I have to go out and buy some candy for Halloween. I do this every year. Now most of you are probably saying “Big deal, we all do that!” The difference is, in the 14 years I’ve lived here, no one has ever come Trick or Treating at my door. I live on a dark country road in an area known as “The Park”. There are only a few houses on my street and the wooded road is so steep even goats avoid it. But every year I worry: maybe this time.
When my son was younger, we used to leave a bowl outside our door with a note, “Help yourself! Happy Halloween” and we’d get in the car and drive around to an actual neighborhood. The neighborhood is on the fringe of “The Park”, accessible if we were to walk across the woods but who wants to do that at night on Halloween? So we’d drive down to the bottom of our hill, around the turn and up the next winding road to the neighborhood behind our house where quarter acre zoning and modest houses produced a bonanza for costumed kiddies and their goodie-bags. These people really knew how to throw a Halloween party! Every house would be decorated; cemeteries, ghouls, music, sounds… We stopped at a house the first year that had four ghouls seated at a card table, locked in an eternal game of poker. The hostess told us to check out the hand one of the ghouls was playing; a sort of in-joke for the adults. My husband walked over to the table and looked at the hand. My husband has glaucoma and doesn’t see anything to his side so he didn’t notice when the ghoul started to rise… and rise… and rise. He turned in time to see this apparition towering over him and he screamed so loud I think the entire neighborhood turned to look before breaking into hysterical laughter. That’s how we met Bruce; 6’5” in his stocking feet but, on this night, augmented by small stilts, he dwarfed my almost 6 foot husband. Bruce loved Halloween and would create a new display every year to keep us all guessing.
We’d return to our own home hours later to find our own bowl untouched; another bonanza. And I’d start eating.
The two months from Halloween to New Years are fraught with excuses to abandon all semblance of self-control. I call them “The Calorie Corridor”. Candy, turkey, sweet potato mousse, pumpkin pie, leftovers, and just as you’re getting the refrigerator back to normal, here come the potato pancakes and brisket for Chanukah followed by Christmas with the in-laws.
The kids are grown and gone now and the granddaughter is too young to appreciate Halloween yet, although my son and daughter-in-law did have her photographed in a pink bunny suit with both the ears and the puffy white tail on her head so it looks at one time like she had been swallowed by the rabbit and was being extruded, smiling and happy, out the other end of the alimentary canal. I will still put out the candy, just in case. Then I’ll turn out the lights and hide in a back room with the TV. The Yanks are in Phillie for game three. Baseball in November? Did I miss something?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Nothing to Say
Well, that was depressing. 6-1 against the team from the City whose biggest contribution of the last hundred years has been the cheesesteak, the very thought of which turns my stomach. I’m borrowing from David Ives who sums up Philadelphia in a brilliant one-act play called, oddly enough, “The Philadelphia”. It is not a good place to be. I have to remind myself that even when these guys lose, they are making more money than I have ever seen. So take a pill, go to sleep and remember, tomorrow is another day. And please don’t call to commiserate! I have nothing to say.
My favorite thing about the internet and email and this whole new way we have of communicating with each other is that you don’t have to talk to anyone when you don’t want to. When we have something to say we can say it at any hour of the day or night. Press a button and the message goes out to be received by recipients who will open the message when they want to. It is a non-invasive means of communication. It does not interrupt you with insistent ringing when you’re watching a movie. It does not want to make you beat out your brains over the same mind-numbing dialogue: How are you? I’m fine, how are you? I’m fine, how’s everybody else? They’re fine… and so on and so on and so on…
I am a graduate of the “No News Is Good News” School of Thought. But I come from a family who was only able to move off the same block because the telephone was invented. Then they called each other every day; actually, several times every day! What are you doing? Nothing. What are you doing? I’m going out. Call me when you get back. I just called to say I’m back… and so on and so on and so on…
And what’s up with “the call to say hello?” Did you ever get one of those? “Hello. I just called to say hello.” Does that mean the conversation is over? My Dad was great. I don’t think he ever had a phone conversation that lasted more than 15 seconds. If you wanted to speak to him you sort of had to be in the same room, and even then, you were competing with the NY Times Crossword Puzzle or a deck of cards for his attention. If you wanted his attention, you had to be interesting. He required constant mental stimulation so these asinine non-conversations were simply beyond his ability to cope. I admired his candor. Nothing to say? Okay, goodbye. Simple. Clean. I am cursed with his low tolerance for boredom but not blessed with his forthrightness. Seriously, if there is nothing interesting to report, let's make stuff up! Guess what happened to me; I robbed a bank! I drove through a plate glass window! I bungee jumped off the George Washington Bridge! I won the Nobel Prize; yeah, I was surprised too! When you start a conversation with, "I haven't spoken to you in days" and then go on to inform me that you have nothing to say, understand that perhaps THAT is the reason we haven't spoken. Since I didn't initiate the call, it stands to reason that nothing has happened to me either so there is nothing to talk about. Trust me, when I have great news, I will call! Until then, I will email. And I will know you are all right because I will continue to receive the forwarded jokes, solicitations, video clips, and old news in my inbox.
