Thank you so very much

1.       Bushy eyebrows are back in.

Thank God.  Or just thanks.  Or gee whiz!  No more tweezing! 

When I heard that news, I wasted no time tossing the hot wax.  Going back to my Brooke Shields!

Even though I have only a few faded eyebrow hairs left, I do appreciate that piece of retro styling.

2.      Now, let’s see…parsnips!  Gotta love parsnips:  Parsnip fries.  Mashed parsnips.  Can’t forget parsnip-carrot salad.  Mm mm!  Yummy!  Makes life worth living!

OK, full disclosure:  I’ve never eaten a parsnip.  Not sure I’d knowingly seen one until today – this picture.

 

Parsnips look like albino carrots.  Just realizing in this moment that parsnip-carrot salad would be a sort of orange and white affair made by shredding the fraternal twins of the root vegetable world.

Man oh man!

3.      And what’s this?!  A filtered water pitcher that’s nice enough to put on the table?  How long have we waited for just such a breakthrough?!

Shatter proof glass.  Coconut and silk filters.  And only $59.  Wow. 

Up until now, I’ve been pouring tap water into drinking glasses, never even dreaming of the possibility.  We live in an amazing world.

OK.  So.  That’s it.  Those are my entries into my gratitude journal today.  I have to give credit to Oprah for helping me out with this.  I took those items directly from her magazine’s latest edition – an article entitled “25 Unexpected Things to be Grateful for Right Now.”  Really.

See, I’ve been living gratefully for quite a while now and I had begun to have trouble keeping up the pace.   I had a lot of repeats – wonderful husband, great kid, blue skies, raindrops, blah ditty blah blah blah.

Years ago, on the advice of Reader’sDigest, I made notes on a calendar each time something happened that lifted my spirits or made me smile.  The idea was to fill the days up and then, when a bad day came, I could flip to that date on my gratitude calendar and feel good again. 

I was a classroom teacher at the time, so it was easy.  Young people are like slot machines.  They pay out good feelings like cherries.

I kept that calendar for years, starting over each September.  I clipped school pictures to its pages – notes, even a packet of sugar – any token a student offered.  Soon, most weeks had two or three entries, so if I had a dismal January 10^th and found it empty in the calendar, I could just look at the 9^th or 11^th and read something sweet that a teenager had said to me.

It worked.  I always felt better.  Noting those tiny gestures kept me mindful of the beauty in my life.

These days I just look around myself and sing like Lois Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World!”

But lately, gratitude’s become mandatory.  Wherever you look, someone’s wagging a finger and admonishing appreciation.  You’ll sleep better.  It’s good for business.  Your breath will be fresher.

And I’m beginning to resist the whole gratitude thing. 

Just back off telling me to be thankful, OK?  I’m thankful already! 

How could expressions of appreciation have become annoying?  Yes, it’s a beautiful day.  Yes, yes, the sunrise, the sunset, the twilight, the moon.  Children playing.  Puppy’s breath. 

Yes, it’s all lovely – and you’re starting to tick me off. 

We are reaching just a bit, don’t you think?

I mean really:  The mandate.  The minutia.  Bushy eyebrows?  A filtered pitcher?  Parsnips for Pete’s sake!

Nowadays, you can be living your oblivious, thankful life and if you’d don’t maneuver fast enough someone on Facebook will challenge you to an Appreciation-Off whereby you must declare publicly five things a day you’re glad about.  Or else.

I’ll tell you what I’m glad about:  I’m glad no one has tagged me on that one because I might appreciate poking that person in the nose!

I know, I know.  It’s a good habit.  It’s worthwhile.  But how do you think curmudgeons are born?
 
Forced appreciation! 

Don’t try to make me grateful!  It takes away the impetus – the sincere up-welling of emotion in the face of beauty, or kindness, or generosity, or grace.


You can’t over water a plant.  And too much sunshine makes a desert.

Star struck blues

In my imaginary life when I encounter Jon Hamm in a crowd outside say, the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, I just smile and give him a coy little wave.  You know, the kind where you duck your head and waggle your fingers.

               
He waves back.  Smiling of course.  Glad that at least some of the public are composed and know how to act around celebrities.

When I’m flying First Class, which is never - except in my fantasy life, I wind up seated next to Oprah, the powerhouse, enormously influential mogul of an all-around high profile person.  But I’m cool.

When I’m seated next to her?  I do not ask for her autograph.  No.  Instead, I ask just the right question in precisely the right way.  Something like, “No really, how ARE you?” 

See?  See how that works?

