A Guide to Shopping: Part 2 (Bait and Switch)

In Part 1 you learned about overspending and mastered the art of concealing your purchases and getting them into the house. In Part 2 we will discuss the two-tiered gambit of bait and switch shopping — including shopping with and without your husband in tow. Bait and switch refers to the age old con of luring a victim into a deal by offering something desirable and then once you have them hooked by delivering something else (inferior). Husbands are particularly susceptible to this con and you can use it to your shopping advantage.

Shopping with your husband: some husbands think that if you head off to the mall alone that you will be lonely, and despite how much they hate shopping they insist on coming to “keep you company”. This can lead to divorce so it is best to do everything possible to avoid the situation. But sometimes you can’t and it is then that you will appreciate the hours you have spent practicing the “bait and switch”.

Husband: “What could you possibly need at the mall?” You: “A new coin purse — mine became infected with e coli.”  Husband: “How did that happen?” You: “I  was cleaning chicken.” . . . Of course your husband does not want e coli tainted accessories in the house so he agrees and off you go to the mall. Your intention is not to get a coin purse at all. It is to get a beefy leather wallet with a kiss lock change compartment from the expensive Brighton shop.

Your first step in the gambit is to make sure your husband buys something for himself, so you take him to Casual Male and load him up with Calvin Klein polo shirts at $75 a pop. His eyes glazing over from the unexpected windfall and the $225 bill, you lead him docilely to the Brighton shop. The folks at Brighton are savvy marketers and so have installed two comfy men’s chairs at the back of the store. You plop down hubby with his packages and begin your hunt.  First you look at coin purses. You happen to know that Brighton has one coin purse that costs $85 so you select that one and the beefy wallet that you really want (at $135). “What do you think honey?” your remark as you hand him the coin purse. ” He looks at the price tag and says “You are really going to pay $85 for a coin purse?” Looking like he had just lifted the veil of ignorance from your eyes you reply “You are right, honey, that is ridiculous. How can they charge so much for a change purse? Look, here I can get this whole wallet which even has a built in change purse for only a little bit more. Thank you sweetie.” Mission accomplished.

If you are lucky enough to  shop solo then you have to learn a different bait and switch trick — still consisting of the same principles. Buy for him, buy for yourself. You stop at Casual Male and call your hubby on the cell. “Sweetie, Casual Male has Calvin Klein polos on sale. Shall I get you a couple?” Then you must stop at Marshall’s to purchase an inexpensive but large and unusual item — I particularly like their collection of wrot iron wall racks for $12.99. Then you go to your intended destination and purchase that wallet.

Upon arrival home you give your husband his shirts. Inevitably he will say “what else did you buy?” At this point you whip out the wrot iron gargoyle wall rack and declare “Look, for only $12.99!” Your husband is so taken aback buy this purchase that he fails to notice the small Brighton bag with the wallet.

It is important to remember that Bait and Switch is not gender biased. Your husband can learn this trick too. So the next time he comes home with packages please allow him to enjoy the con and don’t spoil it by asking too many questions. Besides, you are getting new polo shirts out of the deal.

The Quilt Shop Hop

Listen up fishermen, tennis players, car restorers, NASCAR collectibles collectors and all you other hobbyists . . . Quilting has it hands down over your paltry hobby. Does your hobby have an annual event in which you and your fellows pile onto a chartered bus at the crack of dawn for the sole purpose of going to every shop in your region for an intense and exhausting day of hobby shopping only returning in the dark of night? Welcome to the annual Quilt Shop Hop.

I just returned from the shop hop . . . $200 poorer but so much richer in experience and friendship after spending twelve hours in tight quarters with other quilters. My favorite quilt shop had arranged a charter bus for us and we assembled at the shop at 8:00 AM each of us toting a bag full of snacks and snippets of fabric that we hoped to find companions for during the day. Our home base shop had coffee and donuts for us (and for themselves since they would soon be receiving other bus loads of quilters from other home bases) and the fun began.

We piled on to the bus and immediately began to dig into our snacks. Twenty five women munched on trail mix bars and bottled water while sharing their hopes for the day. Fabric swatches were passed around and quilt patterns examined . . .the hum of conversation was loud and often pierced with laughter. Our leader did a head count and explained the shop hop rules. “Ladies, we have 40 minutes in each shop. We have to get to all 10 shops today to get your passports stamped in order to be eligible for prizes. So when 40 minutes are up I want you to be back on the bus. Agreed? Yes? OK.” Ha! By the time we reached the third shop we were an hour behind schedule . . . but I get ahead of myself.

Stop number one was a small rural quilt shop in a strip mall. It was none too impressive compared to our home base shop so all I purchased was a bag pattern. I spent my time people watching, especially fascinated by a woman who was drawn only to fabrics that I considered to be hideous. She bought six yards of lime and fuchsia floral print. I think she must be making a car cover. I needed fresh air and waited for my fellow travellers outside along with the bus driver.

The driver looked like he had been given this assignment as punishment for some horrible driving infraction. He watched the ladies return to the bus loaded down with bags of fabric. He said to me “You gonna be doing this all day?” He did not wait for me to answer, but climbed back into the bus and powered up ready for stop number two. As the day progressed I noticed that the driver seemed to be hiding the bus — after we all would pile into a shop he would drive off to find parking — ususally in an obscure and hidden lot. So it would be a “Where’s Waldo” of bus seeking at each interval. Luckily for us it is a bit hard to really disguise a 40-seater charter bus in a small town.

In between stops the talk got louder and louder. We began to sing and chant the quilters’ equivalent of “On Wisconsin”. Oooh and Aaahh were the predominant sounds. We ate more snacks. Quilters like oranges. Soon the smell of orange was so overwhelming that I began to feel nauseous. I countered it by eating sugary strawberry flavored bubble gum.

The leader came by handing out a little goodies bag from the previous shop (at the end of each stop we received a goodie bag that contained a quilt block pattern and some other trinkets). Shops got rated based on the quality of the loot. Our home base shop scored an A+ with its emery board imprinted with pictures of bolts of fabrics. Shop number two redeemed itself by including Hershey’s Miniatures. Chocolate is very important when one is doing this much shopping. Another goodie bag reflected poorly on its shop (an accurate reflection too) by including a band-aide and a rubber band . . .  hmphff!

Stop number three’s shop was decorated in a Hawaiian theme with the sales staff bedecked with leis. It was an excellent shop and I did some serious damage to the Visa card. I had started the day with a strategy. I was going to buy fabric to make one quilt. I would only get one or two fabrics at each shop so that I could buy something at all ten stores. By #3 my plan was shot to hell. I bought another bag pattern and  three fabrics to make bags. I bought raffle tickets to win a quilt. I spent a lot of time looking at packages of metal strips trying to figure out what they were for (snap closure frames for handbags).

Back on the bus, one of the ladies, a delightful woman from Australia, walked down the aisle asking everyone “Did you get laid?” “What? we replied in shock. “Did you get laid? Did anyone get laid in that shop?” Dawn breaks. “Oh, did we receive a lei you mean?” “Oh, you ladies are baaad, dirty minds, you were thinking I was saying….” The dirty talk ice broken, each subsequent stop had to have the same question asked by someone even though there were no more Hawaiian themed shops.

It was lunch time, which was a good thing since we had depleted our snacks by 10:30. The leader walked down the aisle handing out chicken loaf sandwiches on whole wheat and little bags of chips with a Pepsi chaser. We ate as we drove to the next shop. I began to think about a Dunk’n Donuts iced coffee and a Big Salad. So far my nutritional content for the day included trail mix bars, chocolate, water, and the boxed lunch.

All the shops we had been to so far had been in rural towns and this continued throughout. I got to see small town America Massachusetts style. Looking out the bus window  was almost as much fun and looking at fabrics. I love to see how other folks live, see the regional architecture, and horses, and quarries, and other rural settings. We passed one house that had a giant granite angel in the front yard. New England towns are usually built around a town square and I amused myself by noting each town’s town square monument. Most were depictions of a Revolutionary war hero — one captured a moment from the signing of the Declaration of Independence — none honored our founding sisters quilting. A disgrace.

Our leader was calling the remaining shops frantically to alert them to our lateness and trying to get them to stay open late if necessary. We had an urgent “town meeting” in which we voted on what tactic to use to get back on schedule. “Ladies, it is agreed then that we will shave seven minutes off the next five stops. Synchronize your watches please.” We grew further behind. Town meeting number two was held. “Ladies, Sharon here has a good idea. At the next stop we shave off eight minutes and no cutting. Only precut fat quarters can be purchased. Is that agreed?” It grew dark. The next shop was a good one and our leader was seen throwing up her hands and then going to wait outside while she made several more frantic calls on her cell phone.

At last we reached our last stop. The shop’s staff, well past their closing time, met us with smiles and cheerful welcomes nonetheless. We went crazy this being our last opportunity on earth ever to buy quilt fabric. I purchased a yard of cut fabric for my quilt and nine fat quarters plus two more bag patterns. My new friend bought a kit for making an appliqued quilt that looked like a project that would have taken me a decade to complete. Back on the bus she showed me her loot — she had purchased six such kits. Either she was an extremely good quilter or she had no idea what she was in for.

I called home to alert my daughter that we were on our way back to home base so she  could come pick me up. We arrived back exhausted and happy, ready to show our loot to our families and to tackle our quilt projects. Restorative sleep was not needed. The gentle noise of sewing machine motors purred long into the night.

