Lessons

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 They come in all shapes and sizes, life lessons.  Some are big, others small.  Some are terribly profound and mysterious, and others are so simple that you wonder why you missed them before.

My life lesson this week came in the form of an almost five-year old purebred red Border collie named Zeus.  (That’s not him over there on the right, but it could be.)

I came across Zeus listed in the pet classified section of the local paper.  The ad read something like this:  “Free Purebred Border Collie.  Good with dogs, cats, kids.  Trained on invisible fence.”  I’m no idiot.  I called.

See, I grew up with a Border collie.  (He may have been a mix, I suppose.  Difficult to say since he was found in our barn as a sick puppy that my mother nursed back to health.)  Yogi was a terrific dog.  Not terribly keyed up, as I remember, but very dedicated to me (I suppose that I was his work, his flock).  He died many years ago, and I’ve wanted a Border collie again ever since, but it never seemed I lived in the right place or kept the correct hours.  So it didn’t happen.

This seemed like one golden opportunity.  We’ve recently moved, there’s almost two and half acres here, and part of it is enclosed by an invisible fence.  How fortuitous is that?

So I called.  Woman I talked to (we’ll call her Rita) described Zeus as incredibly sweet.  ”Then why are you getting rid of him?” I asked.  It was the old story — kids had gotten older, were involved in school stuff and outside events, and they didn’t have time for him anymore.  (Although she also mentioned that they  have a Lab and there was no talk of getting rid of him.  Hmmm….)  “Okay,” I said.  “Knowing that no dog is perfect, not even Lassie, what would you say his faults are?”  Rita admitted readily that he had a tendency to mark urine near the cat boxes.  I figured that was easily fixable — I just wouldn’t let him near the cat boxes.  No problem.   “Oh,” she says.  “And he’s intact.”  A five-year old family pet that hasn’t been fixed?  Pray tell, why?  “Well,” Rita says, “I figured if I ever had to get rid of him, he’d be more attractive if someone could breed him.”

I was torn whether to tear my hair or slap her through the phone.  But her comment made me think:  “If I ever had to get rid of him….”  What made her think she might?

That made me ask about his past.  Turns out that he was purchased from a breeder by a young girl, who brought him to her father’s farm.  (This dog has more blue blood in his background that the Queen of England, including a great-grandsire from well-known breeder Walt Jagger.)  Farm=happy dog, right?  Sure, except dad sold his farm and moved overseas, leaving this girl with nowhere to go.  Apparently, she lived in her car for a while (with the puppy).  She might have lost her job at one point (that was brought up, but Rita wasn’t certain of it was true.)  In any case, the girl fell on hard times and Rita took Zeus off her hands to help her out…NOT because she wanted the dog.

Fast forward three years to the advertisement and me on the other end of the phone.

We decided to go see him.  First off, when we arrived, they didn’t know where he was.  You’d think they’d have him ready for us, right?  Not so.  Rita’s husband went outside calling, checked the barn, finally found him in the garage.  Practically had to drag him into the house.  This dirty, matted Border collie CRAWLED into the kitchen from the garage and immediately went belly up, eyes rolling.  Don’t hurt me, that posture said.  I’m no threat.

Hubby and I looked at each other.  What had they done to this dog in three year’s time?  No name recognition at all.  No ability to engage except through a tennis ball.  I said, “I’ll have to think about it,” and we left.

What I should have done was call the wonderful folks at Glen Highland Farm/Sweet Border Collie Rescue http://glenhighlandfarm.com/ in Morris, NY and told them about him.  They would have managed to get him out in no time.  But I didn’t think about that.  I thought, here’s a dog we need to get out of a bad situation.  I emailed the folks at SBCR to describe him and see if they thought he was “repairable,” and they said yes.  They also said, “If he doesn’t work out for you, let us know and we’ll take him.”  With that to back me up, we called and said we’d take him.

The first night was a horror show.  Rita and one of her kids dropped him off.  He couldn’t have cared less that they left him.  Obviously no connection there.  The big surprise was figuring out that it wasn’t only the litter boxes he sprays.  He sprayed everywhere — all over the rugs, the hardwood floor, the porch.  He was Urine Fountain.  I can deal with a lot, but I cleaned up eleven years worth of pee and poop from Bella and I’m none too excited by the prospect of doing it again.

