The Ultimate Youthful Accessory
When I was a little girl, my parents had good friends who had a very pretty daughter.
Carolyn was about nine years older than me, and so very mysterious. My sisters were a little older than me, but there was no mystery there – they were just slightly more obnoxious versions of me. And they did disgusting things, like blow their nose, and poop. I was sure Carolyn did not.
She was stylish and quiet, and for the most part, she completely ignored me. And so I adored her (from afar).
But I remember one summer day. I must have been about nine, and so Carolyn was probably eighteen. Our families were at a local lake having a picnic, and we needed something – ketchup or relish or something – and Carolyn volunteered to make a run to the grocery store. And she took some of us kids with her.
IN HER CONVERTIBLE!
Holy cow. That was so cool. Carolyn wore sunglasses and she had a little headscarf to keep her hair in place, with her curly ponytail sticking out the back of the kerchief, blowing in the breeze. She was the most beautiful girl in the world.
And not only that: In her convertible, she was just like my idol – Nancy Drew.
The Nancy Drew books were my first ‘adult’ books. That is, books without pictures on every page. (In truth, I also inherited the Bobbsey Twin books from my sisters, but even without pictures, I considered those ‘baby books’.)
I had a dozen Nancy Drew books which my sisters had outgrown. “The Hidden Staircase” was my favorite.
Cover of The Hidden Staircase
Nancy was smart and independent, and pretty. Her father let her go all over the world – by herself. She had adventures. She had a boyfriend. And she had a little blue convertible.
That’s who I wanted to be.
My name was Nancy too. The Bobbsey Twins had a Nan, but she was such a wuss. I wanted to be Nancy Drew in my little blue roadster.
But somewhere in high school or college or graduate school or working for the last forty years, I forgot.
And here I am. Sixty-one and getting ready to retire while at the same time trying desperately and pathetically to look as young as possible.
For the last nine months we have needed to replace my husband’s beat-up SUV. We looked at a lot of semi-beat-up SUVs. Nothing excited us. But we continued to look.
And last month on the way to the grocery store, I saw a car, and a memory jolted me. I had a revelation. A youthful revelation.
“Let’s not get a practical car,” I said to my husband. “Let’s get a little convertible.”
And after nine months of searching unenthusiastically a dull car, it took us two weeks to find a bright blue convertible.
I feel just like Carolyn/Nancy Drew. I’m eighteen again, and I’m driving my little roadster.
The breeze is whipping my sixty-one-year-old hair.
Letters From Home
Lest you think my family was being mean to my mother in poking fun at her lost Frank Sinatra record, let me tell you a little story about my mother’s sense of humor …
I was in college in the early 70’s. No one had very much money, but you didn’t need much either.
My mother sent me a little cash every week.
She didn’t want me to have to go to the bank, so she’d mail cash. She’d fold it inside a sheet of paper, so no one could see that there was money in the envelope. She had some inexpensive stationery she had picked up at the five-and-ten (that’s like Wal-Mart, for you youngsters). It was a pale lavender with violets in the corners. Just the sight of that lavender envelope in my mailbox cheered me right up. Usually there was a ten-dollar bill inside, but if Mom was feeling especially generous, there would be a twenty. That would be a red-letter day (in a purple envelope).
Unlike me, who can’t seem to stop writing, my mother hated to write. The most she would write on that folded lavender paper was:
With my weekly cash, I would go to the grocery store and buy bread, peanut butter, and tea bags. On weeks that I didn’t need tampax, I would buy a few other staples, like potato chips and yodels. I could have a hamburger once a week instead of eating in the dorm. I liked this dark cellar hole of a restaurant where, when you picked up your hamburger, the grease ran down to your elbows.
And I could go to the movies for the student price of $0.99. (I saw “Jesus Christ Superstar” six times during finals week, because Mom sent a twenty.)
Ah, the good old days.
So after five years as an undergrad (I changed my major a few times) my parents were a little anxious for me to graduate. But I decided that it might be a good idea to get my teacher’s certification. So I had to do an extra semester of student teaching.
