?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Another Milestone

Posted on September 11, 2007

Six years ago today, the twin towers of the World Trade Center crashed and burned. As a nation, we are still trying to recover; and I have deep sympathy for us all.

However, this national tragedy isn’t what I remember most on this day. Rather, I remember that thirty-nine years ago today I was delivering my firstborn child, a son. We named him Kevin.

I’ve checked on Google® to see if there is any meaning to the name, and I’ve come away with information that suggests Kevin is of Gaelic origin. Being Irish, I assumed that at the get-go and gave my son an Irish first name because he clearly had an Italian last name — Carollo — compliments of his father.

I spent over an hour on the phone with Kevin this morning, talking politics and sex and, yes, birthday plans. And I was pleased with what he decided to do. In the past, birthday plans have not been particularly important to him, while they are of utmost importance to me. “Mom, I’m not teaching today,” he said. “I’m only doing things I want.” Which is exactly how I would spend my own special day.

So there’s a milestone here in more ways than one. Kevin is thirty-nine; for some, that’s a sad occasion. But he seems to be hitting his stride. He’s taking the day off; which I’ve advocated for years. I say birthdays are a time to respect oneself. And, finally, we both spent a moment discussing 9/11, which is as it should be. Happy birthday, Son.

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CURMUDGEON MONDAY – Football Fans

Posted on September 10, 2007

Okay, so it wasn’t a good weekend for the University of Notre Dame’s football team. It wasn’t a good weekend for the second weekend in a row either. And next weekend doesn’t look too promising.

But let’s remember that the Fighting Irish are not the Cubs. They’ve had great seasons in recent memory capped by appearances at post-season bowl games. They also lost some of their star athletes due to graduation last May.

I attended the Notre Dame/Georgia Tech game in South Bend where the score was pretty lopsided early on. By the fourth quarter fans — at least I thought they were fans — were draining the stadium of green shirts in a steady stream. “Hey, Earl,” I asked. “Don’t diehard fans stay to the end to cheer their team on, even if it’s losing?” “No,” he grumbled. “Let’s go eat.”

I was ready to leave, not because I was disappointed in the outcome but because I’d had enough football for the entire season. I don’t rate myself as a fan, merely Earl’s guest. And maybe it was all those other “guests” who left early. But I don’t think so.

I’m really surprised at how quickly the faithful fans turn into the fair weather variety. How fast they become frustrated — no, pissed — at the players and the coaches. Not just the fans, but the sport analysts and commentators too. This day isn’t long enough for the Monday morning quarterbacking taking place. And if next weekend doesn’t brighten up, I suspect Monday will be extended at least to the middle of the week.

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Stay or Go

Posted on September 9, 2007

I once lived in the same house for nine years, a real milestone for me. Usually my staying power disappears after two or three years. Then I’m off to find some other place, whether it is across town or across the country. I love to move.

Truthfully, it’s all I know. Growing up, I attended five schools between Kindergarten and eighth grade. I went to two high schools. It wasn’t because I was some sort of truant; rather, my mother — a single parent pioneer — moved when she got a better job, the easier to support us.

I suppose I could have settled down somewhere along the way, but my motto has been “If it’s time to paint, it’s time to move.” I count at least thirty difference places — apartments, condos, homes — on my list of residences. That’s an average of one every couple years.

I’m getting itchy again. We’ve been in this house, my favorite of all my homes, for seven and a half years. We’ve loved every minute. At the same time, it’s a big place with an even bigger yard that requires manicured maintenance to keep it the way Earl and I like. We are at a point in our lives where travel and other interests trump having a large home. So we’re looking to downsize in the future.

There are those who have the opposite point of view. They stay in their homes until the thirty year mortgage is paid. Travel isn’t appealing. Rather, tThey enjoy moss and shake their heads at the proverbial rolling stone.

I say both types of people are needed.

