30/30: Happy New Era!

October 16th

For my last photos in my twenties, I wanted to pay homage to my running status as the world’s last young, old person.  Though, if it wasn’t a Wednesday night in North Carolina (and probably if my sister was around)…I’d prefer to be spending my last hour watching the Thunder Down Under.

I tried to think of something ceremonious I could do.  People like to plant trees.  I recalled a seedling packet for a Japanese Red Maple (I love those trees) that we received as a favor during a wedding we attended when we first moved to San Diego.  I have no idea if the seeds will still sprout, but I planted it right before midnight and made a wish.

Of course, I had to stay up until midnight of my birthday just like you do on New Year’s.  Only I’m the only person cheering, “Happy new era!” like the crazy old lady I now am.

30/30: When AARP Finds You (20 years early)

October 2nd

Tommie worked from home today so we were able to go to the gym together in the morning and we checked out a YMCA we hadn't yet been to (downtown Durham location).  

I made us smoothies afterwards and we got to enjoy an early dinner--a hearty meal of American Chop Suey.  

Perhaps the best thing that happened today was that Tommie received a registration card from the AARP.  I remember how mad my mom was when she turned 50 and got her first solicitation from AARP.  She had just moved across the country to California and she said, "How did they find me!?"  This feels worse--they found us 20 years early.  There's nothing to make you feel like you're aging too fast than a letter saying, "We're here to help you make the most of life over 50!"

The Mole

I had a tiny mole on my back removed today.  In my usual style, I sweat through my robe while waiting for the small procedure to start, and I rambled like a lunatic in an attempt to calm myself down:  "I feel like I'm about to get a tattoo.  If I was getting a tattoo, what would I get?  Hey Dr. Lee, I have an idea!  You should punch moles out in cool shapes like those craft paper punchers in the shapes of stars and hearts.  Then people would have cool-shaped scars."  She laughed quietly, "Um, that's not exactly how it works."  Doctors--always gotta wreck a girl's dreams.

I had Tommie with me for emotional support...or so I thought.  He was supposed to hold my hand and tell me how brave I was, but halfway through the procedure he leaned against the wall and I noticed that his pale complexion had become even more pale.  So, as I lay there with a hole carved in my back, the doctor and I start comforting Tommie--telling him everything is okay, I'm doing great, and that he can go sit down, have some water, and turn on the air.  He blames the balmy 75 degree temperature in the room.  (Sure.)  He kept trying to get back up and stand by me, but he was getting whiter by the minute and I didn't want him to faint on top of all the sharp objects lying around so I told him to sit back down. 

I survived the process, and Tommie, while not exactly doing his job the way I had planned did manage to distract me from my own discomfort by having me worry about his.  

Again, I am reminded of our very wise decision to never endure childbirth.  We can barely make it through a mole...I mean, we're wicked brave...it's just that it was a swealtering 75 degrees in the room.

Takes Some Getting Used To

Naturally, moving to the south from the northeast takes some getting used to. 

If you move in the summer like we did, there is the heat. It might surprise you how quickly 89 degrees begins to feel temperate. The hardest part of this season to get used to is that it looks so nice outside. It's not like winter was back home when I'd look out to three-foot deep snow drifts and return promptly to the comfort of my couch. I look out here to a sunny sky and green trees and I always test it...I go outside to rake, or to water the plants, or sit on the patio...until five minutes later I am airing out pit stains and swatting away swarms of misquitoes. It's an evil mirage, and it tricks me every time.

There is the swearing--or I should say, the lack of "cursing" (that's what they call it here). I'm all for PG language, but every once in a while you have to let out a shit. (Pun intended.) On the "rule board" at one of the parks we walk the dog, profane language is just as restricted as firearms.

Along those same lines, people are very polite. I know, I know--that sounds horrible. It's not really a problem unless you are like us and you make fun of yourselves and others a lot. If I say something funny about my sister (which I never do, Eva), they don't laugh about it--that would be rude. They also get concerned when Tommie and I poke fun at each other--like we're going to get divorced because he called me a bug-eyed freak with man shoulders.

Lastly, there's God. He's big down here in case you didn't know. Sometimes young people pray before meals...and it's not Thanksgiving. That's just odd. Religion is more a part of every day life for people than it is where we are from and have lived before. Does that scare me? A little. I'm sure there are already multiple people praying for my soul and I haven't even mentioned my theories on reincarnation. I think we need to start making friends at Weaver Street.

