THE LEGACY

Mama - Happy with something in a shoebox; no telling what.

As far as legacies go, my tastes lie with something simple, like a check. Or stock. Or heirloom china. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t the heirloom china type. What I got when she departed for the peaceful place where mothers don’t have to cook, clean, or say, “If I told you once, I told you a million times,” was not the inheritance I assumed was my birthright. What she left me was the very thing I was the least qualified to handle. Wisdom.

Giving me a lapful of life lessons is like tossing me a copy of the Atkins diet and a size six sheath dress and telling me the party starts at seven. You may as well shove the plans for building a biplane into my arms and tell me to be in Paris by midnight. When it comes to legacies, it’s best to just go ahead and hand me a gold bar.

Now that I’m in the stage of life where good advice usually involves a recipe loaded with fiber, I realize that what Mama left me was a handbook for life. Thanks to the seeds my mom planted in the rocky garden of my mind over the years, I’ve sailed through many of the stormy seas of life without having to evacuate to life boats. Turns out Mom knew best all along. Here are Mama’s Rules to Live By—along with some of my own observations for those who, like me, have trouble following directions.

1. There is something to love in every person. However, there are some people who hide that something really well. Actually, Mama just said that first part. I learned the second part from my sister.

2. If you rip a page out of your brother’s comic book, he can rip a page out of yours. This is a mother of four’s version of The Golden Rule. I learned to treat friends, family, and their possessions with respect. And I’ll never know what happened to Archie and Jughead that day at Riverdale High.

3. Give a child two cookies; one for each hand. This is a smart idea because it keeps the child busy for twice as long, diverts him from "helping" with your biscuit dough and prevents you from having to walk every morning for a week to work off two cookies that you would have eaten to relieve stress if your child had two hands free to plunge into the dog's food.

4. Don’t honk your horn at anybody. At first I assumed this was Mama’s version of traveling etiquette, but now I realize that she understood road rage long before anyone held up traffic trying to read road signs through the wrong part of skinny designer bifocals.

5. Always have a skill you can fall back on. By this, I know now that she meant a skill that will continue to be of service to the Community of Man. Unfortunately the skill I chose was typing, which caused typewriters to immediately become extinct.

6. If you’re not tall enough to see out the car window, sit on a pillow. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Even the Marines agree with her.

7. If something particularly unpleasant is happening to you, there’s probably a lesson involved. Wade through a puddle or two on the linoleum and you’ll remember to let the new puppy out. You’ll also remember to buy a mop.

8. Don’t sell things you can give away. That might not make sense in an e-Bay world, but knowing that someone who needs it will have a warm coat for the winter goes a long way toward offsetting the thrill of bagging $1.50 for your old hula lamp in an online auction.

9. Play to win. Unless that gets in the way of playing for fun. When playing Scrabble with an elderly woman who can’t see past her elbow, give her a break if she thinks she drew five blanks. Come to think of it, that’s how Mom always won at Scrabble, so there’s probably an extra lesson tucked in there.

10. Always take time to watch the birds at the birdfeeder. Time spent with nature is a peace of mind investment. And last winter, a tiny chickadee who muscled his way through a crowd of rowdy cardinals to have lunch gave me some great ideas for handling the next family reunion. And the big project due at work.

11. Don’t worry, it’ll get worse. This was my mom’s slogan. When I was three and ran to her with a skinned knee, she said it. She was right. I broke my arm. When I was thirty-three and getting divorced, she said it again. And soon my kids became teenagers. But by then, I had it figured out. If things can get worse, the problems that seem overpowering right now aren’t the end of the world. Things can also get better. So if teaching two teenaged boys to drive and adding them to my insurance is the worst life has to offer, I can handle it.

But I sure wouldn’t turn down a check.

 

 

My favorite time of day.

 

Watch Out

 

I have a love-hate relationship.

With my watch.

It has a lot of settings that I never use. There’s one that says “Run.” I never push the button for that one. But there’s one setting that says “Sleep” and shows a little moon. That’s my favorite setting. I take that one to heart. I push the button for that one when I’m in my recliner and the ball game is on. That way I always win.

I have a friend who has a watch that calls for help when she falls down. Emergency Responders already think I have them on speed dial. There’s talk about moving their office across the street from my house. 

