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.

 

 

Things Are Looking Up

It came to my attention today as I was blotting up a coffee spill with the Business section of the newspaper that

A)     If they reduce the page size any more, it will be like reading the headlines in the small print section of my Kia contract, and

B)     Rolls Royce, kiddie car of billionaires, is enjoying a boom in sales.

I’m not sure these two findings are unrelated.  Lifestyles vary between the Rolls Royce set and the “I hope it keeps rolling” set. Just look up the prices and you’ll understand the difference.

While newspapers are edging us toward the “squinting is in” theory to conserve money, Rolls Royce is doling out luxury cars like concessionaires deal $10 beers at the ball park.  To those of us still trying to work out a payment plan for the beer, the idea of dashing off a $400,000 check for a car, even one that has tiny overhead lights that make the roof look like a heaven of twinkling stars, would be like stuffing a gold bar into a birthday card for a niece we don’t have time to shop for.  “Can’t get away; buy yourself something nice.”

At the Dubai WalMart.

I realize that there are jobs that come with more perks than mine. What would I do with dental insurance that makes it possible to collect enough teeth to eat toasted pecans, enough time off to catch the red-eye flight to Paris, white-gloved butlers who serve tea with extra lumps?

The last time I got lumps at the office, I was crammed under my desk trying to figure out which wire to jiggle so the mouse would work.  Since I’m the only one there, I would get stuck up with red tape if I filed for Worker’s Comp, so I scolded myself for negligence and stuck a Band-Aid on the sore spot instead.

I’ve never figured out how to get one of those other jobs: jobs that pay dividends instead of money and come with enough compensation that you can hire someone to remember the secret password (Jeeves, what is my mother’s maiden name again?) to your Fandango account. Those are lifestyles and are referred to as something you’re into, not something you do.  (He’s into stocks and bonds or investment banking.)  By comparison, I’m not really into filing six months of committee reports, but I’ll be up to my agenda in paperwork if I don’t.

So it’s not likely that I’ll be pulling up to the office in a Rolls Royce Phantom any time soon.  But you can bet your Silver Shadow I know how to see the twinkling stars in the sky without paying extra.

Just look up.

Point and Shoot

I was born in February and I’m a little concerned that the symbol for my birthday month is a fat, naked stalker baby with underdeveloped wings and a bow and arrow. I don’t know about you, but I go some places a baby should be afraid to follow, even armed with projectiles.

Somehow the thought of an undiapered toddler, especially one packing a weapon designed to shoot warm fuzzies, accompanying me to the mall clearance sales and auto-flushers seems horribly inappropriate. I still bear a French manicure-shaped scar from reaching for a cunning pair of Capri pants on the red dot clearance rack. If that naked baby grabs the last pair of Prada pumps on the sale table, he’s likely to lose something more important than a finger.

I can see why he’s armed. Anybody named Cupid who goes parading around in his birthday suit is likely to suffer grievous knuckle prints from guys named Pork Chop or Tiny here in the red mud section of South Carolina. And if he ventures out to watch the Nascar drivers go fast and turn left, he just may get tire marks someplace where parking is prohibited.

So just to be sure we’re on the same track, I checked with Cupid to see how he felt about his job.

Me: So, Cupid, how does it feel to go to work naked every day?

Cupid, the God of Love: Well, I save a lot on dry cleaning and there’s no dress code, so it’s kind of empowering. I use an awful lot of Chap-Stick, though. I’m trying for a corporate sponsorship. My endorsement deals keep me living in the life style of my dreams.

Me: You dream of flying naked for the rest of eternity?

Cupid: Don’t knock it. Even in the weather that frosts my feathers, it beats a business suit and 80-hour work weeks. And I don't have any place to carry a cell phone, so the boss can't ever call me on my lunch hour.

Me: But do you think it’s safe for a baby to fly around by himself?

Cupid: It’s not like I’m unarmed. (He tested the point on a heart-tipped arrow.) Hey, I’m the one that made Kanye apologize to Taylor Swift. It didn’t matter where I hit him. I just grazed him to let all the hot air out.

Me: If you’re such a sure shot, why are there so many divorces? You know, I’ve been married before and I’d rather shave my legs with a potato peeler than go through that again.

Cupid: Hey, everybody makes mistakes. Actually I was aiming for someone else, but, when you bent over it was like a heat seeking missile and a barn fire.

Me: So you’re saying the whole fiasco was my fault?

Cupid: Well every action has an opposite and equal unexpected consequence. That’s math you know. Or science. Whatever. I was a Liberal Arts major.

Me: I can identify with that. I graduated with honors, but they don’t take GPA in the Express Lane at the Piggly Wiggly.

Cupid: Well, don’t be eyeing my job. I had to knock off a guy with winged feet to get this gig.

