Second Half: the blog

Thank You, and Come Back

I'm working down at Avenidas this morning.  It's a center in Palo Alto that provides services for seniors, and at age 56, I qualify.  Attached to the center is a gallery which has marvelous jewelry, photography, watercolors, knitwear, handmade soap. and oh, yeah...my book, You May Already Be a Wiener!

A woman bought one of my books today and I autographed it for her.  I was much more of a thrill than selling one anonymously on Amazon.  If you're in the area, stop by the Fire House Gallery, 450 Bryant Street in downtown Palo Alto.

Daddy Exam

Wednesday's Second Half column is about the new Daddy Exam planned for Japanese men to see if they have adequate parenting skills.  The questions don't seem to get to the point, so I wrote my own little quiz.  Read the column and post your own questions here by clicking on "comments."

ANSWERS to Mary's quiz -- 1.c    2. c    3. c    4. c    5. c    6. c
There, wasn't that easy?

The Tiny Terrorist

Here is Molly the Cockapoo, the subject of this week's column.  I'm going back east to discover for myself how this 3-pound puppy can hold an entire household hostage.  Here's the story.

Corky the French Bulldog

Here she is, in all her bat-eared, pig-bodied glory.  She's turned out to be a Daddy's girl.  All she had to do was lick his ears and he was smitten.

We call her The Corkster, and sometimes, Princess Poopsalot.

She's 17 pounds of fun.

Valentine's Day

It's another Hallmark Holiday!  If you haven't gotten your girl a gift yet, be sure to read up on Valentine's Day Don'ts. Ladies, what's the BEST Valentine's Day gift you ever received?

When I Have Time

In this week's column I talk about my imminent "retirement" and the chance to do more of what I really love - perhaps rediscovering favorite childhood activities  like playing the violin. 

What one thing do you look forward to doing when you retire and have the time? 

Click on "comments" and leave your answer.  Best response wins a copy of "You May Already Be a Wiener!"

Be sure to include your e-mail for prize notification!

35 Years, or 35 Million Miles, Whichever Comes First

The year was 1972.  The place: Tucson, Arizona.  I was in my final year at the University of Arizona, where I majored in Anthropology, and just to make sure I was unemployable, minored in Philosophy.

It was Spring.  I was about to fall in love. 

French Kissing

Today's column is about falling in love with a French Bulldog.  Here's what they look like.

People tend to fall into two camps -- they think it's the ugliest dog they've ever seen, or they want to cover its cute little snout with kisses. 

It Never Faiils

Sometimes, even humorists have a bad day.  Such as yesterday, a 10-hour series of unfortunate events which culminated in my screaming at a motorist who cut me off in Menlo Park when I was actually mad at someone who had been unspeakably nasty to me earlier in the day.

But, no matter.  Whenever I feel like I want to jump off the bridge or perhaps put ground glass in my mean colleague's coffee, I simply log on to my favorite web site.  It never takes more than 3 pages to get me back in a good mood.  Try it!  Stuff On My Cat.

Dear Miss Manners...

The other day I was looking at magazines at a local newsstand, trying to decide between Newsweek and Time.  I looked up and saw a gentleman slip behind the beaded curtain that separates the Perv Nook from the rest of the reading material.  I realized, to my horror, that it was a co-worker, out to score some hard-core porn on his lunch hour.  I put my head down and left the store quickly.

What is the etiquette in such a situation?  Should I have greeted him?  How can I ever shake his hand again without wondering where it's been?  Is it wrong to expect colleagues to buy their porn on the way home instead of 2 blocks from the office?

Just wondering

Your Life List

Last week I wrote about "things I'll never do."  (see previous post)

This week, the column is a continuation.  By writing about it, I've discovered that there many things I'll never do and I've just never thought of middle age as the time you give up on some dreams.  It's been an epiphany.

Wanna play? Pick up a copy of the San Mateo County Times on Friday (9/15), read "Second Half," and then post your answers to these questions:

What have you crossed off your list because it's too late?

