Clean Slate

I was such a good girl the other day: I cleaned out my half of the marital bedroom including the closet and the bureau. (Anyone for a long-line bra? A nursing nightie with those two strategically  placed  windows? Howsabout a never-been-worn pair of Spanx bought in the fast-passing moment when I thought I wouldn’t mind walking around with a torso you could bounce quarters off of? ) I also totally  vacuumed under the bed which I still can’t believe myself, since this is something I haven’t truly done since the year 2000 when I set up my massage table at its foot.Yep, a massage table at the foot of the bed. That's what's under the dark blue throw in this blurry picture here on the left. My groom thought he had died and gone to heaven for a while there though really my intentions were practical: I had to do home massages and write them up for the year-long course I was taking to become a massage therapist and he was  my perfect victim, being right there all the time either napping away or reading his many George Aaargh Aaargh Martin books. I did all my assignments and  got the license and worked on the public every Monday and Thursday from 2002 to 2006 in one of the rooms associated with  my chiropractor’s office.Then almost overnight my own neck began acting up with some painful  bone-on-bone rubbing between the vertebrae: Helloooo, osteoarthritis. And goodbye to that nice little secondary career. Still, I kept the table up all this time, using it to both set things down on and hide things under, like my shoes when I kicked them off nights. And my socks and yoga pants, and sports bras (Jesus said it: the bras you will have with you always!) The groom has always maintained that I crowd up the place with too much stuff  - and then there was that year-old apple we  found under the bed-and-massage table combo that looked like the little shrunken head of Ramses II. So he went away for the two days and I did all this cleaning and took down the massage table. I’m trying not to think about how it feels to finally put away the old dream of myself as a healer. ~ Sigh ~  Anyway the room looks a lot less crowded now so there's that. Look at all the books on the night stand by the way. That's not MY night stand. Just sayin' ! I'm not the only one around here who's getting a little odd. 

Watching the Watchers

“Pull Me Up,” which is what I called this week’s column, is about vigilance; about who looks out for the one who’s looking out for the rest of us.

I am married to Mr. Vigilance. Personified. When we travel I’m all the time talkin' to little kids in the food line or jokin’ around with the smokers in that walled-off leper colony of a cement room they’re forced to use.

Not David. David is practically testing the instrument panel on the plane. He lies awake the whole night before a trip and worries. Boards the plane and worries. Lands and worries.

It’s not because he’s a seasoned traveler and I’m some neophyte. For the last 23 years I’ve been flying all over the map, comin’ in to Tampa when it’s 93 degrees and soaking with humidity to be on some dumb magazine show for 90 seconds; screeching in to Tucson and taking a wrong turn in the desert at midnight; climbing into some little rental car just as dusk is settling over some godforsaken rustbelt city whose newspaper I’ve made arrangements to call on…. Wherever I am, I just look at my little map and set right out, full of delight and happy expectation, assuming some stranger will take care of me, get out of his car to draw me a better map than the one I have; offer to lead me to my destination even because this has been my experience. I expect cheery good will on the part of the universe if not big affectionate pats to the head.

David must just expect something else, though we don’t talk about it at all - maybe because he’s so busy looking after me. I say this because I..... lose things; I drop things; I walk out of the kitchen thinkin' I’m done in there for the next five hours, totally not noticing the six-inch flame still doing the Hula on an empty burner. And there’s more: Once I put a five pounds of flour down the garbage dispose-all, causing it to become instantly constipated. Once, while easing the baby into her carseat I put my purse on top of the car, off of which it instantly slid the second I accelerated, to be  picked up by a Bonnie-and Clyde style couple who the cops then gave lights-and-sirens chase to through three towns in central New Hampshire…

The other day was a real low point though: the other day I came trotting down stairs with my Innisbrook tote bag just as David was getting ready to leave for work. “Oh nooooo!” I shouted with dismay because inside this nice leather shoulder bag that he had won at his latest golf tournament everything was suddenly soaked.

Patiently he set down his own pile of stuff and took it from me. Out came the diary and the daybook, the three New Yorkers and the Time magazine, the nectarine and the cell phone,  all of which I clucked and mourned over and tried to dry off.

“WHAT have you GOT in this bag?” he was just exclaiming – until he came upon the full cup of coffee that had tipped over inside it.

“You put COFFEE in a tote bag?”

"Oh hmmmm... well I thought I had sealed it.”

Then he turned the whole thing over to shake out the pencils, the gum and the pacifier, the toothbrush, the carrots and the lip gloss – and found something that embarrassed even me: a half-eaten ice cream cone, the cone part anyway, now a soggy blob of waffley goodness still wrapped in its protective paper napkin.

He cleaned it all up anyway and handed it back to me after like ten whole minutes, and I couldn’t understand why he was smiling.

“Wait, I made you late for work - AND your hands smell like coffee and rotten Maple Walnut,” I said. “Aren’t you mad at me?”

“Nah” he said.

“Really? Why not?”

“Because the kids and I are gonna have a REAL laugh over this one!”

How grateful am I for the one who watches over me while in my manic way I attempt to watch over the whole known world? Really grateful - of course.

And hey: getting laughed at behind my back is a mighty small price to pay.

So thanks for all the vigilance, Davey Dave… NOW WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE!

Dyein' it Terry-style

I love dyeing stuff. Every few months I have an urge to change the color of things and so dye the towels, my clothes, even the lampshades if I don’t like the way they look on a particular day; then sometimes, well most of the time actually, I end up making the colors perhaps a little TOO vivid and have to try toning them down with a quart of Clorox.

It’s a wonderful way to pass the time and it’s what I’m doing right now. Today here at the lake I’ve been dyeing lampshades, a process that involves:

A) filling the bathtub with hot water; adding the liquid RIT - and never, EVER use the powdered form which, careful as you might be, fills the air with so much richly-hued dust the next thing you know your nostril hairs AND the cat’s whiskers are a bright crimson;

B) taking the lampshade, dipping it very quickly in the dye and rolling it around for evenness; then

C) getting it out of that water FAST so it can dry before all the glue that holds on all the ornamental braiding dissolves.

The whole thing takes ten minutes, tops, the only drawback being if you yourself have to step in the tub in which you come out dark red from the knees down and look as though you’ve been murdered, then stuck in a closet standing up til all your blood pooled in your lower extremities… But LET’S ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE HERE FOLKS and instead of showing a picture of my lower legs how about one of these lampshades! Pretty sweet, eh? SUNSET PINK! And all for a mere $3.79 a bottle!