New Age Mom

Posted on March 24, 2013 by 40andover

So, a few weeks ago, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition came out. This, you might think, would be a holiday in a lesbian home. But, sigh, we are here, we are queer and we are middle-age.

SOS is, however, a pre-adolescent boy.

SOS wanted to know whether we needed help going to the drug store. Excuse me? Our boy wanted to help with errands?

Maybe, like a caterpillar into a butterfly, our son blossomed into the son of G-d, as is every Jewish mother’s dream?

Well, no, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition is on display and available at Rite-Aid.

“Dude, I will buy it for you, but you can’t show it to your friends, because we don’t have their parents’ permission, ok?”

“No, I am not ready to own it, E Mom.”

SIDEBAR: When SOS was 8 years-old, he asked everyone he met to buy him that years’ swimsuit edition. Just keeping the record straight.

“Ok, but you know I get it, bud. Mommy and I think women are beautiful.”

“E Mom, no offense, but I cannot talk to you about this, OK?”

All right, too much information for my son. I get it. I am not going to bond with him by scoping out cute girls. Although I could . . . .

We have to do this the cloak and dagger way. SOS gives me an exaggerated wink and says:

“E Mom, do you need anything at the drug store?”

“Why, yes, buddy, I do. Wanna come?”

We go to Rite Aid. I browse in the lotions and potions area, totally worried that I don’t have a visual on my son who is perusing magazines with pedophiles.

It is amazing how drug stores have Valu-Paks of anti-aging lotions. It is really amazing that a chain store succeeded where Vasco Di Gama did not. Fountain of youth, aisle 4, and now in easy to use and re-fill containers. Isn’t the modern world a wonder?

Alas, though, no Sports Illustrated. Only Maxim’s, which would do the trick any OTHER weekend but NOT on the last weekend for the swimsuit edition.

We soldiered on to Duane Reade, where I dawdled again in the lotions and potions aisle and took a brief survey of all the processed foods one can buy these days in drug stores. Are processed foods considered a drug or a food under the FDA?

I went to find SOS after an eternity of inventory research at Duane Reade. Maybe 20 minutes. Apparently I didn’t dawdle enough. Uh oh.

“Buddy, let’s go to a real book store and then I promise I will need a chocolate bar or a bottle of water on the way home, ok?”

At the book store, he was content with the animals of the Serengeti and the dynasties of pre-Communist China.

As promised, we returned to the drug store where I purchased things I didn’t need so that my son could marvel at the bodies of beautiful women.

We got home and I said, “you can go to your room if you want. Just wash your hands when you come out.”

I am nothing if not practical.

Don’t worry, Pearl and Will, no magazines are coming to camp, except the G-rated ones.

When the Past, Present and Future Collide

Posted on March 7, 2013 by 40andover

Some people say time is not linear. I guess then, in terms I can understand, Star Trek’s space/time continuum conundrum is more than a plot enabler. Or life with and without George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” are just two realities that co-exist in different time dimensions.

And so the space-time continuum has been crashing around me recently. Recently, I have been getting information overload about my aunt that make me wonder, “did I ever know you?”

When I was young, my aunt was gorgeous, avant grade and in the art scene. She was our idol. She knew how to talk to us kids and we felt in our bones that she loved and adored us.

Even as I got older, I knew very little about her family of origin. She cut off any discussions about it. I knew she had a sister who was married, with two boys, and the boys and their father were jazz musicians.

I didn’t realize how thick that wall was until, when Mom was sick, my aunt mentioned that she missed her sister and that she had died of cancer a few years before. I was dumbfounded. I was in my late 30s. How come she didn’t tell us? Why didn’t we ask? Were we not as close as I always thought?

Now, as I clean out her pack rat apartment little by little on Saturdays, I guess I should not be surprised at the person who is my aunt and what I find out about her.

Let’s review the non-traumatic facts I have learned since she died:

she was decidedly older than she admitted (no biggie).
she had an “emotionally and mentally disabled” sister as well (no one really knows what that would mean today) who lived in their parents’ apartment until the building was torn down and died some years later (sad, but, again, not a biggie).
but her birth date wasn’t even the date she told us (ok, getting, odd), let alone the year.
she had an artist’s eye for the human body complete with Polaroids of people we know (a little ooky, but it would be really cool if it were someone ELSE’s aunt and uncle in the pictures).
her other sister, whom she told me she missed, died ten years before she told us and they had not really spoken in 30 years (getting odder).
her mother died young, but did NOT die in childbirth as we were told (ok, but suggests a trauma anyway).
They all led a hard life of immigrants in New York from the turn of the 20th century onward.

