I lived for over 8 years in Santa Barbara, California and saw 2, count them, 2 mosquitoes the entire time I lived there. I think the ones I saw had blown in from somewhere north of us, perhaps they were Portland mosquitoes. But California, all the way to the ocean, is what is called high desert. Esalen at Big Sur (the Timothy Leary Acid-Mecca) maybe a bit higher than most.

It is most unfortunate that high desert also comes with Sana Anna winds and Sun Downer firestorms. And of course California comes with earthquakes. But aside from the flames, tremors and an occasional tsunami, the west coast is pestilence free.  It is also humidity free. It is like living in a museum temperature controlled glass cage. I liked that.

The farther into California you go toward Las Vegas, the drier the air. Now all the blarney about dry heat being less, well, hot is NOT true. Hot is hot, as anyone who owns a shiny black auto with black leather interior can tell you. In fact, how hot is it? When you go to Bakersfield, California (and you’d better have a good reason to do so) the hotels have mist machines (misters?) all around the pool so their guests don’t evaporate before paying up. I’ve never been to Palm Springs, but I am pretty sure it is false advertising to suggest there are natural springs to loll about in. I am equally sure that any springs that do exist burn up in summer with no trace of dew point to record. California has an aqueduct from top to bottom just to survive. There is no real rainfall to count on. But on the bright side, no humidity to frizz the hair doo or “schemer” the make-up or to procreate little flying vampires.

Humidity is a plague unto itself. It can even be cold and humid (note above mentioned Portland fly-bys). Humidity is akin to being in a full body sweat to rival a hefty case of typhoid. Humidity is not just “close” as they call it in New Jersey, it is a…cloy, rancid, creepy crawly, heebee-geebee, gag me thing.  Humidity is to the outside what junk food is to the inside. Think of drinking a chocolate milkshake with greasy fries and onion rings topped with an old-fashioned Banana Split with those maraschino (bleached, calcium induced, dyed) red cherries. Now think of that sickening-sugar-rush ebbing over a wave of hydrogenated fat producing headache-effect as a rating for the outside air. Put it this way: if we landed with a spaceship in Flatbush in July…ours would be deemed an uninhabitable planet.

Besides, humidity clogs up my senses. My brain cells slow down (cells which when pushing 60 are not in abundant supply to begin with), my skin feels heavy and my hair is forever in a clip for fear that the sphagnum moss clump of damp frazzled follicles would touch my neck…talk about the willies!

And then there is the miracle of what humidity spawns by the gross…mosquitoes and gants.  These biting carnivorous insects, apparently like dragonflies, can propagate in midair 24/7. But unlike dragonflies do not adorn tea towels and find themsleves the inspiration for expensive jewelry. These malaria malice-harboring maggots thrive in wetlands. A can of old soda can be a wetland. And do they buzz in my ears intentionally to taunt my failing eyesight, or are those just the ones assigned to my head? The buzzing of mosquitoes is past fingers nails on a chalkboard in my estimation because when the sound passes there is still harm afoot, or a wing.  One summer at camp a fellow counselor accused me of trying to kill her just because I doused the bedroom with RAID before I went to bed (1/2 can a night). Sue me. I can not sleep with insects of any kind in the room. Mosquitoes, mosquito-eaters, flies, moths, and lord help anyone in the house (or the neighborhood for that matter) the night I hear a cricket inside. The room will look like a scene from CSI, I believe the term is “tossed”.

So with the air conditioners blasting, not to cool so much as to de-humidifty my office, I’m staying sequestered wondering when the “misty moisty bug ridden weather” will dry  up and blow away critters in tow. I think I am looking at January.

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Fed up with your current relationship? Here’s the cure. Get thee to a Class Reunion. There is nothing like seeing old familiar faces to remember why you either married your HS sweetheart and settled into your home town or why you ran away so fast from your Alma Mater that the school track still has the spot where your US Keds laid rubber. And here’s a hot tip: forget all that fantasy about finding your true soulmate at your class reunion. If they didn’t look good to you back in High School, age does not improve things (appearances, health, finances–that stuff plummets faster after 40 years than the Dow Jones). I’m just saying don’t go to a Class Reunion to cruise. For one thing these people remember you when you had braces and zits for another they are never going to be able to retire either! So what’s to gain?

