Monday, March 29, 2010

Going to the Dogs



I was never into dogs.  (I have to be careful who knows this because, for many people, it’s equivalent to not being into Santa Claus.)  Unfortunately, I got off to a rocky start with dogs.  I was 3 or 4 when I had my first close encounter of the canine kind.  Our best friends in the neighborhood had a boxer named Ponder.  She was the sweetest, most patient animal in the world.  If there are dogs in heaven, Ponder is now leading the dog angel choir. Ponder, however, was so large that she and I stood eyeball to eyeball and could have worn each other’s shoes.  All I remember is walking into our neighbors’ house and seeing Ponder bound into the room – the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back.  After that, I was wary of anything with more than two legs no matter how sweet. 

They say people tend to dislike and fear what they don’t know.  Not so with me and dogs.  As my parents brought home one dog after another, trying to find a suitable family pet, I came to dislike and fear them after I got to know them.  We started with beagles which, it turns out, were terrible pets.  They have next to no brains so they are difficult to train, not that my parents could have successfully trained a doggy Einstein.  First, we had Walter, named after our two great uncles and the old man down the street. Walter was replaced by Moochie, named after a character on the Mickey Mouse Club.   They were dumb and boring.  They ran in the woods until nightfall then they hid behind the couch and slept. If we had to have a pet, why not a cool, smart one like Billy, Aunt Stella and Uncle Bill’s parakeet?   Billy could say things like "Ruthie's a good kid" and "Where's Bill Scheve?"  in Uncle Bill’s raspy, cigarette-smoky voice. Billy also cleared his throat just like Uncle Bill. 

I’m not exactly sure why we got rid of Walter or Moochie, but I wasn’t sorry to see them go.  For a short time we had a cocker spaniel named Rusty – he was better looking and smarter than the beagles (he could hardly have been dumber), but he had an anger management problem.  Rusty got shipped out after he bit one of the kids in the neighborhood. I didn’t have anything to do with that.

For awhile, my parents gave up on the dog idea.  My sister did not.  She was and still is a die-hard animal lover. I have no doubt that, given half a chance, she would have traded me or my brother for a dog, a cat or even a hamster.  My dad tried to hold her off by saying she had to save up some money to help pay for another dog. Since she was an unabashed spendthrift and my brother never opened up his triple padlocked safe for anything or anybody, I figured I was safe.   I forgot about the Grandpa Factor.  For my sister’s birthday, we went to dinner at a French restaurant with Grandpa K. Over the crouton-sprinkled Caesar salad, my sister started on what Dad called her Sarah Bernhardt routine (see Wikipedia) about how a dog was the only thing she had ever wanted and she would never get a dog because she had only five dollars saved up, etc., etc., etc.  By the time the chocolate mousse arrived, she had fifty dollars in her purse. One week later, our family had a two year old, black, standard poodle named Crouton.

I’m not sure if any pet could have made me a dog lover, but I know Crouton couldn’t.  It turns out that, when people sell a two year old dog, there is usually a good reason, like a major personality defect.  A brief sampling of Crouton stories prove the point.  You may not believe them because they are pretty incredible, but they are all true.  I hope some of the eyewitnesses in my family will come forth and publicly back me up. 

Crouton wouldn’t go outside, do her business and come back like our other dogs so she had to be walked.  Only as an adult did I learn that walking dogs doesn’t have to involve constantly having your arm yanked out of the socket by a lunging hound who is gasping and choking because her collar is closing off her windpipe and who thinks the command, “Heel” means you want her to bite someone in the back of the foot. What did I know of normal dog behavior?

If Crouton did escape, she would only come back if Mom drove the car around the street and opened the
door so she could jump in and go get a Creamy Whip.  (You’ll have to ask my Mom how that got started.)  When she was on an outdoor leash, she didn’t allow anyone near the front door.  Once, she took a chunk out of the insurance man’s pants, but I didn’t really count that against her – anyone who wouldn’t stop before he got close to a frantically barking, slavering dog is undoubtedly from the shallow end of the gene pool.   Indoors, Crouton had a reputation for snatching food from tables, kitchen counters and any other unguarded spots.  Once she grabbed and swallowed an entire loaf of bread just out of the oven.  That mass of hot dough pulsating in her belly was the only thing I ever saw that effectively slowed her down.

