Think Dream Play

I Grew Up to be a Walmart Greeter

2020-04-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

I didn’t worry about what I would do in retirement. I always knew I could be a Walmart greeter.

But my husband fretted about me as the date drew near. He feared that after I left my prominent, powerful position; when the bright lights dimmed and the glory faded, that I might retreat to what he called “dark times.”

Dark times would be characterized by fuzzy slippers and fuzzy teeth, devotion to daytime TV, bouts of nostalgia, and yearning for the good ol’ days of chaperoning dances and monitoring the cleavage of teenaged girls determined to show it.

Did I mention I was a high school principal? Oh yeah. Good times.

Actually, I loved my job, the students especially, and the work in general. But after 30 years, I was not sad to leave it behind.

Still, along with my husband, I did begin to wonder how I might spend my days when they were wide open, up to me, and demand-less.

Then I saw a piece on the news about a man in Berkeley who was retiring from a position he had created for himself after he retired.

He might have been an accountant, or a mechanic. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, he did it for 32 years, collected his gold watch, and went home.

Then, and this is key, he designated himself a waver. He must have dreamed of it for a while before he put his plan into action.

You see, he lived on a busy stretch of road in Berkeley where Highway 13 dumps onto city streets. So every morning and evening, during rush hour, he stood on the sidewalk in front of his home and waved at the commuters. He smiled and waved.

A simple thing. A small thing, but a big thing. His modest gesture said things those folks might have needed to hear: I see you. You seem alright to me. You’re worthy of my attention. Good luck out there.

And they waved back at him, the commuters. Many of them did. They broke from the trance of their routines and made eye contact and waved.

For 25 years he stood there.

And consciously or not, those travelers looked forward to seeing him. Maybe in the beginning, when they first saw him there in his dungarees and plaid shirt, they had a question in their minds about him, but it was a good question. Something like, “I wonder why he does this?” “What does he get from waving to everyone?” or “What does he get from waving at me?”

I’m pretty sure that if at first they dismissed him as odd, or eccentric, those assessments gave way to an appreciation for the comfort of seeing him each morning. Full of goodwill. Asking for nothing. Like your grandpa when he showed up for your swim meets. Someone who was glad to see you for no other reason than there you were, and you were you.

Now that my husband is retired, we watch the morning news together. When the traffic report comes on and a map of the city’s commute arteries fills the screen showing tangled intersections and ribbons of red where sig alerts throb, my husband delights in his carefree circumstances, cup o’ joe in one hand and the Chronicle in the other. He toasts the screen with glee and says, “You poor bastards!”

The Waver wasn’t thinking that. He didn’t stand there for 25 years to rub it in ~ you’re going to work, and I’m not!

No, he wasn’t like that. I’m sure of this because when he decided to retire from waving, throngs of commuters slowed down to wave one last time, or honk, or to tell the reporter how they’d loved him from behind the wheel. They knew he was a good guy. They would miss him. He made a difference.

I want to make a difference and that man in Berkeley showed me how. The job matches my skill set nicely.

And now, as it turns out, in these times that feel kind of dark, these days of sheltering-in-place, of masks and gloves and ‘keep your distance, buddy,’ a greeter might make a difference. I think I’ll give it a try.

Maybe I’ll see you on the pedestrian path in front of our house. Lots of folks are taking advantage of the sunlight, walking by.

I’ll give you a wave and a smile. You seem OK to me.

2020-04-13T13:11:00.001-07:00

Being Elderly in the Time of the Corona Virus

I just created an MP3 recording!

And I’m ELDERLY!

I figured it out all by myself, too! Wow! ELDERLY folks are amazing!

Not sure about you, but I have a strong aversion to being called ‘elderly.’ I’m not even too keen on the designation of “senior citizen.” I prefer to be called Oh Great One, or She Who Must Be Obeyed. So far, no takers.

Certainly no takers among the media in these times of implied – and real – frailty and vulnerability. I have to face the fact that, based on my age, I’m part of the cadre of those most susceptible to our invisible enemy, COVID-19.

OK, fine. They’ve got me on that one. But I refuse to succumb to the stereotypes assigned to me because I happen to be between 65 and 102! And being technologically able is one way I can poke my finger in the eye of the stereotyper! Ha!

Now is a perfect time to shake off that badge, almost a brand: Old person = Technologically inept.

We don’t need no stinking badges!

So, if you’ve been in the mode of handing your devices over to your children and chuckling with them that you’re of the wrong generation to ‘get it,’ STOP DOING THAT!

Now, more than ever, we OLD FOLKS must find ways to overcome isolation. It’s just no good to sit at home and watch CNN and sigh heavy sighs that we can’t see our grandkids when we want to. There are multiple ways we can see them, and OUR FRIENDS, even now, without putting ourselves, or anyone else, at risk.

It begins with using the technology at our fingertips. We must step up and face our fears. If you have been one to say, “It scares me!” or “I’m afraid I’ll crash it!” or “It’s just too much for me!” STOP DOING THAT, TOO!

You underrate yourself.

The best way to boost your self-esteem – and talk face-to-face with the people you love – is to try Zoom, or Skype, or GoogleHangouts. Watch out now! No excuses! No shrinking from the challenge. You can do this!

I have been privileged to meet every Tuesday morning for breakfast with some of the smartest, most erudite - and oldest! - women in my town. (My husband calls it the Power Breakfast!) When the virus hit and threatened to keep us from seeing each other, we swung into action. Almost within moments, we had each downloaded Zoom, clicked the appropriate links, started a video conference and ate breakfast together – alone.

That’s right. We were each at home alone (or with a spouse sequestered elsewhere in the house), yet were able to talk and laugh, commiserate and speculate, share and care, FACE-TO-FACE, just like every other Tuesday morning for the past umpteen years.

‘Way better than email. ‘Way better than texts. ‘Way better than a phone call.

And we’re ELDERLY!

Highly recommended.

“But," you say, "I don’t even know how to get started!”

1. If you’ve never ventured into the App Store, now is the time to try it.

2. Search for 'video conference' apps. Many are free to download and free to use (it tells you right there on the screen).

3. Click the blue button that says, “Get,” and you’ll get it on your phone or tablet. Just like that! It’s magic, really.

Then simply find the icon on the opening screen of your device and launch the app – another click. And follow directions. Pretty sure you’ve read and followed directions a few times in the past.

Soon you’ll be in the same room – sorta - with someone you care about, chatting away like you’re part of the 21^st Century.

And making that MP3 recording? A person I hope to work with requested that I send her a sample of my proposed project in that format. I was a little anxious, but I undertook the same three steps: Go to the App Store and search for a free MP3 recording app. Click the button to download the app. Open the app and follow directions.

Try it! It’s not too much for you. Nothing really crashes anymore. Your brain cells will expand. Your posture will improve. You can hold your head high.

It’s SO worth it!

And you don’t even need a mask and gloves!

You can run, but...

2016-09-21T15:32:00.001-07:00

A perverse force in the universe works this way: You become the very thing you strive to avoid. The thing you eschew, follows you, sneaks up on you, finds its way into your bathroom and hides behind the mirror over the sink. Then, one morning, before you’ve even had your coffee, you splash water on your face and rise up to look into said mirror, and there, staring back with wide-eyed mock innocence – you are become the very thing you thought you had so deftly eluded.

Here’s an example: As a child I loved and admired my grandmother. She was iconic in her ways. Sunday mornings, she donned a floral dress, densely knit nylon support hose, and clunky heels. She wrapped herself in a mink stole, or maybe her fox stole that still had the fox’s head with its mouth made into a clamp that bit its own tail to hold it in place. She had a mink hat too. Just a ring of mink really, with a net attached that served a purpose still unknown to me. But let’s understand – she left no detail unattended. Some might argue that she thought of details that might better have been left unthunk.

Even then I knew she was a bit overpowering, but it didn’t matter. I was proud to walk into the 1^st Baptist Church with her and sit in a pew a couple of rows from the front and sing – well you know – to high heaven.

Grandma was a screecher, actually. But not unlike Florence Foster Jenkins, she loved to sing and – even though her high notes drew startled looks, beaconed dogs, and made me squint and turn my face ever so slightly away – I loved to sing with her: Onward Christian soldiers!

When it came time to pass the collection plate and make your donations to the church and to Lottie Moon, the church’s missionary far, far away, Grandma would hoist her handbag onto her lap and begin to plumb its substantial and well-packed contents. What caught my eye each time was the bundle of papers.

It appeared to be comprised of important documents that arrived by post. Window envelopes with torn flaps, contents removed, perused and returned to their sleeve, only now with the addressee obscured and snippets of their messages in view: “…you for your busi…” “to us in the enclose…”

The bundle was fully 4” thick and secured with a rubber band stretched to screaming. I wondered what critical pieces of household business she might have to attend to. Bills to be paid. Solicitations. Medical reminders? Letters from her sister in Burbank? Grocery lists, measurements for the fabric for her new kitchen curtains.

This she would hand to me so that she could bring up her billfold and pull out a dollar bill for the plate. Then, she’d retrieve her black leather snap-close coin purse and produce a dime for me to seal into the special envelop for Lottie Moon.

And here’s the thing: I forgot all about it. I grew up and Grandma passed away. I moved to another state and had a life and moved back and lived some more. I sang in the church choir sometimes and other times sang along with the radio, as loud as I wanted to sing.

Then, one day, a little girl came to my door selling candy for the Camp Fire Girls, so I went to retrieve my oversized mailbag style purse. To my astonishment, in order to get to my billfold, I had to pull out a bundle of envelops.

It wasn’t as big as Grandma’s bundle – not by a long shot. I had only four or five letters of various sizes with their flaps torn open. It was barely a quarter of an inch thick. But I had bound it together with a green rubber band.

Oh. My. Gosh! When did this happen!? How could I not know? I had a grandma mail-hoarder starter kit!

I snapped the rubber band immediately. That afternoon I bought a file cabinet and manila folders for sorting and storing documents. I am not fated to this eccentricity!

Whew! Disaster averted. That was close! I’ll just finish my housework while I sing: Onward Christian soldiers…!