Multitasking

Our lives are complicated these days — there are so many more demands on our time and energy than there used to be. Let’s talk about waking up as a for instance. In our parents’ day waking up consisted of opening one’s eyes, climbing out of bed and into the tub for a quick bath before dressing  (in the clothes you had been wearing all week) — it may have included turning on the radio to catch the news. Today the typical bedroom scene looks like this: opening of the eyes, removing the CPAP mask and stowing it under the night table, inspecting your sleeping spouse’s bed clothes for signs of where the remote might be, finding the remote and putting on the home shopping network, climbing out of bed and looking in the bathroom for the four bath products for today’s shower (body shampoo, hair shampoo, hair conditioner, and a refill for your shaver), showering, shaving your legs, toweling off, going to your bureau to select the spanking clean clothes that you will wear today, noticing that your spouse is up and has changed the channel to watch repeats of a tennis match, waiting til he goes to the bathroom and changing back to the home shopping network, dressing, putting on moisturizer, face primer, foundation, loose finishing powder, blush, eye liner, mascara, lipstick, blow drying your hair. You are doing these things while at the same time: making a pot of coffee, drinking coffee, glancing through the newspaper, checking to see you have enough cash for the day, calling the bank to transfer $50 into your daughter’s account, logging on to work, checking your email, and waking up your children.

Descending to the downstairs you pop in a load of laundry while the bread is toasting. You notice your polish is chipped so you fix the nail polish and then keep the finger extended into the air for the next ten minutes. While your polish is drying you eat your breakfast and find out what is on your children’s’ agenda for the day. You remember you need to print out a presentation so you run upstairs and print. While you are waiting for the output you check your on-line horoscope and buy some CDs from Amazon.com. That reminds you that your iPOD needs to be recharged so you do that. You notice that the charger cord is all twisted up with other cords so you untwist them all and reorganize the drawer. You remember you left your kids downstairs and that they need a ride to school. Everyone gets bundled into the car. You drop off your kids, pick up shirts from the laundry, go to Starbucks, drive to work.

Once at work you stop in the lobby because you see some friends you have not seen for awhile and you catch up. Your cell phone rings and you have a brief conversation while your friends listen in. You all take the elevator and then go your separate ways. You arrive at your desk, log in to the network, check your voice messages, your email, all while attending a conference call. Your boss drops by to gossip. You put the call on mute and talk for awhile while filing down a rough spot on your nail. You kick your boss out cause you have to lead a teleconference — you dial in and run the meeting. During the time others are speaking you surf the net looking for a recipe for dinner. Meanwhile your friend sends you and instant message with some lewd icons. You copy the icons to your hard drive in the folder called Lewd Icons. During this operation your cell phone rings and it is your husband — where are his tee shirts? It is now 9:37 AM.

And so the work day goes. Weekends are even worse. Have you noticed how folks, when filing out of a movie theater after a show will all flip open their cell phones while still in the corridor heading toward the exit? Then they all talk on the phone while trying to back out of the parking spot and join the long line of cars leaving the parking lot. And weekend mall shoppers will walk the mall simultaneously shopping and eating slices of pizza from the food court. My favorite mall multitasking is trying on clothes while using the cell phone. Picture a row of stalls each housing a single occupant engaged in a conversation.

My daughter complains that I am never still. I don’t just watch TV or read a book. I watch TV and sew or flip through magazines. I read a book and watch a movie simultaneously. My hands must be busy. Sometimes, and this really drives her crazy, I “pick up” while watching TV (collect the trash, organize the mail, fold the throws, rearrange the pillows, etc.).  Who has time to do just one thing at a time any more? As I type this post I am waiting for my nails to dry. During my last conference call for the day I cleaned out the contents of my handbag and had three instant message conversations going.

I’m not sure I would like to go back to the good old days entirely. But maybe one day a week could be multitasking free.

Facing the Day

My Dad had Parkinsons. He developed it in his late sixties which is pretty much when most people who get the disease begin to have symptoms. Dad had a horrible tremor and the characteristic shuffling gait. He had difficulty swallowing and often choked. My folks had always loved to go out to dinner but Dad’s tremor began to make that an embarrassing ordeal. Dad never complained, not once, even when he went temporarily blind. He and my mother were scared to death but he did not complain. Dad kept his marvelous sense of humor until the end. He died at age 75 from asthma and complications of PD.

I was diagnosed with Parkinsons at age 53, so much younger than my Dad. I had been “shaky” for years and always thought it was from low blood sugar or nerves. My close friends suspected Parkinsons but kept it to themselves. My symptoms were difficult to seperate from those caused by the terrible arthritis I suffered from and so my doctors failed to make an early diagnosis. My tremor finally became too obvious and constant for me to ignore. Initially my physician thought it was Essential Tremor, a non-degenerative condition. The test is to drink a glass of wine. If the tremor subsides then it is ET. Mine did not so I was sent to a neurologist.

By the time I saw the neurologist I had deteriorated rapidly. I could almost not get out of a chair and my right arm was curved inward in the characteristic rigid bend of someone who has had brain damage or neurological disease. The doctor spoke with me briefly and performed a few motor response tests. She said so matter of factly “oh yes, you have Parkinsons.” It was not a shock to me. I already knew and had already told my husband. It was just a confirmation. She put me on some drugs for those in the early stages of PD. I responded well.

Four years later I have progressed in the disease. It now controls the entire right side of my body. I have lost my ability to write by hand completely and using the keyboard is a struggle. I battle depression. My face is beginning to take on the characteristic mask of PD as my facial muscles lose control. When I am stressed my tremor is so bad that my arm flails about and I have to hold it down. I was moved up to Sinemet, the gold standard of PD drugs.

Yet I still take a tennis lesson each week and occassionally play a game of doubles. I am nowhere near as good as I used to be and I am slow to react. But I still have fun on the court. I no longer play with the boys but my new tennis partners enjoy the game without the pressure of winning. I still sew on my machine and write my blog. I still work full-time (although it  is so much harder now). I still laugh at jokes and still sing when I am alone in the house. My family still needs me. I am not yet a burden (or at least no more so than I used to be!).

And I need my family. How fortunate I am to have a loving husband — he is so considerate and caring and so easy to talk to. Unlike my Dad I am a complainer and my husband is a good listener. He keeps me going. He is my refuge and my comfort. My daughter finds it difficult to deal with the fact that her mother is ill. She needs me to be strong and so I try to be. This is good for me — to be needed like this. Some days it is all that keeps me from staying in bed. But, some days the pressure to “be well” is too much and I want to give in to it and stay in bed, lights out, my face to the wall.

I think about how many of us out there are living each day with illness in our lives — ours or, even worse,  someone we love. We get up and carry on for as long as we can. It is not noble — it is necessity.  It is all about the quality of life and there is so much more than our physical being that contributes to that. So keep the jokes and pictures of baby animals coming — sing in the bathtub, buy that little something to pamper yourself. If  you are caring for someone who is ill then a thousand blessing upon you and have a  joyous day.

Pigs

 Some time ago I managed a group at work dedicated to improving our use of electronic publications. I affectionately named our group ePIG (electronic product information group) not realizing that this would open the door to my receiving every pig-related chachka known to human kind. Picture frames, key chains, beaded coin purses, piggy banks (of course) .  .  . someone even “adopted” a pig in my name from one of those save-the-pigs charities. When my friends thought of me they thought of PIG.

This is how tacky collections get started — collections one would not normally have chosen for oneself. But after amassing a considerable number of animal knickknacks with the same theme it seems a shame not to run with the idea. I have a colleague whose last name is Lamb. The poor woman! Despite the fact that she has eliminated every trace of sheepdom from her house, 90% of her gifts at Christmas need to be shorn.

Dogs and cats, of course, are the most popular collectibles. If you own a Saint Bernard then you deserve to have a home full of miniature beer barrels strapped to miniature dog bodies. That sprawling and tipsy resin Saint Bernard, beer mug in hand, sporting a plaque that says “Rescue Me” features prominently on your mantel. Cat lovers have “Muffie” plaques, porceline kitties playing with yarn, and “I heart Kitty” bumper stickers.

There are two special species in the chachka world — cows and roosters. Whereas you might be pressed to find a set of Saint Bernard salt and pepper shakers, these two denizens of the barnyard shake out salt by the ton. Shaker designers are especially fascinated by udders. Mama cow for the salt and a stately, horned grey bull for the pepper. While cows have cornered the market on small kitchen accessories, roosters own the tea towel and wallpaper border space. If you go into any Home Goods you can find the beige, gold, and red Rooster collection often mixing in a patriotic theme by adding in tiny furled American flags with even tinier eagels . . . someones idea of Americana.

There are a few animals that are under-represented by kitcsh. The ostrich is seldom seen as is the otter. Perhaps “Os” carry some stigma that I don’t know about. There are plenty of elephants and way too many tigers — one conveying the quality of strength and the other of ferociousness. I guess there must be groups at work that need to have these characteristics even if by association. Does your desk sport a tiger reared up on hind legs , arms wide open and claws ready for the kill? If so then I suspect that you are in sales.

The piece de resistence of my pig collection is the sub-collection of pig theme bumper stickers. “Honk if you love pigs” and “I brake for pigs” being my favorites. I draw the line at actually wearing pig themed mechandise. The three little pigs sweatshirt will remain in my closet. I have made my house and my car tacky with pig kitsch…my body will try to hold out for a bit longer.

Meet Nero

 I’d like you to meet Nero, born February 11th, and adopted yesterday by our ecstatic family. Since our beloved Muffin died at the age of 18 we have had such a hole in our lives. We have always had a cat in the house and knew we wanted to find a new “baby” as soon as possible. Our town has an email mailing list and I posted a simple query –”We want to adopt a kitten. Do you know of any that need a home?” The good townspeople responded with names of shelters, advice, and news of kitties just born. One of the responses was “We have kittens available for immediate adoption.” I made arrangements to go see the litter that day along with my daughter. It was love at first sight. Nero came home with us — tucked inside my daughter’s coat. He is curious, exploratory, and litter trained! After an initial period of caution, Nero bounded from couch to chair attcking the table legs and exploring every inch of the downstairs. He is sleeping now, nestled in the hood of my daughter’s winter coat placed lovingly next to her pillow. I hope they both sleep well. Tomorrow will be an exciting day. 

