Aging, Advertising and a Bad Latuda

Does anyone still get their news from television anymore?

There was a day when the country used to snap on the TV and watch Walter Cronkite or even two curmudgeons named Huntley and Brinkley deliver the goods every evening. Raise your hands, please.......

Hmmm, only a few. And I’m sure you’re mostly over 50.

Uncle Walter kept us all informed.

Although I, myself, belong in the afore-mentioned age group, I get some of my news at the computer, too.

Thanks to the internet’s proliferation of schlock, I am equally aware of when a family of six rents out Kim Kardashians’s cleavage or exactly which expletive Shia LeBeouf recently shouted at a police officer, as well as the developments in the White House, the middle east and under Hilary Clinton’s bangs.

Actually, maybe a family
of eight could live there.

For the most part, however, Seth and I watch nightly world news on TV and have been noticing a clear and unsettling trend that has usurped all advertising time during the half hour format: All the commercials are for hip and knee replacements, incontinence supplies for women and a variety of prescription medications.  

The most popular and bizarrely obnoxious commercials used to be for Viagra and its ilk, showing attractive middle-aged actors sitting in farted-up bath water in tubs out on their lawns or men with well-clipped beards ogling women as they cheerfully re-pot plants (apparently the writers of these ads find transplanting a geranium before lunch to be a huge turn-on) but now, most of the commercials seem to be about depression.

"Why are our bathtubs out here, dear?"
"I have no idea."

Everyone knows that depression is not exclusive to the older set but there must be a lot of it to justify the advertising blitz on the small screen. Perhaps we are kind of bummed that we need to replace our joints, take up gardening in order to have sex or buy handbags large enough to carry our spare Depends but that would mean that all that malarkey is true. Well, it ain't.

Still, the ads do come fast and furious throughout the 30 minutes it takes Dianne Sawyer to tell us that the world does indeed seem to be in quite a fix. Or, come to think of it, maybe we’re melancholy because we know what's going on from watching the news in the first place.

By the way, have you noticed the names of the medications?

Take for example, Latuda. That sounds like a bad attitude about latitude but, instead, it’s a medication  for bipolar depression. Prolia sounds like a rapid moving flesh eating bacteria but actually is a medication for osteoporosis while Spiriva is for bronchial issues. To me, spiriva sounds like a religious cult (or, possibly a Chasidic entertainer...either way, she's in trouble) as in, “My daughter's run off with Spiriva!! What shall we do?”

 There’s also Toviaz which is a prescription for overactive bladders but should be a futuristic and poorly reviewed  movie starring Will Smith. 

You go break a leg, you crazy bitch.

A very heavily advertised anti-psychotic called Abilify does actually sound like something sturdy and life-empowering but Cymbalta, for depression, sounds like a party: They’re having a big cymbalta on Saturday for their 25^th anniversary, wanna go?”

Chantix, which  helps you stop smoking, sounds like fun, too while Lyrica -- for seizures -- sounds lilting and musical.

Then there’s the granddaddy of them all….Viagra. It’s chemical name is sildenafil citrate which does actually sound kind of droopy while viagra could be something to rub into your scalp to make your hair grow or, well, you know. Just seeing the word Viagra makes us all feel empowered and strong. I salute the drug namers for that one.

You might be next!

So, if someone under 25 were to turn on the evening news (as likely as Justin Bieber not hitting someone with his Ferrari) or, for that matter, even the decades-old news show, 60 Minutes on Sunday nights, he or she would be certain that the advertisers are very sure their audience is a bunch of pee soaked, creaking and depressed wrecks who need help in the bedroom.

Maybe some of us are but most of us would just like to be invited to a good cymbalta now and then and have a little fun.

"Toviaz!" starring Will Smith opens soon.

The Power of Oz

Since I love fewer things than saying "I told you so," I am reviving this post from nearly two years ago. Now that Dr. Oz has been dragged in front of a congressional committee to talk about his claims that you can you lose weight with a variety of "miracles," I thought this might be fun (for me, especially) to read again:

Who didn't love Dr. Oz in the beginning?

Introduced to the public by Oprah, he was refreshing and kind. He told us things we needed to hear and taught us stuff about our health and bodies that was new and helpful.