I’d rather have a food truck.

I think my watch spies on me at night. In the morning it always knows how many times I got up to go to the bathroom the night before. Don’t tell my watch, but I was getting cookies all those times. Well, almost all of those times. Once I got pizza.

My watch is the sort of watch that thinks it knows everything about you; when you should be asleep but are awake because you can’t remember the name of that man you need to call to clean the carpets  at the office, when you should exercise but the Greek festival comes only once a year and doesn’t walking to the pastry table count for your steps total, and when you’re doing wind sprints to practice for the Olympics.

Wait. What?

I’ve never done a wind sprint. Not even in gym class. My last gym class was in 1973.

My watch disagreed. It said I ran for eighteen minutes.

I haven’t run a total of eighteen minutes in 65 years.

It said I burned a whole bunch of calories. This is the part where I love my watch.

But one day it said I burned up a lot less calories doing the same thing I always do.

As you know, being a loyal reader of my exciting lifestyle blog, I exercise sitting down. Three or four times a week I sit down very fast which keeps my doctors happy. My watch usually says I sat down very fast long enough to subtract the steak biscuit I eat to give me the energy to sit down fast for an hour.

This time it said I was a slacker. Which is usually true, but wasn’t this time.

This is the part where I hate my watch. It is mean-spirited to lie about biscuit calories.

Then I noticed. It’s battery was low. It needed a recharge.

I did, too.

So I plugged my watch in and went off in search of a cookie.

Now we both feel better.

 

 

 

The Look Works Every Time

It’s a Dog’s Life

I apologized to the dog.

Again.

It was the cat’s fault.

The cat didn’t care. She was sleeping on my lap.

On a soft blanket.

All morning.

I had to go to the bathroom. I ignored it as long as I could. I read another chapter, okay cartoon, in my book. But some things are inevitable.

So I got up.

Finally.

The cat was mad and took over the chair I just left. She curled up like a Roly-Poly bug and put one paw over her eyes.

The dog’s feelings were hurt that I didn’t invite him to go to the bathroom.

Why do dogs get their feelings hurt, but cats just get ticked off?

Don’t give me cat grief. There are four cats in my house ignoring two giant carpeted cat trees so they can shed on my recliners and send fur tumbleweeds rolling through the living room. Each cat is capable of sleeping in my lap for 22 hours each day. They could sleep longer, but they take time off to make me feel guilty that the bottom of their food bowl is showing.

There is food in the bowl. There is a trail of kitty niblets leading away from the dish and across my kitchen floor. The dog will clean that up later. Kitty niblets make him happy. Everything makes him happy.

Except when I go to the bathroom without him.

“You’re doing important dog things,” I explained. Who is going to lick the couch cushions if I drag you along on my rest area expeditions?

He put his ears down in sad position and gazed up at me like Princess Diana used to do so she would look soulful when cameras were near. Nobody could look as soulful as Priness Diana. Except the dog.

It worked.

“Okay, let’s go.” We walked together the ten steps to the bathroom door. He wanted to go in, but I explained there wasn’t room for two pouting faces. He sighed heavily and I apologized.

When I came out of the door thirty seconds later he was so happy to see me I had to rush him out the back door so he wouldn’t water the hall carpet like a backyard garden. When he came in I gave him a treat and let him Hoover up the kitty niblets.

It's not like he never eats. He was self-trained with Door Dash delivery. He can detect the presence of a pizza left on the front porch rocker so well he can tell if it’s the one on the left or the right and whether the cushion is crooked. Enter the house with a rattly bag full of burgers and fries and you’ll never make it past the coffee table without succumbing to a drool pit.

I’m surprised that the animal rights people haven’t contacted us with warrants, restraining orders, and writs of habeus corpulence.

When that happns, at least he'll know how to pose for the cameras.

I’ll apologize to him for the inconvenience.

And give him a treat.

 

 

 

 

Retirement. . .or Reclinerment?

 

FOREVER FRIDAY

It’s my anniversary!

No, not that one. If you add up the husbands, multiply by the number of meatloafs I’ve made and divide by the number of times people with the drawn faces of suffering and hunger have asked “What’s for dinner?” that will let you know how many years of my life I’ve toiled away in blissful matrimony. I mark that anniversary by eating ice cream and turning the air down low every July.

