FIreplaces and Wood Stoves, what's not to love?

Every house I have ever lived in has had a fireplace. At least the ones I remember. The remodeled chicken coop I lived in until I was 4 may not have had one, but then it was constructed out of pretty old and dry wood. It probably would have gone up like a match. All of the other ones, however, have been enhanced by the presence of a warm and glowing spot in the living room.

The fireplace had special importance attached to it when I was a kid. Every Sunday, or most of them, anyway, my dad would put a substantial piece of steak on a special grilling rack with a long handle, and he would work culinary magic over the fireplace logs. If we were really out to have a good time, we would cook either popcorn or marshmallows over them, too. The popcorn usually signaled a session of home-movie watching, while the marshmallows were just good sticky fun.

In high school I lived in a fabulous Victorian farmhouse with 12-foot ceilings and two fireplaces, back-to-back, in two joined parlors. Pocket doors separated the spaces, but I don't ever remember them being closed. At any given time in colder weather the fireplaces would be blazing away. This was partly for aesthetic enjoyment, but mostly because the big old place was almost impossible to heat. We would bundle up with a blanket or two and plunk ourselves down in front of the warmth, watching the crackling flames and  feeling the heat on our faces. It was a gathering place out of necessity, but that didn't make our enjoyment any less measurable.

When I first started living on my own, I searched for apartments in old buildings, mostly to find an abode with a fireplace. In some of those apartments it would have been courting disaster if I had actually piled up some wood and found a match, but I enjoyed the possibility if not the reality. When my husband and I  finally got down to some serious house-hunting, there was no way I would have even considered a home with no fireplace.

When we first found our wonderful old stone foursquare, built in 1900, we were delighted to see that it not only had a fireplace, but it had originally been a coal-burner, and had some beautiful cast iron grates and covers. They were great to look at, but we really enjoyed the open fireplace as a room-warmer. Once again I had settled in a great old house with little to no insulation. It wasn't too long before we found a fabulous used wood-and-coal burning stove to insert into our lovely fireplace and vent up the existing chimney. The flue has since been replaced.

When our children were babies I can remember a night in the middle of winter when we had no power for close to 24 hours. We set up lots of blankets and a sleeping bag or two and everybody slept on the living room floor in front of the stove. It was an adventure, but not necessarily one I'd like to repeat. I did love the coal aspect of the stove, however. One good load of coal would burn for up to 16 hours, keeping the whole house toasty. Of course, as I was the stay-at-home Mom, it was my job to stoke the thing, and shovel the coal, and empty the ashes. I felt like a pioneer of sorts.

That stove still sits, 30 years later, in my living room fireplace, and still is used (though only with wood nowadays) quite regularly in the winter. It does a great job of warming the front half of the house, and works nicely as a spot for a kettle of piping hot water for tea or just to add to the humidity. It has been cooked on once in a while, again when the power goes out. That still has a feeling of adventure to it, though I am happy it doesn't happen often.

Recently my husband and I have opened the conversation on retirement, and the downsizing that seems to go naturally along with it. I easily admit that our large house needs a lot of maintenance, and that we probably should look for something smaller and less difficult to care for. No matter where it is, or what style, or what age, there is one item I refuse to do without, and that is the fireplace. I do not, mind you, want one of those phoney-logged electric or gas fired things that are in so many newer homes. They look nice, but serve no purpose and have no aesthetic variety in their looks.

No, I want only the real thing, with a pile of wood outside and a stack in the living room. I will still enjoy crumpling up the old newspapers, putting on the kindling, and adding just the right logs at just the right time. Not only does a fireplace bring warmth and comfort, but it includes with it a big batch of family memories, and waits for more moments when gathering with long, skinny forks and a bowl of marshmallows is still very tempting.

Grown-Up Bullying

There is a tremendous amount on the news and in talk shows lately about the epidemic of bullying going on in the United States today. The things that children are doing and saying to each other are horrifying, and yet we can't seem to put a finger on the causes of these horrible behaviors. Also, there is no shortage of people who will complain about the behaviors, but entirely too few who are willing to step in and put a stop to it when it is happening.

I have spent a lot of years studying and teaching psychology, and way too many years being the parent of a child who was bullied, almost to the point of suicide. I was lucky, I guess, in having the knowledge that my local school district would do nothing to help, so I quit wasting my time trying and transferred both of my children to a tiny private school, where there was zero tolerance for any form of bullying. It drained us financially, and got rid of any college funds we might have had, but we were rewarded with healthy kids who are doing well as adults. Thank you, scholarships and loans!

This essay, however, is not at all about the failings of our school systems, and the inability of adults to intervene when desperate help is needed. Those are problems being dealt with on an enormous scale right now, and I hope some corrective measures will develop as a result. What I find myself angry about at the moment is based on a psychological maxim that most adults have yet to learn - that children don't do as you say, they do what you do.

Now I will break one of my most basic rules in the design of this blog, and that is to never talk about politics. I am completely fed up with the way we "adults" practice politics in this country, and in the way the current candidates for office have run their campaign advertising designs into a bullying contest, may the meanest liar of them all be elected!

Where on earth do we get the idea that we must teach our children to treat each other with basic courtesy and understanding, even if we do not agree on some point or other, while at the same time we are name-calling and back-stabbing at our fellow adults in nonstop election TV ads, posters, radio spots, or speeches. This candidate calls his opponent an "ignorant airhead," while she fires back that he is a money-grubbing tax hog.

Another one insists that his opponent has misused public funds and lost thousands of jobs (Gee, it seems the economy had nothing to do with it - I wonder where he put them?). Then that ad is answered with the accusation of harboring aliens. Personally, I thought all of them had been corralled into Area 51.

I have heard more taunting, character assassination, name-calling and truth twisting in the last couple of months than I would expect in an average lifetime. The candidates have done a magnificent job of showing our young people that the one with the most capacity to bully is the one most likely to win. Every election season we make a big deal out of the problems with negative campaign ads, but every time that season rolls around again, we don't make it clear to our candidates that we won't tolerate that kind of behavior in the adults we are supposed to respect.

There are only a few days left in this election, and voting is already underway for this year's races. It may be too late to do anything about it this time. The next time there is an election, why don't we try something really radical - the first time we see a negative campaign ad, call the offices of the candidate running the ad and let his campaign workers know that you will not vote for that candidate unless he/she stops that kind of campaigning. Encourage everyone you know to do likewise. Tell them you don't care what the other guy did, you want to hear exactly what this candidate is going to do to make things better.

If an ad does slip through the radar and appear when the youngsters in your household are watching, take the time to let them know what a despicable thing it is to dump one's insecurity and small-mindedness on another human being instead of learning to deal with it in a positive and responsible fashion. Explain that only those with a very poor opinion of themselves try to belittle anyone else, to try to make themselves feel better.

Children are way smarter than we are. Without our bad behavior as an example, they might just learn to get along with one another instead of looking for any differences as a reason to bully. Political meanness is just as poor a behavior as schoolyard meanness. We all need to take a quick look in the mirror to see what types of grown-up activities we silently condone. Those are the behaviors the kids will learn to copy.

Leaves and cool breezes

I love fall. It is probably my favorite season of the year. As soon as the temperature dips into the low 70's and 60's, I come alive. After this summer, when it was above 90 in Philadelphia for 53 days, it would be a relief to sit in the shade and have 80-degree breezes wafting over you. I can't remember a summer when I was less productive. Anything I could get done while sitting in an air-conditioned house on a nice, comfy sofa was all right with me.

I did crochet four baby blankets, for various new babies in our circle of friends and family. It did get warm, as they were in my lap while I was finishing them off, but at least I didn't have to move very much. I also worked on and finished three small paintings, so I guess I was more productive than I felt.

But now that is over, and now fall is beginning to set in. I have energy to get up and do stuff. That is, to do stuff that takes a certain amount of physical exertion. The paint cans will come out and I will finish the painting of walls and doorway that I started last fall in my sun room, which is also my front porch. When I am done there, I will head up the stairs and paint my bathroom, even tackling the sponge effects that I am determined to get on those walls. I am equally determined to not have to pay someone to do this.

The other stuff I have been doing is the best stuff for my mental well-being, and that is the task of throwing out. I recently found boxes in my garage labeled "Halloween," and knew that if I opened and inspected the contents I would find something to keep, but I did it anyway, throwing out two of the three boxes and their contents. For me that is a major victory, and one which will continue through other containers and their mystery contents until it gets too cold to spend time on the porch or in the garage.

On days when cabin fever sets in, and it does at least once a week, I am determined to get in my car and drive out into the country, looking for mountains, rivers, and lakes touched with yellow and gold and the deep green of evergreens. I am happy to have a nice new camera, so my internet friends will get a glimpse of fall in Pennsylvania, which can be pretty spectacular.

Fall is also a great time for walks. I am thoroughly annoyed that I have to deal with nerve damage in my legs, making it less than comfortable to go on any long treks. However, short walks and walks in the woodsy and lake-dotted areas not far from my home are still a possibility. I find myself wishing I had my wonderful Irish Setter that accompanied me through middle and high-school years, as she loved fall walks and playing in piles of leaves, looking for whatever live toy might be lurking.

