Thanksgiving is nearly here, a time when we reflect on the bountiful blessings we’ve received and give thanks for them. Ordinarily I would write a column listing all the things for which I am thankful. But “been there, done that”, and if there is something I strive not to do in this column, it’s repeat myself.
Instead, I think I’ll share all the things I could do without. I’m sure the Pilgrims had similar sentiments when they sat down to their Thanksgiving feast with their brethren and their new Wampanoag friends. They bowed their heads and gave thanks for their harvest, but silently they were thinking, “Lord, thank you for these new friends and all this food, but we could really do without smallpox and bitterly cold winters and chamber pots and that jerk King James back home. Amen.”
So in the spirit of those Pilgrims…
I can do without people who don’t know what to do at a four-way stop intersection. According to the driver’s manual “At a four-way stop, vehicles must go in the order they stopped. The first to stop is the next to go. If in doubt, give the right-of-way to the driver on your right.” There you go. Learn it. Live it.
I can do without middle schoolers wearing Lululemon yoga pants and Coach sneakers and carrying Vera Bradley handbags. When did twelve-year-old girls start dressing like 35-year-old women?
I can do without a perky computer-voice named Cheryl leaving messages on my answering machine asking me to call immediately to lower my credit card interest rate. Cheryl, you are not fooling anyone. You are a machine taking part in a scam to prompt citizens to divulge personal information to complete strangers. Shame on you Cheryl.
I can do without Christmas music on the radio 24/7 long before anyone sits down to carve their Thanksgiving turkey. It’s bad enough we’ll hear “Dominick The Christmas Donkey” hundreds of times as it is. Do we really need an additional three weeks of “Hee-haw, hee-haw”? Let’s take our holidays one at a time, shall we? Respect the bird, folks.
I can do without cryptic Facebook postings that are designed to tantalize the reader without giving any details at all. Postings like “I can’t stop scratching” or “I hate mean people” tell me nothing. Spill it our keep it to yourself.
I can do without advertisements for the CD “Now That’s What I Call Music 40!” We’re up to 40 now? Isn’t it time to change the name? The first CD, released in 1998, featured “Mmmbop” by Hanson. At this rate we’ll be listening to “Now That’s What I Call Music 99” in 2027. Way to brand, guys. Kris Jenner could take a lesson from you.
I could really do without store clerks wishing me a “happy holiday” next month when what I’m really looking for is a “Merry Christmas”. Heck, I’d even take a “Happy Chanukah” or a “Peaceful Kwanza”. I know many of these clerks are forced to utter the safe “happy holidays” by their employers. Psst, big box stores. In case you haven’t noticed, you are swathed in Christmas lights and menorahs. It’s okay to acknowledge the actual holidays that are filling your pockets.
And speaking of Christmas, I could do without the Christmas letters that will arrive any day. Rather than wasting time listing all of your family’s individual accomplishments, just sign your holiday card, “We’re better than you” and be done with it.
Several weeks ago I posted a message on Facebook asking people to write what they were thankful for. I received two responses. Today, I asked people what they could do without, and I received forty-two responses. Clearly I am not alone in my anti-thankful sentiments. So in addition to my list, add the following things my friends could do without: multiple holiday catalogs, school projects that cost $20 for materials only to be tossed in the trash, illness, ex-husbands who think that attending one of their child’s sporting events makes them Father of the Year, holiday-induced guilt from family members (“you don’t call, you don’t write, you don’t visit…”), professional basketball (wish granted!), crazy drivers, the word “proactive”, stress, the MCAS, internet passwords and Black Friday. Whew!
Of course, for every annoyance there is a blessing. So when I sit down to my Thanksgiving table this year, surrounded by family, wearing my L.L. Bean sweater and listening to “Now That’s What I Call Christmas 17”, I will give thanks for all the blessings in my life including one I absolutely cannot do without. My readers.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I’d like to tell you a story. It’s the story of a stick.
The stick began its journey as a branch. This branch served many purposes. In summer, its green leaves provided shade on hot days. In fall, its leaves turned brilliant hues of red and orange, contributing to a kaleidoscope of colors in the yard. In winter, the branch would bend and sway in the wind, sometimes carrying heavy loads of snow and ice during storms. Perhaps it was one of these storms that caused the branch to finally break and come to rest on the ground.
In the spring, a time of rebirth, the stick was collected and placed on a pile of branches and twigs that had suffered a similar fate. As the air began to warm, other boughs high above sprouted new green buds, but the stick remained in the pile of dried brush waiting for the next stage of its life.
