Splat

According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, the definition of the word "splat" is this:

a single flat thin often ornamental member of a back of a chair

(First known use 1833)

Which begs the question why the word is used colloquially as a sound effect, given that onomatopoeia doesn't apply. There are no sibilants or alveolars in a plop.

Still, when it comes to this whole "thirty (30) blog posts in thirty (30) days" thing, I seem to have fallen splat by day five. Which apparently means like the back of a chair.

Deeper Than Skin

Day Four of my pledge. I might be at spill-my-guts part of the process, or I could just be flailing for a topic. In either case, I'm about to divulge a secret.

Hush, my darling child. This doesn't count as clickbait because Auntie is sneakily manipulating you into not clicking away.

Over the last few days, a couple of people have very kindly complimented my complexion. I'm going to tell you a story about age and wisdom and only incidentally, beauty. The beauty isn't mine so I can use that word without vanity.

Once upon a time, I read an interview with Elizabeth Taylor. (The aforementioned and unarguable beauty.) In it, she said that she only uses inexpensive hand lotion on her face. She didn't buy into the hoopla surrounding fancy creams and whatnot.

If anyone could speak to the care and feeding of loveliness, it was Ms. Taylor. You'd think I'd have believed her.

But then I'd be writing about something else.

Ha! I thought at the time. She's taking the piss at best or at worst, being disingenuous. Back then, conventional wisdom required make-up remover, a creamy liquid wash, then tonic, then creme for the eyes which was different from the lotion on the rest of the face and a distinctive chant based on the phase of the moon.

I may not be kidding about that last bit.

Fast forward thirty+ years.

Here is the secret I promised you: In my dotage, I wash makeup off with soap and water. If I use moisturizer at all, it's because I put too much on my hands and rubbed it on my face. Oh, I still have a few pots and jars of the real stuff, but I lack the motivation to bother with it.

And I still get the occasional compliment.

There's a lesson in there.

When I look in the mirror, I see Mary Wickes, and not in her younger days either. It's not about skin or hair, it's just a vibe. But when I was young and attractive and bothered with all the fuss-ery, I still thought I looked like a young Mary Wickes. The creams and chanting didn't make a difference then and they don't make a difference now.

What does make a difference is time.

I may see wattles and bags, but I also see contentment. I'm a happier person than I was. That matters.

Thus I finally understand what Ms. Taylor was talking about. Posh cremes won't make me pretty, any more than being pretty made me happy. I'd rather be happy.

Paperphilia

I love me some office supplies. Then again, who doesn't?

Okay, yeah, folks who jet ski over waterfalls or drool over a pair of $3,000 shoes probably don't get that same frisson when they see a new kind of Sharpie(tm) or Post-It(tm) but your Auntie isn't athletic nor do I care about fashion. You'd know that if you saw more of me than just my head on an avi.

Then again, if you know me IRL you're already snorting. Calm down. Mockery isn't nice.

Back to the good stuff.

I needed a new steno pad. It never occurred to me that a steno pad is obsolete in these digital days. Why should it? You millenials embraced music on vinyl and black and white film, why not archaic forms of paper?

But as I wandered through the cavernous labyrinth of pens and Scotch(tm) tape and envelopes oh my and goggled at the glorious abundance of goodies -- to the point where I actually exclaimed out loud "I want ALL the paper!" because it was true -- doubt crept in.

There was a smorgasbord of spiral pads. Some were covered in glitter, some had sports imagery, others in colors not found on the RGB color chart...

...but they all had the wire on the left.

The few which opened from the top were tiny. Useful, sure, but not what I wanted today.

Had the steno pad gone the way of your favorite treat at Trader Joe's?

(For those of you who don't have a Trader Joe's, they always stop making something once you realize how yummy it is. Every. Single. Time. Trust me, it's a thing.)

To cut the suspense, I finally found the steno pads. Well, I found one. The last one.

There's a bit in Hitchhiker's Guide which goes: "It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'" (Douglas Adams, copyright 1979)

Well, that's about where I found the empty bit of shelf with a lonely surviving steno pad in the shadow of the back. Near the ground, at the farthest point of the enormous office supply store, under last year's day planners.

It's mine now, if you want to know what it looks like.

The Stepford Zoom

We went to the zoo this morning. Shut up. It's better cardio than a treadmill and I have to start somewhere.

