54. I Figured It Out
I woke up this morning and I had it all figured out: what I wanted to do today, what movies I wanted to see, who I want my husband to marry when I die… I’m not dying, but if I do I know exactly who he should marry. I won’t tell you because you’ll think I’m insane. He thought I was insane when I told him but I could tell by the smile on his face that not only did he think I am insane but that it’s a good idea. And then he went back to sleep.
I am taking a break from cleaning. I awoke refreshed at 9 a.m. after getting to bed at 3:00 with half of an Ambien in my system and thought about rushing off to the gym for a one-hour body sculpting class; one with weights and aerobics and the promise of absolute exhaustion at the end. Then I smelled my house and decided to put this energy into cleaning it; something that wouldn’t happen if I left it at the gym. I had a cup of real coffee instead of my usual decaf and tackled the loft/den first, washing upholstery, dusting, polishing but holding off on the vacuuming until the sleepy men in my life catch up. Whoo! I am charged. Next was the kitchen. What was that smell under the sink? It’s gone now. The scents of Pledge, Endust, Lysol, Febreze, Oxi-clean, Cheer and Snuggle are tickling my senses; lemon and vanilla, yum.
I can’t write for long. There are other rooms to conquer, dust mites to vanquish, odors to obliterate. I will not allow myself to think of the futility of it all; that no matter how clean I get everything right now it will be dirty again within a few days. Nothing matters except right now. Clean, clean, clean, go to a feel good movie and then maybe turn my attention to world peace. I can do it. Today I can do anything.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thanksgiving-2009
My husband and I are about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, no easy task when you consider that no spring chickens walked down our aisle. He had been divorced and I had been conscientiously seeking out only men who would rather have nails driven into the soles of their feet than commit to a lifelong relationship. I had Chronic Rejection Syndrome, a condition in which the surest way to my heart was to tell me you were leaving. So it was odd when this terrific guy actually stayed. It was odder that I wanted him to. And here he is today, coughing and complaining in the throes of an upper respiratory event that has laid waste to his energy, his mood and our bank account for over two weeks; kicking me out of the room we shared until the plague sent me to sleep in my son’s abandoned room so I wouldn’t get it. But my son came home last night for Thanksgiving and asked for his bed back so I returned to my own bed along with Camille (Camillo?); surely he’s not still contagious! But he just kicked me out of there because my typing is bothering him. Swine flu? Who knows? It looks like we will toast our anniversary with chicken soup unless we kill each other first.
I just opened an email from Susan Bysiewicz, paid for by Friends of Susan 2010, which tells me she is running for something bigger than what she has now; perhaps Governor. It also tells me that she has much better friends than I do because they paid for her to send me this letter. Why this was necessary I don’t quite understand. To my knowledge email is free so where was the cost? Did she pay to have someone else write it? I don’t think so because she talks about her family, what they will be eating for Thanksgiving, and how frickin’ lucky she is compared to a whole bunch of us. Did she pay someone to send it for her? Because that is hard work: writing the letter, inputting the mailing list and pressing “Send.” Perhaps her friends are paying for Constant Comment, that service that keeps that junk mail coming on a more personal level.
In the letter she quotes “our dear friend Ted Kennedy” who quoted the biblical passage that inspired much of his great work: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Her immediate actions on behalf of those less fortunate than she is will be to pray for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and to light a candle for people like me; the unemployed and economically thunderstruck residents of CT who are watching our futures circle the drain and are wondering which welfare hotel we will retire to, assuming there will be any welfare left.
I want to make it clear that I kind of like Susan. (That’s how she signed the letter so I feel like I know her well enough to call her that.) I’m a registered Democrat and really believe I have a better chance of living somewhere other than a park bench if Democrats are in control, assuming they get off their asses and TAKE control. If the letter had been from anyone else, say a republican or a certain recently turned independent, I probably wouldn’t have even read their bullshit. But I have to say that the image of the Bysiewicz family gorging on “the turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, plus great dishes like kapusta and spanakopita from both the Greek and Polish sides” of her family while she is “thinking about the work that lies ahead to bring economic prosperity back to Connecticut” made me a little… sick. It made me think of all the families that will be wondering how they can stretch the leftovers to last for a week until the thought of reheated turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey Tetrazzini, turkey hash and turkey surprise causes Junior to threaten Mom with bodily harm if she even uses the word “turkey” again!