Mom and Dad were practical people, and knew that teaching credentials were a good idea, but they had already put the three of us girls through school, and still had my brother to educate too. They were supportive of an additional semester, but they told me that I had to fund this one myself.
So I worked my ass off during the summer, and paid my tuition, and went off to teach in Puerto Rico. (Don’t ask me how I ended up there…but it was very cool.)
I lived a cheaply as possible. A nice family put me up, so I had plenty of peanut butter. I didn’t have any spending money, but I took the school bus with the kids, and went to the beach on the weekend. Pretty good, even broke.
And about a month into my semester, I got a letter from home. In my mother’s lavender and violet stationery!
She relented! I would get a little money after all!
And I tore open the envelope, took out the single sheet of lavender paper, and read:
It’s Not Lost
Last night my husband was describing to me the best photograph he had ever taken – a monarch butterfly perched on a dewdrop on a flower. He said that he loved that photo, because it was the most beautiful thing he had ever created.
He lost track of that picture years ago, and he wondered if some day he might find it again, just by accident.
“I wonder where it could be?” he asked.
“It’s with the Frank Sinatra record,” I said.
He didn’t know what I meant.
But everyone has a place like that.
*********
In 1941, Lake Compounce in Bristol Connecticut (my hometown) was THE place to go for great music.
An old amusement park with a fabulous ballroom, all the big bands came to Lake Compounce. And one event in 1941 packed the ballroom. It was Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.
My mother, not quite eighteen, was one of the teenagers that came to dance to Tommy Dorsey’s band. And to listen to the handsome young man who sang with the orchestra – Frank Sinatra.
“He was wonderful,” she still says many many years later, in exactly the same voice I use when I talk about James Taylor.
After the show, my mother and her girlfriends waited for their ride. The park emptied out. Some of the band members hanging around came to talk to these pretty girls.
And that’s how my mother met Frank Sinatra.
“It’s not like he was a nobody,” she said. “It was early in his career but he was already a big star.”
And Frank Sinatra bought her a hot dog.
AND – he gave her an autographed record!
But here’s the problem:
No one but my mother has ever seen this record.
All the while we were growing up, my mother told this story, and told us she still had that record…somewhere.
But as the years went by, our doubt grew.
“You made that up,” we accused.
But she insisted, “Frank Sinatra bought me a hot dog and gave me an autographed record.”
“Sure, Sure,” we kids said.
And exasperated, she promised us that someday she would find that record, and PROVE it to us.
And this became our “lost place”:
For everything that ever went missing –
my brother’s mitten,
my sister’s sunglasses,
my father’s claw hammer –
we knew where it was.
And we all vied (especially my Dad) to be the first to proclaim:
“It’s with the Frank Sinatra Record.”
Cutting The Cheese
One of my favorite expressions is “light-hearted”.
I love all that “light-hearted” conveys: happiness that lifts the heart; the weightlessness of joy.
I am light-hearted. I am easily pleased and I don’t worry much. I look for the best in people, and I’m quick to see the humor in everything. It’s what I like best about myself.
My husband is a very serious person. Because he takes so much to heart, he is not light-hearted. He is heavy-hearted. He worries. He analyzes. Then he worries some more.
A few years ago, my husband had a health scare. He recovered completely, and on his final visit to the surgeon, the surgeon gave some personal advice. “Try to enjoy life more. Be more spontaneous,” the doctor said.
It’s been seven years, and although he’s basically a happy person, my husband is still a serious happy person.
And this past year he has experienced another health crisis. Everything has turned out just fine, but the ordeal reminded my husband of his surgeon’s advice.
He has made a determined effort to have more fun. To be spontaneous and light-hearted.
A few days ago I came home from work and he was in the kitchen putting together a little appetizer: olives and cheese and crackers.
Very spontaneous – especially adding olives.
My husband was particularly pleased with his little snack.
“Did you notice how I cut the cheese?” he asked.
Naturally I snickered a little. It is a proven fact that an adolescent sense of humor never quite goes away.
