September, 2008
Dear Aunt Sassy,
I am a Yankee through and through. Born in New Jersey lived my adult life in New York City. I recently retired to Charlotte, North Carolina. Immediately I noted that the men down here are different. There seems to be a soft exterior with a solid core (albeit, some softer than others due to a habit of catching fish while inebriated). But all in all a nice blend of a slow drawl charm and manners that date back to Gloria Vanderbilt. And as a city girl it is rather refreshing to not have a door slammed in my face when both arms are full, or to be able to cross a street and not be used for target practice by a cabdriver.
Aunt Sassy, I must confess I am a sucker for and susceptible to the charms of a man who can both spell and put down a toilet seat. But I declare (and yes I know that is southern for yowza) the men down here also ask you polite questions. They even act as if they care about your answers regarding career, your family and your shoes. They do it with such finesse that honestly, you don’t care if it they are sincere or not, that would just be bonus points.
But here is my concern. I have been dating a lovely man, (thirty-ish, tall, blond blue eyes, flat stomach , and yes, hetero-single) but I am afraid that the mixing of our cultures may be unhealthy. We are after all painfully different. And while this fear may seem irrational and extreme to you, what I have to tell you next may convince you otherwise.
We had decided to go to the Tennessee mountains and stay with his parents in a lovely home on a lake. His parents were not to arrive until later that evening. We arrived mid-morning. After making some strong coffee we sat out on the balcony and listened to nothing but the birds and the crickets.
That’s when we were hit.
Almost simultaneously we seemed to contract a virus that had us bed ridden in moments. I think it has something to do with Fare-a-moans! If we struggled to the kitchen, or staggered to the balcony, no matter, our knees would buckle and we would find ourselves writhing, entangled on the floor, grasping for the banister.
The symptoms included, dizziness, an inability to tell time, a lethargy regarding world affairs and a rush of heat that drove us to the edge of madness (aka: decorum be damned). We intermittedly stopped breathing and had to give each other mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It all came upon us rather suddenly, (although in retrospect I was having symptoms of cloudy judgment earlier in the week).
The oddities continued. Anything either of us said seemed either highly intelligent or wickedly witty–enough to rival Dorthy Parker. I am guessing it was a form of literati delirium. Yet when this disease wore off (and I am happy to report the symptoms have subsided a bit now that we are not re-infecting each other at the drop of a hat)… when it wore off what we HAD said seemed a bit mundane, if the truth be told.
Furthermore, and this you cannot breath a word of this to anyone, we both broke out with a case of turrets. Imagine the sheer humiliation for two good church going folks to be screaming out, “Oh, Jesus, Dear God, Lordy lordy for no apparent reason!”
So here I am with bruised knees, splinters in places the sun doesn’t shine terrified that I have a contracted southern epilepsy, jungle fever. Additional side effects include wanting to call people Darling and Sugar.
Aunt Sassy, should I move back to New York and get my edge back?
Chagrinned in Charlotte
Dear CIC,
Darlin’ you’re in love. It will pass, but don’t rush the recovery process.
_____________________________________________________
The Mews
I am not a cat person. Cats hate me and I reciprocate. Don’t tell me I am making it up. My girlfriend let her cat in the door and said, “Here’s my cat, he loves people.” The cat jumped up onto the back of the couch I was on, walked behind my head and swatted me. If he’d had adipose thumbs he would have punched me.
When I grew up our family cat would hide under the chairs in the living room…the ones with the colonial skirts on them (the chairs, not the cats). If I sat down to read, the cat would claw my ankles and draw blood. I ask you, is that provoking, sitting down to read?
But to keep peace in the world I pretend to like cats. This has had a remarkable effect on cat lovers. They actually think, that I think, like they do. If I bring ‘Mittens’ a toy at Holiday time, it is only because there are 200 toys already under the catnip tree and I’m not one for ‘looking like Scrooge’, though Scrooge I may be. That said it has backfired often enough.
Take the lady who called me amid deep heaving sobs. When at last she could form words through her tear clogged throat she said, “Patches died today. He was hit by a car. I called you because you are the only person I know who loves cats more than I do.” And I don’t have an Oscar yet, why?
Cats? Sure I can tolerate them. They have their place. I even been known to play with them for hours. I’ve play tennis and lacrosse didn’t I? (Or was “cat gut” merely a euphemism?) I dissected them in biology. I’d even drive a Jaguar if someone gave me one. I am not without heart.
My sister’s cat (hmm, good name for a horror story) is a tomcat. The fool thing NEVER shuts up…that should have been my first clue. Because when I let the malcontent off the porch tonight he did his usual slinky cat walk past me as if I was his person butler (no, wrong word, what’s lower than slave or slime?) but tonight he was minus his insulting grunt which sounds a great deal like, “Shut the door, peon, NOW.”
