O Memory, Where Art Thou

It's an almost weekly occurrence in the office that one of my colleagues will bemoan her terrible memory and feel certain that this is the first step down that slippery slope to complete memory loss. We expect memory and recall perfection of ourselves as if we were Wikipedia on its best day. It would be really amazing to have a memory that never let anything go, although it could be quite awful in a way. But that's another essay for another day.

Our memories must be at their personal bests in our early elementary grades, or we wouldn't be taught our multiplication tables then. When was the last time you heard a seven year old say, "My memory is so bad lately. It must be old age settling in." We know our memories weren't perfect then. How about at the mid-teen years when we are learning Algebra, Geometry, Calculus (not to mention that we know it all then)? Bad memories? Pitiful recall? I don't know about you, but my academic career wasn't famous for its endless parade of A+ grades. There might have been a couple, but I can't remember.

Then we grow up. We are out of school, raising families, working, trying to keep up with whatever we're supposed to be keeping up with. We have pins for our debit cards, credit cards, social networks, computer programs, bank accounts, phones, Amazon, Kindle, Snapfish, aol, Google, yada yada yada, and they are supposed to be different from each other so they are more difficult to hack. We aren't supposed to use our children's names, pet names, our names, the square root of an isosceles triangle, anything easy, so we invent something so clever for each of them that we almost can't remember them all. But we do.

We have better memories than we know, and it's time to stop bashing ourselves and accept that we have never had a perfect memory, even at our best, so we shouldn't expect ourselves to have a perfect memory now. If we can't immediately remember the top ten movies of 1976, or all the lyrics to "Some Enchanted Evening", so what? So what if it takes us a day, or a couple of days, or we have to look them up online? This shows us that we have learned one very important thing - that we can adapt, improvise, and overcome because we are awesome. At least I think that's the word I wanted to use...

Bugs - I Hate Bugs

I have never liked bugs. Yellow and black spiders that build webs in corn fields, green worms as big around as a finger that infest tomato plants, any kind of ants or spiders or flies except maybe dragonflies, which were purportedly able to sew up a person’s lips, but they never got mine. My mother told me that August is spider month, and I have learned that it really is. Webs spring up in hours, sometimes minutes, and sometimes there isn’t even a web to give warning. I was chatting on the phone with my daughter one night when a spider, possibly the brown recluse spider whose bite is allegedly venomous enough to cause instant death (but maybe not), ran down the back of the couch and straight at me. The cat was no help. Bless whoever invented cordless phones, allowing me to run into the other room to get spouse to save me (and the cat) while describing in detail my terrifying experience to my daughter, who hates spiders even more than I. Spouse dispatched the spider and saved us all from a fate worse than - spiders. Normally I will deal with my own spiders, but not when the abdomen is the size of a dime. I still get the shivers thinking about that spider.


Fast forward to this month, still Spider Month, but we have a new insect to think about now. We have a cat, who is in permanent Time Out in the house until – you know. Imagine our surprise when after a recent long weekend away without the cat, we came home to find that she had become infested with fleas. I won’t even mention that she had scratched herself silly and was covered with scabs, too, because that is just too gross. We got her the magic neck drips, and that has helped. Helped with the cat, that is, but not with all the fleas that started hopping around the house. We tried a flea fogger in the upstairs hall, thinking it would cover the carpets and bedrooms and we’d be flea-free. Ha! I was walking around the house, dragging my feet in the hopes of seeing nothing on them. I was picking up fleas faster than a (insert your own off-color remark here), and they were all laughing at me. I dispose of the freeloaders the humane way – in the toilet. Let me say here that the water bill is going to be a bit high this year. What were we thinking? One can of flea fogger for the whole house? When I got tired of picking the fleas off, I got the lint roller, which works really well and you can actually roll as fast as a flea can jump. Sometimes. I have now taken to wearing white socks, which makes the humidity of August feel even more fantastic, but the fleas are easier to spot. The cat is hardly scratching now, so her neck drip is working, which it should, since she got two doses in two days. Spouse asked if we could use it on ourselves, and it required all my willpower to say no, it could make us really, really sick. That I briefly considered doing it is evidence of what long exposure to bugs will do to a person’s mind.

