October 31, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

So, it’s Halloween and you want to hear some scary stories. Here’s one for you. If the husband doesn’t fix the wireless Internet, someone is going to find him face down in an alley. Just kidding, of course.

I picked up some real ghost stories this weekend. Apparently, my mom and her sisters are veritable ghost magnets. (I’ve also had a few experiences.) Here’s the best one from all of them. One of my aunts lives behind a graveyard and is living with a ghost. Right now. One night the ghost, let’s assume it’s a he, walked right through her. A shadow moved toward her and walked right through her! The ghost is also a neat freak. When my aunt gets home from work, sometimes her shower products are lined up on the floor of the shower. Sometimes the kitchen is the target and her spices are rearranged. Once, she heard her dog crying and some commotion in the bathroom. She found her dog, who is so arthritic he can’t climb steps and has trouble walking, in the bathtub! Lastly, the ghost climbs into bed with her. My aunt describes him as “menacing.” My aunts swear that this story is completely true and that there are no mushrooms or LSD in the picture.

Here is the scariest story I have. Also a true one. A colleague at work just became a grandmother. When her grandson was born, the prick test revealed that he had a rare enzyme disorder, called MCAD, that prevents him from processing sugar. North Carolina tests all new borns by law, but all states do not have mandatory testing. It’s such a rare condition that in ten years, only 95 babies have tested positive (in the state). So the parents did as advised and started giving their baby the prescription enzyme replacement, and making sure that the baby never went hungry. When the baby was four weeks old (last week) the parents received a call that somehow the blood tests were mixed up. The child does not have MCAD, and more horribly, the hospital has no idea who does have the disorder.

Now there, is a scary story.

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October 31, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

A friend sent me this link to her friend’s blog (whose popularity I envy) about a JC Penny Catalog he found from the 70s. It showcases the stylish apparel of that era. I don’t care what anyone says. No one had it worse than I did. My brother is six years older than I am and I had to wear his hand me downs. This is how I know God doesn’t love me. If he loved me, I would have had an older sister. Nevermind. The clothes were ugly even then. Even as a small child, I could see that.

I’ll never forget the purple-checked, elastic-waisted, polyester pants. God bless my brother that he once had to wear them. You wonder why people turned to pot and psychedelic drugs in the seventies? You would too if you had that wardrobe staring you in the face every day.

It was those scratchy, purple-checked pants I was wearing when I first heard the words “high waters.” Two girls walking on the other side of the street were about peeing their pants laughing at me and my “high waters.” Today, they’re called “capri pants” and they’re very fashionable, thank you very much. When I got home from school, I asked my brother “what does high water mean?” You could see the pity in his eyes. Later in the year when I had stitches in my knee, they poked through the sheer fabric, giving me something to play with when I was bored in class (which was often).

If I could go back in time, I would beg my mother to make my clothes. She was a good seamstress and even if I wore something that looked homemade, it couldn’t have been more embarassing than an entire wardrobe of polyester checked pants. But I suppose, because of those clothes, I learned how to dodge rocks and throw a few punches. So. There’s good in everything.

And this my friend is why I now worship at the altar of beautiful clothes.

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October 31, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

Today my mother turns 65. When we went to Baltimore for her birthday party, I considered writing a poem and making a speech, but how do you capture in words all the love that a mother gives you over the years?

There’s the routine of every day life, making sure that you have a nutritious meal to eat, clean clothes, a roof over your head. There’s the life skills, how to read a map, say please and thank you, only curse at the Orioles in the privacy of your own home…or was it to not curse at them…something…anyway… be financially responsible, treat others kindly, do your homework, brush your teeth, take your vitamins, don’t lose your house key (I was really bad at that one, even when I had the humiliation of having to wear it around my neck on a chain). Cultural and educational experiences, Orioles games, plays, Indian and Irish festivals, soccer games (remember the Blast!), hockey (and the Skippers), Colts (let’s not go there), Bolton Hill dinner theatre, the Walters and Smithsonian…There’s the love and warmth of someone who loves you more than anyone else ever will. And finally, there’s the really, really important stuff like making sure you never ran out of Utz and Dunkin Donuts, making sure every summer you attended at least one all-you-can-eat crabfeast (those were the days!!), got crabs to go a few times from Bo Brooks, tediously picked your crabs for you before you learned how to do it, taught you about removing the lungs but eating the mustard, and pulled over countless times for the spontaneous visit to the snowball stand for an Egg Custard or Spearmint snowball with marshmellow or without, depending on your mood (these are the things I miss so much about home).

