Sorry it’s taken me so long to post. The dog ate my homework. I’ve been traveling the world on a cruise ship. The power went out in our house. We’re experimenting with how long we can live without email. I woke up one morning with spontaneous amnesia and have regained my memory this morning. I’ve been so busy Linking in, Facebooking, and Twittering, that I completely lost track of the blog.

 

Pick any one of these excuses, please. Be my guest. Because frankly, I’m too darn tired to tell you that I’ve simply been too darn tired to sit down and conjure something pithy and witty on what it’s like to be four-and-a-half decades in. After all, there’s new social media to be navigated. Query letters to be written. Thin friends to be envied.

 

Nothing personal.

 

It’s just that, as you know, along with the staples of the middle-age maintenance regimen (i.e., the plucking of chin hair, the dieting without losing weight, the trying to remember where pretty-much everything is, etc.), the $78,000 worth of plants on our deck have now become full-time work. (Please, sweet Jesus, Mother of God, when will it be winter …)

 

Fortunately, they’re all still alive. Unfortunately, I fear that’s the miracle I’ve spent years hoping for. Which means my plans to ever wear a size eight again or get on Oprah to talk about my new book may be shot to all get out.

 

(Evidence A: One of the three agents who’s read my book proposal just carefully and eloquently, as if she were writing to a mental patient or former postal worker, rejected it.)

 

As if this were not enough to completely depress me, I went shopping with my niece Samantha today and bought her, among a few other things, some lovely yellow towels to take to her new dormitory.

 

The fact that she’s leaving for college in just a few weeks, while exciting for her, a sad milestone for me since it shows in no uncertain terms that I am, in fact, old enough to have a niece going to college.

 

Which means I’m that much closer to, you know, buyin’ it.

 

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be morbid and I don’t want to be so focused on the fact that every year I get a year older, but it is what it is. I didn’t write the story of Adam and Eve (although, if I did, maybe we could buy our new Prius outright and I’d be one of Oprah’s authors). I do, however, have to follow its dictates.

 

See, here’s the thing: Sometimes I really like being 45. After all, I still have really great hair. I don’t have to fret over dating anymore—or anticipate what it will be like to turn 30. And I can expound confidently about my own color palette when asked by a firing squad of perfectly painted Barbie’s at the makeup counters at Nordy’s. So really, there are perks.

 

But sometimes, it’s hard to watch my niece, for example, get to start her life from the beginning. (No fair-sees—how come she gets to do it and I don’t, uh, again? HUH?) Watching her reminds me that I started from scratch once as well—and that time is over now. Just like someday, this time will be over too.

 

So here’s the question: Where has the time gone? How much is left? And how do  I make the most of it?

 

The good news I don’t linger for too long on the subject—at least not the time-withering-away-like-sand-in-an-hourglass part (although I am always seeking an answer to the latter question). Because frankly, there are so many other equally glorious things to obsess about, it would be a shame to give death and dying the top bill.

 

So I simply revert to another subject: Like how getting rid of extra weight at middle age is like trying to shake both arms free from their sockets and off the torso altogether. Or how much I miss sleep and the show Thirtysomething. (That Hope. She had it all.)

 

And then there’s the issue of incontinence—an ailment I once believed was reserved for old Jewish men who liked to gamble and pregnant ladies. But alas, surprise. We are all susceptible at the halfway mark. Case in point…

—————————————–

 

The other day, I’m watching Lifetime, when an interesting commercial comes on the television. In it, an attractive middle-aged blonde graduated-bobbed woman tries on a pink feather boa, while another middle-aged brunette graduated-bobbed woman looks on and laughs at how ridiculous it is. As their peals of laughter accelerate, a gentle voiceover says, “When little leaks happen, there’s Poise Pads.”

 

Aw shit. So it wasn’t just a one-time deal, which is what I thought as I remembered the “little leak” I’d had earlier at the gym.

 

It was a first for me and it happened while I was doing 45 “military style” jumping jacks (which, by the way, should be outlawed for C-plus-cupped women, thank you). The trainer was telling me to put a little more “stretch” into the jack, and all I could think about was how I had peed myself and how I hoped he didn’t insist I sit on the chest press after.

