The Bering Blog

My New Second Home

When you’re a renter, moving to a new place is always a crap shoot. The manager/super/owner always makes the place seem awesome when you’re looking at it, they promise you the world just before you sign the lease, and then when you move in and the toilet doesn’t work, they act like they’ve never heard of you when you call to complain.

While Carlene is the main tenant, I have a bedroom in her new apartment. This way I get the best of both worlds: I’m Granny Nanny at Cassie’s house Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I get quality Mom time with Carlene in the evenings.

Anyway, I hope this week was merely an aberration for poor Carlene. She just moved in five days ago and already the chain in the toilet tank broke, the new garbage disposal stopped running, the new stove heats only to 250 degrees, the bathroom sink leaks all over the floor, and there’s a big glob of ceiling repair goop permanently affixed to the shower curtain rod that causes the curtain rings to catch. When you’re barely awake and naked, you don’t want to be fighting with a shower curtain.

Of course, the shower curtain is the least of your concerns when you don’t have hot water at 5:45 a.m.

With everything that went wrong last night, it killed me this morning to wake up Carlene and tell her there was no hot water.

“Carly,” I whispered as I gently shook her shoulder. “Honey, there’s no hot water.”

I couldn’t see her face in the dark, but I knew by the tone of her voice that she was rolling her eyes.

“I hate this place,” she sighed.

I haven’t lived in an apartment complex in a very long time. I never thought of this before, but living communally seems so odd.

Looking out of my hotel room in Chicago last November, I was struck by the number of apartment high-rises I saw. Thousands of people live in what amounts to the space of a few city blocks, and yet each apartment is unique with its own furnishings, personality, and occasional backed up toilets. You might park amongst hundreds of cars, walk down a hallway with doors on either side, but when you turn the key to your own front door, you’re home. That space is all yours, and what you do inside that space is what makes it a home. It might have the same layout as the apartment above and apartment below, the same brown shag carpet and avocado green appliances, the same “marble” bathroom counter and mauve window treatments in the living room, but it’s still the place you run to after work, to hide, to relax, to commune with your stuff and just be yourself.

I’m glad to have a “second” home, even if it is an apartment with onerous leaks and quirks. It’s interesting to be the secondary renter in my daughter’s home. I have a shelf in the refrigerator, a rung for my towel, a place in the cupboard for my coffee mug. I live among her furniture, her books, her movies, her shampoo, her hairspray, her pictures on the wall. I have a key, a bed, a lamp, a clock, and, for now, a blanket over the window until Carlene buys the curtains she wants. 

I like this arrangement. I’m not the primary worrier of this place. I don’t have to call maintenance or unpack or hang things on the wall. I don’t mind a few days a week living in a place that’s not my own because the apartment is familiar enough with my own child’s things around to be comfortable. It’s a relaxing place to be after a day of nannying Claire.

I left my second home this afternoon to go back to my primary home. Carlene called and said the toilet works and water doesn’t leak from the sink anymore. The garbage disposal works again, but she hasn’t tried the oven. There’s hot water and she’s happy.

I’m happy, too. Renting really is a crap shoot, but this time, it’s not my crap to shoot.

I Want To Be A Copy Editor When I Grow Up

I brought my dog Mathilda to the vet yesterday for her rabies shot, and as I sat there waiting, I remembered how as a kid I wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I wanted to be a firefighter and paramedic because I loved the show Emergency! But in high school I discovered English and grammar and realized what I really wanted to be most of all when I grew up was a copy editor. I wanted to be meticulous with language, to be able to quote the MLA, Chicago AND AP style guides, to red-pen papers all the day long.

Alas, I became a writer instead. I didn’t have the grit for copy editing. That’s why I admire folks like Grammar Girl and Gail Gedan Spencer, who authors The Skinny blog. Copy editors know stuff writers don’t. It’s like a secret society with complicated rules and secret handshakes. I am too impatient to be a copy editor and I lack the extra brain cells it requires to acquire their finesse in editing.

There’s a huge difference between writing and copy editing, although most people assume that because I’m a writer, I know a lot about spelling and grammar. You regular readers know that’s not the truth. While I’m armed with stylebooks, I can’t quote them, and I get lazy and fall into writing the way I speak, using my vernacular rather than my education as my guide. And while I always told my kids to “Look it up!” whenever they’d ask me how to spell a word, I don’t always take my own advice and rely, instead, on the spell checker.

For inept spellers like me, the spell checker really is a godsend, even though it can’t detect how I mean to use “their,” “they’re” and “there” or “confident” and “confidant.” It also doesn’t detect grammar gaffes (NOTE: I'd originally spelled this as "gaff" and Copy Editor/Teacher Doug from SC kindly pointed out that the real spelling is "gaffe". Thanks, Doug, and I appreciate you being so nice about it. :)). Supposedly that’s what spell checker’s bastard twin “grammar checker” is supposed to do, but for me, using grammar checker is torture. It disagrees with my writing style most of the time and argues with me about my use of gender-exclusive nouns and swear words. That’s why I only use spell checker. It doesn’t sass me.

Spell checker also has a great sense of humor. My mom’s name is Ardith, which isn’t in the dictionary, so it suggested I change her name to “Radish.” Mom hates her name, but I think she’d rather be Ardith Haraldson than Radish Haraldson.

