The Bering Blog

Vaseline

When I was a kid, I had the worst dry hands imaginable. Every winter they cracked and bled and my dad bought everything he could to help relieve them – corn huskers lotion, udder cream, you name it. What finally worked was Vaseline.

Vaseline became my “go-to” item for burns, dry lips, and make-up removal, and I used it to lubricate the joints of my flute. At some point, though, around the time I became a know-it-all 15-year-old, I was seduced by Maybelline and Cover Girl and Bonnie Bell and Clinique and all their fancy ads with beautiful women with beautiful skin. Vaseline was hick, podunk, so uncool.

Thousands of dollars and 30 years later…

This winter has been particularly cold and I’ve spent more money, as usual, on this lotion and that lotion, trying to combat my dry aging winter skin. Then I remembered the jar of Vaseline in the back of the medicine cabinet – I’ll bet it’s four years old at least – and the days when my dad slathered it all over my knuckles and put gloves on my hands before tucking me in bed. I put some on my face before going to bed and what do you know? I woke up with soft cheeks, and gone were the lines under my eyes that made me look haggard and worn.

Not bad for a $1.29.

You know my propensity to Google almost anything. Well, a quick Google for Vaseline generated almost 7 million results. Vaseline is almost as popular as duct tape (which produced a little more than 7 million results). I didn’t realize Vaseline had such a variety of uses beyond softening skin and making flutes easier to pull apart.

I particularly like this article, written by Charlie Bradley, of a list of alternative uses for Vaseline: Household Hints: Helpful Uses for Vaseline 

I thought hint #3 was interesting: “The Cheating Spouse's Best Friend - Vaseline helps to remove lipstick, makeup, and mascara stains from clothing before the stain sets in. Rub a generous coat of Vaseline over the stain and pat the stain with a soft wet cloth of plain water.”

Vaseline has many non-clandestine uses, however, never ever under any circumstance use Vaseline with a condom or this nurse will find you and kick your ass: http://www.coolnurse.com/sex_faqs19.htm.

Of course the makers of Vaseline have a website: Vaseline – Keeping Skin Amazing. I think the “amazing” part’s a bit much, but the petroleum jelly does keep it soft, that’s for sure.

Vaseline is so amazing that it should partner with duct tape and bring about world peace. Imagine the possibilities!

OK, so maybe world peace is a stretch, but Vaseline has brought some peace to me personally. I often get caught up in the fancy stuff or look for solutions beyond my medicine cabinet, so to speak. Vaseline is a gentle reminder that I find the best solutions in simplicity, by simply breathing and remembering that life is only as complicated as I choose to make it. I’ve got “amazingly” soft skin and it only cost me $1.29. I want an equally amazingly soft soul and heart.

And with that, I want to send out a BIG happy birthday to my dad who turns 77 today! I love you, Daddy! Thanks for finding the solution to my cracked and bleeding hands and for all the other times you mended my body and heart. I’ve been telling you this all my life, but it’s still true: you’re the best dad ever.

 

A 1976 Flashback

I don’t know who actually wrote “Strap in, shut up and hold on. We’re going back.” about the 1977 JC Penney catalog, but even though it’s been going around the email circuit for awhile now, it still makes me laugh. An excerpt for those of you unfamiliar with it:

“The clothes are fantastic. Imagine if you wore them today.

Here's how to get your ass kicked in elementary school:



Just look at that belt. It's like a boob-job for your pants. He probably needed help just to lift it into place. The belt loops have to be three inches long, for god's sake. And way to pull your pants up to your armpits, grandpa.

Here's how to get your ass kicked in high school:

This kid looks like he's pretending to be David Soul, who is pretending to be a cop who is pretending to be a pimp that everyone knows is really an undercover cop. Who is pretending to be 15.

Here's how to get your ass kicked on the golf course:


This ‘all purpose jumpsuit’ is, according to the description, equally appropriate for playing golf or simply relaxing around the house. Personally, I can't see wearing this unless you happen to be relaxing around your cell in D-block. Even then, the only reason you should put this thing on is because the warden forced you to at gunpoint.”

I recommend you read the entire thing. It’s funny stuff, whether you lived through the 70s or were born later.

I bring this up because my sister sent me the booklet I made for her and her husband Steve when they got married in 1976. I was 12 years old and obviously thought I was a comic genius.

