Movies

Off to the Bijou. Can't resist. Big popcorn with lots of greasy butter please, big Coke, maybe go all the way and get some Raisinets. It's good movie weather, with a freezing cold night, always good to be inside. Just like those way-too-hot August afternoons -- off to the movies we go.

One Thanksgiving

One Thanksgiving I got sent away from the table for being a “smartmouth” as my dad said. My brother was doing grace and I was just in a giggly mood. It was one of those, “Thank you Father for all your gifts seen and unseen, heard and unheard, spoken and unspoken, …” on and on and on. I don’t remember what I said, but next thing I knew I was spending the meal in the TV room, with no dinner. Whoops.

Another Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving I made the idiotic mistake of buying a turkey sandwich with mayonnaise in a grungy little deli in Grand Central Station on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was starving and we were going to take the train from Grand Central to Greenwich, Connecticut (we often got out at the seedy Port Chester station which was closer to our side of Greenwich) and I figured I just had to eat or I would be too ravenous by the time I got up to my parent’s house.

Can you spell s-a-l-m-o-n-e-l-l-a? The mayonnaise was bad on the sandwich is all I could figure. I was so sick, my mom said I looked green. I spent most of the Thanksgiving holiday vomiting and taking a medicine they gave me to stop me from vomiting, which, of course, I instantly vomited up. That was the big slimfast Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving That Never Was

Have you noticed that this late-in-the-month Thanksgiving has been pretty much squeezed off the calendar and the store shelves by Christmas and Hanukah? I’ve seen Christmas gifts and Christmas cards and Christmas decorations being pushed in the malls for the last two weeks. And what the heck’s with Hanukah, starting one day after Thanksgiving!? Yikes! Like what’s the rush? And then, don’t look now but Christmas is already over. I heard “Aude Lang Syne” on the PA system in a drug store the other day and thought, “Holy Ramadan, Batman, is this a new terrorist plot? Are the evil doers speeding up time and trying to confuse the heck out of all of us?” We’ll be saying “Erin Go Braless” and wearing of the green by next week if this keeps up.

River Horse

Last night, on the spur of the moment, I took my 7-year-old and his friend swimming at the health club pool and we were literally horsing around having so much fun. I was a river horse and they jumped on my back and I would gallop and sway and splash from side to side and they would yell, “Giddy up” and snap my bathing suit straps like a whip and I would snort, stop short and they’d go ass over tincup into the water on their heads. We also played surfer dude, where I’d descend to the floor of the pool, stretch out like a surf board, let them stand on me like they were surfing, until I can barely breathe and I’m almost drowning, then slowing, the board (that’s me) comes alive and I get up and toss them off again – on their heads.

I have been criticized by real grown-ups for having too much fun. Some see me as hedonistic, self-indulgent, immature, puerile and even irresponsible. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

M is for More

There’s a new magazine called “More”. You may be thinking of Dicken’s Oliver, holding up his begging bowl, “Please sir, may I have some more?” No, that’s not the idea. It’s for women age 40 and over. More. Maybe they have more to offer? Maybe they expect more? You figure it out.

They ran a interview with Cybill Shepard that was really something. She’s 53 and looks pretty terrific. They asked her how she screens the new men she meets. “People introduce me. It’s interesting trying to screen your dates over the phone. The first thing I said used to be, “Are you pro-choice?” If they said, “What do you mean by that?” I would say, “You know, I think this is not going to work.”

Then they asked her what she asks men now? “I ask if they’ve ever masturbated in front of someone. Not in the first conversation, though! If they say no, I ask how often they masturbate. If that say, “I’d rather have somebody else do it,” that’s a bad sign … Next!”

Pieman

Yesterday at work, we were given pies. Not my favorites like Boston Cream Pie or Strawberry Rhubarb or Coconut Custard. No, these were the seasonal pies – Pumpkin, Pecan and the pie of all seasons, Apple. And it was a nice thing to have a big white pie box to carry out instead of the usual stack of books, papers, manuscripts we drag home most evenings.