 

Now, I’m not talking running-stream-of-bathwater pee, but a little loving leak like the one the ladies in finely pressed khakis and cashmere cardigans must’ve had in the commercial that makes pissing yourself look like a you-can-do-it inspirational message for Weight Watchers or Cialis.

 

Naturally, the whole issue made me curious as to whether my genetically blessed husband (who looks like cross between Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze; and eats everything that’s not nailed down or eats him first and then pulls on size 32-inch jeans like they’re made of spandex; and who didn’t go to the dentist for 13 years and then went and had zero cavities…you get the pic), ever had a similar experience.

 

So as I do with all things important, I waited until later that night just as he was dozing off into REM sleep to ask him:

 

“Honey?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Are you sleeping?”

 

“Huh?”

” Did you ever pee yourself?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I KNEW it. Thanks babe.”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

See, it’s not just me.  Sometimes, just knowing you’re not alone can make all the difference.

 

———————————-

Finally, yesterday, I was at Starbucks when the 17-year-old curly-topped young man-boy who made my grande-skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free cinnamon-dolce syrup handed it to me and said, “Have a great one today. Hey, the best one ever!” And then he smiled a squinty smile and made that clicking noise with his tongue, pointing his fingers at me like they were loaded pistols.

 

At first, I laughed at him. But then, I stopped to think about his youthful wisdom. I suspect he had no idea how potent it really was. Because, after all, shouldn’t every single one of our days—with their respective leaks and aging cells and graduating nieces—be the best one ever? Especially when you consider the fact that every day could be, well, you know…

 

Sometimes, people are smarter than they think.

 

Until next time!

 

Me

 

P.S. If you’re a potential client or agent trying to decide whether to hire or represent me, please ignore the entire section on peeing. Thank you!

  Share

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post. The dog ate my homework. I’ve been traveling the world on a cruise ship. The power went out in our house. We’re experimenting with how long we can live without email. I woke up one morning with spontaneous amnesia and have regained my memory this morning. I’ve been so busy Linking in, Facebooking, and Twittering, that I completely lost track of the blog.

 

Pick any one of these excuses, please. Be my guest. Because frankly, I’m too darn tired to tell you that I’ve simply been too darn tired to sit down and conjure something pithy and witty on what it’s like to be four-and-a-half decades in. After all, there’s new social media to be navigated. Query letters to be written. Thin friends to be envied.

 

Nothing personal.

 

It’s just that, as you know, along with the staples of the middle-age maintenance regimen (i.e., the plucking of chin hair, the dieting without losing weight, the trying to remember where pretty-much everything is, etc.), the $78,000 worth of plants on our deck have now become full-time work. (Please, sweet Jesus, Mother of God, when will it be winter …)

 

Fortunately, they’re all still alive. Unfortunately, I fear that’s the miracle I’ve spent years hoping for. Which means my plans to ever wear a size eight again or get on Oprah to talk about my new book may be shot to all get out.

 

(Evidence A: One of the three agents who’s read my book proposal just carefully and eloquently, as if she were writing to a mental patient or former postal worker, rejected it.)

 

As if this were not enough to completely depress me, I went shopping with my niece Samantha today and bought her, among a few other things, some lovely yellow towels to take to her new dormitory.

 

The fact that she’s leaving for college in just a few weeks, while exciting for her, a sad milestone for me since it shows in no uncertain terms that I am, in fact, old enough to have a niece going to college.

 

Which means I’m that much closer to, you know, buyin’ it.

 

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be morbid and I don’t want to be so focused on the fact that every year I get a year older, but it is what it is. I didn’t write the story of Adam and Eve (although, if I did, maybe we could buy our new Prius outright and I’d be one of Oprah’s authors). I do, however, have to follow its dictates.

 

See, here’s the thing: Sometimes I really like being 45. After all, I still have really great hair. I don’t have to fret over dating anymore—or anticipate what it will be like to turn 30. And I can expound confidently about my own color palette when asked by a firing squad of perfectly painted Barbie’s at the makeup counters at Nordy’s. So really, there are perks.

