Letting the days go by, water flowing underground

Posted on June 11, 2010 by 40andover

Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground

Ok, it is a little crazy to meditate on the words to a Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime

I am just six days away from my 25th college reunion, and so I am in a slightly maudlin and definitely introspective mood.

I have 8 wonderful women friends from college and we have seen each other through 25 years of life’s highs and lows. We have known each other for longer than we were alive when we met.

We all know that each of us cherishes these friendships, but right now we are stressing about what to wear and whether we will be able to survive a few nights of dorm living. Today, one of our number had a minor meltdown about only having fleece to wear as an evening cover-up (she is a suburban mom with three kids — what else is she supposed to have for casual eveningwear?). She was planning to go to the local mall and feared that she would find nothing to wear to the reunion but come home with a new pair of khaki shorts and yet another fleece.

Others of us are taking stock of the pounds gained and lost or of how our quarter century-old pounds are migrating toward our hips and tummies. And in our own particular (and in my case, peculiar) ways, we are taking stock of the lives we have lived in advance of revisiting the place that gave birth to many of our dreams. Life interfered with those dreams in wonderful, sad, humorous and sometimes mediocre ways.

As we are all giving into some vanities (I am working out my arms so that I look toned), and then:

One friend emailed, “I don’t want to brag but I can still wear the same earrings I wore in high school!”

Thank G-d for friends who keep it real and help you keep your head on straight.

So, in response to Messrs. Talking Heads:

Yes, POB (partner of blogger) is my beautiful wife and we live in our home. I got here by taming my demons and working hard and earning the love of POB. And together we created a son (ok, with a little help) and a family. Yes, I am here and this is what I have done. Unfortunately, the days go by too fast. And I still lose sleep at night over bills and the general state of the economy.

Now, that I have had that Frank Capra “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment, I am still going to work out every day until the reunion, and I spent a small fortune on skin moisturizers and wrinkle removal goop. Capra would totally get this — even Jimmy Stewart’s character in that movie was perfectly coiffed while contemplating suicide.

Heard on the subway platform

Posted on June 8, 2010 by 40andover

A woman on the phone passes me on the subway platform and I hear her say to the person on the other end of the conversion:

“If you are in a room with a murder, just LEAVE. [Staying there] was NOT smart!”

So many thoughts and comments collide in my head. But, really, none is necessary. All you need to do is let this woman’s admonishment wash over you and the nuances, the complexities and the insanity hidden in that simple sentence will crash in your head, too. It is a little like going down the biggest slide in the most insane water park ever. Enjoy, but please be careful not to drown.

Hillary and me

Posted on June 7, 2010 by 40andover

Today, I was walking near Times Square, dressed not exactly in a pant suit, but complementary bespoke pants and blazer. So, I was feeling pretty good in my outrageously expensive clothes, made to my specifications in order to hide my — er — “lesser” qualities.

I walked past a Rasta guy hawking his CD and, as my eyes turned to him, he said in a sing-song-way-dontcha-know, “How about some of my music for Hillary Clinton?” My eyes must have widened in the shock that someone compared me, a 46 year-old, to a 60-something year old. As I passed by, in a “no-way-am-I-buying-your-lousy-CD” walk (which I learned from living in Morningside Heights — the positives of diversity), he yelled after me, “I meant Hillary in the best sense!” (I noted, he had no Rasta accent, so he was as phony a Rasta as I was a Hillary impersonator, but I digress.)

Ok, ok, ok, ok. I love Hillary Clinton. I think her intelligence and focus are wildly sexy. I just don’t want to look like Hillary when I am AT LEAST 15 years her junior. Whoa, what a reality check as to what I look like to the 20-something and 30-something set. There is no hiding a woman’s aging process, unless you want to look like an extra-terrestrial (e.g., Joan Rivers).

I am ok with aging — more or less. Except that I am fixated on my 25th college reunion. But I will not color my hair or have unnecessary medical procedures. I just want to look good for my age. And looking like the over-worked, 63 year-old Secretary of State who endured at least 25 years of trials and tribulations both public and private, is not — can I be clearer? NOT — looking good for 46.

