Pumpkin, my darling six-year-old granddaughter, came over for the weekend, and I promised her mother I wouldn’t open any wine until after everyone was asleep. However, I didn’t promise anything about sweet treats, so we soon enjoyed a tea party with a few teddy bears and a pink platter piled with chocolate chip cookies. Everyone had a glorious time, except the bears weren’t hungry so we ate their share. Later we settled down for some serious art projects. I can’t draw a box without a stencil, probably because I’m clumsy, easily distracted, and have no artistic talent. Pumpkin is quite the little artist and she created a magical scene complete with rainbows and butterflies before I had sketched a crude replica of a skull and some bones. She won that round. Then she told me to sit still so she could draw me. Of course, I sucked in my stomach and looked dignified. Her rendition resembled a young woman with thick hair, happy eyes, and a smooth complexion. She captured my chubby cheeks, but without the wrinkles. And, I can live with having only one nostril. I loved the artwork and we immediately taped it to my refrigerator. “Thanks for the artwork,” I gushed as only a grandmother can. “I like your vision of me.” “I think you’re funny,” she said. Then she started another project. As she worked on the new production, I contemplated her comment. She’s only been alive for six years, so what does she know about human traits? What does she see in this older woman who gives her extra dessert, tells tall tales, and allows her to stay up late? Does she comprehend that I am her mother’s mother? It’s all too complex for my aging brain. But I’m just tickled princess-pink that she thinks I’m funny. My grandmothers were not humorous. They were serious farm women who worked from sunrise to sunset and then sat down to work some more. I vaguely remember helping them in the kitchen or picking vegetables and berries from their gardens, but there was not much laughter. Not even a simple giggle. Life was hard for my grandmothers. So, here I am at the table with a precocious, precious little girl who comes over with her little roller bag, her worn blankie, a book of craft projects, and her spunky attitude. She arrives with confidence and isn’t shy about saying what she wants and doesn’t want. I know she will shine in the coming years, and I want to be there to witness how she climbs over obstacles and tackles life. And as she grows older, I hope she’ll still come over for cookies. I’ll try to be funny.
#midlife
Midlife Cabernet: Arousing 50 Shades of Grey Matter
The owner of a hotel in England recently replaced guest copies of the Holy Bible, the world’s bestselling book, with Fifty Shades of Grey, the soft-porn bestseller than inspires horny women to imagine torrid but poorly written fantasies. While I endorse creative marketing strategies and applaud freedom of physical expression, I can only assume that the hotel management will also provide locked safes for families with children, and disposable, battery-operated toys for those flying solo.
Because I can’t stop myself from noticing the profound and conspicuous differences between the two books, I’ve noted an excerpt from each:
“As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among men. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste…. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for (his) love is more delightful than wine.”
—“Song of Solomon,” Old Testament, written 3,000 years ago
“I found some baby oil. Let me rub it on your behind.”
—Fifty Shades of Grey, bestselling novel and pending movie
I don’t want to debate religion (thank God.) I’m merely questioning the literary value of certain bestselling books. It doesn’t take much imagination to slither into Anastasia Steele’s sticky bedroom where she exclaims with amazement, “I don’t remember reading about nipple clamps in the Bible!”
But it takes thought and reflection to get lost in Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (a personal favorite) or to feel the heartache described in The Help by Kathryn Stockett or to appreciate the wit of Olive Ann Burns in Cold Sassy Tree. Maybe it’s all a matter of balancing excellence with trash, much like enjoying the occasional corn dog at the fair. But it’s also important to use or lose the delicate sensory perception abilities that come from our brains to arouse the gray matter between our ears instead of between the sheets.
Ironically, there is a subtle connection with Fifty Shades of Grey and A Tale of Two Cities, the all-time bestselling novel ever written. Biographers of the author Charles Dickens wrote that he believed that prolific sexual activity was necessary for a healthy man. The sub-plot for his great novel centers on the sexual exploitation of a young, powerless girl by an older, powerful man. Sounds like the prelude to Fifty Shades.
(This excerpt is taken from my new book Midlife Cabernet. The book will be released in April and contains 18 chapters about life, love, and laughter after age fifty. Find event and ordering details on www.MillParkPublishing.com.)
Midlife Cabernet: Anger Makes Your Face Ugly
I can’t forget the image of the young man’s tortured, enraged face as he leaned out the window of his battered car, thrust out his grimy fist with the middle finger raised, and screamed that I was a copulating female dog. He used other words I won’t write, but I think the translation is obvious. I smiled and muttered, “Honey, I’ve been called worse by real men with nice cars.”
