The Good Ol' Bad Ol' Days

We’ve been invited to a birthday party Saturday night for a friend celebrating one of those milestone birthdays ending in a zero. Her husband is planning the “penultimate” gathering for her and has suggested that everyone don their best 80’s gear – big hair, padded shoulders, acid-washed jeans, or parachute pants and head down to one of the bars in the Arena District to hear a local 80’s band.

My question is: how many of us still own parachute pants or clothing with football-sized shoulder pads or acid-washed jeans? If we answered "yes" to the above question, the next question surely must be: WHY? And, if so, do we really want to admit it by showing up at a bar wearing that stuff? I should think not.

First of all, there is the possibility that no one fits into those old clothes anymore. Can you imagine pulling on parachute pants and not having yards of extra material? Tight fitting parachute pants would be just sad. Not only that, but while dancing to 80’s music in such outfits might be fun, at our age, we’d be exhausted after the first break dance spin. We’d hobble off the dance floor clutching our aching backs and searching for a hit…off of an oxygen tank.

MC Hammer is the guy we most remember wearing parachute pants, though I do recall a good friend from college with a pair of blue and purple parachute pants that looked like two crayons got together and threw up. The reason I remember them is that they resurfaced at a Halloween party in recent years. I was shocked that he kept them. Mostly because it meant that when he folded up those pants sometime in 1989 or so, he consciously had to say to himself, “Hmmm…I should probably keep these.”

Do people in their 20s even know who MC Hammer is? Maybe they do because he did a Nationwide commercial during the Super Bowl a couple years ago wearing gold lamé parachute pants and dancing to “U Can’t Touch This” while his mansion and all his possessions get repossessed. It was pretty funny…and yet sad at the same time, because the guy really did make tons of money and then lost it all and had to file for bankruptcy. Apparently “U Can’t Touch This” wasn’t true as far as the IRS was concerned. Oh well, at least he got to keep the gold lamé parachute pants. After all, who’d even want ‘em?!

Anyway, at the very least, I’m thinking I could style my hair into big 80’s hair. All I need is hair spray. A can or two should do the trick. The only problem is that I don’t have a perm. Remember those? Hair that was totally frizzy unless you tamed it with hot rollers and lots of spray. The good news is that hair generally stayed in place and the curls didn’t dare fall out even while "dancing" (and I use that term loosely) to Devo or the B52s. The bad news is that many of us had fried, frizzy hair that slightly resembled the “gift” that the cat occasionally leaves on the carpet for us to clean up.

But still. It was “the look” back then. Does anyone remember using a hair dryer to blow back the sides and then spraying your hair in place? I remember learning that little trick from some 80’s movie probably starring Molly Ringwald and thinking it was pretty cool. Before that, I tried using all manner of hair gel, mousse and other styling products to no avail – the hair on the sides of my head still drooped minutes after styling.

Seemed like everyone – men and women alike – were working the mullet look. And, as most of us know by now, with the possible exception of certain Walmart shoppers, the mullet is not a good look.

For some reason, 80’s style meant – for me, anyway – excessive use of black eyeliner. I look back at some of my photos from that era and am in shock and awe at how much eyeliner I used. That and purple eye shadow. With sparkles. What was I thinking? Thank goodness I was young. If I tried doing that now, I’d just look scary. Probably I could even make little children cry.

I have an excuse, though. We copied images we saw in the media and on MTV. Melanie Griffith from “Working Girl” immediately springs to mind. And I figure that at least I didn’t wear as much eyeliner as Prince did in “Purple Rain.” It was a little disconcerting to see a man wearing that much makeup, though I grudgingly admit that I admired his high heeled pointy toed boots.

Oh yeah, and I have two more words for you: Twisted Sister. Remember Dee Snyder? No wonder 80’s fashion included frizzy hair, gaudy clothes and bad makeup!

So, anyway, it remains to be seen who will show up at this birthday gathering and who will be brave enough to dip their toes again in the 80’s fashion waters. I, for one, am on the fence about it. I mean, I’m just not sure I can pull off a jacket with shoulders big enough in which to smuggle several small illegal aliens. Who, upon release, would probably take one look at the parachute pants and mullets – and wonder how they ended up at Walmart.

