Our younger son just turned 21.
And I lived to tell about it.
Barely.
You see, the birthday party was in Las Vegas. He and his brother — my older son who lives in Denver — cooked it up over the summer. A bunch of their friends were going.
"It will be fun, Mom. You and Dad should come," they said.
"I don’t think so. We’re old. We can’t hang with you guys," I told them.
I’m not quite sure how the rest of the conversation went, but the next thing I knew I was looking at the Las Vegas strip out of the airplane window as we landed.
It was 10:45 p.m., a mere hour and 15 minutes until my baby was an adult.
Where was my baby?
He had taken an earlier flight.
I called his cell phone.
"We’re at the Mirage. Come on down," he said.
I wonder where the Mirage is, I thought, as I dragged my bulging suitcase through the airport. We were only going to be there three days but I had heard the horror stories about how far you had to walk to get anywhere so just to be safe, I had packed virtually every pair of shoes I own.
We checked into our room at the MGM, which, of course, was at the opposite end of the strip from the Mirage and set off to find the party.
The phone rang. This time it was my older son.
"Where are you guys?" he asked. "Get a cab. It’s pretty far away."
I hung up.
"Mike said we should get a cab …"
"We’re not getting a cab. We can walk," my husband said. "We’ve been sitting on that plane for hours."
A little while later, the phone rang again.
"Where are you guys? Did you get a cab? I told you to get a cab," my older son said.
"Mike said we should get a cab," I told my husband again.
"We don’t need a cab. It’s right there," he said, pointing at the Mirage sign.
Here’s a little tip if you’ve never been to Las Vegas: Nothing is "right there." It’s an optical illusion. It’s a two-dimensional place. There is no depth of field. Your perception is always off. Near-far, day-night, rich-broke … you can’t tell anything apart.
Except maybe sober and drunk for when we finally got to the party, it was clear which one of those everyone was — especially the birthday boy.
He disappeared for a while and I found him sitting on a railing outside the casino. He told me he was sick and wanted to go lie down, so I got him a cab and told the driver to take him back to his hotel.
The next morning, we met the gang for breakfast — burgers and beer (add breakfast and dinner to that list of things you can’t tell apart in Vegas).
This was The Day, The Birthday.
We rode the roller coaster that zips and zooms around the outside of New York, New York. We went from bar to bar and casino to casino and, in between, we drank fruity drinks out of yard-long cups.
Every once in a while, the birthday boy would say, "I can’t believe you just stuck me in a cab last night. I couldn’t even walk."
I wanted to hop in that cab with him, really I did.
But I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure who I was putting in that cab — my baby or my all-grown-up son.
What a relief it was to find out they are one and the same.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
How much is that mousie in the window?
Published Nov. 5, 2007There are dog people and there are cat people.
And there are people who want both but have husbands.
My husband didn’t always hate pets. In fact, at one point, we had two cats and two dogs all living in the house at the same time.
But, the cats peed in his shoes and one of the dogs (the bad one) ate doors and woodwork and took off like a shot whenever he spotted an open door.
It was around that time my husband decided an animal-less house is a happy house.
After those animals were gone, we compromised. A cat, OK, but no more dogs.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t look.
The classified ad said in bold type: Puppies for sale.
“Shih-Tzus, Yorkies, Dachshunds, Poms, Malti-Poos, Puggles, Yorkie Chons, Lhasa-Poos, Cavaliers, Yorkie mixes, Yorki-Chis, Chihuahua mixes and more.”
And then it said they would be for sale for two days at a nearby motel.
Little tiny designer dogs. I had to go check them out.
As I pulled into the motel parking lot, I was a little afraid I would run into a collection of puppy-mill dogs, raised by one mad breeder, mixing and matching with no regard for the animals.
But that wasn’t the case at all.
What I found were four breeders — representing scores of others who have banded together to form what amounts to a traveling pet store — and about two dozen cages of cute little puppies.
I walked around looking at the fuzzy little creatures.
There were Yorkie Poos (a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a poodle) for $199, Malti Poos (Maltese and poodle) for $299, Pom Poos (Pomeranian and poodle) for $199, and Shih-Tzu Poos (shih-tzu and poodle) for $350.
There were Yorki-Chis (Yorkshire terrier and Chihuahua) for $325, toy fox terriers for $225 and a Peke-a-Pom (Pekinese and Pomeranian) for $275.
“The poodle mixes and the Bichon mixes are the most popular,” said Steve Litener, a breeder of Puggles (a cross between a pug and a beagle) from Vienna, Ohio.