I hurried to the gym and worked out extremely hard, as if one day will make the difference. I will probably not be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

If someone said I looked like Susan Sarandon or Catherine DeNeuve, I would be walking on sunshine. But in the real world, where unfortunately my mirror and I must live, I have to get used to the idea that being compared to someone who is sexy if you like smarts and determination ain’t so bad after all. If only, Hillary (or I, for that matter) looked a little more like Susan Sarandon . . . .

(Just remember to suck in the tummy during the reunion . . . .)

This is the media’s Hurricane Katrina

Posted on June 1, 2010 by 40andover

I believe the Gulf disaster defies analogy.

But we need to pigeon hole this one for the 24 hour news re-cycle. Hmmm. Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, that’s it! Let’s exploit another episode of human suffering for the sake of ratings. That’s why the media asks, “Is this Obama’s Hurricane Katrina?”. Because that was the most recent large scale disaster. We can’t remember back almost 10 years to ask if this is “Obama’s 9/11”.

And it feeds our need, in a situation out of control, for symmetry with past events so we can pretend to understand the event and its ramifications and then go back to watching Britney Spears. The pathology of fear symmetry.

Let’s not make this about President Obama, although it would make it easier if it were. It is about greed and reckless indifference to our earth. It is about a problem of unimaginable scope causing imponderable calamity for all living beings.

We elected President Obama because he is unflappable, at least in public. Now, we are pissed because he doesn’t express constant outrage to satisfy CNN, FOX, and MSNBC and our own fear symmetry pathology.

Everyone, listen up:

Rule 1 of disaster reaction: If the only people with the machinery to solve the problem are the ones who caused the problem, don’t piss them off. If you make it so they can never get out from under the liability, they will take their marbles and go home and then all is lost. Sometimes it feels good to yell at a given moment, but it hurts you in the long run (ever hear the old saw, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”?).

Rule 2 of disaster reaction: There is no easy resolution to this problem because no one prepared for this disaster. Not BP and not the United States. Preparation would have required years of research and development by top scientists and hundreds of millions of dollars. So, blame Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Even throw Carter, Ford and Nixon under that bus while you’re at it.

Rule 3 of disaster reaction: Everyone wastes time pointing figures at others. And take out the mirror. All of us. We are the problem, too. Consume too much? Vote for the Drill, Baby, Drill ticket?

Rule 4 of disaster reaction: DON’T TELL THE PUBLIC THE TRUTH. WE CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH (Jack Nicholson was right in “A Few Good Men”). We also expect that everything will get fixed for us, preferably within a day’s trading session at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rule 5 of disaster reaction: The media feeds our ridiculous expectations and our hubris. So, Anderson Cooper, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Maureen Dowd, Jack Cafferty, Wolf Blitzer and whoever else: stop with the comparisons and come up with ways to heal our earth, ways to help our fellow Americans, our wildlife, etc. Set up a disaster relief fund.

Reality No. 1 of Disasters: The man in charge — President Obama — wanted this gusher plugged the minute it happened. You think he wants to go down as the president who screwed up this disaster response?

Reality No. 2 of Disasters: Everyone is an armchair quarterback. If you can help, then help. If you can’t, then shut up.

Reality No. 3 of Disasters: If there weren’t a disaster, the media would create one. So, for the 45th President of the United States of America, what will be your Gulf Oil Spill Disaster?

This Blogger’s No. 1 Fear: If it is ever over, we will forget about it in a New York minute.

Change of Venue

Posted on May 31, 2010 by 40andover

SOB (sister of blogger) came back from visiting her in-laws and wanted us all to come over for Sunday night dinner at her house. The usual complement of the family showed up. POB (partner of blogger) was happy for the night off from cooking.

As I was helping my sister, I had occasion to open her refrigerator. This is what I saw:

Nothing else on that shelf in the refrigerator. Without these cans of non-nutritive and non-food particles, you could sleep in that refrigerator. I was amazed and therefore, I had cause to investigate further and I found this in the freezer:

I was a little shocked to see all of this ice cream and sorbet especially when she said she went out especially to buy vanilla ice cream for my son. Really? Really? You mean you didn’t pick up vanilla by accident while you were buying in bulk?? Or maybe the neighborhood store threw a vanilla in your order because as part of a customer rewards program? In all that ice cream and sorbet, there wasn’t already vanilla?