While never entirely comfortable with his insistence on wearing green operating scrubs on the show every week, he was kind of cute with that flip of hair on his forehead and his droopy upper eyelids.

While I was never one of them, I suspect many women imagined him handling their pancreases with the same sensuality he fondled the preserved organs he brought as show and tell to the Oprah show.

Look at that body language!

Angry Steadman

This went on for a while.

Oprah's boyfriend, Steadman and I endured the increasingly touchy-feely relationship that appeared to be developing between Oprah and Mehmet (I call him that). They both seemed in a bit of a lather over the dessicated lungs and heart valves they were petting and, if you combine all this with purple latex, the show was starting to get a little breathy for my taste.

Rumor has it, he wore no underwear beneath those scrubs. *

Then he got his own show and it didn't take long for me to grow annoyed.

Between the infatuated women in his audience who thundered to the stage to participate in some demo illustrating why we're all going to die very soon, to his constant groping of everyone in the studio, I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Then as his producers realized that weight loss tips and tricks drew the biggest ratings, this became the focus of the show.

It now seems that every day he touts the miraculous properties of some new extract or powder harvested, perhaps, from the enlarged thymus of the Amazonian transvestite--freeze dried, packaged and express shipped to obese America to hasten the loss of belly fat, cellulite and bank account.

Instead of his original message of less food, more exercise there were endless supplements or ways to trick your metabolism, awaken one's enzymes or meditate your way to a slender figure.

As I grew tired of all this,  I noticed there was a co-host on "The Chew" (for those new to this blog, it is no secret that I have TV addiction issue but don't worry, I watch "Intervention" every week in the hope of learning how to overcome it) who was ditzy in a very uninteresting way and did not seem to know a parer from a grater from a ricer.

When I learned she was the daughter of Dr. Oz, it all made sense.

In general I have no issue with nepotism---it's how the world works. I, myself, pine for a successful relative to set me up but this girl was just so blah. Plus, I was insanely jealous that she got to hang around with my beloved Clinton Kelly--every straight woman's idea of the perfect man: funny, clever, can help you dress to minimize your ass bags, whips up delicious cocktails and does not want to sleep with you.

I just checked out the young Miss Daphne Oz and, guess what, I did not see any culinary or nutritional training. Hmmmm.

Then, to complicate matters, Dr. Oz's wife pops up on a morning show, introduced as a "relationship expert."

First of all, what is a relationship expert? By current television standards, it appears to be someone who has not yet taken hostages or killed a co-worker.

Hold on...let me google her. Well, no education or training in relationships...but, wait, she was captain of the tennis team in college!

All this worried me. We have an unqualified Oz talking about food on TV and another one giving advice--to millions of people. Was the Oz family attempting to take over the world?

Daphne Oz

I DVRed "The Chew" so I could avoid Daphne and go directly to the intoxicating Clinton Kelly, put my fingers in my ears and said "Lalalalala" when Lisa Oz came on and stopped watching her husband in the afternoons. 

But then I tuned into a summer medical show about real life doctors in New York City....and there was Dr. Oz, again-- and this time wearing scrubs for more than just foreplay with Oprah.

He was actually interacting with sick people and I found myself falling in love. This guy was warm and approachable. I found myself desiring bypass surgery just so I could playfully tug at the tie of his sterile mask and bask in the reassuring glow of his smile.

It was then I realized the power of Dr. Oz.

While I am still boycotting his show, I can understand it all a little better now.

* I started that rumor today.

I love you, Clinton.

The Little Pot

This morning -- while preparing steel cut oats to share with the guy who, despite my general cantankerousness and morning hair, consistently returns here nightly demanding food and clean socks -- the handle of the little pot I was using came right off in my hand.

It snapped off cleanly.

There was no damage and minimal mess---a little noise and some oatmeal on the burner, but that was all.

Upon closer examination, I realized that the pot, most likely older than I am, was unfixable. The guy waiting for his oatmeal agreed but the little pot had led a good life. Part of a set of Farberware owned by my grandma, it had cooked things for three generations of women, myself being the last as of this morning.

It had, in fact, been such a stalwart little pot, that I washed it before discarding it so that it might get a better reception from the other little pots in the garbage dump or wherever it might end up. I suddenly felt very sad as I remembered that this little pot and none other was the “pudding pot” of my childhood.

