A Time for Giving

Maybe it's my Catholic guilt, but there are some things I cannot help myself from doing at holiday time:

1.        Emptying my pockets for The Salvation Army volunteer standing outside
           in the cold ringing the bell.

2.        Donating a children’s book at Barnes and Noble for an underprivileged child.

3.        Toys for Tots.

4.        Buying a $1.00 item for the children of the military at The Dollar Store.

5.        Purchasing a can of dog food at Petco for the animals in the shelter.

Because sometimes charity does not begin at home.

Sometimes charity begins at the doors of the mall at Christmastime.

And we are reminded that there are too many Bob Crachetts, Tiny Tims and unsaved Scrooges still in the world. And we are lucky enough not to be one of them.

Canine Cuisine

My brother-in-law Jack has been telling this story for years. I am certain that it is based in fact but has meandered a bit from the truth as time has gone by to enhance its theatrical and humorous qualities.

The tale is this: On a particular Sunday when he (my brother-in-law) was courting my sister-in law Susan, Jack was invited for a family dinner. Upon arriving, he could smell that my mother-in- law was in the kitchen frying meat for her Sunday sauce. So he went into the kitchen, intent on stealing a meatball or two. But as his hand hovered over the plate, my mother-in-law, sensing the impending theft, quickly turned around smacked his hand and said Those meatballs aren’t for you, they are for Buddy!!

Buddy was my mother-in-law’s beloved Yorkshire terrier.

Jasper (God rest his soul) would eat anything. He was a rescued dog. He learned to eat whatever food was put in front of him as he never knew where his next meal was coming from.

Cosmo on the other hand, is not terribly interested in food.

In order to coax him into eating his kibble I have resorted to adding some additional protein.

“Adding some additional protein” is my euphemism for I cook for him. 

Mostly I roast some chicken thighs with a little lemon juice, fresh parsley, and a dash of Bell’s Poultry Seasoning. Sometimes I sauté some ground beef. But today I made his favorite: chicken livers. I seared them in a little olive oil and sea salt and then finished them off in the convection oven.

And while many might think I am crazy, I defend myself by saying that cooking for Cosmo is cheaper, more organic, and more nutritious than canned dog food. It also produces the desired effect—he eats quickly and appreciatively. And my only regret for my behavior is that my mother-in-law did not live long enough for me to disclose my little habit to her. Because she would not think what I do is bizarre in any way---and it would have given her ammunition to fire back at my brother-in law: See-- even Karen cooks for the dog.

The Grinch--and me

Cosmo followed me into the living room—a place ordinarily prohibited for him to enter. He was to be my companion as I put up the Christmas tree.

He then bore witness to my litany of God damn its as I realized that my pre-lit tree had a section near the top as well as a few random branches on the bottom that would not light.

It displeased me.

And so I went up to the third floor closet to find a string of lights to insert into the unlit sections to correct the problem. But the stored lights also had lighting flaws.

And thus Cosmo heard a few more God damn its uttered from my lips.

So in yesterday’s sweat clothes I drove in the slushy cold rain to the nearest box store to buy some new lights—which I accomplished quite quickly.

But I was still angry. The point of a pre-lit tree is that it is pre-lit. And I calculated that for the price I paid for that guaranteed to light realistic beauty from the high end holiday store I could have bought five live 9 foot Frazier firs from Hicks Nursery.

And then something caught my eye. It was an ornament of the Grinch standing next to his faithful dog Max.

It uncannily looked like Cosmo and me—so I bought it.

And suddenly I wasn’t angry anymore. My heart grew three sizes--- just like in the story.

I was reminded that Christmas meant a little bit more.

And when I returned home Cosmo was happy that I had not been out purchasing some plastic antlers for him to wear while we went out and stole Christmas. Relieved, he curled up in a ball near the base of the tree and slept.

