"M'am"

Do you remember the first time someone called you ‘m’am’?  I think I was somewhere in my thirties and I recall thinking – well, that ‘miss’ phase is definitely behind me now.   It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.  But you have to understand that back then I had one of those faces where people always thought I was much younger than I was.  Folks thought I was in junior high when in high school and in high school when in college.  One time in my late twenties I ran to the movie theatre to buy tickets for the nighttime show and the kid at the booth actually carded me because it was rated R.  Seriously. 

And now I look around me and think everyone looks so much younger than they are.  And folks don’t usually use ‘m’am’ anymore.   We’ve lost a lot of the generational respect that we used to have.  I still call ladies ‘m’am’ and men ‘sir’ when they are much older than me.  I get smiles all the way around. 

But lately I’ve been thinking that ‘m’am’ might actually just be code for this stage of life.  You know what I mean:  Middle-Aged Memory.   MAM.    You are mid-sentence and suddenly you forget where you were going with what you had just said….you pause….and pause….and then you realize with utter horror that you really can’t recall where you were headed conversationally.    You try to laugh it off and say if it’s important it will come back.  But it does not.  

You walk into a room and you can’t remember why you wanted to come into this room.  You walk back to where you were before and retrace your steps.  But this old trick does not work anymore.   You notice that your mug of tea is on the counter over there.   Gone cold.  Forgot you made it.    Then you spy the post-it note you left by the phone with questions to ask when a call came through.  Too bad you answered the phone in the other room. 

You make a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  You have the milk in your hand and open the cupboard door where the bowls are kept and as your hand approaches the shelf you realize….this is not right.   The milk is headed for the fridge, really.  And why can we suddenly remember events with utter clarity from decades ago but couldn’t remember that neighbor’s name if lives depended upon it?

Does MAM exist because we have so many decades of knowledge and experience crammed into our brains that something has to give? Is our little memory librarian surrounded with tomes of our acquired facts, thoughts, and life time events?  And in sheer desperation, and quite at random, tossing out some volumes to make room?  

If you haven’t received your first ‘m’am’ then by all means enjoy the years beforehand.  But once you do, be on the lookout for the start of MAM.  A phase of life where you might want to start carrying around a bag of breadcrumbs…just in case.

Competition Nation

At church this morning I heard the couple sitting behind me tell another couple it was their 29^th anniversary today.  I turned to congratulate them.  They always sit behind me and we share the sign of peace but hadn’t spoken otherwise.  This is my opportunity, I thought.   The other couple announced they had celebrated their 52^nd anniversary.  I shared that my neighbor was married 65 years.   Afterwards I got to thinking.   Should we just have let them enjoy the glow of their 29 years without sharing other stories with them?   It’s so natural to do so, but was it appropriate?   When does sharing cross that line into competition?

Of course, it is part of our culture to compete.  We compete about everything.  Mommy wars.  Daddy wars.  Grandma wars.  Couple time.  Work.  Cars. Homes.  Interest rates on our investment or savings accounts.  Mortgage rates on our homes.  Who has the smartest child/grandchild?  Whose child has the most activities and excels at them?   What school does the child go to?   Who had the most vacations? Which ones sounded the most exotic on the retell? Who has the best dog or cat?  Who saw the latest movie?  Who read the latest best selling book?  Who tried the new restaurant?  Who shops at more exclusive stores?  Who is the busiest?  Who is the most productive? Who was married the longest?  Who was widowed the longest?  Who works out the most?  Who is the sickest?  Who has the most ailments?  Who attends church more frequently?   It never ends.  And we have all been guilty of it at times to one degree or another.  When does sharing cross that line?

And there is the untold hurtfulness that this behavior can wrought.   The long-term damage to relationships and the eventual alienation it will bring.  A truly competitive person will pitch that zinger at just the right moment in a conversation.   ‘Well this works for you but for me…[fill in the blank as to topic].    ‘This car is so cute but…’  or  ‘I don’t like [blank] but other people do.”   As a relatively new widow, I have even been the recipient of a few conversational lobs of  ‘we’ve been married [blank] years.’   At random, they had to work it into the conversation although marriage or relationships wasn’t being discussed.  It seems that a competitive nature can’t contain itself.  Even when that particular competitive field has been definitively closed to my participation.   