We developed a plan, and it is this. We will flea fog (bomb) every room in the house this weekend, after packing up the cat in her carrier and putting her safely outside. We are a little concerned about bombing upstairs, downstairs, and down cellar while holding our breath. We have to set off the bombs one at a time, and they hiss so loudly you can hear them outside. But first we have to cover the smoke detectors with plastic hairnets so they don’t lose their minds and alarm themselves right off the ceilings. It requires cunning, planning, agility, and speed, and could one day become an Olympic event. We then take the cat out for a two hour ride. Imagine the joy for everyone involved. Then we come back, open all the windows, and hope that only the fleas will be eradicated.

I will let you know how it goes. I hope.

Celebrity Citings

Spouse and I have a very short list of Celebrities We Have Seen In Person. In 1976 while waiting for eight hours in the Orlando airport for our honeymoon flight home, we saw a character actor who always played bad guys in Westerns. We didn’t know his name then, and we still don’t. In 1983 at the newly opened EPCOT, we saw Lloyd Bridges, who had done a narration for the American Adventure. His outfit had upgraded from his “Sea Hunt” days, but we knew who it was. In 1986 we saw Marvin Haggler dining at Quintals’ on Cape Cod. Spouse’s brother requested and received an autograph. I waited in line for an hour once to get an autograph from Tony Stewart. In 2010 while at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, we saw that guy who is on all the Disney animation documentaries, and we don’t know his name, but he is the one who always wears the big earrings. If you’ve seen a special, you know who he is. He was carrying luggage, apparently ready to settle in for a spell. All very exciting, but they are all just people like you and me.


Imagine our delight when we recently came across the real life model for another silver screen character – Roz from “Monsters, Inc.” There she was, working as a cashier at a Burger King on the New Jersey Turnpike. Spouse and I stood waiting at the counter, still unaware of the surprise in store for us. What we saw was a woman with her priorities straight; she was arranging Burger King crowns, which is way more fun than waiting on customers. Once she had finished the crowns to her satisfaction, which took about 30 seconds, she turned on us to take our order. The total came to six dollars and change, and spouse reached a twenty dollar bill toward her. “You got anything smaller?” she growled. She had to be Roz’s voice coach or maybe her twin sister. Spouse and I were too surprised to react. Sure, we could have found something smaller, maybe even exact change, but the Rozette didn’t give us a chance. She made the change while berating us because she was running out of tens. We got our change and receipt, then quickly moved down the counter away from her. She is a Burger King treasure and her name is Margie. Stop in and see her some time.

It will be hard to top Margie/Roz in the Celebrity spotting game, but we will keep looking. We may still be lucky enough to find the elusive Large Marge from “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Try to Stay Focused

It is so easy to lose focus during the Christmas season. I need to keep running to-do lists for each party, each food, each store, so that everything is done on time and well. I don't expect perfection, but do hope for the minimum of disasters, and try not to get aggravated when spouse maintains a normal even disposition despite the chaos within my head.

Just try to pay attention when you're doing the laundry by checking all pockets or you will realize that the 10 hour Molten Caramel lipstick by L'Oreal lasts far longer than 10 hours when the tube has gone through the washer and dryer painting everything in its path in a lovely shade of sparkly caramel. Half a bottle of Oxy Clean spray and two additional hot washes/warm rinses and spins in the dryer were surprisingly ineffectual.