Will Rogers never met this guy

2016-09-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Not sure if it was Machiavelli or Michael Corleone who originated the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” but it’s been on my mind.

The concept came in handy in – of all places – public school! When I was working as a high school principal, I needed to have my ear to the ground. The tone of a campus can shift quickly and you don’t want to be caught flatfooted. So, while I did not consider any young person at my school an enemy, there were a few who, without a doubt, had agendas that did not coincide with mine.

School order, for example, did not top their to-do lists. For those few, a perverse sense of fun rolled around their heads like marbles in a maze. If pulling a fire alarm would provide the necessary disruption to an exam they hadn’t studied for, well, whoopee! Let’s do this thing!

Happily, kids talk. And to my delight, a fair number talked to me. Maybe it was because they understood that I found it easy to see through their anger and their bluster, their need to prove themselves or to save face. The kid inside, the human being who sought approval and recognition always shone through.

With their help I could almost always stay ahead of the shenanigans. Almost. With a nod or a wink from a ne’er-do-well I’d kept close to me, who might even have been a double-agent in league with the culprits, it was easy enough to find the firecrackers before the commotion, or head off an altercation before it came to blows.

But these days, we are playing for much greater stakes than an afternoon’s instruction or hi-jinx on the quad. We have an enemy among us who seems to have achieved the American dream yet threatens to destroy it. For the American dream is nothing if not open-faced and optimistic. But this playground bully is of an uncommon breed.

Mean-spirited and selfish; quick-tempered and without insight or empathy, he is out to win whether steam-rolling his way through any ‘conversation,’ or seeking to tear down and destroy any who might venture a dissenting opinion.

Legions of his cohorts have called him out. Stalwarts in his clan have held their noses at great length, trying to maintain the party line, but even they must come up for air. And so they do, sometimes singly, sometimes in clusters, and declare that they just can’t hang with him. He’s too much even for those who have lock-stepped their way through decades of partisan group-think.

People I know and love say they are with him. It makes me sad. I can only imagine that they somehow know, in their deepest selves, that the old ways of hatred and distrust, of isolation and division, of knee-jerk retaliation and destruction are failed. He represents the last gasp, the refusal to let go a distorted and damned state of mind. They are desperate to feel strong, but a pinprick will explode this buffoon.

And so this enemy is close enough. Too close. And despite my history of finding the good, I am hard-pressed to find it there. I can see only self-serving calculation.

We cannot deny that he’s taught us some things. He has opened our eyes. And he has strengthened our resolve to crush him.

I believe he will be routed. My hope is that we have a landslide. Maybe not all 50 states. Maybe not my beloved home state. But we will relegate him to the realm of nastiness and conspiracy theorists where he ever may thrive.

Good bye and good riddance DT. November can’t come soon enough.

This guy

2016-08-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

We women know the guy. Maybe he’s a longtime friend of your dad’s, so you have to make nice even though he smells like booze. His comments to you are laden with sexual innuendo and just on the edge of vulgar, but for dad’s sake, you bite your tongue and excuse yourself as soon as is respectful – to your dad.

This guy could be your uncle, but his eyes don’t find yours, instead they linger on your breasts or your legs and he asks you to turn around so he ‘can look at you.’ Always sizing you up. Measuring.

When he arrives for the bar-b-que, or it’s time to go, his hugs are creepy uncomfortable, so you’ve learned to grasp his forearms to keep him and his hands at a distance.

On top of it all, he’s of that generation just before we learned to keep our ignorant biases to ourselves. His lasciviousness wears no veil. You make allowances for your grandpa, but this guy…

I saw him on national TV recently and recognized him immediately when his wife held him at bay. The spotlight was on them and he wanted to embrace her, give her a kiss for show, but she took his hands instead, flexed her arms and pushed ever so slightly, protecting her space without revealing too much. People were watching after all. And she was repulsed!

Just like the rest of us.

This guy, Donald Trump, is a swollen caricature with money and power and now throngs of people egging on his stunning display of misogyny.

If it’s a woman who questions his knee-jerk, conflicting statements, he responds with tasteless references to her menstrual cycle revealing inch-deep reasoning and a perverse desire to humiliate.

If a woman exercises her right to abortion, he says she should be punished!

His latest exhibition of anti-woman sentiment came when he was asked about the consequences of a woman being harassed in the workplace: She should get another job.

But this is different. Donald Trump is not our dad’s old high school buddy. He’s not our fading grandpa and he’s not the embarrassment that we tolerate because he’s family.

He’s not harmless and he cannot be ignored. We cannot excuse him. But more importantly, we cannot excuse ourselves and simply go wash the bad taste out of our mouths.

A flutter of disapproval is not sufficient. We need too make a noise like Kazir Khan.

Speak out! Speak out daily! Don’t let a flutter of complaints be enough. It’s not enough that ‘somebody said something’ in response to this guy’s blitzkrieg against women. Keep posting every day, multiple times a day.

We can sway the election. Let’s run this guy out of town on a rail.

#CrushTrumpin50states

Miss Scarlett & her champagne

2015-12-10T15:46:00.001-08:00

Last time I drank champagne in the afternoon, I wound up with my hands resting peacefully in the thick sugary frosting on a slice of wedding cake.

Things like this happen when I make an internal observation that I’m ever-so-cool. That’s when I am brought face-to-face with a more humbling reality: I’m really not that cool at all.

Those moments – the ones where I cannot ignore the truth of my awkward-idity – arrive with such impeccable timing that they cannot be denied.

And they’re abetted by champagne.

So – I went to two weddings in one day, back in the day. Two cousins. Across town from each other and across a wide gulf in style.

The first, a lovely morning, mimosa brunch affair set in the Rose Gardens atthe Philbrook Mansion, timed to side-step the Oklahoma heat. The bride’s dainty flower girl wore a halo of baby’s breath. The pristine, tiered white cake had strawberries around the perimeter. The champagne flutes were frosted with sugar. And the Mumm was ice-cold.

I drank two.

As I replay the events of that day, it seems plain that I most likely arrived at the second soiree with a bit of that sugar glaze on the corners of my mouth. I hadn’t felt a thing. Imagine.

The mid-afternoon timing of this second cousin’s nuptials was an accommodation of the NASCAR schedule. She and her groom would catch a honeymoon flight to the Pocono race track where they would whoop it up as husband and wife.

Her vows were exchanged in the chilly confines of the Southside Baptist Church’s basement rec room. The ping pong tables were covered with white plastic sheets and the words “Patsy and James Together Forever,” stenciled in glitter and attached to 10lb. test weight fishing line were strung up between the Fire Marshall’s mandated utility windows.

The Korbel was iced down in a galvanized trough, brand new for the day but to be turned out to the farm for watering the cattle after. Linoleum tile and folding chairs completed the ambience.

Am I starting to sound snooty? Well. There you have it.

I had begun to feel my Scarlett O’Hara, perhaps the effect of a couple more – or was it three? – plastic cups overflowing with the bubbly.

I looked good for one thing, or so I thought, compared to my cousin’s country friends. I had the best hair. The best dress. The sexiest shoes.

It was in this superior state of mind that I took my Styrofoam plate with a big chunk of Sam’s Club wedding cake and a plastic fork and found myself a seat.

Rather than digging in right away though – how crass! – I sat and smiled serenely at my male cousins and their buddies who clearly had an eye for me.

I crossed my ankles, just so.

Oh, here comes Terry with his friend Junior. They certainly do have goofy grins.

“Hey Carolyn!”

“Hi Terry! Can’t believe Patsy’s tying the knot!” I admit it – champagne brings out my tendency toward the inane.

“Hey Carolyn!” This was Junior, giggling. Not the brightest bulb in the pack.

“Hey Junior.”

“You gonna eat that cake?” Now why, oh why would he ask that? And that infernal giggle. Honestly.

There was plenty of cake for everyone. But OK. I don’t want more cake today. He can have mine.

But when I went to hand him my serving, I found that the back of my left hand had eased onto the icing ever so gently and rested there like a goose settled onto a clutch of eggs. The weight of it had pushed that whipped confection out into fat bulges on each side.

My right hand, set palm-to-palm with my left, just as Miss Manners prescribes, allowed those down-turned digits to dip into the frosting also, giving them perfect sugary-white gooey fingertip caps.

That’s when those big corn-fed country boys burst out laughing and pointing to smarty-pants me.

I cannot recall the rest. I only hope the commotion didn’t draw too much attention away from the bride.

So you can see why it is with some trepidation that I prepare to attend a champagne ribbon-cutting ceremony this afternoon.

I don’t know if I can be trusted. What if they serve Moet & Chandon? Whatever will I do?

Therefore, I have a plan: Mr. Plath will accompany me. His instructions are to spirit me away immediately following the toast.

Fiddle dee dee!

Buddha and the haircut

2015-12-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine is going to Chang Mai to get her hair cut.

OK. She’s going for bigger better reasons than that. She already went once all by herself, to study Buddhism. For a year! By. Her. Self.

So.

I’m working hard to think of anything I have ever done in my lifetime that can be held up alongside that. I got nuttin’.

Oh, once I went to Cuernavaca for a two week language immersion school. By myself.

All my fair weather language learner wannabe friends punked out on me as the trip got closer. One by one they fizzled on our red hot idea to submerge ourselves in the culture and come out fluent. As each one became wan and apologetic I held my head up knowing that the next one would go.

Until finally, I had to actually go – by myself. I had to do what I’d talked so big about – or shut up and slink away, credibility tattered. Never talk about it again. And let’s face it, shutting up is not in my nature.

So I signed up for classes and booked a flight.

But I was terrified. I stood on the curb at San Francisco International Airport and cried after my husband dropped me off.

At the other end of the flight, I got in a shiny red car with the smiling man who held a placard with my name on it and had visions of his being a kidnapper who would spirit me away into the labyrinth of Mexico City instead of delivering me to the doorstep of the family who did everything for me except run my bath.

And I was so homesick my stomach hurt!