As the comments start flying across conversational streams, I’m always left wondering – why can’t they just express happiness for you and share in your contentment?  Why say anything else at all?  I think people forget the kindergarten basic that everyone gets a turn to be the center of attention.  And for a competitive soul – the fact that you aren’t competing with them makes no difference.    They are still instinctively determined to ‘win this one.’  I tend to grow leery when I am in conversation and someone uses the word ‘but.’

At the heart of all of this stems some good intentions.  People want a good life.  They want the best for their children.  The need to prove it to others is the crux of the issue.  So, I propose that all of the good things are possible without the national game of competition.  Many people have naturally stepped back from the precipice this competitiveness brings.  It is a free fall into an empty and endless battle to still be seen as ‘the one in the know.’  And when you are sitting at the end of your life-  will any of this make a significant difference to you?  I can assure you that it will not.  Your concern will be if your loved ones will be okay after you’re gone.  Your one disappointment will be that you won’t have more time with your loved ones.  

And of course from a Christian perspective, it truly is pointless- for there is room in heaven for every one.   No competition.   No sign up sheets.  No getting ahead in line for a better view.   No early placement needed.  God has already chosen the perfect place for you.  It’s done.  You just have to accept this gift.   And does anything else really matter?   So you see, competition really is a pointless past time.  Just something to ponder.  Maybe our nation can change.   One conversation at a time.

Flying Monkeys

Remember watching ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as a child?  What were the scariest moments for you? Mine were the instant when the mean neighbor on the bicycle morphed into the witch on the broom and any scene with those flying monkeys.  I’m shuddering at the memory.  I have a natural fear of open heights.  So any beasty that can swoop down, pick you up and dangle you up in the air is worthy of fear.  Of course, they also carried you over to the evil castle lair of the wicked witch.  Enough said.  

Why is she talking about flying monkeys?  I can see why you would be curious.  Well, I’ll get there.  Just be patient.   Let me tell you some car stories that, while horrible at the time of happenstance, are actually amusing when linked together into a pattern over the years.    

Back in the ‘80s I bought my first new car.  I think the interest rate was 15.8% on the loan.  Good times.  I couldn’t afford much so I purchased a Hyundai Excel.   It was the perfect shade of blue.  A few months later we moved to New Hampshire and rented a condo with a carport.   It was a large roof supported upon cement posts.  Shortly after the move, I came home from work and parked my little car under the carport.  I went upstairs and opened the front door of our unit when suddenly my cat came racing from the back bedroom and launched himself at me.  He was terrified.   I picked him up and walked to the back of the condo.  What?!$%^&    The carport had collapsed onto our cars.  And where I had parked was the worst of it.   I was proud to say that it did take over a week before the roof of my little car totally caved.  But it sure was sitting lower in the interim.  The cause of this fiasco was unusually high winds and an updraft that pulled the unanchored posts from the ground.  The insurance company insisted on repairing the damage instead of replacing the vehicle.  They replaced the roof, windows, door, etc.  I stopped doing business with that company shortly thereafter. 

A few years later I was driving a zippy red Celica.  I loved that car.   I was now living in a townhouse.   One day I saw the sky darken.   The wind picked up and the lightning came down with a vengeance.  Suddenly the lights in the house went to an eerie half-light and I could hear trees thrashing about.  I opened the front door and there was the top of the utility pole complete with transformer and all the wires on top of my favorite car of all time.  Sigh.  At least it wasn’t caved in I told myself.  Just damaged the front end where it crash-landed and bounced onto the ground.

Several years later I finally replaced that Celica with a Corolla.  The next spring, in the early evening, I had just pulled into my parking spot after a visit to the dealership for an oil change.  I went inside and immediately the wind started picking up and the sky was a tinge of yellow.  Within moments the sky darkened, rain poured down and lightning came down en masse.  The locals called the river in back of our home ‘lightning alley’ for a reason.   Then the power went out and there was a bright light out front radiating into the windows.  I was in the kitchen closing all the windows and then ran to the front door and ripped it open-  and there it was.  I saw this very large tree on top of my car and the transformer was on the car and the wires were live and snaking in the street with flames shooting up into the air.  The utility pole beside my car was cut in half.  The utility pole across the street and down a ways was literally cut off three feet from the ground and standing in the middle of the street.  I called the fire department.  They called the utility company.  What a mess!  There were neighbors parked nearby.  My car was the only one damaged.  The trucks were there for hours making sure there was no fire risk and power was shut off.  Then the utility trucks were there through the night restoring power to the area.  