New Computer, Old Soul

Over the weekend Tommie and I bit the bullet and bought me/us a new laptop (13" MacBook Pro). It was time for my old iBook from the college years to retire considering I could make myself breakfast in the time it took to open photos or navigate a couple Web pages.  

I am getting used to the new laptop--loving the clearer, brighter screen, the light up keyboard, and of course the increased speed. Apparently this thing can do a lot more, but I'm probably not the best person to test it.

When you go to the Apple store to purchase a computer they help with personal setup. Helping me setup took twice as long as helping elderly couples who were in and out of there before I could even get my username to work. Tommie kept slapping his forehead in pain. I asked the Mac genius if he thought I could get a job there. He didn't answer.

In my defense, my previous Mac was so old that I didn't have updated information that was compatible with the new one. Against my defense, I have never been good with technology. It's the old mind, the creative soul, the defender of dying arts against the new engineers who would rather see novels written in HTML code. Computers "know" this about me and I'm telling you they rebel--they are very smart, and maybe I rebel back, but I'm not admitting to anything.

When we got home, Tommie set up my computer to make sure it didn't self destruct and Maya spent more time sitting at it than I did. I sat on the floor and made paper pinwheel art out of old magazines (more on that later) because I saw them in a window display on the way to the Apple store earlier that day and got inspired. As Tommie said, "You are the only person who gets a new computer and goes home to make paper wheels." True.

Showing My Age

For the majority of my life, I graciously accepted the fact that I was born an old lady: I make statements that are best suited for conversation in a retirement community; I text whole words instead of abbreviations (that is, if I even text at all); I forget my granny panties in the laundry room where my landlord embarrassingly finds them. These are idiosyncrasies I can handle, but the actual physical process of aging in my 20's is something I did not sign up for.

This time last year, I was busy getting one bad root canal after another on all my back bottom teeth, making it abundantly clear that I'm at least a quarter of the way to needing dentures. This year, I found out I have a calcium deposit on my toe bone that I need to have surgically removed. Now I'm staring at my current collection of cute flats and flip-flops--perfectly suitable for normal young adults--and debating what ugly orthopedic shoes to replace them with. The other day I had to use the cart in Target like a walker. I've seen 80-year-olds move faster than me. 

I'm afraid this is my life. The old lady in my soul is manifesting herself in the form of crappy bones and spider veins before I hit age 30, and that really gets my goat.

Baby Talk

Everyone who has been engaged knows that when people hear you are getting married they don't just stop at asking you a million questions about your wedding...they move onto questions about your life plans: "So, have you two talked about when you're going to have kids?"

I hear it from family, the dentist, hairstylists and strangers. Maybe other people don't mind being asked this question because they have the answer everyone wants to hear, which is: "We'll enjoy being 'newlyweds' for a couple years, then have babies." The problem is, Tommie and I are far from "newlyweds" (being together for 200 years) and our plan for kids is adoption. Try explaining all this to your dental hygienist as she flosses your teeth.

I'm getting used to the strange looks I get, the assumptions that I can't have kids of my own, and the insults. What begins as an inadvertent insult to me: "Well, it would be a big mistake not to have at least one of your own children and miss the experience" turns into me inadvertently insulting them because I have to explain that I honestly could care less about the experience. In the end, the other person doesn't understand me so they just recite the Nike slogan, "Just do it!" and I have to smile and pretend I will because that's easier for them to handle. But the truth is I have always wanted kids, just not my own.
People want to know why and I don't have one definitive answer but I can think of two videos I saw as a child that helped shaped my decisions. The first, The Miracle of Life confirmed that childbirth was actually more disgusting than I could have imagined. On the most basic level, childbirth makes me sick. More power to all the women who are brave enough to go through it but it's not for me. Maybe I was supposed to be a dude, maybe I was supposed to be an inanimate object like a rock, but instead I was born a woman with the brain of a man or a rock and the thought of another living being growing inside one's stomach and coming out their crotch sounds like the worst thing that could ever happen to a person.