How can you possibly enumerate all the gifts that a mother and father bestow on you throughout your life? One is left only with an inadequate word of “love” which fails to capture in any meaningful way the feeling in your heart about someone you love and treasure dearly, and cannot imagine not having in your life.

Happy Birthday, Mom! You may dress like a witch or a devil today, but you’re really an angel inside.

Maybe a little devilish, but definitely angelic too. I love you!!!

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October 30, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

Saturday night after the birthday cruise for my mom, one of my aunts (who is on my list at the moment) suggested that we go to the VFW. The VFW. The VFW is a notoriously awful place for me and my husband. Since my mom loves to celebrate Halloween, and the VFW always has a party, that’s usually where we go. It’s not a bad place particularly, it’s just that there’s not much for a younger crowd. I mean no disrespect to our venerable veterans, but these are our primary complaints:
1) Because most of the people who frequent it are…um…of a mature age, the music is often deafeningly loud.
2) The regulars tend to be of the demographic who enjoy a good fag, in a one lit off the other sort of way. Since both my husband and I are allergic to smoke and I have asthma, this is a considerable drawback for us both.
3) This last one is strictly my husband’s complaint. Being British, he comes from a country where women don’t pass up any opportunity to share cleavage, so when my husband thinks of “party” he thinks of a view and the VFW is verily lacking in this.

I miss my family terribly and since I don’t get to see them much, of course we tagged along even though we were secretly dreading it. (Only a few hours in the bar and three days later I am still suffering the consequences.)

One thing I admire and envy about being of a certain age, is the freedom that comes with it. Once you pass a certain birthday, you’re given permission to freely say whatever comes to mind and do whatever you want because you long ago stopped caring what other people think. It must be so liberating. The downside is that sometimes there are victims, as we were on Saturday night.

The VFW owns a karaoke machine. I suppose the regulars thought, “Hey what the hell! I can’t hear what I sound like anyway.” On Saturday night, there was one couple in particular who sang together most of the evening, much to our chagrin. The husband wasn’t bad, but his wife made William Hung sound like Pavorati. My aunt knows the couple and told me that the husband doesn’t enjoy it, but sings anyway to make his wife happy. Here are some adjectives to describe her singing: atonal, flat, cracking, savage. Each time after they sang, even though we had to mop up the blood dripping from our ears, people (not me) applauded cheerily and generously. Bunch of dysfunctional enablers, if you ask me.

Even though I didn’t enjoy the cacophony (emphasis on caca), I admire them for getting up and enjoying life. Who the hell cares what anyone else thinks. That’s really the way to live, though it certainly would have been more polite if they showed up with free earplugs for the rest of us.

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October 30, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

I apologize that this week’s edition of “That’s Love” is a few days late. The reason will become clear shortly.

My mother is about to celebrate her 65th birthday, and how should I say this…she likes to know what’s going on. So, because she comes from a sadistic family that likes to torment her, her sisters organized a surprise birthday party, withholding all the details, including the date and who was attending. The only thing my mother knew was that at some unknown point in the future she would be told to be ready in Halloween costume. She would then be shuttled to the party destination, possibly blind-folded, and maybe gagged and bound, depending on how much trouble she was making, or just for the fun of it, depending on our mood.

One of my aunts did the majority of the planning and organizing, but we all derived great pleasure from tormenting my mother for months. A week ago, one of my great aunts leaked the date of the event by asking in my mom’s presence, “What should I wear on Saturday.” Her subsequent words were quickly drowned out by my aunts protesting in unison, “SHHHHHH!!! SHHH!!! She’s not supposed to know anything!”

Friday, my husband and I flew up to D.C. and spent the day sight-seeing. Then my technically brilliant and slightly devious husband spent an hour setting up our Vonage in the hotel. Saturday morning, I called my mom from our home number, for the benefit of her caller ID, which she always checks before answering the phone. I spouted a stream of lies about fake errands, inquired about the weather “up there” as I looked through the hotel window at the passing clouds and wet road, and felt my shoes to see if they were dry yet after a day of walking in pouring rain in Georgetown, and laughed along at my mom’s stories of trying to extract more information about the night’s happenings from my aunts. Just in case my mom considered the possibility that I was attending the party, when our home number displayed on her caller ID, I was sure it would quash any notion that I was coming. I emitted a silent “muhahahaha” in delight, even though my heart was racing in fear that I would blow it.