Then, when it came time to come home, I cried again for leaving such lovely people. Muchas gracias por todo mis amigos.

Now we’re Facebook friends.

So I suppose I can claim to be a person of conviction. I don’t spout off about a value-driven life and then go on about my merry business without a value-driven bone.

But dang.

How’d I get to be her friend anyway? She has that Buddhist patience thing you hear so much about. She doesn’t butt in when you talk or anything.

I hope I don’t prattle on. She looks serene no matter.

This trip must be a refresher course. Five weeks. A touch up you might call it. Maybe Buddhism’s like a haircut – gets a little shaggy after so much growth. Needs to be shaped up. Add some highlights. Cover up the roots.

So it makes sense she will get her hair cut while she’s there. She said she is looking forward with happy anticipation to sitting down again with Vera, the stylist who managed her minimalist coif when she was there before. Vera, she says, understands Western hair.

Wow. That’s deep.

I wish I understood Western hair. And Buddhism, for that matter.

My training in the Southern Baptist tradition did not take, much to my grandma’s dismay. I let go of all that hell’s fire back before I cut my own hair from sit-on-it to shoulder length. Truthfully, it was harder to give up my hair than it was to turn away from all that judgmental-ism.

I love to sing those hymns, though.

Do Buddhists sing? Oh I know they chant. And hum. You know – resonate – with the Om. But that is not the same as a good old Bette Midler belt. Cathartic!

But I digress.

When a person finds a hairdresser who understands her hair, who can make her hair perform – her hair whisperer – well, desire for worldly things falls away. It’s a Buddhist thing – like the 3^rd Noble Truth.

A person will go to extremes – even to Chang Mai – to be in the presence of such a Master. Because after all, a bad hair day creates anguish for the wearer which may be projected outward onto the unfortunate world she encounters.

And, it follows, the converse is also true: Good hair = good thoughts. A noble path to true happiness.

It’s a Buddhist thing.

If you have the courage of your convictions, you get on the plane and go.

Nirvana.

You may be aging awkwardly

2015-10-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

If you know a formula for getting older with any kind of style, please send it my way. I don’t think it’s too late for me; but at the same time, I’m not sure I can trust my own judgment.

There are days when I just want to get me to the plastic surgeon and stretch my jowls up over my ears. Hearing is overrated anyway.

My search for steps to follow, a manual of some sort, anything that could point the way to doing this thing without looking like a fool has produced limited results.

I feel as though the vanishing cream has kicked in – a loss of pigment – from technicolor to sepia to 1950’s black and white, right on down to chalky charcoal daguerreotype. This is psychological, of course, except that my hairdresser now dyes my eyebrows along with my roots.

In the meanwhile, Dear Reader, from astute observation and painful self-recognition, I have begun collecting guideposts. I offer excerpts here from my Notes to Self:

#1 – Keeping up

Dear Carolyn,

If you’re on Facebook trying to convince Millennials and Gen-Xers that Boomers are the coolest – because we had muscle cars and Mick Jagger – you may be aging awkwardly.

Furthermore, even if you tweet and tumble and podcast your guts out, you have to admit that you are a tourist in the technological world. You’re quick witted, but you’re learning that stuff like a second language. Younger people were born into it: They’re natives.

So make jokes about it. Put up that picture of a telephone booth with the caption, “When I was a kid this was my mobile phone!” But, when you post pictures telling people they’re awesome because they remember VHS cassettes, or roller skate keys – you might be aging awkwardly.

#2 – Holding onto your looks

And, if you’re shopping online for “plus size high-waisted skinny jeans,” you could be aging awkwardly.

AARP offers “11 Ways to Look 10 Years Younger”: Among them – wear V-necks and exfoliate. Gosh, thanks.

Oh and by the way, I’m sick of Christy Brinkley and Jane Seymour. Why don’t they just stay home? All those grinning celebrities on AARP covers are air-brushed and photo-shopped daily – just like I would be if I could be. But I'm not bitter!

Yeah, I want someone to skirt around me at all times holding one of those giant light-reflecting umbrellas for the photographer and making sure I always turn my good side, the youthful side – the other side – the one I remember from my 35^th birthday party.

Do I sound angry? Oh pshaw! (It’s a family blog – I’m tempering my epithets.) Pshaw, I say!

#3 – Winning

You can’t win by ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ the post that says, “I graduated high school without Google or Wikipedia.” Or, “I’m old school: I was raised to respect my elders and have good manners.” It just makes you sound like an old you-kids-get-off-my-lawn sourpuss. And, you are aging awkwardly.

So, play a different game. Be nice.

That is all.

Advice to the lovelorn Benicia Herald contributor

2015-09-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Never pursue a distancer.

This is a cardinal rule in love. Because neediness is not sexy. Begging never pays.

So, if the man of your dreams takes a step back, you take one too. Or, at the very least, stand your ground.

If you advance toward a distancer, you will most likely set in motion a fruitless and embarrassing series of desperate actions that will leave you feeling foolish at best.

That’s how it seems these days with the Benicia Herald.

We had a sweet little love affair. Is it over?

Oh, maybe some would say it was one-sided. Contributors contributed. The Herald accepted. It might seem that the paper got the better end of the deal. Who wouldn’t want to sit back and receive what he required without effort or acknowledgement?

The Herald needed us, or so we thought. We filled the pages. Why, without us, the character – and characters – of our town are absent. Our small town paper’s charm is diminished.

In his farewell, the out-going editor said we made up an important thread in the fabric of the community. Our contributions, he said, made our little hometown paper “a gem.” We’re left with dry reports of impersonal city government, the generic community calendar and another full-page map of First Street merchants.

The paper has stepped away from us. Or more accurately, Publisher David Payne has.

From one person’s limited viewpoint, Mr. Payne keeps the Herald like a step-child – neglected and listless for want of support and appreciation. His talented editorial staff and reporters, forced to accept that he finds their needs a nuisance, decided not to pursue their relationship with him. They left him for cleaner, shinier shores where they will likely be treated well and paid better.

Reliable sources say Mr. Payne hired one promising candidate, but apparently she took a closer look and excused herself. Scuttlebutt has it that interviews continue, but Mr. Payne “hasn’t found anyone he likes.” That works both ways, of course.

Why doesn’t the Herald report its own story? The only mention of the shake up comprised a one sentence “pardon our construction” disclaimer below the date and weather report two weeks ago.

And now, contributors cannot get a return phone call or email. Articles submitted garner no response, no ink. What are we to think in a case like this?

Should we pursue the Herald? Plead with it to accept our work? Take us back! Please take us back!

Advice to the lovelorn says ‘no.’

We can, at best, stand our ground. Wait to see if the new Herald will be the same Herald – the one we loved and that loved us. The one that seemed to value our work even if we weren’t paid for it.

And here I am – writing again. For what? Page 4 goes to the Chamber of Commerce.

Remodeling the empty nest

2015-09-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

You can thank me for the rain.

I was dancing the ‘happy dance,’ got carried away, flung my arms in the air and twirled around, singing “the hills are alive!” like Julie Andrews. The rain came as an unintended consequence.

Is it wrong that I dance behind the door? Am I a bad person because I do the jig in the upstairs hallway in delirious anticipation of something that hasn’t even happened?

Dear God, please let it happen!

Of course, I’m way out in front on this one. But I can’t stop myself – the kid is going on job interviews! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Haa le-e looooo jah!

I know. I should pace myself. An interview does not a job make. So sayeth Yoda.

Let’s play it out, Carolyn. Take a deep breath: He has to get the job first. Exhale.

OK. But, let’s say he gets the job.

It’ll be a good job. The kind that sorta makes me mad because he would be making more money at entry level than I made after 10 full years as a classroom teacher.

But all right. He gets the good job. He still will need to stay here in that perfectly lovely bedroom which he’s transfigured into a dormitory laundry room hovel. He’ll need to save a few months’ salary, fix that old truck so it runs; sell it and the wimpy girlie car his grandpa gave him; combine that money to buy an affordable, dependable babe-magnet form of transportation. That’ll take time.

He’ll need first and last month’s rent and a security deposit. By my calculations …

I know - I don’t match the PsychologyToday description of a parent facing empty nest syndrome. By their definition the emotions attendant with the eminent departure of my grown up child would include loneliness and depression.

And that would not be me. Oh I love the kid. SO much. But, no. Not lonely or depressed at the prospect.

For one thing, it won’t be the first time he’s gone, if he goes. He’s one of those ricochet kids you hear so much about.

He left at 19 and ping-ponged around making funky forays into various scenarios, some of them star-crossed and others ill-fated. Then he boomeranged, a bit forlorn but still a contender. Still the sweet, smart, good-hearted, funny, handsome, single boy – er, young man – our hopes are pinned on.

And now, he’s completing his schooling – round two – and about to launch. He’s flapping his fledgling wings. He’s testing the waters. He has his finger up, checking the wind. He’s thinking of going. He’ll go! I just know it! He’ll go!

So I’m following the advice of Psychology Today, the Mayo Clinic, Circle of Moms and Wikihow, getting myself ready for the inevitable impact of the kid’s exit.

They pretty much agree on the basics for anxious parents who are fearful of the melancholy when they have no more children in the home to follow around behind, closing doors, turning off lights and handing money.

Oh! Who will I buy groceries and toothpaste for, if not my spouse and myself? Who will I remind to take the out trash, bring in the newspaper, unwad his clothes and put them away?

Who will tell me when I have bad breath? Or that he’s out of shampoo or shaving cream or toilet paper?

According to the empty nest gurus, I should take up a new hobby or schedule a massage. Or plan a ritual of release! Maybe I'll light a candle, chant “adieu” and waft the smoke into the corners of his room.

Sure. I’ll miss the kid. I will! It’s been so sweet having him here and having it confirmed he’s a really good guy.

I’ll gladly set up his kitchen with a rice cooker and crock pot and spices and dishes and hand-me-down pans. I’ll call him on Thursdays and text on the weekend. I’ll invite him to movies and he’ll never go and sit next to me with popcorn and elbow me at the good parts like he used to.

Uh oh.

