Good Riddance and Happy New Year

                    Gordon Studer

If you ask me, 2014 sucked. And not just for me personally, although I could certainly come up with a laundry list of crap I endured, starting with but not limited to several fractured ribs and extending to the misfortunes of friends and family who encountered financial ruin, random surgeries, minor strokes, cancer treatments, dead pets and general disheartenment.

Then too, things in the public sector went from bad to worse to abysmal, ending with throngs of protesters calling for "dead cops" and eventually getting some. Throw in a stalled Congress, an Ebola epidemic, wars everywhere, a rash of beheadings, a slew of dead celebrities and a couple of plane crashes, and that about sums up 2014.

So I am planning to "celebrate" the passing of this less than stellar year at home, quietly, with my husband and perhaps a glass of champagne. There might be a Scrabble game or even a few chocolate-chip cookies involved, we have yet to finalize our plans. At any rate, I am excited to wake up tomorrow to a brand new year, and one in which I will see things more clearly since I'm scheduled for cataract surgery in its very first month.

I'm hoping 2015 shines on all my friends, and that everyone who is sick gets better, that those who are broke win the lottery, and that Patsy and Tony get back to Maine this August.

My Drug of Choice

My newest.

I gave up cigarettes seven years ago. I don't do recreational drugs. Oh sure, I used to smoke pot, but those days are long gone and now it just makes me dizzy and sort of depressed. I am not a compulsive eater or bulimic or anorexic. I hate shopping and still have just the one pair of jeans with paint stains and thin knees that I bought right when I moved to Maine, and that was years ago. I don't drink, unless you count a glass of red wine with dinner. I do not gamble, I am not a sex addict, compulsive exerciser, workaholic or yoga freak. I am basically going it alone, except for one thing that is becoming a problem I can no longer ignore: I am a pursaholic.

I understood the enormity of this problem last Saturday afternoon, when my husband and I drove downtown to see a movie. We had about an hour to kill, and I realized with a thrill that the theater was just a few blocks away from a leather goods store filled with handbags from floor to ceiling. Feeling anxious for no good reason besides life itself, I checked my watch and saw that I could run in, get a quick fix, and still make the movie but feel happier and more relaxed about everything.

I ransacked the shelves, inspecting and then rejecting bags for any infraction: Bad color, too big, not big enough, too many pockets, sticky zipper, shoulder strap too long, shoulder strap too short, ugly lining, a passing fad, an ostentatious logo, too much hardware or just "not me." (Price is never a concern, it's just got to feel right.) I was beginning to panic, the clock was ticking, and then I saw it: Classic black, great leather, good label with no visible logo, on the small side but big enough, and tasteful. I began to breathe easier and noticed the buzzing in my ears beginning to subside. "This one is perfect!" I cried, showing it to Mitch. He grabbed it, paid, and we were back in the car in 15 minutes.

I was exhilarated. I changed from my old purse into my new purse in time to see the coming attractions and ate a lot less popcorn than I might have otherwise. When I got home I avoided the closet where all the other purses, each formerly perfect at one time, lay in a pile.

Dream Government Could Only be Better

Members of my dream cabinet cavort on the White House lawn.

I personally know so many smart, savvy, cool women, it's a wonder none of them are challenging that old gasbag Hillary Clinton for president. Maybe it's because none of them are politicians. And who could blame them; it's such a bad job, nobody in what could be called their "right mind" would want it. The loss of privacy, the constant criticism, the need to get dressed decently every day and leave your house no matter the weather, and lastly, the necessity of attending so many meetings with so many other people make the whole thing a nightmare, at least from where I sit at noon on a Sunday, still in my furry slippers. Maybe I'll go somewhere today, and maybe I won't. Depends.

That means the citizens are stuck with whoever goes for it, and that's a group of odd ducks for sure. Still one can dream, and I dream of the following people running our government. (All of them are comfortable in the limelight, and quite at home being hounded by the press and adored or hated by the public. One of them could be president and the rest could make up the cabinet; surely they would do as good a job as many we have endured so far.)

Tommy Lee Jones
Benjamin Netanyahu
Fred Thompson
Britt Hume
Juan Williams
Condi Rice
Rush Limbaugh
Meryl Streep
Denzel Washington
Mitt Romney
Neil Cavuto
Helen Mirren
Charles Krauthammer

It sure would make for a fun primary season. Just imagine those debates!

