All kinds of things change when you’re the fifth grandchild. For one thing, Grandma doesn’t have as many pictures of you to pick from when she needs one. For another, you have to be more assertive than numbers 1 to 4 to get any attention at all. Luckily, this is not a problem for Toddler Bret.
I call him Toddler Bret because he’ll be two in July and I can’t call him Baby Bret anymore. His sister said so. As I believe I mentioned, when his parents chose to make him a Junior, they failed to come up with a nickname, leaving everyone to muck along with two Brets in the family. I’m starting to wonder what Toddler Bret makes of it himself. Conversation at the dinner table, for instance.
“How was your day, Bret?”
“Bret, eat your apples.”
“Would you pass the mashed potatoes, Bret?”
“Bret, do you want more milk?”
“Ursa really needs a bath, Bret.”
“Bret, no feeding Ursa from the table.”
I picture him throwing up his little hands in despair. “What in the name of Fisher-Price does the woman want of me??”
Or maybe not. His days are full. He’s like a little locomotive, legs pumping, running here, running there. He has wants. He has needs. He has a lot to think about: “What’s going on? Wait for me, Cosette! I want to do that. Run, run, run! Where’s Ursa? Get the ball, Ursa! Where’s Mom? It’s time to jump off something! I can dance like the Wiggles. Mom, I need a hug. I want to go outside now. Where’s Cosette? What’s Cosette doing? I can do that!”
And that’s pretty much how it goes, all day long. His sister is commander in chief, i.e., whatever she does, he does. WHATEVER she does. Cosette jumps off the bed, Bret jumps off the bed. Cosette sticks out her tongue, Bret sticks out his tongue. Cosette marches down the driveway carrying a stick, Bret marches down the driveway carrying a stick. Cosette picks a flower and throws it in the bushes, Bret picks a flower and throws it in the bushes. Well, you get the picture.
Cosette likes to call me on the phone and let me know what’s going on at their house. Lately she’s been putting me on the speakerphone, because Toddler Bret has things he wants to say too. Well, yell. “Ball! Dog! Ma! Down!” God knows what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter, he just wants to be acknowledged.
Of course, very soon now he won’t be the youngest grandchild anymore, but number 5 of 6. It’s hard to say how that’s going to go over. As I said, he has wants, he has needs. On the other hand, he could end up commander in chief.
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So I’ve been at this online dating thing a month or two now, and it’s amazing what you can learn in such a short time. For example, I have learned that I am attracted to bald men with beards. I have never been particularly inclined toward either bald men or men with beards. But a bald man with a beard is apparently a different animal.
What I’ve learned about men is that they probably are as uncomplicated as they say they are. Women are always trying to figure men out, as if they harbor deep and inscrutable secrets from birth to the grave. “For the love of God,” we ask, “what’s he thinking now?” Unfortunately, what he’s thinking is probably what you think he’s thinking. Also, it’s highly unlikely he will stop thinking it. Move on, woman.
I’ve also learned that men have some odd notions about women. Many complain about women who only want to go out with them for a free meal. What is that about? I know literally hundreds of women, and I can’t think of one who’s that hungry. Even lobster loses its appeal if you have to look at a stranger and make small talk through the entire meal. So, personally, I think men are just off the wall on this one. Pass the clarified butter.
And then there are the people who have simply been doing this too long. You can tell because they don’t care what they say anymore, like this man: “Okay, it’s become clear to me that I’ve set the bar too high. Looking for a woman with a face, arms and legs. Arms and legs should preferably come in pairs and be of roughly the same size, i.e., arms should be same size as each other (same for legs), rather than arms being same size as legs. Graduation from grade school preferable, though not essential. You should not have worked as a bouncer at a biker bar.”
As for the whole online dating experience, the primary lesson seems to be: 1) you will receive messages from lots of very nice people you have no interest in whatsoever; and 2) the handful of people you do find interesting won’t be interested in you. No point in feeling bad. You don’t know these people, they don’t know you, and God knows what anyone is looking for. Sometimes you’re tempted to write some guy just to give him a clue. (“You are 65 years old – you might have better luck if you broaden your search beyond women under 45.”) But, of course, you do not.