She is drawn in, is Oprah.  She cannot resist my direct yet unassuming eye contact.  She’s relieved, actually, to not have to be ‘on.’  Here is someone, at last, she must be saying to herself, who is not so dumb struck as to be groveling. 

In our cross-country flight, somewhere over Oklahoma (poetic isn’t it?) she leans toward me and begins a sentence with, “I’ve never told anyone this, but…”

Oh yes.

I hold my own with the celebs.  A day’s work.  No.  Big.  Deal.

I saw Elvis once. 

I was nineteen, hanging around the gate to his mansion in Beverly Hills with a rumpled and torn “Map to the Stars’ Homes” in my hand.  (When I balked at the map’s $5.00 price tag, the sketchy character who sold it to me said he had a torn one he would let me have for $2.50.  Then he turned his back and ripped the corner.  It was a good deal.)

We did not have curvy roads like that in Tulsa, so it took my girlfriend and me a lot longer than we thought it would to weave our way up the hillside, gawking at Lucille Ball’s house and George Burns’ house – and the houses of other big name stars our parents knew and we cared about on their behalf.

We barely arrived when the gate began to swing open.  A black Cadillac El Dorado rushed forward and paused until the opening was just wide enough; then it swooshed in. 

We saw him behind the wheel.  He looked good.  Like Elvis.

I’m not sure how poised I would have been if he’d looked my way.  I hadn’t worked out a cool fantasy conversation in advance so on that inevitable occasion Elvis would see I was different from all the others.  Poor planning.

Not like with Jon Hamm or Oprah in my dreams.  Now I’m ready.


Ted Turner shook my hand once.  I was in a reception line at the Grand Ole Opry hotel in Nashville.  He was the keynote speaker at an event I attended with students I coached in debate.  It was a national tournament and they qualified, so we got to meet TT.

I was tired and hungry and my shiny new ‘attend-a-keynote-dinner-with-Ted Turner’ shoes had rubbed a flaming blister.  So, bedraggled and limping, I offered my hand with an apologetic smile, my moment less than I had hoped. 

I think I said, “I admire your work.”

Oh brother.
                                                              
He gave me a quizzical look and said thanks.  Doubtful he’s retelling the story. 

 I didn’t practice for Robin Williams either; even though it seemed possible I might run into him sometime.  After all, he lived close by.  Once, he even shopped for a vacation home up on the remote north coast right where my family hangs out.  So we had some anticipation.

From what I hear he was pretty easy to talk to.  No pretenses.  Gentle.  Normal-seeming in the moment.  

But not normal.

He was not a regular guy on this planet.  Maybe it was lonely for him in the face of all this ordinary life.

I wonder if he rehearsed his conversations, hoping to seem natural with his paper boy or the guy at the bicycle shop…the retired high school principal.

Too late now, of course, but I wish I could tell him he didn’t have to try so hard.  We really did love him anyway.

Tiptoe-ing through "O"

I've had it with Oprah. 

Mind you, I used to love her. 

I used to imagine sitting in one of those over-sized chairs on her set and explaining where I get the ideas for my columns. 

“Oh, they are everywhere!”  I’d say happily.  Then, in my wisdom, I’d add, “The personal is the universal.”  She’d nod knowingly to the audience – so true!

“Maybe I’ll write about this visit with you, Oprah, but the column would focus on a chia seed stuck in my teeth during our interview, not the obvious coolness of meeting you!”

She’d have to laugh and relax and think I’m just as cool in my own way.  Someone noteworthy.  My column would get the Oprah bump and I’d be on my way.

Occasionally I envisioned sitting next to her on an airplane.  This of course was back in my naïve days when I dreamed that I would fly First Class and that she would fly commercial.

In this fantasy, I wouldn’t be fawning or obsequious at all.  No.  I wouldn't even ask for her autograph.  We would be equal in conversation and at some point, maybe over the Grand Canyon, she would turn to me and say something like, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this about Stedman and me.  Gayle doesn’t even know this part of our relationship!”

Then, when the flight attendants began to prepare for landing, I’d ask one of them to take our picture.  Later, when I posted it on Facebook, you would see that she was leaning toward me.

But that’s all over.  Now she just makes me mad.

My imaginary friendship started to disintegrate when a friend gave me a subscription to Oprah’smagazine, “O.”  The first issue arrived this month and Oprah’s pretty much in my face with all her glossy billionaire-y exuberance.

All right – on the one hand, you still have to admire her accomplishments.  Recognize her altruism.

On the other hand it seems pretty clear that in this publication at least, she has lost her perspective.

At the table of contents she is already annoying us common folks!