 

But sometimes, it’s hard to watch my niece, for example, get to start her life from the beginning. (No fair-sees—how come she gets to do it and I don’t, uh, again? HUH?) Watching her reminds me that I started from scratch once as well—and that time is over now. Just like someday, this time will be over too.

 

So here’s the question: Where has the time gone? How much is left? And how do  I make the most of it?

 

The good news I don’t linger for too long on the subject—at least not the time-withering-away-like-sand-in-an-hourglass part (although I am always seeking an answer to the latter question). Because frankly, there are so many other equally glorious things to obsess about, it would be a shame to give death and dying the top bill.

 

So I simply revert to another subject: Like how getting rid of extra weight at middle age is like trying to shake both arms free from their sockets and off the torso altogether. Or how much I miss sleep and the show Thirtysomething. (That Hope. She had it all.)

 

And then there’s the issue of incontinence—an ailment I once believed was reserved for old Jewish men who liked to gamble and pregnant ladies. But alas, surprise. We are all susceptible at the halfway mark. Case in point…

—————————————–

 

The other day, I’m watching Lifetime, when an interesting commercial comes on the television. In it, an attractive middle-aged blonde graduated-bobbed woman tries on a pink feather boa, while another middle-aged brunette graduated-bobbed woman looks on and laughs at how ridiculous it is. As their peals of laughter accelerate, a gentle voiceover says, “When little leaks happen, there’s Poise Pads.”

 

Aw shit. So it wasn’t just a one-time deal, which is what I thought as I remembered the “little leak” I’d had earlier at the gym.

 

It was a first for me and it happened while I was doing 45 “military style” jumping jacks (which, by the way, should be outlawed for C-plus-cupped women, thank you). The trainer was telling me to put a little more “stretch” into the jack, and all I could think about was how I had peed myself and how I hoped he didn’t insist I sit on the chest press after.

 

Now, I’m not talking running-stream-of-bathwater pee, but a little loving leak like the one the ladies in finely pressed khakis and cashmere cardigans must’ve had in the commercial that makes pissing yourself look like a you-can-do-it inspirational message for Weight Watchers or Cialis.

 

Naturally, the whole issue made me curious as to whether my genetically blessed husband (who looks like cross between Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze; and eats everything that’s not nailed down or eats him first and then pulls on size 32-inch jeans like they’re made of spandex; and who didn’t go to the dentist for 13 years and then went and had zero cavities…you get the pic), ever had a similar experience.

 

So as I do with all things important, I waited until later that night just as he was dozing off into REM sleep to ask him:

 

“Honey?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Are you sleeping?”

 

“Huh?”

” Did you ever pee yourself?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I KNEW it. Thanks babe.”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

See, it’s not just me.  Sometimes, just knowing you’re not alone can make all the difference.

 

———————————-

Finally, yesterday, I was at Starbucks when the 17-year-old curly-topped young man-boy who made my grande-skim latte with two pumps of sugar-free cinnamon-dolce syrup handed it to me and said, “Have a great one today. Hey, the best one ever!” And then he smiled a squinty smile and made that clicking noise with his tongue, pointing his fingers at me like they were loaded pistols.

 

At first, I laughed at him. But then, I stopped to think about his youthful wisdom. I suspect he had no idea how potent it really was. Because, after all, shouldn’t every single one of our days—with their respective leaks and aging cells and graduating nieces—be the best one ever? Especially when you consider the fact that every day could be, well, you know…

 

Sometimes, people are smarter than they think.

 

Until next time!

 

Me

 

P.S. If you’re a potential client or agent trying to decide whether to hire or represent me, please ignore the entire section on peeing. Thank you!

  Share

I’m 45 now and while I’ve learned and mastered a great many things in my life there are still too many that baffle me. One of them is how to garden.

 

Now, I’m not talking the Martha-Stewart-let-me-show-you-what-I-can-do-with-that-half-acre-patch-of-weeds kind of gardening. I’m talking about the ability to keep even one potted plant from biting the big one.