I have no idea what caused such a violent, profane action. I was driving along minding my own business, using my turn signal, keeping within the speed limit, obeying traffic signals, and not texting or drinking alcohol. In other words, I was a rare and unique driver on State Street.
Suddenly a car moved close to the passenger side of my car so I quickly looked over, keeping my hands at 10:00 and 2:00 o’clock on the wheel. The window rolled down and the Face of Rage emerged like a scene from a bad horror movie. I haven’t seen such vitriol since the local all-you-can-eat-buffet restaurant ran out of chocolate pudding on Senior Citizen Day. My immediate thought was that I had accidentally run over his drug pusher. That would explain his lack of manners and teeth.
He screamed profanities impugning my very existence and then jerked the steering wheel and screeched down a side street, his dilapidated car belching blue smoke and his threatening finger still pointing out that I was Number One. In an earlier life, I quickly would have maneuvered through traffic to follow the fool, get his license plate number, and report him to the police as a danger to society. I know the right people.
But, the older I get the more I don’t care about losers and their sorry attitudes. It doesn’t bother me anymore, except I keep seeing his mean mug and threatening gestures. I hope he didn’t go and take out his anger on someone else. If a smiling, middle-aged woman driving legally in her SUV could make him that livid, there is no telling how he would react to convenience store clerks if they were out of cheap beer and imitation beef sticks.
I’ll admit to experiencing sporadic, temporary fits of anger about people and circumstances. I regularly gripe when I read or see news reports about the endless wars, the waste of money, evil people who hurt children, and the inept, corrupt politicians. So, as an anecdote to smashing something, I join others who channel that energy to vote, donate time and resources to local charities, and try to live good lives. The angry faces and clenched fists of protestors don’t impress me. The new Pope does, along with positive and lovely people who visit nursing homes, raise handicapped children, plant gardens, tell good stories, and sing songs.
Anger is unattractive and distorts facial features, creating monsters that appear in nightmares. Or, on State Street. Maybe the young man’s ugly face continues to reappear in my memory because he needs affirmation. And an oil change.
Midlife Cabernet: Dealing with Death, Taxes, and Independence
Spring 2013 brought the daunting, predictable realities of death and taxes that were offset by the joyful introduction of a spunky baby girl who has her father’s nose, my chin, and her own delightful energy. This week we attended a family funeral, I compiled another bulging box of documents for my beleaguered tax accountant, and I unpacked our family’s 108-year-old Christening gown for my new granddaughter to wear.
Sometimes death has no sting.
The family funeral became a memorial celebration of life for my husband’s father. He died at age 83 after years of being lost with Alzheimer’s, and his final journey was a quiet blessing. At the service, wonderful stories were shared about past activities when he still remembered the names of his children and grandchildren.
Taxes are taxing.
My first full-time job started forty years ago, and I’ve paid income and property taxes ever since. I don’t mind paying assessments that fund schools and roads, and I willingly share my resources for programs that assist the elderly, help handicapped people, provide for those with special needs, and support the arts. But I am extremely aggravated about the mismanagement of taxpayer money by inept politicians who have less common sense than a child with a piggy bank.
A child knows that when the money is gone, the spending must stop. Our national government leaders, however, continue to spend borrowed money to send foreign aid to countries with regimes that want to kill us and to promote unnecessary and abused entitlement systems that create more takers than makers, all while ignoring the fact that our crippled country in on the verge of irretrievable bankruptcy. Got food storage?
Christening and Customs
On a more joyful note, my granddaughter will be Christened in a hand-stitched dress made by my great-grandmother and worn by my grandmother in 1906, my mother in 1927, me in 1952, and my daughter in 1978. The baby’s ancestors were strong pioneers and hard-working farmers who dreamed of becoming writers, musicians, and travelers. When my son and daughter-in-law present their child to proclaim her name in the presence of God and assembled witnesses, the dress will cloak her with a legacy of tough, talented, spirited women.
Next Spring will bring another opportunity to prepare for the certainty of taxes. And a splendid toddler will walk barefoot in new grass, pick fresh blossoms, sing silly songs, and wonder what’s beyond the fence. We’ll give her a piggy bank and some seed packages to plant in a garden and encourage her to become self-reliant and independent as a tribute to her hardy ancestors.
Many years from now, I’ll share some fine wine with my granddaughters, and we’ll tell amazing stories about our grand adventures. Then I’ll ask them to sing one more song before it’s time for me to go.
Today’s blog is fueled by several small bottles of Wente Merlot from California. It’s available on Delta Airlines and is sufficient when writing a blog at 30,000 feet while flying to a family funeral.
