Those Summer Days Have Come and Gone

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Autumn has arrived and slowly the signs of the end of summer are beginning to show.  It’s getting dark earlier, kids are in their houses doing homework instead of riding bikes, and school buses are on the roads in the early hours of morning.  This year, following an increasing trend, there is a mix of Halloween costumes, decorations, and treats mixed in with the ever bigger selection of Christmas decorations and holiday shopping enticements.  I’m conflicted about this because I like time for each holiday by itself.  First I want to enjoy Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally, devote lots of time and attention to Christmas.  I like the quickness of Halloween – it’s really just a few days of candy and costumes – then I want time to forget the Thanksgiving turkey before the Christmas one hits the oven.  Halloween seems like an autumn rite to me, and Thanksgiving the official start of the holiday season.  I love the holiday rush and I’m not able to enjoy them as much when they are all jammed together.  I don’t want to see a kid out on beggar’s night dressed like a ghost, carrying a pillow sack for collecting candy, holding a candied apple in one hand while walking in front of a display of the Christmas Manger.  For me, Halloween is an autumn holiday with pumpkins, candy corn, apple cider, ghouls, ghosts, princesses, witches and all of that stuff.

But Fall is on the way, the leaves are beginning to change, and everything looks beautiful with the red, gold and orange colors.  But about those leaves — they are falling all over the yard, sticking to the bottom of our shoes, coming into the house and bringing bugs in with them.  Autumn is not something I’m ready for just yet.  I want sun, warm weather, green leaves on the trees, blooming flowers, chirping birds, hiding stink bugs.  Actually, dead stink bugs would be preferable.

I have a sure fire plan to stave off autumn for a few weeks which always works; it’s tried and true and I’ve perfected the process.  As soon as I switch the summer stuff out for the winter stuff in my closets and drawers we will have a beautiful Indian Summer.  If I throw in washing the windows we’ll get an excess of rain so I’m going to let that one go. 

Unfortunately, I know it’s time for a little bit of autumn cleaning all over the house, including all the drawers and closets as I switch the clothes, and since it’s been too rainy and cool most days to do much else, I got to work.  I thought it should be pretty easy because I’m an organized person.  I’m also not a saver and I’m not good with drawers or closets that are overstuffed.  My theory is that if something isn’t worn or used for 2 or 3 years it is unlikely to be worn or used again so those things get donated if they are in good condition and thrown out if they aren’t.  New stuff would look better in its place and I love to shop. Scott claims that many years ago I sold his favorite winter jacket, a camel colored car coat, in a garage sale for $3 but I think I got $5 and I don’t believe it was his favorite jacket.  I did, however, appreciate the additional space in the coat closet. 

My first task would be simple: bring out the sweaters, put away the bathing suits.  Exhausted after this task I picked up a book, read a paragraph or two, and took a nap.  The next day I tackled the storage shelves in the laundry room and the drawers in the bathroom vanity. 

In the laundry room I found 27 Velcro hair curlers, 6 curling irons, 12 hair barrettes, 8 plastic hair bands, 10 decorative hair combs, 2 clip-on hair bows, 17 long silver hair clips, 4 packages of unopened bobby pins, and a large bag of about 50  permanent wave curlers.  I also found 4 bathroom rugs that I’d saved in spite of them being worn out and not matching anything in the bathrooms, a big tabletop clock that has a company logo on it, no batteries, and is, quite frankly, indescribably ugly, a wealth of felt covered, wire, and pant/skirt hangers, five plug-in chargers for various things that we no longer know what or where they are, 5 flashlights and a couple lanterns in case the power goes out and we can remember where the batteries are kept, touch-up paint for the front door we had five years ago, and all the beach towels I couldn’t find this past summer.

The bathroom vanities yielded rusted cans of hair mousse and hairspray, an unopened jar of hair freezing paste, 4 combs in varying colors and sizes still in the original packaging that I swear I never saw before, 3 round hair brushes that appear to be exactly the same and not any different than the one I currently use, and a gigantic flat iron.  There was also all the newer stuff we use now or believe we will use soon, someday, probably, or possibly.

