Nancy Martin's Blog, page 31

Fat Tuesday!

Fat Tuesday!

By Kathy Sweeney

It's here again, my favorite holiday - Mardi Gras.  In case you didn't know it, or do not speak junior high French ("Michel, Anne, vous travaillez? Non, nous regardons la television, pour quoi? Les DuPonts arrive en dans une heure.") Mardi means Tuesday and Gras means Fat. 

Fat Tuesday is the official end of Carnivale, which starts on the Epiphany - that's right - January 6th. For those of you counting days rather than calories, that's one bigass window of eating that essentially starts on Halloween, with the buying of the excess candy because some little pagans plan to show up at your house and blackmail you for treats.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Halloween, as everyone knows, is also the start of the holiday season.  We know this because you can always buy marshmallow peeps shaped like ghosts at the same time you can buy them shaped like snowmen.  There are no marshmallow peeps for Thanksgiving, because the geniuses who make the peeps know that Thanksgiving is just half-time for Christmas.  And for that, Lewis Black, we thank you.

Thanksgiving is a foodfest, where many people intentionally eat so much that they pass out on the couch in front of the TV, unable to even muster the energy to operate the remote, which is lost for a time because some fatso is crushing it and snorking and no amount of candy is going to bribe any kid in the family to even try to retrieve it.  

And the fat just keeps rolling - the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years are one face-stuffing extravaganza after another.  Sure, people do some unintentional purging to ring in the new year, but mostly they celebrate by eating and drinking and buying bigger pants.

One cannot simply stop the feasting on January 1 - although thousands of people pretend to cancel it out by paying money for a gym or fitness class which they attend twice and then continue to pay for six months because they were dumb enough to sign up for the "First month free, good to see you, now beat it and send us your money until summer, dumbass" program.  I mean, all those sugar cookies and pies and leftover prime ribs are not going to eat themselves are they?  

Even the most virtuous can only hold out for so long, and before you know it - January 6th is here and Carnivale begins.  Carnivale, in case you don't know, is a holiday season that, loosely translated, means "Holy Shit, will you look at those %$*#s!  I'll drink to that - and make it a double!"

My Pupup, who spoke seven languages, spent part of his teenage years in Siberia and travelled all over the world, once told me the only time he was actually afraid of dying was in Rio during Carnivale.  Absolute mayhem.  Although looking back with the benefit of age and experience, I think he might have been referring to something, uh, medical, rather than straight up violence.

Which brings us to today and Fat Tuesday.  The end of Carnivale and the last exit before toll opportunity to indulge before the 40 days of Lent begin on Ash Wednesday.  Luckily, it's  Girl Scout cookie time.  Tagalongs and Trefoils are  the first sign of spring, aren't they? You might as well hate America if you don't eat at least one box of Thin Mints. And lookit there - the marshmallow peeps and bunnies are back!

Better plan to give up something other than sugar.

 Laissez les bons temps rouler!

 

 

The ProcrastiSisters

by Harley, Hank & Heather

Last week I, Harley, found a postcard in my mailbox from my neighborhood homeowner's association saying, "you must take down your Christmas lights immediately."

For Pete's sake, it's only March. And it's not like I plug them in. But anyhow, as I dragged the ladder out to the front lawn, I got to thinking about procrastination, how life provides us with endless opportunities to practice this art. My fellow H. sisters agreed.

Q: How do you procrastinate around the house?

Harley: I hate cleaning the fish tanks. Can't they develop a species capable of cleaning their own tanks? We could call them Hazelfish.

 Heather: You name it. I procrastinate on everything. Right now, I'm looking at our Christmas tree.

Hank:  Emptying the dishwasher. Why is that such a pain? Sometimes I just put more stuff in and wash it all again. And broken appliances will fix themselves if you just wait long enough. (And Heather, Harley, soon it will be Christmas again, so you are just early.)

Q: How about personal beautification?

Hank:  Oh, dear. As a TV reporter, I'm more likely to overdo in this area than underdo. (More likely to "put on" than "put off.")

Heather: Skin care products. Was that cream supposed to erase dark circles beneath the eyes, or was that the stuff Bryee bought for pedicures?

Harley: Haircuts. I'm with Tarzan. Why bother? It just grows back.

Q: Medical?

Heather: Everything. Five kids meant a zillion visits to dentists, doctors . . . too tired to go back for myself. And as to dentists . . . well, there was an evil dentist in Little Shop of Horrors for a reason.

Hank:  Ah, the dentist. I had a dentist when I was a little kid, Dr. Roach, really, that was his name. And it was just—awful. I learned, later in life, that the nerves in my mouth are not exactly in the normal places, so Novocain doesn't work they way a dentist would expect. I almost burst into tears thinking about this. Anyway, as a result, my stomach still gets all twisty when I have to go to the dentist. Even though my dentists now are lovely.

