Lately, there are things that make me weep for joy. They are shallow, rather selfish things and, for that, I must admit that I feel ashamed. I used to weep for joys that meant something profound, like holding my babies for the first time, reuniting with old friends, and running my first marathon. I have wept in pain, too; I’ve said goodbye when I knew it wasn’t “au revoir” and those tears never dry up.
But, these tears are different. These tears are for really dumb things that make me incredibly happy. The earliest occurrence was when I had my house cleaned for the first time by a cleaning service. Don’t laugh! I’m serious! I came home and every room was clean. I wept. I’m so easily distracted that I can only ever clean half a room before I start doing the laundry that I find, finishing the crossword beside my bed, or trying to locate the rest of the pieces of the half-finished puzzle under the bed. Sometimes, when I’m ON, I can get a whole floor done but, by the time I get back up there after doing the other floor, it’s a mess again.
You’ll think I’m really losing it now, because the next time I remember weeping for joy was when we hired a lawn maintenance company to clear up the leaves in the fall. It’s true. A job that used to take me hours and hours to do and would necessitate several pain-killers by evening, took two young guys with big old leaf blowers a mere hour to complete. Not only that, but they also neatly stacked up all the little branches they found. Yes, I wept tears of joy (the lawn was so darned clean you could’ve eaten on it) and relief (I was spared from a physically exhausting task).
Yesterday, I wept again. This time, it was when I received my new glasses. They are light and airy, frameless Vera Wang’s. My daughter told me that they make me look like a schoolteacher but, then catching my crestfallen face, told me that was a compliment. I didn’t weep because the glasses are pretty, although they are. I didn’t weep because my daughter hurt my feelings, although she did. No, I wept because I could see!
Eyesight is funny when you lose it gradually, because your brain will compensate for a long time. It can be retrained too; you meet people who wear a reading contact lens in one eye and a distance lens in the other. In my case, I’ve worn reading glasses since I was 17 years old to correct a lazy eye. Well that little couch potato of an eye didn’t do much for the past 30 years but its sister on the other side of my face has had to do a lot of overtime to compensate and now she’s gettin’ old and tired too. Bifocals, said the ophthalmologist, when I finally capitulated and went in for an exam.
Bifocals?! Old people wear bifocals, not young people, I thought to myself crossly. The doctor, who was old enough to have earned several degrees and own a practice, but who was still probably a good ten years younger than me, saw the look on my face. Don’t worry, he said, they’re gradual lenses, so no-one will notice. Hmph! I still have to go to bed every night knowing I’m OLD.
I trudged out to the waiting room and chose a pair of glasses from the shop. Quite frankly, I had to just cross my fingers on the choice because my pupils had been dilated, so I could barely see. Plus, I was still reeling from the eye examination, at which an optician quickly slides lens after lens in front of your throbbing eyes, fake-patiently asking which one is better ... A or B ... A or B ... A or B? What is the last line that you can read? Plus, I was reviewing a lifetime of clumsiness and missed tee-shots, wondering how much of it was related to my lack of depth perception, after failing 15 of the 16 tests for that ability!
Wear them as much as you can to get used to them right away, was the advice I received when I picked up my little Vera Wang number. As the optician slid them on for a fitting, I nearly wept for joy. The relief of not straining and squinting to see was instant and enormous. I guess I underestimated how hard I was working all the time to focus. I didn’t take them off all afternoon or evening. In fact, I fell asleep on the couch wearing them and my husband had to remove them from my slobbering, snoring face.
My only complaint is how clearly I can see the wrinkles now...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Stocking the Bomb Shelter
It is barely mid-January here in the Gateway to the West and it’s already 5o degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. The birds are singing and acting all fluttery, like they do in springtime. What’s really funny, though, is that exactly one week ago, it was quite a bit colder and the radio and TV stations were foretelling a major snowstorm, which is pretty unusual for St. Louis.
My son and I were at our local grocery store picking up a few groceries. I still can’t shake the European habit of shopping daily for dinner, so we only had four items in our basket and we were debating whether or not to use the self checkout, which stresses me out a LOT but thrills my nine year old to pieces. That’s when I noticed huge line-ups at every single checkout. I mean, folks were lined up a dozen carts deep at every checkout, hunched wearily against over-loaded carts.
