Knowledge Is Power

The motto of David and John’s elementary school was “Knowledge Is Power.” I loved that as soon as I heard it.  I mean, what kid doesn’t aspire to more power when someone is always telling you “It’s time for bed,” “You’ve been out in the snow long enough” or “No more candy.”  The message is, if you want to take charge of your life someday, memorize those times tables, get the state capitals straight and finish that book report on “James and the Giant Peach.” How true!   As I come to the end of 2011, I’m taking stock of all the knowledge I’ve picked up this year.

For starters, I’ve learned if the toenails on your big toes die, it takes two months for them to fall off and five more months before they grow back and are long enough to be trimmed.  I’ve learned if I buy Christmas cards with glitter on them, even just a little glitter, I'll spend the holiday season with sparkles in my tablecloths, my dish towels, my fleece pullovers and my egg nog.  I’ve also learned there is a limit to how many cutting boards you can fit into one kitchen drawer before it gets hopelessly jammed.

I learned that, even when you have known someone since kindergarten and been roommates for 40 years, there are still some surprises left.  A few weeks ago, PAUL THREW OUT A RADIO.  I couldn’t have been more shocked if he had said to me, “I’ll take care of all the Christmas shopping this year.”  He has this thing about audio equipment – stereo speakers, turntables, records and, most of all, radios – and, to my knowledge, he still has every piece of equipment he has ever owned. After all, you never know when you might need radios that only crackle and hiss, records garbled with skips and screeches and disabled speakers the size of file cabinets.  I gave up nominating audio candidates for the trash long ago.  Granted, the discardee was a digital clock radio that was hard to tune and has not kept time properly since 1994, but I was worried. I guess Paul’s all right since his temperature was normal and the pupils of his eyes were the same size, but I’m still keeping an eye on him.

Although I’ve been cooking a lot over the past 40 years, I have learned some things this year that Martha Stewart, the Barefoot Contessa and my mom never told me. For example, flour and sugar bags look and feel a lot alike and, if, in the middle of multi-tasking, you dump the sugar into the flour canister (or vice versa), it’s a real mess.  Also, if your rice cooker has the dry heaves and, when the timer goes off, the rice is still crunchy, you probably forgot to put in the water.

While my mom says you’re more likely to get cut with a dull knife, I learned that you get the fastest, deepest cuts with a sharp one.  Somehow, I spent most of Thanksgiving with bandaged fingers – souvenirs of  chopping vegetables for minestrone soup, cubing bread for dressing, slicing apples for pie and mincing onions for just about everything with newly sharpened knives, courtesy of our butcher shop.  I learned to do a headcount every so often to be sure my bandaids hadn’t disappeared into the turkey, the mashed potatoes or the pumpkin pie filling.

I’ve learned that, once you’ve established a hostile relationship with a car (my post, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”), you can’t let your guard down.  Early in December, we came home late from a holiday party and in my hurry to get inside to the bathroom, I apparently left the door of the Lexus slightly, and I do mean SLIGHTLY, ajar.  The door stayed open all night and, next morning, the battery was dead.  With the holidays coming, you might have thought the car would give me a little break but, NO. So, Paul missed his early morning run and it took forever for AAA to recharge the battery. Okay, I did make an uncomplimentary remark about the Lexus in a recent post but I didn’t think our garage had internet access.

I’ve learned that 60+ is not a good time of life to start on some big housecleaning jag. That Lysol tub and tile cleaner is strong stuff – so strong it took out the good, royal blue polo shirt I was wearing along with the mold in the shower – I’ll never try that again (and I don’t mean wearing the royal blue polo shirt.)   The reason the touch pad on our laptop stopped working is that I made the mistake of dusting it and accidentally hit the button that turns the touch pad off and on, which I didn’t even know was there.  The Geek Squad guy who fixed this for me promised not to tell my kids but I forgot to ask him the purpose of a button like that.