Random Thoughts

If you read my blog semi-regularly, you’re probably aware (maybe even painfully so) that I’ve been a little under the weather for the past week. I’m a sniffling, sneezing, coughing, sleep-deprived mess, and now my little ol’ brain is feelin’ a little fuzzy. Must be all the cough-and-cold medicine I’ve taken that’s wreaking havoc on my thought processes.

Anyway, what this means is that I’m all out of creativity. Got nothin’. Nor do I have any new funny stories to relate as I’ve done very little in the past week besides sleep, eat, work, cough, and wave at Vince from across the room as I try to stay far enough away from him so he doesn’t catch my bug.

So in lieu of an actual blog today with complete sentences and paragraphs, I thought I would share Random Thoughts that are running through my brain today. Read at your own risk. And please do NOT try to commit me – I’ve got enough problems…

1. I’m having a bad hair day. A really bad hair day. It looks like I slept on it while still damp (true) and then curled it this morning without the benefit of eyeglasses (also true). Probably I should’ve just left it dirty. Live and learn, huh?
2. My hair is now in a ponytail. Problem solved.
3. I wish I could communicate with Vince telepathically. If I could, I’d tell him: “Go to the drug store and buy some ZiCam® Rapidmelts. Can’t hurt…and you do NOT want this crud!”
4. I have to call my mother on the way home from work. She has called the past two days to check on me. (Awww…) Nice to know a Mommy is still a Mommy who cares about you no matter how old you are!
5. I came in late today because I was up half the night. Told my boss I’d work through lunch. He said okay, probably because it was preferable to me calling in sick altogether. Door-to-door it took only 20 minutes. Definite plus.
6. Just heard “Break Your Heart” by Taio Cruz featuring Ludacris, which is a very catchy tune…but I hate the words. Kind of full of himself, isn’t he? Being up-front about how he’s only gonna break your heart in little bitty pieces? Wouldn’t it be nice if people like that never found anyone to date? Would serve ‘em right.
7. People call me all the time to ask me to spell words or help them with grammar. But I was stumped yesterday with that whole personal pronoun thing. So…someone help me out here. Do you say, “Will you have time this week to meet with Vince and I”? Or, “Will you have time this week to meet with Vince and me”?
8. I think it’s “me” – but I would like to have that question answered once and for all.
9. I swear, I must have been sick when they went over that rule in grade school and it has tormented me ever since.
10. I wonder if bad guys who are featured on shows like “Cops” brag to their friends and tell them to watch their episode. Can you imagine that conversation?
Bad guy: “Dude! Did’ja see me?”
Bad guy’s friend: “Yeah, man. You looked real good on TV. Way to rock the wife beater T-shirt. And you almost got away
from that cop. It was awesome!”
Bad guy: “Thanks, man. It was kind of embarrassing that I was in my underwear on TV, but WTF.”
Bad guy’s friend: “Soooo…how’s prison?”
11. Maybe they should stop trying to find a cure for the common cold and, instead, work on making germs visible to the naked eye. If they showed up as, say, neon green, we’d simply be able to stay away from them and never catch another cold. That’d be cool, huh?
12. On the other hand, maybe we’d be so grossed out by how many germs there are out there in the world, we’d go crazy trying to avoid them and would end up curled up in a little ball in a corner of a little white padded room swatting at neon green germs. Hmmm…maybe that’s not such a good idea after all.
13. Working through my lunch break sucks.
14. Really should start purchasing lottery tickets on a more regular basis.
15. Wish we’d either stayed up on Saturday night to watch Betty White on SNL or DVRd it. Guess I’ll have to make do with the clips I’ve seen. But, hey, we should all be as successful in our 88th year. Way to go, Betty!
16. Note to self: don’t forget to buy toothpaste, light bulbs, lettuce, chicken, garlic and onions. Make that an extra-large tube of toothpaste. And maybe some mouthwash.
17. I hope we have leftovers tonight for dinner. I don’t feel like doing dishes.
18. I should be healthy. I mean, I’m working on my 6th bottle of water here. And, um, that reminds me…BRB…
19. My hair in a ponytail, by the way, does not absolve me from having a bad hair day. I just looked in the mirror. Damn.
20. I have weird random thoughts.