Midlife Cabernet: Little Beauty Shop of Horrors
My hair salon offered a holiday special that included a free upper lip wax with any regular service. Being in a festive mood after my haircut, I gleefully agreed and prepared for my face to be smooth as a baby’s butt. Instead, the pretty young hairdresser plastered enough hot wax to remove Geraldo Rivera’s mustache and when she ripped it off, the wax tore off patches of skin from my tender lip. I was left with bloody scabs just in time for important year-end meetings and jolly Christmas parties.
“I’m so sorry,” she gushed as she smeared Vaseline across the ravaged lip. “Your lip is so thin some wax accidentally smeared over it.”
So now she had inflicted bodily harm AND insulted my features. (I love my lip because it’s the only thin thing on my body.) I looked around for a hot curling iron to shove up her nose but my eyes were tearing too much to see clearly. Instead, I did what most women do: I said it was okay. Why in the hell did I say that? It wasn’t okay. I was in breathless pain and blood was oozing from my greasy lip.
She still needed to style my hair, so she handed me the latest issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine and offered a cup of coffee. I snarled no because I didn’t want to plunge my battered mouth into steaming hot liquid. She turned on the blow dryer and I anticipated she would set my hair on fire to make me forget the pain in my lip.
The perfect faces in the magazine only taunted my hapless predicament. I flipped to an article titled “52 Hot Crazy Sex Moves.” One suggestion to ignite my inner sex kitten was to spank my lover with a paddle that left heart-shaped marks on his butt. Why would I do that? To make him forget my abused mouth? My inner sex kitten would rather have some milk and take a nap, and Studley would prefer a sandwich and a cold beer.
Another provocative article discussed the serious topic of sex toys and endorsed a vibrator shaped like a candy cane. I often have small grandchildren running around the house so I immediately erased the image of them finding such a device and happily bringing it to the holiday dining table for all the guests to see. Turn the page, turn the page.
As a writer, I often wonder who writes the trash in women’s magazines. Some writer actually pitches a ridiculous story and gets paid to write it. Maybe I should submit an article titled “Hot Crazy Sex Moves for Those Over 50.” I’ll bet a month’s supply of iron tablets and stool softener pills than it would get rejected.
Cosmopolitan Magazine has been published since 1886 and has paid subscriptions from 3 million readers. It has 64 international editions printed in 35 languages and is distributed to more than 100 countries, including Mongolia. The temperature there is now -22 degrees. The natives are so bundled in warm clothes that a swat on the butt with a seductive paddle wouldn’t be noticed. Maybe I could write an article about how to get pleasure by sending your hairdresser to Mongolia. I’d laugh but that would hurt.
Today’s blog was fueled by a 2009 Lamadrid Malbec from Argentina. I think the best Malbecs are from Argentina – but I may need to sample other regions. My market research is never finished.
Midlife Cabernet: Playing Doctor with Grandma
My grandmother’s generic treatments for our childhood illnesses were successful because we were too terrified to get sick. The potions and homemade remedies combined country folklore with whatever magic medicine was stocked in the pantry. Only sissies and townsfolk went to the doctor.
Grandma’s healing practices were legendary. If we had a sore throat, she would wrap raw bacon in a tea towel and pin it around our neck. Consequently, my brothers and I never mentioned if we felt sick. Suffering in silence was preferable to smelling like a meat locker.
Another home remedy for coughs was to smear Vicks VapoRub on the soles of our feet, cover them with thick stockings, and send us to bed. If that didn’t work, we were fed raw onions and honey. Needless to say, we held back a cough until our ears bled.
The cure for earaches was practical. Heat a green onion in the stove and then stick the bulb in the painful ear. The warm vegetable would dissolve any wax buildup and eliminate the pain. We knew not to look in the mirror or answer the door while wearing onions in our ears.
One nifty trick to remove fish bones stuck in our throats was to swallow a raw egg. If that didn’t absorb the irritating bones and flush them down, the thick substance caused us to vomit the bones and the egg. Mission accomplished.
I remember injuring my elbow after falling out of a tree. Grandma wrapped my arm in a tea towel made from a flour sack and tied the ends around my neck. I wasn’t able to climb another tree for several years and my arm is still crooked.
Back in those days, Grandma was under pressure to survive with what she had. She made soap, churned butter, sewed clothes for her children, and baked every meal from scratch. Her pantry held a cornucopia of canned fruits and vegetables. And remedies. But we all survived and lived to tell about it. Thanks, Grandma.