The true sign that fall is setting in is the bringing inside of the first large canvas bag of firewood. My neighbor has a wood-lot way up in the mountains, and supplies us, for a fee, with perfectly aged oak logs, cut to match the interior measurements of my wood stove. Soon it will be stoked, kindled and lit, and the neighborhood will catch the scent of burning wood and household warmth. Then, of course, we have to think about winter.

Outside the Lines

I seem to have been in one of my more philosophical moods today, actually for a few days. It is probably due to the cloudy and wet weather we keep having. I have also had the occasion to be in quite a few lines over the past week or so, which got me to wondering about them, and observing how different folks handle the process of being in line.

I have come to the conclusion that our lives are indeed made up of a series of lines, literal and theoretical. The most literal, right from the start, is that line which initially attaches you to your female parent, known as the umbilical cord. Even though it has been shown many times on TV and in educational films that either the physician or the midwife or the male parent makes a show out of severing that particular line, for some families it seems that the scissors never completely worked. I have had personal experience with individuals who are still firmly connected to their "original line." They are not considered well-adjusted.

We learn in preschool or kindergarten to wait in line, whether to get into the classroom, go for recess, get lunch, use the restrooms, or be dismissed for the day. This is also the first place we learn about another, paper-associated line. That would be the thick black line drawn around everything that exists for the application of color in art class. It is the line within which we must always keep our creativity, according to the art teacher. Some unknown disasters await the poor soul who dares to venture outside those lines with a wayward purple crayon or too-wet paintbrush.

Later in school the lines of people take on more significance. We line up for every activity with our best friends, or with friends we would like to acquire of the opposite sex. We line up at school dances: boys on one side and girls on the other, and most of them stay in those lines for the entire duration of the dance. At late-teen and later adult events we are introduced to "Line Dances," which seem to be specific for each song played by a knowledgeable DeeJay. There is always one person in these lines who has perfected each dance, and shows off that perfection with a real flair. The rest of the line is inevitably confused and conflicted, feeling out of line physically and emotionally.

As adults we are introduced to a few too many lines, from the movie theater to the drugstore to the sale at the department store, to the acquisition of groceries on a Saturday afternoon. Those lines are sacrosanct, with firm unwritten rules about maintaining the exact place one has in the line. Anyone choosing to invade any one of those lines is in for a battle.

A recent line I experienced was a reminder of an earlier time, when I had first stood in line at the Motor Vehicle Bureau and waited to take my driver's exam. I passed the first time I took it, so there should have been no anxiety about standing in that line again, but I felt the walls close in on me as I was waiting, not for a test, but to get my license renewed, and a new photo taken. Somewhere in another place I am certain there is someone who is pleased with the photo on their driver's license, but it has never been me.

I was in line this time, however, with an interesting group. I went to a small, out of the way office, thinking there would possibly be no line, but what I found instead was a group of six or seven folks waiting for new photos, all over 55 years of age. I haven't a clue why we all ended up together at the DMV on the same Tuesday afternoon, but we formed an instant friendship and told funny driving and photo stories for the twenty minutes or so I was there. I do know people my age who hate lines, and hate waiting, but I really think the majority of us are just pleased to have an opportunity to stand among friends, waiting for whatever is in store. The prevailing attitude is as follows: as long as we are stuck with it, we might as well make it enjoyable.

As for those other lines, the paper-based ones, I have to let you know that in the first formal drawing class I ever took, at a real art school, the instructor made a loud and definitive point that there was never, never, never a line around anything we might see in nature or the world around us, so he was not ever to see a line around any single object we might create in pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, or any other medium he could recall. The result of an outline was to be a failing grade.

This came as a shock and a relief to me. I was always the one with the wandering crayons, purple or otherwise, and I was thrilled to know that I was right in following the edges of my objects outside those claustrophobic lines. Needless to say, I got an "A" in that class!

I like to find morals in things, and by now you have probably figured out that most of my little meanderings here have some sort of point to them. This one is simple: when learning about lines as a child, the people lines are flexible, while the art lines are not. As an adult, the reverse is true: people lines are absolute and not to be tinkered with, but they can be fun if the right people are in them. Art lines, however, have all but disappeared, leaving a free-formed beauty to nature and our surroundings.

Something to mull over in your spare time, possibly while standing in line?

The Mushroom Factor

I live in a house that was built in 1900. From 1900 to 1975 it was a rental, and had, I am sure, some very interesting tenants in it. We are the first actual owners on the deed, and as a result have needed to fix a never-ending list of problems with electricity, plumbing, walls, plaster ceilings, old ugly wallpaper, asbestos-wrapped pipe insulation, water seepage from under the basement, rebuilding a front porch, adding a family room, rebuilding the kitchen, twice. The list goes on forever.

There is one fact that I have discovered while renovating and repairing this great old house. That is that any given project will take approximately three times the expected amount of time to finish, and will cost up to ten times more money than estimated. This has been referred to as The Mushroom Factor, and is evidently a known part of owning an old house. Take, for instance, my dining room light fixture.

We had only been in the house for a couple of years when we decided to have our first fancy dinner party. Actually, my husband thought I was nuts right off the bat (did I mention I was pregnant?), so it was I who gathered my strength, planned a menu, and got the place cleaned and ready for company. As I was setting the dining room table the morning of the event, one of the light bulbs in the hanging fixture over my head went out. Okay, I thought, this is no big deal. I'll get a light bulb, climb on a chair, and fix it.

Well, the first thing I had to do was run to the hardware store and get some light bulbs, as we were out of the ones that matched the fixture. Then we had to move the table and most of what was on it to reach the light. As my husband (face it, we do need them for the menial chores) was changing the bulb, a bit of plaster plunked down from the ceiling onto the table. As a result, I climbed onto the table and tried to clear away any problem plaster that would potentially wreck my perfect table setting.

There was only one small glitch. The plaster in the ceiling surrounding the base of the light fixture was wet. Not soaking wet so you could see it from a hundred yards away, but damp enough to point to a problem leak somewhere on the second floor. At that point I took everything off of my table and pulled down all of the remaining soggy plaster. Then I went upstairs to see what was going on. I now had a three-foot in diameter hole in the dining room ceiling, and a similar amount of soggy plaster on the table.

It didn't take much searching on the second floor to discover that the drain pipe from the bathtub had a leak. To get to this leak it looked like we would have to pull up the tub, break through the concrete base under it, and figure out which section of pipe was about to be dripping on my party. So I called a plumber. He arrived quickly, but refused to touch anything wet until the electricity under it had been disconnected, so I called my electrician. By now it was after lunch time, and getting dangerously close to the appointed dinner hour.

It took the electrician only a moment to disconnect everything, and happily the plumber found the leaky joint without having to break up the entire bathroom floor. Before he left, I had the electrician hook up the light fixture once more. The ceiling, however, was still in the middle of my dining room table.

Believe it or not, the party was not cancelled. I still had the dinner guests arrive as scheduled. However, the style of the evening changed considerably. We had a lovely buffet set up on a couple of card tables in the living room, and we all ate on our laps. It's a good thing we have understanding friends, but then, most of them live in old houses, too.

There is, I guess, a moral to this story, and it comes in the form of a quiz:

Question: How many people does it take to change a light bulb in an old house?

Answer: The two owners, a plumber and assistant, an electrician, and eventually a plasterer and painter to complete the repairs on the ceiling. Mercifully, I have completely forgotten how much this all cost us.

By the way, I wouldn't trade my old house for anything. As of this November, we have been in it for 35 years. We have rebuilt most of it at some time or other, but the best things we have built are 35 years worth of memories.

Mom, you would like this

In about five minutes it would have been my mother's 91st birthday. I have thought about her a lot this week, as I do every year in late September. She and I spent a lot of our lives trying to figure each other out, and disagreeing a majority of the time. This does not, however, mean we didn't love each other.

As I got older, and she got more mellow, we came together in pretty spectacular fashion. A strong friendship developed, and we had tremendous fun delving into artistic endeavors and intellectual discussions. One chat in particular that I remember had to do with the brain structures that could lead to a sense of humor, and how they could possibly develop. Yeah, deep stuff like that.

I am sure that everyone on this planet has a slightly different behavior style with his or her parents, and that in itself is quite wonderful. We have an infinite ability to adapt, it seems, and to develop a relationship that works best for us. For me this is probably best exemplified in the fact that I finally learned never to discuss politics or religion with my Dad!

Evidently neither did Mom. She admitted to me and my sister, after he had passed, that she had voted Democratic, or even Independent, in a number of presidential races, without ever mentioning it to anyone. Especially not the staunch Republican she was married to!