Egg Sandwiches and The Morning Commute

Normally when there’s a little sprinkle of rain, I get annoyed with drivers who drive 5MPH on the freeway. I mean, is it really necessary to take an hour and a half to drive 17 miles when there’s nothing but a soft gentle rain falling? Today, however, the rain came down in more biblical-like proportions. So how fast were drivers driving? Oh, about 60 miles an hour. Who can figure out Columbus drivers? I kept up, but could barely see the road ahead of me as veritable sheets of rain pummeled my windshield. And the windshield wipers were on the fastest setting. Sheesh. I hardly ever use the wipers on the fastest setting.

Oh well. At least I got to work on time. I had left home a few minutes early, just in case I was dealing with the 5 MPH-ers. Leaving a few minutes early doesn’t mean I responsibly set the alarm earlier. That would’ve required me to plan ahead and pay attention to the weather report last night. And I’ve spent many a sleepless night fretting over the predicted blizzard or monsoon, only to awaken to find the sun shining and birds chirping.

No, I got up at the same time I get up every morning (which means somewhat late), raced downstairs, hugged and kissed Vince who, on the fly, hooked my lunch bag over one arm, pressed my travel coffee mug in one hand and handed me my breakfast sandwich and roll of paper towels (sometimes I’m messy) in the other. I already had my luggage-sized purse over my shoulder as I’m responsible for grabbing my own luggage-sized purses.

My husband takes wonderful care of me, doesn’t he?!

Eating breakfast in the car, however, is not necessarily a good thing to do, particularly if your car has bucket seats. I can’t tell you how many times my egg sandwich has landed upside down on the floor, rendering it inedible. I also don’t recommend eating egg sandwiches without a bib as it is possible to arrive at work with half said breakfast sandwich down the front of one’s shirt. Unless you happen to like that sort of look.

I’m not comfortable multi-tasking while driving, so I only take bites when I’m stopped at a traffic light. Depending on the mood of the traffic lights that day, I may either happily finish my entire breakfast, or may barely make a dent in it. And cold egg sandwiches are not particularly appetizing, so on those mornings, I end up pretty hungry by lunchtime.

Anyway, the point is, I’m a responsible driver. You may say that being a responsible driver means eating your breakfast sandwiches at home at the dining room table. With a cloth napkin in your lap to politely dab at your lips whenever an errant piece of egg threatens to mar one’s politeness. Okay, so you’ve got me there.

Have I mentioned before that I’m not a morning person?

On the other hand, if I had to put a number on it, I would have to say that we do eat breakfast at the dining room table about…(hmmm…carry the 1…grumble, grumble…where’s my calculator when I need it…?)…

…90 percent of the time. That’s not a bad percentage, is it?

One of these years I might even manage to get up early enough on a daily basis to hit 100%. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could eat a leisurely breakfast, read the newspaper and maybe even balance my checkbook before calmly gathering my belongings and heading off for…

Yeah, you know when that’ll happen? No, I wasn’t actually thinking of things freezing over. I figure it’ll happen when I’m retired and don’t have to race off to work in the morning!

I give myself points for at least being dressed by the time I turn the ignition key. That’s not to say that I’ve never, say, applied lipstick on the drive to work, but, again, I usually wait for a red light. I don’t think anyone driving in the lane next to me is going to be impressed that my lipliner is saucily matching my lipstick on any particular day and I can wait to apply lip products once I arrive at my destination.

So imagine my surprise when I really did see a guy in the vehicle next to me with an electric shaver in one hand and the wheel in the other, which was also holding his cell phone. I thought that whole men shaving on their morning commute thing was a myth. But, no. I worried that he’d start dialing his cell phone, which pretty much meant he’d have to steer with his knees, so I quickly changed lanes to get far enough away from him that I wouldn’t be near any ensuing pile-up.

At least people shouldn’t be texting while driving around this city anymore what with the ban on texting while driving. Oh, I’m sure there will still be people trying to do it. But at least there is the possibility that they will be caught. And, for that, I’m grateful.