Somehow, we survived that night.  The first thing we did the next morning was to name him ‘Sam.’  Hell, he didn’t know his old name, so let’s give him a new one to commemorate a new life.  And to his credit, he’s peed less and less indoors the longer we’ve had him.  Only one mistake yesterday (that we know of) and none today (again, that we know of).

What I wanted in a dog was a companion, someone to go on walks with me, maybe do some fetch with a tennis ball.  What I got was a dog who can do all that, plus plow the back forty and do my taxes…and all before lunch!  He is everything one thinks of when one mentions Border collie, without being psychotic.  There’s none of that (and how he missed out considering the way he was treated, I’ll never know).  But THIS is not the dog we looked it.  No belly crawling, no tucked ears and head.  He looks us right in the eye (“I’m smarter than you, you know”) and is unafraid of making his opinion known.

And he’s inexhaustible.

Did I say I wanted a walking companion?  Four miles a day doesn’t even touch him.  Seven miles doesn’t either.  And he’ll lay down for forty-five minutes and be ready to go again.  I’m exhausted trying to keep up with him.  (It’s like having a brilliant toddler in the house.  Yogi was never like this.)

I emailed SBCR with my concerns and they put me in touch with a lovely woman named Ann who came out to evaluate Sam as well as our lifestyle.  Her conclusion?  That he’s too much dog for me.  Let’s face it — between work and travel, hubby isn’t here to do much dog stuff.  I need four to five hours a day to work and, in her words, “You’re not going to get that with this dog.”  And she’s right.  My day with Sam consists of going from exercise time to exercise time, sneaking in naps when he does.  See what I mean about a toddler?

So we’ve made the decision to relinquish him to SBCR.  They’ll take him, evaluate him further, train him, and find him a home suitable to his talents.  I hope they find him a place with a very active family and/or other dog friends and/or sheep or geese.  That’s what he’d prefer, because he is every inch a working dog.  He’s friendly enough, but when work or play is over, he goes and finds a quiet spot alone to rest.  He couldn’t care less about spending time with us unless we’re giving him what he needs.

I feel a little bad about this, but not much.  We got him out of a really bad home, he’s had a good time with us, and he’s going to an even better place.  But it makes me reconsider my desire for a dog, and particularly my desire for a Border collie.  I suspect that even an elderly Border collie would have more vigor than I could keep up with.  So maybe it’s time to put that particular life dream aside, enjoy watching them work from a distance, and focus my attention elsewhere.

When You Least Expect It

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Several blogs back, I wrote about my first real love and what a disastrous screw-up and total horror show that relationship turned out to be.  Names were changed to protect a certain party’s identity, but it was something I needed to get off my chest.  The only person who would know any of those details and recognize said individual was my friend Eric, who’d lived through part of it with me.   (You can read about it here if you’re interested:   http://melissacrandall.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/all-the-wrong-reasons/)

On January 14, I received the following email:

Melissa, something  inside me told me to Google your name last week and one link to another landed me to your home page and your daily blog. As I started reading back thru the entries I came upon the one that featured a person named Alex I believe.  As I read, the pain and sorrow of how I hurt you came screaming back. I have never been able to forgive myself for my immature and insensitive behavior towards someone that I did love. I am so very sorry. I had hoped that an opportunity to tell this to you face to face would have presented its self but, I felt that it needed to be said now. I can’t ignore a sense that time is short. When you obtained your freedom, I began serving my sentence. I know where and what hell is- it is having to live knowing what you have done and being helpless to correct your past sins. This has haunted me till this day. I am sincerely and profoundly sorry for all the hurt, pain and disrespect that I directed to you. You didn’t deserve it, I am sorry.

It was signed by the individual in question, the man I referred to in my blog as ‘Alex.’

I was astonished.  I never expected to receive such a letter, ever.  My hands shook a little and I experienced a weird sort of vertigo, two conflicting sensations at the same time.  On the one hand, I felt a bottomless swirl of mixed emotions, all of the rage and sorrow and self-recrimination and hatred and despair and loss I’d experienced long ago (but not the love, I’m happy to say; no, the love I once felt is dead, buried, and gone to dust).  I also experienced, quite unexpectedly, a deep sense of satisfaction and the sensation of a long-open wound closing at last.

I went first to my husband and read him the email.  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

What, indeed.  There was no question that I would respond.  (Common courtesy dictated that much.)  But how?  A dozen possibilities went through my mind.  In the end, I left it at this:  “Thank you for your letter.”

Why didn’t I write more?  Mostly because, at the time, I didn’t know what to write.  I wanted to acknowledge the letter, but was not certain what to do beyond that, if anything.  I needed some time to process.