She did utter (print?) a prayer “that all families can celebrate at this time in 2010 without the anxiety that has marked so much of the past year.” If I had any belief left in the power of prayer, I would say the same thing.
“From (Susan’s) family to yours”, and from me and mine, “have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.”
I just opened an email from Susan Bysiewicz, paid for by Friends of Susan 2010, which tells me she is running for something bigger than what she has now; perhaps Governor. It also tells me that she has much better friends than I do because they paid for her to send me this letter. Why this was necessary I don’t quite understand. To my knowledge email is free so where was the cost? Did she pay to have someone else write it? I don’t think so because she talks about her family, what they will be eating for Thanksgiving, and how frickin’ lucky she is compared to a whole bunch of us. Did she pay someone to send it for her? Because that is hard work: writing the letter, inputting the mailing list and pressing “Send.” Perhaps her friends are paying for Constant Comment, that service that keeps that junk mail coming on a more personal level.
In the letter she quotes “our dear friend Ted Kennedy” who quoted the biblical passage that inspired much of his great work: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Her immediate actions on behalf of those less fortunate than she is will be to pray for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and to light a candle for people like me; the unemployed and economically thunderstruck residents of CT who are watching our futures circle the drain and are wondering which welfare hotel we will retire to, assuming there will be any welfare left.
I want to make it clear that I kind of like Susan. (That’s how she signed the letter so I feel like I know her well enough to call her that.) I’m a registered Democrat and really believe I have a better chance of living somewhere other than a park bench if Democrats are in control, assuming they get off their asses and TAKE control. If the letter had been from anyone else, say a republican or a certain recently turned independent, I probably wouldn’t have even read their bullshit. But I have to say that the image of the Bysiewicz family gorging on “the turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, plus great dishes like kapusta and spanakopita from both the Greek and Polish sides” of her family while she is “thinking about the work that lies ahead to bring economic prosperity back to Connecticut” made me a little… sick. It made me think of all the families that will be wondering how they can stretch the leftovers to last for a week until the thought of reheated turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey Tetrazzini, turkey hash and turkey surprise causes Junior to threaten Mom with bodily harm if she even uses the word “turkey” again!
She did utter (print?) a prayer “that all families can celebrate at this time in 2010 without the anxiety that has marked so much of the past year.” If I had any belief left in the power of prayer, I would say the same thing.
“From (Susan’s) family to yours”, and from me and mine, “have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.”
Monday, November 16, 2009
Plans
Congratulations to fan Ellie on the upcoming December wedding of her daughter. I too opted for a December wedding and our 25th anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. We have no plans.
My husband swears he proposed to me and I accepted. As I recall it, I was in the bathroom in a hotel room in the Catskills when I overheard him talking to my mother and telling her we were getting married. (He also swears that we planned to have a baby a couple of years later while I am sure it was an accident after a Christmas party. Plan a child? I can’t plan a vacation!) But back to the wedding and my fear of plans…
Faced with the prospect of a deadline, I opted for one that would require immediate decisions, quick action and not a lot of room for discussion. I gave my mother six weeks. December, I thought; very atypical. No blushing June bride will I be. My mother almost fainted at the suggestion. A December wedding? It would snow. Her own November 30th wedding years ago with a tasteful reception a few weeks later covered Brooklyn in a blanket of white that would conceal the streets until spring. But I envisioned annual excuses to get away to a tropical island to celebrate one anniversary after another. (Yeah, that happened.)