And for the record, most people don’t bring their spouses to a Reunion for a good reason. It’s not so they can fool around, or even because their spouses may get bored while attending. You don’t bring your spouse to a reunion because when you’re about to jump up onto the bar and boog-a-loo in your support hose you don’t want to hear your spouse’s voice over the din saying, “should I speed dial your orthopedic surgeon or go right for the paramedics, Nana?”

So if romance is not a good reason to attend a Reunion, what is?

Laughter and finally a sense of belonging.  I was never “in crowd” material, but when you start outliving people, the epicenter changes in a hurry. With the playing field leveled out a bit we all gussied up and swapped memories of first loves, first jobs, and cutting class. It was so American. Bring me your tired, your weak, your huddled masses…of cellulite. We were rekindling our youth; in fact, there was enough Retin A and Rogaine in the place you could have lit a match on that kindling and had S’mores for a week. We let it all hang out (as if we could stop it).                         

But something magical does happen when people reunite. I for one was energized by the fun of talking with people who all shared a common past. I felt like Eliza Doolittle on RedBull, “I could have danced all night. I could have danced all night and still have begged for more.” Granted the begging I was doing at 1am was for BenGay. Yes, okay, I wanted to be young and vivacious again, and I did it. I just couldn’t sustain it for very long. But, byjingo, like fine wine and good cheese I felt I was a better person for all the years that had passed. Albeit this good cheese is less like a snappy Vermont cheddar and more like something you’d find in the back of the refrigerator looking like a science project. The trick was to scrape off the gray-green mold for a night and pass for the Sell-By-Date. Thanks to L’oreal and low wattage bulbs I was off and teetering.

I don’t Iike the fact that I am over a half century old. And yes, I will own that I had a part in my aging process. But who knew cherry cokes and burgers were rotting my innards? And my outters? Oy vey! As teenagers we put bottles of baby oil “all over our bodies” and went out unprotected in the sun for days on end (pun intended). It’s amazing we have any skin left. (Talk about Cracklin’ Rosey!) If I’d known what George Hamilton was going to look like back then I’d thought twice about the advice to “sing in the sunshine and laugh everyday” (thank you Ms. Dusty Springfield, easy for you to say, you could afford the collagen!)

This is not to say folks from my school are unattractive now. The opposite is true. There was always an inordinate contingency of the Barbie and Ken look-a-likes in my class. In my school you’d call in sick if you had a blemish that didn’t airbrush out by the time the bus came. More girls stayed home for a month with nose jobs than with mono. Even now, four decades later this was a handsome and still preppy crowd.

But being older means we’re just a tad savvy enough not to be too impressed with bragging. Gone was the earlier Class Reunion conversation of one-upmanship. No one cared how many houses you owned now, because we all knew you couldn’t sell them in this market if they came with hookers and free cable.

This time around people were generous and kind. “You look great!” “You look like your yearbook picture.” “I’d know you anywhere.” This was all sincere. But it was also coming from a group that put together couldn’t read an eye chart. Even with contacts, heck, even new corneas recognition was more a game of conjecture and 48 point type on the name badges.

FYI: My lasik surgery was 15 years ago. I can see street signs in the distance. So, I just have to memorize them for when I get up there.  Stop and go traffic can really wreak havoc with this system. (being partially deaf, adds a level of competition. Ha! Try that on your video games!) Thus, for me, meeting my classmates at an elbow room only cocktail party was “a close encounter of the absurd kind”, I saw shapes…many shapes most thicker, creased and shorter. I could have taken a wrong turn, ended up at the local zoo, landed in the elephant habitat and been talking to elephant knees for the evening and been none the wiser. Okay, that’s not completely true. The pachyderm parts I saw at the Reunion had on Hawaiian shirts and the afore mentioned large print name tags.

Adding insult to injury, I was unable to find my glasses or locate my eyeballs long enough to put in  contact lenses, so I wandered through the Reunion squinting. It’s a nice effect on the face. Think multiple layers of pleats from my eyebrows to my chin(s). When my pictures came back I looked like I had been wearing 24 sheer curtain panels on both sides of my eyes and all of them had been shoved onto 2 inch curtain rods. Not exactly the “look” I was going for!