Harley: Teeth cleaning. Loathe it. Root canals, no problem. Teeth cleaning, I need general anesthesia

Q: Social?

Hank: I HATE to talk on the phone. I just don't answer the phone.                    When it rings, I growl. SO, sorry, sorry, sorry, I just don't want to talk to you. Returning calls, bad. I think it just—takes too long? So I just—out it off.

Harley: I was going to say thank you notes, but now I'm stealing Hank's. Let's make a pact never to call each other.

Heather: Any kind of communication that must be carried out by mail. I am afraid of the post office.

 Q: Business?

Heather: Once again, horrible. I try to keep things in a box. Then I forget where I put the box. 

Hank: Tax records. I keep every single little receipt, and I am careful careful careful. But filing-wise, I just stuff them all in a bag. Then, come April, it's AWFUL. Why do I keep doing it that way? I know I should make a new plan . . . but it just seems complicated.

Harley: Facebook. Twitter. All of it. It makes me feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown.

Family?

Hank: Oh, gosh, it's embarrassing.  My family is lovely, hilarious, quirky, spread out over the country. My mother and I chat from time to time, and my dad. But—we're not the best communicators. Sigh.  Going to call Mom right now.

Harley: I'm in charge of the next family reunion, to scout out a place, send e-mails, book the lodge/resort/prison, organize meals for 60-100 Kozaks. I've had the assignment for a year. What have I accomplished? Nothing. 

Literary?

Harley: I feel I must read Jonathan Frantzen and I just haven't. 

Hank: Here's my secret. If you BUY the book, the book will osmose into your brain and you don't have to read it. (I'm still waiting for Water for Elephants to sink in on its own. But Lee Child? Oh yeah, read those.)

Heather: I read everything with each child as they went through school. I don't want to read more books about generations of horrible people with the same names doing the same horrible things to their offspring. I've learned what great literary fiction to avoid.

Cultural?

Heather: The Wire. I've only seen one episode, and I know I'd really like it, but I haven't had the chance to catch up on the seasons. I've gotten caught up in Shameless.

Harley: I've never seen Mad Men. But I have it on DVD.

Hank: I've never seen Buffy. Does that count? [yes.] Or Two and A Half Men. But we're symphony season ticket holders. And we rush home afterward to watch American Idol. We go to lots of plays—love that. But I'm afraid I've just let everything go in service of writing my next book. Poor Jonathan. Is that procrastination? Or prioritizing? Yes, prioritizing.

Harley: Thank you. Yes. Prioritizing. I'll tell that to the Homeowner's Association. I'm sure they'll thank me for enlightening them.

 

 

Me and Mencken Munch Crow

By Elaine Viets

George Bernard Shaw sneered at them. H.L. Mencken scoffed. Sinclair Lewis wrote a whole novel lampooning them. I'm talking about the Rotary Club.

"Where is the Rotary going? It's going to lunch," the playwright Shaw sniped.

"The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist 'Jack,'" H. L. Mencken wrote.

Sinclair Lewis's "Babbit" became the definition of a pompous, back-slapping businessman. "Babbit" even made the dictionary as a business man "who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle class standards."

Like any self-respecting writer, I agreed with these august authors. My dislike of Rotarians wasn't based on second-hand prejudice. I'd sat through hours of bottom-busting Rotary Club meetings as a newspaper reporter. I knew from first-hand (or fork) experience the Rotarians were cigar-munching back-slappers who ate gut-busting lunches. They wallowed in conformity. They poured cold gravy over any new idea until it congealed. I ate the rubber chicken and despised them. They looked like Midwestern versions of these Rotarians.

When my husband, Don Crinklaw, had to write about the Fort Lauderdale Rotary Club's "Power of One Hour" last Saturday morning, he left home with a heaping dose of wifely sympathy. I hadn't been to a Rotary meeting in decades, but I still shuddered at the memory of those paunchy dullards.

The Rotary is proud that eventually these critics changed their minds. Me, too. I'm joining Mencken, Lewis, Shaw and the other cynics who were won over by the Rotary Club.

The local Rotary Club did more last Saturday morning than lunch. They knocked on doors and made phone calls. They assembled useful people, from the National Achievers Society – an Urban League program for minority students – to the neighborhood associations, even Cub Scouts from the fat-cat city of Plantation. For one hour they picked up trash and pulled weeds and cleaned up one of the lousiest neighborhoods in Lauderdale, "the infamous Northwest Eighth Avenue."

"This is a strip of trashed lawns and boarded up sale properties nobody wants," Don wrote in the East-Sider newspaper. (My guy has a way with words, doesn't he?) "Clean it up on Saturday and it's a mess on Monday."

The draggle-tailed neighborhood is a breeding ground for pimps, prostitutes and poverty. The group cleaned up the area anyway. Lawyers and other professionals offered legal, health and money advice. Landscapers and a mowing service dropped by to help. They all volunteered one hour and it was organized by the Rotary.