So, I guess the theme here is that the “facts” of my aunt’s life are more accurately, rebuttable presumptions. Maybe, if we live to 91, the “facts” of our lives will be similarly suspect.

But here is the fact that I can’t let go of:

It turns out, in a twist a la Mark Twain, my aunt’s disabled younger sister’s demise was exaggerated. She is decidedly undead, though aged and in decline. And all her life, this sister lived close by but still far from sight. There is no evidence that my aunt helped her.

What happened? There is a story behind this. Maybe there is something in their upbringing. Maybe it was the hardscrabble immigrant experience. There is no one left to say (the surviving sister has dementia).

It makes me think about the trajectory of people’s lives and how, maybe, whatever happened in that tenement on Third Avenue in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, may have set a course for three sisters, all estranged and one essentially left behind.

Once they were young

Posted on February 17, 2013 by 40andover

I was cleaning out a relative’s apartment this weekend (yeah, more death and destruction in Bloggerville).

While I was cleaning the Collyer Brothers-like apartment (though not a home) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers, two timeless axioms of my youth (one from my grandmother and one from the rabbis) came to mind:

Wear good (and clean) underwear just in case you are hit by a bus so the emergency room doctors will know you come from a good family (and presumably treat you better); and
Live every day as if it were your last on earth.

How do these concepts work together, you ask? Work with me, here.

While there may be loftier connections, mine is decidedly mundane:

DON’T EMBARRASS US OR MAKE US CRINGE AFTER YOU DIE.

And the corollary: Get rid of pictures, outfits you haven’t used in a long time, do your laundry EVERY DAY so that no one has to see anything that could make him or her go blind.

Because everyone was young, wild and stupid, once (maybe more than once). Just don’t leave a record of it, for others who are cleaning out your home to find.

Examples of acceptable things to leave behind:

Kick-ass black leather skirts (regardless of your age at death) and even tasteful lingerie;
Memorabilia and photo albums (that don’t have nude or semi-nude pictures of you with other, now aged or dead relatives, however young or not you were at the time);
Keepsakes, necklaces, etc. (of whatever or no value) that your family members can wear to carry you with them always;
Phone number of 24-hour cartage company to cart away some of the inevitable detritus;
List of accounts and financial representatives; and
A last will and testament.

Examples of things NOT to leave behind:

Dominatrix outfits, even if still in the box;
1970s Polaroid photo album of various poses of you and your partner naked from the waist down;
ANYTHING from the 1970s for that matter;
Collection of 20 years of junk mail (not every collection has value); and
Gross piles of dirty laundry strewn about.

Did you stop at “Polaroid photo album of various poses of you and your partner naked from the waist down”? Yeah, I knew you would. Yep. I almost went blind. And I had to stop once I realized what it was I was looking at.

I know, once they (and we) were young. Once, they (and we) were middle-aged. Hell, do it in your 80s. But if you are in your 80s, burn the pictures every night. And in your 90s, don’t take pictures. Because you will forget that you have them. Because, with most of your life in the rear-view mirror, it is almost a certainty that you violate the Rule of the Ages:

DON’T EMBARRASS US OR MAKE US CRINGE AFTER YOU DIE.

This blog will self-destruct in 25 years.

Blessings of a Snow Ball Fight

Posted on February 9, 2013 by 40andover

SOB and I went over to Dad’s house to pick him up for lunch. Our destination? The Coffee Shop of the Un-Dead.

SIDEBAR: SOB and I, in or nearing our 50s, bring down the average age of the patrons by at least twenty years.

After the usual scavenger hunt for important papers that Dad has hidden among the solicitations for fraudulent charities, we worked up an appetite. His home attendant, Heather (who is fabulous) joined us for lunch. (Dad’s and her rapport is terrific. We are soooo lucky. And I hope she feels the same way.)

The snow made getting to the Coffee Shop of the Un-Dead a little treacherous. SOB took Dad’s left arm, Heather took his right and I walked behind, with my arms out and my stomach tight, ready to catch him under his arms if he fell. All was fine and Blogger Family Protocol, while ready, did not have to be engaged.

After lunch, when we cleared the treacherous parts, and having survived the meal without any of the Un-Dead patrons actually becoming Dead, we all got a little giddy.

