Getting It Up

So now they're saying that Viagra and other remedies for erectile dysfunction can cause blindness??? That reminds me of the old joke about masturbation -- "I'll just do it until I need glasses." Hee. But seriously, folks. While it certainly distresses me that anyone would have to suffer such a fate, I (cockeyed optimist that I am) can't help seeing a bright side. MAYBE NOW THEY'LL STOP RUNNING THOSE OBNOXIOUS ADS.

Yeah, I really hate them. The ones for Cialis remind me of those "Ladies' Man" sketches on SNL, with the low-down music and the smugly insinuating voiceover. Their worst one isn't running anymore; I think it was taken off the air by public demand. It said something like, "Remember that guy who used to follow you around the house all the time, and hump your leg while you tried to do the housework? He's baaa--ack!" (I'd talk back to that one: "Oh really? We'll be waiting for him, me and my friends Smith and Wesson.") But the other ED drug ads are also annoying. The guy walking through the office and everybody's saying he looks better -- "Did you get a haircut? New suit?" -- and it's because he finally got laid. Charming.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking sex among oldsters; you may have noticed I'm no spring chicken myself. And at the risk of TMI, let me tell you -- Oh never mind, it is TMI. Okay. Suffice it to say my problem is not with the act, or even with the drug; just with the way they try to sell it. And there are better ways. Whoever thought up Levitra couches is a genius.

News of such a dire side effect won't necessarily cause the drugs to be taken off the market. They'll probably even still be advertised, but the ads will treat the product more soberly -- as a medicine rather than a recreational drug. Or in other words -- goodbye leering horndog; hello seeing-eye dog.

Happy Birthday, Mom

As long as I live, May 24th will be my mother's birthday. It's been almost nine years since I lost her. I wrote the following essay in a letter to my stepdaughter, a couple of weeks after Mom passed away. I wish I could have written it before her funeral; I would have read it there as a eulogy.

Barb. It was a perfect name for her, Barb -- she was steely and sharp and incisive, right to the point, and very tenacious in her way. She was witty, irreverent, and down-to-earth; nobody could crash to the heart of the matter like she could. God, she was fun. We had more damn fun together, just out shopping or whatever, both of us with such a zany sense of humor.

There was one time when I was eighteen or so, we went shopping for shoes in Peoria, and the shoe salesman seemed to be on drugs. He was very attentive, as though he were trying to act normal and thought he was succeeding, but he kept doing weird things like trying to take the shoe off my foot when it was already off. Mom and I didn't dare look at each other, and spoke as little as possible, all through buying the shoes -- then as soon as we were outside the store, just went into hysterics laughing. There we were on a busy sidewalk in downtown Peoria, with people and cars going by, and we were shrieking with laughter, doubled over, holding our sides, tears rolling down our faces. Ever after, all either one of us had to say was, "Remember that guy in the shoe store?" -- and we'd be laughing again.

She was utterly unsentimental, and would avoid any story or show that was supposed to be "heartwarming" or a "tearjerker". In the summertime when I was out of school, the daytime TV she and I would watch was not soap operas (she couldn't stand 'em) but game shows. She didn't drive, so we walked or rode the bus, or in the event of an emergency, took a taxi. I loved those walks with her so much that when I was married and a mom, and Firstborn was little, he and I would leave the car parked in front of our house and walk three blocks to the ice cream stand, or five blocks to the store, so he could have the same experience I had.

She loved springtime, and butterflies, beauty and peace and contentment... and me. In her last years she used to say, "I'm so lucky to have you." I always felt like I should have been doing more; wished that I had more time to spend with her, or to do things for her... But I'd just answer, "And I'm lucky to have you." And I was.

Happiness is a 1-GB jump drive

I finally quit talking about it and bought one. I ordered it from Dell, which happened to have the lowest price, and it arrived last week. I was too busy all weekend to do anything with it... but tonight I decided I was going to make time for this. I plugged in our old computer, attached the monitor, found a keyboard and mouse and hooked them up -- and turned it on. It lives!

Then I plugged the jump drive into a USB port. At last I could transfer my music. I'd burned all the rest of my files onto a disc when I knew I'd be getting the new computer, but my music files were just too big. It took almost an hour to copy all of them onto the drive...

