Break a Glass

I continue to be amazed at how a person can be alive and breathing one moment, and the next moment he's dead.  My cousin's husband passed away this morning after battling cancer in his shoulder.  We knew it was coming.  In fact, we know death will come for each of us at any moment, yet still we're surprised.  I think I know the exact moment he passed this morning.  I was loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher when something or someone startled me, causing me to drop the glass in my hand which landed on two other glasses in the dishwasher, shattering them all.  I didn't know glass could splinter so.  Looking back, it wasn't so much that the glass slipped out of my hand, but it seemed like it was knocked out of my hand.  My theory is that Mom was hovering around me, as she often does, and in her efforts to help me lighten my task load, knocked the glass out of my hand at the moment when Ivan passed. Undoubtedly she was being summoned to help guide him to the light.  I just knew, or felt, that at the exact moment that the glass dropped, he was gone.  When my older daughter awoke a short while later and received a text from Ivan's granddaughter, she only confirmed what I already knew.  There's got to be an old-wives' tale about what it means when you break a glass.....like dropping a knife means company's coming.....or is that a spoon?

A Quick Note to Note the Notes About Notes

It's a rare moment anymore that I'm able to sit at the piano and play a piece of my choosing.  But tonight, playing Mozart's Sonata I, a piece I first worked-up for an All-State audition in high school, I came across some notes.  Not just the musical ones, but the notes my piano teacher made almost 30 years ago to remind me how to play certain sections.  Mozart was criticized by some for having too many notes in his compositions, the musical ones that is.  Maybe my teacher should've made more notes, or I should've practiced the notes more.  Either way, I wasn't selected for All-State, but the measures of the section I played are still numbered.  In college I worked up more of the piece, and the red-inked lines drawn by my piano professor still remind me how to play the triplets against the eighth-notes.  Years from now when a great grandchild inherits my music, she may not even notice those red lines or numbered measures, or if she fancies them in passing, she may wonder who marked up this music and why.  She too may struggle to play triplets against eighth-notes, and for a brief moment we will be united across time -- two pianists who needed a reminder on how to play a tricky passage.  I know I've looked at old pieces of music that I've inherited from who knows who and noticed the sections that pianist struggled with.  Sometimes I appreciate those notes that warn me of difficult notes ahead, and sometimes I get haughty and scoff at the notes needed to play notes.  "How could you not get that?" I question the pianist of the past.  But I must refrain (pun intended) from being too disdainful lest my future great granddaughter be a pretentious pianist patronizing her predecessor.  Alliteration duly noted.

True Confessions of a Pot Holder

Hi, I’m Mari………I’m 44 years old, married for 18 of those, a mother for 15 ½, and I’ve never purchased a pot holder. (This is where you all say, “Hi, Mari.”) Some might call it a hot pad or a hot pot holder or an oven mitt. Whatever you call it, I’ve never bought one. I have them, thanks to the sewing ability of my mother and the generosity of Secret Santa’s, although the latter ones tend to be of a more decorative nature and therefore not very practical. I made some pot holders when I was younger when I got one of those mini-looms for Christmas. You know the kind that comes with the multi-colored bands that you loop around and weave through a little, plastic, square loom. I could certainly use some new hot pads now and am reminded of this each time I burn my left thumb and index finger, but it just seems like such a waste of time and money. What’s the big deal if my hot pads are scorched and torn and discolored? No one’s going to see them but my family and me. And the occasional dinner guest. And the occasional picnic when I bring a hot dish, or do you call it a casserole?

Yes, I undoubtedly need new pot holders, but I refuse to take even a brief moment to make a special trip just to buy them, and I can’t seem to remember anytime I’m already out and about. I’m not even sure what to look for when selecting them. Do I need to know my hand size? Are some materials more flame retardant than others? I seem to have a knack for placing them too close to a burner. Good thing the sink’s close to the stove. A student knitted a pot holder for me once, but it only lasted about two weeks before it was reduced to a mass of shriveled yarn with crispy corners. If buying hot pads is so easy then why don’t they put them at the front of the store so I can remember that I need some? Maybe then if I actually purchased some, I’d also receive some kind of warning about how NOT to use them. I know if I ask my mom she’ll make me some new ones, but I should be intellectually mature enough and financially stable enough to buy some all by myself.

Maybe my lack of ambition and desire to purchase a pot holder is a latent desire to never cook again. No. That would be a very obvious, blatant desire. I’m sure Freud would agree.

I have to use pot holders for everything, not just cookie sheets and pie plates, because our pots and pans are made of cast iron. Grab the handle of one of those hot babies without a pot holder one time, and you’ll never do it again……….even if the pan is cold.

