wordsmith647

This year, even April Fool’s Day isn’t funny. Who would have thought that in such a short period of time, our lives (and by “our” I mean the entire world) would be changed so completely that we are hoarding toilet paper and bottled water. Latex gloves are a precious commodity and face to face meetings with people are just about impossible. Walking in the park has to be done with at least six feet distance between you and the nearest person. Conversations with loved ones are conducted on our computers using “apps” that allow us to see them and hear them but be safe from sharing germs. I long to have a real conversation with the new gentleman in my life. We met on a dating app, had two dates and then the world shut down.  I know that I need to be grateful for the roof over my head, the food in my pantry and the ability to do laundry and keep warm and safe. I know that there are many who never could take those things for granted, but we, in the United States, have never been in that category in my lifetime or that of my parents or grandparents. I appreciate what I have, but I long for the freedom to go and do what I please. Will that time come again, and when it does will the people I care about be here to share it with me?

Woman vs Technology: Video Doorbell

I cringe to think that anyone might actually read this…well not anyone, just one of my male relatives. I have whined, begged, hounded, borderline harassed them to connect my video doorbell more times than even I care to admit. When I got this doorbell, I was determined that no one but me was going to connect it. I had a very good reason (which, as it turned out was a valid one) for this. I figured it would be temperamental and might require frequent “re-tuning”. Because of this, I wanted to be able to perform whatever tasks it required on my own.

That was the ideal…what actually happened was quite different. I was completely overmatched from the get-go. No amount of reading the directions and laying out of passwords and entering codes and pushing buttons made any difference. I think it knew that I was ‘elder female’. Do not guffaw at me. These tech thingies are smart. It says so in their description: smart phone, smart watch, smart doorbell. When I began to interact with it, it ascertained immediately: techno-dope.

The warning lights flashed and the device rolled over on its back and remained belly up. I persevered and remained without functioning doorbell for many weeks. I tried diligently to connect it to my smart phone. It was an epic fail each and every time.

Eventually, I texted number 2 grandson…did you get that? I texted, I didn’t call, because I am the savvy grandma. I know that they don’t answer the phone and talk to people. That’s so Boomer. I am even learning the lingo. Anyway, he came and read the directions…that was my first hint that this was really tricky. He had to read the directions. Having done that once, he asked for a few codes, asked for my phone, made a few trips from the front door to the table where the device was and before you could say “stupid video doorbell” it was connected.

Life was good. I knew when someone was at the door, that was great, however, I also knew when there was a strong wind. That also set it off. Eventually, I learned to ascertain the difference. Wind equals one ring. Real person ringing the doorbell equals a long series of rings…Westminster chimes, actually.

One afternoon, late afternoon, I was at a memorial service in a funeral parlor. I had placed my purse with phone inside on a chair and was engaged in banal banter with some of the other attendees. Suddenly, Westminster chimes began peeling, disturbing the sanctity of the hallowed place. Everyone looked around, believing it was a signal of some sort. It took me a minute to realize that my handbag was ringing. No doubt, at that moment, a strong gust of wind had gone past my front door and set off the “smart doorbell”. I sidled over to my purse, retrieved my phone and stupidly, disconnected the doorbell app. It did stop the chimes, which was the immediate goal. What it caused, additionally, was at least another week of me having no doorbell, while I tried to reconnect the bane of my existence without asking, again, for assistance. Eventually, I texted my dear, sweet grandson. He eventually arrived and reconnected the doorbell and I left it alone for at least three months. I was getting used to its peculiar ways and even enjoyed the music that resulted from a rather windy autumn. Then, this morning, while I was still groggy from sleep, I heard the chimes. Without fully realizing what I was doing, I rolled over, picked up the phone and disconnected the app. As soon as I had performed the cursed act, I realized what I had done. However, there was no reset switch. No way to undo what I had done. I dragged myself out of bed with a deep sense of dread.

