Another year of pluses and minuses

Published December 28. 2015 11:29AM

         

This is the time of year when most of us take inventory, not only of our current assets but also of our losses. Sometimes these pluses and minuses are counter intuitive, like I lost weight and gained some back, so much for my assets fitting into last year’s jeans.

That all this counting and summing up comes at the end of something we can’t change, and at the beginning of a promise we make to ourselves to do better and achieve more, is eye opening. If we’re honest we know most likely the new gym membership will lapse by Valentine’s Day, a heart box of chocolates is the last straw, and the credit card balance will continue to increase, new tires and a transmission will do that.

Each year, I tell myself that this time it will be different, but no matter how hard I try Dec. 31 does not wash away the disclaimers of the previous year’s bad behavior any more than Jan. 1 sets me up for perfection. It may take months or maybe years to erase over indulgence around the waist, and unless I feed my well-worn little rectangle of plastic to the shredder, the disappointment of financial gluttony will probably last a lifetime.

I’m not into resolutions but I am into at least researching alternatives as a result of how last year was lived.

Like, I will try to cook more. My husband does most of the cooking and he’s pretty good at it. He should be, I taught him. I will try to stick to the shopping list when I go to the supermarket but turning down a BOGO (buy one get one) on Snickers snack size has me purchasing four, though I originally intended to buy one — for my husband of course.

I will also try to be kinder, nicer and more pleasant. I certainly have no way of judging whether I am able to achieve this monumental self-adjustment because I hesitate to ask the ones I love, and those with whom I associate, “Hey, was I nicer to you today.” I mean really, what might the consequences be if I was not?

I love the holiday season but I’ve never been one to get into the whole New Year’s Eve thing. When I was younger I don’t think I ever had an actual New Year’s Eve date. I’m not sure what that says about me other than champagne, streamers and celebrating with a bunch of inebriated regretful dreamers is not my thing. Now that I am older, my husband and I fall asleep after Wheel of Fortune anyway.

One New Years’ Eve my husband and I promised our young daughters we’d stay up and watch the Times Square celebration with them. The girls wanted to see what the ball in Time’s Square was all about. I did well, a couple of cups of coffee helped, but my husband dozed on the couch up to the point when the hands on the clock hit double digits, then he conked out at full snore. The girls and I took turns trying to pitch popcorn into his open mouth. None of us made points.

For almost my entire life January has been just another month, nothing special, nothing monumental, until 2014. That’s when January presented our family with a new life, a look into the future and a clean slate to get it right. This new life, a little girl, will be 2 years old this January and has a slate so shiny and new with promise, it gleams. And her inventory, all pluses so far and forever.

There's a child in all of us

Published December 04. 2015 9:56AM

 

A few years ago I bought my nephew, the youngest member of the family at the time, a grabber-toy. It was an impulse buy of a two foot long, red and black plastic toy with a handle at one end and big silver pincers at the other. Squeeze the handle and the pincers open and close. It was like one of those picker-upper sticks senior citizens use to retrieve medication bottles that fall on the floor or cans of prune juice from the top shelf.

My nephew loved the toy, but got very upset because he couldn’t play with it, the adults took it over. Grown men fought over who got to retrieve cans of beer from the cooler without getting their hands wet. Sneaking appetizers off a plate from three feet away became quite a scene as did pinching bottoms. Finally my nephew got to play with his toy just as dinner was served. He had to set it aside until we were finished.

I always suspected, but that afternoon proved, that no matter how old we become, the child in us always remains.

I have found that when buying toys for my granddaughter I tend to lean towards the ones I know I will enjoy playing with, right along with her. A train set for little ones seems to be a favorite of ours. When I babysit at my house, it’s the bag of tracks, trains and station pieces she chooses. We set it up on the coffee table and take turns pushing the small engine around the figure-eight tracks and under the small bridge. Sydney sets up the signs and operates the gates. We both supply the choo-choo sound effects. The trick of the train adventure is keeping the characters, a little boy and girl, away from the dog, a miniature dachshund with an affinity for dropped snacks and baby toys. My floor stays clean but the poor little plastic kids already have chew marks.