Me: So once Valentine’s Day is past, it’s the off season for you. What keeps you busy the rest of the year?

Cupid: Oh, there’s lots to do. I like to spend part of the summer posing as a sculpture in a wishing well fountain. All that loose change comes in handy for the bathroom vending machines.

Me: Is that all you do? Make people think their wishes will come true, then steal their money?

Cupid: Of course not. Somebody’s got to keep up with the Kardashian sisters. Those gals make Snooki look like Hannah Montana. I think I’m gonna need a bigger box of arrows.

Who's Birthday? No, It's Wendy's!

Especially for the N.C. gang. Because today is Wendy's birthday (Happy Birthday to one of our very favorite folks!) and because “that Vernon guy; he’s funny!” (Son of humorist to his mother, who is essentially liver mush in the great buffet of life.)

Did Somebody Say Shark Week?



Last summer we vacationed at a beach house with two other families. Vacation is an old English word meaning “No, you can’t bring the jellyfish home. Because he wants to stay with his Mommy jellyfish in the ocean, that's why.”

The rooms were awash with the sights and sounds of breaking waves, sparkling sunshine, and the pitter patter of assorted feet as folks stomped about searching for sandals, swimming suits, and suntan lotion. To some people any space that is filled with sibling rivalry and random whining might be unsettling. Add kids to the mix and it can be daunting.


To me it felt like home.

I come from a family with four children, which in kid math, what with adding a Little League team, several random Girl Scouts, and carrying a neighbor’s kid, equals 642 youngsters fighting over the last Kool Pop. The children in the neighborhood where I grew up traveled in hordes, like fire ants, but with Barbies and GI Joes, tunneling through various living rooms in search of something to do. I never saw a house with empty rooms until I married twenty years later. Then I went from room to room searching.

Where have all the people gone?

So Memorial Day last year saw me up to my baggy eyes and borrowed bathing suit in little people who still think the day begins while the sky is dark and who consider the fast lane in life a bicycle path. Toss in my two guys, who will remain teenagers as long as the punchline holds out, and who could sleep six days straight without draining their Black Ops health points, and you come up with a cross between Dr. Who and reality TV: Survivor: Time Warp Narcolepsy.

When it comes right down to it and the Special K Red Berries hit the bowl, the scene at the beach house could be a present day kid invasion or a scene from 40 pre-pixel years ago when I would be awake before the dew reached the saturation point and Mom gave up hoping I would ever sleep through the night. (Imagine my surprise when I discovered years later, after the first screaming bundle of No-Doze came along, that 9PM was the new midnight.)

After a few mornings when the kids rose an hour before the sun, I found I could nap with my face in a bowl of cereal that stayed crunchy even in milk, propped up on the couch watching exciting animated adventures, or reclining in a tidal pool at the shore (Wendy, that’s us!) surrounded by tiny fishes who have no appreciation for personal space.

Turns out that napping is my superpower. So I had a wonderful vacation and discovered my superhuman strength all at once. James Bond can have his fancy gadgets; I can sleep when the tide comes in and I’m up to my neck in sand dollars and seaweed. So bring on the sunrise; I'm a kid again.

Because James Bond had one thing right. You only live twice.

The No Brownie Birthday

Today is the Captain’s birthday and he’s not getting a brownie.

I blame it on Mrs. Williams. She was my third grade teacher. Up until third grade, I loved school. I was all about fat crayons and recess and seeing if Dougie Jenkins would really eat the prunes off of everybody’s plate during lunch.

Then in third grade we started learning things. Other things than what happens when you eat 26 prunes at a time, which would technically count as biology and not comprise a major part of my career path, which was Major League Baseball. Either that or ballet. Turns out I never took a dance lesson, but I could hit a line drive that would give Dougie Jenkins an extra navel if he didn’t hotfoot it off the pitcher’s mound in time. Dougie dropped out of school not long after that.

Anyway, I’m not sure if we ever had fractions in Mrs. Williams’s class, but it sounds like something she would get all “it’s a party” about. So, I’m pretty sure it’s her fault.

Anyway, yesterday at work a very nice man, who isn’t nice just because he can cook or because he tells me jokes that I understand, but because he's just an all-around good guy that likes chocolate, brought a brownie to me at work. It was fairly extensive as brownies go, and made from something called scratch. I’m not exactly sure what is in scratch, but it makes terrific brownies.

So, looking at the whole thing logically, I knew I should eat that brownie before someone else came along and I had to share. But I also knew it would be good to share the brownie with the Captain, because today is his birthday. (That's where the term brownie points comes from.)

I decided to eat half and take home half. Hopefully he wouldn’t want his half, so I should probably go ahead and eat part of his half and he wouldn’t mind, and it would keep the scratch that was in it from going bad.

So I took a bite.

And another bite.

And one more bite.