I just moved to the country to ‘recover from a stressful life on the west coast’. I have come for rest and relaxation. I have come to North Carolina to live with my sister who is singularly the most pleasant person in the world. That is why it puzzles me that she houses felines. If you wanted animals that you can’t trust I think bovine ingesting boas make a fine choice. At least there is no pesky animal fur, well at least not after the feeding and it’s is only once a month.
All of her kitty companions are white house cats who manufacture piles of ghostly long hair. Dust bunnies tremble at the sight of the furry pale tumble weeds that spontaneously-combust at night all about the corners and baseboards. Mind you if I was a size 2 (and that really is a size, I’m not making that up) and I was trying to appear hefty, I would wear white pants all the time and their wall-tp-wall carpet of white strands would not show. But I am 20 pounds overweight and wear black, lots of black, which is currently, a shade of salt and pepper jacquard. Thankfully, as a writer, I am often in my PJs, so I let the feline follicle foibles issue go. After all, I am a house guest and I try to acquiesce where need be. I am also, no housewife, so I do, in fact, let the fur fly and fall where it may.
Most of my time I am be-decked in the aforementioned flannels writing in a space that most writers would kill for. Picture me, if you will, in a large colonial home (not quite Tara, but a fine middle-class representation thereof) situated on the top of a stout hill surrounded by a lake. I have my office in the grand foyer. It is 15′ wide and 10′ deep with a 2 story ceiling with obligatory chandelier. The staircase has a marvelous landing which turns right and goes up to an over-looking den and a balcony hallway. My large roll top desk sits in a nook at the bottom of the stairs. There I flourish– bathed in creativity, verily flooded in a soft light suggesting a halo atop my head, albeit of cat fur. Nothing fills the air but my own heart’s beating and the chimes of the grandfather clock calling out the late hours as I toil. It is blissfully quiet.
Or at least it was.
But tonight as I hunkered down to write of my garden and politics and whimsy, I heard the faintest licking sound behind me and turned to see (PLEASE HIDE THIS GRAPHIC NEXT SCENE FROM YOUR CHILDREN)…I turned to see a crimson tide shooting like Niagara-blankety blank-Falls from the headless carcass of what I am sure was a baby mouse, originally.
In my best ‘Alpha-Cat mode’ I screamed “Drop it!” As if the cat a) cared b) was a well-trained Labrador c) ever gave credence to anything I have ever said. However, it did in fact drop Mickey–or half of Mickey. (“M. - I. - C. See ya real soon. NOT!”) Perhaps it was because I had continued to scream at the top of my lungs, “ I hate you, I hate you. I hate you,” that the cat (or as I refer to them “White Thing 1,2 and 3” because they all look the same—green eyes and a ga-jillion toes on each paw–’all the better to scratch you with my dear’), it cocked its head ever so slightly as if to say, “And the reason you are interrupting my dinning, is???”
And I answered as before, “I hate you, I hate you.” And while I am ready to concede that some my frenetic energy was projection, (yes, I am well aware that I want to yell curses at the other irritants in my life), I still defend my choice of the “H” word at that juncture. It was used precisely in the way for which Webster intended it to be used.
I picked up the hall rug (I can only be thankful that we do not have wall to wall carpets or I’d still be rolling it up yanking piece after piece off the tack-board). I then ran pell-mell out the back door. It was two a.m., I was barefoot and I was, as they say in California, “ok, totally grossed out, ok?” My only sense of solace was the hope that ‘White Thing 1,2, and/or 3’ would follow me outside and get eaten by a fox (And yes, I wish the same about my various nemesis’ and exes…can we drop that now?)
But did the cat follow? No! While usually these critters are between my legs like static-filled knee socks in January each and every time I enter or exit the door just waiting for the moment of escape, the blood-sucker in question was nowhere to be seen.
There I stood with this stupid round area rug folded in half like a giant mashed-mouse taco. And that is as far as I had thought the plan through. No dogs barked in the distance, or close range for that matter. No stars twinkled. There I stood on an ice cold slab of slate with a completely blank mind. This much I knew, the garbage cans were on the other side of house on the other side of a detached garage with a chasm of sharp little white stones between us. It was dark. It was a long, long way away. (I am sure you needed a visa to get there).
So, I decided to do the first thing that came to my mind (this is never a good choice, but a system I seem destined to use regularly, none-the-less). I heaved the rodent remains toward the bushes until I heard a THUD of what I hoped was a small partial carcass on the shrubbery. It was dark and I did not want to see what happened. I was only hoping the headless corpse fell through the leaves and was not impaled on some stick for me to rediscover the next morning when the wine and Valium ( I was soon to ingest) wore off.
