The only entertaining thing about spring cleaning is that I tend to find things that have been lying around forgotten for years.
Last week, I came across a manila envelope that contained a fairy tale I’d written back when I was about 14. I still can remember the day I wrote it. I’d just returned from my annual dental checkup …and the dentist had found 11 cavities. Had I just been given the death sentence, I couldn’t have felt more miserable.
So here is the story, just as I wrote it.
THE PRINCESS OF CANDYZONIA
Once upon a time in a kingdom called CandyZonia, there lived a young princess named Caramel Almond Nougat Doublemint York (Princess C.A.N.D.Y. for short).
The unusual thing about the kingdom of CandyZonia was that the people who lived behind its great walls ate nothing but candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For breakfast, they ate big bowls of jelly beans instead of cereal. For lunch, they feasted on candy-bar sandwiches instead of ham and cheese or tuna. And for dinner, when most kids in other parts of the world were eating mashed potatoes, chicken and peas, the kids in CandyZonia were dining on fudge, marshmallow Peeps and green M&Ms.
Growing up, Princess Candy hadn’t minded eating only candy for every meal. In fact, she thought she had to be the luckiest girl on earth. There was no disgusting liver or broccoli to choke down, no threats from her mother, Queen Good ’n Plenty, to eat all of her Brussels sprouts or she’d have no dessert. Life was just one big dessert every day in CandyZonia.
But then one day, Princess Candy was invited by her father, King Raisinets, to accompany him on a trip to another kingdom called Healthytopia, many miles away.
Healthytopia was a shocking place for Princess Candy to see. All of the women there were thin with smooth skin, pink cheeks and pure white teeth. They drank juices squeezed from fruits and ate greens that sprouted from the ground. The men were muscular with flat stomachs and liked to lift things a lot, even when there seemed to be no reason to lift them.
Princess Candy stared at her reflection in the looking glass for a long time that night. Her face was as round as a plate, her skin was dotted with blemishes, and her teeth were full of holes. And her figure! Suddenly she realized why her father affectionately had nicknamed her “Princess Tootsie Rolls.” She did not look anything like the girls her age in Healthytopia…and this disturbed her.
“Father,” she said to the king, “do you think I am pretty?”
“Of course I do!” King Raisnets flashed a toothless smile at her and moved to slip his pudgy arm around her shoulder. “You are the loveliest young woman in the land. And one day soon, you will marry a prince who is as handsome as you are pretty.”
“You mean a prince who looks like the men in Healthytopia?” she asked.
“No, silly girl, one who looks like me!”
A month later, Princess Candy ran away to Healthytopia. There, she learned the ways of its people. She ate salads, apples and fresh fish. She worked hard toiling in the gardens and orchards. She made frequent visits to the village dentist, who miraculously filled the holes in her teeth and gave her a brilliant white smile. Her skin cleared and her cheeks glowed. Her figure slimmed and her rolls of fat disappeared. Soon, she looked just like all of the other lovely young women in Healthytopia.
“I am going to return to my kingdom now and teach my people how to live as your people live,” Princess Candy announced to the Healthytopians one day. “I shall miss all of you deeply, but I shall never forget you.”
Upon her return to CandyZonia, Princess Candy was not recognized by anyone there, not even her parents.
“What on earth have they done to you?” King Raisinets asked. “You look terrible! Were you held captive? Did they starve you? I shall go there and have all of them beheaded!”
“No, Father,” the princess said. “I have been learning the ways of the Healthytopians. And I intend to teach them to the people of our kingdom.”
“There is no time to discuss such nonsense right now,” the king said. “There is a prince here who eagerly has been awaiting your return. His intent is to make you his bride.”
Before Princess Candy could comment, a tall, dark-haired young man with deep brown eyes and brown velvet clothing entered the room. He approached her, made a sweeping bow, then took her hand into his and placed a kiss on the back of it.
The first thing Princess Candy noticed about the prince was his scent. It was absolutely heavenly. In fact, it made her mouth water.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the prince said. “I am Prince Hershey. I wish for you to become my wife and return to Pennsylvania with me where together, we shall rule my kingdom and feast on mountains of delicious chocolate every day.”
Princess Candy accepted his proposal so fast, she surprised even herself. “To heck with the ways of the Healthytopians!” she shouted as she and the prince headed hand in hand out of the castle door. “Let them graze like cows! Long live chocolate!”
And she and Prince Hershey lived very happily (plumply and toothlessly) ever after.
THE END
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
The Dream House
I truly believe there’s not a person on earth who hasn’t fantasized about what his or her dream house would be like. My husband is no exception.
Actually, he’s always had some fairly modest “musts” for his dream house: a finished basement, a big walk-up attic, a wrap-around front porch with a rocking chair on it, and a three-stall garage with a mother-in-law apartment upstairs. Of course, our current residence has none of the above.
A few years ago there was a company called Key-Loc about three miles from our house. We were aware that Key-Loc specialized in the construction of manufactured homes (pre-fab, as they were called back then), but we never really paid much attention to the place…until the day the company erected a model home on its lot.