Once when I worked at The Clarion News, a writer used the word “velcro” a couple of times in a story. It seemed right to us, but about a week after the story ran we got a letter from a legal assistant at Velcro® Group Corporation telling us we misused the VELCRO® trademark and asked us to, in the future, please refer to the “hook and loop fastener” as the hook and loop fasteners.

Busted by the VELCRO® police.

Our readers liked to play grammar and spelling police, too. Like the time I posted the obituaries on our website and referred to them as “Recent births in Clarion County.” Or the time I wrote about a man whose son had a cleft palate, only I used the word “palette.” I didn’t notice the mistake until a reader emailed me: “In your story, his son, had a cleft palette. Really? I would have thought ‘cleft palate’ is more likely. But then maybe those people don’t like artists either.”

One of my favorite Clarion News mistakes (not mine, thank God) was in a quote by an area school superintendent: “We think we need one more alternative for problem students,” he said. “This is one more step before the more dramatic step of explosion.”

He, of course, didn’t say “explosion” and it should have read “expulsion,” but that’s what happens in the heat of a deadline and no copy editors.

Sometimes grammar mistakes are inbred. We learn them in the course of our language development. I was 25 before I learned the distinction between “loan” and “borrow.” I thought it was OK to say, “Can you borrow me a dollar?” instead of “Can you loan me a dollar?” I still have to think before I use either word, and I still hear people from Minnesota mix them up.

One grammar mistake I don’t make because I didn’t grow up in western Pennsylvania is dropping “to be” when I’m referring to action. My plants don’t “need watered” and my car will never “need washed.” I also won’t “red up” my house or ask if “yinz need coffee.” There was that time, though, I asked my friend Rodney if I could “ride him up” to the courthouse. Even colloquialisms have their charm.

Well, I just finished running this puppy through the spell checker. It all checks out. But I just know there’s a mistake in here somewhere. Be kind in your criticism. I am, after all, just a copy editor wannabe.

Ah, That Classic Vinyl

Before I launch into my latest treatise, I want to thank you all for your thoughtful emails and comments regarding my last blog “Instant Gratification vs Commitment.” You gave me some great insights. I’m ready to take on the commitment I mentioned and I will let you know what happens in the upcoming months.

It’s getting harder and harder these days to keep me amused musically, especially while I work out. My old school Nano is almost full and yet I’m bored.

iTunes has “suggestions” for me based on prior purchases, but man are they off base most of the time. “Crush on You” by the Jets? Are they kidding me? Britney Spears comes up a lot on my Just For You list, too. Why? I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a Britney song all the way through to the end. I’d rather listen to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida sober.

As I clicked around iTunes trying to find music that didn’t make me want to stick my tongue on a frozen metal post and rip it loose, I saw an advertisement for The Rubinoos Anthology. This made me curious and very happy. Curious because I thought, ‘Don’t you have to have released more than one album to put out an anthology?’ And happy because in 1977 I bought the Rubinoos debut album called, well, The Rubinoos and I loved it. I played it day after day and well into the night. I’d plug in my ginormous headphones, the ones that weighed at least 10 pounds and looked like I could send radio signals to Mars, and I would lip-sync like I was in the band while everyone else in my family was sound asleep. I remember doing similar fantasy role-playing with a Cowsills album, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstadt, and Shaun Cassidy.

Anyway, the Rubinoos rendition of “I Think We’re Alone Now” was a huge hit in the Sioux Falls radio market. I remember wondering what it would be like to “tumble to the ground” with some boy and then say to him, “I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” God knows that would’ve been too bold for me, the girl who, during a football game in 7^th grade, agreed to go to the “make-out shack” with Ricky Peterson and promptly walked out the second he stuck his tongue in my mouth. “We! What are you doing?” I think were my exact words.

The “make-out shack” was a little uninsulated wooden building on property known as the “duck farm” located on the edge of our little town. I don’t remember the details of the duck farm, only that there were a lot of ducks and geese there and my friends and I would go there often during the summer to feed them. However, feeding ducks there and getting French kissed there were about as experientially different as one could possibly imagine.

So all those memories came flooding back to me when I saw The Rubinoos Anthology advertised on iTunes. I Googled the group and what do you know? They kept making music after 1977. They even still tour and have a website. “Hunh,” I said. “I wonder if I still have that album.” I went to the closet where we keep the vinyl, laid on my stomach and started flipping through our collection.

It was a little depressing realizing a good number of the artists are dead. John Denver, Dan Fogelberg, Jimi Hendrix, Warren Zevon, half of the Beatles, a few members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Duane Allman, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Dave Peverett, Brad Delp. But there are plenty of them still living, too, and still making music. The Moody Blues, Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles. Our closet of vinyl is a virtual Mecca for classic rock lovers.

I wish I still had the first album I ever bought, though. Three Dog Night’s Greatest Hits. I saved the money I earned working at my dad’s grocery store and bought it at Musicland at the Western Mall on one of my family’s infrequent visits to Sioux Falls. I still have the last album I bought, though, before CDs became the medium: Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever. I also found the Rubinoos album. Problem is, I don’t have a turntable to play it on.

I was at the mercy of iTunes. I downloaded a few Rubinoos songs and what do you know? I not only remembered every word, but I anticipated every inflection and change in vibrato like I’d just heard the music yesterday. How come those brain cells are still alive thirty years later and yet I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night?