I am now in the eldest generation of Moms in the family, along with my sister and sis-in-law, and we are all quite similar in our parenting styles. There are four Moms in the next generation, and more to come. I wonder if they will find some new literature that they will swear by in the rearing of their children. For my mother it was Dr. Spock (no, not the guy from Star Trek), and for me and my generation it was Hiam Ginott, Rudolf Dreikurs, and many others. We were smart enough to pick out the parts we agreed with in various theories, and toss out the rest with the disposable diapers.

There do seem to be a few universal truths that go along with being a mom, and as my kids are now into their thirties, I think I might just have enough experience to share a few of them with you:

1. No matter how old you or your children get, a part of you will always treat them like they are about to enter first grade.

2. No matter how much experience you have in any particular area, your children will still look it up on the internet after you have given your best advice.

3. There is always a day in your child's life where you will look at him or her and silently think, "I can't believe you are going to wear that!"

4. A child's hair grows more rapidly than that of adults. Therefore, when children decide to either to a) shave their heads, or b) dye their hair bright purple, it will grow out faster. It is important to remember this when viewing the new style for the first time.

5. Any daughter's skirt that is deemed an appropriate length by her mom will inevitably be hiked up a minimum of six inches the second that daughter is out of sight of the house. This is accomplished by rolling up the waistband so the daughter looks like she is wearing an inner tube under her sweater.

6. If a child arrives home after school with a black eye and a smile, it is best not to ask any questions. They will most likely be answered anyway by the principal when the office calls.

7. Any child who promises to forever and ever look after the needs of a pet is lying. This is not a purposeful thing, it just works out that way.

8. Most children will not take a) their special blanket, or b) their pacifier to college when they leave home for the dorms. This may be a difficult decision, but the odds are in favor of separation, anxiety or not.

9. Every child will have at least one serious relationship with a partner that you hate. Not mildly dislike, but hate. It is imperative that you keep your mouth shut or you may find yourself a mother-in-law to the creep.

10. If you learn to trust your children, they will become trustworthy. If you are constantly suspicious of their motives, they will go out of their way to prove you right. If you are not trustworthy, they will behave like you no matter what stern lectures they are given. If children know you can be trusted, you will find them telling you plenty of things you would probably be much happier not knowing.

11. In spite of all of your efforts, it is probable that your kids will grow up to be smart, kind, funny, hard-working and appreciative adults. You have official permission to ignore the amount of therapy needed for them to get that way. This therapy can either be for you or for them, or both, for that matter.

I am convinced that there isn't a more rewarding job in the world than being a mom. Maybe being a grandmom, but I haven't tried that one yet. For right now I have an endless supply of love available to both of my kids, and an ever stronger appreciation for the hard work my Mom did to help me and my brother and sister reach adulthood intact. Happy Birthday, Mom, and I miss you.

Eyebrows, love 'em or shave 'em off

I was looking at a political ad this afternoon. Yes, it is that season, and I am already sick of the ads for various politicians, or against various politicians who are all evidently spawn of the devil. Negative ads make me furious. That, however, is not the point I am here to make. In this particular ad there is a likable enough gentleman who wants very much to be the next governor of our state. I have no problem with that, at least none that I know of yet.

My problem is that the whole time he was talking I couldn't take my eyes off of his eyebrows. They didn't match. One was sort of tapered and rather long, from the edge of his nose out to the side of his forehead, where one would think eyebrows would go. The other one looked sort of like someone had pinned a piece of carpeting to his face. No taper, no particular shape, just a lump of an eyebrow. I am certain he had some very important political-type things to say in his ad, but all I remember is those eyebrows.

I don't know when I started noticing eyebrows, but it must have been a very long time ago. Back in the late 1960's and early 1970's I went to art school in Chicago, and had an instructor whose eyebrows almost defied description. They sat on top of an astonishing amount of electric-blue eyeshadow, which of course made them stand out more than the usual amount, but she had decided that whatever brows she had been given by Mother Nature simply wouldn't do, and had shaved them off. The jet black, painted on variety that she had replaced the originals with had an arch that rivaled St. Louis, and were a full half-inch above the natural brow bone. This gave her the look of a startled circus clown. Not what she was going for, I am certain.

That was one of many fashion eras during which many women thought they could improve on the looks that nature had bestowed upon them, and a lot of eyebrows were shaved in the mad dash to paint incredibly skinny curves where nice, natural brows once adorned nice, natural faces. That is not to say that Mother Nature doesn't ever screw up. I have seen perfectly lovely girls with eyebrows a grizzly would be proud of.

Many years ago I worked as a representative for a well-known brand of cosmetics, and was one of those gals you see in department stores doing makeup on willing customers. It was a fun job, except for the lingering allergy to all perfume. One afternoon a mom came to me with an entirely miserable-faced young girl of about 13. The kid was adorable, but had a definite problem. She had what is kindly referred to as a "unibrow," one long hedge of en eyebrow, with no discernible break in the middle.

The poor kid was distraught, and that's where I came in. Up until that point her mother had been convinced that she was way too young to pluck her eyebrows. Happily, Mom asked me for my opinion. I gently explained that the hair would not grow back in twice as thick (old wives' tale), and that the resulting uptick in her daughter's self-confidence would be more than worth a couple of minutes of discomfort. I sat the teen in my magic chair, and in a short moment had cleaned up the mess. I gave her instructions on upkeep, and sent off a grinning youngster and very relieved mom.

A friend that I recently worked with sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. She has no eyebrows. I haven't a clue how they disappeared, but there is no sign of any hair growth above her eyes. The hair on her head seems fine, and is definitely her own, so the missing eyebrows are a mystery. I don't think she has eyelashes, either, so some sort of physical disorder has robbed her of her brows. That is not the problem. The problem is with me. I am too chicken to say quietly to her, "could you let me take just a moment and show you how to draw very natural looking eyebrows on your face?"

She has drawn her brows in a single wide line, one line for each brow, and it really is distracting. She is an attractive person with a wonderful personality, yet it drives me crazy knowing she could look so much better with just a minute of cosmetic education, and an education I am well qualified to provide. But, again, I am a coward. I am so afraid of hurting her feelings in some way that I guess I prefer for her to remain imperfect. Silly me.

As certain as I am that a sizable segment of the population needs instruction on eyebrow shaping and maintenance, I am just as certain that my intervention is probably unnecessary. In some cases it most likely would be entirely unwelcome. Therefore, I will keep my opinions of eyebrows to myself, and my offended aesthetic sense well hidden. If the worst thing my probable choice for governor has to deal with is an imbalance in his brow structure, this state might be in pretty good shape.

Victoria, keep your secret to yourself!

I watched a horrifying Victoria's Secret ad a little while ago, and I am still mad. Picture, if you will, a group of underwear-clad lovelies talking about loving their bodies. They are all painfully thin, with ribs showing and gaunt faces. No one who truly loves their body would starve it down to boniness. While some other companies are making a valiant effort to come to terms with the bodies of real women, Victoria's Secret is steadfast in their insistence that beauty only exists in a size zero. Sadly, there are still a great number of women who have been trained throughout their lifetimes to believe this.

In this country it starts very young. I have read that a significant number of 9-year-olds report that they have already been on some kind of diet. There is still an alarming number of girls who suffer from bulimia and/or anorexia. The last statistic I read said that 20% will find their disease to be fatal.

For some reason we women have been well-trained to look for self-satisfaction in our exterior, when in reality it is the interior that should be well-crafted, finely honed, and educated to respect and even like itself.

Now I will switch to the first person. Me. I am a not-so-thin woman, who wears sizes 14 to 18, depending what part of my body is being covered. I spent many years of my life as a size 5, so I have been in both places and have developed a pretty good sense of what it's like to live in both worlds. As a size 5, the primary thing I discovered is that individuals of the opposite sex think it is open season on your figure. They also assume that a large part of your brain must be missing.

I vividly remember appearing as a model back then in a fashion and hair styling competition, with a gorgeously crafted hairdo and a slinky halter-top black jumpsuit. The other girls in the show were introduced by their names, then some complementary statement about their style. When I hit the stage, the only comment the announcer could come up with was that I was wearing the "new bra-less look." I am sure the judges couldn't have survived without that information.

I spent a large part of my life hearing about what a great body I had (as a swimmer and a dancer I was pretty athletic), but very little attention was given to the rest of me. Now that I am well into my sixties, the tables have definitely turned. Actually, they started turning when I was in my thirties. I have been very active politically and socially from my late teens to the present, and when I finally started to gain recognition for my writing, I started to realize how held back I had been by the standards of beauty of the times. Nobody had expected me to have the teeniest bit of intellect.

We have come a long way since the 60's, and women are finding their way into new and better lifestyles. The understanding is out there that we should love, honor and obey our bodies. Loving them means looking in the mirror at a few saggy items, scars, and an extra roll here or there, and being happy that this body has done well by you, taken you through some tough times as well as joyous ones. It deserves respect.

Honoring our bodies means keeping them active, feeding them properly with great, fresh food. It also means not kicking yourself around the block when you eat a jelly donut. Obeying your body means understanding what it needs and following through on achieving that goal. That body is the best judge of what is good for it, and when you feel a strong desire for an activity, an escape (Calgon is acceptable here), or a splurge, go get it! Even chocolate and red wine are allowable, just not as the mainstay of your nutritional intake.

