Righty & Lefty. A & B. Teeny & Tiny. Frick & Frack. I have called the ladies many names over the years, as I have come to terms with their stature—for want of a better term. I have been blessed with modest breasts. I think I stood on the wrong line in that heavenly motor vehicle department that doles out physical attributes. I waited patiently on the line that distributed generous portions of butt and thigh. And so to my never-ending chagrin, the ladies are what they are: small.
When I was younger I desperately wanted cleavage. Was that so much to ask for? I wasn’t asking for the world. I would have settled for completely filling my 34A fiber filled cups. But no, it was not meant to be. When I looked down, I had a clear view of my feet. I could hold bags of groceries between my breasts. I mean I could clutch them directly to my breastbone—no breasts to speak of getting in the way. Let’s call it the grocery bag test.
I have experimented with padded bras, acquiring along the way, an extensive knowledge of the limits of polyester and foam padding. Miracle Bras are just that: miracles of male engineering. No woman would have spent time coming up with a tourniquet that squeezes your breasts up to your collar bone. No, it’s not painful. But it doesn’t feel or look natural. And for me, it still doesn’t quite achieve real cleavage. True, I can’t hug the groceries directly to my breast bone, but I can still see plenty of daylight between the ladies.
Henny Youngman used to do a routine pantomiming a woman squeeeeezing herself into a girdle that rolled her body fat up and into her bra. That actually looked like a good idea to me. My bottom half is zaftig enough to make that work. And while Henny’s routine was just a dream, surgical breast augmentation is not. The first augmented breasts I ever encountered were those of a dorm-mate in college. At least I think they were augmented. Ronnie always wore a baggy gray Stony Brook gym shirt and no bra. The girls—two unnaturally perfect globes—pointed optimistically towards the sky whether Ronnie was cold or not, and the boys followed Ronnie and the girls around like puppies. She never said that she’d had surgery, and in 1971 no one even knew to ask. But honest to God, those could not have been natural human endowments. I recall a group of hall mates discussing the famous pencil test. (The pencil test is simple. Place a pencil under your breast. If it’s held in place by a fold of flesh, then do everyone a favor: Wear a bra.) Everyone shook their heads no, they didn’t pass the test. Everyone except Ronnie and me. Smiling from ear to ear, Ronnie announced that she certainly did pass the test. I remember thinking she was positively chirpy—as she had just discovered something brand new about herself. Well, God bless her and her two close friends. Ronnie would have failed the grocery bag test.
After graduating college and working for a couple of years, I discovered my first breast cyst. I shot straight into locked-down panic mode, with the emergency klaxons blaring in my head around the clock. If I were destined to die young, I was going to India and live in an ashram before I departed this life. I would visit Tibet. I was going anywhere, but I was not going to spend my last few months at a desk in the Pension Department of Mutual of New York. Until that moment, I may not have thought of myself as being especially fond of Rhett and Scarlet, but I was amazed to discover just how attached to them I was. It’s one thing to take complain that Frankie and Johnnie are not everything I’d like them to be. It’s quite another to imagine being disfigured or dead. My family doctor was a bit more sanguine about it and suggested a mammogram as a first step to determine the nature of the lump.
In 1975 a mammogram was quite a different experience than the tourniquet and torture it is today. What it lacked in pain, it made up for in humiliation. The machine resembled a free standing fireplace in a ski chalet. Stationed in the middle of the room, it consisted of a stove pipe that hung from the ceiling and widened into a square stainless steel hood. The open end of the hood was filled with an enormous white balloon that extended out like an upside down muffin top. Below this contraption was a glass topped table, with the mammo film under the table. The technician instructed me to hop up on the table, lie on my side and lay Frankie flat on the table. That was easier said than done. The hood would be lowered toward the table, squeezing the breast between the balloon and the glass table top for the picture to be taken. Sounds reasonable, no? It is reasonable if you a reasonably sized breast. The technician struggled to gather enough breast tissue to pin down under the balloon. I obligingly rolled from side to side, angled my ribs, my back and my hips. But the mammary in question was not to be reasoned with. I don’t know if the tech ever did get a useable picture. No matter, the doctor pronounced it a benign cyst. My mother explained that the entire family (my grandmother, my mother and both her sisters) had cystic breasts. (“They come. They go. It’s nothing.”) I never went to India, but I did go back to work. Most importantly, I had gained a new appreciation for Ethel and Lucy. To paraphrase the US Army slogan, they were being all that they could be. And they were not to be faulted for what they were not meant to be.
Over the years, the ladies have come into their own. As I approached 40, and went through a brief midlife crisis lamenting the loss of youth and questioning the meaning of life, Teeny and Tiny made it possible for me to once again go bra-less. Once I was satisfied there was life after 40, I regained my sanity and put my bra back on. And even as I round the bend approaching 60, Abbott and Costello are still perky. I can’t complain.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Let me see the cruel shoes.
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.
Let me tell you about my life in high heels. It lasted about 25 years, and then I had my feet surgically taken apart and put back together. And that was that. But until then….
The first heels that that caused me memorable pain were a pair of white strappy sandals with 2” high heels. It was June 1970, and I stepped into this adorable pair of brand new heels to spend the day bopping around Manhattan with my first true love, Bill. By the end of the day the straps had raised blisters the size of pigeon eggs across my toes and had rubbed the back of my ankles to raw meat. But at 18 years old, I wouldn’t have cared if I were bleeding from the mouth—much less my feet—because I was with Bill.