For the past few years, spouse and I have not exchanged Christmas gifts, as we shop as we go through the year. This year we will be opening gifts en famille at daughter and her spouse's house, and I thought it would be nice if spouse and I had something from each other to open. Expecting spouse to trudge through store after store scratching his head, searching for the perfect gift for me seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, and not in the right spirit of the season. I suggested to spouse that we buy our own gifts, and then act surprised when we open them in front of the kids. Spouse was game. He wondered how much he should spend. I told him to buy whatever he wanted, since he was paying for it. (This was where I went wrong.) I said I was thinking of getting pajamas, and maybe a sweater. This is another example of why you need to pay attention when making a plan, because not all people think the same way. Spouse and I have always had communication issues but I forgot this in all the excitement of Christmas. I got myself those pajamas and that sweater, and I will wrap them up and put them under the tree. Spouse got himself a gift, too, but it's not going to fit under any Christmas tree. And while I am the only one that will fit into my pajamas and sweater, six people plus a baby's car seat will fit into spouse's gift to himself.

Do not get distracted by the holly jolliness of it all and be careful of what you say and what you do.

Adventures in Plumbing

Spouse and I have slowly been updating the homestead. Spouse is a whiz with carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and other things that need to be done around the house. This has saved us time and money, and also provided instant gratification. Over the years, he has finished off an upstairs, tiled multiple floors, installed toilets, sinks, and showers, painted and wallpapered, wainscoted, plastered, trimmed, and assembled toys from Santa on Christmas Eve.

This weekend we decided to replace the 26 year old dual control kitchen faucet with a single control. Spouse has set our water temperature to the hottest possible so that at 5:00 am on a freezing cold winter morning I can still have a hot shower. Spouse and I have developed a knack for avoiding being burned when using the sinks, but others have not been so lucky. So the trip to the plumbing aisle was really a mission of mercy. We chose our favorite, a Moen, and headed home. Coupled with a trip to the dump that morning, that was enough excitement for the day, and we decided to start on the project first thing the next morning.

While I emptied the cabinet of cleaning supplies and 87 dish towels, spouse gathered the tools and checked the parts against the list in the box. There was one extra part, but we figured its intended location would become clear as the operation progressed. Under the sink spouse went, and started doing his plumbing thing. He removed the old faucet and squirty hose, which was easier than it could have been since he pretreated with WD-40. I think WD must stand for Wonder Drug. The old hardware went into the trash, and spouse was ready to install the new satin-finish single control.

Spouse gave me my assignment, "hold it straight", and the talking part of him disappeared under the sink. I can do this, I told myself. I gripped the base of the faucet and prepared to hold on NO MATTER WHAT. It soon became evident that plumber's assistants should not use hand cream minutes before they start a job involving stainless steel. The faucet was turning in my hands, not staying put as ordered, and I braced myself for some serious man-talk from under the sink. Worse yet, I realized that the faucet actually had four moving parts. Was I supposed to hold all four parts at the same time? I know my hands are good sized, but I didn't think they were up for the job, particularly in their current supple and smooth state. "Hold it straight" didn't quite address the situation I was up against, but when a man is plumbing, an assistant is hesitant to disturb him with silly questions. So I didn't. It might have saved us some time if I had, but spilled milk and all that...

Spouse got that beautiful faucet installed and in working order in about an hour and a half without breaking a sweat. Days later there are still no leaks. The man knows how to plumb. But I think I'm going to retire as a plumber's assistant. It's time to move on to something else, like chopping firewood or building a stone wall. And I'm skipping the hand cream until AFTER we're done.

Halloween Humbug

Halloween is one of the best holidays for kids. I enjoyed traipsing through the dark, tripping and falling over random items in yards or the roadway, with my siblings and friends, and once we reached 6th grade we were allowed to go to Brady Hill where mountainous piles of candy, especially the coveted full-sized candy cars, awaited all those hearty enough to scale its steep hill. It was the biggest neighborhood around, with dozens, maybe hundreds, of houses filled with candy and more candy. In my family we retired from trick-or-treating after Grade 6, but we all made that last year count. Back in the '60s injuring children for kicks by tampering with their candy had not yet been invented, so all systems were go, and we enjoyed many treats on the fly. One of my younger sisters who shall remain nameless was not as sugar-crazed as I, and would ration her candy so severely that it would last until Easter. I still remember slowly opening her chimney cupboard in the bedroom we shared to steal look at her candy bars, always amazed that she hadn't finished them yet. Those were good times.

