The summer I graduated from the University of Michigan, I moved to Manhattan with my college roommate and "just for emergencies"
my mother's Macy's charge card.
A few weeks later, my mother called, "Where's my Macy's charge," she demanded.
"In my purse," I replied.
"I don't think so," she shouted across the telephone line from the midwest.
Someone had charged $4,500 worth of men's clothing to her charge. "Call this man at Macy's immediately," she said, and hung up on me.
The man -- I'll call him Mr. Scary -- loomed over me in the tiny office. He'd spoken at length with my mother and the two of them agreed that I was witless, irresponsible, and lacking in the maturity that goes along with a charge card to the "World's Largest Store."
He shook his head sadly. He'd expected more from a University of Michigan graduate!
"Don't you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever apply for a Macy's charge," he said. "Never. Never. Never."
And so I did not.
Then last week, a woman in my exercise class passed out 25% off Macy's Friends and Family cards to a few of us.
I quickly ran over to Macy's and scooped up a summer palette of shirts for my husband.
"If you open a Macy's charge today, you'll get an extra 20% off," my salesperson said.
I quickly calculated -- that's 25% + 20% off already reduced prices!
What's the statute of limitations in cases like this? I'm married with a career; I even have a grown son with his own charge cards.
"Okay," I said.
How far back did Macy's keep records?
"You're approved," he said.
My mother -- who always loved a bargain -- died in February.
I'd been waiting for a sign from her.
Did this mean she's forgiven me?
Friday, July 8, 2011
For Mama
(In Honor of what would have been my mother's 90th birthday,
July 3, 2011.)
At the intersection of fear and love,
at the edge of sadness and the moment of new life,
as guilt dissolves into wholeness,
and this year spins away from what came before,
pain subsides --
leaving behind only her chocolate-covered coconut patties,
her gym shoes, a silky pink robe.
July 3, 2011.)
At the intersection of fear and love,
at the edge of sadness and the moment of new life,
as guilt dissolves into wholeness,
and this year spins away from what came before,
pain subsides --
leaving behind only her chocolate-covered coconut patties,
her gym shoes, a silky pink robe.
For Marlene, Who is Allergic to Pepper.
Oh, please, please, don’t sit by me, Marlene,
Although of your company I’m keen.
I had a wee disaster,
And it happened so much faster than
I could stop it, alas I’m no Paula Deen.
Marlene, Marlene, please don’t fret,
If by your side I refuse to set.
You’ll understand in a second,
why I do not beckon,
for us to sit tete a tete.
Marlene, trust me, my pet.
You’re safe no where near me, I bet.
I’m more lethal, Marlene.
Than arsenic or gasoline.
And for that I deeply regret.
I was tossing a salad for deux,
When suddenly, mon Dieu!
My peppermill burst wide –
Shooting out what’s inside
onto me, which stuck like glue.
Oh, please don’t sit next to me, Marlene.
My Dear Friend, you won’t be amused.
In my nostrils and hair,
In the very air,
With this substance I’m thoroughly suffused.
Oh, Marlene, flop next to Roz or Linnie B.
Jed or Bill, I’m beggin’, down on one knee,
Or else you’ll be itchin’
And that’s not what I’m wishin’,
That’s the truth, don’t you agree?
Although of your company I’m keen.
I had a wee disaster,
And it happened so much faster than
I could stop it, alas I’m no Paula Deen.
Marlene, Marlene, please don’t fret,
If by your side I refuse to set.
You’ll understand in a second,
why I do not beckon,
for us to sit tete a tete.
Marlene, trust me, my pet.
You’re safe no where near me, I bet.
I’m more lethal, Marlene.
Than arsenic or gasoline.
And for that I deeply regret.
I was tossing a salad for deux,
When suddenly, mon Dieu!
My peppermill burst wide –
Shooting out what’s inside
onto me, which stuck like glue.
Oh, please don’t sit next to me, Marlene.
My Dear Friend, you won’t be amused.
In my nostrils and hair,
In the very air,
With this substance I’m thoroughly suffused.
Oh, Marlene, flop next to Roz or Linnie B.
