Suzy Says

You know how some ideas seem great as theory, but in actual practice, not so much? This week has been like that for me.

Because I live in the US of A, where vacation time is harder to come by than an intelligent and moral politician and is more precious than platinum or saffron, I thought I could use my vacation time best by working a few hours a day while my stepmother was visiting. So theory is:

Work four or so hours, then go to the gym, get cleaned up, spend the afternoon and evening with Margaret.

Practice is: do all that, stay up late eating and drinking to excess, sleep for 5 hours, do it again. I forgot to factor sleep into the equation. I only have to get through today, though. Then tomorrow I’m going to work all day, go home, get packed, and go to the airport. After this week, I should be able to sleep the sleep of the worn-out on the plane tomorrow night, especially with the indispensable help of drugs and alcohol. Hey, maybe I’ll finally get to be that person on every flight who passes out before take-off and doesn’t wake up until arrival!

After brunch at Greens, we visited the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, conveniently located next door. The two boys stayed outside and chatted while the women checked out an exhibit of quilts. It occurred to me that quilting is pretty much a feminine artform and always has been, probably arising from necessity, but still a form of self-expression.

Now, traditional quilts are beautiful. My mother has one that her grandmother made that’s lovely as well as sentimental. But these quilts were art. The theme of the exhibit was immigration. All the women who made the quilts had emigrated to Australia, and the quilts told the story of their journey to their new home, their lives and families.

One that I found particularly moving showed the quilt’s creator sailing from her homeland, looking back and weeping. But to the other side, where her new home was, there were countless brilliant, beautiful butterflies. And when she was ready to turn her head and see them, she would. That’s the way it is. Eventually you are ready to turn toward the new and feel its joy and beauty.

If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to the past couple of days – and I know you have – the answer is simple: eating. Eating one fabulous meal after another:

Friday: Lunch with my long-time friend Richard, to celebrate his birthday (even though birthday was actually a week or so ago, but we’re both in such demand). For the next couple of months, he’s older than Me*. Yay! Discussion ensued on how many years one should take off one’s age. He thinks 3. I think more. But it’s fraught with problems, like reminding my brother that he is now older than I am. Anyway, we had a great time. It was nice enough to eat outside, so we did, at B44. We had a delicious and authentic paella, preceded by a salad of wild baby greens and accompanied with a wicked glass of wine. Especially wicked since we both had to go back to work afterwards. Richard was shocked that I ate the salad with my fingers, but I think if you do something with enough confidence, you can get away with it.

Saturday: Dinner at Le Petit Robert with my stepmother, Margaret, who is visiting from England. Discovered that they had changed the menu more than usual (no more grandes assiettes other than the special of the day), and sadly, they had also run out of the excEt Olivier Morin white burgundy. But they still make the best kir royale in town, and the Sonoma Cutrer chardonnay was up to standard. Standouts included the grilled asparagus with toasted hazelnuts and tangerine, the duck breast salad, and the Meyer lemon parfait with fresh strawberries.

Sunday: Brunch at the legendary Greens, a vegetarian restaurant with such good food that even the most dedicated carnivore would be happy. Not to mention the stunning view over the sunny Bay to delight Margaret. We were joined by our always-late friend Adrian and his wife Jacci, whose presence was so charming and sparkling that their lateness was, as usual, forgiven instantly. Margaret loved them so much that she invited them to stay in her house, which is a rare thing.

Margaret is a tireless shopper, so my sister Megan and I took her to Union Square. I am amazed to report that I didn’t buy a thing. We restored ourselves in the most civilized way possible, with afternoon tea at the elegant Rotunda restaurant at Neiman Marcus, under the century-old stained glass ceiling. Not, of course, like a real English tea, but wonderful nonetheless: little finger sandwiches, melt-in-your-mouth scones, countless delightful cakes and pastries. And of course, tea.

Now this presented a bit of a culinary challenge, since we finished tea around 4:30. We will not be able to eat dinner tonight, at least not at a reasonable and non-European time on a school night. The solution? The French bakery, of course, where I got some caramelized onion tarts with roasted peppers and a walnut baguette to go with the selection of cheese and olives I already had. So that with a few glasses of wine should do it to end the weekend of indulgence.