SOB was walking behind, and I was holding Dad’s right arm. When I came upon some snow that had settled on shrubbery, I whipped my hand around and —

SCORE!!

Direct hit on SOB. Heather, holding Dad’s left arm, not to be outdone, slammed me with snow with an impressive hook shot behind Dad. I made SOB substitute for me on Dad’s right, so I could take the offense and pummel Heather. Then SOB and Heather ganged up on me. All the while, two people are making sure Dad didn’t fall.

It was a winter ballet performed by people in their 50s with the precision and grace of children (ok, maybe not, but this is my blog). Then, as we are about to walk into his lobby, we needed to pelt Dad a little and very gently, so he didn’t feel left out. So add a 92 year-old to our folly and frolic.

When the doorman saw us all, he said to Dad, “Doc, looks like you won!!”

He did. We did. A snow ball fight (after a fashion) in New York City with my Dad and our new extended family that includes Heather. In life, things never turn out the way you imagine. But not everything has to be tossed out just because life has its own trajectory and its own timeline, separate from our hopes and expectations. Nope, not everything we know needs to be tossed out, even in the despair of reality. Except for snow balls. They need to be tossed every time there is snow.

The art of racing past the pain

Posted on February 5, 2013 by 40andover

Shortly after Dad’s injury, SNOBFOB took me to lunch, to guide my entry into the “new normal” of my family responsibilities. She ever so gently (ok, Jewish-gently) inducted me into the club of people with dead and dying parents. It was also a little like when your mom talked to you about the joys of tampons. You knew you needed the information but you really wished you weren’t old enough for the conversation.

SNOBFOB set about to prepare me for the ups-and-downs, the despair and the acceptance. The rollercoaster. As only someone who has lived this can.

In the months since, SNOBFOB has tried to help me see what is doable (and the best way) and what is not doable. What is and IS NOT my responsibility. What I can and CANNOT change. I am not always good at setting limits.

So, just yesterday, over lunch, SNOBFOB hit me with a whopping reality check: I do not need to take on every enfeebled family member’s problems and still I can keep my promises to Mom and Grandpa. I know what SNOBFOB did for her parents and aunts and uncles. She can tell me to slow down or “chill” or stop being so damn depressing. It was so incredibly LIBERATING. Because Dad I can handle, but . . . .

Today, SOB and I were reviewing the past week’s worth of Dad-related snafus, bizarre behaviors and tense moments. And, the tone of our conversation was, well, (new) normal.

The new normal is getting to be ok. Not great, but ok. And I can even laugh and have fun during the ups-and-downs. In fact, the laughs and the fun are much more important now. Precisely, because life is a roller-coaster.

Thank you, SNOBFOB, my very wise friend.

Hope came today

Posted on January 21, 2013 by 40andover

I watched President Obama’s speech and I cried. These words he said, “Stonewall” and “gay brothers and sisters,” rang in my ears, traveled to my heart and emerged through the tears streaming from my eyes.

From the podium of the most powerful came words that said my family exists and I exist. Yes, it is just a bully pulpit and not the law of the land. But that vision, that inclusion, can never be unsaid.

Later, SOS and I watched the speech togather. Because I needed him to hear, as millions of others heard, that we are equal.

Because he needs to know that for most of the population over 30 years old, the president’s remarks were as significant as Dr. King’s words were to his generation. And he needs to understand that for his mothers, this was, unexpectedly, a day of validation, hope and pride. Because we have lived through so much and we have seen so much and had our hopes of equality dashed so many, many times.

And we need SOS to understand where we’ve been so he can guide us and forgive us our hardened exteriors and paranoia. And maybe, just maybe, he will walk with us into a new era of equality and then, only then, will his mothers’ hell slowly go by….

Whatever happens next: God bless you, Mr. President. Even if only for a day, today, TODAY, you made our dreams seem within reach. God bless America.

On our way to Oslo

Posted on January 20, 2013 by 40andover

I am almost 49. My siblings are a little older. And not a Nobel Prize among us.

My mother is in Heaven right now having to explain to the mothers of Nobel Laureates why her children have yet to earn one. Mom is confident that we will come through for her.

Sidebar: Ok, “confident” is maybe too strong a word. Maybe, it is more like, “she will love us no matter what accolades we fail to earn.”

SOB called to check in with my medical condition (I am fine; the flu is almost gone). We had more important things to discuss — why haven’t we gotten a Nobel prize? A mother’s pride is at stake here. And we are not getting any younger.

