Hints from - and to...

I grew up reading "Hints from Heloise" in the local paper. The Asbury Park Press, to be exact. When my grandfather sold his house, we found a brown paper bag full of columns that my grandmother had cut out. Reading them, I often thought, 'how silly, we've always done this, why are people just finding this out?'...and then realized that we had ALWAYS done that...since Nanny read it in Heloise.

I still read the column, now written by the original Heloise's daughter, now in the Somerset Daily American. One of last week's letters was simply printed by Heloise, with no response from the columnist. The woman wrote, and I quote:

"Dear Heloise: Here is an idea I tried: My husband brought home a bottle of orange-colored hand soap. My kitchen is blue and white, with red-apple accents. My solution: A few drops of red food coloring, and I have red soap now!
Thanks for all your hints and help.
_J.K., another Texas homemaker"

Really??? I'm wondering if J.K. stands for Just Kidding - really??? Your freaking hand soap can't be orange? Because it clashes with your blue and white and red-apple accents???

Wow...glad I did not write this column, my answer would probably have been something like, "You need an appointment with your therapist to deal with your anal-retentive behavior." Heck, I'm surprised her solution wasn't to repaint the kitchen or throw out her red-apple accents and buy orange-orange accents. Or orange-tangerine...or tangerine-orange...

If you've been to my house, you know, I'm thankful if I can find the hand soap refill...be it clear, orange, blue, chartreuse. My towels don't match - they function. My bathroom - well, it finally (almost...) matches, I have a little bit of touch-up painting to do, need to mop and get the new rugs down...by the way, it's dusty pink and white, with blue accents. And I have dark green, red, and beige bath towels. And light green frogs. Because I can.

ENOUGH already!

I have a friend whose post on Facebook yesterday involved being tired of Christmas carols already. Yeah. It's not even Thanksgiving.

I remember as a child the magic that happened sometime between doing last-minute Thanksgiving meal grocery shopping on Wednesday night (you know, when the pie didn't turn out right and you had to run to the store and hope they had some kind of pie, somewhere) and "Black Friday" shopping (which, many, many years ago, started at a reasonable hour like 9 am). The stores (Britts in Freehold, in particular) turned into a Christmas wonderland, the shelves were full of toys (looking back, those shelves were probably set up in advance, because they were in a section of the store that could be closed off to customers in the days or weeks leading up), Santa's throne and SANTA were there...the day after Thanksgiving.

No Christmas carols were playing, no artificial trees (silver aluminum, anyone?!), no decorations - not even any Salvation Army bell-ringers, until then. No toy ads on tv, no Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel (ok, there WAS no Hallmark Channel)...

There were no stores open on Thankgiving Day. It was *gasp* a day of giving thanks to God, of food, of family, of food, of football, of food (do you see a pattern???), of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (on TV of course) followed by Laurel & Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers on Channel 11 out of New York, followed by King Kong, Son of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young, in succession, on Channel 9. And more food.

The big meal was at noon (or very shortly thereafter); then naps (between/during movies, of course), card games, board games, jigsaw puzzle on the card table, cutting the leftover potatoes (which there were always plenty of) to make potato salad to go with the cold turkey and ham sandwiches we'd have for supper. And the washing of the dishes (one of the few times the "good" china and the "real" silverware came out of the cupboards). And the cooking of macaroni to make macaroni salad (not pasta salad. macaroni salad. elbow macaroni.). And we'd nibble all day.

Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas carols (Destiny's Child's "I Got Your Back This Christmas" is a particular favorite...) and Christmas movies. I love buying gifts for those I love, as well as buying gifts for some that I will never meet. I love the Salvation Army, and what it does for those who are members and those that they serve. I love Santa. I love the street in Hal's hometown of South Connellsville, where like 6 or 8 of the neighbors put on a big display of EVERY CHRISTMAS LAWN ORNAMENT EVER MADE of plastic, wood, inflatable, you-name-it, and string lights across the street. I do.