I called it “Steve & Debbies Wedding Book” (sans punctuation). The cover is made of construction paper, and I used my best cursive throughout. I cut out pictures from magazines and pasted them on each “themed” page. Overalls, big ties, and of course, tan leisure suits were big back in 1976. So was the whole red/white/blue color combo.

Here are some of the pages I made:

I assure you Debbie did NOT wear this lovely polyester number.

And Steve didn't wear this. Check out the red, white and blue tie with the blue jacket. It screams Herb Tarlek (from "WKRP in Cincinnati").

The author of "Strap in, shut up..." also noticed the matching clothes trend of the '70s. I think these two share the same hair style, too.

My dad wore coveralls similar to this outfit. All my mother would have had to do is cinch the middle with a belt, strap on some chunky heels and sport a top hat and she and dad could have worn matching clothes, too!

Preacher Man? I listened to too much Dusty Springfield, obviously.

I particularly like the peacock panties.

Every man needs a Budweiser shower towel, don't you think? And what exactly is that man in the red long johns looking at? Do you see the foot next to the man's right foot? Hmmm....

I'm so glad my sister saved this. What a fun trip back to my childhood. Yes, I was a geek, but based on the clothes people were wearing then, so was everyone else.

 

What Gives?

I should be on my way to the outlet mall, but instead I’m in my pajamas, writing, catching up, buckling down, being disciplined, telling my inner child no. I’m missing  a day with friends because I said yes to far too many things last week and am committed to several more things this week. Something had to give.

It could be Karma or just coincidence, but Jeanne Marie Laskas, in her latest column, Joining Voices in the Washington Post, writes about how she and three of her closest friends were reduced to “meeting” via a conference call. Their schedules were so crazy they couldn’t find time to physically meet. But as one of the women said, "Look, at least it's something. You want to go another four months barely speaking?"

I wish I could do it all: family, friends, work out, hours of writing and project developments, but in the end I am one person with 24 hours every day. That’s it. No more. To my surprise, though, I’ve found prioritizing very freeing. I used to just say yes to almost everything, piling appointments on top of responsibilities on top of commitments until I couldn’t see over the top. I was pulling my hair out and for what? I’d forgotten to tell the altruist in me to shut up and ask myself what “I” wanted and what was best for me.

Have you ever given so much of yourself away that you wonder how you’ll pull yourself back together into one whole person again? Freefalling into everyone’s need for pieces of you is just as scary as isolation can be. Now that I’ve spent some time on both the “all” and “nothing” sides of the spectrum, I’m learning to balance somewhere in the middle, to say no and move on without regret.

(Of course there are some people I can’t say no to. How can I say no to my super cool drooly face grandbaby?)

Maybe we could take a cue from Laskas and her friends and my shopping buddies and I could do a little Internet shopping one day? Hmm…probably not. Everything has its priority, and one of these days we’ll log a few hours at the mall.

My Shenpa Needed A Bath

We wear such long and heavy clothing in winter, it’s a wonder we know who we are underneath. That’s why, on this cold winter night, soaking naked in a tub was the most fitting setting for me to confront shenpa.

From “Learning To Stay,” by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron:

“Here is an everyday example of shenpa. Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens— that's the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself.

“Another mean word may not affect you, but we're talking about where it touches that sore place— that's a shenpa. Someone criticizes you—they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child— and, shenpa: almost co-arising…

“In terms of shenpa itself, there's the tightening that happens involuntarily, then there's the urge to move away from it in some habitual way…”

Shenpa is why I needed a bath tonight.

I was frustrated with the slow, intermittent wireless connection in my house. I was still still pissed that the dump truck guy rode my ass all the way from Kittanning to New Bethlehem. My skin was dry and I felt heavy and unfamiliar to myself tonight. And it all started yesterday with shenpa.

I want to add a warning to my previous blog, “Do You Google Yourself.” Be prepared to read ugly things about yourself if you venture into unfamiliar websites that tag your name. I found two blogs yesterday that attacked me personally. The writers of these blogs made pot shots – sweeping conclusions about who I am without ever talking to me – and they hurt me deeply. I tried to put the hurt aside, to dwell on the positive, but the feeling festered because I didn’t deal with the shenpa. I chose, instead, to get pissed at the things I couldn’t change. I moved away from shenpa rather than confront it.

Finally tonight I listened to my dried face, chapped lips, and my general lack of voice and coherency as they all screamed, “Get the hell in the bathtub and deal with the shenpa!”