I won’t be plugging in the stereo headphones and lip-syncing in the dark, but don’t be surprised if you see my lips moving when I work out. These new songs will definitely keep me amused for a few weeks. After that, who knows? Maybe iTunes will finally understand my musical tastes and recommend something more appropriate for me, like the Cowsills, the Keane Brothers or Shaun or David Cassidy.

Instant Gratification vs Commitment

Have you seen the new Hyundai commercial? Here’s the verbiage (if you want to see the commercial, click here to view it on YouTube): “Instant gratification has us in a stranglehold. So much so that we don’t want to fix things anymore, just replace them. Don’t like you nose? Get a new one. Don’t like your job? Get a new one. Don’t like your spouse? Get a new one What ever happened to commitment? To standing by our decisions?”

The whole thing puts out two separate themes: instant gratification on one hand and commitment on the other. At first, when I heard “…we don’t want to fix things anymore,” I thought about electronics and computer printers and the other things that cost less to buy new than to fix, and because I also know first-hand that Hyundais can break down, I know the message of that part of the commercial was that Hyundai will fix their cars that break down, at least they did in my case several years ago when I drove one. I get that part of the commercial.

What I’m confused about (and need you to help me understand) is the second part of the message. Certainly we aren’t “committed” to our noses, are we? And having surgery to change it isn’t “instant” gratification, is it? Take that one step further. What about gastric bypass surgery? Is that instant gratification?

Is changing jobs or wanting new challenges a sign that we’re not committed?

Welcome to the inside of my head. I’m trying to sort out the difference between a decision and a commitment. I have a love-hate relationship with “commitment.” I really like change. I don’t like things the same for very long. What seems like a good idea one moment leaves me bored or restless the next. Yet there are things and times that are worth sticking around for the long haul – to see them come to fruition and see if they were worth the time and effort, the commitment.

For instance, three years ago I committed to losing weight. Today I’m committed to keeping it off. I didn’t just make a decision. I made a commitment. A commitment takes a plan. A decision is finite. Commitment needs to ebb and flow, doesn’t it? A decision requires another decision in order to change. 

I know I’m being vague, and I don’t intend this blog entry to be a therapy session for Lynn, but I wanted to open a conversation with you about decisions versus commitments and learn, through your emails and/or by leaving a comment, your thoughts on “new noses, new jobs and new spouses,” so to speak. Selfishly, I need some perspective because I’m on the verge of making a pretty big commitment, yet sometimes it feels like just a decision based on instant gratification. I’m in the planning stage, the place where you vacillate and try to see all sides: Do I? Don’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I?

So tell me, how do you distinguish between instant gratification and commitment? And how do you personally become and stay committed to something?

Disclaimer: This commitment I’m facing has nothing directly to do with my husband (he’ll be glad to know that) or gastric bypass, a nose job, buying a computer printer or buying a Hyundai, although I would if I could and not because of the commercial.

CNN Comes To The Suburbs of Pittsburgh

One of the first things CNN cameraman Mark Biello did when he walked in my daughter’s house on Thursday was introduce himself to Sadie the dog (who barked and ran away) and to Moose the cat. Then he asked me if there was a milk or orange juice container in the refrigerator.

Being the good hostess I am, I asked him which he preferred and went to the cupboard for a glass.

“No,” he explained, “I need the plastic ring from the lid and about three feet of dental floss. Oh, and a knife or scissor.

Curious, I handed him the orange juice, dug out dental floss from my purse, and handed him a steak knife. He cut one side of the ring and then tied on the dental floss.

“I invented this when I was living in Germany. You want to cut the ring so their paw doesn’t get caught,” was all the explanation I got.

With a confident grin and hanging on to the other end of the dental floss, Mark flung the ring at the cat and began running around the house with Moose in hot pursuit.

CNN producer Chris Hrubesh stood in the kitchen with me, smiling, his arms crossed and casual. Chris looks a little like David Caruso. He’s Czech, I found out later, and he likes canolis. He’s two years younger than me and has covered stories all over the world, mostly the West Bank, Kuwait and Israel, where he witnessed a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. A few days before coming to Pittsburgh, both men were on the campaign trail in New Hampshire talking to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now they were in my daughter’s home in a Pittsburgh suburb interviewing me because I lost a few pounds and I work out. Not worldly stuff and hardly unique. Heck, it’s hardly even interesting. But they were there nonetheless, doing their job, or at least preparing to do their job. Mark was still running around with the cat.

Nothing about that moment in the kitchen was what I expected when I agreed to be part of CNN’s Fit Nation. I guess I really didn’t know what to expect, but a cameraman being chased around the house by a large orange tabby was definitely not part of my anticipation. I understand now that I was unwittingly being put at ease and it worked.

The hours that followed were filled with easy, thoughtful and comical conversation, and I gave the easiest interview to-date because Chris and Mark coax calm. I suspect they don’t hear “no” very often. Mark and Chris are smooth – not a devious, lying, get-a-girl-in-bed smooth – but intellectually smooth. They are experientially rich, but their experiences still fascinate themselves in almost a naïve way. I’ve met some interesting people in the last few months, but these two guys from CNN are by far the most fascinating.