What will you NEVER cross off your list because you'll do it or die trying?

What was on your list at age 25 that just seems silly now?

Now that you're, ahem, *mature* what is your most burning desire or ambition?

Best answer wins a free copy of my book, "You May Already Be a Wiener!"  You must leave your real e-mail address to be eligible to win and the entries will be judged solely by me because it's my blog. 

Click on COMMENTS below to post your answers.  This'll be fun!

Top of My List

I’ve started a list of things I’ll never do. Some of the items are things that, realistically speaking, I’m just too old to do, like become a professional singer. Unless the “American idol” people come up with a show called “Fat, Delusional Old People Who Think They Have Talent.” Then I might have a shot.

One of the things I regret is that I’ll never have a master’s degree. Not that it’s too late. Plenty of people go back to school in their 50s, but I’m past the point in my career where it would be a good investment. Plus, I’m too lazy. I just hate thinking that I coulda, woulda, shoulda back in the day. 

Other items on my “Never” list are things that I would not do even if I were 30 years younger. At the top of the list is going to Burning Man, that week-long bacchanal in the desert that’s supposedly about art, but I suspect is more about being reckless and naked. 

My son Jason just returned home from his first Burning Man, and the tales he tells (which are the milder ones, I’m sure) are enough to convince me. First, there’s the dust. I spent the first eight years of my marriage to Starter Husband as a housewife. With two kids, a flock of sheep, a dog, a cat, and an old house that harbored field mice in the basement, my entire day was spent trying to eradicate dirt. I tore down spider webs. I cleaned up vomit and baby poo. I scraped the muck out of the barn. I scrubbed my husband’s collars with a toothbrush. During those years, my whole existence revolved around fighting back against a universe determined to cover my house and my family with a coating of grime.

So, to purposely go to a place like the middle of the desert where one must bow to the power of the dust devil and accept being grimy? Not gonna happen. Jason told of carefully double-wrapping sausages before putting them in the cooler. After a day at Burning Man, the dust, fine as talcum powder, had penetrated the paper, the plastic and the Styrofoam, to deposit a layer of sand on the Kielbasa. Sorry, I prefer my food grit-free. 

Besides the dirt inherent in the Burning man experience, there’s the fire. When I asked Jason what was scariest thing that happened, he told me a propane tank blew up right next to him, an announcement that had me frantically scanning him for burns, even though I could clearly see he still had all of his skin. When my heart rate has slowed down again, I asked him how the explosion had happened. It seems an “art” exhibition in which fire was piped through ice had gone awry and instead of the flame going up, it had traveled down to the tank, with predictable results. He went on to describe other stunts that involved fire, electricity, rickety structures, and drunk people. Burning Man sounded like a bunch of kids running around doing everything their mothers told them not to do.

That’s when I put “Attend Burning Man” at the top of the list of Things I’ll Never Do. Can you image me, a mother and former housewife, at this celebration of dirt and danger? When I wasn’t frantically cleaning, I’d be running around shouting, “Be careful! You’ll put your eye out!” Because number two on my list of Things I’ll Never Do is “Stop Being a Mother.”

Credit Limit

I spent $20, 227.09 today. And, no, I didn’t buy a car or a timeshare or a home theater system. I bought one month of voicemail service.

Here’s my sad story. I went online yesterday to pay my monthly bill for my voicemail service. I need a separate number from my home number, which is unlisted so as to discourage stalkers. Why anyone would want to stalk me is a question as puzzling as why people worship Paris Hilton, but I have in fact been the target of two stalkers in my lifetime.  Yes, TWO, not counting the gentleman who kept e-mailing me and telling me what he liked to do while gazing at my photo. He even gave me his cell phone number in case I wanted to meet up, which was, obviously, not likely. Excuse me while I go wash my hands.