The next pair of shoes to bring tears to my eyes were the heels I bought to interview for my first real job. They were Buccellati’s, little woven huarache-style sling backs, and utterly fetching—except for the fact that the shanks (the steel support that runs under the arch of the foot and keeps the shoe functionally rigid) in both shoes were broken or missing or something… (And looking back on it, that’s probably why they were affordable—because they were defective.) The shoes flexed and bowed with every step. It was like walking on springs or foam rubber. The shoes were fine when I walked very slowly. But once I ramped up to a normal pace, they were all over the road.
By the mid-1970’s, I was regularly stomping around in high heels on my way to and from work. My most enduring memory of that era is the agonizing walk down the IND subway entrance tunnel at 179th Street in Jamaica. Slowly I walked...step by step... inch by inch… Every bump, heave, hole and crack in the pavement is still with me as I recall each painful step. I cheered myself on with the thought that I was ½ way through the tunnel, and now ¾ of the way through the tunnel…. And once I had made my way up the lumpy, uneven stairs to the street, I was faced with a looooong block of broken and uneven sidewalk before I could plop down in my car.
In the late ‘70’s I attended an after-work seminar with my boss at the Roosevelt Hotel. My boss, Dick (a handsome, strapping man blessed with a majestic 6’ 3” frame and the gender–conferred privilege of wearing wing tip shoes) planned to catch the M104 bus to get to the seminar. That meant that we would have to walk the distance from 42nd Street to the Roosevelt Hotel at 45th Street. I was wearing a handsome pair of brown, high-heeled boots with 2½ “ stacked wood heels. Very professional and sharp, but also God Almighty painful. “Let’s take a cab,” I suggested. But no, Dick could see no reason why we wouldn’t take the bus. “Well, fine, then. When we get off the bus you can carry me to the hotel.” I remember the look of horror on the poor man’s face. He wasn’t sure if I was kidding or not. In any event, Dick didn’t see the humor in that remark, and so I walked the excruciating three blocks from the bus to the hotel alongside a very tall man with very long strides. I thought I was going to die.
The happiest day of my life was April 1, 1980: the first day of the New York City transit strike and the day that changed fashion history forever. Until then, women wore high heels on subways, buses, railroads and—worst of all—NYC streets. It was a question of convention and pride. Once they got to the office they might very well change into their bunny slippers. (And some did just that.) But the ritual and regalia of the commute were sacrosanct.
All that changed during the transit strike. Someone arrived at the utterly brilliant idea of wearing running shoes to hoof across bridges, boroughs and boulevards. You changed into heels when you arrived at a civilized destination with carpeting, level floors and elevators. O frabjous day! After that, the freakish sight of women dressed to the nines, topped off with Nikes and sweat socks, became the norm throughout the city.
Flash forward to Christmas 1988. I was wearing a towering pair of red stiletto heels to Peter’s office holiday party. This was the one time in my life when I couldn’t resist a pair of 3” heels. They were absolutely captivating. But I literally tottered and swayed as I walked in them. Peter asked me why I kept hanging on his sleeve. “You wanna know why? Because I can’t stay on my feet in these f***in’ shoes!” Oh well, in that case just hang on, he agreed. (Who says Peter’s not a saint?) I spent the evening shifting my weight from one throbbing foot to the other, praying for the night to be over and wondering how I was going to walk back to the car.
These days I admire pointy-toed high heels from a distance—like a recovering addict giving his drug of choice a wide and respectful berth. Once in a while I give in to the temptation to try on an irresistible pair of stilettos at DSW—where I am ostensibly shopping for sensible Keds or driving moccasins. I slide my feet into those beautiful shoes and pivot in front of the mirror to get the full effect. In the right pair of heels, with a low instep, even my ankles look good. I shudder with the pleasure and the pain…. And then I slip them off. Who am I kidding? I can’t sit upright at a dinner table in the damned things—much less walk in them.
Let me tell you about my life in high heels. It lasted about 25 years, and then I had my feet surgically taken apart and put back together. And that was that. But until then….
The first heels that that caused me memorable pain were a pair of white strappy sandals with 2” high heels. It was June 1970, and I stepped into this adorable pair of brand new heels to spend the day bopping around Manhattan with my first true love, Bill. By the end of the day the straps had raised blisters the size of pigeon eggs across my toes and had rubbed the back of my ankles to raw meat. But at 18 years old, I wouldn’t have cared if I were bleeding from the mouth—much less my feet—because I was with Bill.
The next pair of shoes to bring tears to my eyes were the heels I bought to interview for my first real job. They were Buccellati’s, little woven huarache-style sling backs, and utterly fetching—except for the fact that the shanks (the steel support that runs under the arch of the foot and keeps the shoe functionally rigid) in both shoes were broken or missing or something… (And looking back on it, that’s probably why they were affordable—because they were defective.) The shoes flexed and bowed with every step. It was like walking on springs or foam rubber. The shoes were fine when I walked very slowly. But once I ramped up to a normal pace, they were all over the road.
By the mid-1970’s, I was regularly stomping around in high heels on my way to and from work. My most enduring memory of that era is the agonizing walk down the IND subway entrance tunnel at 179th Street in Jamaica. Slowly I walked...step by step... inch by inch… Every bump, heave, hole and crack in the pavement is still with me as I recall each painful step. I cheered myself on with the thought that I was ½ way through the tunnel, and now ¾ of the way through the tunnel…. And once I had made my way up the lumpy, uneven stairs to the street, I was faced with a looooong block of broken and uneven sidewalk before I could plop down in my car.