And, not only that, I figured out that we really earned them. (Ok, a joint prize.)

There is, of course, a little back story.

The same parents who created Mom also created her brother. He is our recessive genes on display — a cautionary tale, to be sure. And he is not an aberration. My maternal grandfather’s entire family charted its own evolutionary course. (Mom’s brother has some wonderful qualities, I promise, but he lives like a caveman.)

SOB and I did not have biological children. Ergo, we saved the world.

Sidebar: BOB has two wonderful children; WOBOB is the one to be celebrated for that happy turn of events.

SOB, I bought two tickets. We are going First Class.

My morning with Bessie and other things in a random day

Posted on January 19, 2013 by 40andover

I am sick (with the flu) and have been home almost all week. The problem with being home (besides cabin fever) is that you notice every imperfection in your house, every age spot on your legs and those barely perceptible (to the naked eye) and asymmetrical droops in your breasts.

I was feeling pretty ok this morning. And I needed to get out of the house. And I was despondent over missing a Soeur reunion in Cancun. And my bras didn’t provide the necessary level of support. So, off I schlepped to the local mecca for women’s undergarments. This is the place where, for decades (until her death), the Dowager Countess of Ladies’ Undergarments would cup your breasts in her hands and yell out a size and style and point you to one of the dressing rooms. And if she determined that your current bra was ill-fitting, she would pitch a loud fit. You had to have self-esteem or you needed to be high to deal with her. I never went while the Dowager was alive.

POB and I went to here to get our undergarments of steel for our wedding dresses. Bessie, an older Southern woman, helped us. She noted that day that I was wearing “some kinda ratty bra.” http://40andoverblog.com/?p=4354

Today, I walked in and saw Bessie and strode straight for her and said, “you helped me with my wedding undergarments and I promised I would be back and here I am.”

“I remember you. You was with a friend and you was both gettin’ married.”

“To each other,” I responded, gently.

“You had a ratty bra that day, I’ll tell yoooooo.”

Sidebar: OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOK, really? She remembered? And I was here to rectify that. I was thinking that I wasn’t feeling better; I was just delirious. And why do you think I don’t go bra (other than sports bra) shopping often, huh? A little humiliation every other decade or so lasts a looooooong time.

I spent 90 minutes topless in a dressing room that others had no problem entering at will. I must have tried on 30 bras.

Bessie commented on each: “Now that one make you almost look perky!” “You don’t fill that up anymaw. Betcha you did once!” “Now, that is a beautiful cup on you!!”

“But, Bessie, it is electric blue!!!”

“It don’t matter what color it is. A good fittin’ bra is a good fittin’ bra. You don’t turn your nose at a good fittin’ bra. Not when we’s our age!!”

Pause. We are NOT the same age. I may be going on 50 but she is 70. Wow, I really was delirious.

“I’ll jest put this in the buy pile.” She walked away. Ten bras (of varying colors; some electrically so, some not) later, she went to find matching bottoms. I prevailed on nixing the dull blue and brown striped one that was almost like a bikini top.

“You a full-cut or a thong type?” She yelled for everyone to hear. Of course, the entire conversation was for everyone to hear.

“How about we look at the matching bottoms and then I will decide.”

Bessie packed up all the things she decided I needed, less the bra that I would not, could not, buy. “Now, send your friend on in here, hear?”

Wow, I needed a long snooze.

POB and SOS were doing G-d’s work, by having lunch with my Dad, so I could rest. Or be delirious, whatever.

We arrived home at the same time and had a little rest hour. And then POB and SOS set about making a cheesecake for SOS’s friend who is recovering from serious back surgery. Our hearts were on standby to be broken if anything went wrong. An 11 year-old’s undergoing serious back surgery is a parent’s every nightmare. He came through like the champion he is. And he wanted cheesecake. “Then, give the boy a cheesecake,” said (and did) POB and SOS.

So we all hovered in the kitchen while POB did most of the heavy-lifting, SOS helped a little and I helped not at all.

SIDERBAR: Hey, there needs to be a slacker in every family. I proudly claim that mantel. In fact, I “gold-medal” in it, without the need for performance enhancement drugs. (It is a non-performing sport.)

Then SOS remembered that Cousin Gentle and he are going to visit a Sikh enclave in Queens tomorrow and he needed to learn, “hello”, “good bye” and “thank you” in Punjabi by tomorrow. Cousin Gentle sent a link to a primer on Punjabi.