In retrospect, I’m going to suggest that our 50th Reunion should have a theme, Masquerade. And as far as those photos that are circulating the internet, I am downloading them and adjusting them, cause that’s why God made Photoshop, especially the Blur Tool!

There was another GREAT part of the reunion, besides finding out folks have aged at the same rate as I did. I found out that the great tidal wave of misery that hits me about every 7-10 years since I left the protection of my parent’s home was not my fault (at worst) and (at best) is not just my bad luck.  It turns out other folks have had their share of hard knocks as well and always had so, but now were willing to spill the beans.

I swear, some days over the last 40 years it felt as if a wall of death, destruction, depression, debt, divorce, and disease (dang there are a lots of unpleasant “D” words)…that wall was falling on my head alone. I was exhausted. I felt as if I was always playing catch up to be equal with my classmates, but just like “Shoots and Ladders”… winning eluded me. I’d seem close and BANG! the dreaded wall of diphtheria-doused- dung was knocking on my door.

But it wasn’t true! I don’t mean to relish in anyone’s misfortune…but thanks to the Reunion and a few “umbrella drinks” at the bar I have now divined that other people have had to deal with same damnable life distractions as have I. So it’s true! Misery does love company, especially when it comes in demitasse diets of dramatically diabolical dismal diatribes of doom. (Somebody rip the “D” section of the dictionary outta my hands, will ya?) Good thing I haven’t developed any Compulsive Disorders as I’ve aged!

So there you have it.

Class Reunions are good to get perspective. You’re old but you’re not dead yet, so go out and make a difference somewhere. You’ve had it bad, but the only people who have no problems are in the cemetery. You ache, you’re partly deaf, you’re wrinkled, but you won’t notice it unless you start dating a 30 year old (besides, those critters are disease ridden). So Boomers, remember, REunited we stand, ur because well, without our walkers, canes and new knees we can’t stand alone.

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Recession Aggression!

We are all in the same boat but someone ELSE is getting bail-out help!

I don’t care who’s in the White House, somebody has had their mitts on my sh&# for a long time! And here’s irony for you. Turns out even if I was really, really smart with lots and lots of money (and I had neither)…this recession was gonna bite me in the butt. Put it in the stock market; poof, bye-bye. Outsmart the market and put it in real estate; can you say “foreclosure” boys and girls? My real estate holdings are not only NOT  liquid they’re poly carbonized, c(k)ryptonite sub-zero solid! And equity my friend is ‘an opinion’ blowing in the wind, the cash is gone with the wind.

But when I heard about a stimulus package I had hope;, mind you I am not naïve. I knew whatever was in this so-called package would not stimulate me to a full out “When Harry Met Sally” table slapping orgasm. But I thought maybe a giggle; I’d even settle for a smirk. But Nada. No stimulus feeling over here. No sparks, no electricity, or (as I once overheard) not even static cling! What I do have is that sinking feeling when you return to your car with loads of packages and you see your headlights flicker to off and your automatic door key doesn’t work.

What to do? I know, let’s all take what gold we have and put it into envelopes and put it in the US Mail and hope nobody goes postal the day our check for thousands of dollars comes in. We can all do this. It’s just like when you tried to get that loose tooth out of your mouth for the Tooth Fairy. String around the gold capped tooth, slam a door, a few more tries, a little blood…badda bing, badda boom!. Or am I the only kid who did not know that Alfalfa and Our Gang used stunts for those dental procedures? These days I’ve got more gold in my mouth than in the jewelry drawer so get out the twine…Barbados here I come for that vacation the gold collectors promised me on late night TV.

And I don’t know about you, but this semantics game calling our economic woes a recession is so LAST YEAR! This is a DEPRESSION, if not the country’s, then at least MINE! Yes I know, just like all of my depression, it’s a result of my bad choices in life, but it is no less depressing. Can I get a witness?

Recession, ha “my grandmother’s petunias!” Yes, even with 2 people working 3 jobs each, folks are up the creek without a paddle. Taxes, association fees,  ballooning loans, reduced credit  line for no apparent reason (and lord help you if you miss 1 single payment, your one-way ticket to Debtors Purgatory is in the mail), not to mention the whacky new rules for credit scores, and zap, bam, kaplooey folks everywhere are being thrown overboard this Bad-News-Boat we are sharing.