After scoping out the best place to set up (and commenting on the Gumby cookie jar in the kitchen), Mark and Chris hauled in their equipment. Cassie was sitting on the couch, holding Claire, and we all talked about politics (or the record, they accurately predicted the outcome of the South Carolina primary), native foods and alcohol of various foreign countries, the blight of the British Empire, and the time Mark came to Clarion in the mid ‘80s for a friend’s wedding, a large Slovakian event with lots of vodka and potatoes and cabbage. As they set up, we discussed our love of Chris Farley. CNN Chris said his favorite Farley SNL character was Matt Foley, motivational speaker (“I live in a van down by the river!”). This led us to sing a few lines from Lunch Lady Land, too (“Sloppy joes, sloppy, sloppy joes…hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders…navy beans navy beans…”).

While setting up a tall light next to my chair, Mark said “Sixteen years ago today I was filming the bombs dropping on Baghdad.”

I thought for a second. “Wait,” I said. “Wasn’t that 17 years ago?”

“Huh,” laughed Mark. “It’s 2008, isn’t it?”

Mark (a.k.a. Mad Dog) was one of a small group of CNN reporters who were in Baghdad covering Desert Storm in 1991. I remember that night vividly, watching CNN, scared, wondering when it would end. How astonishing to think that the man shooting the video that night in Baghdad was now turning his camera on little old me. Whether it’s fate or coincidence or quantum physics, the world was very small and very simple at that moment.

Mark and his colleagues’ experience was turned into an HBO film “Live From Baghdad” starring Michael Keaton, Helena Bonham Carter and Joshua Leonard, who played Mark. Mark was an advisor on the set during filming. It was fun, he said matter of factly. Then he told me about the time he had dinner with Saddam Hussein at his palace and how complicated eating was for the dictator because people were always trying to poison him. I wondered if Saddam had a cat and if Mark made it a plastic ring-dental floss toy. Then it hit me: I was two degrees of separation from Saddam Hussein. And I thought meeting Oprah was mind-blowing.

Mark and Chris were in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. Chris reported from Slidell (click here to read a portion of his report) and Mark was in New Orleans where, as he was working, saved more than a dozen lives. He said it as though he does that kind of thing every day. (Click here to read an interview with Mark after the hurricane.)

When Chris first arrived at the house, he said the guy he interviewed the day before had lost more than 190 pounds and that he’d cried during the interview. I told Chris that nothing he said would make me cry. Weight loss made me happy. Then he found the photo of Cassie and me from the day she graduated from basic training in 2002. It was in a frame on the bookshelf. I started telling him how I weighed about 280 pounds and Cassie was 117 and how last Friday I put on the pants Cassie was wearing in the photo and they fit perfectly. I told him how hard that summer was, saying goodbye to Cassie, waiting weeks before she could call, and when she did, how we spent the entire five minutes crying, barely saying a word. I teared up. Chris smiled.

“I knew I could get you to cry,” he said.

I’m glad that wasn’t on tape.

During the actual interview, the phone rang once, Claire squawked for a second, but otherwise it was quiet. I looked at Chris the whole time, fighting my natural impulse to look away when someone looks me in the eyes for longer than a few seconds. A lot of what I said will not make it in to the actual segment, which will only be about 90 seconds long, but the experience of sorting out my answers to the questions he asked me was yet another exercise in understanding who I was at 300 pounds and who I am now.

When we were done with the interview, they filmed me walking up and down the stairs and walking the dog in the snow. Mark gained Sadie’s trust and he threw her Giggly-Wiggly ball over and over again. Chris and I stood by their van. That’s when he told me about Tel Aviv. He also told me how he collects the little bottles of shampoo and soap from the hotels he stays at and donates them to women’s shelters. I told you our conversation was varied.

As they packed up to leave, I noticed they used a particularly large case that they stuffed with most of the things that had been in the living room a few minutes before.

“It’s called the Widow Maker,” said Chris. I could see why. It weighs 80 pounds, and while it’s on wheels, it still needs to be lifted in and out of vehicles and up and down stairs. I said it’s probably a hernia maker, too. Chris said that was a concern for many of the guys who haul the Widow Maker around.

Mark gave Cassie and me CNN caps and Claire got a little News Hound stuffed dog. (That's Mark with Sadie behind him.) They said they were going to Station Square that evening and Cassie recommended Bar Louis.

“Martinis, eh?” said Mark with a grin. Chris rolled his eyes and said he wanted to work out in the hotel gym first. We hugged goodbye and they said if we were ever in Atlanta that they’d give us a tour of the CNN empire.

I didn’t think to ask them why they do what they do. Is it the adventure? To seek truth? Most of the time they have no idea what they’ll encounter when they get wherever they’re going. I couldn’t work that way. I get hives just getting on an airplane, let alone knowing I might be blown up in some restaurant in Tel Aviv or a hotel in Baghdad.

Who knows? Maybe one day our paths will cross again and we’ll drink an Imp and an Iron and I’ll ask them why they do what they do. In the meantime, I have their email addresses and I’ll look for their names on the credits when I watch CNN and live vicariously through them.

Here's a few photos of us. Mark's the one with the camera and Chris is in the red shirt.

   

A Day In the Life of Granny Nanny

5:45 a.m. “Mom?” My daughter gently shakes me awake. “Mom, just wanted you to get your bearings. I’m going to work soon.”

