by jphilo | Oct 28, 2010 | Daily Life
No way was I going to buck the wind and walk outside in that kind of weather. Instead, I drove to a nearby mall to get some exercise. Once I adjusted to passing senior citizens doing laps behind walkers or with oxygen tanks in hand, my attention shifted to store window displays.
With Halloween only a few days away, costumes were the theme of the week. In fact, two boo-tiques (not kiosks, but actual stores) were completely devoted to the dress up clothes. The more I passed the stores, the more they blew me away. The guy stuff was bad enough. Lots of super hero and fantasy garb along with traditional spooky stuff: vampires, werewolves, zombies, and some things bordering on sadistic. But women’s costumes outnumbered the men’s three to one. And they were much worse, all trumpeting the same sickening theme.
Sexy sailor girl
Sexy police girl
Sexy waitress
Sexy nurse
Sexy maid
Sexy Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz
Sexy witch
All of the above were accessorized with stiff petticoats designed to push the already short skirts even shorter, fishnet black stockings held in place with black garters, and stiletto heels.
The message to boys is bad enough: Real men should be strong and tough and scary.
But the message to girls is worse: Sexy is all that matters.
Those are messages kids don’t need. What they need is time with Mom or Dad rummaging through old clothes. They need to hear their parents tell stories about old letter sweaters, cowboy hats, fancy formals, and crazy blue jeans. They need to be shown how to make an old suit coat and cane into a hobo costume, or a full skirt and scarves into a gypsy costume. They need to experience the fun of taking old stuff to create something new. They need time to be kids.
by jphilo | Oct 22, 2010 | Daily Life
I’ve been kicking myself all week, ever since my throat went scratchy on Tuesday evening and morphed into a full-blown cold. (The pun’s intended, by the way.) I’m kicking myself, not because I got sick, but because of my lack of foresight.
Every time I catch cold, I make a mental to invest in tissue stock – as soon as I feel better. But as soon as I’m on the mend, there’s a mountain of neglected life to catch up on: laundry, cleaning, bills, mail, emails, work. By the time those are taken care of, my bright investment idea has become a dim memory and never becomes reality.
During my teaching days, the profit mogul mindset hit often. At least twice a year, my students who loved to share everything with their teacher, lovingly passed along whatever virus was making its way through their ranks. Some years we blew through our stockpile of tissues (one box per child as requested on the back-to-school supply list) by February, and a note went home requesting more contributions. Multiply that cycle times every elementary classroom in the United States, and you know why dollar signs dance in my eyes when I blow my nose.
Once I left teaching, I slowly learned why people don’t take advantage of this gold mine. First, people outside of education don’t get colds often (this is my first since I left the classroom in 2003), and they certainly don’t frequent poorly ventilated, germ-filled classrooms full of sneezing, runny-nosed children and teachers. Second, the teachers are too busy doing their jobs (which has been made harder lately by No Child Left Behind and larger class sizes) to call a stock broker.
So consider this your stock tip of the day. Invest in a tissue company before cold and flu season hits. Do it while you’re healthy, the same day you get your flu shot maybe. And then, use some of your Wall Street profits to make another kind of investment. Drop off a couple boxes of tissues at a school. Create a care package for a teacher you know – a bottle of hand-sanitizer, some cough drops, a box of candy, a thank you note, a gift certificate for pizza.
The dividends for such actions are incalculable, life changing. Wouldn’t you like to be part of an investment like that?
by jphilo | Oct 13, 2010 | Daily Life
Once upon a time, I thought 54 was old. Really old. Really, really old.
But not any more.
Maybe because I’m 54 now, and it doesn’t feel much different that 40 or 45 or 50. Maybe because it doesn’t feel anywhere near as old as I thought it would feel. Or maybe because for the first time in 3 decades, Hiram and I have more freedom than we’ve had in years.
No kids to raise.
No higher education to pursue.
No pets to clean up after.
No mounting medical bills.
Or maybe 54 feels young and healthy for another reason, one that occurred to me not long ago. By age 54, my dad had completed his first year as a nursing home resident in need of total care. In the year leading up to my 54th birthday I did the following:
- Saw my first book get published and traveled all over the USA promoting it.
- Danced at both our children’s weddings.
- Spent a week on the side of a mountain.
- Tramped through the South Dakota prairie.
- Went to a high school class reunion.
- Celebrated friends’ birthdays and weddings.
- Applauded when my youngest niece graduated from high school.
- Remembered loved ones at funerals.
- Watched our new church building go up.
- Went tubing at Spirit Lake with my cousins.
- Roasted a dear friend at his retirement party.
- Walked into worship every Sunday on my own two legs.
All things my father couldn’t do when he was the age I am now.
All things I take for granted every day.
All things that make me grateful to be 54 years young.
by jphilo | Oct 4, 2010 | Daily Life
After being on the road most of last week, all I could think about yesterday was getting home. I dreamed of sleeping in our own bed, watching our old trees turn colors, cooking and eating comfort food.
And when I got home everything began as anticipated, starting with a divine night’s sleep. But this morning, when I walked across the bedroom floor, pain through the arch of my foot. I dismissed it as a twinge and started making the bed, but the pain got worse. Finally, I pulled off my sock and found a small sting mark on the bottom of my foot. My eyes followed my route, and there, in the doorway was a wasp corpse.