*Less than three shopping months left!

Love/hate for Friday, March 7, 2003:
Decorating

We all know that I’m a girl of few talents. I am uncreative, and I accept that. After all, the world needs an audience to appreciate and enjoy the work of artists. You famous people would be nothing without the fans, remember. So don’t hasten to reassure me that I have hidden creative depths. I don’t. I don’t have any depths, creative or otherwise. It doesn’t get more shallow than me.

So the rare creative things I do are important to me. Cooking is one, and I guess this blog could be counted as another (thanks, Mitch, for the reminder). But today, class, we are going to discuss decorating.

I believe that I have a talent for decorating and for creating a comfortable and pretty home. [Digression: what Victorian talents for an independent-minded 21st girl to have!] I look forward to coming home to our clean, lovely apartment at the end of the day. It’s one of the small pleasures in life. I like being surrounded by nice things, and things of sentimental value: family photos, paintings and objets d’art acquired on my travels, the rocking chair my great-grandfather made, my father’s books. Some people might find it cluttered, but I think it’s cozy and charming.

The desire to enhance my surroundings is almost a life-long one. Before my younger sister was born, so before the age of nine, I wanted to paint my room a lavender shade called (and I still remember this, though other, far more important things have vanished forever from my memory) Fantasy Orchid. Mom and Dad did not agree with me on this decorating notionette and said no. Being a fairly biddable child, I forgot all about it until coming home from a visit to my mother’s parents to find that my father had painted my room the desired shade in our absence to surprise me, in which he succeeded. And for the record, I never did get tired of the color before we moved from that house.

I have painted and otherwise worked on every apartment I have ever had. I learned the hard way not to ever refinish hardwood floors by myself ever again. With the optimism (read: stupidity) of youth, I thought it a good idea to rent a sander and refinish my floors in the height of an East Coast summer, with all the heat and humidity that entails. If you have never undertaken this sort of project yourself, let me just say that the sander weighed as much as I did and the floors must be sanded three times and then varnished. You will not be surprised to hear that when we renovated our apartment a few years back, we hired people to refinish the floors. I may still love to decorate, but I have learned what my limitations are!

The next week+ is going to be a busy one for lazy Me. My stepmother is visiting from London from Saturday through Wednesday, and Thursday I’m going to Boston for a long weekend.

Even more than usual, my father isn’t far from my thoughts these days. My stepmother hasn’t been to San Francisco since 1999, the last Christmas we had together, and she has never been here without Dad, so I’m not sure how she’ll do. She might find, as I did in London last Fall, that it’s no worse than being at home. Wherever you are, *you* are still there, and he isn’t. But people are different. I have a couple of fun things planned, like going out to dinner on Saturday night and having brunch on Sunday with my good friend Adrian, who was also a friend of my Dad’s. I hope it’s OK for her.

I am going to Boston next week to see the Impressionist Landscape exhibit at the Museum of Arts. I’m actually going to the exhibit on Dad’s birthday, St. Patrick’s Day – the most ironic birthday possible for my Irish-hatin’ pop. It’s my way of celebrating his birthday and the gift he gave me and shared with me of loving art. If he were alive, I bet he would have met me there. So I’ll go alone and hope that the happy memories outweigh the sorrow of losing him.

People seem to find it astounding that I’m going on my own, which I in turn find astounding. After all, I went to London without John three months after we were married. You might as well start off as you mean to go on. Most of the trips I have taken have been either with my father or on my own, and being alone in a strange city holds no terrors for me. What does terrify me is the sort of relationship the women must have who say things to me like, “Your husband lets you go alone?”

The 2003 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees include The Clash and Elvis Costello. The 2002 inductees included the Ramones and Talking Heads. Those of you who were either not born yet in the mid-seventies or were barely prescient toddlers at the time will be unable to really understand what a breath of fresh air these bands, and other ground-breakers like the Sex Pistols, were at the time.

This was the era of disco, with its accompanying bad fashion and bad hair cuts (which in turn led into the, if possible, even more hideous early 1980’s. If you don’t believe me, just watch The Wedding Singer. Yes, it really was that bad, even at the time.). This was the era of hour-long guitar solos and overblown, bombastic rock ballads.

