Precious Moments II

Have you ever looked at a close friend and thought, "She looks different. I don't know how exactly, but definitely different." You , always tactful, say, "You look great. Did you do something to your hair.?" Or, "Your make-up is different. I love it." You may suspect your friend had a bit of work done, but you can't ask. Asking would be breaching an age old social contract that reads: an individual who has had plastic surgery may freely disclose it to whomever she chooses, but you may NEVER inquire of anyone whether they have succumbed to the knife. You may speculate with other friends as to whether or not there's been an eye lift and, if so, whether it was a good one or a bad one,but asking is taboo. As young as sixteen, we knew the rules. When Merel and Andrea returned from summer vacation with pig snouts, we giggled, but never asked. When undershirt Libby disappeared from class and returned 3 weeks later with perfect C cups, we remained mum (and envious.) In case you're wondering, the above is a lead in to a "precious moment." My close friend, T., whom I've know for 25 years, met me for lunch. She ordered the tilapia with black bean sauce that she had been raving about for days. The server put it in front of her and she ignored it. Instead, she stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. For a second she said nothing. Never letting her gaze depart from my face, she said, "Did you have a nose job?" I wasn't sure whether to be more flabbergasted by the question or by the fact that her tilapia was getting cold. I have nothing against plastic surgery for others. Those who have it it(Mary Tyler Moore and Joan Rivers aside) look better and younger. I, on the other hand, am peculiarly averse to pain. And to endure pain to look like a younger version of me, seems particularly pointless. If plastic surgery could make me look like Scarlet Johansson, I'd willingly become a morphine addict. Back to my nose. I wasn't sure if she was asking me if I'd ever had a nose job or had recently had a nose job. I didn't ask. Either way the answer was "no." What I did say was "Why do you ask?" I knew there were several possible answers to this question and I was angling for the one that said, "Because you have such a cute little nose." The one I got, however, was, "Because your upper lip goes up and your nostrils are long. I never noticed before." Tact and social contracts serve a purpose.

Precious Moments I

If you woke me in the middle of the night and asked me how old I was, I would blurt out, "thirty." "Thirty" would also be my answer if you asked me the maximum price I would would pay for a dress. Both answers would make the needle rise on a polygraph. When I was thirty, Paul Newman was not known for salad dressing. And thirty dollars for a dress? Do I look like a Rockefeller? If you're reading this because you thought I would divulge my age, read 100 Years of Solitude. I assume it's about a centenarian, but since I couldn't get passed page 6, I don't really know. I'm writing this because, having reached an age that certain governmental agencies deem venerable, I have decided to both cherish and share with you several precious moments of each day. Due to my busy schedule as a retiree, I cannot promise to share with you daily. After my morning coffee,which, as you may recall takes me two hours to drink, I have medical appointments and zumba classes to attend. That said, I hope that my act of sharing these moments will cause you to appreciate your life in a new and wonderful way. Precious Moment The following is actually a stream of precious moments culminating in a Niagara. Each deserves its own detailed description, but I have a mani-pedi appointment, so I'll condense. Maurice, the exterminator came at 10:35 this morning. This was his third visit and we're bonding. He's a very pleasant fellow, especially when you consider his job involves searching for mouse droppings. On his first visit, the day after my birthday, he found no droppings. But I insisted he put down glue traps, since my guests, depending upon their state of inebriation, saw either one mouse traversing the living room twice ,or two mice, each traversing the living room once. I myself saw something out of the corner of my eye, but thought it was a floater. A week later, there were no mice in the traps, but the night before my book club met at my house, I saw one dart into my coat closet. As we were discussing The Finkler Question, I went to serve the Dorito Chips which I had stored in the coat closet and I saw that the mouse had eaten through the bottom of the bag. (Did I serve the chips from the top of the bag? I leave that to you to decide.) Maurice returned the following Monday, and, when I told him about the purloined chips, he got serious, pulling out his secret weapon: Skippy. He baited the two traps under the piano, one behind the couch, one in the kitchen and two in the closet with Skippy(smooth.) He promised I'd find a mouse in its death throws or screaming for jelly in 28 to 48 hours. Thinking he might be considering job security, I made him swear on a stack of Haggadahs(who has bibles?) that I wouldn't get roaches from the peanut butter. The peanut butter did not lure the mouse. Perhaps it had a peanut allergy. Perhaps it was looking for medium salsa to accompany the chips. In any event, I asked Maurice to remove the traps. While attempting to remove the trap behind the couch, Maurice took a header over the end table and broke my vintage lazy Susan. While he was destroying my house, I tried to expedite matters by removing the glue traps from the closet. The wheel of the shopping cart I use yearly rolled into a glue trap. Not realizing that a glue trap was filled with glue, I stuck my newly manicured hand in it to extricate the wheel. I then called Maurice to extricate my hand and cart wheel from the trip. He did, but glue covered my right hand up to the wrist. Maurice told me to use alcohol to get it off. I had no alcohol other than Trader Joe's Sauvignon Blanc which I would have guzzled had it not been 10:40am, so I tried soap and steel wool. That was definitely not a good idea, because the tiny wires of the steel wool adhered to the glue. I begged him for advice. He suggested a brush, so I tried an old tooth brush with dish washing liquid. With much back and forth effort, the steel wool particles came off, but, in retrospect, neither Maurice nor I had been thinking clearly. The wheel of the cart, you see, was still dripping glue and after having de-glued myself, I now had to de-glue the wheel, which meant I re-glued myself. Maurice would have stayed to help me, but the bedbugs on the 16th floor consituted a greater emergency. Years ago, I would not have considered these "precious moments." I would have thought, "Shit, I live in an expensive coop in the West Village and I have a fuckin' mouse?" But as I think of the mouse sighting and its aftermath, I feel incredibly happy. No harm was done to me other than the small financial cost of a bag of Dorito Chips and a manicure(although it was a gel manicure which gets pretty pricey). And no harm came to the mouse, who is now probably chomping on chips and drinking tequila in my neighbot's apartment. And Maurice will always have employment.