The funny thing about the four Rs of dealing with shenpa – Recognition, Refrain, Relaxing and Resolve – is that the way in which we deal never plays out the way you think it will. I won’t bore you with all the details, but the most prominent thought to come out of my confrontation tonight is this: How many pot shots have I taken at people I don’t know or understand or haven’t taken the time to ask the right questions of? When, in my daily life, do I make conclusions about people based on one action, one look, one gesture, one sound? And what do I do with those conclusions? Even if I’m not verbal with my “pot shots,” they’re in my head, they form my opinions and actions. I might cut someone off, flip them off, give them a look of disdain, sigh, stomp or otherwise act like a child to make my “point,” and then I go merrily about my life bolstered by thinking I was right when in actuality, I probably caused shenpa.

I told you it was an interesting bath.

As I dried off and got into my bathrobe, I looked in the mirror. Enter lovingkindness. I realized that just as this behavior didn’t start overnight, it won’t be changed overnight. I resolved, however, to make it part of my consciousness, as best I can, to remember how I felt – the shenpa – when I read the words on two strangers’ blogs about me and how they made conclusions about me without bothering to understand who I am and what I’m about. Perhaps if I’m not creating shenpa in others, I’ll alleviate much of my own shenpa. We shall see.

Animals (and the pacifists who love them) Need Help

There are some things so apparent that don’t require a whole lot of analyzing to determine what they are. Take crap, for instance. If you spy something brown and steamy in a cow pasture that looks like crap and smells like crap, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that it’s crap.

This conviction of the woman in this story, my friends, is just such crap: Grimes Arrested for
Helping Dying Chained Dog. I won’t rehash the story here because I can’t recap this lunacy any better than the story in that link. Read it for yourself, look at the photos and video of the old dog lying in his own feces, chained up and unable to stand, and you’ll understand what I mean.

I’ll never understand how someone can willfully mistreat an animal, and I believe those who do should be punished in the same manner they mistreated the animal. If it’s by chaining them outdoors in subzero conditions, so be it. If it’s withholding medical care, I say too bad. If it involves whips, cattle prods, cigarette butts, sticks, rocks or fists, you deserve what you get.

I’m not a pacifist when it comes to animals.

Our local humane society was recently closed by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals due to “financial reasons.” More than 4,000 animals a year went through that shelter. What happens now? Local cases of abuse, neglect and abandonment will soar.

Thankfully, a group of local citizens started the non-profit agency Pet Adoption & Welfare Society to provide shelter and services to abandoned pets. The problem is, they don’t have a shelter yet and desperately need money and volunteers to make this a reality. If you’ve got some spare change and are looking for a good cause, think about logging on to PAWS website and read what they’re about. I know the folks in charge and I respect them deeply. They are committed to animal welfare and educating the public on pet ownership and responsibility.

As for what’s happening to Tammy Grimes in Blair County, Pennsylvania, I urge you to log on to her dog rescue site Dogs Deserve Better and learn about her case. She does not deserve what’s happening to her any more than that dog deserved to be left chained and hurt, lying in his own feces and unable to move.

Do You Google Yourself?

It’s partly narcissistic and partly curiosity, but I Google myself a few times a month just to see where my name pops up on the Internet. My freelance work shows up, even articles I wrote more than five years ago, and my weight-loss site and this writing site have moved up the food chain, which I’m glad to see.

There’s a page under statistics in my TypePad management folder that shows the referring address to a particular blog entry. Sometimes it comes from a Google search. When I click on the address, it takes me to the results site from their search. If you type in “Skinny Bitch review,” for instance, you’ll get a link to the blog I wrote about that book. Some people have typed in “pink lacy thong” and found a link to “Ode To a Thong” that I wrote last year. These Googlers aren’t looking specifically for my site, of course, but it surprises me how many people find this blog through strange word searches.

In the last few months, due to my exposure on CNN, “The Today Show,” KDKA, and “Oprah,” and the article in People magazine, my name is popping up secondarily in other people’s blogs and on websites that link to stories from primary sources. The strangest place my name popped up recently was the Malaysian Sun newspaper.

I hadn’t thought about the practicality of Googling before, having merely Googled myself out of sheer curiosity, but blog writer Mariella from Desperate Curiosity makes several good points about why Googling our names is prudent: “Why You Should Google Yourself.”