I’ve had that time.

So here is an open letter in response:

Dear “Alex,”

Thank you for your letter.  I accept your apology.

It’s hard for me to use the word “forgive” when I think about all that went down between us.  I long ago accepted my share of the responsibility in not standing up for myself, in not walking away from you right at the start.  It’s up to you to bear the burden of your behavior.  If I have, indeed, forgiven you, it was not for your sake, but for my own.  I had to forgive you if only to move forward in my life without carrying the weight of all the hatred and resentment and hurt I felt by the end of our relationship.  I’d already suffered at your hands for four years; I wasn’t about to give you one second more.

The larger work I had to do lay before me — learning to forgive myself for allowing you to treat me like shit.  That took a lot more work because I had over 20 years of practice in not thinking well of myself, in not recognizing my own self-worth, in thinking I had to take whatever life tossed at me rather than holding out for what I really wanted and what was good for me.  It’s been a long road.  I still have days when the work is harder than others, but mostly I’ve learned to have a little backbone, to not worry about losing people if I stand up for myself, to realize that I may have warts, but there are also some pretty nice things about me, too, and the people I want in my life are the people who recognize that.

I have a good life.  I hope you have the same, although I don’t wish to know about it one way or the other.  You are a part of the past, an unhappy memory laid to rest, and there is no place for you in my world.

Relive the Magic

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I’ve seen a lot of movies in nearly 54 years and all have affected me in one way or another.  Some, like STAR WARS and LORD OF THE RINGS blew just about every gasket I have.  Others, like FIELD OF DREAMS and THE FALL, touched me in deeply emotional ways.  But when I think of movie magic, two particular moments come to mind.

Listen to this.  (I’ll wait.)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg7C9qwLoqE

Do you remember hearing that music for the first time?  Does it still make you break out in a wide grin the way it does me?  I was attending college in Buffalo when RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out in 1981.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the film, but it captured my heart and imagination almost from the opening sequence.  What a wonderful throw-back to the serials of another age!  A bit Lamont Cranston mixed with a little Stan Laurel, Dr. Indiana Jones was a new sort of hero.  Or, rather, an old sort of hero give a new look and a bit of polish.  Indy was cooler than cool — smart and sexy, handsome and debonair — but with a hint of the doofus that made him totally likeable and completely accessible.  It was so easy to see yourself in him.  At our finer moments, aren’t we able to crack a whip to satisfaction or rescue the maiden?  The rest of the time, don’t we run from danger, get ourselves into trouble, and generally make a mess of things?  Best of all (at least from my viewpoint), his heroine wasn’t some shrieking bimbo with big boobs, too much hair, and an inability to get out of her own way.  She was Marion Ravenwood — hard-bitten, sensitive, and scrappy as a terrier.  The perfect woman!  I spent many a happy afternoon with Indy and Marion, and never tired of their adventure.

The next moment of cinema magic came in 1982:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTVoFCP1BLg

Admit it — you whooped and carried on, too, when that bike flew.   I have my friend Larry to thank for that moment.  I was still living in Buffalo, still going to school, having not such a good time of things, and Larry decided a movie was in order.  This movie.  I didn’t understand at first when he passed me a giant bag of Reese’s Pieces and told me to take a few before passing it on.  (That bag went through the entire theatre at least twice.)  I caught on pretty quick that something special was about to happen, but I never saw the bike ride coming and that heart-catching moment when it hits the cliff edge, drops…and soars is a moment that will live forever in my heart.  (Thanks, Larry.)

So tell me….what moments at the movies live in your heart?

 

Where’d I Put My Blaster?

When my husband travels for work, I have a tendency to watch way more television than normal.  Well, I say television, but what I mean is movies.  (We haven’t had cable for eighteen years and we don’t miss it.)

We own far more many movies than is probably healthy for us, and we watch our way through them all from time to time, but I have favorites I return to over and over, the ‘old friends’ I mentioned in an earlier post.  And I must confess that one of the reasons these movies have become favorites is because I yearn to be one of the established characters.

Who?  Funny you should ask…

Ripley from the “Alien” franchise.  Tall, smart, lean as an alley cat and armed with more firepower than the Death Star.  Facing off against the bad guys, what woman wouldn’t want to be her?

Velma Kelly, the sexy femme fatale of “Chicago.”  Smart (a recurring theme; I like female characters with brains), sassy, brassy and bold, Velma’s a delightful good girl gone bad.  (If only I could sing and dance in reality as well as I do in my head.)