Oh well, I will face the Holiday season without a doorbell. It is my turn for book club and Canasta in the near future, I will bite the bullet and put a note on the door. Or…maybe I will put “doorbell service” on my Christmas list. The way they send me their lists, I will send mine to them. “Six doorbell re-sets”. If I ask each of the boys, that should at least get me to open window season.

Joanne Christiano Flexser

September 10, 2019

About a month ago, I put a beat up old wicker-look foot stool at the curb for garbage pickup. At that time, they did not pick it up. Around the same time, I was having book club at my house and hoped to be on my deck. With that in mind, I went to the local greenhouse and bought a bunch of end of summer plants that were on sale. One of the plants was an oversized hanging basket, which, upon returning home, I placed on the beaten up wicker stool and placed them on the bottom step along my driveway. I received many compliments on this decorating hack and decided that I was satisfied with it and I would change over to mums in a week or so.

I came home today, (yes it is garbage pick up day on my street) to discover….you guessed it, my half dead plant and the foot stool had been taken away by the gentleman collecting my trash.

Trying to decide if I can extract a lesson from this, but I am still processing.

All I can come up with is “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure”….but it was both my trash and treasure and then someone else decided it was trash after all…hmmm

September 4, 2019

As I look back over the many Septembers of my life, most of them have been associated, in some way, with going back to school. When I was between five years and twenty-one years of age, I was a student. The influence my teachers had on me was immense. The first impressions made at the beginning of the school year caused ripples, if not waves, throughout the term, if not the rest of my school career or even my entire life. Some of the comments that teachers made to me or to my classmates, I remember to this day. With that being said, I want to add that becoming a teacher was something I grew into, rather than choosing as a career. I stored all the positives and negatives in my subconscious and with that information and those emotions as the primary motivators, I moved confidently toward a career in teaching. At no point in time during my twenty-six years of full-time teaching, did I regret my decision. The same forces that guided me into the calling, also guided me out. My decisions were all based on some intuition that told me when I was done, rather than any type of financial savvy at all. With the helpful guidance of my Superintendent, I was finessed to the most positive retirement settlement possible given my personal circumstances. I am now retired sixteen years. I am not wealthy, but I am more than surviving. I have not traveled all over the world, but I did make a trip to England for a family wedding and some grand sightseeing and immersing in the local culture.

My point, and I do have one, is that all those teachers of mine, and my experiences with them, led me to the path I chose. They influenced my interactions with my students and colleagues, they guided me to make the decisions that I made regarding my employment and when to retire.

So, if you are starting the school year at the head of a classroom of impressionable young minds, don’t doubt for a minute that every word that you say will leave an impact of some variety on those you teach. From pre-school through graduate school, you hold their attention and you are helping them to become their future selves.

Sometimes the simplest thing can provide the most complicated ego boost. I was sitting here having another one of my pity parties. I have been dumped for the first time ever by the first man I dated as a widow. We had been together for nearly a year and I enjoyed his company and he seemed to enjoy mine. We had times when we saw each other regularly and times when we saw each other sporadically. I thought that was the rhythm of the relationship and didn’t think too much of it. No one was talking about marriage or moving in together. We were just having a good time…I thought. Quite unceremoniously, over the phone, he pronounced the death sentence to the relationship. That was over two months ago. I thought that I would be over it by now, but every few days, I found a new reason to “miss” him. Today, I had the most glorious “aha” moment, when I performed the simple act of putting felt tips on the feet of the wooden chairs that I had bought…also on my own. I thought: you looked for the chairs, you shopped the online garage sales, you found these, you arranged to meet the seller, you picked up the chairs and transported them in your SUV without a man to help you. The chairs have been here for a month…why did this all come to me now? I have no idea. The simple act of fixing the pads on the chair clarified the issue. I did not need him and his muscles and his truck to survive. I was tough enough. Of course, that was not all that I valued about the relationship, but, as I need to remember, there is a big difference between “want” and “need”. And I just proved to myself that I don’t need a man to make my life complete. I am capable of living and functioning on my own. That being said, I still want someone special in my life and in due time, I believe I will find the perfect “someone” for me.