We grew accustomed to her quirks and, as with any other family member, we learned to ignore them.  That’s why we forgot to warn Paul the first time he came to the house for some big family gathering.  He took a couple of flash pictures and turned to see Crouton racing around the room, jaws snapping and eyes an eerie, glowing, flash bulb-crazed yellow.  All of my family did what they always did after flash pictures – they
climbed up on the couch and chairs to wait until Crouton calmed down.  Paul got the picture a little too late.  (Above left is the only photo we have of Crouton for obvious reasons.)

I had moved out of the house by the time Crouton died of old age.  Inexplicably, my parents jumped back into the fray and got Harley, a nut job of a schnauzer. She turned out to be such an obnoxious head case that every Christmas, Paul, the dog lover, offered them $50 to get rid of her.  They thought he was joking.  After Harley died (Paul was not involved), my parents wisely gave up trying to train animals and got Mame and Vera, two cats.

Over time, exposure to nice, affectionate, well-behaved dogs has improved my attitude toward them as pets.  It also helps that, now, I am larger than most of the dogs I meet.  I was always impressed by Paul’s family dog Tosca, who had better manners than many humans, although I did think her willingness to sit calmly with a dog biscuit on her nose until she got the okay to eat it showed a lack of initiative.  My sister’s yellow lab, Andy, is sweet and very well trained; but I wonder if it’s entirely normal for a dog to be so laid back that he let Mom’s cats pee on his head. 

We were never able to give our boys the character building experience of owning a dog because David was allergic to all the hairy stuff.  (Actually, I think most of the character building achieved by pet ownership happens to parents not kids.)  I do know that, if you’re a little leery of dogs, you give off these dog-magnet pheromones that compel dogs to jump up on you, lick you, put their heads in your lap and stick to you like Velcro.  As a result, there are lots of dogs out there who want to cozy up to me. I can handle that so don't worry about your dog and me.  We are not, however, planning to get a dog anytime soon.

P.S. Photos include Crouton, Harley, Mame and Vera, Tosca (the leaping black lab), my sister Kay and Andy in his New Year’s Eve outfit, John with a canine cousin and David offering to share his dinner (HAH!) with Danny, Kay’s previous dog. I have also thrown in two of Mary Pat's photos from the annual Reindog Parade

Click below for this post's grand finale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXiulKIgGpg

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Secret Life of Dentists

 I think dentists are great.  Of course, the fact that I’ve been married to my dentist for almost forty years may have something to do with it.  Many of our long-term, close friends are dentists so I’ve spent lots of time with them. I’ve learned that they have their quirks like everybody else.

Paul has never been a dental Nazi – there’s no point to it.  At the office, he presents the facts and lets people make their own choices.  Outside the office, he believes in live and let live. He has no complaints about the grocery store candy aisles and as for giving out toothbrushes instead of candy for Halloween – no way.  He wants to be POPULAR.  When bank tellers offered suckers to the boys, he told them to say, “No thanks, but keep up the good work.”

Sometimes his joking backfired like when John took him to kindergarten Show and Tell during Dental Health Month.  As Paul was giving examples of healthy snacks like Cheerios and apples, the teacher added her personal favorites – raisins and those sticky fruit roll-ups.  “My dad has to fix your teeth if you eat that,” John piped up. “It’s good for business.”

Dentists do have a passion for order.  I consider myself fairly neat and organized, but, compared to a dentist, everybody is messy.   In the office and at home, everything belongs in its assigned place.  Dishes and pans left in the dish rack to air dry cause a great deal of angst.  Recyclables don’t sit at the end of the kitchen counter for long.  Paul's sock drawer is two by two like Noah's ark, and he doesn't believe in junk drawers.  (I have three.)  One morning, Paul asked me if I’d had the bathroom radio on because he noticed that the vase of flowers in front of the radio dial had been moved a half an inch.  The true test came when he was in the hospital where everything on his bedside tray - tissues, chapstick, breathing gadget, book, pen, water pitcher- had a designated space.  If I refilled the water pitcher, it had to go back in its place.  If the box of tissues or his stack of books was crooked, he straightened it. If he didn’t, one of his visiting dentist friends did.

Another big thing about dentists is that, even after hours, they notice teeth.  They admire well done restorations.  They mull over possible solutions to dental problems they see.  They reflexively identify candidates for orthodontia or jaw surgery.  The dentists I know have lots of other interests – gardening, cooking, biking, wine making, traveling, skiing, you name it – but, because they are surrounded by teeth, they can’t help analyzing them.

This seems strange at first, but other people see the world through the filter of their work.  A restaurant owner notices the menu and the service when he or she goes out to eat.  An interior decorator puzzles over how to make a friend’s living room more attractive.  After my years in customer service with the Bell System, I’m always aware of customer service, or the lack of it, in stores, restaurants and, especially, on the phone.

Paul felt better about his tooth obsession after he went on a ski trip with an old fraternity brother and his friends, all painting contractors.  At dinner the first night, he looked up from studying the menu to see that the rest of the guys were studying the walls, the ceiling and the woodwork. He listened as they analyzed the paint color, admired the transition from walls to ceiling and criticized the quality of the trim work.

So, here’s what happens when you go to Chicago with a couple of dentists.  You’re driving down Michigan Avenue surrounded by those classic Chicago landmarks – the Sears Tower, the Chicago Tribune building, the John Hancock building, the wide steps and pillars of the Art Institute. You’re also taking in newer Chicago sights like the glamorous Trump hotel/condo building on the river and Millennium Park. A display of ice and snow sculptures in a public park naturally draws your attention.

That’s when one of the dentists in the car says, “Hey, will you look at that guy.”  He nods toward a cab in the next lane.  On top of the cab is an ad showing the face of a man who is practically all teeth.

“Needs a Maxillary Impaction,” observes the other dentist.

“I’d say he also has a reverse curve,” the first dentist adds. “By the way, did you see that figure skater who won the gold medal last night?  What about those teeth!”

Anyway, after 40 years with a dentist, I  know what I'm up against. When our dental dinner club gets together,  some discussion of teeth is inevitable.  At home, I don't even try to put anything away because it will always be in the wrong place. And I am absolutely certain that if I ever have reason to be jealous of another woman, it will likely be someone with a great set of . . . teeth.

P.S. The artwork is from “Dr. DeSoto,” by William Stieg, the only book I know where the clever, intrepid hero is a dentist.
Click the link below to hear the best song ever written about dentists

Monday, March 15, 2010

Arms and the Boys

or "How I Gave Up Trying To Interest My Sons In Unisex Toys and Learned To Live In an Armed Camp"

Our lives as parents of two boys started out peacefully enough with the usual baby and toddler toys – balls, blocks, stuffed animals.  Those were followed by lots of cars, trucks and digging equipment.  Caroline Kennedy’s 1962 letter to Santa described ideal boys' toys perfectly when she asked him to bring her brother John “interesting planes or a bumpy thing he can ride in or some noisy thing or something he can pull or push.”  I did try to add some gender balance with toy kitchen appliances from a garage sale, and the boys each had a baby doll (“to practice being good daddies”) but those items were never serious contenders in the “Most Popular Toy” competition.

Without anyone saying anything, an informal ban on toy guns developed among the parents on our street.  We weren’t rabidly anti-gun, but no one wanted to be the first to bring weapons to the neighborhood.  The kids found plenty of other things to keep them busy – Big Wheels, the sandbox, a climbing dome.  I should have realized disarmament couldn't last forever when I found John in his crib brandishing a Lego gun .   Not long after that, at a neighborhood picnic, I noticed the kids nibbling their sandwiches into the shape of guns and shooting at each other across the table.

The coup d' grace was delivered by grandparents. (Who else???)  For his birthday, the boy across the street got some big, expensive toy from grandma and grandpa.  He already had one like it so they took him to Toys R Us to exchange it.  This was a FUN shopping trip so, of course, no parents were allowed.  Chuck came home toting the biggest, baddest gun his skinny little five-year-old arms could carry.  That was the official start of the arms race.

At first, the growth of our family arsenal was modest – a handpainted wooden popgun here, a wooden rifle there.  Somehow weapons made out of wood seemed more wholesome.  Before long, however, there were changes in the process of choosing Halloween costumes.  The era of the cute little panda bears and lions and stegosauruses was over, and the boys’ Halloween costume choices took a new direction. Now, Step One was a trip to Cappel’s Halloween store to admire and test out the extensive array of weapons.  Step Two was, naturally, coming up with a costume idea that required one or, better yet, several of the available weapons. Step Three was conning me into buying them.  I was a soft touch.

When we moved to a house with bigger closets, a large finished basement and a huge wooded backyard, the weapons cache grew exponentially.  The boys and their friends had big imaginations; and they needed a wide variety of props for their cowboy gunfights, pirate raids, Indian wars, medieval crusades, army battles and Roman conquests.  The collection included everything from pirate pistols to six shooters to Davy Crockett rifles and from hatchets to bows and arrows. They had daggers, foils and broadswords along with helmets, breastplates and Darth Vader boots and capes.  A measure of law and order was introduced when a police officer neighbor donated two used police hats and a billy club.  As they got older, more exotic items like a British cavalry sword, a Honduran machete, a Peruvian blow gun and numbchucks appeared. 

In the end, it turns out that our parent angst about guns, like a lot of other parent angst, was pointless.   All the gunplay and swordplay, the backyard violence and mayhem were nothing more than just normal kid activity.  Neither our boys, nor their friends, who are now 20 and 30 somethings, turned out to be serial killers or axe murderers; and they sure did have fun.

This fall we were invited to a party in our old neighborhood hosted by Scott, the guy who bought our house.  He generously gave us a house tour; and we were happy to see that he has redecorated it beautifully while carefully preserving the character, the unique features and the history of the house.    He still has the blueprints from 1941, which the original owner had given us when we moved in.  He also showed us the original owner’s brass nameplate, displayed on his desk; and he asked if
we would like to contribute a memento to the “Eugenie Lane Museum.” I thought for quite awhile about what one object we could contribute that would best represent all the experiences of the Eugenie years with the boys and their friends.     The following week, after digging around in the boxes and bins of things we brought with us when we moved, I left a toy rifle at Scott’s side door.

P.S. Do rifles come in size 3 to 6 months?

Monday, March 8, 2010

Park and Shop

As a kid, my favorite board game was Park and Shop.  Few people are familiar with it, but it was absolutely the best training in life skills.  Each player got a car, a shopper and Shopping Cards which listed different places to stop like the Florist Shop, the Men’s Clothing Store, the Butcher, the Stockbroker.  (This was before the one-stop-shopping behemoths like Wal-Mart or Super Target.)  You located your shopping destinations on the big board laid out with streets and shops, planned a route for yourself and chose a convenient house and parking lot as starting points.  Using dice, you moved your car to the parking lot then moved your shopper through the errands.  For an added touch of realism, you acquired an extra errand every time you landed on a gray space.  (I never see them coming, but I seem to land on gray spaces all the time in real life shopping.)

Once I learned to drive, I naturally applied the Park and Shop principles to real life errand running.  I would figure out my errands and put them in order, first to last based on factors like location and nature of the errand. For example, I wouldn’t put the ice cream store at the top of the list because: A. my purchase might melt before I got it home and B. it is decadent to treat yourself to an ice cream cone before you’ve completed even one errand.  (I do recognize some limits.)  I was careful to design a shopping route that was a loop – you lose points for backtracking.  I stayed flexible and could redesign my route as needed – an important skill when you hit those gray spaces.  I knew where all my bank’s branches were and where all the bakeries were so, if I needed one, I could always work it into my route. In short, I became a pro in no time.  After Paul and I got married, he was dazzled by more than my looks and my cooking.

When the boys were babies, real life Park and Shop held absolutely no magic.  Actually, I tried not to run any errands, except to the grocery.   That was hard enough, especially with two of them.  With David in the cart and John in a Snugli, every grocery trip was an endurance test.  How long before David got impatient and demanded to get out of the cart?  How long before John started crying? How long before I started crying?  Signs welcoming the senior citizens and inviting them to enjoy free coffee and donuts really ticked me off.  If Kroger’s had had any sensitivity, they would have ignored the senior citizens and passed out Valium and a glass of Chardonnay to every mom grappling with a toddler. 

Once David started pre-school, I hoped John and I could branch out a little with our shopping.  HAH! After a couple of attempts, John’s loud, “NO! NOT P. J. SMAXX!” settled that.  I waited until he started Mother’s Day out; and for the rest of his time in pre-school, I played the Beat-the-Clock version of Park and Shop.  While I’ve moved on, it’s easy to spot the players in Target or T.J. Maxx or Bed, Bath and Beyond today. They’re the ones checking their watches around 11:00 and lining up at the check-out counter by 11:15 so they can make the 11:30 pre-school pick-up.

After both boys were in school full time, I had the freedom to play longer rounds of more sophisticated and satisfying Park and Shop.  As an empty nester, it’s become an art form.  I have plenty of time to refine and optimize my list of errands to get the most out of each round.    Alone, I effortlessly glide from one concentration of stores to another, knocking off stops right and left.  Fearlessly, I include more exotic destinations in my search for organic chocolate chips or green peppercorns in brine.  Gray spaces no longer phase me – if I suddenly remember I need 20 pounds of bird seed or a Triptik to Nashville, it’s no problem.  Bring it on!  At the end of a good Park and Shop day, I arrive home with a car full of stuff, a to-do list with all of the errands crossed off and a feeling of true accomplishment.

Recently, I faced the ultimate Park and Shop challenge – shopping with a husband.  Usually I opt for the Designated Shopper version of that game where I go to the store for pants, shirts, a jacket or whatever Paul needs, bring it home for him to try on and then return the rejects.  This time, however, we were buying a mattress, which is ineligible for Designated Shopper play.  In true Park and Shop fashion, I planned our trip so we could segue from a 9:00 a.m. business meeting to Barnes and Noble for a cup of coffee to Macy’s Furniture Gallery to test drive mattresses at 10:00.  The mattress selection went so smoothly that I suggested replacing our broken bedside lamp.  After striking out at the Furniture Gallery and nearby Pottery Barn, we connected with a solid home run and walked out of Crate and Barrel with our new lamp by 11:00.      

Buoyed by my early successes, I went for broke. Macy’s clothing store was right across the parking lot, so it was the right time and the right place to replace Paul’s worn pants and holey socks.  GREEN LIGHT!  I hurried him into the Men’s Department, sorted through the socks, then found his size in the color of pants he wanted.  As I sent him off to the fitting rooms, I heard the ominous words, “Aren’t we about done here?”  BONG!!  TWO MINUTE WARNING!!  I immediately tackled a sales clerk who started ringing up the socks and massaging my Macy’s coupons around to find the best money-saving combination.  In no time, she had bagged both socks and pants, and we were safely back in the car.   I whisked Paul off to lunch at a
familiar pub where he could soothe himself with a burger and fries and watch the trains go by.  Then it was home for a nap.  Winning Park and Shop strategies don’t change much, even with grown-up boys.

P.S. The vintage Park and Shop game pictured above is mine, thanks to my mother-in-law who found it at a garage sale.  If you want to come over and play sometime, let me know.

Monday, March 1, 2010

A Tale of Two Nanas

With grandparenthood coming closer all the time, I’ve been thinking about my own grandparents.  We always called our grandmothers “Nana.” I’m not sure why.  Everybody else we knew had grandmas.  When I was at the grade school stage of not wanting to be different, I wished I had grandmas, not Nanas, but by then it was too late.

I was lucky enough to have my two Nanas living close by all the while I was growing up so I spent a lot of time with them.  They were good friends but very different personalities, so they taught me different things about the world and about Nanas.  Nana A. was a sweet, thoughtful, quiet person, mostly a homebody who dressed in the house dresses of the 50’s, generally blue.  She was the cautious type who wore rubbers when she took us swimming in Lake Erie, put down cushions so you didn’t have to sit on the cold ground and worried that you might get sick if you bathed too frequently. 

Nana K. was just as loving but more worldly and flamboyant.  She was famous for her hats, (see the January post “One Picture is Worth . . .”) always wore tons of jewelry, and, even at 90, never traded in her high heels for old lady shoes.  She loved places like New York and Las Vegas (left.)  She worked her whole adult life and, after retiring at 60 something (she finally had to tell the truth about her age when she wanted to collect Social Security), she started a second career selling subscriptions to the Broadway series in town.  That put her front and center for avant garde productions of the 70’s like “Hair” and “Oh!Calcutta!” when she wasn’t at the race track, the card table or The Cricket with her many friends.

Nana K. drove a sporty blue and white Chevy convertible while Nana A. never learned to drive.  Her main experience with cars was in secretly emptying the Cadillac’s ashtrays because Grandpa always said that, once the ashtrays were full, it was time to get a new car.  Both Nanas were avid card players, enjoying bridge, 500 and poker. They were particularly good at poker.  From Nana K., I learned to play my cards “close to the vest.”  From Nana A., I learned that, if I hung around the poker table, I was likely to take home a share of her winnings.

I learned that Nanas did special things your parents didn’t have the time or the budget to do.  If they were like Nana A., they sectioned your grapefruit, served real butter not disgust-o margarine and bought the big Delicious apples you liked, cut them in quarters and cored them.  They kept large, fancy tins full of assorted cookies arranged in little paper cupcake cups. Their idea of a picnic was different shaped crackers and jars of Kraft cheese, not baloney sandwiches. They NEVER served hamburger casseroles.  If they were like Nana K., they took you to the theater to see “The Sound of Music” and John Raitt in “Carousel.” They took you to movies like the Cinerama production of “Windjammer,” and they didn’t give you a hard time when it made you motion sick. 


Nanas also took you out to eat at fancy places like the Cincinnati Club where you were treated royally and had grown-up food like shrimp cocktail and deviled crab.  Depending on which one you sat beside when you went out to dinner, you could expect to have either a manhattan-soaked cherry (from Nana A.) or a martini-soaked olive (from Nana K.) with your Shirley Temple.



Nanas had interesting things in their houses that you could play with even though they
weren’t really toys.  Nana A. kept gumdrop rings in a delicate porcelain candy dish with a lid that had a rose on it.  You developed manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination not with video games but by learning to remove the lid and take a gumdrop without your parents hearing the tell tale clink from the next room.  Nana K. always got out her beautiful mah jongg set for us.  The smooth, shiny tiles felt cool in your hands.  Each tile had one jet black side and one delicate white side with intricate Chinese drawings in pale red and green. They made magical houses and castles.

I guess Nana A. and Nana K. were somewhat unconventional, as grandmothers go. They never went in for baking or knitting or other normal grandma things.  Maybe it was the name. The only things I remember Nana A. cooking were standing rib roast and rice pudding, both of which she did very well.  My dad, however, said he was the only guy who missed army food after he got home.  As a working woman, Nana K. rarely cooked; but she could arrange cocktail snacks like pickles, olives, nuts and cheese wedges nicely.  The one time she tried to bake a pie, it came out in a square pan and we ate it with spoons.  When I married Paul, I was lucky enough to acquire an actual Grandma .  I think of Grandma every time I use her sour cream apple pie recipe or unpack the ceramic Christmas decorations she made for us.  With two Nanas and a Grandma, I have a wide range of examples to follow.

The best summation of Nanas (and grandmothers by any name) that I’ve read was written by a five-year-old named Nathan.  During the 10 years I edited a student literary magazine at an elementary school, this piece of work was one of my favorites.  Here’s what Nathan wrote: “I call her Nana but her name is Joyce.  She’s my grandma.  You have grandmas around you, and they are a great hope.”  To that, I say, “Amen.”

P.S. In October, when David and Megan told us about the baby, they asked what we wanted to be called.  I’ve been thinking it over; and, if it’s all the same to the baby, I think I’d like to be “Nana.”