To Downsize or not to downsize, (original title)

House stuffed with family memories

Published 10/03/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 09/30/2013 05:26 PM

A friend of mine went from a large home with four bedrooms to a more manageable smaller house with three. Another shed four acres, a formal dining room, five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths and a two-car garage, for a double-wide with a carport.
It's called downsizing and it's something I want to do - now. Problem is my big house is full, not only with rooms of furniture but with people. The people, children with spouses, I'm not worried about, they're looking to upsize just as soon as they can, it's the stuff we have accumulated which concerns me.
We have lived in this house going on 10 years but a lot of the stuff we brought with us has been around for the more than 30 years we have been married. Do we really need my husband's beer stein collection stored in Huggies diaper boxes? They were packed away when the spare room in our old house became a nursery 29 years ago. To be fair, somewhere there's a demitasse spoon collection of mine which has more than 300 spoons from all over the world. I haven't seen them since before I was married but I feel an odd kind of comfort in knowing they reside somewhere near the beer steins.
My attic looks like the local town's transfer station on a Saturday morning, without the big green dumpsters.
It's like an archeological dig up there, the floor sectioned off by kid and college year; books and bedding tells me who and when, by how far back the piles reach. I have half a dozen sets of extra-long dorm sheets for the years our children actually lived on campus; a new set each year was mandatory because color tastes changed and lack of laundering habits did not. There are comforters, clothes baskets and enough plastic bins to fill the storage aisle at Wal-Mart - actually they came from Wal-Mart.
We have funky multi-colored lamps and a papa-san chair that went from dorms, to apartments, and back to the attic so many times that I'm not sure where it is now, probably in one of those big green dumpsters.
Adding to the college flotsam and jetsam are the good, the bad and the totally unnecessary detritus of four households. Our daughters and their husbands have stored their accumulations up there while their upsizings have been put temporarily on hold. Our mound of still-sealed boxes from our move a decade ago remains stacked in a corner alongside a few leftovers from my mother-in-law, may she rest in organized peace.
I want to rid ourselves of our stuff.
The plan each year has been for all of us to proceed to the attic to peruse, sort, throw away, and organize. Attic cleaning is tricky though, it cannot be effectively accomplished in any season other than late fall, although late spring might work. Summer is too hot; the decorative Christmas candles became lovely red and green blobs sprinkled with silver and gold glitter. Spending time up there in July would be deadly. Winter is too cold. I'm sorry but wearing my down parka, gloves and a scarf are more conducive to snowshoeing than attic cleaning; three pair of snowshoes are hidden up there, too.
If I think about what actually has to be accomplished regarding the cleaning, editing and organizing of the attic, basement, closets, cabinets, drawers, cracks and crevices we have filled with the tangible collected memories of our lives, the task is daunting. I might actually consider staying put until my leftovers are stacked next to those of my dear departed mother-in-law, may we rest in peace in hoarders paradise heaven.
Enough said.
CAROLYNN PIANTA HAS ORDERED A DUMPSTER. EMAIL HER AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM

Hello, is anybody there...press 1 (original title)

Patience is a virtue when it comes to customer service

Published 09/19/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 09/16/2013 01:06 PM

 