The white gown was out. I’d been to a wedding at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the bride wore a gown that rivaled Princess Di’s even though the happy couple had been living together for seven years. You needed a vacuum cleaner to get rid of the dirt that was dished in those pews. I vowed I would never set myself up for that ridicule. So we opted (I opted; I don’t recall my darling husband ever doing anything but smiling and agreeing in those days) for a small, funky wedding. I wore a dress with fringes and a tiny hat with veil that recalled bygone days. Mom took Don to Orchard Street to help him find a suit. We hired a jazz pianist to play at the reception in a trendy Park Slope restaurant and asked him to serenade us down the aisle at the Garfield Synagogue nearby. I don’t believe the man had ever been in a synagogue. Since I hadn’t planned anything special, he was left to his own devices on what to play. Given the fact that it was December he figured seasonal music was appropriate. My guests were seated to “Silent Night”. I don’t remember what we walked down the aisle to; there was an incessant pulsating in my ears at the time. I should look at the video! Since I was gaining a seven year old son in the arrangement, we invited all our cousins’ children, but I didn’t plan for anyone to watch them. Hence, they got bombed on sugary Shirley Temples and trashed the bathroom.
All this is to say that I am not a good planner. I can throw a dinner together in 15 minutes and a banquet if I have the time but I can’t choose the date for the banquet so my parties are all fairly spontaneous. I’d love to take a vacation but know that as soon as I commit to being somewhere else, the phone will ring with work I can’t accept because I planned a trip. Financial planning? Forget about it! You can’t make something out of nothing. Funeral planning? My take on that is about to come out in video. It’s called “Planning Ahead” and I’ll let you know where to find it. I planned to get up and go to the gym this morning but it is now 1:30 and I have to go to NYC.
If I have learned anything about plans it is that “Life is what happens to you when you plan something else.” I also like “Man plans and God laughs.” So go with the flow and keep your snow shoes by the door.
P.S.- Yes, it did snow on our wedding day.
My husband swears he proposed to me and I accepted. As I recall it, I was in the bathroom in a hotel room in the Catskills when I overheard him talking to my mother and telling her we were getting married. (He also swears that we planned to have a baby a couple of years later while I am sure it was an accident after a Christmas party. Plan a child? I can’t plan a vacation!) But back to the wedding and my fear of plans…
Faced with the prospect of a deadline, I opted for one that would require immediate decisions, quick action and not a lot of room for discussion. I gave my mother six weeks. December, I thought; very atypical. No blushing June bride will I be. My mother almost fainted at the suggestion. A December wedding? It would snow. Her own November 30th wedding years ago with a tasteful reception a few weeks later covered Brooklyn in a blanket of white that would conceal the streets until spring. But I envisioned annual excuses to get away to a tropical island to celebrate one anniversary after another. (Yeah, that happened.)
The white gown was out. I’d been to a wedding at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the bride wore a gown that rivaled Princess Di’s even though the happy couple had been living together for seven years. You needed a vacuum cleaner to get rid of the dirt that was dished in those pews. I vowed I would never set myself up for that ridicule. So we opted (I opted; I don’t recall my darling husband ever doing anything but smiling and agreeing in those days) for a small, funky wedding. I wore a dress with fringes and a tiny hat with veil that recalled bygone days. Mom took Don to Orchard Street to help him find a suit. We hired a jazz pianist to play at the reception in a trendy Park Slope restaurant and asked him to serenade us down the aisle at the Garfield Synagogue nearby. I don’t believe the man had ever been in a synagogue. Since I hadn’t planned anything special, he was left to his own devices on what to play. Given the fact that it was December he figured seasonal music was appropriate. My guests were seated to “Silent Night”. I don’t remember what we walked down the aisle to; there was an incessant pulsating in my ears at the time. I should look at the video! Since I was gaining a seven year old son in the arrangement, we invited all our cousins’ children, but I didn’t plan for anyone to watch them. Hence, they got bombed on sugary Shirley Temples and trashed the bathroom.