I know I am probably condemning myself with this post to a lonely life where no one ever calls me again. But the good news is we’re all on Facebook now! And there’s nothing mind-numbing there…right?
My favorite thing about the internet and email and this whole new way we have of communicating with each other is that you don’t have to talk to anyone when you don’t want to. When we have something to say we can say it at any hour of the day or night. Press a button and the message goes out to be received by recipients who will open the message when they want to. It is a non-invasive means of communication. It does not interrupt you with insistent ringing when you’re watching a movie. It does not want to make you beat out your brains over the same mind-numbing dialogue: How are you? I’m fine, how are you? I’m fine, how’s everybody else? They’re fine… and so on and so on and so on…
I am a graduate of the “No News Is Good News” School of Thought. But I come from a family who was only able to move off the same block because the telephone was invented. Then they called each other every day; actually, several times every day! What are you doing? Nothing. What are you doing? I’m going out. Call me when you get back. I just called to say I’m back… and so on and so on and so on…
And what’s up with “the call to say hello?” Did you ever get one of those? “Hello. I just called to say hello.” Does that mean the conversation is over? My Dad was great. I don’t think he ever had a phone conversation that lasted more than 15 seconds. If you wanted to speak to him you sort of had to be in the same room, and even then, you were competing with the NY Times Crossword Puzzle or a deck of cards for his attention. If you wanted his attention, you had to be interesting. He required constant mental stimulation so these asinine non-conversations were simply beyond his ability to cope. I admired his candor. Nothing to say? Okay, goodbye. Simple. Clean. I am cursed with his low tolerance for boredom but not blessed with his forthrightness. Seriously, if there is nothing interesting to report, let's make stuff up! Guess what happened to me; I robbed a bank! I drove through a plate glass window! I bungee jumped off the George Washington Bridge! I won the Nobel Prize; yeah, I was surprised too! When you start a conversation with, "I haven't spoken to you in days" and then go on to inform me that you have nothing to say, understand that perhaps THAT is the reason we haven't spoken. Since I didn't initiate the call, it stands to reason that nothing has happened to me either so there is nothing to talk about. Trust me, when I have great news, I will call! Until then, I will email. And I will know you are all right because I will continue to receive the forwarded jokes, solicitations, video clips, and old news in my inbox.
I know I am probably condemning myself with this post to a lonely life where no one ever calls me again. But the good news is we’re all on Facebook now! And there’s nothing mind-numbing there…right?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tiny's Halloween
A few weeks ago I received an email from a young man, Doug, whose big sister used to babysit for my son when he was 5 years old. He had come across our short video, “A Nice Drive”, on You Tube and said “I know those people!” So he contacted me. He’s all grown up now and his passion is making short, scary videos for a website he started called “Scared Stiff”. Whore that I am, I immediately asked for work and, last night, drove into the woods of North Stamford to shoot a Halloween mini-special. The directions were vague but I plugged the address into Mapquest and was on my way. For those who don’t know the southwestern tip of Connecticut, it is an odd combination of major cities and dense forests with houses tucked among very old trees and narrow, winding roads. It is amazing how quickly you can drive from a bustling highway to a dark, lonely, haunted looking landscape with gnarly tree limbs hovering over slim slips of blacktop bound by New England’s famous handmade stone walls. There are few, if any, lights.
