Is it me?

From:  Real Simple

Subject:  If You Do Just One Thing:  Organize Your Earrings

Date:  August 2, 2010

I love getting the daily e-mails I signed up for from Real Simple, a magazine targeted at busy women trying to streamline their lives to make room for what’s really important.  I clicked on the link to the article, thinking it read, “If You Do Just One Thing, Organize Your Earnings.”  I was excited at the prospect of getting my personal banking under control in three easy steps. 

Your Keep-It-Together Check List

Prevent a mad morning search for your earring’s mate by displaying your hoops and chandeliers on sturdy wire attached to a pretty painted frame. 

I can see wanting to prevent a mad morning search for your human mate, but how would having orderly accessories help me?  There can’t possibly be that many women wanting this information.

I wanted to learn how to be more efficient with my money, not with dressing myself.  The Professor pays bills automatically.  I think it happens while he is sleeping.  All accounts payable are set up to be paid up to a certain amount.  If it’s over the pre-approved limit, he gets a copy of the bill e-mailed to him for review.  I am still dealing in papercuts and stamp glue highs.  I realize that is akin to getting on my horse and going over to the trading post to drop off some eggs as payment for the flour I got to make bread last week, but what do you want from someone who still reads the paper on paper?

That article is ridiculous and borderline offensive.  I know this makes me sound like I really do ride around on a horse to do my errands, but the article and Lady Gaga’s popularity are signs that the end is near.  I can only hope that it is quick, painless and happens before banks stop using paper checks.

Working Like a Dog

My mom left Friday morning after her first visit out here. I was happy the weather was good so she could experience bucolic Ithaca at its best. We took her to all of our favorite places and I think she favored the Farmer’s Market. She said seeing all the hippies was “refreshing.” I would have started crying when her plane took off if I weren’t so relieved to not have to tell her to stop loading and unloading the dishwasher.

My mom’s visit was perfectly timed. We got lucky at the shelter with Huck right before she arrived. Not only did she get to meet him, she was a huge help with breaking him in to our household.

Huck is mostly coonhound, which is a working breed. You have to occupy a dog like that with jobs or they will misbehave—tearing up your yard, furniture or whatever they can unearth. So we’ve been walking, fetching and swimming non-stop. Huck thinks he’s assisting us in some long crazy hunt for Lord knows what.

I get this dog down to his core. Even though I have more free time now than ever in my life, I am no toy poodle. I like to work. I shudder to think of the messes I would make if I wasn’t focused on a set of goals. Although a two-martini lunch date does sound good.

I think the best part of putting in a solid day is the sweet reward at the end. My mom and I spent the late afternoons of her visit in deck chairs (she reading, me drinking wine) while Huck napped next to us. There is no better feeling for breeds like us.

 Huck, 6 months old

Do you feel lucky?

It must have been that penny I spied and picked-up in the Target parking lot on Monday.  I hit the jackpot on my visit to the SPCA on Tuesday.  I have been watching their website for weeks, waiting for a young medium-sized dog that wasn’t a pit bull (they are overloaded with old, fat dogs, too, if you’d like one). 

I still can’t get over how people can bring themselves to drop a faithful old friend off at a shelter (or worse, leave one or two behind at their house when they move) to let them sort out their fate on their own.  “Thanks for a few great years, but I’m finished with this scene.  Good luck to you, old pal.”

I went in looking for “Grace”—a three-year-old female lab/retriever mix and came out having found “Huck”—a one-year-old male that is part coon-hound.  I followed the sage advice of the trainer there and am choosing personality over breed.  I was hesitant to adopt a dog that I can’t have off leash, but I’ve been informed that there are training classes for that.  Huck is sweet and silly and he hit it off with all of us.  All he wants to do is kiss and hug and play.  He is smart and social and smells good.  I can’t wait to fold him into our mix.  We all have visions of walks and hikes and long, cuddly naps.

As they were interviewing me for the adoption, it struck me that it is easier to find out how to raise a dog than a child.  You are not quizzed if you’ve ever had a baby before, or encouraged to take a training class if you haven’t.  No one at the hospital wanted to know what my plans for discipline were or did reference checks to confirm I wasn’t secretly planning to use my new baby to make money fighting him in the basement.

We are going to go pick up Huck this weekend when I get back to town.  Meanwhile, the boys and the Professor have been busy setting up the house, gathering leashes and food bowls.  I can already see the decision is a good one.  Thinking about our new family member,  I am happy to help out the greater good by rescuing a pet, but, really, it's my day that's been made.

Markers of Time

Berkshires Summer 2010

Sometimes it’s obvious, like when you’re looking at school photos, displayed in chronological order, or maybe it’s sentimental, like height recorded along the length of a door jamb in the kitchen of a family home, but somehow at the end of our childhoods, there is a way to line up the markers of how we grew.

The emotional growth is a little trickier to track. One day we are asking our parents if we can please, please, please put the sugared corn flakes with the spy decoder prize into the cart, the next we are fighting them to pick up the dinner check.

