Monthly Archives: June 2010

Pointed Lessons from the Grandkids

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Important life lessons one can learn from having a couple of grandkids visit for a couple of weeks:

Lesson One: An 11-year-old and a 12-year-old, even ones who are enthusiastic about hiking, are likely to run out of steam two-thirds of the way up Harney Peak to such an extent that one of them is sure he's "gonna die." Yet those same kids, at the end of the steep six-mile trip up to the summit and back down, will have ample energy to spend an extra 45 minutes scrambling up, down, and over the rocks around Sylvan Lake.

Corollary to Lesson One: A tired child who is "gonna die" is not amused when his loving grandmother's response is, "Does that mean I can have your lunch?"

Lesson Two: If your ego is somewhat fragile, it is a mistake to get out the dominos and teach two very bright grandkids to play Mexican Train.

Lesson Three: A dart that hits a sliding glass door just right (or just wrong) will shatter it.

Corollary A to Lesson Three: A large flattened cardboard box is not as effective a backstop for a dartboard as it may seem.

Corollary B to Lesson Three: A non-dart playing grandmother who thinks a good place to set up the dart board is in front of the patio door would do well to get a second opinion.

Corollary C to Lesson Three: Dart-shattered safety glass doesn't immediately fall out of its frame, but it makes ominous crinkling noises for at least half an hour.

Corollary D to Lesson Three: It takes a lot of masking tape to secure a large piece of heavy plastic over a broken sliding glass door.

Corollary E to Lesson Three: The estimate from the glass repair shop for replacing the glass in a door is enough to make a frugal grandmother wish she had suggested playing poker instead of darts.

Corollary F to Lesson Three: Breaking the shattered safety glass out of the door frame by tapping it with a screwdriver handle is sort of fun—but when you figure the per-minute cost, it's very expensive entertainment.

Corollary G to Lesson Three: When a friend who hears about the broken glass says, "It could have been worse—at least it wasn't an eye," she is absolutely right.

Lesson Four: If the kids want to come back next summer, they'll be welcomed with open arms, homemade cinnamon rolls, and plans for new hikes. Oddly enough, however, the dart board will have mysteriously disappeared.

Categories: Just For Fun, Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Big Brother’s Defensive Driver Training

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Renewing a driver's license has never been a fun experience. In today's high-tech and security-phobic world, it's about as appealing as an appointment with Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984. In part this is due to the new federal regulations intended to make it harder to forge ID documents, thereby presumably making us feel ever so much more secure.

Yeah, right. First of all, in order to prove you are who you say you are, you're required to show your Social Security card before you can get a driver's license. The only card I found, buried in my jewelry box, was the original one I got when I was 16, a few decades and two surnames ago. (The one, by the way, that still says, "Not for identification" on it.)

So before I could renew my driver's license, I had to get a replacement Social Security card. To get the Social Security card, I had to identify myself by showing—guess what?—my driver's license.

This week, then, I went to the driver's license office duly armed (if I'm allowed to use such a potentially inflammatory term) with the new card, plus my passport, plus a certified copy of my birth certificate, plus a phone bill and a tax form to verify my physical address (and may the god in charge of protecting us from bureaucracy help all those poor souls who get all their mail at post office boxes). I felt sooo secure, until it occurred to me that a really easy way to create a false identity would be to mug someone on the way into the driver's license office.

I filled out the application form. I dutifully punched the electronic gatekeeper gadget and got my number. I sat down to wait, clutching my file folder with all my documentation. There wasn't, of course, so much as a tattered back issue of People magazine to read. Still, the time passed relatively quickly, thanks largely to an air of nervous solidarity among the waiting applicants, rather like the bonding that can occur in the waiting room of a hospital or a prison on visiting day.

Eventually my number appeared on the electronic reader above the counter and the computer's electronic voice summoned me to "Station 2." I handed over my pile of papers and expiring license to an actual person, an impersonal but courteous young woman who shuffled through them, photocopied something, checked my vision, and took my $20. Then she had me sign my name on an electronic reader with a bulky electronic pen.

One of my pet peeves—mostly, I thought, in jest—has been the idea that future generations might think my actual signature was a shaky electronic one resembling something written by a semiliterate chimpanzee with a crayon. That is no longer a joke. Exactly such a signature, purporting to be my handwriting, is what appears on my new driver's license. The only person whose signature would actually match such a wobbly electronic scrawl would be someone way too drunk to drive.

At this stage in the whole uplifting process, of course, it was time to get my picture taken. No wonder so few driver's license photos show anyone smiling.

I've figured that part out, though. The new license makes it impossible to identify people by our electronic signatures. But just imagine being stopped for speeding by the highway patrol. The trooper comes up to the car and asks for your driver's license. You dig it out, feeling embarrassed, defensive, guilty, and maybe a little bit angry. You hand it over. The officer looks at the picture, then at your face. Yep. You'll look exactly like your photo.

Categories: Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Love, Marriage, and Navigation

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

It was a great party. The occasion was a family wedding, which is pretty much the same as a family reunion, only with nicer clothes.