We are a deeply divided nation. People are pointing fingers, blaming one another, refusing to work together.

I know what they'd say about the residents of Northwest Eighth Avenue: They should get off their lazy duffs and clean their own street. Why should hardworking citizens pitch in and help this shiftless bunch?

The answer was in Don's article.

"We don't give up," said Robert Alcock, who worked at the Power of One Hour. "There are kids on this street and giving them hope is such a huge thing. Let them know they don't have to tolerate bad stuff."

Giving hope is indeed a huge gift. If that's the "prevailing middle class standard," then let it spread. The local Rotary didn't eat lunch during that busy Power of One Hour. They made sure there was cold water, coffee and muffins for the workers.

Hats off to the Rotary. Keep on lunching, folks.

I'll have a plate of crow with a side of humble pie.

 

 

My Dirty Little Secret

HANK:  We're peas in a pod, Rosemary Harris and I.  We know all the same stuff, laugh at the same jokes, sing the same show tunes,  push the same books,  enjoy the same movies (except she likes 
GLADIATOR and I don't, but that's another blog.) She's hilarious--oh, which is, coincidentally, exactly the word  Kirkus used to describe her new brand new book SLUGFEST, the fourth in her quirky, sophisticated Dirty Business mysteries. 

 

(SLUGFEST is  a mystery about garden-type slugs (kind of...), not about pugilism.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But Ro has a secret.  And where better than here to tell it?

 

by Rosemary Harris

It's not something I'm particularly proud of. Or something that until now, I'd shared with a lot of people. My husband, of course, knows. Sometimes we do it together but mostly, I do it alone, late at night, after a hard day's work. I just do it to relax - and I can stop any time I want. Until the next time I find myself surfing the 'net, looking for....real estate.

 

Once or twice a year, for weeks at a time,  I'm up until the wee hours researching lakefront, waterfront, fireplaces, ponds, acreage.  I've visited derelict bed and breakfasts, summer camps ("c'mon - it'll be a family compound!") Forget the minor detail that we're not the Kennedys and I have virtually no family. I've dragged my husband to an out-of-business yoga retreat (it had 700 feet of riverfront, so what if it was painted purple and the windows were covered with old Indian bedspreads?) and a former fish camp ( on the same river and with two huge kitchens  presumably for cooking all that fish.) I seem to favor clusters of small buildings on large plots of land  which may be attributed to the marathon Monopoly sessions I engaged when I was a child

or repeated viewings of Gone With the Wind ("it's the land - Katy Scarlett!")

  

Pre-internet this addiction was satisfied by dips into the Sunday New York Times real estate section. Whenever the urge struck, I could look at the fine print and fantasize about the Pennsylvania farmhouse (next to a working quarry) or the thirty-five acre, seventeen unit  bungalow colony (in between a shooting range and a religious community - but it was a nice drive.) Now it's so much easier. Plug in what you want and magically it appears complete with virtual tours, bird's eye views, aerial views (not the same.) You can see how close the neighbors are. This is huge. Especially since  my experience driving to upstate New York to see a lakefront property which was lovely but disturbingly close to a family who probably bought their home with the money they made as extras in the movie Deliverance.

After each excursion, I pull into my driveway and say how much I love my house. It's small and difficult to heat because of all the glass.  I don't have a fabulous bathroom with twin sinks, a Jacuzzi tub and whatever the latest is in tiles and shower heads. I've only got one stove and I have no idea who the manufacturer was. And one day the dog and I will break our necks hauling ourselves up the open staircase which I've been repeatedly told is "not to code."  But I have a wonderful garden, an office that many would kill for and now that the swinging bachelor next door has settled down and had a child, it's reasonably quiet. 

So why, like the happily married person who shamelessly flirts with no intention of following through, do I continue to explore other options? Is it really because I want to change my circumstances or do I just want to see the way other people live? Where they put their stuff? Do I want to try on another life where I have sit-down dinners for twenty as well as  a great room, a family room, a living room and a media room?  (My husband has pointed out quite accurately that we, uh, only have two ..*sses.) Recently, I have found a way to deal with this affliction at http://hookedonhouses.net/ It is a website dedicated to the house freak in each of us.  Here I've looked at cottages, ranches and laughably bad MLS pictures. I have imagined myself striding through the halls of the manor house used in the movie Atonement. I've baked in the Something's Gotta Give kitchen,

read in Keith Richards' library

and powdered my nose in Dita von Teese's boudoir. This ought to last me for a few months.

