Man Shopping

Pity me. I’ve been performing that most abhorrent of female duties: Man Shopping. No, not shopping in order to acquire men, as I’ve chronicled here, but shopping for the men in my life. And worse than that, even…today I shopped for stocking gifts.

Urk.

The women in my family have always adored giving and receiving stocking gifts, as long as they are for or from other women. The problem is that once we’ve filled each other’s stockings to the brim, we’ve felt obligated to do likewise for the men in our lives. And I don’t think I’ve ever known a single man who really likes small, inexpensive gifts. They don’t even seem to understand the whole small-gift-concept.

Still, my dad always dutifully made an effort to be appreciative each year:

 “Wow! A mini-moose-horned back scratcher! Now that sure is something.”

“All righty…just what I needed. Socks! Those will come in mighty handy.”

“Ha ha, yes siree…a polishing kit for bald heads! That sure is pretty funny.”

I’m not sure what was more painful—buying the stocking gifts, or watching him open them.

We must not be the only family who goes through this, because stores make an effort to set up displays of suggestions for men each year. There must be an enormous amount of pressure to get creative, because today I passed more than the usual wallets, desk games, cartoon-themed boxer shorts and creatively inscribed golf balls.

For the wife who is trying to combine good hygiene and a love of tools, there was a large and varied display of electric toothbrushes. Interesting to me were the racks and racks of pink flashlights and animal-themed bag clips, which surely must be high on every man’s “want” list.

The one exception to the shopping rule is my son. When he was a teenager, shopping was torture. Then a girlfriend entered the picture and everything changed. I don’t know how she does it, but if she likes it, he does, too. Once I took him shopping and brought his girlfriend along. While we loaded him up for his trip into the dressing room, I winked at her and handed him a short-sleeved button down shirt in aqua and white gingham that I’d had the wonderful luck to find brightening up the clearance rack. My son solemnly took it.

“Your girlfriend really likes this one,” I prompted. He only nodded, completely clueless as to why I was snorting and giggling.

I am so proud…not to mention relieved. He just might be getting a set of monkey-themed bag clips. I’ll just blame it on his girlfriend.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.
• This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
• They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.

~Puns lovingly passed down from my friend Jim’s dad

Ode to a Great Lady

 She was a stern looking woman for being only 30. She had severe black hair parted in the middle, and she looked down at those around her as if to say, “You disappoint me.”

Her picture hung over my grandmother’s fireplace for as long as I could remember. For a long time I assumed—as did most people—that she was a relative. My grandmother’s great-grandmother, perhaps.  It wasn’t until later that I found out she was no relation at all, but merely a painting my grandmother had liked. So when my dear grandmother died and my sisters and I went through her things, I chose Mrs. Maria Ogden.

I don’t know why. I think it was because I also got my grandmother’s piano, and Mrs. Maria Ogden seemed like she needed to preside over something grand. It wasn’t until I took the painting that I was able to read the back:

“Mrs. Maria Ogden,” it read. “Age 30.” I think that was it. I remember being surprised that she was a couple of years younger than I was at the time. There was also a date that was right around the time of the Civil War.

For a few years after Mrs. Maria Ogden moved in, I stood a little straighter when I passed her because she looked like she didn’t approve of slouching. I watched my mouth; I’m sure she didn’t approve of colloquialisms, let alone swear words, even mild ones. I’m certain Mrs. Maria Ogden believed that young ladies needed to conduct themselves with decorum even though I was quickly becoming a much older woman than she had been when her portrait was painted. “Be careful,” we whispered. “Mrs. Maria Ogden is watching.” And she was, of course; her eyes followed us.

Then one year when my life was falling apart, I wrapped up Mrs. Maria Ogden and put her in my car and drove her across town to the estate dealer, and I sold her. I cried behind my sunglasses on the way home. I have no idea who this woman was, but over the years she had nonetheless become a part of my roots. I missed her.

Mrs. Maria Ogden helped put my son through college. Now that I’m much older and wiser, I am certain she would not have been disappointed. In fact, I’m sure it’s what Mrs. Maria Ogden would have wanted all along.

Beauty is a miracle of things going together imperfectly. ~Anne Lamott, Stitches

Unfortunate Cookie

There’s an Asian buffet near here that I frequent. Not only is the food reasonably priced and wonderful, I love that you get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal. What could be better than encouragement delivered by a cookie? It's win-win! I often meet up with another writer friend there, and the opening of the cookie has become a sort of ceremonial finale for us. Some of my fortunes have been so auspicious, I saved them. I don’t know why or what I will do with them. Maybe I’ll hoard cookie fortunes the way I do quotes.

But recently I took my daughter there, and her cookie said this:

It was obviously the one meant for me, but I was grateful that a thin, fit young person got it instead, because I would have taken it personally. As it was, I was pretty horrified.

Obviously that’s not a fortune. It’s advice. Shaming advice, really! From a cookie! And the very nature of a cookie is such that it simply isn’t allowed to give health advice, let alone tell you to exercise. A respectable cookie tells you to sit around and take it easy, preferably within reach of more cookies. Because everyone knows cookies never like to be alone.

