Going "Shopping" with Susan

I remember when I was a child that I often tagged along with my mother and her friends when we went down to Loehmanns on Fordham Road or the Cross County Center. Women shopped together. It was a unifying social event.

A month or so before Briana’s college graduation my sister-in Law Susan inquired as to what to buy Briana as a gift. She even emailed me a suggestion—it was a Lagos silver bracelet. And while it was very pretty, it was expensive—too expensive I thought for a kid who in addition to wanting a gift, wanted some cash . But I liked the idea of a Lagos piece and by coincidence, the next day Rue La La was featuring Lagos. So I told Susan to quickly sign up to become a member—which she did. And the next day at exactly 11:00 when the sale began, we would get on the phone and simultaneously shop on the website.

And at exactly 10:55 am my phone rang—it was Susan—she was prepared. We both had the Rue la la website up—and at 10:59 we started hitting refresh. And poof we were both in—and we quickly scrolled until we  saw the perfect bracelet—but by the same Susan said oh that’s pretty—do you think she will like it? Poof it was sold out.

So I said okay—let’s go shopping at other stores---and we did. We went to Nordstrom and Saks and the Lagos store. And finally we found something at Bloomingdales. It was perfect but  it was $50 shy of the free shipping.  Susan said—that’s okay—I’ll pay the shipping.But that’s not how I roll..I never pay shipping.  So after I caught my breath I said—well why don’t you see first what the shipping cost is. And she did—it was $25. Oh no I said—you are not do that. Go find a $50 item—there must be something Joanna (her daughter) might like. I convinced Susan that since she planned on spending the $25 for the shipping anyway, the item for Joanna really only cost her $25—it was a bargain in fact—half off.

I am sure my brother-in-law Jack (Susan’s husband) would have not approved of my financial cost analysis. He is an accountant.  But in the olden days after ladies shopped together they often had lunch—which Susan and I could not do. So that is even more money I saved my brother in law. In my world that means Joanna’s item was for free. It’s all in the way you look at things sometimes.

The Truth About Teflon

John Gotti was one of the more notorious heads of the Gambino crime family. His nickname was the “Teflon Don.” He was so named because while indicted many times, conviction evaded him—the charges didn’t stick. His crew was imprisoned while he went free.

I read in the newspaper that our school district has decided to forgo the process to retain its accreditation from the Middle States Association. The high school principal was charged with doing the research into whether retaining the accreditation was appropriate for the district or not. The superintendent would then act upon her recommendation. So pretty much if the principal’s decision proved to be a poor one, it would rest on the principal’s shoulders and not the superintendent’s. The blame would stick to her.

The superintendent has used this modus operandi before---when he wanted to change graduation and he charged the high school site based team as the conduit of his wants. In the case of graduation, the site based team and the principal who headed it took the heat for the public’s outrage. They were the tool. The superintendent escaped criticism as he simply acted on the recommendations of the charged committee—recommendations he himself had crafted.

Yet I do agree with the principal’s recommendation to abort Middle States reaccreditation—but not for the ambiguous reasons cited at the Board of Education meeting. My daughter Briana served on the Middle States Committee the last go around. It was a wonderful collaborative experience for her. And so I understand what is really going on here-- it requires a great deal of volunteer time from the high school staff for them to research and recommend applicable educational improvements. But because the teaching staff, due to budget constraints at the high school, is spread so anorexically thin, the principal cannot afford to surrender key staff members to the Middle States process. The staff is already too overworked as it is—they are overburdened by a host of other committees.

And just as importantly, since the Middle States committee is above the superintendent’s influence the committee’s recommendations cannot be externally crafted. So the recommendations for improved education may not have an audience. The recommendations made by the committee in 2005 were not fulfilled under this superintendent’s regime—which is why our district was in jeopardy of revocation.  There is no reason to suspect that a new committee’s recommendations will end up any differently--or at least while the current leader is still at the helm.  It would be a colossal waste of people’s time and taxpayer money. Money that might be better spent (I jest) on the obesely sized and salaried central administration staff.

Ultimately John Gotti went to prison. Sammy “the Bull” Gravano broke the code and ratted him out. The charges finally stuck. He died an incarcerated man. Even Bruce Cutler could not save him. Gotti was convicted of murdering Paul Castellano even though he did not personally pull the trigger---he simply organized the hit. The fact that Gotti had his crew do his dirty work on his behalf was enough to put him away for life.  