Saturday night, we took a Halloween Cruise on the Bay Lady in the Baltimore Inner Harbor. An hour before the cruise, we changed into costume, or “fancy dress” as my husband calls it, in the car and arrived on the cruise a few minutes after my mom. She looked directly at both my husband and me, but didn’t figure out who we were. Proof that everything we know and understand in life is dependent on how our brains decide to interpret “reality.” Eventually synapses fired and my mom realized who we were. My mom was happy and a bit overwhelmed to see how much we all love her. Mission accomplished!

My mom and her sisters are the best of friends, and of course, I love her more than I know how to express. And that’s love.

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October 25, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

As a proper hippy, it is my obligation to share with you this organization. Their mission is to help Americans realize the folly of overwork and live more like the Europeans, that is, with vacation!

Yes, I do want to start a revolution (would you expect anything less from me?), and you should too. Life is too short for all the working we do, without commensurate reward. Life is so precious and fleeting. No matter how much money you amass, you can’t buy more life or time.

So, today you traded in 24 hours. That’s 24 hours more of your cells aging, 24 hours less you have to live. How did you spend your time? How are you going to spend it tomorrow?

How will we ever get out of this rut that day by day whittles away at our chance to savor life?

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October 20, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

I believe that if there is any secret in life, it’s to live life with balance. So while I’d like to only present you with features like “That’s Love,” for your own good, I have a responsibility to also inform you of troubling and depressing news. How else will you appreciate the lovely beauty the world has to offer unless you’re fully informed of all the death, conflict, and disease?

The truth is I’m just a little cranky about our unseasonably warm October. Here it is the 19th, and last night I woke up at 3 am in a sweat. I had to actually turn down the air conditioning another three degrees, just to get comfortable. I never thought I would say this, but, is it ever going to get cool? In the South, we’re suffering from a drought that is becoming severe. Personally, as a long-time conservationist, I have no problem with conserving water and I think it’s about damned time that Americans woke up to their excessive habits and lived more realistically, in touch, and respectfully of the planet and the rest of its inhabitants. Believe it or not, we’re not the only people, or species who have merit.

What’s concerning is hearing news like this: that Atlanta has 90 days of water left. Had the news come from Florida, I wouldn’t be surprised, but Atlanta isn’t typically a place I think of as having water shortages.

Recently, I was in the company of someone who scoffed angrily at Al Gore winning the nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against global warming. This person really hates Al Gore and the whole environmental movement. I’m not a scientist, but it seems pretty clear that the majority of scientists agree that global warming is a fact. Perhaps it is a result of natural processes; however, is it really so difficult, so impossible to believe that all our carbon emissions could be contributing to the problem?

I truly do not understand the opposition to protecting our natural resources. And why in particular the politics around this science? I mean, do we believe scientists when they describe the fertilization process? Do we trust the science of egg meeting sperm? Do we trust the principles of chemistry that have allowed the pharmaceutical companies to get rich? Do we believe that scientists are lying when they say they know the properties of an atom or the double helix? How is it that only some science is credible and the rest is to be rejected?

It’s true that climatology is an imperfect science, as is all of our science. We live in such a wonderful time where we are discovering new things about ourselves and the world around us every day. What we believe and know continues to evolve and in my opinion, that’s what makes science credible and worthy of respect. It shows that instead of holding onto dogma for political reasons, we are willing to dispel myths, to discard false or incomplete information and move forward with new findings. We are constantly perfecting what we know and how we learn it. We’re not plugging our ears and covering our eyes, we’re always trying to improve on what we know.

So why is this topic so political? Why do people get so defensive about global warming? Is it really so threatening to one’s quality of life to even consider carpooling or living in a slightly smaller McMansion? Are so many people lacking that part of science education that talked about the ecosystem and how we’re interdependent? I can still see the spiral arrow diagram from 9th grade biology. Isn’t it obvious that destruction of the environment will result in our own demise?