A Guide to Shopping: Part 1 (Training for the Overspender)

Ladies, men are not stupid so please do not insult their intelligence by trying to conceal your new handbag in the washing machine. Despite what you think, they do know where the washing machine is and they do know that one does not normally wash leather bags with their tags still on. If you have to hide what you buy then perhaps you have overspent again this month. I apologize, I do not mean to chide you — it is just that I hope you can learn from my experience.

We overspend our budgets for perfectly valid reasons — in most cases it is because we wish to save money in the long run. Buying the cashmere sweater off the 75% discount rack in July means that you won’t have to buy it for full price in November. And those cute thong sandals, albeit pricey at $79.99, will allow that bad toe of yours some breathing room thus avoiding costly podiatry bills. That set of Tempt-a-tions ovenware matches your new kitchen wallpaper — clearly that is a sign.

Now, I assume that being a mature adult that you have come to an agreement with  your spouse about how much money would be put into the disposable income budget envelope and how much of that money was yours to spend as you like. So, I am guessing that you have already plowed through that leaving you with a dilemma now that you have seen the Dooney bag with the hearts and squiggles in that shade of lime that is so rare and desirable. You are left with difficult choices.

#1 Negotiate. This seldom works unless your spouse is also a spendthrift in which case you need to be consulting a marriage counselor. But you can try. “Darling, you know how much having nice accessories means to me…”  “No.”

#2 Lay away plan. Who am I kidding. It is all about immediate gratification. If you were actually mature we would not be having this discussion.

#3 Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Your family is too fat anyway and could benefit from fewer groceries. “Mom, why are we having bologna again?”

#4 Subterfuge. You buy the large Dooney & Bourke tote and now you need to a) get it into the house unseen and b) use it without your husband saying “Is that a new bag?”.

Subterfuge has many forms — sort of like Tai Chi. You must study at the feet of a master for many years before you can become a master yourself. You must be in good physical condition and have nerves of steel.  You must feel the dahn-jon of shopping before you ever attempt to rise to the next level. You must be mentally ready. When you are ready you must not rush headlong to TJ Maxx — pace yourself. Start small.

Do not make the mistake of ordering from the Internet or from a catalog. That means that your package will be delivered by UPS. UPS has an arrangement with your husband that they will only deliver on the day your husband has off from work. And a UPS truck makes a distinct motor vehicle noise as it comes down the street. How many times have you leapt up and run to the door just at the sound of a UPS truck, never having to glance out the window to confirm. Your husband knows that noise too.

Always carry a medium sized LL Bean canvas tote. Originally invented as fortification material to protect scientists at Los Alamos, LL Bean canvas shields your purchase from inquisitive eyes. If you carry your tote every day it will become invisible to your spouse and he will never know when it carries a forbidden purchase. Practice carrying the tote with items from your home in it — start with a couple of pieces from your husband’s collection of clown figurines. Remember your breathing….gentle breaths. Soon you will be ready to progress to the Sleeping Tiger stance — the art of opening and closing the front door without making a sound while your husband naps.

You have mastered the fundamentals of shopping subterfuge. Now it is time to put this knowledge into effect. Stay tuned for A Guide to Shopping: Part 2 (Bait and Switch).

What Not to Wear

I want to be a contestant on What Not to Wear, TLC’s immensively popular make-over show where each week they give a slob $5000 to spend on a new wardrobe after first subjecting them to humiliation. The qualifications for being a contestant include having a vast wardrobe of Birkenstocks (I do) and either wearing clothes that are sloppy and oversized  (I do)  or those donated to Goodwill by hookers (I don’t). In addition you must have hacked off  your hair in a fit of pique within the last 30 days. One can not nominate oneself — this has to be done by your friends. Having your best interests at heart they long to see your entire wardrobe trashed while a mean lady and a  gay man make fun of you.

The show is divided into the opening in which a camera crew secretly films the victim as she goes to the softball game wearing madras capris and a Giants tee shirt, her hair pulled back in a greasy  ponytail. Then there is the surprise of confrontation and the dare — “you give up all your clothes and your dignity and we will give you $5000 with which to shop.” Next is the review of your wardrobe, the advice on what you should be wearing, followed by the shopping spree during which the contestant complains of being tired. During every episode the pair of fashion “teachers” have to waylay the contestant just as she is about to  purchase the Wrong Thing. Did she learn nothing from the humiliation exercise?

Finally, $5 grand spent, the contestant has a hair and cosmetics make over. The transformations really are remarkable. The right bra and haircut can do wonders for a girl. And then the episode closes with the triumphant reunion with the friends. There are tears of joy and lots of preening.

The program really is educational. Did you know that if you are a large woman you should  wear clothes to scale — no delicate eyelet blouses or tiny floral prints. You need bold colors next to your face (unless you are hideously ugly and then it is best to draw attention elsewhere). A-line clothes look good on everyone even if you have no waist definition. And every woman, no matter that her hair is virginal strawberry blonde, needs to have an expensive to maintain highlighting job so to give depth and visible roots. I did not know that applying a dab of color under each brow will either make you look alert and cheerful or like a Pieroette mime doll.

So, dear friends, please think of me and how badly I need to be taken in hand with a loaded Visa card. If you nominate me I promise to give you the best show. I will resist the fashionistas and pretend that I love my look. I will get teary at the lingerie shop when first I see my “girls” riding high where they should be after years of keeping my waist warm. I will cringe when the hairdresser takes the first 12 inches off my locks. I will beam with joy as I walk in crippling stiletto heels to meet you. You won’t regret nominating me.

For Whom the Bells Toll

On a summer vacation to Italy when I was ten, we had the good fortune to visit the city of Pisa — home of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. For those of you who have not seen the tower in person, I want to emphasize that the “lean” in leaning is quite dramatic — one wonders how the thing manages to stay upright. Construction on the bell tower began in the twelfth century and despite two hundred years of trying they never managed to make it turn out right. For years the LTOP fan club tried to convince the world that the leaning was intentional, designed by the architect from the get-go. There were few takers for this theory and it was abandoned in favor of blaming the soil.

The “soil” and the pressure of constant traffic escalated the leaning so that now the building leans a further millimeter a year. In 1960 the tower was open to the public (it was closed in 1980 as a conservation measure) and tourists could climb its spiral of stairs to the top. This was before the days when monument owners had to carry massive insurance to cover the nasty incidents in which foolish tourists  injured themselves while enjoying the attraction.

The Leaning Tower has seven levels in addition to the topmost bell tower. Each level is reached through an archway leading off of the stairway. Thousands of tourist families climbed those twisting stairs each year — children running ahead madly bounding up the worn marble steps and darting out onto the platform at each level. My mother, never being one for climbing stairs, decided to wait for us on the piazza and follow our ascent from ground level. My Dad got side-tracked buying a key chain or something and my brother and I whipped ahead, hurtling ourselves up the stairs. We were not going to waste our time on checking out the view from one of the lower levels — we were aiming for the bird’s eye view on level seven.

My mother scanned the building waiting to spot us emerging onto one of the platforms. To her horror emerge we did at full ten-year-old speed onto level seven — the level with no guard rails. I emerged first and was only saved from pitching off the building by my brother’s quick hands as he grabbed my shirt and yanked me back to safety (an action he later regretted when I hogged more than my share of the backseat). Laughing hysterically at the thought of me going overboard, we peered over the edge looking to wave at mama. Far down below we saw a woman sitting on the ground her purse strewn at her feet and looking like she was attempting an expansive prayer her arms open wide to heaven. After the 150th tourist fell off the tower the tower’s keepers decided that adding railings around all  levels might be a good idea.

The top most level is the belfry– the Leaning Tower is, after all, the bell tower to a cathedral. The enormous bells are suspended by elaborate iron frames allowing them to swing and ring on the hour. My brother and I were having fun darting in and out and under the bells. We took great pleasure in torturing our mother by suddenly appearing at the edge, circling our arms as if trying to maintain balance. I was enjoying standing under the largest of the bells listening to the echo as I shouted up in to it.

After a few minutes of our innocent play a tower worker emerged onto the platform and began to speak to us in Italian. He waved at me furiously indicating that I should come with him. Mama raised no fools so I stayed firmly put. He gesticulated more firmly and spoke to us more quickly and urgently. He kept pointing at the bells and then at his watch. At exactly 10:59:45 he threw up his hands in resignation and disappeared off the bell tower platform. At exactly 11:00 AM the bells began to toll.

I can not adequately explain to you what it is like to be inside a two ton iron bell when it peals. I remember only profound silence as I watched the pigeons take off en mass to find quieter perches. I could see the bell vibrate to what must have been an awful noise. I could see my brother clutching his ears and backing away into the safety of the stairwell. I could see my Dad, finally catching up with us, emerge from the stairs with a look that I interpreted to mean that he knew with certainty that he was in big trouble with mama below. I vibrated for several days and did not regain my hearing until we reached Milan.

Dressing for the Party

I have put considerable thought into what I will wear to the party tonight. The clothes are ironed and set aside, hanging from the back of my closet door so that they will not wrinkle. I bought a lovely velvet jacket for the occasion. It is “interesting” and makes a statement about me — that I am a fashion maverick. If people see that I have strong will about fashion then perhaps they will assume the rest of me is strong as well.

