Mike Harden

I’m a little sad today because I just heard about a death of someone in our community. Columbus Dispatch columnist Mike Harden passed away last night after a battle with cancer.

Did I know Mike personally? No, not really. I met him a couple times when he was a guest lecturer for my favorite courses at Franklin University – news writing and news editing (big surprise, eh?).

But I didn’t know him personally. I don’t know what type of cancer he had or how long he endured his battle. I remember reading about his family from time to time, but I don’t know how many children and grandchildren he had or how many times he was married.

So, no, he was not a “friend.” He was just one of us.

I did think of him over the years as sort of a mentor. He wrote about common things and common people. We recognized our neighbors, our family and our friends in his writing. Sometimes he wrote about extraordinary events or people and I can remember his columns after Hurricane Katrina and Columbine. He took a headline and put a face on it. While we were warm and safe and dry in our homes, for example, through Mike’s writing we were transported to the sad and desperate conditions in Louisiana after Katrina.

I don’t read actual newspapers anymore because, like many people in the electronic age, we get our news instantly on our computers, cell phones and 24-hour news channels. Reading the newspaper sometimes seems superfluous.

Besides, I have had some big-time billing and delivery issues in recent years with the newspaper. Don't get me started.

But I have to admit that I used to get more detail from the newspaper as writers and editors generally have more time to flesh out a story than the constantly-repeating headline crawls from those 24-hour news channels that rehash the same old breaking news information.

I also admit that I sometimes miss holding an actual newspaper in hand and paging through different sections. I might have skipped over the political commentaries or some of the less-than-funny comics – but I always stopped on any article by Mike Harden. Whether it was his mythical Aunt Gracie from Methane, Ohio or an actual person in the news in our community he was featuring, I enjoyed reading his prose. He made me think and he made me laugh.

So I will miss him. He touched a lot of lives. He touched mine.

You made a difference, Mike Harden. May you rest in peace.

We're Lost. Again?

Vince and I went to an out-of-town party on Saturday, which necessitated an overnight stay. Sure, it was “only” a three hour drive – but I’m not one to drive three hours somewhere, stay for a short while and then turn around and drive three hours back home. That makes for a very long day. And I for one don’t want to be thinking about the upcoming three hour drive the entire time I’m trying to enjoy myself at a party.

The funny thing is that the very friends we were visiting travel for their business – and a three hour drive is “nuthin’” to them. They scoff at three hour drives. A three hour drive is merely a “jaunt” and they can make that kind of trip with their eyes closed.

Well, okay, so not really. Driving with one’s eyes closed could be a little dangerous.

Nevertheless, they are the sort of people who roll their eyes whenever I make any reference about how long a drive it was. What they don’t take into consideration, however, is the fact that “lost time” must frequently be built into my travel estimations.

Vince decided to take matters into his own hands this trip and he printed out Mapquest directions. He figured that might alleviate some of the stress his Navigator (me) feels whenever he says, “Do I turn left or right here?” and in a panic I cry, “I. Don’t. Know!!”

I admit it. I don’t make a very good Navigator.

In truth, I don’t really remember applying for the job – but apparently my driving also makes Vince nervous so I’m relegated to the passenger seat where the title of Navigator is automatically assigned.

I was semi-confident about this trip, however, as I used to live in the town. I hadn’t driven from downtown to my friend’s house in years, though – and it IS out in the seeming vast wilderness that is the outlying areas of the ‘Ville – but I figured I could find it all on my own.

Except Vince’s Mapquest directions were not the way I’ve ever driven. And, yes, we got lost.

Vince was a little, um, testy by the time we’d had to turn around for the third time on narrow, winding roads that were barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass side by side. So he called my friends. And, fortunately, they navigated him properly and we arrived safe and sound.

In my defense, I have to say that I’d never come from the direction we came from. I know one way – and one way only – to get there. I’m confident that I could have gotten us there without a problem. Except that my credibility by this point with Vince is totally shot – so he insisted we follow the Mapquest directions.

Oh well. I can’t really blame him. But I told him, “You watch. When we leave here, we’ll turn right. At the dead-end, we turn left. And then we turn left again onto the highway.” And that was exactly right. So sometimes it’s my own fault for not being more self-confident when it comes to directions.

