The Doings Weekly

Stress enough for all in back-to-school routine

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:09:04 -0500

Today we register my son at school. As we approach the brick entrance, he mutters, “Man, I hope I don’t run into anyone I know.” Seconding that motion, Kee-moe-sah-bee. I’m hefting around an extra 10 pounds since May. I’m out of my fat jeans, into the Land of Elastic Waists. That’s all I need, slim, spray-tanned PTA moms to judge me. I tug on my jean jacket thinking, yeah, like that’s going to cover that midnight brownie binge. “Oh-oh,” he grumbles. We pass another eighth-grader, someone who used to be a buddy. No hellos, no smiles, just squinting and two …

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to ... but frappé?

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:26:02 -0500

Rolling home in the vanster, I asked my youngest if he was hungry. That’s such a foolish question, considering he is male and a teenager. A pediatrician once prophesied that I would never be able to keep a food supply in the house once my boys turned 14. So I zipped through the McDonald’s drive-through, steeling myself against temptation, ignoring the delights displayed on the menu: frothy desserts, a specialty burger and Ronald McDonald mainlining fudge. My son loves those calorie-laden Frappés. I can so see fitness guru Jillian Michaels baring her teeth as well as her six-pack midriff, her …

Channel surfing enough to wipe out a TV viewer

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 15:03:38 -0500

The family is fed and post-dinner, the dishes soak in sudsy warm water in the kitchen. I grab a glass of ice water and pad into the bedroom, intent on watching the news. Any stress I had is amplified listening to the grim anchor, from the jobless stats to the worst drought since the Dust Bowl to Middle East tensions. Turning it to the History Channel is no better. Julius Caesar’s about to sentence several pirates to a horrifying death. Finally I settle on a “Brady Bunch” rerun in which Carol misplaces Greg’s baseball glove. An oafish mall cop tries …

Ashes to ashes: Eulogy for the emerald ash tree

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:38:04 -0500

Before we dropped him off, my son’s friend gestured upward. “Look at all the trees dying,” he said. “It’s from the emerald ash borer.” As I stared, the turn signal from the van’s dashboard seemed to click louder. I began counting. One, three, seven ... up to 15 affected trees, and we hadn’t even puttered up the street yet. Along the sidewalks, 50- year-old shade trees were consumed by a green insect and its larvae. A contagion had stripped their leafy canopies. According to one site, anywhere from 50 million to 100 million ash trees have perished across 15 states. In …

Seeing oldest son off to work is job unto itself

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:00:58 -0500

My oldest son landed a part-time job this week. His new employer is a local grocery chain. He’ll be a bagger and all-around worker. We’re thrilled, of course. It’s a terrible economy and he’s really lucky. Inevitably this brought back memories of my first part-time job as a clerk for Kmart, and then, briefly as a waitress. My hand shook so much delivering food that I spilled a pitcher of root beer all over a family. To even the score, my next customers brought in a sick child who threw up all over the booth and we had to boil …

Man’s best friend, eh? That dog don’t hunt

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:37:55 -0500

The crime was about to take place in the kitchen. I’d just returned home from Jewel with a grocery bounty. As we have no counter space, the bags were on the floor. I figured, “Hey, I can put the stuff away after the phone call. Give my son some space.” Dodging around him and throwing Campbell’s soup in the cabinets would be disruptive. So I loitered in the adjoining office. Phone pressed to his ear, my son paced near the stove. An HR director had called him as part of an initial interview for his first part-time job. From the …

New neighbor’s slight says ‘I loathe the ’80s’

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:08:45 -0500

After the weekly garbage pickup, as I brought in the recyclable bins from the edge of our drive, I glanced over at the vacant house next door. Young men were unloading furniture from a white van. Great, wonderful to have neighbors again, I thought. A young woman stepped out onto the porch, slim in shorts and a pink tube top, motioning the men inside. Waving, attempting a friendly greeting, I then stopped. She was ignoring me. Perhaps I am imagining things, but it seems there is a youth snobbery today, where younger people will not associate with old fogies because …

A Fourth for the family to remember forever

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:20:23 -0500

Everyone has special holiday memories, and ours is what I call the Forever Fourth of July. My oldest son was born 17 years ago, after an arduous 72-hour labor. My husband vowed he’d never get near another birthing room as long as he lived. As a baby, my son did not babble or coo. When he was 15 months old, I had him evaluated at an esteemed university. Their findings were grim. Autism was likely, and it might be severe. After a good cry, I pledged to do whatever I could to help him. While the expert expressed doubt that …

Our vow to be courteous is not a sworn statement

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:48:24 -0500

For the first 13 years of his life, my oldest was the sweetest boy scout. Then he started high school and unleashed a stream of curse words that KO’d the entire Federal Communications Commission. They didn’t fine him — they fined me. Perhaps this is a modern rite of passage into adulthood. All of my son’s friends curse. And as a culture, coarser language has become mainstream. We’re desensitized to it and to rudeness in general. When a stranger is courteous to us, we recoil with shock. Inevitably if you complain about this lack of manners, someone will accuse you …