The second video was a news special about China's one-child rule and how so many baby girls were being abandoned in that country because if they had to choose one child, families would rather have a boy. This confirmed that I would much rather help children that are already alive. There are millions of children in every country that need loving homes. On top of that, we are living in a world that is dangerously overpopulated as it is. Why should I add to that problem?
When I think about having my own child, I want to curl up and die, but when I think about adoption I get excited...the way I imagine most women get excited about the thought of having their own. I have no doubt in my mind I would love an adopted child all the same (possibly even more because they didn't tear out of my who-who). I know it sounds strange to most women because it goes against that instinct to carry a baby, but I wish some people would stop to think that maybe some women don't feel the same way they do. Just because I have a uterus doesn't mean I have to use it or that I want to use it. This blog post is for other women who feel like this, of which I realize there are few, and for the people who struggle to understand them. It's not that difficult in my view...ultimately we all want the same thing, we just go through different means to get there and I'm okay with that.

Winter Quest

Weather is never a factor when you live in a place like San Diego, but in New England weather is your biggest enemy. Winter is a test of physical and mental endurance and it can make doing something as simple as going to the dentist more like a quest, or a really horrible video game pilot. We "played" the pilot for this game yesterday when we had to use the Groupons we bought to go to a dentist in Boston (a 45-minute drive on a clear day). (These Groupons were my attempt to save a few bucks on dentistry; if only I could find Groupons for root canals.) The weather was awful...what began as steady snow turned into slushy rain then began to freeze over to ice, but if we didn't show up for our appointments, we had to forfeit the Groupons and I couldn't stand to lose more money over my teeth, so our quest began.

Just on the way out of the long driveway at my work, a co-worker attempting to turn into the parking lot in his little Scion, was stuck blocking the way; his small wheels spinning in vain. Clearly he wasn't going to make it past Level 1 of the quest. After 10 minutes of trying, he backed (or should I say slid) down the driveway and ditched the car in a snow pile.

Next, I met up with Tommie and we got on the highway for Level 2. Cars were moving slow at first, but maybe because someone had flung their sports car into a snowbank along the side of the road...a warning that Level 2 wouldn't be as easy. We inched our way through the mess. At one stage a tsunami of brown slush put into motion by a truck on the other side of the road, came crashing over the median and directly onto our car. It was so loud that Tommie actually ducked...inside the car.

As we neared the city (Level 3) impatient commuters picked up speed despite the slippery road and zipped around our car as fast as knives being thrown at a target. The spray behind them made us have to practically drive blind until we got to the the bridge (Level 4) where an ominous sign above us read, "Beware of falling ice and snow from bridges." Just what you like to read a couple hundred feet above the water.

As you can guess, we made it to the final levels. We found parking without getting the car stuck in a snow pile and surprisingly without getting another tsunami wave splashed on us from oncoming cars; we climbed a mountain of brown snow just to feed the parking meter (thanks, Boston); climbed another pile of brown snow just to get to the sidewalk (thanks, Boston); and right before we got to the door of the dentist, I dodged a pile of snow that fell from a tree above me and landed with a heavy thud on what could have been my head.

We made it through the quest, and at least we got something really cool at the end...like clean teeth, right? (How sad is my life?) And so I give the winter quest two thumbs down. Anyone else ready for spring?

Falling Apart One Tooth At A Time

A girl I once worked with told me her mom got dentures in her thirties because she was sick of all the dental work she had to have done. For some reason this story stuck in my head. I thought that sounded pretty crazy. How much dental work could you possibly have done before you were 40-years-old that would make you that desperate? Well, apparently I'm on the path to find out.

I always thought root canals were mythical stories that old people told us, and that by the time I might need one I'd be geriatric and wouldn't know what the hell was going on anyway. Well, I'm 27 and unfortunately I know all too well what's going on...I'm on a slow decline starting with my mouth.

A couple months ago I went to the dentist to tell him about a pain I felt when chewing. People said, "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing!" and I told myself it was probably just a filling that needed to be replaced. But I will tell you something...optimism gets you nowhere. I'll never try it again. I needed a root canal restored with a crown which cost about $3,000 and my work doesn't have dental insurance. That's when I figured out optimism is actually the cause of depression. Fast forward two months later and replay the same pain on the opposite side of my mouth only this time I think it's two teeth. I go to the dentist depressed, which is a good thing because it's worse than I even thought...there's a good chance I need two more root canals and two more crowns. Did I mention this is the first time in my life I haven't had dental insurance? How ironic.

My dentist told me I'm probably worsening the issue by grinding my teeth at night due to stress. I told him this wasn't helping.

