One Of Those Days

That actually feels like two, you know? Like it's so bad, I'm amazed that so much sh*t could be crammed into such a short period. Starting with everyone getting off to school etc late. Much screaming and wailing. Then, technical internet issues with the job, because who doesn't love a website that wobbles now and then? Good times. There's a reason I'm not a software developer. It's because they cannot be trusted...haha, I kid. Ok, not really. Seriously, computer people are supposed to be smart. Get it together Google guys.

Then, whilst heading into the high school gym to pick up the cheer girl (who was not very cheery the last time I saw her at o'dark thirty, shrieking her head off)  I do an epic pavement dive on black ice. Like windmill arms, fat ass flying in the air, crashing on the newly replaced hip kind of gravity check. If it were the Olympics, even the Russian judge would have given me a 10. So, I pick myself up, and keep walking, I mean, what choice is there? I'm the "Sink or Swim" girl, right? Ya, falling down is likely way easier on a beach. But hey, there's my girl cheering her heart out and it's all OK.

BAM! It's not OK. Down again, this time on the gym floor, because, I don't know, I just never learn or something. The purse goes flying, the phone is pretty smashed and the hip that ISN'T aching like a bitch in heat from the parking lot drubbing,  might now be a candidate for being replaced, just like it's companion hip. Which, by the way, is now clicking and creaking, because it's ceramic and metal and I never have been good with things that are breakable. Oh, and the cheer girl is pretending she doesn't know me, and I can't say I blame her.

It's not that bad, I mean, bumps and bruises, part of a New England winter, but today? It has to be today, when I was all feeling good about auditioning for an improv troupe, that I've wanted to be in, oh, only for the last two years or so. Did that last night and LOVED it. What's it like to want something, something that makes you so jazzed and happy? I think I know. Of course, between being tossed on hard surfaces, I check my email (and my health insurance policy) and find the dreaded "Thanks but no thanks we're going with someone else" email. Fabulous. It would be one thing if 20 people had auditioned, but there were four people, so ya, it appears I do indeed suck at this theater thing. And I wanted it so much. SO MUCH.  Also, apparently I suck at just regular walking around.

Thankfully there was one bright spot, lunch with present and former co-workers. Good times, good food and the one part of the day that didn't require an ice pack, a Motrin the size of Rhode Island and a box of Bandaids. I'm so happy when I'm around other writers and journalists. I will concentrate on that for now. So done with this damn day.

A Not So Brave New World?

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”

----Seneca

Yes, it’s the holidays and we are all busy with a thousand things that need to get done so perhaps it’s not the time for deep thoughts and philosophy? Too bad, I’m going with it anyway. When one year is ending and another is beginning we tend to turn our thoughts to what is going away and what is coming along.

Arguably, no matter which candidate got your vote, the presidential election is a perfect example of this. The eight years of President Obama are over, that was a given, the election results were not going to change that. As it should be. The law says no one gets to stay longer than eight years in the White House, so a new family will now enter those hallowed halls. Ahem…it’s safe to say we ain’t seen nothing yet, right? I won’t get into politics exactly except to say that if anyone needs me I will be snuggling in the corner with my pug puppy for a little while until my head calms down a little.

Change doesn’t usually bother me, but it seems as if our country is on the precipice of something that no one has ever seen before and I can’t be the only one that’s a little freaked out. Retreating to my favorite vice, after Penny pug, I was binge-watching some Netflix and two documentaries caught my eye. One was about the assassination of President Kennedy and the other was about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Both of those happened at this time of year, in the midst of the holidays and both ushered in a new era of change. Oh, and violence, death, re-birth, and eventual victory. Think about how people had to feel on that random Friday when one minute the President is waving and smiling and the next minute he’s dead. Two days later the man accused of killing him is also shot, and it’s all on live on television when television was barely beginning. People were pretty freaked out then too, how could they not have been?