A little sadness. Some premature nostalgia. But no worries – no job yet.

Take your time Bud. I can dance later.

Advice to the Dearly Departing

2015-09-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

I know how this works. Seen it before. Lived through it.

Twelve years of my 30 in education were spent in the role of principal. It’s a high-profile position in the community of students, parents, faculty, staff and district personnel.

One of the most interesting parts of the job was learning to accept that all those constituents felt free to comment on my performance, using their own criteria. Fair enough. Public servant and all.

Still, there were times when I felt shackled by the “polite protocol.” It seemed that almost everyone had an opinion to impart about me, my school, my students, my teachers, my parking lot, my standings in the football league, my school food, my quad, my litter… And they all held license to “share” those judgments with me – sometimes with their outside voices – whether we were in my office, at the game, at Mary’s Pizza Shack, or in the produce department of Trader Joe’s.

Yes! Free to express themselves, they expressed! My charge was to remain circumspect. Maybe all those years of repression carry the fault for my pontificating now!

To be sure, I heard many good suggestions and tried to implement them all. Sundry acrimonious complaints also found their way to my ears accompanied by no recommendations for remedy. Some folks felt righteous indignation about their issue and demanded that I figure “it” out and fix it.

Disclaimer: NONE of that outweighed the sheer joy of working with young people every day.

Because of that frequent and dependable sense of exhilaration, I rarely missed a day on the front. It ennobled the struggle to give those kids a leg up.

It’s not hard to understand how a person in that position begins to think of her legacy. Was I helping? Did I make a difference?

People told me I did, but being on the ground there, at the epicenter, I couldn’t always see the ripples.

When I retired, each those groups did truly nice things for me, showering me with gifts, parties, notes and hugs.

E.g.: A happy-go-lucky senior said, “Mrs. Plath, you’re the Randy Johnson of principals!” Wow – in the same sentence with the Big Unit!

A Latino girl who lived below the poverty line shyly asked to keep a windbreaker with my name embroidered on it, to remember me by – and probably to keep warm.

A young Indian student came to my office and touched my feet. A gesture of reverence and respect, he said. Thinking of it still brings me to tears.

But also, at the very moment I announced my retirement, a disheartening conversation began repeating itself. With group after group, it went like this:

Me: I’m retiring effective the end of this school year.
Them: Who’s taking your place?

Talk about an ego deflator!

No time for nostalgia! The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!

I had to acknowledge that I would be forgotten. In about four years, the cycle of students through a high school, the institutional memory of me, me, me would have faded.

Teaching staffs turn over. Fewer and fewer remain at that site to remember what fun we had, what lives we touched and touched us.

Now, five years out, my contributions have merged into the fabric of the way things have always been. Or, maybe a few stand in contrast to what the new guy has done. That’s about it.

I have yearbooks from all those years; the students’ inscriptions call the good parts back to mind. I confess to going there now and then. Pull one off the shelf in the guest room closet. Sit on the corner of the bed and leaf through. Ah! 2010! That was a very good year!

But when I sing along with Bruce Springsteen about my glory days, it’s a solo performance based on my own revisionist history. And, that’s the only way to go: Wipe out, as best you can, the cranky insults tossed from the sidelines by second-guessers.

Elevate and expand the myriad, if small, instances of soul-building positivity. I had a great run.

That’s my counsel. It’s an editor’s job, after all – making the best of the good, the bad and the unprintable.

Best wishes to you, Marc Ethier.

Fare Thee well!

Sit down and write!

2015-09-07T16:22:00.003-07:00

I believe a dose of Methylphenidate might get me off the dime.

You know, Ritalin. Stimulant. Schedule II controlled substance.

Yes – Ritalin treats attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and, counterintuitively, narcolepsy.

Those are precisely my symptoms: I fluctuate between flitting about cheerfully dusting knickknacks and deep snoring sleep.

And I’ve built up a tolerance to Starbucks. Desperate times.

I have a job to do, yet in spite of my good will and determination, I ping pong between distraction, an inexplicable urge to rearrange furniture and the powerful draw of that sunny spot on the comforter next to the cat.

Euphemistically, I linger in the pre-writing stage.

Pre-writing is that stage of writing we scribes sometimes love because it adds to our mystery. Here’s the beauty of it: When you’re an enigma, you don’t have to answer pragmatic questions like, “What are you doing in there?”

I am at the keyboard in my enchanted place, here in my study with my special stuff all around me: My crystal ball; this molded glass head full of black and butter and kidney beans; the electric piano that I can still barely play; a light-up globe with a broken switch; a black-and-white photo of my brother and me, ages five and three, on our dad’s Harley-Davidson.

This is my happy place. Here convene the elements of alchemy.

After all, writing is magic, right? One minute writers behave within the parameters of normalcy. We go to lunch. We converse, make eye contact. We listen and respond. We turn a phrase and keep the banter lively.

Next minute we are seized with inspiration, jump up, run to the computer and gush, like Old Faithful. Or we speak furtively into our cell phone recorders or snag the proverbial napkin and dash off our pithy insights – the seeds of the next screenplay, the lynchpin of the story arc.

Either that or our eyes glaze over as we make a mental note and then sit later, in the quiet of the night, bleary-eyed in front of a glowing screen trying to call that pearl back to consciousness.

We love it when non-writers express wonder at what we do. No need to dispel that misapprehension! They don’t know that we marvel too. More accurately, we don’t know what the heck we’re doing, much less how we go about doing it. We wonder too – if we will ever actually get a word on the page.

Or, like Hemingway, we dismiss the act sardonically: “Writing is easy. All you do is sit at the typewriter and bleed.”

Oh, we love the drama!

We love the precariousness of it. The fear. The teetering on a tightrope suspended high above solid ground.

Nobody asks anybody why he doesn’t write! So you would think, when one is stuck in the mystical, infuriating prewriting phase, that person could simply stand up, correct her posture, and say, “Balderdash!” with some satisfaction before turning her attention to…what? Anything she wants! Anything else! Bookkeeping, let’s say. Or archeology.

But writers cannot quit: They know the mandate – a writer can’t not write. Even when suspended in the air.

So yes. Here we are – prewriting.

The prewriting stage encompasses key features of a writing project including, but not limited to choosing your topic, identifying your audience and purpose, brainstorming ideas, organizing information, sorting laundry, solving murders with Lt. Joe Kenda, communing with your cat, staring into the ether and look! An osprey over the water!

You know, doing almost anything but pecking out sentences on the screen.

And I’ve outgrown caffeine – the gateway drug.

I considered drinking. I wouldn’t be the first writer to slosh along for a good while. Alcohol would facilitate the napping. So there’s that.

But I think you need to be a Dorothy Parker – really good and well established – to get away with it. Someone like me could find herself inebriated and alone at the Algonquin.

That’s no good.

So yes, if I can find an unscrupulous doctor, I think I’ll try Ritalin. That’s what it’s come to.

My topic? Well! If you have to ask! My audience?? Apologies, Dear Reader. It’s all for you.

Purpose? There’s the rub.

And look! A cloud shaped like a penguin!

You're gonna need an ocean

2015-08-31T13:46:00.001-07:00

Once, in my halcyon college days, I took a botany class.

Everything was interesting to me then. Kind of like now, except I was 24.

Following a long-standing habit of late bloomers, I enrolled in my first college courses in Santa Barbara a full six years after graduating from high school.

And, due at least in part to my ho hum high school experience, every course was a wonder. Sociology! History! Psychology!!

And botany! The scientific study of plants! Man!

"Plants," I learned, as though a true revelation, include a wide range of living organisms from the smallest bacteria to the largest living things – the giant sequoia trees. By this definition the classification comprises algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, ferns, conifers and flowering plants.

Big wow.

And California botany at that! This would be ‘way different from Oklahoma botany.

Oklahoma botany, to my childhood recollection, included mainly waving wheat, like in that song; assorted grasses dominated by the crab and Bermuda varieties; and the occasional tumbling tumbleweed, if you found yourself out in the Panhandle drifting along – like in that other song.

Oh, we had trees, but not like California! We had elm trees and maples just like everyone else in the continental US. Big deal. The most exotic tree I encountered as a child was a mimosa.

Once I got caught in the cross-fire of a whipping my grandma gave my cousin with a “switch” from her willow tree. There’s a lesson in botany.

But California has redwoods! And ice plant and bougainvillea and, and…

Poison oak.

Now in Oklahoma, I encountered poison ivy often enough to know my way around a bottle of calamine lotion – like in that song! I learned by way of miserable nights not to scratch because fingers were conspirators in poison ivy’s plot to take over a skinny girl’s body.

I knew to let the pink stuff dry and curl up and flake away like so much sun-beaten paint.

And, like a cut-rate pre-pubescent contractor, I slathered on second and third creamy coats of that cool substance to fields of blisters without sanding, so that I wound up with a thick paste caked on my ankles and wrists and the insides of my elbows and the backsides of my knees.

Sumac could raise a field of bubbles too. So I learned to identify and cut a wide perimeter around both those sinister plants.

That was my plan with the poison oak my botany instructor spoke about prior to our field trip freshman year. We were going to trek along the Santa Barbara hills and document our botanical finds. Turns out, we didn’t see any poison oak that day. But I got it.

I repeat: We never found a single poison oak plant – but I broke out with an impressive cluster of itchy bubbles.

All these botanical bad dreams resurfaced this week after Mr. Plath cleared the hillside below our house of cacti – to the tune of 30 truck-loads of prickly arms, joints, ribs and barrels – along with wild fennel, palm debris, scrub plants of unknown varieties…and you guessed it…poison oak.

I should mention that Mr. Plath is among those happily oblivious folks who wander the jungles and deserts and tangled woodlands of the world without fear. He is not allergic to the virulent plant. Isn’t that just great?

But he took extreme precautions at my urging: long sleeves and pant legs, gloves, glasses. When the task was complete, he tiptoed into the laundry room like a burglar touching no surface, leaving no trace. He stripped down and put his radioactive clothing straight into the washing machine on hot, with bleach.