Just let me know if you hear of any plans in the works to ban eating egg sandwiches at red lights, will ya? I’ll need to practice setting my alarm earlier. And I may actually need to pay attention to the weather reports.

Dang. Being a responsible driver is a lot tougher than it looks!

The Never-Ending Cough. Part II

I figured that my cold would have run its course by now, but I apparently have super duper germs that linger on for months. And, okay, so it hasn’t even been a week yet, but I’m tired of being sick and anything more than 24 hours is pressing the limit with me. I think that a cold should be history once an entire box of Kleenex has been used, but this apparently is one of those Old Wives Tales that isn’t true. And, yeah, it probably has even less validity since I just made it up. But, c’mon - gimme a break here!

I spent all day Saturday recuperating, which basically meant I never changed out of my PJs and I moved from the bed to the couch to the easy chair. All the while I was clutching my box of Kleenex and coughing and blowing my nose and probably driving Vince crazy. While I was downstairs, though, I managed to catch up on the last several episodes of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy, which also probably drove Vince crazy as I’m sure he would have preferred watching golf. Thankfully, he was allowing me to play the sick card.

I think Vince was rewarding me for my efforts in allowing him to sleep at night in relative peace. You see, I took my germ-laden self into the guest room and shut the door where I could cough well into the wee hours of the morning and leave him to snooze without interruption.

But yesterday was Mother’s Day and Vince and I were invited to his dad’s house for dinner. Probably I shouldn’t have gone, but I didn’t want to be rude. On the other hand, coughing and hacking and blowing my nose for 4 hours straight was maybe even more rude. I thought that perhaps the Mucinex, cough medicine, Day-Quil or one of the other 15 cough and cold remedies I ingested might have taken care of the more obvious symptoms. Yeah, not so much.

I’m not sure, but I think I know what lepers used to feel like. Not one person hugged me, or came anywhere near me – can you believe that?! I even drove one person upstairs for the duration of my visit as she didn’t want to catch the germs I was surely infusing into the atmosphere. Before beating a hasty retreat back up the stairs, though, she kindly tossed me a bottle of Chloraseptic.

Maybe I should’ve stopped at the drugstore on the way there and purchased one of those face masks. That might’ve put people more at ease, though it surely would’ve made eating dinner a little more challenging.

You know very well that if anyone who was there catches a cold anytime in the next couple weeks, I will surely be blamed. Doesn’t matter if there was a germy exchange when they took the receipt from a sick cashier at Kroger or shook a cootified customer’s hand or a waiter inadvertently sneezed on their Kung Pao chicken before serving it…the resulting cold will be still be my fault.

So now I will be nervous for the next couple weeks and will be holding my breath whenever I ask the seemingly innocuous question, “How are you?”

Vince’s dad was determined to rid me of my cough. Fortunately for me, he stopped just short of duct taping my mouth shut. His first suggestion was eating a banana. He had some sort of scientific reasoning behind it, but I secretly suspected he just bought too many at the grocery store and wanted to use them up before they went bad.

Bananas, you should know, didn’t work on my cough.

His next solution was to hand me a steaming cup of tea with magical herbs. I’m not a tea drinker and never have been, but I gamely drank it down in hopes that it might succeed where an entire bottle of cough syrup had failed.

Nope. I continued to cough miserably.

Finally, Vince and I decided I’d germinated the house sufficiently, so we said our goodbyes. I offered to give hugs and kisses all around but, surprisingly, the predominant response was to hold up their hands in a defensive gesture and say, “No, thanks. We’re good.”

And I’m not sure I was meant to hear this, but as I was on my way out the door, I heard “Get the can of Lysol – hurry!”

Before heading to bed I filled up on mass quantities of over-the-counter drugs and cough medicines, crossed my fingers and settled down to sleep. But sure enough, I awakened myself at 4AM with a major coughing jag. I took sips of water, popped another cough drop and then gave up and went to the bathroom and shut the door and tried to cough myself out.

Eventually, I lay back down in bed…but the coughing immediately started up again. So I sighed, grabbed my permanently attached box of Kleenex, and headed to the guest room. I quietly closed the door and felt my way to the side of the bed in the dark. And, just as I reached out to touch the sheet to pull it back, a hand reached out and grabbed me!

