Ever run down the list of famous people you've seen? Mine isn't much, but it's very odd.
Margaret Chase Smith and Hubert Humphrey. Saw them in the Capitol when I was on a college field trip. I was pregnant. I bet most of you don't know who Margaret Chase Smith is.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis shopping in Bangkok, Thailand. She bought a statue of two hands and wrote a check for it. I watched her through the window, then she came out and walked to a chauffered car. Big sunglasses. Wrinkled short shift dress. Big car. She paid no attention to the people watching her.
The actor Richard Jaeckel in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. I didn't even know who he was. My father pointed him out and was very cool. He gave the guy a little wave and the guy gave him a little wave back. Jaeckel was in "The Dirty Dozen" and a movie I like, "Sometimes a Great Notion." Every time I see him on TV, I think about my father and him exchanging the discreet waves. They're both dead now.
Luci Baines Johnson Nugent getting out of a car in a parking lot. I was just walking by and there she was. I think she was in town campaigning for Chuck Robb. Her hair was tremendously black, high and teased, like a stripper or an Elvis-era Priscilla Presley. (What happened to that woman's face??!!)
I saw Mark Warner before he was governor of Virginia standing on line for the sky bucket ride at Busch Gardens. It was right in the middle of his campaign. He stood on line like everybody else. Didn't try to cut ahead. Didn't have any park people escorting him to the front. That's why I voted for him. I also saw him at a garden party in Hanover County. Hanover is very Republican, so there weren't many people at this party, but he gave a good speech anyway. I covered it for the Mechanicsville Local.
I saw Elliott Yamin, as did half of Richmond, at the James Center when he was competing in "American Idol," and they were filming his visit home for the finales.
And that's about it for my brushes with greatness.
I've been to very few concerts. I've seen Kiss, John Denver, and a pathetic Beach Boys who were very far from the original line-up. I've seen Van Halen, but since Gary Chirone was the singer, it doesn't count, although it was no doubt the last time Eddie looked halfway good. And the B52s and John Fogerty (my favorite). And Marilyn Manson at the Landmark. How could I forget that?
Update: Because I worked in the same building, I saw former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder a lot. And before the primaries began, I went to a Donald Trump rally at Richmond International Raceway because I thought he was actually going to go far in the 2016 election. He did.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Saturday, December 29, 2007
My First Yard Sale
I lost my yard sale virginity last year. My block hosted a multi-family event, and I joined in, offering up my most useless belongings to strangers. Normally, I put my cast-offs on eBay and rid myself of them one at a time, but these were things that were too bulky to mail or had dubious if any value. I had been dreading a long day, held captive in my yard, but the time raced by because it turned out to be not so much a yard sale as a reality show.
The centerpieces of my sale were an old window air conditioner; a bread maker that took several hours to produce a hunk of bread that looked and tasted like a football; a huge, round “party” George Foreman grill that the previous owners of our house had wisely left behind; and the literal kitchen sink. We had recently replaced ours.
In addition, there were several tables of the usual suspects: purses I had grown tired of, clothes that made me look fat, vases that had no reason for being, novelty glassware, the chronic Christmas gifts of back and neck massagers of every shape and size, kitchen gadgets bought on a whim, and books and DVDs I would never read or watch again.
As my husband watched me price things, he made the usual husband noises. “I forgot we had that! If I knew we still had that, I’d be using it! Don’t sell that! That’s mine. I know I don’t use it, but I might one day.”
I turned a deaf ear to his protests, and was even more annoyed when his family called him on his cell, asking for a rundown of what I had out and putting dibs on things they wanted (for free!). A few items disappeared back into the house. But his biggest sacrifice was the big sale of the day. A set of speakers sold for $20.
I let go of a $40 George Foreman tabletop roaster for $5 after a woman declared her desperate need for it, and then refused to pay the $10 I was asking. I negotiated to $8. She still refused and I caved. Shame on me, but it was on my gotta-go short list, a purchase I regretted every time I saw it gathering dust in the cabinet. Better not to see it. And it was the only thing on the gotta-go short list that sold. Even at what I considered give-away prices, yard salers want to pay less. The 10 and 25 cent junk steadily moved, while anything priced at $10 or more, no matter what a great deal it was, was shunned. People would pick up the price tag and then drop it as if it burnt their fingers.
My most popular things turned out to be the purses, vases and novelty glassware. I don’t know why. Surely, everyone on Planet Earth has more than enough of them.
Only one purchase made sense. A small boy and his dad immediately pounced on a vase that was the size and shape of a softball. They bought it and drove away, without looking at any of the other sales on the block. I figured there was a Japanese fighting fish in their future, and this was the perfect bowl.
I felt bad about many of my other sales. There were a half-dozen mother-son teams where the son was retirement age and the mom nursing home age, and yard saling on Saturday morning was their together time. Old mom was allowed to buy whatever crazy thing she wanted, and these moms wanted some crazy things. I could picture their homes overflowing with purses, vases and novelty glassware, and it made me a little sad that my stuff was not going anywhere useful but was just joining a massive junk pile in someone else’s musty house.
Serious looking women, traveling alone so they could move faster, came early. So did the father-son teams who were buying to resell. The seniors came next and all knew each other. Their paths crossed every Saturday morning as they traveled the sales. They were most likely to buy things that had no practical purpose, although they did fight over my toilet paper holder shaped like a lighthouse.