Fast forward 25 years to the trick-or-treat careers of my own children. I would stay home and dole out the fun size candy to the neighborhood kids, and spouse would take our kids out. They would get half-way down the street before exhaustion set in. Spouse would end up carrying one or both of them. Long driveways were judged not worthy of the trek. By now Halloween candy had to be checked carefully before consumption, and could also be xrayed at the fire station. The children would arrive home and get a burst of energy as they came up the driveway, and once inside, the candy would all be dumped on the (orange and quite ugly) living room rug (it was the '70s...). Even a not yet two year old knew the drill. Dumping the candy was beneficial to all parties. The kids were astounded at all the candy that was before them, imagining eating every bit of it. Spouse and I took the opportunity to examine wrappers and toss anything suspicious, while simultaneously checking inventory of what we wanted for ourselves. Those were good times.

Fast forward another 25 years; okay, 30 years. The kids are now married, living far and even farther away. Our sweet little grandson is too little for trick-or-treating. Can't start working on the Halloween tooth decay process until there are actually teeth. So it's just spouse and me and the cat. The cat hates the doorbell and strangers stomping on the porch. And really, we do have to be kind to our animals. This year spouse and I chose the Halloween candy together. If left alone, I will buy awful non-chocolate candy, like jolly ranchers and fruity flavored candy that is easy (for me) to pass up, but appeals to kids. I know because I see them eat it up like, well, candy, in the office where I work. Anyway, this year we got Milky Way, Three Musketeers, Butterfinger, Twix, and M&Ms, all fun sizes. We got approximately 120 pieces of candy, and as we had over 110 tricksters last year, I hoped we would have enough.

Halloween night arrived, and it was dark by 6:00. This is when my "experiment" began to take shape. I peeked through the curtains and noted the houses with outside lights on; basically everyone but us. Okay, I thought, why rush into this? Let's pull the shades in the front rooms, continue watching the "Murder She Wrote" marathon, and see what happens. As soon as an intrepid child ventured to the front door and rang the bell, I would leap into action, turning on all the outside lights, whipping open the front door, and graciously dole out candy with as genuine a smile as I could force. I know how much little children look forward to getting into costumes and getting candy, and I enjoy seeing the little ones who can't yet enunciate "Trick or Treat". The things I do not enjoy about Halloween are the children who are six feet tall, possibly old enough to drive, the hay wagon that makes its appearance every year in our neighborhood carrying dozens of children, the giant SUVs that slowly cruise the neighborhood dropping the kids periodically to run up driveways, and what I especially don't like to see are kids coming from two towns away, as evidenced by the names on their football jerseys. We don't have 120 kids in this neighborhood, yet 120 kids appear once a year to terrorize the cat and make me very crabby. Back to the experiment... I was ready for the kids, the candy was in the bowl, all sorted nicely. No one rang the doorbell all night (okay, from 6:00 - 7:30 when it's pretty much over in this burg). I sat with the cat giving spouse period updates on the traffic in the neighborhood. The cat kept looking toward the front door. She knowwws what a bowl full of chocolate candy on a table pulled into the front hall means.

If it was Christmas, I would be a Scrooge.

You'll have to excuse me now. There is a bowl of delicious candy calling my name. "Humbug! Oh, Humbug!"

I Do and I Do, Too

I am beyond fortunate to have two amazingly fantabulous daughters. One looks like a supermodel and one a fairy princess. Our supermodel married her soul mate several years ago, and they have hatched a perfectly wonderfully perfect grandson for spouse and me. Our fairy princess became engaged a year ago, and has just married her soul mate at a destination wedding. Could it have been more wonderful? Not in any way, shape, or form.

The wedding weekend began with spouse and me packing up the car with everything we might need for five days of non-stop fun. Thanks to weather.com, we knew it was going to rain for the next five days, possibly even indoors. We bought golf umbrellas that coordinated with the bridesmaids’ gowns and the men’s tuxes in case there were outside wedding photos in the pouring rain. I decided not to think about how the ten people in the bridal party were all going to fit under two umbrellas.