The Kleenex box flew up into the air and I squeaked out a pathetic scream. Then I clutched at my wildly beating heart and tried to quiet my adrenaline-infused body. Vince calmly and reasonably said, “Where did you think I was?”

In a voice several octaves higher than normal, I said, “Oh, I don’t know – crazy guess – but I assumed you were in our bed! (It’s a king-sized bed and we could, theoretically, sleep far enough away from each other to not even realize the other person was in the same bed.)

Apparently, my coughing jag had begun an entire half hour earlier and it hadn’t woken me up, but it sure bothered Vince, so he’d moved to the guest room.

While scaring a person might work on hiccups, it doesn’t work so well on coughs. And if I hadn’t been in the midst of coughing and blowing my nose, the absurdity of the situation would have at least given me a bit of a chuckle.

This morning when I got to work, I learned that my boss was at home sick in bed all weekend with a cold. He never gets sick. And he assumes he caught the cold from his golf game early in the morning on Saturday when it was cold and rainy. I’m totally willing to let him work with that theory. I might be sick, but I’m not stupid!

Meanwhile, I just had a coughing fit that was so bad I couldn’t catch my breath and briefly considered calling in the paramedics. I’m not sure what they could’ve done to help me – pop an extra strength cough drop in my mouth?

Oh well, the good news is that I’m sure this cold will disappear eventually. Hopefully in the next millennium. The bad news? Vince is now complaining about a scratchy throat. Uh oh.

Guess it’ll be his turn to sleep in the guest room. Unless I sneak in there first and give him a scare! (Hmmm…I’m kinda likin’ that idea…)

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday as everyone in the free world knows, is Mother's Day. A designated day that I have never personally had the opportunity to celebrate, but I celebrate my own mom - as well as all the other mothers I know. And I know a lot of mothers! And stepmothers. And wannabe mothers. And mothering types. Hmmm...do "Favorite Aunts" count?!

They should. Hey, Chloe...where's my card?!

But I digress, which is certainly not surprising coming from me...

Anyway, to all you mom types out there: HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!! You deserve an entire day for your offspring to honor you. A day? Heck, you deserve an entire…week. Okay, so you really deserve to be honored every single day of the year.

Mom's put up with a lot. My mom sure did. Probably she still does, but we’re no longer within swatting range, so it’s harder to tell. I grew up in the day when we weren’t allowed to talk back to our parents and Mom sure didn’t allow that sort of behavior. So when she’d say, “I don’t want to hear it!” and then in the next breath would say, “Answer me when I ask you a question!” we’d stand there in utter confusion not knowing what to say. Or not say.

Being a kid back then sure was confusing.

Fortunately, those days didn’t happen often and I was pure joy to have as a kid. Mom sailed through Motherhood with me as a kid. Really.

Okay, so not really. Pretty much all I have to say is “teenage girl” and you know that’s not true.

Because I wasn’t allowed to talk back to my parents, my modus operandi was to go “silent.” And I was gooood at it. I could go silent for days. I thought it was kind of cool, but it didn’t sound quite as cool when my parents would tell people years later that “Jane pouted.” Pouting doesn’t sound cool.

My sister used to get mad and would scrunch up her face in a major frown (in case we couldn’t tell she was mad) and then would cross her little arms across her little chest and stomp up the stairs. They were carpeted and she probably didn’t get quite the noise effect she wanted, but for a little kid, she was somehow able to make an impressive amount of noise stomping up those carpeted steps.

Mom said she did the exact same thing when she was a kid, so Denise's behavior always made her secretly smile. Mom, of course, didn’t allow any of us to see her reaction. But I guess it’s true when they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?

Somehow we made it through our growing up years intact, due in major part to Mom. She made sure we ate our fruits and vegetables. Fruit wasn’t usually the problem. Vegetables, on the other hand…well, that was a different story.

“Have a taste of peas,” Mom would say, “you might like them!” And then she’d dump an entire tablespoonful onto our plates. A tablespoonful! That’s like…30 peas!