As I was saying, I use voicemail to take messages so that I don’t have to give out my number. I am on a month-by-month deal, so I went online to pay my $20.27 bill for July. I filled out all the blanks on the form, including my credit card number and security code. I hit ‘submit’ and instead of getting a receipt, I received a message that the company was unable to make transactions at the moment, but that my information had been captured. They would process my payment and send a receipt to the address provided. I heard a giant sucking sound as my private financial information was relayed through the ether to who knows where.

My fear was not unfounded. My credit card ended up on the desk of a completely fallible human being by the name of Christina who called this morning, confessing that she had made a mistake in entering my payment amount. They had accidentally charged me not $20.27, but $20,277 and change. While I was picturing what Christina had eaten for breakfast that made her fingers stick to the keyboard like that, she rushed to assure me that, while the transaction had gone through, they were ‘not taking the money.’”

“Excuse me?” I said. “What does that mean, exactly? Did you give the money to charity or are you sending me a refund check, or…”

She tried again, with a little giggle. “Well, we are human and we do make mistakes but we caught it in time. I just wanted you to know because your bank may put a hold on your card.”

“Well, that is a problem, Christina, because I might need to buy a plane ticket to Alabama or wherever the hell you’re calling from so that I can hunt you down and strangle you with your computer cable. What is your phone number?” She told me, because customer service reps are not allowed to be unlisted, although they can use pseudonyms. Christina’s real name, I’m guessing, is something like Brandi with an ‘i.’

I called my bank and discovered that the twenty thousand dollar charge was pending and there was no credit issued by the voicemail company to offset it. The good folks at Visa said there is no such thing as “not taking the money.” Christina, if that is her real name, would have to issue a corresponding credit because once a charge was submitted, there was no other way to cancel it out. Once you hit ‘enter’ it’s just like firing a gun. There’s no taking it back. And saying it was human error doesn’t really make it better when your credit card is hemorrhaging or you have a gaping chest wound spurting blood.

I called “Christina” back and she said she was working on issuing a credit. She would call me back in a few minutes. I went out to get an iced tea to calm my nerves. While I was out, Christine left me a voicemail. “We think we figured it out,” she said, so you should be okay. And, by the way, thanks for signing up for our automatic payment plan. We’ll be billing your credit card on the 1st of every month.. Have a nice day!”

Birthday Blues

I’m feeling old today and I need to spread the joy. I turned 55 this week, and when somebody at the office asked me how old I was, I answered, “More than halfway to death.”
 

Perhaps I should have spent my birthday doing something more uplifting than contemplating my own mortality, but it’s becoming harder to banish morbid thoughts the closer I get to Medicare.
 

And now for the joy-sharing part. Since age is relative, I invite you to gain some perspective by playing Age Gauge. I can’t remember how I found this site. Perhaps I was on Google to find a way to refer to my age that's cheerier than “older than dirt.”
 

This particular site asks you to type in your date of birth, then spits out a list of famous folks who are younger (and older) than you. This information can be depressing. For instance, I found out I’m 4 years and 3 months older than Bill Gates. When he was born and couldn’t even find his toes or focus his eyes, I was already learning the alphabet and was fully potty trained. Yet even with this head start I fell so far behind that I have no hope of becoming a billionaire mogul/philanthropist.
 

I am thirty years and four months older then Britney Spears, so it’s possible I’ll be dead when she gets to be my current age. If she is still appearing on the cover of People magazine when she’s 55, you can just go ahead and shoot me, although I do have a morbid curiosity about how screwed up her kids will turn out.

On the bright side, I am younger than some people, including Mick Jaggar, who at the age of 62 has turned into a parody of a caricature, although he appears positively fresh next to bandmate Keith Richards, who looks like an apprentice funeral director’s first embalming project.
 

Also, I am 34 years, 9 months younger than legendary newsman Walter Cronkite, who famously broke down on the air when reporting the death of President Kennedy. I was 12 years old when that happened, as I was reminded by the web site, which also calculates your age at the time of historical events. Other things I learned: During my first 8 years of life, we still had 49 states. When Hawaii was admitted as the 50^th state, it must have been a big deal, but all I cared about was scoring an extra glass of Ovaltine before bedtime.
 