And, yes, I’ve had only the one “date” so far. One per decade…seems about right.
So I kind of went on a date last weekend. Well, not really a date, more of a Hi, Stranger kind of thing, but given the time elapsed since my last Hi, Stranger thing, I thought it qualified as a date.
It all started when I came home one Saturday afternoon and found Daughter #1 on my computer checking her online dating service. One thing led to another and pretty soon she was signing me up to receive messages from complete strangers too. Now I’m hanging out in the online world, waiting to get proposals of all kinds, indecent or otherwise, although nothing indecent has been proposed, maybe because men my age have learned a thing or two about women my age. Or maybe they just aren’t in a hurry anymore.
And here’s what you’ll find if you search your average online dating site for men of a certain age living in Minnesota: a lot of pictures of guys holding fish. Big fish. Now, far be it from me to suggest that this might be a metaphor for something else, but what’s the deal? Do they think women find men with large tackle particularly attractive? Are they proving they can put food on the table? The only thing it makes me think is, boy, I’m glad I didn’t have to clean that big stinky fish.
Another thing you find is pictures of men with their machines – cars, motorcycles, boats (plenty of boaters in these parts). Sometimes the men aren’t even in the photo – it’s just a picture of a car, motorcycle or boat all by itself. I went so far as to add a clarification to my profile: “I am not a boater. If you’re looking for someone to be that special ‘first mate,’ best look elsewhere.”
So anyway, I had this Hi, Stranger experience last weekend, which was not unpleasant, but the most interesting part of the whole thing was the feedback from Daughters #1, #2 and #3, who apparently are under the impression that they have the right (nay, the obligation) to weigh in on something this rare and this enormous. I didn’t mind the phone calls clamoring for details, but I did get a little miffed by comments like, “Good for YOU, Mom!” Like I might just be the most pitiful excuse for a date in the seven-county metro area. Which I am not. I am a darn fun date. I can hold up my end of a conversation, you better believe it.
Anyway, Daughter #1 tells me this is how things work nowadays. So, okay, I can hang out with the online daters for a while. Winters around here are almost endless.
Made my list of New Year’s resolutions yet again. I find that list-making gives me a sense of accomplishment, almost like actually doing the things on the list. Probably the only 2010 resolution I kept was quitting smoking, a big surprise to me and no doubt others, motivated primarily by fear. I may have kept other resolutions. I don’t remember them anymore.
Reflection is good though. I wanted to reflect on the many memorable events of last year, but for the most part I just came up with things that annoyed me, like:
1. The stitches behind and under my ear were supposedly removed two weeks after surgery, yet every other week another fragment of surgical thread works its way up and I have to yank it out myself. Is this my job? It’s gross.
2. Hi-lex has lost the bleach war. It’s a mystery to me, but there you are. I don’t like Clorox, i.e., chlorine bleach; I like Hi-lex, i.e., some other kind of bleach not chlorine that gets clothes really white. I knew of one major chain that still carried Hi-lex (a tiny island amid a sea of chlorine on the shelves), but in 2010 that store too bowed to the god Clorox. Civilization has taken a step backward, if you ask me.
3. Just when it looked like we may be nearing the end of the Paris/Britney/Lindsay madness, along came the Kim/Khloe/Kourtney insanity. “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” actually won a People’s Choice Award this week (Best Guilty Pleasure). If, like me, you were trying to retain a shred of faith in the American viewing public, just forget it.
4. How is it that younger women today do not understand the concept of The Slip? One of last year’s popular fashion trends was the little print dress in silk, rayon and other clingy fabrics. Fine, but please, look in the rear-view mirror. The only people behind you who enjoy seeing every bump, bulge and ripple of cellulite are people you probably wouldn’t want to be alone with. The Slip. Learn of it.
5. Billy Joel had double hip replacement. Billy Joel! How old does that make you feel? They said it was for a lifelong congenital ailment. Right.