This summer brought its own bittersweet milestone. First Born Prince is now taller than Grammy for the first time, and I’m sure he’ll tower over Grandma Irene when she comes to see us next week. It seems like yesterday Grammy was singing “The Noble Duke of York” to him while bouncing him on her knees and Grampy was buckling him into his car seat for a woad twip.

I am trying to stay cool and not get all crazy on everyone as I watch my boys shoot up past us all, as evidenced in the photographs I take every summer here in the Berkshires. I fear the photos from next summer…we all know who is next to be outgrown.

Catch a wave and you’re sittin on top of the world...

I just checked weather.com.  It’s already 75° F and it’s only seven in the morning.  The heat came on strong last Monday and doesn’t show signs of letting up anytime soon.  Any other week I would have lazed about, showing the boys how to wrap wet hand towels around a row of ice cubes to create little neck-cooling tubes you can wear around the house, but I have had my own wave of activity here--house guests, my first writing group meeting and a new community project.

The writing group is key--four other writers and I meet regularly to critique each other’s work.  It’s an impressive set and I feel honored and slightly suspect that they asked me to join them.  These women--published authors, literary agent, composer/musician--are bursting with creativity and talent and aren’t afraid to work.  We have lofty goals and the inspiration is contagious.

I also joined the board of the Ithaca Motion Picture Project—more dynamic professionals, launching a new museum by preserving and renovating a historic building here in Ithaca that will serve as a center devoted to multimedia education, exhibition and film development and production.  Volunteering to do something for our community is important to me, plus I can say things like "Sorry, I have a board meeting that night."

Our houseguests—the Professor’s buddy and his two GIRLS—arrived Tuesday.  Before they could even unpack, I took the little ladies to the spa for manicures and pedicures.  Finally, cohorts who understand the importance of debating Team Jacob vs. Team Edward.  We were then forced to get out and explore the cooler parts of Ithaca—I think our favorite was Treman State Park with a shady hike that led to a swimming hole by a waterfall, staffed with two young lifeguards.

It's a good thing I wasn’t able to sit in front of the 15,000 BTU air-conditioning unit the Professor dashed out, purchased, and installed all by himself in a fit of wild-eyed fear.  No, the week was full and I am ready to paddle out again.

The Pond

It first occurred to me in La Jolla two years ago that the type of 4th of July festivities I was participating in might be too much when one of my neighbors walked towards me at ten in the morning in high heels, a navy blue sundress with plunging neckline and a ruby, diamond and sapphire-star-spangled pendant, the kind you see in the Tiffany ads and wonder, “Who the hell has special occasion jewelry for the fourth?”

It’s hard for me to admit I was dependent on a blur of social activities for the holiday.  There were so many people, parades and parties that I can barely keep them all straight in my mind.  One year I dropped into bed at the end of the day realizing I didn't know the woman who kept refilling my mimosa glass and wondering whether or not Charming Baby was the reason for the missing bag of marshmallows.

Ithaca has a different speed. We were invited to spend the afternoon and evening out at our friends' pond, which was a very special way to celebrate. So, after a quiet morning at home, a small group of us, linked mostly through school and work, got together to swim and set off fireworks in the most magical setting you can imagine. The family who owns the property built a little cottage and has set up an outdoor dining area complete with plaid tablecloths and candle lanterns. There are hammocks and fishing polls and an island in the middle of the pond for camping.

 
My fourth of July was mellow and relaxing and I know exactly how many s'mores were consumed.  I watched my kids swim and fish while we got to know our friends a little better.  Independence Day has never felt so good.

End of an Era

Carol Livingston Bowen Barnhouse, my grandmother, passed away the day before yesterday.  She was 98 years old, survived by her four daughters (her son, my father, died almost twenty years ago), nine grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren.

This was a woman you didn’t screw with.  She did the Times crossword puzzle for breakfast and could carry on a conversation with three different people while she beat you at Scrabble during cocktail hour.  Once she found some cash my grandfather had been secretly squirreling away in his sock drawer.  She didn’t get mad or feel betrayed.  She left him with my aunt and went to China with her friends.

When we visited Grandma Barnhouse before moving to Ithaca she was quiet and didn’t say a word the whole time except at the very end.  She was low on energy and barely talked to anyone anymore.

“You sure do have small breasts for being such a large woman.”

I feared that may have been our last exchange and would joke around about it afterwards.  First Born Prince must have overheard me tell that story a dozen times.

But we did get to see Grandma Barnhouse again last Christmas.  She seemed a little more lively than usual.  I suspect it was because I brought the Professor.  She kept peering over at him.  She was either wondering who the hell the giant Jew was or wanted to impress him.

“I love you, too, Lisa,” Grandma said as we were leaving.  That did it.  The tears streamed down my face.  As I started walking quickly down the corridor away from her room, First Born Prince came up beside me, took my hand and squeezed it.

“Well, at least now the last words she said to you aren’t about your breasts!”