Into this stultifying atmosphere blew the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash, with their loud, fast music, dark lyrics, and shocking personas both on and off the stage. Love them or hate them, you had to notice them, and they paved the way for countless musicians that followed them.

Elvis Costello and Talking Heads were a little more intellectual, but sounded like no-one else. They have continued to evolve and change over the years, and one of life’s enduring mysteries to me is why Costello, with his sexy, expressive, unique voice, catchy tunes, and cleverest lyrics ever written, never really became the commercial success he deserves.

The other mystery is why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame waited to induct the Ramones until half of them, including lead singer Joey, the heart and soul of the Ramones, were dead. Same goes for the late, lamented Joe Strummer of the Clash, who died at Christmas.

I have to admit it just seems wrong to me that the deeply mediocre Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart were honored years before these pioneers, and while they were alive to enjoy it. Not to mention the biggest freak in the universe, Michael Jackson, and the creator of endless, endlessly overblown rock ballads, Queen. Is it all about popularity? Records sold, your number on the charts? Shouldn’t it really be about originality as an artist, creativity, being an influence on and inspiration to the musicians that followed you? Maybe we never really get out of high school, and life is just one big popularity contest, with the lowest common denominator getting the most votes.

Is it spring cleaning when it isn’t spring yet? Or when it isn’t really cleaning, exactly? Or when you don’t really have seasons as such? I guess we do, but they are more subtle than in other climates. Givens: flowers all year round, also hummingbirds and the wild parrots, along with less exotic birds. Trees don’t lose their leaves. You can always smell freshly mown grass.

Winter: Rain. Maybe 10 degrees colder than other times of year. Much whining on both fronts. Drivers completely amazed by appearance of rain, even though it’s an annual event.
Spring: Hills still green from winter rains. Even more flowers than usual.
Summer: Foggy mornings which give way to sun. Fogs up again at night. Hills now “golden” (i.e., brown).
Fall: Warmest time of year (maybe 10 degrees hotter). The real summer. Grape harvest.

There you have it.

Maybe it’s the approach of spring, but I renovated Self this week by getting my hair trimmed. Following Lisa’s recommendation, I stopped by Lush on the way home. Apparently the San Francisco store is the only one in the US of A at this point, so they must have put it here just for Me. After all, it’s conveniently located near my hairdresser.

It’s a rather overwhelming place. Petite and overflowing with delightful smells and helpful staff. It kind of gave me sensory overload, and it is almost impossible to choose between all the fabulous products. So I gave up and got a box of assorted bath bombs. They are so huge that I can’t believe you need all of one for one bath. But we’ll see and report back, since I know enquiring minds want to know.

But I didn’t stop there. The apartment is also getting some spring spiffing up. I finally got new blinds to replace the ones eaten/turned into performance art by Mom’s dog during dog’s sojourn with us in December, so John & I (OK, John) will be replacing them this weekend. Just in the nick of time, since my stepmother will be visiting us from March 8-12.

And finally: it’s time to take all the cats to the vet for their annual check-ups. Notice that I am religious about getting them checked out, whereas I haven’t been to the doctor in *coughmumble* years. Every year I think I’m prepared for the cost, but it’s always more, and I’m always surprised. I’ll probably have grey hair as a result. Good thing I won’t be able to tell.

Love/hate for Friday, February 28, 2003
Subtitles

I have a theory – I have many, but for today, I’ll just focus on this one: people grow to be more like themselves over time. Your core personality, if you will, is more or less formed by the time you are, say, five years old. Then you go to school and start the process of trying things on, especially during high school. You go through various fads and trends, some things you keep, others you cast off, but eventually, you revert to the Original You.

So when I was in college, I would go to foreign movies all the time, including suicide-inducing Bergman movies. I probably referred to them as “film” rather than movies, since they were Art with a capital A, unlike the crap churned out by Hollywood (insert disdainful sniff here). Now, you would pretty much have to resort to firearms to get to me to see a foreign movie. I have reverted to my Original, shallow self, the one who wants movies to be:

1. Less than two hours long.
2. Full of pretty people living in pretty places and wearing pretty clothes.
3. Amusing enough to take my mind off the alternating horror and dreariness that is everyday life.
4. Very low on: battle scenes and chase scenes and sex scenes. Just tell us who won and let’s get on with the story.
5. Completely devoid of: the noble terminally ill (especially children); romance between those who are any kind of challenged; the insane; show tunes and singing (children singing in unison in particular) and production numbers of any kind.

