You Never Know

Many years ago my grandfather-- his real name was Irving but everyone called him Itchy-- developed a nagging backache. It grew in intensity until finally he went to a doctor; the diagnosis was lung cancer. Still an optimist at 78, Itchy wasn’t bitter but he was perplexed; as he put it, “How did I get lung cancer? The only thing I ever smoked was salmon.”

Since his illness was not aggressive, Itchy was able to live life as usual for quite a while, and his only complaint was that my grandmother’s snoring kept him awake. (Of course, to hear her tell it, she hadn’t closed her eyes for a minute the whole night.) When his worsening condition required a short-term hospital stay, Itchy gave it a positive spin, reasoning, “What could be bad? At least I’ll get some sleep.”

Finances dictated a semi-private room. Despite the drawn curtain between the room’s two beds, one fact concerning his roommate quickly became apparent: the guy had the hiccups. In fact, the elderly man had been hospitalized because he had been hiccupping non-stop for several weeks. The annoying sound came at regular and short intervals, and continued round-the-clock.

After his first sleepless night, my grandfather said, “I have cancer, and they put me in with hiccups? What, they don’t have someone with a bad heart, or maybe a brain tumor? Where am I, the comedy ward?”

My grandmother was outraged, and let everyone within earshot know it. She paraded around the hospital corridor grousing, “How can they do this to him? He’s got Cancer! He should be with someone who’s also very sick, not someone with the hiccups!”

Despite vowing years earlier to disagree with my grandmother at all costs, I secretly felt the same way. After all, one time as a teenager I had had the hiccups for five straight hours, and it was no big deal. It seemed unfair that my grandfather, in the hospital for some horrid procedure to drain fluid that had collected in his lungs, was sleep-deprived because of this Hiccup Man!

It was not a good situation, and I begged my parents to fix it. My father said, it’s not possible, he’ll be out in a few days, he’ll get used to it. My mother said, what can we do, they have no place to move him, just leave it alone. But being brash and 21, I went to the nurse’s station and requested a change be made. “I mean, he has cancer! Don’t you have any other cancer patients he could be with? Maybe you could substitute someone with a more serious, quieter disease?”

The next day I arrived during visiting hours to find Itchy eating breakfast, the Hiccup Man absent and the room blessedly silent. Aha, it had worked! I fixed it! Feeling quite proud of myself, I said, “So, I see they moved your annoying neighbor.”

“He died. I’ve got cancer, and I’m sitting here with orange juice and scrambled eggs. He had the hiccups, and he’s gone. Like I always say, you never know.”

Itchy lived another year, plenty of time to tell that story many times.

Withering Woodstockers

Despite weighing more than ever, thus naturally occupying more space, I am now almost completely invisible. You’d think that would qualify me as a bona fide super heroine, but actually quite the opposite is true: I am an ordinary female, age 62, but just like that witch in the “The Wizard of Oz,” I’m melting. Not really, but even if I were nobody would raise an eyebrow.

I started noticing this lack-of-being noticed phenomenon about ten years ago, but it wasn’t complete until I hit 60. Then zap, I was gone. Since then, I truly believe I could publicly disrobe and turn very few heads, except in winter, when I might get on the news for braving the elements.

I am still visible to people who want to sell me something or need a favor. For example, my dog still sees me, as do both my cats, especially first thing in the morning when I am hands-down the most popular person in the house. The mailman starts to smile and wave a lot beginning around the 10th of December. And naturally my banker always gives me a hug with each new deposit, but that’s completely understandable in today’s volatile financial environment.

I do not feel personally persecuted; after all, women my age who are a whole lot better-looking than I am are disappearing like flies. A good indicator of this trend is People magazine, where young actresses you’ve never heard of display their latest tattoos and designer duds and divulge their fabulous diet and makeup secrets, but you never catch a glimpse of Diane Keaton or Bette Midler or Cher or Sally Field or Goldie Hawn or all those other formerly-fabulous women who are exactly my age.

