I have my semi-annual tooth cleaning today. I look forward to this appointment every six months, and usually get so excited that I can’t help but show up 15 minutes early.
No I am not a freak, I probably wouldn’t look forward to being flat-backed in the dentist’s chair, getting worked over with sharp tools, my jaw straining to stay open for like 30 minutes straight (or so I hear it goes for the less fortunate). But that’s not how my appointments go.
I am an easy patient. A ideal patient, you might even say. A patient who arrives with no tartar to scrape, no cavities to fill, no gums bleeding. I really just go for the praise.
I am not humble about my excellent brushing and flossing habits. I know that every 6 months or so, I am going to find myself jonesing for a good obscure compliment. And I know where to go to get one.
To a small nondescript office in Reston where the dentist and his hygienists will most certainly take turns praising me for my great teeth and good oral hygiene.
You see, it seems I learned the importance of good oral hygiene as a young girl and even put pen to paper in hopes of spreading the word. I won $40 in a dental limerick contest (seriously!), and vaguely recall reading it aloud to a room full of dentists. It went like this:
There once was a man who was sad
He cried ’cause his teeth were so bad
He heard someone say
Brush three times a day
He tried it and now he is glad
Folks, you see my love for my teeth apparently began at an early age. Today, though, my mouth is 33 years old, I have been a smoker in the past, and I will never forego my coffee and red wine. To the untrained eye, perhaps my teeth look a little old and dull. But the professionals and I know the real truth. I have great teeth, and I’m gonna hear about it again today.
Oh, and Thanks Mom and Dad, for the braces (twice!).
Voyeur? Interloper? Snoop? These words are all wrong. There is no one word to accurately describe a person like me who loves a glimpse into strangers’ lives.
I watch reality TV and follow celebrity gossip. I read other (people I don’t even know) peoples’ blogs. I peer into well-lit windows when driving down the street at night.
There should be a word for this, right? After all I am not the only one like myself who needs a good label. Just look at the reality TV ratings, the demand for paparazzi photos, the blog visitor counts, and show me one person who hasn’t ever wondered how the neighbors have decorated their living room!
Why are we so interested in each others’ lives in this regard? I think perhaps it’s to see how we measure up, or maybe just to reassure ourselves that we have it pretty good.
Now that I am blogging (and soon to be added to the DC Blogs Live blogroll), the tables are turned and strangers are getting a glimpse into my life and mind. According to my stats, a kinky visitor typed “slutty adventure in the school bus” into Google and landed on my site. OK, maybe not the kind of audience I want to attract, but I’ll roll with it.
Even the dear friends who I’ve invited to read my blog will learn things they didn’t know. And if I drown at the pool one of these days (yes, I joined a Masters swim club and had my first practice at 6:30 this morning), then a little of me will be left behind for the internet to remember me by. And strangers will curse my legacy of G-rated-only school bus stop stories.
With several inches of wet snow already on the ground and more still falling, I opted to run my errands on foot today. I’m no fool - I know that my own excellent driving skills and 4WD don’t help me at all when I’m sharing the road with some of the other clowns around here. Plus, since I’m not planning to put myself and my vehicle at risk by driving to the gym later either, a short trek to the grocery store might be my only exercise today.
So I bundled up and walked over to Trader Joe’s. Frankly, I would walk to TJ’s regardless of the weather, because all I have to do is beeline across 2 parking lots and I’m there. It’s easy and I do it all the time, especially if I am craving Chocolate Raspberry Sticks, those perfect little goodies I haven’t seen anywhere else since I fell in love with a very similar treat we used to get at King Kullen in the 1980’s.
I grabbed a few essentials and asked the teenage cashier to double bag my groceries “because I’m walking home with them.”
The needle was knocked off the record, time stopped for a second, and cashier boy looked at me as if to say, “nobody walks in L.A.”
“Why?!?!” he said, without pausing for my answer. “I hope you don’t have far to go!” We bantered a little and exchanged the obligatory “Have a good days” and “Stay drys.” As I walked away, I stopped to zip my coat, just long enough to hear him making conversation with his next customer.
She asked him how he was doing. “This is the worst day of my life,” he replied. “This is the first time I have ever driven in snow.”
There you go. That’s why I’m walking home from your store today, kid.
As a kid, of course I believed in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, monsters under the bed, the Nativity story, that Fig Newtons were made from raisins, and that one day my freckles would fade. (Fond memories, but all of them lies, especially the one about the freckles!)