You may be drawing a couple of conclusions here:  that I am not as organized as I have claimed, and that I am more of a saver than I have implied. 

You could also get the impression that I am a hair stylist.  I am not, and most of these items have never been used.  I have only used a couple of the curling irons, no more than 8 of the Velcro curlers, and few long silver hair clips.  I bought the rest in case I might need them someday. 

We did use the permanent wave curlers back in the 70’s when Scott decided that growing his hair out and wearing a perm would be appropriate for the Disco Era especially if he wore his leisure suit.  One would have thought that he’d know better than to let me give him a perm, inviting a friend to assist no less, after his initial Hair Style by Lynne back in the late 60’s.  He needed a trim and I told him I could do it and went to work.  In fairness, he did question the final look but I assured him that he looked great.  The following day his co-workers asked if he was preparing for life as a cloistered Monk.  They also asked if the bowl used atop his head as a pattern for the haircut had been destroyed as they would not want to visit and be served food from the same.  They remained strangely quiet about the perm.  He eventually went to a hair salon for his haircuts and perms once he realized that my hair styling license was imaginary.

Malana gives Scott a Permanent Wave………..

He’s Got the Look………….

So far I’ve brought out the sweaters, put away the bathing suits, finally found the beach towels I needed when the weather was hot and I was able to go swimming, pined for my days as a hair stylist and faced the reality that all the hair accruements I found wouldn’t help me with that.  I organized all the other things on the laundry room storage shelves, keeping most of them whether we need them or not, know what they are or don’t. 

I’ve even organized my socks by color in my sock drawer. I was ready to pack away my summer flip-flops but hesitated because they are so cute and comfortable.  Denise decorated a pair for me with feather boa threads and they are just too cute to ever be put away so I’m leaving the boots and leggings packed away for a while longer.

This coming week it’s going to be sunny and in the high 70’s or low 80’s so my tried and true process has worked. Scott is still golfing so he is in a really good mood.  He even went for a haircut at the salon and his hair looks great.  I do think it’s the kind of haircut I could give him here at home.  All I need is some hair clippers.

The Earth Moved Under My Seat

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It’s been one of those weeks.

We were babysitting the youngest grandkids, Guilia and Luca, this past weekend.  They are usually able to keep themselves busy, are well behaved, get along most of the time, and are always very entertaining. It was a rainy day so we decided to take them to the Mall, have some lunch, and go to the grocery store.  The Mall has a play area, a Merry-Go-Round, and some cars that rock if you put in a bunch of quarters. There is enough to keep them busy, moving, and get them somewhat de-energized. The plan was to wear them out by the time we got home since their parents, stuck in different airports because of the weather, wouldn’t be home until the next day.  We wanted them to have fun and then get a good night’s sleep so Scott and I could get a good night’s sleep. This is the same plan we utilized with Aidan and Riley when they were very little and it always worked.

I combed their hair, washed their faces, and made sure they had on clean clothes.  Scott put Luca into his car seat, and I checked that Guilia was securely fastened in her booster.  The first problem was discovered in the Mall parking lot upon our arrival as we were getting the kids out of their car seats.  Guilia, who had arrived at our house with a suitcase holding at least 4 pair of shoes, did not have any shoes with her. I’d checked them both before we left the house and I swear she had shoes on.  It was obviously an illusion. She assured us that it was ok; she didn’t really need any shoes.  We decided the easiest solution was to go buy a cheap pair of flip flops so she could get into the food court which, just like all eating establishments, has a policy of no shirt, no shoes, no service. 

As we were getting the kids back into their car seats to go to Wal-Mart for shoes a bee flew in the window.  Scott and I, acting and sounding like people who needed to be put in white, locking, restraining jackets, moved to a windowless room with padded walls in a big white building somewhere out in the remote countryside, finally trapped and smothered the bee with a tissue, but not before it stung my finger, only adding to the whole atmosphere of hysteria.  The kids misunderstood, thought we were entertaining them, and laughed at us as though a couple of clowns had come to the Mall parking lot just to entertain them.  Finally, sanity seemed within our reach.