Rosemary Harris started writing mysteries after reading about a mummified body found near her fifty-year old contemporary home ( 2 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, working fireplace and EIK .)Her debut novel, the Agatha and Anthony-nominated, Pushing Up Daisies (Minotaur), was the first in the Dirty Business mystery series and was followed by The Big Dirt Nap, Dead Head and Slugfest (April 2011) She is President of MWA's NY Chapter.  Visit Rosemary's website at  www.rosemaryharris.com

Please Check One

By Joshilyn Jackson

Oh Facebook! You invasive wormlike addictive awful thing! You keep finding new ways to torment me and make me insane, and yet, and yet, I keep coming back to you. 

In the springtime of my love affair with Facebook, I wanted to take it everywhere.So---I cleverly put it on my Blackberry. (Here the italics indicate that a heavy-handed ironic tone is spreading and dripping in a thick, sludgy gloss all OVER that word.) I then found that I never WENT anymore, because Lordy, but D J Cracky B has a small screen. (Yes, I DID name my blackberry. You didn't?)

And the DJ is SLOW to load web content. I also stopped posting to Facebook, because I am not 14 and therefore can't thumbtype at the speed of sound. So instead of more Facebook at convenient times, like when I am boredly waiting for my oil to be changed and the only reading material available is a copy of People magazine SO old it believes Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt are the It Couple, I went to almost NO Facebook.

I took Facebook off of the DJ, thinking it would revert back to sending me email updates to draw me to it. Now I get no updates on the DJ or my comp, so a thousand vital things I need to know to be a fully realized and content human slide by EVERY DAY. (Okay, I could pass on the "Jen got a really good parking spot! YAY!" stuff, but things HAPPEN on the FB....like Mir could post a gluten free muffin recipe that actually tastes like muffins, and I sincerely need that before I have to take snack down to Maisy's school next week.)

The ALMOST worst part? Around the same time that Facebook stopped telling me things I want it to tell me, it started telling OTHER people things about me I don't necessarily want broadcast. It found my Barnes & Noble account. It found my Netflix account. I think it is worming around the internet SEEKING my email address and linking that address to my Facebook account, all without me knowing.

I suspect that Facebook is letting people SEE my Netflix??? Is FACEBOOK telling you that I recently watched a fetal Tom Cruise peering out from under his shaggy bangs and pretending to a woodsprite man while Tim Curry sprounced about in hooved shoes and big horns, bellowing out peels of demonic laughter?

If Facebook is telling you that I watched LEGEND, dude, no, that wasn't me. That was the kids. Or the dog. Or, um, maybe people broke into my house and tied me up and watched that and left.

OKAY FINE IT WAS ME BUT I HAD THE FLU AND IT WAS COMFORTINGLY NOSTALGIC STOP JUDGING ME.

Even worse?

Facebook has suddenly put LIKE buttons by all my BOOKS on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Look at this—here is the upcoming paperback for Backseat Saints and if you have a facebook account and if facebook has wormed around and linked them up, you will see the book now has a LIKE button by it.

No one likes it yet. This is making me INSANE. I want a little NUMBER. I am SO tempted to click it, myself! If I click the thing and say *I* like it, facebook will tell you, and how sad will THAT be, that *I* "like" my own books.

Well, okay, no, it isn't sad, because I DO like my own books. But it WILL be sad if...I am the ONLY one. HA!

That like button? By every book I wrote and/or will write on more and more sites every day?

Lord, it feels like publishing books has put me back into Workman Middle School...Each book on each page with a LIKE button is a separate sad, shy girl's note to THE WHOLE WORLD with a little box to check. I do not need, trust me, another way to obnoxiously navel gaze, nor do I need another way to find myself wanting.

Has Facebook found YOU and outed you on your Big Business info-tainment accounts? Do you want it to? Can you see my films? WILL you think less of me if you discover that, FINE, OKAY, I have Happy Gilmore in my Q?

Is this invasive or just how life is and I should shut up, and by the way? While I am asking questions? I just want to say that I like you, and ask, do you like me? Pls check one ___ Yes ____No ____Kinda, but not enough to say so if Facebook is just going to TELL everyone, sheesh.

What Would You Do to Marry a Beatle?

 

By Elaine Viets

Time is running out to realize your teen dream, ladies.

Karen Grace of St. Louis sent this warning: "Even though Paul McCartney has been dating someone for a couple of years, he is technically single. Should he decide to date a more age appropriate woman (fat chance), would you be willing to become a vegetarian at this stage of your life to be with him?"                        

 Paul wasn't my Beatle dream date. I had a crush on the Quiet Beatle, George Harrison, who is dead, alas. John lost my love when he took up with Yoko. I still think she broke up the Beatles. Ringo was funny and puppy dog cute, but too short. At 16, size mattered.

Turning vegetarian wouldn't be much of a sacrifice. Chocolate is a vegetable and a major food group. I can't guarantee I wouldn't come home at two a.m. with baked chicken on my breath, but I'd only stray to the dark side of the menu when Paul was out of town.

 

But I'd still say no to Paul. I already have a man I want to be with when I'm 64.