What I never truly believed in, though, was an imaginary friend. My sister had an imaginary friend named Jenny, and I think she genuinely believed it, too. Perhaps I was envious of my sis or maybe it was just convenient at the moment, but I recall a time I more or less pretended to have one, and nearly even convinced myself of it.
One evening at home with my parents, when the time came to place the blame for some wrongdoing, lightbulbs blazed in my mind, bells rang in my ears, and I found myself saying “Typewriter told me to do it.” Typewriter?!?!
In my mind I was imagining this little guy from Sesame Street:
I had convinced myself he was a close personal pal of mine, but my mom and dad weren’t fooled. After that, I still watched my buddy on Sesame Street, but my personal relationship with Typewriter was short-lived.
The jokes, however, have never died. Just last week my dad was IM’ing me, and signed his note “love, Typewriter.” Then last night I saw my dad and coaxed him (OK, really? Barely had to probe him - he was READY with a good tidbit for me) to tell me yet another Typewriter tale. Ahhh… good times.
There was a time not long ago
I’d shop for wine, and truly not know
If what I bought would nicely pair
With the meal I was about to prepare.
But when one day I needed a “Rhine”
I drove to Wegmans in hopes to find
A cheap German white for my recipe
And the Wegmans wine lady laughed at me.
“Oh dear we carry no such thing
But instead you should try this Riesling”
And a pretty blue bottle she handed me
Priced at only five-fifty.
Her advice was free but it was for real
For that wine I cooked with was ideal.
My recipe tasted better than ever
So choose my own wine again ne’er will I ever.
My next trip in was to pair wine with cheese
An Italian fondue that needed to please.
The recipe called for Pinot Grigio
But how would I choose a mild one to go?
The wine guy was helpful and found me a spirit
The price not a worry - I knew not to fear it
For by now I’ve learned that the Wegmans wine team
Won’t sell me a wine for over fifteen.
That guy was so friendly, I went back again
When I needed a mild red to drink with chicken.
Since I thought that poultry paired well with just white
I needed more help from the wine guy that night
He spurned that old standard and opened my eyes
Sometimes the old rules just do not apply.
A burgundy red that cost about ten
Was perfect to sip with my lemon roast hen.
So now when I need to choose a good drink
That won’t end up poured down the kitchen sink
For cooking or toasting or gifting or sharing
I’ll trust Wegmans Wine Shop to pick a great pairing.
I graduate from Harbor tonight. I’ve been on the pep squad there for four seasons, and even tho I hafta miss the yearbook signings, I’ll never 4get all my peeps in Orange County. I have awesome memories of Newport and all the crazy road trips to Chino, Tijuana, and L.A.
Marissa, I know it’s kinda twisted that you endured so much – your mom sleeping with Luke (ohmigod, wasn’t he, like, your boyfriend?!), shooting Trey (your other boyfriend’s, like, brother!), that year you spent binge drinking, your drug overdose in TJ, your same-sex experiment with Alex, almost losing Ryan to Teresa, and being stalked by Oliver – only to die when Volchok (your other, other boyfriend) ran your car off the road. But I’ll always remember that “Enchantment Under the O Sea” junior prom you organized - mad clever play on words there Coop.
Summer, girl, I remember when you were all into princess sparkle and The Valley. Now it’s all Pancakes and save the groundhogs. Along the way you even detoured into the world of comics… you sassy Little Miss Vixen, you. So many personalities… are you sure you’re not just, like, suffering from one long “rage blackout”?
Taylor, we only really became friends after the “core four” started letting you hang around. And I am so psyched they did because your slutty escapades are sorta warped and pretty hilarious. First there was your affair with Dean Hess, the time you took Seung Ho and his hairless seal-like body to the prom, then we find out that Henri Michel wrote the steamy memoir A Season for Peachesabout YOU. Finally, when you tried to seduce Ryan by pretending to be his sleep therapist, I knew you were not really the buttoned up prude you seemed to be when we were sophomores.
A special shout out also to Seth, Anna, Che, Ryan (and cage-fighting!), Jimmy, the Bait Shop, Kiki & Sandy, Bullitt, Kaitlin, Luke and the rest of the water polo team (and his brothers and gay dad), the Lacrossetitutes, Zach, and Julie Cooper Nichol Cooper Roberts Cooper Bullitt Atwood.