The house, a three-story mansion with three dormers, a balcony and a terrace, seemed to appear overnight, as if some fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and “poofed” it into existence. I’ll never forget the day my husband first spotted it.
“It’s my dream house!” he exclaimed, acting as if someone had constructed the house especially for him. “We’ll definitely have to go tour it this weekend!”
Touring the model home turned out to be a big mistake. The interior had been exquisitely decorated by a professional designer. There even was a grand piano in the living room. The place was breathtaking.
My husband’s eyes lit up like 100-watt bulbs the minute we stepped inside. He immediately pointed to the ornate staircase that rose from the center of the living room and said, “We can get a big, 8-foot Christmas tree and put it right there by the stairs! And look! There’s even a fireplace where we can hang Christmas stockings!” He acted as if we’d just signed the papers on the place.
He ran through the house as if he were a kid on an Easter egg hunt. “I’d put a secret panel right here,” he said, waving his arms in the direction of a wall in the wide hallway upstairs. “It would lead to a hidden room that’s totally soundproof and has thick steel walls, like a bank vault!”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you planning to hide out from the law?”
Before I’d even finished asking the question, he disappeared into the master bathroom where he “oohed“ at all of the gold-plated fixtures and the private vanity with a mirror that was long enough to allow the entire Brady Bunch to comb their hair at the same time.
When my husband reached the third floor, he suddenly let out a pain-filled cry. I bolted up the stairs to see what was wrong. There he stood, breathing heavily and clutching his chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned. “Your cheeks are all flushed. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the stairs so fast?”
“Look around you!” he said, leaning against the wall for support. “I think I’ve just died and gone to heaven!”
It was the biggest attic I had ever seen. Ballroom dancing could have been held in this attic. Four bedrooms could have fit into this attic. The Jolly Green Giant could have stood upright in this attic. No doubt about it, it was the king of all attics.
“Just think of my model train collection!” my husband said, his pupils enlarging as his eyes made a sweep of the massive space. “Not only could I store all of it up here, I could set up my trains and have a workspace for building a layout for them, too!”
It took me 20 minutes to drag him back downstairs. On the second floor, we passed a room that had been decorated as an exercise room, complete with weights, an exercise bicycle and a treadmill.
“Hey, neat!” I said. “Just think, if you had this room, you could look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in no time!”
He frowned. “I’d convert it into a den with a big-screen TV.”
Armed with floor plans and brochures, we headed home. My husband studied every inch of the paperwork. He sketched floor plans and arranged imaginary furniture in the imaginary rooms. He even had me go back to the model home and take photos of every room in it. No doubt about it. He was obsessed.
We returned to the house several times during the next few weeks. My husband would race through each room and point and say things like, “A nice big, mahogany desk should fit perfectly right there…and a bookcase will look great against that wall.”
That did it. Somebody had to burst his little fantasy bubble. Unfortunately, that somebody had to be me.
“Uh, honey…” I began as we were standing in his imaginary future den. “I hate to be too realistic here, but this house, by the time you buy a big enough piece of land to put it on and have a foundation dug and an artesian well and a septic system put in – not to mention your three-stall garage – it will run you over $500,000. Don’t you think you’re getting just a little too excited over something we can’t afford…ever?”
“I’m going to win the lottery,” he said firmly. “It’s fate. This house will be ours someday. I can feel it in my bones. It was made just for us.”
I will never forget the day Key-Loc went out of business. Suddenly, everything was gone and the factory was silent and empty. But worst of all, the display house was taken down. When my husband drove by and saw his dream house being disassembled, he nearly flung himself across the front steps in protest. He was so devastated, I had to talk him out of wearing a black armband. For months afterwards, he stared longingly at the pictures and brochures of the house and cursed the state lottery.
Just the other day, he came home from work all excited. “Have you seen the fantastic model home they have on display at Epoch Homes on Route 106? We have to go check it out this weekend!”
Here we go again.
Actually, he’s always had some fairly modest “musts” for his dream house: a finished basement, a big walk-up attic, a wrap-around front porch with a rocking chair on it, and a three-stall garage with a mother-in-law apartment upstairs. Of course, our current residence has none of the above.
A few years ago there was a company called Key-Loc about three miles from our house. We were aware that Key-Loc specialized in the construction of manufactured homes (pre-fab, as they were called back then), but we never really paid much attention to the place…until the day the company erected a model home on its lot.
The house, a three-story mansion with three dormers, a balcony and a terrace, seemed to appear overnight, as if some fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and “poofed” it into existence. I’ll never forget the day my husband first spotted it.
“It’s my dream house!” he exclaimed, acting as if someone had constructed the house especially for him. “We’ll definitely have to go tour it this weekend!”
Touring the model home turned out to be a big mistake. The interior had been exquisitely decorated by a professional designer. There even was a grand piano in the living room. The place was breathtaking.
My husband’s eyes lit up like 100-watt bulbs the minute we stepped inside. He immediately pointed to the ornate staircase that rose from the center of the living room and said, “We can get a big, 8-foot Christmas tree and put it right there by the stairs! And look! There’s even a fireplace where we can hang Christmas stockings!” He acted as if we’d just signed the papers on the place.