“Poodles don’t shed, so when you mix a dog that sheds, like a Lhasa-Apso, with a poodle, you get a dog that doesn’t shed … most of the time,” Litener said.
He brought four of his puppies this weekend. By late Sunday, there was only one left. It was $275.
This traveling pet store was Litener’s brainchild. He said he got the idea three years ago after he rented a table at a craft fair and sold all the puppies he brought.
So, he and Marti Drozdek, a Yorkie breeder from Youngstown, hatched the idea of the traveling puppy store.
Every couple weeks, the breeders take turns setting up shop in motels near highways in Northeast Ohio. They take about 40 puppies from assorted breeders, splitting the cost of the motel and the classified ads.
“There are really only about 45 good breeders we deal with,” Drozdek said. “We check them all out.”
“We turn some of them down if we don’t like the way they raise their dogs or we already have too many of one particular breed,” Litener said.
They usually sell between eight and 15. This weekend in our area, they sold 30.
They check out prospective buyers, too.
“We ask how many kids they have at home and what other kinds of pets are in the house,” Mark Crane, a breeder of Australian shepherds from Mentor, said.
Hmm. I knew my 20-year-old son would be OK but I wasn’t sure about my spoiled 15-pound Siamese cat.
Especially since the dog I would have bought — the Yorkie-Chihuahua in the photo — looks exactly like an overgrown mouse.
And there are people who want both but have husbands.
My husband didn’t always hate pets. In fact, at one point, we had two cats and two dogs all living in the house at the same time.
But, the cats peed in his shoes and one of the dogs (the bad one) ate doors and woodwork and took off like a shot whenever he spotted an open door.
It was around that time my husband decided an animal-less house is a happy house.
After those animals were gone, we compromised. A cat, OK, but no more dogs.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t look.
The classified ad said in bold type: Puppies for sale.
“Shih-Tzus, Yorkies, Dachshunds, Poms, Malti-Poos, Puggles, Yorkie Chons, Lhasa-Poos, Cavaliers, Yorkie mixes, Yorki-Chis, Chihuahua mixes and more.”
And then it said they would be for sale for two days at a nearby motel.
Little tiny designer dogs. I had to go check them out.
As I pulled into the motel parking lot, I was a little afraid I would run into a collection of puppy-mill dogs, raised by one mad breeder, mixing and matching with no regard for the animals.
But that wasn’t the case at all.
What I found were four breeders — representing scores of others who have banded together to form what amounts to a traveling pet store — and about two dozen cages of cute little puppies.
I walked around looking at the fuzzy little creatures.
There were Yorkie Poos (a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a poodle) for $199, Malti Poos (Maltese and poodle) for $299, Pom Poos (Pomeranian and poodle) for $199, and Shih-Tzu Poos (shih-tzu and poodle) for $350.
There were Yorki-Chis (Yorkshire terrier and Chihuahua) for $325, toy fox terriers for $225 and a Peke-a-Pom (Pekinese and Pomeranian) for $275.
“The poodle mixes and the Bichon mixes are the most popular,” said Steve Litener, a breeder of Puggles (a cross between a pug and a beagle) from Vienna, Ohio.
“Poodles don’t shed, so when you mix a dog that sheds, like a Lhasa-Apso, with a poodle, you get a dog that doesn’t shed … most of the time,” Litener said.
He brought four of his puppies this weekend. By late Sunday, there was only one left. It was $275.
This traveling pet store was Litener’s brainchild. He said he got the idea three years ago after he rented a table at a craft fair and sold all the puppies he brought.
So, he and Marti Drozdek, a Yorkie breeder from Youngstown, hatched the idea of the traveling puppy store.
Every couple weeks, the breeders take turns setting up shop in motels near highways in Northeast Ohio. They take about 40 puppies from assorted breeders, splitting the cost of the motel and the classified ads.
“There are really only about 45 good breeders we deal with,” Drozdek said. “We check them all out.”
“We turn some of them down if we don’t like the way they raise their dogs or we already have too many of one particular breed,” Litener said.
They usually sell between eight and 15. This weekend in our area, they sold 30.
They check out prospective buyers, too.
“We ask how many kids they have at home and what other kinds of pets are in the house,” Mark Crane, a breeder of Australian shepherds from Mentor, said.
Hmm. I knew my 20-year-old son would be OK but I wasn’t sure about my spoiled 15-pound Siamese cat.