Despite being a little frazzled by the time we arrived at the party, our moods quickly changed and we ended up having a lot of fun. We drank some adult beverages and greeted old friends and met some new ones. We watched the kids as they ran and played in the Bressler playground (pony rides, trampoline, jungle jim and inflatable bouncy thing). And we were even serenaded on the accordion. And the food. Sheesh. It was a veritable Italian feast – lasagna, gnocchi, meatballs, pasta and stuffed things like mushrooms and peppers.

We also went on a scary hayride. Not because it was spooky, but because we were driving on actual roads. There were no streetlights and our wagon was not lit. So we held our drinks in one hand – and our cell phones up in the air with the other in hopes that any drivers would see the lights from our cell phones before they plowed into the back end of the wagon and dropped us all like bowling pins.

Happily, we didn’t have any mishaps – unless you count the time we all almost landed in a ditch and the one time we all had to get out so our driver could get the wagon up a hill.

So, as usual, it was a great time. And we’re looking forward to Fall Fest 2011. But I’m thinking we should probably start saving our pennies and purchase one of those GPS Navigational things. Unless they - like my cell phone - read "No Service" when you're out in the sticks and you really need the assistance.

Another Day in the Life

Last night Vince and I subbed in the Columbus Ski Club Euchre league. He was subbing for an actual person while I was simply filling an empty chair – so the pressure wasn’t really on to perform well on someone’s behalf. So I took chances whereas before – when I’d been a regular in the league – I might have played a little more conservatively.

Now I’d love to report that I had multitudes of loaners netting us 4 points at a time and that my final score was a 65 (which would be a personal best). Alas, I’m sorry to say that I got euchred several times and my final score was a less-than-mediocre 32. (For all you non-Euchre-league players, a score of 40 is more or less the norm.)

Sigh. I guess taking risks and chances doesn’t always work out so well, does it?

Oh well, it was just a game. And I don’t think my score gets recorded anywhere – so maybe if I play again as a sub filling an empty chair, I can play as “Anonymous.” Scores of 32 points might not be quite as embarrassing that way!

We got home late, though – at least an hour and a half after Vince’s new bedtime, so he probably had a tough time getting up at 4:15 this morning. Poor guy.

I wasn’t quite as chipper this morning as I would’ve liked either. But I take comfort in the fact that it’s Friday. Thank God.

When I went downstairs to get my coffee, I poured it into a ceramic cup to warm it up in the microwave. A few days ago I’d missed the curved lip of the glass in the microwave, and spilled half the cup inside the microwave. So I’d mopped and cursed and cursed and mopped – and only got about half of a half of a cup of coffee to fortify me for the day ahead.

This morning, I nearly had the same accident as I slid the mug of coffee inside the microwave. At the last possible second, I managed to hang onto the cup when it bumped against the lip of the glass turner. I righted it – and heaved a sigh of relief at having averted another spill.

The microwave did it’s heating and spinning thing and then beeped to let me know my warm liquid caffeine was ready for ingestion. Yay.

So, I opened the door and started to pull out the mug – and bumped the lip of the glass on the way out, so my coffee spilled all over the kitchen counter. Every last drop of it. This time I did the cursing thing first – and then got out the paper towels and sponges and assorted other tools and implements to clean up my mess.

Clearly, I need to pour the coffee into a smaller mug. (Really, Jane – you think?) Except that since my coffee is a complicated mixed bag of coffee, soy milk and sugar-free flavoring, I’ll have to reconfigure the levels with a smaller mug. I’ve got it down to a science with the tall mug I’ve been using.

Or perhaps I should just be a little more diligent when using the microwave.

But anyway…

Because the coffee pot was empty and I didn’t have time to brew another pot, I had considered lapping up the spilled coffee off the counter like a dog – but only for a second. As it was T-minus-Zero and I absolutely had to leave the house that second to make it to work on time, I grabbed a cold can of Diet Dr. Pepper and took off.

When I get home tonight, I suspect the kitchen will still have the lingering smell of spilled coffee – so I’ll have to do a more thorough clean-up job. And, despite washing my hands at least four times, they still smell like coffee. Wonder if there is such a thing as second-hand caffeine and some has hit my bloodstream through my pores.

That’d be good. Because this can of Diet Dr. Pepper ain’t doin’ it for me.

TGIF, people, TGIF.

The Long Arm of the Law...