In the late ‘70’s I attended an after-work seminar with my boss at the Roosevelt Hotel. My boss, Dick (a handsome, strapping man blessed with a majestic 6’ 3” frame and the gender–conferred privilege of wearing wing tip shoes) planned to catch the M104 bus to get to the seminar. That meant that we would have to walk the distance from 42nd Street to the Roosevelt Hotel at 45th Street. I was wearing a handsome pair of brown, high-heeled boots with 2½ “ stacked wood heels. Very professional and sharp, but also God Almighty painful. “Let’s take a cab,” I suggested. But no, Dick could see no reason why we wouldn’t take the bus. “Well, fine, then. When we get off the bus you can carry me to the hotel.” I remember the look of horror on the poor man’s face. He wasn’t sure if I was kidding or not. In any event, Dick didn’t see the humor in that remark, and so I walked the excruciating three blocks from the bus to the hotel alongside a very tall man with very long strides. I thought I was going to die.
The happiest day of my life was April 1, 1980: the first day of the New York City transit strike and the day that changed fashion history forever. Until then, women wore high heels on subways, buses, railroads and—worst of all—NYC streets. It was a question of convention and pride. Once they got to the office they might very well change into their bunny slippers. (And some did just that.) But the ritual and regalia of the commute were sacrosanct.
All that changed during the transit strike. Someone arrived at the utterly brilliant idea of wearing running shoes to hoof across bridges, boroughs and boulevards. You changed into heels when you arrived at a civilized destination with carpeting, level floors and elevators. O frabjous day! After that, the freakish sight of women dressed to the nines, topped off with Nikes and sweat socks, became the norm throughout the city.
Flash forward to Christmas 1988. I was wearing a towering pair of red stiletto heels to Peter’s office holiday party. This was the one time in my life when I couldn’t resist a pair of 3” heels. They were absolutely captivating. But I literally tottered and swayed as I walked in them. Peter asked me why I kept hanging on his sleeve. “You wanna know why? Because I can’t stay on my feet in these f***in’ shoes!” Oh well, in that case just hang on, he agreed. (Who says Peter’s not a saint?) I spent the evening shifting my weight from one throbbing foot to the other, praying for the night to be over and wondering how I was going to walk back to the car.
These days I admire pointy-toed high heels from a distance—like a recovering addict giving his drug of choice a wide and respectful berth. Once in a while I give in to the temptation to try on an irresistible pair of stilettos at DSW—where I am ostensibly shopping for sensible Keds or driving moccasins. I slide my feet into those beautiful shoes and pivot in front of the mirror to get the full effect. In the right pair of heels, with a low instep, even my ankles look good. I shudder with the pleasure and the pain…. And then I slip them off. Who am I kidding? I can’t sit upright at a dinner table in the damned things—much less walk in them.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Why I Go to the Gym
For those of you who remember me as a child and teenager, I was not an athlete. I was chubby, with the lightning reflexes of the dead, no depth perception to speak of, and the eye-hand coordination of a stroke victim. I was—and faithfully remain—a klutz. To this day it’s a miracle that I can get a forkful of food to my mouth without piercing my cheeks or putting an eye out. I had an absolute horror of gym class—and with good reason. In the NYC junior highs and high schools of the 1960’s the Phys. Ed. curriculum was repeated each year without variation. If you dreaded the endless two weeks of volleyball in 7th grade (and who wouldn’t if you had neither upper body strength nor the much touted eye-hand coordination?), you had reason to dread it again in 8th, 9th, 10th… all the way through high school graduation. Volleyball—along with softball, the uneven parallel bars, balance beam and vault horse, some basketball, a bit of tennis and any other forms of torture the NYC Board of Ed deemed essential to forging us into fine, fit adults—returned each and every year with the predictability of locusts. And each year the teachers robotically demonstrated the same basic moves as if for the first time. (And to their credit, the instructors never let slip the slightest hint of annoyance, boredom or disbelief that they were giving the same performance to the same unenthusiastic audience for the third or even fourth time.) This was back in the days of personal responsibility, success and failure. And if you weren’t good at what they were pitching, there was neither coaching nor excuses. You either got yourself motivated to roll over that parallel bar or you didn’t. And God help you if you didn’t. Failure was a real possibility, and the teachers were openly scornful of the klutzes in the class. For someone like me—who can barely make it across a smooth floor without my feet flying out from under me—this was public torture. I don’t know how I ever wore high heels as an adult, much less walked a balance beam as a 16 year old. More about the high heel years another time…
So it came as a miracle to me when, in my mid-20’s, I started to run. I started slow and easy, running, gasping and adding a quarter mile at a time. And suddenly, I felt strong and athletic. Now there’s a statement I never thought I would make in this lifetime. I might have absolutely no upper body strength. I might still have blubbery thighs. I would always be shaped like a pear. But with Don Henley’s The Boys of Summer pounding in my ears, I could push myself to run further and longer. Add to that The Doobie Brothers’ Take Me in Your Arms and Rock Me and I was unstoppable. Except for the traffic hazard I created by being deaf to the world around me… Not a great idea for someone as spatially challenged as me. Chewing gum and walking are a push for me. So running, listening to music and watching out for cars and trucks was not a good combo. And, no I don’t have a good story about being hit by a bus while running to the pounding beat of Eric Clapton.
What’s more, I realized I was as flexible as an Olympic gymnast. Gumby flexible. I could roll out of bed in the morning and rest the palms of my hands on the floor. I could roll myself into a ball—backwards or forwards. I could do splits. I never bent from the knees. There was no need to: I was so limber that I routinely bent double from the waist to tie my shoelaces, kiss the dog, mop up spills, scrub the bathtub.