I won’t be wearing those clothes. We will have to leave the house no later than 6:45. At 6:41 I will decide that I don’t like how I look and I will change clothes.  I will change outfits at least three times in the next three minutes. I will try on different jackets. I will try on a skirt instead of the black pants. Panic will begin to rise up and I will feel a little dizzy. I go to my old standby black and white jacket which my daughter says makes me look like an “art matron”.  But my husband has always liked it. Has this crowd seen it before?

Why are women compelled to plan and then reject their ensembles? I don’t believe I am alone in this phenomena. At party time across America beds are littered with discarded outfits –frantically tossed aside in callous disregard of the time spent ironing them. The substitute outfits are rarely as “good”. What makes us do this? When once we were so certain that the choice of what to wear was fabulous why is it now unacceptable. Did we get noticeably fatter in the last week? Has our coloration changed thus making black unflattering? Did we unconsciously register that pleated pants were last derrigour in the 80s?

Perhaps it is the shoes that throw things off. New shoes will do the trick. I have time today to shop (I can always bring appetizers from Whole Foods instead of making them myself if I am pressed for time). Or perhaps I will trick myself and wait until 6:44 to dress. But then we will be unfashionably late as well as unfashionably dressed. I think I will wear jeans tonight.

Google Your Ass

I am surpised the private detective industry has survived this long. Perhaps it is hanging on providing service to those very few who are not tech savvy. Google has all but replaced the need for a sleuth. Most of what I need to know you tell me yourself on the Internet. You forget that online communities are public places — what you tell your friends you are also telling me. It is hard to be private on the Net.

I can track classmates from long ago, read court records, and follow your medical condition via special interest group web sites. I can see your photos on Flickr and read your diary on Live Journal. I know when your ship sails and what you will be wearing at the pool.  Be careful. I can Google your ass.

If you want to run for office in 20 years you had better not post that pic — press that upload button and instantly 20 million people can see that photograph, print it out, keep it forever. If you want to get a tattoo in a hidden place so your folks won’t know, don’t write about it in Myspace. Your parents go there. They know where your tattoos are and who you met on the weekend. You lose the right to privacy when you post your news on the Web. Be sure you don’t care what you share.

Historical Romances

I am going to write an historical romance novel — not that I like to read that kind of literature.  I do not. But it must be the most satisfying thing to write. Florid, strewn with adjectives that we seldom get to use in daily life. Steamy with pent up passion. Tension-filled as the bodice slowly rips . . . I have the perfect plot (never mind that it has probably been done before). Young British lady of the gentry has refused to marry any of the stuffy candidates her parents have paraded before her, so they marry her off in absentia to an Italian Count. The cold and remote Count Dominic D’Orsini.

Perhaps I will sprinkle my blog periodically with excerpts from the manuscript as it comes along. Would you like the action-filled bits? No, I imagine you will want the steamy parts like when she is kidnapped by the Egyptian. I will do my best to make sure my readers are satisfied.

Romances set in modern day are tedious affairs mostly featuring nurses and young men of the (Protestant) cloth. They sell by the thousands nonetheless and are consumed, indeed wolfed down, by a devoted audience. But modern romances pale (or better “blanch”) beside the sales and satisfaction ratings of the historical. Antebellum South is popular, missionaries in Quing dynasty China have a cult following, but Victorian England is really where the action is. More clothes means more anticipation.

Besides, the details of Victorian England are sufficiently unknown to the average reader that the writer can make up a lot of local color without having to check her facts. As long as she does not have the heroine drive a car or use Teflon she should be ok. Or, for those writers (myself being one) who prefer to do Research the Victorian Era is such a vibrant and layered  time that we can find endless material for sub-plots and color.

I will have to come up with a nom de plume. Linshaolin is a fine name if I were to be writing about the martial arts or was a travel writer but it will not do for romances. I need to have a pink-haired name like Leticia or Gwyneth. You will have to stay tuned for this — it is a Big Decision. And I will need a title for my novel — something to keep me from going off track. If I call my novel something like “Countess of the Cliffs” or “The Restless Lover” then I will have some parameters and not give way entirely to literary license.

And, of course, I have to do a plot outline.  It would be very bad to have the “unveiling”, as it were, happen too early in the story (unless, of course, I decide to go for the lots of unveilings with lots of different veils type of story). In historical romances the plot outline is critically important since the writer must keep a sub-plot of war and other current events going on and synchronized with the main plot. It would be awful to have the nasty husband wounded at an inapproriate moment. . .

So, the heroine of our novel is Lady Julia Fairchilde, age 18, and from one of England’s oldest High Church families. Scandelously, already a year past her debut and still single. . . I think I am ready to begin writing . . .

Insomnia

Should you have the misfortune of peering into my bedroom window at around 11:30 PM you would see what looks like a male and a female Ganesha (a Hindu deity with the body of a human and the head of an elephant) sleeping side by side. It is, in fact, my husband and myself adorned with our CPAP masks pumping oxygen into our lungs thus keeping us from sleep apnea.

My husband rests comfortably all night soothed by the gentle exhalation of the tiny leak in his air pump. I, on the other hand, hear this sound as the Niagara Falls right next to my good ear. I am awake. Very, very awake. My sleep doctor’s advice is that I should get up and go to another room and read something boring for 15 minutes.

I am very bad about following instructions and so I sit in front of the computer and get really involved in my many online activities. Soon it is 3:30 AM and I know I have to work in the morning. I force myself to go back to bed. I make the mistake of turning on the TV (on mute in respect to my husband’s sleep) and surf to find just the right thing to lull me to sleep.

I have seen Blade: Trinity 7 times. I have seen the soft porn movie Bikini Chain Gang once — but I see that it is on at least once a week. QVC is always on so if they are selling anything except Dell computers or pressure washers I will watch. Soon it is 4:45 AM. I normally get up at 5:00 so I turn off the TV and close my eyes for 15 minutes.

I average 3 1/2 to 4 hours sleep a night. With my extra time I sew, do dishes, vacuum, do laundry, surf the Net, and read. I used to snack as well but I have put a stop to that. My attempts at sleep have included sleeping pills. They don’t change anything except to give me dry mouth. Perhaps I should give up trying to have a normal sleep schedule and accept the fact that sleep deprivation is normal for me.

Passwords

Before I can begin work each day I have to remember and enter passwords for powering up my computer, logging into Windows, logging into Lotus Notes, and accessing the company intranet. The passwords require strong encryption — that means each has to be at least eight characters and have at least one numeric character but it can not be the first or last. We have to change all our passwords every 90 days and we can not repeat ones we have used earlier.

In my personal life I have different passwords to access my money, my investments, my prescription mail order drug plan, my health benefit plan, my email, my blog, my accounts at all the online shops, my message boards and my various Yahoo groups. The demands on my brain far exceed its capacity. Memory aids such as using themes for my passwords long ago stopped being effective when I ran out of sports and dog breeds. I don’t want to write down my passwords in case of home invasion and identity theft. So I have created a chart.

A thief would need to find a Rosetta stone in order to break my code. It is an elaborate and multi-tiered affair with intentional misdirection designed into its clever format. Does a 2 really mean a 2 or does it stand for LL Bean (referencing the two Ls). Or perhaps it is code for QVC where I shop toomuch. The chart has two columns — one for the destination (also coded — no one will know that Jungle refers to Amazon.com) and the password (for which only a single letter or number is listed).  Anyone coming across this chart would have no idea what it was for. It looks rather like a variant on Bingo.

Sometimes my chart fails me. I forget what once I swore was so clear to me that I would never forget. I hate the sites that block you after only three attempts at entering a password. I am surprised the police have not shown up at my house before ready to arrest me for hacking. But perhaps they can’t remember the combination to the locker that has the handcuffs.

Recently I was assigned a password with instructions to change it immediately. What if I don’t. The sender will assume that I have changed it so won’t retrace his steps if he should ever decide to break into my blog account. If the assigned password were not so devilishly difficult to remember I would keep it just to try out the theory. And I might have to wait a long time before the blog staff turns larcenous.

My work sends me automatic notifications about when I need to change my passwords. But they start sending me reminders weeks in advance. “Your password will expire in 57 days. Do you want to change it now? Click here.” It is bad enough that I have to invent new passwords every 90 days. Why would I want to accelerate that timetable?

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder

It runs in my family. I had no idea that I might have ADD until my daughter was diagnosed and I recognized the symptoms in me. So, it is not because I am a Gemini that I careen from one thing to the next losing my way halfway though. It is hard for me to read a book, sit through a movie, play chess, or attend a long meeting. I fidget and wander. I have a million projects started and none finished. I have piles of correspondence on my desk, things I know I should attend to (like the taxes) but just can’t seem to get there. I took the self-test for diagnosing ADD that is on the Web. If you scored 11 or more they suggest you consult a doctor. I scored 22.

Without having a name to describe my condition I nevertheless long ago recognized that I was in trouble and I have had to develop elaborate strategies to cope and to be successful at my job. The main one is The Notebook. I write down everything I need to do in a list and check it off when I am done. I review my lists every day to remind myself. I carry over undone tasks from week to week. Some of them have been there since 2004. When I take notes during a meeting and I get an “action item” I make note of it in the notebook and mark it with an asterisk. If it is really important it gets two asterisks and sometimes even an exclamation mark.

I guess it is not true that I never get things done. There is a flip side to my ADD and that is obsessive behavior. Every once in awhile I will become obsessed with an activity and will become so absorbed that the world around me literally disappears. I see nothing and hear nothing except for what I am focused on. If you look in my basement you will find bins of dozens of handbags that I have made after innocently embarking on a project with my daughter to make a simple tote bag. My bag making got so bad that the family decided I had to channel this and they set me up in a business selling my bags on the Internet. It was either that or add an extension on the home.