Few things are better than a
fluted dish.

Not tiny and not large, it was the perfect size to stir a package of Royal brand chocolate pudding into two cups of cold, fresh milk, await the bubbling stage and then turn down the heat as the loose chocolate “soup” thickened into the perfect consistency for pouring into four small fluted dishes.

Once it cooled a bit, I was handed the pot to clean out with a chubby finger. After I'd licked everything clean, I’d put the pot in the sink for, in those glorious days, I was still too short to do the dishes myself.

Are you a "skin" person?

As for the pudding, some people hate the “skin” that forms on top as it sets, so to prevent it from forming, place saran across the surface before it goes in the fridge. We, however, did not.  Not a man among us did not love the skin best and, when I was little and enjoying the last throes of cuteness, occasionally someone would give me their pudding skin, the ultimate gift.

Now that the little pot lay in the garbage, it was time to mourn it and, believe it or not, tears were shed. Not for the pot, although its status as a relic from my past was duly acknowledged in my sentimental mind, but for the era in which it had enjoyed its popularity and purpose.

Some do this on purpose now....

Originally shiny and bright, it had been lifted from the large box it had shared with its matching companions, only one of which -- a stock pot with a dented lid -- remains.

Knowing my grandma, she had relished its modernity, its newness, the fact that it matched other things in a household where very little matched anything. We ate from different plates, drank from assorted mugs and, to be honest, ignored much about the 20^th century in general.

We were a tiny village unto ourselves in a neighborhood full of such households, mismatched in their own right as they stood testimony to the ethnic hodgepodge of mid century Brooklyn. And, at the time, mid century Brooklyn was not all that different from medieval Europe. The seventies had not yet happened…my friends and I all came home and ate our ethnic food with our ethnic families and that was that.

Brooklyn when I was a kid.

True enough but the pudding
will be lousy.

But sometimes there was pudding.

Made from a small box with a corresponding picture, it was very easy and even though it was not “instant pudding” (“What is this instant pudding?? You can’t make anything good in an instant!), it was quick and convenient and was always cooked in the little pot that gave up the ghost this morning at breakfast.

Seth saw me staring at the pot in the garbage and simply said “No.”

He knew that in my thwarted hoarder’s soul  I was assessing whether I could find another use for it….sprouting seeds next spring, mixing paints or spices?

Nah, he was right. Sometimes you just have to throw something out despite its years of loyal service.

So, I said farewell to the pot but not to the memory of my mother, pink-cheeked and smiling, surrounded by family in a teeny-tiny kitchen stirring chocolate pudding for us all to enjoy, skin and all.

"She wants that little pot back, guys...."

On Broadway: A Celebrity Encounter

Last night I watched the Tony Awards on TV. 

I always enjoy them but the Tonys remind me of how much I wish I attended the theater. Living a mere car trip (and a king’s ransom in garage fees) from the theater district in New York City, I haven’t seen a Broadway play in years.

The reason for my absence is not that I don’t love theater because I do. 

In fact, I love it all--spilling, with the excited crowd, from the sidewalk through the glass doors into the lobby and onward to the dark interior (always smaller than expected and, therefore, creating the magical intimacy of a true Broadway experience)…the strains of a tuning orchestra… a last minute set adjustment by a headphone wearing stagehand as you find your seat…receiving your playbill and, later, reading it in the dim light.

There is nothing quite like the anticipation as the curtain rises…except, perhaps, the feeling you get at an amusement park when, once buckled in, the roller coaster springs to life beneath you and the tickle in your belly tells you it’s going to be a great ride.

Why, then, don’t I attend? Well, it’s the cost of a ticket, silly. 

Maybe so.

Despite that it, apparently, seems to be what the market will allow, I refuse to spend $350 for a ticket….for anything. The days of my youth when my mother used to take me to Broadway for a $5 mezzanine seat are over. Back then, she and I saw the original casts of Fiddler, Man of La Mancha and so many others thanks to her attitude of “we may not have much but art--we got. ” 

Mmmmmmmm.