On the site SearchEngineLand, Vanessa Fox wrote an article about self-Googling called “Pew Survey Finds Most People Don’t Google Themselves That Often, After All.” She included the following Simpson cartoon as well:

   

Marge Simpson “Googles” Herself

“All this time I thought ‘googling’ yourself meant the other thing’

Fox brings up a number of good points about privacy and how most of us have no idea what information about ourselves is circulating on the Internet. Is it accurate? Could it be slanderous or untrue?

Naïve me needs to do more homework. I want to protect, at least as best I can, my name and the information associated with my name. One more thing to worry about? Probably not, but it’s good to be aware of what’s out there.

What about you? Do you Google yourself? Old flames? Friends from high school? Former bosses? Last year, after a Google search for an old boyfriend, I discovered he was now the president and CEO of a major toy company. (To read the blog I wrote last February about him, click here). Most names I’ve Googled, though, don’t show up in the search, or if they do there are several people with the same name and I’m not sure which one is the person I know.

I’m curious about your own experiences with Google. Leave a comment or send me an email. You know I love mail!

An Earlier Than Usual Bruce Dream

(NOTE: This blog is about Bruce, and while many of you know who Bruce is, new readers may not so I thought I’d give him a quick introduction. Bruce was my first husband. He died in 1983 when I was 19, he was 24, and our daughter was 11 days old. He died on March 22 when a train struck his tractor. Here are the links to blogs I’ve written about him: Why I Have a Love/Hate Relationship with March 15; How A Little Story About the Dead Is Good; Death; Death Part II; I Didn’t Hear The Train Either; and How We Met (And There Are Photos).)

I had a Bruce dream last night. He’s a little early this year. Usually it’s the string of birthdates and death-related anniversaries in March that prompt these dreams. Sometimes just a passing thought during the day invites him into my sleep, but I haven’t thought about Bruce in awhile. That’s why last night’s dream was a surprise, and not a pleasant one at that. It’s left me with an emotional hangover that I’m having a hard time shaking today. I thought perhaps if I wrote about it, I’d feel better.

Most of my Bruce dreams have similar storylines. I’m living my life as it is at the time when in my dream I discover Bruce is still alive and so I go in search of him. Sometimes I find him. Sometimes I don’t. Psychologists say it’s because I never saw Bruce dead that I keep having these dreams, and they may well be right, but sometimes it’s as though he’s actually reaching out to me, letting me know he’s OK or that he just wants to check in to make sure I’m alright.

Last night’s dream, though, had a darker feel than usual. What I remember most is that I discovered Bruce was in the train wreck and was living in a nursing home, blind and learning to speak again. My sister-in-law told me she checked in on him once in awhile. I had no idea he was alive, of course, so all I wanted to do was get to him. I could feel it in my sleep, how excited I was thinking I’d hold him again, talk to him again, see his beautiful face again. I asked my sister-in-law if he remembered me and she said yes, that he’d asked about me and was wondering where I was. But when I got to the nursing home, all I could do was see him from a distance. He was wearing a red flannel shirt and his hair was a mess. I don’t know why, but I was being held back. He couldn’t see me and I started worrying that he thought I’d abandoned him. I felt a deepening earnestness and intense anxiety. I was mad with anguish. I was so very sad that I started crying for real.

When I woke up, I was exhausted. Seven hours of sleep down the drain.

I hate when my Bruce dreams are this intense. I don’t understand them or their purpose. I feel better writing about it, though. Maybe this will be enough to fend off another dream tonight. It’s rare I have two in a row.

Thanks for reading. I promise happier blogs in the near future. In the meantime, I could use some “sweet dream vibes”.

The Jeep Is Clean....For Now

Finally we had a day last week warm enough to clean the Jeep. It’s been awhile, although what accumulates under the front and back seats and between the seats and the console pretty much typifies the chronicles of my travels.

I first took the old girl through the car wash. I’m careful to not choose the wash with the dryer because all that forced air reeks havoc on the Sirius antenna affixed to the roof just above the hatch. It’s warm enough that the doors won’t freeze shut, so the dryer isn’t necessary anyway.

Soapy water drips down the inside of three of the four windows, the seals weak after 14 years. No biggie. It helps dissolve the pupkiss smears.

Being mildly claustrophobic, the carwash is exhilaratingly creepy. This is a touchless carwash so it’s not as scary as the ones with the big rollers and brushes that feel like they're crushing the sides of the car. Nonetheless, I’m enclosed in a car enclosed in a garage with water crashing all around me and I find comfort in the side door of the garage with detailed instructions on how to escape: 1. Open door. 2. Walk out.