Let’s say theoretically we were forced to use our cars less, or consume less water. Would that really be so much of a hardship? This is what I desperately want to know. What if we change our lifestyle and the scientists are wrong? What then? What great price has been paid and what has been lost? What if, on the other hand, when we carpooled with a colleague we made a deep friendship? What if our lives became less stressful as we scaled back on the number of activities we tried to cram into 24 hours? What if we lived in a slightly smaller home that used less energy, that we could afford better, that gave the whole family a chance to learn to cohabit the same space peacefully instead of spreading out into separate rooms never seeing each other or sharing experiences. What is so awful with this scenario that is so distasteful to people? Are we bothered by the science or what we perceive to be lack of science or the thought that someone would dare to say that we should reconsider how we live?

So what if we believed the scientists and in twenty years time, they turned out to be wrong? And…? Don’t we have to live the best we can with the information we know? Isn’t that what we do every day anyway? Nothing in life is 100% certain except death. Why is changing our lifestyle to combat global warming so different? Why do we demand perfect climate models and perfect science, before we act, when we manage to function with uncertainty in other areas of our life? We don’t know how other decisions we make are going to influence the outcome of our lives, but we manage. We don’t know if taking a new job or moving to another city is going to turn out okay, but still we make the decision to move forward based on our best guess about what the facts suggest. Often things don’t turn out as planned, and we adjust. Scientists aren’t God, if indeed there is a God. Why not operate on the premise that theories are based on observable, measurable, and repeatable facts and act on the best information we have at this time? As we gather more information, we can adjust accordingly. Why is that so scary and offensive?

A certain preacher of my acquaintance has a good theory about this. In the U.S. we see everything in terms of “rights.” We have the Bill of Rights, that clearly states, that we have certain “inalienable rights.” Every time someone wants to pass a law, we get worked up about it taking away our rights. How dare anyone tell us how to live or what to do. We think we have a right to use our land however we wish and consume resources in whatever quantity we choose. Future generations be damned! If we want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet and smash our brains on the side of the road, by God, we should be able to do this! (In my opinion that’s just fine as long as taxpayer money doesn’t have to pay for the aftermath.) I would also like to add that we have a right to live in denial. We have a right to get that mortgage we can’t afford, and a right to live in that big house, and a right to be bailed out by the government when we default. And so on, and so on, and so on…

At any rate, I didn’t intend this to be a diatribe about the environment, I just can’t stop wondering why the issue is so inflammatory. It’s another one of those things in life that makes no sense to me. At any rate, I’m making sure to keep my friends in the North so that I have someone to ship me water when we run out.

Moving on though, there’s more news that is important for you to know. If it’s not the global warming that gets us, or the water shortage as our dehydrated, dead bodies lie shriveled up over the toilet bowl, as we attempt to suck the last remaining drops of water from it, it’s going to be the MRSA. My brother and sister-in-law suffered from this two years ago and said it was horrible. Months of wiping down every surface they came in contact with. It appears that the bacteria is becoming more of a threat, killing 19,000 people per year. About nine years ago, a close friend of mine lost his mother to a staph infection - most likely the same strain. A teeth-whitening retainer was implicated as the culprit, even though she cleaned it diligently and as directed. One day she called her daughter and said, “I don’t feel good.” Her daughter immediately took her to the emergency room and within 24 hours she had gangrene in all of her appendages, as the bacteria consumed its way through her body. Within a week, she was dead. Don’t mess with bacteria.

So if it’s not the bacteria that gets you, it’s going to be the crazies. Can you believe some moron threw paint into the Trevi Fountain. You see what I mean? We’re doomed.

Just to make sure you’re convinced, here’s the final news story for today. Apparently Brits are not popular after you get to know them. The article didn’t say if the Brits who participated in the forum said things like, “your jokes are stupid” which would entirely explain how they could alienate the entire continent of Europe. Regardless, one has to mistrust the validity of the survey when you consider that the British have given us this brilliance:

Holy Hand Grenade
Who Killed Who
Message

Whoever could say such a thing could only be French.

So I hope if nothing else, if you’re not sucking on your car tailpipe at this very moment, this post has helped you feel appreciative of all that you have, water, lots of clean water, a house free of life-threatening bacteria and a residence far from the English or the French, or the Italians, depending on your perspective.

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October 18, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

I love NPR. There are so many interesting programs and so much good information. Yesterday, one of my favorite programs, “Talk of the Nation” discussed the topic of profanity. The episode started with a story about a woman, bless her heart, who was cited for disorderly conduct for yelling profanities at her toilet. If she is convicted, she could spend 90 days in jail and pay a $300 fine. So the first question is, you can go to jail for that?! Oh my goodness! And the second is, can Orioles fans be granted a special exemption, kind of like how Congress exempts itself from the laws it passes?

