Tag Archives: Life

do over

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I just got back from a family trip to Rhinebeck for a barbeque hosted by my first cousin and his wife.  I drove Aunt Betty, DOB (dad of blogger), SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of SOB), POB (partner of blogger) and our son, TLP (the little prince).  Cousin Gentle arrived by train.

I need to have a do-over because the journey was not epic — nothing grotesque and peculiar happened.   No blog material.

First, I picked up the rental car and it had GPS and EZ Pass.  And, I got an extra 10 percent discount because, well, I just looked like I deserved it.  I found a parking spot on my street.  I was able to come upstairs, read the Style section of the Times and watch a pre-recorded Phineas and Ferb episode (I must admit that I was watching for my own pleasure; TLP was doing something else).

We got on the road within 10 minutes of our planned departure.  I had three copies of the directions (one for each row, so everyone could follow along).  We didn’t even put on the GPS.  We didn’t even make a rest area stop.  2 hours door-to-door and no traffic.  DOB didn’t do anything terribly outlandish and he didn’t even mind staying more than 20 minutes after arrival.  So, SOB’s and my $1,000,000.00 bet about the time that DOB would say, “well, all you lovely people. . . .[it is time to go]” was for naught.

It was like taking the Stepford family out for a drive.  I kept glancing in the rear-view mirror to make sure I recognized the passengers.  Yep.  They belong to me.

Also, Aunt Betty flew in for a week of seeing people and family (no family are not people) and we all wanted her to have her full of the ganza mishpocheh (the extended family).  DOB did start singing his usual set of 5 of the most annoying songs ever sung (if they are sung all the time), but SOB and I could just walk away.  HOSOB had to endure it.

Of course, I learned some things of note about the ganza mishpocheh.  First, Cousin GS does not hold back.  Not one thing.  Not one thought.  If he has something to say, he will say it, good, bad, ugly, inappropriate, whatever.  That is why I love Cousin GS, he speaks his truth, which can never be reconciled with the events as anyone else sees them, and he makes me seem like a diplomat.

We had time to visit with our cousin who is living with brain cancer and his wife and kids.  He is a different man than I remember.  Of course, he is.  His speech is labored, he is partially paralyzed, but his eyes sparkled, especially when he played with his kids.  He is more interested and interesting now.  My last in-depth conversation was about how he was going to conquer the world financially.  In truth, I was a bit put-off, but he was young and cocky.  Now he seems happy just in the world and views treatments as a necessary evil.  I have to say, though, I wish he were still that cocky 30-something year-old and not the 36 year-old living with brain cancer.  No one should learn about life this way.

It was a great occasion, where people were happy to be together and comfortable being their truly imitable (not inimitable) selves.  (I think at POB’s and my wedding, we are going to have an extended Blogger family imitation extravaganza.)

TLP played with cousins he only just met (the grandchildren of my first cousins).  They were fast friends.  It was sheer joy to see.

The barbeque was one of those occasions that we will all remember years from now and be forever grateful we made the schlep.

But, still, what is there to blog about?

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Disconnected

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It is Saturday morning. POB (partner of blogger) went to the gym at an ungodly hour that would shame me if I were susceptible to being shamed.  TLP (our son, the little prince) is subjecting me to Pokemon and Bakugan while there is a perfectly good Phineas and Ferb show on Cartoon Network.  I love Phineas and Ferb, in fact I DVR the show for POB and me.  TLP is only sort of into it.  (Ok, enough back story for a different blog entry).

My blackberry ran out of juice just before it was my turn for torture in the name of fitness.  This meant that I was going for a run without any telecommunication devices.  POB and I had to plan ahead and decide when and where I would meet her and TLP for a picnic in Central Park after the run.

Old style planning.  Never-heard-of planning for an entire generation of children.

I walked out of the house, feeling strangely like I lost an anchor.  No, not an anchor; actually, a ball and chain.  No, not exactly, a ball and chain; more naked.  No phone, no texting capabilities, no internet.  It is okay if I were actually naked; hey, it is New York, no one would notice.  Except that I need a sports bra.  That is totally non-negotiable.  Good thing the naked feeling was metaphoric and not actual.  (Am I digressing?  I really can’t tell anymore.)

As I set out, it is just the open road and I.  Ok, and city traffic, too, until I get into Riverside Park.

I was running, with a gusto that comes from sticking it to the Man.  I cannot be reached.  No one can find me.  Ha!!  I am untethered.  Wait.  I am the Man (or part of the Man)!  Oh, shit.  I am (part of) the Man and I can’t find me.  Existential nightmares start slamming my brain, even some too weird for Sartre, Camus or Ionesco.  The Man is not so bad.  Gee, I miss the Man.