So we quickly learned to serve ourselves and would select approximately 4 peas and put them on our plates and hope she didn’t notice. If she did, she would add about 3,000 more. We then had to learn what portion would seem reasonable to her.

If she started eyeing my plate, I’d become a narc and would direct her attention to my younger brother’s plate. “But Moooom…Andrew only has 4 peas on HIS plate…!”

No, it’s not behavior I’m proud of. But it was survival of the fittest where peas were concerned.

As an adult, I’ve learned to appreciate my mother even more. It’s remarkable how our memories can differ.

It's all in the perspective - right?

Mom likes to tell the story when I was a senior in high school and a group of my friends planned a trip to Florida for Spring Break. Mom says I got very angry when they wouldn’t allow me to go. That I didn’t speak to them for a week. And, honestly? I have absolutely no recollection of that incident!

My guess is that my anger was probably mostly for show because I’m sure I knew that my parents wouldn’t allow me – their 17-year-old sweet and innocent daughter – to go off to Florida on her own with other 17- and 18-year-old girls. Apparently our budget hadn’t allowed for the provision of a phalanx of armed guards, though I doubt even that provision would’ve swayed Mom.

The incident I remember, however, was the night in high school when I planned to go to the drive-in movies with my friends. A group of girls would go in one car and a group of boys would go in another and we’d all hang out together at the drive-in movie theater. As you can imagine, the title of the movie wasn’t all that important. And before you get any ideas, people, it was all innocent fun.

But when my friends came to pick me up and Mom asked someone what movie we were going to see (something I’m not sure I even knew), one of my friends answered honestly, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

And that was the end of my evening. Mom refused to let me go – and no amount of pouting was going to change her mind. Oh, was I MAD. There were few times Mom put her foot down and forbade me to go out with my friends, so this was an incident imprinted on my brain forevermore.

Mom, as you might imagine, has absolutely no recollection of that incident.

So, as I said, perspectives are truly different. Mom was trying to keep me safe until I was 18 and she could boot me out of the house to the relative safety of Ohio State.

Hahahaha! Oh, I’m funny!

 Like there were no pitfalls about going off to college! Have you ever heard of “Harry Buffalo” parties? It’s a Kool-Aid sort of drink made with alcohol-soaked fruit and grain alcohol. Grain alcohol!

My parents, however, figured they raised a kid with a sensible head on her shoulders and she would avoid anything containing grain alcohol. “But, Moooom – ‘Harry Buffalo’ has fruit in it!”

I don’t know if kids at Ohio State still have Harry Buffalo parties today. Maybe they’ve moved on to something more hard-core, though what alcohol is more hard-core than grain alcohol, I don’t know. Maybe they focus solely on their studies and don’t even drink anymore. And maybe I’m living in some weird alternate universe, too.

The point is, parents in general and moms in particular are trying their level best to raise their children to be successful, popular, beautiful, rich adults with no ego problems and who never blame any of their problems on their mothers. And who can one day take care of their elderly parents.

Okay, so I’m joking. Sort of.

People who no longer have their moms around truly miss them. I know that Vince does – he thinks about his mom every day. And my cousin Mary Lou once told me, “I miss my mother every single day and wish she were still here with us so I could talk to her.” That impressed upon me the notion that time is fleeting – and there may not be a tomorrow.

We all lead busy lives and sometimes think we’ll call Mom “tomorrow.” Or we’ll return Mom’s call “tomorrow.” Or will take the time to visit Mom “tomorrow.” Without getting all preachy, I think we need to remember that sometimes “tomorrow” might be too late.

I know I’m not a perfect daughter, but I do try to heed others’ advice and I call my mom frequently. I know that I appreciate her every single day. I am so grateful that she is alive and relatively healthy – and she is there on the other end of the phone whenever I call. I pray that she will stay that way for a long time to come and I thank God every day for her. She is a remarkable woman. And I love her very much.

So to all you moms and mom-types out there, I wish you the happiest of Mother’s Days. Even if they don’t tell you, I hope you know how much your kids love you. And to my own mom I say, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you! 

...and…I’m thinking of renting ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ tonight. Missed it the first time around…”

(Just kiddin’!)