Location, location, location

Hackers broke into my e-mail, hijacked my e-mail address and informed most of my contacts that "sadly, I had been mugged in Wales and all my money had been taken."
Some might view having their e-mail pirated as a negative; I found it enlightening.
I was at work when I received the first of 273 calls from the e-mail's recipients. 15 called to tell me I'd been hacked. Three, having just seen me the previous day, wanted to know how I got to Wales and back so fast. Had they reinstated the Concord? 252 others whined that I hadn't told them I was going to Wales. National Public Radio, United Jewish Appeal and New York Law School called to ask if I would still honor my pledge.
No one sent "me" money. Frankly, that made me feel a little bad. Don't my nearest and dearest care about me? I'm stranded in a foreign country where they barely speak English and have no vowels. Do they want me to get a job as a shepherd?
If you ever receive an e-mail from me, saying "I have been mugged in India.., " stand forewarned that the e-mail is not from me and that I have again been hacked. I understand from many of you that India is fascinating, but the sub-continent ranks just below Somalia on my list of must-see places to visit.
I have had only pleasant experiences with Indians in the U.S. I love curry. A little dysentery might be good for the waistline. I will never go to India because there is not enough blood pressure medicine in all the CVSs and Duane Reades combined to keep me from getting a stroke there. A billion people speaking what they believe to be English and I believe to be gibberish, instructing me on how to repair my computer.Their instructions unintelligible. My computer ornamental, Lest you think me nuts, I do realize that the entire population of India is a)unlikely to speak English; b) to provide me with unsolicited computer instruction. But, "May I help you Madam," said with a polite Indian accent is only slightly more pleasing to my ear that my doctor saying,"Now we're going to stick this tube up your rectum."
Saturday night I was out to dinner with my cousins. You know how people in a movie theatre loudly comment to their bffs about the on the action on the screen? You think they're inconsiderate morons and want them dead. They are morons and I still want them dead, but I've come to learn they are not inconsiderate. They're sick. They have location amnesia ("LA".) They think they're home with friends watching Netflix. I succumbed to LA Saturday. Performing a stellar rant about call center employees in India, I was startled by my cousin D reprimanding me with "Sh-h. Remember where you are." Oh right. An Indian restaurant.
After the 2000 election, Florida was on my no-fly-to list. Bill, from Verizon's Flordia fix-it location, restored my e-mail. Want to come with me to Ket West?