Afterward, we’d grab a pretzel for the ride home and hum the songs on the subway. But ticket prices steeply jumped when I was a young adult…first to about $100 for an orchestra seat and, later, to the insanity of what they go for now.

The theater thrives and I’m glad. It doesn’t notice that I’m not there.

Occasionally, I have stumbled upon a deal or two. Most recently, we managed to get great seats to “Chicago” and, again, to see “Rent.”

What's the big deal?

Now, I – unlike the rest of civilization hated --  “Rent.” The music didn’t move me…nor did the tale of a bunch of freeloaders trying to avoid fiscal responsibility.

While trembling adolescent girls in leg warmers sang along, I waited for the lights so I could make a run for the ladies room. Poised to bolt, I rose and staggered up the aisle only to come – to my genuine shock  --  face to face with a sullen and narrow-hipped Sean Penn who leaned, in a studied pose, against the wall directly on the way to the bathroom. 

I somehow sensed  I’d now gotten my money’s worth…

Jeff Spicoli

Sorry, friends but I hate Sean Penn. I think he’s an over-rated creep who hasn’t offered an inspired performance since he played Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." My immediate reaction was to glare at him in disgust.

Already in full pre-sneer mode, he was more than ready for me and, whether his nasty expression was a reflection of mine or mine, a mirror of his, we looked at each other with deep and lingering hatred. 

If looks could kill, Sean and I would have fallen dead -- each a victim of the other’s loathing.

Oddly, it was a great moment for me since I do not deny being excited by celebrity encounters and this one, while the opposite of a happy autograph moment, was still pretty exciting. Who among you can say that Sean Penn glared at you with a death stare right before getting in line to pee? I didn’t think so.

Doubtless I’ve seriously angered both the “Rent” and Sean Penn fans among you and, in this politically correct world, have surely crossed some line of propriety.  

As for Sean Penn, I like to think he’d actually defend my right to hate him and maybe even remembers the moment when a middle-aged woman attempted to stare him down in a theater.

As for “Rent, ” if you can’t afford it, move back home with Mom and Dad.

I loved "Rent." "Susan Says..." is a horrible bitch.

The Bell

The actual bell I now own.

It looked simple enough in the video.

How hard could it be? Only a few items were involved and I already had the cat. 

There’s always a bag of treats in the cabinet and the bell would be here in a few days. I also was in possession of determination, time and just enough crazy so this all made sense. My plan, you see, was to train Buzzy to ring a bell (by himself, with his paw) before I dispensed a cat treat! Pavlov--make way! Here comes “Susan Says…!”

The result of watching way too many adorably hilarious cat videos on youtube, the idea was born. Upon checking Amazon to see if I could inexpensively purchase the most important component of the operation – a counter bell (the kind people impatiently ring in movies,often at the front desk of a hotel, but the clerk is in the back trying to train a cat), the answer was not only of course but which color would you like and, most important, Buzzy is brilliant. 

This was going to be fun.

I would then make my own video with Buzzy ringing away to earn treats and later receive a Pulitzer (or something) for my efforts as well as the adulation of viewers around the globe who would watch the video and say things like “How cute!” and “What a great cat” in the comments section. Glory awaited. I could smell it. Or, was that the litter box?

The bell arrived.

Somehow, I resisted ringing it until I was situated with my “subject” (Buzzy) stomping about in the “testing area” (the kitchen table), already a-twitter over that which he loves more than life itself: Friskies Party Mix, flavor of Wild West Crunch.

Buzzy lives for treats. He would sell me to a traveling circus for a mere handful. 

If I so much as think about opening the door to the cabinet in which they are kept, he will wake from deep slumber and  run --  not unlike a crazed zombie -- into the kitchen and shout until there is a handful before him. 

Forgetting his manners, he will inhale them at the speed of light and beg for more. It’s fascinating and awful and God only knows what’s in those things because they cause well-mannered gentleman like Buzzy to totally lose their dignity. Surely, he’ll understand about the bell and the video and my future fame as a cat trainer.

Hours later, Buzzy is full of treats and sprawled like the Emperor Nero after an orgy. The bell has been rung (by me) so many times that Seth has fled in tears and, oddly, I have developed a strong craving for Chex Mix. Buzzy, however, has yet to ring the bell.