Jed or Bill, I’m beggin’, down on one knee,
Or else you’ll be itchin’
And that’s not what I’m wishin’,
That’s the truth, don’t you agree?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
"Good Night, Irene."
A few days before my mother died, my friend Anne Hamilton had a vision that my Dad was patiently waiting at the Gates of Heaven for her holding her purse. “Patiently or impatiently,” I asked. “Patiently,” she said. “It’s up to her.
Anne went on to say that she saw my mother ascending to heaven, meeting my father and that they were both young and radiant as they were when they met.
Irene was just 16 and Arnold was 19. On their first date they went dancing on the boat to Bob-lo. Their song was “Harbor Lights.”
It’s hard to talk about my mother without talking about my father too. They were one of those inseparable couples. If my father went to a Lions Club meeting, my mother went along. Yet, they had absolutely separate domains.
My mother’s, as everyone knows, was the kitchen. My mother never met a recipe she didn’t think could be improved by adding a lb. of butter and a carton of sour cream. Her sucker cookies are famous. When she visited us in New York, she’d always bring with her a box of cookies carefully layered in wax paper and tin foil and usually a very large brisket, and a package of marrow bones for her pea soup. If you ever tasted her pea soup you know why she was a better cook than most Top Chefs.
My mother had a career – wife, mother, Bobe.
She took these responsibilities very seriously. When Michael, my son, was a small boy and I was a Single Mother trying to balance making a living with making a home, Mike suddenly spiked a fever. I needed to work in the morning. I called my mother.
This woman who had never traveled anywhere without my father -- took a plane from Detroit to La Guardia, a bus from the airport to Grand Central, found the train to Larchmont, and then a taxi to my house. Within hours she was standing on my doorstep, ringing my bell – naturally she brought cookies.
When I needed a car for my new job, my mother volunteered to bring one. This was long before cell phones. The idea was my father would drive their car and my mother would follow him to New York in a little gray Escort for me. Except my father pulled out of the drive and zoomed off and my mother, so she says, didn’t see “that meshugenah” again, until she parked behind him in my driveway.
Once my husband Jed and I were driving down to North Carolina at the same time that there was a hurricane on the Coast. We got a message from my mother on my cell phone, “Oy vey, Turn Back! Turn Back!”’
Two years ago I published a book. I ordered a copy for my mother. In one of those strange unexplainable flukes in life, the copy for my mother and the copy for my cousin Allee were printed incorrectly. None of the sentences made sense. I didn’t believe my mother when she told me this over the phone. “Okay, I humored her, mark the pages and send it back to me, I said. She did. She stayed up until 3:30 in the morning and hand wrote 88 little white slips of paper meticulously detailing errors she had found. I wish I had saved them.
When I visited my mother in the hospital a few weeks before she died, I asked her what she was was proudest of in her life. She answered “My 3 children. The lives they lead.”
“I had a good life with Daddy,” she added. “We never had much money, but we did a lot. We traveled, we had good friends.”
On Sunday, February 13, Jed and I flew in to see my mother. The next day was Valentine’s Day, my father’s birthday. I was terrified. I thought if she could choose, she would want to pass that day so she could be with him. We arrived about 2:00. My mother was already on a morphine drip. I’ve been told even though someone isn’t responding they can still hear you. I held my mother and told her how much I loved her and what a good mother she had been. I got to sing “Good Night, Irene” to her. Her face was slack. She had been breathing erratically for about 25 minutes. At about 4:00 pm, there was a moment when her face suddenly got radiant, suffused with joy. I teased her, “Irene, do you see Arnold right now? She did not take another breath.
I spent the next few days emptying her apartment – my Dad’s tuxedo and black tie, the beaded purses, the clocks and Royal Doultons, the bags of cashews and pecans, the funny hats and magic tricks, the hundred-thousand pictures of the grand children and great-grandchildren, and an almost full jar of Saunders Hot Fudge.
As for last words, my sister-in-law tells me she turned over once the day before and clearly said, “kishka.”