Allowing someone to live rent-free in your head

I love this phrase. Especially because that is exactly what I am doing. The phrase fits my circumstance perfectly. Have you ever done that? For example, someone upsets you at work, at home, in your social life or in your romantic life, instead of dealing with it appropriately with the person, you let them have the last word and keep ruminating on it, long past the time when it is helpful or useful.

Do you have a boss who speaks in generalizations? Instead of naming the person who has committed the infraction, they make statements that include the entire staff: “When hedge clippers make a circular motion, rather than a linear motion with their shears, it makes the appearance of the hedge irregular, rather than smooth.”

This suggests that an entire department of hedge clippers is doing this, when in actuality, only the center hedge trimmer is doing this, however, their work is so visible that it makes everyone else’s work look bad, when it is only one person who has spoiled the team effort. Rather than address the transgressor, as a good manager should, they speak in generalities. You, who have been trimming your section of the hedge impeccably, are furious. Instead of addressing the boss, you keep this inside of you and keep replaying it in your head, playing out the way that you think it should have gone, or imagining yourself speaking to your manager and telling him how you feel about being “accused” of a wrong doing that he knows you didn’t commit.

This solves nothing. It keeps the bad feeling alive, long after it should have been put to rest.

I had this experience recently, (oh good, I am speaking about it as though it’s in the past…maybe that’s a good sign.) I have been carrying on about being treated badly by someone, when I just needed to put them in the “dead to me” category and move on. I have worn out my friends on the subject, that’s how I know who my real friends are, they are still listening and one of them said to me: You are allowing him to live rent free in your head. That stuck with me. I am (or was) doing that. Gradually, I got him into the front foyer and now I have almost completely moved him out the door. Recognizing this fact was an “aha” moment for me. I am better than that. I deserve better and I will not settle for less. Sounds great! Following through on this is not as difficult as I thought. Now, to decide what comes next.

Dating in your Seventies

Life is difficult enough for the average person, but throw in being widowed at the age of 69 and turning 70 without your spouse at your side, these are heartbreaking complications that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. However, I was thrown into that conundrum, along with some serious financial losses that resulted from my husband’s illness. I was lonely and miserable and feeling rather “poor”.

After about a year of being on my own, I took the advice of some friends and decided to try “online dating”. I am a child of the 1960’s. This was a very new concept to me. However, I am an analytical person. I approached this the way I approach buying a car or a television. I gathered as much information as I could about the miscellaneous dating sites. I learned which ones were for “hook-ups”…. just to be honest, I had to look up what hook-ups were. I wasn’t looking for that. There were some dating sites that were geared toward ‘mature singles’ and I researched the pros and cons of those. Then, I made, what I thought was an informed decision to sign-up for “Ourtime.com”. Thus, my great new adventure began. I had to answer a lot of questions about myself, my personal preferences, my activities and interests and what type of relationship I was seeking. I answered as best as I could based on how I was feeling at the time.  Then, I had to find a recent picture of me that was suitable for my profile picture. I was reminded that profiles with a photograph got many times more “hits” than those without one. The only one I could find was a recent vacation photo of my son and me. It never occurred to me to “crop” him out of the picture, so I posted it as it was. I looked tan, relaxed and happy.

A short time after I posted the picture, I began getting some interest. I chatted online with a few men. Proximity was important to me, so I had posted that they needed to be within 25 miles of me. That was ignored many times by gentlemen who replied, I wondered if they were illiterate or oblivious. In any event, I met and chatted with one man who lived very near, the next town, in fact. We agreed to meet for coffee and although he was good looking, there was not a spark. We did meet to walk in a local park several times and our dogs got to meet…they didn’t seem interested in each other, either.