As for the car?  My brother came and helped me get it towed to a local body shop that had unbeknownst to me recently changed ownership.  I had to wait until the fire department removed the tree.  The body shop turned out to be very bad.  The car was there for months and they repaired it instead of totaling it.  They wouldn’t let me know what ‘repairs’ were made.  I began to suspect an arrangement with the insurance adjustor.  When they finally said I could pick it up my brother came with me.  Not only was the car not repaired properly but there was also fender damage from an accident with a white vehicle.  They tried to tell me that damage was already there!  I had the dealership visit just prior to the falling tree to back me up.  I refused delivery of vehicle.  Ultimately I protested with the executives at my insurance company and they immediately absorbed the repair expenses and totaled my car.  I bought a new Corolla that weekend.  And changed my insurance company.

A few more years go by and I am now driving a Honda CRV.  I had wanted a small SUV for years and was thrilled with my car.  One summer day I am quietly working at home.  Clear blue skies.  No signs of any storms on the horizon.  Just like a Kansas day right before a tornado strikes.  Now, as I already shared, I know to beware flying monkeys.  But what I did not know was to be on the lookout for flying tires.

I had run a quick errand at lunch and then pulled into the designated parking spot for my CRV.   Around 5:00pm a neighbor arrived home from work and parked beside me.  She knocked on the door and asked ‘have you seen your car?’.  And I said ‘no, why?’  She said ‘you have to come look at your car.’  I grabbed shoes and keys and went outside.  I noticed nothing wrong with my car from the back and asked her why this large tire was sitting in her parking spot.  My neighbor calmly said “Karen, you need to look at the front of your car.’

I slowly approach the front-end nestled deep into the parking space and exclaimed ‘oh no… not again’.  I sighed.  ‘How did this even happen…. it couldn’t have been that strange tire could it?...how could it bounce off the street onto the front end of my car … and with all those trees on the embankment from the highway up above…how could a tire have possibly rolled down the embankment and then gotten airborne in order to land on the windshield.  I don’t understand’

Yet somehow this most mysterious incident of all did indeed occur.  The windshield and roof frame were caved in as was the dashboard and steering column.  That tire had to hit with excessive force from the air to do such damage.  Leather seats damaged from flying glass.  The door had to be replaced, etc.  Another rental and months of repair work. 

And the insurance adjustor, insurance agent, body shop, family and friends all agreed…  how could this have happened?  In fact the insurance agent / adjustor over the phone was convinced that a tire must have come off a moving vehicle on our street and then bounced up in the air to land on the front of the CRV.  I tried explaining that I parked with the front of the car deep in the spot and that wasn’t possible.  Eventually the insurance inspector came over and cleared that up.  They were trying to link it to a moving vehicle accident that would have a much higher deductible.  Then they wanted to be sure I wasn’t driving when it happened. Fortunately, I had my neighbor and the photos I took right after she told me about the accident. 

For me, I have learned to practice detachment when it comes to my vehicles.  They certainly don’t stay new for long.  I have wondered about the timing of some of these incidents.  What if I had been in the car when these things happened?   I had just left the vehicle moments before most of them.  As for the flying tire incident – no one knows when that occurred.  It could have been just after I came inside. It never tripped the alarm due to the damaged dashboard. Maybe I was more fortunate than I realized at the times.

And the consensus is that my cars just attract objects to fall upon them.  Half of the people we know think they should never park near me and the other half think it would be the safest spot as things only land on my cars.   I can only conclude that my fear of flying monkeys- flying tires- flying utility poles- flying carports is justified.  Flying beasties be bad.  

Beware the Ides of March

Convergence.  The state of being converged upon.  Intersecting demands.  The art of scheduling becomes more a mastery of juggling.  Just don’t drop the most important ball.  Which one is that?  Exactly.

I’m an organized person and actually enjoy planning my ‘to do lists’ and calendars for work and home.  But lately it’s become a bit more challenging.  For quite unexpectedly my working life has become like an advanced algebraic problem gone awry. 

I’m always working on several project teams at once.  They typically involve completely different groups of people and the work usually is fairly hectic at the beginning and the end of a project period. Of course, there is a rather lengthy cast of quirky characters involved.  Gathering information and coordination, endless meetings and conference calls at the beginning and then it levels out to a manageable pace in the middle with a lot of documentation.  The end is another flurry of activity with determinations, recommendations, written reports.