Months later, a boy approached the brush pile. After careful consideration, the boy selected the stick, hefted it in his hands, and brought it across the yard to his back porch. Measuring the stick against his own height, the boy broke off a length until the stick was just tall enough to reach his chin. Under the watchful eye of his parents, the boy took out his pocketknife and began to carefully strip away the bark.
The boy had been given the task to create a walking stick as part of his Cub Scout badge. It was a requirement. This was a boy who preferred to stay inside and play videogames, but something made him to forgo the game controller and instead spend time outside, carefully preparing his stick. When all of the bark was finally stripped off, the boy and his father began the process of sanding the stick.
The boy spent hours rubbing the stick with different grades of sandpaper. The father helped the boy smooth down the sharp knots along the stick with a small hand sander. After hours of work, the boy could finally run his hands along the length of the stick and feel nothing but smoothness.
The father and the boy then brushed the stick with several coats of stain, giving it a warm, honey-colored hue. Weeks later, the boy brought his walking stick to a scout gathering at a local state park. The stick shone like gold in the late afternoon sun, while other boys admired it for its sturdiness and craftsmanship. As the boy walked through the woods, the stick bore his weight easily, supporting and steadying him on his trek across the uneven forest floor. The father walked beside the boy, fondly remembering the hours spent crafting the walking stick.
That boy is my son, his father my husband. The stick now resides in a corner of my living room, amongst other walking sticks, some carved decades ago by my son’s great-grandfather. My son’s walking stick adds a rich, golden glow to the collection, waiting patiently for the next hike, the next campout, and the next adventure.
The stick that began its journey as a branch on a tree has now become part of my son’s family tree. Perhaps one day it will sit in the corner of his home, and he will share with his own children the story of how a simple branch became a symbol of a father and son’s love.
This past summer millions of Americans sat raptly before their television sets and watched the Royal Wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Sarah Middleton. Not long after, America had its own “royal” wedding of sorts: The wedding of reality television star Kim Kardashian and pro-basketball player Kris Humphries. Though the wedding took place on August 20, the television special “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event” aired on the E! Network on October 9 & 10. 4 million viewers tuned in to watch a fairytale wedding which had a decidedly “Grimm” ending. 72 days after the nuptials took place, Kim Kardashian filed for divorce. Her husband discovered this fact by way of the gossip site TMZ. The Brits have their royals and we have our royal pains in the butt.
In the annals of celebrity weddings, 72 days is nothing to sneeze at. Cher and husband Greg Allman were married all of 9 days the same amount of wedded bliss as Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra. Back in 1970 Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips made it only 8 days. Britney Spears and her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, were married for all of 55 hours (ahhh, Vegas…) And for those of you who are old school(or just old, like me) Ernest Borgnine spent less than a month married to Ethel Merman. In each instance, many us smiled and shook our heads and chalked it up to immature celebrities and their impulsive actions. Is Kim Kardashian any different with her 72 day marriage?
The answer is “yes”! While these other celebrities may have made mistakes choosing their mates (Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley? Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson?) they made these errors off camera. The Kardashians have their own network broadcasting their every move around the clock. Somehow the E! Network became the Kardashian Channel, snowballing the success of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” by adding “Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami”, Kourtney and Kim Take New York” and “Khloe and Lamar.” (I guess Khloe decided to settle down after running out of cities to take.) I’m sure another show featuring younger sisters Kylie and Kendall are in the works. The entire network is like “The Truman Show” following one spoiled, overexposed Beverly Hills family.
When Kim said “yes” to Kris, was it because she truly loved him? Because he spells his name with a cutesy “k” like the rest of her family? Because she knew that E!’s ratings would skyrocket and advertising dollars would go through the roof? Or was it the modest, intimate proposal from Kris, conveniently timed to coincide with the season finale of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” that won her heart? That and the 20.5 carat diamond ring?
I purposely opted out of any wedding coverage, but several friends couldn’t wait to take in every detail of the fairytale event: The Vera Wang wedding gown, the $20,000 wedding cake, the $172,000 bridal registry that included a $7,000 vase and $1,600 silver place settings. By contrast Prince William and his bride asked that charitable donations be made in lieu of gifts for their wedding. Those Brits are classy, while our Kardashians are just…”krass”.