Although Conan’s love interest went unnamed in the movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, anyone who gave a damn (and there were a lot of us) soon learned she was called “Valeria.”  I had this picture on my refrigerator for months to serve as inspiration.  (I’m still working on getting that buff.)

 I’m not sure I really want to be Elizabeth I so much as I would love to look like Cate Blanchett.   Still I do love the scene when she declares “I shall have one mistress here, and no master!”  (Actually, if I had to choose a character to play in that movie, it would be…

 Walsingham.  No, I do not have gender issues.  We may be in the 21st century, but men still get the really plum roles.

 Though I’m more like Idgy Threadgood (on the left, “Fried Green Tomatoes”), it’s Ruth I’d prefer to emulate.  She’s a class act all around.  I wish I had half her poise and good sense.

Leeloo from “The Fifth Element.”  Who wouldn’t want to be this adorable?  Plus, she’s the ultimate weapon against galactic evil.  Sounds good to me.

Hellboy is my true alter-ego.  Just your regular blue-collar monster.  “Oh, crap.”

 Forget Tom Cruise.  Give me Ujio the Japanese God of War any day of the week.  (Okay, yes, we’re seeing a trend here.  Obviously I have a not-so-secret desire to kick serious ass in the classiest way possible.  Does it get any better than Hiroyuki Senada?)

  Eleanor of Aquitaine  (Katharine Hepburn in “The Lion in Winter.”)  This gets my vote not just because of Eleanor’s character, but because she has some of the best dialogue ever written.

She’s beautiful and she rolls a mean game.  (Baby Bowler from “Mystery Men”)

Guenevere Pettigrew (“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.”)  A totally classy woman entirely certain of who she is.  If I live long enough, maybe I’ll get there.

Elizabeth Imbrie (“Philadelphia Story.”)  She and C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) got most of the great lines.  And let’s not forget…

the irrepressible Dinah Lord, from the same film.  No one has sung “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” this well since Groucho.

Okay, so Marianne Dashwood is a bit of a twit (at least until she gets smart enough to fall for Colonel Brandon), but isn’t she lovely?  Give a choice, however, I’d probably opt for her sister

 Margaret, because she climbs trees, loves travel, and will probably one day rule the world.

‘Nuff said.  Whether she’s taking our favorite secret agent to task in the James Bond films or pissing on her brothers ashes in ”Shipping News,” no one does it better.

Last, but definitely not least….

Sarah Connor from “Terminator.”  Oh, yeah…..

So tell me…late at night when you’re engrossed in a film, who is it YOU want to be?

 

Gone Like a Wisp of Smoke

 (courtesy wikipedia)

I meant to write about ice cream; how my favorite flavor has changed over the years, how I come back again and again to good old vanilla (not the yellowy so-called French vanilla, but the kind speckled with vanilla bean).  I wanted to write about how ice cream figures into our life celebrations, our rabid devotion to certain flavors, and our dismay when those flavors are discontinued.  (Personally, I’ll never forgive Ben & Jerry’s for doing-away with ’Rainforest Crunch.’  Ed and I courted over that ice cream!  How could they do such a thing?  Does anyone have the recipe?)  I was going to end the blog by asking about your favorite flavors and your best ice cream-related memories.

But life has a way of intruding on such light topics.

I just now received a phone call that my father-in-law fell yesterday and fractured his hip in two places.  He’s in the hospital in Phoenix this morning, undergoing surgery.  He’s in his late 70s-early 80s (I can’t recall which; I’m lucky if I remember the age of my own parents) and diabetic, with the sort of blood sugar that whing-whangs all over the chart on a daily basis because, although he’s anal about taking his blood test (several times a day, in fact), he eats what he feels like eating when he feels like it no matter what the read-out (or anyone else) says.  He’s cold all the time, unable to walk any sort of distance with ease.  He visited us just before Christmas and there was such a change in him.  No longer robust, he is a shade of himself — bone-white, hunched, slow-moving, often needing a wheelchair to get about.  Always emotionally guarded, now he is apt to cry at a moment’s notice or fly into a rage at the memory of old hurts and ancient betrayals.  He is frequently sad (that emotion walking hand-in-hand with his anger) and seems lost, not in the way of someone who can’t remember where he is, but in the way of someone who suddenly looks around at their life and says, “How did I get here?”  A stubborn man who cherished his independence above all else, now he is a mass of needs.  He clings to his wife as to a life-line, afraid of being alone (and, I suspect, other things as well).