But I have to agree with Lucy Van Pelt. I think Christmas is now "...run by a big eastern syndicate, you know." We go from decorating like mad for Halloween, to forgetting Thanksgiving (or making it just another day to shop), to getting so bought in (pun intended) to the commercialism that we forget what the season is about. We are so caught up with what we HAVE to buy for our kids, or the holiday (we forget HOLYday) will be RUINED for them. Peace on earth? Forget it, punk, I saw that (insert hot toy of the year here) first, and I'm going to knock you out of the way to get it for my kid!

As we near the season of Advent: breathe. slow down. learn to say no. And yeah, if you're tired of the Christmas carols and movies already - turn them off til after Thanksgiving.

Give that Man a Ham Sammich

Yeah, I know, it's already fall...

But this past Spring/Summer, Hal and I finally sat down and watched "24". All of it. We hadn't watched it when it was in its first run, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, we were in seminary when it started. Really difficult to decide to watch a show that runs the way "24" did, when you didn't know from term to term which nights you'd have classes, and frankly, studying Hebrew and Greek (not to mention theology, ethics, et al.) made it difficult to watch anything that required thought.

So, when we found "24" on Netflix, we decided to go for it. We decided to watch a season at a time, then take a short break - because after a week of action and violence I would wake up dreaming of being involved in shoot-outs. So, yeah, we'd take a break after every season. We would watch 2-3 episodes a night, a few more on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes, on our Fridays off, we'd watch as many as we could if we were near the end of the season. And yeah, we got hooked. It wasn't an either/or thing - both Hal and I liked the show.

There was one thing that bothered me. A lot. Kiefer Sutherland is quoted as having said, "There are two things that Jack Bauer never does. Show mercy and go to the bathroom." (taken from IMDB). I would add, Jack Bauer never EATS or DRINKS!!!

I really thought that Jack was going to get breakfast, or at least coffee, in Season 8; but then, as he's standing at his kitchen counter, Rene gets shot by a Russian sniper. Jack, having had nothing to eat or drink, having been shot, stabbed, beaten, maybe tased, gets shot at again, now carries Rene to the hospital, then goes out, kills a bunch of bad guys, and saves the day. Because, of course, he's Jack Bauer.

Now, I understand, we don't want episode 5 of a season to be Jack Bauer waiting to be seated at a restaurant, episode 6 of him being served drinks and waiting for his steak (well-done, he sees enough blood when he kills bad guys) and baked potato (butter, sour cream, or both?) to come, and episode 7 of him cutting and eating his steak, waiting for dessert (Chocolate cake - I don't see Jack as a creme brulee kind of guy), and paying the bill.

But once, just once, could they not have whipped through a drive-thru on way to commercial break, opened with a different scene, then cut back to Jack wiping the mustard (ketchup?) off the corner of his mouth, and saying, "Damn, that was a good burger and chocolate shake!"

Just once, could Chloe not have come to Jack in the (infirmary/holding cell) of CTU and said, "Jack - here's Dave's sandwich. From the fridge. In the break room. He was killed in (the ambush at the safe house/the ambush on the motorcade/the attack on CTU) {because you KNOW the other CTU agents were useless.} I thought you might be hungry. Because you never eat. I hope you're not Jewish. Or Muslim. Because it's ham. and cheese. together."

Of course, Kiefer, if you ever want to kill off Jack, Chloe would be the one to poison his food. Because he trusts her. And she's been above reproach. But nah, she'd never go for that...unless someone was holding Morris or their baby hostage.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

"Change of Life" - more like "Total Disruption of All Things Normal". I love menopause. No, not really. But I figure if I say it, I might start to believe it. Like the Natalie Wood character of Susan in Miracle on 34th Street, when she's riding in the back of the car on the way home from the party and keeps saying, "I believe, I believe, it's silly but I believe".

My first hot flash, we were in Nebraska. It was 20 below with a windchill colder than that. We were in a rental that was not by any stretch of the imagination sealed against the weather. Now, understand - I usually have 3 blankets on my side of the bed, and Hal sleeps outside of the covers. I woke up REALLY hot. So, I rationally thought that Hal must be DYING if I was that hot. So, loving wife that I am, I threw ALL of the covers off the bed. Not off my side onto his. Off the bed. Totally. Onto my side of the floor. And my poor husband woke up wondering when we moved to the Arctic Circle. As he would continue the story, he realized that there was a burning ember in the bed, so he just curled up next to me and kept warm.