Birthday Wishes the Easy Way

My sister’s birthday is in two days and, unfortunately, her card is going to be late. I’m not usually late with things like birthday cards, unless the birthday falls during the first week of the month. What happens is I flip the calendar to the current month, usually sometime around the 6th, and realize how many birthdays I’ve missed between the first and the sixth. Oops.

Clearly, I’m not as organized as I used to be. I used to have an entire system built around birthdays where I had several alarms alert me at appropriate intervals prior to said birthday that gave me plenty of time to buy the card, purchase stamps, type a long letter to enclose in the card, sign the card, and then finally mail the card and letter, which would arrive either the day before or the day of said birthday.

These days I’m more likely to send an e-mail birthday greeting. If I’m really truly inspired I might even send an e-card, but those require extra steps – and I suspect that some recipients don’t even bother opening the attachment. Nevertheless, I seem to have joined the ranks of the lazy (or the enlightened, depending on your viewpoint) where e-mails suffice for all sorts of greetings. I take some comfort in the knowledge that I haven’t yet resorted to e-mail wedding wishes, condolences or thank you’s (for big stuff, anyway).

I have this weird knack of remembering people’s birthdays. My best friend’s birthday from first grade? July 8th. A coworker’s birthday from a summer job I had in college? November 30th. The kid I babysat when I was 12? February 11th. I could, of course, be totally making up those dates and you wouldn’t know the difference. But they’re all true – really.

The only problem with remembering birthdays is that there are a whole lot more people who have come into my life through all these years and my little brain is getting full up. I suspect I’m gonna have to start dumping some of the old birthdays to make room for some of the newer ones. After all, do I really need to remember the birthday of the guy who sold me my first new car? (June 1st.)

Like many old(er) people, though, my long term memory is more reliable than my short term memory and I can’t seem to remember birthdays of newer folks in my life (like, say, the people I’ve met in the last 5-10 years). I have to rely on careful recordkeeping and an accurate calendar for that. And, again, woe to anyone whose birthday falls anytime during the first week of the month.

Obviously, I don’t send birthday cards to everyone I know or have ever known. Can you imagine the expense? I, for one, don’t own stock in Hallmark. But even worse – can you imagine the reaction of the coworker from my summer job during college upon receiving a card from me? The word “stalking” might possibly enter his mind and he’d ponder the necessity of taking out a restraining order. Not the sort of reaction I would have been going for by sending a card featuring happy birthday-singing kittens!

So, instead, I merely send birthday wishes through the cosmos to anyone who might potentially involve the legal system. I figure it’s much safer this way. I can only imagine standing before a judge and pleading, “…but they were only singing kittens, Your Honor!”

Now, of course, there’s Facebook. Birthdays are announced in the little box on the lower right side of the home page. Plus, I even get a weekly e-mail alerting me to all the upcoming birthdays. Pretty convenient, eh? This should be a relatively failsafe method of wishing those folks celebrating birthdays anytime during the first week of the month, but I have a tendency to hit the “delete” button a little too quickly as I don’t like a lot of e-mails in my in-box at any one time.

I wonder how many people actually appreciate receiving all those “happy birthday” posts on their wall in the days surrounding their birthday? Maybe not so much if they’re trying to forget the number of birthdays they’ve actually celebrated. Personally, I like having my birthday acknowledged. I mean, yeah, I’m pretty shocked at how old I’m getting to be, but as the saying goes, it’s better than the alternative!

I believe there’s a moment in everyone’s life when they briefly catch their reflection in a mirror and wonder who that middle-aged person is. Yep, it’s happened to me. I don’t like it much, but don’t think I can do much about it. So I’ll just be the old lady who remembers birthdays and sends happy birthday-singing kitten cards. Only don’t expect them on time anymore. I mean, there’s only so much I can do with my little full-up brain and my unreliable short term memory.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday Denise! (Now, if I can just get you to read one of my blogs. If you did, you’d see that your card is gonna be late.)

Sore Throats and Phlegm. (With that for a Title, You’re Anxious to Read More, Aren’t Ya?!)