Especially since the dog I would have bought — the Yorkie-Chihuahua in the photo — looks exactly like an overgrown mouse.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Finding space for treasurers ... priceless
Published Oct. 29, 2007
"I really wish you'd get rid of that doll. It's creepy," my son said as he came in the house.
I didn't see him as he walked through the garage to get into the house but I had a pretty good mental picture.
He stepped between the tables laden with "getting ready for a garage sale" stuff.
As he turned to wedge himself around an old TV whose back end sticks a foot into the aisle, he saw it.
The doll.
The life-size doll that that my parents gave me for my fifth birthday. It had been in their attic until my mother came across it a few years ago.
She bought the doll a new outfit, including made-for-human-children shoes, fixed its hair and presented it (back) to me.
"Look what I found," she said proudly as she handed it to me.
I took the huge plastic little girl from her.
Now, the first time my mother gave me this heartfelt present, I’m sure I must have known what to do with her.
But now, I hadn’t a clue what to do with a doll the size of a small child.
So I thanked my mom and brought the doll home.
I walked in the door and set her in a corner.
“That thing looks like Chucky,” my husband said. “It’s going to come alive when we are all sleeping and kill us.”
I looked over at her. She was a little creepy. I took her out of the kitchen – and away from the knife drawer – and put her in the living room until I could figure out what I was going to do with her.
Nothing says "something you can't keep and something you can't get rid of" like a 3-foot doll you got on your fifth birthday from your parents.
My husband, the Chucky chicken, put her in the attic and we forgot about her.
Until we moved.
Now the doll is perched in a corner of our garage, standing guard over all the other stuff we pulled out of the attic in the old house and didn’t know what to do with when got here.
All the sentimental stuff we've been holding onto for decades.
The garage is full and winter is coming. We have to get it cleaned out so we can put the cars in there. Cars? In a garage? Imagine that.
We've separated the attic junk into “stuff for a garage sale” – things we don’t expect to get more than a $1 for -- and “stuff to be sold on eBay” – stuff we hope to get more than $1 for.
But then there are still a lot of things that don’t fit in either of those piles, things such as the big doll and the mobile that hung over my babies’ cribs.
And the revolving bookcase that used to belong to my mother-in-law, the epitome of stuff you have absolutely no use – or room -- for but can’t bring yourself to throw away.
And then it hit me. I had an idea.
We should borrow my dad’s pickup, pile all the stuff in there and take it to one of those U-store places – those rental units that serve as garage annexes – and unload it.
Then we lock it up and give the man our address so he can send us a monthly bill.
The key? Oh, we’ll give that to our sons.
In our will.
"I really wish you'd get rid of that doll. It's creepy," my son said as he came in the house.
I didn't see him as he walked through the garage to get into the house but I had a pretty good mental picture.
He stepped between the tables laden with "getting ready for a garage sale" stuff.
As he turned to wedge himself around an old TV whose back end sticks a foot into the aisle, he saw it.
The doll.
The life-size doll that that my parents gave me for my fifth birthday. It had been in their attic until my mother came across it a few years ago.
She bought the doll a new outfit, including made-for-human-children shoes, fixed its hair and presented it (back) to me.
"Look what I found," she said proudly as she handed it to me.
I took the huge plastic little girl from her.
Now, the first time my mother gave me this heartfelt present, I’m sure I must have known what to do with her.
But now, I hadn’t a clue what to do with a doll the size of a small child.
So I thanked my mom and brought the doll home.
I walked in the door and set her in a corner.
“That thing looks like Chucky,” my husband said. “It’s going to come alive when we are all sleeping and kill us.”
I looked over at her. She was a little creepy. I took her out of the kitchen – and away from the knife drawer – and put her in the living room until I could figure out what I was going to do with her.
Nothing says "something you can't keep and something you can't get rid of" like a 3-foot doll you got on your fifth birthday from your parents.
My husband, the Chucky chicken, put her in the attic and we forgot about her.
Until we moved.
Now the doll is perched in a corner of our garage, standing guard over all the other stuff we pulled out of the attic in the old house and didn’t know what to do with when got here.
All the sentimental stuff we've been holding onto for decades.
The garage is full and winter is coming. We have to get it cleaned out so we can put the cars in there. Cars? In a garage? Imagine that.
We've separated the attic junk into “stuff for a garage sale” – things we don’t expect to get more than a $1 for -- and “stuff to be sold on eBay” – stuff we hope to get more than $1 for.