During my breaks, when my husband took over to discourage sales, I checked out the neighbors. I took no money to avoid replacing my junk with their junk, but was sorely tempted by my one junk weakness: art. Most of the paintings in my house are rescued from the dump and other people’s trash. I would have bought the huge painting of a cat sitting on a sofa if it hadn’t been $5. To earn $5, I have to sell a boatload of novelty glassware. I want something for nothing, too.
In the end, we only moved about a fourth of what we put out. We still have the kitchen sink and that damn, giant, round George Foreman party grill. And yes, the bread maker. “Everyone is selling bread makers,” we were told all day long. We made $78. That’s $39 a piece, or $6 an hour. But I’m ready to do it again to watch the parade of human nature that yard sales attract and to imagine what the story is behind each purchase. It’s like a telenovela.
Oh, and I learned one useful thing: don’t sell candles at yard sales. My packets of unused birthday candles fused together in the sun into one big wax splat.
The centerpieces of my sale were an old window air conditioner; a bread maker that took several hours to produce a hunk of bread that looked and tasted like a football; a huge, round “party” George Foreman grill that the previous owners of our house had wisely left behind; and the literal kitchen sink. We had recently replaced ours.
In addition, there were several tables of the usual suspects: purses I had grown tired of, clothes that made me look fat, vases that had no reason for being, novelty glassware, the chronic Christmas gifts of back and neck massagers of every shape and size, kitchen gadgets bought on a whim, and books and DVDs I would never read or watch again.
As my husband watched me price things, he made the usual husband noises. “I forgot we had that! If I knew we still had that, I’d be using it! Don’t sell that! That’s mine. I know I don’t use it, but I might one day.”
I turned a deaf ear to his protests, and was even more annoyed when his family called him on his cell, asking for a rundown of what I had out and putting dibs on things they wanted (for free!). A few items disappeared back into the house. But his biggest sacrifice was the big sale of the day. A set of speakers sold for $20.
I let go of a $40 George Foreman tabletop roaster for $5 after a woman declared her desperate need for it, and then refused to pay the $10 I was asking. I negotiated to $8. She still refused and I caved. Shame on me, but it was on my gotta-go short list, a purchase I regretted every time I saw it gathering dust in the cabinet. Better not to see it. And it was the only thing on the gotta-go short list that sold. Even at what I considered give-away prices, yard salers want to pay less. The 10 and 25 cent junk steadily moved, while anything priced at $10 or more, no matter what a great deal it was, was shunned. People would pick up the price tag and then drop it as if it burnt their fingers.
My most popular things turned out to be the purses, vases and novelty glassware. I don’t know why. Surely, everyone on Planet Earth has more than enough of them.
Only one purchase made sense. A small boy and his dad immediately pounced on a vase that was the size and shape of a softball. They bought it and drove away, without looking at any of the other sales on the block. I figured there was a Japanese fighting fish in their future, and this was the perfect bowl.
I felt bad about many of my other sales. There were a half-dozen mother-son teams where the son was retirement age and the mom nursing home age, and yard saling on Saturday morning was their together time. Old mom was allowed to buy whatever crazy thing she wanted, and these moms wanted some crazy things. I could picture their homes overflowing with purses, vases and novelty glassware, and it made me a little sad that my stuff was not going anywhere useful but was just joining a massive junk pile in someone else’s musty house.
Serious looking women, traveling alone so they could move faster, came early. So did the father-son teams who were buying to resell. The seniors came next and all knew each other. Their paths crossed every Saturday morning as they traveled the sales. They were most likely to buy things that had no practical purpose, although they did fight over my toilet paper holder shaped like a lighthouse.
During my breaks, when my husband took over to discourage sales, I checked out the neighbors. I took no money to avoid replacing my junk with their junk, but was sorely tempted by my one junk weakness: art. Most of the paintings in my house are rescued from the dump and other people’s trash. I would have bought the huge painting of a cat sitting on a sofa if it hadn’t been $5. To earn $5, I have to sell a boatload of novelty glassware. I want something for nothing, too.
In the end, we only moved about a fourth of what we put out. We still have the kitchen sink and that damn, giant, round George Foreman party grill. And yes, the bread maker. “Everyone is selling bread makers,” we were told all day long. We made $78. That’s $39 a piece, or $6 an hour. But I’m ready to do it again to watch the parade of human nature that yard sales attract and to imagine what the story is behind each purchase. It’s like a telenovela.
Oh, and I learned one useful thing: don’t sell candles at yard sales. My packets of unused birthday candles fused together in the sun into one big wax splat.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Around the World with Customer Service
Getting customer service these days is a trip around the world, and even though you never leave your home, you still need a big bottle of Kaopectate after visiting dozens of exotic foreign locales by phone.
It was a simple computer hardware problem that required little detective work. My toner cartridge was leaking toner. A quick trip to the office supplies store for a new cartridge fixed the problem. But it also left me angry because the defective cartridge had been in use only three months and I normally got a year of service out of them. They cost $103. I figured Hewlett-Packard, the maker of the cartridge, owed me at least $73.
Hewlett Packard has designed their site so it doesn’t provide a customer service phone number or even an email address unless you complete forms identifying the product you use. There was no area to complain about toner cartridges and when I entered my 10-year-old laser printer ID, I discovered because the printer was no longer made, they no longer answered questions about it.