He ran through the house as if he were a kid on an Easter egg hunt. “I’d put a secret panel right here,” he said, waving his arms in the direction of a wall in the wide hallway upstairs. “It would lead to a hidden room that’s totally soundproof and has thick steel walls, like a bank vault!”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you planning to hide out from the law?”
Before I’d even finished asking the question, he disappeared into the master bathroom where he “oohed“ at all of the gold-plated fixtures and the private vanity with a mirror that was long enough to allow the entire Brady Bunch to comb their hair at the same time.
When my husband reached the third floor, he suddenly let out a pain-filled cry. I bolted up the stairs to see what was wrong. There he stood, breathing heavily and clutching his chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned. “Your cheeks are all flushed. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the stairs so fast?”
“Look around you!” he said, leaning against the wall for support. “I think I’ve just died and gone to heaven!”
It was the biggest attic I had ever seen. Ballroom dancing could have been held in this attic. Four bedrooms could have fit into this attic. The Jolly Green Giant could have stood upright in this attic. No doubt about it, it was the king of all attics.
“Just think of my model train collection!” my husband said, his pupils enlarging as his eyes made a sweep of the massive space. “Not only could I store all of it up here, I could set up my trains and have a workspace for building a layout for them, too!”
It took me 20 minutes to drag him back downstairs. On the second floor, we passed a room that had been decorated as an exercise room, complete with weights, an exercise bicycle and a treadmill.
“Hey, neat!” I said. “Just think, if you had this room, you could look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in no time!”
He frowned. “I’d convert it into a den with a big-screen TV.”
Armed with floor plans and brochures, we headed home. My husband studied every inch of the paperwork. He sketched floor plans and arranged imaginary furniture in the imaginary rooms. He even had me go back to the model home and take photos of every room in it. No doubt about it. He was obsessed.
We returned to the house several times during the next few weeks. My husband would race through each room and point and say things like, “A nice big, mahogany desk should fit perfectly right there…and a bookcase will look great against that wall.”
That did it. Somebody had to burst his little fantasy bubble. Unfortunately, that somebody had to be me.
“Uh, honey…” I began as we were standing in his imaginary future den. “I hate to be too realistic here, but this house, by the time you buy a big enough piece of land to put it on and have a foundation dug and an artesian well and a septic system put in – not to mention your three-stall garage – it will run you over $500,000. Don’t you think you’re getting just a little too excited over something we can’t afford…ever?”
“I’m going to win the lottery,” he said firmly. “It’s fate. This house will be ours someday. I can feel it in my bones. It was made just for us.”
I will never forget the day Key-Loc went out of business. Suddenly, everything was gone and the factory was silent and empty. But worst of all, the display house was taken down. When my husband drove by and saw his dream house being disassembled, he nearly flung himself across the front steps in protest. He was so devastated, I had to talk him out of wearing a black armband. For months afterwards, he stared longingly at the pictures and brochures of the house and cursed the state lottery.
Just the other day, he came home from work all excited. “Have you seen the fantastic model home they have on display at Epoch Homes on Route 106? We have to go check it out this weekend!”
Here we go again.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Most embarrassing moments
I was watching a TV show the other night where some friends were having a few drinks in a bar and after they’d “had a few,” began to discuss their most embarrassing moments.
One couple confessed that they’d once forgotten to hang up the phone and inadvertently had allowed the person on the other end of the line to hear everything going on (and I DO mean everything) in the room. Another guy admitted to singing a sappy love song and crying on videotape and then sending it to a former girlfriend…who allowed everyone, including her new boyfriend, to watch it.
Naturally, the show made me think about my own most embarrassing moments, which probably could fill a book the size of “War and Peace.” Way back when I was single and dating, just about every date involved something I did that made me want to crawl under a table and hide.
For example, there was the date who was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and when I, wearing new high-heeled shoes, started to walk down them, I slipped, fell, and slid all the way down on my back, landing right at his feet…with my dress hiked up nearly to my ribs.
And then here was the time I was invited to play tennis, which I’d never played before, and I accidentally sent the tennis racquet flying like a missile at my date and nearly gave him an ear-ectomy.
There also were plenty of embarrassing moments that didn’t involve dates, such as the time I once was a presenter at an awards banquet. I’d forgotten to bring my reading glasses, so when I opened the envelope and announced, “And the winner is…” I couldn’t read a single word on the card. Dead silence fell over the audience as everyone stared wide-eyed at me and waited to hear the name of the winner, while I stood there smiling feebly and praying that someone with good eyes would come to my rescue.
Another time, my friend and I auditioned for a variety show by performing a modern-jazz dance we’d spent weeks choreographing ourselves. “Great! You’re in!” the director shouted up at us from his seat in the crowded auditorium. “But you, on the right, please do something about your bouncing body parts. They’re very distracting!”
I have to confess, however, that one of my most embarrassing moments happened very recently. In fact, I still get red just thinking about it.
For a year, I’d been taking care of a baby snapping turtle I’d found injured along the side of a hiking trail. The turtle, which I named Snippy, grew to be a big turtle, too big for me to keep, so a few months ago, I contacted a woman who specializes in rehabilitating turtles so they can be released back into the wild, and she said she would take him.