The span of my lifetime can be measured by numerous national tragedies. I was 14 during the Watts riots, 16 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, and 28 years old when the Iran hostage crisis began. I was all of 29 when President Reagan was shot, 34 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, and 43 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.
 

I could go on, but you get the idea. Life is one damn thing after another. And then you die.
 

On the bright side, I discovered a new way to state my age. I’m 19 years, and 10 months younger than Barbara Walters.

A Big 'Ol Birthday

Yep, had another birthday this week and I'm feeling pretty tenuous about this Highway to Death thing we call "Life."

Just for fun, I Googled "age" and found a fun little site called Age Gauge.

Try it out - it's a hoot.  Then look for my column about it on Friday.

Weather or Not

As I’m writing this, it’s 106 degrees, a new record high for San Carlos. It’s also a new record high for crabbiness in my house. It’s not Keeper, who has yet to raise his voice in the 18 years I’ve known him. In fact, I wish he WOULD raise his voice so I could hear him over the damn fans.

 

Even as I’m encased in a blanket of my own sweat, I’m trying to stay positive. I’m telling myself that our forbears put up with discomforts that we can’t imagine today. I remind myself that I’m fortunate not to live in Sacramento or on the top floor of an apartment building that’s a real-life example of heat rising. I’m grateful I’m not a roofer working with hot tar.

 

So, to stay positive, let’s look at the heat wave as a learning opportunity.  I’m keeping a running list of all the things I’ve discovered.

 

1. Mr. Bobo is right. The bathroom floor is indeed the coolest place in the house. His assertion that the doorway is the preferred spot is up for debate.

2. Hot air that’s being pushed through a fan is still hot air.

3. Contrary to what you might think, leather furniture absorbs sweat.

4. You can take up to three showers a day without getting alligator skin.

5. Towels that have been absorbing 90 degree heat for 3 days feel like they just came out of the dryer.

6. I’ll watch a movie that’s total crap as long as the theater is air-conditioned.

7. Popcorn and a giant soda make a satisfying meal during a heat wave.

8. Asking me the question “Do I have any clean underwear?” does not elicit the desired information.

9. Going to the office in the morning is suddenly quite attractive.

10. Camping in the backyard? No.

11. People who are just now shopping for fans – duh! 

12. My intention to be the only newspaper columnist on the west coast who didn’t mention the heat was futile. I can’t think about anything else.

13. Real reason the polar ice caps are melting: the heat put out by computers.

14. “Spare the Air” my ass. I’m driving around in my air-conditioned gas guzzler and you can’t stop me.

15. The argument is settled: I’d rather be too cold than too hot any day.

16. Naked is not a good look for me.

17. The best drink ever: an Arnold Palmer (half iced tea, half lemonade)

18. The bathroom mirror doesn’t fog when the room temperature is hotter than the shower.

19. Knitting a wool sweater: not a good pastime in July.

20. Keeper can find a way to blame ANYTHING – including weather fronts – on George Bush.

Blame it on Sis

If you’re not happy with your life, stop blaming your parents. Blame your brothers and sisters instead.

 

Behavioral scientists are just now figuring out that our siblings have a lot more to do with shaping us than even our parents. This new insight merited a cover story recently in Time magazine. The theory? During our formative years, we spend more time with our brothers and sisters than with anyone else. Our siblings teach us how to deal with conflict, how to relate to the opposite sex, how to form friendships. Plus, God willing, they’re with us for the long haul. “Our siblings may be the only people we’ll ever know who truly qualify as partners for life,” says sociologist Katherine Conger of the University of California, Davis, as reported in Time.

 

Reading the article got me thinking about how my own sister influenced me. When I was born, Dee was 5 years old and into baby dolls. No doubt my living, breathing, drooling self was a 7-pound dream come true. We have pictures of her holding me in her lap, grinning like it’s Christmas morning. Through the years, Dee patiently taught me to tie my shoes, shave my legs, and kiss a boy.