This year, with this sweet little toddler in our midst, the lament to experience a train ride with Mr. and Mrs. Santa rose above the small crowd of young adults in our immediate family.

“Let’s get real,” I said to my two daughters and their husbands, “Sydney is not even two. She hasn’t a clue who Santa is.”

“But we do,” my youngest daughter, (the Auntie), said.

That’s when the child in all of us, stuck its head out of adulthood, smiled, jumped up and down and said “please, please, please can we go?”

When our daughters were Santa-age we took them to see the man in red, and his very patient wife, on a train full of little ones screaming for the big guy’s attention. Funny thing is that none of us really remember the outing. We know we went, but the kids either fell asleep or my husband and I experienced cocoa and kids overload and blocked out the event.

This year will be different, we all have cell phones with cameras to document the momentous occasion. Because I’m the grandmother I can sit back and take in the pleasure of watching the kids without having to actually act like a parent. I get to experience the excitement and the wonderment of what it’s like to believe that if you dream it, and whisper it, the special man in red can make that dream come true. And that’s just for the adults on the train, the kids, well, they already know who fulfills their wants and dreams; it’s the driver of the big brown truck who leaves boxes on the front steps.

 

Wine, water and walking

Published October 16. 2015 4:32

At the end of September I returned from a 10-day vacation in Italy a few pounds lighter than the day I left. It’s a mystery to me because I ate what everybody else ate and just as late. Try sleeping peacefully after a thanksgiving-like huge Italian meal every night. Wine at every meal, two bottles of water on every table, gas or no gas, (aka fizzy or flat), and 10 days of non-stop travel. From the Swiss Alps to Venice, Florence, Rome and the Vatican, we hoofed many miles a day. I’m thinking that the wine, water and walking was my secret weapon. Actually, it was probably the water and walking because I not a fan of wine.

My husband and I don’t travel much, (Lake George five years ago), so flying over the pond to Europe was a big deal. Because I was told Italians don’t hang out in blue jeans and t-shirts like we do, I bought a whole new travel wardrobe. It now fills my closet as a reserve for job interviews, weddings and funerals.

The last time I saw so many cigarette smokers, cigarettes cost 50 cents a pack. In Italy you can turn your lungs black for 10 times that now. Like here, you’re not allowed to light-up in restaurants, so running a gauntlet of outside smelly smokers is the norm. Unlike here, your dog, (not only a service dog but your pet), may accompany you to dinner in restaurants. The ones we saw were always well behaved, not so with some children, but that’s another story.

We started out in the north of Italy. The breathtaking mountainous vistas and villages looked exactly like every WWII movie I’ve ever watched. On the train to Switzerland the scenes were so spectacular that even though we weren’t in Austria, I half-expected to see a young Julie Andrews break out in “the hills are alive with music.”

I cannot express how beautiful Turano and the Italian Alps are. As a microclimate protected from the harshness of the high regions by the mountains, the valley was lush with palm trees and an autumn harvest of every fruit imaginable, plus miles and miles of vineyards clinging to the mountains on steep slopes almost to the tree line. My husband’s grandparents were from that area. No wonder their gardens, grapes and wine making here became family tradition.

To elaborate on the jaw-dropping scenic sights, or the magnificent artistic and architectural monuments to Italian creativity, would only serve as redundancy in regards to travel brochures. Visually Italy is indeed everything everyone says it is, spectacular, beautiful and very old with a modern mix far ahead of many.

The only serious negative I can come up is the life threatening, aggressive and absolutely maddening way Italians drive. Two-way city streets are as narrow as a driveway. Even though cars are tiny, trucks and buses are not. Put a bunch of buzzed-by-expresso Italians behind the wheels of a Fiat, throw in a couple of full-size tour buses, a handful of delivery trucks, half a dozen insane scooter-drivers, (who make the white line their lane), toss in the six of us in a nine person van with a GPS which assumed Rome, N.Y., was Rome, Italy, and you have a mix that would curl every insurance agent’s hair. It had me whimpering in the back seat.