It’s Wednesday. I’m in Pittsburgh. These details thaw slowly as the dream I was just having about dogs and preachers and Hillary Clinton fades. My stomach tightens a bit. I went to bed last night apprehensive about today. I agreed months ago to watch my granddaughter on Wednesdays and Thursday mornings when Cassie went back to work, but talking about it is different than actually doing it.

I kick back the covers and turn on a light and take my thyroid med.   

6:30 a.m. Final instructions. Claire’s in my room lying on a big round pillow on the floor with her pink elephant friend Ellie next to her. She’s looking at me as I type, staring actually, like she knows I’m a little concerned about this nanny gig. We both have a lot to learn today. I’ve not spent 12 hours alone with a 3-month-old since Cassie was 3 months old 23 years ago.

Big yawn (her, not me). Maybe we’ll both get a nap in soon.

6:40 a.m. Claire kicks and talks and squeals in a high-pitched sing-song voice. She’s like her mother in so many ways. Already she seems to want to be older than she is. When Cassie was 5 she wanted to be 6. When she was 12, she was “almost 13.” Claire was born a week early and has been holding her head up from the very beginning, unsteady at first, of course, but now she lays on her stomach and holds her head up, looking around the room, drooling on her blanket. Sometimes she’ll flip over to her back and wonder how the heck she did that.

The drool is immense some days. So is the fist sucking. She has two small bumps on her bottom gums. Soon she’ll cut her first teeth. Claire is in the middle between those babies who, on average, cut their bottom teeth between four and seven months, and the one in 2,000 who are actually born with teeth. She’s considered young for teeth, but she’s not considered odd, either.

6:55 a.m. Claire’s on my bed with me helping me write. She sucks in her bottom lip and flattens her mouth. She looks like her Great-Grandma Ardith, who used to take out her dentures and smile at my kids and my kids would scream in delight and beg her to do it again and again.

Another big yawn and a frustrating little cry. My writing is boring her. She’s not the first person I’ve bored, I’m sure.

7:20 a.m. Crisis! We have bottles but no nipples. I searched the kitchen to no avail. Before he left for work, Matt said to call him and not Cassie if I had any questions because he does the12-hour Claire duty on Sundays and knows how hard it is to convince Claire that we’re almost as good as Mommy when we know deep down we’re not. So I call his cell phone.

“Matt! Where are the nipples?” (Not a conversation most mothers-in-law have with their sons-in-law.)

“Damn. I’m sorry, I was going to tell you that before I left and totally forgot.”

Two minutes later I found the nipples and heated up my first bottle as Granny Nanny.

7:26 a.m. Peace has returned to the house.

8:12 a.m. No sleeping yet. Claire is laying against my chest, face out, as I type. She’s watching the screen intently. I lean over and kiss her head. Babies heads are mesmerizing. Soft, fuzzy, they smell good (most of the time). Her head feels nice pressed against my lips. So calming and centering.

Sadie the dog is sleeping on the floor. Classical music is playing in Claire’s room.

Uh oh. Major noises from down under. Thank God for “unbeatable leakage protection.” We’re heading to the changing table.

8:21 a.m. Claire is in her crib listening to Bach and watching her mobile spin slowly. She’s talking to the panda moving above her.

9:00 a.m. Claire falls asleep. I lay her on pillows on the couch and slip in a Walk Away the Pounds video.

9:15 a.m. Claire wakes up. I pause the video, put her in her vibrating chair, hand her a toy and turn the video back on. She seems amused watching me do kicks and knee lifts and sidesteps and kickbacks. She plays long enough for me to do 2 of the 3 miles. Not much of a workout, but at least it's something.

9:47 a.m. I need breakfast. I put Claire on the changing table of her Pack ‘n Play. She’s talking to the bears on the mobile and trying to touch them. I can see her from the kitchen as I make an omelet.

10:10 a.m. Perfect timing. My omelet is on a plate on a table near the couch. Claire is mad at the mobile bears so I prop her up next to me on the couch. She’s sitting like a big girl, staring at something by her feet. I don’t see anything particularly interesting, but then, I’m not 3 months old. She’s seeing things for the first time. It’s kind of sad that I routinely miss the interesting things right in front of me.

10:23 a.m. Another concentrated look on Claire’s face. Another rumble down below. Back we go to the changing table.

11:07 a.m. Ah, blessed sleep (the baby, not me). Her sleep time is my work time. I don’t know how much time I’ve got, so I’d better take advantage of every minute.

11:45 a.m. Uh oh. Work time’s over, I think. I peek over at Claire lying on the couch. She’s shifting positions. Her eyes are half committed to waking. Is she going back to sleep? Yes, I think she is. Shhhhh…. Please God, don’t send a UPS guy to our door.

11:50 a.m. Another rumble down under. This one’s seeped up the front of her onesie. Claire is wide awake. I would be, too, if I did that in my pants.

12:25 p.m. Claire drank a bottle and is still saying no to sleep. Again, she’s just like her mother. As a baby, Cassie was always too busy to sleep. There was too much to see and do. Claire just wants to kick around on the couch and talk to me and the pillow and her green and purple fuzzy blanket. And her fist.

I’ve survived the first six hours. Only six more until Daddy gets home. I see heavy eyes over on the couch. I think Claire needs a nap. I need her to need a nap. But I’m living by Claire’s agenda today. Whatever she wants, she gets. If she wants a nap, great. If not, that’s ok, too. It has to be. She’s Claire and she’s calling the shots.

