Sleepless In NY

I haven't slept in two days. I have a cold and for some reason the over the counter medications are not really helping me. I am more stuffed than a turkey on Thanksgiving. For the last two nights I have been lying awake in bed thinking. In the morning, I have no idea what I was thinking about. Last night as a last resort I got up and took some Nyquil. Big mistake. Now I am stuffed up and feel drugged. Not a good combination. I am getting ready to go to work now for lack of anything better to do. I have spent 10 hours in bed and want to be as far away as I can from my covers. Summer colds stink!

Cruisin

Every Friday night in the summer, men gather at the local train station parking lot and show off their cars. These are not ordinary cars. They are classic restored cars. There are muscle cars, vintage cars and even some cars that are modified beyond belief. Although most of the men are well over fifty, on Friday nights at the Bellmore Station, they are 20 again. Some of these senior citizens were wearing ponytails, leather vests and biker boots. They looked like "Fonzie" from Happy Days. I bet most of them took Lipitor that morning and a few of them had a heart stent. But tonight at the Bellmore station, they were all young. I have gone to these shows since my children were 10 years old but this time I had my car there. After many weeks of being in restoration, it had its debut. People stood around it looking at every inch of it. Each person said how beautiful it was. Some people stayed to talk for a while. It was a camaraderie of the car people. One thing I must say is that I saw no unhappy faces there.

Congratulations

A very happy event happened last night. My nephew became engaged to a wonderful girl. She will officially become part of our family in the near future. She was unofficially part of the family for three years. Both of them possess so many wonderful qualities. They are loving, kind and caring. When you are with them you feel a wonderful sense of calmness. I guess that is the feeling of love. This morning there are two lucky families. Ours for adding "C" and hers for adding "A". It still amazes me that in a world filled with billions of people, two people so right for each other met. I wish them a lifetime of happiness. They deserve the best in life because they are the best.

Car-isma

I grew up in a family that always had a car. To us it was a method of transportation. No fuss, no muss. If you got in, turned the key and it started , it was great. We never waxed, washed or buffed. It was not a priority.  It was a piece of metal. My life now revolves around a car. I didn't give birth to it but it has become a third child. It is pampered and cared for. It has cost more than a years college tuition at an Ivy League school. I will never understand "car people". I give my heart to something that returns the love. Maybe a car does that in a way that I just do not see.

Fig Tree

Nothing is sweeter than eating fruit from a tree that you have grown. Two years ago on the day of my son's engagement party, his future father-in-law planted a fig tree in my backyard. It wasn't really a tree. It was a leafless branch. He told me to water it daily and within five years it would bear fruit. For two years I looked at this twig and waited to see a change. Last month I saw leaves sprouting from it. I was so happy. Finally after two years of being nothing more than a piece of wood, there was a change. I never looked too closely at it after that. Last week I took a closer look and there they were. Tiny figs. A few of them. I was so happy that the tree was bearing fruit in only two years instead of five. I do not have a green thumb so my expectations of growing my own figs was rather low. In a few more weeks, I will be able to eat my favorite fruit fresh off of the tree. I cannot wait.

The Great Divide

For over twenty years I have been dining out with my Mah Jongg girls every few months. It is the most pleasant, easy dinner. I am using the word easy, specifically. It is meant to describe a group of people that feels comfortable with each other. There is an equal give and take of conversation. Each person is genuinely happy for the other person's accomplishments. Maybe that comes with having a long history with each other. Maybe it comes from each person having a pleasant temperament. Either way it is always a fun evening. We order good food and always leave room for dessert, even when there really is no room. Throughout the years I have an unspoken assigned job. I have been given the responsibility of equally dividing dessert. We order 2 desserts and need them to be divided into four equal parts. It used to be five when we had another group member. I size up the dessert and use my spatial relation skills to figure our how to make it equal. Not every dessert is an even shape. That is where my "great dividing skills" come in. I hope to hold this job for another twenty years.