All this is to say that I am not a good planner. I can throw a dinner together in 15 minutes and a banquet if I have the time but I can’t choose the date for the banquet so my parties are all fairly spontaneous. I’d love to take a vacation but know that as soon as I commit to being somewhere else, the phone will ring with work I can’t accept because I planned a trip. Financial planning? Forget about it! You can’t make something out of nothing. Funeral planning? My take on that is about to come out in video. It’s called “Planning Ahead” and I’ll let you know where to find it. I planned to get up and go to the gym this morning but it is now 1:30 and I have to go to NYC.
If I have learned anything about plans it is that “Life is what happens to you when you plan something else.” I also like “Man plans and God laughs.” So go with the flow and keep your snow shoes by the door.
P.S.- Yes, it did snow on our wedding day.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Frustrated
The other night I spent two and a half excruciating hours watching bad high school theater and I can’t get a job!
I watched a school with money and resources and at least 40 kids deeply involved in a drama program that taught them nothing over the course of an entire semester and I can’t get a job!
I saw teenagers performing material that they did not understand, directed by a teacher who clearly does not have the capacity to help them understand and I can’t get a job!
I live in a state where the criterion for teaching drama in schools seems to be possession of a Master’s Degree regardless of any ability on the part of that teacher to actually teach something, and I can’t get a job! Would you permit a dance teacher to teach math; an art teacher to teach chemistry? Why is just any teacher permitted to teach drama? Certification in English does NOT mean you are qualified to teach drama.
There is currently no teacher certification in drama which may partially explain why so many of these school programs are such a disaster, but I can’t get a job! Wake up folks! Theatre is not math or science. It is an art. It requires an understanding that goes beyond the written page. It requires talent. It is a communications medium and any teacher who is not qualified to impart the basics of communication to their students should not be teaching drama! But I can’t get a job!
Regardless of whether or not a student ever sets foot upon a professional stage, the advantages to be gained from learning how to speak, to empathize, to translate a playwright’s words into action, to understand something of the human condition, are immeasurable. These skills make better lawyers, doctors, and even teachers. You are shortchanging the students by not insisting on quality education in this communications medium. You are wasting their time and opportunity.
Admittedly, even certification in theatre would not necessarily mean one is qualified to teach theatre. It’s clear if a dancer can dance or if an art teacher can draw or paint. It is not so clear in theatre. But, to begin, a certification process should include directing and acting courses, theatre history, script interpretation, development of a vocabulary and a review process that tests potential teachers to see if they can communicate what they have learned.
And I can’t get a job! Frustrated!
I watched a school with money and resources and at least 40 kids deeply involved in a drama program that taught them nothing over the course of an entire semester and I can’t get a job!
I saw teenagers performing material that they did not understand, directed by a teacher who clearly does not have the capacity to help them understand and I can’t get a job!
I live in a state where the criterion for teaching drama in schools seems to be possession of a Master’s Degree regardless of any ability on the part of that teacher to actually teach something, and I can’t get a job! Would you permit a dance teacher to teach math; an art teacher to teach chemistry? Why is just any teacher permitted to teach drama? Certification in English does NOT mean you are qualified to teach drama.
There is currently no teacher certification in drama which may partially explain why so many of these school programs are such a disaster, but I can’t get a job! Wake up folks! Theatre is not math or science. It is an art. It requires an understanding that goes beyond the written page. It requires talent. It is a communications medium and any teacher who is not qualified to impart the basics of communication to their students should not be teaching drama! But I can’t get a job!
Regardless of whether or not a student ever sets foot upon a professional stage, the advantages to be gained from learning how to speak, to empathize, to translate a playwright’s words into action, to understand something of the human condition, are immeasurable. These skills make better lawyers, doctors, and even teachers. You are shortchanging the students by not insisting on quality education in this communications medium. You are wasting their time and opportunity.