...But only a few minutes to copy them from the drive to the new computer! Oh bliss. And now I'm listening to my Israeli songs that I've missed for the past several months. No, I can't understand a word they're singing, but that's not a problem. I love the music, and I don't need to know the language to pick up the rhymes. And anyway, when I listen to these songs I remember Firstborn sitting here copying them onto the computer and telling me a little about each one, when he visited last year.

Thinking About "Star Wars"

Firstborn and I had a wonderful talk today about the new "Star Wars" movie. He's seen it in his country, I've seen it in mine, and we shared the experience after the fact. That series of movies resonates with me and my sons; it's a recurring theme in the story of our lives. The fact that with the release of this movie it's now complete is sobering and thought-provoking.

The original Star Wars movie -- "Episode 4: A New Hope" -- came out twenty-eight years ago. I was twenty-three years old, married to the man who would be Firstborn's father. We'd heard a lot about this new science-fiction movie, so we were prepared to enjoy it. We weren't prepared to be astonished, spellbound, left breathless. There really had been nothing like this on the screen before -- the special effects were beyond comparison. A few days after seeing the movie, we went on vacation, and spent a few days with a friend who lived in Beeville, Texas. The theatre there didn't have "Star Wars" yet, but it was coming soon, and they had Star Wars T-shirts for sale. This was the first we'd seen of them, so we eagerly bought a couple. The people at the movie theatre who sold us the shirts were curious: was the movie really that good? We assured them it was way more than good, and that once it opened they'd quickly sell out of those shirts! (I've still got mine, stored away these many years, a souvenir of a phenomenon.)

In the years that followed, the next two movies in the series were released. We had a baby, who grew up watching the Star Wars series at his grandparents' house. They had premium TV channels long before we did, and they often made VHS copies of movies. When Firstborn stayed at their house, he always wanted to watch "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return of the Jedi". Eventually he had all three of them memorized.

By the time the fourth movie but first in the series, "The Phantom Menace", came out, Firstborn was nineteen years old and in college. Although that movie had its bad points, it was exciting to see the backstory hinted at in "A New Hope" and the others finally being told in detail. "Episode 2: Attack of the Clones" we saw in Chicago, at a digital theatre downtown. Firstborn, who lived in Chicago at the time, had got us the tickets, and we lined up about an hour ahead of time in order to get good seats (and we did get excellent ones). I'll always remember the wild ride that opened the show, with Anakin driving and Obi-Wan his white-knuckled passenger: it was almost exactly like my ride to the theatre with Firstborn at the wheel of my Neon!) After seeing that episode, we talked about what Episode 3 would have to be like. We'd seen the two pieces that it would have to join...

And now I've seen that piece, I've seen the arc completed. I found this episode to be the most tragic and moving of them all. I knew what had to happen, but not how it would happen -- or how painful it would be to watch it happen. When we see the choices Anakin makes, we realize how and why Luke's choice will someday redeem him. There are foreshadowings of "A New Hope", recognized like old friends long unseen. The end... is also the beginning.

Meet Me In The Bathroom

I'm getting almost desperate enough to look for a black-market toilet. You know, the kind that flush with 3.5 gallons of water instead of the environmentally-friendly but frequently-ineffective 1.6 gallons. I've been fighting the problem of stopped-up toilets for several years now. The guys in this family are big, their appetites are big, and... well, everything else is big. 'Nuff said. The last time we remodeled the bathroom I had the carpeting taken out, and put ceramic tile down instead. That reduced the work I had to do when the toilet would run over -- but it's still treating the symptom instead of the disease. I wish I could just install a toilet that wouldn't get stopped up.

I remember back in the early 1970s, when we still had the old style toilets, some people were putting a brick in the tank to make it use less water. My cousin came home from college with her environmental consciousness raised and put a brick in the potty at my aunt and uncle's. My uncle got tired of having to flush multiple times, so he took the brick out as soon as she went back to school, and they only had it in there when she was home.

Are there figures on how much water we've saved since the law banning the Big Flush went into effect? I'd like to see those figures. If people are using multiple small flushes instead of a single big flush, I would think it would be a wash. (Hee.)

I've read that in other countries they have toilets with two levels of flush: a small amount of water for liquid waste, and more for solids. I believe you control this by turning the handle different directions. This looks like a very sensible solution to the problem, but one that's not available here because the larger flush would violate the water conservation law. I wonder how hard it would be to get one anyway.

Snazzzybird's Award-Winning ANIMAL STORIES!