My mom blames candy like Sour Patch Kids which, she reminded me, "Were made of pure sugar and were the worst because that gummy stuff just sticks in your teeth, though they tasted so good I used to beg you and your sister to share them with me but you'd only let me eat the ones off the floor." Well, you're welcome, Mom. We were only looking out for you.
I have always taken care of my teeth, but it's gotten me no where. I'm indignant. Winter is upon us, I've peaked at age 27, and my slow decline has begun one tooth at a time.

The Results Are In

As you may recall, a couple weeks ago we met a man and woman who had a dog that looked eerily similar to Maya. The couple told us they had just sent away a DNA kit to find out what kind of dog theirs might be, and that they would e-mail us the results. Well, the results are in...

There were only three identifiable breeds associated with their dog, and the breeds are ranked according to how strongly they show up in the dogs DNA. Showing up with the highest percentage (12.5%...which is still considered a "weak match") was Boxer. The other two were LESS than 12.5% and they are Italian Grey Hound, and...ready for this...Poodle! People have called Maya a lot of things before, things I've never heard of and may even be considered insults to dogs across America, but NEVER a poodle.

(Maya with a couple of Italian Greyhounds)

The report went on to say that there was a high likelihood (greater than 90%) that the last four generations of this other dog's lineage were mixed from at least three breeds themselves, which is why there are not more significantly discernible breeds in its genetic make up. What I love is that none of the discernible breeds account for the most obvious physical traits (like out-turned front paws, short legs, extra long bodies, or light hazel eyes).

We still want to get Maya's make-up tested one day to see if they can uncover anymore of the mystery. But knowing the way this has gone, she would be something we'd never guess, like 50% husky. All we know now is that Maya sure is special; her smarts could come from her great-great-grandpoodle; and she probably comes from a long line of hoochies. No surprise there.

The Art of Embellishment

Creative non-fiction is often what categorizes a memoir or a personal narrative. It's a story that is true (real people, real events), but told in a creative and interesting way. This is how I like to see the world. My family and friends say I like to exaggerate. I say I never exaggerate, only embellish.

As an example, there was one time my sister and I were making a nightly ice cream run to pick up a pint (make that two) of Ben & Jerry's. When we got to the freezer isle, we saw they were having a sale...Great! Until we realized that Ben & Jerry had been ransacked by girls who apparently had the same idea. We had had a system going: I'd get cookie dough; Eva would get half-baked. I spotted my flavor and grabbed it, but Eva was in distress...half-baked was no where to be found. She moaned, reaching both arms into the freezer, strewing useless pints of Ben & Jerry's across the shelves in her frantic quest for half-baked. To tell you the truth, I don't remember if she even found what she was looking for; all I remember is that she left the place in shambles. When we got home, Mom asked how our trip to the store went and I told her that Eva had been like a bear at a campsite. She laughed, but Eva was not amused by the description. Eva called me a lier and said that she had simply searched for her favorite flavor, slightly frustrated. But I had seen her...reaching her paws--I mean, arms--deep into the shelves of the freezer, leaving a path of destruction in her wake, and I swear when I yelled at her to stop making such a mess, she growled at me.

(photo by Jeffrey Brooker on nps.gov)

Unfortunately for people who find themselves around people who like to write, that's how we see things. I didn't just see my sister getting upset over ice cream--I saw a grizzly bear hungry for half-baked. I can see how this might be slightly annoying. My sister isn't really a bear (though I have seen her attack boys at the jugular).

Sure, I could see and tell things exactly the way they happen...Eva couldn't find her ice cream. This upset her. But then I wouldn't be doing any creative justice to the event that transpired and I would have missed the opportunity to describe my sister in a more visually captivating way. I'm sure she'll thank me for it later.

What Do You Mean Not Everyone Gets a Trophy?

While browsing the "new book" section in the library a while ago, I came across a book titled, "Not Everyone Gets a Trophy," by Bruce Tulgan and I immediately knew what it was about: Me. Less specifically, it is about managing Generation Y. I have read articles about my generation (born between the mid 70's and 1990's), and how we were brought up to think that we are all "special." The title of the book made me laugh out loud because (and this is probably a typical Gen Y thing to say), it seemed like it was titled just for me!