Maybe since I’m spending 650 words talking about pot holders, I’ll remember to buy some the next time I’m at a store that sells them. As soon as I figure out where they hide them. Don’t tell me they’re in the Housewares section because I don’t buy measuring cups and spoons and dish clothes and whatever else they sell there. I have a wonderful mother and mother-in-law who keep me in supply of all that stuff. Chances are favorable, however, that when I finish this column, I’ll forget all about needing new pot holders or hot pads or oven mitts until the next time I have to move a pan of boiling potatoes or remove a pan of muffins. Maybe to help me remember, we need to give them a more important name. After all, something so essential that hasn’t evolved in centuries should be called something like, Hand Protector 2000.

Getting to Know You

This is the title of my favorite song from the musical, The King and I. Even when I got to know more about some of the facts behind the movie version, I still loved it…..probably even more. Did you know that Deborah Kerr, who plays the school teacher Mrs. Anna Leonowens, didn’t do the singing for her character? Or did you know that Yul Brynner portrayed King Mongkut of Siam in both the stage and Hollywood versions? How about the fact that he was so buff in the movie version because he also filmed The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston the same year (1956)? When Brynner discovered he would have to go without a shirt for most of the film and play opposite the muscular Heston, he began an intense work-out plan. I enjoy learning little tidbits likes this because it makes me feel closer to the people who are entertaining me.
This song popped into my head after a lady at my bank told me that she has enjoyed this column because she has learned more about me. Now I’m certainly not comparing myself to Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, or Charlton Heston, but I was very pleased that 1) she has been entertained by this column and 2) she feels closer to me. A fellow NW Iowa Jazz Band member told me how much he enjoyed my squirrel story and proceeded to tell me his favorite kind of squirrel. I recently attended a party at the MT Vault where several people told me how much they’ve enjoyed reading this column. I am gratified by all this feedback, and I realize now that this column has become a channel for us to get to know each other. Even though I’m the one who starts by sharing a moment, this column has become a conversation-starter, and once we’ve started a conversation we begin a relationship.
My students are studying these concepts right now as we talk about interpersonal communication and relationships. They recently completed their first speech assignment introducing themselves to each other and to me for the purpose of having closer relationships. Before these speeches there was a lot of information about each of them that was hidden to the rest of us, but now it’s out in the open and we’ve built more rapport. And the only way to build a relationship is to open up, whether it be face-to-face, through letter-writing, the internet, or through a newspaper column.
My sister sent me one of those email chain letters where you first read the answers from the person who sent it to you, then you erase their answers, substitute your own, and email them to friends, family, and the person who first sent it to you. I was happy to see that I already knew most of my sister’s answers to questions like, “Four places I have lived…” and “Four movies I’ve watched more than once…” After all I’m her younger sister, and it’s always been my job to rifle through her life and personal belongings. But I was most interested to learn the four things she’s looking forward to this year. She’s a busy mother of two active little girls and works full time in Minneapolis so we don’t have time to talk as much as we used to. Now thanks to email chain letters I can learn what my sister and my mom and my brother and my friends have done, are doing, and are looking forward to doing. Some might think this a sad statement that I have to discover events in their lives channeled through a computer, but without this technology who knows when or even if we would’ve talked about these events.
I guess what I focus on more is that it’s wonderful to continue to learn about and be amazed by the people we grew up with or those we see on a regular basis. It’s doesn’t matter which channel we use to communicate, it’s just important that we do. Getting to know each other depends on it. Our health depends on it: physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally. Consider these facts about the importance of interpersonal relationships adapted from Adler, Rosenfeld, and Proctor’s 2004 book, Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication:
ü People who lack strong relationships have two to three times the risk of early death, regardless of whether they smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, or exercise regularly.
ü Terminal cancer strikes socially isolated people more often than those who have close personal relationships.
ü Without strong social networks, divorced, separated, and widowed people are five to ten times more likely to need mental hospitalization than their married counterparts.
ü Social isolation is a major risk factor contributing to coronary disease, comparable to physiological factors such as diet, cigarette smoking, obesity, and lack of physical activity.
ü Socially isolated people are four times more susceptible to the common cold than those who have active social networks.
From this perspective, whether it’s face-to-face or through a computer, getting to know each other could be the difference between health and happiness and disease and dismay.