I was still a klutz. That hadn’t changed. If I got on a bike, I overheated and fainted, or fell off or just crashed into other cyclists. In July 1979 Peter and I were cycling the loop in Central Park when I locked eyes with a cyclist coming towards me. Like moths to a flame, the other cyclist and I were on a hypnotic collision course. When our front wheels collided, I vaulted clear over the handlebars (something I could barely manage to do in high school) and straight into his chest. I suffered a hairline crack to the bridge of my nose. He must have sported a black and blue imprint of my nose and eyeglasses on his chest for weeks afterward. Peter, young and still in his leg-breaker phase of life, got off his bike and picked the other cyclist up by the throat. He was holding the poor man out at arm’s length with one hand, and winding up for a satisfying punch with the other hand. Peter wasn’t going to feel better until he put this guy’s lights out. (But I’m losing my focus… So let me wrap up and get back to my original point.) I convinced Peter not to beat the other cyclist to a pulp. After a few more incidents of overheating and fainting while riding, I decided to retire from my career as a cyclist. And after all, how many more times did I want to break my nose?
Well, at least one more time. Actually, I was out doing my morning run… We were living on 75th Street and York Avenue at the time, and it was 6 AM on a fine January morning. I was chugging down the avenue when I tripped and went down for a perfect three point landing—flat on my nose and the palms of my hands. Limping back home, I encountered Sal, our elderly Italian and eternally dour doorman, who normally wouldn’t acknowledge our existence. Sal took one look at me and started keening the Italian version of Oy! Oy! Oy! I hadn’t seen my face yet, and so this reception was not a propitious omen. I made it back to our apartment and woke Peter with, “Peter, I think I broke my nose!” He peeled open just one eye and regarded me for a second. “Yep, you broke your nose,” was all he said, and with that he opened the other eye and swung both legs out of bed. He pulled on his jeans and a sweat shirt, grabbed me by the hand and hauled me down the street to New York Hospital’s ER. He didn’t stop to so much as empty his bladder. He just marched, with me in tow. (Peter was always good in an emergency.) The ER doctor gave me a tetanus shot, turned me to face a mirror and gently asked me what my nose normally looked like. I may have started keening at that point: I was staring at W.C. Fields’ nose in the center of my face.
I had two black eyes for a week. Fellow passengers on NYC buses—the most hardened and blasé people in the world—did double takes when they looked at me. Friends asked if I’d been mugged. Stanley, the resident wife beater in the building, asked Peter if he had finally belted me. (Peter restrained himself from belting Stanley.) And when my father-in-law ran into me in the supermarket, he also thought the worst and announced that I was to come home with him. I had to explain that this was nothing more than another example of why I should travel around swaddled in cotton batting.
And so that’s why I go to the gym. Make no mistake: I’ve hurt myself plenty in the gym. (There was the unforgettable moment in Zumba class when I whirled around, landed at a funny angle and thought I had managed to unplug my right hip from its socket. Or the squat thrust that threw my back out for a week. Or the shoulder stand that earned me a month-long crick in my neck… The list is nearly endless.) But if I stumble on the tread mill and slide, face down, the length of the rubber track, there is an entire staff on hand to dial 911. If I drop a weight on my foot, there are people around to sort out the pieces and cluck with convincing concern over the damage. And I find that immensely comforting.
So it came as a miracle to me when, in my mid-20’s, I started to run. I started slow and easy, running, gasping and adding a quarter mile at a time. And suddenly, I felt strong and athletic. Now there’s a statement I never thought I would make in this lifetime. I might have absolutely no upper body strength. I might still have blubbery thighs. I would always be shaped like a pear. But with Don Henley’s The Boys of Summer pounding in my ears, I could push myself to run further and longer. Add to that The Doobie Brothers’ Take Me in Your Arms and Rock Me and I was unstoppable. Except for the traffic hazard I created by being deaf to the world around me… Not a great idea for someone as spatially challenged as me. Chewing gum and walking are a push for me. So running, listening to music and watching out for cars and trucks was not a good combo. And, no I don’t have a good story about being hit by a bus while running to the pounding beat of Eric Clapton.
What’s more, I realized I was as flexible as an Olympic gymnast. Gumby flexible. I could roll out of bed in the morning and rest the palms of my hands on the floor. I could roll myself into a ball—backwards or forwards. I could do splits. I never bent from the knees. There was no need to: I was so limber that I routinely bent double from the waist to tie my shoelaces, kiss the dog, mop up spills, scrub the bathtub.
I was still a klutz. That hadn’t changed. If I got on a bike, I overheated and fainted, or fell off or just crashed into other cyclists. In July 1979 Peter and I were cycling the loop in Central Park when I locked eyes with a cyclist coming towards me. Like moths to a flame, the other cyclist and I were on a hypnotic collision course. When our front wheels collided, I vaulted clear over the handlebars (something I could barely manage to do in high school) and straight into his chest. I suffered a hairline crack to the bridge of my nose. He must have sported a black and blue imprint of my nose and eyeglasses on his chest for weeks afterward. Peter, young and still in his leg-breaker phase of life, got off his bike and picked the other cyclist up by the throat. He was holding the poor man out at arm’s length with one hand, and winding up for a satisfying punch with the other hand. Peter wasn’t going to feel better until he put this guy’s lights out. (But I’m losing my focus… So let me wrap up and get back to my original point.) I convinced Peter not to beat the other cyclist to a pulp. After a few more incidents of overheating and fainting while riding, I decided to retire from my career as a cyclist. And after all, how many more times did I want to break my nose?