Today marks the beginning of Lent, and I think this year I am going to kick it Methodist-style for the next 40 days. (you say: What!?)
Well, last night I started snacking on some mixed nuts. I was satisfied, but saw there wasn’t enough left in the can to just leave behind for my next snack, so I polished it off. It seemed tidier that way. Of course a responsible adult can’t have just nuts for dinner(!) so I reheated some leftover brocooli and cauliflower with homemade cheese sauce. Lots of homemade cheese sauce. That was awesome, but then I decided I better balance out the “meal” with some carbs, so I sliced about 4 inches off a baguette and slathered it with yummy butter. (Oh puhleez, do you actually believe that whole bit about balancing my carbs? I just wanted some damn butter, and that stale old half-baguette was the only vehicle I had. I have been known to slather it on saltines in the past, but my tastes have since matured.) Anyway, before I knew it, I had created a little FAT Tuesday celebration of my own.
I swear I hadn’t even thought about it being Mardi Gras, since I don’t party on Tuesdays anymore. But when I woke up this morning with a butter hangover, I was reminded that the dairy carnival is over, and I need to atone.
Although I can’t recall the last time I connected with Christianity, I also can’t recall the last time I tested my willpower for 40 days straight. (OK, yes I can… it was 2 years, 2 months, and 21 days ago when I quit smoking for the last time - but no former smoker ever forgets the date they finally kick the habit do they?)
So without making light of a meaningful period of discipline and reflection taken seriously by believers, I’m going to piggyback on this tradition if only to take advantage of the structure of Lent: the defined beginning and end, the constant reminders along the way, and most important, knowing that I am not the only one out there suffering through my personal test for the next 6-ish weeks.
No, I am not giving up the butter, or any food for that matter. But I am going to make some big sacrifices here. So for the next 40 days I will not:
pursue any new romantic interests (the current interest may or may not remain in the picture). This means I will not seek out or initiate any sort of flirtation with the opposite sex. (Fine print: they’re still allowed to pursue me!)
press snooze on my alarm clock. (confession - I already failed this morning, but tomorrow’s a new day, right?)
idly watch HGTV or Food TV or any similar channel when I could be reading instead.
Here’s to hoping some good new habits/priorities develop when this challenge is over!
I bushwhack through a couple of residential neighborhoods on my morning commute. At several of the street corners, I see parents idling in their minivans, the kids chillin’ in the passenger seat, waiting for the school bus. Those poor kids have no idea the street corner fun they’re missing… I would never have had these hilarious memories if my mom and dad hadn’t cut me loose, trusted me, and let me wait for the school bus all on my own.
Greg K. swinging a split sassafras branch over his head like a whip until the cracked end weakened and flew off, hitting me upside the head. That must have been about the time my dad, pissed at this neighborhood troublemaker, christened him with a nickname befitting a kid with oversized ears that stuck straight out of the sides of his head. Greg K was known thereafter as “Wingnut.”
Every September, on the first day of school, all the moms would come out to snap pics of us getting on the bus with our brand new “school clothes,” knee socks and shiny shoes, and awesome bookbags. One year, a couple of the moms were standing around gabbing away while we waited for the bus — too distracted to notice one of the neighborhood dogs had wandered over, lifted a leg, and started peeing down Mrs. K.’s ankle.
The morning that I woke up from a very realistic dream and at the bus stop told Tammy W. that she couldn’t share a seat with me that day. I didn’t realize it yet, but it turns out that in my dream the night before, my parents instructed me not to sit on the school bus with Tammy, but I completely confused it with reality well into my waking hours. So of course Tammy went home that day and told her folks what happened. They, in turn, called my confused parents, who didn’t understand why I’d make up something so ridiculous. I don’t recall how that one got sorted out but it started as a bus stop memory that’s still with me.
I’ve tried to figure out why these parents baby their kids like this. Suburban Long Island in the 1970’s was just about as subdivided as NoVA is now, so we weren’t “safer” per se. And we stood at that bus stop in all kinds of weather, so it’s not like these NoVA 2007 kids have to brave worse elements. I dunno, maybe one day when I’m a mom, I’ll get it!
This past July I planned an extended visit to my parents’ house Vermont, and though I knew most of my awake time would be whiled away in a cushioned Adirondack chair on the wraparound porch, a stack of novels and a cold Long Trail Ale within arm’s reach, I planned ahead for a couple of outings so I wouldn’t leave Vermont feeling like such a lazy bum.