Maybe remembering the things that annoyed you isn’t the most positive way to start a new year. I did get a beautiful, if fat, new grandson. And I also bought some very cute shoes.
So I was idly surfing Google Images recently (and who doesn’t do that?) when I ran across this picture, which started me wondering what it might be like if the Daughters and I had taken up lounge singing. This is the kind of thing that happens when you don’t have a date for New Year’s Eve.
MOI, JESSIE IN HER BLONDE WIG PHASE, JILLY AND BABY GINA
It’s true! The Caramels are back, out of rehab and performing live on stage this New Year’s Eve at the beautiful Weewahatchee VFW in beautiful Weewahatchee, Minnesota. Let us sweeten your night with all-new arrangements of our biggest hits, including “I’m Itching for You, Calomine,” “Walter on My Mind,” “I’m Just A Package Marked Fragile” and, of course, “You Don’t Know the Meaning of Auld Lang Syne.”
But hurry – tickets are going fast. Just $5 gets you a rollicking good time and all the champagne punch you can drink!
Dec. 20, 2006
If I hadn’t had to work yesterday, I wouldn’t have been exhausted at my granddaughter’s Christmas program, even if it did go on and on…and on. Because why settle for one rendition of “Jingle Bells” when there are three? And if you’re paying good money for trombone and cymbal lessons, I suppose you want to hear the school band play 10 or 20 tunes with a general holiday flavor. Anyway, it was worth it to hear the kindergartners get through “Elfie the Elf.” Maria was the elf with her hat on backwards, so she was easy to spot. I have no complaints.
Dec. 21, 2007
Went to the always surprising school Christmas program last night. You may remember last year’s event, when the school band played no less than three versions of “Jingle Bells” and Maria distinguished herself by wearing her elf hat backwards with the bell dangling in front. This year I’m happy to report that the band was restricted to playing the overture and Maria not only sang but also attempted to keep the boy next to her on task despite vigorous resistance. This year’s program had a soccer theme – kind of a stretch, I thought, but having the advantage of minimal costuming, since jerseys and shorts took care of almost the entire cast.
So the evening should have been, and probably would have been, straightforward were it not for my other grandchildren – three under the age of four now, and all with no sense whatever of acceptable audience behavior. Christian ate all the candy meant to sustain them for the night in the first five minutes, while Grace never lost her fascination with flip-up auditorium seating. And you might think a three-month-old child somewhat limited – they sleep, they lie there, they cry. Not so. Cosette sings. Infant singing is a sort of unearthly sound that’s hard to describe, but it’s loud and won’t be deterred by some stupid pacifier.
All in all, an entertaining evening, and no more than I expected.
Dec. 29, 2008
Made it through the annual Christmas programs again. The elementary school put on a play about the true meaning of Christmas, which I’m sure inspired every parent and grandparent to rush home and return all those toys in the closet. It took me a long time to figure out what the girl in the bell costume was supposed to be. Until she started ding-donging, I was pretty sure she was a lampshade, but if you think about it, that makes no sense. Maria was in the choir. She is an excellent choir member.
Being an equal-opportunity grandma, I also went to the preschool Christmas program, where you can always count on seeing three- and four-year-olds not follow the script. There’s always one little girl who knows the words and motions to every song, a bunch of little ones who give it a half-hearted try, and a kid who won’t do a thing. I was pretty sure that kid would be Christian, but I was wrong. He sang and he didn’t fall off the steps.
When Christian first started preschool, my daughter Jill was a little alarmed by what you might call his anti-social behavior (I wouldn’t call it that but no one ever sides with me). Anyway, we were all happy when Christian made a friend. Elliot wears glasses and comes about to Christian’s chin. Elliot was the kid who wouldn’t do anything. Not one word, not one finger twitch. Elliot was a statue. I like Elliot.
Dec. 18, 2009
This year’s preschool Christmas program lived up to every expectation, largely due to the boys in the Teddy Bear class, who are three and four years old and have no attention span worth mentioning. My favorite kid this year was the boy who had his back to us for the entire concert. I suppose if you don’t plan on singing anyway, why look at your parents (and grandparents who came all the way from Burnsville) sitting hopefully in the audience?