Study in Squirrel

Recently I attended the Artists’ Road Trip (ART) at Fort Defiance where I saw a beautiful painting entitled, Study in Red. I’m extremely envious of the talent of painters, sculptors, and potters because I have none. But if I did, I’d create a painting on squirrels and name it Study in Squirrel. I like squirrels, probably because two common adjectives to describe me are: squirrely and nutty. There would be two types of squirrels in my painting: a cute, bushy-tailed, Warner-Brothers cartoon-type and a chittering, evil-eyed, Stephen King-type. My Study in Squirrel would need depth and detail so I would give each one a name and personality traits. We’ll call the former type, Sunny, and the latter type, Sprite. I could paint each one just by looking out my windows, if I could paint of course, because both types live around our house amongst the Oak and Walnut trees. Our yard is what you might call, Squirrel Central Station.
Like any artist, I would need to complete an in-depth study of my subjects. Let’s look first at the behaviors of Sunny. One day while standing at my kitchen sink overlooking our backyard, I saw this squirrel slip down the slide of my daughters’ swing set. Thinking he must’ve lost his balance, I stood to make sure he was okay. When he reached the bottom, however, he scampered around the sandbox, climbed up the ladder, and did it again. Sunny was playing. Oh, how cute. The Sunny’s of our yard are always flitting about, flirtatiously flipping their tales. Their hard work is admirable, which is why I don’t have the heart to remove the ever-growing pile of walnuts that they’ve begun storing in our back shed. I couldn’t live with myself if I let Sunny starve this winter.
Now let’s look at the behaviors of Sprite. Several years ago we had a beautiful patio set with padded chairs. Notice I said, “had.” One day while mowing I noticed white batting strewn on the ground. Wondering and wandering the yard to determine its origin, I ended up on the deck, watching a squirrel gnaw her way through the seams of a patio chair pillow using little, T-Rex claws to remove the stuffing. We paid good money for those chairs so I chased her away. As she leapt to the safety of a nearby Oak, she turned on the branch, shook her fist at me, and screeched as if I had offended her. Oh, how rude. It’s Sprite who delights in terrorizing our Shih-Tzu, Kea, who darts from window to window atop the backs of the furniture in pseudo-pursuit of her prey. I realize Sprite is probably a manifestation of the bad Karma I accumulated as a result of shooting at a squirrel’s nest the one-and-only time I pheasant hunted with my brother 20 years ago.
Now, dear Reader, don’t try to put more into this moment of observation than is intended. Yes, I used the male pronoun for Sunny the sweet squirrel and the female pronoun for Sprite the sassy squirrel, but I was making no references to gender roles or political parties. I meant no offense to sun lovers or soda pop manufacturers. I intended no slights to animal lovers or haters. In fact, the sign for squirrel in American Sign Language (ASL) is one of my favorites. I use it each time I encounter a Sunny or a Sprite. Start by making the peace sign with both hands then turn your hands in to face each other. Curve your fingers, bring your hands together and tap your fingers together. Maybe this means something offensive in squirrel tongue and that’s why they torment me. I want to point out that no squirrels were harmed in the writing of this Study in Squirrel, but I would like to thank the city street employee who scooped up the splatted squirrel at the end of our driveway. Not sure if it was a Sunny or a Sprite.