There's a strange kind of warfare just outside the LA Zoo entrance at opening time. Hordes of expensively-dressed women in their 20s and 30s wage vicious battle. Their weapon of choice: a baby stroller.

Seriously.

They all wear ultra fancy-shmancy workout togs. They all look angry, and they all push baby strollers.

(Usually the strollers are carrying a child well old enough to walk on its own, who should probably be in school on a Thursday. Very few actually contain babies. But I digress.)

The first thing that happens before you even get to the gate is that the soldiers jockey for position. They don't run, that would be obvious. Instead they all use the same ersatz nonchalant speed-walk combined with a virtuoso sideways shove of the stroller to edge ahead of the competition.

It's the uniformity that gets me. When I say "they all" it's because there are dozens of them and they really do all wear the same kind of pricey workout clothes and move the same way and have the same facial expression. This happens whenever we go, and it's not the same ones either. A fresh batch comes out of the factory every time.

One practically knocked me down this morning, but dammit, she achieved her goal. Good for her. We conceded our position. She got in ahead of us. She won.

Next, they go to Part Two of the battle plan. After racing to get through the gate first as if there's a prize waiting, BAM!

Once inside, they spread out and slow down. What was pushing is now blockage.

(Make your own colon joke. I'm nearly done and can't bother.)

We had to dodge and jink and weave to get past the gaggles of twos and threes and the occasional one with a phone, who position themselves with diabolical precision to stop anyone else from actually moving in a forward direction.

Still, I suppose they're attractive enough. Take note, if you're ISO something like that.

No Mo No No

Well, my darlings, it's November again. That means another National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is upon us.

Auntie isn't doing it. Nope, non, no way. It was enough to search this blog for previous mentions of my past attempts and slog through the verbal sludge.

(Okay, one of them was pretty entertaining, but for the most part it was a lot of "I'm doing this now!" followed by "I'm not doing this anymore!")

The last one was four years ago. Granted, I've spent most of the subsequent time on Quora rather than writing this blog, but I'm as vain as the next person so that makes sense. No one reads blogs and I get twice as many views on Quora in a week as this blog has gotten in nine years, if I do say so myself.

Be that as it may.

Enough people close to me have committed to giving Nanowrimo its annual go that I want to do something to show solidarity. Auntie had a corker of an idea.

My commitment for this November, the November of 2017, is to post something on this blog every day. It may not be much. Hell, I may just flip the pages of my big paper dictionary and type out a random definition, but I promise to try to put something on here.

On my mark, I'm set, let's do it --

Thus endeth the first post.

Happy Birthday To Whom?

They meant well. Of course they did, they’re nice people. Besides, it’s their job. But the only way I got through last night’s debacle was by telling myself what a great anecdote it would make.

Here it is:

My elderly mother is now in Assisted Living. Fabulous place, we both love it. The people are great. I can’t stress that enough. They’re wonderful. But sometimes, I question their judgment.

For one thing, they occasionally try to enforce fun. Last night was the monthly obligatory birthday dinner. Everyone with a birthday in that month is allowed one guest. This month, that included my mother (and, by invitation, me). They (we) all have to sit at a special long table. There are balloons. There is cake.

Sounds great, right?

Except that it was a long table against a wall and the people use walkers. Try getting between someone who can’t maneuver and a wall to reach your assigned chair. (Oh yeah, you don’t get to sit wherever you want. They decide.) That was fun.

Once I managed to get my butt down, I tried to make polite dinner party conversation with the nice lady on my right. That was a bit of a disaster. As soon as Emily Post would have, had she been alive and in my seat, I turned with some relief to my mother on my left. She was trying to make conversation with a tiny lady with a mischievous smile who was wrapped in a turtleneck and thick jacket. On the hottest day of the year so far. I had sweated off my makeup before I even got there.

Turns out Jacket-lady can’t speak. For discretionary purposes, I won’t describe what happened when she ate. That would be jumping too far ahead anyhow. There was no food for an hour and twenty-five minutes.

A huge, beautifully decorated cake was brought out. We waited ten or fifteen minutes for a handful of non-uniformed employees to be summoned. Happy Birthday Dear Resident was sung. Meanwhile, we watched uniformed wait staff serve meals to everyone else in the communal dining room.

Then the plot twisted. Two more birthday people showed up who weren’t on the list and hadn’t reserved seats! The long table was full, the song had been sung, and the cake had been rolled away.