Surgery is an iffy prospect as one ages, the risk compounded when (as now) there are other issues.  And I find myself wondering about his mental state.  Does he want to live?  Does he see this as the moment he slips past life’s gate?  I know he loves his wife (with an intensity he cannot bring himself to bestow on the rest of his family), but he’s also tired.  He knows she will be well-looked after by her family (her children, as well as by us).  Will this be the moment when he says, “Enough?”  (For I believe, you see, that we have the power to affect such things.  Three years as a Hospice volunteer taught me that.)

This is a “wait and see” moment, a pause to let events unfold.  If my father-in-law should pass, how do I best support my husband?  There are no words to ease the loss of a parent (even one you are not close to) and my husband is a private person who keeps his thoughts to himself.  Perhaps just being close is the best anyone can do in that circumstance.  I don’t know.  When my grandparents died, both my mother and my father erected unscalable walls, barriers impossible to breach and necessary to respect.  If they mourned, it was never within my sight.  I don’t know how this will play out and maybe that, more than anything, is the hardest part.

Any advice is appreciated.

It’s Official!

<Fanfare of trumpets, please>

I’m proud as punch over this (although being a bit behind the learning it curve when it comes to things bloggish, it took me a few days to figure out how to post this).  No, I don’t get a trophy or mention in the newpaper or scads of money — but who cares!  I’m so pleased that someone has enjoyed my writing enough to want to acknowledge it.  Thanks again, Kana Tyler!  http://kanatyler.wordpress.com/

So the “rules” as I understand them is that I post the award and then do an alphabet-run describing myself.  So, for better or worse, here goes:

A – ANIMALS (OF ALL KINDS)                                             B – BEACH (ALSO BOOKS AND BORDER COLLIES)

C – CHRISTMAS (AND CATS, CANDLES,  & CHEESECAKE)                                               D – DOGS

E - ED                                              F – FIREPLACE (ALSO FUN-LOVING AND FOOD)

G – GERANIUMS (AND GARDENS)                                              H – HIKES (ALSO HAMBURGERS)

I - ICE CREAM                                              J – JOYFUL

K -  KIND-HEARTED                                            L – LUCKY

M - MARRIED                                           N – NEWBURYPORT (AND NEWCASTLE BROWN ALE)

O – OATMEAL                                              P – PENSIVE

Q – QUIET (MOSTLY)                                              R – RIDING

S – SCOTLAND (AND STOVIES; ALSO SCONES)                                              T – TEA

U – UNABASHED                                              V – VERY GRATEFUL FOR MY LIFE

W - WRITER (WIFE AND WICKED STEPMOTHER, TOO)                    X – XENOMORPH (IT’S A BUG HUNT)

Y – YOUNG AT HEART                                              Z – ZOOS

Got Them Old Knock You On The Head Sysiphian Blues

 (courtesy fineartamerica.com)

Or maybe it’s a funk.  I can’t tell the difference.

Despite my recent post saying yeah-yeah-New-Years-Eve-whatever, I LIKE the beginning of a new year.  I enjoy that sense of anticipation of the future, the feeling of changing the sheets on my mental bed, shaking out the dust bunnies — pick your cleaning metaphor — and getting ON with life, my work, all of it.

But for the first time ever, I’ve lost my oomph.  Oh, I lose it periodically — we all do — but it’s only January 8th.  What gives?

Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way.  A friend, also a writer, says she’s experiencing this general malaise as well, a sense of “why bother?” although she would be the first to admit that she has many pleasures in life.  A friend of hers put off going on a much looked-forward-to trip to Pennsylvania because she suddenly could not work up any enthusiasm for it.  Is it something in the water?  Something in the air?  Something in our heads?  My friend Ruth Shamansky calls it a crenk – a sort of illness with the only symptom being a general sense of blah. 

Certainly there’s enough happening in the world at large to put a person off their food.  Wars and death and famine and abuse and politics…oh, but the list she do go on.  On the personal home-front, I have as many ups and down as the next person (the latest being a vet bill that unexpectedly doubled to the over-five-hundred-dollars mark).  It always seems that at the moment when I’m beginning to feel optimistic that we might just be lifting our heads above water, that things are going our way, another wave comes along and gives me a nose-full.  It’s demoralizing and frustrating, but I usually manage to soldier on and it doesn’t take long to find my sense of (black) humor in most situations.