And a series of nibbles.

Eventually his half was a good deal smaller than my half (the technical term "smidgeon" might apply) except there wasn’t any of my half left to compare. So if there was only one half, there was really only one brownie and shouldn’t I get half? I tried to work out the mathematical equation on my napkin, but new math can get really complicated when you have to carry a one in the fudge column. So I ate the rest of the brownie.

Mrs. Williams, I hope you’re happy, wherever you are. Now I have to find out where to get some scratch to make brownies with before the Captain’s birthday is over.

I’m fairly sure you can't find it in third grade. Maybe I'll just get prunes.

Point and Shoot

It's not that I don't enjoy sharing my birthday month with a fat, naked, stalker baby.

But couldn't he spend a little less time playing Black Ops and a little more time practicing his real life aim? Join me over at An Army of Ermas to see what Cupid's up to now.

And if you missed my birthday, don't worry. There is no late fee for expensive gifts.

Or chocolate.

P.S. That flower the Captain is holding? Is DEAD.

An Inspirational Birthday Message

10 Reasons Why I Hate My Sister

1. You always got all the boyfriends. On second thought, after unsuccessfully training two husbands, I’m not really envious of extra men in your life.

2. You got all the craft talent. But I’ve got enough hand-beaded jewelry to last me until I’m 375 years old, and you helped Ryan make a shoebox float for Carnivale that won first place in German class.

3. You got married and moved away. But you had a pack of kids that have been like sunshine on my flower garden for most of my days. (Okay, maybe flower garden is a bad analogy because all mine are dead, but you get the point.) Also, you have a daughter that gave me a glue gun. On purpose.

4. You got the rogue common sense gene in the family. As soon as I figure out why that’s important, I’m going to fire off a letter of complaint to the Management.

5. You started the tradition of taking Mr. Beason’s classes for high school English. But because you did, I already knew that half the class would fail when I walked in his door. Also I used what I learned there to ace the Advanced Placement test and exempt college freshman English.

6. You’re the sweet one. But then I had to be the funny one, and I sailed through school on the strength of humorous English compositions, and have collected a nice bit of pocket change from the same sort of thing telling about the trauma I suffered at the hands of my siblings. Also, my kids want to come live with you. Could I drop them off tomorrow morning?

7. You have grandchildren. Of course, when my kids are gone, I’ll still have two Labradors, a diva Dachshund, three cats and Captain Bill to take care of. Could I drop Bill off tomorrow morning, too?

8. You can do math in your head and I can’t. Come to think of it, I don’t really have a problem with this one.

9. You always win at monopoly. (See number 8.) But I'd rather shave my legs with a potato peeler than play Monopoly and because of unsportsmanlike conduct I've been served with a lifelong Monopoly Ban by the kids, so it goes to show that things always work out for the best.

10. You were born first. But Mama & Daddy were so tired by the time I came along, I got away with everything. And you talked mama into letting me wear hose when I was the only barelegged girl left in fifth grade. And you’ll always be older than me. Come to think of it, I don’t really mind having you around at all. (And I have a pair of pants that need hemming, and I broke my pink earrings, and I lost my new bracelet and . . .we need to have a craft night real soon!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LORY! MY BEST FRIEND AND SECOND MOM! I LOVE YOU!

Wailing Away in Mousketeerville

Our cats are indoor cats. To them mice are pink and fluffy and stuffed with hallucinogenic drugs. The Christmas catnip toy is still making the rounds through the living room, around the laundry basket, and under the kitchen table. Showing these guys a real mouse is like showing me a Prada bag. It’s fetching when compared to say, a wheelbarrow full of biological recyclables, but basically impractical for every day use.

So imagine my surprise, this year when I got a mouse for my birthday.

He wasn’t exactly a gift; more of a petite party crasher with a Hulk-sized case of the munchies. I was suspicious when I found the bag of Meow Mix under the sink had enough holes chewed in it to look like paper bag chicken pox. But when I saw a furry little flasher dart across the top of my kitchen cabinet, the festivities began.

I realized right then that “The Night Before Christmas” book is pure fiction. “Not a creature was stirring” is the biggest bundle of propaganda since the “new improved McRib” travesty.

It’s not that I have anything against mice. I’m Mickey’s biggest fan. But if a furry little guy dashes through my kitchen without benefit of red shorts, white gloves, or even a T-Shirt endorsement contract, I’m not going to be chiming in with “Why? Because we like you!”

In our house we favor the catch and release program for nature’s little trespassers. That’s because we are benevolent rodetarians. The Captain of our little drydock ark calls it something else under his breath as he’s balancing on a kitchen chair to capture random moths, grasshoppers, and lady bugs with a paper cup. He greeted the new visitor with appropriate felicitations.