We had to wait in line to get these pies. In the queue which was fairly long, I was lucky to be instructed my someone wise in the ways of pies, who pointed out that all pies have a certain appropriate season. One must not be caught dead eating Cherry Pie at a random time, but it is best digested around President’s Day, when that president cut down the cherry tree and all. And of course, a peach pie just shouts late August. I could feel my skin slightly sunburned as he mentioned that obvious fact. I had to agree.

Driving home, with my pecan pie keeping me company in the passenger seat, I was thinking of a pie recipe I read once that seemed so totally depressing, I hope I never get to taste one. It was an Amish Funeral Pie, made of raisins and some spices. They had even bothered to print a photograph of it. It looked dreadful. A dark grey pie. Ugh.

I'll Stand By You.

[This was originally posted on 4.19.02. This is about my dad's death on April 9, 2002. It's for Dave. So glad he isn't facing this and his father is recovering. We'll all keep praying.]

Can I talk about this? It's a little grizzly, a little scary. Turn back now if you like. It's about what happened when my dad died last Tuesday morning (4.9.02).

Over the weekend, he had been very ill in the ICU with an infection — sepsis — which is a poisoning of the blood. It's rough. Very hard to come back from. Dire.

It makes your body shake and shiver. So my very tall, once very athletic, handsome dad, looked like a very skinny shivering rabbit, his frail paws clutching the sheets, tubes and needles and IV's and lines jammed into him everywhere. The nurses and the doctors were doing everything they could, but my dad looked more like their science experiment than a person. It was a heartbreaker.

We were there many hours, as time would melt and pool, sometimes flying by, sometimes leaden, always sad and surreal. By early Monday morning, we'd summoned all the siblings who lived out of town to make sure they could get there if they wanted to see him one last time. The doctors were still trying to keep him going, but he wasn't responding to 4 days worth of their efforts with antibiotics and everything else they could come up with. His blood pressure was something dreadful like 60/40, a number I'd never seen.

My dad, now 83, had never wanted to be on life support and we had it in writing from a time in his 70's when he was sharp as a tack. He had a "Do Not Resuscitate" order on his chart. Still, we thought we would have to tell the doctors to just give it up and let him go.

It was wrenching. It was like being forced to kill someone. My sister and I were prepared to tell the doctors Monday morning, but in fact, the doctors told us they thought there really was no hope and had we considered "comfort care" — which means letting him die naturally. They did us a favor by suggesting it and supporting our decision to do that. They let us off the hook. You can't make a decision like that without thinking, did I let him go or did I kill him?

By noon, all my family had decided together in a dingy little waiting room, decorated with someone else's lung xrays, that we should let him go. They remove all the tubes, IV's, catheters, everything. At last, he was free of all the apparatus. They gave him more than enough morphine to be very comfortable.

It was a little like inducing labor for a pregnant woman. You know what will happen, you just don't know WHEN. But as joyous as the birth of a baby can be, this waiting turned us all to stone, but we knew we had to stick by him.

We all stayed until late, but finally I was just too exhausted, so I went home around 6:00pm to take care of my son and husband. I felt like a rat doing it, but I knew I had to.

I actually slept that night — not well, but better than I expected to. I woke like a shot at 4:45am Tuesday morning. I got dressed, out the door and to the hospital by 5:45am. Per usual procedure, I had to call into the ICU to get permission to see him, but ask first if he'd made it through the night. The nurse said he'd made it through the night comfortably, whatever the hell that meant.

I went in. I was the only one there with him. He was breathing with difficulty, sucking each breathe, as if his last — which of course they were. I talked to him, held his hand, prayed. The nurse saw him stir and told me he knew I was there. At about 6:30am, his breathing slowed, and since I'd been with my mom when she died, I knew what was coming. I was just quiet with him. I told him mom really missed him, it was all right to go.