The day before I was supposed to deliver Snippy to the woman, I lifted him out of his aquarium and gasped. It looked as if his innards were hanging out from beneath his shell. I flew to the phone and called my veterinarian, who referred me to another doctor, a reptile specialist. In a panic, I dialed his number. He said it sounded as if Snippy had a serious condition called an intestinal prolapse, and to bring him right in.
When I, carrying a big snapping turtle, walked into the veterinarian’s waiting room, I heard people chuckle. There they were, surrounded by cute little dogs and fluffy kittens – and there I was, carrying a turtle that I’d haphazardly wrapped in a long length of dripping wet, paper towels (the vet had told me to be sure to keep the innards moist).
Finally, after what seemed like years, Snippy and I were escorted into the examining room. The vet carefully unwrapped the turtle, flipped him over on his back and just stared at him.
As I nervously awaited the verdict, the vet, biting at his bottom lip, said, “Um, Sally…those aren’t his intestines…that’s his…well, let’s just say he’s a male turtle…very male.”
My face felt as if it might burst into flames. The vet took one look at my embarrassed expression and couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer. “Have you thought about calling “Play-Turtle’ magazine?” he teased. “Or maybe a turtle escort service?”
As it turned out, poor Snippy’s situation wasn’t normal and he needed a couple stitches to prevent him from becoming an unintentional habitual “flasher.” It cost me over $100.
I’m happy to report that he now is doing just fine and is thriving in his new home.
The problem with living in a small town, however, is that if you tell someone an embarrassing story, which I did about Snippy, word spreads like wildfire. Now, at least twice a week, someone will come up to me, smile and say, “So-and-so told me to ask you about your turtle story!”
I have the feeling that, unlike my many other embarrassing moments, I’m never going to live this one down.
One couple confessed that they’d once forgotten to hang up the phone and inadvertently had allowed the person on the other end of the line to hear everything going on (and I DO mean everything) in the room. Another guy admitted to singing a sappy love song and crying on videotape and then sending it to a former girlfriend…who allowed everyone, including her new boyfriend, to watch it.
Naturally, the show made me think about my own most embarrassing moments, which probably could fill a book the size of “War and Peace.” Way back when I was single and dating, just about every date involved something I did that made me want to crawl under a table and hide.
For example, there was the date who was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and when I, wearing new high-heeled shoes, started to walk down them, I slipped, fell, and slid all the way down on my back, landing right at his feet…with my dress hiked up nearly to my ribs.
And then here was the time I was invited to play tennis, which I’d never played before, and I accidentally sent the tennis racquet flying like a missile at my date and nearly gave him an ear-ectomy.
There also were plenty of embarrassing moments that didn’t involve dates, such as the time I once was a presenter at an awards banquet. I’d forgotten to bring my reading glasses, so when I opened the envelope and announced, “And the winner is…” I couldn’t read a single word on the card. Dead silence fell over the audience as everyone stared wide-eyed at me and waited to hear the name of the winner, while I stood there smiling feebly and praying that someone with good eyes would come to my rescue.
Another time, my friend and I auditioned for a variety show by performing a modern-jazz dance we’d spent weeks choreographing ourselves. “Great! You’re in!” the director shouted up at us from his seat in the crowded auditorium. “But you, on the right, please do something about your bouncing body parts. They’re very distracting!”
I have to confess, however, that one of my most embarrassing moments happened very recently. In fact, I still get red just thinking about it.
For a year, I’d been taking care of a baby snapping turtle I’d found injured along the side of a hiking trail. The turtle, which I named Snippy, grew to be a big turtle, too big for me to keep, so a few months ago, I contacted a woman who specializes in rehabilitating turtles so they can be released back into the wild, and she said she would take him.
The day before I was supposed to deliver Snippy to the woman, I lifted him out of his aquarium and gasped. It looked as if his innards were hanging out from beneath his shell. I flew to the phone and called my veterinarian, who referred me to another doctor, a reptile specialist. In a panic, I dialed his number. He said it sounded as if Snippy had a serious condition called an intestinal prolapse, and to bring him right in.
When I, carrying a big snapping turtle, walked into the veterinarian’s waiting room, I heard people chuckle. There they were, surrounded by cute little dogs and fluffy kittens – and there I was, carrying a turtle that I’d haphazardly wrapped in a long length of dripping wet, paper towels (the vet had told me to be sure to keep the innards moist).
Finally, after what seemed like years, Snippy and I were escorted into the examining room. The vet carefully unwrapped the turtle, flipped him over on his back and just stared at him.
As I nervously awaited the verdict, the vet, biting at his bottom lip, said, “Um, Sally…those aren’t his intestines…that’s his…well, let’s just say he’s a male turtle…very male.”
My face felt as if it might burst into flames. The vet took one look at my embarrassed expression and couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer. “Have you thought about calling “Play-Turtle’ magazine?” he teased. “Or maybe a turtle escort service?”
As it turned out, poor Snippy’s situation wasn’t normal and he needed a couple stitches to prevent him from becoming an unintentional habitual “flasher.” It cost me over $100.