Then off he went to the Big Store on the Corner to bring home a humane trap. Humane is another word for living off h’ors d’oeuvres at our expense. He brought home enough groceries to feed the mouse masses in Hell’s Kitchen. I suspect some of the items are for the hunter as well as the hunted.

Just now this little guy is pushing the limits of our hospitality. So far he’s turned up his whiskers at every item we have on the menu known to entice little mice appetites, and I’m losing patience, not to mention the few ounces of water weight from the first sighting. If I want to Give a Mouse a Cookie, I’m going to get a picture book, not a reality show.

I realize it’s my birthday, and if excitement is what makes a party, one tiny mouse will do the trick.

But all in all, when it comes to special occasion seek and destroy missions, I prefer a nice card to shock and awe.

Totally Birthday Barbie

Looking at us together, you probably can’t tell that Barbie and I are the same age; sister Baby Boomers from 1959. It’s hardly a fair comparison. You can’t help but notice that plastic face and wide-eyed stare. Frankly, I think she’s had work done. Either that or she’s been cooking up something in her cutting edge gourmet kitchen besides Vegetarian Delight. If it’s Barbie’s fault that I have to sign for Sudafed during allergy season, I hope she gets a sinus infection that all the pills in her executive briefcase can’t cure.

But even with all the corporate trimmings, the girl can’t hold a job. Of course, what do you expect from someone who tattoos her underwear on her body? I can think of some suitable careers, but nothing she’d want to write home to Totally Downhome Mom and Dad about. After all, who knows what’s gone on in that Dream House over the years?

Fifty years ago Barbie hit the fashion scene as a teen—the first Supermodel that didn’t eat. That famous high step the runway models use come from Barbie before she had knees put in. Now we know where Heidi and Giselle got their inspiration. Barbie was around even before Victoria had a secret.

Frankly, I wouldn’t give the girl a job reference. A jobhopper like that will just ruin your reputation. Honestly, if you run for president three times and can’t collect a percentage of the popular vote, it’s time to move on. She’s been through more careers than Hilary Clinton has power suits. The next profession that comes out with a powderpuff pink uniform and a logo crafted from Swarovski crystals, she’ll ditch the corporate office for the double dipper position at the ice cream shop. And who knows what kind of shape the files are in at the job she left behind. It’s not like she can bend properly to put anything away. The last time she leaned over to open the bottom drawer, Ken had to go in for surgery that ultimately led to their breakup.

As a matter of fact, career stress is probably the cause of that pasty face and wide-eyed gaze. After fifty years of fretting how she’s going to make payments on that luxury Malibu lifestyle, there should be a worry line or two across that smooth forehead. Who does she think she is, Jennifer Anniston? Instead she shows up day after day with a new dress, a plastic smile, and a recycled boyfriend. One more accessory binge, honey, and Skipper and the gang are going to have to stage an intervention.

It's not that I don't love Barbie. I still have my 1960 Bubble Hairdo Barbie in a box in the closet. And come to think of it, she doesn't look anything like the perfect models on display. She shows suspicious signs of sharing a tea party or two over the years, and her home perm makes her look more bobblehead than Bubble Head. In my living room, she was the center of more weddings than a handful of Gabor sisters with an Elizabeth Taylor kicker. She never had a career, but she played out all my childhood fantasies and made a little girl’s dreams come true.

And that’s the most important job of all.

Happy Birthday, Barbie.

Miss Manners Fights Back

While I’m not considered a prude by anyone except the examples of the species to whom I have given birth, I’m altogether a poor sport when it comes to food I will consume in public.

Unless I am in the company of dear friends who have known me long enough to identify the stains on my Riverbanks Zoo T-Shirt right down to the unsightly spot from the day we learned that the output of Lorikeets is greater than the input, or of family who is bound by the courts and/or the church to love me for better or for Waldorf salad, in sickness and in Heath bars, I’m not ordering anything that displays unlikely tendencies toward flinging sauces at random passersby.

Salads are particularly offensive in a social setting and should be regulated to over-the-sink binges indulged in while wearing particularly offensive pajamas destined for cleaning canary poop from the birdcage or grimy corners in the garage. Salads are filled with treacherous items that shoot streams of noxious juices into your eye when pierced with a sharp object, and difficult fibrous items that do not respond admirably to cutlery.

Likewise, I am not interested in consuming steaming dishes of noodles at, say, Sunday School gatherings because the first time an errant strand of fettuccine slaps my chin with a load of steaming Alfredo leaving a worm-shaped brand that will be with me til death do us part, I am altogether capable of comments that will guarantee excommunication on the spot. At the very least I'll be voted out of the covered dish dinner line.