Is anyone surprised by this recent turn of events? Will it spawn yet another E! reality show? “Kris and Kim take Divorce Court”? “Keeping up with the Prenup?” Perhaps they can branch out to Lifetime Television for Women with a movie entitled “I Married a Stranger” or “72 days in Kardashian Hell”. It seems more than a little coincidental that Kim filed for divorce on Oct. 31, the day before the November television sweeps period begins. E! already had plans to repeat the two part wedding program on Nov. 2nd and 3rd, but when the divorce announcement was made, moved up the first part to Oct. 31, with part two to follow the next day. Not wanting to appear insensitive to the devastated couple, E! decided to move part 2 back to Thursday night. How thoughtful.
I feel a bit sorry for Humphries who got sucked into the Kardashian machine and was “krushed” in the process. Though Kim’s mother asserts that her daughter didn’t make “a dime” from the wedding, I suspect there might be untold millions made from photographs, interviews, and of course the subsequent airings of “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding”. I have to ask myself, what kind of world do we live in where so much media coverage is devoted to such an insignificant event?
A krazy one.
Never underestimate “girl time”.
My life is divided into many compartments, each which demands its own amount of time in any given 24-hour period. There’s “family time, which typically comes first in my life. This may be time spent sitting around the dinner table sharing stories about our day, watching “Survivor” with my sons, or enjoying other activities with my husband and children without interruption from the outside world.
“Work time” is all-encompassing and can include writing my column, food shopping, housework, volunteering and about a thousand other things I do on a day to day basis.
There’s “me time”; time spent alone pursuing my own interests like reading, films shopping or exercise. Often, this time gets pushed aside in the day to day of life. I’ll read a chapter in my book, only to have to put it down to fold laundry, make dinner or drive the kids to one of their after school activities.
“Girl time” is a whole different animal. It’s the time spent with my friends for no other reason than to revisit, if only for the length of a luncheon or a shopping expedition, that girl I once was, before I was married with children. The girl who had discretionary income, to spend on glittery flip-flops or overpriced make-up; The girl who could indulge in an extra martini without worrying about seeming inappropriate in front of her children. A girl who could laugh about stupid things with like-minded friends and not worry whether anyone is judging her for it. Years before we were someone’s wife or mother, we were those girls.
This past weekend, I had a 24-hour stretch of “girl time” at a friend’s Cape house. The group was a mix of old friends, recent friends and a couple of new friends. The host’s invite was for a “Girls Gone Wine” weekend, so armed with bottles of red and white, we headed to Chatham on Saturday morning. Upon our arrival, we found that a couple of the girls had indeed “gone wine” the night before, and were sleeping off their actions. The rest of us headed into town, despite a steadily falling rain and the threat of a true nor’easter that afternoon.
My friends and I spent the next few hours strolling in and out of shops, eating a leisurely lunch, and capping off our afternoon with a cocktail to warm our bodies as the weather turned more cold and foul by the minute. The sheer luxury of being able to base decisions on nothing more than our own whims made a dreary, rainy afternoon feel like a breath of fresh air. We all felt a bit giddy to be free from our usual weekend routines. How nice to enter a store without hearing the inevitable, “Mom, can you buy this for me?” or to choose a restaurant without wondering if there’s a kid’s menu. It didn’t matter that we returned home drenched from the now-imminent nor’easter. By the time we arrived back at the house we were ready to pull on our lounge pants and relax in front of the fire with a glass of wine.
The rest of the evening unfolded lazily as we enjoyed dinner, music, television and most of all, each other’s company. Whether it was Wii Bowling or a viewing of “Poltergeist”, the hours were filled with lively conversation and many laughs. At one point I realized that what I was experiencing was a grown up version of the slumber parties I had enjoyed nearly thirty-five years ago. Though we are all a bit older than those teenage girls who traded nail polish, fan magazines and stories about the boys we had crushes on, the camaraderie remains the same. We’ve just swapped Coke and Tab for Pinot and Zinfandel.
After a night of wild wind and rain, we woke to a beautiful, sunny morning. Though we would have liked the chance to stay and enjoy another day of leisure, there were confirmation and birthday parties to attend, washers and driers to fill, and pumpkins to carve for Halloween the next day. We returned to our regular Sunday activities with some reluctance.
It may be a while before I can enjoy another full day of “girl time”. I’ll have to be content with the occasional lunch or movie. That’s okay. I love my “family time”, my “me time” and even my “work time”. But when the opportunity for “girl time” comes again, the wife and mother will temporarily step aside and let the girl come out to play with her friends.