I don’t know anyone else like my mother. She was a presence in my life. I don't know if there will ever be a time when I don't think of calling her at least once a day "Good Night, Irene."
Anne went on to say that she saw my mother ascending to heaven, meeting my father and that they were both young and radiant as they were when they met.
Irene was just 16 and Arnold was 19. On their first date they went dancing on the boat to Bob-lo. Their song was “Harbor Lights.”
It’s hard to talk about my mother without talking about my father too. They were one of those inseparable couples. If my father went to a Lions Club meeting, my mother went along. Yet, they had absolutely separate domains.
My mother’s, as everyone knows, was the kitchen. My mother never met a recipe she didn’t think could be improved by adding a lb. of butter and a carton of sour cream. Her sucker cookies are famous. When she visited us in New York, she’d always bring with her a box of cookies carefully layered in wax paper and tin foil and usually a very large brisket, and a package of marrow bones for her pea soup. If you ever tasted her pea soup you know why she was a better cook than most Top Chefs.
My mother had a career – wife, mother, Bobe.
She took these responsibilities very seriously. When Michael, my son, was a small boy and I was a Single Mother trying to balance making a living with making a home, Mike suddenly spiked a fever. I needed to work in the morning. I called my mother.
This woman who had never traveled anywhere without my father -- took a plane from Detroit to La Guardia, a bus from the airport to Grand Central, found the train to Larchmont, and then a taxi to my house. Within hours she was standing on my doorstep, ringing my bell – naturally she brought cookies.
When I needed a car for my new job, my mother volunteered to bring one. This was long before cell phones. The idea was my father would drive their car and my mother would follow him to New York in a little gray Escort for me. Except my father pulled out of the drive and zoomed off and my mother, so she says, didn’t see “that meshugenah” again, until she parked behind him in my driveway.
Once my husband Jed and I were driving down to North Carolina at the same time that there was a hurricane on the Coast. We got a message from my mother on my cell phone, “Oy vey, Turn Back! Turn Back!”’
Two years ago I published a book. I ordered a copy for my mother. In one of those strange unexplainable flukes in life, the copy for my mother and the copy for my cousin Allee were printed incorrectly. None of the sentences made sense. I didn’t believe my mother when she told me this over the phone. “Okay, I humored her, mark the pages and send it back to me, I said. She did. She stayed up until 3:30 in the morning and hand wrote 88 little white slips of paper meticulously detailing errors she had found. I wish I had saved them.
When I visited my mother in the hospital a few weeks before she died, I asked her what she was was proudest of in her life. She answered “My 3 children. The lives they lead.”
“I had a good life with Daddy,” she added. “We never had much money, but we did a lot. We traveled, we had good friends.”
On Sunday, February 13, Jed and I flew in to see my mother. The next day was Valentine’s Day, my father’s birthday. I was terrified. I thought if she could choose, she would want to pass that day so she could be with him. We arrived about 2:00. My mother was already on a morphine drip. I’ve been told even though someone isn’t responding they can still hear you. I held my mother and told her how much I loved her and what a good mother she had been. I got to sing “Good Night, Irene” to her. Her face was slack. She had been breathing erratically for about 25 minutes. At about 4:00 pm, there was a moment when her face suddenly got radiant, suffused with joy. I teased her, “Irene, do you see Arnold right now? She did not take another breath.
I spent the next few days emptying her apartment – my Dad’s tuxedo and black tie, the beaded purses, the clocks and Royal Doultons, the bags of cashews and pecans, the funny hats and magic tricks, the hundred-thousand pictures of the grand children and great-grandchildren, and an almost full jar of Saunders Hot Fudge.
As for last words, my sister-in-law tells me she turned over once the day before and clearly said, “kishka.”
I don’t know anyone else like my mother. She was a presence in my life. I don't know if there will ever be a time when I don't think of calling her at least once a day "Good Night, Irene."
Thursday, February 10, 2011
My mother
My mother is dying. I cannot stop it. Have I asked her everything I want to know?
For example, why did she say I had to be home by an 11:30 pm curfew even though it meant I’d miss the last 1/2 hour of Gone With the Wind? (What happened? Did Scarlett and Rhett get back together again?)