"Nothing" is harder than "Something"

I have been jealous of Verlyn Klinkenborg for years. For those of you who think Verlyn was the character with the ear piece on Star Trek--The Next Generation, stand corrected. Verlyn is a member of the New York Times Editorial Board who writes a weekly editorial on nothing. Really nothing-- the grass in his pasture, how his horse feels. For these ruminations, Verlyn is allocated prime real estate on the New York Times editorial page. And he's not even funny. I could so do better.
Or so I thought until this a.m., when I sat down to write and could think of nothing to say about "nothing." I had plenty to say about "something," but my subject matter is circumscribed by this blog's title. So I scrapped the following:

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

Your construction of bike lanes on the north-south Avenues is nothing short of brilliant. Living as I do near the intersection of Jane Street and Eighth Avenue, I have the daily pleasure of observing the benefits the bike lane has conferred on the City. Thousands of deliverymen fly south on this northbound street, with undisguised glee. The civilian bike owners-- all 67 of them pitifully handicapped by color-blindness-- forget their incapacitating infirmity and speed joyously through red lights. Motorized vehicles flow through traffic signals and crosswalks unimpeded by pesky pedestrians. Pedestrians have disappeared entirely. Although I have not made a scientific study of the matter, my hypothesis is that they a) have been mowed down by cyclists or b) have seen others mowed down by cyclists and are in terror of leaving their homes.
Thanks to bike lanes, we are rethinking transportation options. Taxis are out of the question. Where do you stand to hail one? In the middle of the street? On the corner of the block? Drivers are surely abandoning their vehicles, mystified by the parking in the middle of the Avenue and left turns from a bike lane.
Your bike lanes are not only a paragon of urban planning, but a paean to the altruism of New Yorkers. Although only .000000015% of us own bikes and only .01% of bike owners have actually ridden them in the last 10 years, recent polls show 66% of New Yorkers favor bike lanes. I'm sure there are some cynics who question the poll numbers, but they're probably just newly homebound or crippled pedestrians. You know: sour grapes.
Best of luck always,

Carol

Verlyn, your job's secure.

Sharing my secret realm

My freezer is a private shameful realm whose inner reaches not even my closest friends are permitted to enter. I have a recurrent nightmare that I am being robbed by a thief who believes women hide their jewelry in ice cube trays. He'll open the freezer door and before he encounters the ice cube trays(which, for any potential burglars who are reading this, contain no baubles whatever,) he'll confront 240 turkey meatballs, 1 pair of pink cropped pants, 1 plaid cotton jacket, one white eyelet blazer, and a lined L.L. Bean raincoat and 37 irregularly shaped, opaque bags. Terrified that he's broken into the apartment of a deranged drug dealer, he'll flee, and rat me out to Alexis, the doorman. Alexis and I have not been on good terms since I told him politely that every once in a while it might behoove him, as doorman, to open the door. Alexis will tell John, the super,(who also doesn't like me because he thinks I'm a bad tipper) who'll tell the Board, who will serve me with eviction papers. In court, nobody will believe my explanations and Mozart, my cat, and I will be on the street.
As all nightmares do, this one starts with a drop of reality. Actually, more of
waterfall than a drop. Come to think of it, the only fictional elements are the thief and the eviction. You can probably guess why I have 240 turkey meatballs. Right! I was at BJ's. Also thanks to BJ's, I have 8 pounds of whitefish salad in the refrigerator and six 3 pound jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce, two sixteen ounce jars of dijon mustard and a carton of Panko crumbs in my pantry.Although I may not live long enough to finish the meatballs, I don't know when I'll get to BJ's again. If I die with 10 or 20 meatballs left over, so be it and help yourself. If you're pondering about the contents of the opaque bags--ponder no more. They contain either uncooked chicken legs, salmon burgers, lasagna, broccoli, chicken parmagiana, vegetable eggrolls, chana masala or spanikopita. Some of the items owe their presence in my freezer to their having been on a very good sale. Others to the fact that I often bring home half of my restaurant dinner.Unfortunately,no matter the source, I neglected to label the bags with either their contents or vintage, so even were I to open them and identify their contents, they would be more suited as specimens for the Center for Disease Control than for comestibles.
Why the apparel? It's not obvious? Hint: I shop in thrift shops. Still don't get it? Okay, I'll tell you. Just in case there's a hidden bed bug or two on my gently worn cropped pants, jacket, raincoat or blazer, the cold treatment will send them to bedbug heaven. At least that's what the New York Times told me. I know my cropped pants will be bedbug free, but I admit to being a little nervous that the bedbugs will put on the jacket, layer it with the blazer and wrap themselves with the L.L. Bean coat. The L.L. Bean catalog guarantees the coat will stand up to a Maine winter. Let's hope it doesn't stand up to a NYC freezer.

Read my blog, please.