I then came inside, grabbed enough paper towels to wipe down the George Washington Bridge–both levels—and dabbed at the BRIGHT FIRE ENGINE RED blood splotches on the handmade hooked rung. I gazed at the pattern. It was a ring of pastel kittens dancing happily in a circle with flouncy hats with ribbons. “What in blazes did you do in your past life to come back as a cheery rug?” I said aloud between gagging.
With the scent of enough lavender air freshener to make King Tut pleasant company, I sat back down to my desk. I focused on my keyboard. I did all that breathing-centering mumbo-jumbo-razz-a-ma-tazz that makes me woozy. I reintroduced my curved poised fingers to the keyboard as Beethoven would have, had he played Carnegie Hall. I tried to imagine the writing zone. I was all but on the edge of an excellent idea when ever so faintly in my brain I heard Rod Sterling introducing another zone, in another time and in another place. To the ticking of the clock and the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard was a third sound; the thumping of footsteps coming from the upstairs landing, moving toward me. It was the killer.
He was in no mood to be trifled with. This had been his first kill in a long time. And for all I know it was his only kill. He is after all a house cat. His victims of choice are usually limited to ants and shadows. He chases his tail. He eats his own vomit. He’s a kept man, for the love of Pete. But the taste of manhood was fresh on his little pink lips. He was inconsolable (as if I’d try). He was irate. He was a man scorned. A fresh infant rodent slipped in between the screening of the porch and now he wanted the whole brood. There was only one thing that kept him from his delirious dreams of massacre, the oblivious writer at the desk.
Soon the cat was bounding down the wooden stairs two at a time. The thrashing, thudding, stomping continued not just down but back up and back down aud-nausem. I was trying not to count, as if ignoring a 2 year old’s temper tantrum, but I am sure it was at least five times. And then because I refuse to look up as he careens repetitively from the top of the house to the bottom (where you may recall my desk resides), the cat starts howling and moaning like the banshee it is. As if I was the one who called out for mouse shushi at the crack of dawn and went out back and ate it all myself. And let us not forget–joy of joys–now the cat has the taste of blood on his tongue and I will not be able to sleep again in the house without pushing my dresser in front of my door at night.
And no I don’t want to hear it’s in ‘his nature’. And do you know why? Because my sister scoops up his poop, feeds him gourmet food at $4 a pop, holds him, strokes his back, talks baby talk to him and let’s him sleep with her. If he gets all of those perks (did I mention he sleeps all day?) I think the least he can do is forgo ‘what comes naturally.’ Hey, what comes naturally to me is to run idiots off the road, but I never do it in front of other people, for crying out loud? This cat sounds like the men I used to date, “I know, you wait on me hand and foot and I’ll do what comes naturally which is sneak out the back door.”
So, dear friends, I am sending this out via e-mail even though it is now 3a.m.. If I end up a headless inspiration for TV’s CSI or on some cover of a grocery store Tabloid, at least my side of the story will have been told.
The ‘Rear” View March ‘08
Dear Friends,
This thing called life is a wild roller coaster ride. Bills, illness, whack-a-doodle neighbors, strange & estranged family and drama, drama, drama. Some ride! Thing is I don’t recall buying tickets for this ride. (Not that my recall is all that well greased these days). Mind you it’s not that I don’t like amusement rides, or at least amusing rides, but come on–will ya!
And while it was cool at the Waldwick, New Jersey Fair when the guy would let you ride extra times around the track (because your girl friend had developed 5 years earlier than the rest of the class and the guy running the machine just wanted to fantasize about stuff that would land his sorry butt in jail for life) it’s NOT so cool to be stuck on the ride ‘o life when you are knee deep in nausea, nitpicking and non-compliance.
Can I get a witness?
Now PLEEZE no one e-mail me about needing a positive attitude, re-framing, brain expansion, NLP, EST or Scientology …been there done that got the T-shirt. And, NO, Scientology is not a religion cause-ing any religion that allows Vinnie Barbarino in is, well, lame. Or at least lamer than most.
My problem is not a lack of insight or skills to re-invent myselves (plural intended). I defy you to find anyone who has been more fluid with work opportunities than I have been. I have enough business cards from my past work life of 40 odd years to fill a fish bowl, at Seaworld. I have changed corporate identities the way snakes slither out of their skins each spring. I am flexible dagnabit and I don’t intend to change that any time in the near future-should I have one.
But even someone as limber and charming as moi can hit a threshold. I am here to say OUCH! I have hit the ceiling. What am I blithering on about? (Dear lordy here it comes, I am officially morphing into my grandmother with this tirade).