If someone had reported me for my oral misconduct this summer, I could have spent a couple of years in jail. Okay, okay, that’s not entirely true. All tolled, it would have been a life sentence.

Neal Conan started the show with the question, “Are there moments when no other words will do?” I immediately sent an email saying, “Yes. Let’s put it this way. I’m an Orioles fan.” At just the moment I tried to send the email, my Internet connection went down and I discovered that in addition to watching the Orioles, there’s another situation for me that consistently evokes profanity, when dealing with any electronic device. According to Steven Pinker, who has researched the subject, this would be classified as cathartic swearing.

While it’s true that it’s meant to be cathartic, I have to admit that by the time I get to the point that the stream of obscenities pours forth involuntarily and uncontrollably, I’ve been holding it inside so long, trying to keep it together and behave like an adult, that I’m so frustrated that there’s about nothing that can soothe me. Even acting on my fantasy to get a hammer and break the computer and its hateful breathren into bits wouldn’t be satisfying enough. I could never inflict as much pain on them as they do on me, and any punishment I would deliver would only punish me more. And, I know they (computers and their evil breathren) know this, which is why they get their giggles from continuing to engage in their hateful little games that torture me.

Anyway. In the brilliant words of Steven Pinker, here’s more about swearing. There are five kinds. Here’s a description of the two of them:
1) Cathartic–This is where, when some misfortune befalls you, your talk suddenly falls to excretion, or theology or reproduction.
2) Imprecations–You invite someone to engage in some indignified activity, or accuse them of being the sort of person who engages in some undignified activity, usually a sexual one.

When I interact with technology my utterances fall into both of those categories. When you think about it, swear words are really quite arbitrary and it’s a bit odd that we can be so easily offended by the expression of a single word. It’s just a word, after all. This point becomes really obvious when you attempt to translate swear words from one language into another. The result is almost always comic. Several years ago, a German friend of mine and I found a website that translated German swear words. Reading the translations in English had us doubled over, crying with laughter. Consider that our worst swear word in English invites someone to go make love. How cruel are we! What a thing to say to someone!

So in actuality, for the last two months every time my Internet has gone down for no discernible, logical reason, I’ve suggested that my computer and the Internet go make love to themselves and each other. Quite magnanimous of me, don’t you agree?

(In the interest of full disclosure, I may also have called them both a few variations of excrement.)

To me, it’s not the swear words that I find offensive so much as the unexpected insult that informs you that something you thought was an attribute is really a character flaw. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Have you ever noticed that foreigners with an accent get away with a lot? Europeans have a way of being direct and honest, and having an exotic accent seems to give them permission to say whatever comes to mind without the same consequences as a native speaker might face.

For example, let me tell the story about a stylist I’ll call Margella. Margella is Romanian, or as one of her friends calls her, Ro-mean-ian. Apparently Margella speaks with a certain honesty that her colleagues both envy and find appalling. I was in the hair salon last night and had the privilege to witness Margella in action. She had just given a trim to a certain high maintenance customer (I was filled in on the history by the two other stylists, the one doing my hair and the other, the token gay stylist that is, by-law, a requirement at every salon, particularly in the Queen City, not that there’s anything wrong with that). Apparently this customer will not leave Margella alone. She’s told him directly not to come to see her anymore, but still he comes back. Last night she told him three times that I counted, “Tuesday. Come back on Tuesday. That’s my day off!” She didn’t laugh at the end to say, “I’m just kidding.” She was completely serious, but her accent made her words sweet and gentle, like she was saying, “now honey, I love to cut your hair, come back and see me anytime.”

I had to agree that this particular male customer did like a lot of attention, as the gay stylist repeatedly informed me, with a roll of his eyes. The customer was in the salon for at least an hour and had a lengthy conversation about the merits and how-tos of spiking the bit of hair on the top of his head. Then he asked, actually begged, to have another trim to have more taken from the top. Margella sat in the chair with her arms crossed, as we say in the South, completely through with this customer, and refused to cut anymore. “No, I’m not doing anymore” she said in her sweet Romanian accent, swiveling her chair to turn away from him and not budging despite the customer’s repeated pleas. Finally after arguing with him for twenty minutes she rewashed and recut his hair. She was so fed up with him that, had she been American, her words would have been delivered Clint Eastwood style, something to the effect of “I said get out, Punk!” But being Romanian, she somehow managed to tell the customer to go to hell, and instead of feeling insulted and wanting to see the manager, he had such a boyish grin and giggle that I seriously thought he was suppressing the urge to confess his love to her. Foreigners have it made.