 

There were some rough times when she was in high school and I was the pest who sneaked into her room to read her diary, but when she left for college she became even more mysterious and glamorous. More than ever, I wanted to be just like her.

 

It was during this period when she influenced not only how I related to the world, she started to boss me around about my appearance. In what was to become an extreme makeover in stages, Dee started by insisting that I pierce my ears. After all, all the college girls were doing it. She made it sound mandatory, so I sat there at the kitchen table holding an ice cube to my ear lobe while she rattled on about sorority parties and “sterilized” one of Mom’s sewing needles with a match.

 

I wasn’t so mesmerized by her tales of sophisticated collegiate life that I didn’t feel the pain. In fact, I remember refusing to let her do the other one until she convinced me that I would look unbalanced (in more ways than one) with only one earring. So, I numbed the other earlobe and she poked the needle in. When we had both little gold studs in, we noticed that they pointed different directions, but it was too late to do anything about it.

 

During another of her visits home from college, she convinced me that short hair (like her new shag) was all the rage. I wasn’t a pushover this time. I had spent years growing my dishwater blond locks and coaxing my recalcitrant curls into a semblance of the Marianne Faithful/Joni Mitchell long-and-straight look.

Dee wouldn’t be denied. Oh, she didn’t bully me--she jollied me. Those who know her will recognize her M.O. She made it sound like such fun, such a lark, that I just went along with it. She did the job herself. The next Monday at school, when my friends asked me what had happened to my hair, I cried, “My sister cut it off!”

 

Her influence on me didn’t stop when she got married. When I was a junior in high school, my sister, now a young mother, found a bank that was offering a gift for opening a new account. After opening our accounts with $25 each, we went to a big room and picked out our gifts: wigs made of fake hair. Mine was an ash-blond, too-shiny “fall” which I wore anchored to the top of my head with a stretchy headband and carefully arranged around my shoulders in a desperate attempt to recreate that long-and-straight look. Judging from the stares I got and my mother’s ill-disguised disdain, I don’t think I fooled anyone.

 

With her natural charm and built-in status as role model, Dee could have done me a great deal more harm than poking holes in my ears and making me look like I was wearing a squirrel on my head. For the fact that she used her influence wisely and for the fact that we are still good friends, I am thankful.

 

According to Time, the relationship between sisters tends to be particularly close. As for Dee and me, if we end up as widows, we’ll be so lucky to have each other. And most likely, matching hairdos.

This is not Mr. Bobo

My new favorite web site features photos from people who answer "yes" to the question, "Do you like to put things on your cat?"

Huh, like anyone can honestly answer "no" to that question!

Check it out.

The Secret O' Life

“Nobody needs me.  I’m superfluous,” said our family friend Catherine, an 88-year-old with an infectious laugh and boundless enthusiasm.  In true Catherine fashion, she giggled at her own statement, but there was sadness in her little shrug.  Her children had grown up and moved away, her husband had died years before, and she was living alone in small-town Pennsylvania.

“Superfluous? Of course you’re not!” I answered quickly, but her words hit home.  My own children are grown, the working days I have left are measured in years instead of decades, and already I’ve become invisible to most….. but this is not about me.

It’s about Catherine, one of my favorite people.  She is a good friend and sometime-traveling companion to my mother-in-law.  As an honorary Hanna, she attended the Hanna Reunion Shindig in Virginia last week.  This “superfluous” guest spent an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen cutting up fruit because she noticed that we kids will eat things that are good for us if they’re bite-sized and don’t require unwrapping.  She invariably fought her way to the sink to do the dishes, not because she felt any pressure to earn her keep, but because, she convinced us, she just liked being useful.

The great thing about Catherine is that she’s game for anything.  When it was time to take the garbage to the dumpster down the road, she jumped up and begged to go along.  “I’ve never been to a dump!” she cried.  She and my brother-in-law arrived back home just as we were ready to call out the state troopers. While we were worrying about what had happened to them, they had spent a delightful hour in adventure mode, exploring the neighborhood and environs.  Her only disappointment was that the dump didn’t have any rats.