We circumnavigated each other in the hallway with arms overhead like two crabs vying for the same stretch of sand. Hey! Hey! Hey!

He didn’t even chance to give me a peck on the cheek, which he ALWAYS does when he passes within range. Directly into a decontaminating shower he went and scrubbed down as though for surgery.

All the while, I stood by in my own hermetically sealed hazardous waste jumpsuit.

And I still got a nice big dose of the nasty stuff.

Oh the irony! Oh the chagrin! Oh the recriminations!

Oh darn.

Senior sleigh ride

2015-08-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

After a couple of weeks of being obliged to deal with minor – but extremely annoying, persistent and impossible to ignore – physical nuisances, I am put in mind of Zeus, the father of the Gods, and the shenanigans of King Sisyphus.

You know the punchline in the story of Sisyphus: He’s the guy Zeus condemned to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this frustrating and meaningless action forever.

His days at stone rolling can be likened to those of unnamed persons, working at the futile task of staving off the siege of years.

The truth of it is Zeus got sick of Sisyphus’s scheming and deceitfulness. So, he designed that particular punishment for King Sisyphus to match the hubristic belief that he could outsmart Zeus himself.

Yeah. Ole Mr. S. was a tricky and slippery dude. Back in the day. But not that clever: So far as we know, he’s still rolling the rock.

And I was wondering if there are any parallels in the real world today. Like for other people who try to deceive – not Zeus, or God or Morgan Freeman – but themselves.

Not that I know anyone like that.

But let’s say there is a person who has taken up residence in Denialtown, right down the road from Who-do-you-think-you’re-kidding. Around the corner from Getreal.com. Maybe you’ve visited that neighborhood.

Let’s pretend that such a person could never admit to herself certain things that she does not want to admit. Why should she? What is the value? Who benefits from such confessions?

No one that I can think of except maybe the I-told-you-so crowd that insists on being right all the time and gloating. Who needs ‘em?

You can speculate on what such a person might be pressured to acknowledge if you want to. Go ahead. What could it be? That she’s been coloring her hair since 1998 not because it’s the cool thing to do, but because it would be white – white! – without her steady commitment to color and chicanery.

She dyes her eyebrows.

She wears athletic shoes! O.M.G. And skinny jeans! Hahaha!

She maintains a Facebook account and even Instagram in what some might call feeble and grasping efforts to be ‘with it,’ though it’s fairly certain that she doesn’t know what ‘it’ is.

She tweets for goodness sake.

(She has the niggling feeling that all those followers are perfunctory. Most likely they are following her just in case she has something they might want some day. They will say they knew her when.)

She’s rolling her own rock up the mountain of inevitability! She thinks she’s fooling Father Christmas. Or someone.

But let’s say Sisyphus overcomes. Yes! Let’s say he reaches his goal and pushes that boulder up to the top of the incline. Then what?

He finds himself at the top with that big ole rock under his arm by his side, like a pal. He surveys the landscape with a sense of accomplishment and exhilaration. He inhales deeply. Cool at last!

Here’s what our protagonist fears: She fears that just then, when she, er, Sisyphus has had only a moment of glory, when he’s only just begun to take in the panorama before him, he will feel a tremor. A faint wobble. Was that a tiny earthquake? Maybe it was a gust of wind.

Poor King Sisyphus doesn’t know that Zeus employed his fiendish wit by enchanting the boulder to perpetually roll away. File it under You Can’t Win, old Buddy!

That rock will lean; then it will strain in place, pause for the briefest moment, perhaps drawing a breath before lurching and throwing itself down the other side.

It’s all over now for Sisyphus, right? He can never catch up to that rock. And what if he could? Is he going run around in front and stop it in place midway down that slippery slope? Spoiler alert – no, he’s not.

And even if he did, what could he do but start trying to push it back up the hill!

I’m beginning to see as I near the crest of the mountain, I need to outfit myself with a toboggan.

It’s downhill from there and I want to enjoy the ride.

How to write a newspaper column

2015-08-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Having never timed how long it takes to write one of these columns, I cannot say for sure.

Generally, I write each one over a couple of days. Three if you count the first day of thrashing about, gnashing teeth, pacing, procrastinating, punching pillows and the like.

That’s how I get my ideas.

Second day I commune with the blank screen. Sometimes, I ‘free write.’ That means I allow my mind to meander and my Spirit Guide Ethel to direct my fingers on the keys.

Ethel’s quite a character. A prankster really. She goes on and on about ‘the other side’ and how Will Rogers and Nora Ephron never need any prodding. They let it flow and write volumes! Well, you know.

Then, third day, I’m like the Mighty Casey after strikes one and two: the sneer is gone from my arrogant lip; my teeth are clenched in hate. I pound with cruel violence the keys upon … OK. I can’t make it rhyme right now. That’s part of the problem.

Also, there’s no pitcher winding up and ready to throw. But now that I think of it, this is a good thing. We don’t want to end up with a big ‘K,’ now do we?

So today, day three, I sit at my computer and call the Social SecurityAdministration first thing.

I’ll get this little detail out of the way before I write. It won’t be niggling in the back of my mind like a hole in the roof where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go.

Oops.

I’m new to all this government assistance, but I’m no dummy. After receiving two letters that said I would be paying either 1) $272 or 2) $167 to supplement Medicare, I would rather pay one of those than the amount on this newly received Statement of Premium Due - $981.

Here’s the plan then: Call and speak to a customer service rep, Asia, who is 1) alone on her first day because her trainer ran screaming into oncoming traffic, or 2) a thoroughly unpleasant person who knows only what the screen says - $981 – period.

When I asked to speak to her supervisor, Asia put me on hold without comment. Fine! said I. I’ll write while I wait! Ha ha!

I had already waited 35 minutes for the Social Security Administration to return my initial call. No worries! Now, in the After Asia era, another 42 minutes pass and from the receiver set on “speaker” next to my keyboard, interspersed with some sort of clanging, a pleasant male voice intones:

Thank you for holding. Someone will assist you shortly. Please be sure to have your SSN and any mail we may have sent you. This will help us serve you better in the unlikely event we stop this infuriatingly lurid 70’s psychedelic “music” and take your call.

Then – We regret that you have waited so long. The Social Security Administration provides services for over 50 million people so we get a little backed up, particularly on a day like today when you have called with your paltry concern.

Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are helping someone else who’s really, really long-winded. I mean yadda yadda yadda! Get to the point, wouldja?! YOU won’t be like this guy, will you?

We apologize for this delay. Here’s an idea: Why don’t you go to our website and leave us alone? Maybe you can answer your own stupid questions from the comfort of your home. We’re here in cubicles like so many eggs in crates, and it’s hard to muster much interest. We can’t see into the future except to say that it’s looking pretty dim for you and your query.

In fact, why don’t you just shut up and pay the bill? So what if it’s three times more than our letter said it would be? It’s worth it, wouldn’t you say? Better than this purgatory!

If we had known you were such hairsplitter, we would have taken you off the mailing list altogether. Of course, we would have stopped your coverage too.

Click, click – Please stay on the line for our customer satisfaction survey.

And that’s how columns are written.

Dog / Cat meditation

2015-08-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

As I sat licking my wounds and fingering my checkbook this week, I happened upon this profound quote from naturalist and Thoreau wannabe Henry Beston, author of The Outermost House: A Year ofLife on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals.

Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.

We patronize animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren; they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

OK, he uses the uppity ‘our’ spelling of splendor. You know what that means – it’s certifiably deep thinking about cats and dogs.

And I subscribe.

Having said that, I am immediately faced with my contradictory and hypocritical nature. But let’s not talk about that right now. Let’s talk about the wise and mystical part.

That’s why we get dogs, right? Sure, they are goofy and sloppy and primitive in their habits, but because they love us so well and without question, we know they are pure and wise.

It’s hard to deny. If you are conjuring arguments against a dog’s depth and faultlessness, then you have not known a dog. Humans can never overtake the goodness of dogs.

Even for those who feel squeamish about slobber, dogs will win them over with the unadulterated perfection of their being. To resist a dog is to deny your humanity.

The things dogs learn from us are learned from a place of tolerance and patience – on their part. Sit. Stay. Fetch.

Or, they learn to sacrifice themselves in our place in scenes of man-made disasters and explosions of nature. They do this from the exquisite selflessness that is the essence of dogdom. They learn this from us only to teach us what loving and giving can be.

For cats, we must go to the mystical. A cat has nothing to learn from us and teaches us by inscrutable example. We are grasshoppers to the cats’ sensei. Wax on, wax off.

Cats understand and accept their own flawlessness and model for us by case in point that effort is unnecessary and futile. As they have, we must simply learn to be.

Beston’s words apply most clearly to cats: “They move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

Those who are puzzled by cats or uncomfortable under a cat’s enigmatic gaze squirm out of uneasy internal recognition that they have misjudged and thereby underestimated the cat. Because a cat responds, or not, from her own will, not that of a human, the human sees himself as lacking. He doesn’t like to be reminded of his own perceived weaknesses and he blames the cat for his discomfort, though the cat has said nothing, of course.

With a dog, you don’t have to try. With a cat, you must not try. Both are Zen masters. In both cases, we are to learn from our association with them. They have nothing to learn from us.

Some of us claim to be “cat people” or “dog people” when no such distinction exists. Cats and dogs are the yin and yang of life and living. We cannot have one without the other. Only when we learn the rhythm of the pendulum swinging between the two, will we have arrived.

And that, Dear Readers, is how I justified paying the vet bill this week.

Who's sitting next to you?

2015-07-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

I spent the middle of the day at Big O with a big man I’ll call Big Bill. He called himself Big Something Else, but maybe I shouldn’t say.

It was not how I planned to spend my day.

But the right front tire on Mr. Plath’s truck heaved a slow, surreptitious sigh overnight and relaxed into a rubber puddle. When he dashed out to catch up with his buddy at the BART station for a 12:45 first pitch at AT&T Park, that tire was flat.

“Emergency!” he called up the stairs, since he goes through life with split-second timing and there wasn’t a nanosecond to spare. “Take me to BART, Honey, and call Triple A to fix this flat, please.”