So I’ve been trying to think of

10 More Inappropriate Fortune Cookie Fortunes:

1. Seriously, who cut that hair? Edward Rustyhedgeclipperhands? Vidal Bafoon?
2. You will go home and gargle with lots of mouthwash. Please.
3. You are not even close to keeping up with the Kardashians.
4. I predict you are about to eat a cookie. Ha ha! Get it? Seriously, though, do you REALLY think you ought to be eating cookies?
5. I think you have something in your teeth. Oh, wait—it’s just your teeth.
6. Make sure your life and health insurance are up to date. And hurry.
7. Guess what you just ate?!
8. You suck.
9. Three words: laser hair removal.

And the ultimate paradox—

10. Take my advice: Don’t ever take advice from your food.

What would your unfortunate cookie say?

The search is the meaning. ~Anne Lamott, Stitches

The Delightful Layers of Momdom

Many thanks to Sioux for making me think of a memory. I read her wonderful Mother’s Day post while eating my grandmother’s soup out of a bowl I bought because it reminded me of my grandmother’s dishes.

Those dishes really captured her because we usually sat at her kitchen table. My grandmother was the kind of woman who was always doing for others. That is how I remember her—bustling. Cooking, tidying, moving. Always moving.

And then advanced age forced her to sit still. Forced others to do for her for once. It was hard for her, I’m sure, but that, too, she handled with grace. Even though it would be easy to say she’d earned the right to be waited on, I never got the impression that sitting still was any kind of reward for her.

Instead, the reward was mine. My grandmother had a live-in caregiver then, but when the caregiver was off on Sundays, my grandmother needed someone to sit with her. I lived out of town at the time, but when I came to visit, I’d sit with her on Sundays.

That was how I got to know my grandmother—really got to know her—after she’d turned 100 years old.

Because for the first time ever, we really talked. Not only did I get to ask her what she needed, I got to know her as a human being and not merely as a caretaker. I was surprised to learn just how smart and funny and wise she truly was. We chatted and conversed and giggled and gossiped a little. We reminisced. We debated and discussed. And when she did pass at 102, I felt those last two years had been the most precious. For me, anyway.

Here’s hoping you, too, have good memories or make good memories that last through the centuries and beyond. Happy Mother’s Day.

Who else but a grandmother ever fried bologna?  ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quickly

When It Really Is Unlucky to Have a Black Cat

It’s been a while since I’ve been on blogs. Part of the reason is that I’ve been even more overwhelmed than usual lately. The other reason is that I’ve had a horrible bout of writer’s block ever since our beloved little Catsby passed after an unexpected diagnosis of congestive heart failure a couple of weeks ago. It’s amazing to me how empty my lap feels now when I write.

I really didn’t want a cat at the time we found him living under a concrete bench in the yard a couple of years ago. Not only was I just not a cat person, I thought I was too busy. My social life is fuller than it’s been since I met my former husband over thirty years ago, and I won’t apologize for that. I’ve earned it. 

And Catsby had some abandonment issues. At first I complained about how needy he was, but it turns out his constant presence is what I miss most. It was endearing that he adored being with loved ones so much.

Once when I went in the closet and saw his tail protruding slightly from under the clothing, I impulsively said (in a peekaboo voice), “I wonder where our dear little kitty could be?!”

When he popped out and exclaimed, “MeOW!” it sounded for all the world like, “Here I am!”

That was our Catsby. That goofy critter converted a family of dog people into dog AND cat people. 

That's what made him The Great Catsby.

I can’t tell you how much your kind words meant to me during that time and still mean to me. Also—a block-shattering bit of good news—my NYMB…On Being a Woman story, “Worse Than Zombie Warts” will be featured on www.laughuntilyoupee.com this coming Friday. I’d appreciate it if you’d consider coming back and leaving a comment over there, and as always, thank you so much!

 Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with. ~Mark Twain

When Jane Austen Meets Overzealous Copywriters: Comedy of Not-So-Nice-Manners

It was on sale for something like $5.99—Mansfield Park! It was an older version of one of the movies made from a Jane Austen novel, but it starred Frances O’Connor and Johnny Lee Miller and was filmed on location rather than a soundstage. I was sure it would be good.

When I got it home, I bragged about my find to my daughter and invited her to watch it with me. And then I turned it over.

“Passionate!” it exclaimed in big red letters. And lower down on the case: “The Hot Young Stars Bring Erotic Heat And Stinging Humor!” Passionate? Erotic heat? Good golly-Miss-Crawford, did I get the right thing? Or did I accidentally get some sort of porn? Like Fifty Shades of Sir Gray?

I was more than a little worried about what I was about to watch with my daughter going on between cousins Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram.

Turns out they’d spiced the story up with a little innuendo, a shot of a wet corset coupled with some girl-on-girl unhooking action and some very dark commentary on slavery—something Jane herself undoubtedly wasn’t exposed to and never wrote about. I think there was a kiss, too—the regular, male and female kind. Pass me my smelling salts!

But as least we didn’t see Fanny’s fanny and the cousins didn’t do more than kiss. Is it me? I just can’t help but wonder what this world is coming to when Jane Austen goes semi-porn.

I was going to end with ten Jane Austen Movies-Turned-Porn, but I even grossed out myself. So here are the five I can list here. Let’s just say I hope no one ever makes 

1. Mansfield Parking
2. Sense and Sensitive Body Parts
3. Pride and Porn
4. Naughty Northanger Abs and More
5. Emma Does Edinburgh

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
~Purported last words of Oscar Wilde, writer