Despite the cat crack that Friskies adds to their product and Buzzy’s ensuing addiction, my cat training prowess (uh, that would be none) and desire for notoriety in the increasingly competitive world of cat videography, he is not interested.This leads me to question the cat in the video.

Who is this shameless cat whore, anyway?

I am no longer "in training."

Maybe it wasn’t even a cat. Maybe it was a monkey .  Or one of those other, popular pets, er, what are they called again? Oh, yes---dogs! Maybe it was a dog wearing a cat suit and it wasn’t even party mix but some sort of dog thing like bacon nuggets….yeah, that’s it. If Buzzy could not be trained, then the whole thing was suspect….a fraud….a sham.

Before drifting off into a treat-induced coma, Buzzy looked at me, slumped in my chair, purple bell taunting me from the corner into which I’d thrown it, empty bags of treats strewn about and then, without so much as a flicked whisker, closed his eyes.  I reached to tickle his round little Wild West Crunch filled belly. 

After all, part of the allure of cats is their untrainability, is it not?

Getting in the car to go buy the biggest bag of Chex Mix they sold at Stop ‘n’ Shop, I heard it. The bell rang, just once. Chances are it was Seth who had emerged from his hiding place and not the bloated cat I had just tried to make act, well, not like a cat at all. I never asked. 

Train me? I don't think so.

The Surprise Visit

Ricky, Charlie's coming home!

Recently, around 6:30 on a quiet Friday evening, the phone rang, startling Seth who -- after changing from his tee shirt and sweat pants into his tee shirt and pajama pants -- had already begun slipping into his pre-weekend coma.

Really!?!

I recognized the number on the caller ID and happily sat down before answering, looking forward to a chat with my son....how was your day, what did you eat for lunch, will you make sure that I'm in a good nursing home when I'm older...you know, the regular topics.

You could have knocked me over with Buzzy's tail when Charlie announced that – surprise! --  he was on his way home for a weekend visit. He'd be home in less than three hours. “See you soon, Ma!" and he hung up.

No kidding! Charlie?

After blacking out for an undetermined period, upon revival I hollered for Seth.

Splayed out in the recliner, a cold Budweiser warming in his hot little hands, although he had trouble initially comprehending what I was screaming, he snapped to in a moment or so and came running, clapping and jumping up and down with me in the kitchen.

Guess what, Andy! Charlie's
coming home!

Suddenly, we stopped and looked at each other.

Oh my God! Not expecting a visit from the young prince, the fridge was lacking food! Not to mention Charlie's room was a mess since we'd done some minor renovations in the house and had been using the boys rooms as a dumping ground. 

Anything that we didn't immediately need, want or were not prepared to throw out would make its way to either room and we'd close the door. Poof---out of sight! The house seemed neat and orderly until we'd open a door to toss another item inside. Our children's bedrooms now made us eligible for an episode of Hoarder's.

Charlie's coming home?

Seth and I made panicky eye contact but, in a few incoherent grunts, clearly communicated the next course of action.

After meaninglessly wiggling our eyebrows at one another for a full minute, we sprang into action: I grabbed my wallet and started off to the supermarket only having to return for my shoes and the car a few minutes later. I then drove off on only my back wheels and with my head sticking out of the sun roof while Seth threw on a haz-mat suit and ventured into Charlie's room with a dozen or so garbage bags and his jaw set to "action."

Who is Charlie?

Once in the supermarket I filled my cart with bagels, bialys, whole grain bread, peanut butter, ham, provolone, liverwurst, onion rolls, fresh tortellini, cereal, milk, rice pudding, halvah, light bulbs, mustard, toilet paper, Greek yogurt, apples, strawberries, avocados, tomatoes, bananas, unshelled peanuts, seltzer, Drumsticks (the ice cream kind), Dove Bars, grapefruit juice, orange juice and two dozen eggs. I am not kidding about a single item on this list and have the receipt to prove it.

It’s inevitable that, in our local market, you run into no fewer than 174 people you know and this evening was no different. 

If I saw anyone with whom I would normally exchange pleasantries or quite possibly stand in one place and talk to until blood pools in my ankles, I simply shouted the word “Charlie!” at them and kept moving. The women understood exactly what was happening while the men all thought I’d mistaken them for Charlie.