I am going to be tested for ADD within the next few weeks. I am told that the meds  for ADD are quite effective but I am not sure I will enjoy the sensation of having crisp focus. I might suddenly “come to” and be horrified with the chaos I have created around me. I will feel compelled to watch the rest of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and to finish The Historian. I am afraid that focus will rob me of my adventures — I have gone to so many nice places while others were listening to the lecture.

Fat Free

Having been a dieter for most of my 57 years I readily admit that diet food has come a long way. I have a distinct memory of my father (also prone to fat) having a box of “chocolate candy” appetite suppressents on his desk. They were packaged to look like real candies, each one wrapped in cellophane housed in a gold paper cup. I think you were supposed to eat one before each meal to stave off hunger. My dad popped them like they were M&Ms. The product, unfortunately, was called Aydes and is no longer on the market.

Even earlier than his faux candy period he consumed a vile tasting liquid in a can called Metrical. It came in a variety of flavors all of which tasted like the bottom of the Fountain of Trevi after a particularly intense pigeon visitation (don’t ask me how I know). We had a cabinet full of Metrical. It was fighting a losing battle with my father whose idea of good nutrition was to put chocolate sprinkles on his breakfast cereal and substitute Coca Cola for milk. Metrical became an “addition to” rather than an “instead of”. He ballooned.

In the 1970s the first attempts at frozen yogurt were marketed. The taste was ok but the texture was grainy and unpalatable. I attempted to create a satisfying creamy drink by mixing crushed ice with crushed pineapple and skim milk. I burned out the motors on three blenders before I gave up.  Even today the fat free drink has not yet achieved perfection. Weight Watchers Smoothies (which I picked up at my last weigh-in), while OK tasting, tend to not mix completely in the skim milk thus leaving clumps of chocolate powder floating in a thickened liquid. Not pleasant.

It is very difficult to find foods that are fat free. I swear I was saw fat free mayo and I continue to search for it. My fridge contains fat free cottage cheese (which is really all right), fat free salad dressing (also quiet eatable), and fat free cheese (my husband described his turkey and cheese sandwich as “turkey and candle on whole wheat). I switched to skim milk long ago despite its blue color. Except in the summer. In the summer I drink Dunk’n Donuts iced coffee with cream and two Equals — don’t fool with my iced coffee or I will attack.

I actually prefer fat free Saltines. They are very crunchy and salty. Nice. Popcorn does not come fat free — we have to settle for 94% fat free. Six percent fat does not manage to save this snack even if you sprinkle it with fat free Parmesan. Nonetheless, it has saved me on a couple of occasions when I snuck it in to the movies thus avoiding the real thing slathered in butter. Tonight I am going to try out fat free sour cream. Weight Watchers core plan allows one to eat baked potatoes and the thought of a dry potato is a real turn off — so I have high hopes for this experiment. I think I will put a dollop of fat free salsa on top also to hedge my bet.

Fat free bread tastes like wood shavings. Thankfully, as long as we eat bread with 3 gs of fibre we are ok on The Plan fat or no fat. Real strides have been made in making tasty bread with oats, herbs, and other delicious roughage. Don’t even to talk to me about fat free pastry, cookies, cakes, or pies. Apple Brown Bettie comes so close to being On Plan but you really can’t mess with its lard component.

Tonight’s dinner will consist of that baked potato with fat free sour cream and fat free salsa, lean steak with all visible fat trimmed off, a salad with fat free dressing, steamed green beans sprinkled with some herbs, a Weight Watchers frozen treat for dessert and chased down with Diet Coke. If I continue dieting I will be able to eliminate my nightly Ambien.

My First PC

Back in the early years of the 1980s I worked for a publishing company that sorely needed to modernize. The President wanted to make the administative and editorial staff more efficient so he thought it would be a good idea to lead us into the technological age via word processing. He consulted with me during his decision-making phase and I urged him to get personal computers (which had just come on the market) instead of stand-alone word processing equipment. I had heard that PCs could do “many things.” I did not have a clue about exactly what they could do but I had read in Newsweek that they were to be important. The President ignored my sage advice and bought a Wang word processor. And as a reward for my contradicting his leanings he made me the Wang word processing Administrator.

That meant that I had the joy of dragging the secretarial staffing kicking and screaming into training for how to merge addresses, spell check, and for the over-achievers, how to write macros. The editorial assistants already indignant that they were in training classes with the secretaries tried to pretend they were incapable of composing their own correspondence on a shared machine.

We had not paid the first installment on the Wang when the President had a change of heart. He must have finally read the Newsweek article. Suddenly he was dead serious about spreading the gospel of IBM. There was only enough money left in the company equipment fund to buy two personal computers. He kept one for himself and, beaming from ear to ear, plunked one down on my desk. I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. But since it was I who had instigated the computerization of the office I felt some considerable pressure to do something flashy.

After a week of rereading the Newsweek article (this was before the days of the Internet, remember — I could not Google myself into Knowledge) I decided that I needed to talk with my brother who was part of the newly formed Boston Computer Society. He would know. He was full of the youthful zeal so characteristic of those early Harvard and MIT geeks who made life as we know it possible.  I barely understood anything he said. But I did end up understanding that we would need to purchase software to perform specialized tasks on our computers. I got a word processor and my boss got a spreadsheet.

The boss was last seen actually performing the duties of a CEO just prior to opening the shrinkwrap on his spreadsheet software. From that point on he became totally obsessed with using it and functioned more as an accountant (causing a great deal of unhappiness in the accounting department). He drove Marketing wild by insisting that they come up with more and more demand for statistics and other number crunching. The head of Marketing, a Literature major, was not the least bit interested in a mathematical approach to her work and soon found a job elsewhere.

My boss, suitably (or unsuitably) occupied, I was left to revolutionize the word processing aspects of the office. Since we were a book publisher and I was very familiar with typesetting, I decided to use my computer to create a book. Unfortunately we were publishing medical text books and so my manuscript was filled with Greek symbols. There were no Greek symbols on my keyboard and I don’t think Greek font software had been invented yet. So everywhere there was to be Greek I left blank space and later filled it in with Greek Lettraset. To everyone’s amazement the book came together and the pages where shipped off to the printer. I had created the first desktop published book. It was crude but it was a start.

Soon more PCs were purchased and the reluctant secretaries and editorial assistants began churning out letters to the authors, copyright forms, and all the other reams of paperwork that make up the publishing world. Even Rosalie, who had to be dragged from her Selectric, eventually became a convert and named her computer after me.

Within a few years we had replaced all the inhouse typesetting equipment with desktop publishing and were producing tens of thousands of pages a year. Humming with Electronic Age success we were promptly sold to a megalithic corporation and within a few years after that all that remained of the company was an empty office and a dustbin filled with some crumpled shrinkwrap.

We all landed on our feet…the President started his own company where he could crunch numbers to his heart’s content. I took my new skills to a startup publishing company and had fun for a few years before moving on again. We stay in touch, both of us remembering fondly our first PCs.

Home Shopping

I readily admit that I love QVC and HSN and all the other home shopping networks and their web presences. I am friends with all the hosts and feel sure they think of me every day and have my best interests at heart. When they say I will “love, love, love” an item you can be guaranteed that I will. And I know in my heart that Antonella would have consulted with me about her haircut had she not been working the night shift and me the day shift at the time.

I was not always so fond of TV shopping. My first purchase (a beaded car seat/massager) fell apart instantly thus turning me off the whole idea for a good long time. But then I saw the channel set sapphire ring and had to have it. It lived up to expectations and remains one of my favorites. My husband dearly wishes that it had been a stinker. He would glady sacrifice the $119 it cost if it would mean that I never pressed the speed buy button again.

TV shopping has tricks and techniques for parting the shopper from her income. One of them is Easy Pay (known as Evil Pay to those of us who are its victims). Easy Pay allows you to pay in two to five installments instead of all at once. With Easy Pay you get that Dooney & Bourke bag right away for small change. It is easy to forget how much you have put on Easy Pay — I keep a chart and only when something falls off the chart do I allow myself to add another purchase  (in theory anyway). I am particularly susceptible to Birkenstocks, Maxx bags, Dennis Basso coats, and Dooneys.

Here is what I have bought from TV: foot long hotdogs, handbags, shoes, storage containers, key chains, nail clippers, CD organizers, scrapbooking supplies, coats, sweaters, pants, bras, serving pieces, ovenware, jewelry, lawn ornaments, beaded fruit, fake floral displays, and Christmas decorations. . . and the beaded massager. Yesterday, through an act of will power that left me drained, I passed on the solar powered two-tiered faux stone bird bath.

I work from home so I don’t see many people. So it is natural that I take a deep interest in my TV friends’ lives. It gives me great pleasure to see them happy, when they have babies or get married. I send them emails from time to time and it is so pleasant when they respond (however briefly).  When I was recovering from my total knee replacement I had lots of time to watch TV and shop online. It kept my mind off my pain and besides, I had a focus for my shopping.

I had won the QVC Anniversary cruise contest! A trip for two to the Carribean. I was delirious with excitment. Fortified with percocet I set myself up at the computer and plowed through every item description on QVC.com. A cruise, after all, requires formal wear and there were going to be five cocktail parties. I would need clothes for around the pool and clothes for excursions. Those Quaker Factory outfits began to look very appropriate.

I  felt so guilty when I would move over to HSN.com. After all, QVC was being nice enough to give me a cruise, I really should not show up in Slinky brand! But at the time HSN was offering fantastic sales on cocktail dresses and I ended up buying five (and returning three). While I was there I bought my husband a guitar. I ended up buying all my holiday gifts from the TV channels…not one trip to the mall. I will do it again next year.