I Miss the Card Catalog

I realize libraries have been using computers for years now to keep track of their book inventory, but I want to go on record as saying that I miss the old card catalog way of tracking the Dewey decimal system.

I’m a systematic person. I like words in alphabetical order and numbers in sequence. Dewey is an anal retentive girls best friend. When I was in grade school, I’d thumb through the cards in the long drawers of the smooth oak card catalogs like they were made of velvet. Flip, flip, flip. This activity was second only to finding the book I was looking for, walking past aisle after aisle of books, a sign on the end of each wooden shelf indicating which part of the alphabet was stored there or which reference number. I’d find the right aisle, cock my head to the right and just read numbers and letters. I still do that today, but usually I’m in a book store, not a library, and without thumbing through the cards in the card catalog, half the joy is gone.

I did, however, go to our public library today (which boasts an impressive number of volumes on the shelves and readily available reference material for a small-town library) to do some research for a writing project. Alas, they didn’t have the books I was looking for (I know that because I looked them up on their “card catalog computer” – so disappointing), but I enjoyed looking through the stacks and seeing all the authors’ last names arranged in order. I was especially happy to see the familiar reference numbers on the spine, too. Obviously, it’s been awhile since I was in a library.

Apropos of nothing, have you ever noticed that all libraries smell the same? Like grade schools and nursing homes and churches all have the same smell. Do they all use cleaning solutions specially made for that particular institution? Is it the books? When I was in school, be it grade school, high school or college, whenever I’d get a new textbook, I’d crack the spine and stick my nose in the center and take a big whiff. I love new book smell. It’s intoxicating. Maybe because it signifies new. I know some people who liked the smell of freshly mimeographed copies, but I wasn’t into that smell much. It had a sharp, oh I don’t know, tangy smell of ink that I didn’t like and the paper was always damp and purple. Houghton Mifflin, however, never let me down.

I have no idea where all these thoughts came from today. I’ve been ordering a lot of books online lately so maybe I’m just waxing nostalgic for the days I actually spent hours browsing through the library instead of clicking with a mouse through Amazon’s “recommendations.” Maybe Claire and I need to visit a library near her house in Pittsburgh and make it a Grammy and Claire activity each week. Hopefully she’ll learn to love browsing the stacks as much as I do. We’ll find books to read together, bury our faces in the new ones, and lose ourselves in fantasy and fun.

I’ve decided. I’m adding “go to the library” to our list of things to do when I start my part-time Granny Nanny duties this week. I’ll tell her all about the days of the real card card catalogs and how her grandma had to stand on a stool to reach the top drawers. Hopefully Claire will appreciate order and the alphabet and sequential numbers the way I do. If not, I guess there’s always the park.

Here Are a Few Other Writers You Might Like

Once in awhile I read a writer whose work I find engaging, thoughtful, or funny and I like to pass on my discovery to you. Recently I found two very funny and engaging columnists – Lisa Kogan and Vicki Glembocki – and I knew I had to introduce you to them if you haven’t discovered them already.

Lisa Kogan writes for Oprah Winfrey’s magazine and her column that was featured on CNN’s website, originally published in April 2007, is about how hectic life can be. Being the ZenBagLady I am, it was this hook and excerpt that got me reading (and loving) her column:

“A friend once told me about the Buddhist concept of pain without suffering; it's a notion that fascinates me. I mean, is it really possible to say, ‘Yep, my stomach aches, all right, but I don’t have to add insult to injury by letting that pain run amok: I can decide to skip the part where I moan, ‘Now I can't meet my friends at the movie and I'll probably miss work tomorrow, which means I’ll blow my deadline, lose my job and die penniless and alone, never having seen "Dreamgirls.'"

Calming a frantic brain in the face of high anxiety is a pretty tall order, especially for a woman like me who tends to operate on two basic emotions: panic and barely suppressed panic.

But assuming one can actually achieve pain without suffering, where else might this dynamic be applied? Is there such a thing as anger without brooding? Sex without strings? And the real question --my current obsession -- can a person feel unbelievably busy without feeling unbelievably overwhelmed?

...Almost everybody I know -- whether they're wealthy or struggling to make ends meet, whether they're bachelor girls or celebrating their 25th anniversary, whether their kids are grown or toddlers or nonexistent --everyone seems to be suffering from some sort of culturally induced ADD. Our brains are swamped and our bodies are tired. Blood pressures are up, serotonin levels are down, tempers are short, to-do lists are long, and nerves are shot.”

Click here to read the entire column.

Kogan’s most recent column, Last Will and Testament, addresses the two things I’ve been thinking a lot about the last month: age and death.

For most of my adult life I’ve been told I don’t look as old as I am. Lately many people say to me, “You’re too young to be a grandma!” and while that makes me smile, I also know this sentiment will end soon. Under the makeup, straight out of bed, I look 44. Not that there’s anything wrong with looking 44 – so far I’ve welcomed the tiny lines and small freckles I was denied as a child – but I know this life isn’t permanent and I wonder how I’ll grow old. Gracefully? Or will I fight?

Another writer whose column I read every month in Women’s Health is Vicki Glembocki. I particularly like this column because it deals with the opposite of death, or at least the opposite emotionally: a woman’s sexual peak. It’s called Paging Mr. December.