But then there are still a lot of things that don’t fit in either of those piles, things such as the big doll and the mobile that hung over my babies’ cribs.
And the revolving bookcase that used to belong to my mother-in-law, the epitome of stuff you have absolutely no use – or room -- for but can’t bring yourself to throw away.
And then it hit me. I had an idea.
We should borrow my dad’s pickup, pile all the stuff in there and take it to one of those U-store places – those rental units that serve as garage annexes – and unload it.
Then we lock it up and give the man our address so he can send us a monthly bill.
The key? Oh, we’ll give that to our sons.
In our will.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
If it wasn't meant to be, it will be -- maybe
Published Oct. 22, 2007
The couple in front of me on the plane were agitated.
“Where are they?” the wife asked her husband as she craned her neck to see the front of the plane.
“They were right behind us in customs,” her husband said as he looked out the window.
They had apparently lost the adult children who were supposed to be flying with them. After some frantic negotiations, most of which I couldn’t hear, the husband decided he would get off the plane, find their kids and take a later flight. The wife would stay on the plane with their baggage.
As the husband walked toward the front of the plane, I was momentarily panic-stricken.
I guess we all have our own rationale as to how those big heavy airliners filled with 300 people get and stay aloft.
Well, my rationale is that all of the people on my plane are destined to be flying on that particular flight, on that particular day. It is that combination of lifelines that fate will fly safely to its destination.
And now one of those lifelines was getting off the plane.
Gulp.
When I said momentary sense of panic, I meant it. Rational thought came back and I realized how ridiculous I was being.
Or was I?
In that case, yes, because obviously I got home safely.
But what about the destiny I interjected myself into when I made my only trip to Jacobs Field for the American League Championship Series. You guessed it. I was there Thursday for the home field shelling that sent the Indians back to Boston for Game 6. And you know what happened there.
Did I bring them bad luck? They won the first two at home when I wasn’t in the stands. Am I the curse of the Indians?
A couple of my friends thought so.
“You are not going to any of the World Series games,” a co-worker — who had been in the Jacobs Field stands for a couple of playoff wins — said.
She didn’t have to tell me. I already had decided I wasn’t going anywhere near downtown Cleveland if the Indians got to the World Series.
But even if my karma wasn’t bad enough to do in the Indians, could it have been a collective Chronicle whammy?
Did the column written by sportswriter Scott Petrak that was posted on the Red Sox door before Thursday’s game have anything to do with the Tribe’s undoing?
The column read, in part, “This Indians team is better than the Red Sox and will prove it once and for all in cramped Fenway Park. Sure, a home-field celebration would’ve been nice, but silencing Red Sox Nation in its house will be just as sweet.”
Could that have fired up those Red Sox enough to pound the Indians? Or was it a combination of my bad karma and that column?
Somehow, rational thought isn’t returning to me on this one as quickly as it returned to me on that plane. I’m wondering if I should even watch tonight’s game on TV.
By the time you are reading this, you will know how it ended.
If they lost again, I don’t blame you at all for holding me — and Scott — responsible for sending the series back to Boston.
Hopefully all this superstition will seem silly as time goes by.
Because we’ll realize that while there might indeed be a finger of fate, the only place it can possibly be is on the hand of the pitcher who couldn’t find the plate or the batter who couldn’t find the ball.
The couple in front of me on the plane were agitated.
“Where are they?” the wife asked her husband as she craned her neck to see the front of the plane.
“They were right behind us in customs,” her husband said as he looked out the window.
They had apparently lost the adult children who were supposed to be flying with them. After some frantic negotiations, most of which I couldn’t hear, the husband decided he would get off the plane, find their kids and take a later flight. The wife would stay on the plane with their baggage.
As the husband walked toward the front of the plane, I was momentarily panic-stricken.
I guess we all have our own rationale as to how those big heavy airliners filled with 300 people get and stay aloft.
Well, my rationale is that all of the people on my plane are destined to be flying on that particular flight, on that particular day. It is that combination of lifelines that fate will fly safely to its destination.
And now one of those lifelines was getting off the plane.
Gulp.
When I said momentary sense of panic, I meant it. Rational thought came back and I realized how ridiculous I was being.
Or was I?
In that case, yes, because obviously I got home safely.
But what about the destiny I interjected myself into when I made my only trip to Jacobs Field for the American League Championship Series. You guessed it. I was there Thursday for the home field shelling that sent the Indians back to Boston for Game 6. And you know what happened there.