Do you wonder if there is a soul? I don't. You can feel it fly out of the room. I did with my mom. And I did with my dad. It's beyond religious. It's primal and basic. It's a lively vital force of nature that has gone out of the body it once animated. I knew when he went. I was happy for him.

The young nurse came in in a bit of a fluster. She seemed to require scientific proof. I said, "It's okay, I know he's gone." She rushed out and got a stethoscope to check his heart. I thought she was so stupid, anyone could see he was gone. It's as if we are hardwired to see death, know it and then turn away from it — tend to the babies and children with their great silly liveliness.

She nodded yes and said, "I'll get the doctor." I sat down in a chair like a lump. I was alone with him. Why me, Dad? Why was I the only one there? I suppose it was an honor, perhaps I could handle it best? I don't know. I sat quietly until the doctor came. He was kind. I was crying. He asked me to step out in the waiting room while they tended to my dad — "tended to the body", no, they didn't say that, thank goodness. A nurse let me use the phone to call my husband who was getting my son ready for school and then, I called my sisters.

In the waiting room, there was a funeral on CNN, by satellite from London, the Queen Mother had died. It was great to hear them talk about how much fun she'd had, how she loved to dance — very similar to my Dad. It was a wonderful thing to watch. I watched it for an hour, glued to it, me and Christiane Amanpour, watching the lovely hearse. I was waiting for my other sisters and their husbands to come over to the hospital. They arrived and I was glad not be alone anymore.

Thankfully

Feel so thankful for so much today. I'm especially thankful to all my friends, especially bloggers, many of whom I barely knew a year ago -- that alone seems impossible.

In church this Sunday we sang this hymn which I love:

We plow the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love.

He only is the Maker of all things near and far;
He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star;
The winds and waves obey Him, by Him the birds are fed;
Much more to us, His children, He gives our daily bread.

We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good,
The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health, and food;
No gifts have we to offer, for all Thy love imparts,
But that which Thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts.

I like to know God has a hand in what happens in our lives. I like to yield to God. I like to let God be in control, acknowledge that I am not.

I hope to drive down to Plymouth Rock on Friday with my son. It's not far from where I live. I can't imagine being a Pilgrim mom with her child, arriving on terra firma after a voyage like that, to a BRAND NEW WORLD and all the guts that took.

Speaking of Pilgrims, I'm very thankful my church, Pilgrim UCC Church, passed a resolution this weekend that we are an "Open and Affirming" church. Some of the congregation found this hard to understand -- why we need to let gay and lesbian Christians know they are safe and welcome with us -- in writing. It brought on quite a big debate. I'm so thankful for everyone feeling free to voice their opinions. Amazing to think the original Pilgrims left England because their religious freedom was threatened. They risked life and limb for that.

RSS Help

Can anyone help me out with an RSS error ? A reader named Siegfried has just emailed me about it.

Just tried to look at your rss-file and I got the error: Line 33, Column 947 with IE6 sp1

Drop me an email if you can give me a clue.

What's A Weblog?

Every few months it seems like all bloggers are called upon to answer the big existential question, "What's A Weblog?" Whether it's over a light dinner of Beef Wellington for 24 in the formal dining room after riding to hounds in my friend's weekend house two hours out of London, at 14th and 2nd waiting for the bus by the New York Eye and Ear Institute, at The Body Shop at the Denver International Airport in front of the Oceanus shower gel or simply on Sand Hill Road driving too fast in a Lexus SUV sucking down Jack-In-The-Box Cappacino shakes and tacos, or eating a pita at a lunch joint in Georgetown, the question keeps coming up. What's A Weblog? I'll try to answer it. Here goes:

1. A weblog (or blog) is a daily online diary on the Net where you write and publish at the near-same moment to a few million of your closest friends, except only about 20 people actually read what you write. Each entry is called a "post" and the person writing a weblog (or "blog") is called a "weblogger" or "blogger."