Well, at least one more time. Actually, I was out doing my morning run… We were living on 75th Street and York Avenue at the time, and it was 6 AM on a fine January morning. I was chugging down the avenue when I tripped and went down for a perfect three point landing—flat on my nose and the palms of my hands. Limping back home, I encountered Sal, our elderly Italian and eternally dour doorman, who normally wouldn’t acknowledge our existence. Sal took one look at me and started keening the Italian version of Oy! Oy! Oy! I hadn’t seen my face yet, and so this reception was not a propitious omen. I made it back to our apartment and woke Peter with, “Peter, I think I broke my nose!” He peeled open just one eye and regarded me for a second. “Yep, you broke your nose,” was all he said, and with that he opened the other eye and swung both legs out of bed. He pulled on his jeans and a sweat shirt, grabbed me by the hand and hauled me down the street to New York Hospital’s ER. He didn’t stop to so much as empty his bladder. He just marched, with me in tow. (Peter was always good in an emergency.) The ER doctor gave me a tetanus shot, turned me to face a mirror and gently asked me what my nose normally looked like. I may have started keening at that point: I was staring at W.C. Fields’ nose in the center of my face.
I had two black eyes for a week. Fellow passengers on NYC buses—the most hardened and blasé people in the world—did double takes when they looked at me. Friends asked if I’d been mugged. Stanley, the resident wife beater in the building, asked Peter if he had finally belted me. (Peter restrained himself from belting Stanley.) And when my father-in-law ran into me in the supermarket, he also thought the worst and announced that I was to come home with him. I had to explain that this was nothing more than another example of why I should travel around swaddled in cotton batting.
And so that’s why I go to the gym. Make no mistake: I’ve hurt myself plenty in the gym. (There was the unforgettable moment in Zumba class when I whirled around, landed at a funny angle and thought I had managed to unplug my right hip from its socket. Or the squat thrust that threw my back out for a week. Or the shoulder stand that earned me a month-long crick in my neck… The list is nearly endless.) But if I stumble on the tread mill and slide, face down, the length of the rubber track, there is an entire staff on hand to dial 911. If I drop a weight on my foot, there are people around to sort out the pieces and cluck with convincing concern over the damage. And I find that immensely comforting.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Let's Get Ready to Rumble
Over the past week, I watched the roiling spectacle of Terry Jones, his followers, eggers-on and lunatic fans. As a Jew, it makes me squeamish to hear the ravings of this and the many other latter-day Father Coughlins characterizing an entire religion and all its observers as evil and dangerous. Framing one’s fears into a broad and ugly stereotype is a cheap and age-old publicity stunt. It’s so easy to point at the framed portrait and tick off all the terrifying attributes one can dream up. We just have to take a cursory look back at our own enduring fear of each wave of US immigration: the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Jews… Were any of these groups welcomed with open arms? Well, we know the answer to that. Each was greeted with fear, suspicion and open disgust for their foreign ways. Two generations pass and the group that was once foreign and despised has been assimilated and accepted. And so it has been until now, and will be again with the vast majority of practicing Muslims. It’s just a matter of getting beyond the Terry Joneses of this world. Of course, that is easier said than done.
Terry Jones and his followers don’t understand what is staring them—and us—in the face. We are not witnessing the spectacle of Islam versus the world. That is not Islam grimacing at us: it’s the 11th century recoiling from the 21st century. Welcome to the next Hundred Years War—a war of cultures and centuries colliding on the internet and television, in the movies and at local shopping malls. This is the conflict our children, our children’s children and their children after them will be battling. It’s not about God. It’s about culture and custom. So be prepared to back the century of your choice.
In 2009 Afghani women protested newly minted government restrictions on their rights. The NY Times described it this way: “One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband’s sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband’s permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to ‘make herself up’ or ‘dress up’ if that is what her husband wants.” I ask you: What kind of government takes time off from nation-building to vote on pressing issues like ensuring that women submit to their husbands’ demands for sex and dress-up?
The protesting women were greeted by mobs of men throwing stones and calling them whores. You may have seen the fairest flowers of Afghani manhood on the news at the time. (And If that image didn’t give one both pause and dyspepsia, I don’t know what would…) It’s these Kodak moments that make me wonder if Afghani men aren’t secretly sorry that the Taliban got the boot. They were forced to hide their DVD players throughout the Taliban regime, but at least their women were securely under their boot. It was comforting to know that some things could be counted on to remain unchanged.
And now, think back to the TV image of the mob—snaggle-toothed, ragged, filthy, wild-eyed and lathering at the mouth. These are the fashion victims for whom marital laws should be enacted: sexual advances will be welcome when they’ve shaved, bathed and fixed those dreadful teeth. A job outside the home? What woman wouldn’t want a job to keep her busy when her husband spends all his free time in tea shops, taking hits from the communal hookah and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Dress up? Clean yourself up! Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.
That’s not about God. That’s about fearing the familiar world will spin off its axis and out of control. When a millennia’s worth of cultural beliefs and ancient customs—which have been mistaken for the immutable laws of physics and the will of God—are threatened, what does one do? The Afghani legislature and mob have one answer. The Taliban has its own less than humane response to life’s uncertainties. Terry Jones takes his solace in hating all things Islamic. Personally, I’m not finding many answers or much solace anywhere these days. Anne Frank’s touching and gracious statement that people are essentially good at heart tugs at my own heart to this day. Her faith in the ultimate triumph of good over evil and ignorance was a timeless, universal prayer that hasn’t been answered yet. As for me, I have no intention of ending my days swathed in a burka because some cliff-dwelling yutz is still carrying a grudge over the Crusades.
