Aging

    I read an article about aging recently that pointed out that most individuals don’t take on new personality traits as they age.  Rather, aging tends to exaggerate traits that have always been present.  For example, a sweet tempered person doesn’t usually become grouchy.  It’s the person who always was a bit of a complainer who becomes downright crotchety.

    This phenomena was very apparent in my parents.  Dad, who was always frugal, became extremely parsimonious as he aged.  Late in life he discovered the Goodwill store, and from then on, it was his favorite place to shop.  My mother, who had always been a fashionista, albeit on Dad’s frugal budget, and who was by that time disabled by Parkinson’s and by debilitating eye problems, ended up wearing clothes that Dad lovingly picked out with an unerring eye for what was the least flattering!  Dealing with cataracts himself, the new clothes that Dad picked out for himself usually had stains or spots he didn’t see.  If pants didn’t fit, rather than spend money on tailoring, Dad just hemmed them up with staples!  At Christmas Dad’s grandchildren learned to express their gratitude with a straight face for the bags he put together every year, filled with Goodwill treasures he’d collected for months.  Dad also loved to shop for bargains at the grocery store, particularly at the meat counter.  Jeanne was the frequent recipient of steaks sold for half price after their expiration date.  Eating a dinner that Dad cooked always felt like a bit of a gamble.  Dad, however, was always the most loving and sweet tempered of men, and, even after a debilitating stroke, he remained cheerful, loving, and happy.

    Mom was always a bit of a worrier, and this trait magnified as she aged.  Where once she worried but also delighted in new experiences and opportunities, as she aged, she began to only see hazards.  No, Alex shouldn’t go off to Yale, it was too far, too big.  No, Leslie shouldn’t study in Rome or Paris for the summer, she didn’t speak the language, she might get lost.  Mom’s propensity for worrying eventually led to the family’s withholding information from her to spare her distress, but it also separated and isolated her.

    As aging begins to hit home as something that is happening, not just to other people, but to Jim and me, it’s a bit disconcerting to think about what traits we have that may become exaggerated.  Unfortunately, this phenomena is not something that we have any control over.  We can’t pick what parts of ourselves we’d like to enhance!  Nor can our children--and I’m sure that they’re concerned!

    Jim, already a man of few words, will probably become even more terse.  However, his hobby of photography will probably become even more annoying now that he has grandchildren to take pictures of.  And there is the possibility, if unchecked, that he could end up one of those pathetic old men who end their days in a house filled from top to bottom with clutter.  Not a pretty thought!

    I will probably end my days lazing on the couch, reading ever trashier novels, in a house filled to overflowing with mermaids and Marlene paintings.  The voice inside my head that occasionally says “Enough, ellen, stop nagging,” will be permanently silenced, and I will spend my declining years critiquing everything from my children’s spouses to their wardrobes and their hairstyles.  And I will probably sing a lot!

Lightning Bugs

   Six years ago I was surprised to get a postcard from Mary Kay Tiefel Hedges, the mother of Robbie, my best friend growing up on North 8th Street in Marshall, Illinois.  It said “I’m sending you something that reminded me of the summers when you girls were growing up.”  

    Robbie and I grew up in a small town in the days before houses were air conditioned, before televisions had kids’ programming on all day long, before video games, ipods, and dvd players were invented, before most mothers worked and most kids spent their days at day camps or sports camps.  We spent our summer days outside with a big group of neighborhood kids playing hopscotch and baseball, roller skating, running through sprinklers, swimming in backyard kiddie pools, daydreaming, coloring, riding bikes, playing paper dolls, playing monopoly, playing school, playing house, jumping rope, putting on plays, running kool-ade stands.

    I spent the week before Mary Kay’s package arrived trying to imagine what she had found that reminded her of those long ago idyllic summer days.  Could she be sending colored chalk for making hopscotch squares or even a perfect flat throwing rock?   Maybe a skate key, like the ones we used to wear tied around our necks?  Maybe she had found an old set of Betsy McCall paper dolls like the ones we used to scatter all around her living room?  MIckey Mouse ears?  A Davie Crockett coonskin cap?  Bright red paraffin lips?  A Nancy Drew book?  To this day I always think of Mary Kay whenever I eat cinnamon toast, a favorite treat I first tasted in her kitchen, but I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t sending a tin of cinnamon.