FILM REVIEW: "Foxcatcher"

Channing Tatum with his armpits and Steve Carell

I just saw a movie that made me hate wrestling even more than I hated wrestling before seeing it. I might have to say wrestling a few more times so you get the idea this movie is about wrestling, because I did not fully realize that beforehand and so was surprised that so much of the time I was watching beefy men in old-time bathing suits grappling and sweating on the floor. There is a lot of that. (There are no foxes, unless they meant it metaphorically.)

Besides the wrestling, Foxcatcher is mostly about a sick and twisted heir to a fortune. Based on a true story, it revolves around John DuPont, of the DuPonts, as in DuPont. At the time of the film (late 1980s) they were the richest family in America, although now that is likely not true and it might be the Kardashians. The usually comic Steve Carell has undone years of funniness by playing the lead, complete with bad teeth, a big nose and an odd gait reminiscent of the zombies in the graveyard dance in Michael Jackson's Thriller. (And by the way, Michael Jackson was Mr. Normal compared to this DuPont guy.)

The protagonist, Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), is apparently nuts from the get-go. A former Olympic gold medal wrestler now down on his luck, he accepts a tempting offer to live and train at DuPont's Pennsylvania estate. While Mark is permanently bummed-out, his brother Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), married with two kids, is much cheerier. Also an Olympic gold medal wrestler, Dave eventually joins him as a trainer at DuPont's estate. For reasons we never fully understand, and with little fanfare, he ultimately is shot at close range by DuPont and dies in the snow. (Except for the fact that it really happened, it makes no sense.)

I tell you this so you for sure will not go see this movie, which is very disturbing while also being glacially slow and oddly boring, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever unless you are interested in how to lose 12 pounds in 90 minutes using a Schwinn Airdyne exercise bike. (Pedal really hard.) Also interesting was seeing an ancient Vanessa Redgrave as DuPont's old-as-the-hills mother. She was only around for a few minutes, but she did add some dignity to the proceedings.

Resolving to Resolve

                                    Gary Waters

Without a firm plan we are blown around like autumn leaves. Six years ago, or was it seven, my brother-in-law suffered a bike accident that put him in a coma, then rehab, then years of therapy. To help with his recovery from a traumatic brain injury, my husband and I moved to Maine from Washington, D.C., where I had lived for 30 years. And I only moved there because I married a guy, who I later divorced, who was in law school there.

While I like Maine -- no crime, no traffic, no crowds, no blaring sirens -- I wonder where I would be today if Neil had not fallen off his bike out on Route 1 that August afternoon. It's odd that, having been born in Brooklyn because that's where my parents lived, who lived there because that's where their parents lived, I now spend a lot of energy trying to suppress my native New-Yorkiness in order to get anyone to speak to me at all, like our local postmistress, a pasty potato dumpling of a woman with a Maine accent so thick you could cut it with a clam knife.

Thus, with the new year approaching and with all my resolutions used up over the course of my lifetime--I already gave up smoking, lost weight, eat well and give to charity -- the only thing left to do is to make a plan. Take the bull by the horns, chart a course, steer my own ship, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I've got five days to come up with one, and so far I've got nothing beyond we're out of cat food so I am definitely going to the market before noon.

Vegetable Soup to Die For

1/3 C. olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 large stalk celery, chopped

1 large russet potato, peeled and chopped

4 large Crimini mushrooms, chopped

4 large cloves garlic, minced

1 medium zucchini, sliced

1/2 C. red kidney beans

1/3 C. red lentils

10 large cherry tomatoes, halved

water

salt and pepper to taste

2 Tbsp. dill weed

1 Turkish Bay leaf

healthy dash of Sriracha sauce

1. Brown celery and onion in olive oil a few minutes

2. Add vegetables and water to cover

3. Add remaining spices

4. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 1 hour

The Day After

Photo by Terrence Rouda, 2014

Several people in my Facebook news stream have taken to posting photos of gifts they received for Christmas yesterday. This practice strikes me as odd at the very least, and incredibly self-indulgent and tone-deaf at most. Basically, who cares? Do we really need a close-up, suitable for framing, of your new fuzzy slippers or some silly word game still in its box?

However, sometimes we get a gift that actually is suitable for framing. Last night I got one of those from my nephew, an adventurous sort who travels the world more than anyone I know. I had admired his photos online a while back, and he thoughtfully had one enlarged poster-size and ready for display. (See above.) Owing to my all-but-simultaneous ingestion of eggnog, champagne and wine, I forget the locale; I'm thinking Tanzania, but I'll find out as soon as I can and make it right.