Heat Wave or Eat Wave

My sister and I decided to add exercise to our weekly routine. Last week we went to the local high school and walked the track four times. Each lap is 1/4 mile so we felt that a full mile was a good start. The track is new and cushions your feet. I am glad to see my tax dollars at work. Last night we planned to walk again. It was 91 degrees but we still went to the track. Since we made the commitment to be healthy we did not want to back out. We walked 2 laps and decided it was just too hot to continue. We then put a contingency plan into motion. We drove to McDonald's and got sweet tea and caramel mocha latte and then continued on to Dunkin Donuts for chocolate chip muffins. Boy, this is a health plan I could really live with!

Unsavory People

The oddest thing happened yesterday afternoon. I was expecting my daughter-in-law for dinner at around 5pm. My puppy Shelby has designated himself as the community watch dog and barks anytime someone walks by my house. At around 5 o'clock he started to bark but in more of a frantic tone. I went to the door expecting "J" and instead I found 2 strangers on my lawn. One of them was a woman in her 30's walking a big ugly dog. The other one was a small man, in his 40's walking with an empty baby carriage. The man looked a little "out of it". I opened the door and went on to the front porch and said, "Can I help you"? The woman looked at me and responded, "No" but never moved off the lawn. I wanted her to go away so I then told her that my lawn has deadly chemicals and her dog's feet would be burnt. She slowly moved off and walked away. I watched them walk down the block and do this on another neighbor's lawn. I have no idea what they were looking for, but if I ever see them on my block again I will call the police. They had to have been up to something.

Internal Alarm

My body has an internal alarm clock. It is set for 6am. It is not like the new types of alarm clocks that have a Monday to Friday setting and a Saturday/Sunday setting. Mine is a seven day a week type. No matter what day it is, my eyes open at 6am. On weekend days when I would love to sleep at least an hour later, my eyes open at 6am. It doesn't even matter what time I go to sleep. The wake up time remains the same. This morning I am tired, but no matter how hard I tried to fall asleep again, I couldn't. So I am up, dressed and ready to go to work with time to spare. My motto should either be, "the early bird catches the worm" or "no rest for the weary".

Old Days

Last night I attended a small gathering of 10 people. Most of us had not known each other. The couple who invited us knew everyone. As usual, when new people get together, it becomes a game of who's who. Like the book "Six Degrees of Separation", most people have someone in common. As it turned out, this particular group had gone to the same high school. Although their paths never crossed then, each one knew the other one's friends. At one point a telephone call was made to someone's sister, as she had dated one of the men at the gathering. Most of the people sitting around the dessert table were over sixty years old but they remembered high school events as if it was yesterday, down to the clothes they were wearing and the foods they ate. For a few hours last night, we were all 18 again.

All To Ourselves

Today is going to be a fun day. My great niece will be staying at my siste'rs house while her parents have a one night vacation. I remember doing this myself 31 years ago. At the time, I thought I was getting the better end of the deal. A night away without the responsibilities of my newborn. Little did I know that my mother-in-law felt that she was the one getting the better end. That is why she agreed so quickly. Today our cute little baby belongs to us. We can play with her, dress her up and kiss her all day. We will feel like we are 10 years old again and just received a new baby doll for our birthday. Of course we will do everything that the baby's mom said to do and not deviate from her schedule. Even though my sister and I are both mothers, today we will play "mommy".

OK or Correct

Every week when I check out at the supermarket, the credit card machine asks if the total is OK. I press yes and then silently say "no, it is not OK. It is correct". It is not OK to pay $4.99 for milk or $2.39 for bread. I want to go back to the days when a bagel was 6 cents. I remember when I could get 2 slices of pizza and a small coke for 25 cents. Yes, you read it correctly. Each slice was a dime and the soda was a nickel. I would give up some of the comforts of modern life to bring back old fashioned prices. Even though you had a smaller paycheck, the ratio of commodities to paycheck was better. The only ray of hope in our lives are the dollar stores. But even there, you have to be careful. If you do not calculate the quantities by the dollars, you could be paying double for some things. I think the word finances needs to be updated. There is nothing fine about it.