There is a lesson to be learned. Teflon gets old. In time the non-stick coating wears thin. Multiple tiny scratches allow the subsurface to show through. Stuff eventually sticks. And all the spray Pam and plastic utensils in the world cannot prevent its evitable replacement.

The Fire

I live in an English Tudor that was built in 1929. It has charm. It also has old house issues. Among them is the steam heat---it is uneven. Some rooms are cozy and warm and others are a bit nippy. My bedroom is one of the nippier ones. So about 13 years ago we installed a pellet stove in my bedroom. Wood pellets are automatically fed into freestanding fireplace. The resultant fire provides clean wood burning heat and ambiance.

On a Saturday morning around 7 am ten years ago my husband woke up and said Get out of bed and get the kids too—the stove is on fire. And I looked over at the stove and I could see small flames shooting out—it was not an Oh my God the house is burning down!! type fire—but it was indeed a fire. We needed to call the fire department. And while my husband used the fire extinguisher to snuff out most of the flames and dialed 911, I ran to get the kids out of bed. I was the safety officer.

Now I didn’t want to seem hysterical to the kids so I first made a general announcement in a calm tone—Girls-- everybody up. There is a small fire in my bedroom, go downstairs to the family room.

Briana and Kara did as they were told but Samantha did not move. So I went to her bedside and said something like quick baby girl get out of bed-- there is a fire—the firemen are on their way--you need to go downstairs and wait in the family room while I stay here with Dad. To which she answered in her 14 year old sassy tone: What? Are you serious? It’s 7 in the morning. I am not getting out of bed. Wake me when the firemen get here.

And then I lost it: Get out of bed NOW--What part of there is a fire do you not understand?—go downstairs and take the dog. So in the most annoyed manor she got  out of bed and said I am going to put the dog in the basement—I can’t stand hearing him bark so early in the morning. Again I said there is a FIRE—you can’t put the dog in the basement--what if the fire travels?—how will we get the dog out? And she huffed and said Fine. But I am not going to be responsible for him—someone else will have to.

And the entire Garden City fire department came (they were bored—there are hardly any fires in Garden City) and made sure the flames were out. Some of my neighbors gathered on the street. My girls watched MTV  in the family room totally unperturbed by the all the commotion. And when the firemen left, Kara or Briana asked—Can Dad get us Mc Donald’s for breakfast? We didn’t eat yet.

Sometimes mothers question their parenting. This was one of those times. I couldn’t decide whether I was a bad mother who had raised egocentric children or I was a good mother who raised secure children who trusted their parents’ ability to deal with disaster. All I know is that my husband bought everyone Mc Muffins and hot cakes with sausage---and then he went to the office. It was tax season after all.

I never used the pellet stove again. I was too afraid. I enjoyed its decorative value until about a month ago when I decided to rip it out and replace it with a sitting area with a couch.

When my husband painted my bedroom this past weekend he noticed something-- the radiator was not completely turned on. It had been like that for almost 20 years—since we moved in. And when I woke up this morning I thought I was going to pass out. My bedroom was like an oven. My bedroom was nippy all these years because the heat wasn’t fully on.

Who knew? I never needed a pellet stove in the first place. I saw my breath in the morning for all those years for no good reason. Samantha could have slept late, Jasper could have not barked and we could have eaten Eggos for breakfast. And I never would have pondered my parenting skills—or more accurately--pondered them one time fewer. But I wouldn’t have had all this to write about—so I guess we are just about even.

Choosing Between Apples and Apples

When Briana was deciding which college to choose it boiled down to Bucknell or Richmond. Each school provided the academic program she was looking for---business and dance. And the profile of the student body was also the same. The experience in the classroom and out was undetectably different. So the decision was difficult. It was choosing between apples and apples—Macintosh versus Cortland—discerning between the mildest variation in taste and texture.

After my back to back weddings, the question that inevitable came up was how did the two weddings compare with each other? Because even though each was a separate event, there is a natural tendency to do side by side accounting. People wanted to know which wedding was the winner.

My nephew’s wedding was wonderful. The priest who performed the mass and ceremony was warm and his homily was heartfelt and wise. One could feel the enthusiasm and love of the bride and groom—it permeated the entire day. And all the extraneous things: the fashion, the flowers, the venue and the food were elegant-- yet not overly opulent. The setting was relaxed and somewhat bucolic. Everyone who attended truly wanted to be there—it was not an obligation to be fulfilled. Everyone enjoyed themselves. I loved it. I thought it was perfect.