Hot flashes, lack of concentration, insomnia, irritability, erratic cycles - you name it, I've got it. The hot flashes bother me the least, I think. The irritability is Hal's biggest problem - of course because he sees it the most. The insomnia is killing me - not even "p.m. strength" acetaminophen helps. And I've tried prescription sleep aids in the past that have not helped (except to give me weird dreams, and I have enough problems with my dreams...but that's a story for another day).

But last night, yeah, last night I think was my moment. I told Hal that I was going to stay on the couch all night - I wasn't feeling well, and I didn't want to bother him with my up and down all night. So I told him that I was staying downstairs - you know, because of my amnesia. He looked at me kinda funny - and I realized what I had said. So I said - "Yeah, amnesia. Because I forgot it's insomnia that I have, ok???"

And there you have it. So if you see me somewhere, and I'm acting strange - I'm not acting. I'm just changing.

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

The first time that I heard the Staples' back-to-school ad playing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," I did not have my head turned to the tv. My first thought was to cringe, thinking that someone was already doing Christmas ads in the summer. When I turned towards the television, I burst out laughing at those two pitiful-looking children, drudging down the aisle, heads down, pushing the cart, getting their back to school supplies, with their dad coming behind them leaping for joy. For some parents, I think back-to-school is the most wonderful time - I watch as working friends struggle to find summer daycare for their children; as others figure out drop-off/pick-up summer camp/class schedules that some rocket scientists would have problems figuring out; as some come back more stressed from their "vacation" than they were when they left - you get the idea.

This evening, as I cleaned up after supper, I heard that song in my head and I thought, yeah, this is the most wonderful time. Supper is over, clean-up is over, a load of clothes in the washer - AND IT"S STILL LIGHT OUT!!! It's getting warmer, brighter, and today the sky was a bright blue instead of overcast.

It's a time of new life. Of new shoots, new grass, new flowers, baby birds and other baby animals. Let us reflect in these Lenten days the opportunity we have for new life, for change in direction, for repentance and the accompanying forgiveness.

What's in a Name, fini

Ah...I am now Connie Wagner Garlick, as recognized by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. What can be done with the RIGHT person at a state representative's office, and a few pieces of paper (like, federal tax forms with my right name; statement from Social Security Administration with my right name, copies of drivers license and state tax forms from other states with my right name).

(with apologies to Neil Armstrong): One small step for woman; one giant blow against bureaucracy. Ok, probably not a giant blow - but it sure felt like it when I got my corrected license in the mail.

Breaking Silence

Just over 6 months...for no reason, exactly. And yet, for many reasons. Sometimes, what I want to say is too private to be said in a public forum, so I say nothing. Sometimes, I'm just too busy. Sometimes, I'm just too lazy.

On this Ash Wednesday, I am breaking the fast of words that I have held. This does not mean that the flood gates will open and that you will be reading any mush that falls out of my brain. It means that I will begin to share my voice again.

As Lent begins, so begins the call of churches to deprive one's self, to share with others, to spend one's time in studying God more...things that we should be doing, or calling each other to do, all year, not just for a period of 40 days. But we can handle 40 days, can't we? We can give up (candy, computer games, coffee, whatever) for 40 days, can't we? We can go to a Bible study once a week for 6 weeks, or an extra church service during the week for 6 weeks, can't we? We can...yeah, but why can't we the rest of the time?

Don't get me wrong. I know that we live in a post-Christian era, whether we want to admit it or not. I know that we are busy: that our kids are overscheduled and, as a result, our parents are overscheduled. I know that church is not the priority it was in the past.

For those of us who call ourselves Christian, we need to decide: Is God a priority in our lives? If we say that God is a priority in our lives, do our schedules reflect that? Do the schedules of our children reflect that? Do our lives in general - our actions, our financial decisions, the tv shows we watch and the music we listen to - reflect that?

If the answers to the questions in the above paragraph is overwhelmingly "no", then might I suggest that the days of this Lenten season be used to reflect on how those answers can be changed to "yes".