Now, in foreign movies, life is always horrible and there are always subtitles. The subtitles make it very hard to watch the movie and figure out what’s going on, particularly for someone like me who has a hard time figuring out what’s going on in the movie in the first place. I can watch a whole movie and not realize that one of the two guys in question was a bad guy. In Schindler’s List, I couldn’t tell Ralph “Don’t Pronounce the L” Fiennes from the other guy. The fact that they were both wearing hats pretty much guaranteed that I couldn’t tell them apart. If it’s a black & white movie with brown-haired guys wearing hats, they all look the same to me. And don’t expect me to try and tell them apart when I have to be reading subtitles, too. I just can’t pay that much attention.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, but it’s not going to be a fun one for my [much, much] better half. In the true spirit of “for better or for worse” (good thing I’m so bad at math, because I suspect that the “worse” John has endured since marrying me far surpasses the “better” to the point that I owe him a National Debt sized amount of “better”, and I don’t think either of us will live long enough to pay it off), John has taken the day off to accompany my mother to her oncologist appointment.

We are hoping that he can get some answers on her current condition and her prognosis. She has breast cancer and it has spread into her bones. We know she won’t beat it, but we’d like to know what to expect and roughly how much time she has left. It’s been really frustrating up to this point. Partly because all the information we have been getting has been through Mom, whose grasp of reality tends to be on the creative side, and partly because we cannot seem to effectively communicate with the doctors.

I am convinced that both people mechanics and car mechanics deal differently with women than men. Car mechanics tend to inflate the bill. People mechanics tend to be condescending. Neither seems to feel compelled to tell a girl the truth. So I’m hoping that John can talk to the doctor man to man and find out what’s going on.

While he’s doing that, I’m going to work as usual then go and get my hair cut. It’s the true ideal of socialism in action: each according to his ability. But I’m nominating him for Husband of the Year on the way home.

We had server weirdness over the weekend, with the result that some comments and John’s post about my sleeping through a cat-induced semi-catastrophe on Saturday night have been lost in the mists of the ether. Our apologies.

And hopefully, my life will get back on track soon so I can start posting again and reading again. If anything really good or really bad happened to you in the past two weeks, email me. Enquiring minds want to know, even if they appear to be absent and/or uncaring. I promise!

Love/hate for Friday, February 21, 2003:
Smoking

~With apologies to Candi~

Although I deplore political correctness, I unfortunately find myself on Their side on the issue of smoking. I hate it, both the smoking and being on Their side. I don’t know which is worse, come to think of it.

I realize that sometimes, you just have to deal with it, preferably without complaining, difficult though that is. I accept that when a girl goes to France, it’s inevitable. If you can’t take the smoke, get out of the country. In fact, you are the unsocial freak in that scenario, not the smokers. Worse yet, you’re one of those insupportable American tourists who want everywhere to be like the good ol’ USA and eat at the Mickey D’s on the Champs Elys&eacutees. I accept that if you go to someone’s house and they smoke, you have to put up with it, because you are in their house. But if you’re at my house, you’re going outside with John to indulge your tobacco addiction, because it’s my house.

As is usual, John and I are the opposites in this case, or as it might be, the yin and yang. He smokes, I don’t. However, I hasten to add that he has never smoked around me and the cats, even when we lived in Canada where there is real weather and from time to time, the sort of day where the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales meet (a horrifying and now unimaginable -40&deg).

I am sure that John is quite well aware of the dangers to his health, but I never nag him about it. I even buy him the fatal cigarettes not infrequently, mostly because I have more time after work than he does and because I walk by the Cigarettes Cheaper store every day (though cheaper is all relative: $35 a carton). I figure he’ll quit if and when he’s ready, and in the meantime, he’s smoking away from me so he’s not taking me with him to his untimely death.