I’m less than impressed with the vacuum, but I assume its lack of robust sucking action is due to the temperature. I don’t work well in 32 degrees either. Yet there’s enough power to suck up the bird seed in the back that spilled out from the bag that broke three months ago, and it does a fair job on the pieces of road salt, dirt and purple Hershey Kiss wrappers on the floor of the drivers side. From under the seats and between the console and seats I pull out and throw away: three apple cores, four banana peels, two Starbucks cups, four water bottles, two Ziploc bags, a yogurt container, three plastic spoons, one fork, an empty Altoids box, three empty blister packs of peppermint berry Trident, at least 20 tissues (most containing a wad of gum), 10 napkins, and the WalMart bag I originally put in the Jeep to use for garbage. It was empty. Oh, and I found my Niagara Falls coffee mug.

Lest you think me gross and rather piggish, I keep my house very clean. My Jeep, on the other hand, is utilitarian. I put a lot of miles on her in a week and I eat a lot of fruit and chew a lot of gum (and Altoids, too, obviously). I use it to transport my dogs to the vet and the groomers, too. It’s seldom that I take on a passenger and when I do, I’m at least courteous enough to make sure all the junk is stuffed under the seats. Classy, I know.

It’s not easy being a front-seat passenger in the Jeep despite the trash because the Sirius radio wire dangles in front of the dashboard on the passenger side. Sirius assumes their subscribers all drive stretch limos. I once tried to tape it down, but boxing tape doesn’t hold well in extreme heat or cold. Based on the fact that no one regularly rides with me, I made an executive decision as master of the Jeep to just let it dangle.

It’s now a week later and the Jeep, I’m happy to report, is still clean. I’ve thrown away every apple core, every banana peel, every yogurt container and every piece of Kleenex. This happens all the time, though. Soon I’ll turn back into the hedonistic slob I am, at least as far as the Jeep is concerned. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish off that pack of Trident that’s in my purse sometime on the trip home from Pittsburgh tomorrow and, well, it will no doubt end up stuffed between the console and the seat.

February Is A Silly Month

Happy Groundhog Day, whatever that means to you. Growing up in Minnesota, I knew it didn’t matter what a groundhog in Pennsylvania said, there on the tundra we were going to have at least six more weeks of winter because winter in Minnesota doesn’t end until mid-April in a good year.

Still, Groundhog Day contributes to the general silliness of February, along with President’s Day (Can someone tell me why this holiday is necessary?) and Valentines Day (and National Condom Day). It’s also Strong Beer Month at the 21^st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco; National Bird Feeding Month; National Cherry Pie Month (I strongly suggest you try the cherry pie at Trader Joe’s. I wouldn’t lie to you about this.); National Pet Dental Health Month (Have you ever tried brushing a Golden Retriever’s teeth?); Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month (Kristin, I believe they created this one just for you.); and my favorite, Sweet Potato Month (I love them roasted, sliced with their skins on with a little pepper and some cooking spray…mmmmm….). 

This year, we also get a leap day. My grandmother died three leap years ago in 1996. Because she technically died in February and not what would normally be March 1, the Social Security Administration went into her bank account and withdrew the funds they’d deposited earlier in the month. I guess you have to live through the entire month to prove you actually needed those funds to survive. Seems rather silly, doesn’t it? Ah, but it’s February.

Anyway, I’ve decided to do something special on leap day (or is it official Leap Day with capital letters?), to do something Gayle Goodson Butler, editor in chief of Better Homes & Gardens, suggested in the February edition when she called Leap Day “found time”:  “So often, I catch myself saying If I just had one free day, I’d… Try a workshop. Schedule a yoga session. Volunteer for a campaign. Have an unhurried lunch with someone I’d like to know better.”

I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. That’s why I’m writing about it now, so I have some time to ponder. How would you fill in that blank? What small-scale thing would you do if you had an extra day?

My friend Brad Coulson wants to make Leap Day a national holiday (although do mailmen and bank tellers really need another day off during the year, and do car dealers and department stores need another excuse for a sale?). Click here to read his rationale.

He makes some valid points, but it’s the party he’s promising to throw that has my attention. After I do whatever it is I decide to do with my “found day,” I’ll go have a beer with Brad and Linda. Maybe we’ll feed birds and return shopping carts and eat cherry pie and sweet potatoes, too. One can only hope.