Then about midway through “Building up a Temple,” another Teddy Bear, who apparently found just being there exhausting, decided to sit down on the step. This caught on quickly, of course, and pretty soon the boys on either side of him were sitting on the step too…until one of them decided to climb the steps to see how the boy who wouldn’t face the audience was doing. At this point Mrs. Olsen, the Teddy Bear teacher and no dummy, went on stage and restored order.
Meanwhile, the girls kept singing. My granddaughter Grace, who has a very small speaking voice, sings really loud, so we had no trouble at all hearing her. She had every word and gesture down too, and after the program Mrs. Olsen very kindly called her “our star,” which I think is pretty much what Gracie sees when she looks into the future.
After the Teddy Bears sat down, it was time for the Frog class to sing. Most of them are five and have been down this road before, so while the girls still carried the load, the boys endured. There was the kid who kept us up to date with announcements between each song (“This is the last one!”), but at least nobody gave up and sat down. Christian is big now. I waved at him like a lunatic and got half a smile. I still gave him lots of kisses afterward and told him how great he did. He didn’t care.
So that was it, and I don’t think you could spend a more enjoyable hour during the holiday season.
December 22, 2010
I went to Maria and Christian’s school Christmas program last night, which is usually one of the happier things I do during the holidays. This year’s performance had everything you’d expect and then some. You haven’t really heard “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” until you’ve heard it played on the recorder by a bunch of fourth graders. And the school band was in fine form, although the lack of a bass drum player meant one of the female flutists had to take over that instrument for “Here Comes Santa Claus.” The girl’s utter disdain for the bass drum was truly impressive. She could barely get out of her folding chair and drag herself over to it. And then you’d think the mallet weighed 50 pounds. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard “Here Comes Santa Claus” played more mournfully.
The bell ringers went on a little too long (four holiday tunes with no verses omitted), but I am loathe to criticize them lest Maria have bell-ringing in her future.
Christian’s kindergarten class did a commendable job, particularly on “Jingle Bells,” where they got to ring the little bells hanging around their necks at all the jingly spots. As they had to wait for their turn a good long while sitting on stage, the bells became objects of great fascination – first you examine your own bell, then you study your neighbor’s bell, then you hang the bell from your ears.
In the finale, the fourth graders sang. That’s Maria’s class, and while most of the classes looked more resigned than merry, the fourth-grade girls were almost bouncy. They smiled, they knew all the words and they sang loud. I concluded that fourth-grade girls are a good way to wrap up a Christmas program.
That’s it. I’ve had it with surgery. If anything else goes whacko with this body, the doctors will have to make an extraordinary case for operating, and I’m not sure “or you will die” would do it. Had the tumor on my parotid gland removed last Friday and it was horrible. I wanted to die then for sure.
The thing is, I am not the best patient – ask my children, they’ll tell you. I complain, I argue, I don’t do as I’m told. I self-medicate – in the hospital, at home, I don’t care. It makes everyone crazy. And then in the hospital one is at the mercy of strangers, which keeps you from cursing as much as you might like. Some things I wanted to say in the 24 hours after surgery but didn’t:
1) There is no anesthesia in the world that doesn’t make me nauseous, so there’s no point in telling me it shouldn’t. As my personal definition of hell is 23 hours a day of nausea and one hour of anticipation, it’s fortunate for you that there was nothing close enough to throw when I found out you were giving me only a half-dose of nausea medication. Finally, I do not want a soda cracker. If you keep pushing it, I will have to kill you.
2) It seems no matter what time I ask, it isn’t time for more morphine. Really, is there a morphine shortage I haven’t heard about? Why are you hoarding it? Give me some!
3) I have an IV taped to my left hand to put liquids in, another taped to my neck to take liquids out, and every other hour I have to wear inflatable leg wraps. If there is an optimal position for comfort in these circumstances, I have not discovered it. The bed is a rock, and none of its 56 amazing positions will change that. The pillow is a rock on top of a rock.