So I inserted those missing electrified twinkles and sang to my faithful canine friend:

Fahoo fores dahoo dores
                   Welcome Christmas bring your light.

The Hangover

I have a hangover.

It isn’t from dehydration or too much alcohol.

It isn’t from digestive excess either.

It’s from holiday shopping.

I have a shopping hangover.

Beginning at 7 am Black Friday until Sunday at 2 pm I overdosed in Christmas expenditure.

I signed my name away to the point of carpel tunnel distress.

The fruits of my credit cards lie on my dining room table.

And today, in between the clicks of Cyber Monday I will lumber and re-organize.

Because tomorrow is tree-day.

It’s time to begin work on another seasonal ill--the decorating hangover.

And it’s not even December yet.

New York Jets--Really?

My father had a placard on his desk. It read: God so loved the World that he sent his only son—not a committee.

Elementary school classrooms have just one teacher. And when a substitute teacher is charged with running that classroom, the children intuitively know that the supervision is suspect. So even the most well-behaved and intellectually gifted students often feel no obligation to be in accord with the substitute teacher’s directions.

Canines too have a solitary leader. And if death befalls the alpha dog, another animal from the pack is selected—not a stray. There is a social hierarchy that excludes outsiders.

Sport teams are no different.

And while I do not claim to be an expert, I must say that when I heard that the New York Jets had traded some really good players for Tim Tebow at the end of last season, I thought What are they doing? There is no such thing as co-quarterbacks?—especially when quarterback #2 isn’t homegrown. No one has confidence in multiple leaders—including the multiple leaders themselves.

And so week after week this football season the Jets fans have cringed. There has been no rhythm. There has been no cohesiveness. At all times fans could sense the ambiguity. No one knew who might be  in charge from play to play.

There is a reason an orchestra has one conductor, a nation has one president and the Pips just had one Gladys. Effective leadership requires a solitary leader—not a committee.

It’s something God and my father understood.

The Jets management needs to pick one guy and ditch the other. And at this point I really do not care which quarterback they choose just as long as they pick one.  It’s the only way to salvage the team.

Because the Jets  are no longer gang green---the envy of all, they are gang red—the butt of embarrassment and ridicule.

Thanksgiving Day Mass

On the eve of Thanksgiving 1972, my best friend Elissa got a great idea—we should go to Thanksgiving Day mass.

It had nothing to do with religious devotion. It was about the fact that it took a half hour to walk to Sacred Heart Catholic church, an hour for mass itself, and a leisurely 45 minute walk home with a stop at Johnston’s florist to buy a few mums for our mothers.

We were wasting time. We sought a respite from our Thanksgiving Day chores. And the best part of Elissa’s idea was that our mothers would not refuse us permission. What mother could say no when their child asked to go to mass?

And while I did not realize it at the time, the entire experience was good for my soul. There was something unifying and exalting as we sang We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.

I found tranquility before the holiday chaos. And the long walk home with a best friend expanded my heart. The intimacy of our conversation shaped the person I have become.

It was time well-wasted.

And I am thankful.

And so on this Thanksgiving, before the frenzy sets in, take a few minutes to decompress. Remember all those who made you who you are and be glad. You received the Lord’s blessing when you gathered together.  Your Thanksgiving prayer was indeed answered. 

Twinkies

Israel may be on the brink of a full-scale war. Our economy may fall off the fiscal cliff. But thing in the headlines most troubling to too many people seems to be the demise of Hostess Twinkies.

Personally I have never been much of a Twinkies fan. I have always preferred Drakes’ Devil Dogs, Ring Dings and my favorite: Yodels.

Chocolate is my drug of choice. There has never been anything about me but for my skin tone that could ever be described as vanilla. And I have never heard of anyone ever referring to themselves as a vanilla-holic—Hallmark does not create a line of cards dedicated to vanilla lovers.