    Mary Kay’s package finally arrived several days later.  I tore it open to find.... A Bug Jar!!!  A bug jar just like the old mayonnaise jars that we used to carry around on warm summer nights and fill with the lightning bugs that flashed and flitted and turned those evenings into magic times.  Looking at the jar and laughing, I remembered so many evenings running through yards with Robbie, chasing the illusive creatures that would blink right in front of you and then disappear into the darkness as you grabbed for one and too often ended up empty handed until you spotted another one blinking again a few steps away and off you ran.  I remember filling the bottom of the jar with grass just in case the lightning bugs wanted something to eat and poking holes in the lid so that the poor creatures could breathe.  I remember sometimes crawling into bed and falling asleep watching a jarful of lightning bugs blinking away as they climbed up the sides of the jar, but more often my mother convincing me to free my captives before I went inside.  My mother was wise in the ways of lightning bugs because watching the bugs crawl to the very top of my jar and then launch themselves off into the night was another kind of magic, much better than waking in the morning to find them dead at the bottom of the jar.  

    My prime lightning bug catching days were back in the 1950’s. It’s been more than fifty years since Robbie and I spent summer evenings chasing after lightning bugs.  These days there seems to be fewer lightning bugs flitting around and fewer children chasing after them.  Although my four children grew up in the era of air conditioning and 24-hour children’s programming on tv, they, like me, also grew up in a neighborhood filled with children and with a mother who shoved them out of the house on warm summer nights to play Kick the Can and Hide and Seek--and to chase after lightning bugs.  (Johanna was the acknowledged neighborhood lightning bug champion.  My most patient child, her jar always contained the most bugs.  My softest hearted child, she always was the first to set her bugs free before bedtime.)  But it’s been years since they or I have captured a lightning bug.

    Not everything has improved in the last fifty years.  But my new bug jar is certainly the new improved version.  Although the jar arrived without air holes poked into the top, it came with something better.  It came with its own battery operated lightning bugs.  Last night I crawled into bed and fell asleep watching my jarful of lightning bugs happily blinking away.  And when I woke up in the morning they were all still blinking!

    Mary Kay died several years ago, but my lightning bug jar blinks on.  Already this spring the days are filled with sunshine and the evenings are growing warmer.  Soon, soon the lightning bugs will begin their summer dance.  

    Mary Kay’s lighting bug jar was a truly magical gift, reminding me again of the magic of memories, the magic of summer, and the magic of childhood friendships that last a lifetime.

I Miss My Front Porch

I house sat for Ellen last week.  Or more accurately, I dog sat for her two big golden retrievers who happen to live in her house and were able to find my chocolate covered peanuts within fifteen minutes of my arrival and get them out from the bottom of my duffel bag without pulling out a single piece of underwear.  They also woke me every morning at 6:00 a.m-- exactly an hour before I had any intention of getting up.

 

But get up I did, as there's little sleep to be had with over a hundred pounds of dog  sitting on your stomach and washing your face. 

 

Ellen lives in a big turn of the century house on a big lot that she moved into nearly 30 years ago and that still looks much like it did when our kids played Barbie's together or fought over Christmas presents. She has a tendency to avoid change, so that the curtains that she thought she might need when she moved in have never been put up and pictures that are finally hung are never taken down.  Even when she redecorates, she tends  to use the same colors and same styles that she had before, so that although the house has been updated over the years, it's never really changed.

 

The Little Tikes plastic orange and yellow picnic table still sits under the tall evergreen in the side yard, lonely now, but likely to be rediscovered by grandchildren soon.  The back yard still has a huge wooden treehouse that is standing, but will need some serious attention before those same grandkids are ever allowed to climb up.

 

There are two fenced sections in the back yard that are intended to separate the area for dogs and the area for grass and flowers, but which Ellen is neglectful about policing, so that there is never a lot of grass throughout, and the flowers so carefully planted by a landscaper don't always make it through the season. The hole that was being dug to China by little boys is still there, as is a small grove of saplings planted by neigborhood kids over twenty-five years ago, although they're now trees in an awkward place.

 

The overall effect is a homey house, well loved and well lived in.  A remarkable house, really, but not a showplace unless your preference, like mine, is for overstuffed bookcases with popular titled paperbacks, comfortable couches that you can sleep the night on, lots of unmatched pictures and photographs (not a single one in a silver frame) lining the mantle and hanging a little crooked on the walls.