4) Not only is my right ear and everything in the vicinity completely numb, it has the appearance of a breast implant gone terribly wrong. The scar below said ear looks like an amateur map of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. And I have bacitracin ointment in my hair. I do not feel pretty.
I can imagine the thousands of cell phone minutes burned when my daughters learned I was having surgery. “Who’s staying with Mom? What’s the plan? We need a plan!” They are patient and tolerant and sympathetic in the extreme, and after a day or so, I have to kick them out lest they lose their patience, tolerance and sympathy.
Those nodules on my thyroid gland? They will be the size of hard-boiled eggs before we part company.
The process of aging is a strange thing. You go along blithely, knowing that each year you’re getting older but feeling immortal nonetheless. You turn 40, 50, and subtly things change. One day you start getting hot flashes – you take hormones and forget about it. Then you’re at the dollar store buying reading glasses so you can see small print. You get a pill from the doctor to take care of that acid reflux in the morning. And if you aren’t on blood pressure or cholesterol medicine, your friends are. It’s only in hindsight that you start adding things up, and then you think, “This sucks.”
But it’s turning 60 that really starts the train moving. Friends you still picture at 18 or 25 or 30, aren’t. People you used to laugh and drink with half the night start talking about their heart stints and knee replacements and won’t stay out past ten. The guy who partied too hard and got in fights on Saturday night, who should have died behind the wheel more than once, dies of cancer instead. And then one of your dearest friends in the world, who sat next to you in Sister Mary Mark’s first-grade class, dies of complications from ovarian cancer, and part of what you feel is the Sixties punching you in the nose and saying, “Pay attention, fool!” Which you sort of do. But you sort of don’t.
I went for my annual physical last month. Had to. They wouldn’t refill my prescriptions anymore. I was a little wary, as my doctor of 15 years moved on and left me in the hands of someone who could pass for 24. (She’s 34. I asked.) There were times during the physical when the new doctor just sat there studying my medical history, looking worried and saying nothing. My old doctor used to do that too, so I figured the new one knew what she was doing. I know she’s thorough, because she signed me up for more tests.
Which is what led to the discovery of two nodules in my neck, one on the thyroid gland and one on the parotid gland. They call them nodules because the word “mass” tends to alarm people, but if you ask them what a nodule is, they say, “Well, it’s a mass.” The next step, of course, is any number of tests and scans, because God forbid you should skip one and jump ahead to the place you know you’re headed anyway, The Biopsy, where they plunge a needle into your neck a lot deeper than the so-called numbing stuff goes and you end up looking like someone jammed a golf ball down your ear canal. Excuse me, that was Biopsy #1. #2 is coming up.
I don’t know for sure yet, but my nodules are looking distinctly more nodule-like than mass-like. A welcome thing, but they may have to come out regardless, which means a 3- to 4-hour surgery per nodule. A little something for me to look forward to this winter, along with quitting smoking. Because although my nodules are unrelated to smoking (hard to believe, isn’t it) you’d have to be an idiot not to see the handwriting on the wall. And that means becoming intimately acquainted with the bathroom scale again. There is absolutely nothing easy in this life. Not one thing.
It’s unseasonably hot for Minnesota in October, in the eighties yesterday and today, which makes blowing leaves a worse job than it already is. The Twins have dropped two games to the Damn Yankees in the AL playoffs. Randy Moss recognized the error of his ways and came back to the Vikings, where he was welcomed with open arms. I’ll be out in the yard blowing leaves and contemplating my nodules.
My grandson Christian, who is six, came over to spend the night last Saturday. I like to have the grandkids over individually now and then in order to study them more closely. So far I’ve learned that I have next to no control over my own actions let alone theirs. There appears to be some force within them that saps my will. I think it’s situated behind their eyes somewhere, as that is usually what does me in.
It is not my intention to spoil the grandkids. It just works out that way. Thinking frugally, I took Christian to the cheap-seat theater, where two tickets to Despicable Me cost just $5. Then I paid $18.50 for two small popcorn, two small drinks and a box of Dots. He didn’t touch the popcorn and ate about three Dots, although when we were standing at the concession stand, Dots had been indispensable to his happiness. We now know he doesn’t like Dots. Then you can’t escape the theater without passing the videogames in the lobby, where weak people will pay $3 in quarters for two rubber bands shaped like familiar household objects.