 And the banks (who are supposed to be flush with bail out cash) are saying NO to folks who have proven they can pay back loans. So what is it, a bad retake of it’s a “Wonderful Life”?  (Cue Jimmy Stewart’s voice) “The banks can’t give you a loan Sam because Joe, here, didn’t open a savings account.”  Crock-a-doodle-doo! ‘Joe Obama’ and his esteemed Congressional Colleagues said they just put a ga-zillion dollars into the big bank account in the sky. ¿Donde esta el dinero,  señors?

I have a 401K plan and my peeps put $250 a quarter into my account which ends up being $185 by the next quarter. Screw the bonds, mutuals and T bills. I would be safer investing in bongs, rituals and Mr. T. “Mother May I, pretty please with ice cream and cherries on top, opt out for the putting my $250 a quarter under Ben S. Bernanke’s mattress?”

Word up: news on the street is DO NOT CANCEL A CREDIT CARD.  Yup. Even if it’s for SEARS and the nearest one is in Dubuque and you live in Poughkeepsie. And not only should you not cancel those cards you don’t use (and HAVE PAID OFF)…but get this…you are supposed to use your cards ‘every once in a while’. Why, so they don’t get rusty?

WTF! You are telling me (that would be the ‘me’ who is in 50 grand worth of plastic-ware debt) to go out and spend a little more. Hot tip: if I could spend “a little” I wouldn’t be in freaking debt, now would I?

Telling me to hold on to that card and use it occasionally is like telling an alcoholic to save their shot glass collection from New Orleans and use them every once in a while to keep the dust out of ‘em. Are you F%#@ing me?

The answer to the last question is YES!

So, let me see if I have this right. The way we get out of national debt and recession is to

a) keep calling it a recession so we don’t scare people with the D word

b) give bail outs to industries who screwed up (did you get more allowance if you spent all of yours by Tuesday???) and

c) continue to spend our money overseas in a war or two which was started on a—oh, let’s just call it a federal fib!

And the way I get out of personal debt is to continue to spend.

And, oh, yes, hope the bunko bail-out system trickles down my way. Which I am told I will not get a dollar of, even with a piece of land worth over $100,000 as collateral. So who is getting all the new loan money? I’m guessing it’s paying the salaries of the loan officers who are telling the rest of us to bug off.

We may be all in the same boat, but the Love Boat it is NOT! All the bailing help went elsewhere and we are all holding on to the sinking gunnels with masking tape, finger nails and “Double Bubble” gum.

Meanwhile, I am not bored with all this waiting around for a sunny day “tomorrow” (thank you ANNIE!). By no means, I wallow away the day waist deep in paperwork trying to show I am worthy to pay %6 interest and drowning in photocopies of past taxes returns. And yet the offers come for even MORE credit cards.

Agony, agony…I see it all now in 20-20 retrospect. This false economy all started when I bought my first “Pet Rock.” And then my addiction graduated to stuff from China via the Gotta-have-ta-have-it-Mega Materialist Store. As my grandfather used to say, “Too soon old, too late schmart!”

Living under an overpass in Santa Monica is looking better and better each day! I wonder if Pizza Hut delivers to Highway 10 and Sunset. And of course there’s always Yasgur,s Farm, right dude?

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I usually loath and detest (can abysmal be turned into a verb?) Bridal Showers. But no longer. I have been to my first Bridal Shower down south. It was held in the church parlor, complete with old wooden walls and tapestry upholstery. It smelled like a library at an Ivy League School.

In the center of the room were two large, lo,  massive tables (think Arthur’s round table, the other… a long eating plank as found at such renown establishments as Chuckie Cheese). The round table was to place gifts upon for the happy couple. The other oak constructed (how did they get it in the door?) table held 10 gi-normous layer cakes.

Upon entering the room it was as if I was peaking into the pastel lacy opening of a Sugar Easter Egg gazing upon a slice of heaven…a very large slice!

A small table offered punch with which to swill down the mounds of confection. Coconut cake, yellow cake with chocolate icing, fudge cake with chocolate, lemon cake with tart lemon drizzle, carrot cake with walnuts the size of Buicks. The various frostings came with sour cream cheese cake topping, fondant, whipped cream, thin icing and plain old butter whipped thick icing and of course cherries and strawberries and apricots in their own jam. Be still my heart (literally!).