Then SOB said something that completely blew my mind, as a 46 year-old listening to her 50 year-old sister: “you can’t imagine how quickly we go through this.” Doesn’t HOSOB (husband of SOB) have a cholesterol issue? Doesn’t SOB have high blood pressure?

AND, AND, to add insult to injury, SOB is the doctor in the family. She is supposed to know better. Because she is an M.D. and has mastered that air of authority, she can get away with saying crazy things. I loved her comment, “eating fat-free whipped cream is like eating nothing”.

For the sake of family pride, I feel compelled to mention that she went to excellent schools and has incredible credentials. Because even I, the juris doctor, know that what she was saying was just nuts (which, by the way, you could have had on your ice cream with whipped cream).

the fancy-shmancy life

Posted on May 23, 2010 by 40andover

Our son’s school benefit was last night. The school caters to kids who learn differently from the “average child”. I have never met this “average child” and I don’t believe one exists and if such a child exists, well, then, he or she would be just so — how do I say — incredibly average. I just believe that schools are so overloaded that they can only handle children who fall within the least challenging bandwidth of childhood behaviors and needs. But I digress.

My son’s kind of school requires a huge amount of money to keep it going — over and above the king’s ransom we pay each year for tuition. Usually, it is a cocktail party with slightly fancy hors d’oeuvres and a silent auction. This year, however, two children attend the school whose parents have mega-star status. So, they invited their pals to help out with the fundraising. As a result, we attended a gala with Jon Stewart doing a stand up routine and Bruce Springsteen giving a musical performance. Then followed by a dinner in a museum catered by NoBu. (The one thing you know about the dinner is that everything was tasty but you leave the table hungry and wondering when dinner is really being served.)

I have never been to a concert. Ever. I know, people look at me in disbelief. I don’t like crowds and I don’t like loud music. So, it seemed ok that my first experience would be Bruce Springsteen having reached the age of Medicare and Social Security benefits. At one point, he yelled at us, “loosen up, you stiffs!!” Ok, that was embarrassing that a man nearly 20 years my senior is jamming and strutting all over the stage and we weren’t moving or standing, but we were all sucked into our fancy clothes that literally leave no wiggle room and so no loosening up could have happened without a seamstress on stand-by.

I guess it was kind of cool to have these performers in a small venue. I love Bruce Springsteen. I also love volume control.

POB (partner of blogger) and I are usually in bed by 10pm on the weekends. We rolled in at 1am (and we left while others were still partying). Our son woke up at the usual time, and G-d bless POB, she got up. (I, however, did not.)

I was so hungry when our son ran into our room to wake me at 9am and then I realized why: we had a NoBu InSiDi (NoBu Insect-Sized-Dinner). Had I thought of it, I would have eaten the garnish on the tables last night. And I would have gone from table to table munching on the centerpiece flower arrangements. No wonder I was dreaming about mutton chops (ok, I really have never eaten that) and getting in touch with my more animalistic traits deep in my genetic code. In the end, I settled for cereal with fiber and some essential nutrients. Nothing like beating your chest and immediately devolving into a whimper.

My son’s most excellent adventure

Posted on May 20, 2010 by 40andover

My son is an intrepid traveler. His partner in crime is Cousin Gentle.

They boldly go where no one on our family has gone before — Staten Island.

Now Staten Island — that is RED state country. We descend from the red palette, too, but closer to the blue–red (socialist) part of the spectrum. The kind of red that would make today’s red staters would prefer to be dead (better than be red).

And these two did not just go to the ferry stop on the “other side” and then hurry back to the safety of our (Manhattan) island sanctuary. No, these two Upper West Siders took the SIR — Staten Island Rail — to the end of the line, Tottenville. You might be surprised that there are over 20 stops on the SIR and it takes an hour to go the length of that island.

They stopped for pizza and the proprietor asked Cousin Gentle, “what country are you from?” Cousin Gentle replied, “the Upper West Side”. The proprietor nodded that he had heard of it. Who knew you didn’t need a space rocket to visit Mars?

