Tag Archives: family life

Fridge needs a light bulb, and Mama needs to wear that new pair of dancin’ shoes….

7 Jun

(With apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If you give a foot an injection, you might need a new recycling drawer to go with it…

So I had my day planned to include a highly anticipated elliptical workout (my “dry swim” as I refer to it — same body movements, no hair drama). Highly anticipated because between a wonky left hip and a janky right foot lately, my usual workouts are a bit painful. Ellipting and swimming are serving the purpose of pain-free cardio lately — and they are definitely less convenient than strapping on tennis shoes and going for a walk or doing a quick neighborhood stairs workout.

It’s been extremely busy the past month or so, lots of doc appts for me and my 89 year old mother, as well as pleasurable wedding related errands, and I only seem to have those one-hour slips of time in which to maintain my fitness. That’s important because I’ve already had my Mother of the Groom dress altered and the wedding is less than a month away. Weight maintenance is the key to a worry free day for this MOG.

Anyhow, as I was starting to say, I had planned to go to the foot doc, tell him the laser treatments had not helped the janky-ness in the least (might as well have been pointing a flashlight at my foot, honestly, and I would keep the $60 a visit), and then, I would head to the gym to ellipt whilst reading the later chapters of the incredible book, Perfect Eloquence, about Vin Scully. There’s even a special type of elliptical machine that has the correct distance for reading (not sure why my gym has three different brands of that machine, but only one works for my reading needs).

Oh, plans! They are so adorable.

So, in a moment of weakness, I acquiesce to podiatrist’s suggestion of a cortisone injection in the foot. I said I wasn’t ever going to get one again, since the last two times I did (once in my arthritic hip, once in my frozen shoulder), I ended up with a period. Yes. Both times. 6 years apart. The menstrual kind, despite at the time being about 12 years post menopause. (Apparently the cortisone can interfere with the progesterone in my hormone replacement regimen, and lets the estrogen run wild. Hence, a 50-plus woman had to go buy “feminine products.” Sigh. (And don’t start with the risks about hormone replacement, ok? I have read, researched and sought expert advice. Bottom line, most of the early studies about hormone replacement were performed on women who had already been through menopause. Yep, side effects included increased risk of cancers. BUT, when women start hormone replacement DURING menopause or peri menopause, the side effects go in the opposite direction — less risk of those cancers (and obviously if you can’t take estrogen because you have that kind of breast cancer or that gene, this would not apply to you). Like those pharmaceutical ads recommend, talk to your physician, but you’d be wise not to come and take away my estrogen patches. That saying, pull back a bloody stub? You get the idea.)

Anyway, I decide that maybe since my foot is really far (like 32 inches at least) from my ovaries, maybe I’ll get lucky. Or maybe if it happens, it’ll be quick. And maybe it’ll be worth it so that I can dance at my son’s wedding in shoes other than Berk’s or Hokas. Right?

So, he says after pulling that long-ass needle out of my foot, skip the workout today. No ellipting. Not even swimming. Just usual movement of the foot (going to the grocery store is ok. DANG). I resign myself to doing the weekend market run, getting gas in my car and rolling through the car wash, and doing a few things around the house.

If you’re my husband reading this, you just got a cold chill. Cindy, around the house, with time on her hands….He’s praying for intervention from the Holy Spirit right now.

So, as I’m putting away the groceries, I remember that the fridge light went out two days ago. I am fairly handy. Shouldn’t be too hard. Right? I looked in our stash of bulbs, and we even had the right voltage and wattage of halogen bulbs suggested in the manual!

So, foreshadowing here, I couldn’t even find where the bulbs were in the fridge. I found the diagram in owner’s manual, and reading that section, realized it was a little more complicated than you might imagine. I think there’s a joke in here: How many post-menopausal women on hormone replacement does it take to change a lightbulb?

So the diagram isn’t great (I’ve seen better from amazon furniture instructions), and I go looking for a video on YouTube, but can’t find one for our model of GE Monogram. So I pull out the very heavy veggie bin — fully loaded with the bounty I just purchased – and on hands and knees, I locate the hidden light bulb compartment.

I pull here and press there and partially reveal the recessed hold where the lights live. (Backtracking, I double check again that I have turned off the main power switch to the lights, as warned in the booklet). I put the tips of my fingers (all I can reach on the first try) and feel the lens of the halogen bulbs. They are tiny. Much smaller than the ones we have on hand. A secondary check of the manual: correct watt and volt, but wrong “type.”

Can we all just remember when light bulbs were light bulbs? You could actually see them in your fridge. When they went out, you went to the local grocery store and picked up a replacement in the hardware aisle. Do they still have hardware aisles in the market? No one knows. We all order from amazon.

Which is what I just did.

But as I was noodling the wisdom of changing it myself (because Joe can’t help — his hands would never fit back there) I wondered if it’s worth a service call to our local appliance repair guys to come and change the bulbs out (because I don’t care if these are supposed to last a lifetime, when we change one, we’re changing them all!)