I wandered about the room politely hip checking some dear soul to get another slice of the carrot cake as my thighs were trembling, verily calling to me, “Feed me, feed me”.

And that, ladies (and a few gentlemen who can  grasp the wonder of this) that was it! Yup, the entire event. Eat cake, lots of cake, throw back some punch, be happy!

And I’ll tell you what there was NOT.

There wasn’t a single game. Praise God and pass the whipped cream! As anyone who has suffered through as many Bridal  Showers as I have (both others and my own) can tell you these things are usually lousy with games: Charades, Musical Chairs, even I’m Guessing the color RED!

I once was forced to play the game where they put a celebrity’s name on your back and you had to guess who you were by asking 3 questions of each one in the room. I found another disgruntled lady who was trying to gnaw the shoulder of her sweater to get the name off her back (Susan Saradon). I made a deal: tell me who I am and I’ll tell you who you are. We did. Then we went to the hostess and turned in our tags for a prize (a pen with a troll on top). She had the chutzpah to accuse us of cheating and spoiling the all the fun. Needless to say Susan and Meg went directly, “Do not pass go”, to O’malley’s for some grown up fun.

Also, there was NOT at this Shower the “Opening of the gifts”. This is a tedious 2 hour or more of oooos and ahhs and UGGs! That ugg would be from the person whose gift is the third of the same item. Or  the emotional pain from realizing you went way too cheap and the $10 gift certificate to Wendy’s wasn’t as cool and magnanimous when held up for all to see.

Nor did the bride to be string up all the bows onto a paper plate and pretend to be walking down the aisle. This (Bow-quet) is often saved and used as a faux bouquet for the wedding rehearsal (cutesy doesn’t begin to describe this rituals).

All there was at this event was cake eating and casual conversation. Finally the women of the south did rise and conquered a major social problem! They realized that grown women buzzed on sugar can talk to each other without a flipping ice breaker game.

These gals bake, make and take the cake and I’m looking forward to the next one!

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Against all known logic that a person my age should have we got  dog. She is a Labra-doodle and we named her Cleopatra because she had these long sultry black bangs when we first met her. I promptly took her home, my boyfriend bathed her and just like all my dolls when I was four, yup, I whacked those bangs back to within an inch of her eyelashes.

Having a dog brings up all kinds of things I didn’t consider.

First of all, I thought it was young couples who got dogs, you know, to try out their parenting skills. If you don’t kill the dog, your kids have half a chance. Not of normalcy, mind you, but at least of survival.  But why would a soon-to-be retired couple with neither aspirations of parenthood nor the original equipment necessary for such a task…get a dog? I am hoping I can train her to find my glasses.

Second of all…speaking of training, this has all changed as well. Given that my days are now reminiscent of having a two year old who isn’t potty trained as a sidekick, I am taking on the role of head trainer. FYI: this dog has two speeds. Full on warp speed and dead to the world.  Redirecting her energy is like trying to teach lightening where to strike. I have been reading up on training theory (when she crashes to the floor). And I duly note that dog training books have caught up with horizontal management business theory. There has to be a leader, but you can switch off. And if it’s your turn to be the leader, don’t lord it over those below you. Hello, these are dogs not interns? You don’t hit a dog, you don’t raise your voice, you don’t rub it’s nose in stuff. You act…get this…indignant. What, like, “Well, I never!” or my grandmother’s favorite, “Why the very idea!”? I am working on my raised eyebrows and saying things such as, “We are not the sort of family that poops on the living room rug.”

But, all in all, the thing I forgot about dogs is they ask for so little; an unconscious pat on the head and they follow you around like God’s chosen. They have no idea, or memory of your faults, even faults against them. Forgetting to walk them or train them or say thank you is no more than a vague mist (try that with a mother-in-law if you forget Mother’s Day). And dogs, like small children remind you to simply STOP. Plant your butt in the grass and feel the majesty of the spring winds running through the trees, swaying branches and birds flying. The joy of watching the clouds billow and stretch out  like taffy is something we should all do this Spring, dog or no dog.

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