Having said that, if second-hand smoke really is the evil we are now led to believe, the damage may well be already done. My mother, back in the halcyon days of the 1960’s, cheerfully smoked and drank cocktails throughout her pregnancies. Nor did she see any reason to curb this behavior after we were born. We were all healthy babies and suffered no ill-effects as far as I know. Now she’d probably be charged with child endangerment, or at the very least, be subject to remarks from holier-than-thou strangers, as friends of mine have been when indulging in a glass of wine in restaurants while pregnant.

It bothered me when Mom smoked in the car, though, especially in the winter. We lived in Upstate New York, where there is lots of snow and it gets pretty cold, though not in Canada’s league, of course. So whenever we went anywhere in the winter, the car windows were closed and the car would rapidly fill with smoke. In retrospect, we must have smelled pretty gross by the time we were decanted at our destination, especially on our frequent visits to Mom’s parents, who lived a 2 hour drive away from us.

Mom’s father was a reformed smoker, which is the worst kind, just like converts to religion. They never hesitate to press their new-found enthusiasm on anyone they can get to listen to them, and he was always telling Mom to stop smoking. I seem to think – they died 25 years ago, so my memories are getting a little hazy, as if painted by Monet – that they made Mom smoke outside, even in the winter.

What my grandfather neglected to mention was the only reason he was able to quit smoking at all was that my grandmother told everyone in their small town that he was quitting and they couldn’t sell him cigarettes unless they were willing to face her wrath. Nana was small in stature, but with a steely will (she left home in the early 1900’s when her father refused to send her to high school, saying “It made as much sense as educating a female cat.” Why female cats are less worthy of higher education than males remains a mystery, but Nana eventually went to college and became a teacher). So with the help of his town, he quit. My mother also quit, probably 30 years ago now, though come to think of it, she’s not at all self-righteous about it like many reformed smokers. But she does say that if she had even one, she’d be right back on it. That’s some powerful shit. I’m lucky I’m only addicted to harmless things like jewelry.

Love/hate for Friday, February 14, 2003
Tea

First things first: happy birthday to Adrian, and my friend since high school, Alice, the former model turned math Ph.D. It couldn’t happen to two more stylish people. Hope you guys have a day, or preferably an entire weekend, worthy of your fabulousness, and tons of really great presents, too.

Sorry, no romance related love-hate for you, despite it being Valentine’s Day. Neither of us is a big fan of the idea of being told to be romantic on one particular day each year. We think it’s nicer for romantic gestures to be spontaneous and from the heart, rather than as decreed by Hallmark. For example, John came by my office last week with a bunch of flowers for no particular reason. And a couple of days ago, he called me to tell me I looked beautiful that morning, having had an unaccustomed three minutes with me looking half-way decent for a change on my way out the door that morning, and only because I was late for work at that. Maybe he was overcome with surprise/relief that I wasn’t in the usual d&eacuteshabille. Anyway, now that you are thoroughly sickened, here’s your love/hate for this week. Enjoy!

Though I must have coffee in the morning – and am of no use to man or beast before being caffeinated (just ask John or any of our four cats) – I drink tea otherwise. I can blame this on being half English, I guess, though the tea I drink is not the Indian tea of my ancestors, or rarely, anyway. It’s usually green tea or herbal tea, and I love to use my adorable teapot (note the snail on the lid). I can accessorize anything!

For the most accessorized tea ever, you must experience high tea at one of London’s grand hotels. Gentlemen: you will have to be accessorized to the point of a jacket and tie in these enclaves of tradition. You can often borrow one that the staff keeps on hand for the unaccessorized uncouth, but really, I would recommend avoiding the embarrassment and having to hear about it ad infinitum from your better-accessorized half.

Once properly accoutered, venture to any of the following establishments for a step back in time to a more gracious era, when afternoon tea was an occasion to pause and refresh the body and spirit. You will receive assiduous and courteous attention from the waiters in hushed and elegant surroundings. There will, of course, be tea, served with style in eggshell-thin porcelain cups after you decide which variety (Earl Grey, perhaps?) you’d like. There will be wonderful tiny sandwiches and gorgeous pastries. It will be pretty expensive – around ?25/$40 per person, but what price civilization in this uncivilized world?