Apparently, Tottenville has a shore line and beach area and my son waded into the ocean not yet sullied by the oil spill. Over dinner (back home in the bosom of our effete, white wine sipping, brie cheese eating, intellectual elitist Upper West Side), my son said, “Tottenville is just like East Hampton!!” I looked at Cousin Gentle who whispered that he didn’t say that while in Staten Island (because those are fighting words there) and I checked that FOPOB (father of partner of blogger) didn’t hear that statement because, well, FOPOB has a beach house in East Hampton. Honestly, I would rather risk offending FOPOB than inciting people to riot on Staten Island.

There are so many sociological layers to my son’s statement. I, however, will go with “my son, the pampered egalitarian”. And leave it at that.

Justice, Souder and me

Posted on May 18, 2010 by 40andover

http://m.yahoo.com/w/ynews/article/topstories/10?url=http%3A%2F%2Fxml.news.yahoo.com%2Fus%2Fnews%2Frss%2Frichstoryrss.html%3Fu%3D%2Fap%2Fus_congress_souder&.ts=1274229436&.tsrc=yahoo&.intl=us&.lang=en

Representative Souder, a G-d fearing family values man, joins the Rogue’s Gallery of the sanctimonious hoisted on their own petards. I am not gleeful. I don’t relish another’s embarrassments and defeats — even those people who would deny me my civil rights.

Each one of these holier-than-thou sinners begs for forgiveness and feels entitled to redemption because aliens must have inhabited his body in order for him to behave so. Do we as a society enable the hypocrisy by forgiveness and opportunities for redemption? What if we required that each one of these-who-have-fallen-THUD!-from-Grace accept that he is not the interpreter of G-d’s wills, G-d’s ways and G-d’s Bible? [That is a way lot of “G-d”s for a religious conscientious objector like me.]

If pride goeth before the fall, then humility will come after it but only if we demand it of those whom we forgive. Humility and a quest for understanding of our common humanity. And maybe we will achieve peace and justice for all.

25th Reunion

Posted on May 15, 2010 by 40andover

I have 5 weeks until my 25th college reunion. I have 5 weeks to be slim, prosperous, toned and, maybe, un-gray.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I was a crammer in college — I was still buying the books from the class syllabus three days before the final exam. (And my GPA showed it.)

I am 46 and, with 5 weeks to go, here is my status:

Slim: I am much slimmer now than I was in college, even though I have gained “more than a few” pounds in recent years. I call it the Recession 8. Better than the Freshman 15. (I had come in with the pre-Freshman 30, so I don’t have college to blame.) But, in truth, I look pretty slim. So, √ in that box.

Prosperous: Ok, things were better a few years ago, before people on Wall Street got stupid and greedy. But, while I don’t stack up to the crazy high-profile entrepreneurs in my class, I am really fortunate. So, √ in that box.

Toned: I want to be buff. I don’t look bad, although there is a certain sag to the skin on my legs from my fat days. And gravity does “weigh down” some erstwhile perky parts. So no short shorts and no tank tops for me. Anyway, after a certain age, a person looks ridiculous in that kind of outfit. I lost this last week to having injured my hip and back (a little arthritis in the hip leads to compensating with other muscles that spasm which leads to crippling pain), and so I think buff is out of the question, but quietly toned is still possible. So, X in this box (with an “*I don’t care anymore because I am not so shallow” followed by “**Does anyone outgrow that infantile sour grapes attitude? Surely not I”).

Un-gray: I am unconvinced on this. Covering the gray requires upkeep even after the reunion. That is a huge commitment. Still under advisement. So put a ? in that box.

My son just walked in and kissed me. He really wants to use the computer, but the kiss was also real. That’s the things with kids — they take you as you are and they don’t put on the artifices that we adults do as naturally as we get dressed in the morning. POB (partner of blogger) calls out to me and wants to know what we want to do for dinner tonight. I remind her to call her dad about coming over for dinner tomorrow night with my dad and assorted relatives.

Now, I think, do I care if I am thin, prosperous, toned and un-gray? Yes, but not because of reunion. I am happy and I don’t envy anyone or want to be envied. I simply want my family to be happy and healthy and safe. I have that. Add new box and put √√√ in it!!! (with an *”still would like to be slim, prosperous, toned and less gray”) .