As an FYI – I plan my mornings more loosely. They hinge on slow starts with fresh home-made coffee, respectable progress on the Book Club assignment, a few Words with Friends and then some writing.

This is not to say I cannot swing into action when the situation warrants it. And this was urgent. BART waits for no one.

In a flash, I jumped into my clothes, ran a brush through my hair, stepped into my slip-ons and darted to the driveway feeling like Mighty Mouse. He had my car out of the garage and waiting. Like a precision racing team, we hit the road.

On the way to the station, Mr. P. sheepishly asked if I would spend some time with the puppy since he’d be gone most of the day. Sure Honey. My pleasure.

We executed the drop-off with a quick swing through the bus-only lane – my bad – and he was on his way. I turned back toward home and the flat tire and the puppy who refers to me as Second Best.

AAA came in due course, but did not fix the flat, or put on the spare. Instead, the burly tow truck driver with an Elvis complex and a suspiciously visible tattoo high on his right front chest – yes, chest! I don’t think the lapel of that jumpsuit was tucked in by accident! – pumped up the tire and directed me to take the truck to Big-O to get it fixed.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

But Big-O’s good, in case you don’t already know it. Their tire? They’ll fix it. Free.

But of course you have to get in line. That’s where Big Bill comes in.

I’ll tell you how I first felt about Big Bill: I didn’t want to talk to him. Oh – he’s not the Big O guy who greeted me immediately, ascertained the problem, took the keys to the truck and deftly worked me into the queue.

No, Big Bill was a stranger. A big man with a purple ear who came in after me and distinguished himself with his deep voice, not upset but frustrated, he said, at having to spend so much time in the Big O lobby.

Great. And the only empty chair was next to mine.

I tried to shine him on at first. I smiled tepidly when he eased himself down next to me saying he was tired of the mysterious problem that kept resurfacing with his valve stem.

He shifted in his seat. He watched shamelessly as I worked a crossword puzzle on my phone. “Boy, you’ve got good eyesight to see something that small. Can’t you make those letters bigger?”

Another meek acknowledgement. But before I knew it, he caught my eye. Maybe people would be calling my dad ‘Big Roy’ if he were still around.

I considered telling Bill his ear was purple, but he told me first. The medication for an irritation in his ear – side effect of his hearing aid. It stained his pillowcase too.

Oh? So I’d been in education?

He was in medicine. Radiology. Thirty-seven years. Retired from Kaiser twice – went back a while when they were short-handed. Ran a walnut orchard and orange tree farm at the same time he was reading X-rays. Same amount of water. Same fertilizer. Made good sense.

He knew Matt Cain pitched last night and Jake Peavy was pitching today. We both like Brandon Crawford.

Oh? The truck’s ready? Nice to meet you, Big Bill.

Very nice to meet you.

Never give up! Never surrender!

2015-07-25T12:25:00.001-07:00

A foldy toe. Of all things.

I didn’t see this one coming.

You never truly expect all the inevitable "aging" crapola that’s coming your way, though, right? Even though you’ve known all along that some telltale stuff is marching straight at you, two abreast, you can look over, under, sideways, down, and plain old ignore the certainty.

For example, you know you’re going to wrinkle. But still, it offends. Wrinkles scandalize. They appall.

There’s that OMG! moment when you look and you see and you understand that while you slept, creases crept up from the pillow case and settled onto your face.

Like you always knew they would.

They found their home, their happy home, and they don’t want to move. Ever again. Barring surgery of the type that would stretch your face into a Jack Nicholson Joker of a caricature of yourself.

Nevertheless, you can’t help yearning for what you can no longer have. It’s gone and there in the mirror is the new, old you.

And those rumpled ruffles didn’t arrange themselves appealingly in the socially desirable and marginally acceptable region set aside for laugh lines.

Oh no. These are not crinkles that accentuate a twinkling eye. These are lines and furrows more appropriately assigned to a wheat field. And the crop is set for harvest.

We all know wrinkles are coming. But who accepts their arrival? Who welcomes them as an anticipated tenant? No one!

Some liars claim to love and respect them as signs of a live well-lived. Ha! I once had a dermatologist call liver spots “wisdom spots.” Yeesh.

But OK. What are you going to do? Better than the alternative, right? Hahaha.

And gray hair. OK, white hair. Big deal. I crawled into the bottle years ago on that one. Denial perfected.

An ache. A pain. A spider vein. Means nothing. So what if I can’t eat fried food like I did back in the day? Big deal!

Sleeping through the night? Any sissy can sleep through the night! Only the stout of constitution can nod off at midnight, get up at 2:30, 4:30 and again at 6 and still be (mostly) alert and productive every fine day!

But the foldy toe may take me down.

It developed on the golf course. See?! I play golf. Twice a week! I walk the course too! Pull my own cart! I’m young and strong and tough, I tell ya!

Anyway, as I was saying, I was walking up for my second shot. This is when I usually give myself an “attaboy” for hitting it straight or a stern admonition for shanking it – again.

But this time, my thoughts were drawn away from the bucolic 4^th fairway to the migration of my little toe. As though responding to a hypnotic suggestion, it turned unannounced, inched away from its assigned station at the edge of my foot and worked steadily until it was tucked under its upright companions.

Whaaaat?

It didn’t hurt. It just felt weird. What are you doing there, Little Toe? Why would you fold yourself under, thus? What fear ye?

The toe said nothing and I kept quiet.

Members of my foursome suspected nothing. They have seen me duff a fairway wood enough times. They didn’t detect the shift in my sunny disposition. That 3-putt was par for my course.

The rest of the nine, my mind held silent communion with the toe. Instead of staying after for a celebratory Anchor Steam, I hustled to CVS and the Dr. Scholl’s aisle – you know, where the old folks find remedies for foldy toes.

And there, nestled among the corn plasters and the arch supports, next to Odor-X and Freeze Away, I found these little gel cushion thingies that fit between and force errant toes to face the future head on, like the rest of us.

So hooray.

But how can one recover from the demoralizing knowledge that she’s shopping on the aisle right around the corner from the Ensure and down the way from the All New Silhouette Depends?

Stubbornness, that’s how. Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall again on the hundred and first.

I will not surrender! Oh no! Not to a foldy toe!

A puppy by any other name

2015-07-17T05:30:00.000-07:00

We have done our best. And yet.

Believe me; we are as surprised as you might be if you could see our deck – Dewey’s hangout. It looks like a hillbilly’s front yard!

A quick survey of the surroundings includes sundry items, chewed nearly, but not quite, into oblivion: rebar, boat dock bumpers (small and very large), sticks from twigs to tree branches, rocks and concrete chips, loquat pits, rags – that is, a shredded T-shirt and what was formerly known as a hand towel – two crimped water bottles and a pistol-grip hose nozzle entangled with plant matter.

A cluster of gnats now dizzies around the door.

A chair cushion has been repurposed as an attack dog training dummy. Thrashed into submission, it lies in crumpled defeat near the gate. The fleece doggie bed? Relocated to his secret stash under the potting shed with his actual doggie chew toys – untouched – along with other items of little interest to his pure puppy brain.

This back-woodsy scene lacks only bent aluminum lawn chairs with frayed nylon webbing, spent beer cans, crushed cigarettes and a still.

We owe it all to Dewey.

He’s four months old now – four and a half – all legs. And feet. And joie de’vivre. It’s early to be making pronouncements. I know. But yeesh!

Maybe his name is having undue influence on his personality. “Dewey” rose to the top of the list of possible puppy names, for two reasons: First, we liked it. The sound of it. The fact that we didn’t know any other dogs named Dewey. (Even though we loved Beau, we had to acknowledge that he was one among a legion of Beaus – all good dogs, for sure, but undistinguished by appellation.)

Second, the name “Dewey” met the requirement for having a strong, plosive first letter. Soon enough, Dewey will be a working dog, earning his kibble in the duck blinds. Such employment demands a name beginning with a burst of air that the beast will recognize and obey quickly. Or so says Mr. Plath.

That’s why we renamed our first Labrador retriever, Snooky. We adopted him from a single mom with two unhealthy waif-like children. She said her kids had developed allergies to Snooky. Looking at their translucent skin and dark-rimmed eyes, it seemed plausible. And, as we came to learn, he shed approximately one bushel basket of dander-laden hair daily.

At any rate, she advertised him for sale and we brought him home when he was 18 months old but not yet housetrained. Maybe they were all allergic to dog pee.

But I digress. The point here is that we renamed him. Mr. Plath could not envision himself hollering “Snooky!” when other hunters were calling out to Duke or Buddy or Butch. Not enough machismo. Or, no first letter burst. However you choose to see it.

So Snooky became Ted, a wonderful field dog and stellar family companion summoned with near-perfect plosivity.

Could be that our mistake was in naming Dewey before we met him. We couldn’t wait. We aren’t those flower child parents who get to know their kids for days on end before they attach a moniker. We didn’t take time to assess his essence and name him according to his spirit. If we had, we might have called him Conan. Or Pigpen.

We didn’t consult the What-to-Name-Your-Puppy books.

But let’s pretend we did. Blogthings in retrospect, says of people and dogs named “Dewey”: You are balanced, orderly and organized. You like your ducks in a row.

See? Ducks in a row?! We would have thought Dewey was the perfect name for our little fella.

And here – You are friendly, charming, and warm. So very true! And to give him full credit, he pees outside and on demand. He has a soft mouth. Weeks ago he quit slicing us up like the chef at Benihana! My wounds have all healed and only one left a mark. He didn’t mean it.

You are very charming... dangerously so. Yes. That little cock of your head and we forgive our injuries and the wasteland you have created in our formerly genteel yard.

And finally, you are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.

Surprising how interacting with you makes everything so sweet. Dewey!

Mind your own guilty pleasures

2015-07-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

OK. So I eat peanut butter out of the jar.

Sometimes! Not every time! I admit to taking my spoon and dipping into the Skippy. Yum!