Lunch went smoothly because of the allure of the Merry-Go-Round which we told them only went around, up and down, and played music if children ate a good lunch.  As we were working our way to the play area, Guilia realized that she needed some lipstick.  I, a reasonably intelligent and sane person most of the time, took her to Simone at the Estee Lauder counter at Macy’s and bought the 4 year old a $21 tube of lipstick. We then left the bag with the lipstick on the seat of one of the rocking cars that had swallowed up all our quarters, leaving us with no quarters and no lipstick.

Guilia has a dead cell phone she plays with.  She puts it up to her ear and talks for long periods of time to some imaginary friend.  Sometimes Luca gets to talk on the dead cell phone, but it’s a real contest and the one thing they always fight over.  She began to talk on the phone as we drove home, and Luca was becoming extremely impatient and upset because he needed to make an important call.  Guilia was not going to part with the phone under any circumstances.  Things got very heated and the argument was causing Luca to cry.  Scott and I begged Guilia to give her brother a turn with the dead cell phone. Guilia lifted herself up in her booster car seat, put the dead cell phone under her little butt, and said to Luca, “You can’t have it. The phone is charging.” 

Scott and I had no idea phones could be charged this way, and I’m betting it’s news to you, too.  We’ve always used a plug-in charger for our cell phones. 

On Tuesday, sitting in the sun at the pool with the girls, I suddenly felt a little shaky.  My water bottle started shaking and it seemed like the earth was moving ever so slightly.  Was I getting sick?  My friend Patty also looked startled and shaky.  The other girls didn’t seem to notice anything and so we both said, rather loudly, “DID YOU FEEL THAT?”  Then, not wanting to alarm anyone, we both quietly said that we felt something weird —like things were shaking and quivering. Maybe groundhogs had a tunnel underground and were running through it, having groundhog sex, or giving birth to baby groundhogs, shaking up the ground underneath us. The other girls thought we were joking.

In fact, the earth had moved.  Soon the news was out that there had been a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in central Virginia that had rattled the whole upper east coast.  Earthquakes are destructive and terrifying.  But this was not an earthquake like the ones people in Haiti or Japan experienced.  Those were extremely serious, damaging, massively devastating events causing loss of lives and traumatic injury to thousands of people. 

But still, this earthquake merited quite a bit of news coverage.  Here in the Pittsburgh area we saw the photographs people took of the effects of the quake they’d experienced:  a lawn chair turned on its side, a wall picture hanging askew, lipstick missing a woman’s mouth and ending up on her nose, golf games being disrupted, plants falling over.  People told horror tales of spilling their beer and feeling dizzy.  Well, that could have been because of too much beer, not the earthquake. 

The line of the earthquake must have travelled in a straight line directly from me to Patty who was sitting right across from me.  We were quite shook up but we got no sympathy. Things might have been different if there had been a follow-up pool tsunami.  We are both experiencing a little post-traumatic stress — mine exacerbated because of the whole shoe, bee, lipstick, phone ordeal— and to speed our recovery we may need to relax at the pool more than usual, maybe with a couple of Margaritas or Cosmopolitans.

It was reassuring to see how our country survived a 5.8 quake.  Many other places in the world might not have been as lucky.  It’s so good to be an American, with only a tipped over lawn chair or a shaking bottle of water, instead of a collapsed building with hundreds of people in it as a result of an earthquake.  No serious injuries were reported, no electric or phone lines were downed, and television went on with its regular programming.  Modern technology quickly assured us that we were okay. When the electric goes out and the phone lines are downed due to earthquakes or storms or whatever, we get upset and sometimes panic, but we can still use our cell phones to communicate or call for help. 

And if we need to recharge the phone all we have to do is stick it under our butt and sit on it.  Who knew?

Creating a Good Portfolio

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Our daughter and her family recently moved, and the new neighbors have a couple of kids the same age as our grand kids, Guilia, 4, and Luca, 3.  Guilia was invited over to the neighbor’s house, but she quickly ran home to ask her mom how much they paid for the cleaning lady.  My daughter asked why she needed to know, and Guilia said she told the new neighbors that they really needed a cleaning lady because their house was a mess.  She said she’d go ask her mommy how much it cost so they could get someone to clean their house, too. 