I found a newer printer model that used the same cartridge, entered that one, and got a phone number for technical support. It was a man in India.
He transferred me to the parts department where I spoke to a man in Mexico. He told me to call India. I said, “I did already and they sent me to you. All I need is a Return Merchandise Authorization number to exchange this defective toner cartridge.”
“No, they’re the ones who should take care of this,” he insisted. “If they don’t, ask to speak to a supervisor.” Apparently HP Mexico has it in for HP India and is used to them transferring calls. He transferred me back to technical support in India. The next person in technical support had the annoying habit of speaking his first sentence in a loud, clear voice and then mumbling the rest in a whisper. What? What?
I finally convinced him to shout every thing he had to say to me, and what he had to say was since my printer was no longer made, I would have to pay a fee to speak to someone in technical support.
But it’s not a problem with the printer, I insisted. The printer works fine. It is the toner cartridge I bought several months ago, which you still make because I bought a new one just like it today.
The tech support guy read the script to me again in his mumbling voice. Because my printer was no longer made, I would have to pay a fee for technical support.
It’s not the printer! The printer works fine! It’s the toner cartridge! I don’t need technical support! I know what’s wrong with the toner cartridge! It leaks toner! I want my money back!
He read me the script again.
I interrupted him, remembering Mexico’s advice. “Let me speak to your supervisor.”
I wasn’t sure, after a brief interlude of soothing music, that it wasn’t the same guy back on the line just pretending to be the supervisor. They sounded just alike, except this guy didn’t mumble. He at least finally understood my issue was with the toner cartridge. He gave me a phone number for Customer Satisfaction. Customer Satisfaction is in Costa Rica.
Meline, an Hispanic sounding woman who answered my call, had such a logical explanation, I couldn’t argue. “No one is here for me to ask what to do.”
You can’t do anything? You work in Customer Satisfaction, but can’t do anything?
“No, I have to ask someone.”
When will someone be back?
This was Friday night, and all the someones who could actually solve a problem, or authorize this Customer Satisfaction woman to open a case file for me had left for the day. Then the powerless Meline, who was now in charge of my satisfaction by virtue of having answered the phone, said the people who could authorize her to do something wouldn’t be back until Monday, and she was off Monday, so it would be Tuesday before she could call me back.
Apparently at HP Costa Rica, they are fully staffed all weekend with people who are not allowed to do anything.
Meline gave me her phone number and on the appointed day, when I called back, I got her voice mail. I called HP Costa Rica’s main number instead and got Tomas, who said Jorge was the king of all toner cartridge problems for HP Costa Rica. After being on hold through 15 minutes of excruciating elevator music waiting for Jorge, Tomas came back on the line and said I’d have to leave a message on Meline’s voice mail after all because she was researching my problem and had more work to do on it. How long does it take to research a leaky toner cartridge? Apparently Costa Rica must have talked about me all weekend for Jorge to know I had already called and talked to Meline.
A few days later, Meline called and asked for my address so she could send me a replacement toner cartridge. And it arrived! Well, that was easy…not. Yet I’m surprised that for once in my life, I actually got customer satisfaction, even though it took a worldwide journey through a series of linguistic hurdles, sort of like “The Amazing Race,” only by phone.
It was a simple computer hardware problem that required little detective work. My toner cartridge was leaking toner. A quick trip to the office supplies store for a new cartridge fixed the problem. But it also left me angry because the defective cartridge had been in use only three months and I normally got a year of service out of them. They cost $103. I figured Hewlett-Packard, the maker of the cartridge, owed me at least $73.
Hewlett Packard has designed their site so it doesn’t provide a customer service phone number or even an email address unless you complete forms identifying the product you use. There was no area to complain about toner cartridges and when I entered my 10-year-old laser printer ID, I discovered because the printer was no longer made, they no longer answered questions about it.
I found a newer printer model that used the same cartridge, entered that one, and got a phone number for technical support. It was a man in India.
He transferred me to the parts department where I spoke to a man in Mexico. He told me to call India. I said, “I did already and they sent me to you. All I need is a Return Merchandise Authorization number to exchange this defective toner cartridge.”
“No, they’re the ones who should take care of this,” he insisted. “If they don’t, ask to speak to a supervisor.” Apparently HP Mexico has it in for HP India and is used to them transferring calls. He transferred me back to technical support in India. The next person in technical support had the annoying habit of speaking his first sentence in a loud, clear voice and then mumbling the rest in a whisper. What? What?
I finally convinced him to shout every thing he had to say to me, and what he had to say was since my printer was no longer made, I would have to pay a fee to speak to someone in technical support.
But it’s not a problem with the printer, I insisted. The printer works fine. It is the toner cartridge I bought several months ago, which you still make because I bought a new one just like it today.
The tech support guy read the script to me again in his mumbling voice. Because my printer was no longer made, I would have to pay a fee for technical support.
It’s not the printer! The printer works fine! It’s the toner cartridge! I don’t need technical support! I know what’s wrong with the toner cartridge! It leaks toner! I want my money back!
He read me the script again.
I interrupted him, remembering Mexico’s advice. “Let me speak to your supervisor.”
I wasn’t sure, after a brief interlude of soothing music, that it wasn’t the same guy back on the line just pretending to be the supervisor. They sounded just alike, except this guy didn’t mumble. He at least finally understood my issue was with the toner cartridge. He gave me a phone number for Customer Satisfaction. Customer Satisfaction is in Costa Rica.