My budget is still in recovery from the holidays so UPS shows up at my house only occassionally now. Besides, I have discovered Coldwater Creek’s web site and I hate to say it but my loyalties are shifting a bit. I guess I am a bad friend.

Digital Drawer

I have a drawer which holds my small digital equipment — my iPOD, camera, voice recorder, palm pilot and their various cords and documentation. The documentation for the camera is over 300 pages long (albeit it three languages). Three hundred pages and no index. My camera has features which I shall never discover, including “red eye removal” and “pounds slimmer”.

Each piece of digital equipment  has its own charger. I laid them out side by side and they are remarkably similar. How difficult would it be for the Industry to settle on a universal design so we would need only one charger? Chargers require that you remove the battery and place it in the charger. My camera grips its battery as if for dear life. There is no space in which to establish a pry hold. Slamming the camera is effective but will somewhat cut down on its useful life. Thus changing the battery is an ordeal. I have learned that slipping a silk ribbon behind the battery when I put it in gives me the needed leverage. This works well except on windy days when the ribbon ends blow in front of the lens adding a phantom stripe to my pictures.

The camera has a few features that I use and about 200 that I don’t. I admit that I am intimidated by a 300 page book entitled “Operating Manual”. Such a book I would expect to accompany a Lear Jet not a point and click. The fold out chart in the front of the manual includes a pointer to a microphone. This is truely confusing — did I not buy a camera? Have they somehow figured out how to add sound to a photograph? I don’t believe my laser jet printer supports such an advancement.

We do not get to how to take a picture until page 34. First we have to review the many icons that will sometimes appear in the view window. One looks to me like the moon peering behind the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It seems odd that of all the monuments I will hope to photograph in my lifetime they support only that one and then only at night. Other icons include a knife and fork — this is baffling. Perhaps this camera is being marketed to food stylists.

My digital voice recorder is about the size of a Bic lighter. Its control buttons are microscopic. I keep my magnifying lens stored with it. The documentation alludes to a sub-menu in which I can find many useful features. I can not find the sub-menu. I do like the ease with which I can download the voice files to my computer. I plug the recorder itself directly into a slot on the side of my PC and the files are automatically put somewhere on my hard drive. I have yet to find them.

The iPOD I am totally incapable of using. My daughter set it up for me initially and whenever I get a new CD she is sweet enough to add it to my iTunes. When she moves out of the house my music will be frozen for all time. I love my iPOD — it was a gift from my husband and he even bought it a cute pink jacket. Since I travel a lot I have had my daughter load it up with meditation music for the plane. Once the cocktail cart has come by I plug myself in and enter the iPOD zone for the next four hours.

My PDA (personal digital assistant) would never have made it through Katie Gibbs. I will cut it some slack and admit that it is one of the early models, but it has never worked right. It was supposed to be able to synchronize with my Notes calendar and I attempted that once. Neither my Notes calendar nor my PDA has been the same since. And I long ago lost the little stick one uses for data entry. I don’t know why I am keeping it.

In the drawer I also have a calculator and a radio — neither of which are digital but they are small and they did come with documentation so two out of three gains them entry. There are also some booklets for my speaker phone unit, my cell phone (in fact I have documentation for some phones that I think met untimely ends — one falling in the wash basin and one falling in the ocean).  Americans are divided into those who are afraid to throw out documentation and those that never take it out of the box in the first place.

I eagerly await the next small digital device that I will absolutely have to have. I will free up another drawer if necessary (the one in which I keep old eye glasses) or perhaps I will store my booklets on the shelf next to my manual Royal typewriter.

Portion Size

Having completed my first week on Weight Watchers (during which I was not entirely “good”) I approached the weigh-in with trepidation. Weight Watchers has the whole dieting thing down pat. As you stand in line waiting for a scale to be free there is nothing to do except look at the WW mechandise lined up on the tables. Smoothies, chewies, oatmeals, cookies, and candies …all with only 2 points. Why,  I could eat a ton of these things if they were only 2 points each! I snagged a box of chocolate smoothies justifying the $7.50 cost by doing some quick math. There are seven packets so that makes it only a little more than a buck per. The line moves forward and it is my time to be weighed. I remove my shoes and balance myself on the scale, keeping a sharp eye on the lady who is recording the result remembering my initial weigh-in fiasco (see Nero Wolfe and Me post). Oh, thank God. She looks pleased. “Very nice this week.” She hands me back my card and a Week 2 booklet.

Three pounds! Three glorious pounds. That is the equivalent of three boxes of butter, almost 1/3 of a bag of litter, $75 worth of Godiva chocolates. Awesome. Pleased as punch I wait for the Leader to begin her lecture. I talk with a lady who told me she had broken her tailbone while trying to deliver a 10 lb. baby. She then gave me a recipe for her favorite breakfast (Irish oatmeal with frozen mixed berries and a cup of protein powder — Yuck!). The Leader comes in to the room with her blouse stuffed with scarves to make her look fat. “Look at me. I am supersized.”

Supersizing started with fast food but now impacts almost all our restaurant meals. Twenty years ago the average soda was 8 oz. Now it is 32 oz. That is almost 450 calories of sugar. I could be drinking wine all night for that many calories — what yahoo is going to waste it on Coke? The Leader passes around an apple saying that it was considered to be one portion. That apple was so small I could have hidden it in my cheeks. Then a yam — only 3 points for a 7 oz yam (the catch is you have to like yam sans the candied sauce and I don’t).

I have a party to attend on Saturday so I have to plan a strategy for how I’ll handle the food. If I save my flex points I can eat what I want. Oh wait, I have to deduct for the alcohol I’ll be drinking. And I’ll need some of those points for lunch with the girls. So I guess I can count on having 5 points to splurge at the party. . . that would be one yam and the apple.

Lettuce Wraps, Soup, and Other Challenging Food

I once was taken to lunch by the Big Boss at the publishing house were I worked as a reward for my management of a highly successful sales event. The Big Boss was Elegant. She shopped for Ferragamo shoes at Saks during lunch hour.  She took me to a very upscale, chic, minimalist restaurant. I was not uncomfortable in these surroundings — I have often enjoyed fine dining — except for one detail. I spill food. Back then Tide pens were yet to be invented and all my blouses had a small, round stain centered on the bosom. I measured the success of a day by how few spots were on my clothes. Being keenly aware of my vulnerability I studied the menu carefully looking for the most integrated food choices. Sandwiches were relatively safe but there were no sandwiches being offered. Steak is good as are mashed potatoes. I avoid pasta, sauces, peas, and any floppy ingredients. I was about to settle on a pork chop (not my favorite food but a manageable one) when to my utter amazement the Big Boss whipped out her napkin and tucked it in under her chin. She noticed my shock and looked me straight in the eyes and said “Linda, I am not about to ruin a blouse I spent $180 for.” I followed suit. There we sat in our power clothes, Coach bags tucked at our feet, sporting brilliant, white, linen bibs at our necks. Since then I have always worn a bib.

Now that I have Parkinson’s the food challenge is, of course, much greater. Eating soup in public is out of the question. I don’t want an entire restaurant holding its breath as I attempt to navigate spoon to mouth. Anything that requires assembly is out so no tacos, lettuce wraps, or moo shu pork. Peanut butter, on the other hand, is a welcome friend. It tastes good and adheres to anything it touches. It does not leak out of the bread nor roll off the cutlery. Along with stem cell research I hope there is work being done to develop more foods with its qualities.

But it is not only the disabled who wrestle with recalcitrant food. It is a universal Problem. Why then is so little being done to correct it? Does Lever Brothers hold such power over the industrial scientists over the world that they can protect laundry product revenues to such an extent? Or perhaps the shirt and blouse manufacturers have a secret syndicate, blocking any patent requests for cooperative food. Levi, in what I am sure was a response to a dare at the Christmas party, came out with Stainguard. That is nice if all you wear are khaki pants. Even the Tide pen is just a delaying tactic since more than one application at the same spot leaves an absence of color — the Anti Stain.

As a result of perpetual bibedness, I have a huge collection of napkins at home.  Most are kept for company. Towel paper works for routine meals with the family. I recently received an invitation to attend a seminar on how to obtain a patent for your ideas. I think I will go…perhaps I can combine my tennis sweat towel idea with my bib idea in some sort of reversible sport-to-spot designer accessory.

Give Me the Music that Soothes My Soul

 I have been thinking about which songs have touched me deepest, changed my life, given me joy or buckled me in grief. When I was a child, my parents had a reel-to-reel Grundig tape player which was on at least 12 hours a day playing opera, musicals, and jazz. By the time I was ten I knew every lyric to every musical recorded on tape. I could hum the entire score of Carmen. I sang along with Perry Como and Ella Fitzgerald. As a result of all this early exposure, I have eclectic taste in music — my collection ranges from Pink to Puccini.

My brother (older by 18 months) preferred “Danc’n with a Dolly with a Hole in Her Stock’n” and songs that glorified Davey Crocker. We hit our teens in the 60s and my earliest remembrance of rock ‘n roll was of my Mom talking about “Dancing in the Street.” I loved its exuberant celebration of life. Only a short time later  I was swooning over the Beatles, Elvis, and The Beach Boys.  Once on a long car trip I sang “Going to the Chapel” one too many times and my Dad craned around yelling “you have got to stop.