I'm a pretty easy-going person. I smile at old people, which means I smile at people my own age. And I'm nice to little children and animals, having had my share of both. At the Motor Vehicle Department I show respect for the people behind the counter who must deal with an arrogant public, we have a chip on our shoulders because we're on-guard against the difficulties inherent with anything smacking of government bureaucracy. I don't have a chip. I'm not like that. I'm nice. I follow the rules and if someone treats me badly I write a scathing letter no one reads.
A few minutes ago I got off the phone with a very nice lady named Michelle at the Social Security call center in Baltimore. I know it was Baltimore because I asked. I like talking to Americans when I have a problem, frankly I like talking to anyone if I can understand them, especially if their aim is to provide service to this customer.
I once had a nice conversation with a guy named Rich at a call center in Texas. I can't remember why I was calling him, to me cable, utilities, government services and Peapod all sound the same. All I know is that I could barely understand a word that sweet Texan was saying. I told him I'd call back. I never did.
Because the wait time was over 45 minutes, Michelle, the Social Security agent, was calling me via the Social Security call-back service. I needed her to explain my Medicare status. Yeah, scary, I qualify now. Let me be clear here, if you want an example of government bureaucracy at its finest, just try using Social Security's automated phone system. It has a menu of options twice the length of a Ruby Tuesday's menu; you don't get garlic biscuits while you wait either. Michelle was helpful sort-of. I have to call back in two weeks because she didn't have an answer.
A few months ago my husband and I were getting phone calls originating from Vermont asking that we answer health questions for a survey sponsored by the state of Connecticut. If the state of Connecticut needs health questions answered by its citizens then why don't they have Connecticut citizens asking the questions? I'm sure they can find a few unemployed college students with cellphones and free time that would love to call. I'm not college-age, but pay me and I'll call, I'm great at being nosey.
Years ago when we were setting up a computer for the first time we had to call the company's help desk.
Let me tell you, help desk is a misnomer.
The wait was an hour. No call-back service from them. My husband held the phone to his ear until someone finally came on. He handed the phone to me, I asked the question. The operator guy said he knew what the problem was and he could solve it promptly, but that he was not allowed to answer because his job at that moment was to route incoming calls to the correct departments. One of those departments was actually his, when there was lower call volume.
"Please answer, we've been waiting an hour on the phone."
He said he'd lose his job because all phone calls were being monitored for training purposes. I handed the phone to my husband. The call got rerouted. Twenty minutes later guess who picked up? In less time than it took him earlier to explain why he couldn't answer, he answered, problem solved. I think his name was Rich and he probably works for Social Security in Baltimore now.
Enough said.
EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM

A natural casing full of homemade tradition, (original title)

Family tradition moving from one generation to the next

Published 09/05/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 09/03/2013 01:07 PM

 

They took over my kitchen, five men, cutting, grinding, spicing and packaging 115 pounds of homemade sausage.

It's a big deal, this sausage making, not because the process is laborious, though it is, and not because it's touchy, because it can be - it's a big deal because it is tradition times three generations.

I first witnessed the whole sausage-making process more than 30 years ago. My husband and his cousin, plus a couple of friends, took over the basement in our former home. A meat-cutter by trade back then, he directed the well-oiled, or should I say very lean, series of steps creating one of our family's favorites.
Knowing what goes into your food is a big deal nowadays. It was back then, too, until an evening of sausage-making ended with one of the sausage-makers minus a Band-Aid and no way of knowing which batch it went in. The mini-patch was never found and the four families involved some 20 years ago all survived. Now the makers remove rings and scrub to the elbows like a specialist prepping for surgery.
The meat grinder is a microwave-sized piece of machinery weighing well over 100 pounds. Now that the sausage making takes place in our kitchen, the grinding behemoth has to be carried upstairs from the basement, and that's what the young son-in-laws are for. Those strong young men, both cognizant of the importance of tradition, watch and participate, and get sausage, because they know they are the ones who will eventually carry on the ritual.

My daughters and I use the sausage in a myriad of sauces, stir fries and stuffings. On its own, or slathered with onions, peppers and mushrooms, it makes a grinder like no other. We give some away, when the ties to the receiver are close. Like a fire built with wood you've cut, hauled, split and stacked, there is nothing quite as wonderful as consuming something you have worked so hard to create.

The batch this time, (the guys usually do this three times a year), was so large it had to be split into two sessions. So on a recent evening, the process started with the first grind. Everything was stored in the old beer fridge downstairs until the serious making of the meat began the next night. As each batch was spiced, one of the men cooked a sample to see if the ratio of salt to garlic to fennel and wine was right. That's what the women-folk are for, the tasting of the sausage, the drinking of some wine and for reminiscing and solving the problems of life.

We sat at the table watching the men and suggested step-saving procedures, which were not acknowledged, and advised techniques, which were ignored, and we laughed, a lot, because that's how it's done.