Well, at the moment, I am working on the end of two projects and the beginning of three more.  And my boss retired a couple months back and the new one started this week.  Yes, really.  And you know what that has meant?  Interim status reports.  So, picture each segment of work as curves on an X and Y scale.  Now circle the points where the multiple curves intersect.  That subset of points is my current work existence.  And you thought you could live your life without understanding algebra, right? Suffice to say it’s not a pace that is sustainable in the long run but perhaps for a month or two. 

Then there is the bevy of usual doctor’s appointments.  At this stage of life, there is a fleet of medical professionals to keep happy.  This past week was the dentist, orthodontist and ophthalmologist.  So I’m actually attempting to schedule conference calls and meetings around the medical appointments and the schedules of everyone on each of those project teams.  I am one person who is looking forward to May- my best estimate of when this will all settle down. 

How am I taking care of myself, you might be asking?  Very carefully.   Getting to sleep early, healthy meals, exercise and lots of lazy, unplanned weekends.  Long phone calls with people who care.  There has to be somewhere I exist with no schedules to juggle.  No demands being made upon me.  You know all those things we all know we should be doing, but don’t always?   For now, they are my mainstay as I continue on my grief and cancer journeys.  And I am looking forward to spring flowers.  So yes, beware the Ides of March.  And keep an eye out for convergence.  You might want to practice your juggling, just in case.

Loaves and Fishes

In my house the freezer is prime real estate.   During my husband’s illness we moved from a townhouse style home to a one-floor condo.  Its spacious and well-designed floor plan captured my heart.  But there was no room for the small chest freezer that had been the mainstay of my kitchen creations for years.  I would make a batch of this or a pot of that and freeze our future meals and nest them safe and sound in our basement.  I actually made my own broths and kept them at the ready for future culinary sessions.

And so, since the big move, the bottom freezer in the new GE Profile unit has been a challenge.  I may have developed a complicated relationship with this freezer.  It’s become both a game – a large 3D puzzle- and a source of great irritation-  a ‘freezer volcano.’  It would erupt with various items whenever I was looking for something.  I would dig through layers of cartons and packages looking for broccoli.  Inevitably I would give up and eat the spinach I found.  Oh look, I knew I had blueberries in here.  Then I had to take a few minutes to fit everything back into the giant drawer at the bottom.   I confess to at times making food choices based upon the desire to not hunt in the freezer.

The months after my husband died my sister-in-law brought over endless bags of small containers of frozen meals for me.  What a Godsend!  Otherwise, I would have spent those early months eating cereal or toast for dinner each night.  We would joke as I would try to wedge them into the freezer.  I literally would say “okay, Jesus.  It’s loaves and fishes in reverse.  I need you to make room for this in the freezer.”  As the months went on, this kept working.  It really was quite miraculous.  Whenever someone visited, or I went shopping, I would end up saying – how am I going to get this into the already full freezer?  Then I would say ‘loaves and fishes, my Jesus’.  And it fit.  I began imagining a ‘build-out’ of my freezer located in heaven where it was all being stored.  

Then as the year continued to unfold, after those lovely ‘meals on wheels’ from my sister-in-law had all been eaten, I went through the inevitable ‘microwave a Lean Cuisine’ phase of widowhood.  The shape of the freezer made that difficult and the space wasn’t being used well.  Then there would be the bread or rolls I’d purchase that were too many in a package for me to eat.  The bits and pieces like turkey hot dogs leftover from that holiday weekend or that extra sliced baked chicken breast.  So I would toss them in the freezer.  Sigh.  It was always full.  Never any room to buy things I would spy on a good sale.

My sister gave me some great tips and I recently dug in.  I’ve been eating out of my freezer pantry for a few weeks. 

I now have organized it by containing the smaller bags of fruits and veggies into little plastic bins in a top drawer.  

I have a shelf reserved for proteins – meat and fish.  And I’m proud to say that when I recently saw a spiral ham on special for about $7 [instead of $28] I grabbed it.   I took the time to slice and dice the ham into baggies and placed those into a sealed container on my protein shelf.  I had the room!!  Let the freezer games begin.

The bottom ‘pit’ now has two plastic bins so I can at least remove one and search it if need be.  But the real goal is to eventually have space to store a few home-cooked meals.  With the bins I could store soups, stews, casseroles in plastic bags and lay them into the bin to save space as my sister suggested.  Or use the cute new Ball freezer jars a dear cousin recommended. 