Karen first saw the Beatles on tour in St. Louis, August 21, 1966. She was one of 23,000-plus Beatle fans jamming at Busch Stadium.

"I still have my ticket stub," Karen said. "It was rainy and sticky and I couldn't understand why the girls were screaming. I couldn't hear the Beatles. I found that by holding my fingers in my ears, I drowned out the screaming and could hear the music. Couldn't see them very well, as they were out in the middle of the stadium."

Tickets were $4.50, $5 and $5.50, reports said. "My mom thought they were outrageously expensive," Karen said. "She bought three tickets – one each for my brother and me and she gave the third to a teenage neighbor so she wouldn't have to go with us."

Mom was right. In 1966, $1.10 could buy a full meal in a restaurant, including dessert and coffee. But those Beatle memories lasted longer than any dinner.

The Beatles were in St. Louis some two weeks after John bragged that they were more popular than Jesus. Outraged radio stations pulled their songs off the air for blasphemy. "There were some religious picketers at the stadium," Karen said. "We thought they were too stupid to live.

"I didn't hear about it until years later, but Paul's favorite guitar was stolen while they were here and he harbored ill will toward St. Louis for years."

When good Midwesterners caught Beatlemania, they got it bad. The rear floor mats were stolen out of the Beatles' St. Louis limo. Someone couldn't resist the lure of "The Beatles Stepped Here."

Karen had more Beatle connections. She met George Harrison's sister, Louise Harrison Caldwell, and belonged to a Beatles fan club. George and his brother Peter stayed with Louise for 18 days in1963, just before he hit the bigtime in the USA. Louise and her husband had a cute bungalow in Benton, Illinois, a two-hour drive from St. Louis.

There's an award-winning documentary and a book about George's visit, "A Beatle in Benton." Beatle historian Bob Bartel told reporters that George "played at a VFW dance with a local band, bought a guitar and went camping with the family." The Beatles' new single "From Me to You" was first played in the States on WFRX in Southern Illinois.

Benton's "Beatle House" was nearly torn down for a parking lot. Investors saved it and made it into a B&B, called A Hard Days Nite, with 1963 decor and Beatles' memorabilia. The B&B folded. The Benton Chamber of Commerce says the house at 113 McCann has been turned into apartments. Someone else is sleeping in George Harrison's bedroom. I don't know what happened to the couch where George supposedly composed "Day Tripper."

Karen couldn't decide on her favorite Beatle. "I vacillated between Paul and Ringo, Paul being my first choice. John was married. George was okay, but too shy."

How would you answer Karen's question: Would you become a vegetarian now to marry Sir Paul? What about another teen crush? "If you're already a vegetarian, pick a comparable sacrifice," Karen said.

What would you give up: Cigarettes? Meat? Margaritas? Or would you rather see your lover in your dreams, and keep your real pleasures?

 

 

Financing Available

 Financing Available

By Nancy Martin       

Living in a charming, 90-year-old house is a lot less charming than it looks in the movies.

For one thing, the words Financing Available become the most terrifying phrase that can be printed on the side of a contractor's truck.

The day before we moved into the house, we directed a couple of pot-smoking electricians to rip off the ceiling tiles in my basement office to fix some wiring. ("Fix" is now a general term I have learned to get more details about before I write any checks.)  Job "done," they replaced the old ceiling tiles in such a way that—well, it confirmed our belief about the pot-smoking.  My husband and I told ourselves we'd replace the ruined ceiling soon.  Very soon.  But ten years' worth of more pressing problems cropped up. Leaking toilets cannot be ignored, nor can two daughters who want fullbown weddings with actual guests and food, not intimate beach elopements where you can just throw some shrimp on the barbie and make everybody happy.

After years of working in my dingy, stalactite-riddled office, though, I finally took a stand.  I had saved up a little bit of money to have the office ceiling torn out and replaced.  (Yes, we were pretty sure asbestos was involved, but that's another story.)

"We're going away for ten days," I said to my husband when our granddaughter was due to be born.  "It's the perfect window of time to have my office ceiling fixed."

A trustworthy contractor agreed to do the job.  I'll call him Tom because . . . that's his name.  Do you have a beloved contractor?  If you live in an old house, I bet you do.

My husband and I went to Texas.  The new baby is adorable. My 2 year-old grandson is brilliant. After 10 days, we came home.  Despite setbacks, complications and a blizzard (12 inches of snow) Tom managed to get the ceiling finished—and it looks great.  New lighting in the new ceiling has transformed the room, which is now the perfect place to write compelling novels and waste time on Facebook.  Over the weekend, my husband and I did some painting to further spruce up "the space."  (Why do I find annoying the chirpy HGTV host habit of referring to rooms as "the space?"  But I do.) What a transformation! I am delighted with the results. Here's the view from my desk:

 

Here's a view of my desk, which will not be this clean again for at least another decade:
 

And here's a view of the daunting number of bookshelves that must still be cleaned, sanded, primed, painted and re-loaded with books before we can consider the room completely done:

 

Our handiwork finished, my husband and I admired the room.