Admittedly, even certification in theatre would not necessarily mean one is qualified to teach theatre. It’s clear if a dancer can dance or if an art teacher can draw or paint. It is not so clear in theatre. But, to begin, a certification process should include directing and acting courses, theatre history, script interpretation, development of a vocabulary and a review process that tests potential teachers to see if they can communicate what they have learned.
And I can’t get a job! Frustrated!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Superstition
I’m not superstitious, generally speaking. I don’t’ really believe the team I root for will start to lose just because I turned on the game. I may think it but I don’t really believe it!
I don’t believe that anyone cares what shade of pale nail polish I wear but when I have an interview coming up, I generally opt for “In the Bag” over “Fed Up”, both colors on my manicurist’s rack. Obviously, this practice doesn’t work; I’m still unemployed.
My mother once called me when I was at college. She had run into a friend and spent several minutes singing my praises. She now said she wanted me to tie a piece of red thread – a red “bendel” – around my bra strap. She was afraid she’d given me a kenehurah: Yiddish for the evil eye, sort of. I think it’s worse in Yiddish. I can recall laughing at her request. I can’t recall if I did it. But I remember feeling very nervous as I walked to class.
I have a friend who goes ballistic whenever anyone sends him a chain letter that promises either good luck or extreme misfortune if you don’t forward it to at least X number of people. Now this one worked! But the reply I received from him was so scathing that it soaked up all the other bad luck that might have been waiting for me. I now make it a policy to delete without reading any email I get that even looks like it might be a chain letter. So, if you’ve tried to reach me later and I haven’t responded, try again, but only if didn’t involve a mandatory forward or not-so-veiled threat.
So I don’t really believe our meaningless actions spell dire consequences for things we can’t control. My mother’s back is fine although I step on cracks routinely. In fact, if I step on a crack with my left foot, I usually adjust my stride to step on another with my right as soon as possible. If I spill some salt, I refuse to toss some more over my shoulder because that would just mean one more mess to clean up and I don’t like to clean.
I don’t believe that if you drink and drive, the accident you have is bad luck. However, if a deer commits suicide by fender, your luck stinks regardless of your level of sobriety. So it is that I believe you can contribute to your luck by positive acts.
I just don’t know what they are anymore. Hmmmm…..
I don’t believe that anyone cares what shade of pale nail polish I wear but when I have an interview coming up, I generally opt for “In the Bag” over “Fed Up”, both colors on my manicurist’s rack. Obviously, this practice doesn’t work; I’m still unemployed.
My mother once called me when I was at college. She had run into a friend and spent several minutes singing my praises. She now said she wanted me to tie a piece of red thread – a red “bendel” – around my bra strap. She was afraid she’d given me a kenehurah: Yiddish for the evil eye, sort of. I think it’s worse in Yiddish. I can recall laughing at her request. I can’t recall if I did it. But I remember feeling very nervous as I walked to class.
I have a friend who goes ballistic whenever anyone sends him a chain letter that promises either good luck or extreme misfortune if you don’t forward it to at least X number of people. Now this one worked! But the reply I received from him was so scathing that it soaked up all the other bad luck that might have been waiting for me. I now make it a policy to delete without reading any email I get that even looks like it might be a chain letter. So, if you’ve tried to reach me later and I haven’t responded, try again, but only if didn’t involve a mandatory forward or not-so-veiled threat.
So I don’t really believe our meaningless actions spell dire consequences for things we can’t control. My mother’s back is fine although I step on cracks routinely. In fact, if I step on a crack with my left foot, I usually adjust my stride to step on another with my right as soon as possible. If I spill some salt, I refuse to toss some more over my shoulder because that would just mean one more mess to clean up and I don’t like to clean.
I don’t believe that if you drink and drive, the accident you have is bad luck. However, if a deer commits suicide by fender, your luck stinks regardless of your level of sobriety. So it is that I believe you can contribute to your luck by positive acts.
I just don’t know what they are anymore. Hmmmm…..
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Uh Oh
Uh oh, things are going wrong; strange things; unimportant things; the trivial things I’ve come to rely on as markers of the passage of time.