The second wedding—the client wedding-- in contrast was very different. It was held at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. The bride and groom were slightly older—both lawyers who met on the first day of their college orientation. The bride was Jewish and the groom was what my Aunt Jackie would call alta-Italian—high class Italian Catholics. The ceremony was nondenominational. The bride and groom wrote their own vows which evoked both laughter and tears. It was beautiful—candlelit and the New York skyline at sunset. It was very urban and opulent. And even though I was there out of obligation and not desire, I loved it. I thought it was perfect.

Because Bucknell and Richmond were so barely dissimilar in all the important comparative things, Briana made her decision based on a very significant yet seemingly insignificant thing: her hair. In Virginia her hair would likely frizz up on a routine basis where as in central Pennsylvania, where the humidity was less of a climatic factor, her hair would remain straight and smooth. Hair was the determining factor---it was a quality of life issue.

And I suppose if my hand is forced to choose between each perfect wedding of course I must choose my nephew’s---not because I love him and he is family-- but because at his cocktail hour they served mini hotdogs. And they were delicious. I ate several. Because it just isn’t a party without the mini hotdogs---or at least that is what Briana says.

Our GPS World

The following conversation is not uncommon to hear: How did you get there? The response: I don’t know. I used the GPS.

There was a time when people actually learned which roads went where. They looked at maps. They understood how to go north, south, east and west. And friends and relatives were known for either giving really good or really bad directions. And of course the downside was that people got lost—which produced another level of anxiety—fear of getting lost or the fear (many men had) of asking for directions. I believe that is why gas stations were so strategically placed—gas station attendants were designated living compasses. And if the gas station man couldn’t help you it didn’t matter –all gas stations sold maps.

And in the 90’s with the advent of the internet, we got lost less often—we used Mapquest. Mapquest told us exact mileage in between turns. It told us whether to bear right or bear left. And one of the best features was the calculated ETA—estimated time of arrival—which was always wrong because it assumed that one would never encounter a red light or a stop sign. But because the printed mapquest directions were still a map of some sort—active participation in the direction finding was still necessary. One had to know what road one was on to determine where to go next.

In 2003 when my husband bought his Lexus I fought him not to spend the extra money on a GPS system. I thought it was unnecessary. I thought it was a device that would be more of an annoyance than an aid. I thought it would be like my father’s 1986 Chrysler New Yorker that would tell you a door is ajar—to which my father would say no a door is not a jar, it is a door. The car’s ability to “talk” got old really fast.

But I quickly embraced the GPS—especially since its life entry coincided with the start of college visits for Samantha. The Lexus took me all over the place—and to places that I would have been too scared to travel to had I not had computer navigation. And for our cars that didn’t have installed GPS, we purchased a Garmin. We were omni-navi.

But GPS has its flaws too—like I would have liked to have told it to avoid the high crime areas in Washington DC when I was traveling with Sam and Briana to GW University. Or that traveling through Manhattan from the midtown tunnel to the Lincoln tunnel up 34^th Street at 5:00 pm is not going to take 14 minutes—pick another route. Or that the upper level of the GW bridge, despite the allowance of trucks, seems less treacherous than the lower level.

When my husband and I headed out last Saturday night for wedding #2 we encountered a little problem with our navigation. The first one was an input error—we needed to travel to Washington Street in downtown Brooklyn—not Washington Avenue. And that would have been easily corrected if Washington Street was in the GPS system---but it was not. And that is greatest problem with GPS—sometimes it is unaware of the road you need to travel on. And my husband was not familiar with that area of Brooklyn so personal knowledge was of no consequence. So we looked at the enclosed directions from the venue and used the GPS to get to one of the streets-- but again once there, we were unable to figure out which way to go. We were lost. And now we had to think old school style—but there was no gas station to pull into. And then from the bowels of my brain I remembered that we had an option. We could call the venue, give them our coordinates and get directions from a living person. And we did. And we arrived in minutes. It was amazing—no technology was necessary—okay well yes, I guess the cell phone counts.

When Kara went to Chicago this summer I had her write down the address of where she was staying and the phone numbers of her friends on a piece of paper for her pocket just in case she lost her phone. I also told her that she and her friends needed to pick a spot in Grant Park to meet at a certain time-and if she was lost she could ask the policeman. She was amazed that I could think of such creative options—they weren’t . It’s what we did prior to cell phones and GPS.