The stay-putters keep the fabric of society from unraveling; they provide continuity, while the rolling stones, probably a minority, search new friends and experiences and take their old experiences along for cross-pollination. Everyone — the stay putters and the cross pollinators — benefits. This isn’t the main reason I get itchy to move, but it is a productive by-product. So somewhere in the next year, Earl and I’ll be moving on. Thank goodness, he’s okay with the “time to paint, time to move” philosophy.

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Word of the Day

Posted on September 8, 2007

I subscribe to a service that emails me the “Word of the Day.” Oh, I know others wait for their joke of the day or their milestone of the day, but I’m into words. And even when I already am familiar with the word of a particular day, I always learn something about it that I didn’t know.

Take the word Sequoia. I knew it was another name for that majestic tree, the redwood. And I’ve seen redwoods in Muir Woods in northern California. More than once. But I didn’t know they were named for Cherokee Indian Chief Sequoia, who invented a Native American alphabet for his people. In other words, he wanted to be able to write his language down for posterity. What an honor to have such regal trees remember him.

Recent sightings of other words include abracadabra, discreet, and mortgage.

The latter is particularly in the news these days as sub-prime lenders struggle to recoup their losses. Here, courtesy of Visual Thesaurus, is the etymology of the word: “The mort part of mortgage is the same syllable that appears in mortify, rigor mortis, and mortician. Yup, it’s all about death, French (and ultimately, Latin) style, but a mortgage (literally “dead pledge”) was so called originally because it was absolute: the property was dead to the lender if the debt was paid, and dead to the borrower if it wasn’t.”

Sounds pretty relevant to me.

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Cellphones

Posted on September 6, 2007

I have an aversion to cellphones; and maybe it’s hereditary because both my sons seem to have the same affliction. We prefer to sit and concentrate when we’re talking on the phone. We prefer not to ruin a stroll in the park with a technological interruption. Mostly, we prefer not to be available 24/7.

Earl, on the other hand, wants instant communication. To this end, he purchased a cellphone for me a couple years ago and has been willing ever since to pay the monthly fee. He wants to talk with me when he wants to talk with me, and it frustrates him that I don’t even turn the gadget on.

“Maybe I would be more inclined if the cellphone were cute,” I told Earl a couple weeks ago. This was after I’d reviewed our monthly bill, which noted that I had used only five of my 400 monthly minutes during the last billing period while Earl had gone over his allotted amount. So last week I called the local cell phone company and rearranged our “packages,” as they’re called. Added more minutes to Earl’s and changed some features on mine, which meant we were allowed to buy new cellphones at a discount. I really didn’t need one, but the thought of “cute” spurred me on. Earl was open to the idea too, in the hope I would actually join the twenty-first century.

The two of us went to our local cellphone store and picked out flip-phone versions of what we already had. In less time than it takes to have your car washed, we left the store armed with new phones and instruction books. I’m still wading through mine.

So far, I’ve found a ring tone that I like; I’ve cancelled text messaging; and I’m still trying to initiate my voicemail message. I’ve also signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry, as it turns out our cellphone company sells our numbers to marketing shills and then we get charged for their calls. This isn’t cute.

It remains to be seen if I’ll become a true subscriber or simply one who drags a cellphone along in case of an emergency. What I’ve learned so far, however, is that a “cute”cellphone doesn’t really cut it for me anymore than an ugly cellphone did. Which means what should happen is that Earl adjusts his expectations of me. Because, maybe they’re not cute either.

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Summer’s Over

Posted on September 5, 2007

Monday was Labor Day. In a way, it’s an oxymoron that one should simply relax on Labor Day, but I’m willing to let grammatical issues slide to go with the flow. What strikes me most, however, is that Labor Day is the real end of summer, even though it actually extends to September 21.

Kids returned to school yesterday, so parents had varying degrees of emotion. Some were relieved; others sad. I was always in the relieved camp, as finding appropriate day care for two sons and two stepdaughters required Herculean effort even though I only worked part-time. Consciously, I knew the teacher wasn’t a babysitter; but believe me I valued the fact that my children were in her care approximately seven hours a day.