It was much the same way in 1941, when WW II hit home, literally. A lazy Sunday morning and the next thing it’s almost Armageddon. There was no instant news in those days. It was hours before the first reports of it were reaching the mainland. A cable from Washington DC advising the command in Hawaii of the breakdown of negotiations wasn’t seen by officials there for close to 8 hours. Meanwhile, almost two hundred planes were descending on Pearl Harbor and just like that we were at war. A day later the President is on the radio, trying to be reassuring, and it was an historic effort and while many look back on it with warmth and nostalgia over what would become “The Greatest Generation” you have to know there were more than a few people sitting curled up with a friend, a spouse or a dog and thinking, “What fresh hell is this?”

Those two events were turning points in our history, just as I suspect this most recent election will be seen as. These events signaled the end of much of what we had come to know as familiar and safe. I can’t even imagine how the addition of social media would have added to those tense times. My sense of it though is that while the Internet, Facebook, online news, texting and Twitter have given us many advantages, they are a huge distraction, and yes, Mr. President-Elect, I am talking to you. Look around at what’s happening. This is not a time for Tweet-storms and Facebook fights. We got sh…um…work… to do. That’s what happened after the President was shot, and it’s what happened after Pearl Harbor. People got to work. Rosie the Riveter and Rosa Parks come to mind. I believe women are going to accomplish great things in the next few years, which is typical of us, if I do say so myself. Not just women of course, but we are going to be especially unstoppable I think. Not to be sexist but we have some real skin in the game.

Some really good parts of what we have all come to know are ending, but there will be new beginnings as well. The words of one amazing woman I know are echoing in my head. She watched in horror when JFK was taken from us. Her husband had worked for him; she knew what we were losing. When I was a new mother, the first Gulf War was starting and everything around me was swirling in a sleep-deprived fugue she simply said, “Hang on, darling.” You got it Mary. I’m hanging on no matter what comes.

The Greatest Generation

Included here is a video, of Pearl Harbor Survivor Ed Hamilton, from South Boston, arriving back to Logan after attending the ceremonies at Pearl Harbor. Truly, one of our National Treasures. Credit for the video goes to R. Fuertes who was there at the arrival. Thank you Ed and thank you R. Fuertes for capturing this amazing man. 

Food, Glorious Food....

“Laughter is brightest where food is best”

-----Irish proverb

When someone says, “home cooking” or “homemade” the image that comes to mind is something delicious, made fresh, with tradition and love. That’s a nice thought; it just has never been my experience. Recently one of those pictures with the sayings on the bottom (they’re called memes I am told) came across my social media feed and it said “Name something your mother or grandmother made” and it was this retro scene of an older lady in the kitchen, wearing an apron and concentrating on something being cooked. In my head, I tried to remember what dish or treat my mother or grandmother had made that was a favorite of mine, or anyone’s for that matter.

Like my friend Winnie The Pooh, I sat and had a good think on it and… nothing. There was absolutely no memory of any amazing family recipe or special holiday treat that my mother or grandmother always made. Meanwhile, dozens of my friends were going on about Granny’s walnut bread, or Mama’s gravy. Gravy in this case being spaghetti sauce, since that’s what Italian grandmothers call it. It seemed that in everyone’s family but my own, there were heirloom recipes that had been handed down from one generation to the next. Holidays were not complete without these special dishes.

It’s likely because just as we get hair color and eye color from our parents and grandparents, we get a kind of history as well. Family stories for one. In my family what we might lack in recipes we make up for in pure, unadulterated legends. Like the time my father took a police cruiser for a joy ride. Or the time my mother wore a pair of shoes to a party that she didn’t realize still had the bright orange price tag stuck on the bottom sole. The entire evening she wondered why everyone walking by the couch she was sitting on (with her legs crossed like any proper lady would do) was craning their necks to get a look at the bottom of her feet. We have stories, enough for ten more generations to come and more are being created every year, but cherished homemade dishes? Not so much.