But not this time.

I’ve dealt with depression in the past.  This doesn’t feel like that slippery-sloped, open pit of despair, but it’s a close cousin.  I’m fully aware of my many blessings and enormously grateful for each one.  I’d be a fool to grouse.   I love my marriage, my home, and my work.  (Okay, honestly, I wish my sales were higher, but so does every writer except for maybe the really big guns).  So why the sense that I can’t get out of my own way?

Jon Katz has written about the voice in his head.  You know that voice, the one you can’t get away from.  The one who tells you to give up, it’s hopeless, you’ll never amount to a hill of beans, no one will ever care, you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny.  You know the one I mean.  He finally came to recognize that voice in his own head and he named it, in order to be able to say “So-and-so, go take a hike.”  I’d done the same awhile back.  My gloom-and-doom voice is named Phyllis (apologies to all the Phyllises out there).  I hadn’t heard from her in a long time, but I think part of the issue happening right now is that the bitch, like the walking dead, is crawling out of her grave again.  It’s time for me to be aware of the signs, to listen for that voice and silence it.  You can’t get anything good done with a litany of hopelessness running in your ear.

I don’t know if it’s the same for you.  I’ve no major epiphany to share, a tried and true means to get back on the path.  All I can do is discover what works for me and hope you do the same.  For me, that meant setting the alarm for a change rather than lying abed until, oh, 6:30 or 7 (that’s late in this household).  Today I was up at five, fed the cats, made my tea, and was here at the computer by 5:30 or so.  I have a list of things to accomplish and I mean to work through it.  (A list really helps.  It puts everything out nice and clear, one by one, no chance of forgetting or letting something slide, and there’s such a feeling of accomplishment as you cross off each item once it’s complete.)  Will I get everything done today?  That remains to be seen, but I’m going to give it my best shot.  And if I don’t, if Phyllis comes calling, telling me all the ways in which I’ve failed, I’ll knock her down the stairs.  All I can ask of myself is to do my best, whatever that is on any given day, but it’s amazing how you can raise the bar on “best” if you make a little effort.

Which, in the end, is all I can require of myself (or anyone else for that matter).  Work to my best ability.  Don’t beat myself up, but don’t make lame excuses, either.  Take responsibility.  Move forward.

May you do the same.

 

Like Old Friends

(courtesy of moviepictures.tk)

I’m sitting on the couch as I write this, one eye on my monitor, the other focused on the television where ALIEN is playing.  Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) is looking for Jonesy the cat and has just discovered the discarded skin of the horseshoe crab-like alien.  Now he’s in the dark, wandering around.  There’s not a sound, not a smidge of background music to tell you what’s going to happen next, but you know it’s going to be B-A-D.

Yup.  He’s toast.

I saw this movie for the first time when it was released in theatres in 1979.  The 70s spawned a lot of science fiction films, some good (ANDROMEDA STRAIN, SILENT RUNNING, A BOY AND HIS DOG, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, STAR WARS) and others not so good (the endless train of PLANET OF THE APES sequels and WESTWORLD come to mind).   But for me, nothing punched my holy-shit button quite like the story of the Nostromo’s hapless crew and the heroic Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver.  (How can you not love a woman who kicks serious butt AND refuses to escape danger unless she rescues the cat?)

(courtesy timemachineego.com)

The movie scared the total bejeezus out of me.  An outer space haunted house inhabited by Jaws!  Who could ask for more?

I’ve watched ALIEN several times in the 33 years since its release.  (Good Lord, can that number be accurate?  I can’t possibly be 54.)  While it no longer frightens me (well, not entirely at any rate; there are still a couple of scenes that give me a good case of the heebie-jeebies), it remains a favorite.

I was in the theatre with my best friend when STAR WARS made its debut in 1977.  (Met some very good friends for the first time that night, too.)  I’m embarrassed to admit how often we returned in the first year alone.  It was often enough to garner an invitation to the One Year Birthday Party the theatre threw (including cake).  By the time STAR WARS aired on network television (1983 or so), I was living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.  The woman with whom I shared an apartment made me sit behind her, on the opposite side of the rom, because I drove her crazy mouthing dialogue not only with the characters, but ahead of them.  I couldn’t help it.

The list goes on, endless viewings of E.T., THE FIFTH ELEMENT, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, GALAXY QUEST, THE ABYSS, PREDATOR, THE TERMINATOR, GHOSTBUSTERS, and ALIENS (Sigourney Weaver again, plus Michael Biehn, Lance Henricksen, and the best array of weaponry ever – WIN!)  But why is it — in the face of the enormous number of movies being produced — that we come back to the same ones over and over?