I've always despised people who complain to me that their misfortune is due to circumstance or bad luck. I sympathetically nod my head at their kvetching while thinking, "Lo-ser. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, put your shoulder to the grindstone and take drugs." I never articulate my advice aloud because I want people to like me and more important, the only portion of my advice that makes sense is the drugs part. Except for my cousin B., I don't know of anyone off the Ponderosa with bootstraps. And a grindstone? I saw one once at Philipsburg Manor, but it was last used in 1743.

Now, however, I'm joining the legions of grumblers. Sunday morning, watching CBS, I learned that ordinary shallow people, not unlike moi, make so much money writing blogs about mascara, food and dysfunctional pets that they are able to quit their day jobs and hire minions to write the blog. Other agenda driven individuals,not at all like moi (who, as you well know has no thoughts on anything of consequence,) write blogs so influential they bring down politicians who have neither stolen public funds, nor taken bribes, but have merely made pin-ups of their penises.

I will not blame my lack of fame, fortune or influence on bad luck. I will, however, blame it on circumstance. What circumstance, you ask? My ignorance of technology. As my select group of followers know, I'm a technological moron. Those of the bootstrap persuasion would tell me ignorance is not an immutable trait and advise me to take a course. Grindstone groupies would tell me to read a manual. Both factions would be barking up the wrong url. Bloggers who learn from computer classes see computers as their helpmeets. They don't get emotional when they see the message "Auto-save failed. The Pulitzer worthy blog that you've spent three sleepless night perfecting is gone." I, on the other hand, view computers as a defense team whose sole purpose is to prevent me from scoring. When I see that message, I sob. Not a convulsive sob, more of a schnuffle, but still a distinct sob. Bloggers who read manuals to learn how to widely disseminate their blogs view manuals as a helpful roadmap. I, on the other hand, believe all manuals to be literally and incoherently translated from Japanese and have always found directions from a gas station attendant to be far more helpful than a roadmap.

Here are some tips for promoting a blog from the blogger manual:
Turn on your site feed.
Activate your NavBar
Set your blog to send Pings

I will not be called a loser. As soon as I learn to text, I will text cousin B., ask to borrow her boots, pull myself up by her bootstraps(I know it should be my own bootstraps but who buys boots just to have bootstraps?) and search indefatigably for my site feed, NavBar and Ping setting. Please help me if you are able, and know that I intend to leave no stone unturned, no icon unclicked, no menu undropped. I know not where this quest may lead, but I fervently hope it's not under Anthony Weiner's towel.

Preparing for the Rapture

Thank G-d The Rapture did not occur Saturday night, May 21, 2011. I was totally unprepared. Fortunately, this morning I received a "save the date" from Robert Camping. The Rapture has been rescheduled for October 21, 2011, weather permitting. I've developed a Rapture Preparedness List so that I and my readers won't be caught with our pants down again.
I don't know exactly what The Rapture is, but I am certain that it lasts longer than a week. Hence,
1. Call Merck for a 500,000 day supply of all prescription drugs during the week of October 10. Mail carriers may be readying themselves for the big day and be even more lethargic than usual. Donate your 7 day pill box to Housing Works.

2. Pack a bag. Unfortunately I don't know the geographic destination of The Rapture. "Heaven," even Mr. Camping would have to acknowledge, is a little vague on longitude and latitude. This lack of specificity makes packing difficult. My H & M winter coat or my LandsEnd bathing suit? Your Northface jacket or your speedo? Most of you will have to hedge your bets and check your luggage. If you're Jewish, however, you'll need only your Miami wardrobe, so you can take carry on.

3. Although for some, "The Rapture" may entail more floating than walking, you know how miserable you are when your feet hurt. So, to be on the safe side, select comfortable shoes for the trip. Sneakers are always a good choice, although you may want to throw in dressy flats in case a special occasion arises. And Jews, you'll want sandals where you're going.

4. I've not seen any mention of food at The Rapture, although I'm sure G-d wouldn't let us starve to death. Just in case, pack snacks with lots of preservatives. Hostess products are ideal.

5.You have your "go" bag. It's the morning of October 21. You're almost ready. Be sure to have a good breakfast.You're embarking on a great unknown. You can't think straight on an empty stomach and you may be called upon to solve quadratic equations. For the same reason, don't even think of working through lunch. One hour before the designated time, have a snack. You'll want something heavy enough to take the edge off, but not so heavy as to make you nauseated. No one wants to experience the Rapture next to someone puking into a paper bag.

Have a safe and pleasant journey.