On one ambitious jaunt to a local restaurant I couldn’t help but notice a young lady at a nearby table gather up more vegetation from her salad bowl than many farmers reap during a summer afternoon, and place the bales of foliage in her mouth with the same delicate flair usually reserved for swallowers of flaming swords. She was sitting with a young man who was engrossed in hand-dipping pieces of his French toast into the syrup swamp he cultivated in a nearby soup bowl. How have we raised a generation of young people who are passionate about a clean environment, but do not consider Mr. Knife and Mr. Fork their friend?

I watched in open-mouthed amazement as the girl hauled up a load of greens that wouldn’t fit into a lobster trap and crammed the whole package into her mouth. She looked like Sylvester the cat seconds before Granny rescued Tweety Bird from his jaws. She chewed contentedly for several minutes, then blotted her lips with a napkin and, looking my way, leaned over to Sticky Hands Steve and whispered through the poppyseed dressing, “Somebody should help that little old lady with her food. She can’t even close her mouth and there’s a puddle of gravy in her cleavage.”

I summoned the waitress and ordered a dessert dripping with enough chocolate sauce to cover Hershey Pennsylvania in profits and had her deliver it to the young lady and her boyfriend, Mr. Syrup Hands. Then I pulled out my digital camera with movie function.

Good manners are nice, but You Tube is still the best revenge.

50 Is Not A Speed Trap (It's My Birthday!)

Some of my friends are slowing down for 50. Not me. I'm hitting the gas and leaving three feet of tire marks and twenty dollars worth of fumes behind me. I'm not complaining about my life so far--I'm married to the man of my dreams who hardly ever looks at me like I've taken leave of my senses, and I have two sons who can play Guitar Hero like they were born with Stratocasters in their hands. I just don't want the next 50 years to be the second lap of the same race.

Sure, I'm slower. I'm slower to get angry. And I'm heavier. I’m carrying some wonderful memories along with me. But they don't have a parking space near the Pearly Gates reserved for those that are pokey and fat. So, God willing, I’m gathering myself up to forge ahead, full throttle, without thinking whether this 5-0 bump in the road will send me soaring into the blue or skidding into a ditch.

I'm going flat out, full speed, wide open and see where it takes me. Whether it’s around the next left-hand turn or into the pit, there’s a story waiting to unfold. I’ll have plenty of time later when I'm done with the race and waiting to see who comes in second to check out the rear view and see what I left behind. If I'm still interested.

I'm going to make as many people laugh as I can today, I’ll put off crying until tomorrow, and I’ll learn to dance the can can without throwing out a hip.

I can hunt my walking stick and liniment later. WalMart stays open all night.

Wonder if they’ll rotate my tires.

25 for 50 More

I’ve been tagged by a mob of folks (3) to share 25 things about myself that will astound my friends. I’m supposed to do this on Facebook, but I haven’t figured out how to do that even though Carolyn told me. Also, since I a) don’t have any friends and b) already astound those who know me, but not necessarily in a desirable way, it took me some time to consider this proposition. But in the light of c) I need a blog post for my birthday month, I thought I could join in the spirit of the thing and spew some information. Much like projectile vomiting of vital statistics. Enthralled? Aghast with anticipation? You’d rather exfoliate your face with a hedgehog? Great! Let’s see how big a mess we can make.

1. I graduated college in the days when computerization for the common person seemed almost as possible as the invention of fat-free cheese. And look at us now.
2. I majored in English. And graduated with honors. That and the senior citizen’s discount at Jack in the Box will put you in debt for a cup of coffee.
3. I hate coffee.
4. I didn’t pursue a degree that would result in a job because 1) I am passionate about literature and b) I planned to marry a rich entrepreneur who would supply me with chocolate covered cherries and books for the rest of my carefree life.
5. I love chocolate covered cherries.
6. I love books.
7. Life is not a novel by one of the Bronte sisters. Or one the kind featuring Fabio with flowing hair and a ripped bodice on the cover. God often finds your plans for life amusing. Which may not seem to go with the other statements, but really does.
8. My parents agreed to pay for my education as long as I was not married, because after that I would be officially On My Own.
9. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree instead of a Doctorate. If I’d remained a bachelor, I’d be a Doctor today.
10. I got married because I found a man that, at the age of 19, seemed destined for a future that would supply my needs. (See number 4.)
11. I discovered that truths you hold at 19 don’t necessarily write checks on the account of Mature Thinking payable in chocolates and book club memberships.
12. I gave birth to two sons.
13. I discovered that you cannot change the gender of an unborn child by buying frilly baby dresses. You can, however, create stories that your friends and family will tell at your expense for generations to come.
14. I got divorced because he jumped out of the way when I threw the jewelry box, thereby damaging a perfectly good jewelry box, a six-inch square section of the bedroom wall, and sixteen beaded bracelets that I got at a yard sale. Prosecution rests.
15. I spent two years as a single Mom.
16. I discovered that sometimes it’s all right to give the kids cereal for supper, and that if it takes all your energy to do that, it’s okay to call for early bedtimes all around.
17. I married Bill, a dear man who decided it was easier to get married than to make a six-hour round trip every weekend to empty my trash and cut my grass.
18. I learned that sometimes a newly-emptied trash can says “I love you” better than a dozen roses ever could.
19. I got a cat. And a cat. And a cat.
20. I got a dog or three.
21. I attract stray animals like black pants attract extraneous lint and animal hair.
22. I learned that some men really do have that jaw muscle that twitches in their cheek when they are furiously angry. Just like in the romance novels
23. I learned that a wife that can’t say no to stray animals is a major cause of marital stress.
24. I promised not to take in any more animals. Not even the ferret who wandered down my driveway. I fed it, but I did not keep it.
25. I learned that my first 50 years was not just practice; it was really life. I plan to remember that during my next 50 years. Which will start Thursday, February 12. Feel free to encourage me on my journey with good wishes. And gifts.