Entertainment value must be part of it (although I’m not  sure why I still find entertainment in a movie I know so well I can recite it line for line), but I believe the big draw (at least for me) is the familiarity of well-loved characters.  I know them — their likes and dislikes, loves and hatreds, weaknesses and strengths.  On days when I feel like the world is against me, it’s nice to know that someone can come out on top.  On evenings when I’m alone, it’s comforting to enjoy the company of old friends.

 

Heat Wave

 (Courtesy eyewitness.wrcbtv.com)

With apologies to Irving Berlin:

I’m havin’ a heat wave
A personal heat wave
My temperature’s tidal
I’ve gone homicidal
And I smell like a pit slave

Ah, the joys of menopause.

I began to experience hot flashes at the tender age of 42.  At first I thought, “What the hell’s this?” but I’m a pretty well-read gal and I had a damned good idea what was going on.  So I called my gynecologist, the ever-lovely and empathetic Judy.  “Judes,” I said.  “I think I’m having hot flashes.”

“Can’t be,” she said without missing a beat  “You’re too young.”

Normally I love Judy to pieces, but this remark really pissed me off.  Don’t you just love it when your doctor talks to you like you haven’t a clue what’s going on with the body you inhabit 24/7 and for however many years you’ve been around?  No, I’m not a doctor.  Yes, Judy knows a lot more about medicine than I do.  But I’ve lived in this skin for a long time now and at this point my instincts are pretty good.

“Really?”  I’m pretty certain my sarcasm quotient rose with that word.  (Mood swings.  Another symptom.)  ”Let me tell you what they feel like.”

When I was done describing the slow rise of heat that started at my toes and erupted through the top of my head like Vesuvius, there was silence at the other end of the line.  Then, in something like bemusement, Judy said, ”Wow.  Those sure sound like hot flashes.  You’d better come in to see me.”

You think?

So in I went.  First, we had an exam.  (It’s “we” only in that Judy was present on the easy end of things.  I was the one with the speculum up my hootchie-coo.)

**********An aside here:  Judy’s a great doctor (actually, she’s a nurse practitioner) and more often than not we end up laughing through the entire procedure (God bless her for that), but women don’t enjoy gynecological exams.  How could we?  There’s nothing fun about being spread-eagled, knees bent to opposite sides of the compass, perched on the edge of an (admittedly) cushioned table that’s digging into your butt, heels down and locked into metal stirrups like you’re about to compete in the freaking Grand National (that’s a world-famous national hunt horse race, in case you don’t know), a heat lamp aimed at your naked crotch?  Thank God I’ve never had a doctor order me to “Spread ‘em!” or “Open wide and say ah,” but I have heard “Oh, I’m sorry.  The nurse forgot to warm the speculum.”  WTF?!?!**********

Anyway…

After the exam, Judy explained a little about perimenopause (the tip of the hill before the big plunge).  She seemed pleased that I’d already read up on a bit (I was determined to be well-informed and NOT have my mother’s menopause) and sent me off to have blood drawn to test for estrogen, FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone).  She gave me a call the following week when she received the results of the blood-work.

“Hot-diggedy-damn, you’re perimenopausal.”

Great.  Where’s my gun?  I’m not going to shoot myself, I just want to be ready when I feel the need to climb the clock tower, like in about 30-freaking-seconds if you don’t stop sounding so CHEERFUL about this!  (Women hate their own menopause, but they find the menopause of other women totally hysterical.  Misery does, after all, love company.)

Judy, in what I’m sure she felt was a bit of helpful advice, assured me that the hot flashes and other symptoms (we won’t even get into vaginal dryness – OMFG) would depart around the five-to-eight year mark.  Lying bitch.  I’m at twelve years and counting, with no end in sight.

In truth, I’m not sure I’d mind so much if the damn thing would only regulate.  Let’s face it — hot flashes and all the other stuff is annoying, but it beats a surprise visit from “Aunt Flo” with nary a pad or tampon in sight.  (The Web informs me that Cockney slang for menstrual cycle is ‘George Michael.’  Wonder what he thinks about that?)  I can go days without so much as a warm glow, then get one hot flash right after another.  When all of this first began, I experienced a lot of night sweats.  Then they went away.  Hooray!  Now, all of a sudden, the bastards are back.  Used to be that I’d have almost no hot flashes during the winter months (when they would have helped cut down on our heating bill) and a total shit-load during the summer.  (The more humid the weather, the worse the hot flashes.)  This year, however, it’s been the opposite.  Almost nothing this summer, but the past few weeks have been wretched with several a day, some of them lasting two minutes or more.