I was delighted that this year I received only one gift that went straight into the trash. The others were all the way to fabulous, including a lovely silver pendant on a silver chain, a very drinkable bottle of Chianti and two blooming  primroses in colorful pots.

Relieved that this most stressful holiday is over, I can now dedicate the coming week to dreaming up some New Year's resolutions. I might just write a blog post about that, if only to enrage an old friend of mine who thinks writing about the obvious is too plebeian. But then, since writing about the esoteric satisfies so few readers, it seems like the friendlier way to go.

The sun is shining this minute, a rare and precious thing after what feels like a month of dank, bleak, wet non-days. Unsure of how many more like this will show up this winter, I'm off.

The Time I Outed Santa

The Jews are a lonely lot on Christmas: While our Christian friends are snuggled in front of a cozy fire, opening gifts and scarfing down plum pudding, we sit huddled together on wooden benches eating gefilte fish and reading aloud from the Torah.

Okay, not really, but that’s how it feels to me. Despite the growing commercialization of Hanukah, Christmas will always be top dog. And despite my own participation in the festivities, baking the occasional sugar cookie and mailing cards to distant friends, December 25 finds me bereft from dawn till dusk. There’s little to do but wait it out. Everything is closed except for the 7-11, and after the coffee and donuts and an hour scanning magazines that’s pretty much played.

Growing up Jewish in the 1950s, on a block filled with hard-core Catholics, our family was clearly in the minority. Nuns and priests visited the neighborhood often. Naturally in such an environment Christmas was a big deal, spawning an array of blinking lights, flashing rooftop reindeer and glowing candy canes worthy of a Fellini dream sequence. Among all the holiday glitz, two houses remained dark -- the Shreibman's across the street, and ours.

It may sound ordinary, but what set Willow Street apart was that Santa Claus, in the flesh, visited every house on Christmas Eve. Apparently our street was the rest stop on his round-the-world tour. He did the whole milk-and-cookies bit, leaving behind a gift for every child. He even came to our house, he being an all-inclusive, non-denominational Santa.

One snowy Christmas in my sixth year as I was hurrying to get home before dark after a spirited snowball fight, I noticed something odd at Joanne Rooney’s house. There was a light on in the garage, and there was a man dressed only in his long underwear! Boy, he must be cold, I thought. Then I noticed, hey, he looks like Mr. Rooney, but when did he get so fat? He was stuffing a pillow into his suit, and wait a minute, that suit looks familiar. The sack of toys, the white beard, the black boots-- Jew or no Jew, I knew Santa when I saw him. Joanne Rooney’s father was Santa Claus!

Still reeling from the recent discovery that my mother was the “Tooth Fairy,” I plopped down into a snowdrift to catch my breath, all the while watching Mr. Rooney complete his transformation into Old Saint Nick. Then I raced home and confronted my parents, demanding some fast answers about a certain Irishman and a red velvet suit. After some preliminary stalling they caved, explaining that Mr. Rooney was “helping” Santa. “Promise you won’t tell any of the other kids,” my mother begged, a haunted look of terror in her eyes. “Do you promise?”

The Willow Street Gang

“Yeah, sure, I promise,” I said, but that promise didn’t apply to my very best friend who lived right next door! Suzanne was French, and certainly could be trusted: since returning from a Thanksgiving visit to her grandparents in France, she had all but forgotten English anyway. Unfortunately her bilingual older sister overheard me, and before you could say “Anderson Cooper” the story hit the street.

Of course there were the usual skeptics who assumed I was just bitter about the Holocaust, but most of the kids conducted their own research, pulling at Santa’s beard and asking if Joanne could come out and play. The jig was definitely up.

Things were tense on Willow Street for many months. The Shreibmans packed up and moved to Florida, and I took to playing with the kids from my Hebrew school class. Eventually I was forgiven, mostly because there were no applicants for my position as “permanent ender” in jump rope, and Santa Rooney kept his appointed rounds the next year. But he never stopped at our house again, leaving a void I experience every Christmas Eve. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t say a word.

Not So Happy Holidays

My new shrink.

Around the holidays, my usual tendency towards sadness blossoms into a full-blown misery, causing me to once again consider seeing a professional problem-solver for help. I don't do this because, with rare exceptions, they never do much besides hand you the tissues. Still, there was a time in my youth when I believed, like kids believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy, in the magic of psychotherapy. Those days are long gone, but I still remember some highlights.