 

But best of all to my mind is the front porch spanning the entire house and then angling down the side with a separate section that is screened in and holds a ping pong table.  There is a wood floor throughout, wide front steps to sit on, and a swing to while away lazy days.

 

The daily newspapers are delivered there.  One at the end of the long driveway by an adult in a car with a huge route that might actually support a family.   The other more local paper right under the front door by a girl, maybe 13, on a bike.  Or at least it was a girl the last time I house sat.  This time I missed her, and I fear that I caught a glimpse of a slowly moving car delivering that second paper too.

 

The house we grew up in had a front porch nearly as big. It was the coolest place in the house on summer days and the wood floor was the perfect spot for sitting and playing all day games of tiddly-winks and monopoly and battleship. There was no swing, but the wooden railings encircling three sides became seats and horses and perfect jumping off spots that left huge holes in the hostas that grew at the bottom. There was only one lone lightbulb in the center of the ceiling so the shaded corners beckoned for good night kisses as we grew older. I loved that porch.

  

Ellen has a back deck too, added when they first bought the house.  I sat there sometimes while the dogs did their business and searched for tennis balls for me to throw. It's a nice deck with a hot tub and a weber grill and plenty of seating.

 

But it's the front porch that I miss--along with morning papers and papergirls.

Miss America

   When I was growing up in the pre-feminist 50’s, one of the yearly television highlights was the Miss America contest.  My whole family, Dad included, would gather in the living room to watch the annual pageant.  (Given that in those days our television received only two channels, this was not a huge sacrifice on my dad’s part!)  We would all curl up in the living room, Mom on the couch, Dad usually in his recliner, and Jeanne and me stretched out on the floor, where we would munch on popcorn while we admired the evening dresses, critiqued the talent contest, and cheered on our favorites.  

    Miss America was not just a one night phenomena that went away after Bert Parks sang to the winner.  For weeks after, Jeanne and I would play Miss America painting our lips with our mother’s lipstick and wearing gowns created out of her slips and petticoats.  My cousin Linda and I would spend hours walking up and down the stairs at her house with books on our head in an effort to perfect a graceful walk.  And I would fall asleep for many nights after imagining myself wearing a glittering evening gown and reciting a poem I’d written.  (I was enough of a realist to know that even in my wildest dreams I had no talent as a singer, dancer, piano player, or even a baton twirler but I thought I might make it as a poet. It does occur to me now, however, that in those simpler days, while I had doubts about my talent, I seem to have had no doubts about my beauty.)

    My Miss America dreams faded and dissipated as I grew older and the conservative ‘50’s turned into the rebellious and tumultuous ‘60’s and ‘70’s.  With one exception.  Miss American 1968, Judy Ford, enrolled at the University of Illinois in 1969 after her reign as the first trampoline jumping beauty queen, and I, an embarrassed budding feminist, hid behind posts in the armory and followed her around as she was registering for classes so I could see a real Miss America in person!

    The Miss America contest was an insignificant part of my life for many years after that ignoble event.  While I’m sure that I must have watched occasionally, I don’t have any significant Miss America memories while I was a newlywed or a busy young mother.  And, since by then televisions had many more channels than two, Jim certainly never felt compelled to watch the competition with me.     

    But the Miss America fascination must have been smouldering somewhere in my brain all those years.  That’s the only reason I can come up with for what I did years ago on a vacation to Florida.  My sister Jeanne and I established an annual tradition of a trip to Florida with her two daughters and my two youngest after the traumatic summer of 1988 that saw Johanna diagnosed with a brain tumor and Jeanne diagnosed with breast cancer.  For years we flew off to Florida in August right before school started for a week of sun and fun in a condo by the ocean.

    One day, after a long morning on the beach, Jeanne and I brought everyone inside during the hottest part of the afternoon and instead of just letting the four girls veg out in front of the tv, I proposed that we have our very own “Miss Florida” contest, with bathing suit, evening gown, and talent competitions.  The girls were delighted with the idea and soon were busy scrounging bed sheets and towels and beach coverups to create their costumes.  At first there was just lots of laughing and giggling, but soon I began to hear other sounds and I began to realize that my fun afternoon game might not be quite the happy event I had anticipated.  “What’s the prize?” asked Jill.  “Who’s going to pick the winner?” asked Alex.  

    I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Competition between these two cousins was fierce.  If they were diving in the pool, they would argue about whose toes were the most pointed.  They argued over who found the biggest sand dollar or the most shells.  One day they were bobbing.  “How many bobs did you do?” asked Jill.  “Thirty,” answered Alex too quickly.  “I did thirty-one,” said Jill.