I still see far too many women who believe in the artificial standards, however. They complain constantly about their weight, while forgetting to look at the rest of their unique selves. I know I have found that when my brain is well-fed with interesting information, I tend to automatically take better care of the rest of me. This is the teaching moment: We need to stop worrying about what the advertising media and their Photoshop and airbrushed and starved role-models seem to be dictating as a reachable goal. Friends, it is not going to happen!

Having given my lecture for the day, I will jump back into the advertising world with one two-part question: When the hell are they going to wise up and start looking at the beautiful women who populate this country, in all shapes and sizes? And when are they going to decide to appeal to our intelligence? I will never buy underwear from Victoria's Secret. I don't care what her secret is.

Keep on keepin' on

I went to a birthday party today. Not for long, just to stop in for a bit and say "hello." Then a quiet ride home by myself through the country, giving me time for reflection. The birthday was a wonderful occasion, as it was a first birthday, a birthday number one for a charming young man who is the offspring of two of my daughter's friends. Many of her friends now have children, most of them less than two years old.

My family welcomed a new arrival this week, a little girl who joins a generation of little girls (with one little boy, also a year old, as the notable exception). I have a large number of great-nieces and one great nephew, most from a few months (or days!) to two years old. I am surrounded by babies.

As I mulled this over during the drive this afternoon, I started to think how incredibly hopeful these new babies can, and should, make us feel. As the media is busy loading us up with its version of the modern world, it amazes me that we still choose to bring new little people into it. If all we did was listen to the TV News, we would be convinced that our sole purpose on earth is to bludgeon, batter, belittle or betray each other, waging wars of words or ideas or weapons, hoping for some kind of meaningful "win."

Most of what we hear going on around us is interpreted by some pundit or other to be problematic. The economy is in a shambles, we are all addicted to sex, drugs, alcohol, or some X-rated internet site. Our marriages are said to be crummy, our family relationships falling apart, our generation gaps wider, and our chances for true communication slimmer than ever. This is far too pervasive for even Dr. Phil to fix.

Then why, I wonder, are we continuing to reproduce?

Maybe, just maybe, it is because we choose not to listen to the "experts," and instead to look around us and trust our instincts. Within my immediate world, and I am sure the surroundings of most people on this planet, I see diversity, acceptance, kindness, caring, humor, and a sense of responsibility toward the well-being of others. This is not a generational thing; it is a human thing.

As humans we tend, no matter what color, nationality, religious beliefs, abilities or disabilities we carry around with us, to want the same things. We want safety, a sense of belonging, someone in our lives who gives a damn about us, and the chance to prove that each of us can make a difference in the lives of others. Whether it is displayed in the truck full of food headed in the direction of those who might otherwise go hungry, or in the curious touch of one infant reaching out to understand another, we recognize our capacity to change things for the better.

Of course, the TV will continue to blare juicy details of the tiny number of humans who choose to behave badly, but we are wise enough to know they are in the extreme minority. Our behavior, the acts of a vast majority of the inhabitants of this planet, says we are better than that. We are giving ourselves a chance to continue to try to get things right.

So we keep on having babies.

Can you come out and play?

In the last few weeks I have discovered that there are two very distinct types of people in this world, or at least in the northeastern section of the United States. There are people who look for opportunities to play, and those who avoid opening up to the game.

It's not like there is a specific game involved; it is just a convenient way to describe the openness of some people to an opportunity to connect in a spontaneous and humorous way to someone they do not know. Here are a few qualifying questions so you can see if you are ready for the game:

Do you smile at people on the street even if you do not know them?

Do you talk to salespeople, cab drivers, and restaurant servers? More than telling them what you want or where you would like to go?

If you overhear a story, or part of one, on an elevator or another public place, do you finish it in your head? Do you try out more than one ending?

When you go to the zoo, do you have discussions with some of the animals? Do they listen? Better yet, do they answer? If you have never gone to the zoo, you need not read past this point.

Do you ever have conversations with inanimate objects? Again, do they answer?

I am not suggesting that you need to behave in a way that would end with you wrapped up in a nice white sheet and carted off someplace. I just want to discover those who qualify to join in with spontaneous activities, and occasionally take them to another level.

For instance, I was in Burlington, Vermont a few days ago, sitting on a huge rock in the center of town, watching the many shoppers, diners and tourists who were enjoying a sunny afternoon on the outdoor mall. Sitting quietly by myself, I took notice of the folks who noticed me, and the vast majority who didn't. Not that I am ordinarily all that noticeable, but I did have a cast on my right leg, and it was painted to the hilt with flowers, birds, ants, a caterpillar and a goldfish pond. It was definitely noticeable.

Most of the people walking by did not look anywhere near my direction. They were focused on whatever they had to do, and nothing was to get in their way. There were also street musicians out in the sun, and these folks took no notice of them, either. Sad, as a couple of the musicians were really talented.

Then there was the group who looked, stared even, then looked away as though any real connection was terrifying. They were also kind of sad, and definitely not ready for a game.

The group that took a moment or two to ask about the cast, who had painted it, how did I hurt myself, was I going to keep it and how much longer did I have to wear it, they were almost ready to jump in. There was one girl, however, who got the game going.

She had a cast on her left leg, and it was purple. She was walking with a cane, and came right by my rock. She looked directly at me, and I looked directly at her. We both grinned, and the game was on. I jumped up and started to walk on her right, so that our casts were on the outside legs. Arm in arm, we limped our way down the next block, laughing and exchanging stories of our general clumsiness and how it had led to broken bones.

People backed away from the center of the street to let us through, and many of them looked like they wanted to join the parade. We both made it very clear that something had to be in a cast for them to be full members of our marching squad. We were absolutely in sync, not only in step with our opposite legged limping, but also in attitude and ability to stick to the same story, though we were making it up as we went.

Soon we got to the store where she planned to stop, and we bid each other goodbye, still giggling at our joint predicament. I have to mention here that we had very little in common. She was about 25, I am 64. She was much taller than I am, and had broken both bones in her lower left leg jumping over her dog as he decided to stand up. I stepped on a foot that was asleep, and snapped an outside bone on the right.

She was dressed conservatively, while I was in cropped jeans and a brightly printed t-shirt. It did not matter, as we were both delighted to find someone to play with.

A good friend of mine, who I had guessed was open to games, proved to me last night that she was more than ready. She and her husband and son joined my spouse and me at a local restaurant, sitting outdoors under a tent while it rained down around us. We were there not only for the food, which was excellent, but also to support another friend who was in a German band that was serenading us, quite loudly, while we ate and yelled across the table at each other.

The rain had stopped by the time we were done, and we headed out for the parking lot just as the band struck up with the familiar waltzing rhythms of "Edelweiss." I looked at her, she looked at me, and we immediately jumped into each other's arms and began to waltz our way to the car, under the confused gazes of our husbands and her son, though he looked like he might be ready to take part. By the way, my leg was still in the cast.

We now understand that each of us is open to play, and I look forward to our next gathering, as the gloves are off, the door has been opened, and the game is underway. It should be a blast.

How do you get to be in the game? All that is needed is openness, spontaneity, and a fearless desire to connect with others. When an opportunity to play presents itself, you need to leap in with both feet. It is almost certain that someone will be there to join you, giving you a joyful moment and a delightful memory. Play on!

A Few Simple Questions

I have just been on a lovely vacation in the mountains of Upstate New York, relaxing and enjoying the incredible scenery. Places like that are fraught with one particular type of danger - they give you too much time to think. With all of that pondering time available to me, I tend to dwell on what seem to be universal questions without answers. Here are a few of the more vexing ones:

Why do people go on vacation to relax, and then spend every waking moment on some activity or other?

Why does the man who goes into spasms of delight over a 52" screen "Home Theater" television set feel it is equally important to purchase a 2" by 4" screen telephone to watch the same movies?

Why does anyone wear 5" heel, pointed-toe shoes? I studied ballet as a kid, and I know how much it hurts to walk on my toes.

I know I will sound old here, but what the heck does anyone see in Justin Bieber?

Does painting an "accent wall" in your living room mean that no one will notice the rest of the walls? Does that mean you don't need to paint them?

Why does it always cloud over on the nights when the news tells you to look for a special phenomenon in the sky? I missed all of the possible Northern Lights last week, and I will stay angry for a while.

Why are we so darned afraid of things we just don't understand? Wouldn't a little bit more education help here? And while we are on the subject of education:

Why do schools depend so heavily on standardized tests when there is no such thing as a standardized student?

Why do members of every generation think their children have lousy taste in music? Clothing? Art?

What ever happened to teaching manners?

Why is it illegal for me to damage the Mercedes (Lexus, Hummer, BMW, Cadillac) parked in the last Handicapped parking spot when as a result I have no place to park (I do have the required state tag)? All I want to do is write "not handicapped!!!" with a key on the driver's side door.