Mixed Messages

Compared to my mom, Martha Stewart bakes with an Easy Bake Oven and a low wattage bulb. When I was a kid, my mother, the love child of June Cleaver and the Pillsbury Doughboy, baked enchanting birthday cakes that rose from piles of hand-measured ingredients: freshly sifted flour, cups of sweet milk, and eggs so fresh the hens were still thinking up baby names.

My sisters and I would search through cook books full of black-and-white pictures of prize-winning creations, picking the masterpiece we wanted for our birthday celebration. Mama would lovingly pull out her Mixmaster, line baking pans with waxed paper, and lock us out of the kitchen to keep our tiny fingers out of the double boiler.

Years whizzed by like a blender stuck on puree, and I stood contemplating a box with a fuzzy picture of a cake stamped on the front in brown ink. Bake from scratch? Excuse me? Are you here on a visa from the Land Where Whipped Cream is a Still a Dairy Product? My kids think ingredients are the bad things for you that are listed on the side of the box; the renegade roll call of –ites and –ates that begins with corn syrup and end with death. They believe that Red Dye number 2 is the only pathway to Nirvana and have abiding faith that Little Debbie is a natural Earth Mother that sprang to life from a carton of Cool Whip.

The first time my kids saw a round cake, they thought I’d cut off the burned corners. In their experience, cakes went straight from the mouth of the Betty Crocker box into my 11 x 13 baking dish and on to a fiery death in the bowels of our thermostat-challenged oven that raged from frozen food to flash fried in a matter of minutes. They thought cakes were bricks with chocolate frosting. But since they helped open the box and mix the mortar, they also thought chocolate bricks were the best invention since nunchucks for Ninja Turtles.

One Christmas when we made cookies together, I tried the old fashioned bake without a box method. By the time the butter softened and the eggs were room temperature, Santa’s reindeer had come and gone and the dog had long since digested the icicles off the tree. The next Christmas I snagged a roll of cookie dough that let me chop off cookies like I was slicing dough with a circular saw. They were ready in twenty minutes and the kids clustered around like cats around a cricket to pipe on red reindeer noses and Santa hats.

My mom would have known that red dye would smear into the other colors until Santa looked like a bloody-eyed zombie from Christmas past.

As I watched the kids giggle over their creations, I grabbed a warm cookie and took a bite.

Rolled cookie dough: $1.99. Soap to clean up the mess: $2.50. Happy kids making Satan cookies: Priceless. Mama would be proud.

Who Am I and Why Am I Wearing These Pants?

After almost half a century, I’ve finally figured out my identity. It came after a lot of finding out what my identity isn’t.

I’m not the customer that strolls into a highbrow boutique to have all the salespeople cluster around her cooing, “I’ve been waiting for you to come in. I have a clever little cocktail dress in a size 6 that would be just perfect for you after we take it in.”

I’m the customer who wanders in the store, fumbling through her purse for her bifocals and casting about nearsightedly for the chubbies department while Twiggy the sales girl adjusts her shoulder pads to give the illusion of a three dimensional shape and mutters through her nose, “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Meanwhile I can find the perfect dress to wear to the class play on the clearance rack.

I’m not the employee that writes a clever computer program that allows the CEO to unsend an e-mail that distributes company secrets to everyone in his address book, including the Soviet spy that highlights as a janitor.

But I am the employee that can unjam the copy machine with a raised eyebrow, a push of a button, and a hip check in less time than it takes the culprit to hijack the elevator to the third floor to jam their copy machine.

I’m not the wife that can pull together a catered luncheon for 150 when my husband offhandedly invites the rained-out IT Teambuilder Weekend group home. But I know the way to a man’s heart is paved with meatloaf and mashed potatoes and I have a secret ingredient that gets his attention faster than an advertisement for a car that runs on beer.