My husband isn’t so lucky though. Even though he has a sexy British accent, he doesn’t get away with much. A couple of nights ago, I made a silly joke, not thinking that I was hilariously funny, just trying to be playful and fun. In reply, I got the following stinging insult, and I promise this is a direct quote, “Your jokes are stupid. They’re like kids jokes.” Those words pierced my heart. First of all, my joke had “ergo” in it and I defy you to show me a kid who knows what “ergo” means. Secondly, oh no he didn’t. I don’t care how sexy your accent is, there’s no way to deliver a statement like that without consequences. And that after I had spent half an hour in the drugstore looking for a romantic card to give him. You can undo a whole weeks worth of troubleshooting the Internet with a comment like that.

A male friend recently informed that the law of man speak is “if something can be taken two ways and one of them hurts your feelings, we meant it the other way.” Apparently, my husband didn’t say it to be mean, so he claims. Two days have passed, but I still can’t figure out a nice interpretation unless it was one of those things you tell someone “for their own good,” like saying, “that color doesn’t look good on you.” I mean, if he said to me, “look, I don’t know how to say this, but, some people aren’t meant to be in public in a bathing suit, and…well…you’re one of them” that, I could understand. But to cut on my humor? When I’m using the word, “ergo?” That’s funny stuff.

Fine. So I won’t make anymore jokes. We’ll just live in a serious little overcast world, shall we? Let’s say however he meant it, it didn’t go over well and, in short, I think he’s learned his lesson.

I share that story not to rat out my husband, but more because I found the whole thing so incredible. What is it about our brains that even after so many years of life experience, living in a culture and knowing what is appropriate and what is not, that we can still manage to stick both feet so deeply in our mouth? One expects these things from recent immigrants and those with autism or frontal lobe damage, but what excuse do the rest of us have?

Unfortunately, I can’t point the finger for too long as I am far too often a victim of my own misstatements. They account for way too many sleepless nights. In fact, I doubt the recipient of any of my words has suffered more than I have at uttering and replaying them in my head. Here’s one example from twenty years ago that my brain has randomly decided to remind me of recently.

We had just received a few inches of snow in Baltimore and I was still a relatively inexperienced driver. I found it really irritating that even though there are miles of sidewalk in Baltimore, people still walk in the street when it snows. All you have to do is ride in a car in the snow one time to realize that when a car hits an ice patch, you can’t always control where it goes. This isn’t rocket science, right? As a driver, generally one doesn’t like to hit pedestrians as this has all sorts of implications for car insurance, but when they walk in the street they’re kind of asking for it.

So, this poor, dumb woman who didn’t have enough sense (I stand by that) to use the sidewalk, was hit by a driver. As she lay semi-conscious on the ground while we waited for the paramedics, I may have made a comment to my friend about “this is why you don’t walk in the street” or something to that effect. At that moment, I realized from the look on the victim’s face that she was still somewhat coherent. There she lay injured waiting for help and jerk that I am, all I can do is comment on how foolish it is to get yourself injured by a car. Only then did it occur to me that maybe, albeit true, it wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Sometimes I shudder to think that she tells her children the story of the time she was hit by a car and some nasty lady commented on how stupid she was and how she deserved it. I blush at the thought of it.

Don’t you agree that if police are going to go around issuing citations for inappropriate verbal emissions, it would be more reasonable for comments like that or for “your jokes are stupid” than for profanity? Wouldn’t that be a much more intelligent use of our court systems, saving friendships and marriages? Eliminating all the garbage that comes out of politicians and their election strategists?? Too many insults and you spend a couple of days in jail until you can learn to say some nice things. It seems so obvious to me that if anyone needs arresting for foul oral behavior, it’s the political pundits. Imagine ninety days with all of them in jail, how peaceful our nation would be!

So, now that I’ve solved that problem, I have to get back to figuring out what’s wrong with my Palm &*#$! Pilot, the $#&(%$^@ Internet and the doorbell, which just rung itself.

Disclaimer: I make no promises expressed or implied about the merit of any of the jokes found in this or any post. I apologize for any injury incurred from an expectation of reading higher caliber jokes. If you want funny, go read David Sedaris.