But I didn’t really see anything special with the cheese.
“Look,” he said. “It’s not all cut up perfectly square like I usually do.”
(Well, that’s certainly true… his cubing is nothing short of obsessive. See “It’s Dicey“.)
“I cut the cheese [snicker] free-form,” he explained.
And looking closely, I ascertained that the pieces of cheese were indeed not all perfectly square. Some were slightly trapezoid.
“That’s very spontaneous of you,” I said encouragingly.
“It’s whimsical,” he agreed.
Whimsical.
Well, we all have to start someplace.
Skinny, But Not Too Skinny
Back in November, I went to The City (New York City, of course; we just call it The City in Connecticut – we’re that cool) and discovered that I had slipped off the fashion treadmill.
I was still wearing boot-cut jeans when everyone had gone to skinny jeans tucked into tall boots (“Country Mouse“). This only dismayed me briefly, since I went right out and bought skinny jeans, and tucked them into my tall boots, which I also went out and bought (“But My Ankles Look Slim“).
As an aside, I must be a real writer – just look how many times I can quote myself.
So Wednesday, I went back to The City. I was going to wear my skinny jeans and boots, but the weather has turned very warm. The forecast predicted 75 degrees. I didn’t want to commit another fashion faux-pas by wearing boots out of season. So I figured it would be safer to commit the same old faux-pas and wear my boot cut jeans with my high-heeled ankle boots.
Because I figured by now the boot-cuts might be back in fashion. Things change quickly in the Big Apple.
Umm, no.
Still skinny jeans.
The only women wearing boot-cut pants were OLD. Like my age. But I don’t want to dress my age. I want to dress younger than that.
Actually, skinny pants seemed to have gotten even skinnier. Like for instance, leggings. I saw lots of girls with leggings. But I can’t go quite that far. I may want to dress younger than my years, but even for fashion-conscious me, the thought of leggings on a sixty-one-year-old makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
So I’ll go skinny. But not too skinny. If the pants need a zipper at the ankle to fit your foot, I may have to take a pass. My bunion might not squeeze through.
So then, Skinny-ish. Which is maybe Straight-leg.
(But not mom-jeans.)
And now that the weather is warmer, there seems to be two options for shoes with skinny jeans. Either stilettos or ballet flats.
Some of the women in stilettos looked pretty nice, but mostly they looked unsteady. Since I still can’t balance on one foot after ten years of yoga, I’m not holding out much hope for me. Besides, the older women in tight pants and stilettos looked slightly disreputable. Not to mention top-heavy. Once you lose your waist, stilettos just look wrong.
But the ballet flats were nice. And I have some. And I can walk in them.
So as soon as I got home, I tried on my skinny jeans with my ballet flats.
But the jeans were a bit too long. This didn’t seem to matter much tucked into boots, but now, I have to fix them. They have to be hemmed to the ankle. Or a little above. Slightly short is nice with ballet flats. Sort of Audrey Hepburn. Which I could absolutely be, given forty pounds or so.
Do you know how hard it is to hem jeans? How many sewing machine needles you can go through in fifteen minutes?
I tried just a roll-up at the cuff. Boyfriend jeans, the magazines call them. Well, I’m too old for a boyfriend I guess. More high-water than high-fashion.
So I’m off to the tailor, where I will turn my frugal jeans into expensive jeans.
And in the meantime, I have dozens of cardigans that I wear with everything. (“I’m Sticking With It” – yes indeed, I am a prolific writer.) And in The City, all the cardigans were either very long or very cropped. So maybe the tailor can cut one sweater short and use the remnant to make another sweater long?
Leggings and Stilettos: Not a good idea.
Out Of This World
A few months ago, I expressed my suspicion that my husband might be an alien.
He ate his turkey soup with a fork. And when I questioned him, he explained that he ALWAYS ate the ‘stuff’ out of the soup first with his fork, and then used his spoon for the broth. ALWAYS. But in the twenty-two years I’ve known him, let me say in response to his ALWAYS:
NEVER.