So, now, I sit in a warm kitchen with wonderful smells wafting through the air, blogging about my day and over-hearing my son practice words in Punjabi.

Yes, yes, I must be delirious.

More on role reversal

Posted on January 18, 2013 by 40andover

My daily mantra: “It is what it is”. Nope, not the serenity prayer. Serenity doesn’t accomplish the gritty tasks of daily life. And the serenity prayer implies I am good with the some of the things that children or nieces and nephews should never have to know about their elders.

First, family secrets are meant to be kept secret. That is why they were secrets in the first place. Because no one would understand and the younger generation would be saddened. Not horrified (because this is 2013) but saddened about these lives as they had to be lived. (No, I am not talking about Dad. OTHER relatives in our care.)

The list of things I don’t need to know about my relatives (not my Dad):

that the bed linen was changed some time in the early part of the last century;
that elders can continue live in filth, even if they are part of “good families” and fight change;
that testosterone levels are low (ok, this is a good thing); and
every little detail about urinary tract and colon activity, with visuals.

Now comes the mantra: “It is what it is.”

And SOB and I are the new sheriffs in town and so we need to invoke base level sanitary standards, base level responsiveness to our calls (other than just in times of crisis), and full capitulation to our will and our loving vision of how they will live out the remainder of their lives. Because, although they didn’t ask for it (exactly), they understand that they need us.

Here is my bottom line:

If I need to know family secrets that disgust me and deal with facts on the ground that gross me out, there is a quid pro quo: Disobey SOB’s and my benevolently despotic decrees at your peril.

Because “it is what it is” is more than a phrase to live by; it is a threat AND a promise.

Role Reversal

Posted on January 17, 2013 by 40andover

For those of you who are also dealing with this:

When you have sick relatives and you are the one mainly in charge — whether because of love, obligation and/or by default — there are no simple tasks, are there? There is no streamlined order of command or ways to pay bills, right? Or get the important mail sent to you?

And that power of attorney or trustee status that was the answer to these problems? It only allows you to untangle SOME of the mess.

I know, I know. All of the planning, those hard conversations, and the tears when the car keys were taken away were all supposed to get us to a point where everything that we COULD control was IN OUR control. So, our parents and we didn’t have to worry about THESE things.

Parents are not good at giving up the control over finances, medical issues, etc. And why should they? They have been doing for themselves for more than 60, maybe 70, years and doing fine. Yes, but then time and age crept up slowly for some, and brutally fast for others, and all wasn’t fine anymore.

And because you needed us. We, your children, your nieces and nephews, your dear friend’s children. And we stood up. But you don’t quite understand that you need us. That is part of the disease or the injury. You can’t keep up. Things are going unpaid. The house is looking unclean. You are looking disheveled. We need to get help in the house and we need to make sure the bills get paid. Because we need you need to live in dignity, even if giving up decision-making is itself an indignity.

But parents are used to taking care of themselves, no matter what. And a power of attorney or trustee status cannot prevent an elder from acting on his own, even to his detriment. Dad called yesterday because people confused him on the phone about his credit card and his long term care. He called me to contact these people to make it right. I called him back after I made all the necessary transfers and reminded everyone again that I am the contact and my power of attorney is on file. Dad didn’t tell me (did he remember?) that his muscle memory took over and he transferred funds over the phone and took care of it. Maybe he didn’t understand what he did nor can he remember to tell me. So I duplicated his efforts and while that isn’t bad necessarily, money moved at cross-purposes and, today, there was a crisis.

Trying to sort out the mess was an hours-long process. Because every institution has its rules. And every subgroup within an institution has its own inane rules. So, while I am the designated person for financial decisions, not every bill or statement comes to me. While I am designated as a notice party, nobody calls or writes. And while part of the company accepts my status, the other part of the company has no record that I exist. But maybe I would be interested in a Mastercard? And, by the way, can I answer whether I was provided with excellent service. Are you kidding me?

Too big to fail? That isn’t the relevant question. Too big to help? Absolutely.

I requested fund transfer forms because I was going to yank all the money out of this behemoth. Because I don’t have time for this. Then the issues disappeared.

Give me a local bank, a local pharmacist, a local butcher, a local anything. Because I need people who know my family and who can help me navigate the difficulties of trying to help Dad maintain his specter of “independence” (however much that independence is, in truth, circumscribed by his loving children).

His pride and my sanity are on the line.

P.S.: Tomorrow we will discuss how we live with TOO MUCH information about our parents.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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