**And then I think, you know, it’d be silly to have them come for that one thing.** We’ve been meaning to replace our non-functioning trash compactor with a slide open trash/recycling drawer for awhile now. How about I pull the trigger on that purchase, and they can change the bulbs when they come to install it?

Which in hindsight, doesn’t make sense because honestly, I want lights in my fridge sooner than I can get a new appliance installed.

But anyway, I called our peeps at South Bay Appliance and ordered the trash situation, and then he said the light bulb situation would be handled by service. And he transferred me, and as is always the case when people are really good at what they do, they were so busy that my call went into the endless loop of we’ll-be-with-you-in-a-minute recording, and that’s when I hung up and thought, I’ll call back later, and, well, maybe an electrician can do it. We’ve been meaning to change out the burnt out socket at the top of the stairs (I swear, it’s not the bulb — we still know how to do that — the whole thing stopped working) and I think, as long as they’re here, maybe we should buy those new pendant lights, because ours have NEVER worked (apparently the installer didn’t put enough voltage or wattage for that type of light and an electrician said we’d need to get different pendant lights with lower wattage or voltage or so something). **Someone check on Joe, please.**

So, I go on the Lamps Plus website, and they, like Macy’s, just happen to always be having the best sale of the year (I don’t think the word “best” means the same to all of us). Anyway, before I start in with another purchase, perhaps Joe’s prayers come through in some supernatural timeless way (before he actually knows to pray them), and I pause. I decide I’ll wait until the fridge bulbs arrive tomorrow and give it another try, with my hubby in the house to offer encouragement, to call 911 or to agree that this is above our skill set.

So, a thousand dollars poorer (purchase/shipping/tax/install) for the new trash situation that will be arriving sometime around the wedding – because of course it will. And still, I have a dark fridge.

And still have a foot that’s janky, with hopes of being less janky in the set of tomorrows to come.

And really hoping my progesterone holds out, but just in case it doesn’t, there’s red wine and dark chocolate in the house. **Pray for Joe.***

Thanks for listening.

Cindy

**This is the part that really is freaking Joe out right about now

The compactor is jankier than my foot
The janky foot and the shoes I hope I don’t have to wear to my son’s wedding. Also, remind me to tell you about going to get a pedicure at a new place yesterday and the police were involved! Nice pedi, tho!

Clear as mud

Very dark in there

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Hockey and the Here and Now

20 Apr

It was loud. So loud. Ear-itching loud. The cheers, whoops, heavy metal music, screams, applause, a roar of a soundtrack filling the building, and increasing. A flurry of white towels, twirled in small circles with abandon, was juxtaposed against the black garb of every die-hard Kings fan.

As the tension of anticipation rose – along with the decibel level – I put my arms and my towel down for a moment and got still. I felt a vibration in my chest – so much bass. I looked at each of the men in my life – my husband of 22 years who lured me into this hockey fanaticism when we were dating, and my sons, 18 and 14, who had been attending Kings game faithfully since they were in utero. I smiled at the pure joy of hope, of expectation, of promise that was obvious in their screaming demeanors, their fists pumping the air wildly to “This Is LA.” Yes!

18,000 of us, hollering exultantly because the puck had not yet been dropped on this first home playoff game of the season. We could all celebrate this moment, the culmination of a grind-it-out fall and winter that qualified us for late April play.

I breathed it in, savoring every sound, every sight. The smell of my ice cold beer, the taste of it so perfect after my onion-laden hot dog. The cold blast of air from some unseen vent that had chilled us at every game since we began sitting in Section 218, Row 12, several years before.

This time next year, not one of us knows where we’ll be. Let’s be honest – we don’t even know IF we’ll be. Certainly we hold hope and expectation that our oldest will be away at the University of Texas-Austin navigating his way through his freshman year of college. We expect that our youngest will be moving forward through the challenge that the sophomore year of high school inevitably brings. We expect that we will all be able to successfully respond to the change in our family dynamic – that party of four becoming a party of three. That we’ll be alive, and healthy. But we don’t really know.

And that’s what makes living in the moment – one of those buzz phrases of our time – so important. It’s certainly not new. Jesus himself advised us not to worry about tomorrow for “tomorrow will worry about itself.”

He knew then that our tendency is to focus on the goal, the destination, and to worry about all the steps that lead there. And while we must do our share of planning if we are to be successful, prepared people (and not end up lost somewhere, either literally or figuratively), if we are to go to college, lose weight, remodel our homes, coordinate a fundraiser, even make a healthy, balanced dinner, we must look forward and plan.