Parents’ schedules change too. Some have to leave earlier to drive their offspring to school; others stand on a corner for the schoolbus before taking off for their own destinations. Everyone has to factor in assignment deadlines, whether they be providing cookies for afternoon treats or helping with book reports.

Invariably the temperature turns hot, as if to remind us that summer really isn’t over. Yet, beaches are officially devoid of lifeguards and summer rates on rentals are over for the year. Bikinis are stashed away, while high school football takes over the local newspaper’s sport section.

At this stage of my life, I think I’m immune to the school cycle. My children are long on their own. I don’t have to worry about what month we take our vacation; I no longer have to check the traditional book report for spelling errors; I don’t have to attend parent-teacher conferences. Nevertheless, the years that I spent in school and then the years I spent helping my children in school are indelibly marked on my mind.

They remind me of what John Donne said: “And, therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” I suspect he was alluding to a different type of bell; at the same time, it could have been a school bell.

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We Won

Posted on September 4, 2007

This past weekend Earl and I were in attendance when Georgia Tech trounced the University of Notre Dame’s football team. The Yellow Jackets showed little remorse as they stung and stung again, while the ND quarterback — regardless of which one of the three possible successors to Brady Quinn was on the field — simply couldn’t do anything but swat at air. Or be sacked.

It was so disheartening that ND fans began leaving around the middle of the fourth quarter when it became apparent that even a miracle wasn’t going to change the outcome of the game. Touchdown Jesus couldn’t come up with the necessary four or five touchdowns it would have taken.

Earl and I were among the deserters who chose not to stay to the bitter end. Instead we got a jump start on the ride home. Rather than fighting with eighty thousand jubilant attendees all leaving at once, we joined the steady stream of glum ticket holders who’d had enough. We planned to eat an after-game dinner at The Millennium Steak House in Niles, Michigan, and headed directly there. Earl hadn’t bothered to make a reservation, and I wondered if we would get in. But he told me he’d asked Jesus to take care of the situation, and I guess He did. We were seated without delay.

I wrote about The Millennium back in March, after our last dining experience there. It was when we discovered the owners no longer offered the handmade sorbet as a treat between the first course and the main course. I complained bitterly about this. But to our surprise, our server brought raspberry sorbet after our salads. And it was as wonderful as I’d remembered. So wonderful that I had to ask how the return of the sorbet came to be.

“Many people complained,” the server said. “It was a trademark around here for so long that its absence was noticed.” I smiled. We may have lost the football game, but we’ve won the sorbet challenge!

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CURMUDGEON MONDAY – To Be Quiet

Posted on September 3, 2007

Earl and I visited a natural history museum on a recent vacation. We paid our admission and entered the first gallery, which contained a diorama of stampeding bison being chased by Indians to set the mood for what else we would see in the gallery. It also contained a couple with two young boys in tow and a group of women with children in strollers.

We had come to admire the collection in the museum and read much of the details available from plaques on the wall. I imagine the parents came to provide a family experience with their children. But the children, it seemed, weren’t up to the task.

“Oh look at that, look at that, Daddy, look at that,” one little boy repeated in a voice that could fill Yankee Stadium. The father obeyed. “I want to see that, I want to see that, I want to see that,” the boy continued, pointing to something across the room. I watched this little group and decided I would hold back until it had moved on, the better to read without distraction. A few minutes later, however, I heard the Yankee Stadium voice coming from another gallery, still exhorting his father to come here and see this. Reluctantly I moved toward the voice, as I’d read everything in the first gallery by now.

Later on our tour, we viewed a replica of an old sailing ship. Here we caught up with the women with children in strollers. Only by now, some of the children were roaming around the gallery while the mothers were standing and talking together. One little girl poked her head through the railing that cordoned off the viewing area and was about to climb through when her mother (At least, I assumed it was her mother) came running up and asked her not to do that.

“Please come,” she said, bending down to talk with the child. “We want to go this way. Please come. No not that way, this way.” It sounded as if there was serious role reversal going on here, with the mother almost pleading with the girl to come along. Had it been me, I would have picked up the child and carried her to a waiting stroller.