Did I bring them bad luck? They won the first two at home when I wasn’t in the stands. Am I the curse of the Indians?
A couple of my friends thought so.
“You are not going to any of the World Series games,” a co-worker — who had been in the Jacobs Field stands for a couple of playoff wins — said.
She didn’t have to tell me. I already had decided I wasn’t going anywhere near downtown Cleveland if the Indians got to the World Series.
But even if my karma wasn’t bad enough to do in the Indians, could it have been a collective Chronicle whammy?
Did the column written by sportswriter Scott Petrak that was posted on the Red Sox door before Thursday’s game have anything to do with the Tribe’s undoing?
The column read, in part, “This Indians team is better than the Red Sox and will prove it once and for all in cramped Fenway Park. Sure, a home-field celebration would’ve been nice, but silencing Red Sox Nation in its house will be just as sweet.”
Could that have fired up those Red Sox enough to pound the Indians? Or was it a combination of my bad karma and that column?
Somehow, rational thought isn’t returning to me on this one as quickly as it returned to me on that plane. I’m wondering if I should even watch tonight’s game on TV.
By the time you are reading this, you will know how it ended.
If they lost again, I don’t blame you at all for holding me — and Scott — responsible for sending the series back to Boston.
Hopefully all this superstition will seem silly as time goes by.
Because we’ll realize that while there might indeed be a finger of fate, the only place it can possibly be is on the hand of the pitcher who couldn’t find the plate or the batter who couldn’t find the ball.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Thorns? Well, yeah, they come with the roses
Published Oct. 8, 2007
Today is my 30th wedding anniversary.
Hard to believe it has been 30 years since that day I walked down the aisle with the guy from New Jersey I met at Ohio State.
We were just kids when we got married. We didn't have jobs, but we had a 1968 Firebird convertible that started most of the time. We'd be fine.
And we have been.
We've been like two boats tethered together, riding calm seas and rough seas. Yeah, we've gotten a little banged up over the years - we raised two boys - but we're still riding those waves together.
I asked my husband why he thought we have been able to stay together for so long.
"You just have to keep mother happy," he said, laughing.
When he quickly noticed I wasn't laughing back, he stopped making fun of me, illustrating what may be the most important key to a long and happy marriage: Realize what irritates the other person and don't do it.
"To last for 30 years, two people have to really like each other," he said.
"Sure, we're in love, but we are also best friends. We have fun when we are together. We laugh all the time."
We laugh all the time because we look at the twisted world through what seems to be the same set of eyes. The people he sees as nincompoops, I see as nincompoops. The people he sees as blowhards, I see as blowhards. The people he doesn't like, I don't like.
Hmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge that may explain why we don't have a lot of friends.
It is a good thing we have each other.
"Even the things we differ about we have fun with - like our constant temperature battle," he said.
We only have temperature battles because he's a hothouse plant with no need for circulating air, and I'm a normal person who needs a fan in the room to be able to breathe.
But this, too, we have found a way to resolve. He lets me point a fan at my side of the bed and I let him have a gigantic comforter to wrap himself in.
See, that's all it takes to have a good marriage - a little give and take.
"We love to travel together and want to go to every Caribbean island we can before we are too old," he said.
Yes, getting out and seeing the world is great - as long as you want to see the same corner of the world, and we'll take any corner with a beach, a lounge chair, a turquoise sea and a fruity drink.
And go on those vacations even if you think you can't afford them. It's only money, and you only live once. We've never been very good at managing our finances but we always seem to get by. When we're old, we may be sitting on a corner somewhere with tin cups in our hands, but we'll always be able to look back and say we've had a good life.
"We've had our share of tough times, but that's where the love came in - neither one of us could bear to think about life without one another," my husband said.
When I got home yesterday, he was standing at the kitchen counter arranging 30 long-stemmed yellow roses in a big vase.
Every anniversary, he has given me yellow roses - as many as the years we have been married, but he wasn't going to get them this year. I'm going to a newspaper conference tomorrow and - we talked about it - by the time I get back, the flowers will be wilted.
"Afraid breaking the tradition will be bad karma?" I asked him as he put the roses he wasn't going to buy on the table.
"Yeah," he mumbled.
"Aren't they pretty?"
Today is my 30th wedding anniversary.
Hard to believe it has been 30 years since that day I walked down the aisle with the guy from New Jersey I met at Ohio State.
We were just kids when we got married. We didn't have jobs, but we had a 1968 Firebird convertible that started most of the time. We'd be fine.
And we have been.