So while I am genuinely sad for the now unemployed Hostess workers, maybe it’s time they switched teams to make Ring Dings instead. Likewise the Republicans will have to surrender to the fact that to keep the country from falling off the fiscal cliff they might have to sail on the Democratic ship and raise taxes for the most wealthy of Americans.

Because the truth of the matter is, inside and outside of the snack world, vanilla does not rule.

What Women Want

I may have some of the details incorrect but the bones of this story are true. A girlfriend of mine brought her new boyfriend to her family’s Christmas Eve celebration. Later in the evening, when it came time for the friend to open the boyfriend’s gift, the Grandpa, who was well into his eighties at this point, observed that his very style conscious granddaughter had received a very ugly sweater.

As everyone kissed each other good-bye at the close of the celebration, the Grandpa turned to the boyfriend and said It was nice meeting you. I hope you have a nice life.

My oldest daughter once brought a very good-looking boy home during her freshman year of college. He was kind hearted and very much infatuated with her. But in an effort to show his affection he invited her to a culinary experience at his favorite Italian restaurant-The Olive Garden.

I knew I was never going to see him again.

My middle daughter, who has dripped in fur and shiny things since the age of two, once received a necklace of oversized brown and green beads as a Christmas gift from a boy.

She broke up with him the next day.

It is not that women are shallow—it’s that the value of a gift for them is more about being understood, than the monetary worth of the thing itself.

And the reason I am still married is that when I was pregnant my husband routinely brought me home take out  from Fianona’s Restaurant---escarole and potatoes--without ever being asked. One Christmas he bought me 5 pairs of flannel pajamas because he knew I liked cozy rather than sexy sleepwear. Recently he bought me a license plate cover that said I Love my Dog.

He gets me. 

It’s the glue of all relationships.

Gas Station Freebies

I was visiting my daughter Briana at her new apartment and I needed a knife to open something. Her roommate went into the kitchen drawer and handed me one. And when I saw it I was transported back in time. The handle was dark brown plastic--molded to look like wood. The blade was thin, serrated and bendable-- yet still sharp after 40 or so years. It was a Shell (brand) Steak knife---the kind given away for free during the 1960’s every time one filled up their gas tank.

Because there once was a time when gas stations actually needed to solicit your business.

Gas stations do not give away anything for free anymore. The energy crisis of the 1970’s halted that little perk. Rarely can you even get your gas pumped for you while waiting in the car—and if you do, the station charges you a few cents more per gallon. No one routinely cleans the windshield or checks the oil or measures the air your tires.

 It is something you must ask for, or do yourself.

Maps are no longer sold. There is no pay phone or a filthy bathroom to use for emergencies only. I do not even know the name of the man who owns the station near me. But I do know, it isn’t Jim or  Sal—the men I remember from my youth.

There is no more service with a smile.

But last week the world changed--everything old was new again—and I am not talking about  the S&H green stamps from Texaco,  a green plastic Brontosaurus from Sinclair, steak knives from Shell, or some amber glasses from Esso. It was the odd/even gas rationing. It was the hour-long lines and the “cash only.”

I didn’t exactly feel all that nostalgic about it.

And I asked Kelly, Briana’s roommate where she had gotten the knives—they were a treasure—a collector’s item of sorts. She told me that the knives had belonged to her grandmother. And I smiled. Not only did my family have those same steak knives but my grandmother did too—she got them every time she filled up her 1962 Rambler and then her 1968 Dodge Coronet--- back in the day when people put a tiger in their tank and trusted their car to the man who wore the star.

Getting Back in the Game

I walked off the court with annoyance after a tennis practice. And the expression on my face must have revealed that emotion because Van, the tennis pro, looked at me and said What’s going on? So I told him: I do not want to play with that woman ever again. Her incessant point analysis throws me off my game.

Van shook his head.

The recent storm was traumatic. I was stuck in Florida when it hit and was unable to fly home.