Then, what if I get hurt?  What if POB or TLP gets hurt and I cannot be reached?

I have to stop running because my hyperventilation has caused cramps and shortness of breath.  See?  This wouldn’t have been so bad if I had waited for the Man to get powered up and put it in my back pocket for the run.  Now, my family is in need and I am turning blue. I am in the Wilderness of Riverside Park.  Actually, there is a cafe within view.  Ok, Wilderness is a relative term.  In New York, if there isn’t a latte available within 3 blocks, that’s wilderness.  No lattes at this cafe, so I am in ABJECT WILDERNESS.

Wait, what do I hear?  A voice?  As in vox clamantis in deserto (a voice cries out in the wilderness)?  Is this the moment of my spiritual awakening?  (And I am dressed like this?)

Turns out, someone was yelling at me, “Stay in the runner’s lane!!!”

Ok, no spiritual awakening, no kindness of strangers, no nothing.  And I am unconnected to everyone.  And I cannot even post about this on FaceBook.  The horror, the horror.  Even Dostoyevsky was able to get out Notes from Underground.  Me, I got nothing.  No iAnything.  No RIM at the edge of the corporate drain.  I have my driver’s license, money and a credit card.  I could buy some minutes from someone, but who would believe my story?  The cops would be called and then I would have to explain my circumstances, and inevitably the response from the officer would be, “you own telecommunication devices and you willfully left them home?”  “Officer, yes, I did it willfully but not maliciously — call it, semi-youthful hubris.”

Ok, I can’t breathe from the stress.  I am gripping my heart.  Vagrants think I am giving them the “strong” sign and they pound their hearts back.  Really, really?  I am probably having a stress dream and I will wake up.  Then I stagger past a long line of people waiting for an opportunity to kayak in the Hudson River even though there was a warning about life-threatening sewage in the water.  Ok, even I cannot come up with this stuff.  I am awake and my family is in peril and the police are no help and my fellow citizens want to go boating in nuclear waste.

Exhaustion sets in.  How will I make it to the appointed meeting place for the picnic.  Thank G-d for taxis.  I am sweaty from my run/freak-out but he smells like he ran a marathon.  At least I know I am not stinking up this cab.  I get out a few blocks early to air out.  Really.  Seinfeld did not lie.

I arrive at the pre-arranged meeting place about five minutes early.  I am already apoplectic about the things that could have gone wrong that will upend the rendez-vous.  (How DID we survive without this crazy connectivity?)  I imagine that POB got a call about her father, my father, her sister, my sister or brother or our nephews.  Disaster has struck.  I am clueless on 96th and Central Park West.  What was I thinking not waiting until my phone recharged?  That was sooooo selfish of me.  My family is in need and I am standing on a street corner like an idiot.

And . . . tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. . . THEY ARE LATE.  They are always late, I tell myself trying to believe it.

I see them across the street.  They are smiling and waving.  We all hug and kiss and walk together into the Park, to look for a picnic site.  POB says, “you look exhausted!!”  I say it was a hard run.  We smile and hold hands as TLP runs slightly (did I say slightly) ahead to find a good place to plop down for a picnic.

I ask POB, “do you have your iPhone?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“No, reason. No reason at all.”

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Life unscripted

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TLP (our son the little prince) was cuddling with me one morning a few days ago and he was staring at the swaying branches of a tree outside our window.

“Whatcha thinkin’ buddy?”

“The summer just flew by.   Time goes really fast.”

I think, my 9 year-old son has an old soul.

And, of course, I felt a song coming on .  .  . Joni Mitchell .  .  . ♫And the seasons they go ’round and ’round —–♫ I am interrupted.

“Ohhhh, Eeeee-Mom, please, not that song agaaaaaain??!!“

Ok, so I think, he has a old, yet non-mushball, soul.  Also he knows I start to weep at: ♫Now the boy moves 10 times ’round the seasons . . . .♫  And it is only 7:30am and before my second cup of coffee.  An intervention is necessary.

“Well,” he continued, “at least we are going on vacation next week.”

Ok, now he is back to being a spoiled NYC kid.

“Buddy, YOU have been on vacation since you were born.  You are just changing locations for a couple of weeks to keep Mommy and me company while WE are on vacation.”

Thank Goodness he morped back into a regular kid.  If he hadn’t broken my sentimental downward spiral, I would have arrived at the office, grabbed my assistant’s box of tissues, put in a DVD of family photos and disintegrated into a puddle.