I had dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends last night. (Well, she’s not technically my “oldest” friend – but you get the idea.) It was so good to get together and catch up on each other’s lives, but we realized that it had been nearly a year since just the two of us got together. How do I know this? Well, because the last text message I sent her was almost exactly a year ago.

With my amazing ability to string words together into pearls of wisdom I had texted: “I am here.” And, no, I am not usually so succinct when texting, calling, writing, or smoke signaling people as I tend to think messages are better when the reader knows what color socks I’m wearing and what I had for breakfast a week ago.

However, I was simply letting her know last October that I was parked in the alley behind her office building waiting to pick her up so we could go to dinner and talk until the server gave us seriously dirty looks indicating that we should probably leave.

My succinctness was due to the fact that I had my eyes peeled for cops as there were big signs all over the alley that read “NO STOPPING EITHER SIDE OF THE ALLEY.” I think they were serious. Yet there I was breaking the law – along with a half dozen other people who were also stopped in the alley awaiting their party.

Last night I left her – word for word – the exact same text message. Wow. And here I thought that with all these blogs I’ve written in the past year that I’d improved my writing skills. Guess not.

Nevertheless, those three little words were clear enough to let her know that she should leave her desk on the second-to-highest floor of her skyscraper office building, get on the two elevators, escalator and set of stairs needed to reach the ground floor and hustle on out to my car before a cop decided to turn an eagle eye down the alley and zero in on my license plate.

This is unlike my office, where I spy my ride out the window, walk three steps to the door, and then walk 10 steps to their car. By the time someone has had the chance to text “I am…” I’d be at their car door ready to hop in. Cops usually don’t patrol the street near my office anyway. What’s the point? There is a 2-hour parking limit and no sticker is required, so they’re not liable to catch anyone loitering.

Anyway, my friend reached my car, hopped in and we sped away like Thelma and Louise before any Boys in Blue decided to exercise their ticket-writing authority.

Even though the cops would’ve had to write an awful lot of tickets to drivers besides just me, I was relieved to move along as I’m just not comfortable breaking the law whether it’s of the minor variety or not. This wouldn’t bother Vince as one of his many mottos is: “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.” He obviously did not grow up Catholic.

I, on the other hand, grew up asking for forgiveness before I even did anything bad. Oh, c’mon. I never did anything bad – I was just funnin’ you! If I ever even thought about doing anything bad, I’d break out in hives and then the heart palpitations would begin. I’d have a guilty look on my face – just for thinking about misbehaving. Probably I wasn’t too much fun to be around.

I’d be the ‘narc’ without ever opening my mouth. A parent or a teacher would take one look at the guilt written all over my face and start searching for the real perpetrators. Man, it’s a miracle I grew up with any friends at all, isn’t it?!

Anyway, once my heart rate returned to normal last night and we were well beyond the alley, we headed toward our destination and then had a lovely meal together. We talked in code only familiar to long-time friends and laughed about silly things we did in our (relative) youth. We asked each other about our families and mutual friends and just had a grand old time.

Well, at least until the bill had been paid and our water glasses were sucked completely dry and the waitress (who pointedly did not come back to refill our water glasses) shot us a dirty look for the umpteenth time. We sort of took that as a hint that we should probably be moving on.

Wow. Someone thought I was doing something wrong – and there wasn’t a single hive or a heart palpitation to be had. Maybe I'm finally getting over the guilt thing, eh? Hey, maybe I should do something reckless - like jaywalk or something?

Nah. Baby steps… I wouldn't want to get all crazy and somehow end up on America's Most Wanted. I wouldn't want to get that John Walsh after me - he is one scary dude!

Christmas Will Be Here In 79 Days…Are You Ready?

I am proud to announce…I have purchased the first Christmas Gift of 2010. Ta-da!!

I know, I know – it’s amazing, isn’t it? Frankly, I think this is news worthy of inclusion in some sort of Hall of Fame – or perhaps the next edition of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

For the past several years…okay…decades now – I have joined the impatient throngs of last minute Christmas shoppers who power-walk through three different malls in a five-hour time span attempting to find the perfect gift. Which, of course, never materializes. So I end up spending way more than intended just so that I don’t show up at a gift exchange empty-handed. Not only that, but there have been some years where there were very few gaily wrapped packages under the tree, primarily because I gave up on the search and instead went out and bought gift cards.