A Reprieve

The heat wave has broken. At least for a day. The past week has been the kind of heat that is oppressive. Someone compared it to sticking your head in a pizza oven and breathing in. You know it is hot when you have no energy to go to the pool and cool off. Asian people have the right idea. They carry umbrellas in the heat. It serves a dual purpose. First to hide from the sun's rays and then to hide from the sun's heat. For the first time in a week I can walk outside and feel comfortable. The rain storms from yesterday cleared the path for the cool air. People are funny. In the winter we pray for heat and in the summer we pray for cold. I realized that I am a Autumn/Spring type of person. I never did like extremes.

Two Hearts

God created man with two hearts. One is physical and the other is spiritual. There is one thing that they have in common. They both feel pain. The physical pain comes from circumstances beyond our immediate control. Most of the time medication can remedy it. The spiritual pain comes from circumstances that are usually brought upon by others. The pain of the loss of a loved one. The pain of lost love. The pain of the loss of a friendship. Those pains can only be healed by time.

One Year

Time flies. It is an old saying but a true one. One year ago my younger son was married. Where did the year go? It is as if I blinked my eyes and 365 days passed. I think that the good years fly by but the bad years drag. I am lucky, then. This year has been a good one. The house we all worked so hard on is almost done. There was a new addition to the family. By the end of the year there will be another. We have all managed to remain healthy. I have no complaints. I only have thanks.

Barely Visible

Last night I was watching television and a commercial came on that did not make sense. It was for an Indian company that lends you money. When they started to say, "Yes, the money is expensive", I knew the viewing audience was in trouble. I tried to read the small print and could not make a word out. That is what all disclaimers do. The provide the information but in such a small font that no human eye can read it, in the allotted time frame. Isn't there a standard of how small that information can be before it is rendered useless. The phone information is large, the price is large so we know there is a bigger font available. Why bother listing it at all. Just say, "There is a catch to this, so buyer beware". When I finally freeze framed the disclaimer, I calculated that the $1000 loan would accrue $89,000 in fees. Yes, the money is expensive.

Who Is Responsible?

I have heard of two cases of missing items in the past week. One was supposed to be delivered by FedEx and the other by USPS. Both said they arrived but it is anyone's guess where they arrived. Is this incompetence or just plain carelessness? I never understood why the post office asks if you want to insure an item. Basically they are saying that they do not have enough trust in themselves to guarantee they will get your item there, so they suggest you pay a small fee in case they screw up. What other business does that? I have never paid insurance on pizza delivery and they always arrive at my house. I have never paid insurance on an oil delivery and they have no problem finding their way. I am quite sure that my address does not change itself when it sees the mail truck. So here is the burning question....where in the world are my oil filter and Roxy the rocking horse? Have they joined forces and galloped off into the sunset?

Never Say Never

Nothing in life is absolute. As I got older I learned to "never say never". Sometimes circumstances in life guide us into changing our perspective. Things that we swore we would never do become the right things for us to do. It could be a simple thing like eating a new food or visiting a new place. I like to leave situations open ended. When my children were small I knew a woman who advised me to use the term "we'll see". She said that by using that term I would avoid alot of crying, nagging and tantrums. She was right. From that point on, I lived in a "we'll see" world. It makes life so much easier.

Lifetime Guarantee

I was talking with friends the other day and the subject of lifetime guarantees came up. We reminisced about when we first moved into our homes and hired contractors to do some home improvements. The concept of a thirty year guarantee on a roof or vinyl (aluminum in those days) siding was very important to us. We were young, married couples in our thirties and felt a sense of security knowing that our hard earned money would not be foolishly spent. It was a selling point. Thirty years later some of the original home improvements need to be updated. When contractors come for estimates and confidently say there is a thirty year guarantee, we laugh. We will be in our 90's in thirty years and if we need to put the guarantee into play, we will be hard pressed to even remember where the papers are.