The anniversary I celebrate with joy, despair, happiness, sadness, certainty, and indecision is. . . .

RETIREMENT!

I entered the working world at 22 years old. I was a size ten and could still see my feet. These days if I want to see if my socks match, I ask someone to take a picture.

For forty years, I started the work week asking, “Is it Friday yet?”

Three years ago, I answered my last phone call, took my last long lunch break, stuck my last post-it note to the computer screen, and sauntered out the front door into. . .

a land of turmoil and indecision.

What do I do now?

The first order of business was to get in shape.

With attention to diet and exercise, I lost three pounds. Remember, these are post-menopausal pounds and count as extra credit.

My blood pressure medication caused me to gain four.

I thought about stopping my medication, but that caused everyone else’s blood pressure to go up and made my doctor’s eyes bulge out in a peculiar way. He should see a doctor about that.

I turned my attention to other activities.

I ripped my arm out of its socket and learned to eat cookies left-handed.

I solved the Dude Ranch murder with Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin.

I napped Every. Single. Day.

Then my sister retired. 

Turns out, as usual, she’s better at it than I am.

She cleaned out her closets, hosted family dinners, threw a fabulous birthday bash, and Oh My God how much more can I take, mopped her kitchen floor.

I have friends who volunteer at hospitals, libraries, and animal shelters.

My husband plans to go into bookbinding when he retires.

I announced tearfully at breakfast one morning, “I’m doing retirement wrong.”

My son, in a family where wisdom obviously skips a generation, said, “Did you go to work?”

Snuffle. “No.”

“Then you’re doing it right.”

It so happens that the hardest part of retirement is finding out what makes you happy.

I still haven’t seen my toes in a while. But I restarted my blog, wrote some essays, and made some people laugh.

Which made us all happy.

But I still take a nap. . .

Every. Single. Day.

 

 

 

Cookies and Cupcakes are an important part of the C-Food Group and an essential ingredient in my beauty regimen.

The Secret’s Out

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.

Because I’m not. 

If beautiful is the bullseye at the throwing hall, my axe is stuck in the wall somewhere near the bathroom door. I'm good with that. The last time I tried to create a smoky eye, I looked like I was on the wrong side in the Zombie Apocalypse.

When it comes to beauty secrets, I’m the one everybody kept the secret from.

Oh sure, the potential’s there.

It’s like when Michaelangelo, faced with that big block of marble said, “Maybe if I hit it with a hammer, something will show up.”

I’ve heard that we’re all beautiful, but I think mine is tucked away where you can’t see it, and I’m too lazy to do upkeep on the outside.

I’ve tried every beauty tip in women’s magazines. I’ve been Walking Myself Thin for half a century. I gained 50 pounds. What I lost in years, I gained in cupcake weight.

I bought stylish outfits in the new fashion color, butter yellow. I found that I do better in colors not named after food, since I usually have the real thing spilled down the front of my shirt.

I tried to give my face a pop of color. Remember the old saying “Red Sky at morning, sailors take warning?” The whole fleet was afraid to leave the harbor.

I gave eyeliner a try and almost shish-kabobbed my eyeballs.

So I joined a Facebook group that had 70,000 members, all women.

They talked about their beauty secrets.

Some said they wore nice clothes whenever they left the house.

For me, nice means the dog hasn’t drooled on my pants leg during dinner.

They did things to their eyebrows that I don’t do anywhere on my body. It sounded like what foreign countries do to you when you won’t spill state secrets. One woman had an injury to her eyebrow that she assured us would heal soon. I’m not interested in any beauty procedure that results in a visit from Emergency Responders.

I don’t wax, peel, or laser.

I don’t botox because I may need my facial muscles at any second to give my husband The Look if he tries to tell the gorilla joke.

When I go to my knee doctor, I shave my legs up to the problem site with my son’s head shaver. 

DO NOT TELL HIM!

Beauty sounds too risky to me.

I’ll just sit in my chair, read, and eat cupcakes.

You can hate me for that, but I’d rather you join me.

There’s no dress code.

And there’s enough cupcakes to go around.

 

I'm not sure if this is before or after. It could go either way.