I thought he might be one of the pod-people – taking over my poor husband’s body.
But this weekend I had an astounding realization.
It’s not him.
It’s me.
I read a lot about makeup. I can go through 452 reviews on Sephora, because number 453 might be just the product I need. But before I decide, I will also go to makeupalley or beauty.com – and read some more reviews.
And I found a product I just HAD to have.
It’s Nars powder blush with the promising name, Orgasm.
According to the thousand reviews on multiple websites, Orgasm blush is sheer, iridescent, and warm.
And in all the editorial reviews by Experts (and I read them all) the same rave: “Orgasm’s peachy-pink color is UNIVERSALLY FLATTERING.”
So I went right down (well. right after six days of research) to Sephora and emptied my wallet and bought this universally flattering blush.
Only it isn’t working for me.
I’ve tried a little. I’ve tried a lot. I’ve put a base of cream blush first. I’ve added some sheer powder on top.
But the color is just not flattering.
But it is supposed to be UNIVERSALLY FLATTERING!
Where the heck am I from???
I look exactly like the human who purported to be my father, but that must be a clever alien trick.
I’m Finally Ready
In the winter of my junior year of college, the brief phenomenon known as Streaking streaked through our campus. Boys in thick work boots and wool hats and nothing else ran by the women’s dorms every evening.
One night, a dozen boys staged a relay. We watched from our windows as they ran by in one-minute intervals. We cheered like mad for each one, and didn’t mind that they could all have been just one guy – they were interchangeable in their blue-skinned sameness.
About an hour later the gaggle of them reconvened (dressed) to holler from the yard that it was the girls’ turn.
We discussed this both laughingly and seriously, and decided that we would stage a different kind of show. An exhibition rather than a run. Yes, we were classy girls.
Because the exhibitionists would be coming out of our own dorm, and because they wouldn’t be a bouncy blur, we were a little more worried about anonymity than the boys. So my roommate donated a mardi gras mask and her long velvet cape. It was a two-act show – first a blonde and then a brunette went out. Each girl walked slowly to the middle of the snowy yard, and then dramatically opened the cape.
The boys applauded with profound appreciation.
I won’t identify the girls, except to say that neither was me.
******
Fourteen years later, I was an up-and-coming young executive (and thirty-five is STILL young; so shut up) – in desperate need of a little vacation. I just needed to take a short break from the long days and cold winter.
I had two problems – I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to go with me, and I couldn’t get a last-minute reservation at any of the good resorts.
A tourist-agent friend solved both my issues. She made me a reservation at Club Med in Haiti. Club Med was still the hot-spot resort – but Haiti wasn’t exactly top-tier. And Club Med would assign me a roommate, so I would have someone built-in to have my meals with.
After a ride in a scary old plane and an even scarier bus trip through unimaginably ugly towns, I arrived for a long weekend at a resort in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
The weather was gorgeous, the beach was perfect, and my roommate turned out to be a very nice woman my own age. Not so bad.
Haiti was not a vacation destination for Americans. Including me and my new just-for-the-weekend friend, there were six of us. The other eighty guests were French nationals.
There is a difference between French women and American women. An American woman will show off her body if it is beautiful. To a French woman, her body just IS beautiful. The French women at Club Med wore bikini bottoms only. All the women: the old, the young, the skinny, the voluptuous.
I was mesmerized. Mesmerized by women walking on the beach, lounging by the pool. One young mother played with her children, read paperbacks, and chatted – with her parents. She was all but naked… in front of her father. Her mother was also nearly naked, and read her magazine with her breasts comfortably drooping against her round belly. I could hardly imagine it. These ladies bared their breasts like breasts were something natural.
On my last evening in Haiti, I went down to the beach, dropped my bikini top, and ran into the water. I was French!
Of course, there was no one there, and I redressed as quickly as I could.
**********
It’s been forty years since I didn’t walk out naked for some enthusiastic college boys.
It’s been twenty-six years since I almost got naked on a Haitian beach.
I see now that these moments would not have changed my life.