The Supremes reigned supreme on my record player.  I bought every album, teased my hair, and wished I were black. But no one came as close in my heart as Johnny Mathis — a god of voice. What young lady would not yield under the spell of “Chances Are”? Every day after school I locked myself in the study and played that album over and over and over. Johnny Mathis is the first on my top five list of music that shaped me. Next to Johnny Mathis on the shelf was Brazil 66. Soulful, seductive bossa nova, cool samba, ahhhhh. Every song on that album is still with me — years later, those were the songs I sang to my baby instead of lullabies. She particularly liked “One Note Samba”.

Johnny Mathis was rivalled as a sexual stimulant by the Righteous Brothers. Slow dancing to “Unchained Melody” or “You’ve Lost that Love’n Feeling” inevitably lead to heavy petting. We walked it off with Peter and Gordon, the Stones and endless frugging to “Doctor, doctor, Mr. MD, can you tell me what’s ail’n me?”

Barbara Streisand’s “Soon its Going to Rain” and “Second Hand Rose” were played often. I stopped listening to that album only after my mother “accidentally” left it on the radiator. I guess I had subjected her to one too many repeats of my scratched and skipping record. Being robbed of Barbara left room for a radical change in music appreciation. Into my life came Joan Baez. “Diamonds and Rust” is #2 on my list. A more romantic, heart-breaking song of unfulfilled love has never been written. 

A year was lost in a haze of acid rock, Jefferson Airplane, Cream. But then I met my husband. I was almost 18 and vulnerable and very, very romantic. The theme song from the movie “A Man and a Woman” helped him win my heart and we played it at our wedding. It becomes #3 on my list for purely sentimental reasons. Married life took my focus off music for awhile until the Bee Gees took me back by storm. I was the disco queen from the Bronx, at least in my own living room. The Bee Gees oeuvre rates #4. I was very pregnant when Michael Jackson’s Thriller hit #1  on the charts. I put my headset on my belly so my baby could enjoy the pulsating joy ride in utero. Postpartum, I reached my all time low weight exercycling to “Beat it”

Roy Orbison is #5.  He layered my life with his amazing vocal range and resigned rhythm and blues soulfullness. I sing “Crying” to this day. No one need ever to experience heartbreak –his expression of those simple lyrics “I was all right for awhile” capture that emotion for all time. The quality of tragedy exuded from him and if we could have seen behind those dark glasses we would have seen loss, humor, and pathos. 

In a separate category are my daughter’s performances of Beethoven and Debussy. She is blessed with amazing talent and perfect pitch. She plays so sweetly it makes me cry.

In addition to the music mentioned above, The Let Me Get Lost in Your Rock ‘n Roll hall of fame includes:

My Fair Lady, The Phantom of the Opera, The Man of LaMancha, “Unbreak My Heart”, “Don’t Worry Baby”, “Somewhere There is a Place for Us”, Meatloaf, Christina Aquilera, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Carol King, Carly Simon, Lee Ann Reimes, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Shirley Bassey, Tommy Dorsey, Gershwin, and The Kingston Trio.

Handicapped Parking

The best part about having Parkinson’s is that you get to have a handicapped parking placard. The years being taken off my life by chronic illness are being regained by the time I save finding parking. . . 10 or 12 minutes here and there adds up over a lifetime. How nice it is to drive right up to the mall entrance and see the cheerful blue and white universal symbol for disability. How poetic are the words “van accessible”.

My placard arrived in the mail from the Registry of Motor Vehicles complete with a paper privacy screen that I could slip over the name and photo portion. That tore off within the first month of use leaving my smiling driver’s license face dangling from the car mirror for all to see.

Unlike many of my fellow placard holders, I do not leave it perpetually hanging from the mirror — that creates a driving hazard and carries a $50 fine. Like what cop is going to fine a disabled person? Nor do I leave it on the dashboard — that causes a distracting reflection in the window and also leaves the placard out in the sun where it could melt or fade. I keep mine in my purse. This requires, of course, that my handbag be wide enough or long enough to hold the placard. . . thus ensued a bag buying frenzy so that my precious card was fashionably housed.

I am fond of my handicapped placard. I named it (it is not unusual for me to name my inanimate possessions) Jean Luc Placard in homage to the captain of the Starship Enterprise (see my I’m Not a Geek post). When pulling into the supermarket parking lot my daughter will say “did you bring Jean Luc?”.

I have noticed that the HP spots in our town are inaccessible to the disabled. They require parallel parking or are otherwise wedged between the perpetually double-parked UPS truck and a snow drift. My health club has eight spots, six of which are used by the tennis pros since they are right next to the courts. Even the local steak house, where the mean age of the customers is 73 and dinner hour peaks at 5:30, there are three spots all of which require executing precision driving.  The Foodmaster has three spots too, one of which is always occupied by a taxicab waiting for an elderly shopper, motor running, noxious fumes curling, wafting into the windows of the handicapped parkers. Maybe the cabbie is  unaware, or perhaps  he thinks a quick death from carbon monoxide would be doing us a favor.

Food

I have food issues. The newest one is an addiction to The Food Network. TFN is the opium for the masses — for a nation of wannabe chefs and already expert eaters. How easily Rachel Ray drew me in with her supposed travelogue in which she spends $40 a day on food and eats like a queen. How endlessly fascinating is Alton Brown’s autopsy of a pomegranate — leaving me craving more food science. How gripping is the titan battle of the Iron Chefs — a war fought with Ginzu knives and flaming kabobs.

The Food Network is not alone. The Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain has a power over me that nothing short of antivenom will break. His motorcycle journey across America, visiting every diner of note, every mom and pop factory producing regional candy, every remote and scanky bar seduces me, lures me away from my responsibilities, makes me long to give up everything. I would eat a ton of Tabasco for that man.

It is quite clear to anyone remotely inclined to seeing conspiracies that there is a long-term plan in place to control American through cooking. The plan includes sleeper cells and covert operations. Graham Kerr was an early agent, Julia Child even earlier (and she has admitted she was a spy!). The folks at the Moosewood cookbook played a large role through the subtle use of healthy eating. Yan (of Yan Can Cook) was the friendly face of the Asian branch of the project.

In the 1950s the average household’s spice rack contained salt and pepper. Those on McCarthy’s list probably also had garlic. By the 1960s garam masala was widely accepted and most everyone knew that the wine you cooked with had to be good enough to drink and enjoy. The 1970s brought an understanding of bouquet garni, reductions, and the mandolin slicer. The project had to fight hard to survive the 80s. Fast food actually became fast and tasty and it would do no good to have Americans perish prematurely through hardening of the arteries. The 90s saw the movement go underground during a particularly bad time in which thin was in.

Giada de Laurentis, resplendent with cleavage and agile with the cleaver, ushered in the turn of the century mesmerizing men, women, young, old alike. The gross national product sky rocketed as every home invested in a professional gas range with five burners and a convection oven. Billions of small electric appliances were opened on Christmas morning — coffee grinders, knife sharpeners, portable mixers, blenders, dicers, slicers, and steamers. Gadgets became status symbols — the newest can openers, the wine plugs, the lock ‘n lock units, the vacuum sealers.

It was all leading up to Paula Dean. The coup de grace. When I am wrapped in the warm comfort of Paula Dean’s home cook’n I would give up life itself. No one thought twice when she said “add another stick of buttah, one package of cream cheese, vaneela, a cup of cream, and another stick of buttah. Brought to our knees, the Food Moguls could demand anything.

Now ain’t that deelicious?

I Am Not a Geek, Really

I am not a geek, really. Perhaps I do suffer from a bit of arrested development but in a most benign way. The fact that I am a 57 year old female should not disqualify me from enjoying Lara Croft video games. My having been to an X-Files convention reflects how much I spoil my daughter, and has nothing to do with the fact that I have a Mitch Pileggi screen saver. And I am sure that there are armies of middle-aged women who own every episode and movie of Star Gate S-G 1, Star Trek (every generation), and Star Wars. My Jaba the Hut figurine collection is an investment not a passion.

James Bond movies on video and CD line my cabinets along with Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes, sharing space with my daughter’s Indie films. Radio Shak TRS-80 Pong games, Commander Keen, Sega games, Gameboy and Playstation I and II occupy space next to knickknacks and Valerie Parr Hill beaded fruit displays. I quote characters from early video games long since off the market. “What could possibly go wrong?”I wait eagerly for the long-in-coming Star Gate video game. I have book marked every web site devoted to reviewing games.

My daughter, a graphic designer/college student, created a “movie” poster for a movie she named “Im a Huge Geek” and subtitled “Starring Me”. It hangs on my home office wall. The illustration is of a robot, damsel in distress, and space ship, all framed by the swirl of a galaxy. She shares my love of all things alien and adventurous. I have either done an excellent job of mothering, thus forging such a bond, or I have warped her.

I knew I had married into the right family when I discovered that my father-in-law had a leather bound first edition set of every Ian Flemming James Bond novel. Upon his death they passed to me. James Bond movies are shown on the Spike channel — TV for men. I am sorry, but I object to this recent move to so segment viewers…Lifetime channel for the ladies and Spike for the men. I am a devoted Spike watcher. But my favorite of all channels, of course, is the Sci-fi channel. Almost twenty-four hours a day of science fiction. That is really glorious despite some recent programming executive’s decision to broadcast WW Wrestling. But I guess these guys are about as alien as they come here on earth.

I have never dressed up in costume pretending I am Worf or the ship’s counselor. I won’t dwell on the fact that my brother wore a Holmesian deerstalker hat for most of his youth (guessing there is a genetic component at play). And I can count of one hand the number of days I have missed work because a Star Gate marathon was playing on TV. I can not perform a Vulcan mind meld nor spread my fingers in the Vulcan equivalent of a a peace gesture/greeting (despite years of trying). I do not speak Klingon. If I did these things then, perhaps, there would be some justification for labeling me a geek.