Wild Baby
Yesterday on our walk, Cling the Greyhound found a baby possum. She was doing some serious snuffling and I thought I'd better check it out. I saw a little furry back and at first I thought it was a mouse. But the color was wrong -- a kind of off-black or charcoal grey -- so I used a stick to push back the long grass and get a better look. Its feet were pinkish and looked like great big paddles with fingernails, and it had a looooooong snout with a little pink nose on the end. It was making a little squeaking noise, kind of like a mouse but more high-pitched. I wanted to pet it but thought I'd better not, because maybe its mother wouldn't take care of it if it had human scent on it. I figured she must be around somewhere, probably freaking out because of Cling and me -- either that, or rounding up a gang to attack us. A possum posse. Either way I thought we'd better clear out, so I arranged the long grass back as it was, and we left.

At the Vet
Today we took Cling and Angel to the vet for their annual check-ups. We knew we needed to bring a fecal sample from both of them, so Husband got one of Cling's while I dug for buried treasure in Angel's litterbox. Cling got all excited when Husband put her collar and leash on her, and became ecstatic when he led her to the car. She adores car rides. Angel hates them, because the only time she's ever in the car is to go to the vet. I always take her in her crate, because at least she's in a cozy space that she likes. Nevertheless, she meowed from the time I closed the door of the crate until we were almost to the vet. After we'd signed in, I took her out of the crate and Young'un held her while we waited our turn. The veterinary assistant weighed her (7.1 lbs), then got a digital camera and took a picture of her. It took a few tries, because Angel was not in a cooperative mood. Cling got her picture taken next. (Later when we got our receipts, their photos were printed out beside their names and information.) Then the vet came in and checked Angel over, looked in her ears and mouth, took her temperature rectally (ouch!), and pronounced her healthy. When it was Cling's turn, she had to have a shot and get blood taken for a test. The vet also trimmed her nails, which Cling hates worse than almost anything. But she got over it quickly, and by the time we started for the car she was her sunny self. Angel sulked all the way home, and as soon as we let her out of the crate she went running upstairs to ignore us for awhile.

Sunshine Girls
By the time I was on my Saturday call with Firstborn, Angel had decided to forgive me. She came into the sunroom and lay down behind me, in a patch of sun from the skylight. She stretched out luxuriously on her side and dozed off. Pretty soon Cling came trotting into the room, headed for the sunbeam -- and stopped short when she saw Angel in it. She stood there for a moment, looking at Angel... then turned around and wandered to the other side of the room and flopped down. A few minutes later she got up and came over again. This time Angel woke up, lifted her head and looked at Cling. They just looked at each other for a few moments; then Cling turned and wandered away again, this time whimpering softly. Angel laid her head back down for a little while... then I guess she took pity on Cling. She got up and strolled out of the room, right past Cling -- who immediately leaped up and claimed the spot in the sunbeam! I love the way Cling's sweet disposition and cat-friendliness lead her to acknowledge Angel's seniority. And I love the way Angel makes her point but doesn't need to run it into the ground.

Happy Mother's Day

I'm having a happy Mother's Day... and yet. And yet. It's high summer, but I feel a hint of winter's chill. Time goes so fast. And it only goes in one direction.

Young'un will be graduating in three weeks. Yes, it's from eighth grade, not high school, but it's still a big transition for me. For me. It will also be a dress rehearsal, a warning shot across the bow, for the big graduation. I've got four years to prepare for it... but will that be enough?

Yes, of course I've gone through this before. Firstborn graduated from eighth grade and then from high school, and moved to Chicago, and to the other side of the world. It affected me deeply; my very screen name is testimony to that. For anyone who doesn't know, I first went online right around the time Firstborn was preparing to move out. I was feeling very much like a mama bird whose baby was leaving the nest, and that's what I named myself.

But my nest wasn't empty; I still had Young'un. I was still a busy, day-to-day mom. Though I had tears in my eyes as I watched the truck bearing Firstborn and his possessions drive away, I could also high-five with Husband and exclaim triumphantly, "Got one raised!"

When the one leaving is the last, and the nest is truly empty, I'm not sure I'll handle it so well. It will be a situation unknown to me since the fall of 1979. I'll still be a mom, but without the day-to-day momness that I'm so accustomed to. Children keep you young. When I no longer have young children, will I no longer be young? Oh, I know I'm not young now, but you know what I mean. Will I no longer be adaptable, adventurous, excited to take on each day?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled right down to my socks that Firstborn is out in the world making his way with confidence and strength. That's the goal of raising a child; it's why we're children for so few years and adults for so many. My deepest wish for Young'un is that he too will fly away on powerful wings and ride the high currents. That's how I'll know I did it right. When both my children are strong and able, out in the world, then I can rest easy.