So if this clash between the 11th and 21st centuries is on, let’s get ready to rumble—through education, universal civil rights and tolerance backed with enough muscle to fend off the cliff dwellers. I will not go gentle into that burka.
Terry Jones and his followers don’t understand what is staring them—and us—in the face. We are not witnessing the spectacle of Islam versus the world. That is not Islam grimacing at us: it’s the 11th century recoiling from the 21st century. Welcome to the next Hundred Years War—a war of cultures and centuries colliding on the internet and television, in the movies and at local shopping malls. This is the conflict our children, our children’s children and their children after them will be battling. It’s not about God. It’s about culture and custom. So be prepared to back the century of your choice.
In 2009 Afghani women protested newly minted government restrictions on their rights. The NY Times described it this way: “One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband’s sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband’s permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to ‘make herself up’ or ‘dress up’ if that is what her husband wants.” I ask you: What kind of government takes time off from nation-building to vote on pressing issues like ensuring that women submit to their husbands’ demands for sex and dress-up?
The protesting women were greeted by mobs of men throwing stones and calling them whores. You may have seen the fairest flowers of Afghani manhood on the news at the time. (And If that image didn’t give one both pause and dyspepsia, I don’t know what would…) It’s these Kodak moments that make me wonder if Afghani men aren’t secretly sorry that the Taliban got the boot. They were forced to hide their DVD players throughout the Taliban regime, but at least their women were securely under their boot. It was comforting to know that some things could be counted on to remain unchanged.
And now, think back to the TV image of the mob—snaggle-toothed, ragged, filthy, wild-eyed and lathering at the mouth. These are the fashion victims for whom marital laws should be enacted: sexual advances will be welcome when they’ve shaved, bathed and fixed those dreadful teeth. A job outside the home? What woman wouldn’t want a job to keep her busy when her husband spends all his free time in tea shops, taking hits from the communal hookah and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Dress up? Clean yourself up! Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.
So if this clash between the 11th and 21st centuries is on, let’s get ready to rumble—through education, universal civil rights and tolerance backed with enough muscle to fend off the cliff dwellers. I will not go gentle into that burka.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego?
For those of you who are wondering how I came to be a field hand, and where I might be fulfilling this life-long goal of working the land as if it were 1875, here’s the explanation.
Peter and I have been vacationing in Kennebunkport for over 30 years. We love the Maine coast, and hoped to have a house there someday. Over the last couple of years, we thought the time was finally right. We came to this conclusion just as Lehman Brothers was being sucked into the black hole of the financial apocalypse that it and the rest of Wall Street had so thoughtfully created. It was September 2008, and we were driving around the country roads of southern Maine, listening to that card-carrying CNN cretin, Rick Sanchez, on Sirius Radio as he cheerfully whipped up the panic about the financial collapse. (I will go on about the irresponsibility of the 24/7 commercial news cycle some other time.) So we put our conclusion aside for awhile.
We continued to look around even while the economic winds of fortune blew like a hurricane. We are firm believers in that old adage: location, location, location. I found a lovely little lot that backed on the Webhannet Golf Course in K’Port. For a mere $900,000 we could own property on which we might afford to build a quonset hut. We wouldn’t have enough spare change to erect an outhouse. Luckily, since we couldn’t afford to clear the land, there would still be enough forest to afford me the privacy that the outhouse would have provided. I’m sure the neighbors would understand. And best of all (remember location, location, location) I would be able to observe President George H. Bush (aka 41 or the Bush with brains) while he played golf on the Webhannet course once a year.
So, with real estate prices that rivaled Scarsdale’s, Peter decided K’Port might not be the garden spot for us. I have no idea how he came across Harpswell, Maine. But anywhere, here we are: owners of a house on 2 acres of wooded property, with a beautiful (if overgrown) garden built on tiered stone walls. The house is a 2,700 square foot saltbox, about 25 years old, in need of new bathrooms, a new kitchen and the expected cleaning-out that goes with 25 years of accumulated detritus.
My approach to anything that needs to be cleaned, painted, raked or weeded is to attack it with gusto. My favorite form of gusto now comes in the shape of cash: Let’s hire someone to do that! But Peter has suddenly become the very soul of financial responsibility and sober judgment. That used to be my role in this marriage. But with menopause comes wisdom, patience and a new, mellow approach to life. (Just ask Peter how mellow I’ve become.) My new approach takes the shape of live-and-let-live, and Let’s-hire-someone-to-do-that! Peter’s new-found maturity has taken on the persona of fiscal conservator for the Rockefeller Foundation. So when it came to the initial hands-and-knees scrubbing of the house’s kitchen, bathrooms, floors, cobwebs, and more, I spent nearly a week going at it hammer and tong. Had I known how grimy the house was, I would have hired a cleaning service to do it. I mentioned this to Peter, but he thought that would be a waste of money: no one would clean it with the zeal that I brought to the job, or to my satisfaction. And besides, you’re so far along, why not just finish it? I should have climbed up on a milk crate and smacked him right then and there.