The Ritz: The gold standard, and the hardest one to get a reservation for, although they now have three sittings a day. Served in the beautiful Palm Court, as it was for Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, and King Edward VII. Service as exquisite as the food.

Claridge’s: A favorite of Queen Victoria’s. She would still recognize the elegant Foyer, right down to the silver cake stands so tall that they sit on the floor instead of the table.

The Savoy: Still has its famous th&eacutes dansants, but only on Sunday. Conveniently located near the theaters in the West End, the Savoy is not surprisingly a favorite of actors and actresses, including Nicole Kidman and Elizabeth Taylor.

But in my mundane, everyday life, I don’t have high tea. Instead, I drink at least one cup of green tea a day. Not surprisingly, since my Mom is currently fighting breast cancer, Republic of Tea’s Sip for the Cure is my favorite. It’s green tea flavored with pink grapefruit, and part of the purchase price goes to the Susan Komen Foundation. So you’re doing yourself good, and others, too. How often does that happen?

Nor do I draw the line at drinking tea. Origins makes a wonderful product with white tea, which guards one’s skin against the horrors of premature aging. Tea is very good for you, body and soul. And how often is something that’s good for you so very pleasant?

Ever since I first got addicted to caffeine at the age of 17, I have used the same kind of coffee pot. Known in England as the cafeti&egravere and in the US as a French press, it combines both form and function, something that is such a rarity.

Usually, you just get form (say, a Frank Lloyd Wright house, all of which were very difficult to live in and all of which leak), or you just get function (say, a gas station or strip mall). This truth is one of the more frustrating for those of us who tend to the shallow and want things to be pretty and work, too. So when you find something that does both, you pretty much stick to it.

I seem to think that the first one I bought lasted me for years, but for the past six months, I have gone through about four of them. Knowing my severe lack of math skills, I won’t venture to guess what the average is per month, but it seems excessive. They seem to develop holes in the glass bottom which renders them completely useless, or the plunger part separates into its component pieces (including a very springy spring with a mind of its own), or variations on those themes.

I don’t know why this is, either. After more than 20 years of practice, you’d think I’d know what I was doing. Maybe the coffee pot objects to getting up at 4:30 in the morning even more than I do. Maybe it’s digging the coffee grounds out with a knife before washing it, so John suggested using a rubber spatula to try and reduce the hole incidents. Or possibly, just possibly, they don’t make ’em like they used to. I bought a new coffee pot yesterday and am trying the spatula, so here’s hoping I don’t buy another one this year.

Love/hate for Friday, February 7, 2003
Going to the Movies

It’s no wonder that generations of inventors have been busily coming up with ways to avoid having to go the movies, since actually going is such an annoying experience. First, television was invented. Then some genius came up with the whole idea of VCR’s, and that was further refined and improved by DVD’s and home theaters.

Now there’s really no reason to go to your local multi-plex, where you will wait in line among the masses, and experience the mystery of all public lines, whether they be in the post office, the movie theater, or the airport: those ahead of you will engage interminable amounts of the employee’s time, making your wait even longer, but when you actually get to the desk, your transaction is completed in 30 seconds or less. Why everyone else’s transactions are so much more complicated is completely beyond me (but then so are all the times tables after 5).

If you opt to use one of the ticket dispensing machines instead of one of the minimum wage employees, the line will be shorter, but the machine will perversely refuse to read your credit card, or eat it (necessitating a wait to speak with the minimum wage employee) or simply refuse to work at all, which again returns you to the MWE line.

Supposing you can endure this without raising your blood pressure or your gun, your resolve will be tested further by the endless trailers and nannyreels that precede every movie. Trailers used to be, should be, teasers – giving you an idea of what the movie is about, just enough to make you want to go. They should not show you the whole damn movie, including important plot points. The art of the trailer seems to be lost.

Then there’s the creepy animated dancing candy and snacks. Is there anything in the advertising world more disturbing than food that wants to be eaten? Suicidal, death wish, kamikaze snacks begging me to put them out of their misery at a price more inflated than Anna Nicole Smith’s primary assets. Mmmm.

Nor do I brave being marooned in a room full of coughing, noisy and annoying strangers to be told to behave myself by a nannyreel. This to me proves that our society must have pretty much hit bottom, since people are in general so impolite and badly-behaved that they have to be admonished by inanimate objects to suspend their normal behavior for the 2+ hours it takes to watch a movie.