We joined the 10-items-or-less line behind several other people with 20 items or less in their baskets. The long wait gave us lots of time to observe shoppers. One optimistic guy and his girlfriend, who strolled by arm-in-arm with a bottle of wine and some fresh fish, stopped in absolute shock at the sight of the queues before sighing and resignedly joining one. I saw another lady approach the line and nearly cut in where people were politely leaving a small space in the main thoroughfare for other carts to pass. She turned quickly, returned the food and left empty-handed; I’m sure she had a perfectly lovely dinner at a restaurant!
Due to the space shoppers were leaving in the line-up for others to pass through, it was a bit difficult to tell where the line-ups went. Several shoppers (mostly confused looking men who probably don’t do the shopping very often...) innocently joined the front half of the line, only to have others in line call out for them to get to the back of the line. Sentiments were mixed; on one hand, there was a sense of camaraderie that comes with a shared threat, like an impending natural disaster. On the other hand, though, as minutes ticked away and shoppers grew impatient, one sensed that civility was one line-cutter away from a civil war.
I had never seen the store so busy. The clerks were shaking their heads and calling frantically for management. At first, I didn’t get it. It was my son who called it. “They’re stocking up, Mommy”, he said, when I mused out loud about the crowds. “For what”, I asked. “For the snow”, he laughed. He, of course, had been fully briefed at school where the kids (and the teachers) were desperately praying for a snow day. Do the prayers of kids and parents cancel each other out....?
Well, darn it, he was right. I looked around. Carts were overflowing with bottled water, canned soups and other non-perishable supplies. I wasn’t sure whether I should feel foolish with my four perishable items or smugly above it all. For a few seconds, the Canadian in me said, “well how much snow are we talking about for goodness sake?”. Then, the mother in me said, “I have absolutely nothing to serve my little family tomorrow...” I don’t think I come from pioneer stock. I think I come from people who sailed over on a boat and fished for dinner every morning.
By bedtime, there had been no snow, despite predictions of a storm before the early afternoon. In fact, the sky was fairly bright and the few beautiful fluffy flakes swirling around seemed out of place, like a strange dream. By night time, though, the sky had darkened and even the nocturnal animals were quiet. While we slept, several inches of snow fell, blanketing and paralysing the city. “Hurray”, screamed the kids when they woke up. “Woof woof”, said our dog who, at six months of age, had never touched snow and thought she could bark it away. “Groan”, I said, as I dusted off the old snow shovel and got to work on the driveway.
Well, truth be told, it was absolutely beautiful and the fresh, cold air was invigorating. I saw several people shovelling, although some of them looked like they really hated it; they’re the ones with the small serviceable shovels who cleared just enough space to get the car out. Others shovelled with obvious joy, like kids from a southern climate seeing snow for the first time. They were the ones with big, wide shovels, who spent a long time, lovingly moving the snow and creating perfect mounds of snow alongside the driveway.
Coming from Toronto, I rushed out to shovel the snow, but it was not for joy or excitement. Back home, the first snowfall would be followed by a freeze-up that would not let up for the next four months. There, you have to clear all the snow from your driveway right away or it freezes there like a bumpy, dirty, grey rug. If you dump the snow in big mounds right beside your driveway, it’s possible that you won’t be able to open your doors fully for the next four months. That pile of snow on the road at the bottom of the driveway better look nice too, because you’ll be staring at it all winter long and rubbing the car up against it as you turn in.
Ahh, how I miss the snow ... NOT! It was cold enough here after the “storm” to take away your breath and freeze your finger tips, but after just a few days, the temperature started to rise. In fact, it climbed more than 40 degrees in the past four days! The thick blanket of snow started to separate from the ground, like a snake shedding its skin. Now, I can see grass everywhere and, in some gardens, bulbs are poking up already. The sun is still thin, as it is in the winter, but the days are longer and warmer.
We survived the natural disaster. Time to brush off the lawn chairs and get ready for summer!