I’m not the health-chick who can order a salad for lunch and be too full to pack in another bite. I’m the one who reaches for the dessert menu as soon as her stretch jeans hit the cushioned seat of the booth and orders her entrée by saying, “Whatever goes with the Death by Chocolate.”

I’m not the Mom that can whip up a fairy princess costume out of two doilies and a handful of glitter that consumes the under-five crowd with envy. But I can juggle two soccer practices and a baseball banquet on a single Saturday without losing shin guards or sanity.

I’m not the daughter that can buy her parents a mansion on fifty acres of Kentucky bluegrass or a nice retirement villa in the South of France. But I can make sure they get to every doctor’s appointment, including that awful dentist who makes dentures that stick to a candy apple like the Sword in the Stone.

I’m not the sister who picks out birthday cards with enough flowers on front to kick your hay fever into high gear and has it delivered to your office in a pot of seasonal blossoms that I’ll drop by your house to plant in the garden for you later.

The bouquet I send you will be made of assorted chocolate bars; at least one will have a bite missing and another will be an empty wrapper. But I’m the sister that goes shopping in the petite section with you even though the only thing petite about either one of us is our patience with all the clothes made for small, slender women.

So if you’re looking for the one who will stick by you through bad manicures, haircuts gone wrong, and spray-on tans that look like a summer sunset off the coast of Florida, I’m your gal. But try and pull on a pair of skinny jeans after a post-romance feeding frenzy and you’re on your own. It takes a wise woman to know the limits of her stretchy pants.

The Why Factor

A recent article in Newsweek, a magazine for people who want to appear smart without reading really clever things like, say, Green Eggs and Ham, discusses a study that indicates having children doesn’t make a couple any happier than a couple who has no children to leave the refrigerator door open. Also the childless couple is free to have a nice martini when they get home from work instead of cleaning baby poop out of the blender. (Don't ask; just keep an emergency cash stash that covers the cost of a new blender.)

Which leads to several very important questions; namely, does Amy really read Newsweek? Actually I can’t even make it through Green Eggs and Ham without getting distracted by subplots and theme, but I do get a kick out of the Captain Underpants books, especially the Flip-o-rama on the corners of the pages.

Who said my degree in English wouldn’t come in handy?

There is an obvious flaw in this Child McStudy, which assumes that we have children in the first place so that they will make us happy. That’s like buying bait to eat at the seafood buffet.

So why have kids, if the result is a house full of naked Barbies when the pastor comes to visit or painful Lego injuries when strolling barefoot through the shag?

We have children to remember our address and phone number when we fill out registration forms at the Social Security office, to bring us our glasses from the bedroom when it would take the jaws of life to extract us from the couch, and to bring a diaper when the baby/grandbaby/neighbor’s kid/unhousebroken puppy needs a change and leaving him alone would bring the Social Services SWAT team and/or PETA people repelling down the chimney.

I’m not saying I haven’t had good times with my children. I have a son with a flair for entertainment who keeps us amused by using the living room furniture as an obstacle course. He makes the living room look like a pinball machine as he ricochets from wall to floor lamp to desk to invisible air molecules on his way through to the kitchen. Of course, this particular skill tends toward the expensive side when you consider the medical bills. Even Lloyd’s of London won’t insure this kid.

We could derive a good deal of glee from the act of punishing the children--except all the good punishments are illegal and cause waxy yellow buildup or require harsh chemicals, like soap.
All the low-level punishments; grounding, withholding phone privileges, and storing away video games merely results in our own discomfiture, as children seem to multiply when underfoot, and the whining index increases throughout the house. After a while even the children get restless.

So are parents happy? Not every second. But there’s not a greater satisfaction than seeing a child’s face light up when you walk into his classroom with a tray full of Batman birthday cupcakes, when you get an A on a Botany project that helped you learn in a serious way how poison ivy can affect your personal life, or when you see a young man walk across the stage to accept a high school diploma that it took a village—and some late night tutoring sessions and heavy-duty prayers—to secure.

Just don’t forget to make one of those prayers the Parent’s Prayer—“Please be sure that he grows up to have a child just like him.”

But don't forget. He's going to ask you to babysit.

Cannonball Run

I’m perched atop a Revolutionary War cannon in a position I will delicately describe as “not sidesaddle.” Behind me the water ripples out toward Fort Sumter, a major piece in the puzzle of how we managed to win independence from a country that, compared to the America of the time, is relatively the size a flyswatter looks to a targeted fly. I’ve been smiling into the sun for so long that I’ve managed to flash “Help Me” in Morse code to eighteen passers by using my front teeth, each of which is covered in grit and feels approximately the size of a sailboat.