    I tried the old ‘this is just for fun’ trick, but they weren’t buying it.  Out they paraded in their bathing suits for the first competition, glaring at each other.  Even they had to laugh at Johanna, who had stuffed tennis balls into the top of her suit, giving her a Dolly Parton look.  But Johanna wasn’t the competition they were worried about.  Out they paraded in their evening gowns, Alex looking confident, Jill less so.  And then out they came, singing.  Jill, ever dramatic, sang her heart out.  She looked confident, Alex less so.

    If I remember correctly, the judges tried their best to make everyone happy.  Johanna, we announced, was the swimsuit winner.  Alex, we announced, was the evening gown winner.  Jill, we announced, was the talent winner.  And Bess was Miss Florida.

    Bess was thrilled.  Johanna was happy.  Johanna, in fact, may have also won Miss Congeniality, because she was the only child who went up and hugged and congratulated the new Miss Florida.  Jill and Alex were both irate and complained about the results for the rest of the trip.  As to prizes, Jeanne and I bought trinkets at a souvenir shop.  I don’t remember what Johanna and Bess got, but Jill and Alex got tiny ceramic crabs!

    Both Jill and Alex have gone on to their own successes, but Jill at least has never quite forgiven me for Bess’s victory.  I have a picture of the four cousins in their contest finery hanging at the lake house and Jill grimaces every time she looks at it. “But Mom,” she says, “Did you hear Bess sing?”

    I’m pretty sure that to this day Jill regrets not slipping tennis balls into her bathing suit top!

The Learning Curve of a First Time Mom

                     

It's been a long time since I had babies, but I'm pretty sure I would have gotten Flynn's seat belt right on the grocery cart and not made it into a shoulder harness like Alex did.  She's a first time mom and still has a learning curve.

Not that I would ever say anything.

She bought one of those big fancy strollers that weigh a ton and have more cup holders than my Honda.

"No!" I wanted to tell her.  "It's too big.  It's too heavy.  You don't need all those bells and whistles. They irritate people on sidewalks and in stores because you push people off the curbs and hog the aisles.  You only need one of those little umbrella strollers with no suspension and a wonky wheel like we had in the 80's."

She thinks babies can't have cheerios unless they're broken up into little pieces.

"No!" I want to laugh.  "You don't need to buy expensive freeze dried yogurt melts that I'm going to eat when you're not looking. Babies have been eating whole cheerios for generations.  Sure, we may have been wrong about the hot dogs, but whole cheerios are fine. Even generic ones. You ate so many whole cheerios as a baby you probably have a few still digesting in your stomach."

She thinks it's time for Flynn to learn how to walk. 

"No!" I want to yell.  "If he can walk, he can run.  Out into streets, away from you at grocery stores, into the middle of clothing racks at department stores where you won't be able to find him and will have to call security. Crawling is good.  It's controlled.  You can still go faster than him. You want to keep him crawling until he's six or so."

She moved Flynn's crib into my room when we stayed together in a hotel for two weeks.

"WHAT?! Doesn't he wake up in the middle of the night and need a bottle? How will you hear him?"  I think I said this out loud.

Because she just grinned.

She may be farther along on that learning curve than I thought.

I Went Viral

Besides the posts I put up here, I write posts on Open Salon, a site for open blogging with a built in audience. Some are just re-posts of what's here and some are new posts, with no real rhyme or reason for what goes where. The difference is in readership.

At Sathre Sisters, Ellen and I have eight followers.  Seven are immediate family members and one is a friend who we guilted into signing up and who probably hasn't been back since. Not a single one of our eight followers read or comment on a regular basis. And although we didn't start the blog to get readers, we've found that it can get a little lonely without them.  Which is probably why our posts seem to have longer and longer lag times. 

In contrast, Open Salon has thousands of members and non-members who write and read and post and visit every day.  People who have been blogging there for a long time get lots of comments and hundreds of views and are clearly part of a community who have gotten to know each other from what they write.  Some who live in bigger cities even meet up on a fairly regular basis, and others have met up while traveling. It's a pretty liberal place with some truly talented writers and artists who are generally kind to each other, as well as to newbies who sneak in, like me.