For example, in the Featured section we find – “Shoes:  A Love Story.  The unabashedly shoe-obsessed Sarah Jessica Parker gives…a walking tour of her new line of fabulous footwear.”

So I went there.

Wow.  Look at all those shoes that NO ONE should wear.  Ever.  Even though they’re really cute and sexy and named after all the people who inspired Sarah but we don’t recognize because we’re not ‘in’ enough to know the greats by their first names and we live in the world where your heels have to make solid contact with the ground to create balance for your torso.

And look at all these pictures of Sarah putting stilettos on Gayle, or modeling stilettos with Gayle or debating with Gayle the merits of T-straps versus ankle straps.

Next issue?  Bank on it – Oprah will run an article about how to improve your posture and soothe your aching back.

The familiar cast of helpers is there, but even they seem too shiny to trust:  Dr. Phil is promoting his new interview show where “the revelations often become news!” 

And Dr. Oz looks suspiciously smooth-skinned and flaw-free.  Argh!

What’s this?  An article called “Why It’s Worth It,” explaining how to rationalize the $950 expense of a charm bracelet?!  You pro-rate it, of course! 

OK.  I have to admit this is a strategy I employ to justify my splurges.  I guess I’m just mad because I can never really splurge like Oprah splurges. 

Darn it!  Oprah’s no longer a woman of the people.  This stuff in not relatable!

But wait!  Here’s an article that I can connect to:  “Cloudy…with a Chance of Rage?”  Yeah.  That sounds like me!  I could use a quick fix for my grumpy disposition.

And this is nice:  My crankiness has its own name:  Angry Woman Syndrome. 

Maybe she knows me after all!   

And the solutions to AWS?  Why the old tried and true:  walk it off, take 10 deep breaths, and “focus on the positive to prevent ‘ragey’ feelings from taking hold.”

I’ll have to pick my way through “O” to do that.

And I may not smack her after all.

Grandma Wanted: Discerning Eye Required

No doubt motivated by people watching at the mall, an organization called Diet Life polled 2000 women asking the appropriate ages to quit wearing certain fashions.

Here’s a sample of their findings:

Quit wearing your miniskirts at 35, your bikini at 47 and your stilettos at 57.

OK. This isn’t a problem for me since I gave that stuff up long ago. All of it. Probably at 35, even though I still looked good, if I do say so myself. Thirty-five was a peak year for me. Gosh that was a long time ago! Darn it!

Editors from US fashion magazines Allure and More (geared to women over 40) stepped up immediately to voice their opinions on the subject. They say that these decisions are not about age, but about judgment. “Just look in the mirror,” they say. If you look good, wear it!

They point to Helen Mirren as an example, saying in her sixties she still rocks a plunging neckline and a bikini. Couldn’t agree more.

However, they gloss right over pronounced examples at the other end of the fashion faux pas spectrum. To wit: Cher, who used to rock it, but now dwells in the realm of caricature. And I’ll bet she has many mirrors in her many mansions. Susan Sarandon’s tired cleavage must be reflected somewhere; but she’s not looking.

While many celebs continue to look great well past the magic ages of 35, 40, 50, and even 60, we cannot let them be our rules of thumb. They and their plastic surgeons are not trustworthy.

And frankly, we can’t trust ourselves! Some of us just can’t accept what the mirror tells us. The human brain is a magnificent mechanism of mendacity. It can blot out trauma, even the trauma of sagging, bagging, bulging, and crinkling.

As you know, anorexics continue to see themselves as fat even as they waste away before their own eyes. Some of the rest of us manifest reverse anorexia: We continue to think we look slim even when the mirror says, “Not so much.”

I remember the first time I went to Weight Watchers (to be supportive of my friend who needed to go --- she invited me! Go figure.). When I weighed in, I blurted, “Are these scales correct?!” I didn’t believe the scales at Weight Watchers! That’s how far denial can go in the so-needing-it-not-to-be-true mind.

And so, if we’re not going to pick an arbitrary age to make the crucial determination as to whether it’s appropriate for us to wear a ponytail (cutoff age – 51!), and we can’t trust Hollywood or our own judgment; what about fashion designers themselves? They’ll look out for us, right?

Oops. Look no further than Princess Beatrice’s chapeau at the Royal Wedding. Designer Phillip Tracey said beauty and elegance inspired him when he made it.

Oh well.

We’re going to need a blunt and honest “friend.” We need someone who will look at our reflection for us and tell it like it is.

I remember years ago when Tina Turner appeared on the Oprah show. Tina looked good. She might have been 60 already, but hard body and wild hair --- we all wanted to go there. And Oprah did. She bought a Tina Turner wig and began to wear it on the show and around town in Chicago. I thought she looked great.