Then a mere hour elapsed before a seemingly minor catastrophe struck in the form of a basement laundry sink that refused to drain.  In a 90 year-old house, however, no catastrophe is "minor." Within another hour, the kitchen sink overflowed above the laundry—we mopped up before any damage was done to the new hardwood kitchen floor---and there was something definitely funky going on in the dishwasher.

Oh, dear.

Tom returned and started muttering in the adjacent laundry room.  "That's not good," I heard him  say to himself between loud bangs, Herculean grunts, and exasperated sighs.  "I gotta go get my snake."

A snake, in case you are a smart person who lives in a pristine house fewer than ten years old---or better yet, you rent the place where you live and enjoy the services of a competent building super—a snake is a coil of steel wire that a plumber can unleash to ream out your clogged pipes. In our case, we had corroded cast iron pipes jammed with 90 years of rusty household crud that smelled like dead possums.

Tom returned from his truck with the snake machine.  He banged around the laundry room a while longer and finally shouted, "Hey, Nance!  You gotta come see this!" (Nobody calls me "Nance," except contractors or—oddly enough--other women named Nancy. My family sometimes calls me Nan.  My grandson calls me Nana. My husband calls me "Bunny," but that's another story.)

When called, I ventured warily into the laundry room where Tom emerged from under the sink like an evil Rumplestiltskin with a wrench in one hand and a reeking bucket in the other. His arms were coated with black slime.

"I have a weak stomach," I warned him.

But Tom was triumphant.  "I found the problem!"

He showed me a bucket full of . . . well, since you may be reading this as you enjoy a cup of coffee and a nice bagel with Nutella, I won't describe the vile mess Tom displayed for my admiration.  While I averted my eyes, he explained the pipes were jammed tight with this horrible sludge.  I was prepared to pay any price to rid my house of such disgustingness, but I wisely did not blurt out that thought. I was too busy fighting down my bagel with Nutella.

Hastily, I retreated to my desk, and Tom proceeded to bang, groan, choke, and otherwise vocally convey how hard he worked to clean out my pipes.

Here's the thing about old pipes:  Because they're out of sight, you kinda forget about them and assume everything's running fine.  Maybe a drain runs a little slowly, but you ignore that because the real problem is invisible.  But eventually, all the corruption stops water from flowing at all, and then the catastrophic damage starts.  Similarly? Over the weekend, the son of the dictator of impoverished Equatorial Guinea ordered himself a $380 million dollar yacht.  And there's a terrific article in The New Yorker about the bank of Kabul that every American taxpayer ought to read.

 Corruption is something we don't pay attention to until the hardwood floors are warping and dictators are raping their own people while buying yachts. Or Americans are paying for both sides to fight a war in which young people die.

 As I was typing up this blog, my phone rang.  From Texas, my daughter—the mother of my grandson and wonderful new baby granddaughter (see photos above)--wailed:  "We have plumbing problems in our new house! The pipes to the street must be replaced!  The estimate is $15,000!"

What bugs me most about her plumbing problem is that the previous owner left the rotten pipes for the next generation to resolve.  She says financing is available, but eventually somebody's going to pay big to fix those pipes.

Let's Help Gwyneth

By Sarah

Okay, people, enough joking around. I'm serious. It's time to get Gwyneth Paltrow the help she so obviously and desperately needs. If someone doesn't step in soon, there's no telling where this could end up. God forbid she buys her own television channel because that's the kind of tragedy that often happens in these cases, you know. Think deathly pale anorexic Oprah sans soul.

Look, I have no beef with Gwyneth the actress one way or the other. I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love and liked her okay in The Royal Tenenbaums and as Iron Man's secretary/love interest, she was a fine foil - and about as thin - for Robert Downey Jr. I can't remember what else she was in, though I do remember she dated Brad Pitt and she used to live around the corner from my friend, Patty, in NYC. That was my breadth and depth of All Thing Gwyneth.

But Gwyneth wouldn't stop there. No. Suddenly, she was all over the place including in my face. On The Daily Show giggling with Jon Stewart. Presuming to play country on the Oscars. Buzzing about like a mosquito on a muggy summer night with her website - oh, dear Lord, I can barely bring myself to write it - GOOP. (More like a cross between cute and puke which means it should be renamed CUKE or PUTE).

GOOP is a newsletter that offers helpful hints on what to eat, what to buy, how to meditate and cleanse (lots of cleansing) and exercise so that we can, with practice, be just like Gwyneth. Only poorer and not married to a British rock star. It gets 2 million visitors a day!