Thanks, bud, for keeping it real.

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Thank G-d for that Haven, No-Where-istan

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For those who don’t remember, I established the sovereign nation of No-Where-istan (http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1404;http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1425; http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1432;  http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1541; http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1586; http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1599; http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1756; http://40andoverblog.com/?p=1870; and http://40andoverblog.com/?p=2001).

This evening, it is a much needed refuge.  POB (partner of blogger), TLP (our son, the little prince) and I were playing a trivia game about ancient civilizations.  He was beating us handily.  (Tragic that I lack the factual knowledge to keep up with my 9 year-old.)  If you answer correctly the question posed, you keep the card.  The one with the most cards wins.  There is a wild card where you can take a card of a person of your choice.  TLP got the wild card twice and the first time took one from my winnings.  The second time, he also took a card from me.  I said all in good fun, “That’s not fair!!  Take it from [POB]!! Look at all the cards she has!!”  TLP responded, “I have to favor my biological mother.”

The crash you just heard is my world in pieces.  And I had to keep going with the game.  I excused myself to go to the bathroom and POB must have said something to TLP.  TLP was very sad and felt horrible.

I said, “Sweetie, I am very sad but you need to be able to be honest and open with your feelings, and you need to be open to the response as well.”

We all hugged and I whispered, “I love you more this minute than last, and I will love you more a minute from now.  Why?”

TLP responded, “because love always grows, Emom.”

“That’s right, buddy.”

It is the thing we say when I kiss him good night.  Sometimes those rituals are more soothing to the adult than the child.

He is now listening to an audiobook about Darwin and evolution and reading a book about trains (multi-tasking seems to work for him).  I am sitting in our living room, with my guts kicked out and tears streaming.  I can never be his biological mother.  But it never occurred to me that I would love him any different.

Now, as this is the second time he has said this, it occurs to me that he loves me differently, and in a lesser way.  I know he is processing our nouvelle famille nuclear and that time will tell all.  I have to give him that time.

But right now, I am grateful to live in that comical creation in my head that allows me to set the rules of love and life (and health care) along with a national flag and stamp.

And, a mythical place where loving a little boy with all my heart doesn’t break my heart.

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It’s raining, it’s pouring

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Today is a wet, wet day in New York City.  We don’t need the rain, but the rest of the country does.  This is what happens when you mess with Nature.  Nature messes right back.

We did a drive-by to visit DOB (father of blogger) and had brunch.  The usual comfort food: bagels, nova scotia salmon, cream cheese.  Of course, because POB (partner of blogger) did the food run, there was no matjes herring or white fish salad.  Really?  There wouldn’t have been enough food had I not held back.  This, in my mother’s (may-she-rest-in-peace-her-memory-be-for-a-blessing) house?  Ok, so I do a self-serving calculation and determine that most people Mom and Dad knew are dead so there is no one to talk about the fact that there wasn’t enough food.  But if these people are Heaven, do they know and is Mom embarrassed?  Exhaustion sets in just from the emotional and tribal toll this takes on me.  I have just enough energy to text SOB (sister of blogger) who is on call at the hospital “Drive-by successful, taking nap.”  I get a text back, “strong work.”  Nothing like elder sister approval, in the absence of my mother.  I am happy, if hungry.

I should not have given the task to POB.  When we started to date, her parents had to buy more food because I would gnaw at the antique table.  If there were left-overs, her mother instructed that they be passed to me so I could Hoover it up.  POB has come a long way.  She has food crises (what if an army comes knocking?) but sometimes she forgets about the joys of matjes herring (no cream sauce) and white fish salad.  I love her and frankly I don’t need so much of the comfort food since it occludes the arteries, however, deliciously.

Then, there are those rainy day tasks we have all planned, like scan photos into the family archive.  I look at some, and then sigh.  Rainy days, with their poetic sorrow, only magnify my feelings when looking at long dead family members when they were young, strong and undefeated.  I remember them this way.  Not the later pictures when time and disease did their violence.  I can’t look anymore. Nope, going through family photos is NOT a rainy day activity.

I need to hug and kiss my child.  Will he remember POB and me as strong and solid?  Or will later pictures of when we are frail form his lasting memory?  I guess, as long as he remembers the love, it’s ok.

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RIP, Cousin Bernie

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Cousin Bernie died yesterday,

Cousin Bernie wasn’t really my cousin.  But I didn’t find out that Bernie wasn’t related until my mother’s shiva.  Trust me, that’s when you learn everything about everybody, whether you want to or not.