Kathy was mortified, of course, much as Scott and I were, repeatedly, when we were raising our children.  In fact, upon hearing this story as Kathy related it to us, Scott and I shut and locked the doors and windows, closed the drapes, and turned on some very loud music so the neighbors wouldn’t hear our cheerful cries of “Hooray!”, “Way to go Guilia!” and some other things that actually aren’t suitable to print here. 

For us it’s exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, and includes a little bit of the “revenge is sweet” syndrome.  And Guilia has given us this gift at such an early age!  She’s quite precocious so imagine the joy Scott and I will have for years to come.  I know all you grandparents understand what I mean by this.

Our daughter was known as Chatty Kathy.  In fact, a neighbor once told me how much everyone missed her when she went to college because she would go up the street visiting with all the neighbors on the block, and visiting everyone again as she came back down the street sharing all the news she’d learned on her way up the street.  She was the Town Crier.  Scott and I hid out as much as possible, sometimes looking at our children with that universal parental look that all parents adapt at times in public places — “Whose children are these and why can’t their parents do something about their behavior?”

Kids do things at a much younger age now than our children did.  Every generation says that, and I’m sure it’s true because of the rapid advances in technology and education.  We have access to more and more information, and we are all more universally tied together because of the Internet, social media, cell phones, cable, and so on.  Our children need to be up to speed on all the new technological offerings and prepare much earlier in life for their future.

Last week I was at our son’s house in Philadelphia watching the 8 year old twins, Aidan and Riley.  I told them how proud Scott and I were that they’d passed to third grade, and asked if I could see their report cards.  They excitedly asked if I’d like to see their portfolios.

They have portfolios?  They are eight years old and they have portfolios. 

Of course I wanted to see their portfolios!  I was picturing them coming down the steps with a briefcase, IPad, cell phone, and a professional resume along with a cover letter, looking for a job as a Lego builder or bug collector.

Aidan brought me his portfolio which was an extra large, fold-over, colorfully decorated gift bag.  Riley’s equally large striped gift bag doesn’t fold over.  Each of these bags is full of all their second grade papers, art work, reports from the teachers, tests and quizzes, stories they’d written, and so on.  I looked carefully at everything, and of course it was all fabulous.  Alas, there were no resumes.  I guess they have to add more stuff in each grade, keep their portfolios up to date for the next ten years of school, and then add all the college stuff to complete the whole portfolio thing.  They might need some more big gift bags, but when they are completely, formally educated, they may not need a resume.  They can show up at job interviews with their colorfully decorated gift bag portfolios.

I’m thinking I should call Kathy to help me find a good cleaning lady to go through all our old statements, photos, shopping lists, greeting cards, reminder notes, old calendars, useless saved newspaper articles, expired coupons, clothing tags, instruction books and warranties for appliances we haven’t owned in 30 years, and everything else we can find, and get it all organized into portfolios for me and Scott.  We could probably just use our Giant Eagle or Walmart bags since we would need so many.  At least we’d be recycling, even if, because of the old and used bags — plastic, no less— our portfolios didn’t look very professional.  With the way our government  and Congress and Obama are handling the economy, we need to get our portfolios in order too, so we are totally prepared  with our complete life’s portfolio in case we have to get a job working 9 to 5 because our retirement investments took a hit, and now instead of a financial portfolio, we may end up with only a change purse.

Not So Special After All

Scott and I, out with friends a week or so ago, told them about the Pick-Up Artist, the older gentleman who was trying to pick me up right by the pot of steaming hot potato soup at Eat ‘n Park’s® soup and salad bar.  Richard, who himself spends a couple of days every week at this same Eat ‘n Park having breakfast, buying cookies, stopping for coffee, and so on, described the Pick-Up Artist in great detail, right down to his height, weight, the type of shirts he wears, the cuffed khaki slacks, the brown loafers – well, you get it.  He then described, again in detail, the women the Pick-Up Artist has succeeded with.  He has someone much younger he takes walks with, some older women he sits on benches with, blonds he has dinner with, red-heads he takes to the movies.  There is always someone new – some are heavy, some are thin, some are pretty, some not so much, some are tall, some are short.  He tells them all they are very attractive. 