Orchestrating the safety of those I love was challenging to say the least from a remote location. And when I finally was able to touch down on the one open runway at LaGuardia the Thursday after the storm, I was met with no electricity, a gas shortage, no phone and no internet.

As a consequence my normal day to day activities either came to a screeching halt or required more time than it would have taken had all the creature comforts been in my life. Among the things that I was distracted from was my writing. Finding the time to sit down was one issue. Another was a lack of focus—I was too concerned with gas usage and daily shopping and a lack of refrigeration to have “thoughts.” And while I did have a laptop I needed to save the battery for other things like watching DVD’s at night to prevent my husband and I from hours of boredom.

The storm threw me off.

But I got a wake-up call. My girlfriend Elissa texted me and said When are you going to write your blog again? You have too many excuses and I am in withdrawal.

She was absolutely correct.

I needed to alter my game. I needed to write again.

And Van told me The fact that that woman annoys you is exactly why you should play with her again. You need to figure out how to play your game despite the distraction. It will make you a better player and an even more formidable opponent.

Adversity elevates strategy. And an elevated strategy yields success. Or better put:  that which does not kill you makes you stronger. I just hope that that which does not kill you, just doesn’t kill you.

On Camping

The first time I went camping was at age 11. It was with the Girl Scouts. I packed a duffle bag and a sleeping bag and got on a yellow school bus for some campgrounds in Upper Westchester.

The walk from the parking lot to the screened in cabins was long. I kept dropping my sleeping bag on the stony trail.

It was so cold that for the three days I was there I wore virtually every article of clothing in my duffle bag. When I woke up from sleeping on my shoddy stained 4 inch mattress in the morning I was wet from the dew. There was no running water so I was grimy and wary of pubescent odor. The bathroom facility was a latrine which I used so infrequently from a deep fear of bacteria and attacking wild animals that I developed a UTI and constipation. The campfire provided no warmth—it only served to make me smell like an ash pit. And the food cooked over the open flame tasted like smoked dirt and char.

No amount of singing Girl Scout songs could elevate the experience.

I could not wait to go home.

The second and final time I went camping was the following year at age 12. It was also with the Girl Scouts. But by then I was a cadet and living in Dobbs Ferry—a much more upscale community with an expected standard of living. Our destination was Philadelphia. I packed a small Wedgewood blue hard shell Samsonite suitcase with flipping metal locks and boarded a coach bus that had a bathroom in the rear.

Upon our arrival to the City of Brotherly Love we toured the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsy Ross’s house, the Philadelphia Zoo and the Franklin Institute. We “camped out” in the Holiday Inn in Centre City. The high rise hotel had 4-party private rooms with hot and cold running water, flushing toilets, electricity, an in-room heating system, a telephone and a 32 inch color Zenith television set with a click-style remote.

We took an elevator to our room and slept in shared double beds with clean white sheets. There was sweet smelling soap and shampoo in the shower. The towels were embossed in green and said Holiday Inn. We ate our meals on white china plates in a banquet room served by waiters and bus boys.

And ever since the age of 12  I have wondered why anyone would ever chose to abandon the basic necessities in life voluntarily. For me outdoor camping was a rather miserable misadventure—one I cared never to repeat. I did not see any fun whatsoever in being a victim of untamed nature and its elements.

And so for the past 40 years if anyone has ever asked me if I enjoyed camping my standard response has always been Yes—if it is the Holiday Inn—or any hotel at least 3 diamonds or greater according to AAA.

And I am quite certain all the inconvenienced or displaced persons from the recent storm would absolutely agree.   

Remembering All Veterans

Many of my girlfriends in the early 1970’s wore a silver bracelet engraved with the name of a soldier who was either MIA or a POW in the Vietnam War. The intent of the bracelet’s wear was to personalize a highly unpopular war—one soldier at a time.  By seeing a name, one could connect to the humanity rather than the politics of the Indochina conflict.