I zipped off the highway and headed north away from the city. Moments later I edged my car on to a narrower road, passing the Bartlett Arboretum, a museum of trees where we used to take our son for Halloween Festivals. Spectacular in the daytime, especially in the fall, it is just a dark forest at night. I drove slowly, reading the street signs. A line of cars followed closely, annoyed at my slow pace on what was to me unfamiliar territory. I found my street and turned left on to an even narrower road. None of the cars turned with me. The road snaked through the forest. It was a while before I saw the first mailbox: old, rusty, pitched to the side as if it were too tired to stand up. I read the number and realized I had a way to go. I drove slowly, reading the numbers on sporadically placed passing mailboxes. Bright lights came toward me as a faster car approached. I swerved to avoid him on a curve, blinded by his high beams. Alone again, I put on my own brights. That was better. The numbers continued to climb: 233, 357, 425… I was looking for 441. There was a stop sign ahead and another sign that said “Dead End”. Did I miss it? No. There was a smaller sign telling me to turn right to stay on this road. I did. An old mailbox with faded numbers told me I had reached my destination. But it was dark.
The director had told me to look for the blue night lights they would use to film outdoors. I saw none. I pulled into the tree-canopied driveway and looked toward the house, almost invisible from the road. I saw a man inside through the windows. I got out of the car and started across the lawn to ask if I was in the right place. The lawn was wet and muddy and my high heeled shoes sank into the ground. I couldn’t see where I was going and the man inside disappeared into another room. I thought, “What the hell am I doing?” and got back into the car. I pulled out of the driveway and rode a little further, looking for the blue lights. I tried calling the director but the call went right to voice mail. I checked my instructions; that was the address. I drove back to the house, pulled into the driveway again and noticed the driveway went around to the back of the house. Doors locked, I followed the path. Around the back I saw the lights. Relief swept over me and I felt a little foolish at my anxiety. I approached the house.
The door was unlocked and I let myself in. It was an old door, with latches instead of doorknobs. This house had to be 200 years old! The ceilings were low with wooden beams that were dark and rough hewn as if they had been hand-cut. “Hello?” No answer. I entered a sparsely furnished, small, dark kitchen. The smell of cat hit my nostrils. Beyond the kitchen was a tiny dining room. There was plaster on the floor and a portion of the ceiling revealed the wooden supports above. Everything was old, dark, creepy. “Hello? Anybody here?” Okay, I thought, this is really stupid. If this were a movie, this would be the part where I start screaming to the girl to get out of there. Could this be an elaborate prank? Could the little boy I knew, and whose whole family I knew… Could he have turned out to be an axe murdered? There was an indoor porch beyond the dining room and beautiful beveled glass doors revealed a living room beyond them where the man from the window sat watching TV. I knocked. “Hello?” He got up and walked past me to another door. I knocked again. “No, over here.” “What am I doing,” I thought. I just walked into a stranger’s home. It’s just him and me and THIS IS NOT DOUG!” How did I know this was not the person I was looking for? I hadn’t seen him in almost 17 years. I knew because Doug was white and the man on the other side of the glass door was black. He looked at me and smiled. “Am I in the right place,” I asked, trying to sound …not stupid. “Yes.”
I’m writing this, so obviously you know I’m okay. I was in the right place. This was not “Scream 80” or “Saw 253”. The guy in the house was the house-sitter and was playing the lunatic in the script. Everybody else was late. Doug, I learned, was always late. He showed up about fifteen minutes later and we shot the video. Check it out on www.scaredstiff.tv starting next week. It’s called “Tiny’s Halloween”, about a trick-or-treating psychopath. Great neighborhood for it. Great house for a horror story. Just don’t ever ask me to spend a night there.
I zipped off the highway and headed north away from the city. Moments later I edged my car on to a narrower road, passing the Bartlett Arboretum, a museum of trees where we used to take our son for Halloween Festivals. Spectacular in the daytime, especially in the fall, it is just a dark forest at night. I drove slowly, reading the street signs. A line of cars followed closely, annoyed at my slow pace on what was to me unfamiliar territory. I found my street and turned left on to an even narrower road. None of the cars turned with me. The road snaked through the forest. It was a while before I saw the first mailbox: old, rusty, pitched to the side as if it were too tired to stand up. I read the number and realized I had a way to go. I drove slowly, reading the numbers on sporadically placed passing mailboxes. Bright lights came toward me as a faster car approached. I swerved to avoid him on a curve, blinded by his high beams. Alone again, I put on my own brights. That was better. The numbers continued to climb: 233, 357, 425… I was looking for 441. There was a stop sign ahead and another sign that said “Dead End”. Did I miss it? No. There was a smaller sign telling me to turn right to stay on this road. I did. An old mailbox with faded numbers told me I had reached my destination. But it was dark.