I’m happy to report that he now is doing just fine and is thriving in his new home.
The problem with living in a small town, however, is that if you tell someone an embarrassing story, which I did about Snippy, word spreads like wildfire. Now, at least twice a week, someone will come up to me, smile and say, “So-and-so told me to ask you about your turtle story!”
I have the feeling that, unlike my many other embarrassing moments, I’m never going to live this one down.
Monday, February 20, 2006
The big chill
I feel as if I’ve just returned from spending a night stranded on Mount Washington. My fingers are cold and stiff, my nose is dripping and I’ve lost all feeling in my toes.
A half-hour ago, the electricity finally popped back on after being off for over 10 hours. I can honestly say that they were the longest 10 hours of my life. I know that many people throughout the state had to suffer a lot longer without power than I did, and believe me, they have my complete sympathy.
I didn’t believe the weatherman when he warned everyone that winds so strong, they could knock over King Kong were on their way and that everyone should go outside and tie down anything lighter than an 18-wheeler or it would end up as a tree ornament. That’s because I’d believed the weatherman the weekend before when he’d said a snowstorm was headed our way that would dump so much snow, we’d have to build igloos…and we got barely three inches.
The wind actually woke me up on Friday morning (um, make that afternoon). I could hear things bouncing around outside and against the house, and as I lay in bed, I found myself trying to remember what I’d left outside that might have been transformed into a deadly projectile. I also hoped that one of the things bouncing around out there wasn’t my neighbor.
I finally got up, got dressed and headed outside to look. I found the lid to our big trash container, the kind that has wheels on it, lying out back near the woods. I figured that the container probably wasn’t too far from the lid, so I checked the area. There was no sign of it anywhere.
Visions of my trash container rolling like a race car down the center of the highway with cars swerving into trees to avoid it, caused me to intensify my search. Twenty minutes later, I finally found it lying in a driveway down on the corner of our street (at least I hope it was OUR trash container). I dragged it back home.
Chilled to the bone, I went back into the house, heated some water for tea and turned on the TV. The cable box popped on, then off…and stayed off. It was official. We had no power.
Not having power during the daylight hours wasn’t so bad, mainly because I still could see and even read without the benefit of artificial lighting. Also, we have a gas stove, so I still was able to heat up stuff to eat and drink.
But the minute the sun went down, things changed. The house got colder and darker…and really boring. I was forced to drag out our assortment of lanterns. Two of the three battery-operated ones had dead batteries, and both of the oil lamps were so old, the oil in them practically had disintegrated. There also was enough accumulated dust on the wicks to cause a major bonfire if I lit them.
Later, as I was trying to cook supper in virtual darkness, I made the mistake of mentioning to my husband that the house was too quiet.
“I can fix that,” he said. I thought he was going to go search for our portable radio, but instead, he belted out a chorus of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” followed by “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
“Christmas was two months ago,” I told him.
“Yeah, but I’m so cold, I feel like I’m at the North Pole.”
Before I could comment, he added, “Something smells like old tires burning.”
It was our supper, but it was so dark near the stove, I really couldn't tell if it was the meat or the squash that was burning. It turned out to be both.
Not crazy about eating cinders, I finally heated up some tomato soup and we ate that. At least it was hot. I would have made grilled-cheese sandwiches to go with it, but somehow I didn't think that producing golden, perfectly grilled sandwiches would be even remotely possible by penlight, which was about the only light source in the house that had fresh batteries in it.
“I think I’ll have a couple pieces of toast with my soup,” my husband said.
“Sure, just pop some bread in the toaster and with luck, it’ll be ready in about five hours,” I said.
Right after supper, my husband crawled into bed to keep warm. I, however, sat bundled up on the sofa, listened to my portable CD player and drank at least six cups of hot tea. I was determined to stay up until the power came back on.
The only problem with drinking six cups of tea is that sooner or later the tea has to come back out. All I can say is that I never knew the true meaning of the words “painfully cold” until I sat on that toilet seat. In fact, I may have to seek counseling just to get over the trauma of it.
Just after midnight, I held the penlight up to our indoor thermometer and saw that the temperature in the living room had dipped to 46 degrees. I decided I’d better go crawl into bed with my husband or my stiff blue body would be found lying like a giant Popsicle on the sofa in the morning.
That’s when I heard our answering machine beep and the furnace pop on. I did a few celebratory dance steps over to the thermostat (even though I barely could bend my knees by then) and cranked up the heat to 85.
But it’s still really windy outside, so I’m not taking any chances. I’m quickly writing this before the power goes off again. And if it does, I’m making a beeline for a hotel…preferably one with a hot-tub…in Miami.
A half-hour ago, the electricity finally popped back on after being off for over 10 hours. I can honestly say that they were the longest 10 hours of my life. I know that many people throughout the state had to suffer a lot longer without power than I did, and believe me, they have my complete sympathy.
I didn’t believe the weatherman when he warned everyone that winds so strong, they could knock over King Kong were on their way and that everyone should go outside and tie down anything lighter than an 18-wheeler or it would end up as a tree ornament. That’s because I’d believed the weatherman the weekend before when he’d said a snowstorm was headed our way that would dump so much snow, we’d have to build igloos…and we got barely three inches.