See, when I was a kid, I tried all kinds of sports before my parents realized I didn't have a competitive bone in my body. I used to hide behind the tall girls during little kid track races so I wouldn't have to race against the fast kids; instead of hitting the tennis balls my instructor lobed at me, I ran away from them; and when I tried gymnastics, I stood on the springboard before the vault and cried. Then I cried even more when I found out I didn't qualify to get a trophy with one of those little gold eagles on it. I didn't think it was fair that just because I made (in my mind) a very smart decision not to launch myself over something 10x the size of myself at the time, I wasn't getting a trophy!

The next day, my dad came home with a present. I opened it and there was the little gold eagle and a female figure poised in a running stance on top of a platform reading, "Champion Daughter." At the time it could have read, "Champion Cry Baby" and I would have been just as thrilled to have gotten it. It was a very nice thing for my parents to do, even if it did perpetuate my Gen Y attitude that I was special even when I wasn't. But what the author of "Not Everyone Gets a Trophy," might not know is that while it's true not everyone get's a trophy in this world, everyone deserves a trophy for even the seemingly little things they do/are (like being a "champion daughter"). Spoken like a true Generation Y-er.

The Lesson of the Purple Sweater

The heat was out in the office yesterday and my boss, thinking she was doing me a favor, brought in one of her old fleece jackets for me to wear. I don't know what it is about ladies but they always think younger women won't mind wearing their clothes when it's cold. Consider this a public service announcement: 9 out of 10 times we would rather freeze.

I had a teacher is 6th grade who kept an oversized purple sweater in the closet for kids who got cold. We soon learned to NEVER complain of a chill or else suffer the embarrassment of her wrapping that unattractive, big, knit, moth-ball sweater around us. (Maybe if she hadn't covered up all the windows with cardboard so that we wouldn't "get distracted" the sunlight would have warmed us up?) This is what I thought of yesterday as my boss held up the jacket, which I instantly knew was too small for me, and said, "I brought this for you...and it's even clean!" She then proceeded to pick bits of dog hair and dirt off the sleeves and say, "Oh, well...maybe not...but it doesn't smell." Great.

A few minutes later she scolded me for not wearing the jacket. Fine, I thought, I'll compromise, so I stuffed my arms into the sleeves but didn't put it over my head for fear my man-shoulders would tear through the top. When my boss noticed this tactic she scoffed, "I don't have cooties, you know!" "I just don't think it will fit me in the shoulders," I tried to explain, but she took this to mean I was calling her fat. "Oh, come on! I had that in college, Amber! It will fit you." "It's just that I have really broad, manly shoulders and I was worried I would stretch it out," but everything I said made her angry. I was supposed to love her dirty college fleece and wear it like we were old college buds, but instead I was indirectly calling her "small shouldered," and so to spare her ego she hollered, "Well, I have a rack! You don't have that!" The client who was privy to this entire discussion looked from her chest to mine. Great.

You see, it never ends well...other 6th graders will call the kid a Purple-People Eater for the rest of the day; everyone in the office will guess at cup sizes...and in the end, we'd have rather died of hypothermia anyway. So if you're ever thinking of sharing your purple sweater or dirty fleece, remember this, you are doing that girl a favor by letting her freeze.

Hey, Jealousy (And More on Why Women Go Crazy)

I recently received an e-mail from a distraught male trying to make sense of his girlfriend's jealous and emotional behavior particularly in the case of his friendship with another girl at work (where, coincidentally, the girlfriend also works). At his wits end, he Googled, "Why are women so crazy?" And he came across my post "Why Do Women Go Crazy?" I feel bad for men; I really do. They are apparently so confounded by us they Google our behavior as if there is (and maybe there should be) some kind of catch-all physiological, scientific, medically-sound explanation for why we are all completely off our rockers.
Let's be honest, both men and women get jealous. The difference is that women don't just get jealous—they get angry, upset, sad, self-loathing, competitive, manipulative, evil, caddy—you get the idea. The reason why men are easier to deal with in general is that they typically stick to one emotion. They get jealous and maybe a little angry and competitive. Women are just more emotionally complex. This completely confuses most men who can't handle the emotional roller coaster we strap them into with that crazed look in our eyes and say, "Hold on, you're in for it now!"

There was one particular situation that caused me to mope around one summer plagued with jealousy, and the worst part was that I really didn't have a right to do so since I was a far worse human being than my boyfriend. Regardless, I got angry; I got sad; I searched for a way to get even (preferably ahead), and this emotional meltdown exhausted my boyfriend...literally. One night I decided to vent to him about why I was so hurt and upset...I carefully laid out my feelings in between tears and at the end he was very quiet. That's when I realized he had fallen asleep.