Thursday Night Lights

Approaching the top of the hill overlooking my hometown one Thursday evening, I saw the football lights blazing in a corner of town that had been dark and dormant for over 15 years. For a moment I felt a surge of nostalgia for all those Friday nights watching my older brother play football, when we brought our own thermos of hot chocolate and carried a large, butter-soaked paper grocery sack of popcorn. When it was my turn to be in high school, I was a football cheerleader standing on the gravel track surrounding the field. A track that now grows more weeds than cheers. I rode the waves of nostalgia as I bypassed my parents’ house to drive up the Football Road. There are houses along this road, but the football field lay at the end and was considered more important than any of those houses. So it was never the Harken Road or the Schipper Road, but the Football Road. The only action this field has felt in the last 16 years has been from middle schoolers and nocturnal, furry creatures. But now, seeing those lights as I crested the hill north of town, I was overjoyed that light and life had returned to Aplington, Iowa, my hometown.
Near the beginning of the movie Friday Night Lights, Coach Gary Gaines (played by Billy Bob Thornton) says to his football team, “We are in the business of protecting this town.” At first I thought this is a huge responsibility to place on the shoulders of these young athletes. Is a town’s vitality dependent upon a high school activity? Take a high school away and see what happens. My high school, as I knew it, died in 1992 when Aplington merged with Parkersburg, four miles to the east. Each town retained their elementary schools with the middle school remaining in Aplington and the high school moving to Parkersburg. Of course those of us who remembered the rivalry of the two towns couldn’t fathom how this merger would ever work. But what we really worried about in Aplington was that, without high school football and basketball games, and band concerts, and plays, the heart of the town would be ripped out. Now in 2008, with those football lights blazing, I felt a pulse slowly returning to the field, the school, the town. People once again loitered by the concession stand, fans sat in the stands, cars were parked up and down the Football Road.
I should explain here that for the 2008-2009 school year, the high school has returned to Aplington because of the devastating tornado that destroyed half of Parkersburg, including the high school. Although I was delighted to once again see people and cars and football lights, I was confused. Would the legendary Ed Thomas, coach of the Aplington-Parkersburg Falcons, hold a pre-game practice in Aplington? Thomas had vowed after the tornado pummeled the field that bears his name that all home games and practices would still be held there. With the help of numerous high school and professional football players, Coach Thomas was able to keep that promise. Maybe Coach Gary Gaines was right, the football team is “in the business of protecting this town.” And maybe they need to feel that responsibility as a way to re-pay the town for supporting them.
I later learned that the reason for the Thursday Night Lights in my hometown was for a powder puff football game. Not exactly the Mighty A-P Falcons or the Permian High Panthers, but for just a moment I got to feel that same surge of adrenalin that I used to get hearing the players grunt through their warm-ups, the marching band whirl through their pre-game show, and the fans buzz under their blankets for a night of entertainment and community.
My hometown, like most towns that lose their high school, didn’t die, but it took many years for it to find a new identity. In another year the football field and that corner of my hometown will once again become dark and dormant. I have to agree with what the character Don Billingsley said after he played his last game in Friday Night Lights, “I’m gonna miss the lights.”

Swine, Cosmetics, and Mud

Barack Obama recently received some negative press for saying:
“John McCain says he’s about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out George Bush — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics — we’re really going to shake things up in Washington.’ That’s not change. That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years.”
Of all these words, John McCain keyed–in on the phrase, “lipstick on a pig.” Apparently he went so far as to ask Obama to apologize to Sarah Palin for such an “offensive and disgraceful” comment . Seems to me McCain himself should apologize for even assuming there was a connection between his running mate and a pig. Perhaps while Obama is at it he should also apologize to fish mongers, sellers of fish, for calling their wares old. And then he’d better grovel before the paper industry for belittling their product as a mere piece rather than a ream. Seems to me people in the porcine industry (pig farmers) could take offense that their product is ugly and needs dressing up. Why didn’t McCain defend George Bush’s honor when Obama referred to his odorous stink? What if McCain’s running mate was Miss Piggy? I’m pretty sure that Muppet wouldn’t stand for any slights about her pink lipstick. And let’s not forget that McCain himself referred to Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal using the same idiom. I don’t recall the Clinton camp calling for an apology, but maybe I missed it.
But where exactly does putting lipstick on a pig come from? Apparently the poor swine have been getting a bad reputation for quite some time. Variations of this phrase have been around since the mid-16th century, with the first one recorded as, “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” A British physician in 1732 is credited with saying, “a hog in armour,” meaning an ugly person dressed in nice clothes, and in 1887 the expression, “A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog,” came into vogue.
The word lipstick doesn’t even make an appearance in the English language until 1880. The hog changed to a pig and the clothing to lipstick in 1926 when an editor for the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Most of us know as much of history as a pig does of lipsticks.” Well, we’re getting closer. It wasn’t until 1985, however, that the Washington Post quoted a San Francisco radio personality’s comments about the planned renovation of Candlestick Park as, “That would be like putting lipstick on a pig.” Apparently the radio host preferred a new stadium rather than just fixing-up the old one. During her first year as governor of Texas, Ann Richards referred to the budget proposal by saying, “This is not another one of those deals where you put lipstick on a hog and call it a princess.” I love Ann Richards. I had the opportunity to interview her in the late 1980’s when she was in charge of the Texas state treasury department, and she didn’t impress me as the type of person who would slander a hog or a princess. She was a straight-talking Texan who spoke her mind while managing to retain a grace and dignity befitting a future governor.
So what does it all mean? I guess it’s just a way for politicians to sound more folksy…..help them relate to the common citizen. Apparently they don’t think they can just tell us that an idea isn’t new or valid, and then do us the honor of explaining why. They’d rather cover it up with a useless phrase that’s received more publicity than any of their policies. Focusing for a moment on an expression like “lipstick on a pig” helps me realize why politicians are so comfortable with mudslinging.

(If you’d like to learn more about the etymology (origin) of certain words and phrases, check out, http://www.etymoline.com/ and http://www.slate.com/. They were great sources for this column!)