There was Dr. Claire, our one session my sole experience with a female shrink. I entered her office to find her stretched out on the couch—right away that shakes your confidence—her left leg encased in a cast from hip to ankle. Hardly something that would go unnoticed, I asked, as anyone might, “Oh, my goodness, what happened to your leg?” The esteemed doctor -- who had completed four years of med school and then three years of shrink school and who knows how long as an intern and all the rest, including undergoing full-blown analysis -- responded with, “What is your fantasy about my leg?”

"What's that?"

“I asked you what your fantasy is concerning what happened to my leg.”

“Gee, I guess I did hear you. Well, seeing as I just this minute got here and I haven’t even had time to take off my coat, let alone work up a halfway decent fantasy, I have nothing.”

“Go ahead, take your time.”

"You mean you want me to make up a pretend fantasy about what happened to you?”

“That’s right.”

“Why can’t you just tell me what happened? Or, better yet, don’t tell me. I was just being polite, I don’t know you well enough to give a hoot about your leg, if I may be honest with you. I mean we just met.”

“I seem to be picking up a certain amount of hostility, Andrea.”

          

Dr. Rich was okay for a while, although I must admit his name threw me. God, what's this guy going to charge, I wondered, but it was the standard outrageous sum and so we began our work together. Despite his being very short, often an issue for men, and working on a needlepoint pillowcase project during our sessions—it would eventually read “I Love My Schnauzer”-- I felt that he had good instincts and a sharp mind. I lasted with him several months, until an innocent remark ended our time together quite abruptly.

“Well, last night I went to a movie with a friend, and we were both a little bit stoned and having a good time, when—”     

“What do you mean by stoned?” Dr. Rich asked, dropping his crochet needles and giving me his full attention—a nice touch, I thought.

“You know, I was high. Feeling good. I can’t think of another word.”

“Andrea, I understand the condition you describe, but how had you gotten that way?”

As I explained that I had smoked some part of a marijuana cigarette, he flipped out and stood up, dropping his needlepoint and shaking his head. He said he never knew I had a drug problem. I explained that I had a drug problem about a week ago, but then my friend Jeffrey came through for me.

   

 Fast-forward to last year, when I saw a very nice lady who was almost helpful with my mood swings. She had a habit of writing little tidbits of advice on 3x5 index cards for me to tuck in my purse and get me through my day, the kind of things you might see on a Hallmark sympathy card. I finally quit when she wrote, "It is what it is!" and handed it to me as if it were the definitive explanation of The Meaning of Life. After her I saw one guy, one time, who was impressed by my art background and spent our whole session asking me how to promote his photography--he took pictures of dogs--and another guy who laughed at everything I said regardless of whether or not it was funny, and admitted he couldn't wait for our weekly sessions. He also stuttered.

So now I am going it alone. It's not quite as helpful but it's a lot cheaper.

Yo-Yo Me

(FYI: The title of this post is pretty funny if you have heard of Yo-Yo Ma, the famous cellist. Otherwise it's just okay.)

The danger of finally losing weight and actually reaching your goal, thereby fitting into all your old "thin clothes," feeling great, looking better, and brimming with excitement over your achievement is that it will be very short-lived, replaced by eating whatever you want because now you can, and soon enough getting back into those "fat clothes" you fortunately did not give away, knowing this would happen. So then you start the process again, and maybe again, and there you are, tubby once more.

The trick is to reach your goal but not feel overly confident, in fact not feel good about yourself at all, and remain your own harshest critic, thus continuing to abstain from overeating and most especially those holiday cookies for no reason other than they are sitting there. Yesterday I grabbed a couple of those at the post office and they turned out to taste particularly bad, despite being cheerily decorated for the season. I tossed them out my car window on the way home, feeling remorse for the squirrel who would likely seize upon them excitedly and also find them lacking.

Right now I am at the bottom but starting back up again, yo-yo-eating-wise, and this post is my own wake-up call. I made it public because I am betting I am not alone. So Merry Christmas to all, and may your best gift be the one you give to yourself by not shoving food mindlessly down your one and only gullet.

Another One Bites the Dust

Joe at Woodstock, August 1969

British singer Joe Cocker died last night. I guess to some people that is not sad news, in fact maybe not newsworthy at all and certainly no big deal. But to others, including me, it is, unless Death is better than Life, and in certain lights and on certain days it seems like it might be. At least when you're dead you don't have to worry about when and how you're going to die, if you see my point. Anyway, at the very least it is surely a pretty creative place, even more so today.