It turns out that Cousin Bernie was the cousin of Betty, one of my mother’s closest friends from college.  Betty and my mother married two brothers, so Betty was my Aunt Betty by the time I was born.  Cousin Bernie also was (for time enough to have two children) the husband of Blossom, one of Aunt Betty’s and Mom’s other close friends.  For the record, Aunt Betty’s only successful match was Mom and Dad.  The rest were, shall we say, short-lived.

Not only was Cousin Bernie, and therefore, his wife Susan not my cousins, but Blossom wasn’t, and Blossom’s second husband, Aaron, wasn’t and his third wife, Marjorie, wasn’t.  All of which I found out at Mom’s shiva.  And Marjorie was the only one who asked POB (partner of blogger) if we were having a child by a known donor or unknown donor.  You mean she asked that and she wasn’t even related???  You have to admire a woman who picks up the beat of the Blogger family.  No boundaries, ever.

What makes them my family is more important than blood or marriage.   They are related by love.  And if not, love, then time.  After a few decades, even my mother, who would cringe at Bernie’s cursing like a sailor (he was one, in World War II), loved him even though he divorced Blossom and swore in front of her children.  Family is family, however it is constituted.

And so my heart is breaking for his wife Susan, Aunt Betty and Bernie’s kids.  Bernie, my Mom, Aunt Betty, Uncle Willy and my Dad were among the generation that bridged the divide between immigrant children and Americans.  They were the generation that fought in the war that American won.  They all put their foot on the gas pedal and roared into the American dream.  They laid the foundation for my generation’s successes.

And they were characters.  In his later years, Bernie was a caricature of himself.  And we lovingly laughed at his meshugas (craziness).

He used to be president of the New York Runner’s Club.  I ran in one of the New York City Corporate Challenges and, as I crossed the finish line, Bernie was there to hug me.  I said, “Bernie, it is great to see you!” He said, “[Blogger], is that you?”  So, in fact, he was hugging any sweaty, young woman who would hug him back.  “I won’t tell Susan,” I said as I kissed him.  At the next family function, OF COURSE, I told Susan.  Bernie’s response: “Jesus Christ, all of these f*%$ing young beautiful, sweaty women!! What the hell do you want me to do? Wave? How else would I get anyone to hug me. [more profanity].”  That was Bernie.  (You should know that he hit the jackpot with Susan.  He knew it, too.  To use his parlance, he would have been a schmuck to do anything untoward.)

I drove Bernie and his wife Susan to Uncle Willy’s unveiling a few years back. Bernie called and said he hadn’t seen Willy in a while and would I include them in the Great Schlep.  SOB (sister of blogger) and I didn’t know whether he remembered that Uncle Willy had died.  So, during the Great Schlep, we asked leading questions intended to elicit some acknowledgment that Uncle Willy was dead.  We were afraid that Bernie who had a defibrillator and pacemaker in his chest might go into cardiac arrest if he thought he was actually going to see Uncle Willy and then we pulled up to the cemetery. Thank G-d, he knew.

We saw Susan and Bernie at Dad’s 90th birthday party in October.  He looked frail. He was cursing about all the doctors he needed to see and how he had no more room in his schedule.  He also was singing the praises of prune juice as an elixir he recently discovered.  Cousin Bernie never changed.

I just called my Aunt Betty to express my condolences and I started reminiscing about the prune juice and the cursing and the doctors.  She has buried a son, a husband and countless other loved ones.  It was good to hear her chuckle as she mourns another loss in our greatest generation.  As we mourn right along with her.

Rest in peace, Cousin Bernie.

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Even More to Talk About

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COB (colleague of blogger), wants to write for the Alternate View (see prior blog entries).  He thinks Blogger and SNOBFOB (my awesomely funny friend who isn’t so sure she wants to be associated with blogger on-line) should try a YouTube video first, one that is a “parody” of The View.
Here are his ideas for the guests:
  1. Someone from the “Iced” Tea Party [blogger comment:  or The Latte League, truly effete, New York liberal intellectuals]
  2. A 10 year-old who has ideas for running government more efficiently [blogger comment: or Christine O’Donnell, who has the IQ of a ten year-old and is a witch to boot]
  3. A gay/lesbian person who is against same sex marriage [blogger comment: or Mr. Michele Bachmann, who thinks he cured himself]
  4. A person who is now an actor/actress since they can’t get a different job in this economy [blogger comment: because everyone assumes actors and actresses, especially the most talented ones, are unemployed]
  5. A crazy person (COB thinks I could fill that role.) [blogger comment: I think COB could audition for this role.]
Not a bad start.
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The News

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These last few days I have read the newspaper, cover to cover.  Death, starvation, destruction and war games.  And economic chaos, too.  And political polarization and the concomitant demonization of the “other”.