(Is that men I hear in the background?  ”Two minutes?  What’s the big deal about two minutes?  Quit your griping and suck up and deal.”  Really?  Come over here and say that to my face, pal, and we’ll talk about it while you’re sucking air after I pole-axe you in the diaphragm.)

See?  I’ve got it all under control.

Just Another New Year’s Eve

(courtesy newyearchristmas.com)

Tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve.

Big deal.

When I was a kid, New Year’s seemed a grand thing.  My parents — never big party-goers – spent the evening playing cards (and, one assumes, drinking and dining) with relatives.  I was left at home with a babysitter, and was sound asleep by the time they rolled in after midnight.

When I became a tweenager (inhabiting that no man’s land between childhood and the teens), I was left to my own devices on New Year’s Eve, a  a situation far preferable to hanging out on the fringe of action while the adults squabbled over Hell’s Rummy or Yhatze.  Home alone, I watched television, read books, and tried once — with miserable failure — to get drunk on some wine I found pushed at the back of a kitchen cupboard.  (It must have had an alcohol content of something like -1% because I drank a huge water-glass of the stuff without effect).  Sometimes I made it to midnight, more often not.  It little mattered.  (Which is worse — crying yourself to sleep because you’re alone on New Year’s Eve, or watching the televised ball drop in Times Square and no company other than Dick Clark Ho-Tep?)

In my teens, New Year’s suddenly took on a new El Dorado-like glow, a thing to be dreamt of and sought after.  I was older, after all.  Almost an adult.  Surely things would change for the better?  Passing among fellow classmates at good old Shenendehowa High School, I heard the excited chatter of parties and beautiful dresses, an illicit drink or two of alcohol, dancing, giddy anticipation and — at the stroke of midnight — a kiss from that special someone.

Never happened.  Oh, it may have for some of those kids, but for me (and my small circle of friends) New Years became a thing to dread, further proof that I stood outside the rosy glow of the elite and was forever marked as such; a vagrant peering in the window at riches beyond reach.  I never received an invitation to a party (barring those small 5-person gatherings we threw for ourselves) and never dated but a handful of times (tragedies, every one).  As for my first kiss…well, the less said about that, the better.  Any boy I had a crush on in high school would have been horrified to hear of it, I’m sure.  Certainly none of them (and there weren’t many) ever showed the slightest interest in me.

It’s no surprise, then, that over time I grew sort of bitter about New Year’s and never saw it as much of a milestone.  Another year turned, certainly; another year of ups and down, lessons learned and all of that, but marked, really, only by the vague parameters of the calendar we’ve created in an attempt to contain the monumental heave and swirl of time.  In truth, it’s a malleable thing marked by neither beginning or end.  The change of year could as easily take place in spring or summer or fall.  That it’s been arbitrarily chosen as December 31 means nothing.

I wonder if more people feel as I do about the year’s turning?  You hear talk of parties, sure, but it’s in a sort of distracted way.  I rarely meet anyone who enthuses over some blow-out bash they attended.  For many, it’s become an evening of quiet reflection (celebratory or not), a moment to pause on the brink of the new year, to gather oneself for the plunge, a time to remember the wins and put the losses behind you (if one can).  Some will sit with pen and paper (or more likely laptop or Ipad) and construct a list of resolutions to see them over the hump into midwinter.

I gave that up a long time ago.  Or, rather, I gave up broadcasting my resolutions.  That just sets me up for failure.  I don’t need others to know what my plans are and I don’t need them watching to see if I’ll succeed.  If I mean to lose weight or gain it or exercise more or stop swearing or cease drinking or smoking or…whatever…the only one I’m in competition with is myself.  Only I can place the weights on the balance to say if I’ve won or lost.  I’ve made my resolutions for the coming year, but they’re private.

What I will say is my wish for you — that you have whatever sort of New Year you’d like.  Not only the celebration of that one night, but the entire year.  May it be all you hope for.  When it isn’t (and it won’t be, from time to time), may you ride those bumps with grace and only a few bruises.  May you have love (even — or especially — self-love).  May you find peace and experience joy.

Happy New Year, everyone.