Ready, Sit, Go

 

My doctors are out to get me.

When I was younger I didn’t go to the doctor.

Now I have four. I’m playing Doctor Bingo and my card is almost full. I hope I don’t need one for the free spot. Or maybe I only want one for the free spot.

My doctors all have different priorities depending on which body part is about to wear out.

It’s like playing a Reality Version of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.

Don’t tell them, but so far my toes are doing fine.

They only agree on one thing.

They all think I should exercise.

Except I’m not allowed to stand up.

It’s like telling Bobby Flay to make dinner for twelve without stirring.

Since I’ve been sidelined, I’ve been watching cooking shows. Which could be part of the problem. They make me hungry. Not for ordinary stuff you can get in the cookie aisle at Ingles, but stuff that requires Chantilly cream or mascarpone, or homemade meringue. Maybe we could start a food train with famous chefs.

But let’s get back to the action. Or lack of action.

When I stand up, I’m likely to fall over. If I try a daredevil move like, say, walking, it’s double down. So to speak.

You don’t get odds like that at the Kentucky Derby. So I use a cane, or grab the arm of whoever is passing by, which is something the Derby horses don’t get to do, so I figure I’m better off than a two million dollar racehorse.

Which also means jumping jacks are out. Or jogging. Or reading magazine articles that say, “Walk Yourself Thin.”

Years ago, I used to walk around the mall and stop for a biscuit on the way out. My clothes didn’t fit, but I felt great and never got hungry. So we should be sure to support our malls for health reasons.

But now my doctors say I have to keep both feet on the floor.

So I get to exercise SITTING DOWN.

What’s the worst part of exercise besides smelling like a racehorse? Getting tired, of course. It always held me back in gym class and shopping marathons.

I figured I would eliminate the getting tired part and the rest would be easy. I put on a hairband with pink sparky cat ears to hold my hair out of my eyes. You can still look cute and exercise when your’re sitting down.

 I turned on a video.

An hour later I couldn’t drag myself across the finish line.

How do they think of so many things to do sitting down? I was tired.

So I went shopping online.

Sitting down.

Turns out the bakery delivers.

 

 

 

 

 

A picture of me wearing sunglasses so
you won't recognize me after reading this post.

Poop Positive

The story you’re about to read is true. The names have not been changed

because of course this would happen to me.

 

How bad does it have to be when the Poop-by-Mail people throw away your colon cancer test sample?

It happened to me.

You know the place. They have those commercials with the talking blue and white box and people singing “I Did It My Way.”

Which is not a tribute to Frank Sinatra.

The doctor was firm. It was either the home game in the blue box or a close-up visit with Colonoscopy Guy in a sterile room. I thought respect came with age, but with all the medical tests, I don’t have any personal boundaries left.

But back to the Do and Dash people who threw away my sample.

Did I offend them? I can’t conceive of what you have to do to offend people whose business involves getting poop in the mail.

Is it a good day or bad day when they get a ton of mail? The day after a holiday do they argue over who gets to open the extra mail? Do they get junk mail?

When you have a bad day at work, remember you’re not the one opening the mail at the Poop Place.

How do they decide which ones to keep and which ones get pitched in the dumpster?

I was very careful to follow the instructions which were in a book the size of War and Peace. I thought it was written in code until I realized that I was looking at the part written in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish. Some days I don’t even speak English very well. I thought it was one of those books where you get to choose the ending.

Which brings us back to me.

I received, via the United States Postal Service, a notice that my sample had been discarded.

I mean, really?

It hurt my feelings. I felt like. . .well, I felt bad.

Nobody likes to think they’re not worth. . .that they’re not important.

Then I received a phone call.

From the nice lady at the poop place. She explained that my prescription had expired.

First I was very excited. I was worth. . .I was not inferior after all.

But, wait. Poop needs a prescription?

I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.

I contacted my doctor who gave me another prescription, and everything went according to plan.

Except the test is known to have false positives and false negatives. Kind of like the Algebra tests I failed in high school.

So I got a positive which was negative.

And ended up with the consolation prize - a close-up meeting with Colonoscopy Guy who was very nice and made sure I had a nice nap and pleasant dreams.

It was just what the doctor ordered.