Surely common sense (which should be renamed, since it is so clearly un) should tell you to leave your squalling baby at home and turn your damn cell phone off. No-one is that important, and if they are, they should not be at the movies, but rather waiting for that all-important call on the Bat phone and leaving the rest of us the hell out of it.

It’s much better to stay home and watch a movie, where the audience is people you have invited, showtime is when you say it is, the snacks are what you want them to be (who decided that inherently noisy popcorn is the official movie snack food? Not only does it get stuck in your teeth, it flies in the face of the nannyreel by being pretty noisy while being consumed), and you can pause the movie for any reason that seems reasonable to you. You can even watch an especially amusing moment more than once. What’s not to love?

“It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone.”

— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

I gotta disagree with the divine Jane on this one. I think I’m fine for the public good. When left to my own devices and when I know those unknown to me are not going to see me, I don’t dress up. I don’t wear make-up. I don’t accessorize. It’s interesting that we are so much more considerate of total strangers than we are of our loved ones, and that those who are nearest and dearest to us often have to brave our least attractive selves, both in appearance and behavior.

Now that John and I are on different schedules, he rarely, if ever, sees me looking good. I leave for work before he gets up in the morning, and by the time he gets home from work, I have already scrubbed away the sweat from the gym along with the day’s make-up. Pretty much the first thing I do when I get home is to remove all traces of prettiness that I so carefully applied before leaving the house, so John mostly sees a make-up-less Me wearing bunny pajamas and glasses.

Yet I persist in getting dressed up, made up, and accessorized, including hair, before going to work, making my life something like Barbie’s, without the Malibu Dream House and with normal female proportions: endlessly getting dressed and undressed.

Sometimes, your lightest remark can have serious consequences.

One day last week when I arrived at the gym and greeted my tireless trainer, I mentioned that it was a nice day. It was, too, especially considering it’s winter, aka the rainy season: sunny and around 66? F (or 18? C), and the caf?s’ outdoor tables were full of people enjoying the sun in a civilized manner, with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. But my remark gave my trainer a different idea of how we were going to enjoy this lovely day: doing lunges up this hill.

Now, this hill is a pretty steep one. It’s not like Filbert Street, where someone always annotates the “HILL” sign with a spray painted “No shit” – the Filbert hill looks more like a wall than a hill, and is the steepest drive-able hill in the city (31.5 degrees – in other words, a rise of 31.5 feet in 100 feet)*. BTW, the city used to keep erasing the “No shit”, but they finally gave in and just leave it there. My tax dollars taking a nap. Anyway, this particular hill is not in the Filbert league, but it’s fairly steep, and just walking up it should be enough for anyone.

But not for my trainer.

For those of you who are uninitiated in the pay-per-torture that is the gym and live in blissful ignorance of what lunges are, they are a sort of very graceless forward-moving curtsey and hurt like hell. I find it bad enough doing them all the way across the gym floor and back, so doing them up this hill with the added refinement of 10 pound weights in each hand was a truly exquisite torture.

I had to stop halfway to try and catch my breath, which abandoned me in horror soon after the proceedings began and went to have a glass of wine at one of the caf?s. I pointed out to my trainer that she should ditch her job in favor of being a dominatrix. My reasons were and are that she would get paid a whole lot more for inflicting pain on people, and would get to wear cuter clothes, especially the shoes.

She got a little defensive at this suggestion and protested that she was helping people and making them feel good, and I said that was, as far as I know, the same deal with the other pain goddesses. So that gave her something to think about as she strolled beside me as I labored up the hill. And when I got to the top and looked back, I was inordinately pleased with myself. I think my trainer was, too, notwithstanding the dominatrix remark, because she kept telling people how “we” did lunges up the hill, and they were all suitably impressed. Later, she admitted that I did have a point about the shoes.

Who says the weather is a safe topic for conversation?

*PS: A reader informed me that I was actually wrong about this:

What you are really talking about is a hill with a grade of 31.5 PERCENT! 31.5 feet in 100 feet is side opposite over side adjacent or the tangent of . . .
31.5/100 = 0.315 = 17.48 degrees +-.