So far, either nobody understands Morse code or they don’t want to risk having their picture taken in their vacation clothes. Just as I’m beginning to realize there’s a fine line between smiling and gritting your teeth, I hear the camera click and start to slide to safety down the back of the statue. Halfway down the cannon, my pants get hung on, to use a technical term, the "back." Two and a quarter centuries ago a soldier would stand here to light the fuse. My fuse is currently too short to light.

“Hold it! That’s a better shot!” shouts Bill, clicking away like he’s head photographer for America’s Top Model. A little more experience and he could stalk Britney with the Hollywood paparazzi.

I hang in mid air having a closer relationship with heavy artillery than is appropriate on a family outing. We are celebrating my husband’s birthday with a day trip to Charleston, the Holy City, and I’m thinking ungodly thoughts.

Ever since Bill turned the big 5-0 and got his membership packet from the American Association of Undeniably Old People, he’s been moping around like a kid who’s just found out where drumsticks come from. So for his birthday, I joined the Electronics Age and got him a fancy digital camera. Nothing like a new toy to cheer up an old birthday boy.

I don’t know much about the make and model of this baby, but the logo emblazoned down the side says Canon, and there’s enough alphanumeric characters trailing along behind it to drive the price up past what I’d normally pay for a spa weekend. With Brad Pitt.

What hubby doesn’t know is that, using my highly developed Google-Fu, I found the camera on the Internet for a fraction of what you’d pay in the store. Since money can’t buy love, I’ll use what I saved for batteries.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that photograph like Cindy Crawford and those whose picture always looks like a self portrait by a blindfolded six-year-old. Needless to say I’m more six than Cindy. I don’t want to say pictures of me generally look like chewed gum stuck on the bottom of a picnic table, but one look at my glamour shots and you know it’s body by Super Bubble, face by Bazooka.

As I’m dangling over the viewfinder end of the cannon, I notice that I have the attention of most of the tourists in the park. For a second, I’m a bigger attraction than the nude statue on the point. With shutters clicking all around me, I finally manage to secure a foothold on a pile of display cannonballs painted black and cemented solidly in place to withstand years of assault by squirrels, toddlers, and other evildoers. I balance on the pyramid of ammo long enough to release the hold of the big gun on my pants.

Just as hubby realizes my distress and rushes to my aid, I climb down looking as if I’d been straddling a missile made of black chalk. After checking me over for injuries and a better camera angle, he proudly displays the photographs he got while I was astride the big gun. As I squint at the display in the glare of the sunshine I suddenly realize that, new technology or old, no matter which cannon I get shot by, the results are the same.

But this time I was saved by the balls.

Patchwork

Yesterday I spent a satisfying afternoon soaking up the sunshine and weeding my stick garden. Today, I spent an agonizing morning trying to move my legs and get out of bed.

My muscles were as stiff as the mummifed ragweed border by the walkway, my sinuses felt like they’d been roto-rootered without anesthesia, and my scalp held in heat like a solar panel. My joints sounded like a roll of bubble wrap in a blender.

The old saying is painfully true: after 40 it’s patch, patch, patch.

Looking around, I find that perhaps the old saying reveals itself differently these days. I have a friend who wears a patch on her shoulder to help her quit smoking, one who plants a patch on her hip for birth control, and one who pastes a patch on her thigh to help her avoid Weapons of Mass Chocolate Distribution.

I’d have to put that last one across my mouth for it to do any good. I borrowed one once and stuck it on the Haagen-Dazs label where they print the fat and calorie content, but it didn’t help much.

As it is, I’m holding out for an over 40 patch: one that can tell me where I parked my car, and why I went to the mall in the first place. A patch that can clue me in to why I went to the kitchen carrying a stack of folded underwear and two Dora the Explorer videos and where my glasses are hiding before my teenagers find them on my head.

I need a patch that warns me that not to bend down to pick up any denomination of money that can’t be folded, because loose change won’t pay the doctor bills to help me recover from the bending episode. A patch that reminds me sometime before supper that my morning coffee is warming in the microwave, and that helps me keep up with what destination I had in mind when I’m aimlessly circling the block with my head bowed, attempting to peer through the top of my trifocals for familiar landmarks.

I haven’t always been this way. When I was younger, my Mom always took me along to fill out forms because I could remember important information such as our current address and her birthday. I knew who she was supposed to buy birthday cards for during any given month, what kind of pizza to watch for when we went to the buffet, and to check the backs of her Scrabble tiles when she announced that she had six blanks and an “I.” I could thread her needles, stir the corn before it smelled like scorched corduroy, and read the fine print on the packet when she wanted to plant daisies. So how did I end up this way?

The answer came to me like the first sneezing fit of springtime. I was fine until I had children. So the next time the kids tease me about the patches I use to help me through the day I’ll put their priorities in order. “Just remember the cabbage patch. Without it you wouldn’t be here.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I seem to remember putting on the kettle for tea this morning. Or was that yesterday?