Andersonville is in the state of Georgia—26 acres of swampland. In 1864 the Confederacy chose to fence the land in and create a POW camp for Union soldiers. It was called Fort Sumter. The camp was built to house no more than 10,000 prisoners. But at its peak, the population swelled to 45,000 men.

The living conditions were appalling. Confederate soldiers picked off Union prisoners by gunfire for fun. There was no shelter, no clothing, no fresh water, no sanitation, and rations of food were more meager than those of the Japanese POW camps during World War II.  13,000 men--40% of all the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War fighting in the South—met their demise in Andersonville. The fatalities were due to exposure, malnutrition, starvation, scurvy, dysentery, typhus and malaria.

At the war’s end, Henry Wirz, the superintendent of the camp, was convicted and hanged for war crimes.

The POWs in Andersonville survived or died in a hellhole on American soil for a noble cause. They, like all Union soldiers, understood that a divided house could not stand. They understood that federal law trumped that of the states. They accepted that all men were created equal. Their resolve was that no man may own another.

And so, all Union soldiers must be honored for their sacrifice—because they, as much any other soldier of the 20^th and 21^st century, secured our freedom and protected our Constitution. The veterans of the North are the reason we are the United States of America.

And when the Vietnam War ended I remember that the man whose name was engraved on Patty Storm’s bracelet came home. He had survived the Hanoi Hilton—the most notorious POW camp of that war. The man whose name was on Cathy Schmitt’s bracelet was not as lucky. He remained MIA.

On Veteran’s Day it is our duty to remember those who protect and have protected our homeland on both domestic and foreign soil. Because it is their dedication that ensures that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Gratefulness After the Storm?

In January of 1999 I was stopped at the intersection of Stewart and Washington Avenues. It was 3:15 in the afternoon---I was headed to a PTA meeting at the high school. But when I received the left-hand turn arrow and accelerated, a woman driving southbound ran the light.

It was my first car accident.

And once I was settled, I did an accounting of the preceding events. I thanked God that I was okay—I had my seat belt on. I thanked God that my children were not in the car—they had missed the experience. Then I looked over at the driver who, while her car was totaled, was also unhurt. I then thanked God that I was not far from home and that some good Samaritans had stopped and called the police from their car phone.

Yet the second I had gotten to the end of my Thank God inventory all I could conclude was God damn it—that b**** just knocked the wheel off of my brand new Suburban!

And here I sit in my kitchen nook with my battery powered laptop --too many days since Super-storm Sandy. The snow’s reflection lights my keyboard—it is the first day I have chosen to sit down and write. And I have much to be grateful for. All of my family is safe—including the dog. I thank God that the linden tree behind my house still stands—it did not fall and crush the rear of my home –nor have the squirrels who live in the top branches chosen to relocate in my attic. And I thank God that I never relented and upgraded my heating system—because while it is energy inefficient, I am warm and toasty. I thank God too that I have hot water and a gas stove and grill. I may shower and cook.

I thank God that I am so much more fortunate than many others who are homeless, cold and hungry.

Yet for as lengthy as the Thank God column is, I am consumed by the God Dammits. I am tired of long gas lines and no power to do the laundry or vacuum my flooring or run my dishwasher. I cannot blow-dry my hair or see well enough to put on my make-up. I want my internet, phone, and cable back.

 I want my routine reinstalled.

For all my good fortune, I covet those even more fortunate than I. I am powerless and power-less to fix my dissatisfaction.

It will take time. It took six weeks for the wheel of the Suburban to get placed back on its axel. It took months for the insurance company to settle the car accident claim. All I know is it better not take that long for me to get my electricity back or I am going to have to round up all those displaced squirrels from the fallen trees in my neighborhood, put them in a giant turbine wheel, and create my own power company.

Because there is no way my Squirrel Powered Energy Authority (SPEA for short) could perform any more poorly or as inefficiently as LIPA. And I understand the squirrels, like the LIPA workers, both enjoy working for a handful of nuts.