Why is this? I have reduced it to an easy-to-comprehend mathematical formula: Fear of Death (X) + Love of Money(Y) = Sex Sells. From the moment you get up in the morning, talk of sex dominates, and I don’t just mean around my house. According to the media, it’s all anyone thinks about, cares about, talks about, writes about and makes movies about. With the temporary exception of the hottest political superstar of the week, naked bodies and pierced belly buttons scream out at you from the TV, Internet, or newsstand, along with those ads for Viagra and Cialis and my personal favorite, Extenz, a penis-enhancement product “guaranteed to grow several inches on a certain male member.” (Hmm, which member I wonder, could it be? Harry Reid?)

Some of my friends are fighting this inevitable invisibility. For example, one just had injections of some “plumping liquid” that will allegedly stimulate collagen growth so her wrinkles will fill out. Several have had facelifts, making it difficult to determine how they really feel about aging. But despite their smooth faces, the neon signs above their heads that says, “Don’t hate me for being menopausal” makes them invisible too.

You may wonder, what’s the big deal? Well, while I’m not an aging movie queen clinging to an adoring public, it would be nice to command a waiter’s attention without having to stand on a chair and wave, or have a salesperson offer help or even just take my money, or get a response to a job application. (My age on paper makes me invisible as well.) During my heyday I was regarded as a witty conversationalist and somewhat off-the wall artiste, popular in fact with all sexes and genders. But as I age, I notice fewer and fewer offers coming from more and more people. And this is even with coloring my hair; God only knows what life is like for all those gray-haired ladies.

To his credit, my husband always sees me, at least when he is in town, off the phone, not checking his email or Googling something, and is hungry. I suppose if I had grandchildren they would adore me, since I would shower them with gifts and affection, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon.

There are a lot of women out there who have great ideas, wonderful insights, and to-die-for recipes to be handed down for future generations. Please don’t shut them out just because they’ve lost their sparkle.

High School Daze

By the time you’re my age—lets just say I’m a baby boomer and leave it at that—high school is a dim memory, if and when you think about it at all. Still, if you’re like me, random moments pop into your head, and when you trace them back they lead you to something that happened in the 9th or 10th grade, or thereabouts.

I experience those pop-ups from time to time, and they get me wondering about some of my former classmates: did they actually grow up to lead productive lives? For example, I wonder about Lois S., a ditzy girl who was also confused about so many things. While we were studying sea life in science class, Lois couldn’t quite grasp that sponges are living creatures. She wondered--should she be feeding the ones they had at home? That aside, the real sticking point for her was the fact that the ones her mother had in the kitchen were pink and yellow and green and blue, and didn’t seem to move at all, but the ones we saw in science class were all spiny brownish blobs. Later that same year Lois was confused about sexual reproduction. When asked what species reproduces through asexual binary fission (that’s splitting in half, in case you’ve forgotten), Lois responded after careful thought, “Could it be us?”

Actually, many girls were in the dark about sexuality back then. In the eighth grade it was mandatory for us to attend a weekly “health” class, sexually segregated since back then, nice boys and girls discussed the ‘facts of life” apart from one another. (This was in the 1960s, when the word “virgin” did not automatically bring to mind an airline.) Lynn R., cheerleader and head “popular” girl, was always going steady with someone, so I assumed she was super-sophisticated in the ways of the world. But in the first class, in response to the teacher’s asking if we had any questions, Lynn ventured: “If a girl and boy each take a bite from opposite ends of the same banana at the same time, you get pregnant, right?” (Grammar was also not her forte.)

Perhaps most famous in the annals of our high school’s memories involved our biology teacher, Mr. Gizzy, whose frequent spot quizzes struck fear in everyone hoping for a passing grade. One day, after a particularly tough quiz left us all groaning, Mr. Gizzy said, “Come on kids, that was nothing, it was just one of my little quizzies.” A boy in the back, I believe his name was Ricky but I can’t be sure, said, “Well, if that was one of your quizzies, I’d hate to see one of your testes!” Silence ensued, while the unintended meaning of his words registered, and was followed by deafening laughter. Mr. Gizzy’s wife, another teacher at our school, took a lot of ribbing over that one for years.