Maneuvering the narrow mountain roads wasn’t that bad, it was worse. Imagine driving down from the summit of Mt. Washington in two-way heavy traffic at 60 mph, with scooters whizzing by, and you get a sense of how lucky I felt to be alive when I sat down to a late night dinner every night.

Italy is spectacular, we loved it. And I have the memories and wardrobe to prove it.

 

From an old piece of brass, an echo across the generations

 Published August 27. 2015 12:27PM

My mom was celebrating another birthday. I don’t remember the exact year, mid 1990s maybe and I don’t remember her exact age, mid 70s perhaps. Once you hit your seventh decade do the specifics of the numbers matter, as much as celebrating another birthday does.

 

My mother was the kind of woman who bought what she needed, and only what she wanted, if it was practical or a new pair of shoes. As her birthday approached I was at odds about what to buy her, I wanted something different, something with meaning and heart. That’s why, when I saw an old Boy Scout bugle at an antique group shop, I knew that was the perfect gift.

My mother played the bugle in the Norwich Free Academy Marching Band. After she graduated from NFA in 1939 she joined the Navy as one of the first 500 WAVES. (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She was proud of serving during WWII and often talked about playing the bugle for her country.

My mom and dad met during that war. They were introduced at a beach party in Virginia, and 18 days later they were married. Their story was legend in our family, as one of trust, understanding, lots of love and over 62 years together.

For decades they lived on the second floor above a store, in a big turn of the century house they owned on the Post Road in eastern Connecticut. Surrounded by wonderful neighbors, and a few apartments behind their property, they were a well-known fixture in town.
The day I decided to give mom her gift, my dad was working in his garden. I called him inside to share the moment, but mom was so excited to unwrap it, she didn’t wait.

My mother smiled when she opened the box. As she ran her hand over the unpolished brass surface I knew she loved it. Immediately she walked out onto the second floor back deck, and after over 50 years of not playing, touched the bugle to her lips and played “Reveille.” Red faced, and eyes popping, I thought she was going to drop on the spot. It was a rusty rendition but it was hearty. I knew my mother as a classical and contemporary pianist so to see her as an old lady puffing her cheeks and pumping her lungs was hysterical. When finished, she panted to catch her breath. Cheers and applause resounded from behind the trees blocking the view of the apartments behind their house. I yelled “thank you” and several loud “you’re welcomes” came back. We laughed so hard my mother ran to the bathroom or she would have pee’d her pants.

After things quieted down, and back on the deck, my mother raised the bugle to her lips, stood straight and slowly started to play Taps. This time the notes were clear, both in tone, and intent. Below us, in his gardening jeans, work shirt and dirty boots, my father stood at attention, looking up at us and listening. Dress whites and spit polished shoes would not have done his show of respect more justice.

Like an echo across a generation I saw my parents as they were during the last war the world fought. Young, proud and in love with freedom. Tears streamed down my mother’s cheeks as she drew the last note long and let it fade. My father saluted, wiped his eyes, did an about face and crisply marched across the lawn to his wood shop out back.
“He’s going out there for a nip,” my mom said.
The neighborhood had gone quiet. “Day is done.”

You can reach Carolynn at cp.enoughsaid@aol.com . She tried to play the bugle once. That was enough.

Memorable baby movie moments (original title)

Watching movies with young ones creates ‘baby’ movie moments
         

Published July 09. 2015 10:45

 