It seems I am not so special after all.  The Pick-up Artist picks up lots of women.  He is a serial Pick-Up Artist; an 88 year old player.

So now that I know I’m not so special I think I need to get my groove going again, lift my spirits and freshen up my look. 

So I ran right over to the Estee Lauder ™ make-up counter.  Simone always looks out for me to make sure I have everything from Estee Lauder that will improve my look and Estee Lauder’s bottom line. I bought some eye cream that is anti-line and anti-wrinkle, restoring serum that will correct lines and wrinkles, and plain old moisturizer that is somehow advanced so that’s a bonus.  I had to buy one set of the stuff for day and one set of the stuff for night.  I guess my skin does different things in the day than it does at night.  I can rest easy because I know that Simone is helping me stave off the need for a face lift.

I can tell you with certainty that I will never have Botox® injections or a face lift.  I know some women who have had them and I can see that at some point their faces stop moving and the look of wide-eyed surprise never goes away.  If you are old enough to have Botox or a face lift my guess is that life has already dealt you plenty of surprises.  Just getting up each day might be a surprise; you probably don’t need a face lift to help you look surprised.  These women always seem to say they’ve just had a good rest lately and changed their hair color. It just took place under anesthesia.

My mom had a couple of friends who’d had face lifts.  One friend looked great after her first face lift but she had a wrinkled neck and her hands had age spots and that gave it all away.  And of course, all her friends were in their 70’s and 80’s just like she was, so she always seemed to look surprised to discover that she had these old friends. 

Then there was Dolores.

Mom met Dolores in Pittsburgh when they were in the same golf league.  They were great golfing buddies but I never met Dolores or knew her to spend any time with my mom other than on the golf course.  After my mom moved to Florida, Dolores would call every so often just to say hello, but sometimes Dolores would tell my mother that she wanted to visit for a few weeks.  My mom would always tell Dolores that it wasn’t a good time for company or a visit.  This was mostly the truth because my mother had a bad heart and my step-father, Walt, was pretty old.  He died when he was 104 so we always said he was pretty old.  We said he was pretty old for a long, long time.

Late one night Dolores called and announced that just on a whim she had flown down to Florida to visit my mom, and that besides the slight problem of arriving at the wrong airport in the wrong city (OOPS!), one that was an eight hour drive from my mother and Walt’s house, she would take the bus and would be arriving the next day for a visit.  My mother cried and said again that it wasn’t a good time for a visit, she’d recently been having treatments for cancer, which was true, and wasn’t ready for any visitors.  But Dolores was adamant.  Mom couldn’t convince her not to come and she was not going to be mean.  She’d suck it up, make the best of it, and hope it was a very short visit.

Dolores arrived the next morning with a face that was black and blue, sporting very big sunglasses and wearing a turban over her hair.  Mom, trying to be polite and compassionate, screamed loudly enough for all the neighbors to hear, “What the hell happened to you?  Were you in a wreck?”  Dolores said there was no accident; she was recovering from a face lift and didn’t want the Pittsburgh folks to see her until she healed. The short visit might be more than a few days.  Her dentist had done the face lift.

Dolores had to sleep in the reclining chair with her head elevated and the next morning there was some blood running down Dolores’s neck, ears, and forehead.  My mom took her to the emergency room and the doctors got the bleeding stopped.  That night, while my mom and Walt were asleep, Dolores called a cab and left in the middle of the night to go to the airport and take a plane back to Pittsburgh.  My mother told me it was because Dolores’s facelift had fallen off.

So you can understand my reluctance to get a facelift. 

As long as I can keep tweezing that one wild hair on my chin before it’s noticed, getting anti-line, anti-wrinkle eye cream, restoring serum that will correct lines and wrinkles, plain old moisturizer that has the bonus feature making it advanced, visit the eye doctor less frequently so my vision remains just a tad blurred, continue to dye my hair, wear sleeved, turtleneck shirts that conceal my flabby arms and wrinkled neck, padded and lifting bras that put my breasts back close to where they used to be, flared skirts that conceal my drooping posterior, gloves to cover my hands, pedicures because I can no longer reach my toes…………….

Maybe I need to see the dentist.