Hagstrom was the largest map and atlas company in the country. They were founded in 1916. They are now out of business. No one uses maps anymore. And no one knows where they are at any given moment either. If I tell my kids to go east on Old Country road they have no idea what I am talking about. And so too if I ask them the phone number of their best friend—without the contact list on their  phone they are clueless. Technology has consequences---and I am not sure they are always so good.

Barbies and Ken

I have never known any little girl who did not enjoy playing with Barbie dolls—myself included. And it is not uncommon for those same little girls to own multiple Barbies---there are so many to choose from. But what is uncommon is for little girls to own multiple Kens. Little girls only need one Ken—or in my case one G.I. Joe (that belonged to my brother) to live in Barbie world.

Elaine is a best friend. We met because life kept putting us in the same places at the same time: Cathedral Nursery School, Locust school, and on walks with strollers. It was actually my mother who noticed Elaine—she said I keep seeing this nice girl who looks like she could be your friend. And she was right. Elaine and I became fast friends.Aand Samantha and Amanda (Elaine’s daughter) became fast friends too. And Stephen, Elaine’s son was Briana’s age, and so they became friends. And my 3 girls and Amanda and Stephen played famously together.

The 5 kids often wrote plays. And Stephen had to play all the male characters. It was a lot of pressure for a little boy. He had to play the father and son and brother and policeman and serial killer and victim all in the same performance sometimes. . And when he forgot a line he had four girls to answer to. And trust me, these little girls had high expectations--their wrath was swift upon misspoken errors. They attacked like cobras—only more deadly.

But they also loved Stephen and appreciated his artistic contributions. And one year on Halloween he reaped the reward of all the henpecking. Stephen dressed up like a Quarterback, and Amanda, Samantha, Briana and Kara were his private cheerleaders. The girls each wore the same outfit: navy blue skirt, white Keds, pigtails with blue ribbons, 2 blue and white pom-poms, and a white sweat shirt with giant felt letters: SP (Stephen’s initials). And at every door during the treat or treat process, people would ask What does the SP stand for? And the 4 girls would point to Steve and say we are his cheerleaders—the SP stands for his name. And the people would say to Steve—Wow aren’t you lucky to have so many girls cheering for you! And Steve would shake his head and smile. It was good to be the quarterback. This was a role worth playing.

And the funny thing is that even although Stephen did not grow up to be the quarterback, he did become one of the most valuable players on the Garden City high school football team. He won numerous awards. He played in college. And he also grew up to be very comfortable around women—girls flocked to him like bees to honey.

Ultimately being the Ken doll as a little boy proved to be quite beneficial. Stephen has grown into a kind and empathetic man. And my girls—since they had no brother of their own, got a taste of what it was like to grow up with a boy around. None of my girls were shy in male company.

And even though each of the 5 kids aren’t as close anymore— their lives have meandered in different directions-- the memories of those days remain close to their hearts. And not a Halloween passes that one of my girls does not remind me Hey Mom—remember that year when we all were cheerleaders for Stephen? And I giggle-- say Yes-- and thank God for all the good times---I thank God for the blessing of good friends--- and little boys and girls who grow up too fast.

Feathers and Words

In the movie Doubt, the priest tells the story of how he told a parishioner to open a pillow up to let the all the feathers blow into the wind. And when the pillowcase was empty, he then told the parishioner to collect all the feathers. And the parishioner told the priest that she could never retrieve all the feathers---they had scattered too far. And the priest said that is what happens when you release your words---they scatter and change the landscape.

I am very cognizant of this when I write. I understand fully that my thoughts, once read, touch people---and whether they laugh or shake their head in agreement or not, they are forever changed. Words count. A bell cannot be un-rung.

Yet the inability to un-ring a bell does not presuppose malevolence.  Because there are all kinds of bells—church bells, wedding bells, fire bells, school bells and liberty bells. Bells are important. Bells are designed to provide information. They allow people to pause—and plan a direction.

I use allegory to transduce my experiences---good or bad – funny or not--into meaning. And while I would like to think I write purely for myself---that isn’t 100% true. Sometimes I write for my audience—I write in the hopes that my words may affect change. I write so that an unretrieved feather might arrive at a destination better than the status quo. I write in the hope that my words prompt improvement---even if the improvement is a mere giggle for the day.

So. Until I run out of thoughts to convey I will continue opening pillowcases. Because the  answer to the question Does a feather caress or irritate?  is that that is the choice of the feather’s recipient---- not the person who set the feather free. The benevolence or malevolence of words depends on how we choose to internalize them.