But not at the expense of missing what’s happening right now. Today. This minute, this right now, that moment before the hockey game begins. While others shouted, “Drop the puck!” because they just wanted this game to get started, to get closer to that hoped-for outcome, I just wanted to languish in this anticipatory revelry a few more moments. Tears pushed at the edges of my eyeliner and I thanked God for these seconds, this slice of sheer joy that had risen up in the strangest of places – downtown LA in a sea of fluttering rally towels, with rabid fanatical hockey fans, and with the most precious people in my life. This is a blessing from God. This is the experience. Marinate in it. Experience it with every one of the senses. Rejoice. Be thankful. Soak it up. And I did.

If you follow hockey, you know how the rest of the night went. We got to scream hysterically in celebration of four unanswered goals – some coming so close together that we hadn’t finished cheering for the previous one– only to end up losing the game in overtime, 6-5. Oh, yes, quite the buzzkill. People will certainly talk about this game for years – how the Kings blew a four-goal lead and the San Jose Sharks were amazingly able to rally in this game after losing the previous game 4-0.

But I will never forget this night for what happened before the main event. I will always cherish, relish and reflect on that blessing of being right where I was, happy, safe, secure and profoundly thankful in experiencing the joy of hope and promise. Unlike a four-goal lead, no one can ever take that away from me.

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It’s Only Hair, Right?

24 Jan

It’s only hair, right?

Yesterday, in an act of independence, my 14 year old son went with two friends to SuperCuts for a trim of his golden locks. The boy has been blessed with beautiful, fine, straight hair. I marvel that he is my biological son, and yet I have coarse, thick, curly (with gel, frizzy without) dark hair. He has hair that on a girl would be Marcia Brady Hair (the hair I so coveted in my own teens). Today, or more accurately, yesterday, it would have been known as Justin Bieber hair.

He knew he was in trouble when his “stylist” grabbed clippers. Clippers for a trim?

“I just want a trim,” he reminded her.

“I know,” she said.

And then the buzz. Up that back of his nearly shoulder-length hair and his neck.

He panicked. Is she giving me one of those step-cut bowl cuts?

He sat in silent horror as she shaped a 1980s Joey Lawrence as a toddler mushroom cut.

So, he said, you’ve gotta go shorter up top (meaning, blend it so it’s not a bi-level haircut). She didn’t understand, and further mangled his diminishing locks.

Finally, knowing it was beyond repair, he told her to buzz it. Number 2, setting. All over.

Now, let me be clear: if he had wanted a buzz cut, I would not be blogging about this. We would all (except for a number of freshman girls, I imagine) be fine with it. But he didn’t want it. He wanted a frickin’ trim, stupid lady!

I could tell he was biting back some tears as he explained it to us. His two buddies (who got a bit luckier in the StupidCuts lottery) were kind and supportive.

My oldest son was furious about it (he shares my hair-itage). He went on a verbal rant.

I almost cried (I would have but too many people around, you know?) because it brought back so many horrible memories of my own bad haircuts. Let’s just say, Brunette Little Orphan Annie, and leave it at that, okay?

My husband, formerly of the long flowing locks crowd, and the genetic source for our son’s tresses, knew the indignity. “I’m going up there,” he said, grabbing his keys.

Well, the woman was “on break” when my hubby arrived demanding to know who cut the boy’s hair. He brought a school photo of my son to show them the pre-buzz splendor of the boys’ mane. They told him she’d be back in 10 minutes.

When he returned 15 minutes later, she was still conveniently not available. The manager, who I can only describe as a stubborn, prideful fool, defended the coif. “She ended up giving him three different haircuts,” she whined defensively, never offering so much as an “I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding,” much less showing any regret. She had obviously spoken with the stylist and prepared her lame rationale.

My husband, who lives and breathes graciousness and mercy in the best form of “the customer’s always right,” was incensed. He gave them what-for and verbally shook the dust off his sandals upon leaving.

How hard is it to say, “Sorry. We screwed up.” ? To offer the $16 back? Or offer a free cut (this would cost them nothing, since nary a strand of McHair will every pass through their wash basin again!). He knew she wasn’t to blame. What does an apology, offered on behalf of someone who’s hiding in the back, take away from the apologizer? NOTHING! And it goes so far in making the receiver feel a little better. Infuriating!

A few hours later, we all had a fine time verbally bashing this woman as we sat around the dinner table. And then my sweet, wonderful, kookie husband decided to show solidarity. He left the room for a few minutes and came back clean shaven.

I have known this man 25 years. Never seen his upper lip. And usually, not his chinny-chin-chin either.

All hilarity ensued, as my 18-year old was the first to notice. “What is happening to my family?” he exclaimed in mock horror, dramatically falling to his knees and burying his face in the couch.

“I can’t look at you!” exclaimed the newly bald one.

“I can’t stop looking at your upper lip!” I said, laughing.

“Maybe I’ll shave my legs,” said the 18-year-old.

“I’m getting a Brazilian tomorrow,” I said.

This stopped the laughter immediately.

“Too far, Mom,” someone yelled.

“Brazilian Blowout?” my husband offered.
I shrugged and we kept laughing, and settled in to an after dinner movie.

It’s only hair, right?

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