I don’t even sit down. That’s right. I stand at the kitchen counter with the pantry door wide open. After a couple of nibbles, I bring out the apricot preserves and go full-on decadent: Peanut butter residue in the jelly jar.

It’s crucial to be able to explain yourself if you’re caught in such instances, so I can rationalize it: Even though it’s gauche, it constitutes fewer calories than a straight-up, socially acceptable peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah! Never thought of that, did you? And, it’s gluten free! Take that!

You didn’t consider the possible benefits of my guilty pleasure because you were too busy judging me! Oh yes you were. No use denying it! You got all uppity. You would never eat Jiff out of the jar! Or, more accurately, you would never fess up to doing it.

Tell the truth now – you have a secret treat of your own. Maybe you eat your peas with honey – I’ve done it all my life. It makes my peas taste funny, but it keeps them on my knife! Sorry. My Asperger’s kicked in.

Still, most of us maintain an underground extravagance. Perhaps you read romance novels under the covers at night and cry every time over lost love – it’s so beautiful! Or, you can never drive past Krispy Kreme so you dispose of the incriminating wrappers before you get back to the house.

I knew a woman – a weight loss consultant – who confessed she hid the evidence of her binge ice cream eating in the washing machine. No one else ever looked there!

Maybe you Google all your old flames and follow them on Facebook. What’s that alternate email account for? Or when your spouse comes into the room, you have to switch channels away from the Kardashians. Really.

For me, it’s “Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda.” Well my, my, my. I like watching this crusty old detective. Mostly I love seeing the bad guy get what he deserves.

That also explains my indulgence in back-to-back episodes of “ForensicFiles,” the no-nonsense crime solving series proves time and time again that no matter how “highly intelligent” felons are, they cannot account for every insect wing or area specific weed pod or thread or fiber or eyelash! Haha!

My husband finds it macabre. I say it’s no more graphic than Shark Week.

BuzzFeed describes a guilty pleasure as something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. The "guilt" involved stems from a fear of others’ discovering one's lowbrow or embarrassing tastes. Harmless, but awkward. Borderline mortification.

So yes, I’m fearful.

I imagine my erudite friends would find it difficult to appreciate my weakness for the decidedly lowbrow adult cartoon, “South Park.” I don’t want them to know I watch it and I certainly cannot recommend it to their genteel selves. Cartman is so hilariously reprehensible!

They might not understand Kenny – neither do I for that matter, but that’s his appeal. And how can I explain his gruesome death every episode – those bastards!

Oh yes, if I’m found out, there could be consequences. So, if South Park ever comes up, I feign ignorance, or shock and revulsion. I don’t want to be expelled from their book club!

According to that pre-eminent source of cultural wisdom, Wikipedia, “guilt·y pleas·ure” means “something, such as a movie, a television program, a piece of music or fashion, behavior, certain foods – or eating habits – that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.

Say, for example, Elvis. Elvis is held in low regard. Pretty sure dying on the toilet did it. That, and the hair and the bloat and the sweat and the jumpsuits.

But I cannot forsake the King. Since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell, down at the end of Lonely Street, at Heartbreak Hotel… with my Teddy Bear and the volume up high when everyone else is out of the house. Air guitar. Swivel hips. Sneer.

Please – don’t tell anyone. Uh…thank you. Thank you very much.

Our own profile in courage

2015-07-03T05:30:00.000-07:00

OK. Tell me if you ever heard of this before. Ever.

In your history of observing your own aging parents or the parents of friends, or even elderly strangers, I challenge you to match this story for courage. Find a better role model and tell me all about him or her.

In your own experience, can you remember an older adult who took care of himself and his family by relieving them of the struggle during the inevitable transition from independence to any sort of assisted living?

I’ll bet not.

What we hear over time is the familiar story of a proud and independent person who finds himself in a situation he knew was coming, but never wanted to be. And in spite of the inevitability of the circumstance, that person will engage in an emotional battle with himself and his family, resisting the changes mandated by the passage of time and the impermanence of flesh and bone.

We hear of strong-willed and intelligent people abandoning their own stated principles. After a lifetime of claiming the right to self-determination, they oblige saddened and distraught family members to step in and make the clear choices for them that, barring dementia, they could make themselves.

Rather than making their own decision to hand over the car keys, for example, they will continue to drive after accidents and near-misses and the admonitions of physicians present evidence enough of the need for change. They tussle and brawl and hang on to the thing they know they must let go. In so doing they force their family members into the roles of conspirators and thieves.

But not my father-in-law, Mr. Lloyd B. Plath, aged 95.

A year ago he fell in his beloved home up on the hill in Danville.

This was his home on Kuss Road just below the historic Eugene O’Neill residence. The home his wife of 55 years designed and he built. The home where he raised three children and loved multiple pets. The home with stairs to get in and stairs to get out and stairs between levels inside. The one with a sweeping view of the San Ramon Valley and Mt. Diablo where he’d been living alone since his wife died in 1998.

He tried to get up and fell again. He lay on the floor for sometime recovering his strength and thinking about the phase of life that had come to meet him that morning.

Then he did get up.

He called his sons and said, “I think it’s time for me to sell this house and move into some place more reasonable.”

Wow. What brought this on? Sure we had all been thinking about those stairs and those levels and the life he’d led in that house. But we hadn’t broached the subject straight on. We had only tiptoed around the idea.

“Oh, I had a fall this morning.”

He wouldn’t hear of living with any of us “kids,” so we sold the big house. We moved him to the flatlands and a one level apartment on the ground floor. He adapted just like that. Chuckled and insisted he liked it. Enjoyed his new neighbors and their comings and goings. They quickly found affection for him too.

In March he mentioned his long-time friend got a great deal on a place with some jazzy amenities. He got all his meals and laundry and housecleaning services. Medical attention. It was pretty nice Lloyd said. We knew he had never been much for planning meals or shopping or cleaning or serving himself.

Lots of stuff going on in that place, Lloyd said; people to meet. No kidding. We looked at that place and a couple others like it.

Then he fell in his new apartment. And he fell again.

It is hard to see him diminished. He is wobbly and cannot walk much at all. His eyesight is failing, maybe due to a small stroke.

We know what all this means. As does he. So he told us to get him set up in assisted living. And we did - because he told us to.

He remains in charge of his life. We are his loving and humbled servants.

I only hope when it’s my turn I will be so brave.

Popeye, Olive and me

2015-06-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have done what any normal person would do under the circumstances. I have packed a slab of thick-sliced hickory-smoked bacon on my face. Of course.

That’s what my grandma did when my grandpa had a stye.

Of all the indignities a person must suffer! A stye! Really. A flippin’ stye!

Well that’s just great.

On the bright side – because there is always a bright side, right? – I am happy this thing rose up from hell and settled on my face after I took my out contacts. Because now my face is swollen enough to ensure that no contact lens could escape from the slit that was once my eye. My baby blue. My window on the world.

Now, instead of presenting as the erudite person of letters that I am, I look like Popeye! I’m in a perpetual wink. I look like Roberto Duran after acouple of rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard! No mas!

And it hurts! It’s red and yucky and, and…OK I’m whining. Let’s get a handle on this thing. To heck with this bacon! It’s cold and greasy and pointless and I keep having to fend off the cats.

Oh all right. I didn’t put bacon on my eye even though I remember my grandpa with a slab on his face swaddled in a tea towel. What was the rationale?

We all know that bacon makes everything better, but are there truly healing properties to bacon? The Cure.com includes this unsolicited testimony from a woman in Alaska: “My husband had this cist on his temple that kept getting bigger. When he had infected his finger once when he was younger his mom had taped a piece of bacon to it overnight and it had drawn out the infection.

“We decided to try it, that night we taped the bacon to his temple and by the next morning the lump was way down, he continued it for two more nights and I am proud to say we were able to stop any scarring from occurring. I believe it is the salt that does the trick.”

I am skeptical, but who am I to say that the bacon didn’t heal her husband’s cist? It’s the taping that has me stumped. Maybe they wrapped his head with duct tape to hold the bacon in place.

I moved on to Home Remedies for You.com. In their gentle, pragmatic and non-committal way they offer a string of crapola reminiscent of the inventory of ye olde apothecary and snake oil establishment.

Here we go: Add a teaspoon of coriander seeds to a cup of water and bring to a boil. Use the solution to cleanse the eyes thrice daily.

Thrice!

Or, add a couple of alum granules to one cup of water and use the solution to wash the affected eye. Place slices of cucumber over the infected eyelid to reduce swelling and soreness.

You can apply tomato slices to the affected area. Or a wet tea bag or “paste of potato.”

Maybe you could boil a handful of acacia leaves and pour the liquid over a clean washcloth to use as a compress.

Alternatively, add a teaspoon of turmeric to two cups of water and boil. Strain the solution and use as eye drops twice every day.

At the very least, make an anti-bacterial eye wash of dandelion tea.

Here’s what I’ve learned: None of these will do anything. Trust me. The stye comes and goes in its own good time. You brought it home with your wanton hands and now you have to live with it.

That’s right. I did it to myself. The ultimate insult.

I’ll spare you the particulars, but forensic science would show that I touched my eye with my hand. The hand that had been out in the world cavorting with shopping carts and hand rails in public buildings and God knows what.

Eewwww!

WebMD recommends over-the-counter remedies including eyelid cleansers and eyelid scrubs and sundry other items intended to scour your eyelids plum off.

I bought them all and began applying them in sequence. They aren’t going to fix the stye either.

So, Olive Oyl and I are just gonna hang out and make the best of it. Maybe eat some spinach.

Yippee.

Zen and the raisin

2015-06-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

If only I had a raisin.

Seems like there’s always something standing in the path of my peace of mind.

How can a person cultivate mindfulness, one of the primary components of happiness, if there’s no raisin in the house?

I bought raisins specifically for this purpose! Little boxes of raisins.

But before I could settle in to test the “casual” practice of Raisin Meditation – to cultivate mindfulness, reduce stress, and enjoy everyday pleasures – some of the crass male-types in my home consumed my wrinkled talismen. How gauche!

No Zen state for you!