But still…
I want a do-over.
I’m sixty-one. Before I’m seventy I want to go to a clothing-optional beach, and avail myself of the option. I’m not going to worry about whether my body is something I’m proud of. I’m proud of it because it’s mine. I’m French.
Based On A True Story
Back by popular demand, it’s time for another episode of
This is gritty reality at its realest realness…in the place where it’s cold enough for the men to wear jackets but warm enough for the women to wear nothing.
In this week’s episode, there’s this guy out on one of those standup paddle boards. It’s like surfing, only slow. This dude has a problem though, because he’s being toyed with by a shark. The shark bumps the board – playfully, I’m sure – because when the dude falls off the board, the shark doesn’t eat him right up.
The guy sees a boat coming towards him and he’s relieved. Actually, he probably relieved himself right when the shark pushed him overboard, but anyway, here comes the boat. Only it comes really fast and runs the guy over.
If you’re thinking that now the shark has a fast food treat, you’d be wrong. Because in the very next scene, Horatio and his folks are looking at the body on the beach. The corpse is pretty intact, except for the feet, which the CSIs immediately know were ripped off by the propellers. They see a lot of propeller amputations in Miami.
CSI finds the murderous boat right away. And the owner shows up, “Yay, you found my boat.”
There’s grease on the steering wheel. A greasy killer.So they go find Dead Guy’s son, who races motorcycles (or dirt bikes – I didn’t get a good look). That’s a greasy job, so he could certainly be the killer. And he didn’t even like his dad, who didn’t appreciate cheating the way his son did. “He didn’t know how to have fun,” says Kid (who would never get to pretend he’s a teenager on “21 Jump Street” – he looks about 35). So paddle surfing must be a real drag.
But Kid also says that Dad had a fight with the neighbor lady. And the neighbor lady retaliated by trying to kill the family dog,Tiberius, with a hershey bar. The dog’s name is the only name I remember (besides Horatio), but that doesn’t mean these characters aren’t memorable or anything.
So the team goes next door. There’s a guy leaving and a guy on his way in. The lady’s trash is conveniently out front and there are chocolate wrappers in there. CSI knows immediately that this lady is a hooker and a dog-poisoner. Because CSI understands Evidence.
She may be a hooker, but she’s not a boat-running-overer. Hooker didn’t like the barking dog (who was just upset with all the foot traffic), but she wasn’t worried about Dead Guy turning her in. He thought she was busy because she was a notary. Everyone knows that notaries have lines of middle-aged men a-knockin’ on their doors.
However, Hooker Lady provides services to one of DG’s co-workers. and she heard DG tell ‘John’ that there’s a big problem at work. Lives are at stake. Dead Guy must have been impressed by how often his co-worker needed a notary.
They get a subpoena (I’m certain they did) to search DG’s files. Only there’s a ton of ’em. But no problem. They don’t have to read every file. They just dust for fingerprints to see which file has the most prints. Handled the most = Biggest problem. This actually makes sense, but I usually take my biggest work problem and hide it in the bottom drawer, and NEVER take it out. But that’s just me.
CSI LabCops find a file that has fingerprints everywhere…the guy must have picked it up from the middle, and practiced his piano scales. But inside, the only fingerprints are the boss’s. Immediate proof-positive that the boss has replaced the real file with dummy papers.
Dead Guy’s shoes (in his gym bag, not on his de-footed body) have green gunk on them that turns out to be chromium and copper arsenic (CACA). So CSI heads right out to the housing development the guy seems to work for (I don’t exactly know what he did for a living; they either didn’t say or I was in the bathroom). Horatio sees that the construction crew is spray-painting the grass. Obviously, the ground is contaminated, and Dead Guy must have threatened to blow the whistle – because grass-painting is Evidence. This is also evidence to me that DG must have been an accountant. On TV, accountants are murdered all the time for threatening to expose crimes. I’m an accountant. It’s a dangerous profession.
The boss turns out to be a gorgeous sexy lady, and she swears that she would never have killed DG. She just figured she’d bribe him. Well, that’s okay then.