This year I decided to try a different approach and start a whole 79 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes early. (And, yes I did look it up – the Internet is a veritable smorgasbord of information!)

Plus, while I’m a little slow on the uptake as other people have been doing this for years, I have finally realized the beauty of online ordering. Sit at the computer in your jammies and order away and a few days later – voilà – the package is delivered to your front door. Now I ask you, what could be easier?

When I was in my 20s, I was more organized during holiday time. My to-do list was long, but somehow – in between working and bar hopping – I managed to get most of my Christmas shopping finished well before Thanksgiving. I assumed I would always be just as organized, so I took it for granted. Silly me.

Once I reached my 30s, my holiday organization went down the tubes and I started the last-minute thing. Hmmm…one could almost conclude that eliminating bar hopping led to my downfall.

On the other hand, the gift list wasn’t as long as it has become over the years and the budget was a little thinner back then, so maybe comparatively speaking, last minute shopping is still within the norm.

No, that argument doesn’t really work for me, either.

So now in my 50s, I’ve changed tactics again. And once I ordered that first gift, I started making my list and checking it twice – and driving Vince absolutely nuts with chatter about what to get for whom. He was probably thinking, it’s only the first of October, for cryin’ out loud. Get back to me in December. Like maybe around the 24th!

Vince hasn’t quite bought into the whole list making thing, although he doesn’t begrudge me making the effort. Just as long as I don’t involve him too much in the whole process.

Of course, there is a potential fly in the ointment, as it were, with this new plan. What happens when I finish shopping by the end of October and then shortly thereafter all the Christmas sales flyers and catalogues start to arrive – and I chance upon a better gift for someone? It will probably be too late to return all the gifts I’ve bought online.

Actually, that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that I will start to see all sorts of things that I absolutely must buy for myself! It’s sort of Christmas shopping with the “one for you – one for me” attitude. Hey, I can’t help it. I try to stay away from the mall as much as possible during the year unless I’m absolutely required to purchase new clothes for an event such as a wedding. Or, for a reason such as – I don’t know – like maybe it’s Wednesday and I have nothing to wear. You can never have enough Wednesday outfits…

Yeah, who am I kidding. I hit the mall with the same regularity as mail delivery and with the same motto as the Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor…”

Well, anyway, I will have to make sure that the gifts I purchase are perfect and exactly what the receiver wanted so that no one will even think about returning them. And I will have to develop a little more willpower so that the massive pile of gaily wrapped gifts under the tree aren’t ALL for me. That could be, well, a little embarrassing.

Hmmm…maybe last minute gift cards aren’t such a bad idea after all…

Needle Phobia

I don’t have a fear of needles, which is a good thing considering that Vince and I got our ‘flu shots last night.

I know some people who are deathly afraid of needles, which I don’t understand. But then, I also don’t really understand the fear of heights – so what do I know? (Fear of spiders and other creepy crawly things, on the other hand…well, now we’re talkin’!)

But I found it interesting that last night I wore the same expression on my face that I have ever since I was a little girl facing the doctor and getting a shot. (Or, rather, facing away from the doctor. Ha ha…) But I have always refused to acknowledge the pain – or the pinch, as it were, of a needle piercing my skin. Probably I’d be a good candidate for tattoos if I were so inclined to have indelible ink injected under my skin. I am not so inclined, so I guess we won’t be able to test the theory.

Nevertheless, memories of going to the doctor as a kid made me smile – once the Band-Aid was applied, anyway. Mom usually brought three of the four of us at one time. I’m guessing that it was an ordeal – so she figured she might as well get it over with all at once. My older brother, on the other hand, never seemed to be along with us on these doctor visits. Either he was an extraordinarily healthy child or Mom figured he was a project that was best handled alone.

Anyway, once the heinous word “doctor” escaped from Mom’s lips, my sister (younger than me by 5 years) commenced crying. And she never stopped. On the drive there. In the waiting room. And once we reached the inner sanctum and the doctor actually showed up, she ramped up the tears to near wailing.

My younger brother tried to be a little more stoic, but the tears usually began once the doctor arrived.

So I, as the elder and wiser sibling of about 7-years of age, somehow felt I needed to be the mature one. Nary a tear leaked out of either duct. Not that I probably didn’t want to give in to a good cry as I certainly didn’t look forward to having a sharp needle jabbed into my backside.