See You Soon

In a few hours, I will be having breakfast with my son and daughter in law before they get on the road to go back home to Massachusetts. The morning will fly by, as things usually do when you want them to last. Our tradition is a bagel breakfast. As I sit and ea,t I watch as each bite moves towards goodbye. I try to get in as much conversation as I can while I have them here. It just isn't the same on the phone. I will see them again in a few months before the baby is born but that doesn't make saying goodbye any easier. My family had such a nice time at dinner last night and those memories will be with me until we do it again. One day I will stow away in the back of their car.

Happy Birthday

Today is my husband's 60th birthday. I cannot believe I am married to someone that old. He looks much younger than his age. As I recently heard someone say "sixty is the new fifty". If anything newsworthy would happen to him, the headline would read "an elderly man". He was born on a lucky day. 7-11. Today, he can get a free Slurpee as 7-11 gives them away to everyone on this day. I guess it is their birthday also. We will celebrate this milestone by spending the day with our children and having a family dinner at a local restaurant. At 60 years old, he can still get into more trouble than a barrel of monkeys. I guess that is what keeps me young.

The Gang's All Here

Last night at 11pm my son and daughter-in-law pulled into my driveway. They are here for a 3 day visit. I was thrilled to see them. I set them up in my son's old room. Every time he visits he says that he feels like a giant in a tiny space. After many years we have concluded that the building standards in Massachusetts are different than in New York. Kitchen and bathroom counter tops are at a higher level where they live. Even a few inches makes a big difference. Bathroom light switches must be placed outside of the room, while I have them on the inside. Each time he visits he rummages through his old desk drawers hoping to find a treasure. Each time he finds something new that he takes home with him. This time it was a container of wheat pennies from the 1940's. I never cleaned out his drawers when he relocated so there are items in them that have been untouched since 2004. When they are here the family circle is complete.

Art Show

I just came back from an art show. Not the kind of art you frame and hang on a wall. The kind of art you wear. I was at the town pool and realized that I could spend an hour just looking at people's tattoos. Men and women. I saw snakes, angel wings, numbers, Chinese writings (on non Asian people), faces, cartoon characters and a few baby footprints. All sizes and all colors. It was fascinating. Some people had so many that they were morphing into one big jumble. I wondered what each picture meant to the person who was wearing it. Then I saw a large tattoo of a Jewish star on a woman's back. It was four inches in diameter. I swam up to the woman and saw that she was wearing a crucifix. Now, I am trying to put the puzzle together. Hugh Jewish star, bigger cross. When I got closer I saw the other tattoos on her back. A cluster of snowflakes. The large tattoo was a six pointed solid colored snowflake but it was also a Jewish star. She probably had no idea what it looked like from far away.

Too Much Protocol

Years ago society in general was more formal. We had Emily Post to guide proper etiquette. Now we seem to be going it on our own and not doing such a great job. Let me give you an example. In the 1950's wedding invitations were sent out four weeks in advance. In the 1970's we bumped it up to six weeks. Then it became eight. Now ten weeks in advance is not uncommon. For some reason we then became insecure and felt the need to give advanced notice that an invitation would be coming in the future. Hence, the save the date came into being. That is where the trouble began. The save the dates were sent out six months in advance, then eight months and now they are sent nine months. Friendships can drastically change in nine months. People that you wanted in June may no longer be close to you in March. People that were only acquaintances in January might be your best friend in September. If you sent a save the date you are obligated to send an invitation. If you did not send the save the date the person may take the invitation as a second thought invite. I want to go back to the 1950's. Send me an invitation four weeks before the event and if I am free I will be there.

Hot or Hot

Years ago I was hot. Today I am hot. Two totally different interpretations of the same word. When I was in my twenties I was told that I was pretty. In those days the expression "hot" was born. Hot meant good looking, attractive and even sexy. There was a song "Don't you wish your mama was hot like me". As I got older the meaning has dramatically changed. Hot now means night sweats, flashes and clammy skin. I know that this does not sound too attractive but it is the truth. Once you hit 50, you yearn to be cool. Not the way you were cool in your 20's. This cool has nothing to do with style or attitude. It has to do with body temperature.