Meline, an Hispanic sounding woman who answered my call, had such a logical explanation, I couldn’t argue. “No one is here for me to ask what to do.”
You can’t do anything? You work in Customer Satisfaction, but can’t do anything?
“No, I have to ask someone.”
When will someone be back?
This was Friday night, and all the someones who could actually solve a problem, or authorize this Customer Satisfaction woman to open a case file for me had left for the day. Then the powerless Meline, who was now in charge of my satisfaction by virtue of having answered the phone, said the people who could authorize her to do something wouldn’t be back until Monday, and she was off Monday, so it would be Tuesday before she could call me back.
Apparently at HP Costa Rica, they are fully staffed all weekend with people who are not allowed to do anything.
Meline gave me her phone number and on the appointed day, when I called back, I got her voice mail. I called HP Costa Rica’s main number instead and got Tomas, who said Jorge was the king of all toner cartridge problems for HP Costa Rica. After being on hold through 15 minutes of excruciating elevator music waiting for Jorge, Tomas came back on the line and said I’d have to leave a message on Meline’s voice mail after all because she was researching my problem and had more work to do on it. How long does it take to research a leaky toner cartridge? Apparently Costa Rica must have talked about me all weekend for Jorge to know I had already called and talked to Meline.
A few days later, Meline called and asked for my address so she could send me a replacement toner cartridge. And it arrived! Well, that was easy…not. Yet I’m surprised that for once in my life, I actually got customer satisfaction, even though it took a worldwide journey through a series of linguistic hurdles, sort of like “The Amazing Race,” only by phone.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Valuable Advice
You can’t replace something with nothing.
A little punk boy full of piercings and tattoos told me this when I was in the my lowest, most depressed period and the clarity and reasoning of it was so monumental, it literally kept me alive through years of misery until, just as he promised, something came along.
I had paid a variety of therapists, from secular to theological, and never got such life-saving advice. The boyfriend is gone, and you just have to accept the fact that if having a boyfriend is important to you, things are going to suck until you find another one. If you don’t have a good job or even a job--and jobs are important to everyone--then things are going to suck until you get one. All you can do is develop the best coping strategies you can while you are in the Great Sucking Period of your life and not get fooled into thinking things will never get better so you might as well off yourself.
You never know how long it’s going to take, but things do get better. They just do. Eventually, the nothingness gets filled with somethingness. And looking back, I can see now that every turn was a turn for the better (because, really, how could it have gotten worse?) When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t see that part. As another old adage goes, when you’re down, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Floss your teeth in the shower.
My stepfather-in-law gave me that advice. We’re all constantly told by our dentists we don’t floss enough, and who has time? My stepdad-in-law is not the master of multi-tasking, but he came up with a solution that made me, the actual master of multi-tasking, slap myself! Why didn’t I think of that?
You’re always in there a few extra delicious minutes anyway, soaking up the hot water. What better time to floss? Keep a package next to your shampoo and shock and awe your dentist at your next check-up.
Change your oil every 3,000 miles.
You know those abandoned cars you see on the side of the road with the orange stickers on them? That was my first husband. His idea of car maintenance was keep driving them until they stopped and then just walk away and get another one. The next husband was vaguely aware that maybe you should get an oil change when you got the car inspected, so our cars kept us in suspense. Would they survive to the last payment?
My current husband is the master of the 200,000 mile vehicles. He keeps cars running when all the body and upholstery has long since rotted away. He drives his cars until they are Flintstone mobiles, just engines with wheels. Our porch is constantly stocked with oil and air filters. Every few months, testosterone bubbles and he marches into the yard and changes the oil in everything parked there.
You can’t change people.
Probably some television therapist said this, or maybe I just figured it out after a long time. What you see is what you're going to get...forever and for all time. And it doesn't matter what they say about changing. They won't. They don't. The only thing that can change is you stop trying to change them.
A little punk boy full of piercings and tattoos told me this when I was in the my lowest, most depressed period and the clarity and reasoning of it was so monumental, it literally kept me alive through years of misery until, just as he promised, something came along.
I had paid a variety of therapists, from secular to theological, and never got such life-saving advice. The boyfriend is gone, and you just have to accept the fact that if having a boyfriend is important to you, things are going to suck until you find another one. If you don’t have a good job or even a job--and jobs are important to everyone--then things are going to suck until you get one. All you can do is develop the best coping strategies you can while you are in the Great Sucking Period of your life and not get fooled into thinking things will never get better so you might as well off yourself.
You never know how long it’s going to take, but things do get better. They just do. Eventually, the nothingness gets filled with somethingness. And looking back, I can see now that every turn was a turn for the better (because, really, how could it have gotten worse?) When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t see that part. As another old adage goes, when you’re down, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Floss your teeth in the shower.
My stepfather-in-law gave me that advice. We’re all constantly told by our dentists we don’t floss enough, and who has time? My stepdad-in-law is not the master of multi-tasking, but he came up with a solution that made me, the actual master of multi-tasking, slap myself! Why didn’t I think of that?
You’re always in there a few extra delicious minutes anyway, soaking up the hot water. What better time to floss? Keep a package next to your shampoo and shock and awe your dentist at your next check-up.
Change your oil every 3,000 miles.