 

Because sadly, while I can string together enough words to form a book and stay on top of the floating tufts of dog hair on my hardwood and keep myself in business for more than 60 months, I have a toxic thumb. One that cannot help but take a perfectly lovely blooming flower and, within a matter of days, turn it into a wasteland.

 

I marvel at the people I see outside on a sunny Sunday, tending joyfully to the colorful palettes that are sprinkled across their lawns like stars against a dark night. Then, I reflect on our own landscape, a colorful mix of mostly beige and brown, with flecks of green peaking out from under like curious toddlers at a hospice convention.

 

Usually, I just sigh in observation of the plant cemetery that lines both our small back deck and our robust asphalt driveway, and then let it go once inside our colorful and artistic home. After all, you can’t really kill a sofa or a fabulous painting (unless I’m painting it myself, but that’s another post). They are gloriously inanimate objects that, unlike plants, are totally unreliant upon my ability to provide life support.

 

But this past week, I had to do something about the outside since I was hosting a 70^th birthday party for my mother and had to make the place shine all the way around for the 20-some old Jewish ladies coming with their white gloves.

 

In an attempt to do my mother proud in front of her longstanding cronies, I dragged my husband and my 10-year-old stepdaughter on a day trip to Buckman’s Gardens—a specialty garden shop in the neighborhood. Sure, we could’ve gone to Home Depot or Lowes on the cheap. But they didn’t offer me the intensive instruction I required when it came to both buying what I needed and keeping it alive for five straight days (until the party) without incident.

 

Once there, we met with the well-shaped barely 20-something Lauren, who quickly, wisely, and accurately assessed who she was dealing with: Somebody with the botanical IQ of a newborn. I was so at her mercy, I didn’t even have the wherewithal to call her a “bitch” under my breath for being no bigger than a size two—probably without even trying.

 

The fact was I had bigger fish to fry. Starting with at least describing the environment we had to offer plant life. “Well,” I said to Lauren, trying desperately to help me make choices, “the back is sunny mostly, but sometimes, you know, come to think of it, in some places it gets a little shade, not too much though, but some for sure. Although, it depends if it’s raining, in which case it’s not sunny, but still warm. Does it matter if there’s a glare?” I then went on to describe the front of our house with equal clarity.

 

At that point, she started catching on I might be a lost cause. And Dan and C were too lost in the store’s collection of Webkins to offer Lauren another perspective. Not that it would have mattered, because my husband can barely remember where we keep the refrigerator. And C, well, her standard response is “I don’t know.”

 

And so with great patience—the kind you need when you work with disabled animals—she led me through their atrium of plants, dragging one after the other off its hook to get a feel for what I wanted.

 

“This is a geranium,” she’d say, “and it does very well in the sun.” To which I’d respond, especially if it were yellow, “That is such a bad color for me, really. Look.” Then I’d make her hoist the plant down so I could get up close to it. “See? It makes me look like I’m about to lose my lunch. Am I right? Huh?”

While I didn’t have the most educated commentary, I was able to make a few choice decisions about what to take and what to leave (being a proud “J” on the Myers-Briggs personality scale). And three hours later—the time it would have taken to watch 1.5 Lifetime Television Movies, a better spend in my estimation—we left with $700 less in our checking account.

 

Such an unsatisfying purchase for me, really, especially since I could’ve done great things at Home Goods with that money—and that in about two weeks, if we were lucky, we’d have nothing but a bunch of dead leaves to show for it.

 

But then again, if it won over the hearts and gloves of the Jewish ladies, it would save me about six months of the cost of therapy and, in that case, all be worth it.

 

———————————————————

 

After buying plants and some new cushions for our wicker loveseat and chair set, we went home to do an extreme deck makeover.

 

First task: To get rid of the rusty smoker, dirty patio furniture (note to self: cover cushions next winter), and damp wood that looked like it threw up in splinters all over the planks. All the while, the nice gay couple and their two pampered dachshunds that live behind us looked on in quiet judgment.