She and my mother-in-law (also a Catherine) are two of the happiest people I know.  “I never do anything that bores me,” says Mom.  This is partly because she can afford to live that way, but it’s mostly because she finds everything interesting.  She bought her first computer when she was 75 and last week at the age of 87 was patiently teaching Catherine how to cut-and-paste.  Heads together over a diagram, they could have been posing for a portrait called The Curious Catherines.

It’s this innate joy that keeps them vibrant.  That, and not ever complaining.  I’m more than 30 years younger than these two, and I can’t get out of bed without griping about my knees, but if the Catherines suffer the inevitable aches and pains, they keep it to themselves.

I once saw an interview with the late actress Ruth Gordon, who summed up her love of life by saying that every time she eats an apple, it’s the reddest, juiciest, most delicious apple she’s ever eaten.  The Catherines are the same way – every experience, every moment is savored and enjoyed.  Some things may escape their notice, but whatever they focus on – the sunlight on the lake, a new recipe for ratatouille, a well-written editorial– holds great delight for them.  They have found the secret to happiness and they’re pleased to share it.  Do they sound superfluous to you? 

Ask your own Old People to share their secrets with you.  The world could use a little wisdom.

Backwoods Vacation

We’ve been to the Back of Beyond.  My Midwest readers will be glad to know that this summer I am not making fun of the Hoosier State.  First of all, it's just too easy.  Second, I’ve found a place that makes Indiana seem the height of culture and sophistication.

If you want to visit the new Hanna family vacation spot, take a puddle-jumper to Roanoke, Virginia, rent a car and get ready for a backroads adventure.

 

Knowing that Keeper’s mother always chooses a luxury spot to gather her clan, I began to worry that we were the victims of a cruel joke.  Perhaps the rest of the family was luxuriating in a 5-star waterfront hotel while we were stuck in the backwoods praying that we didn’t have a flat tire in a place where even AAA won’t go.  Our Mapquest directions kept us making a “slight left” and a “sharp right” until we felt as dizzy as if we’d stopped at Billy Bob’s for a mason jar full of moonshine.

After thirty miles of mountain roads lined with rusted-out trailers, old tires painted white and planted with pansies, and cement block Baptist churches, we arrived at the Hanna Family Reunion, which this year relocated from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to Mosquito Haven, Virginia. Note: the name of the town has been changed to protect this tourist spot from being overrun.

I needn’t have worried about the accommodations.  The Hannas consider a kitchen without an espresso maker an undue hardship, second only to an occupant-to-powder room ratio of more than 2 to1.

We always win the prize for coming the furthest: the privilege of occupying the master bedroom.  This year’s room had a closet larger than my home office, and a bathroom with a jaccuzi tub, all the better to wash off the dust and turkey feathers we had acquired on Route 122.

We practice “When in Rome” tourism, so we settled in to do as the rural Virginians do – complain about the heat, drink beer, and get sunburned.  I drew the line at a couple of favorite Mosquito Haven activities – smoking and shopping at WalMart.

 

The local tourist publication gave a hint of local flavor.  There was a column called “Fishin’ Hole” and a series of “Remember When” photo essays which depicted historical landmarks such as Cooks Grocery, which was torn down to make way for the EZN convenience store. A real historical landmark, the Booker T. Washington National Monument is described in an article called “When slavery was part of the fabric of American life.”

Ah, yes, we are in the South.  If you need confirmation, look at the list of events planned for this summer: Confederate Memorial Day Service, Summer Sundays in the Cemetery, Civil War Days, Veterans Breakfast, and something called “Red, White, & You.”   There’s nothing more revered in the South than war dead.

Unless it’s big-haired beauty.  If you’re into that kind of thing, I’m sorry to tell you that the Miss Virginia pageant was on June 22.  You can still catch the Gospel Festival on August 10.  When you get to Roanoke, turn left at the grey house with the porch listing to the left and the hound dog staked to the clothesline.  Go about 10 miles.  If you come to a dead end, you’re there.