Hiking was an obvious “to-do” and I knew we’d enjoy some gallery hopping up in Brandon… but what I really wanted to do was to relive one of my childhood memories and go watch the cheesemakers in Plymouth.
My memory was rather vague, but I did recall that years ago, my parents loaded my sister and me into the old blue Deuce and drove over to the Calvin Coolidge Historic Site in Plymouth where we watched hippies make cheese. We took home a container of curds to snack on. The only lucid detail in this particular fuzzy memory was a clear picture of the old presses and other equipment used that day.
My mom corroborated my memory and immediately confirmed that the Plymouth cheesemaking operation was still up and running and open to the public. So a couple days after I arrived in Vermont, you betcha we loaded into their blue car again, this time a new Sebring and this time my sister not along for the adventure.
The cheesemakers had upgraded to fancy new equipment, but in true hippie style, were behind schedule for the day, so we missed most of the action. Instead we wandered upstairs to a new museum room where I discovered the old equipment I had remembered from my first visit there, probably 25 years earlier. Now that was cool.
Visiting Plymouth that second time though, I found myself more interested in the surrounding historic homestead and the true main attraction of the park, Calvin Coolidge’s boyhood home. I learned that Coolidge, then the veep, came to be our 30th president when his President, Warren Harding, died. Coolidge received the news while vacationing in Plymouth, and so was immediately sworn in right there in the parlor by his own father, who just so happened to be a notary.
Calvin Coolidge went on to lead the nation through the Roaring Twenties, but rather than turn this post into a history lesson, I’d like to just close with a speech Calvin delivered in 1928, which beautifully describes a state I, too, LOVE.
“Vermont is a state I love.
I could not look upon the peaks of Ascutney,
Killington, Mansfield and Equinox
Without being moved in a way that no other scene could move me.
It was here that I first saw the light of day;
Here I receive my bride;
Here my dead lie,
pillowed on the loving breast of our everlasting hills.
I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys,
Her scenery and invigorating climate,
but most of all because of her indomitable people.
They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves
to serve others.
If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the union
and support of our institutions should languish,
It could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people
Of this brave little state of Vermont.”
So by now, based on the blog name and header, you’ve guessed that I’m a fan of ”Lost in Translation.” My only bone of contention with the film has been that we can’t hear what Bob Harris whispers in Charlotte’s ear as they part ways in Tokyo. “Oh that’s the beauty of it,” you say, “it’s left up to the audience’s imagination.” Yada yada yada, this has been discussed exhastively already by film groupies far and wide, so I won’t repcap all sides of the argument. I’ll just sum up my own opinion by saying this… After I dutifully sat through the movie several times, I feel like I deserve to know, like I shouldn’t be left hanging.
That’s exactly how I felt after finishing Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. In paragraph one, Ishiguro made references to “donors” and “carers” but without much context. I knew exactly what he was doing - piquing my curiosity with allusions so obscure that I couldn’t even temporarily satisfy myself by yielding to my imagination, as I typically might.
But I was a good little reader. Miss Oh, my childhood librarian, and my mom, my reading idol, would be so proud. Though desperate to understand the bigger picture of all this “donor” and “carer” talk , I patiently turned page after page, trusting Ishiguro to reward me with full details, perhaps in the next chapter.
I slowly learned that the core characters in the book were all clones (to my friends who know me to be strictly-anti-sci-fi, I swear I didn’t know until I was too invested in the book to stop reading) who were bred at birth with the sole purpose to grow up and become organ donors. Part of the process to become an organ donor was to first “care” for other donors as they braced for and recovered from their numerous surgeries.
I realize the book is really a story of the relationships between these clones as we follow them from early childhood through to their “completions” (deaths). It was not intended to be a story about cloning and organ donation, BUT wasn’t that was a significant enough sub-narrative, as it was the whole purpose of these clones’ lives? I feel it merited further elaboration, and that I am once again left hanging, my curiosity getting the best of me.
Questions I have:
was this cloning and organ donation progam secret?
why set this book in the 1990’s?
why did every single one of these clones just accept their fate? they were so human in every other regard.
what organs were they donating? how could a person survive donating 4 different organs? were they vital organs?
Now that I have this off my chest (Phew!), I can move on and finish another of Ishiguro’s books, When we Were Orphans, that I discovered towards the back of my shelf.