 

You could just tell by the way the humans folded their arms and tilted their heads under their expensive awning, surrounded by tealights and gilded potters, that they were thinking, “It’s about time. How much longer were you going to have to make us look at that rat’s nest of a deck?” Of course, theirs looked like something off the set of The Bachelorette.

 

And frankly, if they were basing their opinion solely on the décor of our back deck, I could see how they might think of us as some sort of 21^st-century suburban version of the Klampetts.

 

Still, I was aiming to change all that.

 

After we swept the decks, we moved on to the next step: C went out to look for stray caterpillars. Dan went to the bathroom. And I had a diet Sunkist Orange soda and three bites of the lowfat chicken salad I had bought the day before from None Such Farms. (So not lowfat.)

 

Soon enough, I started to fashion a plan for where to put the seven plants we bought for the cost of rent. And then directed my husband like I can only guess Marty Scorscese directs Robert DeNiro:

 

Marty: The two hanging there, the small one on the table, the two others in the ceramic pots—empty the rainwater first—and just rest those others over there by the extra tank of Propane.

 

Bobby: So I’m feeling like a plant. Like hanging myself. Like there’s nothing left to live for. I climb up onto that wrought iron and just float in the wind, asking myself how long I’ve got. The questions plague me: If I weren’t hanging, where would I be? Which way would I face? Which direction would I turn? Will it hurt while I spin? Would I rather face the troubled neighbors or my own dark kitchen? It sure would be great to have a little refreshment—a nice drink of water, a nip of fertilizer, a cool breeze. But no, no, I couldn’t…

 

All I can say is that while the deck did look better once we got it all together, the big question still loomed just as large: Could we keep the plants alive until the party?

 

Suffice to say it was a grueling five days, during which my husband and I were virtual prisoners to the new landscape.

 

——————————————

 

Case in point: One night, Dan casually mentioned that the plant that looked like a big green afro was browning. I growled at him and shoved the chicken breasts I’d cooked in his favorite marinade down the garbage disposal. “Screw you,” I snapped, and promptly retired to the bedroom.

 

Another night, we were actually sitting on the deck, when my husband (who never learns) asked me if “that one” looked saggy. Fortunately for him, he pointed to a plant.

 

“Well, it doesn’t look as good as the red one.”

 

“Or the yellow one in the corner. That one looks like a bunch of computer wires with balls.”

 

“They don’t look like balls.”

 

“They do. Small round balls.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “Do you think we should water it?”

“Go ahead if you want to. I don’t want to be held responsible.”

 

“Why do I always have to do it?”

“Because I don’t know how.”

“What’s to know? You lift up the hose and pull the handle. Water comes out and you hold it over them. You’ve built museums. You can’t water the plants?”

 

Later that night, we went to a seminar on how to pay off your mortgage faster than 30 years. In the middle of the guy’s presentation, it started to thunderstorm. I couldn’t help but raise my hand and ask him: “I just watered my plants. Do you think the rain will kill them?”
 

The instructor looked at me like I’d just offered him a half-eaten hamburger from the dumpster out back.

 

Dan nudged me. “He doesn’t know. Ssssh.”

 

Of course, I’m always working on the premise that it never hurts to ask. After all, sometimes you just don’t know what people know.

 

————————————–

 

Sure enough, the next morning, the purple and pink plant once in need of hospice did look a lot perkier. But then the red plant was wilted and the yellow plant in the corner really did look like it had hanging balls and the plants in the front of the house, which needed shade, seemed to be baking in the two hours of sunlight I forgot we got in that spot.

 

Which led me to four exciting revelations:

 

1. I’m exhausted.

 

2. It’s a good thing I never had children.

 

3. I want my $700 back.

 

4. Those ladies can’t come and go soon enough.

 

And sure enough, they did. The party was yesterday and it went off without a hitch. I’m sure they had no idea of the angst I had over dolling up the back deck, which they raved about like opera fanatics at a Salome revival.

 

On a positive note, the deck looked beautiful through the sliding glass doors. On a negative note, that was the only way to see it, since it stormed all day. So we couldn’t actually sit on it.