Back to the lab. They have DG’s car. And his phone is in it, and it starts to ring. “Help me,” the voice says, “I’m at the coffee shop.” Or maybe that was voice-mail.
CSI has the coordinates and they quickly find that the whole route has surveillance cameras, including a taxi surveillance camera that followed the dead guy’s car for miles. They can watch the DG’s whole last day, except of course for the part when he becomes dead. There’s a dearth of surveillance cameras at the crime scene, although the rest of Miami is loaded.
Anyway, DG was following a sick kid who was with a guy who looked menacing – he was tailing them just because he is a Good Samaritan; not because he is an accountant. Only he was cut off by a careless trucker.
The “help help” phone call must have been the sick kid, who probably got the DG’s phone number in the two seconds they interacted. LabCops find the kid’s duffel bag (where I don’t know, but these guys are very good), and there’s a travel itinerary from Nicaragua. Aha – this is almost too easy for the investigative skills of CSI. The kid was a drug mule and he’s sick from swallowing big bags of drugs. So they have to find him before the Scary Guy cuts him open.
They need a description of Scary Guy, so they get the trucker who cut the dead guy off. They find him in like half an hour. They’re that good. Trucker remembers the Scary Guy’s tattoo, I guess when he cut off the Dead Guy, he also got a really good look at the guy in the car in front of the car he almost hit. And the Trucker also knows where the Scary Guy is.Trucker evidently got a great view of Scary Guy’s GPS.
So Horatio and the lab-guy-who-is-also-a-cop (and who looks like Forest Whitaker) go to an abandoned diner. Forest pulls his lab tech gun, but the bad guy gets the drop on him. Good thing Horatio can sneak up on anyone, even from the front. “Your life is about to change, my friend” Horatio hisses. Horatio hisses in every episode, but this was a particularly good hiss.
Oh, and they find the kid (not dead yet, which is nice, but it’s only a subplot, so they call an ambulance and split.)
Back at the police station, Horatio notices that the Trucker has grease on his sleeve. Hey wait, there was grease on the boat’s steering wheel! And the Trucker has sand on his shoes. He’s been to the beach! Hardly anyone in Miami does that. He must be the killer!
“Have you been to the beach?” asks Horatio. And the trucker confesses. When he cut off the Dead Guy, DG called the “800-How’s My Driving” number on the truck’s bumper sticker. And the operator said they have zero tolerance and the trucker gets fired right away. He’s pretty mad. He finds DG, who’s out standup surfing (Miami is a small town and so is the ocean). So the trucker sees a boat just hanging around, and so he takes it and runs the guy over.
“I lost my job,” cries the trucker.
So it wasn’t the Shark, the Angry Son, the Hooker Neighbor, the Contamination-Hiding Developers, or the Cocaine Smuggler. It was the Bad Driver.
"Your life is about to change, my friend."
I win…but I still lose.
For the last year I have been engaged in a war of wills.
Here is my opponent.
His name is Merlin, and this was photo was taken recently -.sometime around his nineteenth birthday. He has a questionable history. But he was reported to be two years old when we adopted him, and that was seventeen years ago this week.
Nineteen cat years equates to 92 on the cat-to-human-age conversion chart. Lest you think that an old feline is a sweet pussycat, let Merlin correct you.
He is a cranky pest. Oh, I love him. He has shared my life almost as long as my husband has. But feline dementia is just plain annoying.
He paces. He walks in counterclockwise (always counterclockwise) circles around us. It’s harmless enough, but you’d be surprised how it gets on your nerves. He gives new meaning to the word ‘lap-cat’, especially after eighty laps.
He claws at us. That is, he taps us on the shin with his claws exposed. He taps us for food, but mostly for attention. We sit at dinner. He taps. We sit and watch TV, he taps. He follows us into the bathroom, and he taps.
Merlin also taps to be picked up, and that’s where the big disagreement started.