You know those abandoned cars you see on the side of the road with the orange stickers on them? That was my first husband. His idea of car maintenance was keep driving them until they stopped and then just walk away and get another one. The next husband was vaguely aware that maybe you should get an oil change when you got the car inspected, so our cars kept us in suspense. Would they survive to the last payment?
My current husband is the master of the 200,000 mile vehicles. He keeps cars running when all the body and upholstery has long since rotted away. He drives his cars until they are Flintstone mobiles, just engines with wheels. Our porch is constantly stocked with oil and air filters. Every few months, testosterone bubbles and he marches into the yard and changes the oil in everything parked there.
You can’t change people.
Probably some television therapist said this, or maybe I just figured it out after a long time. What you see is what you're going to get...forever and for all time. And it doesn't matter what they say about changing. They won't. They don't. The only thing that can change is you stop trying to change them.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Brokefoot Relationship
Can any relationship survive a broken foot? I think not. Love is based intently on one’s ability to walk away from the beloved and then return when the beloved has stopped ranting.
As it says in that book “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran that everyone used to give as a shower gift, “let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you…stand together, yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
It’s hard to let those winds of heaven dance between you when one of you has two broken feet. The cypress becomes overly dependent on the oak tree to help her out, and the oak tree is often out in the yard having a smoke.
The least fortuitous time to fall in the yard and break both your feet is during football season when the game is on. I went unheard for several minutes, as helpless as Daryl Hannah on land when her feet would turn back into one big useless, flopping fish tail.
But eventually I was rescued and carried away by paramedics. For a couple of days after that, while waiting for an opening in a surgical schedule, the Beloved and his brother transported me like a corpse in a murder mystery. I was rolled in a blanket, carried down the stairs like a rug and tossed into the back of a van whenever I had to report to doctors who would hold up my x-rays and make wise diagnoses like, “Well, you really did it to yourself, didn’t you?”
Then I spent six weeks in a wheelchair and another six on crutches, none of that as annoying as not being able to drive myself. If there had been automobiles when Gibran wrote his poem on marriage, he certainly would have opined that love means never having to commute together on a daily basis.
The Beloved and I have shared a fundamental and critical difference in body temperature since we met. I am always hot. He is always cold. My philosophy on cold is put on a sweater. His philosophy on cold is crank the heat. My philosophy on cranking the heat is that breathing heated air dries out your nasal passages and leads to nose picking and cold catching. His philosophy on wearing a sweater is he’s not moving into Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. It’s unmanly.
His love of heated spaces extends to the car. Whereas I am a cold start driver --start the car, scrape the windows and go – he goes out 20 minutes early, starts the car, turns up the heat as high as it will go, and leaves it running unattended. He says this is the proper way to start a cold car on a cold day. I say that’s how a cold car becomes a stolen car.
Getting in a car warmed up in this way is like climbing inside a pizza oven, and it’s even hotter when you’re already dressed for cold weather. I loosen my scarf and roll down the window, dramatically gasping for air, which officially kicks off our first fight of the commute, quickly followed by the second fight of the commute – no, we don’t have time to mail my letter or return my movie to the video store, but yes, we do have time to get his cigarettes.
The merge onto the highway begins the third fight of the commute, namely why do men drive so aggressively? Why can’t they all just get along? If another driver offends you, turn the other cheek. But no, the Beloved’s world is divided into the Beloved vs. Everybody Else and Everybody Else is a dumb ass, which, if you are behind a steering wheel, is pronounced, DUMBASS!!!!
The dumb asses maneuver dangerously to get one car ahead, causing the Beloved to feel the need to speed up on their dumb ass, one-car-ahead tail so he can gesticulate at them. Dumb asses slowing down to dial their cell phones must be verbally abused and passed.
If I was a contestant on “Fear Factor,” the most terrifying thing they could do is make me drive a stretch of highway surrounded by an auto carrier, a cement truck, a flatbed truck hauling logs and an oversized motor home driven by undersized senior citizens. When I see any of them on the road, I fall way back, leaving plenty of room to make defensive maneuvers when the other vehicle rolls over or loses its cargo. The Beloved speeds up to pass them…on a curve.
By the time we arrive at my office, I am quivering, stressed out and disoriented by my life flashing repeatedly before my face.
When we were commuting separately, the Beloved would arrive home first in the afternoon and quickly anesthetize himself with back to back episodes of Judge Joe Brown where, no matter what kind of bad day you had, these people are having a worse one. By the time I got home, he was over his bad day and hiding in the garage so he wouldn’t have to hear about my bad day.
Commuting together, we’re like two Japanese fighting fish sharing a bowl. Our competing bad day complaints are spit into the overheated air of the car while we chase dumb asses down the highway in the gathering dusk. I start imagining my marriage is a disaster, but then I remember it’s only my foot and as soon as I can drive again, like The Prophet says, that big necessary space in our togetherness will return.
As it says in that book “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran that everyone used to give as a shower gift, “let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you…stand together, yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
It’s hard to let those winds of heaven dance between you when one of you has two broken feet. The cypress becomes overly dependent on the oak tree to help her out, and the oak tree is often out in the yard having a smoke.
The least fortuitous time to fall in the yard and break both your feet is during football season when the game is on. I went unheard for several minutes, as helpless as Daryl Hannah on land when her feet would turn back into one big useless, flopping fish tail.