We are back in NJ for now, having lived through the heat wave (that reached handily up to Maine) with no air conditioning. By the last week of August I took to spending large chunks of the day in the blissfully cool and comfortable Brunswick library. If I stayed at the house, I inevitably fell to hacking at overgrown shrubs, raking leaves or ripping out yard-long golden rod stems by main force. The arbor vitae and the rose hips were so intertwined as to be virtually braided together, the rhododendron had grown tall enough to cover the second story windows, and the rose bushes were over 6 feet tall. They called to me to come out and do battle. Better to be in the library than sweating in the mid-day sun and heat.
I lost my train of thought… We are back in NJ, and I am unemployed. (I will go into that story at length and with great gusto another time.) For now, while I am searching for work, I will actually be a housewife. This is entirely new territory for me. I’ve never been a housewife before. Wish Peter luck.
Peter and I have been vacationing in Kennebunkport for over 30 years. We love the Maine coast, and hoped to have a house there someday. Over the last couple of years, we thought the time was finally right. We came to this conclusion just as Lehman Brothers was being sucked into the black hole of the financial apocalypse that it and the rest of Wall Street had so thoughtfully created. It was September 2008, and we were driving around the country roads of southern Maine, listening to that card-carrying CNN cretin, Rick Sanchez, on Sirius Radio as he cheerfully whipped up the panic about the financial collapse. (I will go on about the irresponsibility of the 24/7 commercial news cycle some other time.) So we put our conclusion aside for awhile.
We continued to look around even while the economic winds of fortune blew like a hurricane. We are firm believers in that old adage: location, location, location. I found a lovely little lot that backed on the Webhannet Golf Course in K’Port. For a mere $900,000 we could own property on which we might afford to build a quonset hut. We wouldn’t have enough spare change to erect an outhouse. Luckily, since we couldn’t afford to clear the land, there would still be enough forest to afford me the privacy that the outhouse would have provided. I’m sure the neighbors would understand. And best of all (remember location, location, location) I would be able to observe President George H. Bush (aka 41 or the Bush with brains) while he played golf on the Webhannet course once a year.
So, with real estate prices that rivaled Scarsdale’s, Peter decided K’Port might not be the garden spot for us. I have no idea how he came across Harpswell, Maine. But anywhere, here we are: owners of a house on 2 acres of wooded property, with a beautiful (if overgrown) garden built on tiered stone walls. The house is a 2,700 square foot saltbox, about 25 years old, in need of new bathrooms, a new kitchen and the expected cleaning-out that goes with 25 years of accumulated detritus.
My approach to anything that needs to be cleaned, painted, raked or weeded is to attack it with gusto. My favorite form of gusto now comes in the shape of cash: Let’s hire someone to do that! But Peter has suddenly become the very soul of financial responsibility and sober judgment. That used to be my role in this marriage. But with menopause comes wisdom, patience and a new, mellow approach to life. (Just ask Peter how mellow I’ve become.) My new approach takes the shape of live-and-let-live, and Let’s-hire-someone-to-do-that! Peter’s new-found maturity has taken on the persona of fiscal conservator for the Rockefeller Foundation. So when it came to the initial hands-and-knees scrubbing of the house’s kitchen, bathrooms, floors, cobwebs, and more, I spent nearly a week going at it hammer and tong. Had I known how grimy the house was, I would have hired a cleaning service to do it. I mentioned this to Peter, but he thought that would be a waste of money: no one would clean it with the zeal that I brought to the job, or to my satisfaction. And besides, you’re so far along, why not just finish it? I should have climbed up on a milk crate and smacked him right then and there.
We are back in NJ for now, having lived through the heat wave (that reached handily up to Maine) with no air conditioning. By the last week of August I took to spending large chunks of the day in the blissfully cool and comfortable Brunswick library. If I stayed at the house, I inevitably fell to hacking at overgrown shrubs, raking leaves or ripping out yard-long golden rod stems by main force. The arbor vitae and the rose hips were so intertwined as to be virtually braided together, the rhododendron had grown tall enough to cover the second story windows, and the rose bushes were over 6 feet tall. They called to me to come out and do battle. Better to be in the library than sweating in the mid-day sun and heat.
I lost my train of thought… We are back in NJ, and I am unemployed. (I will go into that story at length and with great gusto another time.) For now, while I am searching for work, I will actually be a housewife. This is entirely new territory for me. I’ve never been a housewife before. Wish Peter luck.
Monday, August 30, 2010
How's that working for ya?
I am sitting here nursing a nice cold screw driver. Every now and then I hold the glass to my swollen lips to ease the throbbing....
I spent the late afternoon cutting back the invasive rose hips (aka beach plums). Peter had dreams of being a gentleman farmer, landed gentry. And somehow, I have been cast in the role of field hand. (Just a moment. I need to take another swig of the screw driver. My lips and my scalp are killing me.)
Who knew that the effin’ rose hips are covered with thorns? I never realized that until I started to deal with the little effers. I have already spent several evenings tweezing thorns out of my finger tips and forearms. But this afternoon ended with me running up the drive way followed by a swarm of angry yellow jacks. (Wait. Peter just showed up with dinner from the local Thai restaurant. I wasn’t in the mood to go out for dinner with my lip swollen out far enough to cast a shadow on my dinner plate, my scalp throbbing and the bites on my arms.)
Okay, dinner is over. Back to the yellow jacks. I was cheerfully alternating hacking away at the rose hips and arbor vitae with raking several years of dead leaves out from under some fir trees. The raking stirred up a hornet’s nest—literally. And there I was, running up the driveway, screaming for Peter, and slapping at the cloud of yellow jacks that were in my hair, on my face and on my shirt. Final score: the yellow jacks won with at least 6 hits (2 on my arm, 1 on my back, 1 on the lip, at least 2 on the crown of my head.) Once Peter assessed the damage and determined that I didn’t seem in danger of an allergic reaction to the stings, he declared this field hand’s work was done for the day. I stripped my sweaty, yellow jack-encrusted clothes off in the sunroom and stomped upstairs to shower, shampoo the yellow jacks out of my hair and sulk.