I’ve learned not to accidentally leave a frozen block of vegetable soup on low heat when I go out for a three hour walk, unless I want a pot containing black concrete flecked with bits of carrot, corn and green bean.  This mishap turned out to be a knowledge bonanza, however, as I also learned from the internet that you can save the pan by boiling a mixture of salt, baking soda and water in it.

Unfortunately, I’ve also found that you can’t trust everything you learn on the internet.  When I spilled red wine on our beige love seat, my frantic online search for remedies came up with salt, again. Heavily salting the stain and leaving it overnight was supposed to draw out the red wine. I visualized waking up to a miraculously cleaned cushion, but, instead, I woke up to a pink, salt-encrusted mess.  The dry cleaner just laughed.  He made some progress but the fabric still has a faint pink tinge and feels like it was left out at the beach all summer.  I had to turn the cushion over and that loveseat is now a “White Wine Only” zone.

Saving the best for last, here’s my favorite bit of new knowledge from 2011.  If you want to put real pizazz into your Halloween party (or any other outdoor party), drop a can of Reddi Whip on the pavement.  It instantly turns into a little whirling dervish, spewing whipped cream droplets all over baskets of chips, sandwich trays, paper plates and napkins, shoes and hair. What an icebreaker!  The only downside is that, if your car is parked nearby, you’ll need to hit the carwash the next day.

So, as 2011 draws to a close, I may not be thinner, have fewer wrinkles around my eyes, or be better at remembering why I went into the laundry room, but I do feel more powerful.  Here’s hoping you have a powerful New Year.

P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure, here are some things I have not learned this year – how to get my wristwatch off of military time, how to tie a scarf, or how to text, store and find phone numbers or do anything except make calls from my cell phone.  I also have not learned how to keep New Year’s resolutions.  Maybe in 2012.

P.P.S. Thanks to Megan for the photo of Willem, the Brooklyn Powerhouse

Tis The Season

It’s the time of year for fun things like Christmas trees and cookie baking and surprises. It’s also the season for not-so-fun things like addressing holiday cards,  The Chipmunks’ Christmas album and, especially, running errands. 

If you read my post “Park and Shop,” you know I’m a world-class errand runner with extensive on-the-job training and millions of car miles and sales receipts in my resume.  This year, however, the pre Christmas rush of busy streets and crowded parking lots is getting to me. What keeps me going is the music of the 50’s and 60’s on my car’s Sirius Radio.

The Sirius Radio connection started out to be Paul’s birthday present two years ago. Unfortunately, the control box would have had to be installed right out there on the dashboard of the Lexus rather than stashed away neatly in some little compartment – SO unaesthetic!! That was a deal breaker for Paul who has neatness issues (my post “The Secret Lives of Dentists” explains this) and for the Lexus which has snottiness issues (my post “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” explains that.)

My van and I don’t have any issues.  So, while I’m navigating from Macy’s, to Kroger’s, to Target, to Barnes and Noble, to Dick’s Sporting Goods, to the Party Store, to Bed, Bath and Beyond, and beyond, I can sing along to the music and enjoy the tunes, the lyrics and the memories.

I can count on getting a lift from the Supremes – the ultimate feel-good group.  On the radio, their music absolutely shimmers. I can’t see them, but I know they always shimmered, too - slinky, sparkly gowns, shiny hair, glittery eyelids and glossy lips.  And, what I like best is the Supremes never fail to sound upbeat and happy, even after some guy has ditched them as in “Where Did Our Love Go?” or “Reflections” or “The Happening.” (Click  The Supremes and see for yourself.)

Surf and drag racing music is also fun and I’ve always loved the Beach Boys.  I picture them rolling out of bed, bare-footed, wearing faded t-shirts with stretched out necks and frayed cutoffs, sun-bleached blonde hair in their eyes, swigging milk right out of the carton, belching, and, then, stumbling through another chorus of “Barbara Ann.” (Click this link to hear them: Beach Boys )  Raffish but wholesome, they take you on a “Surfin’ Safari,” urge you to “Be True to Your School” and wonder what life will be like “When I Grow Up to Be a Man.” (By now, they must know the answers to the questions in that song including, “Will my kids be proud or think their old man’s really a square?”)