And finally:

Why do doctors not have to study nutrition in Medical School when everybody knows "you are what you eat"?

This list is to be continued as the author thinks some more.

Perfect Nails

I once had a student come to me at the beginning of a class and complain long and loudly about the woman she had sat next to on the train.

"All she did, the whole ride, was file her nails and inspect them, then file them some more. They were long and dark red and she just had to have them perfect! She didn't talk to anybody, and she never even looked out the window. All she did was fuss over those perfect nails!"

I have wondered about the conversation every once in a while, and I wonder a bit more now that I am getting older. For some reason I spend way more time getting my nails to look good than I ever did when I was younger. It is possible there are getting to be more and more body parts that are way past the possibility of perfection, so the nails are a safer bet.

A couple of years ago I had an acquaintance tell me I had beautiful hands, and that lovely complement has stuck with me. That may also be a reason to pay a little more attention to those appendages, all the way to their fingertips. I have always liked the way a person's hands expressed his or her lifestyle, and I do like to think that my hands express the diverse and wonderful life I have been able to live.

I love hands that show hard work, that are calloused and gnarled and powerful. I also am fond of the long, lithe fingers of a professional ballerina. The perfect set of nails, for me, would not be dark red, but clean and natural in length and color. I might also mention that every time I go out of my way to do a full manicure on myself (I hate having them done professionally), within 24 hours I break one nail right down to the quick. Therefore the idea of perfect nails is one I have great difficulty achieving for more than a fleeting moment.

When I think of my student and her vehement distaste for the woman on the train, one woman I know keeps coming to mind. She was a therapist I worked with about 25 years ago. At that time she was in her early forties, an alcoholic in recovery for 13 years, and divorced. She had left her husband and her children to sink deeper into her addiction, and was dealing with the death of her teenage son in a car accident. The intersection where he died was one she had to pass every day to get to work.

In spite of all this, she was wise and funny and a tremendous role model in therapeutic techniques. She made sure she was dressed well and appropriately for all of our consulting appointments. She also made sure she asked me to please put away some cold medicine I had purchased for myself while on a three-day job in a distant town. We were sharing a hotel room, and I had developed a nasty cold. After thirteen years of sobriety, she could not tolerate the presence of a bottle (it didn't matter what kind) that contained alcohol. I immediately put it out of sight. She gave me a lesson in addiction I will never forget.

My point in so thoroughly describing this woman was that she had perfect nails. They were all the exact same length, about 1/4 inch beyond the tips of her fingers, immaculately polished and buffed to a spotless sheen. I don't think I had ever previously seen nails like that on anyone, so they were worthy of notice. I gave a lot of thought to those nails when I heard of the woman on the train, and a lot of thought to the life that my friend and co-worker had lived. It is possible that the train passenger was actually my friend, but even if she wasn't, she deserved sympathy for those perfect nails. They may well have been all she had.

The possibilities are almost limitless!

For the first time in my life I am in a cast. I am thankful that it took me almost 64 years to break something, and I am assuming that it will be another 64 before it happens again. I have had bone density tests, and my bones are very strong. I just bent things in the wrong direction, added a lot of weight, and snap - OW!

At least that part is over with now, and the pain has subsided by quite a bit. Currently I am left with one very large and solid reminder that I broke a highly necessary bone in my right foot: a cast that reaches from the bottom of my toes to just underneath my knee, and is about nine inches in diameter. That kind of thing on a person's leg will draw comments.

It will especially draw comments due to the fact that I am busily decorating it with large numbers of flora and fauna, cartoon-style, and invitations are out to my many artistic friends to add to the design. It will be very bright, highly amusing, and probably a bit bizarre. Sadly, the story of the actual break is downright boring - I got out of bed and tried to walk on a leg that was totally asleep. The foot bent behind me, and the rest is history, painful history.

Once I hit the grocery store, the craft shop, and my health club the numbers of people asking "How did you break your foot?" are going to grow in geometric proportions, and that story just won't do. I have, for the first (and hopefully last) time the option to create the wildest story of all time explaining how my poor foot met its demise. The sky is the limit! In fact, the sky is also a good starting point.....

1. I was tandem skydiving and landed just below my partner so his foot came down on mine and broke it.

2. I was bungee jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York City and I bounced back up so far that my foot hit the bottom of the inbound traffic lanes just as a tractor-trailer was passing, creating extra weight at the moment I touched.

3. I was visiting my favorite uncle in Florida when I went out to the canal behind his house. As I reached the dock, a mother and baby manatee jumped out of the water to avoid a wayward motorboat. I caught the baby in mid-air, but the mother landed on my foot.

4. I was on a motorcycle, still in Florida, being chased by a mob of angry alligators after I jumped a ramp over their favorite pond. I ran out of gas and one of them bit my foot.

5. I was dressed as a clown for a local charity children's party when I happened to honk my clown-horn at the one parent in the place who was terrified of clowns. She picked up the chair at her carefully and tastefully arranged luncheon table and threw it at me, where it landed on my foot.

6. I was hiking in the northern Rockies when the wind hit a huge redwood, knocking it down. It almost missed me, but the very tip of the trunk landed on my foot.

7. Same hike, same redwood, but this time an abominable snowman who had been hiding behind the tree saw me, saw I had a camera, and smacked my foot with a broken branch just as I was about to take his picture.

8. Same forest, same tree, same yeti, but this time he was being chased by a crew from National Geographic, jumped into my arms for safety, missed, and landed on my foot.

9. At a posh resort hotel near the Canadian border, went out on my balcony and was bombarded by a flock of Canadian Geese headed for their northern home. Fell off the balcony into the hotel pool, and landed untouched except for my foot. It hit the diving board on the way down.

10. I was asked to stand in for a member of Queen Elizabeth's palace guard, and after forty-five minutes of standing at attention holding my rifle, I dozed off. As I did, I loosened my grip on the rifle and it landed on my foot. Fifteen tourists got the photo, and it will be posted on the Internet any time now.

I think ten interesting versions are enough to do the trick. Anyone who wants to ask deserves a good story, and not the "getting out of bed" blather. If they care enough to need to know the horrid details, then I feel I owe them a tale worthy of their concern. Then maybe I'll let them sign the cast.

Yes, I know they're cute.....

We have a family of rabbits in my back yard. I've seen at least one parent, maybe two that look pretty much identical, and three or four little ones. They are incredibly cute, and they are eating my flowers. I now truly know the meaning of the word ambivalent.

If I see the little babies out there, I stop everything and watch them. They are eating the dandelion leaves, plantain leaves and clover in the grass, with a little creeping charlie weed thrown in for dessert, so they can stay as long as they want. At the rate they reproduce, I figure they can beat out your average herd of goats in lawn care activities.

Then we get to the parents. I saw one of them heading for the flowers the other day, so I walked out on my back deck and decided to see how close I could get before he (or she) ran off. I slowly and quietly walked to within six feet of the animal, while it carefully watched my approach. Evidently I didn't seem very threatening, as it looked me right in the eye and turned and ate a petunia blossom, one of my favorite purple ones!

At that point I yelled something intelligent like, "Hey, you ate my flower!" and it did run off, but I am certain it was still chewing on its way across the yard. And smiling!

I should have known from experience that rabbits are masters at winning your heart, then eating everything they can get close to in the greenery department. There was a time when our family had rabbits as pets. Yes, we willingly let them into our lives!

We got two rabbits (our first mistake) from the local nature center, which assured me they were both female. One was a beautiful jet black with a white blaze on its ruff, and the other a salt-and-pepper brown with a black head. They were really beautiful animals, and I eagerly built them a nice, big outdoor hutch and put them both in.

What I didn't know, and what the nature center couldn't tell either, was that rabbits figure out what their genders are long before people can accurately discern them. We found this out a few weeks after they arrived when my daughter went out to feed them and discovered eight babies in the hutch. They were absolutely adorable with little pink ears no more than an inch long. Six were coal black like their mom (yes, she was really a girl), and the other two were silver and blonde. We kept those two, and I built two more hutches.

I also at this point built a plywood and chicken wire barrier across the middle of the original hutch, a non-verbal "no touching" order for the mom and dad. Dad ate his way through it, chicken wire and all, and they produced two more babies: one black and one brown. Those two we gave away, and I built hutch number four. Now the rule was "You can look at each other in your various hutches, but nobody is touching anybody!"

We really did have a wonderful time with them, and they lived for a good, long time. I would put up a circle of chicken wire in the yard, and plunk in a kid and a rabbit and let them play for an hour or so. Both kids and all four rabbits seemed happy with this arrangement.

I also discovered that the best garden fertilizer in the world is fresh hay riddled with rabbit poop. I piled in the hay under and in each hutch to keep them warm during the winter, and raked it into the vegetable gardens each spring. My vegetables were huge and very tasty.

The mom lived the longest, and finally went to sleep and didn't awaken at the ripe old bunny-age of eleven years. The moral is I still have a soft spot for rabbits.