I've only been there for a couple of months and am still navigating and discovering my way around.  But I'm also slowly building up what might be called a readership--people who stop by, leave a comment and maybe even a rating ( a sort of online high five). I'm thrilled when anyone views what I wrote and feel like I'm wearing a gold medal when I get a handful of comments or ratings.

Last month, while sitting in the bookstore waiting for people to come in, having already finished the crosswords and sudokus from two newspapers, I started writing a list of things I've learned from opening a bookstore.  It was kind of funny and kind of cute, but it was off the top of my head and it certainly wasn't Hemingway--or even Erma Bombeck, who would have been funnier.

I hadn't posted anything on Open Salon for a while, so I gave my scribblings the creative title of  "25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore," hit "post," and sent my list out into that unknown world of the internet.  A couple hours later I checked my Open Salon blog and saw that I already had 92 views, pretty much a record for me.  I checked again that evening and  my number had risen to 989, which certainly would have been a record if I hadn't been sure that it was really just a mistake.

It was only when I checked the next morning and saw that I had thousands of views that I knew something had happened.  I just wasn't sure what.  I played around with Google and saw that my post was coming up on some Tweet site called Tweet Buzz and something else called Topsy, as well as a bunch of other places--none of which I knew anything about or had anything to do with--but all of which seemed to be spreading my post to parts and people completely unknown to me.

It's been spreading ever since and only recently seems to be slowing down. Last time I looked, I had 418,266 views, which is roughly equivalent to every person in every town I've ever lived in, as long as you only count the actual City of St. Louis and not the whole metropolitan area.  And it's at least 417,000 more views than Ellen and have gotten during our entire maiden year on Sathre Sisters.

Now to put this in some sort of perspective, the song, "It's Friday," that went viral fairly recently had more than 47 million hits. Charlie Sheen went from zero to one million twitter followers in two days.  And Gaga has surpassed ten million followers on twitter. So, really, my claim of going viral is relative. I'm still a very small fish in the online sea. And, unlike Gaga, my numbers won't sustain.  I'm more of a blip.

Still, It's been fun.  It hasn't made me any money, and hasn't brought me any fame, but it did bring me two long lost college friends who tracked me down despite the fact that I don't use my full name on Open Salon.

More importantly, it's allowed me to brag to my internet savvy daughters that I've gone viral. I'm pretty sure they're proud. They didn't think I even knew the word.

Flynn, The Wanna Be Dog

I'm going to Africa in a few weeks to see Flynn and I'm a little nervous. The last time I saw him he was only two months old and he probably won't remember that I was the one who found his favorite orange pacifer when everyone else was trying to get him to make do with the green one. 

Since them, he's only seen me on Skype and in pictures in a photo book. He seems to like me okay and smiles at me across cyberspace every time we Skype. He even crawls up close to the monitor to see me and babbles a bit. All fine signs.  Except that I'm a little afraid that the person he knows and likes is "Flat Grandma"--that one dimensional person he sees on the monitor.  When I show up--a full sized, three dimensional person--I'm worried he won't recognize me at all.

It's not my only concern though.  I also have a concern about Flynn himself.  He has no siblings and so far no little playmates his own size. What he does have are two parents and a nanny--who all tower over him--and an overfed beagle that barks loudly, has fun squeaky toys, likes biscuits, and is very close to the size of one almost eight month old little boy.

Therein lies the problem, because Alex is convinced that Flynn is patterning his behavior after Abbey the dog.  She has some evidence.

Although Flynn once liked nothing better than standing and attempting to walk, he's now lost nearly all interest in standing upright and prefers to crawl on all fours, often straight to Abby's food bowls. They both like to lick things and neither show a bit of sense about what they put in their mouths.  Flynn doesn't say mama or dada or any other words, but he's perfected a pant, has a babble that sounds suspiciously like a bark and a howl that rivals a beagle's. He likes the same squeaky toys that Abby does, and they both like the same biscuits, especially if they're found on the floor or placed directly into their mouths by Mom. Both of them are often seen with their tongues hanging out waiting for a biscuit or for no reason at all, and Flynn uses his mouth, instead of his hands, for all sorts of things like climbing, guiding his walker, and carrying his toys. They like to follow each other around, love their walks, but both are prone to find trouble if not kept on a short leash.  And neither seems much interested in training.  

It all sounds pretty cute to me, but it does cause a little concern.  Mainly because I can't decide if this non-flat, three dimensional grandma is more likely to gain Flynn's favor by showing up with a suitcase filled with toys or dog biscuits. I think I'll pack both.