But soon Oprah returned to her show sporting her familiar coif. She confessed to a conversation she had about the wig with Stedman in which he asked, “Doesn’t anyone tell you the truth?”

So where can we find our own personal Stedman? I’ll have to hire one. My husband loves me just the way I am. Either that or he’s too smart to tell me what he really thinks.
Too bad my grandma’s gone. She would do it. And from her, I could take it.

I can see her now, filtered cigarette between manicured fingers, right eye squinting as she inhales, sizing me up in my new summer dress.

“That dress isn’t doing you any favors, Honey.”

That’s all it would take. I don’t need the details. Or Allure magazine, or Diet Life, or Entertainment Tonight.

I just need my grandma to state the facts without the varnish to keep me on the real side of “young at heart.”

There’s an opportunity here for grandmas with entrepreneurial spirit. Lots of us Baby Boomers need help with our reflections.

Come on Grannies! Step up! Get paid to save us from ourselves!

Buy Underwear! Eat Dessert!

Did you know when you buy new underwear, you’ve signaled Wall Street to boom? Oh yes. Heard it on the Today Show. Financial analysts report that our economy is showing signs of recovery. What are those signs, you ask? Leading indicator: Surges in sales of new underthings!

According to this theory, when things get tight (beg your pardon for the pun) we tend to hold onto our shabby undies. As economic conditions improve, we replace the grayed and stringy in favor of pastel and springy.

In a troubling side note, this also seems to indicate that economists know the state of our lingerie. Somewhat creepy. But what can you do? It’s like pretending that all your personal information is secure on the internet. It’s not. They already know. But ragged BVD’s linked to a sagging GDP? Really?

Guess what’s another leading indicator of an economic upswing? Dessert consumption! I am all over this one! Matt and Meredith said it this week: Eating dessert after a meal in a restaurant is evidence of consumer confidence. Appetizers too! Following the Undergarment Theory of Economic Cycles, the ingestion of these delightful, but superfluous luxuries reflects optimism, which in turn harkens to the economic rebound we’re seeking. And for the first time since 2009, dessert intake is expanding. It follows logically, so say the analysts, that our economy is expanding too. Not to mention our waistlines and the accompanying elasticity of our underwear. But I digress.

Hallelujah and hooray! At last, something I can do to help. Underwear, appetizers and dessert! It’s been such a long time. I am energized just knowing the powerful impact of these three small but profound contributions! Having new underwear is almost as much fun as having new shoes. Appetizers and desserts? You know you’re living the life!

Finally, in a downward economic trend, tee times wane. We don’t play enough golf. I’m certainly guilty on this count. I can’t remember the last time I skulled one into a water hazard. Actually, I can. So can the poor coot that was in my line of fire. Rolled over like a foundering sailboat. (Coots' feet are green!) But now, duffers from Walla Walla to Washington D.C. are teeing up again, and the economy senses it.

Observe the multi-tasker among us, heralding a healthy economy: Nibbling nachos as she waits for her tee time. She hits a bucket of balls in her brand new Fruit of the Looms. After nine holes, in the clubhouse, she chooses not beer, but cherry cobbler. A la mode, of course. Done and done.

Hey…wait a minute. Could it be the other way around? Could it be we can control the economy with our attitudes toward, and purchases of, underwear? If we detect a dip in the market, can we create a turnaround by ordering jalapeno poppers or tiramisu? I think we could be onto something here. To paraphrase a great motivator: The only things we have to fear are stretched-out elastic, calorie counting, and divots on the fairway…I’ll work on that.

And by the by, why didn’t they tell us this stuff months ago? We could have staged a nationwide campaign to boost the economy out of the doldrums. I can see it now. Picketers with posters chanting at the entrances to Chili’s and Outback. “Eat your cake! Eat your cake!” Emotions kick up quickly in these scenarios: “Un-American” scrawled across the door to Jenny Craig’s.

Schoolchildren add to their list of responsibilities for good citizenship: Vote; pay your taxes; and wear fresh new underwear! Of course they’ll eat their desserts – right after a round of Putt Putt.

We’d have public service announcements on prime time TV: Who would be our spokesperson? Steven Colbert? No. Paula Deen? No! Oprah Winfrey herself exhorting earnestly from the fairway, “Uncle Sam needs you to keep our country strong. Do your part. Have chips and guacamole tonight.”

Power to the People! For the good of the country: Eat! Play! Buy new skivvies!

I’m going to write a screenplay and see if Julia Roberts will sign for the lead.