The director had told me to look for the blue night lights they would use to film outdoors. I saw none. I pulled into the tree-canopied driveway and looked toward the house, almost invisible from the road. I saw a man inside through the windows. I got out of the car and started across the lawn to ask if I was in the right place. The lawn was wet and muddy and my high heeled shoes sank into the ground. I couldn’t see where I was going and the man inside disappeared into another room. I thought, “What the hell am I doing?” and got back into the car. I pulled out of the driveway and rode a little further, looking for the blue lights. I tried calling the director but the call went right to voice mail. I checked my instructions; that was the address. I drove back to the house, pulled into the driveway again and noticed the driveway went around to the back of the house. Doors locked, I followed the path. Around the back I saw the lights. Relief swept over me and I felt a little foolish at my anxiety. I approached the house.
The door was unlocked and I let myself in. It was an old door, with latches instead of doorknobs. This house had to be 200 years old! The ceilings were low with wooden beams that were dark and rough hewn as if they had been hand-cut. “Hello?” No answer. I entered a sparsely furnished, small, dark kitchen. The smell of cat hit my nostrils. Beyond the kitchen was a tiny dining room. There was plaster on the floor and a portion of the ceiling revealed the wooden supports above. Everything was old, dark, creepy. “Hello? Anybody here?” Okay, I thought, this is really stupid. If this were a movie, this would be the part where I start screaming to the girl to get out of there. Could this be an elaborate prank? Could the little boy I knew, and whose whole family I knew… Could he have turned out to be an axe murdered? There was an indoor porch beyond the dining room and beautiful beveled glass doors revealed a living room beyond them where the man from the window sat watching TV. I knocked. “Hello?” He got up and walked past me to another door. I knocked again. “No, over here.” “What am I doing,” I thought. I just walked into a stranger’s home. It’s just him and me and THIS IS NOT DOUG!” How did I know this was not the person I was looking for? I hadn’t seen him in almost 17 years. I knew because Doug was white and the man on the other side of the glass door was black. He looked at me and smiled. “Am I in the right place,” I asked, trying to sound …not stupid. “Yes.”
I’m writing this, so obviously you know I’m okay. I was in the right place. This was not “Scream 80” or “Saw 253”. The guy in the house was the house-sitter and was playing the lunatic in the script. Everybody else was late. Doug, I learned, was always late. He showed up about fifteen minutes later and we shot the video. Check it out on www.scaredstiff.tv starting next week. It’s called “Tiny’s Halloween”, about a trick-or-treating psychopath. Great neighborhood for it. Great house for a horror story. Just don’t ever ask me to spend a night there.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Good Morrrrninng
Good morrrrninng! The cable guy rang the doorbell at 8:15 a.m. for an appointment that was supposed to take place between 9 and 11. Is that a first? Under their old policy, the guy called on the way to the house; if you didn’t pick up the phone, he assumed you weren’t home and cancelled the appointment. The last time he came I had been in the bathroom when the phone rang and missed the call. By the time I got a customer service rep. on the phone they had cancelled my appointment. So this time, I made sure the phone was right next to me, like an alarm clock! But today, no warning, 45 minutes early and the two of us, me and my husband, in a dead sleep, he rings the bell. “Sorry I’m early.”