But eventually I was rescued and carried away by paramedics. For a couple of days after that, while waiting for an opening in a surgical schedule, the Beloved and his brother transported me like a corpse in a murder mystery. I was rolled in a blanket, carried down the stairs like a rug and tossed into the back of a van whenever I had to report to doctors who would hold up my x-rays and make wise diagnoses like, “Well, you really did it to yourself, didn’t you?”
Then I spent six weeks in a wheelchair and another six on crutches, none of that as annoying as not being able to drive myself. If there had been automobiles when Gibran wrote his poem on marriage, he certainly would have opined that love means never having to commute together on a daily basis.
The Beloved and I have shared a fundamental and critical difference in body temperature since we met. I am always hot. He is always cold. My philosophy on cold is put on a sweater. His philosophy on cold is crank the heat. My philosophy on cranking the heat is that breathing heated air dries out your nasal passages and leads to nose picking and cold catching. His philosophy on wearing a sweater is he’s not moving into Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. It’s unmanly.
His love of heated spaces extends to the car. Whereas I am a cold start driver --start the car, scrape the windows and go – he goes out 20 minutes early, starts the car, turns up the heat as high as it will go, and leaves it running unattended. He says this is the proper way to start a cold car on a cold day. I say that’s how a cold car becomes a stolen car.
Getting in a car warmed up in this way is like climbing inside a pizza oven, and it’s even hotter when you’re already dressed for cold weather. I loosen my scarf and roll down the window, dramatically gasping for air, which officially kicks off our first fight of the commute, quickly followed by the second fight of the commute – no, we don’t have time to mail my letter or return my movie to the video store, but yes, we do have time to get his cigarettes.
The merge onto the highway begins the third fight of the commute, namely why do men drive so aggressively? Why can’t they all just get along? If another driver offends you, turn the other cheek. But no, the Beloved’s world is divided into the Beloved vs. Everybody Else and Everybody Else is a dumb ass, which, if you are behind a steering wheel, is pronounced, DUMBASS!!!!
The dumb asses maneuver dangerously to get one car ahead, causing the Beloved to feel the need to speed up on their dumb ass, one-car-ahead tail so he can gesticulate at them. Dumb asses slowing down to dial their cell phones must be verbally abused and passed.
If I was a contestant on “Fear Factor,” the most terrifying thing they could do is make me drive a stretch of highway surrounded by an auto carrier, a cement truck, a flatbed truck hauling logs and an oversized motor home driven by undersized senior citizens. When I see any of them on the road, I fall way back, leaving plenty of room to make defensive maneuvers when the other vehicle rolls over or loses its cargo. The Beloved speeds up to pass them…on a curve.
By the time we arrive at my office, I am quivering, stressed out and disoriented by my life flashing repeatedly before my face.
When we were commuting separately, the Beloved would arrive home first in the afternoon and quickly anesthetize himself with back to back episodes of Judge Joe Brown where, no matter what kind of bad day you had, these people are having a worse one. By the time I got home, he was over his bad day and hiding in the garage so he wouldn’t have to hear about my bad day.
Commuting together, we’re like two Japanese fighting fish sharing a bowl. Our competing bad day complaints are spit into the overheated air of the car while we chase dumb asses down the highway in the gathering dusk. I start imagining my marriage is a disaster, but then I remember it’s only my foot and as soon as I can drive again, like The Prophet says, that big necessary space in our togetherness will return.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Miracle of the Sunglasses
My God is a small God. Some people have big Gods, Old Testament style Gods, who do mighty works. Mine pretty much finds things I’ve lost. Maybe my prayers are being monitored by a guardian angel that is particularly adept at finding things and not much else. In any case, it’s a miracle story I offer here.
I’ve been praying lately for money to solve an assortment of pesky obligations that would clean up my checkered past and allow me to proceed with the rest of my life without that burden. It would not enrich me; just de-stress me, so it doesn’t seem too much to ask.
I would hazard a guess that not many people actually get their prayers for cold cash answered. Since I don’t buy lottery tickets, I’m not even giving God an easy way to provide for me. And I’m probably not taking into consideration that He already does in His own way. I manage to get the bills paid every month, even when it involves transferring a debt from one credit card to another.
But so far, every single prayer to find my cat has been answered, usually within 20 minutes if not sooner. I have a cat that gets lost several times a year, and I’ll put in an hour or two searching for him without heavenly intervention, and then, weary and frustrated, I finally pray. I delay so long because I hate to bother God with prayers about finding a renegade cat. And then, I find him. I find him where he wasn’t a moment ago – which is not unusual for cats.
One time I found him in a particularly dramatic heavenly way. When we lived in a house surrounded by woods, he had been gone for several hours. Both my husband and I had searched through the underbrush as long as we had daylight and then with flashlights until our legs and arms were bleeding from the briars and thorns. My husband was particularly attached to this cat and was almost in tears when I told him we should give up; it just wasn’t meant to be. He went inside and I returned to the yard to collect one of our other cats, a good girl who never strayed and was helping us look for the lost cat.
Walking across the lawn, I said a silent prayer that for my husband’s sake, could God please locate the missing cat, scoop him up and drop him in our yard? I bent to pick up the good cat and the motion detector light attached to the garage came on. Right in the middle of the pool of light sat the missing cat, as if he had dropped from the sky and landed in a spot he had not been one second ago.