The wind actually woke me up on Friday morning (um, make that afternoon). I could hear things bouncing around outside and against the house, and as I lay in bed, I found myself trying to remember what I’d left outside that might have been transformed into a deadly projectile. I also hoped that one of the things bouncing around out there wasn’t my neighbor.
I finally got up, got dressed and headed outside to look. I found the lid to our big trash container, the kind that has wheels on it, lying out back near the woods. I figured that the container probably wasn’t too far from the lid, so I checked the area. There was no sign of it anywhere.
Visions of my trash container rolling like a race car down the center of the highway with cars swerving into trees to avoid it, caused me to intensify my search. Twenty minutes later, I finally found it lying in a driveway down on the corner of our street (at least I hope it was OUR trash container). I dragged it back home.
Chilled to the bone, I went back into the house, heated some water for tea and turned on the TV. The cable box popped on, then off…and stayed off. It was official. We had no power.
Not having power during the daylight hours wasn’t so bad, mainly because I still could see and even read without the benefit of artificial lighting. Also, we have a gas stove, so I still was able to heat up stuff to eat and drink.
But the minute the sun went down, things changed. The house got colder and darker…and really boring. I was forced to drag out our assortment of lanterns. Two of the three battery-operated ones had dead batteries, and both of the oil lamps were so old, the oil in them practically had disintegrated. There also was enough accumulated dust on the wicks to cause a major bonfire if I lit them.
Later, as I was trying to cook supper in virtual darkness, I made the mistake of mentioning to my husband that the house was too quiet.
“I can fix that,” he said. I thought he was going to go search for our portable radio, but instead, he belted out a chorus of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” followed by “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
“Christmas was two months ago,” I told him.
“Yeah, but I’m so cold, I feel like I’m at the North Pole.”
Before I could comment, he added, “Something smells like old tires burning.”
It was our supper, but it was so dark near the stove, I really couldn't tell if it was the meat or the squash that was burning. It turned out to be both.
Not crazy about eating cinders, I finally heated up some tomato soup and we ate that. At least it was hot. I would have made grilled-cheese sandwiches to go with it, but somehow I didn't think that producing golden, perfectly grilled sandwiches would be even remotely possible by penlight, which was about the only light source in the house that had fresh batteries in it.
“I think I’ll have a couple pieces of toast with my soup,” my husband said.
“Sure, just pop some bread in the toaster and with luck, it’ll be ready in about five hours,” I said.
Right after supper, my husband crawled into bed to keep warm. I, however, sat bundled up on the sofa, listened to my portable CD player and drank at least six cups of hot tea. I was determined to stay up until the power came back on.
The only problem with drinking six cups of tea is that sooner or later the tea has to come back out. All I can say is that I never knew the true meaning of the words “painfully cold” until I sat on that toilet seat. In fact, I may have to seek counseling just to get over the trauma of it.
Just after midnight, I held the penlight up to our indoor thermometer and saw that the temperature in the living room had dipped to 46 degrees. I decided I’d better go crawl into bed with my husband or my stiff blue body would be found lying like a giant Popsicle on the sofa in the morning.
That’s when I heard our answering machine beep and the furnace pop on. I did a few celebratory dance steps over to the thermostat (even though I barely could bend my knees by then) and cranked up the heat to 85.
But it’s still really windy outside, so I’m not taking any chances. I’m quickly writing this before the power goes off again. And if it does, I’m making a beeline for a hotel…preferably one with a hot-tub…in Miami.
Monday, January 30, 2006
SOB STORY
I’ve always cried over sad movies. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been too embarrassed to show my mascara-streaked face in the theater lobby after watching a real tear-jerker. I also can’t count the number of times my husband has relentlessly teased me about it.
For some reason, he and my mother always have had a knack for finding the humor in sad movies and spoiling them for me. In fact, there have been plenty of times when they have caused me to want to slide underneath my theater seat and hide there.
For example, back when I was a kid, my mom took me to see the Disney classic, “Old Yeller.” It was a movie about a beloved dog that ended up saving the life of the boy he belonged to and then dying of rabies at the end of the movie (the dog, not the boy). The name “Yeller” referred to the boy’s slang pronunciation of the yellow color of the dog.
Well, my mother suddenly started to laugh in the middle of the movie. As heads turned toward us and eyes glared at us, I asked my mother why on earth she was laughing. She explained that the lead actress (Dorothy McGuire) had such yellow teeth, she’d thought that SHE was Old Yeller, not the dog!
Then there was the time I took my mother to see the movie, “Romeo and Juliet.” I’d already seen it once and had been so touched by it, I wanted my mother to experience the same intense emotion I’d felt.
My mother was fine until the scene in the square where Juliet’s nurse, wearing a huge, puffy skirt, came looking for Romeo. The guys in the square began to taunt the nurse, making faces at her and dancing around her. Then one of the guys, Mercutio, lifted a corner of the nurse’s skirt, stuck his head underneath it and came out holding his nose and gasping.