And if you forget to put the chicken-in-the-pot in the refrigerator before you go to bed, is it still safe to eat in the morning?
First a little background: My mother was young when I was born. Only 21. Times were difficult then. She’d been very sick and I was a preemie and my Dad was away getting ready for the war.
(Does it matter if you put the cocoa powder or the warm milk in the cup first?)
(How many books of S & H green stamps did it take for our corn popper?)
Why didn’t we talk more?
What’s a bunion anyway? And why should I care if get one?
Did she do all the things she wanted to do? Is she afraid of death? Does she think my Dad is waiting for her in the beyond?
Soon both my mother and be father will be gone – along with all the knickknacks, the bags of cashews, and the Belefonte LP’s and the photos and magic tricks, and the dish drainer and candy dishes and the clocks, and the little kitchen table and the coat rack with hats and scarves -- all dispersed, like their ashes.
I stroke my mother’s hair. But, it is not my mother’s hair. My mother had black, black shiny black hair. But now this failing woman lying in the bed is strawberry blonde with large gray roots. She doesn’t even remember about Gone with the Wind.
“I never did that," she says, 'you’re making it up”. In truth, my mother, the one I remember from when I was a little girl, -- the look of her, the laugh, my mother with the mambo, cha cha hips -- started fading a long, long time ago -- and I have wondered where she’s gone for years.
Jed says, “It’s like trying to catch a piece of paper blowing away in the wind.”
That doesn’t make it hurt less.
For example, why did she say I had to be home by an 11:30 pm curfew even though it meant I’d miss the last 1/2 hour of Gone With the Wind? (What happened? Did Scarlett and Rhett get back together again?)
And if you forget to put the chicken-in-the-pot in the refrigerator before you go to bed, is it still safe to eat in the morning?
First a little background: My mother was young when I was born. Only 21. Times were difficult then. She’d been very sick and I was a preemie and my Dad was away getting ready for the war.
(Does it matter if you put the cocoa powder or the warm milk in the cup first?)
(How many books of S & H green stamps did it take for our corn popper?)
Why didn’t we talk more?
What’s a bunion anyway? And why should I care if get one?
Did she do all the things she wanted to do? Is she afraid of death? Does she think my Dad is waiting for her in the beyond?
Soon both my mother and be father will be gone – along with all the knickknacks, the bags of cashews, and the Belefonte LP’s and the photos and magic tricks, and the dish drainer and candy dishes and the clocks, and the little kitchen table and the coat rack with hats and scarves -- all dispersed, like their ashes.
I stroke my mother’s hair. But, it is not my mother’s hair. My mother had black, black shiny black hair. But now this failing woman lying in the bed is strawberry blonde with large gray roots. She doesn’t even remember about Gone with the Wind.
“I never did that," she says, 'you’re making it up”. In truth, my mother, the one I remember from when I was a little girl, -- the look of her, the laugh, my mother with the mambo, cha cha hips -- started fading a long, long time ago -- and I have wondered where she’s gone for years.
Jed says, “It’s like trying to catch a piece of paper blowing away in the wind.”
That doesn’t make it hurt less.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
My Body Talks Back
I want to tell you about my body. My body and I act like a long-time, unhappily married couple -- too tired, too entangled to get a divorce. What we have between us are mostly confrontations, complaints and painful incidents. There's rarely a moment of tranquility or appreciation. I have gripes: For example, there's a feeling in my chest like a garlic bagel is stuck.
Other times my body behaves like a petulant ex-lover who continues to send annoying e-mails long after the passion has passed -- tart remember-me's, like sinuses stuffed with Elmer's glue, or a food-trap in my molars that aggravates my gums.
The latest is my foot! My foot!
My left foot stepped down funny, collapsed on itself and fractured! "Notice me, notice me, notice me," the body says.
My left foot stepped down funny, collapsed on itself and fractured! "Notice me, notice me, notice me," the body says.
Okay, I get the picture.
Then, after a few days in a big black shoe boot and a noxious mood, I chanced upon a You Tube video that seemed to be talking to me.