2. A blog is a love letter, scribbled on three-hole paper and scrunched up all sweaty in your hand that you try to pass to the cutest looking guy in class and he drops it and walks on it and then your friend goes to retrieve it and bring it back to you, unread while you die a thousand deaths.

3. A blog is a new medium as new and weird as the novel was a few hundred years ago. It's a medium that has embedded news, non-fiction narrative, fiction, poetry, graphics, music and most importantly hyperlinks to all other media which gives it its quintessential differentiating characteristic -- it can NOT exist outside of the web. It's a purely networked form. Writers love it because (oh shit, shall I spill the beans, it's EXACTLY how they think and experience the world. Scary, eh?) Talk about baggy monsters.

4. It's telepathic training wheels -- that is, it's a very early stage on the way to the REALLY big next big thing -- brain-to-brain telepathic transfer. Bye bye telephone, bye bye writing, bye bye fortune cookies, bye bye every other way you used to communicate. Blogs open up people's minds, you travel the road with them, see it all through their eyes. It's all we've got now, but soon enough we'll all be in bed with each other, embeded with each other I mean.

5. Blogs are embarrassingly textual and visual now, but will soon be audio/video. Don't hold it against them. They're trying to get there asap. You will hear them talking soon. Yes, that A/V guy who was a putz in 8th grade will be king. Just get used to it.

6. Blogs are one of the last places where you can still tell the truth.

7. Blogs are one the first places where women are finally telling the truth.

8. A weblog is good way to make friends, visit friends, love people and not leave your house.

9. A weblog is my head, open to you, day and night, at your convenience. Come on in. Please take your shoes off at the door, I hate having to vacuum after you leave.

10. A weblog is watching brains at work, especially watching brains with the ultimate prosthetic device -- everyone else's brain and the whole net connected. Weblogs let you watch people learning at lightning speed. Awesome to witness.

[Bloggers I forgot to link -- forgive me! I could link about 50 more brilliant folks but running out of room and time. You KNOW who you are.]

Come, Come, Come

I'm listening to Donna Summer singing a pretty racy disco classic and thinking, where have I heard this before and it escapes me. She is saying that "come" word a lot, and saying it in a pretty explicit sexy way. And I'm thinking, hell, isn't this a cover of someone else's song? Man, who the hell wrote this? (It's almost as overt as "Love To Love You Baby," where this good girl gospel god-loving gorgeous woman gave us the closest thing to an actual audio orgasm recorded to date. Hell, you can practically hear the pillow-jamming, toe-curling, head and hair-tossing, mascara-smearing moment of truth.

But that song ... I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but then it comes to me in a flash ... It's called "Could It Be Magic" Yikes, it's Barry Oh-So-Unsexy-To-Me Manilow!! But he sure can write a song, I'll say that much. Now I know what those matrons on tour buses to Vegas were getting so excited about. Oh, Barry, "Lady, take me high upon a hillside. High up where the stallion meets the sun." Oh, yeah.

"Spirit move me every time I'm near you
Whirling like a cyclone in my mind
Sweet Melissa, angel of my lifetime
Answer to all answers I can find

Baby, I love you, come, come, come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby, I want you now, now, now, and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last?

Lady, take me high upon a hillside
High up where the stallion meets the sun
I could love you, build my world around you
Never leave you till my life is done

Baby, I love you, come, come, come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
And baby, I want you now, now, oh, now, oh now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last?

Could it be magic?
Come, c'mon, c'mon, come oh-oh come into my arms
Oh, let me know the wonder of all of you, all of you
Baby, I want you now, now, oh now, oh now and hold on fast
Oh, could this be the magic at last?
Could it be magic?

Come, c'mon, c'mon, come oh-oh come into my arms
Oh, let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby, I want you now, now, oh now, oh now and hold on fast
Oh, could this be the magic at last?
Could it be magic?

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Something going on over at Rageboy. He's behind the wheel. That alone is terrifying. Okay, where will we go? And love? A girl uses her imagination. You know what they say, "A woman out walking is a woman walking easy."