That did it. My mother dissolved into fits of laughter. She laughed through the wedding scene. She laughed through the death scene. She laughed all the way out to the car after the movie had ended. And to this day, whenever I mention the movie to her, she still bursts out laughing.
I’m pretty sure we made a lot of enemies in the movie theater that day.
When my husband and I were dating, I convinced him to take me to see “Love Story” at the Rex Theater in Manchester. About 15 minutes into the movie, I could tell from his sighing and eye rolling that he probably would rather have been sitting in a Laundromat and washing his socks.
He managed to keep silent, however, until Ali MacGraw’s death scene. It was supposed to be romantic and touching, a real Kleenex moment. But the minute Ali said to Ryan O’Neal, who played her husband in the movie, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” my husband could remain silent no longer.
He burst out laughing. “Give me a break! That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Shhhhh!” I said. “This is the sad part! She’s going to die!”
“If we’re lucky,” he said, “he’ll put a pillow over her face and help her speed things along!”
I heard a few other men in the theater start to laugh.
An irritated-sounding “Shhhhhhhh!” came from the woman who was seated behind us.
Once again, I had to hide my face behind a box of popcorn as I left the movie theater.
When I sobbed through “Wuthering Heights” and the ending of “Funny Girl,” my husband mercilessly razzed me. And when I cried buckets over “Brian’s Song,” he called me a marshmallow, even though I thought I detected him swallowing against a lump in his throat a few times.
But then came the day when Hugh Beaumont, the actor who played one of the world’s most popular dads on TV, Ward Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver," passed away.
"Leave it to Beaver" always had been my husband’s favorite TV show. He'd watched all of the originals when he was a kid and then all of the reruns (about 10 times each) when he grew up.
When my husband came home from work that night, I casually mentioned that Hugh Beaumont had died.
His face immediately paled, and to my shock, he burst into tears. “Noooo! Not Ward Cleaver! It can’t be!”
He spent the rest of the night sobbing and reminiscing about poor Ward. I honestly never had seen him so emotional about anything. The man practically needed a sedative.
The next morning, my husband looked beyond embarrassed. “Gee, I don’t know what got into me,” he said, shrugging. “I mean, after all, Ward Cleaver was just a TV character.”
Ever since then, he hasn’t teased me much at all when I’ve cried during sad movies.
Could it be that maturity finally has softened him?
Nah. It’s because he’s afraid I’ll tell all of his buddies about the Ward Cleaver incident.
# # #
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Sally
Breslin is an award-winning humor columnist and the author of “There’s a Tick
in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor," Inside the Blue Cube" and “The Common-Sense Approach to Dream
Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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Thursday, January 12, 2006
The gift of creativity
Every Christmas season, I come up with what I think are unusual gift ideas. And every Christmas season, I end up having to return a few gifts before I even give them.
This Christmas season was no different.
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson from past disasters. For example, there was the wood carving of a buffalo that I had specially made one Christmas for my husband, the buffalo collector. Unfortunately, the carver had never carved a buffalo before, so the end result looked like something that had been in a horrible, disfiguring accident.
Still, the artist was so proud of his masterpiece, I ended up forking over a wad of money for it…and then hid the buffalo in the back of the closet, where to this day, it still remains. I can only hope that a nest of hungry termites has attacked it.
And then there was the round tablecloth I had a woman crochet for my mother. The center of the darned thing wouldn’t lie flat, no matter what my mother and I did to it. We tried stacking books on it, ironing it and starching it, and still the center continued to rise as if it were part of Houdini’s magic act. We were tempted to bring it outside and beat it with a stick.
Another gift disaster occurred when a glass blower at a mall told me he could make a set of miniature bowling balls and pins for my mother. At the time, I thought it was a great idea because not only was my mother an avid bowler, she also collected blown glass. The final result looked like a clear-glass turkey drumstick surrounded by skinny baked potatoes. When the glass blower first handed it to me, I honestly thought it was a replica of someone’s lunch.
This year, however, I wasn’t quite as creative. Still, I had problems.
We have a dear friend who collects pocket watches, so I bought him a pocket watch that had wood trimming encircling the face. It came in a matching wooden case. I decided to have the back of the watch engraved with, “TO BILL, CHRISTMAS 2005.”
A week before Christmas, I picked up the watch. The back read, “TO BULL, CHRISTMAS 2005.”
Then I bought my mother a pair of dainty pearl earrings. When I went to wrap them, I noticed that they were lying in the bottom of the case instead of attached to the velvet backing, where I’d last seen them. I picked up the earrings and discovered that the little slip-on backs were missing. I finally located them, loose in the case, and slid them back onto the earring posts. They immediately fell off.
I rolled my eyes. The earring backs obviously were way too big. I shoved everything back into the case and decided to head back to the jewelry store. That’s when my search for the sales receipt began.
I searched everywhere for that darned receipt, even outside in the trash barrel. By then, I was so frustrated, I was flinging trash onto the ground and shouting, “Come on! You’ve GOT to be in there!”
I could only imagine what the neighbors were thinking. Probably, “There’s Sally on her diet again, looking for stray M&Ms.”