When it comes to watching movies my daughters and I mentally catalog those we consider required watching for females. It’s not a sexist thing, males enjoy the movies too, but we think it’s important to recognize when entertainment sends a message to girls that females are smart, strong, we’re heroes, saviors and we can have it all; we just can’t have it all at the same time.
One of the best movies to watch, for anyone who thinks they know what they want in life, and have forged a serious path toward it, is Baby Boom with Diane Keaton. Released in ‘87, it was very successful and spawned a TV show. The movie I’ve seen many times, TV show, not once.
The movie is about a high-powered woman, Diane Keaton, on a fast track to financial success within the power-brokers of a huge New York City consulting firm. She is known as the “Tiger Lady,” a take-no-prisoners member of management when it comes to making and closing deals. Due to a family tragedy Keaton’s executive type-A personally, accepts, make changes and flourishes as an accidental mother; she inherits her cousin’s 1-year-old daughter. This isn’t a movie review, it’s about how this movie, and a simple circumstance in life initiated an unforgettable moment for me — times two.
My oldest daughter was four when I slipped a video tape of Baby Boom into our late ‘80s VCR for the first time. My youngest, at not quite 2, was napping. The movie fit my mother/career and parenting philosophy, perfectly. My daughter loved it too. When the movie ended, and as the credits rolled, my 4-year-old climbed onto the coffee table, launched into my arms and we danced around the living room to the wonderful Burt Bacharach music. I cried then, because those deep emotional and connective moments with children are rare. That little girl, who held onto to me so tightly as we danced is now 30, with a little girl of her own. Where has the time gone and why are those special moments so few? Back then life for us, as a young couple with two little girls, was very hectic. For families now, moments like that whiz by barely noticed.
A couple of weeks ago, while I was babysitting my granddaughter Sydney, “Baby Boom” was on TV. I switched it on not even thinking that a 16-month-old would want, or have the attention span, to watch it. I just wanted the sound of it in the background because I was a bit weary of Curious George. That Sydney cuddled next to me for the entire movie, identifying and mentioning each time Elizabeth, the “baby” was in a scene, was astounding.
When the movie ended Sydney wrapped her arms around my neck, hugged hard and we danced around the living room, very much like I did with her mother, over 25 years before. It was a connective moment passed from one generation to the next, this empty nester felt beyond privileged to experience with the littlest member of our family. Yes, I cried again. How could I not.
Now when Sydney comes over, and even at home, she points at the TV and says “baby.” We watch “Baby Boom” often. Sometimes Syd lasts through the whole movie and sometimes only the “baby” scenes. But each time, that little sprite and I dance to the magical movie music because there’s less time to let wiz by. Soon the world will reach out and Sydney will be off to forging her own future, maybe as a high powered woman seeking financial success, maybe not. She’ll have to accept change and I believe she’ll flourish, (in a small part), because of some very special movie moments she shared with her Nana.
 

What if hippies had cell phones

Published June 29. 2015 2:59PM

 

When I think of how today’s society relies on technology, I shudder. My mind floods with the what-if-consequences of technological failure. How would we communicate, conduct business, build things, get tested and receive medical results and stay nationalistically safe in a world of horrifying threats?

 

How would we survive without our computers, tablets, Kindles, cell phones and those fancy-schmancy watches that actually tell time too? Today’s youth has been raised on the ease of communication, and social networking, and mammoth amounts of information available in seconds. We’re just now learning the consequences, both pro and con, regarding social media and its misinformation. When it’s good, it’s really, really good and when it’s bad, it’s like your best friend, told her best friend, you stole a pack of your mother’s cigarettes, and an hour later you’re trending as the youngest felon incarcerated in the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

 

This whole good and bad media thing got me to thinking, what if we had all this technological, Facebook, Twitter and whatever communication when I was a teenager. That was the ‘60s, the hippie generation, a time when we rose up against the system, made a lot of noise, and demonstrated for the kind of change, which at the time, made about as much sense as banging our heads against the Berlin Wall. Change did happen and then somewhere along the line we became the establishment. How proud are we of that?

 

But, what if in 1963, when the March on Washington was being organized, we had Facebook. When 200,000 showed up then, it was a very big deal. With Facebook, the amount of demonstrators would have emptied out half the states east of the Mississippi and the rest of the country would have been circling over Reagan airport, when it was Washington National and Reagan was "The Gipper."
 

Think of how Facebook would have impacted Woodstock, when 400,000 hippies, listened to music, danced in the mud and got high on Max’s 600 acre dairy farm on a rainy weekend in ‘69. And that was by word of mouth. With social media, it would have been over a million.