Quick, beam Charlie up!

Is he bringing Camilla?

Astonishingly, when I got home, Seth was done in Charlie's room.

It was perfect. The bed was clear of debris and made up nicely, you could actually see the floor, his desk was neat and the top of the dresser was empty but for his assortment of half-used bottles of Axe body spray.

 It was a miracle and I could not have cared less as to where all the stuff went. I still don't. All that mattered was that the prodigal had where to lay his head after a long drive. Well done, Seth!

Maybe I'll give him a new car!

I put away all the groceries, emptied the dishwasher, filled the dishwasher, re-neutered the cats, freshened my pedicure, swept the floor, turned on the outside lights and phoned all my neighbors and asked them to do the same and located Seth who had put out and illuminated our American flag---joining him at the top of the driveway where he was straightening the mailbox which had been nudged by a snow plow this winter. 

We wanted to spot the car as soon as possible so Seth stood on my shoulders, leaning slightly forward, for a better perspective.

Charlie arrived soon after and Seth and I, doing synchronized cartwheels around him, pretended the house always looked this tidy and that the fridge was always this well-stocked. 

Whether Charlie believed us, we have no idea but upon arrival he immediately noticed and acknowledged the Josh Groban CD I'd forgotten to hide as well as the fact that Seth and I are both shorter than when he saw us last.

It was a wonderful visit.

My Mother the Super Hero

It may be the day after Mother's Day but "Susan Says..."  is declaring all of May to be Mother's Month (the stretch marks alone are worth more than one day), so I thought we might explore a facet of my mother's character I haven’t yet covered. 

Sure, I've talked about how funny she was, how talented and creative, how well she cooked and baked but have I discussed her tough side, her herculean strength, her ability to physically do battle with a New York City subway car? 

Not until today…

I was reminded of it recently when, on his morning show, Michael Strahan mentioned that a car had bumped him while crossing the street on the way to work. 

This kind of thing happens on the many cross roads of Manhattan, we’ve all seen it. As for Michael, he did what any 6 foot five, two hundred and fifty pound ex-foot ball player with giant hands might do---he punched the car. 

Who’s going to challenge him?  

But, what if something similar happened to Little Tiny Olga with her sensible shoes, cotton candy hair and armful of shopping bags from Gimbel’s….

Extra points if you remember Gimbels.

Allow me to paint a picture: A very busy pre-Christmas street near the shopping hub of the universe, 34^th Street in New York City. Crazed people, honking cars, crosswalks blocked, street lights blinking but ignored. In the midst of this chaos, my law-abiding, cautious mama has places to go so, when a taxi turns and attempts to nudge its way through the crowd and happens to nudge her in the process, what’s a middle-aged woman in a conservative cloth coat to do? I’ll tell you what---she stops in her tracks, shifts her shopping bags, turns in slo- mo to glare at the hapless cabbie, makes a fist and punches the hood of the car. And, in a voice so loud that my hair blew back, bellows, “HEY!!!! I’M CROSSING THE STREET!!!!!!!!!!”

"Little Olga did what ?

Time stops. What has happened? 

To a young teenager who is embarrassed by every move her mother makes, the searing burn of pure humiliation is now rising from my collar to my cheeks until I notice that people are patting Tiny Olga on the back, saying things like “You tell him, lady! “ and “Yeah, you showed him!” Hmmmmm. The creeping blush recedes….maybe my mother is – could it be – cool???

Fast forward to a summer subway ride. We are heading to Grand Central to catch a train “to the country” and a visit with suburban relatives. Little Olga’s philosophy was to leave super early for everything because New York is known to throw surprises at anyone with time constraints. This day was no different. The delays came at us strong and we were sweaty, frustrated and late. 



Just as our train pulls into Times Square and Tiny Olga and I are poised to exit, the doors do not open. The train has stopped but nothing is happening. I could sense the outrage rising in my mother’s righteous busom. This was unacceptable! We had risen in darkness, departed at dawn, eaten raisin bread on the B train and yet, across the tracks, the shuttle to Grand Central is leaving without us?!?

Suddenly, my mother dropped her bag and, placing her teeny, weathered hands on either side of the subway doors attempted to, literally, pry them apart. 