I’ve grown accustomed to these little miracles. It’s not just the cat, but many other missing and misplaced items that only turn up after I’ve prayed.
So, after another morning of a prayer turned up the lost cat again, I contemplated why I had a God that was so good at the small things, but didn’t trust me with $50,000? Well, I thought, how about something a little harder. Find my husband’s sunglasses.
I had never prayed about the sunglasses before because it was my husband’s problem more than mine. On the daily roster of things causing me stress, it ranked low, even though I had wasted several hours that week looking for them. They had been missing for a week and I had already conducted several thorough searches of the house, yard and both cars. They were nowhere. I quizzed my husband repeatedly about the last time he remembered having them, and he stuck to the same story that they had been in his way while he was sawing a branch off the crepe myrtle tree and he remembers putting them on a shelf in the bathroom. We assumed they had fallen off the shelf into the wastebasket below and went out unnoticed with the trash. They were gone for good.
A few hours after I offered that challenge, a challenge I didn’t think God would take seriously since I was so sure the sunglasses were in the county dump, I was sitting on a bench in the backyard, keeping an eye on the wandering cat again. And then I saw them, the sunglasses, in the grass next to the crepe myrtle.
How could this be? Surely we had looked around the crepe myrtle as part of the initial search? I had been in this very spot several times during the week, watching the cats. That very morning when I was searching for the lost cat, I had looked under the bushes next to the crepe myrtle. If the glasses were there then, wouldn’t I have seen them?
The only possible answer was they weren’t there then. My guardian angel, on assignment from God and hearing my foolish challenge that morning, had flown to the dump, gotten the glasses and dropped them where I would be sitting that afternoon. It’s a miracle.
It’s a miracle that reminds me my prayers are heard and that I should have more faith that even the big things will work out the way He intends for me, in His own time.
I’ve been praying lately for money to solve an assortment of pesky obligations that would clean up my checkered past and allow me to proceed with the rest of my life without that burden. It would not enrich me; just de-stress me, so it doesn’t seem too much to ask.
I would hazard a guess that not many people actually get their prayers for cold cash answered. Since I don’t buy lottery tickets, I’m not even giving God an easy way to provide for me. And I’m probably not taking into consideration that He already does in His own way. I manage to get the bills paid every month, even when it involves transferring a debt from one credit card to another.
But so far, every single prayer to find my cat has been answered, usually within 20 minutes if not sooner. I have a cat that gets lost several times a year, and I’ll put in an hour or two searching for him without heavenly intervention, and then, weary and frustrated, I finally pray. I delay so long because I hate to bother God with prayers about finding a renegade cat. And then, I find him. I find him where he wasn’t a moment ago – which is not unusual for cats.
One time I found him in a particularly dramatic heavenly way. When we lived in a house surrounded by woods, he had been gone for several hours. Both my husband and I had searched through the underbrush as long as we had daylight and then with flashlights until our legs and arms were bleeding from the briars and thorns. My husband was particularly attached to this cat and was almost in tears when I told him we should give up; it just wasn’t meant to be. He went inside and I returned to the yard to collect one of our other cats, a good girl who never strayed and was helping us look for the lost cat.
Walking across the lawn, I said a silent prayer that for my husband’s sake, could God please locate the missing cat, scoop him up and drop him in our yard? I bent to pick up the good cat and the motion detector light attached to the garage came on. Right in the middle of the pool of light sat the missing cat, as if he had dropped from the sky and landed in a spot he had not been one second ago.
I’ve grown accustomed to these little miracles. It’s not just the cat, but many other missing and misplaced items that only turn up after I’ve prayed.
So, after another morning of a prayer turned up the lost cat again, I contemplated why I had a God that was so good at the small things, but didn’t trust me with $50,000? Well, I thought, how about something a little harder. Find my husband’s sunglasses.
I had never prayed about the sunglasses before because it was my husband’s problem more than mine. On the daily roster of things causing me stress, it ranked low, even though I had wasted several hours that week looking for them. They had been missing for a week and I had already conducted several thorough searches of the house, yard and both cars. They were nowhere. I quizzed my husband repeatedly about the last time he remembered having them, and he stuck to the same story that they had been in his way while he was sawing a branch off the crepe myrtle tree and he remembers putting them on a shelf in the bathroom. We assumed they had fallen off the shelf into the wastebasket below and went out unnoticed with the trash. They were gone for good.
A few hours after I offered that challenge, a challenge I didn’t think God would take seriously since I was so sure the sunglasses were in the county dump, I was sitting on a bench in the backyard, keeping an eye on the wandering cat again. And then I saw them, the sunglasses, in the grass next to the crepe myrtle.
How could this be? Surely we had looked around the crepe myrtle as part of the initial search? I had been in this very spot several times during the week, watching the cats. That very morning when I was searching for the lost cat, I had looked under the bushes next to the crepe myrtle. If the glasses were there then, wouldn’t I have seen them?
The only possible answer was they weren’t there then. My guardian angel, on assignment from God and hearing my foolish challenge that morning, had flown to the dump, gotten the glasses and dropped them where I would be sitting that afternoon. It’s a miracle.
It’s a miracle that reminds me my prayers are heard and that I should have more faith that even the big things will work out the way He intends for me, in His own time.
Saturday, January 8, 2005
Resolution: To Be Happier By Myself
My New Year's resolution is not to spend New Year's with my husband anymore, or travel with his band on road trips. Holidays are not special days. They are just days designated as special. You can make any day with family and friends equally as important. New Year's Eve is, for small-time musicians, the most lucrative gig of the year.