My son and I were at our local grocery store picking up a few groceries. I still can’t shake the European habit of shopping daily for dinner, so we only had four items in our basket and we were debating whether or not to use the self checkout, which stresses me out a LOT but thrills my nine year old to pieces. That’s when I noticed huge line-ups at every single checkout. I mean, folks were lined up a dozen carts deep at every checkout, hunched wearily against over-loaded carts.
We joined the 10-items-or-less line behind several other people with 20 items or less in their baskets. The long wait gave us lots of time to observe shoppers. One optimistic guy and his girlfriend, who strolled by arm-in-arm with a bottle of wine and some fresh fish, stopped in absolute shock at the sight of the queues before sighing and resignedly joining one. I saw another lady approach the line and nearly cut in where people were politely leaving a small space in the main thoroughfare for other carts to pass. She turned quickly, returned the food and left empty-handed; I’m sure she had a perfectly lovely dinner at a restaurant!
Due to the space shoppers were leaving in the line-up for others to pass through, it was a bit difficult to tell where the line-ups went. Several shoppers (mostly confused looking men who probably don’t do the shopping very often...) innocently joined the front half of the line, only to have others in line call out for them to get to the back of the line. Sentiments were mixed; on one hand, there was a sense of camaraderie that comes with a shared threat, like an impending natural disaster. On the other hand, though, as minutes ticked away and shoppers grew impatient, one sensed that civility was one line-cutter away from a civil war.
I had never seen the store so busy. The clerks were shaking their heads and calling frantically for management. At first, I didn’t get it. It was my son who called it. “They’re stocking up, Mommy”, he said, when I mused out loud about the crowds. “For what”, I asked. “For the snow”, he laughed. He, of course, had been fully briefed at school where the kids (and the teachers) were desperately praying for a snow day. Do the prayers of kids and parents cancel each other out....?
Well, darn it, he was right. I looked around. Carts were overflowing with bottled water, canned soups and other non-perishable supplies. I wasn’t sure whether I should feel foolish with my four perishable items or smugly above it all. For a few seconds, the Canadian in me said, “well how much snow are we talking about for goodness sake?”. Then, the mother in me said, “I have absolutely nothing to serve my little family tomorrow...” I don’t think I come from pioneer stock. I think I come from people who sailed over on a boat and fished for dinner every morning.
By bedtime, there had been no snow, despite predictions of a storm before the early afternoon. In fact, the sky was fairly bright and the few beautiful fluffy flakes swirling around seemed out of place, like a strange dream. By night time, though, the sky had darkened and even the nocturnal animals were quiet. While we slept, several inches of snow fell, blanketing and paralysing the city. “Hurray”, screamed the kids when they woke up. “Woof woof”, said our dog who, at six months of age, had never touched snow and thought she could bark it away. “Groan”, I said, as I dusted off the old snow shovel and got to work on the driveway.
Well, truth be told, it was absolutely beautiful and the fresh, cold air was invigorating. I saw several people shovelling, although some of them looked like they really hated it; they’re the ones with the small serviceable shovels who cleared just enough space to get the car out. Others shovelled with obvious joy, like kids from a southern climate seeing snow for the first time. They were the ones with big, wide shovels, who spent a long time, lovingly moving the snow and creating perfect mounds of snow alongside the driveway.
Coming from Toronto, I rushed out to shovel the snow, but it was not for joy or excitement. Back home, the first snowfall would be followed by a freeze-up that would not let up for the next four months. There, you have to clear all the snow from your driveway right away or it freezes there like a bumpy, dirty, grey rug. If you dump the snow in big mounds right beside your driveway, it’s possible that you won’t be able to open your doors fully for the next four months. That pile of snow on the road at the bottom of the driveway better look nice too, because you’ll be staring at it all winter long and rubbing the car up against it as you turn in.
Ahh, how I miss the snow ... NOT! It was cold enough here after the “storm” to take away your breath and freeze your finger tips, but after just a few days, the temperature started to rise. In fact, it climbed more than 40 degrees in the past four days! The thick blanket of snow started to separate from the ground, like a snake shedding its skin. Now, I can see grass everywhere and, in some gardens, bulbs are poking up already. The sun is still thin, as it is in the winter, but the days are longer and warmer.
We survived the natural disaster. Time to brush off the lawn chairs and get ready for summer!
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