It's a black and white undulating odalisque in graceful silhouette. The gist of the copy explains that as long as you're at war with your body you'll never have peace. I realized, "that's it!"
It's a black and white undulating odalisque in graceful silhouette. The gist of the copy explains that as long as you're at war with your body you'll never have peace. I realized, "that's it!"
These aren't isolated ailments that plague me. I'm at war with my whole body! A war with
more animosity than Palestine and Israel.
For instance, I want to lose weight. It spots FatWich chocolate brownie samples at Whole Foods market and swallows three.
"Just talk to your body," the video coos. "Ask it what it needs."
For instance, I want to lose weight. It spots FatWich chocolate brownie samples at Whole Foods market and swallows three.
"Just talk to your body," the video coos. "Ask it what it needs."
So yesterday I invited my body for a sit-down and tried not to complain about the size of my ass.
"So what do you want, body," I asked.
"You're always picking on me," my body said. "Pick, pick, pick. You pick my eyebrows. You bite your lip. You pull at your cuticles. You scratch. Can't you ever just leave me alone?"
I have to say I was taken aback! But, I also have to admit my body is right about the picking.
"And you never, never ever give me compliments! Or green leafy vegetables. You hate exercise!" My body was right about that too.
Me and my body! Decades of disappointment and hurt. Drab hair. Weak eyes. Biceps the texture of brioche. Besides all that, it's painful to look at my body and not be angry that it is no longer 19, perky and taut.
But then again my body has never betrayed me either, with anaphylactic shock, persistent dandruff, or gout. And just look at the amazing job I did with pregnancy -- it was an absolutely perfect delivery with no meds and little gas.
Body! If I can just beg forgiveness and start again. I'll buy a WII. We'll go back to yoga.
Body! If I can just beg forgiveness and start again. I'll buy a WII. We'll go back to yoga.
Maybe, oh maybe I can make it up to my body, my dear old, lifelong friend.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Cockroach in my iced coffee.
Despite a rich travel history in second-rate motels and third-world countries, I cannot get used to four, six or eight-legged creatures of any genus in my drinks. This aversion also includes larvae or worms with indeterminate appendages that occasionally show up in bottles of tequilla. But, in this instance, the culprit was a city slicker known to many New Yorkers, the common cockroach.
Now that most of my travel is closer to home than in the reckless days of my youth, you'd think that I would not have to be as vigilant as in times past. And perhaps the thought that I can drink the water or eat the lettuce was a naive expectation in today's world. Still, I was shocked, yes shocked at what transpired the other morning.
I stopped in my favorite coffee shop in town. I often eat here. In fact, I am a regular, with all rights and priviliges, such as extra straws and napkins, welcome by first name, and so on. I purchased what I always order on sultry summer days -- "a large iced decaf with milk to go."
Now this is one of my great. great pleasures. Not just because I enjoy the icy coldness in my hand and th rich milky-coffee taste in my mouth. Not just because after two or three years, practically everyone behind the counter almost always remembers me and that I don't take sweetener. Or, even that here I can afford to truly be a sport and leave an extra large .35 cent tip -- sometimes more! It just is! For no reason! So when one of these peak moments in life, particularly one that is repeatable is torn away, it hurts! It does!
Here's what happened. I took my coffee and my "New York Times" and caught the 7:13 am train to Grand Central Terminal. I found a seat and curled up next to the window. The person next to me was absorbed in their "Wall Street Journal." While I slowly, contentedly read my paper and sipped my coffee, looking up just once, to flash my ticket at the conductor.
As the train pulled into the station, I tipped the glass up and slurped the last bit of liquid out of the ice. That is when I saw it -- a dark mass -- clearly not an ice cube -- not my imagination -- and not on the outside of the glass!
I had drank the entire iced coffee with the creature swimming in the liquid.
There are no words to console me. It happened. I cannot pretend it didn't. Has it permanently changed me? Yes, somehow it has. Something untoward has soiled my palate. All the gold-wrapped Godiva chocolate in the world can't erase that fact. Maybe sometime in the future I will be a regular somewhere else again. If I can only trust.
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