And so, sometimes I wonder: Did Lois learn that the pink and blue sponges do not require feeding? Did Lynn ever have children, and if so, was fruit involved? Are the Gizzies alive today, and do they still laugh over his “little testes”? And most of all I wonder, if you said “testes” in a classroom of ninth-graders today, would they even notice?

Blah Blah Blah

Yesterday I blah blah blah-ed in the morning, and then yada yada yada, doop-de-dooped all afternoon. Blahdety blah, gab gab, me me me. I then did this and that, not to mention the other! Me, mine, ours yours, I'm on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and iPhone.

People are so caught up with their own lives. It's always, "Me, what happened to me, I did this and then I did that." Ever notice how few people ask you questions? And then there are the blogs! So many blogs, so little time. Obama this Obama that. What about Tiger Woods? So many mistresses, so little time. Can you believe that he did this and she did that? Love love.

Of course, have a nice day.

Boys will be boys......

Last night we had our first true snowfall since moving to Maine. Our house is surrounded by trees, and we woke to a virtual wonderland this morning: lacy filigree hung from all manner of pine trees, decorative shrubs and varied bushes. The peacefulness was astounding...or at least it was for the first hour of the day, before my husband decided to fire up his favorite new toy: Enter the snow blower.

So now, in addition to the piercing sound of the chain-saw when we are visiting our rural home in New York's serene Hudson Valley, we have the noxious gas fumes and insistent whirring of the snow blower here in Maine.

I am hopeful that at the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen, they will outlaw Mitch Rouda.

"Funny People" Ain't

Last night I watched a movie I had been waiting for with great expectations: "Funny People" received raves from all critics, and was hailed as a "HILARIOUS" comedy by Rolling Stone magazine. And you figure if those stoners liked it, there must be a few good laughs.

Wrong. In fact, it was seriously depressing, the make you want to go to bed without dinner, cry into a pillow kind of depressing. The protagonist, played by Adan Sandler (who usually cracks me up even just standing still) plays a famous comedian who learns he is DYING of LEUKEMIA. He has NO FRIENDS, in fact not one human connection. No pets, either, just a foreign maid who appears in one brief scene and seems not even to know him. Ha, ha?

We are forced to watch his miserable empty life get worse by the minute. Exploiting his medical condition, he has sex with his ex-girlfriend who is now married to someone she hates. All the supporting characters--other comedians who are also not funny-- have miserable lives too. Ha, ha ha?

Besides death and disease and loneliness, the dialogue centers around one thing and one thing only: Sandler's penis, a.k.a. dick, cock, schlong, and how big, thick and long it is. (Goes to show you, guys, that penis size does not equal happiness.)

Movie critics need to get real, or get paid more, or get paid less by the movie distributors, or something! Bottom line: If you are considering suicide and need something to get you to jump off that ledge or pull that trigger, this movie is it!

P.S. He lives.

It's so O.J.

Oh dear, yet another celebrity icon has been revealed as human! This latest one is Tiger Woods, the golf guy. Until now, I thought the most interesting thing about him was his name. I mean, for a black guy he sure is white bread.

But now we learn several new pieces of information that have made him more like the rest of us, even though he earns a million dollars a week or some figure just as ridiculous. (I forget what it is, but I remember that, hearing it on the news, I gasped.)

I am not at all curious about his marital infidelity, which is no longer shocking to most Americans because it is so common, but rather about his wife, who is apparently a tad unstable; no wonder he's been cheating! She smashed the windows of his Cadillac with a golf club? Freud would have a field day with that one. Poor dear, she probably got sick of it being "golf, golf, golf," 24 hours a day; I know I would. But still, it wasn't the car's fault! (I tend to anthropomorphize.)

Nevertheless, I for one hope they do everyone a favor and get divorced, and the sooner the better. The country cannot survive another "beloved black sports figure married to a beautiful white woman with occasional violent marital spats" fiasco, and this one seems perilously close already.

Meanwhile, who knew golfers even have sex?