See, men's brains just shut off at a certain level of intensity. That's what spares them from going as crazy as we do. It's a defense mechanism...like going into shock...that, really, saves them from suffering the way we do. We could learn a thing or two from this: When things become too mentally draining we should just stop: Stop worrying, stop sobbing, stop beating ourselves up over it...we can't control everything and everyone in the world. And secondly, if we are still upset, we should probably vent to another female who can handle our chatter without slipping into a sleep induced coma.

Why Do Women Go Crazy?

When I was 16 I believed women were emotionally superior and more level-headed than men, and that's because at 16 we were. Not only do boys take longer to mature, but they almost all undergo some kind of dark stage during adolescence where they question their very existence. Because of their fragile male egos and because society says it's not okay for boys to show vulnerability, they almost all lose their minds trying to hold in all of their emotions.

Later in our lives though, something happens: Men pull themselves from the pit of teenage despair and women begin their slow decline to insanity. Don't get me wrong; I still think women are emotionally superior than men, but I am sorry to say I think that very strength could be the cause of our ruin. As we get older and have more responsibility, women try to take it all on. We try to carefully balance our home life, love life, work life, etc. Men know it's impossible, so they don't worry themselves trying. They focus on what's most important. They don't let their emotions dictate their actions. (*I realize this isn't true in all cases, but it's a main observation I've made based on the men/women in my life.)
Women lose their patience, then they lose their tact, and then they lose their minds. Most of us grew up with impatient mother's—scolding us often, yelling at telemarketers, and complaining at restaurants. My college roomies and I were horrified to discover that all of our mother's walked around our houses naked—barely remembering to cover up when friends came over (so much for tact). Then one day my mom wrote me a postcard from our cat (that's right, "written" and "signed" by the cat). C.r.a.z.y.

I am in my mid-twenties and I feel it happening already: I'm a bitch when I don't need to be, I'm overly cynical, I'm bossy, and I dream of the day I'll be able to embarrass my future daughter in front of her boyfriends. I look at all the older women in my life and those I encounter for a short time and I cringe. What happens to us? It can't merely be biological...menopause can only account for a portion of it. Based on observation and carefully documented experiences, crazy women disease starts early and continues on through old age. I can't promise I won't hang up promptly on telemarketers, roll my eyes when I'm waiting in a long line as if I should be allowed a free pass to the front, or even that I won't write my kids a long letter from the dog, but I do promise to try my very best to put on clothes when we have visitors.

Curse of the Hobo

If there was a term for the opposite of a gold-digger (dirt-digger?), that might be what you would call the women in my family. I have a big family, we all grew up in different generations, different places and different socioeconomic classes, but one commonality rings true...we are drawn to men who have nothing.

My mom rolls her eyes when my sister and I say we don’t like guys who have money and nice cars because they aren't interesting...being poor builds character. Plus, we all have a "poor” sense of humor: we make fun of each other a lot, we burp in public, we talk about poop...we just can’t relate to people with money and class.

Most women go their whole lives without dating a hobo, but if you ask the women in my family, they’re missing out. Even my mom, who just wants the best for her daughters, knows it’s true—after all, she married our dad who was a young, carefree (and homeless) fisherman when they started dating.

That might explain why my sister and I have a natural affinity for cute and charming vagabonds. Put me in a room with 100 men and I guarantee I’ll find the one who doesn’t have a car, a high-paying job, or even an apartment. I swear I can smell them (no need to make a joke about them not showering).

It’s true I’ve spent the majority of my life with a guy who has it together because in reality I can’t stress out about where my boyfriend is sleeping at night; I worry enough as it is, but there is always a special place in my heart for the lost boys who lead a simple existence, who (despite the fact they have nothing) don’t complain half as much as I do, and who don’t have anything holding them back.

My family jokes that hundreds of years ago, someone put a hex on the female lineage—“The Curse of the Hobo.” At some point, we all seem to have fallen for one. My grandmother, who recently heard about our theory of the curse, smiled and said, “Oh yes, I never met a hobo I didn’t like.” When I have a daughter, I imagine having to explain this sad fact to her when she inevitably returns home one evening with a boy possessing that irresistible wayward charm.