 

Fortunately, that was good enough for the most important old lady in attendance—my mother.

——————————————–

Which brings me to my next subject: Aging.

 

Last Monday, I watched with melancholy as Oprah reunited the cast of the Mary Tyler Moore show on her stage—perfectly replicated, by the way, first as the old WJM newsroom and then Mary Richard’s apartment.

 

One by one Oprah carted the people who defined my childhood: Mary, then Mr. Grant, Murray, Sue Ann, Rhoda, Phyllis, and even Georgette. (Ted had passed years earlier.)

 

While it was great to see them all, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness at how much they’d aged. Because, of course, that meant I’d aged too. And seeing them again made me long for the days when I was just a girl.

 

Back then, I was in awe of how Mary Richards lived—in the big city, single, and career focused. It was starkly different from how my mother and her friends lived (the same ones who came to the party, now old ladies exchanging pictures of grandchildren). Unlike Mary, they stayed at home, raising children, preparing dinner for their husbands, and gathering in the quiet corners of suburbia.

 

Barely a teenager, I’d fantasize about throwing my hat up in the air on some busy city street corner, living in a one-room studio, a big “J” on the wall, my best friend upstairs, a new man to date on a whim.

 

And for a long while—decades even—I did live that life. In Chicago, along with various iterations of real estate and men. And where that lifestyle once defined me, now, it was a distant memory.

 

That’s where the modern-day Mary Tyler Moore and I came to intersect, that day, on Oprah. Finally. We’d both traveled far from the young and hopeful innocents who really, in the end, didn’t know anything.

 

Sometimes, I long for that time. When I would sit in my childhood living room and watch Mary, my mother, father, and brother doing something somewhere close.

 

Never was the feeling stronger than on Saturday, when I scanned the ladies in the crowd. They sat in my now grownup living room and remembered when. And I wished so hard that the moment would never end—and they would all live forever.

 

Until next time.

 

  Share

I’m 45 now and while I’ve learned and mastered a great many things in my life there are still too many that baffle me. One of them is how to garden.

 

Now, I’m not talking the Martha-Stewart-let-me-show-you-what-I-can-do-with-that-half-acre-patch-of-weeds kind of gardening. I’m talking about the ability to keep even one potted plant from biting the big one.

 

Because sadly, while I can string together enough words to form a book and stay on top of the floating tufts of dog hair on my hardwood and keep myself in business for more than 60 months, I have a toxic thumb. One that cannot help but take a perfectly lovely blooming flower and, within a matter of days, turn it into a wasteland.

 

I marvel at the people I see outside on a sunny Sunday, tending joyfully to the colorful palettes that are sprinkled across their lawns like stars against a dark night. Then, I reflect on our own landscape, a colorful mix of mostly beige and brown, with flecks of green peaking out from under like curious toddlers at a hospice convention.

 

Usually, I just sigh in observation of the plant cemetery that lines both our small back deck and our robust asphalt driveway, and then let it go once inside our colorful and artistic home. After all, you can’t really kill a sofa or a fabulous painting (unless I’m painting it myself, but that’s another post). They are gloriously inanimate objects that, unlike plants, are totally unreliant upon my ability to provide life support.

 

But this past week, I had to do something about the outside since I was hosting a 70^th birthday party for my mother and had to make the place shine all the way around for the 20-some old Jewish ladies coming with their white gloves.

 

In an attempt to do my mother proud in front of her longstanding cronies, I dragged my husband and my 10-year-old stepdaughter on a day trip to Buckman’s Gardens—a specialty garden shop in the neighborhood. Sure, we could’ve gone to Home Depot or Lowes on the cheap. But they didn’t offer me the intensive instruction I required when it came to both buying what I needed and keeping it alive for five straight days (until the party) without incident.

 

Once there, we met with the well-shaped barely 20-something Lauren, who quickly, wisely, and accurately assessed who she was dealing with: Somebody with the botanical IQ of a newborn. I was so at her mercy, I didn’t even have the wherewithal to call her a “bitch” under my breath for being no bigger than a size two—probably without even trying.