And in case the sun managed to break through, we had to pack appropriate clothes for hot, dry weather. Months ago I had decided that all I would need for luggage for the big weekend was the David’s Bridal bag with my gown (from Nordstroms.com), pouffy slip, silver shoes and purse, and a few clothes that would hang in a garment bag. Maybe bring a small bag with unmentionables and a few toiletries. Somehow that morphed into my biggest suitcase and three tote bags. Plus the garment bag. Spouse managed to control his packing, only bringing enough clothes for two weeks in the sun, rain, hurricane, or typhoon.

We set off early on Thursday morning, and soon were engulfed in monsoon-type weather. Rain-X saved us from disaster yet again, and we barely needed to use the windshield wipers, as long as we maintained a speed of approximately 63.5 mph or greater. Those that weren’t using Rain-X were either wipering at top speed, slowing to 30 mph, or pulling over. We passed in and out of that, and once we reached somewhere in New Jersey, were rewarded with a rainbow of first-rate clarity. We considered it a good omen. After a 7.5 hour trip, including a stop to pick up the tux, complete with patent leather (or plastic, according to spouse) shoes, we arrived, bag and baggage, and checked into the sparkly clean and new Fairfield Inn in Kennett Square. We took some deep breaths of the fresh air, and were nearly bowled over by the fragrance. Kennett Square is the mushroom capital of the world, and you know with what they are fertilized. To top it all off, this weekend was the annual Mushroom Festival; road closures, traffic, block parties. Perhaps extra fertilizer judging by the air quality.

Daughter and her spouse to be (the Fairy Princess and her Prince Charming) took us to dinner and we discussed The Big Day extensively. It was a good time, and full-blown nerves had not yet settled in. One doesn’t have to be the bride to be a little weak-kneed. In the middle of the night (if you sleep from dusk to dawn), (supermodel) daughter, her spouse, and little Rooster arrived at the hotel. We were fortunate enough to coordinate our breakfast time with theirs and got in some precious visit time.

For spouse and me, Friday was mostly spent driving around lost, stymied by the one way streets, road closures, and just plain not knowing where the heck we were going. If we didn’t have Susie, our GPS, we’d still be driving around lost in Kennett Square. Even she was confused at times, and not because of the road closures. Twice she sent us one direction, then changed her mind after we had started out, and sent us in the reverse direction.

Friday night was the rehearsal in the heart of Wilmington. Spouse and I are country mice, but we did our best to drive into the city following Susie’s directions, and park somewhere near a curb on the side street. The rehearsal went well, and I felt sure that I had memorized everything Father Joe said, would be ready to take charge on the following day, and send everyone up the aisle at the right times. We then went out for a lovely dinner of Italian deliciousness, complete with a heart-warming toast by daughter’s spouse to be, and got back to our room by 10:30 pm.

At 7:15 am on Saturday, 9/10/11, the sunniest day we could have hoped for, both daughters and I were off to have hair and makeup done at Maureen’s Spa. We emerged 90 minutes later, my daughters looking stunning. It was a very proud moment for me, another in a lifelong string of proud moments. Modesty forbids a comment on my own appearance, but a male customer in the spa told me that I looked like Bea Arthur. A young Bea Arthur. Thank. You. So. Much.

We cruised by the home that daughter and spouse to be are buying, and it was a fun time. Stopping off at the local Wal-Mart made it even more special. In we traipsed, fairy princess daughter in her radiance and tiara, supermodel daughter, and the MOB, all in full makeup and quarts of hairspray, wearing button-down tops for easy removal without mussing the ‘do. It is quite possible that the clientele has not ever seen a tiara-wearing princess shopping for lip gloss, if the glances coming daughter’s way were any indication.