We've been like two boats tethered together, riding calm seas and rough seas. Yeah, we've gotten a little banged up over the years - we raised two boys - but we're still riding those waves together.
I asked my husband why he thought we have been able to stay together for so long.
"You just have to keep mother happy," he said, laughing.
When he quickly noticed I wasn't laughing back, he stopped making fun of me, illustrating what may be the most important key to a long and happy marriage: Realize what irritates the other person and don't do it.
"To last for 30 years, two people have to really like each other," he said.
"Sure, we're in love, but we are also best friends. We have fun when we are together. We laugh all the time."
We laugh all the time because we look at the twisted world through what seems to be the same set of eyes. The people he sees as nincompoops, I see as nincompoops. The people he sees as blowhards, I see as blowhards. The people he doesn't like, I don't like.
Hmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern emerge that may explain why we don't have a lot of friends.
It is a good thing we have each other.
"Even the things we differ about we have fun with - like our constant temperature battle," he said.
We only have temperature battles because he's a hothouse plant with no need for circulating air, and I'm a normal person who needs a fan in the room to be able to breathe.
But this, too, we have found a way to resolve. He lets me point a fan at my side of the bed and I let him have a gigantic comforter to wrap himself in.
See, that's all it takes to have a good marriage - a little give and take.
"We love to travel together and want to go to every Caribbean island we can before we are too old," he said.
Yes, getting out and seeing the world is great - as long as you want to see the same corner of the world, and we'll take any corner with a beach, a lounge chair, a turquoise sea and a fruity drink.
And go on those vacations even if you think you can't afford them. It's only money, and you only live once. We've never been very good at managing our finances but we always seem to get by. When we're old, we may be sitting on a corner somewhere with tin cups in our hands, but we'll always be able to look back and say we've had a good life.
"We've had our share of tough times, but that's where the love came in - neither one of us could bear to think about life without one another," my husband said.
When I got home yesterday, he was standing at the kitchen counter arranging 30 long-stemmed yellow roses in a big vase.
Every anniversary, he has given me yellow roses - as many as the years we have been married, but he wasn't going to get them this year. I'm going to a newspaper conference tomorrow and - we talked about it - by the time I get back, the flowers will be wilted.
"Afraid breaking the tradition will be bad karma?" I asked him as he put the roses he wasn't going to buy on the table.
"Yeah," he mumbled.
"Aren't they pretty?"
Want to forget your ills? Watch daytime TV
Published Oct. 1, 2007
I walked into the hospital for my routine woman exam.
I spotted the door that said "Women's Health" and walked in.
It was a tiny room, more like a cubicle than a room actually.
I checked in with the receptionist and took a seat.
In this tiny room was a television, the volume up so high that the sordid tale that was unfolding on it could be heard in the next county, I'm sure.
"I caught my husband in bed with my cousin's daughter," a female voice said.
"I didn't know she was your cousin," a male voice replied.
And on they went, revealing secrets that I had no desire to hear (and wondered how anyone else could either).
There were two other women in the room. I asked them if they were watching the television. They said no.
Kindred spirits.
"Who watches this stuff?" I asked them, not expecting or getting an answer.
I opened my newspaper and tried not to listen to the trash tale of woe.
I looked around the cubicle for a place where I could not hear the television.
The guests on the show, who were now screaming at each other, were sporadically interrupted by a calm voice - the daytime TV show's host - that only served to set them off at an even higher decibel.
"I can't take it," I thought, feeling a little panicked. "I can't sit here any longer," I thought, feeling like an animal in a cage.
I got up and walked over to the receptionist.
"Do you think you could put on a news channel?" I asked her.
"Oh, you can change the channel. Go ahead," she said.
So I did. I put in on CNN, and then I turned the volume down real low.
Ah, much better. I read my newspaper until they called my name to go back for my exam.
When I was done, the X-ray technician took me down the hall and told me to have a seat in the waiting room. This was not the first waiting room I was in. This was the post-exam waiting room, and it was even smaller than the first one.
I looked in. It was nearly filled with women in hospital gowns who were staring toward a corner of the room where a TV was playing if not the same show I had seen earlier, one with the same theme - loud people telling the world things I would not tell my mother.
I stood on the threshold. I looked around inside for an open seat. I spotted one, but I couldn't make myself go in. So I just stood there.
I was lucky in the other waiting room - it only had two women in it. This one had six. I couldn't just tromp in this one and be Queen of the Television.