So my intention was to write about our wonderful few days away, but I’m back at work already and dealing with a sore throat and phlegm. Lots of phlegm. Sorry to be gross, but I feel like crap, so I thought I’d spread the wealth. Not literally, of course, as I politely cover my mouth whenever I start hacking up a lung. After all, Mom did teach me a manner or two. But if I’m miserable, it seems only fair to make others miserable as well.

What’s that? It doesn’t? Shocking. And all along I thought it was in the Constitution or something: “If Jane is miserable, then everybody’s miserable.” Hmm…now that I think about it, perhaps it’s an Amendment since technically I wasn’t born when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and they couldn’t possibly have anticipated the world revolving around me. They should have, of course, but I won’t quibble. Everyone makes mistakes.

I’m joking, of course. The world doesn’t really revolve around me (except perhaps in my own mind).

But my big question for today is: why is it that whenever I board a plane to go anywhere – whether it’s for a couple days or a couple weeks – I come back with a sore throat and/or the cold from hell??

A few years ago the airplane-and-subsequent-cold connection occurred to me, so I started taking Airborne® before, during and after the flight. I figure if a second grade school teacher developed it and it has “17 vitamins and nutrients!” then surely it should obliterate any nasty cold germs trying to settle into my sinuses and chest cavity. Besides, there are several exclamation points on the packaging and if they feel strongly enough about their product to include exclamation points, then who am I to argue?

Sadly, those 17 vitamins and nutrients weren’t enough to combat whatever germs I’m dealing with now. Maybe they missed something important, which would’ve handled the problem altogether and I would be phlegm-free as I write. Probably they should work on their formulation a little more and come up with an 18th ingredient.

Vince’s uncle suggested I try an old family cure of gargling and then drinking some apple cider vinegar. I looked at him in absolute horror. I mean, the closest I come to ingesting apple cider vinegar is when it’s mixed with oil and tossed in a nice Asian coleslaw with plenty of crunchy sautéed slivered almonds. I’m about as likely to drink it straight from the bottle as I would be to do a shot of tequila. And, believe me, my tequila shooter days are long over.

Now, however, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have given it a try. It couldn’t be much worse than how I’m feeling right now, could it? On the other hand, projectile vomiting all over someone’s expensive marble floor and granite countertops could have been a wee bit embarrassing. Not to mention that projectile vomiting anywhere in your host’s home will result in an immediate withdrawal of any future invitations.

So now I’m back at work. And, unfortunately, I couldn’t call in sick as I’m extremely valuable to my employer and there were many, many tasks that could not be delayed a second longer and could only be handled by someone as highly skilled as I am. This is basically code for “We didn’t want to do any of your work, so we left it all for you.” Nice, huh?

I just have to keep repeating to myself, “Job security…job security…job security…” And, no, clearly I do not work for the government. If I did, calling off sick the first day back after vacation wouldn’t have been a problem. Or at least it hasn’t been a problem in the past whenever one of my government-employed friends has called off sick following some fabulous vacation.

I used to marvel when someone I knew had surgery to repair an ingrown toenail or something and would be off work no less than 3 months and, before returning from their sick leave, would also take their originally scheduled annual 2 week vacation.

How do I get a job like that?!

The answer is I don’t. Those kinds of jobs have always eluded me, probably because I grew up back in the day when we had to be “responsible.” We weren’t allowed to take a sick day for a mere sniffle. Pretty much the only acceptable excuses for getting out of school when I was a kid were extreme swelling of limbs that required a visit to the ER or fevers in the triple digits. And, believe me, I couldn’t get away with faking any symptoms with an RN for a mother.

Oh well. There was one consolation to working today. If I’d taken the day off, I’d have been forced to look at the dust bunnies that accumulated during our absence and the loads of laundry that need to be done and the toilets that need to be scrubbed. Oh, I would’ve ignored them all, of course, but I would’ve been forced to look at them just the same.

Maybe on the way home I should swing by the grocery store and pick up a bottle of apple cider vinegar. Or...maybe I’ll just stop at a bar somewhere for a tequila shooter. It is, after all, Cinco de Mayo and it may be the perfect day to test the tequila shooter waters again.

Yeah, and with those as my options, I’ll do my best to refrain from reporting what happens after ingestion.

Excuse me. I believe it’s time to hack up my other lung now…