Now this was too much. I had survived the taxi punching incident thanks to the approval of the mob but here, people waiting to exit the train stood behind us in stunned silence as this obviously deranged middle-aged woman did battle with a subway door. 

Please, my self-conscious adolescent self begged God, let the earth open and swallow us when, amazingly,the doors started to open--not because the conductor was making them but by the strength of Tiny Olga who now had people helping her….

The doors snapped open and again, my mother the folk hero, was receiving praise from the crowd---“Good job, lady…good job!” Despite the praise, I could not rise above this and really gave her hell once settled on Metro North. “What were you thinking, Mom????” Her simple answer, “I didn’t want to miss the train.”

Very soon after (that day), it made me laugh. And laugh. And, I am still laughing at the memory, at her heroic status among hardened New Yorkers, at my own embarrassment. Then I cry a little because I miss her. And then I laugh some more. 

My favorite super hero.

The Joys of Spotify

Recently, while chiseling dried oatmeal from a pot I'd neglected to "soak," yet another inane daytime talk show (chosen specifically to prevent me from thinking about anything that might, inadvertently, cause introspection) was explaining -- via a woman with very white teeth -- the joys of leading an organized life.

Not again, I thought...but my hands were all wet and the clicker was hiding somewhere under a pile of mail and newspapers on the table. 

She chirped on about bins, lists and hooks, urging us never to lose our keys in the morning because a frenzied search, prior to departure, would lead to a "downward spiral into a bad day." After I stopped laughing and wiping my eyes on a dish towel, I turned to Buzzy and said, "Ha! Miss Thing don't know from downward spirals!."

She wasn't here the morning I slipped on a dryer sheet and crashed to the kitchen floor, colliding with the cats water dish causing it to slosh all over my clean, heading-out-the-door clothes which I then had to change. This interruption of my routine later caused me to forget if I'd unplugged the iron so, about five miles from home, I turned back to check so the house wouldn't burn down but then I stepped in fresh cat vomit on the stairs (the cats puke when agitated) and now I had to change my sandals, too. Once finally back at the car and ready to leave again, I got stung by a wasp who I didn't see because he was hiding behind the door handle.

Now that, you crazy TV witch, is a downward spiral into a bad day.

On this very same talk program, another grinning idiot appeared to discuss how important confidence is for women as well as the many household uses for toothpaste. But, by this time, I was suffering from mental anesthesia so intense that I used my last conscious breath to sweep aside the debris on the table to find the clicker. 

Off went the TV, away went the panel of robots masquerading as human females and back, slowly, came creeping my mental acuity. Such as it was by then.

It is said (by me) that more brain cells are permanently killed after a stint of watching moronic TV than after equal amounts of binge drinking but, since I don't really like alcohol, I decided to finally download something called Spotify.

Spotify, a music streaming service, is something both my children had been urging me to explore and has turned out to be the smartest thing I've done in a long time. Now, I fend off conscious thought with music of my choosing for which I pay a small monthly fee. I also drive the boys insane by constantly sending them links to music I love and think they’ll love, too.

With Spotify, you create "playlists" from an endless source of assorted musical choices. Voila.

Depending on my mood, I will enjoy folk, indie, country, Tom Jones, show tunes, Italian American favorites (who doesn't like Jerry Vale and Lou Monte?) classical pieces or a selection of Irish tunes (gotta loves those three tenors). 

I play them through a portable speaker called a Jambox and my smart phone and, when I hook everything together successfully and music pours forth, I feel as I reside upon the cutting edge of technology instead of dwelling deep in the land of the elastic pants wearing throwback I catch glimpses of in the mirror as I scrub the bathroom grout with toothpaste.

The best and most therapeutic aspect of all this music? I sing along...loudly. The cats may scatter but hearty singing is very cathartic and even Seth has noticed that my spirits are better these days. He has taken to horning in on my account with his own lists and, on weekends, we bicker cheerfully about who gets to listen to what.

I urge those of you who, like me, cannot trust one's mind to be left to play alone as well as those who wish to feel au courant in a rapidly changing world, give Spotify a chance. 

I also want to thank my sons for the great suggestion. I will be sending you some Julius LaRosa for your listening pleasure later.

Sing along---don't be shy!