“Could it be that it has finally arrived? That I have stepped, however ungracefully, into my sexual prime?

“At last! I've been telling Mr. December for years that we were almost there. ‘Just wait! I'm heading into my mid-30s. And you know what that means. My peak! It will be like the Playboy Mansion has moved to our backyard! Every night will be like the drainpipe scene in Nine 1/2 Weeks!’”

But Glembocki finds out that the whole “sexual peak in your 30s” thing is merely a myth, that a woman’s testosterone levels are low and continue to decrease the older she gets.

“I, on the other hand, am confused. A life without a bona fide sexual prime doesn't make sense. How then do we psychoanalyze The Graduate? How do we justify in-her-prime Demi and in-his-prime Ashton (who, incidentally, has made my short list for next year's Men Who Can Stop by Anytime calendar)? How do we explain uncontrollable growling? I was so not growling at cute boys in movies in my teens, when testosterone was supposedly coursing through my veins.

“’A lot of women don't develop sexual self-awareness until later in life,’ says Ian Kerner, Ph.D., a sex therapist in New York. Berman calls it the ‘emotional’ sexual prime. As she puts it, ‘You're socially secure. You're clear about who you are. You're more confident sexually, more assertive, less inhibited.’ That certainly explains Kinsey's findings, especially since those poor gals were living in an era when good girls weren’t supposed to have sex, much less like it. I guess feeling comfortable enough with who you are that you hang photos of hot movie stars in your office is what being in your prime is all about.”

I guess this explains my iPod playlist and why it’s filled with songs like “Paralyzer,” “Crazy Bitch” and “Do You Wanna Touch”.

But that is all I’ll say on the subject since my mother and daughters read my blog and, well, there are some things they just don’t want to know about me. I really just wanted to introduce you to Vicki Glembocki and recommend that you Google her to read more of her columns.

As always, please let us know of other writers you like to read on a regular basis, too, by posting a comment or sending me an email. Good writing should always be shared.

People, The Today Show and Entertainment Tonight - Part 3

Friday afternoon, I’m in the car on the way to LaGuardia. This drive was much more fun than the drive to the hotel the night before. The difference was the drivers. While kind and efficient, the driver the night before said only a few words to me. The driver who took me to the airport Friday was the total opposite. I not only know his name, marital status and where he grew up, I know how to get licensed and insured as a driver in New York City, how many Yellow Cabs are on the streets of Manhattan at any given time, and the best way to get to LaGuardia from E. 53^rd (take the Queensboro Bridge and not the tunnel).

The driver was a native New Yorker. Talked a mile a minute. This is a portion of the conversation. Read it with a genuine Brooklyn accent in mind and in almost one breath: “I’ve had Matt Lauer riding in my car three times now and I didn’t know it until my girlfriend said to me she said, ‘Hey, that was Matt Lauer in your car,’ and I said, ‘Who’s Matt Lauer?’ and she says, ‘What do you mean who’s Matt Lauer? He’s from the Today Show.” And I’m like, ‘I don’t watch the Today Show.’ Then when he was in my car again I said, ‘Your Matt Lauer.’ Mia Farrow was in my car, too, and I thought about asking her about Woody Allen and then I thought that might not be a good idea. She’s got  some adopted kids, right? She looks old. I’m movin’ in with my girlfriend on the 14^th and I got the key to prove it.” He then shook a keychain to show me.

His ex-wife, who cheated on him and he divorced but he’s now in a relationship with the before mentioned girlfriend who apparently is on Weight Watchers because she wants to look good for their wedding but he tells her she looks great the way she is, (inhale) called and he answered the phone and said, “Helloooooo (very sarcastically). I told you to never call me at work. Didn’t I tell you that? I tell you that all the time. Don’t call me at work. Call me AFTER 9! Goooooobyyyyye.” Click.

Apparently she calls all the time.

Another ex-girlfriend works at the airport. He was also in the first Gulf War, Desert Storm, in artillery. Said he “killed my enemy from nine miles away.” Caught some shrapnel and was sent home.

All this on a half-hour drive to LaGuardia. There’s more but I can’t remember it all. He was a lot of fun and he kept his car well stocked with water and Dove candy bars.

I was glad to get to the airport, check my bag, chill in a restaurant near my gate, and hook up to the Internet. The women behind me were discussing Somalia. The manager called security because some guy at the bar was drunk and obnoxious. The suits next to me were talking about women and their latest sales conquest. All I wanted was to get on the plane and get back to Pittsburgh. I bought some yogurt and a banana for the trip, took my window seat and was squished next to two other women and worked a crossword puzzle all the way home.

You know all about the incident in the airport parking lot, so I’ll skip that part except to say my head feels better. My daughters, son-in-law, boyfriend-in-law and of course, Miss Claire were all waiting for me when I got to my daughter’s house. We ate dinner, watched Entertainment Tonight, and I felt the tension of the day ease. But it was when I took Claire upstairs to change her diaper that I felt the weight of the day.

The only light in the room was a nightlight. Claire laid on her changing table and wasn’t too happy at first. I gave her kisses and tickled her belly. She kicked and smiled and that’s when I broke down. My tears fell on her little naked torso as I changed her diaper and put on her pajamas. I talked to her and told her how much I loved her and how Grammy Lynn was crying because she was so happy. And it wasn’t New York or People or Today or ET or limo drivers or being called Toothpick Legs that made me happy. It was Claire. It was coming home and being greeted by the genuine smile and joy of my granddaughter.