For a few minutes I sat in my rocker with my mouth shut, which is unusual, just observing the next generation learning the process of carrying on the tradition. The older guys talked about how when the time comes, they will sit back and watch the young guys do all the heavy work. They're almost there. What makes me grateful is that our daughters have chosen men who genuinely appreciate the importance of sustaining tradition.
As the evening deepened and the ropes of sausage in natural casings filled huge containers waiting to be packaged, and as patties sizzled on the stove, a friend tipped his glass to me and said, "I smell an article."
"That's garlic you smell," I answered.
Enough said.

Time with family trumps cleaning

Published 08/22/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 08/19/2013 04:21 PM

Years ago I remember driving home from my grandmother's house in New Jersey and listening to a discussion between my mom and dad about how Nana wasn't keeping her house as pristine as she used to.
Back and forth they went about her diminishing cleaning habits, until they finally came to the consensus that she either needed new glasses or she was just too old to care about maintaining a spotless home. She was 10 years younger than I am now.
I don't think age or eyesight had anything to do with her new lived-in look, it was about finally letting go of preconceived female obligation.
To me a sink full of dishes is not that important unless you run out of something to place your food on; isn't that what paper plates are for? I'd rather play gin rummy with my daughter than vacuum, and go for a ride with my husband instead of scrubbing the microwave.
When our daughters were little if they wanted to read a book, play a board game or share time with me, the dishes sat, the laundry piled up and dog hair tumbleweeds gathered in the corner. Spending time with family trumped cleaning for two reasons: I was a perfect mother and I didn't care if I had to vault over the pile of shoes in the front hall as long as I could open the door.
When our oldest was a toddler she woke up one night upset because she believed monsters could get in through her bedroom window. Explaining that no one was coming in her window because it was on the second floor did not allay her fears. So I told her I had sprinkled special fairy dust on the window sills which would keep the monsters out.
"Oh no you deh-ent," she said in that way little kids speak when they think you are lying to them.
"Oh yes, I did." She ran her hand along the sill, palm coated in dust, she smiled.
"It's everywhere," I whispered. She went back to bed.
The next day she checked every window sill and never feared monsters again.
There were times when the detritus of everyday life became so overwhelming I would rant and rave and play drill-sergeant until the house shone. Those moments were a direct result of hormone levels which at my current age no longer drive the need to elicit control.
With our empty nest temporarily very full I am amazed how relaxed I am with the exercise bike and camping gear in the upstairs hallway. That our spare bedroom/office is stacked with my daughter's still boxed wedding gifts does not faze me. Living with stuff out of place is about as upsetting to me as raking leaves - if they don't kill the lawn I'm fine with them.
I did recently replace my 10-year-old mop. It was one of those attach-a-cleaning pad and spray models. It didn't wear out, the cleaning solution was discontinued ... three years ago.
It's not like we live knee-deep in a hoarder's paradise, it's just that cleaning has always been low on my life-list along with sky diving, motorcycles and lima beans. A spotless home isn't lived in, messy homes are an anthem to activity.
When our daughters were away at college, graduated and living elsewhere, our house stayed clean. Was it nice? Yes. Was it quiet? Yes. But it was way too quiet - I'll have eternity for quiet. Now I opt for camping gear, dog hair and a pile of shoes in the hall, which though formidable, still allows me to open the door.
Enough said.
EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM.

A coon, a cat and a couple of Footlongs (original title)

A coon, a cat and a couple of Footlongs

Published 08/01/2013 12:00 AM

All we wanted to do was take a couple of Footlongs to the town beach, sit in the car, look at Long Island Sound and eat dinner. Funny, how best made plans always seem to shift on the tide.

Because our familial tenants, my daughter and her husband, were taking their 16-foot aluminum boat, which used to be my father's, then my husband's and now my son-in-law's, to Rogers Lake after work, I decided not to cook.

We live in the woods and when we left, my husband spotted a black cat with a white flea collar, lying at the edge of our driveway. At first we thought it was not alive but when we checked, the chest moved up and down, barely, and it's head moved slightly. It let out a tiny meow and my heart melted.
It was late afternoon, all the local vets were closed and the nearest emergency veterinarian hospital was 45 minutes away. We simply didn't know what to do.