“You won,” Hiram got a tissue and picked up our former houseguest. “You got stung, but he’s dead.”
Funny how people romanticize the places they aren’t. Not once during the week long road trip did I think, “Gee, I don’t want to go home, because we have bugs.” Neither did I think about the upstairs bathroom being a total wreck, the empty refrigerator, the mound of of mail and papers needing attention, an overflowing email inbox, or all the research gathered during the trip that would require sorting, filing, and labeling.
And I certainly didn’t think a wasp would sting the bottom of my foot – even though my four previous wasp stings this spring and summer could be construed as literary foreshadowing – but I’m a real person, and real people don’t use those devices. Fictional characters do.
So today I’m feeling real.
A little prickly, a little waspish.
A little light-headed – maybe from the sting.
A little discombobulated by the mess on my desk.
A little overwhelmed.
A little paranoid of flying critters and debris on the floor.
A little foolish.
A little scatterbrained.
A little tired.
Totally inadequate for the tasks at hand.
And really, really glad to be home.
Wasps and all.
by jphilo | Sep 29, 2010 | Daily Life
We live in an old house. It was old in 1991 when we moved here, and it hasn’t gotten any younger. It’s aged fairly gracefully, thanks to both it’s good bones and the many facelifts we’ve given it.
But this fall’s facelift – adding a shower head to the tub in the upstairs bathroom – breaks new ground. This is the first remodel of a room we remodeled. Granted, this transformation won’t be as dramatic as the first one. What could compete with trading out flaking, blue plastic bathtub paneling secured with masking tape for ceramic tile and real grout? Or yanking out blue shag carpeting (turned green from urine dribbles around the toilet) and replacing it with clean vinyl flooring?
Still, we are removing lovely ceramic tile we hoped would remain much longer. And we’re swapping the medicine cabinet put in when the kids were little, the cabinet they wore out during their growing up years. The stained tiles, evidence of Anne’s childhood painting, ink and dye experiments, are gone. The cabinet where they stored their toothpaste and retainers, their acne medications and smelly soaps is gone.
Our children are gone, too, along with twenty years in this old house. And we’re not getting any younger, no matter how fit and trim we stay. So we’re moving on, too. Putting a shower in the upstairs bathroom. Ripping the shower out of the downstairs bathroom off the kitchen. Moving the laundry room out of the basement and into the kitchen bathroom. Getting ready to be old in this house or to improve it’s chances of selling in case the opportunity arises to move closer to wherever our kids settle someday.
That’s what makes this remodeling different. The improvements include the possibility of pulling up roots instead of putting them down. Of leaving memories behind instead of creating new ones. Of growing old instead of growing up.
Its a new way of thinking, this second time around. Sure hope I’m up to the challenge.
by jphilo | Sep 20, 2010 | Daily Life
This past weekend’s abrupt switch from summer to fall was hard to believe. After all, over Labor Day, our family gathered for boating and swimming, and to throw cousins in the the lake – all the good stuff that accompanies warm summer days and nights.
But Saturday evening Hiram and I, along with scores of other guests, sat shivering and dodging raindrops at an outdoor wedding. Our teeth chattered in rhythm with the processional. Steely-eyed bridesmaids willed away goosebumps and walked down the aisle, their bouquets dewy fresh and trembling in the cold. The bride, tall and calm, came down the aisle escorted by her parents. The weather bothered her and the groom not one bit. They had eyes for each other only, and by the end of the chilly ceremony, they were as married as they would have been in a warm, dry church.
After the festivities, Hiram and I went home to a chilly house and turned on the furnace. “Hard to believe,” I said, “that we need the heater this early in the fall.” The house was still nippy the next morning, so I turned up the heat a tad before we went to church. Surely, it would be warmer there.
It wasn’t.
Apparently, the custodial staff at the the high school, where we meet for Sunday services, found the weather forecast hard to believe, and hadn’t bothered to turn on the furnace. By the end of church, I couldn’t feel my toes.“At least it will be warmer when we get home.” I hurried to the car.
But it wasn’t.
“Must have turned up the night thermostat instead of the day control.” I fiddled with the dial again, made a cup of hot tea, and put on another sweater. “Hard to believe it’s supposed to be 85 tomorrow.”
“Well, today it’s freezing in here.” Hiram checked the thermostat. “Only 66 degrees.” He went down to check the furnace and discovered the pilot light wouldn’t turn on. “You better call the furnace guy tomorrow,” he suggested. “Gonna be a cold night tonight.”
But it wasn’t.
The outdoor temperature rose throughout the night, and by morning it was nearly as warm outside as in. By midmorning, it was muggy and humid outside. But the house was cool and dry. Quite comfortable, in fact, though the temperature was no higher than during my shiverfest the day before. Hard to believe a call the furnace guy could be necessary or wise.
But it was.
And though it’s hard to believe, when the next cold snap comes and our pilot light behaves correctly, I’ll be thankful for the weather’s brief flirtation with fall.
It’s hard to believe that the bride and groom will be be quite so grateful for the turn the weekend’s weather took. But they can be proud of this: for all who attended, their wedding will be one of the most memorable ever.
It certainly was.