So, when the wild ones enter my yard and make at bee-line for the petunias, I head outdoors and put out some carrot-tops or fresh lettuce for them, hoping to stave off the decimation of plants in the garden. I also let my weeds grow without concern, as I know that my friends in the bunny kingdom will not let them get too large. We have reached a gentleman's agreement. They will be fed, and I will keep most of my flowers.

I believe I get the best of this arrangement, as I get to watch the fun.

Next joke on me

Some of the very best stories I have to tell are in the "most embarrassing moments" category, although I have to admit I found them pretty darned funny even when they happened. For instance:

Those of you who don't know me all that well may not be aware that I spent five years of my life in the entertainment industry. Back in the sixties, when the "laugh-In" show was king, and go-go clubs were popping up everywhere, and it was still illegal to bare it all (I am eternally grateful for that), I was a showgirl and sometime comedienne at a very fancy night club in Chicago. I learned a lot of my current people skills working in that place, and I learned a heck of a lot about myself.

The club I worked in most of that time was owned by two very proper Japanese gentlemen, who were always careful to maintain an appropriate and professional atmosphere. All of us in the show were cautious to do our very best at keeping the audience happy, while keeping ourselves safe. For those of you who are dying to know, there were no poles, and dancing on the bar or tables was strictly prohibited.

We had a substantial stage on which to do our thing, and a talented band to back us up. The live music gave us a lot of energy, even at the end of a night (usually about 4 a.m.). When we had a good audience, and the band was having fun, were were nothing short of spectacular.

One of the girls in the show was a fabulous, burlesque-style stripper named Vicki. A statuesque blonde with a dazzling smile, she could do more with a bunch of veils than anyone I've seen before or since. On the night in question, it was my job to follow Vicki, and throw a little comedy into what was a decent, but standard dance routine. She had been absolutely spectacular in her turn, and I was pumped and ready to go.

Ready to go in this club meant you had to get from the dressing room to the stage, which was no small feat. You had to go through a bunch of tables on a raised platform, down a few stairs, across the front of the full length of the bar, through a few more tables, up a couple of steps, and then start your routine. I was so ready to knock 'em dead that I literally ran the full distance.

It was when I made that last turn that things started to go wrong. Ignoring the steps, I leaped for the stage and caught the toe of my shoe on the very edge of the last step. With the full momentum of my lengthy gallop behind me, I went flat on my face and slid the full length of the stage on my belly.

Now here's where it gets interesting. I realized, very quickly, that I had a choice to make. I could lie there and start bawling, which would certainly be understood by those present as a reasonable alternative. I could stand up , brush myself off, and spend the next few minutes picking splinters out of my stomach. Neither of those options seemed particularly acceptable in the rules of showmanship.

What I did do, quickly but carefully, was lift up my head, smile at the very confused and anxious young man sitting next to the corner of the stage, and say, "I always like to start off with a bang!"

I honestly forget the rest of the show, but with that smile and comment I knew I had the audience on my side, and they were terrific from there on. It took my poor belly a bit longer to recover!

I think there is a life lesson in there somewhere. I have always been a glass-half-full, make-lemonade sort of person, and I would much rather laugh at something than sit and feel sorry for myself. I don't have any great insight into how I got that way; it just seems to have shown up on the list of my personality characteristics.

That's not, however, the only point. From that moment on I have thought carefully about what I present to the world around me, whether it be class content in a Sociology lecture, a therapy session for an adult addiction unit, or a corporate presentation. In any situation where life demands a performance, I am determined to start off with a bang.

So far it's working!

This Old House

I am finding myself in the position of needing to seriously consider giving up my wonderful old house. We have lived in it for 35 years come November, and I am ready to admit that it is just too much to maintain, to care for on a day-to-day basis. It is three stories, with five bedrooms and over 3,000 square feet.

The history of our house is kind of fascinating, as it was built by the contractors that built close to a hundred stone houses, of many different sizes, in the town we call home. It was originally a company town, owned by a great big outfit that made, of all things, asbestos. Yep, we are a Superfund Site.

The houses are of different sizes and shapes according to the status of the employee that lived therein. There are a few very ornate, huge places on one street that were obviously the executive homes, then came the management or supervisors' homes, three floors high and 30 feet square, dotting streets all over town. Finally there are sections of large, somewhat ornate row homes, for the factory workers. All of them are way beyond any middle class homes being built today.

Ours is one of the middle-management houses, though actually owned and maintained as an income property by the builder instead of the company. For that reason, our house was rented from 1900, when it was built, to 1975 when we bought it. We are honestly the first owners on the deed.

We purchased the place as a handyman's special, and I truly think it still qualifies! In the first few years we were here, we put on a new roof, redid all of the plumbing (probably lead pipes wrapped in asbestos!), bought a new furnace, put in a sump pump, and started the rewiring of everything. Walls were falling down, ceilings had gaping holes in them, and there was 6" of water in the basement every time it rained.

My kitchen, in need of a current remodel, was originally almost non-existent. It consisted of four bare walls, each painted a different shade of yellow, one built-in storage cabinet, and a metal base with a one-piece ceramic sink and drainboard on it. When we were in fix-up mode my mother decided she would clean the kitchen floor, and she gave up after carrying out and dumping 42 buckets of almost black water. I built our first "real" kitchen, myself, out of Sears do-it-yourself cabinets, which I learned how to hang. I also cut the counter tops and laid the floor. Geez, I wish I had that kind of energy now!

We rebuilt many of the walls and went through buckets of spackle. Paint soaked right in to the old plaster, so many coats were needed. In my kids' rooms, I put up very strong vinyl-coated wallpaper, which is still there. I know I will have to remove it soon, and I also know that most of the walls will come down with it. Home Depot knows us on a first-name basis.

The exterior is all stone, beautiful old Pennsylvania fieldstone, quarried right near town, and lovingly mortared and stacked by a stalwart group of Italian stone masons, imported by the original asbestos company. It has stood for 110 years, and is not going anywhere.

The landscaping has been lovingly accomplished, with trees coming and going, and a carefully built collection of perennials forming a colorful blanket all summer long. My favorite tree is a forty-foot oak in the back corner of the yard, planted gently as an acorn by my five-year-old son. I moved it once, and spent a few years dutifully picking off some bugs that had invaded the leaves. My baby boy is now 32, and it will hurt to leave that tree behind.

Where the tree now sits used to be a ten-foot wide, two-foot-deep pit of sand, ringed by old tires, where the neighborhood kids all gathered and played. I dug it out and filled in the sand myself, all two tons of it! It was a lot of work, but for years I knew where all of the kids in the neighborhood were - in my back yard!

We made a major change to the interior about eight years ago, when we built a twenty-foot square family room onto the rear of the house. The back wall is full of windows, and the ceiling peaks at 11 feet. Happily I had studied architectural drafting in art school, so I was able to develop the plans myself. That room had been in my head for about ten years before then, so I had little trouble with the design. I now spend the major portion of my day doing something-or-other in that room.

There are, as I mentioned, five bedrooms in the house, which are now serving as repositories for the 35 years' worth of stuff we have accumulated. We are in need of a visit by the "Clean House" people. It's not as bad as the homes they show, but it wouldn't take long to get there. I am a collector of many lovely, meaningful things, and my husband collects junk. Of course, he would see the situation turned around.

That's the scariest part of looking at a smaller, cheaper home. What the heck will we do with the stuff? I am in the very slow process of sorting things out, and have managed to throw out more than I thought I could, but we have a long way to go. I was the executor of my parents' estate, and the one who cleaned out their house. I swear I will not leave anything like that for my kids to deal with!

Plans are to stay where we are now for another five years or so. I figure that's about how long it will take me to clean up and sort out our stuff. I sincerely hope that timeline doesn't get shortened, but my husband is in the construction industry, and there is not much going on in that industry right now.

I am mentally getting prepared for this whole process, and have even figured out an area where we could comfortably move, and a much newer house style that I would enjoy. That being said, I think it will take me at least five years to get ready in my heart to pack up and start elsewhere. The most important things for me to take? That's a no-brainer: the memories.

In the Realm of "Be Careful What You Ask For"

I have a lovely friend who knits. She is actually the mother of one of my closest friends, and I guess by osmosis or some other process she has become my friend as well. She is in her mid-eighties, and, as I said, loves to knit. She makes wonderful pure cotton knitted washcloths and gives them out for use by her best buddies. I have been lucky enough to receive a number of them, and they are incredibly soft. Nobody else in my family can use them.

But I digress. A few of years ago I took her to a local book store for her birthday. It is something I like to do with friends, and something they seem to like as well. In this case, she picked out, for her present, a terrific book of knitting patterns, of everything from fancy sweaters and baby clothes to charming knitted animals.

As she refused to get the book as my gift unless I picked out something in it that she could make for me, I leafed through the stuffed animals and came across a very cute little duck. It was bright yellow with an orange bill and dangling orange feet, and I thought it would make a good addition to my collection of stuffed pals. The one thing I did not do was look at the pattern and see what size it actually was.