My first thought, our neighbor has a black cat. We drove next door and banged on the front door, no answer. We walked around back and as we did movement caught my eye. A Cujo-sized raccoon raised its head. Raccoon, still light out, we quickly retreated to our car. Back we drove to the cat convinced that its distress had been caused by a possibly rabid raccoon. Interpretation: don't touch the cat. So I did what any right-minded wife, trapped in a car with an indecisive husband would do, I called 911.

Sharing our cat-in-distress dilemma with a 911 operator may seem a bit extreme but I figured they could transfer me to the local police and animal control officer, which was exactly what they did. We were asked to wait until someone showed up to care for the cat and deal with Cujo-raccoon.
My husband's cellphone rang.

Our daughter and son-in-law were stranded in the middle of Rogers Lake. The boat engine had died, they couldn't restart it and had resorted to a pair of collapsible oars to get them to shore. My husband explained our cat and raccoon dilemma - surprise, they weren't interested.

Within a few minutes a very nice policeman arrived. He walked around the neighbor's yard with a device which looked like one of those HurryCanes as advertised on TV, which I assumed packed quite a jolt if overtaken by Cujo-raccoon. The animal was gone. The officer offered to wait for animal control if we had somewhere to go, we did - the beach.

My husband's cellphone rang.

The kids had made it to shore and were trailering the boat.
Long Island Sound was calm, the weather was perfect and as we relaxed and unwrapped our subs. The cell phone rang - again. The wheel bearings on the boat trailer had seized and my daughter, her husband, the car and trailer with boat, plus her car, were now stranded alongside the south-bound on-ramp to the Baldwin Bridge.

I never knew that a boat that size could actually fit in the back of my husband's pick-up. On his second trip I was amazed to learn that the trailer fit as well. The outboard motor made it home in the back of my son-in-law's jeep.

We didn't get to finish our Footlongs until quite late. I learned that the cat had not been touched by the raccoon and that it perked up when the animal control officer showed up and took it to the emergency vet. Cujo-raccoon has not been seen since and the boat leans against a tree in the back yard while they work on the wheel bearings. Dinner at the beach, I don't think so, enough said.

EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CPIANTA@COMCAST.NET.

Mental Pushups (original title)

Pianta: Reciting the alphabet backwards helps keep the mind sharp

Published 07/18/2013 12:00 AM

As a woman bookended somewhere between a bit beyond middle-age and death, I decided to step outside my familiar, do something really different, reach beyond my boundaries - I taught myself the alphabet backwards.
It took a while and was frustrating at first. ZYXW was pretty easy but once I dug deeper into reverse, I got confused. When I considered the alphabet backward as a single word 26 letters long, I wanted to quit. Maybe if I made a song out of it I thought, until I realized that singing 26 letters beginning with Z and ending in A was a little harder than a solo of M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E.
After many frustrating false starts, hiccups half-way through and restarts, I separated the reversed letters into groups of four; the last had six, and learned them as sets. My brilliant strategy worked. Learning something so familiar in reverse was actually quite easy and filled me with the kind of pride I felt seven years ago after memorizing my locker combination at work.
It was fun teaching myself something which required actual learning, as in study and practice. Exercising my brain is a good thing, it staves off mental-atrophy and I proved to myself I can learn something sort of wacky and cool at the same time. At parties think of how intelligent I'll sound because I can rattle off the alphabet backward. Although at the parties I attend, half the goers doze after dessert; we're not used to being out late.
Years ago I was in the car with my two daughters and my youngest, she was in third grade, started bragging about how smart she was at school that day. So I challenged her horn-blowing, "…but can you say the alphabet backwards?" So she rattled off the whole thing in reverse.
"How did you do that?"
She told me she "saw" the letters backwards. This is a kid who in middle school memorized 201 digits of pi and won an award on pi day, March 14. Now she has one master's degree, a master's certificate and is going back to school for her second masters and best of all she's gainfully employed. For me learning doesn't come quite so easily, but like her, boasting about it does.
Exercising your mind at any age is a good thing and doing mental push-ups at my age is a recommended health regimen. My mother-in-law was a keen thinker and quite astute right up until she passed away at 93. Every time I'd visit her she'd be sitting in her favorite chair with her mean little dog, eating cheese balls and doing word searches. She said she didn't care if anyone liked her dog because she loved him, and he wasn't mean to her, and that at her age she could eat all the cheeses balls she wanted and word searches kept her mind active. She was right and wise.
Shortly after I learned the alphabet backwards my husband and I went to dinner with a couple we've known long enough to be complimentary regarding our accomplishments and accustomed to laughter when communicating our failures. We were sitting at the table talking about safe subjects like politics and religion when I said something like, "...well what do you think of this, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba?"
They looked at me like I had grown another head.
"Don't you think that was cool?" I said.
"What was it?" the wife asked.
My husband set his beer down. "It's the alphabet backwards." She's been working on it for days.
"Why?" the other husband asked.
"Well, I thought that teaching myself something that almost everybody else doesn't know is kind of cool."
"Everybody knows the alphabet," he said.
"But do they know it in reverse?"
"Everybody knows the Pledge of Allegiance," he said, "but in reverse it doesn't make sense."
Ah ha, the pledge backward, my next mental health project. Enough said.

EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM.

Culture Shocked, (original title)

Culture shock creates social unease; hiding out with the help

Published 07/04/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 06/28/2013 01:06 PM

My husband's idea of culture is an 'Actors named Tom Hanks' category on Jeopardy.
He's as unpretentious as L.L. Bean boots and Levi's -I'm married to a meat and potatoes kind of guy. That's why I was so surprised when he attended an evening at the theater recently. Not only did he enjoy it, he's been raving about the play for weeks.

When my youngest daughter was in high school she won an art award for a beautifully executed acrylic painting of a mouth-watering slice of watermelon. We attended the award ceremony, bumping elbows with professional artists who displayed their own works and judged the amateur competition, as well as academics who presented the works. I schmoozed, drifting from painting to painting, artist to artist, reveling not only in the talent of the professionals in their mediums, but marveling at the abilities of the students as well. In the center of the room a huge table was spread with gourmet accoutrements, offering everything related to a well-purported wine and cheese party, but without the wine. Instead, punch was offered. Soft music played in the background, and it was nice to be at an event involving young people that didn't involve a lot of synchronized screaming and sports crazed parents.

My husband didn't wander among the talented; he stood against the wall by the door with his arms folded and a stern look on his face, as if he was a security guard at the Louvre Museum on alert for art thieves. He was studying the crowd. Finally, after an hour or so he said:"I've had enough culture, let's go." I figured it was an opportune time to leave; the punch bowl was empty.

It's interesting to people watch when you consider yourself an outsider to an event. I do that at home shows and Home Depot. We went to a tractor store recently and as my husband perused the tractor parts and pieces aisle I shopped the clothing department. Who would have thought that a place that sold John Deere and Carhartt would also sell baby clothes?

Finally after wandering among weed whackers, chainsaws and goat gates, I stood with my back to the seed spreaders, arms folded. I studied the crowd, looking as if I was a member of their loss prevention team, on alert for nut and bolt shoplifters. My husband walked over, and I said: "I've had enough rural let's go."
It's not like I'm a city-girl and my husband is a country boy- I've been known to dig a ditch or two and he's classy when it comes to creating anything related to the use of material associated with the cutting down of trees. I can get down and dirty, and he cleans up pretty well. It's just that when we are out of our familiar surroundings we're wallflower people-watchers.

Years ago, when I was single, young and stupid, I went to a party given by a co-worker's family at one of those giant mansions with hundreds of feet of beach frontage right on Long Island Sound. They were boater types - lime green slacks, hot pink shirts with popped collars. I never felt so out of place since the time I wandered into a men's room by mistake. I was so uncomfortable among the rich, and those pretending to be, that I ended up in the kitchen talking to the help. Comfortable among folks who swam in the same kiddie pool as me, I sat, with arms folded, on the large step-stool they used to retrieve the crystal from the high shelves in the butler's pantry. When my friend walked into the kitchen to tell the help they needed more aioli for the crudités she asked me why I was sitting in the kitchen. I told her I felt sick and wanted to go home.
I was sick alright; sick of being where I felt I didn't belong - and besides that, the punch bowl was empty. Enough said.

EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM