A Final Farewell

The year 2012 will be remembered for a lot of fond farewells.  We said goodbye to many who defined my generation, from astronaut Neil Armstrong to actor Larry Hagman to singer Whitney Houston to ground-breaker Sherman Helmsley to comedienne Phyllis Diller to author Gore Vidal.  It is also time for me to say goodbye.  I have no plans to leave this world, but I do plan to sign off this space, suspending Mommadods’ Blogarhythmz on this, the 366^th blog in 366 days. 

This has been a journey I have enjoyed immensely.  I consider it a personal accomplishment that I set out to attain a goal and here it is, all tied up in a bow.  If I sound like I am patting myself on the back, I suppose I am.  There were days when I questioned my resolve and others when I questioned my sanity.  For those out there that think blogging is easy, it is.  There are tools and templates that can set you up in the blogging business in a matter of minutes.  Anyone can be a blogger. 

The hard part is being a writer.  As a writer, I confront myself and my demons on a daily basis.  There are visions and snipets and emotions all tied up inside me, and it is a harsh task to bring them out in coherent thoughts.  Blogging is a parity of writing.  With  my entries, I was looking to explore myself and my voice more deeply, choosing substance over cyberspeak.  I wanted to create something lasting for my children, and something revealing for myself.  I also wanted to write in complete sentences.  That so many of you participated in my quest is unexpected and humbling.

One of my close friends asked me at the beginning of the year why I was doing this.  Was it therapeutic? A challenge?  A means of self-expression?  Or all of the above?  I really cannot point to a single motivating factor.  I like projects and challenges; there was something neat about having a finite amount of time to write about an infinite number of things.  But there is clearly more.  I have always been defined to the point of being typecast:  pianist, cook, speaker, Hahvahd grad.  I enjoyed undertaking something that was completely unexpected.  We get so few opportunities in life to reinvent ourselves.  Who is to say that even at this advanced age I cannot become a writer?  Or an artist?  Or an activist?  I want to prove that life still offers all the opportunities it did when I was making critical choices back in college.  Just because I took one road in my twenties does not mean that I cannot double back and try another.  

One of the unexpected things that I learned about myself during this year is the extent to which I have strong feelings about what is going on in this world.   The phases of my life up until now have been largely self-absorbing—focused on skill building, education, practicing.  I realize now that I have grown impatient with party politics, disgusted by environmental exploitation, and just plain disappointed in the way people deal with one another.   My future projects will be more outward focused, targeted at making a difference, albeit in small pockets of the universe.

A word of advice to those of you who would set yourselves up for a public challenge:  be realistic.  I confess I was hasty when I announced that I would write what amounts to a daily column every day for a year.  Every.  Day.  For.  A.  Year.  Even statisticians are allowed a margin of error.  I had to keep writing, even while on many vacations, or celebrating my second honeymoon, or when my children came home to visit, or during the holidays, or when I was flat out sick in bed.  To miss even one day would have meant automatic failure.  Remember that the first rule of engagement is to define your objective.  I needed to go with something simple, like “eliminate the target” instead of something monumental like “war on terrorism.”  But my tactics were a bit more forgiving.  As long as I wrote every single day it did not matter what I wrote.  Not every writer creates art every day.  So thank you, readers, for enduring the occasional Shakespearean sonnet.  They were good relaxation techniques for my writerhead.  Sometimes it is easier to say in iambic pentameter that which eludes us in prose.

I feel a need to point out that my stories are not intended as textbooks or encyclopedias.   I have written from my own point of view, including personal stories from my own life.   It is important as a writer to search for honesty and truth, learning to show, rather than to tell.   My stories have been exercises in various ideas, styles, topics, genres—whatever I felt I needed to try at the moment.  Some were personal.  Some were editorial.  Your scrutiny is part of the exercise and most of you have been very kind.

I have been surprised by how many people have asked what I planned for my final blog.  There is no magic here.  I had a job to do and now it has come to an end.   If I had one final wish it would be that I could write so compellingly about the importance of love, tolerance, and acceptance that everyone would pull their heels out of the dirt and start working together to achieve social justice, world peace, and human harmony.   I fear for us all in a world where everyone is intractable and extreme.   We can all use a little less “me” and a lot more “us.” 

But for those of you who prefer a little magic, I’ll simply “Puck” off:

 

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

The Bloggy Awards

As this blog-a-day challenge winds to a close, I thought it would be fun to honor some of the dedicated readers who have been loyal companions on this this long journey as well as some of the memorable moments along the way. 

The first award goes to Jack Grippo, a beloved high school math teacher to me and to so many others.  His untimely passing during this blog year was the inspiration for the blog:  “If You Don’t Know Math, You Don’t Know Jack.”  Thanks to a surprising shout out and share from Sue Eder on a NMB thread, this blog received the greatest number of hits by far.  I am glad that so many people shared my love for this quirky little man.  I am proud to have given voice to our collective respect and adoration for a man who dedicated himself to inspiring kids to accept math into their lives.

The “best sport” award goes to my mother-in-law, Arlene, who inspired the blog “Mother-In-Law Diplomacy.”  Her good sense of humor allowed me to call her out for a meal that is etched in my memory—but not my taste buds—for all time.  She is kind enough to know that I would never laugh “at” her, and therefore enjoyed laughing along at something that was really the stuff of which good comedy is made.  Truth, as they say, is better than fiction.

The “exploding raspberry” award goes to the blog “It’s Not Easy Getting Clean,” in which I lampooned myself for my own inability to confront my housekeeper about her lazy cleaning habits.  Even as I write this blog, she is five hours late showing up to clean on her designated day.  This blog hit a sour note, apparently failing to register its tongue-and-cheek voice among many readers who took exception to everything from my management skills to my treatment of a human being as an employee.  (One person went so far as to suggest that I must elevate this woman’s humanity by coddling her and then hiring someone else to do the actual work so that she could be relieved of such a burden.  I vote for the solution where she actually does what she is paid to do—like all of the rest of us.) 

The “Broken Heart” award goes to the blog “A Final Bow for Eddie Alberts,” written about a close family friend whose musical genius was an important part of my life.  His untimely and unexpected death moved me deeply.  I was thankful to be able to use this blog to communicate to his family what he meant to me.

The “Mommadods Cheering Squad” award goes to a group of incredible women who have not only read most of these blogs, they let me know by hitting Like or leaving comments regularly.  This includes both Janes, Donna, Christie, Gigi, Susan, and Patti.   Without feedback, blog writing leaves a writer feeling like the proverbially tree that falls in the woods.  Their participation and constant dialog let me know that my voice is making a sound.  Truly, I cannot begin to express what their support has meant to me.  (I'll include you, Jim, if you don't mind the image of your shaking pom-poms with a team of women.)

There were several awards that were not chosen to be broadcast on the live show.  They were awarded in a private ceremony at an earlier date.  These include the “Get Your Own Blog” award, the “You Can’t Criticize What You Haven’t Read” award, and the “It’s My Life, Not Yours” award.

For my special “In Memoriam” feature, I want to recognize some beautiful people who passed through my life but have not lived to read about it.  My dear father and my amazing grandparents left me with rich and colorful memories.  For many of the tales involving them, I am not the author, merely the storyteller.

A few final awards.  The “I May Not Always Be Right, But I’ll Always Be Writing” award is given in honor of my children.  Their presence in my life enriches every moment.  Nothing fascinates me more than watching them develop into adulthood.  I am proud of their values, their accomplishments, and their constant love.  I am grateful that they have let me tell their stories along with my own, and in particular, to reveal struggles that may inspire others.  You are my heroes.

And finally, the “Thanks for Keeping the Bed Warm” award goes to my devoted husband, who was not consulted before I jumped into this endeavor at 11:40pm last New Year’s Eve.  He has endured this long year with grace and courage, one day at a time.  He has allowed me to poke fun at everything from the way he acts to the way he dresses without so much as a stern countenance.   His support for all I do is rare and greatly treasured. 

We are almost out of time, folks.  Cue the music.  Roll the credits.

The Sins of the Mother

Although the theme is a biblical one, it was while reading Ibsen’s play Ghosts that I first learned the concept of “the sins of the father are visited upon the sons.”  At the time, I related the idea to my own father, and the many of his physical and behavior traits that were already ingrained in me.  Now, as a parent of young adults, I see my own weaknesses and characteristics mocking me in the actions of my children.  We do our best for our kids, but there is just no hiding from our family baggage.

When my son was born, I wanted to give him a life beyond anything of which I had dreamed.  I was in love with being a mother, getting caught in the trappings of a baby’s world.  Everything “baby” shouted out at me; nothing was too good for him.  It was a pleasure to be able to spoil him.  I loved to surprise him with things, living for that adorable glint in his eye when he beheld a new toy.  I did not suspect there was a downside, that my son would grow conditioned by impulse.  He became seasoned by my doses of instant gratification, causing us to struggle in later years to learn long-term planning and short-term budget management. 

My daughter was a surprise little girl in a male-dominated family.  I wanted her to have a happy, girlie life.  Whereas I was always made aware of my physical shortcomings (too ugly, too fat, too frizzy, too unlady-like), I wanted my daughter to feel comfortable in her own skin, empowered by her womanhood.  She was always told she was beautiful.  She was allowed to try her hand at anything with unflinching support.  And she was never compared (favorably or unfavorably) to her very different older brother.  Despite my efforts to wage a pre-emptive strike against my own latent traits in her, she would be forced to reckon with a genetic predisposition to hips, a hair-trigger temper, and a mind that is not wired for mainstream thinking.  It still takes me aback when she lobs some of the same sharp rejoinders at me that I once hurled at my own father.

I always used to laugh when Bill Cosby talked about raising children—before I had any of my own.  He would say that the only people certain about how to raise children are the ones who never had any.  Having strict and unrelenting parents, I was hell-bent on doing better for my kids by being the opposite of my parents.  Unfortunately, the more I tried to resist the instincts and impulses that were drummed into me, the more I am certain that I emulated them.  I suppose we can never apologize enough to our children for being the parents we felt compelled to be.  At the very least, I have always tried to do one thing that my parents never did.  I was never afraid to apologize when I was wrong.  I always wanted my children to realize that although we are parents, we are still human beings.  It is more important to me that they understand my passion for protecting their interests than it is to be right.

I will always fear that I have failed my children in some important way.  I am not a good teacher, even of things that I am good at doing myself.  I am not a good wallflower, having the tendency to become involved in the dialogue of my kids own interests.  I make my opinions and tastes abundantly clear, which, no doubt, has shaped those of my children before they have had the opportunity to decide many things for themselves.  As Cosby said, “Parenting will always create bizarre behavior. . .and I’m not talking about the kids.”

So much of parenting serves expedience.  I agree with Cosby when he said, “parenting is not about justice; it’s about peace and quiet.”  As parents, we get tired.  It is a load that we never get to put down.  I used to think that my kids would out-grow my need to worry about them, yet it seems that the older they get, the greater my fears.  The world is a frightening place.  It’s not that I distrust them.  I lack the confidence in my own parenting skills to believe that I have equipped them well for the unknown journey  ahead.

I hope one day my kids will forgive me for my improvisational style of parenting.  I hope that I have exposed them to enough human failings that their experience as my kids will somehow translate into valuable lessons for their own lives.  While I may have botched every test of parenthood, at least my children have never doubted my love for them.  They know that their mother’s love is one thing in this life they can always count on. 

How do I know this with such confidence?  Because they reassure me all the time.

The New Bucket List

I’ve always been a big “Bucket Lister.”  Recently, however, I realize that my bucket list is way out of date.  I have been so busy juggling what is on my plate that I have neglected to dream on for the future.  Many items that had previously been key motivators for me (return to piano and give a public performance, take my daughter to Greece, become a writer, perform Chopin’s b-minor Sonata) have found their way off the list and into my life’s story.   There are two things you can do when this happens.  You can live with the knowledge that your bucket list is exhausted (and the psychological consequences thereof), or you can add more things to the list. 

I choose the latter.  There is no point in dwelling on the possibility that the best years are behind.  It is simply time to fill up the life ahead with more dreams and goals.  I choose to interpret the fact that I have achieved so many of my goals as a life well-lived (rather than as a life mostly spent).  This latter phase of my life reflects an adjustment in my circumstances.  For example, I no longer live to see my children installed in the colleges of their choosing.  Instead, I hope to see them accomplished in their professional goals, situated in loving, lasting relationships, and developing an independence and fulfillment of their own.  I also hope to live to hold my grandchildren—and while that seems to imply some urgency, I am really in no hurry given my children’s current stages in life.

It is probably no surprise to anyone who knows me that most of my dreams and wishes involve my children.  But a bucket list should be personal and selfish—otherwise, what is the point?  So given the proximity to New Year’s Day, (and we all know what happened when I made resolutions LAST New Year,) I have decided to renovate my Bucket List.   And a word to my husband:  you are welcome to join me on any or all of these journeys.

1)       I want to visit Alaska.  For some reason, Alaska is always on our vacation short list but never becomes a planned destination.  My husband is from the Pacific Northwest, so perhaps Alaska is not as exotic a destination for him as it is for me.  I love mountains and glaciers.  I love taking real “discover America” trips.  I want to see bears and caribou and the Aurora Borealis.  I love eating salmon and halibut.  I prefer cold destinations with snow to beaches and tropical climes.  I want to visit Alaska while I still have the stamina (and the joints) to enjoy it.

2)       I want to prepare and perform an all-Chopin recital.  Chopin is a pianist’s composer, but many of his pieces are over-done and even shunned by audiences.  Still, there is much richness in the lesser-played pieces of his vast collection of compositions.  For me, playing Chopin is story-telling.  His pieces capture the fragility of his failing health, the vulnerability of his circumstances as an expatriate, and the reflection of the larger-than-life characters that inhabited his life (Georges Sand and Franz Liszt among them).  To do them justice requires great physical strength and broad emotional availability.  It is hard live in that space (for the time it takes to accomplish the task) without being profoundly altered by it.

3)      I want to renovate a loft space as a general contractor.  My husband and I have always lived in old homes, so I have come to enjoy tearing down walls and renovating them room by room.  We are reaching the point where our home is too large and impractical for our current circumstances.  We have been talking about going sleek and urban.  I would love to find some up-and-coming industrial space that I can design for our specific needs (gourmet kitchen, recital parlor, library, master retreat—and I suppose some space for when the kids visit).  I derive particular joy from sourcing fixtures, knobs, and reclaimed materials while parlaying the savings into top quality kitchen appliances.

4)      I want to see The Last Supper, Leonardo daVinci’s masterpiece in tempera and gesso, before it fades from the walls of the humble convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. 

5)      I want to complete the novel that I sketched out three years ago.  It now has a different form than I originally planned—the result of a year spent writing daily.  I would like to find the time and the focus to embark on such a large-scale project. 

6)      I want to go to art school.  I have studied lots of things in my life, but my first love was always art.  Long before I became accomplished at music, I wanted to be an artist.  Today, I tinker with lots of crafts, loving to make things “with my hands.”  If I have one regret, it is that I never took art lessons.  I have always felt that I possess the soul of an artist, but I have always been lacking the essential skills.  I would love to experience the discipline of drawing classes, honing my eye, my sense of form, and the conviction of my (shaky) line. 

7)      I want to start some sort of a company that harnesses the creative power of my closest friends—brilliant 50-something women with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, and experiences.  Together, we have the bench strength of any Fortune 100 company.  We ought to be able to combine the best of us into something that will bring value to some segment of the world.

There is more where this list comes from, but it is a start.  This ought to keep me busy for at least another twenty years.

The Tale of Phil and Ida

Eighty-one years ago today, my grandparents, Phil and Ida, were married in New York.  During the past year, I have told lots of stories about these two wonderful people.  To meet them, they could seem ordinary.  They were not famous, or eye-catching, or particularly gifted with any skill.  What was remarkable about them was the way they lived—with a deep love and respect for one another and a commitment to the family that they built.  When my grandmother eventually lost her faculties in her eighties, requiring her relocation to a nursing home, my grandfather died of a broken heart.  He could not face each new day without the love of his life by his side.  She found her way home to him, just three months later.

My grandparents did not have an easy life.  They worked hard—my grandfather as a dentist (and in Florida as a registered pharmacist) and my grandmother as a teacher.  In addition to their own three children, my grandparents were like guardians over their own extended families, taking proprietary care of every niece and nephew as if they were their own children.  My grandfather would give anyone the shirt off his back if they needed it; my grandmother would set a place at her table for anyone in need of a hot meal.

I have told many tales about the special moments that my grandmother and grandfather created for me in my life, but these pale by comparison to what they meant to each other.  To see them together was to understand what love is.  My grandparents were the model on which my husband and I based our own marriage—a commitment to the spirit of sacred vows “to love and to cherish.”  There was something about the way my grandparents related to each other.  My grandmother could anticipate my grandfather’s needs down to his next bite or next change of clothing.  My grandfather would worry that my grandmother had spent too many days burdened with the mundane without being made to feel like a queen.  He would succumb to spontaneous bouts of the magnanimous, buying her frivolous jewelry for no reason except that the mood struck him. 

Ida and Phil were adorable together.  After fifty years together you could still catch them referring to each other as “my love.”  My grandfather thought that he had captured the greatest treasure on Earth the day he exchanged vows with his beloved—a young girl of twenty he waited nearly seven years to marry.  There was not a day that they took for granted, and not a day spent angry or cross.   But the greatest gift was their sense of humor.  They never took life or each other too seriously.  The day after my grandfather turned 70, he said, “I worked all day, and made love all night.”  To which my grandmother added, “That’s because it takes you all night!”

I love to keep my grandparents alive, making them a part of every holiday celebration.  I set the table with my grandmother’s wedding silver—a humble, once-modern set of silver plate that is more precious to me than any sterling could be.  I remember how she taught me to set a table, and then to count the forks and knives after the meal.  The flavors that wafted from her tiny kitchen as she prepared a soulful meal could make you weep.  I keep her recipe box in my kitchen, each card written in her practiced teacher’s hand.  I fix her recipes—traditional foods for the holidays—to fill my home with their essence.  I want my children to know something of how it felt to be enveloped in the love of my grandparents’ home. 

Today, when people say, “They just don’t make’em like they used to,” most people think of cars or furniture or other material “things.”  I think of my grandparents, and the marriage that they forged together that lasted sixty-one years, until they were parted by death.  Every year on their anniversary, my grandfather would kiss my grandmother affectionately and say, for everyone to hear, “it seems like just yesterday.”  It was not hyperbole.  He really, really meant it. 

Tonight, my husband and I will open a bottle of wine and drink to their love for each other and for the love they showed to us.  It was no surprise that when I brought home a red-headed Oregonian, my grandparents welcomed him with open arms.  My grandfather asked me, “Do you love him?”  “Yes,” I replied.  “Well,” he said, “then we love him, too.”

With them, it was always just that simple.

'Twas the Day After Christmas

‘Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the House
Representatives clamored to return to their spouse,
The motions were outlined with meticulous care
In hopes that a mandate soon would be there;

The voters from states painted all blue and red
Had visions that compromise values would spread;
And many unemployed, and others in debt,
Had just cast their votes to ensure an upset.

When on the West Lawn their arose such a clatter,
The nation tuned in to see what was the matter.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
The Speaker and President switched into high gear.

With photo op clenched, the scene was sublime,
As political deal-making commenced just in time,
Whether to raise taxes or allow a tax riff,
Concessions could not avoid Fiscal Cliff.

Now Boehner! Now, Portman!  Mulvaney and Dent!
We need to find revenue to cover what’s spent,
Keep digging your heels while we all hit the wall!
A return to recession will damage us all!

With House back in session we need a lifeboat,
When all of a sudden they cancelled the vote,
What point is a roll-call, said Boehner as boss,
When the motion is certain to tally a loss?

Now here we all sit--a political mess,
While elected officials declare a recess,
Our lives left suspended in a weird state of flux,
A fate yet determined by a set of lame ducks.

Post-Yuletide, we wait while the Reps are recalled,
To try to find center in a process that’s stalled,
What are the chances this time we’ll succeed
If elected officials don’t step up and lead?

It’s time to get working, to loosen the stricture,
See beyond tomorrow and focus the big picture,
The object is to move in a positive direction,
Not to campaign for the coming election.

So before our Constitution runs out of steam,
Let’s all reignite the American dream,
Democracy must be more than a shiny façade,
To remain indivisible, one nation under G-d.

It's back to the Chamber, we all have a stake,
We expect to see the fallout of some give-and-take,
A good compromise is not cause for regret,
If we take a strong stand against National Debt.

On behalf of us all, keep acrimony at bay,
As Americans, we are born expecting to pay,
Let's fire up the presses, and Twitter, and faxes,
There is nothing that’s certain except death and taxes!

All I Want for Christmas

I am not big on observing Christmas, but in the secular sense I can appreciate the spirit of goodwill and family that are part of the Christmas tradition.  I have done my best to show appreciation to my family and friends during the holiday season.  Although it may be a bit self-absorbed, I have taken the time this year to write a wish list of my own for Santa:

1)      Please bring my children the confidence and determination to pursue their dreams with wonderment, creativity, and purpose.

2)      Please grant my friends and family good health and happiness in the coming year.

3)      Please bring my husband a victory for the Oregon Ducks in the Fiesta bowl, redeeming them from their single transgression against Stanford this year.

4)      Please make my daughter invincible on the hard streets of Philadelphia as she ambles from place to place at all hours (much to her mother’s chagrin).

5)      Please protect the century oaks that spread their boughs across my rooftops from the extremes of weather so I do not have to sacrifice their majesty for our safety.

6)      Please help my son to make good decisions (and be financial responsible) as he transitions from the protective college campus to the real world.

7)      Please get my husband to spend less time working and more time enjoying the fruits of his labors.

8)      Please bring me more time with close friends whose company enriches my life.

9)      Please help me find the focus to go back to practicing the piano.

10)   Please teach me to let go of worries and stresses about which I can do nothing.

Best wishes for the Holiday Season to all of Mommadods Nation. 

Better Than Chocolate

This recipe celebrates 13,000 hits for Mommadods' Blogarhythmz!

 

I have been a confirmed chocoholic my entire life.  Lately, however, I find that although I continue to crave chocolate, I derive less and less pleasure from it.  Instead, my palate loves spicy warm notes, like cinnamon, ginger, and cumin.  Unlike in my youth, when our freezer was always filled with ice cream flavors such as chocolate fudge and chocolate-chocolate chip, my freezer today is more likely to contain dulce de leche or pistachio ice cream.  I enjoy my chocolate as part of a duet, enjoying mocha chip or mint chip far more than plain chocolate.

So for this, my final Mommadods recipe, I have been asked to share these special gingersnaps.  These are incredibly easy to make (provided you have a well-stocked panty) and stay fresh for a couple of weeks in an airtight container—that is, if you can keep yourself from eating them all at once.

One important note:  the beauty of these cookies is its blend of spices.  If you haven’t purchased fresh spices is 10 years, you will not get the same flavor.   Use these cookies as an occasion to treat yourself to fresh jars of spices.

 

Ginger Snaps

2 cups all-purpose flour (I have also used white, unbleached, whole-wheat flour)

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground ginger powder

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup vegetable shortening

¼ cup butter, unsalted, at room temperature

1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (you may use dark if you have it)

1 egg

¼ cup dark molasses

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

White, granulated sugar, for coating

Sift together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt) into a bowl and set aside.  Place shortening, butter and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl.  Beat with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy and sugar is well incorporated.  Add egg, molasses and orange zest and continue beating until just blended. 

At low speed, add flour mixture slowly and mix until incorporated.  Do not overmix.  Cover the bowl and rest in the refrigerator at least one hour.  (It is OK to leave the batter overnight.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat baking sheets with non-stick spray or a thin coat of butter.

Put granulated sugar on a small plate or in a bowl.   Put some water in another bowl to keep fingers moistened while working with the dough.  Using a small ice cream scoop (1 to 1 ¼ inch in diameter), portion the dough into balls and roll lightly in your hands.  Drop each ball into the sugar to coat.  Arrange the balls on the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

Bake about 12 minutes until the cookies are golden and cracked on top, but do not allow them to brown at the edges.  They should remain soft.  Cool them on the baking sheet for one minute and then gently slide them onto wire racks to cool.  Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature, hiding them before they disappear!

Middle Ground on the Playground

I found it curious how many people were ready to kiss the world goodbye over an ancient Mayan misperception.  Even though there was a rational and plausible explanation for the end of the Mayan calendar, many folks held out at least some possibility that the sun would not come out tomorrow. 

During my tenure at a large corporation, people often walked around with a similar sense of doom.  In my eleven years there, we had large-scale riffs at least three times, laying people off with no notice and scarcely more than a howdy-do.  Because the aftermath was so devastating—even for those of us who were invited to stay—the environment became a sort of pressure-cooker.  We worked under the constant stress of needing to outperform, quarter after quarter.  Once, when senior management had been sequestered behind closed doors for the better part of a week, I asked my boss if there were going to be lay-offs again.  His response:  “You don’t get off that easy.  You have to stay and make it all work.”

It seems as if our society has fallen into this type of a trap.  We no longer feel compelled to find resolutions.  Rather, we let things fester and escalate, hoping that something will come along to relieve our suffering and take the problems away from us.  The end of the world was a convenient excuse to let chores and bills ride.  We do the same thing with election cycles.  Look how little was accomplished in Congress during the last year, betting on the false inevitability of a new administration.   There is little difference between December 22^nd and the morning after the November elections; the sun still rose on a new day filled with old problems.  As we were fond of proclaiming in my company:  same bullshit, different day.

As a melting pot, we are a country of people with a broad array of ideas and differences.  By its very design, our government is adversarial and polarized.  Our Founding Fathers understood that compromise is essential for unity—that’s why we lock up our representatives in one place far from home and give them deadlines to resolve issues.  General elections are designed to poll the will of the people, leaving our elected officials to represent our interests in the give-and-take of law-making.  Of course, it has never really worked this way.  Instead, the chambers are filled with acrimonious proceedings where many officials engage in personal battles of wills.  It is a giant game of “chicken.”  We have lost the spirit of fair play and social justice, replacing it with a system where “I cannot win unless you lose.”

The next “end of the world” is the so-called Fiscal Cliff deadline.  I find it distressing to see our partisan drama played out for the world to see.  We decry other nations for refusing to find balance and compromise, yet this is the very example that we put on display.  When two sides are this far apart, there is always middle ground.  Yet our officials are afraid to step up and compromise, lest they be castigated by their own parties.  I call working toward a win-win situation “leadership.”  Apparently, there is a new name for this type of bipartisan behavior:  political suicide.

Learning to share and take turns is the most basic of developmental skills.  Most children learn this on the playground before they enter kindergarten.  Digging in one’s heels is never a winning strategy—not for children or adults.  In policy making, as in life, no one gets exactly what they want.  It is better to fall short of doing enough of the right thing than to do nothing at all.  Perhaps we need to resort to schoolyard tactics to motivate our leaders.  If all the Congressmen play nicely together, let’s give them milk and cookies.

Tough Love

During this year of blogs, I have told a lot of stories about my father.  His presence consumed my childhood.  He was difficult, strict, judgmental, and closed-minded.  It made growing up very difficult.  As a child, you are hardwired to want to please your parents and there was just no pleasing him.  When I got straight As he would complain that there was no room for improvement.  A 97 on an exam was not acceptable if someone else achieved a 98.  If I had a triumphant piano performance he would ask what I was going to do tomorrow to top it.  He had a short fuse that could ignite without warning.  Whoa be to he who became caught in his crosshairs. 

Despite how hard he was on me, I never doubted that he loved me with every inch of his being.  This was obvious when I met any of his friends, who seemed, over the years, to know more about my accomplishments than my father ever acknowledged to my face.  They must have doubted the existence of the far-away daughter who led a charmed life of top schools, glamorous concert venues, and the fast pace of corporate life.  He made me sound unreal.  It took well into my 40s before he would ever admit that he was proud of me.

I remember when I was very young—the only girl of my family’s generation—having a very peculiar exchange with my father.   Pointedly, he made me promise that no matter what, I would always be his little girl.   He made me say it, “I promise I will always be your little girl.”  Then he underscored it by saying, “Someday you will want to tell me that you aren’t my little girl any more.  You can NEVER say that now.”  At the time, it seemed like a ridiculous conversation to me.  I was oblivious to the manipulative undertones of such a statement, but he understood what I was then too young to understand.  The day would come when I could no longer be held to that promise. 

My father loved testing people.  A man of strong and slanted positions, he would try to outwit people in arguments, proving that his opinions were right.  He would twist things so that even when he was dead wrong, he retained the ability to justify his own righteousness to himself.  He had a way of creating conflict where none was necessary—feeling at his most comfortable and superior in the throes of verbal battle.  What he perceived as his greatest strength, I came to recognize as his greatest weakness.  His scheme went awry when my husband entered the picture.  Tom was a man of his own mind, not subject to the power my father had cultivated over his family.   My father tried again and again to dominate us, or to divide us against each other.  My father was never able to convince my husband to take his side against me.   It was the end of a relationship based on manipulation and dominance.  Inevitably, my father had to be told, “I am not your little girl anymore.”  It wounded him deeply, as I knew it would; however, when he recovered we began a different sort of relationship.  I won’t say that he ever saw me as an equal, but he did begin to see me as an adult.

Through the years, we had a lot of fun with my father.  My husband and he developed a close relationship of shared interests, including skiing and mixing the perfect dry martini.  My children anticipated a visit from ‘Grampa’ the way most kids look forward to Santa Claus.  They loved his excessive bear hugs and wrestling with him on the floor.  He loved to go to my son’s youth hockey games or to watch my daughter figure skate.  He was larger than life and full of laughs.  He turned to my husband for his extensive oral surgery needs, declaring my husband to be “the best doctor he knows.” 

We lost my father nearly three years ago, well before his time.  I will always remember vividly the challenges of being his daughter, but I also remember a man who loved with all his heart.  Even when I feared my father the most, I never doubted the depth of his love.  It was his way.  And as much as I wanted him to accept me for the person I am, I had to learn to love him as he was.  Strangely, that was the easy part.

Celebrating Doomsday

When I set out to write a year of blogs, it was not only a Leap Year (making my task 366 blogs, rather than the infinitely easier 365 of other years), it was also the year that contained the dreaded date 12/21/12—the end of the Mayan long count b’ak’tun.  On this day, many believed, the world would come to an end.  Period.  Finito.  

I have never been one to subscribe to planned apocalypse theories, believing that when our world ends it will be due to the random, miscalculated act of a lunatic rather than by design or fate.  Based on what I have read about Mayan record keeping, it is not likely that the end of the calendar is a prediction of doom.  Rather, it is more likely that the ancient Mayans simply stopped counting at the completion of a long cycle.  They were a people who liked balance and symmetry, particularly in numbers.  The long count calendar was a multiplicative series based on artifacts of nature that spanned over 5,000 years; they had reached a natural stopping point and were tired.  Perhaps, with that established point so far off, they simply had no immediate need to continue, making the carving in stone of the following cycle what we in the business world refer to as “next guy’s problem.”  The abrupt end to their calendar only seems abrupt to us because we live at this particular moment in time.

It is easy to understand why the next cycle of the Mayan calendar was never undertaken.  Blame the Spanish conquistadors who fought through the 16^th and 17^th Centuries to overtake the Mayans, altering the trajectory of their civilization.  Like our own Native Americans, who became either assimilated or disenfranchised, the blending of European cultures with indigenous ones gave rise to new traditions.  Although there continue to be pockets of Mayan cultures and Mayan-speaking peoples throughout the Yucatan in modern times, they have adopted many of the trappings of the modern world—our standard calendar among them.  Perhaps this series of unfortunate events has them believing that their world ended long ago.

I plan to wake up today and check that my blog posted, just like I have done every day for the last 355 days.  In the days leading up to today, I bought green bananas, paid my bills, washed my car, and finished wrapping some gifts for my children.  We will not be able to absolve ourselves of the mess we have created by clinging to an old prophesy or an ancient misinterpretation.  All the problems of yesterday remain for us to solve.  It's just another day where partisanship, violence, hatred, automatic weapons, prejudice, domestic abuse, and social injustice run rampant. 

Of course, if I am wrong, I predict a record low number of hits on my blog today. 

Space Grab

I remember as a child watching the Apollo 11 mission plant an American flag on the surface of the moon.  I thought it peculiar—although I did not understand enough to question those feelings—that we could land on a body in space and brand it with our national icon.  I thought that the moon belonged to the Earth.  How was it possible that we could claim it for ourselves?

At some point during the past forty years, we turned our eyes from the skies to the wonders of cyberspace.  Instead of light-years, our universe is now measured in bandwidth—a nearly limitless capacity for communication and data transfer.  Almost without notice, we stopped dialing in and became wirelessly connected.  Long distance charges disappeared.  Grandmothers everywhere became computer literate, emailing photos of their grandchildren and downloading their favorite books to hand-held devices.  We all thank G-d that Al Gore gave us the Internet!

On this Fantastic Voyage, however, (gratuitous Raquel Welsh reference for those of my generation) we are not just scientific explorers.  We are capitalist mercenaries looking for the next big score.  One thing I learned from working for a publicly-held corporation is that “growth” is the only thing more important than profit.  Making a killing is never enough.  It is important that profits grow at a constant rate; there is no resting on the laurels of flat profits.  Investors bet on which companies can sustain growth; the real money is made from that speculation.  It was only a matter of time before large corporations made us victims of our own acquired thirst for more:  more apps, more text, more music, more speed. 

I thought I was doing a nice thing when I purchased the new iphone 5 for my daughter’s birthday.  As the youngest in the family, she is forever getting the hand-me-down technology.  Her many-generations-old Blackberry was on its last legs, sometimes not even turning on.  When kids are at college, their cell phone is their lifeline.  It is a virtual intercom system to all their friends and family, as well as an alarm system to the parents for help or money.  Her old device was hindering her life and quashing her happiness.  The launch of the new device was well-timed with her birthday, making it possible for her to be one of the first kids to have an iphone 5 on campus.  It is not the sort of thing we typically do, which made the surprise even greater.

But, ah, the hidden costs of doing business.  We are Verizon subscribers.  During the one-hour phone conversation required to upgrade to the iphone 5, I was informed that I would be required to migrate to a new service plan, as the old plan was “no longer available.”  The former $30 per month “data plan” would now be $30 per month for 2 gigabytes of data.  Together, the sales associate and I audited my daughter’s data usage on her Blackberry and determined that she used, on average, .000159 gigabytes per month of data.  Convinced that I was signing up for an equivalent service at an equal price, I accepted the terms and conditions.

One week into using her new phone, my daughter began getting email alerts from Verizon warning that she had exceeded 50% of her 2GB monthly budget of data.    A couple of days later, the warning was up to 75%.  I called Verizon to check whether there was some sort of error.  They pointed the finger at my daughter, saying that she must be downloading all sorts of things.  They read from a script of items that fall under data services.  I checked with my daughter who was not doing anything with her phone other than texting and playing her itunes.  She had not downloaded any apps, used GPS, watched a movie, or ordered any custom ringtones.  In fact, she was so busy with her studio work she had not even taken the time to set up her email.  The one thing she did do was call the computer center to make sure she had the appropriate password for the campus wifi, something that would pretty much ensure that she was not abusing the data services.

The alert emails from Verizon continued, and each time I would call Verizon to try to ascertain what was responsible for these charges.  How could it be possible that, without changing her habits, she was using more data in three weeks than she had used in the previous twelve months?  The question was very specific, but a satisfactory answer was not forthcoming from Verizon.

After many such calls to Verizon, I happened to get connected to an honest and knowledgeable support person.  She informed me that Apple changed its texting capabilities; the new “imessage” activity on the iphone5 is being charged to “data services” rather than as text under the “unlimited text plan.”  Verizon figured out that the data usage would skyrocket under this scheme, so they transformed the unlimited data services plan to a pay-by-the-gigabyte plan.  While promoting and discounting the iphone 5, Verizon quietly forced its subscribers to convert to terms that looked the same to an ignorant consumer but were certain to generate revenues increases for Verizon. 

For the record, AT&T did the same with the release of the iphone 5.  My husband uses his iphone 5 on an AT&T plan.  His monthly fee doubled the first month on the iphone 5 because of the increase in his data usage.

It turns out that there is a happy ending for this story.  It took persistence and multiple calls, (and a threat to return the iphone 5) before someone at Verizon explained that we could turn off the data usage of the imessage and use the phone in standard text mode.  Once we did this, my daughter’s texting was covered under our unlimited text plan, and her data usage returned to its customary levels.

Space may be the final frontier, but cyberspace is a capitalist free-for-all.  We want our toys so badly that we sign up for huge termination fees and even pay an extra service fee for the privilege of buying a new device from the provider.  There is no other industry in the world that has its customers so tied up with extraneous fees and penalties.  We allow it, and then we say, “Thank you.  May I have another?”

A Gun Control Bedtime Story

I must have been about fifteen years old.  I cannot pinpoint my exact age; although I know I was old enough that I was no longer sharing a room with my older brother.  My baby brother was out of his crib and sleeping in a bed in the small room at the top of the stairs that separated my room from my parents’.

It was deep in the night—late enough that the noise of passing cars had subsided, leaving as the only audible sounds the crickets and the gentle sway of the palm trees in the occasional tropical breeze.  Normally, I slept through the night without interruption.  On this night, however, I was awakened by an unexpected sound.  I only caught the essence of the sound on the edge of my consciousness, not enough to identify its source.  Suddenly awake, I was frozen with terror, unable to move as my heart beat hard against the inner wall of my chest.  Breathing as silently as possible, I took deep breaths to try to calm my nerves, slowing my heart by sheer will.

There it was again.  The sound cut through the night, more clearly this time but still unrecognizable.  I tried to let the sound echo in my brain, hoping it would link magically with something in my memory banks, giving it a clear, and hopefully benign, identification.  It was coming from outside my room and down the hall, perhaps by the small flight of split-level steps or even the front door.  At last my mind gave it a visual cue, interpreting the sound to be that of ripping or cutting through screening, such as the type on the screen door that enclosed our heavy wooden front door.  Who would be doing such a thing in the middle of the night?  Were we in the process of being burglarized?

Suddenly I was no longer paralyzed.  I jumped to my feet, figuring that I could tiptoe down the steps and doublecheck that the many bolts and safety locks were engaged.  If I did this before the intruder made his way through the screen to the wooden door, I would save my family.  I had a special way of walking lightly on my feet, stealthily avoiding any creaks upon the hardwood floors.  Silently I turned the handle on my bedroom door and opened it without a sound.  I was halfway down the hallway toward the steps when my father suddenly emerged from my parents’ bedroom armed with a small revolver.  The sight of my figure in the dark hall surprised him and he jumped back.  He took a breath, then tucked his arm and gun behind his back, probably hoping that I had not seen it.  “Go back to bed,” he blurted out tersely.

At that very moment, the suspicious sound rang out again.  This time, however, it revealed itself more clearly to both of us as we stood in the hallway.  My tiny brother, asleep in his bed, had sneezed.

I crept back into my bedroom and packed myself tightly with the covers and blankets, needing the comfort against the chills that traveled down my spine.  In the morning, no one spoke of the incident. Not then, and not since.

Gun control is not about curtailing freedom.  It is about protecting people’s welfare against unlawful, excessive and inappropriate use.  I highly recommend David Hemenway’s book, Private Guns Public Health, (http://www.press.umich.edu/script/press/17530) which takes a public health approach to gun control.  David was my economics professor in graduate school.  His books are very insightful and highly readable. 

Drug of Choice

When my son was a little boy, there was an adorable little bit he used to do.  With exaggerated facial gestures, he would act out, “Happy New Year, Sad New Year, Mad New Year.”  It was a silly thing, but for the last few days it has been echoing through my mind.  It reminds me how quickly our oblivious happiness can be cut short, replaced with unbearable sadness, and followed by righteous anger. 

Since the Newtown tragedy there has been an outpouring of support as people sign petitions and “Like” online photo arrays.  These are silly token gestures, but we are all desperate to find something that we can do.  I suppose that reaching out to find shared pain is a productive enterprise at some level.  One of the more disappointing swells of activity I have observed is the shocking number of people who have rallied to decry gun control efforts in the aftermath, knowing that this tragedy will put gun control into the political crosshairs.  There are some things about humans I will never understand.

What I do understand, however, is the healing power of music.  It has been interesting to watch the sensitivity with which networks have resumed regular programming, knowing that it is their job to make people laugh and feel good yet taking a moment here and there to offer the buffer of a choir of children, or a heart-wrenching inspirational ballad.  Tonight on The Voice, the judges and contestants opened with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, each singer holding a placard with the name of one of the fallen children.  The stage was lined with memorial candles.  As they sang, the artists’ eyes welled with tears, each of them breathing to embrace the depth of the lyrics and the heartbreaking arc of the melody line.

In that moment, I closed my eyes and felt the music enter me.  The malaise of these last days is still there, but it was somewhat lessened by the rehabilitative power of the music.  As the final three contestants completed their final performances, they offered a collection of entertaining and inspiring tunes, each one raising my energy by a degree.  It will still take time to recover from the horrifying display of man’s inhumanity and violence, but through the music I am finding hope and comfort.

Because I have lived my life steeped in music, I have a vast store of musical go-tos that serve as my spiritual medicine cabinet.  The second movement of Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony is something I use when I allow myself to mourn.   It is a warm hug when I need a good cleansing cry.   I tap into Ravel’s Swan of Tuonela when I want something transcendent to release myself from all physical trappings.  Within its fanciful breezes I find color and beauty with an absence of pain.  It’s like a morphine drip without side effects.   For despair, I go to Chopin’s enigmatic Mazurka in g-minor, Op. 67.  He was so very ill he would have known or feared his life was at an end, yet his sorrow cannot overpower the hope that shines through the simple and brief melody.  I have written in past blogs about the unusual power of the key of g-minor; that Chopin was caught in a g-minor mood at the end of his life is not at all surprising to me.

I have told my husband on many occasions that if I were to be lying terminally ill, I would want to hear the slow movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.  Composed in the key of B major (a striking tonal contrast to the E-flat main key of the concerto), this movement possesses a melody that can only be described as “heaven sent.” (It is rumored to be the inspiration for Leonard Bernstein’s Somewhere from West Side Story.)  There is a something exposed and vulnerable about this gem.  It is what I imagine a choir of heavenly angels would be singing. 

So many of the great composers suffered personal pain or debilitating illness:  Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gershwin, Tschaikovsky, Brahms.  It is inspiring that such beautiful music would be the byproduct of a painful journey.  It is the triumph of will over circumstances, evidence of the enduring human spirit.

For those of you who, like me, have trouble making sense of what is going on in this world, tap into a classical music station to sample my personal drug of choice.  It is powerful, state altering, victimless, and free.