Nevertheless, I was grateful Christian didn’t suggest going to Chuck E Cheese, because I would have had to take him. Chuck E Cheese should be avoided at all times but especially on Saturday afternoons, when the children run free like animals on the Serengeti. You lose track of what you’re spending at Chuck E’s, because you have to change your cash dollars into Chucky coinage, which is all the arcade games will eat and faster than you can say Vegas slot machine.
The next morning I had to drop Christian off at church, so on the way we stopped at Target to buy a toy. Because that is what we do. I was thinking something from the $1 Spot. Christian was thinking giant LEGO Star Wars set for $99.99. Negotiations ensued, as they always do, and we settled on one “big” toy for $19.99 and one “small” toy for $9.99. Also four toys from the $1 Spot, two for each sister. Can’t forget them.
Got lost on the way to church, which happens sometimes when you drive to St. Paul. People from Minneapolis can wander for days over there searching for a freeway entrance. So we were at least a half-hour late for church, where my son-in-law Lynn was waiting unruffled on the steps. He’s pretty easy-going about things like that. Also, he likes me.
Christian and I had a good time. He was happy, I was happy, money is replaceable. Next up, Maria. She doesn’t come cheap.
I need to find a handyman and soon. It’s fall in Minnesota and before you know it, it will be too cold for a handyman (or handyperson, I’m sensitive to these things) to patch the woodpecker holes on the north face of the house. It is my contention that the mice who maliciously entered my home last spring did so through one of three or four holes drilled there by woodpeckers. The invasion irked me no little bit, because when I remodeled a few years ago and replaced the siding, roof and windows (this was before the odious Great Recession), the #1 thing on my list for the remodelers was “No more critters.” They laughed at me then, but here we are, aren’t we?
I have a history with critters and it isn’t short. The worst mouse incidents included one that went through the wash with my unmentionables (it came out long and skinny from the spin cycle) and finding one dead in the Christmas creche right there with the Baby Jesus. I used to put down poison every spring and fall, which was supposed to make them go outside and die, except they didn’t. They died in the dehumidifier and old shoe boxes, and all I had for help was three daughters who would have danced naked in the street before they picked up a dead mouse.
So in lieu of mouse poison this time, I picked up some of those sticky pieces of cardboard that are like concrete shoes for mice. You fold them into a kind of tunnel, so you don’t have to look at the thing after it wears itself out and dies a horrible death, although I was pretty sure they would die half in and half out. That’s where my son-in-law Bret comes in. He grew up on a farm. Critters don’t phase him.
I put two cardboard traps in the basement, and a few days later Bret came over to check them for dead mice, except that when he got here the traps were gone. GONE. Gone, I say! What kind of demonic mice escape and take the traps with them? It unnerved me. I could picture half-dead mice staggering around the basement dragging their coffins behind them like some twisted rodent version of Night of the Living Dead. I couldn’t bring myself to wash clothes for a while, and when I did, I went down the steps stomping and pounding the walls (“I’m coming, Rasputin!”) Had to. I was down to one green and one brown sock. Then I went to Target and bought some cheap wooden mouse traps, the kind with the steel spring that means instant death and no escape, set them out with paper bags and furnace filters strategically placed so I wouldn’t have to see them, and waited for Bret to return.
Eventually we caught one mouse. The other (or others) obviously expired down there somewhere, which means one will turn up where I least expect it. I intended to clean the basement this summer, but you’d be surprised how long you can procrastinate on these things. And that’s why I need to find a handyperson, to patch the woodpecker holes before the mice start looking for their winter retreat.
Some day I’ll tell you about the garter snakes in the basement, the salamanders in the window wells, the bat in the kitchen, the toads in the dining room, the swifts in the chimney, the dead gophers in the dryer vent, and the woodchuck who came to my daughter’s baby shower.
Grandma Kissed A Sailor 