After the first needle experience I couldn’t really give in to tears anyway since my mom held me up as a shining example to my younger siblings. “See? Jane isn’t crying,” she’d plead. “Try to be brave like Jane.”

Yeah. Like that worked.

Fortunately, the pediatrician had extensive experience dealing with fearful and crying children. He was mercifully quick and, once the torment was over, lollipops magically appeared. And, just as magically, my sister’s wailing stopped almost immediately as if someone pressed a Mute button.

When I think about it now, it makes me laugh.

I don’t know if this is really true, but I can picture my mom – nattily dressed and perfectly coiffed at the beginning of the experience of hauling three sick children to the doctor. And then, afterwards, stumbling to the car holding on to her toddlers’ hands with her hair mussed and an expression of sheer exhaustion on her face.

Probably I should send her a thank you card for all she did for us. Maybe even throw in some flowers. On the other hand, I was the paragon of bravery. So perhaps my sister should be the one sending flowers!

(And if my sister and brother are reading this…um. Oops. Sorry. But this does not give you license to tell stories about me.) I’m quite sure I can tell plenty of embarrassing stories about myself – believe me, I’ve got a lifetime of red-faced moments!

In the meantime, I enjoyed my own little trip down memory lane. And I’ve gotta say – I’m really glad I’m a grown-up now and whenever I have to get a shot, it’s in my arm instead of my backside. Those suckers hurt!

Internet Etiquette

I haven’t been getting many joke emails lately. Wonder why? Is it possible that I’ve already seen every single one of them out there in Cyberworld and there is absolutely nothing left to send me? Or is it because I haven’t done my fair share of forwarding them on to my list of contacts and, therefore, I’ve been dropped from my friends’ distribution lists?

I don’t know the answer, but my email inbox has gotten pretty boring lately. All I get are offers to buy stuff. Which, you know, isn’t bad ‘cause I like buying stuff.

But I also like to laugh. And I haven’t had even a stupid pun to LOL over lately.

Of course, I complain when the opposite is true and I have so many joke emails to read before deleting or forwarding that my inbox is overflowing and I forget to respond to that single legitimate invite or query. Oops.

I think that the etiquette involved in email forwards is interesting – mostly because it’s mostly unspoken and unwritten. But believe you me, it’s there.

Like, for example, you’re not supposed to reply to every single joke email that someone forwards to you. If you do that often enough, people will remove you from their distribution list. Because the point of forwarding an email is to get it moved on in the vast machine that is the Internet. It’s not supposed to come back to you with the response, “Good one!” Ugh. It’s just one more thing to delete.

What’s worse is if you do not respond to the “Good one!” comment and you get a follow-up email from that person asking why you didn’t respond to their email. It’s not like you can claim ownership to the joke. You just forwarded a note that someone somewhere sometime wrote or drew or made up. So what do you say? “Uh. Thanks?”

Talk about scintillating communications.

Now, it is also a well-documented fact (based on my own personal research over the past day and a half) that people forward jokes to friends in hopes that they will think, Wow. Friend X-Y-Z thought about me for a brief nanosecond while she typed my name into the distribution list – I should find out how she is and if that pesky sciatica is still bothering her.

In this case, it’s perfectly acceptable to reply via email to a Forward. You are even allowed to write, “Good one!” but you must also follow-up with something a little more substantive. Believe me, as the author of many a long-winded chatty email, I greedily accept the two line response as “better than nuthin’.”

Another faux pas in the murky world of email etiquette is when you forward something that struck you as slightly amusing (Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.) and you receive a rebuttal complete with facts and figures as to why the “joke” was neither true nor funny.

Come on, people. If it didn’t make you guffaw, chuckle or even smile – just a little – then hit “delete” and move on. There is no need to develop a doctoral thesis on the topic. Ain’t nobody awarding you an advanced degree on your pithy remarks. It. Was. A. Joke. And, okay, so maybe it wouldn’t qualify for the Joke Hall of Fame, but we all need to lighten up a little.

These are only some of the many unspoken and unwritten rules of Internet Etiquette. Perhaps we’ll revisit this topic, once I make up some more stuff about it.

In the meantime, if you have something funny to share, please do. My in-box cannot take one more offer from Priceline.com for the cheapest rates for a hotel in a city we’ve never visited and never in this lifetime plan to visit.

Plus, even with those goofy pictures of William Shatner plastered throughout, Priceline.com never makes me LOL.