Then, there’s “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” sung slowly and suggestively as only Elvis could do it. (Click for Elvis) That song, and other like it, brings back memories of junior high parties and dances. To launch me into adolescent social life, my mom sent me to weekly social dancing lessons with a bunch of other 12 and 13-year-olds - boys wearing clip-on ties and girls wearing anklets and white gloves.  Two years of lessons taught me important stuff like how to meet people in a receiving line, how to accept punch and cookies from a dance partner and how to do the jitterbug, the waltz and the fox trot.  I went to a lot of eighth grade parties and never once did I find a receiving line or punch and cookies or someone who wanted to foxtrot.  What I wished I had learned was how to dance in low light with a partner holding me so close that I couldn't watch my feet.

There is so much entertainment in these oldies that sometimes I have to wait until a song like “American Pie” is over before I tackle Hobby Lobby.    I get a laugh out of the names of the groups like the Orlons, the Ronettes, the Chiffons and the Shirelles.  I love the politically incorrect songs you’d never record today like “A-Hab the A-Rab,” “You Better Come Home, Speedy Gonzales” and “Johnny Get Angry” – with lyrics like “Let me know that you’re the boss” and “I want a brave man, I want a cave man,” music that Gloria Steinem could really relate to. 

The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreaming” takes me back to my first all-night work session on the high school annual. The Fifth Dimension’s “Wedding Bell Blues” reminds me of Friday nights at the sorority house when everyone was showering, powdering, perfuming, hot rollering and dressing for dates.  And every time I hear “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” I feel the strobe-lit pulsation of loud music and tightly packed bodies at college parties.  Those were the days . . . I think.

This summer, a disillusioning and frightening encounter with the musical past confirmed the value of radio when it comes to oldies.  I was with a group of women friends on what one husband called a “Cat’s away weekend” when, late one evening, “Malt Shop Memories,” a PBS special about music of the 50’s and early 60’s came on T.V. 

We were just in time to see and hear Frankie Avalon who was cute but definitely flat, and, with my musical ear, if I can tell he’s flat then he’s a pancake – no, make that a crepe. Fortunately he and most of the other guys talked a lot of their lyrics, but the talk wasn’t always on key either.  Bobby Rydell had the best voice and moves of the group but he’s gotten a little fuzzy around the edges like the rest of us.  The biggest disappointment was Fabian who has a size 25 neck and was unrecognizable. He and the rest of those formerly sexy Italian boys from Philly have apparently gone overboard on cannelloni and cannoli.(The photo at the left shows Frankie, Bobby and Fabian with Dick Clark - the Malt Shop photo is at above.)   My friend Carol just kept shaking her head and muttering, “That is NOT Fabian.”  From beginning to end, “Malt Shop Memories” was something you might call “sweet” but certainly not what you would call “pretty.”  Part way through the show I took out my contacts which helped a little.

The biggest surprise of all came at the end when Lesley Gore burst onto the stage. I always thought of her as an annoying whiner (“It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To”) with a snarky, vengeful streak ("Now It’s Judy’s Turn To Cry.”)  Well, she was outstanding that night – right on key (a welcome change) and to top it off, she pranced around the stage like a 30-year-old or at least like Mick Jagger at Super Bowl XL.  I’d like to get hold of whatever Lesley’s taking.

After that, I decided to stick with Sirius Radio, especially since I can’t take the “Malt Shop” with me when I run my errands, thank goodness. I’m counting on the entire crowd from Buddy Holly to Ricky Nelson, from Simon and Garfunkel to Sonny and Cher, from the Monkees to the Turtles to the Beatles to the Animals, from Dionne Warwick to Connie Francis to Petula Clark, and from the Big Bopper to Little Anthony, Little Richard, Little Stevie Wonder and Little Eva to stick with me through all my holiday preparations this year.  And I’m hoping that when I’m 85 or 90, those songs of the 50’s and 60’s will still be around.  I’m going to need them.