The whole time she was making it I kept hearing from her daughter that she was regularly cursing out the pattern she was working from, and how very difficult it had turned out to be. I couldn't imagine how a little (I figured maybe eight or ten inches tall) innocent duck could give her so much trouble. Then she finished it, in time for my birthday.

We met with her daughter and son-in-law, again in our favorite bookstore, and I was startled to see the size gift bag she carried. Then I dug into the bag and pulled out "Duckie," named after my favorite NCIS doctor (I am addicted to that series), or maybe because he was a duck. I had to laugh. Duckie was easily two feet tall, and a bright enough yellow to make up for the cloudy day outside. In addition to the brilliant lemon-hued body, his bill, legs and feet were the brightest orange yarn I had ever seen. All of that was topped off by two big black eyes, and somehow he seemed to be smiling. No, grinning!

I took Duckie home and gave him a place of honor atop a sofa in my family room. In spite of the amusement and occasional horror on the part of some visitors, he remains there, four years later. He has become a part of the family.

Oh, and to top things off, for Christmas that year my friend asked me what she could make for me, and I told her Duckie was cold sitting right in front of a bank of windows, so he needed a sweater. She dictated the measurements to take, and I gave her the numbers. By a few days after Christmas, Duckie was wearing a brilliant blue, green, and matching yellow ombre sweater, a perfect fit.

I am so very lucky to have the friends that I do, stuffed or otherwise! I don't know how many fellow adults would understand that I truly did want a silly yellow duck as a part of my home's decor, and that it was equally important that the duck be warm and comfortable in a custom-designed sweater. My best friends are those who easily come along on my little adventures, without ever asking why.

No, dementia has not set in, and I am not certifiable. I simply value the dedication to silliness in those closest to me. It is keeping us all smiling right along with Duckie.

P.S. - His best friend is a tiny bear dressed in a pink bunny suit. They are inseparable.

There's Something About Water

I just returned to my lovely old (110 years old!) stone house in suburban Philadelphia, and am longing to get back in my car and spend another 2 hours driving right back to where we just spent a week vacationing. There is a quiet, all-residential island off of Atlantic City , NJ, and I've been lucky enough to find a delightful 3-bedroom ranch house for rent right on the bay side of this island. No, it's not an ocean view, but somehow the connection to some other land form, even if it's a couple of miles away, makes the island even more desirable. It's as though we could silently thumb our collective noses at the rest of the state, letting them know we want nothing to do with their hustle and bustle and noise.

A week is never long enough for me. I wish we could take long, drawn-out vacations, but I haven't hit the lottery yet, and must settle for what we can afford. It's obvious that other people think houses next to the water are something special, as the rental rates are steep, and the waiting lines long.

Happily, the only company we had all week was a flock of sea gulls, silently perching on some old wooden posts connected to the sagging dock next door. There was also an occasional egret and some other feathered friends I couldn't identify, but they all seemed perfectly comfortable sharing their favorite spot.

The tide came in and went out, changing the landscape in sometimes startling ways. The miles of marsh land covering much of the way across the bay would virtually disappear every dusk, with only tiny patches of greenery poking out of the still waters. By morning they would be back, almost coating the full distance between our lovely house and the rest of New Jersey. I wished I had the patience to watch the whole process, but I could only manage a glance every once in a while.

Other inhabitants include a large number of turtles, who occasionally decide to march from one side of the island to the other, creating no end of traffic problems for the humans. One waddled out in front of me this week, and I stopped my car, got out, picked it up, and carefully plunked it in the grass on the far side of the street so its journey could continue. I didn't realize I was being watched, but applause broke out as I finished my task, from a smiling elder gent who had been weeding his gardens. It was nice to be appreciated, both by the turtles and the locals!

I do love this island, but it is not my only vacation spot each year. The other favorite is a lake in upstate New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. We rent a wonderful house there, on the water, for a week later in the summer. The lake water has a completely different character to it, and is inhabited by ducks, loons, an occasional cormorant, and a bevy of misplaced seagulls. They arrived out of nowhere about twenty years ago, and never left. I like to wonder where they hide in February, when the ice on the lake is 8 or 9 inches thick!

There are also plenty of fish in the lake, where my husband's efforts from our dock on the island have led to little more than a few crabs grabbing his lure, only to let go as they leave the water. In the lake, you can stick a safety pin on the end of a string, bait it with a piece of corn or a Cheerio, and you will catch yourself a sunfish. I know, I have done it, at about age 6.

You honestly couldn't get two more diverse vacation spots, but the feature tying them together is the water. It's slow, deliberate rhythms, whether they be tidal or created by a passing wind, are soothing to the greatest depths of one's soul. A quiet cup of tea in the early morning shared with the rising sun and the barely audible slipping of the water in and out of the shore line can start the most difficult of days on a gentle, determined note. The closing of each day is made calmer and sweeter by that same sound and an always spectacular sunset, perfectly reflected in the water.

I have lived in many parts of the country, and have taken trips to many others, but there will always be a preference in my heart for a place where there is water. It could be stream or a pond, a lake or a bay or an ocean, but for the time I can spend on its shores, somehow, it will become mine.

Electronic Blues

Tomorrow I will go to the cell phone store. I have been told I am due for an upgrade. This includes a new phone for free. I am dreading the visit.

What? Getting something for free that is newer than what I have now? Dread? I must have a screw loose somewhere, you might think. The dread comes not from what I have coming in the way of opportunity. It is solely because I will have to learn to use the darned thing.

Last year I got a similar message, and I went in to see what was available for me in the way of new and beautiful cell phones. Before I go too much further I need you to understand that I am not brand new to this portion of the electronics explosion. I have had portable phones since the early 1990's, when they were called "bag phones," weighed eight or nine pounds, and took up the same space in your car as a passenger.

I have had flip-phones, flat phones, and fancy phones. They have been delivered to me in blue, silver, multi-colors and black. I have avoided pink. I have taught my octogenarian parents how to use cell phones. My phones have been extremely complex in their capacity, and here is where the problem lies.

Last year when I went to get "upgraded," I was very clear in explaining to the clerk at the cell phone store what I did and did not want. My phone did not need to do the following:

A. Make movies

B. Take photographs. I have a very nice camera for those two items.

C. Translate what I say into fourteen different languages, including ancient Greek and Welsh. Almost everyone who speaks those is dead.

D. Automatically test my blood sugar. If I were diabetic I might appreciate this, but I am not.

E. Provide me with detailed road maps of the continent of Antarctica, in case I should want to go penguin filming, or something similar. I hate being cold.

F. Give me access to the fishing charts of the Atlantic seaboard. If I did fish, and I have not done so since I was 12, it would be in a lake or a stocked pond. I see no reason to go 15 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in search of the perfect tuna. My grocery store has them.

G. Access my email the second it is delivered to my inbox. I do not want to get all of my forwarded jokes dumped into my cell phone, which will alert me to their individual presence with an incredibly annoying ring tone. I wish to read them at my convenience and in silence, please!

H. Allow me to watch movies. Why anyone would grab the opportunity to view "Avatar" or "Midsummer Night's Dream" or any Bruce Willis classic on a 2" by 3" screen escapes me. I am a fan of Imax, not I-miniscule!

What I do want, ever so much, and what would make me happy, is the never-wavering capacity to make a phone call, from my phone to another phone. Don't tell me the subscriber I am trying to reach is being searched for. If it's my husband (and it usually is), he is probably playing a video game on his Blackberry, and you are allowed to interrupt that activity so he will receive the call! Needless to say, this capacity is not always available.

Oh, and quit telling me my new phone is free if I have to pay for it and wait 3 to 6 months for a gift card to come in the mail. If I have to pay for it, it is not free. The gift card is because of your guilt in charging me for all those $&*#&%!! applications I will never use, and is directly in proportion to the number of pages of directions I will have to decipher before getting to the incoming and outgoing calls. And by the way, I only need the book in one language.

Those of you whom I call regularly, you now know why you will not be hearing from me for the next few weeks. If you really need to talk, call me on my home phone. It never needs charging, and is always in the last place where I hung it up. It has a cord.

I am currently sitting at a large, armoire-type piece of computer-holding, file cabinet, storage drawered, shelved furniture. It is substantial, and it is somewhat impressive. The impressive part is that I put it together myself, with instructions by IKEA.

I have discovered over the 36 years of my marriage that any piece of furniture that arrives at my home in a large, flat box will be put together by only one member of the family, usually me. The other members are only allowed in an area beyond an approximate three-mile radius. The one who is putting the furniture together (me again) is allowed a full weekend to complete the project, during which he or she is also allowed an unlimited number of the following:

1. Stitches

2. Well-placed curse words, uttered with emphasis

3. Alcoholic beverages, to be ingested only after 90% of said furniture is completed

4. Trips to the hardware store to find a screw that almost matches the one you lost

5. Trips to the drug store for pain killers and bandages

6. Trips to neighbors' homes or yards for momentary consolation

7. Trips to the doctor for item #1

8. Loudly uttered congratulatory phrases from others upon completion of the project

With that in mind, let me tell you about putting together my computer desk, which is what it said it was on the box. The one that I saw at IKEA about four years ago was very nice, went with my old house and its furnishings, and couldn't, I thought, be all that hard to create. After all, I had constructed a couple of IKEA tables, and a few chairs. This should not be all that different.