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October 14, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

For this week’s episode of “That’s Love,” I’d like to share a couple of stories.

Years ago I read several books that discussed theories about what makes for a happy marriage. I use the word “theories” because even with case studies, any conclusions are still based on a researcher’s interpretation of the data. Famous marriage expert John Gottman has done the most compelling and scientific research on successful marriages and provides “recipes” for happiness and disaster. Though not as scientific, other marriage authors offer interesting insights into marriage, even if most of their guidelines for marital bliss aren’t gleaned from labs but rather personal anecdotes and self-reports.

One of my favorite books on the subject is by Judith Viorst, called Grown-Up Marriage. Viorst proposes that happy marriages stem from a mature understanding of what marriage is. Marriage isn’t a fantasy created in Hollywood where two individuals feel amorous every single day and never get irritated with each other. Individuals in happy marriages accept the reality of life, and have more realistic expectations. We live in a culture of choices that gives us the luxury of being choosy and demanding of perfection. We are less tolerant of flaws, not wanting, but expecting perfection. We are in the habit of regarding people with the same critical eye as we do our things. In a culture where “good enough” is considered “settling” and a bad thing, even though we ourselves are imperfect, Viorst asserts that happiness is not to be found around another corner. In a mature marriage, we know and accept that people are fallible and imperfect, we tolerate imperfections in our partner, in ourselves, and in our responses to each other. We don’t pathologize one another, constantly over-emphasizing defects as an excuse to leave. Instead, we focus on what we love, putting our energy into appreciating, not picking apart a spouse who could never live up to the unrealistic standard of perfection we’ve invented. Happy couples aren’t happy every day and they’re not without recurring arguments. The reality of life is that you can love someone with your whole heart, but if you spend more than a couple of years together, you are going to really, really get on each other’s nerves sometimes. And what’s more, if you keep working to understand one another, you’ll also love each other more deeply than you imagined.

It’s been a long time since I read the book, so that summary may be a conglomeration of other things I’ve read too. Anyway, you get the point.

My favorite story from Viorst’s book was about a husband who liked to line the medicine cabinet shelves with aluminum foil. His wife was never able to learn the reasons for the habit and found the whole thing rather troubling. Sometimes she would find herself staring inside the cabinet, pondering his bizarre behavior and unnatural affinity for tin foil and think “Who is this man and why did I marry him?” Haven’t we all been there.

This is all a long lead in to a weekly feature I’m starting called, “That’s Love.” I had the idea a week ago but a conversation with a colleague on Friday convinced me to proceed. It’s a way to remember that, even with Bush still in office, there are still so many examples of love and kindness in our world, and we notice what we focus on. So here’s focusing on the good stuff. Hope you like…

That’s love! Friday, a colleague, who I’ll call Jan, came into work in a sleepless fog because of a procrastinating husband. The night before, Jan’s husband was supposed to prepare the breakfast he was catering on Friday morning. Just before heading off to her monthly bridge club meeting at 7 p.m., Jan asked her husband if he needed help and was assured that everything was under control. When she arrived home at 11 p.m., her husband was just starting to make the food. Even though Jan was annoyed with her husband for procrastinating, she immediately started helping him make twelve dozen mini muffins, went to bed for a couple of hours while he continued to work, and then woke up at 4:30 to help him finish the catering work. When I said, “that was so sweet of you” she replied, “Well, I didn’t have a choice, did I?”

The thing is, she did have a choice. She could have come home, seen her husband working in the kitchen, kissed him goodnight with a slap on the rump and said, “Good luck!” and slept like a baby. She could have made him feel like a loser, lectured, and scolded, and made him feel two feet tall for a mistake he was already well-aware that he made. (Of course, if he has a chronic habit of being irresponsible, helping him might actually be hurting him, but that’s a topic for a different discussion.) With the love of a wife, Jan overlooked and forgave her husband for being imperfect, a fact they both knew, and even though annoyed at his behavior, sacrificed her own sleep to help her husband succeed. Friday afternoon, Jan received a call that the breakfast went off so well that her husband was asked to cater lunch the next day.