But today was just the topper for the last 3 days. On Saturday, I waged a successful campaign to knock down an old storage shelf in the garage. The shelf was about 4 feet off the ground, 7 feet wide and 30 inches deep. It was supported by four diagonally placed beams braced against the studs in the garage. Whoever installed them was in for the long haul, because the beams were both nailed and screwed into the studs. But I was bound and determined to take out the shelf: It’s too high to use as a work bench, and this was the spot where I want my workbench to go. Peter eyed the screws and nails and opined that this was a losing proposition. He tried to knock the braces out with a 40 pound sledge hammer we found in the garage. He tried to undo do the screws with an electric drill. But kneeling in tight places is not his forte. I can crawl under cabinets and shelves easily, but I don’t have the strength to hold the electric drill in place. Peter shrugged and said, Leave it alone. But I was bound and determined to make that space my own. So, with nothing more than stupidity and determination I threw myself at the shelf. I hammered, pushed, hung on them with all my weight, and finally crow-barred the braces to pull them down…Final score: one for the gipper. The shelf is gone.
After tearing down the shelf, I dragged 2 wood pallets into the garage to stack fire wood. I didn’t know that those pallets are nearly as tall as I am, and weigh at least 50 pounds apiece. I fell twice, entangled with the pallets, in my hell-bent campaign to get them into the garage. But I managed to restack the wood in the garage on the pallets, and then removed a 3 foot by 4 foot stack of fire wood from the kitchen and added it to the stack in the garage. By the end of the day I had a serioulsy black and blue knee, a black and blue patch on my left butt, and a big scrape on my right shoulder blade. It was glorious.
And that brings me back to today. The yellow jack stings just did me in. After a good long shower, I announced to Peter that I want to go home. He suggested the nice cold screw driver, and declared the yard off limits for the rest of our stay here in paradise.
I spent the late afternoon cutting back the invasive rose hips (aka beach plums). Peter had dreams of being a gentleman farmer, landed gentry. And somehow, I have been cast in the role of field hand. (Just a moment. I need to take another swig of the screw driver. My lips and my scalp are killing me.)
Who knew that the effin’ rose hips are covered with thorns? I never realized that until I started to deal with the little effers. I have already spent several evenings tweezing thorns out of my finger tips and forearms. But this afternoon ended with me running up the drive way followed by a swarm of angry yellow jacks. (Wait. Peter just showed up with dinner from the local Thai restaurant. I wasn’t in the mood to go out for dinner with my lip swollen out far enough to cast a shadow on my dinner plate, my scalp throbbing and the bites on my arms.)
Okay, dinner is over. Back to the yellow jacks. I was cheerfully alternating hacking away at the rose hips and arbor vitae with raking several years of dead leaves out from under some fir trees. The raking stirred up a hornet’s nest—literally. And there I was, running up the driveway, screaming for Peter, and slapping at the cloud of yellow jacks that were in my hair, on my face and on my shirt. Final score: the yellow jacks won with at least 6 hits (2 on my arm, 1 on my back, 1 on the lip, at least 2 on the crown of my head.) Once Peter assessed the damage and determined that I didn’t seem in danger of an allergic reaction to the stings, he declared this field hand’s work was done for the day. I stripped my sweaty, yellow jack-encrusted clothes off in the sunroom and stomped upstairs to shower, shampoo the yellow jacks out of my hair and sulk.
But today was just the topper for the last 3 days. On Saturday, I waged a successful campaign to knock down an old storage shelf in the garage. The shelf was about 4 feet off the ground, 7 feet wide and 30 inches deep. It was supported by four diagonally placed beams braced against the studs in the garage. Whoever installed them was in for the long haul, because the beams were both nailed and screwed into the studs. But I was bound and determined to take out the shelf: It’s too high to use as a work bench, and this was the spot where I want my workbench to go. Peter eyed the screws and nails and opined that this was a losing proposition. He tried to knock the braces out with a 40 pound sledge hammer we found in the garage. He tried to undo do the screws with an electric drill. But kneeling in tight places is not his forte. I can crawl under cabinets and shelves easily, but I don’t have the strength to hold the electric drill in place. Peter shrugged and said, Leave it alone. But I was bound and determined to make that space my own. So, with nothing more than stupidity and determination I threw myself at the shelf. I hammered, pushed, hung on them with all my weight, and finally crow-barred the braces to pull them down…Final score: one for the gipper. The shelf is gone.
After tearing down the shelf, I dragged 2 wood pallets into the garage to stack fire wood. I didn’t know that those pallets are nearly as tall as I am, and weigh at least 50 pounds apiece. I fell twice, entangled with the pallets, in my hell-bent campaign to get them into the garage. But I managed to restack the wood in the garage on the pallets, and then removed a 3 foot by 4 foot stack of fire wood from the kitchen and added it to the stack in the garage. By the end of the day I had a serioulsy black and blue knee, a black and blue patch on my left butt, and a big scrape on my right shoulder blade. It was glorious.
And that brings me back to today. The yellow jack stings just did me in. After a good long shower, I announced to Peter that I want to go home. He suggested the nice cold screw driver, and declared the yard off limits for the rest of our stay here in paradise.
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