Reminder to be grateful for what we still have

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:59:37 -0500

The phone rang around 5:30 as supper pork chops sizzled in a fry pan. My youngest sister’s voice was soft, methodical. “Lisa’s been in a bad accident. They’ve done a number of tests and she’s OK. She just got home from the hospital.” Heart pounding, feeling queasy, I thanked her for the update and dialed Lisa’s number, memories flooding through me. Of my three younger sisters, she and I share the same bizarre sense of humor. As kids, the two of us would dance around my father’s pool table downstairs, lip-syncing to “My Fair Lady.” As teenagers, we’d howl at …

Road less traveled is path to positive change

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:38:53 -0500

As a kid, you fool yourself that life offers a level playing field. The candy bar will be divided into equal pieces among your peers and you. Then the bully kid gnaws off a big chunk of the Hershey’s and sticks out his tongue. By the time you’re well into your 20s you have a taste of the world, some bitter, some sweet. Life isn’t fair, it never will be. As carefully as you adhere to your life’s road map, there will be detours, crises and challenges. M. Scott Peck started his popular book, The Road Less Traveled, with this …

From here to illiteracy: ‘X’ marks our sad spot

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 09:22:17 -0500

The second you suggest there’s a negative side effect from technology, three-dozen berserk tech addicts will converge upon you and beat you senseless with their smartphones. Still, I have this hideous feeling that our heavy reliance on technology is making us illiterate. Of the three old-fashioned R’s — reading, writing and ’rithmetic, we’re losing the first two. Bear with me as I explain. Remember the Depression-era days when the poor and illiterate signed a contract with an “X”? They couldn’t write their names; they couldn’t spell; they couldn’t read. The push toward higher education helped tackle illiteracy. We began reading …

A picture is worth a thousand curse words

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 11:30:30 -0500

In every woman’s house is a gallery of photos — usually dozens of the children — from when they were toddlers and slinging a mud pie at a sibling, to the school play with missing front teeth. Among these framed glossies might be one or two of Mom smiling next to her husband, pre-Grecian Formula. Let’s face it, though: Once we women gain weight, no one can come near us with a camera. In my home, I set out land mines to ensure it, and taught the dog to bark when the kids open the drawer where the video camera’s …

Communicate only in catchphrases? Word.

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:43:17 -0500

Imagine a game show where contestants are only allowed to converse using annoying catchphrases: “You rock!” Contestant 1 barks out. “You had me at ‘hello,’ ” Contestant 2 snaps back, determined to win. Thus starts the fierce competition: “You’re not the boss of me.” “That’s what she said.” “Oh no she didn’t!” “Whatever.” “Don’t go there.” “Takes one to know one.” “No offense.” “Point taken.” “Let’s touch base.” “Chill out.” Meanwhile, glued to their seats, trembling with adrenaline, the show’s audience is tense, most barely able to suppress horrible dark urges to storm the stage with cream pies and hurl any …

Do it yourself? Now you’ve done it!

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:26:27 -0500

The telephone trembled as my husband approached it with a screwdriver. The microwave muttered, “Poor dude can’t even dial himself to call 9-1-1.” He dislodged the telephone from its base and began gouging at wires. Thus, our plunge into the abyss known as Do-It-Yourself Repairs began. In this grim economy, we are doing everything to save money, and this means my husband totes around a tool belt like Wyatt Earp and yells the second we misplace his light saber (the flashlight). To be fair, he is a genius at disassembling a computer until it is nothing but a motherboard, video …

It feels like we’re all just hanging on for deer life

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:14:09 -0500

After dropping off my youngest at basketball practice, I headed toward Golf Road and home. It was between dusk and dark, and I could barely see the tawny animal on the median. Eyes slowly blinking, head raised, she appeared stricken, trying to get up on her front legs and couldn’t. The doe had obviously been struck by a car. I signaled right, and the van tires bumped over the potholed parking lot in front of Dairy Queen. Snapping open my cell, I dialed the non-emergency police number. God bless the dispatcher, she didn’t think me a fool for calling about …

Phones getting smarter while people stay same

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:02:26 -0500

I steer the van into the service department. A 20-something man greets me with moussed hair and pungent cologne. After I give him the keys, he inspects the interior, his gaze resting on the 10-year-old VCR unit. That VCR hasn’t worked since I yelled at a kid trying to yank the hair from his brother and a Biggie Diet Coke sloshed all over it. The service dude raises an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen technology that old in some time.” Uh-oh. One of those technophiles who must have the newest Apple gizmo the second it plops from the manufacturing tree. You …

Looking for a perfect fit at mall? Remote chance

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:59:42 -0500

My friends, I’m en route to the 2012 Erma Bombeck conference in Dayton, Ohio, and because I’ve put on weight (stifling sobs, reaching for tissues), I need spiffy new clothes. At the mall I pass the trendy section of teensy-size zeros, summoning my courage. Pretend Stacey and Clinton are with me from “What Not to Wear.” Find clothes that flatter my figure type. My figure type right now is “schlump.” In the shoe section I marvel at the stilettos on display. Walking is not possible in those. Hobbling, yes. For a minute sanity deserts me and I try on a …