Oh we have cranberries! But what good is a cranberry in a situation like this? Not the same. A distraction.

Bananas? Yes, we have no bananas. But we do have clementines! So cute! And yummy. But alas, flawed by virtue of their relative size and the simple fact that Greater Good in Action,Science-Based Practices for a Meaningful Life, calls for a RAISIN!

How else can you have Raisin Meditation? Duh.

This is a perfect example of the difficulties of the modern age. A person seeking her center, that well of serenity deep within, goes about collecting the necessary items to facilitate a deep, deep meditative state. She builds a nest of contentment where she plans to delve daily for the requisite period of five minutes required of someone like herself, a casual chaser of sagacity, and her raisins are devoured in a savage act of mindlessness!

Just so you’re aware – if you want actual perception of the cosmos, you have to move up to a 15 minute commitment at the “moderate” level of happiness building, perhaps with a “Savoring Walk.”

Then of course, you’ll go to “intense,” with one of the strenuous practices unheard of in the 21^st Century, like Active Listening.

Forget it. I will start small. I live in the real world after all! Greater Good can’t expect me to drop everything in my modern life and just walk around all day long savoring things! Yeesh!

What does it entail, “savoring”? Relishing? Cherishing? Who has the time?

Don’t get me wrong. I savor. I devote precious moments to treasuring stuff! On occasion. Just this afternoon I was appreciating my shoe horn.

But, I don’t want to go crazy! Over meditate. There are bound to be dangers there, right? I mean you can’t go totally OM without some repercussions. You have to develop a tolerance!

Better to start small and build on your success, right? Baby steps.

So, casually, “by increasing awareness of internal mental and physical states, mindfulness can help people gain a greater sense of control over their thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the present moment.”

Thus, Raisin Meditation. I’ll buy my Sun Maids – hide them in my sock drawer! – and I’ll be ready to transcend.

Let’s review the process: Oh good. A simple, eight step system that will send me on my way to nirvana. Or at least on a Savory Walk.

So here we go – Raisin Meditation:

Step 1. Holding: Take a raisin and hold it in the palm of your hand or between your finger and thumb. Check.

Step 2. Seeing: Take time to really focus on the raisin; gaze at the raisin with care and full attention. Oka-a-ay.

Examine the highlights, where the light shines, the darker hollows, the folds and ridges, and any asymmetries or unique features.

I don’t know. That’s a lot of seeing. But whatever.

3. Touching: Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring its texture. Maybe do this with your eyes closed if that enhances your sense of touch.

I can see why a private place is best.

4. Smelling: Hold the raisin beneath your nose. As you do this, notice anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach.

Interesting? It will take more than one raisin for my tummy to take notice. Can we cut to the chase here?

Yadda yadda yadda; 5, 6, 7 and 8 – placing, tasting, swallowing, and following.

Wait – “Following”?

Step 8. Following: See if you can feel the raisin moving down into your stomach and sense how your body as a whole is feeling after you have completed this exercise.

Hungry. Enlightened maybe, but hungry definitely.

How to save $99

2015-06-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

A smarter you is only 15 minutes away!

Aha! I have been wondering where she’d got to, my smarter self. She slipped away back in ’92, round about the time Apple stock was selling at $6.00 a share and Nike at 52 cents.

Of course Blinkist doesn’t really mean it that way. Smart Carolyn isn’t across the bridge and down I-80 in Berkeley. The teaser in their online ad implies if I give them $99, and read the non-fiction book summaries they send me, my noodle power will expand in 15 minute increments. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It’s a clever new service that reads non-fiction books so you don’t have to. They’re like Cliff’s Notes for the 21^st Century person who is too preoccupied Tweeting about Instagram to pursue learning on her own.

Yes, it’s just like back in high school, except now, instead of escaping a death march through The Scarlett Letter, you can become superficially familiar with the cutting edge concepts in science, business and technology others have devoted their lives to exploring. You’ll know just enough to bluff your way through a casual conversation over latte and a scone.

It’s perfect for busy know-it-alls.

As a dummy and someone drawn to the quick fix like a teenage bride to Hamburger Helper, I’m tempted. But $99!? Maybe it’s smarter to hold onto my C-note.

Here’s why: Blinkist says they read more than 1000 of the best in nonfiction and business books each year, then reduce them into “powerful, memorable distillations” for schmucks like me, so we can Evelyn Woods our way through them and claim we know stuff.

But let’s be real. With 50 new titles and 40 new audio versions – their “fresh weekly releases added for you each month” – I’m pretty sure I don’t have time for this shortcut. Just scanning the lists would constitute a detour off my highway of retired bliss into a quagmire of book selection. It’s hard enough picking which T-shirt to wear each day! And really, don’t you have to read the rundown to choose the book? Rather defeats the purpose.

And honestly, if past behavior predicts future success, I concede. There will come a reason I do not read the abstracts of the books I wish I’d read but really don’t wanna. Case in point: My Netflix queue is backed up with a cache of erudite yet unwatched documentaries downloaded from 1998 to present, that I cannot bring myself to delete.

If only good intentions could boost your IQ!

And here’s a red flag: Blinkist doesn’t say how much smarter I’ll be. That’s an important detail. Is the formula $99 a year x 15 minutes/number of synopses of arid material deemed too desiccated to digest the old fashioned way = 25 points of intellect? Or what?

My cost-benefit analysis leaves me dubious. See, I’ve been through this before. Just the other day I was promised that I could “get these abs in two weeks!” The headline on the magazine cover was accompanied by an arrow pointing at the bony midsection of Gwyneth Paltrow.

BTW – She has one of those non-committal belly buttons – is it an innie or an outie? I don’t like the looks of it. She is distressingly long-waisted. Maybe it’s because her bikini bottoms are drifting lazily south, below the skeletal remains of her baby bump.

And how does she get those abs? “Having sex and laughing,” according to a completely out of context quote from her interview in Women’sHealth magazine.

Well, let me just tell you that Mr. Plath – who is retired now as you may recall, and home all the time with not quite enough to occupy himself – and I are laughing and laughing and…well, here we are, 10 days later, and I don’t think I’m getting those abs.

Just sayin’. You can’t believe everything you read.

So when Blinkist promises I can “Learn more, do more, be more—and still spend less time reading;” I say, I’m doing that already. Except maybe for the “being more” part. I mean really. How can you be more?

I say you can’t. You can only be what you can be. In the philosophical sense of course. So. There’s my smarter self.

And I still have my $99!

You talkin' to me?!

2015-05-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

OK. I’m thinking some sensitivity training is in order.

You know what I mean – that sort of interminable, eye-rolling in-service whereby here-to-fore know-it-alls learn that they don’t know so much after all. What used to be OK, is now taboo. What was once funny ain’t funny no more.

I’m talking about all you non-boomers. Yeah, you. All you “yes ma’am”-ers and “can I help you to the car?” people who think you’re immune to the calendar and not subject to the clock.

What? Do I sound defensive? Well too, too bad! Too bad I say!

It appears you must listen to me, not only because, yes, I am OLDER than you are, but also because you are outnumbered by me and my geriatric friends. And…we have all the money! Ha!

Turns out, according to the Wall Street Journal, in an article titled, “How to Market to an Aging Boomer: Flattery, Subterfuge and Euphemism,” some forward-thinking mercenary types have already begun the process of age-ifying themselves and their businesses. And they’ve done it on the down low.

That’s right. “Companies are making typefaces larger, lowering store shelves to make them more accessible and avoiding yellows and blues in packaging—two colors that don’t appear as sharply distinct to older eyes

And here’s the kicker: They’re doing so surreptitiously!

Hahahaha! I love it! They’re afraid of offending us! We’ve got ‘em on the run.

The visual of this phenomenon is classic: An army of “older adults,” led by Madge, or Clint Eastwood, or Statler & Waldorf (those crabby old-men Muppets who hate everything), or wait! I know! Led by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards! Oh! My God!

Keith with his corpse-like countenance, cigarette dangling and Mick, gyrating in leather pants and a sequined jacket with no shirt underneath. Coming at ya, singing “I can’t get no satisfaction!” No! “Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and fame!” That would run the fear of the wrath of the moldering up the backs of those smart-alecky “younger adults.”

Here we come, a horde of “golden agers” with bulging wallets sweeping down onto the plains occupied by smug and unsuspecting adolescent types who are so flippin’ sure of everything.

The good news is, of course, that everybody likes larger typeface. Guess what? It’s pleasant to read without squinting.

And how lovely that Sherwin-Williams and other retailers have quietly adapted to aging customers, even if they just did it for the money.

CVS Caremark Corp. retrofitted its stores with carpeting to reduce slipping. They lowered shelves from 72 inches to 60 inches and opted for more natural light in stores to improve visibility. They eliminated curbs from store entrances and painted existing curbs yellow to heighten awareness.

Get this: Some stores positioned magnifying glasses in aisles that carry products that use lots of fine print, like household cleaners, hair color and cold medicine. Reading glasses are getting snazzier, too, now that the chain updates styles more frequently.

They snuck all that stuff right by us unsuspecting geezers! It’s a good thing too, because we are a touchy bunch. Don’t be reminding us that we’re getting on!

I say go ahead and flatter me. Neither one of us is fooled. I’m getting older and so are you. But I appreciate the niceties of your telling me that 60 isn’t 60 and wrinkly is not really wrinkly at all. These creases are not “age lines,” or “maturity tracks.” They are “expression lines.” Nice!

That’s right. Bring on the euphemisms! Tell me I’m healthy and active and full of life. I know I am, and if you’re pretending, that’s OK.

Go ahead ADT; market your medical-alert system to us codgers as “Companion Services.” Sweet.

Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Depends, the “adult diapers” of the past, have had a makeover in new TV ads with smiling 50 year old actors: “Looks and fits like underwear. Protects like nothing else.” So much to look forward to!.

Don’t forget – 76 million boomers account for about half of total U.S. consumer spending. With longer life expectancy than previous seniors, we are projected to spend an additional $50 billion by the end of the decade.

So talk nice to us.

It’s worth it, right? For both of us.