Back at the hotel, all gowned, pouffy slipped, and silver sandalled, not to mention tiarad, daughter truly looked like a fairy princess bride. The bridesmaids were lovely in their apple colored gowns, each a different style, and the combined pulchritude was nearly bursting the room. Luckily the limo for the girls arrived at 1:15, and the procession to the lobby began. Into the limo the girls carried their flowers, skirts, and slight nervousness, and they set off, spouse and I following with a few tears in our eyes. The ride to the church was along beautiful country roads, and we passed the A.I. Dupont Middle School which had a grandeur to equal a Newport mansion. I wanted to live in it.

We lost sight of the limo after a few miles of back roads, but somehow managed to get in front of them, all of us arriving with 15 minutes to spare. The limo driver learned that the men’s limo had not yet arrived, so the girls all stayed in theirs. Father Joe came to the back of the church where parents and grandparent, daughter’s spouse and little Rooster, all lingered, awaiting The Men. At 2:00 the church bells pealed overhead, startling us. Late arriving guests learned to their delight that they were still in time. Eventually, at 2:10 ish, The Men arrived. Our relief was so great that no one asked why they were late. That was to come out the day after the wedding day. Boutonnières were hastily pinned on, the men walked quickly to the front of the church along the side aisle, the girls were waved in from the limo to the back of the church, and then I realized that I had forgotten everything from the rehearsal. I asked Jim, the husband of a bridesmaid, to whom I had not actually been introduced, “WHO GOES FIRST??? WHEN ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GO???”

This was when the serious consequences of not taking my Gingko Biloba for the past two days became evident. Father Joe was at the front of the church, standing patiently by the altar, too far away to interpret frantic hand signals. Didn’t he understand that I had ADHDWD (Attention Deficit High Def Wedding Disorder) ??? We as a group somehow decided that it should be my mother, the grandmother of the bride, who should be walked down by her grandson-in-law and great-grandson. Son-in-law, husband to supermodel daughter, was looking handsome in his pin-striped suit, and little Rooster was a picture in his Fedora, with his head just peeking out of the carrier strapped to his father’s chest. I knew even if he howled his way down the aisle while escorting his great-grandmother, it would have added a wonderful element to the proceedings. Rooster behaved perfectly and did not make a peep (too bad!). Next down the aisle went the parents of the groom, and then the bridesmaids. (Or was it the other way around? I’ll have to wait for the photos to be sure.)

Then it was time to listen for the Wedding March, our cue to escort our beautiful daughter to her waiting husband. There it was, and there we went. Every smiling face was turned toward the vision in ivory floating down the aisle, and spouse and I did our best to smile at everyone and not to step on the bride’s train. Spouse was more successful. Once we reached the smiling groom, spouse and I each gave our daughter a kiss on the cheek, spouse shook the groom’s hand, I kissed the groom, and spouse and I sat down, our parts finished. There was singing, laughing, smiling, hand-holding, and a few moist eyes. Once I glanced at spouse, who appeared to be teary-eyed, and I quickly looked away. Waterproof mascara or not, I didn’t want to give it a test run and everyone knows how contagious wedding tears are. After a beautiful ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Happily Ever After were applauded and then walked back up the aisle, ready for anything now that the hard part was over. Rooster slept through most of the wedding, woken by the final musical crescendo and not really sure if he was happy about it.

After the guests (with the exception of our family members greeting Rooster) had walked out into the sunshine, it was time for church photos of the bridal party. Then it was limo time, and off to Valley Garden Park for some outdoor photos. The day could not have been prettier, the photographers clicked hundreds of shots, maybe millions, and soon it was time to head to the reception. Rooster reached his point of quite enough, and daughter and spouse and the little guy got an early start back.

At the reception, the guests were waiting patiently at their tables for the bridal party, and the extraordinary staff at the Red Clay Room coached us on where and when to walk in. We got through that without tripping and falling, and then the party was on. Dinner, dancing, photos, cake, meeting and greeting, laughing and talking, fun, fun, fun, and all of a sudden it was over.

Now spouse and I wait for another indescribably wonderful grandchild. No pressure. But stay tuned.