I have a few of my own examples of “that’s love” from the last week. On a trip to Baltimore earlier this year, I bought a poster of Memorial Stadium. Unfortunately, my childhood home isn’t in it, but even so, it’s a good picture. Earlier this week, my husband carefully unrolled it and weighted it down on the dining room table so that it would lay flat. Yesterday, when we were shopping, he suggested we get a frame, already having memorized the dimensions. While I searched for an item in a different part of the store, he looked through the many frames and picked out one that fits the picture and our decor perfectly. All without me ever mentioning anything about hanging up my poster. As I write this, he is hammering a nail into the wall behind me to hang it up.

Over the last four days, he’s spent his spare time trying to ascertain the source of our network issues (and still no clue, bless his heart). He researches on the Internet on one of the computers that can hold the connection for more than five minutes at a time, has tried reinstalling programs, unplugging this and that, back and forth, up and down the stairs he goes. If it were me, I’d have given up and bought a new computer and router two months ago. But with the patience of a saint, he continues to work at it, determined to fix our problems the right way, even though it means sacrificing time that he would rather spend doing other things.

Most importantly, one day I made coffee and as I poured it, remembered with disappointment that we were out of half and half. Half and half makes the coffee. It’s one of God’s most perfect foods. I opened the refrigerator and to my delight noticed that this most perfect creature I married bought a replacement, enabling me to enjoy the full glory of my coffee.

These things are like getting flowers. They’re an expression of caring that shows someone is thinking about you and your happiness, without the death and maintenance of replacing the water and cleaning up the dead flower bits that fall off on your dining room table.

In addition to the romantic relationship examples of “that’s love,” there are expressions of love in the ordinary, every day routine of life. Here’s what I mean. We often get homemade advertisements in our newspaper slot. They’re usually plain font, printed text on a white sheet of paper advertising lawn services, painting, home repair and the like. Often they’re unimaginative and unmemorable and aren’t read beyond the first couple of words as they make their way from my mailbox to the recycle bin. (I prefer to only use contractors found on Angie’s List.) This week though, there was an advertisement that said “love.” A paper flyer was accompanied by a laminated color business card complete with a logo. It was for a pesticide company, and as a good hippy, it’s not a service I’m hoping to need. Even so, I was tempted to save the card because when I looked at it, I could see the person on the other side, full of hope and excitement, lovingly creating a logo and laminating his business cards, excited about the prospect of running his own business, inserting it in my mailbox with hopeful anticipation of generating customers. A piece of the energy that went into making that business card and flyer came through to me. It’s those things that are done with love and care that melt my heart.

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October 10, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.

Here’s a post I wrote earlier in the week. Since I’m feeling too charitable towards my coworkers to make fun of them at the moment, I’ll go ahead and post Saturday’s entry.

Let’s say you’ve had another one of those sleepless nights and are searching for something to do. You’d like to read, but you’re too tired to think coherently, but oddly enough, not to sleep, which if your circadian rhythm wasn’t so screwed up, you’d be doing. So, instead, you must find an activity that doesn’t require too much brain power, yet effectively takes your mind off of how much you’d rather be sleeping. Here are some suggestions from the voice of experience:

1) Search for yourself on the Internet. Discover that no one will ever find your blog, which I suppose is a good thing since you can continue to make fun of the people with whom you work with impunity. There’s a silver lining to every cloud.
2) Watch the Daily Show on the Internet upstairs so that you don’t disturb your husband who is sleeping soundly, even if you are jealous. Friday’s episode was particularly good.
3) Update Itunes. Note that the number of podcasts is over 2000. Ponder deleting some to free up hard drive space but reconsider with hopes that a prolonged illness will allow you plenty of bed rest to enjoy all 2000 episodes.
4) Finish bag of Candy Corns bought impulsively on recent vacation. Wonder again at how they’re made. Research on Internet. Feel embarrassed that the answer was so obvious.
5) Consider filing all those papers in the office so it’s one less thing to do tomorrow. Dismiss idea as rash.
6) Surf through entire Car Talk website. Page through every picture in their photo album. Upload picture of self in front of Car Talk Plaza door. Keep checking back compulsively to see if picture was added.
7) Bore the five loyal readers you do have making a list of things to do, just to kill time until sunrise.
8 ) Wonder why it’s so hot on October 7. Chortle derisively at people who don’t believe in global warming. Imagine them being swept away in a flood before they reproduce and add more inferior offspring to the world’s vast population.
9) Decide to do filing after all. Sigh.
10) Start playing podcasts in hopes of catching up, one hour at a time.
11) Wonder why all spontaneously created lists settle at ten items. Create another just to add chaos to the universe.

Take that universe.

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