Thanks for letting me know! You had to know that was way beyond what little math comprehension I have.

Spent the day yesterday with my Mom and my sister Beth. Beth is heading home on Tuesday and is going straight to SFO from Mom’s, so it was the last time I’d see her on this visit. Of course I got all teary when I left last night, even though Beth and her daughter will be here in April. Saying good-bye is one of the many things I’m not good at.

I thought it would be fun for us all to go and get pampered together. Beth located a place in Petaluma with a masseuse who has done oncology massages for almost ten years, so she would understand Mom’s condition and the fragility of her bones. Beth and Mom got massages and I got a salt glow, which is being rubbed all over with salt mixed with herbs to detoxify and relax, followed by a body wrap, which is sort of like being temporarily mummified. If you’re claustrophobic, it would probably freak you out more than relax you, and it’s about as hot as a hot tub, too, but I loved it.

Come to think of it, I was kind of like a pot roast yesterday: rubbed all over with herbs and salt and then braised. Hmmm.

Anyway, after I was (well) done, I had a facial peel, so I was shiny and new all over. Mom had one, too, but Beth drew the line after the massage. She said that she wished she had brought her homework with her (she is working on her Master’s degree) so she could have read and gotten something done while she was having the massage. So she actually went to Mom’s, got the homework, and sat in the lobby working while Mom and I were being peeled.

Beth’s husband is right: that girl doesn’t know how to relax. But after all, she is the same girl who thought summer vacations were way too long when we were kids. But I love her anyway.

Love/hate for Friday, January 31, 2003:
Umbrellas

It’s back! Finally! First love/hate of the year (barely made it in the first month of the year, but still). Did you miss it?

It seems only fitting in this winter of El Ni?o Lite to write about umbrellas. We have had a couple of pretty bad storms this winter, but as January comes to an end and the cherry tree outside my living room window begins to blossom, I will venture to say that this El Ni?o Lite year has been a positive joy compared to the badass El Ni?o of 1997-1998. That boy was the bully of the playground, pounding us mercilessly with rain every single day of February, not to mention kicking off the rainy season in September and not ending until May. Suicidal weather, my friends.

Though I hate the rain – and love a good drought – I love umbrellas. If you must endure the rain, and the northern California climate decrees that you must, you have to have an umbrella. Now I don’t carry it (no pun intended) to the extreme seen in Chinatown, where umbrellas and parasols ward off the sun’s rays and the rain’s drops equally. But after spending the time it takes to glamorize in the morning, from contacts to make-up to hair, I’m not having the effects ruined by rain. So I have to have an umbrella to shield all that labor from the rain, which wants to ruin my face the same way it ruins my mood. I can’t stop the latter, but I’m sure as hell going to stop the former if I possibly can.

Now, there are times when it’s so windy that your umbrella gets turned inside out and becomes completely useless, like me at math. But that’s no reason not to have one. After all, it’s an accessory, and a girl can never have too many. Make sure you get one of those really lightweight travel ones, so you don’t even notice. If you are only carrying around necessities, the way you should, the umbrella shouldn’t add too much weight and inconvenience to your daily luggage, be it handbag or backpack.

At least it only rains here in the winter, so you don’t have to carry an umbrella all the time, just in case, like condoms.

We were all together last night chez Mom. Here’s the evidence!

From left to right: back row, John (with experimental and temporary beard whose days are numbered); my sister Megan; her husband, Rob; my sister Beth. Front row: me, Mom, my brother Jonathan.

Can you tell this doesn’t happen very often?

The following conversation took place while driving through Mom’s town, Petaluma, on Sunday:

Beth: Look, there’s a movie theater.

Me: There are no movie theaters in Petaluma.
(This is completely true. The closest one is in Santa Rosa).

Beth: But it’s right there. And there are names on the sign.

Me: It’s a club.

Beth: But there are names on the sign. “The Dead Kennedys.”

Me: The Dead Kennedys are a band. Like for 25 years.
(Granted, not the same since Jello Biafra left, and I still can’t believe they replaced him with that kid from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.)

Beth: How on earth do you know that?!

Me: Because I live in the world.

Mom: Girls, stop it.