For some reason, musicians are considered a catch. There must be something romantic or sexual about watching someone perform and knowing you'll be the one with them after the show. But the reality is, there is probably no more miserable life for a woman than to be with a musician. If you go with them, you have to show up early for the equipment load-in. You sit at a table alone or with other bored wives and girlfriends during the show. You're the last one to leave because of the load-out. Every drunken guy and girl in the bar wants to talk to your guy and hold up his departure. They shout for encores when you're praying for the show to end.
If you don't go, you're often home alone or making other plans for Friday and Saturday nights. Sometimes he even plays on Sundays, usually at benefits that pay nothing.
He needs thousands of dollars worth of equipment to earn $80 for a seven-hour gig. Because it is so prevalent and somehow enhances their creativity, musicians often abuse drugs and alcohol while playing. Neither is inexpensive. I've seen many a paycheck for the entire band eaten up by the bar tab.
My first realization of 2005 was I'd rather be happy and alone then with him and miserable on these road trips. This last one, I sat in the van listening to satellite radio while they unloaded and set up. No one could believe I'd rather do this then sit in the tiki bar the homeowner had constructed next to their house and get a jump on drinking with the early arrivals. At the beginning of every party, everyone is always happy, excited and cordial.
I moved into the house during the duration of the show. The band was playing in a frigid garage, heated by one dubious propane heater. The drinkers became progressively louder, then just insanely loud. I could tell the hour was approaching 2 a.m. as the noise died down and the drinkers became disgruntled and belligerent. People who wanted to drive drunk leaned on their car horns while designated drivers sat on the hoods of the car. Angry neighbors shouted the time out windows like cuckoo clocks. “It's 2 in the morning! It's 2 in the morning!”
There was much searching for misplaced possessions, including a missing dog that I spotted several times trotting around in the neighbor's yard. None of the inebriated could formulate or carry out a plan to search for the dog, so they just bleated with despair, and then anger, that the dog was gone. Then as the hour approached 3 a.m., there was vomiting, stumbling and passing out.
Some guy had been talking to my husband for an hour, and my kind husband gave this meandering, senseless monologue his undivided attention. Meanwhile, his equipment was not making it back into the van where I sat, listening in the dark to all this hellish commotion and crying with boredom. I wanted the party to end. This is not how I want to spend my time. But my husband insists this is all part of the “job” and he is having a good time. If so, then I'm just ruining it for him by being so miserable.
As you get older, you realize how little time you have left and you don't want to waste any of it. The greater good is no longer to accompany my husband on these trips to preserve our togetherness. If it splits us up, so be it. I just can't be this bored anymore.
For some reason, musicians are considered a catch. There must be something romantic or sexual about watching someone perform and knowing you'll be the one with them after the show. But the reality is, there is probably no more miserable life for a woman than to be with a musician. If you go with them, you have to show up early for the equipment load-in. You sit at a table alone or with other bored wives and girlfriends during the show. You're the last one to leave because of the load-out. Every drunken guy and girl in the bar wants to talk to your guy and hold up his departure. They shout for encores when you're praying for the show to end.
If you don't go, you're often home alone or making other plans for Friday and Saturday nights. Sometimes he even plays on Sundays, usually at benefits that pay nothing.
He needs thousands of dollars worth of equipment to earn $80 for a seven-hour gig. Because it is so prevalent and somehow enhances their creativity, musicians often abuse drugs and alcohol while playing. Neither is inexpensive. I've seen many a paycheck for the entire band eaten up by the bar tab.
My first realization of 2005 was I'd rather be happy and alone then with him and miserable on these road trips. This last one, I sat in the van listening to satellite radio while they unloaded and set up. No one could believe I'd rather do this then sit in the tiki bar the homeowner had constructed next to their house and get a jump on drinking with the early arrivals. At the beginning of every party, everyone is always happy, excited and cordial.
I moved into the house during the duration of the show. The band was playing in a frigid garage, heated by one dubious propane heater. The drinkers became progressively louder, then just insanely loud. I could tell the hour was approaching 2 a.m. as the noise died down and the drinkers became disgruntled and belligerent. People who wanted to drive drunk leaned on their car horns while designated drivers sat on the hoods of the car. Angry neighbors shouted the time out windows like cuckoo clocks. “It's 2 in the morning! It's 2 in the morning!”
There was much searching for misplaced possessions, including a missing dog that I spotted several times trotting around in the neighbor's yard. None of the inebriated could formulate or carry out a plan to search for the dog, so they just bleated with despair, and then anger, that the dog was gone. Then as the hour approached 3 a.m., there was vomiting, stumbling and passing out.
Some guy had been talking to my husband for an hour, and my kind husband gave this meandering, senseless monologue his undivided attention. Meanwhile, his equipment was not making it back into the van where I sat, listening in the dark to all this hellish commotion and crying with boredom. I wanted the party to end. This is not how I want to spend my time. But my husband insists this is all part of the “job” and he is having a good time. If so, then I'm just ruining it for him by being so miserable.
As you get older, you realize how little time you have left and you don't want to waste any of it. The greater good is no longer to accompany my husband on these trips to preserve our togetherness. If it splits us up, so be it. I just can't be this bored anymore.
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