I can't even complain that I didn't appreciate the "little kid" years while they were going on; that life happened to me while I was busy making other plans. I did; it didn't. I've known that now is the only time we have to appreciate now, ever since a defining moment on the back porch of my house when I was about 5 or 6, when I told my mother that I'd rather not come in just yet because this was the only time I'd ever be able to see the sunlight looking orange on the trunks of those trees across the alley in just that way. I call myself "fourth-dimensional" in that I'm always conscious of the passing of time and the changes it has made and will make. I've not taken anything for granted... and yet it hasn't been enough; it could never be enough. Years ago in my journal I wrote of my tendency to "rage and rattle the bars of the cage called time." I'm still raging and rattling.

However, since I have savored every moment, and continue to do so, I really can't complain. I've gotten the best that Time has to offer. By being ever conscious of each day's transience, I've imprinted them all in my memory -- even the ones that were unpleasant, or boring, or sad. I own them all, as much as it's possible for any human to own his or her days.

And now that I've thought all this out by writing it -- much as I used to think things out by talking on the phone with my mother -- I realize that it's all right. As long as my children need me I'll be there for them, and I'll be me for them. And I'll be me for myself.

Happy Mother's Day.

White Strips! Unpaid, unsolicited testimonial.

I don't usually do this... but I've simply got to share the discovery I made. I found a consumer product that actually solved a problem that had been bothering me for many, many years. And it's affordable! I'm talking about Crest Premium White Strips.

(Okay, anyone who thought this entry was going to involve Jack White -- it won't, but let's picture him in our minds, shall we? Mmmmmmmmmmmm....)

Yes. Well. For my entire adult life, my favorite beverages have been the ones that stain the teeth. I drink coffee all day at work, and iced tea with lemon at home. That's pretty much all I drink. I don't drink soda at all: it's practically pure sugar, which I don't need calorically; and I can't stand sugar-free soda because of the aftertaste. That stuff tastes like moose sweat. (Ten points for the reference.) As if drinking all this staintastic stuff weren't bad enough, I also spent several years as a smoker. All of this has been the sheerest hell on my teeth. I brush and floss faithfully, and go to the dentist for a cleaning every six months, but still my teeth were the color of old ivory.

Those of you who've seen photos of me might be puzzled right about now, because you've never noticed these purportedly yellow teeth. One word: Photoshop. But I'm not Photoshopping my teeth anymore, because they're white! They sparkle! They haven't looked this good since probably the late 1970s. I shit you not.

At my most recent dental appointment, I asked my dentist about bleaching treatments. My teeth are horrifically sensitive; I have to use special toothpaste for sensitive teeth, and fluoride rinses, and I still can't drink anything especially hot or cold. I thought this would mean that I couldn't use any kind of bleaching agent. I imagined putting it on, feeling it soak into my wimpy enamel, and experiencing the kind of agony that would make the Marquis de Sade feel all warm and fuzzy. Not true, said my dentist. Any such treatment might make my teeth a little more sensitive at the time I was using it, but that would pass. I could have it done at the dentist's office if I wanted to, but that would cost more than $200 -- and Crest White Strips would probably do just as well. Oh, really? It so happened I had a coupon from Amazon.com for $5.00 off on Premium White Strips. Click click, yes use my Amazon card; it's on its way to me.

The merchandise arrived a couple of days before our trip to Las Vegas, and I started the treatments the day before we left. You apply the strips to upper and lower teeth and leave them on for 30 minutes, twice a day, for seven days. You can do the 30-minute periods one right after the other if you want to. We'd be getting ready to leave the hotel and I'd say, "Just a sec, I'm gonna do White Strips", and I'd put them on. Then while we were out and about I'd glance at my watch every now and then, and when a half-hour had passed I'd remove them with a tissue and drop it in the nearest trash can.

The packaging says you'll notice a difference after three days. Well, I noticed after two, and so did Husband, but after the full seven days the results were truly spectacular. Twenty-some years of coffee and tea, cigarettes and wine, have all been erased from my teeth!

Hardly ever do I come across a consumer product that I can recommend enthusiastically, but this one has me thinking in exclamation points! If your teeth are stained and you'd like them white and sparkly, this is the product for you.