Growing up I can recall no occasion where my grandmother, mother or any other family member said, “Come to the kitchen Brenda, it’s time you learned the secret recipe.” We never starved of course, there was always plenty of food. It just wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Gourmet night usually consisted of a hamburger patty, a box of mac and cheese and whatever frozen brick of vegetables was available. The veg was my job because I am hazardous in the kitchen. My mother figured nothing much could go wrong if she handed me a sauce pan and a brick of green beans and said, “Smash those up in the pan, but do NOT turn on the stove, just leave them there.” Culinary traditions in the Kelley family were less about homemade goodness and more about making sure nothing caught on fire and with me in the kitchen, that’s a challenge.

As for the previous generation, my grandmother was a pioneer of sorts. She was the first woman in the State of Massachusetts to be granted a chauffeur’s license. She always had a job of some kind. She was out working when many women were perfecting their pie dough. She married a man who owned a restaurant, which honestly was mostly a bar, but whatever. Cooking was not her thing. Over a pack of Pall Malls and two fingers of Jameson she would say, “There’s some ham salad in the fridge if you’re hungry, I just picked it up at the deli and if you won’t eat that, have some Oreos.”  She was nothing short of amazing though. In the course of the discussion on home cooking, one of my cousins did tell me she used to make a really good oyster stew of some kind, but that was before my time.

Food is food is food is food, right? Some people have a gift for making amazing dishes and handing down those recipes and traditions. In my family, we don’t, but while a friend was telling me about how her grandmother churned ice cream on the porch on hot summer nights, I remember my father herding us all in the car and going on a late night run for cones. As long as there is a tradition of some kind, and lots of laughter, the food will always be the best.

All The World's A Stage

“I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker.”

---Robert Downey Jr.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be up on stage, acting in a play? Some think it’s easy, but every step taken, every word spoken is precisely planned. You must stand where the director has told you to stand and you must say the words exactly as the playwright wrote them. It’s something that requires a lot of concentration while at the same time it has to seem like it’s as natural as breathing.  Monologues and scenes that have been watched and played by thousands of audience members and actors must sound fresh and new. Seriously, everybody and their brother has at least read Romeo and Juliet, if not seen it performed. Making a romance from centuries ago come to life, when most people just think, “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again (dead, but not really) boy kills self, girl kills self” is no easy task.

In elementary school I was in a few plays, as every kid was. Juliet might be a tough role but try being wrapped in crepe paper and being a cabbage. In middle school there was one of those horrible history plays, about Abe Lincoln, but of course it didn’t include him getting shot in the head at a play. That’s probably too complex for 6^th grade, not to mention the violence. It was more about Abe’s early days.  I played “Townsperson Number 1” who got to say, “Here comes the President” and I almost blew the line.  By high school, the plays had improved and even if my acting hadn’t it was still fun. Senior year I played a demented murderess with an artificial hand, who was carefully exacting her revenge, one by one, on those she felt had wronged her. That was a stretch for me because while holding a grudge is a talent of mine (literally, I am still mad at my friend Caitlin from 2^nd grade who tripped me at recess and made me dent my Mary Poppins Lunchbox) spending years looking up people and then killing them seems like way too much work.  In each play though, it was a chance to get out of my own head and be someone else. Who among us doesn’t want to do that every now and then?

So, since it would be a shame to waste all that acting background, not to mention my natural ability to be dramatic in front of groups of people, I finally pulled the trigger and tried out for some community theater. I didn’t bother to do a lot of research first, because it just seemed like it would be more fun going into it without a lot of pre-conceived ideas. Here’s a pro tip: If you try out for a musical, you will have to sing at the audition. Imagine that. Someone told me to just try out for the chorus, which I thought were like extras who wandered around in the back of a scene, humming or something. Not so much. So I’m on stage and the director asks, “What are you going to sing?” Thinking fast, I said, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and the piano guy goes “In what key?” Seriously? I refrained from snapping, “The ones on your piano, dummy!” It was a disaster, all six bars of it. But hey, I will try just about anything once. Or twice as it turned out.