Of course, the other problem is that any time you make a pot of something it is about ten to twelve servings.  I learned to cook by watching my Mom and Gram in the kitchen.  It was family meals – not a meal for a widow.  I’ll have to learn to cut the recipe in half.  Then freeze half.  It’s a system that may work.  And if not – ‘loaves and fishes, my Jesus.  Loaves and fishes.’

Highway Hazards

Construction boys are highway hazards.  Or to be more precise the haphazard way they toss their gear into the back of pickups and drive away.  They pull onto highways at high speeds.  And sometimes things fall out of those trucks.   Especially if I happen to be on the highway behind them.  What I am about to share are a few tales from my driving past.   They range from laugh aloud funny to scary to infuriating.   These tales give a sample of the interesting things that happen on our highways and byways when you’ve held a job that involves driving to various locations.

A classic example was in Dallas at rush hour in the mid-80s.  I was driving my little blue Pinto.  I know.  One rear-end collision and it would have been all over.  Fortunately that didn’t happen.  At least not in that car.  But I digress.  I was heading to work in the early morning on the expressway.  I was all dressed in my little suit and pumps with big hair.  The ‘80s in Dallas, okay?   That day my suit was a pale pink Evan Picone beauty that I just loved for spring.  With the coordinating pastel multi-colored blouse.  And the perfect shade of pale pink pumps I had just found to go with.   It was a great hair day too.  The usual morning routine of hot rollers in while layering make-up on was very effective.  After slipping on the suit I would take out the rollers and run my fingers through hair to fluff out the curls and hit it with tons of hair spray.  If you forgot to hold your breath you would be choking at that point.  Not kidding. 

So there I was in my little Pinto listening to some pop song on the radio and driving along.  Traffic wasn’t that bad and I was cruising.  Cars all around me but we were moving.  And suddenly there it was in front of me.  A large white caulking compound bucket rolling along the highway.  There was no way to brake or switch lanes.  I kept my car straight and prayed it would roll beside my car instead of under.  And it did but unfortunately it rolled back and I caught it with my back left tire.  And that wheel stopped rolling.  So I had to cross two lanes of traffic to get to the brake down lane.  Dragging the tire the whole way.  And there I was in my little pale pink suit- oh so girly.  Starring at this empty caulking bucket wedged in my tire well. 

My first maneuver was to put my hands on the side of the trunk and jump on it with both feet.  Of course pink pumps may have slippery soles.  So as my feet slid off with some force I was thankful to hang onto the trunk with my hands.  Whew!  I narrowly avoided sprawling onto the highway.  Then I tried pushing the bucket off with my hands.   I broke a few nails on that maneuver and the ‘glow’ I was generating in the warmth of a Texas spring morning was impacting my makeup.  And frizzing my hair.  Next up I tried kicking and pushing on the bucket with just one foot.  Ahhh!  Sweet victory!  It finally came off and I was on my way.   A little rumpled and weather worn but the suit still looked fairly good.  And at least my fellow commuters got a free show.

Flash forward about twenty years.  I’m heading home from work on a Friday afternoon.  I’m on the highway known as Rt 128 just south of Boston.  And in front of me I see a contractor’s pickup crossing lanes towards me.  A very large painting ladder is leaning in the truck and bouncing around.  I watch in horror as the ladder jumps out of that truck and lands standing up in the highway.  Then it flips a few times end to end.  At this point I had already hit the flashers and slammed on my brakes.  I was able to cross over to the brake down lane and just stopped.  Because the ladder had finally landed flat onto the surface of the highway and it was snaking around at a rapid pace.  Finally it stopped moving.  It was fairly close to my CRV.  What are the odds that the ladder moved in tandem with me?  Yet it did.  My hands were shaking as I slowly pulled my car out and drove around the ladder.   Such a relief to get home and share the tale with my husband.  He told me the young man in the truck was probably more focused on getting to the bar to meet his buddies.

There are many other car stories I could share.   Let me ask - how many times have you been stopped at a stop sign at the end of a highway exit ramp or at an intersection and been rear-ended?  Try four times.  Granted it was due to slippery roads twice but you get the picture.   A third time a construction geezer in an uninsured battered pick-up claimed his brakes failed after the police arrived.   When in reality he had initially asked me why I stopped instead of yielding on the off ramp.  Hmmm, because it’s a stop sign?

I can feel my guardian angel cringe every time I pull out onto a highway.   
And neither of us enjoys visiting Home Depot.  Construction boys are highway hazards.