My day could only get better!

Today started out shitty. I came downstairs to get Young'un's breakfast ready, and found piles and puddles of doggie diarrhea. Yes, poor Cling had some digestive problems again. It wasn't her fault, and I made sure she knew she wasn't in trouble. I let her out, put Young'un's waffles in the toaster, got out the margarine and the syrup, poured some orange juice, and got him out of bed. Once he was settled in at the table, I went to work with rubber gloves, paper towels, newspaper, and a dishpan full of hot sudsy water.

Cling's distress had clearly begun downstairs in the family room. Her bed was really a mess, and she'd gotten the carpet too. Then up in the front room there was a little tiny spot on the linoleum and a huge runny puddle on the shag carpet. Ain't that always the way?

So by the time I had all the floor messes cleaned up, Young'un had finished eating and had gone in to see if the mice needed food. As I was putting the dog bed into the washing machine, he came down to report that our Trixie mouse was dead. It wasn't unexpected -- she had a hellacious tumor -- but the timing couldn't have been worse. I started the washer, then went and found a small box (the kind checks come in) and lined it with a bed of paper towels. I gently lifted Trixie out of the cage and laid her in the box, petted her little head a couple of times, put the lid on, and set the box in the refrigerator to await interment.

Cling had been waiting patiently in the yard. I let her back in, gave her a carrot (good for digestion), then went upstairs and finally got ready for work. Before I left I told Young'un, "After a beginning like this, our day can only get better!" And it did. My day was kind of frustrating and fragmented, and I did a lot of digging with very little progress. But hey, none of it involved shit or death! And that was improvement enough.

Services for Trixie will be at 6:00 tomorrow evening in our back yard.

The Mysteries of Packaging

Why do I have such a hard time with packaging? Whenever I'm faced with opening something fresh from the store, it's like a Chinese puzzle. Well, actually it's not, because I enjoy puzzles; I don't enjoy trying to get at consumer products I've bought.

It's not that I'm careless and don't try to find the proper mode of entry. Far from it! My family get a major kick out of watching me turn the box over and over, peering desperately at it, looking for some hint such as "Tear Here" or a tab or a minuscule row of perforations. Nothing! Nothing! So I settle upon the most vulnerable spot and go in with all the delicacy and precision of a bear ravaging a campsite.

Sometimes after I'm in, I find the place where I was supposed to have entered. This happened with a box of oatmeal that I bought to make cookies. I could not figure out how to open the damn thing! It was a cardboard tube standing on its base, topped with a plastic ring with a cardboard circle recessed underneath it, and sealed with clear plastic over the top. This one had me totally baffled. The recessed thingie was particularly confusing: because it was so unusual I felt it had to be key, but how? At last, practically in tears of frustration, I plowed through the cardboard circle. Once I was in, I discovered that the plastic ring was part of a lid that seated down in the tube. If I'd placed my thumbs under the outer edge of it and pushed up, the whole thing would've come off. :::sigh:::

Today it was a razor that came, unasked-for, in the mail. It was in a blister pack of stiff clear plastic over cardboard. Ordinarily I would've used the scissors to cut across one end and separated the two, but I was up in the bathroom with no scissors handy. There I was, turning it over and over... Finally I chose a corner, peeled back the edge of the plastic, and got a fingernail under the cardboard. When I pulled, the cardboard peeled apart, leaving part of it still adhering to the plastic -- and the razor still unreachable. Damn! I tried another corner, and this time peeled deeper layers of the cardboard, so that what was left looked thin enough to penetrate with the plug from the hair dryer. With a hole made, I plunged in, breaking two fingernails in the process (my fingernails are useless), and managed to extract the razor.

I seem to remember that years ago, packaging used to include directions on how to get into it. There'd be an arrow, or a dotted line, or a list of instructions. Why don't they do that now? Do they think it's intuitive? (Perhaps it is, for everyone but me.) Or is it a cost-saving measure? (Six Sigma project: if we eliminate the perforations, we save the cost of maintaining the perforating tool and cut x number of seconds off the time to produce each box...) Or is it a generational thing; the packaging is designed by and for people who grew up with video games, or something like that?

Whatever the cause, the effect is that hardly a day goes by that doesn't find me baffled by packaging. On the rare occasions when I do stumble upon the correct way in, I get a warm glow of accomplishment. Failing that, I'll get in the wrong way, sometimes providing a good laugh for my family in the process. So it's all good.