It’s not that the other things aren’t important or that they don’t give me a sense of accomplishment and pride. They do. But nothing in this world compares to sitting on a couch with my family, laughing and talking and feeling safe. There have been significant things added to my reality this week, things that have the potential to fulfill my dreams in ways I never imagined. But it is my family that keeps me grounded. They won’t let me forget who I am. In fact, it’s this YouTube video from “The Family Guy” that really illustrates this point. Yes, my kids do this to me even now and thank God they’ll probably never grow out of it.

Thank you for reading and for all your support. I’ll be back in a few days with a new and fairly normal blog. While I’ve redefined what’s “normal” in my life, it’s all still pretty much the same.

People, The Today Show and Entertainment Tonight - Part 2

So the Today Show segment was over, Natalie shook my hand, we chatted for a few seconds, and then Marnie, Galina (the senior editor of People who was on the segment, too), Andrea the makeup artist and I made our way through the windy underground tunnel to the Time building and the People Magazine offices where I’d be doing the shoot for Entertainment Tonight.

I felt like a kid following her mother. I had no idea where I was going or what was going to happen and so I just looked around and tried to take it all in (and keep up – New Yorkers walk so fast and I still had on those Oprah boots!). Sandwich shops and lots of people walking and talking on cell phones are about all I can remember. We went to the Time building’s security desk and they had to see an ID. I showed them my driver’s license. I had my old license, too, the one when I was 300 pounds, and I showed Marnie who showed it to the women at the security desk. I told them my DMV story and how I had to beg them to give me a new license before it expired because I was unable to cash a check anymore because the photo looked nothing like me and I almost couldn’t purchase a bottle of wine. Oh the horror!

I got a pass and we got in the elevator. We landed on the 20-something floor, I think, and Marnie led me to a conference room. Andrea had several faces to do that day, including a retouch for Galena and me, so she set up her wares on the conference table. We talked about her family home in Jamaica and menopause and dry skin. She bought me some Baked Lays from the vending machine because all I had was a 5 and no change. She told me about her career, too, and like Marnie, I think we would be friends if I lived in New Yorkand worked in that field. I’ll probably never see Andrea again, but what a joy to have known her for a moment.

The ET production guys were setting up in another room. Three other production people from I-don’t-know-where were in the conference room with Andrea and me waiting to set up their own shoot. One of the guys told me his grandparents were Slovak and lived in southern Pennsylvania and worked in the coal mines. He and his wife had also done Weight Watchers together a few years before. Lost some weight. He seemed happy.

I loved all the accents most of all. Everyone had that New York thing happening to varying degrees. I loved the diversity, too. Like Chicago, there are so many people living and working in Manhattan from other parts of the world, and it’s fun to talk to them and observe them. It’s good to remember that I’m only a small part of this vast world. It’s easy to forget that living in a small town.

The ET folks were ready for me and I walked into a studio-like room and sat in a director’s chair. There was a producer, a cameraman, a sound man and another man, a director, perhaps, who looked like Samuel L. Jackson and had a voice like Barry White. Oh my. The producer sat in a chair by the camera and interviewed me off camera. They were all very kind and cool and I was beginning to understand why everyone was like this, both at Today and ET. If I’m feeling nervous, I won’t give a good interview. If they keep the mood light and I’m distracted by laughter, I’m more relaxed and will give better face to the camera.

The sound guy attached my microphone and lightly put a cord with a piece of tape on it on my chest. He asked me to press it on to my shirt. I said, “You don’t want to do it?” I meant it only in terms of letting him know I wouldn’t prevent him from doing his job. He said, “Well, only if you want me to.” I said, “Well, it’s not like I haven’t had a few sound guys’ hands up my shirt more than once today,” referring to the Today Show. I didn’t mean it the way it came out, or maybe subconsciously I did, but everyone laughed even harder and Samuel L. Jackson said, in his delicious Barry White voice, “We may need to discuss that later!”

Because this made me laugh and I was relaxed, they got the interview they were looking for.

And with that, my media campaign was over. I was free to leave the building. Free to leave New York. It was about 11:15 and I called my friend Tracie, whom I’d never met in person and who works just a few blocks from where I was, and she said she’d meet me at my hotel and we’d have lunch.

Tracie and I met through Weight Watchers online, and then when we discovered we both love Glen Phillips, well, that sealed the BFF deal. (It was this blog - A Perfect Evening: A Date With My Daughter - that started it all.)

Tracie is one of the most confident people I’ve ever met. She’s bold and sassy and smart and down to earth. Busy as hell, but she keeps it together. Here we are in the little restaurant where I wolfed down a ginormous salad because the Baked Lays earlier just didn’t cut it.  

Soon it was time to get back to the hotel because a car had been ordered to take me to the airport at 1:00. The car was already there when we walked up the street toward the hotel, so I went inside, got my luggage and Tracie and I said goodbye. Unlike Marnie and Andrea and Natalie and Laura and Galina and all the other folks I met that day, I will see Tracie again.

There’s more to this adventure. I promise a Part 3 later today or early tomorrow.