I had taken a half an Ambien when sleep seemed like a foreign concept at 11:30 p.m. and my head felt like it was in a diving bell at the bottom of the ocean. I took the Ambien because I had had two cups of regular coffee the previous morning to get me ready to corral my five nine-year-old students at Hebrew School and that’s enough real coffee to keep me awake for several days. I use the word “students” lightly. The dictionary describes a student as “a person formally engaged in learning; any person who studies, investigates, or examines thoughtfully.” So, by definition, these are not students. They are more like rabid kittens. Child A was absent; child B had something up his nostril that was infinitely more fascinating to him than anything I was saying; child C contemplated her cookie as if the Hebrew letters were somehow encoded into the chocolate chips; child D used every question as a prompt for a lengthy story that was in no way related to the topic; and child E, bless his bright little face, was with me every step of the way. I love that child. Anyway, the reason I needed the coffee in the morning that led to needing the Ambien that night was that, on the previous night, I stayed up to watch the Yankees beat the Angels in the bottom of the 13th inning and was so engrossed in the game that it was 1 a.m. when I suddenly looked up, inquired “What day is it?” and realized I had to teach in the morning. So, from 1:30 – 2:00 a.m. and again from 7:00-8:00 a.m., I sweated over ways to relate the Israelites receiving the Ten Commandments to the lives of these sleepy, disheveled urchins before me. I asked a simple question: what activities to you engage in that have rules? I figured they’d come back at me with the rules of the sports they played; soccer, softball; the things my kids had done when they were this age. None of them plays an organized sport! Come on Moms and Dads! Get these kids moving! No wonder they’re nuts! Child E thoughtfully offered “Track”. Are there rules in track? I don’t know them. They say “Go” and you run, right? Is “run around the circle” a rule? Child C immediately thought of the school cafeteria and the life altering mandate, “No food fights”. This prompted child D to launch into a lengthy description of his lunch while child B picked his nose.
But I digress. My husband handled the cable guy who “fixed” the problem for the fourth time while I put my two-ton head back on the pillow. At 8:30, with the TV working, he sat down to watch. I slogged through a deep-dream in which I crawled out on a ledge to watch a high school presentation of a scene from “Two for the Seesaw” which was then mis-explained by a white-haired pedant who knew nothing about Gittel, or Gibson or women in general, causing me to raise my hand to challenge his assumptions and thus losing my balance to that I started to tumble off my ledge which woke me up. My husband was by now returning to bed. It was now 10:30 and my head was almost light enough to pick up. I lurched downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of decaf, and opened my computer.
Many thoughts swim through my head. “They call baseball ‘the game of inches’ but isn’t all of life that way? It doesn’t take much to tip a scale one way or the other.” “Find some time to go to Florida”. “Pay that stack of bills on the table.” The leaves outside my window are starting to turn. Life is slipping by. This can’t be what all that studying was about. And yet it is. This is my life.
I had taken a half an Ambien when sleep seemed like a foreign concept at 11:30 p.m. and my head felt like it was in a diving bell at the bottom of the ocean. I took the Ambien because I had had two cups of regular coffee the previous morning to get me ready to corral my five nine-year-old students at Hebrew School and that’s enough real coffee to keep me awake for several days. I use the word “students” lightly. The dictionary describes a student as “a person formally engaged in learning; any person who studies, investigates, or examines thoughtfully.” So, by definition, these are not students. They are more like rabid kittens. Child A was absent; child B had something up his nostril that was infinitely more fascinating to him than anything I was saying; child C contemplated her cookie as if the Hebrew letters were somehow encoded into the chocolate chips; child D used every question as a prompt for a lengthy story that was in no way related to the topic; and child E, bless his bright little face, was with me every step of the way. I love that child. Anyway, the reason I needed the coffee in the morning that led to needing the Ambien that night was that, on the previous night, I stayed up to watch the Yankees beat the Angels in the bottom of the 13th inning and was so engrossed in the game that it was 1 a.m. when I suddenly looked up, inquired “What day is it?” and realized I had to teach in the morning. So, from 1:30 – 2:00 a.m. and again from 7:00-8:00 a.m., I sweated over ways to relate the Israelites receiving the Ten Commandments to the lives of these sleepy, disheveled urchins before me. I asked a simple question: what activities to you engage in that have rules? I figured they’d come back at me with the rules of the sports they played; soccer, softball; the things my kids had done when they were this age. None of them plays an organized sport! Come on Moms and Dads! Get these kids moving! No wonder they’re nuts! Child E thoughtfully offered “Track”. Are there rules in track? I don’t know them. They say “Go” and you run, right? Is “run around the circle” a rule? Child C immediately thought of the school cafeteria and the life altering mandate, “No food fights”. This prompted child D to launch into a lengthy description of his lunch while child B picked his nose.