Even later, we saw other children running up ramps and touching some of the exhibits that were clearly off limits. They seemed to be parentless, as we never saw a mother or father call them back or set limits.

For me, museums are quiet places to reflect on what one is viewing and possibly learn something new. I like the old-fashioned kind, the ones that aren’t particularly “interactive.” In fact, the word seems to suggest that everything is some sort of a game and that standing and reading something quietly to ferret information independently is only for drones. After a day in the museum, however, I’d like to recommend that “interactive” also means “that responsibility whereby parents interact with their children in public places to help them behave properly.”

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Starbuck’s Revisited

Posted on August 31, 2007

I’ve gone back on my word not to visit Starbuck’s. I’d kissed the coffee chain good-bye a while back when I stood in line over fifteen minutes to get my specially made latte and wondered if any coffee was worth that waste of time.

I was good for a while, finding substitute beverages and saving money. But over the summer I’ve slipped back into the old Starbuck’s routine. The latte is a carrot and I’m the donkey in question. Which means I tell myself if I work out at the health club, then I’ll treat myself to a Starbuck’s as a reward. It’s worked really well. I’m getting pretty buff and Starbuck’s is getting three fifty-five a day.

This morning was no exception. I did my aerobic routine and then headed for my latte. There were several other customers milling around the coffee bar and the pace was fast, one hundred eighty degrees different from the morning I swore off lattes. I finally got my beverage and headed to Baroda to have my tires rotated. Zipping down Cleveland Avenue I sipped my extra hot, nonfat, decaf latte — which is about as fake a coffee drink as one can order . . . but that’s another issue.

I took the first sip, making sure I didn’t burn my tongue. It was certainly frothy. I took another, waiting for that coffee taste to rise above the milk, so I could enjoy it. Funny, it didn’t taste coffee-like at all. But Cleveland Avenue isn’t the place to whip off the top and investigate.

While my tires were being rotated, I sat in the waiting room and removed the lid. The contents were a creamy white, rather than the pale tan I expected. Just to be sure the essential ingredient — coffee — was really missing, I searched the bottom of my purse to find something with which to stir the liquid. The only thing available was my steel crochet hook, which I promptly wiped off and stuck in the cardboard cup. Swirling it around, all I found was milk.

So, with tires ready to go, I retraced my mileage to the Starbuck’s and brought my coffe-less latte back. The barista made me another, and this time I watched to make sure she added the two shots of decaf espresso. She laughed about the crochet hook. Fortunately, I wasn’t on a strict schedule today, so I could take the slip-up in stride. But who knows; had it been a different day, I might have sworn off Starbuck’s again.

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The Grand Slam

Posted on August 30, 2007

One week ago today I began my quest for The Grand Slam by donning six layers of clothing that made me look like a pudgy polar bear in rain gear and waddle like a penguin.

I climbed aboard one of those float planes for a ride to a remote wilderness destination where Blackee, our guide for the week, assured Earl and me we would find two of the four species of fish that comprise The Grand Slam. If you catch one of each during your stay at Wollaston Lake Lodge, you receive a mug attesting to your skills with a rod and reel. Or maybe it’s a testimony to luck, I’m not sure.

I decided that since I had come to one of the great fishing lodges in North America, I should at least attempt to get a mug for our collection. Having only fished a couple times before in my life, I wasn’t sure I could do it; but Blackee is a patient sort who tutored me on how to cast and reel in, how to use the rod to make the fish work hard and tire quickly, the easier to get him in the boat. Truthfully, I’m not sure who was more tired at the end of the day — those four fish I managed to catch or me.

The four species are Walleye, Northern Pike, Lake Trout, and Grayling. And while a fish is a fish is a fish to me, I did learn that one uses different techniques to catch each. It took me two days total, but I managed and have photos to prove it.

I must be getting hooked (no pun intended), for when I returned home a few days ago I asked the trainer at the local health club for exercises that will strengthen my arms, the better to fight fish in the future. And, even if I don’t fish for a while, at least I’ll be able to raise my shiny black mug to my lips without any trouble.

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