The next audition was for a play with no music and required me to memorize a two-minute monologue. It wasn’t quite as mortifying as the musical audition and the director was nice and laughed at a few parts. Which I didn’t think were funny, so that should have told me something. Then came the waiting. Callbacks were a few days after and I was checking my email like a meth addict hoping for a hit. Finally it comes, thanking me for my time…but…they were going with someone else.

It takes a lot to get up on a stage, in front of total strangers and sing and act and, in my case, throw up in your mouth a little, but it really was fun. The sheer terror was worth it; we should all do something that scares us. Not every day, because stress kills, but once in a while. Oh and I suggest taking a friend with you. My best friend tried out too and we about killed ourselves laughing while rehearsing monologues and memorizing lines. I never cared for Shakespeare in college, but nothing beats Rosemary bursting out with “Think not I love him! Though I ask for him” at any random moment. Just call us Lucy and Ethel, and yes, we will be back.

But Wait! There's More!

“Life’s a pitch and then you buy.”

----Billy Mays

We’ve all seen those ads on late night television. There’s a product that someone is screaming about, urging you to call immediately and get yours because “Operators are standing by.” When I was little I always felt bad for the operators having to stand around waiting for a call in the middle of the night like some retail army waiting for orders. Most of the products advertised in these infomercials are really, well, kind of useless. This column featured the topic of useless talents awhile back and while I will always believe being able to play the William Tell Overture on your snapping fingers is far from useless, the fact remains that some of these “As Seen on TV” products are pretty ridiculous.

What I can’t understand however is why they sell so well.  Much of the success has to lie in the advertising. Most of the ads run late at night, and most people who are awake at those hours and are watching television are probably already susceptible to a pitch. A few years ago I was awake one night, with a hellish cold and a colicky child both of which together had me within spitting distance of a full on meltdown.

So, I switched on the television to drown out the screeching and the sniffling, which at one point, were both coming from me. There in the blue haze of the wee small hours, when all I wanted to do was believe in something bigger than myself was just what I needed---a fat magnet. No word of it a lie, I was dialing furiously because those operators were standing by, ready! I realize now that fat is not magnetic and this stupid thing that I was supposed to stick in my stewpot wasn’t going to help. Not to mention whenever these ads show someone trying to prepare dinner or have a snack without the miracle product, the actors would have you believe frying an egg without a space age non stick pan is a deadly accident waiting to happen and getting yourself a snack is impossible without an Ov-Glove, a Snack-eez cup and a Snuggie blanket with sleeves.

So fine, the ads suck us in, it happens. These products though, almost never work the way they say they do. Case in point, that spray on hair in a can from Ronco. Guys, listen up. If you’re losing your hair, go commando and shave it all off. Bald is beautiful! Do not buy a can of paint and spray it on your noggin, you are fooling no one.  Girls, you all are guilty too. Do you really believe that a facemask with some Christmas lights on it is going to make you look as young as Krystle from Dynasty? Dynasty was a long time ago; we all age (if we’re lucky) so put down the hockey mask and just wear big sunglasses.  Most of these products are so awful, and yet, sell like hotcakes. Also, there’s a hotcake maker that sells like…well never mind.

Thinking perhaps that I was just being a cynical cranky person, I checked with some friends and they are with me on this. We couldn’t think up a single product that was actually worth getting. But wait…there’s more! Pajama jeans? Really? Why are these a thing? Check out the aisles of the grocery store, plenty of people are wandering around in real pajamas, no need to get pajama jeans. Any gadget that makes only one thing is also pretty silly. For example, a friend sent me a link to a “Retro Pop Up Hot Dog Maker.” Now you can have hot dogs that pop up like toast. Excuse me; if you want to go “retro” to cook a hot dog get a stick and some firewood. Once you have the fire going you won’t need the S’Mores maker either ($29.95 plus S/H, not sold in stores) and you can use the same stick for the marshmallows.

Many of you are cooking big meals today. Potatoes have to be peeled and mashed, birds must be basted and vegetables chopped, but the gadgets aren’t what will make your day. Slicing and dicing, mincing and mashing, crying and drinking (OK that might just be me) to get all that food on your table isn’t nearly as important as who is at your table. Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the day.