But I digress. My husband handled the cable guy who “fixed” the problem for the fourth time while I put my two-ton head back on the pillow. At 8:30, with the TV working, he sat down to watch. I slogged through a deep-dream in which I crawled out on a ledge to watch a high school presentation of a scene from “Two for the Seesaw” which was then mis-explained by a white-haired pedant who knew nothing about Gittel, or Gibson or women in general, causing me to raise my hand to challenge his assumptions and thus losing my balance to that I started to tumble off my ledge which woke me up. My husband was by now returning to bed. It was now 10:30 and my head was almost light enough to pick up. I lurched downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of decaf, and opened my computer.
Many thoughts swim through my head. “They call baseball ‘the game of inches’ but isn’t all of life that way? It doesn’t take much to tip a scale one way or the other.” “Find some time to go to Florida”. “Pay that stack of bills on the table.” The leaves outside my window are starting to turn. Life is slipping by. This can’t be what all that studying was about. And yet it is. This is my life.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Surprise
My in-laws‘ priest called during dinner. As soon as I saw the caller ID I was on alert. When he told me who he was I was sure someone was dead. But it was good news; an invitation to a surprise party being given by the Holy Name Society in honor of my father-in-law’s 90th birthday. (It’s safe to write that here. Neither of my in-laws has any access to nor interest in computers.) Why anybody would surprise a 90 year old man is beyond me but it’s a really nice gesture. I just hope the shock doesn’t kill him!
I’ve always loved surprises but have never been the victim of a successful one. I gave my husband a surprise party once and managed to get him to the restaurant without arousing the least bit of suspicion… until we pulled in to the parking lot and grabbed a spot next to his parents’ car, identifiable because they placed an orange ping pong ball on their antenna so they would always be able to find their car in a parking lot. Still, he seemed genuinely surprised. His parents never went anywhere so he figured some other nut must drive the same car with the same ball. It’s amazing what the mind can ignore.
My husband tried to surprise me for one of my birthdays and it was an unmitigated disaster. It started when he drove me into NYC and delivered me to a beautiful room on a high floor of the Marriott Hotel overlooking Times Square where he informed me that he was only keeping me company for a while because my mother’s plane was late. I looked at him. “We’re in this hotel room and you’re not staying but my mother is on her way?” Okay…. Mom’s excitement about surprising me in NY had collided with her anxiety about traveling and she fainted on the plane causing the airline to re-rout the flight to Baltimore for her medical emergency. Convincing them that she was all right and needed to get to New York, she arrived in time for us to race to the five-star restaurant she’d chosen for my birthday, scarf down a hasty gourmet dinner with a side of indigestion, and grab a cab to the theatre to see the hottest show in town. She had paid a scalper $500 for two tickets. I thought she was nuts. The cab got stuck in traffic and we had to run the last two blocks to the theatre. The lights were dimming as we ran up the stairs to the next to last row of the balcony. My Mom had just turned 72 and I would turn 50 the next day if I survived the climb. We collapsed in our seats as the overture began. Had the show not been hilarious, we probably would have gotten thrown out because, finally seated, we got hysterical. The insanity of our marathon hit us and we got hysterical. Luckily, it was “The Producers”, so our hysteria was masked by genuine hilarity. But, in truth, we would have laughed as hard if the play had been “Death of a Salesman”. The disaster continued the next day when my brother picked us up in NY for the drive back to CT and the surprise party. His car overheated in Harlem, we had to find a gas station. We got back on the road and the engine light came on again. His AAA card had lapsed. His EZ Pass expired so we got pulled over at the bridge. My cell phone did work so we called my husband to explain why we were several hours late. Now he was hysterical because the house was full of people missing their “surprisee”: me. No one yelled anything when I finally pulled into the driveway. Some of them were leaving when I arrived; others would drift in and out over the next several hours; he’d planned an open house! How can you have a surprise open house?
I do remember a great surprise party that my cousin’s wife gave for him. He opened the front door to his house and was literally blown backward on to his ass and his doorstep when everybody yelled. He was just 35 and he spent most of the night trying to recover. Dad’s going to be 90! Is this really a good idea? Time will tell. I’d put an orange ball on my antenna but they don’t make cars with antennas anymore. If he doesn’t make it, at least we won’t have to look for a priest. He’ll be right there… looking very guilty.
By the way, if you speak to Dad, DON"T SAY ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!
I’ve always loved surprises but have never been the victim of a successful one. I gave my husband a surprise party once and managed to get him to the restaurant without arousing the least bit of suspicion… until we pulled in to the parking lot and grabbed a spot next to his parents’ car, identifiable because they placed an orange ping pong ball on their antenna so they would always be able to find their car in a parking lot. Still, he seemed genuinely surprised. His parents never went anywhere so he figured some other nut must drive the same car with the same ball. It’s amazing what the mind can ignore.
My husband tried to surprise me for one of my birthdays and it was an unmitigated disaster. It started when he drove me into NYC and delivered me to a beautiful room on a high floor of the Marriott Hotel overlooking Times Square where he informed me that he was only keeping me company for a while because my mother’s plane was late. I looked at him. “We’re in this hotel room and you’re not staying but my mother is on her way?” Okay…. Mom’s excitement about surprising me in NY had collided with her anxiety about traveling and she fainted on the plane causing the airline to re-rout the flight to Baltimore for her medical emergency. Convincing them that she was all right and needed to get to New York, she arrived in time for us to race to the five-star restaurant she’d chosen for my birthday, scarf down a hasty gourmet dinner with a side of indigestion, and grab a cab to the theatre to see the hottest show in town. She had paid a scalper $500 for two tickets. I thought she was nuts. The cab got stuck in traffic and we had to run the last two blocks to the theatre. The lights were dimming as we ran up the stairs to the next to last row of the balcony. My Mom had just turned 72 and I would turn 50 the next day if I survived the climb. We collapsed in our seats as the overture began. Had the show not been hilarious, we probably would have gotten thrown out because, finally seated, we got hysterical. The insanity of our marathon hit us and we got hysterical. Luckily, it was “The Producers”, so our hysteria was masked by genuine hilarity. But, in truth, we would have laughed as hard if the play had been “Death of a Salesman”. The disaster continued the next day when my brother picked us up in NY for the drive back to CT and the surprise party. His car overheated in Harlem, we had to find a gas station. We got back on the road and the engine light came on again. His AAA card had lapsed. His EZ Pass expired so we got pulled over at the bridge. My cell phone did work so we called my husband to explain why we were several hours late. Now he was hysterical because the house was full of people missing their “surprisee”: me. No one yelled anything when I finally pulled into the driveway. Some of them were leaving when I arrived; others would drift in and out over the next several hours; he’d planned an open house! How can you have a surprise open house?
I do remember a great surprise party that my cousin’s wife gave for him. He opened the front door to his house and was literally blown backward on to his ass and his doorstep when everybody yelled. He was just 35 and he spent most of the night trying to recover. Dad’s going to be 90! Is this really a good idea? Time will tell. I’d put an orange ball on my antenna but they don’t make cars with antennas anymore. If he doesn’t make it, at least we won’t have to look for a priest. He’ll be right there… looking very guilty.
By the way, if you speak to Dad, DON"T SAY ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!
Stuck
I’m stumped, stymied, stuck in the muck of my mind and I can’t get out! Days have gone by. I have started several posts and have been so bored by them all that I have refused to publish them. I apologize, faithful readers. My Mom has now called twice to see if “everything is all right”. I’m fine; I’m just not very interesting these days. Perhaps someone should invent one of those pendants they advertise, only instead of calling for help when you’ve fallen or are ill, you could press the button for inspiration. Someone will come on the line and in a voice filled with objectivity will ask if you have an emergency and you will cry from the depths of your soul, “Yes! I am boring!” And minutes later, something interesting will be delivered to your door.
Okay, a funny thing. Because we live in a society where famous people who can’t speak their native language very well (that being English) are constantly called upon to comment on the TV or radio, I get at least a daily chuckle. Today’s chuckle came courtesy of the coach of the NY Jets, a stupid thing in and of itself since the Jets play in New Jersey. Anyway, he was talking about the recent lapse in the defense, and said they failed to “go for the juggler.” Now I am a sports geek; Ill watch any spectator sport, especially if there’s nothing else on, and I watched the Jets vs. Miami Dolphins on Sunday. I did not see a juggler! Was there a giant Dolphin Mascot that juggles balls on the sidelines that Gang-Green failed to take-out, thus demoralizing the team Miami offense so they would collapse? Or could he have meant they failed to “go for the jugular”? Nah, too simple.
My Dad, God bless him, taught me to speak English by the constant-correction-at –dinner-time-mode. It was annoying and frustrating as I had a lot to say and he was always interrupting, but I learned a lot and was ultimately grateful. I do not keep my jewlery in a safe in case of a nucular attack. A split infinitive sets my teeth on edge. And no one will ever go with him and I anywhere!
Kids today seem to be taught to write without regard to spelling or grammar, encouraged just to get their thoughts down on paper. Perhaps that’s my problem. I shud just rite wat I feeeel and stop wurying about the detales.
Okay, a funny thing. Because we live in a society where famous people who can’t speak their native language very well (that being English) are constantly called upon to comment on the TV or radio, I get at least a daily chuckle. Today’s chuckle came courtesy of the coach of the NY Jets, a stupid thing in and of itself since the Jets play in New Jersey. Anyway, he was talking about the recent lapse in the defense, and said they failed to “go for the juggler.” Now I am a sports geek; Ill watch any spectator sport, especially if there’s nothing else on, and I watched the Jets vs. Miami Dolphins on Sunday. I did not see a juggler! Was there a giant Dolphin Mascot that juggles balls on the sidelines that Gang-Green failed to take-out, thus demoralizing the team Miami offense so they would collapse? Or could he have meant they failed to “go for the jugular”? Nah, too simple.
My Dad, God bless him, taught me to speak English by the constant-correction-at –dinner-time-mode. It was annoying and frustrating as I had a lot to say and he was always interrupting, but I learned a lot and was ultimately grateful. I do not keep my jewlery in a safe in case of a nucular attack. A split infinitive sets my teeth on edge. And no one will ever go with him and I anywhere!
Kids today seem to be taught to write without regard to spelling or grammar, encouraged just to get their thoughts down on paper. Perhaps that’s my problem. I shud just rite wat I feeeel and stop wurying about the detales.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Game 2
I have created a monster. First let me tell you that my body hurts from head to toe. No, it is not the result of exercise or injury. It is the result of single-handedly willing the NY Yankees to win this second game of the ALDS. Or so I thought. As Mark Teixeira cruised into the waiting arms of his teammates at home plate, my husband emitted the first sound he had made in well over two hours. I thought he was mad. I thought he was bored. But in true fanatic fashion, he had struck a bargain with the forces of fate; if he didn’t talk, they would win. They won, and he cracked up.
I know we’re not the only ones who think our behavior has any influence on the outcome of a game. Sure, we’re told “change one thing and you change the world”. But not really! There is no rational explanation for a ‘rally cap’. And yet millions of people turn their hats inside out in the hopes that looking stupid will somehow lead to a victory. But is that so stupid after all? Laughter releases tension. So perhaps an athlete, walking to the plate with the game on the line, looks up at the spectators looking so dopey with hats turned every way but right, realizes how silly it is to be nervous, relaxes and hits it out of the park. But that doesn’t explain the rest of us idiots at home. “They’ll win if I don’t look.” “They’ll win if I leave the room.” “They’ll win if I keep my glasses on top of my head.”
I’m not insane. I know I don’t have anything to do with it. I know that a Yankee victory will not change my life although it might make me feel better for a while. I know they can’t hear me when I tell them that a strikeout and a doubleplay will get them out of bases loaded and nobody out but it feels SO good when they get it! I know the energy I expend is wasted energy. But I have to go now. Boston is at bat and the Angels need me.
I know we’re not the only ones who think our behavior has any influence on the outcome of a game. Sure, we’re told “change one thing and you change the world”. But not really! There is no rational explanation for a ‘rally cap’. And yet millions of people turn their hats inside out in the hopes that looking stupid will somehow lead to a victory. But is that so stupid after all? Laughter releases tension. So perhaps an athlete, walking to the plate with the game on the line, looks up at the spectators looking so dopey with hats turned every way but right, realizes how silly it is to be nervous, relaxes and hits it out of the park. But that doesn’t explain the rest of us idiots at home. “They’ll win if I don’t look.” “They’ll win if I leave the room.” “They’ll win if I keep my glasses on top of my head.”
I’m not insane. I know I don’t have anything to do with it. I know that a Yankee victory will not change my life although it might make me feel better for a while. I know they can’t hear me when I tell them that a strikeout and a doubleplay will get them out of bases loaded and nobody out but it feels SO good when they get it! I know the energy I expend is wasted energy. But I have to go now. Boston is at bat and the Angels need me.
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