They changed the clocks. Well, some of them changed themselves thanks to this world of connectivity we live in. But some need to be changed manually and it’s disconcerting when none of the clocks match because no matter how hard you try or how fast you run you can’t change them all with any accuracy. My alarm clock says wake-up. My wristwatch says I have an hour. Which to believe? They tell you to change your clocks at 2 a.m. which is a cruel thing to do. The VTR is now an hour and five minutes behind the TiVo which is 30 seconds behind the cable box because of the delay. I don’t know where those five minutes came from but they appeared some time ago, after a power outage I think.
It is one or two a.m. and all my points have mysteriously disappeared at my favorite game site. They’ll come back I hope; I worked very hard and wasted a lot of hours getting them.
I’ve been forgetting things, like what I did yesterday or five minutes ago. I forgot Monday.
And, of course, baseball season is over so there are no games to help me mark the passage of time. I am adrift.
All around me seem to be struggling through bouts of flu and sore throats and although my sinuses have been sloshing around for weeks I seem to be muddling through. I’m the only one in my immediate family who doesn’t have much to do but I’m the only one still capable of doing it. The others are in bed. So I blew and raked a half acre of leaves and discovered a muscle in my left arm that I swear wasn’t there before but now it hurts all the time.
I’m tired just about all day long until it’s time to go to sleep and then I wake up. Yesterday I drove my car up on to the curb in front of St. Stephen’s and I wasn’t trying to go to church. Luckily I didn’t kill anyone including myself and teetered back on to the pavement, the act of which produced enough adrenalin to get me home.
I made soup! My husband was home sick and I needed to make soup for him. This did not go wrong, exactly. Every once in a while I get a hankering for some taste and manage to put it together perfectly. In this case it was split pea soup. I learned there is no difference between a ham hock and a pork hock. I made the stock and tended the pot for almost hours. I brought him a bowl believing he would be instantly cured. He announced that split pea was not his favorite. I’d made the wrong soup! I glared at him. He ate two bowls. I don’t really know if he ate them because he liked it after all or if he was afraid I’d hit him.
Someone once told me that that there is great power in “I don’t know”; that in admitting and embracing the fact that you don’t know what’s coming you open yourself up to great possibilities. Someone else recently wrote “the years teach us much that the days will never know”. I try to look ahead as if I am looking back; as if the hard times are behind us and everything worked out well. There’s a family of woodpeckers, a squirrel and a chipmunk outside my window all playing some natural game of dodge near the base of the tree and the stone ledge outside my window. It’s a simple game of survival.
They changed the clocks. Well, some of them changed themselves thanks to this world of connectivity we live in. But some need to be changed manually and it’s disconcerting when none of the clocks match because no matter how hard you try or how fast you run you can’t change them all with any accuracy. My alarm clock says wake-up. My wristwatch says I have an hour. Which to believe? They tell you to change your clocks at 2 a.m. which is a cruel thing to do. The VTR is now an hour and five minutes behind the TiVo which is 30 seconds behind the cable box because of the delay. I don’t know where those five minutes came from but they appeared some time ago, after a power outage I think.
It is one or two a.m. and all my points have mysteriously disappeared at my favorite game site. They’ll come back I hope; I worked very hard and wasted a lot of hours getting them.
I’ve been forgetting things, like what I did yesterday or five minutes ago. I forgot Monday.
And, of course, baseball season is over so there are no games to help me mark the passage of time. I am adrift.
All around me seem to be struggling through bouts of flu and sore throats and although my sinuses have been sloshing around for weeks I seem to be muddling through. I’m the only one in my immediate family who doesn’t have much to do but I’m the only one still capable of doing it. The others are in bed. So I blew and raked a half acre of leaves and discovered a muscle in my left arm that I swear wasn’t there before but now it hurts all the time.
I’m tired just about all day long until it’s time to go to sleep and then I wake up. Yesterday I drove my car up on to the curb in front of St. Stephen’s and I wasn’t trying to go to church. Luckily I didn’t kill anyone including myself and teetered back on to the pavement, the act of which produced enough adrenalin to get me home.
I made soup! My husband was home sick and I needed to make soup for him. This did not go wrong, exactly. Every once in a while I get a hankering for some taste and manage to put it together perfectly. In this case it was split pea soup. I learned there is no difference between a ham hock and a pork hock. I made the stock and tended the pot for almost hours. I brought him a bowl believing he would be instantly cured. He announced that split pea was not his favorite. I’d made the wrong soup! I glared at him. He ate two bowls. I don’t really know if he ate them because he liked it after all or if he was afraid I’d hit him.
Someone once told me that that there is great power in “I don’t know”; that in admitting and embracing the fact that you don’t know what’s coming you open yourself up to great possibilities. Someone else recently wrote “the years teach us much that the days will never know”. I try to look ahead as if I am looking back; as if the hard times are behind us and everything worked out well. There’s a family of woodpeckers, a squirrel and a chipmunk outside my window all playing some natural game of dodge near the base of the tree and the stone ledge outside my window. It’s a simple game of survival.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Bah Humbug
At the risk of inviting three ghosts to visit me tonight I have to say that I am already sick of Christmas. It is November 2nd and I stopped at Walmart to pick up some air-freshener. I found a very helpful employee who immediately stopped her conversation with another employee to assist me in my search. Where are the air fresheners,” I asked. “Let me show you”, she volunteered, and proceeded to lead me across the entire store. “I’ll show you the Christmas scents first,” she chirped, looking back at me and smiling like a tour guide. Not wanting to be rude, I smiled and followed, figuring we’d visit the other scents soon enough. Several blocks later we came to a display featuring scented candles in red and green promising all the smells of the Holiday season. But I didn’t want a candle; I wanted air freshener. So we set off again, eventually coming to an entire aisle filled with Glade and Airwick and Febreze products; just what I was looking for. She recommended the Febreze plug-ins and they were even on sale! ( The exclamation point represents her enthusiasm.) So I started looking at the boxes: Caramel Apple, Holiday Harvest, Cinnamon Spice, Pine… wait a minute! All the scents were for Christmas. “Is this it,” I asked. “Do you have anything for normal people?” The crack was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Luckily, the nice lady laughed. “Normal people,” she repeated, still laughing. I hadn’t meant to be rude but surely there are other people who don’t need the house to smell like trees or baking; other people who aren’t obsessed with Christmas cheer. Seriously! The Christmas season is almost as long as baseball season and that goes on forever!
Please note: I don’t hate “Christmas”. I hate the commercialism of Christmas. I hate the pressure to spend. I hate the need to spend! I hate that the entire economy is threatened with collapse if people don’t spend at Christmas. I hate that people will spend money they don’t have rather than show up empty-handed on Christmas. I hate that I am one of those people. I’d love to say, “Let’s not do Christmas” but for half my family, this is a big deal! If I play the Jewish card, it means ostracizing myself from the entire part of the family that is not Jewish. It means not seeing them when everybody else is bustling from house to house to pick up and deliver presents. And if I do manage to see them during the hustle and bustle of Christmas cheer, how can I do so with empty hands?
Can I give them air freshener?
Please note: I don’t hate “Christmas”. I hate the commercialism of Christmas. I hate the pressure to spend. I hate the need to spend! I hate that the entire economy is threatened with collapse if people don’t spend at Christmas. I hate that people will spend money they don’t have rather than show up empty-handed on Christmas. I hate that I am one of those people. I’d love to say, “Let’s not do Christmas” but for half my family, this is a big deal! If I play the Jewish card, it means ostracizing myself from the entire part of the family that is not Jewish. It means not seeing them when everybody else is bustling from house to house to pick up and deliver presents. And if I do manage to see them during the hustle and bustle of Christmas cheer, how can I do so with empty hands?
Can I give them air freshener?
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