Another table was shoved over, quickly and efficiently. A cautious young waiter took drink orders and brought soup. Every grandma at the table held her breath as the bowls rattled in his careful but nervous hands. Think of an ant under a magnifying glass. He was a champion. I wanted to applaud or hug him. (I did neither.)

By this time, we’ve been sitting there for about 45 minutes. Everyone else in the room was eating. Many had finished.

The others at the table had all lived there for years. The conversation centered on how it used to be in ye goode olde days, with champagne and special food for the birthday people instead of the same ordinary menu everyone else got. The nice lady across from me has memory issues, so we had this exact same conversation on about a seven minute loop, with increasing emphasis, whenever she looked down at the menu in front of her.

Eventually, the overwhelmed young waiter took food orders with the helpful guidance of the elegant and charming new Dining Room Manager who really ought to work somewhere with a galaxy of Michelin stars and a high Eater.com rating. My vegetarianism was generously accommodated. Like I said, I love these people.

The cake came back out. By this time, pretty much everyone else in the room was done. They all got slices of cake. It was a really big cake.

It’s now been an hour and twenty minutes. The non-food service employees have all gone home. The room slowly emptied. My truculent neighbor on the right got up, squeezed unsteadily past the late arrivals, grabbed her walker and left. I think she was convinced that she’d already eaten.

A woman across from me had gone through an entire oxygen tank and had to switch to her emergency back-up one.

Eventually, the food arrived. Except for my garden burger, it was the exact same food everyone else had gotten. There was more discussion about that. There was also a mix-up because one of the ladies had been sitting for so long she’d forgotten what she’d asked for and took someone else’s entrée. A fresh one had to be ordered. You can imagine how well that went over.

Jacket-lady was wheeled away. The process of getting her back into a wheelchair involved three people (two worked there, one lady at the table tried to be helpful but got in the way) and an equal dollop of tragedy and comedy. Even when she stiffened her body like a little surfboard to avoid the wheelchair, Jacket-lady smiled that same sweet, twinkly smile.

The remainder of the cake was wheeled back out. One of the late arrivals insisted on being sung to. Repeatedly. Since the employee choir had long gone, the Manager did a solo. In Italian. In an operatic baritone. (I kid you not. He was amazing.) On further request, he even brought out champagne and sparkling cider for the handful of remaining celebrants. I had cider. It was good.

After we left, my mother apologized for having invited me. I assured her that it was much better this way. Now, it’s a story.

Lock, Lock and One Mocking Carole*

One night late last year, a car plowed into the side door of our favorite morning coffee place. Insurance companies being what they are, the door isn't fixed yet. The yellow hazard tape is down but the "Please use other door" note is still taped up. That's the important point. There is a sign.

The nice lady kept trying the door. It won't open, but she kept trying. The server explained and pointed to the working door, through which the nice lady had entered in the first place.

She kept staring at the locked door. The one with the sign on it.

She tried it again.

That's what got me. She tried it after someone explained it was locked. After the sign was pointed out. After she had tried it half a dozen times.

It's the impulse to press the already lit elevator button, to think that those five other pedestrians didn't activate the walk signal. It's the "Here, let me try" phenomenon.

What do you think, neurosis or The Little Engine That Could? I'm waffling. No, smarty-pants, I didn't have waffles this morning. I only had coffee. This is philosophical or psychological or something like that.

Do we do it out of a conviction that we can make a difference, or to make sure that it was done properly, or to fill the waiting time with something to do, or what? Because we've all done it.

Except that once, I didn't. And that one time was also this morning, hence the repetition of the word "lock" in the title of this post.

Also this morning, the deadbolt on our front door broke. The door won't open. Robert tried the latch on the inside and the key on the outside. I phoned the nice man who installed it, and he said he'll come over next week, but the thing is that Robert suggested I try it and I demurred on the grounds that he already did.

That was before I saw the nice lady in the coffee place persist in attacking her locked door. That's why she became symbolic, why I started thinking, and why I'm putting up (what is now a very rare) blog post about it.

What was it that caused me not to do that thing we all do? Oh, it was probably an urgent need for that first cup of coffee, but maybe not. Maybe I've gotten a little more wisdom than I thought I had. Maybe I've reached a point where I can accept the world for what it is.

Then again, after we got home but before I called the door guy, I did try it myself. So never mind.

(*Read it to the tune of "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels". Well, it cracked me up anyhow)