Last year, with his stiff back legs, Merlin could no longer climb or jump onto the bed. So we’d go to bed and he’d tap against the bed. And scratch our beautiful sleigh bed.
So I’d pick him up. And in his senility, he’d jump down (he can still jump down, just not up). And he’d scratch again. And I’d pick him up. And he’d jump down. When I am ready for bed, I’m ready. FOR BED. I don’t want to play cat games.
So I enhanced our beautiful sophisticated bedroom decor…
with plastic steps.
Lovely, no? (That's Merlin on the pillow)
And the war began. Merlin wasn’t grateful for the new steps. He hated them He wouldn’t use them. He continued to scratch the bed.
(I know what you’re thinking…Just put him out of the room… Yes, but we have three other cats and the protest quartet is unbearable.)
So I’d get out of bed and walk Merlin up the steps, nudging his scrawny legs like I used to walk my dolls fifty-something years ago. And he would obstinately and obnoxiously jump down. And scratch. Repeat. Repeat.
But I am an intelligent and mature human being. I can outlast a senile pissed-off cat.
And I did.
It took four months.
Four months of walking him up those steps over and over every night while he stubbornly resisted.
Then one evening, my husband and I went to bed, and about ten minutes later, Merlin quietly and without fanfare walked up those ugly steps.
And he has done so every night since.
And at four-thirty every morning…
He walks counterclockwise around and around me, until,
‘tap, tap, tap’ – on my bare shoulder.
Apparently, four-thirty is breakfast time in feline dementia world.
Multi-Tasking
Most evenings, I watch TV with my laptop on my lap (which is why it is so named). TV is better if you don’t pay too much attention.
So I write my blog, read other people’s blogs, converse on Facebook, and play Words With Friends and Spider Solitaire. Usually all at the same time. Most of my attention goes to blogging. If I had to make a diagram it would look like this:
TV is the perfect background. When it’s boring, it relaxes away the stresses from the day. And when it’s interesting (although seldom), it distracts you from the stresses of the day.
My husband never cared much for TV. Before I met him, he had mostly garage hobbies. But since vegging out in front of the TV is my favorite past-time, he was sort of sucked into it.
My husband also multi-tasks in front of TV. His diagram looks like this:
Of course, my husband can’t do these three things simultaneously. He can snack and watch TV. Or he can snooze. He multi-tasks by alternating.
Before I discovered blogging, I was in charge of the remote. Since my husband was ambivalent at best about TV in general, he didn’t mind. We overwhelmingly watched what I chose. Since I have exquisite taste, it wasn’t a problem. And because I am a wonderful wife, once in a while I would actually tell him when Drag Racing was on.
But with my new blogging obsession hobby, I thought it was only fair to turn the remote over to him.
It was rather amazing. A man who had no interest in television picks up a remote and the primordial need to channel-surf comes right out of dormancy. Like there must be a channel-surfing gene buried in the y chromosome.
I’m mostly blogging, so it’s hard for me to complain when he watches five minutes of one program, and seven minutes of something else, and three minutes of commercials while looking for another something else. The only program we seem to watch all the way through is “Gold Rush.” where men destroy acres upon acres of virgin Alaskan woodland looking for 7 ounces of gold. (Oh…and Drag Racing.)
Sometimes when he’s channel-surfing, I hear a bit of something that’s interesting – for TV. But then it’s gone. Sometimes when he dozes off, I can watch a whole program in its entirety (while blogging). But it may not be what I would have chosen, since he’s got the remote. That’s why I am such an expert on “CSI Miami.”
This week my husband hit a new high of multi-tasking and channel-surfing.
I’m blogging away, and I hear two seconds of one program and two seconds of another program and two seconds of a third. Okay, he’s going up and down the channel lineup. He stops. I’m not paying much attention, but eventually I am aware of the distinctly melodious voices of …
…QVC. Yes, the oohing and aahing over cubic zirconium.
I look over at Hubbie in surprise over his selection. And he’s asleep – with his finger on the remote.
My husband can multi-task after all.
He can channel-surf WHILE snoozing.
notquiteold 