Today, I have been humming One Tin Soldier, an anti-Vietnam War song from the 1970s.  I didn’t remember all of the lyrics, but I did remember the prize that everyone in the parable is bickering over, killing over and claiming rights over.  It is worth a listen (click on the hyperlink) and read the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7jHp7OchP0

(by Dennis Lambert & Brian Potter; performed by Jinx Dawson and Coven in the movie “Billy Jack” (1971))

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”

Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.

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Just Give Us Something to Talk About, part two

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Blogger Note:  My friend, formerly known as SPOBFOB (slightly paranoid about being associated as friend of blogger) is now SNOBFOB because I understand, after further consultation, that she is only neurotic about being associated with me.

I remembered yesterday, as I was accosted on the subway by a sea of tattooed flesh, that SNOBFOB and I also discussed the state of (un)dress in the City.

We didn’t specify guidelines for appropriate body coverage and so I throw the following draft regulation out to SNOBFOB and to the community in general for comment:

Regulation:

At all times in public spaces, a person should cover 50% of one’s body (and those of such person’s unemancipated minors) if one’s BMI (body mass index) is over the VPT (visually pleasing threshold).  A VPT is determined as the minimum amount of body coverage that a reasonable person over the age of 45 would require not to reminisce about the good ol’ days. It is only a violation if the body coverage is so below the VPT that it could reasonably cause a reasonable person over the age of 45 to have an IHR (involuntary heaving reaction).

All in all, a public safety crisis that must be addressed immediately by Mayor Bloomberg. Imagine if a subway car full of people had IHRs. Not a pretty sight. In fact, I might have an IHR just thinking about it.

 

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Just Give Us Something To Talk About

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A friend who is slightly paranoid about being known as a friend of blogger (and ergo, SPOBFOB) and I were discussing (and, might I add, solving) the world’s ills over lunch.  It is so frustrating when two people make major breakthroughs in world peace, economic policy, and moderate reformist politics and no one will let us see the President.  We wouldn’t have made him take notes (he is the President); we know enough about protocol (we could write the book) to bring a short-form and long-form memoranda setting out the action points for achieving these huge global steps forward.

Not only did SPOBFOB and I have important problem solving breakthroughs, but we also took stock of the freak show that comprises the leaders of our nation.  Let’s face it:  Men like the game — thrust and parry, if you must — of negotiations.  Women want to get the damn thing accomplished in the least amount of time with the most impact. Sure there are women who are impossible to deal with in these situations (Michelle Bachmann, par exemple) but by and large, you don’t hear women say, “let’s say this and see what they come back with” when you know full well that “saying this” will only lead to vengeful behavior and reverse any constructive negotiations up to that point.  We rarely make grand pronouncements that make compromise impossible because our egos are in the way.  Just sayin’.

Maybe President Obama would not like to think that he is pretty much in the same camp as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell when it comes to purposeful and constructive negotiations.  Ok, so the answer is that the White House would slam the door on our advance team.

I was despondent because here we had answers and no one who would listen.  I mentioned having a cable talk show and SPOBFOB came up with the brilliant idea of naming it the “Alternate View” because we look at the world quizzically and with our heads tilted, as if we were trying to understand really edgy art.

[So, this is where I go off on one of my tangents and SPOBFOB has no responsibility for anything that follows:]

We can invite our friends and family to come on the show.  They represent a varied and seasoned cross-section of America.  Ok, the liberal, urban/suburban, well-heeled and over-educated America.  So, there would be wide national appeal.  (Ok, that would be in the sovereign nation of No-Where-istan, a state of my mind (see prior blogs).  But, I digress.)

Everything would be fair game, from:

  • did anyone really think Justin and Selena were anything but a media creation?
  • to: should you home school your children in places where the gay liberal communist agenda has not fully infiltrated main stream public school education?
  • to: should fertility treatments and surrogacy be tax deductible for same-sex couples in states where gay marriage is legal?
  • to: who is the sanest person in the Tea Party asylum? and is that like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
  • to: whether quinoa is subversive grain that could reduce America’s dependence on hamburgers?
  • to: how to keep skin from sagging without surgery?

And everything else anyone wants to cover.

 

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