I am talking about being sick-and-tired of the barrage of uncooperative customer service people (HP told me that yesterday I had exceeded my customer service ‘warranty’ by 26 days and they did not recognize my hardware service warranty with a now kaput CompUSA, but for $49.00 they would answer a one time, one issue question) and how about the onslaught of road raging drivers in gi-normus SUVs (Don’t you be waving your enameled digits at me girlfriend- uh,uh. I didn’t make you buy that gas guzzler).
I am talking about being sick-to-death of tag along taxes on everything and taxation on money I saved that was already taxed when I earned it. I am green to the gills with repairs to a house that was supposed to be increasing in value–hardy-har-har.
And I nigh-unto-death regarding my decreasing health which I expected after 50, but I had NO idea the hill was slick enough as to place me in mach speed. (Oh that such a ride would rid me of my crow’s feet–and where are all those crows without feet, huh?).
Mercy me, is there no end to the onslaught of daily dung? For the answer to this, the key to happiness, why babies die and why Osama Bin Laden still lives, go to God. I just rant here, thank you, and that takes all my energy, none left for solving issues, so sorry, too bad-so sad, move along…nothing here to look at but an old whiner .
And as we jostle along Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride on planet earth don’t cha wonder…”Are we there yet?”
Doesn’t paying taxes, being polite to other people’s pets and two year olds amount to a FREE PASS off this Shoots and Ladders board? And why does all this stress make Aunt Sassy speak in jumbled metaphors? Why? Why? Why? Oy vey, I sound like my 3 year old grandson, “Why Gramma, why?”
Well, dudes and dudettes, there is bad news and ‘badder’ news. The bad news is that just like the roller coaster ride we have probably been going NOWHERE fast!The ‘badder’ news is that ‘getting there’ means the ride stops, tilt, game over. Get off the car, move over, more people coming aboard. The baddest news? We may only have a few more bumps and twists left until the chills and thrills are over.
The Solution?
STOP and smell the Florabundas, sip your cider, kiss the kids, grow something, do random acts of kindness as easy as throwing the neighbor’s newspaper from their driveway to their porch if it rains before they get up. Laugh hard, smile and be grateful for the ride thus far (even the parts that make you puke).
I’m not suggesting getting off the ride early. I’m just saying touch your foot to the breaks a bit and slow the ride down because we aren’t going around again and the next stop is heaven…which isn’t like a consolation prize mind you, it’s just a better ride for later.
Look at the bright side, and if you can find your glasses, look at the clear side.
Rock on,
Aunt Sassy
‘The REAR View Mirror’
Aunt Sassy, Granny Hill and the whole gang on ‘The REAR View’ are here, brought to you by popular demand. (You may remember Aunt sassy as that ever lovable character from the Baby Boomer Mini-Field Guides to Menopause, Teen-agers, Co-Dependency at Amazon.com.
Meanwhile, here are some of Aunt Sassy’s suggestions for New Year’s Resolutions:
1. If you are going to sneeze let ‘er rip, better to clean up someone else’s glasses than blow your own brains out!
2. Never use cheap chocolate sauce on anything, if you’re gonna die from sugar and fat, melt Godiva over Ben and Jerry’s.
3. Only wear a Red Hat if you are willing to wear nothing else at all, otherwise you’re only pretending to be feisty.
4. Grandchildren need your lap to be cozy, not bony, so ya gotta choose-bikinis or babies.
5. Don’t dye your gray hair. You’re not aging you’re turning blond, which explains a whole lotta other stuff.
6. NEW RULE: You can’t complain about the government unless you voted.
7. Sing out loud everyday. It improves your blood chemistry and chases away the mice.
8. You cannot have a bright future while dragging around a dark past. Scream “Do Over!” and mean it.
9. Replace Swearing with ‘Goofy Talk’: For the Love of Pete, Jumping Jehoshaphat, Dang, Geez Louise, Fratza-cratza.
10. Eat something raw and crunchy everyday. It’s good for you and will annoy people around you; carrots, celery, apples.
11. Only state loudly what you’d like to see in headlines; only whisper gossip that you want to be confronted with.
12. Dance with the wind, the leaves, the birds and the clouds, they are waiting for you to be free–in the backyard, only.
13. Travel fulfills your dreams, reading makes you come alive, love makes you go brain dead. Choose two.
14. Debt is like dust bunnies, it piles up and multiplies if you don’t clean it up once in a while.
15. Random acts of kindness and smiling at your neighbors may not change the world, but it’s worth a try.
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE TIPS:
Buy all your Birthday cards at once, address and stamp and put them into your day planner pages by the correct month. Then you just write in a quick message and mail.
Pre-measure ground coffee into baggies so you don’t have to fight with the spoon and the bag BEFORE you’ve had your coffee.
Make a master list of your code words for online sites, print and keep inside a self-help book. No on else will look there.
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Sex after 50 is our featured topic for Special Reports
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