Which raises the question: Why do so many of life's significant events take place in uncomfortable shoes? No wonder, once the dancing started, the bride exchanged her dressy sandals for tennis shoes. Another cousin replaced her high heels with her favorite cowboy boots. A couple others were brave enough to ditch their shoes completely before they hit the dance floor. And the nine-months-pregnant cousin had been smart enough to wear flip-flops in the first place.

The wedding site was an ornate 1920's theatre that had been restored to its original Art Deco glory, from the fabulous chandeliers to the swans-head faucets in the ladies' room. The setting was beautiful. The ceremony was beautiful. The bride was the most beautiful of all.

Weddings, of course, are about new beginnings. This one seemed to carry a special commitment to hope, love, and life itself. Perhaps that was due to the memory of the bride's recovery a couple years ago from a brain tumor that turned out to be blessedly benign. Perhaps it was the presence of the bride's frail grandmother, in a wheelchair, at what may well be the last family occasion she is able to attend. Perhaps it was the undeniable vision of the future that was present—a whole herd of well-behaved but energetic small children.

The majority of them spent the interval between the ceremony and the dinner running laps around the balcony that surrounded the lobby of the theatre. After refueling at the banquet tables, they were among the first ones on the dance floor. At one point early in the evening, every couple on that floor consisted of an adult and a little kid. They may have been mismatched in height and age, but their enjoyment of the party and one another's company seemed perfectly in synch.

Most of the pint-sized dancers were still going strong when I left to take my parents back to the hotel. Thanks to my brother-in-law, I found, first, the parking garage, second, my car, and third, the exit. I drove around the corner and picked my parents up at the front door of the theatre.

Getting back to the hotel should have been simple. It was only four or five blocks away. I had a map which had been thoughtfully provided by the bride. Besides, I had driven from the hotel to the theatre in the first place.

But the earlier trip had been in daylight. I couldn't simply retrace my route, because the blocks around the theatre were a maze of one-way streets seemingly designed to confuse hapless visitors from out of town. The map would have been a great help if I hadn't left it in my hotel room.

I turned onto the first one-way street. Then the next one. One more, and we were heading up a long hill. Finally I knew where I was going—in the wrong direction. We needed to be headed downhill, toward the river. I may have been completely confused as to north and south, but at least I still knew up from down.

With the general direction of the hotel established, eventually we got back to the correct one-way street. It took us back past our starting point, the front doors of the theatre. As we came near, I saw the bride and groom on the sidewalk. I didn't understand why they were outside until I spotted the photographer on the other side of the street.

I think I saw his flash go off just as we drove by, right through the middle of his shot. There's nothing like having photographic proof of your navigational errors.

Oh, well. It was just another useful life reminder for the newlyweds: No matter how carefully you make plans, you'll always need to work around those unexpected interruptions.

Categories: Living Consciously | 2 Comments

Cats, Ants, and Kitchen Etiquette

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

It was ten minutes before the guests were supposed to show up for supper. I had the house cleaned, the food ready, and the table set with the good china. I walked into the dining room to find the cat, up on the table, licking the brand-new stick of butter. Did I mention it happened to be the last stick of butter we'd had in the refrigerator?

I tossed the cat outside, grabbed a sharp knife, neatly sliced off the cat-sampled top of the butter, and put the butter dish back on the table. Yes, I put butter on my mashed potatoes. And no, I never said a word about the minor cat-astrophe. If any of that evening's guests are reading this, please accept my belated apologies, and I only hope you don't know who you are.

For those of us who are neither Emily Post or Martha Stewart, the finer points of kitchen etiquette tend to be a mystery. I know the proper behavior expected of a guest when a meal isn't exactly to one's taste—you sample, smile, and wash it down with lots of water. Except, perhaps, in extreme cases, like the time my uncle stopped at the house of an elderly neighbor and was invited to stay for lunch. The bread seemed to have flecks of whole grain in it, or possibly raisins. A closer look, though, revealed that it was crawling with ants. The neighbor's eyesight wasn't the greatest, and he hadn't noticed. As I remember the story, my uncle brushed the ants off of his as best he could and ate his sandwich. And after that he made sure never to stop by at mealtime.

Maybe he should have said something. But how do you tell someone you've known since you were a child that he has ants in his sandwiches? Even Emily Post might have had a little trouble with that one.

While I've never served ant-flavored bread to anyone, as far as I know, I have pondered bread-related ethics questions. If one slice of bread has a moldy spot on it, do you toss that slice or ditch the whole loaf? If you burn one side of the toast, do you put the scraped side down and hope they won't notice it, or do you try to hide it with jelly and peanut butter? Maybe it's better just to avoid the whole issue and let people make their own toast.

I do have a clearer answer to another matter of kitchen protocol. Is it acceptable to feed leftovers to your guests? Absolutely, especially if you're creative enough as a cook to disguise them (the leftovers, not the guests) as something new. If you're not a creative cook, another approach is to be clear ahead of time that the menu is an "encore presentation."

In fact, leftovers can turn out to have unexpected benefits. I once invited friends over to eat leftover Thanksgiving turkey and to make pie out of some wrinkled apples. Only a few people were able to come, but one of them showed up early and stayed long enough that we eventually got married. It was probably safe to assume he didn't marry me for my cooking. We did, though, debate for years over which of us turned out to be the leftover turkey.

Categories: Just For Fun | 2 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.