 

The fact was I had bigger fish to fry. Starting with at least describing the environment we had to offer plant life. “Well,” I said to Lauren, trying desperately to help me make choices, “the back is sunny mostly, but sometimes, you know, come to think of it, in some places it gets a little shade, not too much though, but some for sure. Although, it depends if it’s raining, in which case it’s not sunny, but still warm. Does it matter if there’s a glare?” I then went on to describe the front of our house with equal clarity.

 

At that point, she started catching on I might be a lost cause. And Dan and C were too lost in the store’s collection of Webkins to offer Lauren another perspective. Not that it would have mattered, because my husband can barely remember where we keep the refrigerator. And C, well, her standard response is “I don’t know.”

 

And so with great patience—the kind you need when you work with disabled animals—she led me through their atrium of plants, dragging one after the other off its hook to get a feel for what I wanted.

 

“This is a geranium,” she’d say, “and it does very well in the sun.” To which I’d respond, especially if it were yellow, “That is such a bad color for me, really. Look.” Then I’d make her hoist the plant down so I could get up close to it. “See? It makes me look like I’m about to lose my lunch. Am I right? Huh?”

While I didn’t have the most educated commentary, I was able to make a few choice decisions about what to take and what to leave (being a proud “J” on the Myers-Briggs personality scale). And three hours later—the time it would have taken to watch 1.5 Lifetime Television Movies, a better spend in my estimation—we left with $700 less in our checking account.

 

Such an unsatisfying purchase for me, really, especially since I could’ve done great things at Home Goods with that money—and that in about two weeks, if we were lucky, we’d have nothing but a bunch of dead leaves to show for it.

 

But then again, if it won over the hearts and gloves of the Jewish ladies, it would save me about six months of the cost of therapy and, in that case, all be worth it.

 

———————————————————

 

After buying plants and some new cushions for our wicker loveseat and chair set, we went home to do an extreme deck makeover.

 

First task: To get rid of the rusty smoker, dirty patio furniture (note to self: cover cushions next winter), and damp wood that looked like it threw up in splinters all over the planks. All the while, the nice gay couple and their two pampered dachshunds that live behind us looked on in quiet judgment.

 

You could just tell by the way the humans folded their arms and tilted their heads under their expensive awning, surrounded by tealights and gilded potters, that they were thinking, “It’s about time. How much longer were you going to have to make us look at that rat’s nest of a deck?” Of course, theirs looked like something off the set of The Bachelorette.

 

And frankly, if they were basing their opinion solely on the décor of our back deck, I could see how they might think of us as some sort of 21^st-century suburban version of the Klampetts.

 

Still, I was aiming to change all that.

 

After we swept the decks, we moved on to the next step: C went out to look for stray caterpillars. Dan went to the bathroom. And I had a diet Sunkist Orange soda and three bites of the lowfat chicken salad I had bought the day before from None Such Farms. (So not lowfat.)

 

Soon enough, I started to fashion a plan for where to put the seven plants we bought for the cost of rent. And then directed my husband like I can only guess Marty Scorscese directs Robert DeNiro:

 

Marty: The two hanging there, the small one on the table, the two others in the ceramic pots—empty the rainwater first—and just rest those others over there by the extra tank of Propane.

 

Bobby: So I’m feeling like a plant. Like hanging myself. Like there’s nothing left to live for. I climb up onto that wrought iron and just float in the wind, asking myself how long I’ve got. The questions plague me: If I weren’t hanging, where would I be? Which way would I face? Which direction would I turn? Will it hurt while I spin? Would I rather face the troubled neighbors or my own dark kitchen? It sure would be great to have a little refreshment—a nice drink of water, a nip of fertilizer, a cool breeze. But no, no, I couldn’t…

 

All I can say is that while the deck did look better once we got it all together, the big question still loomed just as large: Could we keep the plants alive until the party?

 

Suffice to say it was a grueling five days, during which my husband and I were virtual prisoners to the new landscape.

 

——————————————

 

Case in point: One night, Dan casually mentioned that the plant that looked like a big green afro was browning. I growled at him and shoved the chicken breasts I’d cooked in his favorite marinade down the garbage disposal. “Screw you,” I snapped, and promptly retired to the bedroom.