In fact, I lied about the one box. It took two boxes to hold the pieces of computer desk which was to adorn my den, and a third box to contain all of the hardware components. The first two boxes were very large, and incredibly heavy. The third was small, and heavy. My first project was getting them from my car to the second floor of my house. Since all other family members had been banished for the duration of my "build," I was on my own.

Happily I had discovered the "Thump and Twirl" method of stepping a large box from the back of my car to my front porch. From there a bit of "Shove and Slide" technique got the vast weight up the steps and into the house. Going to the second floor next meant going up a two-step landing, a nine-step slant of about 45 degrees, another landing, and five more steps to the top. This necessitated a "Flop and Drag," followed by a "Shove and Grunt," back to a "Drag and Scream," and ending in a "Slam and Jam."

Then I took a nap.

After the respite, I opened the boxes and dug out the directions. I will say that IKEA directions are relatively easy to follow, at least when compared to some furnishing items I have received with directions that have obviously been book-translated from a far-eastern dialect or two. I have been told to "place the panel marked 'B' into the slot marked with an arrow (red) and tightly move into position over the panel marked 'C', holding while firmly placing screwdriver into screw marked 'M' and making tight."

This particular set of directions was a source of laughter for many months after the project was completed, mostly because none of the pieces were marked, and following the directions invariably led to an impromptu game of "Twister." When played alone, that game can get more than a little frustrating.

Back to my computer desk. My simple instructions included references to more than 35 pieces of laminated wood, and a plethora of screws, bolts, tracks, runners, protective grips, door magnets and hardware. If that wasn't daunting enough, the larger pieces which had to be flung and twirled with ease, or held straight up while a much smaller piece was firmly attached, weighed an average of 35 pounds.

The directions, which took up about 12 pages, included installation of three rolling shelves, for the keyboard, printer, and an odd contraption that held the keyboard shelf. All had to have tracks and rollers installed, and then they had to fit into each other and the huge outer cabinet that held them all. It took somewhere near 5 tries to install the first track, as I kept getting it upside down. I finally got it when I turned the directions right side up.

I made it through a file drawer (five sides and two tracks, plus two edge protectors for the drawer tops and two pieces of antiqued bronze drawer pulls), a regular drawer (same approximate number of parts), then the interior-shelved storage section. I finished with a flourish the three-way divided CD and paper storage shelves in the top section of the interior, then looked at the two 20-inch by 6-foot doors which were to be attached on the front of the computer section.

These were substantial, to be put in place to close up and protect the contents of my computer desk. They were also to be held approximately 10 inches off the floor while the various screws and magnets were properly attached. These doors have since found a happy home in the back of my den closet, where they will stay indefinitely. My cabinet is doorless, and I bet the contents have not felt the least bit threatened.

I do feel a certain sense of pride when I sit down at the thing, slide the keyboard out, and begin to hunt and peck my way through a new online adventure. I am fairly sure that everything is installed right side up, that the correct screws or bolts are holding together the correct parts, and that this is a computer desk of substance. It will not disintegrate any time soon.

I finished with no stitches, no need for the doctor (except maybe for some anti-anxiety meds), and no trips to the hardware store. I lost no pieces, damaged nothing, and was able to put it all together on my den floor, so the finale was simply to stand it up and put it in place. It took me one day, but I must add that I stayed up awfully late that night.

Thank you, IKEA, for your directions, that are almost easy to understand. I have no problem patting myself on the back for the lack (for the most part) of curses uttered during the project completion. The only alcohol necessary was a large glass of wine, lifted by me in honor of a job well done (nobody knows about the doors!).

I will note, however, that no big flat boxes have been delivered to my house since.

Needs no title!

I love women. Not in the physical sense, though they are fun to look at. Not as a critic, looking over a wearer of the latest fashion, unless something about the fashion is really eye-catching, in a Lady Gaga-esque sort of way. None of that stuff is really important, when you get right down to it. And that's what women do after they reach a certain age: they get right down to it.

When I meet a brand-new possible friend (and that's the way I look at everyone these days), I have little use for the standard pleasantries. I am really no good at small talk, and that's the stuff our men-friends seem so good at discussing. How is the weather? Who won the big game? Can I borrow your lawn mower? How big was that fish? What was your last golf score? Men can spend a full weekend together and come home knowing nothing about each other.

Women, on the other hand, quickly learn about themselves and each other in a depth that sometimes startles me, but is always pleasing. Having said that, I will admit to the fact that the woman I met tonight I met because she was wearing a fabulous belt. All right, that is the standard "I like what you're wearing" opener, but it didn't stay there very long.

The friendship, which started at about 8:30 and lasted until approximately 9:15 (when I had to leave the event), took no time at all to delve into background - where did you grow up? - what era were you part of, and does it relate easily to mine? - Has your life been slow and stable, or has it been full of variety and change, as has mine? - How is life for you now? Are you comfortable, or is it a bit rocky?

It took no more than a minute to realize that compatibility was a given. I think that is because we eventually, and hopefully, reach a point in our lives where we are steady and confident in who we are as women, and as a result we no longer feel the need to compete. Instead, the desire to connect is far stronger, and the information and questions can go on for hours.

It was too bad that the event we shared held other responsibilities for both of us. I would like to have dug further into her history, asked the whats and whys of career choices and family, looked at tastes and dreams. I am sure our conversation could have gone on until midnight with neither of us becoming bored. Golf scores would never have come up.

Anyway, I hope she knows that she enriched my life with her presence, just for 45 minutes of information sharing. Women friends are invaluable, no matter how brief the friendship.

What to do

It is a beautiful, cool, breezy spring day outside, and here I sit, curled up in front of my computer, enjoying the view from my den window. The wise thing to do, one would think, is to get outside and take a long, leisurely stroll through the wonderful old town we call home. Everything is in bloom at once from a warm, wet April, and the colors and scents fill the air - with pollen.

There's the rub. The leisurely stroll would go more like this:

Step out the front door and gaze at the fifteen or sixteen tall, old maple and oak trees that are coating the street, the cars, and the lawns with yellow powder that makes my eyes water and itch just thinking about them. Strolling among them means my eyes will shortly be closed and it will take a pair of pliers and a full bottle of Benadryl to get them to open again.

In the next block there is a tall wooden fence covered with honeysuckle vines, full of lovely white flowers with bright yellow centers and a perfume that can close my throat in a nanosecond. Maybe it's because I used to eat the flowers as a child. I'm trying to recall why that seemed like a good idea. For that matter, there were a lot of things I thought were good to eat at an early age that for me to ingest now would need the help of something hydraulic. Ah, childhood.

At the end of that block there is a charming pink rose bush. The flowers are tiny and delicate, the bush has reached enormous proportions. I am actually not allergic to roses, but for about 10 years now a colony of yellow jackets has decided to dig their nest directly under that particular bush. Have I mentioned I am allergic to insect stings?

As I walk I hear the whirring and buzzing of a nearby lawn mower, taking a combination of grass and pollen and tossing it wildly into the air, for all to breathe. I figure at this point it will take about two weeks for my nose to stop running. Now the red rash and itching have started as well. The rest of me keeps walking, but with renewed strength, and in the opposite direction. I must get home!

Two of the more friendly neighborhood pups are out to play. Their homes are between me and my destination, and they are very happy to see me. Their greeting takes the form of an awful lot of jumping and licking and sniffing and leaning against. You guessed it. I am allergic to dogs.

If I do make it back from my journey still standing and breathing, I then take the front steps to my porch, where there is a particular strain of tiny, black, jumping spiders. They make their homes in the nooks and crannies of my old flagstone and concrete steps. There is not enough Raid in the world to get rid of those pesky bugs.

I am basically Buddhist at heart, and am very careful not to harm any other living thing, but one of them bit me once and put me in the emergency room. I am sure my karma is ruined for at least the month, but out comes the spray and away go the spiders.

I will finally enter my place of safety, my lovely glass-enclosed front porch. There I can sit in my grandmother's wicker rocking chair and gaze at all of the natural beauty my neighborhood can hold. It is truly the reason we bought the house, 35 years ago. I wasn't allergic to anything back then.

Of course I already told you (in an earlier post) about the family of squirrels that took up residence in the porch roof. Did I mention the starlings? They had nests there for at least five years in a row, and the adorable chirping of the new baby birds turned way too quickly into a grating squawk that was anything but pleasant, and way too constant. Oh, and I am allergic to anything with feathers.

Now that I really think about it, when we had two feet of snow on the ground, none of these things were a problem. If you heard me complain the tiniest bit about the freezing cold and the impassable roads and the awful heating oil bills, I take it all back.

Ah-choo! Sniff. Scratch.

Oh what the heck, it is awfully pretty out.