The availability of cell phone videos is just beginning to affect how we witness and broadcast events as innocuous as cute kittens stuck up a tree or as serious as Robert Burns’ “Man’s inhumanity to man.” Vietnam brought the first images of war to our TVs during dinner and dessert. I know now, what it would have looked like then, if technology had been available to the kids who didn’t flee to Canada. Maybe the war would have ended sooner and there’d be less than 58,000 names on the wall in Washington.

 

Imagine cell phone videos of Birmingham in ‘63, Selma in ‘65, or Kent State in 1970. When I think of what we would have seen on that searing day in Dallas, November 1963 my mind wretches. The Zapruder film was horrific enough.

 

To chronicle history is a good thing, I guess. To become a part of something greater than ourselves, via a device allowing us inside the lives of those we admire, is quite admirable.

 

I would have worn out You Tube after The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan’s really big show in ’64 and I would have followed the Twitter account of the Beach Boys after they appeared in ‘65. Heck I probably would have followed Ed Sullivan on Facebook.

 

We conducted business, went to school, graduated from school, got jobs, married and had kids with only a princess phone, a portable radio and three channels on TV. We didn’t need all that technological stuff then but now, it’s as necessary as pen, paper and a handshake.

 

Carolynn’s Princess phone is broken. You can reach her at cp.enoughsaid@aol.com

Keystrokes and pen-strokes

Published May 07. 2015 5:32PM

  

I love my little laptop, I love how quickly I can pay bills, communicate and keep up with family, friends, news and research. Computers and instant communication has changed our world, and there is not much I can add to that statement, other than how sad the ease of writing, by way of keystrokes, has replaced pen-strokes.
I love longhand writing because there is something wonderful about the aesthetics of well written cursive. I recently learned that many states, including Connecticut, do not require schools to teach writing and reading of cursive anymore. It is a sad commentary on what society deems as important, (a keyboard and screen), and that which is no longer necessary, (a pen and pencil).
Recently I bought a pair of shoes in a store where I used the tip of my finger to sign for my purchase on a tiny hand held computer screen. I could barely read my name, my identifier. It didn’t matter that I had spent hours and hours of my childhood learning to write cursive as beautifully as I could. Does it matter now that today’s children are not taught to write the way their parents and grandparents were taught to write? In our quick world of accuracy and instant communication children are trained to write and think fast by tapping.
My mother and father had beautiful penmanship. When I read the old letters they had written to each other while separated by WWII, I am amazed by the artistic look of each line. In 125 letters there are few misspellings and only one cross-out. Each line, well composed before expressed, was edited by heart and soul, not by spell check and backspace.

As a young girl sitting across the kitchen table from my father, as I did my arithmetic homework, and he paid bills, I disliked what I was doing just as much as he disliked his task. Sometimes when my homework was done, and he had addressed his last envelope, I’d be drawing and he’d be writing a letter. As I struggled to get just the right image, I’d watch as he effortlessly created a message esthetically impressive and emotionally perfect.
Watching his fountain pen race across the page I marveled at how each intricate swirl and line not only created a beautiful picture to look at, but that the drawings, each in their own perfect row created words like love, longing and loss. He always addressed our birthday cards and gift tags; his font was one of pride in making the most of paper, pen and sentiment. Though sometimes difficult to read because it was so elaborate, my father’s writing looked like black lace on a white tablecloth.
My mother’s penmanship, the ‘Palmer Method’ she called it, also a series of lovely lines, was easier to read and more practical looking. She was the list maker for groceries and to-dos. Hers was the hand which wrote the teachers our sick notes and penned notations on the calendar for school events. For Hallmark, my father’s writing would have been the cover of the card, my mother’s, the inside message.
My parents taught me that neat penmanship was as important as an ironed blouse and pressed seams in a pair of slacks.
“If it is a first impression, why not make a good one,” they’d say, “and if it’s not, your words should be at least well groomed.”
If public schools have dress codes, and require civilized conduct, then why not take the time, like many Catholic schools still do, to teach children to present well-groomed handwriting. What does it say about educated adults who can’t write and read cursive? It says that education failed them.
No pen and paper needed, you can contact Carolynn at CP.enoughsaid@aol.com