I never did find the sales receipt, but I decided to be brave and return to the jewelry store anyway.
The female clerk seemed overly pleasant until I told her I had a problem with some earrings I’d purchased. Her expression immediately changed to something that looked as if I’d just told her I was dating her husband.
I explained that the backs of the earrings were too big and kept falling off. She opened the box and removed the earrings…and only one earring back. The other one was nowhere to be found. The clerk even turned the box upside down and shook it over the counter.
“It was in the box when I left the house,” I said. “Honest, it was!”
Her suspicious look told me it was highly unlikely that she was buying any of my story. I guess I really couldn’t blame her. After all, there I was, a complete stranger with no sales slip and a missing earring-back…a 14K white-gold earring back. I may as well have been the long-lost daughter of Bonnie and Clyde.
The clerk stared at me a moment, her eyes boring into mine. I suspected that her years of working with fine jewelry had made her develop a sixth sense, a built-in lie detector. I didn’t dare blink.
Finally, she silently walked over to a drawer, pulled out a small box and brought it back to the counter. The box contained earring backs of all sizes and shapes. She pulled out two and slid them onto the posts of the pearl earrings. They fit perfectly.
“There you go,” she said, her lips forming a taut line.
I got out of there, stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. Things, I told myself, definitely were looking up.
That is, until I decided to order a musical clock with little moving dancers in it for our friends in New York.
But that’s a whole other story…
This Christmas season was no different.
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson from past disasters. For example, there was the wood carving of a buffalo that I had specially made one Christmas for my husband, the buffalo collector. Unfortunately, the carver had never carved a buffalo before, so the end result looked like something that had been in a horrible, disfiguring accident.
Still, the artist was so proud of his masterpiece, I ended up forking over a wad of money for it…and then hid the buffalo in the back of the closet, where to this day, it still remains. I can only hope that a nest of hungry termites has attacked it.
And then there was the round tablecloth I had a woman crochet for my mother. The center of the darned thing wouldn’t lie flat, no matter what my mother and I did to it. We tried stacking books on it, ironing it and starching it, and still the center continued to rise as if it were part of Houdini’s magic act. We were tempted to bring it outside and beat it with a stick.
Another gift disaster occurred when a glass blower at a mall told me he could make a set of miniature bowling balls and pins for my mother. At the time, I thought it was a great idea because not only was my mother an avid bowler, she also collected blown glass. The final result looked like a clear-glass turkey drumstick surrounded by skinny baked potatoes. When the glass blower first handed it to me, I honestly thought it was a replica of someone’s lunch.
This year, however, I wasn’t quite as creative. Still, I had problems.
We have a dear friend who collects pocket watches, so I bought him a pocket watch that had wood trimming encircling the face. It came in a matching wooden case. I decided to have the back of the watch engraved with, “TO BILL, CHRISTMAS 2005.”
A week before Christmas, I picked up the watch. The back read, “TO BULL, CHRISTMAS 2005.”
Then I bought my mother a pair of dainty pearl earrings. When I went to wrap them, I noticed that they were lying in the bottom of the case instead of attached to the velvet backing, where I’d last seen them. I picked up the earrings and discovered that the little slip-on backs were missing. I finally located them, loose in the case, and slid them back onto the earring posts. They immediately fell off.
I rolled my eyes. The earring backs obviously were way too big. I shoved everything back into the case and decided to head back to the jewelry store. That’s when my search for the sales receipt began.
I searched everywhere for that darned receipt, even outside in the trash barrel. By then, I was so frustrated, I was flinging trash onto the ground and shouting, “Come on! You’ve GOT to be in there!”
I could only imagine what the neighbors were thinking. Probably, “There’s Sally on her diet again, looking for stray M&Ms.”
I never did find the sales receipt, but I decided to be brave and return to the jewelry store anyway.
The female clerk seemed overly pleasant until I told her I had a problem with some earrings I’d purchased. Her expression immediately changed to something that looked as if I’d just told her I was dating her husband.
I explained that the backs of the earrings were too big and kept falling off. She opened the box and removed the earrings…and only one earring back. The other one was nowhere to be found. The clerk even turned the box upside down and shook it over the counter.
“It was in the box when I left the house,” I said. “Honest, it was!”
Her suspicious look told me it was highly unlikely that she was buying any of my story. I guess I really couldn’t blame her. After all, there I was, a complete stranger with no sales slip and a missing earring-back…a 14K white-gold earring back. I may as well have been the long-lost daughter of Bonnie and Clyde.
The clerk stared at me a moment, her eyes boring into mine. I suspected that her years of working with fine jewelry had made her develop a sixth sense, a built-in lie detector. I didn’t dare blink.
Finally, she silently walked over to a drawer, pulled out a small box and brought it back to the counter. The box contained earring backs of all sizes and shapes. She pulled out two and slid them onto the posts of the pearl earrings. They fit perfectly.
“There you go,” she said, her lips forming a taut line.
I got out of there, stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. Things, I told myself, definitely were looking up.
That is, until I decided to order a musical clock with little moving dancers in it for our friends in New York.
But that’s a whole other story…
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