[break for dinner out during which my son has a mother of all melt-downs and tests my resolve against spanking as a disciplinary tool.]

Ok, so my son was temporary invaded by an alien life form, and all because we cannot go to his choice of local restaurants (there were no tables available). This is not my son (usually). The following race through my mind: (i) aliens are clever, (ii) my parents grew up poor and would not abide such behavior in us, (iii) we knew not to exhibit such behavior and (iv) what have I done to create this monster?

Am I still happy and blessed? Absolutely. Am I pissed? You betcha. But keep the new box with the √√√ in it, and don’t forget the all-important asterisk.

If you love someone

Posted on May 13, 2010 by 40andover

If you love someone, then don’t make him or her executor of your will.

It is one of the most thankless jobs. Sifting through the detritus of someone’s life is bad enough (you simply don’t need to know some things), but, then, you have to file tax returns and speak to the IRS because one never really leaves one’s affairs in order. And there are clerical errors and the wrong tax identification numbers are submitted and life gets complicated and you remember that you love this person who died peacefully knowing all was in your care, and you know he or she would never have asked this of you had he or she known what it really meant. [SIDEBAR: Ok, that was one of those crazy long sentences reserved only for established writers who look elegant in smoking jackets and cravats. I am just a journeyman lawyer. If I were Hemingway, I would continue on: “That was a damn good sentence. A f@#$ing good sentence. They opened a bottle of wine — a damn good bottle of wine — and took turns taking swigs from the bottle because they were too proud of that f$%^ing sentence to move from the table.”]

I live my life so government stays far away from me, even as I am willing to pay more in taxes for better education, health care, etc. I believe in Obama’s presidency and what he wants to accomplish because all of my grandparents were immigrants who struggled to provide a better life for their children, my parents. And my parents embody the American Dream. And I represent downward mobility or “regression to the mean” (which means that subsequent generations will achieve the stupidity of Joe the Plumber). I support the “system” because it really can work (witness my parents and their entire generation in our extended family); I just work hard not to rely on the “system”. Yet now I have to deal with the government for the taxes on the estate of a person whose life is now reduced to a spreadsheet of dividend distributions and capital gains.

Ok, worse is to be guardian of a mentally incapacitated person. I know someone who took on that burden and I believe there is a place in Heaven waiting for her after what I hope is a long, happy and healthy life on Earth. But I digress.

POB (partner of blogger) believes that, in light of all of this, we need to rethink our financial future so that we give everything away except for two nickels at the second in time immediately before our deaths. That way, no one needs to do anything for us except have a little shiva cocktail party and light a Yahrzeit candle every now and again. But the two nickels are really important to her. I think she never wants anyone to say that we didn’t have “two nickels to rub together”. Which is why I love her so. She doesn’t want a “pot to piss in” because that is too crass. She also expects “a roof over her head” so that doesn’t factor in (although she would consider a reverse mortgage so that there is no fuss about the homestead when we “go”).

She picks her aphorisms and saws to conjure a picture that we timed it all with precision and aforethought. And she wants to live — and die — by them. Of course, being the disaster planner that I am, I need to have only “two nickels to rub together” but also a sack of gold just in case. Don’t tell her I have an extra stash, ok?

I guess the point — and I do have one — is that I am one of the lucky few who can be generally self-reliant and avoid government. And, I have no expectations of an efficient government because I believe that is frankly impossible to achieve and unrealistic to expect. If we were looking for efficiencies, we would ascribe to the Wall Street model and we know how that turned out. No, government is tedious, hopelessly inefficient, and sometimes catches the do-gooders in the web of bureaucracy. It is easy to complain about government. It is hard to defend government. There is a lot of paperwork to get benefits, but remember you are asking for money from the government. It should be hard to get.

So, SOB (sister of blogger), because I love you, I will relieve you of the executrix role. You are asking, “no, really, why?” Ok the answer is: (i) you’ll torture me for it and I will never get the last word for ALL ETERNITY and (ii) Mom would not want this to come between her two girls. I believe BOB (brother of blogger) is also protected because Mom would not stand for that either.

Did you think there would be a point to this? Are you a new reader?

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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