A few months later, I began an online chat with a man who had also been widowed after a very long marriage. His wife had also been ill and he also had grown children and some grandkids. He was very interesting to talk to and we moved from the “Ourtime” website to telephone after a few weeks of texting. I looked forward to hearing from him and we continued both online and “on the phone” and he soon suggested that we “meet for an adult beverage or coffee”.  There were some scheduling complications and it took almost an additional week before we could arrange a date and place.  The night before our planned meeting, I almost “chickened out” when he offered to pick me up, because I was unfamiliar with the location he had suggested. It was outright panic that set in. I thought: “what are you doing? This man could be a predator and you are agreeing to meet him someplace where you don’t know anyone who could help you.”

I got over it and told him that I had a very reliable GPS and would find the location. I had arranged it so that I had a predetermined amount of time before I had to pick someone up, it could have been between an hour and two hours, which may have become a problem if things didn’t go well. As it worked out, he was as personable face to face as he was over the phone. The time flew by and before I realized it, two and a half hours had passed. There was definite chemistry between us and when we had to part, he asked for a kiss and I gave him one.

I won’t say that the relationship was perfect, but we had a lot of good times together and were compatible when we were together. After eleven months, he told me that he couldn’t be in the kind of relationship that I wanted. That was that. I won’t say that I took it well. I was sort of in shock. It is now two months after the fact and I am in counseling to help me deal with the situation and to get some help in understanding what cues I missed. The fact of the matter is, I knew all along that things were not even close to the way I wanted them to be. The progression of the relationship was uneven. It ran hot and cold. While he did most of the pursuing, it was in fits and starts. If I am to be honest, I wanted it to work, more than I believed it was working. That doesn’t lessen the pain that I am suffering. I did care deeply about him and my son’s “helpful” comment about if I want another old man, there are plenty of them out there…did ring true. So now, the question is, do I really want another old man. Let’s face it, what am I going to find at this age? I am an old woman, although my thinking is young and so much of what I do is youngish, I guess I could look again, but to what end? Is it about the journey or the destination? I need to decide and being so changeable, whatever I decide, I may soon change my mind and pick the opposite. I am living my life backwards…I need to do the “fun” dating in my 70’s that I never did in my teens. I had only long term, serious boyfriends and I married at 19. Can I do that? I don’t know…stay tuned and we’ll see.

July 29, 2019

The Passage of Time

July is coming to an end, too rapidly. To me, this always signals the end of summer even though, on the calendar there is still all of August and the first half of September. It seems that once we turn the page on July, summer just gallops away at breakneck speed. This summer started with two landmark events in my life. My youngest grandson graduated from high school and his younger sister was promoted from eighth grade and will begin high school in September. Since I was present at both of their births, this strikes me as shocking. Where did the years go? Part of it they lived a thousand miles away from me. Now, although they are close in miles, sometimes they seem further away. Each involved in their own lives, which touch mine, not often enough. Which brings me to what I wanted to discuss today…the passage of time.

When I was young, summer seemed eternal. Especially when I was whisked away to Florida for eight weeks and my friends were all in New Jersey. I still have a stack of letters that were sent between friends, filling each other in on what was happening during our separation. Long, tedious months at my grandparents’ home.

My grandmother was very ill, although, I was not told at the time. My grandfather and I had a strong bond and we hung out quite a bit, doing his things, which included gardening his acre of backyard which contained fruit trees and vegetables and some local insects…I found these fascinating, from a distance. He was born in 1883, so he must have been in his eighties at that time, (it was the early 1960’s,) but he didn’t seem old to me. He was agile, and cleaned his gutters and trimmed his trees and gardened for hours every day. He shopped and cooked meals for us, although my mother and I pitched in while we were there. He drove his 1946 Buick to places which were too far to walk to easily…or if he was bringing back too much to carry by hand.