I turned around and walked back down the hall. I found a little alcove with a couple chairs in it. It was almost out of earshot of this new Mr. and Mrs. Trashy TV Couple. I sat down and read my paper, waiting for someone to tell me they had looked at my X-rays and I was free to go.
After getting out of my hospital gown and back into my own clothes, I considered asking someone working there why we had to be subjected to those obnoxious TV shows playing loudly in every corner of the place.
But I didn't.
I was afraid I was just being a brat who is used to having control of the remote control. Maybe everyone else there liked to watch those shows.
So I just left. I walked through the waiting room and out the door.
Wondering how many ailments are as painful as watching the Jerry Springers and Judge Judys of daytime TV.
I walked into the hospital for my routine woman exam.
I spotted the door that said "Women's Health" and walked in.
It was a tiny room, more like a cubicle than a room actually.
I checked in with the receptionist and took a seat.
In this tiny room was a television, the volume up so high that the sordid tale that was unfolding on it could be heard in the next county, I'm sure.
"I caught my husband in bed with my cousin's daughter," a female voice said.
"I didn't know she was your cousin," a male voice replied.
And on they went, revealing secrets that I had no desire to hear (and wondered how anyone else could either).
There were two other women in the room. I asked them if they were watching the television. They said no.
Kindred spirits.
"Who watches this stuff?" I asked them, not expecting or getting an answer.
I opened my newspaper and tried not to listen to the trash tale of woe.
I looked around the cubicle for a place where I could not hear the television.
The guests on the show, who were now screaming at each other, were sporadically interrupted by a calm voice - the daytime TV show's host - that only served to set them off at an even higher decibel.
"I can't take it," I thought, feeling a little panicked. "I can't sit here any longer," I thought, feeling like an animal in a cage.
I got up and walked over to the receptionist.
"Do you think you could put on a news channel?" I asked her.
"Oh, you can change the channel. Go ahead," she said.
So I did. I put in on CNN, and then I turned the volume down real low.
Ah, much better. I read my newspaper until they called my name to go back for my exam.
When I was done, the X-ray technician took me down the hall and told me to have a seat in the waiting room. This was not the first waiting room I was in. This was the post-exam waiting room, and it was even smaller than the first one.
I looked in. It was nearly filled with women in hospital gowns who were staring toward a corner of the room where a TV was playing if not the same show I had seen earlier, one with the same theme - loud people telling the world things I would not tell my mother.
I stood on the threshold. I looked around inside for an open seat. I spotted one, but I couldn't make myself go in. So I just stood there.
I was lucky in the other waiting room - it only had two women in it. This one had six. I couldn't just tromp in this one and be Queen of the Television.
I turned around and walked back down the hall. I found a little alcove with a couple chairs in it. It was almost out of earshot of this new Mr. and Mrs. Trashy TV Couple. I sat down and read my paper, waiting for someone to tell me they had looked at my X-rays and I was free to go.
After getting out of my hospital gown and back into my own clothes, I considered asking someone working there why we had to be subjected to those obnoxious TV shows playing loudly in every corner of the place.
But I didn't.
I was afraid I was just being a brat who is used to having control of the remote control. Maybe everyone else there liked to watch those shows.
So I just left. I walked through the waiting room and out the door.
Wondering how many ailments are as painful as watching the Jerry Springers and Judge Judys of daytime TV.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Oh, say can you see? Well, not too well
Published Sept. 24, 2007
I've become my sixth-grade teacher.
You know the one - the woman who clickedy-clacks over to you in her high-heel pumps and peers at you over the top of her rhinestone encrusted bifocals.
The bifocals that she is constantly searching for because she takes them off and puts them down and then can't remember where.
Yep, that's me.
Yesterday, I got to my desk, sat down and reached into my purse for my reading glasses, one of about two dozen pairs I own, most of which I bought at Marc's for 88 cents.
I couldn't feel them in the bottom of my purse, so I flipped the purse onto its side and rooted around a little more. Phone. Wallet. Sunglasses - but no reading glasses.
Then I did what any desperate woman does. I actually picked up my purse and looked into it. I stirred around all the stuff in there a couple times. No glasses.
Y-I-K-E-S.
I cannot read a thing without those glasses. It was the darnedest thing. One day I could read the paper, the next day I couldn't. My close vision went - overnight.
"It happens to everyone," my eye doctor told me, "when they get older."
Small comfort - on both counts.