Snapshot

When I moved to Long Island, I was 25 years old and had an infant son. One of the fun summer activities was going to the town pool. Thirty years later, I am still going. One of the first pictures I have of me living in this neighborhood was taken at that pool. It was a picture of me and my sister sitting under an awning. Our babies were sleeping in their carriages but they were not in the snapshot. Last night I had friends over for our bi monthly get together. One of the girls brought a picture of her son and his childhood friends. Each of them was holding their child. It was a testament to long lasting friendships. I looked at the picture and had a flashback. One of those children was in a picture in my photo album. How could that be? The boy in the picture was only two years old. I went into my den, dusted off an album from thirty years ago and flipped through it. There he was. The same boy. It was a picture of his father at 4 years old. Same face. Same haircut. I showed it to my friend and made a copy for her to take home. When I teach my coaching classes, I tell people that they need to broaden their look of the world. I use the analogy of re-framing a picture to see the panoramic view. You never know what is hiding in the background of life. In this case, a picture of me, hid a picture of my friend's son.

Vacations at Work

There are two types of vacations. One where you go away. One where your co workers go away. Both of them are relaxing. The vacation that you actually go on is fun until you get back and have to unpack, do laundry, go food shopping and catch up on office work. In one day you need another vacation. Then, there is the vacation that happens when your co workers are not there. The office is quiet. No extra drama. Things get done at your own pace. No stress. All of that, and you do not have to catch up on laundry!

Happy 4th

Happy rainy 4th of July. I woke up this morning to rain. To me this is the official start of summer. Pools, beaches, summer concerts and barbecues. I see the sun trying to come through the clouds in an attempt to save the day for family gatherings. It is a day to celebrate Independence. The funny part is that we are not independent. We need to rely on others to have a fulfilled life. People that live a totally independent life, really have nothing to celebrate.

A Tale Of Two Dogs

This is a story about animal instinct and how humans and dogs have some things in common. I have lovely neighbors living on either side of me. Each one has a daughter and each daughter occasionally brings their dog over to have their parents "babysit". On the left side of the yard is Milo. A big black Lab with a mean temperament. When I walk Shelby, he bolts towards him, teeth bared, barking. Shelby frantically barks back and has a combatitive stance, even though he is only 17 pounds. On the right side is Fritzy, a German Shepard with a sweet easy temperament. She slowly walks over to the fence, silently and puts her nose near an opening. Shelby walks over calmly and meets her nose with his and both tails wag in delight. Shelby is the constant in the scenario. The other dogs set the tone. It is the same with humans. There is always one person that "barks" for no reason. I would rather live in a Fritzy world. It is a happier one.

Are You For Real

I am sitting at my desk looking out of the window, watching the traffic speed by. I work on a large boulevard with 5 traffic lanes. Two each way and one center turning lane. There are signs all over clearly stating that u-turns are prohibited. They are not written in words, they are picture signs. It is bad enough that we have demoted our expectations of drivers to question that they can read English. We now draw out our traffic information, like charades. Still, no one listens. I am surprised that in the nine years that I am sitting here, no one has driven their car into my lap. People make the illegal u-turn, on a blind curve at the height of traffic. Are they daredevils or just plain stupid. Once, I did not hire a girl because of her driving. At the end of the interview, I told her that she cannot make a left turn out of the parking lot, as it was not only dangerous, but also illegal. I said that I would be at the window watching her. She left and then proceeded to make the dangerous illegal left turn. I tore up her application.

Say It Again

Am I just getting old? Last night I went to a wedding and it was a repeat of almost every wedding I have been to in the past few years. The music was blasting. It was at such a high decibel that my ears actually hurt. My sister is smart. She carries earplugs in her "wedding handbag" just in case the sound gets overwhelming. Last night she had them solidly stuffed in her ears. I do not know why the DJ had to crank up the volume so high. It certainly would have been heard at three levels lower. Towards the end of the evening, most people over 50 had filtered out of the main ballroom into a side room. The younger generation had no problems with the sound and even stood right in front of the speakers when they danced. The groom's family is in the hearing aid business. Maybe they were trying to drum up future business.