Posers

It's difficult to catch a candid photo of me. While others appear to go about their business oblivious to the cameras around them, I hear the click of a lens opening or see the bright light of a flash about to light up, and I can't help tilting my head, lifting my shoulders, batting my eyelashes and smiling all in time for the shutter to open and close. With a little more warning, I'll hop into an arabesque. I'm normally a pretty reserved person but the camera brings out my shallow, showy side...and after spending some more time with my family, I know where I get it from.

My sister and I are the type who could be in the middle of an argument together, have someone walk by with a camera, and we'd instantly shut up, turn to them, smile the sweetest smile, then jump right back into the fray.
At the family wedding this past weekend there was a lot of posing going on and it mainly involved the women in my family: You have my mom, queen of the hair flip and half-smile. She is joined by my dad's cousin who gives eyes to the camera man. Then you have my grandmother who never passes up an opportunity to express her flashier side; and my cousin who, as we were in the middle of a conversation, tilted her head and smiled in time for me to realize there was someone behind me about to take a photo to whom I spun around with my camera-ready smile already plastered on my face.So much for candid shots in this family.

A New Low

My friends and family like to point out that I say/act like an old lady, and I can't really argue with them. I do blurt out the occasional old person saying and the mere thought of going out on Saturday nights tuckers me out. But I hit a new "old person" low the other day...

Tommie noticed a local restaurant was having a 1/2 price anniversary sale. Being the cheapos we are, we planned our evening around this occasion. We stocked up on all the half-price food we could eat; Tommie even went back for seconds. But the fact that we were as excited about this deal as the senior citizens in town was not the worst part of it...

My greek salad came with a big piece of fresh pita bread. I didn't use the bread with the salad and was just going to leave it at the table until Tommie said, "Hey, bring that home." My eyes lit up, "Yeah, we can use it with hummus." I stuck the piece of pita in my purse, but I immediately felt like I had crossed a line no 25-year-old should cross. When you start sticking bread in your purse and pockets, you are officially an old person. I once saw an elderly man stick six dinner rolls in his pockets on the way out of the restaurant where I worked.

It's a new low and I'm not proud to admit that I hit it...at least the bread tasted good with that hummus the next day.

Cookies With a Bad Attitude

I am not a good grocery shopper. If left to my own devices (and this has happened before), I would come home with ice cream, fudgesicles, cookies and more ice cream. Even now, it is Tommie's task to make sure we come home with "real food." Still, I treat myself to at least one desert (okay, maybe more like three) per trip.

While shopping two weeks ago, I had a hankering for cookies...and those little Keebler elf-shaped sandwich cookies were calling my name. But something in the back of my mind said, "Don't get the elves," and it sounded a lot like my mother. The same thing happened this week; I thought "Mmmm, little elf cookies," but I grabbed the Vienna Fingers instead.

When I got home, sat down with my Vienna Fingers, and gave a satisfied smile at the little gray-haired Keebler elf perched on the corner of the package, I suddenly remembered my Mom's aversion to the elf cookies. Maybe she didn't like them herself or thought they were too sugary, but while she tolerated Vienna Fingers, and the chocolate covered graham crackers, she would NOT give in to the elves...they bothered her. I seem to remember Mr. Keebler Elf bothering her...something about him "having a bad attitude." Naturally, the elf cookies, when ingested, would have had some kind of negative effect on our own attitudes.

The cookies themselves are really nothing to write home about...fake chocolate frosting between two vanilla cookies in the shape of an elf...but my God they tasted good when your own mother refused them. Mom will probably read this anecdote and say, "I never said that," but that's how a child deprived of elf cookies remembers it, and it wouldn't be all that unlikely...after all, this is the woman who wouldn't let my sister and I watch the cartoons Tom & Jerry because they were too violent, or Woody the Woodpecker because he was a bad influence. When my sister and I would wake up before my parents some mornings and turn on Woody, we thought we were badass.

But, perhaps, Mom was right. The T.V. show "The Simpson's" overly violent cat and mouse duo (Itchy & Scratchy) were based off Tom & Jerry; my sister did start imitating Woody the Woodpecker's laugh (which was extremely annoying), and every time I go down the cookie isle, those little elves call out to me and that unassuming grandfatherly Keebler Elf gets in my head like the little devil he is and murmurs, "Come on, you know you want them." And despite his bad attitude, he has me hooked.