GOOP is also a fertile field of Gwyneth's over-developed sense of self and lost connection with reality which I'm pretty sure adds up to some sort of syndrome. Napoleonic? No, that's a law. Marie Antoinette? If that's not in the DSM IV, it should be.

Sometimes - like when I want to distract myself from the pain of a splinter in my eye - I will peruse GOOP with its "Make," "Do" and "Be" categories each of which hold impossible bars that only those with no jobs and 'round the clock child care  can hope to reach. 

For example, in recommending places to say in her adopted hometown of London, Gwyneth's first recommendation is The Connaught Hotel which is the kind of place that unlike the Best Western doesn't helpfully list its rates. This is because the rooms start at @$500 and go up to @$3,250. Before taxes and room service. I'd be shy about posting those figures, too.

But, okay. She's wealthy. She can afford to stay in The Connaught while her London townhouse, ahem, is being renovated. About that: Gwyneth purchased THREE London townhouses and is combining them into one. All I can say is if she's disconnected from reality, at least it's OUR reality. Her mileage obviously varies.

Did I mention the house in The Hamptons and Manhattan? Sorry. Just had to sneak that in.

Anyway, she is concerned with working women. Yes! This is the human interest part of GOOP and a great chance for Gwyneth and her Goop People to find the impoverished, hardworking single mother trying to keep the rent paid, food on the table while insuring her children are educated and motivated to make the most of their lives. And whom does she interview? Why, of course, rock empire heiress and noted designer Stella McCartney !

Oh, dear me. Do you see what I'm talking about here? The disconnect and everything?

Plus, I think we have a definite eating disorder on our hands. Because from what I can tell - her published cookbooks to the contrary - Gwyneth doesn't eat. She cleans. Obviously, this confusion stems from an upbringing of having other people cook and clean for her.  She needs to learn that most often we consume food and water to nourish our bodies, not clean our colons and wash out our livers. I swear, you could eat off Gwyneth Paltrow's liver.

But all the GOOP and designer clothes aside (she urges you, her female reader, to "save up" for a Chanel that you, too, can pass down to your daughter who may or may not be named after a fruit), it's the country music thing that really has me worried.

Look, hon, country music is a medium of pain and hardship. It is made up of ballads about loves lost, men run off, jobs gone and dogs skeedaddled. Country music queen Loretta Lynn was a mother at 14, grandmother at 28. This is the kind of well of hurt you gotta dip your creative ladel into. I'm sorry, but graduating from The Spence School and living in three London townhouses at once while sampling the Mediterranean cuisine with a spruce wheat lemon cleanse is not going to turn you into a coal miner's daughter. 

Delusions of grandeur, breaks from reality, eating disorders, multiple personalities. It all adds up, don't you see?

So, please, please, please help me help Gwyneth. For the sake of yoga mats everywhere. 

Sarah

 

 

 

I, a Junkie

by Harley

Recently I embarked upon a madcap, sanity-risking adventure. It was not a safari, or sumo wrestling, or even match.com. It was a detox/cleanse. Why? For the best reason in the world: I had a coupon.

When I called the number on the coupon, Flower, the proprietor, scheduled an appointment for the following week.

"Hold on, Flower," I said. "Can I drink coffee on this detox/cleanse?"

Merry laughter. "Of course not."

"Oh."

"Why, how much do you drink?"

"I've never counted. Maybe ten cups."

Pause. "Per day?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, start cutting back now or you're going to have one hell of a headache."

The next day I laced my espresso roast with decaf, in a nine-to-one ratio. I drank my usual pot of coffee (I have a Moccamaster, the Lamborghini of coffeemakers!) and the following day weakened it further. On day #3 I got a headache. Which lasted for two weeks.

And an urgent, screaming need for naps.

And lethargy. Aching despair. Existential anxiety. Acne.

I called Flower and pushed back my appointment, because coffee withdrawal was gruesome enough without giving up Diet Coke and M&Ms. I needed time. I feared a psychotic break. Me, who's quit cigarettes, alcohol, pot and other things I won't mention in case I'm nominated for the Supreme Court.

At this point, 3 different friends recommended Bikram Yoga. You know about the Rule of 3, right? If 3 people mention something, you must check it out. It's the law.

Yet, I hesitated. Yoga and I have a troubled past:  At 14, I was doing a headstand (sirsha-asana) in my living room, came out of it awkwardly, landed in my mother's terrarium, and ended up in the ER, getting 9 stitches.

There were no headstands in Bikram Yoga, my friends assured me. It's 90 minutes of 26 regimented postures in a studio heated to 104 degrees—what its founder, a guy named Bikram Choudhury, calls "the torture chamber." Hard to resist that, huh? And besides . . . I had a coupon.

 So I showed up, sweated, survived, went home, drank 320 quarts of water and took a short 3 hour nap. And kept going back, because the coupon's good for a month.

A week later I made my sad, sleepy way to Flower's office, and left with a bag of weird powders and potions, a shopping list, and instructions ("no microwave, Teflon, tap water").