Then I remembered that I had stowed a pair in my desk drawer for just such an occasion. I opened all the drawers. You see, I only used the front three inches of each drawer. I guess it makes things easier to find that way. The back 90 percent has been untouched, I figure, since at least 2002, the date of the unopened desk calendar I spotted back there.
Anyway, no glasses. I was getting a little panicked.
I went out to my car where I have a couple of purse "annexes," those canvas totes they give away at places such as newspaper conferences - and Costco. My annexes hold things that won't fit in a purse - like magazines and hair gel - and hopefully a spare pair of reading glasses.
Ah-ha. Yes! I found a pair in the first canvas-tote-annex I looked in.
See? And my husband can't figure out why a woman needs so many purses. This is why.
Speaking of my husband, the above scenario would never happen to him and not only because he doesn't carry purses. He has one (O-N-E) pair of reading glasses that he got from the eye doctor at slightly more than 88 cents.
And he can never find those glasses.
Making the matter even worse is the fact that his near-vision is almost non-existent without magnification. I can't read the newspaper but he can't find the newspaper without his glasses.
His glasses, when he can find them, sit at about a 20-degree angle across his face.
"You ought to get those glasses fixed," I tell him.
"What's wrong with these glasses?" he asks, looking at me over the crooked frames hanging on the bridge of his nose.
And then he adds, "I know. I have to call the eye doctor. I can't see a thing anymore."
And that's the conversation we have had - almost word for word - every week for as long as I can remember.
Because, you see, we have turned into those people, those poor aging souls who can't read a thing without glasses that they can never find.
One day, our younger son, who is in college, said, "I feel like I'm in a Seinfeld episode when I'm around you guys.
"It's not what you do that is so funny, it's the fact that you think it's perfectly normal."
Well, it is perfectly normal.
Isn't it?
I've become my sixth-grade teacher.
You know the one - the woman who clickedy-clacks over to you in her high-heel pumps and peers at you over the top of her rhinestone encrusted bifocals.
The bifocals that she is constantly searching for because she takes them off and puts them down and then can't remember where.
Yep, that's me.
Yesterday, I got to my desk, sat down and reached into my purse for my reading glasses, one of about two dozen pairs I own, most of which I bought at Marc's for 88 cents.
I couldn't feel them in the bottom of my purse, so I flipped the purse onto its side and rooted around a little more. Phone. Wallet. Sunglasses - but no reading glasses.
Then I did what any desperate woman does. I actually picked up my purse and looked into it. I stirred around all the stuff in there a couple times. No glasses.
Y-I-K-E-S.
I cannot read a thing without those glasses. It was the darnedest thing. One day I could read the paper, the next day I couldn't. My close vision went - overnight.
"It happens to everyone," my eye doctor told me, "when they get older."
Small comfort - on both counts.
Then I remembered that I had stowed a pair in my desk drawer for just such an occasion. I opened all the drawers. You see, I only used the front three inches of each drawer. I guess it makes things easier to find that way. The back 90 percent has been untouched, I figure, since at least 2002, the date of the unopened desk calendar I spotted back there.
Anyway, no glasses. I was getting a little panicked.
I went out to my car where I have a couple of purse "annexes," those canvas totes they give away at places such as newspaper conferences - and Costco. My annexes hold things that won't fit in a purse - like magazines and hair gel - and hopefully a spare pair of reading glasses.
Ah-ha. Yes! I found a pair in the first canvas-tote-annex I looked in.
See? And my husband can't figure out why a woman needs so many purses. This is why.
Speaking of my husband, the above scenario would never happen to him and not only because he doesn't carry purses. He has one (O-N-E) pair of reading glasses that he got from the eye doctor at slightly more than 88 cents.
And he can never find those glasses.
Making the matter even worse is the fact that his near-vision is almost non-existent without magnification. I can't read the newspaper but he can't find the newspaper without his glasses.
His glasses, when he can find them, sit at about a 20-degree angle across his face.
"You ought to get those glasses fixed," I tell him.
"What's wrong with these glasses?" he asks, looking at me over the crooked frames hanging on the bridge of his nose.
And then he adds, "I know. I have to call the eye doctor. I can't see a thing anymore."
And that's the conversation we have had - almost word for word - every week for as long as I can remember.
Because, you see, we have turned into those people, those poor aging souls who can't read a thing without glasses that they can never find.
One day, our younger son, who is in college, said, "I feel like I'm in a Seinfeld episode when I'm around you guys.
"It's not what you do that is so funny, it's the fact that you think it's perfectly normal."
Well, it is perfectly normal.
Isn't it?
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