Wyoming 60 miles

I am navigationally impaired — one of those people who have to think before they point left or right. When I travel by plane and know I have a car trip at the other end, I always book a flight that leaves early in the day. This guarantees that I will have maximum daylight left upon arrival. Daylight is important to those of us who are perpetually lost. I would rather die a death from 1000 cuts than have to navigate in the dark. Part of the problem is that I am very literal. When a sign says “next right” I assume it means “next right” not “the right after the next right which actually takes you half a mile to the highway truck inspection station and then ends.” Speaking of trucks, it is inevitable that as soon as I see a sign that says “exit in 1/4 mile” a huge 16 wheeler will pull in front of me blocking my view of signage. The anticipated exit in approximately 1300 feet is suddenly behind me. “How is my driving? Call 1-800-555-1212.”

On my first trip to Colorado it took me forty minutes to get out of the airport and onto the highway. I entered and exited the Hertz parking lot so many times that I got a free upgrade. I saw every inch of Denver International at least twice including a restricted area monitored by a guy who was not amused the first time and very amused the second.

It is not like I don’t prepare for having to navigate in strange places. I review my map on the plane, I even print out my directions in large type so I can easily read them while driving. For my trip to Boulder, my “friend” gave me elaborate instructions for how to take the back roads thus cutting my travel time by 30 minutes. She did not tell me that I would hit a long stretch in which all I would see was flat, arid land, prairie dogs, and a lone strip joint featuring naked ladies and lap dancing. It was surrounded by dusty pick up trucks and Harleys. I did not want to stop and ask for directions. I thought about gang rape and alien abduction.

I merged onto the first highway I could find, giving up on the back roads gambit. At first I felt confident since I saw a sign for Longmont and I knew that was somewhere near Boulder. I grew less confident when I no longer saw signs of human habitation. When I saw a sign that said “Wyoming 60 miles” I sensed I had overshot my mark. The nearest turn-around was in 13 miles. All that was between me and the road going in the opposite (right) direction was a dirt strip about 50 feet across. I pulled a gigantic Uey hoping that the Man was not parked with his radar gun behind some tumbleweed.

On the right track at last I entered Boulder and I could even spot the hotel from the highway. It took me another half hour to figure out how to actually get to the hotel since no one had told me that it was behind a shopping plaza and you had to go through the Safeway parking lot to get there. I drove down the street until it came to an end at the base of Foothills National Park. I could either fork over two bucks to get into the park or I could go back. I went back. I only found the hotel by chance when I stopped at the shopping plaza to ask for directions. The clerk had been over-trained in cheerfulness. “Hi honey, you find everything you needed?” “No, I need directions to the Homewood Suites.” “Oh, why honey you are here.” Well, I knew I was here… I wanted to be there. “What do you mean I am here?” “Honey, the hotel is right here, right behind the store. You just go through the lot and take a left and you’ll see the entrance. Can’t miss it.” I thanked the lady and bought wine coolers (3% alcohol) and checked in to the hotel.

Homewood Suites is one of those hotels that has a chain of multiple buildings marked A, B, C, etc. My room was in D3. No other building had a dual character designation. I found building D OK but my room was not there. A cleaning lady who spoke only Spanish looked at my key card and shouted “tres, tres, tres” and pointed wildly farther ahead. D3 was a small addition to the heating and ventilation system building. Despite the continuous hum, my room was adequate, the wine cooler was like the nectar of the gods, and I had time to mosey back to the lobby for social hour featuring chicken wings and the companionship of my fellow travelers.

Why I Want to Be a Buddhist

I am a secular humanist (meaning that I believe in science and in the good will of people). I believe that through good will, tolerance, and understanding we might actually not destroy the world. Secular humanism has to be the most boring substitution for “spirituality” that there is. No ritual, no holidays, no statuary, robes or gilded pulpits, no prayers, chants, or OMing. There is no such thing as a secular humanist choir. Unless we tote around the Danish Manifesto of Secular Humanism there is no way to spot us in a crowd — no cross or Star of David, or symbol to make us visually part of a community. Most people have never heard of secular humanism and are happy to assume it is one of those New England branches of protestantism practiced by four of our early Presidents and then all but died out. There are no houses of worship. The closest we get to that is when we get invited to go to a Unitarian pot luck supper. There is no celebration of entering a spiritual kingdom or attaining an age of acceptance or ascending to a higher plane upon death (if you have been good). I once worked with a woman who cried when she found out I had not been baptized. I asked her if she really believed that Jesus would make me go to Hell over a technicality even if I lived a very good life and she said yes.

Being a secular humanist  is not satisfying. Intellectually it is tight, emotionally it is lacking. Sometimes I need to cave to a higher power. When one is downwind of the fan for long enough it is easy to make room in one’s life for something else. It is getting harder to stay with the  “good will and understanding.” I think about Iraq and 911 and Bosnia and see no hope.

Buddhists, on the other hand, can find enlightenment and then “burn utterly away”. They think about things like “the whole world is a single flower”. There are millions of them. I can’t imagine a spiritually lonely Buddhist. Buddhists meditate and find peace. They leave prayer papers in shrines that have been there for centuries. Their spiritual leader emerged from a Lotus flower. Unlike every other religion, I can’t think of a single nasty thing that has been done to propagate Buddhism.

When I die I want to be cremated. That is probably as close to “burning utterly away” as I am going to get. If I find enlightenment before then, it will be through staring at the stars in wonderment.

Why Do I Buy Cheap Clothes?

My therapist is a lovely woman exactly my age. She dresses beautifully. At our last visit she had on stunning brown suede boots — so simple and elegant. Her shirt collar was turned up casually and was framed by an oatmeal colored Irish knit sweater. Clearly she shopped at Talbots or Lord & Taylor and not only during the semi-annual sale. I was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a striped tee shirt I got at Sears several years ago for $6.99 after Christmas.

I never buy clothes unless they are on mega, final mark-down clearance. Twenty-five dollars is my limit unless it is my birthday or something. Nothing in my closet was actually designed to go together. I own no “ensembles” and way too many flowered prints. I have tried several times to put my shirt collar up in that self-confident and stylish manner that I so envy. I look ridiculous. Several times a year I vow never to buy another stripe or print but usually that is all that is left by the time my price-range criteria are met. It is not that I have horrendous taste. I do not. Nor is it that I can not afford nice clothes. I can. Am I not worthy of being stylish? Is my closet a reflection of poor self-esteem?

Maybe today I will go through my closet and toss the worst offenders and make a list of what I need to create a basic, nice wardrobe. But Spring is coming and that is such a difficult season to shop for. I have no idea what to wear in the warmer weather. I guess the neon orange shorts set I bought for the cruise will have to go (it was practically being given away) as will the multi-pastel plaid pants. Should I never enter TJ Maxx again? Perhaps I should pause at the mall entrance and chant for a few minutes “I am worthy, I am worthy.” If malls had chapels the pews would be divided between the compulsive over-spenders praying that they can once again divert the Visa bill before hubby sees it and the low self-esteemers praying for a bargain.

Can I walk past the vinyl bags in Sears? Will I allow myself to fondle the Michael Kors at Macy’s? Will I be able to seriously consider a full-priced item? If I buy an “investment piece” will I actually allow myself to wear it?

Maybe if I wear my shirt collar up only when I am alone indoors I can get used to it.

On the Death of a Pet

My beloved kitty, age 18, lies behind the TV armoire getting ready to die. She has declined rapidly over the past few days. We said our goodbyes last night when she briefly emerged and came over to me. I picked her up and laid her on my chest and petted her for a good long time. She was so frail. I have read that cats purr both when they are happy and also when they are in pain. She was purring and I hope it was because she was happy. Muffin has always been an excellent cat. I have had several cats in my lifetime and she is the best. A generous companion, a lovely, intelligent cat. She will probably die today and will leave a hole in my life. There was mutual love between us. I hope there is a kitty heaven.

Our dog Prince died last year. He was a Cocker Spaniel and was only ten. He had every medical problem known to man. But he had the sweetest disposition. Prince was really my husband’s dog. I have never been a dog person and I think he sensed that. But I loved him nonetheless. I would love anything that brought my husband and daughter as much joy as Prince did. Despite that, I did not feel his loss as much as I will feel Muffin’s. Muffie was my cat, my companion, my solisce.

Our house will be empty with no dog and no cat. No bowls of food on the floor, or toys strewn about, or grooming equipment left around. No smells from kitty litter or wet dog. I won’t have to close all the doors to keep the pets out (since they both liked to pee where they should not). No changing kitty litter or wiping up hair ball vomit. No accidents.

I hope we get a new pet soon.

Starting Weight

There are two opposing approaches to managing the first Weight Watchers weigh-in. Experienced (but failed) dieters always go for the Mr. T approach. They wear their heaviest shoes and lots of chain necklaces and a belt with a buckle worthy of Champeen of the World status. If they are really into delusion they keep their coats on. The result is that at the next weigh-in they come as close to buck naked as town bylaws permit. The differential between Mr. T and Naked Lady usually is about seven pounds. Congratulations on your astounding weight loss!

Newbie dieters approach the scale like it will suddenly drop down like a trap door hurtling them into a vat of cabbage soup where they will boil along with the other on Core plan food items. They slip off their shoes and arrange them neatly next to the scale. They remove their sweater. “OMG, let me take off this watch — it is so heavy.” Stripped down to their minimum weight they finally allow the attendant to record the result.

After a week of assiduous dieting the Newbie has lost .6 lb. Woohoo. The Experience dieter has lost 7 lbs despite the Texas bar-b-que dinner and Tuesday evening’s jello shot marathon at Daisey’s.