Then followed 9 days of the kind of food I imagine they serve in the gulag. A few
vegetables, a handful of brown rice, some organic berries. A vial filled with Mystery Drops, some semi-disgusting green stuff you drink once a day.

Yes, my skin cleared up, my chronic back pain receded, and I lost 5 pounds, half of it from crying jags. I also lost my will to live. Oh, there were moments of euphoria, but they were interspersed with hunger so acute I contemplated eating the houseplants. Why did I keep on?

For one thing, Uranus is currently at 29 degrees Pisces, the exact degree of my ascendant. If you're into astrology, enough said.

Secondly, last fall my doctor found a tiny blip in my EKG, the kind of thing that's probably meaningless, but in someone whose family members routinely keel over from heart disease, worth mentioning. "How do you deal with stress?" Dr. Iqbal asked me. Kickboxing, I told him. And caffeine. "Less coffee, more yoga," he suggested.

But the third reason--the real true one—is that I'm pretty sure my brain is possessed by the ghost of Jack Lalanne.

I lasted the whole 9 days (I cheated on days 7,8, and 9 with several pieces of sugar-free gum, but don't tell Flower). On Day 10, I had a cup of coffee and some cookies. Talk about nirvana.

And now I'm back to my old tricks except . . . more yoga, less coffee.

How about you? Are you a closet junkie? What is it they'll have to peel, a la Charlton Heston, from your cold, dead hands? Your beer? iPhone? General Hospital?

Name your poison.

Harley

 

Back in the Game

 

What happens when you meet your high school flame after forty years? Sharon answers that question for The Lipstick Chronicles. Her story involves hurt feelings, a worried daughter and a timely text message – like her novels. Sharon's Miami-based thrillers are about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Her latest thriller, Someone's Watching, was called "shiver-rich" by Publishers Weekly, and "stunningly well-handled" by Booklist.

By Sharon Potts

I'll admit it. I'm not a social person. I'm more of a no-makeup-worn-jeans-walk-the-dog-between-chapter-revisions-talk-to-my-kids-too-often kind of person. And I like it that way.

But there was a time, give me a couple of Stoli martinis and I'd be up at the front of the room telling inappropriate jokes or crooning These Boots Are Made for Walking, with or without the Karaoke machine. Who said CPAs are dull and boring?

But that was thirty years ago. Since then, married life and two kids intervened in my social development and budding entertainment career.

That changed about a year ago when my first novel came out and I realized touring was part of the being published process. Guess what? Martinis don't work before a book signing, particularly if you're trying to speak without slurring. So I tried Toastmasters to get past the jitters. (Funny name for an organization that doesn't use alcohol as part of its protocol.)

The practice speeches helped. Problem was, after thirty years in hibernation, I'd lost most of my friends. Enter Facebook, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com. Turns out it was forty-year reunion time at my high school alma mater in Elmhurst, NY.

Click, click, click.  Suddenly, I'm in touch with all these people I haven't heard from in years.  And that included former beau, Charlie. (Not real name.)  Charlie had taken me to the prom, then broke my heart later that summer when he told me we weren't right for each other. He owed me big time. 

 Surely he'd buy a book or come to one of my signings. I sent him a message. He wrote back. Lots of sweet reminiscences. But they didn't make up for the revelation that he'd taken Marissa, former-best-friend-turned-nemesis, to a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert at the Filmore East with tickets he'd bought with me in mind. Ouch.

Nevertheless, we arranged to meet next time I was in New York. I live in Miami, but I'm fortunate to have a daughter who has this great studio apartment in Midtown Manhattan.

Sarah folded her arms across her chest as she watched me zip up my new suede boots.

"Does Dad know you're meeting this guy?"

My hand was shaky as I tried to remember how to apply eyeliner. "Of course. He's fine with it."

Gus, her bulldog, cocked his head.

"What time will you be home?" Sarah asked.

Boy, talk about role reversal. "Not too late."

I kissed her goodbye and went off to meet Charlie at an Italian restaurant near Columbus Circle. Forty years. What can I say? A little gray, a little beardy. (He, not I, thank God.) I turned down a martini and sipped on a glass of wine. The conversation opened with a discussion about Prilosec and acid reflux. Forty years. What can I say? We moved on to careers, spouses, kids, what happened to the people we knew. The conversation dwindled. My cell phone buzzed.

 My daughter Sarah, Where r u?

I wrote back, Home soon.

Charlie gave me a lift back to Midtown. A peck on the cheek goodbye. Somehow I sensed he wouldn't be buying one of my books.

 I climbed the stairs to Sarah's apartment. She was pacing. "I was worried, Mommy."

"You were?" I gave her a hug, then I took off my new suede boots, put on a pair of worn jeans, washed my face, and went downstairs with her to walk Gus.