In later years, he stopped driving and was given his own personal shopping cart from the local super market. It had a burst of yellow ribbons tied to the handle to identify it as his. After my grandmother passed, he took up shuffleboard, which was a mile walk from his house. He usually refused offers of a ride back and forth, saying he considered the walk part of his routine. In those years, he flew to New Jersey and spent the summers visiting his children and grandchildren. He usually stayed with us for most of the time, but he particularly enjoyed spending time at my cousin’s farm, especially after they opened a farm stand and he could help to prepare the vegetables for sale. He enjoyed talking to the customers and spending time with my cousin and her family. When he was with us, my mother would plan lots of visits with his siblings and cousins, who were still in the area and spry enough to travel. We had cousins by the dozens. My mother and grandfather would cook for days to prepare for one of these visits and they both loved doing it.

For some reason this took me to a memory of when I was a very little girl. My grandparents lived across the street and owned a delicatessen. I loved to hang out with my grandfather and I would “help” him in the store or run errands with him. He took me to the beach one day, just him and me. We had a great time. But what I remember most vividly is visiting his mother in Nutley, NJ. She had baked a cake to serve company, she was in her late 90’s at the time. I don’t remember what it tasted like, but I do remember that the icing was dark green. I haven’t seen icing that color before or since. We came home with a kitten for me…my mother was slightly less pleased than I was. I have no recollection of the kitten except for one adventure when it got into the washing machine. My great grandmother died at 97, following a fall from a stack of chairs she was climbing to reach some sweets that her daughter had placed at a distance from her because she had become diabetic.

When my grandfather lived to be 101, I thought that longevity must run in our family, but in more recent history that has not been the case. Which brings me back to my original line of thought, the passage of time.

I waste so much time. It is a luxury that I didn’t always have. I lived so much of my life on a rigid schedule. I would get up at 5:30a.m. to have my shower and coffee before I got the boys up for school. After school there were meetings and sports for the boys. I have to mention that about 30 years ago, I met one of my forever friends, Susan, and we created an “every Saturday” commitment that we honor to this day. We have done all sorts of things, from painting parts of each other’s homes to hiking to playing racquet ball…today it’s mostly shopping, lunch and an occasional movie. Even after I retired, I filled so many hours with volunteering and classes and part-time jobs, that I never really had a lot of leisure time, by choice, apparently. Since my second husband passed, two years ago. I find that I have quite a bit of “unscheduled” time and I like it. I like being able to get up when I want and dawdle over my coffee. Read or write or simply look out the patio door at my back yard and either daydream or plan some activity or remodel. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my volunteering and activities with my wonderful friends, but there is “me” time. Maybe I am not wasting it so much as relishing it…

I had a two day food fest…book club on Friday, which was not too bad, but I had a rice dish which included creamed spinach (not on any diet I ever saw) and a piece of Pavlova, which had way too much sugar to be diet food, but tasted so good with its berry topping that it was “soul” food. On Saturday, I had a zero point breakfast, but lunch was at the Cheesecake Factory, not a dieter’s delight. They do have a “Skinnylicious” menu, from which I selected shrimp, soft shell tacos, I only ate one taco and the filling from the other two. We did skip the cheesecake, even though it could have been shared by three of the four of us….we did not have it.

Saturday evening, I had Chinese food with a friend. We ordered steamed dumplings, Sesame Chicken and Shrimp with peapods and brown rice. We shared everything and still had enough leftover to each take home a container full. For a late night snack, I had about ten cherries…they are the best at this time of year and I will miss them desperately when the season ends.

This morning, I faced the scale with great tredpidation and sure enough, I was up one and a half pounds. That should be enough warning.  However, I will be attending a bridal shower today at a place called “The Risotto House”….seriously, am I supposed to order the salad while everyone else is chowing down on the scrumptious risotto? Oh hell, no. Plus, the mother of the groom is famous for her extravagant taste in desserts. So dinner tonight and all day Monday will include extremely healthy eating in hopes of getting to where I was last Tuesday. I am determined, I may even be forced to throw in some exercise….