 

Another night, we were actually sitting on the deck, when my husband (who never learns) asked me if “that one” looked saggy. Fortunately for him, he pointed to a plant.

 

“Well, it doesn’t look as good as the red one.”

 

“Or the yellow one in the corner. That one looks like a bunch of computer wires with balls.”

 

“They don’t look like balls.”

 

“They do. Small round balls.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “Do you think we should water it?”

“Go ahead if you want to. I don’t want to be held responsible.”

 

“Why do I always have to do it?”

“Because I don’t know how.”

“What’s to know? You lift up the hose and pull the handle. Water comes out and you hold it over them. You’ve built museums. You can’t water the plants?”

 

Later that night, we went to a seminar on how to pay off your mortgage faster than 30 years. In the middle of the guy’s presentation, it started to thunderstorm. I couldn’t help but raise my hand and ask him: “I just watered my plants. Do you think the rain will kill them?”
 

The instructor looked at me like I’d just offered him a half-eaten hamburger from the dumpster out back.

 

Dan nudged me. “He doesn’t know. Ssssh.”

 

Of course, I’m always working on the premise that it never hurts to ask. After all, sometimes you just don’t know what people know.

 

————————————–

 

Sure enough, the next morning, the purple and pink plant once in need of hospice did look a lot perkier. But then the red plant was wilted and the yellow plant in the corner really did look like it had hanging balls and the plants in the front of the house, which needed shade, seemed to be baking in the two hours of sunlight I forgot we got in that spot.

 

Which led me to four exciting revelations:

 

1. I’m exhausted.

 

2. It’s a good thing I never had children.

 

3. I want my $700 back.

 

4. Those ladies can’t come and go soon enough.

 

And sure enough, they did. The party was yesterday and it went off without a hitch. I’m sure they had no idea of the angst I had over dolling up the back deck, which they raved about like opera fanatics at a Salome revival.

 

On a positive note, the deck looked beautiful through the sliding glass doors. On a negative note, that was the only way to see it, since it stormed all day. So we couldn’t actually sit on it.

 

Fortunately, that was good enough for the most important old lady in attendance—my mother.

——————————————–

Which brings me to my next subject: Aging.

 

Last Monday, I watched with melancholy as Oprah reunited the cast of the Mary Tyler Moore show on her stage—perfectly replicated, by the way, first as the old WJM newsroom and then Mary Richard’s apartment.

 

One by one Oprah carted the people who defined my childhood: Mary, then Mr. Grant, Murray, Sue Ann, Rhoda, Phyllis, and even Georgette. (Ted had passed years earlier.)

 

While it was great to see them all, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness at how much they’d aged. Because, of course, that meant I’d aged too. And seeing them again made me long for the days when I was just a girl.

 

Back then, I was in awe of how Mary Richards lived—in the big city, single, and career focused. It was starkly different from how my mother and her friends lived (the same ones who came to the party, now old ladies exchanging pictures of grandchildren). Unlike Mary, they stayed at home, raising children, preparing dinner for their husbands, and gathering in the quiet corners of suburbia.

 

Barely a teenager, I’d fantasize about throwing my hat up in the air on some busy city street corner, living in a one-room studio, a big “J” on the wall, my best friend upstairs, a new man to date on a whim.

 

And for a long while—decades even—I did live that life. In Chicago, along with various iterations of real estate and men. And where that lifestyle once defined me, now, it was a distant memory.

 

That’s where the modern-day Mary Tyler Moore and I came to intersect, that day, on Oprah. Finally. We’d both traveled far from the young and hopeful innocents who really, in the end, didn’t know anything.

 

Sometimes, I long for that time. When I would sit in my childhood living room and watch Mary, my mother, father, and brother doing something somewhere close.

 

Never was the feeling stronger than on Saturday, when I scanned the ladies in the crowd. They sat in my now grownup living room and remembered when. And I wished so hard that the moment would never end—and they would all live forever.

 

Until next time.

 

  Share