loved those evenings and couldn’t wait to go.

Mom was fretting and making faces at her reflection as she fiddled with her hair and makeup. “I hate to go anyplace before I go anyplace,” she fumed.

She’d gotten all “gussied up,” as dad called it, but by the time they arrived at the main event her baby fine hair would look like cotton candy, her dress would be mussed and, most likely, she’d have a runner in her stockings. Worse, her lipstick might stray into the tiny lines around her mouth or there could be a bit of green between her teeth from the spinach dip that was all the rage then.

So much anxiety and they hadn’t even left the house!

I laughed then, but now I know.

To go someplace before you go anyplace, for someone who doesn’t even like to get ready once, is torture.

Like mother, like daughter.

Nasturtiums askance

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Nasturtiums are my favorite annuals.  Their orange blooms make the mornings brighter, the evenings glow.

This year my nasturtiums have performed as never before. They make beautiful color combinations as they twine through the weathered gray fence, romp around the beruffled hot pink rose, lollop under the rusty birdbath. Any day now they’ll insinuate themselves into the fuzzy, soft green sage.  They are brazen hussies. I love that about them.

At dusk, their brilliant orange fluoresces — they look as if they’re lit from within.  Not all nasturtiums are orange, of course.  There’s a creamy yellow, a vivid Crayola yellow/orange, a deep red, and sometimes, a wussy melted sherbet shade.  Generally those “other” colors don’t last a full season, at least not in my garden.

Nasturtiums are more than jeweled bouquets on my kitchen table from early summer to first frost though.  They’re edibles that can brighten a salad with their color and peppery taste.  Their scent is similar to that of peaches cooking down for jam.  And as the flowers die away the seeds can be pickled to make “poor man’s capers.”

A few nights ago I wanted to perk up the “look” of our dinner — predictable green peas, bland white baked potato, and broiled salmon. I garnished our plates with one orange and one yellow nasturtium each.  “They’re edible you know,” I said to Peter.

He looked at me askance.  My husband does askance better than anyone I know.

“Just try one.” I munched on a flower head. “Mm-mmmm!”

Again with the askance.

“C’mon, if you can eat eel sushi you can try nasturtium,” I ragged.

He nibbled, but was not convinced.

The meal tasted exceptionally good to me, and Peter cleaned his plate saying, as he does when I’ve fixed something he especially likes, “Thank you, ‘Mum.’”

“You liked the salmon then?” He always likes salmon, or just about any fish.

“Must’ve been good,” he said, tipping up his plate. It was as clean as if the dog had licked it.

I chuckled.  “Know why it tasted so good, what the difference was?”

He was wary.

“I rolled the fillets in minced nasturtium blossoms,” I said.  “That’s what gave them the spiky bite.”

He eyebrows went up, but his lips didn’t move.

The next day our friends Shelia and Jerry were here. I told them the nasturtium-encrusted salmon story while we ate lunch outside. Jerry wrinkled his nose, but Shelia was interested, so I ran to the herb garden the nasturtiums had claimed, picked several each of the different colors, and encouraged a tasting.

Shelia decided she’d plant nasturtiums next year, Jerry didn’t say no, and Peter? The phrase “you can lead a mule to water but you can’t make him drink” comes to mind.

How do we wash our clothes?

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We wash our clothes expensively, that’s how!  At the moment I’m ready to try beating my clothes against a rock in the river.

It was still as dark outside as my six o’clock mug of coffee when I heard an annoying high pitched beep.  Every three minutes the sound interrupted my morning solitude.  None of the usual culprits was guilty, not my tinnitus-affected ears, nor cell phone, dishwasher, or microwave. The beep came from the laundry room.  My washer’s control panel was lit up like the instrument panel on an airplane. The machine was frozen on “Express,” a setting I’d never used in 15 years, and I hadn’t done any laundry in three days. The darn thing wouldn’t run, nor would “stop” make the lights go off.

I pulled the plug.

When the rest of the world woke up I placed a mayday call to Dan, the repair superman I found several years ago. Dan can fix any major home appliance. He came as soon as he could, carefully performed a number of tests, then shook his head sadly. My washer had spun out for the last time. A new printed circuit board and power supply would cost more than three hundred dollars, labor not included. I could buy a new washer for that. The dryer still worked, though barely. The rational me said, “No new dryer” — I hang most things outside to dry in the sun or, during bad weather, in the basement — but the fussy me whispered, “Matchy, matchy.”

After a quick recce to “kick the tires” on what I thought would be my pick, I came home and logged in to Consumer Reports. Should have done that first of course.

Oh my.

I spent hours comparing features and benefits.  No, I do not want to communicate with my laundry while I’m playing canasta with my friends.  No, I do not want a dryer with steam option that would necessitate a water line to an appliance that is supposed to be drying my clothes.  Maybe that’s a good thing, but it seems counterintuitive to me.  I’m just sayin’.

Some of the newest washday appliances will let you link to the manufacturer via an app on your smart phone. You can select your equipment’s symptoms and get a diagnosis before the repairman comes.  Not only that, you can phone your washer to check on the status of your delicates while you’re visiting the in-laws.

Just what I need! Another set of commands to learn, more passwords to forget, oh, and a smart phone to buy. Note to Maytag, GE, Whirlpool, Samsung et al:  I’m doing laundry here, not launching a submarine! When someone invents a machine that moves the washed clothes into the dryer, and a dryer that matches socks, folds towels, and puts everything away…then we’ll talk.

Satisfied with my choice at last, I clicked on “user comments.”  Some were enthusiastic, but most were not suitable for a G-rated blog!  I’d spent a gorgeous autumn weekend researching laundry appliances, and I was no further ahead than when I’d started.

And the laundry hamper overflowed.

Oh yes! Cost!  That printed circuit board/power supply replacement suddenly seemed a bargain.  Some of the highest end appliances cost more than six thousand dollars for a washer/dryer combo.  My first car didn’t cost even half that much.

Who needs a “smart” washer?  I’m a smart washer.

I’ll get my DublHandi washboard out. These primitive “appliances,” first manufactured in 1938, are “ideal for silks, hosiery and lingerie or handkerchiefs.”  Plus, at 8.5″ x 18″ they’re “just the right size to fit a bucket, pail or lavatory.” They “pack easily into suitcase or traveling bag” too. What’s not to love?

FYI, DublHandi washboards are still manufactured in Logan, Ohio. They sell for about twenty-three bucks.  If you’re interested in a cost effective option to a smart washer, here’s some nitty gritty info:

http://www.columbuswashboard.com/dubl-handi-pail-size-galvanized-spiral-washboard

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/us/05land.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0